The Create Your Day Podcast

112. Why Your Good Ideas are Killing Your Business

• Jenn Cody | Productivity & Systems for Entrepreneurs • Season 1 • Episode 112

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You have seventeen brilliant business ideas in your notes app right now. Every single one of them is good. Legitimately good.

But your business isn't growing the way you want it to.

The problem isn't that you need better ideas—it's that you have too many good ones. In this episode, I'm breaking down the entrepreneur's curse: being brilliant enough to see opportunities everywhere, but not strategic enough to know which ones are actually yours to take.

We're talking about why more ideas don't equal more growth, the hidden cost of pursuing every opportunity, and the three-question filter that will help you choose which ideas deserve your focus (and which ones belong on your "not now" list).

If you're ambitious, creative, and spread way too thin, this episode is your permission slip to finally focus on the one thing that will actually move your business forward.


WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS

For ambitious entrepreneurs struggling with:

  • Too many ideas and not enough execution
  • Scattered focus and lack of momentum
  • Revenue plateaus despite working harder
  • Team confusion about priorities
  • Feeling busy but not productive
  • Analysis paralysis from too many options
  • Opportunity FOMO (fear of missing out)
  • Building multiple businesses at once

This episode will help you understand why strategic focus beats scattered execution—and how to finally choose the right opportunities instead of trying to pursue them all.


IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

✅ Why having too many good ideas is sabotaging your business growth
✅ The hidden cost of every new opportunity you say yes to
✅ Why diversification works for investing but kills early-stage businesses
✅ The difference between what's possible and what's actually aligned with your vision
✅ The three strategic questions that separate good ideas from aligned ideas
✅ How to create a "not now" list so good ideas don't go to waste
✅ Why strategic patience is a competitive advantage
✅ The CLEAR Process framework for evaluating opportunities
✅ How to choose your one big focus (and commit to it for 6 months)
✅ Why saying no to good ideas is actually the most ambitious thing you can do

Thanks for listening!

Connect With Me:

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📱 DM me on Instagram: @solutonsbyjenncody

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SPEAKER_00:

