Once upon a time there was a little Idea. It resided in the brain of a younger woman, just cutting her teeth at a gigantic company. And while the idea was perfectly content to be just a little Idea stored quietly in the recesses of an otherwise very active mind, it wondered – as all little Ideas do – what it might be like to be a really big Idea. A game-changer.

And so that little Idea started to put out its little anthropomorphic feelers to discover ways to be bigger. It started latching itself on to new information as it passed through the young woman’s brain, looking for that one perfect little speck of data – a trend, a statistic, an innovation, anything – that would give the little Idea purpose; a sense of direction. And because it was a steadfast little Idea, it wasn’t long before it had found a perfect piece of new information that it could latch onto and begin down the road to becoming a really big Idea.

That road wasn’t easy, of course. The little Idea had direction, but now it needed to scour the brain for as much relevant information as it could find to justify itself. Every new piece of information was carefully analyzed as it entered the brain, some of it added to the cause and some of it simply discarded. After a while, the little Idea began to notice that many of the items it had discarded were being tucked into the dark nether-regions of the brain, and the ones the Idea had deemed worthy were constantly active, combining with other pieces of information to spark new Ideas. These new micro Ideas all joined the little Idea’s cause. The brain was consumed with the little Idea, and little Idea was growing bigger every day!

The young woman who happened to own the brain that the little Idea called home eventually worked up the courage to present the Idea to her boss. Her boss, being somewhat older and a good bit more experienced, helped her to reshape her Idea, making it stronger. After a few months of collaboration, the Idea had changed significantly – it was more worldly, better informed, and extremely well informed. It had the support of her colleagues, who all loved the Idea and wanted to know how they could help. The little Idea had become a very big Idea indeed!

Now to put it to action. The young woman took her big Idea and turned it into a persuasive pitch. She thought her client would be crazy not to fall in love with the big Idea, and that they would want to throw scads of money at it for the privilege of calling it theirs. The whole thing made perfect sense, after all: the client hired the young woman’s agency to be innovative, and the big Idea was certainly that. Innovative and creative and never-been-done-before. It was a clear winner.

But when the client heard the pitch, their reaction wasn’t at all what the young woman had anticipated. They liked the idea, they said, but they didn’t think it was practical. In fact, they had a number of other pitches that maybe weren’t as big, but which were easier to put into motion. They were more familiar. They were safer Ideas. We’re sorry, the clients said, but this idea is too big for us.

The little Idea – which was not so little anymore – felt like the life had been sucked from it. It was angry and sad and confused. It kicked itself for being so big, or for not being big enough. It felt itself start to fade into the recesses of the young woman’s memory, replaced by disappointment and the sense that no idea would ever be as great, and no idea would ever be good enough to sell.

A year went by. The little Idea still hadn’t faded away entirely, but it had largely been forgotten. The young woman still worked at the same agency, and with the same client, though she hadn’t pitched another big Idea to them. But in that year, something had changed. The client took a good hard look at its competitors, and realized that its edict to enact only the practical ideas had given its competitors an edge. They called the agency in for a big meeting, and the young woman – though still relatively junior – was invited.

In the meeting, the company said that they had made a mistake. They hadn’t availed themselves of the young woman and her remarkable Idea, and now they were paying the price for it. They wanted to hear about the Idea again!

Of course, the Idea hadn’t remained sedentary this whole time. After all, it had been in the habit of scouring the brain for relevant bits of information, and old habits die hard. Having collected relevant data for a year, the Idea was in fact stronger than ever – and thankfully had not yet been thought up by a competitor already. The young woman presented her idea to the client a number of times over the course of the next month, each time to someone more senior than the last, until she was standing in front of the CEO himself, explaining the various intricacies and benefits the Idea had to offer.

This time, the company bought in. They threw money at the Idea by the handful. And when the Idea finally launched, it didn’t just change things for the company. It changed things for the whole world.

The moral: There is always a time for innovation, and that time is always right now. But if you are unable to innovate right now, for whatever reason, don’t let your idea die. Keep adding to it, growing it, distilling it, reshaping it, reframing it, and expanding it. You never know when you’re going to need it again.