About inspir.e
The Manifesto
The lightning strike.
The light bulb over your head.
The light bulb over your head.
The flash before your eyes. The Aha! moment.
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As part of the movement, we see a world where the business world sees inspiration the way it should.
The words we use to describe inspiration all have a surprising, illuminating, almost divine characteristic: it’s a sudden, singular flash of light, a moment of pure knowing, arrived seemingly out of nowhere, but always just in time, for reasons we can never comprehend, to people who never seem to be us.
It’s a magical, ineffable vision of inspiration that we paint for ourselves. And it’s all wrong. It implies that inspiration happens to us. That we are not part of the act, but simply lucky recipients. Vessels. Play things of the gods.
We’re not. We make inspiration happen. People. Us. Inspiration occurs within us, because of us, for us.
Inspiration is derivable from all things, for every person, at any time. It occurs when we come to see something differently or understand something anew, and we become driven, compelled, motivated to take that new perspective or understanding and do something unique and special with it—whether that’s writing a novel, building a product, changing a behavior, or a million other acts of creation.
Indeed, everything the human race has ever created was born from inspiration: war, peace, romance, philanthropy, cities, buildings, art, sidewalks, cars, bikes, trikes, scooters, iPhones, iPads, eyeglasses, books, movies, nail polish color, post-it notes, those little things on the end of your shoelaces, shoes that lace themselves.
The list is endless, because the possibilities for inspiration are endless. It is the only truly renewable natural resource in the world, and it is our mission to mine it in support of the future of work.
The words we use to describe inspiration all have a surprising, illuminating, almost divine characteristic: it’s a sudden, singular flash of light, a moment of pure knowing, arrived seemingly out of nowhere, but always just in time, for reasons we can never comprehend, to people who never seem to be us.
It’s a magical, ineffable vision of inspiration that we paint for ourselves. And it’s all wrong. It implies that inspiration happens to us. That we are not part of the act, but simply lucky recipients. Vessels. Play things of the gods.
We’re not. We make inspiration happen. People. Us. Inspiration occurs within us, because of us, for us.
Inspiration is derivable from all things, for every person, at any time. It occurs when we come to see something differently or understand something anew, and we become driven, compelled, motivated to take that new perspective or understanding and do something unique and special with it—whether that’s writing a novel, building a product, changing a behavior, or a million other acts of creation.
Indeed, everything the human race has ever created was born from inspiration: war, peace, romance, philanthropy, cities, buildings, art, sidewalks, cars, bikes, trikes, scooters, iPhones, iPads, eyeglasses, books, movies, nail polish color, post-it notes, those little things on the end of your shoelaces, shoes that lace themselves.
The list is endless, because the possibilities for inspiration are endless. It is the only truly renewable natural resource in the world, and it is our mission to mine it in support of the future of work.
The Psychology
The psychology of inspiration is mysterious and complex. No one knows how it works neurologically. No one can reliably manufacture its moments.
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All social scientists understand is that inspiration functions like a motivational process that compels those who experience it to act, to create, to make change. In that sense, particularly in the business world, inspiration is the conduit between idea and innovation, between mission and execution, between dreaming and doing. Indeed, something cannot be considered inspiration or inspirational—no matter how interesting, entertaining, titillating, or novel it may be—if it does not produce action of some kind: a change in perspective or beliefs, a new idea, a new product.
What we have come to understand is that while you can’t manufacture instances of inspiration on demand, you can train your mind and engineer your environment to increase the likelihood and frequency of their occurrence. It starts by opening your eyes, your mind and your heart to more inputs; by thinking more deeply about what you experience out in the world and what you’re working on in the office; and by learning how to apply fresh insights to old problems and thus, create transformational change.
While certainly electric, we’ve said already that inspiration is not simply a bolt of lightning out of the blue. Rather, it is the energy transfer that occurs when a lighting bolt strikes something that is conductive and ready to receive it. The purpose of the Inspiration Discipline is to help your teams become more conductive—to become lightning rods—and to teach them how to find the lightning storms all around them, until eventually they become the storms themselves.
