The Magic of Drawing Out Your Ideas
A while back, I made a video called ‘Thinking in Pictures.’
I watched that video recently & completely forgot I made that video.
One funny thing about content creation is that once you’ve built up a body of work, you’ll forget about some of your past work.
This is a good problem to have.
Because now you can learn from yourself!
Why learn to think in pictures when you already do it?
Think about it…
If I put you in a corner and tell you to close your eyes, what will you see?
You’ll see flashes of images from your past, present, and potential.
These flashes are known as thoughts.
We see pictures all the time.
We can be trained to think in words.
Some argue that thinking in words is more efficient.
I have the exact opposite philosophy.
I believe Mother Nature programmed us the right way.
Thinking in pictures is the best.
Allow me to share how you can think better in pictures and why it’s a beneficial skill set to have.
We are also going to take a walk down memory lane and bring back drawing.
Thinking in Pictures
I used to know this speaker in Toastmasters who would write down his entire speech and memorize it.
When I saw him reading a stack of papers before his public speaking competition, I felt sorry for him.
He began giving himself a panic attack.
The skilled speakers weren’t that detail-oriented.
Sure, details mattered.
However, the skilled speakers prioritized the big picture over the details.
Let me give you an analogy:
- Imagine I tell 2 brothers to bring a pound of sand to my house by using only one palm. The first to bring it within 5 minutes will win 100 dollars.
Brother 1 picks up the sand, grain by grain, and walks to my house with it.
Example: Grabs one grain, comes to my house, drops it off, and walks back to get another grain.
Brother 2 opens his palm, grabs a clump of sand, and runs to my house.
Sure, a lot of sand falls out of his palm as he makes the run, but he still comes back to the house with a bunch of sand.
Whose strategy was better, brother 1 or brother 2?
‘Brother 2, Armani. You were supposed to be talking about thinking in pictures. Why are you talking about sand for??’
Well, my friend…
That clump of sand is what visual thinking is all about.
Spotting the BIG Idea
Due to information saturation, it’s hard to tell what’s important and what’s not.
One fix to melt away overthinking is to draw out your ideas.
Albert Einstein once said:
‘If you cannot explain it to a 5-year-old, then you don’t know it well enough.’
I say:
‘If you can’t draw it, then you don’t know it well enough.’
You don’t just stumble into drawing a concept.
In order to draw it, you must know it.
And you must know it very well.
So, if I tell you to draw your speech, and you’re like:
‘Uh….’
That’s perfectly fine.
Keep playing around with the idea.
Understand it from multiple angles.
Then it will be easy to draw the idea.
If you haven’t created a speech, create a drawing and turn it into a speech!
No need to be Picasso or anything.
Stick figures, doodles, and sketches go a long way.
You may draw a comic strip by accident.
Where cartoon images are randomly poured onto the page as you try to capture the theme of your talk.
Other times, you will just have 1 haymaker image.
This image represents what your talk is about.
Book Covers & Posters
Thus far, I have published 55 books.
I write all the content.
Once the content is done, I take part in designing the book covers.
Here’s a thing you’ll learn when you’re self-published…
You don’t go to a designer and just say:
‘Hey, make me a cover.’
He’ll be like:
‘What’s your book about? What do you want me to put on it? Do you have a theme in mind?’
If you make him create a cover without any guidance, you’ll be disappointed.
So, it’s smart to draw a rough sketch of what you want.
You can explain it with words, sure.
But words are easily misinterpreted.
Screw it.
Let’s draw.
During the process of drawing, you’re executing a profound challenge:
- You are converting 365 pages (or however long your book is) into 1 image.
Sketching out my covers forced me to clarify my thinking.
Sketching a book cover was similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s poster strategy.
When choosing which movie he would star in, Arnold would think:
‘What’s the poster of this movie going to look like?’
This question forced him to understand the main idea of the movie.
Whether it is book covers or posters, the same principle holds true:
- Convert concepts into pictures to understand the main message.
Final Challenge for You
Are you someone who wants to boost your visual thinking skills?
If so, then try the following challenge.
Get any long-form content and create cover art on it.
Let’s say you wrote a book.
What is a potential cover design you can think of that best represents the essence of the book?
If you never wrote a book, then create an alternate cover to a book that you read.
Can you create a new cover for Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets?
Let’s say you recently watched Barbenheimer (Barbie & Oppenheimer on the same day).
Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.
Design a poster of the 2 movies collaborating.
Barbie with a bomb exploding in the back, maybe?
Turning a long-form content into an image forces you to go beyond words.
You go back to your primal roots.
When you can think in pictures, it allows you to grab the CLUMP of a topic.
Aka: the main point.
While others are fretting over each grain, you grab the clump and run.
