Transcript of Episode 542: Idea vs. Execution and Why Most People Never Build Anything

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Before we dive into today's episode, I wanna thank our sponsor, Momentous. When your goal is healthspan, living better and longer, there are very few non-negotiables. One of them, quality. And when it comes to supplements designed for high performers, Nobody does it better than Momentous. Momentous goes all in on NSF certification, which means every single batch is tested for heavy metals, harmful additives, and label accuracy. And that's why they're trusted by all 32 NFL teams and top collegiate sports dietitians across the country. Here's the thing. They don't sell every supplement under the sun because they believe in nailing the basics, with rock-solid consistency. And those basics are protein and creatine. Momentous sources CreaPure, the purest form of creatine monohydrate available, an absolute must for both men and women who want peak physical and cognitive performance. So if you're serious about leveling up, go to livemomentous.com and use code JEN for 20% off. Just act now. Start today. Jen for 20% off. livemomentous.com. Hello and welcome back to Solos with my foil, Shawnee. Hi, Shawnee. Hello. Before we start and dive right into the next topic, you know, I have to do the same rigmarole speech I say almost every other time I do this podcast, which is if you haven't subscribed, please do so.

It makes such a big difference in other people finding the show. It helps with the algorithm, and I just would really greatly appreciate you guys subscribing. So please click the button below, and that would be really great. Also, if there's topics, things that you are interested or curious to know more about, please let me know. Please leave it in the comments. And also, with every episode we do, back and forth dynamic interaction really helps us and helps us know and gage where and what we should be posting about, what current events, what topics, what things you are the most interested in. So please, I encourage everybody to enter along on the dialog and let us know. With that being said, today we're gonna talk about a little bit of business stuff. We're gonna talk about the idea of idea versus the execution. You know, we, we always talk about the same, like it's 99% perspiration and only 1% inspiration. Again, same as idea versus execution, cuz I'm a big believer that it doesn't matter how amazing your idea is, it's all about the execution. So even when I have something that I wanna do that I'm working on, I don't mind telling people what that idea is because if it always will come down to who executes on it better.

So just having the idea means nothing. It does nothing. It doesn't guarantee any type of success or traction. All it does is say that, you know, you are, you have some innovative and creative, great ideas, and if you don't do anything with them, it's just, it stays flat and nothing happens. So I really wanna kind of really talk about this more because I wanna get people inspired to not just have a good idea, but then to do things and act on them so you can make that idea a reality. How's that sound?

I love that. I think it's very important. I've always been a very big idea person and I think I need to definitely be more of an execution gal.

Listen, I mean, I gotta be honest with you, like there are people that I talk to who are still telling me about an idea or a thing that they're working on now that they were they had the same idea and thing that they were working on 10 years ago, even longer, right? But they get distracted, they're working on other things, they're procrastinating. And the truth of the matter is, like, again, I couldn't— I can't even stress this enough. You're never going to have all the answers. You're never going to know everything. The most important thing is to just start whatever that thing is and figure it out as you go. Don't get stuck in the minutia. Don't get stuck in the thinking what you don't know. Think about what you do know and kind of keep on moving forward and ask questions and ask people who know better than you as you go, because otherwise you're gonna be stuck with this idea and it will never become anything. I promise you, I promise you. That's why it's usually the same people who basically ideate, uh, and succeed over and over again. And it doesn't matter if that thing that they're doing fails, they can fail 100 times, but one thing will hit versus that person who's trying to like get this one thing off the ground forever and ever and ever.

Mm-hmm.

And some of these things are amazing ideas, but then, you know, it doesn't matter if it, if it, it falls because you're not doing anything for it. So let's talk about execution a little bit. Let's talk about some of the things actually that I thought were stupid things that had a good execution and a really great marketing plan, and it became massive. Look at those pets that have like the Chia Pets.

Chia Pets.

Remember the Chia Pets?

Of course. How could I forget? I love them.

Who would have thought in a million years that would have ever been anything, right? Do you know how much money they made off of those Chia Pets? Do you know the number?

How much?

I don't even know. I should—

probably like billions.

