Idea vs. Execution: Why Your Billion-Dollar Idea Isn’t Good Enough

The next big idea…could be yours.

It’s an amazing thing to think about, isn’t it? With all the incredible, especially digital opportunities that exist today, the world seems to produce one big idea after another.

First, there are the obvious ones, social media and other communication platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Youtube, WhatsApp, Vine... you get the idea.

The rest of the SaaS explosion in itself is a multi-billion dollar industry producing payment gateways like Stripe, productivity apps like Evernote, communication tools like Slack, robo investors such as Betterment, and so on.

And let’s not forget the e-commerce industry and the giant elephant in the room... Amazon.

The entrepreneurial opportunities are apparent and the timing is perfect, so much so that luck would seem almost an understatement. Perfect time for a great idea, right? Especially if you think you just might have the next big one...

But I have some bad news for you. Ready for it? I’m sorry to say that your idea is worth exactly... squat. But don’t get down on yourself just yet, let’s talk about why and what you should do about it.

All your ideas may be solid or even good .. But you have to actually EXECUTE on them for them to matter.

– Gary Vaynerchuk

It doesn’t matter if your idea is on par with the potential to become the next Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat, or even if it’s positioned ideally with some new form of technology (like VR). If you want that potentially great idea to go anywhere, you’ll need something else in abundance.

Effort.

You need to work your butt off harder than you’ve ever worked in your life. And you need to do it consistently until your idea takes off.

You need to have a burning passion for this idea, what it stands for, and everything else it’s about. So much so that you’d be willing to do almost anything to make it happen (within reason and moral boundaries).

When I was twenty-one, I joined the team of an insurance company that sold a big dream of racking up passive income through the percentages agents get off of premium payments for their clients. However, despite the fact that we saw proof of this in a few top producers, the reality was that very few of the other producers were ever making more than a basic living.

Back then, I didn’t know what hard work was. We all think we work hard because our ego convinces us we do. The problem is, to admit we don’t would be to admit a lack of worth, like we can’t pull our own weight. And we just can’t have that.

However, back then, after seeing how much harder the top producers were working than I was – something clicked. I realized what it meant to truly work hard, to give your all to something so intensely that you eat, sleep, and breath it.

This is the kind of effort required to make that big idea successful.

The good news is, the opportunity to do so is freely available to you. Assuming you’re lucky enough to live and be able to work in a setting which affords you the ability to pursue what you desire with relative safety, you’re completely free to pursue this passion project, this great idea, to your heart’s content. You’re free to work for it with every ounce of your being and grow it as high and as far as it will go.

How do you know if you’re working hard enough?

We often don’t know what our maximum is until we meet someone that is working harder than us. That’s a problem when the difference between success and failure is how hard you worked, the effort you put in, but it’s something that is easily remedied.

Start a tracking system that allows you to gauge your efforts. Record your results weekly in a variety of actions associated with your major goals (if you’re trying to write a book, how many words you wrote is an example, actions you took to start marketing the book is another).

Each week, grade yourself based on how close you came to hitting your weekly goals and look that sheet over. See where you can improve and jot down any relevant notes about how you’re going to do things differently next week to improve.

After several months of following this system, you’ll find yourself multiple times more productive than you were when you first started.

Remember, no one is going to hold your hand through this. Everyone has a great, big idea (some of us have a few) and if you don’t pursue it now someone else will later. You have to stand up and decide to take that first step.

The truth is, if you’re reading this, you’re one of the lucky ones. You have a working brain, eyes to read my words, and sense enough to know the value and importance of self-improvement and consistent growth. You have the opportunity to prioritize action and execution, to pursue that dream with everything you’ve got. That opportunity in itself is more valuable than all the money in the world.

You just have to take that first step.