I realized this way back
First everybody says, “Oh, ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is everything.”
And they just assume that at some point they'll be walking around and lightning will strike them and they'll think, “Oh my gosh. People should share cars and I'll make an app in the middle to connect people with cars and I'll call it Uber.”
No, ideas don't really work like that
Nor does execution work the way most people think
People think, I'm gonna take this great idea and now I'm going to do it
The doing it, it can happen in 1,000 different ways
People don't realize there's a whole spectrum of execution ranging from really, really bad so that an idea will fail or really, really good so that even a bad idea might have a chance for success
For success
Having ideas is like a muscle
Having ideas is like a muscle
[Chorus]
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
Having ideas is like a muscle
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
Try to practice having 10 ideas a day
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
It doesn't have to be a good idea or a bad idea
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
But it keeps that idea muscle in practice
If you're sick and you lie in bed for two weeks, you might actually need physical therapy to walk again
Your leg muscles atrophy that fast
It's the same thing with ideas
If you don't have ideas every day, your idea muscle is not gonna get bigger
It might atrophy and so I try to practice
I'll come up with a topic and I'll try to practice having 10 ideas a day around, each day'll be a different topic
But I'll try to have 10 good ideas around that topic
Now they won't be good ideas because you can't have 3,650 good ideas a year
But I try to make sure they're as good as they possibly could be
I've been doing this every since I wanted to network, and I'm not a very good networker
I wanted to ask my heroes, can I buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain?
So I wrote to 20 people
They didn't even say no
None of them responded
Why would they respond?
Warren Buffett's not gonna say, hold everything
Clear up my schedule, Gladys
He's never gonna even respond to me
He's gonna think I'm an idiot
So then I started writing down, I started researching everyone's business and I started writing down 10 ideas for Warren Buffett's business
10 ideas for this person's business
10 ideas for this person's business
And then I would send those ideas to the people
And I would say, "Hey, you don't have to respond to this. I don't want anything, but I really admire you and your business, here's 10 things where I think your business could improve."
And then I started getting responses, and it actually changed my life, some of those responses
And so I started doing it every single day
Without fail since then
[Chorus]
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
Having ideas is like a muscle
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
Try to practice having 10 ideas a day
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
It doesn't have to be a good idea or a bad idea
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
But it keeps that idea muscle in practice
[Bridge]
Idea muscle
Ideas everyday
Idea muscle
10 ideas a day
Idea muscle
Ideas everyday
Idea muscle
Idea muscle
I mean, I shouldn't say every single day
Some areas when I kind of dropped my discipline, I stopped doing it and I immediately felt the consequences
And now I do it every single day
It doesn't have to be a good idea or a bad idea
But it keeps that idea muscle in practice
And usually by number seven
It's like a workout
Like, my brain is sweating
I keep counting like, did I hit 10 yet?
And then eight, nine, 10 are the hardest
And it takes me 10% of the time is the first seven and the other 90% of the time it's the last three
Then I know it's a decent list
First everybody says, “Oh, ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is everything.”
And they just assume that at some point they'll be walking around and lightning will strike them and they'll think, “Oh my gosh. People should share cars and I'll make an app in the middle to connect people with cars and I'll call it Uber.”
No, ideas don't really work like that
Nor does execution work the way most people think
People think, I'm gonna take this great idea and now I'm going to do it
The doing it, it can happen in 1,000 different ways
People don't realize there's a whole spectrum of execution ranging from really, really bad so that an idea will fail or really, really good so that even a bad idea might have a chance for success
For success
Having ideas is like a muscle
Having ideas is like a muscle
[Chorus]
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
Having ideas is like a muscle
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
Try to practice having 10 ideas a day
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
It doesn't have to be a good idea or a bad idea
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
But it keeps that idea muscle in practice
If you're sick and you lie in bed for two weeks, you might actually need physical therapy to walk again
Your leg muscles atrophy that fast
It's the same thing with ideas
If you don't have ideas every day, your idea muscle is not gonna get bigger
It might atrophy and so I try to practice
I'll come up with a topic and I'll try to practice having 10 ideas a day around, each day'll be a different topic
But I'll try to have 10 good ideas around that topic
Now they won't be good ideas because you can't have 3,650 good ideas a year
But I try to make sure they're as good as they possibly could be
I've been doing this every since I wanted to network, and I'm not a very good networker
I wanted to ask my heroes, can I buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain?
So I wrote to 20 people
They didn't even say no
None of them responded
Why would they respond?
Warren Buffett's not gonna say, hold everything
Clear up my schedule, Gladys
He's never gonna even respond to me
He's gonna think I'm an idiot
So then I started writing down, I started researching everyone's business and I started writing down 10 ideas for Warren Buffett's business
10 ideas for this person's business
10 ideas for this person's business
And then I would send those ideas to the people
And I would say, "Hey, you don't have to respond to this. I don't want anything, but I really admire you and your business, here's 10 things where I think your business could improve."
And then I started getting responses, and it actually changed my life, some of those responses
And so I started doing it every single day
Without fail since then
[Chorus]
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
Having ideas is like a muscle
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
Try to practice having 10 ideas a day
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
It doesn't have to be a good idea or a bad idea
Idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle, idea muscle
But it keeps that idea muscle in practice
[Bridge]
Idea muscle
Ideas everyday
Idea muscle
10 ideas a day
Idea muscle
Ideas everyday
Idea muscle
Idea muscle
I mean, I shouldn't say every single day
Some areas when I kind of dropped my discipline, I stopped doing it and I immediately felt the consequences
And now I do it every single day
It doesn't have to be a good idea or a bad idea
But it keeps that idea muscle in practice
And usually by number seven
It's like a workout
Like, my brain is sweating
I keep counting like, did I hit 10 yet?
And then eight, nine, 10 are the hardest
And it takes me 10% of the time is the first seven and the other 90% of the time it's the last three
Then I know it's a decent list