Ideeën voor miljoenen dollars zijn waardeloos zonder deze ...

Er zullen altijd meer goede ideeën zijn dan dat er capaciteit is om uit te voeren.

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Dat klopt ... iedereen heeft zijn hand omhoog.

Niet alleen ik. Niet alleen jij. Iedereen .

We all have at least one million dollar idea lurking inside of us. Hell, most of you are probably sitting on a mole-hill’s worth of million dollar ideas.

So here comes the next question and, fair warning, it’s not a fun one:

Why aren’t you a millionaire?

Note: If you are in fact a millionaire, you can go ahead and see yourself to the door. There is nothing for you here save a bunch of people still holding their hands in the air.

Alright everybody, put your hands down and let’s get real for a second:

It’s not a lack of ideas keeping you from achieving great success in life. A lack of ideas aren’t even keeping you from achieving average success.

No, the thing keeping you from achieving all those crazy fantastic ideas percolating in your skull can be summarized by one sentence: You aren’t executing.

Gary Vaynerchuk has a plethora of great quotes, but this one stands out to me as especially apt:

“Ideas are shit. Execution is the game."

And you know what? It’s true.

The only thing keeping you from achieving your dreams is your inability to execute.

It’s not a lack of resources. (People have achieved more with less.)

It’s not a lack of luck. (Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.)

It’s not a lack of knowing the right people. (You’re only 3 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, after all.)

Too often we say:

If only I had more time. If only I had more money. If only I had…

Here’s the thing, and you can either take this as good news or bad (as with most things in life, it’s entirely dependent on your attitude, belief, perspective):

If we had more time, we would only waste it.

If we had more money, we would only waste it.

If we only had…we would waste it.

How do I know?

Because we already have enough.

The fact that you’re reading this article tells me a few key things about you, my friend.

First, you have access to the internet.

Which means:

Second, you have more than enough to achieve anything you set your mind to.

Between Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, there is nothing you cannot learn, no person you cannot connect with, no thing you cannot achieve.

So why are so few people out there actually crushing it? Why haven’t you cashed in on that million dollar idea?

Begin Director’s Note:

For the sake of this conversation, we use the framework of a million dollar idea, but truthfully, that’s just a vague concept that holds little meaning and even less value to most of us.

What we’re really talking about here today pertains to all facets of life.

Do you want to lose weight? Meet new people? Learn a new skill? Go on an African safari and ride a zebra?

Doesn’t matter your goal, too many of us are failing to execute on the most basic of ambitions. Look no further than the graveyard of New Years Resolutions we’ve already sauntered through to get to this point in the year.

End Director’s Note

99% of us suck at executing

Dreaming big is easy. Anybody can do it.

It requires minimal effort and can be achieved from the comfort of your own couch.

Even more remarkable, we can tell other people about our big dreams and, as an interesting quirk of neurochemistry, receive the gift of a dopamine slip-n-slide for our efforts.

That last part bears closer examination for in it we discover why Uncle Ben has no shame about sharing his huge, outlandish ideas with anybody and everybody within earshot.

Here’s the science:

When you tell somebody you are going to do something (let’s say, hike to the top of Everest), your brain treats you with feel good chemicals fired from the part of your soggy thinking noodle responsible for rewarding achievement and success.

But that’s backwards if you’re telling people your plan to spring up Everest despite the fact that your lumpy butt hasn’t left the couch in a week. I might as well start telling the world I’m going to jump to the moon.

Regardless, we’ve already received the reward for saying we’re going to do a thing. Which is why it feels good to set New Years Resolutions.

You get points on the scoreboard without having actually picked up a ball.

We all know these people. We all know these people because, unfortunately, we are these people. We all do it to one degree or another.

Problem is, sure, you received that quick boost of dopamine and now you feel pretty, oh, so pretty, but that high doesn’t last long.

It drops you quick and without mercy.

And when it does, you are left at the same place (if not lower) than you were when you began. Life satisfaction hasn’t moved forward at all. In fact, now when we look at the overall arc of our life, we’re filled with a general sense of regret and unfulfilled potential.

There is nothing worse in life than regret.

Nothing.

Well, mayonnaise covered strawberries is pretty gnarly, but still, regret wins out by a hair.

There are a few proven ways to improve one’s life satisfaction and today we’re only going to talk about one of’em: Accomplishment.

Accomplishment is something that occurs after a period of concerted effort. It does not just randomly appear. It is something we work for.

Something we, preferably, had to struggle for.

By choosing big goals and challenging tasks, we are forced to engage our full potential. When we engage our full potential over a long enough time-frame, we achieve Accomplishment.

Accomplishment is what happens when Execution meets Idea.

In fact, we could phrase this as a nifty mathematical equation:

Idea * Execution = Accomplishment

Accomplishment/Time = Life Satisfaction

Now, I’m not mathematician (clearly), but it seems to me that the solution to growing Life Satisfaction does not lie in generating more and more ideas.

So, all this is to say, what can we do about it? How do we Execute more effectively?

Good question, my friend. And because you stuck with me all this way, I shall now share with you The Four Disciplines of Execution (a fantastic book by Jim Huling, Sean Covey, and Chris McChesney) so that you can stop dreaming, and start achieving.

Step One: What’s your WIG?

