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Creative Thinking: The Critical Skill For The Creative Economy S12 Ep18

Phil McKinney
Phil McKinney
— 1 min read
The Innovators Studio podcast cover art: Creative Thinking: The Critical Skill For The Creative Economy S12 Ep18

Creative thinking is a critical skill for personal, professional and business success. When you look at others who have been highly successful, such as Elon Musk, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, the common skill they have is a well exercised skill of creative thinking. Creative thinking is the fuel to everything you do.

Creative Thinking

According to a TIME Magazine poll, 91% of people say that unleashing creativity is vital to our personal lives and 83% believe it’s important for our professional development. But an Adobe survey shows that only 25% of us think of ourselves as creative. That translates into 75% who do not believe they are creative.

I have a hard time in understanding the gap between knowing its important and yet claiming they don't have it. Why? While you and I are born creative, the process of going through life has convinced us that we are not creative. I believe that everyone is creative and that we just need to lean how to exercise this ability we already have. Just like any other muscle, the creative muscles needs to be exercised every day if you expect to create at peak performance.

Creative Economy

If a country is to benefit from the emerging creative economy, then the majority of its population needs to be operating at their creative potential. It doesn't matter if your an engineer, teacher, bus driver or at home parent, all can greatly benefit from creative thinking.

This weeks podcast is of a speech I gave at the Maker HUB event. In this speech, I share the three actions everyone can take to improve their creative thinking along with my daily exercises that I use to keep my creative muscle in shape.

  • Blog post on "Creative Thinking" that includes a transcript of the speech, the three actions to improve creative thinking and daily exercises to strengthen the creative muscle.
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Phil McKinney is an innovator, podcaster, author, and speaker. He is the retired CTO of HP. Phil's book, Beyond The Obvious, shares his expertise and lessons learned on innovation and creativity.


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