Image Source: thextremexperience Blog

Big journeys often begin with tiny steps made by those who woke up and found out that they were disappointed, curious or passionate enough to create a change. Innovative ideas arise out of needs that aren’t met and inspiration has a twin role to play in the game of innovation. It gets the idea going or in the first place, helps to generate meaningful ideas. Being obsessed with an idea makes it difficult to remain motivated when things don’t work out. But being obsessed with the problem you want to solve helps you remain motivated to work towards generating new ideas to solve the problem more efficiently and effectively. You may still be at that stage where you don’t have a specific idea to pursue. Think about specific challenges that you or other people face with such strong emotion. There are numerous examples of individuals who have created that spark in the spur of a moment just because they were disappointed, curious or passionate towards a particular cause. Edison’s intense curiosity was what led him to propel from an unsuccessful to a successful entrepreneur and there are many others who made history out of a simple problem that arose. It’s important for smart people to have the kind of discipline Edison had to have reached that stage after multiple failures.

Are you wondering what ‘disappointment’ has got to do with ‘ideas’?

Here’s a story to illustrate it: Everyone of us knows about the majestic cars that are being produced by the Italian automaker Lamborghini, but the success story of Ferruccio Lamborghini who founded and manufactured high-performance sports cars is not well known to the public. If you haven’t heard yet, Ferruccio Lamborghini, the founder of Automobili Lamborghini, bought a brand new Ferrari. He was fond of the Ferrari but was not completely satisfied with it, so he decided to make several suggestions to Enzo Ferrari (founder of Ferrari) including design changes that could help him improve his luxurious Ferraris. Enzo shrugged off all his complaints and didn’t even consider his offers while boasting that he probably didn’t need any advice from a tractor owner. This disappointment initiated Ferruccio to build his own top notch performance car and the rest is history. Yet another inspirational tale lies in the bus tickets we readily access when we want to. A tinge of disappointment and anger during Diwali is all it took to prompt 25-year-old Phanindra Sama  to create an online solution called RedBus, that made transportation a wee bit easier for a lot of people. The potential to innovate resides in everyone. The innovative potential in a person cannot be fully realized if it is not properly nurtured. It takes determined efforts to do so. When I was writing the book ‘Inseparable Twins’ to inspire young minds, I realized that each one of the twelve paired thoughts has the potential to inspire anyone to renew their energy that powers ‘People, Purpose & Performance’. Rajesh Setty, Serial Entrepreneur and Business Alchemist quoted, “While ‘Inseparable Twins’ is aimed at inspiring young minds, it is a book where any entrepreneur will find a ton of inspiration.” According to me, meaningful innovations emerge out of inspiration and inspiration can come from the most unfamiliar places in the most unexpected ways. Pay attention even to those things you might consider a “failure” or “broken”. You never know when the next best idea is waiting to get found!