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Ideas Are Cheap (Until They’re Sticky and Spread)

Liston Witherill
Liston Witherill
1 min read

Ideas come and go all the time. I have a book of ideas I keep for this blog. Every day I sit down to write out 5-10 ideas that came to mind throughout the day. That means that in a week – every week – I have 35-70 ideas captured in my notebook.

People protect ideas as if they’re currency. They think that revealing their ideas will somehow open them up to possible abduction. The idea may be stolen and used for evil or worse yet…someone else’s profit!

Ideas are cheap. There are three main reasons for this: 1) there’s absolutely no shortage of good ideas in the world, 2) all ideas are derivative, and 3) ideas don’t make change on their own, people do.

I was listening to the fantastic The Mark Butler Show yesterday. After taking away a small quote from a podcast he listened to, he put together a 10 minute podcast episode of his own expanding upon the idea. Like most ideas, his was based upon something else he heard. But he was able to do a few important things that make the difference between ideas living and dying.

  1. He made it sticky
  2. He made it highly and immediately useful
  3. He spread it

The next time you have an idea that you can throw all of your weight behind, make it sticky, useful, and spread it. If others latch on, you’re onto something.

Notes