To anyone that knows me, I have a confession to make, I’m a horrible inventor. That’s it. I don’t have anything else to say, this post is over…. No not really. I am being serious though, I have a hard time coming up with new ideas. This applies to several areas of my life and it’s something that I’ve had to learn to deal with. My biggest challenge with this is creating art. In art classes I had a hard time creating new things and coming up with brand new projects. This used to really bother me, and it still does at times, because I felt like I wasn’t as creative as I wanted to be. From this I have a few things that I’ve learned to draw over the years that I always gravitate back to because they’re safe. I still have a hard time sitting down and drawing something new out of my mind. For years I have thought that something was wrong with me and I’ve questioned my level of talent. (One reason I felt like this was that I compared myself to someone else but that’s another topic.) I have the same reservations when it comes to music. I’ve played guitar since I was 13 (a long time) and I am still hesitant about going to a music store, picking up a guitar, plugging it in, and not sounding like a fool when I try it out. I watch other guitarists in awe but I feel like all I do is play the same songs over and over, just like I draw flames over and over. This has really bothered me for years, until lately.

Several years ago I met an engineer from a well known company when I was part of a development team for a new industrial product. We were proud of what we had developed but the industry was very skeptical. An engineer came to our shop to see what we had created as part of a potential investment. I don’t remember his name now (sorry) but I do remember something he said. He liked our technology and we started talking about how innovative our design was. We had created something new, but with existing concepts. We had simply found a better way to do something that was already there. During our discussion he asked me if I knew the difference between being an inventor and an innovator? I didn’t know and I was curious so I played along, said no, and he gave me the following answer (I’m paraphrasing):

An inventor dies broke, alone, and hungry. An innovator lives in the Bahamas with beautiful women and fast cars.

At the time I thought it was funny and I took it as a compliment to our technology. I understood the truth of the statement because it had taken a lot of work for us to arrive at where we were at the time. This was after we looked at how the industry was currently operating and tried to fill in the holes. I realised that we were already standing on the backs of giants when we came up with our design. So I took it as a funny story and moved on, but now I think about it a little differently. Recently I realised that I am a horrible inventor, but I’m a pretty good innovator. I have a hard time coming up with new concepts, but I have a gift for taking an older concept, redefining it, and applying it to a different area of life. This has caused me a lot of pain over the years but I am in pretty good company. Steve Jobs didn’t invent the touchscreen, but his company was the first to put it into a handheld phone. Vince McMahon didn’t invent professional wrestling, but his method of storytelling and character development is the innovation that made his company a massive success. The list goes on and on. Many of the people and brands that we know of as household names started from an innovation.

Once I realised this and started applying this to life, things started to look different. Instead of wasting time trying to come up with things on my own, and beating myself up in the process, I look for existing things that I can manipulate into something new. I do this through reading, browsing the internet, and asking for advice. I do this when I’m designing new equipment by reusing old concepts in new ways. I believe the technical artistic term for this is “inspiration” (insert sarcasm here). This saves me a lot of time, stress, pain, and error.

It has taken me a long time to get here, but I am realising that what I thought might have been a curse is in some ways a gift. The fact that I focused on the talent I felt that I needed to have, instead of finding and developing the talent that I do have, has caused me a lot of grief over the years. It’s only through time that I think I have found my true gift. From this I am able to embrace my strength and build on it instead of worrying about a weakness.

So the question is, where can you do the same thing? Do you have anything that you feel is a curse but if you dig a little deeper you might find a gift instead? Where can a shift in your thinking add tremendous value to your life? Think about it.

Thanks for your time.