The Ideas Lab Podcast

What is the impact on us as human beings when we never have a single spare moment, when we fill every minute with doing something productive, or even looking at our phones in order to kill time? That's a question that gripped Laurence Shorter after he'd written a really successful book and toured it around the world and found himself to be completely burnt out. And that's when Laurence started thinking about the art of having no idea. Laurence is a leadership consultant, an author, comedian and an artist. I've known him for somewhere around a decade when he spoke at my event, Scanners Night, for people with too many ideas and too many interests and lots of creativity. He is a scanner himself, and he has fascinating things to say about being a multifaceted human being and managing his own creative process. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/laurenceshorter-artofhavingnoidea ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

9/23/20 • 35:58

This episode of the podcast is a real adventure. It's one of my favourites. Charlie Thuillier was on a world record breaking kite buggy adventure with his brother Harry in Brazil, when he had a great idea, which was partly inspired by reading my first book, Screw Work Let's Play on a beach in Brazil. That idea was to create the world's first healthy ice cream. Today, Oppo ice cream is a reality. It's a product you can buy in thousands of stores all around Europe, and it's won multiple taste awards. Listen to the interview to find out how Charlie and his brother Harry went from sleeping on the floor of a borrowed office to creating their own successful international food brand. And you can also read more about their story and how Harry and Charlie worked together as a team within the company. In my new book, F**k Work Let's Play   Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/charliethuillier-oppoicecream ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

9/17/20 • 27:49

A special episode on John’s new bestselling book ‘F**k Work Let’s Play: Do what you love and get paid for it’ and how to get a free ticket to the world’s first F**k Work Day. See fworkletsplay.com for more details on the special offer 

9/10/20 • 08:14

If you want to start a movement that changes the way people all around the world think about a particular topic, then this will be a really interesting conversation for you to listen to. Jody Day is the founder of Gateway Women, which has helped millions of women around the world to come to terms with involuntary childlessness. The social enterprise that now has touched millions of women's lives was started in 30 days, in a course I used to run 10 years ago, called The 30 day challenge. Jody is also featured in my new book, F**k Work Let's Play: How to do what you love and get paid for it, as an example of somebody who's created a social enterprise and business around something she is very passionate about. And so I wanted to dive into more detail here about: How she started that business in 30 days with a couple of things that seemed like very small steps, and then how she managed to get through all the setbacks inherent in starting a business. Her own approach to running a social enterprise. How she's managed to scale up far beyond what she could have ever done as an individual psychotherapist. Some of the challenges she ran into when she moved from doing everything completely for free to charging a very modest amount. This is a fascinating conversation that spans the issues of involuntary childlessness right the way to marketing and entrepreneurship. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/jodyday-gatewaywomen ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

9/9/20 • 48:08

When I first met Sam Bombas and Harry Parr over a decade ago, they were just a couple of young guys doing some wacky things with food, including creating breathable cocktails and designer jellies. I thought what they were doing was so interesting and so playful, that I featured them in my first book Screw Worl Let's Play, which was published in 2010. When I checked in with Sam and Harry at the beginning of the year to find out how they were doing, as I set about writing a new version of that book now called F**k Work, Let's Play and published by Pearson imminently, I discovered that they built what were fun experiments with food into an international flavour studio that has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world. If you've ever had a crazy idea that you thought was just too out there, perhaps to make it real. Listen to this interview and get inspired and make your crazy ideas into a real business. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/bompasandparr-flavourstudio ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

9/2/20 • 34:31

This is a really powerful episode of the ideas lab podcast. Many of us have ideas about how to change the world for the better. How to take a campaign or a message or cause and make a real impact possibly around the entire world. Few of us achieve that. But Tristram Stuart has done. A few years back, Christian decided that he wanted to gather 5000 people in London's Trafalgar Square and feed them with hearty, healthy food made from ingredients that otherwise would have been thrown in the rubbish. To find out what happened and the impact it had that reverberated around the world, and how it led on to him creating a new beer brand called Toast Ale made from discarded bread slices - listen to this remarkable episode.   Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/tristramstuart-feedingthe5000 ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

