Our Story Includes : The Crazy Decision To Sack Our Two Bosses, Radical Indoor BMX Stunts, Online Dating, Love at First Sight, Betrayal, Rock Stars, Ex Gangsters and Over Medicated Celebrities…

It all began in the slick offices of a “fancy pants” re-insurance firm, deep in the City of London.

Having left her home town some years earlier, Angel had moved from one high-flying company to another, but was still living an un-fulfilling life, as a lowly assistant to an office full of city-slicker types.

As the weeks dragged on, she spent her days looking forward to her evenings, where she indulged in her first real love, live music.

It was a combination of two things that finally pushed her over the edge.

Walking home one night, she realized that if she DIDN’T make a change right now, through no fault of her own, she might just end up like one of the frightful ROBOTS she worked for.

This glimpse into the future, where she saw herself pimping her values away, climbing up the corporate ladder, for nothing more than a better job title and a bigger car, made her sick to her stomach.

Then, out of no-where, the Gods of Music sent her a sign.

It was an album by Rock band Incubus, that provided the inspiration she needed.

This motivation helped her look into the future and imagine what might be possible and make the commitment to start planning a better life.

Little did she know back then, that only a few years later, her dreams would come true and she would be interviewing her creative hero, Incubus front-man, Brandon Boyd.

But it wasn’t all going to be plain sailing. Angel’s gut told her to get out of the city. After all…

If You Keep Doing The Same Thing You’ve Always Done, You’ll Keep Getting The Same Results You’ve Always Got.

So, she crossed the country, with little money, a few clothes and a dream of living a more creative life.

Her train stopped in a sea-side town. There was surf, students and Art school.

4 years flew by and she was living the dream. Expressing herself through a Fine Art degree, enjoying her music, mixing and collaborating with exciting creative people.

Her life was back on track and she didn’t think it was ever going to end.

And Then It All Came Crashing Down Around Her Ears

She had never given much thought to what would happen AFTER university. No one had brought it up.

In fact, she realized, after her degree had finished, that in the 4 years she’d spent in the Art education system, that…

Not once, had anyone mentioned how an artist was supposed to make a living – out in the REAL world

The panic struck at her graduation exhibition, after listening to a local artist give a short talk to the creative students.

It wasn’t so much the tone of the talk (which had the cynical under-current of someone who had really suffered)

It was the look of pity that this professional artist had in her eyes. You could see what she was thinking…

If Only These Poor, Creative Students Knew What They Were In For

It’s at around about this point that I enter the story.

Although my tale starts 300 miles away, at the end of another long night of overtime in a characterless office.

I was overseeing the latest “urgent project” to change the world by selling people stuff they didn’t really need, so they could impress people they probably didn’t even like.

Marketing was my job and I was starting to hate myself.

As everyone knows, the cure to office stress is wasting time on a good Social Website

It was there that I came across the picture of a baggy jean wearing, bad ass girl, riding a BMX. I was hooked.

The next weekend I traveled 300 miles to meet her, took a week off work and fell in love.

I was there at her graduation and heard that fateful speech myself. It sent a chill down my spine.

In the weeks after university had finished the speech was forgotten and there was a nervous excitement of possibility in the air.

But as the weeks turned into months, possibility started to turn into panic. Then panic turned into desperation.

I witnessed the hopes and dreams of 100 enthusiastic, creative students slowly deflate, as they struggled to find their way in the real world.

One by one, I watched them abandon their dreams, giving-up their creative lives, to clock-in at some menial job – just to keep paying the rent.

I knew nothing about the creative world outside of advertising, I was just a SUIT. But I did know about business and how to Get Things Done.

I also knew that this wasn’t how the creative dream was supposed to go, so together, we started to formulate a plan.

All we needed to do was come up with a strategy, we could sort things out, or so I thought…

Little Did I Know About The Horrors We Were About To Uncover – Horrors That Virtually Guarantee The Failure Of Most Aspiring Creatives

Why The Creative World Has Been Working Against You (Up Until Now)

Angel had a great idea…

The creative world that she had been living in, was starting to become a distant memory.

She was desperate to;

• Keep the creative juices flowing, keep the dream alive
• Get back to the FUN of creativity
• Find a way to help people support each other
• Introduce people and start creative mash-ups and cross collaborations

So, without giving herself enough time to change her mind she said…

Screw It – Let’s Launch A Magazine

We knew nothing about magazines, other than Angel bought a lot of them.

We didn’t know anyone worth interviewing.

We didn’t know how to interview people.

