Hot Showers & Cold Chairlifts

April 24th - 30,000 some #odd feet, somewhere between Seattle and Denver Daily it seems....

I get some #variation of this question...

"How do you come up with #ideas to email every day?"

#Hot Showers & Cold #Chairlifts.. that's how.

I'm serious. I have no problem coming up with ideas for stories to combine with my marketing.

The ideas are all around you and me.

The fact is, I have about 200 ideas started in my Evernote. And I actually came up with 3 more just this morning.

I woke up. Took Pearl "The French bulldog" out to do her chores. Came back in and took a #hot shower. 2 ideas right there.

Then I started packing... the only sound was the coffee maker bubbling and sputtering.

And BAM! Another #idea. Let me just add that sucka to Evernote.

The challenge, for me at least, is NOT ideas. Ideas are all around.

Inspiration is waiting to be seized.

The real challenge is finding the silence to allow the idea to show up.

An idea is just a whisper. It's quiet and soft. It's behind you. It's in the next room.

It's not shouting at you.

An idea is unsure and uncertain. It might be a bit insecure. It's not going to shout "Pay Attention To Me!".

It's confiding an intimate secret with you. It doesn't want anyone to hear but you.

To make sure I can hear these confidential murmurs... I need to escape the noise.

The noise of TV, of social networks, of crowds, of debates, of the internet.

A hot shower does that for me.

And... a cold lonely chairlift climbing the mountain for a snowboard run.

That's how I let my ideas find me.

As one my favorite bands, Billy Pilgrim says, "I do my best thinking when I'm by myself. I do my best drinking when I'm with someone else." Darin