8/26/20 • 36:12

If you've ever thought of writing your own book, whether it's a business book, a novel, or a memoir, then this podcast is going to be interesting to you. Laura Gale is an author and editor and a ghostwriter. And in this interview, we explore what those roles actually do. First of all, why do you need an editor if you're writing your own book? And also, why would you use a ghostwriter? How do they work with you to write a book for you, and he's using a ghostwriter cheating. We explore all of that with Laura. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/lauragale-ghostwriter ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

8/18/20 • 28:08

Quitting your job to go and do something more creative that you really love doing sounds very tempting. But the reality of it is more complex. How do you transition from a full time job that you're no longer enjoying, to doing something you love full time and getting paid for that? That is not usually a simple process. So I'm really glad that Dan Barker could make it on the podcast and tell his story of how he went from a job in mechanical engineering and transition step by step into becoming a successful photographer with his own studio. Along the way, he describes how he discovered what he wanted to do, how he started experimenting with it and got the confidence to explore his new hobby, and then how he made his first playcheck. And after that, scaling up to make more and more until he could safely walk out of his job and go full time as a photographer. Dan was actually inspired in his journey early on by my first book Screw Work Let's Play, so it's great that when it came to reinventing and recreating that book under the new title, F**k Work Let's Play, but it's being published on Kindle by Pearson on the 30th of August, that he could be included as one of the many case studies of people who are now getting paid to play after following the kind of principles I first wrote about. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/danbarker-photographer ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

8/13/20 • 34:02

If you've ever had a crazy creative idea for a business or project, and then you've talked yourself out of it because you couldn't see where it will go and what the point was, and how you could ever make some money out of it. Well, this is gonna be a great podcast for you. Sarah Weiler, runs a business called Power of Uke, teaching ukulele to giant corporations such as Google. Sarah also runs a London comedy club that has been running for six years ever since she launched it during a programme I used to run, called the 30 Day Challenge. On top of this, she has collaborated with Airbnb, and she's given a TEDx talk. Sarah has so many creative projects she wants to pursue, but she developed some really interesting ideas about how to manage them all and how to decide which ones to continue and which ones to quit. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/sarahweiler-powerofuke ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

8/4/20 • 40:51

A lot of us find it really hard to change our deeply ingrained habits, whether it's giving up a habit that's bad for our health or our concentration, or trying to adopt a new habit. So I was glad to have this conversation with Dr. Heather McKee, who is a behaviour change specialist, consulting to organisations. This is a really honest conversation between Heather and me, where we talk through some of our own bad habits, and Heather gave some cracking advice on how to change them. Best Wishes, John     For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/habitchange-heathermckee ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

7/27/20 • 35:56

This is a very special episode of the ideas lab podcast. Because this one is announcing my brand new book. I should warn you that this episode has a few swear words in it. You'll find out why soon enough! I wrote the first version of this book as a guide to success for somewhat unconvential people (like mysefl) who are obsessed with their own creative pursuits. 10 years on and after being translated into 10 languages I am here to present a completely revised and updated version.   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/mynewbook-behindthescenes ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

7/22/20 • 25:11

If you love reading non-fiction books, and you've ever dreamed of getting paid just to do that, then you're going to love this podcast. Mani Vaya runs 2000books.com and he has successfully turned his passion for non-fiction books into a successful business that he can run from anywhere in the world. Best Wishes, John     For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/manivaya-2000books ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

7/15/20 • 33:38

This is the first in a series of interviews with people who are featured in my brand new book published this July by Pearson. And this is David Crane. Dave is a friend of mine for some years, but he's also the person who is the creator of the number one stop smoking app in the world, called Smoke Free, he's now had 4 million downloads. And I wanted to ask him, what makes a good app idea? How do you get apps noticed right at the start, and what is the key to an app that takes off and actually becomes a major source of income, as well as doing some good in the world? Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/davecrane-smokefree-app ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

