In this week’s episode I sat down with entrepreneur and community builder Luke Cook. Luke started his career in radio and over the last 20 years has been a senior leader in media along with founding two businesses, FUNLOCKA & Cuppa Of Life. 

He’s an ideas man, change maker, connector, culture specialist, entrepreneur, host, interviewer, father and husband.

 He’s also someone who has battled burnout, lost people very close to him, had to reinvent his business in a day, and been on the brink of losing it all! He now uses his experiences in life to craft relevant and engaging conversations for the businesses that he works with and for. 

 We chatted about how we can harness the power of virtual events and connections, building community and if the businesses that survive and thrive during shifting landscapes and into the future, are the ones who say yes to happiness and putting their staff and community wellbeing at the forefront.

This episode is for you if you’re passionate about community, connection and learning more about workplace wellbeing - no matter the size of the company.

Website
Cuppa of Life

In this week’s episode I sat down with Marie-France Samba, a savvy entrepreneur, mother of 2, speaker, coach for women entrepreneurs and globe-trotter! Born and bred in Paris, spanning a successful career of fifteen years in the Press industry – working with the likes of Elle magazine, Sony and Warner Music.

From Paris to Stockholm, Milan to Oslo, London to New York, Miami to St Lucia, Marie gained a proven understanding of different business challenges both in the entrepreneurial world, and in the corporate world, especially for women. 

She was a finalist at a Global Women’s Aspirational Awards Summit in New York and was featured in the mindset issue of the Inspired Coach magazine.

As a leader and personal branding coach, Marie-France is mission-minded, effective and highly dedicated to unleashing her clients potential and passionately guides and supports them to unleash and own their uniqueness to create a compelling personal brand for greater influence, impact and income. 

Her key areas of expertise include:

• Personal branding and image
• How to unleash your uniqueness to stand out on any market
• How to gain self-awareness and develop a growth mindset for success
• Strategies to uncover your full potential and scale your business

We chatted about personal branding for a profitable business, and our society's obsession with everyone seemingly needing to be a personal brand and how we might overcome any obstacles or resistance we may have around building a personal brand as opposed to a business brand.

If how and what level of personal branding is right for you and your business objectives is something you find yourself considering, then this episode is for you. 

Social Links:

Website

LinkedIn

Instagram

In this week’s episode I sat down with Vanessa Rinaldi aka Mrs Social to talk about the weird and wonderful world of paid ads.

Vanessa is a Paid Social Advertising Wingwoman. She specialises in Facebook & Instagram Ads and Promoted Pins for Service based businesses'.

Vanessa is also my paid ad specialist and I’ve personally done her Power Up Your Pinterest Course.

She’s kindly included 3 advertising campaigns you could be running right now on Facebook and Instagram as a freebie which I’ve included in the show notes along with details of her Pinterest course, Facebook ads management and ads training.

We spoke about if ads are really as scary as we’re led to believe, if we need to invest loads of money into our FB ads strategy in order to see a return, and the power of Pinterest for business.

If you’re curious about running your own FB ads and looking to learn where to start or perhaps are already running them and looking for some tips and guidance, then this episode is for you.

Social links:
https://www.mrssocial.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/mrssocial/

Further links to find out more about Vanessa's work:
Pinterest course is https://mrssocial.lpages.co/pinterestcourse/

FB Ads management is https://www.mrssocial.co.uk/facebook-advertising-service

FB Ads training is https://www.mrssocial.co.uk/facebook-advertising-training

Freebie:
3 Advertising Campaigns you could be running right now on Facebook and Instagram: https://www.mrssocial.co.uk/free-stuff 

This week I sat down with Rod Banner, an entrepreneur, business technologist and brand consultant. 

He builds brands, architects business propositions and sharpens messaging. He has lived all his commercial life with one foot in technology and the other in the world of marketing communications. He’s advised the tech industry, founded, run and sold multi-million dollar businesses and mentored countless tech industry luminaries. 

Rod has been acknowledged as part of the TechCity Insider 100 list, the Fresh Business Thinking Power 100, The Maserati 100, The Smith & Williamson Power 100, KPMG’s Madtech Shift 100 and GQ’s list of the 100 Most Connected Men in Britain.

Having sold his first business to WPP, Rod founded something fresh - amusingly titled 3LA.com (3 letter acronym). 3LA is a collective of brains and technologies that help businesses become more agile and relevant. The company’s ingenious approach tackles a client’s total ‘Proposition Architecture’. Put simply - How and to Who are companies selling What? Some businesses aren’t as sure as they should be, while others are struggling in rapidly changing markets. 

Rod’s other roles include: Founder of JoyTech.org and several advisory board positions.

We discussed the importance of customer loyalty in the evolving digital landscape, the automation of marketing as a discipline and it becoming more and more about data driven studies. 

Our moral and ethical responsibility as leaders to create services and products that help mental health and wellbeing, and when profit margins are at the bottom line, if it’s really possible for companies and organisations to prioritise joy instead of clickbait. 

If you’re interested in understanding more about the role of digital marketing within your business, and what’s important to focus on as the digital landscape continues to evolve and change, then this episode is for you. 

Social Links:

LinkedIn

Website

In this week’s episode I sat down with Emily Hodge who is a Psychologist and Coach.

Emily and I met through the membership group the Inspiration Space and a mutual friend introducing us a few years ago, and quickly teamed up for teas, coffee and wine to discuss the various different angles and nuances of the coaching industry as we both navigated life as coaches and entrepreneurs. 

We even ran a retreat together last year in the South of France using the concept of how it is in fact possible to run an aligned and gentle business. I’ve wanted her to be a guest on the show since I launched it, and now, back from maternity, we sat down to discuss the lack of regulations within the coaching industry, whether coaching becomes a self serving machine coaching other coaches, and the rise of 8 figure coaches. 

If you’re a coach, or an aspiring coach, then this week’s episode is for you. 

About Emily:

Emily is a Psychologist and Coach supporting Coaches and Service Based Businesses to run with more ease and profit. With over 20 years working in behaviour change and nearly 10 in the entrepreneur space within that, she runs private 121 coaching and a Coaching Mastermind which is enrolling now for March 2021. 

She hosts the Coaching Uncovered Podcast, getting behind the scenes of the industry, practices and your business. She's appeared in Stylist Magazine, Thrive, Welldoing and other publications talking about the benefits and impact of gentle and profitable businesses.

Social media links:

Instagram

Website

In this week’s episode I sat down with Richard Hogan. Richard is a systemically trained Family Psychotherapist registered with The Family Therapy Association of Ireland. 

He writes every Thursday for the Irish Examiner, a national newspaper with daily readers of 250,000. His column explores mental health issues for teenagers, couples and families. 

Alongside that, he was recently nominated for a journalistic award and is the author of the best selling book “Parenting the Screenager”. His book is a practical guide for parents of the modern child. The book has received critical acclaim from The Irish Times as a ‘must buy for any parent of a teenager’. 

I’ve also included a link to the book on Amazon in the show notes so be sure to check it out here.

He is also the clinical director of the award winning counselling service Therapy Institute.  As a result of his work, he was invited by Trinity College Dublin to undertake a PhD exploring how to introduce systemic theory into the Irish educational system. He was recently awarded a Fulbright scholarship and is planning to travel to America later this year to carry out research on how to better promote inclusion in Irish and American Schools. 

Richard has worked with adolescents for over fifteen years and in that time noticed the increasing tendency to pathologise what is otherwise normal adolescent behaviour. His approach to adolescent mental health is to empower them so that they do not have to rely on heavy psychotropic medication. 

