Are Your Ideas Crazy Enough?
Most people’s attempts (especially when brainstorming in groups) at creating new ideas don’t go nearly far enough.Each individual has their own internal governor of just exactly how far out on a limb they are willing to let themselves climb when it comes to risking personal embarrassment. The rub is that truly creative ideas will always lay just outside one’s comfort zone.
If you’re not willing to risk appearing foolish — you’re not going to reap many rewards when it comes to innovation.
Ironically, the creativity-killing phrase “It’ll never fly” probably came into the popular vernacular because it was said repeatedly to a pair of brothers who owned a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio.
So, I ask you — are your ideas just crazy enough to work?
Think Wilbur and Orville Wright encountered a few naysayers in their time?
Imagine yourself back in time listening to a couple guys in Dayton, Ohio in the early 1900s (one of them a high school drop-out) babbling on about how they’re going to fly through the air on a contraption build from pieces of bicycles and a printing press. You’d have to call them crazy, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t be alone. Experts of their time called them frauds and newspapers treated them with scorn.
Do YOU have the guts to endure a few people rolling their eyes at you and telling others that you’re a little nuts? I recommend listening for that key phrase in regard to your idea: “It’ll never fly” and know that two guys from Dayton made a bunch of people eat those words in 1908.
