Note: this transcript was generated automatically. It’s accuracy may vary.

[00:00:00] People get stuck because they overthink. The reason we’re not taking action is because we’re not making decisions. The reason we’re not making decisions is because we’re scared of picking the wrong thing. The reason we’re scared of picking the wrong thing is we’re scared of wasting our time because we’ve all got time, anxiety, and we all feel that we’re running outta time or we’re behind everybody, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:00:14] And of course that means we get stressed and anxious, and when we get stressed and anxious, we procrastinate and we end up wasting our time. So the whole thing’s just one big paradox I’m afraid to tell everybody. But yeah, the reason, , we procrastinate is because of stress, anxiety. It’s our emotional management system, avoiding stress, anxiety.

[00:00:27] The thing that is very stressful for us is, which [00:00:30] one of our multiple ideas should I pick, which is the right one, which is the purposeful one? Welcome to Magnetic Pod. If you are looking to attract your soul clients while doing the work you love, this show is for you. Hi. I’m Olivia Deza. I’m a podcast manager and content repurposing specialist.

[00:00:47] The Magnetic Pod show is about attracting your sole pod of clients through podcasting. It will also include things that can be applied to other areas of your marketing strategy too. Hit subscribe to join me in calling in the people. We are here [00:01:00] to help. Let’s make a massive impact. I.

[00:01:19] Hey, friend, before we dive into today’s episode, remember to hit subscribe so you don’t miss any of the tips we share in Magnetic Pod on podcasting, lead generation and business boosting ideas. [00:01:30] And remember, if you have or you are thinking about starting a podcast, head over to my website@livymusicmedia.com slash freebies.

[00:01:38] I have loads and loads of free resources and templates that will help you get started. The link is in my show notes. Now, here’s your show. So I first discovered Jake McNeil while scrolling through TikTok after I had trained the algorithm to enlighten me on all things Neurodiverse. And I really enjoyed some videos that came up where you [00:02:00] explain how the brains of Multipotentialite work and that we can fall into a trap of trying to do things by conventional wisdom, which.

[00:02:09] Doesn’t work for us, but there is another way to go about things that can actually be using it as an advantage. So I found that really, really interesting and I found myself pointing You, Jake, at various times, Jake runs Creative Hackers, an organization that helps multipotentialite. That’s those with diverse interests and [00:02:30] diverse brains, as I understand to realize their potential.

[00:02:34] With over three decades of experience, Jake has been instrumental in guiding artists, creators, and entrepreneurs. And before establishing creative hackers, he was a multi-platinum artist manager in the music industry. That sounds very glamorous, and his management clients have achieved astounding success with.

[00:02:51] 49 top 40 singles with any of these 16 top 10 singles, two number one splash hits, and a number one album. [00:03:00] Jake’s coaching services and digital courses empower individuals to get unstuck, gain clarity, and overcome procrastination, and basically be more successful and happier. So welcome. Thank you very much.

[00:03:13] Thank you very much for having me. Absolutely quite, that’s quite an intro by the way, that that’s gotta be my best intro yet, so thank you very much. So how did you get started? Tell me a bit about your background and how you got into doing what you’re doing. Well, I got into doing what I was doing, what I’m doing now by just working in the music industry.

[00:03:26] So what I didn’t realize at the time is that all the artists I was [00:03:30] managing were neurodivergent. I’m neurodivergent. I’d never heard the term Multipotentialite before, but what I did have was a bunch of really creative, talented individuals who struggled to a. Stick with an idea, and B, once they start, you actually finish it.

[00:03:44] So they were always coming up with, I’ve got this new idea for the song. And then you would speak to ’em a couple days later. And of course, oh, I’m onto another song. I’m onto another song, I’m onto another song. And of course, most of them were signed to either major labels or independent labels, but they had stakeholders who were investing into their careers.

[00:03:59] So it was my [00:04:00] job to get them to basically focus on creative projects and get ’em to start and finish it. So as a result of that, I came up with all these strategies not knowing that either myself or they were neuro divergent. And of course as I left the music industry after 28 years, I then carried this on.