We didn’t know how to put together a magazine.

And we didn’t know how to get it printed or distributed.

Hell, if we would have thought about it at all, we’d have quickly realized…

We Didn’t Have The First Clue What We Were Doing

Whilst Angel started looking for people to help put the first edition together, I started looking into the options for creative people.

As well as creative students I found a whole tribe of people who are sick of the rat race and want to follow a more fulfilling life.

But As I Dug Deeper I Was Dismayed At What I Uncovered.

Our society goes out of it’s way to PREVENT you living a creative life

My first shock came when I researched the schools, colleges and universities who I thought might be keen to help people who wanted to follow a creative path.

Did you know that;

• Creative students have the hardest time finding the jobs they studied for after leaving university
• They are the more likely to still be unemployed 6 months after leaving than ANY other students
• Creative students are also the MOST likely to abandon their chosen career path and end up in an unrelated job, just to pay the bills
• Companies in the creative industries are crammed full with people doing UNCREATIVE, soul destroying work, in a desperate attempt to get close to “the action”

Does any of this hit home for you?

I was surprised at the facts, but even more astounded by the attitude of some of the people I met…

It Seems That The Education System Is RIDDLED With Failed Creatives

For every ONE genuine, creative tutor, I came across TWO bitter and cynical failures who were actively sending their students down a path of misery and disappointment.

How can they be allowed to get away with this?

How can they be allowed to teach an entire generation that it’s OK to follow a creative path without paying any respect to the REAL WORLD that we live in?

How can schools teach creativity, without exploring how to make a living from that creativity?

The more data I came across, the more I was convinced that formal education is FAILING the creative world.

But, that’s not all, I found. I realized that there’s something else that’s compounding the problem;

It isn’t just education that is killing your creativity…

You might be lucky and find one of the few good tutors who can guide you.

Or you might be blessed to get into one of the few high-end creative schools who are connected to the real commercial world.

But even then, once you set foot outside the door, you are likely to be Hit In The Face With…

The 30 Foot High Ring Fence That Surrounds The Industry Insiders

You’ll know it when you see it, because you are clearly on the OUTSIDE, trying to get a peak at what’s going on behind the screen.

You’ll know you’re in trouble when;

• You’re struggling to break into the inner circle of creatives in your field
• You feel like an outsider, who’s trying to suck up to the cool kids
• You’re sick of banging your head against the wall, trying to get people to recognize your work
• You wonder if things are EVER going to change
• And you HATE that feeling of pimping yourself out to “get in” with the power brokers and decision makers

That’s exactly how we felt, as we started to put together the first edition of our magazine.

Everyone Told Us We Were Crazy, We Were On The Outside Looking In And It Was Never Going To Work

Luckily, we were too stubborn to listen

You see, no one had taught us, what “the rules” were. So we didn’t know or care that we were breaking them.

And sometimes…

Not knowing what you’re doing can be the best thing that can happen to you.

I was spending a lot of time trying to talk to those INSIDE the ringed fence.

From my marketing experience, I knew that the secret to getting inside any industry is to realize that the 30 foot ring fence DOESN’T REALLY EXIST.

We create the ring fence in our head – when we allow ourselves to be discouraged by rejection.

And we were getting a LOT of rejection.

I have to admit it was painful at first. We didn’t know the creative world, we worried that we were banging our heads against a wall.

But I had seen this game was played successfully in other industries so we persevered.

We decided that rejection cost us nothing, unless we quit and gave up, then it cost us our lives!

So, we kept going, we sneaked into one party and met a few people who’s names we were able to drop to get us into another party.

We emailed everyone we met or heard about and introduced ourselves.

We asked people how we could help them. We tried to uncover, what we could do to make THEIR lives easier.

And to our amazement, the ball started to roll.

People Were Talking About Us Behind Our Backs.

But it turned out they were saying GOOD STUFF

The more we put ourselves out there and the more persistent we were (in a nice way) the more people started to see us as part of the industry.

Heck, sitting at a back-stage bar one day, surrounded by a super model, her rock star husband and a reality TV celeb, we realized we were ON THE INSIDE

And we still didn’t have a clue what we were doing. But we were having fun!

Then We Learned About An Even Darker Evil

We noticed another barrier to creative success.

And this one could drag you down, whether you were on the inside or the outside – hell, it could get you anywhere and at any stage of your career – unless you were prepared for it…

NOBODY wants you to succeed in the creative world…

It’s an unbelievable statement isn’t it? But here’s the bizarre truth behind this amazing fact…

Deep down in our human DNA we are hard wired NOT to stand out from the pack, NOT to be too creative.

