How do you generate new ideas?

Hey there, I would like to provide my tips and tricks from both my experience and others as well.

1. Keep track or drop-down ideas in a list. 
I think this is one of the easiest ways I do to generate ideas. Sometimes we would have a sudden burst of creativity or shower thoughts you may have encountered which can produce ideas. If you were to drop it down in a notebook or as easy as a few taps on your phone, you can look back on your ideas on a certain basis as a reflection to further brainstorm and develop them. You would be surprised at how many ideas you have. 

Brainstorming activities can help you either generate ideas or visualize them. Activities can include:

• Storyboarding, allowing you to visualize processes and generate ideas to improve 
• S.C.A.M.P.E.R method: allowing you to tackle a certain subject from substitution, combination, adoption, modification, put to another use, elimination, and reverse thinking 
• Hero thinking where you would approach a subject from the perspective of a role model you look up to generate ideas 

Even the infamous Youtuber MrBeast mentioned in an interview that he would look up the dictionary to browse through random words that can generate ideas.

3. Don't be afraid to steal ideas from someone

We are essentially idea thieves in our lives.

• Tiktok users stealing the idea of a trend to ride the wave of virality 
• Students stealing/referencing ideas from journal articles to be applied in their reports 
• Even I stole the idea of a quote by Kobe Bryant saying "There isn't a move that's a new move" where he explains that the moves he adopt from past players to refine his basketball craft 

Therefore it is ok for us to steal ideas from others as it could often be as another seed growing to sprout for future interesting ideas. 

The best ideas often times come from pain points / problems we face.

For instance: Grab was born out of the necessity for a safe, predictable, and affordable cab ride.

1. Start with a problem and dive deeper to the root cause of it.
   
2. Identify what are the different ways to solve it. (ideas)
3. Test your assumptions with data (execution + data collection)

Ideas are plenty in the world, the key is great execution - putting your ideas into action, and continuously iterating until they solve the problem effectively.