Don't Just Read Good Ideas... Embrace Them!

Maybe you are way smarter than I am, or your memory puts mine to shame. If that's the case, I envy you. Congratulations.

If I read a good idea at 7:25 a.m. while I sip my iced tea, by the same time tomorrow... that idea will have faded far into the background. Odds are I will never think of it again. 

You and I are surrounded by interesting people with extremely useful ideas. To benefit from such insights, you have to embrace the ideas that most resonate with you. To put it simply, you have to start using them immediately.

I'd like to share two personal examples from the past 24 hours.

Kare Anderson has become a human touchstone for me. Her ideas around mutuality rise so far above the "tit for tat" thinking that pervades business, I often stop in my tracks at the things she says and writes. Yesterday she published 17 Way to Negotiate and Preserve the Relationship and I had the urge to dive deeper into these 17 profound tips.

So I created this image:

My primary intention was to give myself a way to make these tips easily accessible for my future use. The words I used above are slightly different than Kare's original ones; that's because I'm not Kare, and I think differently than she does. But now I am much more likely to actually use her tips.

Next, I posted this image with a link back to Kare's article. Now people get two different perspectives on the same set of ideas, which is important for the same reason my version is useful to me: people think differently, and having both words and a picture may help more people benefit from Kare's ideas.

This morning I came across Spencer Waldron's post, Stop Presenting Like Its 1996 – Thoughts on Conversational Presenting. He wrote about a better way to present to an audience:

Start by having a conversation. Walk into the room, put your laptop (or better still a tablet) on the table and start talking. A mixture of a discovery talk to find out what the customer is wanting to find out from you in the next 30 minutes and looking for a way that you can challenge the way they do business. From that initial conversation you can work out what particular sections you need to present from your presentation.

Hmm. Another interesting idea. How would I take his advice? I took a few minutes and worked this out:

If you look closely at the "2016" image, you can see that I imagined 12 sections of 10 images each, perhaps organized around different topics. It might be too unwieldy to jump from single image to single image, so I imagined moving from one chunk of three to five images to another. Importantly, I was highly likely to begin - and end  - with three or four predetermined images... only the big chunk in the middle was likely to change.

Once again, after I created this image - and thus elevated Spencer's idea in my brain - I shared both his article and my image. Five minutes later, he connected with me; you can bet I'm going to try and pick his brain for additional insights.

Don't be passive. Don't waste the talent that surrounds you. Embrace great ideas.

You have a fresh perspective. You have unique talents and experiences. When you discover useful ideas, apply your ways of thinking to each idea.. and then share the result with others.

 Bruce Kasanoff helps professionals like you find the right words to advance your career. Learn more at Kasanoff.com.