INTRODUCTION  

Logic Alone Is Not Enough

THERE IS A crisis occurring in most businesses and careers today, and that crisis is a stark lack of creativity. A vast majority of people today have overdeveloped the analytical part of their thinking and underdeveloped the creative part. It doesn’t matter what brainpower-enhancing vitamins you’re taking or what new healthy diet you’re on. It doesn’t matter if you have multiple PhDs or shrewd street smarts. The fact remains that the vast majority of people today are operating at half their potential. It’s no wonder that sales are lackluster, careers are stalled, and relationships cannot grow.

Unfortunately, it gets worse. A vast majority of companies are operating at half their potential, and most go out of business within the first five years.¹ It’s ludicrous. What drives this failure rate? Why are things so bad? Why do most companies fail? The answer is simple, and it’s what inspired me to write this book.

The answer is creativity.

The Creator Mindset will teach anyone, including you, how to solve problems through the lens of creativity. It is a method I created to teach anyone how to solve any problem with a blend of both the analytical part and the creative part of the mind, giving you true optimal performance at 100 percent of your potential capacity.

That sounds great, right? But surely someone is teaching this today. Aren’t there colleges and courses to teach people how to be creative in business and, by extension, in life?

The answer is, sadly, no, because to be honest, the vast majority of what they teach in business school is analytics. Sure, it’s important to have sound analytics and spreadsheet logic, but focusing only on the analytical is a farce. It’s simply not good enough. It’s like a pilot going to aviation school but learning only how to land or a dentist going to dental school but learning only how to treat bottom teeth. That’s what’s going on in business schools today. And it’s not just schools. This focus on analytics alone affects just about every business today, and it more than likely affects your business too.

The Creator Mindset is the tool you need to embrace creativity and utilize analytical thinking in ways that have never been explored.

This shift in thinking is what will make your company and career thrive, and I’ll show you how this works in action through case studies of companies that use creativity to thrive. But I have to tell you that there aren’t that many. These companies are few and far between. Therefore, it is up to you to go out and forge a new path with The Creator Mindset in your organization or career.

THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU, YES, YOU.

I know you must be thinking, I’m not a creative person, Nir. I don’t draw portraits, dance ballet, or play the saxophone. That’s just not me. I’m a lawyer or an accountant. I’m an engineer or a nurse. I’m a schoolteacher or a corporate events planner. I’m not a singer or an actor or artist or someone in a creative field. So how will this book help me?

I’ll tell you exactly how. The Creator Mindset contains insight into the creative mind for those who don’t necessarily know they have one. I will teach you how to be creative, but not in the traditional artistic way—in the business way. I find that many people in business don’t realize the true power that creativity and creative thought can have in their world. This is what I see with my own eyes over and over while I am out consulting or speaking. People and companies are hungry for a different way, a new way, a creative way.

That is what The Creator Mindset is about: bringing out the inner creativity in you to help you solve problems that are unsolvable without a Creator Mindset. Don’t worry. I won’t teach you how to play an instrument or dance the hula. But I will teach you how to be creative in business because at the end of the day, you have it in you. We all do. It’s the spark we are all born with, the spark most of us have extinguished as we’ve grown older. That spark must be relearned because as adults we are told that creativity is not part and parcel of maturity. It’s not serious business acumen. It’s frivolous because it cannot be measured and quantified.

But nothing can be further from the truth.

Creativity is in fact essential in all you do. This is why we need a fresh perspective. You already have the creative spark in you; you just need to relearn how to use it, and The Creator Mindset will show you how.

HOW THIS BOOK WILL HELP YOU

These are the 12 principles we will return to throughout the book:

Creativity’s Unlikely Personality Traits. This principle explains how humor, empathy, and courage are the unlikely cornerstones of creativity in business.

On the Virtues of Listening. This principle highlights three time-management skills that can be learned only in the context of a creative outlook.

The Importance of the Little Victory. Often, we are led to believe that big victories are the only ones that matter. But our attention should be focused instead on how to envision our goals creatively in small chunks.

The Value of Making Mistakes. Mistake utility is a view found only in creativity in which a mistake becomes lucrative. Here we look at how mistakes can benefit your company and career.

Art and the Ego. The gap between creativity and art is huge, and so are our egos from time to time. We must learn the difference to keep ego from taking over.

Character Counts. Three creative tools will help your career or business when times get tough, which they always do.

The Four Ps You Need for Growth. My four Ps of business will help anyone embrace creativity collectively at every step of my program.

The Disease of Self-Doubt. This principle shows us how to use creativity to fight one of humanity’s most destructive behaviors.

Comfort, Computers, and the Multitasking Myth. Technology and comfort work in concert to decrease creativity. This principle helps you understand how to resist comfort and limit technology so that creativity can bloom.

How to Champion the Good Idea. This principle highlights five ways to find what is trapping and limiting creativity in your career or organization and then how to free it.

The Creator Mindset Guide to Crisis. In the face of a terrible tragedy in 1982 came an accidental road map to creativity that we can use today.

The Complacency Conundrum. This principle is illustrated by case studies about companies that were creative but then got complacent. It shows what we can learn from their mistakes about how to keep from getting complacent in our careers or businesses.

Through these simple principles you will learn to reference each day, you will begin to awaken your own Creator Mindset. And as you gain comfort with thinking creatively, you will see a new approach to a genuine authenticity that most professionals and businesses want but few know how to achieve. This authenticity is revealed through the lens of creativity.

You will learn in these pages how to achieve the holy grail of innovation. It’s not those lightbulb moments of inspiration or secret sorcery that create innovation. Instead, innovation is something you can learn to create. It’s something that can be taught. I will show you how.

THE COST OF CREATIVITY

I know what else you might be thinking: Ah! But this is going to be expensive. I bet most of The Creator Mindset tools aren’t cheap.

But the truth is that every tool in this book—every single one—costs you nothing. Absolutely nothing. They are all free to use: no licensing, no royalties, nothing. Just free. Other than the cost of the book (and maybe a workshop or keynote that I give at your company or convention), implementing these creative principles will cost you nothing. How cool is that? But like anything in life, there is a catch. Here’s the thing: not using these tools and techniques can cost you everything.

You see, the stakes are high today. In an ultracompetitive global economy, there is only one chance to get it right. And as the economy shifts from the industrial economy of yesteryear to the new idea economy of tomorrow, it is imperative that we be armed with the ability to create ideas readily and frequently. The future of your brand, whether it’s your personal brand, a start-up, a restaurant, or a Fortune 500 firm, depends on your ability to connect with your audience emotionally and convincingly. No matter what it is that you do, from doctor to banker, from regulator to electrician, from veterinarian to controller, The Creator Mindset is a must-read. You will learn to connect emotionally and convincingly with your chosen audience.

I’m going to predict your thinking again. It is something along the lines of this: Come on, Nir. Really? I run a roofing business. Why do I need any of this creative stuff? Am I right? If you are thinking like this, the truth of the matter is that through the lens of creativity you will find your audience. And if you can connect with your audience, you will create business opportunities. And if you create business opportunities, you will increase your bottom line. It really is that simple when you’re armed with The Creator Mindset.

Perhaps you are an employee who is trying to get ahead. You’re working hard day after day, putting in more hours than the rest, consistently hitting the mark. Yet time and time again you hit a ceiling, unable to climb any higher, unable to achieve your goals, wondering why you can’t get ahead. The bottom line is that without creativity you cannot scale new heights and reach your chosen destiny.

You might be tempted to think that creativity is all about an advertisement or your business card or website design. Although that certainly is important, it’s necessary to dive much deeper into unfamiliar ways to harness creativity in all you do. I know this different way of looking at things may be scary at first, but it ultimately will open you up to new and exciting opportunities never before seen.

Your life will change forever because you will understand how to use creative principles to solve everyday problems, and not just at work. You literally will learn to change the function of your brain to incorporate creativity, and in doing so you will see the world as you’ve never seen it before.

We tend to devalue creative solutions in modern life. It’s too flimsy. It’s something that’s too out there. It’s artsy-fartsy. We roll our eyes. It’s probably for someone else because I’m not that smart or funny or artistic. But the truth is that it’s not for someone else. It’s for you. This way of thinking will help you and be of service to you and your goals. The brain is divided into two hemispheres—logical and creative—and this book will help you bridge the gap between them so that you can achieve magnificent harmonious success.

The creative mind is one that is not subject to limitations. The creative mind sees what can be rather than what is. How incredibly powerful is that? Just think about it for a second. Take a moment and look at this book closely. I mean it. Stick your finger on this page to hold your place and then look at the front and back covers. Admire them from different angles. Did we do a good job on the cover? Do you like it? Perhaps you can think of another way to lay out the print. Does this typeface look good? Is it hard to read? Simply looking at something as it can be rather than as it is can change the very nature of the problem you are thinking about right now as you read these words on the page.

Creativity will teach you to see things as they should be, not as they are. A plumber goes to a house and encounters a clogged sink. You see putrid water and a horrible situation, but the plumber sees opportunity and a chance to be of service. On these pages you will learn to see the world as you think it should be, not as it is.

One of the great things about thinking creatively is that it gives you the opportunity to see things in different ways. This is evident because the creative mind cannot see any boundaries to its thinking. It behaves and adapts in such a way that nothing can stop it. Not even reality. Not even a lack of resources. Not even your current crappy cash flow situation or low salary. That is why the creative mind is so important. Imagine a tool in the business world that can uplift you in even the most desolate circumstances by making you believe that there is opportunity in each obstacle.

Forever the optimist, The Creator Mindset will enable you to dream, to fly, to conquer, to solve, to live. Often a third-class citizen compared with other pressing business needs or ignored altogether, The Creator Mindset can supersede all limitations and be more useful than almost anything else.

When your thinking has no barriers, your potential has no barriers.

I wrote this book for you because I’m tired of all these business leaders who are keeping that creativity to themselves. They pretend that it cannot be learned. They say things like “I’ve got it and you don’t.” Whatever “it” is. They keep creativity under lock and key away from the general public for fear of revealing their intellectual property. But creativity is far too valuable to humanity to be controlled by just a few people. It is possible to learn it. The pages of this book will show you how. This is a deeply personal undertaking years in the making because the time has come for creativity to be used by anyone who seeks its power.