How Stories Bring Families Back Together
Neil Taylor
(YouTube Transcript)
Aneta (00:01.51): Neil, welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast.
Neil (00:05.39): Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.
Aneta (00:07.63): So excited to have you here. The first time we met, I heard about your story, and I heard about the amazing service that you provide in this world. I asked you right away, like, will you come onto the show? I want the audience to hear more about what it is that you do and how you got here.
Neil (00:30.59): Yeah, it was unintended, a beautiful consequence of the conversation we were having as a group. And I jumped at the chance. Yeah. So thank you.
Aneta (00:35.82): Yeah. You're welcome. So, for those that maybe aren't familiar with your story, just tell me a little bit more about what happened after your father passed and how you started the business that you have today.
Neil (00:55.04): Yeah, sure. So we've got to rewind four years. It was March 1st, 2021, towards the end of COVID, well, the end of COVID in the UK, I guess, where I'm from. And that was the day my dad passed away. He had been struggling with dementia for a few years, and he lived a good life. He was born in 1938, so he was 83, or almost 83. Yeah, and he...
Yeah, sadly passed away. We were talking before about the events of that week, and I actually haven't really thought about the specifics. So it was a nice question to be asked. Thank you for that. that. Because it was COVID, he was in a care home with special dementia care, and because of the lockdown rules, only a certain number of family members could come in or out, or you had to select two family members, and they were on the list, and there were no more allowed on the list.
So my sisters lived more locally to him, and they were there when he passed away, and I was on a Zoom call with my mum. So yeah, I'm just sharing that because I just reflected on it half an hour ago. So that was, yeah, I don't know how to have words to describe that moment, but then six days later, my son was born. So in the same week, it was something that I
I was aware that the walls were closing in on that opportunity to have them in the same room. And even though they might have shared a room, I know it would have been physical, not maybe mental, perhaps, but in that case, well, in either case, actually, a newborn doesn't have much going on, perhaps. It would have been a lovely thing, but not everything happens in life that we want. Yeah, and it was just a roller coaster week. It was a roller coaster month, a few months.
We actually were in the same year, then five, six months later, we moved house, moved country, and set up a new, it was always part of the plan, but it was really setting up a new life. And so the evolution of this business called My Old Man and Me, which I ended up starting, was actually three years later in 2024 at the end of 2024.
And I think it's just grief, everyone has their own journey of grief, and it can last three years, 10 years, 20 years, I think probably your whole life, really. But I had, it came out because I had a break in work. And I think that's really the only reason that this sort of emerged in me because I stopped for a while, which we don't do, I don't think enough. And yeah, I had a break in my consultancy work.
And I'll be honest, in those days and weeks in 2024, I was looking for... projects and learning and doing courses. But this idea had been niggling away at me. I just, at a certain point, I thought, well, I need to let go of the commercial requirements in averted commas of me as a human and actually pursue something which, which is like deep down, I just had to address it. And essentially, that was the fact that I feel like I messed up and didn't allocate enough time to capture my dad's stories.
And I miss his voice dreadfully. I think when you lose someone, you have a handful of memories, hopefully several handfuls of moments, and their voice and the way they look and their mannerisms and the way they might laugh or look angry at you, know, the things stick with you. But I think for me, his voice has faded quite quickly, which is terribly sad. And so it was towards the end of 2024, and I thought,
Well, I don't want anyone to feel like this. I don't want to, like, let me just think about my best friends. I don't want them to lose someone and feel the same. And then I say to them, yeah, it's crappy, isn't it? No, I'd rather address it and help them. So, essentially, in November, in September, sorry, I interviewed three friends, well, three sets of friends and their dads. Although now obviously it's grown to be daughters, moms, grandparents, grandchildren, whoever, whichever.
Neil (05:16.20): But I interviewed my best friend from school and two from university, and their dads and I spent some time with them, and I recorded the conversations. So I started with the son, and then I went to the dad. You have one hour with the son, four hours with the dad in separate sittings. And then we had a wrap-up conversation. And in those wrap-ups, I was trying to understand, like, what is this going to be? I didn't really know. I thought it might be a podcast because I love podcasts. And I thought I might share that with the world because I think it's something that should be shared with the world.
