Have you got an idea swirling around your head and you’re wondering if it could work? Maybe an idea for a business or a book or some other project?

Have you been thinking about this for a while, holding off on getting started until you know your idea will work – that you can do it, make money out of it, or get a book deal?

Well, let me put your mind at ease.

You can stop worrying because I can tell you that your idea almost certainly won’t work… at least not in exactly the form you’re thinking of right now. If it would work straight off the bat, exactly as you imagined it, without any obstacles to get around, someone would have done it by now.

Because there are 7 billion people on this planet and the chances that your idea has never flitted across the mind of any one of those people (making your idea one in 7 billion) are pretty low.

The reality is that it’s not your initial idea but how you make it work that really matters. And if your original idea doesn’t work at all, it’s your willingness to change it as much as is necessary to make it work.

And this is good news. Because now you don’t need to wait any longer.

Now you know that if you have an idea that you think has some value, you can find a way to launch it in a scaled-down way and get started immediately. Then the real adventure, and the real value in what you do, is in how you execute your idea and make it work – and that means working around the obstacles, and improving your idea until people love it.

Every winning idea has to go through this journey. When Anita Roddick opened the first Body Shop in Brighton in 1976, two neighbouring funeral parlors initially objected to the shop’s name. Rather than give up on her distinctive brand name or go hunting for new premises, Roddick fought back by suggesting to a local newspaper that she was a woman entrepreneur under siege. The publicity generated traffic to the store and helped her on her first step towards the global success she later attained.

What idea have you been holding off on starting? Are you ready to put it into action? Leave a comment and let us know…

Happy New Year and welcome to 2012! This is the time when we’re tempted to define all sorts of wonderful wishes, hopes and dreams for the year.

The tricky bit of course is maintaining momentum on that stuff that we want – once life gets busy or the going gets tough.

Psychologies magazine to the rescue!

Psychologies magazine have dedicated their latest issue to the topic of ‘making it happen in 2012′ and I’m delighted to be the subject of a 2 page interview on the topic of how to keep momentum.

My interview was by Anita Chaudhuri who is features editor at Psychologies. Anita took part in our 30 Day Challenge at the end of last year – our programme to help 200 people make an idea happen in 30 days. This is what Anita said about her experience of the 30 Day Challenge:

“Wow. Just wow. In six years of writing for Psychologies magazine I have done any number of goal-setting, dream-boarding, wish creating type workshops. The 30 Day Challenge was the best ‘make it happen’ programme I have ever done.”

- Anita Chaudhuri, Features Editor, Psychologies

I thought it would be good to take some of the principles that make the 30 Day Challenge so effective and put them into a series of videos to support the Psychologies article.

So I got together with SWLP Head Coach Selina Barker and created something to show how you can choose the right things for you to do this year and, most important of all, actually make them happen. If you’d like access to our video series, just click the link below.

Get our free video series on making it happen in 2012 right here

When I was writing my first book Screw Work Let’s Play, I knew I loved writing it, I knew it felt like play, I knew I was doing the best job I could on it, and I knew I was writing about ideas that I thought were worth spreading.

But I really didn’t know if my book was, well, “good”. Would it sell? Would other people think I could write? Would it work for the reader? Would people be as excited about the ideas in it as I am?

Well, it’s been a hell of a ride over the last 18 months since then.

I was delighted (and more surprised than anyone else) to find Screw Work go straight into the WHSmith top 20 and the Amazon bestseller list (at one point becoming their bestselling book on entrepreneurship). The book received great reviews in the Times and Sunday Times (and several other papers and mags) and on Amazon attracted 32 five star reviews (and 2 people who hate it!)

Screw Work has now been translated into 7 languages. The Dutch and Korean versions are out now with Italian, Czech, Russian, Marathi, and Thai versions all due next year (you can see all the versions here). In June, the book will be published in the US (and hopefully, at long last, a Kindle version will also appear).

