creative maverick

“What’s your favourite animal?” people would ask me when I was a child. It’s one of those questions you get asked a lot as a child (and never again as an adult). I would say “Penguin”.
Not dog, cat, lion, tiger, horse. I picked the animal that seemed furthest from my suburban home in the Midlands. My [...]

It’s funny that my first reaction this morning after last night’s talk by San Sharma at Scanners Night on Social Media is to quit 2 social networking sites.
What I’ve realised is that if I want to play all day and get paid, it’s essential I surround myself with people of similar values - people who [...]

My pituitary gland doesn’t work. When I say that and people ask “What’s a pituitary gland?”, I feel a tinge of sadness because this pea-sized gland has coloured my whole life. The pituitary is a gland at the base of the brain that controls many functions of the body including growth, blood pressure, thyroid gland [...]

Yesterday I found myself sitting outside in the London sunshine at a Thai restaurant with a friend. As we sipped Lemongrass tea and discussed her imminent move to America to further her acting, the conversation turned to money and doing what you love.
I said that I was feeling rich right now - because if I [...]

I’m currently writing a book called “Screw Work, Let’s Play” for Pearson in the UK. It’s due for publication in March 2010. It’s based on my experience as a careers and business consultant helping creative people to find work that they love and make it pay (see my other site freestylesuccess.com).
What’s the book about?
The book [...]

Back when I did standup, people would often ask “How do you come up with your material?”
My answer it that it’s not as difficult as you might imagine, it’s all in the editing. Here are the steps:

Start a new Word document called “Comedy material”
Write down everything you can remember that you think is funny, including [...]

If you’re putting a lot of effort into your work for what you get back, chances are you’re “out of flow”.
Being “in flow” is about bullding your working life around the things that suit your personality naturally. The result is you end up enjoying your work you so much you actually feel guilty getting paid [...]

My aim is to play all day and get paid. That means to do whatever creative, fun stuff I love doing, to have oodles of variety and freedom, and to make good money doing it.
I’ve found that the more I play (the more I focus on what I love and dare to experiment and explore) the more [...]

I’m feeling jealous. There’s something about a recent client’s career that I want for myself.
This happens from time to time as a careers coach. The two times that stand out for me, it was with people considering working for large cutting edge creative agencies.
These are high profile organisations that are tough to get into. One client [...]

I meet people at careers workshops who want to do something creative like writing but they’re not doing it. It’s like they’re waiting for some kind of permission to start.
They say “I don’t know if I’m good enough” like there’s an Independent Talent Auditing Board who issues licenses. Guess what, no one can stop you! [...]