Hi,
I asked 100 CEOs this question, and here are the top 5 answers for how they get creative.
“There’s someone having the same idea as you right now. We’re all looking at the same references, the same mood boards, the same recycled ideas. My secret weapon? Find ideas where no one else is looking.
Before I start any brief, I let my brain walk before I work. While everyone else scrolls for references, I go offline and take a walk in my local park, surrounded by nature and people. That mix of movement, observation, and quiet is the perfect launchpad for ideas. Science even proves it - walking increases oxygen to the brain, especially to the prefrontal cortex, which is directly linked to creative thinking.
I look for inspiration in niche corners and unexpected places: far-flung bookshops, dusty old records, forgotten archives. For our Adidas Originals x Childish Gambino collaboration, I drew from a 1970s performance artist to create a deep, emotional live experience that sold out within minutes.
One of my favorite campaigns was replacing all branding and screens in Uniqlo’s London flagship store with a guided breathing exercise. It came to me while staring at a tree. The best ideas come when you notice something small, strange, and true.
And when inspiration hits, I don’t write it down - I draw it. Sketching helps me process, focus, and remember. It turns thoughts into visuals others can see. So step away from your desk. Look where no one else is looking. Sketch it out. Those tiny shifts will push your ideas closer towards true originality.”
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Georgia Farquharson is CEO of FARQ, an award-winning talent agency that represents 50 creators across the UK and US, and has secured over $6.5 million in brand deals across both markets. |
“Total silence is my secret to creativity.
Lots of my peers find creative inspiration by reading self-help books or listening to podcasts and throwing all their spare time into self-development. But I actually buck that trend because I feel like my brain is so full during the day doing work, and actually we need time to recharge and refresh.
I’m based in Dallas so I’m six hours behind the UK. I wake up and the world is already awake, and my phone is blowing up. When I first moved here I found that really overwhelming because my fight-or-flight instinct kicked in as soon as I woke up. Self-care for me, then, is so important.
It's the only time as an entrepreneur that you don't have your phone and you’re alone with your thoughts. I will be face down having a massage and my mind has this peace and the ability to fill back up. I’ll have my most creative ideas during those moments.”
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Amy Leneker is a former C-suite executive and founder of The Leneker Team. |
“I’ve realised that I have my best ideas when I stop forcing myself to come up with them.
Early on in my business, I treated creativity like something to schedule on my calendar between Zoom meetings. Spoiler alert: it didn't work! The greater the pressure, the less innovative I felt. It was a vicious cycle.
While I was writing my first book, amid months of drafts, deadlines, and doubting myself at 2am, I hit a wall. So I did something counterintuitive for a CEO with a mile-long to-do list: I booked a solo trip far away from home.
I swapped my meetings for the Alaskan ocean and the ability to switch off and allow myself to daydream. Some of the best ideas I’ve ever had came in that trip. Not because Alaska is magic (although it is!), but because stillness is magic. Neuroscience calls this the ‘Default Mode Network’: the brain’s most creative state, activated when we stop forcing our thoughts and let them meander. It’s the same mental phenomenon behind Paul McCartney composing ‘Yesterday’ from a dream he had in 1964. When the conscious brain rests, creativity gets to work.
And, as it turns out, my trip was exactly what helped me finish my book. The further from the familiar office and routine I am, the faster my ideas seem to flow. Because, it turns out, my best ideas arrive when I stop chasing them.”
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Emily Austen is CEO of London-based PR agency EMERGEand author of Smarter. |
“Being creative has to be embedded in day-to-day life, it can’t be scheduled. To stay creative I’m constantly collecting inspiration everywhere I go.
A lot of people talk about nature and stillness when discussing creativity and yes, those moments help ideas take shape. But you need to have the information in the first place. If you’re genuinely interested in creativity more broadly, you see it all around you. The real skill is filtering it and aligning with your vision.
When I do need creativity, I’m inspired visually. I like to go into shops and look at what’s on the shelves. I look at how packaging is evolving, point of service, merchandising, and how brands are showing up, noticing fonts, colours and design. Beauty brands especially inspire me, and I use them to inform fast-moving consumer goods.
In my agency work, I subscribe to weekly newsletters which aggregate data for me to see how brands are creatively showing up. Ultimately, I make sure I consume as much variety as possible in the media, from history to politics, to inform what I’m doing.”
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Ausrine Skarnulyte is the CEO of Voice-Swap, an AI voice platform that lets creators, artists, and businesses transform vocal performance with realism and control. |
“Creative inspiration rarely comes from a single source or place. My trick is to take it from as many different sources as possible.
When I was 10, my mother gave me a copy of a folk story collection, One Thousand and One Nights, and it completely altered how I saw the world. Those stories taught me that imagination and life itself are a labyrinth of possibilities, each tale opening a door to another. They also sparked a lifelong need for adventure, which I carry into my daily life.
While I thrive in chaos, I also find that long, quiet walks balance me. Many of my business insights emerge in those calmer moments, when the noise of startup life settles into something more tangible.
Conversations are another source for me – an exchange with talent, engineers, partners, stakeholders and even strangers. Creative thinking is essential, as complacency creates blind spots that narrow our view of business, product-market fit, and possibilities.”
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Talk soon,
Steven