Bloom Your Mind

Ep 105: Your Ideas are Bigger Than You

• Marie McDonald

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Imagine puffing a dandelion into the air. As you blow on the dandelion, all its little feather-like flowers go out into the world.

When we put our ideas out, they spread like a dandelion and other people get to experience and build off of them.

In this episode, I want to talk about our wonderful and magical experience in Vancouver and how this experience exemplify that sharing our thoughts into the world creates an innovative impact in our community.

Can you imagine being part of a community like that?
We'd be one big arena of blooming people.

Remember, your ideas are bigger than you. So put them out there and let it go.

What you'll learn in this episode:

  • The benefits of creating and sharing ideas with others
  • How our ideas' true worth is in their impact on the world
  • Letting go of ego and embracing the ripple effect of shared ideas
  • Our recent experience of being in a community of shared thoughts

Mentioned in this episode: 

How to connect with Marie:

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We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Welcome to the Bloom Your Mind podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want, and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach Marie McDonald. Let's get into it.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 105 of the Bloom Your Mind podcast. Oh my gosh, I just heard the very last episode of a podcast I've been listening to for years that inspired me to make this podcast. 

One of them been listening to for years that inspired me to make this podcast one of them, and this person had done over 500 episodes and she was recording her last official episode and it just blew my mind to think of how much wonderful content creators put out there and how she has impacted my life and it's just such an honor to be carrying a little bit of a torch forward. 

And it inspired me to keep making this because I'm so sad that her podcasts aren't going to be in my life anymore, and so it just made me think, well, be the thing that I want to experience in the world put more into my research for my podcast and researching ideas that I most want to learn about and giving them to you. So, I am fueled and fired up not only by that, but also by a trip that I just got back from. 

Last night I went to Vancouver. I saved up for a very long time to buy plane tickets and an Airbnb and concert tickets to take my daughter to Vancouver to see Taylor Swift, and I want to tell you a little bit about that experience today and use it and some anecdotes and some stories to illustrate this idea of creating it and letting it go like a dandelion that has all of these little blades of whatever you know. 

They're not petals, but they're like little blades or whatever little seeds. That kind of, as you puff a puff of air out, as you exhale, as you blow on a dandelion, all these little seeds go out into the world. And so that is what I want to talk about today how your idea is like that dandelion and how, when we have an idea or a thing or something that we do in the world or create whether it's a human being or a business, or a book or a recipe, or a club or a friendship or whatever when we put our ideas out there and let them go, there's so much more room to create, and I want to talk about all the benefits of doing that. 

So, the other thing that I wanted to talk about or touch on briefly is how inspiring it was to just spend this time with my daughter and how saving up when I actually bought the tickets for this and dropped quite you know a large sum on doing this and worked and saved to do this trip I thought I kind of had anxiety in the moment when I was pressing buy on the tickets, you know, pressing the purchase button I was like, oh my gosh, this is so much money. 

I know that I value this. I care about spending time with the people that I love so much, and this is a moment in time. This woman, this artist that has been making music, has created sort of a movement that I've never seen the likes of before. And my daughter is really interested in this music and has been only for a few months. 

She's been listening to Taylor Swift for like four or five months, and then I started listening only a few, you know, the last three months or three and a half months, four months, whatever, not for a long time, but in that time I've, you know, listened to so much of that with my daughter because she's been so into it that I've learned most of her songs and I've learned about her a lot and I realize as my children grow that every day is the smallest that they'll ever be. 

I know I've said that on the podcast before, but it's mind boggling to just think about how precious every moment is with our people. And will this cocktail of events ever be happening again, right? Will she ever be so in into a musician that she wants to share with me? Will she want to go on a trip with me in the future? I hope so, who knows? Things change Right. 

And so, I took the plunge and I purchased the tickets and I made the trip and I gave it to my daughter for her birthday and it was one of the two best trips of my life. It was so significant; it was so bonding. I feel like I got to know my daughter again at 12 years old spending these five days alone with her, and we found out that we are amazing travel companions. 

We laughed so hard every single day so many times, and everything was very easy and flowy, and we laughed and laughed and then we cried at the end because we didn't want it to end this time together. Not the concert, but the trip. You know, it was so beautiful. 

