Chasing Your Big Idea Won’t Lead to SuccessFor much of my life, Ive chased after the big idea, or in other words, the one idea that would save me from insignificance and anonymity. If youre reading this, youve probably felt the urge to find your big idea too. But, Im starting to think this is a lie. What if there is no big idea? What if were wasting our time going in search of an illusion? It wasnt until recently that I found out I was. Truth is, a big idea isnt as big as we imagine it to be. If you think about the iPhone, you would think its a big idea. The iPhone has completely revolutionized the phone market. But if you analyze it closely, zoom in on what innovation actually happened, you would see that Apple didnt create the phone. In fact, when people heard that Apple was entering into the phone market, many of them shrugged their shoulders. They didnt care. The phone already existed, but theyre big idea was simply improving on what already existed. So often we imagine success to come once we innovate, come out with something completely new. But our big ideas arent always new things. Our big ideas are sometimes improving on simple ones. But if you ask others what success looks like, they would most likely tell you that success follows coming out with something new. You cant blame them. Weve been primed through our history classes that success looks like Thomas Edison discovering the lightbulb and Henry Ford making the automobile. Not only that, but we have a certain lens that can only see the finished product, not the hard work it took to arrive upon that idea. If we could see the hard work, we would find that successful people most often didnt come up with something entirely new. Instead, they rummaged through a number of simple ideas until it formed the path to their big idea. This is how big ideas are. Our big ideas are built off of a culmination of many simple ideas. For instance, the success of Guy Lalibertés Cirque de Soleil began from a simple performing troupe of clowns. Laliberté didnt all of a sudden wake up with this idea of having the largest theatrical production in the world. His big idea was built off the simple idea he was currently executing. Our big ideas are comprised of the many simple actions we choose today. If youre in a start-up company that appears like a simple idea, dont worry that it didnt start out as being big. Instead, dream higher. See what simple things you can improve on today. And after a while, youll stumble across your innovation. Neglecting the simple ideas wont form your innovation. Your innovation will come from improving simple ideas. That might not be how we envision success, but to see success coming from an utterly new idea would cripple us from not doing anything significant at all. Deny the illusion of having a big idea. Search for it through the simple ideas around you, and youll find the treasure youre looking for.This post was originally featured on nealsamudre.By Neal Samudre For much of my life, Ive chased after the big idea, or in other words, the one idea that would save me from insignificance and anonymity. If youre reading this, youve probably felt the urge to find your big idea too. But, Im starting to think this is a lie. What if there is no big idea? What if were wasting our time going in search of an illusion? It wasnt until recently that I found out I was. Truth is, a big idea isnt as big as we imagine it to be. If you think about the iPhone, you would think its a big idea. The iPhone has completely revolutionized the phone market. But if you analyze it closely, zoom in on what innovation actually happened, you would see that Apple didnt create the phone. In fact, when people heard that Apple was entering into the phone market, many of them shrugged their shoulders. They didnt care. The phone already existed, but theyre big idea was simply improving on what already existed. So often we imagine success to come once we innovate, come out with something completely new. But our big ideas arent always new things. Our big ideas are sometimes improving on simple ones. But if you ask others what success looks like, they would most likely tell you that success follows coming out with something new. You cant blame them. Weve been primed through our history classes that success looks like Thomas Edison discovering the lightbulb and Henry Ford making the automobile. Not only that, but we have a certain lens that can only see the finished product, not the hard work it took to arrive upon that idea. If we could see the hard work, we would find that successful people most often didnt come up with something entirely new. Instead, they rummaged through a number of simple ideas until it formed the path to their big idea. This is how big ideas are. Our big ideas are built off of a culmination of many simple ideas. For instance, the success of Guy Lalibertés Cirque de Soleil began from a simple performing troupe of clowns. Laliberté didnt all of a sudden wake up with this idea of having the largest theatrical production in the world. His big idea was built off the simple idea he was currently executing. Our big ideas are comprised of the many simple actions we choose today. If youre in a start-up company that appears like a simple idea, dont worry that it didnt start out as being big. Instead, dream higher. See what simple things you can improve on today. And after a while, youll stumble across your innovation. Neglecting the simple ideas wont form your innovation. Your innovation will come from improving simple ideas. That might not be how we envision success, but to see success coming from an utterly new idea would cripple us from not doing anything significant at all. Deny the illusion of having a big idea. Search for it through the simple ideas around you, and youll find the treasure youre looking for.This post was originally featured on nealsamudre. Source: huffingtonpost ift.tt/1gB4pon
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:00:03 +0000