Thirty years ago, Eben Pagan and I had a habit.
Whenever we were traveling together, we’d invent businesses that would probably never exist.
I’m looking at one page in my journal from 1996 titled:
“Eben’s Brilliant Idea #1009.”
Most of these ideas never saw the light of day. But that’s not the point.
The point was exercising the creative muscle.
One idea was a gift book called How to Change the One You Love.
It’s the opposite of what every relationship expert tells us. They all say, “You can’t change other people.”
Exactly.
That’s what made it interesting.
Our thought was to survey hundreds of people and ask one simple question:
If you could change one thing about the person you love, what would it be?
Then we’d assemble an unlikely panel of “professional change agents”—a psychologist, a teacher, a drill sergeant, a hypnotist, a dog trainer, a lawyer, even a priest—and ask each of them how they’d approach changing that behavior.
It would be funny, provocative, and surprisingly insightful.
We never made the book.
But looking back, I can see the seed of Stop Your Divorce and several other projects hiding inside that one brainstorming session.
A few pages later there’s another idea called The Tube of Joy—a kiosk that sold themed gift tubes for golfers, tennis players, weddings, babies, birthdays… complete with little engineering sketches of how the display would work.
That never happened either.
But it didn’t need to.
The value wasn’t in building every idea.
The value was in becoming someone who generated ideas without judging them too quickly.
The value was in becoming someone who generated ideas without judging them too quickly.
Musicians jam.
Comedians workshop jokes.
Writers fill notebooks with thoughts that never get published.
Creativity isn’t a straight line from idea to success.
It’s a process of giving yourself permission to think without constraints.
Most ideas won’t become businesses.
But every once in a while, one of them changes everything.