Explore every episode of the podcast Where To Next? By Dan Kieran

As you will know if you have been following the series, ‘caves’ keep coming up in different ways. My journey began with a pilgrimage to a cave on the island of Raasay off the coast of Skye in Scotland, where evidence of our mesolithic ancestors has been found (if you’re curious, you can find the details of exactly where I went here). That trip led me into deeper enquiries around our indigenous ancestors and the ways they might have lived and experienced consciousness.

I recalled in my first interview with Martin Shaw the otherworldly encounter I had with a stag when I got to that cave. It was as real as a stag could be (and as loud) but had a strange face I couldn’t make sense of at the time. I also shared my subsequent astonishment when a first edition copy of The Inheritors by William Golding I ordered arrived in the post soon after (the novel tells the story of homo sapiens arriving in a Britain populated by neanderthals) and I found a frighteningly similar image to the stag I encountered in Raasay on the cover.

Martin then shared his own childhood reaction to an illustration of Herne The Hunter (a ghost of a man on horseback with stag antlers growing out of his head first mentioned by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor) on the cover of Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising. Rather enticingly, there are theories that the story of Herne The Hunter has Palaeolithic origins, but I digress. I need to do more research about that before I make any great claims that these human / stag figures are linked.

My enquiries then led me to discover that the image Golding used for the cover was based on a drawing by the renown cave art expert Henri Breuil of a painting discovered in a cave within a cave in Chauvet (also in Southern France) that you have to crawl through a passage a kilometre long to find. The image has since become known as ‘The Sorcerer’. All very goose-bumpy I hope you will agree.

The mesolithic ancestors I went in search of on Raasay were here after the last ice age between 11,700 years ago and 5,000 years ago but we know from DNA their ancestors would have come from what we now think of as Spain and France. The images discovered in France in Lascaux and Chauvet were much earlier and date to around 21,000 years ago and 37,000 years ago respectively. I hope you can see why I found the idea they were all connected so tantalising.

With all this in mind I was excited to visit Lascaux this Summer, where a replica of the cave that was found during WW2 has been created for visitors to experience. This week’s episode is me talking about the way caves have appeared in my journey so far, an interview with Chris Perez, one of Lascaux’s guides, and then ends with my thoughts on The Mind In The Cave by David Lewis Williams, which is the most respected book seeking to make sense of cave art that I’ve found so far.

(Spoiler: DLW makes a compelling and studious case that cave art was inspired by shamanic hallucinatory states, but his subsequent dismissal of those hallucinatory states as being nothing more than the chemistry of the brain felt very anticlimactic to me. We will explore the weaknesses of this stance in my next interview. Details to follow.)

One last piece of news while I have you. I am excited to say that the world famous computer scientist and biologist Dr. Michael Levin (yes, that Michael Levin) has agreed to be interviewed for the series in November. If you want to blow your mind, check out his latest published paper on what he calls the ‘Platonic’ realm.

Much love,

Dan

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The title of the conference was “The Good, the Beautiful and the True”. There were many wonderful speakers, not least the awesome man himself. Martin Shaw also spoke and brought his impish magic with him and then there was Jude. I had not heard of her before booking my ticket but as soon as she stood on the stage the atmosphere in the room changed. At first I thought it was just her smile, which was dazzling, but no. Where Iain brought awe and Martin his usual magic, Jude brought something else. A slightly other worldly sense of ease and peace.

Jude is a cosmologist (a scientist who studies the universe and its origin and development) a planetary healer, futurist, author, filmmaker and co-founder of WholeWorld-View. With a Master’s degree in Physics from Oxford University (specialising in quantum physics and cosmology), and a PhD in Anthropological Archaeology from the University of Reading (researching ancient cosmologies) she has a very impressive CV, but in truth is was something else about her backstory that really stood out for me. For many years Jude was the Finance Director of two different £500m global companies.

As you will hear, Jude begins our interview explaining how she has been ‘travelling between different worlds since the age of four’, which is a pretty bold opener. I don’t know about you, but that kind of statement usually puts me in a nervous headspace, but when she then explained how this is what accounted for her long and successful high powered corporate career and her subsequent extraordinary work, you can’t help but take notice.

Jude has travelled to nearly eighty countries and worked with wisdom keepers from many traditions and her extensive experience and knowledge of world events, systems and trends, has led her to speak on transformational reforms in the UK, US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Australasia. At the event in May people flocked to her afterwards and she took all of them, friends and strangers alike, in a massive hug and that smile was ever present the whole time I saw her. I remember thinking ‘whatever she has, I need some of it’ and so I was thrilled when she agreed to let me come and visit her at her home near Avebury to find out more about her incredible journey and worldview.

Jude is another hardcore scientist who has long understood that the rational materialist worldview is not only false, but profoundly damaging for us and the world we call home. And once again the timing of our chat was fortuitous, as I had only a few days earlier left the Realisation Festival where I experienced Constellation therapy. Something Jude has been using for a decade.

And at the end of the conversation you will hear why I changed the title of this Substack to The Weirdo’s Journey.

You can find out more about Jude and her amazing work here and here

I also recommend a youtube conversation I saw with her and others including Bernardo Kastrup about applying the ideas of idealism to economics.

Jude is one of the most inspiring, kind and generous people I have ever met and it was a joy to be in her company. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Much love,

Dan

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At the Realisation Festival last year (2025) I had the pleasure of speaking to Jonathan Rowson, the chess grandmaster, philosopher and CEO of Perspectiva (Episode 5 if you’re curious). In that conversation he urged me to seek out Indra so, when I didn’t manage to speak to her before I left that day, I made a point of seeking her out at the festival this year.

My experiences at the RF have been life changing and profound. The RF is the real deal and I urge you to look it up if you relate to any of the episodes in the series. But even by the standards of the wonderful conversations I have had so far this one was exceptional. I think it’s because what I intended to be an interview with Indra about her life and work became an exploration of what I’m doing with these episodes and how they fit in with the changes many of us wish to see in the world as a result of the meta-crisis we all face.

Our chat then evolved into a kind of therapy session for me that ended with me having a genuinely life changing realisation about the journey I am on, if you’ll excuse the pun.

I was definitely in an ‘open’ place after my experiences that day having had inspiring conversations with Nikki Trott and Sarah Corbett as well as experiencing Constellation Therapy, so perhaps it was an accumulation of the day’s insights that led to it. Indra was so kind and open it just kind of unfolded in that way. Not very journalistic of me but there you are. Maybe that doesn’t matter.

