Just recently, a friend of mine wrote a post called “Are you an opiniophobe?“. In this post, he talks about people who have this phobia towards opinions from other people.

Let’s face it. Not many people like opinions and even more people don’t like criticisms. Some even reject them without thinking much about them. Their brain will just keep telling them “What do they know about this? They know nothing!” or “What rights do they have to comment me like that!?” etc etc.

So they will just shut themselves out from everything be it positive or negative.

I’ll be honest with you. I used to be like that and will just shut myself out from all forms of opinions. It does sting and it’s not pleasant at all when someone just comes to you and say “whoa, your work sux big time, just give it up!” I’ve experienced it before and it can be very very demotivating. But those kind of opinions are pretty rare (they are out there somewhere, but there are rare).

What we need to do is to continue with our work (and work harder to improve ourselves). Ignore all these destructive opinions which are trying to bring you down instead of helping you. Get more constructive ones. There are still a lot of helpful people out there and they want to help you by telling you what is wrong. They have good intention.

So if you really want to be successful in the things you are doing, you must be willing to accept other people’s opinions. Learn to filter them properly but not shut them out altogether. Believe it or not, your willingness to accept other people’s opinions will dictate how far you go in your life.

Then you should just give up. Because in this world, there is no such thing as a unique idea. The moment you managed to come out with what you thought to be a brilliant and unique idea, some other 30 or 40 people have already done it before you.

Let’s just face the fact. One can no longer come out with something entirely unique these days. If you are the type of person who is thinking of making that one big hit with that single unique and brilliant idea…then sorry to say, you might have to wait for a long long time before you actually start something (maybe, it’s going to take you forever like what happened to some people who waited all their life for that one big break-through idea).

Having said so, I do realize that there are still a lot of people who are trying to find excuses for themselves (and their friends) for not starting out. They always say that the ideas they have are not unique, or “someone has already done it”. So they will just continue to search…and search.

Now, before people continue to search (and wait) for that one big and unique idea..maybe people should just start on whatever ideas they have even if the ideas are not unique. Because at the end of the day, it is the execution and the implementation of the idea which matter, not just the idea itself.

Therefore, the question people should ask is not “How can I come out with a unique idea which nobody has done it before?” but “How can I execute or implement this idea better than the person who has already implemented it?”
p/s……..actually this post was written nearly 2 months ago. and it might be a bit different from my regular motivational posts. I just realized I’m running out of posts this morning. LOL. Hope you guys don’t mind.

A lot of people have been telling me that ideas are hard to come by, especially good ideas. For me, it’s not true. Ideas can come from anywhere, from anyone and at anytime.

Whether an idea is good or bad, that’s another question altogether. One would need to do a proper research to find out. The important thing is never to close down an idea without even thinking about it. There’s no such thing as a bad idea in this world.

Rather than thinking whether it is a good or a bad idea, I prefer to think of it from another perspective – whether implementing the idea is something I want to do, or something which is in line with my company’s direction.

However, if you’re still thinking how to come out with ideas……..well, just learn to be more observant. Something as simple as a normal conversation might trigger some ideas. For example, some of my friends always like to say things like “how nice if we have a Facebook application which can slap a stranger for harassing people” or “how nice if we have an online book store which always gives good discount on books”, etc.

Believe me, ideas are abundant. In fact, anything which can help someone fix a problem can be considered as an idea.

Just a few days ago (or was it last week? or the week before? I couldn’t remember), I mentioned to some people that the level of creativity among companies/corporations/businesses (and sadly, criminals as well) will rise in 2009 due to the recession. And my “wild guess” seems to be heading to the right direction as mentioned by this article – Recession = More Creativity + Higher Rates of Entrepreneurship.

Why is that so?

This is good!! Maybe we'll have an automated coffee machine as well?

Reason is simple. When everyone is having a good time in the good economy, there’s no reason why people should take such high risks and venture into something uncertain – when creativity and entrepreneurship are  concerned, it means uncertainty, even with a proper plan. People are willing to just sit down, relax, and enjoy the benefits and money that the good economy brings. After all, nobody is going to take their rice bowls away from them. And those competitors who try to be too creative? They’ll either perish before we know their name, or they’ll become very successful……….which is VERY RARE.

Well, that’s the assumption of most people anyway.

But when time is bad and economy has gone terribly wrong, some people will lose their jobs and some businesses/corporations/companies will be forced into a corner or a tight spot. Remember that I mentioned before, when one is pushed to a corner without anywhere to run……..one will be forced to take the risk which he/she was not willing to take few months before. Dire circumstances call for desperate changes. If they don’t change, they’ll just perish like the rest.

That is why when people have nothing more to lose (like jobless people), they will be willing to take up higher risks and be creative. Same goes for businesses and corporations because when the “normal way” doesn’t save them…….maybe the “abnormal way” will.

So expect to see more creative products (and sometimes useless) and ideas coming out in 2009. As consumer, let’s enjoy the ride. We deserve it! After all, our money is becoming a rare commodity in 2009!

You don’t have to be the most creative person in the world to come up with the best idea ever. And even if you do come out with a ground breaking idea, do you think you can implement it and most importantly, market it successfully? Coming out with an idea is not difficult but coming out with a good idea is not easy too.

That’s why some businesses especially the big boys don’t tend to come out with their original ideas. They steal other people’s ideas or buy from them. Well, not many buy actually, most of them prefer to steal or …improvise. For example, Apple did not come out with the first MP3 player of the world. They did come out with the first IPod in the world and the first ITunes (which is pretty similar to Napster, except you need to pay). What they did is to capture the heart of the consumers and to see what they need – performance and beauty. That is why IPod is such a big hit. It sounds better than most MP3 players and it looks a lot prettier than its competitors. Same idea, different implementation and marketing plan.

What about Google? They are definitely not the first company to come out with a search engine. We have Lycos, Yahoo, AltaVista (which..somehow..disappeared) and the terribly unsuccessful MSN Search. You might argue that Google was the engine behind Yahoo’s search engine…but that’s a totally different story. What matters here is who came out with the idea first? Maybe it’s Yahoo and maybe it’s Google…but from what I can see now, Google is far more successful than Yahoo because they redesigned the search engine and added a lot of goodies to the users. More features, better and more optimized results, but all built from the same idea.

Another example, our very own Air Asia. Are they the one who came out with the idea of budget airline? Definitely not. There are already other such ideas being implemented in the world but mainly in US and Europe. What Air Asia did was to take the idea and reimplement it in this region because nobody else has done this before. And they become a very big hit in a very short amount of time. Same idea, same implementation, different location and different timing.

From the above examples, you can see that you don’t really need to come out with a good or even great idea. Because it’s not that easy. If you can come out with one, then kudos to you but if you can’t, don’t blame yourself and it’s not the end of the world. You can still start a successful business and have a successful product. At the end of the day, it’s not just about the idea, but the way you market it, the way you position your product, the overall implementation and the timing.

So for those people who always say “Why do you want to start a business when you don’t even have a great idea? Come out with one first before you plan anything!”, maybe it’s time to reposition your stand?