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.