How do you step up to being more creative in your day-to-day life?

To answer this question, I’ve called in creativity guru Mark McGuinness. I stumbled across Mark in the blog series Lateral Action, which is about creativity and productivity. Mark is the founder and principle of Wishful Thinking, a coaching service for creative businesses and professionals. He even has an MA in Creative and Media Enterprises from the University of Warwick, and is the author of a popular e-book called How to Motivate Creative People [Including Yourself].

Mark started his practice as a hypnotherapist and some of his best sessions were with creative types, such as artists, actors, writers and filmmakers. He saw that his enthusiasm was up, his clients were getting results, and it was a strong sign that he was in the groove of doing his Great Work.

During our conversation, Mark shares valuable insights on creativity:

• Forget about being creative. Start creating.
• The “cash and sex” theory of balancing creativity in your career
• Getting a good system to keep the cash rolling in
• The TOTE model for managing projects
• How exercise helps creativity (and how you can find the motivation to hit the gym).

Connect with Mark on his website www.wishfulthinking.co.uk, his blog lateralaction.com, or on Twitter @MarkMcGuinness.

Listen to my interview with Mark McGuinness

Tech journalist Gina Smith had never been on TV when she was asked to appear on PBS to debate Steve Ballmer of Microsoft about Windows ’95. It was a gutsy move, but she said yes because she was determined to let consumers know her criticisms of Windows ‘95. After the interview, she was worrying “Whoa, should I have actually done that?” when ABC called and asked her to be the tech correspondent on Good Morning America and World News Tonight. And that’s how Gina started her TV career: by saying yes to opportunities, taking risks and sharing her passion.

Gina is also the New York Times bestselling author (with Steve Wozniak) of iWOZ: From Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple and Had Fun Along the Way. She’s a radio host, wrote an award-winning column for the San Francisco Sunday Chronicle, wrote a book about DNA, and now she’s a partner in First 30 based in San Francisco, which is an incubator firm for tech start-ups.

During our conversation, we talk about Gina’s serendipitous career journey and her current role at First 30, and:

• How getting a text from a friend who met Steve Wozniak at a Grateful Dead concert turned into a book deal
• Bringing great ideas to life: getting the guy who’s been working in his basement for 7 years a patent, an expert team, and a million dollars in funding
• The Purple Cow: what Gina looks for when deciding which projects to back
• Ripping the band-aid off: how to reject people without making them resent you

Learn more about Gina’s company at www.first30services.com.

Listen to my interview with Gina Smith

Tech writer and coder. That’s the header on Gina Trapani’s website, and it’s strikes me as exceedingly humble for someone who was named one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology in 2009 and 2010.

Gina is the founding editor of Lifehacker.com, the popular blog on productivity in the digital age, which was nominated for Blog of the Decade and led to the bestselling book, Upgrade Your Life.

Even though things were going great at Lifehacker, Gina left after 4 years to find her next challenge. Currently, she is a Project Director at Expert Labs.org, where she’s leading development on ThinkTank, which is an open source crowdsourcing platform that the White House will use.

I could go on and on, but you’ll have to listen to the interview to hear what else Gina is up to.

• Why Gina left Lifehacker, even though she loved her title, her staff, and her paycheck (and how she decided when was the right time to leave)
• Why it’s a good thing when a new job makes you uncomfortable and maybe even makes you cry
• How doing work for free can lead to work that pays
• Being a distracted email-overloaded fool, and how to trick yourself into being productive and get peace of mindGet all the details on Gina’s latest projects at www.ginatrapani.org.

Listen to my interview with Gina Trapani

Alan Webber is the founding editor of Fast Company.

Fast Company has had a fundamental influence on my belief in Great Work—work that’s less hierarchical, more innovative, more creative, more design focused, more full of meaning and more engaging.

Alan has just published a fantastic book called Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self, which contains his wisdom and insights from 30 years in business.

In our talk, Alan sheds light on his top rules of thumb from the book:

• Ask the last question first: what’s your definition of victory?
• How to create an a-ha moment to create a solution that actually works
• Keep 2 lists: 1) What gets you up in the morning? 2) What keeps you up at night? And learn how these questions can help you find work that’s motivating and makes an impact on the world.

You can learn more about Alan at www.rulesofthumbbook.com.

Listen to my interview with Alan Webber

I’ve known many people who have had to wrestle with dyslexia. Family, friends, work colleagues… the struggle is not just in being wired a different way from what’s ‘normal’ but that it’s so easy to be given the label ‘failure’, ’stupid’ or ‘lazy’.

If you are, or know someone,who’s struggled with dyslexia, then let me introduce you to one of your champions – Kate Griggs. In the UK she’s unified and focused organizations that have supported dyslexia and created significant change in the way it’s seen and supported in schools. She engaged fellow dyslexics like Jamie Oliver, Orlando Bloom, Robbie Williams and Richard Branson in her cause. And she’s now looking out beyond the UK for what’s next…

In our conversation we talk about:

• Just why a disproportional number of millionaires are dyslexic
• The tipping point that got her involved in this movement
• How she built her strategy step by step to be able to influence the UK government on the education policy
• The role of courage and compassion in continuing on.

You can see and support Kate and Xtraordinary People’s terrific work at www.xtraordinarypeople.com

Listen to my interview with Kate Griggs