Creativity, Ideas, and Innovation ($)
An interview prepared for Authority Magazine.
“Above them, a bright sun is breaking through the clouds, casting rays of light onto the table, signifying the emergence of innovative solutions.”
—ChatGPT. Response to my query for an image for teams, creativity, and innovation.
Authority Magazine asks: Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I’m an inventor, explorer, and creator. I look at things holistically and technically. As a scientist and businessperson I've been troubled by other people’s low standards of focus, reliability, and honesty. As a therapist, I better understand these confusions as arising from people's lack of a meaningful foundations in their own lives.
You have to be creative in order to build authentic connections, and few people are creative. ned rationalizations of how things should be.
Where insights in physics have little positive effect on people's lives, insights in relationships can have an immediate effect. Helping people as a counselor gives me supportive feedback that sustains my work in other fields where the rewards are few.
AM: What led you to this specific career path?
My interest in how things work comes from my desire to understand what I think and feel. Unfortunately, knowing more often isolates you and makes you harder to understand. That’s the lie in invitations to be creative: few people want new ideas, and most are threatened by them. God forbid you have a world-changing idea. It could get you killed!
That realization, which resulted from presenting great ideas to intransigent people, led me to becoming a therapist. As I tell my clients, “You pay me to say stupid shit, and I reserve the right to be wrong.” This is also how you innovate, but you get more colorful feedback from people than you’ll get from equations.
AM: Can you share the most exciting story that has happened to you in your work?
I’ve had professions in business, science, and health care. I’m drawn to things of deep and personal meaning, so both my scientific and personal achievements are difficult to communicate to others.
I had a breakthrough in physics that came from discovering an equation of unusual power, but I was doing such arcane work that no one appreciated it. These kinds of insights continue to nourish me despite being unrecognized. I dislike the prospect of having to spend a lifetime selling an idea. I care little for being recognized widely, but I do want to be appreciated by the people I work with.
I took a practical approach in business when my aim was to create a generic business automation system. I found a solution and turned it into a product. Then, I confronted my inexperience in growing a company and, again, did not want to spend a lifetime building a market for a problem I’d already solved.
Creating a new marketing effort to sell the idea to a large software publisher repelled me. That is not my kind of culture. So I folded the company and moved into neurology and health care.
AM: What are some of the most exciting projects you are working on now?
At a deep psychological level, everyone is interesting. I feel rewarded when I work with high-performing people, but I am more curious about people who are deeply confused. The high-performance people are only missing a few details, but the deeply compromised people are huge puzzles.
The high-performers offer me more pay and a more productive appearance. The low performers offer me personal reward and less demonstrable achievements. Nevertheless, helping more dysregulated people has the potential to make greater, lasting changes.
I'd like to pull together these two ends of the spectrum. Top performers get plenty of air and water, but their psychological roots are shallow. They are less likely to have gotten help or see the need for it. In contrast, those who struggle with old, deep issues see a deeper need for change. I would like to turn people's attention toward issues of deeper meaning and more enduring importance.
Would you like to become more creative?
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