Someone said once, “The best ideas have already been given.” I disagree. I think every day there is someone who is figuring out a new “thingy”. So what does it look like? I don’t know. What should it look like? I would first imagine it looks like the guy or gal’s need, but I could be wrong. What would you like to change? What would you like to evolve?
So what to do? Ask this again and think about why you are asking it. Are you trying to change the world or just a little part of it to suit your needs? I have a small business. Very small, if you really address it. I am OK with that. I meet the needs of about 10,000 plus people. Small right? What does my next idea do, really?
When someone asks about what I can do, I almost have to say – what do you want to have happen? This is the hard part. I have dedicated my life to working in the retail reality. I teach managers not to want to “kill their team”. This means what I say or do is about managing and leading others. Today I had to pay a company a huge amount for using their image without their permission. I did not know what I did not know. I own my mistake. Does this make me a bad person? I do not think so, but after a credit card payment, there you go. My point? Despite having the best intentions, the right beliefs and the best ideas, you can still come up short. Is this where ideas meet reality? Yeah, but I am only talking about using an image without permission.
Every company has hiccups. It has those moments whereby they realize the “oh yeah.” If you are an organization with a 5 people or 5000 people, you figure out very quickly, what they do, are and can possibly do. It is at that very exact moment, you realize how strong you are. What is it they say, “You are only as strong as your weakest link.” Skippy can really suck my will to live. But what does his “suck-y-ness” have to do with my idea or have I let Skippy down and not given him what he needs to get the idea done?
Dude, slow down, what in the heck are you talking about? OK. I have an idea about driving the business. It is about my blog posts and compiling what I have said over the past seven months. My domain had pictures – and now it does not. Does that change my idea? Yep. But how does it? This is the part of the reality I want to challenge the business or leader reading this page. Hiccup, now what? But it is just picture, right? Yes, but it makes me rethink my idea. Great ideas have to go through some type of refinement. Proverbs 17:3 says “Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the LORD tests the heart (NLT).” I think we all have great ideas and then we have to place them in a context that is tested in many and huge ways. Does what we think about at 5:45 a.m. still matter at 2:00 p.m. the next day? It depends. What is your idea?
As I write this, I consider the reader at this very moment and ask “OK, what is the thing I wish to happen?” Is it some type of “Oh my goodness moment”? “No, Kurt said this and I realized this; right?” Ideas come at you every day from every possible angle – some obvious and others not so much. Which ones do you keep and which ones do you say “no”. The real end result today and with your review is, what do I do when the idea is on my mind and I am…
Unsure
Undecided
Unorganized
Understaffed
Un-whatever the moment is or might be…
I started my business 5 years ago and had one client ask a question. This was the foundation of the business. It was formed around a reality and an idea about others. And then it took more shape when the idea began to look like “this or that” on Monday, Tuesday and the next Thursday four years and a couple of months later. So what do you learn from this?
The idea creates the opportunity. Will you look at it the next day and the next day LATER?
The “aha” may not what you need, it may be what is the easiest thing to do next.
Change involves movement from one point to another.
I hope the idea works out. But hope is not is strategy.
Pain is temporary, bones heal, chicks dig scars and glory is forever (that is what I heard).
So what do you do tomorrow? Make the idea simple. Make the idea an easy concept to follow. Make the idea an “aha” that allows anyone else involved go “aha”. Make the idea something that helps someone else, even if it costs you $600.00. It is not the cost, it is not what you did to make it happen. It is the right thing to do, period. Good idea, right?