What happens when you're all about the ideas, but not the action?

Hello there! If you keep on helping your friend and he's not even making any efforts to help himself, then nothing will happen... Yes, he's a visionary, but he also have to make an effort if he wants these ideas to materialize. Make him realize first tha he has to take action now and that you are always there to support him. don't stop until he will get out of that ideas phase. That's my opinion on how to resolve this situation...

Hey


This is what I do if I have many ideas I write them down so I can visually see


a map if you like!


I then pick on one thing to conquer first and then I am focused and my mindset is too!


I then shift into action and then target the next thing after I have completed the first thing!

Ideas or worthless without action. Tell him you have other stuff to do and can't waste your time with it. Tell him to let you know when he's serious.

Hmm, If I were you I'll tell him about his future. Telling him how bad he has in the future if he doesn't take action.

Just give him some real examples about those who fail in life and those who success in life.

Asking him a question that which person he wants to become?

Then gradually persuaded him that if he doesn't take action, he always is a fail person.

There are a lot of ways to overcome the fear of failure, just search for the keyword "ways to overcome the fear of failure." You will be gotten a lot of awesome tips.

- Anhvu

Show him some of the money you are making with your ideas.

al

"What happens when you're all about the ideas, but not the action?"


You die. In every facet of Life you will die..even in a literal sense.

i.e. I have an idea if I stop eating that Halloween Candy everyday for the next 5 years I might be healthier.

F-it I will just think about that idea and do NO action and keep eating the candy all day everyday.

Results ? Probably obesity followed by various diseases including Heart Disease and Diabetes and eventually leading to premature death.

So you see all idea and NO action lead to Death one way or another


- Robert Andrew

You end up like me for many years, a top procrastinator, however...that has changed and I'm now seeing success with my web development business

A great idea and $1.50 will get you a good cup of coffee almost anywhere.

Frank

I wonder if this letter would be more appropriately addressed to "Dear Abby" than to the Warrior Forum. Your problem isn't a business or marketing problem -- it's a relationship problem.

With that in mind, why do you feeled compelled to try to motivate your friend? If you were married or working together, I could see it. But from what I've read, you're just friends. And while it's nice to want to help your friends out, they also have to want to be helped out. And even then you also have to realize that there are things you're likely to be able to help with and there are things you aren't likely to be able to help with. In this case, it's almost certainly the latter, especially if he hasn't reached out to you for help.

If he has reached out to you, there are specific things you can do. I also find the Business Model Canvas a really useful tool. But there are two points point of doing that exercise that he doesn't seem to understand:

1. The canvas is to be treated as a series of hypotheses. And the only way to know if your hypoteses are correct is to test them in the marketplace.
2. Because of the above, the canvas is designed to be developed quickly and updated frequently as you adjust your hypotheses.

If he's truly interested you could pick a few of the items from his canvas and help him to develop a more detailed implementation plan. For instance, you could take the first box "Key Partners" and help him come up with a plan for how to identify, target and reach those key partners. Who does he need to reach out to? How should he do it? When is he going to do it? And what is he going to say? Get specific. Have him show real progress, do something, anything to fight the inertia.

Even so, from what you say, I'm just not convinced that he has what it takes to be an entrepreneur -- at least not now. Being an entrepreneur means jumping in, taking risks and being very, very wrong a lot. Some people just aren't cut out for that. They want the business success without the business failure -- but as we all know, it's by adapting to all of our business failures that we finally figure out how to have our business successes.

That said, it's not necessarily true that your friend will always be so stymied from taking action. A lot of business success has to do with timing after all. And people get into ruts for all sorts of reasons and sometimes it's just a matter of time before they're able to break out. But that's on him. And I fear that despite your best intentions, there's going to be little you can do to influence him one way or the other.

No action no results. Simple formula:

Thoughts = feelings = Actions = RESULTS

That fist step needs to be taken, no matter how much resistance there is.

Your friend should read The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield.

Great little book to help get things rolling.

I have had a similar experience, but what I did was partner up. If your friend is visionary then he needs a doer perspective to help things going. You need to be able to share the vision and transform it to reality. Is there anything in your friend's life where he has seen something through use that scenario. There are people who could be very cautious that's why things they put time into don't fly, it's a process.

stop trying to help him i've been trying to save the world my whole life, i realized yesterday that its simply not my job. its more of a control thing with my ego to try and make people drink the water i led them to. **** it. i put my blinders on and focus on me and what im doing

What happens when you're all about the ideas, but not the action?

