A Conversation That Explains Everything
This week I met a woman named Theresa — a Cast Member for the new Disney development Cotino. As we were leaving our meeting, about an upcoming event, she asked me why I was so optimistic about the future of our community and our county.
“Why are you so sure, and confident that things will get better.”
I laughed softly. “Because for sixty years, I’ve been told I couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t and that what you want will never happen.”
“People would tell me that you couldn’t be an artist. That I wouldn’t sell a painting, I would stave, and the best one of all, that I would cut my ear off.” “This coming from people who couldn’t name three artists, to save their soul.” When I speak with entrepreneurs, start ups and business i remind them, never to listen to anyone that doesn’t want you to win. Walk away, and seak out those individuals, who will support you to win, in whatever way they can. We call them mentors, and they can be anyone, that simply wants to help you succeed in your endeavors.
My husband of twenty-seven years and I never listened to what other people have told us, unless it was to help us achieve our personal and professional goals. Call it what you want, determination, persistence, a vision of what our lives would be and then our ability to make that vision become real.
We are both in the arts; his focus is literature, theater, acting, directing and teaching students about performance, communication and theater. Me on the other hand, I refer to myself as an artrepreneur, a word I coined 25 years ago. And it’s appropriate, as I have been lucky. I’ve been able to use all of my creativity, talents, and determination, and to find any and every opportunity to use those talents. To simply take a chance on what I have never done, confident in my ability to achieve. To be a creative personality requires continuous improvement. Constantly expanding my abilities, vision and achievement and to take an idea, mine or someone else’s and make it real.
I’ve had the immense opportunity to work with some of the most talented people, in everyone of the arts, from, film and television, to national museums – creating interactive exhibits for children, to work on the most beautiful homes around the world, and to help design, develop, create, build, install, and open some of the most exceptional world class resorts around the world. And that’s not even my personal artwork, that I’ve amassed. But there are two important things that made this the most fun. All of the talented people, intelligent, kind, and exceptional in their ability to take a vision and work with others to make it real.
Imagine being invited to work opportunities on par with Disney World, (multi-billion dollar projects that required the ability to effectively collaborate with thousands of people, to make it real.) OR the film, “Gran Turismo”. It’s the people that make it fun, intense, sometimes frustrating, but always a challenge. We have been blessed, because we have been able to do things that have a positive effect on people’s lives. To be in service to others, to enhance their lives, and enhance our lives as well.
We moved here in August, just ten short weeks ago and move to Palm Desert in the Coachella Valley, We’ve had more opportunities there, than in thirty years of living in conservative states. Opportunities to teach, act, create and exhibit artwork, collaborate, and join entrepreneurial programs — even to be invited to earn a free mini-MBA from the Entrepreneurial Research Center.Taught by many educators from and the Randell W. Lewis School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
My husband has a PhD. in Theatre and Performance, and that is what brought us here. He now teaches at the College of the Desert. But he’s already made connections with the local theaters, and now has the opportunity to act and direct. Usually this takes years to get established and invited to play in most communities. His opportunities came in less than four weeks. Our son has struggled to find work, so he and I got together and started to create a whole new series of artworks, specifically for the people that visit our valley. He has been making art since elementary school. And I have been doing it all my life. And now he and I have been invited to show our work in a number of venues, and to sell our art work in stores in the Coachella Valley. Anywhere else in the art world, that doesn’t happen. To be invited by other artists that we never knew. To walk up to another artist and simply say, I love the work you are doing. And their response is simply to come join us. Anywhere else in the art world, that is beyond imagination
Everywhere we go, people in the Coachella Valley have opened their doors and invited us in. That invitation also came from the clergy and congratulations from a local church. They welcomed us in when we came to visit over the past 10 years. They were genuinely excited that we were coming back to stay. To be a gay family, and be openly invited to be a part of a mainline church, that will make a gay parent openly cry. And I mean that. To find a place where your children are protected, mentored and engaged. That doesn’t happen, in most places in this country. Attacks on gays and trans are organized, brutal, hateful and violent.
That is why this is the greatest place in the world to start to establish, and expose the new Service To Others Economy. We have been in the Experience Economy for over 40 years, think Disney, and Apple, and all of the immersive restaurant experiences. The Service to Others Economy is an extension of that. But its even better, because it recognizes that Americans that volunteer to serve others are all around us. 12 million professionals work for non-profits, and apx. 78 million register to volunteer for those non-profits.
The Coachella Valley has an opportunity to propel, and expand exponentially on the Service To Others Economy, which does actually that, serves others to their benefit and ours. Lets face it, the Capitalist Economy / Concept only works for about .01 percent of the worlds creating more billionaires in the history of mankind. In the present system, an immense amount of abundance is created, but most of it is held in the hands of a few. Global communities around the world have been are taken advantage of, and that includes all of the developed countries. Something has to give, because this form of capitalism isn’t working for the majority.
The Coachella Valley in the state of California, is the place for a perfect storm. A storm that will not start anywhere else. So much of this country is just not prepared to make the jump. Texas, the Midwest, the South and most of the east coast. But here in the west, we have sent the stage. And now it WILL HAPPEN because we have everything to make it so. Theresa, that is why I am so optimistic, because if we can create a housing project (Cotino), that will offer its own Downtown Disney like experience, and a Disney Established International Resort experience. Right here in the Coachella valley, we can imagine the possibilities and make it real. With Creative Core International and Universal Creative Intelligence, that is exactly what my husband and I intend to do. To share our vision, use all of our talents and abilities, to teach and train people on Creative Kaizen, (Japanese for Creative Continuous Improvement.) and inspire others to join us, to take the vision of a better life, through Service To Others, and become the epicenter of the new STO Economy. Because this is the place where the perfect storm will begin.
The Desert That Refused to Die
The Coachella Valley is built on resilience.
The First Nations who first called this land home endured unimaginable loss, yet preserved their languages, collective historic consciousness, humor, and reverence for the earth. The LGBTQ+ community here, faced erasure in other parts of the world, and in this very country, came and turned pain into progress, creating one of the most inclusive and forward-thinking cultures in the world.
And all of the black and brown people from across the globe have come to build a better life and in the process a more inclusive and better California, and Coachella Valley community. Exceptional in every way. And then you have the Canadians, and visitors around the world that come, and stay the winter, bringing all of their youthful experience, and come not to retire, but as one group described themselves, not as the old times but the youthful, and exceptional “Prime Timers”. This is where older people
around the country and around the world, come to excel in their prime years, and help to create a community that is talented, successful, empowered and compelled to spend whatever time they have left, creating better lives for themselves and those around them. To come here, have fun in the sun, and to serve others, because that is the best part of life, and the best way to create real community. The kind of community our family has experienced, and one that we will gratefully accept, and expand upon.
This land has already survived extinction more than once — and each time, it came back more alive, more creative, and more humane. That same spirit now drives the next chapter: the creation of a new kind of economy — one built on empathy, imagination, and service to others and ourselves.
Why the Coachella Valley Is the Perfect Storm
Here in this valley, everything converges:
- Over 200 languages are spoken statewide, forming a living network of global experience and diverse intellect.
- Educational innovation, through UC Riverside–Palm Desert, CSUSB Palm Desert, the College of the Desert, and the Entrepreneurial Research Center, and the Randell W. Lewis School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
- Cultural resilience, through First Nations, LGBTQ+, immigrant, and artistic communities that embody adaptation and creativity.
- California’s fourth-largest economy in the world, a $4-trillion engine of global innovation.
- A culture of openness, where collaboration replaces competition.
- All the cities, and communities across the Coachella Valley, with the talent, depth, and infrastructure, progressive business communities, and their extensive world wide connections.
This is the perfect storm — a convergence of diversity, education, creativity, intellectual and emotional depth, and heart — ready to propel humanity into the 21st-Century Global Renaissance.
Universal Creative Intelligence™ — The Foundation
For twelve years, Wesley and I we’ve researched and developed Universal Creative Intelligence™ (UCI) — a framework that helps people of all ages rediscover how to think critically, solve problems and create new opportunities, train people of the importance of emotional depth for exceptional leadership development, how to create and collaborate in unison, how to establish a personal and professional mission, and focus, envision the possibilities that are all around us, and how to use all of hat and make that vision real. It’s not theory; it’s all universal, and based on hundreds of studies, from every type of science, business journal and 250,000 years of art, science and human history. We’ll self promote and suggest you read “Universal Human Intelligence; How the Arts and Science Propel Human Advancement.” Why did we bother to spend years in the design and development of our programs? Simply as artists and arts educators, we wanted to create a mentorship system that help children to understand all that goes into the creative process. Mentorships that we never had. We understand the importance of having strong arts mentors and teachers. We know the importance of teaching children how to create, and become self motivated, to learn and know how to play an instrument, to act, dance, write, draw and simply play. It is the desire to simply create opportunities for our children, so they can create their own futures.
