When Mark Philpott invited me onto the Humaneity podcast to discuss my #500lunches journey, I thought it was going to be just another interview with just another interviewer. But as we were chatting before the interview, I discovered Mark is a remarkable person. Mark's journey includes being a senior executive with a multinational company, founding his [...]
Years ago, when financial planning veteran Phillip Alexander started out in business, he spent his first couple of years metaphorically crying himself to sleep. Phil, the 120th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, had the same challenge faced by most entrepreneurs – building a network, establishing credibility and making sales. [...]
When Paul Hughes left school at the age of 15, he had a plan – work at McDonald’s and take it easy. But Paul’s dad had a different plan – get an apprenticeship and work hard. The old man even found a job for Paul as an apprentice boilermaker / welder. So that was that. Paul, [...]
Isn’t it funny how one little thing can change the trajectory of your life? That happened to me on 3 April 2019. First, a quick backstory. Seven months earlier, I’d connected on LinkedIn with a woman named Kaley Chu. I’m not sure why we connected – we’d never met, we’d never interacted with each other and [...]
It took a pandemic for Zannie Abbott to wind up exactly where she belonged. Zannie, the 118th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, spent more than two decades in PR and communications. But she specialised in events – so when coronavirus hit, her work disappeared. Fortunately, Zannie had already taken [...]
Wes Lambert, the 117th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, is saving hospitality one venue at a time. Partly, Wes is helping the hospitality industry through his role as chief executive of the Restaurant & Catering Industry Association, which represents the interests of more than 47,000 restaurants, cafés and catering [...]
I had a great chat with Liz Hamlet, host of the How to Spark Success podcast. During the interview, we discussed: Why I'm having lunch with 500 strangers How I contact my lunch guests Why people reject my lunch invitations Liz also spoke to me about my day job, which is running Hunter & Scribe, a [...]
Sanjeev Sah, the 116th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, was on a train one day … when his life changed forever. A stranger approached Sanjeev. After some small talk, he invited Sanjeev to attend a seminar. Sanjeev accepted. The seminar turned out to be an Amway promo. Sanjeev signed [...]
If you’ve got a horrible job or a destructive addiction and you don’t fix those problems, it’s because, deep down, you really don't want to change, according to Sevda Hussein. Sevda, the 115th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, speaks from bitter, hard-won experience. Sevda was abandoned at birth, had [...]
Jeffery Wang, the 114th person I've met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, started lunching with strangers two decades before me. When Jeff was 10, he moved from Taiwan to New Zealand, before moving to Sydney to attend university. That meant he began his adulthood with no friends and no network. His solution? [...]
