Every now and then I will get the following question:
Where do you come up with ideas for your blog posts?”
Sometimes it is said with appreciation — like how did you come up with that gem. Other times it is said with abomination — like what part of your brain is missing that made you come up with that dud.
In order to let the readers into the parts of my brain that are missing, I came up with an idea that will show how I came up with the idea for certain posts.
On certain days I will post two items. One will be the regular article, story or recap. The second will be an explanation about how the first post came about. I will try to break down where the idea originated, why I wanted to write about it and how it all came together.
Here’s the first one about today’s post Looking For Roadblocks:
The idea all started when I was watching a YouTube video of Dave Ramsey interviewing Mark Cuban. Cuban was talking about Shark Tank and how the show demonstrates that anyone can start a business and achieve the American Dream. From there he said the following:
Ideas are easy…What good is an idea if you don’t believe in it and you have to believe in it enough to take those first steps…When you have an idea and you get some confirmation of the idea you start looking for roadblocks because people are afraid to do the work or they are afraid to take those steps.”
That quote resonated with me. Probably because I am in the middle of working on a new book and am filled with all those fears that Cuban mentioned.
I figured that if two millionaires are talking about it, maybe us regular folk could learn from it. I can’t be the only one who has those thoughts.
That convinced me that the topic was post-worthy so I started thinking about how I could write about this topic (actually, I first had to Google if roadblock was one word or two words. Once I had that answer I was ready to begin). One way was to just post the video. That would have been fine, but I wanted to write a little more that that. So I had to find a way to tell a story in which I could incorporate Cuban’s idea.
Right around that time, I nearly crashed my car into a roadblock. Yes, that is an actual story. Maybe it was perked up a bit to get your attention — like the part about wiping the sweat off my forehead. Chances are I was already sweaty prior to the roadblock because it is summer in Arizona and I am a generally sweaty person. But the point remains the same.
So I had my overall point. Then I had my way to convey the point. Now all I needed was the ability to get past the roadblocks that were trying to convince me that the post would be no good.
I figured if I couldn’t get past that for this post then I would never be able to.
So here we are. That is how that blog post came about.
Side note: You can watch the entire Ramsey & Cuban interview here.
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