What's The Big Idea?

The Big Idea — Capture Ideas

“Don’t let ideas escape. Write them down. Every day lots of good ideas are born only to die quickly because they aren’t nailed to paper… Carry a notebook or some small cards with you. When you get an idea, write it down… People with fertile, creative minds know a good idea may sprout any time, any place. Don’t let ideas escape; else you destroy the fruits of your thinking.”

~ David J. Schwartz from The Magic of Thinking 

Today was the finale of a year long post graduate course in teaching and learning, and perhaps one of the most important things I shall take away is educationalist, Eve Bearne's belief that there's a 'knower' in us all.  All too obvious, you may think but you should see the terror in the eyes of some of the business leaders who come to my workshops when I ask them to do some automatic writing. What might come out on to the page - even when it's unseen by anyone other than themselves - is really really scary, and they've spent years putting strategies in place to avoid doing just that. 

When they do it, of course it's not scary at all. They see the fertile, creative mind from which a good idea can sprout at any time, just as Schwartz says.  The trick is to give yourself permission. A friend of mine calls her automatic writing time her 'marketing time' because of the volume of great ideas that appear on her screen at the end of her session.