You get nowhere and achieve nothing.The years pass you by and you get older and older and end up with a lifetime of regrets.Then you die.

CM, I'd just advise him to follow his fun. We all crave having fun; rarely if ever avoid DOING fun things. But if something seems exciting on one hand, but is not your true passion/fun, you'll find excuses not to act on those type ideas.

Some deep fear overrules his desire to act. But fun beats fear. Every time. When it's your true fun

Ryan

Stop worrying about him and focus on your own work.

Its pretty clear he's not too worried if he isn't doing anything with his ideas.

That's a pretty tough predicament, a support system could help. Has he joined this forum? Read stuff and success stories on the WAMA thread? I think success stories are inspiring and they give a lot of motivation for people that things are possible. You could start from there and slowly enable him to see make decisions. I hope this helps.

Everyone has ideas. Many probably million dollar ideas. That's only a fraction of what's needed to succeed. He needs to take action and put in the hard work and effort to take that idea to reality.

Show him by example OP.

Lead the charge and take action consistently.

Ideas come to us when we feel 'inspired'. But the Universe can't make us ACT. That's our part.

great ideas are cheap..

to develop action i recommend you commit to incremental measurable acts.

-Ike Paz

one step by one step!

think about this: if you got lot of raw material, and an idea to cook a beautiful dish, your friend will so afraid that he will mix everything up! which ending up he will not even take the first step to wash and clean.

what you can do is, show him the first step, push him and support him to do it, for this instance, let him try to remove the peas from pea pod, he may be so pound of himself after seen these beautiful peas, and probably ending up boiling them to make a dish.

every career path is starting from a simple duty, all you have to do is support him to find out what he is good at, then push him to complete each and every smaller task. eventually he will complete the full cycle on his own pace.

Hi,

Inaction comes when we wait for perfect conditions. It's like a scary paratrooper who spends months and months perfecting his necessary gear, trying to make sure the parachute opens. And if one fails, the other one opens. If all fails, maybe placing a net on the ground to catch him...

The thing is he becomes so scary of "launching" that he spend all his energies in perfecting the jump which eventually results in not jumping at all.

The bottom line: There are no perfect moments. If you have an idea, and you have the BASIC preparations, go and dive. The flow of sea will redirect your direction.

Thanks
-J

If the person doesn't want to help himself, then there's nothing you can do about it.

You know, they say you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

it is not your job to motivate him. he needs a partner who likes to do the work.
One day he might find it.

Sounds like hes too content with where he is and isn't willing to risk change in his life...

This kind of non-action is common and most of the time there is nothing you can do to talk someone into taking action. Just like changing anything in your life, you have to want to change.

The best way to make that switch is to remove someones safety net. When your "comfortable" existence is threatened, you'd be surprised at how quickly someone will get off their ass and fight for their "survival".

It's the same thing as hitting rock bottom. Sometimes people just need to hit the bottom and hit it hard to realize their life isn't so great and they will make that change themselves...

I remember reading (I forget what) that ideas alone are useless, it's the work implementing and the drive to bring them to life that is valuable.

Maybe push him to read about successful people and the "failures" they have had, failing isn't always a bad thing. I'd rather see someone push through and "fail" than just sit there and do nothing.

He needs to find someone with the skills and experience who can take action (all the way to completion) on his behalf. Do some basic planning to get off the ground, launch, get feedback, fix and improve and all while making sure he stays out of the way. The world needs idea people, but sometimes we/they suffer from analysis paralysis and can't get moving.

Interesting question and replies.

You'll probably find that this "never gets anything done" trait in other areas of his life, not only business, so any motivation from you is just going to be short-term.

95% of start-ups fail within the first couple of months. If we, as entrepreneurs, are going to rely solely on external motivators for us to get the job done, we're almost certainly going to end up in the 95%. Some of the toughest hurdles entrepreneurs have to face include criticism, judgement from others, lots of failing forward, and plenty of disappointment among the glimmers of hope. If we can't find it within ourselves to start, how will we ever persevere?

It's up to your friend to find his own inspiration. That's an inside job. Maybe he's not cut out to be an entrepreneur and that's ok! Or maybe he's meant to partner with someone whose strengths complement his. But the work has to come from him.

Oddly enough, I find myself to be a bit of a visionary as well. I too have a friend I believe is trying to help me in his own way.
I can honestly say I have ZERO issues with ACTION.

My issues are in not knowing how to get such a concept out there, without learning to do programming first on my own.

It could be that your friend isn't quite sure where EXACTLY to start in order to turn his idea into reality.

