It is too easy and wrong to think that innovators are egocentric, always admiring themselves and their accomplishments in the mirror. They are confident but not self absorbed and impervious to outside input. If anything innovators are vulnerable, self aware, and open to diverse and critical input to improve their ideas and concepts. The view they see while looking into a mirror is more like the wavy one in the circus fun house that reflects a distorted view. A view that always causes a gasp and accentuates flaws that need serious work and improvement. Innovators know they must improve in order to find better ways to deliver value and solve real world problems.
Innovators spend very little time looking in the rear view mirror. They tend to be forward thinking and looking. It is important to learn from the past but innovators are never bogged down in it or constrained by the way things have always worked. Innovators tend to be market makers rather than share takers. Understanding how a market has worked in the past is helpful but innovators like to tinker across markets to envision and create an entirely new market model or system.
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