Sep 12 2019 116 mins
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
@TheBrexitComic
@TheLastIceberg
@mikeandscrabble