If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. -- George Bernard Shaw

Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work.
-- Richard Hugo

By Peter Sheahan Published May 4, 2011 10:00 a.m.

“The world is not short of ideas. It’s not. It is short of people who can execute on them. It is short of people who know how to take their aspirations and make a real impact on the world with them.

"What differentiates the great ideas that end up on the cutting room floor from those that wind up changing the world? There are five steps, or rather five competencies you can build that separate the haves from the have-nots, the doers from the talkers …

Packaging: Taking your idea and transforming it into something you can sell, something you can offer to the marketplace.

Positioning: Aligning your offer to a market need, even if you have to move the market.

Influence: Convincing the buyer that he or she needs it from you, then persuading them to part with precious time, money and energy.

Acceleration: Getting the most out of the opportunity you have created and increasing the demand for what you have to offer.

Reinvention: Taking your brand and expertise and opening up entirely new opportunities.They are not a mantra for meditation, they are not positive affirmations that you chant to yourself in the mirror, they are actions.”

Peter Sheahan is Founder and Director of ChangeLabs. His downloadable manifesto can be found at Change This.