Where does it all come from?
When something feels truly inspiring, authentic and original, we feel it. It excites us when we come in contact with an inspired work of art or an innovative product.
I’ll be mostly referring to artistic inspiration in this post, but if you are more on the business side remember this:
You can be just as creative in business as you can in art. You can make your business a work of art!
Why is it so important to stay inspired?
People who are inspired know that they can wake up and outdo themselves tomorrow. That is an extremely powerful feeling… that no matter how big your current hit is, you could do even better. An artist who is uninspired loses touch with their core sense of purpose and source of livelihood.
So how do we increase our chances of catching that lightning in a bottle?
I have two hypotheses:
1. We become more receptive… most artists claim that they are capturing the inspiration as if it came from somewhere outside of them. Therefore, you are receiving that inspiration. So if you can become more receptive, you will become more inspired.
Here are a few synonyms of receptive:
The key takeaways here are to practice being more sensitive to the influences around you while opening yourself up to new ideas. Challenge your own limiting beliefs, and learn new things. Meditate and read… that will keep you inspired!
2. We look for patterns and and insight from our environment. Inspiration is all around us when we become receptive to it. Here is a phrase and acronym that I came up with to help people stay more inspired:
Inspiration is EASy
E = Experience
A = Attention
Sy = Synthesis
You can find Inspiration through a combination of:
Experience - Inspiration comes from having new experiences, and it also comes from having experience in a certain field or skill. Often the most experienced songwriters end up being the ‘best’ songwriters… experience with the tools allows creativity to flow freely!
Attention - What you give attention to grows. When you feel even remotely inspired by an idea or some stimulus in your environment, IMMEDIATELY focus and give attention to that inspiration. If you ignore the inspiration it will move on to someone else. You might also want to set aside a time of day where you know you feel most inspired so that you know it is practical to give it your full attention when it hits.
Synthesis - This is when you take your ideas and you smash them into other ideas. Those could be your own ideas or they could come from other people. This is one of the reasons why collaboration works so well is that people can start with one good idea and then keep making it better and better with the input of others. The HOME concept itself started as a synthesis of ideas, and you can read about that story here. As HOME has progressed, we continue to evolve with each new lesson learned!
At HOME we work with the artists, writers, producers and entrepreneurs who are able to channel their inspiration, and we teach them to turn it into a polished product that the world can hear and participate in.