Meet Natalie
Creator of the WonderRigor™ Method and a Trusted Guide for Innovative Leadership
THE IDEAS ARTIST
NATALIE NIXON, PhD
Hey there, I’m thrilled you’re visiting my get-to-know-me page!
Some context: I’m a nerd, a lifelong dancer, a lover of water, a lusophile, and an insatiably curious person. I was the 5-year old kid at the diner, peering over the booth, observing the family at the next table. My parents would nudge me, “Natalie, turn around and sit down!” But I was just practicing my cultural anthropology chops early on.
Today, I’m passionate about helping you activate your creative capacity so that you can sustainably innovate and work with purpose.
Here’s what I know to be true: We all have a relationship with time. With work. With our own imagination.
If you’ve found your way here, I’m guessing you’ve felt it too: the tension between wanting to do meaningful work—and feeling like the pace of everything makes meaning harder to reach.
I’ve spent my career inside that tension. Not just studying it, but living it, across industries, across countries, and across seasons of reinvention.
Looking back, there are a few experiences that explain why I care so deeply about wonder, rigor, and the human practices that keep creativity sustainable.
The Kitchen Table Moment
Years ago, I sat at my kitchen table wrestling with a decision.
On paper, my career made sense. It was stable. It was respected. It was “fine.”
But I could feel something else pulling: a more audacious, more original contribution I wanted to make: work that would help leaders build cultures where people don’t burn out just trying to keep up.
So I made the leap.
I started Figure 8 Thinking and began doing the work I wish more organizations designed for: helping leaders unlock creativity’s ROI without sacrificing humanity in the process.
That was one of my first real tests of WonderRigor™—balancing the courage to step into the unknown with the discipline to build something real.
Early Lessons
I didn’t grow up thinking, “I’ll become a creativity strategist.” That title didn’t even exist – because I made up my job title! It’s a combo of 2 domains that I love and am great at practicing.
What I did know early on is that I was drawn to patterns: how people make decisions, what they ignore, what they assume, and what changes when you give someone permission to see things differently.
I was always paying attention to what was happening beneath what was being said.
That instinct to notice what’s implicit, not just what’s visible became the foundation of my work.
Work, Travel, and Learning to Navigate Ambiguity
Before I ever taught a class or wrote a book, I worked in global apparel sourcing with The Limited Brands, living and working in places like Sri Lanka and Portugal. It was an early education in complexity: cultures, supply chains, negotiations, uncertainty, and the reality that “a plan” rarely survives real life unchanged.
Later, I earned my PhD in design management in 4 years, while working full time, then spent 16 years as a professor at Thomas Jefferson University, founding an executive Strategic Design MBA program and helping professionals build their creative capacity to adapt, solve problems, and lead through ambiguity.
Those years gave me range. More importantly, they shaped a point of view I still rely on today:
Creativity isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s how you find your way when the path isn’t obvious.
WonderRigor™, The Creativity Leap and Move. Think. Rest.
Over time, I began naming the patterns I saw again and again:
- Leaders want innovation, but don’t protect the conditions creativity needs.
- People want to feel energized and engaged, but the pace of work trains them to override their own signals.
- Organizations measure what’s visible, while insight, intuition, and incubation often happen offstage.
WonderRigor™ became the methodology I developed to describe the creative discipline I saw in high-performing leaders and teams: their ability to toggle between expansive thinking and decisive execution. I wrote all about it in The Creativity Leap.
And then Move. Think. Rest. became the operating system I offer you for sustainable success. Because creativity doesn’t thrive under constant strain. It needs rhythm.
My Work… & Play, Today
Today, I work with leaders and teams across industries who want to build the kind of culture where people can perform, adapt, and flourish—especially in times that feel uncertain or accelerated.
I do this through keynotes, workshops, curated experiences, and writing—always with the goal of leaving people with practices, not just inspiration.
Because I don’t believe creativity should be reserved for “the creatives.”
I know that it belongs to everyone doing complex work: scientists, engineers, educators, executives, project managers, entrepreneurs.
But I insist on building in white space into my days. So I also fortify my mind, spirit and body by playing… a lot! My favorite ways to play are when I’m in motion – especially when I’m dancing (hip hop, west coast swing, latin and modern dance are my faves) and when I’m swimming (I started doing open water swimming mainly in warm, tropical waters in my fifties). I know that when my body moves, my ideas move.
If you’re ready to think differently, you’re already in the work of creativity.
My Mission Continues
I’m here for the people who are tired of productivity theater, but still care deeply about impact.
I’m here for the leaders who want to build what’s next, but want to do it in a way that’s human and sustainable.
I’m here because I believe the future belongs to the creative, not the frantic.
And if you’re looking for a partner to help your team move from burnout to breakthrough with practical tools, research, and real-world application, I’d love to support you.
Let’s Create Something Meaningful Together
If these ideas resonate, you don’t need to have it all figured out to reach out. You just need curiosity, willingness, and a desire to build something better than “business as usual.”
