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The Midlife Crisis Diaries: Preview episode
WTF am I doing with my life? Asks middle-aged white man This is a preview episode of a new video series centered around the most annoying person in the world: a white, cis, heterosexual middle-aged man who likes nothing more than complaining about his perfectly comfortable life. Warning: adult language/themes. Watch below or on YouTube.…
Free guides
The Career Masterplan for Mad Geniuses is here!
Yes it’s here at long last! Well actually I only released the trailer yesterday, but I’m sure you’ve been slavering with excitement about it ever since. I know I have, and I’ve already read the bloody thing. Here’s what’s included in the micro-manifesto: The Six Key Steps to Unleashing Your Inner Mad Genius A Quick-Start…
Refresh Your Mindset – a Free Micro-Guide
You know what it’s like – you get up, shuffle reluctantly to work, survive the day on a combination of strong coffee and illicit internet surfing, only to arrive home an exhausted shell of your former self and be faced with a list of tedious but necessary chores. You then go on to complete these…
Produce the Goods: a Free Guide for Mad Geniuses
This fourth guide in the Career Masterplan for Mad Geniuses series has taken quite a while to get finished (somewhat ironically given the title). That’s because it not only involved a lot of research, but plenty of real life experience during my first 18 months or so of full-time freelancing/blogging. I’ll admit it did involve…
Creative Inspiration
A Month of Mini Time Capsule Videos
It’s hard to admit this on my blog that features the word ‘creative’ in the title, but I’ve been creatively blocked for a while now when it comes to my own projects (as you might have guessed by the lack of posts recently). I have a bad habit of starting up something creative with great gusto…
Claiming New Ground
Almost half way into February, my goals are beginning to take shape for the rest of the year. Or at least the next few months. More importantly, I’m beginning to make progress on those goals. Tiny steps, maybe – but at least it’s some progress. Pounding the Pavement Mel and I have signed up for…
Adventures in Self-Publishing
Self-publishing still has a bad rap amongst some writers, who see it as ‘vanity publishing’. That’s good news for the rest of us, who see it as a brilliant opportunity to get our work out there without having to wait for permission from traditional gatekeepers. Obviously though, if you are self-publishing, it’s important to maintain…
Book Reviews
Clear-Minded Classic #3: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
When I was about 20 years old, I was totally and utterly lost. I was in my fourth year of studying for a degree and I was disillusioned with the whole process. I could see no clear way forward in terms of finding a job or career at the end of it, and I was…
Clear-Minded Classic #6: The Renaissance Soul (read this if you can’t choose between your creative passions)
Some creative types have known what they want to do all their lives. From the minute they start to crawl and gurgle something resembling a human language, they have made a beeline for that one thing that floats their boat – whether it be a paintbrush or a pencil, a drum set or a guitar,…
The Art of Taking Action
“Consider the implications of a life in which you don’t have the power, focus, or single-mindedness to do what you say you will do. Imagine the countless times your wiser self decides on a particular course of action, only to be blown off course by the merest breeze of immediate desire. There’s a helplessness, a…
Recommended Resources
Career Development
Why ‘Grit Conquers All’ when it comes to creative work
“An ounce of practice is generally worth more than ton of theory.” – E.F. Schumacher (author of the book Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered) At last year’s Small is Beautiful conference in Glasgow, the first speaker was writer and author Jocelyn K Glei, who at the time was Founding Editor and Director of Behance’s…
How to get people to read your shit
Do you want people to pay attention to your creative work? You might want to read this first. 1. Know your shit Bestselling author Steven Pressfield is a big believer in the value of learning on the job. In his latest book, Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit, he talks about how stints as an ad…
Tiny Office TV: Five Tips for Focusing on Your Creative Work
I’ve been experimenting with short, rather silly videos on Instagram and Vine. I like the fact these are very limited in terms of length (Instagram videos can’t be any longer than 15 seconds, and Vine videos can’t be longer than 6 seconds). I also like the fact that there’s no real editing or uploading to…
Personal Development
Perfectionism is not an end of level boss
A bit of faith, every day. And I can be happy. I don’t know about you, but I tend to hold myself to high standards, and often fall short of them. I want to practice positive habits every day and am pleased when I manage it for a reasonable stretch. But not accepting that I am…
Trying Not to Try: An Experiment with Effortlessness
I love to find new tips and tricks from books that I can apply in my own life so I was instantly attracted to the idea of being a ‘literary guinea pig’ for Canongate’s Nudge Your World series. The first book in the series, Trying Not to Try: The Ancient Art of Effortlessness and the…
8 Daily Habits That Will Help You Refresh Your Mindset
In James Altucher’s entertaining book How to be the Luckiest Person Alive, he suggests a daily practice which he claims will dramatically improve your life: Physical – exercise enough to break a sweat for 10 minutes (probably 20-30 minutes of movement a day in total) – he also says it’s essential to sleep for 8…
Clear-Minded Creative 