Where do your ideas come from?
UCSF researcher might have the key
If you’re in the creative end of the gene pool, you get this question a lot. And for years, I had a stock response: nobody knows. And anybody who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke up your …
Then, I heard about the work of Charles Limb, MD, an ear, nose and throat surgeon and researcher at UC San Francisco. He’s definitely on to something. And he may have opened the door, just a crack.
I’ll spare you the gritty details – you can listen here. Dr. Limb is also a musician. And he wondered what was going on in the brain during the flow state musicians often experience during improv. So he and his colleagues started putting creative people inside an FMRI machine – functional MRI – to look at what the brain is up to during a jam session.
He started with jazz musicians. He’s since scanned comedians and folks who can rap, spontaneously. And he’s noticed something interesting. The common thread – when you catch the brain in the very act of creating, say spinning a new rap about colors or numbers, you see big parts of the brain shutting down.
Shutting down? Seems counterintuitive. We think of creativity as dynamic and energetic. Like crystals growing suddenly in a petri dish or bubbles rising to the top of the beer glass. And it is, for sure.
But for that effervescence to get underway, other parts of the brain have to shut down. The way Dr. Limb describes it, the brains of creative people are somehow wired to “get out of their own way” and let the process happen. It’s almost as though creativity is so resource hungry that it needs an exclusive energy source. Kind of like your vascular system shifting blood supply to your legs when you’re running or to your gut when you’re eating.
This could be big.
I started thinking about it. To be fair, when folks ask that FAQ – where do your ideas come from? – I could give a more detailed, considered response. I never have, since I just assumed nobody gives a crap. But, since you’ve read this far, here it is: it’s weird. I just sort of think about the thing for a while, whatever the thing is. Then, I stop thinking about it.
Boom. Then, I stop thinking about it. That’s always been the key for me. Which is why Dr. Limb’s work resonated so resoundingly.
It reminded me of this, the worst thing you can hear from an ad agency account person. At 3 p.m.: We need X concepts by tomorrow at 7 a.m.
It’s not just that you’re not going home, not going to bed and missing your favorite TV show. Those are inconveniences you can drown with coffee and beer. The problem is that you won’t have enough time to not think about it.
Because that’s where the magic happens.
Sometimes this situation is unavoidable. But good agency managers know to give their creative people time because ideas need hours to perk successfully. It’s like rushing pot roast or homemade bread. You’ll get something edible at the end of the day, but it sure as hell won’t win any awards.
So, for the love of Mike, give yourself time to stop thinking about it. if you’re working on a big problem, a concept, an idea or even just a simple headline – as little as 24 hours can make the difference between good and great.
Does that give you an excuse to spend of the day asleep in your hammock? Well, yeah. But then, you won’t get anything else done. So, realistically, it’s best to leave the job alone for a while and switch to others. It takes discipline, especially when the job that needs down time is the hottest one on the hot sheet.
A little bit of chicken and egg here. If Dr. Limb is right and his observations prove universal, you might well ask, where does the idea come from, once your brain shuts down?
I have no idea. Anybody who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke up your …
=S
Write Your Comment