It’s easy to imagine that big dreams – like creating a wildly successful businesses – are the result of a grand vision that is planned out and then executed step by step.

Nonsense!

More often than not, a brilliant success starts with a humble project, done just for the fun of it. And it is then grown organically, project by project, into something big.

Exhibit A: Apple Computers

Steve Jobs had more self-belief than most of can ever dream of and yet even he didn’t start with a plan to change the world.

He started with a project – to build a commercial home computer, working from his dad’s garage.

He teamed up with his buddy Steve Wozniak who designed and hand-built what became known as the Apple I. Check it out:

The Apple I – not quite as beautiful as current Apple products

(In fairness, the Apple I was a hobby kit shipped without a case
so the buyer had to make their own)

When you look into it, it quickly becomes obvious that this model of building dreams piece by piece is actually the norm.

Facebook was preceded and inspired by Facemash, a site knocked together by Mark Zuckerberg for fun in a couple of days.

Water for Elephants is a bestselling book that was made into a Hollywood movie and yet Sarah Gruen wrote the whole first draft of the novel in 30 days.

Small projects build big dreams.

What project would you love to do just for fun in 30 days?

The 30 Day Challenge

On 1st May, 200 people will be doing a project they love in 30 days – with our help, on The 30 Day Challenge.

We opened booking for just 24 hours on Friday and we were deluged with registrations from people all over the world.

We now have challengers from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, France, Germany and Barbados.

If you missed out on getting your place, we have some good news for you.

We will reopen booking briefly next week to give people another chance to grab a place.

Make sure you’re on the mailing list to get all the details and be first to hear when it opens :

>> Get more info on The 30 Day Challenge <<

Working 9-5 in data entry for a widget manufacturer on a Birmingham industrial estate may not sound very exciting. And by God you’d be right. It made life at The Office look like a dream job.

And yet there I was, typing numbers into a stock control system all day. I’d finished college and couldn’t decide what to do with my life so I went to a temp agency and asked them to give me something to keep me ticking over.

I sat in a small grey office with 2 other people (who frighteningly had made this company their career choice) and typed numbers from 3×5 cards into a computer.

After a couple of days of doing this, I started to get creative. Some of the entries were already on the system and I noticed that if the first screen of data matched what was on the card, the second screen of data was also up to date. So I started to skip the second screen for those cards.

At the end of the week, I was called into another office. The man told me that many of the entries I was supposed to be updating were wrong. And so he was firing me.

There wasn’t much else to say so I left.

As I walked through the concrete streets of Aston, I realised that my assumption about skipping some of the entries had been wrong. I felt ashamed. I’d been fired from a job so crappy, a trained monkey could do it.

And I also felt enormously relieved. I had my freedom back. From that point on I never took another dull, ill-fitting job.

I was fortunate that my data entry job was such an awful fit that it was obvious (to both me and my employer). The real danger is when you’re in a job that seems bearable so you stay just a little bit longer… and then a little bit longer…

Is it time you made a change?

Are you still looking for a way to do something you love and get paid for it? What if you don’t even know what you love doing?

We’ve created something at Screw Work Let’s Play that will help you get clarity in just a few weeks. It’s a way for you to get personal help with your career from the best (and most unconventional) careers coach in the country. We call it PlayMapping.

Click the link to read more:
The PlayMapping One-To-One Coaching Programme

I grew up in the 1970s, a time when air travel was still a luxury for most people, and ‘the jet-set’ was still a meaningful demographic group.

Because air travel was still something of a novelty, people were fascinated by it, and in particular by the occasional dramatic accidents that happened.

Hollywood fed this gory fascination with a series of airplane disaster movies – Airport 1975, then Airport ’76, Airport ’77 – and they were a big hit.

The dramatic device of something going wrong on a plane remained popular for many years. Whether a movie, drama, or even comedy, something bad almost always happened when a character got on a plane.

In my impressionable mind, an association was being built: plane → crash. Over and over again in different scenes: Plane → crash. Plane → crash. Plane → crash.

Earlier in my life some genuinely catastrophic things had happened – I lost my father at 5 months old and was subjected to a series of unpleasant medical interventions for a pituitary condition. As a result I ended up with a mind that very easily goes to the most catastrophic possible outcome in any situation.

With all the recurring images of disaster in my head, I became very fearful of flying. I would start getting anxious a day or two ahead of the flight and then peak during the take off. One flight to the US was an 8 hour panic attack.

Logically I knew it was extremely unlikely anything would go wrong but another part of me had been brainwashed to think “Plane → crash”.

Funny thing was, I always got on the plane. I refused to let my fear stop me from having a holiday or going on an expenses-paid business trip. But the price I paid in stress was wearing.

After a while I got tired of the anxiety and thought I’d do something about it. I needed to change the “Plane → Crash” story in my head. I read books that explained in great detail why flying is safe (eg no plane has ever been brought down by turbulence in the history of aviation).

But I still needed to brainwash myself with a new story about flying – one that goes “Plane takes off, flies to destination, and lands”. So I drove to the airport and went to the observation deck. And there amongst the geeks listening to air traffic control on shortwave radio, I sat and watched planes land. For 2 hours. Plane → land. Plane → land. Plane → land. Over and over again. It was deliciously boring.

Finally I was beginning to get it. Not just in the logical part of my brain, which already knew it, but somewhere deeper – planes land. So this is normal.

Three weeks ago I took the longest flight of my life – 11,000 miles from London to Sydney. I’ve flown to all sorts of places but had always dreaded the day I’d fly to Australia.

And it was fine. I still get a little tense on takeoff but after that I’m calm. And if ever I do get nervous, I remind myself of the intended end to the story – landing, going to my hotel and taking a swim in the pool. And every time that story comes true, it gets embedded a little more.

I rewrote the story that wasn’t serving me. What story in your head is due for a rewrite? Is is about something you tell yourself is dangerous or risky? Is it something more subtle like, ‘People from my background never have it easy’? Or perhaps, ‘It’s normal not to enjoy your work’?

What story do you want to replace it with?

Then… do everything you can to surround yourself with the story you want to come true.

Radiohead’s early albums The Bends and OK Computer positioned them as one of the most influential bands in the world – and inspired a new wave of sound-alike Britpop bands including Coldplay, Stereophonics, Muse and Travis.

The next Radiohead album didn’t come so easily.

Band members all had different visions for Radiohead’s future, and Thom Yorke was experiencing writer’s block, as he moved towards a completely new style of songwriting inspired by the electronica he had been listening to. The band even came close to splitting up.

The eventual result 18 months later was their fourth album, Kid A. Rather than being an obvious sequel to OK Computer, Kid A was more minimalist and abstract, and replaced their melodic guitar sound with electronic textures. (Being a huge electronica fan, I loved it)

Kid A debuted at number one in many countries, including the US, and yet it received both praise and criticism. Some mainstream British critics saw Kid A as a “commercial suicide note”, labelling it “intentionally difficult” and longing for a return to the band’s earlier, more accessible, style.

I watched a TV interview with the band around this time. The interviewer asked the band ’How do you guys feel about the fact that bands like Travis, Coldplay, and Muse are making a career sounding exactly like your records did in 1997?’.

The whole band laughed and replied in unison,

“Good luck with Kid A!”

If you do something great, it won’t be long before people copy you. Your job is not to try to protect your innovative album, book, or business model but to continue innovating.

As Tom Peters said,

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else.

The trick is the doing something else.”

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.