Storytelling in Podcasting is an essential skill that allows you to capture attention and engage with listeners. When you aim to reach your audience through spoken words, no matter what your motive is, podcast storytelling is a powerful tool that can help you make that impact, which you desire. Even if you’re teaching a lesson or speaking about a specific topic, storytelling engages readers and keeps them coming back for more.
Story-teller, podcaster, and founder of Pikkal & Co. Graham D. Brown joins Allen Koski in this week’s episode of The New Nomad. Being a master storyteller, Graham enticed the audience with the story of his journey to the podcasting world and why he chose storytelling as his way to connect with people. If you are planning to start a podcast to share your thoughts with the world, tune in to The New Nomad podcast. Remember, your story is only as good as the people who helped shape it.
[2:17] Life is an experiment
[7:56] We are born hardwired to connect
[15:03] Having your own podcast is all about the journey
[20:08] Podcasting is not about money
[30:33] Decluttering your life
[33:03] It's not the things that matter, it's the experience that comes along with it
GUEST BIO:
Graham D. Brown is a World Traveling Storyteller, Author & Entrepreneur. He is the founder of Pikkal & Co – Award-Winning Podcast Agency – an AI-Powered, Data-Driven B2B Podcast Agency in Singapore. He is a published author on the subject of The Digital Transformation of Communication, works including “The Human Communication Playbook”, “The Mobile Youth: Voices of the Connected Generation” – documenting the rise of mobile culture in the early 2000s in Japan, China, Africa and India and “Brand Love – How to Build a Brand Worth Talking About”.
Graham D. Brown LINKS:
Website: https://grahamdbrown.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/grahamdbrown
Pikkal: https://www.pikkal.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorgrahamdbrown/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GrahamBrownPlus
Follow Insured Nomads at:
Instagram: @insurednomads
Storytelling in Podcasting is an essential skill that allows you to capture attention and engage with listeners. When you aim to reach your audience through spoken words, no matter what your motive is, podcast storytelling is a powerful tool that can help you make that impact, which you desire. Even if you’re teaching a lesson or speaking about a specific topic, storytelling engages readers and keeps them coming back for more.
Story-teller, podcaster, and founder of Pikkal & Co. Graham D. Brown joins Allen Koski in this week’s episode of The New Nomad. Being a master storyteller, Graham enticed the audience with the story of his journey to the podcasting world and why he chose storytelling as his way to connect with people. If you are planning to start a podcast to share your thoughts with the world, tune in to The New Nomad podcast. Remember, your story is only as good as the people who helped shape it.
[2:17] Life is an experiment
[7:56] We are born hardwired to connect
[15:03] Having your own podcast is all about the journey
[20:08] Podcasting is not about money
[30:33] Decluttering your life
[33:03] It's not the things that matter, it's the experience that comes along with it
GUEST BIO:
Graham D. Brown is a World Traveling Storyteller, Author & Entrepreneur. He is the founder of Pikkal & Co – Award-Winning Podcast Agency – an AI-Powered, Data-Driven B2B Podcast Agency in Singapore. He is a published author on the subject of The Digital Transformation of Communication, works including “The Human Communication Playbook”, “The Mobile Youth: Voices of the Connected Generation” – documenting the rise of mobile culture in the early 2000s in Japan, China, Africa and India and “Brand Love – How to Build a Brand Worth Talking About”.
Graham D. Brown LINKS:
Website: https://grahamdbrown.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/grahamdbrown
Pikkal: https://www.pikkal.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorgrahamdbrown/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GrahamBrownPlus
Follow Insured Nomads at:
Instagram: @insurednomads
Allen
WeWelcome again to The New Nomad podcast. I have Graham Brown with me today. And frankly, as proud as I am about doing about 60 episodes of podcasting, here's a gentleman that has done maybe 2000 runs Pikkal, which is a podcasting, award winning podcasting, guest specialist and help, we'll talk about that. But I just gotta tell you, I'm in awe of somebody who's done what he has done. He's, he's created a wonderful podcasting experience for people. He's travelled around the world himself. He's somebody that we're going to really get into. So I'm going to hop right to it. I know many of you usually know that I have my guest host with me, Andrew Jernigan. He's not here today, because you know what, we have Graham, and we don't need Andrew should be able to have enough coverage today. Graham, you have moved around the world. And I'm not sure if it was six or seven years ago that you had it around, but to our no new Nomad audience, share what gave you that wanderlust to leave the UK, I guess at the time, and go as far as New Zealand and then just keep going.