I hope you find the episode illuminating and interesting. You can find out more about Indra and her incredible work here and you can buy a copy of her book here.

Next week I will share the wonderful conversation I had the week after my visit to the Realisation Festival with the anthropologist, quantum physicist, cosmologist and author Dr Jude Currivan. That is another conversation I will never forget and, in keeping with the series so far, fits in so beautifully with all the things that Indra and I discuss in this episode. Subscribe if you haven’t already to make sure you don’t miss out on that.

Thanks for reading.

Much love,

Dan

PS - My co-presenter on the show Mike Warwick and I are hosting a workshop in London on September 25th 2026 for anyone, like us, who is experiencing what Carl Jung called the ‘second adulthood’.

Jung explained that we all live two adulthoods. In the first we head out into the world in pursuit of definitions of success, meaning and contentment that we absorbed from the world around us when we were young. From our families, the culture and societies we lived in. Off we went dutifully to achieve those definitions but in the process of attaining them (or not, it doesn’t seem to matter either way) the pursuit teaches you that those definitions were never yours and are wrong. A period of fear and panic then descends as all the assumptions you built your life around begin to fall apart.

But then something interesting happens. You start to realise that your Second Adulthood has begun. The one where you finally have to define success, meaning and contentment for yourself. This is the journey you then spend the rest of your life on.

The workshop is for anyone whose first adulthood is coming to an end or for those in the early stages of their second adulthood who need help and are looking for a group of like minded people to explore this life stage with. Mike and I will be sharing what we have learned in the conversations we have had in the series so far and in our open journeys to help you find the right path on yours and work out, Where To Next?

Full details are here. If you use the code RADIO you will get a HUGE discount. Hope to see you there.

x

When I arrived at the Realisation Festival this year I had that slight sense of trepidation as I walked down the drive to the festival site. I knew I would be made welcome but the festival is designed to be a journey for speakers and participants over a long weekend so arriving mid way through makes you feel as though you are intruding a little. No-one made me feel that way, I was just worried I would be out of synch with everyone else. I was queuing up for breakfast slightly awkwardly as a result when I saw a friendly face heading towards me in a wetsuit shouting ‘Dan!’ It was Sarah Corbett. She of craftivist fame. Force of nature and force of good in this world. She who possesses the kind of smile that instantly puts you at ease.

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We hugged and caught up. I had not seen Sarah since the implosion of Unbound and I knew she had been caught up in the financial fall out. I winced as we talked about how much of a loss that had been for her but the conversation soon turned into her gratitude that Unbound had enabled her to publish the book she actually wanted to publish in the first place, rather than the one all the other major publishers had been trying to persuade her would ‘sell’. Conversations like the one we then had over breakfast next are helping me realise the value and impact of what Unbound achieved was not wholly erased by what occurred when it went into administration three years after I left.

After that I walked her to the sauna and where she could have a dip in the river and we resolved to catch up and do an interview that afternoon. She also nudged me towards a workshop that was happening later called Constellation. I replied that much as I loved her and the strange new ways of seeing my life and this world I have discovered on this journey so far, astrology was not really my thing. She laughed and shook her head ‘it has nothing to do with astrology Dan. You’ll love it.’

I have to be honest. I would never have done it if she hadn’t suggested it but I admire and trust her enough to know when to go with the flow. And of course she was right. I did love it. It is one of the most life changing experiences of my life. And in this interview we discuss all kinds of things and the experience of Constellation we had just been through.

This is such a beautiful interview. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so relaxed speaking to anyone and Sarah said afterwards it was unlike any interview she has ever done before.

Sarah’s work is changing the world. But it doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because people who believe in her support her through her patreon.

Find out more about her work and support Sarah at:

www.craftivist-collective.com

and join me by becoming one of her monthly patrons at

www.gentleprotest.com

Much love,

Dan

PS - in the conversation I misname ‘Indra’s net’, which I refer to as ‘Indira’s net’. You can read about this Buddhist concept here

Last year I visited the Realisation Festival (imagine a Do Lectures about philosophy held at a Downton Abbey style stately home) at St Giles House where I interviewed Jonathan Rowson, Ed Haddon, Roc Sandford, Sarah Wilson, Nick Ashley - Cooper and Pippa Evans (see episodes four to six in the archive). I also attended a workshop hosted by Benedict Pollard that I recounted at the end of those episodes to try and make sense of the whole experience. I’m thrilled to say that this year I attended again and went to another workshop with Benedict and this time I asked him to wear a microphone so you could listen in. He tells us about his business Mighty Fine Oaks, training to be a Samurai and gives the most astonishing explanation I have ever heard for why you sometimes find two oak trees seemingly growing from the same place. This has haunted me since hearing about it.

I also had the astonishingly good fortune to meet Nikki Trott who I had not come across before the festival. I now feel like I was ‘supposed’ to meet her in the way that will be familiar to regular listeners to the show. Mark Vernon introduced us and we sat down for a conversation that begins with me explaining my journey to make sense of what it means to live before I die. The chemistry that then appears between us as Nikki recounts her own journey was a joy to behold in real time. Nikki had her own introduction into what in the series we have been describing as Carl Jung’s Second Adulthood in her late twenties and has been exploring and luxuriating in it ever since. She is much more confident that I am about the uncertainty of such a profound change and has leant into it in a way I aspire to do and am doing now more as a result of meeting her. She also recommended I read The Surrender Experiment , which we discuss in the episode. I devoured it in two days and am now trying to live according to its philosophy. I’m so grateful to have met her.

After the interview ended we chatted for another hour and had so many things in common it began to feel a bit weird. But then that’s not a surprise really. Not now we are embodying the weirdo’s journey. So, inspired by her journey and her book, I’m leaning in. You can find out about her and her work here.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

Much love,

Dan

There are lots of things I see differently in my life because of Jay. I see her as one of the guides I have been fortunate to know a little bit in my life. Well enough to go and see and chat to, anyway. The longer I go on this journey to try and make sense of what it means to live before I die (the computer keeps autocorrecting ‘live’ to ‘love’ there, which is oddly beautiful), the weirder it becomes and the more easily I find myself leaning into that weirdness.

Jay’s books have always appeared at the precise moment I needed them and so it was with her latest, which I’ll come to at the end.

The first one of hers I read, Pip Pip, altered the way I think about time (time is the initial form of colonisation that ensnares us all). It is from this book that I learned about Chronos and Kairos, which I referenced in my Do Lecture back in the day.

Wild changed the way I saw travel, adventure, the plight of indigenous communities, the horror of the Christian missionary movement and the transformative power of ayahuasca. It is one of the most astonishing books I have ever read and I urge you to buy it immediately. It also completely changed the way I see women. I’m embarrassed to write that but there you are. One of the recurring themes that keeps emerging on this show so far has been the systematic denial of the feminine in the world we live in. If I have had a feminine awakening in my life I can now see that the start of that process was discovering Jay and reading Wild.

Kith speaks to childhood and the comparison between the way children in indigenous communities and those raised in our ‘dominant culture’ in Jay’s words - think, feel and behave.

Nemesis, My Friend is an almanac about the seasons but, as so often with Jay, it really can’t be as easily categorised as that. It contains so many wonders and gems.

Another book of hers that really changed me is Why Rebel - a book of essays on the need to stand up and fight for what you believe in. This contains the astonishing account of her experiences protesting with Extinction Rebellion and her subsequent arrest and court appearance (we discuss this in the episode). This resulted in her reading a prepared statement contained in the book that moved the judge to tears. After finding her and her co-defendants guilty he explained that he would not be presiding over any other XR cases and that they ‘must win’. If you want to be moved and inspired by how words and actions can come together to confront power then grab a copy now. I read and re-read this every time I lose heart. I cry every time I get to the end.

The other book we discuss in our conversation is her latest, How Animals Heal Us. From this I learned that baby spiders dream and that humans may have learned egalitarian behaviour from Wolves. I kid you not. But this is the thing with Jay. Every book she writes recalibrates your brain and leaves you more yourself than you were before you started reading it. In this sense she deals in homecoming and home making. Because she teaches you that while your mind is part of your home the other part lies outside of you. In the form of the many non-human minds that surround every one of us all the time too.

Have a look at Jay’s website for all her latest news.

Much love,

Dan

Where do you start with Charles Foster? Perhaps my route to meeting him?

Back at the end of last year when I went to visit Iain McGilchrist in Skye, we were discussing indigenous knowledge and what we have lost in the way we see ourselves in the modern world. At this point Iain proclaimed, ‘have you come across Charles Foster’s work?’

I did have Charles’s then most recent book Being a Human back at home on my ‘to read’ pile but hadn’t got to it yet. And I had heard of Charles. A few years ago his book Being a Beast became a New York Times bestseller. In it Charles set out to try and understand what it is like to be a beast. He lived as a badger, eating worms and as a city fox, picking out pizza from boxes in a bin. But of course it went far beyond this slightly tabloid summary. Charles was trying to access different ways of being and knowing and paying respect to the many minds of the non human world. In Being a Human, which I read as soon as I got home, Charles turns his attention to Homo Sapiens and describes his journey seeking to re-gain the mindset and ways of being and knowing our ancestors took for granted. As he says in our interview, we are all still the hunter gatherers we have evolved and adapted over hundreds of thousands of years to be. At present, we are just wearing strange clothes and have lost touch with where we came from while we experiment with the consequences of being neolithic.

But Charles is not just an internationally respected and best selling author. He is also a practising barrister and an Oxford Don at Exeter College Oxford where he teaches, among other things, ethics.

I set off to meet him slightly nervous to be in the presence of such a high achiever but I needn’t have worried. We got on so well he emailed me while I was driving home to ask if I would interview him for an event at Blackwells in Oxford a few months later. That was great fun too.

Charles is a very modest man and seems genuinely baffled as to why anyone would find his work illuminating, but I have found it to be astonishingly so. And it’s also utterly re-enchanting at the same time. As though the world he describes was always on the tip of your tongue and he summons it out of you while you are in his company.

I hope you enjoy the discussion where, as well as these two books I just mentioned, we also talk about his latest excellent work The Edges of The World.

Much love,

Dan

This is a continuation of my interview with modern day hunter gatherers Emily and Charlie. In this part of the conversation we get deeper into the implications of living closer to nature. I am such a fan of their work and way of life. I hope you take as much away from the example they set as I have.

This episode also features the launch of a new project I am doing with Ric Stockfis called One Room. Regular listeners to the show will know that since Christmas I have only allowed my phone in one room of my house, the room you reach on coming in the front door, which is my office. I can use my phone whenever I like, but I have to go in that room to use it. As I explained in a LinkedIn post a few months after making this decision, this has been by far the easiest and most transformational thing I have ever done in my life. The obvious result is that I have halved my phone use, which is a huge benefit in and of itself. This amounts to fourteen hours a week. Fourteen hours I was previously spending working for free for the tech bros, which is how I think about phone use now.

All the time we are doom-scrolling we are adding to their billions and tacitly agreeing to the way they use surveillance capitalism to enslave us. That might sound a bit alarmist, but think about it for a moment. How much of your day are you spending dutifully adding to their coffers? The use of surveillance capitalism is a choice. The internet never used to rely on it as a business model.

Anyway, putting my ranting to one side, the real benefit of this new habit is the time I have spent on other things. My kids, for one thing, no longer have to compete for my attention. The fact that they had to before now makes me weep with fury at myself. How desperately awful have we become if we think it’s appropriate to use our phones instead of playing with our kids? We’ve all been there, using our phones when one of our kids comes up and asks for something. We have all got cross with them because they are interrupting our focus on our phones. Shame on all of us for letting this happen!

I’ve also managed to go to the gym three times a week for seven months and the simple answer as to how I have managed to find the time to do this is because I have not been using my phone.

The benefits going beyond this too , as it has changed the things I am attending too in my life and as we have learned from Iain McGilchrist, our attention is a moral act. What we choose to give our attention to changes our reality. It chages our mood and the way we see ourselves and the world.

Ric replied to my LinkedIn post to say he too had started only allowing his phone in one room and he confirmed it is not just me. It really is the ultimate life hack you have been waiting for.

We have both become so evangelical about the benefits we have launched this website together where you can find out how to do it and sign up to the pledge to only keep your phone in one room too. Here’s the link again

Please try it. I promise it will bring huge benefits to your life and all those who love you.

