In this second installment of Being Yourself series I took Jo Myers story of how devastating some of these “guru’s” can be.

Jo Myers writes: I am a recovering morning show host who, after thirty years, left radio to write a book. It’s quite the career transition when you segue from attention getter to attention go-getter, so for the past eighteen months in particular I have been reading as much spiritual material as possible.

While I’m not a self help book addict (or maybe I am one in denial), I have always skimmed them and usually pick them up at yard sales for pennies. When Oprah made such a big deal out of Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, I bought it new thinking I would find myself through reading it. The opposite happened. I lost myself . . . literally. Tolle pushed so hard the importance of stripping away the ego that my personality packed its baggage and took a vacation.

Gary comments: I understand searching for the answers and reading other people’s advice, but Tolle is a farce. If he’s so into ego stripping, why did he write a book? I’m an author and trust me I’ll tell you why I wrote a book and part of it is ego. Mine isn’t as large as others seem to be, but no one can deny that their ego plays a good part of putting your words out there. Tolle’s teachings are self defeating all around, meaning what he teaches doesn’t even work on his own teachings. Don’t get me started here. I’ll stop.

Jo writes: At first glance, it seemed that A New Earth contained the magic answers on how to be still and “in the moment” in the quest for a more meaningful life. I devoured the book in one weekend via a dog-earring, highlighting, underlining frenzy. Yes, within a matter of only two days I was transformed from a fun-loving extrovert with an interesting past and dreams for the future into an introspective, paranoid dullard.

If everybody takes this guy’s advice, I fear the planet’s population will soon be wandering around like the zombie cast of extras in “Night of the Living Dead.” The book is scarier than the movie.

Gary comments: While Tolle may sell a lot of books, his ideas don’t wash out and people will stop listening to him.

Jo writes: Now immersed in identity rehab, I’m weaning myself from OESD (Obsessive Ego Suppression Disorder) and feel like I might be regaining some of my characteristic traits. I am taking the baby steps back to being me.

Jo’s book is called Good to Go, a self help book about pre-planning for the big bye-bye! and is available at: www.goodtogothebook.com

Had a nice talk with Lee and Elizabeth. Thank you!

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I’m here to help. That’s why I wrote the book and why I do the blog. And sometimes people just need to see themselves in writing in order to actually do what seems so “undoable” because of time, money or whatever else you can think up to not do something. Below are reader submissions on things they’d like to be more creative at. If you feel inclined, write a comment of encouragement or advice on what you did to conquer that same item. Or remind them to buy my book on the whole creativity subject!

I wish I was more creative at finding creative ways to express myself! -Alaia

I was more creative at improvising the blues on my guitar. I suck.  I can only play one riff.  My brain goes blank, and my fingers “get dead.” –Patti

I wish I was more creative with my hairstyles. –Antoinette

I wish I were more creative at finding ways to be more assertive without sounding apologetic or wimpy. –Patricia

I wish I were more creative at communicating with an engineer husband. –Kyle

I wish I was more creative at cool ways to say I love you to my husband without being corny! –Diana

I wish I was more creative at pitching the media. –Thomas

I wish I was more creative at saying no to people, especially volunteering. Isn’t volunteering supposed to make you feel good? I wish I was more creative at turning my one business into 5 profitable businesses. –Margot

I wish I was more creative at digital scrapbooking, because I didn’t even know it existed before yesterday, and I could make my blog all pretty and stuff without hiring a fancy expensive designer-type person! –Vivien

I wish I was more creative in the way I dress.  The ‘inner diva’ is completely masked by ‘clean cut’ and ‘proper’.  Ugh! –Tanya

I wish I was more creative at…lying.  Sometimes you just have to be, because the truth is painful (yes, those pants do make you look fat, because everything does, because you are fat) or inconvenient (I don’t want to go to your party because I don’t like you). My lies are never believable.  I promise to use this power only for good. –Shirley

I wish to be more creative in doing detail work on show cars. As you probably know, show vehicles are works of art more than automobiles. Competition in this field is heavy with blank check owner paying builders to perform. I need to reach that level of activity with my disabilities. This should get everyone’s attention. –Marcus

I wish I were more creative at music, specifically composing songs. I have always been a lover of the arts–I’m an author and poet, and was a visual artist when I had my eyesight–but I’m not an artist in the music field, and I truly wish I could be talented at composing songs, so I could compose beautiful melodies that can go well with my poems, which can be the lyrics. –Shirley

I wish I was more creative at answering the common “hey, how are you” bit without blowing the person off or going into my life story. –Tiffany

I wish I was more creative at managing my time. –Michell

I wish I was more creative at writing fiction and short stories. –Sedef

I wish I was more creative at finding activities to do with my little kids (2 and 3 years old, both girls). –Jacquelyn

I wish I was more creative musically!  I would have killed to be Joan Jett but sadly, I can’t sing, carry a tune or play an instrument!  EEK! –Stacey

I wish I was more creative in my time management and organizational skills so I would be able to live a very fun filled and creative lifestyle. –Njideka

I wish I was more creative at sex. No, really. I do. Been married for 17 years to the same wonderful & patient man, but it’s past time I learned to rev things up. –Kelly
(Gary’s note: Sorry Kelly it seems you were the only one honest enough and brave enough to post this one. Which is too bad. But I bet others are going to be creative now in that area)

I wish I was more creative at entertaining my 2 year old! –Lisa

I was more creative at decorating my home – I decorate ok, meaning my home is visibly nice looking but I cannot put random objects together to create a look that “aw’s” people.  I rely on my interior decorator neighbor to make my home better in spates…. –Nipa

I wish I was more creative at handling co-workers who aren’t respectful to be people on a professional level. I experience it at my current job, and I need to find creative ways to do it! –Sabrina

I wish I was more creative at how I spend my free time!  I live in a city with so much to offer, and only rarely do I get out of my cave to enjoy it. –Angie

I wish I could be more creative at “writing.”   Love to talk, hate to write…. –Sian

I wish I was more creative at small talk. While I think I’m a really interesting person, I always feel awkward talking to people I don’t know and end up babbling like an idiot. –Deb

I wish I was more creative at coming up with the right thing to say, note to write, stuff to bring to someone who is “dealing” with something.  Like if they’ve had surgery, or their dog died (or worse), or they broke up with their boyfriend.  I wish I could easily come up with something interesting or creative that would help them, or make them feel better. -Val

I wish I were more creative at songwriting. (maybe this will inspire me to do more than just make up lyrics to tunes using my toddler’s name) -Regina

I wish I was more creative at making spaces look nice. I have no idea how some people make their homes and yards so beautiful. -Bill

I wish I was more creative at playing. I feel like I’m stuck in a grown-up frame of mind when it comes to playing with my 9 year old daughter. I wish I could come up with more creative ways for us to play together and be more creative at the things we already do–namely, arts and crafts. -Leah

I wish I was more creative at coming up with titles for my books. I’ve written six books, a couple of best sellers and the hardest thing for me is what to call the darn things. So much hinges on if the potential reader likes the title and I fret over every one of my books because I struggle with the titles. -Yasmin

font styling. i’m a graphic designer with a minimalist style, but i always leave the fonts too clean… it’s getting boring and i need a shakeup! thank you for pushing me to say that out loud! it’s just a little thing, but it’s been bugging me. –Cynthia

Your welcome Cynthia, I’m here to help. Now all of you get to it!

Welcome to the first edition of a series of self help successes and failures. As you all have likely read, I am not a big fan of “copy me and you’ll be successful too” books, but I am a big fan of books that place the emphasis on the reader being themselves and using what the author experienced or passed on through the book.

I sent out some querries and got quite an amazing response on successes. My cynical side was really hoping for many failures. But then again, who wants to admit they failed at something (well besides me). This first story that caught my attention based on its honesty of failure first, listening, and then succeeding.

David Mullings writes: The first time around my brother and I started our venture, an integrated media and entertainment company focusing on Caribbean entertainment, the core of which was a website with one of the largest collections of Caribbean entertainment videos on the web, we failed a few years later even though the traffic had grown tremendously. We were so fixated on the dot-com model of raising venture capital instead of focusing on making do with what we had, building a great business and then looking to outside investors. We were so busy trying to raise money that we neglected cash flow and the business.

• David and his brother then read Guy Kawasaki’s “Art of the Start” and took the very same business plan that they failed at and applied what they learned from Guy.

David writes: The second time around, we read ‘The Art of the Start’ and with the same business plan, embarked on the venture with a different mindset. We relaunched in May 2007 and within 2 months, our company was approached by Imeem.com, the 3rd largest social networking site in the USA, with over 22 million users, and now the #1 streaming music site in the US (ahead of Yahoo). We secured a content distribution and revenue share deal with them, becoming their first Caribbean media partner, putting us in the company of Showtime and other major companies.

One year later, in July 2008, we signed a deal with YouTube.com to become their first official Caribbean media partner and now have a channel. We are the only Caribbean-focused entertainment company with a YouTube revenue share deal even though we are still a small startup. That deal has now allowed us to raise capital from an angel investor at a nice valuation.

• When I wrote “How to be a creative genius (in five minutes or less)” I wanted it to come across as reader centered, not just to blow my own horn. The book just came out so I don’t get to hear the stories yet about successes just yet, but David Mullings actually applying Guy Kawasaki’s advice gives me hope. My take on how to be creative is not as straight forward as a business book would be, but I show you the absurd in order for readers to answer the questions themselves.

If you’d like to get more info on David’s story you can check him out here:

www.linkedin.com/in/davidmullings
www.facebook.com/people/David_Mullings/562590362

youtube.com/realvibeztv

And Guy if you read this, I’m on LinkedIn.

I live in Atlanta and it’s quite the mixed bag of people and ideas down here and so are the restaurants. Even with the popularity of BBQ as a staple, there have been wars fought over who has the best BBQ. I don’t know about you but brainstorming is always better with food. Do you find yourself stuck in the rut of eating at the same few restaurants? It might be a prelude to your creative attempts. When is the last time you decided to eat at someplace that wasn’t “popular”. Even when you are out of town, do you find yourself looking for that familiar chain restaurant to eat at, just because you know what you’re going to get? I challenge you to eat someplace/something different at least twice a month.

Well, that’s my five minutes for the day. Now go be a Creative Genius!

www.garyunger.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/garyunger

Get the critically acclaimed book on creativity: here