Here’s an idea!
Earlier this week, while waiting for an update on one of my projects…which was long overdue, I found myself in a bit of a funk. Here I was, executing one of the ideas I had thought up a year before, only to be held back by my manufacturing partner, which is also run by someone working hard to execute an idea that is being held back by something else. Needless to say, I felt lost.
As if he understood my darkening mood, my friend and business partner, Brian, sent a short but great article, published in Inc., touting creativity as a source of personal growth. As soon as I read this article, my mood lightened, and the proverbial lightbulb turned on in my head. I was so deep into execution and the missed deadlines and miscommunication therein, that I had left no time for creativity, which is how I got to the idea I was executing in the first place.
Creativity can be manifest in many ways. Whether it’s through music, art, writing, or simply building things, creativity is like caffeine; it stimulates your brain, body, and nervous system, sometimes keeping you awake at night, though it’s seldom harmful. For me, creativity often comes in the form of free-flowing ideas that pop into my mind one after the other, often when I’m on a walk or simply sitting still, drinking an actual caffeinated beverage. And, it’s this personal form of ideation that gets my blood pumping and my brain whirring.
When it comes to ideas, I am an open book. I subscribe to the star investor Chris Sacca’s school of thought when it comes to ideas: “Ideas are cheap, execution is everything.” In other words, unless you are truly (x10) and actively executing your ideas, there’s little reason not to share them. What’s more, even if you are actively executing your ideas, you should still share them as a way of validating (or invalidating) your assumptions. In fact, I’ve co-authored a couple of books on this very subject (shameless plug).
And that, my friends, is the purpose of this publication. With NewBlck, I plan to publish at least one new idea every day. Some of these ideas will be more fully formed than others. Some may even come with visual artifacts. But all ideas I publish here are meant as fodder for discussion. You are free to take these ideas and execute them yourself or build on them within the context of this publication. If you’re daring, you can even send me your ideas, which after discussing them with you, I may post them here with full attribution.
But why NewBlck? Well, in my mind, ideas are the “new black”, a term coined by fashion designers. Each new idea is very simply the next, new fashionable thing. And there’s always a next, new fashionable thing.
This post and the idea for NewBlck is my idea for the day. What do you think?
