The Neuroscience of Creativity with ANNA ABRAHAM - Highlights

The Neuroscience of Creativity with ANNA ABRAHAM - Highlights

Author of The Neuroscience of Creativity
Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development, University of Georgia

I love podcasts and things like that, if only to listen to people who've done incredible things. We live in a kind of unusual time where we can hear firsthand people talking about their own experiences, and what they went through when they were creating something. And while artists differ greatly from one another in terms of the specifics of their process, what certainly seems to be the case is that they're extraordinarily interested in their own mind, and they have what we would call a metacognitive awareness. They know almost quite precisely, at least what doesn't work for them. They're very cued into what to avoid and how to sort of generate the mental conditions that are necessary in order to be as generative or as creative as they're likely to be in a specific situation. So that is a deep medical awareness that they have about their own process that is really quite something. They know themselves very well.

ANNA ABRAHAM - Author of “The Neuroscience of Creativity” - Director of Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development

ANNA ABRAHAM - Author of “The Neuroscience of Creativity” - Director of Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development

Author of The Neuroscience of Creativity
Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development, University of Georgia

I love podcasts and things like that, if only to listen to people who've done incredible things. We live in a kind of unusual time where we can hear firsthand people talking about their own experiences, and what they went through when they were creating something. And while artists differ greatly from one another in terms of the specifics of their process, what certainly seems to be the case is that they're extraordinarily interested in their own mind, and they have what we would call a metacognitive awareness. They know almost quite precisely, at least what doesn't work for them. They're very cued into what to avoid and how to sort of generate the mental conditions that are necessary in order to be as generative or as creative as they're likely to be in a specific situation. So that is a deep medical awareness that they have about their own process that is really quite something. They know themselves very well.

Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver with JILL HEINERTH - Highlights

Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver with JILL HEINERTH - Highlights

Explorer · Presenter · Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

If I die, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen. I can no longer feel the fingers in my left hand. The glacial Antarctic water to see through a tiny puncture in my formerly waterproof glove. If this water were one-tenth of a degree colder, the ocean will become solid. Finding the knife-edged freeze is depleting my strength, my blood vessels throbbing in a futile attempt to deliver warmth to my extremities. The archway of ice above our heads is furrowed like the surface of a golf ball, carved by the hand of the sea. Iridescent blue, Wedgewood, azure, cerulean, cobalt, and pastel robin’s egg meld with chalk and silvery alabaster. The ice is vibrant, right, and at the same time ghostly. The beauty contradicts the danger. We are the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And we may not live to tell the story.

JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

Explorer · Presenter · Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

It's such a privilege swimming through these places. And I almost feel like I'm getting a secret peak into the body of the planet and that's a very precious and almost a sacred kind of collaboration where I get to experience this, I get to see this, but if I'm going to take these insanely challenging risks I need to make it worthwhile and share what I've seen so that other people have the benefit of understanding, a better conception of our connected planet. Both in the short term and in the long term scale as well. The sense of time can be warped by what's going on in my brain, so I do have this dance between left brain and right brain. Left brain pragmatic, right brain creative.

The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond w/ CHRIS BLACKWELL - Founder, Island Records - Highlights

The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond w/ CHRIS BLACKWELL - Founder, Island Records - Highlights

Founder of Island Records, which launched the careers of Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse…
Author of The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond

I think you need to be aware and see people be open to what can happen and get a feel, get an instinct. I think I've been blessed with instinct. I mean, I did not do well at school. I passed zero exams. I'm unemployable, but I've been blessed with having instincts. The instinct of U2 was seeing their determination, the fact that the music itself initially wasn't close to what most of my music was because most of my music was bass and drum. And most of their music was vocal, so it wasn't a certain kind of music that I like all the time. I like music from all different kinds of levels…I absolutely felt for Bob Marley to really make it worldwide as it were, he needed to change something a little bit. I didn't want him to change what he was doing, not his lyrics and everything else like that. It was more the instrumentation of it. I felt for Bob to be able to reach a wider audience that he needed to move away a little bit from that and focus more and more on his lyrics. When I finally met Cat Stevens, and we just sort of sat down and then when he played the song ‘Father and Son,’ then suddenly the lyrics of the song and what it meant and everything, I suddenly felt this guy is fantastic.