And very quickly, I realized, actually, this is, well, I had a bit of imposter syndrome. Didn't I didn't really know if I should be doing this? I thought, well, maybe they should do this themselves. don't know. I didn't make it happen, but maybe they will, and they would. But very quickly, the very first family, it just became apparent that these conversations were not going to happen. And then I couldn't turn back. I had to make it happen.
Aneta (06:10.24): Yeah. There's so much that you said that I want to go back to, which is something that I think a lot of people are going to resonate with: it's really something to be human, isn't it? To experience grief of loss. And then a couple of days later, to experience one of the most joyous times with the birth of your child. And so do you remember like, what that was like? Like was it Was it hard holding both of those things at the same time? Both of those feelings and emotions?
Neil (06:46.81): I don't know if I even hold both of them. I don't know if my human body was capable of holding both. The grief, I remember being in a flat in London, quite near my mum's house in southwest London, going for lots of walks. We had a three-year-old at the time, so it's not like life stops. And then, he was in, actually, he was in intensive care for four days. I don't know where my head was at, to be honest. I refer to it as a hallucination because...
Neil (07:16.65): You're down on sleep, you haven't, and it's something my sister said to me, actually quite recently, which is one lovely thing about this project, is like we talk about my dad more than we ever would. She said, think she maybe heard me speak on something, and she goes, I'd have a really, I'd never have fully reflected on Neil that you in that period were dealing with all of that stuff.
I was grieving in my own way, and she was on her grief journey and working through things, but she was, I think she said, I didn't really fully understand that you were juggling both and what that must have been like, I don't know. And yeah, I don't know myself, to be honest.
Aneta (07:55.84): Yeah, no, it's so true because the other thing you said is like, we don't often slow down or stop. And so as you're caring for a young child and you're dealing with this and the family, and then probably your own experience with not being this during the pandemic, not being able to do what we would normally do, which is to be at the bedside of a loved one. Like all of those things are not things that we think that we could prepare for or experience.
So yeah, I'm sure that you were walking around feeling maybe like you weren't fully there. I think so often as humans, we have these experiences that we can't hold, and it's only later that we're able to reflect on them. But you said that when you did stop, and you made a change, you moved, you stopped working for a time time period.
Did you know? When did you notice that you started missing your father's voice? Like that, the voice was something that was fading, and that felt uncomfortable or strange, or you wish that you still could hear his voice?
Neil (09:08.95): I think it's through that period. know, funny enough, always been, I now retrospectively understand why this is now my mission in life, or maybe why I think I was here, have been put here because I've always wanted to capture memories, and I've always taken photos when I was like a teenager, I used to take photos every year. When I turned 30, I took a photo every day and had this whole project where either I took it or I was in it. I used to do family videos with lip syncing to the music videos and everything.
I've always felt like I might forget things, I think. So if so, that's in me, and then I'm not the person who actually managed to capture it with my dad, like it really hurts. It just feels like I really messed up there. And the voice, don't... We've got home video. used to take... Unfortunately, he was the one who took the damn home video. So, it's us kids in it and mum.
He's behind the camera, putting the lens cap on most of the time in those days, which Other families might resonate with. Yeah, and I just haven't, it's not been something easily accessible that, know, all those things are on VHS, know, hopefully some people know what that is. And I just don't have that footage now. And maybe in this day and age, we might have that more readily available. Yeah, I would just love to hear him tell a story.
He used to like. He always used to laugh a little bit. As he was telling a story, he would laugh mainly because he was excited about his own anecdote or punchline. And he was, he had a wiccata, you he loved life. I just wish I had that one thing, just one thing. And so that's kind of now what I'm doing is making sure that no one feels like that because it's not a nice, it's not a nice feeling. We don't need to. We don't need to do that. We can. If we can stop and slow down a bit, we can capture these things.
Aneta (11:04.29): Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about what you're actually capturing with the videos. And so is this just in more detail, like for the family or with the loved ones?