7/9/20 • 36:44

Have we lost touch with our bodies? Are we treating our bodies like some kind of brain taxi that's just carrying around the contents of our head? And what is the impact of that? That's a question that has obsessed Mark Walsh for going on 20 years. Mark is the creator of the Embodied Facilitator course, which helps coaches, therapists, body workers, and other practitioners to bring the body into their work and into their own lives as well. Mark is the creator of the embodiment conference happening later this year, and already has 130,000 people registered and £90,000 crowdfunded, to support the event. Just as interesting for me though, is the way mark presents himself online. He's very authentic, not afraid to be controversial. And this has actually allowed him to create a very large following, although at the same time he has to deal with quite a lot of backlash from what he describes as the politically correct or woke community. So we get into that towards the end of the podcast. It's a fascinating discussion. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit:  https://theideaslab.org/markwalsh-embodiment ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4  

7/1/20 • 39:23

If you've ever wanted to write a book about some aspect of business, then this is a great podcast for you. Alison Jones is founder of Practical Inspiration Publishing a pioneering publishing partner for businesses. And she runs the podcast, the Extraordinary Business Book Club, and she's had some fantastic guests on that. She is a veteran in the publishing industry with 25 years of experience with companies like Chambers, Oxford University Press, and Macmillan. And she is head judge on the annual Business Book Awards, which I am a category judge on. She's also author of This Book Means Business and several other books. And now I wanted to find out what makes a successful business book - how do you even start writing such a thing? And what is the key to making your business book successful? This is a really fascinating podcast for anyone who's ever dreamed of writing that killer business book. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/alisonjones-businessbooks ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

6/25/20 • 39:31

Mike Michalowicz is a New York Times bestselling author who has sold over half a million books. He's also built four multi-million dollar companies and sold two of them. But, he admits it's not all been positive. He lost his house at one point lost his entire fortune. twice, launch 10 failed businesses and experience years of depression. After working out where he was going wrong in his own businesses and finding a way to solve it. He became a business author with one clear mission; to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. So I'm delighted Mike agreed to be on the podcast, I loved his book, The Pumpkin Plan, and also Profit First, and now his new book is out, Fix This Next. In order to get a successful business off the ground and keep it growing, you find that there is a never ending list of things to be done and broken stuff to fix. And what Mike has done in Fix This Next is show a systematic way to simplify that process and make your business take off. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/mike-michalowicz-fixthisnext ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

6/17/20 • 29:49

This episode of the podcast is a really fun one. Sam Ashdown is a leading property industry marketing coach and with her son in law Phil Jones, she co-owns Fire Wave a marketing agency for estate agents, and also Ashdown Jones the Lake District estate agency. She's been featured in the Times, the Telegraph, on BBC Radio 4 and in House Beautiful. But Sam is also a friend of mine and we often meet up in a peer mastermind group and chat to each other about our businesses. We thought it'd be fun to do a conversation on the podcast, that is a little bit more like the kind of conversations we have privately comparing notes on running our businesses and about what we're trying to achieve and how we do it, rather than doing a formal interview process. That means we have a bit more of a candid conversation, where we cover everything from what our dreams are for our business, how I might be able to buy my dream 4 million pound home in London. How Sam started her very first business as a teenager delivering dog food, the myth of passive income and how she copes with controversy. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/samashdown-serialentrepreneur ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

6/1/20 • 53:23

Is blogging still relevant? Does it matter in the age of social media? And if you do blog hacking effectively, does it actually gets you results? Well, I’m very pleased that Yaro Starak has agreed to answer those questions for us on the Ideas Lab Podcast. I’ve been following Yaro from somewhere around 2008, maybe even a little bit earlier. And he’s something of a legend of the online marketing world. He started his first online business in 1999, when he was still 19 years old. He’s never had a full time job. And he’s always had some kind of online business for the last 20 years, from selling services like essay editing and email management, to buying and selling websites to blogging and digital products. So I’m really glad that we could dive into what really works in blogging these days, and why we should all still be writing a blog. Best Wishes, John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/yarostarak-blogging ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

