From Gus - The Possibility Hunter

Imagine this:  It’s the last round of your Olympic diving event.  You’re winning.  You’re home crowd is ready for you to complete a clean sweep of your sport for your country – the first in over a century.  Even if your last dive is ugly someone has to do something exceptional – unprecedented even – to beat you.   It is, and they do.

This is exactly what happened to the unfortunate Zhou Luxin.  Australian Matt Micham nailed the highest scoring dive in Olympic history to steal Gold.  (Watch it here)

Ouch.

To make things worse, Zhou Luxin was also the speed-bump in the road of a Chinese clean sweep at the 2007 worlds.  Ouch and ouch.  Could you get back on the horse after such a tumble?

I’m not sure I could, so I very much enjoyed Failure is an Integral Part of Success from the Urban Monk.net.  It provides seven excellent ideas for dealing with failure.  (It also has lots of other interesting stuff so take your time looking around while you’re there)

Watch out for Zhou and his horse diving in London in 2012.   “… I’m still young. I can draw lessons from this competition to help my future life.”

From Gus - The Possibility Hunter

I have two confessions.

Firstly, when I want the ridiculous– and I usually want the ridiculous so much I’d hold my breath until I bled from the eyeballs to possess it– all I need to do is think the word ‘just’ and any crazy desire feels quite justified.

Try it out for yourself. Repeat after me: I just want to devote the next decade to acquiring cool ninja skills. Hey, Gus, if you want them that much, why not?  It will definitely help you meet girls.

Secondly, my subconscious is smarter than me and I’m regularly suckered by its linguistic voodoo.   (Although I wasn’t fooled on this occasion, you’ll be glad to know, even though I was only 17 at the time.)

What language do you use to fool yourself and others? Check out  Tim Brownson’s The Discomfort Zone.  He will open your eyes to how your language – be it water cooler chat or internal monologue – is tripping you up.

The Discomfort Zone is one of my favourite blogs, so when you’re done with this article, make sure you spend plenty of time checking the rest of it out.

From Gus - The Possibility Hunter

Suffering from Olympic withdrawal? Did those elite athletes pushing the envelope of human ability inspire you to push your own little envelope a bit more? Did the valiant competitors who lost honorably inspire you to try a little bit more? Fail a little bit more? Err, I mean compete a little more honorably? Me too.

Sadly, it’s all over. Yep, TV has returned to its usual self. (Sigh.) So, as the civilized world has done since the dawn of time (1999) we turn our attention back to our RSS feeds and YouTube looking for that spark of inspiration.

I recommend Curious? Read and its post “The Five Most Inspirational Videos on YouTube.” It’s good and it saves a lot of YouTube trawling. At first glance the videos may not seem like obvious choices (Will Smith? But I’m always inspired to get jiggy!) but when you get into them… As the disclaimer on the post says:

“Play these as needed. Warning: you might be inspired to greatness, so use with caution.”

What, not great yet? Maybe you need to revisit the in-house inspirational movies and tickets to greatness, the Eight Irresistible principles of Fun, and the 5.75 Questions you’ve been avoiding.

From Gus - The Possibility Hunter 

“There’s a mermaid with black hair on my head.  And you’re the daddy.  And it says “bang bang bang”. Roarrr! Yay!  Shoes, shoes.”

Er… what?  OK, thanks, son.

My two year old, like all two year olds, lives outside the square, but likes to visit me inside it. He’s perpetually in that place between wanting to understand everything and being out there.  Way, way out there.  It’s a contradiction that generates untold creativity. And he doesn’t need to try at all.

Non-parents, I’d like to share more random outbursts to help you with your creativity, but alas, they tend to loose impact when translated into blog-sperian.  But not all is lost!

Check out Embracing Creative ADD and Thinking Inside the Circle  from Jonathan at ‘Illuminated Mind’.  This provides a faster, cheaper and more focussed approach for those who haven’t got a handy two-year-old.

While you’re there you can check out the rest of his excellent blog.  It’s well worth a look around or a subscription

From Gus - The Possibility Hunter

While the Olympics have always been inspiring (‘Faster, higher, stronger’), Beijing looked like it was only going to inspire me to sit around for a couple of weeks watching late night sport. (So that’ll be for me ‘slower, fatter, tireder’).

Oscar Pistorius turned that around though. (If you don’t know about this awesome athlete, you can read about him here. To cut a long story short he’s a double amputee who can match it with the worlds fastest. “He’s on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage.” Sadly, it looks like he won’t actually be at the able-bodied Olympics, but don’t let that blunt the inspiration!

How can you make disadvantage an advantage?

I’m guessing you’re like me and don’t have the skill, willpower, or lycra overalls to become an elite athlete. However, you probably don’t have Postorius’ obstacles to overcome either. But the best news is, you probably don’t need to turn weaknesses into strengths. A little overcoming of obstacles will do. Check out ten tips from My Super-charged Life that might help you.

