Where ideas come from and the myth of originality.

Few things are more misunderstood than the creative mind.

The human imagination is the birthplace of all great ideas. It gave us the Mona Lisa and the Internet. It also split the atom. And without it, we’d be heartless creatures unable to fit in our neighbor’s shoes.

Creative people are often seen as rarities—smart, curious visionaries able to look at the world with fresh eyes. These are the Nobel prize winners and artists whose works hang on museum walls or turn living rooms into dance floors.

But this notion couldn’t be further from the truth.

THE WORK has been spreading like butter on warm toast, and someone recently asked me where I get my ideas from. My answer: "Everywhere."

I know. I sound like an asshole.

Let me explain.

A big part of the creative process involves what classical psychologists call “combinational creativity”—taking old ideas or bits of information and combining them to make something new.

Bluntly put, there is no such thing as an original idea.

Gosh, I still sound like an asshole.

But the sooner you understand that all creative work builds on what came before, the sooner you'll get unstuck and start feeling good about your ideas.

Even some of history’s most celebrated creatives have long spread this gospel:

“Originality often consists in linking up ideas whose connection was not previously suspected,” wrote W. I. B. Beveridge in The Art of Scientific Investigation. “All ideas are second-hand,” said Mark Twain. William Ralph Inge said originality was “undetected plagiarism.” And for Steve Jobs “Creativity is just connecting things.”

This idea is also supported by neuroscience.

In his book, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, neuroscientist David Eagleman breaks down the unconscious processing that takes place as we come up with an idea we call our own: