Einstein, or Lewis and Clark to blaze a trail. You might be an assistant manager negotiating a better idea through a maze of corporate bureaucracy, a soccer coach working to motivate 10-year-olds who have yet to win their first game, or a smitten young man trying to string together just the right words to ask the woman of his dreams to become his wife.
Entrepreneurs are the modern equivalent of the great adventurers of history. Entrepreneurs pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to create new products and services that make life better for some people in some meaningful way. They listen to the little voice inside them that says, “I can make a better product and find a better way to deliver that service in a smarter way,” then they set forth to do it.
Personality Traits that Drive Creativity—Here’s the Hard Data
As part of an ongoing Eureka! Ranch investigation into the invention process, we engage in lots of research. In one such effort, we pooled random groups of people and asked them to come up with new ideas for eyeglasses using a variety of Eureka! Stimulus methods.
Each group was given 45 minutes to complete the task. Afterwards they answered 100 questions designed to form profiles of their values, personalities, and attitudes. We then compared the quality and quantity of each person’s creative output with his or her personal profile.
The overwhelming conclusion: The power of creativity is tied most directly to an adventurous mindset. The strongest correlation between quantity and quality of ideas turned out to be a person’s sense of adventurousness. Those tested who thought of themselves as having a spirit of adventure averaged 72 percent more wicked good ideas in 45 minutes than those who saw themselves as more cautious.
In other words, to leverage all the assets available to you in the process of jumpstarting your brain, you have to embrace adventure. And a tentative squeeze won’t do it. I suggest a big-time bear hug.
An analysis of the profiles of those who saw themselves as being more adventurous found that they are much more likely to:
1. EXHIBIT HIGH LEVELS OF DISCONTENT WITH STATUS QUO
Adventurers ask themselves, “Is this all there is?” They see accomplishments as stepping stones, not resting places.
Their open-mindedness is tinged with pessimism, tempered with an edge of cynicism. Their discontent spurs innovation—and it is the individual, not the masses, who are responsible for innovation. Henry Ford gave us the mass-produced automobile. But it took Charles Kettering to invent the self-starter, thus making it possible for us to turn over our engines with an ignition key instead of a hand crank.
2. ACT SPONTANEOUSLY
Adventurers are willing and eager for new experiences, if for no other reason than the exhilaration of it. They have a lot in common with the fool, whoever it was, who first climbed to the top of some craggy precipice, strapped bungee cords to his or her ankles, yelled “Geronimo!” and let it rip.
Those who have bungee-ed invariably tell me it was a huge rush. Still, the feeling that seized the heart of that first jumper when he or she went sailing into space that first time must have been monumental; everyone who jumped after that point was just following.
3. CALCULATE THE RISKS
Adventurers weigh the odds, contemplate obstacles and plan for contingencies. Adventurers are not daredevils.
Christopher Columbus had good reason to believe the planet was not flat when he set sail for the New World; he’d noticed that the masts of departing ships appeared to shorten as they approached the horizon, a phenomenon he took to mean that there was a curvature in the earth’s plane.
4. HAVE LIBERAL ATTITUDES
I’m talking the literal definition, not the political one. Creative people embrace and encourage new views, fresh perspectives, and differences of all kinds.
The data indicates adventurers are significantly more forgiving, more adaptable, and more open to fresh ideas. They’re comfortable in many different settings and able to function equally well under wildly extreme circumstances. Given the opportunity, a proper adventurer can get along with an aborigine on a desert island as easily as with a head of state at a rodeo.
Likewise, adventurers don’t require perfection. They’re absorbed with the process, as in what’s happening at the moment. The sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski spent three and a half decades blasting away, ton by ton, on a granite mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota, slowly shaping it into a colossal statue of the great Sioux chief Crazy Horse astride a mustang, his arm outstretched toward the horizon.
For sheer magnitude, Ziolkowski’s project remains the most ambitious undertaking in the history of art. It’s 641 feet long and 563 feet high. All four of the 60-foot high presidential heads of nearby Mt. Rushmore would fit easily under Crazy Horse’s headdress.
At the time of Ziolkowski’s death at the age of 74 in 1982, it was estimated the project would require another five to ten years of blasting before any actual carving could begin. As of this writing, the face of Crazy Horse has been finished and work now moves to the horse’s head. For more details, visit http://www.crazyhorse.org.
Ziolkowski had a vision. He was not focused on the thought that, someday, he would actually behold the finished sculpture. He realized early in the project that he probably wouldn’t live to see it completed. What drove him was the process, the knowledge that with each detonation, each ton of rubble, he was inching toward his destination.
5. POSSESS HIGH LEVELS OF SELF-ESTEEM
Adventurers are predisposed to saying “I can.” Or to put it another way, “What, me worry?” They can’t help it. Repeated failures fail to daunt true adventurers. They see setbacks as lessons and each lesson as another step forward.
Adventurers respect others’ accomplishments, but aren’t intimidated by them. They tend to think that, if they applied themselves with sufficient dedication, they could do the same thing. In fact, the accomplishments of others often inspire them to reach further. Paul McCartney was so impressed upon hearing Brian Wilson’s landmark Pet Sounds album that he sat down and wrote most of the songs for the iconic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
Even in the most regimented system, you can be a swashbuckler. I dedicated a decade of my life to Procter & Gamble, one of the most blue-blooded, buttoned-down corporations in the world. But I wore my colors proudly. I forsook ties and suits and declared a personal embargo on all nonproductive meetings and paperwork. My office was festooned with a six-foot Bugs Bunny, a humongous Kermit the Frog, two eight-foot cardboard palm trees, and several surfboards. I filled the air with Jimmy Buffett tunes, thought big thoughts, and made them real.
I hear you. You’re saying, “Hey, that’s fine for you. You’re different.”
So are you. You’re different too. That’s the point. Be yourself. Whoever you are.
As we grow up, we become progressively more cautious. We learn not to touch hot stoves and stick our tongues on monkey bars in winter, but we soon begin confusing hot stoves and frozen metal with potential adventures. We fall into deep, cavernous ruts.
We encourage children to reach out to new experiences. We arrange dance lessons, swimming classes, and soccer leagues for them. But we don’t do as we preach. We’re too quick to slap our own hands. As adults, we live predictable, restrictive lives.
ENOUGH!
