Catching Ideas
I heard a great quote I had to share.
“Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.” - David Lynch
I love the concept, I’m going to spin it a little bit to move away from the big fish, deep water idea and change it.
Ideas are like fish, they are caught not created.
You cannot create an idea from nothing. Ideas have to be fostered, nurtured, explored, and eventually pulled out of the watery depths of your mind and made tangible. The ideas are out in the world, all around you, surrounding you with opportunities, but you cannot take advantage of them unless you go fishing.
So how do you create an opportunity to catch new ideas? You explore, you read, you go outside of your comfort zone. I was listening to the Colin and Samir podcast where they interviewed Miles Fisher who introduced this idea to me. Fisher starts every day with a printed newspaper. Not because he’s old school, but because he’s fishing.
Newspapers contain topics on everything, curated together in one simple page so you can quickly scan and know a little bit about what is happening in the world. In doing so your mind is opened. You find an article you want to explore further or get an idea from a seemingly unrelated topic that becomes inspiration for a new product in your shop.
After all, fishing is not sitting in one spot hoping a fish comes by, but finding where the fish are and casting your line so you have the best chance of success. All you need is a little preparation, practice, and patience to catch a fish.
So go fishing. Go explore. Find out where the fish are and snag an opportunity when it presents itself.