154: Mike Guest/Dawn Days

Mike Guest, April 2021. Photo: Owen Tozer

I’m a big believer in the right idea at the right time. And Dawn Days, the ritual begun by friends Mike Guest and Nick Pumphrey at the beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020, is a great example of this principle in action.

Like all good ideas, this simple concept soon took off; in this case becoming an online movement as more and more people from around the world began to document their own early morning experiences. ⁣⁣

Photo: Tozer

⁣⁣Soon – perhaps because of the timing of the whole thing – Dawn Days transcended these humble origins and became a means through which to explore a range of other issues, including mental health, our connection to nature, and even the nature of community during the Covid and post-Covid era. ⁣⁣

⁣⁣It’s been great watching this idea unfold and see how Mike and Nick have nurtured it, so I decided to ask Mike, who I know through the village-like UK action sports community, to come on the show to discuss the whole thing. ⁣⁣

Photo: Tozer

⁣⁣I loved this conversation. Mike is a warm, generous and insightful conversationalist and, like Dawn Days itself, our conversation evolved in some unexpected directions, particularly as we examined Mike’s relationship to his dyslexia, and the way this diagnosis has shaped his life. Hope you take as much from it as Mike and I did. ⁣⁣

⁣Watch the full exchange below: