The Quiet Foundations of Creative Thinking
- Phil Wells
- Jan 1
- 1 min read
What if creative genius doesn’t start with brilliance… but with foundations?
This opening essay of our 2026 series: How to Be a Creative Genius, launches our exploration project into a bigger question: How creative thinking really works - and whether it can be deliberately developed rather than mysteriously “possessed”.
Before we look at habits, systems, experimentation or bold ideas, we start somewhere quieter. Safety. Permission. Environment. The subtle conditions that allow ideas to surface in the first place.
Drawing on architectural thinking and classroom experience, this piece suggests that creativity isn’t chaos. It has structure. And like any structure, it depends on what’s happening below the surface.
Throughout 2026, the How to Be a Creative Genius series will unfold in carefully built layers - examining mindset, process, constraint, systems thinking, and the hidden mechanics behind original thought.
This is the foundation stone.
👉 Read Part 1 on Substack and follow the series as it develops.
