“My father taught me that you can you read a hundred books on wisdom and write a hundred books on wisdom, but unless you apply what you learned then its only words on a page. Life is not lived with intentions, but action.”

― SHANNON L. ALDER

Happy New Year! No doubt about it, there’s been some dialogue, buzz, along with an abundance of the typical “pro’s and con’s” lists regarding the act of setting and making your New Year’s resolutions stick. So, that got us thinking … since resolutions tend to be targets to change behaviors let’s skip all the clichés. Instead we want to encourage you to refocus, reframe the opportunity and issue a challenge to you: Choose the first week of the new year as your catalyst to jump-start 2018 by incorporating a growth mindset and embrace one specific, powerful word: innovation.

The strongest brands draw on the past, seek to remain relevant today and anticipate the future by embracing innovation to develop new products and services. One common myth of the innovation journey is that you need to find the “best idea,” then all the other pieces are focused on executing the problem. It is not uncommon to find that in many organizations leaders are used to judging ideas and teams have a tendency to make unproven ideas look solid, efficient, if not close to perfect, in order to gain buy-in. This leads to the worst possible context to embrace uncertainty, experiment with ideas, learning and pursuing creativity – and can lead to efforts to pursue doing innovation “right.”

Embracing innovative thinking is the difficult discipline of accepting newness. As Jeffrey Phillips, a subject-matter expert on the “front end” of innovation (using trend spotting and scenario planning, customer insight research, idea generation, open innovation and rapid prototyping to find innovative solutions) puts it: “Passion and insight matter more than process.” Take a look at his book Relentless Innovation, for ideas on how you can look at striking the balance between efficiency and innovation.

Are you all in? Commit to use your first week in January to explore:

  • What do you think the world needs more of?
  • How you will find more space to: do more, think more, advocate, read and risk more – all for the sake of pursuing innovation?
  • What are you willing to risk in your pursuit of innovation?

Bold, courageous individuals, entrepreneurs and leaders are often the best teachers. Are you familiar with Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies ranking? Each year, for the past ten years, their team sifts and searches for those enterprises that “tap both heartstrings and purse strings” to make a difference in the world; impact is a key criteria. See if their profiles inspire you.

Often, it is the stories we hear directly from our clients – during our one-on-one coaching and group training sessions – those first-hand accounts of their own hard-won wisdom and how they work to apply and master a growth mindset as part of their daily lives to build success one year at a time.

Exploring previous failures, setbacks and defeats as we partner together to do the work with you – to help uncover actionable insights and master your thoughts and emotions – is the powerful and rewarding part of our consulting practice. Here at Transform our “why” focuses on you (Where are you? Where do you want to go? How can we partnering with you to help you get there?).

This year we celebrated our twenty-first year. We look forward to learning and telling more stories about you – the individuals and organizations we serve as you continue to embrace your desire to be innovative leaders in your personal and professional lives and then commit to take the bold, courageous journey to transform. Drop us an email if you’re interested in helping us tell your story. Our passion is helping you advance your vision by connecting strategy into actionable goals. Reach out to us to build momentum regarding your personal and professional life.

Thanks for reading. We look forward to sharing more original content, useful tips, stories, tools and the opportunity to transform yourself and your business. We are pleased you “opt in” and subscribe to our emails! Feel free to help us grow our “tribe.” Encourage your friends and colleagues to subscribe to our email list and to “Like” our Transform Facebook page. We look forward to sharing more news about our latest publishing project. Stay tuned to news about that effort early this year.