Redefining Creativity
Exploring what makes us human in a world shaped by AI
When I was younger—in middle and high school—I thought of myself as very creative. I played piano and wrote my own music, I painted and sculpted, I filled notebooks with stories and poems (this was the dial-up era, so online journaling was barely a thing.) What I loved most was the freedom to experiment, to play with sounds and colors, to break the mold and see what beauty rose from the cracks.
But as I moved into college and my career, the skills that were rewarded looked different. Creativity gave way to efficiency, impact, and resource stewardship (shout out to the non-profits in the room). I became the “systems and processes girlie”—valued for budgets, logistics, and structure. Somewhere along the way, I started saying out loud, “I’m not the creative type.” At our most recent Future CEO Camp, I caught myself saying it again. I’ve said it hundreds of times, even handing brand guidelines to my co-founder with a laugh, “You take this, I’m not creative.”
To be clear, I say it with deep respect. I’m in awe of colleagues like Jordan McNear, who can craft aesthetic assets that instantly give a story more depth and power. That ability feels almost magical.
AI and Our Superpower
Over the past year of diving into AI—its power, its limitations, its constant evolution—I’ve circled back to the same question that sparked this entire series: “In a world shaped by AI, what makes humans unique? What is our superpower?” For me, the answer is creativity. Which, I’ll admit, sounds ironic coming from the self-proclaimed “systems and processes girlie.” But the truth is, I had boxed in what creativity could mean.
And I’m not alone. At Future CEO Camp, I overheard several high schoolers say, “I’m not creative” before passing the deck design to someone else. That mindset is everywhere. When I joined the Creative Mornings community sponsored by Adobe, I expected to find artists and designers—and I did. But I also found entrepreneurs, technologists, and innovators. It confirmed something I had started to believe: creativity doesn’t equal artistic ability. Artistic work is simply the most visible, tangible form of creativity— we can see it, hear, it, taste it. But creativity itself is much broader, more robust, more encompassing, and far more deeply human.
Creative Systems
When I dug deeper into the question of what creativity really is, I found myself returning to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He argued that creativity isn’t just an individual spark—it’s a system. Think of it like a plant: the Person is the seed (your unique skills, quirks, and perspective that are innately human). The Domain is the soil (the knowledge, tools, and traditions you draw from). And the Field is the gardener and ecosystem (the people and conditions that choose which ideas to nurture, validate, and help blossom). Only when all three interact does creativity really flourish.
Csikszentmihalyi also described creativity as a non-linear process. It begins with preparation—planting yourself in a field and learning its rhythms. Then comes incubation—ideas germinating beneath the surface, often invisibly, while you go about other things. Next is illumination—the sprout breaking through, that “aha!” moment of new possibility. But growth doesn’t stop there: the Field must test and verify whether the idea can survive in the ecosystem, and finally elaboration is when the plant matures, bearing fruit that others can see and use.
Take hip-hop as an example. DJs in the Bronx (seeds) experimented with turntables and breakbeats (soil), and their block-party crowds became the first gardeners—the Field—who validated the sound and gave it room to grow. What began as a neighborhood experiment blossomed into a global cultural movement. That’s creativity as a system—not a lone genius, but a seed that thrived because it had the right soil and the right ecosystem to help it bloom.
Multitudes of Intelligences
I also love what psychologist Howard Gardner adds to the conversation. He argued that humans don’t operate with a single, monolithic intelligence, but with at least eight distinct kinds:
Linguistic (writers, poets)
Logical-mathematical (scientists, engineers)
Musical (composers, performers)
Bodily-kinesthetic (athletes, dancers, craftspeople)
Spatial (architects, visual artists)
Interpersonal (teachers, therapists, leaders)
Intrapersonal (philosophers, spiritual seekers)
Naturalistic (biologists, farmers, environmentalists)
Through this lens, creativity is multi-dimensional. It isn’t confined to the arts—it runs through every form of intelligence. A composer’s breakthrough may sound different than an entrepreneur’s, but both spring from the same creative force.
Gardner’s reminder is powerful: intelligence isn’t a single light, but a constellation. And creativity, in turn, is the way each of those lights finds its own way to shine.
My takeaway from these two philosophers is that true creativity is not restricted to the Lone Genius and some elusive mysterious quality only a few rare demi-gods possess. Creativity is innately human, derived from our natural abilities and lived experiences and brought to life by systems and processes that result in moments of innovation. In the age of AI, it is our aliveness - our human experience - that gives us our superpower.
If creativity is systemic and multidimensional, then it can’t be confined to art studios or research labs. It lives in kitchens and classrooms, in boardrooms and backyards. A mom who stretches groceries until payday is being creative. A teacher who reshapes a lesson to reach the one student falling behind is being creative. A teenager who duct-tapes a fix for their broken bike is being creative.
Yet most of us don’t recognize those acts for what they are, because we’ve been conditioned to believe creativity only “counts” when it looks like art or genius. That belief may be the single biggest barrier we face—not a lack of creativity, but a lack of recognition and too narrow a definition for it.
AI Can’t Give Meaning
Creativity isn’t just about what humans make—it’s about how we make meaning. AI can replicate outputs, generate content, even mimic style. But it cannot carry lived experience, it cannot embed context, and it cannot see through a distinctly human lens.
As humans, we are all innately creative. We each carry different intelligences and gifts that, when given the right setting and the right circumstances, can spark innovation and impact. Creativity is not just problem-solving, resilience, or meaning-making—it’s all of these working together as our human superpower. But if creativity is part of all of us, then why do so many people believe they’re “not the creative type”? Who gets recognized as creative, and who gets overlooked? In the next essay, I’ll explore how the myth of the rare genius has shaped our understanding of creativity, and how access, opportunity, and power decide which seeds are nurtured into bloom—and which are left unseen in the soil.