Creative Researchers carried out a practical experiment in the US in the 1960’s in which they put a group of highly creative people, including author Truman Capote, in a house for a period of time and observed their behaviour.

The results of the research highlighted one particular trait of creative geniuses and it isn’t your typical ‘high IQ’ result.

“The common traits that people across all creative fields seemed to have in common were an openness to one’s inner life; a preference for complexity and ambiguity; an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray; the ability to extract order from chaos; independence; unconventionality; and a willingness to take risks,” write Gregoire and Kaufman, authors of a new book entitled ‘Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind’.

Put simply, what differentiates the Creative Geniuses from the rest of us is openness to complexity.  Creative-minded people openly and boldly confront themselves and the world around them, and they appear to find an unusual synthesis between healthy and ‘pathological’ behaviours.

As Jessica Stillman highlights in this Inc.com article on the subject:  Nothing is stopping you from nudging yourself in the direction of greater openness if you’re looking to boost your creativity. Why not try following the simple but powerful advice of WayUp CEO Liz Wessel and just “say yes” more to get started? All you need to do is, whenever someone proposes as activity or idea, simply default to saying yes unless you can think of a damn good reason not to.

Drink anyone?

Conor Foley

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Personally, I believe graduates would be much better off getting at least 5 years experience in a corporate environment where they can make all the mistakes they like at someone else’s expense.  Evenings and weekends can be used to conduct market research for a new idea.

We’ve all been bored with answers to the question “Are entrepreneurs born or made?”  And, we’ve all probably sat through tedious responses from ‘experts’ which are based on small samples and very little scientific research.

But is there a set of personality traits or a magic formula that produces entrepreneurs, or what type of person is most likely to become an entrepreneur?

It turns out that entrepreneurship is the ultimate white privilege, as the research from this article points out.  In fact, the most commonly shared trait amongst entrepreneurs is access to money and that while entrepreneurs do have an enviable appetite for risk, it’s usually that access to money which allows them to take those risks.

In other words, it’s easier to be creative and take risks when you know you have a safety net.  As data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor shows, more than 80% of funding for new businesses comes from personal savings and friends and family.

While resilience is undoubtedly a necessary characteristic for entrepreneurial success, with many notable entrepreneurs having experienced failure with previous endeavours, it appears, after all, that entrepreneurs don’t have a special gene for risk – they just come from families with money.

Entrepreneurship – the ultimate white priviliege

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