The number one thing that people say when I tell them I'm an artist is: "Oh, I'm not creative.  I can't even draw a stick figure."  People are intrigued and fascinated by the artist life, but also a little defensive, as if they’re uncomfortable because of their (perceived) lack of creativity.

Let me be real honest with you, it drives me crazy.   First of all, creativity is the force that propels the universe.  Look at nature.  Everything, at every moment, is begetting and begatting.  Bees do it, flowers do it, rocks do it (verrrrrry slowly), stars do it, atoms do it.  Everything is trying to make order out of chaos, everything is trying to make something from nothing.  Every human is born creative, creativity pouring off them, dripping from their soul.

Creativity can be broadly defined as something novel and useful.  Every useful and beautiful innovation that has ever been implemented by a human came about because of creativity.  If you can learn how to use creativity in one sphere (say, drawing), you can transfer those skills to another sphere (such as your job as a medical doctor). 

Intelligence relates to organizing what is already known and having a controlled, dense and categorical system of knowledge.  An intelligent brain is a "tight" brain. Intelligence is convergent thinking, tending to follow well-established patterns.  It’s an effective filing and retrieval system, think of a medical doctor who is able to recall thousands of facts about illnesses and their symptoms.

Paradoxically, creativity involves release.  A creative brain is a loose brain, actively releasing the known solutions, and allowing for the unknown.   Creativity is divergent thinking.  Which, newsflash! We need more of.  Not only does creativity take a new path, it actively forms  a new path. 

[For more on research on the neuroscience of intelligence and creativity please check out the scholarly research of Rex Jung and listen to this On Being podcast.]

The intelligent brain will retain all of the details and history and background of a problem while the creative brain will discover the new solutions that no one has thought of yet.  These two systems work in tandem in one brain. 

A genius is a person has both high intelligence AND creativity.

Intelligence works its magic with precision, system, and recall.  Creativity works its magic with VOLUME.  Research shows that inventors who develop something extraordinary usually created hundreds, or even thousands, of inferior ideas.

Flow is the brain state in which past experience and data (intelligence) can freely mingle with alternate solutions (creativity) and it does so it extremely effectively. 

If you’re intrigued by learn about how to level up your creative flow, sign up for this free training. It’s full of practical tips on how to advance the creativity in your life via the powerful flow state.

[Portions of this article were excerpted from my book “The New Color Mixing Companion”]