How you might destroy $1,000,000 dollars or more today.
Have you ever had a million dollar idea? I’m sure you have, you know something that you are capable of doing that would result in piles and piles of cash. For some reason you stop at the idea, you don’t do the work required and you don’t cash in.
I seem to let this happen to me all the time. I come up with this killer idea that will make me a huuuuge fortune. I will envision the world with this great new idea running smoothly. Then as I’m developing (thinking about and planning that is) this product/system/idea the worst thing in the world happens, I get a better idea.
Of course the new one that I come up with will follow parts of the old design; however, the two ideas will be completely incompatible with one another. So I start thinking about the newer million dollar idea that is more complicated.
So I’ll begin to envision the world with this great new idea and so on. This cycle may continue on for hours or sometimes even days. Then with these great ideas, they have all become blurred and clouded leaving me with a huge overly complicated confusing mess.
Each time I go through that I don’t really come out any better off. Sure I have some new ideas, but at the expense of losing other equally as valuable million dollar ideas it may not be so great.
This is why it’s good to write down thoughts and ideas. If I had a filing cabinet labeled “Million Dollar Ideas,” on a slow day I would be able to just open it up, look at some folder from ten months ago and *BAM* there is a project that I had completely forgotten about.
It doesn’t even have to be that organized. You could keep a journal, and then could simply jot down some notes to refer to later.
If you want, you could set up a private blog and do it all online. I have mixed feelings about this because it is structured in a way that it’s harder to track the “on the fly” thoughts that require pictures, tables, and diagrams. (But that might be just me so don’t let it stop you) The plus side is that it would be searchable and nicely organized.
Whatever you decide to do, just don’t let that million dollar idea get away. It’s fine if you let it evolve. Just don’t let it dissolve.
I try to keep a notebook by my bed, that way I can lay down some ideas before I go to sleep.
April 11th, 2006 | #
At least I’m not the only one that this happens too (it happens to all of us I guess). It is frustrating to realize when I’ve done this. That’s indeed a good idea too. Keeping track of the randomness that are my ideas should help.
April 12th, 2006 | #
[…] While that fear may or may not have been legit, it has eroded the belief that I was working on a ‘million dollar idea.’ Who knows if any of them would have turned out a million dollars or not, but the point is that I assumed they would lose profitability and be crushed as other people leap-frogged off my revenue model. […]
May 16th, 2006 | #
[…] Apparently I need to pay more attention to my own articles. Last night before going to bed I had three good ideas. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about each one and how I would go about it. They were great ideas, and there was no way I would forget them. In the morning I would get to work on them. […]
May 21st, 2006 | #
Very good ideas, I have been doing this, but I have found it difficult to move past a certain point at which every idea is discarded. I enjoyed your article!
July 16th, 2006 | #
[…] my idea a little while ago. The only problem was that it wasn’t mine. Over a year ago I had a million dollar idea that would take some setup time, and be only a matter of promotion from […]
February 26th, 2008 | #
[…] my idea a little while ago. The only problem was that it wasn’t mine. Over a year ago I had a million dollar idea that would take some setup time, and be only a matter of promotion from […]
March 13th, 2008 | #