Great Ideas are not Great

I hear often of great ideas, indeed owning a business one never seems to be short of people wanting to share great ideas on what they should be doing. Well..... there are no great ideas only passionate action.

Listening to Simon Mundell present another of his fantastic seminars last night reminded me again that knowing great stuff doesn't matter a shit unless you are inspired to do something about it. I know that over 80% of the business leaders that were inspired to do something last night will have done nothing that they wrote that they would do. But what makes the others carry out their actions?

It comes back to the two biggest motivators in someone taking action which is Pleasure and Pain. The outcome either looks so incredibly attractive that they are inspired to follow through at all cost ...... or ....... the pain of the consequences of not doing it drives them so hard that they keep at it until it is done. In Karate we have a saying for this which is Osu No Seichin which literally means to push yourself and continue to perservere and do not falter until the job is done.

The missing ingredient for most failures to carry out a great idea is the lack of real accountability if the job does not get done. Next time you have a great idea share with someone you trust what you intended actions are, not the idea and ask them to hold you accountable for doing it. And ask them not to take your word for it ask them to get you to show evidence.

Within the next two weeks I am going to surprise some of those who attended and ask to see the actions they committed to and then the evidence that they have done it. I will let you know the results in due course but I am sure that you could guess the outcome. However what difference would it make if they new I was coming............?