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Top Idea in your Mind: Impact or Income?

For Impact Ideas | | Nick Fellers

Paul Graham is reinventing funding and start-up culture in Silicon Valley with Y-Combinator (see Inc article).

In July he posted an essay on ‘The Top Idea in Your Mind‘.

I think most people have one top idea in their mind at any given time. That’s the idea their thoughts will drift toward when they’re allowed to drift freely. And this idea will thus tend to get all the benefit of that type of thinking, while others are starved of it. Which means it’s a disaster to let the wrong idea become the top one in your mind.

The concept is spot on, I think. I think he’s also essentially supporting to our main message point: Impact Drives Income. He explained that when you’re raising money, that’s the thing that becomes ‘top of mind’. Then, the product suffers.

What’s interesting for those reading this however, is that for us the funder, making an IMPACT is top of mind.

Paul also closes with some good thoughts on wasting brain space with negative thoughts and energy: don’t.