Get Your Head In The Clouds
Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” To solve our problems we have to rise above them with a fresh mindset.
We have all heard the realists say, “Get your head out of the clouds!” But great leaders live the opposite–they get their head in the clouds. Great ideas come from seeing the big picture. And when you get your head in the clouds, you are rising up to high-level thinking. Breakthrough ideas come from thinking bigger than what everyone else thinks and beyond what everyone else is willing to believe.
In order to extract solutions, you have to operate beyond your challenge, bigger than your challenge, and bolder than your challenge. You have to get your thinking at a whole new level. Don’t get weighed down in limiting thinking that is buried in trying to figure out how everything will work. Every person who has ever had a brilliant idea never knew how it was going to happen at first. In fact, if they would have started with the how question, it would have killed the idea before it even had any lift-off. The worst question to ask when you or others are birthing ideas into being is “How?” If great ideas always came with how they probably wouldn’t be that great to begin with. We have to replace the “How?” with “Wow!”
I have attended many brainstorming sessions that dried up because too many people were asking “How?” before they let the ideas get some “Wow!” The preemptive “How?” questions kill creativity. It literally massacres greatness in the womb of gestation. The idea gets aborted because “How?” is asked too quickly and too critically. Great ideas aren’t great at first; they need time to be wowed. The best way to shut down innovation and creativity is to start asking “How?” before you start saying “Wow!”
The best way to shut down innovation and creativity is to start asking “How?” before you start saying “Wow!”
Here are 3 things you need to know about howing and wowing ideas:
1) “Wow!” Ideas To Life
Dreaming beyond our capacity is the catalyst for creativity. The greater the ideas we have, the greater the impact we can make. You have to wow ideas by giving them time to develop and soar before you assassinate it with how. Fan the flame of creativity in you and the others around you.
2) Ask “How?” Only After “Wow!”
Asking the right question at the wrong time can kill innovation. “How?” is a great question, but only when it is presented at the right time. Only when you have let the idea be heard can you know what to truly ask. Too many life-altering ideas are lying dead on a conference room table because they were shot down in mid-flight by Howers.
3) Be Careful How You Ask “How?”
“How?” is a great question at the right time and if the tone is correct. Say, “How?” with a positive tone, and you’ll get positive results. Say it with a negative and critical tone (cue the eye shrug), and it will be the death of possible greatness. How we use our words determines a great deal of the results we get. The tone in which you ask “How?” makes the difference between continual progress or continual problems.
