In conversation with Lex McKee

The Art of Being a Writer

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In conversation with Lex McKee

Linda Parkinson-Hardman

Sep 28, 2020

Lex McKee and I first met at various networking meetings taking place across Dorset back in early part of the 21st century and even though I dropped out of business networking for several years his posts on LinkedIn have always intrigued, fascinated and amused me, as he’s a very funny guy – as well as being thought-provoking and challenging. We explored the metaphor of farming as sowing the seeds of self-belief, confidence, knowledge and learning. And also the co-creation of communication through our uses of language and words frame our entire existence.

Lex is many things, filmaker, broadcaster, podcaster, writer and photographer, and what all these hats have in common is creativity with the intent to educate, elucidate and entertain. Lex writes because if he doesn’t write he bursts because he has so many ideas that come up every morning. By writing he copes with what might otherwise be overwhelming so he can capture flow so he knows it’s safe and he can return to it when the time is right.

He finds that schedule helps him manage the creative output and making sure his work flows along something that’s been agreed. As long as he is clear about the outcome then the process is easy, but that can be challenging with the clients he works with as many do not really know what they want, they have an idea of something but aren’t sure how it will manifest. However, Lex and I are both coaches at heart and it’s very easy for us to recognise (we think!) what a client needs but really what is required is for the client to see things for themselves. And in that ‘seeing’ they can help us as creatives come to an understanding of what the outcome could be. In this way the conversation becomes one of co-creation.

We live in a society that consumes knowledge and learning, but true knowledge is the co-creation of knowledge which is constantly changing. And we talked about the concepts of mindset vs skillset and how this relates to terms like knowledge, training and the creative process. As the conversation developed we agreed that mindset has an element of belief in oneself and is where the magic of creativity springs from. We also talked about whether it’s possible to give someone the gift of confidence again we agree that this is something that has to come from our internal world, and as coaches we can share the positive we see in others and so help them see their own confident self.

And if you would like to catch up with Lex and find out about contribution compass, the 90 day life-plan and motivational mapping, you can do so on his website: https://www.entertrainment.co/. You’ll also find his becoming heroes podcast on Soundcloud