Why it's irritating being brilliant.

Being brilliant, you wake up with a new idea that will, most probably, change the world.

In your head, you can imagine the difference this idea is going to make.

You get so excited about the possibilities that you feel like skipping breakfast.

Then you tell someone about your idea.

You’re jumping up and down inside.

But they don’t get it.

You think you’re being ultra clear with your explanation but your audience is scratching its head like someone with a bad case of dandruff.

If you’re an entrepreneur, inventor or marketing whiz, you probably know what this feels like.

(The frustration, not the dandruff.)

So, are people stupid? Can’t they recognise ingenuity when they see it?

Well, yes, some of them are.

And, no, often they can’t.

Even the craziest new ideas seem logical in hindsight.

You know, like a phone that doesn’t have any buttons.

Or a network of computers that connects the whole world.

But introducing something new takes a huge dollop of foresight.

To me, in this context, foresight is showing someone a real picture of something abstract.

Something that doesn’t yet exist.

And selling something abstract is a special skill.

Old-fashioned advertising agencies had this skill.

Watch Don Draper’s presentation of the Kodak Carousel projector (in Mad Men) and you realise that selling dreams is an uncommon ability.

Thoughts, notions, principles, visions, paradigm shifts and purposes are all well and good but they can also be fluffy, unrealistic and hard to get.

But when you put something concrete on the table, the penny drops.

Concrete is the opposite of abstract.

There are several ways of making something concrete.

For example, if your new idea depends on telling a story, draw a storyboard or a comic strip.

Not good at drawing? Build a LEGO model and describe what you’ve made.

Construct the front page of a newspaper showing a headline and a picture about you and your invention.

Or show a before-and-after picture showing the difference your product will make.

It’s no coincidence that people say ‘Ah, I see what you mean’.

Show and tell techniques are taught to every child in primary school.

And it’s easy to laugh at the rockets made from empty toilet rolls, crumpled aluminium foil and rinsed out washing-up liquid bottles.

But, if a five year old child can put a tangible space craft on the table, there’s hope for us all.