Several years ago, I was visiting with two friends a peninsula in Northern Greece called Mount Athos.
This is a holly area in which the Byzantine emperors approximately 1200 years ago built 20 monasteries. It is a very spiritually rich place and once you are in the monks provide you with food, bed and lots of spiritual wisdom at no cost. It is a place that I love and spent as much time there as I can.
There is a monk there named Luke.
He is a brilliant man with a Ph.D. in Chemistry and another one in Theology and very frequently he gives lectures to the visitors on different subjects.
One day I asked him a question: “How can I make an idea reality?”
His answer was “Be a good farmer” and he walked away.
I ran after him asking “Please explain to me what that means…”
“A good farmer” he answered, “is one who knows when to put the seed down, when to cultivate it, when to water the soil, and when to harvest it”.
“When you have an idea, that is the seed, be sure to take good care of it, to cultivate it right, to bring it out when the time is right and just like a fruit that rots on a tree if you leave it there too long or is not edible when you cut it when it is not ready yet, ideas have to be harvested when the time is right”.
The essence of his teaching is about the “TIMING” of your ideas both in your personal and your professional lives. Are your potatoes (ideas) which grow underground, in your mind ready yet? Do you know how to plant the seeds? Do you know how to cultivate them? Do you know when to harvest them?
Do you find yourself in meetings when you have an idea and the others will jump on it with remarks like “We can’t do that” or “We have tried that and it did not work” or “If you want to get fired try that…” These are idea killers.
Creative Problem-Solving is the farming process for ideas.