There are not many innovative thinkers in the world. And I myself find many people around me trying to copy others and not using their own creativity. Its a very good news if you are not one of them and you tend to do things in new and creative ways. These type of people love to invent and are the best leaders. If the mentioned features suits you well… Congratulations! your responsibility is to keep your passion. Your only way to satisfy this need is to implement your ideas. And I am here to help you with that. One important thing to note! This post is highly recommended to people at the ages of 12 to 18, who are counted as school students ( middle/high school ). Consider that if you are younger or you have graduated from high-school, feel free to read this blog post and post your ideas under this reading at the comments section. I will appreciate every single opinion about this reading and I will accept any type of criticism related to this post.
About me ( optional )
At the moment I am at the age of sixteen and am not as experienced as a business consultant who has years of experience but, my opinion is that school related projects are not the same as real-world business. For example you will not face legal challenges ( law related ), in your school business. However you might face some school limitations and rules. This does not mean that starting your business at school is easier! As an example I can mention the motivational problem you will certainly face during your project development. This motivational problem is the hardest challenge someone can face! Of course in real-world business challenges you can include this as well. But consider that an employee always has a financial incentive! You hardly ever pay people in a school for helping you in your business. You should not consider other people working for your idea as an employee and expect them to act like so.
In these blog series I will be sharing my achievements from my failures and little but important lessons I got from my experience at the time of my middle school. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
1.01 IDEA or EXCITEMENT?
My first suggestion to people that have an idea to implement is to make sure you are not facing an emotional state of excitement. Unfortunately most of the time what we are facing is not an idea but an emotion. So your first task is to clarify if its an idea or not. Here are two important steps you need to take.
1- Let some time pass
No matter how exciting it is to get started and pack up for your journey, you need to see how permanent is your feeling about your idea. If you soon feel exhausted about your idea, this is a sign of a temporary excitement.
2- Think about its challenges and if you are ready for it or not
Most of the people Believe, your enthusiasm plays an important role in your perseverance. That is true. I do believe in this too! Note that this task will not suppress your feelings but just to make sure if you are ready enough to handle the responsibility of your idea. The real feel of contentment gets activated during the process of the implementation of your idea .Especially, when you make progress in it. So don’t rush for it. Don’t do what I had done before.
These simple, but highly important steps will either make your way straight or will make you aware of the probable state of confusion you might face. In sum, using this technique is necessary for you to prevent from possible damages due to your emotions.
1.02 A Clear Idea A Clear way
At 7th grade when I was working on my new Idea “Mofid plus”, one of my hardest challenges was the problem of the unclear idea. This situation happens when you don’t exactly know what you want from your Idea and also your team and as far as I know this problem is a common problem. This is one of the most destructive problems every single one of us may have confronted. In most cases this problem will lead to a project collapse. To be frankly speaking this problem does not have a specific solution and your best action would be to prevent it before it happens. Here are some techniques I have personally used and I have taken benefit from them to prevent this problem.
1- Pour your thoughts on the paper.
Mind-Emptiness
The first step should help you with a state I usually call it “Mind Emptiness”. This technique helps you get your thoughts on the paper and sort it however you like. So take out a paper and start bringing your thoughts on it. Remember, it is not important that you do in an organized way but it will help you if you do it in a structured way.
2- Summarize your idea in a paragraph
Attention! Here our goal is not to give a structured Business plan! We only need a brief 50 to 150 words paragraph. Your task is to write a summary of your idea including what are the most important achievements of your idea plus your users and your expectations. Once you have completed this task, start the one below.
3- Explain your Idea to Mr. / Ms. Smith
It must have been a question for you that who is Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith is anyone with the following features :
- A person whom you have a good relationship with
- The Implementation of your idea would not make any difference on his/her life
- Not the person you might choose him/her as your project partner
- Is in a stable emotional state
Explaining your idea to Mr. Smith will fill up the holes you have left in the previous part. Remember to do some preparations before you meet Mr. Smith. I recommend you using different presentation methods. such as powerpoint presentations or simply using the white board for your key notes.
