There is absolutely far too much hype around innovation.

I say that as someone who teaches innovation for a living and then tried to build something myself.

I have spent unbelievable amounts of time, effort, and money on the Reciprocity platform. And the great irony is that it was meant to help researchers in a field that talks nonstop about innovation. Yet when you look around, almost no one actually innovates. Not really.

At the beginning, I fell for the hype. I read all the good stories. I believed the models. But once you try to build something in the real world, you see how big the selection bias is. We only hear from the winners. Nobody counts the people who tried for a week or two and quit because they were crushed by the psychology of it.

The truth is this: most innovation is not technical. It is emotional.

You have to sit with your own failures. You have to feel like an outsider.

You have to speak into the darkness and hope someone even cares.

And you have to keep going when it feels like nobody does.

I misunderstood how hard that would be.

And I am still trying.