Huckster: Nine Ways To Keep Creativity Flowing

Advertising is all about creativity, no matter which department you’re in (unless you’re the office barista). So how do you cultivate creativity? With a garden trowel? A gun? With $32.50 in unmarked bills delivered to a shadowy man in a back alley? Is it even possible to cultivate creativity? I can tell you that it is definitely not possible with the aforementioned methods. Which is why I came up with these nine methods or, as I like to call them, “practices.”

1. Relax: Try doing something that makes you happy. If nothing makes you happy, try doing something that makes someone else happy, and then immediately do something to take that happiness away. That way, you can share your misery with that person. After all, where does he get off being so happy?

2. Remember the Alamo: the Alamo served as home to missionaries and their Indian converts for nearly seventy years. What does that have to do with cultivating your creativity? More like what doesn’t it have to do with it.

3. You can skip this one.

4. Be grateful: Positive energy is hard to come by these days, but one way to harness it is by being grateful for what you have. If you don’t have anything, try being grateful for what you don’t have, like gonorrhea. If you’re reading this and have gonorrhea, then I just won a bet with my buddy Patrick, so thank you. I’m very grateful.

5. Tickle your imagination: Perhaps you’re thinking that this is a metaphor, but you’re be wrong. Your imagination is actually not located in your brain, but behind your bottom right molar. Stick your finger back there, gently rub the gum in that area, and get ready for an imagination explosion. Go ahead and try it right now. Put your finger back there. To vary things up, you can also do it with your eyes closed, or maybe have a friend or your wife’s sister do it for you. The possibilities are endless.

6. Repeat Practice #3 above. You didn’t skip that one, did you?

7. Keep all doors open: Be open to any and all ideas that come your way, even if they seem ridiculous. One time, I was working on this TV job and the idea of a flying squirrel came to mind. Did I dismiss it? No. I wrote a TV spot about a flying squirrel. The spot ended up not getting produced and I lost my job. Also, my kid got the stomach flu, which made the house smell awfully bad, which is why you should keep all doors open. To let the stink out, you see.

8. Make notes: Have a few pieces of scrap paper around. Start jotting down anything and everything. It can be stream of consciousness, too. Stream of consciousness is an easy and fun way to break into your subconscious. Chest, razor, wax(?), Jersey Shore. See: easy.

9. Stay calm: I know this is easier said than done. When the creativity just isn’t flowing, it’s easy to want to do something irrational, like giving your dog only one cup of food instead of his normal 2-cup serving, or setting your house on fire, or pinching the palm of your hand so the physical pain replaces the mental anguish. But stay calm. The creativity will come. Or it won’t. There’s no telling really. I guess if nothing hits you after a while, you can try the garden trowel thing. I don’t know.