Aidan Keane, founder and creative director of Keane Brands, one of the world's specialist design houses based in London, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur
I was always told that success was 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. A hackneyed little ditty, but one I have held dear for years. I’ve never really questioned it to be honest with you. It was just there, slowly turning into an unchallenged truth. That is until recently…
Working as I do, early one morning it suddenly struck me that I haven’t gone out and dedicated myself to finding brilliant and inspiring reference material for years!
I suppose that every day finds me out and about in some way, rummaging through life, in whatever city I happen across.
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Sure, I am always looking, always aware and with eyes peeled, but utterly dedicated and focused on the job of sourcing inspiration? Rarely these days, if I am being utterly critical.
Then it struck me that in fact, I was one of the lucky ones in my world. I get to travel, I get out and very about every day, every week and every month of every year.
Rain or shine, winter or summer, day or night. And, as a consequence I get to see enormous amounts of inspirational things. Big structures, little details, operational highs, lows and occasionally, excellence. I get to taste food from the street to the finest tables in the land. Eat with myself, with others, with friends and with people I shall never meet again.
I get to do all that and lots of it rubs off – almost subconsciously. It is the fuel that feeds my mind and I love it, I really do. But what happens to those people who are running large leisure businesses where all their time and focus is spent on bureaucracy. Where do those people get their inspiration and sparks?
And if they don’t get out and about, how can they drive the businesses they run anywhere but into cliché mountains? Because if I am struggling to dedicate time to the leisurely and pleasurely art of inspiration, what hope is there for these overworked people?
If you are one of these people, locked into the corporate spiral but desperate to find inspiration, I completely and sincerely beg you to break free of your routine shackles and get back to the important business of being inspired.
Fall in love with how good things are out there – not things done by the big brands and names, but by the man you haven’t seen yet down that side street in that little place called Inspirationville! You need to visit him – we all do!
When inspiration takes over, perspiration can take a backseat for a while!
Aidan Keane is the larger-than-life founder and creative director of Keane Brands, one of the world’s specialist design houses based in London, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur. Details: www.keanebrands.com
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