As a journalist, I’ve learned three things about generating ideas:
- Sharing ideas can be scary
- Only a small fraction of ideas are good enough to act upon
- Generating ideas requires the right environment
These characteristics apply whether you’re pitching stories to editors, submitting freelance projects to clients, or presenting startup ideas to investors.
I do believe in some cases that the strength of an idea is less important than the person responsible for executing. A great writer can make even a bland story sing, just as a savvy operator can turn a half-baked proposal into a humming company.
That said, the above three bullets on generating ideas remain true.
Despite having years of experience pitching stories under my belt, sometimes when I come up with a new idea, I take a longer time than necessary to share it with someone. It’s typically a combination of my own hesitations and uncertainty to how it will be received by readers and editors.
Ideas are fragile, no matter how good they may be. The most constructive feedback can still feel like criticism, or reason to pivot. Unfortunately, the notion that most new ideas fail also means that many, many excellent ideas never get shared to begin with.
It’s easier and more likely to feel foolish, silly, or embarrassed about something compared to having the conviction to tell people about it.
Yet to create anything worthwhile, you have to get comfortable producing a high volume of ideas that won’t work, a feat which demands thick skin and an ability to shrug off a sense of defeat.
Those characteristics are best fostered in an environment that’s tilted toward the future.
By that I mean it’s populated by people who are fundamentally optimistic and open to failure, and those who are not concerned about looking stupid.
The creative and business minds I admire most are those who are obsessed with testing things rapidly while keeping an eye on the long game. They spend less energy considering how something will be received in the present compared to the ideas that could make things better in the future.
Cleo Abrams, a journalist who covers technology through an optimistic lens, has a series on her YouTube channel titled “Huge if True.” Those three words capture what I believe to be a critical mindset to generating ideas: What would this look like in a best-case scenario?
Interrogating each of your ideas with that question, to me, is what opens the door to optimism. Even for people who are naturally pessimistic, using this approach forces you to idealize.
Following this line of questioning only gets more exciting:
- What could the future look like if you execute on this idea perfectly?
- What are the ripple effects if this works?
- Who can you inspire if you pursued this idea to its full extent?
- What community could you build around the success of this idea?
I have a lot of confidence that it’s indeed possible to create a better future. Doing so will require innovation and sweat and hard work, but the building blocks are all around us.
Good ideas, rare as they are, come from the people most open to experimenting — who are never as far away as you think.
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