[00:04:15] Yeah. To do what I’m doing now, basically. Ah, interesting. Can I ask, what’s your neuro divergent? Oh, I’ve got dyslexia, I’ve got D H D. And I had oppositional defiant disorder when I was a child, which meant I really fought against all sort of forms of authority. So I had a child [00:04:30] psychologist. I’ve got 146 iq, but zero qualifications just because I hated school and I left at 15.

[00:04:36] I’ve had all these things for some time, but I wasn’t told about my neurodivergence. I’d only discovered that about 18 months ago. Does that mean your parents knew but they were worried about you having a label or something like that? Correct. That’s so interesting. And how do you feel about that? That’s one bit I, oh, but how do you feel about that?

[00:04:51] Cause as a, as child, well I was pretty happy on Neurodiverse child. It’s interesting to know how to frame it or whether to call it a disorder. What are your thoughts on that? Well, [00:05:00] I only found out that about a year ago, I came up in a conversation. I know, I know, I know. They were advised to get me diagnosis for Neurodivergence, and of course didn’t wanna create a stigma.

[00:05:10] It was never mentioned to me. I only found out about a year ago. That they knew. Right. So yes, it, it’s fair to say it was a somewhat challenging time for our family, and I was very, very angry about it. But I’m over it now and we move on. But in terms of how we deal with kids, I definitely don’t call it disorder.

[00:05:24] For me, it’s a superpower. It can definitely be channeled. There’s so many different positives that come along with [00:05:30] new divergence that overshadows the negatives for. That’s so interesting. I just did a TikTok. Um, that recently I followed Dr. Barkley. I assume you’ve heard of him. I have, yes. Yes. And I can’t agree with 99% of what he says, but this one video where he says, some people, including advocates, try to describe it as a superpower.

[00:05:47] ADHD is a superpower, but it’s, they happen to be talented in certain areas and it’s just not a trivial thing. It’s debilitating and it’s distorted. All these studies we’ve done, we don’t see the positive sides, is that those particular people [00:06:00] happen to be talented in certain areas. And I’m like, No, I didn’t agree with that cuz I thought the lived experience of people with those brains know that it goes hand in hand.

[00:06:08] Yeah, I disagree with that. It’s very clear that we’ve got partner recognition skills, we’ve high levels of creativity and I understand everything’s on a spectrum. And I think it was Dr. Barkley that also said that, uh, I could be wrong, it might not have been him, but also said that executive dysfunction is 30.

[00:06:21] Uh, Percent below our age or something like that. Yes, yes. And that may seem plausible to me, only from my own learned experience is that my executive to function is a [00:06:30] lot better than it was my twenties and thirties. So as I’ve got older, I’m 52 this year, I, I find it a lot easier, but I’ve also built a lot of coping mechanisms over the years, especially when I didn’t even know I had it.

[00:06:38] I think research is important, but it’s also important to understand that it’s run by humans. It’s probably the best thing we’ve got to go on in some ways. Yeah. But it’s run by humans. They don’t necessarily see everything and have their own neuro of their own. They don’t recognize other people who are different.

[00:06:52] Okay. Let’s get back onto what you do. One of the things that I found when I was scrolling that is something that I’ve quoted that I actually mentioned on this podcast once [00:07:00] before is the David Bowie story, which I think helps illustrate really well how there’s a different way if you have a different kind of a brain.

[00:07:07] So do you wanna tell that story, David Bowie? I’ve been saying your typical, but, but certainly he’s a classic Multipotentialite story in that he spent nine years failing. I can’t even remember. I think it was maybe about 10 singles, A couple of albums. He basically put out a bunch of content and he had one hit, and then there wasn’t anything for a couple of years.

[00:07:22] So he was very much danger of being like a one hit wonder and basically he wanted to do something to get, no. He took all his interests, many of his interests and [00:07:30] science fiction, Avantgarde, theater and Mime, and he blended those together to create Ziggy Stardust, which of course, Uh, got him noticed and bled him onto Global Sodom.

[00:07:40] He is your classic case of multi potentiality of what I would call niching up, which is taking a bunch of disparate skills and passions and interests and stacking ’em up together to create something new. So the Ziggy Stardust came from David Boy, and indeed many of his song titles or lyrics were indeed taking him.

[00:07:56] He used to do a thing called the cut up technique, where he would create a mood board and [00:08:00] he would cut out things from magazines, some of his favorite poetry, stuff like that, put it onto paper, and he would cut them all up, throw them into the center of the room, mix them all up, and then bring two, three, sometimes four of these things together to create really awkward situations, which forced him to think differently.

[00:08:16] Which is of course one of the benefits of being neuro divergent. And from there he would create his characters, his lyrics, and so on. So you mentioned niching up. Do you wanna describe a bit more what that means? Because we’re often told, the more we narrow things down, the better pick one thing, the power of [00:08:30] one and all that kind of thing.

[00:08:31] So what’s niching up? Yeah. So let’s say I was niching down, right? So if I was niching down, I would only be working with multi potential lights with productivity, and I wouldn’t last a week. That would just bore me stupid. So what I do is I niche up. So niching down has been very minimalistic. A niching app has been maxim that I’ve ever mean, that’s a word, but it’s what it’s, it’s, it’s taking all your different skills and stacking them up together to create something new.

[00:08:51] So I help multi potential. I fulfill their potential, but I use productivity for that. I use mindset for that. I use sports psychology. I use strategy. I use creative thinking. I [00:09:00] use a whole philosophy. I use a whole bunch of different things that I’m interested in, and I stack them up to solve specific problems.

[00:09:06] Whilst I get all my clients unstuck, all my clients tend to be in, they’re not in the same situation. It’s not like all of them. Are in corporate and they want to go into, I dunno, starting their own business. They can be all in different kind of various different phases of creative problem solving. And I’m able to do that because I can stack up my different skills.

[00:09:22] Dr. Seuss is another classic example of it. He basically was a copywriter at an advertising agency and William Spalding, who [00:09:30] was then the director of education at the time, who he’d met during the war, approached him to create children’s books. Because the fifth graders in America were falling behind on their grammar at that particular time.

[00:09:41] And the reason being is that that there was no books that was captivating their imagination. So Dr. Seuss was challenged to create books that would captivate the children’s imagination, only using, I think it was 267 different words of the fifth graders grammar list. And he failed. I think he used 272 words, but basically he stacked his different skills together.

[00:09:59] He stacked his [00:10:00] poetry, his illustration skills, his storytelling skills, and his copywriting skills. So he stacked all them together to create all the do cat and the hat and green eggs and ham and so on. Again, there’s another example of niching up. It’s taking all your different skills. So instead of employing an illustrator and a separate poet or a separate storyteller, you have one person, a multi potential, like that’s skilled in many different areas, and when they stack them up together, They can turn them into something special.

[00:10:23] It sounds a bit like figuring out a puzzle and how things work together. Yeah. Yeah. And of course a lot of people [00:10:30] can’t figure out these puzzles. It’s very, very difficult because we struggle to read the label when we’re stuck in the jar, right? Mm-hmm. So it’s really easy for me to sit across on the Zoom, call across my screen from another client who will tell me how they’re being stuck for sometimes decades.

[00:10:43] And it’s really easy for me to see the patterns and the threads of what they’re talking about and what they’re actually trying to do by zooming out. But it’s very difficult for me to do it myself. Because I can see everyone else’s problems, but I can’t see my own. Right. We all need some support and help to get out of our own heads.

[00:10:57] So was Dr. Seuss, was he neurodiverse or [00:11:00] you’re, sometimes you can make observations whether you actually know that they are or not. Well, well, he’s a multi potentiality, right. A, a multi potentiality is basically neurodivergent, but the psychological term of multi potentiality as somebody who has multiple creative skills and or academic skills.

[00:11:13] Yes. So, and the definition of a multipotentialite then was multi potential light. Whether or not he was actually neurodivergent, I don’t know. But it’s my belief that all multipotentialite are neurodivergence and neurodivergence are all multipotentialite. But that’s my learned experience. I have no medical qualifications to back that up, but that’s just my [00:11:30] theory.

[00:11:30] Right. And probably back in the day, they weren’t really necessarily diagnosing a lot of people and whether it should be called, people do need help, but sometimes I struggle with it being called a disorder, which I think plays into why sometimes parents don’t wanna tell their kids because there are horrible words in there like, Deficits and disorders.

[00:11:47] I digress. I saw, SUSE called the musical recently, and that’s why it doesn’t actually surprise me what you’re saying about him, because I went there to see my friend who is in the musical and expected to enjoy it. But then I hadn’t seen it [00:12:00] before. Have you seen that? No, I’ve never seen it. No. I was blown away because it was basically that.

[00:12:05] Message in it. There was this kid who didn’t fit in the box at school and was always getting in trouble and thinking was getting in trouble, and I saw that message. I thought, oh, there’s the Neurodivergent kid. Even though they didn’t call him that. And then he’s out of the box thinking, oh, I shouldn’t say I shouldn’t give away Spoil.

[00:12:22] No, no, that’s really interesting. He’s an interesting character. And again, the Green Eggs and Harm, which is I think the best selling children’s book of all time, I [00:12:30] believe. I could be wrong, I’m sure one of your listeners can write in, but basically that was a bet between him and one of those publishers to create a bestselling children’s book with 50 unique words or under, and that’s what Green eggs and ham is.

[00:12:40] So it’s using those constraints to solve problems really creatively. So green eggs and ham. My daughter loves it, and I used to love telling my daughter that I must have read that book hundreds of times. And I pretty much know off my heart because it’s literally only, I think, 50 words, right? And it’s just repetitive, repeat, repeat, repeat.

[00:12:55] But that just shows you the level of creativity and by putting constraint onto how [00:13:00] multipotentialite can turn us to an advantage. I love that. Yes. I think I have heard that before about here. Could only use certain words. All right, so, so how did you develop your methodology? And what are the key principles behind it?

[00:13:11] Well, my methodology is basically the same as my artist management methodology. I didn’t realize at the time as an artist manager, I don’t think many managers will actually say that they’re coaches, but really they’re one and the same. Mm-hmm. So basically everything is like where you are, you know where your goals are, and there’s obviously a gap from where you are to where you want to be.

[00:13:27] And you’ve got a bunch of obstacles in the way. And our [00:13:30] goal is to maximize the opportunities and minimize the threats and things get in the way. And that is basically my coaching and that was my artist management as well, is I had a bunch of really talented. Talented artists who were very driven, but struggled to start and finish projects.

[00:13:43] All the typical sort of neuro divergent or multipotentialite things. It was all challenges like that. So that’s basically how the methodology has come. Interestingly, after I left the music industry, it took me a long time to realize that it’s not like I left the music industry and went, oh, okay, I’m gonna go and start coaching Multipotentialite.

[00:13:57] There was about an 18 months journey of me, my [00:14:00] curiosity, and try to work out what the hell I was gonna do the rest of my life. Which then ended me back here, but it’s only when I ended up back here that I looked back and thought, okay, it’s exactly the same job. Really? Mm-hmm. Except now I work with people across all sectors and industries, and not just artists in the music industry, but yeah, it’s basically the same job except where you are now, where you want to go.

[00:14:18] There’s a gap between the two, and you have to create a situation to be able to get there and remove all the blocks because for neurodivergent or multi potential people, it’s not that we don’t have the potential, the brains, the creativity, the problem solving skills, it’s we [00:14:30] get in our own way. Usually speaking, generally speaking.

[00:14:33] So, but can you name any names? Who do you worked with all these? Pop stars. Are there any in the uk It’s great for girls with a big band there and they were multi-platinum. Um, they sold millions of albums and yeah, there was a DJ called Mario pto. He was number eight in the world. A Joy Kiton, a seeded, the Bass, Mario Pu Ul, mark Spoon.

[00:14:50] There was a whole bunch of them, sorry, DJs and stuff. But yeah, we did some touring in Australia, but not so much that it would be a household name. But certainly in the uk Scouting for girls were like the, one of the [00:15:00] biggest pop bands of the time. A lot of people hated them, which I really liked because I’m really contrarian, but it really annoyed people in the music industry and they probably still do.

[00:15:07] And then people like Mario Ru pso, they were DJ superstar DJs and stuff like that, but he had a bunch of hits right across Europe. It was all fun times. The UK is such a big market for music. So much of the music of the world comes from there. That’s amazing. Can you tell us a particularly inspiring success story from a client of yours?

