This will be the last A Brilliant Gamble podcast for a while. As you may know I run another business specialising in leadership coaching and I speak about the future of leadership. Recently my Mum became ill and this, combined with running my other business, being a single mum, home educating and keeping on top of our smallholding has meant I’m spread a little too thin. The archive of past shows will still be here for you and I’m leaving the A Brilliant Gamble Facebook Page and Corporate Escapee...
Sep 24, 2019•40 min•Ep. 140
Do you get that little voice in your head that tells you you aren’t good enough, no one likes you, you don’t fit in….or any number of other delightfully undermining jabs? My guest today, Leah Steele, is the expert in Imposter Syndrome. A sufferer herself through her years as a lawyer she eventually developed techniques to deal with her demons and is now helping others to do the same. In our interview we talk about the signals she missed that she was suffering overwhelm and burnout, and how now s...
Sep 17, 2019•48 min•Ep. 139
In just under a month, the next wave of Extinction Rebellion protests begin around the UK and elsewhere (w/c 7-Oct). Whether you’ve already been involved or you have other ways of responding to the climate crisis, the question many of us ask is, how can we, as individuals and as owners of small businesses, have any real impact? That’s why I wanted to speak to today’s guest. Zoe Cohen is a former NHS Trust board member who became a very successful executive coach. Zoe has now pivoted her life to ...
Sep 10, 2019•59 min•Ep. 138
It’s September and many of us are thinking “Why does the holiday have to end?”. Well, maybe it doesn’t. On today’s show I speak to Phil Quinnan who stepped off the hamster wheel, not to start a business, but to take some time to reflect and reconnect with himself and his family in the Italian countryside. In our interview we talk about how he came to this decision, how he made it possible and the lesson’s he learnt by taking a year out. Phil has really embraced his local community in Italy, beco...
Sep 03, 2019•46 min•Ep. 137
Catherine is a best selling author , VA and VA trainer. Virtual Assistance is one of the fastest growing professions today for people leaving the 9-5. VAs are administrators who work by the hour for small businesses. Increasingly they have specialisms - social media management, bookkeeping, design, copywriting - as well organising travel, appointments and taking calls for people like, um, me. It was a life threatening illness that first got Catherine thinking about how she could earn money outsi...
Aug 27, 2019•49 min•Ep. 136
How should you spend your day when you work for yourself? Of course, there is no such thing as a typical day when you run your own business (which can be a problem for you if you’re used to structure!). But given that your time is largely yours to organise it’s useful to be intentional about what you prioritise. In today’s show I talk about two concepts to help you organise your time around what’s really important. I will divide activities in to three categories - big rocks, small rocks and sand...
Aug 20, 2019•30 min•Ep. 135
On today’s show I’m talking about failure… but in a good way! Folks - failure is normal. Most of what happens when you take a Brilliant Gamble is failure. It’s just a part of the process of change. And I want to share with you a different way to think about failure and how to incorporate failure in to your business. Maybe you don’t like the word failure and you’d rather I called it something else. But I want to take the charge out of the word so that it doesn’t have the power it might have in yo...
Aug 13, 2019•22 min•Ep. 134
Are you putting off building your website? Is it half done? Have you done it but you’re not happy with it? Today’s show is here at the rescue! I’m talking to Matthew Eldridge, Owner and Head Geek at Melt Creative Ltd and this episode is Websites 101! I don’t want you to have any excuses to stall on your website, so in this interview we go back to basics. We talk about: What a website is actually for? Email lists Lead magnets Keywords, phrases, meta data and a lot more techy language Blogs And mu...
Aug 06, 2019•56 min•Ep. 133
Creativity is hugely important to developing that sense of balance that so many of us are looking for. And women are particularly bad at this - men spend an average of 4 hours 29 mins a week on sports, hobbies and computer games versus women who spend about 2 hours 29 minutes. What?? And that’s why I wanted to talk to Sandra and Tara from Kick in the Creatives. They have podcast of the same name, a website and a 1000 member Facebook group aimed at helping people incorporate creative challenges i...
Jul 30, 2019•52 min•Ep. 132
What happens when your blog goes viral? And what about when your blog is something as personal as your experiences of the menopause? Jennifer Kennedy knows! Her blog is only 18 months old but she has to date, nearly 35,000 readers... and she balances that with a full time job as well. Like so many of our guests Jennifer didn’t have a grand plan - she just got started, with the help of a friend’s 14 year old who set it up her blog for her. In this interview we talk about Blogging and writing in g...
