INNOVATION HAS NO BOUNDARIES

I would rather drink a large glass of sour milk than spend another hour listening to a businessperson making excuses for their lack of growth in the last couple of years. Some STILL blame COVID-19, while others blame politics. Some will blame rising interest rates, tariffs, or new competition. Sometimes they’ll throw their employees under the bus and blame their supply chain or foreign dictators for slowing their business growth. 

The truth is, though, that they’ve usually stopped innovating. They’ve stopped looking for ways to improve the services they offer. They have no idea what it takes to acquire new customers and retain their old ones. They keep doing business the way they’ve always done business and expect different results.

Innovation is free.

Innovation is a mindset. 

Innovation does not care about race, gender, or your education. Anyone can innovate if they put their minds to it. But innovation also takes work. To be an innovator, you must have four traits: Purpose, Passion, Discipline, and Resilience. 

PURPOSE: You must clearly understand your goal and the benefits you’ll receive by achieving those goals. Your Purpose is your driving force for innovation and execution.

PASSION: Passion is necessary to drive you forward. No matter what happens or how bad things are, your passion keeps your head up and your mind strong. Without passion, your Purpose will never be realized.

DISCIPLINE: Passion alone will not get you to your goal. You must determine the specific steps you will take to achieve your Purpose. Then, you must be disciplined to take those steps every day, no matter how frustrated or tired you are. Discipline is doing what you know you need to do when you need to do it, whether you want to or not! That’s discipline.

RESILIENCE: The partner to discipline and passion is resilience. Resilience gives you the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Resilience defines your toughness. It’s all about bouncing back from any surprises and unexpected roadblocks. Your resilience, or lack thereof, will be the difference in seeing your Purpose become a reality.  

The things that will deter your innovation are the same traits you need. For example, if you lack Purpose, you have no objective to trust. If you have no passion, you have no higher purpose. If you lack discipline, you likely fear failure. If you lack resilience, you cannot manage the uncertainty of the world around you. 

So, stop complaining. You have the power to change everything. You can improve your business, your employees, and your quality of life by stopping blame and starting to innovate. 

Just give it a try. The world you now see is a much brighter place.