A recurring theme on the road to creative mastery is how we (wrongly) perceive those who are successful as having never struggled. The truth is, they did. But they persisted, nonetheless.

Author, teacher, and artist Gary Zamchick writes, “In a time of rapid disruption, it’s more important than ever to live in the liquid space between building and dreaming — a place where conceptual, innovative, and transformational leaps drive innovation and change.”

Whenever a student asked legendary Stanford Professor Bob McKim for feedback on a new design concept, he consistently gave the same response: “Show me three.” Those three words contain a remarkable depth of wisdom.

In "Add Subtraction", the author explains how we tend to change the world by adding new things, but subtracting can lead to better results.

One of the simplest ways to measure your creative capacity is to count how many solutions you can imagine for any given problem. World-class creators actually, literally, count their ideas.

There are no shortcuts to breakthrough outcomes. Even legends like Jerry Seinfeld — after long success — have to endure the pain that accompanies the early experiments on the way to the next innovation.

A critical priority in a productive, creative life is to make time to think, reflect, and synthesize. Here are a few examples of how spectacular innovators have carved out the necessary space.