A few weeks ago, I bought a 1979 first edition copy of the wonderful book “50 Classic Climbs in North America” on eBay. The book is long out of print, the purchase was a steal, and the book is truly outstanding, inspiring, and just wants me to go and climb all the fifty climbs.
My first thought, when flipping through the book, was: “I should reach out to the two authors and see if I can get them to agree to doing a reprint — a beautifully produced collector’s edition. That would be so cool and so much fun.”
It was the most natural and obvious thought for me.
Only after I told some folks about the idea, did I realize that this was, indeed, not the most obvious thought for most people. And this is when you know that you can’t help but be an entrepreneur: I can’t tell you how often I find myself thinking that something would be fun to build, do, create a company around. Of course, I don’t follow through on 99.999% of these ideas — I already have enough on my plate, but I just can’t help to think about how cool it would be to do this thing.
If this is you — and you (as I did for a long time) believe this is “normal”, let me tell you: It is not. Far from it.
You are an entrepreneur. Congratulations. You simply can’t help it.
And if this is not you — don’t fret. Firstly, I know plenty of people who had one single thing which got into their head, which they then chased down relentlessly. And secondly, if that isn’t you either, there are a million things you can do — as the world always needs way more people executing than dreaming up things.
Either way — the one thing which is true for all of us is: Build what matters.