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LifeDoneDifferent.ly

LifeDoneDifferent.ly

Neil Witten & Ray Richards

Do you wonder whether there’s another way? Another, more creative, more meaningful approach to living your life. Well there is and there’s a growing movement of people from all kinds of walks of life who are proving that the way we end up doing what we do in life is often a side effect of external forces. Rather than a deliberate, conscious and authentic set of choices that have come from you and your unique needs. What are you chasing? Success? Safety? Fame? Fortune? Recognition? Have you stopped to think recently why you’re doing what your doing with your life? Are the stories that you're creating today the ones that you hope your grandchildren will be telling to their children? Are you creating your legacy?
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Top 10 LifeDoneDifferent.ly Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best LifeDoneDifferent.ly episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to LifeDoneDifferent.ly for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite LifeDoneDifferent.ly episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

LifeDoneDifferent.ly - Derek Sivers - The usefulness of opposites
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12/22/22 • 93 min

Derek Sivers is a man with his own mind. To describe him as a musician, circus clown, entrepreneur, programmer, author, speaker, philosopher and Dad might whet your appetite but it would only be a part of the story. Whatever Derek does, he rarely does it on auto-pilot. He has a knack for questioning things. His beliefs are less likely to be a story he's inherited and more likely to be a useful experience. He listens to himself and when what he does fails to resonate, he notices it and explores the alternatives. He's learned to be unafraid of hierarchies, unafraid of complimenting people and understands the considerable benefits of doing things differently when things don't feel quite right.

Don't try and put Derek in a box.

I discovered Derek's 'How to start a movement' Ted Talk over 10 years ago and have been recommending it ever since. It was a real pleasure to speak with him. He seems very clear that he learns from the people he respects and the material they recommend but it seems to me the lessons unlock something he already knows. He's not a man to change his mind because someone simply tells him something.

I've enjoyed every conversation on this podcast (at least all those we've released) but this was a little bit special. There are some useful take-outs - the power we all have to influence others if we're respected. The influence of negative motivation in our lives or put another way "I'm not going to be like him or her". In Derek's case he was driven to not be like the best musicians at school, who very early on traded the chance of doing what they loved, for a day job. There are many other take-outs for me but the biggest was sort of left hanging which is understandable given it's the subject of the book Derek's in the middle of writing.

It seems to me his thesis is that we can benefit from adjusting the threshold for beliefs from 'being true' to 'being useful'. To me, this makes huge sense. "True" sounds permanent, unwavering, and inflexible. "Useful" sounds impermanent, adjustable, and flexible.

Our beliefs are a product of our history. Growing up we inherit them from the people around us and if we're awake and noticing and not on auto-pilot, our experiences provide us with the opportunity to shape or change them. But . . . what if we understood that the key is behavioural flexibility which simply explains that taking risks is often useful but sometimes playing it safe is the way to go, being assertive is useful and sometimes letting others assert themselves is the best approach, planning ahead is useful and sometimes spontaneous is . . . and so on.

It seems clear to me that Derek's next book is a step on from his last book "How to live", which he describes as a book of conflicting philosophies. If you're into the world of polarities or duality you'll recognize the link.

Derek describes himself as a pop philosopher but he's just a philosopher. He didn't consider the academic route and we're all the better for that. The constraints would have choked him before he got to the first corner.

As with all good dialogue, this conversation left me with as many questions as it did answers. I hope we get a chance to continue the conversation.

Enjoy "Derek Sivers: The usefulness of opposites"

Links from this Episode

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LifeDoneDifferent.ly - A Sneak Peek of a Project Neil has been working on
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06/29/22 • 11 min

Better Business On Purpose is a book that Neil has recently co-authored.

It's a practical guide for leaders who want to grow profit and have a positive impact on the world.

Included in the book:

  • Examples of inspiring businesses that have embedded purpose in their DNA, and who are making it work.
  • The '7 Ps' - a systematic approach to making your business more purpose-led and profitable at the same time.
  • The case for "doing more": why all business leaders have their role to play, and why it is never too late to begin.

Find out more here: https://www.bbopbook.com

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LifeDoneDifferent.ly - Pieter Levels - Thinking and doing for yourself
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05/16/22 • 98 min

Hello and welcome to our conversation with Pieter Levels. Peter is the man behind NomadList.com, remoteOK.com, InflationChart.com, rebase.co and more.

Pieter is hard to describe if you’re after an old-world description. He’s most certainly a business guy and a software developer guy but he works remotely, sometimes he charges for his creations, sometimes he doesn’t. He practices radical honesty with himself and others. He’s unafraid to experiment, to play and learned as a student that doing something different can have unexpected and very rewarding consequences.

