SARATOGA SPRINGS, Utah -- Turning a common phrase around, Don Timothy Parker told a group of young single adults they should "not just do something," but instead "stand there."

Parker said it's often in the moments spent standing still or contemplating a situation that the solution to a problem is evidenced.

"Standing there allows you time to think, to watch and observe," Parker said at a young single adults conference on May 16.



Parker, who serves as the mayor of Saratoga Springs and is involved in creative product design, said there's a tremendous need in today's world for creativity and adaptability, a need sometimes unmet because people are too busy "doing."

He urged the young men and women listening to him to risk and "fail often."

"You can't succeed unless you fail," Parker said. "It's always the 10th idea that is the best idea."

Parker cited the case of a teenage boy trying to learn to skateboard well. He has to attempt new moves and work on new skills over and over.

"The secret is to recognize that the task is failing, you're not the failure."

In today's world, those who try to follow their creative instincts are counterbalanced by instincts that say be careful.

It's also risky to put out new ideas because others will automatically criticize those ideas and find reasons against their success.

Parker suggested following the models set forth in a book written in the 1970s by Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall titled "the Universal Traveler."

In the text, Koberg and Bagnall suggest following a traveler's map to get from San Francisco to Boston. Accepting the situation or defining the problem is the first step, followed by analyzing the needs, coming up with ideas for solving the problem, selecting a workable solution and implementing that solution.

"Until you define the problem, you can't find the solution," Parker said, relating a situation where Sara Little, a 70-year-old colleague at Corning Glass, recognized the need to make the cookware fit the shape of the frozen bricks of food homemakers used in their daily meals.

"Sara Little stood there," said Parker.

He then cited another situation where a professor at Brigham Young University didn't know how to create a film in support of the university's Honor Code until Parker helped him see what he really wanted was to get male students to cut their hair.

"In our culture, we're taught there's one answer," said Parker. "There's more than one."

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