CHRIS BLACKWELL - Founder of Island Records featuring Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse…

CHRIS BLACKWELL - Founder of Island Records featuring Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse…

Founder of Island Records, which launched the careers of Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse…
Author of The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond

I think you need to be aware and see people be open to what can happen and get a feel, get an instinct. I think I've been blessed with instinct. I mean, I did not do well at school. I passed zero exams. I'm unemployable, but I've been blessed with having instincts. The instinct of U2 was seeing their determination, the fact that the music itself initially wasn't close to what most of my music was because most of my music was bass and drum. And most of their music was vocal, so it wasn't a certain kind of music that I like all the time. I like music from all different kinds of levels…I absolutely felt for Bob Marley to really make it worldwide as it were, he needed to change something a little bit. I didn't want him to change what he was doing, not his lyrics and everything else like that. It was more the instrumentation of it. I felt for Bob to be able to reach a wider audience that he needed to move away a little bit from that and focus more and more on his lyrics. When I finally met Cat Stevens, and we just sort of sat down and then when he played the song ‘Father and Son,’ then suddenly the lyrics of the song and what it meant and everything, I suddenly felt this guy is fantastic.

Adaptive Intelligence: Surviving and Thriving in Times of Uncertainty with ROBERT STERNBERG - Highlights

Adaptive Intelligence: Surviving and Thriving in Times of Uncertainty with ROBERT STERNBERG - Highlights

Award-winning Educator - Author of Adaptive Intelligence: Surviving and Thriving in Times of Uncertainty
Fmr. President of the American Psychological Association

Are we looking at intelligence wrong? There are an awful lot of people who have graduated from top schools who become leaders who are worse than incompetent. They make their countries worse rather than better. And the conclusion I came to is that we made a mistake, in that intelligence was originally defined by the founders of the field Alfred Binet, David Wechsler, and others, as the ability to adapt to the environment a requirement. And answering a vocabulary problem for an obscure word is not about adapting to the environment. So I began to wonder where we lost the train of thought. And the conclusion I came to is that colleges just forgot the original message of the founders of the field, and so we got immersed in these numbers that turn out not to mean that much. So I wrote about intelligence as the ability to get along in the world and hopefully make the world a little bit better

Robert Sternberg - Award-winning Educator - Author of “Adaptive Intelligence” - Fmr. President, American Psychological Assoc.

Robert Sternberg - Award-winning Educator - Author of “Adaptive Intelligence” - Fmr. President, American Psychological Assoc.

Award-winning Educator - Author of Adaptive Intelligence: Surviving and Thriving in Times of Uncertainty
Fmr. President of the American Psychological Association

Are we looking at intelligence wrong? There are an awful lot of people who have graduated from top schools who become leaders who are worse than incompetent. They make their countries worse rather than better. And the conclusion I came to is that we made a mistake, in that intelligence was originally defined by the founders of the field Alfred Binet, David Wechsler, and others, as the ability to adapt to the environment a requirement. And answering a vocabulary problem for an obscure word is not about adapting to the environment. So I began to wonder where we lost the train of thought. And the conclusion I came to is that colleges just forgot the original message of the founders of the field, and so we got immersed in these numbers that turn out not to mean that much. So I wrote about intelligence as the ability to get along in the world and hopefully make the world a little bit better

Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, & Science w/ JULIO OTTINO - Highlights

Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, & Science w/ JULIO OTTINO - Highlights

Julio Ottino is an artist, researcher, author, and educator at Northwestern University. He is the author, with Bruce Mau, of The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science. He was the founding co-director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. In 2008, he was listed in the “One Hundred Engineers of the Modern Era”. In 2017, he was awarded the Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education from the National Academy of Engineering.