5/27/20 • 47:51

If you're wondering how to take your creative or artistic skills, and make a really good living out of them, or if you're interested in how you can create something in the market that is completely unique, a marketing successfully, this podcast is for you. Ingrid Lill is an illustrator based in Denmark. She joined my pioneer program a few months ago, because she wanted to pull yourself out of that market of illustrators, where often you don't get paid that well for your work, even if you're really skilled, and instead create something that was distinctive, a visual thinking process called brand storyboarding, which helps businesses to identify who their target market is what they provide, that is a real value to them, what makes them different, and captures all of that in a beautiful illustration that Ingrid creates. Best wishes,  John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/ingrid-brandstoryboarding ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

5/20/20 • 22:15

Srabani Sen has had an impressive leadership career in the not for profit sector. She has been the CEO of three organisations: Alcohol Concern, Contact a Family and the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. She has more than 25 years board experiences and is currently Chair of two not for profits, including the campaigning organisation 38 degrees. Srabani joined my pioneer program in 2019 to launch Full Colour, which helps leaders learn how to lead inclusively, drive inclusion in their organisations, and create the conditions for diversity to thrive. Now, this topic can become waylaid with corporate-speak and is a very sensitive topic. So I wanted to make sure that we cut through all of that and have a very frank and straightforward conversation. So what you’re going to hear is why diversity matters in business terms, what gets in the way, do we need it even, and how you go about solving the diversity and inclusion problems in a way that actually makes a difference and changes the organisation for good. Srabani also describes how she managed to get her first customers and how she succeeded in differentiating herself in a crowded market, using all the things that we work together on in the Pioneer programme. Now, aside from all this, Srabani is an actor and a playwright, and she’s had her plays performed in some prestigious London theatres. Finally, I just had to ask what it was like meeting the queen in order to receive her OBE. Best wishes,  John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/srabanisen-diversity ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

5/13/20 • 32:00

Most people spend far too long with their business ideas on hold before they launch something. This special episode of The Ideas Lab podcast will tell you how you can launch a business idea in 5 days. And if you want to make it happen for yourself, you can join our free 5-Day Business Startup Challenge. The next one starts Monday 11 May. Register your free place at: sign up at: https://theideaslab.org/5dc

5/7/20 • 09:55

Well, this week’s interview guest is me. And I’m being interviewed by Simon Williams, who is a serial entrepreneur, author, speaker, lecturer, and successful business owner and he’s now the founder of Expert Velocity. Simon asked me to be on his podcast, to talk about finding the right idea at the beginning of getting your business started, how to test it out, and then how to get it going. Along the way, I also tell a few stories about my own work life in order to illustrate my points. So there might be some interesting things there from my history in technology and consultancy, and novel work about how I got to where I am now with The Ideas Lab. Thanks very much to Simon for a great interview, and for allowing us to share this recording as part of the ideas lab podcast. Best wishes,  John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/simonwilliams-interview ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

5/6/20 • 46:25

When Kat Williams started planning her own wedding she found the standard offers of the wedding industry uninspiring so she started exploring alternatives to the standard wedding in order to find something that she really loved. In 2007 Kat started sharing these ideas and inspirations on a blog and on social media, and this turned into RockNRollBride, one of the biggest wedding blogs in the world! When Kat launched her bi-monthly RockNRollBride magazine in 2015 it was reported as being the fastest debut selling issue of a magazine…ever. It sold out within 72 hours and sold over 1,000 copies within the first day alone. In 2019 Kat published her book, Rock N Roll Bride: The Ultimate Guide For Rock N Roll Brides, which instantly went to #1 in Amazon’s wedding category. With now over 100k followers on Instagram, Kat is turning some of her attentions to focus on more broader areas of life. We cover all of this and more in this fascinating interview. I do hope you enjoy it and get inspired from Kat. Best wishes,  John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/katwilliams-rocknrollbride ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

4/29/20 • 35:31

Just imagine that you never had to look at your email inbox, read or reply to any emails ever again. How much free time would you have? What could you use that time for in your business or in your personal life? That is a question I explored with Claire Giovino in today’s episode of the ideas lab podcast, because she has set up a business to do exactly this for her clients. She launched Inboxdone in 2017, and has grown the business to multiple six figures in just 11 months with zero startup capital. She currently manages a growing team of remote inbox managers and upwards of 3000 plus emails a day, all while travelling the world or at least until recently. So I wanted to ask her what are we all getting wrong about email and if we want to move away from our own inbox and stop it dominating our working day, how do you really outsource something that is so fundamental to what we do day in and day out? And I also wanted to find out how Claire has made such a success of I Inboxdone and how she’s made that work in a partnership with Yaro Starak, who is one of the founders, one of the pioneers of internet marketing and blogging. So it’s going to be a great episode. Let’s dive in. Best wishes,  John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/clairegiovino ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