Graham
Keep going. Yeah. And here I am. Thanks, Allen. Wonderful intro. 10 years ago, it was almost 10 years ago to the day, which is amazing. Even looking back at the photos and saying that my son was six years old at the time now he's 16, doing his exams. How life has changed. But yeah, you mentioned something off air. For the listeners that like to say, really what this is about, it's about confidence, isn't it? I mean, what your podcast is about is about giving people confidence. And for myself, back then it was really an experiment. And I believe two things really, one is that, you know, much of what we consider to be successful in life, the stories of success, what makes somebody successful are written by other people. So coworkers, families, teachers, advertisers, friends, who often are meaning well, but they define success for us. So that's been ingrained in me since an early age. And I think the second part of it as well is that, you know, if you want to do something in life, you've got to experiment, you know, life is an experiment. And therefore, if you really want to do things, which are uncommon, you've got to do big experiments. So 2012, we decided to sell all our stuff, and we got really through selling everything on eBay that summer, you know, people coming back and forth to the door, like picking up stuff, you know, all kinds of kids toys that you accumulate over the years, you know, junk that you accumulate with living, I got everything into three suitcases. Oh, man, there was three of us three suitcases, we bought a one way ticket to New Zealand, which is geographically the other side of the world to London. It's the furthest you can go geographically, and then started there. And that was the beginning of the adventure.
Allen
When you started that adventure. What gave you the confidence? Not only to do that, but the confidence then I don't know how quickly after that you you started podcasting? Did you start podcasting before you went? But what I love about it is, in your overview, podcasting is about sharing your own story without a filter. So when you must have been early on that I know everybody's got a lot of people's like, everybody's got a podcast now. You You were early on the cycle. What gave you the confidence? And how did you discover it?
Graham
Well, there's two questions that have given me the confidence. I think it's like being an entrepreneur or, you know, deciding to pursue your own path in a career is that I mean, I had a discussion, a conversation with my son who's 16 over dinner the other day, and we were talking about entrepreneurs, like people, Elon Musk, who, you know, obviously, quite high profile in the news. And we were just chatting about their personalities, because he saw Elon Musk talking and, you know, he's big into SpaceX and so on. And he mentioned that it all kind of a bit socially dysfunctional. And I say, Yeah, that's true. And he was asking why, why are all these entrepreneurs a bit weird? You know, why are they a bit awkward? Why are they a bit sort of, not necessarily introverted, but they don't come across, they don't express themselves really well, on media necessarily. And one of the reasons I think that that's the case is because they are a little bit socially dysfunctional, they don't fit in and they care less about what other people think. And so I think that, you know, a lot of what holds people back you know, whether it is starting your podcast, or starting a business or going in traveling the world and doing something with your life is not necessarily a fear of failure so much. Because we all have that. I think it's the fear of what other people will think. And the reason why entrepreneurs are successful is because they really don't care what others people think. They've gone, they got through that in their teens, you know, being bullied at school or being the weird one or being the geek in the computer lab, they stopped caring about the opinions of other people. And you bring that into adult life, it means that they're able to do things that lie on the other side of fear that the average person would find too difficult or too, you know, fearful or too risky to do. And so that's a long answer your question, but you know, what gave me the confidence to start was, you know, at an early age, just learning from being slightly socially dysfunctional, I'm, like, really bad at networking. I would rather the hole open up in the ground, and I fell in nothing. Then if somebody asked me at a networking event, Graham, what do you do? That's the worst question in the world. But on a podcast, I'm very, very comfortable. Because I feel like I'm in my zone. And I think a lot of introverts are like that. They just haven't found their extroverted alter ego, if you like. And that's the way. I'd can't remember what the second question was. But the first part is the confidence part, which is like, you know, worrying about what other people think.
