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t is said that you cannot kill an idea with a bullet. As a matter of fact, you can kill the father of ideas but that is when that idea multiplies. For example, terrorism is an idea, not a person. When Bin Laden was shot dead, terrorism did not stop. If anything, it increased.

You see, that is how powerful ideas are. I still contend that [ictt-tweet-inline]there is no human being that does not have the capacity to ideate[/ictt-tweet-inline]. We all have been laden with the innate ability to generate ideas. [ictt-tweet-inline]What separates people though is the measure of their implementation of ideas.[/ictt-tweet-inline] We have different types of people.

• There are those who are curious and hungry, poised and ready to implement ideas. These are those who implement idea after idea after idea. You will not find them with the same thing that they were doing five years ago. If that is the case, they have gone ahead to improve the method of deployment of the idea. Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Darren Hardy, T.D. Jakes are just but a few names to mention here.
• There are those who are bogged down with analysis of ideas, in what is popularly referred to “Paralysis Analysis”
• There are those who are overwhelmed with the pressures of life and do not even care about ideas (but that does not mean that ideas do not occur to them)
• There are those who are so busy in the pursuit of life and they would not stop even for a second to consider examining an idea
• There are those whose language is “some day, I will do it”. They are those who do not plan their lives. To them, ideas fade due to apathy, laziness and lack of fire and passion to pursue them.

The Power of Ideas

This world is run and governed by ideas. We saw how critical this is in the previous post. That is why we spent quite some time to examine what I called “The 5 Levels of Ideas”. We need to come to a level where we do not abort ideas, but pursue them to the hilt. There is a possibility that you will not succeed in your pursuit of ideas. There is also of course, the possibility that you will make it massively with your idea. Whatever the case, you will never be the same again.  In fact, this is what Elon Musk said:

“Failure is an option. If things are not failing, you are not innovating”

As a matter of fact, I wrote about that about 3 years ago here…but I digress. I believe the following are what we all need to do with ideas:

1. Anticipate them

That is why we encourage people to walk around with notebooks. You never know when an idea will hit you. I think the most apathetic thing I see with the generation today is when you invite them for a training or a seminar and they show up with no pen and paper! Can you imagine that? This happens even when you are recruiting!! To me, a potential recruitee who shows up for training with no writing material of their own is someone I cannot work with. They are not ready. They are not curious. They are not learners. They will want to be told everything from the world go. I just wanted to vent right there. The point though is that we need to anticipate ideas. If we do not have a notebook, then at least we have an App such as Evernote that we can use to capture the ideas, in written or audio format.

2. Capture them

One thing I have realized about ideas is that they are so vivid at the moment at times. In fact, the idea can be so real that you do not bother to write it down. Later on when you get to writing it, you find that you cannot remember a thing! I have been in that situation several times that at times I feel like I want to kick myself. For me, most of the ideas (including the idea of writing this article) come during my jogging excursions. Immediately I am through with the jogging, I get my Evernote or my book and jot those ideas down. I have also developed my own App where I record my thoughts about the ideas as well as my immediate action plans. I will share with you that App in due course after I have monetized it.

Make sure that you record every single download of the idea. Make it a habit to have as many ideas downloaded from your heart or mind or inspiration or study as you possibly can.

3. Meditate on them

Did you know that an idea gets life the more you turn it around in your mind. The average human being does not think. People are so busy running up and down that they do not spare some time to think. You have no idea how much you can push your idea if you just take some time to think it through. At times, ideas seem so enormous to crack until someone sits down and does some brain work on them:

• How about you mind map the idea? This helps you get a (human) 360 Degrees look at the idea. I think this is why people fail in pitching their ideas. They are asked a question and they look clueless about it. It can’t be your idea and you do not think about it, can it?
• How about you brainstorm the idea? You never know what you can unearth from a brainstorming session. My Mentor Dr. Mike Murdock says, “Ideas (answers) hide from anything but a question. Use as many questions as possible to gain clarity about your idea.
• How about you project the idea? This helps you to put some numbers in the idea and get some perspective on it.
• How about you research the idea? The degree that you need to earn should be around your idea, what do you think? OK, I am not saying that you go and get a University Degree, but I am saying that you can gather as much knowledge as possible about your idea. It is said that if you give yourself 15 minutes daily studying about your idea, in 3 years, you will be among the top 10 experts in the world about it. Think about that.
• How about you learn to visualize the full extent of your idea as deployed? Well, you might not be able to tell how it will pan out really, but at least in your mind right now, you can see people benefiting from it. Hold that thought for as long as you can in your mind, and as often as possible.

4. Tell about them

Careful here. Joseph told his family about his idea and ended up in a pit, narrowly escaping death. You do not tell your idea to everyone who would hear. There are very many idea quenchers out there. They call themselves realists, but the fact is that they are scared and comfortable with what they have. They are also lazy. The people to tell your idea are a small mastermind group that will start helping you develop it, pocking holes in it and questioning it in order to strengthen it. Some of these could be potential investors to the idea. These are the people that you tell. It is not that we do not know how to mastermind, we do. We have masterminded all the way from primary school about our tests and exams and discussion groups. What killed those groups? We need to bring them back and start masterminding about ideas.

5. Plan the out

Planning is the master skill of success. I think it is Brian Tracy who said:

… “It is the bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now”.

Planning is massive. It helps you merge two aspects of your idea: the dream of it, and the reality of it. It is done through planning. This where you get out of the visionary mode into the strategic thinking mode. Planning is laborious, painstaking, involving and draining, and probably it is why many people do not do it. It is also the reason why many consultants are highly paid because they are able to plan for those who do not want to.

6. Rally them out

Once the plan is out, it is time to rally your resources and your team around the idea. You need to build it now and realize its reality. You might not need any academic papers to do this. But you will need passion, incessant persistence and patience. When you are taking your idea into action, there are some things that you did not envisage coming up. Probably, some people that you counted on cannot be counted on again, probably your projections were wrong, probably key financiers would pull out and so on and so forth. You need to rally around the idea until it comes to fruition. You are like a pregnant mother that cannot abort, but carry the baby full term.

7. Deliver them

Finally, your obscurity ends here. Probably, the reason why you were born is today. This is the day that the world gets to taste the fruits of your labor. This is the day that the world is blessed and impacted positively by your idea. You can see that it took a process, it took time to get here. But you were faithful to the very end. All ideas that have been developed need to see the light of the day. As the world interacts with your product or service, you will get feedback on what needs to be done to improve it. In other words, the raw materials for ideas are ideas. Without the original idea, you would not be getting these important follow-up ideas.

Friends, that is how critical it is to ideate. Let’s do it.