Neil (11:18.79): Yeah, sure. So I've evolved it. It's very similar to what I started with. And so it's essentially an hour 12-week experience. And I talk about it like an experience because at the end of it, you get, you do get an audiobook. So I focus on audio because it's the voice that I miss personally. And then, And then as I was building it, I heard this, I heard this on a podcast, which I thought just really resonated with me, which was that the most engaging and connective media form is actually audio because nothing is separating the idea and your imagination with that idea, your connection to that idea. So when you watch the video, you and I are talking now, you might see the house behind me. I can see the flower behind you or your glasses, and you get distracted by that or what someone's looking at.
Whereas if you're listening to their story, when I'm asking, when your dad is talking about his family home, age six, and he's walking you through the door, which is one of my favorite questions, you're listening, you're... you're in that world. And so, yeah, to answer your question, what you get is an audiobook at the end. So it's a 12-week experience. Beyond that, what you're really getting is a connection with the people you love most more than you had in 12 years. That's something I say. It's like we, you, on your podcast, and you talk about this a lot, is it slowing down and stopping to actually connect with the people that are most important to you? And with any luck, that's your family.
Neil (12:47.09): If that's the case, this is such a great thing to do. So in 12 weeks, what we'll do is we'll have a kickoff meeting. So it's like a family project. It's a bit like planning a holiday, a vacation with your family, but it doesn't have to involve flights and diary scheduling too much, and who's packing what luggage in the airplane or whatever. So we meet up for a first session to answer any questions with all the siblings that want to be involved as many as possible, hopefully, and the parents and grandkids or grandparents if it's them.
That's just to set the ball rolling. And then after that, what I do is I send over reflection guides for the children and the parents. Because everyone's got a role in this, right? So the idea is that the child goes away and has to think about mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, and their life, and think about what they want to know, really, is the one question. But within that, there are also some other questions, which what is the story about your dad that really speaks to his character?
Or can you explain, can you share with me a happy memory that you think only you remember? Because often someone holds a really special story to them, but their sister has no idea that it has anything special. So the child gets that, and then the parent similarly gets their own reflection guy, which is full of prompts to get them to think about things they haven't thought about in decades. And then what happens is we have a child brief, a child interview stage. So they're one-hour interviews with all the children. And if there are two parents involved, then we'll get
Aneta to talk about mum for an hour, and then a separate hour, I'll get you to talk about dad, because there are different things that you all want to know, and you have different relationships with both of them. And then it comes to the hero of the show, which is mum or dad or grandma, grandpa. And I'll do three, three two-hour sessions. So they're really deep, like long, very relaxed. We just follow the, follow the energy. The idea is they started as four hours, but I realized that to give them the space, which, which really, when they get given the space, is a joyful thing because I think no one's
No one's ever been listened to for six hours by a good listener, even when you get to 70. And I think when you're 70, it's even nicer, I think, because maybe you feel a little bit ignored by the world. So yeah, after that stage, I then share back chapters of the life story. So everyone's conversation has a chapter. The parents’ chapters are six chapters, six hours cut into one hour each.
Neil Taylor (15:08.94): And it's with the music of the time or whatever music they love, the Stones, the Beatles, Def Leppard, whoever it is. know. So it really feels like them, and it really feels like them. And then they have a good old listen, and I just feel overjoyed by the idea. I would like to be sent an hour of my dad talking about when he was at school, or when he went to, when he was in his twenties, and he traveled the world, or whatever it was.
And then after the listening stage, we then come back for a wrap-up and reflections, which is just a guided session where I try and say as little as possible, but I hold that space for a while longer because I think if I don't, then they're just gonna go back to everyday lives a bit too quickly. And that gets added to the audiobook. And then there are lots of other little clips and highlights and things that I do in addition. So there's a bunch of stuff that gets sent as a family, but really, what they all leave with is this feeling of connection.
And even sibling to sibling. know, Sibling's connecting, it's parents, child. One mum said it re-centred us as a family. She said it was so nice, this mum said, that it was just the four of us, there were no hangers on, no children asking to be fed water, but for her it was just really special, yeah.
