Jason D. Barr

Everyone approaches this issue from a different angle, really, so there’s probably not one true answer.  Personally, there are a few reasons that I can think of that motivated me to seriously pressing forward with starting my own company.

First of all, I wanted a little bit of diversification.  Everyone is familiar (I assume) with this concept; don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  Even Warren Buffett (he of the statement, “put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket very closely”) admits that diversification is the best strategy for 99% of investors out there today.  If you have two sources of income (or more), and you lose one, it doesn’t hurt as much as if you lost your only source.  I have a job for a company in an industry that’s facing some serious downward pressure from the market.  Things may not go well at some point, and I may be out of that position.  If I have alternate sources of income (like the teaching I do on the side, or this business that I’m creating), then the impact of losing one stream of income is lessened.  It doesn’t hurt my family as much and it provides me additional time to find a way to replace it.

Secondly, I wanted to do this because it’s something I’m interested in.  I did the exercises I mentioned in my last post and I determined that I have this area where my interests and skills intersect (and that meets a need in the marketplace).  This is not true at my day job.  I may be moderately capable at being a financial analyst, but I’m no longer remotely interested in it.  It causes me physical pain to wake up and make the trip into the office on some mornings.  So, for the sake of my sanity, I really had to find a creative outlet; something that challenged me and I found enjoyable.  If there were no market for my services, it’d be a hobby.  However, since I believe that people will pay me for it, it will become a business.

Thirdly, the diversification and having multiple streams of income will allow me to have control over my own schedule and practice some creative lifestyle design.  By not having one place I have to be, day in and day out for nine, 10, 11 hours a day (or more for some people), you can be flexible in your schedule and in your committments.  If you have one position that pays all the bills, you have to be devoted to that one position.  However, if you have two or three or more, you can do a little of this and a little of that.  To me, that’s appealing.  I can change what I’m doing when one thing becomes too tedious, focus on something else for awhile, and come back to the original challenge refreshed and renewed.

Those are all I can think of right off the top of my head (I don’t really plan these posts out much, and don’t revise them hardly at all).  However, those strike me as three fairly good reasons to start doing something new.

I’ve been keeping a journal for a long time now.  I’m not sure how long, really.  I have a journal from when I was in the fourth grade; perhaps I journaled even farther back than that.  Fourth grade, though; that’s what, 9 years old?  That’s pushing 22 years now.  Granted, it’s not something that I do every day (never has been), but I’ve been semi-consistently writing down my thoughts and ideas for over two decades.

Semi-consistent, until 6 years ago.  That’s when I joined the Army and quit thinking about what I was doing.  It’s interesting to note that this really is true.  All the stuff you hear about the military beating the independent thought out of you is correct, even in my case.  I’m about the most independent person I know, and I don’t take orders well.  I don’t know that I quit thinking about my life because the Army taught me not to question; I think it’s more of an issue of continuing to ask the questions, and for the first time, not really liking the answers.

After all, that’s what journaling is all about (or should be, anyway).  It’s the search for answers to the questions that come up in your life every day.  The necessity for reflection is one that I used to find so necessary that I filled tons of spiral bound notebooks and professionally bound journals for just that reason.  It’s a habit that pays big dividends, for a few big reasons.

1- Journaling allows you to track your progress.

Progress of what, you ask?  Anything, really.  I look back at some of my old journals and am almost embarrassed by the depth (or lack thereof) of thought expressed there.  However, on the other hand, it’s refreshing to see how far I’ve progressed; how much more of a “grown up” I am at 30 than I was at 20.  But, that’s not the only progress journaling allows you to track.  It can be much more concrete than that.  You can develop ideas for almost anything (school projects, proposals at work, ideas for the Great American Novel, etc.) and track how they get fleshed out as you record your thoughts on them.  The questions you have about aspects of the plan, the objections you foresee being raised and your responses to them, the next steps that bring the idea closer to fruition.  All of this is located in one, easy to maintain location, allowing you to focus your thoughts.

2- Journaling can help you discover what you’re thinking.

It’s not just for recording your thoughts.  I’ve found so many times, especially as I’ve gotten older and realized I don’t really know as much as I thought I did in the past, that I sometimes don’t even know what I’m thinking about a particular issue.  Putting it all down on paper in a stream-of-consciousness dump allows me to see it all there.  The thoughts in my head (and, maybe yours, too) tend to swirl around in a sort of fog that I can’t quite seem to pin down.  Writing has the effect of pulling all these thoughts out of the spinning vortex and pinning them down to the paper so that I can examine them more closely and see what they’re really saying about the issue in  question.  I know that, honestly, there have been times when I’ve looked at something I’ve written after I’ve been going for awhile and I’ve surprised myself that I think the way I do.  I never would have crystallized my views the way I did if it weren’t for my journaling.

