"Bad idea brainstorming" is AMAZING.

Track 3:
[0:00] This episode is brought to you by Link Whisper. It is an amazing WordPress plugin to manage all of the internal links on your website.
Learn more at dyeb.link slash link whisper, and you can use code dyeb for $20 off.

Track 1:
[0:18] Hello there, everybody. Welcome back to the Do You Eva blog podcast.
My name is Pete McPherson. This is a show for creators who want to make more money on the internet.
Today, solo episode for you, I'm going to share a very versatile exercise called Bad Idea Brainstorming.
And on one hand, it's exactly what it sounds like. But I'm actually going to share with you some constraints, if you will, on this exercise that are going to make it easier, faster, and more effective.
You can use this for a lot of different things in your business, hence me saying it's very versatile.
So regardless of what you do exactly on the internet, stay with me for a few minutes because I think this is applicable to virtually all of you. So here's the problem.
Here's what this exercise does. Here's the problem. We, as entrepreneurs, we spend a lot of time trying to solve problems, which as my fourth grader would straight up tell us, problem solving is searching for the quote unquote right answer.
Problem solving. We do this all the time. We are searching for the right answer.
For example, here's three examples. How do we get more views to my YouTube channel?
Okay. Example number two, which freebie is going to work to get opt-ins?

Track 1:
[1:47] Which product is going to make the most money?
What should I be focusing on right now?
These are all problem solving questions. And as entrepreneurs, we're, we're searching for the right answer.
And it's hard, right? The goal of this exercise I'm going to share with you today, actually there are four.
Number one, to get unstuck. If you are feeling stuck at any point in time, trying to grow your thing, trying to monetize your thing, trying to come up with any idea for your thing at all.
If you're stuck, this exercise will help you get unstuck. Number two, make your work fun again.

Track 1:
[2:27] Mwafa, if you will. Make your work fun again. Again, if it's kind of tedious, maybe you're suffering from burnout, this exercise can help you stay energized.
It can reinvigorate you, if you will.
Goal number three, possibly, no guarantees here, possibly get a great idea on how to solve your problems.
Great ideas start out usually as bad ideas.
We don't often recognize, oh, that's a fantastic idea. It's going to work.
It's going to make me money.
No, most of the times those create themselves out of horrible ideas and then bad ideas and then good ideas.
And then goal number four of this exercise, to stand out, to be different, to stand out from your competitors.

Track 1:
[3:10] So let me actually just share with you. So I have a Google Doc.
It's free. You don't even have to opt in to grab it.
I created this little Google Doc, which is going to have some handy stuff for this exercise. size.
Maybe like three years ago, when I ran a workshop for my online impact members, it was my old private community of creators.
I ran this workshop one time called plenty of profitable products, plenty of profitable products.
Obviously I'm a big fan of alliteration, but the point of this workshop was to generate a lot of product ideas just for the sake of of generating them, honestly, and people showed up and there were like three or four different parts to the workshop or whatnot.
But the one thing that everybody commented on that they said was very useful was this bad idea.
Brainstorming. It's literally one of the first things I had people do.
And I did not hear a single negative thing about this part of the workshop.
Everybody was like, yeah, that was helpful.
It was dumb, but it was helpful. So that's where this came from.
And I still have the original Google Doc, by the way, from like three years ago. I'm looking at it right now.
And I'm just going to share it with you guys. I'll put it in the show notes. You can go check it out.
It's not going to mean very much unless you listen to the rest of this podcast episode.
But it'll be a nice little companion.

Track 1:
[4:37] Okay, so let's dive into what to do.
There are two things. I'm going to share with you the rules to this game.
And then I'm going to share the actual process. Okay.
The rules. There are three rules for bad idea brainstorming.
Number one, do not filter yourself.

