If you’re a business leader or entrepreneur, you’ll know that it takes more than smarts to create something new, to be successful, to make a mark in your chosen field. Whether you’re facing Trumpian odds of succeeding or just bidin’ your time to become the leading innovator in your marketspace, you need resilience, persistence and a healthy dose of luck.

The past few years have seen an explosion in tech innovation, from cryptocurrencies to nanotech batteries and genetic healthcare. Thanks to exponential improvements in computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, and wireless connectivity, we’re on the cusp of a new age, the digital transformation – and disruption – of every business. It’s a digital renaissance.

New businesses and industries are being created as fast as dinosaur corporations are going extinct. It’s a wild ride, a whipsaw world, with curve balls coming at us from every direction; like pandemics, climate change and geopolitical chaos – to name just a few. But every disruption brings new opportunities, to be the disruptor and not the victim.

The next machine age will be fast and furious; the future is brutally complex and more uncertain than ever. Which is why you need those essential human values and qualities for your business to thrive. As famous tech entrepreneur Jack Ma said, machines can be very smart, but machines don’t have heart. People have heart.

Yes, it takes more than brains to innovate. It takes heart.

Image credit unsplash @judebeck