WIG stands for Wildly Important Goal and it is, simply put, the thing you hold at the pinnacle of importance. Whether that be a business goal (I want to increase revenue by one billion dollars), or a personal goal (I want to lose 50,000 pounds by tomorrow), the WIG is that thing you really, really, really want.

Notice how many times I used the word really? If you don’t want it at least three reallys worth, then you probably don’t want it bad enough to follow through.

But, but, but…if you decide you truly do really, really, really want it, then it is important enough. In that case, you need to go one step further and formulate your WIG in the format of:

From X to Y by When.

Business Goal: Increase revenue from $4/year to $42 trillion/year by 2021.

Personal Goal: Decrease weight from 187 grams to 14 cubic inches by lunch.

It helps if your goals are somewhat realistic (or at least founded in consistently similar metrics), but for the sake of this article, we aren’t going to get too tied up on such things. The important thing is that you get what I’m trying to say.

Once you’ve identified your Wildly Important Goal, it’s time to move on to Step Two.

A quick note about WIGs before you move onto Step Two. Humans, despite the lie we tell ourselves and our spouses, are terrible multitaskers.

Don’t shake your head at me. You are not the exception. Study after study confirms the fact that all of us experience a significant decrease in productivity and capacity whilst multiasking.

Google dat, yo.

Anyways, the same goes for goal setting. Split your attention between too many Important Goals and you will likely fail to accomplish any of them. To truly be effective in life you must zero in on one Muy Importante Goal at a time. Carry it through to completion, and only then move onto the next.

This is why it’s so vital that you spend a goodly amount of time deciding what Wildly Important Goal you will dedicate your attentions to. There can be no room for wiffle-waffling later.

Step Two: Define your Lead Measures

We’re all familiar with Lag Measures. Those are those pesky end of year results. They are easy to measure. For example, at your weekly weigh in you can easily see whether or not you hit your goal. The end of the year revenue report tells you whether you hit your number for the year.

Lag Measures are full of data. Unfortunately, they are, by their very definition, impossible to effect upon having measured them.

You can’t magically change the scale as you stand on it. It’s too late. The quantum field has been broken by the observer. Like poor Charlie trying to get to Heaven, you can never go back. (If you get that reference, you are a good person and I want to know you.

Lead Measures on the other hand are incredibly tricky to measure. They are activities that you more feel than know will move the lag measure if properly implemented.

Example time: I will walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes every day. That’s a lead measure hopefully leading to the glorious place of weight loss.

I will contact 30 new clients everyday. That’s a lead measure hopefully leading to the glorious place of increased sales and therefore revenue.

Lead measures are actionable. They are within your control. They are things that you could start doing right now and that, if properly implemented, would move the lag measure on the tail end.

Lead measures are tricky little buggers to nail down. Picking the wrong lead measure means the lag measure doesn’t move (or worse, it moves the lag measure in the wrong direction).

Take your time and really think through the chain of events leading to the accomplishment of your WIG. The goal here is to pick the fewest number of battles you must fight to win the war, so focus on the actions that you think will have the greatest effect on your WIG.

For instance, working out for 30 minutes a day is fantastic, but it’s not doing any good if you’re consistently overeating. The more important thing in this situation would to reign in the overeating. Only then would the 30 minutes of sweating pay dividend.

Step Three: Create a Compelling Scoreboard

People play different when they keep score. Don’t believe me? Go watch some kids playing basketball. Notice how the game fundamentally shifts as soon as they start keeping score.

Now, the score doesn’t matter to anybody else. Millions of dollars aren’t on the line, and no sponsorships will be doled out, and yet those kids are going to work exponentially harder than they would when no score is being kept.

Why?

Because the score is important to them.

So it is for you. You need to create a scoreboard that is compelling and motivating to you. It must be simple, highly visible, and easily understood.

At a glance, you must be able to look over and immediately know if you are winning or losing for the day/week/month/year.

Step Four: Accountability

The fourth and final step is of the utmost importance, because without it, you’re just floating out on the ocean without a care in the world.

You need someone (preferably a group of someones) to hold you accountable. You must make a regular occurrence of meeting to discuss the progress you have or have not made towards your goal.

This meeting should take place at the same time every week. Build a cadence of consistency to these meetings and you’ll find they take on enormous impact.

These accountability meetings do not have to be long. In fact, they don’t have to take much more than five or ten meetings. The important thing is that you actually follow through with this step.

Again, studies show that when we feel accountable to a force outside of ourselves, we are vastly more motivated to follow through with what we said we’d do.

Use this unique quirk of human psychology to your advantage. Find an accountability buddy (or a support group of some sort) and use them!

1% Inspiration, 99% Perspiration

Life can be easy, if you want it to be. You can come home every night after work and plop down on the couch and burn your braincells out watching Netflix.

That’s fine. Nobody is judging you.

Truly.

Majority of people out there in the world are living on a similar plan.

But the fact that you’ve stuck with me this long tells me something important about you: You aren’t content following the masses. You aren’t happy just doing what you’ve always done.

You want to grow beyond your comfort zone. You want to expand. You want to be challenged.

You want to live a life filled with Accomplishment.

To that I say, Great! Let’s get to work.

Stop dreaming. Start doing.

Right.

Now.