Imaginibbles

Ideas, ideas, ideas. Isn’t that what we all want…that great idea that inspires us? Finding ideas that blossom into gold is easier than we think. Often it’s about letting ideas you already have percolate versus constantly pulling out the idea magnet and dragging it over the sand in hopes of finding more and more ideas.

This weekend I had a blip of a creative thought bubble that I followed down a very unlikely path. What I found at the end of that path was a totally imaginative and fun concept. I didn’t know when the idea started percolating where it would take me but the journey was great and the outcome was exactly what it needed to be. This idea had nothing to do with work and everything to do with spicing up everyday life. It was about turning a regular conversation into a creative game.

Let me explain. A friend of mine is hosting a 40-year birthday trip for his closest friends. Sounds fun right? Yes, expect for the fact that none of us have any idea where we are going or what we are doing. We barely know what to pack. The entire trip is a surprise. We won’t even find out our flight into until the day our flight actually leaves. While I love surprises the truth is that I’ve been so busy with work, parenting, clients, laundry and so on that I’m only able to think about our trip while eating dinner with the family.

All the while, we’ve received email after email with real, false and misleading information about our impending trip. The entire thing has become one big guessing game of who, where, when and what. For my husband and I, the dinner discussion has turned from day’s events to a guessing game around our trip. One conversation last week I chuckled and said, “it’s like playing that board game Clue.” Do you remember that game? It was Miss Scarlet in the library with a candle stick…..ha ha ha.

That one intersection of our trip and the old board game kept percolating in my head. It started with places. Then I layered on activities and finally drinks. I started to think about all the combinations and possibilities.

Finally, after laughing to myself in my car I went and pulled out our Clue game that was collecting dust in our playroom. Then I knew I had no choice, I had to make the game based on my guesses for our trip.

I have to say that making the Klein Clue game was as much fun as thinking through the ideas. I hope you enjoy and even play a few rounds. I think it’s Martha’s Vineyard with a lighthouse tour and whiskey.

Why am I sharing this with you? I think sometimes we find ideas and we walk away from them before they have a chance to blossom. We brush it off as a fleeting thought or an idea not worth spending time and energy on. Sometimes we just throw it away before realizing its potential.

In this case I let it percolate and it went from a conversation to a chuckling thought to a board game. Even the simplest of ideas need time to percolate, grow and evolve.

Give your ideas time to bubble up and thrive. Ask yourself which ideas you walked away from because the seedlings didn’t look fruitful? Which ideas, with a little imagination and fuel could blossom into something beautiful?
I find writing your ideas down, putting them away for a while and then coming back to them lets them percolate. Sometimes it even happens subconsciously. We don’t have to have the answer immediately. The best ideas present themselves in very non-linear ways.

You may have a beautiful garden of ideas waiting in the weeds.