UCI was built for children, because if a child can’t envision their own future (think back to that stuped Van Gogh reference), If our students are not taught how to create their own futures, someone else will create one for them. It’s called capitalism, and it’s not made for the masses, it’s made for the few, by training people how to create abundance, and then taking the majority of that abundance away for themselves. It’s a service to themselves. Why in America, the land of excess and abundance, do we have women and men of every age, and children living on the streets. It’s simple, because capitalism doesn’t work, for a majority, and because we have not learned our human history well. Service To
Others is what got us here. Because if you don’t have it you can’t create anything. Not a pyramid, a bridge, skyscraper or complex society, and without it we end up exactly where we find ourselves in this moment.
Taking away the arts and sciences out of the schools, the attacks on every part of our society is extensive. But we can create a new world order and the 21st Century Global Renaissance, and the STO Economy that will go with it. Does all of this sound like rebellion? No disruption, caused by the desire, and absolute need for evolution of our education system. We will be evolving education, through that new tool AI. But we will remake it and create a Human-Centric AI, that will work for all of us.
The perfect storm, exists right here in the Coachella Valley and across the State of California. UCI and CORE-three, can be easily adopted and implemented into the trade schools, colleges and universities and the students, educators, graduates and alumni. To illustrate.
California has always been more than a state — it’s been a launchpad for the ideas that redefined the world. From Silicon Valley to Hollywood, its innovators have set the pace for progress for more than a century. The names are familiar, but their collective impact is unmatched: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built Apple in a garage and changed how humanity connects. Walt Disney imagined worlds of wonder that reshaped storytelling itself. Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Sundar Pichai redefined how we move, communicate, and dream. Sheryl Sandberg, Peter Thiel, and Anne Wojcicki proved that leadership and technology could expand opportunity and self-knowledge. Architects like Frank Gehry sculpted cities that became icons; filmmakers like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Ava DuVernay turned cinema into a cultural compass.
California’s heartbeat also comes from its conscience: César Chávez and Dolores Huerta fought for dignity and fair labor; Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom pushed environmental innovation; Dr. Mae Jemison, Dr. Fei-Fei Li, and Jane Goodall transformed science into a service for humanity. Musicians like Herb Alpert and Quincy Jones bridged art and activism, reminding us that creativity isn’t entertainment — it’s infrastructure for empathy.
Each of these individuals, from artists to scientists, entrepreneurs to educators, reflects the same principle that will power the 21st-Century Global Renaissance: the fusion of creativity, intelligence, and
service to others. California’s history shows what happens when imagination meets action — when compassion becomes commerce, and when innovation serves humanity.
The Coachella Valley now inherits that mantle if it chooses. We have the diversity, education, technology, and heart to become the next epicenter — where Universal Creative Intelligence™, Human-Centric AI, and the Service-To-Others Economy unite to build a world worthy of its potential.
Imagine the possibility and then make it real.
CORE-three™ — The System for Human Advancement
At the center of this new economy is CORE-three™ — the integration of:
- Universal Creative Intelligence™ (UCI): the human skillset for imagination, learning, and connection.
- Human-Centric AI: artificial intelligence designed to amplify human creativity and empathy, not replace it.
- Service-To-Others Economy (STOE): an economic framework that measures success by how much good we create for others.
Together, they form a living system — one that transforms individuals, organizations, and entire communities. These will be the until now, The Unimagined Future of AI. The disruption that the tech world has been hyping, and telling us all about. But it won’t be the AI envisioned. It will be the new and highly improved Human-centric AI, that takes all of that disruption, and makes our lives better, not just exploited.
This is the operating model for the 21st-Century Global Renaissance: creativity as the driver, AI as the amplifier, and service as the destination.
Creative Kaizen Academies™ — Where the Future Learns
Every renaissance begins with learning. The Creative Kaizen Academies™, designed by Creative Core International, will train children and adults alike to live and work by these principles.
Our colleges and universities have the capacity to adopt and implement, the essential components of UCI — Lifelong Learning, The Creative Process, Tru-Collaboration, Emotional Mastery, and Mission Focus — supported by Human-Centric AI. They are not schools in the traditional sense; they are laboratories for human potential.
Each academy serves all communities — educators, business leaders, artists, families, and students — connecting them in service of continuous improvement and shared growth.
If a child can master it, so can an adult.
What Accepting, an Invitation to Join Will Mean to Your Children?
Joining this movement isn’t about following an idea — it’s about building a future you can feel.
When you accept the invitation to learn in real time, create and collaborate and constantly improve, and partner with the Coachella Valley, and all of the individuals and organizations that exist here, you take the vision of a STO Economy and Make It Real. The tools of Universal Creative Intelligence™, to think creatively and lead confidently.
