Ctrl Alt Delete

My guest today is one of the British Gymshark athletes, the wonderful fitness influencer Sophie Butler — someone I thoroughly enjoy following on Instagram and find extremely inspiring on every level. I jumped at this chance to collaborate with her for the podcast. (Apologies in advance for the patchy audio — lockdown issues!)

*This episode is brought to you by Gymshark.* Gymshark is a sportwear brand who focuses on fitness and conditioning. They have released a whole new range of sports bras for all training styles and support levels. Going from low support for low impact activities to high support for higher impact activities, each bra is available in 5 different sizes and multiple colour-ways. You can check them out at gymshark.com/cal

Sophie is an award-winning content creator (she won Best Health & Wellbeing Influencer at the Cosmo Awards last year!) and a personal trainer who shares her passion and knowledge about health and fitness on her multiple social media platforms. She is passionate about fitness since she was 19 and qualified PT for two years now, Sophie’s goal is to help people get stronger and healthier, and following an injury in the gym, she is supporting other people with spinal injuries in their journey to recovery. She shares inspiring and educating content and aims at bringing together an uplifting community of positive and open-minded people.

In this episode she shares with me her personal journey through self-empowerment and how health and fitness has played a key part into becoming the women she is today. Hope you enjoy! <3

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Today's guest is Ann Friedman, one half of the popular podcast Call Your Girlfriend and now author of the forthcoming book Big Friendship, out this month (July 2020). It is a friendship bible on how to keep each other close.

This book is authored by both Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow, (Aminatou has also been a guest on Ctrl Alt Delete, episode number #183 if you fancy going back and listening) and Big Friendship is a the story of their own ten-year, complex, loving friendship. They share their highs, lows, and hard-won wisdom with honesty, hilarity and compassion. They've weathered life-threatening health scares and long-distance living - and they know: the most important part of a Big Friendship is investing in each other again and again.

I absolutely loved the book! I think we need to have more honest conversations about friendship and like all other relationships, it takes work.

I hope you enjoy this episode and make sure you buy a copy of Big Friendship! https://www.bigfriendship.com/

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Julia Cameron is the bestselling author of The Artists' Way. She is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and essayist, she also has extensive credits in film, television and theatre, and is an award-winning journalist. Her groundbreaking books on creativity have become international bestsellers.

In this episode we talk about The Artist's Way which has a new revamped cover which is very exciting. The book first came out in the early 90s and provides a twelve-week course that guides you through the process of recovering your creative self. It aims to dispel the 'I'm not talented enough' thoughts that hold so many people back and helps you to unleash your own inner artist. Its step-by-step approach enables you to transform your life, overcome any artistic blocks you may suffer from, including limiting beliefs, fear, sabotage, jealousy and guilt, and replace them with self confidence and productivity. The Artist's Way will demystify the creative process by making it a part of your daily life.

From Alicia Keys to Elizabeth Gilbert to Russell Brand, The Artist's Way has helped thousands of people around the world to discover their inner artist. Whatever your background or career path, this book will give you the tools you need to enable you to fulfil your creative goals. Hope you enjoy! xo

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Glennon Doyle is someone I've wanted to have on the podcast for years, ever since I read her book LOVE WARRIOR (which was an Oprah Book Club selection), as well as her New York Times bestseller CARRY ON, WARRIOR. An activist and thought leader, Glennon is the founder and president of Together Rising, an all-women led nonprofit organisation that has revolutionised grassroots philanthropy – raising over $25 million for women, families, and children in crisis. She lives in Florida with her wife and three children.

In this episode we discuss Glennon's new book "Untamed. Stop pleasing, start living" which has gone on to become a #1 New York Times bestseller and (a Reese's Book Club selection).

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied feeling unhappy in her life and marriage. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room (Abby Wambach) and fell instantly in love. the voice she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions and social conditioning.

Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanising wake-up call. It is the story of how she learned that a responsible mother is not one who gives up who she is for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is also the story of how each of us can unleash our truest, wildest instincts.

We talk about how she got the book out to so many people during lockdown, how to spot our desires beneath the desires, how jealousy is a useful emotion and I ask Glennon about some of my favourite bits in the book and how we can be a little bit braver, and wilder in the lives we live. ENJOY!!!

Glennon's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Glennon-Doyle/e/B073C6SQY1/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

You can pre-order OLIVE here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emma-Gannon/e/B07CNBMD9B/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

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Renay Richardson is the founder and CEO of Broccoli Content, a company she founded in 2018.

Broccoli is a new multi-genre podcasting joint venture between Renay and Sony Music and is focused on the development and distribution of original programming. Renay is a producer who has previously worked for podcast platforms including Acast & Audible and a successful independent podcast creator in her own right - her credits including About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge and The Receipts on 1xtra from BBC Radio 1Xtra. 

In this episode we talk about Broccoli's recent brilliant initiative called The Equality in Audio Pact - which the Guardian and BBC have just signed among many others - there are the 5 points:

1 . Pay interns / No longer use unpaid interns.

2. Hire LGBTQIA+, black people, people of colour and other minorities on projects not only related to their identity.

3. If you are a company that releases gender pay gap reports, release your race pay gap data at the same time.

4. No longer participate in panels that are not representative of the cities, towns, and industries they take place in.

5. Be transparent about who works for your company, as well as their role, position and permanency.

You sign the pledge here: https://www.broccolicontent.com/equality-in-audio-pact

Hope you enjoy this episode! I loved talking to Renay about her career, the future of podcasting and making the audio space more equal. Plus, getting into podcasting; first jobs; being a CEO; sharing the mic, what 'Broccoli' means; working on Reni Eddo-Lodge's podcast, racism in audio, working in podcasting in the UK and the US. 

On making About Race: "we were right, we were ahead, you get punished for having vision and for seeing the future and what is actually needed. We were held back and restricted in what we did."

Please go and follow Broccoli Content and check out their amazing podcast series ANTHEMS: http://hyperurl.co/anthemspodcast

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My guest today is the brilliant Candice Brathwaite, Sunday Times Bestselling author of I Am Not Your Baby Mother. The book has been called 'an urgent part-memoir, part-manifesto about Black British motherhood' in Red magazine. When Candice fell pregnant and stepped into the motherhood playing field, she found her experience bore little resemblance to the photos of women in glossy magazines and Mumsnet and she found herself wondering: "Where are all the black mothers?".

Candice started blogging about motherhood in 2016 and is the founder of Make Motherhood Diverse – an online initiative that aims to encourage a more accurately representative and diverse depiction of motherhood in the media.

Candice's book I am Not Your Baby Mother is urgent, inspirational, funny, and very very important. It talks about her own childhood, pregnancy, how Black British women are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth, (and lots of eye-opening statistics that you will never forget), and the reality of living with racial micro-aggressions and unconscious bias at every point. It's one of the most important books I've read all year and I think it should be in schools. Candice writes with such humour, poignancy and depth - I love her straight-talking style and everyone should read it. Please do buy a copy. Hope you enjoy this episode, if you did please leaving a rating or review, thanks!

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Today's guest is Layla F. Saad, #1 bestselling author of Me And White Supremacy and globally respected writer, speaker and host of the Good Ancestor Podcast. She speaks on the topics of race, identity, leadership, personal transformation and social change. As an East African, Arab, British, Black, Muslim woman who was born and grew up in the West, and lives in Middle East, Layla has always sat at a unique intersection of identities from which she is able to draw rich and intriguing perspectives. Me And White Supremacy is Layla's first book. Initially it was self-published online for free following an Instagram challenge and hashtag under the same name, and was downloaded by close to ninety thousand people around the world in the space of six months. It is now a New York Times Bestselling book. Layla's work has been brought into homes, educational institutions and workplaces around the world that are seeking to create personal and collective change.

It is worth mentioning this conversation was recorded on 4th May, before the news of George Floyd. The advertising revenue for this week's episode will be donated to the Black Lives Matter Fund.

To read:

• Do the work: an anti-racism reading list: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/jun/03/do-the-work-an-anti-racist-reading-list-layla-f-saad
• "I need to talk to spiritual white women about white supremacy" by Layla Saad: http://laylafsaad.com/poetry-prose/white-women-white-supremacy-1
• The Millions of Amy Coopers https://www.thecut.com/2020/05/why-amy-cooper-called-the-cops.html
• Reni Eddo-Lodge's tweets: https://twitter.com/renireni/status/1266674554283401216
• Fighting the racism that killed George Floyd requires more than hashtags https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/02/white-people-racism-george-floyd?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
• We Need To Rethink Our “Pics Or It Didn’t Happen” Approach To Activism https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/performative-grief-online

To donate:

• Minnesota Freedom Fund
• BLM
• Official George Floyd Memorial Fund

• Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello! Today's guest is journalist and consultant Jessica Evans. She has previously written for the likes of Stylist, Refinery29, Elle and all the top magazines. She is also the founder and CEO of The Freelance Sessions, which is an indie organisation that helps both aspiring writers become freelance journalists and established journalists in their career. The heart behind the one-to-one sessions is to help more northern, working class women break into the elitist world of journalism. I came across Jess when I read a piece she wrote for The Independent called "The journalism industry is abysmal for working class women like me" (link below). In this episode we discuss freelancing, classism, the issue with "Londonising" and how to get more talented individuals into the industry.

Jess's piece in The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/class-discrimination-journalism-women-working-class-2020-london-a9264146.html

More info on PressPad here: https://presspad.co.uk/

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My guest today is Emma Jane Unsworth - the award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Her latest novel, ADULTS, a comedy about a thirty-something woman whose life is falling apart and has been described as a "witty" and "virtuoso" satire by The Guardian and "sharp and funny" by The Times. Her previous novel, ANIMALS, was adapted into a film, for which Unsworth wrote the screenplay. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2019 and Unsworth won the award for Best Debut Screenwriter at the British Independent Film Awards 2019. She also writes for television and various magazines. She is currently adapting ADULTS for television.

In this episode we discuss novel writing, script-writing, social media addiction, jealousy of other women, postpartum mental health - we cover it all. If you enjoyed this episode, please do rate and review!

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