I’mm a big fan of Escape the City and was delighted to speak at their annual shindig a while ago.

I spoke about the importance not only of having an exciting idea, but also taking the first tiny little steps towards making it happen. Easy in theory, difficult in practice…
As someone dear to me once said,

“You’re not tough. The only remarkable thing about you cycling round the world was that you bothered to do it.”

Speaking for Escape the City is quite scary – a high-powered audience, fantastic other speakers, late-at-night-after-both-you-and-the-audience-have-had-quite-a-few-beers. Consequently my talk is a bit manic and hyperactive, but (he says modestly) I think it is one of the best talks I have done. It’s about 20 minutes long and you can listen to it below. My talk starts at 1hr41.09 in case you don’t have time to listen to all the other great speakers.

Please forgive my bizarre roaring / shouting in the early stages! The venue was massive and a bit rowdy and I sound like a bit of a weirdo!
The jokes about Bain were because a previous speaker had escaped from his consultancy job to set up a company.

NSFW: contains a bit of swearing.