Previously we encouraged you to make wishes.  This could be anything you want to be doing better, more of, or maybe even at all.  For those of you who may be an unsure entrepreneur, this could involve something that you’re afraid of that we wanted you to put into the form of a wish.  Before we tackle these wishes, there’s still some work to do.  

When you’re trying to solve any challenge, it’s important to clearly know what that challenge is.  For example, perhaps you’ve come across situations where you’ve been asked for answers to questions that aren’t clear.  Maybe a boss has asked for something without being clear about what it is, or a coworker needs something from you, but they don’t know what that is themself.  In cases like this, it’s nearly impossible to give the right answers because no one has asked the right questions.  

So before ideating, let’s look at some Idea-Do’s…these are tips to keep in mind whenever you’re making lists. We say making lists because while brainstorming is called many things, what you’re really doing is coming up with great lists.  Once you have a great list, you can make the right choices.  And lists aren’t just for answers, they’re for questions too.  

The first Idea-Do is to “Say No to No.”  Anytime you’re coming up with a list of ideas, whether they’re fears, wishes, questions or answers, you don’t want to say no to anything that comes to mind.  All ideas are valuable, but please don’t confuse that with the polite saying that all ideas are good ideas.  Some ideas are actually quite bad. But all ideas are valuable because even the worst idea in the world might inspire you to think of a really great idea.  Also, if you’re constantly stopping yourself and judging each idea that comes up, you may lose momentum and instead of coming up with dozens of ideas to pick from, you may struggle just to get a handful of ideas down on paper.  So just say no, to no, and with that in mind look at your wishes again and come up with ten more.  It might sound hard, but it’s possible, and you might just be surprised with what you think of next.  

Coming up…more Idea-Do’s.  To discuss any wishes, feel free to leave comments or contact us at paul@iopenlab.com.