Inspiration and Keynote Vlog
Follow Nash’s articles and vlogs for bite size inspirations served with a side of magic.
All Innovative Ideas Should Start Here
[An excerpt from my manuscript “How to spark new ideas magically”]
Men used to carry pocket watches. But in 1904, an aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont realized it is dangerous to check his pocket watch while flying. He asked his friend Louis Cartier to build a wristwatch to solve the problem.
Yes, the same famous Cartier brand. This wrist watch became their first edition “The Santos”.
You see, the biggest source of new idea is none other than the people who will benefit from your ideas: The people you serve. The single most important question to ask is ….
“What does our audience need?”
This is common sense. How are you going to create an idea that is truly impactful for the people you serve if you don’t understand what they need in the first place?
So here are some simple actionable steps today that will lead you to being one step closer to igniting your next big idea that is truly impactful for the people you serve:
-Find out if you are asking your clients the right questions to uncover their pains points
-Review the methods you use to collect customers feedback
-Invite your clients to be part of your innovation process
-Look on social, see what your customers are saying in the public
-Create a focus group of customers, meet with them periodically to seek their feedback.
The Art of Incremental Improvements
[An excerpt from my manuscript “How to spark new ideas magically”]
Magic is an art of finding incremental improvements daily. Here’s a trick I learned years ago from powerhouse card magician: Michael Vincent. I haven’t performed it in over a decade and I have forgotten 50% of the trick. Strangely, that’s what allowed me to create small improvements to it.
Incremental improvement is about getting 1% better, leading to a compound effect in a long run. In essence, it is finetuning what you do down to the tiniest details. But don’t mistake tiny with easy. Oftentimes, tiniest detail is the hardest to improve. Why?
Because there’s a double-edge sword of being polished. Everything becomes so second nature that we no longer notice the tiny areas that can be improved. Autopilot buries the tiny details that deserve our attentions. So here are 2 solutions:
1) Step Away Briefly
Whenever I stopped performing a trick for a while and I had to revisit it, I was able to view the trick from a fresh perspective. Those tiny details that weren’t good enough but were buried in autopilot are now painfully obvious.
Have you noticed the same happened in your world? After you return to work from vacation, don’t you need a ramp up period to get back in the groove? It is often during those moments where you are able to revisit those tiny details you had missed before right?
2) Train Someone Else
I used to mentor a young 10 year old magician. Every time I taught him a trick, I had to slow down and really dissect the details with him. It is often during these moments that I made incremental improvements.
By training someone else it forces you to slow-down and revisit all the tiny details you had missed. And sometimes during these training sessions, it is the trainees that will come up with a new idea because they are looking at it from a fresh perspective.
Ultimately, incremental improvements come from your ability to see your process through fresh eyes, snap out of autopilot, slow down so you can finally pay attention. What other ways do you think will allow you to do that?
