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How are you doing today?
Do you know how some people enter your life in the most random of ways, yet you somehow end up being beyond grateful to have them there? Well, Gareth is one of those people for me, and we’re going to be taking a look at what makes him a brilliant human, and why I did a podcast all about him today.
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When I saw that Jonathan, who was a former client of mine back in my previous PR role, was starting a new podcast, I knew that it was going to be a good one. Called the Brilliant Humans Podcast, its whole purpose does what it says on the tin.
How the podcast is designed is that every episode, somebody jumps on and chats about a brilliant human that they know in their lives. This could be a family member, a friend, a colleague, a teacher, you name it. Each episode acts as a spotlight, shouting out that person for the impact they’ve created in somebody’s life.
When I saw that he was doing this, I knew I had to get involved – the only issue then was, who do I talk about?
Of course, one of my first instincts was to choose a family member, someone like one of my parents or grandparents, but I thought, why not use this as a bit of a unique opportunity? So, I very quickly thought to shout out my good friend, Gareth Bown.
I first met Gareth back in 2020, when a mutual friend of ours, Presence, brought him into a group that I’d started called The LinkeDen (you know I always choose a cheesy name). This group was basically for young people who I found at the time who all wanted to make a positive change in the world in some shape or form.
Since then, Gareth has become a really close friend of mine – someone I am super grateful for. He’s someone I refer to as the human embodiment of the word ‘hug,’ and if you’ve met him, you’ll know it’s true.
Over the years, we’ve:
🧗 Climbed part of the Brecon Beacons, gone to comedy shows and had loads of brilliant chats
🕺 Danced, sang and supported each other through a very strange five years
🤝 Helped launch and be on the committee for the undefinable community
The above is only a small sample of the things we have gotten up to over the last five years. Honestly, with Gareth, you never know what’s coming next – he’s gone from moving to Scotland to cycling across all of Wales, packing Christmas trees to sliding down mountains – he’s a mystery.
Without people like him backing me, though, I know my speech would be nowhere near as fluent as it is today. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jon for episode 11 of the podcast, where I talk about the impact Gareth has had on my life so far.
We recorded the episode a couple of weeks back, and it officially went live last Friday – whoop whoop!!
As Jon said to me recently, “If you want a feel-good, human-first conversation that restores your faith in people, this is it. I somehow managed to speak for over half an hour without covering any of the notes I’d prepared, but hey ho, we move 😂
I’ll drop a link to the podcast below – be sure to check it out and give Gareth some love. You can find the full episode on any of the platforms below (whichever you prefer!):
🎥 YouTube
🎧 Spotify
🍏 Apple
Be sure to check it out and I’d love to hear your thoughts 🙂
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a lovely day!
James
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