Inspiration is a Time Machine

Companies say they want engaged employees. Funny, I’ve never heard an employee say they wanted to be "engaged" (at least not to their company). Personally, I'd rather be inspired.

Inspiration goes far beyond engagement. The definition of inspiration is literally "the process of being mentally stimulated do or feel something, especially to do something creative." Isn't inspiration what both employees and companies really want? Isn't inspiration what we need for our side hustle? Inspiration is what puts gas in the tank.

If you’re inspired on a Friday, use the weekend to dive in. When you’re high on inspiration, you can get two weeks of work done in a weekend. Inspiration literally brings the future forward. It's a time machine!

When inspiration grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work! Inspiration has a shelf-life. Inspiration doesn’t last forever. If you want to do something, you’ve got to do it now. You can’t wait months to get around to it. You can’t just say you’ll do it later. Later, you won’t be pumped up about it anymore. Ideas have their own agency – they visit you, like birds alighting on a branch, and if you don’t do something about them fairly rapidly, they’re liable to fly away to someone else.

Inspiration comes with assembly required, with incomplete instructions and parts missing. It's a puzzle. It's a challenge. What is fun about inspiration is that it is uncertain. Uncertainty drives ingenuity and creativity, and don't we all want more of that?

Inspiration comes from within you. Most opportunities don’t announce themselves. You hunt them down. You have to seek inspiration. Have you read about or seen anything lately that was interesting to you? Do you have an itch to try something deep down (but you keep ignoring it)? Why not grab a cup of coffee and think about the very first step you'd take - all journeys begin with the first step.

My advice is simple: Don't wait for inspiration, or for opportunities to be given to you. By the time an opportunity is handed to you, it is no longer an opportunity, it is a test. One you will pass or fail driving what someone else saw as an opportunity.