NORTHERN PLANNER

I find it amazing you can become something just by teaching your brain to believe it enough, that's just insane.

Yet if you get into a habit of visualising yourself doing something in a certain way, it's more likely to happen.

Just spend a few minutes every morning, visualising being or doing what you want, then the body will catch up with the mind.

You're a not a fixed point, you're fluid. The limits you set on yourself are really habits.

This is not the same as pretending to be something you're not, though, that's not good. You can't fake experience or confidence.

Nor should you. 

I tried that in my twenties and, well, let's say it wasn't very successful. 

No let's be honest, I was a dick. 

You might be a massive soup of potential, but there is still a you and if you're like me, you're not a visionary, you're not particularly original or talented.

It doesn't matter though, because  being you is your superpower, as long as your willing to explore who 'you really is' and share that honestly. 

You're genes are only slightly different to everyone else, but the experiences that have shaped you are. What motivates you, moves you, makes your angry, this is unique to you.

Your outlook, your upbringing, your loves, your passions, the things that broke your heart, that made you cry, the things that made you feel alive. This who you are at least as much as the anything physical.

(My body has changed shape drastically in the last few years as I've done a little less swimming and lot more cycling. I'm skinnier, smaller shoulders, bigger legs. My DNA has't changed, the experiences I've put my body through have)

All this gets melted into a flowing lava of you, ready to flow out into whatever you're willing really pour yourself into. 

So the more you HONESTLY put yourself into the work, rather than setting out to do something unique, the more chance you have of doing something that will be original anyway.

Because no one else has lived your life. No one feels what you feel. 

The more you put of this into you work, the more it will resonate, because others will feel it too. 

Because people like people, they buy humanity.  

Being human in a pre-programmed world is your weapon.

Being honestly you is your superpower. 

 

Read the usual book and guidelines and you'll get frameworks, process and the myth that if you do it this way, it will all be easy.

No one tells you HOW to work, how to get your mind in a place where answers come, that leap of imagination or connection.

And don't let anyone tell you that strategy isn't about connection or conjuring something out of thin air, because it is.

It's not just about issue, then market, then consumer, (but put culture and real life in here and you're already ahead) then brand then BINGO, core thought. 

It's about seeing something in all that no one else does. Sometimes a more creative act than the creatives. 

To make it harder, there is less and less time to do it.

You'll find your own way to do this, but here is what I do from time to time, apart from starting in a totally different way. 

First, read ALL the reference you can, try the product, talk to people while they buy it, use it. Do it quick, exhaust yourself.

Then immediately start writing a creative brief.

Allow no distractions, do not finish until you've done. 

Just start filling out the box you can answer first, then move onto the next.

Keep going.

You'll soon have a bad brief with little bits of gold, that doesn't hang together.  

Keep going, resolve the contradictions and disconnections until every box is making the same point, albeit in slightly different ways.

Once it makes sense, go back over each box, one by one, until what you write sings.

In other words, get in the Flow.

If you really push yourself, the subconscious that has been taking on board all this information will work for you. The strategy will emerge on the page as you turn crap into gold.

Once you have a page you would want to work on, stop.

Leave it a few hours, recover. Then do one more edit. Nine times out of ten, you'll have a great strategy.

Because freedom limits you. The act of having to put things into limited space and boxes boosts the creative mind.

It's why poetry and Haikus have strict rules and guideline, yet produce some of the most beautiful things human kind has ever produced.

Now all you have to do is find the further evidence you need for what you've written.

Post rationalisaton isn't a crime. Its an art. 

 

The older you get, the easier it is to settle into your comfort zone, because hopefully, the plan is working out.

Yet as soon as you stop moving forward in this industry, you're put out to pasture.

If this has taught us anything about plans, it's that life doesn't always play ball.

But leaving your comfort zone, and maybe the expectations of others, isn't easy. It takes sure footed commitment AND acceptance of uncertainty. 

Now, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm honest enough to admit this. When you understand we're all as confused as each other and how transient things really are, its quite liberating.

