Where To Next? By Dan Kieran

Epizody

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  Where To Next? Episode sixteen - Emily Fawcett and Charlie Loram (part two) *plus* Ric Stockfis 26.07.2026 1h

  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 againPlease try it. I promise it will bring huge benefits to your life and all those who love you. Until next week, Much love, Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where To Next? Episode fifteen - Emily Fawcett and Charlie Loram (part one of two) 20.07.2026 59min

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where To Next? Episode fourteen - David Cleevely CBE 12.07.2026 59min

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where To Next? Episode thirteen. Mike and Shuna Dickson 07.06.2026 59min

  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, DanThanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  The Edges of the World 03.06.2026 16min

  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 is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where To Next? Extra Episode - Tom Blue Wolf 15.03.2026 59min

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Belonging in England part four 16.02.2026 59min

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Belonging in England Part three 12.01.2026 1h 1min

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Belonging in England, part two 31.12.2025 59min

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Belonging in England, part one 17.12.2025 1h 1min

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where To Next? Episode twelve - Dr Iain McGilchrist (the full interview) 06.12.2025 2h 2min

  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 a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where To Next? Episode eleven - re-cap 20.11.2025 1h 1min

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Episode ten - Dr John Grigsby Part 2 08.11.2025 1h

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Episode nine - Dr John Grigsby 02.11.2025 1h

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Episode eight - Dr Sharon Blackie 26.10.2025 1h 5min

  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 is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Episode Seven - Dan Kieran 19.10.2025 1h

  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 is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Episode Six - Pippa Evans and Nick Ashley Cooper 12.10.2025 1h 1min

  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 a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Episode five - Jonathan Rowson and Ed Haddon 05.10.2025 59min

  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,DanWhere to Next? Episode 5 - Ed Haddon and Jonathan Rowson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Episode Four - Roc Sandford and Sarah Wilson 28.09.2025 1h 1min

  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 a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe
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  Where to Next? Episode three - James Hollis 21.09.2025 58min

  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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe