The imagination is a wild and wonderful tool for cooking up business ideas and solutions to problems – but unfortunately, control over the flow of that creativity seems out of our hands!
Sure, reading lots and keeping the mind sharp with puzzles and challenges are great ways to keep you on top of your game, but sometimes writer’s block strikes without explanation. And it needn’t be just writer’s block: designer’s block, coder’s block, marketer’s block can all surface like icebergs right when you need to be cruising ahead.
In this post, you will learn how nine successful and celebrated geniuses shook things up when the ideas stopped flowing.
1. Igor Stravinsky
The Russian composer made his name with ballets like L’oiseau de feu, Petrushka, and Le Sacre du Printemps – but his career lasted several decades thanks to his technique of standing on his head to shake out new ideas.
Stravinsky believed that a headstand would rest his head and clear his mind when things weren’t going well.
2. Salvador Dali
Have you ever noticed how your best ideas often seem to happen just as you’re falling asleep?
Surrealist Salvador Dali believed that this particular semi-waking state was fruitful for accessing the subconscious, so he would try to fall asleep while holding a key so the sound of it dropping would wake him up again and allow him to get back to work.
3. Honoré de Balzac
Is it possible to caffeine your way out of writer’s block? Balzac believed so. He would drink dozens of cups a day to get his brain working overtime. Unfortunately, the damage it did to his stomach was irreversible.
4. Nakamatsu Yoshirō
Dr. Nakamatsu has come up with over 3,000 patents across his ninety years on Earth. And if Dali believed he got his ideas by being close to sleep, Dr. Nakamatsu recommends being close to death: he used to hold his breath under water until he could take it no more, and emerge inspired and ready to invent.
5. Steve Jobs
Jobs was known for his eccentricities – things like working barefoot or surviving on apples and carrots for weeks at a time – but they seemed to come hand-in-hand with his genius. Maybe both were sparked by his early dabbling in LSD, but he had a more down-to-earth way of getting his brain back on track: he would dip his feet in the company toilets.
6. Truman Capote
Sometimes getting a good flow is just about figuring out the right ongoing conditions. For the author of genre-bending reportage like In Cold Blood and stone cold classics like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, this meant working in recline with a glass of sherry in his hand.
7. Dr. Seuss
When writer’s block hit Dr. Seuss, he would pluck one of his hundreds of strange hats from his closet and wear it while he worked. Changing things up can certainly help to dislodge stubborn solutions – and putting yourself in someone else’s hat by imagining how they would deal with your problem is a good way to see things afresh.
8. Agatha Christie
Some people make writing murder mysteries look easy. It isn’t. Agatha Christie retired to her bath to write hers, and fuelled herself on apples – which we now know can make a healthy alternative to coffee.
9. Nikola Tesla
What was it that made Tesla’s bulb light up? The inventor of the alternating current (AC) electricity supply system (and much more) reckoned it was the practice of curling his toes 100 times before bed. It was his belief that this would tune-up his brain cells, and like Jobs’ wet feet and Stravinsky’s headstand, it certainly took his mind off of work for a minute freeing his deep inner genius to figure things out uninterrupted.
John Cole is a digital nomad, writing with NeoMam Studios, who specializes in leadership, digital media, and personal growth topics, his passions include world cinema and biscuits. A native Englishman, he is always on the move, but can most commonly be spotted in the UK, Norway, and the Balkans.
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