Aneta (16:25.45): This is actually makes me so emotional just to think about we all want to be seen and heard and so often I feel like maybe children don't fully know their parents as humans And because we start just being so dependent on our parents and then we become independent and somehow maybe we don't forge the connection as adults in certain ways and so what did you notice in terms of like the relationships as they evolve, the more that they spend time reflecting and sharing these stories?
Neil (17:04.91): I mean, I think it's just what you say, really. I was doing some research on top of the conversation, doing some research around this, and just in conversations with people, they were talking about this idea of drifting, which is a really sad reality, but I think it really is, it's so common, right? So it was one girl who lives, one daughter who lives here in Spain, where I live, and her parents, she's American, and they're back in America.
And she was talking about how her core family is now her... her two children and her husband here. that she has really good relationships in touch. Her dad, he doesn't share a lot of emotions, but every once in a while, he'll share this very emotional message with a song that reminds him of his daughter or something. It's very, very sweet, which makes you understand that there's something he's locking up there. Anyway, she just sort of talks to her brothers in Amsterdam. So they're kind of geographically dispersed, I think, which obviously adds to the drift. But even if you are local, I think of your families.
Neil (18:02.92): As you said, know, parents are getting to 60, 70, 80, and they're finding out their new community, their role, they're trying to be involved in the family, but they don't want to crowd your space. You, as a parent in the sandwich generation, which is a phrasing, I don't know if people are familiar with, but when I heard it was like, yep, that's it. Sandwiched between aging parents and young children. You are in the day-to-day churn, the rush, the kids' activities, the lunches, everything.
Aneta (18:22.16): That's it. Yeah.
Neil (18:32.10): And you're coping with your own children and trying to give your parents space, and a role is going to be difficult. It can be very easy. You can be like, hand them over, and be like, hey, mom, can you look after the kids for the afternoon? It's just, it's a new, it's a new, it's new for everybody. It's the first time your mom's going to be 70 and a grandparent of young kids are new. And you're the first time you're dealing with young tweens or teens, maybe.
So everyone's rushing to their new thing. And in that... in the background, what's really happening is there's a bit of drift between that generation. And as you say, if you've if you're not taken the time, in the 20s you're probably looking a bit more selfish, you're looking after yourself really, you're enjoying your independence. In your 30s, you may be settling down, in your 40s, you may be getting into the day-to-day, and you may have children, perhaps. So when is the space? Unless you consciously, intentionally slow down and stop, press pause on things that drift will just continue, I think. I'm pleased that there's something here that I can say, listen, this can really, really reconnect you.
Aneta (19:35.10): Yeah, I love that you're bringing grandchildren in too. It made me think of so many of the blue zones where people live the longest ages and the 100s, most of those cultures, people are multi-generational living. Or very close, right? Maybe in the same village, if not in the same home or same multiple homes on one property, where the grandchildren, sometimes great-grandchildren. right?
They have relationships and connections to multiple generations within the household. And so maybe some of that was happening more organically in the past. And so you would have that. Like, I have strong memories. My family's originally from the former Yugoslavia. And I remember going back and spending summers back home and just having really great connections with my great grandparents and my grandparents and just knowing them, and spending time with them. In many of our cultures now, we don't get that.
Like one, geographic proximity is not there. Technology helps with some of it, but it's not the day-to-day connections. And so what have you noticed with the young generations when they're kind of pulled in and having these conversations with their parents and grandparents?
Neil (20:54.01): Yeah, just before I answer that, one thing that somebody said, was which was so telling. I just thought it really wowed me. was that a young A young granddaughter was saying that she liked walking with grandma. And I said, why? She said, because when I walk with grandma, she walks slower and we can lick all the bugs and birds.
Aneta (21:15.14): I feel that, Neil.
Neil (21:19.00): Yeah, just dragging them along the park, trying to get to the, I don't know, the next activity. But yeah, that just speaks to your point. It's just because we're sandwiched, and it's not really, it's not our fault. We're trying our best, but we're just rushing through because that's the pace of life at the moment. But yeah, that trend of not living with generations is something that I've observed, the kind of...
