What if strangers never stared at you again? What if glittery greeting cards cleaned your house? What if we turned ocean pollution into fertilizer? What if you had a molasses covered groin? What if seals copulated without destroying beaches?

In this episode of Steal Scott’s Ideas, Brittany, Conrad & Kate gather in Brooklyn for some execution in public.

**Sponsored by Applyd

Execution Lesson 108: Creating the company that houses your own art.

We get work when we decide to work whether we are working or not.

That’s how working works. It’s not whether we are good, although talent certainly helps, it’s whether we are moving. Because while opportunity is attracted to talent, it’s also mesmerized by momentum. And the best entrepreneurs have both.

Instead of patiently suckling the pink teat of institutional permission, they hire themselves and get to work. Whether or not their work is even going to work.

Roark, the mythological architect who refused to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation, once said that the question is not who’s going to let us, but who’s going to stop us?

Nobody, that’s who. Not a goddamn person.

It’s actually quite surprising the first time we taste this flavor of freedom. We start working and realize, oh damn, not only are people not stopping me, they’re actually supporting me. That’s momentum. It works.

Lesson learned, new work opportunities find us through the attraction of working, not the arrogance of waiting. If you are hoping to get more work, just remember this.

Not working is not working.

It’s not enough to making work, we also have to create the opportunity to make it.

Master than, and you will soon learn that you are much freer than you allow yourself to imagine.

How could you build the house where your freedom resides?

What if menacing gray curb snow became popsicles? What if augmented reality eliminated littering? What if we sold psychographically analyzed microwave scraps? What if we shorted the secondary market for karma? What if doctors could take toot samples?

In this episode of Steal Scott’s Ideas, Alex, Eli & Alexandra gather at Metric Collective for some execution in public.

**Sponsored by the Schmuck Parade Music Festival

Execution Lesson 107: Charisma is code for can’t execute

Emerson was nothing short of a creative genius.

Not only was he a prolific philosopher, writer, lecturer and founder of the transcendentalist movement, but the man was featured on a national postage stamp. Quite the impressive career arc.

And yet, his creativity wasn’t the only arrow in his professional quiver. Emerson was equal parts ideation and implementation. As he observed in his influential book about nature, good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed.

This is a trap many highly creativity people fall prey to. Because we are always working in the realm of abstraction, living in the haze of ideas, adrift in the clouds of possibility, it’s easy for us to lose the thread.

Especially in a team environment. Nothing against a transcendentalist who lives in a cabin in the woods, but in the modern world, our coworkers and managers will often have to remind us to reign it in and come back down from the clouds and focus on practical solutions. That’s the way organizations thrive. There are no awards of merit for abstraction or subtlety of thinking, it’s the effect on the bottom line that matters.

Now, this doesn’t mean our imaginations have to die a horrible death, but they do have be channeled productively. Otherwise our unordered minds will lose track. And probably annoy the hell out of our coworkers.

The secret is learning how to separate and transition our thinking. Creating boundaries to plan our thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way.

Debono has a name for this form of lateral thinking. Wearing and switching hats. It helps people easily focus or redirect their thoughts, the conversation, or the meeting.

For example, wearing the green hat involves making statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where an idea goes. This invites people to think creatively and outside the box. But the group only wears this hat for about two minutes at a time. Then they switch to a different color, perhaps something more practical and discerning, like the black hat.

This kind of process may feel unnatural, uncomfortable or even counterproductive, but it does work.

If we creative people have any intention of executing our ideas, eventually, we do whatever it takes to get out our heads and into the real world.

Are you a charismatic visionary who loses interest when it comes time to execute?