According to what I’ve read and experienced, people who write down their goals have a greater chance of reaching them. I believe the same holds true for people who write down their creative thoughts and ideas. The chance of discovering creative solutions that work successfully increases significantly.

Creative ideas are fleeting gifts. The question isn’t whether you have them (everyone does), but whether you take these gifts seriously and record them. Since we never know where or when they’ll strike us (walking, sleeping, shaving…), it’s important to be prepared at all times.

A few months back, while taking a shower, I was struck by a childhood event that involved a broken plastic baseball bat. It came out of left field (no pun intended) and started connecting to a plethora of today’s so called “problems.”

Within moments it grew beyond control and crystallized in my brain. By the time I finished showering, dried off, put on some clothes and found my notebook, many fragments had already disappeared. I wrote down what I could remember and over the next few weeks filled in the missing pieces.

The result? My new book, The Pink Bat: Turning Problems Into Solutions, is scheduled for release this fall. If I hadn’t taken the time to write down those fragments at that moment, the ideas for this book would have vanished.

I’ve carried notebooks (journals, sketchbooks, etc.) for nearly twenty years. Recently I’ve begun to realize these rough and random ideas truly are fleeting gifts. Some people accept them—most people don’t. They take them for granted, think they’ll return, or simply ignore them. Rarely do they return—and they never appear the same way twice.

I’ve lost countless ideas these ways myself. But I’m learning!

According to history, Beethoven carried a small notebook with him at all times. He’d fill the pages with rough ideas and then put it away and start a new one. After a month or so, he’d revisit the old one and if anything struck him he would refine it and transfer it to a second notebook. By the time his ideas reached the third notebook, they were well on the way to becoming a sonata.

Consider Leonardo da Vinci, Darwin, Beethoven, Dylan, Edison, Jefferson, Einstein, Matisse, Van Gogh, Hemingway… the list of famous notebook carriers is long. It seems people who have created something new or made significant contributions to business, society, science or art, have something in common—they all write down their ideas.

I’ve often wondered, “Is it because they were brilliant that they wrote down their ideas?” or “Did the act of writing down their ideas contribute to their brilliance?”

I’ve found kids labeled 'slow' or 'gifted' often travel in the same direction but at different speeds. 'Average' kids move in a predictable direction at a moderate speed… this makes them easier to teach.

Which Label Best Describes You?

Hopefully your answer is, “None of the above.”

Seeing this “Slow Children” sign inspired me to create a couple more. We each attach our own meaning to words and labels—symbols. While symbols often stay the same, the meanings we attach to them are continually changing. When I was a kid, the word “gay” referred to being carefree or happy-go-lucky.

The swastika dates from the Neolithic period and  still appears today as a positive religious symbol in parts of India. In the western world it has become stigmatized and even taboo because of its usage by Nazi Germany.

Without physically changing, symbols carry different meanings based on what we attach to them.

Consider these five points…

1. Symbols (words, labels, etc.) don’t define reality; we use them to try and express it.
2. Symbols don’t provide meaning; observers do.
3. All symbols continually change over time to serve a new purpose.
4. While symbols can be helpful, they can also block us from seeing reality, solving problems, and creating new solutions.
5. When it comes to kids (people), symbols (labels) don’t work so well.

Creating new solutions requires looking past old beliefs and representations of reality.

Years ago, my son Paul’s little league team made it to the playoffs. The games were played at an upscale ballpark called “The Field of Dreams.”

Game Two was a night game. We were facing a tough team with a very competitive (and outspoken) coach. As the game progressed a mom asked me, “Do you know what inning it is… and the score?” After answering her, I asked a question that had been bugging me all season, “Why aren’t these wonderful scoreboards ever used?”

Since no one had an answer, and against my wife Anne’s advice, I decided to go find out. Above the concession stand were vacant announcer’s boxes—so I started there. A teenager working the concession counter confirmed my hunch.

“Can I run the scoreboard,” I asked? “Whatever… I guess,” he said as he shrugged and opened the door to let me go up and assess the situation. After finding the control panel, I opened the shutters and looked out over Field #4 where Paul’s team was playing. Getting this scoreboard running will keep the fans informed and make a special memory for the kids, I thought.

I went to power it up and found a large bank of switches, but none were labeled “Scoreboard.” “Excuse me,” I said to the teenager as he filled a popcorn order. “Which switch turns on Scoreboard #4?”

“Beats me,” he responded. At this point my son Mark showed up. “Mom said to forget about the scoreboard and come watch the game.” I agreed, told him what I had learned and asked if he wanted to run the scoreboard. As he headed up to the announcer’s box, I used deductive reasoning and flipped the first of six switches marked #4. Instantly, it became clear that there was no need to try the next switch… Field #4 went black! Then I heard a collective gasp, followed by Mark announcing to Anne from the announcer’s box for all to see and hear, “It was Dad!”

I immediately re-switched the switch but nothing happened… more gasps. As it turns out, stadium lights take 20 minutes to warm up. I used this time to go around and apologize to the fans, players and coaches on both sides for the unplanned break in action. With the exception of Anne (a saint for still being married to me after 30 years) and the opposing coach, most people accepted my apology.

As the lights grew brighter, the opposing coach announced, “Let’s keep it going, boys.” Then he looked in my direction, “They can try, but it will take more than turning off the lights to break our momentum … we came here to win!”

Whether it’s business, a new exercise program, or a little league game, momentum is a powerful force.

On January 13, 1999, Michael Jordan announced his retirement from the NBA—for the second time. I worked with Michael on his book, Rare Air, but truthfully, I was too busy working to care about his first retirement—let alone his second.

For me, July 13th ended around 2 a.m. on July 14th with me sitting at my kitchen table, sleep deprived, having just finished concepts I had to present to a new client later that morning.

As I started off to bed I noticed the newspaper headline: MJ RETIRES!!! screaming across the front page. I opened it up and discovered this seemingly important news dominated many inside pages as well.

Eventually I reached a column about truth and the media’s responsibility to deliver it. Even in my sleep-deprived state, this column seemed oxymoronic. As I thought about this, I prepared a cup of chamomile tea, pulled out my journal and started sketching and writing. Like many pages in my journals, this spread seems more relevant today than it did when I made it.

The day MJ retired, President Clinton prepared his State of the Union speech and the Senate chamber closed so cameras could be installed for his impeachment trial. He also sent a check for $850,000 to Paula Jones’ attorney that day to end the sexual harassment lawsuit.

While you might think accusing the president of perjury and obstruction of justice was important news, MJ’s second retirement trumped it.

Further down the news ladder was an article about someone who few Americans knew about or paid much attention to at the time. His name…Osama bin Laden. The small article said the U.S. had hit what it called terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Officials said they came close to killing the man blamed for bombing two U.S. Embassies in Africa, but he escaped. Interestingly, MJ and Osama bin Laden both came out of retirement in September of 2001.

In rereading this journal entry it became clear—the big headlines were far less important than those little “unimportant” stories tucked deeply away.

I believe this is still the case today—perhaps even more so. When we look back at the current issues—financial bailouts, healthcare reform and so on—we will discover the talking (screaming) heads and big headlines were all focused on the things that matter least.

The most important information is either missing or being whispered somewhere in the background, waiting for a truth seeker to look past the big noise to find it.