Does he just start up a live fb steam and announce his idea to whomever may see it and hope for the best?

Maybe he's figured out a solution to a problem that causes you and others to question his actual competence in his ability to have figured out such an idea, considering he's not one that stands out as having such knowledge.

Does his idea require programming which he doesn't completely know how to do, although he KNOWS it's possible?
Have you considered asking him what exactly it is that's preventing him from taking the necessary action?
So many folks saying to drop him, yet nobody's considered that he truly needs a business "mentor" of sorts to help him get on the proper first step to building a business instead of merely working for one.

Everyone here can relate to being lost in the beginning, and know the value in a simple "do this first, right now. Then, I'll show you what to do next." Sometimes, it's simply a matter of starting with what he does understand... (Any new job, skill, adventure in his life, has had someone to walk him through the process one step at a time)
You may be surprised by his ability to shift into action overdrive once he's given true assisted "guidance" through the first couple steps in the proper order.
Tell a man his check engine light is on, car's running like crap and he needs to fix it may cause discontent, panic, and stasis.

Tell him to take this OBDll scanner, plug it in under your dash, check this book for the code that pop's up on the screen to find the problem, then go to auto zone and by that specific part and put it in the place of the original, now you've actually helped him become more mechanically inclined.

Sometimes it's in the clarification of the help that actually helps.

Most great ideas remain dormant because we don't find the courage , resources and time to take action.

As they say ' if it were easy everyone would do it' .

I can imagine your friend's indecisive situation and it's very difficult to shape someone into a being who is willing to take risks.

Sometimes people don't want to be alone when they start working on their ideas. They want someone who is willing to share time,profit and loss altogether . If you like his ideas why don't you pool in some of your resources to start up his business? Through that he will have a partner and will not feel like an only person facing the competition. Give it a try if you think his idea might work.

i did this for 2 year and made $0

when I actually started to build a blog, and build and email list I was able to buy 2 houses with MONEY DOWN 100%.

ACTION breeds results, my mentor has passed away now. However, those words still ring in my ear all this time later. The more action you take each day, the closer you get to the end goal.

Who every did well from reading forum posts all day, and think "oh yeah, I will do that tomorrow" and yet, we all know tomorrow never comes. :-)

Highly recommended (It is not my site, and it is not an affiliate link, Enjoy!):


10 Overlooked Truths About Taking Action

10 Overlooked Truths About Action

You and your friend should be a good team. Just flip your friend ideas into Dollars. Some people just born to be a tactical dreamer, but that dream or ideas need to be executed into some products. Just use your skills to make it live.

Bringing an idea to fruition is a challenge a majority of marketers face and many great ideas stop right at the idea stage.

But this can be easily solved with:

Collaboration.

Working with others is one of the best ways of moving an idea forward.

Convince your friend to work with you on a small project. You take the lead, guide him and make him see the results. A single project with you might bring about a change in his mindset and attitude.

People who are afraid of failure are often those that follow better than lead. Following your lead to success may just be the push he needs to get going.

A quote from "Screen-Writing Tricks of the Trade" by William Froug that I'm reading right now, it's about discussing your ideas with people instead of writing your screenplay:

"The real problem is, if you tell our story-in-progress to friends, you will dissipate the energy you will need to write it.The story will become overly familiar to you, and you will gradually lose your enthusiasm for it. I had a screenwriting buddy who at a moment notice would expound at some length about the movie he was planning to write on the Big Band era. He must have told fragments of his story to countless studio executives, agents, almost anybody who would listen. One day I asked him why he didn't stop telling it and simply start writing it.
"Are you kidding?" he replied. "Why should I write it? I'm already getting all the laughs and all the satisfaction I need just by telling it."
He had hit on a profound truth. Once you get the response you want from your story, you will lose the need to write it."

So maybe that's what happens with your friend. He gets all the response - no risk involved. Oh, well, someone may tell him that his ideas are not feasible or whatever but that's not a big drama.

His listeners are satisfying his needs, why would he spend time, money and put effort into something that may or may not work?

I have a friend like that as well. For the last 20 years, he's been "writing" a book that's going to change the world. He loves talking about how much research and thinking he put into it, but he was never able to show me anything, not even one page. The book wasn't ready yet.

When I realised that I'm not helping him at all, I told him one day that I'm happy to listen and assist ONLY when and if he wants me to read a draft, recommend a good editor, find images or information on how to publish or market his book. If it's more talk - I'm not interested.