Neil (21:45.79): opposite of that because the majority of the cultures I'm speaking to are kind of Western UK, US, Canada, Australia, whereas it may be like the Mediterranean cultures or Japanese, other countries where that is more likely to happen. And I think there was another trend that I was going to mention, which was
Anyway, it's gone. What am I seeing between the... Well, one thing I love is that when the grandchildren are really involved. So I always welcome you to say, know, get them to join the interview at the end, or they can send in their questions. And then what I do is at the end of the third session, I play them to the grandparent. And so they get to hear, it's always funny because there was one recently where it went through the ages. There was a 16 or 14-year-old, an eight-year-old, six-year-old. So they get gradually more, well, gradually less intelligible.
But what was your favorite day riding? They have great questions. What was your favorite day riding? What's your favorite memory with mommy, auntie, and uncle? Just really like sharp, good questions. And I think when the grandchild asks it, the grandparent is always willing to answer that. And then in this example, they got to the four-year-old, and she just said, " Granny, why were you so naughty?
And she was like, " Oh, I know what's happening here. She knew that her son had it, had recorded it a hundred times, so she would say the same thing. Anyway.
Aneta (23:03.31): That is so cute. What have you discovered? So now you've listened to so many of these, I can only imagine that it has impacted you. How has recording holding space for people, recording the conversations, and listening to the answers to the questions you've created? Like, what have you learned? Like, how have you changed this result of this?
Neil (23:40.50): Yeah, so much, so much. My fourth family had a very reluctant dad to start with. My first question was, what were your first impressions when you heard about this idea? And he said, not very keen. Didn't really want to do this. I said, " This is going to be a tough one. And then he said, but then somebody told me to get on with it, and so did my wife. So here I am. And fast forward, he said to me at the end, five hours later, he said, " Are you writing a book? Because you should.
And I thought, wow, that's a great turnaround, great case study, thank you. But yeah, it's almost like I need to document all of the wisdom that's coming. All of the wisdom that's coming, this is a point I have, from ordinary, in inverted commas, people. These are extraordinary ordinary people, all of our parents and grandparents, they live these lives, they're full of humor and laughter and adventure and mistakes and wisdom. And so I come away from most of them thinking about how I want to live my life differently.
And I can learn from things that are not said. I can just infer something myself, which I don't bring into the conversation. But I walk away with. Just about whether there are often men who speak a lot about their career and are very detailed in the steps of their career, and the next job they took, and why they did that. But then, when you come to family and personal life, it's sort of much more shallow.
Or even when I ask a question about an emotional or personal thing that their answer then somehow gets back to the career and I'm thinking Gosh, this is such an interesting thing that's happening So it can be some things that I observe and think I don't again It's not I don't bring any of this judgment into the conversations, but I walk away thinking I'm not sure that's how I probably don't want to be so much like that And then you get other ones where you think they're just how you observe how they spend their time.
Neil (25:37.06): how they, How they prioritize things. How other men have changed careers. One, whose third child had a dance, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, and it was just completely out of the blue. They didn't know that it was happening, and he was on a trajectory of a certain sort and just completely changed gears. And in this third hour of a very austere Scottish man, he sort of started crying. And I just thought, wow, just, I think for me, it just, it really pushes
It's a family project for families to connect. And for me, it really makes me think that the people, the most important people in your life, the ones in your family and the friendship groups that really give you love and you give love back to, that's where you should focus your energy. And really, lots of other things are pretty much peripheral and not important.
Aneta (26:26.36): Yeah. My gosh. can't, I would be in a puddle, just waiting. don't know how, because there's, when people are so honest and vulnerable, and they share, I think there's always, of course, it's always going to impact us as well. And I think you're obviously taking a lot of this to heart in terms of your own experience, but what has been the biggest surprise to any of the questions that you've asked yourself? As you created these questions, did you change them? Do they evolve? Were there some that always surprised you with their responses?
Neil (27:04.04): Yeah, it's definitely evolved. I mean, I have one recently which surprised me, but I but I asked but I asked her about her mother, about her relationship with religion, and she didn't, just simply didn't want to answer it. I thought that was quite interesting because for me, I don't know, sort of nothing. I didn't realize that was a very personal topic for some people in any way. It was not to, it was not to, and we'd had a really lovely conversation and.
