Ramon Estrada breaks down a five-step process for generating ideas: gather raw materials from books and articles, digest them repeatedly, focus intensely on a problem then rest, wait for the breakthrough moment, and refine it with feedback. The World Economic Forum predicts creativity will be a top three skill for future leaders.
Hi, my name is Ramon Estrada, and I help leaders to grow their organizations through creative and innovative approaches. And today I'm going to talk about how to spark creativity and come up with new ideas. The Future of Jobs report by the World Economic Forum predicts that by 2020, creativity will be one of the 3 most important skills. This is due to the new avalanche of products, technology, and new ways of working. Also, in 5 years, 35% of the jobs considered important today will have changed. So this is why it's important to develop your creativity and to generate the impact that you want in your life. So, can anyone in this world be creative? Is it something that you're born with or something that needs to be developed? Do we have it within us and it's just a matter of triggering it? The answer is yes. Anyone can be creative, but there is a catch. There's no proven methodology because actually a methodology could feel like the Groundhog Day, with monotony and routines, and these two are enemies of creativity. So what is the key? To be truly creative, we need to cross the threshold. This threshold shows us an area that is unknown to us. And what is holding us back? The fear of change, the fear of doing something new. But how do we cross the threshold? We have to do it creatively. Today I'm going to show you 5 steps for generating fresh ideas. They are based on James Webb Jones' technique, and I think it will help you greatly. So let's get down to it! Step number 1: gathering raw materials. What does it mean? It means basically collecting information from all your interests, from books, magazines, articles, blog posts, social media, videos, anything that you are interested in. How do you do that? What works for me is to have a notebook where I am writing down all my ideas as they appear. But also, James Webb Young, what he suggests is generating a scrapbook by collecting all materials, cutting them, and pasting them, having them in one place. Or as well, generating index cards where you put some information about the source, the main ideas, and then you can look for it later. Step number 2: digesting the materials. What this means is allowing your unconscious to start working for you. First, you collected the information rationally, what you wanted to have, but now you need to be reviewing this information constantly, maybe daily, maybe every week, or even every month, to know what you have and to start processing it in your unconscious. By allowing you to do this bit by bit, you will start generating a sort of an index within your mind. Step number 3, to internalize the materials. After gathering a lot of information about your interest, after studying it, having it digested, then you start to research specifically on the problem or the idea that you want to generate. And you gather even more materials, you're studying. Now you need to be fully conscious, your rationale is in this problem, in this situation that you want to achieve. And after studying it for maybe 1 day, or 2 days, or even 3, you let it rest. You take a walk, you sleep properly, you work out, and you let your unconscious to start working for you. And what will happen is that eventually we will get to step number 4. Step number 4, the eureka moment. After digesting all this information and letting it rest, I swear, something will pop up. Who knows, maybe it's not the idea that you thought originally that you were going to have, but it does not matter what you think about it in this moment. Allow it to rest, but first write down what popped up. It's going to be critical, and after a while some more ideas can happen, and actually it would be great if you start connecting them. If you allow them to rest, and maybe continuing to review the materials that previously you studied for that. Step 5: Bringing ideas to life. You will have ideas, for sure, but now maybe they are not as great as you thought they were going to be. Here is the stage to bring these ideas into the real life and to value them and actually to criticize them in a constructive way. Build on top of the original ideas that you have, connect them again, talk to people, but only to people that will provide you with some guidance that will allow you to build up on your original idea. In conclusion, generating fresh ideas will not happen in one day or two because you will need time to apply these 5 steps, but eventually your conscious mind and your unconscious mind Will join and will provide you with fresh new ideas to impact in your world. I hope that you like this video. Actually, I had such a great time that I will be generating more videos every week on leadership, creativity, innovation, and all the things that we need to stop holding us back, such as stress management, developing resilience. So I hope that you subscribe to my channel and see you next week.
