What Do I Do With Good Ideas?

I want to share with you the concept of what do I do with good ideas?

What do I do with good ideas? Everybody has good ideas from time to time. Well, what do you do with your good ideas?

What do you do with the fact that I think I've got a really good idea, I have a million dollar idea, I have the best idea I've ever had in my whole life. What do you do with that?

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rome, author and world renowned public speaker as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rome. I want to share with you a story that has helped me. I heard this story probably close to over 81 about 40 years ago and it's been a great guiding see stories help us to be able to have hooks. It's like having a coat and you have to have a coat hook to hang it up. And having a story is a. Is like having a good coat but you got to have something to hook it on, you have something to place it on to hold it up. It's great to have a story, but what's the point that goes along with it or how do you make it work? Well, anyway, let me share it with you. I had a friend, he was a pastor in, in Colorado and he was telling me that it seemed like to him every time he turned around somebody in his church, somebody in his congregation, somebody had a good idea, hey Pastor, I think we need to. And they would give him the good idea. Hey pastor, this week I was thinking about an idea and he's in. And they would tell him the idea and he said I was gracious and I was kind and I would say thank you, thank you, that's really a great idea. He said. But I began to notice something. They sort of got upset with me if I didn't implement or do their idea. And he said the next thing I knew I had hundreds of ideas that were all good ideas. He said, but unfortunately I still had people to visit and funerals and weddings and preparing messages. He said I just couldn't do what enough time in the day. There's no way any human could possibly do all of the good ideas that everybody was sharing with me. And so he said I began to be troubled by it because I could tell people were not happy. They were. Well, I shared that idea with you a couple of weeks ago and I don't see anything happening. And. Well, I shared an idea with you a year ago. It's been A year ago, since I shared that great idea with you that will change the course of humanity. And I don't think you've done anything about it. I'm not really sure you're even listening when I shared my great idea. So again, you can already tell why I like this story so much because it has great meaning to it and good direction. So he said, I was very, very troubled by the fact that these were good ideas, that I could not do everything and carry on my basic workload. Plus, I had a wife and I had children and I had a family and I had a church and I had message to prepare and people to visit the hospital, funerals, weddings. He said, can then counseling. And he said, I didn't know what to do. So he said, I thought about it, I prayed about it, and I sought wisdom about it. And he said, then I came up with the answer, what do you do with good ideas? So he said, one Sunday, I had everybody together at church and I said to the, to the people in the church, he said, I need to share something with all of y' all that I think is very, very helpful. It'll help you and it'll help me. And here's the way it works. He said, many of you have come to me with good ideas. He said, and I greatly value your good ideas. He said, you're some smart people. He said, I love all of you and you're wonderful people and we're so glad you're part of this church and this organization. We love your families. We love the fact that many of you are in business in our community and you're smart and you come up with really, really good ideas. He said, but here's the challenge. As much as I would like to implement every idea myself, I just can't do it. I find myself working from 6:30 to dark:30, and I'm just becoming more and more exhausted as I'm not complaining. Most of y' all know, he said, most of y' all know me. I'm pretty hard worker. I'm not afraid of work. He said, I visit you when you're sick in the hospital. I do funerals, I do weddings. I counsel you, prepare my messages. I do try to be a good pastor. He said, I'm the shepherd of this particular flock. And he said, I'm. I do my very, very best to try to help, but I can't do everything. And I wanted to tell all of you something that I love your ideas, but. But I just can't simply do all of them. So I've. Been. He said this. He said, I've been praying about this, and I've been trying to find wisdom and direction. So here's what I want to tell you. We're going to do with your good ideas. I hope everybody's ready and. And I can remember hearing this story. I can remember where I was sitting when he was telling this story. He said, so I looked at my church and said, here's the way it works. If you have a good idea, we will do everything we can at the church to help you. But you have to be the one to implement your good idea. He said, now let me explain to you how this is going to work. He said, let's suppose you have a real good idea of something you want to do here at the church and you need a building, a facility in which to have the meeting. Well, we have a building. It's our church building. We have a gymnasium. We have a lot of different rooms in case you needed to use something. Let's say you wanted to teach a class. He said, that'd be great. We could provide you with a room. He said, here's something else we can do. If it involves childcare, we have trained childcare workers who can provide a nursery and provide childcare. And we also have a dining hall, a dining room, a kitchen facility. If you need refreshments or if you need some kind of food service, we can provide that, too. He said, but listen carefully. He said, I love all of you. He said, here's what. There's only one rule. It's only one rule. Your good idea cannot become my responsibility. Your good idea has to become your responsibility. He said, I don't want to upset anybody. I don't want to make anybody mad. But he said, but think about this. If it's your idea, surely you have the best insight and wisdom on how to implement that idea. You see, ideas are a dime a dozen. How to implement ideas, it's a whole different ball game. So he told everybody, he said, if you have an idea, I am more than willing to listen to it and I'm more than willing to help. But you need to understand it. Your idea. You need to implement it. You need to lead it, you need to be in charge of it, and we will support