Are you a creative entrepreneur or voice actor like I am?

If you’re a creative entrepreneur or a voice actor like me, you’ll find yourself needing to solve problems, come up with new ideas or create a business plan-of-action on a regular basis. It’s part of our job!

However, there are challenges, right?

• You don’t always have access to a MasterMind group to help you.
• It’s late at night and you need to do some turbo-creative brainstorming.
• You’re stumped and are staring at a blank page – and a deadline.

It can be a challenge to uncover solutions if you’re all alone!

Well if you’ve ever found yourself with a challenge, problem, elusive idea or project you need to get moving forward, I want to share with you one of my all-time favorite ways to brainstorm when it’s just me, myself and I sitting at the table!

It’s something I learned about many years ago when reading the amazing book, “Women and Risk” by Nicky Marone, (a must read for all my women readers here!), but I’m guessing this creative process has been around for a long, long time.

This technique is referred to by a number of different names – mind-mapping being one of them.

I like to call it the “Creativity Wheel.”

So if you’re someone who needs some help with brainstorming or accessing the creative side of your brain, (and you’re all alone!), this is the perfect solution.

You can create a stream of great ideas and strategies yourself! It’s a fun, easy exercise in “lateral thinking” and is a fabulous way to generate new ideas around a central subject.

The Creativity Wheel looks just like it sounds. It’s a wheel with a hub in the middle and spokes emerging from the center hub. (See example 1a, below.)

I guarantee that when you do this exercise you’ll be amazed at how it can literally open the flood gates of creative brainstorming. And the more you do it, the more fun it becomes.

Here’s how it works:

First, on a blank sheet of paper draw a circle in the middle of the page. Write your idea, challenge, or question inside this circle. Next, allow your mind to freely explore any and all ideas associated with this central issue. Associate as many secondary thoughts as you’d like.

When ideas or thoughts come to you, draw a straight line, or spoke, from the central idea circle, and then draw another circle on the end of the spoke. In the second circle, write the related idea. (See example 1a.)

For example if the central idea is: “Create a new website.” Your second circle might contain, “Research web designers.” A third spoke with a third circle might contain, “Decide on a color scheme.” A fourth spoke with a fourth circle might contain, “Write copy for the ‘about’ page or ‘bio’,” etc.

You’re essentially brainstorming with yourself! And you’ll find you’ll be able to come up with more ideas, more easily, than writing a linear list on a pad of paper.

Here’s an Action Challenge for you:

In order to gain more clarity and detail on an idea or challenge you have, use The Creativity Wheel. This is a wonderful brainstorming tool you can use by yourself, but be sure to undertake this exercise when you know you can have some uninterrupted time.

Then, once you have one Creativity Wheel completed, drill down even further than the example below by using the associated ideas (the circles at the end of the spokes) as the central idea on a new page.

Just take that idea and make it the center circle on a new page and continue to free-associate around that idea. (See example 1b.)

You’ll get the greatest benefit from this process if you create several Wheels and you’ll be astonished at how many new ideas you’ll be able to generate!

Don’t censor yourself!

Create a new spoke for every idea that pops into your head. If you really want to get into “free association,” what’s even more fun is to cut out all the circles with a pair of scissors and arrange them all over your dining room table and then shuffle them around.

Arrange them in different orders on your table and take notes on the ideas and connections that present themselves to you.

Then, once you’ve contemplated them for a while, rearrange the circles you’ve cut out (with ideas on them) and see what OTHER connections or ideas reveal themselves to you.

It’s a fabulous way to practice free-association creative thinking and will reveal many ideas, strategies and conclusions you would never have thought of. Try it!

As mentioned above, here are a couple of examples of the Creativity Wheel that I’m referring to:

See how easy it is?

And you can use this process for ANY challenge or idea you have.

Whether it’s brainstorming around creating a new voice-over demo or figuring out a strategy to quit your day job and become an entrepreneur, using the Creativity Wheel will help you come up with unique ideas that you wouldn’t have access to by writing a linear list on a lined piece of paper.