Allen
to tie in is something else in our conversation. On a podcast, often you just talking to one other person, or very few. And at a networking event, you feel like, you never actually have a deep conversation with anybody. If you actually have a good you actually have a good podcast, and a great podcast guest, you're going to probably go somewhere you never expected to go because you're having more than just as a surface level conversation. And I was just thinking about in your podcasting background, you know, given that you've been in cognitive psychology, does that come into play? Because you must, you've actually made a scientific study of this. And maybe if you could share with the audience, a little bit of cognitive psychology, but also how that plays into learning more about somebody at a deeper level than just the surface.
Graham
Hmm, that's very perceptive that Allen. You know, there's since like bridging podcasting with human psychology as well, like, why do we do this? Particularly why now? Why so you know, you started a year or plus ago, you know, with the podcast, you've done 60 episodes, a lot of people started in the last couple of years due to the pandemic, that really sort of triggered a lot of people to explore podcasting, which is great. A lot of it is tied together, that we live in a world now where we're increasingly disconnected in many, many different ways. Obviously, through technology, a lot of people interact this way. And a lot of people work remotely, especially your tribe, if you like, a lot of people will work away from the hustle and bustle in the gossip and the water cooler of the office. And much as that is great, we miss a lot of that connection. And if you look at the human psyche, and even at the evolutionary biological level of human, and the brain, that we are born hardwired to connect, from the moment we're born, we're grasping and holding on to things and that is a survival mechanism. And if you look at how human societies evolve, that those that are good at connecting are those that are likely to survive long term. So it's hardwired in our brain, there are actually parts of our brain, which are designed to mirror the behavior of other peoples. And that's what helps us with language, you know, the development of language inference, and so on. So our brain is hardwired to connect, if we don't connect, we feel isolated in the brain degenerates, we feel depressed, we feel, you know, mental health issues have become apparent and so on. And so if you look at it, that in this age now, where we're increasingly disconnected, we're seeking out ways to connect with people. And podcasting is a great way to do that. Because you so rightly said, Alan, you can go really deep. You can have conversations with people that maybe you go deeper than with a friend. Yeah. Because you know, you can have a friend for years and years, but you keep it surface level. But with a podcast, you can go straight into the the key issues like this, you know, like why podcasting? That's a big issue is that's a big question. You can go straight for the jugular questions. And that's what we miss that we don't have three hour conversations or deep campfire conversations in our, you know, society today. You know, we don't sit around and talk. That's right. You look at dinner tables, what are people doing? People sitting around a dinner tables, and they're all staring at their phones are disconnected with connectivity. So that's the I think there's a hole in the human soul. Let's yearning for connection and podcasting is just one one way of rebalancing that.
Allen
Well, you know, it's interesting, you just brought up something I have not thought of because I've wondered why I wanted to start this podcast and during the pandemic It was the one thing I really look forward to. Because here I am having a conversation with Graham Brown in Singapore and I'm sitting in Delaware, and I'm learning something. But then I think I just realised what it was, is having a direct conversation with somebody, as opposed to, like we were talking about networking events early, there's so much going on around you, you can't have a conversation like this, unless you step out. And you never step out quite the same way. Because there's phones. And there's people coming over and saying, Hey, can I have a chat with you? on that? I'm just wondering what your rationale, like, when you look at it, are you like me that? First of all, you look forward to your podcast. And then when you actually if you ever go back and listen to it, which I listen to mine, I'm like, I can't believe we covered that. I didn't remember they enjoyed it. But you know, if it comes out a few weeks later, do you remember all the conversations and you still get enlightened by it?
Graham
Yeah, these are the conversations we don't have anymore. These are the conversations that matter. With the people that care, the so right about the networking event. That's, that's normal, that's life. Let's work, people thrusting business cards in your hand, and you come away from this networking event with a pile of cards and think, no, don't remember him. But you can connect with one people here and go really deep. And that is I mean, you think about why we do it. Obviously, there's that connection, but it's it's good therapy, is cheaper than therapy. You know, you can talk through these things. And it's a great way to network on a global stage as well. Let's not forget about that. I mean, your tribe, for example, you know, nomads who are maybe running businesses remotely or working remotely. You know, these people need a community, these people need a voice. And you're giving them that by a being their voice, but also creating a platform for those people to speak up. So you know, the reason I started my podcast exactly the same as you I was on a tropical island, and quite literally as an entrepreneur, bor. Yeah. You know, I was bored. I loved all the sunsets, and it looked great on Instagram and social media, but really deep down inside, I was bored and lonely. Because I wanted to talk to people who felt the same kind of things as me I wanted that challenge, you know, as an entrepreneur, you want resistance. Yes. You kind of want to climb the mountain, right? Because that's the challenge. I missed all of that. And I missed the camaraderie that goes with it. So I found that in podcasting, what a great way to build your own tribe, and reach out to people. And for me, you know, living on a tropical island, you've got access to the world. And now you've got a global stage.
