(Letter 1 of 2)

Dear Steve Jobs Archive Fellow,Trust your creative passion #1.
Here’s a way to think about having and selling a brave idea.Don’t do the right thing,You’ll be tempted.
The right thing sounds so good in meetings, it looks fantastic in charts.
The right thing soothes racing pulses and settles churning stomachs, everybody can get on board with the right thing.
The right thing will be good enough.
But, as one of my company’s t-shirts suggested,
“Good enough is not enough.”
Don’t do it, don’t do the right thing, avoid it like the plague.
So, what am I suggesting you do, the wrong thing?Of course not. Do the brave thing.The thing that troubles your sleep, the thing with millions of unknowns, that seems ridiculous one moment and genius the next. That’s the thing you should do.Chase it down, don’t let it go, do the thing that disrupts, that upends, that doesn’t just defy the status quo but reshapes it forever. You can do that.Doing the right thing or not is a choice, to be disruptive or not is a choice.I suggest you do the brave thing.

(Letter 2 of 2)

Dear Steve Jobs Archive Fellow,Trust your creative passion #2.
Having a brave idea is the easy part.For an idea to live it must journey from the mind of its originator out into the ears of others into the world.To live it must cross an area that is dangerous to the life of an idea, an area between the mind of the originator and the world where other people live who fight against ideas and try to kill them. This area that challenges every brave idea the moment it is born is called the Nincompoop Forest.To find your way through the Nincompoop Forest it takes heart, intelligence and determination.There are many obstacles lying in wait. Some people fear big ideas, or are afraid to defend them, or don’t know how to explain or sell them.Some people are afraid to buy big ideas, because, by their nature, they have never been done before and can be scary. (It’s been said that if you’re not scared of an idea it’s probably not a big idea at all.)You’ll have to save your idea from all the people who want to change the idea, help the idea, compromise the idea.They want to make it better, or safer, or less expensive or more comfortable.Your great ideas have to beware of the Nincompoop Forest.