“Tickle your brain”

You never know where you’re going to find creative, innovative ideas for your business. Most mornings, I tromp out the driveway to get the paper. My driveway is 900 feet long, so the dogs and I have quite a morning stroll. Over coffee, I read the front page, and usually the sports section (being a soccer fanatic, I need my fix), and when I am feeling particularly dutiful, the Business Section.

Today I read an article in the Business Section that provided me with great fodder for thought as I work with Ontario Parks to help design their Parks Foundations Course. The author referred to James Altucher’s blog and work. James Altucher is the managing director of Formula Capital, an asset management firm and fund of hedge funds. He’s written a bunch of books on investing and one book that he loves: How to be the Luckiest Person Alive. And it was the reference to being lucky, creative and innovative to which I paid attention.

Altucher says we need to become experts of ideas. We should take time every day to think of (and write down) 10 new ideas. Those ideas can be about anything at all. Anything. Business ideas, book ideas, anything at all! The key is that it has to be 10 or more…you want to make your brain sweat.

The course I’m helping to design could be straightforward, providing participants with foundational information which will help them to become leaders in the Parks organizations. Or, it could provide opportunities where they can tickle their brains, asking them to re-engineer their vision of leadership and come up with thousands of ways to help steer the organization into the future.  I am going to suggest that we infuse this course with opportunities for participants to generate ideas about leadership, about parks, about teamwork, and whatever else we can. The future is theirs for the shaping and their creativity is essential for their success.

Quick: what are your 10 ideas???