In fact, all of them have been very open, but that was a surprise to me. I don't really know what that means. And other questions that I've, I mean, the questions that I love are the questions I mentioned before, which are about asking someone to describe their family home when they were eight years old, using their five senses. So I say, stand outside the front door, and I want you to walk me through your house and use your five senses to describe each room.
Neil (28:01.78): And it's such a nice thing that I know their kids won't have asked them or wouldn't have heard about. But you get the most amazing responses when you ask about the senses, particularly. There was one woman, one mother, who said that there were these roses outside the front door. It was like a blue door and the roses outside. And she goes, actually, that's I think that's my first memory, the smell of roses. And I was like, and then another one said, you'd walk into the kitchen. It wasn't a big house.
So in the kitchen, had we had the bathtub and then the chairs, said, sorry, you had the bathtub? What's the bathtub doing in the kitchen? And she goes, well, that's where we had the coal, and we used to put a door on top of the bath to eat. Then they would take the door off, and then they would bathe in the kitchen because it was the warmest room in the house.
Neil (28:45.82): Yeah, and then people talk about the cold because in the 1950s and 60s, heating wasn't pervasive. Just that, you wouldn't think about that as someone born in the 80s or 70s. And I also like asking about, ask what are the ingredients to a good life? "which is a nice way of saying what's important to you. But they have to be specific, pick a specific noun, whether it's friendship, relationships, purpose, or stability. That's always interesting. There are so many, so many questions. Yeah.
Aneta (29:28.14): Wow, are you going to do this for yourself?
Neil (29:34.34): Good question. I've not been asked that before. So I am, yes, for myself. Well, sorry, I was gonna answer one way, which is I'm gonna do it with my mom, which I haven't yet done, which is a bit slow, a bit slow in happening. But the reason for the delay is that I actually don't want to interview her, which I think maybe says a good thing about the proposition, which is that it does help to have someone objective to do this. I think you can do it if you're creative. and you have a...
You can be done, of course. And I also provide a lot of resources and tips on how to get started. Cause I don't want people to do it genuinely. I don't know how it all has to come to me. Um, but there is a, the distancing helps because you can ask with uh, ignorance, objectivity. I think you listen better as an objective, uh, know, interviewer, and also just sort of the change of gear. So, um, said this, but I did actually sit down with my dad, uh, eight years before he passed away, to start doing this.
And we did it in a written way. And so I was living abroad, and we were emailing each other back, and he wrote 10 10 to 12 pages. But my insight and my sort of my enemy is like, don't write a memoir. If your parent says I want to write a memoir, tell them to stop and call me because it's slow, it's hard. Unless they're one in 10,000 people who are a great writer and can write in a way that sounds like them, then I think it's like it's an individual project where they lock themselves away, it'll become painful.
It'll be long, it'll be slow. And at the end of it, they're gonna produce this thing and expect it to get some attention. And you're probably not gonna read it. None of your grandchildren will read it. Whereas if you get them to sit down and talk and tell a story, which everyone can do, it could be done in 12 weeks. And you will just feel, you'll be part of that creation, part of that story. Anyway, that was just a bit of a sidebar. I lost my track.
Aneta (31:17.90): I will. No, and I was just curious, like, yeah, you're going to do it for your mom, but also later, like, do you want to have someone do this for you to record for how old are your kids now?
Neil (31:34.45): Eight and five
Aneta (31:35.69): Okay. Yeah. And what's a good age if people are curious, like, can you do this at any age? you Is it better, of course, if you are older, because you have more memories and more time, but I suppose you could do this at any time, right?
Neil (31:49.56): To be honest, I think it's better. Yeah. So, if I had more resources, I would be doing this with people of middle age. So I think because you do, as you say, you lose your memories, and it essentially happened a couple of months ago when I, my five year old, he rode a bike for the first time, which is obviously a milestone moment. But the story behind it was really interesting because I'll take too quickly. So we, he had a
Aneta (32:07.95): Yeah.