From our days living in caves, we have survived and thrived as a species by staying part of the pack, one of the flock or a member of the tribe.

This desire to fit in, to follow the crowd, to do what’s already been done, is such a powerful drive, it’s at the core of who we are.

• Have you ever been petrified when asked to speak in public?
• Have you lost sleep and felt physically ill at the thought of performing in front of a crowd?
• Have you found yourself unable to publish your work for fear of what others might say?

It’s really not your fault, it’s how our brains are wired.

We are designed to totally avoid any situation that might put us at risk of ridicule in-front of our tribe.

After all, when we lived in caves…

Being Banished From The Gang Could Mean Certain Death!

And that’s still how we are hard-wired to think about it.

I was so puzzled at why these impulses are so powerful, I even hunted down a genuine brain scientist, who explained that;

The part of our brain that makes us scared of being ridiculed and laughed at is the same part of our brain that causes us to feel physical pain.

It totally explains why…

Being Ridiculed For “Thinking Differently” Really Can Feel As Painful As A Kick In The Guts

It’s this programming that’s in our DNA, that effects each and every human being, which causes the “crab effect”.

Do any of these situations sound familiar to you?

• Close members of your family have tried to persuade you to abandon your creative work and get a real job?
• Friends who you expected to support your work have been a bit “off”, dismissive and non supportive of your efforts
• Even a close colleague or partner may have tried to talk you out of following your dream by telling you to “get real” or “be realistic”
• You’ve overheard people being bitchy and catty – with real venom – about your work and what you are trying to achieve

We’ve encountered endless examples of this phenomenon, which we even gave a name – The crab effect.

What is the crab effect?

Here’s what it is…

Fisherman have noticed that catching crabs in a basket is really easy. All you have to do is tempt the first crab, using a little bait into your crab basket.

Once in there, the other crabs will start to follow and one by one they find themselves inside the trap.

But here’s the killer, when one of the crabs realizes that he can just climb right back out the way he came in – when one of the crabs realizes he doesn’t have to be trapped, he can be FREE – he get’s an awful surprise…

The other crabs pull him back down

That’s right, his clawy comrades fearing they will be left alone to die prevent anyone else escaping their FISHY DOOM.

Now, I have no clue what goes on in the mind of crabs, but this phenomenon is one I see being played out in creative environments every day by good old HUMAN BEINGS.

It’s a combination of several things;

• Good old jealousy
• People projecting their own fear of failure onto YOU
• People afraid that you will out-grow them

What we wanted to know was…

With All These Obstacles, How Is A Creative Person To Survive, Let Alone Thrive?

We were desperate for an answer and certain that there must be one out there.

We even attended a few seminars and courses designed by other companies, specifically for creative people.

They were great, lot’s of happy clapping and sharing stories of people’s problems.

Like a big therapy group, where isolated creatives could congregate and make new friends.

They gave us some good ideas, and they were great for socializing, but at a huge expense.

We realized that paying for a short-lived boost to our morale wasn’t the answer.

We Wanted Long Term Solutions To The REAL Problems.

We wanted to know the techniques that we could put to work to make real success happen.

We wanted to know HOW our own creative heroes had smashed through their creative barriers

There was only one group of people who had the answers we needed.

Those who had been there and DONE IT. And those, high-level professionals behind the scenes who had helped make it happen.

Is A Better Life Possible?

It Was Time To Access All Areas

Behind SUBvert Magazine was an idea.

The idea was simple – how can we help other creative people?

At least it sounds simple, but one of the things we were learning from our insider interviews is that often you need to take an un-selfish route to get to the top.

You see, most people go through life thinking “what’s in it for me?”.

And in the creative world, the slightest hint of popularity can turn some people into INSTANT DIVA’S.

But we learned one simple rule – that if you focus on helping others first, if you spend time uncovering how you can be valuable to THEM, your success is almost automatic.

Because of this approach, people were keen to work with us. We were putting together all sorts of fun, creative mash-ups. People were getting inspired and we were having a great time.

It Was Time For Me To Face My Demons

I remember vividly when I made the decision to quit my job and work on SUBvert full time.

It was a glorious, sunny morning and we were sat on a cliff top, over-looking the ominous sounding “Hell’s Mouth” beach and cooking breakfast on a portable camping stove.

We’d been surfing there for a couple of hours and now we were just basking in the sun and enjoying the surfers high.

