We’re Not Looking for Ideas

Guest Contributor
Published: 07/04/2012
Posted by: RE Technology

This post comes to us from guest contributor Chris Brogan.

Most times, when we search and scour the web, we tell ourselves that we’re looking for ideas. I don’t think this is actually true. Instead, I think we’re looking for one of two things: permission or a plan.

We’re Not Looking for Ideas

You’ve decided that you want to use the web to try and grow your business, for instance. So you start reading Mashable and you start following smart people (or who everyone else has told you is smart). You start collecting bookmarks and downloading PDFs and buying the occasional book from Amazon.

But MOST of what you’re seeking doesn’t really have to do with an idea.

Permission

Most of us want permission. When I finally read The Alchemist, by friend Paulo Coelho, I realized that the book, as stellar and as large as it is in spirit and mind, is also simply a permission slip. Many books are this. And why? Because much of what we seem to want, over and over again, is permission. Validation. We want someone to say to us, “Yes, you ARE doing a good job. Keep doing what you’re doing.” Or “Don’t worry. You’re on the right path.”

By the way, this isn’t bad. It’s not wrong to want it. It’s just a built-in emotion we all feel.