Articles

How To Bring Out Your Genius (Yes You Can) With Mark Levy

Posted by

Episode #221 of Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Who is Mark Levy? I had heard his name is some of my online social networking circles, and while reviewing his site I was amazed to see testimonials like: "Mark Levy is a positioning guru extraordinaire and is my guru in residence" from David Meerman Scott author of The New Rules Of Marketing And PR and Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead. Simon Sinek, the best-selling business book author of Start With Why claims that Levy helped him find his "why," and corporate Blogging expert, Debbie Weil, then said that Levy is a "horse whisperer for writers and business thinkers." Beyond that high praise, Levy is also the author of Accidental Genius – Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight and Content. As someone who writes a lot, I fell in love with this book. First, there were many things that I do (after years of practice) but was never able to express until I read this book. Secondly (and most important), the book provided tons of new ways to write, create and spark ideas that have kept me inspired with my writing and coming up with new ideas for our clients at Twist Image. You have to give this episode a listen. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast #221.

16 comments

  1. This is without a doubt the most enthusiastic, inspirational person I’ve ever heard speak on the topic of writing and ‘creativity.’ Having never thought of myself as a classically creative person, I love the fact that he talks about process and discipline as a more reliable way to generate good ideas.
    I was a bit disappointed that this week’s podcast wasn’t the Hacks, but not after listening – thank you!

  3. Excellent Podcast Mitch. I enjoyed it very much.
    I’ve put some of the ideas into play at a lower level in the past. I’m encouraged to kick it up a notch or two – push for new and stronger creative ideas.
    Rosh

  5. Thanks for the kind words, all. I’m delighted that you find freewriting of value.
    For me, it’s the most important ideation technique I’ve ever learned. The reason: it follows the mind”s natural inclination to digress and connect ideas that hadn’t previously been connected.
    Put differently: What I used to view as a deficit (an attention span that strays in a thousand directions), freewriting turns into an asset.
    Thanks again for the comments.

  6. I listened to the podcast on my walk home from work and I gratefully walked around the block a couple times to listen right to the end. Outstanding podcast, Mitch and Mark! My favorite SPOS of 2010 and I’ve listened to them all.
    I’m in the midst of an ‘innovation’ project where we’re trying to do more systematic product development. Thank you for the reminder that we’ll need to find ways for non-linear accidents to happen too!
    Mark

  9. Thanks much, Mark.
    I think you beautifully encapsulated the philosophy I was talking about when you used the word non-linear.
    I’m all for using logic and left-brain thinking. But when I want something different, I force a few left turns into my thinking. They may not take me anywhere, but who knows?
    Good luck with your product development project.

  10. Wow… This was an awesome podcast and I’m definitely going to need to pick up the book. I’ve very slowly been developing a lot of ideas, and always seem to get distracted. I tried a 5-minute free write after listening and it zipped by in what seemed like 30 seconds. I did another 20 minutes before bed and got some good stuff down. I’m sold!

  13. I really loved this podcast. Mark’s enthusiasm is infectious and completely inspiring. I also found it interesting that both of you do free-writing in different ways, for different purposes. This made the concept feel more real, more applicable. It gave me pause to think of where I can use this: for work, for personal projects, for home.
    Your discussion reminded me of the scene in Finding Forrester where Sean Connery’s Forrester explains the importance of just sitting and writing, whatever comes out. He outputs a stream of prose inside of an hour and his poor protege is still left with a blank page when time is up. I think more of us have been on the protoge side, but I’m inspired to find my inner Forrester 🙂

  15. Great podcast. I was really blown away by the small comment you made Mitch about Bruce Lee “taking what works and throwing everything else quickly” really hit me because I don’t think that we often have the conviction enough in what feels right to us to do this. We get caught up too much in what is working for everyone else to let this happen.
    Also, as much as I hate to admit it, it also helped me to validate my own way or working which has been very close to what is described in the podcast… I like to just sit down and write and then go back and deal with the aftermath after but after listening to Mark, I can maybe tweak that a bit and get even more out of it.
    It would be nice to hear him talk about positioning the next time you have him on… as I can only imagine he has awesome things to say there as well. I think that people who listen to him will get an idea of why marketing is so much fun – not many people are lucky enough to be as creative as marketers do in their daily life.

Comments are closed.