I’ve had a lot of fun (and learned loads) over the last 18 months – I’ve run programmes based on the book to help 100s of people to make their ideas happen and I’ve had 500 people attend my London event, Scanners Night.

If you’ve bought my book or taken part in one of my events or programmes, thank you. I genuinely believe the ideas we’re putting into practice constitute the next stage of the evolution of work. With the current state of the world, we need this now more than ever – a new wave of people doing something of real value, that they love doing, and really care about.

If you have friends who are unhappy in their work that you know could benefit from a bit of ‘player’ thinking, you can still get copies of Screw Work Let’s Play from Amazon in time for Christmas:

Amazon UK |  All other countries and editions

My second book

And now I’ve started again. Earlier this year, I opened a blank Microsoft Word document and called it “Book 2″. Now that document has 20,000 words in it and a publication date of Autumn 2012.

The topic of this new book is “How to write a book, start a business, or change the world in 30 days” and I want your help with it.

I want your stories

One of the greatest pleasures of writing a book is seeing what others do with it. Every week I get tweets or emails from people who have been inspired by Screw Work to create something really special to them -

What do you most want me to write about?

I’m going to be blogging here on the topic of the new book over the next few months and I would love your input – what would you most like to read in my next book? What have you learned in your journey to do what you love that is important for others to know?

Leave a brief comment and let me know – you’ll be helping me to make sure I’m on the right track, addressing what people most need. No question is too small, too big or too dumb (honestly, we’d all be a lot better off if people dared to ask the obvious questions more often).

~

PS. If you’d like to meet me in person, I’ll be running the last Scanners Night of the year this Wednesday, 14 December. Join us and find out “How to do the impossible”. You can now attend for just £1 (or if you’re not in London, get the recording)

In 2006, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg was just 23, Yahoo offered a billion dollars to buy Facebook. After some consideration, Mark turned them down.

Having made that decision, as Mark explained in a BBC documentary shown at the weekend, it was then easier to reject an offer the following year from Microsoft to buy the company for $15 billion (nearly a quarter of which would have gone to Mark himself).

Think about that for a moment: turning down $3.6 billion. Was he not tempted to take the money? Wouldn’t you be?

Mark may have believed the company would later be worth more (and indeed it is) but that wasn’t the primary reason he refused to sell. His reason was that, as he explained, ”The thing I really care about is the mission, making the world open.”

He’s one of the youngest billionaires in the world but he is obviously not in it for the money. He wears the same clothes, drives not a ferrari but an executive’s car, and sits in an open plan office with the rest of his employees.

Mark works long hours at Facebook. And when he gets home he continues talking to his employees within the Facebook site. And yet he loves it. When he has freely chosen this path, he loves what he does, and he’s not doing it for the money, is it work or play?

Stories like Mark’s raise a question for the rest of us:

What, if anything, would you be willing to work (or play) hard enough on to make a billion dollars?

But it also raises a far more interesting question to consider and it’s this:

What do you care enough about to turn down a billion dollars so you can keep doing it?

I suspect that the people who can answer this question are the ones most likely to make that billion.

What could it be for you?

If you’ve been putting off creating your own blog or website for too long, let’s get it sorted out right now.

Just follow my steps below and you’ll have a new website installed and running in 20 minutes.

My solution

People wait for months, even years, deliberating how to create their website or blog, what system to create it on, and what design to go for. Meanwhile you have no site and you’re not progressing your business or blog.

Screw that!

I have a simple solution: WordPress. WordPress is a superb free blogging system but it can also run your entire website (this site runs on WordPress). It doesn’t even need to look like a blog if you don’t want it to.

However I am not talking here about registering a blog on wordpress.com – sure it’s easy but it won’t give you a website or blog you have full control over. You will have a limited set of designs to choose from and you won’t have the freedom to add all the useful widgets and doodads you’ll want to have on your site.

What I’m talking about is self-hosted WordPress. That means WordPress running on your own webspace. The web space is only about £5 a month. There are more steps for you to do but the payoff is enormous. You’ll be creating a site that you have complete control over, is almost unlimited in its options for design and expansion, and saves you hundreds of pounds on web design fees!

