How to Unlock Your Creativity to Grow Your Business

In episode 279 of the AM/PM Podcast, Tim and Maria discuss:

• 02:30 – Tim’s Early Entrepreneurial Tendencies
• 05:30 – Maria’s Backstory And Why Did She Leave Her Career In Law?
• 09:00 – Building Her Business And Brand From Scratch
• 11:30 – Having The Drive, Determination, And Passion Can Go A Long Way
• 13:00 – How Maria Defines Creativity
• 15:00 – Is Creativity Being Overlooked In Your Business?
• 16:00 – How Does An Entrepreneur Unlock Their Creative Side?
• 20:00 – Opportunity Is There But You Got To Be Creative
• 21:30 – How To Stay Creative While Limiting Distractions?
• 25:30 – Being Intuitive Is Being Creative
• 28:00 – Finding Success By Looking At The Fringes And Other Industries
• 31:45 – Why Social Media Is Revolutionary
• 36:00 – Creativity Takes Work And Commitment
• 38:00 – Grab A Copy Of Maria Brito’s Book: How Creativity Rules The World
• 39:30 – How To Get In Touch With Maria

Transcript

Tim Jordan:

Many of you that are listening, have pondered this concept of changing your jobs and it’s scary. Not many years ago, the idea of actually changing your career was completely foreign. But now, with the way things that are kind of developing the country, entrepreneurism or e-commerce or digital marketing or whatever it is, it’s a little bit more common, but it’s still a big decision. And I speak to a lot of people constantly that are trying to figure out what their next big move is, or even if they can make a big move. Our guest today has hosted her own TV show. She’s had her own high end fashion lines. She has coached hundreds of business owners and artists, but she didn’t start out as an entrepreneur herself. She’s actually a Harvard law corporate attorney in New York City who made a big change in her life to change her career. She’s got a lot of great advice for us and a lot of great direction on potentially some things to think about as we make a change in our lives or our career, or even starting a new business, it’s gonna be a great episode. Hope you listen to the end and here we go.

Tim Jordan:

Welcome everybody to the AM/PM podcast. I’m your host, Tim Jordan. And of course, again, today we’re talking about entrepreneurism. I was not always a business owner. I think I was always an entrepreneur, but it took me a while to figure out how to kind of build a business. Right. I remember when I was very young in elementary school, you know, like fourth grade buying king size candy bars from Sam’s club and selling them for a dollar to my schoolmates, pretending that I was part of a fundraiser for the marching band. And after like six months of doing this, the marching band director Trek, man, it says you’re not even in the band. And I was like, well, I’ve made good money doing this you know, so I had some entrepreneurial tendencies, but I didn’t know how to actually turn that into a job.

Tim Jordan:

I spent 10 years as a full-time firefighter and making the decision to walk away from that profession was extremely difficult. Now, I started my e-commerce business a couple years before, but like making that decision to actually make a huge change, like stop my paycheck and decide to completely alter my future was not an easy one to make. Terrifying, very difficult, a lot of my family told me I was idiots and crazy, all that stuff. You guys have heard those stories, but as we are trying to figure out if we should make that move or what that move’s gonna be or how to make that transition, a lot of times we don’t even know the things that we don’t know. We don’t know what to think about. We don’t know the questions that we need to ask ourselves. Our guest today has been in exactly that same place.

Tim Jordan:

She, as I said in the intro has basically left her career as a corporate attorney in New York City went to Harvard law. She kind of had it all, I would say in the legal field as people judge success or not success. And she decided that she wanted to get into something completely different, completely crazy. And since then she’s taken her experience and her knowledge, and she has worked with hundreds of business owners, artists. She’s got a huge reach. She’s got a book that’s coming out that talks specifically about one of the aspects that we don’t normally talk about on this podcast, which is creativity. So welcome to the show, Maria Brito.

Maria:

Thank you, Tim. And thank you, everybody. Who’s listening. I’m so happy to be here with you today.

Tim Jordan:

I feel like my intro was longer than most episodes. Cause I feel like there’s a lot to pack in. Like I want all of you to understand that, you know, we try to bring in guests that have good context and good information, and I’ve got a whole list of things that I could have told you, but I want you to understand that Maria has a really, really great resume because it follows the path that so many of you have followed or are following or thinking about following, which was making a, a big career change, but not just that, figuring out how to do it in a different way, how to do it looking at information or looking at data or looking at ideas or thoughts or processes that are different than what a lot of, you know, the mainstream courses teach or a lot of the podcast and gurus think. So, Maria, if you would kind of tell us your story, how did you go from, from lawyer in New York city to whatever it is that you do now, explain to us kind of how you got here and exactly what it’s you do.

