My productivity is being wasted by either looking for someone to kill on Facebook, or discovering vomit-worthy ideas (shitting in your own hand while having a shower and throwing it to the toilet) on 9gag that will put Human Centipede movies to shame. If you are one of the lucky productive humans who doesn’t discover 9gag yet, let me give you a brief introduction about this thing. You see, 9gag is a battlefield where anyone can post images and hopes that his mom is not the only person who thinks he’s funny. Basically, people post images and battle towards one goal, to be on the Hot Page, the page where only images that received votes enough to form a nationwide cult are displayed.

There is this one interesting phenomenon in 9gag that caught my attention: Reposters. Some of them are innocent that the cat picture they are about to post is already posted. But some of them are genius douchebags who are aware that there are dozens of kitty posts out there, and yet they still decided to repost it. The saddest part is sometimes the repost receives more votes than the original one.

Put yourself in someone’s shoes who created an original content and someone reposts it and received more attention and votes than your work. What will you feel? A middle-finger salute is not enough to express the anger. And the pain is much worse than being circumcised twice… in the same day.

We cannot deny the fact that these reposters are douchebags who suck someone’s creativity to gain success. Oh wait… Does it ring a bell?

I realized, that very same pattern exists in the professional industry, somewhat 9gag for the big boys. Mark Zuckerberg was accused of copying Harvard Connections from the Winklevoss brothers (according to The Social Network movie). Then Google+ came, an obvious copy of Facebook according to Captain Obvious. Internet Explorer 9 was accused of copying Google Chrome. And hundreds of companies copying each other. But the question here is: Why is it sometimes the copycat (reposter) gain much more success than the original one? — Or why does using Internet Explorer is not yet listed as one of the Deadly Sins?

I think it is normal for someone to be hesitant about sharing his ideas to others. I myself is afraid of sharing an idea, a wild and kind of original idea I guess. I treasure my ideas like they are already marketable products. But then I’ve read this post from the legend, Jeff Atwood, with a painful introduction quote by Derek Sivers. I was stunned by the bitter truth.

It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an NDA to tell me the simplest idea.) To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Execution, that’s the factor that makes a copycat more successful than the original one. You have the ideas, but they have the better execution. Maybe that’s the reason behind my fear. I may have a brilliant idea, but the big boys have the brilliant execution. They have the advantage. An average caffeine-to-code machine like me is nothing compared to a team of nocturnal rockstars that the big boys have. What a pity world indeed.

Let’s look at a common example of this Idea-vs-Execution issue. So your best friend thought of doing some bodybuilding to look like a human uterus (Imagine). Then since being a uterus-shaped man is a very attractive idea for any normal person, you also decided to do some gym-time. You worked hard 5 days a week, while your best friend spend more time puking rainbows while reading Twilight books than doing bench press in the gym. The outcome is already obvious: your friend is gay, sorry. But more importantly you became more successful than him, although he is the first one to have the idea of hitting the gym.

epicdemotivational.com

just look at this!

See. Execution contributes more in one’s success. While ideas, if not executed, are just light bulbs in our head.

In the past I already tried to create some applications and products. During the inception of those crazy ideas, those eureka moments, I was like “This is it Zuckerberg! This is your end! I will be the new su— f*ck”. Yeah, every time, I mean every f*cking time, before I can even finish my villain-esque speech, reality always bites me. Actually “reality bites” is an understatement. Reality don’t just bite, it hits you in the groin with a jackhammer and look down to you while maniacally saying “You can’t execute it!”.

It’s my fault. I have the ideas, but I can’t execute. Lost of focus, cowardice, pessimism, and a lot of negative things. I don’t have enough drive to keep it going. But more importantly my biggest mistake is giving too much importance to the ideas. Refining the ideas to perfection without planning about how to execute all the sh*ts I’m thinking.

Okay. Enough already with this. Let’s work our ass and execute some ideas dude. Come on, close that Facebook tab!