What we have come to understand is that while you can’t manufacture instances of inspiration on demand, you can train your mind and engineer your environment to increase the likelihood and frequency of their occurrence. It starts by opening your eyes, your mind and your heart to more inputs; by thinking more deeply about what you experience out in the world and what you’re working on in the office; and by learning how to apply fresh insights to old problems and thus, create transformational change.
While certainly electric, we’ve said already that inspiration is not simply a bolt of lightning out of the blue. Rather, it is the energy transfer that occurs when a lighting bolt strikes something that is conductive and ready to receive it. The purpose of the Inspiration Discipline is to help your teams become more conductive—to become lightning rods—and to teach them how to find the lightning storms all around them, until eventually they become the storms themselves.
The Team
The team at inspir.e is what one might expect. We call ourselves Curators and Creators because that is the essence of the work.
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For more than thirty years, Andy Stefanovich and Courtney Ferrell have criss-crossed the globe in search of inspiration.
They’ve been to conferences in Canada, museums in Madrid, roadside barbecue joints in North Carolina, hot dog carts in Denmark, sushi spots in subway stations, ballparks, national parks, parking lots, farms and farmers markets, Hollywood and Bollywood and all points in between, curating the world in service of business.
Their goal has been to help an eclectic mix of clients look at more stuff, think more deeply, create more purposefully, and innovate more daringly. It’s been to change minds, change hearts, and change cultures within many of the world’s most famous companies. What they have found is that the most lasting, transformational changes always occur as a byproduct of inspiration sparked by exposure to the simple, beautiful genius of the people, places, objects and ideas that surround us everyday.
Now, they have assembled a passionate, mission-driven, like-minded team on top of their curatorial instincts, their insights about inspiration, and their library of creative curiosities to develop a process and a product that reliably delivers the genius of the world to business teams in search of inspiration and all that inspiration produces.
The Inspir.e team is as multi-disciplinary as it gets – from writers to runners, from designers to lawyers, from CTOs to PhDs to a savant in L&D, we’ve got the entire can of alphabet soup covered in our ranks. Each member brings something unique and indispensable to the team, but what they all have in common is that they are at once both curators and creators. They filter the world for our subscribers and create experiences to inspire them to see and feel and do new things in new ways in their business.
That is the mission of our team, and that is our hope for your team and for the future of work.
They’ve been to conferences in Canada, museums in Madrid, roadside barbecue joints in North Carolina, hot dog carts in Denmark, sushi spots in subway stations, ballparks, national parks, parking lots, farms and farmers markets, Hollywood and Bollywood and all points in between, curating the world in service of business.
Their goal has been to help an eclectic mix of clients look at more stuff, think more deeply, create more purposefully, and innovate more daringly. It’s been to change minds, change hearts, and change cultures within many of the world’s most famous companies. What they have found is that the most lasting, transformational changes always occur as a byproduct of inspiration sparked by exposure to the simple, beautiful genius of the people, places, objects and ideas that surround us everyday.
Now, they have assembled a passionate, mission-driven, like-minded team on top of their curatorial instincts, their insights about inspiration, and their library of creative curiosities to develop a process and a product that reliably delivers the genius of the world to business teams in search of inspiration and all that inspiration produces.
The Inspir.e team is as multi-disciplinary as it gets – from writers to runners, from designers to lawyers, from CTOs to PhDs to a savant in L&D, we’ve got the entire can of alphabet soup covered in our ranks. Each member brings something unique and indispensable to the team, but what they all have in common is that they are at once both curators and creators. They filter the world for our subscribers and create experiences to inspire them to see and feel and do new things in new ways in their business.
That is the mission of our team, and that is our hope for your team and for the future of work.
inspir.ation
We provide powerful pieces of curated content designed to make teammates and teams think and feel and question
inspir.ed
We equip teammates and teams with a strategic translation tool that functions like a guide or template as they connect what they have experienced in the world to what they’re trying to accomplish in their work.
inspir.ing
We challenge teammates and teams to do something with the new insight generated by their work with the translation tools, as well as becoming inspiring to others through their actions in the process.
