Lots of people get stuck on the big idea, whether it's for a new business or a next step at work. It’s easy to believe that what separates the successes from the failures is that moment of inspiration. But the reality is that the answer often lies much more in execution. In hard work. It’s that cheesy but accurate Thomas Edison quote: it’s 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Loads of people have good ideas. But they will remain just ideas unless you learn how to execute. How to take that idea from your mind, beyond a powerpoint presentation or a business plan, to something real and functionin ..read more

A critical part of the creative process is the ability to refine things, whether your own or others. Whatever it is you are creating, there’s almost zero chance that the first draft will be perfect. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing, drawing, designing in 3D, making music or a video, the editing process is absolutely critical. But it’s not necessarily one that comes naturally. We get very attached to our own creations. And it’s not always easy to tell other people that their work needs improvement and change. No-one likes to hear that their baby is ugly! So it’s hugely important that we ..read more

In this episode of Future Proof Your Career we're looking at recombination: how to bring old things together to make something new. To help us to get our heads around mixing and remixing, we have a real expert in the studio today. Graeme Park has been one of the biggest names in the house music scene since the late 1980s. Well known for his residency at the Hacienda and long stints on a number of major radio stations, Graeme remixed tracks by the likes of Brand New Heavies, New Order, Eric B & Rakim, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.  Graeme has most recently been one of the founding forces be ..read more

Just before we take a break for the summer, we jumped on a call to chat through what we have learned from the season so far. we're about half way through and we've learned from some incredible people. Our first segment was all about Curation: how to discover and qualify information. The BBC's Chris Warburton joined us to talk about how to ask good questions. Psychologist Dr Simon Moore taught us about all the different ways of listening. Dr Lauren Kirwan helped us to understand empathy better - what it is, and what it is not. Gemma Milne talked to us about the importance of scepticism and our ..read more

In this episode of Future Proof Your Career we speak with Jon Bradford about iteration: how do you take an idea and improve on it? Jon Bradford is co-founder & managing partner of Dynamo Ventures, an investment fund focused on supply chain and mobility. Jon is one of the most experienced early stage investors in Europe and launched the first accelerator bootcamp outside of the US in 2009. He went on to launch many more start-up programmes, earning him the title “Godfather of European Accelerators”. Between this work and his own entrepreneurship, Jon has helped to refine many raw ideas int ..read more

In putting this podcast together, we had a whole range of fascinating conversations, not all of which fitted into the standard format for this series, where each episode is focused on a particular skill. One of those conversations was with Korn Ferry, the global consulting firm.  Korn Ferry works with companies and leaders to help them put in place the optimal structures, roles, and responsibilities, hire the right people to fill those roles, and advises them on how to reward and motivate their workforce. So as you can imagine, it’s a company that has a huge amount of interest in, an ..read more

In this episode of Future-Proof Your Career we’re talking about scepticism, the willingness, and the discipline, to question what we see and hear. And to have the skills to find the facts amongst the opinions and beliefs.  As always, we’ve invited an expert guest to speak to us, and this time it’s Gemma Milne, writer and researcher, and author of the excellent book Smoke and Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It.  Gemma gave us loads to think about, in terms of how we improve our sceptical skills. Here are a few of the key takeaways from the conversation: The ..read more

In this latest episode of Future-Proof Your Career, we tackle the tricky topic of empathy. What is it? How do you use it? And can you grow - or shrink - your empathy?  We all think we know what empathy is, but as ever, we ask a real expert. Dr Lauren Kerwin is a Harvard- and UCLA- Trained Psychologist with over 20 years of experience treating borderline personality disorder, autism spectrum disorders, depression, anxiety and trauma in teens and adults. Lauren also has lots of experience in a corporate context, providing executive coaching and organisational psychology support to highly su ..read more

Thanks for listening to this episode of our Future-proof Your Career. After each episode I’ll be collecting my notes from our guest here. In this episode we spoke to Dr Simon Moore. Simon is a doctor of Psychophysiological Psychology and a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society. He leads a team of researchers at IB, a business he founded to help brands to better understand their customers and employees. Here are my key takeaways from the conversation: What are you listening for? Simon highlighted that we often go into a conversation or interview situation with a bias. We ..read more

Thanks for listening to this first episode of our new season of Talk About Tomorrow, focused exclusively on how you can Future-proof Your Career! After each episode I’ll be collecting my notes from our guest here. In this episode we spoke to Chris Warburton, award-winning BBC journalist. radio presenter and host of a series of excellent podcasts including Ecstasy: The Battle of Rave, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, The End of Days, and most recently, Bugzy Malone’s Grandest Game, about Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto. Chris covers a huge range of topics for the BBC, from major sporting events, to ..read more