First Blog

 Creativity and innovation can be compared with learning to high dive.  You can read books on them for days, months, or years. But until you actually do it, you don't know how, and moreover hardly know what to do.  A complement I always give athletes, is that they practice, and hopefully with a patient coach. They know practice is essential. But for creativity, some think they just need a course or a couple online videos, and they're ready to create. Not so. Bottom line is that creativity is both a skill and an intellectual activity. Without practice and even with, there's never a guarantee. BTW, most attempts at creativity amount to crap, just like those first dives into the deep.  

In this world we have laborers, professionals, researchers, and practitioners - not to forget politicians, which are ignored for the moment.  Let's discuss the practitioners, those who practice a profession.  These include accountants, psychologists,  lawyers, and doctors. This implies they use an extant body of accepted knowledge and make arguments and prescriptions on what to do in the various circumstances.  They have no need to think beyond their sandbox of this knowledge.  Indeed, thinking beyond is discouraged.    BUT... This may be a good thing.  You don't want your doctor simply manufacturing new medicine when you are under care.  You don't want your lawyer inventing legal precedents when you have some grievance or other situation.  Thinking inside the box, in these cases, is just plain OK.  But the practice does entertain and in some cases slavishly follows the leads of others.  Case-in-point is ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.   This is a condit