Mark Levy Interview (Part 2): Solving Problems Through Freewriting

This is part two of my interview with marketing strategist, positioning master and first-class writer, Mark Levy. Be sure to read part one of Mark's interview on "crafting compelling messages."

If Mark's insights have peaked your interest in freewriting, be sure to check out his newly revised book, "Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content, coming out in August." Mark also writes on his blog about creative writing, positioning and more.

OK, Mark, let's continue where we left off– with freewriting.

Let’s hear more about freewriting. Why is it effective? What’s its “secret sauce?”
To explain, let’s go back to a concept I already mentioned: the metaphorical “internal editor.”

Inside each of us is an internal editor that does an important job. It edits what we think, say, and write -- as we think, say, and write it -- so we sound smart, confident, and consistent.

We all need our internal editor. It helps us fit into polite society. There is a time, though, when our internal editor gets in our way.

I’m talking about those times when we need an idea unlike any we’ve ever had, or we want to solve a problem that we can’t solve using our standard thinking, or we want to write a book or post that says things most other people aren’t saying.

In instances like those, our editor can hurt us. How?

Since the editor wants us to always look good to others, it’s going to tell us we’re being stupid or impractical if we try thinking thoughts that are radically different for us. It’s going to order us to push aside the new and go with the familiar. It’s going to anchor us to what’s not working.

Understand, our editor believes it’s helping us. It thinks it’s protecting us by steering us away from untested ideas. But, again, without letting our minds venture into those novel places, we’re just going to get our standard ideas over and over again.

Freewriting forces the editor to recede, at least temporarily. By following a few simple freewriting rules, our minds can freestyle. They can go playful and create ideas and prose that’s a genuine departure for us.

How do you do freewriting?
Set a timer for, say, ten minutes, and get a pen and paper, or open a blank document in your computer.

You’re now going to write about some situation you have in mind by following a few guidelines.

You’re going to write as fast as you can, and you won’t stop for any reason – until the timer tells you you’re finished.

You needn’t show the work you’re about to do to anyone, so feel free to be bold, honest, and experimental.

Use the paper or screen to talk to yourself about the situation in mind. Write down anything that comes to you, including the people involved, the stories and images that flash in your mind, the bottlenecks you’re experiencing, the lessons you’ve learned, and so forth.

Don’t, however, feel you have to write about the situation in some comprehensive way. What you want to write about are those spots that have energy for you.

While doing this writing, you’re also allowed to digress as much as you’d like. If you write off topic, fine. In fact, going off topic can be helpful – especially if you find yourself thinking the same ideas over and over again. Digression breaks your patterns. It helps you see things from new perspectives and combine thoughts that don’t normally go together.

After ten minutes, look over what you wrote. You may have some ideas and prose you can use. If not, set the timer again and approach the subject from a different angle.

Do as many sessions as you’d like, over the course of an hour, or a day, or a few days, until you get what you need.

I read the first edition of your book, “Accidental Genius,” and it really got me to use freewriting regularly. What are all the ways people use the technique?
People use it to think through any situation you can imagine. They use it for business and private life. They use it to plan complicated organizational strategies, and to plan a weekend vacation. They use it to write eighty thousand word books, and eighty word blog posts.

This has been great. Any final words?
Don’t think of freewriting as writing. It’s a way of watching yourself think. It helps you get at the experiences and thoughts you already have, and helps you use those as fodder for new perspectives and ideas.

If you experiment with it and use it often enough, good things can’t help but happen.

Thanks, again, Mark for taking us inside the world of freewriting. I hope readers start tapping into its many benefits.

P.S. I had the privilege of reading Mark's manuscript for the revised version of "Accidental Genius." The book is so great I was pleased and honored to endorse it.

Mark Levy Interview (Part 1): Crafting Compelling Messages

This is a special interview I did with Mark Levy, creative genius and extraordinary writer. Mark guest posted the popular article, "The Fascination Method." Be sure to stop by Mark Levy's blog- it's filled with wonderful tips to boost your writing and creativity levels several notches!

For those new to the world of Mark Levy, what would your tweetable bio look like?
I run the marketing strategy firm, Levy Innovation. Consultants & entrepreneurial companies hire me to increase their fees by up to 2,000%.

