Jeremy Utley is an adjunct professor at Stanford University.

He’s also the co-author of Ideaflow, a book on how we can fuel remarkable ideas in ourselves and others. (We highly recommend reading it.)

Once, he and 4X Grammy Award-winning hiphop artist Lacrea were co-teaching a Stanford graduate class. During the lecture, they said to the students, “Go and collect inspiration in the world.”

The students looked at each other, as if silently asking, “How are we supposed to do that?”

Utley noticed this. So he looked to Lacrae and asked, “What do you think inspiration is?”

Then, the hiphop artist dropped a bomb:

Inspiration is the trait we all seek in order to embark on our creative journeys.

For children's book authors, it’s the magic fairy dust that transforms simple stories into worlds that thrill young minds and create lasting memories.

For creative design leaders, it's the strategic vision that transforms client briefs into breakthrough campaigns that reshape how audiences feel about brands.

For marketing teams, it's the catalyst that transforms marketing messages into memorable experiences that stop the scroll, spark engagement, and turn prospects into passionate customers.

This inspiration is what separates forgettable designs from the ones that leave a lasting impact. But it’s also the most elusive.

Why does this happen?

Why We Struggle to Find Inspiration

We make two critical mistakes when seeking creative inspiration.

First, we wait around doing nothing, hoping inspiration will magically strike us like lightning. Second, we endlessly consume other people's work, copying techniques and styles that are trending at the moment.

The first approach leaves us stagnant; the second traps us in imitation mode. Both prevent us from discovering our unique creative voice: the distinctive perspective that makes our work authentic and meaningful.

And when we don’t access our own voice, creative work starts feeling like a job, a burden, rather than the fulfilling expression it should be.

But why do we create these patterns in the first place?

The Self-Limiting Beliefs That Entrap Us

If you tweak the popular quote on excellence for inspiration, you get,

Inspiration is not magic dust; it’s a result of our thoughts, actions, and habits. And the above wisdom explains why we are constantly starved for inspiration.

1. We are afraid to fail

Starting something original means running the risk of it not being good enough.

Rather than seeing this as an opportunity to learn, we see it as failure. And we avoid any experimenting where we could fail — rather, where people say something judgmental about us when we fail.

2. We are mired in self-doubt

The most common internal dialogues when we face a challenge are:

I’m not good enough.
I’m not special enough.
I’m not talented enough.

Honestly, these are lies. (No one — including Pixar’s creative directors — was a talented, sun-kissed prodigy at birth.) But we believe them.

We assume our perspective isn’t worth telling, our style isn’t worth exploring, and our story isn’t worth sharing.

3. We live in consumption mode

Fear and doubt make us take the easy way out: consumption.

We endlessly scroll through other animators' Instagram reels, Behance portfolios, and YouTube breakdowns of techniques we'll never try. And we kid ourselves into believing this is inspiration: we're learning, researching, staying current.

But what we’re really doing is feeding our brains a cluttered diet of other people's ideas while starving our own creative instincts.

3 Proven Steps to Find Inspiration Whenever You Need It

Inspiration, like willpower, is a muscle. If you don’t exercise it regularly, it won’t show up when you need it.

This is why cultivating inspiration becomes a discipline. And it’s especially important in the age of AI. Everyone has access to the same models. But the difference between the ones who produce remarkable results and the ones who produce slop is what they bring to those models.

We’re talking:

• Technique
• Experience
• Perspective
• Experimentation

Here are three steps you can take to cultivate inspiration in your daily life and differentiate yourself in your daily work and interactions with AI.

1. Educate yourself outside your field of interest

If you only consume content in your industry, you will limit your creative potential.

Genuine breakthroughs come from cross-pollinating ideas across psychology, architecture, music theory, or even marine biology into your visual storytelling. Dedicate 30 minutes daily to reading books, articles, or research from unrelated fields.

But reading alone is useless if you don’t actively apply the insights.

2. Experiment with new approaches

Inspiration comes from breaking patterns and testing ideas that could fail.

Set aside time each week for experimenting. Apply what you read or watched: an animation style, color palette, or technique you read in a psychology book. Document what works and what doesn’t. (Documentation is one of the most underrated superpowers of highly inspired and creative people.)

But even the most adventurous creative minds hit brick walls. That’s when you should seek out fresh perspectives.

3. Engage with people in different industries

Conversations with bright minds can unlock entirely uncharted directions and paths.

A conversation with a chef might reveal insights about timing and rhythm that transform your motion graphics. A chat with a therapist could provide a deeper understanding of human behavior that elevates your character.

Attend networking events, join online communities of different professions, or simply ask friends about their creative challenges.

Cross-industry dialogues don't just provide new techniques. They give you entirely different frameworks for thinking about problems, ensuring your inspiration well never runs dry.

Speaking of cultivating a network for inspiration…

We’re announcing our next AI X Creative Accelerator for people like you.

Here’s why.

I spent 2 years learning AI tools the hard way.

Trial and error.
Watching 100+ YouTube tutorials.
Burning through credits on tools that didn't work.

The result? Mediocre outputs and constant frustration.

Then Diana and I cracked the code.

We figured out the exact workflows, prompts, and tool combinations that actually work for creatives.

The breakthrough: Instead of learning every AI tool, master the right AI tools in the right sequence.

That's what we help you figure out in the AI x Creative Accelerator:

✅ 3 weeks to go from AI beginner to AI pro
✅ Small cohorts (15 people max) so you actually get personalized help
✅ Live workshops with real-time feedback (no boring pre-recorded videos)
✅ Hands-on projects using Midjourney V7, Runway Gen-4, GPT-4o Image Gen
✅ Proven workflows that create photorealistic images, consistent characters, and animations

Plus: 1-month free access to ConsistentCharacter.ai​

And if you sign up in the next 3 days, you get a 15% discount.

Over 10,000 creatives have used our methods.

Now we're teaching the complete system in 3 weeks.

Don’t learn AI through random YouTube videos.
Learn it through proven systems from people outside your network.

​Click here to get the discount.

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Talk Soon,

Sachin and Diana

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