creative maverick

Yesterday as I was walking back to the officespace I sometimes work at, I saw a young woman collapse just ahead of me. Some people nearby rushed to help her into the building to sit down.

She said that she suddenly felt numb down one side of her body. It sounded like she was having a stroke and I urged one of the staff to call an ambulance immediately. The ambulance came within minutes and by that point the woman was feeling faint and completely numb on her left side.

I was shocked to witness someone falling so ill so quickly and was worried what would happen for her.

Today I discovered that it was not in fact a stroke or heart attack. She had suffered a panic attack; a sudden overwhelming bout of anxiety. Panic attacks happen when negative thoughts feed back on themselves and escalate to the point where some very startling physical symptoms occur - which in turn generate more negative thoughts.

A thought is a very powerful thing. If negative thoughts can produce paralysis, what can positive thoughts produce?

Choose yours wisely.

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 function, the conversion of food into energy, fluid balance and temperature. So kind of a big deal.

As a result I have to take several tablets throughout the day and inject every evening in order to stay alive and healthy. And actually, that’s not that bad. Plenty of diabetics manage a much more delicate balance.

What had a much larger impact on my life was the journey to get here - the decades lived in a sub-optimal state due to incorrect replacement of my endocrine hormones; years of unhappiness and fatigue, some extreme illnesses due to low cortisol levels, gaining three stone in weight on an excessive cortisol dose. On top of this, my treatment in the hands of doctors from the age of 4 was traumatising. As I entered my teens and beyond, treatment was often invasive, grossly insensitive and on one occasion clearly abusive.

Aside from this, one result of the condition was that I was much shorter and looked younger than others my age which meant that I stood out when what I really wanted to do was blend in. All this led to a kind of learned helplessness and a fair bit of unhappiness.

In my thirties I invested a lot of time, energy and money in my recovery. I now consider myself above average in mental health and enjoy the continuing journey towards unusual levels of happiness and success.

My condition is such a large part of me that I came to use the phrase “I am my disease”. Not because I want to carry my story around with me everywhere but because my unusual life experience is important. My experiences have made me unusually open minded having faced illness, death and disease that many others have not yet had to. It’s made me more able to listen to others. It’s contributed to my dark sense of humour. And feeling like an outsider looking in on “normality”, I developed a unique perspective on life and how people live it.

So why tell you all this on my blog? Because it’s the great losses, traumas and challenges in our lives that drive us. I get the biggest thrill from helping people who feel powerless, stuck or unhappy find the quickest route to happiness, creativity and success.

The real tragedy is when we lock away the traumatic events of our lives and the things that make us different, because then we don’t get to integrate the incredible riches we gain from our deepest personal challenges.

Use your experience, use what makes you different, use your disease.

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 had a million pounds in the bank, I wouldn’t choose to be doing anything different. I’d still be sitting outside a restaurant in the sunshine, eating tasty Thai food with someone interesting. So I am already rich.

(And it only cost £15 a head.)

Notice those moments when there is nothing else you need, nowhere else you should be, and no one else you would rather be with because in that moment, you too are already rich.

If you can’t appreciate the rich moments you are having right now, you might discover you won’t be able to appreciate it if and when you really do achieve your financial dreams. We’ve all seen the millionaires who just can’t stop; however much money they get, whatever they buy, they’re never satisfied. That’s not happiness.

And of course the other reason to appreciate how rich you already are is because it tends to attract more of the same which means you’ll realise those financial dreams all the sooner.

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 is about how to play and get paid for it. That means to do whatever creative, fun stuff you love doing, to have oodles of variety and freedom, and to make good money doing it. I’ve found myself that the more I play the more successful I am.

I’ve noticed that the most creative people in the world today have a playful attitude to their work - they experiment and explore, they bring humour and irreverence to their work, they follow their instincts on which project to take on next, they do the work that they love and that comes naturally to them, and they focus on creating a life they enjoy in the present rather than hoping some future goal will bring them happiness.

You can read more in this post on what I call the player mindset.

Who am I interviewing?

I’m interested in interviewing a wide range of people from comedians and artists to employees and entrepreneurs. I’m talking to the very successful and also those just starting out.

I’ve already interviewed Tim Smit, Creator of the Eden Project, Leslie Scott, creator of the game Jenga, Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, Mike Southon, serial entrepreneur and author of the Beermat Entrepreneur series of books, and Nic Roope, founder of Poke, one of the most respected digital agencies in the UK and creator of the Holger brand.

How do the interviews work?

We meet in London or over the phone at the interviewee’s convenience. I will ask them questions about their work and their attitude to it. If they have an hour free, that’s great. If not, I’ll fit whatever time they do have - even 10 minutes.

I’ll record the interview and may get it in transcribed. If it’s easier for the interviewee I can conduct the interview by email, instant messenger, or twitter.

What happens to the interview?

