John Kao, a master of innovation, shows how you can put your life and business on a trajectory to uncommon success. The journey begins with a conceptual prototype of your own making and ends with you realizing your ambition.

Representatives of our newest client, a pharmaceutical maker, arrived this morning at 7:45--six executives, all eager to get started.

They stared at the emptiness of our white walls but said nothing. I asked them to explain what brought them to us.

"It’s simple," one of them said, knowing it wasn’t simple at all. "We’re a $40 billion-a-year corporation, and we want to keep growing at 7 percent annually. In other words, we need another $2.8 billion in sales every year."

I tapped the calculator on my iPhone.

"That’s about $54 million a week," I said.

"We don’t care about some $100 million opportunity," the man went on. "Only mega-ideas will do."

"What you need," I said, "is the equivalent of two dozen blockbuster movies a year."