Ideas are powerful things.  The right idea at the right time is what genius is made of.  Miss out on an idea or opportunity, suddenly you are a moron.  We can keep using the same ideas over and over.  This works for a lot of people.  We can also come up with new ideas.  I try to be smart and come up with new ideas to add to my old trusted ideas.  I also try to steal ideas from other people.  Stealing is fun and I want to steal everyone’s ideas, let’s face it sometimes its fun to be bad!

Coming up with new ideas is hard work.  It can be really taxing on mental energy to think of new stuff.  Then to figure out if an idea is a good idea, that is a lot of work.  I like to avoid doing work when I can, and idea generation is no different.  Lucky for us, other people have ideas and we can steal them! 

We all do this all the time too.  If you read a book you’re pretty much stealing ideas, especially if you read a book from the library that you didn’t even pay for.  Maybe accepting is a better word than stealing when it comes to ideas.  People do share ideas freely all the time, we only have to accept them to make them our own.  We’re not borrowing ideas, we don’t have to give them back.  We get to keep the ideas, use them however we want, morph them, and combine them.  The question of the day is how to find new ideas to accept?

The people we talk to, the content we consume, the places we go will all give us ideas.  We should readily accept these ideas.  There can be a problem however that at some point we quit getting ideas that are all that new.  We start to get the same ideas over and over, maybe in different flavors but they are the same ideas.  I think from time to time how do I get ideas that are outside the normal kind of ideas I usually get?

My mind naturally wants to dive into a few subjects.  There are likely 5 or 6 subjects that would draw 99% of my attention.  This is not a good base for coming up with new ideas.  I recognize that good ideas can come from anywhere.  I never thought I would write a book.  I got an idea from somewhere, and then I wrote a book and enjoyed it.  Ideas from outside our spheres of interest can really impact us in positive ways. 

This is why I proactively seek exposure to new ideas.  I will watch a random show on tv.  I have started listening to random podcast episodes from the iTunes popular suggestions.  This newsletter is one way I try to get new ideas.  At the end of every newsletter, I have links of the interesting and useful things I read this week.  This forces me to read a lot more stuff than I usually would.  Forcing new ideas into mind is always a good thing. 

I am always on the search for new ideas and perspective.  It is fun never knowing where the ideas will take me.  Wherever the idea road leads, I know it will be interesting.

How are you exposing yourself to better ideas?  Do you have an interesting trick or system set up?  I would love to hear about it if you have some ideas how to get ideas that I could steal.

Every week I spend a lot of time reading and looking for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found this week.

Strength and Conditioning

Good article with some leg exercises I might toss into the rotation in my home workouts.  https://www.t-nation.com/training/big-quads-no-squat-rack

Philosophy

An article I wrote about how chess is making me think about my life decisions lately.  https://nehemiah.co/ramblings/move-quality-in-chess-and-life/