Until next week,

Much love,

Dan

In early Spring this year I headed down to the edges of Dartmoor near Ashburton to meet Emily and Charlie who run The Old Way. A series of experiences that teach you not just the skills required to live entirely on the land, but also what they have learned about the way hunter gatherers would have lived in their landscape.

We talk about what it really means to connect with nature. How relying on the land for food changes your sense of gratitude and gives you insights that change the way you see your life and the world itself.

As regular listeners to the show will know, I am searching for different ways of being and knowing to help me make sense of my own life. In this episode I discover so many it actually runs into two shows. Emily and Charlie were the healthiest looking people I have ever met and welcomed me into their home with real joy and hospitality. They had lots of the wild food they eat prepared to share with me including a cake. I explained awkwardly that I was gluten free and Emily replied, ‘oh don’t worry. It’s completely gluten free. It’s made from acorns’. Eating acorns was a first for me and it tasted delicious.

Look out for the rest of the conversation next week!

Much love,

Dan

David Cleevely is a genuine legend. A multi exited entrepreneur, serially successful investor (I was once at an event where he was celebrated for getting a ‘one hundred X’ on an investment. As in he got one hundred times more money back than he put in), a connector and co founder of so many organisations in Cambridge it makes my head hurt but, most memorably the Cambridge Angels and the Cambridge Network. And he has also advised multiple Governments and also found time to be a restauranteur (he owns Bocca di Lupo and Gelupo) in London.

Not content with all that he has now written a book called Serendipity - It doesn’t happen by accident and this was what led me to ask for an interview. Now you might think ‘serendipity’ is a bit fluffy for an engineer and tech guru like David, but in his excellent book he explains how you can create the conditions to make it more likely to occur.

David was one of my investors at Unbound, which is how I met him and this is a fascinating and wide ranging conversation around the realities of entrepreneurship, what bees can tell us about how we organise organisations and we also touch on one of David’s major bugbears - the habit in the UK of over celebrating inventors rather than engineers and the failure of so many UK companies to achieve what Americans seem to manage so reliably. Scale.

I strongly recommend David’s book. You can grab a copy here and find more about David here.

I hope you enjoy the episode!

Much love,

Dan

A few weeks ago I was checking in with Mike Warwick about the show and planning when my new episodes will appear when I began telling him about the project I was working on in Salisbury (where I am trying to deploy the behaviour of entrepreneurship without the motivation of self interest). Towards the end of my explanation I told him about a quote I had recently discovered from Harry Truman I was using as the guiding principle for the project; “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you do not care who gets the credit.” At this point Mike assumed an expression I can only describe as dumbstruck. His eyes opened so wide I thought they might fall out of his head and he began holding onto the table and rocking in his chair as though he was having a seizure. “That quote!” He managed to blurt out. “That quote!”

In what has been a regular occurrence in the show so far, coincidence and serendipity had struck again. It turned out this quote was the guiding principle for Mike and Shuna Dickson too – a couple Mike W had just agreed an interview with for Where To Next? We agreed the universe had decided I was supposed to do the interview with him and so, a week later, we both arrived at a picture postcard house on the Portobello Road in West London before a genial man and his wife opened the door and ushered us in offering tea.

Mike and Shuna are known as the Kindness Couple and Mike’s new book How To Be A Better Human is a warming radiator of good vibes that explains how to bring more kindness into your life. They are the co-founders of Whizz Kidz, a charity that provides mobility equipment for over 26,000 disabled children (over £150 million has been raised so far) and the book is a memoir / kindness manual that takes you through their journey to realising being kind changes your life just as much as the person who benefits from your kindness. And this is no mere platitude. They have taken this principle further than you can imagine by acting behind the scenes for decades to connect philanthropists with what they call ‘Pied Pipers’ - individuals who are performing miracles in local communities to make their part of the world a better place. We could tell Mike wasn’t entirely comfortable about the microphone finally being focussed on him, but he was generous and, with a bit of coaxing from Shuna, opened up about how they came to learn that kindness is the ultimate superpower.

In the show so far Mike and I have been trying to figure out how, in Martin Shaw’s words, to be ‘real human beings’. In this interview you will hear from two people who have figured out how to do just that. It was incredibly inspiring and life affirming to be in their company.

For more information about Mike, Shuna and their work visit their website and please do check out the book.

Much love,

Dan

Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.

This is a bit of a ramble about my conversation earlier this week at Blackwells in Oxford with the wonderful author and brilliant man, Charles Foster who generously gave me a tour of Exeter College where he is a fellow. I didn’t realise until I asked him but this makes him a ‘Don’.

I also interviewed Charles for Where To Next? and that episode will be coming up at some point over the summer along with my conversations with David Cleevely (the entrepreneur and author), Charlie and Emily from The Old Way Immersion, Jay Griffiths (author), Jude Currivan (author, archeologist, physicist and cosmologist) and many more to be recorded at this year’s Realisation Festival in June. Bruce Parry (author, filmmaker and explorer) has also said yes to an interview in the autumn and no doubt lots of other magical people will start to emerge as the flow of serendipity begins when the shows start escaping out into (and onto) the air.

Much love, Dan

This was an unexpected joy. Mike Warwick, who has taken over presenting duties on Where To Next? while I record my second series, asked if I would like to co-interview Tom Blue Wolf, a storyteller, indigenous elder and earthkeeper. Appropriately enough, Tom’s book The Great Remembering is a beautiful reminder of the wisdom that humans seem to understand intuitively in all cultures where their ancestral link is unbroken. Tom lives in a place his ancestors have called home for thirty thousand years. This is the first of two episodes, and I will add the second next week.

You can listen to all of Mike’s episodes of the show in the archive section of the Do Lectures Radio app that you can download here.

Mike and I are enjoying what my wife affectionately refers to as a ‘bro-mance’ so expect more shows from us together in the future. We are beginning to think about doing some live with an audience as well. And we are planning a Where To Next? Workshop (currently titled How To Become a Real Human Being) that will take place in London in May. More details on that soon I hope.

Till next week!

Much love,

Dan

It took four episodes and an exploration of 11,000 years of the continuous habitation of these islands since the end of the last ice-age, but in this recording John Grigsby and I finally reach 430 AD and the arrival of the English.

