123The main rules of the brainstorming session are 1)
there are no stupid ideas—the more unreasonable the
better—and 2) everyone must play.
I have sometimes facilitated brainstorming sessions
with business managers. We go around the table and
each person puts out an idea and the facilitator writes
it on the flip pad. We go around and around until all the
reasonable ideas are exhausted and the unreasonable
ideas start to flow. It is usually among the unreason-
able ideas that something great is discovered. Brain-
storming works so well because the usual restraints
against stupidity are lifted. It’s okay to be unreason-
able and far out.
What most people in business don’t realize is that
this powerful technique can be used by an individual,
alone with himself or herself. I first discovered this
while driving in my car a number of years ago listening
to a motivational tape by Earl Nightingale. He talked
about a system he had learned that worked wonders.
On the top of a piece of paper you put a problem you
want solved or a goal you want reached. You then put
numbers 1 through 20 on the paper and begin your brain-
storming session. The rules are the same as with a group
session. You have to list 20 ideas, and they don’t have
to be well thought out or even reasonable. Give your-
self permission to flow. Your only objective is to have
20 ideas scrawled down within a certain short amount
of time.
If you do this for a week, you will end up with 100
ideas! Are all of them usable? Of course not, but who
cares? When you began the process you probably didn’t
have any usable ideas.
I have used this system myself over and over with
really great results. It works so well because it relaxes
Storm your own brain