Stubbornness gets in the way when it’s about you—your fame, your reputation, your success—but it becomes a tool when used to further your work.

greatness hijack the work itself. Flexible on details, but stubborn on vision, as Jeff Bezos would say.

In 2003, Tharp admitted in her book The Creative Habit that she is not as original as people think. She is, in fact, a thief.

The New Renaissance is not about working in isolation; it’s about finding more

According to researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, creative work is comprised of five steps: preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration.

“I would’ve loved to leave earlier,” she said, “but I didn’t know what I would leave to. We, as a society, are not really set up to give people a chance to explore other things in a safe way that lets them say, without judgment or fear, ‘I’d just like to try this other thing for a little bit.’”

A network is more than a team of cheerleaders; it’s a diverse group of individuals who offer a set of skills and resources that help each member succeed. After all, not every art student becomes an artist. Some become curators, community organizers, and patrons; others become collectors, dealers, and auction house owners. And nearly all become

Most of us get our sense of what’s good from a special group of connoisseurs, those superfans whom researcher Elizabeth Currid calls “tastemakers.”

Genius, he argues, tends to happen in community, not isolation.