To realize our true creative potential - in our organizations, in our schools and in our communities - we need to think differently about ourselves and towards each other. We must learn to be creative.

Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.

If you are considering earning your living from your Element, it's important to bear in mind that you not only have to love what you do; you should also enjoy the culture and the tribes that go with it.

If you're running an engineering or finance company, all companies depend on ideas and ingenuity. I think the principles of creative leadership apply everywhere, whether it's an advertising company or whether you're running a hospital.

Curiosity is the engine of achievement.

If you're fifty, exercise your mind and body regularly, eat well, and have a general zest for life, you're likely younger - in very real, physical terms - than your neighbor who is forty-four, works in a dead-end job, eats chicken wings twice a day, considers thinking too strenuous, and looks at lifting a beer glass as a reasonable daily workout.

The answer is not to standardize education, but to personalize and customize it to the needs of each child and community. There is no alternative. There never was.