Where My New Ideas Come From

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In December of 2020, I reflected on the year that was and started looking toward the year that could be. I thought about some of the major themes I wanted to pursue and something occurred to me. One of my greatest regrets was that I did not document or publish more of my work. I have always been an in-person kind of human who enjoys the live onsite events. I enjoy the interaction and engagement. As such, I focused most of my efforts on that distribution channel for my work. The problem was that most of it was not on video and my notes were mostly locked away, under password, in Google Drive, Evernote, and Notes.

The Fear that Powers my Daily Writing

The thought that scared me at the end of 2020 was what if something were to happen to me and all of my ideas, writings, talks, etc. simply got lost in the cloud behind lock and key. That scared me a lot and got me thinking about what I could do to begin documenting, organizing, and publishing more effectively. That was ultimately the primary driver of my the daily writing and publishing habit I started back in March of 2021. Since then, I’m proud to report that I have published over 50 articles to my blog. This number actually surpasses the combined total of articles published between 2012-2020.

A Breakthrough Realization from Writing Daily

Writing isn’t just about getting all of my old ideas out. I believe our best is yet to come. Writing isn’t as much about getting old ideas published, it’s more about surfacing the new ideas that have even more experience and insight layered into them. Writing, is my vehicle for thinking. Publishing is my strategy for sharing.

By writing everyday, I am organizing and refining my ideas through better thinking. When you challenge yourself to write your ideas, you realize how disorganized they are at the beginning. Writing your ideas allows you to organize and refine them into a product that is sharable, consumable, and maybe even actionable for others.

As it turns out, writing isn’t about recalling and publishing the old ideas, it’s how I surface my new ideas. These are the ideas I’m counting on to scale my level of impact in this next decade of my life.