The Big One

Have you heard the expression “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear”?  There is some truth in this, but possibly not through the serendipity that you might expect.  I believe that everything is connected and I am almost certain that everything happens for a reason.  This is the reason that most things in life have a starting point and nowhere is this more evident than finding and expanding on a good idea.

When I sold my last company, I proclaimed to my family that after the excitement and experiences of building and running the business and having endured the pressure of selling the company, I deserved and probably needed a well earned rest.  My plan was to take the summer out and spend 3 months of dedicated family time and enjoy myself.  I did that!  The difficulty with being blessed with an entrepreneurial streak is a nagging curiosity that never seems to subside.  It’s like both a devil and an angel on your shoulder that keeps throwing things at you…mainly business ideas!  The moment you tell people that you have time on your hands and you fancy a lunch or a coffee; it can open the floodgates.  I have been hit from all sides and mainly by my own curiosity.

The great thing about quality spare time is that you can let your mind wander into things you’d never normally think about and you will amaze yourself and I am of course referring to a business context!  I really should open a brain brewery and bottle parts of my thinking; it’s seriously potent stuff!   I have been thinking and mulling over ideas ranging from creating perpetual motion (thermo-dynamists take note!), inventing a new cement, launching an eco-magazine, sauces, stocks and gravies, training convicts to teach crime prevention, reinventing the British Library System, getting homeless people off the streets and loads more besides!!

Now I love a good idea as much as the next person, but I believe that the ideas that really count are the ones that inspire you and arouse a passion to do something about it.  Inspired ideas and opportunities have the X factor; you can’t quite explain why, but it is just something that makes you want to take them forward.  It is somewhere between    a dream and a vision and very often they occur through a degree of personal experience.

The thing is though, that an idea is only just an idea until you decide to take action and it is this point that I think is the key to “doing it” or “not doing it”.  If your idea doesn’t inspire you or motivate you to get passionate enough to take action, then you haven’t found the big one or the right one yet.

I know that once another “Big Idea” smacks me between the eyes, everything will automatically fall into place.  Until then I’ll keep thinking, feeling and oiling the wheels of thought.