How to Master the Art of Getting Great Ideas by Tom Hopkins

After achieving his first big success, Mickey Spillane, the famous writer of detective stories, felt that he needed to work less and play more for a while. So he settled in at a popular seaside resort that summer and began having a great time.

During the long lazy days of that summer at the beach, Mickey often sat down at his typewriter to work. But the ideas just wouldn't come to this gifted young writer. With plenty of money in the bank, Mickey wasn't worried. Each time, after trying to work for a few minutes, he'd give up and go back to enjoying himself. Somehow it didn't seem important that his bank balance was steadily shrinking.

Then some unplanned expenses came up and, overnight, Mickey's financial situation changed from comfortable to uncomfortable. Keenly aware that he needed to make money fast, Mickey was at his typewriter early the next morning. For the first time in months he had determination in his heart.

But this time he was worried. A whole summer without a single idea worth putting on paper! Had his writing skill been baked out on the beach? Within a few minutes Spillane knew the answer. Ideas-good, salable ideas were crowding into his mind. Under the goad of necessity he wrote one of his best stories, and then went on to the outstanding career that continues today.

How do you practice the art of getting great ideas? There are six requirements: want, need, exactness, preparation, belief, and execution.

WANT AND NEED

You won't get ideas unless you somehow tell your subconscious mind that you both need and really want ideas. The key word here is want. It's far more important to want ideas than to merely need them. Understanding this distinction is crucial. All constant losers, compulsive gamblers, and confirmed alcoholics desperately need new ideas to change their direction before it's too late. Since positive ideas are everywhere, why don't these people jump on some of them?

Because they don't want to stop doing what's hurting them; they don't want to pay the price of success; they don't want to face realities of living; they don't want to change.

EXACTNESS

You have to know the specific kind of solutions you want. Mickey Spillane thought of exciting scenes when he needed them because he knew exactly what he wanted-ideas for great detective stories. We all want ideas that will make us millions. Unfortunately, that's not specific enough to let the subconscious mind do its work. You can't pull important and specific ideas out of your subconscious mind until you've put important and specific problems in it.

PREPARATION

Nothing is free. Profitable innovation and effective imagination are no exception to this rule. Inventiveness and creativity aren't gifts that a lucky few use effortlessly-that notion is false. After you've paid the price, your imagination will soar and innovative ideas will flow from your brain. The price for that result has to be paid with study, with experience-gaining work, and with alert thought. You create ideas by becoming specific in your thinking and thorough with your study of a subject that excites you. Success-building ideas come only to those who look for them vigorously and intelligently.

BELIEF

Your subconscious mind wants to be used; it wants to be controlled intelligently; it wants to help you grow and win and be happy. So it will go along with self-instructions that aren't true today in order to help you make them true tomorrow.

But it won't allow you to fool it forever. In the laborious process of creating ideas, your subconscious mind has to know that some of them will be used. Not necessarily all of them-or even most of them. But a few of them must be used. Otherwise the flow will eventually be choked off. The more ideas you use and benefit from, the more ideas you'll have and the better they'll be.

EXECUTION

The profit of great ideas comes when you turn them into reality. Get rid of the delusion that you can have a great idea and then get a mechanic to work out the details. The details are the invention. Unless you work out the details in a practical way, you can't control the profit that can be made from your great idea.

Pick a limited field to specialize in. Learn everything that's already known about that subject. Work in that field by taking the best job you can find in it rather than a better one elsewhere. Then start thinking every hour of every day about what can be done to improve performance in your specialty. When you've done all these things, valuable ideas will start flowing out of your mind. Success is doing, not wishing.