Читать книгу How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas: Get Curious, Get Adventurous, Get Creative - Chris Barez-Brown, Крис Барез-Браун - Страница 9

For myself, sitting on an island on the other side of the world, I found it difficult to know what my range of possibilities looked like, so I did some homework. I read books, met people, watched films and talked to others about my interests. In doing so, I slowly started to fill in the detail. It was a bit like painting by numbers. While I might never finish the picture, by getting some colours in place, I could get a good feel for what it might look like.

Once I knew what it was that I wanted and what it was that excited me about my opportunities, the key to creating exciting ideas for my future was to fill my life with stimuli and be playful with them. I just experienced these stimuli and noticed what reactions they created in me, without analyzing or trying to understand them. Every reaction gives us some information. Either we want more of it or less of it. If we want more of it, then create it. It’s as simple as that.

Life is complex, and we must listen carefully to what our feelings tell us. If I was to spend all my life sailing, a part of me would be ecstatic, but other parts would be unfulfilled. Life is dynamic, balance is never achieved; it’s about moving towards what is right for us at any given moment. Balance will never be achieved because ‘it’ doesn’t exist.

On my travels, as time went by I noticed that my beliefs were slowly shifting. I came to know that I was in control, that there was no perfect life state that I had to strive for – ‘it’ was now. I learnt that big questions needed to be chunked down into smaller ones in order that I could bring a creative focus to bear on them. The more I experimented the more I realized that if I tried enough approaches, exercises, experiences, I could always come up with new and inspiring possibilities.

This whole journey began with an itch. I knew I had to change course because of that unsettled feeling. I equally knew when I had created an opportunity that inspired me because I felt it, I really felt it. This time it wasn’t an irritating itch that was little understood. It was an ache. It felt like a yearning that had a clear direction. I now knew what I wanted to do and my entire body felt compelled to do it. Once again, this was beyond simple logic, it was visceral.

For some years I had felt annoyed by work being a discrete area of my life where I became somebody else. It was as if I put on the ‘Business Chris’ mask in the morning, adopted new and frankly bizarre language patterns and became the cultural stereotype that I believed would be successful in my business. I noticed the same with my friends and other colleagues. Then every now and again, I saw them become themselves. On those occasions they appeared to be more happy, creating better work and developing better relationships. They seemed whole.

After much exploration I was ready to return home and start my next journey, helping people within businesses to really be themselves in all their glory; to help them self-express, encourage their individuality and get them jumping out of bed in the morning, loving their lives. Even writing this today, I feel the ache, the excitement, that brought me to where I am today; another perfect day. During my travels, I had become more in tune with my energy and intuition, and was soon drawn to learn Reiki. Coincidences became commonplace, the quickening had begun.

I still had some refining to do so I earned my income as a freelance marketing consultant and by teaching and practising Reiki – by now I was a Reiki Master. By teaching Reiki, I came to realize that I now had technical training and facilitation skills, yet I needed a focus and outlet for these.

Consequently, in 1998, I joined ?What If!, a fast-growing group of mavericks who had, like me, been in big business but had felt stifled. They had set up an agency that was all about innovation and inspiring possibility, whether that was for clients, themselves or the world. This book is a culmination of years of exploration. Firstly on my own, and then more profoundly with the talented team that constitutes ?What If! where I’ve been ‘working’ ever since. At ?What If! we don’t put on masks in the morning, we truly are ourselves and are loved for it. I still jump out of bed to work with these guys. I can be me, and the more I am, the better work I do.

How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas is not a book of science and research – that’s just not my bag. It is simple and practical. It is based on work with thousands of people who have come to ?What If! to open the door to their imagination and channel it into their lives so they can create the freedom they deserve. It is a flexible approach that can be as easily applied to creating a new and inspiring future for ourselves, to inventing ways to spend more time with our families or how to present company quarterly results in a way that will excite an audience.

I’m not an academic or a brain expert. I am a man who has been lucky enough to meet some gifted people who have taught me and I have had the good fortune to have built a life based on helping people reclaim their Freedom …

… and I’m a bit of a monkey.

So please don’t take it too seriously – that kind of behaviour should be saved for other books! Some of this is scientifically tested, a lot isn’t.

It just works from experience.