I love all the conversations I have had with John so far but there are so many wonderful things in this episode. We discuss how language may have created the separation from nature that has left the English so lost in their own land. Tolkien’s determination to create a mythology for these islands after the invasion of William the Conqueror led to the eradication of ours and the hints from Chaucer about what that lost mythology might have been.

If you are enjoying the show, please consider becoming a paid supporter. If you can’t afford that, please leave a review on the page for the show on Apple Podcasts instead. That will really help!

I’m making great progress so far with series two. I will share more updates on that soon.

Much love,

Dan

The hunter gatherer paradise that was Mesolithic in Britain comes to an end as two waves of farmers arrive from 4,000 BC, bringing with them a new technology and way of life.

This is the sixteenth episode of my Do Lectures Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on Do Radio on December 22nd.

As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.

Much love,

Dan

In this episode we talk about how the ending of the last ice age may have informed mythologies our ancient ancestors used to make sense of themselves and the world as it changed around them. John explains how he can locate myths in time using the movement of stars over millennia. We also talk about how our mesolithic ancestors lived according to the lunar monthly calendar rather than an annual, solar one that became dominant after the emergence of agriculture and how this coincided with the shift away from a more egalitarian way of life to a more patriarchal one.

This is the fifteenth episode of my Do Lectures Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on Do Radio on December 15th.

As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.

Much love,

Dan

While I’m taking a break from travelling around the country to record my interview episodes, John Grigsby and I got together to have a series of conversations about what it means to be English and to belong in the nation known as Britain. In these sessions we track when people first arrived here after the last ice age nearly twelve thousands years ago, and from when these islands have been continuously populated ever since. We journey through our Hunter gatherer ancestors of the mesolithic to the beginnings of the neolithic when Britain was still connected to Europe by a bridge of land known as Doggerland. Using a mix of archeology, anthropology, myth and our own imaginations we try to make sense of where we, the English, originally came from.

This is the fourteenth episode of my Do Lectures Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on Do Radio on December 8th.

As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.

Much love,

Dan

There have been moments in my life when I felt as though I had strayed from my authentic path and there have been other times when I felt certain I was on the correct one after all. This series has given me as much creative fulfilment as any other creative project I have ever embarked on and, in many ways, driving to the distant corner of the Isle of Skye to visit Iain felt like the culmination of that process.

I wonder if there is a name for these kinds of moments? Those times in life when we stop and take our bearings from some inner compass and feel the catharsis of knowing we are on track after all. As to where that track might eventually lead, as you will hear in the episode, I get a steer on that as well.

I was negotiating the end of a head cold on the journey, which is why my voice sounds strange in the intro but has recovered by the time I’m actually with Iain. It was an honour to be in his company and share a conversation with him. And it gave me the best answer to the meaning of life I have ever encountered and one that has given me much solace ever since. I hope you enjoy it. As I explain in the episode, there are many places you can go to enjoy Iain’s work. He has an illuminating substack and a comprehensive archive on his website, both of which I strongly recommend. And here is the link to the conversation with Iain and Bernardo Kastrup on Youtube I mentioned in the episode where they discuss the meaning of life.

A note on the recording, this is the combined episodes 1 and 2 from my Do Lectures Radio show that were spread across two weeks when they were originally aired.

I am now taking a break from traveling the country to interview people, but John Grigsby and I will take the show to Christmas discussing what it means to belong in England and beyond. See you for that next week.

This is the twelfth and thirteenth episode of my Do Lectures Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. Episode 1 of my conversation with Iain was first broadcast on Do Radio on November 24th 2025 and Episode 2 was first broadcast on December 1st. As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.

Much love,

Dan

This is the second episode of the series so far where it is just me and no guest. I hope this will not come across as self indulgent, but in this episode I wanted to pull together some of the things we have learned from my guests in the series so far, and also to tee-up, as it were, next week’s episode with Iain McGilchrist.

Iain is one of my intellectual heroes and rather than ask him to repeat what he has said about his ideas on so many other programmes, I wanted to dive straight into a conversation with him assuming that the audience listening are already familiar with his work. To that end I have spent some of this week’s episode explaining as best I can his ideas about the way the two hemisphere’s of the brain interpret reality. And his contention that our society has become so left-brain oriented in it’s thoughts and actions that we, in the West, are losing touch with what it means to be human.

Obviously it’s better to go to the source of these ideas rather than listen to me doing my best to explain them, so if you prefer you can head over to Iain’s comprehensive website and hear from the man himself.

This is the eleventh episode of my Do Lectures Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on November 17th 2025. As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating!

Much love,

Dan

In this, the second episode of my conversation with the astro-archeologist Dr. John Grigsby, we sit down and chat in more detail about the subjects we share an interest in. The movement of our ancestors from equatorial Africa across the world, the ‘lunarchy’ they lived in (time being based on a monthly rather than annual cycle) which tantalisingly perhaps explains why they existed in matrilineal groups where women were said to be ‘married to the moon’, how an Indo-European proto-mythology might have spread and can be seen surfacing thousands of years later with astonishing similarities in cultures as far apart as Britain and Egypt. Why many if not most of the the neolithic monuments we see across the landscape in Britain are not in fact oriented towards the sun but to celestial movements in the heavens that are no longer visible to us today because of the phenomenon of ‘precession’ (so the the stars appear to move above and below the horizon over thousands of years). The Celtic ‘otherworld’, how henges are built with ditches around them, not to keep who and what was inside the henge safe, but to protect the world outside from what was within because of their numinous connection to rebirth and death. Synchronicities, coincidences and the field of meaning that is entangled with the physical world our ancient ancestors seemed to understand far better than we do.

It’s a wonderful romp through so many subjects and I very much hope you enjoy it.

This is the tenth episode of my Do Lectures Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on November 3rd 2025. As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating!

Much love,

Dan

Those who have been following my journey in this series so far will know that while researching a new book a few years ago, I set myself the challenge of finding out when we, as a species, began to separate ourselves from nature.

It seems reasonably well accepted that for the vast majority of our existence as a species, homo sapiens were nomadic, lived in matrilineal clans and had no hierarchies or power over others of any kind. Today we obviously live in sedentary, patriarchal and hierarchical societies where power over others is accepted as necessary by most people. I wanted to know what caused us to shift from one way of life to the other and how our disconnection from nature might have contributed to this change.

