This is what you hear when you have something somebody thinks is a decent suggestion: “That’s a good idea.”
Is this validation of your idea?
Probably not.
I’ve been told, “That’s a good idea, Bob!” more times than I can remember (only to be followed by the footsteps of the person who said it to me walking away).
What happens with those great ideas you don’t keep a secret until they absolutely must be shared is that other people typically end up taking credit for them. This has happened to me many times. For example, most of my bosses have been able to reap the great rewards for my good ideas.
I was told my ideas were good. But once stolen by someone else and related to a stranger, they immediately became great ideas. As in, “That’s a GREAT idea, Steve!”
What I’ve come to find out is most good ideas can be great ideas. The issue separating them is the timing of when you share them with a third party.
That said, it’s not easy to come up with great ideas.
I was walking down the street recently when I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a sidewalk on either side of the street?” I really like to walk, but I don’t like walking in the street.
I had no one else to share this with at the time so I kept it to myself. As a stranger passed me by I was tempted to ask them if they thought if would be a good idea to put sidewalks on either side of the street.
But I didn’t think of telling them in time as I knew it’d probably turn into a great idea for them and just a good idea for me.
I always think distraction is a good idea.
The NFL is currently engaging in distraction. They’re trying to distract their viewers from the national anthem protests by letting players engage in end zone celebrations after scoring.
This is a good idea. Some peon in the league office probably muttered half-heartedly at the end of a meeting when asked if there was anything else anyone had (to offer), “Why don’t we let players do demonstrative celebrations in the end zone after scoring? It would be a fun thing we could introduce to the fan base.”
“That’s a good idea, Marv,” says the guy two notches higher in the power structure than the peon.
You know it was destined to be a great idea once Two Notches ran with it.
And so he did and so we have the wonderful antics on display in NFL games after scores take place that we do now.
It’s hard for something to be a great idea for one person when it wasn’t already only a good idea for the previous person who had the idea.
What I mean is, rarely is a great idea a great idea immediately out of the gate.
Great ideas need to be vetted. And the vetting process includes the chronology of the idea being originally someone else’s good idea.
Now that we’ve been through what we have, I was just told that if I stopped right here it’d be a great idea.
There is the exception to the rule that all great ideas were once originally good ideas.
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