The Daily Journaling Habit That Helped Me Find My Authentic Innovation Self
For the first time, I'm sharing the deeply personal practice that transformed me from a "rinse and repeat" performer into an authentic innovator—and why this matters more now than ever.
Early in my career, I was what some call “rinse and repeat.” Focused entirely on acquiring skills and experience, I said yes to everything without hesitation. Some projects I excelled at, others I struggled through, but I was always following the same playbook: learn the steps, apply the process, repeat what worked before.
I thought this was growth. My mentor saw it differently.
“You’re stuck,” he told me during what I thought would be a routine check-in. “You’re just repeating steps and processes rather than understanding your own abilities and intuition. You need to find your own perspective, your own opinions, your own approaches.”
I had no idea how to do that. I’d been so focused on external validation—following proven methodologies, mimicking successful leaders, checking all the right boxes—that I’d never actually asked myself who I was as a professional, let alone as an innovator.
That’s when my mentor introduced me to something that would fundamentally change how I approached not just my career, but my understanding of innovation itself: daily journaling.
“That’s What My Sister Did”
My initial reaction? Pure skepticism.
Growing up, journaling was something your sister kept locked under her pillow—a diary filled with crushes and drama. It seemed fluffy, feelings-focused, and completely irrelevant to serious business work.
My mentor had to reframe it entirely. “This isn’t about keeping a diary,” he explained. “Journaling is about turning inward and getting to know yourself better. It’s like having regular check-ins with who you are—writing about what makes you tick, what you value, how you’re growing or changing, and what drives you.”
Still skeptical, but curious enough to try, I agreed to his challenge. What I would discover through this practice would challenge everything I thought I knew about professional growth and, eventually, innovation itself.
The Questions That Changed Everything
Some of the early prompts were deceptively simple: What motivates me? Is it money, title, recognition, teamwork, collaboration—what is it, really? What triggers put me into my mode of being most creative and original in my thinking? How can I call on those triggers when I need them?
Then came the harder assignment: branch out. Apply these insights to the actual work we were doing.
The first breakthrough came within weeks. My most innovative thinking happened when I was wrestling with ethical dilemmas, not market opportunities. Through journaling, I realized I had multiple innovation drivers—technology, impact over financial gain—but the ethical dimension was completely unconscious until I started writing about it.
I began noticing a pattern: projects like being asked by the US Department of Education to innovate K-12 education stirred something deeper in me than traditional tech projects. This led to my work with the Unreasonable Institute, and more recently pro-bono efforts with the Department of Defense and VA Hospital System. Each project revealed new layers of my authentic innovation identity that I never would have recognized without the daily practice of self-reflection. What struck me most was how different this felt from everything I’d been taught.
This was completely counter to what I thought “business innovation” should be. But when I started leading projects from this authentic place—focusing on innovations that felt morally urgent—the transformation was dramatic. My energy was different. My ideas were different. My impact was different.
I got so much out of this practice that it turned into what I can only describe as a 40-year obsession. After four decades in innovation, I’ve realized that the vast majority of innovation training teaches people how to innovate and not how to think as innovators.
Phil McKinney
The Performance Epidemic I Started Seeing Everywhere
As I moved from software engineering to broader innovation leadership, I brought this journaling practice with me, adapting it specifically to explore my authentic innovator self. The more I understood my own innovation identity, the more I started noticing something troubling in the corporate innovation world—a pattern so pervasive it was hiding in plain sight:
The vast majority of innovation leaders are performing someone else’s version of innovation.
In boardroom after boardroom, I watched brilliant leaders struggle not because they lacked skills or resources, but because they were trying to be Steve Jobs, or Elon Musk, or whoever the innovation icon of the moment happened to be. They’d adopted someone else’s innovation playbook without ever discovering their own. The moment you try to sound like an “innovation leader” in a meeting, you’ve already lost access to your most original thinking.
