Did You Know that Brainstorming Bad Ideas Can Lead to Good Ideas?
From esteemed professors to ingenious entrepreneurs, everyone is on the constant lookout for great and inspiring ideas that could potentially change the world. I’m about to give you a piece of advice that you may think goes against the very foundation of innovation and breakthrough: Brainstorm bad ideas!
If this is making you stare at your phone or laptop screen and wonder how it is good advice, I bet you’re not the only one. Allow me to explain why brainstorming bad ideas is actually a brilliant idea.
When facing a problem, we naturally only focus on coming up with good ideas. This can limit our problem-solving abilities since there’s a chance that we may fail to consider all possibilities.
I’ve learned that it’s better to focus on brainstorming bad ideas when trying to think of creative and innovative solutions. Even if our ideas are stupid or ridiculous, brainstorming our bad ideas takes away the pressure. It stops us worrying about conceiving good ideas and allows us to push past obvious answers. We can reevaluate terrible ideas and turn them into something unique and brilliant.
In fact, Tina Seelig, the author of Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World, would agree with me. She says one of the ways to reframe problems into positive solutions is through brainstorming bad ideas. When teaching her students at Stanford University, she asks them to turn a bad idea of selling bikinis in Antarctica into a good one. Within five minutes of brainstorming bad ideas, the group came up with the slogan, “Bikini or Die”. They reframed a bad idea into an excellent one of taking people who want to get into shape on a trip to Antarctica and putting them through fitness training. By the end of their hard slog, the travelers would be able to fit into their bikinis. That’s a brilliant concept, isn’t it?
The next time you face a severe problem, try writing down as many bad ideas as you can in a short time. As hard as it may be, stop yourself from spending time trying to perfect those ideas. Once you’ve made a list, you can then brainstorm ways to make your bad ideas good. Who knows? You might just change the world.
-Andres Pira
About Andres Pira – philanthropist, real estate tycoon, author, speaker, and global citizen. Andres Pira enjoys living in Thailand, where his journey began from Homeless to Billionaire.
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