One night over a glass of wine (or two), I asked, “Mario, before or during a race, do you ever think about the possibility of being seriously injured… or even dying?”

It was later explained to me that asking a professional race car driver such a question was inappropriate at best. Perhaps so, but Mario didn’t seem to mind. “I try not to think about it, Michael,” he responded.

I took another sip. “I understand, but isn’t it hard not to think about it at times?”

Then he looked at me and said in a most humble and sincere way, “I don’t fear death; I respect it… and I focus on winning.”

His answer triggered an “aha” moment. We all have obstacles in our lives and jobs… death and injury just happened to be a couple that Mario faced on a regular basis. You don’t jump into a swimming pool and focus on drowning… even though you know it’s possible. Mario focuses on winning… succeeding… period.

Then I asked him when he knew it was time to retire. After reflecting for a moment he responded, “That’s a much harder question. You never really know the perfect time, but it has less to do with your age and ability than many people believe… it has more to do with your purpose and passion.”

His answer resonated throughout my brain. It was Mario’s last racing season… and his words transcended my question. When purpose and passion are replaced with too much thinking and planning, we are no longer competing. Winners are driven by purpose and passion. You can’t pre-plan and over-think each turn and move you make… you need to follow your intuition and let purpose and passion drive you.

What’s driving you? If you’re faltering, check your purpose and passion and make some corrections. When these elements are in place, obstacles disappear and your goals are always within reach.

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?”