Finding Common Ground in a Fiercely Divided Nation: New Book Shares Rationally Optimistic Ideas
Author Carl Nordgren shines a positive light on a source of common ground that nearly everyone shares: natural-born
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Author Carl Nordgren shines a positive light on a source of common ground that nearly everyone shares: natural-born creative genius.
DURHAM, NC, UNITED STATES, September 14, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — In a nation increasingly divided by politics, culture and competing visions of the future, author and educator Carl Nordgren believes Americans may have overlooked one powerful source of common ground: their shared creative potential.
After two decades as an entrepreneur and 25 years as an educator helping students, entrepreneurs, educators, scientists and leaders develop their creative capacities, Nordgren inadvertently found a source of common ground that transcends political, social and economic differences.
“That common ground is our natural-born creative genius that 98% of us share, as revealed in a research project using NASA’s creativity assessment tool and their grading scale,” Nordgren said.
His new book, Common Ground for US: Warning! This Book Makes Folks Optimistic, explores what that shared creative capacity could mean for a future that cannot be predicted with certainty. Drawing on decades of experience in entrepreneurship and education, Nordgren offers practical perspectives on preparing for an unknowable future, fostering sustainable abundance and encouraging what he describes as a grassroots renaissance built on the creative abilities people already possess.
Among Nordgren’s insights are strategies that serve political leadership on both sides of the aisle. Calling typical political language “weaponized” and “useless,” he offers new language and behaviors to refresh governance, and introduces his concept of Common Wealth — an efficient way to leverage resources for the benefit of all citizens — and urges political and community leaders to put his ideas into action.
The result is a collection of concepts aimed at readers who are concerned about the direction of the country but are unwilling to surrender to pessimism.
“Not only does common ground exist, but the nature of it is us at our very best,” Nordgren said. “We live and work together through creative expressions of our core human qualities.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carl Nordgren was a teenage fishing guide on the English River in Northwestern Ontario and on the White River in the Arkansas Ozarks. He spent 20 years as an entrepreneur before becoming an educator, a role he has held for the past 25 years. He has taught classes at Duke and Knox College as well as workshops for the general public and specific cohorts.
An award-winning and bestselling novelist, Nordgren also hosts the weekly radio show “Exploring Your Creative Genius” on 97.9 The Hill WCHL. He graduated from Knox College and lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife, Marie, where they raised three daughters.
Common Ground for US: Warning! This Book Makes Folks Optimistic
Publisher: Torchflame Books
Release date: June 4, 2026
ISBN-13: 978-1611536287
Available from https://www.amazon.com/Common-Ground-US-Carl-Nordgren/dp/1611536286/ and other online retailers and local bookstores
Trish Stevens
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
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