Inspiration, tips, and advice for the home-based entrepreneur and those aspiring to be one – all served up with humor and cartoons.
Where do you get your ideas?
I get asked this a lot, and you probably do to.
The answer is actually quite simple. Ideas are everywhere. Sometimes they seem to appear out of thin air, other times you have to forage for them.
So the question shouldn’t be where do you get your ideas. The question should be how do you lure them in and trap them.
“Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it.” ~ T.S. Eliot
Before you can move forward, you have to accept where you are.
This seems like common sense, but is often missed.
Accepting where you are so you can begin the next leg of your journey doesn’t mean you accept your fate.
Keep reading “Acceptance Is Not the Same as Accepting Your Fate” »
The instructions are simple, basic, and have been around for millennia.
Every so often they are repackaged for a new generation. One of the best in modern times is The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason.
More recently they have been wrapped up in the latest pop-spiritual and New Age trends.
But regardless of how they are presented, they work — because they are simple, basic principles. No secret laws or other nonsense. They’re almost common sense, really.
You see, the hard part isn’t growing a money tree. The hard part is getting it to bear fruit.
I loved doing mazes as a kid.
When it comes to solving mazes, there are several strategies. Two of the most common are working backwards and the turning point.
The interesting thing is they work just as well as a success strategies for life, as they do for solving mazes.
Keep reading “Finding Your Way Through the Maze to Success” »
Ralph listened patiently as the guy asked his question.
When he was finished, Ralph gave him an excellent answer (“wow, I never thought of that…”.)
When the guy asked Ralph a follow-up, Ralph politely handed the gentleman his card. Then Ralph asked the guy to give him a call on Monday — after the weekend trade show we were attending — about scheduling a meeting. They could discuss contract details then.
The guy took the card and left. Ralph never heard from him.
This is part four of the Creative Adaptation series.
“There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.” ~ Audre Lorde
“It doesn’t matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.” ~ Elias Canetti
Those are my favorite quotes about ideas.
I’ve used them frequently with creative clients, especially those who struggled to have an “original” idea. Anything that was even remotely related to something that already existed, they deemed cheating.
Keep reading “Use Awareness and Experience to Fuel Your Creativity” »
This is part three of the Creative Adaptation series.
Could you remake an entire movie only using bunnies and keep it to 30 seconds?
What about painting a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s self-portrait on a grain of rice?
Would the constraints of developing for the iPhone be refreshing to you?
The quote about necessity being the mother of invention is an overused cliche because it’s true.
This is part two of the Creative Adaptation series.
Humans create. It’s part of our makeup. It’s what we do.
You could even say that everything in our purpose for being comes down to 2 desires — to experience and to create.
Keep reading “Saying You’re Not Creative Is Like Saying You’re Not Human” »
Imagine you just acquired a dilapidated old house on 5 acres of prime property.
Let’s say that it was an inheritance from an unknown rich relative.
She heard what a wonderful person you are through the family grapevine, and wanted to leave you something.
I learned a lesson from Survivorman that he probably never intended to teach.
Not to be confused with that other guy, Les Stroud is dropped off alone, in the middle of nowhere, and has to survive on his own for 7 days. Plus he’s funny. He even carries his own camera equipment.