Let me show you how to do it step by step.

Registering your domain & webspace

For a version with screen grabs and short videos showing you exactly what to do, grab my free PDF.

1. Sign up for web hosting

Click here to go to hostgator
(opens in a  new window)

I chose this company after much consideration for a number of reasons: They’re one of the largest hosting companies in the world, they provide unlimited diskspace and bandwidth (unlike some other webhosts), have 24hour support 365 days a year and provide a 99.9% uptime guarantee (i.e. you’re extremely unlikely to see your website go down). Oh and they run on green electricity. But particularly important to us, they have a one-click install for WordPress (trust me, this makes life much simpler)

On their home page, click VIEW WEB HOSTING PLANS

2. Choose the web hosting plan

• Go for the Hatchling Plan – this is the cheapest web hosting plan and is ideal if you’re just creating one website. (You can always upgrade later if you get into multiple websites etc)
• Choose whether to pay monthly or yearly. Choose monthly if in doubt.
• Then click ORDER NOW

3. Choose a domain

Your domain is the address of your website (like google.com or redcross.org). Unless there is a very good reason otherwise, I recommend you choose a .com address even if you’re a UK-specific business. They’re just so much more memorable. If you’re creating a charity or campaign project you might consider a .org domain.

There are 2 options here:

• If you are registering a new domain, enter it on the left hand side and choose .com, .net, or .org from the pop up.
• If you already have a domain (that you registered somewhere else but haven’t used yet) enter the full domain name (including the .com etc) on the right side of the screen.

Save $9.95 with my discount code

Before continuing from the domain page, you can save a further $9.95 off your hosting simply by entering this discountcode I’ve set up for you: SWLPCOUPON. This makes your first month of hosting completely free!

• Click CONTINUE TO STEP 2

NOTE: If you are registering a new domain and you have chosen one that someone else has already registered, you will get a message warning you. Go back to the box on the left of the screen and keep trying names you like until you get one that’s available.

4. Enter payment information

• Choose a username and security pin to login to your web hosting
• Enter your payment information – either by credit card or paypal account.
• Scroll down to see a summary of your payment showing that your first month is completely free because you’ve used the SWLPCOUPON code.
• Hit CREATE ACCOUNT
• If you chose to pay by Paypal, you’ll see 2 options: Choose ‘Subscribe’ to make sure your ongoing payments happen effortlessly.

5. Check your email inbox

Congratulations! You now own your own domain and web space. A few clicks and $15 was all it took! In a few minutes, you’ll receive an email with details of how to log into your web hosting.

Installing and using your website

From here, you can use the automatic WordPress install feature and then login in to your new website and starting adding content and playing with the design.

I’ve listed all the steps out in a free PDF with screen grabs and short videos.

DOWNLOAD THE FREE PDF

A few days ago I watched a youtube video of someone playing a song on the piano. She was one of the 200 participants in the 30 Day Challenge and she had responded to one of our exercises by taking the risk to record a video of her playing and show it to the other participants (who were all complete strangers until just a few weeks before).

She started by looking nervously into the camera and doing what we usually do before daring to share something very personal: she apologised for it. She spoke quietly and shyly, saying that she hadn’t warmed up and the piano might be out of tune and that she wasn’t sure it would work.

And then she started playing. And it was wonderful. She sang powerfully and beautifully and played confidently. Her posture and demeanour changed, she was no longer shy. She came alive. She shone.

This is what happens when we dare to share something from our heart. It’s scary, we want to protect ourselves, but when we finally do it, we shine.

Having watched her apologetic intro to the video I wanted to shout out, “Oh stop faking it! We can all see how amazing you are!”

And it made me realise that most of us are faking it. I know I still do at times. We worry so much about overstating our talents (in case we get shot down) we do the opposite.

