Some days, for lunch, I head out to the local park and crack open one of the magazines I get, typically Business 2.0 or Wired. The relative value of these rags as important publications aside, they frequently have a lot of articles that appeal to the entrepreneur in me.
I frequently envision things in my head that someone else I don't know turns into reality. Salesforce.com and Digg.com are a couple of examples that come to mind. I'm not suggesting I'm a smarty-pants or oracle, because someone would've thought of them anyway, just that my head has generally been very forward thinking since I got into this Web racket.
But the problem is that I daydream about this kind of stuff, and often have problems translating it into something real and tangible. I start to ask myself what the barriers are, and I think I can generally categorize them into two areas.
The first issue is fear. Certain kinds of risk bother me, especially the financial kind. Having survived lay-offs, time off to write a book, coaching "full time," it occurred to me today that there's nothing to fear anymore. I should be able to chalk that up to the been-there-done-that board.
The other issue is failure to execute. That kind of fits under fear, but it's big enough that it deserves its own mention. This is another one that really is unwarranted, because I have a rich and beautiful history of falling on my ass hard in grand fashion. For each failure, I've learned something and tried again.
A very wise girlfriend pointed out to me this morning that I really have my shit together, and there is a lot of opportunity in front of me, if I choose to go after it. She said my "ducks are in a row" (I still don't understand that phrase), and things could really take off, again, if I choose to make it happen.
I gotta figure out what my next big idea is...
You never figure out what your 'Next Big Idea' is. If you spend time trying to figure it out, all the other ideas you had end up realized by someone else who makes millions off of them.
Instead of trying to figure out that 'next big idea', why not go with one or 2 ideas and stick with them. They'll either pan out or they won't, and if they don't, you've gained just as much in experience as you would have in money if they didn't fail.