Navigating the Idea Evaluation Process

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I love incredibly successful people that still have the down-to-earth human touch. It is really enjoyable to talk with them and understand why they are who they are.  Today’s guest is one of those people and yet so much more. Janice Bryant Howroyd is the founder The ActOne Group and she is the very first African-American female to found a billion dollar company, and yes you heard me right, a billion dollar company.  

What is even more impressive about Janice is that speaking with her was like talking to an old friend. She is incredibly relatable and really a caring and authentic human being.

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Transcript:

Chris:
Do you ever wonder how a billionaire thinks? How do they process all those crazy thoughts that go through their head on a regular basis? Well, I was curious, so I asked one.

And the person I ask is Janice Bryant. Howroyd the first black woman to build a billion dollar company. 

Want to hear what she has to say. Let's hop into it. Going back to what you mentioned earlier in the interview, when you talked about your mind bouncing around all the time, Ray asks, how does Janice keep her mind in check and stay focused when it's all over the place and you see the world as a kaleidoscope?

Janice:
Ain't trying to do that Ray for chance. That's a failure from your perspective. I have no interest in organizing this beautiful mess. I love it. I thrive in it. What I do have though is Discipline. Discipline around initiatives and discipline around behaviors. So I love for my, you know, I, if you go up in there, it probably looks like Einstein's hair.

But I, I, I deeply, deeply enjoy letting all the light come in, let all of it come in. And then once I filter it toward an initiative. Or, or a team effort, then I believe, as a matter of fact, my team will tell you, , one of my quotes they most often use is discipline ain't a dirty word. It's not a dirty word, you know, so I think that helps balance if that's what you're going at.

I'm a highly disciplined person. .

Chris:

What is your filtration process there? , you know, we all get crazy ideas and they bounce around our head and we want to start this like new side hustle or new business or new project. , what are the ones that, what's your process for finding out which ideas are legitimate and the ones you want to continue to work towards?

Janice:

Oh, great. So there are four questions I asked myself. One, and this is kind of formulaic for me, Chris, so I can rattle it off. One is what do I want from it? If I do it. What's the outcome? What's the goal of it? What do I want from it? The next question is, what do I want from it? In the next 12 months, depending on where your energies are already obligated, you've only got so much time in a day that you can give.

Even though all of us have the same amount of time to work with. So what do I want from it? The ultimate? What's it going to do? What's it going to be? Then what do I want from it in the next, , 12 months? What will it take to get to the next 12 months? And that's a biggie because entrepreneurs tend to tend to be, , exuberant in our thought about our own capacity.

And then the fourth question is, what value will it have? You know, I'm very interested in being certain that the space I occupy, I leave better than when I got there better is in quotes because we all can define it differently, you know, and so that's how I filter to get to does this idea stand right now.

The other thing I do is that, okay, so I live with an iPad. I'm on an iPad right now talking with you. I love, love, love, love, love iPad. Yes, I own stock in Apple, and yes, I bought it when it was a really good deal, but I love iPad anyway, and it allows me to do so much. And my notes section is busy. I am a fierce note taker.

So I will write things down in my iPad and then I have a regular check in system where I go back. Is it still as clear to me as it was when I wrote it? If it's not, check, you know, and I move it. And so I systemize. ideas that come into my mind or initiatives. I also do that with asks when people are asking things of me, I do it that way as well.

Mom used to do it much less, uh, complicated. She would say, oh, I'll come back to it later. If I can't remember what it was, it's gone. Or if it's burning at me and turning at me that I got to get back to it, then it's up there. You know, I think some people call it putting a pin in it.

Chris:

Yeah, I always tell myself if the idea keeps coming back to me, it means something that I should work towards or something I should implement.

Janice:

It can, it always doesn't mean that though. Sometimes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, seriously. Sometimes it's the gateway to something else.

Chris:

Good point. Yeah. Good point. 

And boom. There, you have it. You guys, Janice Bryant. Howroyd I love this because I, and I don't know if you can relate often feel guilty because of this beautiful mess up here. My mind, my thoughts, not harnessing them better, not using them better, not being more productive. And sometimes, , our minds can just go down rabbit holes. 

And the next thing, you know, two hours went by and we don't even know, , what happened and we forgot the task that we're working on. And I love that Janice says that she loves this beautiful mess in her brain. She absolutely loves it. She says that probably it looks like Einstein's hair and she has no agenda or no care in the world to organize it. 

She just lets it in. And filters it as best as possible. Absolutely. Absolutely incredible answer. 

And if you guys take away anything, what are the four questions that you need to ask yourself? If you want to filter through all these thoughts in your head, right? 

So what would Janice say? One. What do I want from it? Great question. Two what do I want from it in the next 12 months? Also a great question. This helps implement the short term thinking and also the long-term thinking. Is it worth my time and activity in the next 12 months. Maybe I should postpone it, or maybe I should implement it immediately, depending on what it is. 

And three, the third question. What will it take for me to achieve in the next 12 months? Again? Revisiting that question of how much time and effort and energy it will take you to achieve this idea that you have in the next 12 months and the last question.

And probably the most important. What value will it have? Will it raise the bar of my business. Will it raise the bar of my life will raise the bar of my relationships. Is it a priority or is it something that we can postpone until later? And I also love what Janice said about thoughts that are reoccurring, that you really think you should do. And I have this, I actually wanted to start a second podcast at one point. This was probably about four years ago. And I was just chewing on this idea for a new podcast and I thought it was so good and so juicy and it would be so successful. And I was convinced, , by another,, another podcaster, that's a good friend of mine and somebody I look to for advice like this, and he kept telling me, no, do not start a new podcast. 

Do not start a new podcast. What he said is expand on your current podcast. And that's why now we have almost 200 high-performance episodes. So the high-performance are the short episodes. They're generally like this one, two to 10 minutes, , from the longer interviews that we do. And I took his advice and I'm very glad that I did. Cause I didn't have the time or bandwidth to run a second podcast and I'd be exhausted and that podcast would be stagnant now. So sometimes we have these great ideas. And like Janice says they're actually a gateway to something else. 

It doesn't mean that idea is the actual thing. So. We're going to wrap it up there. You guys remember those four questions? One. What do I want from it to what I wa what do I want from it in the next 12 months? Three. What's it going to take for me to achieve in the next 12 months and for what value does it give? 

Whenever you have a thought or an idea to do a new thing? We're going to leave it at that. You guys, if you haven't checked out Janice's episode yet. Please do you won't regret it? It's episode number 544. And interview with the 32nd richest woman in the world. Make sure you check it out. 

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We'll see on the next episode.