Ideation

My uncle Al told me that he would sit in a favorite chair and have an original idea every day.  My productivity mentor David Allen once told a class I was in about having a list of $1Million ideas.  People had resistance in some way and he said, ‘if I asked for a list of ways to make a dollar’ you could do it easily.  For hundred dollar ideas you’d have to think a little harder.  We stop ourselves because we limit ourselves with our own beliefs.

My uncle came up with some real crap ideas but he also came up with any number of $1million ideas.  He saw trends, anticipated technologies and market forces caused my shifts in social behavior.  He had a system of mental exercise that kept him sharp and a world view/sense of self that admitted big ideas.  He saw himself that way and so did others and so he became what he believed.

That is a striking lesson for each of us.

Your ideas don’t have to be money making, they could be creative ideas, socially potent ideas for serving your community.  They could be jokes, poems, recipes.  It doesn’t matter.

Remember in Winnie the Pooh, there was a Thoughtful Spot that Pooh would go to.  That’s what we all need.