Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about misfits. I define misfits as people who do things their own way. People who stand out from the crowd. People who tread their own path through life. It started with some research I was doing. I was looking at common factors behind the people who achieve great success in their chosen field. And in 100% of the cases I studied, they were misfits. From Shakespeare, Dieter Rams and Steve Jobs, to Grandmaster Flash, Richard Feynman, Picasso and Robin Williams. This also seems to hold true, whether the person is a musician, politician, activ ..read more

Why is it, that some creative professionals seem to struggle more than others, when completing an important project? When we look at the most successful creative professionals, we usually find that they are no more creative or intelligent than their less prolific counterparts. However, they are different in one important respect: They look at their work in a very different way. They have discovered the importance of breaking large or daunting creative projects down, into manageable, achievable chunks. Think about this for a moment. No one writes a book. No one composes a symphony. No one d ..read more

Here’s something to remember, the next time someone criticises your art or work. Andy Warhol’s signature work, Campbell’s Soup Cans, hangs on the walls of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. It’s their most prized possession. They were gifted the art by Warhol’s friend Irving Blum, paying him just $15MILLION for it — that was 10% of it’s $150MILLION valuation. It’s worth even more today! Compare that, with the rejection letter that same museum sent Andy Warhol, when he offered one of is artworks to the museum for free. Andy Warhol’s rejection letter Dear Mr. Warhol, Last week our Com ..read more

Much ink has been spilled over the years, regarding problem solving. The majority of which focuses on strategies and tactics. Far less attention has been given to the importance of your mindset. Mindset is the essential foundation of problem solving. It’s the very base that will support (or collapse) any strategies or tactics you use. In short, if your mindset isn’t right, strategies and tactics are pointless. To help redress the mindset imbalance, I’d like to share a few ideas to help you overcome your next challenge / problem. Mindset presupposition Part of building the most effective pro ..read more

I recently watched this excellent TED presentation by Steven Tomlinson. And I’m really glad I did. Though it isn’t the topic of Tomlinson’s talk, he mentions how useful he finds the process of writing 3 pages in a journal every morning. He got the idea from a book by Julia Cameron called The Artists Way. I found this extremely interesting. That’s because I’ve done something similar ever since starting my business in 1995. (Though with no set number of pages and not every morning). Initially, I thought it might be a way to clear my mind for the day ahead. However, I quickly realised that writi ..read more

My friend Kashif recently attended a course on creative writing. He shared a valuable experience with me. I thought you may find it useful. So, with his permission, here it is. I also include a wonderful insight, from the genius, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Here’s an excerpt from Kashif’s email: “There were 23 of us in the class. We were different ages and from different educational backgrounds and cultures. What really frustrated me was by the end of the course our work started to read remarkably similar. […] The structure of our writing was silencing our voice”. It reminded me of a great artist ..read more

Here are 4 quick writing tips, which have helped me massively over the years. I hope you find them useful. Write for the waste paper basket. I stole this one from Ernest Hemingway. If you aim for perfection, you’ll seldom write anything. So, just write. Write with freedom and see where it takes you. Some of it will be terrible, but some of it will be gold dust. Use the gold dust. Write when you feel inspired. But make sure you feel inspired every day. Tip: You don’t wait for inspiration to appear, you go hunting for it with a club. Write as you speak. Imagine one of your reade ..read more

There’s a direct link between the use of colour (or color for my friends who use International English), and creative thinking. It’s hard to think in colour, when your world has the brightness turned down. Yet as adults, many non-creative people surround themselves with a very limited range of colours. Their homes, furniture, offices and clothes are toned down to the point where they almost blend into the background. Here’s the thing: As scientific studies have found, colours can have a measurable impact on how we feel and how we think. Children, colour and creativity Have you ever noticed how ..read more