Here’s the next posting of my Man of the Month series on the brilliant Paul LeBlanc.

These interviews highlight some really amazing men who are making a difference and using their creative edge to do what they do best. They have been chosen because I’m impressed by their contagious spirit, creative thinking, and the opportunities they bring to the world, plus how they reflect infinite possibilities back to the rest of us. If you haven’t already checked out previous men featured, click on the Man of the Month link in the side bar and scroll down through the pages to check them out..

There’s also the fabulous women featured on my Woman of the Month blog too.

February’s Man of the Month is:

Paul LeBlanc

Here’s a little bit about him:
In junior high school I had an English class where I was the star writer. Every week or two we would be assigned a creative writing assignment and I seemed to have the knack for it. Generally I would find a way to twist the teacher’s request into a science fiction story of some sort. I only failed once in that class: when I was asked to write a true anecdote about my own life. So now when I am asked to talk about myself I start by telling a story about how I have failed to write about myself from an early age.

I was outwardly a pretty normal teenager, but when my divorced mother was diagnosed with ALS I had to skip a few years in a hurry. I went from 18 to 35 in a few months, and stayed there for about 25 years.

I had some good bosses in my early business career, but despite this, never really liked working for other people. I owned an electronics store when I was 22, which failed in spectacular fashion. (We specialized in Beta video. I never forgave Sony). Ten years later I went into business for myself again, and haven’t had a boss since.

My dad is a great piano player, but never made his living from music. He encouraged my show business aspirations to the extent that they did not threaten to become a career. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had gone on the road with that rock band that called when I was finishing high school. But I don’t regret much. It’s pointless, and I don’t think I wanted it enough. And I still play keyboards, doing the occasional musical (most recently Pink Floyd’s The Wall at the Rio) and casino gigs in a Brit-rock cover band: The Tabloids.

Something else I got from my dad — the T-ball principle. The notion that if something is broken you can’t wait for someone else to fix it. When I was learning to play baseball the coaches were — not good. They missed the reason we were there – that we wanted to learn the game, and to have fun, that winning was secondary. He became a coach, not because he had any intense desire to coach 7 year olds, but because he wanted to create that reality for us. And he didn’t want to wait for anyone else to make that happen. There are obviously lots of things in the world that are broken. I have lived a lot of life so far without doing as much to help as I would like. As I hurl towards 50 that has to change.

And here’s how he answered my 6 questions about creativity:

What does it mean to you to be creative?
It means I don’t want to answer the question the same way everyone else does. It means a deep fear of ever being boring, even at the risk of being obscure and impenetrable. Some days it means a crazy screaming synth solo in my band’s version of Mike Myer’s “BBC”. And in my business’ more challenging years it meant finding a clever way to pay the bills.

What triggers your creativity?
A crowd. I am never as at home as when I am in front of a group. Whether it be 10, 50 or a thousand, a crowd does something strange to my brain. I feel smarter, funnier and cleverer than I really am.

What hinders your creativity?
The mayhem of everyday work. It’s a killer. Once a new employee described his first day with us thusly: “Hi, we’re a juggling company. Catch!” (Hopefully that anecdote works without the juggling mime that normally accompanies it.)

Nothing hinders creativity more than a crushing to do list. I have a plan to fix this that starts this Wednesday. I am hoping for the best.

What’s the wildest journey your venturesome spirit has taken you on?
Being a musical director of A Chorus Line and Jesus Christ Superstar while simultaneously driving a video store into the ground made for a pretty interesting year. Being a donor dad for a lesbian couple seemed a little wild when I did it, but now is just wonderful.

I’ll go with this: In June of 2010, at the G20 in Toronto, 10,000 police sat on their hands while a few idiots smashed windows and burned police cars. Shortly afterwards they used that as a pretext to arrest over 1,000 peaceful protestors and innocent bystanders. A few weeks later I helped organize a protest of these mass arrests in Vancouver. And I used my experience as an emcee of corporate and tourism events to lead the Victory Square protest, introducing speakers who were either in Toronto at the time or who had a much more intimate knowledge of the situation than I did. Not sure if it helped, but glad I did it.

What does being bold and provocative mean to you?
I don’t like to do it for the sake of it. I’m conservative in that way. People with a naturally bold and provocative nature are fascinating to me. But if the mission calls for it, or if it happens naturally, that’s okay.