Here's what I've picked up:

1. Life is short, regrets are long. Our minds actually hate regret more than change 
2. Uncertainty is stressful, but it makes you feel alive
3. Steal from people you admire but the only role model you should have is you. 
4. Vulnerability is a strength
5. There is never enough time. Everyone has the same amount, not everyone uses it in the same way
6. Time is relative, you'll do more with big chunks of focus and little breaks than you will with lots of distractions and trying to work through fatigue. Tired is stupid
7. Timing is not everything. There is no overnight success, when luck happens, you need to be ready to make the most of it
8. Knowledge is nothing without action. Delegate brilliant but never stop learning to do the do better
9. Hustle, fight for everything. The world is getting tougher
10. Therefore, raise your standards and keep on doing it
11. The clock is ticking forwards, not back and gets faster. Can you hear it?
12. Hate Sitting on your hands more than failing
13. Before you can make believers out of others, make a believer of yourself. Enthusiasm always wins over precision
14. So pour all of yourself into your work
15. Which means love what you do and don't be lukewarm
16. Exercise make you stronger outside as well as inside
17. Boss stress. Your very best requires you to worry most and simultaneously care the least

I'll level with you, I hate starting new projects.

Even now, after all these years, there is that fear that the brief won't get cracked.

I like it now, it forces me to try harder and, since these days I've learned to channel stress into energy, it's a fuel.

Nevertheless, there is nothing scarier than a blank page. 

Years ago, someone told me to get over the initial paralysis by going about every project in a different way.

It frees the mind from the shackles of obvious and makes it easier to get to interesting. 

So that's what I do.
On top of constantly reading stuff that is nothing to do with marketing and everything to do with real life, you know the thing people actually care about, I always change it up. 

Sometimes that's as simple as trying to work to a different communications strategy framework or briefing format.

Sometimes I work to the seven plot concepts. 

Sometimes I actually try and write ads (bad ones) and then work out why I'm writing what I'm writing.

Sometimes I'll try and write the worst strategy and then work out how to make good.

It doesn't really matter. As long as you start with different, you'll end with different. 

When I used to train properly for sport, one of the golden rules was the avoidance of too much repetition. The more the  body gets used to doing the same thing, the less the training effect. 

So most training plans are built on continually dealing the body an unexpected blow it isn't expecting.

Planned shocks to the system.

It's the whole concept of interval training and more.

Long term training plans have variety built in to stop you plateauing. 

And what works for the body, works for the mind. To do your best work, you need to shock the brain out of autopilot.

This is the real problem with proprietary process, it may help the paymasters feel there is some predictability to great work, but the truth is, it gets in the way.

You know the drive to work that you never remember because the mind did it on autopilot? That's the kind of work you run the risk of doing. Just as forgettable as the commute.

That's why 95% of the marketing we expose people to is utter drivel and ignorable. It's all researched the same way, tested (God help us) the same way, made the same way with the same reference points.

We stay interesting by pushing ourselves out of the routine. Leaving what we know behind for a bit.

The challenge of course, is then making it all look like it came from the process so it gets approved. 

I won't tell if you won't. 

 

 

 

We don't like change, we're much more likely to do it when we have no choice. The point when the pain of staying as you are, is greater than the pain of making change happen. 

Turning points tend to box us into a corner when that choice is inevitable.

People don't like change. Corporations totally hate it. 

So these moment showing up in our lives might not always feel great at the time, but we need a find a way to not just endure them, but welcome them. Your world can suddenly open in ways you never expected. 

For you, but also where you work.

We're in a pretty big turning point right now. I hope you're surviving. If so, what are you going to do to make it count?

Did you know your brain can process someone's facial expression in 33 milliseconds (and you don't even know you're doing it)?

Dead fast, but that velocity can also be a problem. 

If you pluck up the courage to say something of actual use in a meeting, the mind is frantically computing all the body language around you, fearing being judged, you can feel the confidence draining mid-sentence. 

It takes years to overcome this, but here's a tip to speed up the process. Imagine them all naked. Seriously, it was taught to me years ago and it works, you feel like the least vulnerable person in the room.  

For obvious reasons, this tactic works less well if you're nervous on a first date. I'll leave that there. 

Anyway. 

The brain has also evolved to hate change. If you have the impulse and don't match it with an action pronto, the brain sounds the alarm, slams on the brakes and slays the idea. 

The problem for most of us is not having ideas or wanting to change things, is not having them, it's acting on those sparks before the brain snuffs them out. 

In other words, the best ideas people are doers too. 

This becomes more important the more senior you get, you're more likely to get set in your ways, there's a reputation to protect, the ego gets bigger. 

