One of the things that I’ve been thoroughly convinced of is the power of ideas. In virtually every area of life, from business and economics, to science and religion, from personal and professional relationships, to personal hobbies and interests, the power of one good idea can be game-changing.

In the area of politics, Ron Paul has often quoted Victor Hugo in saying “Nothing else in the world…not all the armies…is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” I believe this is very true in all kinds of profound ways. Again, in a political sense, a similar idea was expressed by Samuel Adams: “It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

Leonard Read’s entire life was dedicated to spreading the ideas of the freedom philosophy. Every breakthrough in human progress, material and spiritual, was the result of ideas. This is a huge area of study that I can’t even begin to address in this post, because it is so broad and all-encapsulating. For example, we have no idea how ideas even arise in consciousness. Where do ideas come from and why are some people’s ideas so much better than other people’s? Is creating ideas similar to developing muscles; in the sense that the more you exercise your creative mind, the better your ideas become? That is all way beyond what I’m looking to address in this post, but I just throw some of these things out there to reinforce the point, and that is that ideas are the most powerful force in the world. Maybe love is more powerful in some ways, but ideas are definitely near the very pinnacle of what advances human progress.

A quick google search reveals what I’m talking about. Here is an example of some of the most profound ideas that come up in a quick search:

• Aristotle’s logic
• Newton’s laws of motion
• Darwin’s theory of natural selection
• The printing press and the spread of the written word
• The development of the zero concept in mathematics
• The internet as a way of sharing information

As a side note; I find it interesting that often times new ideas completely destroy our old ideas and in a sense, ideas seem to evolve. The strongest ideas weed out the weakest ideas, and they compound on each other. The strongest ideas reproduce and evolve into even better ideas. You put two ideas together and they often reproduce and create a new idea that is better than the sum of the two original ideas. I could go on and on, but I think you begin to understand the profundity of ideas.

Bad ideas are another fascinating subject. The amount of damage that can be done by a bad idea like Marxism can be amazingly destructive.

With all that being said, I just wanted to share a person whose ideas on the very simple topic of business and entrepreneurship are really profound. I stumbled onto Jay Abraham years ago, and when I first watched some of his videos and read some of his books I wasn’t terribly impressed. He seemed a little snake-oil salesman like, and it all seemed a little too slick and superficial.

But for some reason, some of his ideas on how to do marketing and grow sales stuck to me, and at some point I began to realize how powerful some of his ideas really were. Personally, I went through the phase in life many years ago where I read all the well-known self-help books. While there are certainly ideas that can be helpful in self-help books, most of them are very superficial and just end up repeating the same old tired ideas over and over again. So now, the very idea of reading another self-help book makes me grimace. However, amidst all the dross there are a few diamonds. And Jay Abraham definitely has some diamonds in his ideas.

Every business is different, and what will work for one business may not necessarily work for another. But I’m confident that if you’re an entrepreneur trying to grow a small business, you will find ideas in Jay’s work that will radically change your business results. You just need to wade through all the ideas to find the several good ones that will work for you.

For example, one of his simple but profound ideas that has worked for me personally: find another business or businesses that sell items that are similar to, but not directly competing with your product or service, and share your respective customer bases with each other. This is incredibly powerful, costs nothing, and yet, I find that very few businesses are doing this. My experience in business and other areas of life has been that when facing a problem, you can either throw money or ideas at the problem to try and solve it. Ideas are infinitely more economical…and often yield better results.

Here is a link to a free pdf with 880 pages of case studies by Jay Abraham. There is a lot of information you’ll need to wade through to pick out the few ideas that could work for you…but it’s worth it. There is another saying that goes something like this: “there are million dollar ideas everywhere in ten dollar used books.”

Here is a fairly recent interview that will give you some exposure to some of his ideas. I don’t know anything about his personal life or story, and I know he can come across as a little slick and gimmicky, but I can tell from personal experience that many of his ideas really do work. So check it out and see what you think…