Recently Googled, “I am not creative.”

“I’m not creative.” It’s a line I’ve heard hundreds of times. From clients, account executives, strangers on an airplane. For some reason they actually believe it’s beyond them to conceive a clever idea, write an ad, compose a story, or create a piece of art. Recently I Googled the actual quote, “I am not a creative person.” It generated thousands of results. Parents, teachers, scientists among them. The fact is we’re all creative. Or at least until about the third grade, when they make us surrender our crayons. From that point on parents, educators, and the rest of society teach us to conform, discourage us from being different and instead urge us to fit in. Sure some of us resist, but a lot us stop taking chances, fearing rejection or worse, failure. Of course it’s never too late to get your creativity back or help someone else jumpstart theirs. There are hundreds of ways to go about it. But here are a couple you can link to right from this page. The first is Hugh MacLeod’s How to be Creative manifesto. The second, oneword, is a simple little exercise that will get you started thinking, writing and taking chances. Which is what you used to do with those crayons, remember.