Imagine this scenario:

You and your team walk into your industry’s annual convention, like you have many times before. But this time, something’s different.

There’s a buzz.

People are looking at you in a way they haven’t before.

They’re elbowing their neighbor, pointing at your team, and whispering, “There they are! That’s them!”

This year, the buzz is about you.

People are saying things about you. Things like:

• “Have you heard about what they’re doing?”
• “They’re really changing the game!”
• “We’re really going to have to raise the bar ...

“Your business is getting exactly the results you’ve programmed it to.”

Is that a wake-up call for you?

It was for me when my friend Brian Tracy said it to me last year. He went on to say:

“If you’re unhappy with the results, change the programming.”

It’s really hard to argue with ironclad logic like that, isn’t it?

So let’s break it down. What does “change the programming” really mean?

It means thinking DIFFERENTLY about your business.

Thinking DIFFERENTLY about your products and services. Thinking ...

I keep telling you—innovation is not that hard!

Here’s the misconception: People think that to be an innovator, you have to be wildly creative. You have to think completely differently than anyone else. When they zig, you have to zag. Your perspective has to be 180 degrees from everyone else’s.

Here’s the truth.

To think like an innovator, sometimes you only have to change your perspective by one degree.

Sometimes, you only have to think a LITTLE differently than other people. (Or, perhaps more ...

Since I like to simplify things, let’s simplify the world of medicine into two types:

1. Preventive medicine (e.g., a daily baby aspirin to prevent heart attacks);
2. Emergency medicine (e.g., a clot-busting drug injected during a heart attack).

Now, if we’re talking about you and your personal heart, which one of those two would you prefer?

Unless your masochistic tendencies are higher than mine, I’m guessing you chose #1, right?

I’d like to suggest that you start thinking of innovation as preventive ...

Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes.

Take the first iPod, for example. What an innovation!

Oh, I’m not talking about the device itself.

I’m talking about the marketing campaign.

Look, the iPod was an innovation, sure. But what was it, really?

It was, at its core, just a 5 GB hard drive. That’s all. And Apple could have marketed it that way. “Looky what we just made—a really small, really cool looking 5 GB hard drive!!!”

How do you think THAT would have sold?

But what ...