MY ACT OF REBELLION: DAVID CHISLETT
My Act of Rebellion series is all about Co.LAB community members and how they stepped into entrepreneurship. It’s about sharing the inciting incident that propelled them to move away from the norm (the 9–5) and embrace entrepreneurship. It’s about sharing their profound why- what it is that they are challenging or changing in the work they are doing and why.
I became an entrepreneur in 1994. I was in London, fresh off the plane from Johannesburg South Africa. The job I landed was to work at a Television post production studio… but not a full-time job. A 6-month contract. At the time I didn’t care, I just needed work. I also didn’t think too hard about what it meant.
I had gone to England because I was disillusioned. I had been studying for my honours degree in English literature at WITS university in Johannesburg. But it was soulless, meaningless study that I could not see the point of. In a sulk basically, I de-registered, gave up my bursary, sold everything I owned and 6 weeks later I was in the TV studios in Hammersmith, London.
Before and during my studies, I wrote poetry, played in bands, was passionate about music and saw myself as a novelist in waiting…. I got into punk rock when I was 15 and, having grown up in Apartheid South Africa, had developed a serious disrespect for all authority, any status quo and the compromises that success in the 80 (during the Yuppie explosion and the Dot.com boom) seemed to require.
So, when the chance came to start writing articles about music, and to appear on national radio in South Africa, I didn’t hesitate. My contract at the TV station meant I had the time and the energy to devote to other work… which is how I established myself as a freelance journalist during my London stay.
After a couple of years, I decided to return to South Africa to work full time in the music business. There was no training, no structures, no mentors… nothing. I just had a burning desire to help bands grow and reach their audiences and I believe that through my writing and organising abilities i could. Aged 26, I started my first Artist management company and started out, convinced I could change the world through music.
It’s not that I decided to become an entrepreneur, it’s that to do what I loved, there was no other choice available.
I have always been a very independent person. I learn by doing, do not easily accept explanations without experience and prefer to walk my own path.
Since that first management agency, I have started and run a publicity company, another management company, worked as a freelance journalist, ghost writer and script writer, managed events, make a documentary film and published 8 books… in short, I continued to push out creatively into the world in any way that was available to me at the time.
When I looked at how many different things I have done in my life, I used to think that it was a chaotic mess that would never add up to anything. But now I have been alive long enough to see that it all adds up and is all connected. My life is about creativity… not just my own, but that of those around me as well.
Not much has changed since I started. I still think the way our world works needs to change. I also think that by doing what I do, I can be a part of that change. But now, I present Creativity Training for individuals and companies. Our world is changing fast as new technology and methods come online… people are changing too, and how we view work, purpose and meaning is also in flux. In short, being able to respond creatively to an ever-changing world has never been as important as it is today.
I believe that people who are creatively activated are less easy to manipulate because they understand their own capabilities to change and influence their environment. They also can see through the mechanics that others are using to try and force change on them.
I no longer work with music as an agent for change. I play and create music for my own personal enjoyment. What I do now is take creativity, as the starting point for all things new, and help every and any one activate their own internal power to create so that they too can take control of their environment and make the changes they would like to see in the world.
The best impact my work could possibly have, is to result in more people who are capable of adopting many points of view so as to better understand and experience their reality. The result of this is always the ability to think differently about reality, and thereby create new, different options and change how things work around ourselves.
YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT DAVID’S WORK AT http://www.davidchislett.com/
