You don't need to be creative to come up with creative ideas. You just need this one trick.
Most people think creativity is about having some magical talent. But the truth is great ideas come from one simple process, combining old ideas in new ways. Let me prove it.
Steve Jobs didn't invent the touchscreen, the phone, or the internet. He just combined them into the iPhone. Shakespeare, he borrowed plots from old stories and made them better.
Even Einstein built on existing physics theories
to come up with relativity. So how do you do this? Here's the trick, idea stacking. And here's how it works.
Step one: Absorb relentlessly
Read, watch, listen. Fill your brain with diverse knowledge.
The more raw material you have, the easier it is to connect dots. But before you start absorbing with diverse ideas, you need to start creating, even if it's something basic, because there is literally no point if you don't create and just absorb mindlessly.
Step two: Write down interesting ideas.
It doesn't matter if they seem unrelated. The marketing concept is science fact, a personal insight. Log everything.
Step three: Find unexpected connections.
Ask, how can I mix these? What happens if I apply this idea to that problem? And that's where innovation happens. For example, James Dyson took the concept of a vacuum cleaner and combined it with the mechanics of industrial cyclones to create the first bagless vacuum.
See the pattern?
Creativity isn't about originality. It's about recombination. But what is the best part? You don't need to wait for inspiration. Just keep stacking ideas and look for overlaps. You can even try right now. Let's say, for example, you want to record a podcast. Okay, where do most podcasts get recorded in a room, right?
I've never seen someone doing a podcast outside in a forest or in ruins. Well, there might be someone that I don't know of, but my point is you don't require talent. You just need a system that works. That's all there is to it. No special talent, just a method that delivers results.