Creative thinking will save your business – and it might just save our economy, too. Imagination generates innovation which gives your business its competitive edge. The most recent neuroscience reasearch supports the idea that creativity is fundamental to the success of any business.

The good news is that even if you don’t think of yourself as a “creative person”, creativity is a natural part of how the brain works. It’s like a muscle you can strengthen with the right tools. These aren’t skills many of us learned in school, but anyone can master them.

In an environment where big box retailers flourish, creativity is central to the survival of any small business. As entrepreneurs or solopreneurs, we must find ways to stay nimble, adaptive, and innovative. Boosting creativity is the answer.

Here are the top 10 reasons why juicing up your creativity is fundamental to your business success:

1. Creative thinking helps you to see opportunities in the marketplace or come up with a unique solution to a problem—and isn’t this the cornerstone of any business?
2. Creativity is key to innovation. When issues come up, you’ll be able to think of ways over, under, or through the roadblocks.
3. Creativity stimulates the brain and helps us to wake up and pay attention. Noticing more of what’s around us aids in developing novel approaches to help your business stand out.
4. Creative thinking helps you keep your business presence fresh. You’ll be able to constantly reinvent your business in order to stay in your customers’ awareness.
5. Creativity helps you shift your perception so you can better understand your customers’ point of view.
6. Creativity gives you a higher tolerance for risk—you’re used to working through fear of failure.
7. Creativity improves your leadership skills. Being an effective leader means being creative in your approach and problem-solving. When you have the capacity to let go of the outcome and be open to out-of-the-box thinking, you free your business team up for generating new ideas.
8. Creativity helps you to broaden your vision of what it means to be successful in your  business—what it can offer to the world.
9. Creativity strengthens your resilience. When those inevitable stressful periods come up, you’re able to bounce back faster instead of getting derailed.
10. Creativity invites flow and feels good, and when you feel good, you attract your ideal customers and clients.

Can you creatively think of even more ways that creativity can help your business?