I write this in response to multiple articles that I have seen written about, “our leadership crisis.” I also recently saw The Social Network. Laugh all you want but yes, I finally saw The Social Network. Someone has to implement the great ideas that people have, I was busy implementing ideas while you were watching The Social Network or thinking of your next “big idea.” I say this in jest, simply to illustrate my point in the best way that I know how, sarcastically. In The Social Network, an idea was hatched for a social network that was based upon exclusivity; however, the idea makers/visionaries/leaders had no way to implement their idea. Their solution was to hire a programmer to write their social network. This programmer had to be creative and talented. They tried twice before but failed to find their guy, until they ran into Mark Zuckerburg.

Allegedly, Mark took their idea, turned his back on the project that he said he would do for them, and implemented a different and more robust version of their site. Mark launched the site Facebook and created a company valued at nearly $50 billion and a user base of nearly 600 million worldwide. Ideas are worthless. Value is created to the extent of how far and how well you can implement your idea.

What the world needs is not more idea makers/visionaries/leaders. What the world needs is more idea implementers/engineers/creators/gamers. Creatives who understand technology, psychology, design, and commerce. People who make things and not ideas. People who get things done by actually doing them and not by getting others to do it for them. One of America’s biggest problems is that we want to be the leader or own the project rather than do the hard work or learn the skills it requires to implement the project. We need to stop wanting to be the CEO or the next American Idol and start wanting to be the next best programmer or engineer or great designer or small business owner. If you want to create value, work and develop your skills in making the things you are passionate about. Collaborate with other doers and not thinkers. Value the creation of things rather than ideas.

Ideas are useless, useless to the extent of how far and how well you can implement your idea.

I ask these questions as a challenge to you.  Are you being true to yourself?  Because, in the end, the only one you are truly responsible for is yourself.  You are responsible for your life, and you should be proud of your life.  Furthermore, I ask these questions of myself.  I am pursuing my dreams but I am not pursuing them as hard as I should.  I have taken steps in the right direction.  I have also tried various professions to find out what truly makes me happy.  What I have discovered is that my true love is in the creative of marketing and design and the development of designers.  The love of my childhood has never gone away, yet for the better part of a decade, I have not pursued my passion.

I was lucky.  Well sort of.  I was laid off from a very good job with a promising corporate career.  I invested much to that company but nothing to myself.  When I was let go, all of my hard work went down the tubes.  That company went bankrupt and dissolved and I was left with nothing.  To make matters worse, I was facing the toughest economy in the past 70-years.  I began to realize the true value in investing in yourself.

I began my new journey as a designer, I began my new journey as an educator, and I began my new journey following my dreams.  I have reached some level of success thus far but I have much further to go.  I sit down and write this story because a conversation I had with a friend of mine.  Out of the blue, I texted him to grab a beer and catch up.  We met up and he told me his story and his new developments.  I provided a helpful ear and simply challenged him to pursue his dream.  Not only to pursue his dream, but to pursue his dream with reckless abandon.  I wish him well and am excited to see what comes of our conversation.

I wish him the best and say that it is never too late to be who you always wanted to be.  Your dream starts today.  You have all the tools that you need all you have to have now is the balls to make it happen.  That is it.  Pursue your dreams; pursue your dreams with reckless abandon!

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Experience is extremely valuable; however, it is limited in that it is focusing on the past to extrapolate prior situations to determine what will work in the future. This assumption is faulty because the landscape of the future is very different from the landscape of the past. The knowledge half-life in different industries can vary dramatically. The knowledge half-life is the amount of time that it takes for exactly half of the knowledge that you currently possess to become obsolete. In high-tech, the knowledge half-life can be a year-and-a-half or less. In Government, the knowledge half-life could be fifty years. It really depends upon competition and the progress of technology. If you were in the audio equipment manufacturing industry, you could be the absolute best eight-track manufacturer in the world but your skill would be worthless because technology has taken your competitive advantage away from you. Thus, your experience does you no good in this situation. You must move with the times. You must follow trends and be on the leading edge of those trends.

If you have two similar people or companies or ideas, one that is a safer bet with more experience or one that is riskier with an ability to outperform, what would you choose? I have discovered that more people will choose the safer and more traditional approach than take a risk and go for higher performance. I am skeptical of companies or individual that choose experience over ability. Experience seems like the safer choice…right? The answer is unequivocally no. Let’s use an example. I ran the 100 meters in high school but wasn’t the best (in fact, it wasn’t even my best race). My 11.4 time was mediocre. Even if I dedicated my life to getting better at the 100 meters, I could never become an Olympic sprinter. Moreover, in 2008 the World Record for the 100 meters was smashed by Jamaica’s sprinter Usain Bolt with a time of 9.69 (he even stopped running with 20 meters left to race). You might think that he has been running the 100 meters for years. It was in fact his fifth race ever in the 100 meters! Comparatively, I have much more experience than him in running the 100 meters yet he has a much higher capacity to run the race. The sad fact is that businesses are in fact choosing experience over ability.

That may seem like a drastic comparison and it is but it is used to show how ridiculous this decision has become in business. Look at your organization and ask yourself these questions:

• Do you hire for experience or ability?
• Do you promote for experience or ability?
• Do you do business with others based upon experience or ability?
• What is the knowledge half-life in your industry?
• Is your leadership leading you by learning emerging trends?

Another example of experience and ability is the current head football coach of the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans Pete Carroll. Since Pete Carroll took over as head football coach, USC has won two national championships, three Heisman trophies, are 85-15, and won 6 of 7 BCS bowl games. You might think, wow, he must have an amazing prior coaching record to amass this impressive current resume. If you thought that, you would be incorrect. He was a career 33-31 head football coach in the NFL and was fired from two prior coaching jobs. How could this be, one of the most successful coaches of this decade, mediocre? The answer is all based upon identifying emerging trends in young male athletes.

The new trend was that players wanted to play immediately upon arriving at the program, were looking to get into the NFL as fast as possible, and were looking to have fun while doing it. Does this sound familiar? This profile sounds like the archetype of Generation Y. Pete Carroll took his knowledge of the NFL, his love for the game and enthusiasm to make it fun, and put everyone’s job up for grabs. It did not matter if you were a fifth year senior. If the freshman was better than the fifth year senior, then he was going to have the job and not the senior. This philosophy changed the game in college football. Since this decision, Pete Carroll has pulled in the top recruiting class in the nation several times over the past eight years. His roster resembles an NFL scout’s dream team. How can you follow Pete’s leadership example in your business? Do you start your fifth year senior or do you start the high performing freshman? Today, the sad fact is that there are many underperforming experienced fifth year seniors starting in business today.