I recently attended a showing of Hugh MacLeod’s work at a bar in New York. I had never heard of Hugh until I started using Twitter six months ago. But every since I have been a big fan of his work. If you’ve visited my site at all you’ve seen that I’ve installed his gapingvoid.com widget.

I finished reading Hugh’s book a few days ago. It’s been in my pile of “to-read” books for awhile now but I got through it in two hours. It was a great read and I highly recommend it to any one with a new idea or a creative person who doubts their abilities.

The following quote is one of many that are interspersed through Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity

Great ideas alter the power balance in relationships. That’s why good ideas are always initially resisted.

According to Hugh the book condenses as follows

Work hard
Keep at it
Live Simply and Quietly
Remain humble
Stay positive
Create your own luck
Be nice
Be polite

His advice as he mentions “isn’t rocket science” so why not give it a whirl. I got a chance to chat briefly with Hugh at the event in New York and he was nice, very gracious and even asked how the widget was working on my site. Fame doesn’t seem to have gotten to his head and over a million downloads of the manifesto that lead to his book deal don’t seem to have made him a prima donna. We should all be so lucky when we achieve success.

Follow him on Twitter @gapingvoid