Gary Vaynerchuk Balancing Ideas and Execution

At the beginning of his book, Crush It, Gary Vaynerchuk asks if the reader stays awake at night with ideas running through their head. In What Next I say that I have so many ideas that my friends and family call them schemes. A What Next thinker like Gary Vaynerchuk always has ideas, “It’s 24/7” he says.

Take a listen to this section of my interview with Vaynerchuk about finding balance between a flood of ideas and the need to focus on the important ones.

The Balance Between Ideas and Execution

There comes a time when you’re ready to focus and pick one idea to execute, it’s the idea you not only want to work on but need to work on. Needing to work on something means you’re passionate about it and when you’re passionate about something it’s incredibly easy to focus on that one thing. The energy to complete the task seems unlimited. You have reached flow.

How do you know which idea, which interest will turn into something bigger? The answer is usually that it has staying power. You keep coming back to that one idea over a period of months and maybe even years. At any point in the process of writing What Next I could have stopped, but the passion only got stronger. The other ideas kept coming but they didn’t stick around as long.

You know the answer to what idea, what plan you’ve had for a while but haven’t done anything about. So when is the time to start? Asking What Next is only the beginning of the journey, it’s like buying an airplane ticket but if you don’t take actions it’s as if you never get to the airport.

Once you ask What Next you have to move on to What Now.