How many times have you seen a great product come to market then heard someone say, “Hey, that was my idea.”?

We all have that friend who loves to spin their wheels but never starts—let alone finishes—anything.

But the truth is, we have all been that friend at some point.

In a world of endless information, there is no shortage of ideas, good or bad; however, it’s what we do with those ideas that makes all the difference.

Because ideas are everywhere—it’s the execution that’s rare.

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The rise of the “idea guy”

The impact of AI dominates the cultural conversation these days.

Advances in Google Gemini and Claude Code are especially poignant, as they rapidly democratize our ability to bring our ideas to life.

The average person can now prototype just about any piece of software they can think up.

If you can dream it, you can build it… sort of.

While there are, no doubt, plenty of creators stretching their minds and moving into software development via “vibe coding”, the common pitfalls continue to present themselves.

Bringing a minimum viable product to market.

Finding product / market fit.

And, most importantly, marketing.

What a lot of people seem to be realizing is that the building is only about 20% of what it takes to actually launch a successful software product.

Or any product, for that matter.

And therein lies the opportunity.

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Taking it further

Of course, unexecuted ideas are in no way limited to software development.

They’re everywhere.

The video creator with plans to build a YouTube channel but who, instead, spends hours dialing in their camera and lighting setup without ever actually posting anything.

The 9-5 employee who wants to start a coaching business that pores over their website funnel, tweaking every detail, but doesn’t actually do the work to attract clients.

The independent artist with hundreds of unfinished song ideas on a hard drive, never to see the light of day.

I know because I have been all of these.

And despite the fact that I have published thousands of hours of video content, and even more writing, online, I still sometimes use planning and “ideating” as a crutch to avoid actually hitting publish.

I, like so many others, avoid execution because ideas make me feel safe.

And my guess is I’m not alone in that.

The problem is, those “safe” ideas, without execution, never change lives.

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Putting it all together

Ultimately, the trap of endless ideation is rooted in fear, yet another form of procrastination that keeps us from the discomfort of failure.

But, ironically, failure, not success, is where we learn the most.

And failure can only happen when we take our ideas and execute them.

In public.

With stakes.

If we want to win the game of life, we have to have skin in the game in the first place.

There is no way around this.

This means taking that vibe coded app you built in Claude and actually pushing it to market, then working like mad to create content and run ads on Meta, Google, X, or TikTok to attract new users.

It means accepting that your website is good enough and then focusing on the one thing that consistently moves your business forward: getting new customers.

It means actually finishing a song, releasing it to the world, then showing up and doing it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Every success story you know started with an idea, but it is only those who have had the courage to execute and take risks that have ever brought those ideas to life.

And those are the people who have changed the world.

So if you’re full of ideas, that’s great.

Keep dreaming, keep ideating.

But if you want to change your life and create value for others, why not take at least one of those ideas and turn it into a reality?

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