An Imaginary Board Of Counselors
Two practical take aways from the book Think And Grow Rich that anyone can use in multiple areas are the mastermind group, and an imaginary board of counselors, which is somewhat the same thing. I’d recommend reading it at least once.
In case anyone has never heard of the concepts, a mastermind group is just a small group of people, between 3 and 5 works best, that share goals or problems that they’re trying to figure out solutions to. The imaginary counsel is the same thing, but takes place within your head.
It’s actually very easy to imagine a board of counselors trying to help you. Let’s take an example of someone writing a fictional story. Let’s say they get writers block, and don’t know what else to write. All they have to do is imagine some of their favorite characters from other areas, like books, tv shows, or whatever, sitting around a conference table with them, and ask the question “what would this person say or do?”
Invert The Scenario
Another way of breaking through writer’s block is to just invert the scenario and try considering it from a different angle.
Ex. A female protagonist is in XYZ scenario, but the writer doesn’t know where to take things. The writer could just step back and reimagine the character as male, with XYZ scenario, or even ABC if that doesn’t work, and that might produce some ideas. Keep the ideas and flip it back around. Now, how would the protagonist handle that?
If you go through your imaginary board, and invert the scenario for each one, I’m sure you’ll find at least a few good ideas to work with.
Some other questions you might consider are:
1. What is the main thing I’m trying to say or do here? It can often be tempting to get diverted away from that, by pursuing ‘shiny objects’ but unless you have no clear agenda, you’ll need to revisit this from time to time or you lose your main point, the whole reason you’re doing things.
2. If question one is unclear, you should maybe consider “what can I give that someone else isn’t already doing better?” That way, you scratch an itch that already hasn’t been taken care of. Someone will definitely appreciate it. It’s only a matter of time and putting things out there.
I’d like to go ahead and apologize for all of the idioms we have in English, if you’re not a native English speaker, but I often think through illustrations. It helps me compare things to sort out strengths and weakness.
I hope something of this has been helpful to you.
