Happy New Year! May this year be filled with creativity, joy, and the discovery of exciting new ideas.

A unique idea is nothing more than a new combination of old elements. Take stuff you already know about and put them together in a different way. Look at David Bowie. It’s as simple as that. Anybody can do it. Your mum can do it. (Yes I mum, I can)

• A pizza is pastry with cheese and tomatoes assembled in a new way.
• A windsurfer is a surfboard with a sail.
• Picasso made the head of a fighting bull from a bicycle saddle and handlebars.

Finding an idea is partly a question of attitude. People who produce ideas know that ideas exist and know they will find those ideas. They have fun while they work on the process. Ideas people are seldom terribly serious. They behave more like a child at play in their search for an idea. Genius is childhood recovered at will.

Those who believe they can produce ideas, produce them. Those who don’t believe don’t produce them.

The believers accept that the mind affects how the body works. The evidence is overwhelming: The placebo effect in treating disease. Surgery under hypnosis without anaesthesia. Unloved children stop developing normally. Allergy sufferers sneeze at plastic flowers. The mind can alter the mind. It’s a fact.

Finding a new idea is not just waiting for the lightbulb to illuminate. It takes hard work, time, and concentrated effort to see the light. Read the 5-step method for ideas in the next blog.