Allen
Well, you're somebody who's spoken very eloquently a lot about storytelling, and talk with our tribe that's listening today. You know, we're hoping we're giving you the confidence that if you've got a story to tell, you reach out to Pikkal and get some assistance and start a podcast o you can share your your own story. What do you share with folks, I know, you had something out there that looked to me like a kind of a guide. And in some of the tips, we will really get into that in the sense that people will will will circle back to you. But to somebody who's sitting there right now and saying, I'm enjoying this conversation, I'd like to have this type of experience myself, if you could give a few tips on what you think they should do. And of course, at the end, we're going to get the show notes, and you're going to people should reach out to Graham and his team. But, you know, how does somebody even start because even when I started, I went to library and took out a book on how to start a podcast. And to be honest with you, half the stuff I read, actually had nothing to do with the ultimate way the podcast went, as I'd love to hear just got to thoughts on it. Because you're not that the book was wrong. It gave you the technical aspects, but like finding a good guest, preparing for an understanding, and then just trying to find something new every time you speak to somebody.
Graham
Yeah, if you think of all these things that we've talked about today, Allen, and you've got starting a podcast, or getting on a podcast, for example, in any sort of public speaking up like. So starting a podcast isone, being an entrepreneur is two, starting a business or you know, your dream job to living in another or going to another country is three. If you look at these three things. They're all very similar. You can go to the library and get a book on every single one of them, I'm sure. Maybe that will give you the technical aspects, but the real doing is different and it lies on the other side of fear. Yeah. And that's the key here is you know, getting started I think too much people my advice to somebody out there you listening, if you're thinking about any of these three, it's going to be a journey. It's a big challenge. And one of the things I think people get hung up on because there's a lot of it in the media is to find your why thing. You know, if you start a business, you're gonna have a big why, you've got to be changing the universe, you've got to be, you know, the next billion dollar thing. Or if you're moving to a country, it's got to be a big thing. You've got to think about, you know, permanent residents citizenship, all these kind of like long term, monolithic immovable objects, which are quite scary. Or if you're starting a podcast, it's like, oh, you know, I'm gonna have to be the next Joe Rogan. Why is anybody gonna listen to me? I'm just little old me with my story. And people get hung up on this, they look at this, and they get that impostor syndrome. Like, nobody wants to listen to me, I don't have a story, this is not going to work out. And I find that that holds a lot of people back the best advice given to me.
Graham
And I think what really works is finding your start being agile, being agile with all of these, you know, be agile in business, be agile with your story, as well and be agile with your travels. You know, you don't have to go somewhere and live there for the rest of your life to be successful. You can go for two or three weeks, you can go for two or three months, you can go for two or three years, and it's still a success. You don't have to look at other people and think, oh, wow, I failed because I came back. No, it doesn't matter. What matters is the did it on your terms. And it's the same with your story as well on podcasting, that do it in an agile way. Because no, if you look at any kind of profession where people get up on stage and tell stories, let's say stand up comedy. Yes. For example, no comedian was born funny. True. You know, that's the reality. What you see, you know, if you take a Seinfeld, for example, you see thousands and thousands, and thousands of hours of practice, when you don't see any of that. Yeah. You see somebody who went to the dive bars, in front of 10 people, where they were drunk and heckled and practice all their new material, and then walk off, you know, feeling well, a lot of that didn't work, but it bombed but had some good material in there tonight. And that's agile is you get on stage, and a podcast is a stage, any stage on the world, you don't have to start your own podcast you can guest on other people are a great way of getting started. Get on stage. Commit your story to the audience. That's the moment of truth, face rejection, get feedback, walk away and improve. And it may be a little bit scary, but but only by doing that, will you get better and accept that that is the journey. Yeah. That