Track 1:
[4:55] Do not, do not, do not.
Don't question anything you write down. We do this all the time, right?
I'm journaling, I'm taking notes, I'm thinking, I'm trying to figure out XYZ problem for my business.
What do I do? What's the right answer? Let me think about this.
Let me think about this. The point of this idea, this exercise rather, is to think very quickly and sloppily and don't second guess yourself.
You can do that later. You can edit later. You can filter later.
Don't filter yourself to the exercise. That's rule number one.
Rule number two is be sloppy.
And I mean this like in a literal way. If you're going to do this on your computer, that's fine.
Open up a text document. Don't go to your favorite program that's neat and fancy.
Don't worry about formatting.
Don't worry about images. Don't worry about anything else except for a blank canvas text document.
Or if you're doing this by pen and paper, same thing.
Feel free to grab markers to be creative. Have fun with it for sure.
But don't worry so much on looking pretty and being perfect.
Be sloppy. And rule number three, double down on rules one and two. too.
That's how serious I am. Don't filter yourself. Be sloppy. Those are the only rules.
Okay, so here's what you do. Here's the process of bad idea brainstorming.
Step zero, the lame step, but a step you and I both know you need.

Track 1:
[6:23] Schedule a creative time for this. I know, you're driving right now. You're doing laundry.

Track 1:
[6:29] You're crushing it at the gym.
Well, grab your your phone or your computer and schedule in a little time to do some bad eye brainstorming. You'll need half an hour up to an hour really would be great, but start with like 30 minutes, put it on the calendar, schedule it, name it, bad idea, brainstorming, et cetera.
Here's what you bring to your session. By the way, bring coffee or tea or bourbon. That's fine too.
Uh, bring colored pencils, bring markers, bring paint. If you want to, you want to play music, Play music.
Energetic music. The point is, I want this to be fun and creative and freeing, if you will. Your brain needs that.
And the last thing, not very fun or freeing, bring a timer or a stopwatch or your Apple Watch or an Alexa.
That's where I set 99% of all my timers. Alexa or my Apple Watch.
Just so you can time yourself.

Track 1:
[7:25] Oh, you guys hear that? You can't hear that at all. I just said that the A word and my A device in my kitchen heard me and started talking to me.
Anyways, so schedule some creative time.

Track 1:
[7:37] Choose your area. This is step number two. And by area, I mean, what is your problem?
You're problem solving here. Really? What is it? Is it product ideas?
You need product ideas? ideas? Do you need freebie ideas?
Do you need content ideas, like actual topics for your brand, your channel, your whatever it is, or marketing ideas?
You need to figure out how to grow your audience. What is your area that you're trying to tackle here?
That's step. No, that's actually step number one. Uh, well, I'll start number two, schedule the time.
Number one, number two, choose your area. Number three, you can brainstorm categories for five minutes only, only, or you could straight up steal mine right now for free in the show notes.
I'm going to link to that Google knock. You can steal these.
What do I mean by categories?
I mean, let's say I literally just did this before I started recording.
By the way, I brainstormed a bunch of categories for all three areas, product ideas, content ideas, marketing ideas.

Track 1:
[8:37] What I mean is products. I have, here's what I brainstormed the categories.
Again, this is not even the meat of this exercise. This This is just the first part. I brainstormed the following categories for products. High-end services.
That's like a category of product. High-end products. High-ticket offers. $3,000 courses.
That sort of stuff. $19 products.
That's going to look a lot different, right? It's a completely different category of product. $9 a month membership.
One-day workshop ideas. One-video mini training. Training.
That's just what I did off the top of my head. I would probably do like three to five more. The different categories of products. What about the different categories of content?
I wrote down, again, this is just off the top of my head. Mega guide. Webinar.

Track 1:
[9:28] Haiku that would be valuable to your audience. That's kind of a weird one.
Imagine thinking about that for five minutes, just brainstorming as many haiku ideas that would actually be valuable to your audience.
That sounds like something interesting to me. That sounds like something that could be worthwhile.
More content ideas, uh, category, excuse me, more content categories, three video, like a weekend training, a 10 part YouTube series, a five minute Ted talk, one hour live stream, 10 hour live stream.
Those are different categories. So if you're coming up with a bunch of content ideas, a one hour live stream versus a 10 hour live stream, those are going to be very, very different ideas. So these are categories.
I'll screw it. I'll just share the marketing categories with you as well.
I wrote down marketing wise, local marketing, one-on-one marketing, paid ads, partnerships, organic, and then viral. Those were my categories here.
So you can steal mine. I'm going to, again, just put it in the show notes.
You can go check it out. or spend five minutes maximum again, go to your timer or stopwatch five minutes, maximum.

