How to get Great Ideas

There are few original ideas. When we create, we dig into our pool of knowledge, grab a handfull of stuff, stir it up and combine it in new ways. But the idea is still built out of other ideas that we had before – ideas we’ve consumed.

The quality of our ideas depends only on what we build them from. What we’ve seen, what we’ve heard, what we’ve felt. To have better ideas, we need deeper experiences. But most importantly, like stoking a fire, we must constantly add more fuel to keep the fire burning. When we stop, old materials build nothing but old and uninspiring ideas.

What does this mean for the mantra we hear from all the advice we read online? The mantra that says: “Don’t watch TV, don’t spend too much time reading, don’t play games, don’t waste time on Twitter. Stop reading blogs and mucking about on facebook– if you want to be successful, you have to produce. ”

Screw that.

If you want to have stale ideas, follow this advice. Put nothing in, get nothing out. When you burn more fuel than you add, what do you expect to happen? You sputter out into a life of mediocrity.

But if you want to build something truly innovative and meaningful, do the opposite. Great stuff in, great stuff out- Just like a sandwich.

Watch captivating movies and mind-bending TV shows. Read incredible books. Listen to great music in your car instead of marketing podcasts. Play exhilarating video games. Study your idols. Drench yourself in ideas. Go somewhere you’ve never seen. Walk to the top of a mountain and hurl yourself down it on skis. Consume what the world has to offer, and do so unapologetically. Become a connoisseur of the best things other people have done. Absorb everything the world has to offer you. Do this for as long as you can afford.

Only then will you have collected the inspiration needed to produce something original you can be proud of. Something that gets to the core of what you’ve been meaning to do all along.