An Unnecessary Choice?

Someone recently asked how I got started learning about, and from, neuroscience.

I had two answers.

The first was about being happy yet confused little kid. Nothing lit me up like making art – molding little sculptures out of Playdoh, weaving bead patterns on my beloved “beadcraft metal loom," drawing everything I could.

Yet I also liked school (except for the “grammar diagrams” we were forced to do in 5th grade). I even liked homework. Especially anything in science.

So I never understood why grown-ups always asked which I was going to choose: art or science.

I knew better than to say what I thought about that question. But I definitely thought it: “Why would I have to choose?” 

Why did I have to be a quirky, curious, creative kid or a “good student?” Couldn’t I be both?

My second answer came later, in college, through the jobs and internships I had during school. I noticed that the people who seemed to be doing everything “right,” who were objectively succeeding in the world of work, often seemed angry, impatient, unhappy, and uninspired.

Not always, of course. But I watched people collect promotions and credentials and the trappings that came with them – and seem to get unhappier and unhealthier as they went along.

I wrestled between an art major and a business degree, even appealing to the Registrar to let me combine my interests into one degree; no dice. Ultimately I graduated with a double major.

And still felt confused.

Then I found Apple. It was the logo that did it. When I saw that rainbow-colored shape with the jaunty leaf and the chomp bitten out of it (on a rejection letter; story here) here’s what flashed through my mind: “Any company who made THAT its logo gets it. They know you don’t have to choose – that creativity and success can coexist.”

That was a promise Apple kept well, again and again.

It wasn’t all rainbows and whimsy. We committed big at Apple, especially in the Steve Jobs years, giving it our all. Sometimes it was crushingly hard. Yet I loved the curious, creative people around me, working together on things that had never been done before.

I felt free to try, safe to fail. I watched people I admired act from vision and gut and heart; they inspired and emboldened me. 

Yet as we matured and a new guard came in, bringing rules, structure, and judgement with them, I felt creativity and inspiration fade away.

I noticed people who actually didn’t inspire me – people who felt dry and cut off, who shut down new ideas or curious questions, who optimized for “what had worked at their last company” – getting rewarded in ways I was not.

Not everyone, mind you. If you know me you know how I loved my time at Apple. Yet the “middle” years weren’t like the early ones, and I felt the change.

Maybe some of my childhood confusion caught up with me back then, and for a minute I acquiesced and tried to follow the rules.

But then a new confusion arose: one where I got more approval – yet where I felt less and less satisfied. I didn’t know what to do with that. Yet somehow I trusted an inner compass that pointed toward creativity and curiosity more than the maps that pointed toward unsatisfying approval.

That’s when I decided to leave Apple. Though fates intervened, and a challenging new opportunity opened up there, putting me back in uncharted territory.

That turned out to be a good place for both my creative and my nerdy inclinations. As the momentum of that work continued to build, though, I still wondered why some people shut their innate innovative gifts down, and why they seemed to be rewarded for keeping the trains on the tracks rather than dreaming of flying.

Which led me to study psychology. Then neuroscience.

Which brought me back to that long-ago confusion. Were the people around me shutting down that quirky, curious, creative part of themselves, thinking they had to choose between that and the “good student”?

Over the years I’ve seen people succeed by committing deeply to one of those powers: being generative and creative or being operational and regimented. I’ve known lots of people who’ve done really cool things in their professional journeys by choosing one over the other.

Yet only once or twice, very few times, have I seen people succeed by owning their abilities in both. 

I’m not convinced this was because they were rare birds with gifts of twin “outlier abilities.”  It feels more like they never decided they had to choose between one or the other.

Over the decades, teaching "The Neuroscience of Creativity and Innovation" at Stanford, and offering workshops and retreats, again and again I’ve heard leaders describe a moment when they felt they had to “give up” on one of those attributes – creativity or operational influence, originality or rule following – in order to move ahead.

These days, as I use neuroscience to guide my work and very much my life, I feel the cost of that divide – not only to the world of work, but to personal satisfaction and alignment with purpose.

To me, the choice – one that feels less necessary than the world of work seems to think – is echoed in the brain.

Yes, your brain has the capacity for linear thought, for follow-the-rules scenarios that often work, for formulas and algorithms and optimizations that can definitely point to what’s seen as success.

It also has the capacity to originate, to imagine, to challenge and expand, to try new things with curiosity and a sense of wonder – attributes that don’t show up so well when we’re in that linear rule following mode.

Not to mention the tendency to configure itself to norms and priorities from the world around it – around us – that say we have to choose between one side and the other. 

Which often lead to frustration or emptiness in professional life – even as we get rewarded for doing what can lead to that emptiness.

What confuses me is why so often we’re convinced we have to choose. Looking back on a long, often challenging, often wonderful professional journey, I see the “choice” as a trap that snares too many. And limits, often, both the power and the satisfaction we all long to experience.

This started out as an answer to “how I got started” … and ended up being more like “what I’ve come to see.” 

Yet that IS about the brain. Because the norms and priorities from the world around it – and us – increasingly point to linear, fast, evidence-based ways of thinking most rewarded in the world of work, rather than the contextual, generative, bigger-picture capacities that support creative thought.

After all, since your brain constantly documents all that you think and do, making it easier for you to continue thinking and doing more of THAT, the capacities we DON'T actively call on tend to fade away.

Throwing our brains – and even our world – out of balance.

Do you sense this too? If so, know this: you’re not alone.

And DO this: go back, to that curious, creative, maybe even quirky kid who somewhere along the way got the message that they had to give that magic up in order to move forward. To grow up. To succeed. 

What if that message were wrong?

And what if bringing some of that power and satisfaction back was a key to what you’re seeking most in your professional journey?

I hope this inquiry resontates. Your thoughts?