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A very fancy-shmancy blog title indeed. Shakespeare, in fact. Which is part of a quote (full quote below) that basically means there is a time to take action, and if you hesitate, and wait and wait and wait, the opportunity will disappear and you will be the poorer for it.
Believe it or not, the reason this quote came to my mind was a whole wheat everything bagel. A couple of years ago, after cutting one in half prior to toasting, I was scooping it out. (That’s what my wife insists on; she claims will get rid of a large amount of the calories and not reduce the taste.)
I was using my fingers to pull out the dough, when one of those little light bulbs, like the one on the cover of my book, appeared over my head. How about a metal scooper, sort of like the old fashioned strawberry hullers, that would make the task easier and more sanitary. In a flash, I could see it being sold everywhere that people enjoy bagels. And in a flurry of inactivity, I did nothing about the idea, just filing it in the overflowing mental cabinet of ideas that I might do something with, “someday.”
And every time I scooped out the insides of a bagel, I revisited my idea, still thought it had merit, and then closed the imaginary drawer it was filed in.
Then I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal, which included a mention of Meghan Musgnug and Liz Teich, who had created and patented a bagel scooper!
Now, it turns out that Ms. Teich's father, who aided in the design, is an aerospace engineer. But that is just another rationale for my never doing anything about the idea. I have a long list of excuses, ranging from what the heck do I know about designing a bagel scooper, to how big is the market actually. But the real reason is what Seth Godin calls the lizard brain.
Seth says it is the voice in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow. The lizard hates change and achievement and risk, it is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear.
So basically, I just was fearful of getting outside my comfort zone, and rationalized being too busy, or that I should be giving priority to other things.
The point is easy. Wait long enough to produce your idea—marketing or product—and you will come in second, which is the same as last, to the person who grabbed the tide at the flood.
Got the idea?
Brutus:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224
Wow, this is so true. I am now in embarking on pursuing my dreams of entrepreneurship and every so often fear comes knocking and say 'slow down. you don't know what your doing.' But then someone comes along to encourage me to keep pressing on. And so I do.
Posted by: Rachel | February 17, 2012 at 12:09 PM
Rachel,
Good for you...and all of us. A little encouragement goes a long way to fighting the fears.
Keep dreaming.
Jay
Posted by: Jay H. Heyman | February 17, 2012 at 12:35 PM