69 Seemingly Dumb Ideas That Turned Out To Be Brilliant

I worked at Sears Automotive, in the 80’s, as a teenager. It was a really windy day and as I walked to my car I pulled out the only bill in my pocket, a 20, which was a fortune to me at the time. The bill blew out of my hand and disappeared into the abyss. I went back inside, and I told a very old salesperson what had happened and he continued to cut a piece of paper the size of a bill. He walked outside, where I lost the bill, and let go of the paper. We were able to follow the piece of paper, and within a minute it LANDED on top of the lost 20 dollar bill. I kid you not!

When I was 14, I had an mp3 player (showing my age) and it stopped working, because the connection points on the batter had gotten warped and weren't connecting properly. All it really needed was something to squeeze it together. So my mum fixed it with the the best small, non-conductive, flexible material she had at hand: a piece of pistachio shell.

We have a golden pistachio trophy that we circulate to members of the family who cobble together MacGyver solutions to problems.

During the beginning of Covid, my job at the time had little work for me to do and was laying off people left and right, which put my morale at a solid zero. However, a position opened up at my dream job that i was absolutely perfect for, and I filled in an application.

After not hearing anything about the position 6 weeks later, i consulted someone I knew who worked there about if i had been rejected or not. He informed me that the job application software there absolutely sucked, and to try directly emailing my resume to the HR rep and remind them of my application.

Turns out, this move was a stroke of brillance, as that summer they had switched job application software and there was a glitch in the transfer process that had accidentally deleted all of the applications for all of the current open positions. Since i was the only one that had directly reached out to HR and reminded them what job i had applied for, I was at the top (and only) person in the running for the position.

As for how it turned out, I nailed the interview process and I've been working at my dream job for 5 years now, so I'd say pretty good so far.

I grew up in the foster care system. At one home, the foster dad was chief of police. He also had a farm in the northern part of the state.

He brought us foster kids up one weekend. A few days after getting home he found that one of his guns was missing. After days of nobody saying anything one of the kids admitted to taking it and bringing it to the farm where he got scared and tossed it in a field.

We spent the next 2 days walking through extremely tall grass looking for the thing. We were never going to find it.

The foster dad, who owned a retired police dog at that time, came out with an old, rusted, non working gun. He looked at all of us and said “I’ve tried dumber stuff than this and it worked” and pretended to throw the gun in the field.

The dog brought back the missing gun 30 seconds later….

It was my dumb idea, and it worked.

So, my dad was a truck driver. And when I was a kid I would tag along on trips whenever I could over the school holidays. The company my dad worked for was in the north of NSW, in cane land. Most of what they did was take molasses down south and bring other stuff back up. Because molasses is heavy, you don't need a tanker trailer to get to your max weights for the average truck class. You can just have a massive rubber bladder that can roll up into the front of the trailer, but take about 30+ tonne worth of molasses when it's rolled out.

Most of the time, we were carting to yeast manufacturers, sometimes other food manufacturers. The fun ones were the farm deliveries.

So we get to this cattle farm, and dad has managed to reverse into this really weird unloading area this farmer has cleared out. We drop the amount we're supposed to drop into his tanks and dad realises the worst thing has happened. With about 25 tonnes of molasses left in the bag, it had twisted over because the ground wasn't level while it was being slightly emptied. That meant we couldn't strap it.

"I have no idea what to do." - Farmer

"I have no idea what to do." - Dad

"But what if you just drive it out and park it in the same place facing the other way for a while? It might slump back over." - 12 year old me

"That won't work." - Dad and farmer

*dad calls his boss*

"Maybe you should park it facing the other direction and see if it slumps back over"

"*sigh* Alright I'll give it a try" - Dad, wishing he hadn't made that call over loudspeaker while I was nearby, refusing to look at my grin.

And folks, that idea worked.

I used to sell and install home satellite TV systems. I had a customer in a heavily wooded area whose only line of sight to the satellite was blocked by a tree branch about an inch in diameter, several hundred feet away and maybe seventy feet off the ground. I spent half an hour trying to figure out how to cut this limb without climbing that tree, and went and told him he was out of luck. He told me to hang on. He went and got a rifle, and cut the tree limb off with three shots. I took extra care to make sure he was a happy customer.

How the movie Cowboys and Aliens got made.

The property had been optioned but never used. They then made a graphic novel out of it, priced way under what a book that size would normally cost. They then offered them in bulk to the large comic shop chains around the country with the promise that if they bought a thousand dollars worth, they’d get a thousand dollar check from the publisher. Several comic chains did it and they got their thousand dollars back as promised.

Seemed like a bonkers marketing strategy… until they then used those sales numbers to go back to Hollywood and show that they had the biggest selling graphic novel in the country.

And it worked. A studio picked up the script and got it made.

Posting a wrong answer on the internet to get the right one. It’s significantly faster than asking the actual question.

In a coordinators meeting at a soup kitchen we were discussing the issue that people were not separating recyclables properly. Three different groups operated in that kitchen with different schedules so it was hard to get the message across, people threw non recyclables in the recycling bin all the time. We had been struggling with this for like a year.

Some of the coordinators wanted to get more strict, some wanted to put more and bigger signs, some wanted to give up on it. I said "people probably throw food in there on autopilot, put a lid on it so they have to stop and think before doing it". We did and we never had that issue again.

This sounds stupid but 100% worked - A housemate I had got into computers and tried to build his own.

He got it up and running but, no matter what, the internet kept giving him an error. There was a connection, it was connected but zero response from any websites or apps.

I’m in his room looking things over with him, I notice his PC’s clock displayed the wrong time. I asked “is the time and date set right?”

He looks at me like I’m nuts and gives me an annoyed “Who cares?”

