This piece is part of my 2016–2026 archive migration. Some original formatting, content, and external links may be missing, changed, or not be optimized.
When you have an idea: Write it down, explore it, and experiment
After you read books and listen to podcasts by people such as Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn, Napoleon Hill, Kevin Trudeau, Zig Ziglar, and the like, your mind is constantly generating endless ideas. You’re feeling more amped up about life and your dreams, and you feel as if you’re soaring because you are.
Your Life Will Improve Radically
Ideas Are Worthless If Undocumented
An idea is worthless if you don’t jot it down. Something not documented can’t be acted upon. When you write something down, you put it in a position to be explored.
Immediately Write Down Your Ideas
As soon as an idea comes to mind, jot that sucker down with urgency. If you don’t, you’re most likely to forget it. I can’t count how many times I had some epic-sounding ideas, but I didn’t write them down because I was too tired, busy, or lazy.
No more. Whenever I think or discover a new idea, I write it down.
Sometimes you don’t know you’ve struck gold until you dig a hole in your backyard and explore. What is the backyard? Your mind. The mind is full of gold mines, but you’ll never know until you explore it.
Most Ideas Will Be Worthless
Remember Thomas Edison, the inventor of the incandescent light? The dude failed too many times to count. Tens of thousands, to be more precise, but guess what? Each failure led him to the one idea that would work.
Experimentation is underrated.
As Earl Nightingale states, most of your ideas will be worthless, but a select few of them will produce gold mines, but you will never know if you don’t experiment and explore the ideas.
Use A Notebook Or Electronic Device
If you don’t have a notebook or place in your phone or tablet to jot down ideas, go ahead and make that happen.
I use a notebook and my phone to jot down ideas because my notebook isn’t always with me.
Entrepreneurs Must Experiment
Any solid product manager knows that experimentation is king when testing your product and learning your audience. Not only do you need to experiment, but you must research and conduct interviews. You need to take the same approach with your business.
Explore every idea, conduct research, and conduct, listen, or read interviews to learn your next steps.
7 Day Challenge
I have a challenge for you: For the next seven days, I want you to jot down ten ideas a day that you can implement to help you reach your business goals.
By the end of the week, you will have 70 ideas you can try.
Some of them will suck, and some might work, but most likely, one of those 70 ideas will bring you closer to your goal than you were previously.
Don’t underestimate the power of experimentation and jotting down seemingly worthless ideas.
If 10 Ideas Come Easy, Write 20 Ideas
If writing down ten ideas is too easy, write down twenty; this is the actual recommendation of Earl Nightingale, author of The Strangest Secret. I promise once you start writing 140+ ideas down each week, there is no possible way you will not eventually experience success with your business endeavors.
20 Ideas A Day
This content is for informational purposes only — not professional advice. Consult a qualified professional before making any major decisions.