Most of us have heard sayings like “shoot for the stars and you might land on mountain tops” or perhaps the less poetic “go big or go home.”  Even though these were probably first uttered in reference to life in general, they really do ring true with inventing.  Hopefully this discussion of why they ring true with inventing will also apply to life in general, even for non-inventors.

For this discussion lets imagine an idea for an invention of a watch that can also tell the weather of the area where it is located.  This is a good example because it is incredibly easy to think of many reasons to write this idea off and never give it a shot.  Instead lets put a huge thinking spin on the idea.  The weather would be an incredible piece of information to have immediate access to on your wrist, in fact it should be standard on every watch.  In the future no one will buy a watch that just tells time, they will need it to tell them the weather as well.

1. Inspires Motivation:  No one would waste their time on an idea that they thought would not be successful, but unfortunately too many people dismiss their ideas before they even get started.  In our minds we are now working on the next big thing, everyone in the world will want a watch that tells them weather.  Now we have a reason to take the first steps, and to push through the roadblocks and problems that will probably arise along the way.  

2. Builds Confidence:  At some point you will need to sell your idea to many people, including yourself, people to help you build and design the watch, investors, and in the end customers.  If you are not confident in your own idea, how could you possibly convince anyone that it is worth time, effort, and money to develop it?  When you think huge, you become confident that weather will be a standard feature on all watches in the future.  When you express your confidence it makes it easier to convince others that your idea is worthwhile.

3. You Might Succeed:  Selling your weather telling watches to everyone in the world is certainly a very tall order, but there are certainly a number of large niche markets where they could be very successful.  An outdoor sports or hiking market would probably find this feature very useful, and people that love to have the latest and greatest gadgets would eat this product up.  Conquering just one of these markets would be a huge success, even if it falls well short of everyone in the world.

4. Other Big Ideas Will Follow:  Perhaps there is a way to improve your weather telling watch, or maybe there was a problem along the way in development that sparked the response “there has got to be a better way to do this.”  Once you start thinking huge, it is hard to stop thinking of even bigger ideas.  

5. Build Stepping Stones:  Maybe you did land on your mountain with your idea, why not shoot for the stars from the top of the mountain with your next invention.  Perhaps you are back to square one, figure out why you are back to where you started.  Is there something that can be done to make the weather telling watch a success, or is there a lesson that you can carry over to a different invention?  Any way you cut it, you will be in a better position to reach those stars the next time.   

I’m sure there are even more reasons to think huge than the few that I have listed here.  Please comment if you have one that I missed.  To sum everything here up I’ll leave you with a couple quotes:

“Think little goals and expect little achievements.  Think big goals and win big success.”
-          David Joseph Schwartz

“As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.”
-          Donald Trump

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Inspired Hops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.