Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Being Creative

Steven Pressfield talks to Seth Godin about the creative process. An excerpt:

SP: When it comes to generating ideas, what’s your process? Solitary? Collaborative? Is it fun, is it grueling? How, exactly, do you work?

SG: I’ve come to realize that I’m unusual. For me, it happens all the time. It spills out of me. Most of the ideas are horrible, useless and distracting. When I have a specific problem to solve, I use a more focused process. I’ll often buy a new notebook, different from the ones I’ve used before. Special pens. Then I’ll try to be somewhere with distractions (yes, with distractions) so that out of the corner of my ‘eye’ I can invent.

I’ve found that the next level up is the focused meeting. I’ll bring together energetic, smart people and outline the problem. The act of talking about it, showing off, demonstrating the options… it generates even more energy, which I return and they return and there’s a whiteboard and what-ifs and excited voices and the next thing you know, the problem retreats, head held in shame, defeated.

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