The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius

Founder Story: Think Clearly, Live More Deliberately & Create Without Chasing Applause with Jon Kaye, Author of ‘Unmastered’ & DO Radio Presenter. How years of Chasing Money and a 'Burn Out Reset' led to a more Creative & Fulfilling Life

• Chris Grimes - Facilitator. Coach. Motivational Comedian

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He helped raise £225 million, worked punishing weeks, and then walked away from it all. Jon Kaye joins me in The Clearing to unpack the moment he stopped chasing the obvious definition of success and started rebuilding a life around creativity, community, and better questions.

We talk through Jon’s founder story in private equity: the risk of resigning with a pregnant wife, a new house, and no salary, and the life-changing power of one credible person saying “yes”. From there, the conversation turns to burnout, the decision not to launch “fund two”, and the radical reset of taking three young children out of school to travel the world for a year. If you’re thinking about career change, work life balance, or designing a second act, John’s honesty lands hard.

From his basement music studio packed with modular synthesisers and miles of cables, Jon explains why friction matters and why making things harder can lead to more original work, especially in a world flooded with AI content. We dig into his Unmastered newsletter ethos of thinking clearly, living deliberately, and creating without chasing, plus the community-first mission behind DO Radio, a live station you can’t pause or download by design.

If this conversation sparks something in you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review. What would you stop chasing first if you could redesign your life this week?

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'.  If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)

Thanks for listening! 

Welcome To The Clearing

Chris Grimes

Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening to Show. Your life and Times with me, Chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the clearing. Where all good questions come to get asked, and all good stories come to be told. And where all my guests have two things in common. They're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors. A clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 54321, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, and a cake. So it's all to play for. So yes, welcome to the Good Listening To Show, your life and times with me, Chris Grimes. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. Oh, yes, indeed. Welcome to the Good Listening to Show. I'm Chris. What's your story, Grimes? Stories of distinction and genius. This is the show that's been likened to having a day spar for your brain in an oasis of kindness. And if I may just position this as the world burns, how refreshing. And also, hello to America from the point of view. This show now also trebuches, favorite medieval instrument to the States, because this syndicates, apart from to UK Health Radio, this show also syndicates to Brushwood Media, where apparently tens of millions more listeners await us to hear our show as we broadcast. So, yes, Chris Grimes is me, but more importantly, this is the enigmatic John Kay, who's arrived in the clearing to share with us his story of distinction and genius. I'd like to position you, John, if I may, as an enigmatic free thinker. You're a co-founder of Do Radio, and you're a presenter of the Tomorrow's World show. And I love the fact that that made me think immediately because of the title of Raymond Baxter, Aging Us All, who was the original presenter of the inaugural show of Tomorrow's World on the BBC. Not to age us both, but as we were growing up. I've just noticed your picture's looking quite pixelated. So I'm hoping that this signal is going to be okay. But John Kay, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks very much for having me. Yes, I'm glad it made you think of the old uh B kind of is the point. We sort of talk about technology on that show. So tomorrow's world, an appropriate throwback.

Chris Grimes

Wonderful. And we're doing a wonderful reciprocal arrangement in that you're in this show this week and that I'm coming to tomorrow's world in a week's time. So where are you dialing in from, uh, John?

SPEAKER_00

First of all, Southwest London, next to the river, or close to the river.

Chris Grimes

Lovely. And because of your close association with Do Radio, David Hyatt, Mike Coulter, and the whole sort of stable of the do lectures, I always assumed you might live in Cardigan next to David Hyatt in a similar cow barn, but absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00

Uh no, big city for me. I have been out to visit David on his farm, but it's it's a long, it's a long old trek from here, six or seven hours uh west from me.

Chris Grimes

And I remember he made a virtue out of that, apart from running the um Hyatt Denim factory and all of that chablan back in the day. He made it deliberately out in the middle of nowhere. So if you want to go to the do lectures, you've really, really, really, really want to go to the do lectures.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think I quite like that actually. There's a bit of a theme with what he's done and what I've done, like friction. Like friction's important. Let's not make things too easy. So, do radio is a radio show, and people don't really understand what that means in 2026. It means that there's a schedule, you can't download it, you can't pause it. If you want to watch my show, then you have to tune in at a particular time. Like you used to when the TV and the wireless was first invented. So, and that puts some people off, and that's fine.

Do Radio And Designing Friction

Chris Grimes

And the other thing that I know weaving David Hyatt's magic, I know this is about you, but I love the fact that he's also got the fax club, which is a another really difficult thing to even find an old fax machine, let alone join the club.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. He has a whole series of uh crazy ideas that shouldn't work, but uh somehow do. And yes, trying to get hold of a fax club in uh 2026 or 2025, whenever he started it, and then um writing a fax back. I mean, yeah, like why would anyone do that? And yet a hundred people signed up and did for a year.

Chris Grimes

And apparently about 50 of them all actually met in the same room globally through the fax machine in a room in London recently. That that proves that Enigma works.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and something that is remote and this thing was anonymous, can still work to Kinity and eventually an in-real life meetup where people actually met the people who they'd sort of bonded with, connected with over the internet. And there were people I think from as far away as California and New York and Netherlands and Germany. And yeah, amazing, amazing.

Chris Grimes

And of course, in the modern climate, the mayhem of the fact we're all feeling like we're barking into a sea of noise, community is absolutely key because it's about remembering in this world of AI to keep it warm, to keep it human, and keep it connecting through the idea of community, which of course I know is one of the main thrusts and purposes of do radio.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of drives everything I do these days. But yes, in particular, do radio these days. Let's get people listening together, let's get people talking, let's give a voice to the people who might not have a voice in this kind of noisy world. That's that's that's what we're trying to do.

Chris Grimes

And my current sort of own opinion and antidote to that is we all need to be a bit more hummingbird, as in be quiet, majestic, swoop in, get the nectar. And when you've gone, everyone goes, pli me, what was that? So to your own newsletter Unmastered, it's about how to create without chasing, which I think is a really nice resonance.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, partly when I started writing it, which is over a year ago over a year ago now, I've probably written 18 months of consecutive weekly letters. And originally, of course, to nobody, right? You know, I'm shouting to an empty room or uh performing on an empty stage, whatever. And with advertising, and I could easily have thrown some money at it. I decided not to do that for better or for worse. It's more the act of doing it. I enjoy doing it, and my small audience who have signed up enjoy doing it. They stay with me, they comment, and at the moment they don't leave, you know, but it's not huge, and that's fine, right? And that's sort of what I'm trying to. We don't all need to be global superstars and throwing money to Mesa to advertise and get more people in. We want a small audience of people who really like what we do.

