When did you last have a really good idea? An idea worth talking about. This is such a great question.

I asked this question of myself and of my 25-person strong team when I was about 5 years into leading creative and marketing agencies. The answer was – far too long ago, and thereafter far too infrequently.

You see, instead of having good ideas, we were doing things like optimising website navigation, upping brand findabilty, checking brochure copy spelling, making readable logos, getting spot varnish to sit where it’s supposed to, making sure that websites were there-and-fast loading, and (more recently) we were aligning digital content to the latest social media trend. Or as I now call such things – unspecial. Ordinary. Table stakes. Or plain old piss boring.

Ideas are lovely! They’re good for you brain. Good for business. They get good businesses noticed. They create good feelings that people remember.

We once printed boxes for a really brilliant packaging company, FRAGILE. THIS WAY UP. And upside down on an adjacent side OR THIS WAY UP IF YOU LIKE.

We once froze a pair of expensive, Limited Edition/Limited release shoes in ice and filmed the ice melting over 48 hours.

We once sent die cut chickens followed by die cut eggs as direct mail to the same prospects, then called to ask them – well – you know.

So we did have good ideas. But as I say. Far too few. And far too infrequently.

It’s worth pondering this. Really. When did you last have a really good idea? An idea worth talking about.

At the same time as watching rubbish on the tv last night, I ate pistachio nuts from a large glass jar.

Pistachios taste very nice. They’re lovely colours. And they are uncompromising with how quickly they allow themselves to be eaten. Shelling-and-eating one pistachio takes ten seconds. And one in ten pistachio nut is awkward. Slowing me. My steady, stuttery eating-pace was set for me.

This, I concluded, was perfect.

Shelled pistachios are available. And because they are better prepared, they’re the worse option. I don’t want to gobble pistachios (I would). I want to twiddle with them. Then taste them. One-at-a-time.

Similarly, I don’t want artificial intelligence to write for me. I like finding the words. I don’t (always) want to quickly build Ikea shelves. I want to slowly decide the cuts in the musty-smelling wood as I go. I don’t want to plan and know what I’ll learn today. I want to feel hungry, curious and surprised.

Prompted by pistachios, I’ll keep an eye on things like this. More than I currently do. Because making things better can – probably much more often than I realise – make them much, much worse.

One of the trickiest challenges when helping businesses to get Noticed, Remembered and Chosen. (That’s fundamentally what I do, by the way. When I’m wheeled-in as a Brand Director). Is to understand and manage the difference between Compelling and Motivating.

I can take a business from blend-in-frustrated to Compelling. And that’s good. But what it’s really about is making the offer Motivating.

Compelling helps with the ‘Noticed and Remembered’ bit. Motivating helps with the ‘Chosen’ bit.

It’s clearly not enough to get in the minds of the consumer, if they don’t feel motivated to take that final step with you – and buy.

As I say. Tricky.

If a business looks boring and formulaic, then it probably is. I’m referring particularly to photographs and video.

If you don’t know what I mean, search ‘businesses’ or ‘business people’ on a stock photography website. Then look at your photography. And if they look the same – except your photo has you in it – then, of course your business looks boring and formulaic. It’s obvious.

Some business activity takes place in cowsheds. Or on Chesterfield settees by a river. Or wandering along Hadrian’s Wall. Or just not in white or magnolia plasterboard rooms with suspended ceilings and fluorescent lighting and fire extinguishers and fire exits and grey desks and cloned chairs and flip charts and TV’s on wheels and vertical blinds and little triangular sandwiches (ham and cheese ones that we do want. Egg ones that we don’t).

All I’m saying is that if a business looks boring and formulaic, then it probably is.

Once I’d explained to an 8 year old Izobel that Babycham was not, in fact, champagne for babies, we decided to leave. The vintage fair in Whitby was a hall lively with colourful, ageing tat. And colourful ageing rootlers. Like me.

As we approached the exit, I laughed silently at Izobel’s misassumption. I, an adult, does not make such errors. I clocked the word PUSH on the glass door, so push I did. Even though the word PUSH was on the outside of the glass. In reverse.

Only my pride bruised as a result of the surprisingly noisy nose-and-knee-door-bump. Izobel laughed not so silently. It was the turn of nearby stallholders to laugh silently this time. I sensed they’d been watching for misreaders all morning. To alleviate their boredom.

Downtime is great. With important people. Doing unimportant things. A little reminder. That these ARE the good old days.

Businesses. Hobbies. Personal relationships. They’re all the same in this vein. It is possible to ‘know the life out of’ them.

Sometimes, when I start work with a founder, they are so clever about their work, and so familiar with how the business runs and ‘is’ – they’re strangling it. It’s stagnant. There’s no magic. No flair. No adventure. No daring, cheeky, mischievous and interesting part at all. Of course, this results in a degree of solidity – but a business like this is actually quite dull to be around. And it’s hard for customers to build vibrant, ongoing relationship with a business like that.

To ‘know the life out of a partner’ has the same effect. ‘Bit boring. And if every time we played golf or pool we knew exactly how we’d perform, we’d get bored with that too.

It is possible to ‘know the life out of’ something. Literally. So if you really are too clever for your own good, bring in someone dafter that you are, to help you get the life back. Maybe someone much, much dafter. Someone like me.