The Castle in Your Mind

Ready for some bad ideas? I’ll give you one. Pretend you’re an investor, listen, and let me know if you’d take the risk to fund bringing this idea to life. It’s a hip-hop-based showtunes musical about the Founding Fathers played by an all black cast. 

I don’t care what you think. That’s a bad idea in the pitch room. It’s a great idea when it becomes Hamilton, though. 

Imagine an entrepreneur worth more than $100 million. This same entrepreneur made his fortune taking another crazy idea and making an iconic company that everyone reading this sentence has enjoyed. He also has a peculiar motto that says,

“No idea is a good idea.”

The entrepreneur is Marc Randolph and he’s the former CEO and co-founder of Netflix. He can be quoted saying “no idea is a good idea” often. So, what gives? Is he suddenly pessimistic after his idea beat all the odds and became a good idea? 

Nope. 

He really believes this! Randolph believes there’s one signature element that separates the most successful people in the world and the rest. To him, the difference is successful people begin where others remain idle. In a recent interview, Randolph defended his stance by saying that as soon as an idea is presented into the world a number of unforeseen variables make it immediately imperfect. No idea makes it in the real world unscathed.

Most importantly, Randolph warns about the common failure of “building castles in your mind”. We get these great ideas and they grow in detail and opulence in our minds. The problem is that they often stay in our minds. They remain hypothetical, untested, and off the field of play. 

If Randolph had his way, he wouldn’t let you build a castle of ideas in your mind. After all, castles between your ears don’t have the same value as castles on a real hill somewhere. He’d never tell you that you have a good idea, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t act on it. In fact, the universe (and Randolph) would prefer you’d act on your (bad) ideas. 

Go!