He works with a few trusted friends but creatively he’s the man.

Neil has been telling me for six months that a conversation with Pieter would be fun and interesting. He was right. Pieter is in charge of himself, he’s not going with the flow unless it serves him. He’s not short of money but doesn’t own a home and his laptop seems to be as extravagant as it gets.

He keeps things simple and for someone so successfully immersed in the world of digital, has a level of self-awareness that ensures he spends time IRLing. For the uninitiated (as I was before this conversation) IRL stands for In Real Life, which means no screens just doing stuff out there in the real world. Amen to that.

Pieter seems to be on a quest to find the joy in life but fully understands that what brings joy today may not be what brings joy tomorrow. It’s all an adventure.

Enjoy - Pieter Levels - Thinking and doing for yourself

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LifeDoneDifferent.ly - Steph Smith - Life done differently for the risk adverse
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04/29/22 • 87 min

Until she went to Sweden as part of a student exchange programme, Steph didn't really question the trajectory she was on. She was going with the flow. A spell in Sweden, a different culture with different people and in particular a different educational system woke Steph up to the idea that she had led a sheltered life and that different was at the very least interesting and at very best, significantly better than the way things were done back home.

The idea that there were other ways to do things stuck . . so when it came to joining the world of work, Steph started to question the model of get a job, go to the job, keep the job and climb the career ladder. She started to experiment with a whole heap of different remote working jobs. Got herself a job with a fully remote company, flew to live in Scotland and she’s been working remotely ever since.

Fully understanding that remote working was possible allowed Steph to question the other narratives in her life. If I can work remotely what else is possible?

Steph avoids pigeon-holing herself. She is very clear that what she does for work today may not be what she does for work tomorrow. She avoids using her job title because she knows other people will use that to define her.

Steph’s nature is now one where she questions the status quo but If you think that Steph is happy taking risks you’d be wrong. Steph explores different ways of living life but she does it carefully, cautiously. She does it in small steps but importantly for Steph, she’s constantly checking that a missed step won’t result in falling too far.

If the life done differently that Steph seeks is on another metaphorical island. Steph does a heap of research before she sets off and then she rows, then she checks the boat is in perfect working order, then she rows, then she checks the boat, then she rows and so on.

Other people might get in and row like hell but Steph isn’t interested in getting there quickly, she’s just interested in getting there.

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LifeDoneDifferent.ly - Rosie Sherry - Reckless Mother

Rosie Sherry - Reckless Mother

LifeDoneDifferent.ly

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04/14/22 • 107 min

Hi All - in this episode we talk to Rosie Sherry. Rosie is a self-declared introvert and community builder extraordinaire. She is best known for the Ministry of Testing, Indie Hackers, Rosie.land and RecklessMother.com

Rosie builds communities and has done so for more than 15 years. It includes the Sherry community of Rosie, Graham and their 5 kids aged 17 to 3 - none of whom go to school.

It’s not that Rosie is looking to rebel. It's just that she seems to be clear about how she wants to spend her time and a conventional path would not allow her to live life, her way. So she designs her own made to measure life with little or no reference to the way most people live theirs.

Rosie’s approach is one where she just does stuff. If she enjoys doing it, she’ll spend more time doing it and then, because she’s spending the time she works out how to get paid to do it.

Rosie is half Columbian, half Irish, sounds Scottish, was born in London, grew up in London, Indonesia and Columbia, moved back to London with no qualifications because she avoided school and now as a reaction to her unsettled childhood, has settled near Brighton on the South Coast of the UK.

She had an entrepreneurial and spiritual mother and a father whose life was changed by an accident. It resulted in financial insecurity but the upside was that along with her brother, Rosie was forced to be independent. It seems her kids are pretty independent too. Their unschooling, as Rosie calls it, requires them to self-direct their own learning, with a little nudge from Mum or Dad here and there. The set-up means their kids teach each other but it’s still a time-consuming endeavour.

Rosie’s clear that successful communities are places where there’s trust, a common goal or set of interests and a way to simplify things. She’s also a big believer that communities can solve most problems.

Rosie works on herself. Like all of us, she doubts she can achieve things but doubt does not prevent her from taking steps forward. She tries to remain positive. She believes things can change.

Financial security is important, it’s a reaction to the financial insecurity of childhood. And because it’s important and she has the ability to change herself, and although she is by no means rich, she does now have enough security to do what she wants to do, what she’s passionate about. She is not afraid to lose her job or quit a job if it means doing what she wants to do.

