91: How I travel the world looking after pets and retrained to be a Social Media Manager later in life with Angela Laws
In this podcast episode, I spoke with Angela Laws, Social Media Manager for Trusted Housesitters Ltd., a company based in Brighton but connected to pet lovers all around the world. Angela has been with Trusted Housesitters since it started 8 years ago with just three people. Now they’re employing 58 and Angela assures me that hers is the best job in the world. As Social Media Manager, a key part of her job is managing Trusted’s community of pet lovers, which she describes as a special…
88: Career Advice from Graduates 10 years out of University With Paul Murphy
My guest in this episode is Paul Murphy, author of 1000 Years of Career Advice, based on interviews with 100 graduates about their work experiences in the 10 years following university. Paul has over 10 years of experience working in various finance roles for multinational firms. He qualified as an accountant (ACA) while working with a big 4 professional services firm in their advisory department. He is also a qualified project manager (Prince 2), programme manager (Managing Special…
84: Find out if you've got what it takes for a career in coding - with Chris Hill of Northcoders
My guest in this month’s podcast is Chris Hill, co-founder of Northcoders, the North’s original coding school. Chris and I talked about the burgeoning opportunities in the digital economy and how a good grounding in coding can be the key to accessing them. If you’ve ever wondered whether the tech world might hold some promise for you, listen to my interview with Chris. Ambitions Chris’s goal is to see a Northcoders presence in every major city in the North of England. Given the…
83: Turning a passion into a successful career, with Matt Porter of Sportive HQ
My guest this month is entrepreneur Matt Porter, founder of Sportive HQ. Matt talks about his route to career success, which in many ways sounds as gruelling as the cycle racing he organises! I was inspired by his optimism, flexibility and pure grit and I think you will be too. Sportive HQ specialises in creating and directing sportives (that’s a non-competitive, long-distance cycling event for those unfamiliar) for cyclists of all abilities. Cycling has been a serious interest for Matt…
66: Testing 25 jobs before she's 25 - The Radical Sabbatical with Emma Rosen
How do you find out what you want to be when you grow up? Emma Rosen's parents asked her every year at New Year in a kind of social experiment. The recordings of those conversations became a useful source of inspiration when she found, after rotating on the graduate scheme on the Civil Service Fast Steam Scheme, she was craving variety with more of an emphasis on creativity and innovation. But where to start? "It just didn't feel right" "The issues were important but I wasn't happy and…
64: The things mentally strong people don't do when job seeking - with bestselling author Amy Morin
Amy Morin is the a bestselling Author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do and in our interview we discuss how relevant her book is to people job searching or changing careers. A trained psychotherapist, Amy originally wrote an article on "the 13 things mentally strong people don't do" as a letter to herself. She had been through a series of losses. At 23 years old her mother died suddenly, and then 3 years later she lost her husband. In the process of dealing with her loss…
Money: fixing the biggest obstacle to making a career change
The biggest obstacle to making a career change The other day a piece of research from the Nationwide Building Society floated across my screen. What’s the single biggest barrier to doing the things we want to do? Money. Okay, maybe that’s not a massive revelation. If we all had more money we’d have nicer stuff, go on more exotic holidays, all that kind of thing. But I don’t think it’s strictly true that money itself is the problem. It’s not always money that stops us from pursuing our dreams,…
MDE 52: What I've learnt from interviewing inspirational entrepreneurs, with author Gerry Thompson
Gerry Thompson has sold half a million copies of his 17 books and is the co-author with David Mellor of the new book 'Inspirational Gamechangers: How the best Business Talent Create Astonishingly Successful Companies'. He has interviewed entrepreneurs like Jamie Oliver, Sir Richard Branson, Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice-cream and Arianna Huffington, amongst many others. He works with technology companies, banks, accountants and a host of other corporates to use comedy in their…
MDE 50: Putting great causes on the map, Clair Challenor-Chadwick of Cause UK
Clair Challenor-Chadwick started her career in the City of London. After seven years of “doing her time” she was ready to make a change, and moved north to beautiful Yorkshire (we're biased!) to be closer to family and to seek the elusive “work / life balance”. In 2010, at the nadir of the UK economy following the 2008 financial crisis, she set up Cause UK to provide professional PR and marketing services to charities, social enterprises and public sector bodies. Even though these…
MDE 44: Bringing prosperity to the bottom of the economic pyramid, Jason Dudek of Mountain Lion Agriculture
Realising that charities were not really addressing the root of poverty led Jason Dudek to co-found Mountain Lion Agriculture with his local business partner based in Sierra Leone. Based on the premise that economic development is the key to increasing prosperity, Jason set up Mountain Lion to improve food security for small farmers and communities. By focussing on food Jason believes their business is able to benefit more people at the bottom of the pyramid. Now the largest producer…