I will take inspiration from the interviews in writing the book and may quote from them directly. I will also make the recordings and possibly the transcripts available as a bonus to people who pre-order the book.

Interviewees will feature in the credits of the book and I will also link to their website from the website for the book.

Can you help?

Do you know someone who you think would a great interview subject? Please leave a comment and let me know. If you know how to get in touch with them or have a connection with them, please email me.

And if you think you are a “player” yourself, let me know!

If you’re reading this because I’ve approached you about an interview, thanks for giving me some of your time. Do let me know if you have any questions, concerns or reservations so I can address them.

My email address is john [[at]] creativemaverick [[dot]] com and I am on twitter as johnsw.

I’m beginning to realise that twitter might be something very important. Sure there are lots of other Social Networking sites but there’s something special about twitter. No other service gives me the same experience of being connected moment by moment to friends, clients, gurus, celebrities and breaking news stories.

Here are some of the people I follow and I’ve found interesting recently:

Celebs and comedians

stephenfry king of twitter with half a million followers and jamie_oliver who tweets competitions, recipe of the day and news from his life.

Comedians RealBillBailey, RealDMitchell (of Mitchell and Webb), jimmycarr, Glinner (Graham Linehan), DaveGorman, daraobriain, and MitchBenn who recently did a live comedy gig on twitter! In his e-gig, Mitch tweeted a song about twitter based on Bohemian Rhapsody which included the tweet:

“I see a little grainy twitpic of a man/SCARAMOUCHE SCARAMOUCHE WILL YOU START A NEW HASHTAG”

You’d surprised the number of famous and powerful people you can find on twitter including BarackObama.

Community

I watched the final of The Apprentice recently and at the same time tracked the conversation going on all over Britain on twitter on the Apprentice hashtag. (A hashtag is a way to collate all the tweets from different users on a particular topic.) The result was like watching The Apprentice in the same room as the rest of Britain sharing people’s surprise at the final winner and commenting on the end of series chat-show as it took place.

Also I’ve been experiencing an interesting phenomenon; I was talking about a great online application I’ve been using to draw my family tree but complained about something it didn’t do. The next day I got a message from the creators:

@johnsw we are working on features to enable users to do this pretty soon.

My friend Jay Versluis also received spontaneous replies from other companies when he tweeted about his frustration with them.

Gurus

For daily inspiration, try LCC_Thoughts, AutofocusTM (Mark Forster), tferriss (author of The 4 Hour Workweek), and tonyrobbins the success guru.

There are also fascinating business, marketing and technology gurus on twitter including richardbranson, chrisguillebeau, DanielPink, cshirky, chr1sa, and JasonBradbury from the gadget show.

Iran

In Iran, twitter has played an instrumental role in the recent protests over the contested election as all other media and communication is in lockdown. persiankiwi sends live updates moment by moment on what’s going on over there. The downside of following the Iran coverage on twitter is of course that it is all unverified but reading tweets from someone who is about to go to a march that they may not actually return from is a very powerful experience. It makes even 24 hour rolling news seem old. Look at the hashtag #iranelection to see all the latest tweets.

Tweets from outer space

NASA astronaut Astro_Mike sent tweets from the shuttle orbiting earth last month:

From orbit: Night pass over Australia, the city lights give stunning signs of life on our planet within the darkness of nighttime

From orbit: Eating chocolates in space, floating then in front of me then floating and eating them like I am a fish

From orbit: As I closed my eyes to sleep last night I thought “these eyes have seen some beautiful sights today”

and equally fascinating, this tweet once he was back on earth:

Getting re-adjusted to gravity, let go of a small bag of groceries and must have expected it to float, luckily no damage

So…

The end result of all this is that I find I am having a different kind of experience on twitter than on any other similar social networking site. It’s one of being connected to the both the big announcements and the interesting minutiae of people’s lives.

In my exploration of play, it is particularly important because it is a format that allows people to reveal their true character even more than they do in a blog. It gives us a chance to play out our interests, passions and foibles and in the process discover the common themes and threads that we ourselves might not have noticed.

Learn more about twitter

On Wednesday July 8th, San Sharma will be explaining the real power of twitter for you, your creativity and your business at Scanners Night.

Book a ticket now and save £5

And while you’re waiting for the 8th to come around please follow me, johnsw.

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:

1. Start a new Word document called “Comedy material”
2. Write down everything you can remember that you think is funny, including any riffs you get into when talking with friends
3. For several weeks, wherever & whenever a possible joke comes to you, write it in your comedy material file
4. Take what you reckon is the best of the material in your file and test it in front of a forgiving audience
5. Move the material that gets a laugh to the top of the file
6. Add new material into the file as it comes to you and test isolated bits of the new stuff within your working routine
7. Create your best routine out of your top 10% of material and go perform it. A lot.

(My own comedy material file is 30 pages long and the first 3 pages made up my 5 minute routine.)