is the whole that is the beauty. That is the thing that you signed up for not the book at the end of it, not the Netflix special, you know, at the end of it, but the journey is what you signed up for. And I think that's really important. People look at it and thinking, Oh, how can I get to this end goal? No, you know, if you're an entrepreneur or you're a storyteller, your goal is to keep playing the game. Your goal is not to exit the game. If you're a sportsman, and you're doing baseball, or football, whatever it is, that's your life. And it's the same with storytelling or business. That's your sport, you know, you do that. And you do that every day. And your goal is to make sure that you can keep doing it. And so with storytelling, is committed to the journey, get started and get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Allen
Well, if you start a podcast, because you want to make money, you've made a wrong decision. I believe you have to be intellectually curious, love people, want to learn more, because very few people this is this is more of a passion and a love because you love our conversations. Now it can help you make money. It can help you and your goal. But Graham, how many people have you seen in in this that have gotten it? And I think this leading question other than Joe Rogan and a few other folks that have gotten rich doing this, right? Not many, but it doesn't mean we love it any less. As a matter of fact, we might even love it more, because we're doing in, like for me today interview you. I when I did my research and this the other thing people when they do podcasts is you want to research a guest you want to you want to understand more about them. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't know anything about cognitive psychology. And I wanted to learn a bit from you on that today about your journey. And I also you know, when you can bring something away from it, but also you've lived out of a suitcase, you bring your family and you've made this move. And you know, you maybe to share with the audience because there are issues obviously with visas and different statuses and etc. But you've worked your way through it. What are some of the things that have made you most proud about yourself and your family when you've when you've made these moves, and some of these other things that you might warn our audience? Hey, gang, you might want to Prepare for kind of a loaded question there. There's a lot there in that
Graham
great question, there to the point about making money, be clever about why you're doing this in that, that may be something that evolves over time, you know, you may not know why you're doing the podcast, until you actually start doing it. And then you get an idea of what it's good for. And there are sort of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in podcasting. The extrinsic one being, you know, obviously, maybe I can get advertisers is one. But the best one is business development, you know, there's no better way of generating leads, meeting prospects, building your personal brand than podcasting. You know, you're that guy. Oh, you know, when somebody else who's Allen, oh, he's that guy that does that thing. What's that thing? Oh, he's got that remote podcast. Ah, yeah, I've seen him on my social feed, right? Think about that as a power of you know, if you can occupy just a small piece of somebody's really in that memory, that's really expensive, that real estate, you know, he's that guy doing that thing. And the podcast is a great way to reinforce that. On the intrinsic motivations, which is, I feel this biggest part and bridges into your second question about success long term, it's the storytelling aspect, is, podcasts is a great way to refine the art and craft of storytelling, but you get really good at it, you practice it, you test it, you iterate, you learn, you put everything together, you join the dots in your own story, because that journey will help you make sense of, you know, why the hell are you doing this? You know, I look at my story. For example, I'm a cognitive psychologist, artificial intelligence graduate. You know, I moved to Japan in the 90s, I lived in Japan, as a teacher teaching English and then moved into the communications industry, the mobile telecommunications in the early 2000s, when that was a boom industry. And now, they went and traveled the world and then started a podcast and then started a podcast business. I look at that and thinking, well, Allen, wouldn't it be great if, you know, I went to college, studied aerodynamics, joined an aviation company, designed planes all my life, and then that's all I ever did. It would have, yeah, that's his why he had it figured out because when he was a kid, he was flying planes, like paper aeroplanes, and like now he's sort of 50s. He's flying planes, but he's getting paid for it. I was never like that.
