A question that is often asked is “where do you find inspiration?”. Where do you find the ideas that go into blogs and blogs and social media posts and ideas for courses and ideas of things that we teach, and we use as keynote themes.
Be observant
To answer that. I need to look at my own creative process. I tend to be relatively observant although I’m often accused by my wife that I don’t notice things a lot. But I am relatively observant of things around me and little things that happen will always spark an interest for me, will always spark an idea. It could be as simple as when I was at the gym the other day. I was in this gym class, and there was a girl a young girl in the in the row next to me, and she walked in five minutes late was busy on a mobile messaging from glancing over it looked like it was WhatsApp. Then in between every exercise I saw her grab her phone and continue to message people, so much so that she would miss the first minute of each exercise.
That inspired me that inspired me to write a blog because I realized how a certain generation are deeply connected to technology. This girl was deeply connected to technology, to the point where she could not decompress. We were talking about an 8.40am class. The day had not started, but she couldn’t take out the decompression time, the time to be mindful and the time to actually spend on herself.
Hollywood moments
And so that inspired me. And so that is what inspiration is about. It’s not about what a friend of mine calls the Hollywood Moments, those big explosions that you see in front of you and you go, I must change my life – I must do something. No, it’s not.
Inspiration is far more subtle. Inspiration comes in far more subtle ways inspiration comes from the little things. If we look around at the person on the public transport across the way from us, the person at the office, the person ordering the coffee and sitting there at the coffee shop or the person in the gym class. Every one of those provides inspiration.
When we used to fly
The same thing that happens when I am flying on planes or at least used to in the days when pre COVID when we used to fly on planes. I would be watching a story or series on the entertainment system. I wasn’t focused, as I was probably on my laptop doing other work. This would just be background noise and noise cancelling headphones on to stop distractions. I would stop the show, rewind a little bit, listen to the line, open up a Word document type out the line as best as I could transcribe it. And that would become the theme of a blog, of a video of an inspiration.
The truth and the reality of inspiration is that it comes from the simple things around us. It comes from being aware of our circumstances. It comes from being aware of what is going on around us and focusing on those things.
It does not need to come from the Hollywood moments. Those are great, but what happens after the Hollywood moment. If we spend our life looking for those Hollywood moments for those big pieces of inspiration. We will never be inspired.
Its a small world
We need to be inspired by the small things by the small actions by the observations. By seeing the sunrise by seeing the sunset by seeing two birds frolicking in the tree or talking to each other.
Those are the things that give us inspiration.
#WeeklyPrompt #inspiration #leadership #professionalspeaking