4/22/20 • 30:41

Lots of us are feeling a considerable amount of stress right now, thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, the lockdown and the economic uncertainty. And I know for some people that's impacting their sleep as well. So I was pleased to be able to have award-winning hypnotherapist, Dr. Liz Bonet on the podcast to give us some really practical tips about how to manage our stress right now or at any time and some counterintuitive actions we can take straight away that will start to improve the quality of our sleep. Best wishes,  John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/lizbonet ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

4/15/20 • 27:27

Are you a perfectionist? Do you find that everything you take on, you want to do absolutely perfectly, to be better than everybody else, and to make sure that you don’t get a single thing wrong in the process? Now this might sound like a positive quality and it does have some advantages, but it also has some great costs to our health, and to our relationships. Chris Ward is the author of the new book ‘Less Perfect, More Happy. And here we have an in depth conversation about what perfectionism is, why it develops, what you can do about it, and the enormous cost it can have if you don’t get a handle on it. Chris’s own perfectionism has driven him to be very successful. He was creative director of comic relief, he’s raised over 500 million pounds for charities all over the world has been involved along with Richard Curtis, the famous film director, with the launch of the United Nations global goals. For that campaign, he managed to arrange the sending of over 3 billion text messages in order to spread the word. Chris is also a record breaking cyclist, a best selling author, and a successful entrepreneur whose perfectionism at times has nearly destroyed his life. Best wishes,  John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/chrisward   ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

4/8/20 • 39:57

If you send emails out to a list of people, in order to market yourself or your work or your business, you will have seen that often the open rates on those emails is very low, perhaps as few as 20% are actually opening your emails and reading them. So when a new form of digital marketing arrives that offers something like 90% open rates, it’s something all of us who are involved in marketing ourselves should take very seriously. What we’re talking about here is messenger bot marketing and in particular, sending automated messages and running automated chat bots inside Facebook Messenger. Kelly Noble Mirabella is an expert in this subject. And I was really glad to be able to have her on the ideas Live podcast and explain to us what is a messenger bot? Why are they so valuable, and how we can start to implement a messenger bot in our marketing using a tool that is actually completely free to get started with. Best wishes John   For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/kellynoblemirabella   ______________________________________________________________ Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

4/1/20 • 32:30

Right now the coronavirus has brought about a massive shift in the way we work for millions and millions of people all around the world. That’s because many companies have sent their employees home to continue doing their jobs. We’re seeing a rather remarkable social experiment taking place. My client, Nicole Carter, is the U.K expert on Smart Working i.e everything that’s involved in remote working, flexible working, and the technological processes and procedures that allow people to work productively from home while staying connected to the company that they work for. Whether you are a manager who’s now found themselves with a team who’s working remotely, or whether you yourself are working from home and dealing with some of those challenges, I think you’re going to find this really interesting. For full show links please go to: https://theideaslab.org/nicolecarter     Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

3/25/20 • 32:06

Click here to join my 5-Day Startup Challenge

3/20/20 • 21:47

If, like me, your starting to discover that your own worst enemy is actually inside your head, then this episode is for you. Daniel Fryer is author of the book The 4 thoughts that F*ck you up and how to fix them: Rewire how you think in 6 weeks with REBT. Daniel is a psychotherapist who’s been helping people change the way they think for over 15 years. I was keen to ask Daniel about how we get a grip on our internal dialogue and the things we think about ourselves, other people, and the situations we’re in. It seems like no better time to tackle this topic than right now, as we are starting to get very concerned about the coronavirus pandemic.   For full show notes and links please go to: https://theideaslab.org/danielfryer   Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

3/18/20 • 36:49