you, we will help you. But it's your idea. He said, I hope everybody understands it. So the next time you have a good idea, here's the new way to think. You pray God, show me how to implement this idea, because it's my idea and I'm in charge of it. So he said everybody clapped and it was like, yeah, we appreciate your help. We appreciate the fact you want to offer the dining room and those childcare and the gymnasium and the rooms to meet in. And he said, that's great. But he said everyone seemed to be fine with it. And he said, plus, I felt really, really good and relieved that I had shared with them, your good idea can't become my responsibility. So he said, two or three weeks went by. He said, the. There was a lady in the church and she made an appointment to come talk to me. So he said, she came into my office and I was talking to her, and she said, pastor, I have. I think I've got the best idea in the world. So he said, I just sat there and thought, here goes. First time. She said, I want to start an aerobics Bible study. And he said, I almost started laughing. He said, I kept a straight face and I thought, an aerobics Bible study? Well, what is that? Where you jump around and do aerobics while you have a Bible in your hand? He said, I just didn't know what it was. He said, then I realized, this isn't my idea. And since it isn't my idea, I don't know what she's talking about. So he said, I was very respectful and said, tell me, what is an aerobics Bible study? And she said, well, she said, a lot of women my age, especially those who are young mothers and have recently had babies, we just aren't in good shape and we want to get back in shape. And she said, I'm an aerobics instructor. She said, I'm a licensed, qualified, certified aerobics instructor. And she said, I thought what we would do is we just send out a flyer to everybody in our community that we're going to have an aerobics Bible study and people will come and we'll. She said, here's what I need the church to help me with. I need a room to meet in. I need a real big room to meet in, and then I need refreshments, and I need child care. She said, if you'll provide us with a room, a large meeting room where we can have our mats, we can do aerobics. She said, I don't know how many people are going to show up. She said, I don't need a room for 10 people or 20 people. She said, just. Just a room here in the church and then child care so mothers can bring their children and feel safe that they're being cared for. She said, maybe some water, maybe some snacks or something from our lunchroom, from our kitchen facility. She said, I'm not even really sure about that because most of us have our own water. And he said, I was sitting there and I was thinking two things. Number one, I'm excited that she's catching the vision. This is her idea and she's going to lead it. He said, I was afraid. He said, I was afraid she was going to say, I want you to come lead the aerobics. He said, but she didn't. And he said, I was so grateful that she never said you have to do anything. He said, I pre provided them a room, we provided them with child care and we provided them with food services, some waters, drinks if they want something. But he said, I didn't have to go to it. I didn't have to teach the Bible study. I didn't have to do anything except just sanction it, that, yes, this is an acceptable idea. This is not illegal, immoral, unethical. So he said, I thought. He said, I didn't say it, but he said, I thought to myself, this, this is not going to work. Nobody's going to do this. And he said, but again, it was her idea and she's willing to lead it. He said, I'll never forget it because it was the first person that really did exactly what I had asked him to do. It's your idea. You lead it, come talk to me about it. And your idea is something that you have to lead. It can't become our responsibility. Your idea isn't my responsibility. So he said they created the flyers and they put them out in the neighborhood. They told everybody. And he said we were anticipating maybe 10 people, maybe 15 might show up. He said, the first morning, he said, I started noticing the parking lot was filling up. He's on a Thursday morning. He said the parking lot started filling up early, at 10 o'. Clock. They're supposed to have the aerobics Bible study. He said, pretty soon there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. And she came to me and she said, I think the room that you've given us is a little bit too small. So we moved it to the gymnasium. He said 200 ladies showed up, 200 women who wanted to get in shape, who had either had children, had babies or just wanted to get in shape. So he couldn't believe it. He said, I was amazed. He said, so she led the, the aerobics from 10 to 11. They had aerobics, they had their mats, they had everything. And then at 11, while they were cooling down, they had water children. The childcare was all taken care of. And from 11 to 12 she had a Bible study. They all just said in their mats and she just put her little podium up and she had a bible study at 12 o'. Clock, she thanked them for coming. Remember now, these are people that don't even know about this church. These are people that don't even know anything other than I can work out. It doesn't cost anything. It's aerobics. I want to do that. I need, I've got childcare. It's a church, probably going to be in a safe place and we'll have something to drink and we can cool down from 10 to 12. That thing grew and grew and grew. And he told us, I can still hear him in teaching us what he was sharing that day. He said, we had over 200 families join our church last year from the aerobics Bible study. Now why do I tell you that story? That story is full of good information. Here's why. First of all, many people have good ideas. I'm not the only person in the world qualified to have good ideas. Listen to me, you have good ideas. The problem is you don't know what to do with your ideas. So you start looking for somebody to implement your good idea. That's not the way it works. If it's your idea, maybe you're the one that needs to start looking, thinking, planning, praying, whatever it is that you do about how this idea can become a reality. That's called personal growth and development. I keep this little sign next to my desk. I keep this next to my desk. It says, the next step is dot, dot, dot. The next step is. I have trained myself to think. I see this every day when I have a good idea. What's the next step? What's the next step? What should I do next in order to try to implement this idea and help it to work?

Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying and planning and dreaming. You remember the song by Dusty Springfield? It said, it won't happen. You have to do more than wishing and hoping. You have to put some feet to your ideas. Maybe some of you may know how to create and devise a business plan. Now that's a little harder. A little harder. That's what a bank wants to see. If they're going to loan you money, where are your people going to come from? Who is this for? What is this about? How much? Is there going to be a charge for this? Is there going to be Income from this? How long does it last? What are the parameters? Is it legal, ethical, moral, that that's involved in a business plan? And I'm not really talking about going there. Here's what I want. I wish everybody today, myself included, could always remember this. If you have a good idea, start saying, now, how can I. How can I implement this? And here's one thing I want to share with you. We at Personality Insights have helped many, many people over the years implement their good ideas. Your good idea doesn't become our responsibility. If it did, our staff would be exhausted from doing good ideas every day. But we're willing to listen. And sometimes we create ways to help put feet on something that we can work with, that causes people to be able to take their idea and work with people who are more mature or who have a little more experience, who have a little more ability to guide the ideas. I have gotten ideas from people that I thought, we can help you with, that we can help implement, that. We can provide a way to make that idea go from just being an idea to becoming a reality. But when I promise you this, just sitting back and thinking, well, I have a good idea, you'll have another good idea tomorrow and the next day and the next day. So you have to train your mind to say, okay, if I have a good idea, how can I implement it? The next step is, who can help me in this endeavor? I'm not dumping my idea on them. I'm seeking wisdom and guidance. Maybe I need a partner. Maybe I need a helper. Maybe I need somebody to come along and give me who's older and wiser to give me some guidance in this. What would be my next step? My friend told me I never will forget this. He said, looking back on all of this, he said, I remember sitting there thinking, an aerobics. An aerobics Bible study. I can hardly say without laughing, because he said the same thing when he told us. He said, an aerobics Bible study. You have heard of such a thing. He said, turns out it was better than any church idea for reaching people in our community that we've ever done. And it all came up by a mom who had a child.

Who knew aerobics, who wanted to help people in our community. He said, we eventually had to start another church and another church. They had to have satellite churches because it grew so big. He said, I can promise you in a. He said, in a million years, I would never have had the idea of starting an aerobics Bible study. He said, it never would have Crossed my mind. He says the best idea we've ever had as a church and as a community. He said it also taught me to reach out into our community and help them with things they are interested in. They're interested in their health, they're interested in exercise. They're interested in having somebody who knows what they're doing coaching them and teaching them. They're interested in having child care, someone in the neighborhood that. Someone in the facility who can watch their children while they're doing things. He said it just was a springboard into many, many areas of life. I just want to share a couple of thoughts with you to try to put. Put my arms around this whole thing. The next good idea that you have, first of all, write it down. Write it down on a piece of paper. Then. Then let it start to grow and develop. Ask yourself three questions. What? Here's the first question. What is my idea? The big what? Some of you have heard this before. The big what? What? What is my idea? The second question would be, well, how does it work? How does it work? How does this work? Again, the first one is, what is my idea? So under big number one on your paper, write down your idea. She would have written down aerobics Bible study number one. Well, what is it? It's a Bible study for women who've had children or who want to get in shape. Question number two, how does it work? How does it work? Well, it works on Thursday morning from 10 to 12. And we got on the. We need an aerobics instructor. Okay, we got that. And we needed a room that people can exercise. Can we have that? And we're gonna need some child care. How does it work? Okay, we'll have child care workers. Our church can provide that. And we probably need some water, bottles of water to give to everybody. That's. That's the how. And then the third thing, and this is where it's going to get hard. It's going to get hard. Some of you heard about this. Here's the third question. Why are you doing this? That's your why. Because your why is what drives you. See, once you can answer why, that gives you your momentum. That gives you your motivation. Why? To help mothers, to help people with their health. To help our church show that it has compassion and cares about its community. Why are we doing this? We want to grow as a group in our community, in our neighborhood. And she hurt. Why Was what propelled or motivated this entire process? And I got news for you. I went online and I looked recently. They're still growing strong. They're still doing great, and they're still reaching their community. And it all started 40 years ago with a mom who had an idea. For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becomingwiserpodcast.com.