Easier said than done. It took her 4 years to leave her own company, the £1m + revenue - Ministry of Testing

This conversation got me thinking. What can we do when we realise a job has reached the end of its natural life?

Option 1 - We can hand in our notice and have faith that something will turn up. All well and good if you’ve squirrelled away a war chest that allows you time to find the next positive step but the fear of not being able to pay your rent or mortgage can force us to leap from the frying pan into the fire of another unsuitable job.

Option 2 - We can stay where we are and save. This is a real option. If you know why you’re doing a job (to save money or acquire skills for example) it helps us to get out of bed in the morning. I imagine prisoners of war planning their escape have better mental health than those who are resigned to their fate.

Option 3 - We can be open-minded about where we live and the lifestyle we live. There are always less expensive ways to live. Kids and other relationships don’t always make this easy but accommodation is much more flexible these days, if you are. We’ve had conversations with quite a few nomads who work as they travel. In many senses it’s about working out what we’re prepared to let go of in order to grow.

If I’m not prepared to make any sacrifices in return for a better working life or a better life in general then I’ll struggle to change. But letting go of this and that, might not be as painful as I imagine. In fact, my experience is that letting go of one story and replacing it with a better story, a story about what’s important and what’s not, is an uncomfortable process but not as uncomfortable as continuing to value stories or ways of behaving that fail to serve me. This process is me surfing the edge of my comfort zone. Resmaa Menakem, author of ‘my grandmothers hands’ talks about the uncomfortableness of change as clean pain and the uncomfortableness of avoiding change as dirty pain.

The problem with avoiding change is that it becomes a rut, that becomes deeper and deeper, more and more difficult to get out of. Confronting your rut early is helpful and flirting with what you could do differently is often enough to climb out.

I love Rosie’s approach. She experiments. She does what she wants to do and then she finds a way to make it work financially. She started her newsletter Rosie.land and got frustrated with her ability to build a writing habit, s...

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LifeDoneDifferent.ly - Charles Wookey - Reinvent Yourself
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01/28/21 • 96 min

Hi everyone. I hope you're doing okay given the circumstances. Welcome to our conversation with Charles Wookey. Charles is the CEO of A Blueprint for Better Business, a charity that helps organisations consider their social and environmental impact alongside their financial goals. This is how I know Charles. His organisation does some great work but how Charles' ended up with Blueprint is the interesting bit.

Boarding school from the age of six is a mixed blessing. It's certainly not what he wanted for his children put it that way. Philosophy and Physics at Oxford followed school and then into KPMG to become an Accountant and that's when he started to make up his own mind. The obvious path was to fit in and work his nuts off for the next ten to fifteen years and become a partner. Two weeks after qualifying, at the moment his salary would have doubled, he left because he could see the future and it meant becoming someone he didn't want to become.

What followed has been a career of curiosity. A few years at the House of Commons before leaving to spend three months on a silent retreat in North Wales which alerted him to the fact he's got one crack at life. The dark bit was confronting himself and his conclusion that "there are things that are real and there are things that are illusory and I wanted to live in a way that makes sense of what's real. I do not want to have regrets."

Charles' comments remind me of Bronnie Ware's work. Bronnie Ware worked in palliative care. Her patients we those who had gone home to die. She was with them in their last three to twelve weeks of their life. Conversations in those final weeks were highly emotional. When asked about any regrets or what they would have done differently, common themes surfaced again and again. The most common regret was "I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."

Charles has that courage. The confidence to know when it's time to move on. The confidence to overcome imposter syndrome. The confidence to step into the unknown.

After his retreat, Charles, worked for Institute of Fiscal Studies where he was the guy who knew nothing about economics and then having met a nun, he ended up in the God business, working for Cardinal Basil Hume. This role and his affection for Hume satisfied his curiosity for eleven years at which point he stepped into the unknown again. This time it was business. More specifically a Blueprint for Better Business which he's been leading since 2011.

In Spring 2022 Charles steps down as CEO to go on another, as yet undecided adventure. Don't be surprised if you see him on The Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury sometime soon 😉

https://bronnieware.com/blog/regrets-of-the-dying/
https://www.blueprintforbusiness.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Beuno%27s_Jesuit_Spirituality_Centre

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LifeDoneDifferent.ly - Neil and Ray - Introducing a Life Done Different.ly
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10/01/18 • 39 min

We recorded this episode in Ray's cellar having just recorded the ninth episode. We provide a bit of background which explains who we are, how we met and what we're interested in. Our plan is to have this sort of conversation every 10th episode or so.

We cover the ideas that:

  • successful lives are lived with a foot in each the known and the unknown
  • if you want different results, you have to do something different
  • the stories of others are what helps us focus
  • beliefs have no value without action
  • the bigger the comfort zone, the better
  • growing one's comfort zone is a necessarily uncomfortable process
  • the best journeys are a shared experience

https://dsd.me/

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LifeDoneDifferent.ly - Emile Bennett - Letting Go

Emile Bennett - Letting Go

LifeDoneDifferent.ly

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03/03/21 • 108 min

Hi all - welcome to our conversation with Emile Bennett, Emile is a 37-year-old knife-maker and bladesmith but it’s taken him a while to feel comfortable with those descriptions. Previously his world was software, apps, websites and to begin with studio engineering. Originally from the UK, he now lives in Chamonix in the French Alps.

Emile has spent most of his working life with the distinct feeling that he wasn’t doing what he was meant to do. This is Emile’s very frank story of his struggles with anxiety and his search for meaning.

Emile’s willingness and determination to paint the real authentic picture of his life is what I appreciated most about our conversation. He does anything but suggest he has life nailed, but it is the hero’s journey, albeit he’s not returned home yet - he’s had that rock-bottom moment which arrived a few years ago after a sleepless night and a 90-minute hill climb with friends. His conclusion, at the top of that hill was that he had to change what he was doing, and he had to do it that day, because, to use Emile’s words

“If I don’t commit to something else now, regardless of whether it’s going to make me any money or not, I’m going to end up in a mental institute, I’m going to have a breakdown.”

It was the culmination of 10 years of “Melancholy March”, Emile’s annual existential crisis of meaning. He describes the feeling as:

“You know you need to do something different, but it’s so incredibly hard to do when all you know is the thing that you’ve always done”

He was trying really hard to find the thing he loved but he didn’t know what he loved. All he knew was what he was doing made him unhappy and anxious and wasn’t making the most of his life.

He talks about great ideas revealing themselves, that they don’t appear when you actively seek them.

“When you’re sitting there stressed out, upset, telling yourself you’ve got to do something else. That thing isn’t going to come because you’re pushing too hard for it.

I’m mildly obsessed with Alan Watts at the moment and Emile’s experience sounds very much like his ‘backwards law’ - whatever it is you want; money, love, security, happiness or something else - it’s the idea that the more you want something, the more effort you make trying to acquire it, the more you’re amplifying the feeling that you lack it in the first place and

How many people have you heard say “As soon as I’d stopped looking for a partner . . . it happened”

The flipside of this also seems to work. Stop fighting the negative experience and it becomes a positive experience. It’s a longer conversation for another day but this it seems, is what Emile was talking about when he says living in a simpler place with less stuff means it’s harder to escape your daemons, you don’t have the toys, bars, restaurants, clubs, cinemas and other distractions that do the job of numbing the negative feelings - anxiety, pain, suffering, whatever you call them.

It seems that Emile subconsciously put himself in a position where he could no longer avoid his daemons, his shadow, his negativity, the suffering. I’d suggest that ‘no longer avoiding’ was the turning point on top of the hill, when he decided to take action, when he embraced his shadow and this is what flipped his anxiety from negative to positive because he’d now come to terms with himself and as a result could now move towards something, rather than away from something.

This positive anxiety is anticipation or excitement. It’s the nervousness we all feel when we take on a challenge. The impact is very different from the negativity of fear but it can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference, particularly in the early stages. Emile did notice the difference and has created a bit of momentum.

He’s not there yet but he will get there.

Emile’s message is “Can’t find what you’re looking for? Let go and give it space to reveal itself.

Enjoy, Emile Bennett - Letting Go

https://www.lubelknives.com/

https://www.getpennies.com/

https://www.mindjournals.com/

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LifeDoneDifferent.ly - Mike Dicks - Who's saying you can't do what you want to do?
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09/13/19 • 116 min

In this conversation we explored:

  • Why people often apologise for the work they do
  • The stories we tell ourselves and how they can limit our development
  • The inevitably of the ups and downs in our lives
  • Why he eventually got expelled from college
  • His first job selling computers at Dixons
  • Meeting Sir Clive Sinclair
  • His expected life trajectory of marry, kids, mortgage
  • His problem with authority
  • His ability to translate the features of technology into the benefits for humans
  • The moment he realised his employer was trying to trap him
  • Why it's important to expose your kids to people who live different lives
  • Why Mike leaves things to the last minute
  • The healthy discipline of deadlines
  • Careers 1, 2 and 3
  • How a career in TV lead to a career developing websites for Channel 4
  • Why people try so hard to see something new as a minor variation of something old when in fact it's so very different
  • How Mike got TV Producers
  • Why Mike and authority are not comfortable bedfellows.
  • Why he's the captain of his own ship and how he takes full responsibility for it.
  • Mike's Beatles moment when he turned down the opportunity to develop the Big Brother website because he thought the whole Big Brother idea was a stupid concept
  • Why Mike operates at the bleeding edge and why it doesn't make financial sense
  • What happens to cool ideas when the money men arrive
  • Edisons idea that the best use of the telephone was to broadcast the opera directly into peoples homes
  • The importance of vision versus the dangers of being wedded to it
  • Would you want to be Elon Musk?
  • 3D printing and space exploration as the bleeding edge technologies of now
  • Wanting to be remembered for something
  • Why Mike changed his story from 'I've had so many bad bosses' to 'I shouldn't have a boss'
  • Why pilots died when the designers designed for Mr Average
  • The moment Mike was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
  • How Mike's fatigue facilitated focus
  • How Mike managed to treat his Cancer as a selfish creative Cancer
  • Mustard Gas = Chemotherapy
  • The importance of white blood cells and why they're like aged skinheads
  • The importance of managing energy when you have the CLL cancer
  • Why you should have a blood test if your neck starts swelling up and your energy levels are low
  • The importance of doing things that make you or the people you love happy and not the things you feel compelled to do
  • The importance of dealing, living and dying gracefully with cancer
  • Why people stick with work they don't enjoy when they could stop and learn to live on less money
  • Why Mike got a rescue dog and how Scrabble taught him
  • The unexpected consequence of UKIP taking offence to one of Mike's tweet
  • Why he watched every single episode of Trumpton
  • Why it's important to say what he wants and if the audience reacts well he explores it further
  • His search for a lovely publisher
  • The joy of negotiating a publishing deal through his dog
  • How Greta Thunberg talks truth to power
  • The rough and the smooth of changes to our DNA
  • Poo powered rockets
  • The joy of seeing his art on someone else's wall
  • What it's like to live day-to-day

A few nice quotes:

"Whose voice is it telling you that you shouldn't do something you want to do?" Mike Dicks

"I love deadlines, I love the whooshing sound as they pass me by" Douglas Adams
"Why do we work so hard to impress the people we so dislike?" Cameron and Rob
"Neil Armstrong left a poo on the moon" Mike Dicks
"Every 24 hours you get another chance to have a good day" Mike&Scrabble
"How can you release yourself from the trap of money?" Mike Dicks
"There is a dog for everyone, if you don’t have one it’s because you haven’t met enough dogs yet" Mike&Scrabble

Mike's Shop
https://www.young-enterprise.org.uk/
https://www.sketchup.com/
Peter Dawe
BPS Space (Elon Musk's Prodigy)
99 Designs
Scrabble & friends on the Number 25 bus
Greta Thunberg - full speech
The Brexit Comic

Twitter
@mikedicks @Trump_ton

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LifeDoneDifferent.ly - Boff Whalley from Chumbawamba - Let it Be
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01/31/24 • 124 min

Welcome to our conversation with the Musician and Artist Boff Whalley. Boff was formerly the lead-guitarist of British anarchist punk band Chumbawumba. Best known for their 1997 single "Tubthumping".

Boff grew up in Burnley, in a Morman family.

He embraced the art and punk scenes, experimented with different types of music, and with his anarchist mates from the squat formed Chumbawumba which became famous for Tubthumping and pouring water over John Prescott at the 1998 Brits.

Chumbawumba, unusually, seem to have navigated their way through an industry with their values intact.

It's a fascinating story where Boff and others seem to have found a way to balance being oneself with being part of a group . . . and thrived.

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FAQ

How many episodes does LifeDoneDifferent.ly have?

LifeDoneDifferent.ly currently has 41 episodes available.

What topics does LifeDoneDifferent.ly cover?

The podcast is about Health & Fitness, Story, Inspirational, Mental Health, Challenge, Podcasts, Self-Improvement, Education, Inspire and Life.

What is the most popular episode on LifeDoneDifferent.ly?

The episode title 'Boff Whalley from Chumbawamba - Let it Be' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on LifeDoneDifferent.ly?

The average episode length on LifeDoneDifferent.ly is 84 minutes.

How often are episodes of LifeDoneDifferent.ly released?

Episodes of LifeDoneDifferent.ly are typically released every 28 days, 5 hours.

When was the first episode of LifeDoneDifferent.ly?

The first episode of LifeDoneDifferent.ly was released on Oct 1, 2018.

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