Tag: ideas

  • In Defense of My Perspective: A Pragmatist in a World Full of Dreamers

    How does a pragmatist survive in a world full of dreamers? In the era of startups, ideas are often valued more than their execution. Yet, we know from reality shows on television and interviews in startup magazines that execution is the only thing that truly matters.

    This world needs dreamers. We need optimism. We need hope.

    But we also need reality. We need pragmatism. We need boundaries to break.

    We need the clouds and the dirt as Gary Vaynerchuk says.

    “What doesn’t matter is basically everything in between the overall vision and strategy and the real knowledge of it.” Gary Vaynerchuk

    A World of Dreamers

    Yes, I believe in dreams. Well, that’s not entirely true. I try to believe in dreams. Disappointment and I have been too acquainted for way too long. I’m am distancing myself from cynicism.

    More accurate is that I want to believe in dreams. This means that my desire is to not kill a dream; rather, to help make it possible.

    We need Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak – the dreamer and the implementer. The ideal and the practical.

    You need the imagination and the infrastructure.

    “Google has built an infrastructure that makes a lot of dreams closer to reality.” John Battelle

    “The dreams we have [for the digital future] can only be realized if we not only build secure approaches that make those easy to administer.” Bill Gates

    Is Pragmatism Negativity?

    I’ve had some interesting conversations lately — in the world of WordPress especially — where realism is equated with negative energy.

    I’d like to address this concern.

    I don’t believe that just by speaking, you create reality. That is to say, that if you speak something aloud, it happens. That by looking down the road, diverged in the yellow wood, and having to make a choice, by weighing the options, you’re a dream killer.

    I disagree.

    “Hey, you! Get off of my cloud.” Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

    We need dreamers. And we need the people who see how to build the dream. We need the realists. We need the pessimists. They even fuel the dreamers to overcome. We need those pragmatic people who say, “Yes, I love that dream. Here’s out we are going to build it.”

    Devil’s Advocate

    I love the concept of fairness — of intellectual honesty. I’ve always made a mental exercise to view and consider all perspectives of an issue. And I’ve learned over the years that not everyone can be objective — especially about their own business.

    Many of my peers own businesses. I was the wife of an entrepreneur. I worked in the inside of businesses for years — in accounting and office management. Though those positions are rarely regarded, secretaries know everything and accountants know more. In that position, they are the proverbial fly on the wall. Because of all of this experience, I understand the questions that need to be asked to achieve those dreams.

    So my friends will call me up,

    “Hey Bridget,” they say, “I was talking to so-and-so the other day and was thinking of [details the dream]. What do you think?”

    I’ll just ask them questions.

    What about x? What about y? Who will do z?

    Recently, six months after a series of conversations and a business decision, my friend turned to me and said, “Whoa. Bridget, you just saved me $13,000.

    It’s important for freelancers to bounce ideas off of people who will give them real things to think about — not yes men.

    “There is no dream without the work.” Me.

    Yes. I’m quoting myself.

    In my presentation about how I changed careers, I talked about how it seems like I was an overnight success. I wasn’t. I’d been doing content marketing since 2009. It’s 2015 when people noticed it. It’s 2016 where I started to travel. 2017 people seemed to know me. It was not overnight.

    It’s work to dream. It’s work to build the dream.

    Let’s do it together.

  • How do you capture your ideas?

    Ideas are my nemesis.

    Sherlock and Moriarty. Batman and the Joker. Superman and Lex Luthor.

    Every hero has a nemesis that taunts them and generally tries to hinder their good work.

    Ideas come to me in the dark, subconscious hours of the night, teasing me with the promise of genius only to leave me when I’m fully awake.

    Instead of relying upon my memory, when I’m inspired at 4:00 a.m., I need to become more disciplined about writing them down.

    I had this great idea for a video about not tweeting in the third person. But I didn’t write it down. Not one to waste an opportunity, I turned my own mistake into a lesson.

    How do you conquer and capture your ideas? Once written down, that’s just the beginning. (more…)

  • How do you find ideas? Keep learning.

    Updated 2/3/2025

    When I was in college studying to be a teacher, the cliché phrase everyone batted around was “be a lifelong learner.”

    Passion for knowledge is what makes you a great teacher, but being teachable comes from self-awareness and the humility to grow as a person. They’re not necessarily correlated.

    Stagnant water, after a period of time, begins to attract bugs and decay. So it’s no wonder that when we stop learning, we stop finding ideas. They hide from us in the depths of the shadows, like a horrible game of cat and mouse.

    Historically, where do ideas come from? (You should totally watch this video from Steven Johnson.) Most often through cross-pollination and/or collaboration.

    “Allowing yourself to cross-pollinate will make your ideas stronger.  And it gets you out of the tired ‘same old’ marketing all of your competitors are doing.” Sonia Simone of CopyBlogger in “Five Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from a Weird ‘Real World’ Business

    Don’t stop learning.

    “I’m not an expert and I aspire never to be one. As Frank Lloyd Wright rightly put it, “An expert is a man who has stopped thinking because ‘he knows.’” Brain Pickings began as my record of what I was learning, and it remains a record of what I continue to learn – the writing is just the vehicle for recording, for making sense.” Maria Popova as interviewed by Copyblogger

    For most people, this means reading. My attention span prefers 300-500 word articles if I’m reading online. Whatever books I do read are non-fiction, but it’s rare. If you’re like me, you need other ways to learn that don’t require a library card.

    Documentaries

    In this day and age, there are hundreds of documentaries to watch on YouTube, PBS, The Learning Channel, The History Channel, Discovery, and the lot. I’m currently nerding out on the Absolute History Channel on YouTube.

    Stream a video from Netflix. Personally, I love the Ken Burns documentaries. He has a way of using sound – both in his placement of music and direction of the narration – that seems to enrapture me.  My favorite of his documentaries is Lewis & Clark, closely followed by The Brooklyn Bridge. Challenge yourself to learn something new.

    Lectures

    Many colleges have classes for alumni or those you can audit. There are thousands of podcasts, both video and audio, to stimulate any area of curiosity you can imagine. Look up a TED Talk. They’re a low-level commitment since most of them are 3-20 minutes long. My three favorite talks are “The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are” by Amy J. Cuddy, and “The 5 C’s of Connection” by Bobby Umar. But there are great ones about the oceans, how to tie your shoes, robots, and anything else you can dream of.

    Museums

    Take a day trip to an aquarium, museum, library, zoo, or botanical park. There are so many of these places near us and many of them have low entrance fees. Take a tour, read the signs, take notes and photos. Enjoy being out in nature or looking at art. This stimulates your brain in different ways which you may not be conscious of at the time.

    “In other words, outside the hubbub of the city, their brains started to rest and reset.” Ben Shiller

    My late husband and I went to Sherman Library & Gardens when we lived in California. It was only $3. Most cities have a botanical garden of some sort.

    Puzzles

    If you’re a vocabulary geek, do the Times Crossword. If numbers are your thing, do Sudoku. The more you challenge yourself, the more neural pathways you create. Essentially, the more you learn, the more you can learn. I do word searches and play Scrabble with my husband (he beats me by 200 point margins every game).

    Questions

    The truly curious mind never stops asking questions. Ask your friends what they’re reading, doing, visiting. Let them tell you. Don’t worry about them using up “your time” in the conversation. Spend time with mentors or colleagues brainstorming with them to solve their problems. Carol Stephen and I brainstorm on Twitter (or Pinterest or Facebook) a lot! It’s actually why I resurrected this post from the draft folder.

    To What End?

    The result of learning is growing. It’s neuroplasticity.

    Learning makes you a better writer, a more interesting person, and, quite possibly, gives you the edge in social circles both online and off.