Commit Yourself to your Idea

I evaluated program proposals at Golf Channel for 15 years. Every year we would get one particular idea from at least 50 different people. The pitch went something like this: "I'm an 18 handicap (or 7, or 11, or 30). Give me a year of the best instruction, equipment, and time to practice golf. I have a great personality and interesting family, so I'll let you turn my quest into making the PGA (or LPGA) tour a reality show.

Everyone who send us that idea thought they were the first person to suggest it. I don't blame them for that; after all, we didn't have a show like that on the air.

There are two main reasons we passed on this idea every time. Can you guess what they were?

Okay -- time for the answers.

One: it was practically impossible to work. Certainly any golfer who took a year and did nothing but play golf, take lessons, and use the best equipment would improve their score. However, there already are hundreds of professional golfers around the world who play every day, have top equipment and great coaches -- and can't play well enough to make the PGA TOUR. Unless an amateur was already the U.S. amateur champion (and receiving top coaching, equipment, etc.)the series was almost sure to end as a disappointment.

Two: These people weren't really committed to the idea -- they just wanted Golf Channel to pay for their year of golf lessons. Most golf courses in America are already staffed with pros and assistant pros working for peanuts just so they can get additional practice time to take a shot at the professional tours. That's why they're called golf pros and don't play in the club tournaments. If the people who sent the idea to use were really committed heart and soul to a career in professional golf they would already be pursuing it, and not waiting for Golf Channel to make it easy for them.

We did create a show at Golf Channel featuring people who had the skills to play professional golf already but hadn't quite made it yet -- The Big Break. It remains the longest running original series on the network (other than news) and is still going strong. The stakes were high for all of the players, and that led to some great dramas unfolding.

If you want your idea to resonate with your audience, you must commit to it. You can't wait for someone else to give their approval -- you must be commmitted to making it happen. If your idea isn't worth sacrificing something on your part, then it's probably not going to reach a wider audience.