Squiggly Careers

This week's Squiggly Careers episode was recorded Live at the Sunday Times Life Lessons festival where Helen and Sarah were joined by Tom Chapman, Pip Murray and Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton to talk about work and wellbeing. With Tom, Helen and Sarah explore the need to create safe spaces for people to talk about mental health and the the venture he started (Lions Barber Collective). With Pip Murray, founder of Pip & Nut, they talk about the challenge of prioritising your wellbeing when you are starting and scaling a business. Finally, with Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, they talk about overcoming adversity, development resilience and dealing with discrimination. For more information on this week's guests, see links below: - Tom Chapman (https://www.thelionsbarbercollective.com/) - Pip Murray (www.pipandnut.com) - Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton (https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/1082529/dr-sabrina-cohen-hatton.html) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For a special bonus edition of the show Sarah takes to the streets to talk to David Pearl, founder of Street Wisdom and author of 'Wanderful'. They discuss using walking for ideas, embracing the unexpected and the real meaning of the word career.For more resources, visit www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's not enough to just know what you're great at. In order to do your best work you need to spend time making sure your strengths show up and stand out at work. When your strengths are visible to others, they can help to spot opportunities for you to use them more, which means you make a bigger impact and are happier in your work.In this week's episode of the Squiggly Careers podcast, hosts Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis share their top tips for taking control of your strengths and making sure you use them as much as possible in your work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Boundaries have never been harder to manage at work. Technology, pace and the volume of work we're all dealing with are causing us to blur our work and home life, our relationships and our identity.Maintaining boundaries are key to our health and success over the long-term, and this week's podcast is designed to support you in putting boundaries in place that work for you. Sarah and Helen share examples of their boundaries and their top tips to help you with yours.For more resources, head to www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's Squiggly Careers podcast Helen and Sarah discuss the value of hard vs soft skills and being a specialist vs. a generalist in your career. They talk about the benefits and limitations of both and their views of where to focus your efforts in your career development. For more information on this episode, head to amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Helen and Sarah take Squiggly Careers Live. Listen as they are joined in London by founder of social enterprise Year Here, Jack Graham, entrepreneur Shaa Wasmund and founder of MOBOs, Kanya King.Hear stories of tenacity, resilience and amazing career support networks that have helped guests on this episode succeed in their squiggly careers. The episode concludes with a career manifesto from the inspirational and award-winning Bejay Mulenga. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's Squiggly Careers podcast, Helen and Sarah talk to two inspirational women about their fascinating and very squiggly career journeys.Sarah talks to award-winning social entrepreneur Dr Caroline Casey, who took a life changing decision at 28 to leave her successful career as a management consultant and travel across India on an elephant. Since then, Caroline's career has been committed to building a global movement on inclusive business. Helen then talks to Polly McMaster, founder and CEO of empowering women's clothing brand The Fold. Polly's squiggly career includes a PhD in molecular biology, an MBA, healthcare consulting and private equity in the healthcare industry. Hear about they have kept learning, stayed resilient and navigated the ups and downs of their squiggly career. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Helen and Sarah are back with week 2 of their special series of squiggly career stories.This week they are talking to journalist, writer and comedian Viv Groskop, compulsive connector Roland Harwood and Roma Agrawal, a structural engineer who designed The Shard. Hear about how to make role transitions, build strong networks, manage career lows and celebrate the highs.For more on this episode, head to www.amazingif.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To celebrate the launch of Helen and Sarah’s book The Squiggly Career, January’s Squiggly Careers podcast will feature lots of special guests sharing their own unique and inspiring squiggly career stories.This week, Sarah and Helen interview author and podcaster Emma Gannon to discuss how she has curated her career and inspired others to do the same. They are also joined by Levi Roots, who talks through the ups, downs, twists and turns of a career that spans music, entrepreneurship and media.For more information on this episode, head to www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Helen and Sarah are back for part 2 of their ‘20 Questions for 2020 episode’ where they help you to set yourself up for success in the year ahead. This week their topics include gratitude, habits and grit. Listen to their answers and reflect on your own. The full list of 20 questions can be found at www.amazingif.