Pretty quickly I came across one of John’s lectures that he gave to the Radical Anthropology Group at UCL. The lecture took the audience through John’s PhD, about how many neolithic monuments that archeologists have assumed were built in alignment with the movement of the sun were actually built in alignment with the movement of stars in the ancient skies instead. John is also an expert in mythology and his work argues that these monuments could also be linked to Proto-Indo- European myth where women were not only seen as equals with men, but considered closer to nature because of menstruation. This link with the phases of the moon perhaps accounting for the matrilineal nature of our hunter gatherer ancestors ways of life. It’s mesmerising stuff that completely frazzled my mind (in a good way) and after interviewing Sharon Blackie, John seemed to me to be the natural person to go and visit next.

I actually recorded two episodes with John. In this first one we went for a walk to a henge near where he grew up and chatted around the subject of where we came from and what an indigenous knowledge in Britain might mean. In the episode I will share next week we sat down to do a more traditional style interview. I have learned so much from John, and it’s a real pleasure to share his ideas with you all through these two episodes.

This is the ninth episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on October 27th 2025.

As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.

Much love,

Dan

At the end of the Summer 2025, I headed North to the Cumbria / North Yorkshire borders to meet Dr Sharon Blackie. I had read her wonderful book If Women Rose Rooted while on holiday and then devoured much of her substack when I got home.

As you will know if you have been joining me on this series in search of meaning, one of the recurrent themes I keep encountering is the denial of the feminine. It feels to me that we have lost sense of who we are and where we came from and in my reading about our ancient ancestors, I discovered that most of our ancient ancestors lived in matrilineal, egalitarian, nomadic groups for hundreds of thousands of years. We, of course, have lived in patriarchal, hierarchical sedentary societies as far back as the written record goes (roughy 5,000 years ago). I’m fascinated to know how and why things changed.

Sharon’s work has much to teach us about the role of women in Celtic culture, which is as close to an indigenous culture as those of us living in Britain can get. She has written many books that celebrate the feminine, particularly celebrating the wisdom and humour of older women, and her work is scholarly, wondrous and life affirming.

Speaking to Sharon was a complete thrill. It turned out that we had a few interesting things in common. A shared flying phobia (Sharon dealt with hers by learning to fly, which is something I am attempting when funds allow) and we both ran publishing businesses.

This is the eighth episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on October 20th 2025.

As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.

Much love,

Dan

This week’s episode is a bit different as there is no guest. I recorded it when I was camping in the Summer and the Observer newspaper ran an article - effectively the obituary - of Unbound, the business I co-founded and ran between 2011 and 2022.

The idea of sharing this episode makes me uncomfortable for lots of reasons, but I ended up going ahead because the producers at Do Radio said it was the best one I have done yet. I’m not sure I agree with them (!) but I do think that this is the kind of moment most entrepreneurs fear the most and one that they very rarely share.

For the record, I was not involved in the running of the business in the three years prior to its collapse and so I have nothing to share on how or why it failed, but the sad truth is that many people lost out when it did. People who earned money were not paid what they were owed, and this is the cardinal sin for any business and especially a publisher. In the episode I make it clear that focussing on what I was going through was and is not intended to trivialise the horrible circumstances many authors and suppliers found themselves in after the business collapsed. But the fact I experienced the business failing so publicly while recording a series about focussing on a life of meaning rather than success meant I felt I could not simply ignore it.

This is the seventh episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on October 13th 2025.

Next week things return to normal and I will share my conversation with the wonderful author and mythologist Dr Sharon Blackie who I visited in Cumbria.

Much love,

Dan

This week’s episode is the final one of three recorded at the Realisation Festival that takes place in, and in the grounds of, St Giles House (pictured). I sat down with Pippa, whose voice will be familiar to anyone who listens to comedy on BBC Radio 4, to discuss her thoughts on the grief that can descend after achieving your ambitions. She also talks about her experiences co-founding the Sunday Assembly - an attempt to celebrate spirituality without religion. After that I spoke to Nick, who became the Earl of Shaftesbury after two desperate family tragedies. He explains how it feels to have your life plan jettisoned by circumstance and the background to the Realisation Festival that has its roots in his long and illustrious ancestry.

The episode ends with a story from me about a bug hunt I caught the end of at the festival led by Benedict Pollard, that taught me how the way we attend to the world determines what we think of as reality.

This is the sixth episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on October 6th 2025.

As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.

Much love,

Dan

This is the fifth episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on September 29th 2025.

In this episode I speak with two of the Directors of the Realisation Festival. Ed Haddon, who works as a coach with entrepreneurs, and Jonathan Rowson who writes The Joyous Struggle here on Substack and runs Perspectiva.

Ed, who I had not heard of before we met, and I had a fascinating conversation about sitting with discomfort after a big life change and how shallow the achievement of goals can feel. After that I went in search of a grotto on the estate and then I sat down beneath a majestic oak tree to chat with Jonathan, whose work I have long admired. I discovered Jonathan after seeing him interview Iain McGilchrist. Jonathan’s organisation Perspectiva are also the publishers of Iain’s two volume masterpiece The Matter With Things. Those who have read my book The Idle Traveller will know how important Iain’s work has been to my life, but more on that in a later episode.

I shared with Jonathan the stage of life I am exploring, and how I was trying to make sense of the encounter I had with a stag in Raasay. He offered some thoughts on his own journey towards the sacred, how unsettling it can be to feel you are leaving rationality behind and why other ways of consciousness are often more appropriate than a purely materialist point of view. Jonathan also shared an idea he was exploring from Freya Matthews called Ontopoetics, the idea that there is a field of meaning entangled with the physical world that accounts for serendipity, synchronicities and coincidences.

This episode is a real cracker and has played a huge part in the evolution of my own thinking. I hope you enjoy it, and please share the episode with anyone you think will find it illuminating.

Much love,

Dan

Where to Next? Episode 5 - Ed Haddon and Jonathan Rowson.

This is the fourth episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on September 22nd 2025.

I recorded this episode (and the next two in the series) at the Realisation Festival in Dorset. This is an incredible event that takes place over three days at St Giles House, the home of the Earl of Shaftesbury. I was thrilled first to meet Roc, who lives off-grid on the island of Gometra off the coast of Mull, and then Sarah Wilson, the former editor of Cosmoplitan and presenter of Masterchef in Australia who writes the extraordinarily successful Substack This is Precious.

