About
“Why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled?”
This question was first asked by Abraham Maslow and it is at the heart of what this site is about.
My name is Adrian, I am a Creativity Coach, on this page you’ll see more about me, the blog, the training programme and the guarantee.
“The key question isn’t, “What fosters creativity?” But it is, “Why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative?” Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think, therefore, a good question might be not, “Why do people create?” But, “Why do people not create or innovate?” We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.”
Abraham Maslow.
The Training Programme
Creative Steps: How to coach yourself towards increasing creativity
Creative Steps is a nine module online creativity coaching course designed to enable people to move through creative blocks and be empowered to make their creative dreams real.
It combines a course in creativity with online coaching. It is intended to instruct, inspire and motivate. The extensive programme provides you with all the tools you need to coach yourself on your creative journey and in other areas of your life.
For more information, please read more here
In addition to the multimedia package I offer all members unlimited personal coaching while they study the programme at no extra charge. The number of people I work with at any one time is strictly limited.
The Guarantee
Creative Steps is dedicated to helping people become more creative and more fully self-expressed. And to demonstrate our commitment, know this:
If you don’t get full and complete satisfaction from the course I promise you a prompt and full refund-all your money back!
You may claim your refund for any reason, or no reason. The only condition on this offer is that you actually complete the course!
If you have completed all the modules (evidenced by completed feedback forms) and you are not happy with your results then I will refund your money. It is as simple as that.
The Blog
I am continually learning from my clients and from my own experiences. I intend to use the blog to share this learning. Please visit the blog and subscribe if it appeals.
Face to Face Personal Coaching
I am living and working in Nelson, New Zealand where I offer face to face coaching. Please contact me if you’d like to work with me in this way.
Learn more about Creativity Coaching
About me
My name is Adrian. I live with my wife and my new born baby in Nelson, New Zealand.
Five years ago Abraham Maslow’s question was not one that I had ever considered relevant; I hadn’t considered that creativity was important and I didn’t realise what I was missing out on.
I was a child of Thatcher’s Britain, after all. Success in life was evaluated in economic terms and like so many of my friends I left education and started to work earnestly towards my retirement, replacing academic grades with the bank statement as my preferred method of judging progress.
And, at this game, I was doing well.
I owned a London based Management Consulting business and specialised in business performance improvement – we focussed on behavioural change in organisations and so executive coaching and mentoring was a big part of all my projects. It paid me very well and I got to travel the world.
Then one of my personal coaching clients changed my perspective. I worked with her on setting some personal goals and elicited the following statement:
“I want to be, and to be seen to be, creative”
At this stage I wasn’t like Maslow – I didn’t think in terms of lost potential, I didn’t get it! I wanted to know why ‘in God’s name’ a middle-aged mother of 5 would want to be more creative. I didn’t see the point. However, I worked with my client as she developed her initial urges into a small one woman show that she initially staged in her living room and then – after a lot of hard work and dedication – a hit show at the Edinburgh festival!
In addition to the accomplishment of a significant life goal I witnessed a transformation:
I saw her progress and saw her personal growth;
I saw how she changed in the eyes of her friends and family;
I saw a happier person, the experience brought her vitality;
I saw the benefit of increased self-expression
I shared my client’s story with as many people as I could and found that they were inspired too. More often than not they said something like: ‘I’ve always wanted to do something like that”
I spoke to my mentor, a successful business woman who was coaching me in the development of my management consultancy; she told me that she tackled a significant creative project each year (in addition to being a senior executive in Britain’s largest high street chemist chains and raising a family of her own). She said it helped her gain perspective and focus, it helped her ‘fit more in’ and it made her feel good. She also told me it was a good example to her children.
The more people I spoke to the more I realised that there was another world out there, one that I hadn’t paid too much attention to before; one of colour and sizzle, where playing music doesn’t mean turning on an in-car mp3 player when stuck in a traffic jam, where ‘ordinary’ people sell their own art work, where the book we all think we can write actually gets written.
I also learned that we all have access to this world and can contribute successfully. It is not reserved for an elite class, or the children of creative types, or those with ‘talent’ – it is available to us all.
The success that my coaching client experienced enhanced my reputation as a personal coach and I found people seeking me out to help them in their creative pursuits. I took on more and more of these people as clients and Creative Steps was born.
That was in 2006. Since that time I have worked with countless individuals and learnt a great deal about the development of creativity. I have worked with authors, journalists, painters and even a ‘Top 20′ recording artist.
In addition to the coaching, I also studied the approaches of numerous actors, writers, artists and musicians (both famous and those with more modest, local successes). I did this to identify what makes these people successful and I have used this learning to formulate my own creative coaching concepts. I believe we can make ourselves more successful by studying those that have already achieved what we are setting out to achieve.
I have taken my own creative journey and I know what it takes and I know what the rewards can be.
I have used the concepts detailed in the course to improve my own life. I have left the hustle of Management Consultancy in London and I have exchanged the noise, pollution and long hours for the relaxed and creative life-style available in Nelson, New Zealand.
I believe that we actually create the lives we lead and many, many possibilities are always available to us.
Nelson in a creative community on the northern shore of New Zealand’s South Island. It is chock full of artists, musicians and inspirational people; a sort of ‘Bohemia on Sea’. I have come here to study what makes the people here creative, to further develop Creative-Steps.com and to continue my own creative journey.
This website is an attempt to share the benefits of pursuing your own creativity and an encouragement to follow your own desires.
If you have any questions contact me.
