The connection between innovation and the New Year
As you may know, January is named after Janus, the Roman god of doorways and transitions who had two faces - one looking forward and one looking backward.
In some ways you could say that innovators live in a sort of perpetual January - looking at back at lessons learned in order to look forward to next steps.
If you’ve ever been involved in invention or innovation, you know that it takes a special ability to work through the false starts, disappointments, and dead-ends that are inherent in the process of creating something new.
So as we look out over the blank page of the New Year, we want to offer some words of inspiration and wisdom to fellow and aspiring innovators:
“The virtue of a first sketch is that it breaks the blank page. The only bad draft is the one we don’t write. Imagination needs iteration. New things do not flow finished into the world.”
“Keep yourself away from the answers, but alive in the middle of the question.”
“There is no education like adversity.”
“Problems are the necessary friction of the creative process.”
“Difficulties are just things to overcome after all.”
May your 2024 be filled with small victories and big wins among the ups and downs of life’s problem solving journey!