Predatory Creativity: Get Over Yourself

I was running a course for a big law firm with Benni Bronsky, my business partner. At one point he held the whole room mesmerised with an amazing insight. He said, "The mind is like water. When it's calm, you can see clearly. But when it's churned up, you can't see anything."

He was talking in the specific context of what happens when you're trying to solve a creative problem and you get stuck and frustrated.

I was amazed. It was brilliant. Exactly the right insight, at exactly the right moment, and so artfully expressed. The lawyers loved it.

We were in the car afterwards and I said, "Mate, that mind-is-like-water thing was fantastic! What a beautiful insight! Where did you get that?"

"Er... Kung Fu Panda."

Now, let's be honest. Ideas can come from anywhere. Inspiration can come from anywhere. And when you see something you like - even if it's in a Disney movie - think about it, chew it over, internalise it, find examples for yourself, and then you can use it.

It's not theft, or plagiarism - it's cross-fertilisation. I call it Predatory Creativity. You don't need to steal ideas, and you don't need to force yourself to have your own, stunningly original ideas. Either extreme is unhelpful. You just have to be open to being inspired. And when you're open to being inspired, you'll find yourself taking, combining and reworking ideas from all over the place.

Don't be ashamed of getting your inspiration from places outside of your own brain. It's not like Constable was the first guy to think of painting landscapes. "Aw, come on, John... landscapes? It's been done, mate."

Take old ideas, old insights, from anywhere at all, live with them, make them mean something personal to you, and then your individuality will stamp itself on the end result. Don't be ashamed of Predatory Creativity.

The only thing stopping you is Status. Status is a term that describes levels of social dominance between people, and as primates, humans are utterly obsessed with their personal social status. We don't realise it, but we spend most of our waking hours trying to raise our status over others. One of the ways we try to do this, especially at work, is to prove how clever and original we are.

If you can overcome your need for status, you'll become more creative and more effective. When you're irritated because somebody made a spontaneous status display that challenged your dominance, then your mind becomes like churning water and you can't see anything except the need to make a counter-display.

You can't be at your most creative until you recognise status for what it is - a grubby little whore that doesn't care who it attaches itself to. Then your mind can be clear, like calm water, and you can see for miles.