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.

The Element of Sharing Our Thoughts and Its Hope for Benefiting From Each Other’s Knowledge, Ideas, Experience and Wisdom

Picture Courtesy: Kondo Yukihiro

Our thoughts are just as important as any of our other achievements.

We may not understand E=mc2. 

Which is why, many of us can relate to this joke sent to me by my friend Ajay.

However, even though we may not be able to understand Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, we can understand and relate to Einstein’s thoughts on other topics.

His thoughts on vegetarianism:

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

Or his thoughts on imagination:

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”

His thoughts on compound interest:

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it.”

Or his thoughts on creativity:

“Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”

These thoughts make us stop and reflect.

Einstein is one of the most quoted people, and I myself quote Einstein frequently.

Einstein, like Socrates, is one of the world’s greatest thinkers.

But the universe of thinkers is as large as we want to make it.

With a little effort – being an observer, and putting on our Wisdom Scout hats, we can discover that there are unlimited sources of knowledge, ideas and wisdom to help us learn and grow.

Recently I came across Christian Larson.

I found everything he had to say profoundly true.

I am providing a link to the quote pages assigned to him on Good Reads to see if you agree with me.

Christian Larsons’ Optimist Creed is so inspiring, I decided to reprint it here in full:

The Optimist Creed
by Christian Larson

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Then there is Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev from India.

He caught my eye after I watched him answer the question “Is it wrong to love yourself?” in this You Tube video.

If we can learn from the thoughts of people like Einstein and Socrates, Christian Larson and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, we can also learn from every single person we meet in our lives.

Family and friends, for instance, can be wonderful sources of ideas, advice and wisdom, and I have fallen back on that many times in my life. 

It often starts with a question we have on our minds.

One Hand Tied Behind Their Backs

For instance, when I started this blog, I thought I would write advice for people facing a challenge or obstacle of some kind.

This explains why I wrote into the title of my blog, the words “for those with one hand tied behind their backs”.

However, I soon found myself wanting to spread my wings. I branched out into celebratory posts, narrative posts, reflective posts, and purely humorous posts such as my Big Bang Theory series and Twitter series of posts.

But every now and then, someone would stop and ask “Hey Minoo, what’s the deal with ‘one hand tied behind their backs’?”

I would be at a loss for words.

So I shared my concern with guest poster Ajay of A Short Stint in Advertising and Oh Bangalore fame. 

He said, “Minoo, it’s not a big deal. If you want to change the title, go ahead. But if you want to leave it as is, that’s okay too. People will look beyond the title.”

I have stopped worrying about the title ever since.

Opportunities we don’t see, Risks we are not aware of, and Fears that are overblown

Everything we are involved in can benefit from a thought-infusion.

Whether we are job hunting, selecting a career, facing relationship issues, or in need of financial guidance.

We should not only welcome other people’s thoughts, we should deliberately seek out other people’s thoughts.

People who appoint advisers and mentors to guide them are wise to do so.

An outside perspective can highlight opportunities we don’t see, risks we are not aware of, and fears that are overblown.

If we don’t find suitable people to ask, we can turn to books and the internet.

Thought Sharing on Minoo Jha Life Strategies

My blog is filled with examples of thought sharing.

In this post, you will learn how thought sharing got me to understand what is priceless.

In this post, you will learn how thought sharing helped me produce the defining ad campaign of my career.

This post tells you about my experiences with telepathic thought sharing. BTW, did you know Mark Twain believed in telepathic thought sharing. You will learn about his telepathic experience if you read the post.

This post was inspired by thought sharing.  So was this one.

In this post, you will learn how thought sharing gave me the idea to do Xactly training, leading to my role as an SPM Consultant. It enabled me to branch out from Excel and Centive to Xactly and Varicent; to branch out from Commissions Administration to Implementations and UAT testing; to branch out from calculations to writing documentation (FRDs, User Operation Guides and White Papers).

Never Let A Pal Down

Sometimes thought sharing will take place, not as an advisor and advisee, but as an exchange of wits.  

In response to my post The Nightdress Brigade about an escapade with my sister Rosie, reader Aarathi posed all these questions about the nightdresses involved in the post. I wrote the post The Question That Must Be Answered as a riposte to her questions.

Likewise, when guest poster Ajay dawdled in getting his P.G.Wodehouse guest post to me, I took matters in my hands and wrote Never Let A Pal Down to give him a gentle nudge.

(If you must know, the P.G. Wodehouse piece was in my e-mail box within a week of Never Let A Pal Down.)

Light a Fire, Get Out of a Funk, Get Something Straight

Thought sharing can light a fire under us.

It can give us new ideas.

It can get us out of a funk.

It can spark creative solutions to our challenges or problems.

And it can clear up ignorance.

The Biggest Refund

Tax-filing season is here.

It is a time when you will hear many people say, “I love my tax preparer – he always gets me a refund.”

And you will hear tax-preparers shouting from the rooftops, “we will get you the biggest refund.”

Only people who don’t know how taxes work will get all excited about this.

Refunds arise because of over-paying our taxes during the year.

It’s the numbers we put on our W4 and the tax events which happen to us during the year which determines what our tax obligation will be.

If we get that wrong, we will owe the IRS rather than get a refund.

I share my thoughts about this with people when I can.

The Truth Can Be a Hoot

If we don’t share our thoughts, people can labor under the wrong idea about something for a long time, even forever.

Some things are unimportant and it’s not a big deal. The truth can even be a hoot.

