by Carl Nordgren

Can you imagine locating common ground as attractive to the left as it is to the right? Common ground valuable to rural, urban, and suburban folk; to those who have and those who don’t have yet; to old guys like me and especially young folk living deep into this century?

I inadvertently discovered this common ground during the workshops and courses I’ve led for 22 years with nearly 10,000 folks; it’s my calling to help each of us and all of us to become our most creative and entrepreneurial selves. I’ve served entrepreneurs and military leaders, teachers and students, scientists and software developers, government employees and business people, farmers and church congregations; the full range of human interests.

I am constantly studying how to teach creativity and early on I came upon the story about NASA’s determination to hire the most creative and innovative scientists and engineers they could find. They had an assessment tool designed by George Land, measuring core creative cognition. When Dr. Land saw how pleased NASA was with the accuracy of the tool, he used it to assess the creative qualities of 1,600 5-year-old school children. 

Ninety-eight percent of the kids scored as ‘Creative Genius’ on NASA’s grading scale. 

Ninety-eight percent. 

That’s you, your family, your friends and colleagues; each time you walk into a room it’s filled with creative geniuses, realized or latent but present.

I share the finding that 98% of us are born a Creative Genius very early in my workshops—I’ve a dramatic story building up to the payoff—and when I share the 98% finding you feel the room change. There is a delightful head on embrace of this wonderful sense of self—we love being seen as our best and we rise to be.

On this common ground we find the most rational and the most optimistic perspectives on our unknowable future—a future of constant unpredictable changes; more fierce disruptions like the one we just went through except they won’t be like the one we just went through; plus unimaginable technology breakthroughs generating extraordinary opportunities.

Isn’t it rational that when faced with unexpected challenges and first of a kind opportunities we should intentionally cultivate our creative and entrepreneurial capacities and behaviors? It’s universally understood those are the qualities that serve you best, whatever challenges the future holds.

It’s optimistic because intentionally cultivating our creative and entrepreneurial qualities plays to our strengths, our deep and broad creative strengths, the NASA project just one bit of evidence that we’re creative at our core.

This creative common ground offers new perspectives for governance, a refresh badly needed since current political language has been so weaponized as to be useless.

Consider this framing of common wealth as an example; it’s leverage of resources—we each benefit and we all benefit—is crucial for future flourishing.

It’s not sneaky Socialism. It’s this:
Ask 10 first time entrepreneurs if they want to build their business all by themselves or join this venture incubator, where the founders bring their individual contacts, resources, and knowledge to share with the others; experience tells me you’d get 10 out of 10 choosing the common wealth of the incubator. They’ve either been told or know instinctively their giving will be more than returned.

There’s the farmer who won the blue ribbon at his county fair for the best sweet corn 5 years in a row and a journalist asked about his success. The farmer explained that when he harvests each year’s crop he collects the best for seed corn for next year and he’ll give half that seed corn to the farmers owning adjacent fields. The journalist asked why he would help his competition. The farmer explained when the breezes blow, the pollen from their fields floats on the wind over to his and pollinates his crop; the only way to make sure his corn keeps improving is helping others improve theirs.

Many labeled it Socialism when FDR set out to create jobs with large construction projects during the Depression. Look at one, the Lincoln Tunnel, connecting New Jersey with Manhattan. This asset is owned by the people of New Jersey and New York. Can you calculate the individual wealth that has been facilitated by this resource? How many small business owners have had more access to customers and vendors? How many friendships have been nurtured? Measured on all relevant scales of value creation, is this common wealth’s contribution incalculable? 

So now, with a new and shared understanding of the generative nature of common wealth, now let’s talk about the importance of investing in public schools and public libraries.

It could be seen as patriotic when political leadership declares they understand this is who we are and their governance and policy making will be serving our preparation for our unknowable future.

I don’t know when, but as businesses continue to eliminate jobs using AI and other technologies—maximizing profits, they believe, demands it—at some point the companies will support a universal basic income so they have markets for their products. Let’s call on leadership—let’s call on us all—to do what we can to develop our creative and entrepreneurial abilities so when UBI arrives it’s not just another stipend welfare program, but the seed capital we each use to start a bottoms up creative renaissance.

Before Carl was an entrepreneur and taught Creativity at Duke for 14 years he was a fishing guide, a factory worker, and a foundryman. He’s a novelist, hosts the weekly radio show on WCHL ‘Exploring your Creative Genius’ and is the author of ‘Becoming a Creative Genius (again)’. His email is carl@creativepopulist.com