David Lynch is an anomaly. He’s been able to take ideas of surrealism (dreamlike qualities), inject them into scripts, screenplays and ultimately, films. Films that have achieved widespread acclaim worldwide. Some of these films have won Academy Awards (The Elephant Man, Mulholland Drive), while others have bombed, famously. The majority have left audiences with a quiet sense of confusion, and a loud feeling of: “…uh, wow?” He’s created ground-breaking mystery tv series (like Twin Peaks, and its sequels) and has changed the culture, even creating an atmosphere known as “Lynchian” by nature.
Everything is rewatchable. Every piece of work he creates can be shared, viewed, discussed and looked at from a variety of angles. There is a magnetism to this, we at Zoomination can only describe as “anomalyic™.”
Above all, David Lynch is a champion for the creative person, and he is our focus for Zoomination today. When every business decision you make needs a creative approach… And when you are faced with competitors and the chance to create the life you desire from the sales you make – you’d better believe creativity means money in the bank.
Like happiness, creativity is less about working towards it as it is removing the barriers that keep us from staying highly creative…
Here are some of his most ground-breaking pieces of advice we believe you could use in your approach to business…
“Negativity is the enemy of creativity.”
We often don’t realize it, but staying in a negative space suffocates our creativity. He calls it a “suffocating rubber clown suit.” And in the world of business – your “suffocating rubber clown suit” resembles a myriad of disappointments, setbacks and returns-to-the-drawing-board…
And how the hell are you supposed to keep your head up high, if everything keeps tilting your eyes right back down? David Lynch insists that “Anger and depression and sorrow are beautiful things in a story, but they’re like poison to the filmmaker or artist.
They’re like a vice grip on creativity. If you’re in that grip, you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You must have clarity to create. You have to be able to catch ideas.” Excerpt from his book, Catching The Big Fish.
This means you want to get good at processing the negative, so you can focus on growing the positive. David practices meditation as a means to process and let go of the challenges we all face when working… There are many means to process these things, and at Zoomination especially, we find that if you can get better at processing with setbacks in your life, you can get better at business.
Methods involve:
- Why not give meditation a go?
- Writing down your thoughts and ideas.
- Talking to a friend,
- Hashing out solutions (instead of dwelling on your problems.)
“Ideas are like fish”
“If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.” Excerpt from his book, Catching The Big Fish.
Put simply, he looks at the world differently. Ideas come and go, and we can lose them just as easily as we can catch them.
David advises you to write down your ideas as they arrive in detail – so as not to lose them – but rather, refine them and take action on them, always iterating and trying again – never losing hold of the idea.
What ideas have you gotten, that were fully fleshed out and realized into the world?
Drink Coffee.
“Every morning, David Lynch wakes up and meditates for 20 minutes. He then makes his cup of coffee and lights a cigarette. He’s been doing this for 33 years” What strikes us about this is the space he creates for thoughts to simply flow. Describing his process of waking up might get you thinking about your morning rituals… and whether you allow yourself the chance to simply sit and daydream…
Because that’s when the great ideas find you. Perhaps not when you’re looking for them, but when you’ve made yourself available for them to reach you.
That’s why you should drink coffee (sorry tea drinkers.) When you want to get more creative, find somebody who literally embodies the idea of creativity. You may find your life becomes more interesting, and you may even love it more. Hoping this helps you.
