In a short clip for Brief But Spectacular, aired by PBS on November 14, 2025, designer/­educator David Kelley shares a message that resonates especially for educators and parents: everyone has creative potential. 

Kelley, founder of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University and co-founder of design firm IDEO, explains how creativity isn’t a rare gift reserved for a few — it’s a muscle we all can build. 

“Creativity is a state of mind… When you’re stressed or when you’re fearful, you’re limited.” 

Key Takeaways for Educators, Creators and Parents

• Remove the block, not just teach the skill. Kelly emphasizes many people assume they’re “not creative” because someone told them so (teacher, peer, parent). His solution? Give them a small project, a win, and they begin to see themselves as creative. 

• Design thinking = human-centered + multidisciplinary. At the design school, Kelley built space where engineers, artists, business folks, and social scientists come together. He says design is now invited to “the adult table” of real problem-solving. 

• Do before you perfect. Prototyping is the engine of creative work. Kelley argues you learn more by doing (even messily) than endlessly planning. 

• Mood matters. If you’re anxious or fearful, creative flow gets blocked. Micro-wins, simple pleasures (“enjoy every sandwich”), and a relaxed mindset create conditions for ideas. 

We live in a world that is constantly being defined for us — by media, technology, education and customs. What if we were to remove some of these definitions by letting ourselves go back to a time when we thought for ourselves, created our own worlds, and actively engaged our imagination?

Might you treat your next endeavor as a “design problem”? Invite one extra discipline (user experience, story-arc, visual metaphor) and give yourself one crazy prototype. Then test it, refine it. That’s what Kelley would do.