I want to know your opinion and your argument. Here’s why:

To me creativity subtracting out all logic is at best, misguided, and, at worst, stupid. It doesn’t matter what you are trying to be creative about; a problem, a written work, a piece of art – all of these require some level of logic.

Problems

Solving a problem is, in and of itself, using logic to come up with an answer.

Thinking out-of-the-box is no just making intellectual leaps to possible answers to the problem. Even if they seem illogical, surely they’ll require to enact the solution.

Written Works

Books, articles, poetry. These all have logic too.

Stories must follow a flow. Without it, authors would drive readers crazy and they would have no audience.

Articles need to be informative and follow logical flow for the same reasons that stories do. Without appealing to logic, there would be no readership.

Poetry is emotional in a lot of cases, but still, there is flow. The poem makes sense to the poet, it’s a vehicle with which to elicit emotion. It’s logical.

Art

I’ll admit, artistic works are the most difficult to pinpoint where logic comes into play.

In my opinion, most of this is due to the fact that the goal of art is to leave the meaning open to interpretation. The artist deliberately obscures the true meaning of their work so as to give others the joy of coming to their own understanding of the piece.

But isn’t color selection, choice of media, or venue a logical choice, one that furthers the goal of the artist?

Creativity can’t exist without logic!

Show me I’m wrong. Tell me how logic and creativity can exist separate from each other. I want to know.

How long does it take for your mind to react and use its little voice to push back against your genius plan and break the momentum you had going? Not too long. I know mine doesn’t.

Sonia Simone published a great post the other day on Copyblogger entitled, Why Being Naive Can Make Your Fortune. The thrust of the article makes the point that intelligent naivete can lead to great success.

Taking worn out conventions for granted can lead to under-performance, poor decisions, and even the death of an idea altogether. But if you take the time to decramp, be a little naive and destroy the cynical thoughts that crop up, you’ll be able to deliver some rock-solid and even remarkable work.

Next Time

Next time you have that great idea and your mind goes to work trying to sabotage you, take out a sheet of paper and do this:

1. Write the idea down in big, bold letters across the top.
2. List every objection that your mind throws at you.
3. Now, answer these objections with reasoned arguments.

Build on It

You just wrote the outline for a sales page! Tie in some emotions, write with some passion, and you’ll have a great foundation to build on when you’re developing a product or even a blog post. Take a few minutes and work the idea from different angles.

Don’t let the little voice in the back of your head win so easy.

Cool. Now why is that your favorite color?

“Because it is my favorite” doesn’t count. The why of your choices is almost as important as the decision itself. So why is that your favorite color?

The Principle of the Thing

Knowing the why gives you guidelines. The why is synonymous with your ideals. The answer to the question why needs to be solidified in you because it reflects on your core principles.

With that answer in mind, your future decision making gets easier and easier because you have a precedent to follow as opposed to going through the same decision making process over and over.

An example:

• What is your favorite color?
• Blue.
• Why?
• Because it is calming, reminds me of the sky, and it is cool/techie.
• So, you like technology and calm.

Possible principle: Your goal is to make the process of using technology a calm experience. If you find something incongruent with that principle, avoid it.

There are a million different interpretations. What’s yours?

This is a question, that up until this summer, I have struggled with. It’s like hitting the wall and then finding a way to break through.

The answer, in short, is nothing. Nothing.

I haven’t had personal discussions with each of these people, heck, they probably don’t even know that I exist! But I’ve watched them, I’ve bought their stuff, I’ve studied their methods and read between the lines. One step short of an internet stalker, I’ve lurked and learned how they do what they do. I don’t claim to know all of their secrets, but one thing that I do know, they are no different than me.

The key to their success is that they work hard, they produce absolutely amazing material for every one of their readers and they really, really care about people.

I’ve never shied away from hard work and I know that I really care about people. I can’t say that I always produce content on the level of amazing, but I work hard and practice and develop myself so that I get better at it every day.

The Choice

All that is left is my mindset. I have to make a determination, a conscious decision, to do something beyond what I normally do. It sounds so cliche to go beyond your comfort zone, but that isn’t my point at all. It’s the choice that is the difference.

A lot of you might be in the same boat, so think about the fact that it’s all a matter of choice. It costs next to nothing to put yourself out there and create something awesome.

If you are in doubt, go check out Chris Guillebeau, Charlie Gilkey and Johnny B Truant. Each one of them awesome in their own corner of the internet and each one well worth learning from.

The Plan

1. Decide to do something
2. Think it through enough
3. Make it happen
4. Do it consistently
5. Make sure others know you’re doing it, and that you help them

After a ridiculously fast response from Chris Brogan, I’ve updated my list to reflect his suggestions which are extremely important to not overlook. Thanks, Chris!

