Create Something Outrageous Today

First published on September 25, 2019

It was three years ago last Sunday that I decided to make this practice of writing an article in 12 minutes (they were on the train then) weekly. The five posts before that were an experiment, designed by me and my coach at the time, to help me break through my fear of sharing myself with the world. Then, having come back from holiday (two weddings, one in Ibiza and one in Bulgaria), I made the decision to create a weekly practice. The first post of the weekly practice was shared on 22nd September 2016.

This Monday, on 23rd September 2019, I sent off a collection of those pieces - there are 130 of them - to my friend Steve, a copy editor. They have been edited (briefly, don't worry) by me and rearranged into a book. The book will be called I Wrote This Book in 12 Minutes. Because it's funny and because it carries a message: you can do crazy things. You just have to start and then keep going and then finish. That's how I arranged the 130 articles, too: to support people to go get things like that done.

As I was writing the acknowledgments section (in 12 minutes, don't worry), I was thanking the coaches I've worked with over those three years. Joel, whose creative coaching led to the original practice. Katie, who has supported me through the creation of the book (and much more) in the last year and a bit. And in between them, Rich. About Rich I found myself writing something like: 'for teaching me that if you have an idea, you can just make create it, not matter how outrageous it may seem.' That felt like the message of working with Rich (or at least one of them). My mum commented on it as we spoke about my work at the time, getting a sense for that energy of 'you can do it'.

It's the second time I've talked about that in the last week. Last Friday I was telling my friend Petia (whose wedding I was at in Bulgaria three years ago) about my new group coaching programme, The Genius Accelerator. She commented on how laid back I was about how it would all work. In fact, until yesterday, I hadn't even told anyone about it apart from the three participants who I've been working with for the last 6 weeks or so and another potential memeber who decided it wasn't for them right now. The Genius Accelerator is an experiment for me, just like the Train Series was three years ago. Supporting people to find their Zone of Genius is - I believe - one of the most important parts of our work. In fact, as I say on my website when talking about the group, in light of the incredibly complex challenges facing the human race in the modern world (from dealing with the environment questions, to the number of people who might be able to access nuclear weapons, to what happens to the psychology of humans when faced with the online connection world, to why our political systems are creaking all over the West), it is a moral imperitive that we all find the place where we are best suited to contribute and then make a contribution. That we do our part in steadying this ship we are all on. Finding my Zone of Genius was a big part of my journey to doing this work that I love, although I didn't call it that then, and I love to do that work with clients.

But The Genius Accelerator was also a story about believing that we can just create things. And, again, in some ways that's what I learnt from Rich. Partly that was because he has done so much great work with coaches, so he knows, for a business like mine, exactly how to create things. I can have, for instance, a rolling enrolment to a group coaching programme (so new members can join the programme when they are ready). But more than that I can choose. I can choose when to do that and when to do something else (The Genius Accelerator has a rolling entry, for example, but The Coach's Journey, my group programme for coaches, offers something different).

And I can choose based on what I think is best for others and what I think is best for me.

And although I was helped to learn this by an expert in building coaching businesses, it doesn't just apply to coaching. You can choose, too, what you create and on whose terms. You can choose those things far, far, far more than you think. And that's exciting.

You can choose to create something outrageous, something unusual. You can just create it, show it to the world and see what happens. Sometimes it morphs into something wonderful that may be part of your work and life for years to come; sometimes, for whatever reason, it doesn't become quite what you think.

The only question then, is, what will you create?