Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to let your ideas ripen. Sometimes ideas are
Speaker 1: ready right now, but sometimes they need to wait for
Speaker 1: a better time. It might be wise to keep watch
Speaker 1: on those ripening ideas so you can revisit them when
Speaker 1: the time is right. Today's tip, like some others this week,
Speaker 1: comes from Scott H. Young's new book, Get Better at Anything.
Speaker 1: This book shares strategies for how people actually learn and improve.
Speaker 1: Young notes that while some ideas are immediately usable, others
Speaker 1: are missing key components. An inventor may be stuck on
Speaker 1: a technical problem for which there is no current solution.
Speaker 1: A novelist might have a great idea for a character,
Speaker 1: but no equally compelling plot to match the character with.
Speaker 1: What does one do with all of this? Young writes
Speaker 1: that while the celebrated image of creative genius often focuses
Speaker 1: on persistence through difficult projects, it's equally the case that
Speaker 1: successful creatives manage to avoid problems that are not ripe
Speaker 1: for discovery. Now. Of course, the real breakthrough ideas often
Speaker 1: happen when something new develops and suddenly the time is right.
Speaker 1: Thomas Edison, for instance, was often pursuing multiple invention projects simultaneously.
Speaker 1: That way, he was able to switch back and forth
Speaker 1: when he was stumped on one. He was also able
Speaker 1: to take advantage of chance discoveries if a new possibility
Speaker 1: turned up that shed light on something that was previously obscure.
Speaker 1: Young notes that many authors maintain extensive notes on potential stories,
Speaker 1: waiting until a sufficient number of pieces have assembled in
Speaker 1: the background before doggedly pursuing the work. While it may
Speaker 1: be impossible to anticipate creative solutions, it is often possible
Speaker 1: to see how large the gaps are that separate the
Speaker 1: current reservoir of knowledge and what would be needed for
Speaker 1: a solution. I like this idea of having a file
Speaker 1: of ideas that are just ripening. There are all kinds
Speaker 1: of fields where things are great ideas, they just aren't
Speaker 1: great ideas. Write this particular minute. That brilliant marketing idea
Speaker 1: won't sell anything your company is currently selling, but it
Speaker 1: will be perfect for a product that will be launched
Speaker 1: two years from now. You don't know what that product
Speaker 1: is yet, but you file away that idea and you
Speaker 1: are ready to suggest it at the perfect time. Years ago,
Speaker 1: I wrote a National Novel Writing Month novel about a
Speaker 1: few characters named Juliet, Riley, and Skip who had descended
Speaker 1: on a particular location on the Jersey Shore. The story
Speaker 1: was terrible, but I saved the manuscript, and then when
Speaker 1: my publisher asked me to pitch a time management fable idea, Juliet, Riley,
Speaker 1: Skip and their location got dug back out of the
Speaker 1: ripening file and matched with a new plot that I
Speaker 1: came up with. Juliette's School of Possibilities almost wrote itself
Speaker 1: at that point, So keep coming up with lots of ideas.
Speaker 1: Don't delete or dismiss them just because you can't see
Speaker 1: what they will be good for now. The future will
Speaker 1: bring all sorts of interesting possibilities. When you let ideas ripen,
Speaker 1: you will probably be ready. In the meantime. This is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.