“Oh it’s nothing”

“This thing? It’s only half finished and the chorus is totally wrong”

“It’s nowhere near as good as [insert world leader in your field]“

“What’s the point of starting my own blog when there are so many out there already?”

We end up faking it as a nobody.

We’re pretending there’s nothing amazing about us; we don’t have anything important or unique to give to the world.

But there is, and we do.

We may feel a long way from the recognised super-talents – the Richard Bransons, Steve Jobs or JK Rowlings of this world but we all have ‘spots of genius’ – those areas where we shine.

I realised right at the end that The 30 Day Challenge (and much of my work) is really about each of us finding these spots of genius, mining them to create something of our own, and daring to share it with the world.

The world would be a lot better place if we all stopped faking it long enough to do the same.

Today, I am still reeling from the news of Steve Jobs’ death.

Losing a hero is tough and Steve has been a hero of mine for many years – from my time as a software geek to my life now, writing and running my own business.

Yesterday when I should have been writing my new book, I was grieving for a man I had never met and spent far too many hours reading about him (on my Mac and iPad).

I’m passionate about Apple’s products because, as Steve said, Apple had taste: they got the details right that their competitors didn’t even seem to care about.

As an entrepreneur Steve Jobs was one of the few people to have created more than one billion dollar company. And he was eloquent about his own personal philosophy of life and work – as demonstrated by his wonderful Standford commencement addess. Steve was certainly a man getting paid to do what he loved.

So many are touched by Steve Jobs’ death not just for these reasons but because he inspired us: he broke the rules, and surprised us again and again with new and better ideas. And he inspired us to come up with our own new and better ideas.

How can we respond to such a lofty role-model? How can we take something positive from the cruelty of his early death?

I believe it is simply to do our own thing. To create something special of our own, even if it seems far more modest than what our heroes have created.

Today we’re on the 7th day of the 30 Day Challenge and 200 people are doing exactly that: investing in a small project they care about for the duration of one month. Blogs, books, businesses and products are being created one step at a time and it’s a wonderful thing to witness – a vibrant community of people following their heart.

As Steve reminded us,

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma… Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

The interesting thing about any significant creative project you undertake – whether it’s a book, blog, or business – is that while you might have a title (and even a strap line), you don’t really know what it’s about until you dive into making it.

Sometimes you think you know at the start, but it always changes along the way.

(In fact, for Screw Work Let’s Play, it was only when I’d finished the whole of the first 60,000 word draft that I turned to my agent and said “I think I know what this book is about now!”)

This is on my mind at the moment as I’ve just started writing my 2nd book.

While the title of this second book is still in flux, the real message of it is starting to emerge and I believe it may be the most important thing I have to say to the world.

The message of the book is summed up rather nicely by a quote from the artists Glibert & George.

They were asked in a recent BBC Four interview why they always wore the same matching suits and they explained that it was part of their simplification of life in order to leave more time for their art.

As George explained,

“We just want to devote ourselves to art.
We’re all dragged at increasing speed towards the grave.
Any picture we don’t make will be not made by somebody else.”

That last line really struck me. When we do something very close to our hearts, whether a blog post, a piece of art, or a business stamped with our personality, we are creating something no one else can create. If we don’t do it, no one else will.

Sure, someone might create something similar, or make a related point, but it won’t have our unique stamp on it, our unique voice.

Finding your unique voice can sound very intimidating but in reality we find it very simply in the doing of it. Just start playing out your ideas one project at a time, in one action-step at a time and your unique take on the subject will emerge. We can all do that right now.

Read about the 30 Day Challenge here

Want to know the formula for a perfect career?

Your perfect career – getting paid to play – is found at the intersection of 3 factors – the things you’re good at, the things you love doing, and the things that there is a demand for.

In this picture, that’s the area of overlap of the 3 circles. Here lies your perfect career – or in fact a number of them. These careers are ones where you’re doing something you enjoy and you’re good at – and you’re doing it in a way that provides something people want.