Unmastered And Creating Without Chasing

Chris Grimes

And of course, that's the foundation stone most profoundly of a true community because it's built on a bedrock of wanting to connect. And I'm a recipient of Unmastered. There's a very exciting section at the very end called Show Is Your QR code, please, where I'm going to point listeners to exactly where those watching and listening can go and find your brilliant newsletter, Unmastered, which is about thinking clearly, living deliberately, and creating without chasing. Just to blow a little bit of positional happy smoke at you, you're all about helping founders to see differently. And what's intriguing about you, John, is you've been, and this is my own couching of it, to burnout and back. You know, you were back in the day serving the desire to create from a sort of I need to finance myself point of view. You were doing a hundred hours a week with life passing you by, but now you're on the more enviable open road of living a freer, more meaningful life. So that's just my way of positioning a bit of happy smoke at you. How what would be your own answer? If someone doesn't have a frame of reference to what John Kay is all about now, what would you say at that clunky networking event? Yes, we're a community, but hello, John Kay, what are you all about? How do you how do you like to answer that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, actually, I do struggle to answer that, is the honest answer. My worst or hated question, most hated question in the world is so what do you do? Exactly. As if what what you do defines who you are. But I guess I do have to try and answer it. My wife struggles to answer it for me as well. Um, I I like to say I've no idea what he's doing in the world. No, exactly. He's down in his studio and something's happening. I guess creativity is is I've gone from a world, and I'm sure we'll get into it, of uh a job and a career that had very little creativity. And I decided that I hated it eventually. It took a while to get to that point. And now I try and say yes to as many things as possible, like coming on your wonderful show today, like uh getting involved with D Radio when I have no broadcasting, no radio, no interviewing experience whatsoever. But every day now I try and I guess flex that creative muscle. I write, I write music, I interview people, I don't do much drawing or art, but a lot of what I do and what I'm thinking about is creating something from scratch. And getting involved with Do Radio is a great outlet for that. And talking to wonderful people on the show uh sparks things for me, like whether it's writing music or, you know, I do some video for Do Radio up on their YouTube channel as well. So just anything like that that uh brings me joy to use a kind of trite phrase. Like that's my goal in the day.

Chris Grimes

So finding purpose is the is the key there. So doing stuff that you enjoy, and of course, we we'd like to think that the world is cured, just follow your passion and the money will follow. But I think you went about that in the right way. You sacrificed a lot of life in order to get to the point where I think the private equity allowed you to then get on the open road of now, because I remember researching you, which I greatly enjoyed. You actually retired, but of course didn't retire at the age of 40 to spend more time with your family and travel the world.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I spent half of my career just chasing money to the exclusion of anything else, to be honest. You know, family, friends, special occasions, you know, I missed weddings, I cancelled holidays, I did all that work work kind of nonsense, which I now think is so ridiculous. But I did it, and it's allowed me to do what I do now. I mean, the kind of classic two mountain of life. The first mountain is trying to work out where the second mountain should be. And look, I don't regret anything I've done because otherwise I wouldn't be here. And during those years, it was a it was a choice. Nobody forced me to do any of that, but I did reach a point where I decided actually, family and my children and connections and friends and doing other things is much more important to me. And I've managed to build up a bit of savings buffer so that I am now able to, as I said, put money way down the list of things that drives me every day and work on things which hopefully inspire people listening to the radio show, hopefully inspire my kids to learn that actually just, you know, finishing uni and becoming an investment banker is not the only path in life. And I think if I hadn't made that change, they might just have ended up following me. And I really hope they don't.

Chris Grimes

And coming full circle, that's what's really beautiful about the positioning of your unmastered newsletter, because it unmastered means you're still working it out. But it's think clearly, live deliberately, and then create without chasing, which is a thing that I find so resonant. I love that. So with your permission, and your your picture comes and goes a bit, but the sound sounds great, and that's the most important thing because this is mostly a sort of sound broadcasting entity, a bit like do radio. So, with your permission, it's my great delight, honor, and privilege to now curate you through the carefully curated storytelling structure of the Good Listening to show. There's going to be, John Kay, a clearing, a tree, a lovely juicy storytelling exercise called 54321. There's going to be some alchemy, some gold, a couple of random squirrels, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, a golden baton, and a cake. Hurrah! So, how do you like them apples to start with?

The Clearing As Music Studio

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about, Chris, but let's dive in.

Chris Grimes

If you've not seen the show before, where have you been? Because we're about 275 episodes into this particular series of monkeys that I keep curating, and I love doing it as should hopefully be obvious as we go through. What's your story? John Kay. So just to reassure you, not a memory test, I'm gonna curate you through a bit like a downhill slalom ski through various storytelling gateposts. So, first of all, your clearing is your serious, happy place. You may well be sitting in it as we speak. I don't know, I don't mind. Everybody answers this differently. So, where is what is your clearing, John Kay? Where do you go to get clutter-free, inspirational, and able to think?

SPEAKER_00

A couple of places, probably, but I'll I'll I'll say here like uh if people are watching the the video, I'm sat in a room full of music producing equipment. I have keyboards and drum machines and old synthesizers and analog stuff, and literally about a mile of cables as well, which uh some of them are hanging up as high behind me, some of them are the other side, and it is uh it's been a labor of love building this place over about seven or eight years.

Chris Grimes

Your curtain of cables behind you. I wondered if that was one of those glitzy sort of curtains that you used to go through into a nightclub or something. But actually, I now see, again, because we've got a bit of pixelation going on, but it's actually a curtain of cables.

SPEAKER_00

You can't see it, but over here I have a whole wall of they're called modular synthesizers, and they are little units that you literally plug together with these cables and you create your own signal path. So it is very creative, it's very modular. So one thing on its own doesn't do anything. You need a whole series of them, plug them together, and they make a sound. And it's again going back to the point of friction, it's slow, it's frustrating sometimes, it's complicated, but that's what makes it fun and rewarding. You don't just hit a button on AI and some sound comes out, or or you know, even with a keyboard, you don't just press a key and voila, a sound. Sometimes that hurts, but sometimes you want things to be a bit harder, actually. Because the outcome, when things are hard and you really know what you're doing, you don't know what you're gonna get. And that's sometimes, not always, that's sometimes where the beauty happens.

Chris Grimes

Love that. Friction is good, and that's where the beauty happens. That's lovely. It made me think of whenever you do a new music project, it's a bit like the equivalent of rewiring your brain on the daily, basically.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, it's very easy to make songs and make music, it's very difficult to make something that sounds like you or sounds like nothing else that's ever been done before. That's much harder. But if you have almost like a random workflow, it makes the output you given that you don't know what's coming out, then the audience doesn't either, and they'd be like, whoa, that sounds uh interesting, I haven't heard that before. And that's that's part of the fun of playing with sound and playing with uh music, at least for me.

