Silly ideas

I ran across this article today, which really got me thinking about career choices.  The basic gist of the article, if I can do it justice, is that most people never feel ready to do something daring and audacious (say, starting a business.)  However, the wildly successful people that are billionaires, etc., just go do it even before they feel they are ready.  I'm not sure if it inspires everyone, but I found it particularly enjoyable.

When I first applied to Google, one of my reasons for wanting to go to a big company was that "I wanted to learn what I needed" to start / lead my own business (as if I would learn those things at a big company).  But if this article is true, I already had everything I needed.  Similarly, I have everything I need right now to do it...which is a scary proposition considering I have a family to support.

But why don't I, or others take this advice, and just keep at our drudgery instead of doing something we're passionate about?  Like many others in my situation, one of the mental blocks that we face is having a "good idea."  (I suspect #2 is not having enough funding / too high of a personal burn rate)  Hell, there's nothing like watching Shark Tank to make you feel like you don't have any good ideas.  Talk about being humbled by people that make chocolate bars and velcro pants.

James Altucher recommends writing down 10 ideas per day, even if they're terrible, just to practice generating ideas.  I don't think I could even come up with 3 a day, let alone 10.

So here are my three dumb ideas for the day (I'm sure someone might already do these):

• A stand for phones that keep them upright so they can record video without having to be propped up against something
• A halfway decent HTML5 / web-based video game.  Seriously, can no one do this?  I know so many people who want to do this, but I haven't seen it yet
• A security device that rings your phone when a window/door is opened/broken

Probably all very silly, or done by someone else, but at least it got me thinking...