Everybody’s wildly creative underneath,” says Kelley. “That child’s mind is still in there. My mission is to convert people to confidence — to take people who don’t think of themselves as creative — especially people who think of themselves as primarily analytical — and move them from the fear of being judged to familiarity and ease with the creative process. It’s amazing how quickly people flip.

But just because it’s harder to find doesn’t really mean that creativity is any less important in these industries than in others right? In fact, in a creativity drought, it may be even more easily “soaked up” by parched workers.

Moderate background noise enhances creativity and makes consumers more likely to buy new and innovative products, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

In the post-post-modern world, it’s easy to snicker at calls to make the world a better place, whether they come from sustainability advocates or dedicated humanists. But who really wins if no one believes that our nation’s leaders, corporate and otherwise, can be better than the worst we can imagine about them? What good does it do to assume no compromise will ever be struck and no bargain can ever work out for all sides?

Creative individuals frame their experiences. Such people are highly ambitious, and they do not always succeed, by any means. But when they fail, they do not waste much time lamenting; blaming; or, at the extreme, quitting. Instead, regarding the failure as a learning experience, they try to build upon its lessons in their future endeavors. Framing is most succinctly captured in aphorism by French economist and visionary Jean Monnet: “I regard every defeat as an opportunity.