At that moment, we didn’t have a care in the world.

We were going to enjoy our breakfast, then later that evening, pick up some back stage passes to a wake boarding festival.

Then, in the middle of a perfect day, I started thinking about my “Day Job”…

It was like being stabbed in the gut

There I was, unable to enjoy a perfect weekend because I was worrying about office politics, meaningless deadlines and having to compromise my life away.

I felt like I was trapped inside someone else’s life.

People were telling us they loved the magazine, but we hadn’t figured out how to make money from it yet.

All my research pointed to the fact that the creative world is one of the hardest to succeed in. So wasn’t it madness to even consider it?

And of course the timing was terrible.

That very week I had just finished reading a book that clearly predicted the recession we are now in.

People were telling us we needed to hold on to at least one form of safe and secure income.

But I’d Had Enough Of Living My Life As A Cog In Someone Else’s Machine

This wasn’t about having a job, it was about having a life.

This wasn’t about having security, it was about having a mission.

I went back to the van we were using as our mobile office for the weekend and started scribbling notes on a legal pad, I needed a clear sense of what we were about to dive into so I wrote out a manifesto for our new life.

Here’s how it looked;

Everyone has their own definition of the creative life that inspires them.

Writing this, I’m wondering what yours is? (And I’d love for you to write and tell me: paul AT subvertmagazine DOT com)

For us, it was simple and once the decision was made, it happened surprisingly quickly;

• OUT went working on things we didn’t care about
  IN came working with people who inspired us
• OUT went getting up at stupid o’clock to battle the traffic and travel to a depressing office
  IN came working on OUR TIME
• OUT went dressing like a walking suit
  IN came dressing like ME
• OUT went doing shit I just clearly thought was stupid, because someone “above me” thought it was a good idea
  IN came making my own decisions and living with the results
• OUT went the AUDI, I was DONE competing in car wars
  IN came a VW campervan. (You can’t fit surf boards in an AUDI and you can’t lie on the roof at night and watch shooting stars)
• OUT went the numbing feeling that my life was slowly being drained away
  

  IN came the excitement that I was in-charge of my destiny at last

Once The Decision Had Been Made To Go For It, A Huge Weight Lifted From My Shoulders.

I was finally starting to really LIVE. Just by getting started, ignoring the doubters and being persistent, it was starting to come true for us, against all odds. But…

Things really started to change when we went “under cover” and got all “celebrity”…

Why Things Can Be Different For You Now…

You see, what we realized is that EVERYONE has an opinion on the right way to “make it” in the creative world.

And guess what…

We all tend to think that whatever we happen to be doing is pretty much the right way to do it.

Of course we do, or we wouldn’t keep doing it, would we?

But what I discovered was the amazing ability we all have to really convince ourselves that what we are doing is working – Even when all the evidence points to the opposite.

We heard lots of opinions about what it took to be successful.

It’s a comforting feeling to think you can just write a simple list of what makes someone successful, then go out and follow it.

But it’s not that easy.

Look at the Internet for example.

There are thousands of amateurs all claiming to know the best way to make a living as an artist or a musician or a performer or a designer.

Yet in reality – there are only a tiny number of successful, professional musicians, artists, performers and designers.

So, why not learn from the few at the top. The 2% who have actually made it?

Once we had made that decision to do whatever it took to get only the very best advice, from the most successful people we could find, things really started to get interesting…

Britney or Brandon Boyd?

We had a tough time at first, deciding who we should interview, I mean, how do you determine who is the most successful?

Everyone has a different idea of what success is. If you are talking sales and fame, then Britney probably beats Brandon’s success with Incubus hands down.

But if you are talking happiness and lifestyle and NOT going crazy, then you have to use a different criteria.

We Decided To Interview Our Personal Creative Heroes.

We were going to do what would be most fulfilling, not what we thought would draw in the biggest crowd.

Our heroes were people who had dedicated their lives to their art form.

We found that a lot of our heroes had run into real troubles early on in their careers, but they had battled through and come out stronger on the other side.

We learned that there was no dream ticket, there was no easy ride, life just isn’t that simple.

But when you open yourself up to learning from the best, you can save yourself years of heart ache and pain, and avoid going down the wrong path.

Some Of Our Interviews Were Life Changing – Some Were Like A Train Crash

I mean, we had no clue what we were doing. We had just blagged our way into the houses, offices and private studio’s of these legendary people.

We even turned up with film crews that we had put together with ambitious students who wanted to get involved.

