We’ve all heard them, right? The crazy ideas that sound either so silly, or so illogical that we’re left wondering why anyone said them out loud in the first place. It’s what we call a stupid idea. At least that may be what we say in our head. Rarely do we call them stupid ideas out loud.
But we know they’re stupid. Because we know better. We’ve been around long enough to be able to distinguish good ideas from bad ones.
That’s the logic, we think, behind our judgement.
But then someone, somewhere, executes on a completely ridiculous idea that has no business working, and it does.
It’s an anomaly. It’s a rare situation. It’s unprecedented.
But nevertheless, sometimes stupid ideas work.
And that’s when we need to ask ourselves – is there really such a thing as a stupid idea?
There are ideas that work. And there are ideas that don’t work.
But if a stupid idea works, can we really call it stupid? Or should we simply put it in the “ideas that work” category?
I write these posts for me as much as for you. I categorize ideas as stupid all the time (many of them my own). And when I do, I rarely test them out. I protect myself from failure but in so doing, I am also limiting my opportunities to see some of these ideas work.
How are you treating “stupid” ideas?
I hope, unlike me, you refrain from putting any ideas in the stupid bucket. I hope you simply classify them as ideas that work, ones that don’t work, and ones you have yet to try.
And then I hope you try the ones you haven’t yet, and double down on the ones that work.