Be More Creative by Stealing, Re-conceptualizing, and Recombining Ideas That Already Exist

How many times have you heard the following: “There’s nothing new under the sun.” It turns out that this is true; sort of. If you think that creative people pull new ideas out of nothing, and that the definition of creativity is “being original”, you’re wrong. The most creative people steal ideas from different sources with impunity, they re-conceptualize existing ideas, and they recombine what is already out there.

In this article you’ll discover how to be more creative by stealing, re-conceptualizing, and recombining ideas that already exist.

Creativity As a Lego Set Collection

My seven year-old nephew loves Legos. Whenever anyone asks him what he wants for his birthday, for Christmas, or for any other special occasion, he’s quick to point out the Lego set that he wants. Although he keeps each set separate, at least for a while, eventually all the Legos end up mixed together in a huge plastic bin.

When I’m at my sister’s house and I let my nephew know that I’m there to play with him, he runs into the playroom and returns dragging the Lego bin behind him. He then dumps all of the Legos on the living room floor. The floor ends up covered in Legos of every imaginable size, shape, and color. Once his stash is laid out before him, he starts riffling through the pieces; here’s his process:

• Sometimes he knows exactly what piece he’s looking for, and he starts calling out for everyone to help him find it (“It’s black, kind-of-like this one, it has a little round piece at the end”).
• Other times he picks up random pieces, looks each one over, and decides whether to discard it or add it to the pile he’s going to use to create his newest masterpiece.
• He sticks seemingly unrelated pieces together, as well as pieces that look like they belong together.
• He uses his teeth to pry loose pieces that are still stuck together from the previous play session.
• He combines pieces from different Lego sets.

In the end, he picks, combines, and discards pieces, until a spaceship, a warship, an airplane, or a flying saucer emerges from the rubble. I’m always amazed at what he comes up with. Each creation is different from the one before. In addition, as new Lego pieces are added to his collection, his creations become even larger and more complex.

It turns out that creativity is like that bin of Legos, and the more Legos you have, the more creative you can be. Maria Popova from the blog Brainpickings.org explains in her article titled “Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity” that nothing is entirely original; everything builds on what came before. We create by gathering bits and pieces of inspiration and knowledge throughout our lives and recombining them to create something new.

Here are some of the main points that Popova makes:

• All creativity builds upon something that existed before.
• Every work of art is essentially a derivative work.
• New ideas emerge from the cross-pollination of existing ideas.

In addition, you can become more creative by dabbling in very different fields. Popova uses Einstein and Nabokov as examples:

• Einstein attributed some of his greatest physics breakthroughs to his violin breaks, which he believed connected different parts of his brain in new ways.
• Vladimir Nabokov was a lepidopterist — he collected and studied butterflies. He believed that this helped him to develop his deep passion for detail and precision, which is what made his writing so crisp and vivid.

Therefore, if you want to be more creative, be constantly collecting bits and pieces of information, scraps of knowledge, fragments of different skills, and morsels of insight. Then, dump it all into your mind and allow all of the pieces to mix around, bump into each other, get stuck together, break into different pieces, and so on. Add your own life experience and insight to the pile, and come up with a creative idea.

Use Re-Conceptualization to Apply Ideas to Different Areas

In this article in Men’s Health Magazine, the author explains that you can unlock your creative side by using a process called re-conceptualization. The author adds that University of Oklahoma psychologists found that people are more creative when asked to re-conceive ideas in as many ways as possible. Here are two examples:

• The book “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard”—which I wrote about in this blog post—explains that one way to make changes in your life is by setting up your environment in a way that will support the change. Baker, from the blog Man v. Debt, took that idea and applied it, or re-conceptualized it, to setting up your environment in a way that will help you to get out of debt (in this blog post).
• The book “Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive While Others Die” talks about how to make your ideas propagate or go viral, and how to get people to act based on your ideas. I applied the ideas in that book and re-conceptualized them so that they would apply to blogging (in this post).

Whenever you hear about or read an interesting idea, get into the habit of asking yourself how you can re-conceptualize it so that it applies to your business niche, or to your life.

Steal Like An Artist

Austin Kleon is a writer and an artist; he’s the author of “Steal Like an Artist”. He explains that when he’s asked where he gets his ideas, he answers that he steals them. Kleon adds that every idea is just a mashup or a remix of a previous idea.

Here are some of the things he points out:

• You are a remix of your mother and father.
• You are a mashup of what you choose to let into your life: the people you choose to hang out with, the books you choose to read, the music you choose to listen to, and so on.
• Artists collect things they really love. They tear things out of magazines and paste them in scrapbooks. They store ideas to be used at some later time.

Kleon tells the story of Igor Stravinsky, who was composing a ballet. However, instead of starting from scratch he took the scores of famous ballets and started correcting them as if they were his own work. He wrote a ballet based on all of these corrections. When the ballet came out, the critics were outraged: “How dare he do that to the classics!” Stravinsky answered as follows: “You respect, but I love.”

In addition, Kleon narrates that about five years ago he got a really bad case of writer’s block. So he took out a stack of newspapers and he started drawing boxes around different sections of the newspaper that caught his attention. Then he blacked out the words in those sections that he didn’t need. He called it “newspaper blackout poetry” and he started posting them on his blog.

Then he started doing research–based on comments he was getting on his blog saying that his idea wasn’t original–, and he was able to trace the idea back to the 1700′s, to one of Benjamin Franklin’s neighbors who would read the newspaper horizontally and come up with funny combinations. That is, there was a 250 year-old history of people finding poetry in the newspaper. However, Kleon explains that he was fine with this, because he knows that nothing is completely original.

Take what you like from the world around you, steal it, and then transform it into something that is uniquely your own. And that, is to steal like an artist.

If you’re interested in newspaper blackout poetry, here’s how to do it (if you’re reading this by email, click over to the blog to watch the video):

Conclusion

You don’t have to wait to become more creative: start stealing, re-conceptualizing, and recombining ideas right away. Here’s a quote from Jim Jarmusch that captures this idea perfectly:

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.’”

You’ll find lots of tools and techniques to make your creativity skyrocket in “How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists”.

(Scott the Robber is courtesy of Matt from London)

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe for free by RSS or e-mail and you’ll always know when I publish something new. (What’s RSS?). Also, please share it on the social media site of your choice.

Related Posts:

• 14 Ways to Nurture Creative Bursts
• Potpourri of Creativity Tips
•  Medley of Creativity
• Creative Insights From the Worldwide Web

I Recommend:

Imagine waking up each morning to a life that’s centered around your life goals, instead of trying to fit what’s most important to you into the nooks and crannies. “How To Live Your Best Life- The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List” will show you how.

“How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists” explains that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts but is important in any field. Whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better. Discover practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor by reading my ebook.

What important task or project have you been procrastinating on? Whether it’s starting a blog, writing a novel, going back to school, decluttering your home, or starting an exercise program, my ebook, “Make It Happen! A Workbook for Overcoming Procrastination and Getting the Right Things Done”, will help you get started and see the task or project through to completion.