Ideas are private. They start in your mind. When you get that wonderful feeling at the eureka moment, it’s usually a very private event.

Next, when you mull it over and decide you want to make it real, you need to expose it - and yourself - to others.

It is emotional and very personal. It’s like showing a piece of art you have created for the first time. There’s a fear of judgment, of being “wrong,” of making a fool of yourself.

And that is also the first time you need to be able to communicate something very private in a way that will make others see it and feel the same.

It’s even more difficult in the case of ideas. A work of art is a physical thing, something you see or hear. But, an idea is abstract and has no form except in your mind - a very private place.

You need to find a way to pluck it out of your mind and make an identical copy in someone else’s. That’s hard. And what’s harder is making sure it’s an exact copy. You may think they “get it,” but they might have internalized it differently. 

The less you need to transfer, and the simpler it is, the higher the chance of sharing your idea accurately with others. A helpful method and tool for doing so is discovering and knowing the essence of your idea.