Today's complex problems demand a radically new way of thinking — one in which art, technology, and science converge to expand our creativity and augment our insight. Creativity must be combined with the ability to execute; the leaders and innovators of the future will have to understand this balance and manage such complexities as climate change and pandemics. The place of this convergence is THE NEXUS. In this provocative and visually striking book, Julio Mario Ottino and Bruce Mau offer a guide for navigating the intersections of art, technology, and science.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Riya Patel with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this episode was Riya Patel.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

Julio Ottino - Author of “The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science”


Julio Ottino - Author of “The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science”


Julio Ottino is an artist, researcher, author, and educator at Northwestern University. He is the author, with Bruce Mau, of The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World - The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science. He was the founding co-director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. In 2008, he was listed in the “One Hundred Engineers of the Modern Era”. In 2017, he was awarded the Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education from the National Academy of Engineering.

Today's complex problems demand a radically new way of thinking — one in which art, technology, and science converge to expand our creativity and augment our insight. Creativity must be combined with the ability to execute; the leaders and innovators of the future will have to understand this balance and manage such complexities as climate change and pandemics. The place of this convergence is THE NEXUS. In this provocative and visually striking book, Julio Mario Ottino and Bruce Mau offer a guide for navigating the intersections of art, technology, and science.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Riya Patel with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this episode was Riya Patel.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

Florian Hoffmeister - Award-winning DP “TAR” starring Cate Blanchett - Highlights

Florian Hoffmeister - Award-winning DP “TAR” starring Cate Blanchett - Highlights

Florian Hoffmeister is a prolific director of photography. Recent works by Hoffmeister include his lensing on the Apple TV+ series Pachinko, the critically-acclaimed political thriller Official Secrets starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, and Matt Smith, and TÁR starring Cate Blanchett. Hoffmeister is well-known for his collaboration with Terence Davies on feature films The Deep Blue Sea, starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russel-Beale, and A Quiet Passion, starring Cynthia Nixon and Jennifer Ehle. His work on Brian Kirk’s television phenomenon Great Expectations earned him further distinction as well as numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy, a BAFTA, and an ASC Award.

Poetry, Politics, Technology & Society with Poet, Filmmaker MAX STOSSEL - Highlights

Poetry, Politics, Technology & Society with Poet, Filmmaker MAX STOSSEL - Highlights

Max Stossel is an Award-winning poet, filmmaker, and speaker, named by Forbes as one of the best storytellers of the year. His Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move takes the audience through a variety of different perspectives, inviting us to see the world through different eyes together. Taking on topics like heartbreak, consciousness, social media, politics, the emotional state of our world, and even how dogs probably (most certainly) talk, Max uses rhyme and rhythm to make these topics digestible and playful. Words That Move articulates the deep-seated kernels of truth that we so often struggle to find words for ourselves. Max has performed on five continents, from Lincoln Center in NY to the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. He is also the Youth and Education Advisor for the Center for Humane Technology, an organization of former tech insiders dedicated to realigning technology with humanity’s best interests.

Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

Max Stossel is an Award-winning poet, filmmaker, and speaker, named by Forbes as one of the best storytellers of the year. His Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move takes the audience through a variety of different perspectives, inviting us to see the world through different eyes together. Taking on topics like heartbreak, consciousness, social media, politics, the emotional state of our world, and even how dogs probably (most certainly) talk, Max uses rhyme and rhythm to make these topics digestible and playful. Words That Move articulates the deep-seated kernels of truth that we so often struggle to find words for ourselves. Max has performed on five continents, from Lincoln Center in NY to the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. He is also the Youth and Education Advisor for the Center for Humane Technology, an organization of former tech insiders dedicated to realigning technology with humanity’s best interests.

Behind the Scenes of Ginny & Georgia, Criminal Minds, Alias with DEBRA J. FISHEER - Highlights

Behind the Scenes of Ginny & Georgia, Criminal Minds, Alias with DEBRA J. FISHEER - Highlights

Showrunner of Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia
Writer · Exec. Producer · Director · Alias · Criminal Minds · The OC · Charmed

I need a balance of light and dark. It can't be just one thing. I want you to be laughing one minute and by the end I want you to be crying. For me, character study is what is the most important. It all comes down to the characters. It's less about action or things like that, which you can have some of that, but it tonally, has to be female-centric and you have to be crying and laughing. There's so many interesting shows that walk that line of light and dark. I want to always live in the gray area with characters. Always. Nothing is ever black or white. It's always a weird gray area.

