some days, some times of the year, what you planned just isn’t working. The kids are one place, and you’re in another one.
Any actor, any writer, any artist who performs for an audience, will tell you the same thing. Parents know it. Managers know it. The folks who care for animals know it too.
Ask any marketer. I bet you’ll hear that customers don’t behave according to plan.
When I used to work in an office, I called certain times of the year “karma-skew,” because they were predictably off. Those were by no means the only ones when it seemed that most folks in the building were, well, . . . a little bit . . . um . . . zany. I only wish. What we really were was bored and cranky.
Since the time that the world began, humans have had our explanations for this phenomena . . . the planets are misaligned. . . . The sun is breaking out in spots.
Any first grade teacher knows it happens before a rainstorm, or when the sky clears, or when there’s going to be a vacation day, or when it’s the first day back, or a special event, or hundred million other everyday catastrophes and celebrations.
Who cares why? It just does. A time comes when we need to change things up.
When it does . . . you set the plan aside, and you say, “I have an idea!”
Actually, I have lots of them. I have ideas about having ideas, about making friends, about being jazzed and productive — all things that are fun!
So let’s put the heavy thinking aside. Here’s a great place to start.
What’dya think? Good idea? Are you ready to come along?
Hi Liz, great thoughts to waken to this a.m. Though I have an idea, it’s what I do with it in the course of the day that counts!
I cotton on to the idea of having fun with ideas!
Hi Robyn!
I was just thinking of you! I was just twisting the idea of leadership — thinking you’d get a kick out of it.
I like the idea of having fun with ideas too! 🙂
From Ellen Weber I learned to play with ideas… that was a piece in my doctoral dissertation. 😉
Hi Robyn and Ellen!
You’re both the best at ideas.
I can only imagine what that doctoral disseration was like. Brilliant! Guess the pressure is on. 🙂
Full moon, new moon. Especially the new moon plus and minus 3 days either side is when my co-workers (back in my R&D career days) would launch themselves off the roof or would have if you let them. The more creative the person the more crazy they got. That’s also the time when the greatest ideas came forth because someone happened to say just what you said; “I’ve got an idea”!
It’s also the times when the wildest volleyball games were played out back of the building in the volleyball court we built plus the only times we were able to pound on the CEO without fear of reprisal. Talk about therapeutic value. (and it was also how the potato canon with the half mile range was built). 🙂
Good to hear you air the same idea that worked so well for that very unique company I worked for.
I have an idea, too. Every second, it seems. The hard part is choosing which ones to commit to and which to write down in the idea book to dust off it that day ever comes!
Liz,
I’m willing to sit in the front row of the idea bus! Thanks for this jump start to the week.
Mike
Hi Kirk,
I’m wondering whether we worked at the same little company and didn’t know each other. 🙂 Maybe it was in the Twilight Zone. 🙂
Yea! Tiffany,
I hope that means that you’ll be throwing lots of ideas on the idea bus while we travel along.
How to choose the right idea . . . write them all down. What you’ll find is, well maybe after a time, the ones you have the energy to write will be the ones you care about.
Oh what fun, Mike,
that you chose the word “jump start.” I chose the word “kick start” for my next post! 🙂
Hi Liz,
I laughed when I saw that! I wonder if most people know where the term ‘kick start’ came from? And I really like the kick start post. I’m looking for the appropriate Liz Strauss idea to get to know on a cellular level!!
Mike
Now why do I keep hearing the “Twilight Zone” theme running through my head?
You must have been the one I always passed in the hallways when we were both going to someplace else in a hurry. Remember me? I used to smile at ya’. 😀
Hi Mike!
Sorry I was gone! (a meetinga) Thanks for your comments on the “kick start” post. Now I’m wondering whether I know where it comes from 🙂
Hi Kirk!
Welcome to the club . . . that’s constantly playing in my head . . . no not really. 🙂
But I do think I remember you smiling at me. 🙂
Sure you do, Liz! I always pictured you as a kind of a wild one.
Hi Mike!
I’m still learning. No question about that. No question at all! 🙂