Acres of Diamonds: Finding Innovation in Your Own Mind

The world is full of undiscovered opportunities, and some of the best ideas have not been thought of yet. It is easy to look beyond our own industries and fields, but the greatest ideas are often found in our own backyards. In his famous speech, "Acres of Diamonds," pastor and educator Russell Conwell said, "There are more acres of diamonds in the human mind than have ever been pulled out of the ground." He delivered this speech over 5,000 times, generated over $6 million, and built Temple University in Philadelphia.

The secretary who heard Conwell's speech was inspired to think differently about a common problem: she kept pricking herself while pinning papers together. She said, "There's got to be an easier way to put papers together." Today, right next to Temple University, there is a seven-story paper clip dedicated to that secretary's idea. She found her diamond mine: the paper clip.

The lesson here is to find the diamond mine in your own mind. Your next great idea is hidden in plain sight, waiting for you to discover it. You have fifty thousand ideas a day, and all you need is one to get started. Once you have that idea, maximize your innovation.

Writing down your dreams and schemes is a simple and effective way to keep track of your ideas. Keep thinking about how to make them come to pass, and always look at them from different perspectives. This is what we call "plussing" your ideas - adding to them and making them grow.

When Chicken Soup for the Soul took off, we kept plussing it to make it better. We marketed horizontally with numbered books, and vertically marketed new niches such as Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul, companion volumes for teens and preteens, for Christians and golfers.

The Bible says, "My cup runneth over." When you're doing good thinking, your cup should be running over. If it's not, then your cup is upside down. You are born rich, with eighty-six billion brain cells. Don't be passive about this great thing - use it. Think expansively and keep plussing your ideas.

Creating an event and then selling it out is easier than you think. The Ironman triathlon was started in Kona, Hawaii, in 1978 to see what the height of human achievement could be. It is still held annually in different locations worldwide. All it takes is just one new idea, a little turn, a little tweak.

Each of us is one idea away from greatness.

If you're using my three by five card analysis, write down, "I've got a great multimillion or billion-dollar idea." Look at it four times a day: at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime. Percolate that thought through your brain cells for the next twenty-one days, and ideas will start to spill out. When you have them, write them down on a piece of paper, in your future diary, or your journal, or put them into your computer.

As you look at those ideas, write down complementary ideas for realizing your main idea. Let it simmer, and to your amazement, money, resources, needs, and people will show up to help you realize your dreams. Never stop writing down ideas. They will wake you up and excite you with new possibilities.

When I met with Ray Bradbury, the great science fiction writer, he told me how his classic novel Fahrenheit 451 came about. He was lying in bed, in deep sleep, when a fireman from the book shook his foot and said, "Don't you want to know why I burn all the books?" Bradbury woke up with goosebumps and went to his typewriter to write the rest of the story. This may have been a metaphor, but the point is clear - when you have ideas circulating and percolating in your mind, they have to come out. They're going to wake you up.

The key is to be smart enough to grab those ideas, harvest them, and let them work for you. Whether you're filling a need or finding a solution in a business familiar to you or branching off into a whole new domain and creating multiple sources of income, you can use innovation to maximize your life, your love, your joy, your health, and your future.

You are just one idea away from doing something innovative and creative that can maximize your life and better the world.

So raise your index finger, look at it, and say, "I'm one idea away from greatness." Give yourself a challenge for that one great idea, and keep plussing it until you maximize its potential.

The Acres of Diamonds speech teaches us to look within ourselves and our industries for the best ideas. When you have an idea, keep thinking about it from every angle and keep adding to it until it reaches its full potential. Don't be passive about your ideas - use them to maximize your life and better the world.

- Mark

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