Crazy Ideas

Note: Today’s Bloganuary prompt is “come up with a crazy business idea.” Well, you’ll see how far I got with this prompt.

When I was young–up until about the age of twelve–we as a family drove to all our vacation spots. We lived in northern California, and those trips frequently were to the southern areas of our state, where all the amusement parks, such as Disneyland, were. We crowded into the family Corolla, the three of us kids squeezed in the back with me in the middle because I was the shortest.

To keep us amused, we had a good supply of Mad Libs books, as well as crossword puzzles and small, hand held games. Along the way there were bountiful snacks, provided as much to keep us quiet as to feed our hungry selves. You can imagine what chaos it was and what a mess we made.

My parents bemoaned these messes, although I had a simple solution. Give us one big bag for garbage and three medium-sized bags, even pillowcases, for all our “car stuff.” My mom poo-pooed the suggestion, but to this day I think it would have gone a long way to keeping things neater in that back seat.

Which makes me wonder how many others have had good ideas, even great ideas, but are told these thoughts are no good, leaving them discouraged. Or, maybe the ideas are good, but they’re not the ones to execute them. Not everyone has an entrepreneurial spirit or is good with follow through. I’m obviously not talking about pillowcases here, but bigger ideas, business concepts.

There are also those who get discouraged too easily. Thirty years ago, my then-boyfriend thought I should start a business where services for the elderly are rated and we are able to advise people which senior living center, for example, they should check out. I asked two questions: how would we go about getting these ratings? and how would we get paid? and he called me a killjoy.

Since I was never able to answer those questions and didn’t have the support to start such a business, it never happened. Now, of course, there’s the Internet as well as a few organizations that will do just what he suggested. It was a good idea. We just weren’t the pair to implement it.

There legitimately are people better suited at being entrepreneurs, but there are also a lot of people with good ideas who need to be teamed with the right people. How do you match them up? I have no idea. I suppose there’s a crazy business idea that could provide a solution, but I don’t even have that.

Image Credits: Family Car © kv_san–stock.adobe.com; The Best Idea © goir–stock.adobe.com; Puzzle pieces © Gheorghe–stock.adobe.com