Thomas Edison quipped that, “Genius was one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” Given that he was a pretty smart fella, I think I’ll agree with him. Most people I talk to concur implementation is a far bigger challenge than coming up with ideas themselves, even though ideas seem to get all the glory.
And what about this? Seems there are plenty of folks who can spew an idea a second, particularly when they are telling you what ‘you’ should do. They’ll throw an idea out and then sit back like they’ve done the heavy lifting, when in reality, discussing an idea is the easy part. Implementation is where superstars are born! The people and companies that see their ideas through to reality are the ones I watch.
If you plan on being brilliant at what you do and becoming known for great ideas, then you might as well get used to the fact that ideas only become great when implemented.
Sure, you’ll have detractors and you’ll have unplanned obstacles. You might even feel like giving up – but don’t. More often than not, the road to implementing genius isn’t easy and sometimes it ain’t pretty, but things worth doing seldom are.
So what’s the key to implementation? Relentless drive. Tenacity. Focus. Above all…action. Be obsessive about action. Keep moving, keep pursing and keep working towards the end goal no matter what. Enemies to implementation are at every turn. Procrastination. Competing priorities. Overwhelming stress. You name it and it will no doubt be part of your journey to making an idea a great one.
I don’t mean to diminish the importance of vision and great ideas. Not in the least. I’m just saying… I think more ideas are left undone because of lack of good ‘ole fashioned hard work and action, rather than lack of creative genius.
No doubt we’ve all experienced the proverbial spinning of wheels and wasted actions without a defined outcome in mind, so vision and clear-cut expectations are essential. Ideas with no action? Not good. Lots of action with no clear cut idea of the outcome? Not good.
Get a great idea and be obsessive with action? I think that’s when the brilliance happens. Perhaps best said like this: Ideas + Action = Genius.
Now go make Thomas Edison proud and sweat your way to genius!
