To continue on the "big idea" discussion.... 

Big ideas generated from design schools and labs are great. They're ideas.

Everything we have right now, these tangibles were products of someone's imagination. 

Some are dreamers, some are designers, some are investors of dreams, some are implementors. Some are borrowers, refiners, and even auditors of dreams and ideas. 

From conceiving to implementing, many processes and actors will be needed.

Which one are you? What position will you take in this continuum? Where is your default position?

I have been receiving requests for partnership and as always, I ask: "Where's the beef?"

Collaboration for on-purpose organizations takes more than you and the other party. Because you're in the business of purpose, your metrics are totally different. You can enlarge the pie for the sector if it becomes a system-generating activity than just for mere propagation of your programs, projects, or products. In a systems- approach to collaboration, 1+5 is not 6 but 60. To leverage the vast benefits of collaboration with the eye to a larger social good is really about: 

1) Showing others (your peers, your stakeholders, your audience/customers, and policy-makers) the way towards better practices, mindsets, and tools for success;
2) Benefiting the ecosystem where you operate, the collaboration has public value and could be supported at scale;
3) Creating innovation at a smaller scale than can be replicated with enough infrastructure and technology and leveraged outcomes; 
4) Doing the 'impossible' in the sector by having the 'no-regrets policy.'

Do you see collaboration as a means to pursue your strategic ends as an organization? Or there is more to  it than what gets approved in the annual cycle of budgets and operational plans? If yes, to collaboration, when the benefits outweigh the risks and challenges, why not get the biggest sectoral obstacle and induce solutions through a collaborative arrangement where all the actors can be involved. 

The question then on 'where's the beef?' becomes moot and academic. 

​

Executives trying to make a difference in their roles, making an important decision, or improving their organization should always ask: So what? 

Data is easily generated these days. Sometimes, it takes the place of Strategy, instead of using judgements to create a singularity of purpose. When this happens, data will fail in pointing you to the right direction. Humans interpret data, not the other way around. 

Creating a calm above the data noise is very important. Asking so-what questions eliminates the overdependence on data and trends, focuses the attention on the long-term objectives, and frees up the mind to think beyond the here-and-now, short-term gains.

Do you ask a lot of so-what questions, lately? ​

Remember, the film 'Dead Poets Society', where the teacher played by Robin Williams told the students to stand on their desks and ask them what they can see. This is where the famous line was quoted, Carpe Diem. 


What do you see when things are upside down? Can you create something out of the vantage point? 

I bet you can.

There is too much going on in pop culture, social media, and business schools that you can be like Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Mark Cuban by knowing how they go about their days, eat the kind of food they eat, mediate the same way, read the same books they read – all for the sake to be like them- millionaires /billionaires. This is utter nonsense.


Copying other’s people success is the biggest billion-dollar scam to hit the millennium. You can never be like Elon (there was one interview where the lady interviewer asked Elon “how to be like him?” which was pretty dumb and patronizing) or Mark or Bill Gates for that matter. They are as unique as their genetic makeup, upbringing, social network, educational attainment or non-attainment, life paths, and their predilection for high risk, high ambition, and high rewards.

People who wanted to be a millionaire/billionaire or become wildly successful in business, career, or life has to ask two fundamental questions:

1) Do you have what it takes to succeed in your game? Do you have the innate confidence, talent, determination, and ruthlessness in your pursuit of excellence, health, business domination, and other lofty goals?

​2) Do you have the energy, vitality, and open-mindedness to innovate, recharge, retool, and continuously learn and evolve in what you are doing all the time?

If you answered yes to the two questions, you are 20% above the rest of the world population in getting what you want in life and your pursuits. Mastery of yourself and mastery of your environment will take you to places you have never imagined because the first wall that limits you are the walls that you build in your mind.  

You cannot copy somebody’s life or life choices. And even if you copy them, you will never be like the people that you want to copy. You can achieve the heights of their success only if you follow your song and dance to your beat and create opportunities for yourself and others in the process. 
 
Success doesn’t come by chance but continuing the path where you can become great or do something great and create value for many people is the best bet of all.

Success doesn't come from some neat formula somewhere, people trying to get to third base when there capacity, attitude, and mental stamina remain in the first base. There are principles that are evergreen to guide one's path but it is up to the individual person to become that master of himself and his environment.

The cavemen did not know who were the people inside the caves that they see. Only when a sunlight penetrated the cave that they found out that it was their shadows playing tricks on them. ​