I saw a $300M innovation initiative fail not because the market wasn’t ready or the technology wasn’t sound, but because the leader was trying to channel a Silicon Valley archetype instead of innovating from their authentic self. The energy was wrong. The decisions were hesitant. The team could sense the disconnect.
This is the hidden cost of innovation inauthenticity: it creates breakthrough barriers that no amount of resources or talent can overcome. But recognizing this pattern was only the beginning of understanding what authentic innovation actually required.
The Five Areas That Define Your Innovation Identity
Through decades of this practice—both personally and in mentoring others—I’ve discovered that authentic innovation identity emerges from exploring five core areas that fundamentally build your innovation thinking skills:
Innovation Values & Motivations - What truly drives your innovation work, not what you think should drive it. You might discover, like I did, that impact matters more to you than profit, or that solving problems for underserved communities energizes you more than chasing market leaders.
Innovation Fears & Shadows - The fears and hidden parts of yourself will secretly influence your innovation decisions more than you think. Often, what we judge as “impractical” or “too risky” reveals our most authentic innovation territory.
Innovation Energy & Authenticity - Your natural state and what types of innovation work energize versus drain you. Some innovators thrive in collaborative brainstorming; others do their best thinking in quiet reflection. Neither is wrong—but knowing which is you changes everything.
Innovation Triggers & Patterns - What gets your creative thinking flowing and how you can access it when you need it. For some, it’s ethical tensions. For others, it might be technical constraints, customer stories, or even personal frustrations.
Innovation Voice & Style - How you authentically express and communicate innovation when you’re not trying to sound like someone else. Your natural innovation language might be storytelling, data visualization, building prototypes, or asking challenging questions.
Most innovation leaders never explore these areas systematically. They jump straight to methodologies and frameworks without ever asking: What does innovation mean to ME? How do I naturally create change? What’s my authentic innovation voice?
This Wednesday, I’m releasing a YouTube video that shows my complete daily journaling setup—my actual journals, tools, and the step-by-step process I’ve used for 40 years.
Want to start your own practice? I’ve created a free two-week starter program with ten daily prompts plus weekend reflections. Each question includes context and implementation guidance. Download it below to begin developing your innovation thinking skills immediately.
The Transformation Evidence
Understanding these five areas is one thing—seeing them transform real careers is another.
When CEOs are asked about the top skills they hire for, creativity and innovation consistently rank number one. Given the career uncertainty facing our society, the ability to bring your fully creative, authentic innovator self to your role is what will allow you to stand out and be highly successful.
It’s something AI cannot replicate.
I’ve seen this transformation repeatedly in my one-on-one mentoring. I give people tailored prompts aimed specifically at their challenges. Some of the most memorable transformations have been around confidence. So I assigned a series of prompts that helped them stop being intimidated by titles or hierarchy and focus on issues with authentic conviction.
Another executive discovered through journaling that her most innovative thinking happened when she was angry about inefficiencies—something she’d been taught to suppress in corporate settings. Once she learned to channel that anger constructively, her process improvement innovations saved her company millions.
I watched one innovation leader walk out of that process with a completely new sense of who they were and the earned right to have an opinion and present it boldly. Their next breakthrough innovation happened within six months, directly traceable to this newfound authenticity. The innovation ideas that scare you most are often the ones closest to your authentic breakthrough potential—which is exactly why most leaders avoid them.
Genuine innovators consistently outperform skilled performers because they’re operating from their natural strengths rather than fighting against their own nature. In today’s world, where AI can replicate many innovation processes, authentic creative thinking remains uniquely human. Organizations recognize that their competitive advantage lies not in having innovators who all think the same way, but in having innovators who each bring their genuine, unique perspective to complex challenges.
Why I’m Sharing This Now (And Why It Feels Risky)
I’ve talked about innovation journaling at a high level on my podcast over its 20-year history, but I’ve never shared the “why,” the “how-to,” and the real impact it can have.
