How Successful People Think - Taking the Earl Nightingale Challenge by Generating Great Ideas - Update

At the beginning of March 2017, I shared wisdom and a challenge from Earl Nightingale, to use our minds to develop ideas for our own benefit.

Providing an update in April proved more challenging than I had anticipated. June is as good a month as April for updates.

Earl Nightingale encourages us to purposely plan time to focus our minds on the activity of generating ideas. We should spend an hour, if possible, each day, immersed in writing down ideas which come to mind. By making this a deliberate act, we cultivate and exercise our brain's capacity to look for ways we can create opportunities to improve ourselves, and earn through thought.

I decided to take this seriously.

I wanted all my ideas to be recorded in the same place, so I selected a pocket sized note book, small enough that I could take it anywhere, yet sized so I could write comfortably. Why not my mobile phone? I will say something about this later on.

I selected a note book with no lines on the page, so my thoughts would not be limited, nor influenced by the page style.

I experimented with the time of day, to find a time where I could condition my mind to get ready to work. I tried the first thing in the morning, all the way through to last thing at night. My schedule during March proved quite erratic, so I wrote mostly while I was travelling by train. This gave me about an hour each week day.

Sometimes, I sought inspiration by listening to recordings from great speakers and reading positive messages prior to setting my mind to work.

I also took time to clear my mind on occasion, to see if there was a difference in the quantity, or quality of ideas produced.

As stated by Earl, the first attempts to generate ideas yielded little as my brain felt unprepared, being forced to create on demand, but as I got past this initial feeling, I started writing everything, as thoughts came to me.

At first, my thoughts were about physical things, mostly something I could design, or make. I had seven ideas on my first attempt.

I thought about everyday problems and how I could solve them.

Then came the challenges. Life getting in the way. I found it quite challenging to force my mind to become, or remain creative, while I had life challenges fighting for the same resource.

There were several days where I could generate one, or two ideas at best.

I kept putting in the time though.

Some ideas were duplicated along the way, but I generated over 60 ideas and a system.

So what did I learn?

I am capable of generating great ideas, and with practice over time, I will generate a few brilliant, possibly life changing ideas, provided I keep this going.

I stopped myself censoring my ideas. It is so easy to dismiss our own ideas, judging them before even writing them down, so I committed them to my note book regardless of how naturally successful I felt they would be.

Keeping all these ideas in one place may appear risky, but I have trained my mind to get working on ideas every time I see the note book. It is inspirational to me to see all these ideas flowing from my mind. I can look through them and select an idea to act on, knowing if it does not blossom into an immediate success, I can relax. There are many more where that idea came from, already written down, and I can always go back to my mind at any time to generate even more.

Generating ideas is actually fun. I observe everyday occurrences with the possibility that an idea will formulate, should something happen unexpectedly.

Some of the world's greatest ideas came to life that way.

Some ideas just arrive. No preparation, no warning, so carrying a note book and pen, ensures I can capture them.

I tried capturing my ideas on my mobile phone a few times. The interface of my phone, and the battery dependency of electronic devices, forced me straight back to the note book. This is before I get to the interruption of emails and texts.

Pen and paper provide an instant, flexible and unrestrained way to record thoughts.

I am still writing ideas in my note book. I carry it around with me and review my ideas whenever I hear a great idea, generated by someone else. I compare it to mine and usually, my ideas appear more useful than they originally were written down.

I encourage you to take Earl Nightingale's advice. Set time aside to regularly engage your mind to come up with ideas.

Who knows, the next big idea may be one of mine, or yours.

Thank you Earl Nightingale.

Thank you for reading.

Patrick Nairne