Welcome back to The Community Strategy! In this podcast episode, you’ll hear the second part of an event held in February 2024. Windy Lawson presented to community builders how to thrive with too many ideas. Click here to watch part one. 

In her insightful presentation, Windy Lawson provides five practical areas that empower you to differentiate ideas from opportunities. Windy emphasizes that action on opportunities, not just ideas, drives success. 

She clarifies that an idea is a concept, a nugget, a simple thing. An opportunity includes the idea but also how to bring it to life. An idea solves a problem; it eliminates a problem. An opportunity is problem-solving and adding to or generating something. 

Windy’s approach not only solves problems but also has the potential to generate revenue. She underscores the value of time, suggesting that any time saved in clarifying your problem-solving idea is invaluable. 

Windy’s advice is clear: an opportunity will always be aligned with your goals. It’s about combining your ideas with your values, beliefs, and thoughts. While an idea’s no strict deadline, an opportunity always presents the right time to act. 

Windy recommends doing a cost-benefit analysis to determine what it will take to make this idea come to life. An opportunity cost could be your time because you are giving up your time to do that one thing and not other things at the same time. “The value always outweighs the cost or risk.”  

Windy’s idea is an example of someone she knew who used a book club as an email marketing lead magnet. The book club was the opportunity, and the idea was to combine the book club with lead generation. 

The opportunity she describes aligned with the mission, goals, and values. Windy shared a strategy about ideas and opportunities; if it costs more than $100 or will take more than one hour to complete, Windy suggests that no action or decisions should be made for at least 24 hours to identify the idea is also an opportunity. “We aren’t treating it [the idea] like an impulse buy.” 

You don’t have to act on every idea. The best thing you can do with your ideas is to get them out of your head and then let them breathe. Windy uses Evernote to keep track of her ideas and opportunities. Recording the ideas makes it easier to thrive. She recommends stopping using procrastination as inspiration, thanking the idea, and letting it breathe in a folder. 

Learn more about Windy.