Child-Like Creativity – Nate Turner

After a week at the beach, I thought about the great times I had with my family. One great moment came around the dining room table at the condo. We love a game called Tenzi. It’s a fun, simple, fast-paced game for young kids to play.

All of a sudden, the game went from the standard rules to an all new set of rules. My daughter changed it from a simple ending to a more creative finish line. It was fun to watch and listen as the game morphed into something that was totally different. She had a blast switching things up.

Sometimes, I think we lose that child-like creativity. Sometimes, we follow the rules without thinking about how the game could change if we made an all new set of rules. Maybe there are lessons we can learn from kids. Maybe we could improve our creativity from looking at how they play.

Here are a couple of creative moments kids love that we can learn from.

Sand Dunes Become Kingdoms

I have a confession: I really don’t like the beach. Don’t get me wrong…I love the ocean. But, I just don’t like getting sand all over my body. My daughter, on the other hand, loves being in the sand. Like most kids, she looks out at a beach and imagines a kingdom. Almost immediately, she goes to work putting sand in buckets. The castle forms one tower at a time until she stands to look at her newly formed kingdom.

Now, think about that. How often do we look out at the landscape of our industry and imagine something new? How often do we fearlessly go to work creating a new kingdom?

A Ball Has A Million Possibilities

I grew up at the ball park. It seemed like we spent about every night around a ball field. Many of my best friends also spent much of their life at the ball park as well. Here’s the thing – we never had to be entertained. We had friends…we had a ball…we had something to do. In fact, we could have played together every night with just a ball. We could come up with a new game everyday. In fact, when you give a group of kids a ball, they can make up a million different games.

How often do you have fun with the existing products you currently have? What if you brought a group of people together, tossed out your product, and asked them to play around with it until they came up with something new?

You have the opportunity to think differently today. Everyone else may be following all the old procedures, all the old rules. You might just be the genius who creates a new set of rules. There is a possibility that the only thing standing between you and your best idea yet is the ability to create like a kid. Go make a kingdom out of a sand dune. Go make a new game with an ordinary ball.

How have you been inspired by the imagination of children? Where do you think your current situation could use child-like creativity?