Ideas — Worthless, or Invaluable?

Of course they’re both.

It’s become popular among the hustling entrepreneur culture to call ideas bad names. Worthless is the kindest of them.

The reasoning is that ideas accomplish nothing — that every armchair commentator can have ideas, but few of them ever achieve anything.

That’s true.

And so we move to action — the “better” alternative to ideas.

But is it really?

A headless chicken has a burst of activity, but no ideas to direct it.

Ideas have started movements and ended them. Ideas have held entire nations captive, and freed them. Ideas have built walls, and knocked them down.

Not just ideas by themselves, floating in the ether — but the idea came first.

Without the idea, the action is undirected and purposeless.

Without the action, the idea remains formless and impotent.

Originally published at Chris Hargreaves.