In Quirky, Melissa A. Schilling focuses on eight “breakthrough innovators”: Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs. While doing so, she draws upon an abundance of recent research. However different these eight geniuses may be in most respects, all of them (to varying degree) manifest pure creativity and originality, relentless (indeed tenacious) effort and persistence, and unique situational advantage. They also demonstrate what Schilling characterizes as “a marked sense of separateness, perceiving themselves as different or disconnected from the crowd.”

Obviously, few of us possess or will develop “the traits, foibles, and genius of breakthrough innovators who changed the world” but we can learn valuable lessons from the material in this book that can help accelerate our personal growth and professional development. Consider these brief passages from Schilling’s narrative:

Thomas Edison “had a strong working ethos, had a high need for achievement, and found the work rewarding in and of itself. He enjoyed the process of achieving things, he was competitive by nature, and the physical activity of work gave him pleasure.”

“The need for achievement is a personal trait associated with a strong and consistent concern about setting and meeting very high standards and accomplishing difficult tasks.”

For people with very high need for achievement, “the difficulty and risk of a task become a signal of its potential for reward — the powerful thrill that will accompany the task’s achievement.”

Almost anyone can become fully engaged in a task — either mental or physical — that is extremely enjoyable or satisfying. “An apt description is offered by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [pronounced Mee-High Chick-Senn-Mee-High] in his concept of flow: “The state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

Finally, “We foster innovation [and innovative thinking] by creating ways for people with ideas to gain access to those with the expertise needed to refine or execute those ideas. We want, in other words, to create ways for people to more easily access the intellectual resources available in other human beings.”

Make no mistake about it: Most of the time, Einstein, Franklin, Kamen, Musk, Tesla, Curie, Edison, and Jobs were engaged in work that was tedious, boring, repetitive, and often frustrating. They never lost sight of the ultimate objective, however, and were driven to achieve it. All workers would be well-advised to keep Maya Aneglou’s advice clearly in mind: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

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Melissa A. Schilling is the Herzog Family Professor of Management at New York University Stern School of Business. She received her Bachelor of Science in busines from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She received her Doctor of Philosophy in strategic management from the University of Washington. Schilling’s research focuses on innovation and strategy in high technology industries such as smartphones, video games, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, electric vehicles, and renewable energies.

To learn more about her and her brilliant work, please click here.

PublicAffairs/Hachette Book Group is the publisher of Quirky: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World (February 2018).