Write as much as you can. Read as much as you can. Use the library and the internet carefully for research and talk to people about things that matter. If you have an idea in your head talk it to people as a normal conversation, to get their natural opinions. And don’t forget to jot down discreetly any new ideas you get from people. God may use other people to convey messages to you, that may add more information to the ideas you already have.
The mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with similar energy. It would not perhaps be too fanciful to say that a new idea is the most quickly acting antigen known to science. If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated.
I'm convinced that the best solutions are often the ones that are counterintuitive - that challenge conventional thinking - and end in breakthroughs. It is always easier to do things the same old way...why change? To fight this, keep your dissatisfaction index high and break with tradition. Don't be too quick to accept the way things are being done. Question whether there's a better way. Very often you will find that once you make this break from the usual way - and incidentally, this is probably the hardest thing to do—and start on a new track your horizon of new thoughts immediately broadens. New ideas flow in like water. Always keep your interests broad - don't let your mind be stunted by a limited view.
A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others.Consequently, the person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person of good background in the field of interest and one who is unconventional in his habits. (To be a crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.)
When you need an idea about how to do anything, get quiet and relaxed and think about what it is you need to know. Then the flow of ideas will come. Be patient and let it happen. Sometimes it takes a little while, but it always works.
Most new ideas come to us not through pure logic, but through a fusion of memory and imagination. If new ideas were purely a product of rationality, other people would quickly grasp and embrace novel solutions. People’s lack of imagination prevents them from comprehending the significance of an innovative idea.
Anything good on the trucks?""Some beautiful lake salmon, fresh asparagus, and new potatoes.""New enough their skin is peeling?""Yes.""I know what we're going to do today!" Lou felt the excitement surge. This was why she loved cooking: getting amazing fresh ingredients and making something extraordinary. Luella's traditional French menu didn't leave much room for creativity, so the daily special had become Lou's canvas, where she was limited only by her imagination and whims."We'll keep it a simple spring dinner. Roast the potatoes in butter, salt, and pepper. Maybe some thyme or tarragon, too. We'll top the salmon fillets with hollandaise and roast the asparagus.
Novel ideas are unsettling, innovative concepts about important matters in human affairs is disruptive of the internal harmony that people prefer. There is a tendency even for the most logical and classically educated people steeped in rational scholastic traditions to assume that if any new hypothesis were correct, a scholar would already written it in a book.