Stop obsessing over who owns the IDEA

People rush to say ‘make sure you don’t give away your idea’ or, ‘how can you prevent people from stealing it’?

Obviously this makes sense. In an economy and style of living stimulated by competitive forces, this protection and secrecy approach becomes essential practice.

It’s why every starry-eyed entrepreneur who walks into an investor pitch is talking about their high-end vision, but why the investors’ first question always is, ‘do you have a patent on this?’. 

This is our system — to attract capital, inventors and creators need to provide investors with stability.

But the investment game is not perfect, and neither is our formula for execution.

Our Interests First…

Everyone is obsessed with ownership. We always put our interests first.

Even in the nonprofit world — we are interested in solving a real problem as long as we’re getting the credit and have ownership of the solution. So there are too many organisations doing the same thing.

Ownership is a powerful motivation, and we can’t ignore this. There is nothing wrong with ownership persay.

But what’s more important? Owning the solution, or seeing it exist?

Getting the credit ourselves, or seeing the impact?

Would you rather invent the cure for cancer, or see it exist in the world ten years earlier?

It’s up to you how you want to go about it. Personally, I’ve noticed a lot of the things I dream about making are things I wish had been available to me five, ten, or fifteen years ago. I wish they had existed, and I want them to exist more than I want to be their creator.

I’ve found a great source of motivation to be helping others avoid or reduce the pain and frustration I’ve felt.

I work as hard as I can promoting and enabling others who have powerful ideas, as I do my own. I’m no revelation for doing so — this was done for me, and I’ve seen it done by others.

Show me someone who has failed by continually enabling others.

We need to focus on being the guide, not the hero.

We need to be Yoda, not Luke Skywalker

We need to be Gandalf, not Frodo.

We need to be Albus Dumbledore, not Harry Potter.

We need to be Bran, not Jon Snow.

We need to be the Robin Williams character, not Will Hunting.

Whether we make it or just support it, we always play the role of the guide, not the hero.

Is this idea worth sharing? If so, please participate in the intentional sharing movement where we share things worth sharing.

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Joe.