Deactionary Dreamers

Over the last several years, I have met several people who suffer from what I call Deactionary Dreamers.  These people suffer from an illusion that execution has no impact on the outcome, and instead is a given. 

In a normal scenario (when things go well), you have three basic steps:

1. Good Idea / Opportunity Identified
   A good idea that requires action is identified.  If all goes well, it could  have very good results.
2. Action/Execution
   Work is performed toward the pursuit of obtaining success as it relates to the idea.  This is usually the area where you find out whether or not this was really a good idea to begin with
3. Solution/Success
   If the idea was sound, and the work was good, you have success.

However, those with Deactionary dreams take for granted what happens during step #2.  As a result, once they have identified the opportunity or good idea, they will be successful and it will come to fruition.  There steps loook something like:

1. Identify the good idea / opportunity
2. ?
3. Enjoy the success of that opportunity

While I don’t generally condone Southpark as an edifying show, there was an episode early on that in on this very idea. In the episode, underpants gnomes were stealing the kids underpants (and thereby driving them crazy since their parents didn’t believe them).  Anyway, at one point in time, the kids followed the gnomes to their lair and the gnomes showed them their business plan which was :

1.   Collect Underpants
2.    ?
3.   Profit

The kids tried to elicit an answer to what #2 was, with Abott and Costello effect (Whose on first? etc).  The gnomes are committed Deactionay Dreamers.

This tendency can be one of the fallacies those who are prone to positive thinking fall into.  They assume that everything is going to work out just fine when there is actually real work and real challenges that must be overcome.  Moreover, the tend not to learn enough from past experiences to know which ideas are truly good that need hard work, and which will not come to fruition no matter how much work is done.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, but execution is hard and is where success is determined.