Wanted. Big Ideas.

This story is NOT about football; it merely serves as the vehicle for an important lesson to pass on to you.

?Bare with…

?Two young footballers had been headhunted for a famous winning team. They both showed incredible promise.

?They both trained like the professionals that they dreamt of becoming. They looked after themselves. They had good manners.

?They watched what they ate. They did extra training. They did not go to the parties that other youngsters were. They went to bed early each night.

?They got up early each morning. Eager to impress each day.

?They both loved the opportunity they were given.

?They were both strikers. They both lived to score goals.

?Everybody wanted both to win.

?Then one day, the big famous football club had to decide who was going to go up to the senior side.

?Who would make the cut? And who would be let go?

?It was always a tense time, but the two had always made the next step up throughout their short but impressive career.

?But this day was different.

?One of the players got picked. One didn’t.

?Even though both were equally as talented, equally as fast, and equally as hungry, but there was a difference.

?What was it?

?The one had learned instinctively something that the other one did not.

?It was not who wanted success more than the other. Nothing about physical attributes.

?It was knowledge.

?The one player had learnt the truth about the game.

?He learned where he needed to be.

80%-90% of all goals are scored in the penalty area.

?(In American football, they call it the red zone.)

?Bare with…

?The striker that scores the most goals spends the most time in the red zone.

?When I say it, it sounds obvious.

?But most strikers do not spend most of their time where the most goals are scored.

?And, so, they do NOT score as many goals.

?The one young striker scored more goals, simple. So he made it to the senior team.

?He made a habit of being in the right place at the right time.

?And the one scored fewer goals, and he had to find another club. Further down the league. Much further down.

?So how does that relate to BIG IDEAS?

?Bare with…

?Because it does.

?Right now, the economy is uncertain. Business is uncertain. The future is uncertain.

?Those we can NOT control.

?What is certain is your need for a BIG IDEA is NOW more important than ever.

?But, here is the kicker...

This is important.        

You are spending the most time in the place where there are the least amount of ideas.

?You are not in the penalty box.

?You are in a tick box place called BUSY.

?A place where average ideas get born, and great ideas go to die.

?

A Workshop Unlike Any Other.

?You see, our workshop next Friday looks at BIG IDEAS in a different way.

?

1.???TURN YOUR RADAR ON.

?You have almost definitely walked past a Big Idea but were too busy to take heed of a DEFINING MOMENT in your life.

?YOUR RADAR WAS NOT ON.

?There is not a big red arrow blinking on and off when you walk past it.

?Wait, LOOK DAVE… life-defining moment.

?(I wish.)

?2.????PRIME YOUR RADAR.

?The best way is to try and FIX your own problem.

?Some examples from previous speakers at the Do:

?

1.????????Chris used to get lost when delivering sound equipment to bands because postcodes were rubbish. So his BIG IDEA was what3words. Every 3m square is given a unique 3 words.

2.????????Ben had given up drinking. But wanted something grown up to drink. So his BIG IDEA was to invent the world’s first non-alcoholic spirit. Diageo bought it 5 years after he started it.

3.????????Michael had a frantic and frenetic entrepreneurial life but needed some CALM. His BIG IDEA was to build an app that would do just that. It has millions of users worldwide.

?

?3.????IDEAS ARE ENERGY.

?And you need to think about ideas in terms of energy.

?BIG IDEAS have high energy. Small ideas have low energy.

?We must be aware of the energy.

?4.???BRAIN TRAINING.

?The brain wants you to win. If it gives you great ideas, and you do not act, you have taught it that ideas are not important to you.

?That is a NO NO.

?You have to teach the brain that YOU Will ACT ON HIGH ENERGY IDEAS.

?An example.

I had an idea while researching this course. (Because I was spending more time where ideas hang out.)

?By the time I run the workshop, I will have trademarked it, got all the website URL’s, briefed the amazing graphic designer on the packaging, and got the press release ready.

?To do that, I will spend ￡10K.

?But my brain now wants to give me more BIG IDEAS because I ACT on them.

?Odd, I know, but there is a science to all this when we will go through it.

?5.????THE PRACTICE OF QUIET TIME.

?This is what we are up against, BUSY.

?Busy is a trap that we all fall into. And most never leave.

?But ideas need you to let all that information settle.

?It needs to get away from the firehose of new information.

?This is the truth:

?DOING NOTHING IS THE HARDEST THING FOR FOUNDERS TO DO.

?This is also a truth:

?DOING NOTHING IS THE BEST PLACE FOR BIG IDEAS.

?Recently, I started a practice of days put aside for nothing.

?When I gave my head a day of nothing, it got clear.

?And suddenly, I was coming up with connections that I couldn’t see before.

?I was starting to have BIGGER IDEAS by doing LESS.

?Hmmm.

?When I was at a previous workshop, A lady came up to me and said I wanted to say Thank You.

?She told me she had raised 1 million for her Big Idea. And she had learned it in our workshop.

?At this year’s Do Lectures, a man came up to me and said he wanted to say Thank You. He had sold his company and would not have to work again if he didn’t want to. (He will because that is how we are wired.)

?On Friday, 75 people will attend the workshop.

?The quest is to provide information that is so insightful, that it will change their business, and ultimately will give them the outcome they came for.

So that one day in the future 75 people will want to say a Thank You to us.

#founders

#brandstrategy

#marketing

#culture

#cosmicantlers100

Workshop: The secret of how to have big ideas. London. Sept 23rd

Can’t wait.