Inspiration vs. Analysis
“I love the idea….But I don’t get it? How it will make money?”
This is a statement that I have become very accustom to hearing. I as well as many others have ideas come to them and we believe it will be a big thing. Be it a new widget or the next Amazon.com, you believe that it is viable, attainable and EVERYONE will love it. It’s needed, It’s wanted and I haven’t seen it yet.
Sure, until you open the magazine you just bought and your idea is there, smack dab in the middle of the ‘What’s Hot” section staring you right in the face, as your self esteem gets crushed by that dog-eared page that you felt was rightfully yours. Then your ego does the quick scan to see if the person that made this fill in the blank, were sitting at the table next to you somewhere or even worse, you know them!
More than likely, not.
Great ideas are a dime a dozen. New ideas are nothing new.
So what do you do? I am probably the worst person to advise anyone on this but I am going to do it anyway. This advice is coming from the guy who believes that he was ahead of the curve by wanting to franchise coffee shops in 1981, after spending my youth in a coffee house in the dumps of Denver and thinking “hey, college kids would love this!” in short, Starbucks you owe me. The reality is, this idea has been strong since coffee has been born.
What I should of done was just do it or do something. I pitched the idea to some friends and some friends parents (because I didn’t have any money) the same response came up, “Well how does it make money? people just sit there for hours and drink a bottomless cup of coffee for hours…students don’t have any money anyway…what are you thinking?” F–cking analysis got in the way, again.
Why am I even bring all this up anyway? I had a few eye-opening thing happen recently, one being that I have really good ideas, two is, they are really good ideas that I analyze to death and three, Why?
Here is what I have come up with;
What I reason-I don’t know, it sounded like a good idea but…..
The reality- I haven’t even tried it, how do I know?
Reason: It will cost a lot.
Reality: I don’t know that…
Reason: It will fail.
Reality: So what! It might, it might NOT.
Reason: It must not be that good of an ideas, someone else would of done it already?
Reality: So what, they are not you.
I’m not trying to write a self-help book here, but what I am doing is trying to do is foster inspiration. Cooking is a great and safe way to develop your confidence, try to do something that you have never cooked before, Buy something you have never tasted before. This will give you the opportunity to take a risk, experiment and taste your successes. What do you have to lose? A few buck maybe, but you are now wiser and know what you capable of. Bring this experiment to all aspects of your life and WILL BE RICHER for it.
Trust me, Look for the next big thing and I am sure I had something to do with it.
Love Glenn
Chef Glenn Smith 
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