Breakthrough Follow-through 

 Problem Definition: 

 

You could have made a dent in the universe, but you let the opportunity go.  Why? 

 

The work on your project has been thrilling.  You have had a huge breakthrough, ideationally.  But to make the ideational insight a material reality, you will have to invest many more hours of time and energy.   You are not accustomed to working immersively for such a lengthy period of time on a project that is yet unfamiliar to the market.  Such a prospect scares you. You might run out of resources and luck.  You might lose valuable time being perceived as someone who is not in the game. You feel that while you work cloistered on your project, everyone else is getting ahead.

 

You work on projects that ensure a quick turn around – not ones that are fraught with great risk, that demand a huge extent of commitment in terms of time, cognition and emotion from you.  You will be required to shepherd this break-through project through a range of highs and lows to make it see the light of day.  Who can you speak to, to process your anxiety about whether you have what it takes to persevere on just such a course of action?

 

You know you have a considerable level of success sustaining your life. Should you shift gears and nourish such back-burner projects?  You decide to call your EI coach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Takeaway: 

 

You have accomplished a new chapter to your work-story.  Along with short-term projects, you develop a schedule for slow burner projects that take more time, but could be market-makers and game-changers.  Your portfolio is now transformed as well as your experience of what is possible.  The transformation is profound internally.

 The Diagnosis: 

 

You work with your EI coach on the following questions:

 

• What shifts will you have to make internally, to create the orientation & commitment necessary for a long- term project?

 

•How much time or intellectual energy will be required to bring an innovative idea to market, to increase the quality of the service it could provide, and to generate “need” for the innovation?

 

•Hard work, imagination, resourcefulness, creativity, brilliance and fate are all factors that will have their play in this journey.   What are the emotional and cognitive traps that will prevent you from working on this kind of project?

 

•Are you critically aware of the limitations you operate by?

 

•What new contemplations need to be introduced

to help you cherish the enormous breakthrough

you’ve had? Can you generate the freedoms and

resources necessary to sustain the effort?

 Business Reflection: 

 

Pixar

 

George Lucas had to sell his

computer animation division. 

He told Steve Jobs that the team

working in there have been 

sincerely working on their dream

of a computer animated feature,

for sometime now.  But Lucas

knew he couldn’t support their

effort personally anymore.  Jobs

steps in.  He nourishes their

creative energy and vision with his resources, even when his computer company was showing no immediate signs of success. 

 

It took about 10 years without anything but internal belief of the founders of Pixar, John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs, for Toy Story to see the light of day.

 

Toy Story released in 1995.  The film series has built a multi-billion dollar market for the computer animated feature as well as brought into existence an entertainment force that continues to make history: Disney-Pixar Studios.