3- Journaling can provide a great source of ideas for the future

Not creative, you say?  I used to think the same thing.  I quit using my imagination a long time ago and I wish I had it back now the way I did when I was 5.  I found a great technique for using my journal to unleash my inner 5 year old.  Leonardo di Vinci used the same technique in a lot of his journals, actually (and if it was good enough for him, I’m confident it’s okay for me).

What you need to do is write the question you want to answer at the top of your page (or type it, if you journal on your computer).  Make sure you specify exactly the question you want to answer; be as precise and definite as possible.  Then, put your pen on the paper and start writing (or, fingers on the keys, as the case may be).  Don’t stop for at least ten minutes.  Your hand will cramp up, and you’ll probably have to write “I have no idea what to write” a few times, especially in the beginning.  What you’re doing is cutting through the conscious mind that filters our thoughts for us.  Normally, this is a good thing (as anyone who’s had a young son or daughter ask an embarrassing question in a public place at high volume can attest).  However, when you’re trying to discover creative answers to questions, it doesn’t help at all.  You need to cut through the conventional thinking, the clutter and the extraneous, in order to allow the thoughts in your subconscious mind to bubble to the surface.  This is when the thoughts truly get good.

The actual action of writing whatever comes into your mind, free-association style, allows you to dig (metaphorically speaking) a hole through your conscious thought to the subconscious stream underneath.  Once you’ve been going for a few minutes (with no stopping!), you’ll be amazed at the stuff that starts coming out of your pen onto the paper.  Truly, it may not be “great” stuff.  However, you will notice that it’s original stuff, not conventional thinking, and probably thoughts that you don’t even recognize as your own.  This means it’s working!  Now, all you have to do is practice, practice, practice.  The thoughts get better the more you get them out.

Anyway, those are just three reasons I journal.  There are others, but this post is long enough.  Reflection (like what I’ve done here) is so important to developing a true understanding of yourself; if you’re not currently routinely engaging in self-assessment of some sort, start today.

So, in addition to long-term thinking, another key to success is creative thinking.  Unfortunately, this is one that many people (especially in the business world) struggle with.  A common refrain is “I just don’t have a whole lot of creativity”.  There are two key issues that I’d like to point out to combat this type of thinking.  When you really take these keys to heart, you’ll free yourself to begin thinking creatively.

The first key is to realize that the vast majority of us are born creative.  Studies have shown that 2% of adults are truly creative by the time they reach the age of 40.  Studies have also shown that 2% of 30 year olds are genuinely creative.  In fact, studies have shown that the 2% “creativity rate” holds true all the way down to early childhood, where approximately 90% of 5 year olds are deemed “creative”.  What happens?  What causes such a drastic shift?  The theory posed by these individuals that conducted the studies is that children are instructed to, in a sense, abandon creativity as they grow up.  With the focus on seriousness and attention to facts that begins to invade their lives as they begin school, these kids literally have the creativity squashed out of them.  The ability to think creatively, to attack problems and questions from innovative angles, is not valued nearly as highly as is the ability to remember facts and retain information.  Consequently, kids begin to focus on these skills and cease to use their formerly strong creative abilities.

There’s a lesson here:  creativity is forgotten if you don’t use it.  It follows logically that, the more you use your creative abilities, the more creative you become.  Just as muscles that aren’t exercised regularly atrophy, so too does imagination and novel thinking.  So, in order to become more creative, you have to focus more on exercising the creative abilities you have.  It may be hard at first, and you may need to start small, but you will become better at it as time goes by.

The second key to creativity is to remember that there are no unique ideas.  The greatest minds throughout history have built upon the foundations left by the thinkers before them.  As such, you can rest assured that any idea you have, someone else has had before.

This may be discouraging to some, but to me, it’s a liberating concept.  I don’t have to do something revolutionary in order to consider it creative!  I don’t have to reinvent the wheel!  I simply need to be willing to consider all possibilities for solving any of the challenges that I face on a daily basis.  Many ideas have been conceived before, but not all of them have been executed properly.  You don’t have to invent the mousetrap, you just have to refine the concept and execute it.

So, there you have it.  Be willing to attempt creative thoughts and activities, and remember that you don’t have to do anything earth-shattering.  Creativity is much less daunting if you deal with it in this fashion.  You owe it to yourself to  give it a shot.