During all those career related gossips with friends, when everyone is pouring out their frustrations and letting out that life is so unfair feelings. In all those conversations, there is always that one friend who says. “I had the idea for Facebook, only had I acted on it. I would be a billionaire. That is a pathetic logic and people who say this live in their own delusional world. Having the idea of for a Facebook or an Amazon or an uber has nothing to do with actually creating any of them. As Batman from Gotham says, It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.
It is the same in our professional lives, what you do is what matters, not what you think or say or plan.
You think your idea is that valuable? Then go out talk to people, make them aware of it and try to sell it and see what you get for it. Not much is probably the answer. Until you actually start making something, your brilliant idea is just that, an idea. Ideas are as common as opinions and everyone’s got one of those.
James Cameron gave this advice to aspiring filmmakers:
Pick up a camera, shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy. No matter whether your friends and relatives star in it. Put your name as a director in it and now you are a director. Everything after that you are just negotiating your budget and fee.
When you are new to something, you need to start creating. The most important thing is to begin. So get a camera, hit record and start shooting.
Ideas are cheap and plentiful in number. They are one of those countless thoughts that come to our mind and a thought without being put into action is useless. The original pitch idea is such a small part of a business that it is almost negligible. The real question is how well you execute.
The easiest and most straightforward way to create a great product or service is to make something you want to use. That lets you design what you know and you will figure out immediately whether or not what you are making is any good or not because your usability is at stake.
When you build a product or a service that rhymes as per your need, you make the call on hundreds of tiny decisions each day. If you are solving someone else’s problem you are constantly moving your hands in the dark. When you solve your own problem, the spotlight comes on. You know exactly what the right answer is. Even if you don’t you will make sure you get the right answer.
When you build what you need, you can also assess the quality of what you make quickly and directly. This let me ‘Solve my own problem approach’ makes you fall in love with what you are making. You know the problem and the value of its solution intimately. There is no substitute for that. After all, you will be working on this for years to come. Maybe even the rest of your lives, it better be something you really care about.
To do great work, you need to feel that you are making a difference. That feeling of making the world a better place to live in. That you are a part of something important. Something that is valuable. Something that answers the needs of the people and fulfils what they are lacking in life.
That doesn’t mean you need to find the cure for cancer or AIDS. It is just that your efforts need to feel valuable. It should be a blessing to humanity in some way or the other. Your customers should say this makes my life better. Your product should attract those honest 5-star reviews. You should work as if the day you stop doing what you do, people would notice.
You should feel an urgency about this too. You don’t have forever to live. As a human, you are a mortal being. This is your life work. Do you just want to build another product that just adds on to the list of already useless products or does you want to shake things up and disrupt the market?
Do not sit around and wait for someone else to make the change you wish to see. And don’t think it takes a huge team to make a huge difference. In this digital era, one man army does exist. You with a laptop and wifi connection can make a huge impact.
If you are going to do something, do something that matters. Do something that can create an impact. Destroy old models, change systems bring in something that can make living life a worthy experience.
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