When he’s not writing or in his clinical practise, he is a regular contributor on shows such as The Hard Shoulder with Ivan Yates Newstalk, The Today Show RTÉ and Ireland AM Virgin Media as an expert in the field of human behaviour where he offers his expertise and strategies on how to overcome mental health issues. 

He was also very recently an expert on a new T.V programme launched by Virgin Media which we spoke about during the interview, due to hit screens near us very soon.

We discussed digital wellbeing, how to navigate technology and mental health, through the lens of adolescence, but also more broadly too. How technology has arguably interrupted patterns of communication and how we all socialise, the demonisation of social media and where our inner drivers in life stem from. 

It was a fascinating conversation with Richard, and I could have certainly asked many more questions. In fact, I was told on more than one occasion this week that I should make my interviews long form so perhaps there’s another interview to be had in there. 

For anyone with screenagers, or in fact children of any age, but perhaps finds themselves mindful of the challenges that come from children using technology, and questioning how best to navigate this space, then this episode is for you. 

Social media links:
LinkedIn

Richard’s Book:

Parenting the Screenager

In this week’s episode I sat down with Marielle Legair an International Trainer and a Personal Branding Strategist. She helps professional and entrepreneurial women increase their visibility to become known using LinkedIn and PR. 

Global brands such as EY, Microsoft, Red Bull, Santander and Yale University hire her to deliver transformative professional branding workshops. Her work has captured global audiences' attention through top tier media channels including BBC, Bloomberg, Financial Times and Forbes. 

Prior to founding her company, Marielle gained over a decade of international experience building brand reputation campaigns for CEOs and senior leaders at some of the world’s largest companies in London and New York including Deloitte, Grant Thornton and Experian. Her book, The Personal Brand Bible for Ambitious Women is available now on Amazon.

We talked about the importance of building our reputations, increasing visibility and how to become known for our work. Exploring how we might overcome any limiting beliefs and fears of self promotion around asking for the dance in our business.

We also discussed how as entrepreneurs we can use social media platforms such as LinkedIn to leverage our profile and business.

If you’ve committed to making this year the year that you get your voice, message and business more out there in the world than ever before, then this episode is for you. 

Social media links:

https://www.instagram.com/mariellelegair/

Marielle’s Book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1974444600/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_rAj.FbPN2H5KA

This week I sat down with International Life & Business Coach, Author and Speaker, Travis Barton. Helping people create a life they don’t need a vacation from through his adventurous coaching for extraordinary people.

Guiding others to realise their dreams, to show up powerfully in the world as their highest self, and to realise their long-abandoned goals, live happier, more fulfilled lives of purpose and passion has long been a deep fire within Travis for as long as he can remember. He’s always relished in having powerful conversations with people. 

Outside of his coaching, he takes pride in not just talking the talk, but in living by example. He reminds himself often that it's not that life is too short, it's that most of us wait too long to truly start living. That reminder is what puts fire in his heart to go out and really live a life, not just exist. 

He has personally worked with a variety of people one on one, from executives and CEO's, to athletes and actors, to other coaches and entrepreneurs. He creates space for magic to happen.

We talked about the concept of dreaming big, growing and thriving in life - whether that’s in business and in life. How we might go about thriving more and making sure we don’t die with un-lived adventures still inside of us.

We touched on overcoming depression, and if mental health in business and in particular, leadership, is something we need to talk more about.

We also explored as a society if we’re becoming more open to men sharing their emotions, vulnerability and edges. What advice he would give to any male out there who might be listening perhaps feeling inclined to make changes and begin to open up more with friends, family and in their lives generally but perhaps isn’t sure where to begin and how they can feel safe in which to step into that space.

If you’re looking to add fuel to your goals or interested to hear Travis’ sage advice on how to open up more to the people in your life, then this episode is for you. 

Social media links:

https://www.instagram.com/travbarton/

https://travisbartonlife.com/

Travis’ Book:

https://www.inkshares.com/books/the-adventure-of-purpose-6ee4fc