From Gus - the Possibility Hunter

Back in my teaching days I’d try to do something funny everyday. It wasn’t that I needed to entertain my audience, rather I needed a little creative outlet for entertaining myself. Obviously it doesn’t take much to appease my creative tendencies. On some days I’d crack up my audience (I mean class) on others I’d be chuckling very much on my own.

Now I have new and probably more creative outlets, but I still tend to run hot and cold. Sometimes the creativity flows like Willy Wonka’s chocolate river, but other times it’s like icy Siberian winds. So, I’ve found it’s always a good idea to have a creativity booster handy to start that choccy river a-runnin’.

That’s why I’d like to recommend Creative Every Day. Leah Piken Kolidas has an excellent blog that always gives me a little creative jump start, plus she’s responsible for the Creative Everyday 2008 Challenge, an excellent idea.

Check out her blog for details.

From Gus - The Possibility Hunter

Ever had one of those days? Naturally. How about consecutive ‘those days’? Yep. Then on the third day you wake up and the kids’ parrot is dead, asphyxiated on a half digested USB drive, the only record of your toils in the last two hellish days… and it’s your responsibility to tell young Lily that Pedro the Cockatoo is dead. And it’s her birthday.

If you’re like me your day becomes all about scrambling to undo the disasters that have beset you while turning around your run of bad luck. But – shock, horror – your rationalization doesn’t work and being proactive is just hard work.

So what to do? Let me suggest you check out these blogs:

1. Organize It (Practical advice on personal development)

Here’s a simple, to-the-point list of how to get over one of those days. Sadly, there are no avian CPR tips.

2. Life is a Journal – Self Help for Lazy People

This might help you keep it in perspective and move on. Have you ever seen someone blow a gasket over something that doesn’t matter? Well, in the darkest hour of that third consecutive bad day, there’s a good chance you’re that guy.

Happy coping, readers.

From Gus - The Possibility Hunter

It’s not often you can recommend a book before you’ve read it. And this is not one of those moments. But here are a couple of excellent book concepts, that make it clear that just departing from the ‘typical’ can set your work apart. So, without the hassle of actually reading anything…

1. Johnny Bunko by Dan H. Pink. It’s a career guide, but with a twist: It’s Manga – that’s Japanese-style cartooning to the uninitiated. This one inspired me to commission a new portrait for the blog, just to do something different.

2. How to Be a Complete & Utter Failure in Life, Work & Everything: 39 1/2 Steps to Lasting Underachievement.

Who would have thought it would take so many steps? If you’re sick of squeaky-clean de-toxed self-help propaganda… this might work for you. You can preview some of the book at the ‘The Next 45 Years’ along with some other excellent books.

So, what can you do to make your work stand out? Stay tuned for next month’s contemporary dance video-post of my favourite blog posts from around the web.

From Gus - The Possibility Hunter

Scott H Young has inspired me to pick up that unfinished novel which has been collecting dust at the back of my C:// drive.

I started five years ago, with the secret dream of being the next Dan Brown, but after a flourish of activity… I stopped. Why?

Well, my goal - sell a bazillion books and never work again - was as frightening as it was inspiring. If I became more popular than Sudoku, people might realize I’m not that smart, talented or interesting. Plus it got hard after the first ten chapters.

Now, if I think of my book as ‘a project’, and not necessarily the means to achieve that goal, there’s a lot less pressure, and the words come a lot more easily. Thanks for the tip, Scott. You can check out some of his other tips at his excellent blog Get More From Life .

So I’ve reclaimed the keyboard, but I know I’m unlikely to outsell J.K. Rowling. Either way that’s OK, even if it means I may have to keep the ol’ day job. Keep your eye on Amazon.

What pony can you rename ‘Project’ and how far can you ride it?

From Gus - The Possibility Hunter

I’m a big fan of Dr Seuss and I love ‘Oh,The Places You’ll Go’.

Read it and you’ll get off your Lorax and get started on your Great Work.

Except when you don’t. Because sometimes you won’t.

But it also takes you to the darkest place in Seuss-topia. A place called “The Waiting Place”. Oh the horror! It’s where you spend hour after hour waiting for buses, The Big Break, winning lottery numbers, some extra cash or “…a pair of pants or a wig with curls” (even Dr Seuss’ dark places have a fat slice of the ridiculous!)

Are you stuck in The Waiting Place? Just can’t get started on that awesome project?
Why not use your hiatus to visit Growing Happiness and check out their tips for avoiding procrastination? Set a starting deadline for your next project and write your own bus-ticket out of The Waiting Place.

Or if you are just into taking a break (as opposed to waiting) you could try the ‘Oh The Places You’ll Go’ online game. Or find out more about the ‘political’ Dr Seuss and his Oscar winning documentary ‘Design for Death’.

If you don’t know what you’re waiting for, why not begin that unexpected masterpiece no one knows is in you?