Don’t you love when you have those light bulb moments when something you’ve been pondering for months, perhaps even years, suddenly falls into place like the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. I had one of those moments yesterday after attending a course which I almost didn’t go to.
It was one of those free, full day events which I had signed up for a number of weeks ago. The topic had grabbed my attention at the time but as the day crept closer I tossed up whether I really wanted to invest an entire day of my weekend to this event. The night before I actually did some research and found some quite damaging negative feedback against the company who was running the event. Alarm bells started going off.
“Of course it’s free” I told myself. “It’s a scam. I won’t be losing anything if I don’t go because I’ve not paid for anything” I reaffirmed my sceptical mind.
I did some more research and confirmed that the presenter running my course was a different person to the one mentioned in the negative comments. I decided I’d go and worst case I’d just leave half way through if it turned out to be rubbish.
I arrived half an hour early just as the registration time opened. Even as I approached the hotel where the presentation was being hosted, I expected the worst and pictured only half a dozen gullible people standing inside waiting for this scam to begin. I went for a walk so I wouldn’t look like too much of an idiot being so eagerly early to this rip off event.
When I came back 10 minutes before the start, I went in to register to find close to 100 people waiting with standing room only in the waiting area. My confidence was lifted a little but I figured at least I won’t be the only moron falling for this scheme.
To cut a long story short, 7 hours and 14 A4 pages of notes later, I walked out basking in my light bulb moment. In the interest of full disclosure ,there was a huge sales pitch in the middle of the workshop for a program being sold at nearly $3000 but it was done with class and no sales pressure and there seemed to be plenty of people who were happy to invest in the value of what was being offered (skeptical me didn’t buy of course but I couldn’t begrudge the guy for running a business which was the whole point for him!)
The thing about light bulb moments is they are about as useless as wings on an elephant (yes I know interesting image right, it was the first thing that popped into my head!) unless you are ready to do something with the opportunity when it presents itself.
So what do you do and how do you make something out of an idea when it presents itself? Here are my five top tips:
- Always be open to new opportunities, anytime, anywhere. You just never know who you may meet or where you might go where a new idea or a piece of the puzzle you’ve been searching for will present itself
- You don’t know what you don’t know so take any chance you can to grow yourself (and try not to be as skeptical as I am!)
- You get what you focus on so keep your focus in the direction that you want to go. When you focus on the negative, you tend to see everything that is wrong. When you focus on what you want, your behaviour and thoughts become aligned with your goal and in time these behaviours and thoughts begin generating results in the right direction.
- Carry a notebook – write down ideas as they pop into your head as they might be gone by the time you get a chance to record them.
- Take regular walks in the fresh air. Research has shown that exercising outside boosts activity in the area of the brain which is responsible for creativity and problem solving.