Maria:

Thank you, Tim. Well, as I was saying, and you very well explained at the beginning, I was a corporate attorney. I graduated from Harvard law. I moved to New York City. I am originally from Venezuela, but I have been in New York for 22 years and before that, I was at Harvard. And I follow the path of certainty that my parents thought it was the right thing to do. And in my gaze it was like, oh, but you’ve gotta go to law school because that’s prestigious or you’ve gotta be a doctor or potentially an engineer. Something that in their minds was important. And it could have given me a stability and predictability. And so I believed it because when you are influenced by your parents and they tell you the same thing every day over and over, you end up believing almost like it’s brainwashed. And I follow that path, but I was miserable because I did not wanna be an attorney.

Maria:

And I worked a lot very hard in very complex deals. I learned a lot for sure. It was a very rich beard of my life in terms of learning, but it was miserable because I hated it. And so one day I had been considering already for a long time quitting and I got pregnant with my first child and I was pondering this idea very much so because I was like, look, this is a major thing. I’m going to have a child and what am I gonna teach him? Am I gonna be the person who’s always miserable because I hate my job or am I going to be an example for my child so that he can follow the path of the things that actually gave him joy and money? Cuz like it mean everybody wants to do something amazing that at the same time provides a very nice income.

Maria:

There is nothing dirty about wanting money and more, right. Especially at that time for me, because I had a very stable job with an incredible salary, the bonuses were enormous. I had a car service every night because every time you would stay longer than 8:00 PM every night they would have a car to drive you home. I had 401(k) insurance, I just couldn’t stomach going there anymore. And so I did a very deep inventory and that is something that people sometimes miss, which is going within. And this is not woo woo and this is not, you know, self-help, I don’t subscribe to those things. And I mean, I do in the sense that I wanna help myself in grow. But what I’m trying to say is that this is real and it’s business. And sometimes the most basic things people miss because they’re thinking about coding, you know, and it’s like going to back to the basics.

Maria:

So I did lot a deep inventory and I said to myself, what is it that I want to do? And it’s very important for people to actually look at their childhoods when they are trying to get to this point. Because the things you did when you were a child, the interest you had, the passions, you had, those things are usually very good indications of the interests that make your heart sink, right? And you can’t translate them and combine them in any way, shape, or manner as you grow older because they are of who you are. And so I looked a lot about, you know, who I was as a child and I was an artist. I was a singer. I loved to express myself and most kids are the truth is right. But I took this to heart, after seeing what could have been of me, if I could potentially have taken a job at a different place and whatnot, I said, no, it is time to do this for myself.

Maria:

And I’m going to just use my savings to bootstrap my business. I’m going to build a website. I didn’t really need a lot of capital. It was mostly the loss of income obviously. And building from scratch a brand because that is the nature of my business is that I am the brand of my business and people have to trust the brand and people have to believe that I am an expert. And so I hired an excellent web designer. I worked with a woman who had very good experience in messaging and communications. I hired somebody who did PR for me, and this was 13 years ago. So we’re talking about 2009 when I opened my company, there was no Instagram, for example, at the time having a blog was very rustic and very basic, and so I had very rudimentary tools. It was Facebook was very, also basic at the time and Twitter, you could only tweet, there were not all this other fancy things that could have that, that were added.

Maria:

So I started with that and I knew from the get go that I didn’t have a plan B. So it was like, this has to work out because I loathe the office and the law firm and that kind of life in corporate America. I can’t do that. I am a person with entrepreneurial vision and desire. And the reason why I went into the art world is because, I, as a child, grew up going to galleries and museums with my parents and I thought it was fantastic and I loved it. And it was always like learning mysteries and things about our history and whatnot, even though I worked with contemporary artists. And the other thing is that I realized there were tons of opportunities in blind spots because people who were doing the job that I do at that time, which is building our collections for individuals and you know, curating those collections.

