The book is called Breaking Out, How to Build
Influence in a World of Competing Ideas, and
it is about a phenomenon that I call the idea
entrepreneur.
And this is a new cultural player on the scene
different from a standard entrepreneur.
This is a person, individual, usually a content
expert, sometimes kind of a maverick or a
heterodox thinker, who has a deeply felt idea
that they want to take out into the world.
And the goal is not to gain some positional
power or to gain great wealth, but they want
to influence how people think and they want
to affect how people behave and they want
to make some kind of change or improvement
in the world.
It can be quite small in their organization,
it can be in a community, it could be in the
society at large, it can be within a discipline.
So they act usually in the beginning on their
own.
And their tools are themselves and their personal
narratives, their gifts of expression and
their ability to bring people into the idea
with them.
Sometimes if they're very successful and they're
very persistent, they can go on for many years
and build enterprises around themselves.
The enterprises are not meant to be sold or
to, again, gather great wealth, but to continue
the idea often even beyond their lifespan.
I have studied various kinds of idea entrepreneurs
all around the world in different professions
and different disciplines.
The important thing is that the really successful
ones connect their ideas to other ideas.
So no idea is totally original, most of us
have ideas that add to existing ideas that
bring a bit of originality that have our own
take on things.
And the really good ones link into great ideas
that have come before.
So rather than trying to own the idea or claim
that it's original to them, they say, yeah,
I am following in the great tradition of this
idea, but I'm adding this original piece.