And the reason that I got to have this experience with my daughter, where we adventured around Vancouver, a place that we'd been before with larger groups of family and we adventured this time just together bikes through Stanley Park, go and walk on suspension bridges that were lit up from head to toe and trees that were lit up from head to toe. 

And the reason we got to go to meals together and go to Michael's and buy beads and sit in our Airbnb and make friendship bracelets to go to this concert and watch movies. And the reason that I got to ask my daughter what do you want to do today? What do you want to do today and let her choose. 

The reason that I got to show her the respect that I feel for her and hear her ask me questions about what her life is like and questions about what it's like to be a woman in this culture, in this world, right now. 

We talked so much about so many things is because of an idea and, let's face it, many ideas that an artist put out into the world, and because Taylor Swift is making her music unapologetically and putting it out into the world, I got to have my own experience that had meant more to me than most of the things that I have done in my life with my daughter, and here's what I want to say about this. 

The other thing that made this experience so special is that the entire city of Vancouver said yes to it. Everywhere we went, there was public art. There were all these giant life-size like lit up. It was basically like those big signs that have market lights. Inside of the letters were the words of her famous songs and there was a map of the city, and you could go everywhere in the city and go to see these signs and take pictures with them. 

There is a public art piece of a whole bunch of laughing humans and they all had giant friendship bracelets around their necks that you could go and see and take pictures with. But that was not all. Everywhere that we went, the businesses had discounts for people wearing friendship bracelets, or the music in every store was playing Taylor Swift. It was so amazing to see how many businesses benefited from this. 

How many people were walking on the streets in glitter with their best friends giggling, with their daughters by themselves, just like working it, you know, feeling themselves dressed in glitter with big old smiles on their faces All around the city, public art was commissioned Right, that were separate projects, had nothing to do with Taylor Swift, right. 

And what lit up my heart on seeing this was not only this whole city saying yes, was everyone welcoming everyone to the city that came with big smiles saying are you here for the concert? You're going to have so much fun with this hospitable embrace of the people coming to Vancouver for this experience, but also the amount of ideas that were built off of her ideas. 

And this is what happens in innovation. This is a tenant in the world of innovation. We build off of the ideas of others. And that was this entire experience over the weekend. Idea after idea scaffolded off of the music of one artist. And whether you are a Taylor Swift fan or not doesn't matter here. You are a Taylor Swift fan or not doesn't matter. Here. 

What I'm saying is when we put an idea out into the world, other people get to build off of it. When we're thinking about putting an idea into the world, there are two things related to this that I just want to hone in on. The first is we tend, because we have human brains, to have a lot of thoughts about ourselves. When we're going to put an idea out into the world, right? 

Like, will people like it? Will they like me? Will they think I'm silly? Will they? Will I fail? What would they think if I fail? Will they think that I'm flighty because I'm putting one idea out and then another? What if I don't follow through? What if I learn something about myself that I don't like? 

We have so many thoughts about ourselves, but the true value of us putting our ideas out into the world has very little to do with us. It's not about us to do with us. It's not about us. It's about putting something into the world where it can bloom, where people can walk by and smell it and experience it and notice its beauty. That bloom that we created. 

And maybe other people see our idea out in the world, and it makes them create their own idea that's related to it. Maybe they build off of our idea and maybe we know about it, or maybe we never do Because it doesn't belong to us anymore. Isn't that wild? It's not about us anymore. 

It's out in the world. It belongs to the world. Other people get to make it their own now so beautiful. They get to build off of it. They get to have their own experiences with it. Build off of it, they get to have their own experiences with it. 

Every person that I saw in Vancouver at that concert was in their own universe, their own snow globe, having their own experience by themselves or with their own people, singing all the words. We were all singing all the words to all these songs, but it was our experience that we were having. But we only got to have it because Taylor Swift, this artist, was bold enough to put her ideas out into the world. She was up there on the stage, and she said the only reason I get to have the experience that I'm having is because of you. She said this really isn't about me, this is about you, it's about all of us. 

And she talked about the friendship bracelets, and she said you know, I had one line in one song about a friendship bracelet. And then I got to my first show at the heiress tour, and everybody had friendship bracelets, and everybody was trading friendships bracelets, and it became its own thing. That wasn't her intention, that wasn't her idea. It's not about her. It's about the experience that other people created building off of her idea. 

