The former American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker, Jim Rohn once said, “Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.”

But how do we know which ideas to trash and which to keep? Ideas are a dime a dozen; there seem to be no shortage of them. But sometimes we can get so caught up in their pursuit without taking the time to eliminate the bad ones, leaving room to go after the ones that will spread.

Just listen to the ‘idea generation machine’, best-selling Author and Thought-Leader Seth Godin, talks about how he processes his ideas to select the best ones. In a recent episode of The Entrepreneurial You podcast, Seth broke down his fairly simply process.

“It is fair to say that most people have had ideas. The only difference with me and them is that when I have a bad idea, I say it out loud. If you say enough of your bad ideas out loud, sooner or later you’re going to have a good idea.”

On the matter of getting your ideas to spread, “Everyone knows or has the attention of ten people who trust them. Once you build your project whatever it is, share it with them. They will either say something nice to you or tell other people. If all they do is say something nice to you then your idea isn’t good enough. If they tell other people, the idea begins to spread. It doesn’t spread to everyone because it is not for everyone, it is for some people. If you build it for SOME people, those people will tell SOME people. One by one it begins to spread.”

“If you make something for everyone, you will make something boring and safe, that isn’t worth spreading. You only want the small viable amount of people.”

Listen to the podcast to hear Seth’s views on generating ideas and leadership.
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I first shared this on the Leadercast platform.