Hi there, welcome to the Create Your Day podcast. I'm your host, Jen Cody. Welcome to a new week. So I want to start off this week's episode going through a scenario with you. Think about the notes app on your phone, right? At any given time, what do you have in there? 17 different ideas, um, new ways that you can potentially grow your business, maybe new offers that you can create, new marketing strategies you can explore, partnerships that you can try, um, pivots you can make. Every single one of them is a good idea. Plus, there's the stuff you have around your house, right? Like ideas around recipes and furniture and vacations, so many ideas all the time. And you're not delusional. These ideas have real potential. But do you know what's also true? It's that your business isn't growing the way that you want it to. You're working hard, you're smart, and you're capable, but somehow you're still stuck. And maybe you're sitting there thinking, I just need to find the right idea. The one idea, the one that's going to crack this all open for me. But this is not your problem. Your problem isn't that you need better ideas. Your problem is that you have too many good ideas. So today we are talking about this curse because entrepreneurs are smart and they are so smart that they are able to see opportunities everywhere. And unfortunately, we're not always strategic enough to know which ones should we actually be going after. So, welcome back to the podcast. If you're new here, like I said, my name is Jen, and I help women gain clarity, gain confidence, and scale their lives and businesses without losing themselves in the process. That last part, that's what we're talking about today. Because there is this myth in entrepreneurship that the more ideas we have, the more opportunities we will get. That if we're smart and creative and strategic, that we should be exploring every avenue, testing every possibility, saying yes to every potential. But then what actually winds up happening? We have a business that looks great on paper, but feels totally chaotic to actually run. So what we're going to do is get clear on why good ideas might be our biggest strategic threat. You know what nobody tells you when you start your business? They don't tell you that the hard part isn't coming up with ideas. They come at us like fastballs, right? Like constant ideas smacking us in the face. The hard part is knowing not to pursue all of them. When you're ambitious and you're strategic, your brain is constantly seeing possibility. Maybe you listen to a podcast and you think, I could do that. You see what a competitor is doing and you think, maybe I should be doing that. A client maybe asks for something totally different and you change your entire offer strategy. And why do you do this? You do it because you feel like you are leaving money on the table. You start adding things, a new service here, different marketing channel there, a new partnership, another offer, all because you think you're leaving money on the table. None of this is bad. This is actually kind of the insidious part of all of it. These are not vanity projects. This is not shiny object syndrome, because we have that too. That's not what we're talking about. These are legitimate opportunities being pursued by a legitimately capable person. You. So what's actually happening here? What's happening is you're building a business with too many growth strategies and not enough growth. Because every good idea costs something. And I'm not just talking about money, although that is part of it. I'm talking about something that's actually even more expensive when it comes to you and your well-being, and that is your capacity. Every new offer you create means less energy for the offers that are already working. Every new marketing channel means less consistency in the channels that you've already built. Every pivot means that you're losing momentum in the direction that you were originally heading. And what makes things worse here is that your team, if you have one, has no idea what to prioritize because you don't know what to prioritize. Because all of a sudden everything is a priority. Every idea sounds good. And because you said yes to all of it. So your team is spread super thin, you're spread super thin, you're executing on 17 partially formed strategies instead of one fully realized vision. And what I don't want to happen is to have you exhausted running a coaching business, a digital products business, a service-based business. Maybe you're even exploring, you know, becoming a speaker and you're doing all of this at the same time. And I bet if you're doing that, if someone asks you what's growing, you're going to stop and say, none of them. They're all fine, but nothing's really taking off. Of course, nothing's taking off because you're giving 25% effort to four things instead of 100% effort to one thing. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, but Jen, isn't diversification smart? It's risky to put all of my eggs in one basket, right? And yes, if you're managing an investment portfolio, that's absolutely true. But that's not what you're doing. You're building a business, and the rules here are different. In investment, right, diversification protects you because you can't control the market. But in your business, you are the market. You're the CEO. You're the one creating the conditions for your success. And success in business doesn't come from doing 10 things okay. It comes from doing one thing exceptionally well and then expanding from that foundation. So think about every successful business that you know. The who are the ones you admire. Did they start by doing everything? Or did they dominate one thing first and then expand? Let's talk about the giants we all know and love, right? Amazon started with just books. Apple started with just computers, Nike started with just running shoes. They didn't diversify until they owned that category, until they had built something so solid that expansion was an amplification and not a distraction. So if you're trying to build three businesses at once and wondering why none of them have traction, it's not because your ideas aren't good. It's because good ideas without strategic discernment create complexity. And that never leads to growth. Never. So, how do you know which ideas to pursue, which ones to let go of? How do you make strategic choices when everything seems like it has potential? This all starts with understanding the difference between what's possible and what's aligned. Most entrepreneurs are making decisions based on what's possible. Could we do this? Do we have the skills? Is there a market? Could it work? And when the answer is yes, we do it. That's not strategy. That's opportunity hoarding, right? You're keeping all of the opportunity and not realizing which one is the one you actually should be going after. Strategy asks a very different question. Is this aligned with where we're going? Because you could do a lot of things. You could probably make any one of those 17 ideas in your notes app work for you if you throw enough time at it, enough energy at it. But the question isn't can you? The question is should you? And the answer to that question requires something that a lot of people skip. And that is actual clarity about what you are building towards. I don't mean just your revenue goals, not I want to grow, but real specific vision about what your business looks like at its best. What are you known for? What do you want to be exceptional at? What kind of business you actually run three years from now? Right? What does that business look like? Because if you don't know that, every idea looks equally valid. And you'll keep saying yes to things that move you sideways instead of forward. So here's the filter I use with every client when they bring me an idea. Three questions. They're going to cut through this noise. The first one is, does this move us closer to our vision, or is it creating a new business, a totally different business? This is a clarity question. If your vision is to be known as the go-to expert for one specific thing and this new idea pulls you into a completely different market, it's not aligned. It might be profitable, it might be exciting, but it's not yours. Question two, can we do this at the level of excellence we are committed to with the capacity we actually have? This is a reality question, right? Most people overestimate their capacity and underestimate what it's actually going to take to do something well. So if pursuing this idea means everything