Have you just thought of a creative idea? 149 other people you don’t know have just had the same idea
I spend half my time talking to people that want to start up a new business. Many of them base their projects on an original idea they've had and ask themselves how to turn it into a reality.
The first thing I tell them is that in the precise instant in which they conceived the idea in question, no matter how ingenious and original it may be, there are at least 149 other people who've had the same idea, at the same moment. And most of those 149 people are also, right at that moment, telling someone like me about their intuition in order to try to realize it.
In general the reaction of my interlocutor is not particularly positive.
"Why are you underestimating my creativity like this?" they'll be thinking while I'm speaking. And so I find I need to explain myself better.
O ur creativity is never (or almost never) solipsistic. Our brain elaborates on the information that it absorbs from the world around it and it makes associations on the basis of a combination of its experiences, attitudes and signals that the unconscious sends it. Current events, the books one reads, conversations with friends, posts one reads on Facebook. Creativity is nothing more than our personal way of making connection between the following four components: external stimuli, our background knowledge, our psychological situation and our subconscious.
Now, independently of how much we might not like to thinks so, we're all much more similar to others than we believe ourselves to be. Every human being is unique, but at the same time closely resembles an enormous number of similar people. Thus, in front of a similar external stimulus, many other people will react in the exact same way that we do. An in front of two or more stimuli (that together generate creativity) a lower percentage (but still a relevant number) will create the same mental association we do. There are of course always things like cultural background and our unconscious minds that differentiate us. But as I said before, there are many people that have a cultural heritage similar to ours and others whose unconscious minds resemble our own.
Therefore, although the number may be narrowed down, the fact remains that when we come up with a creative idea it's almost certain that other people, whom we don't know, have had the same illumination we have.
How many? Impossible to say, of course. But we can amuse ourselves with an approximative calculation.
O n our planet 6.9 billion people live; one of whom is you. Obviously, not all are subject to the same external stimuli. If you read yesterday that Gaddafi has a hidden treasure, how many other people learned it as well, or will in the next few hours? Just about all of the world's population that has access to a newspaper, a satellite TV of the Internet. Shall we say 2 billion?
If then you - because you love stories of buried treasure and are adventurous - discovered on the Internet that there is a site that collects information on hidden treasure, perhaps a creative idea may come to you (what kind of idea I don't know: it's your idea not mine). This narrows down the pool drastically. How many people of that billion are adventurous like you? 15 percent? That would make 150 million. And how many are interested in hidden treasure? Maybe 5 percent? That would make seven and a half million adventurers and fans of buried treasure that may have acquired the same information that brought the idea to your mind.
Now, how many of them could have a cultural background very similar to your own? There those who are doctors, those who are traveling salesmen. People 60 years old and people 12 years old. For the sake of our game let's hypothesize that it's 2 percent, which would narrow the pool to 150 thousand people in the world who could have had your same idea. That seems like a lot, but in reality the number is a much less, since we have yet to introduce the unconscious and psychological elements into the equation. How many of them are living a moment of their lives that would induce them to creativity, perhaps because they're unsatisfied or because they've inherited a house in Tuscany? Let's hazard 10 percent. And how many have a subconscious so similar to your own to lead them to your same creative idea? Undoubtedly very few: perhaps just 1 percent.
Which leads me to tell you that 150 people have just had the same idea you have. Not something similar, the same exact thing! Subtract yourself and we get 149 others.
Y es, this is all just a game of course. I invented the percentages, though I was trying to be as logical as possible. But the point isn't the exact number of people who've the same idea as you; the point is beyond a shadow of a doubt you're not the only one.
A depressing thought? To the contrary! Humanity is pulsing and extraordinarily creative organism, which vibrates in unison when it receives common stimuli.
What effect does it have on you?
