At 43, Liberty Mills was told one of your ovaries is empty and you are barren. 

She could have accepted it. She didn't, having already reversed her lupus diagnosis and gave birth naturally two weeks before turning 25.

I sit down with Liberty, a Fertility and Autoimmune Coach, to unpack how she did it and the philosophy she teaches clients: test, don't guess. Before any supplement or protocol, find out what your body is actually doing.

We also get into a stat almost nobody talks about: 48% of infertility cases involve a male contributing factor. Plus how stress shows up in the body before you notice it, and Liberty's "golden hour" routine, journaling, movement, and learning something unrelated to your goals, in that order.

In this episode:

If you've ever been handed scary language about your body and told to just accept it, this one's for you.

🎙️ Recorded at Mollies, Manchester 🙏 Sponsored by We Are The Allies

We're a good few episodes into the new series of I Shouldn't Say This, But, and I wanted to do something different this week - a solo recap of what I've personally learned, what's changed, and where we're going next, so buckle up!

When I brought the podcast back, it wasn't just about creating more content. I wanted to create a safe space where leaders and founders could feel less alone talking about the things we really don't want to say out loud.

To do that properly, I had to think hard about the guests and the topics. And honestly? The lessons have really stuck with me.

In this episode, I take a deep dive into:

If you've ever wondered what's actually going on behind the scenes of this podcast, this one's for you.

🎙️ Recorded at the beautiful Mollies Manchester. Proudly sponsored by We Are The Allies.

Heather started out being trained not to say the word "toilet" on the Harrods shop floor. She ended up running culture for a Footsie 100 business, sat in rooms twenty years her senior, telling herself her opinion didn't count.

This episode is about what happened in between, and the philosophy she built off the back of it: nice vs kind. 

Why being nice is the coward's option. Why the strongest relationships in her life have come from saying the hard thing instead of softening it. And why she built a spreadsheet to figure out exactly how long she could survive before she quit her safe, well-paid job to bet on herself (plus the one message from her dad that pushed her over the edge).

We finish on Custard, her new culture intelligence tool with an AI coach called Geraldine built in, and why she's refusing to grow it fast just because AI makes that possible now.

If you've ever softened a message you should have said straight, this one's for you.

We're three months into the podcast (five if you count the planning), and I wanted to do something different for this one: an unfiltered chat with my producer Stefan.

In this episode, we get into:

Sacha Lord: Warehouse Project, Losing a Customer, and Why He Took the Government to Court

He turned up to the Hacienda in his dad's suit and got turned away at the door. Thirty-five years later, Sacha Lord has built and sold the biggest club night and metropolitan festival in the UK, become Greater Manchester's night-time economy advisor, and taken the government to the High Court, and won.

In this episode, I talk to Sacha's whole journey: from flogging faulty leather jackets on a market stall as a teenager, to running Sankeys during Manchester's gang years, to the night a customer lost his life at Warehouse Project and the decision that followed, to speak out publicly rather than issue a two-line statement. We get into the COVID years, when Sacha took Matt Hancock to court over the 10pm curfew and "substantial meal" rule, and won both. And we talk about what it's really like watching a friend become Prime Minister: the pride, the pressure, and the abuse his family have taken along the way.

It's a conversation about building something from nothing, knowing when to sell, and why he thinks Manchester is having a moment it'll still be talking about in twenty years.

Big thanks to our sponsor, We Are The Allies.

This week I'm catching you up on one of the biggest moments of my year so far! Recording BBC Radio 4's The Bottom Line with Evan Davis, Andy Ransom (former CEO of Rentokil) and imposter syndrome expert Dr Valerie Young.

The topic? Imposter syndrome, my specialist subject. Except the moment I found out a million people would be tuning in, my own imposter syndrome decided to show up in spectacular fashion. The irony wasn't lost on me.

In this solo episode, I'm sharing:
 🎙️ How the opportunity came about (spoiler: it started with a WhatsApp message)
 🧠 Why imposter syndrome is actually about a false idea of "competency" and how redefining it changes everything
 👶 How our childhood experiences quietly set our imposter syndrome levels
 ✨ The brain hack that turns nerves into excitement (your body genuinely can't tell the difference!)
 💬 The two types of anxiety, and why one of them is actually good for you

Plus, my mum's brilliant reaction when she heard the episode.

If you've ever felt like a fraud right before your biggest moment, this one's for you.

🎧 Recorded at Mollies, Manchester
 🙏 Sponsored by We Are The Allies

This week I'm joined by Pav, CEO of We Are The Allies, the incredible agency behind this podcast, and it's one of the best founding stories I've heard.

Pav's career started in the accounts department of a Leeds agency (she didn't even have the GCSEs for it) and took her through the marketing departments of Morrisons, Poundland and Co-op before she finally went out on her own. But the real spark came from her husband Rick, a freelance creative director who went nine months without being paid on a major campaign. That injustice became the founding brief for Creative Allies, sketched out on the back of a napkin, literally.

Seven years on, that napkin sketch is a network of 500 vetted freelancers across 46 creative categories, working with 400+ agencies and clients. We talk about how they built trust at scale (480 interviews before they'd take on 135 people), why freelancers deserve to be paid in 14 days not 9 months, their work opening doors for next-gen talent through Channel 4's Content Creatives programme, and what's next as they build out an AI division.

It's a brilliant listen if you've ever wondered what happens when someone gets properly, righteously annoyed on someone else's behalf and turns it into a business.

Why You're Exhausted, Foggy and Under-Fuelled (And What To Do About It) | Jade Reilly, NHS Dietitian

In this episode I sit down with Jade Reilly, a registered dietitian of over a decade with the NHS, personal trainer, Pilates teacher, and On running ambassador, to talk about what it actually takes to fuel a body that's trying to build a business, train like an athlete, and show up for everyone else, all at once.

We get into why most of us are chronically under-fuelled without even realising it, why "hustle culture" was never built with women's hormones in mind, and what fasting actually does to female bodies (spoiler: the research nobody talks about). Jade also shares her own experience of burnout and losing her period, and why she believes eating shouldn't be about restriction, it should be about performance.

We finish with a supplement quick-fire round where Jade rates everything from vitamin D to greens powders, and tells us honestly what's worth your money and what isn't.

If you've ever skipped breakfast to get out the door, felt guilty about "not eating clean enough," or wondered why your brain feels foggy by 2pm, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

She's had death threats over hair. She won't stop.

In this episode of I Shouldn't Say This But, Katy Leeson sits down with hairdresser, turned-content-creator Sarah (SLK), 21 years in the industry, founder of Host Manchester, and one of the most followed voices in UK hairdressing.

Sarah opens up about the reality behind the highlight reel: the trolling, the violent threats, the message that made her want to quit for good (and the one message that made her stay). She shares how a holiday in Portugal changed the entire direction of her career, how a single webinar generated £150k in two days, and why she still gets imposter syndrome every single time she tries something new (including teaching on the other side of the world).

We also get into the post that nearly broke the internet, "I'm a hairdresser, not a therapist" and why Sarah stood by it even when the backlash was brutal.

In this episode:

This one's honest, it's funny, it's got a fair bit of swearing — and it might just change how you think about showing up online.

🎙️ Recorded at Mollies, Manchester
 🤝 Sponsored by We Are The Allies

Follow Katy: [@katyleeson]
Follow Sarah: [@slkbleachexpert]