Your Next Big Thing

German-born serial entrepreneur (NEONSPLASH, 60+ locations in Europe), bestselling author and international keynote speaker, Matthew Mockridge is the author of creative catalyst-book, Your Next Big Thing: Creating Successful Business Ideas from Scratch. The book acts as a springboard with tools and proven methods to help you produce groundbreaking ideas and summon unexpected accomplishments.

From an entrepreneurial perspective, ideas need to be nurtured, evaluated and grown. Mockridge’s book provides robust, insightful checklists for ideation and evolution of new business concepts.

Attributes or values that can be used as a guide or checklist to consider different “next big thing” proposals. Your next big thing should include all or some of the following:

• The idea costs money, time, and attention; therefore, it should give meaning and value to the founder’s life. This impacts the connectedness of a team, environment, customers, and partners.
• The idea should consider a principle of fairness around morality and ethics.
• Big problems set the stage for big ideas — the market potential is revealed by the next big problems.
• The idea should be able to scale, grow, and function.
• Profits are inversely proportional to the risk, it should not financially paralyze the founder while clearly telling you when to collect your chips and leave the table.

The “next big thing” is propelled by creativity. Where do these ideas come from? Ideas come from the sum of everything you are exposed to, such as visiting someplace new, talking to new people, reading challenging books, visiting new places, and more. Creativity means a constant journey of discovering and improving, not just inventing. Creativity within an organization flourishes in a design ecosystem that is based on the right team and a mix of perspectives, new and old.

10 practical idea-generating tools that can be implemented right now:

Make it your goal to generate five ideas that could raise $100 today. Then, how can you make it bigger?

1. Be aware that you have finite energy that you must leverage to the best of your ability. Regularly scheduled reflection to gain more insights is beneficial.
2. Use brainstorming and mind mapping to activate your right brain to visualize thoughts in an unlimited way.
3. Clarify the type of thinking you want to use to get to your goal, i.e., convergent vs. divergent. A divergent thinking process means a person or team produces as many results as possible for later evaluation. Convergent thinking is based on a predefined result, and the aim of the team is to move in the direction of the goal.
4. Consider all strategically relevant perspectives. Take five contradicting perspectives to arrive at important insights about your idea.
5. Give yourself ample sleep at night and during the day to access subconscious mechanisms that were processed during the previous night.
6. Immediately capture situational genius by writing things down (or a medium of your choice) whenever they come to mind.
7. Quickly generate fifty basic ideas. No need to focus on quality as the potential combinations can be gigantic.
8. Unlock creativity with “Matthew’s Creativity Cocktail Technique,” take basic ideas and shake them up, check them from all angles, pull, stir, push, and change them until something very special emerges.
9. Breakaway from the norm and old processes to discover stimuli and inspiration in the places outside the situations you are familiar with.

Once you have a “next big thing” it must be evaluated strategically from all angles, to determine whether you should pursue it, adjust it, or throw it out. Mockridge says that some of the most important tools you have at your disposal are critics and potential customers. By considering the person who least likes your service, product, or idea, you can use critical feedback to flesh out what didn’t work, what was bad, or what was good but could work better. Marketing, idea development, and strategies are always more effective when you start with the customer. Find out what they need and give it to them.

Mockridge also encourages developing ideas into replicable, systemic, transferable, scalable systems that transfer the risk and implementation to as many different bodies as possible. With a plan to hone your “next big thing” five years into the future, your idea is ready to follow the course.

Next, it’s about success thoughts — following processes that need to be practiced in order to remain productive, effective, and on course for the long-term realization for the next amazing idea.

1. Flow and Meditation: It’s more about the subconscious than conscious. Meditation can help you get to your subconscious and experience flow in any situation. Meditation prepares you for the day.
2. Journal of Joy: Write down what you are thankful for, proud of, and who you helped each and every day.
3. Fitness: One of the best productivity tools available. Physical training releases endorphins, Domaine, and serotonin, resulting in a stronger, healthier, more productive and well-balanced self.
4. Nutrition: Your body reacts immediately to what you provide it, so eat clean, get smart, and feel great.
5. The Winner’s Routine: Determine what things have to happen for you to feel really good, and then reproduce them into a winning routine every day.
6. The Willpower Muscle: Train your brain like a muscle; the part of your brain that is responsible for willpower is the prefrontal cortex, which can be trained by doing things you want to anchor in your life through repetition.
7. You Get All the Things You Focus On: Focus on growth, opportunities, big goals, and impressive development, and that’s exactly what will happen.
8. Smile: A simple smile produces endorphins and “feel good” neurotransmitters. A smile smooths any social situation helping you and the other person feel security, serenity, joy, and happiness.
9. Shock Yourself: Create situations that turn your status quo completely on its head and give yourself a breath of fresh air.
10. Go Where Your Fear is Greatest: Do the things that make you really nervous because that’s when your feeling of success and sense of victory over your limitations will be at their highest.

And finally, the special something that drives every idea and every company is leadership. Mockridge says that the five building blocks for developing the world-class leader in yourself are: total devotion, open emotion, difference, all-star teamwork, and your decision. Make a decision to do what is right, show character, make a small difference through positivity and kindness, make real human connections, and do the things today that you will thank yourself for tomorrow.

Carefully chosen and arranged, the individual practices and systems presented throughout Your Next Big Thing provide excellent tools for constructing your most creative work and your best life. By examining the structure of success, back to its logical source you can construct your “next big thing.”