This was my first try doing this method at 7th grade. You can see how simple it is. Remember! Your talk with Mr. Smith is a friendly informal talk. So don’t make things complicated and a using technical terms. This will make your conversation less effective. The goal is to explain your idea to learn it better and secondly get some useful and friendly advice. Most of the times my father had played the role of my Mr. Smith and I really appreciate his efforts. ( Special thanks to my father )
2.01 A Good Idea
Having a unique idea itself doesn’t mean that your idea meets the qualifications of a good idea. And in addition we need to study a good idea’s features.
1- Defining a good idea
Take a look at your life. What has made you aware that if something is considered bad or good? If you get deep enough you will notice that its simply a basic rewarding system you have been growing up with. The rewarding system every parents set for their children. Let me explain it in deep with an example. Imagine a child walking to the power point and attempts to touch the socket. In this situation the most possible reaction for a parent would be to scream or get really nervous and then immediately getting the child out of his way. In this case the child understands that touching the powerpoint might be dangerous or in other words considered as a bad thing. On the opposite side when a child eats his/her food completely his/her parents would show their encouragement to the child and simply respond to the child with a social acceptance reaction. In older ages we can see it too. As an example we can refer to Ponzi schemes and other “BECOME A MILLIONAR IN ONE DAY” types of businesses that are based on people’s reward bug. Or a very familiar for Iranian people would be unauthorized credit funds ( The hyperlink is about a economic crisis in iran (2017)). You simply get trapped by real but temporary stories of people becoming rich in a day.
I highly recommend you reading “The art of thinking clearly by Rolf Dobelli”. [ 4. If 50 million people say something foolish, its still foolish ( pages 14 to 16 ) ( Subject: Social proof ) ]
At the moment of the idea production, your body produces a high amount of dopamine and therefore you’ll think that your idea is a hundred percent implementable and realistic. If you fall into this trap you will have a high probability of failing. Remember that this process happens unconsciously and the only solution is to understand your brain’s functionality.
Knowledge is power
A common proverb
Also remember, knowledge without action is worthless!
2- Stand against the “Confirmation bias”
Consider this case:
You are having a debate on the subject ("Who will be the next president of The United States?") with Joe and he is trying to convince you that Mr. Smith will win the election undoubtedly. But, your opinion is quite the contrary .You believe he doesn't have a high chance for being elected and unfortunately you find yourself stuck and you can't find any reasonable statement to confirm your claim and you feel angry losing to your opponent.
What is the first thing you might google after this situation? My prediction says, the following phrase is very probable.
Proofs for Smith not being elected
A probable sample
This phrase, on the other hand is very improbable:
Evidence for Smith being elected
An improbable sample
99% percent of the time you will find yourself trying to find different evidences on your theory but not focusing on the contrary. We humans strictly stick to our beliefs and personal opinions that we don’t even expect it being wrong or unreasonable. A study shows successful predictors ( aka. superforecasters ) don’t maintain their idea but want to prove it wrong all the time. This is the key to their success!
Your job as an person who wants to develop an idea would be not to focus on just finding evidence on your idea’s qualifications, but to find its bugs and cons and reasons on why it won’t be an implementable one.
Final words
Being an innovative thinker is all about being different and thinking different. If you want to make difference you must be different.
This was my first mini-guide on your future successful projects and It was specifically focused on developing your idea. I tried to explain my words thoroughly and understandable for any ages. Remember to do all mentioned tasks step by step ( Very necessary ).
I will appreciate your comments on this blog post and I will personally use them for my next mini-guide that will be published very soon and will continue the journey we have started together from this post. I will also answer your questions and will accept any type of related criticism and suggestions.
Helpful resources
- The art of thinking clearly by Rolf Dobelli
- Persian version: هنر شفاف اندیشیدن – نشر چشمه – ترجمه عادل فردوسی پور
- Why some ideas survive and others die by Heath Chip
- Persian version: ایده عالی مستدام – نشر آریانا قلم
- Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock
- See Also (Persian summary): https://arkarimi.ir/%d8%ae%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%b5%d9%87-%da%a9%d8%aa%d8%a7%d8%a8-the-art-and-science-of-prediction/
