99 Bad Ideas to Find One Genius Solution

When you brainstorm ideas to help someone solve a challenge, the goal is not to find the perfect answer right away. It is to generate a huge quantity of ideas, even terrible ones, so that a genius idea can eventually surface. This mindset is essential for anyone learning to coach, facilitate, or think creatively.

The instructor sets a bold target: generate 99 bad ideas before committing to any final solution. Is 99 a real number? No, it is made up. But it makes a point stick. During brainstorm, quantity matters more than quality, and pushing yourself past the obvious ideas is where the magic happens.

Why should you aim for quantity over quality when brainstorming?

The whole premise here is counterintuitive. Most of us want to jump straight to the good idea. But when you force yourself to produce many ideas, you naturally move through a full range: horrible ideas, bad ideas, good ideas, great ideas, and finally genius ideas.

If you stop at the first decent thought, you never reach the genius one. That is why the exercise asks you to write a big 99 in your script as a reminder to keep going.

Why generate bad ideas on purpose? Because bad ideas open the door to great ones. Volume forces your brain past the obvious, and somewhere in those 99 attempts, a genius idea appears that you would never have found by playing it safe.

The number is symbolic, but the discipline is real. Keep the ideas flowing without stopping to evaluate each one.

How do you run a good brainstorm session with a coachee?

There is a simple flow to follow before you start throwing ideas around. First, the person shares their challenge. Then you rephrase or redefine it to make sure you understand it correctly. Only after that do you begin brainstorming.

A powerful technique mentioned here is to consider the extremes, no matter how ridiculous they sound. Ridiculous ideas stretch your thinking and often lead to unexpected solutions.

Here is the practical sequence to keep in mind:

• The coachee tells you their challenge.
• You rephrase or redefine that challenge so it is clear.
• You start brainstorming, beginning with the extremes.
• You generate as many ideas as possible without stopping.

Once the ideas are flowing, your job shifts. You become a sounding board, someone your coachee can bounce thoughts against freely.

Why is it important not to judge ideas during brainstorming?

The single most important rule at this stage is simple: do not judge. The moment you start evaluating ideas, you kill the creative flow and people stop sharing.

Choosing the best idea comes later, as a separate step. Right now, your only mission is volume. As the instructor puts it, you want 99 bad ideas and one genius.

What does it mean to be a sounding board? It means letting your coachee test ideas out loud with you without fear of criticism. You listen, reflect, and encourage more ideas instead of filtering or rejecting them.

Another key move is to gently challenge your coachee. Push them a little harder to think outside the box so they come up with more ideas than they thought possible.

When should you evaluate which idea is best? Not during the brainstorm. Judgment and selection happen afterward, in a completely separate phase, once you already have a large pool of ideas to choose from.

The creativity here is not about being naturally artistic. It is about giving yourself permission to be quantity-driven, extreme, and nonjudgmental so the best solution has room to appear.

Now go and amaze the world with your 99 ideas. Which extreme idea would you dare to write first? Drop it in the comments.