Where do all the good ideas come from?

Perhaps the better question to ask is:

Where do all the bad ideas coming from?

Not every song Bob Dylan wrote was a hit. But he kept making them until some songs began to resonate.

This blog is full of bad ideas, but now 3,000+ blog post in, some good ideas begin to surface.

The thing is, you never know which ideas will take off because good taste is subjective.

That’s why the work of the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Shepard Fairey, or a Jackson Pollack isn’t going to resonate with everyone.

There is no formula, no map to follow to become famous. But is famous really the goal?

Psy is popular but you can’t argue that the work he’s done is important.

Jaqueline Novogratz, on the other hand, has done important work to help lift 200 million people out of extreme poverty and you’ve probably never heard of her.

Quality is important. No one is saying that we shouldn’t ship quality work.

But spending all of our time polishing our work, never shipping it or interacting with the community, is another form of hiding.

We delay shipping because we are afraid to be judged. The ideas have to be perfect beforehand because if we publish and no one reads it; what does that say about us? What does that say about the best we can do?

“We are not good enough.” That’s the killer of all joy. It’s the internal dialogue that is the killer of all creativity and joy.

If you have something to say, say it. Say it because we must.