What’s next for you?
A podcast. And sometime in the next year or two — a T-ball team that needs a new coach. That last part was a metaphor. Just to be clear.

And here’s what inspires Paul’s creativity:

I’m inspired by big ideas. I’m inspired by the Universe. I was in South America late last year, and one of my goals was to see Alpha Centauri for the first time. It’s our nearest stellar neighbour. (Unfortunately it’s still really, really far). The fact that it looked just like all the other stars mattered not a bit — I knew what I was looking at.

Given its scale, the task of learning anything significant about the Universe is impossible. But we try anyway, and we do anyway. We do what we can. I’m inspired by the idea of making a small difference in an impossible task.

Thank you Paul for working the crowd!

FASTSIGNS…the company where Paul is his own boss.

To hear about the next Man of the Month, follow DollyFaye on Twitter!

This monthly interview highlights some really amazing women who are shaking things up and making a difference through creativity and bold endeavors. They have been chosen because I’m inspired by their powerfully persuasive spirit and their tenacity to make things happen. They are sisters in their creative ingenuity, building a legacy for others through their actions and venturesome spirit. If you haven’t already checked out previous women featured, like Marina Szijarto, click on the Woman of the Month link in the side bar and scroll down through the pages to check them out.

There’s also the fabulous men featured on my Man of the Month blog.

Presenting:

Jodi Womack

Here’s a little bit about her:
Usually you’ll find Jodi somewhere in the world sipping on a latte. One of her goals has been to create a “geographically independent” career which means she’s able to do her work from almost anywhere on the planet with a laptop and wifi… In 2007 she and her husband, Jason, launched a leadership development firm that enables them to travel and see the world as they present workshops on productivity and professional networking.

Funny thing though, she found it was sometimes a lonely experience, working from coffee shops and hotel rooms abroad. So she created her second company, No More Nylons to build community with other professional women.
No More Nylons sponsors the Women’s Business Socials to promote vibrant, worthwhile conversations between local women in business. She launched the Socials in her hometown of Ojai, CA in February 2009 with 13 girlfriends on a cold rainy night. Since then, she’s hosted monthly Socials in Ventura County with as many as 200 women attending. She has met women in business over cocktails and conversations in nearby counties as well as New York and London. The No More Nylons online communities on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have grown to thousands of members, too.

She continues to speak on the positive business effects of networking in person and on line, and enjoys speaking at women’s conferences, teen leadership workshops and corporate gatherings to humanize the practice of business connections.

And here’s how she answered my 6 questions about creativity:

What does it mean to you to be creative?
I used to think creative meant handmade, from my two hands. Everything from cookies to handmade gift cards to photo albums. This mindset kept me pretty limited in business too, as I took it to mean making the website, writing the copy, creating the logo, well, you get the point. I could do it all, but not very well, and definitely not as well as the pro’s I manage. I’m much more creative now that I have a savvy team of freelancers that I hand off bits of bigger projects. I come up with ideas and delegate. That seems to be an underutilized skill – I think delegating gets a bad wrap. In school, if you got caught “delegating”, they called that cheating. In business, it’s called good leadership skills!

In the past, I was consumed with just getting things done, meeting our basic needs, doing the bare minimum. I couldn’t embrace the additional improvements because it just translated to more work. However, now that I dream, describe and delegate, I get to step back, and keep playing with the idea.

What triggers your creativity?
DEADLINES! Nothing like an end point to make a decision. Any decision. Give me a box to think in. That actually triggers the parameters for the “thinking outside of the box!” I’ve been building a network of people who care about me. Some of them are outside the box too: hula hoopers, app developers, yogis, globetrotting bloggers, coffee drinking poets… yes, all of them. Meeting with them, showing up with something, interesting, outrageous or practical is the best way to have my mind blown… with new perspectives. Even the naysayers contribute. Tracking all the “Yeah, buts…” is actually valuable feedback that helps me improve my ideas and products. I’d rather hear all the problems on the front end when I can do something about it rather than be surrounded by “yes-men” who agree but withhold their true concerns.

What hinders your creativity?
Too many options, with no accountability, and no endpoint. All that freedom sounds dreamy, but it comes with an equal burden… The curse that you could do anything, anywhere with anyone. Is it the right thing? Is it important enough? Where do you start? What will it look like? Who will it be for? Want absolute analysis paralysis? Try to think of how to save the world! Where do you start: the environment, kids, cures for diseases, education, feeding the hungry, peace on earth… Oh my! That makes me want to tune out with a glass of wine in front of the TV. Deadlines… connections… and a goal. That’s my way out.

