Living Your Best Life with Gav Thompson

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

Gav gives an outline of the exciting episodes in store for Season 4 of The DO Lectures Podcast - "Living your best life" starting on Friday 26th May with a lovely chat with one of the poster girls of living your best life, Radio 2 legend, Sara Cox.

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

In 2015, Joshua Coombes was walking home from his hairdressing salon in London when he stopped to talk to a homeless man and ended up giving him a haircut on the street that would change Joshua's life. Joshua has since gone on to take that very simple idea of giving a homeless person a little bit of free help and turned it into a movement #DoSomethingForNothing and has recently written a book about how this little act of selfless generosity can help change lives. Gav & Joshua have a (rather sweary) chat about the simplicity and power of this idea, the complex issue of homelessness and how we are just a few poor choices from ending up on the receiving end of one of his haircuts. This is a powerful story told by a passionate and charismatic maverick hairdresser and activist.  Please do have a listen, leave a review and subscribe. Thank you Please buy and read Joshua's book "Do Something for Nothing" and join the movement

Ling Ling Phung was a 1 year old in Vietnam when her parents chose to escape the regime and become refugees as one of the many Vietnamese Boat people who landed in Hong Kong after an unbelievably risky 3 day boat trip across the South China Sea. Gav & Ling Ling have a very honest conversation about her life as an immigrant in the US and the UK and talk about the (sadly extremely topical) issue of immigrants, refugees and immigration. And love. They talk a lot about love and how love can overcome probabilities. Ling Ling is currently practicing Zen & The Art of Social Innovation. She combines social innovation tools + mindfulness practices to help people and organisations become more effective innovators. She has recently launched an online course https://zen-the-art-of-social-innovation.teachable.com/ where we have a 20% discount code for listeners that will be good till the end of 2021: GAVISGREAT (she chose this code, not me…) Her Zen & The Art of Social Innovation newsletter is here  https://www.twolings.com/newsletter Please have a listen, leave a review and subscribe. Thank you.

Gav chats to Andy about his wide-ranging career that spans innovation, education, adventure, consulting, activism, sustainability, being a bin man and inventing a new sport. Andy is the founder and director of The TYF Group, an innovative and visionary social enterprise in St Davids, Pembrokeshire whose mission is to train revolutionaries by helping people fall so deeply in love with nature that it changes the way that they live. Andy is a connector, a story teller, an idea generator, a problem solver and a pioneer in helping Wales become the world's test lab for sustainability. Please have a listen and please do leave a review, rating and subscribe. Thank you. Learn more about TYF at www.tyf.com