Creativity is my favourite characteristic in a person. Think about the most creative people you know. I’m sure that you are currently thinking of musicians, artists, engineers etc… However if you really think about it creativity is a characteristic that propels businesses forward.

It’s creative people who build better processes, it’s creative people who question the status quo and look to improve structure, it’s the creative people who can often inspire the people around them. Creativity is the root of innovation. Innovation is a word that is much more synonymous with business.

If you look at all of the entrepreneurs in the world, they have created a way to deliver a product or service better than anyone else in the world. They have had self belief and enough confidence to propel their companies in to the stratosphere.

When we look at these geniuses, like the Google guys, they are not “typical” business people, but if you look at all of the most successful people, they aren’t “typical” business people. They are creative people who can create a vision and get everyone excited about it, or create the ladder and get everyone else to climb it.

So next time you are considering applying for a promotion or looking at a job that’s another rung up the ladder, think about the person who created that ladder. Is that something you can do? Remember, we can’t all be Managing Directors of big successful companies, but if that’s what we want – we sure as hell can try!

Happy New Year and welcome to Twenty Ten!  Our second Millennia is entering into its Tweens and possibly one of its greatest learning phases through its teenage years.  As we develop into adults we often forget the frenetic pace that we had to learn things as children and adolescents.  Often it’s easier to just let life happen and not take control of it. 

When we were kids, we had to go to school to learn… Now we don’t. This is why, in our adult lives, we have to push ourselves to be better.  We must push ourselves to know more than our competitors, and be better at what we do than they are.  We also need to push ourselves to be able to have happier lives by doing things more efficiently or more effectively. We need to strive to be a positive influence on people around us and to ultimately reach our potential.

I wanted to take this opportunity to share some of the best developmental sites that I have come across on the internet and regularly refer to:

Ivan Miser Blog (Founder and Chairman of BNI) – Business Success and Networking

BNI Podcast – Business Networking and Referral

Ted Talks – Top speeches from some of the world’s most influential

Academic Earth -Top Lectures from Universities around the world

Philosophers Notes TV – A great resource about work /life harmony and life success.

There is no excuse to stop learning. If you want to, you can learn about anything and most commonly for free.  From this we can assume that the more we know the better informed our decision making process will be, and consequently the better the outcome.

So if there is anything that I can encourage you to do in Twenty Ten it is to saturate yourself in education and continually improve the person that you are both personally and professionally.  The resources available to you are free, cover almost everything and the opportunities are abundant.

Don’t wait for a promotion in Twenty Ten, strive for something that you want to do and create the opportunity.  Don’t accept mediocrity or the norm because its comfortable, consider what you really want out of life and strive for it – you’re never too old and you’re never too young!  Remember the more you know the better prepared you are for a situation…

“I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.” Winston Churchill

So go and Live it, Learn it and Love it!

Most people who know me know that I am a guitarist/singer and perform ‘the circuit’ as a soloist and in a duo – this is something I have done for a long time now and playing in bars and clubs is something that I am completely familiar with. Last Friday night however it went up a few notches and I played a corporate function to about 300 people in a grand ball room of one of Brisbane’s most prestige hotels. We started at 9:30, finished at 12 and the aim was to keep everyone dancing. This was by far the biggest performance that I had ever done.

Because I burn the candle at both ends, this was an experience that seemingly approached quite quickly. It was different to what I was used to and took me far outside my comfort (or familiarity) zone.

The lead up to Friday night’s performance was pretty chaotic and I didn’t get the time that I needed to invest to be as I confident as I wanted to be. These weren’t regular pub folk out to see a band; they were at a staff Christmas party. Experiencing nerves of which I hadn’t felt for a long time (if ever) I got up and sung my heart out – before I went on I was visualizing it being over – as I was playing I wanted it to keep going.

The higher the risk, the greater the reward; and often before it all begins, you sit there thinking, ‘why am I doing this?!?’.

I’ve never had a ’run-away’ attitude; I’ve never called in sick because of a big night; I’ve never bailed on an uncomfortable situation due to fear. My motto in life has and always will be Persevere. As I expected on Saturday I woke up completely relaxed, like I had achieved something big the previous night and now I could get on with my life. So the moral of the story…

Achieving big things makes smaller things easier. As we attempt bigger challenges what was once big becomes smaller.

To relate this life philosophy to my corporate side, making a $10,000.00 sale can be stressful when you are used to selling $1,000.00. However when you make a $100,000.00 sale it makes the $10,000.00 (once scary) seem less difficult. Then you achieve a $500,000.00 and so on so forth down the line. Constantly striving for something more, makes your smaller challenges become easier. It also keeps life very interesting.

I am a self confessed challenge junkie and if I am not being challenged I am getting bored. This seems to a trait in Generation Y’s and it would appear that the best way to hold on to us in the workplace is to keep those challenges coming.

It’s a fact of life – You can’t reach new highs doing the same thing everyday – What have you done recently to challenge yourself? How did it make you feel and would doing it a second time seem easier?