Ideas Guy, But Not Action Oriented...

[theonlyguy]

Do you need any ideas? I have a billion of them come to me all the time, like I can't turn it off. Ideas for how to improve things, business ideas, marketing ideas, investing ideas, fun ideas, serious ideas. It's nonstop. Ask me anything and I'll come up with 20 ways XYZ/ABC/Anything You Want.

But the problem is that I'm not action oriented, I much prefer and enjoy discussing and sharing ideas. I love reading and learning. But I get bored quickly. I don't follow through with my plans or ideas. I've started and failed at so many things it's embarrassing.

I think this goes beyond "Just do it, never quit, the problem is you're a quitter." I think it's more fundamental than that. I HAVE to have fresh ideas. I have a literal disgust for distasteful, repetitive, or non-stimulating work.

Do you know of anyone who's been to make a career out of a "talent" like mine? What do they do? Ideally I'd like to sell my ideas or work with someone who can be the "action person". I would kill to be with a team that needed my kind of mind.

Ideas?

[cdn2wheeler]

Find a partner (for instance, a ghost writer - I'm available! ) to work with you to develop some of your ideas into concrete plans.

Ideas, as they say, are a dime a dozen. Actually making them happen, well, that's another thing entirely.

[Spiritual]

Your own description is just EXACTLY mine. I've been searching for some way with this for quite some time now aswell. I got all these ideas, also a lot ideas like art and such. But I never had the skills or feeling to make anything happen. I tried a couple of times like you, but mostly just got bored after a few days/weeks and moved on.

Something fitting for people like you and me seems like a job as "think-tank". Businesses want to do something new, so they use creative people to brainstorm and come up with new concepts.

Or you should find someone who is very action oriented, and wants his hands on something.

[Lauxa]

My opinion is that you are unmotivated because you have not found the right idea yet. Someday something will come along that will excite you and you will want to create it and you will not find it repetitive because each phase of the creation process will just bring new challenges that you can apply your creative mind to. In the mean time, just keep developing your skills, because they will come in handy for accomplishing your big creative endeavor.

[Danyelle]

WOW Theonlyguy! You sound like me!!! I am the queen of ideas and starting projects but never following through. I recently made a list of the projects big and small that i've actually followed through on, and realized that the ones I have bailed on were not the "right" ones. I only follow through with a plan and stay driven if it really thrills me to the bone. Perhaps when you find an idea like that you'll be able to take it all the way before "getting bored" with it!
GOOD LUCK!!!

PS I wonder if there's such thing as a professional brainstormer... how awesome would that be for you!

[cdn2wheeler]

Originally Posted by Danyelle

I wonder if there's such thing as a professional brainstormer... how awesome would that be for you!

I've never heard of a professional brainstormer, but there are lots of leadership and career coaches available. A quick google search in your area will undoubtedly come up with some names.

[theonlyguy]

Originally Posted by cdn2wheeler

Find a partner (for instance, a ghost writer - I'm available! ) to work with you to develop some of your ideas into concrete plans.

Ideas, as they say, are a dime a dozen. Actually making them happen, well, that's another thing entirely.

Sounds like a great possibility. What kind of work/projects interest you? Any samples of your writing? Reply here or PM me if you like.

[theonlyguy]

Thanks for the other great replies here. I will seriously investigate working for a "think tank" and doing "professional brainstorming". Recently, consulting has become interesting to me too. You get to come in and analyze a company's problems, solve them, and then move on to the next major problem or company.

Anyone ever worked in one of these roles?

[openeyes]

One thing that has made me more action oriented is reading biographies of people like Teddy Roosevelt. Richard Branson is likely also worth checking out.

[m18pak]

It sounds like you're a strategist.

BBC - Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - Mind - What Am I Like?

[A.K.Light]

Sometimes I think that even if ideas were only worth a dime a dozen, I still could have made a lot of money by now if I had been selling them! And the same probably goes for you.

Oddly enough, you're the idea man, yet you haven't figured out the answer to this yet? You're asking US for ideas! I'm sure you won't stop thinking. And that's all I'm doing right now. It seems like we are pretty much in the same boat.

Some people are saying that you're not following through on your ideas because they are not exciting enough to you. You're not passionate about them. I think that makes sense. Maybe it's not so much of an issue of what you could solve, or what you could figure out, but what you want to solve - and change - What you actually want to DO.

But this is not what you are asking for.

If your ideas are good, then I'm sure it can't be that hard to get somebody to use them. Do you spend more time figuring out solutions to problems, or just creating things from scratch? Probably a bit of both, I would guess. I think people with a constant influx of ideas make good assistant leaders. They have more freedom than leaders, so they can come up with ideas and spend time analyzing things that the leaders don't have time to do, and on top of that, idea people can be very inspirational and positive, which is great for the rest of the team. Thing is, I don't think anybody has just one strength, so there may be another one you're overlooking. Maybe you have been on a team in the past and ended up filling a role much like that one.

That's sort of like me, anyway. I like be everywhere and into everything where I work. Mainly taking ideas directly to the bosses so that they can be implemented, and also sharing ideas and solving smaller problems with each employee, while trying to motivate them and inspire them. It can be pretty fun sometimes. I like how I am not bound by procedure all the time. I have the ability to bend, create, and sway. It's nothing big, though, and I'm sure we're both aiming a lot higher than that. If you worked for a huge company, maybe something like that could really get you places. Motivating people and solving new problems all the time sure isn't routine and boring!

On top of this, I like to ask questions, especially when I don't know what kind of answers to expect. I don't even expect you type out the answers.

