John Williams, author of Screw Work, Let’s Play: How to do what you love and get paid for it sent me an email the other day (I guess I signed up for something at some point). He’d been inspired to write it following a holiday at a wondeful boutique hotel in Sicily.
I’ve extracted the following inspiring words that will, I hope, help some of my readers find THEIR brilliance and make a business out of it (and I hope John won’t mind that I’ve done this !)
1. Find your brilliance
Find that thing you have a natural ability and enduring passion for (clue: you’ve been doing it in some form your whole life)
2. Accept your brilliance
Even if you don’t shout about it to the world, you must stop pretending you’re nothing special (Brits in particular take note here). Downplaying your strengths short-changes both you and the world and it guarantees you will never rise above the level of ‘good’ to reach brilliant.
3. Develop your brilliance
Take what you’re already good at and enjoy doing and focus all your energy on that. Become superb at it. It’s going to take a while but if you’re “in flow” you’ll have a blast along the way.
4. Create something truly brilliant
Use your talents with the skills and knowledge you’ve developed to create something really special. Focus on something very specific you can excel at. Collaborate with others who are brilliant at the parts you’re weaker at. Producing something is the most important step of all. It doesn’t matter how brilliant you believe you are if you have nothing to show for it.
5. Show the evidence of your brilliance
Occasionally I meet people who tell me how brilliant they are. I’m really not very interested. Tell me what you’ve created or contributed to and what other people have said. Better still don’t tell me, show me by helping me with this skill and knowledge of yours. Or just let me find you by others’ recommendations.
