Day 91 – Set Your Mind

You can do anything that you set your mind to. Now you have to figure out exactly what to set your mind on. Sorry, I cannot help you with that. That is something you have to do on your own. However, I am hoping the 365 Commitment is teaching us all a lesson about what it really means to “set” your mind.

Do you have a head full of ideas that are driving you insane? Join the crowd. You are not alone in this problem, definitely not special. The challenge is that we all think we are special because we have a head full of ideas. We can all come up with great things we could do, or want to do, we will spend a significant amount of time thinking about ideas.

This can be exhausting and we will do things to drown out that idea generating factory between our ears. Turn the music up, watch TV, play a mindless app on your phone, and countless other meaningless pursuits. Now you can probably get me to admit that some people have ideas slightly better then another person’s ideas. However, I bet if you sit and talk to any human for a length of time and you will discover that they have ideas, and probably a few good ones.

So what is the difference between the people that have success and the ones who do not? I can tell you with absolute certainty that it is not because they have better ideas. It took me over 40 years of idea generating to finally recognize that fact. A wise older person once told me – “Guy, ideas are crap. It is execution that matters.” Put another way. A person who executes on a mediocre idea will have infinite more success then a person with a great idea that never acts.

Walking through the the Oakland Airport last night I saw a TV advertisement with Rob Cheng playing guitar and singing a song with his team regarding his PC Matic antivirus software package. When I first saw this guy on TV advertising his antivirus software I did a huge eye roll. I was thinking – oh geez this is so cheesy, doesn’t he know how saturated the market place is? He is not doing anything great, this is just a simple product designed to market to the gullible masses.

Well, I was wrong. He is a dedicated passionate family man, who has a well rounded interest in many things and I am just guessing – but I bet that his employees really like him. He is a marathon runner, really good photographer, been doing a regular blog since 1997 and is a lot more successful then any of us. He has time to spend on the things that he loves, and run a successful company. He is becoming an authority on his type of marketing in the modern age, and his software is starting to be mentioned in the same breath as those other guys.

Did he have an earth shattering idea – no. Did he execute – yes. That is what is different about people that execute. You can stay with the masses and be “idea man” or you can take the road least traveled and be the one that is really good at executing on a decent idea. This is what it means to “set your mind.” So stop the nonsense. You probably have an idea already. Just pick one and execute on it. Do the simple well.

Guy Reams (91)
365 Member

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