A Brilliant Gamble

I wonder how many of us fall in to a career, and then make a real success at it before we realise that it’s not working for us.

Of course, that creates a whole new problem. What are you going to do next?

Well, that’s the story for my guest today. Dav Piper is now a gardener. But until recently her life was much like many people - the commute, the salary that’s hard to walk away from, a job that didn’t really work for her. She was successful by conventional standards but had fallen in to her career and slowly, like many of us, realised that she didn’t want to carry on.

Of course, the next big problem was - what to do next?

Joanna Penn left the corporate world a decade ago to write full time. Since then she’s become an an award winning entrepreneur, a hugely successful fiction and non fiction author, podcaster and teacher of other people who want to write for a living.

Maxwell Ivey describes himself as the Blind Blogger. Born in to a carnival family, he became blind in his teens but has never let it stop him doing what he wanted to do.

He’s now not only a successful businessman but an inspirational speaker, coach and podcaster, helping people follow their dreams just as he has done. He wasn’t always someone who thought he could do anything. But he’s learnt not only what he’s capable of but that just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should!

It’s all very well imagining yourself running your own business as a way to escape the rat race. But what’s the reality? What skills will you need beyond the technical skills you’ve been mastering for the last 20 or 30 years? That’s why I wanted to talk to my guest today, Phyllis Smith.

Former founder of the Professional Business Women’s Network she’s an escapee from corporate world herself. She now has her fingers in many pies including as presenter at The Expert Channel.

Can you imagine seeing porn stars having sex in your backyard, or watching a topless waitress breastfeeding a kitten at one of your parent’s parties?

Well, today’s guest lived that life. Romola Hodas was the eldest daughter of Marty (Martin) Hodas, aka “Times Square’s King of Porn,” the man who almost single-handedly built New York City’s pornography and adult entertainment industry from the 1960s to the 1980s.

In 2012. Sunday Burquest was diagnosed with breast cancer. After multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and a bout with depression she discovered she was much stronger than she imagined and decided to follow her dream and ended up on the 33rd season of the Emmy award-winning reality tv show Survivor Millennials vs Gen-x.

Sunday describes herself as a Grit Girl and I was very keen to talk to her about how she’s embraced so much change in her life, ignored any suggestion that she shouldn’t do certain things “at her age” and how she continues to challenge herself even after her Survivor experience.

I’m so excited to bring you my conversation with TV presenter and journalist, Andrea McLean, because there couldn’t be a better way to start the year.

Not only is Andrea a huge presence on TV as co-host of Loose Women but she’s also the author of a new book – Confessions of a Menopausal Woman – which tells the story of her own abrupt menopause and what the experience is teaching her (and us).

Today’s guest is Mike Robbins, thought leader, sought after speaker, and the author of four books including Bring Your Whole Self to Work. In this conversation we talk about how personal development is becoming more acceptable within the work environment, how disappointment and tragedy in Mike’s own life forced him to re-think at a relatively young age about what would really make him happy and fulfilled and how to change the story you tell yourself about yourself.

It seems to me that most change isn’t initiated by us but thrust upon us or dropped in to our path. If you’ve had an interesting life up to this point and want that to continue, you’re probably someone who grabs those unplanned opportunities and runs with them.

I spend much of my time inside big business. As a keynote speaker and coach for leaders I’m very familiar with the ways large organisations operate and the universal challenges that they face against a backdrop of a world changing faster than ever before.

For years I’ve been trying to help those organisations and their leaders to change. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they find it impossible. It’s always painful. Change hurts!