Years ago, I found myself grappling with a problem that felt impossible to resolve. I tried every logical approach, but nothing seemed to shift. Then, almost unintentionally, I threw myself into a creative project that lit me up with energy and excitement. As I became absorbed in the creative process, that once-urgent problem gradually lost…
Creative breakthroughs happen when we perceive what lies beyond our ordinary ways of looking. Writing a fairy tale offers that much-needed shift in perception, opening up new realms of possibility that logic alone can’t access. Fairy tales offer surprising and insightful answers that can’t be found through the thinking mind. As I often remind my…
Perhaps the reason why creativity is given short shrift in academia is because it has a light, playful energy, rather than the heavy, dense energy of facts, charts, research….and heavy books that have been sitting in dusty corners of the library for a hundred years. I got my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and…
The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.” When you know something in your mind to be true, is there open space in your mind for another view? Not likely. When we’re certain that we “know,” we’re at risk of trouble, because we…
During the final hearing for my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago, my advisor, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi pulled me aside and whispered to me: “NEVER use the word heart in a job talk.” My Ph.D. dissertation was on how adults learn in everyday life and I’d mentioned the heart too many times. Mihaly could tell…
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