To dream or not to dream? That’s the new question.
As entrpreneurs, we’re fed a daily dose of contradiction from the experts about having and exploring new ideas. We’re told that we should keep them on the down low. Or get them out in the wild. Or we’re warned against chasing rainbows…told that ideas are useless without action. Then we’re told to never stop dreaming. Argh!!
What’s even more confusing: They’re all right.
Ideas are addictive and rare and plentiful and fragile and indestructible and inspiring and distracting.
We aren’t very nice to our ideas.
We ignore them, push them aside, tell them they’re dumb, keep them hidden away and beat them down until slink away.
But ideas are fuel for a fulfilling, self-made life. Without ideas, we could never change the things we don’t love about our lives or our communities.
We should celebrate ideas…hear them out long enough to see where they’re going. Ideas need a safe place to grow. And we all need a safe place to nurture them.
Which is why I created the in celebration of ideation, a master-your-mind group.
ideation is your own personal think tank.
A brain playground.
How it works
The group size is limited to four people. We’ll collaborate in a weekly online call.
Each week, one of the members will take center stage…so everyone will get center stage once a month. You’ll spend 10 or 15 minutes telling the group about your idea. You’ll be able to talk about it or share docs, pictures, anything to help the group see your vision.
And then, magic happens.
The Think Tank revs up. We’ll all take turns playing the roles of dreamer, architect, devil’s advocate. We’ll take your idea, build it up, tear it down and build it up again.
We’ll dream together. Wonder together. Build together. Grow together.
No pink smoke
We’re here to help you develop your ideas, not to laugh at them or to ooh & aah over them. Even if we LOVE you’re idea, we’ll still poke it with a stick. Because that’s the best way to toughen her up and help her grow into a full fleged project.
“If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” ~Albert Einstein
Not just for business ideas
Bring all of your ideas! Your dream of going on a cross-country, family RV trip or starting a community garden are just as welcome as your inspired new business idea and that just-crazy-enough-to-work new product.
ideation is perfect if you’ve been searching for:
- Validation for your ideas before you spend 1000 hours trying to implement them.
- A safe, snicker-free place to talk about your wildest and craziest plans where no one expects you to actually do every little thing that pops in your head.
- Permission to pay attention to all of your new ideas and tools to strengthen your idea-evaluation muscle.
- Open communication with fellow dreamers…in confidence. People who understand that the only way to have a good idea is to have a bunch of them, honor all of them and allow the best ones to rise to the top.
“The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones away” ~ Dr. Linus Pauling
Bonuses included
Tools! With over a decade of experience helping my fellow idea junkies with their habit, I have tons of fun and useful idea evaluation tools & worksheets we can play with. Whenever appropriate, I’ll bring the right tool to the game.
Community! In addition to the weekly calls, the ideation members will have access to a special forum in the BrainyFeet discussion boards. We can continue the conversations there, share resources and incubate those idea chickies until they’re ready to fly.
Answers to your most likely questions
When are the calls?
The calls for the first group are tentatively scheduled for Tuesdays at 1:30-3:00 Pacific, 4:30-6:00 Eastern. Once that group fills up, I’ll open another time slot. Please let me know if that day/time is impossible for you. Everyone in the group must commit to being available for the calls. They’ll be recorded for posterity & review, but your participation is vitally important.
When you register, we’ll start the introductions in the discusson boards. For now, our first call is scheduled for August 8th.
What if someone steals my idea?
For some of you, this may be a real concern. I crafted a beautiful response to this question in which I wax poetic about how thinking isn’t doing and then I present a well-reasoned explaination for the steps I’ve taken to ensure this kind of douchebaggery doesn’t happen. But this isn’t the place for all that. If this is something you’re concerned about, just drop me an email. I will be more than happy to ease your mind by emailing you my eloquent response.
And then there’s this piece of wisdom to consider from Howard Aiken:
“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.”
One last thing
I want to leave you with this thought. I’ve been toying around with the idea of creating this group for a while now. Reading this quote is what pushed me over the edge of thinking and into doing.
“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” ~George Bernard Shaw
[…] One more big one. Not knowing what to do with an idea once you have one is also a huge mental block that can keep you stuck. Don’t worry though, I’ve got ya covered. Read here , here, here and here. […]