Aug 27, 2019
Inventive Thinking For Average Joe
We need more useful creative thinking. We need more successful entrepreneurs. We need more people with courage to make their ideas a reality. We need more people to solve the gazillion problems on earth.
More renewable energy, better sanitation, more clean water, better vaccination, no plastic, better food packaging, food distribution, more healthy food, more base education, better climate related information, less energy consuming transportation — the list goes on forever. And in 500 years? No change, only the list is different.
We need more people to innovate for advancement without unpredicted ripple effects. More innovators to leverage AI to iterate through millions of permutations, which we cannot perform.
It all starts with the question: How do you think inventive?
The four companies I founded, had all either a disruptive technology, or disruptive service or disruptive business model. I’ve been ask countless times “how did I come up with these ideas”? My standard answers include: “I just had this spark”, “I create bold ideas”, “I’m very open minded”, “I think out of the box” and all this blah blah we all heard numerous times. But all that was never the real answer. Over time I was wondering, what is it that not only I, but all these disrupter here in Silicon Valley have those crazy ass ideas? What triggered those ideas and what made it to such a success?
Obviously it is a longer story that I put into this book “Innovations Paradigm” but here is the essence — all you really need to know:
- Humans cannot create anything from scratch, no new base color, no new physical element, no new genetic base, no new tone, no new light wave. But we have the amazing power to combine everything that is out there to something new — and — to something meaningful.
- Ideas in our brain are super simple. It’s a connection of experiences or sensations. You saw two things, a dog and a fish, bumm you create a fishdog. You saw a piece of wood swim on the water — bumm you create a boat. You see metal sheet sink in water but a metal cup that displaces water because of the air in the cup stay afloat — bumm you invent a steel boat. You see a drop of gasoline explode on an old waggon, pushing the waggon back; and experimented with gasoline before pushing a piston back and forth — bumm you invent an automobile.
- Humans creates on average about 20,000 + ideas in their lives. Times 7.5 billion people equates to 15 Trillion ideas. So ideas are abundant. So many that they have no value. HOWEVER — if one takes one of those ideas and talks about it with a few other people and three get really fascinated, the reward system of our brain does something extraordinary: It triggers the urge to actually make the idea a reality. Our neocortex the front side of our brain, has given us something that is called imagination. We can imagine — dream about as if it is a reality. And if we can see it we can — with 100% certainty — make it a reality.
- So if we have so many ideas that are all of no value, yet so much cool stuff was created and made so many entrepreneurs rich, where is the disconnected? Most people, 99.99% keep their idea as a secret so nobody can steal it. Not knowing that this is the end of the idea. And 0.007% of all humans — who are living entrepreneurs today, decided something else: They shared their idea with many others, some so excited that they joined to form a company, others to help by being a first customer and turned their idea into reality.
- And there are a few magic tricks to polish an idea to perfection: Talk to customers until you no longer have a voice. Then construct the most perfect solution no matter what it cost, no matter how long it would take and no matter what physical laws you need to ignore. The perfection method is actually the hardest because you need to stop your intelligence for a few moments. Then you take your ideal and build a more realistic version — never skipping the ideal model.
- Now — think about this very simple process. Every single piece of non naturally existing thing was first seen, then imagined, then created by a human. Then we produced multiple copies because somebody envisioned machines that can build more than one piece, And so everything we have today, was based on that process: Houses, Furniture, Glass, Cars, TV, Internet, Power Plants, Farms, Water pipes, Toys — absolutely everything without a single exception.
- All together: a) We are not really-really creative. b) Ideas are created by combining all kinds of experiences to something new. c) We create so many ideas — that we do not need more ideas. d) We sharpen our ideas by discussing all aspects, construct the perfect version and make it real in the end. e) What really makes your idea valuable is to share it, form a team and make it a reality. e) The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is everything that humans ever created.
LEARNING: Discuss your earth shattering ideas with others, until you can form a team and make it a reality. If you had 3 multi billion $ ideas and all got stolen, that would be a first and you write the $4Billion book about it ;)
ATTENDING: If you happen to be in San Francisco, join us Sep 4th, 5PM to our Innovative & Disruptive Thinking Workshop. It’s organized by the World Innovations Forum Foundation and is free. Because we need way more innovative entrepreneurs that create society relevant solution than you can imagine.
