Kitabı oku: «How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas: Get Curious, Get Adventurous, Get Creative»

INTRODUCTORY BIT
Is this it?
THAT UNCERTAIN FEELING

Years ago, I realized that the job I was in was no longer for me. I had this itch that I couldn’t scratch. For months I couldn’t work out what it was – all I knew was that it was unsettling and as the itch increased so did my dissatisfaction. My discontent wasn’t specific, more of a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. In fact it amounted almost to a feeling of emptiness.

Stuck is a feeling – never a reality

I tried everything. I worked harder, I went on holiday. I chatted to friends about it, I pondered long and hard. I drank more beer, I drank less beer. I got fit, I read books. No matter what I tried, the itch just grew steadily stronger until I could no longer ignore it. It was a message telling me that it was time for a change, a time to take the next step, the next challenge. I felt it in every cell.

The only problem was that I had absolutely no idea what to do. I had no concept of what I was capable of or how to work out what my opportunities and potential choices were. It was an incredibly frustrating feeling. I felt like there was a huge wave building beneath me but I was unable to catch it, unable to use its power. I actually felt a bit scared.

After graduating I joined Bass Brewers as a shiny, fresh management trainee. I was excited and ambitious and soon found myself running a sales territory in the Midlands. I was learning the ropes by selling beer to working men’s clubs at a time when deals were closed more by personal relationships than business savvy. What an education. Soon I could sup mild and smoke Embassy’s with the best of them. I managed to escape the boot-full of beer mats by convincing the marketing director that I understood brands and that my talents would be best spent growing the Tennents equity. Things were going great. My lucky break came when I moved onto Carling Black Label – Britain’s largest FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) brand. It was the time of those bouncing towel ads and sponsoring the football Premiership. Big budgets, lots of great agencies to play with and learning loads. We even won ‘Brand of the Year’. My master plan was running like clockwork.

When I got promoted to the Grolsch brand, there was no stopping me. The expense account got bigger, my suits looked better and I could now control my own destiny. The fast-track future was mine. And yet something was missing. The years rolling out in front of me all looked the same, just with a bigger car.

Out of desperation I went to the Human Resources Director because I figured his department did all that succession planning, career advice and all the good people stuff; and if ever there was a people issue, I was it! I explained that I loved the business but couldn’t continue doing what I was doing. He was stumped. In his mind, being on the fast-track programme and running a massive, sexy brand should be a dream to anyone of my age (an ancient 27!).

So there I was. I had played by the rules and followed the system: O levels, A levels, degree, first job, then the first decent job I wanted. I had proved myself, learnt a discipline, got a value on the transfer market and all of a sudden I was asking: ‘What is it I want to do?’. I had no idea. All I knew was that if I stayed where I was I would be in a seemingly endless rut, with an expanding waistline and ambition ebbing from my very soul.

I had to go and look for an answer and I knew that I wouldn’t find it where I was; so I decided to search the world for inspiration. I threw in my job and jumped on a plane to see what was out there.

The act of travelling and not having the safety net of an income turned out to be instrumental in generating new thinking. Firstly, it created FRESHNESS. I was going to places I had never been to before. I was enjoying experiences that helped stimulate and energize me. I also created some movement in my life. I knew that I wouldn’t return until I was excited enough to do so, until I knew what I really wanted to do. I had invested in this decision – the cost of a good job, travel money, relationships put on hold or at best being tickled from a distance. I had time, space and focus. The conditions were perfect for a big explore; a no-holds barred wrestle with my future.

Embracing freshness keeps you new and shiny

The only problem was that I had no idea how to tackle the huge question: ‘What Next?’. It was such a broad question that my mind just boggled. I needed a process, an approach that would help provide me with meaning.

By reading lots of personal development books, trying out creative exercises and experimenting with anybody fool enough to fall for my generous drink buying, I started to create that process. The first stage was to explore what my opportunity really was. By doing so I could then chunk it down into manageable parts that I could then get my head around, areas that I could focus on and create ideas for. I then found that certain exercises assisted me in breaking out of my usual, set way of thinking. This new approach helped me create ideas and potential solutions that were inspiring but also truly connected to who I really am and what makes me tick. Then all I had to do was to come up with a plan to make them happen, which actually turned out to be really easy – once I had found something I was excited about.

