34 | MAY 13 • 2021 

BUSINESS

T

ech entrepreneur and innovation 
speaker Josh Linkner believes any-
one can achieve personal or career 
milestones by taking small creative steps. 
This mindset is the focus of his new book, 
Big Little Breakthroughs, which launched 
April 20 via independent publishing house 
Post Hill Press.
For Linkner, 50, of Franklin, who grew 
up in Detroit and is affiliated with Temple 
Shir Shalom, his fourth book speaking to 
creativity and innovation is a personal one. 
It is available in hardcover or e-book form.
“This book is special to me,
” he says. “I 
wanted to make it for a wider audience. It’s 
not only for CEOs and business leaders.
”
Linkner says anyone can learn from the 
lessons of Big Little Breakthroughs, which 
has been positively hailed by CEOs of tech 
giants and bestselling authors. The book is 
shaped not only by his own career as CEO 
of five tech companies and top-booked key-
note speaker, he explains, but by the expert 
opinions of everyone from celebrity entre-
preneurs to award-winning physicians.
“It’s about how small, everyday inno-
vations drive oversized results,
” Linkner 
says. “The whole notion of the book is that 
it’s flipping the way we think of creativity 
upside-down.
”
He says people often think of innovation 
as a billion-dollar idea that changes the 

world. His book counteracts that, painting 
a picture that everyday innovators can 
cultivate small daily acts of creativity — 
“micro-innovations” — to build creative 
capacity.
One way is to implement a 5% “creativity 
upgrade.
” “Building your skills can yield a 
very high creative result,
” Linkner said. “In 
other words, 5% more creativity can yield 
100% better business results.
” Instead of 
believing there’s not enough time, money or 
material to achieve a goal, he says to chal-
lenge those beliefs by giving just 5% more, 
whether that’s mentally or physically.
The first half of his book, Linkner 
explains, makes the case for everyday cre-
ativity. He highlights the latest research in 
neuroscience and organizational behavior 
alongside stories of people who are using 
creativity to level the playing field. In the 
second half of the book, he then shares 
eight “obsessions” of everyday innovators 
that serve as principles people can apply to 
their own lives.
“What I discovered is that all of these 
amazing people that I interviewed around 
the world all tend to follow similar patterns,
” 
Linkner says. Over the past two years, he 
spent 1,000 hours assembling research and 
expert opinion to include in this, his fourth 
book. “I share these patterns in each chapter 
with lots of rich stories, examples and tech-
niques.
”
Mindsets like “use every drop of tooth-
paste” and “fall seven times, stand up eight” 
serve as metaphors that readers can live by. 
Others, like “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” 
should be ditched, Linkner says. “They’re 
not the obvious cliche approaches,
” he 
describes. “They’re really fresh and different 
and give people a new approach to cultivate 
a skill.
”

WHY WAIT? ACT NOW
As for not fixing things unless they’re 
broken, Linkner advises doing the exact 

opposite by using the principle of “break it 
to fix it.
” 
“Why would you wait until something’s 
broken?” he questions. “The notion here is 
proactively examining what you’re doing 
and how you’re doing it in a deliberate way.
”
Then, Linkner explains, the key is to 
deconstruct one’s pattern to successfully 
rebuild it. Linkner believes these principles 
among others can be used by everyone, 
from dentists looking to grow their prac-
tices to trial lawyers who want to be more 
effective in front of a jury.
“
All human beings have creative abilities,
” 
he says. “We were just born that way. It’s our 
natural state.
”
Now, he says this way of thinking is more 
important than ever as patterns are broken 
by a new world shaped by the COVID-19 
pandemic that requires people to learn dif-
ferent ones.
“We can no longer rely on what worked 
in the past and expect the same results,
” says 
Linkner, who plans to promote his book 
over the next few months. 
“There’s a timeliness to the book that’s 
also helpful. I just know it’s going to make a 
difference in people’s lives.
” 

Tech entrepreneur and author reimagines 
creative capacity in new book.
Break It to Fix It

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

spent 1,000 hours assembling research and 
expert opinion to include in this, his fourth 
book. “I share these patterns in each chapter 
with lots of rich stories, examples and tech-

paste” and “fall seven times, stand up eight” 
serve as metaphors that readers can live by. 

describes. “They’re really fresh and different 
and give people a new approach to cultivate 

Josh 
Linkner

