The Element of the Creative Pause and Its Hope for Turning Us into Idea-Generating Machines

Picture Courtesy: EssJay (Flickr)

Each one of us is an ideas machine.

The combination of our experience, our circumstances, all the things we have seen, heard, read and been exposed to, our unique genetic make-up, our education, our knowledge, and our skills, gives us the potential to produce a unique idea.

Actually, to produce an unlimited quantity of unique ideas.

Every advertising creative knows this.

As idea after idea is rejected for the campaign we are working on, we are able to come up with yet another idea; and then yet another idea - until we arrive at the one idea everyone believes will work – the one which will go to print or production.

Every serial inventor or entrepreneur – (Ray Kurzweil, Elon Musk, Reed Hoffman, or any of the other people who have founded multiple companies, or come up with multiple products) knows this.

Once you come up with an idea for a second invention or start a second company, you know you have the power to do it again.

So if each one of us is an idea-generating machine, why do we get stuck and what will get us unstuck?

I thought about this a lot during the 14 years, when I did not and could not write.

My first career was in writing.  After writing a few freelance pieces for the local newspaper, and one or two magazines (this was back in India), I was discovered by a friend of one of my siblings.  She got me my first copywriting job in an ad agency (Thank you Mela).  For the rest of time, I was in India, I was a copywriter, and made a living out of writing for the Indian affiliates of J Walter Thompson, Bozell, and Saatchi and Saatchi. I even set up my own creative shop.

Then I came to the US.  I was not able to break into advertising.  So I took up a sales admin job at Palm, and then, by sheer accident, ended up becoming their Commissions Analyst.

Whether it was the fact of dealing purely with numbers in my new role, or the stress of raising a young child, I stopped writing.

It bothered me. Where had that person gone? I would get an idea for a story or article, and I would pick up a pen. I would write a couple of lines, but the motivation and inspiration would completely dry up.  I would stare at the blank paper hopelessly.

People would say to me, “Minoo, you used to be so good at writing, you really should get back into writing.”  I would nod my head and say “I know,” but inside my head, I would think, “those days are over for me.  Maybe my previous career was just luck.”

And then it happened.

On December 27, 2010, I created a blog on Google Blogger, and published my first post on it.

Why after 14 years of not being able to write, was I suddenly able?

What had happened?

Do you want to guess?

The title of this post gives a clue.

I had been given the accidental gift of a creative pause.

Here’s the story….

I gave up my last full-time employment in June of 2010. I did the Xactly Administrators Course 2 months later, and signed a contract with Solution Partners to join their Xactly Implementation Team. But other than doing an FRD (Functional Requirements Document) for a project which got put on hold, I did not do any other work, and was to remain professionally idle for the next 7 months.

I now realize this idleness was the gift of gifts.

Because the next thing I knew, I had learned to meditate.  Just like that.  I read a book (my post Connected Minds tells the story) and followed the meditation technique from the book. I never looked back.  Meditation became a daily activity in my life, starting from that time.

The next thing I knew, I was blogging. On December 27, 2010, I published my first post 4 Decisions I Wish I Had Made Earlier. Even while writing it, I wondered “Is this a flash in the pan? What if I can’t keep it up?”  It felt awkward and clumsy to write after all that time.  But the impulse was there and I followed it. This time the inspiration didn’t dry up after the first two lines.  And the inspiration didn’t dry up after the first post; or the first few posts; or the first few months; or the first year. Just like with my meditation, I never looked back.  Blogging became a regular activity in my life starting from that time.

From my experience, I can confidently say we are all idea-generating machines.

And the only thing holding us back from being the idea-generating machines we are meant to be, may be a creative pause.

In fact, we may need regular creative pauses.

Because when we are caught up in the humdrum and buzz of routine life, and all its mundane demands, it’s hard to get the idea machine going.

See, ideas are not like horses you can go after with a lasso (John Wayne style).

They are just neurons, firing, and lighting up, and colliding against other neurons in your brain.

And for whatever reason (another wonder of nature), they need you to relax - go fishing, take a walk in the park (Newton), jump into a shower or a bath-tub (Archimedes), open a hymn book in church (Arthur Fry of Post-it Notes fame).

This suggests we should welcome creative pauses in our lives, even intentionally create them.

Want to come up with a new business idea? Go on a nature hike.

Want to write a book? Seclude yourself in a quiet place with nothing but your thoughts.

Want to create something new? Go fishing.

Your thoughts are not to be underestimated.

Thoughts did not let down all the inventors and entrepreneurs and authors and artists through history.

Why would you think they would let you down?

So take a walk.

Go fishing.

Go on a hike.

Become unemployed.

Go to prison.

Get sick.

“Minoo, what are you talking about – become unemployed, go to prison, get sick? Have you gone insane?”

No, I am serious.

Any stretch of completely unstructured time, in which you are alone with your thoughts, can turn on the idea-generating machine.

Remember, it was precisely because I was unemployed, and had oodles of time on my hands, the muse came back. I might never have rediscovered my creativity, were I not twiddling my thumbs for 7 straight months.  It helped that I had an emergency cushion and lived a simple life. If you have an emergency cushion and can live simply, a spell of unemployment can be just the ticket to get your idea-machine going. Let’s not forget J K Rowling was a single mother on welfare when she wrote the first Harry Potter book.

What ideas can be conceived in a prison cell? Anything.  After all, you are alone with your thoughts. Chuck Colson, were he alive, would testify. During his 8 month sentence in a federal prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, he came up with the idea for his nationally famous Prison Ministry.

I also mention getting sick. Does that sound weird?  It is not weird at all. Many famous books and ideas originated in someone’s head when they were on their sick bed.  My post The Gift of Time mentions one such. Interestingly, this post you are reading, was written by me from my sickbed. I had a full blown migraine yesterday and had to take to bed. But as I was lying down, resting off the headache, thoughts would come to me, so I would get up, scribble them down, and fall back into bed. I wrote almost 60% of this post from my sickbed yesterday. Could migraines be a gift from the universe? Hmmm…

I repeat, any stretch of completely unstructured time, in which you are alone with your thoughts, can turn on the idea-generating machine.

So I hope you will welcome these pauses when you get them, and even intentionally create them.

Don’t be anything less than the idea-generating powerhouse you were meant to be.  Begin the process of regular creative pauses and experience the thrill of continuous creation.

Dear Reader – thanks for coming along with me on this journey through the elements of what makes us fully realized human beings. In connection with becoming a fully realized human being, I would like to recommend a book to you called Three Little Steps by Trevor Blake, which for me, was one of the mind-blowing reads of the last decade.  Angela’s Ashes meets Clay Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life? is best I can describe it.  Read it before you go on your first Creative Pause Hike or Walk or Sabbatical or Retreat or Break. Better still, take the book along with you. As always, thanks for reading, and have a great day and week…..M….a Pearl-Seeker like you.