Neil Taylor (32:18.22): one of those bikes called Where There's No Pedals, one of those bikes, balance bikes. He had a balance bike, right? He was very speedy, like a little spider, how they get one of those. So I knew he could do that super well, right, super fast. And we were down, they had the kids swimming, we were in the square, and we lost him; he didn't know where he was. And then over the, in the distance, he'd basically stolen another kid's bike and was a proper bike, a pedal bike, and was just riding it around in like, just circles, eight shapes, really fast. And I was like,
Aneta (32:21.61): Yeah.
Neil Taylor (32:44.41): What's happening here? One, he stole the bike, and two, he can ride a bike. And that's how I've seen him do it. So then he goes, he eventually had the bike back, and then he just says, " Let's go home, let's go home. I want to get my sister's bike. You get my sister's bike. So we immediately go home, and he gets on her bike and just goes back and forth for now, 20 minutes, and having the time of his life. And I thought in this moment, okay, I'm not going to forget it because it's the moment, kind of the moment you don't forget. But I think the story of that moment, all those little bits.
Neil (33:14.55): And the excitement I express when I'm telling that story is something that he, when he's 20, 30, that's what he's going to want to hear. How great would that be to hear that? So, I get hit by a bus tomorrow. And that's how I record that. He's not going to hear that. So I would love to do this. I had actually started like a pilot to reach out to my mailing list, saying, "Does anyone want to start doing this thing where, every quarter or once a year, I just sit down with you, do this interview?” And I got a few hands up, and then I thought, hang on, I'm probably ticked. Taking on too much, and I should probably focus on scaling up what I'm doing. But yes, I think the answer is yes. Yeah, I should.
Aneta (33:52.34): And I think you should, right? I mean, if the idea is there. There, I think that there are so many memories sometimes, of like, there are so many periods of time where we forget. I remember working so hard, and when the kids were small, I would say I felt like they were the survival years. Like you're working to parent, you're working hard at work, you're trying to be all things to all people.
And I do think that it's very difficult to be fully present and mindful. And if you're not fully present, you're not going to create these really vibrant memories. I think that's why so many people remember their childhood home, because they were there, they were younger, right? They didn't have the distractions, maybe all the things. And so you remember some of these things so viscerally. So yes, probably starting with some middle-aged folks, where maybe some of our memories are going to be fading even faster just because of the time periods that we live in.
We'll probably have a lot of people who might be interested in that.
Neil (34:49.65): Yeah, I think I'm going to go right off this, and next week I'll go back to some people. It's funny, I had a daughter, she had one of four siblings, and she said, I said, how's the experience been in the wrap-up when she had her moment, she said, "You know what's funny?” It got my husband and me talking a lot about how we're parenting, hearing dad's story because dad, in this case, was a workaholic, and obviously, they're very fond of him and love him dearly, but he is still working today. He's 80, whatever. He just will never retire. And she said, it just made me reflect on
Neil (35:22.10): on my work-life balance and also the fact that dad's simplicity of his life when he used to play these just very simple games out in the woods or whatever and you how not simple our daughter's life is and know the screens and just how busy it is and she was like I think it's made me think I want to my husband and I we just need to sit down with her and just have an evening a week where we just with her playing board games or very simple things so I think even as to your point of speaking to middle-aged people and getting to doing it now once a year twice a year
Neil (35:50.55): I think the experience of actually just stopping and preparing for the chat with Neil and then hearing it back will be enough of a shift or a jolt to say, hang on, hang on, how am I spending my time right now? Is it where I want to be spending my time? Which I think is like what you must talk about a lot with your audiences and in your coaching is how to realign people to those priorities, find out what they are, align with them, and then allocate your time to what's important.
Aneta (36:20.55): Absolutely.
Neil Taylor (36:20.58): So I think this is another way to do that, perhaps, know, yeah, yeah, thinking about it.
