A related thing happened to me in grad school: I had always done well in academics, and I even had a strong work ethic in addition to “natural” talent. But I ha

A related thing happened to me in grad school: I had always done well in academics, and I even had a strong work ethic in addition to “natural” talent. But I had never really needed to exercise creativity in an academic domain, and I more or less fell flat on my face when I had to define my own novel problems. Even after grad school, in industry, I’ve been much more of a strong executor than an idea generator.