Member-only story
Inspiration comes from challenges. For example, every great story starts with a challenge: a baffling mystery, a menacing Goliath, a childhood spent in a cupboard under the stairs.
Companies, too, are born of challenges — often personal ones. The same goes for inventions, art projects, and social movements. In every area of life, there’s a connection between challenges and creativity.
This is definitely true for me personally. Both of my books, Hooked and Indistractable, were inspired by challenges that kept coming up in my own life.
When I sought a guide on how to use technology to build healthy habits in people’s lives, I couldn’t find one — so, I researched and wrote Hooked to address that challenge. Similarly, a few years later, I found myself getting distracted from my priorities in life, but most of the books out there did nothing but blame technology. I decided to look deeper into the root of the problem, and Indistractable ended up being the book I wished I’d found. Eventually, the buzz of unsolved problems became a din, and that was my motivation to act.
I’ve also seen how this principle works from a front-row seat as an angel investor. It’s a privilege to support people who tackle challenges by building world-changing companies like Eventbrite, Kahoot, Canva, and many others. Each of the people building those ventures drew inspiration from challenges, both initially and along the way.
Back to the present moment: if there’s one thing 2020 has brought, it is challenges.
Globally and personally, it feels like every week has unveiled some weird new problem — and it’s still not over. On top of that, 2020 has also made many not-so-new challenges more obvious, including the challenge of providing healthcare to people and the challenge of digital disinformation and distraction.
- What will the challenges of 2020 inspire?
- Motivated by the challenges of this new era, what will we create?
- What new problems will we solve, and what will those new solutions look like?
Those are the questions I’m thinking about right now. They’re on my mind because of my daughter, who’ll grow-up in a world after COVID-19. They’re also on my mind because of the people I…
