SECOND WIND – Details, episodes & analysis

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SECOND WIND

John Talks About

Society & Culture

Frequency: 1 episode/4d. Total Eps: 19

Real talk from someone actually building a different life. Every Thursday: the week's money moves, the struggles, the wins. What it costs to leave the UK and rebuild in Southeast Asia at 48. No script. Same unfiltered perspective as the YouTube videos, but built for the gym at 6am. For anyone quietly running the numbers on whether a different life is possible. New episode every Thursday.

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Data updated on 24/07/2026

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Score global : 48%

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I Still Don't Know If I'm Doing the Right Thing

Season 1 · Episode 19

Thursday, July 23, 2026 • Duration 26:49

This week is about something I don't think we admit often enough.

From the outside it can look as though I've got a plan. We sold everything, left the UK, travel around Southeast Asia, manage our money carefully and build a YouTube channel for a living. It probably looks like confidence. The reality feels very different.

In this episode I talk about the constant self-doubt that sits underneath almost every decision I make. We discuss money mistakes, lifestyle inflation, learning discipline later in life, falling out of good habits and starting again, and why making a decision doesn't mean you're certain it's the right one. I also share how creating content, investing, travelling and building a new life all come with far more questions than answers.

The biggest lesson I've learned is that clarity and certainty are not the same thing. You don't need to have life completely figured out before taking the next step. You simply make the best decision you can with the information you have, learn from the outcome, and keep moving forward.

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Things Get Better. Just Not the Way You Expect.

Season 1 · Episode 18

Thursday, July 9, 2026 • Duration 20:26

This week is about something I've been thinking about a lot recently.

People often say that time heals everything. I'm not sure that's true. I think time changes your relationship with what happened.

In this episode I look back at three moments that completely changed my life: losing my dad, leaving a 31-year career, and selling everything before leaving the UK. At the time, each one felt like an ending. Looking back now, I realise none of them ever really finished. They simply became different things to carry.

I talk about grief hidden behind paperwork, what happens when your job disappears but your identity doesn't know it yet, and why moving abroad turned out to be far less about beaches and far more about rebuilding an ordinary life from scratch. Along the way I reflect on what has genuinely improved, what still hasn't, and why I've stopped waiting for life to go back to how it used to be.

This isn't a conversation about getting over difficult experiences. It's about slowly learning to live inside the life that comes afterwards, and discovering that things can get better without ever going back to what they were.

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We Sold Everything to Live With Less

Season 1 · Episode 17

Thursday, July 2, 2026 • Duration 42:32

This week starts on a train platform in Malaysia with one suitcase, two rucksacks, and a quiet realisation.

A year ago we had a house, two cars, a garage full of projects, thousands of records, and all the things that come with building a life over three decades. Today everything we own fits onto a luggage trolley, and Yvonne still thinks we could carry less.

I talk about clearing my late dad's house, discovering Swedish death cleaning, selling a lifetime record collection, and why I realised I missed what those things represented far more than the objects themselves. We also explore the strange relationship between possessions and identity, the hidden weight of owning more than you need, and why every purchase now has to justify its place in our lives.

This isn't an argument for minimalism or owning nothing. It's a conversation about what we choose to carry, what quietly owns our attention, and why freedom sometimes looks less like buying something new and more like finally putting something down.

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Nobody Talks About The Day After Freedom

Season 1 · Episode 16

Thursday, June 18, 2026 • Duration 54:26

Everybody talks about escaping.

Escaping the job. Escaping the commute. Escaping the mortgage. Escaping the UK. Escaping the routine.

But almost nobody talks about what happens the morning after.

This week I talk about the strange reality of life after the thing you've spent years trying to reach finally arrives. Leaving a 31-year career, selling everything we owned, leaving the UK, and building a new life in Southeast Asia taught me something I wasn't expecting: freedom doesn't automatically change the person carrying it.

We talk about retirement, identity, purpose, and why the nervous system often takes much longer to catch up than the life itself. I share what surprised me most after leaving work, the parts of corporate life I don't miss, the parts I unexpectedly do, and why so many people end up building new projects, businesses, hobbies and communities after finally escaping the old ones.

Along the way I reflect on my dad's retirement, the challenge of answering the question "What do you do now?", the difference between financial freedom and psychological freedom, and why ordinary days have become far more valuable than dramatic ones.

A conversation about purpose, identity, work, freedom, and what happens when the finish line turns out to be the start of something else entirely.

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The Problem With Always Wanting More

Season 1 · Episode 15

Thursday, June 11, 2026 • Duration 46:22

This week’s episode starts with a simple question:

What if the thing you’ve been trying to grow isn’t actually the thing you want?

After spending the last year and a half building a YouTube channel from zero, I found myself looking at subscriber numbers, view counts and performance charts in exactly the same way I once looked at sales targets. The numbers were growing, but so was the pressure. Somewhere along the way I realised I was chasing bigger without ever stopping to ask whether bigger was actually better.

We talk about the reality of virality, the hidden cost of millions of views, losing subscribers, and why some of the channel’s biggest successes brought the least satisfaction. I also share what surprised me most when I discovered that more than 6,000 people have subscribed to the channel and later left.

The conversation then turns to something I’ve never shared publicly before: a personal strategy document I wrote at the beginning of this journey called The Doctrine. Looking back at those original goals forced me to confront a question that applies far beyond YouTube. The same lesson seems to keep appearing everywhere. More money did not automatically create a better life. More possessions did not create happiness. More destinations did not create fulfilment. And more subscribers are not necessarily better either.

Along the way we talk about community, the familiar faces who keep turning up week after week, the difference between an audience and a crowd, and why protecting something meaningful may matter more than endlessly expanding it.

A conversation about growth, identity, and the moment you realise the scoreboard might not be keeping score of the right thing.

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I Was Good At It. I Never Loved It

Season 1 · Episode 14

Thursday, June 4, 2026 • Duration 50:22

This week I answer one of the questions I get asked more than almost any other:

Would I ever go back to work?

To answer it properly, I go right back to the beginning.

From my first job at Halfords in 1993, through Scottish Power, Belkin, British Gas, Hive, and eventually running sales across large parts of Europe, this is the full story of the 31-year career that shaped most of my adult life.

Along the way there were promotions, pay rises, company cars, flights, targets, bonuses, redundancy packages and salaries that kept climbing. On paper it looked like progress. In reality, something else was happening underneath.

This episode became less about careers and more about identity.

About the difference between being good at something and actually loving it.

About why so many people stay on paths they never consciously chose.

About the strange mixture of grief, relief, exhaustion and freedom that arrived when my career finally ended after my dad passed away in 2024.

I also talk about the people who influenced that journey, the risks I never took, the opportunities I did, and the moment I realised I couldn't face doing another version of the same job for the next decade.

When people tell me I should just go back to work, this episode is my answer.

Not because work was bad.

But because after 31 years, I finally realised it was never the thing I truly wanted to build.

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This Started Long Before YouTube

Season 1 · Episode 13

Thursday, May 28, 2026 • Duration 51:38

This week’s episode is probably the closest I’ve come to explaining where all of this actually came from.

Not YouTube specifically. Not travel. Not even the decision to leave the UK. The deeper thing underneath it all.

I talk through the real timeline for the first time properly, from football obsession at nine years old, to guitar and music production, DJing for twelve hours straight without wanting to stop, building teams and systems during a 31-year sales career, Twitch during lockdown, and eventually YouTube becoming the place where every part of my personality finally fused together at once.

There’s also a difficult conversation about last week’s alcohol video, the exhaustion of being publicly misunderstood at scale, and what it feels like carrying grief, identity collapse, redundancy, visibility and reinvention all at the same time while strangers try to explain your own life back to you through comment sections.

