Want to Be More Creative? Get Bored

By Martin Lindstrom | FAST Company

Quick: Survey your friends, your family, and colleagues and ask them when it is that they get their best and brightest ideas. How do they come to solve insurmountable challenges? And when despairing over the unsolvable, how does their breakthrough moment occur?

Don’t be surprised if many of those you ask say something like: "I sleep on it. Then as soon as I get in the shower in the morning… voila!"

For what it’s worth, the shower doesn’t do it for me--I’m a pool man. When my head is cluttered and I can’t think straight, I don my goggles and go for a swim. After the first couple of laps, the confusion begins to lift, and the answers start emerging. What the shower and the pool have in common is they’re both places where you’re rarely disturbed, allowing solitary contemplation. The warm water sure doesn't hurt, either.

This is all related to a phenomenon that’s been identified by Edward de Bono, the legendary creative thinker. He calls it the "creative pause." In de Bono’s book Serious Creativity, he asserts that even when things are going along, well, swimmingly, "some of the best results come when people stop to think about things that no one else has stopped to think about."

Although most people are unaware of the name for it, creative pauses are happening wherever people are solving problems. They occur among harassed CEOs, design directors, and small-business entrepreneurs. The creative pause allows the space for your mind to drift, to imagine and to shift, opening it up to new ways of seeing.

There’s just one small problem: The creative pause might soon become a thing of the past. When was the last time you remember being bored? Or even having a moment free from distractions?

I know it sounds strange, but I welcome boredom. It forces me to ponder. But to make sure we’re on the same page, when I speak of boredom, I’m not referring to killing time on your smartphone, your iPad, or your laptop. I’m not even talking about paging through a book. I mean bored as in doing absolutely nothing.

Because here’s the rub--when we’re at our most bored we’re forced to push our creative boundaries, and unearth the root of whatever problem we're working on. A quick glance around and you’ll notice that it’s almost impossible to be bored in our 21st-century environment. Every bar now has at least one television blaring. And just as night follows day, your eyes will be drawn to the moving pictures above, sapping whatever creative thoughts you could be having. Or take, for example, the last time you were alone at a restaurant waiting for a friend to join you. Chances are you reached for your phone and did something with it, anything to avoid appearing like the lonely loser in the corner.

If you’re still struggling to remember your last bored moment, consider the younger generation. When you were younger, perhaps you hung out on the street with other neighborhood kids. Or maybe you shot a few hoops or cycled down to the drugstore. There were no PlayStations, Xboxes, Wiis, or the latest game apps to play on or offline. Have you noticed how quiet suburban streets are these days?

Back in the 1990s, when Lego asked me to explore the consequences of digital play versus physical play, I discovered how many kids were preoccupied with the tactile aspects of play--how kids were already preoccupied with Tamagotchis, those handheld digital pets that need regular feeding, walking, and sleep. Tamagotchis hit the toy world like an out-of-control virus, making a huge dent in Lego’s Christmas figures. It seemed the more kids played with a screen, the greater their chances of losing their creative skills. Digitized pocket toys have a set sequence of steps to follow, and as soon as kids get the gist of the game, they fall into a passive-interactive mode.

This new development in the toy market was potentially disastrous for Lego, who, in principle, requires a user to bring their imagination to the connecting plastic bricks in order build the object of their fancy. However, as I was busily conducting experiments with interactive play, I accidentally stumbled upon a small realization. It began as an ordinary day. The children were involved in interactive play on a computer screen, and I was handing them the Lego bricks, asking them to create something. But then something extraordinary happened. The entire network broke down, and it took a long 20 minutes for the IT engineers to restore the system. Then it was back to business as usual. Except this time, when I handed over the bricks, the activity level increased. I began seeing Lego castles, trains, bridges, roller coasters, and monsters being built. Those 20 minutes of boredom gave rise to a remarkably productive output, and taught me the value of being bored.

Boredom, however, is becoming an endangered activity. Once lost, it’s not likely to return, because being entertained 24/7 is what kids have come to expect. In fact, by the time I began researching the power of word of mouth for my book Brandwashed, a frenzy of digital toys, apps, games, and screens had become endemic.

These days, I schedule a regular dose of boredom into my day. Furthermore, I don’t check messages if I’m waiting for a friend. I choose, instead, to watch people in bars, cafes, and restaurants. I don’t play games on my phone or my computer. I carry an old Nokia that no one would dream of stealing. More often than not, I hit the pool at the end of the day. As I power up and down the lanes, I rethink what I’ve learned. I now have the time and space to solve whatever problems have arisen. It’s an important meeting with myself, and I keep it religiously. Because the day I lose it, I’ve lost myself.

gotquestions  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/want-to-be-more-creative--get-bored.html;_ylt=AnExTy8o.2ghPD1H947xxfAX34dG;

5 People Who Turned $1,000 Into $1 Million

By James Clear | U.S.News & World Report LP 

Most millionaires are self-made millionaires, but becoming one is something that still seems out of reach for most people.

In many cases, we dismiss the idea of building a million-dollar business because, well, you need a lot of money for that, right? You've got to spend money to make money, don't you?

As it turns out, you don't really have to spend that much.

I spent the last few weeks interviewing dozens of millionaire entrepreneurs. Many of these individuals started businesses with less than $1,000 and are now earning more than $1 million per year in revenue. All of them bootstrapped their own business with no outside cash and a minimal capital investment from their own bank account. Here is a brief primer on bootstrapping a business.

So how does one start with very little money and turn that into $1 million per year? Here are five stories of regular people building million-dollar businesses.

PostcardMania. Joy Gendusa was a freelancer who wanted to buy some postcards to advertise her business. She was shocked by the unnecessary fees she had to pay just to get some postcards made, so she decided to start her own postcard business with a friendly price structure for customers. PostcardMania was born.

Gendusa started the company with no capital investment and used the money from the first customer to pay the printer for her first postcards. In the early days, the payment schedule was tight. She had to get money from the customers and use that cash to pay her printer, but she kept bringing in new business and eventually built up a little bit of cash.

As PostcardMania continued to grow, Gendusa noticed customers asking for other services. They would say things like, "Who built your website?" or "Can you do email marketing too?" So PostcardMania started branching into those areas as well. Today, the company offers all sorts of advertising and marketing for its clients and makes close to $20 million per year.

The success of PostcardMania is a direct result of the sales and marketing techniques Gendusa used to get her company off the ground. Here are more tips and tricks for effective sales and marketing.

Blue Buddha Boutique. Rebeca Mojica went to a Renaissance Festival and noticed a unique metal belt made from chainmaille rings. After searching for something similar, she couldn't find the belts anywhere and decided to try and make her own.

Mojica spent $20 on that first set of rings and sold a few belts to a friends and family. However, it wasn't until she started teaching other people how to make the belts that she really saw the potential for a business.

Mojica began teaching chainmaille classes and decided to sell the rings and pliers needed to make the belts to her students. She made $300 the first time she sold the supplies. Soon after, Blue Buddha Boutique was born and it rapidly became one of the top sellers of chainmaille jewelry supplies. Blue Buddha Boutique now has 13 employees and is set to break the million dollar mark in 2012.

FIELD Beef Jerky. Matt Levey, Tom Donigan, and Scott Fiesinger were three friends who went on a ski trip together and couldn't stop talking about the homemade beef jerky they picked up in the mountains.

For a few years they would playfully say, "We should make our own beef jerky and sell it!" Eventually the trio decided to talk with grocery-store managers and owners about their idea.

The founders asked the grocery stores if they liked the idea of a natural, organic beef jerky made from quality meat. The response was unanimous: Every store owner wanted something that fit the description, but they couldn't find it anywhere.

After spending a little money playing with different recipes and figuring out how to package and ship the jerky to grocery stores, the three friends formed a new company called FIELD Beef Jerky.

In the early days, the owners took orders themselves and delivered them to grocery stores in New York City on their bicycles. After a few months of hustling around the city, their product was picked up by a distributor and has since exploded in popularity. FIELD Beef Jerky is now available in more than 600 locations nationwide and is starting to gain traction in major chains like Wegmans. The company is on pace to break $1 million in 2012.

M&E Painting. Matt Shoup worked as a painter during the summers in college. When he was let go from his job his financial services job a few years later, he decided to start a painting business.

Starting with just $100, Shoup woke up the next day and went door to door in his neighborhood, knocking on houses that looked like they could use a paint job. He enlisted a few friends for help and M&E Painting made more than $500,000 in that first year. Seven years later, the company has more than 4,000 customers and makes between $1.5 and $2.5 million every year.

Stories like this one beg the question: Should you quit your job to follow your dreams?

AddressTwo. Nick Carter used to run a marketing consulting agency. When a client came to him and asked if they could figure out a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for his company, Carter decided to build their own software solution. Carter used the money from that first client to finance the creation of AddressTwo and soon after, selling the software became his primary business.

Using a growth method that Carter calls "customer capital," he added features to the software when new clients were willing to pay for an addition. Slowly, the software improved and gained more customers. Today, Carter has built a successful CRM software that serves more than 500 businesses every month without any outside funding or large investment.