Maria:

And, you know, you’re a custodian you’re like a broker, you acquire things, you point people in the right direction. So when I started doing this, that I started looking at people, I saw that they were very transactional, so they did not invest time in education or content. They did not actually participate of their clients becoming more of engaged in the whole art world and understanding the artists and the different point of points of view and being kind of like participants, right. Instead of like bystanders. And so I said, you know, I can do this better because am very passionate about this. And I have a lot of knowledge. And even though I’ve never worked in the art world and I don’t really know any much more than I know from the surface, I think I have the drive at the determination, and the passion to make this workout.

Maria:

And I did. And, and part of the initial ideas that I had were translated into those initial blog posts and tweets and Facebook posts because nobody was doing it nobody. So I said, this is very rich opportunity for me. This is a terrain where I wanna go and make a difference and demystify a world that seems snob and impenetrable and expensive and show the people that there is another way of doing things and that the artists are really fun and cool, and that grew and grew and grew. And that allowed me the opportunity to work with people like Sean Combs also known as Puff Daddy. It allowed me an opportunity to work with Gwyneth Paltrow. It really opened a lot of doors because it was how authentic and how unique. And this is my mantra right now is creativity is all about coming up with ideas that are unique and that differentiate you from your competitors and you don’t want your competitor is to cross you.

Maria:

You just want to be so unique that people have no option, but keep coming back to you and you have to be so different because look, how many, you know, e-commerce businesses are out there. How many people are doing websites? And how many people are doing a blog and how many people it’s just, you know, millions, right? And so what makes you so unique? What is that your creativity is bringing to the table? What is the innovation? And this are concepts that are not just for artists. This are things that are for anybody in business, particularly an entrepreneur. You can’t be a successful entrepreneur if you’re not creative and I’ll prove you that because if you let the same business that you open remain forever stable in the same, it’s just going to shrink. The only thing that is for sure guaranteed, is that you have to keep shifting and pivoting business all the time.

Maria:

At least every year, you have to change things. You have to keep rotating things you hear, you have because otherwise, it’s just going to get crushed. And that is the reason why I also went into consulting with companies. And I also wrote the book because I think that there are things that entrepreneurs miss when they get comfortable and when the money’s pouring in and everything is fine. Yay. And then things happen suddenly. And there is a lot of heartaches when there is a step, you know when they have to step back.

Tim Jordan:

So let me back up for just a second. You went through this career change and you realized that the secret to succeeding in this entrepreneurial world is creativity, right? And now that you’ve worked with a lot of, from big names to small companies, you are finding this common theme of creativity being overlooked. And this is a important when we are making that decision that we talked about earlier on about like, Hey, are we going to start a new business? Are we going to make a career change? The reason that there’s fear is this idea that it might not succeed. Like if everybody knew that they jump into some endeavor and it would work, there wouldn’t be any fear. Everybody just do it. So as we’re trying to figure out how to differentiate ourselves, how to make this work, how to make this successful, what you’re telling us is the secret sauce that is often overlooked is creativity.

Tim Jordan:

Now, you said something about millions of new businesses before we started recording. You told me that the data really for the past two years is there’s been like more than 10 million small businesses filed and started in the US just past two years. It’s unprecedented. Like, I don’t know the that’s ever happened before. That’s absolutely insane. So more people are jumping into business. As we know, most of them will fail. Most small business and startups do fail. So we need to take every advantage that we can. We need to find every tool and resource and we need to take kind of hold of it and take advantage of it. So let’s talk about creativity. A lot of business owners do not consider themselves creative. Now, of course, we can think about ad agencies and creative. But for me, like I make stuff like I sell stuff online. I don’t see myself as a creative person. So how does a typical entrepreneur unlock their creative side to be able to apply it to their next business or to their career change or to their next project?

Maria:

The first thing that we have to consider is that creativity is not one thing, and it’s not a God given talent, and it’s not for artists. Creativity and this is something that has also been massaged a lot by researchers and psychologists and neuroscientists is an amalgamation of skills. And what those skills entail, for example, are, is the willingness to take risks. The willingness to be authentic, the autonomy to stand with a lot of conviction about your ideas, the desire to be curious, to look where people are not looking to ask the next, next question, your ability to be empathetic. If you don’t know what the market wants, and you don’t put yourselves on their shoes, you’re never gonna be able to hit the numbers you’re dreaming about. So the first thing is, please be very aware that creativity is not just a word, it’s not just a noun. It is an amalgamation of a lot of different sakes that come together to actually serve you, to be able to serve your customers or the people that you are reaching, whether it is B2B, B2C you have improvements, you have services, you have products, you have whatever it is that you are doing.