- Access to Human-Centric AI systems that empower innovation, not automation.
- A global network of mentors, educators, and entrepreneurs co-creating the next generation of ideas.
- Opportunities to apply learning immediately through community-based projects that create measurable change.
- A role in designing and living the Service-To-Others Economy™ — where success is shared, sustainable, and human.
Creative Core International and its partners in the first Creative Kaizen Academies™ will set the stage, and propel the Perfect Storm of the Coachella Valley, to improve, enhance, and propel it’s children to achieve beyond what so many in California have been able to accomplish, and how their influence, expertise and determination, has changed the world. Think of just one, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who built Apple in a garage and changed how humanity connects.
This is how we make the intangible real. This is how creativity becomes infrastructure. This is how a renaissance begins.
The Service-To-Others Economy — Humanity’s Next Step
The Service-To-Others Economy (STOE) is the heartbeat of everything we’re building. It’s a model where creativity and compassion merge to produce prosperity that lifts everyone.
It redefines success: not by how much we take, but by how much we give; not by efficiency, but by empathy.
And the Coachella Valley — with its diversity, its spirit, its ingenuity — is uniquely equipped to show the world what that looks like in action.
Creativity × Compassion = A future for our citizens with immense possibility. Sustainable Success through Kaizen.
An Invitation to Every Citizen in the Coachella Valley and the State of California.
A former boss once told me, “There are no heroes.”
But I believe there are. There is a difference between those that choose Serve to N-one and those that choose Serve to Others. It’s the difference between being able to help others and the concerted and intentional choice, to refuse to help those around them.
Service to Others, means comprehending the opportunity to improve one’s life. It becomes something some people are compelled to do; to help Improve the lives of those around them without compensation or benefit to themselves. That is the difference between cowardice and courage, between indifference and compassion.
We can’t reach those who prefer the old systems of control and exclusion, but we can awaken those who’ve been silent too long — the bystanders in their own lives.
We can show them how serving others ignites purpose, prosperity, and pride. How working together can make this valley the epicenter of the world’s next great transformation.
This isn’t about power. It’s about partnership.
This isn’t about ego. It’s about an example.
The Future Begins Here
The Coachella Valley is the place where all the right forces converge — art and science, humanity and technology, wisdom and youth.
Here, imagination is not only welcomed — it’s invited.
Here, service is not an obligation — it’s the opportunity of a lifetime.
The 21st-Century Global Renaissance begins not in the capitals of the world, but here in the California desert — because the people of this valley still believe that creativity, compassion, and community can change everything.
If you’re not constantly improving your creativity, you’re standing still. And what I know about the resilience of this community, standing still has never been an option. The opportunity, at hand, compels
us to envision the future and make it true. And I for one am willing to give all that I have, in the service to Our Community. Let’s seize the day.
You have invited us to become a part of this community, and so we are. The future is ours. Lets show the world what Coachella and the compassion of California, can do for the rest of our still and always Democracy, and the rest of the world. Hopefully it will not be too late to ask the rest of the global community for forgiveness.
About the Authors
D. Wesley Spence, Ph.D., and Marty Treinen have lived extraordinary lives of creativity, education, and service—lives not finished, but beautifully renewed. Their shared journey has spanned decades of work
in the arts, education, and human development, united by one purpose: to help people rediscover the power of their own potential.
Their philosophy is simple but profound—to serve others is the highest form of creation. Through every performance, classroom, and collaboration, they have devoted themselves to inspiring families,
students, artists, entrepreneurs, and communities of every kind. Their work reflects a deep belief that when we lift others, we rise together.
Together, they authored “Universal Creative Intelligence: How the Arts and Sciences Propel Human Advancement,”and have written more than twenty supporting white papers that explore the science, philosophy, and practice behind Universal Creative Intelligence™ (UCI). Their continuing body of work—including several forthcoming books—forms the foundation for The Perfect Storm and its vision: that California, and particularly the Coachella Valley, holds the power to ignite the 21st-Century Global Renaissance.
They remain deeply grateful to the people of the Coachella Valley for their warmth, openness, and belief in what is possible. But to all of the creative people, and their communities across the many states of America, that gave them opportunities to be a part of developing arts experiences for all. For that they are grateful for those relationships. It is through THIS community’s spirit of collaboration and service that D. Wesley Spence and Marty Treinen have found not just a home, but a movement. Their commitment is clear—to help this region, and the world, harness the perfect storm of creativity, compassion, and courage needed to build a future worthy of us all.