Living Life by Design

John Cleese, an English actor, voice actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and best known for co-founding Monty Python, is also an incredible motivational speaker. In one of the great underseen talks of the Internet, actor John Cleese delivers a brilliant speech on how to foster creative thinking.

We all need to set aside time from our busy lives to rekindle our mojo, plan, think, BE CREATIVE and rediscover what’s most important!

I highly recommend that you listen to the entire talk (click HERE for the You Tube video), but here are the quick notes:

1. Set a space where you will not be interrupted (that means no internet, no phone, nothing!)
2. Set a defined period of time. John suggests 1 ½ hours.
3. Sit through the noisy mind period (the period of time where your mind wanders on everything but the task at hand).
4. The reason for 1 ½ hours in #2 above is because your mind will probably race for 30 minutes which leaves you with an hour to do work if you’re lucky.
5. Take a break.
6. Tolerate the discomfort to simply finish and instead sit with the problem long enough to solve it. Most likely over multiple sessions. Don’t take the easy way out.
7. Confidence. This is experimentation time. “What if I did this? What if I did that?” Get weird. Propose “impossible” solutions. Stay playful.
8. Keep your mind gently around the subject. Try to stay on topic.
9. If you are going to collaborate with others, collaborate others who expand and play “what if”, not those who will cause you to be defensive.

Get out your calendar and time-block your “play time” today!