Since posting that last blog about the bees and what we can change in the world with our creative works, it seems like I’ve been inundated with activist information through newsletters, radio programs, Facebook postings, newspapers (yes, I actually pick up newsprint on occasion–its kind of fun and different these days.) and emails. A lot of it has been touching upon health issues, which, as some of you know, was a big focus for me personally these past few years. Its amazing how motivated you can be to find out what keeping healthy really means when your health is slipping away from you.

So I thought, since the universe has been shoving it in my face via all kinds of media this week, I’d share some websites and information that I heartily encourage you all to check out and make your health the primary subject this month.

What does this have to do with being creative and living a creative life? Keeping healthy is a major factor in being able to produce creative work. If you don’t feel well, can’t think, have pains that keep you from sitting at the computer or using your crafting tools, you aren’t going to be able to produce the kind of work you really want to. Your visions will be truncated by those moments when you just want to get it done so you can go rest. You will avoid using particular tools or techniques because its too physically trying. You may miss deadlines and lose clients because you just can’t keep up with the work. Yep, good health is key. As Count Rugen says in The Princess Bride, “If you haven’t got your health, then you haven’t got anything.” Of course Rugen is commenting on Prince Humperdink’s ability to follow through on his evil plans, but whether you have plans for starting a war or writing your next great book, the state of your health will have a direct impact on what you produce.

In the next few posts I will talk about a few quick and easy changes you can make in your life to ensure you have  more enjoyable and productive days. If you suffer from aches, weariness, memory problems, depressive episodes, digestive issues, anxiety, blood sugar instabilities, ADD/ADHD, etc. much of what I will talk about can help diminish these ailments. The small changes I’ll suggest will also reduce the likelihood of many types of cancer, alzhiemer’s, dementia, diabetes, and osteoporosis as well as alleviate allergies and disgestive problems.

If you’re anxious to get started now, start by educating yourself about the chemicals you expose yourself to. Here are a few sites with plenty of food for thought, so to speak:

Find out what foods are exposing you to huge amounts of pesticides and toxic chemicals: http://whatsinmyfood.org/index.jsp

Start by buying organic when it comes to what the EWG calls the ‘DirtyDozen’: http://www.foodnews.org/methodology.php

Get a water filter pitcher or faucet attachment to reduce your exposure to the insane multitude of toxins, medications, hormones, and heavy metals in our drinking water: http://www.consumersearch.com/water-filters (And no, bottled water is not safer than filtered tap, and is, sometimes, nothing but unfiltered tap water, not to mention a major contribution to plastic waste: http://www.ewg.org/reports/BottledWater/Bottled-Water-Quality-Investigation)

See where your favorite shampoo, lotion, and cosmetics rank on this personal care products safety list and make a customized shopping list of the best alternatives: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/search.php

So, about 6 months ago I decided I needed to see what this hullabaloo about this book Outliers is all about. I skimmed a copy at the bookstore but didn’t get much from the skim except a niggling feeling that I might be sorry if I actually put money out for it, so I put in a request for the checked out copy at my local library. Apparently, I was not the only person on the wait list and/or it’s not a quick read because I’m still waiting for it. What is really apparent is that this is a really popular book. But I don’t get why.

From all the reviews I’ve read, the book basically tells you that if you aren’t successful now, you never will be, that your ability to succeed is based on things that are out of your control such as your upbringing and culture. What the he**? Who would write a book like this and market it to the general public as useful and insightful information? I mean, maybe it will reduce a few people’s stress level because now they can tell their spouse they can’t get a decent job because it was preordained by their past but seriously, why present someone’s ability to succeed as fatalistic? I have begun to suspect the book is an evil communist plot to keep us driven capitalists from trying to do anything worthwhile anymore. Seems a proper Batman inspired storyline, eh?

Now, keep in mind that I haven’t read the book so there may be a positive, uplifting lining to it that no one is bothering to chat about in the reviews (there were a number of unsubstantiated comments about it being “uplifting” that smelled strongly of marketing hype) but my impression is that this book is a nothing but a lot of repressive rhetoric. Except to those that may see themselves as one of those blessed successful types, then it is elitist affirmation. Bully for you, Trump.

My point is, does it really matter whether our backgrounds, upbringing, social circles, and the capricious nature of luck has anything to do with how well we succeed? Are you going to stop trying because where you come from looks nothing like where Bill Gates came from? Are you going to tell your kid she can never be a doctor because people from your background are doomed to be ditch diggers?

The whole premise of the book seems to ignore the most essential part about success. Our need to strive for what we want, the intense satisfaction we get from achieving, and the elevated value of the gain we get from reaching our goals because we had to work at it. If you get everything by luck, would you have any pride or get any real happiness from what you have? Just look at the many big lottery winners in the years after their major stoke of luck. They aren’t happy–many are ruined. Then look at our President. I can’t say that he’s happy (I wouldn’t be under that much stress!) but you know he’s got to be damn proud of what he’s accomplished.

Ignore Outliers, I say.  Your life is what you make of it. And just trying is the greatest measure of a successful life.

I am a busy person. Always have been. Give me a free afternoon and I will immediately overfill it. I have too many interests and too many things I want to do and try before I leave this world. But just getting done the things I have to do, not everything I want to do, can be a challenge. So I’ve tried many tricks and techniques and oddball processes to get more time out of my day, but I have never found anything more useful than this one simple thing: The priority list.

Even if you don’t believe yourself to be a list maker, you need to try this. It’s very simple, very easy to do, and astoundingly effective:

Every night (or morning, although I personally sleep better if I make the  list the night before so I don’t lay awake worrying about all I have to do) make a list of all you must get done and want to get done the next day.  I dash off my to do items on a wipe off board, then using my pda phone because I have it on me all the time, I make a list from most important to least. Make this list however it suits you, but make it a list organized by priority and have it on something you can carry with you all day, like a piece of paper (oh, how novel!).

Next day, after your morning rituals, you do the first thing on the list. When that’s done, you do the next thing. And after that, the next item, and so on until you are either done with the list or your day is over.

Sounds too simple to be effective? Well, if you try it, actually follow your list, you will find you can get done amazing amounts of things, more than you ever have before. Why is this? Because when we don’t know what we’re going to do next, when we don’t have a focus, we are easily distracted and dally about (often on-line or at the refrigerator door, right?) while we figure out what to do next. Plus there is all that catch up and repair time spent on things you remembered or waited to do at the last minute and now you’re playing catch up or picking up after the bedlam your mad rush caused. Working randomly is simply inefficient.

Just try it for one day. See how exciting and accomplished you will feel when you look at your list at the end of the day and see all those items crossed off and no longer hanging over your head. If it works try it again the next day. By the end of the week you’ll see just how much more you’ve gotten done, and you’ll be hooked.

It’s not about you, your company, your product or service, or your reputation. At least not initially. When a potential customer/client first encounters you, it’s never “I wonder what great things this person/company offers?”, it’s “Is there anything here for me?”

When aiming to gain new sources of income from your market, one of the first things you will need to do is put your ego in a tightly sealed container and put it far out of reach. I think this is particularly hard for creatives to do this because what we’re selling is ourselves, our vision, our talent, and sometimes even our personalities. But you won’t reach many people by simply saying, “Hey I’m great and I have great stuff to offer you—come see!”

Draw new clients and customers in by appealing directly to their egos. Make it all about them getting the attention and giving the opportunity to feed their egos. Here are some basic ideas to get you thinking about your customers focused campaign:

Give ‘em something to talk about: People love to laugh, be surprised, and be shocked and they love to share sources of such entertainment. Remember the big, hairy biker dude who modeled the wedding dress on Ebay? That dress sold for 30x what he hoped to get plus all the attention (he got radio and TV time!) and marriage proposals. Why? Because the picture of him in that dress was both hilarious and a little shocking. Stuff like that is the online version of gossip and people like to talk about what they’ve found. So give them something to talk about and whole sections of the market you weren’t directly tied into will come to you.

Get an opinion: You know what they say about opinions and it’s true. Everyone has one and most people love the opportunity to share it. Perhaps you can ASK your Tweeple to tell you what they think about your latest website templates instead of just announcing you posted them in your store. This gets people going to your site as well as giving you valuable input for future work. Or post a blog about an issue that the industry you write for would get fired up about, asking for feedback so you can start a conversation with new people. Having a conversation means you are building a relationship that you can use to directly and personally access your potential new clients.

Get their story: Yep, people do like to talk about themselves, so go ahead and ask them to do so on your site or blog or even your Twitter page as a start. If you’re writing a book about fly fishing, ask for comical fly fishing stories to draw them to the site where you sell your book. Or better yet, ask before you even write it to gain more fodder for the book and an instant street team when the book comes out as people will tell their friends and networks about the book their story is in.

How you will appeal to potential clients/customers will differ greatly depending on your market. Just consider what gets the riled up, how they like to be entertained, what they talk about most, and where they congregate both on and off line. And then get creative. It’s what you do best. And just keep chanting the mantra “It’s all about them.”