Chris Grimes

That's a wonderful metaphor in and of itself of the nature of true creativity, trying to find authenticity in the sea of noise that we're all in.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, and the beauty of this room is this used to be my study. So when I was working in private equity, different desk and a printer, and all I did was the work, and I had files, my shelves to my left here, which are out of shot. And now it has the desk is different, it has all these audio equips. My shelves are full of vinyl and books about music and music theory and you know, famous musicians, how they write songs. So it's just totally changed.

Chris Grimes

It really is John Kay's man cave. Is the music studio? Is it in a basement or is it in an annex?

SPEAKER_00

No, it is in a basement, it really is a man cave. People come around and like wander in here and they're like, oh my god, because it's like there are flashing lights, it's like some sort of spaceship. And to be honest, most people who have no idea what any of this does would have no idea even where to start. And that's almost part of the fun as well. That's this kind of mad spaceship that I'm in control of.

Chris Grimes

The mad spaceship that John Kay is in control of. I love that. And I'm I'm I'm coming on the next space sortie. That's fantastic. Did you happen to watch the Harry Styles stuff that everybody watched? Because he's been he's gone very techno in terms of gadgetry that we're fiddling around with as we watch it.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I haven't actually, but that's a good recommendation.

Chris Grimes

So on Netflix, there's lots of, I mean, he's just absolutely stupendously. I mean, he's just brilliant in what he's doing, but there's lots of I think inspiration by spending lots of time in Berlin. What do I know about Harry Styles? But there's there's a new cut and thrust to a bit of techno, giving the sort of basis of the sort of the back beat, if you like. Again, what do I know, but but that's what I experience. So it's it's a similar man cave that he projects from as well.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, worth checking out. Thank you.

Chris Grimes

So sorry I interrupted you. We're in your clearing, which is potentially your man cave, but you said there are a couple.

SPEAKER_00

I do a lot of my writing outside as well. So I given that I spend a lot of time in this dark basement underground. I have a dog and I live by the Thames and together walking most days. And I that would be another happy place. I usually stick on my headphones. I'm not much of a chatterbox when I'm on walks. I usually either listen to music or I listen to the radio. But I often write. I write on my walks, so I have ideas, and you know, when you're not thinking about anything, that's usually when you can think about the things you really want to. So that would be another place where if I don't get out, I do miss it. And so I end up probably going every day.

Chris Grimes

That's very resonant. The best idea is happen outdoors, and if in doubt, walk it out is a couple of maxims and mantras that I enjoy too. Very relatable. And what part of the Thames are we walking next to? So we can put a flag in the sand or a tree, as I'll explain in a minute.

SPEAKER_00

I live in Putney, so I walk down to close to Putney Bridge, and then I walk west, close to Hammersworth Bridge, and do a bit of a loop and come back.

Starting A Private Equity Firm

Chris Grimes

So, if I may, I'm now going to arrive with a tree in your clearing, which is quite comic if I'm going to plant my tree down in amongst your mile-long curtain of cables, and it's a bit of a hybrid because we could be next to the lock, next to the Thames in Putney. I said lock because I know that Michael Palin's favourite place is Teddington Lock, where the fish slap dance happens. And rather beautifully, he's coming into the show at some point soon in the next few months. So we're in your clearing. I'm now going to ride with a tree in your clearing, and we're going to shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. How do you like these apples? And this is where you've been kind enough, John, to have thought about four things that have shaped you, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention, and that's where I'll explain. That's borrowed from the film up, where the dog goes, Oh, squirrels. And then the one is a quirky or unusual fact about you. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us. Again, just to reassure you, it's not a memory test. So going back up to the canopy of your tree to shake it as you see fit. First of all, four things that have shaped you, John Kay.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I guess the first obvious one was um uh it was quite a big moment in my career. So I was looking at a large global um, I was in my early 30s, you know, just learning my craft effectively, and you know, being worked to death by my boss, like any young person working in the city of Lunwich is where I was working. But I'd always uh felt like I'd wanted to be more in control of my destiny. But working in uh private equity, which is a massive industry, it just seemed so out of reach because uh you can't just start a business, you need to invest other people's money. So you need to raise uh tens of pounds. So it's it's all there's a huge barrier. And in fact, very few people had ever started a new business in the industry. All the industry was dominated by, you know, decades-old uh companies and businesses, and they just dominated, and that was that. And then uh me and a couple of uh colleagues who were working in industry but a different firm, uh, we just uh had a crazy idea that maybe we we could do this. You know, we'd had a little bit of a success. I was still only 32, 33. But we put together uh yeah, like a pitch document, like a very boring PowerPoint presentation about why this might be a good idea. It was only 20 pages or so, and we started talking to people about do they think this was a good idea as well. And somebody said yes, they did think it was a good idea. Gave us enough uh belief to yeah, resign and leave and and start trying to do this thing. I mean, I can I'll cut to the end in in a second, but I guess the reason it was so pivotal is because everyone thought we were mad when we did it. You know, the job I had, the job my two fellow founders had, was an amazing job at that stage. We were in a growing industry. This is obviously going back 20 years, you know, the money was good to amazing. It was almost a guaranteed to riches road to riches. Nobody had ever ever had to do this before. So when I said that I was gonna leave, my wife thought I was mad, my friends thought I was mad, everyone firm thought I was crazy, my bosses thought like everyone thought this was nuts, which definitely gave me because these were quite smart people. But we did it anyway. I'd just moved house, my wife was pregnant with our first child, it was like the worst possible timing. We then spent two years with no salary in our early 30s with a young baby and a new house trying to get this business off the ground, and we did. I mean, it had a bit of ending this story. We did, we raised 225 million pounds. We got the business up and running, we ended up employing like a dozen, we ended up having a successful 10-year run before I then moved on. It was uh a happy ending, but that years was was tough.

Chris Grimes

And and what I couldn't help hearing you say was the extraordinarily profound gatekeeper moment, somebody said yes. So, do you still remember exactly who that person was? Who was that somebody who said yes?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I mean absolutely, like it that that meeting is on my memory. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna name them. He's a well known person in the finance industry, you know. He had Huge credibility. The fact that we even got a meeting with him was unbelievable because it was literally the three of us. We had no business, we had three of us and a 20-page document. And we walked out the meeting, and he said, Yes, I believe in you. I'm going to commit 50 million pounds to your fund. Wow. To be honest, for him to say it was remarkable. That gave us the impetus to then raise the rest of it and get above the 200 million and basically have a firm. But yes, that walking out that uh meeting was life-changing.

