This is the personal blog of John Williams, founder of The Ideas Lab and author of Screw Work Let’s Play & Screw Work Break Free. This is a place that for me to write things that don’t quite fit anywhere else – politics, humour, therapy, and what makes for a good life.
After studying physics and IT, I started my career as a software developer in special effects for TV and film, then moved into streaming video at a startup and then became a senior managing consultant at Deloitte. I left to work as an independent consultant advising broadcasters in several countries on technical strategy including the BBC, ORF and SABC as well as helping Siemens win the one-billion pound bid for BBC Technology.
Then after a couple of years I qualified as a coach, took seven years of professional development courses in integrative psychotherapy and person-centred counselling and shifted completely to helping people launch creative ideas and make money out of them.
I’ve enjoyed making many of my own ideas happen – making experimental music that was played on radio stations around the world, helping create an exhibit for the London Science Museum, launching a London event (Scanners Night) for creative people which attracted a number of newspaper and magazine features, writing a bestselling book, designing and running life-changing programmes and building a business I can run from anywhere in the world. My ideas and projects have been featured in the The Times, The Daily Mail, The Financial Times, Marketing Week and other magazines, and BBC Radio.
My first book, Screw Work Let’s Play: How to do what you love & get paid for it, was a UK bestseller, recommended by The Sunday Times and has since been translated into nine languages.
After the book came out I led the creation of programmes such as The Screw Work 30-day Challenge, with hundreds of people around the world at a time making an idea happen in 30 days. The programme inspired my second book, Screw Work Break Free, which was featured in The Guardian and The Telegraph and is currently being translated into Czech and Chinese.
My company The Ideas Lab helps people create truly original Businesses, books and products. Find out more at theideaslab.org