Paul Roberts is CEO of the Ashton Community Trust in Belfast.

Born and brought up in North Belfast Paul and his nine siblings grew up during the Troubles in an area that suffered one of the highest levels of violence of anywhere in Northern Ireland. It includes many areas synonymous with the conflict – the New Lodge, Ardoyne, Rathcoole, Ballysillan and Woodvale.

In the 25 years he has been at the helm the Trust has grown from a small community business into a highly successful regeneration social enterprise. It employs over 250 people and turns over more than £7 million. Ashton is involved in a wide range of community service delivery focusing on childcare, employability, mental health, community development, youth services, arts, Fablab and the North Belfast Lantern Festival. A large percentage of its employees are from the 20 most deprived areas of Belfast.

In 2017 Paul won the prestigious NI Third sector Inspiring Leader Award organised by CO3.

In this special episode Barry Phillips sets out to see if what he remembers about his own Ironman journey sits with what other ironmen learnt about themselves when training for and completing extreme endurance events.

Barry asks them about how they maintain their levels of motivation, he they get the best out of every training session and what they do to reward themselves for consistently high levels of input and output.

Barry concludes by sharing what he learnt from his Ironman training including the development of his own “six pack”. Six things he would do every day before he went to work to set himself up for optimum productivity.

This special episode recorded at the Titanic Hotel, Belfast (18th October) is taken from the annual conference of the Association of School and College Leaders. Barry Phillips covers five key areas of leadership, identifies quick wins and aims to leave the audience of head teachers with homework to do. For he argues that conference “Takeways” should really be “Workaways”. Changing the habits of leaders in any field requires application and hard work.

The five key area are :

# Recognition

# Decision Taking

# The Skill of Saying No

# Single Tasking

# Leadership Wellbeing – Mindfulness & Journaling

Liz Weir a business woman, festival director and children’s author, but perhaps best known for her role as a professional storyteller sharing stories of Ireland’s past not only locally in libraries, pubs, prisons and at festivals but on the international stage as well..

In 2002 she won the inaugural International Story Bridge Award of the National Storytelling Network. Many more awards were to follow helping her travel the world with her craft sharing her stories in countries as far away as Russia, Singapore, South Africa and Australia.

She is the author of some 27 children’s books, currently the Story Teller in Residence for Libraries NI and former presenter at Radio Ulster of “Gift of the Gab”.

She’s owner of the 200 year old Ballyeamon Barn near Cushendall which hosts a story telling evening on Saturday nights as well as tourists from all over the world in the adjoining hostel.

Liz was recently engaged by InvestNI to show them how best to use the power of story telling when delivering presentations.

Dropping down soon into the Hall of Fame will be interviews with Seamus O’Prey from Ortus and Paul Roberts of the Ashton Community Trust.

Conor is an entrepreneur with his finger truly on the pulse in terms of business activity going on in Northern Ireland having worked for many years in commercial property and more recently in debt management and alternative funding for those in business.

In August 2007 he was formerly diagnosed with MS. His response was to hit the illness head on. He self-medicated, he followed a plant only diet and started competing in endurance races.

He’s the author of two books. He has delivered countless key note conference speeches on motivation and managing a severe illness and has completed five half Ironman races and two full Ironman competitions in the past 3 years.

This episode is a bit different….

We thought it’s time to hit the pause button and review some of the most popular content thus far. So sit back and enjoy hearing from Bill Wolsey OBE, Mary McKenna MBE, Judith Gillespie CBE, Gavan Wall and many others.

Hilary Woods is Principal of Belfast Royal Academy which is widely recognised as one of Northern Ireland’s top post-primary schools.

Her teaching career began at Ashfield Girls School, and continued at Wallace High School and then Victoria College where she was Deputy Principal by the time she left in 2014. Her first permanant tenure as Principal was at Antrim Grammar school during which time the school topped the GCSE league tables in Northern Ireland with 100% of pupils gaining 5 GCSEs grades A-C.

In 2017, she became the first person in almost a century to be appointed principal of BRA from outside of the school and significantly the first ever female too.

Her guiding mantra in life is “do what is right not what is easy”.

She has been described by former colleagues as “fearless” with “boundless energy” and as a “woman with great vision but also a first-class implementer /finisher”. Another peer said of Hilary: “I’ve never worked with someone who has had such an important impact on my life”.

Michael Bruce with his younger brother Kenny founded Purple Bricks the online estate agency famous for offering to sell your house in the UK for a fixed fee of just £845 inclusive of VAT. Purple Bricks was recently valued at £240million.

Michael, and his younger brother Kenny and four older sisters were brought up by their single mother in a council house in Larne in the 70s and 80s. His first experience of work was when he was still a school boy doing a milk round in the morning and collecting glasses in a local pub in the evening while his brother did the Coal Run.

In this fascinating interview Michael says :

“We didn’t want to rush to market. Many entrepreneurs think when they’ve got a website they’ve got a business. We spent two and a half years building the business first.”

Now in Australia and the USA there is no holding back these two brothers from Larne. When asked for final advice developing a business he simply states :

“Have a dream and be relentless and wise in pursuing it.”

Sarah Travers – Journalist, T.V Presenter and Media Consultant. Sarah made her name as a journalist who got the most out of interviewees by giving them a full blast of her positive energy, charm and charisma. But how would she get on when in the hot seat herself?

Full of glamour and style and never short of words Sarah Travers shares a huge amount in this podcast. From her big secret she kept from her bosses at the BBC to how she dealt with imposter syndrome in the early days of her T.V career when still in her mid-twenties this interview is full of revelations. For her top tips on reading out scripts well, speaking in public and dealing with anxiety this episode makes for essential listening.

Before joining the RUC as a police constable Judith Gillespie was rejected twice by the organisation she was to go on and lead with distinction years later.

She once stated “When I joined the force in 1982 men were issued with firearms and women handbags things were very different then.. “

Not only did Judith Gillespie face institutional discrimination but also misogynistic treatment from some male colleagues. How she responded is just one of the many remarkable revelations in this extraordinarily frank and honest interview.

Judith explains how she used her “Five Anchors” to get her back from the really low times when serving in the RUC/PSNI during the height of The Troubles. She talks a lot too about forgiveness and admits that she’s still a bit to go before she has forgiven completely everyone who was out to see her fail but she says “You mustn’t let people live in your head rent free either”.

When asked how she felt when she cleared her desk for the last time and left the force she replied “I left with peace in my heart”.

For those interested in how leaders take the big decisions that really matter, how they motivate themselves and colleagues and push for success whilst remaining true to their own values this episode is simply essential listening.

For this very special episode we’ve produced two versions; a short version which features content mainly about Judith’s career in the PSNI and the full unedited version. Enjoy!