Mark, you have an amazing knack for crafting compelling messages. Do you have a tip you can teach our readers to strengthen their own skills?
Thanks for the kind words, Tom. I do have a tip about messaging.

When you’re writing a message, don’t try too hard making it larger than life. Focus instead on making it clear. Clarity persuades. Strip away the abstraction and hyperbole, and get to the core of what you need to say.

If you find getting to the core difficult, try a roundabout approach: Start by listing obvious facts about the situation you want to write about.

What do I mean by obvious facts? Things like who’s involved, what they want, what they’ve tried, what you propose on doing. Simple stuff like that. Stuff that’s right in front of your nose.

Just start piling up obvious facts, figures, and stories on paper. Pages and pages of them.

When you do that, you’ll relax and your big messages will likely stick their heads up without much coaxing from you.

That’s a great tip! Can you give us one more?
Sure. Here it is: If you want to figure out what to say to prospects in your sales messages, ask your clients.

After all, your clients are your clients for a reason. They’ve already said yes to your offering. Something you did or said persuaded them. Ask them about it.

Call your best clients and say, “I consider you a dream client. I’d love to do business with other people like you. Tell me, what exactly did I do right? What did I say and do that got you to ‘Yes.’ I want to understand what that was, so I can attract other dream clients.”

Listen to what they have to say, and let it inspire and guide you as you write your sales messages.

In July, you’re releasing a revised and expanded edition of your wonderful book, “Accidental Genius.” It teaches businesspeople and social media people how to freewrite. What is freewriting and why do it?
Freewriting is a fast, freestyle form of thinking onto paper that does two things for you:

On the one hand, it acts as a problem-solving and ideation tool. You can use it to think through any kind of business problem whatsoever.

On the other hand, it also acts as a tool of thought leadership. You can use the same technique to help you create one-of-a-kind books, posts, white papers, speeches, and the like.

When you’re freewriting, you’re using fast, effortless writing as a way of generating thought.

By following a few simple rules, you’re able to push your internal editor out of the way, so you can produce ideas and prose that you never would have produced any other way.

Much of what you produce, of course, will be lousy. That’s the nature of the beast. But some of what you produce will be the best stuff you’ve ever done.

I learned freewriting fifteen years ago. It’s probably the most useful thinking and productivity tool I’ve ever come across.

Thanks, Mark, for sharing your insights on messaging!
Stay tuned for part two of Mark's interview.

Are You a Genius or Do You Have a Genius?

Being a genius vs. having a genius.

We can think of ourselves as being a genius or can we re-frame the creative process by thinking we have a genius.

What an incredible insight.

And that's the premise of "Eat, Pray, Love" author, Elizabeth Gilbert, in her TED presentation.

Elizabeth addresses two fascinating questions in this powerful, thought-provoking speech at TED:

1. As artists and creative people, "how do we create a safe distance between who we are and our anxiety about what the reaction will be to our next work"?

2. Are there models from other cultures on "how to help creative people manage the inherent emotional risks of creativity"?

Where did her search take her? To ancient Greece and ancient Rome where having a genius (and not being called a genius) was integrated into the artist's work.

My favorite part of her talk is about half-way through where she focuses on re-framing the creative process:

"And then the Renaissance came and everything changed and we had this Big Idea and the Big Idea was let's put the human being at the center of the universe, above God and all mysteries. There's no more room for like mystical creatures who take dictation from the divine. And it's the beginning of rational humanism, and people started believing creativity came completely from the self of the individual."

"And for the first time in history you start to hear people referring to this or that artist as being a genius rather than having a genius. And I gotta tell ya, I think that was a huge error. I think allowing somebody, like one mere person, to believe that he or she is like the vessel, the font, and the essence and the source of all divine, creative, unknowable, eternal mystery is just like a smidge too much responsibility to put on one, fragile human psyche. It's like asking somebody to swallow the sun. It just completely warps and distorts egos and it creates all these unmanageable expectations about performance. And I think the pressure of that has been killing off our artists for the last 500 years."

Elizabeth then leaves us with this important question:

Isn't there another way for us humans to relate to the creative mystery?

No matter what field you are in, stop everything. Take 20 minutes. Grab some tea. This is really inspiring and a "must watch" presentation.

What do you think?

---Tom

Are You a Genius or Do You Have a Genius?