The Big Love Experiment

Uncategorized No Comments

One of my mentors, Suzy Greaves, has today launched her Big Love Experiment. As she explains it,

I’m Suzy Greaves and at 41, after 16 years of marriage, I’ve split up with my husband. With new figures showing that one in every two marriages fails – I’m not alone.

I’m part of a new army of people looking for love. The Big Love Experiment is a journey – over a 52 week period – to find it.

The Big Love Experiment is for anyone who believes that love is the answer, that all you need is love, that love is all around us, if only we could find it.

Over the next 52 weeks, I will be interviewing love gurus and experts, scientists and people who have loving long-term relationships – and with their help designing weekly exercises for us to embark on a journey together via my online community to help us discover -  is love really the answer? And if it is – how and where do we find it?

I’m a big fan of time-limited experiments because they’re ideal for scanners. Suzy will be immersed in this experiment for a year, learning from top gurus for herself and sharing what she discovers with the participants. And she might well produce a book out of it as she did for her Big Peace project. Once she’s finished she can reap the rewards of having something to show for it that furthers her business - and she is free move on to the next experiment.

Read about Suzy’s Big Love Experiment here

So what’s Scanners Night like?

Uncategorized No Comments

If you’ve never been to Scanners Night before, this photo collage of last year’s events should give you a feel for what goes on.

Don’t miss January Scanners Night: How to have your best Scanner year yet

Laurence Shorter - The search for the good life

Uncategorized 2 Comments

At November Scanners Night, Laurence Shorter shared his fascinating and funny journey around the world to find the secrets of optimism for his book The Optimist: One Man’s Search for the Brighter Side of Life.

You can listen to his talk now - just click the play button below.

Want to write a story as compelling as Laurence’s that might win you a book deal?

There are just 2 places left for tomorrow’s ”Find your story” - read more here

Searching for the brighter side of life

Uncategorized No Comments

Watch standup comic, entrepreneur and author Laurence Shorter in a fascinating and funny interview on Canadian TV talking about his mission to discover the secrets to the brighter side of life for his book “The Optimist”.

(Love the story of how he flew all the way to South Africa to interview Desmond Tutu and then got into an argument with him!)

Laurence will be talking at Scanners Night this month about what he learned on his quest to meet some of the world’s greatest optimists from Richard Branson to Mick Jagger to the surfing Rabbi.

He will also share what he has learned as a Scanner in his search for the perfect career and his own version of the good life.

Book your ticket now

The power of a great story

Uncategorized No Comments

Ever tried to communicate your excitement about something to other people and been met by blank stares? This is bad news if what you’re talking about is the business, project, or book idea you’re trying to launch.

Being able to tell a great story about your current project is a powerful thing.

Here’s a very dramatic (and funny) one minute video that I think will show just how powerful a great story can be - particularly when you find yourself in a spot of bother:

In November, we are running a special one day workshop called “Find your story” with professional bard Sarah de Nordwall. If you’d like to find the killer story in your project, business, or book, click the link below.

Limited spaces available on “Find Your Story” workshop - read more

Turn your idea into income

Uncategorized No Comments

Have you got a good idea you’d like to make happen and perhaps even make some money out of?
Have you already launched your grand idea but not quite got the result you wanted?
Have you turned your idea into a business but want to find a way to make more money out of it?

Scanners Night this Wednesday is The Ideas Lab

It’s a virtual meeting on a teleconference line and it’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ll cover as many people’s ideas as we can in the time and for each one, I’ll give my best tips for making the idea fly and also ask everyone else for helpful contacts and advice. If you’ve never experienced a Scanner brainstorm before, you’re in for a treat.

What’s your idea?

  • Want to write a book and win a great book deal?
  • Want to be a professional blogger?
  • Want to launch a killer website?
  • Want to get yourself, your business, or your music on the radio?
  • Want to turn your expertise into highly paid consultancy?
  • Want to add some ‘passive income’ to your current business?
  • Want to start a live event but don’t know how to get people to come along?
  • Want to build a following on twitter without resorting to tacky tricks?
  • Want to know how to double the number of people who know about your business/band/artwork/invention/book?

I’ve had experience of making all these ideas happen and with the help of everyone else on the call, you will be amazed at the connections we will make.

Come to The Ideas Lab and get your idea supercharged

Or just come along and help others.
All for just £10!

