So you have your idea. Everybody will tell you it’s a bad idea. It will surprise you where the honesty and candor will come from. You’ll feel like the loneliest bastard in the universe. As Hugh McCleod says “good ideas have lonely childhoods” Ain’t that the fact! So be Ok with it. Make friends with the loneliness of it, but listen to what your critics have to say.

Of course, some folks will be trying to be hurtful, because they’ll be jealous of your passion or your certainty. That goes with the territory. Others, though, will really care and be concerned about your idea. If you’re successful it could adversely affect their position in your life, or your position in theirs. There’s nothing you can do about that. The idea will reconcile most everything.

While the universe won’t be greatly affected by your ideas (though it could and that’s something for another post) people’s personal universes could be greatly affected by your success, and the prospect of this scares the crap out of people.

Hear people out, get their perspective and where they’re coming from. Don’t indulge them by arguing, or trying to get them to see your point of view; that’s pointless. There’s a feeling that comes with a good idea, and the realization that you’re doing the right thing. It’s a warm feeling, and no matter what dark days you may face, or the trusted relationship that may dissolve because of it, remember that feeling, and hold fast to your idea. But hear your critics out.

The best investment you can make is your in self. That’s what I’ve taken to telling myself and the countless family and friends who have been laid off, and after months of being on unemployment aren’t seeing any real opportunities coming their way. “It’s one thing if there are interviews,” one friend told me, “but when you don’t even have the hope of that after hours and hours of job hunting, it gets kind of depressing.” Yes, yes it does, I agree with that.

I’ve been laid off probably seven times, usually from small businesses, who were on their way out of business. I recall one job as a graphic designer where the electricity was turned off, and I lost all of an intense (and ill-advised) Photoshop layout, over one hundred and fifty layers. When the bill was finally paid and the electricity was turned back on I went at it again, and you know what it was a better design and came together more quickly, but that’s hardly the moral of the story, because in fact I was laid off a month later… didn’t see that one coming — HA!.

Being laid off sucks! It diminishes your self-worth, poisons your outlook on life, makes you resentful, and generally is just a sad time; unfortunately these feelings only intensify proportionate to the time you’re without a job or the hope of any kind of gainful employment. The suck train just keeps a rollin’… until you reach a point where you either crack, roll over and give up, or you decide that you’re not going to be a victim of bad times and you need to take control of the only thing you can, yourself. It’s no surprise that more millionaires were made during the Great Depression than any other time. The fight or flight instincts take over, and you decide I’m going to do fix this, I can do this for myself, and you do. You do, because the best investment you can make is in yourself!