The Myth of the Great Idea

October 10, 2005 by Dane | 1 Comment
In Entrepreneurial Lifestyle, Ideas

Ramit Sethi has begun, what will undoubtedly be an excellent series of posts on what he call “personal entrepreneurship” and I refer to as “the entrepreneurial lifestyle.” You may not be actively starting, improving and flipping companies, but you can think and function like one:

The myth of The Great Idea is a dangerous one. It makes you constantly search and search for something that you’ll probably never find. My friends, for example, are still searching, and it’s two years later. How many of you know an older person (maybe a parent?) who is always tinkering and muttering about the Great Idea he wants to find?

Success almost never comes from a mind-blowing idea, so sitting around trying to find one is a waste of time. Success comes from a basic idea executed amazingly well. Ideas are rarely found by thinking. They’re found by doing. I didn’t come up with the idea of IWillTeachYouToBeRich one night, staring out at the beach through a rain-drenched window. I thought of it after getting a $2,000 scholarship check, investing it in the stock market, and losing half of it immediately. (And really, is the idea of a personal-finance site really that compelling of an idea?) I’ll answer my own question: No!

It’s all in the execution.

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