Graham
And I think most people aren't most people. It's a mess. Yeah, most people lack the confidence to tell their story and live it out. Because they look at media and they see these people who seem to have it all figured out. And there's me who's kind of just a mess, and it's all over the place. It's a squiggle, and the line goes all over. And so the key part of the podcast is really putting all that together, joining the dots, because your brain will literally join connections between one story and another story in one scene and another scene, and it all comes together. And for me, I've learned through podcasting, is that throughout my whole life through, you know, from being a cognitive psychology, student to now in podcast, it's all about understanding and helping people communicate better. And storytelling is a big part of that. And that's the through story that I've only really discovered through podcasting, which is a bit meta, but that's the power of it. And I feel, you know, bringing it back to the location independence thing is that one of the key parts to success is that you will constantly be challenged on your journey, just like any good movie of work, you know, you're on the path and you've got your band of adventurers. And then you know, out pops the antagonist, right? And the antagonist is going to beat you down or trick you, or whatever it is. And this is just normal, living on the road. Because you know, you're not surrounded by a comfortable job. You're not surrounded by a comfortable community, you're vulnerable, naked in many aspects and raw, you land in a new place. You don't know what's going on, you don't know how to eat properly there, you don't know where to eat. So you've got to learn all these things. And it will challenge you and the highs are very high, but the lows are very low when you're living location independent. And a key part of this is your storytelling. Keep this thing going. And that is why podcasts are a great way for you to make sense of this and to keep your journey moving forward. Because it's the it's the whole through story of your journey helps you understand because a lot of people will give up and go back and say, Oh, it didn't work out, which is fine. But there are many reasons why you could have kept going if only you kept that story going. And it's a and the last part of shares that probably the biggest benefit of that is the tribe of people you build around you.
Graham
Because if you're in Delaware, you got people around you, if you're in Singapore, you got people around you. But when you move somewhere new, it's a whole new challenge, right? Yeah. And starting a podcast is a great way to build that tribe. And you know, when we lose those connections, that's where we feel vulnerable. And that's where often the wheels fall off the whole plan.
Allen
zWell, I'll add something else that kind of comes to mind is when you move to a different location, Graham, every time you start in a new location, you're an outsider but you're also an observer, because you're seeing it for the first time. And this is where you as a podcaster have amazing stories, because you can draw on something that somebody you seen, if they grew up there, they don't even recognise it as unique or different but you do. And I find in this location, independent community of ours, the people that have on the podcast, have the most interesting stories, because they've seen it as an observer. Question for you, agree or disagree?
Graham
o0%wholeheartedly, you're pulling my heartstrings there. This is such a powerful observation, Allen, that if you live in the twilight zone, on the outside, you see things looking outside in, which gives you a new perspective, and therefore you see a lot of things extracted from the context in which we understand them normally, which is the story. Yeah. You know, why is somebody doing that? Why is somebody doing this in this festival? Or why somebody behaving like this, and you look at it, I'll give you an example. So one of the things I find really interesting about the location dependent community, if you'd like, is the belief in the car. Yeah, thing that occupies a lot of that light. And I was, I was all in on cars, when I was living that life in London. And what the interesting thing about a car is that everybody feels they have one, right. And for many generations, it's been a rite of passage. It's changing, obviously, now. But we spend on average 60% 60% of our after tax income, or disposable income on cars, if you think about that, because you're not only buying it, or maybe higher purchase, lend lease or whatever, you're also insuring it, taxing it, you have to fuel it, you have to store it somewhere, it doesn't move 90 95% of the time, it's stationary. And when it does move, it's only one seat and five was being used. So it's completely, you know, as a sustainable object, it's very poor. It's very inefficient. And it's certainly not an asset. When you look at that, and you think how much of life is built around cars? And when you ask people, why do you have a car? Well, I need a car to drive to the office. Okay, so why do you drive to the office so I could do my job, I can earn money. Why do you want to earn money to pay for the car? Now, when you look at that observation, you think, hang on a second, wait, are you telling me like, I've been living this for the last 10, 20 years? And I haven't figured this out? That's a racket. That's us. That's a whole racket that we haven't figured out. And only when you step out of it and think, can I live without a car? I don't have a car. Yeah. And living in Singapore? Obviously, you don't need her. A lot of people do, but I don't know why. So, you know, you move somewhere where you don't need a car, you know, build a lifestyle around that. So I think, you know, the point of observation is, once you live outside of that story and look out from the outside in, you can see reality for it. Isn't that for what it isn't? That's not just the car, but all different aspects. Like why do we need an office? That's right. That's another one. Right? Yeah. And it's the same kind of what if questions, you can ask, What if I lived without this? What would happen? Yeah, right. And those are powerful. But the thing is, Allen, and I'm sure you've experienced this, and your listeners have experienced this as well. These are dangerous questions to ask. Because when you start asking these questions, not only were people start thinking that you're strange, what do you mean, you don't want a car? Why, what's wrong with you? But also, you know, life falls apart very beautifully. And I think that's the kind of unravelling that's part of the journey.
