Sometimes when opportunity knocks it leaves a flaming bag of... well, you know

Have you ever wondered how some people consistently come up with great ideas? I think it's this: They allow themselves to consider more opportunities than the rest of us.

Ideas are opportunities - they are something to be believed and acted upon, or not. Let me give an example: One idea that I just came up with right now is claiming that I own a passing comet and selling its mineral rights to a greedy despot. Is it a good idea? Probably not. But it is an opportunity. I can do it, or not.

Ideas are just cleverly arranged strings of facts. And most facts, when strung together, are not coherent. So most ideas will not be great. And since ideas are opportunities, many opportunities are not to be taken. And so most of us, after coming up with a bunch of bad opportunities just stop thinking up new ideas.

I think those people who always have the next great idea let themselves consider many more opportunities than we do. Let me lay out a challenge for you. Pick a topic, something like: business, travel, the weekend, or maybe start with something as simple as dinner. Put a piece of paper on your desk and write out a bunch of ideas for that topic.

For instance, if you chose dinner you might write: cook chicken, go to Applebees, leftovers, etc. Now make yourself consider more options: French food, picnic, sushi... in Tokyo. Each one is an opportunity, and many might be bad opportunities. But you're never going to find the great ones until you get through the bad ones.

Once you've had a good (and creative!) dinner, move on to some bigger things. Let the opportunity abound!

(By the way, I decided not to do that comet thing.)