Today more than ever, business is all about ideas and inspiration. We communicate our ideas to impress potential clients, we share our insights to gather followers and fans in social media, we come up with clever answers to solve problems for ourselves and our clients and customers.
That probably explains why so often you hear people talking about getting stuck or struggling to find creative inspiration. Our entrepreneurial world is about inspiration and ideas in many forms and when the creativity just isn’t there, we’re in trouble.
So when it happens to you (and trust me, it WILL happen), try one of these off-the-wall sources of inspiration. Share that story on your business blog, turn it into a networking anecdote, add it to your list of presentation stories, or use it as the basis of a creative solution.
5 Off-the-Wall Sources of Inspiration
#1: Customer Experience (Good and Bad) – Remember that run-in with the snotty teenager with the nose ring? The one where she rolled her eyes at the very suggestion of actually doing her job? Take those examples of extraordinarily good and unbelievably bad customer service and weave them into a story with a lesson.
#2: Your Hardest Learned Lesson – Imagine if you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice. Chances are it would be from your hardest learned lesson (or maybe the winning lottery numbers). Turn that lesson into amazing advice.
#3: Random or Opposite Industries – Sometimes all you need to get a fresh perspective is to look in a completely different direction. What can your button-up corporate company learn from the zany jelly donut store down the block? Look way beyond your industry for interesting lessons and insights in unexpected places.
#4: The Best Advice You Were Ever Given – Don’t you just love how time proves out the validity of what someone told you at the beginning of your journey? Well, perhaps you only love it if you followed the advice. Take the best advice you were given and expand on it.
#5: Interesting Factoids – The trouble with the world today is we are operating in such a dynamic and ever-changing environment that people have a hard time keeping up with all the new information. Looking for inspiration? Share an interesting factoid about where we are today relative to where we were even just a year ago. The trick is making it relevant to your audience or the situation.