I explained to both the journey I am on in search of meaning, rather than success, and they shared insights about their own extraordinary paths through life.

The episode ends with me describing the impact the first event had on my thinking, and how an insight from it has changed the way I inhabit my own consciousness forever. It’s that kind of event.

Much love, and please spread the word about the series to anyone you think might be interested. This week I passed the milestone of 500 downloads, which is humbling and exciting!

Dan

This is the third episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on September 15th 2025.

James is a wonderful and wise man and his book The Middle Passage - From Misery to Meaning in Midlife was a life raft for me when I began my own journey to prioritise meaning in life rather than success. There is so much wisdom in this conversation with James. He has also written an amazing book on relationships called The Eden Project and a book about the wounding of men called Under Saturn’s Shadow, which I would also recommend.

Please share this episode with anyone you know who is entering midlife or who is going through a period of profound change.

Much love,

Dan

My weekly video about the latest episode of my DO Radio programme. James Hollis on Carl Jung’s theory of two adulthoods. I also reveal two new guests I will be going to visit in the next month or so.

This weekly video is usually for paid supporters only, but I’m sharing it to everyone today in an attempt to entice more people to upgrade into a paid subscription because the series it hotting up (exclusive future guest reveal at the end of this video) … and I need to find a way to get it to start paying for itself!

Much love,

Dan

Following The Stag by Dan Kieran is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and help me fund my Do Radio show, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is the second episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on September 8th 2025.Thank you so much for your support, which is crucial for me to be able to continue making the show. I have recorded eight episodes so far, with many more exciting guests organised between now and Christmas. I’m also thrilled to say that Iain McGilchrist has agreed to appear on the show and I can’t wait to go and visit him up in Scotland later this year.

Now back to this episode. I went to see Mark Vernon at his home in South London at the end of May and we had a wonderful conversation about William Blake (Mark’s new book on Blake is available here ), Owen Barfield, serendipity and the Realisation Festival that Mark is also involved in. All of Mark’s books and his latest event appearances can be found on his website here

There were so many fascinating takeaways from the conversation. I particularly enjoyed the way Mark explained Blake’s work that has made a huge difference to how I now make sense of him. He also showed me how Blake saw the imagination not as something inside our heads that we have but as something outside of us we can receive, which reflected an idea I spoke about in my Do lecture about ideas a decade ago. We also discussed the continuum of experience we travel back and forth along every day of our lives, with rationality at one end and the more sacred and mystical experiences at the other. Mark encourages us to venture away from rationality alone and live more in the middle, which is something I have been doing ever since.

Mark is a wonderful man and an incredibly smart thinker with a range of perspectives taking in physics, theology and philosophy and he is able to roam within all three at once while talking. You will learn a huge amount from this episode. Enjoy!

Much love,

Dan

Following The Stag by Dan Kieran is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and help me fund my Do Radio show, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

My weekly video about the latest episode of my DO Radio programme. Mark Vernon on Owen Barfield, meaning and William Blake.

This weekly video is usually for paid supporters only, but I’m sharing it to everyone today in an attempt to entice more people to upgrade into a paid subscription because the series it hotting up (exclusive future guest reveal at the end of this video) … and I need to find a way to get it to start paying for itself!

Much love,

Dan

This is the first episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on September 1st 2025.Thank you so much for your support, which is crucial for me to be able to continue making the show. I have recorded seven episodes so far, with many more exciting guests organised between now and Christmas.

I visited Martin back in April 2025, as the country was beginning to rouse itself from Winter and start the languid stroll into Spring. My journey with the programme was just beginning and, in retrospect, I could not have had a better guide to set me on my way. I did not intend for the series to unfold in the way that it has, but I can see now that meeting Martin has helped steer what it has subsequently become and I’m very grateful for his generosity in agreeing to be my first interview. Not least because it was very speculative at the time as neither the series or indeed Do Radio itself existed at the time.

It’s important to me to go and visit the people I’m interviewing in person where possible because there is something about travelling to see them that changes me and how I show up in the conversation. It’s almost as if I pick up breadcrumbs of meaning in the act of journeying towards them. I see that journey both as an act of respect to them, but also as a gift for me. As a stay at home dad, the chances to get out and about are rare for me these days and I enjoy journeying to different parts of the country.

For those keen to know more about Martin and his work, he can be found here on his Substack, which I strongly recommend and here on his website where you can find out about all his books and events.

As I mentioned in the episode, the first book of Martin’s I read was Courting The Wild Twin, which gave me a mythological framework for un-nameable and strange instincts I had begun to feel and was finding overwhelming in my life. It was the perfect entry point into his work. I then read Bardskull and Scatterlings both of which I found challenging, inspiring, nourishing and enlightening too. I have recently ordered Stag Cult, which will make sense if you know about the encounter with a stag that indirectly set me off on this quest. I will report back on that once it arrives.

In the meantime, I would love to know your thoughts on the episode. It’s my first attempt at this kind of thing and while I have much to learn, I really enjoyed getting to grips with the equipment and having a go at editing and producing the programme. It’s a bit low-fi as a result. Apologies for that. Any tips and suggestions on potential interview subjects are very welcome.

Thanks for listening and, as always, let me know what you think.

Dan

Following The Stag by Dan Kieran is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and help me fund making my Do Radio show, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Wow. My mind is still re-structuring itself in lots of ways after an amazing day at the Realisation Festival I went to so I could record more interviews for my Do Radio programme. I spoke to Roc Sandford (author, activist and one of the founders of Extinction Rebellion), Ed Haddon (coach and co-director of the festival), Jonathan Rowson (author, Grandmaster of Chess and philosopher) Sarah Wilson (author, force of nature and philanthropist), Nick Ashley Cooper (DJ, author and the Earl of Shaftesbury) and Pippa Evans (Comedian, improviser extraordinaire and co-founder of the Sunday Assembly). It was an incredible event and unlike anything I’ve been to before. Very similar vibe to the Do Lectures but also very different too. Watch the video for a more detailed summary.

See you soon, Dan

The Autotelic by Dan Kieran is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’ve had a busy couple of weeks writing a comic novella (!) and editing my first three programmes for Do Radio, that I now think will be aired in September. I will let you know the TX date as soon as I do.

I’ve also been reading Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination by Mark Vernon (it’s fantastically good and I would recommend both to Blake aficionados and those who are just curious) and a few more chapters of Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter With Things, which has ben teaching me about the role each hemisphere of the brain plays in the way we understand reality (specifically atoms and waves).

