Back in my teenage rock band days, my band needed to shoot a music video.

The setting was a dark and dingy bar but we weren't close enough friends with any bar owners who would lend their bar out to teenagers so we had to improvise.

Luckily, our drummer worked at a small independent theater so we could use their space in the off-hours.

So we went to work to create our setting. 

We needed to create a dark and smoky vibe so we darkened the space with big black curtains. But, it was still too stale on camera. We needed some hazy smoke to set the scene.

Now, the easy thing would've been to rent a smoke machine to fill up the space with harmless smoke. 

Our solution was worse.

Instead of finding a smoke machine (that, thinking of it, was probably stashed away somewhere inside this independent theater), we instead chose to smoke enough cigarettes to fill the room with a hazy mist of cancer.

Although we could rock, we certainly weren't the brightest band on the block...

But we had a mission, and everyone did their part.

The drummer, god bless his soul, probably smoked more cigarettes than the entire band and extras combined, and quit smoking for a while after the experience.

(BTW, he's not dead or anything. I saw him two weeks ago). 

And so, 10+ packs of cigarettes puffed later, we had our setting. 

Of course, all of it was for nothing because the video never finished production and we soon changed the entire arrangement, tempo, and production of the song.

But looking back, it's absurd to think that THIS was a good solution to our problem.

So if you're facing a problem and you can't fix it with the best option because it's not available for you, I recommend thinking harder than just jumping to whatever solution you come up with next.

Often that solution is just the worst way to solve your problem.

Innovative thinking often comes when you stress your brain a bit. It's not the first, second, or even fifth solution that might work the best.

It's when you push through all the obvious (and sometimes very, very dumb) ideas that the real innovative thinking appears to you.

I hope you enjoyed that story, and if you'd like to say thank you, please consider tipping your storyteller with a non-alcoholic beer right here.

Cheers,

Björgvin