Track 1:
[10:39] Brainstorming categories for your area, product ideas, marketing ideas, content ideas, brainstorm categories, try to get at least 10.
You're not going to get more than like 20. That's totally cool. It doesn't matter.

Track 1:
[10:54] Brainstorm up the 10 categories. If you only have five, that's fine too try to get 10 at least and so the last step in this process you can probably imagine what it is brainstorm bad ideas for each of those categories you could set a timer if you want to what i actually found more useful was setting a timer for the overall process i would set a timer for like 20 minutes um that's like my max any more than that and i just get bored or I'm like, okay, I'm done.
This is tiring already. No more than like 20, 30 minutes for this usually. And then.

Track 1:
[11:32] Once I'm done with a category, I'll just move on and maybe I'll come back.
Like I just go, I jump between categories. I make a huge list of ideas, product ideas, marketing ideas, content ideas, bad ideas.
Specifically, maybe they turn out to be good ideas. Maybe you think they're a good idea when you think about it. Maybe not.
Doesn't matter. Remember rule number one, do not filter yourself.
Rule number two, be sloppy.

Track 1:
[11:59] Optional rule number two and a half would be be fast.
When you're fast, you are sloppy. And I think that's actually a good thing to do for this exercise. So let me recap.
Bad idea brainstorming is to help get you unstuck to make work fun again, or just get a great idea for something that could be a quote unquote right answer for your problems, your business problems, your work problems.
And so the rules don't feel to yourself and be sloppy.
I mean, be fast. Rule number three, double down on rules one and two.
The process, put a time on your calendar to be creative and do this exercise.
Bring coffee or tea or music or something fun.
Go outdoors and do this. Go to a coffee shop and do this.
Step number one, choose your area, your problem, products, marketing, content. I think those are the big three. It might be something different.
Step number two, five minutes of brainstorming the categories. Try and get at least 10.
You can steal mine if you want to and start from there. You might steal mine and then think of five minutes more.
And then step number three, put it, put a start the clock 20, 30 minutes, and then brainstorm as many bad ideas as humanly possible.
That's it. Write them down.
Bad ideas, local. Let's go back to my haiku things.

Track 1:
[13:22] Haiku haikus that would be valuable to your audience. I would want to go big picture with these haikus. I'm thinking something that makes them zoom out of their everyday life.
So it might be stuff about death, stuff about life, stuff about relationships and family and how that ties into work.
I'm just brainstorming my own bad ideas here, right?

Track 1:
[13:46] So one haiku, sorry, I can't stop my brain. Now my brain's thinking about haiku ideas.
One would be what I say about online business on my deathbed.
That could be like a haiku. Coup. That's a piece of content right there.
Okay. I'll stop, but you get my point and that's it.
Bad idea brainstorming. So thank you for listening to today's episode.
I hope you found this interesting or useful, and I really hope you actually do this 30 minutes. Please goodness.
Give Pete from do you even blog over here 30 minutes and try this out.
Bad idea brainstorming. Go check out the show notes. I'll leave a link to the Google doc where you can kind of see a little bit of what I'm talking about.
Make things way easier, I think. And good luck.
Make your work fun again. Mwaffa.

Track 3:
[14:34] Please allow me to take a short break from our show to talk to you about LinkWhisper.
If you've never heard of it before, LinkWhisper is a WordPress plugin for managing internal linking.
Internal linking is super important, not only for Google and SEO, mandatory for SEO, but it's also just good user experience.
And I got to tell you guys, this is the easiest recommendation in the world for me because it's the tool I use and there's no other tool that really does it.
Like there's nothing. think there's only link whisper to do this.
If you are a WordPress blogger, you need to be using it. It is seamless.
It is so easy. They have great documentation and a lot of YouTube videos these days to show you how to use it. It's fantastic.
And it's absurdly cheap by the way. So you can go to D Y E B that stands for do you even blog D Y E B dot link slash link whisper.
And you can also enter in the code D Y E B to bring the price down an additional $20 off is under a hundred dollars anyways.
Now you can get 20 bucks off. So go to d y e b dot link slash link whisper.
Use the code d y e b for $20 off. Now back to the show.