To make it even simpler, it’s capture, test, edit… and repeat.

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 for it!

Sure there’ll still be plenty of effort involved and sometimes long hours but you’ll be having a lot of fun while you’re doing it and the results and financial return will be far far greater.

How do you get into flow?

The most effective way I’ve found for getting into flow is Wealth Dynamics, a personality profiling system and philosophy of wealth created by millionaire entrepreneur Roger Hamilton.

It shows that there are only 8 paths to wealth and the key is to find out which path suits you naturally and stick to it.

I believe every entrepreneur & would-be entrepeneur should know their wealth profile.I use my profile every single day in my business and I know the wealth profile of every person I collaborate with.

I wish I could persuade everyone to find out what theirs is!

Watch Roger Hamilton explain Wealth Dynamics in just a few minutes and see if you can work out where you sit on the WD square.

Want to find out your own wealth profile?

I am offering a Wealth Dynamics Kickstart Package that will reveal your own path of least resistance to wealth using an online test in just 15 minutes. You will also receive a 20 page personalised Wealth Profile Report showing the results and explaining what they mean for you. PLUS I will also give you access to my Audio Masterclass which will explain the steps you can take in the next 30 days to get into profile and get far greater results with a lot less effort. Read more here

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 successful I am. And I want more of it.

If you share this mission, how do you make it happen?

You could set a goal to describe your dream life but we’ve already established the problem with goals.

So what do you do to get from where you are now to playing all day?

You turn your focus from some far off goal to the present day. You set about creating some of the experience of your dream life in the here and now. And you do that by picking a project that will give you more of what you want - and starting it now.

Stop waiting for permission, and start doing what you really want to do. Start small and start today.

Pick a project

So, what would playing all day and getting paid for it look like to you? What is so much fun for you it feels like play?

Now ask what small project could you start straight away that will give you some of the experience of this?

Remember the point is to be engaged in the thing you enjoy, and worry a little less about whether it will work or where it might lead you - just get into play.

If you want to a write a book for example, you could start writing your ideas out as a blog and assemble them later into a book. I started writing this blog in December to experiment with my ideas about play. Now I have a book deal for something that will explore and expand on these ideas.

If you want to start a business, you could start by exploring the idea or the brand on the web - blog about it, assemble images in a tumblelog, twitter your findings 140 characters at a time. You’ll be able play out your idea, get feedback, and at the same time you’ll be building followers who later could become customers or clients. Or you could sketch out the proposition then go find a test customer and win your first playcheque.

If you already have your own business but want to nudge it towards something that feels more playful to you, choose a project will explore a new, more enjoyable, income stream for you. Look for that sweet-spot of doing something you really enjoy which fulfils a need your customers already have. You’ll know when you’re on track as you’ll find you attract interest quickly.

What will your play project be? Leave a comment.

I run a monthly London event called Scanners Night for creative people, entrepreneurs, and of course Scanners. Scanners are people who have lots of different interests and want to be able to pursue all of them.

Attendees at Scanners Night often ask how to connect with all the people in the room after the event. Scanners also want to know who’s coming in advance so that they can make sure they meet the people they want to.

Well I think we have a solution - and it’s all about Social Media. Which is handy because that’s the topic of this Wednesday’s Scanners Night.

Connect with other Scanners Night attendees

Here’s how to connect with Scanners Night attendees before and after the event:

1. Book for Scanners Night
2. Join Twitter (stick with me here, it’s worth it)
3. Send a tweet (a twitter message) to say you’re coming on Wednesday and introduce yourself. Or say who you would like to meet: eg journalists, web designers, fellow writers.
4. Here’s the important bit: include the “hashtag” #scannersnight in your tweet like this: “New to Scanners. I am a freelance web designer. Interested in clients and collaborators. Also others into creative writing #scannersnight”
5. While you’re at it, follow me johnsw
6. Read what all the other Scanners are saying on #scannersnight
7. On Wednesday night, find the people you tweeted and talk in person!

If all this sounds like gobbledygook, then don’t worry; just come along on Wednesday and you’ll be an expert on all this by the end of the night!

Book for Scanners Night here

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 resorted to baking a cake for the company and writing his CV in icing on the top just to get an interview. (It worked.)

Jealousy is a useful thing. It tells me there’s something I still don’t have. As long as I don’t stay with the jealousy and imagine I’m powerless to have the thing I want, I can use it. What is it I need to add into my mix of work to satisfy this part of me?

Who are you most jealous of?

Sometimes jealousy will reveal something you can’t access any other way. Ask people what’s your ideal work and a lot of people are stumped. Ask whose job/business/lifestyle are you most jealous of and as long as you don’t suppress your jealousy you get some useful information.

Ask what aspect of this person’s work makes you most jealous. Then consider how you can bring some of that experience into your own life.

Repeat after me; “I’m just a jealous guy”.