Get off the fence...

When I lived with my parents, our farming neighbour had a barbed wire fence bordering around my dad's property to keep his cows in the field and off our lawn. 

My sister and I used to sit on the fence posts. This is a story about fence sitting...

We all have ideas.

Some of them are bad.

Others are good.

There are a rare few that are really good. Maybe even borderline great.  

I like all ideas for whatever it's worth.

I'm a idea guy.

They get my blood flowing, and my brain working.

I look at an idea with my own interpretation.

My thoughts are not always the same as would be entrepreneurs. 

There are no right answers.

That's the thing with ideas. They come from the right brain, where creativity lives.

Right and wrong belong in the left brain.

I get into trouble when I interpret an idea to be greater than the idea generator.

It's not my idea.

So I won't be doing anything with it.

I'm asked for my thoughts.

And I get excited about the potential,

without having to worry about the consequences.

It's hard for me to not get caught up in a good idea.

But there are few reasons why the best ideas won't get done.

  1. The person is afraid to dive with both feet into the opportunity.

  2. The person doesn't see the real opportunity.

  3. The person will take too much time and will self demotivate.

When I hear a good idea, I push with the following statement.

"Let me know when you decide not to do this. I'm going to do it".

I have no intention of taking the idea.

I am busy enough.

By pushing the idea generator, it creates urgency. 

Recently, the person asking me for my advice, told me to take the idea.

Within one hour, she was ready to abandon her baby.

And gave it to me, free and clear.

Her level of commitment to the idea was worthless.

And she wasted my time.

I can't help someone like that.

The idea was really good.

Here's what she didn't know. 

I would have supported her financially and operationally if she had showed more passion for the idea.

If you don't act on your idea, and if it's a good one, someone else will definitely do it.

So don't waste time.

Get off the fence.

Ideas are not rare.

They are easy to develop.

It's the execution that is the hard part.

But for would be entrepreneurs.

The first step of taking an idea and moving it along is the hardest.

So I push them.

"Get off the fence. Either do it or don't. Just make a choice and be happy with your decision regardless of the consequences."

Stop thinking about it. Just do it. Or don't.

I believe the decision to NOT do something is more important than the decision to DO it because there more things we choose to not do.