Everything around you was created by someone
- Write your own story. It will change, but start with an outline.
- Create something every day.
- Who’s it for? What’s it for? What change am I trying to make?
Your life is an adventure novel. Think about it. There are highs, and lows. Villans and heros. Challenges to be overcome, and battles to be won and lost. It’s been an adventure since day 1. It doesn’t matter what stage of life you’re at now, it’s still an adventure tomorrow. But most people let the adventure happen to them. Life is a create your own adventure novel. If you’re not sure what that is, let me take a moment to explain.
Back when I was a kid, we had these adventure books that were around 250 or 300 pages long. What made them different was each page was designed to be a part of the adventure in itself, and at the bottom of the page, you had a choice: Turn to page 23 if you want to escape, or turn to page 71 if you want to fight. It was a choose your own adventure!
The best thing about life, is this exact thing. You get to choose your own adventure, but rather then stumbling through life, choosing from one of two options as they present themselves, you can plan your life out. Choose your own adventure. So take a moment and write out what you want the adventure of your life to be. Let me give you a framework that I learned in a Masterclass from James Patterson:
- Start with an outline.
- Write in as much juicy stuff as possible.
- Write the story down, but don’t detail out the sentences.
- Write down the scenes:
- a. Something that grabs you
- b. Scenes like a movie, then organize
- c. Keep in mind it is all possible
- Then flesh out a little.
- a. Do mulitple drafts
- b. Each time fill in more details, make it larger or more
- If you reveal early, or have success early, still have somewhere to go. Don’t write yourself into a corner.
- Make notes:
- a. Things that are essential to get right
- b. What do you need to feel, what do you need to do, to make it work?
- What happens to you, through the length of your story?
- What is happening in the world, while all this is happening to you?
- Remember, this is an outline, it should make sense, but it’s not written in stone.
- The bigger the challenge, the more interesting the story.
- Solving the really impossible problems is how you get rich.
- Re-read it. You have a skeleton, a framework. It should make sense.
- Start!
One of the parts of my own story is to be creative. Mary once told me that business is how I create. I’d never looked at it that way, and it’s true. But you don’t have create the way I create, but I do find it helpful to create every day. Most of my creation is expressed in dreaming, planning, and writing, but not all of it. I am creative in meetings, in interacting with people, in how I shape my day. It’s something I learned from Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin. As you know one of the reasons I’m doing this is to create a record of how I think, how I’m evolving, and how I grow.
These great men had journals. They published. They wrote down what they were thinking. They both had gifts, and one of those gifts was the access to paper and ink, and then using them. You and I have access to unlimited digital ink, so I’ve decided to use it. I’m not comparing myself to either of them, but they are great teachers that anyone can learn from. Both were ahead of their time in the way they thought, approached the world, and communicated with others. There is much to learn, and much to create in this world, beyond what either of them could ever dream.
Creation doesn’t always come easy though. Sometimes you will feel down, or uninspired, or just plain lazy. That’s all OK. If you know why you’re creating, that makes things easier. I’m creating this for my children, and my children’s children.
But if you get stuck in your creation process, you can ask yourself:
a. Who’s it for?
b. What’s it for?
c. What change am I trying to make?
These three questions will guide you in the difficult times of staring at a blank page, a blank canvas, an empty screen. One of the most amazing things about creating is if you’re disciplined about it, and practice your craft, you will naturally get better at it, whatever it is. Whatever you create, the more you create, the more creative you will be. But be sure to get feedback, learn from others, and continue to grow. Eventually you will plateau, and you need to change things up to break through that barrier.
