There’s something very satisfying about being able to hold an old idea in your hands.
I had one of those moments this morning.
I was going through my journal from 1997 and found the notes for something I called the Today’s Homeowner After-Sale Service Program.
The idea started on an airplane.
I was flying from Toronto to Ottawa and picked up a magazine in the lounge called Today’s Homeowner.
It was filled with home improvement projects, and I immediately thought:
This would be a great thing for realtors to send their clients.
By the time I landed, I’d expanded the idea.
What if a realtor gave every client a subscription…and partnered with local landscapers, deck builders, painters and other businesses who could provide the things people were reading about in the magazine?
That was the idea.
But here’s the important part:
I didn’t leave it on the airplane.
When I got home, I tracked down the publisher in New York.
I called them.
Negotiated a bulk subscription deal.
Created the entire after-sale service program.
Wrote the letters.
Created the local-business partnership strategy.
Designed the service directory.
Made step-by-step instructions.
And put the whole thing into a booklet our members could use.
Twenty-nine years later, I pulled that booklet out of my tickle trunk this morning.
And I realized:
There’s a big difference between having an idea and having something to show for an idea.
There’s a big difference between having an idea and having something to show for an idea.
Ideas are exciting.
Ideas make us feel productive.
We can imagine all the wonderful things that could happen with them.
But an idea doesn’t become an asset until you take it all the way to completion.
That booklet was evidence.
Evidence that I had an idea…
…and shipped it.
There’s probably something sitting in one of your notebooks right now that deserves the same treatment.
Something you’ve already thought through.
Something you know could work.
Something that’s waiting for you to take it across the finish line.
Imagine pulling it out of your own tickle trunk 29 years from now.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have something to show for it?
Dean