It’s not often that the foreword of a book sticks with you more than the book itself.
But there’s this line in the foreword of Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw that I’ve thought about nearly every week for the past ten years.
The book is a collection of Gladwell’s favourite essays that were originally published in The New Yorker. The essays cover topics like ketchup vs mustard, women’s hair dye in the 1960s, and various other immediately compelling topics…
Ok, ok, so maybe the topics don’t seem all that interesting at first blush, but the way Gladwell explores them most certainly is.
Which brings us back to the foreword, in which he addresses one of the most common questions he receives from readers.
“Where do you come up with these quirky ideas for stories? And how do you then make these boring, mundane objects, events, and people interesting?”
His response?
“If you believe that everything is interesting, you’ll find that it is.”
Everything around us has a hidden story, he goes on to share, and if we’re willing to dig into it and peek beneath the surface, we’ll often find a fascinating world of twists and turns and intrigue.
This is an important idea for us as creators, but one we don’t often give the attention it deserves.
We like to think that the foundation of successful creative work is our skill at our craft, or perhaps the strategies and tactics we use to get our work in front of an audience.
And to be sure, craft and marketing are essential parts of the work.
But the role of both our craft and our marketing are to communicate ideas. And in order to communicate ideas, we first need to find them.
And not just any ideas.
Work that cuts through the noise is based on novel, original, unique and refreshing ideas.
The kind that open our eyes to something we didn’t know existed.
Or help us see something familiar in an entirely new light.
So much of our success as creators, then, is determined by our ability to consistently find the interesting in the mundane.
But as Gladwell’s quote hints at, while interesting ideas and stories are all around us, often staring us in the face, they require some belief, curiosity, and digging in order to get to the heart of them.
Without a healthy appetite of curiosity and an eye for the interesting, then, we’ll always struggle to produce anything new or fresh.
If our inputs are generic and uninteresting, why should we expect our output to be anything else?
Luckily, the world is packed full of interesting inputs if we know how to look at it, and even luckier, training ourselves to look for interest is a skill you can learn.
Best of all, approaching the world with the belief that it’s full of interesting stories engages a positive feedback loop.
With each new discovery, the world itself becomes a bit more interesting, stoking our curiosity to wonder at what other stories and ideas we might be walking past every day without noticing.
A couple years ago, for example, I was prompted (who knows why) to look up the different types of columns used in classical Greek and Roman construction (seriously, what led me to look this up?).
Now, on a regular basis I notice the Ionic, Doric, Corinthian, and Tuscan columns that ornament many neoclassical buildings around the world.
Or there was the time I finally looked up the answer to a long-running question in my mind about whether the Michelin restaurant rating system stemmed from the Michelin tire company.
It does.
And there’s a whole story there.
I’m unlikely to ever use any of this knowledge in any practical sense.
But having it makes the world–and life–feel richer, more interesting, more inspiring.
All of which lead to more and better creative work.
It’s hard to create interesting work while living in a boring world after all.
The good news is none of us live in a boring world, even if it might seem that way from the outside.
If it does, the solution is fairly straightforward.
Pick something mundane you encounter regularly in your daily life and learn the story behind it.
If the original topic isn’t all that interesting, keep following the related Wikipedia links until you land on something truly fascinating.
I guarantee it won’t take long.
The more you can attune your brain to find interesting stories and ideas, the more information it has to create interesting work.
It won’t happen overnight, but in time it will become second nature.
Make your world interesting and your work will follow suit.
And hey, an interesting life is just more fun to live.
Explore how to navigate a creative life that matters
This article originally appeared in my weekly Creative Wayfinding Newsletter. Each issue is the product of a week of work, and contains something not available for sale.
A fresh perspective, a shot of encouragement when you need it most, and maybe even some genuine wisdom from time to time.
Each week, we explore a different facet of the question “How do we navigate the wilds of creating work that matters?”
It’s something I’m proud to create and I’d be honoured to share it with you.
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