Read how it works and book your seat now

Social Media, Memes and Mashups

Uncategorized No Comments

At July Scanners Night blogger, designer and creative thinker San Sharma showed us how to use Social Media to make a splash, build a tribe, and supercharge your scanner projects.

You can listen to San’s entire talk for free right now - just click the play button below.

Follow along with San’s slides

Go to SanSharma.com (opens in a new window) and click the link on the front page under “Free Download…” to open his slides so you can follow along with the audio.

Photos of Scanners Night

If you’ve never been to Scanners Night, click here to see what one looks like (opens in a new window).

To book for the next Scanners Night, click here.

How to make money out of your ideas

Uncategorized No Comments

Ever had a great idea for a website, book, product or business come to you in the bath or while you’re doing the washing up? What did you do with it?

Did you put it on the back burner, thinking something like…

“I’m sure someone else has already thought of it”

“Someone else is better placed than me to do that”

“I wish I could do something with that idea but I haven’t got the money / skill / staff / premises / time / energy to do it”

I know I have.

Once or twice I’ve then seen other people a couple of years later go ahead with the same idea and create a hit record or a best selling book or a thriving business. That stings!

We all have good ideas from time to time. But it’s too easy to allow the myths of creativity stop us following through.

“What you actually do within 24 hours of having a creative idea
will spell the difference between success and failure”
— Buckminster Fuller

Bring your idea to my idea “hotshop”

Discover how you can start to make something of your good ideas - join me at 7pm on Wednesday 1st April

I’m running an Idea Hotshop over the phone and I’ll be telling you the top ten myths of follow through and how to break through them.

And I’ll show you how to get started right now with…

  • no money
  • no staff
  • no premises
  • no time
  • no energy
  • no flippin’ business plan
  • …and how you don’t even need your own original idea to go do something interesting

I’ll show you how to tell if an idea is worth pursuing and how to make money out of it if that’s what you want. And if you have more ideas than you know what to do with, I’ll show you how to choose which one to do first.

Whether you want to create a business, an income stream on the side, an event, an art project or a global movement, many of the principles are the same. I’ll tell you what they are and how I used them to make my own ideas a reality including:

  • escaping full-time work to become an independent consultant who only worked 3 months of the year
  • getting my own extended-length article published in the Guardian newspaper with no previous writing experience
  • getting my experimental sound-art played on radio stations around the world
  • becoming recognised as the UK expert on Scanners with a packed event every month in Central London

But this isn’t a lecture, it’s a “Hotshop”

It’s an interactive workshop where you have a chance for us to work on your idea if you are willing to share it. There’ll be a group of no more than 20 of us on a telephone conference line together.

Once you’ve booked, if you tell me in advance what your sticking point is on making your idea a reality, I’ll address it during the course of the call.

Please note I will be recording the Idea Hotshop call for others to listen to.

Date: Wednesday 1st April
Time: 7pm (finishing by 8pm)
Price:
Tickets are just £10

Book a ticket now to be sure of a place. You’ll receive full details of how to take part once you book.

Please note that I can’t give refunds once you’ve booked but you will be to listen to the recording if you have to miss the call.

Book Now

Map of a Scanner’s presence online

Uncategorized No Comments

I’ve now got so many things I am doing online, I can’t even remember them myself!

So I decided to create this mindmap with the rather cool Mindmeister.com site.

Clear on the little arrows to open the links in new windows

You can open it a bit bigger here: www.mindmeister.com/12591420

Pants to the recession!

Uncategorized No Comments

Is the economic doom & gloom in the media wearing you down?

If so, there is a way to get a lot more business (or visitors to your web site, or people at your gig, or eyeballs on your art project) which costs next to nowt.

Think about this. What proportion of people in London (or even the world) currently have ever heard of you? A tiny fraction. And yet all your customers/clients/buyers/fans come from this.

So what would happen if you tripled or quadrupled the number of people who had heard of you?

And all without spending a penny on advertising.

You too would be saying “Pants to the recession!”

This is what Media guru Joanne Mallon will be teaching us in 12 days’ time at Scanners Night.

(Aside from all this she will also tell us her quick guide to give good interviews on radio and TV should you finally land your well-deserved 15 minutes of fame)

Plus we’ll be giving you a way to tell other Scanners what your current project is and get what you need to make it work.

Please bear in mind the last Scanners Night sold out so book in advance if you want to be sure of a ticket (and save £5 too). We will have seating for everyone this time - hurray!

Book a ticket now

« Previous Entries