Stop The Analysis Paralysis. Do Shit.

Folk make this creativity thing too damned tough.

They want models and techniques and very fancy titles. A lot of time is spent deliberating over what is, what if and why?

You don’t need any of that.

Our love of talk about ‘strategies’ and ‘positionings’ in this world of info-mania has become apparent. Talk doesn’t get you there; trying stuff out does.

Yes, get clear on what you want to do. Clarity is a wonderful thing. But then deliver it with focus and the force of 1000 koalas (yes, they bad asses).

One of my clients makes drinks. They had big targets for new products and kept missing them. The pressure was building and the guys were getting sweaty.

Instead of commissioning time consuming research and going for the killer insight they mixed up some new drinks themselves and took them to a Farmers Market.

The feedback was instant and they used it to keep refining their ideas on the fly. They are now killing their targets as they did some shit and stopped talking it.

The decadent dessert manufacturer Gu, designed via their pals at Big Fish, some innovative new packaging.

Gu and the Big Fish wanted to see if it worked. So they nipped into their local Waitrose and put it on the shelves.

They then hid behind some tinned goods and waited in trepidation to see a response. The empire began.

I decided back in 2005 that I wanted to write a book.

I knew what I wanted to write, so I wrote it.

It was no longer a conversation on what could be, but about what I had written.

It was tangible and therefore something they could react to.

I took it to a publisher. Do you want it or not?

In effect, do you like the shit I have done?

My good friend Jeremy once said to me, ‘Chris, there are those that do, and those that don’t’.

I say surround yourself with doers.
The ones who are irrepressible.
The ones who are arsey.
The ones who are annoyingly tenacious.
Their energy is infectious and you’ll be carried on the wave of action.
Stop talking, do it and life will be forever richer.