Maria:

And so that’s the first thing. And the next thing is we are all born, extremely creative. And there have been studies that I wrote about in my book, prove that when children are measured in creativity, they start being at the-, and scoring at the top level of creativity. And there is something called the fourth grade slump. When they get to fourth grade, they start declining. And what is that is because they have already absorbed a lot of formal education. And when teachers tell them, this is how you do things, or this is the truth, and this is history, and this is math, and they don’t allow for any independent thinking or critical thinking or taking perspective and whatnot. That is what starts actually constraining and diminishing creative. And that’s why you see a lot of dropouts. That’s what you see a Steve Jobs, a Bill Gates, a Mark Zuckerberg, cuz those guys were already thinking very differently and they knew that whatever was going to be given to them in college.

Maria:

I’m not saying don’t go to college, by the way, I love education. But what I’m saying is if you see this thread is very, very common that this guys had the conviction to think on their own shoes and toes and not necessarily follow the conventions that were given to them either by society or culture or the amazing universities that they were attending. And you know, when you also mentioned something like, well ad agencies and things like that. Yeah, of course they’re creative, but I can think about people. And again, like the bar sometimes sounds so high, but it’s not because it’s about you and your, but one of the most creative entrepreneurs in history is Steve Jobs. And he was not an artist. One of the most creative entrepreneurs right now is Elon Musk. And he’s not an artist and you might say, but I’m not him and I don’t have, you know, a trillion dollars.

Maria:

Well sure, but none of them started with a trillion dollars of them actually started like that. Yeah. But it was another time. And you know, this is all, I always hear excuses, one excuses and I say, well, but this is your time. And there has never been a better time to start a business than now, and also to grow a business, right? Because there is a lot of Ben top demand. And there are like capital is very cheap at the moment and are tons of incentives for people. The thing is, and I am sure the majority of the people who are listening are based in the United States, the conditions are right. There is no other country that loves ideas that work and that actually are unique than this country that I can guarantee you as an immigrant, I’m an American citizen, but I am an immigrant and I’ve traveled the whole world, all five continents. There is no place like this for ideas to back up businesses and to find the people who are going to consume what you make, but you’ve gotta be creative.

Tim Jordan:

And creativity is not artistic. Right? There are two different things. When I think about the things I’m good at I’m creative in the way that I come with business development plans or partnership opportunities between businesses, or I’m very creative in relationships. Like how can we actually take relationships and turn them into something productive by living? But man, I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life. So I understand what you’re saying. And it’s a little bit of a realization to me that creativity is not artistry. Creativity is being able to look outside of the parameters of normal and creativity is being able to, I know you don’t like the term, think outside the box, but creativity is being able to come up with new ideas, new processes, new options for the things that we sometimes think are stagnant. Now I have this problem where I cannot, I don’t know, put a fair balance on my life when it comes to creativity, right?

Tim Jordan:

So I’ll sit down and say, I’m gonna have a creative day. I’m gonna come over with these great ideas. And I’ll just run down these rabbit trails of different ideas and thoughts, or I have these conversations and I find myself getting distracted right. Now, I know one of the things that you feel strongly out is that creativity has to be balanced with focus. So for someone that’s trying to unlock their brain, they’re listening to you saying I’m not creative enough. I have to be more creative. I have to think outside the box, I have to expand my mind. How do they do that while also limiting distractions so that they can actually stay focused and produce?

Maria:

You know, there, the two things that are very important about what you said, your definition of creativity, the last one you gave is the definition of creativity that I give in my book. It is your unique ability to come up with ideas of value that are relevant vent for your business. So that’s very, I think, basic and understanding, and anybody can understand and navigate through what I just said and you just said before. Regarding people getting distracted and creative, you know, there are steps to creativity. And one of the first things is what is that you are interested into. And what is it that for example you are considering for your business, let’s say you are in the business of you know, e-commerce and you are considering certain upgrades or you are considering synergies with things outside of the world of logistics and you know, coding and, you know, SEO and whatnot.