Chris Grimes

It sounds a bit like it might have been somebody of the calibre of Jamie Diamond or someone like that. It's the man from Del Monte, not calling him that. But do you remember that? We talked about Raymond Baxter earlier on in terms of retro memories. But it sounds about whoever that enigmatic person was who said yes, that was like the man from Del Monte.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

He said yes. He did say yes, and he was credible, and he gave other people confidence that if he's if he believes in us, then maybe they can too. So yeah, I mean, having that, you know, if it was another human with some money, then it might not have worked. He had a name and a brand and credibility.

Chris Grimes

So yes, it was a bit equivalent to wind forward as many years as when since that was. It's a bit like going to get a great success in Dragon's Den where all five dragons turn round, basically.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. You always need a bit of luck. We'd we'd had lots of meetings before that meeting, and everybody had said no. So, you know, there are these moments where you can't really predict them, they're kind of out of nowhere. You don't know which meeting people are going to say yes. The chances of even being in that room was pretty low.

Chris Grimes

So a destiny moment, how extraordinary. What I also really enjoy is your life began in terms of what you've decided shaped you when you left the the sort of the corporate beast to form your own corporate beast, but that's when your life began in founding your own company.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Grimes

Great first shape. Uh second shapeage, then, John Kay.

Leaving At Forty And Travelling

SPEAKER_00

Well, I guess following on from that story, the second moment is when I left my startup a decade later, equally significant. So by that stage, I'd been working in Anson private equity for about 20 years. And it had just for I don't know, 18 or 19 of those years, it was fantastic. Absolutely loved almost every aspect of it. But it just, I don't know whether I'd been getting older. I was approaching 40 at this stage, but things have definitely got less fun, more stressful. Relationships with my founders just got a little bit tired as well. We were at that stage in private actor, you do these when I said we raise this money, you do these funds in sort of 10-year blocks, and there is a sort of natural end. And then you you do another 10-year, do the next fund. So that there is a cycle, it's not an ever that sort of the set changes. So we were at that point where do we do fund two? And I just didn't want to do it. Like as convinced as I was to do, I was equally convinced I had no desire to do fund two. So I left. I didn't just walk out, you know. I it was uh just a decision amongst the three of us that time was right, I didn't want to do it anymore, and they were fine with that. I came back home to my wife and our now three three children by this. I said, I've left. So just as people thought I was mad to leave my original job, I was probably equally mad to leave this fantastic little startup business that we'd got off the ground. I said I need to do something completely different. And I guess I think I mentioned this week that this was probably burnout, but you don't really call it that. And I don't know, I don't know whether I felt that I just felt kind of exhausted and needed a change. And actually, I just didn't enjoy what I was doing. Like it was just about money and growth, anything else, really. And so at that point, I said, like, we've got I've got to have a complete change. So we took our kids out of school, they were seven, five, and one, just about two, and we went traveling around the world for a year, so literally just dropped out. I became uh I had a my gap year student year when I was 40, 41, and that was amazing.

Chris Grimes

So you you bunged your family in a metaphorical papoose because you would have had to have done that with the one-year-old, and then off you went round the planet. So that's really a brilliant way to airlock into what's next. And by the way, that's what second curve is all about. We're all on a curve or a trajectory, your curve begins to wane, but what you do to attach to your second curve, it's going to pull you towards your future. And interestingly, resonantly, as a facilitator and a coach, I I sort of cut my teeth on a lot of the private investment banking. I was in Canary Wharf an awful lot, working for the likes of JP Morgan, you know, Barclays. Loved it, a great privilege, but my soul didn't chime, shall we say, in Canary Wharf.

SPEAKER_00

I can understand that.

Chris Grimes

Wonderful interpretation so far. Now we're on to the third shapage, I believe, John.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I am going to go back in time now because as I said at the start, everything now revolves around creativity and trying to use that kind of spark. And somebody kind of made me realize this earlier this year on my my own radio show that actually go all the way back to GCSEs for me. So back to school. At school, I was all about science and numbers. I mean, no surprise, I went into finance. You know, maths and science was my thing. I found it interesting and easy, and things like languages and English and reading books were a necessary evil that I had to endure. Until I changed class and I had an English teacher called Mr. Venning, and we read a book called The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, I think he's the author. And it's an unbelievably dense, difficult book to read, a typical kind of you know English literature student book. And I really struggled with it, to be honest. But somehow he made it come alive, and he changed my view on this book, which I frankly probably hated and now kind of love. And he just changed everything about reading and interpretation and creativity and you know things that can mean more than one thing and different people's opinions. And I went from a you know a solid C A C student at English to getting an A at GCSE and actually wanting to take it on and do A-level. And um so he, even though I then went into finance and I parked that bit of my brain, I do look back and think actually that was probably the moment where he sparked in me that I could do something creative. Because I think a lot of us get creativity sort of beaten out of us, whether that's work or you know, if you try and sing something and you sing that tune forever, you're this person you can't sing, and that's you know a shame. And anyway, yeah, so Mr. Venning, shout out to him.

Chris Grimes

And is he still with us, Mr. Venning?

The Teacher Who Sparked Creativity

SPEAKER_00

He actually taught he's retired now because I think he's 80 or thereabouts. He actually taught until he retired at a school very close to where I live now, and he actually lives round the corner. So I connected with him. I haven't actually met him in real life, which is a shame because I should do, but we've we have chatted on LinkedIn, would you believe? I have no idea why, but we did connect, and so I did relay this story directly to him. So that was a nice.

Chris Grimes

I I would make a point, you know, commit out loud that you're gonna go and say hello to him and say thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you're right. I mean, he I could literally walk to his house, so it's it's it's just what a gift that is to be round the corner from because we did I didn't go to school here, so I met him over, I was in Worcestershire, like in the near near the Welsh coast, like the Welsh border. So like the fact that he's now and we've both moved, and obviously time has passed. Yeah, amazing.

Chris Grimes

Great. Thank you for that. And just give us the title of the book again, just to reincorporate deliberately.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, and it's a tough read, but it's not very long, and um yeah, it's well worth it.

Chris Grimes

And I also couldn't help hearing, in the same way that you said someone said yes, you said someone reminded me. So I think you're a very good listener because every now and again somebody says something that you're never gonna forget, and then it colours in, you know, life colours in backwards.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I've got better at listening over the years. I think my wife would attest to the fact I wasn't very good 20 years ago.

Chris Grimes

Again, that's relatable. My family think it's ironic. What good listening to, but you go deaf.

SPEAKER_00

Anyway, but wonderful.

Chris Grimes

So I think we're on to the fourth shapage now, John. This is wonderful stuff you're giving us. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

So for this, I decided to choose learning to make music. So this goes back to lockdown, where we all took up hobbies because there was nothing to do. We baked bread and we did lots of other things and learned to, I don't know, code or play cards or whatever it is that you did in lockdown when you were desperately bored. I came across this class, you know, the master class series, which uh I don't know who does it, but you know, the masterclass thing. I don't know if it's the thing anymore, but Gordon Ramsay did a cooking show, and you know, there were acting things. And anyway, there was this one on making music by a guy called Dead Mouse. That's his kind of stage now.

Chris Grimes

You say Dead Mouse.

Lockdown Music And Deadmau5

SPEAKER_00

Dead Mouse, yeah. M-A-U-5 dead, M A U five. He got the name because when he was making music, he his computer stopped working and he opened it up and there was a dead mouse inside. Anyway, he's a Canadian, he's a Canadian dance, like uh EDM, electronic dance music, kind of legend, actually. And he's he's hugely successful, covered with tattoos, totally different to me. And he did class, and I started watching it, and I was just hooked. Like he has a room that is kind of like mine times by about 10. He's hugely successful, so he can afford all the all the gadgets. Anyway, I just devoured this thing, and it was weird because I've always loved music, listening to music, going to gigs, being into bands, always been a part of me, but I've never actually made music. Almost like I didn't realize you could. You know, just with a laptop and a bit of software, you can make a full track and release it. And most people do these days, they don't have any kind of keyboards or things. Any most of it's done on a computer, anyway. It was weird. I just, and this just opened my eyes. You know, literally, even the name of the software that you can use to make music, I had never heard of it until I watched this thing. And it's been out long before this course, so I could have come across that anyway. And that has then just started me. Yeah, and now you can see this room. That was the start. Before that, this room had no music equipment in it at all. Yeah, he just sparked something, and yes, we were bored and like hungry for something to do and down. But it was just that, oh my god, I can actually make the stuff that I love listening to. And obviously, at the start, it was crap. People would say that it's still not great, but I think my music that's a lot better than it was again.

Chris Grimes

Another adage that's come to mind what's meant for you won't pass you by. So, apart from those two conversations, when somebody said coming across Dead Mouse, what a great moment.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

Chris Grimes

Was it just experiencing it remotely as a sort of pixel on a Zoom call, or were you connecting with him to get one-to-one coaching?

SPEAKER_00

No, it was pre-re-recorded, like anyone could sign up to it. It wasn't anything interactive at all, it was just knowledge, like just being fed at me.

Chris Grimes

And so Dead Mouse doesn't know that he's a great influencer or shapage of John Kay.

SPEAKER_00

He doesn't, and I'm sure he doesn't care. But nonetheless, he was. And what was really funny, just as uh an aside, the very first show I did for Do Radio number 25. So we've been going six or seven months, not as long as you I had a guest on the show who is all about AI art. Uh that's what he does. And we asked him this these questions the favorite song, your favorite book, your favorite quote. And his on my very first show was a song by Dead Mouse. And so we then went on ranch for about an hour about how amazing this guy was, and it totally threw my first like radio show totally off plan. And but it was brilliant.

Chris Grimes

So you went into a sort of super geek rabbit hole for want of a better word.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, yeah.

Chris Grimes

Love that. What an extraordinary series of shapages. Thank you very much indeed. Now moving down the trunk of the tree, we're on to three things that inspire you now, John Kay. And if there's any overlap, that's completely understandable. But three things that inspire you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so the first has to be music. I have obviously just been talking about make was a big part of my teenage years. I think it is a for a lot of people, so that's not it's not unusual. But um, I really enjoyed going to live music in particular, getting into bands, learning their kind of backstory, the meaning behind the songs. And it just so then when I went to see them live, it would just be a whole kind of interactive experience. I absolutely loved it. So much so that sad to say, I quite often went to gigs on my own back then when I was a teenager. I don't know why. But uh, you know, sometimes the bands I really like, nobody else really liked. I'm just like, well, they're here in my local town, whether I was at school or I grew up in close to Manchester, they're coming to Manchester. I'm just I'm just gonna go. I don't care. Like, there'll be lots of people there, lots of people in the same mind space as me. So I just used to go and uh used to love it. I still love it, I still go to gigs now, and I'm really old now.

Chris Grimes

And what bands are we talking, John?

SPEAKER_00

Oh now you're taking me back. Well, I was a bit of an indie kid, so this is back uh I'm talking about the Pixies, Wide, the whole Manchester scene, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, and Spiral Carpets, anything like that, I was all in.

Chris Grimes

And may I ask, what's your favorite piece of music?

SPEAKER_00

I know you've just mentioned you do that in your own show, but if you had to pick one as being that's John Kay's sort of soundtrack, it's always difficult because I think like a lot of people into music, it changes depending on mood, uh depending whether somebody has reminded me of a band that I liked from 20 years ago. I usually, when people ask me that, I usually go back to The Cure. The Cure is a band that I have been listening to yes since I was 15, right from the very start. And I still listen to them today. They came out with a new album last year or the year before, and that's still good and on repeat sometimes on my phone. So I'm not gonna choose a song because there's so many.

Chris Grimes

If if I may, I want to press you to choose a song because Dan is brilliant at texturing in music at this point as a bit of an if okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um I will go back to there's a song called The Edge of the Deep Green Sea by The Cure, which always gives me goosebumps, even now, which is remarkable because I've heard it about a billion times.

Chris Grimes

So here come some goosebumps for you.

SPEAKER_00

Every time we do this, I'm falling.

Chris Grimes

So now we're into the the second thing that inspires you, John.

Inspiration From Music And Guests

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'm gonna have to plug my radio show. Not just to plug it, just the people I get to talk to are genuinely inspiring. Like it's an easy conversation to have because they just have done some amazing things. So I mean, this week, for example, I have a woman on the show called Hannah Nunn. Um we're ostensibly talking about business and doing business in the right way. And she uh has set up this coffee business, Kickstart Coffee, so you can buy the coffee, it's great coffee. And it's a very small business, but she started it and she gives a hundred percent of the profits to a Ugandan school and the local area to pay for teachers' salaries, pay school fees for children who can't afford it, donate coffee trees to the local farmers who then cultivate land, grow the coffee, which she then buys to sell back to corporates in the UK. So it's a way of giving to charity, but in a way where people are getting something out of it. Like they're getting a product that they would probably buy anyway. If you buy coffee, you might as well effectively buy it from her. But it's just like, why give 100%? And she just says, Well, why wouldn't you give 100%? Like it's it's she's just remarkable. Like, even so she was a nurse, she's not an entrepreneur. Well, sorry, she is now. She was a nurse on a kind of career trajectory, she wanted to be head nurse, she was a successful running big departments, and even when she was doing that, she said she ended up giving 50% of her salary away to this Ugandan school.

Chris Grimes

So even before part of Uganda it was. What I'm asking you is I grew up in Uganda between my being two and a half and ten. No way. Oh my god. I was in Ginger, J-I-N-J-A, which is 50 miles away from Kampala.

SPEAKER_00

There's a mountain near there called something like Elgon or El Don Mountain, that's where the coffee's grown. I would have to look it up. She's on our website this week, so and I think it tells you the region and the areas, but I don't know Uganda very well, so it hasn't stuck in my memory, but I can't believe that coincidence as well. But just as an answer to your question, people like that, yes, they're just doing extraordinary things, and hopefully we're giving a little bit of voice to them uh so that people listening can be inspired, either just to support these amazing people or do so, you know, if you're thinking of starting your own business, there are, and it's not sorry, it's not all business, business, business, but there are there are shows about creativity and but just I think it almost anything on our show, on our station, we have eight shows, just constantly gives me sparks of inspiration. And I know I'm part of it, but I'm also a listener because there are lots of shows I'm not involved on.

Chris Grimes

And what an extraordinary testament to the true nature and the beauty of philanthropy and altruism because she to give 50% away of a nurse's salary, for heaven's sake.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, yes, like um amazing. People think giving one or two percent is is um like I I mean, she is probably one, you know, one in a million, literally.

Chris Grimes

And do you remember that Homer Simpson joke? I like to give 100% at work, uh, 15% on Monday, uh, 12% on Tuesday, uh and until it adds somewhere near 100%. But but she is the absolute altruistic antidote to all of that, literally giving 100%. That's staggering. So I think I'd very much like to meet her myself, actually.

SPEAKER_00

She's remarkable.

Chris Grimes

Yes. Wonderful. What a great inspirer. And now the third thing that inspires you.

SPEAKER_00

This is a cliche, but I'm gonna say it anyway. It's it's my family. You know, I've I've thrown quite a lot at my family, as you've got a sense of it enough now, from you know, leaving a well-paid job when my wife was pregnant, and she just left her well-paid job to be pregnant, I guess, and to raise the kid. Um, and she didn't bat an eyelid, you know, she's just like, yeah, okay, let's do this, let's get move on to this next chapter, to then coming home and saying, right, let's go around the world, let's take these kids out of school, you know, with the youngest still in nappies, and we were visiting countries that didn't even have nappies, you couldn't buy them. So like we did not make things easy.

Chris Grimes

I wish your first name began with an O because she could go, okay, when you come back with your next cunning plan.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think she uh she probably has a deep intake of breath when I say, I've got another idea.

Chris Grimes

Would one of your children have a name beginning with O, like an Oliver or something?

SPEAKER_00

No, we did think about that, and we just thought the potential for too much abuse at school was uh too high. It could go either way, right? So no, we we avoided that.

Chris Grimes

Lovely. So, yes, I think we've done the inspiring now. Now, very excitingly, this is the squirrels. This is borrowed from the film Up, where the dog goes, Oh, squirrels. Uh, what I like about this is we've all got two monsters of distraction, sometimes called your shiny object syndrome. What two things never fail to stop you in your tracks, John Kay, irrespective of anything else that might be going on for you?

Squirrels: Gear And Odd Ideas

SPEAKER_00

Well, the first one, again, if anyone's watching the video, is obviously music gear. Like I'm gadgets generally have always been something which I'm quite keen on. My wife still reminds me that I was one of the first people to get one of three video calling phones when they first came out, and they were totally useless, and the screen was like an inch square and blocky. And I would be video calling her late in the office, and she was in the office, and she'd be like, What are you doing? Like, why are you doing this? Why do I want to see your face? Obviously, it's a bit more normal.

Chris Grimes

What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00

So, no, gadgets have always been a bit of a soft spot, and now there's a whole world of music um gadgetry, and they even have a name for it in in the music kind of industry called gas gear acquisition syndrome. And uh, I try hard to resist, but uh I sometimes fail to resist that squirrel.

Chris Grimes

So, what's the most recent gas that you've acquired?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I have a couple actually. I have one on my desk here, which won't be, but I will show you to you anyway. So, this is this is a very simple box, very beautiful actually. If you can see some of the artwork on it, made by some literally by a Dutch guy. I mean, that's this industry that it's literally mum and pop. So there's a bit of circuitry in there, and that particular bit of kit is a feedback machine. So, you know, when a guitar gets too close to the amp and the it makes that kind of feedbacking screech. Yeah, he has designed a whole machine to make that noise, but be make you able to control it a bit more so you can really play with it and filter it and uh put some effects on it. And it's it, I mean, if you've ever watched a horror film, this thing can basically do the whole soundtrack. I don't know how I'm gonna use that for my music, but it's so cool to play with.

Chris Grimes

And if you want to give the inventor of that some feedback, see what I'm doing there, you can say, Hey, that's awesome. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. It is called the Audrey Two For Escape synthesizer. There you go.

Chris Grimes

And now, Rabbit Hole, you're gonna go and find Audrey One, aren't you? Because that's two.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know what Audrey One was. That's a good point. Maybe it's just the first version that he didn't end up selling, or maybe I've come across it when he's already perfected it. I don't know. Good question.

Chris Grimes

Yeah, a bit of feedback for you. Lovely. Second squirrel.

SPEAKER_00

The second squirrel is more about ideas. I am a sucker at going back to. David Hyatt, I guess, for counterintuitive ideas that seem stupid. So when I I got an email from him, as did you know 30,000 other people, I'm not saying I'm special here. He sent out an email to his newsletter list saying, I've got this idea to start a radio station in 2025 in a world where nobody knows what the radio is. I'm like, yes, that really appeals. That's really stupid, right? Really, that will never ever work. And then once I start thinking that, I'm like, okay, why might that work? Why might I so whenever I really, you know, I can go deep in YouTube Rabb, whenever there's somebody talking about something which is very common, but they have a different take, that really gets my interest. I'd like to know why. Are they just being nuts? Is there a point? Are they just being counterintuitive just for the sake of clicks or whatever? Or is there something there where they've latched onto something that the mainstream or the majority have missed? I I love that kind of stuff.

Chris Grimes

Yeah, and resonantly as well. I was a recipient of that very same music. I I go listening to you show in this into the same it's very exciting. David does excite uh a lot of people because the first thing I ever experienced was this idea which totally grabbed me. Not it wasn't the radio, it was the idea of a yellow front door in the middle of a field near Cardigan. And I just thought, boom.

