Mike Dicks - Who's saying you can't do what you want to do?

In this conversation we explored:

• Why people often apologise for the work they do
• The stories we tell ourselves and how they can limit our development
• The inevitably of the ups and downs in our lives
• Why he eventually got expelled from college
• His first job selling computers at Dixons
• Meeting Sir Clive Sinclair
• His expected life trajectory of marry, kids, mortgage 
• His problem with authority 
• His ability to translate the features of technology into the benefits for humans
• The moment he realised his employer was trying to trap him
• Why it's important to expose your kids to people who live different lives
• Why Mike leaves things to the last minute
• The healthy discipline of deadlines
• Careers 1, 2 and 3
• How a career in TV lead to a career developing websites for Channel 4
• Why people try so hard to see something new as a minor variation of something old when in fact it's so very different 
• How Mike got TV Producers 
• Why Mike and authority are not comfortable bedfellows. 
• Why he's the captain of his own ship and how he takes full responsibility for it.  
• Mike's Beatles moment when he turned down the opportunity to develop the Big Brother website because he thought the whole Big Brother idea was a stupid concept
• Why Mike operates at the bleeding edge and why it doesn't make financial sense
• What happens to cool ideas when the money men arrive
• Edisons idea that the best use of the telephone was to broadcast the opera directly into peoples homes  
• The importance of vision versus the dangers of being wedded to it
• Would you want to be Elon Musk?
• 3D printing and space exploration as the bleeding edge technologies of now 
• Wanting to be remembered for something
• Why Mike changed his story from 'I've had so many bad bosses' to 'I shouldn't have a boss'  
• Why pilots died when the designers designed for Mr Average 
• The moment Mike was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
• How Mike's fatigue facilitated focus
• How Mike managed to treat his Cancer as a selfish creative Cancer
• Mustard Gas = Chemotherapy
• The importance of white blood cells and why they're like aged skinheads 
• The importance of managing energy when you have the CLL cancer
• Why you should have a blood test if your neck starts swelling up and your energy levels are low   
• The importance of doing things that make you or the people you love happy and not the things you feel compelled to do
• The importance of dealing, living and dying gracefully with cancer
• Why people stick with work they don't enjoy when they could stop and learn to live on less money 
• Why Mike got a rescue dog and how Scrabble taught him
• The unexpected consequence of UKIP taking offence to one of Mike's tweet
• Why he watched every single episode of Trumpton
• Why it's important to say what he wants and if the audience reacts well he explores it further 
• His search for a lovely publisher
• The joy of negotiating a publishing deal through his dog
• How Greta Thunberg talks truth to power
• The rough and the smooth of changes to our DNA
• Poo powered rockets
• The joy of seeing his art on someone else's wall
• What it's like to live day-to-day

A few nice quotes:

"Whose voice is it telling you that you shouldn't do something you want to do?" Mike Dicks   

"I love deadlines, I love the whooshing sound as they pass me by" Douglas Adams
"Why do we work so hard to impress the people we so dislike?" Cameron and Rob
"Neil Armstrong left a poo on the moon" Mike Dicks
"Every 24 hours you get another chance to have a good day" Mike&Scrabble
"How can you release yourself from the trap of money?" Mike Dicks
"There is a dog for everyone, if you don’t have one it’s because you haven’t met enough dogs yet" Mike&Scrabble

Mike's Shop
https://www.young-enterprise.org.uk/
https://www.sketchup.com/
Peter Dawe
BPS Space (Elon Musk's Prodigy) 
99 Designs
Scrabble & friends on the Number 25 bus
Greta Thunberg - full speech
The Brexit Comic

Twitter
@mikedicks 
@Trump_ton
@TheBrexitComic
@TheLastIceberg
@mikeandscrabble