Be an Idea Factory

Ideas are worthless unless they’re made real. Be it a process improvement, business, invention, adventure or money making scheme, an idea is only an idea unless you do something about it. There is some kind of stigma around ideas where people believe they hold value. I’m sure you’ve had or met someone who’s had an idea, but didn’t want to share it with anyone because
it’s just that amazing. One of those million dollar ideas. Ideas guarded like rare, secret treasure. An idea can seem so good to you, you fear that if it slips out, someone else will steal it! I say, who cares.

Imagine this: You walk into the offices of a major software company. Let’s say Microsoft. You go to the product development team and schedule a meeting because you believe you have something very valuable for sale. You were sitting on the throne the week before and a brilliant idea popped into your head. You thought of a revolutionary new program that will change the
face of file organization. You call the idea the File Matrix. This idea would simplify file storage and provide efficiency for quick recovery using a logical algorithm based on the user’s history of file access and searching. The details are all in your head, of course. You put on your suit and smile and pitch your idea to the team. Their first question: Can you load the program so we can see it in action? That’s the tricky part of ideas, what comes next.

I love to think of ideas. I keep an idea log. I like to sit and write ideas for this and that, sometimes 20 ideas in a row. I’ve read that you have an idea muscle and it needs to be exercised. I can believe it. Write down 10 ideas for a new business. It might be a challenge, but write down as many as you can. Tomorrow, write down 10 more. Eventually, your idea muscle will get strong and ideas will be coming at you from every angle. What I find interesting is how I love to think of ideas, but seem to lack the ambition to get to work on them! Because of this, I might as well
crumple all of those ideas up into a ball and toss them in the trash. How do you get from an idea to actualization? Simple really. If you’re able to create an idea, you’re able to create the steps needed to actualize the idea.

Now, let’s go back to the thought of guarding ideas like they’re rare, secret treasure. One thing that ideas love is to be shared so they can grow and be expanded upon. The thought of keeping ideas inside and guarding them can starve them to death. Sharing your ideas can attract feedback, added ideas and introduce resources that could actualize the ideas. So go ahead, get exercising your idea muscle and spread the good ones around. You never know where your ideas might take you!