Yes. You really are a creative person…
Did you know that? Or are you one of those humans who envies the abject creativity of other people?
You know the ones. The ones with decorative flair, who can throw an outfit together that looks amazing, or effortlessly find a solution to a parenting problem.
If you feel like they got the creative genes and you were somehow bypassed, I’ve got some great news for you.
You already have more than enough creativity to coast through life, with solutions and designs abounding.
Creativity can absolutely be taught. It’s something I did in the corporate world. You just need to learn how to switch it on, and that’s what this email is all about.
The biggest lie we tell ourselves about creativity is that it’s rare.
It isn’t. It’s usually just switched off.
In the corporate world, I taught creativity in one-hour sessions. One hour. To people who were convinced they were logical, analytical, numbers-driven, and definitely not creative. And every single time, without fail, they surprised themselves.
Because creativity isn’t about being artistic.
It’s about knowing how to think differently on purpose.
Most people don’t lack ideas. They lack permission.
Permission to be wrong.
Permission to be playful.
Permission to explore an idea before strangling it with judgment.
One of creativity expert Dr. Edward de Bono’s simplest and most useful ideas is this.
When you’re digging for water and the hole runs dry, the answer is not to dig deeper.
The answer is to dig somewhere else.
Most of us do the opposite. We stay with the same assumptions, the same questions, the same angles, and we just try harder. More effort. More thinking. More frustration.
That’s not creativity.
That’s exhaustion.
Creativity often begins when you’re willing to abandon a hole that once worked and deliberately start a new one.
This is where de Bono introduced what he called the provocative operation.
A provocation is not meant to be right.
It’s meant to move thinking in a different direction.
You deliberately introduce an idea that feels wrong, illogical, or even absurd, not because you plan to use it, but because it shakes the mind loose from its habitual grooves.
What if employees didn’t need permission to take time off?
What if meetings had no chairs?
What if a product was deliberately made worse?
What if the customer was wrong?
At first glance, these ideas sound ridiculous. Good. That’s the point.
A provocation loosens the grip of habitual thinking. Once the mind starts moving, it begins to uncover insights that were unreachable from the old hole.
I saw this play out again and again.
A company struggling with burnout kept asking, “How do we motivate people more?”
Dry hole.
The provocation became, “What if motivation isn’t the problem?”
That single shift led to changes in workload, autonomy, and recovery, rather than more pressure, perks, or incentives.
Another team kept asking, “How do we get better ideas?”
Another dry hole.
The provocation was, “What if our first ten ideas are banned?”
Suddenly the obvious thinking was gone, and something new had room to emerge.
Provocation works because it temporarily suspends the need to be sensible. It gives the mind permission to wander. And wandering is where creativity lives.
Creative people don’t have better brains.
They have more flexible thinking habits.
And here’s the part that matters in everyday life.
When you’re stuck with a relationship issue, a parenting challenge, a work problem, or even a design choice in your home, notice when you’re digging deeper in a dry hole.
Then ask a provocative question.
What if the opposite were true?
What if I stopped trying to fix this?
What if I changed the question entirely?
You don’t need the perfect answer.
You just need movement.
That’s creativity.
And you already have more of it than you think.
- Mike Mandel
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