We all have at least one critic, that voice in your head that constantly gripes about your work not being good enough, not being marketable, not professional looking, not original enough, and blah, blah, blah. Critical voices have their uses: They can help keep you on task, remind you of the client/market’s needs, and keep you looking for ways to improve your work. But most of the time, these jerks in your head  just distract you, stress you out, and force you to play it safe instead of following your instincts, seriously hampering your creativity and stopping you from growing your skills and talent.

With the critic is in your head, it seems nearly impossible to get away from it. But you can. It takes a little effort and on some days, it will take a little time, but you will work smoother, more creatively, and faster if you can muzzle it for a while.

Here are some things you can try that can quiet down the critic–

• Practice your craft first thing in the morning, before coffee or news or email or even getting out of bed if you can. When your brain is still groggy, you are less likely to be self-critical due to your brain not producing much in the way of beta waves (present with critical and anxious thinking). And that state of mind tends to stay with you during the day–it’s like setting a default state of mind by making it your first experience of the day.

• If your critic is really mouthing off and you can’t get anything done, do something different, something either energy releasing or calming. I like to dance, sing or sketch. For some people, a jog helps, or playing a purely reactive (not problem solving) video game, or cooking. Do whatever switches you to a calmer, more open state of mind.

• Displace the critic in your head with a live voice. Share your project with someone you trust and ask for them to give you their impression (not their critique). Another person’s feedback will help you see your work in a new light. The process of having to explain  your work in answer to a question or to explain your reasoning will force you to spell out what you are doing–something that doesn’t usually occur when it’s just you and the voices in your head. You should be able to see more clearly after this, but just be careful not to let that one person’s opinion become a new critic in your head. It’s just one person’s opinion.

• Take nap. This will reset your brain. And when you wake, stay laying down with your eyes closed and let your mind wander over the issues with your project, let if free transfrom the images or the storyline and see what comes up. I’ve solved more design problems this way than with anything else.

You don’t need to shut up your critic permanently but, especially at the beginning of a project when you should just be focused on getting forms, colors, words and ideas down, being too self-critical can really cut you off from all the possibilities. Invite your critic back when it’s time for final editing and touch ups. That’s when its useful.

Client’s love to have things bolded … in advertisements, in their books, in brochures, their logos, in blog posts … it doesn’t matter what, they just want their words to have force. They can never trust that the words will do it on their own. THEY HAVE TO MAKE THEM SHOUT. See how annoying that is?

Even at art fairs and conventions, people love hanging those big vinyl banners out. Or they have somebody loudly coercing people to come into their booth. It’s obnoxious and does not make people want to buy, much less listen. What gets a person to come to you, to listen to your client’s message, or buy your artwork is just showing them the solution to their problem is with in reach or that you have an object they desire (even if they didn’t know it).

My favorite example of this kind of thing is the Google home page. Google is about searching for something. Their page is about searching for something. Their page is mostly white space. It does not presume to tell you what you want to know. It leads you directly to its primary product and the thing that you desire to find most on this page, the search box. They don’t shout about all the things the service can find for you or make it so pretty and slick you forgot why you came. The page says, here, search and below the box, a few links, humbly offered like little gifts to help you search further. And as we all know, Google is the most widely used search engine in the world. That page is a huge part of their success.

So, no shouting. Show your customers (or your client’s) what they want to see, not what you (or your client) wants them to see and they will stick around long enough to hear what you have to say next.

Sounds like it could be a bad horror movie, but fear of the blank page (metaphorical in the case of computer graphics and 3-d work of course)  is a real affliction. There shold be 12 step programs and weekend long retreats where the afflicted are surrounded by unaltered materials and computers with not a word on them. There is just something about a virgin sheet of paper, the perfectness of a block of clay not yet cut, a empty square on the computer screen that can just freezes a person. I know. I use to be one of them.

It really isn’t a fear of the nothingness before me that would keep me from starting a project. I have never been bereft of ideas. But rather I was afraid that the perfect picture in my mind would not come out whole, would morph into some mutilated twin who rise up to chase off the beautiful one forever from my mind. I knew that as soon as I put pencil to paper or start hitting the computer keys that empty space would be permanently transformed and the birth of a new creation had begun. There is no stopping it then. Even if I did stop what I was doing, whatever was before me would be my creation, my child of sorts. And for years, I put way too much value on each and every thing I transformed.

I am still this way to an extent. I do hold a great reverence for ‘what could be’ and sometimes will take a moment to savor the possibilities before getting to work. But I have learned to be more excited about seeing what will come of my attempts than worried about failing my vision. As a matter of fact, I have found that letting the vision guide me rather than trying to bring it to life wholesale results in most remarkable final creations.

And I get a lot more done too.