By Julian Harriman-Dickinson (HS Founder / ECD)

I recently escaped the desk for an eye-opening one-day ‘Keyboard CEO Pro Course’ run by author and marketing genius, David Hieatt. With his eloquent, Yoda-like way of imparting knowledge through human storytelling and anecdotes, David's words seem to get under your skin and create an itch that you didn't realise needed to be scratched.

My 10 key takeaways from the day are refreshingly simple and straightforward. Sometimes we just need to pay someone else to remind us of them:

1. Always be in Beta. We should never stop learning. Look at things around us and question “What does that mean?” To coin a phrase by the late Dan Weiden, “Walk in stupid every day.”

2. First Hour / Last Hour. I know I just said always in Beta, BUT, the first hour of the day is the best for thinking, really thinking, deep thinking, and this happens when we are in Alpha. Take away the distractions (NO phones, NO emails, NO music, NO children) This might mean getting up a bit earlier. Just you and your thoughts. Your brain produces these waves when you’re not focusing too hard on anything in particular. Whatever you’re doing, you’re probably feeling relatively calm and relaxed, between asleep and awake. Find a good chair and sit and think or get out of your natural environment (not home or office or home office) to change the brain frequency.

3. Practice creativity. We practice running, we train the body, we practice a musical instrument. We need to make practicing ideas a daily habit too. Creativity is a discipline and needs to be worked at, it’s not just a mindset that doesn’t require practice.

4. As a founder and owner of a business, time is precious – busy is easy! We should be selective about where we spend our time, spend it where it will make the biggest difference.

5. Become a problem hunter, find the problems we must fix.

6. Ideas = Energy. The better the idea the more energy it creates. Only chase the BIG ideas. Big ideas write the best press releases.

7. Opportunities come along disguised as problems.

8. Ask better questions.

9. My time is NOT for sale.

10. What do you do when no one pays you to do it?

Find out a bit more about David and read some of his salient words here: https://davidhieatt.typepad.com/

He is also the co-founder of both The Do Lectures and Hiut Denim.
https://thedolectures.com/
https://hiutdenim.co.uk/