Believing in your vision and conveying the passion for that vision to others is just as much a part of success as employing science in identifying new possibilities.

But to innovate, there needs to be a sense that you can operate without a net and without the security of science.

The willingness to take a substantial risk and face the possibility of profound failure is where you can secure real success.

Les Garland, the co-founder of MTV and VH1, said, “How much science can you apply to something that is an art form?”

Cameron Williams, a contributor to SBS Online, writes about the first days of music television: “While there was an obvious audience for 24-hour news and movies, making CNN and HBO almost sure-things from launch, music videos weren't looked upon as having much value at all. When MTV launched with cheap music videos, nobody anticipated that it would revolutionize entertainment. Plus, with only 250 music videos being played over 24 hours, the early artists of MTV got a lot of exposure thanks to a combination of repetition and desperation.”

On August 1, 1981, MTV launched in America with the simple words, “Ladies and Gentlemen... Rock and Roll."

The phrase was followed by a montage of the Apollo 11 Moon landings. Within just a few years, MTV went from being a scrappy upstart to defining the culture of the 1980s and beyond.

The science would have told MTV that it will never get off the ground.

-Marc