Innovators experience fear just like anyone else. But have a unique ability to put fear to one side & step into the unknown…

Your mind is a creature of habit & operates based on fear. It’s always scanning your environment looking for things to be afraid of & makes decisions in the interest of keep you safe.

As an innovator though, staying safe & not taking any risks makes you weaker not stronger. Don’t get me wrong. It’s important to feel the fear. But you’ve got to break through it & do it anyway.

We we’re fearful about launching our free photocopier service. Photocopiers cost a lot of money (even refurbished ones) & we feared there wouldn’t be enough take up to make it worthwhile.

But we took a risk & pushed on through the fear. Looking back the fear seemed daft, as the take up has been fantastic & customers are loving the extra functionality & much lower printing costs.

Innovation doesn’t happen unless your willing to break the rules that others have written.

Author, speaker & entrepreneur Jia Jiang sought out rejection for 100 days. Trying to desensitise himself to the pain & shame that rejection brings. In the process though.

Jia discovered, simply asking for what you want can open possibilities where you expect to find nothing. It revealed a world hidden in plain sight, where people are much kinder than we imagine.

Passing on this experience through a very popular Tedx talk viewed nearly 6 million times. Watch it 

…celebrate fear. As if we never fear we never improve.