“Check it and try it.”

He rolls his eyes and goes “Fine!” The date was set to something in 2003, this was 2019.

Once we set the correct date and time the internet suddenly worked! He had this total “What the f**k!?” Look on his face.

About a year before, my smart tv reset its date and time giving me the same problem - When I noticed the time and date were off (after repeatedly restarting the TV and wifi), I changed it back and suddenly everything worked!

Flunked out school. Pretended I didn’t and kept going to classes. Ended up at a job fare. Scored an internship at a small, family owned company that didn’t bother to check if I was still a student.

While there, the founder sold the business to a giant mega corporation worth billions that in and of themself were being acquired by a larger corporation worth tens of billions.

Founder and family peaced out immediately. My internship was ending soon. I pretended like I was en route to a full time position there (which wasn’t even discussed). Not because I thought I’d keep the job, but because I thought I’d get some kind of severance out of it. With minimal downside if I was caught.

The mega corporation made an offer to retain me. I accepted. The larger corporation then folded me into their operation. I gave it 3 months before they figured out I had no idea what I was doing.

17 years later I’m now a senior executive VP at the giant corporation and a few years away from retiring.


I still look back and am shocked by how it all played out.


It’s sort of framed my philosophy on success - it’s not about being a genius, it’s about being smart enough to realize when you’re getting lucky and then working your bum off to capitalize on the lucky break.

I was broke, had no real plan or opportunities. Quit my job, drove across the country (US) to -- find myself? figure out life? No idea. I was 23, probably an idiot, but I had no responsibilities to anyone but me.

Found a career in IT, a wife, and now have a grown kid, a house, a dog, a couple cars, the whole "American dream" package. Every once in a while, usually while standing in my yard over the grill with a beer in my hand, I'm like "Damn, it worked!".

I was struggling with organic chemistry in undergrad. We had hours of homework (mastering chemistry) almost every night. I decided to completely stop doing homework. My grades went way up. Turns out homework was only 3% of the grade and the way my other work improved by not being burnt out more than made up for that. One hour of independent study taught me more than 3+ hours of the assigned work.

At graduation my professor told me "I don't know how the hell you passed my class you never turned in assignments".

Back when I was working at a liquor store, we were dismantling shelves to move them around and create a better flow. My boss forgot his level at home when we were putting them back up, he thought he was gonna have to go back home about an hour away just to get it. I just picked up a bottle of wine and set it on the shelf to see if it rolled. I got a raise for that.

I work in Pike Place market and one time a shop had a dead rat stuck under the counter. They borrowed a live crab from a fish market and tied a string to it, let the crab loose under the counter and once it grabbed the rat carcass they pulled him back out with the string.

I started my own company when I got canned by a really bad engineering firm. It was supposed to tide me over until something else came along. I’ve been doing it for almost 15 years now.

I bought a pool for my kids. A little 14ft above ground. It was meant to be a surprise, so i tried to set it up (foundation included) before anyone noticed.

As it's filling up, right around sundown, my 9yo finally takes notice of it and asks what it is.

"Oh, that's the water trough for the cows I just ordered. I'm just filling it up before they arrive."

He looks at it for a second, then back at me, "Oh. Can I name one of them?"

At least I don't have to worry about college.

During college I was in a university with a Corps of Cadets program where like 99% of them lived on campus. I was that 1%, and had little money. I blended in with them after PT and got free breakfast for the whole time. As long as they had uniform on, nobody cared. Saved thousands.

I made my wife plan her own engagement party without her knowing.

I knew I’d wanted to propose, but I wanted both our families to be together when it happened. She had some of her family set to visit us in a month or so, but she’d already planned all the dinners at touristy type places for them to be able to experience our city. So, I convinced her mom (who is notoriously difficult and likes to make people change plans for arbitrary reasons) object to the place on the first night and basically shoot down any suggestions. When my wife vented to me about it, I casually mentioned our favorite restaurant and said ‘it’s our place, and it’s small and cozy, it will be a nice start for them before we get to the bigger, louder places. Hell, I could even invite my family and they could meet!’ She asked her mom, who had been instructed to be over the moon enthusiastic about it. So, she called and made reservations.

I followed up after she’d called, and informed them that I’d be proposing and asked what sort of setup they could do. I spoke with the server and we put a little plan together.

So, leading up to this I was NERVOUS. I was afraid she’d figure it out, I was afraid someone would leak it, I was afraid it wouldn’t work, I was afraid she’d be mad or just not happy with the deception. She kept picking up on my nervousness and I just kept telling her I was afraid my family would be loud and obnoxious and offend her family.

Come day of, we rented a vehicle to pick up her family from the airport, and were staying at the hotel with them. Her mom was practically begging me to see the ring, and almost broke out in tears seeing it. I was also struggling to hide it because it was in a big ring box. So, I let her mom hold it in the purse, and when we arrived, she gave it to the waiter. This place normally would only seat like 10-12 tables, but they’d set aside a whole front room for us (about 12 people), and there were champagne glasses already at the table. I sort of panicked a bit when my wife asked why and the waiter said ‘I heard we have some birthdays here today so I thought we’d celebrate! I’ll be back with bubbly.’ That was true, there were some close birthdays, but he came back with the ring on a serving platter, and both our backs were to him when he approached, so my wife didn’t even really notice until I had already taken the box, opened it, and got down on one knee.

Absolutely one of my most favorite stories to tell. She gives me a hard time about it all the time, lovingly, but it was the only way I could do it while getting family together without her finding out, because she’s always planning things so far out.

2005: Quit my very successful career, joined the Red Cross, spent 6 months in Mississippi helping out after Katrina.

Changed my life.