Where Do Ideas Actually Come From?

(This blog is a transcript from The Mind Burp Podcast, which you can listen to HERE)

Ideas come from everywhere. The real trick is learning how to notice them.

Over the years I've created hundreds of magic tricks, games, puzzles and other products.

I've also invented Klipsip, a patented accessory designed to hold a herbal tea bag against the side of your cup.

So I have a LOT of ideas.

Most of them aren't particularly good!

And that's actually one of the first lessons I've learned about creativity.

You Need Lots of Bad Ideas to Find the Good Ones

I've got notebooks containing hundreds and hundreds of ideas.

Out of 700 ideas, perhaps 300 might have something interesting about them.

Out of those 300, perhaps only ten might eventually become viable products.

That's the reality of creating.

We tend to see somebody's finished magic trick, game or invention and think:

“How did they come up with that?”

What we don't see are the 50 terrible ideas that came before it.

That's why I write things down.

Even if an idea seems ridiculous.

Even if I don't know how it works yet.

Even if there's no obvious commercial use for it.

Because sometimes I'll come back to an idea years later and suddenly think:

I know how to do this now.

Stop Trying So Hard to Be Creative

I don't think my best ideas arrive when I sit down with a cup of green tea and announce:

“RIGHT, I SHALL NOW BE CREATIVE.”

In fact, that's probably one of the worst ways for me to generate ideas.

The best ones tend to appear when I'm doing something else.

Walking.

Driving.

Sitting in a sauna.

Playing with my son.

Going on holiday.

Looking at something completely unrelated to magic.

Your brain needs a bit of space.

We're constantly surrounded by noise, work, social media, family life, emails, phones and everything else competing for our attention.

Sometimes you need to

switch off to switch that creative part of your brain on.

The Two Most Powerful Words: “What If?”

There's one question that sits behind an enormous amount of what I create:

What if?

What if I did this differently?

What if I removed that part?

What if this happened instead?

What if I used symbols rather than playing cards?

What if I made the method simpler?

What if I combined these two completely unrelated ideas?

That constant questioning is incredibly powerful.

And I've realised that children are naturally brilliant at it.

What My Four-Year-Old Taught Me About Creativity

I've learned an unbelievable amount about creativity from my son, Ari.

He's four.

When he was much younger, he had a set of stacking cups. They were different sizes and the obvious thing to do was stack them neatly from largest to smallest.

So I gave him a little challenge.

I had a tiny toy tiger and essentially said:

“Get the tiger to the top.”

In my adult brain, I already knew the solution.

Obviously, he would stack the cups in size order and put the tiger on top.

Except he didn't.

He started with a big cup.

Then another.

Then a random one.

Then a smaller one.

Then somehow a bigger one went over another cup.

I was watching this thinking:

What on earth are you doing?

But eventually he'd used all the cups.

And the tiger was on top.

He'd completed the brief.

Just not in the way I thought he should.

That's creativity.

There Isn't Always One Correct Solution

Another time Ari had one of those shape-sorter toys.

Square.

Circle.

Triangle.

Cross.

He was trying to put a square piece through an opening that I was convinced wasn't going to work.

My adult brain immediately said:

“That's not going to fit.”

He twisted it.

Changed the angle.

And it went in.

I remember thinking:

Wow.

I hadn't even considered doing it that way.

Children haven't accumulated all the rules we have.

We look at something and think:

That's how it's supposed to be done.

A child thinks:

But does it HAVE to be done like that?

That's a very different way of looking at a problem.

Ideas Can Come From Absolutely Anywhere

I've had ideas sitting in a sauna looking at water droplets on tiles.

I started looking at the different configurations and wondering whether they could form the basis of a game.

One thought led to another.

That led to another game idea.

That's why I don't think there's necessarily some magical place where creativity lives.

You just have to start noticing things.

Look at patterns.

Look at problems.

Look at things that annoy you.

Look at things people do every day without questioning why.

Sometimes the problem itself gives you the idea.

ClipSip Started With Green Tea All Over Me

Klipsip is a perfect example.

My day job is as a lawyer, and I was about 15 minutes away from meeting a client.

I was drinking green tea and, as I took a sip, the tea bag flopped over the side.

Green tea everywhere.

Brilliant.

I'm desperately trying to dry myself before this meeting, and I suddenly thought:

Surely somebody has invented something to stop this happening?

So I searched.

I couldn't find what I wanted.

And that was the beginning of Klipsip.

A simple problem led to an idea.

That's how loads of inventions happen.

Something annoys somebody enough that they eventually ask:

“Why isn't there a better way of doing this?”

IKEA Is Basically a Building Full of “Why Didn't I Think of That?” Moments

Walk around IKEA and you'll constantly find little gadgets and solutions that make you think:

“That's clever.”

Or:

“Why didn't I think of that?”

Someone noticed a tiny everyday problem and decided to solve it.

You don't necessarily need to invent a completely new category of product.

Sometimes creativity is simply taking something that already exists and asking:

How could this be better?

Adults Are Frightened of Stupid Ideas

This is where I think we lose something as we get older.

Children aren't particularly bothered if an idea sounds stupid.

They'll try it.

If it falls over, they'll build it again.

If that doesn't work, they'll try something else.

Adults start thinking:

What will people think?

What if it doesn't work?

What if someone laughs at me?

Is it commercially viable?

Has somebody already done it?

What if I fail?

Before we've even tested the idea, we've talked ourselves out of it.

Children don't generally do that.

They just play.

What the Marshmallow Challenge Teaches Us About Ideas

There's a famous creativity exercise commonly known as the Marshmallow Challenge.

Teams are given simple materials such as spaghetti, tape, string and a marshmallow and asked to build the tallest freestanding structure they can.

What I love about exercises like this is the difference in approach.