else gets done at 70%, you can't afford it. Not because you're not capable, but because diluted excellence is just mediocrity with a fancy backstory. Question three. If we say yes to this, what are we saying no to? This is a cost question, and it's the one a lot of people skip because every yes is a no to something else. If you say yes to this offer, you're saying no to the development of your core offer. If you say yes to this marketing channel, you're saying no to consistency in your marketing channels. Make the trade-off explicit and then decide if it's worth it. So here's the thing because just because an idea isn't right right now doesn't mean it's wrong forever. So I happen to keep a not now list. Ideas that are good, they're aligned, they have potential, but not yet. Not until the foundation is stronger, not until the core offer is dialed in, not until the team has capacity. So you may have a brilliant idea, right, for a group program, legitimately brilliant. But if your one-on-one coaching practice practice is only six months old, you're still figuring out your messaging. You're still building your reputation. You're still learning what your clients actually need. So I would tell you to put that on the not now list and build the foundation. Get known for that one-on-one work, develop a point of view, create demand. And you know what? A year later, when you do launch that group program, it will be filled because you'll have built the foundation that made the expansion work. Do you understand what's happening here? The idea isn't wrong. The timing is. And that's what a lot of people miss. They think that if they don't pursue the idea right now, they're losing the opportunity. But actually, in reality, pursuing it too early is what kills the opportunity because you don't have the foundation to make it successful. Let's talk about that, right? Strategic patience is a competitive advantage. My clients know this from me. I tell them all the time, practice patience, practice patience. Letting ideas sit until you're ready to execute them well is how you build something that lasts. So now you've got 17 ideas, you have to narrow down to the one or two that are actually aligned. And how do you do that practically? What is the actual process? I will walk you through it. So we had our questions, right? First, we're going to get clear on what we're actually building. I do not mean a mission statement. I don't mean a vision board. I mean a specific, tangible description of what your business looks like when it is working exactly the way you want it to. This is the cast phase of my clear process, the C in clear. You're casting the vision before you evaluate any opportunities against it. So ask yourself, three years from now, what is my business known for? What's the one thing I want to be exceptional at? The one thing I want to be exceptional at? What is my ideal week look like? What am I spending my time doing? What kind of clients am I serving? What transformation am I creating? What does my revenue look like? I want to know those numbers, right? What is the revenue in three years look like? What does my lifestyle look like? Get specific because guess what? Vague visions create scattered visions and scattered strategy. So if your vision is I want to help people, every idea is going to fit. But if your vision is I want to be the go-to expert for women scaling their first business to$500,000, well, guess what? Now you have criteria. Now you can evaluate which ideas are going to move you toward that and which ideas are not. So what I want you to do is block an hour this week and write your three-year vision in detail. Think about, I don't want you to just think about what you're supposed to want, right? I want you to think about what you actually want. And then I want you to look at everything you're currently doing, everything you're considering, write it all down, every offer, every service, every marketing initiative, every we should probably be doing this that's floating around, and honestly assess each one. Is it aligned with my three-year vision? Is this getting the energy and the excellence it deserves? Is it producing results that justify the time investment, the money investment, any investment? If I started from scratch today, would I choose to do this? Now, this is the evaluate phase, right? The E in clear. You're looking at the gap between what you said you want and what you're actually building. There's a good chance there's a big gap there. You're going to find things that made sense when you started them, but they don't serve your vision anymore. Kill them. Get them out of here. Even if they are making money, that's the hard part. We want alignment because they're costing you something more valuable than revenue. They're costing you your focus. Here's what I want you to do: create your current portfolio audit. I want you to be ruthless. If it is not a clear yes, it is a no. Pick one thing, and this is going to be your focus for the next six months. Not three things, not this core offer, but this these two experiments. One thing that if you nailed it would transform your business. So maybe it's perfecting your core offer so that it's so good people can't help but talk about it. Maybe it's building a marketing system that consistently brings you qualified leads. Maybe it's hiring your first team member so you can stop being the bottleneck in your business. Whatever it is, it should be the thing that when you think about it, you feel both excited and a little bit scared. Because it does matter. It would actually change things, right? So it's a little scary when we're going to do something that actually changes things. Then I want you to commit to saying no to everything else for six months. Not forever, just six months of focused execution on the one thing that matters most. This is the align and roadmap phase combined. You're aligning your resources around the highest impact focus and you're creating a clear path to get there. Put all those other good ideas on your not now list. They're not going anywhere, but your focus that has an expiration date. So, what else do I want you to do? Choose your one big focus by the end of this week. Write it down. Tell someone, make it real. Look, I know this is hard. If you're the kind of person who listens to this podcast, you're probably someone who sees possibility everywhere. You're creative, you're strategic, you're ambitious. And you're saying no to good ideas makes you feel icky. It feels like you're leaving money on the table, like you're playing small, like maybe you're not ambitious enough. But that's not what's happening. What's actually happening is you're choosing to be great at one thing instead of mediocre at 10 things. You're choosing momentum over motion. You're choosing to build something that lasts instead of something that just looks busy. The most successful people I know aren't the ones with the most ideas. They're the ones with the most clarity about which ideas to actually pursue, which ones are theirs to go after. So, yes, keep having ideas, keep seeing possibilities, keep being that creative, strategic person that you are, but get ruthless about which ones you actually act on. Because your good ideas aren't the problem. The problem is thinking you have to pursue them all, right? You don't. You just need to pursue the right ones at the right time and with focus and excellence that you are capable of. That's what's going to make a difference. That's not limiting, that's strategic. And it's the difference between a business that's scattered and a business that scales. If this resonated with you, I'd love to have you join my weekly email. Every week I send out insights just like this to help you build clarity, make strategic decisions, and scale your life and business in a sustainable way. Right? We want to preserve who you are at your core and not have you get lost while you build your business. If you're sitting there with 17 ideas, don't know which one to focus on, let's talk because my clear process is designed specifically for women who need help cutting through all this bullshit, right? All the noise and build something that actually aligns with where they want to go. So thank you so much for being here. I hope that this was valuable to you. I hope that you take this information and you go out there and you create your day and the business that you deserve in the best way possible. Until next week, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I will see you next time. Thanks so much. Have a great one.