The Element of Ideas Leading to Ideas and Its Hope for Pulling Many Rabbits Out of a Hat

Morning on the Beach by George Hodan

Do you remember where you read this quote,“Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”?

It was one of 4 Albert Einstein quotes in my last post.

Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

What did Einstein mean?

He meant every new idea is either a combination, or a variation of ideas that have existed before it.

If it appears unique, it’s because we are not able to connect the dots between the new idea, and the idea or ideas that gave birth to it.

Of course, in some instances, ideators do not hide their sources. They connect the dots for us.

Take Pinterest as an example….

Before Pinterest, we did the same things we do on Pinterest - but with scrapbooks and bulletin boards and photo albums and manila folders.

In fact, Ben Silbermann, the founder of Pinterest says the idea came to him from the mounted insect collections he had as a child.

Pinterest is just doing the very same thing, but putting our collections online, whether these are….

Pictures

Memories

Recipes

Craft ideas

Ideas for dressing

Ideas for decorating

Ideas for a special occasion

The cool thing about Pinterest is the collections are virtual, so we don’t need:

Glue

Magnets

Paper

Scissors

Physical photos, pictures or stickers

Umm…actual insects

We don’t need to surreptitiously tear pages out of magazines from waiting rooms and libraries.

What’s more, our Pinterest collections will never yellow, fade, tear, or get lost.

And we don’t have to play “Now where did I put that scrapbook?” or “Where did I put that file of our vacation destinations?” or “Where did I put that dossier of wedding ideas?” anymore.

Our collections are all in one place.

There’s no limit to how many collections (called boards) on Pinterest we can have.

Is it any wonder I am already up to 42 Pinterest boards and counting.

I use Pinterest to organize my Minoo Jha Life Strategies posts.

For instance, I have written several posts about investments and taxes and money. 

If you want to read all the posts I’ve written about investments and taxes and money, it would be difficult to find them on my blog.

But if you go to The Money Board on my Pinterest page, you can find all of them there in one handy place.

My Pinterest boards include:

8-5

8-5 contains all my career related posts, the most popular of which are Resume Tips From Fortune 500 Companies and Are You a Virtualoso?

Best of the Guests

Best of the Guests contains guest posts such as….

Oh Bangalore Part 1, 2 and 3 by Ajay Sachdev

A Facebook Faceoff by Jacinta Correa

The Importance of Language Arts by John Paraskevopoulos

Big Bang Theory

Big Bang Theory contains the series of posts I wrote based on the many different funny things Sheldon Cooper has said on the popular sitcom of the same name.

Using Pinterest to Organize and Categorize My Posts

How did I get the idea to start using Pinterest to organize and categorize my posts?

One day, my niece, who is associated with Pinterest, and was visiting, showed me how to pin on Pinterest.

At that moment, I couldn’t think what I might use Pinterest for.

But I had a middle of the night epiphany that same night.

“Voila -I can organize my posts for my readers on Pinterest, so if they want to read all posts on a particular subject, it will be easy for them to find.”

I had found the perfect use for Pinterest for me.

Ideas lead to ideas

Pinterest is an example of how an idea (bulletin boards and scrapbooks) led to an idea – online bulletin boards.

That’s the cool thing about ideas.

They lead to other ideas.

Which lead to other ideas.

Which lead to other ideas.

At my request, guest poster Ajay Sachdev sat down to write a piece on Bangalore for my blog.

As he was mulling on what to write, he suddenly had the brainwave to write a 3-part series, one dedicated to Bangalore’s past, one to present day Bangalore, and one to Bangalore’s future.

He then had the brainwave to include a narrative element by inserting a time travel element into each piece.

Oh Bangalore might have turned out very differently had he decided to write just one piece about Bangalore without the narrative element.

As it turned out, the narrative series was a hit.

In fact, Ajay recently turned it into a book and published it on Amazon.

One piece became three different pieces became a book.

Isn’t that cool?

Pirates of the Caribbean

When you get an idea, always ask yourself if there isn’t another idea in there somewhere.

Another way to do it…a better way to do it….a prequel….a sequel…..a series, a different use, a different way to think about it, a different point of view.

