I’m sure you’ve been around someone who said, “Oh, that’s easy.  I could’ve done that.”  Or, “Oh, I had that idea.”

This is usually said by someone who has a lot of great ideas that they don’t actually do anything about.  They see the success of someone else and discount it because they think that all it would’ve taken was for them to put in a few hours on that idea and they would’ve seen the same level of success.

What they don’t understand is that the idea is the easy part.  It’s the execution that’s hard.  It’s the long hours, the bouncing back from failure, the persevering when people tell you you can’t do it, the promotion and networking.  That’s what makes the difference between the person who has a cool idea and the person who actually implements the idea.

The person who says, “Oh, I could’ve done that” is wrong.  Because they didn’t even start.

So, next time someone says that, tell them the truth.  Yes, they could have done that, but they didn’t.