We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Corey Hackett. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Corey below.
Hi Corey , thanks for joining us today. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?
Going from Idea to Execution
If you’re like me, it takes a lot of work to get an idea off the ground. It’s easy to imagine yourself being successful, but actually taking that energy and putting it into action isn’t always so easy. My name is Corey Hackett and I believe when you look and feel good, you do good.
I’ve learned that there are five steps between having an idea and executing on it:
The Idea
How do you come up with a good idea?
Ideas come from everywhere. You can find inspiration and ideas in many places, including your own experiences, books, and other people’s stories. Sometimes it just takes a little imagination to make an idea into something more tangible—like a prototype or even just a simple drawing that you could share with others.
Work Hard Dress Well, came from the people around me. Work Hard Dress Well was initially born because these four words were attached to me and I heard them a lot when people described me. “Corey, you are a hard worker” or “Corey, you dress very nice”. Eventually, it became a mantra, a lifestyle if you will.
The Vision
The vision is the end goal of your project. It’s what you want to achieve, and it should be clear in your mind before you begin. The vision can be as simple or complex as you’d like—it could be a specific goal (e.g., raise $10,000 for our nonprofit), or just a general sense of where you’d like things to go (e.g., make something awesome).
The vision helps keep the project on track throughout its lifecycle; if at any point along the way you lose sight of what makes this project worthwhile, refer back to your original inspiration: whatever inspired this idea will help keep it inspiring as well as motivating through even the most difficult times during execution.
It’s important to note that a project’s end goal might change over time—or even while working on it—and that’s okay! If at any point during execution an outcome seems too narrow or otherwise unhelpful, consider whether there might be other ways of accomplishing the same goals by making adjustments or changing direction slightly.
I didn’t want to work just to pay bills. Yes, working hard on the physical context is important: dressing well is a matter of appearance and how we present ourselves. But I also believe that we are constantly dressing the intangible things we possess like our minds. I wanted to change lives.
I believe when your thinking changes, your life will change with it. I want to make an impact. It is my dream to touch and transform over 1 million people through inspiration, image, and education. This is my vision.
The Purpose
You know the purpose of your idea. You know that it aligns with the vision and plan. Now you need to make sure it aligns with the implementation, too. The idea’s purpose must be clear enough that all team members can understand what it is and why they’re working toward it.
Whatever your business is doing, there needs to be a reason why we do it, right? We have goals in mind; we have steps outlined for reaching those goals; now all that’s left is execution (or “doing”). But how do you make sure every single person on your team gets up each morning excited about hitting those goals? And more importantly: How do you get them excited about doing so?
Our purpose is to only maximize the living experience here on earth. Birth, nurture, and inspire the best version of ourselves while making the world a better place.
We believe that your life should be filled with adventure, exploration, and wonder.
To us, this means living in a way that makes you feel alive every single day. We want you to be able to look back at your life and say: “I made it.”
We also believe that by helping each other live better lives we can make our world a better place for everyone. This is our purpose.
The Plan
A plan is a detailed account of how you will achieve your goal. It’s a roadmap for success that guides you through the process and helps avoid surprises, getting lost and stuck along the way. A great plan makes sure that all of your tasks are aligned with each other, so everyone knows what steps are needed to get from point A to point B.
Implementation
Now that you’ve got your idea, it’s time to get it executed. As with any good plan, the first step is to take a step back and look at the big picture. When implementing an idea, you want to break down the process into manageable chunks so that you can focus on accomplishing one thing at a time without getting overwhelmed or frustrated by trying to do everything all at once. Armed with this knowledge and a few tools in your toolbox (more on that later), you’re ready to kick-start your ideation process!
Implementation
You’ve got an awesome idea for a website or a product feature and are excited about taking steps toward bringing this idea into reality. You’ve done some research and talked with others who have created similar products before; now it’s time for action! But before diving into development work full-on, there are some best practices worth considering as we embark upon our journey through implementation territory:
Don’t forget to give yourself grace when you implement. This is the most important thing to know when you are trying.
Testing
Testing is the most important step in the process. Before you start, test your idea. Test your plan. Test your execution of everything: the product, marketing, team, and even partners.
If you don’t have a way to test and measure things, then you won’t know if something is working—or not working—and where to make changes or pivot so that it does work!
Taking an idea to the finish line takes a lot of commitment.
The poet Big Sean once said, ” Stick to the Plan!”
Commitment is the key to success.
Let’s face it, we all want to be successful in what we do. But how do we make that happen? There are a lot of different answers to this question depending on who you ask and what their background may be. For me personally, commitment is one of the most important factors when it comes to being successful at anything I set my mind on doing. Commitment can mean different things to different people but for our purposes here I define commitment as having a strong belief in yourself and your abilities which leads to showing up every day willing and ready to put in work towards achieving your goals regardless of any obstacles that may come along the way (i.e., not giving up). Let’s also remember that there are more than two sides involved with fulfilling our dreams: ourselves plus others who support us along on our journey—and without either one these things don’t happen!
Conclusion
The journey from idea to execution is long and arduous. It takes a lot of commitment, but the rewards are worth it. You will be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor for many years to come, as well as share them with others who can benefit from your experience. The greatest reward of all, though, is knowing that you have made the world a better place through your actions!
Work Hard Dress Well,
Corey
Corey , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We’re a professional image consulting service that focuses on health, style, content creation, and motivational speaking.
We believe that everyone has the potential to be the best version of themselves. It’s up to us to help them realize it.
We’ve created looks for thousands of people—men and women alike—for their day-to-day lives and special occasions like weddings. We’ve also helped small businesses revamp their brand or develop new content for their clients. And we’ve taught students and professionals alike how to use social intelligence in their everyday lives.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I had to unlearn that leading was not all about making decisions and telling people what to do. I learned that it is the opposite. Leading is about listening and inspiring people on what to do.
Leadership is not about me, it’s about you. It’s about listening and finding out what matters most to you, then finding a way to support you in achieving it. It’s about harnessing the energy of your team so that we can all do our best work together.
Leading is not all about decisions and telling people what to do. It’s about listening and inspiring people on what to do.
I had to learn this the hard way. I was always the type of person who liked to make decisions, so when I started leading a team of other people, it was natural for me to tell them what to do. But it turns out that this approach isn’t very effective at creating a cohesive team. The only thing my teammates felt when they got orders from me was resentment and confusion—and they didn’t even know why!
So instead of making decisions for my teammates and telling them what to do, I started asking them questions: What do you think? What would you do if you were in charge? How can we make this better? This new approach created an environment where everyone could share their opinions and ideas without fear of being judged or criticized because those opinions weren’t deemed useful enough by their leader (me). And now that we had all these ideas floating around in our heads, we could all work together on figuring out which ones were worth pursuing—and which ones weren’t!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Recovering from a Crohn’s disease surgery was one of the most challenging things I had to do in my life. I felt like I knew what it felt like to be at the bottom and not have anything. I felt like I would never get better. But I remembered that there was greatness inside of me. And as long as I had breathe in my body, I was still undefeated. I was resilient.
When we are recovering from something, we don’t know who we are anymore. We don’t know what we can do anymore, who we can be anymore and how far our potential can go. Recovery is a process of finding out who you are again; it’s about discovering your purpose again; it’s about reflecting on how far you’ve come and building on that knowledge with wisdom and compassion so that you can move forward in your life with confidence and joy!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.workharddresswell.com
- Instagram: whdw.workharddresswell.com
- Facebook: Work Hard Dress Well
- Youtube: Work Hard Dress Well
- Other: Personal IG: coreydemitraushackett
Image Credits
Jerome Eunis @whdw_imonlyhuman