It was a real eye-opener to spend time with Tony Ferguson, the 39th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers. Tony, who’s been in the NSW Police Force since 1987, made me realise just how physically and intellectually demanding it can be to serve as a cop. The intellectual stimulation comes [...]
Scott McCallum, the 38th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, is doing retirement the right way. Scott retired from his university job in early 2019, after spending the previous 30 years teaching computing at Macquarie University – and the previous 25 in the same office! Despite officially leaving the workforce, [...]
When Adelaide royalty tell you they’re visiting Sydney for work and they’d like to meet, you don’t turn down the invitation. That was how I found myself hanging out with Santo Arabia, the 37th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers. You know how sometimes you just hit it off with [...]
Captain Nadeesh Gulawita, the 36th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, has had an action-packed life. When he was 29, Nadeesh became the youngest sea captain in Sri Lanka, just 11 years after starting his maritime career. His first job was a 12-month assignment as a junior cadet officer on [...]
Cullen Haynes, the 35th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, must be the busiest person in Sydney. He wakes up at 3.30am. He reads. He exercises. He arrives at the office just after 7am. He spends his days rushing from meeting to meeting (our lunch was his fourth appointment of [...]
Imagine this. You organise to meet a stranger for lunch. You say hello at 12.30pm. You say goodbye at 5pm. Sounds like a good lunch, no? Adrian Lea was the 34th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers. And, yes, it was a bloody good lunch. Adrian is a force of [...]
What you see is what you get with Danny Doff, the 33rd person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers. I liked Danny the moment I met him. He’s a classic people person – warm, down to earth and a great conversationalist. It’s a good skill to have, because Danny is a [...]
My brain hurt at the end of my lunch with Chris Collingwood – but in a very good way. Chris was the 32nd person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers. Chris teaches NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), which dominated our lunch conversation. NLP is a discipline that involves detecting patterns of behaviour and [...]
I love people who have the courage and vision to pursue a big dream. That’s what so impressed me about Candace Cybert, the 31st person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers. Candace had a successful career, but it was ultimately unfulfilling. So she left her safe corporate job to build a [...]
Ever heard of the concept of a ‘life by design’? Many people stumble into careers and routines that they endure rather than enjoy. But with a life by design, you consciously choose to do those things that make you happy. Enter Todd Liubinskas, the 30th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 [...]
