HOW: Why is creativity such an important part of life today?

Monahan: Our great-grandparents made their livings with their arms, backs and legs, but low technology took away those jobs. Most people now make a living sitting on their butts and using their heads. Recently, high technology has eliminated the analytical jobs where you use rational thinking and other people's ideas. A spreadsheet can do linear thought and come up with a conclusion, but it can't use its imagination.

Ironically, high technology - or at least the Information Age - is devaluing information because everyone has it. People still say, "Knowledge is power," but it's less powerful than ever before because more people have it than ever before. It's really not knowledge that's so powerful anymore - it's imagination. Seventy years ago, Einstein told us that imagination is more important than knowledge, and it's especially true today.

HOW: Are some people more naturally creative than others?

Monahan: There's a huge misconception about the difference between "creativity" and "talent." In any endeavor, there are tremendously talented people who aren't creative - people who can sing someone else's songs really well or do a totally beautiful painting, but who don't necessarily bring in new ideas. Creativity is bringing new ideas.

While I believe talent is genetic, I think everyone has creativity. Everybody has good days when they come up with decent ideas. So one of the things I try to do is get people to recognize what it is they do on their good days so they can do it more frequently. Interestingly, highly realized creative people tend to be very conscious about creativity, but most people are unconscious about how they think. So I put them in situations that force inspiration and show them that they can force it to happen every day.