Be Great and Innovate!

Human beings have enormous capacity for creativity and innovation.  Who else could have built the great pyramids of Egypt, the Statue of Liberty, or the Roman Colosseum?  Innovation is a quality that takes leaders to the next level.  While others fall complacent to “the way things have always been”, leaders know that innovation and creativity are necessary for the advancement of society. 

We all know the story of Thomas Edison.  After his first effort to create a working light bulb, he could have quit and moved on to another project.  But Edison was innovative and though it took him over 1000 different tries, Edison finally came up with a solution for his creation.  He once said during the creation of the light bulb, “I have not failed.  I’ve just found 1000 ways that won’t work.”  Innovation requires a certain level of dedication as seen in Edison’s work.  His work with electricity and the light bulb truly lit up the world. 

I believe many people give up too easily today.  Our first try often fails and we decide in our minds that there is no other way to solve the problem.  But innovators will choose to look at the issue from more than one perspective.  Have you ever been to the Iwo Jima Memorial in Washington, D.C?  If not, you need to add this monument to your itinerary on your next visit to the nation’s capital.  If you start at one corner of the monument, you will see a stationary flag.  But as you begin to walk around the monument, you will either see the flag begin to raise or lower depending upon what direction you walk.  (The flag actually never moves but it looks like it does to you.)  Some very smart people found a way to create this experience for citizens.  Just as you move from each corner of the monument, leaders and innovators must choose to look at situations or opportunities from many different perspectives.  When you look at something from a different perspective, you will often see something you didn’t see before or learn something that could help you create something even better in the future.

We’ve all seen the movie Apollo 13.  Do you think that anyone at NASA expected the problems to occur that actually did in real life?  Absolutely not!  After certain processes failed in the shuttle, the astronauts and staff on the ground had to be innovative.  They had to take common household items in the shuttle and look at them from a different perspective.  If they had only looked at the items from one perspective, the astronauts probably would have never returned to Earth. 

So next time you are working on a project or trying to achieve something in your life, be innovative and challenge yourself to look at things from different perspectives.  If you do, I’m sure I will meet you on the highway to success.