Thomas Edison would work for two solid days to perfect experiments, with nothing more than a few naps to get him through. It was a little crazy.
Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones spent endless hours holed up in his apartment listening to blues albums, in his quest to help the Stones become England’s best blues band. It was a little crazy.
My potter friend Mark Skudlarek has a special kind of clay that gets driven by the truckload from a quarry in Indiana to his studio on Cambridge, Wisconsin, so he can make the perfect kind of clay for his pots. It’s a little crazy.
Creative geniuses seem to have a crazy, offbeat little thing or two that fuels their work, and that makes society say, “That’s weird.”
So, what’s your thing – a habit, routine, trait, trick, oddity, or system that helps fuel your creativity? Why not make one up?
The great “Think Different” ad from Apple began “Here’s to the crazy ones.” They are the ones who changed the world. They were different. They had traits that were a little crazy.
You may not want to change the world. But I do hope you consider inventing some crazy, different thing that can make you be more interesting, more creative, and a bigger contributor to good things on this planet than everyone else you work with who is as boring and similar and common as…everyone else.
Andy Wallman's Idea Bucket 