Occasionally, I meet enthusiastic individuals planning to to make it big online, grasping for the elusive million dollar idea that will purportedly supply a lifetime of wealth.
It’s a trap
I can speak first hand. An alluring prospect, the chase for such ideas resulted in hunkering down and thinking really hard in some vein attempt to reach a focused state of idea enlightenment. The aftermath of this exercise has consistently been the same: a great deal of wheel-spinning and no ideas to show for it, or ideas that eventually wasted my time because nobody cared about them, including me.
The issue is an ordering problem. The assumption is that beginning with a killer idea will lead to passion. After all, if the idea will make you a millionaire, you would become passionate about it, right?
Don’t become passionate
Let me suggest an alternate approach. Begin with what you care about. Admittedly figuring this out can be as daunting an exercise as grasping for ideas, but it’s substantially more worthwhile. Obviously, you care about your friends and family, but that’s not what I’m talking about. What problems are you genuinely interested in seeing solved? Don’t get bogged down in the perceived enormity of them. How would the world/country/state/city/neighborhood/individuals improve if that problem was solved? What is your vision and the impact if you’re successful? Always start with what you care about, and maybe it will transform into your full-time occupation. As they say, do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.
Community building and entrepreneurship
People are much more likely to rally behind a vision than an idea. And YOU are much more likely to rally behind your own vision over the long haul, versus any million dollar idea. This is where community building meets entrepreneurship.
In my experience with Door64, finding and honing my vision and passion took the most time and effort. However, with that foundation laid, ideas now flow like water. With vision and passion, my brain spins 24/7 devising potential steps and paths to achieve them. Now the problem is filtering and prioritizing the ideas, not finding them. Each of ideas may not be worth a million dollars, but they are a means to an end — an end worth reaching.