The Ideas Lab Podcast

What does it really take to succeed when you are interested in too many things, pulled in different directions, and never quite fit into one neat box?

That's the question John explores in this conversation with Anne-Laure Le Cunff.

Anne-Laure is a neuroscientist, writer, founder of Ness Labs, and author of Tiny Experiments. In this episode, she shares why hyper-curious people can be incredibly successful, as long as they create the right systems to support themselves. She talks about the tension between structure and freedom, why small experiments work better than grand plans, and how tying your identity too tightly to your work can make it harder to keep going when things get hard.

They also explore ADHD, nonlinear careers, creativity, success, comparison, mental health, and what it means to design a life around the way your brain actually works instead of forcing yourself into someone else's model.

It's a thoughtful conversation about curiosity, ambition, flexibility, and building a career that feels both productive and alive.

Connect with Anne-Laure Website: https://nesslabs.com/ Ness Labs newsletter: https://nesslabs.com/author/annelaure Book: Tiny Experiments: https://nesslabs.com/book Best Wishes, John

For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/

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

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Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

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

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Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

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

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

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Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

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

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Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

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

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Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

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

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Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

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

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Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

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

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Music provided by Argofox: TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4