That's right, the more experienced brain hates change the most because it has more to lose. 

The reason the action thing works so well is the brain loves to make you feel good about yourself. Anything you actually do, the brain does it's best to justify the action, to save you feeling bad, to save you unnecessary pain.

Its why people notice brands more once they're bought them.

It's why, when you finish a relationship, the times when you were happy end up on the editing floor if you're not careful, as the mind does it's best to make you feel better about being no longer together.

It's also why people stay in bad jobs or relationships too, the mind is quite to protect you from change and stay as you are. 

Actions really do speak louder than words.

So if you really want to ideas to become more than ideas, write them quickly down on Post-It notes, talk to someone you trust immediately, fire off an email. Any physical action.

In other worlds, don't just be a thinker, be a doer. Tell your mind you mean business, that you're prepared to do what is needed to get it done. 

When the mind is one your side, other people are easy, because it will fight like a honey badger to protect you once you've decided.

When you do, you commit.

1. Its lonely, you cannot be just one of the team anymore. 
2. You need to surround yourself with quality – you can't do everything, have people who can do their thing better than you can. You don't have to be the best at anything, apart from bringing out the best in others. 
3. Your ego will be a problem. This one is really tough but essential.The stakes are higher, you'll feel like you can't afford to ever be wrong. Surround yourself with people prepared to tell you what you don't want to hear. However, you need to finally need to decide. No one said it would be easy. The balance between strength and arrogance is wafer thin. 
4. It's much, much less sexy than you think it is
5. You will doubt your abilities, but that doubt will keep you true. 
6. As long as you believe in what you're doing.
7. Which means you need a clear vision. The only question you MUST ask yourself everyday is, "Are we on track?"
8. You'll believe you're the only one going through this. Talk to people who have done this, or who are doing this. 
9. You will never know what to expect. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. 
10. Mistakes are impossible to avoid. Make them as quick as possible. Don't bet the house, make lots of small wagers instead. 
11. You will feel confused a lot of the time. Remember it's the struggle that makes us feel fulfilled, not the victory. 
12. You'll have to battle the need to compare yourself. Be the first of you rather than the second of someone else. 
13. You won't work from 9-5. 
14. There is no back up, the buck stops with you, it will take some getting used to. Yet you need to delegate. No one said this would be easy. 
15. There is no such thing as an overnight success. Luck does happen, yet you need to be prepared to make the most of that when it comes. 
16. Not everyone is cut out to be a leader. Ask yourself why you want it. If its the ego, remember what happened to Gordon Brown when he finally became PM. If it's the money, remember that once you earn over £50k in the UK (a dream for many I know) it doesn't really make you much happier. 
17. Did I say your ego will be a problem? 

Viktor E. Franks, neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor,  wrote Man's Search for Meaning after he was liberated in 1945. It was a dedication to people who keep going, even through the darkest of times.

He found that if people had a positive purpose in their lives, linked to very specific goal, they were able to endure pretty much anything that got in the way. He named it a 'concrete assignment'.

With a goal, no one could stop you, if you properly committed to it, visualised and imagined what it would feel like to properly achieve your life's work. 

No matter what fate hurled your way, you could push through it.

 

Powerful stuff.

 

First point, ignore all the naval gazing about brand purpose, especially the PR folks trying to carve out some sort of stupid niche in doing good rather than selling stuff.

It's a blatant a play to own the 'brand conversation.  Like media agencies using the word 'content' to steal making stuff from creative agencies.

I'm been in the internal meetings where these sort of plots are hatched. Trust me on this.

Purpose matters, but it's less to do with manipulated data on trust.

It provides focus.

Its about getting the internal bit right THEN externalising it. 

 

Every brand in trouble I ever worked on has one of two problems.

They either got lazy and forgot to keep their 'Why' in tune with the rhythms of their customers's lives. This can be turned around with work. 

Or worse, they had forgotten why they started in the first place. This is a catastrophe.

 

A shared goal makes your people more committed, so your 'why' never gets forgotten. 

Committed people form a stronger culture, they do better work, because the work feels less like work.

They like hanging out together too, you have a team, not just staff. 

 

And people buy from people.

When you start externalising that culture, you stand out for naturally being great in a world that still has to make it up. You document rather than create. You make people feel something, rather than just buy something, which actually makes them buy more.

