Life design is all the rage nowadays, and my guest today, on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots free podcast interview is a man with an amazing story of taking life by the scruff of the neck and turning full circle to where he wanted to be. As he says "After failing to get much of an education I set up an online business, selling books. This fuelled my passion for all things literary but the business failed. In order to pay the mortgage I started work stacking supermarket shelves at night. During the day I made a career plan to turn things around. In late 2004 I joined the still relatively young online gambling industry, working in a call centre. 5 years later I co-founded a company (which I subsequently sold) and went on to manage operations in the UK, Central and Eastern Europe. From 2013 to 2016 I was CEO of SKS365 Group. I am now a full time consultant, investor & advisor in one or two startups and, more importantly, I am embarking on a career as a writer, writing about mountains and the outdoors. In other words I am following my passion." And this is what makes him the perfect guest for a show like Join Up Dots, as in late 2016 he quit the rat race to redesign his life in a way that was more satisfying, interesting and adventurous both in his personal and professional life. He didn't know how to accomplish the large and vague objective of "living better", although he knew it meant being more entrepreneurial and spending more time outdoors! So he embarked on a career writing about mountains, adventure and his journey of redesigning his life and through his website the Armchair mountaineer he is showing all of us how to take control of our lives. So is it as simple as making a firm decision to do something, even if you haven't got all the dots lined up and doing it? Or did he plan everything out so he could make this the life that he has always wanted, and is so inspiring to the rest of us? Well let's find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr Thomas Smallwood. Show Highlights During the show we discussed such weighty topics with Thomas Smallwood such as: How he managed to get the plan in place to be able to transition his life to where he wanted it to be, even if it meant doing stuff that wast part of the plan. Why it is so important to overcome the fear of reaching out to people who are ahead of you in their dream building (ensuring always that you provide value first) Why Thomas believes that you should rarely start anything that you want to make money as a first goal, instead work on the passion and see where it takes you. and lastly…. How no matter where you are in your journey of transition you will be hit by periods of doubt and lack of self confidence. Surround yourself with positive people to hep you through the bad times.