Aneta (36:23.8): Yeah, I think so. It's a, I don't know. think we, For me, in in my own life and seeing with my clients, sometimes, like you said, our twenties, we're just trying to figure things out and get that first job or, find the relationships and, and we're moving pretty quickly and, we have all the youthful energy and, and then most of my clients come to me maybe 40s, 50s, where they had enough sense to pause, either they lost their job, maybe they were sick, maybe something maybe someone they loved, they lost them, something that caused them to pause and to say, wait a second, let me just ask myself some better questions, which are like the questions that you ask. And when we do that, suddenly the clarity is there. It's just that we've been drowning it out. And so,
It is about getting back to a place of alignment, really saying, do I value? What's important? And I think in the case that you talked about, these families, it's never too late, right? If we're still here, we're breathing; it's never too late. Even if you get it right later, that's okay. And even if your kids get to see you make those intentional choices or make a difference there, it's so helpful to be able to say, you can pivot, you can shift, you can come back to simplicity to the things that matter most.
And so I'd love this work that you were doing, and I love that you're highlighting it and you're allowing families to really capture these memories, but also to reconnect in a way that even when you stop hitting record, and you wrap up, and you provide them, hopefully they don't go back to the way life was before.
Neil (38:14.32): Yeah, I use this analogy of a house, and I say that, know, your family, like your family home, know, the doors and the rooms are very familiar to you. But sometimes the most familiar things are the things you get blinded to. You don't see parts of your parents' character, or you don't see. And so what this experience does is it shines a light on all the things that you wanted to hear again and brings them into focus again.
But then it also opens the doors into these different nooks and crannies that you hadn't even thought about opening. And it's not that you'll get them discovered in the experience, but it's up to you now to walk through that door and to have that different kind of conversation or ask that different kind of question. And people have already said, they said during the experience, actually, before enduring, as they're preparing, they said that, I'll go down to my mum and dad's house on the weekend for Sunday lunch. And they got the old arms out, we hadn't seen them in decades, and that changed the conversation already.
And then when mom and dad prepare for the interview, the chat or the WhatsApp group is, I'm speaking to Neil tomorrow. And I can't wait to tell him about this vacation. And so that happens during it, but I think afterwards it opens all these doors, as I say, and it's up to them and the family to walk through whichever ones they want to explore.
Aneta (39:30.28): I imagine it's very healing as well. And it's just nice to be able to see our loved ones in a very human way, and to kind of have some of those conversations that maybe we've put off or maybe we just never had. If folks want to work with you, and I hope that they do, Neil, I hope that as folks are listening and they think, you know what, instead of another trip, for a reunion, maybe this is what we do.
We invest in our family and legacy because this isn't just for those now, but it's also for future generations. I just think this is a beautiful family keepsake, something that can get passed down. So with so many people interested in their lineage and in their heritage, it's amazing to think about having something that is substantial. It's not just a family tree, but it's actually someone's voice for future generations. How can they find you? What's the best way that they can get in touch with you?
Neil (40:28.015): generations. Yeah, the best place to start probably is the website, which is meandmyoldman.co.uk. So as it sounds, meandmyoldman.co.uk. I'm also on Instagram under my name, which is Neil N-E-I-L-P Taylor T-A-Y-L-O-R underscore, good old underscore, Neil P Taylor underscore. And just to say on the website we were talking about, those 10 questions, there's a you can access those on the front of the website. So it's a tool to download and just to get comfortable in thinking about things, which I think is quite a nice way to start.
Aneta (41:05.87): Love it will include all the links in the show notes. I just hope that maybe this turns into a documentary or some sort of, just envision if people give you access to it, right, which of course is asking a lot to share some of these, but just for others to be able to see and to learn and to grow through others’ experience, I think, is so beautiful. But I will include the links, and I want to ask you a final question, which is, what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
Neil (41:37.847): What it means to me is allocating my time to the things that are most important to me. And I think I would say it's the width of my life, but also the depth of my life. That's where I'd like to go.
Aneta (41:53.945): So beautiful. Neil, I just wish you continued success, and thank you for being such a bright, shining light in this world for doing what you do and for taking your own personal experience and then deciding to be a guide for others so that they can hear their loved ones' voices and hold onto those memories.
Neil (42:15.223): Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation.