Today my guest is Samuel Nicholls who is a Diplomat working at the UK Foreign Office. He also co-founded and run a social enterprise called TipStart. His mission is to harness the motivation and social responsibility of graduates to disrupt privilege in employment.

TipStart is a for-profit social enterprise that uses a digital platform to connect graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds with firms struggling to recruit diverse talent. Through these connections, the graduates improve their awareness of the sector they want to work in, increase the size of their professional network and increase their personal confidence. The firms involved are able to build a new diverse recruitment pipeline as well as offering a compelling learning and development opportunity to their staff. 

Check TipStart webpage : https://www.tipstart.org/

Books discussed in the episode:

1. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead : https://amzn.to/3i4WtAg

2. Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism by Bhu Srinivasan  : https://amzn.to/3vDyufc

Enjoy the episode !

Mr Rael Bicker deliver custom designed keynotes, workshops, mentoring and coaching that all fall under the umbrella of “Business Excellence”. We all recognize that perfection is not possible, and that excellence is being the best we can be with the resources we have. Rael works with people who are passionate about being on the journey toward achieving the best level of business excellence that they can.

He can draw my inspiration and content from many sources and develop and deliver keynotes, workshops, mentoring and coaching that is uniquely customised to every audience and client. 

My Experience: From being 6000ft underground in a mine, to starting an education business (that grew to have 4000 plus students) to spending years working in venture capital, he have has seen it all. He have listed companies on multiple international stock exchanges, and his financial services group has settled more than $3bn in loans over 19 years. He have a diverse work history combined with unique global research interviews with companies in more than 25 countries. Taking this knowledge and experience makes me perfect to advise people on growing and achieving excellence.

My Background: Rael hold two Masters degrees; an MBA and MSc (Engineering) and am currently a Fellow of the MFAA (Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia), a Certified Speaking Professional  (CSP)  (Professional Speakers Australia) and a Member of AICD (Australian Institute of Company Directors). Additionally, I am the first inspirationalist in Australia with Integrus Global and a Mentor with both Mentored With Mark Bouris and Mastermind.space

Rale's Book : Dive In – Lessons Learnt since business School

This book, published in May 2018, was intended to be a guide for people to take my experiences and be able to put the lessons into practice. As the blurb says:

“Business does not have to be complicated.  Business can be simple.

Take a breath, dive in, and adjust the course while you are moving.

This book looks at 30+ years of work and business on two continents through startups to listed companies. It is a collection of business principles that underline the idea of sometimes just taking a leap of faith and Diving In is all you need to succeed”

(a free copy – www.raelbricker.com/freebook)

Professional Speaking website :  www.raelbricker.com

Podcast Website  : www.excellencepodcast.com

For the latest video links : https://bit.ly/3fIpbmw

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rael-bricker/

Enjoy, learn and listen !

“If music be the food of love, play on.” – William Shakespeare

Today I am hosting Mark Deeks who is the best selling author of “NOT Another Piano Book: How Everything That Stopped You Playing Like a Piano Legend So Far… Shouldn’t!”

He has spent more than 20 years working as a musical director, pianist, arranger and teacher, and has built a really diverse group of musicians as a client base. From artists such as Faye Tozer of Steps to black metal bands Winterfylleth (a band Mark ended up joining!) and Drudkh. He has given Lenny Henry piano lessons, and written versions of songs by metal stars Sonata Arctica for symphony orchestra and choir.

Mark’s extensive work as a musical director has included everything from choirs for the BBC, Magic Radio, and his own Sing United, to music theatre shows such as West Side Story and The Sound of Music. He has conducted the Royal Northern Sinfonia and written string parts for Japanese post rock legends Mono. He has previous clients around the world including France, Canada, Finland and Holland, and has even co-written and toured a comedy musical with the BBC’s Alfie Joey

Link to Mark's website : https://markdeeksmusic.com/who-is-mark-deeks/

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PlayPianoIn30Seconds/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdeeksmusic/

Resources shared during show:

https://taplink.cc/markdeeksmusic

Amazon link to Mark's book: https://amzn.to/3si4uU1

Enjoy Digital Dreamers !

Today's guest Professor Jaideep Prabhu is from Cambridge Judge Business School. His research interests includes : marketing, strategy and innovation. 

