Skate to Where the Puck is Going

"I always skate to where the puck is going, not where it's been." -Wayne Gretsky

I always try to follow my own advice. If you see something that is working, do more of that. In your money making endeavors, you will find a lot of things that just don't work. You will find a few things that sort of work and even fewer things that work really well. You would be smart to continue to do the things that make money and if you are capable, you will do more of those things.

Of the things that are sort of working, you will want to adjust what you are doing and try to make them work better. You want to make those ideas make money for you. If you can't figure out why they are only making a little bit or just breaking even, maybe it is time to set that idea aside and skate towards something else that might have a higher return.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. I heard somewhere that the average person has at least three new ideas per day. The problem is that we don't act on them. We need to find a way to determine the profitability on those ideas and act on the ones that look like they will make money.

Do you have a pocket notebook? You should have one in your pocket at all times. Whenever you have an idea, you should write it down. I find if I don't write the ideas I have down, I forget them within an hour. For some reason, our ideas create themselves in our short term memory and most of them never make it to our long term memory.

A couple of times per week, during your slow time, take the time to look through your ideas and figure out which ideas you can act upon. This will lead you to more creative ideas.

Ignore Your Limits

"Know your limits, then ignore them" ~John Mason

Sometimes it is good to not know how far you can go. Then you will surprise yourself by how far you can go. Lets say that you are invited to run a marathon. You say yes knowing you have never run that kind of distance before. You get on the starting line and start running when you hear the signal. You will be pleasantly surprised how far you can run without stopping. Then you will be surprised that you are able to walk the rest without stopping. Then you will be able to tell everyone that you have completed a marathon. It may take you 6-8 hours to complete the marathon but that is OK. You did it, and that is all that matters.

Now that you have an idea of what it is like to run a marathon, you know what your limits are. You will know what it takes to get yourself to the next level. Now all you have to do is train yourself to get past those limits. You start running everyday. You start to rat better, making sure you eat things that will give your muscles the nutrients they need to take the punishment you intend to put on them.

Instead of waiting for someone to invite you to run that next marathon, you start searching for the next one you want to run. You make plans to be at that marathon, and you set goals to get you to the point to run that race. When the day comes you start running, and are amazed when you pass the 5 mile mark without feeling too much strain. You keep running till you can't run anymore. Then you walk the rest of the way. When you finish, you find you have shaved off two hours off you last marathon. Now you know what your new limits are and you can plan for the next one.

All You Need is a Spark

"A great flame follows a little spark." ~ Dante

There are a lot of these types of metaphors. What happens when you start a snowball rolling down a hill? You get a bigger and bigger snowball. What happens when a small leak breaks through a dam? If left unchecked, it will erode the hole in the dam till water is flowing through it with the power of a waterfall. What happens when one ant finds your picnic? Soon your food will be covered in the entire colony of ants.

What you have to learn from these metaphors is all it takes is an idea or even an small inspiration. All you have to do is feed it and it will grow into something great and amazing. The blog you are reading right now; it was an inspired thought. What would happen if I found some of life's great quotes and let my mind run away with them? Would I be able to write something that would benefit everyone? Would I be able to write something every weekday for an entire year? If I did, then this would turn into something great, something everyone would want to visit on a regular basis, something that would turn into a book or a calendar or who knows what else.

Take a few minutes and look at the things in your life. Don't just look at the normal things like your meals, and your job. Look at the friends around you and the projects you have started but laid aside because you lost interest or ran into some sort of roadblock. Ponder the new ideas or rekindle the old ideas. Envision how some of those ideas might blossom into something that could make money for you. Think about the things that have possibilities. Take those possibilities to the next level.

Meet with your friends... You know the ones. The ones who have ambition; the ones who know how to take an idea and run with it; the ones who will do their best to support you, to drive you to do more with what you have, to encourage you to take your ideas and make something amazing out of them. I think you will be surprised at what comes from those people and ideas.