Why Your Ideas Aren’t Spreading — Even Though They’re Good

Most people assume ideas spread because they are compelling. Or brilliant. Or urgent.

Research across psychology, education, and sociology suggests something simpler: Ideas spread when people understand them well enough to explain them to someone else.

That distinction matters. If someone cannot describe your work clearly, they cannot recommend it. They may appreciate it. They may value it. They may even be deeply moved by it. But if they struggle to explain it to a colleague, a friend, or a client, the idea rarely travels beyond them.

This is where many thoughtful experts feel stalled. The work resonates. The conversations are meaningful. Yet the ideas do not seem to circulate on their own.

The question is not whether the work is strong. The question is whether it can be carried.

You Aren’t Meant to Do Great Work Alone

Most of my work begins with a simple question: What is your Great Work, and how do you do more of it?

The first edition of Great Work focused on the individual dimension. The second expanded into collaboration. How do we do our Great Work with other people?

There is another dimension to that same truth. You are not meant to do Great Work alone.

Some people build the work with you. Others encounter it from the outside. They read your newsletter. They attend a talk. They decide whether it is worth mentioning in a meeting or forwarding to a colleague. At some point, they try to summarize what you stand for.

The Network Effect is the audience dimension of Great Work. It asks a different question: What makes someone able to explain your work clearly, and willing to recommend it?

Why Some Ideas Travel Easily

Some ideas are easy to repeat.

“Just do it.”
“Yes we can.”
“Think Different.”

These phrases signal identity and energy. They travel quickly because they require very little explanation.

Frameworks operate differently. A framework reorganizes how someone thinks. It contains distinctions and relationships between ideas. It has internal structure.

Great Work reshapes how someone understands effort, sacrifice, ambition, and meaning. When a framework like that is compressed into a short rallying phrase, the meaning shifts.

Imagine someone saying, “Do Great Work,” and hearing it repeated as, “Just push harder.” The tone changes. The direction changes. What was meant as protection from overwork becomes encouragement toward it.

That shift is predictable. When structure is implicit, people fill in the gaps with assumptions that make sense to them.

Frameworks require deliberate design so that when someone explains them, they carry the deeper meaning forward.

The Simplify and Expand Tension

If your work depends on a framework, this tension often begins with you.

At some point, you notice your ideas are not being repeated accurately. People appreciate them, yet when they describe what you do, something essential is missing.

You hear it in conversation.
“It’s kind of about balance.”
“She helps people with productivity, I think.”

They are close. And still, something structural has slipped away.

So you adjust. You shorten the explanation. You test a tighter version. It sounds sharper. It also feels smaller.

You add the nuance back in. You restore the distinction that protects the meaning. Now it feels long again. You wonder whether anyone will stay with it.

If you simplify, you risk distortion. If you expand, people struggle to summarize what you do.

This cycle is common among experts.

The Expert’s Blindspot explains part of it. When you know something deeply, you forget what it felt like to learn it. Distinctions that once required explanation now feel obvious.

Cognitive Load Theory explains another part. Working memory is limited. When structure remains implicit, explanations overwhelm quickly. When structure becomes explicit, understanding becomes possible.

What feels too simple to you may be exactly what allows someone else to describe your idea accurately.

The issue is design.

The Design Shift: Center and Structure

The question changes from “How do I make this shorter?” to “How do I make this clear?”

In the Network Effect model, that clarity begins with a Center of Gravity. A Center of Gravity is the steady point of view that does not change, even as surrounding ideas expand. It is the central claim that organizes everything else.

In my work, that claim is straightforward: You can do Great Work without sacrificing everything else.

That sentence anchors the framework. It clarifies what Great Work stands for and what it resists. Every other idea connects back to that center.

When the center remains stable, additional ideas reinforce rather than compete. You stop reinventing how to describe your work each time you speak because you know where you are standing.

Core Ideas then make depth usable. They are the structured concepts that consistently lead back to the Center of Gravity.

In my work, those Core Ideas include:

• Do Less

• Take Aligned Action

• Manage Your Mind

• Know Yourself Better

• Engage With Others

Each one expands the philosophy. Each one strengthens the same central claim.

For example, when I speak about Doing Less, I am not talking about efficiency. I am talking about protecting the energy required for Great Work. The Center of Gravity is present inside the Core Idea.

From there, expression can grow. A reflection on overcommitment. A newsletter about urgency. A workshop where participants identify what needs to be released. Each expression reinforces the same structure.

How Understanding Builds

Understanding develops over time.

Someone reads one newsletter. Months later, they reference an idea in conversation. Eventually, they can explain the framework clearly enough that another person understands it.

That is the threshold. Before someone forwards your article, mentions your work in a meeting, or recommends your book, they must be able to describe what you stand for.

Once they can do that, relationships amplify the effect. Strong ties, moderate ties, and weak ties all build on cognitive clarity.

The Network Effect Is Part of Great Work

You are not meant to do Great Work alone.

“Engage With Others” has always been one of the Core Ideas. That includes collaboration with peers. It also includes how your work is understood by people who are not building it with you.

The Network Effect makes this visible. It clarifies how meaningful ideas become something people talk about and recommend.

If your work feels stalled, the question may not be how to reach more people. It may be whether your ideas are structured in a way that someone else can explain them clearly.

Great Work begins with you. It grows in collaboration. It becomes part of other people’s lives when they can explain it with confidence.

The Network Effect Lab

If this perspective resonates, the Network Effect Lab is where we apply it.

Inside the Lab, we work deliberately with your Center of Gravity, your Core Ideas, and the structure that allows your work to be understood and explained.

We do not chase reach. We build recognition.

The Lab is for people already doing meaningful work who want it to be understood clearly and shared naturally.

You can learn more about the Network Effect Lab here.