Jul 23, 2019•49 min•Ep. 131
We often think that we’re working up to a big change, that the hard part is making that change happen. So we spend years planning how we’re going to leave our job with the hope that, once it finally happens, we’ll be living the life of our dreams. But the more I talk to you guys and reflect on the brilliant gambles I’ve taken, the more I realise that that’s only the start of the journey. What happens in the first 6-24 months of that new life is actually the biggest challenge because we’ve made t...
Jul 16, 2019•50 min•Ep. 130
You might has seen I did a Facebook Live over on our A Brilliant Gamble Facebook Page, which I then shared in the Corporate Escapees Facebook Group (!) about an experience I had a couple of weeks ago when I had some quite negative feedback to an email I sent. However, the feedback really woke me up. And while it was uncomfortable I also realised that I had stopped doing the things that make me feel connected with myself through the day. When life gets busy or you become worried about something o...
Jul 09, 2019•22 min•Ep. 129
On this week’s show I’m talking to Rebekah Bostan who responded to my survey on midlife expectations and experiences of work . Brought up during apartheid in South Africa, making a difference is in her genes. Her mother ran an illegal mixed race school, bringing children from Soweto to learn at a school with white kids and Rebekah learnt that it’s always possible to do something to change things. Today she combines her corporate career with raising the profile of flexible working, diversity, inc...
Jul 02, 2019•44 min•Ep. 128
I had a great discussion over elderflower cordial the other day with fellow business ladies about our relationship with money and, specifically, whether you should ever work for free. Most people who run their own business today create a lot of free content, they blog, they create free downloads, they write for other publications, they do TV and radio spots, they have a podcast! None of this ever makes us money but it takes a huge amount of time and we bring a lot of our expertise to it. So what...
Jun 25, 2019•34 min•Ep. 127
There are two things everyone wants to talk to me about - my trip last year with my daughter and dogs and whether they could do it too AND how to start their own podcast. This week I’m talking to podcaster and digital nomad, Debbie Arcangeles about both of these! Debbie makes money from podcasting even though she doesn't have a huge audience and she’s found a business model that allows her to live wherever she likes for as long as she likes. In this interview we talk about: How she gets paid to ...
Jun 18, 2019•56 min•Ep. 126
The whole power dynamic changes when you step out of corporate life and in to entrepreneurship. No matter how much influence you had before you left or how much of a wallflower you were, once you’re on the outside you need to be heard and seen. In this episode I talk to Eleanor Beaton, an award winning Leadership expert for women entrepreneurs. A former journalist at CBC and the Globe and Mail in Canada, she helps women create globally recognised, profitable businesses. Our conversation is mainl...
Jun 11, 2019•56 min•Ep. 125
On today’s show it’s all about getting the money in. There are lots of things to keep yourself busy when you run a business and many of them are important. But unless you set aside time to do the activities that get the money in you’re going to find yourself back in a 9-5 job. I learnt these lessons the hard way, by nearly going out of business because I was spending my time doing what I enjoyed most and not making sales, closing and keeping prospective clients moving through the funnel. You can...
Jun 04, 2019•24 min•Ep. 124
This week's guest is Miisa Mink, Founder and Chief Doer at DrivenWoman – an accountability club for women who want to achieve their goals and dreams - and the creator of Festival Of Doers. Miisa has worked with hundreds of women who want to change their lives and in our conversation, she not only tells her own story of finding her joy, but shares the number one trait that stops other women from doing the same. Miisa has an amazing "get up and go" attitude that's infectious. In our conversation w...
May 28, 2019•47 min•Ep. 123
On this week’s show I’m sharing 10 good reasons to leave your corporate job. Maybe leaving corporate life isn’t your only option – you could stay within corporate life but change company, change working hours, changing to working remotely, change career but stay within big business... How do you know if escaping the rat race for good is the right option right now? I’ve identified 10 really good reasons to quit the rat race. How many of them apply to you? You want to run a business. You can't see...
May 21, 2019•33 min•Ep. 122
If you’ve got itchy feet there are lots of ways to transition out of your current job in to something you’d love a lot more. But I’m not sure whether the best way to do it is to take a bet! Today’s guest, Marc Hogan, took a £1 bet that he couldn’t put on a one hour show at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival within 12 months. This was 10 years ago and on today’s show Marc explains how this changed everything for him. The bet was placed by my former business partner, Jim Lawless, who had taken a simila...