I used to have a problem with this, because I had a lot of ideas. I love talking to people about their ideas, coaching them, helping them come up with an idea that they want to put into the world, and empowering people to get their ideas out there, to use their voice to create things, to use their brain to put positive creations and things into the world, instead of letting their brains do what brains do and spend all the energy looking for threats and creating problems. 

When we put our brain, we focus our brain on putting something good into the world that matches our value system. That's creating what we want to see in the world. The payoffs are endless. Instead of experiencing victim mentality or low self-esteem or a lack of confidence or a lack of motivation, we experience the opposite, because we are actors in the world instead of recipients of what is happening to us. 

I am such a big fan of ideas, and I used to work leading an organization, an innovation organization. I used to lead retreat after retreat after retreat, and I remember in the early days I would paint. I used to paint handmade individual paintings for each one of the people that worked for me, and we would give them a nickname to each of the people on my staff in my mid-twenties and we'd give them a nickname. 

And then I'd go home, and I'd do a painting for them, and I would give it to them in front of the rest of the people on the staff and it would become something they'd carry around with them during their work in this organization. A couple of years later, I saw other people doing this in the organization. I had moved up in the organization. A couple of years later, I saw other people doing this in the organization. 

I had moved up in the organization into a higher position with more responsibility, and I saw people doing this but they never knew where that tradition came from and at first I was like weird, that was my deal, that was the thing I did, and they don't even know who I am, or they don't like, they don't know that that came from me. That was so special to me. 

And then I sat with it, and I was like wait, why do I care? I'm so glad more people are having that experience. That's so awesome and that would happen all the time. I would share an idea in the organization and then a couple of weeks later someone would be like I have this idea, and I would be like what? That was my idea. But it happens to me a lot in my life because I have a lot of ideas. 

When we let go of our ideas and we just send them off into the wind like blowing a dandelion and watching all the seeds move on, it's like a ripple effect, it's a domino effect. It puts so much more goodness into the world because we're not holding on tight, we're not grabbing on, we're not so attached to our idea. That's our ego talking. 

When we can, let it go when we want to, when we're done, when we're finished, right, and just let it go, let others build on it, it becomes bigger, it becomes something that belongs to everyone and can bloom so much more. And also, we experience the incredible benefits of the space in our mind to be able to create something new. 

When we're unattached, it's like tilling a garden over and over again. Right, we can put new seeds in there, grow new things. Look around us and look for what inspires us right now, because we're not attached to it being the same thing that inspired us yesterday. Because our ideas, they aren't about us. 

It's about being present in the world and using your incredible gifts to occupy your mind with something positive and creative and to use your energy to put something into the world that's regenerative, that makes a positive impact, that then cycles back to you in a positive way, that has a positive impact back on you. 

And when we do that, we sidestep the human brain's tendency to create problems, point fingers, blame, experience, shame. Think about what's wrong with us, why we're not worthy, why we're not lovable, why we're not motivated. 

We skip all that stuff that is useless, literally to us, and instead we use these moments of our lives to say the things and create the things that only we can. You and I are here happening once ever in this current form that we're in. Let's use our time and our energy here to put things into the world that impact the world around us and our lives in a positive way, and then let's let them go. 

Can you imagine if everyone was using their lives in that way? We'd be one big Vancouver, one big arena of blooming people. So put it out there and let it go, and if you need help, come into the bloom room with us, because we start. 

We are finishing up our fundamentals course right now and in January, we start making ideas real. We're starting with envisioning. We are starting with being ridiculous at first, coming up with an idea, whatever it is. Maybe it's just in our own lives, maybe it's communal, maybe it's something in the big world, maybe it's a big project, maybe it's just a way we want to change. 

We're identifying what we want to create in the world and then learning all the ways, all the steps that innovators take, all the ways to manage our minds and bodies, to use our energy in this life, to turn those ideas into real things, to be actors in the world instead of recipients of what's happening to us. 

All right, y'all, that's what I've got for you this week. I hope you enjoyed me geeking out on my trip with my daughter to Vancouver. I love you all and I will see you next week. 

If you like what you’re hearing on the podcast, you've got to come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts, and we apply them to real life. In a community where we have each other's backs, and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. 

I'll see you in the Bloom Room.