SPEAKER_00

No, I love that. Yeah, great image that, yeah.

Chris Grimes

Wonderful. Great squirrels. And now the one is a quirky or unusual fact about you, John Kay. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.

SPEAKER_00

I guess this will mean more if you're looking at the video, looking at the bald slightly out of shape person in front of you. And so, despite the fact I'm 53, spend a lot of time sitting on my arse making music, I'm actually quite fit, or I have been until relatively recently. So I have run probably a dozen marathons. Wow. I have cycled through the Alps from Geneva to Nice. I have done two half Ironmans and one full Iron Man. So if there's any kind of long-distance, aerobic, crazy, stupid event that takes hours and hours and hours, I'm actually surprisingly good at that.

Chris Grimes

I'll be your Huckleberry if it's got pain attached to it for the game attributed to the doing of it.

SPEAKER_00

Pretty much that's me. I love it.

Chris Grimes

Wonderful. So now we've shaken your tree. Hurrah. Now we stay in the clearing, move away from the tree. Next we talk about alchemy and gold. When you're at purpose and in flow, John Kay, what are you absolutely happiest doing now in what you're here to reveal to the world?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I I guess that has to be the consistent theme, making music. You know, I'm actually a trained psychologist, so I have two psychology degrees, one in experimental psychology and one in sports psychology. So I love the idea of flow, which is actually come up with by a Polish psychologist whose name, by the way, I can never say. But it's that time when you're doing something and you just lose hours, right? You lose time. And I can there's a few things where I can get that, but uh, these days, making music, if I have an idea and I have some sort of spark of inspiration, I start exploring it, I start playing with different sounds, and suddenly I'll look up and it's literally like three hours later. I'm like, where has I gone? And I have the flexibility in my days. That doesn't that's not a bad thing. I can I can afford to lose time, but I love it when it happens. It doesn't happen all the time, obviously. But sometimes you just get lost in that uh and it's just I love it.

Chris Grimes

And is the process in and of itself enough? You know, your lovely mantra about creating without chasing, do you need to publish something, or is it just a that's that rabbit hole done now to the next rabbit hole, or are you always trying to publish?

Quirky Fact: Endurance Challenges

SPEAKER_00

No, definitely the process is is the main thing. I mean, it's nice if somebody hit listens and says, Oh, I quite like that too. You know, I don't think any human would would say that somebody saying something nice about a work, a piece of work that you've produced is a bad thing. But I don't go out of my way to push it onto um Spotify. I'd say, I don't know, 60, 70, 80% of the music I make never leave room. Oh, load, loads of it. And I can go back and I listen to a lot of my old stuff when I'm out walking to give me inspiration because it's amazing how I can listen to something I made a year ago or 18 months ago. And it just feels like it's a different person. It doesn't feel like me. Just because the process is so you it's almost you don't know what happens next. So the end result is hard to trace back to the start. So you end up with this thing, you're just like, wow, is that me? And then you I can then go back, take that, and turn it into something else.

Chris Grimes

And do you have a sort of an alter ego when you're creating music like Dead Mouse, or is it just John Kay?

SPEAKER_00

Uh yeah, I have a few. So uh so I do actually now make music for Do Radio under the name JRK, very unoriginal. So the music you hear on the show, all written by me, and that is great. So that does give me an outlet. I'm now going through a process where every month on the show I take something on our show that has inspired me. So there are eight shows a week, so the 32 months, and I either take snippets of the audio, so people talking, in other words, and conversation, and I put it to music. So every month there is a new do radio song that's inspired by our guests. So that's nice.

Chris Grimes

And may I just ask the question? You don't have to say yes, but uh when you listen back to this, is there any way that you might consider laying a soundtrack to the rhythm of this conversation? I'd be intrigued by that.

SPEAKER_00

I certainly try.

Chris Grimes

You don't have to say yes. That was just you know how other people begin where you end, you have a whole musical capability that I know that I don't have, but I have an enjoy of the rhythm of language where there could be something as a as a as feedback, if you like, using that not that gizmo necessarily.

Flow State And Making Music

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean it's I never know what is going to inspire me. That's the only the only thing. Like I think if I'm given a particular brief, that might be maybe that's the next challenge. If somebody, and I am actually talking to somebody because they've heard the music on do radio, they're can we do something together? So at the moment it's almost reactive, not quite, because I have this sort of monthly deadline, which is nice, but there's no it's almost whatever I want, whatever I feel, whatever happens.

Chris Grimes

Wonderful. And now I'm gonna award you with a cake, John Kay. So do you like cake, first of all?

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I would like a Battenberg cake, please. I I absolutely love almonds, marzi pan, anything like that. So almost anything with marzipan. Christmas cake is a favourite, but a Battenberg is a classic.

Chris Grimes

Do you know in my circa 270 episodes? No one's yet prescribed a Battenberg cake, and that's very as well. Get in. Okay, you get to put a cherry on the cake now, with stuff like what's a favourite inspirational quote, John Kay, that's always given you sucker and pulled you towards your future.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I know what it is, but I can't recite it to you. But it's very easy to look up. So it's the man in the arena quote from um Roosevelt back in whenever it was, 1920. And I have it framed in my downstairs loo to hopefully inspire my children. So I do see it every day. But it's the concept that um ignore the critics, right? The you're the one in the arena, the people shouting from the stadium, you can ignore them because they're not there. And you actually have to be there and you have to do your thing and actually be the man in the arena and everyone else, and all that noise, you know, all the people who said I couldn't set up the business, that's all irrelevance because you and your partners are there in the arena, and I love that.

Chris Grimes

I know exactly which quote you mean. That's fantastic. Thank you. With the gift of hindsight, what notes, help, or advice might you proffer to a younger version of you, John Kay?

SPEAKER_00

Uh, I would probably embrace balance a bit more than I did. I've had two halves of life that are almost hit the exact opposite. And I don't think it needs to be like that. I think I could have had a bit more balance in my early life, which would have maybe kept me on that path longer, whether that would be good or bad. But I didn't have to just exclude so many things, I think.

Cake, Quote, And Advice

Chris Grimes

Um there's a slight sort of a frisson of regret of the first half of if it's a game of two halves using the football analogy, you have certain your regrets are in the first half mostly.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. I missed family weddings because I was at work on a Saturday, like doing something which is, with hindsight, totally pointless. You know, I missed nights out and birthdays and things which are just much more important.

