Clarity and Power

Contribution for most people in their personal lives translates into maybe running a race for charity once a year or, maybe, coaching a kids soccer team in the spring. Both noble and valuable contributions to our community. These are seasonal or event based times for contribution.

How are you contributing and enriching your life each day or week? Are you contributing to the betterment of you, your family, your community or a larger group?

It is presumed you make a substantial contribution to your work and career. What about when you get home? Ask yourself: who are the people and groups I am making contributions to each day or this week? You may have a single person or maybe large associations but you need to know your audience and be conscious of your contributions to them.

Set time aside to determine what you want to contribute, who you want to focus on or share it with, when you want to do it. I know people that take time our each week to volunteer. I know people that raise money every week for their cause. I know people that just make an effort every week to educate others. What is your way? When time to find time becomes an issue, turn off the television.

Contribution is so critical because it is a selfish act. As you consciously start to contribute more to the success of people and community, you get so much more. As our lives get more complicated, the simple act of contributing more can bring clarity and power.

You Have Great Ideas!

You have great ideas. I bet you have one every day. Maybe its a new way to solve an old problem. Maybe a new product you could build. People, including you, are idea machines coming up with innovative thoughts and solutions all the time. Constantly.

There are two challenges to every great idea you come up with. The first issue is the little voice that says someone else must have come up with this by now; its really not that good an idea. There is no way you could have been the first to think it, etc. Once again I fall back on my belief that the little voice in your head is really not qualified to make any judgements. What credentials does the little voice have to judge your idea? I am yet to hear of a little voice that has an MBA or doctorate. So why would you ever allow the little voice to silence your great ideas?! You need to have an idea and then protect it from everyone that might reduce its power and inventiveness ... including that little voice.

The second issue with most great ideas is the wind. Yes, most people think of a great idea but don't record it and soon it has floated away, out of their mind, like the wind. So document this stuff. When you get an idea you like or think could be great, write it down! Record it with your phone or voicemail. Get a digital recorder. Post-it note it on the fridge. Do something to capture your terrific ideas.

Most people see someone else taking their idea and putting it into action and they say, oh I thought of that once. Unfortunately, they don't record it, think on it or take action on it. Your great ideas are being held up or stalled by your inability to move beyond just the realization of that thought or idea. I like to take an idea, record it and then think about the smallest step I could take to investigate it further. Maybe its Google the idea. Maybe its think of a design on a napkin. I like to determine that first step because it means I take action on more ideas because I know what the first step is.

Honor your great ideas with recognition, writing them down or recording them and then take a first step to see if you can make it happen. You want to squeeze more out of your life, then make more of your ideas a reality.

Great Website to get you thinking

So I stumbled across a website tonight that I continued to surf and watch for almost an hour. No, its not called YouTube. I am such an advocate of people getting information, opinions and viewpoints and then forming their own opinion. As you may have seen from my blogs I am also not a fan of general media and the level of intelligence given to the average discussion. Anyway, a long story short I went to www.ted.com and was absolutely thrilled with all the content, discussion, presentations and banter about ideas. Its TED for Technology, Entertainment and Design. Check it out.