It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be

It has always stuck out to me the way that creativity involves thinking in a dynamic way that is unconventional. Paul Arden in It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to be gives an insight into the creative mind of a director of one of the leading advertising companies. In this work he inspires and writes to encourage people to think outside of the box, to use their imagination and to reject the same old solutions to new problems and situations. A lot of what he says is common-sense yet its something that we fail to apply to our own lives a lot of the time. It has inspired me and made me want to improve my life. It’s difficult to summerise the book, mostly because it has no real structure but a series of inspirational quote and thrown together. Each sentence feels like it should be on a poster complete with a photo of a landscape and placed in an office.

In some ways that is his weakness is that there are so many ideas thrown together that none of them are ever developed fully. For instance he makes a great point about the fact that ‘all creative people need something to rebel against, it’s what gives their lives excitement’ (p11) and that it is precisely because of this opposition that allows creativity. He points out that the concept of the impossible is something to inspire not cause despair for ‘when it can’t be done, do it. If you don’t do it it doesn’t exist’ (p.46) He uses the example of Citizen Kane and Benjamin Frankin to show that failure and mistakes are the preconditions for success, it is the learning and development out of error and mistakes that allows for dynamic thinking. He also brings this need for opposition when he talks about being fashionable. Arden says that ‘originality can’t be fashionable, because it hasn’t had the approval of the committee yet.’ Fashions are what hinder creativity and originality because they are based on past success they aren’t forward looking but are safe and proven. It is in working against fashion and popularity that artistic freedom and development is fostered.

The limitations are often what we impose upon ourselves. Hence is title, often it is self believe and the desire to be great, the ambition that drives us, very rarely is it down to our actually competence, most of the time it is our passion for success that creates greatness. Arden says that ‘you need to aim beyond what you are capable of.’ This myth of what we think we can do is the opposition we must fight and rebel against. We must rebel against our own self doubt and fear of failure and the unknown. Rebel against knowledge, for knowledge is based only upon the past it is provable we must embrace uncertainty and be happy with being wrong, for when we are in the wrong we are in the unknown and it is at moments when we are in the unknown that we are forced to look for new answers and think outside of the box. The Comfort zone is not so much as a refuge but a prison that can shackle the soul into mediocrity and uncreativity. When we fight against this then we will have the amibtion. I love his phrase ‘Everybody wants to be good, but not many are prepared to make the sacrifices it takes to be great,’ (p.14)

The other theme that is mentioned in a few places is the source of creative and novel ideas and influences. He first brings this up when he talks about intellectual hoarding. When we have a good idea we are tempted sometimes to keep it to ourselves. We see them as our own intellectual property something that we should keep and use just for our own benefit. Yet, in doing so we live of only our own reserves of idea which are limited and only from our own narrow perspective of life, further, they are not seen critically from the eyes of others. Something that we might think is great in the eyes of another is deeply flawed and not as fresh as we first thought. By keeping the idea to ourselves we never analyise the idea and subject it to critical scrutiny which will only improve the idea. When we share we contribute to a greater pool of knowledge and ideas, which can help us to draw greater links and perspectives to improve it. When we develop this attitude of sharing all our ideas it also causes us to look for ideas. If we give all our ideas away we then have to look for new solutions and ideas from which to draw upon.

In looking for new ideas it is important that we look to the right source. In most areas 90% of inspiration is internal. In advertising they draw upon other adverts for ideas, historians look at historians, and so forth. Yet the problem with this is that an error can be perpetuated with in the group and never knowledge it is just repeated over and over again. It also makes the inspiration boring and repetitive. In the social sciences everything seems to be drawn upon from Foucault this tends then to make everything else all blend together. It is in the melting pot and synthesis of ideas from differant cultures, disciplines and sectors of society that vitality is injected into our ideas. There is something for us to learn from everyone in every position and if we look we can find from it something to develop our own position. If we all had this attitude to life, to search for truth and ideas from the dustbin man through to the sultan of India we would all learn much in life. ‘To be original, seek inspiration from unexpected sources.’ (p. 88) This cross-disciplinary approach to creative thinking applies to our methodology. It is very easy to stick to the accepted and fashionable way of writing an essay or study or any product or text. The historian has their way, the social scientist approaches it in a standardised way, and in the sciences it is even more rigid, the myth of the universal scientific method is the dogma which all would-be scientists must adhere to. Yet. we then limit our way of solving problems and finding solutions and answers to the set limited way. If we were to look across outside of the blinkered view of our discipline we would see that every intellectual and creative pursuit has something to offer and help us in our pursuit. ‘Change your tools, it may set free your thinking.’ (p. 82) If we set down the academic tools and try and look at a problem using a different manner and set of tools we will think differently and thus see new vistas of ideas. We can even go back to play from when we were a child, and try and use those fun filled creative games we used to do to think about an idea.

In this review and synopsis of the book. I have tried to embellish upon the germs of ideas that were presented in the book. It was good in that it cause me to think and expand upon what he presented.