Eureka

It would be hard to explain to anyone who has not ever had a child, the thrill that you feel when a new idea is born. For a moment, for minutes, for hours or even for days, you are the only person who ever lived who knows the answer. For anyone else in the world there is still a problem, but for you there may now be thousands. Turning an idea into reality will not be easy, Edison was wrong, the genius is in the moment of the idea, but now the perspiration starts. Thousands of problems, but problems of execution only, you now know how the whole can be accomplished.

Then panic strikes, you must explain your idea. Show others where and why it is right, is it right? You test it again in your mind, weigh it, write it down so you cannot forget, then write it down again in another place. This is too precious to trust to one sheet of paper. You have to tell. Who to tell. How to tell? You tell, you find a friend and ask them to sit and listen, to understand and to trust you to the end, not to prejudge, not to poo-poo, not to laugh! They listen, you see a smile, a dawning, a realisation, an epiphany and they are there with you. Something has died. No longer is it yours alone but something more is born, the snowball has started to roll. You gather yourself, gather your resources, start to work. Soon you must tell those who matter, those who decide, those who can still kill the baby.

The moment of truth, you ask. He (it always was a he in my life) listens and smiles. He picks up a phone and says to you "Can you talk at next week's Friday meeting?"

That was your yes, your affirmation. Now the work starts and others will share your dream, others will thrill at successes and others will feel the pain of failures. Never again will the idea be yours alone. But you alone were once the only man alive ...