IDEAS – How to generate creatively

“Ideas are like lightning, they comes very fast and easy to forget” – Albert Einstein.

Every great thing today was as a result of someone’s idea yesterday. The universe itself was as a result of God’s idea: the planets, stars, galaxies etc. The Earth and all its constituents are crafted from the creator’s idea of combining what is not with what is.

Sam Adeyemi wrote in his book, “Ideas Rule The World” that “An idea is like a drop of water, when this drop is accumulated and worked upon it will become an ocean. Ideas are seeds that need a good ground for growth.” It is of a truth that ideas really rule the world.

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An idea is an image of an object that is formed in the mind or recalled by the memory. The mind is the engine room, the place of the subconscious. Where ideas comes from is from the subconscious mind, released to the brain in an instant. 

Perhaps, you are considering a particular circumstances and thinking of how you could do better, then subconscious mind will immediately jump into work and supply your mind with different solutions and results, those solutions and results are the ideas needed to turn the circumstances around.

An idea is any result of mental activity; a thought, a notion; a way of thinking. Mentioned earlier, the subconscious mind is the idea factory that works day and night to supply us with concepts. Thinking and reasoning are mental activities, and if someone does not engage in either of the two cannot generate ideas.

An idea is a conception in the mind of something to be done; a plan for doing something, an intention.

Our world is filled with individuals in search of great idea. In one of my entrepreneur class, a fellow asked me “How can I generate a billion dollar idea?” This fellow believes that his own ideas are not worth billions. Apple as a company with about a trillion dollar today was Steve Job’s idea some years ago. Mark Zuckerberg had an idea to connect college students and boom, it grew to connecting the whole world, Facebook. 

Nearly every one on earth uses Facebook. Jeff Bezos idea was to build an online book shelf where anyone can buy book anywhere in the world at any period of the day, and boom Amazon. Microsoft, Dell Computers, Google, Alibaba, Paystack and millions of others all started with an idea.

Ideas are seeds. A seed is small, not useful in the common sense. When you realize that your ideas are seeds, you will be more alert to preserving and keeping them. A seed kept on concrete or hidden somewhere will remain a seed for life. 

What I mean is that an idea unused, written and kept somewhere will always remain an idea for life. However, a seed must be planted in other for it to bring forth fruit. Fruit is the end product of a seed. Planting is to act, work on the ideas you have. Without action ideas will be merely a wishful thinking and nothing more.

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You have a billion dollar idea in you, all you need to do is to make use, work and act on that small and little idea you have now. Be like a farmer, you plant your seed, care for it, water it, nourish it, weed the environment and cultivate it when it’s fully matured.

Idea generation comes with fun and easy, but there are guidelines to their formation. The book written by Andri Sedniev “The Business Idea Factory” is a very nice piece that gives detailed information about ideas generation. Methods and ways to be creative. I realized that ideas are “shy” and if not appreciated will stop coming. In your quest for generating ideas, there are some precautions as written by Andri:

1. Don’t judge the ideas immediately, appreciate them by writing them down.

2. Write everything and anything that comes to mind during idea generation.

If any of the two “don’t” are broken, ideas will cease from coming, the subconscious mind will be closed.

Also, in your idea generation phase, understand that there is nothing new under the sun. Absolutely nothing. There is a popular saying in art, “good artist copy, great artist steal.” There is no new idea on earth, so do not fell bothered when you realize that your idea is not new. 

Innovation and re-inventing are the main secret to sustaining an idea. If you want to know that your idea is not new, just Google it. Understand if ten people are given same ingredients and materials to cook a soup, their tastes can never be the same. So also, if hundred people are running with the same idea, their results can never be the same.

Thanks so much for reading this far. Ensure to read the two books I suggested and you will get a “WOW” moment about ideas and their generation.

Writer: Oluwole Omojofodun