creative maverick

I hang out with Scanners a lot. A Scanner is someone who has a lot of interests, is fascinated by new ideas and gets bored doing just one job or one thing with their life. I’ve got to know the Scanner mindset pretty well from running Scanners Night and advising Scanners on how to find work that will tie all their interests together and make money.

I love Scanners because they are the most interesting people in the world, they’re usually kind and intelligent, and because I am one.

But I notice that a lot of Scanners never really get very successful. And they rarely ever get rich.

Why is this?

Well success gurus continually talk about how important it is to focus. Given that focus is like Kryptonite to Scanners, what can we do?

I think there is a way to achieve a kind of focus that suits Scanners. The key is to find the common thread between all your interests. Bet you think there isn’t one? I reckon there is. But you need to think in a different way about it.

My Scanner passions have included quantum physics, making sound-art, performing Stand Up comedy, helping creative people become happy and wealthy, marketing and internet marketing, and a lot of other seemingly unrelated stuff.

To find the connection I think you need to know what it is you’re exploring. Your current passions will represent the growing edge of your own personality. You are, whether you know it or not, on a mission. And the mission is to complete yourself. If I try and explain exactly what I mean by this right now, I’ll never publish this post. I’ll come back to this topic but I run a programme to help you find your mission and create a business or portfolio career around it.

In the meantime, here’s the key. With all your diverse interests and activities, can you be known for one theme within it? So people can refer to you as “the [something] guy”. So Seth Godin is that “Marketing” bloke, Judith Morgan is “that Money expert”, and hopefully I’m “the Creative Maverick guy”.

So then people start to talk about you, saying “You should go speak to that [something] person, whatsername, they could probably help you”.

Have a think where the common theme is for you. Is it the people you most like to work with? Is there a common message that you are expressing in all your activities? The clearer you are, the easier it is for you to be known for it - and attract opportunities.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think your common theme might be.