And this weekend I’m going to the Realisation Festival on the Saturday to do more interviews. I can’t wait!

Dan

I just got back from three days walking along the South Coast Path with my wonderful wife and some of my closest friends. Then on the last day more friends and family came to spend the evening with us. It was such a rich and nourishing experience and it felt more ‘real’ than the ‘real life’ I live in most of the time. It was one of those experiences where time slowed down. It feels as though I’ve been away for weeks and not three days. It was deep time rather than shallow time. Anyway. Thoughts on this and the island of consciousness you can create for yourself and how different the world seems when you are within this frame of mind. And how important it is to try and retain this perspective when you get back to ‘normal’ life.

Thanks for reading / watching and as always, let me know what you think.

Dan

This week I’m heading up to London to record my third interview for the Do Radio programme I’m recording to speak to Mark Vernon. Mark is a fascinating author and speaker on all kinds of subjects as a result of his wide ranging adventures in the academic disciplines of Physics, Theology and Philosophy. He’s also got a new book coming out about William Blake that I can’t wait to read. This week’s video touches the surface of Mark’s excellent book and I pull out a couple of things in it that have sent my mind off in interesting directions.

More next week.

Thanks for reading / watching.

Dan

The Autotelic by Dan Kieran is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

It feels important to flag the book that in many ways has guided my intellectual and spiritual curiosity that is pushing me forward in my project for Do Radio. The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. In this week’s video update I give a background on this work and my understanding of it and how it is informing the way I see the world.

Thanks for watching.

Dan

This weeks video update includes behind the scenes info on how my Do Radio project is going. I also re-discovered an interview I did with James Hollis whose book introduced me to the Carl Jung’s theory of the two adulthoods.

I’ve also just announced a LinkedIn Live about the book on leadership I’m writing called Lead Like a River. In the session I’ll be explaining the importance of what I call your Origin Myth, the story you use to articulate why you are doing what you are doing in your professional life. This is designed for entrepreneurs, but is just as relevant for everyone else whatever work you do. The LinkedIn Live registration link is here.

Thanks for watching. More next week.

Dan

I’ve just read ‘Burnt Rain’ by Roc Sandford - an activist and thinker who is part of Extinction Rebellion and lives on his own island off Mull in Scotland. I’ve also discovered Jonathan Rowson and Mark Vernon and the Realisation Festival they are Directors of, which looks AMAZING and I’m hoping to visit this Summer. Check it out.

Much love, Dan

PS- Apologies to Sarah Raad (not Serena 🤦 ) for the tip on Katherine May!

PPS - Martin Shaw is appearing at the Realisation Festival. Another reason to go if you need one.

I’m happy to say that I am currently working on a new audio project for Do Radio, under the Do Lectures umbrella. I will be interviewing a range of people on the subject of adventure, which is a wonderfully vague remit. I’ve only done one interview so far, which will be aired in June I think, but already it has taken me on a journey I was not expecting. A journey to try and make sense of - and perhaps even find - the sacred.

I am not a religious person but I do think of myself as spiritual. Or at least open to the unknown, which is what the word increasingly means to me.

I often use the analogy of football when explaining my view on spirituality. I grew up loving football and played it all the time because for me football is about the game itself. If I’m in a park walking the dog and a game is being played I stop and watch. I can’t help it. Even if it’s just a bunch of mates kicking the ball around. There is something unifying and fun and culturally known to me about it that makes me feel connected to it. But if you tell me football is about teams and leagues and trophies you begin to lose me. And if you go and tell me that, say, Manchester United are the best team in the world and the only team worth supporting and I should be singing their songs and go on a regular pilgrimage to Old Trafford all the time than I will resist with every fibre of my being. I have no desire to stop you supporting Manchester United or loving your team or supporting them, but that is not what football is about for me.

For me it’s about the game itself.

I have the same view of spirituality and religion. I know the immeasurable wonder of being a human being. I long to make sense of what it means to be alive. To prioritise love and meaning in my life and to feel connected to all living things in an indefinable bond of fellowship. But if you tell me that makes me a Christian and I should come to your church and sing your songs because yours is the best religion I will look at you, baffled. Because for me it’s about what it means to be human rather than any specific religion.

And this is the direction the series seems to be going in - of its own volition. The first interview went somewhere I was not entirely expecting and it seems to have unlocked or unleashed the Universe because now I find myself discovering people, ideas and books - so many books - that I’m struggling to keep up. At least the path is clear enough. And for that I’m incredibly excited and grateful. Watch the video for more info.

Thanks for reading / watching. I will be doing weekly video updates on the background research for the series and where it’s heading and would love you to join me on the journey.

Much love,

Dan

Yesterday was the 17th anniversary of our BBC Radio 4 programme going on air. This is obviously the most random commemoration ever but there you go. Enjoy!

Apologies for the lack up recent updates, but I mentioned a few weeks ago I was working on a new project about leadership. Well here it is. I’ve finally managed to extract and upload the LinkedIn Live I have been working on to Substack. The video actually starts 5 minutes in - cutting the first five minutes was beyond my skills - so please jump forward to then.

The point of the talk was to share some of my ideas and perspectives on leadership. I’m happy to say it has been incredibly well received and I’ve been approached by a book agent to do it as a new book, which is hugely exciting. For those who are interested in the progress of my novel, this talk reveals a lot of the research I have done for that re-purposed into the context of leadership.

I’m really excited about it. It feels like the most important thing I’ve ever done. Especially now.

The talk begins with my discovery that all the assumptions I had about successful leadership before I started my company as being masculine (assertive, loud, forceful and about dragging people behind you as much as inspiring them) didn’t work. And all the behaviours I perceived as being soft and feminine (empathy, psychological safety, kindness) that I thought would prevent me being a good leader were precisely the behaviours I needed to adopt to generate the results the business was looking for.

I then reveal the journey I went on to make sense of leadership from that point on.

I’m so excited to share it with you all!

Please let me know what you think and send it on to anyone you think might be interested.

Much love,

Dan

On the way to school this morning I had the realisation that while I’m the lead character on my own life, I’m an important but secondary character in the lives of my children. I suddenly became conscious of how I will appear in their memories. It’s an interesting thing to consider in the real time of my life. More exploration in the video.

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