Tough? Maybe. I do support my family, friends, clients, even strangers. But listening to his vague ideas was as effective as watching TV. Those talks were not brainstorming sessions, he's not interested in feedback, he just wants people to listen.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

When he really NEEDS to have money to buy foods , he will select the best ideas and put them into actions.

A lot has already been said, but let me chip in my own bit.

Telling your friend that his ideas are useless and will go with him to the grave unless he takes action is good. Since we all have the best ideas in the world, but it is not having it that matters, it is bringing the idea to life.

And the bible says in Sirach 20:30-31 "Hidden wisdom and unseen treasure, of what value is either? Better are those who hide their foolishness than those who hide their wisdom."

Tell him to write the ideas or draw them if possible and then take his time to focus on just one which will be the foundation of all the ideas.

Now for taking action, have you tried to find out why he is not taking action? What negative experiences or past failures is keeping him in his comfort zone? What did he hear during his childhood and stuffs like that. Just try to find out why he is so comfortable in his comfort zone. Now, If you find the reason, you will be able to deal with it.

One more thing, you can't help him if he doesn't acknowledge that he needs help. Don't try to push him or force him just suggest it to him and let him know that you are available if he needs anything.

Finally, if he is too scared to do it, then he can sell the idea or become a consultant for companies and help them get ideas they need to grow.

Best Regards.

"You must be a good friend to care. Good Luck with him".

Hi:

Perhaps he needs to see the results of action as opposed to just ideas.
If possible you should show him the results of someone in the same niche or someone who launched a similar product around about the same time he came up with his product idea.

It would be great if you could show specifics or a range of what the other person achieved. That may motivate him to take action with his next big idea.

If that doesn't work then perhaps he's just the type of person who likes developing ideas. That's nothing wrong with that.
What he may want to do is try to figure out a way to monetize his ideas.
Develop the idea, patent, copyright, or somehow protect his idea then try to sell the idea to someone or some organization that will actually make a product from the idea.

Good Luck,

Dan

You can take the horse to water but you cannot force him to drink!

He will do it when he is ready.

If you are working on something right now then focus on it. Make him see it, in that way maybe he'll realize that he's missing a lot already. Not the intention to get him envy you but to push him to get things done.

This is my humble opinion based on my own- rather sucking - experience.

First, identity. I believe your friend - deep inside - he thinks he is an "idea guy". Thus, he can produce ideas and solutions to problem perhaps faster then bullet! He truly enjoys it - perhaps he is even gifted. Yet the problem is identity - "I am an idea guy".

You can help him reshape that identity with a new one: "I am an idea guy who loves to execute and make things happen".

Perhaps change does not happen overnight - but change happens.

Also check if he has fear of failure deep within.

Pick one his ideas. Ask him if he truly believes he can make it happen; or if he believes the idea can take off and succeed.

There are so many videos in Youtube pertaining to self-development - especially from Tony Robbins. Help him watch them.

Also, expose your friend to people who have made it.

Go to http://www.kevinhogan.com/articles.htm

You are doing the right thing - intention to help your friend. Kudos to you!

Hi there.
If he has the ideas but he s not an action taker He wont never progress even if he has a profitable idea, he will stuck in there. He needs a partner who takes risk being an action taker for him, So both can be a mix of success.
Hope it help
Andres

I was there an year ago. Visions, plans and all the shit i could think of. I was scared to fail. And hell yeah I failed a lot after I started. Even today I fail, but I have not quit and now I am on my way to start off properly.
Having a vision is worth $1 if its not executed. Thats what I have learnt in all this period.
So to get your friend up and running, you need to tell you will partner with him and -
1. Build a solid paper plan
2. Build a solid SWOT Analysis
3. Build the execution plan
And then just do it.

If you believe in him, then just take him with you and just start it off. Dont sit back and try helping him in that way. I have done the same thing with one of my so called visionary friends recently.

My friend who I have been discussing called yesterday and is making a little bit of leeway.

He is discussing about what he should be aware of legally and looking at some more realistic steps to getting his idea off the ground.

It may be at a snails pace but we may have some action.... finally.

Ideas are NOTHING, execution is EVERYTHING.

Taking action is what will get you results. Everyone can have good ideas, but if you don't act on them they are worth ZERO.

Procrastination is a KILLER. Always take action every single day.

Try to encourage him to focus on "ONE" ideas. this often happen when we spread ourselves too thin. trying to focus an stick to one idea will help him get off the ground.

Try to develop confidence in your friend and its idea. Make him believe about the ideas by taking positive reviews from others. Make him try to implement a little and then he will learn to get it done right way.