Debra J. Fisher - Showrunner of Netflix’s “Ginny & Georgia” - Writer, Exec. Producer “Criminal Minds” , “Alias”

Debra J. Fisher - Showrunner of Netflix’s “Ginny & Georgia” - Writer, Exec. Producer “Criminal Minds” , “Alias”

Showrunner of Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia
Writer · Exec. Producer · Director · Alias · Criminal Minds · The OC · Charmed

I need a balance of light and dark. It can't be just one thing. I want you to be laughing one minute and by the end I want you to be crying. For me, character study is what is the most important. It all comes down to the characters. It's less about action or things like that, which you can have some of that, but it tonally, has to be female-centric and you have to be crying and laughing. There's so many interesting shows that walk that line of light and dark. I want to always live in the gray area with characters. Always. Nothing is ever black or white. It's always a weird gray area.

Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology w/ ADAM ALTER - Highlights

Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology w/ ADAM ALTER - Highlights

Author of NYTimes Bestseller Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked ·
Anatomy of a Breakthrough · Drunk Tank Pink

The other thing from a creativity perspective is we know that more people around you is good for creativity. It's one of the axioms in thinking about creativity in general. You need time. An artist, a writer. I'm a writer. I need time on my own. I also paint and draw. I cannot do that with other people around. It's just my process. But before you get there, before you get to that point where you need that time alone, that space apart, for almost everyone being around other people is good. It's good for creativity. It's both about diversity of opinion and idea and just about having more - just more information, more thoughts, more ways of looking at the world. And some of the most profound research I've come across in preparing for this book suggested that it's better to be around people who are deeply incompetent than it is to be around no one, which I found very surprising.

Adam Alter - Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”, “Anatomy of a Breakthrough"

Adam Alter - Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”, “Anatomy of a Breakthrough"

Adam Alter is a Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the Robert Stansky Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow. Adam is the New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, and Drunk Tank Pink, which investigates how hidden forces in the world around us shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. He has written for the New York Times, New Yorker, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and a host of TV, radio, and publications. His next book Anatomy of a Breakthrough will be published in 2023.

Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope w/ IPCC, Lead Author JOËLLE GERGIS - Highlights

Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope w/ IPCC, Lead Author JOËLLE GERGIS - Highlights

Lead Author  of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
Author of Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope
Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia

Contributor to The Climate Book, ed. Greta Thunberg · Not Too Late, eds. Rebecca Solnit, Thelma Young Lutunatabua

is an award-winning climate scientist and writer at the Australian National University. She served as a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and is the author of and Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia. Joëlle has also contributed chapters to The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, and Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua.

JOËLLE GERGIS - Lead Author  - IPCC Sixth Assessment Report - Author of Humanity’s Moment

JOËLLE GERGIS - Lead Author - IPCC Sixth Assessment Report - Author of Humanity’s Moment

Lead Author  of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report · Author of Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope · Sunburnt Country · Contributor to The Climate Book, ed. Greta Thunberg · Not Too Late, eds. Rebecca Solnit, Thelma Young Lutunatabua

We're really starting to witness serious climate extremes that can no longer be ignored. And the IPCC, one of our key conclusions to that report was that effectively the human fingerprint on the climate system is now undeniable. It is now an established fact that we have warmed every single continent, every ocean basin on the planet. And again, that's a pretty serious thing to contemplate that human activity from the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of land has led to this energy imbalance in the earth system, which is leading to a rapidly shifting climate.

Inside Out: Writer Director ETGAR KERET on Creativity, Memories of His Mother, Storytelling as a Means of Survival - Highlights

Inside Out: Writer Director ETGAR KERET on Creativity, Memories of His Mother, Storytelling as a Means of Survival - Highlights

Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director
Author of Fly Already · Suddenly a Knock on the Door · The Seven Good Years

For me, there is something about art, it's not a monologue, it's a dialogue. Some people, it doesn't matter who they speak to, they will speak in the same way they would speak to a five-year-old or to an intellectual or to somebody who doesn't speak the language very well. They would speak the same way and they don't care because this is what they have to say, but I think that the natural thing in the dialogue is really to look into the eyes of the person you speak to and see when he understands or when she doesn't understand or when she's moved or when he's angry. And basically out of that, kind of create your own language.