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Helen and Sarah talk about 10 questions to help you reflect on 2019 and be your best in 2020. They share their own answers and insights on topics including strengths, networks and personal brand. The full list of 20 questions can be found at www.amazingif.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Squiggly Careers are great, but they are not always easy and they are definitely not straight-forward. Things go wrong just as much as they go right and in a world where we often focus on the shiny, filtered view that people may share, we can forget all the challenges that were faced along the way.In this week's episode of the Squiggly Careers podcast, hosts Helen and Sarah talk about failure, challenges and difficulties and how to respond with growth mindset and resilience.For links mentioned in this week's episode, head to www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Storytelling is a skill which can help you to connect with others and to share your ideas in a compelling way.It's a valuable skill to develop for your career and in this week's podcast, Helen and Sarah share their top tips for developing your storytelling abilities at work and the stories to focus on first.For links mentioned in this week's episode, head to www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How better to end another year of Squiggly Careers podcasts than by bringing some extraordinary people into the Squiggly Careers studio to celebrate!This week, Helen and Sarah talk to 4 people who between them are helping people unleash their extraordinary, creating a world of work without bias and helping women around the world see and use their power. Listen to Tom and James (founders of Tempest Two and Dose), Lauren Currie (Managing Director of NOBL and founder of Upfront) and Lizzie Pennie (Co-founder of Hoxby) share honest reflections about their energy gains and drains of 2019, what they have learnt along the way and where they will focus their amazing talents in 2020.Head to www.amazingif.com to for links and resources mentioned in this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many of us struggle to ask for the help we need to succeed at work.Often we fear what asking for help might say about us and our competence or assume that we can fix everything ourselves! In squiggly careers this will hold us back, preventing us from tapping into the energy and expertise around us and using our own talents on what we do best not just what needs to be done.In this week's episode, Helen and Sarah talk about the realities of asking for help at work and share their top tips for finding authentic ways to get the help you need.If you'd like to come along to the Squiggly Careers Live on January 20th, get your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/squiggly-careers-book-launch-live-podcast-tickets-83247039135 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know that 8/10 of us would be more engaged in our work if we were having regular careers conversations but only 16% of us actually are?There is a lot that we can do as individuals to have effective career conversations and in this week's podcast, Sarah and Helen share 6 different ideas that you can put into action. You can find a summary of the key points and thinks to resources over at amazing if.com.To join our new Squiggly Career Community on Facebook head to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/504139060131940/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Sarah interviews Jennifer Petriglieri, an Associate Professor at INSEAD and author of 'Couples that Work – how dual-career couples can thrive in love and work.' Jennifer has spent five years researching ‘dual career couples’ from over thirty countries from executives to entrepreneurs, from couples at the beginning of their careers to dual career grandparents.They discuss what ‘dual career couples are’ and explore the three significant transitions couples experience. Together they delve into the key question for couples to ask at each transition: 1) ‘How can we make this work? 2) What do we really want? 3) Who are we now? Jennifer shares practical ideas and actions that couples can take to navigate each transition successfully as well as what traps to look out for along the way. Finally, Sarah discusses the idea of couple contracting with Jennifer; who explains why we all need to talk to our partners about our values boundaries and fears regardless of what life-stage we are at. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Self-esteem has been linked to higher levels of happiness, satisfaction and quality of relationships.The day to day challenges of demanding work, tricky stakeholders and social-media led comparison can significantly impact our belief in our worth and value. In this week's Squiggly Careers podcast, hosts Helen and Sarah talk about how to measure and grow your self-confidence, sharing tools and tops to build belief in yourself.For links and resources, head over to amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Squiggly Careers are full of choice and opportunity which can sometimes mean we are faced with more decisions than we can handle.In absence of a clear and confident reason to say ‘no’, we can find ourselves drowning in the things we say yes to by default. In this week’s podcast, Helen and Sarah talk about how to say ‘no’, sharing their experiences of getting it right (and getting it wrong).They talk through their top tips for how to say no in a way that feels right for you and share other resources they think will help.Head to amazingif.com for links. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Sarah interviews Viv Groskop, author of How to Own the Room (and host of the brilliant podcast with the same name). Together they discuss three ways in which you can improve your presence, performance and authenticity and generally ‘be more’.First up Viv shares why her unofficial and unpaid job is to be Michelle Obamas biggest fan, and shares how we can all be more Michelle. A big part of this is achieving what Viv calls ‘happy high status’ and she shares the actions we need to take to make that happen in our work.Then Sarah and Viv discuss storytelling and how to be more JK Rowling. And last and most importantly how you can be more you. Why nerves are not going to go away (and why that’s ok) and why it's useful to remember that its not all about you!Viv combines humour with piercing insights (no surprise that she’s both a stand up comedian and a journalist) in a way that will leave you feeling confident about how you can Own the Room. For further resources visit amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our squiggly careers are full of change and uncertainty. At times, that can take the form of organisational restructures and even job redundancies. These challenging times can make us question what we're great at and what we should do next.In this week's podcast, Sarah and Helen share their experiences and their top advice is this is something you find yourself experiencing.For links to further resources, head to www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Squiggly Careers podcast, Helen talks to Marie Forleo about her new book 'Everything is Figureoutable' and what insights we can apply to our future careers.Their conversation covers how to build great networks, the importance of creating a vision and how you build your resilience.For resources and links, head over to www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this weeks episode Sarah interviews Scott Morrison one of the authors of Creative Superpowers and founder of bringer of the BOOM!Scott shares with Sarah why we all need to learn to teach ourselves by unlearning and relearning and how this connects to a growth mindset. Together they discuss how learning by doing and learning from unexpected places helps us to solve problems in new ways and what practical actions you can take to bring creativity to whatever job you're doing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All of the data points to meetings being an increasingly ineffective way of us getting work done. In this week’s podcast, Helen and Sarah explore what’s going wrong with meetings, sharing their own experiences of the good and not so good and thoughts on common wisdom to make them better. They conclude with tips and approaches that work for them and might also be useful for you too. For links to additional resources, head over to www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In celebration of 100 episodes of the Squiggly Careers podcast, hosts Helen and Sarah bring together 4 people that are making work better for everyone with a live studio audience.In this episode you'll hear from Simon Biltcliffe about how marxist-capitalism creates a new operating model for work, Pip Jamieson and Dan Murray-Serter about the entrepreneurs reality of launching and running The Dots and Heights and John Vincent, co-founder of Leon about what we can learn from Wing Tsun and why winning at work, doesn't mean fighting.For more information, head over to www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Sarah interviews special guest Dame Stephanie Shirley; tech pioneer, entrepreneur and philanthropist. In this episode we talk about what it was like to start a tech business as a woman in 1962 with a £6 initial investment (she went on to make £150m, at least £65m of which she has given away).We talk about her book Let It Go and her secrets to success including having faith in others, relentless enthusiasm and building a values led, progressive organisation.If you'd like to read more Sarah has written an article for Management Today profiling Dame Stephanie which you can find, along with our other career resources, on www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you ever struggle to speak up or feel frustrated in your ability to share your views and opinions at work? If so, don't worry, in this week's Squiggly Career podcast Helen and Sarah share their top 5 tips for preparing for and engaging in a courageous conversation. Listen to their stories and insights to increase your confidence and inspire action. For additional resources, head over to www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Sarah is joined by special guest and co-author of the book, No Hard Feelings, Mollie West Duffy. Mollie shares her insights and ideas about the new rules of emotions at work including: be less passionate about your job, inspire yourself and why your feelings aren't facts. Together they discuss how you can use your emotions at work positively and the benefits it will bring for both you and your colleagues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Helen talks to Rachael Glynne from LinkedIn to help you make the most of the platform. Whether you are an active user or you’ve let your profile gather dust, this week’s podcast will help you to standout on LinkedIn and build your brand and network. Head to www.amazingif.com to access links to any resources mentioned. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emails. Projects. Meetings. The long list of things you want to do and things you think you should do! Our work can sometimes feel overwhelming and difficult to manage. In this week’s Squiggly Careers podcast, Helen and Sarah talk about how to cut through the noise and prioritise your work. They cover tools, tips and tricks that you can put in place to give you more control over and confidence in where you are spending your time so it can make the biggest difference to you in your squiggly career. Head to amazingif.com for resources to accompany this week’s episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you haven't heard of Heather McGregor, you need to listen to this week's Squiggly Careers podcast! Heather is one of the most squiggly and brilliant people we have met and have long been inspired by her journey. Her book 'Careers Advice for Ambitious Women' sparked the thinking for our business Amazing If and we have been inspired by her career journey ever since. Listen to this week's podcast to hear about how to manage your career, where to invest your time and efforts and why being in control of your finances pays career dividends. Links to resources mentioned are over at www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Squiggly Careers allow people to try many different modes of work and one that comes up a lot for our community is freelancing. If you’re curious about what work is like as a freelancer and how you go about making the leap from corporate life to freelance, this week’s episode is a must listen. We’ve invited Matthew Knight, founder of the Leapers Community, and Chloé Jepps, Head of Research at IPSE into the Squiggly Careers studio to explore the highs, lows, ins and outs of a career as a freelancer. Links to resources mentioned are over at www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Negotiation can feel like one of those skills we know we could be better at, but we're not sure how to go about improving. It's in the moments when we know negotiating would really help us (think salary negotiations and job crafting) that we often realise we've got work to do in order to successfully and confidently ask for what we want. In this week's Squiggly Careers podcast, Sarah (a great negotiator) and Helen (a work in progress), share their experiences and top tips for approaching key conversations at work confidentially and negotiating your way through to the outcomes you want. For resources and links, head to www.amazingif.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Managing for the first time can feel like a daunting experience that triggers all kinds of Confidence Gremlins. What if I get found out? How do I help people when I don't know how to help myself? How do I feel in control without micromanaging? In this week's Squiggly Careers podcast, Helen and Sarah share the moments they started managing and their top insights and actions to help you be the kind of manager that makes a positive and lasting impact on the people that work for you. All resources mentioned are linked over at www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Loneliness is a growing issue in the workplace and one that we can all take action on to support people. In this week's podcast, Helen interviews Tracey Crouch, the UK's first Minister for Loneliness about the Loneliness Strategy and the work being done to support individuals and organisations to create more belonging at work. For resources and links mentioned on the podcast, head to amazingif.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our careers are longer than ever and more and more people are looking not only to do a great job, but also to make a difference. In this week's Squiggly Careers podcast, Sarah and Helen talk about how to increase your social impact at work. They share their experiences of building businesses with a social purpose and working in large organisations with a social agenda. They also share organisations you can learn from and top tips you can action to build social impact into your career. All references and links can be found over at amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How aware and affected are you of microaggressions at work? Perhaps it’s something you’ve not heard of before or maybe you think you may have unintentionally done something that could be categorised as a microaggression. This week, Helen and Sarah deep dive into the topic, exploring definitions, examples and actions you can take to respond to it and create workplaces that make work better for everyone. You can find any resources mentioned on the podcast over at www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Success is often defined by what we see others doing and achieving or external signals like salary and status. This search for external success can leave people feeling demotivated and frustrated. The reality is that we all have individual definitions of success and unless we take time to understand what this looks like, we can get distracted by the expectations of others. This week’s podcast is about different approaches to explore what success looks like for you and how to align your actions to achieve it. As ever, Helen and Sarah share practical tools and techniques that you can use for your own career development and resources to keep learning after you listen. Find all resources over at www.amazingif.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's Squiggly Careers podcast episode features neuroscience expert Amy Brann, sharing her wisdom about how we can use our knowledge of the brain to stay engaged at work. Whether you listen for yourself or to get insight into how to make changes the workplace to benefit others, this week's podcast is an actionable and practical take on an increasingly important area of research for work and careers. Find links and additional resources over at www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Politics at work is something everyone experiences and no one we've spoken to yet actually enjoys! It seems like a 'fact of work' that politics is just part of the deal, but if often causes unhappiness, uncertainty and leads to environments where people can't be their best. This week, we've braved the topic and looked into the research to find out what causes politics, whether it's possible to avoid it and how to manage it positively if it feels like your working reality. As ever, we've got lots of resources for you over at amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coaching is a fantastic tool for your career and personal development, however it’s often expensive and out of reach for many people who would benefit from it. One solution, is to take some of the tools professional coaches would use and apply them to yourself. That’s exactly what this week’s podcast is all about. Sarah and Helen talk through how they self coach and share 4 different tools and strategies so you can get started yourself. The more we can all take control of our development, the better! Lots of resources to accompany this episode over at www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Squiggly Careers might be full of opportunity, but they are also full of challenge! Challenge can feel hard and at times it can affect our confidence. Proactively building your confidence support system can help you to build resilient in a squiggly career. In the week’s episode Sarah and Helen walk you through practical steps to build your confidence support system so that you can be at your best, regardless of the situation. Head to www.amazingif.com for resources. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode Sarah interviews special guest Michelle Morgan. Michelle is a social entrepreneur, with a number of awards to her name including EY entrepreneur of the year. Michelle developed the idea for her latest business Pjoys after experiencing first hand what it's like to mentally burn out and sink into anxiety and depression. In this thoughtful and reflective episode you'll hear more about Michelle's story, why mental health at work matters and what we can all do about it. Sarah shares her experience of being trained (by Michelle) to become a Mental Health First Aider and as always we include ideas, hints and tips for how and where you can learn more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all know the old rules about your impact being 7% what you say and the rest how you say it. This week, Sarah and Helen take on the importance of language at work, focusing on what you say and how you say it. As well as challenging the commonly held views about the 7% number, they share top tips for making your words and your body language work for you. For all resources, head over to amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it really mean to be happy at work and are we setting ourselves up to fail if we expect to be happy every day? We spend 90,000 hours of our life at work, so they feel like relevant questions to discuss. This week, Sarah and Helen review the lastest insights about 'happy work' and share 5 small actions we can all take that can make a big difference to our enjoyment at work. You can find a transcript of the episode and all links over at www.amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Does conflict at work fill you with dread? For many people, conflict is something to avoid at all costs and results in them stepping back and disengaging in conversation. This week, Sarah and Helen talk about tips and tactics that can help to reframe and react differently to work situations where conflict is present. All the resources mentioned and a transcript of the episode can be found at www.amazingif.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Sarah talks to special guest Christine Armstrong author of The Mother of All Jobs. Christine shares how work has changed whilst the needs of children and the world of school and childcare has not changed at all. Christine shares what she has learnt from interviewing hundreds of professional parents who have opened up about everything from the good to the truly awful experiences of parenting. Together Sarah and Christine discuss why combining careers and motherhood can be such a challenge and what everyone can learn from the people who make it work (most of the time!) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know that we are sleeping 1-2 hours less than we did 60 years ago, that over 2/3s of us work outside of our contracted working hours and that on average people lose 6 days of their annual holiday because they don't take them? All of this contributes to feeling overworked and always on. This week's Squiggly Careers podcast looks at home we can press pause and put practical actions in place that enable us to switch-off and slow down. For all resources mentioned, headover to amazingif.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Helen and Sarah tackle the subject of inspiration. Where it comes from, why it's so important for our work and how we can cultivate it. They share their own experiences of getting and staying inspired and dig into the research to learn from the experts! Listen to hear their top 5 ideas to increase your inspiration. For all links and resources, head over to amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Empathy is a skill which underpins relationships. Often, it happens intuitively, but there is much that can be done to cultivate more empathic workplaces and this week's Squiggly Careers podcasts looks at the actions we can all take to achieve that. Helen and Sarah explore 3 different types of empathy at work and talk through 5 ways in which we can build more empathy into our work. For show notes and resources, head to amazingif.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.