If you had millions of dollars, what would you? Would you hire people to work on all of your ideas, or would you start really thinking harder about which ones are worth accomplishing? Do you think you'd end up sticking to one or two of your best ideas and seeing them through? Would that have any affect on which ideas would excite you since everything is now possible? Would you work for a large company with an agreement to do a particular job, while also taking and making every opportunity to initaite and create ideas and solutions that will make your bosses richer? If you did, I'm sure they'd love you and move you to a position that would better suit you. I think every enterprise could probably use some work. If you presented an excellent idea to your CEO and he told you to do it, would you be more motivated to follow through and do it, to make a name for yourself in your company and to move up, essentially giving you more creative freedom? How often do you get to solve problems and come up with ideas that other people act on and benefit from right now? What kind of results or situations actually motivate you to follow through?

[theonlyguy]

Originally Posted by m18pak

It sounds like you're a strategist.

BBC - Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - Mind - What Am I Like?

According to a Meyer's Briggs test I took I'm an INTJ - "They are the supreme strategists - always scanning available ideas and concepts and weighing them against their current strategy, to plan for every conceivable contingency." So I guess you're right.

I took Strengths Finder 2.0 and it said my top strength was Ideation. It said something along the lines of "You're a great designer, whether it be of strategies, marketing campaigns, or new products development".

The link you posted says "Strategists are the group most likely to say they are unhappy in their job." Haha, so true, I can't hold a job for the life of me-- 6 weeks and I feel like I'm going to die of boredom, and then I quit. It had some useful insights. Thanks.

[Nathan]

onlyguy and others:
Hi, I'm currently a student doing a bachelor of business in entrepreneurship. I'm always looking for start up ideas (specifically low cost). I have business fundamentals and a fair few contacts through my course. I'd love to speak with anyone who wants to about their ideas - even if you don't think they are commercially viable. Just send me a PM

[fellowtraveler]

Hey onlyguy,

Sounds familiar. You'd make a better lieutenant than a captain. You need an action-oriented partner, with the understanding that he would do all the drudgery and you'd get him out of jams, as I see it.

It might be tough getting started as a consulting troubleshooter unless you've got a resume as such. Ideally you could sell your services at first by providing free or very cheap help at first until you've proven yourself. But anything like that would require selling yourself, which is tough to do from an ivory tower. That's always been my problem, but I did manage to start a business using a website as my sole advertisement...it's taking off pretty well and my contact with people (which I'm not very good at) is minimal.

[Hugh Hollowell]

Everybody has ideas. Not everybody is rich. Find me one successful person who laid on his butt and came up with ideas and did not implement them.

No one gets paid for what they think... only for what they do. You look at Steve and think, "here is a guy who does nothing but write and people pay him thousands a day", but the point is, he writes. And he does it well. That takes action.

Ever see the movie Office Space? The guy with the jump to conclusions mat is a great example of a guy with a cool idea, but no action. No one is going to knock on your door and ask if you have any ideas.

Every idea someone has mentioned on this thread... strategist, brainstormer, etc. requires you get of your butt and work.

The secret to success? There is no secret. It takes work.

[Gene]

Originally Posted by Hugh Hollowell

Everybody has ideas.

Hugh, I think your post contains wisdom. In my experience action is required to make an idea become real. I have noticed that if I take action my ideas become more than a thought exercise and if the goal of my thinking is more than entertainment I take action.

[derekmartin]

I'm just like you, and I only recently heard about a discipline called "product management". Essentially, your job is to a) brainstorm new features; b) ask clients what new features they'd want, and figure out how to make them better; c) ensure people implement them.

I'm totally hoping to get into this domain.

Lots of info at PragmaticMarketing.com

[Dannyboy1]

If you're not motivated to do something. Get up and move. Jump, dance, sing... get your body into motion then take just one small step toward what you want to get done. Make it a ritual every day get yourself psyched up.

[dbstraight]

Instead of trying to sell your ideas, why not pay someone who IS action oriented to develop them for you?

[Alfonso Crawford]

Hey! This is some kind of LoA-thing going on, because I'm an action-guy (ACTION-GUY! <cue big explosion>) that lacks imagination, theonlyguy: I just got out of a conversation with a friend about how I ought to start doing something with my situation.

I can improve upon some things, but only by amalgamating disparate things I've already come across: for instance, a fighting-game I'm developing is merely a combination of bits and pieces of two dozen [not as hyperbolic as it sounds] other fighting-games (it's how the genre works, so unoriginality is generally a non-issue ).

The best trick for you is to find more folk like me. I'll start describing my strengths, etc., to see what you can come up with, if you'd like?

[BillyGoatGruff]

If any of you guys PM me with your ideas I should be most grateful since I am currently in debt and trying all kinds of things that I can think of. Perhaps one idea of yours can be adapted to suit me in some way, or get me thinking in that direction.

[JMan]

Could it be you need a defined purpose with which to harness and focus all of your talents? A specific direction, a dream, a goal, a target. Something to contribute to.

[Vincentc]

I have plenty of ideas. In fact, my work pays me to take my ideas and turn them into products.

All I know is this: Ideas are drugs. It's addicting to think of ideas. But it takes work to make the idea happen. It's always tempting to retreat back to thinking up new ideas than to take a current idea to the next step.

My friend say I'm pretty good at idea executions. This is what I come up that has helped me in the past:
1. Got the idea
2. Jot down ways to make it a reality
3. (Most important) Give yourself an artificial due date AND make it public
4. When your idea hits a roadblock, be prepare to take the challenge or modify your idea to make it work.

It won't guarantee success, but at least if you fail you can learn and be better next time.