Winky has been making photographs for as long as she can remember. She has made it her life’s work to capture the moments and moods of growing up.

Living in Portland Maine with her husband and three children, Winky mostly shoots her kids, their games and the lives they lead in the West End of Portland and on Isle Au Haut, where the family spends its summers.

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Recorded live at the global event in California, USA in 2016.

Watch Winky's full talk here: https://thedolectures.com/talks/take-some-ideas-off-the-back-burner/

James Victore runs an independent design studio hell-bent on world domination. He is an author, designer, filmmaker and firestarter.

His paintings of expressionist designs can be seen on ceramics, surfboards, billboards and supermodels. Recently described as “part Darth Vader, part Yoda,” Victore is widely known for his timely wisdom and impassioned views about design and it's placed in the world.

He expresses these views and teachings through his numerous lectures, workshops, and writings.

James’ work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and is represented in the permanent collections of the museums around the globe. His work was recently published in a monograph titled, “Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss?” Victore teaches at the School of Visual Arts in NYC.

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Recorded live at the global event in Cardigan, west Wales in 2012.

Watch James' full talk here: https://thedolectures.com/talks/in-the-particular-lies-the-universal-how-to-do-work-that-matters/

Mark explains how he came to run a small design studio and book publishing company. He provides us with a set of practical design principles (from his handbook 5 simple steps) that he constantly comes back to, changes and refines when he's working on his own projects.

Web Designer and Founder of Mark Boulton Design & Five Simple Steps Publishing Mark is a designer, author, speaker and teacher from Wales.

Founder of small design studio, Mark Boulton Design, he pushes pixels for the likes of Al Jazeera, CERN and ESPN, alongside that, he and his team publish books under the guise of Five Simple Steps – a small, scratchy independent publisher for web people.

Mark regularly speaks at web design and development conferences such as SXSW, An Event Apart and Web Directions South.

Despite living in Wales, Mark doesn’t own a small holding, keep bees, or walk to work. But, he’s working on it.

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Recorded live at the global event in Cardigan, west Wales in 2013.

Watch Mark's full talk here: https://thedolectures.com/talks/embrace-change/

Living your best life. 

I want to talk to people who live amazing lives, in essence, living their best life. And importantly get them to talk about the hurdles that they have overcome to live their best life now - big and small, public or private, physical or mental, failures or small curve balls. I hope to inspire and encourage people through hearing stories from amazing people. We are particularly interested in helping people achieve better mental health through the inspiration and stories from our guests.

In episode 5 I talk to Lou Featherstone. Lou is an “accidental” social media influencer who has found her niche a little later in life than some of her influencer peers. She helps women, particularly middle-aged women, to live their best life through a unique combination of honesty, self-expression, clothing…and self-love.

Lou is a one-of-a-kind. She is full of energy and enthusiasm for life and love (both self and outer-directed). And she has one of the greatest wardrobes I have ever seen in my life (sorry, this is rather hard to demonstrate on a podcast). She continues to inspire and help thousands of women through her very special combination of wisdom, advice and an attitude to life that hinges a lot on not really giving a $hit. 

We talk about her life story (some of it was rather tricky) and how she came to be driving a bus called Susie around the US encouraging menopausal women to get on board and discover the power of masturbation.

Needless to say, the language and content of this episode does get a little fruity and listener discretion is advised.

However, if you want to learn about a woman who is loudly and proudly Living Her Best Life, then you need look no further than the simply fabulous Lou Featherstone.

You can see and hear more from Lou on her Insta @luinluland

Please do leave us a review, a like and please DO subscribe.

Thank you

Gav

www.thedolectures.com

Living your best life. 

I want to talk to people who live amazing lives, in essence, living their best life. And importantly get them to talk about the hurdles that they have overcome to live their best life now - big and small, public or private, physical or mental, failures or small curve balls. Ihope to inspire and encourage people through hearing stories from amazing people. We are particularly interested in helping people achieve better mental health through the inspiration and stories from our guests.

In episode 4 I talk to the Emily Holden, a woman who I met at The DO Lectures in 2022, who talks about her infertility and her journey to adapting to living her best life without her own biological children.

Emily was living her best life, planning a future life as parents with her husband, until she found out that she wasn't going to be able to have children.

Emily & I have a very honest talk about how she has managed to re-plan a future best life without her own biological children.