Try not to be linear in your thinking.

Quick – which came first - The Pirates of the Caribbean Theme Ride at Disneyland, or Pirates of the Caribbean, the movie series?

Answer – the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride theme ride at Disneyland. It opened in Disneyland, Anaheim in 1967.

The ride is one of Disneyland’s biggest hits, and so in the late 90's, Disney got the idea to make a pirate movie based on it.

Thus the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was released in 2002.

Every conversation, every incident, every situation, every piece of information you come across, and everything you hear, read, touch, taste or experience can lead to an idea.

Especially, if something is a hit.

Sheldon Cooper

The Big Bang Theory is a hit because of Sheldon Cooper and the things he says. Thanks to the brilliant lines given to Sheldon Cooper to say in Big Bang Theory, I was able to do a 6 part Sheldon Cooper series on my blog. The link to the first of these posts is here.

The Power of Feedback

Feedback is a wonderful source of new ideas.  I have written several posts based on reader feedback.

For instance, I wrote a post called Lightning Bolts, in which I showed how, by dropping the first letter of existing names, you can come up with some pretty decent sounding new names. You can check out my Lightning Bolts post here.

In response to Lightning Bolts, reader Aarathi said alas, her name did not lend herself to dropping the first letter. Her name Aarathi would sound the same even after dropping an “a”.  This played on my mind, until I had another brainwave.  You can read about this brainwave in Letter-Dropping.

When someone points out a problem with something, or launches an appeal of some kind, it can become a flashpoint for a new idea.

What do X and I have in common?

Ideas lead to ideas.

Sometimes old ideas spark a new idea instantly.

Sometimes old ideas stay in the back of your mind, and a new idea will come to us in a flash of inspiration, days or months, even years or decades later. There was a 35 year gap between the launch of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and the movie series of the same name.

Back in 2011, I wrote a post called What Do Lakshmi Mittal and I have in common?

The post is largely dedicated to telling you what Laksmi Mittal and I do not have in common.

You can read the post if you want to see what I mean.

A few days ago, I woke up, and the idea came to me to do a similar post comparing myself to other well-known public figures.

I thought about Warren Buffett.

“Aha”, I said,“ I know what Warren Buffett and I have in common.”

Can you guess what that is?

Our frugality. 

Warren Buffett is frugal. I am frugal too. We have that in common.

I thought about Simon Cowell.

“Aha”, I said, “I know what I have in common with Simon Cowell.”

Our British accents; his is a real British accent, mine is a fake one, and not really British anyway, just Indiany Britishy, like Mulligatawny soup.

The naysayer and critic who sits on my right shoulder popped up.

“Tut!  Tut! Minoo. Do you really want to do a name dropping post like that?”

“Shush,” I said, “Yes I really do want to do a name-dropping post. It would be fun.”

The naysayer being shushed, I was free to pursue the idea.

Here goes....

What do Napolean Hill and I have in common?

Both of us went to Toastmasters to hone our public speaking skills. 

What do Socrates and I have in common?

Our dress sense.  Socrates couldn’t care how he looked, and um, from all the compliments regularly lobbed my way... “Minoo, you need to do something about that jacket”, “Minoo, you need to cut your hair”, “Minoo, you need to get yourself a new pair of shoes”, “Minoo, I am going to present you with a new handbag” and from all the unused gifted handbags and donated shoes in my closet, yes, I can claim at least one commonality between Socrates and myself: our dress sense.

What did Albert Einstein and I have in common?

A deep and unfulfilled desire to be vegetarian.   I have shared Einstein’s thoughts about vegetarianism in both my last post, and in my post The V List.  I was a vegetarian for only 3 years of my life.  Though I did not succeed in staying vegetarian, it remains one of my deepest unfulfilled desires.

What do Joel Osteen and I have in common?

We were both involved in accidents in which our cars hydroplaned and spun across all the lanes of the freeway.  My accident was on Martin Luther King Day 2010. 6 months later I read Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now and got gooseflesh to read his account of his hydroplaning accident.  You could have interchanged the names and it would have been my story.  I have written a post about what happened to me. In case you want to read it, here is the link to 4 Lessons Learned From Spinning in the Rain.

