{"id":3758,"date":"2018-06-22T21:07:22","date_gmt":"2018-06-23T04:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3.14.248.234\/?p=3758"},"modified":"2020-06-26T18:15:52","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T01:15:52","slug":"creative-founder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/creative-founder\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Ways to Stay Creative as a Founder"},"content":{"rendered":"
Do you ever wonder how some founders can come up with endless ideas?<\/p>\n
Yet, other founders can only come up with a couple.<\/p>\n
I did.<\/p>\n
I wanted to learn how to become creative.<\/p>\n
I never had the right idea to help my company grow.<\/p>\n
Or, at least, enough ideas to choose among.<\/p>\n
I had worked for five startups that had failed and had zero to show for it.<\/p>\n
If I could figure out how to overcome the creative hurdle, then I could break this pattern. Motivated, I studied the creative process by reading countless books on psychology and then practicing.<\/p>\n
The result is I’ve come up with hundreds of original ideas to help companies grow. I’m even the CEO of one of the fastest growing companies in Los Angeles. All because I can rely on the most important intangible skill, creativity.<\/p>\n
During the process of figuring out what makes a founder creative, I learned six ways you can add fuel to your creative spark:<\/p>\n
Creativity doesn’t happen on the surface level. It happens deep beneath the ground. It’s where your expertise lies. It’s the T in the T-Shaped model.<\/p>\n
But there’s a catch – unless you’re in the top .01 percent of your field, then you need two deep Ts. Yes, two skills you’re highly proficient in to be creative.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The reason is creativity happens when you combine ideas. If you can combine them from deep expertise in two verticals, then the chances the idea is original increases exponentially. For example, if you combine your knowledge of programming with content creation, then you might come up with a brilliant software idea.<\/p>\n
If you had surface level knowledge of both areas, then you might come up with what you think is an original idea. Then you share the idea with an expert and they’ll probably say, “Yeah, that’s an old idea. It doesn’t work.” That result is fine because it shows you that you have much more room to learn.<\/p>\n
If you’re not an expert, then you need to know the steps to become one. The good news is this is the easy part. The hard part is the execution.<\/p>\n
To become an expert, follow this four-step model:<\/p>\n
1. Find an expert to mentor you<\/strong><\/p>\n Use LinkedIn, Facebook, and email to reach out. Mentorship is a big time commitment on their part so asking right away will deter them. Start by giving them value no matter how small, then ask for coffee. Get them to become your friend before you ask for them to become a mentor.<\/p>\n 2. Deconstruct the skills that will deliver 80 percent of results<\/strong><\/p>\n Ask experts, then research on Google and YouTube what those few core important skills are to get results.<\/p>\n 3. Stop multitasking<\/strong><\/p>\n You’re learning one skill, not a hundred of them.<\/p>\n 4. Practice until you can recognize your mistakes<\/strong><\/p>\n Did someone say practice? <\/em><\/p>\n Yes, you have to show up every day if you want to be good at anything.<\/p>\n