PILLAR 02
Creative Mindset
The inner work of thinking differently.
PILLAR TWO OVERVIEW
Before you can make anything new, you have to see differently. Creativity begins with perception, not production. How you notice things, how you observe your own thinking, how you stay open to surprise and discomfort.
I came to this through psychiatry. My medical training taught me to sit with ambiguity, to watch how people construct meaning from their experience, and to pay attention to what lies beneath the surface. When I started teaching creativity at Harvard, I realised that the biggest barrier to innovation was rarely a lack of methods. Students had tools. They lacked access to their own inner landscape.
That phrase has become central to my teaching at Yale. I ask students to examine their temperament, their cognitive habits, the stories they tell about themselves. We work with metacognition, liminal states, and beginner’s mind. The eight disciplines I call the human premium grew out of this work.
Key Ideas
Metacognition
Thinking about your own thinking. Students learn to observe their cognitive patterns, notice where they get stuck, and develop strategies for shifting perspective.
MIT Teaching Lab framework
The Inner Landscape
Temperament, emotional patterns, default assumptions, sources of energy and resistance. The territory a creative person needs to know.
Yale Course, Class 3-4
Liminal States
The threshold spaces between waking and sleep, between certainty and confusion. Neuroscience shows these states can be cultivated as creative infrastructure.
NSDR research
Polycognition
Multiple ways of thinking, layered and integrated. Spatial, embodied, narrative, and emotional thinking working together.
Kao framework
FROM THE ARCHIVE
The Fight to Stay Human in the Age of Intelligent Machines
2026
John’s argument for the eight disciplines, grounded in neuroscience.
Yale Course, Classes 3–4
2026
Meeting the Inner Landscape and Going Deeper.
The Fight to Stay Human (book)
2026
Forthcoming. Book-length treatment of the eight disciplines.
THE JOURNEY
Explore other pillars that support my approach to creativity
01
Mastering
the How
Creativity as a teachable, learnable discipline.
03
AI & the Future
of Creativity
Protecting what makes us human when machines get smart. Cultivating what I call the 'human premium.'
04
The Polymath's Advantage
Thinking across boundaries, leveraging poly cognitive and polyvalent capabilities.
FOLLOW THE JOURNEY
A book, a course, a growing body of work, and a community of people re-imagining creativity for a new era. This is the beginning.