Allen
So, in that journey, you're somebody who's been to many places, experience many things we ask our guests to share, perhaps an overlooked person, place or experience that you've had, that maybe our listeners can explore for themselves. I'd love to hear an overlooked person, place or experience from you.
Graham
There's so many that's unfair.
Allen
you could use. You could put a couple out there if you feel like it. All good. Yeah, we've done podcasting. So that was that's obvious experienced, I think would be great for everybody to try. I would say, obviously, living on tropical islands is great, because it basically removes you from it. I've lived on Okinawa, I've lived on Cyprus, out in the Canary Islands off Africa. I lived there, you know, where there is nothing. Yeah. That it really forces you to think. And in big part of that, to answer your question. And the experience that I would recommend, is overlooked is decluttering life getting rid of everything. Fantastic. You know, it's very, very scary. But actually, you realize how much you need in life to be happy. You realize what makes you happy and it's not things I know, these are things we know. Yeah, we know this. Like, we know, nobody ever says, Yeah, this makes this object makes me happy. This is really kind of making me feel fulfilled. Nobody says that, but we live it. And yet, only when you do this, and you declutter, then you feel very vulnerable. But that is where you, you learn in yourself, what your centre is, what your story is, and what makes you happy. And often, it's people around you, you know, and it's your family, or your friends, or whoever your partner that really makes you happy. And that is so important, because you can strip everything down and get to that. And the key then is that leads to big questions about the what if questions about happiness is that what makes me happy. And this is what nomadism is, now, it's a quest to find happiness. And you know, what, it makes me happy, you know, I want to go and find it. You know, I want to leave the comfort of the old world and go and search, I want to cross the river and go on the journey and find it. And even if I don't find it, the journey itself is worthwhile. And so for me, like the experiences, you know, I really discovered, I feel what I felt the answer to that was, which is like, happiness is not a state happiness is not a thing, happiness is doing more of what makes you happy. That's it. So if podcasting makes you happy, design a business and a life that allows you to do more of that, or of cycling a bike, I love riding a bike that makes you happy. Think, okay, well, how can I build a lifestyle around that? How can I build a business around that where I don't have to drive to the work, why don't have to be online, every single minute of the day, because then I can't go out on the bike for two hours, right? Or, you know, live somewhere where I can go out and cycle by the river or by the sea. So that's the overlooked experiences, like stripping everything down, decluttering and getting to the roar of really what our existence is, and what makes us happy.
Allen
Grandma, I love it to two things, just that we are decluttering ourselves right now, here at our house, because we have a next door neighbour who just passed. And when you clean up and you help somebody clean up a life, you realise at the end of it, it was the experience is not that not the sofa, not the so that's that's one thing. And the second thing is you're biking. I'm I love the mountain bike. I know you've done Ironman, so you probably more road bike than I am thought about. It's fantastic. I don't know when I'm going through the trees on a single track. And you can just think and random thoughts come in your head. Yeah, there's a feeling of bliss. And it makes a big difference there. So to do that, hopefully, to our audience, you've gotten inspired, hopefully, that you may want to head down this line of podcasting, etc. Graham, could you share where people could find you and reach out and get more of your wisdom and supportive Pikkal? If they needed that first step, you'd be the person I'd call on this journey on podcasting. And then we'll make sure to our audience this goes in the show notes. Love for you to share with with the people out there.
Graham
Yeah, well, thanks. Also Allen once again for such a wonderful podcast and such a passionate host as well. Thank you a great guide I think for your your people and your community. People are into this. So for me go to my website, the jumping off point or the different projects Graham D. Brown, is with a D. Graham D for David. Graham D. Brown. Without a D It's a wallpaper website, different experience entirely. Not me. You won't find any podcasts or storytelling there. GrahamDBrown.com.
Allen
That's good. That's great. Well, Graham, thank thank you so much. To our listeners out there. Once again, we hope we've given you the confidence to continue to grow learn. I've gotten so much from this. This is fantastic. I'd like to remind our audiences also that please, if you just tell just one person about this podcast that It really helps grow and we'd love your feedback also appreciate everybody travels safely we look forward to seeing to the next episode of The New Nomad and thanks to ram for making such a wonderful storytelling today.