[00:15:24] Yeah, there’s so many of them. I think one of my, , clients is very private, which is odd cuz she’s going [00:15:30] viral on TikTok. But basically she’s a 70 year old psychotherapist and I love her. She’s amazing, and she’s the most scared I’ve ever seen a client. She was literally shaken. She was absolutely terrified to post any content whatsoever.

[00:15:43] Very good writer, very talented, big, lacked out belief, and it’s very, very difficult to put ourselves out there. I struggled with it for many decades myself. But I’ve worked with her and she’s put her content out there. She’s not looking for clients on that. She’s just got all this wisdom, although that would probably embarrass her if she hears this and says this.

[00:15:59] So [00:16:00] apologies if she’s that. Well, you haven’t named it. No, I won’t name her, but she knows who she is. But yeah, so she’s got all this knowledge and wisdom and she wants to help other people feel seen and heard. And I think it’s a beautiful thing which she’s doing. I’ve got another client I’ve been working with for about six months and he’s got cystic fibrosis.

[00:16:14] I would imagine most people know the life expectancy sort of early forties for people with cystic fibrosis. This client is, he’s a genius. He’s come up with this whole sort of philosophy of way of looking at life because obviously it’d be quite easy to fall into sort of like fatalism with that kind of diagnosis [00:16:30] and knowing I believe from, since he was eight years old.

[00:16:32] That he wouldn’t hit his mid forties. And as a result, he’s managed to carve out a really happy life. He’s probably one of the happiest people I know, certainly one of the smartest, and he’s created this whole philosophy and I’m helping him bring that to market where he is basically gonna share this philosophy through cards.

[00:16:45] I don’t wanna go into too much detail, but basically projects that are very purposeful, they’re very meaningful, and it’s just helping people share their big ideas with the world. And that’s what I love about it. It’s really helping people move forward and. Get out of their own way. Yeah, that’s it. We are all kind of stuck, aren’t we?

[00:16:59] There’s so [00:17:00] much of us. We’ve got so many ideas and we’ve got so much to share, but we’re scared of putting ourselves out there. And I think the great joy of what I do is helping really talented, creative, intelligent people share their ideas with the world and help other people feel seen and heard. And I think that’s a beautiful thing.

[00:17:13] Now, all your, your emails and a lot of your videos have these diagrams in them. Do you do those illustrations? No. No, they don’t come at camera. Have you ever come across a blog? Wait, but why? Do you remember? Wait, why? It was round about, I’m sure my age, but it used to go viral all the time on, on [00:17:30] Facebook.

[00:17:30] It’s when Facebook was a big thing and they used to go viral there. Anyway, this guy, Tim Urban’s his name, he’s also got one of the top 10 must watched Ted Talks on procrastination. Anyway, he used to explain these complex blogs sometimes. Thousands and thousands and he used stick characters anyway, so I’ve always thought that was a really cool thing.

[00:17:46] And I went into Canva and I just put in stick characters and there they were. And I thought, wow. By the way, the artist, I can’t remember his name, he sounds Spanish off top of my head, from memory. But basically he’s gotta be a multisite because there’s so many of him looking off the stick figures, looking confused, [00:18:00] not knowing which direction to take.

[00:18:01] So everyone thinks that I’ve drawn them myself as a result of that, but it, I really haven’t. It’s a brand. It’s on brand now. It’s your brand. It is on brand now. So why do you think people get. Stuck and struggle with procrastination. People get stuck because they overthink. The reason we’re not taking action is because we’re not making decisions.

[00:18:17] The reason we’re not making decisions is because we’re scared of picking the wrong thing. The reason we’re scared of picking the wrong thing is we’re scared of wasting our time because we’ve all got time anxiety, and we also feel that we’re running outta time or we’re behind everybody, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:18:28] And of course that means we get stressed and anxious, and [00:18:30] when we get stressed and anxious, we procrastinate and we end up wasting our time. So the whole thing’s just one big paradox I’m afraid to tell everybody, but yeah, the reason we procrastinate is because of stress, anxiety. It’s our emotional management system.

[00:18:39] Avoiding stress and anxiety. The thing that is very stressful for us is which one of our multiple ideas should I pick? Which is the right one? Which is the purposeful one? And what happens is we pick one and we test that out, and then we get FOMO for all our other ideas. So we end up flip flopping from one.

