Change is the new normal, and innovation is the creative response to change. Those who do not tap their creative resources can never make success sustainable. How can you cultivate the attitudes held by the world's most successful innovators? How can you learn to respond creatively to every problem you face? Here are four secrets shared by the biggest names in innovation... and the tool you can use to master them. This article was originally published as a series at wheelofcreativity.com

1. 12/6/2017
The Innovator’s Attitude: Four Secrets of the Successful
wheelofcreativity.com/the-wheel-of-creativity-blog/uncategorized/innovators-attitude-four-secrets-successful/
Posted on Dec 6, 2017
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.
What does it take to think (and act) like the world’s most innovative people?
Again and again, their own words innovators reveal four common denominators they all
share.
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2. 1. MAKE FAILURE YOUR ALLY.
In a world where change is exponential, companies that become “too big to fail” ensure their
eventual demise by eliminating the very resource that made them great… the fearless
creativity of their people. Just think Kodak. Without the financial resources for trial-and-error,
and the freedom to fail, innovation is an illusion.
According to super-innovator and Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the greatest
innovations in the world come from new companies. “Failure is an option here. If things are
not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
Great minds think alike.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates factors failure his spreadsheets, “Microsoft is always two years
away from failure.” Thomas Watson, Founder of IBM, quantified it: “The way to succeed is to
double your failure rate.” And serial innovator Charles F. Kettering built his very success on
it: “99 percent of success is built on failure.”
Hindsight is the only way to know what they mean. Today, with 32 years of self-employment
behind me, I can look back on many devastating experiences with gratitude: the day I left my
last corporate job to go freelance, the day I was fired from a lucrative but life-draining
producing gig, the day I put all my belongings in storage because I didn’t know where to go
next. Every one seemed a terrible failure at the time; every one was anything but.
Brace. Brace. Brace.
In navigation, attitude is defined as “the orientation of a craft – spacecraft or aircraft – relative
to the direction of travel.” And I like that definition for life as well. Pointing yourself in the right
direction is the first major step to getting where you want to go. But attitude is no antidote to
failure, which is inherent in the process of innovation. Brace yourself; it’s going to be a
bumpy ride.
So it’s fitting then that one of air travel’s most colorful innovators makes failure part of his
strategic plan:
“My attitude has always been, if you fall flat on your face, at least you’re moving forward. All
you have to do is get back up and try again.”
– Richard Branson
Steve Jobs would agree:
“Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
Whether you work within a major company, manage a startup or are a fiercely independent
solopreneur, making failure your ally is your first innovative advantage.
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3. Click here to get started today, with my 14-module video course, Reset Your Strategy for
Success.
Next week… the second common denominator: Give up the good for the great.
2. 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 their journey from good
to great.
What drives you? What is the issue that you just can’t accept? What problem do you
absolutely have to solve? What can you just not not do? How far are you willing to take it?
Give up the good for the great
I was in the last months of my 20s when I left my advertising job with America’s first cellular
service provider. We were “creating perceived need” for cell phones in people who had
never needed them before; it was an exciting job at an exciting time. But for a number of
reasons I knew it was not for me. When I finally surrendered to my dissatisfaction with the
good, I made a leap into the void of uncertainty… inevitable if you want things to change and
quite uncomfortable. Within a few months, I started a business writing and producing video
programs, and I had my first client: Motorola.
Dissatisfaction… it’s a good thing
During my Motorola years, I had the privilege to work with the top 10 leaders of the
corporation. They introduced me to their trademarked Six Sigma process improvement
program and the concept of continual improvement. It was 1988, the year Motorola
received the country’s first Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award for performance
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4. excellence from President Ronald Reagan. The concept itself, along with proximity to some
of manufacturing’s most innovative minds, changed my life. They validated my
dissatisfaction with the status quo.
The Innovator knows the work is never done. Whatever can be done, can be done better.
You just reach a point when you untie the rope, send out the ship and make further
improvements along the way. Think Apple.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get
on with improving your other innovations. – Steve Jobs
No matter what destination you reach, and there will be many, the Innovator in you will
always be seeking another.
Innovators don’t complain
Admitting what is not okay with you can be stressful.
Innovators use dissatisfaction creatively. Admitting this level of dissatisfaction with the status
quo may make you restless, but it will also connect you with the possibilities in every
problem if you respond creatively.
Letting go of the Good in your life – and your business – is always a risk, a leap, even when
it’s calculated. How far can you push it before it breaks? But in a world of constant change
it’s the only way forward.
Creativity is the world’s greatest natural resource. And innovation is the creative response to
change. The second common denominator in the Innovator’s Attitude is to give up the Good
for the Great.
3. TO BE DISRUPTIVE,
STEER BY 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.
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5. Steering by your inner compass.
Companionship is a luxury here. Though you may have a strong team around you there’s
often no one to ask the hard questions; you have to figure things out yourself. So to be an
Innovator is a solitary role.
But loneliness and solitude are two different things. So the first task is to get familiar with
solitude and to make space for it in your week, which can be your hardest job when there is
so much else to do.
