Have you seen the newest Lexus commercial?  They now have a car that parrallel parks itself!  How ridiculous is that?  It makes you ask, What will they think of next?  As a matter of fact, “they” seem to think of everything.  But whatever “they” haven’t thought of, I have!  Allow me to explain…

In high school one day I was hooking up the cable to my TV.  I was having a hard time because the cable is so poorly designed.  You have to screw the cable end onto that little bolt on your TV.  But when you twist the cable end, the whole cord twists and gets more and more tangled and gets shorter and shorter and it keeps un-screwing itself from the TV and you get more and more frustrated and by the time you finally get it attached your favorite TV show is over!  I thought to myself, they should redesign this so that instead of screwing on the cable, you just plug it in.  Well, now they do that with cable and with AV cables.

One day I was driving and it was raining.  It wasn’t raining so much that I could leave my wipers on.  If I did that they would make that terrible “fingernails on chalkboard” sound.  Even on the lowest intermittent setting it was too much.  But it was raining enough that I had to use my wipers.  And it was frustrating because I had to keep manually running the wipers.  And I though to myself, they should build windshields with rain sensors in them that automatically run the windshield wipers based on the amount of precipitation in the air and on the windshield.  They would base their speed and frequency based on how hard it is raining automatically.  Its a genius idea.  And now they make high end cars that function just like that!

In college my girlfriend (now my wife) was always losing earring backs.  All of her friends were always losing earing backs.  I said they should buy a big bag of earring backs.  They told me no one sold just earring backs.  I said, “Well, they should.”  The other week we were in a jewelry store and my wife got my attention and lo and behold there was a whole rack full of bags that were full of earring backs of all shapes and sizes.

What’s my point?  I have ideas like this all the time.  They’re clearly good ideas, ideas that could change the quality of life, ideas that could make me rich.  If I had followed through on one of these ideas and was the innovator, I wouldn’t be writing this blog right now.  My assistant would, or at least I’d be writing it on a much nicer computer.  But as it is, I did not follow through with my good ideas.  You know what a good idea without an action plan is?  A dream.

Of course I have my excuses for why I didn’t follow through with these ideas:  I don’t know where to start, I don’t have the money, I’m not really an inventor, Its not that important at the time, etc.  So what are your excuses?  What are the ideas you have that you know would change your life or others’ lives, but you’re not following through with?  Spending more time with your kids, telling your wife you love her more often, giving your tithe at church, more time in prayer, helping people out more, etc, etc, etc.  What is your excuse for not doing it?

Do yourself a favor.  Be an innovator!  Your ideas could change your (the) world!  Next time I’ll have to tell you about my alphabetical grocery store.

*For all of you rich investors who read my blog; I have many other great ideas and innovations.  Contact me for more info.