Einstein and Me

My self-appointed mentor, Albert Einstein, once said…

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

I am a big fan of both the man and the message.  And here's why…

Simply put…our own unwillingness to accept ourselves as creative beings bogs us down.  I happen to believe we are ALL creative in one way or another.  However, I also know that most of the time we don't feel that way, especially when we're working on marketing campaigns and other promotional endeavors in our work.

For example…

How many times have you sat in front of your computer screen and willed a brilliant ad to materialize?  If this sounds familiar to you, then I have a question:

How big is your marketing antenna?

What I mean by this is that creativity is simply being open to inspiration, and, if you have your antenna up – that is to say that if you are paying attention to other good marketing out there – you WILL learn the secrets of the master marketers. 

And I'm going to share one of those secrets with you right now!  Do you have your antenna up?  Well, get ready folks, this is a good one…

It is better to edit than to create!

Now you may be saying, "Just what does that mean?"  Well, let me explain... 

Creativity is driven by curiosity.  Pay attention! Ask questions!  Get inspired!  Success leaves clues, my friend!  Have that antenna up and you will find inspiration in the most unlikely places.

If you need to create a postcard, for example, you may find something really juicy you can use on the back of your grocery receipt, or in the way a dish is described on a menu.  Or your teenager might actually say something incredible that you can use!  Perhaps you can even justify reading that tabloid because the ads in the back have amazing copy that really gets your own writing juices flowing.

The National Enquireris one of the most expensive magazines to advertise in, so those ads in the back HAVE TO work!

By taking an existing marketing piece and editing it as your own, all the work is done for you! You just have to breathe it all in and then make it our own –

What a relief, huh?!

Einstein was absolutely right… 

Creativity is being mindful enough to be stimulated by your environment.  You then simply edit and mold that environment to fit your needs.  We don't need to reinvent the wheel every time we have to create a new ad or marketing piece – we simply have to let our surroundings illuminate our own wheels turning inside our heads.

That Einstein was onto something. Maybe he was so in-tune with his environment that the theory of relativity was something he creatively lifted from him own surroundings! 

If we sharpen our own antennas, we could ALL be little Einsteins…

changing the world one postcard at a time!

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