creative maverick

Not only will you have a hell of a lot more fun but you’re likely to make more money than you ever did before.

A player is someone who puts creativity, fun and fulfillment first. We go where we feel drawn rather than purely pursuing money. We are engaged in a lifelong process of learning and follow an organic process of growth without knowing where it may lead us.

Playing isn’t about sitting in a corner all day daydreaming, not is it sitting on a beach drinking cocktails forever. Look at what children do when they play - they are interacting with the physical world around them, testing it and experimenting with it and they are also interacting with others and learning about relationships. It is exploratory and responsive.

A player therefore is not ignoring the real world, far from it. We are being more responsive than the worker who simply does what they’re told or the business owner who follows the latest strategy that experts recommend to make money.

A player responds to their inner world. We recognise what is happening inside of us, accept it, acknowledge it and use it - long before others are even aware of it. The musician, music producer and artist Brian Eno said recently that the question that has occupied much of his life is “What is it I really like?”. By accepting what he discovers years before it is fashionable to do so, he has become a thought leader who created an entire genre of music (ambient) and worked with some of the biggest bands in the world such as U2 and Coldplay.

Players indulge all their interests no matter how whimsical or disparate they may seem - sometimes resulting in misunderstanding and ridicule. And later we emerge with genre-smashing creative works and rule-breaking businesses. Players change the game for everyone else.

Players are not new-age dreamers. The player plays with capitalism, notices what their market wants and sees providing value and making money as part of the game. Players make more money than workers because we love what we do and passion is attractive, we are thought leaders and create original solutions, we focus on creating genuine value (not just making money) and we respond to what the market needs.

We need to be responsive, flexible and playful right now because we are on the cusp of massive change. The recession looks likely to get significantly deeper before it gets better. At the same time, there is a tidal wave coming from the East as countries like China and India explode in growth. We may very well be seeing the end of the era of economic dominance by North America and Western Europe. As the next wave of outsourcing sweeps away any work that is easily defined and repeated, creativity will be the safest pursuit at is it specific to the local culture and environment.

Players surf the big waves that others are drowned by.
When everything changes and all is in play, only the playful will survive.

(This post is a development of an earlier post)