The idea is a good one, it just needs more bravery. The idea is a good one, it just needs more bravery.

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We hear loads of cool ideas every week. These ideas come from everywhere – existing businesses, someone looking to start something new, our friends, and sometimes even our night terrors manage to manifest some sharp ideas among the catalogue of bad decisions we have made across the previous few weeks.

Most of the ideas are good. They make sense and it’s not hard to see that they could work well. We discuss who they appeal to, price point or internal costs, inhibiting factors and so on.

Ideas excite us. They are the first clue in a new puzzle. But most of them don’t get off the ground, and it usually comes down to bravery (though we blame it on money, time, or other limitations).

Bravery is a risk. It should be a weapon against complacency but is often interpreted as potential exposure to loss. The prospect of things going poorly outweighs the prospect of things going well. Hurt, financial loss, and anger win, and the idea goes nowhere.

Good ideas need bravery. Bravery to execute. Bravery to invest. Bravery to lose. Without bravery, progress stalls.

It doesn’t make a difference if we are in a small business or Amazon. If we are in a progress or ideas role, we need to be brave. Our obligation is to present the best ideas. Not the safest ones or the ones most likely to be approved. The best ones. The ones that are going to help us, our team, the business, the project track towards its purpose.

We are either brave or complacent.

I don’t have an answer for how to be brave or how to reignite bravery. I read an article 15 years ago about the power of bad ideas. The concept was that bad ideas breed better ideas, and better ideas breed good ones. The death of progress exists in a space without any ideas at all. That spoke to me. I found peace in having many shit ideas.

I got comfortable with being dismissed, looking idiotic, sometimes looking high. And I still do, and it still happens. But I also became someone that people turn to, to solve problems that no one else will. I don’t mind how foolish I may sound. I focus more on the “FUCK YEAH” moment we have when we solve the problem.

If you are not sure how to be brave, or have forgotten how to be brave, talk to people. Put together a bravery crew. Join an ideas forum. Talk to the people you know that have good ideas and talk to the people you know that have bad ideas.

If that fails, be random brave; Get dressed in the morning without a mirror. Shower in the dark. Do hot yoga, in work clothes. Do whatever you need to do to be more brave. Otherwise, your ability to move people will be replaced with uninspiring complacency.