What do they want?

I had a long conversation with a good friend about creativity and purpose. I was wandering how George Lucas, Walt Disney, The Wachowski Brothers, Trey Parker and Matt Stone knew what to create to hit exactly at the right time to really capture our imagination.
My friend, in his infinite wisdom, reminded me that "they didn't". Star Wars, The Matrix, Steamboat Willie and Southpark were not the only thing on these guy's minds. They created other things. They had other stuff happening. These were just the ones where they got some attention and they fed into it, slowly increasing the speed of the wheel until it really took off.
Some of these (Southpark) began quite modestly. Others required someone taking a leap of faith after being concinved that the creators deserved a shot (Star Wars and The Matrix). One was self-produced and was unlike anything people had seen. It was whimsical AND technologically advanced (Steamboat Willie). The point is, none of these were a first endeavor, but these creators kept creating.
They didn't just write on thing and try and sell that thing for the next 40 years. They kept writing, kept producing and kept getting stuff in front of people's eyes.

Maybe you and I should to?

The Brain Trust

So I remember when reading Jack Canfield's "Success Principles" (which I highly recommend) one of the items he discusses is a brain trust, or a mentoring group who meet regularly and advice one another on their various pursuits. Typically these people are not specifically involved in your business, or art, or endeavor, but have some meaningful input. Typically, it would be people you trust and admire and whose input you value (but who won't just agree with you for agreement's sake). In the event that you have no friends, or for some reason cannot assemble a physical mentoring group, he suggests assembling a fantasy team and then based on what you know about those people, imagine what they might tell you about what you are doing, where you are going and what advice they might give.

I thought it might be fun to imagine the GGE Brain Trust who would advice Green and I if we had the chance. Here's my current list (and I listed Seven because I love "The Seven Samurai" so I went with the same number. I think Canfield actually recommends five):

1. Walt Disney (who else better to fire the imagination and demonstrate how to build an entertainment empire)
2. Stan Lee (Amazing imagination and energy)
3. Seth Godin (inspiring, innovative and a marketing guru. All about doing something rather than doing nothing)
4. Jack Canfield (Obvious reasons - cited above)
5. Donald Trump (Why the Donald? Because he is a monster. He's made success out of nothing and his advice would be cold, hard and logical - unlike a lot of the artsy types I typically run with)
6. Rob Zombie (A master in branding oneself and making success in one medium translate to another
7. George Lucas (George is the weakest member of the team, but he is a natural innovator and understand a lot of what I am trying to do. When I think about where I want to be, a mini-George Lucas is a good example, so he gets a seat for now)

that's our Magnificent Seven. Make sense? Do you like the list? Who would you add or subtract? Who's on your list?