It took me a few days to figure out what was going on, but after I learned what he was doing, it was pretty amazing to sit back and watch the students unravel and fight back on the offensive against their ideals. Near the end of the semester he made a presentation to hammer home his main point of the entire class. He had an acronym:

• CULTURE
• RELIGION
• ADVERTISING
• MEDIA
• PARENTS
• EDUCATION
• RELATIONSHIPS

Each of these CRAMPERS influence our perception of people, business and the world in general. You can’t deny the impact that each of these has on your life.

My professor attempted to instill critical thinking in my class by doing everything he could to rattle our cages, to make us question the status quo and fortify our positions. It was brilliant.

My challenge to you is to Decramp.

That doesn’t mean you need to abandon all those things that you know and love, but you should question everything so that you can excel at anything you do. Understand your position inside and out so that you can make intelligent arguments and persuasive explanations.

Here’s the deal: Discipline is what separates most average work, average success and, really, average everything from greatness.

There is a lot to be said for knowing when you are most productive. Charlie Gilkey has a great resource on Heatmapping Your Productivity, but at the same time, you can only be productive if you choose to do something each and every day. That choice eventually becomes a habit, but every day before that takes discipline.

I struggle with discipline. It is so much easier to just let things happen. I have all kinds of excuses, all kinds of reasons why I don’t need to do anything to advance myself today. But I know that if I sit back and do nothing, I’ll lay my head down on my pillow and beat myself up over all the things I should have done. Discipline is really a mind-game. It takes a lot of will power to overcome the lizard brain, so, if you find yourself going to bed and constantly thinking about how you should have done this or that, here are a couple of practical ways to help your mind with discipline:

1. Write your goals down + keep them somewhere you see them consistently! I find notecards are great for this. In fact, the picture for this post is on my corkboard right now to remind myself to do something every day. Something concrete. That something is this blog post.
2. Set reminders. You need to keep a calendar, either online or in a notebook or something, but set reminders. If you are bad about remembering to look at your calendar, set a reminder that will email or text you. 37Signals have created some awesome products that do just that. I use Backpack {affiliate link} to keep track of a lot of different stuff, but the reminders feature is really cool. I can literally “set it and forget it”.
3. Get an accountability partner. This one sounds cheesy, but it is probably the most effective. As humans, we don’t like to let ourselves down, but we certainly don’t like to let other people down. Find someone who you can work with to keep you accountable. A teacher, a mentor even a colleague work great. The best part about it is, you learn a ton from the other person and you have the natural tendency to ratchet each other up.

How do you do it? What other tips and tricks do you find useful in staying disciplined.

My goal is to make something happen every day when it comes to all of my other ventures and ideas, and I am happy to say that very soon, I will have some new information to present and a couple of new ideas to share with you.

Two types of people.

If you haven’t figured it out already, most people fall into one of two categories when it comes to business. One is the type that has all of the book smarts in the world and can crunch numbers on ROI faster than you can ask for the definition of the term. The other end of the spectrum are those people that have it. The knack. Everything seems to fall into their lap. They can walk into a room of strangers and know everyone by the end of the hour. Ultimately, both of these types of people can be successful, but they will never reach their full potential without striking a proper balance. That balance is the Art of Business.

How do I strike a balance?

I’m glad you asked. It’s not as hard as you might think, but I won’t lie, it does take hard work. If you came here looking for a quick and easy way to make money, forget it. I’m all about making your business work. The Art of Business is a process in creating new habits, stretching yourself to perform in ways you didn’t think you could and continually learning new things. It’s taking charge of every variable and tilting the playing field in your direction.

Subscribe to my RSS Feed or get updates via Email. It’s gonna be awesome.

Wrong. But, you’re a lot closer than you think.

Growth on the internet comes by being easily found. Real Estate agents preach: Location, Location, Location. Take that principle and apply it to Google. Location, Location, Location. 1st page? 2nd page? 3rd page?!

Search Engine Optimization is key in getting found online. SEO is a major component of taking your business online, and arguably the most important key to being found. A lot of business owners think that a SEO consultant is a must, and consultant means big money. No doubt, SEO consultants are beneficial, but as entrepreneurs and small business owners, we need something instantly available and at a lower cost than a consultant to get us started. Enter Scribe SEO.

Scribe takes the guesswork out of blogging. As an entrepreneur and small business owner, SEO is really the last thing you want to be thinking about.

Here’s how it works:

1. Go to Scribe SEO and sign up. You can even take a free test drive.
2. Install the plugin.
3. Write a new blog post, click on “Analyze” and away it goes.
4. Review the results and tweak.

I’ve been using it and have been very impressed with its speed and how much better it has made my writing in general. If you have a website, you need to check it out. Scribe SEO will benefit every aspect of your content.

Disclaimer: The links in this post are affiliate links. I get paid if you sign up. I would love it if you would, but you certainly don’t have to.