This process was incredibly exploratory. The more playful I became, the more opportunities arose. I realized that while the process was enormously valuable, it was the way I approached it that was key to making it work. As time, space and focus worked their magic, I learnt a lot about myself and some of my personal beliefs with regard to how my life ‘should’ be. It turned out it was these beliefs that were keeping me stuck.

Up until that moment, my career and my life’s focus had essentially been fun and rewarding, but it always felt as if I was doing one thing to achieve another: getting promoted in order to build a really significant profile at work, so making me able to create some heavy duty impact and so get a really big job …

I came to understand that deep in my subconscious there was a belief that by following all these stages eventually I would achieve some sort of Nirvana, an ultimate life state, a place where I could be happy. There would come a time when I had achieved the next big goal and horns would sound, fireworks explode, and the wise and the beautiful of the world would surround me saying: ‘Chris, you’ve done it! Stop that toiling, it’s now time to party. Enjoy life, the rest of it is yours.’

I know this may all sound ridiculous, but is this belief really so foreign to you? Whether it’s getting the next promotion, buying a house in the country, waiting for the kids to grow up so you can travel or just getting a bit more cash in the bank; we all mortgage our happiness. It was for that very reason that I wasn’t doing something that I loved, and that was what had started the itch.

When I was travelling, tomorrow didn’t exist. I wasn’t working towards anything. There was only the present. If I had become attached to an output there would always have been the chance of disappointment. For example, if I was planning a trip out on a boat and all I imagined was calm seas and clear blue skies, then I would only have been happy if nature provided those precise conditions. But as we all know the beauty of being alive is that we cannot predict the future. I learnt that by all means I should make a plan, but then I must let go of it, detach and see what happens. I soon discovered that when the bus didn’t show, the heavens opened and there was no room in the inn, I would often have a much more fulfilling and adventurous day than when it went like clockwork.

When travelling, I remembered what it was like to enjoy every day regardless of the weather, the reliability of the buses or the lack of dry places to rest my head. Every day became an adventure and the less attached I became to an outcome, the more fun I had. It was a wonderful game. What I realized was that back home, life hadn’t felt like a game for some time. I was taking it all too seriously. And, worst of all, I was taking myself too seriously. I now knew that any opportunities that I wanted to take had to be as much for the moment as for where they might possibly take me.

A LIFE LIVED FOR TOMORROW IS CRAPPY

We all have a choice. We create our own reality, so if we are having a bad time, it is likely to be our fault and nobody else’s. We can’t control the world but we can control the way we perceive it and react to it. This belief is core to creating freedom through opportunities. When we feel that we have become victims through circumstance, and believe that people are ganging up against us, we remain stuck.

When at last I realized that every day is just perfect and that my challenge is to be able to see it as so, my whole perspective changed. Each day may be perfect in creating motivation, perfect in teaching me something or perfect in restoring energy; in any case it is still perfect. It is neither wrong or right; good or bad. It just is. With this in mind, I made the decision to be engaged, energized and optimistic about my opportunities. I was in control, I had choice. The game had begun.

I had managed to get off the merry-go-round and this helped me to see things with clarity, realize the world’s immense possibility. I learnt that we all have the gift of creative imagination, but we have never been taught to use it properly.

Creativity has to be of some benefit. Some impact. All too often our imaginations are only employed in the field of dreams. By dreaming we don’t advance our lives, we just live in an escapist world. What I was now doing was applied dreaming, creating a focus that meant my creative efforts were not merely whimsical but productive. I was creating my options for the next stage of my life – my future!

As I considered my options, sometimes I would become distracted by shiny, pretty things; opportunities that looked attractive but when I dug a little deeper, I would realize that their attraction was superficial. For example, the worlds of film, television and music have always seemed incredibly sexy to me, but if you look beneath the surface, those industries are no more rewarding than hundreds of others. For every person in these businesses who enjoys the ideal life of glamour, fame and pure self-expression, there are countless others on the hamster wheel of life; doing what others want them to, working harder than they’d like to, with colleagues they wouldn’t ideally choose and feeling thoroughly unfulfilled. Having said that, it is possible to have a fabulous life working in any career, as long as you are in it for the right reasons, where you can be true to yourself, where it is not just another stepping stone towards happiness.