Look at it. No, like a Chia— how much did— just look it up. Chia Pet. I mean, I don't know. Worth. I don't know. Let's see what comes up. They're $16 apiece and they made millions, millions of dollars every year. I mean, who would have thought that?

Over $500 million.

Over $5— exactly. I mean, I can go over all sorts of crazy things. The Chia Pet, the kookiest thing I've ever seen in my life.

Did you see the potato thing? Potato Parcel?

Which one is that?

Oh my God. It absolutely crushed. It was when they would write messages on potatoes. I think it might actually still be active.

Oh my God. I do remember that.

Yes. And they are still active. They kill it. It's so funny that it's such a crazy concept, but they crush.

They crush it. How about also the Beanie Babies? Remember those? Oh my God. Yeah.

Beanie Babies. I forgot about those.

Right?

Oh my God.

Beanie Babies. Baby, baby, baby. The Slink. I'm gonna name a couple other things. By the way, this, the Chia Pet is on like every single list of the most ridiculous things that actually worked. Oh, the Pet Rock. Do you remember the Pet Rock? Mm. The Pet Rock was a big one too. It was a rock in a cardboard box. Yes, yes, yes. It came with 36-page about how to care. It came with a 36-page manual on how to care for this silly pet rock. It was made by creator Gary Dahl, who was a rich man. He sold more than 1.5 million Pet Rocks, which he bought for a penny. He bought each rock for a penny and sold each rock for $4.

He couldn't just go to the street and get rocks.

Listen, if you bought it for a penny, I mean, hilarious. And he says, I put about $5 million of today's money in my pocket, blah, blah, blah. He talks all about it. This is the thing, right? Like, no idea is too small. No idea is too stupid, too outrageous. You need to think really out of the box or just figure something out. There's, there's always a need for something. Like, I can go on about these things. Do you remember the Koosh balls? Those kooky balls?

The stringy ones?

I mean, yeah, those things. Guess how much that made?

I honestly, like, at this point, it's crazy. Millions. Just, I'm assuming millions.

They sold the company for $100 million. Jesus. Okay. The Snuggie. There's so many of these things.

The Snuggie is like half a bill, no? Or higher?

The Snuggie was—

I don't know, the last I checked, the Snuggie, but that was a few years ago.

They sold more than 30 million of the body blankets called the Snuggie.

They topped—

you're right, they made more than $500 million. Crazy. I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor, Therasage. Their Tri-Light Panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go, and I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle, red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Therasage Tri-Light everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to Therasage.com right now and use code BOLD for 15% off. This code will work site-wide. Again, head over to Therasage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com, and use code BOLD for 15% off any of their products. So a lot of these things, you know what they did? And for, for execution, it was a different time a little bit.

It, they did a lot of those made-for-TV things, like a lot of like they bought airtime on TV.

Mm-hmm.

And then they sold 'em on TV. That would be kind of the, that would be the equivalent of doing like social media right now. Right. Or digital marketing. So my suggestion, if you're, if you have an idea or, or a product that you think is the next, you know, the next big thing, do small media buys, but do them in, in social media and/or do them in digital marketing. You can buy ads on podcasts. I'm not saying that to buy one on mine. I'm saying like in general, that's how people are marketing their stuff right now. A lot of these big brands, what they're doing is they are buying ad space on podcasts because that's the new medium where people's ears and eyes are, right? So you go where you follow the trend, you follow where the people are. Podcasts, you, you go on TikTok, you do Instagram, Facebook, all those obvious things, influencer marketing. You can also do, and you do those podcasts with media buys, but you start small. You know, you take a very small budget and see if it, if it moves the needle. You can do a lot of conversions.

Like I would recommend people really learning about how to do digital sales and digital marketing if you have a product that you really believe in. And if you don't, try to find somebody that's really good in that space. And maybe what you can do is you partner with that person and you can do a barter exchange, or you can also, you know, give them a percentage of the business, like some stock to do something that you otherwise don't have the ability or understand how to do. Find people where you are weak to basically to amplify your, your product, your business, and compensate for where you're weak with things that you're strong in. And to me, that's how you start. So, you need to be super resourceful and find those people and make little, make baby steps in the right direction so you can actually start on the execution. It's like a shame to me when I see people and I'm like, oh my God, like that's such a stupid idea. How did that work? And they're like, well, I just, I just started, I just did it. I don't know. Like, do you know how many times I heard, I hear on a daily basis how the person had zero experience.

