Many people have some very stereotypical ideas of what innovators are like. They picture wild-haired nerds muttering to themselves while creating dangerous concoctions in a lab. The truth is, most innovation isn’t that strange or unusual. What is most common is that innovators take something that already exists and make it useful for others.Think about companies that are considered innovators. Facebook was certainly not the first social networking site. Starbucks was not the first purveyor of coffee. McDonalds didn’t invent hamburgers. Yet, each of these companies is a good example of innovation in their field. They took an existing product and did something new with it.As a result, many of us can change our thinking; it’s not just geniuses who invent something new who can be considered innovators. Quite a few of us are capable of thinking outside the box, and doing things in a new and better way than they have been done before. Innovation isn’t some freak event. It happens on a daily basis.Another thing that’s important to understand is that innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Great innovators nearly always build on knowledge that has come before. Even someone like Einstein based his theories on earlier ideas that had been built up over centuries. He simply added light to ideas about matter and energy that had already been around for a long time. Many of his great ideas were based on his unique perspectives, rather than conjuring up something completely new.It’s important to realize that most of us are capable of innovation. Once we understand this, we can start to look at things in a new way ourselves. Maybe it’s seeing a process in our jobs that isn’t as efficient as it can be, or maybe it’s thinking of a new way to market a product that your company has been selling for ages.Once we get away from the concept that only geniuses and “special” people can innovate, it opens up the doors for each of us to use our creativity to build on ideas that have come before us. The only thing that innovators do that’s different from the rest of us is to look at existing concepts in a new way, and to try to learn new and better ways to do things. It’s something that just about any of us is capable, and once we have realized this, we can start to work on taking our careers and business to new levels.