Spark Ideas with These Two Essential Elements

Ideas (especially the innovative business kinds) come from the jam and peanut butter aisle of the supermarket combined with a ham sandwich.

Basically.

Shall I elaborate?

Anyone talking about the act of creation or innovation will at some point be asked the question, “Where do ideas come from?” So let’s get this one answered in a thousand words!

Ignoring Muses

For thousands of years, people have pushed the concept that ideas come from supernatural sources. Some believe that all ideas already exist and are being transmitted by some force into people’s minds. Those who are attuned to this transmission end up with fully formed ideas dropping into their laps.

Sounds lovely, in theory. This means the effort goes into sensitising yourself to the universe rather than trying to muscle an idea into existence.

And if you’re not having any good ideas, well then perhaps the universe isn’t in a giving (or forgiving?) mood.

Here’s the problem: this concept exports all the responsibility (and, I would say, the fun) to a fickle and random source. And while that may work for artists and writers, for businesspeople, we need something concrete. Something replicable.

Something understandable.

In my experience, muses have nothing to do with the ideation process. It all comes down to two basic steps. Steps that you can easily work into your everyday life, whether at home or at work.

Say goodbye to the supernatural and hello to Ideas 101.

Step 1: Input

First, you need to fill your brain with a broad range of information.

You need to know the subject you’re working on well. Really well. The ins and outs. The pros and cons. What’s working and why it’s working. What’s not working and possible causes. The more you understand of the topic at hand, the more information you have to work with in Step 2.

A Note About a Clear Mind

I’ve heard people say that learning too much information stops you having new ideas because it fills your mind with everyone else’s ideas. “If,” they say, “you want to come up with something original, you need to keep a clear mind and avoid contaminating it with outside information. You only know it’s your idea if you avoid other people’s input.”

In my experience, the opposite is true. If you don’t research and learn, you’re more likely to come up with ideas which are similar to existing ideas because you don’t know what’s already been done. Your “original” idea could easily be the bright idea of last century if you’re not aware of where the industry is at.

So instead of fearing that your brain will regurgitate what you expose it to, instead realise that you’re training your brain. Quality input results in quality output. And the more amazing ideas you come across, the more your brain will understand what a great idea looks like. That increases the likelihood that your brain will create something which will genuinely surprise you and others.

Broad Inputs

You want to learn more than just content about the situation you’re looking to solve or the industry you want to break into. You want to go broad.

You want to know things about a variety of subjects and specialities. You don’t need to be an expert in all these topics, but the key is curiosity. You want to develop an interest in things that are outside your speciality.

That might be a visit to a museum (history is a wonderful teacher), attending a lecture on a subject that catches your attention, listening to a podcast you hear advertised just to see what it’s like, picking up a book from a second-hand bookstore because the cover looks interesting, watching a movie you wouldn’t normally see just to eat some popcorn.

Become a bower bird of information, collecting snippets of things you find interesting, even (and especially!) if you have no idea where or when you’d use it.

This is all part of gathering input. This is a habit for a lifetime. The more tiny pieces of information and ideas you collect, the more Step 2 has to work with.

Step 2: Connections

As you gather information into your brain, you are providing your brain more and more opportunities to spark between disparate thoughts. The more input you provide, the more your brain can combine it in interesting and unexpected ways.

Think of gathering all these little pieces of information as filling your brain with statically charged items. The more they roll around in there, the more chance there is that they’ll spark off each other and zap an idea into being.

So while Step 1 is completely in your control (you can choose what you vacuum into your brain), Step 2 happens when your brain is able to make room for and notice those zaps.

Making room for them means reducing stress, increasing mental space, and removing the pressure to have an idea. The right mental, environmental, and work conditions are essential to helping those zaps happen.

And then there’s the ability to notice those ideas. Because you’re probably already having really quiet little ideas and not noticing them. Maybe you’re dismissing the little zaps (those little “what ifs”) which reduces the likelihood of big zaps. (This is where my static analogy falls apart, so let’s go back to that ham sandwich, shall we?)

Back to Sandwiches

When you shop for your smooth peanut butter, do you just grab the familiar or cheapest option and then rush on to the eggplant and Brussels sprouts? Or do you (could you) linger in the spreads aisle and discover what’s there? Perhaps you find crunchy peanut butter, or squeezy chilli honey, or maybe chocolate and almond spread, or maybe salted caramel spread. Noticing the breadth of options can increase not just your shopping bill (shame that) but also your wealth of experience.

Then, all those options become available when you go to make your ham sandwich. Because maybe, just maybe, that chilli honey will give it a kick and the old standard peanut butter could add some crunch and the salted caramel could give you a dessert you hadn’t even thought of (honey ham is already a thing, so why not salted caramel ham? Great ideas often sound weird at first).

My point being, the more input you gather, the more possibilities there are for connections.

And ideas really are that simple. But if you want some actionable, punchy tips about how to make room for those sparks, head over to my newsletter, The Bright Idea Bulletin, for steps you can implement right away.