[长难句突破]

Innovation is like soccer; even the best players miss the goal and have their shots blocked much more frequently than they score.

主体句式：Innovation is like soccer.

结构分析：本句中包含了两个分句，其中后一个分句的主语是the best players，谓语由两个并列结构构成，分别是miss和have their shots blocked。最后的"much more frequently than they score"作为状语，起到比较说明的作用。

[全文译文]

Discoveries in science and technology are thought by "untaught minds" to come in blinding flashes or as the result of dramatic accidents. Sir Alexander Fleming did not, as legend would have it, look at the mold (霉) on a piece of cheese and get the idea for penicillin there and then. He experimented with antibacterial substances for nine years before he made his discovery. Inventions and innovations almost always come out of laborious trial and error. Innovation is like soccer; even the best players miss the goal and have their shots blocked much more frequently than they score.

The point is that the players who score most are the ones who take most shots at the goal-and so it goes with innovation in any field of activity. The prime difference between innovation and others is one of approach. Everybody gets ideas, but innovators work consciously on theirs, and they follow them through until they prove practicable or otherwise. What ordinary people see as fanciful abstractions, professional innovators see as solid possibilities.

"Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there's no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done," wrote Rudolph Flexh, a language authority, this accounts for our reaction to seemingly simple innovations like plastic garbage bags and suitcases on wheels that make life more convenient : "How come nobody thought of that before?" The creative approach begins with the proposition that nothing is as it appears. Innovators will not accept that there is only one way to do anything. Faced with getting from A to B, the average person will automatically set out on the best-known and apparently simplest route. The innovator will search for alternate courses, which may prove easier in the long run and are bound to be more interesting and challenging even if they lead to dead ends.

Highly creative individuals really do march to a different drummer.

科学技术上的发明创造被"不知内情者"看做灵感的眩目闪现或戏剧性事件的结果。亚历山大•弗莱明爵士可不是像传说中的那样，看了一眼奶酪上的霉就立刻想到了青霉素的发明。他是对抗菌物质进行了长达9年的实验才有了这项发明的。发明及创新几乎都是艰苦的试验和失败的产物。创新就像踢足球，即使是最出色的球员也会痛失进球机会，其射门被挡出的机会大大多于进球的机会。

问题在于得分最多者正是那些射门次数最多的球员，而任何领域的创新活动都是如此。创新者与普通人的主要区别在于处理问题的方法不同。每一个人都有想法，但创新者会自觉地钻研他的想法，并不断地去努力直到证明他的想法切实可行或不可行。普通人视为凭空想像的抽象概念在职业创新者眼里却具有坚实的可能性。

"创造性思维也许只不过意味着能够意识到按老办法办事没什么特别可取之处。"语言权威人士鲁道夫•弗莱契写到。这解释了我们看到像塑料垃圾袋和带轮箱包之类令生活更加方便但却看似简单的发明时的反应："怎么过去就没有人想到这办法呢？"

创造性方法始于"一切不可貌相"的主张。创新者不会接受办事只有一种方法的论调。面对从A到B的挑战，普通人会自动踏上一条最熟悉的、显然是最简单的路径。创新者则会探寻另外不同的道路，而这样的道路将会最终被证实更简单、也一定更有趣、更富挑战性，即使它们通向绝境。

极富创造性的人的确是打着不同的鼓点前进的。