Some ideas don’t gain traction because they are invisible. Lurking in the shadows, these ideas might be discussed, but they are never made concrete. They are difficult to grasp onto, so they are not built upon. I call these dandelion ideas.

Dandelion ideas come to life when you give them a name.

Strong leaders and communicators spot patterns in the shadows–lurking dandelion ideas–and name them. They give form to the shapeless. Weight to the weightless. And in doing so, they enable people to rally around a cause, project, or idea that would have been impossible to grasp otherwise.

Naming a Dandelion is Getting Me Swole

Over the course of the last several months, many different ideas came up at one time or another during conversations with my girlfriend Jessika.

• Jessika wanted to improve her body strength
• I wanted to start working out again
• We were both super busy with school

When you list these three ideas together, the solution becomes clear: work out together during the summer. But this was not at all clear when the ideas were presented separately, brought to mind by unrelated circumstances at different times. It took a bit of insight to recognize that there’s a theme here, and that we should make it a goal to work out together during the summer.

Even then, when the idea clicked, it was difficult to talk about. “We should work out together during the summer” is a full sentence, so discussing it requires a lot of wind-up each time.

Hey, so, you know how we were thinking about working out together this summer? Well, we should look into which gyms are near us.

It’s certainly not impossible to have these conversations. But little roadblocks make conversations harder.

When we formulated the name “Get Swole Summer”, it became way easier to talk about our plans. Giving it a name made the project real, and encouraged us to track our progress. Now we are going to the gym regularly, and we’ve even attached additional summer goals under the broad umbrella of getting swole.

Dandelions Spread

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet tells us that “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The same is not true for ideas. The name we give to an idea matters a lot, and giving an idea a good name–or any name, really–makes it easier to discuss and build upon.

This is why I call them dandelions. Unlike a rose, dandelions spread. And, unlike Juliet’s rose, the name matters. Dandelion ideas spread because they are given a name.

Practice The Craft

The best teachers and leaders are great communicators, and great communicators know how to name a dandelion.

Fortunately, this skill can be practiced. As you live your life, look for patterns. When you notice two ideas that seem to belong together, try to find the common thread. Why do these ideas belong together? Once you have a bundle of concepts that belong in a pack, give it a name.

What you name the idea doesn’t matter much; what matters is that you name it at all.

Sticking together a few abstract concepts and giving them a name forms the beginning of a snowball. Once you have a ball, it can grow. That nucleation site becomes the beginning of a reaction that never could have happened if the separate, abstract strands had never congealed into something concrete. A dandelion with a name.