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 find an idea partner. If you need
Speaker 1: to come up with a lot of ideas in your life,
Speaker 1: consider finding someone who will help you develop your ideas
Speaker 1: and who can help you do the same. As I
Speaker 1: am writing this episode, I will soon be getting together
Speaker 1: with my Best of Both World's podcast co host Sarah
Speaker 1: Hart Hunger for what has become our annual retreat. We
Speaker 1: go somewhere I mean usually in Florida, because Florida is
Speaker 1: better in March than Pennsylvania, and we come up with
Speaker 1: ideas for episodes for the next few months. Now, sometimes
Speaker 1: a good guest will come to us, and we're happy
Speaker 1: to make room for that. But sometimes we come up
Speaker 1: with topics and then look for guests and we help
Speaker 1: each other own idea ideas that each of us has
Speaker 1: come up with on our own. For instance, we might
Speaker 1: see that something is not a full episode on its own,
Speaker 1: but combined with another topic we've been mulling, we could
Speaker 1: get a really good hook. Now, you might not need
Speaker 1: to come up with podcast ideas, but plenty of people
Speaker 1: have to come up with ideas for something. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: ideas for marketing things, or ways to recruit new employees
Speaker 1: or perks that will make them stay. Maybe it's new
Speaker 1: ways of displaying products, or which kinds of products you'd
Speaker 1: like to sell. Larger organizations often have formal structures for
Speaker 1: developing ideas, but people still need to come up with
Speaker 1: these ideas. One of the most pleasant ways to do
Speaker 1: that is to have someone in your life that you
Speaker 1: can bounce ideas off. This is someone you find creative
Speaker 1: and supportive. Ideally, this person thinks this way about you too.
Speaker 1: You get together regularly to chat about your ideas and
Speaker 1: to help you develop them. The person is your sounding board,
Speaker 1: and you likewise serve as a sounding board for them. Now,
Speaker 1: there might be practical limits on who this person should be.
Speaker 1: You might be better off with a colleague than someone who
Speaker 1: works at a rival company. Indeed, there might be policies
Speaker 1: against too much idea sharing with competitors, but plenty of
Speaker 1: us work in different situations. Even if another writer is
Speaker 1: technically my competition, we would execute on ideas in different ways.
Speaker 1: There's more to be gained by getting feedback than just designing.
Speaker 1: At the whiteboard. As they say, ideas tend to get
Speaker 1: better when smart people think about them and critique them
Speaker 1: and add on them. You see problems you wouldn't have seen.
Speaker 1: You see opportunities you wouldn't have seen either. So if
Speaker 1: you don't have someone like this in your life, see
Speaker 1: if you have someone who could become your idea partner.
Speaker 1: It could be multiple people, but one person is often
Speaker 1: easiest to manage. Schedule wise, you might come up with
Speaker 1: other things you can do together, so it's not just
Speaker 1: a straightforward, transactional sounding thing like here are my ideas,
Speaker 1: what do you think? I know that some academic collaborators
Speaker 1: have gone on long walks together. On those long walks,
Speaker 1: they'd work out ideas and ways to test those ideas
Speaker 1: through ingenious research. Design walks are good for ideas in general.
Speaker 1: Walks with another thoughtful person could be even better. If
Speaker 1: you have to come up with a lot of ideas,
Speaker 1: then anything you can do to boost the quantity and
Speaker 1: quality is probably good. An idea partner will help you
Speaker 1: do that, and collaborating can be quite pleasant, certainly more
Speaker 1: pleasant than just staring at a blank screen or notebook
Speaker 1: and thinking now, what so why not give it a try.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.