This may sound like a high mountain to climb but it isn’t really. In fact this diagram is not to scale. Firstly, there is a lot more overlap in reality between what you love and what you’re good at (it just gets messy to draw). This is because it feels good to use your talents and also because if something feels good, you tend to do it a lot so you get even better at it.

Secondly, with enough creative thinking, there is often a way to do these things you love in a way that meets a demand – now more than ever thanks to all the new opportunities provided by the ‘net.

What goes wrong?

Unfortunately far too few people are working in that magical intersection of three, getting paid to play. What often happens is that we get stuck with only 2 of the 3 factors we need. Here’s what it looks like:

• Good at it + people want it (but you don’t love it): this is your ordinary unsatisfying (even if sometimes well paid) career. You can do it and enough people are willing to pay you for it but it doesn’t light your fire. You can tell you’re in this zone when others tell you you have a good job but you still feel unsatisfied. And when it comes to getting the next job or next piece of work (if you’re self-employed) it feels like a struggle to win it. Sometimes this can be solved simply by focussing on winning only your favourite projects or jobs in this area. And sometimes you need to make a complete career change.

• Good at it + love it (but people don’t want it): you’re good at your work and you enjoy it but find it difficult to get paid well for it. You know you’re in this zone when people’s response to what you offer is “that’s nice” or “that sounds really interesting” but people rarely actually offer to pay you for it. The solution is to look for something that people are already hunting for that you can provide while doing those things you love.

• Love it + people want it (but you’re not good enough at it yet): you know you’re in this zone when you love what you do and there’s a market for it but you’re not winning the work. This often happens when you make a change into a new field. It takes time to get good enough to stand out from the crowd. You can shortcut the process by being careful to focus on an area that uses as much of your natural talent and previously acquired skills as possible.

Whatever change you need to make in order to achieve your perfect career of getting paid to play, you can get started right away. Take the next step towards it by launching a 30 day play project – to do something you love and you’re good at and that you think people will want from you.

Remember that the journey to your perfect career is not something you’ll discover by sitting and thinking about it, it’s something you have to play out, one project at a time.

Get our help to make your play project happen in the 30 Day Challenge

I’m not your typical motivational speaker.

I’m not Tony Robbins (the big guy with the teeth and the headset) and I don’t try to be (not least because I’m over a foot shorter than him). And yet I often get asked to speak.

Earlier this year one of those invitations was from the lovely, wise, and somewhat mischievous author of “Fuck It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way”, John Parkin. John asked me to speak at his weekend event in London.

On the day, I talk for about 40 minutes to a room full of people on how to do what you love, and then John asks me “Do you have some final rousing words to leave people with?”

I think for a while and when no snappy feel-good messages come to me, I simply say,

“You’re going to die”

John looks at me a little surprised and with his cheeky grin, says,

“You’re going to lift them up from here, right?”

And I said “Well, yes. This is my motivational message. Because the fact that you’re going to die (and you don’t know when) is the most powerful motivation I can think of for starting to do something you really care about as soon as possible.”

When we put this reality out of our mind, then we think we can put off our dreams for the week, or for the month, or for the year – or even until retirement. But not only is there a risk we won’t make it to that point, it’s also a terrible waste of a life.

Whatever your dream is, you can start it today. And you don’t have to necessarily “Take massive action!” as Tony shouts at us to do. We can ease our way into doing what we love, one project at a time. We can do it our way, and focus on the part we love most.

In reality, that’s the way most people get what they want.

Fear

What holds us back is not all the practical stuff (honestly, you can always get started without money, training, offices, or a book deal, and you can google most of the answers you need). What holds us back is fear; very reasonable fear of the unknown, of failing, of succeeding (because success changes everything).

It’s really difficult to tackle that fear on your own. On your own, you have to counter the doubts and fears with the same organ that creates them – your own mind.

But… team up with enough positive, committed people and everything changes. You get to admit you’re scared, get reassurance, and get the practical advice and contacts you need.

Suddenly, all sorts of things start to look possible.