As I’m ironing out speech ideas and book ideas, I’m ruminating on the difficulty of introducing an idea that spreads.
We no longer need a book or a speech or a consultation to tell us how to solve a problem we have. Google and YouTube is there for that. If you’re searching for a “How to,” the Internet is your friend.
But the “Why do” …that might be worthy of print media or a Ted talk or a podcast.
Instead of producing something that shares a solution to someone’s problem, we have the opportunity to share something we are passionate about with someone who might not know they had a problem with their “why,” which, may in turn alter the “how to” they seek.
Our goal, then, ought to be to find those who don’t know they need help and proceed to inspire them with an idea worth spreading.
For a spreadable idea, you few things must fall into place:
1) You must be passionate about an idea that is, at minimum, different from what has been done before. The cue here is often the saying, “We’re doing things just a bit different.” For an idea to spread, there must be both a sense of security (doing things that we know already works) and a little adventure (but doing them a bit differently).
2) The audience must understand the basics of your idea, which you typically don’t need to go in depth about. Recall, Google has you covered as well as bookstores when it comes to the basics. Ideas that spread aren’t sent out to beginners, they are given as a gift to those who 1) understand the foundation of your idea already and 2) trust you. Which leads us to the third and final variable.
3) Ideas spread as quickly as the path established for them allows; that is, the relationship you have, the connection you have built determines the speed at which an idea can spread. The stronger the relationship, the easier it is for an idea to go viral. This goes further than just making a connection between you and someone in your target audience; it requires you to connect your target audience to each other, ultimately creating multiple pathways for the idea to spread.
Lastly, ideas don’t spread simply by throwing them out there. Ideas spread when they are remarkable, as in, worth making remarks about, worth talking to others about, worth sharing.
For an idea to resonate, the idea must focus on the part of doing or thinking about things differently.
Stay Positive & Go Spread Something Remarkable
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