Maria:

And the first thing you really have to do is spend a really good time, amount of time doing research and having all that bulk of information classified somewhere in your computer, in your notes and, you know, notebook, whatever it is, right. And then you have to think about the problem that you want to solve or the solution that you want to implement. And it’s like, you have to think intently about that. And that’s kind of like the difficult thing about keeping the focus on what you want to do. And then it comes the interesting part, which is the incubation process is you have to forget about it and you have to move far away from all the research you did and the thinking intently and whatnot. And that is the reason why so many people come with amazing ideas when they’re taking a shower, because there is no other thing that you can do, right?

Maria:

Like, I mean, you don’t have your phone, you are not talking, you are not watching TV. You are not, I mean, for the most part, people don’t have all these devices in their bathrooms, but it is part of the reason because you take really your mind away from everything and, or a lot of people also came with amazing ideas when they are working out, because your mind is in a way in trends, right? Like you’re repeating movements or you’re running. And so the incubation effect is the part that goes between thinking like crazy gathering the materials, presenting your brain with a problem, and then letting go. And during that letting go, it might be one day. It might be one week. It might be one month. We don’t know. Right. But what we do, you know, is that you need to give yourself a break from all that you said before, the distractions, the anxiety of not having the idea, et cetera, et cetera.

Maria:

And so what I recommend is that people schedule time to think about the problem that they have at hand or the ideas that they are pondering. And then they close the page and say, I’m not thinking about this anymore. And I will restart this again, say two days from now, or a week from today. Right? Because you don’t wanna just like put it in the back burner and not look at it ever again. But I can almost always guarantee people that you are going to have an aha moment, an intuitive notch that is going to give you clues so that you actually find solutions for the problem or ideas or clues. It usually is a series of ideas. You don’t have an idea that solves the whole world problem in like just one take, right? It’s a bunch intuitive nudges that actually take you to where you wanna be.

Maria:

And the topic of intuition, which I wrote a whole chapter in my book is sometimes taboo in business, but it is absolutely important because when you don’t trust your gut, you can for sure, make a lot of mistake decisions and you know, you can’t really hurt what you’ve done and what you’ve feel because you are not paying attention to what your intuition is telling you because you’re dismissing it, cuz you’re very logical and you’re like, no, I’m not gonna believe what, you know, what my, that thing that stops you from actually pursuing something. You’re like, eh, I’m gonna dismiss that. I know I’m so certain that this is the way to do this. And then boom, something goes wrong and you’re like, shh I should have paid attention to my intuition. Right. And being intuitive is a very important part of being creative.

Maria:

And what people can do is spend five minutes in silence every day. I love the idea of dedicating 20 minutes to meditation, but it sounds very daunting to ask someone to take 20 minutes to sit still in Lotus position or whatever. But I think that like, right this second, just like pause and close your eyes and put your phone with a timer for five minutes and close your eyes and breathe. And even if you are not a hundred percent empty in your mind, because it is difficult. And that’s why they, you know, recommend to do this early in the morning when you just woke up or at night when your brain is a little bit more tired, even if you can’t really just blank, you know, completely, it does give you a pause and that is so valuable. There are no ideas that can flourish. If you don’t give your brain a little break from the intensity and the insanity of the world that we live in.

Tim Jordan:

Agreed. Now, when we’re thinking about creativity and think outside the box, it’s not just about coming up with new ideas or new ways to differentiate or new ways to succeed within our industry. I know that you feel strongly that some of the best ways to find success in your industry is by actually looking into different industries or looking on the fringes of different industries. Can you explain a little bit of what that is? And the context is so many of us get stuck in this bubble. You know, if I’m an Amazon seller on Amazon, I’m so focused on how to get my listing, right. And how to make sure the pictures are good. And my PPC, and I’m not even paying attention to different industries, which could have a tremendous amount of power to help me within my industry. Right. So can you explain maybe how you came up with this concept of realization and how we can put into practice the idea of effectively looking on the fringes of what we’re doing to succeed internally at what we’re actually doing? Yes.

Maria:

Actually, nothing ever start it being ever like, you know, mainstream and that’s actually very important. None of the things that you actually take for granted today were things that I started in the mainstream. I mean, the computer that we’re using to communicate right now was an insane invention. That was a gigantic machine that only companies spend, you know, a million bucks buying a unit back when IBM started putting them together. Right. And so that was not mainstream. And the beauty is that the riches are in the niches, right? You have to go to where all this intersections happen and the margins of, you know, the fringes, it can be where two industries connect, or it could be something when you’re not even connected to that industry, but you have to go and take a look at what’s happening in other industries, how they are solving all their problems that are similar to yours.