Chris Grimes

What a wonderful, uh, wise thing to tell yourself. Now we're ramping up in a moment to talk about Shakespeare, to borrow from the seven ages of man's speech to talk about legacy. But just before we get there, this is the pass the golden baton moment, please, which is they don't like it up and Mr. Mannering. Now you've experienced this from within. Who might you most like to pass the golden baton along to in order to keep the golden thread of the storytelling going, John Kay?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I'm afraid on this one I'm gonna politely refuse. I don't really like the idea of pushing someone else to do something. Not that this is a negative experience at all, but and this isn't just this isn't the only something like this has happened, but I don't like the idea of I've done something, I think of it as well here and sort of push them into the spotlight. So if it's okay with you, I'm gonna decline on that one. There's loads of people who would be great great on your show, but I don't think it's my job to push them towards you if that's okay.

Chris Grimes

That's a great answer and uh respect completely understand. So if you're listening, there's a free golden baton going if you want to get in touch. Oh, yes, anyway. So you can you there is a a carpe dim of the baton if you want to. Okay, inspired by Shakespeare now, all the world's a stage and all the murdered women merely players, when all is said and done, John Kay, free thinker, curator of the unmastered newsletter. How, when all is said and done, would you most like to be remembered?

Legacy, Links, And Listening

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I struggled with this one because I'm not sure legacy building is a healthy attitude to have. You know, and I know we don't want to talk about politics, I certainly don't, but the whole trying to have a legacy on the world and get your name on a building and solve all the world's wars and start another half a dozen worlds' wars to create regime change and anything else we might talk about. I just think it's often a driver of some of the problems we've got in the world where people are trying to think, shit, I'm running out of life here. What am I going to leave behind? I think my biggest legacy is, and I hopefully they will stand up to it, is the kids, the next generation. So my children, you know, hopefully they will learn lessons from me and my wife and other people as they get older, clearly. And they will then leave the world in a better place, as hopefully I am trying to, and they will hopefully then go on to inspire. And and who knows whether they will or not, but your hope is that you've given them the tools to navigate this complicated world and that they do the right thing. So I'm gonna pass the golden button on to them to do the right thing.

Chris Grimes

That's a perfect answer. It's playing it forward in a micro way, in terms of you know, the dint on you know, your own family legacy, which is which is beautiful. I love that that interpretation of that. Wonderful. So now we're gonna do a very exciting thing, which is called show as your QR code, please. If you've enjoyed listening to John, the first really obvious thing you can do is connect with John Kay on LinkedIn, where he's listed in this wonderful photograph with an orange background if you're watching a do radio presenter, music producer, and writer. So anything you want to say about what we'll find all about you on LinkedIn, John?

SPEAKER_00

Well, my LinkedIn is is all about do radio these days, and it's all about me trying to write as well, I guess. So I'm trying to encourage people to listen to the show, the radio show. But I like writing, and so as I said, you know, I do the weekly newsletter, which is a slightly longer thing, but I think writing on LinkedIn is a slightly challenge. So I try and take some of the lessons from our my guests and turn them into mini stories to try and inspire and obviously get people to try and listen to the show, but I think it's a good practice. So I try and write five days a week. Yeah, it's a writing exercise, I guess. So, but hopefully it's interesting. So I'm getting better at writing, I think, every week. Um, so the little snippets of whatever they are on, you know, it's only 250 words or so each post, but it'll take surprisingly long to get right and to really do well.

Chris Grimes

Love that, which is a perfect segue into the next QR code, which is about your newsletter, unmastered. Think clearly, live deliberately, create without chasing. And because of the do lecture connection, it's a bit like this is your version of do magic. I do really like what you're doing within it. So talk us through the uh where we can find out and what the unmastered anything else you'd like to say about that.

SPEAKER_00

On the QR code, unmastered.life is the website. And um yeah, I mean it's a it's a bit random, I have to say. There isn't much of a consistent theme, but I try and talk about things in a little bit of a countertuitive way. I try and say things which a lot of people are maybe thinking, and it's very much me. So, you know, you'll get, I'm afraid you'll get swearing in there because that's how I talk. And it's, you know, it's it's written by a human, so you'll get mistakes and typos, and it's no preaching, there's nothing to sell, there's no, I'm not pointing you towards something where you need to do something else. It takes five minutes maximum Saturday morning every week. Most people seem to find it quite interesting.

Chris Grimes

And the thing I most resonated with in your last one, where you're talking about spirituality is not near the answer, which was your opinion, was about how brilliant dogs are. It reminded me of how dogs exist in the clock of now, where they go now, now, now, now, and wagtail uh accordingly as the rhythm beat of how to be truly present.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly.

Chris Grimes

And I I got that from your last Unmastered. So I think it's fantastic. A couple of announcements from me. If you've enjoyed listening to me and John on this show, if you'd like a conversation about guesting too, the website for the show is thegoodlistening to show.com. As I mentioned at the beginning, we are also now trebucheting to the States, my favorite medieval instrument, the trebuchet, because of the fact we syndicate to Brushwood Media. And also for the last couple of years, in fact, three years now, it's been syndicating to UK Health Radio as well, where potentially millions of listeners await you to tell your story in the clearing if you'd like to share it. Uh, very excitingly, one of my favorite series strands, this has been a founder story, a story of distinction and genius, but it's about recording one's life story for posterity, lest we forget before it's too late. Either your own story or of course gifting it to someone that you love without any morbid intention. And you'll notice that my own father was a very willing guinea pig. My dad died about 18 months ago, but I recorded my father in the halcyon days of his 80s, as I now realized in hindsight before he slipped into a crater of declining health. Again, no morbid intention, but that's what Legacy Life Reflections is all about. As this has been your moment in the sunshine, is there anything else you'd like to say, John Kay?

SPEAKER_00

Please listen to Do Radio. Not necessarily for me. It's not about me at all. I'm just a doorway into some wonderful guests. Um, we have eight shows, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Please check it out. There is always something of interest on there. Thank you, Chris.

Chris Grimes

You're very welcome, and I very much look forward to actually being a guest myself, if you're still up for that uh in a week's time when I'll be on tomorrow as well myself.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, look forward to it.

Chris Grimes

Thank you, and thank you very much indeed for listening. I've been Chris Grimes, but most importantly, this has been John Kay, listen to Do Radio. Thank you very much indeed. Good night. You've been listening to the Good Listening to Show with me, Chris Grimes. If you'd like to be in the show too, or indeed gift an episode to capture the story of someone else with me as your host, then you can find out how, care of the series strands at the Goodlistening2Show.com website. And one of these series strands is called Brand Strand Founder Stories, for business owners like you to be able to tell your company story, talk about your purpose, and amplify your brand. Together we get into the who, the what, the how, the why you do what you do, and then crucially, we find out exactly where we can come and find you to work with you and to book your services. Tune in next week for more stories from the clearing, and don't forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts.