EXPERIENCE — When I think about ideas, I always remember what my friend said once. He said, “You never lack ideas, you just are not connecting the dots yet”. Since then, I always think about what kind of dots I need to develop every idea. My friend is the kind of person who always has more than one perspective when we talk about anything. I can just give any object to him and he will have a lot of ideas based on that thing. It always amazes me and I think he is such a person who is worth mentioning as a creative person.
I dare to bet you a buck that you also have at least one person like my friend in your circles. If you have, this means he’s not a world wonder. It means that this kind of person has similarities, and we also could be that person. I’m not yet having an official research about this kind of thing, but as far as my brain is sailing, the similarities are in the way we usually think.
Generalist & Specialist
Do you know about generalists and specialists? A generalist is someone who is knowledgeable about many topics and has various interests, skills, and hobbies. A specialist is someone who is an expert in a certain field of study, occupation, or practice. When we refer to ‘ideas’, we always think about ‘something new’ that we never knew or rarely knew before. Back in the 18s, finding/making a computer seemed like an idea, but right now making a computer is a normal thing not counted as ideas, but making a more advanced computer is.
So what is the relation between ideas as new things and being generalists or specialists? When we think as a generalist, we always try to think wider rather than deeper like what a specialist did. So it means a generalist always has a wider spectrum of knowledge about many things than a specialist. A generalist businessman can have knowledge about economy, technology, and also human resources. When an IT specialist has a deeper knowledge about technology than that businessman has. When this generalist businessman has a discussion with this IT specialist about an idea of developing a side job in general, this businessman might have more ‘ideas’ than the IT specialist. Just because he knows more about general things.
Where it start to makes sense
So far it makes sense to me. When I talk to most of my friends that I think they are a generalist, they always have more ideas and vice versa. But when I talk with my specialist-friend, they always have a better understanding about how to do things better or more efficiently.
Knowing this, I always try to use different glasses when I try to solve things. I will always try to think like a generalist when I need ideas. I will try to search for more things as I can, looking for any possibilities of knowledge rather than being stuck on one object. When I need to solve something that I already know before, I always try to think like a specialist, who tries to dig deeper into the problem until it is solved using the best way I can. When I use it upside down, I always get stuck. I know it needs some training to switch gears and it’s not as easy as it looks. But how to do that will be a different article of mine.
The point of this article is the world is always full of ideas. We are not connecting the dots yet like my friend said. And the way to connect the dots is by thinking like a generalist. So try to wear the right glasses for the right occasion.
You can access my another personal blog here. Please leave a comment or some gratitude if this article makes you feels inspired today. See you on another personal thought!