Maria:

Or if you are starting from scratch, let’s say, and you are thinking about what to do, and you’re thinking about a viable business idea. Look at the margins, look at what your kids are playing. Look at what people are talking about. That is not yet, you know, adopted as mainstream. Cuz otherwise it’ll be too easy, right? I mean, if you could just go to your, all the trade conferences and you read all the magazines and why then everybody would be already so rich and famous because they would actually figure out exactly what to do, but it’s not like that. For example, one of the best examples to make this very graphic is the history of hip-hop, right? What hip-hop started in the Bronx and New York by really marginalized communities who were just rapping, and playing instruments and tagging walls with graffiti and MCing, and this was the 1970s and this was done in like house parties and on the streets.

Maria:

And it just from then it went on to become what it is. Right. And so that is just, I used that example, not because, well, it is a business, but also because it is so graphic and so easy to understand that nobody can say I have no clue what you’re talking about. Right. And so how hip-hop went from being the house party thing to this massive business that, you know, encompasses music, fashion design, books, media, you know, et cetera, everything right. And had people, the producers who actually started it, backing them up are Jews from the Bronx who worked in the industry in record labels. But, they’ve realized this is important. This makes people tick. This actually sounds interesting. Let’s bring this to the big record labels and see if we can try to bring this to the mainstream throughout the time it was, you know, radio DJs and things like that.

Maria:

And well, I mean, the rest is history, I guess. And the same thing with social media when social media started, it was just experiments to see what happened with college students, if they were willing to share images and pictures, you know, it came out of the verse, it was, people were blogging. And then, you know, developers had an idea, well, what if we make this a way of people to connecting with each other and, you know, sharing their status of what they’re doing and this and that. Right? And it was such a hit because not only started in the margins, but also it act makes people take action. And that’s very, very important too. You know, it’s like, you go in there, you like pictures, you play videos, you connect, you answer comments and questions. And it also gives you a sense of below belonging to a certain degree, which is one of the human needs. Right. We want love, we wanna belong. We want to be part of something. And that is why social media is revolutionary. And it changed our lives forever because it started in the margins and it became mainstream through having, you know, obviously enormous amounts of capital and whatnot. But that came after didn’t start like that. Right?

Tim Jordan:

Yeah. It was grassroots. It was bootstrap. And another thing that’s interesting to think about, and I hadn’t really realized this, but some of the most impactful things, some of the biggest businesses, whether it’s the hip-hop revolution or whether it’s social media, they weren’t perfect when they started. Like someone just started poking away at this. And I remember so many times that I have held up business ideas or been super slow. Cause I felt like it had to be perfect before I could launch it. I mean, hip hop started with house parties and graffiti on the walls. Like you said like social media was just a cheesy app from some college guys that were trying to figure out if a girl would’ve made if she had a boyfriend or not. Right. And that turned into like Facebook. So that’s a great point too, is that sometimes we need to poke around the edges and we need to poke around the fringes without trying to make it perfect. And if we can get there the time, right. And we can be the creative ones to get there first, there could be massive success. I love it.

Maria:

Yep. Yep.

Tim Jordan:

So I know we’re about at a time and there’s a lot to digest here. I kind of wanna just go back through some of these main points. First is we have to-, and you tell me if I’m right here like I wanna paraphrase, but we have to reclaim our creativity. We have to not necessarily be artistic, but we have to think outside the box, we have to do things different. We have to find that blue oceans instead of red ocean. And you’re saying that a lot of times we are having our brains trained to stop doing that. So whether that is taking time to meditate, thinking in the shower, putting your phone away, getting rid of distractions, right. That was kinda, the second point you make is that we can get overly distracted and there is a fine line between coming up with new ideas and having new input versus just being distracted by so much stuff that we can’t ever actually take action.

Tim Jordan:

We can’t make decisions. We can actually go forward or something, right. So we have to think outside the box, we have to wrangle in our own self discipline and eliminate some distractions in our life where we’re gonna just gonna inundate it. And the next thing is, even within our industry, we need to start looking outside that industry. And maybe there’s a big source of creativity there. An example, if very, very basic example for e-com sellers, when I’m thinking about being an e-commerce seller, maybe I need to stop thinking so much about being the best e-com seller and start learning more about another industry, like a new sport or learn this hobby. Because once we look at that other industry, we find the overlap between how we can create e-commerce products using existing audiences or how we can create unique solutions for unique need. And if we’re not actually checking out some of this other stuff in the world, we’re never going to be able to succeed individually in our business. Did I sum that up, right? Or did I miss any of your big points?

