I usually think about this, and reading this post made me think about it some more: How do people like Elon Musk operate? How does one person start hyper-successful companies in completely different fields and stay on top of his game? This isn't something that can be taught; I wonder what in his life happened that made him take these challenges on.
My usual thread of thought before I take on anything interesting: Well, I'm smart but by far not the smartest or the more experienced. People with more experience probably had the thought to build this and decided it wasn't worth their time. Thus, it's probably not worth the time. This pattern of thought is extremely self-destructive and I've been trying to figure out a way to escape it.
2) Research the industry heavily. That means reading everything you can, that means contacting everyone you can in the industry to pick their brains, and it sometimes means actually getting a job in the industry for a while to get a feel for the issues they have.
3) When you figure out the pain point or disruption, go do it. Build the product, sell the service, whatever -- just go sell something to someone. Start making money and worry about the details later.
My usual thread of thought before I take on anything interesting: Well, I'm smart but by far not the smartest or the more experienced. People with more experience probably had the thought to build this and decided it wasn't worth their time. Thus, it's probably not worth the time. This pattern of thought is extremely self-destructive and I've been trying to figure out a way to escape it.