What’s the wildest journey your venturesome spirit has taken you on?
The wildest journey I’ve been on, and continue to seek, is this step off of the “normal path”. I grew up with great folks who encouraged me to study hard, (I was not a great student), go to college, and get a good job. It’s like a Disney fairytale, that scenario leads to “happily ever after.” But I ran out of things to graduate from. Doing what was expected lead to expected results. Then what?

Jason & I are scheduling the Pacific Coast Book Tour for his upcoming Your Best Just Got Better book (Wiley publishing: January 2012). I can’t think of a good reason why not to rent an airstream, pack up the dog and some stuff and hit the road for a month or so.
This journey of what would I like my life to include. What gives me meaning. What is just intriguing enough to do… these are the big questions.

What does being bold and provocative mean to you?
More wild journeys off the mainstream path. Dreaming up ideas to solve problems that I care about. Talking to teenage girls about what it’s like being an entrepreneur. Doing a project without knowing the business plan (aka how will this make money). Leaving what’s known, like my home office, for some time somewhere else, having new conversations…

What’s next for you?
Spreading the Women’s Business Social far and wide. I have 20+ folders in email with the names of cities where women have written saying, I want to do a Social in my town, when are you coming??? Here’s what I know, it’s not about me. But what I’ve learned can be shared. And that’s powerful. I’m up for connecting, gathering, inspiring, linking fabulous women who want to create their work and world.

And here’s a couple of things that inspires Jodi’s creativity:

Great Press for the Women’s Business Social

Techniques & Strategies from: Your Best Just Got Better

Thank you Jodi for embracing those deadlines and “Yeah, buts…”!

To hear about the next Woman of the Month, follow DollyFaye on Twitter!

Here’s the next posting of my Man of the Month series on the brilliant Jeffrey Boone.

These interviews highlight some really amazing men who are making a difference and using their creative edge to do what they do best. They have been chosen because I’m impressed by their contagious spirit, creative thinking, and the opportunities they bring to the world, plus how they reflect infinite possibilities back to the rest of us. If you haven’t already checked out previous men featured, like Like Detheridge, click on the Man of the Month link in the side bar and scroll down through the pages to check them out.

There’s also the fabulous women featured on my Woman of the Month blog.

November’s Man of the Month is:

Jeffrey Boone

Here’s a little bit about him:
Originally from Newfoundland, Jeffrey Boone moved Vancouver in 1999, and has worked with a number of arts festivals and organizations including the Vancouver Fringe Festival, the International Writers Festival, Axis Theatre and Ballet BC; and between 2006 and 2010 ran a commercial art gallery representing emerging artists locally and internationally.

He has volunteered on the Boards of non-profit arts organizations in Vancouver and in his native Newfoundland including the Contemporary Arts Society of Vancouver (www.casv.ca) where he has served as Programming Chair and then Board Chair.

Jeffrey is the Executive Director of the Eastside Culture Crawl: an annual 3 day free event, now in it’s 15th year, during which more than 300 artists, designers, craft-makers, potters, jewelers and furniture-makers open their studios to the public. It’s a rare opportunity to see the spaces where so much is made by hand in East Van.

And here’s how he answered my 6 questions about creativity:

What does it mean to you to be creative?
Being creative for me is finding solutions that engage others to achieve common goals.

What triggers your creativity?
I get excited by problems to which I can see sustainable solutions that could result in realizing potential on an ongoing basis.

What hinders your creativity?
Sloth, avarice and a lack of imagination.

What’s the wildest journey your venturesome spirit has taken you on?
I’m finding planning toward developing a nonprofit artist studio building to be a really wild ride with a steep learning curve! So exciting!

What does being bold and provocative mean to you?
Thinking beyond the scope of you own life – if you want to have an impact you have to think of something that will go on beyond you, something that will have benefit beyond your own lifetime.

What’s next for you?
Sleep. It’s 11:30PM and I’m going to the gym at 6:00AM

And here’s two things Jeffrey is inspired by:

I’m inspired by selfless contribution to community minded initiatives….. oh, and the backside of Blackcomb mountain on a powder day!

Thank you Jeffrey for going beyond!

To hear about the next Man of the Month, follow DollyFaye on Twitter!