What Innovators See That Others Can't

“But why do you want to build an amusement park? They’re so dirty!” Mrs. hashtag # Disney to her husband Walt.Think about it. Disneyland is an icon of the American experience. Yet before 1955, it was just a crazy idea that made no sense. To anyone. Except to Walt. He saw it as if it already existed. And Walt had this other crazy idea too — a feature length animated film. Studio execs scoffed at the idea referring to it as “Disney’s Folly.” The film? “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”What makes an hashtag # innovator ? They come in all shapes and sizes of course, and often show off attributes like passion, perseverance, creativity. But hashtag # innovation isn’t necessarily the province of genius.One thing innovators share — vision — the ability to see things clearly the way they could be, the ability to discover the future.Related: What You May Be Missing If You’re Not Pushing Forward After George Lucas’ success with the film “American Graffiti”, he went to all of the studios with a new film idea. He called it “The Star Wars.” Every studio but 20th Century Fox turned it down. At an early private screening his friends roundly predicted hashtag # failure and his wife was in tears fearing George had wasted so much time on this “piece of garbage.”Innovators see what others cannot or will not. They see the hashtag # future .

*Pulling from Brian McDonald’s great book, Ink Spot.