What Lady Gaga and Twitter Have in Common?

I have a confession to make.

The other night I was watching an interview Google conducted with Lady Gaga. Yes… Lady Gaga. Bear with me.

During the interview (posted below) she talked about how too many people don’t “honor” their creativity. Lady Gaga on the other hand, does. Whenever she has a creative thought, she writes it down; even if this means getting out of bed in the middle of the night when she’s trying to fall asleep. She claims this has made a major difference in her life today.

Have you ever been lying in bed trying to fall asleep, when all of a sudden you have a great idea pop into your head out of nowhere?

I know I have.

When this happens, do you ever think to yourself “I’m too lazy to get up, I’ll just remember it in the morning”?

I know I have.

In the morning do you remember the thought you had?

I don’t.

Since I watched that interview I’ve been honoring my creativity by getting my butt out of bed and writing these ideas down. This doesn’t only apply to when you are lying in bed either; it applies anytime you have an idea.

You gotta write it down!

So what do you do with all of these ideas?

You just let them sit.

The other night I was having a conversation with my business partner Kevin, and Brian. Kevin and I were explaining that you don’t have to act on every idea you have right away. You can’t. You don’t have enough time. And if you do, you will never finish any projects, because you will keep going to your new idea, instead of sticking with one from start to finish.

This is a concept Kevin and I have used many times since we started our business. We sit around, talk, and bounce ideas back and forth. Some of them we act on right away, others we write down in a folder called “New Ideas”. These ideas sit and continue to evolve in our minds subconsciously. Occasionally we go back and look these ideas over, combine a few new ones, and voila, we have a solution to a problem.

Where do ideas start?

Growing up, I knew I enjoyed helping people. I also had an interest in counseling, but the traditional form of sitting in an office all day working with client after client didn’t appeal to me. I wasn’t sure how this was going to work out.

So I put that idea on the side, and continued with my life.

Then in 2007, I found the self-improvement industry. After being involved for a while, friends began to ask me if I would teach them. This is when… I saw an opportunity. I could create a business that offered a sort of “lifestyle consulting”, or, in other words, a form of counseling. This would allow me to do what I enjoy (helping people) while also avoiding the traditional office style service.

In February 2009, Kingpin Social was born, and it’s been my fulltime job, hugest passion in life since. Who knows where I would be if I didn’t have that original thought of being interested in counseling back in my childhood.

Another example:

Do you know the series of events that led to twitter becoming the superpower it is today, with $350 million in funding, and an estimated valuation of $10 BILLION DOLLARS?

From an early age, Jack Dorsey (creator of Twitter) found the connection between roads and intersections fascinating. Obsessed with maps, at the age of 14, Jack took an interest in dispatch routing.

While learning computer programming, Jack began to create open-source software to track the dispatch routes of taxis and ambulances. In 2000 he started a company offering dispatch services from the web. In July of that year, he took this idea further to web-based real-time status updates, with inspiration coming from SMS (text messages) and AOL Instant Messenger.

Using SMS and e-mail, he began sending status updates to his friends. He could see potential but the idea never really took off. So he put the idea on the side.

At the time he was working for a company called Odeo, who needed a new idea for their business. Jack presented his idea, and was told to continue working on it. Two weeks later he presented the first prototype.

Today Twitter has over 200 million users, with over 1 billion tweets being sent out per week.

At an early age Jack had an interest in dispatch routing, and how people were communicating. The idea wasn’t ready, so he gave it time to evolve in his mind. Years later it has become one of the most powerful tools in the world.

So what ideas do you have? What problems do you encounter regularly that annoy you? What are some of your pet peeves? Write these all down. They are a great starting point to forming an idea. Ideas turn into businesses, and the best business to start is one that solves a problem you are currently experiencing.

Just Think About It.

Here’s the interview I mentioned: