More gags, one-liners and creativity quotes

Wherever I go, whatever I read, it seems I can't avoid bon mots, musings and quips. The things people say that make me think "I wish I'd said that".

You know the sort of thing - the witty comeback, or well-phrased barbed comment that I only ever think of about half an hour later.

Here are a few favourite ones I have heard, read or come across recently.

"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, and learn to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen".
John Steinbeck

"I'm not a Catholic. But I gave up picking my belly-button for lint".
Emo Phillips

"Creativity is contagious. Pass it on".
Albert Einstein

"In the gym the other day I laid down on the mat to do some sit-ups, and woke up two hours later. I felt fantastic, so I treated myself to a frothy coffee and a chunky Kit-Kat".
Mickey Flanagan

"I can't understand why people are afraid of new ideas. I'm afraid of old ones".
John Cage

Meerkats are right. Simples is better.

I watched two football matches recently, one immediately after the other.

One was a schools match, and the other was between teams from the Youth Development programmes of two Premiership clubs.

Each game was exciting, and there were great players on all four sides.

However, something slowly dawned on me as I watched the second match.

The boys in the Youth Development teams - boys who may be very close to becoming professional footballers - played a much more simple game.

These boys are, for their age, among the best football players in the country. They are all 16 and 17, and their respective clubs will currently be looking closely at their skills, their stamina, their attitude, with a view to signing them as professionals - or letting them go.

The difference between these boys, and those that were just a little less successful as footballers, was obvious. The almost-professionals did the really simple things, brilliantly.

Their first touch control was superb. They played the one-two (or give-and-go, as it seems to be called now) brilliantly. They chose to make the simple pass - getting the ball to another player in space, playing to feet, running on to the ball.

And they did it at speed, and with strength and agility.

It might seem a bit of a stretch to make an analogy between these possible stars of the future and business, but I don't think so.

Simplicity may well be the single biggest factor in success in our work, our organisations, our careers.

What can you remove? What can you strip out? What can you simplify?

Albert Einstein said "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler".

As usual, he was right.