How can you get started? One of the common themes I noticed in my interviews with successful entrepreneurs was that they have the ability to decide. Simply put, most people want to work for themselves, but few people decide to take that first step.

If you're looking for ways to make that first step easier, you can ease into working for yourself by freelancing. For example, here are 7 ways to earn an extra $1,000 this month.

Building a million-dollar business from scratch isn't easy, but it is possible.

James Clear is the founder of PassivePanda.com, a website that teaches you the skills you need to know to work for yourself. Join Passive Panda's free newsletter for fresh ideas on earning more money.

Mastering the New Freelance Economy

More and more workers are opting to work for themselves, even if it’s just on the side

By KIMBERLY PALMER

Tara Gentile was working in what she calls a "dead-end retail job" at Borders, earning $28,000 a year as a store manager, when she decided she'd be better off launching her own business as an entrepreneur coach. Aside from more money, she also wanted the freedom to spend more time at home with her daughter, who was then six months old. Now, just over a year and a half later, Gentile, 28, works mostly from her home office in Reading, Pa., earns about $150,000 a year, and spends much of her time teaching other people how they can do the same.

[In Pictures: Celebrities with the Biggest Money Problems.]

Gentile is part of a new wave of people opting to work themselves, driven by both economic necessity as well as a desire to take more control of their income. "The declining economy forces people to think more creatively about how they earn money, and in general, people are questioning the idea of job security more than ever before," says Chris Guillebeau, author of The Art of Non-Conformity. Entrepreneurial activity is at a 15-year high, according to the nonprofit Kauffman Foundation, with growth strongest among 35- to 44-year-olds.

"It's 100 percent the economy," says Tory Johnson, a television journalist and small business owner, about what's driving the interest in entrepreneurial activities. Johnson decided she wanted to grow multiple streams of income after getting laid off early in her career. "I understand the security that comes from knowing you are not reliant on a single source of income, or beholden to one person who can pull the plug," she says. Shortly after her lay-off, Johnson launched Women for Hire, a career recruitment company, and most recently she started Spark and Hustle, a series of conferences for women building small businesses.

Here are nine strategies to help get your entrepreneurial idea off the ground:

Find your niche. "I normally coach people to think about what really turns you on. Maybe it's something in your day job, even if you hate it, maybe there's some element that you really love. Whatever those things are, those are the best things to build your business around because that is what will sustain you through the dips and failures that come with being an entrepreneur," says Gentile.

Guillebeau recommends thinking about what people always ask your advice about, then considering if you could turn that into a consulting business. Then, he says, set up a blog describing what you do, create a Paypal account to receive funds, and you're in business.

Know what motivates you (and it's usually not money). Johnson urges people to think beyond cash flow to get at what drives them. "For me, it was to protect and insulate my family from ever having to experience that sheer pain from a pink slip," she says. "For others, it might be to pay for medical treatment of a family member or someone's illness," she adds. Understanding motivation makes it easier to keep going during tough times, Johnson says.

[See How to Make a Career Back-Up Plan.]

Embrace the side hustle. Pamela Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation, uses the term "side hustle" to refer to earning money through entrepreneurial activities in addition to one's full-time job. Many people have significant financial obligations, she says, and simply can't quit their jobs to pursue a small-business dream. Launching a side hustle not only allows them to pursue an idea with minimal risk, but also gives them a back-up plan if their full-time job suddenly disappears.

"People's perception of the stability of corporate life is eroding, if not totally gone. People know it's not smart to solely rely on corporate employment," she says. And if they do hold onto their jobs, the side hustle provides an extra source of income. A recent survey by Elance, a website that connects freelancers with work, found that about 3 in 10 respondents hold down a full-time job while freelancing on the side.

Ramit Sethi, creator ofIWillTeachYouToBeRich.com, says after surveying more than 100,000 people, he discovered the main reason people want to earn more money is to have the option of eventually quitting their job. Side benefits include using the new skills to negotiate a higher salary and having more spending money, he adds. He launched a program, Earn1k.com, to help people earn $1,000 per month or more. The course starts at $997, but he says he gives full refunds if participants don't earn $1,000.

[See And on the Side, I'm an Entrepreneur.]

Protect your day job. Slim warns people against violating their employers' policies that prohibit outside activity like blogging or selling products that could be in competition with the company's products. In some cases, companies can claim ownership of any products employees create while employed full-time. "First, check for any non-compete agreements," she says.

Take advantage of free technology. Twitter, Wordpress, Facebook, and other forms of social media make it easy to build a brand and a business for little or no money. "It's very easy and an almost negligible cost for anybody to put up a basic website where you can sell a product or service," Slim says. In the past, she says, entrepreneurs were limited by their location; now, you can create in Iowa and sell in California, or even throughout the world.