I hope listeners find this helpful and please do leave us a review, a like and DO subscribe.

https://thedolectures.com

Thank you

Gav

Living your best life. 

I want to talk to people who live amazing lives, in essence, living their best life. And importantly get them to talk about the hurdles that they have overcome to live their best life now - big and small, public or private, physical or mental, failures or small curve balls. Ihope to inspire and encourage people through hearing stories from amazing people. We are particularly interested in helping people achieve better mental health through the inspiration and stories from our guests.

In episode 3 I talk to the founder of The Knackered Mothers Wine Club, novelist and TV wine guru, Helen McGinn.

Helen is another poster child for Living Your Best Life. Her career, her writing, and her TV fame all found her - it is usually the other way round - and that was in spite of dealing with the most horrific personal tragedy early on in her professional life.

Helen & I have a rather light-hearted and meandering chat about how she has managed to achieve all this.

Please do enjoy and please do leave us a review, a like and DO subscribe.

Warning - There are unnecessary references to both Rolf Harris and Take That, and I did consume more than my fair share of wine (founder member of the Knackered Podcasters Wine Club) during the podcast which does lead to me getting a little bit loose-tongued and sweary.

https://thedolectures.com

Thank you

Gav

Living your best life. 

I want to talk to people who live amazing lives, in essence, living their best life. And importantly get them to talk about the hurdles that they have overcome to live their best life now - big and small, public or private, physical or mental, failures or small curve balls. Ihope to inspire and encourage people through hearing stories from amazing people. We are particularly interested in helping people achieve better mental health through the inspiration and stories from our guests.

In episode 2, I chat to Patrick Hutchinson, a real-life hero. A real-life hero against racism.

Patrick's story is both simple and intense. He made a snap decision in June 2020 to rescue another human being at a Black Lives Matter protest, and that decision, enacted within less than 2 minutes led to a life being saved, and a hero being made. Patrick's snap decision (and a brilliant powerful photo of him doing it) resulted in him, within hours, becoming a global icon for the anti-racism movement, a GQ Man of the Year, an inspiration to Prince Harry and thousands of others.

It is a crazy, and lovely, story. How to live your best life in less than 2 minutes.

Please do enjoy and please do leave us a review, a like and DO subscribe.

⁠https://iampatrickhutchinson.com/⁠

https://thedolectures.com

Thank you

Gav

Living your best life.

I want to talk to people who live amazing lives, in essence, living their best life. And importantly get them to talk about the hurdles that they have overcome to live their best life now - big and small, public or private, physical or mental, failures or small curve balls. Ihope to inspire and encourage people through hearing stories from amazing people. We are particularly interested in helping people achieve better mental health through the inspiration and stories from our guests.

In episode 1 we talk to Radio 2 DJ legend, 'Between the Covers' TV host, author and all round National Treasure Sara Cox.

Sara is an ambassador for Living Your Best Life. She seems to embody this spirit in everything she does, and manages to radiate it daily to 6.2 million listeners.

Gav & Sara have a very honest conversation about how she manages to do this, about some times in her life when everything wasn't quite so rosy, and she has some solid advice for those of us on the journey.

Sara's debut novel 'Thrown' has just been published https://amzn.eu/d/fEBQ53x

Please do enjoy and please do leave us a review, a like and DO subscribe.

https://thedolectures.com

Thank you

Gav

In this final episode of Season 3, Gav Thompson talks to Ben Edmonds, the founder of Blok Knives.

Ben has an incredible and slightly bonkers story. Ben was a successful graphic designer who whilst experimenting with pipe smoking (not that kind of pipe), he stumbled across a YouTube video of a pipe smoker in Canada who was also a knife maker.

This started a journey of discovery of Ben teaching himself to make kitchen knives, building his own brand, and in very short order became one of the most in demand artisan knife craftsman in the UK, leading to waiting lists of over 2 years for his beautiful handmade knives, with Michelin starred chefs also queuing for what is now considered one of the best knives in the business.

We chat about the secret to his success, doing one thing well, and how The DO lectures changed his life.

A humble, yet very focused and successful man doing something he loves and being absolutely bloody amazing at it.

Please do have a listen, leave a review and subscribe.

Thank you. See you soon for Season 4 "Living Your Best Life".

Please check out Ben's weekly knife sale at 1pm every Friday at www.blok-knives.co.uk