Why is it that somedays you are ready to innovate and other days… well, not so much? There has to be some logical explanation: your environment, previous events, the weather, home life, trouble with co-workers, sick? Although these are all plausible and do take you away, I would like to focus on environment. Specifically, the kind of environment the innovator needs in order to do their thing.

So where do we begin:

#1 Being too focused on customers - innovators know that people are not able to accurately gauge how their future selves will react. Most importantly, what will make them happy in the future (Thanks Dan Gilbert!). An innovator must accept that they are pushing the envelope, and that they might not be designing/building/creating for a current audience. They build because they see a need, even if it is not right this moment.

#2 Unforgiving when failure occurs - we have all been told about Thomas Edison and his attitude toward the failure. “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.” A vital part of innovating is learning, remember, this isn’t your last product or idea and who knows where the current one will take you.

#3 You have no routine - success, innovation, creation, etc. does NOT occur on accident! That is not to say that we all have the moments of clarity in the shower. “Holy cow, that will work!” But what I mean is that we don’t stumble into brilliant ideas on a frequent basis. Great ideas do, however, come when you allow yourself to process all that you have been working through. How many times have you solved a problem after walking away from it? Of course, we all have. But don’t make this your pattern. Great people are able to create on command, most of us are not the eccentric genius who go around solving advanced math problems on library windows when the mood strikes. (Thanks John Nash!)

#4 Unwilling to ignore your sales department - having never worked for a real tech company I can only speak from the stories of others. But I like this attitude, the willingness to throw away what is currently making you a little money because you believe that GREAT things come from risk. The art world seems to know this better than anyone, is it arrogance? Maybe… or maybe it is just attitude you have to subscribe to when your livelihood is dependent on what you are creating today. “I’d like to think the best of me is still hiding up my sleeve….” - John Mayer

#5 Operating in a bubble - do not insulate yourself from the world around you. New ideas come from all over the place, don’t just keep going back to the same well. I have recently been introduced to the world of networking, conferences, and meetup groups. Innovators want to share, they like the problem as much as the solution… they have a burning desire to know how it works and why they got the result they did. Develop your network, especially of people outside your vertical.

In short, innovation can be crushed for a multitude of reasons. People who continue to produce appreciate the environment (people and place) that is required to get the job done. So look around you and figure out what is working and what is not. If you have to make a change… well, there is no better time than right now.