How To Be Like Google

I was listening to the Six Pixels of Separation podcast the other day and James Altucher was the guest. During the podcast, I found out about his new book called Choose Yourself. I bought it that day and finished it within a week.
That’s not really saying much, it is a short (and very good) read.

One of the items James writes about in his book (page 194) is helping others by
sharing away your ideas to them”like Google” or by putting them in touch with people who can help – if you don’t have any ideas for them. What that means, is that you give away ideas to people who ask, you give away ideas that were not asked for (let’s assume in the best possible way), you just keep giving. Google “knows” it doesn’t really know the best places to buy surfboards, but it is sure that it can show you some surfboard websites can help you out with that request.

It was refreshing to read this point of view and if you don’t buy the book, here’s James Altucher’s Google blog post that explains this thinking far more eloquently than I currently am.

Lots To Go Around
I’ve often  thought that there is a big enough pie for everyone – many deals to go around, even with competitors – if we’re both doing the same type of work – there is going to be something that makes one of us do work with certain people/companies that the other would not and vice versa.  Be it experience, sense of humour, your je ne sais quoi, chemistry or any other hard or soft reason.

Same with the ideas. If you’re asking about something and I give you five great (my words) ideas, it helps you. Even if those ideas turn out to be terrible, or never used, it was the act of helping that is remembered and welcomed.

Dime a Dozen
Now the hard truth if it is ideas that are a dime a dozen, it’s making them happen that is a rarer thing. Executing well, that is the action that turns ideas into reality. Admittedly this part is hard for me. Since I am so wired for execution, I tend to think through my ideas to figure out how they could be executed before I share them. I definitely need more help with brainstorming and ideation…needing to shelve for the moment that every idea needs to be executed upon.

Do you freely give your ideas away to help others?