The Ideas Lab Podcast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

For full links and notes please visit:

https://theideaslab.org/markwalsh-embodiment

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

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,

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

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

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,

For full links and notes please visit: https://theideaslab.org/mike-michalowicz-fixthisnext

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

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,

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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