Four Common Denominators of the Innovator’s Attitude #4: Doing Trumps Thinking, but Thinking Comes First.


doing trumps thinking

In last week’s post I wrote about disruption… and the importance of steering by your inner compass if you want to be disruptive. Elon musk is one of the most disruptive thinkers of our time, and yet when he describes his day, he says this: “I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.”  It’s clear. Innovation is about doing. The actions you take in the world...

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Four Common Denominators of the Innovator’s Attitude #3: To Be Disruptive, Steer by your Inner Compass.


Steering your inner compass

The only way to create something that has never been done before is to think what people have never thought before; creating new solutions requires you to see old problems in new ways. But to see what no one else can see is a lonely place to be. So you need an inner compass – a connection to something deeper or higher, a knowing so strong that when the 141st person has rejected your idea you have the will to keep going. Steering by your inner compass. Companionship is a...

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Four Common Denominators of the Innovator’s Attitude #2: Give up the Good for the Great.


Give up the Good for the Great

“Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.” – Peter Drucker Richard Branson started an airline because his plane from Puerto Rico to his lover in the British Virgin Islands was cancelled. Mark Zuckerberg created the first version of Facebook to help students find hot dates. Elon Musk started Tesla to reduce global warming.  Innovators are driven to make things better, and they take risks on...

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Four Common Denominators of the Innovator’s Attitude # 1: Make Failure Your Ally


Innovator Attitude Make Failure Your Ally

The most successful people in the world – the Elon Musks, the Richard Bransons, the Warren Buffetts – see every problem as an innovation in disguise. They seem to instinctively know how to turn problems into opportunities and opportunities into breakthroughs. So what do they do with failure? Life is change. And innovation is the creative response to change. Getting from how-things-are to how-things-could-be is all about attitude. How do you cultivate the innovator’s...

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