Moving from vision to action
According to Stefania Lucchetti, however, such assessments are far from accurate.
In her new book,
"The world often divides people into creative and not creative, she says, "'those who have ideas but don't know how to make them happen' and 'those who don't have ideas, but are good executors of other people's ideas.' The truth is," she notes, "there's no reason why you can't be great at both."
While Lucchetti concedes that we tend to be more inclined towards one skill over the other, she nevertheless advocates the prospect of improving your weaker side with knowledge and self-awareness.
The crux of her optimism rests on the view that creativity and execution each involve their own unique states of mind.
To illustrate, she references the classic states of chemical matter - gas, liquid and solid, each of which she attributes to one of the three phases of her idea implementation process.
The process commences with the "idea-generation" stage, a state that the author likens to a gaseous substance - "fast moving, immediate, abstract and uncontainable."
The book's dedicated chapter on the topic suggests that the actual formulation of ideas tends to happen at times of inward observation. "Studies of inventors, artists and other creative people reveal a common trait that is widely recognised," Lucchetti writes. "The creative genius occurs during a moment of reflection, of inward turning, of quiet."
According to her subsequent comments, it's precisely this state of calm that is needed to allow ideas to flow in their raw form, which, as she reiterates, are "like gaseous matter that needs space to expand."
Once a tentative idea arises, Lucchetti says that it quickly needs to be transformed into a lower frequency if it's to stick around.
"Ideas are like dreams," she explains. "If you don't write them down, you're going to forget them."
But carrying a notepad with you at all times is only half the battle.