After watching Austin Kleon’s TED Talk, “Steal like an Artist” and then reading Melyssa Griffon’s lessons learned, I was interested to see that I had found many of the same parts of Kleon’s talk to be the most significant. I always hear people, especially journalists and writers, talk about the importance of carrying a notebook and pen with you everywhere you go. However, for some reason the way Kleon explained it really resonated with me. Like Griffon, I often find myself coming up with ideas in the shower or walking to my car and forget them by the time I have a chance to write them down. I agree that when your mind slows down and you’re no longer thinking and worrying about all the stressors of daily life the best and most organic ideas can come to you.
I also found the idea of “building your tree” to be very interesting, as Griffon described “one at a time.” I am someone who is always doing and thinking about too many things at once. As much as I love to try and multitask it can oftentimes be ineffective. Like Griffon I have a desire to try and know everything. My biggest take away from this was that trying to know everything about everything isn’t possible. Instead of knowing a little about a lot of things it can be better to know a lot about less things.
I also loved the article “How to Come up with Hundreds of Business Ideas”. I am a very particular person and often find myself frustrated with the products I use on a daily basis. Despite being an overall positive person I can usually find a problem in anything. After reading the section “Business ideas that solve problems” I realized that I need to see every one of the problems I notice as an opportunity to create a business rather than just an inconvenience.
While I am able to identify lots of problems that are already in existence, after reading this article, I realized that another way to come up with a business idea is to think of problems that will exist, but don’t yet. As technology is rapidly advancing there is no doubt that there will be problems that will require solutions that can act as business ventures.