I also go back through the entire chain of events that led to this life in Southeast Asia:
my dad dying in 2024, selling multiple houses simultaneously, clearing decades of possessions, redundancy, the hospital stay in Kuala Lumpur that nearly killed me, Yvonne losing her job shortly afterwards, and the strange reality of trying to build a public creative life while everything underneath it was collapsing privately.

But underneath all of it is one realisation that kept surfacing throughout this episode:

Every version of me thought the current obsession was “the thing”.
Football. Music. DJing. Streaming. YouTube.

Looking back now, none of them were actually the thing.

The thing was always the engine.

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The Gold Bar Nearly Broke My Hand

Season 1 · Episode 12

Wednesday, May 20, 2026 • Duration 01:03:07

This week I talk through the strange feeling of building something slowly from nothing, after launching Second Wind properly as a podcast and watching the first real signs of life appear on Spotify and Apple.

We get into the reality behind “durability over virality”, why 99 listens and a genuine first comment meant more to me than chasing explosive numbers, and what it feels like trying to rebuild a life publicly at 48 after redundancy, grief, and leaving the UK behind.

There’s also a full finance update covering the Spire trade finally closing in profit, writing new cash-secured puts for income, and the latest twist in the GameStop and eBay saga as institutional ownership quietly increases behind the scenes.

On the legal side, the £6,500 insurance arbitration linked to my Kuala Lumpur hospital stay has officially moved into the next phase, with Scotland unexpectedly chosen as the arbitration location while I continue travelling Southeast Asia carrying hundreds of pages of hospital paperwork in a suitcase.

And then there’s the completely ridiculous part of this week:
a Malaysian shopping mall, a lubricated forearm, a gold bar trapped inside a plastic box, and two failed attempts to win what was basically a month’s rent while slowly removing skin from my knuckles in public.

There’s also train journeys across Malaysia, strange apartment blocks that feel like The Shining, tourism tax arguments at hotel check-in, reflections on sales, comments, identity, and why sometimes the quiet work of showing up every week matters more than going viral once.

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The Man We Met Before Leaving Bali

Season 1 · Episode 11

Thursday, May 14, 2026 • Duration 01:09:02

This week we talk through why I finally launched Second Wind properly as a podcast, and how these live streams slowly turned from random conversations into a real archive of rebuilding life after redundancy.

We also get into GameStop’s attempted bid for eBay, Ryan Cohen’s wider strategy, and why I’m still holding positions most people dismiss as madness while generating income through covered calls and cash-secured puts. At the same time, the insurance arbitration linked to the £13,500 hospital stay in Kuala Lumpur has officially moved into the next stage after months of delays and legal back-and-forth.

There’s also airport chaos, cold plunge progress in Bali, a man boarding a flight carrying a full coconut with a straw in it, reflections on grief and adversity after listening to a podcast on the plane, and a chance meeting with a 72-year-old Scotsman in Bali that somehow summed up the entire point of this journey better than anything else this week.

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Second Wind

Season 1 · Episode 10

Tuesday, May 12, 2026 • Duration 01:10:51

This week we talk through why I’m still holding GameStop while most people write it off as a meme stock, and why the company sitting on billions in cash changes the entire conversation. At the same time, the British Gas Ombudsman finally sided with me after nearly two years fighting over the handling of my late father’s account.

But the bigger battle is still ongoing. The £13,500 insurance dispute connected to the hospital stay that nearly killed me in Kuala Lumpur is now deep in arbitration, and I’m handling the entire thing myself from a rented apartment in Bali while the company continues playing legal games in the background.

There’s also accidental glasses drama, restaurant rage caused by bubbles blowing into Yvonne’s dinner, mental burnout from constant decision-making, and a strange moment watching Paul McCartney talk about life after The Beatles that made me realise this entire journey might simply be about learning how to start the next chapter properly.

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SECOND WIND – Details, episodes & analysis

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SECOND WIND – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify