How Sharing Ideas Generate More Ideas
By Levina Kusumadjaja
What’s your favorite way to eat a glazed donut? For me, I would bite into all the lower half of the donut, and then eat the upper half that is fully covered with the glaze. I know, it’s weird—but the glaze is the best part. I always try to save the best bite for last, so I try to eat all the parts that the glaze didn’t touch first before ending my bite with all the glaze.
This was the same mindset that I applied to sharing ideas. The same way that I don’t want to run out of glaze when I eat donuts, is the same way I feel like I don’t want to run out of ideas when I really do need good ideas. I was stingy when it comes to collaboration. I used to feel scared of sharing my best ideas because I didn’t want people to steal them, and then if they did I would have no good ideas left. I used to feel like I have to save my best ideas for the “big gigs” because I was afraid I won’t be able to come with new good ideas.
Have you ever felt that way about your ideas? Have you ever felt like you have to hoard all the ideas to yourself because you feel scared you would exhaust all your inspiration? My learning journey so far has showed me that there’s greater power in sharing my ideas than keeping them for my own. It has proven to me over and over again that my fears about running out of ideas are simply not true. Here are three lessons I learned so far about sharing ideas:
When you share your ideas, good ideas can turn into great ideas.
Good and great can make a big difference. In order for a good idea to grow into a great one, you need feedback. Feedback helps show you the loopholes and areas of improvement, so that this good idea can be refined into a better one. However, it is a lot harder to refine ideas on your own. When you choose to share ideas to other people, you open room for collaboration. Instead of having to figure it out on your own, you are now inviting people on your team to find out together whether these ideas are great solutions or not.
When you share your ideas, you get even more ideas.
One of the things I observed is that sharing my ideas prompted others to share theirs. In my experience, the more open and generous I am with sharing my thoughts to others, the more open and generous other people are about sharing their ideas. As a result, it breeds more ideas and inspiration! Instead of running on empty, I experienced an overflow.
When you share your ideas, you make room to solve bigger problems.
When you share your ideas to others, you open room for collaboration. Collaboration means not only inviting others to share their thoughts about your ideas, but to combine your ideas with theirs. While getting feedback looks like eating toast and drinking milk, but collaborating looks like putting toast and milk together in a pan and bake them into a bread pudding. For this collaboration to even begin, one thing must happen first: someone needs to share their ideas.
I want to challenge you today: share 1 idea to 1 person. It can be about brand strategy, design, communicating with clients, or even yoga and donuts. Just pick one idea, share it to a friend, and see what happens.
Cheers!
Levina
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!