Life Done Different.ly

This conversation is with the chef, raver and compulsively creative Brad Carter. Brad’s not averse to learning from others but his energy levels peak, his boat is well and truly floated, when he has a vision for something different.  From winning a pizza-making competition at school through his partying years to a surprise Michelin star, Brad seems to relish constraints using them to make things his own. This includes his restaurant Carters, the one-star doner bar, Psychedelic Jam, and much more.  

Welcome to our conversation with the Musician and Artist Boff Whalley.  Boff was formerly the lead-guitarist of British anarchist punk band Chumbawumba. Best known for their 1997 single "Tubthumping".Boff grew up in Burnley, in a Morman family. He embraced the art and punk scenes, experimented with different types of music, and with his anarchist mates from the squat formed Chumbawumba which became famous for Tubthumping and pouring water over John Prescott at the 1998 Brits. Chumbawumba, unusually, seem to have navigated their way through an industry with their values intact. It's a fascinating story where Boff and others seem to have found a way to balance being oneself with being part of a group . . . and thrived.

Derek Sivers is a man with his own mind. To describe him as a musician, circus clown, entrepreneur, programmer, author, speaker, philosopher and Dad might whet your appetite but it would only be a part of the story. Whatever Derek does, he rarely does it on auto-pilot. He has a knack for questioning things. His beliefs are less likely to be a story he's inherited and more likely to be a useful experience. He listens to himself and when what he does fails to resonate, he notices it and explores the alternatives. He's learned to be unafraid of hierarchies, unafraid of complimenting people and understands the considerable benefits of doing things differently when things don't feel quite right. Don't try and put Derek in a box.I discovered Derek's 'How to start a movement' Ted Talk over 10 years ago and have been recommending it ever since. It was a real pleasure to speak with him. He seems very clear that he learns from the people he respects and the material they recommend but it seems to me the lessons unlock

This is a conversation with Steve Chapman. Steve worked for Glaxo Smith Kline for 20 years, he started packing boxes and ended up in a senior management role - and then he became an artist. It sounds like a huge dose of doing something very different but it's not quite as dramatic as that. Steve has found a way to do what he wants to do and earn a living selling his art and helping organisations understand creativity and the human condition. He says "I'm at my best when I’m on the edge of not quite knowing what I’m doing". Amen to that, I think we all are. We can only grow when we're pushed, when we step into the unknown. Steve talks here about working in a factory, social loafing, our addiction to expertise, embodying 'not knowing', the beginner's mind, silent podcasts, rumblings of discontent, helpful bosses, feelings being real, quantum flirting, safe uncertainty, child-like enthusiasm, comedy, money, learning to live below his means and more.To me, Steve is a great example of someone who has and continues

Better Business On Purpose is a book that Neil has recently co-authored.It's a practical guide for leaders who want to grow profit and have a positive impact on the world.Included in the book:Examples of inspiring businesses that have embedded purpose in their DNA, and who are making it work.The '7 Ps' - a systematic approach to making your business more purpose-led and profitable at the same time.The case for "doing more": why all business leaders have their role to play, and why it is never too late to begin.Find out more here: https://www.bbopbook.com

Hello and welcome to our conversation with Pieter Levels. Peter is the man behind NomadList.com, remoteOK.com, InflationChart.com, rebase.co and more.Pieter is hard to describe if you’re after an old-world description. He’s most certainly a business guy and a software developer guy but he works remotely, sometimes he charges for his creations, sometimes he doesn’t. He practices radical honesty with himself and others. He’s unafraid to experiment, to play and learned as a student that doing something different can have unexpected and very rewarding consequences.He works with a few trusted friends but creatively he’s the man. Neil has been telling me for six months that a conversation with Pieter would be fun and interesting. He was right. Pieter is in charge of himself, he’s not going with the flow unless it serves him. He’s not short of money but doesn’t own a home and his laptop seems to be as extravagant as it gets.He keeps things simple and for someone so successfully immersed in the world of digital, has

Until she went to Sweden as part of a student exchange programme, Steph didn't really question the trajectory she was on. She was going with the flow. A spell in Sweden, a different culture with different people and in particular a different educational system woke Steph up to the idea that she had led a sheltered life and that different was at the very least interesting and at very best, significantly better than the way things were done back home.The idea that there were other ways to do things stuck . .  so when it came to joining the world of work, Steph started to question the model of get a job, go to the job, keep the job and climb the career ladder. She started to experiment with a whole heap of different remote working jobs. Got herself a job with a fully remote company, flew to live in Scotland and she’s been working remotely ever since. Fully understanding that remote working was possible allowed Steph to question the other narratives in her life. If I can work remotely what else is possible?Steph

