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| Uttercast: Steal This Idea (Photo credit: doughaslam) |
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| ideas (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee) |
So many of us dream dreams that we never do anything about. We come up with terrific ideas that may fire us up for a while and then we'll let them fall by the wayside. Sometimes our lack of action may be due to lack of money. In many cases this is totally understandable. At other times we may lack know-how or we are too preoccupied with other things or just too plain lazy to go any further in pursuing a dream.
If you don't go for it, somebody else eventually will.
I'm reminded of an idea I came up with back in the 80's. I dreamed up what I thought was a rather clever toy that could be further expanded to be used by arts and crafts aficionados. The more I thought about the idea, the better it sounded. I talked to my wife about it a lot and dreamed up all the different related products that could be marketed. I was on the road touring with a show at the time so there wasn't too much I could do but dream and talk while driving.
Years later I was in a business marketing class at the University of Phoenix. One of our team projects was to come up with an idea and a plan to market that idea. We decided to use the idea that I had dreamed up in the 80's. We presented the idea and it was well-received by the class. And that was it.
Or was it?
A few years ago, I revisited my idea as I considered ways to make an income since I was unemployed and not having much luck finding a new job. I researched my idea on the internet and there it was. A product essentially identical to the concept that I had dreamed up in the 80's was now available on Amazon as well as several other retailers such as Walmart and Toys 'R Us. My dream had been realized by someone else and the product line had been expanded in many of the ways that I thought it could be. The only thing that was really different was the product name.
I'm not going to say that someone who had heard my idea at sometime in the past had stolen it. After all I didn't own the idea or have any claims on it. It's conceivable that someone in that marketing class had run with my idea, but I haven't found any evidence of this.
My point is that I had a good idea and I didn't go for it. Maybe someone else used my idea. I'm more inclined to believe that ideas are floating out there for anyone's taking. I doubt whether I'm the only one who ever thought of this idea that came into my head, but no one acted upon that idea until fairly recently.
If we don't go for making a good idea see the light of day, we should expect that somebody else eventually will. We can and should dream, but if we don't pursue the dream, it will eventually get away from us.
Have you ever lost out on a dream because of not following through on it? Why do you usually fail to go for making a big idea happen? Do you think somebody "stole" my idea or do you think there's a floating idea repository out there with dreams ready for someone to grab onto?
