Don’t invent, combine — Kelford Labs Daily

“Breakthroughs often happen when people connect distant, seemingly unrelated ideas. To take a canonical example, the Wright brothers combined their experience as bicycle mechanics and their observations of the flight of birds to develop their concept of a controllable plane that could be balanced and steered by warping its wings.

They were not the inventors of the bicycle, the first to observe birds’ wings, or even the first people to try to build an airplane. Instead, they were the first to see the connections between these concepts.

If you can link disparate ideas from multiple fields and add a little random creativity, you might be able to create something new.”

 — Ethan Mollick, Co-Intelligence

Creativity in any domain, including writing, isn’t about de novo invention as much as it is about synthesis.

Taking seemingly disparate and unrelated ideas and combining them in novel ways to create something fresh, something exciting, something inspiring.

So when you’re stuck wondering what to say—on your website, at a networking event, or on social—think about this:

What have you already said somewhere—like in a blog post, a client deliverable, or in a conversation—that you can refine, adapt, and integrate into something new?

When I write copy for clients, for instance, I don’t stare at a blank page and wait for the muse to do the work.

I read everything the client has ever published before. I dig, search, and mine their existing statements for inspiration, for stand-out moments, for pieces of gold.

And you can do the same.

If you’re staring at the text box on LinkedIn, or wondering what the heck to say at your next networking event when someone asks what you do, do this instead:

Read everything you’ve ever written before. Think back on every conversation you’ve had about your business that’s recallable.

Dig, scrape, search, and mine your existing words for improvable elements.

And look for ways to combine what you’ve said before in a more interesting, more exciting, more inspiring way than you have before.

Don’t start from scratch, start from your previous best point. And build from there.

By combining, by synthesizing, and by adding “a little random creativity.”

If you do that, as Mollick writes, “you might be able to create something new.”

Kelford Inc. shows you the way to always knowing what to say. Marketing positions and messages for hands-on entrepreneurs.