Summary: Across the ages, there have been notable hotbeds of creativity - from ancient Athens, to the Song Dynasty in China, to the Renaissance in Italy, to today’s Silicon Valley. As Julie Ann's ConsciousSHIFT guest, Eric Weiner - author of THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places, from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley - discovered, there is a pivotal connection between our cultural surroundings, and the emergence of our most innovative ideas. An acclaimed travel writer, Eric walked the same paths as the geniuses who flourished in these settings to see if the spirit of what inspired figures like Socrates, Michelangelo, and Leonardo remains. Weiner asks, "What was in the air, and can we bottle it?" “The toddler steps of incremental innovation don’t earn you a patent, or the title of genius. Only a leap does. The question that intrigues someone such as myself, a creature of geography and a student of history, is not simply what these leaps look like but where, and when, they take place… certain places, at certain times, produced a bumper crop of brilliant minds and good ideas. The question is why.” This link can be traced back through history: Darwin's theory of evolution gelled while he was riding in a carriage. Freud did his best thinking at his favorite coffeehouse. Beethoven, like many geniuses, preferred long walks in the woods. What we discover is, without question, the importance of culture in nurturing creativity - and why that is a relevant and essential conversation for us today. Join Julie Ann and Eric to discover why changing the way we think about creative genius — to see it not simply as a matter of genetics or even hard work but, rather, the fruit of a culture that encourages ingenuity ... should lead us to explore new ways to nurture creative environments today.
