Today, we’re diving deep into what it truly means to “bring your whole self to work” and how you can feel comfortable being yourself in the workplace. This episode was inspired by a recent lived experience session I delivered for my team as part of our new Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiative. In this episode, you’ll learn: My philosophy for embracing your authentic self and taking your whole authentic self to work My personal journey & reflections on bringing my whole authen...
Oct 30, 2024•18 min•Season 1Ep. 17
In this episode, I’m sharing 10 lessons I’ve learned in my corporate career of 20 years. This is Part 2 of the 4-Part Series - 40 Lessons from 40 Years of Life. Part 1 was my 10 lessons from my personal life, and you can listen to this episode here . The remaining two episodes will be the lessons I learned from my Yoga journey as a student and teacher, and starting and building my own business. Here are the 10 lessons from my corporate career. Tune into the episode to find out the journey I’ve g...
Oct 18, 2024•49 min•Season 1Ep. 16
In this episode, I explore the power of Yoga's ethical principles and how they can transform your leadership. I share my personal experience of leading a small team without prior experience, and how the 5 Yamas, the ethical principles from the 8-Fold Path of Yoga (Ashtanga Yoga in Sanskrit) from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, guided me through challenges and helped me become a more embodied, authentic, and effective leader. Whether you're an aspiring leader or someone seeking to embody authentic ...
Aug 31, 2024•21 min•Ep. 15
Welcome to another episode of the Journey Podcast! In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with Rawnak Jassm. Rawnak has a background in community engagement & participation. She is also a yoga teacher with a passion for creating inclusive spaces for women and linking up her practice with other passions - spirituality, mysticism, justice and nature. In this episode, she shares how she grew up in a religious household, how she was very intentional with traveling, her yoga and spiritual ...
Aug 02, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Welcome to another episode of The Journey Podcast! In this episode, I’m sharing the first 10 lessons I’ve learned in my 40 year journey, to celebrate turning 40 this year! I’m breaking down my lessons into a 4-part series and in this episode I will be covering the lessons I learned from my personal life. The next 3 episodes will cover lessons I learned from my corporate career, Yoga as a student and teacher, and starting and building my own business. Here are the 10 lessons from my personal life...
Jun 09, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Welcome to another episode of the Journey Podcast! In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with Reshma Karia, a Leadership and Executive coach and mental health employment advisor. Reshma brings a background in mental health, mindfulness and therapeutic approaches to her coaching. Reshma is actually my coach and she works with Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic colleagues in the organisation I work in, and I have been working with her for over 6 months now. So in this episode, the role has...
May 06, 2024•56 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Welcome to another episode of the Journey Podcast! In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with Sayeeda Alam, a Yoga Teacher and Ayurvedic Lifestyle Advisor. I met Sayeeda on an Ayurvedic Lifestyle Advisor training course last year. We got chatting during lunch and I was really inspired by her journey. I knew straight away that she would be an amazing guest for my podcast so I am super excited to share this episode with you! Highlights of the episode: Challenging childhood Passion for musi...
Mar 31, 2024•47 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Welcome to another episode of the Journey Podcast! In this episode, I’m sharing my own personal Yoga journey to mark the 10 year anniversary of being a Yoga teacher, including my experiences as a person of colour Yoga teacher and my thoughts on the current Yoga industry. This is something I’ve been wanting to share since I launched my podcast back in 2022. Highlights of the episode: What is Yoga? My first Yoga class at the age of 21 Started practicing Yoga regularly at the age of 29 Discovering ...
Mar 17, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 10
In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with Azzees Minott, who is a Director, Facilitator and Chief Operating Officer at 2-3 Degrees, the award-winning social enterprise committed to inspiring and empowering young people to fulfill their potential through engaging in confidence building and skills enhancing workshops and programmes across the UK. Since March 2016, they have worked with over 9,000 young people across the country, including reaching over 500 young people online during Covid...
Nov 10, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 9
In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with Vish Chatterji, an accomplished executive-turned-coach with a spiritual twist, and author of The Business Casual Yogi: Take Charge of Your Body, Mind & Career. In our conversation, you’ll hear what his childhood was like living in Hong Kong and moving to America where he studied and developed his career, and built his unique business where he coaches and advises business leaders, through a unique blend of Western management thinking and East...
Apr 16, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 8
In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with Jess Badley. Jess is actually the wife of John Allen who was a guest in my 4th episode and he also interviewed me in the last episode! Jess is a Director of People and Resources at the British Society for Rheumatology and in her words, she is particularly interested in the links between wellbeing, flexible working and innovation and how this can transform an organisation’s culture and approach towards work. In our conversation, you’ll hear how s...
Feb 05, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 7
I’m doing something slightly different in today’s episode and I’m actually being interviewed by my good friend John Allen. You might remember John from Episode 4 where he shared his own journey. We had so much fun in his episode, we decided to reverse our roles and he will be taking over the Journey Podcast in this episode! In our conversation, I share my childhood experiences and the impact that have had on my adult life, living and working in the UK as a Japanese woman, and the learnings from ...
Dec 30, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 6
In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with Rohini Bajekal, a nutritionist and board-certified Lifestyle Medicine professional. Rohini is an avid recipe developer, and is passionate about making delicious and nourishing plant-based meals. In our conversation, you’ll hear how her love of food started as a child and how and why she became vegan at the age of 12. Then after exploring other careers why she decided to study Nutrition and Food Sciences to become a nutritionist. You will hear he...
Oct 30, 2022•59 min•Season 1Ep. 5
In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with a dear friend of mine, John Allen. John is an award-winning writer and copywriter. He writes under the pen name of J.W.Allen for fiction and holds several diplomas in creative writing. His stories have appeared in Simultaneous Times Podcast, Dark Matter Magazine, Sci-Fi Lampoon and more. John won the QuaranCon 2022 Speculative Fiction Prize for his dystopian story Show Me Your Resume. He holds a Silver Award and two Honourable Mention Awards for...
Oct 23, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 4
In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with Victoria Malinjod, a talented European actress, director, producer and model who was born in France to a German mom and a Swiss dad. In our conversation, Victoria shares how she was extremely shy as a young girl and how acting was a way of expressing herself. She also shares how she moved to Paris on her own when she was 17 and then later to London to develop her career as an actress, to where she is now as a successful actress and director. I h...
Oct 16, 2022•43 min•Season 1Ep. 3
In today’s episode, I’m having a conversation with Arvin Suntaramoorthy, a co-owner of an amazing vegan restaurant, Amrutha Lounge in South London. In our conversation, Arvin shares how his parents emigrated from Sri Lanka to escape the civil war when he was a young child and moved to Germany and then to London, UK where they made their new home. We talked about his journey from that time to where he is now as a successful socially-driven restaurant owner. Arvin is also a practitioner of contemp...
Oct 09, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Welcome to the first episode of the Journey Podcast! In this very first episode, I will be sharing my own journey to how I landed the decision to create the Journey Podcast. I will also be sharing my vision for the Journey Podcast and what you can expect from future episodes. If you enjoyed this episode or inspired you in some way, please rate and leave a review so we can reach as many people as possible, and take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram Stories...
Oct 02, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Welcome to The Journey Podcast, hosted by me, Risa Kawamoto (she/her). I’m a Career & Confidence Coach and Yoga Teacher for introverts and aspiring leaders, who want to feel more confident, get recognised for their hard work and secure their next promotion or new role. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my insights and tips on how you can overcome fear of speaking up and feeling of inadequacy so that you can grow into the confident leader you aspire to be. l will also share the challenges, les...
Sep 19, 2022•1 min
