Four heads are better than two.

Originally written February 18, 2019

What’s the best idea you have ever had?

I’m not sure I can identify my best idea ever, but I can identify Mrs. Sweetie’s best idea ever—marrying me! (I guess I’ll find out when she reads this if she agrees).

Let me ask you another question: what’s the best idea you have ever had that got even better when you talked it over with someone else?

I’m not sure I can identify the best one, but I can confidently say that every idea I have ever had got better with input from others.  Sometimes the idea even got better because someone disagreed with the original idea.

I wish we could figure out how to disagree more agreeably. But, that’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that we could get more done, do it more effectively, and make a greater contribution to the world if we spent more time focusing on great ideas and less time focusing on who gets the credit for them.

What’s the best idea you’ve ever heard?

The odds are pretty high that, before that idea ever got to you, it had been talked over, taken apart, tested, and put back together by several people.

That’s simply the way the world works best.

You’ve heard the expression that two heads are better than one. According to one internet source, that phrase first appeared in English in 1546 in John Heywood’s “A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue.”(I’m glad some people got their heads together about changing some spelling of English words).

There is also a quote attributed to C.S. Lewis: “Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction.”

Perhaps those quotes, and others like them, find their inspiration in Ecclesiastes 4:9 – “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor.”

In any case, I can attest over and over again to the reality that every good idea I have ever had got better with more eyes on it, brains engaged with it, and mouths speaking it.

This week, I’m spending a few days with three other guys who do the same thing for a living that I do.  Each one of us has brought ideas for the others to make better.  And we believe that we will do a better job of serving the world because we put our heads together for a few days.

Our lives matter to God.  He did not create us to live in isolation. He did not create us to live in competition. He created us to inhabit this planet for His own glory and for the benefit of all the other inhabitants of the planet.

Whose head do you need to make your ideas better?  Who needs your head for theirs?

Be amazing today, my friend.