All It Takes Is One Good Idea

I picked up the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set yesterday.

In sitting down and watching the marathon documentary Empire of Dreams I was hit with a very poignant message. If you can come up with one really good idea over the course of your lifetime, and you are smart enough to exploit that idea to the best of your ability — you will be set for life.

Thus was the case for Lucas. A man who was at his most basic, an independent filmmaker who stumbled upon an idea for a quirky space-opera action/adventure serial. Based on the classic elements of stories told throughout history, Lucas was smart enough to retain merchandising rights on Star Wars and the rights to produce the follow-ups of the trilogy. He was a man who took his profits and folded them into additional companies. He invested in himself, and in the end, investing in yourself (instead of a car or a big screen TV or a mansion [even though he did that]) is the way to go.

As long as you have that one idea.

How do you get that one idea? A lot of people try to find that idea based on what is currently popular or successful. But when you sit down and look at the people who have been the most successful in their careers with particular ideas (from movies to computers to the stock market to art) you’ll find that those people were passionate about what they were doing. Passion in that one idea is key.

So, what do we have so far?

1. Come up with that one amazing idea. 2. Be passionate about it. 3. Make your passion contagious.

If you can convince others that you have the most amazing idea and bring them into your world, you will have your own support system that will help you reach your goals. No single man has been monumentally successful without his or her own support network. Without a support network there’s no perception. There’s no way to step back and look at your work without prejudice unless you have others to help you do so.

George Lucas had all of these things. A great idea he was passionate about. An amazing support network of talented individuals who helped him make his idea a reality. And when it became a success, Lucas invested the money back into himself and his support network — fully giving Lucasfilm, Ltd. the greatest chances at longterm financial and emotional success.

There are a lot of people striving to find that one great idea. There are also a lot of people struggling in that endeavor. Why? Because they are either second-guessing themselves and are falling back on familiar ground (i.e., their ideas quickly begin to take on qualities of other successful things) or they have an amazing idea but no one to give them the positive criticism they need to move forward.

It’s a slippery slope on the road to that one great idea. But if you keep on climbing, you’ll eventually get there.