creative maverick

Tom Hodgkinson is editor of bi-annual magazine The Idler and author of several excellent books including How To Be Idle, How To Be Free, and The Idle Parent.
He very kindly agreed to be interviewed for my upcoming book about how to get paid to play.
We did the interview as a video call over Skype and [...]

Leslie Scott created one the world’s favourite games, Jenga. Recently, she kindly agreed to be interviewed for my forthcoming book “Screw Work, Let’s Play”.
Here, she explains how she turned her baby brother’s playing bricks into the world’s second biggest selling game (topped only by Monopoly). She also explains how she kept going through debt and [...]

What would have happened if a young Paul McCartney had stayed in his job as a factory coil-winder back in 1961? He almost did:
I started working at a coil-winding factory called Massey and Coggins. My dad had told me to go out and get a job. I’d said, ‘I’ve got a job, I’m in a band.’ [...]

Pat Kane is one half of Scottish pop duo Hue and Cry. Famous for hits in the late 80s and early 90s like Labour of Love, the brothers are still making music today and released Open Soul earlier this year.
Aside from music, Pat is also a writer, consultant, play theorist, and activist. He is author of The [...]

Back in 2005, Alex Tew was a 21 year old student from Cricklade in Wiltshire and was about to begin a three-year Business Management course at the University of Nottingham. Alex was concerned that he would be left with a student loan that would take years to repay so he brainstormed ways to make some [...]

Melissa Pierce is what I would call a Player. She is making a film called Life in Perpetual Beta about making life up as you go along - and she’s making it up as she goes along. She has no real experience of film making and I don’t think she knows exactly where the film [...]

Chris Guillebeau makes a full-time living from his blog The Art of Non Conformity while travelling the world on his mission to visit every country on Earth. He very kindly agreed to be interviewed for my book “Screw Work, Let’s Play” and share a little of what’s made his lifestyle possible.
Chris, how do you answer [...]

I was interviewed by Dave Monk on BBC Radio Essex on Tuesday about how to find work you love, even in a recession. Dave challenged me with some tough questions - have a listen to see how I answered questions like:

Should you just fire off your CV to all the jobs you can find?
Isn’t it [...]

Derek Sivers is a remarkable guy. He’s best known as the founder of CD Baby which he sold for $22 million last year but he’s also been a professional musician and at one point a circus clown.
He is very much a Scanner who has found a way to manage his addiction to learning, creativity and variety to launch [...]

Our greatest fear in creativity is not that we are crap but that we are mediocre - of moderate to low abilities. Crap is easier; you know you missed and should look elsewhere. Mediocre is far more challenging.
Yet mediocrity is something you need to come to terms with because much of your work will fall [...]