Adults can spend ages discussing.

Planning.

Delegating.

Analysing.

Children tend to start building.

It falls over.

They build another one.

That falls over.

They try something different.

They're effectively prototyping without knowing they're prototyping.

And that's a brilliant lesson for anyone trying to create something.

Don't Build the Perfect Product – Build Something

This is something I've learned repeatedly.

If you've got an idea, make something.

It doesn't need beautiful packaging.

It doesn't need to be perfect.

It doesn't necessarily even need to work particularly well!

Create the simplest version that lets you test the idea.

In business terms, you might call it a minimum viable product.

I call it:

Having a go.

Make it.

Play with it.

Show somebody.

See what happens.

Then improve it.

Try This 60-Second Creativity Exercise

Here's a little challenge.

Pick up a coffee mug.

Give yourself 60 seconds and ask:

What else could this be?

Obviously, it holds coffee.

But forget that.

Could it be a phone holder?

A plant pot?

A dice shaker?

A desk organiser?

A magic prop?

A target for throwing something into?

A pencil holder?

Keep going.

Most of your ideas will probably be rubbish.

Good.

Because somewhere amongst the rubbish might be something interesting.

Then take it further.

If you're a magician, ask:

How could I make this magical?

Suddenly you're looking at the same everyday object completely differently.

You Don't Have to Reinvent the Wheel

This is particularly relevant to magic.

Sometimes people think creativity means inventing something that has never existed before.

It doesn't.

Sometimes creativity is taking an established principle and approaching it from a completely different direction.

That's something I've done with several of my own releases.

Take Mind Waves.

The Cheek to Cheek principle has been around for years.

I didn't pretend otherwise.

Instead, I asked:

What if it wasn't presented as another deck of playing cards?

Mind Waves uses symbols, adds a marking system and changes the presentation and experience around the underlying principle.

It's familiar thinking taken somewhere different.

Scribble Snap Came From the Same Creative Thinking

Scribble Snap came from another established piece of card magic.

There's Gemini Twins thinking in there, but I wanted it to feel completely different.

So I added hand-drawn scribbles.

Different backs.

Blank cards.

A story.

And a kicker.

The underlying thinking might have roots in existing magic, but the question becomes:

What can I bring to it that makes it mine?

That's an important distinction.

I'm certainly not saying take somebody's protected creation, change one tiny thing and call it yours.

I'm talking about learning principles, studying what's gone before and asking where your own thinking can take them.

Creativity Is Often About Combining Things

This is something I've carried across from Neo Magic into Mind Burp Games.

Magic has taught me to look for hidden structures.

Games have taught me to think about rules and interaction.

Puzzles make me think about problems and solutions.

My legal career makes me analyse things methodically.

Being a dad has reminded me how valuable it is to forget the rules occasionally!

All of those things collide.

And somewhere in the collision you get an idea.

That's why I don't think you necessarily become more creative by only studying your own field.

If you're a magician, don't only look at magic.

Look at games.

Art.

Architecture.

Toys.

Advertising.

Nature.

Technology.

Watch how children play.

Borrow inspiration from everywhere.

Don't Be Too Quick to Throw Away a Bad Idea

Sometimes an idea doesn't work.

Keep it.

I've returned to ideas years later because I've suddenly discovered the missing piece.

Something you learn today might solve a problem you wrote down five years ago.

And sometimes your terrible idea might spark a brilliant idea for somebody else.

That's another reason I like sharing ideas.

Creativity doesn't have to happen in isolation.

Don't Let Fear Kill Your Ideas

Fear is probably one of the biggest creativity killers.

What if somebody steals my idea?

What if people think it's stupid?

What if it doesn't sell?

What if it fails?

You can spend so long protecting an idea that you never actually do anything with it.

Of course there are times when intellectual property protection matters, patents, trademarks, copyright and so on.

But fear shouldn't stop you creating.

At some point you have to put something into the world.

Perfectionism Is Just Another Way of Not Launching

Another big one is:

“I'll launch it when it's perfect.”

Good luck with that!

I've learned that products evolve.

You launch something.

People use it.

Someone spots something you didn't.

Somebody develops a different handling.

You improve it.

My Perfect Match is a great example.

The current version is an evolution of the original. The basic effect remains, but I've refined the props and streamlined the handling.

That's what happens when you actually put something into people's hands.

Let Other People Make Your Ideas Better

One of the things I increasingly enjoy is seeing what happens after I release something.

Somebody buys one of my effects and says:

“Vinny, have you thought about doing this?”

And I haven't.

That's brilliant.

The same happens with games.

You give somebody a set of components and a rule set and suddenly they've found another way of playing with them.

That's why I love the idea of creating something that isn't necessarily the end of the creative process.

Sometimes it's the beginning.

Creativity Isn't a Special Talent

One of the things people often say to me is:

“I'm just not a creative person.”

I don't believe that.

You don't have to invent 300 magic tricks.

You don't have to start a company.

You don't have to patent an invention.

Creativity can be incredibly ordinary.

Even loading the dishwasher differently can be creative.

You look at the same problem somebody else has looked at and find a different solution.

That's creativity.

Give Your Stupid Idea Another 30 Seconds

So here's the one thing I'd like you to take away from this.

Next time an idea pops into your head and your immediate reaction is:

“That's stupid.”

Don't throw it away.

Give it another 30 seconds.

Ask:

What if?

What if I changed this?

What if I made it smaller?

What if I made it simpler?

What if I combined it with something else?

What if I approached it like a child would?

What if it actually worked?

You might still conclude that it's a terrible idea.

That's fine.

Write it down anyway.

Because some of the best things I've created have started with thoughts that probably sounded completely ridiculous at the time.

And I'm definitely not going to tell you about all of my stupid ideas.

My wife already laughs at enough of them.