When someone has an idea, it comes in waves. At first glance, it seems like a problem, a round peg in a square hole. Following that, you are in some sort of limbo. It's not all negative but some positive is starting to show. Then and only then (for me at least) it's explosive, the idea comes to fruition and my brain is held hostage. The ink in my pen is running faster than Usain Bolt when he sees a gold medal. You see yourself shaking Mark Cuban's hand after making the biggest shark tank deal in history.
Ingress!
So now that you have solidified this deal and most importantly you have a vision, how do you get started? UH-OH, there it is your old friend anxiety. Walking in the door like he runs the place, you start to sweat a little bit and it becomes a bit nerve-racking. Your old pal invites his friend self-doubt and now that the whole gang is here so you push off the project idea and do nothing instead.
Step one, Directional chaos!
Think about the instant that the idea went from a problem to a solution! Do you remember the head rush that you felt? Harken back to that moment and Harness that for the hard work that lies ahead.
Now that you have that energy back on your side make one google search related to the project. That's it, seems a bit anti-climatic but that's all it takes. Notice how I said nothing about anxiety and self-doubt magically floating away? They're gonna be there! They're gonna be there now there gonna be there tomorrow and even when you make it to where ever you want to go they will be there. The more I have lived life the more I come to understand that it's not about when you fold your hand to life, but when you pick up the had in spite of it! So if you have passion for the project and you make that first google search the odds you make the second one is pretty good. And you will never guess about the third!
An Object in motion
Now Physics got me into this mess to begin with but that's another story for another day, Let me know in the comments section of this blog if you want to hear that story!
After that google search, what happened to your problem? You had moved closer to the middle. Going from "How do you eat an elephant?" to "an object in motion stays in motion!" your momentum has picked up! I can almost promise you that you haven't noticed. It's kind of like boiling a frog. if you do it degree by degree really slowly it's going to feel nothing is changing. Your childhood bedroom won't change because you need that poster of Mario looking into your soul to keep you on the right track. So now with momentum and a more digestible problem you can now move on to step two!
Déjà vu!
Congratulations, you have made it after one day of work! Your Ferrari will be parked out front and you will meet Mr. Cuban at the American Airlines Center. Only if it was that simple!
Step two
Wait a minute? have I been here before, I was congratulated for my shark tank deal? Does it smell like burnt toast? O NO smelling burnt toast is a symptom of a stroke not memory loss it must be getting really bad. Alrighty then if you have made it this far I commend you, you must be terribly lost so here we go step two.
Step two is just 2 parts a question, and an action step! The question is are you still passionate about what you are doing? If and only if the answer is without a shadow of a doubt an emphatic no. keep doing what you're doing. Passion for a great idea got you into this mess and it will get you out it. Dig deep and get it done! Then what's the second part? Surprise surprise, Make one google search pertaining to your project.
Recursion
After step two we enter a recursive function with the only exit condition being that we reach a point in the ideas life where we can use it. This is known as a minimum viable product(MVP for short). Well done, you have done it you have an MVP that you can talk about in meeting and it's going great until someone asks you "Hey where can I find this? What's the website called?".
Egress!
Ah, the second part, we all knew this was coming, the second wave just like an earthquake. The nerves are back and so is the self-doubt. But here is the difference. We know what to do. Sure not the specifics but know how to do things we don't know. We are skipping step one because we know what to do there and with step two we will change the recursive loop just a bit.
Whats the new step two?
The question still remains of "do you still want it" we still need anything but a no to keep going. So then what changes with the loop? The exit condition, we have the MVP we just need a new condition, in this case, to be hosted. Once we have a goal in mind we can now move to the 1 question that we have to google. Surprising no one we will do this over and over again till we hit our exit condition.
Closing
This process might seem dumb and arbitrary, but it works. I think a lot of people think that you have to work smarter than the pack. from my experience, a lot of people fall into this trap and get burnt out. This reminds me of the old fable the Tortoise and the Hare. The Hare got sidetracked. The Tortoise had a reasonable plan that he knew he could stick to and what happed, he won. Stick to a simple plan and win your race, you got this!
-Thanks, Mike
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