Thursday, May 17, 2007

Ideas - The Currency Of The Future

I recently read a story about Bill Gates, perhaps the richest man in the world that interested me. He was traveling through a particular airport and was asked by the custom officers if he had anything to declare. “Nothing, but a billion dollars worth of ideas” he declared. Interesting, isn’t it?

Take a moment and look around your environment. Everything you see from your laptop computer to Post-It Notes® started as an idea. The universe itself started as an idea in God’s mind. Even you were an idea at one time in your parent's minds. There is nothing you will see around that was not first an idea in the mind of someone.

The software in your two and a half pound brain spends twenty-four hours per day producing and processing ideas. When your brain is in sleep mode we call the idea production "dreaming." When you are awake and looking out the window, we call it "daydreaming." When you are awake and focused on a task we call it "thinking."

Enlightened managers now recognize that the assets of their employee's minds exceed the assets of their organization's bricks and mortar. When you take away all the assets of a company by any means and still leave its people, it will just take a while before that company springs up to life again. The people’s minds are the most valuable asset of any company that will succeed in this age and time.

The greatest problem faced by developing countries is not money problem. It is not power problem. It is an idea problem. Ideas are superior to money. They bring in money. Ideas are more powerful that the best currencies in the world. Infact, permit me to say that ideas are fast becoming the currency of the future. For example, exchange an idea with an associate at lunch. You both walk away with two ideas. If instead, you just exchanged one dollar bills at lunch, you'd both walk away with one dollar. Ideas rule the world.

Let me tell you a story I heard some years back. It is about a man by the name Asa Candler. Does the name sound familiar? I doubt. In 1889, he bought a formula and a 3 legged brass kettle containing a mixture of lime, cinnamon, cocoa leaves, and the seeds on a Brazilian shrub from a druggist, Dr John Pemberton. Together with an idea he had about marketing, he turned this formula into a money spinner. Today, the content of that kettle has grown to be the best known trademark in the world. It is sold in about one hundred and forty countries to 5.8 billion people in eighty different languages. It is today, one of the largest consumer of glass and a heavy consumer of sugar. You should be able to guess the product I am talking about by now. I am talking about Coca Cola. Indeed, ideas rule the world!

So, tell me why you won’t make it in life? Are you still sitting down there complaining about not having money or even the right connection? Do you have a great idea big enough to draw resources towards you? This is what really matter. Money will flow in the direction of good ideas. Ideas are like magnets. They attract money!

Be a magnet for ideas. Set aside 5 minutes each day, at the same time, and if possible in the same place, to think about new ideas. Ideas are the key to success and it only takes one to make you rich. By setting up a time and place to generate new ideas, it becomes one of your goals and by acting on it, it will happen. Just a few good ideas will set you apart from your competition and propel you towards your goals.

However, having ideas alone will not get you anywhere. You will need to work on your ideas. You will need to put them into action to get anything out of them."Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied." says Arnold Glasgow. Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference. The value of an idea lies in the using of it. A lot of people have great ideas, but nothing in the world is cheaper than a good idea with no action.

The real bankrupt is he whose expenditure of speech exceeds his income of ideas.

How big is your idea? Go act it out!


most said...

Ideas are indeed becoming the medium of exchange in the 21st century. One good idea is enough to change one's whole life.

Laolu Ojed said...

Great Post!
Those who create and sell ideas have always ruled the world...and those who remain poor are those who never get down to do craetive thinking.
thank you for that post. it gets me thinking now about the many ideas i have had but failed to put action to it.
Action is very important.

Anonymous said...

Wow. This is very enlightening. I am pregnant with ideas.

ifeoluwa said...

Dear sir,

this statement in the 5th paragraph reads:

"Ideas are more powerful that the best currencies in the world"

instead of:

"Ideas are more powerful than the best currencies in the world"

This is a valuable write-up worthy of being cherished by putting it in sophisticated "glass" for preservation...
I'd also suggest for further reading: "the road ahead" by BILL Gates...there are lots of treasures in the CD that accompanys the book.

can't wait to meet and chat with you at the top of the topmost top!!!

Fola' said...

Splendid post!
After such a while of not reading this blog.
I guess for those who still think they have no idea worth selling, they should just keep at the regular creative thinking sessions, someday that breakthrough idea will come.
