The best way to understand your own idea is to share it with someone you don’t know. That’s because you’ll be trying hard to find the right words to describe your idea. And if your conversation partner is generous and curious, his questions will allow you to learn way more about your idea than you thought you would.

The second best way to understand your own idea is to write it down and be very clear and specific in doing so.

For most people either approach is frightening.

Right until they start to speak or to write, they see this very clear idea of theirs in their minds. It seems done and finished.

When they start to put words onto it, they find themselves searching for the words that describe their image. It’s confusing. They saw it but once they search for the right words, the more blurry the image of their idea becomes. It becomes less feasible, more complicated and the unspecified becomes visible.

The people who are honest with themselves are the ones who continue. They found where to start building their idea, always there where they lacked the right word.