Daily Inspiration: “When pessimists prevail, accelerate your ideas!”

“When pessimists prevail, accelerate your ideas!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Have you ever noticed that you are often surrounded by negative people?

They’re everywhere! And for ever silver lining, they see massive rainfall. The glass is never half full nor empty – they see a shattered glass! They seem to thrive on the belief that the worst is yet to come. Cynicism runs deeps in their soul.

Seriously, these people are a bit of a drag.

One of their realities is that there is little opportunity going. They seem to have been around for some time: history (it seems wrongly) assigns a famous quote to Charles H. Duell, the Commissioner of US patent office in 1899:  “everything that can be invented has been invented.” 

With that, today’s theme in my series “Insight 2020: Leadership Insight for the Era of Acceleration” – #7 of 20 – is “Accelerate Your Ideas!” Learn more about the series here: https://insight2020.jimcarroll.com – it runs through the month!

Bottom line: personally, you’ll never run out of great ideas if you master the skill of generating a continuous stream of new ideas through your personal knowledge networks!

Huh?

For 25 years, I’ve been using the phrase “big global idea machine” when I’m up on stage. We all know that we live in an era in which its easier than ever before to find, grab, generate & gain new knowledge. Use it correctly, and you’ve got a massive tool for personal enhancement – what I’ve long been calling “just in time knowledge.”

In today’s world, it is impossible to keep up with anything. Knowledge is exponentiating in complexity, form, and volume. It’s your ability to grab the right knowledge, at the right time, for the right purpose, that will truly accelerate your ability to generate new ideas, and get through your imagination drought.

I’ve known this reality for a long time. Way back in 1984, I was busy trying to convince the big global professional services firm for which I worked that a network of computer technology – going by the name ThorNet! – would provide us big opportunities- the ability to accelerate our internal idea sharing machine to enhance our capabilities.

That fell flat.

In 1987, after a global merger shook things up and technology was taking off, I took another shot at it, suggesting a global creativity-sharing engine that would go by the name Linkage! (the parallels to LinkedIn are kind of uncanny!)In an internal document I wrote : “The network organization of the 1990’s demands ….the bringing together of the minds of the people of this organization to accelerate our idea-sharing.”

That didn’t go over either. Oops!

So I quit – when one career doesn’t work, find a new one!

I did, and haven’t looked back. 

Today’s theme of accelerating ideas is based on the belief that this big global idea machine known as the internet continues to fuel not only personal opportunities but also bigger things: the fundamentals of global R&D, the acceleration of science, faster new capabilities in terms of product and service invention, and so much more. 

The belief – as suggested in the stage photo with the Wall Street Journal idea that we are out of big Ideas – is an absolute fallacy, and certainly is not what I see as a massive personal and leadership opportunity going forward.

And so it you have time, visit today’s post #7 of 20 – “Accelerate Your Ideas!

#motivationalquotes #inspirationalquotes