Years ago I thought I wasn’t creative at all because I thought of creativity as being strictly artistic. I couldn’t paint or draw well, so how could I be creative?

It took many years to realize that people who can come up with great ideas are just as creative as an artist. As a matter of fact, an idea person and an artist are really the same. They both come up with ideas in their mind that they then bring to life so other people can see them.

An artist uses paint, brushes, pens, styluses, canvas and tablets to express their idea. An idea person’s creation may be physical, like an invention that you can hold, but it can just as easily only be seen by the results that it generates.

And huge results can be generated when you start getting into areas like strategic partnerships. You can only see signs that they exist and you can’t hold them, but they’re there and they’re powerful.

Ideas are like the inverse of black holes.

As black holes grow they suck in everything around them, never letting go (as far as we know!). As ideas grow, new things end up growing from them.

The magic of ideas is that one person’s idea can actually generate another person’s idea.

The more you collaborate with other people, the more fleshed-out your ideas will be and the better you’ll become at seeing things that others can’t see.

You have to conquer your fear, though.

Elon Musk is one of the most creative people of our time. He’s a fountain of ideas and he isn’t afraid to throw them out there. He doesn’t care if people think he’s crazy.

The irony is that all the crazy ideas he throws out have the chance of creating an idea in someone else even if he never acts on them. It’s like volunteer plants that grow from seeds in the wind! If that seed lands in just the right spot, it can grow into a mighty tree.

What might your ideas grow into?