Nearly 100% of innovation — from business to politics — is inspired not by market analysis but by people who are supremely pissed off by the way things are.

- Tom Peters

The Idea.

You can't be an innovator or innopraneur without it.

As a result, it's logical that The Idea is the first thing that people focus on when they decide that they want to work for themselves and/or make a difference in the world.

The Paradox of Pain

However, if you study the stories of successful entrepreneurs and innovators, you will find that The Idea is not what they focus on.

Instead they focus on something else.

The Problem.

More, specifically they are driven by, and focus on alleviating, that thing that so many people are afraid to even think of.

Pain.

I first started exploring this project in August of 1999 in a essay...

• What a P.I.T.A.

Since then, I have continued to explore, work to understand, and develop those ideas and am in the process of writing a book that explores that critical, but too often overlooked, relationship between pain, change, and innovation.

• The Paradox of Pain