For the past 25 years, as a journalist and author interested in the cutting edge of science and culture, I’ve had the chance to interview thousands of incredibly successful contributors—those innovators who have found ways to significantly alter reality. After decades of this, I’ve started to see a few consistent patterns. Three in particular.
First, these folks all have vision. They all see farther faster (this is an idea Peter Diamandis and I explore in our soon-to-be released book Bold). Another consistency among great innovators, copiously covered in previous blogs, is their ability to reliably and consistently find flow. These are, of course, the obvious choices for telltale traits. But there’s another force at work, a third commonality between all the successful innovators: they are all be running away from something just as fast as they’re running towards something.