Grow your loyal followers. Today, blogs on Internet marketing often focus on the importance of building one's brand and readership by forming strong relationships with readers and customers. But Gentile says big numbers aren't the only goal. Her website gets about 1,000 visitors a day, which is relatively low compared with some of the big-name blogs, but it's plenty considering how much revenue she brings in from those visitors.

Stop planning and take action. One common mistake for would-be freelancers is taking too long to start selling a service or product. "People have a hard time knowing how to put out a small test of something they can bring into the market and see if it works. Sometimes they're thinking of a huge detailed plan when really they just need to bring one thing out. You want to get it out into the market as soon as you can to test it," says Slim.

Sometimes, says Guillebeau, people fear getting started because they worry about being rejected by the marketplace. He met one aspiring photographer who delayed setting up his website to sell prints because he worried no one would like them. When he finally launched his site, he made a sale within two weeks, and that helped affirm he was on the right path.

[In Pictures: 10 Things You Should Always Buy in Bulk.]

Stay optimistic. "There's no such thing as overnight success, but if you start out with a lack of optimism, you're doomed," says Johnson. That's why believing a entrepreneurial project will be a success is so essential—you have to keep your energy up to get through the hurdles.

Enjoy the rewards of your labor. About a year ago, Ralph Callaway, 27, decided to leave his IT services job in San Francisco, which involved helping companies customize databases and sales data, after realizing freelancing would allow him to also pursue his travel goals and have more control over his schedule. He has since figured out how to juggle multiple clients, work without the comfort of water-cooler talk, and find new clients on his own. In exchange for overcoming those challenges, he gets to decide how much—or how little—he works each week, and he now earns more than he did as a full-time employee. Says Callaway: "I love what I do and I get to do it in a different way every day."

http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2011/08/17/mastering-the-new-freelance-economy

5 Tips for Turning Passion into Profit

By Nellie Akalp for GalTime.com

You can do it! Turn your passion into a PROFIT.Is your New Year's resolution to start a business? Is your dream to be your own boss? Do you have a passion you'd love to turn into profit?

If so, do you know your next step? After all, a resolution isn't much without implementation. And deciding to start a business is one of the biggest resolutions out there.

After working with countless entrepreneurs over the years, there are some essential lessons I've learned from some of the most successful small business leaders out there. Here are 5 tips for turning passion into profit:

1. It's not just about you 

You've heard the saying, "Do what you love and the money will follow." That's not exactly the case. Yes, passion is important. But in order to turn your passion into a profitable business, you've got to fill a need that others are looking for. Think about this for a moment. The market isn't necessarily concerned if you are fulfilling a lifelong dream. Customers spend money on products and services that fulfill their needs or their own desires. Focus on how your passion can make a difference to others-- that's the key to success.
2. Focus on your end goal, and not the obstacle 

Too often people don't execute on their ideas of fear ⎯ fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of what others will say. If you have a great idea (even a good idea), then make it happen. Don't be afraid of how it will all turn out. Just execute. In business, like in life, there are valuable lessons to be learned in each failure. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." Still not convinced? Think of it this way: by never trying, you've failed right from the start.

3. Balance your "Day Job"
If you currently have a full-time or part-time job, it can be a smart idea to continue working while you get started on your new business. Many administrative and planning tasks ⎯ such as writing up a business plan, picking a business and domain name, getting your logo, website and other marketing materials in place ⎯ can all be done before you leave your day job. While this plan may make for some very busy months, you'll benefit from beginning your business from a position of strength.

4. Start small - get creative for funding 

If you don't have access to tons of capital, you probably shouldn't consider launching a manufacturing company with lots of overhead and expensive product inventory. However, it's more than possible to start a business with just a small investment ⎯ for example, service-based businesses or virtual ones (like blogging or freelance editing). Be realistic about your financing, and remember it's okay to start small! Look for creative ways to fund your business, such as working out of your home, bartering with vendors, and leveraging social media for your marketing.

5. Surround yourself with support
The journey of turning your idea into reality can be long and difficult. Stay motivated by surrounding yourself with positive people who believe in your vision. In some cases, this could be family or friends who will remind you of your potential when times are tough. You can also join a formal networking or entrepreneur group that meets on a weekly or monthly basis. Participating in a professional group gives you a chance to see and learn from the success of other entrepreneurs, share business models, and success secrets.

Most importantly, don't forget to celebrate each accomplishment, no matter how small. As a small business owner, you've got an exiting journey ahead of you; don't forget to enjoy the ride!

http://shine.yahoo.com/power-your-future