Monday, May 26, 2008

One Good Idea

Yesterday I had a pool party. These are always fun for a variety of reasons. One of the smaller ones is seeing the reaction of those who are seeing my home for the first time. ("Dream House" would be a fair description.)

One such person asked how on earth I'd become so successful. Before I could respond with something about the Lord's blessing, another friend interrupted and answered for me...

"He had a really good idea."

Pretty succinct. I smiled politely because it was the only thing to do. After all, it is what most people think, isn't it?

What I wanted to say was that I've had thousands of "good" ideas (haven't we all?); pursued hundreds of them on some level; poured my heart, soul, money, energy, and even years of my life into at least ten of them; and THEN discovered a few that have indeed brought success. Incredibly, the success has also been wildly disproportionate to both the quality of the idea and the amount of work I've put in, and that can be accounted to nothing but the blessing of the Lord.

It's easier, of course, to think that all it takes is "one good idea." Frankly, I'm not that smart.

3 comments:

Heather Z said...

Welcome to the blogosphere, Gabe!

Kyle said...

Hey Gabe. I like the blog so far. I like the insight in this post- it definitely resonates. Its the same sort of perspective I have with artistic pursuits. People usually don't realize that the "talent" they perceive is actually the result of countless hours of discipline, practice, etc. People appreciate a good song - but don't realize the writing, rewriting, revising - all the work that goes into it. I should write some more on this and post it my blog!

Gabriel Smith said...

Well said. Even worse, some artists have the same mentality themselves - that their natural talent is all they need. It robs them of their potential.