There’s no better way to have people open doors for you than to walk around with a camera man and sound guy!

But we also found out that being granted an interview doesn’t mean you’re going to get to the TRUTH

We Discovered That There Are Always Two Stories. The Real One – And The One For The Press

When you’re successful and in the public eye, you pretty much have to learn to deal with the media.

And the media is full of assholes

It’s not really their fault, you see, the very fact that you are reading this letter, makes you special, you’re not the average Joe.

The average Joe isn’t the least bit interested in making their life a success.

Sure, they might say they would like to “earn more money” and be good at what they do.

But they rarely get off their butt and ever DO anything about it.

The average Joe is more interested in hearing gossip than uncovering the truth.

The average Joe is more interested in a story about sleaze than success.

Because of this, super star creatives are used to acting in a certain way…

• a) They see a journalist and quietly say to themselves “wanker”
• b) They smile politely whilst the journalist asks dumb questions about their sex life
• c) They spew out a script that they have repeated a million times, with a juicy morsel of gossip the journo can use as a title, then they quickly pimp whatever CD/Tour/Exhibition/Film they are working on
• d) If the journalist gets anywhere near a serious question, they respond with false modesty and say they have been really lucky.

You see, what we found out was…

The General Public Don’t Want To Hear About How It REALLY Is. They Like To Think…

That stars are BORN

That stars are from a different GENE POOL

That they were LUCKY

Because that way of thinking helps protect a fragile ego. It creates an excuse for not trying.

But We Were Clueless

We didn’t know we weren’t supposed to ask real questions.

So when we put people on the spot, when we pushed for real answers, we ruffled a few feathers.

But…

We had nothing to lose…

We weren’t going to get sacked by “the network” so we persevered.

We wanted to really get to the truth on behalf of our readers.

We wanted to be able to pass on something of real value, genuine insights that no one else out there is doing.

After a while, people started to come around. We got a reputation for asking tough questions, but being genuine and honest.

It was only when one of our creative heroes contacted US about working together, we knew that all our struggling and hard work was starting to pay off.

We realized that what we had was valuable.

People in the inner circle were starting to approach us, because they wanted to share their stories and their knowledge with the next generation of serious creatives.

We Had Discovered The Real Truth About Success

We had met with ex hard-men who were now inspirational leaders.

We had met with guys who had started their career delivering “packages” for the mafia. Who were now respected musicians.

We had also met those who thought they could fast track their way to fame and fortune, but found they really couldn’t handle the pressure of being a creator in the public spotlight.

Everything pointed to one fact – that people AREN’T BORN into creative success.

People aren’t NATURALLY gifted. We ALL possess the potential for success.

Background makes almost NO difference.

And importantly, many were able to build successful creative careers despite bad schooling or even NO schooling.

Despite all the challenges that our heroes had faced, they had turned their lives around, overcome their fears and were living out their dreams.

Uncovering What Works From Those Who Have Done It, Is Important

We are having a blast doing it, and we find it really fulfilling when people tell us how much it has helped them turn their lives around, get unstuck and move forward with their own creativity.

So to make this stuff more accessible to the right people, we are launching a new program.

It’s an exclusive program. It’s not for everyone.

It’s for ambitious creatives.

It’s for those who are ready to turn their ambition into action.

It’s for those who are ready to see results.

We learned that not everyone is ready for success. Are you?

We Are Bringing Together Everything We Have Learned From Our Creative Heroes

It’s been carefully put together into a system that you can apply to jump-start your creative life.

But this isn’t about going back to school.

I know you are too busy to take time off to study. So you WON’T find any dry boring theory material here.

We take our best stuff, the techniques that form a common pattern amongst the successful creatives and we send you a daily report, every working day over a 3 week period.

Over this 3 week period, you get direct access to both myself and Angel via email and daily live chats, to discuss how the knowledge relates to your specific challenges and plans.

The benefit is, you get enough time to read the reports and let the information sink it, plus you have time to discuss it with us and take some action on what you discover.

The process works in a step by step manner over the 3 weeks.

At the end of the process, you’ll have abandoned the things that aren’t working for you right now and you’ll be thinking like a rock star creative and moving forward in the right direction for you.

We are launching the next program, which is called AAA (Access All Areas) in mid November to a limited number of people, so keep your eyes peeled for details. Make sure you are following us on facebook.com/subvertmagazine for some great pre-launch discussions and if you’re not already on the mailing list (see the top of the page) you’re really missing out.

We look forward to seeing you in the comments.
Stay Hungry.

Paul & Angel.