When people hear “creative,” they usually picture the opposite of analytical: paint-splattered studios, free-flowing ideas, intuition over structure.
That’s not how my mind works.
I’ve always had an analytical streak.
Math and computer science shaped how I see the world, in patterns, systems, and cause-and-effect logic. For a long time, I thought that part of me made me less creative.
But as it turns out, it was the very thing that made me more creative.
The Early Years: Thinking in Systems
In my early days at the University of Waterloo, I loved the precision of math, the structure of programming, working with databases. There’s a certain satisfaction in writing code or solving an equation. The logic either works, or it doesn’t.
I liked that clarity.
What I didn’t realize then was that those same habits, breaking big problems into smaller parts, identifying patterns, and building from fundamentals, would become essential later in creative work.
At the time, though, I saw math and art as different worlds.
One was rigid. The other was expressive.
It took several career pivots to realize they were actually different languages describing the same thing.
The Shift: From Equations to Expression
When I left that analytical world and entered creative spaces, first through ministry, then branding, and eventually content strategy, I felt unprepared.
Creativity seemed like this unpredictable force that others just had.
I was used to formulas and logic, not intuition and flow.
But the more I worked in creative fields, the more I noticed something familiar: patterns.
Just like math had patterns, so did messaging, storytelling, and design.
I started seeing structure everywhere, in how ideas connect, how a brand evolves, how a story builds momentum.
And I realized that creativity wasn’t chaos.
It was organized energy.
The same brain that used to debugging code now worked on refining ideas, finding the logic behind the art.
The Realization: Creativity Needs a Framework
Here’s what most people miss:
Structure liberates creativity and doesn’t limit it.
When I began developing the REPURPOSE Framework, I noticed how much of it reflected my analytical roots. It’s a structured process designed to give creative people something to build on. It is a system that transforms messy inspiration into actionable outcomes.
That’s when I finally understood the connection:
My analytical side wasn’t fighting my creative side.
It was strengthening it.
Without structure, creativity can become exhausting.
Without creativity, structure becomes lifeless.
But together, they create something powerful: repeatable innovation.
The Lesson: Integration, Not Opposition
Today, I see every project, every brand, course, or piece of content, as a balance between those two worlds.
I approach creativity like a mathematician and analysis like an artist.
That’s what makes my process work.
When I help clients repurpose their content, it’s not just about making something look new. It’s about finding patterns, extracting value, and rebuilding it into something that performs better. That’s exactly how a good algorithm refines data to produce better results.
Creativity, at its best, is structured freedom.
And the more I embrace both sides of my brain, the more naturally that flow happens.
The Takeaway
So if you’ve ever told yourself you’re too analytical to be creative, think again.
Your brain might just be wired for a different kind of creativity, one that builds frameworks, identifies patterns, and connects ideas others might miss.
The truth is, the same logic that once helped me debug code now helps me refine stories.
And that’s what repurposing is all about. It’s taking what already exists and transforms it into something that serves a new purpose.
Because creativity doesn’t mean abandoning structure.
It means repurposing it.