John Williams is an inspirational career guru. We all need one of those every now and then, right? In his new book, Screw Work Break Free he looks at how your own ideas (and not those of your boss) can make you super rich. As an industry, which thrives on new creative ideas – this is an ideal book for the publishing world to look to.

John’s book includes his 3-step Killer Idea Crash Course to help you find your very own idea and turn it into something you can start straight away.

Here is a sneak peek:

Step 1: Generate dozens of ideas in record time

1. Do a brain dump first of every possible idea that interests you and don’t evaluate them at this this stage. Then think of all the things in your field that really bug you and list ideas that could address.
2. Be willing to write down a few crazy dream ideas. There might be a more practical version you can do that will give you a taste of your impossible dream.
3. If you think you’ve got no ideas, that’s because you’re evaluating and discarding ideas at the same time as trying to generate them. This just ties your brain in knots and leaves you confused and frustrated.

Step 2: Choosing the right idea

Here are three questions to help you choose the right idea:

1. Does it excite you?
   • Don’t expect every moment of your project to be fun but even the most brilliant and lucrative idea won’t succeed unless you get some enjoyment, excitement or fulfilment in the process of doing it.

2. Do you bring something to it?
   • A project is even better if it includes you in it. That means you bring something to it: your skills, your knowledge, your talents, your contacts, the stuff you’re good at, your interests, your life experience, or just your particular personality traits.

3. Does it have value to others?
   • Can you see how your project could be interesting or useful to other people, creating value for a specific audience?

Be willing to choose an idea just to pursue it for a while. With a bit of creativity there is always a way to do this without spending lots of money or taking huge risks. The only way to fail is not to choose.

Step 3: Idea Alchemy – Turn any idea, no matter how big, into a 30 day project

1. Turn your idea in a 30 day project – and dive straight into the actual doing of it. No need for project plans and business plans or perfecting your logo. Take action out in the real world. You’ll find out quickly whether this idea suits you and whether it’s of interest to other people, all without spending months of your time (or your life savings).
2. Start something small, test it out with people, improve it, then grow it and scale it towards your original big vision. Get it right while it’s still small and it will grow quickly.
3. Ideas in themselves are not that valuable. You have to turn them into something tangible of value to people so that you can get paid for it.

Don’t sit around hoping to find your calling or your perfect business idea; go out into the world and experiment! Don’t think it out. Play it out.

To hear John talking about his book and providing more practical careers advice, come along to the Penguin Living Careers 360 Immersion Day on 11th September 2016, where he will be speaking along with other inspiring authors.

Tickets available here.