My Baby Is Ugly: The Missing Piece To Make Your Ideas More Ownable and Bookable
Ever since joining the world of marketing in 2008, I've been fascinated by one consistent behavior: people will go to great lengths, investing countless hours and (sometimes literally) millions of dollars to avoid actually solving their marketing problems.
Because nobody wants to admit their baby is ugly.
By baby, I mean "idea," and by ugly I mean ... well, ugly. Or generic. Or forgettable. Or confusing. Or...
People invest their time, energy, and dollars into all kinds of things around the core idea they're bringing to the market, hoping that will solve their problems, instead of looking the real problem in the face. I want to take them by the hand and gently but firmly tell them:
"You're smart enough. You're expert enough. But your idea isn't strong enough."
Recently, I found myself wanting to take a friend by the hand and say those exact words, but I pulled back. They had just excitedly shared the big breakthrough (their words) on their book concept.
"Jay! I can't ... I'm so excited! It's so ME! It's finally making sense!"
And then she unfurled the most generic-sounding idea about her relationship to work and how she plans to change yours.
"Work smarter, not harder—and always remember to put your own oxygen mask on first."*
*Congrats, you just read the only writing I've ever done with AI. I mean hey, when the goal is to write the most generic line possible...
***
Maybe you've been there too, hearing a friend excitedly declare, "I've got it, I've got it!" only to mutter into your mirror later, "I don't think he's got it..."
If not, you've at least heard the ideas out in the world. Every influencer talking about burnout thinks they were the first to get burned out by work. ("There's more to life than—") Every company culture thought leader thinks they're first to point to the mission statement at the office. ("It can't just be a bunch of words on the wall") or urge corporations to go past the perks to serve their people ("This has to be about more than ping pong tables!") Every entrepreneurship guru swaps out 1 letter in the following phrase, and suddenly they expect a book deal and countless keynotes: "Great founders evolve from working ON the business to working IN the business!"
I hear this, delivered from stages or through content with such smug satisfaction that they've found "it," and I feel like I've just been asked to look at their phones. "Isn't little Ashlynford a cutie-patootie?"
No. Nope. Nuh uh. That is one ugly baby.
But what do I say?
"Awwww, beautiful!"
"Oh nice! Glad you found your idea."
They think they've found it. The thing is, the problem isn't with "it." The problem is with "found." They believe (and I did too) that great ideas are simply found. They're not. They don't arrive beautiful. They arrive like an actual infant arrives, a sticky, mewling, mottled alien, and just like an actual infant, if the idea is OURS, we really struggle to do anything but conclude that this is the greatest gift to ever arrive on earth. So we hold it up as such.
I'm here to say, give 'em time, mama. Wait a bit, daddy-o. That baby could be darn cute ... after a little development and whole lotta love.
Our ideas don't arrive fully formed, let alone valuable and original when presented to others. Instead, most ideas arrive generic, even if we feel a jolt of originality when they came a-knocking. Making matters harder, we likely can't see it. Because they're our babies, after all.
We're smart enough. We're expert enough. But our ideas aren't strong enough.
The good news is: we can change that.
***
My friend continued breathlessly.
"THIS is the book I want to write! A combination manifesto, memoir, and method" [they get points for alliteration, I'll give them that] "about how we change our relationship with work. And, and, and! We won't just survive" [oh God, she's gonna say it, isn't she?] "We won't just survive but" [yep, here it comes] "but thrive!"
If I had a dollar every time I heard someone say that phrase like they were the first, I'd own 3 senators, 2 data centers, and a partridge in a pear tree. (Then I'd lock the 3 inside the 2, burn it down, and invite my friends to get left behind with me, as we drink and eat around the tree. Sing, birdie, sing.)
We have to do the work to ask questions about our own ideas, then go investigate, aerating our thinking in public through content and conversation, giving ourselves personal momentum first, market momentum second, gathering proof (and supporters) along the way. Said succinctly:
Stop acting like an expert. Start acting like an investigator. You'll always bring expertise to the work, but that's table stakes. Next, you need to reclaim the very purpose of your content and your creative practice and even your interactions with others. You ask questions about your own ideas and observations (WHY do they... // HOW do we... // WHO has... // WHAT if...). Then you investigate through content and conversation.
To me, this is the big miss among content creators today. Everything is built on the assumption that your ideas are ready to spread. Very little focus is paid to the harsh truth that most ideas aren't yet sellable, ownable, bookable—referable—enough to do the work you want them to do. So you have to build them towards that reality. But instead, what happens? People deploy all these tentacles and tactics, which get baked into the source material, rather than examining the source itself. The topic is selected because it's currently trending. The hook hooks 'em, the graphics hold 'em in place before pelting them with rapidfire animations and cuts and countdowns and progress bars, deploying gimmick after gimmick straight into the raw of the eyes.
When that doesn't work, then we blame the systems and algorithms around the idea. But never the idea. It can't be the baby. It must be the basinet.
It's the idea, silly.
When I work with others, I tell them point blank: We aren't starting with expertise. That's not where this journey begins. We start with a meaningful problem and then we focus on finding your original premise for solving it.
This is all built. It's not found. It doesn't arrive. It can't "strike" you out of nowhere. The idea is developed out of your internal conviction and creativity but then aerated, iterated, and validated publicly.
I've worked with enough authors, speakers, and big thinkers to know when someone will and won't do the work. The more excited they seem about their 20-page personal manifestos or their complicated Notion databases full of framework ideas and named methods, the harder it is to tell them their baby is ugly. Same for when they arrive excitedly talking about the big "breakthrough" for their book. (And don't even get me started on people who put a little (TM) next to their branded ideas. They'll take years to see the harsh truth: they've got to go prove their ideas, not just brand them!)
My friend, I could rant about this for days, but I'm losing steam here, what with all the witty asides and the patting myself on my back, mostly for the witty asides. Therefore, I must away. But I'll end with this:
It is far more painful to waste time and money trying to make a generic idea work for months or years than to hear someone you trust say the only four words most of us need to hear:
Your idea isn't ready.
As I wind down this late-night, barely edited rant, my hope is that you make the switch: from an expert who believes they have it to an investigator hellbent on figuring it out. Stop assuming the answer arrives. THAT is likely not THE idea. Instead, ask better questions, then investigate. Don't do it in your head or in a notebook. Do it publicly. Each post is an attempt to ask something and find the answer by writing or speaking through it. Each conversation is a single swing of a machete, clearing away a little bit of brush between you and something great.
The objective isn't to over-market mediocre ideas. The bulk of our time must be spent turning something general into something ownable. The hard part is embracing that feelings aren't facts, and your gut sense that your idea is beautiful still needs prove. Which means it needs process, and that investigative process starts with questions.
DON'T ask the things most people typically ask:
"What do I know that I could teach?"
"What ideas do I have to share with others?"
"What can I say that will spread online?"
Instead, as you embark on your journey, ask yourself things like...
"Why isn't that approach working?"
"What are we misunderstanding?"
"Why does everyone believe this?"
"What if the conventional wisdom is wrong?"
"What's really causing our problems?"
"What would happen if we looked at it differently?"
These aren't questions you can quickly Google. ShatGPT can't address them. It's up to you, which means the idea can only come from you. That's what we want, in the end.
You're smart enough. You're expert enough. But your idea isn't strong enough.
What problem do you believe needs to be solved differently?
What question about that problem is worth investigating?
The game is afoot, and you're on the case.