Zero talent, zero, zero, zero of everything. But the only thing that they did do was attempt. They just started and they started with the small thing that they could figure out. And then that thing steamrolled and led to something else and led to something else. And that's really the only thing you do. And that's what you do. And in execution, right? It's not, it's not about your idea. It's not about inspiration. It's literally about perspiration. It's about the work you put in. And if you fail, you just get right back up and try something different.

100%. It's interesting, the correlation to this conversation and to how Bobbi Althoff took off, because I was listening to her podcast about how she started everything and the theme.

By the way, for people who don't know who that is, she's an ex-awkward mom on TikTok. Yeah.

No, she started with awkward mom content on TikTok, but she started a podcast called The Pretty Awesome Podcast.

Oh, is that what it's called? Okay.

Or The Pretty pretty good podcast.

Oh, that was called Awkward Mom, or so she so happens to be an awkward mom. Yes, yes, yes. Okay.

And she interviewed obviously some big names. She's had Drake on, which is really crazy. And I— the theme of like what she said that I thought was so spot on was like she didn't know what the hell she was doing. She just did it, and she just sort of ran headfirst. And I think a lot of people are very cautious when they go into things like that. Like they wouldn't want to interview Drake right away because they're nervous that their interview style isn't good, that their production quality isn't good, that this, that, and the other isn't put together. They don't know how to run a YouTube or even get the audio up. But she didn't really I don't care about any of that stuff. And I think the way that she just kind of went about doing it and just like trying, diving headfirst, who cares, you know?

Okay. Okay.

I feel like is really cool.

Let me just say something about that. I agree, of course, wholeheartedly with what you're saying. I mean, this entire podcast and everything I talk about is about not overthinking something and diving in headfirst really, and being bold and trying something. There is an element to what happened with her though, that's luck. And I think that we can't discount luck, but in my opinion, you gotta be out there to even make your own luck. That's the thing. She got lucky because she had someone else on. He, Drake, so happened to see something that she did that he liked, and then he started to follow her, and then she was very smart and sure and took advantage of that opportunity and asked him to be on the podcast, and then the podcast blew up and the rest happened. But what I'm saying is you have to create your own luck. Yes, she was lucky that, that Drake saw that. Not all of you are gonna have Drake in your back pocket or in your corner. But my point is you can create your own luck by putting yourself in places where opportunities can happen for yourself. That is what has to happen.

So it's about networking, it's about talking to people, it's about asking a lot of questions, it's about doing these little things. Because as little as something may seem when you're doing it, it will lead you to something else. And things compound over time and they accumulate. And that's how you find other opportunities and seek other different things. But none of these things happen when you're sitting there with analysis paralysis and thinking how and what I don't do, I don't know. Nothing happens on your couch. You gotta get out there and you gotta start moving, or else whatever you're working on, whatever idea, whatever concept, whatever thing that that thing is, it will never move without that happening.

You should brand that line into merch. Nothing happens on your couch. Such a great line.

Nothing happens on your couch. Well, something phenomenal, something can happen on your couch.

I mean, some things happen on your couch.

It's just not, you know, the, like, well, listen, anyway, the point is, that's the point. Okay. It's only an idea is only an idea without any execution behind it or action or movement. Or any of that stuff. And I know we, we say this all the time and I repackage that, but I, it's because it's so important. And if, if there's anything that you get from my podcast or any of the things that I talk about, it is the fact that it has nothing to do with talent or skills. It has to do with action and being bold and chasing what you want and not just taking what's in front of you and making shit happen for yourself because Nobody is going to be a better advocate for you making things happen the way you want to than yourself. You need to design, you need to curate the life that you want, do the things that you want, spend the time doing things that you want, do the career that you want, but you need to do the work to get there.

I like it. Like, follow, subscribe.

Like, follow, subscribe. Have a great one, guys.