Is This A Good Idea?

Welcome to Million Dollar Grit, the podcast that dives deep into the world of entrepreneurship, where tenacity meets strategy and dreams meet reality. My name is Julie, and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life. It's not just about the glossy success stories. It's about the grit it takes to get there.

Hey everyone, this is Julie. Welcome back to Million Dollar Grit. Today I'm answering a client's question, which I think the whole community should hear the answer to. And she says, how do I tell if I should pursue a particular idea? What do I use to measure, is it a good idea or not? So I want to address this and kind of go through a bunch of questions and reflections that I would do for myself and for any client. So Number 1, I want to start with this term "gut check," and I've been really interested in my gut and my instinct mainly because I have spent a lifetime ignoring it, and I've used my brain and my heart to rely on making decisions instead of my body. And if you are into any sort of nervous system regulation or somatic work, you understand that the body oftentimes reflects things about our environment, a conversation, that our brain and our heart mess up. And so I'm asking, gut check, right? How do you feel in your body when you think about this, right? So ask yourself, like, is your heart beating faster? Um, are you feeling like tingly? Like, what is the response when you think about this idea? Because a lot of ideas are coming from sort of a logical perspective or a desire perspective, like, oh, I want to do this, but ask yourself, like, what is going on in your body when you think of this idea? Because oftentimes good ideas have this internal, um, yes, like it's like a hell yes, and you just feel it. It's like, it feels like a strong tree. And I feel this feeling in my body when I'm working with clients and they bring something to me, and there's just this thud factor of like stability. I don't know, it's just, it's like a tree with roots. And so I'm looking for that feeling in my body when I'm discussing an idea. And then we want to weigh that against data, right? So what is the math, right? I ask this all the time. The path to money. How much can it actually make? Is it scalable? Um, you know, do you have, uh, any sort of market validation? Has it sold in the past? You know, when you're thinking, especially when you're thinking about offers, right? So you want to use these two really very, very different opposite mechanisms that you have at your disposal, disposal as a human being. It's that gut check, that thud factor, and then the data, data, data. I'm saying it both ways, right? So looking at the money, looking at, you know, the monetization process, the forecasting, all of that kind of stuff. Then we move to the second big question you want to ask yourself is, if you say yes to this, what is the no to the something else, right? So what does this idea cost me? This is really, really hard to ask yourself, especially if you don't have— if you're not weighing between two things, right? Like, oh, I should launch this subscription idea, or I should do this mastermind. It's, it's easy to say, oh, if I say yes to this, I'm saying no to this. But what if there is nothing there in the no? It's really hard for the brain to look at opportunity costs. Like, is there something that's going to come in the future that's going to have more leverage, more passion, more whatever, and by saying yes to this thing, you are inherently making your life harder for the future, right? So we start with gut and data, two completely different modes of thinking, and then we move into that opportunity cost. And, you know, if you struggle to think this way, you can always leverage AI to like go back and forth. I also, you know, can encourage you to ask a coach like, "Hey, what am I saying no to here by saying yes to this?" Okay, then the next question, the third thing down is the 10,000 hours, and people say that you got to become an expert by investing 10,000 hours. So when you're trying to sell something, do you have 10,000 hours of expertise? Because I mean, if you don't, it doesn't mean you can't, but it just is harder, right? Like, it's, it's something that people are going to look for more and more and more is like, what is the proof in the pudding that you're actually going to get the transformation, right? So when you're building a business, like, as much as I love baby chicks and chickens, for those of you who follow me know, like, I don't have 10,000 hours of experience breeding chickens, so I really can't sell a course on this yet. I would have to do it You know, a fair bit of time. But do I have 10,000 hours at Disney World? Hell yes, I do. Right? I could go into that. So you want to ask yourself the 10,000 hours question, but there's another part to this, and that is, are you going to stay in the game for 10,000 hours on this idea? Are you going to give this idea 10,000 hours? Right? So maybe you have 10,000 hours of expertise doing whatever. but are you going to give this? And if you're like, "I don't know," right? That might mean that it's like a whimsy idea or like a fleeting idea that maybe you're not going to be super excited about. And sometimes it's hard to know this because you got to kind of like test the waters, and I get it, but if you're not like willing to see yourself 10,000 hours into the future on it, maybe it's not something that you should pursue just yet. Okay, the next question is, uh, the speed question, which is how can you get market validation on this idea quickly, right? Um, and can you pre-sell it? Can you test it? Uh, could you make $10,000 from it in 30 days? These are 3 questions that you want to ask yourself, right? How could I pre-sell this before I go off and build it? How can I find a small audience before launching it big? How could I generate $10,000 from this in a month? Right? And so that speed really matters just because I know it kind of feels like it's going against the 10,000 hours question, but speed is gonna help you iterate. And if this is like, oh, I wanna build this complicated, you know, software that's gonna take 2 years to build, like unless you're in startup founder mode, that's going to be a hard idea to pursue. Although I'm probably eating my words because it's not going to be hard soon, but you know, for right now. Okay, so reviewing, we've got the gut and data check, we've got the opportunity cost question, we've got the 10,000 hours question, and then the speed question, right? So that's question number 4. The 5th one is the hardest one to answer, and it requires a level of self-awareness and it's about how you show up with ideas. It's the pattern that you have, right? And so it's this idea of witnessing yourself. Have you ever done this where you like kind of step outside of yourself and like you witness yourself? Uh, one great way to do this is to imagine that you're a character in a movie and you are the audience. And you know how the audience always is watching and says to the character like, ah, don't do that. You know, like we can like see what's gonna happen. But the character for whatever reason can't. If you were to watch yourself in that way, would you be the audience going, "Man, she's doing that because this other thing got really hard," right? Like, "Is she launching or is she trying this new idea because she abandoned that other one? Is there something about this that's about money only, or is there a deeper passion?" Right? So you want to kind of witness your own patterns because if you are the kind of person that has a lot of ideas, Every idea presents itself as a great idea. That's the whole idea. And so if you don't step back and be like, hmm, is this a pattern? You might kind of think that it's a great idea, but it's really just your pattern talking. So those are the 5 questions that I would ask, and they're evaluating all kinds of different ideas, business model ideas, partnership ideas, funnel launch timeline ideas, all of that kind of stuff. So it's gut versus data. It's opportunity cost. It's the 10,000 hours. It's how fast can you get it? And then it's your own patterns and baggage. And then the last thing I say is if your idea is related to an offer, so this is, 'cause this framework will work for any idea, like, is it a good idea? But if it's an offer, I would ask, I would add an addendum there and say, do, am I solving a problem? Like, and do I know what that problem is? And is that problem painful enough? And I would really go at that. And I talk about that all the time in offer brief and offer creation. So I would add that as a 6. So I hope that helps with the next idea you have. Run it through that system. Let me know what you think. All right, talk soon.

And there you have it, folks, another dose of Million Dollar Grit. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped, and ready to to face your own entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until next time, embrace the struggle, harness your grit, and keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie Chenell, and this has been Million Dollar Grit.