I’ve been trying to get back into running after a long absence. I had to drop out in the winter because of a calf injury I suffered one morning running below 0° with out doing warmup stretching exercises. The doctor said I could get back into running after three weeks but a friend in Cape Town who has gone into running in a big way said it would take 10 weeks. Guess who was right? The runner, the one who has knowledge of the road.
I practised walking for about two weeks before I took my first run. When I went out running the run seemed smooth flowing. But a few minutes after I got back I could feel the spot where the old injury was and my muscles were sore. The next day my muscles were so stiff that I took a break and went back the next day. Not everyone is interested in running, I realise, but it provides an excellent analogy for other areas in our lives such as our imagination, which is really the workshop of our minds in which all new ideas, concepts and solutions are fashioned.
Like any muscle in the body, the imagination without exercise grows weak after disuse. Problems rush at us from everywhere and we find that we are not able to solve them as quickly as we once did. New business ideas which are vital for the ongoing success of start-ups and small businesses all come from the human imagination. The imagination needs to be spurred, triggered or kickstarted to help us come up with viable business ideas.
Yet there is a process that comes long before use of the imagination for new business ideas. That process or special ingredient is desire. With out a strong motivation for what some call passion we don’t have the spark for the firing process that clicks the imagination into gear.
The so-called experts will lead you to believe that generating new business ideas can start with a bag of idea generation tools. In one way they are right, of course. But tools will only get you so far. It is crucial that you know what you want to achieve before you start out looking or listening for ideas and perhaps using idea generation techniques to spur your imagination.
Learn how to plant the seeds for germinating ideas in your imagination and turning your great ideas into reality by putting your name on my waiting list for my forthcoming book on generating ideas for profit titled “Breakthrough Ideas”.
