In an effort to help Live Intentionally readers reach their dreams and inspire others, I’ve invited you to share your dreams. On Fridays I feature a reader & their dream. Today’s post is by Mindy Hirst…
Ideas and dreams are synonymous in my world. I bet you can identify. So many thoughts fly through my head in a night and I wake up wishing I could remember what went on all those hours. Ideas come to me in the night more vividly than in the day. Once, I had a fitful sleep about a topic I was wrestling with only to have an “a-ha” moment in the morning. So when I thought about the opportunity to tell the story of our dream in a guest blog post, I thought that our Generous Mind idea would fit quite nicely.
The idea or dream of generous mind came during a spring time almost 10 years ago. Jon and I walked through large trees in a small town in Illinois that bordered the Mississippi River. We were celebrating our anniversary, taking a much needed break from early parenting—and talking. We talked a great deal that weekend about many things. But the thing on my mind that day was ideas.
Ideas seemed to float into my mind and then escape at the same speed and urgency as they arrived. It seemed that if I didn’t capture them immediately, they got away, never to be thought of again. This reality disturbed me. How many world-changing ideas had done just that because people were too busy to care for their ideas? What if my life slipped away, day by day, so that one day I came to the end of my life and I had not contributed anything that would last?
That’s when I said in frustration that we have to be generous minds…and our dream was born. Generous Mind as an organization is all about capturing ideas, cultivating those ideas and turning them into something that other people can benefit from. It’s about coming alongside others to help them contribute to the world by taking from what God has given them and allowing others to grow and learn as a result.
It’s not an easy dream. There are so many reasons to squelch an idea—busyness, lack of confidence, not knowing where to start. But it’s so important to the world that these ideas are not lost. Every person and their ideas are unique. Though there is “nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), the sun has never shone down on today. An idea or concept conceived in another time and another place is going to look different when thought about in the context of the here and now. People need to hear truth cast in the light of their own language and culture.
So what idea do you have today that needs to be shared? How can you be a generous mind? For more thoughts on how you can be generous with your ideas, visit our blog, follow us on twitter or join our facebook fan page. But whatever you do, don’t let today go by without sharing something that God has put on your heart!
Hi Mindy, thanks for sharing your dream with us today. I love the concept of “capturing ideas, cultivating those ideas and turning them into something that other people can benefit from.” Can you explain more about how you go about doing that?
Thanks Paul. I appreciate the opportunity. Ideas are so different and their path to reality also unique, it is difficult to explain exactly what “capture” “cultivate” and “turn them into something” looks like, but here’s a shot at it.
To capture an idea means to get it out of your head and into reality. It is the first step to shaping it into something that can be communicated to others. Think of it like a sketch, a rough draft or a prototype. Maybe the first step is simply saying it out loud to someone. The most important part of this step is ensuring that the idea will not be lost. Be proactive, write it down, make a note—do something.
The cultivating process comes next. This can be done alone, but we believe it is better done in community. Find someone to share your idea with. Find out what they think of it. Do they have any thoughts that may make it stronger or more effective? Do they have an opinion about what avenue of communication you could take with the idea? (Examples: book, video, blog, newsletter, t.v. show, speaking series, song) Ask yourself the same questions. What do you think? Now, do the planning. What will it look like when it’s done? Make an outline, plan for how much it will cost, figure out how you’re going to get it done. Now you’re ready for the next step.
Turning the idea into something that others can benefit from is what we usually think of as the creative act that takes the most work. However, a lot of creativity and work has gone into the first two steps as well. This stage is the actual writing, painting, sculpting, or composing that goes on. It takes a lot of discipline, but if you’ve thought it through and brought it to this point, it will be worth it.