Finding your inner compass in solitude.
And it is a workout. The practice of being builds creative muscles that all the doing in the
world will not. They are the muscles of reflection and receptivity.
Solitude awakens awareness. The quality of your thoughts determines the quality of
your life. You can’t stop a thought from drifting by but you can control which ones you
invite in and entertain. Only in silence can you truly know the kinds of thoughts you’re
entertaining. Just this awareness can change your course.
Solitude develops your intuition. Intuition is your direct connection with the source
of all ideas, whatever you consider that to be. True innovators know that they are part
of something greater than they are. They learn to make decisions by tuning into what
they know. Over time, this trains them to trust the process when they can’t yet see the
result. Intuition. “”Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.” – Jonas Salk
Solitude enhances strategic thinking. Successful innovators work on their business
rather than in their business. If you’re so busy managing or worse executing all the
details of your business you have no time to steer the ship – to think long-term,
strategically from the high-level vision that only you have. “If you want small changes
in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on
your paradigm.” – Stephen Covey
Steering by your inner compass requires you to…
1. Choose your compass. What gives you a sense of direction will not be the same as
your mate.
2. Use your compass to set your course. Make time and space every day for the tough
questions in your life and business.
3. Validate your course with outside sources. Once you have an answer, do your
research to explore the possibilities on paper, where risk is minimal.
4. Take controlled action. When you’ve done your homework, trust what you know, set
manageable limits and take confident action.
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6. Only when you shift the basis for your decisions from what you see around you to what you
know inside will you be able to do new and different things. Only then will you be able to
disrupt your industry. And only then will you ensure your personal success and the
commercial viability of your business.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.
So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in
something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down,
and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs
Take time to reflect. Without a clear sense of direction it’s easy to get lost.
4. DOING TRUMPS
THINKING, BUT
THINKING COMES
FIRST.
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 determine the legacy
you will leave. Whether that is seeing your children grow into productive influencers in
society or delivering your product to fill a gap in the market, your actions lay your path.
For the artist, doing is showing up in the studio every day and making art.
For the business person, it is planning the work and working the plan.
For the innovator, it is solving problems strategically… and never giving up.
“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship…the act that endows resources
with a new capacity to create wealth.” ― Peter F. Drucker
Thinking comes first.
You have your own personal and professional problems to solve. Yes, that is the challenge
(and the gift) of Life. So think about it. The problems that speak to you most – the ones you
cannot not solve – reveal to you your niche. Your unique, creative responses to those
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7. problems are solutions you can potentially sell. If you design all your products and services
to help other people solve their problems, you will have loyal customers for life. And how
well you do that determines your bottom line.
How relevant are you?
How many people have your problems (i.e., need your solutions)?
How well do your products solve their problems?
How many people know about you, like you and trust you enough to choose you?
I, along with thousands of other talented creatives, gifted coaches and ambitious
entrepreneurs, have tried to find a workaround for this. We all want to monetize our passion,
but few are willing to do the required work. We would rather hold onto our fantasies than
sacrifice them on the altar of reality.
Doing is hard, and it has to be strategic to be effective.
“If you’re co-founder or CEO, you have to do all kinds of tasks you might not want to do… If
you don’t do your chores, the company won’t succeed… No task is too menial.” – Elon Musk
But the good news is…
Doing is a process.
The Wheel of Creativity breaks down that process into clear steps. The Wheel is not a How-
To Manual; it is a Compass. It helps you identify where you are, clarify where you want to
go, and determine for yourself the direction you need to take from here to there. I don’t tell
you what you need to do to solve your problem; I show you how to think about your situation
and create the solution that fits for you.
Because the Wheel is such a personalized solution, it’s not an easy sell. To be perfectly
honest, I’ve struggled to do the things I’m sharing with you here. And through my struggle –
and the mistakes I’ve made – I’ve learned what doesn’t work (the hard way), and that has
driven me (kicking and screaming at times) to what does.
Before you get busy doing, make time for thinking. Understand your problem, your niche,
your business well enough to lay out your success strategy.
CULTIVATE THE INNOVATOR’S ATTITUDE
1. Make failure your ally.
2. Give up the good for the great.
3. Steer with your inner compass.
4. Think before you do, but then do it.
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8. The Innovator’s attitude is not about branding or marketing. It is not about perfection. The
Innovator’s attitude is the commitment to questioning the status quo, the devotion to making
life better in your own unique way, and the courage to change the things you can change. It
is the actions you take.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Alan Kay
Get busy. But get clear first.
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and how to transform it in your business and life,
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Katherine Robertson-Pilling is an international
strategic creativity trainer, innovationist,
entrepreneur, author and coach. Using her
proprietary innovation framework – The Wheel of
Creativity ​– she trains entrepreneurs, business
leaders coaches and creatives of all persuasions to
integrate creative thinking with strategic action for
extraordinary and meaningful results in life and business.
Download the Wheel of Creativity QuickStart ebook guide.
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