creative maverick

I started this blog exactly one year ago and billed it as a one year experiment in creative living - an experiment to do what I love doing most, worry a little less about where it might lead, and see if I can end up getting “paid to play”.

Did it work?

Well in April of this year, I was contacted by a colleague, Chris Wild, who had been talking to a publisher about writing a book. During his own discussions, the commissioning editor at Pearson mentioned she was interested in writing a book about Scanners (creative people with many interests). Since I run a monthly event for Scanners, Chris suggested I get in contact. (Thank you Chris!)

I met Pearson and as we discussed possible book ideas, it became apparent that the topic was really about play as a way of living (which is a trait many scanners share). I realised that I had already been writing on this blog on the topic of playing all day and getting paid. I went away and wrote a proposal which included some of the ideas here and lots of other good stuff I use with clients. And I’m glad to say, Pearson gave me a book deal. (The book is called Screw Work, Let’s Play: How do to do what you love and get paid for it. It’s now finished and due for publication in June 2010)

I started this blog a year ago not knowing where it would lead or what it would become. I started Scanners Night 2 years ago without knowing where I was going with it. I started coaching clients 4 years ago, knowing that I would need somehow to develop my own style of coaching that bore little resemblance to how I was trained. The combination of all these imperfect, unplanned, experiments led to the book deal.

This seems like a great illustration of what I call playing out your interests and passions. You don’t need to know where it’s going to lead but if you keep your eyes open, and notice what people need from you, you’ll likely end up in a far better place than if you drag yourself through some tedious process of setting ‘SMART’ goals.

Scrap your career plan, give up goals, ditch your New Year resolutions, and start playing.

Have a playful 2010.

John

I’ll be talking about how to do all this in more detail in London on 13 January.