Hi All - in this episode we talk to Rosie Sherry. Rosie is a self-declared introvert and community builder extraordinaire. She is best known for the Ministry of Testing, Indie Hackers, Rosie.land and RecklessMother.com Rosie builds communities and has done so for more than 15 years. It includes the Sherry community of Rosie, Graham and their 5 kids aged 17 to 3 - none of whom go to school. It’s not that Rosie is looking to rebel. It's just that she seems to be clear about how she wants to spend her time and a conventional path would not allow her to live life, her way. So she designs her own made to measure life with little or no reference to the way most people live theirs. Rosie’s approach is one where she just does stuff. If she enjoys doing it, she’ll spend more time doing it and then, because she’s spending the time she works out how to get paid to do it. Rosie is half Columbian, half Irish, sounds Scottish, was born in London, grew up in London, Indonesia and  Columbia, moved back to London with no qual

Mills founded ustwo with Sinx, his mate from school. Ustwo has become a digital product studio, a games company and an investment business. They have always worked with the biggest brands in the world. In part, Neil & I enjoyed this because Mills is from a world we understand pretty well. It’s a world that’s exploded in the last 25 years or so. A world where creativity meets technology, a world where innovation is valued, where work and play, and an excess of both, is baked-in to most successful start-ups because it’s a world full of young people. And then there comes a point a few years later, where the founders of these successful businesses, have to make a decision. They have to move from the playful, hard-working, youthful chaos of the start-up to the order, discipline and structure required to keep this beast of an organisation stable.The last thing anyone wants is for people to lose their jobs because the company isn’t being run properly. This process is the process of organisational change but unli

Hi all - welcome to our conversation with Emile Bennett, Emile is a 37-year-old knife-maker and bladesmith but it’s taken him a while to feel comfortable with those descriptions. Previously his world was software, apps, websites and to begin with studio engineering. Originally from the UK, he now lives in Chamonix in the French Alps.Emile has spent most of his working life with the distinct feeling that he wasn’t doing what he was meant to do. This is Emile’s very frank story of his struggles with anxiety and his search for meaning. Emile’s willingness and determination to paint the real authentic picture of his life is what I appreciated most about our conversation. He does anything but suggest he has life nailed, but it is the hero’s journey, albeit he’s not returned home yet - he’s had that rock-bottom moment which arrived a few years ago after a sleepless night and a 90-minute hill climb with friends. His conclusion, at the top of that hill was that he had to change what he was doing, and he had to do it

Hi everyone. I hope you're doing okay given the circumstances. Welcome to our conversation with Charles Wookey. Charles is the CEO of A Blueprint for Better Business, a charity that helps organisations consider their social and environmental impact alongside their financial goals. This is how I know Charles. His organisation does some great work but how Charles' ended up with Blueprint is the interesting bit.Boarding school from the age of six is a mixed blessing. It's certainly not what he wanted for his children put it that way. Philosophy and Physics at Oxford followed school and then into KPMG to become an Accountant and that's when he started to make up his own mind. The obvious path was to fit in and work his nuts off for the next ten to fifteen years and become a partner.  Two weeks after qualifying, at the moment his salary would have doubled, he left because he could see the future and it meant becoming someone he didn't want to become.What followed has been a career of curiosity. A few years at the

Hello hello - welcome to Part 2 of our conversation with Junior Smart. If you haven't listened to Part 1 I suggest you do that first. Part One takes us to the point where Junior is just about to be sent to prison for what turned out to be a twelve-year sentence. This is Part 2 where Junior describes the shock of prison, the meanness and the compassion of both prison staff and inmates. He describes his journey from being scared to being respected, from someone who went with the flow to someone who swam against it . . . and ended up with an OBE as a result.I've enjoyed every conversation we've had on this podcast but these two conversations with Junior have remained in my mind longer than any others and I think that's happened because I'm simply blown away by the speed at which Junior was able to use prison as his turning point. I've thought about his journey in so many different ways and every time I end up thinking about his ability to build bridges when others were building walls . . .  and that's what leade

Junior Smart is a youth leader, an ex-offender, an academic and a couple of months ago he added father to this list. If you don't believe people can change, listen to this. This is a story about the power of belonging. A need we all have to belong to a group. A lesson in how we often attach importance to the wrong things and end up in the wrong group, the wrong Club. It's a lesson in how, with an open mind and good people in your support team, you can change beyond your imagination. Juniors levels of self-awareness are stratospheric when compared to the frickin mess he describes himself as in his early twenties.From giving away his personal power to taking it, from toxic masculinity to the Tedx stage . . . it's quite a journey . . . this is a story about leading yourself . . . this is Part 1 