May 14, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 121
Not everyone who leaves their corporate job to start their own business does it entirely out of choice. A significant number of people feel self employment is their only option because the conventional workplace doesn’t work for them. Today’s guest, Ursula Tavender, couldn’t find a job that that suited how she wanted to live her life as a parent—certainly not without making sacrifices she didn't want to make! So she set up her own business, helping change that story for other women. Now advising...
May 07, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 120
People leave their corporate jobs for all sorts of reasons. And sometimes the choice is either to go for the ultimate top job of CEO in a large corporation or get off the hamster wheel altogether. Talita Ferreira was Chief Finance Officer and Chief HR Officer of BMW UK and BMW Financial Services until about 2 years ago. The next step, if she had decided to stay on her career trajectory, would have been CEO. But instead she decided to go it alone. In our interview we talk about the first third of...
Apr 30, 2019•58 min•Ep. 119
Your career path isn’t always a straight line. And the job that you do now or are thinking of doing next might not have even existed when you were having your meeting with your career’s adviser all those years ago! This is one of the reasons we get itchy feet. We see an alternative way of combining our experiences that would enable us to do something for a living that was just not possible a decade or two ago but we’re stuck in the more conventional path that was the norm when we were first plan...
Apr 16, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 118
Nicki is a former Army Officer who spent 17 years developing people in conflict zones around the world and now runs courses to help people develop their resilience. There are so many ups and downs in life and it can sometimes feel like you don’t have the strength to carry on, or even get started. But within us all is a resilience we don’t normally acknowledge and, if you can tap in to it, you can overcome those slings and arrows that life chucks in your direction (especially when you are trying ...
Apr 09, 2019•56 min•Ep. 117
It’s all very well knowing you don’t want to carry on working and living the way you do right now. But it’s not always clear what you should do instead. If you’re unsure what to do when you escape the rat race one place to start is to think, not about what you want to DO, but what business model would work best for you. Would a franchise, freelancing, interim work or a portfolio be the right solution for you? Do you want to sell to the public or to companies? Do you see yourself in retail or con...
Apr 02, 2019•32 min•Ep. 116
Money - It’s the big challenge for anyone who wants to create a better, more balanced life and do something for a living outside of the corporate 9-5. In fact, your feelings about money could be the biggest barrier to you even thinking about doing something else instead. That’s why I wanted to talk to today’s guest. Andy Hill is a podcaster and author who is passionate about creating an incredible life for his family by being financially intelligent. He and his wife managed to pay off $50,000 of...
Mar 26, 2019•47 min•Ep. 115
I spend much more of my time marketing myself and getting my name and expertise known in the world than I actually do coaching or speaking to audiences. And this might come as a shock to you if you’re still working a 9-5 or starting to run your own venture. Putting yourself out there doesn’t come naturally to most of us but it’s a vital part of being in business and, in some ways, it’s never been so complicated. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin not to mention blogging, podcasting and, emai...
Mar 19, 2019•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 114
It’s my first solo show for a while and I was inspired by member of the Corporate Escapees Facebook page to do an episode about making a Worst Case Scenario Plan. When you stand on the precipice of a big decision all the fears come bubbling to the surface. But they swill around in your brain in a mess of half finished thoughts and cause you to feel paralysed. Even if, despite these fears, you take action steps, you lose out on the joy of this phase of the journey because you’re so worried about ...
Mar 12, 2019•21 min•Ep. 113
What is slow living? So many of us want to change our lives because we want more space for things we love, as well as a job we love. But life often seems too hectic to find that space, sense of peace or a feeling that we’re really able to enjoy what we have worked so hard to achieve. When Brooke McAlary realised the stress of her life was causing her anxiety she decided to slow her life right down. It started with a failed attempt to declutter the garage... but today she’s host of the Slow Home ...
Mar 05, 2019•51 min•Ep. 112
Just because living life on your own terms might feel like a gamble, doesn’t mean you don’t try to minimise the risk! Todd Nevins is a Digital Nomad who travels full time with his wife and their dog, encouraging other people to do the same. In fact, he’s on a mission to get one million people who are disheartened by their current lifestyle to make the decision to change it. In this interview we talk about the planning stage, the execution stage and the reality of living and working on the road, ...
Feb 26, 2019•54 min•Ep. 111