Maria:

You were absolutely perfect. You learn fast and now you know what to do, but there is a lot of work and there is, you know, I love to say that there is no overnight success and that is the truth. So creativity takes work and commitment, but I promise you, folks. It is possible. I was an attorney and I have done things that are incredible because it’s not that I was an attorney. And then I became a, you know, consultant it’s like, my shift is very radical. It’s 180 degrees. I have a seven figure business built from the ground up with minimal overhead. And had I not been able to think differently and differentiate myself through my creativity. I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you about this. I wouldn’t have been able to write the book that has the whole comprehensive blueprint and methodology for people who want to dig into this.

Maria:

And the truth is the cornerstone of creativity is that you have to, you said it very well, but I’m going to rephrase it. You have to be able to see things from a different standpoint. If you are surrounded by people who do the same that you do, that’s great for coaching and that’s great for support and to bounce off ideas. But if they all think and have the same problems that you do, it’s going to be a little bit of an echo chamber at some point, because it’s going to be a lot of repetitive idea. And a lot of the sharing is just not necessarily going to have the impact as if you were to bring somebody who’s completely different. And that person might see things in a completely different light. And that’s one of the reasons why really big companies and Fortune 500 companies are considering bringing artists to their boards.

Maria:

Companies like General Mills, companies like Citibank are really thinking, we need people in the board who can actually reflect a way of thinking that is not the same type of person we’ve always had. And so I encourage you to go pick up a copy of my book and see a different person by, from the many different stories that I have gathered from entrepreneurs, from artists, from our history data, and psychology neuroscience. And one other thing I just really wanna mention, it takes about 66 days for your brain to build new neural pathways. This is confirmed by science. For some reason, somebody had the misfortune of saying it was 21 days and I don’t know what no, the minimum and the bare minimum it takes. I know nobody likes this, but I have to be honest, the bare minimum it takes for the brain to make a change is 66 days. And that means repetition. And that means trying in and out to be this fountain of ideas, the same way that again, Steve Jobs was a man who never stopped having ideas and actually bringing them to the world. And he was not the executor. You have to remember that too. He was not coding. He was not a product designer. This guy was a marketer who wanted to have the things he envisioned, produced, and manufactured by his team.

Tim Jordan:

Absolutely love it. If any of you want to get a copy of her book, I know it drops in March. It’s called How Creativity Rules the World and Maria Brito, Brito is spelled B R I T O. And I’m sure you guys can find that anywhere online as books are so frequently distributed. Now, Maria, do you have a personal website? Do you have any social media? If anybody wanted to follow other stuff that you’re putting at work, they find that?

Maria:

Absolutely. My website is mariabrito.com. That’s very easy. mariabrito.com. And you’re gonna find there all the handles all the Ekins all thumbnails, everything that guides you to my LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter my newsletter comes every Tuesday. It’s free. And it’s all about creativity in business and in art. And it provides a lot of different perspectives. And of course, the book, which I’m so proud of published by Harper Collins available everywhere, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart go to your independent bookstore is very important. Support them, go to them and ask for this book and they will get them. They will get it for you, for sure. Even if they don’t have it right now in stock, they will have it for you.

Tim Jordan:

Amazing. Absolutely love it. I appreciate you being on. And for all of you that are listening, there is your challenge to think outside the box, to get a different perspective of the way that you’re thinking about things. And don’t be afraid to be different because the ones that are different are usually the ones that find success. Thank you all for listening to this episode, give us a thumbs up, give us a like if you’re watching on YouTube, if you’re on a podcast platform like Spotify or iTunes, please give us a favorable review if you think that is necessary from the content that we have. And also you can engage with us at ampmpodcast.com or on all of our social media @ampmpodcast. And let us know if there’s a specific topic or a specific guest you’d like for us to track down and we’ll take care of that for you. Thank you again, Maria, for being on, I hope you have a great year and a great book launch. And thank you all for being here. We’ll check you guys out or catch you, I should say. On next week’s episode.

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