There are a lot of books on this topic out there. How can you unleash your creativity? How can you use it to your advantage? How can you control it? What to do first thing in the morning and why is it a good idea to wear mismatched socks? There are hundreds of books which can answer these questions. The problem is that most of them offer the same answers, phrased or told differently, which in the end is not bad at all. It just means there is some truth in all of it.

Hugh MacLeod’s book (Highlander, anyone?) looks at the creative processes from a more realistic and cynical perspective. He bites off anything that bothers him. He challenges any point where he feels there is stagnation and, generally, he tells it like it is. The main message and, at the same time, what makes this volume different from any other is that a good idea, be it related to business or anything else, can easily be forgotten because of what others think. Something completely new is, most of the time, regarded with disbelief, even by those who mean well.

Using highly comical asides, MacLeod literally sketches out how he got to write this book. He tells us how a small idea, isolated from anyone around, got to be the most important thing in his life, namely his business cards. You can see them throughout the book, inserted amongst the author’s stories and advice.

If MacLeod’s writing won’t at least be of some help to you, then we can guarantee that his drawings and the stories behind them will surely unlock some mental blocks.

So, ignore everybody, except Hugh (may be read [you] as well). Here’s why:

”You don’t know if your idea is any good the moment it’s created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. There’s a reason why feelings scare us.”
or
”The best way to get approval is to not need it.”