For instance, in 2008, my friend Krystyna (whom you met in the United States of Friendship Part 1) had not heard from me in a while and she discussed it with her husband. 

Krystyna’s husband speculated that I must have a new romantic interest in my life who was keeping me busy. Krystyna was doubtful, but now the bug was in her head.

So it was on her mind when we met for lunch shortly after.

During lunch, we gabbed about this and that, but the conversation yielded nothing about the suspected “romantic interest”.

Finally, Krystyna came right out and asked me why I had been incommunicado for several months, and she told me what her husband had said.

I laughed. “Do you want to know the real reason why you haven’t heard from me?” I said.

Krystyna was surprised by what I had to say next.

“I have been spending all my free time following the elections.” I said.

Krystyna almost fell off her chair

“But, Minoo, I have never known you to have an interest in politics!”

We tend to think of people as fixed points.

But people can change and do change.

The atheist can turn spiritual.

The drinker can become an abstainer.

The believer can become a non-believer.

And the apolitical can become political. (the fact the economy was in shambles, and the Democratic candidates included Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton had something to do with my sudden interest, I have to admit)

Also, we must understand there will always be sides to people we may never know about.

The Tomboy who loved TV Soaps

My friend April (whom you met in  United States of Friendship Part 4 and The Sometimes Red Headed, Sometimes Orange Headed,Sometimes Purple Headed Link Between Baseball and King Cake) was a tomboy growing up.

She liked to climb trees, ride bikes, get into scrapes, hang with the boys. 

But when it came time for her favorite soap to be aired, (apparently a really romantic mushy one) April would head home and settle in front of the TV to watch.

There was a girly-girl side to April her tomboy friends had no idea about.

Cookie-Cutter Conclusions

It is easy to read any situation wrong.

In our house, the two series currently being watched on Netflix are Desperate Housewives and Glee.  You might assume Minoo is watching Desperate Housewives, Tanita is watching Glee. 

Gotcha!   Minoo is watching Glee and Tanita is watching Desperate Housewives. See how easy it is to assume things.

The Truth Will Set Us Free

The truth can be funny, the truth can be surprising.

The truth can also be sad or shocking

But we must welcome the truth.

Because it will set us free.

Even when the truth breaks our hearts, and we find out our heroes are not heroes, or our knights in shining armor are not our knights in shining armor, the truth will set us free.

Here’s a true story someone told me.

The Boy at The Bus Stop

Once upon a time, there was a girl who took the bus to college.

She got on the bus at the second stop on its route.

One day when she got on the bus, among the people on the bus was a nice-looking boy.

When the bus stopped at the college, he got off with her, at which point she realized he went to the same college.

Thereafter, they would exchange looks when they saw each other on the bus.

Now as you may know, a single look can be spun by a romantic heart into an imagined fantasy of ever-lasting love - complete with a happy ending, and this is exactly what happened.

The girl fell madly in love with the boy. She decided they were an item based on the fact they exchanged looks on the bus. She started talking about him to her friends and dreaming up a future with him.

One day when the love-struck girl walked to her bus stop, she found the boy there. Her heart skipped a beat.

He was smoking a cigarette. They exchanged a few words.

The girl was over the moon.

She took the fact he was at her bus stop as a sign he was interested in her and wanted to take it further.

He was at her bus stop every day after that day.

She would walk to the bus stop and sure enough, she would see him sitting there smoking a cigarette.

Other people often see things more clearly than us in these types of situations.

The girl’s friends saw the young man with other girls at college and suspected it was all in the girl’s mind.

There was only one way to find out. They asked someone to ask the boy about his feelings for this girl.

The boy was shocked to find out the girl thought he was interested in her.

He said he had started taking the bus from the next stop only because he wanted to have a couple of cigarettes before he got on the bus.

And he was just making polite conversation with her whenever he talked to her.

The girl of course was furious and heartbroken. She believed she had been led on.

But at least now she knew the truth, and was free to pursue other romantic interests. And he in no longer being the object of an unreal infatuation, was also set free.

We should not let people labor under a mistaken assumption.

Even if sharing our thoughts with someone may not necessarily change their mind, we owe them the truth – however tough it is to hear.

Sharing Our Thoughts About Life

Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living.

One of the reasons I write this blog is because it forces me to examine my thoughts about everything in life.

And I share these thoughts on the blog because I really do believe, as the title of this post says, we can benefit from the exchange of each others' thoughts.

In fact, I believe our thoughts are just as important as any of our other achievements.

Thoughts and Music are Indestructible

When you think about it, the Pyramids and other long lived structures notwithstanding, only thoughts and music are indestructible.

Someone will pass a thought to us and it will live in our heads, and then we pass it on to someone and it will live in that person's head, and it will live in the next person's head and then be passed on by her or him. Thoughts get passed again and again. They have a fantastic natural distribution system.

So take a moment to think about your thoughts on everything in life and then pass them on.

Share your thoughts with your kids especially.

“But Minoo, how can I share my thoughts with my kids when they will not give me any of their time?” you may say.

Well, then, the next best thing is to record your thoughts.

On a blog

On a tape

On a video

If you are not comfortable putting yourself out like that, write your thoughts in a journal.

Or pen a series of love letters to your family sharing your thoughts.

Sooner or later, trust me, they will get read.

I know there are all these thoughts running in your head which no one knows about.

I hope this post inspires you to get started with sharing them.

Hurray to that.

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week….M…..a Pearl Seeker and Thought Sharer like you. Thanks to Ajay, Christine, David, Nina and others for your feedback on my last post.  Much appreciated!