Here’s a secret about good ideas: most of them start as bad ones in disguise.
I’ve sat through enough brainstorms to know that brilliance doesn’t always walk in the door. It usually stumbles in wearing a joke hat and making a weird noise.
The best sessions aren’t rigid or heavily structured. They’re playful, loose, and slightly chaotic. There’s something powerful about a space where you can say something completely ridiculous and no one flinches. That’s where the real thinking happens. When you allow detours, daydreams, and even dead ends, ideas connect in unexpected ways.
In one of our recent brainstorms, someone blurted out a concept that made no practical sense. But we kept poking at it, turning it sideways, and remixing it. That nonsense idea evolved into the hook for an entire campaign. Wouldn’t have happened if we’d shut it down right away.
Keep a “Not Today” doc. It’s your personal creative compost bin. The ideas that don’t work now might bloom later in ways you can’t predict.
🌀 The rule: say it out loud. Even especially if it’s weird.