To be honest, some people may view this as “fluffy” or “feely.” Anytime someone steps out with something like this, you worry about the reaction. Innovation leadership is supposed to be about hard metrics and proven methodologies, not self-reflection and authenticity.
But here’s what I know after four decades of this practice: the innovation challenges we’re facing today—from technological disruption to evolving market dynamics—require leaders who can think beyond borrowed frameworks. They require authentic innovators who understand their own creative process and can access their unique perspectives under pressure.
This is also a lifetime effort. This isn’t about going through 50 questions and graduating. I’ve been at it for 40 years and still repeat some prompts annually because people change, adapt, and mature as innovators over time. My authentic innovation self at 25 was different from who I was at 45, and different again today at 65.
At 25, I was driven by proving myself technically. At 45, I’d shifted toward building systems and processes. Today, I’m most energized by developing other innovators and tackling problems that matter for future generations. The journaling practice helped me recognize and embrace each evolution instead of fighting against my changing nature. This foundation became the constant that guided me through each transformation.
The Practice That Started It All
My mentor introduced me to this with questions as prompts. This way, I wasn’t staring at a blank page wondering “what do I write?” I was simply answering questions and, in the process, discovering something about myself.
The prompts build over time, expanding both the breadth and depth of the questions being asked, challenging you to look at yourself as an innovator and discover how to be authentic in that role.
The protocol is beautifully simple: choose a prompt, write until the thought is complete, close the journal, and start your day. Some people prefer the 3-page approach from Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages,” others write until they feel finished. Find what works for your rhythm and schedule.
Let me give you a taste of what this looks like. Here’s one of the prompts that consistently surprises people:
Context: Understanding what you avoid can reveal your authentic innovation territory better than what you pursue.
Prompt: “What innovation idea excites you but also makes you slightly uncomfortable because of who you’d have to become to pull it off?”
I’ve watched executives sit with this question for 20 minutes, then fill three pages with insights they never knew they had. The discomfort usually points directly to their most genuine breakthrough potential—which is exactly why most leaders avoid these ideas entirely.
The prompt I just shared is one example from the two-week foundation practice I’ll share in Wednesday’s video. Each question is designed to bypass your intellectual defenses and access deeper truths about your innovation identity.
Your Innovation Authenticity Invitation
I’ve shared this deeply personal approach with only a few people I’ve mentored one-on-one. This is the first time I’m sharing it widely because I believe the world needs more authentic innovators now more than ever.
Over the years, I’ve been collecting these prompts—some from my mentor, others I’ve created through decades of innovation self-discovery. I’m pulling together a first edition compilation that will be available as an e-book (free for paid subscribers, a small fee for others).
This Wednesday, I’m releasing a YouTube video that shows you my complete daily journaling setup—my actual journals, the tools I use, and the environment where I do this work. You’ll see the step-by-step process I’ve used to build my innovation thinking skills for 40 years, plus I’ll walk you through one transformative prompt that reveals hidden aspects of your innovation approach. The video also includes details on downloading a comprehensive two-week starter program with the complete set of prompts and guidance to begin your own innovation identity discovery.
But the real invitation is this: Will you discover your authentic innovation self, or will you keep performing someone else’s version of innovation?
The compound effect of authentic innovation discovery isn’t just about becoming a better innovator. It’s about becoming the innovator you were meant to be—and in a world where that kind of authenticity is increasingly rare, it’s also your greatest competitive advantage.
The question isn’t whether you have time for innovation journaling. The question is whether you can afford not to discover who you really are as an innovator.
Resources
Watch the Process:
YouTube Video - How to Build Innovation Thinking Skills Through Daily Journaling
See my complete journaling setup, tools, and the step-by-step process I’ve used for 40 years. (released Weds)
Start Your Practice:
Download the Free 2-Week Innovation Journaling Program
Ten daily prompts plus weekend reflections with context and implementation guidance.
What innovation identity question would you most want to explore? Reply and let me know—your authentic innovation self is waiting to be discovered.
Phil McKinney