Hi everyone. Hope you're all okay, coping, surviving, learning, growing - it's hard to know what to say these days - we're all experiencing the same thing and whilst the experience is so shared sometimes . . .  the more I talk to people the more I understand, at times, how very differently we're all experiencing it. This conversation is a good example. It's a conversation with Matt & Lucia, husband and wife, both professional singers, parents to Persephone, neighbours of my friends Caramel & Roger and most recently the creative and operational geniuses behind mini music makers which are fun, energetic, educational music classes for pre-school kids.   Back in March, both Matt's & Lucia's incomes dried up overnight. This is the story of what the business world calls a pivot but it's so much more than that.It's really a lesson in both fighting and rolling with the punches.  Matt and Lucia are very different. Matt was born with huge talent, Lucia worked hard to develop hers. Matt, the teenager, rebell

Hi All - welcome to our conversation with Ben Ivey. Ben is a coach to Entrepreneurs but what makes Ben interesting is that he's interested in the Entrepreneur as a person, the whole person not just as a business person. He's as happy talking about love as he is margins. He wants you to live the best life you can, one where regrets are minimised and magic moments are maximised. Ben's awareness of business was there from an early age.  Both his Grandad and Dad were property entrepreneurs and this feeling that he needed to take personal responsibility or control of his life seemed to be a reaction to his parent's separation.   He was good at numbers and so business or banking seemed a natural option but he realised early on that he didn't want to go down the corporate consultancy route and so, like many of us do, he followed a friend - in Ben's case on to the start-up bus where he started his own entrepreneurial journey in the form of One Pink Elephant which took him to China and then Los Angeles.Ben was telling

This episode is a conversation with Tom Libelt, salesman, musician and DJ, coffee shop owner, publisher and most recently digital nomad.Thank you to Tom for a thoroughly enjoyable conversation. As you've probably noticed, our title for Tom is 'The Reluctant Adventurer'.For Tom, adventure is a reaction to boredom, not the primary motivation. It seems clear that Tom's parents and his wealth of experiences as a child played a role in shaping him. I loved hearing about the VCR and blueberry hustles. I loved the way he dealt so nonchalantly with the move from Poland to the US, gunshots in his hallway, rarely seeing his parents and customer service punch-ups at school. I get it, it was simply the way things were. For me, the inspiring bit is when he starts to get dissatisfied with his trajectory when he starts to make his own path. I wish I'd been smart enough to hack the school software system and pass my exams in two months rather than the usual four years - it would have saved me and my teachers a lot of pain! I

The benefits of being forced to do something we said we'd never do  Responding to changeThe difference between hearing a story and experiencing itThe need for human connectionThe importance of humourFinding ups within the downsCan you build real relationships via technology?How we can all experience the same event so very differently When fear and excitement become the same thingCOVID-19 as a magic wand for the environmentThe possibility of Universal Basic Income (UBI) The importance of taking aim 

She tried mainstream fashion but didn't fit in. Clare doesn't fit in - in so many ways! Clare's a rebel. She suggests that rebellion became a part of her when she moved schools and studied the same syllabus and sat the same exams two years on the trot. Clare, because she was bright got very bored and that bred rebellion. I'm sure that year shaped Clare but I have very little doubt that Clare was born to rebel. Her childhood was characterised by instability and change. She learned to cope with the unknown. As an adult with her own mind, she is still unafraid of the unknown. She is unafraid of the consequences of her actions because she's experienced the likely consequences before . . . and survived. Being arrested doesn't faze someone whos spent time in the notorious Top Shop Hilton. Clare's childhood doesn't seem good enough to me. I think she deserved better. She's worked hard to understand what happened but what occurs to me is that this not good enough childhood might just be the very thing that's given he

We met up a few weeks later and Katey told me more. More about: The wasted years of her life and how she started to doubt people were goodNoticing she was angry with herself and everyone around herThe point at which she decided not to be angryHow she became braver, how she started to changeHow the simple act of liking an instagram post became the first step of her journey The importance of her friends who act as her support teamThe moment when she realised she was strong Her brother's suggestion to make a list of the things she wanted to doThe difference between confidence and self-esteemHow getting out of her comfort zone gives her confidenceHow liberating it can be to take your clothes off in publicWhat happens when you bring what you want and what you need togetherLa Bordello Boheme BurlesqueThe Walrus Pub Brighton

We have a big old natter about:Growing up in SwanseaThe problem of doing what you want on your wedding day - when others want you to go with the flow (one week after this conversation Damian was getting married Vegas) Moving to New YorkThe problem of describing what he does; Musician v Builder of BusinessesThe creativity of building businesses When he gets bored it's time to move onBeing a five-star failerGood drummers = good videographersPlaying Wembley Arena & Hyde Park Meeting your heroesBeing paid to do what you loveFailing all his GCSE'sJoining a bandSigning a record deal and the anticipation of becoming a rock starThe 9 months of anticipation being followed by being dropped by the record label  Getting a job in the local shampoo factoryRealising that he didn't want to get used to a very boring jobWhy everyone should do a very boring jobReacting to rock-bottomBeing more scared of staying at the shampoo factory than he was scared of the unknownUnderstanding that failure isn't fatalFinding his 'lane' w