Specific area of his interests: cross-national issues concerning the antecedents and consequences of radical innovation in high-technology contexts such as banking, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology; the role of firm culture in driving innovation in firms across nations; how multinational firms organise their innovation activities worldwide; the forces that drive R&D location decisions and the factors that influence the performance implications of these decisions; the internationalisation of firms from emerging markets; and innovation in emerging markets.

You can find more details on his profile page : https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/faculty-a-z/jaideep-prabhu/

Books Prof. Jaideep Prabhu had written ( sharing links in amazon) :

1. Frugal Innovation: How to do better with less Kindle Edition by Navi Radjou  (Author), Jaideep Prabhu (Author), Paul Polman(Foreword) : https://amzn.to/31NDy3z

2. Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, by Navi Radjou  (Author), Jaideep Prabhu (Author), Simone Ahuja  (Author), Kevin Roberts (Foreword) : https://amzn.to/31KsVhU

3. How Should A Government Be?:  by Jaideep Prabhu (Author) : https://amzn.to/39BjaHd

Book recommended by Jaideep in the chat : Homeland Elegies: by Ayad Akhtar : https://amzn.to/3rQI23X

Listen, learn and enjoy! 

Magda is a Digital Marketing and Social Media Manager with 10+ years of experience in international marketing projects. Instagram Evangelist by passion, believer in the power of community and influencer marketing. Early adopter of new platforms, always asking questions, learning and seeking to discover the next big thing. ICC coach, lecturer and workshop leader honing the marketing skills of students, workshop participants, teams and colleagues to fuel creativity and share what I learn and work with everyday.

You can connect with her on : https://www.linkedin.com/in/albinska/

Follow her on IG: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albinska/

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/albinska/

Jem Henderson (she/they) Entrepreneur Engagement Manager, Yorkshire at Tech Nation

It had been incredible fun episode to record as the conversation flew seamlessly. She is adept tech community manager, engagement manager and content creator/commissioner with lots of stakeholder engagement experience; government, commercial, academic and public sector. Avid Star Trek fan delighted to be working on changing the world to help it become more like the Federation.

Connect with Jem : https://www.linkedin.com/in/jemhenderson/

Resources we talk about a as promised:

https://www.panintelligence.com/

https://www.nocodelab.co.uk/

https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/#section=mac

https://www.crispthinking.com/

 Are you a hedgehog or a fox? In Isaiah Berlin's famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin divided the world into hedgehogs and foxes, based upon an ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

However keep in mind Digital Dreamers : “We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Listen, Learn and enjoy !

Musonius Rufus "For I believe a good king is from the outset and by necessity a philosopher, and the philosopher is from the outset a kingly person.” Now let's replace the word king with the word leader and the quote becomes- For I believe a good leader is from outset and by necessity a philosopher, and the philosopher is from outset resembles a leader. And I truly, utterly and with every bit conviction believe that ! If someone asks me why I choose this pathway, the answer was straight and simple, I wanted to follow these timeless footsteps and this particular pathway seems to me at the time designed to do that .

Enjoy, listen and learn !

Beat stress by thinking it as a challenge and fuel for growth.

As promised during the show :

Here is the link to https://hbr.org/2012/01/positive-intelligence (Positive Intelligence by Shawn Achor)

Shawn’s TED talk, The Happy Secret to Better Work, has over 16 million views. The happy secret to better work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJsdqxnZb0

Enjoy, learn and manage stress like a pro !

“To understand the future of technology we must begin with one fundamental truth. Technology is natural and nature is technological. It is the voice of the cosmos. From the Saturn hexagon to African fractals to the Fibonacci sequence found in the growth patterns of every plant on Earth, we are surrounded by geometric, repetitive, numerical patterns—patterns we have only begun to recognize and quantify.”

- Gray Scott  ( futurist, philosopher, and artist who specializes in the philosophy of technology, digital consciousness, and humanity's technological evolution. )

As promised sharing the links to 3 kickstarter project I mentioned during the show.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thetoadiorder/toadi-worlds-first-autonomous-lawn-robot-powered-by-ai?ref=discovery_most_funded&term=robot

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1864378255/scribit-turn-your-wall-into-an-interactive-canvas?ref=discovery_most_funded&term=robo

 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vanguardindustries/moflin-an-ai-pet-robot-with-emotional-capabilities

Listen, explore and enjoy !