[00:18:54] I can tell this is resonating. We end up flipping from one idea to the other and basically spinning our wheels and [00:19:00] not making any traction. And that’s when clients come and see me and clients go, look, I’ve got all these different ideas and I dunno what to do. And I say, okay, cool. Let’s just work this out.

[00:19:06] And we work out. We reverse engineer what their purpose is. We look at who they wanna help, the younger version themselves, and we reverse engineer the process for them and. Build a plan. But yeah, basically that is what the procrastination people come and say, I’ve got procrastination problem. This is very true, but upstream, you’ve got stress and anxiety problem, which for most potential sites tends to be making the wrong decision.

[00:19:25] Or have I made the wrong decision? Or what’s my purpose, my why, whatever. Something along those lines. That’s [00:19:30] interesting. Yes, it did resonate. It reminded me of when I had the big epiphany last year about realizing what A D H D looks like in adulthood, and then I felt like as, the example I always use is, Bruce Willis at the end of sixth Sense, when he looks back on his life and he sees this glaring obvious thing that he’d missed the whole time.

[00:19:48] And messaged my friend who’s very proud, she’s got D h D and autism and believes that it is a super powerful for her. And I said, Oh my God, I think I’ve got a [00:20:00] D H D. And she’s like, ha ha. Yeah, you do. Yeah. So do certain family members and when I asked her later why was it so obvious? She said, like, you’ve had about more career changes this in the few years that I’ve known you than some people do in the whole life.

[00:20:17] And I went, Okay. All right. So yes, I think sometimes once you know, you sit that you can see in people who may not even have spotted it themselves yet. Yeah. Affinity bias. We tend to be attracted to people like ourselves. I mean, a lot [00:20:30] of people I know, particularly sort of Gen Xers who are just getting diagnosis and then of course realize that, oh, my friends are neuro divergent as well, and so on and so on.

[00:20:37] Right. It seems that. Totally. And even before, I’ve had my newsletter for coming up for three years, two, two and three quarter years. For the first year it was, I had a bit 10 different niches. I had no idea what I was doing at that point. I didn’t know. Was neurodivergent. I didn’t know multi potential it was so I was just writing all different things and I built up this whole audience of Neurodivergence who, without even talking about Neurodivergence, a lot of them are clients and stuff now and they didn’t know at the time.

[00:20:59] And it’s really interesting. [00:21:00] There’s a real explosion, an uprising of Neurodivergence throughout the world right now, isn’t it? I feel like I’m seeing them everywhere, but the reason I’m seeing them is because all my friends are creative entrepreneurs, so that’s where they all are. Alright, is there anything that I haven’t.

[00:21:13] Asked you that you wanted to share? Anything that you want our listeners to know? I think we’ve covered pretty much everything. It’s always good to get onto podcasts and be able to chat to people, and I think that’s probably all the information. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, so yeah, we’re all good.

[00:21:26] How can people work with you? Yeah, if people just go to Creative [00:21:30] hackers.co. That’s my website. From there, they can join my newsletter or see my tos or book, anything from there. My newsletter and my newsletter’s really good. I’m really proud of that. I spend a lot of time on that for people that are wanting to learn how to maximize their potential and their brains and their creativity and all that kind of thing.

[00:21:47] I think that’s probably the first place to go. Okay. Well put all the links and make sure it’s all on the show notes so that people can go ahead and follow you, and thank you so much for joining me. Well, thank you very much for inviting me. I’ve really enjoyed it. Thank you. Pleasure. So what were [00:22:00] your key takeaways from today?

[00:22:01] Did it raise any questions? What would you like to know more about? Let me know. You can contact me via social media or email. I don’t care which way you use. Just reach out to me. I’d love to chat with you. And remember, you can get access to lots of free. Podcast resources that’ll help you get started or help you improve your podcast@libbymusicmedia.com slash freebies.

[00:22:24] Hit subscribe cuz I wanna see you again, but for now, go forth. Be the awesome person you are. [00:22:30] Live the life you want to live and. Have fun. You’ve got this. See you next time.[00:23:00]