Book excerpt: 2021 Axiom Business Book Award Winner in Business Intelligence/Innovation Innovation isn't optional--it's imperative Everyone wants to create new products and services, find new customers and markets, stay ahead of the competition, and work smarter instead of harder. Yet with all the focus and attention on innovation, the term has become an overused buzzword rather than a real, tangible concept. If you want to seriously pursue innovation--you need to strip away the hype. Real innovators need to transcend the existing ideas, rules, and patterns to discover exciting new outcomes. They must step outside the best practice box and get their hands dirty. The spirit of a true innovator is rooted in wanting to do something that has never been done before, to solve problems that have never been solved, and to run through walls and leap over tall buildings to get there. In The Innovator's Spirit, author Chuck Swoboda--retired chairman and CEO of Cree, a company that fundamentally changed the way people experience light and drove the obsolescence of the Edison light bulb--explains that innovation is fundamentally about people and shows his readers how to develop a mindset of creativity, risk-taking, and hard work. He also instills in them a belief that there is always a better way.