Not because they can quote The Grand Brand Mission (please) in a tracking study, they think of you first because we remember how we feel far more than what we are told. 

 

 

Then there's you. 

 

You don't get very far without some innate qualities, no matter where you're going. Yet it's seductively easy to lose your mojo if it isn't personal. Talent for craft is OK, but talent to keep at it is gold. 

Will is a weak force. To stay motivated, you need to feel it, you need to care. You need to be willing to fight for it. 

That's what gets you through to horrible bits. 

 

These questions are worth considering: 

What gets you up in the morning?

What are you passionate about?

What makes you angry?

What do you like to talk about?

What are you curious about? 

 

Do you leave these things at the door when you enter the workplace? 

Do you keep these things hidden in your personal life?

Honestly, do you get to immerse yourself in what makes you come alive? 

 

The energy to get things done is directly related to how much it matters to you. 

 

Me?

I've learned not to do anything just because it fits in with other expectations. 

Enthusiasm is infectious, if you love something, it rubs off on others.

I want people to like me for who I am and who I could be, nothing more. 

I'm seeing the difference between what I must do, what I need and what I love. Working out how to align them. 

I'm rediscovering what my core is, so I can align that properly with the the people I care about, the people I'm yet to meet and the need to keep a roof over little heads. 

And I because of this, I have more energy than ever. 

Time. It's the only thing you can't buy.

You'll find as you get older, as the work gets higher pressure, there are more demands on it than ever. 

Honestly, it doesn't get any easier and you're no less confused. Its just that when the buck stops with you more, you have no choice but to sort your shit out. 

I thought I was busy until I had kids, now I wish I had done more with all that time as a dawdling flaneur.

Here's how I flail though things these days. 

Create a ritual for mornings. Always know how you'll start the day. You can't control most of your day, but you can control how it starts. Drink water. Get a small win, when you feel good about yourself, you perform better, it could be as simple as making the bed for once. Exercise, it doesn't matter what, just do something, the happy endorphins are better than any drug. Look at what you need to achieve today, decide what must be done by you and what you can delegate.

Work in surges. Do 25 minutes of work, then 5 minutes break. The break helps you maintain focus for more of the day. Of course, if you're on a roll, keep going. 

Which means allowing yourself to Get into the Groove. Know what gets you into your Flow State. Create the conditions for that to happen. Music works for many – sometimes that might mean listening to the same play list every time you want to do Deep Work. I'm better in the mornings, even better straight after exercise, I work with that rather than against. 

Make mundane tasks all or nothing. Do one big shop, plan it. Do one mammoth house clean. Diarise one massive admin session a week.

Say no to meetings without an objective. Meetings suck time. Don't attend any without a defined point to them. 

Check your email less. If people really want you, they'll come talk to you or phone. Social media, even more so. Tell Slack to fuck off. 

Reward yourself. Without a treat, you'll lose the will. Give yourself a couple of hours of time for you if you can. Tired is stupid.

Develop a night ritual. I'm still working on this. For an hour before I go to sleep, ideally,  there are no devices, or screens. Its time to read or talk. Which in turn helps me sleep better. I'll get there. 

Don't beat yourself up. Learn from what is working and what is not. No one is perfect, it takes time to find your own rhythm.

Focus on the hour ahead, not the day. Once you’ve prioritised in the morning, live in the moment.  Take care of the hours and the days will start to take care of themselves. Any challenge is easier when broken down into chunks. 

 

Just outside my village there's a very steep little hill, it's an effort to get up there by foot for most.

On the bike, it's murderous. I know I'm some sort of form when I can zip up without gasping for air.

Right now, I am not in form.

So I do it ten times in a row regularly in the hope my legs will begin to remember what they're suppose to be doing. 

It's not for everyone, but you find out about yourself when you climb, there are no hiding places.

Not just how strong you might be, how much of a beating you're prepared to take, how much the mind can master the body. 

Sometimes in life you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail. Climbing teaches you to be the hammer. 

When you get into a rhythm the body works with the mind, not against it, you forget what you're doing, yet you're completely present. 

All sorts of thoughts stuff comes into my head, with a sharp clarity that eludes me at other times. Issues, tensions, challenges, ideas. You are stripped of all the extraneous stuff and its just you laid bare. 

On physical and mental level, lots of questions are asked and answered.

If you don't want to find out, stay at the bottom of hill.