What did Joel Osteen’s father and I have in common?

From reading Joel Osteen’s books, I found there was an interesting connection between his father John Osteen and myself.  There’s a part of me that is attracted to austerity and simplicity.  So, in the last decade, there have been a few occasions when I’ve wistfully said, “I think when I retire, I will settle in an Indian village.” Imagine my surprise to read the following about John Osteen, Joel Osteen’s father… 

John Osteen had visited India and stayed in an Indian village on a few different occasions.  On one visit, his son Joel accompanied him.  Joel was surprised to hear his father say that if he hadn’t been a pastor, he would have liked to have lived in an Indian village. Joel observed the hard beds, the mosquitoes, the limited food choices and the other discomforts and wondered what the attraction was for his father.

All the Presidents

And now get ready for me to go all presidential on you, as we move on to the next set of comparisons which will explore the commonalities between me and different US Presidents.

If you want to have some fun, try guessing what the commonalities are and then read the answers.

What do President Clinton and I have in common?

Both of us have an only child who is a girl.

What do President George W Bush and I have in common?

We both have 5 siblings.  If you want to know something about my siblings, my post Our Cake Boss Family tells you some interesting facts about each of them. And on my Lobonagar board on Pinterest, you can find all the other posts written about my family.

What did President Nixon and I have in common?

We both had cocker spaniels as pets.  His was called Checkers. Growing up, we had a cocker spaniel called Brandy.

What did President Reagan and I have in common?

Both had media related first careers. President Reagan was an actor in his first career.  I was an advertising copywriter.

What do President Theodore Roosevelt and I have in common?

A love for reading. Of course, I cannot read in English, French, Italian and Spanish like President Theodore Roosevelt did. Also, I have never published a book, let alone published my first book at the age of 23.

By the way, if you are interested in finding out who were the bibliophiles among US Presidents, you should check out this link.

What do President Abraham Lincoln and I have in common?

Many nicknames.  President Lincoln has been called The Great Emancipator, the Liberator, the Rail Splitter, The Tycoon, Honest Abe and Uncle Abe. I’ve been called Mintacks, Mintakoot, Minothi , Mins, and more.  If you want to see a list of nicknames of different US Presidents, you can check out this link. And if you want to read a post about the propensity to nicknames in my family, you can check out this link.

What do President Thomas Jefferson and I have in common?

We were both not born American citizens.  In fact, the first 7 Presidents were all born as British subjects.  Martin Van Buren, the 8^th President, was the first President who was born an American citizen.

What do President George Washington and I have in common?

Besides the above mentioned fact of not being born an American citizen, our favorite foods include fish and nuts. If you are interested in fun facts about presidential food preferences, check out this link.

Moving on from comparisons, here are some fun facts I unearthed doing research for this post:

Which US President was a practical joker?

Lyndon B. Johnson. He would take guests for a drive in his automobile on his property, and when the car was approaching the lake, pretend the brakes had failed and the car was headed into the lake

Which US President got a speeding ticket?

Ulysses S Grant.  For going beyond the speed limits on his horse

Which US President was the only president to have spoken English as a second language rather than a first language?

Martin Van Buren

Which US President liked to skinny dip?

John Quincy Adams

Which US President was into wine-making?

Thomas Jefferson

And with that, we come to the end of this spin-off post from my Lakshmi Mittal post.  Thanks for coming along on the ride.  Hopefully, you learned a few fun facts to put to use if ever you play a US President trivia game.

Parting Thoughts

Remember ideas lead to ideas.

So if you are in an ideas desert right now, trust me…..an oasis is out there.   

Something will strike soon.

My Lightning Bolts and Say Yes on Bath Crayons posts may be able to help with some inspiration.

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M…..a Pearl Seeker like you. Thanks to Ajay, Ananda, David, Patty, Rosie and Subhakar for your feedback on my last post.  And thanks to Chris, Jess and others for their votes.  Much appreciated. P.S.  Those of you in advertising may be interested in viewing the different advertising commercials for US Presidents.  This link takes you all the way back, starting 1952.