A Little Birdie Told Me

I am always happy to share helpful ideas when people ask. (I try hard not to share them unless they do.)

People often guard their ideas, putting them up behind various kinds of social (or literal) “paywalls” and sharing nothing at all until a solid benefit exchange has been established.

This is silly. Your ideas are only a signal of your value, they’re not the value themselves. If I don’t know how to fix my sink and a plumber tells me for free, I’m still going to pay that plumber to do the actual work. If the fix was so simple that I’m actually able to do it (“That one valve is loose, just tighten it and you’re fine.”), then the work itself also wouldn’t have been valuable enough to guard – you gain more in the long term by establishing credibility and trust.

So if someone comes to you regarding your area of expertise and asks a question – answer. Each idea you share is a little birdie that flies out into the world singing your praises and bringing you back twigs for the nest. When you have a whole flock of them out there, you’ll have more work than you know what to do with.