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Do you believe that you are on the cusp of a breakthrough on a daily basis? Despite popular belief (and to some extent, the media’s portrayal of success stories), the wildest successes rarely ever happen on a whim. These stories are the result of regular and consistent creative acts, which prime our brain and our mindset to be more receptive for the big reveal to the big solution. This is the message of Josh Linkner’s book, entitled Big Little Breakthroughs, and he believes that everybody has the capacity to be creative; however, a lot of people hold themselves back for several reasons. It could be due to preconceived notions they have of themselves, a bias against creative thinking, or certain thinking habits. Exercising the Creative Muscle: We are used to thinking that your creativity is like our height: a physical feature we grow into for a bit, but cannot change eventually. However, the reality is it’s more like our weight. By implementing changes in habit, mindset, and lifestyle, we are capable of making incremental adjustments. However, creativity does not exist in a binary. It’s more like our position changes on a spectrum depending on how consistently we choose to exercise our creativity muscle. There are plenty of misconceptions that prevent us from being creative. The first is that it is only possible to be a creative person in certain industries. We have conditioned ourselves to think that it is only in the arts that we can be creative—but in reality, there are plenty of opportunities to express the right side of our brain across all industries. Creativity can be a powerful tool in hyping up conversations with your clients in customer service positions, finding quick solutions to last-minute problems in operations, and extracting meaningful insights from pools of data. The biggest blocker of creative output has never been a lack of natural talent, or a lack of opportunity; Josh believes that it is caused by fear and our tendency to stick to safe ideas, while we wait for a “right time” to launch the more provocative ones. It is our responsibility to be more thoughtful of the status quo, and challenge ourselves to find new ways to be creative. Creativity in Nation Building and Social Justice: In the podcast, Josh shared an insightful discussion he had with Caron Proschan, one of the individuals he interviewed for Big Little Breakthroughs. Caron was a fitness nut who also enjoyed chewing gum. One day, when she reached into her bag for a stick of gum, she realized that it was an eerie shade of blue— almost certainly synthetically produced using who knew what substances. This small discovery inspired Caron to search for natural alternatives. However, there was no such thing as natural gum. The massive chewing gum industry was run almost entirely by two giant organizations, with no concern for the quality of the ingredients that went into manufacturing gum. As a result, Caron set out to create the world’s first all-natural gum. She is now the founder and CEO of Simply Gum. Beyond Caron and her passion towards creating natural snacking alternatives, we see traces of these small changes in other parts of our lives. Rosa Parks is another stunning example of how simple actions can lead to ripple effects. Her act of defiance on the bus was eventually used as a source of empowerment for the civil rights movement. This is meaningful because it indicates that the power for change does reside in everyday people; not large corporations, entities, or figures in authority. “Sustainable progress usually doesn't come from the stroke of an autocratic leader; it comes from the body of the people.” Josh concluded. In many situations, the action that starts the ripple effect is always small: saying “no,” or just looking for ways to improve something you love. Creativity is not limited to situations or people that make you feel fear; rather, the sparks for...