I was gonnae

This weeks guest is Alison Bruce founder and director of Colours Agency.

This week I Was Gonnae podcast guest is Billy Watson CEO of SAMH

Listen to more of Billys's life and career stories on the I Was Gonnae podcast.

This week I Was Gonnae podcast guest is Maurice Ross

Maurice tells us ‘that he was always goal driven' as a young man at school and 'loved to test myself all the time'  and 'listen if me and you were to play snap just now, I would want to beat you'. Maurice says he still 'misses going on the football pitch and 'do you know when the pitch has still got that dew on it and the first roll of a ball makes it dark'. 

Maurice recalls his playing days at Rangers FC and tells of his first day in Jun 1997 walking through the doors at Ibrox and being petrified watching the first-team squad and thinking 'how am I going to get to that level!'. He reflects on the discipline and tells us how it moulded him as a player. 'Professionalism is not a title its a behaviour' The boys who come in at 1minute to nine with a Starbucks in their hands, and their career trajectories are, all the same, then there are the boys who have been in since 8 am and been up since 7 am, they are hydrated, they have had their breakfast, are stretching and working on their cores those behaviours follow them for the rest of their lives and will always have better careers, always'.

Listen to more of Maurice's life and career stories on the I Was Gonnae podcast.

This week I Was Gonnae podcast guest is Margaret Gibson OBE

Margaret tells us ‘that statistically, she should not have succeeded in life’ as she was born in Possilpark and lived there ‘until one of the big storms blew the roof off our tenement building and so was emergency relocated to Easterhouse’. And recalls having an ‘idyllic childhood’ with lots of happy memories of ‘being surrounded by field’s’ and ‘dogs of 57 varieties.

At an early age, her teachers noticed she had a real interest in learning and recalls her teachers gave her books to read and when she was finished wasn’t allowed to say if she just liked it or not, she had to tell them what the book was all about’.

She also tells us she was lucky to have a stable family and ‘a lot of loving growing up’ ‘that stood me in good stead’. ‘But what it has also done to me is and I still have it, and I also find the older I get the worse it gets.’ … I’m angry...I’m still angry about poverty,.. I’m angry that there are still kids a mile away from where I lived that go to bed hungry, I’m angry that mums and dads are worried about how they are going to dress their kids if get too tall’.

Listen to more of Margaret’s life and career stories on the I Was Gonnae podcast now.

Having had the amazing privilege of speaking to Andy Colquhoun the current CEO of Doosan Babcocklast week, this week I had great fun speaking to 3 of my old work colleagues (Charlie McCaffrey, Willie Robertson, and Ronnie Smith) who started their Babcock apprenticeship at the same time as I did. 40 years on I ask them to reflect on their lives and how their apprenticeship shaped their life and career.

Thanks to all of the guys for not only participating in the podcast but for their friendship throughout the past 40 years.

This week I Was Gonnae podcast guest is Andy Colquhoun.

Andy was brought up in Paisley and 'has nothing but happy memories of my younger years, from an education perspective I went to Brediland Primary school and am still fortunate enough today that I support Brediland Primary through their STEM activities'.

Andy tells us how he can still reflect on the day that was the pivot for him becoming CEO of Babcock Doosan and says' timing is everything' in career development.

Andys advice to the next generation is based on 5 things:

Listen to more of Andy’s career and life stories now on the I Was Gonnae podcast.

This week I Was Gonnae podcast guest is John MacKay

John tells us how he enjoyed school and has ‘very happy memories’ and relates his career within journalism to his English teacher. At school she recognised ‘my enjoyment in writing and suggested have you ever thought about journalism as a career' 'and have you ever thought about writing a book’ both of which I have achieved and I ‘lay credit to her for putting me on that path’. ‘The importance of a teacher raising your horizons’ ‘is crucial’ to develop confidence and for inspiration.

John tells us about his career within journalism and working at both the BBC and STV where he is now the anchor on STV News at Six.

John’s advice for the next generation is always ‘treat others the way you would expect to be treated yourself’.

Listen to more of John’s career and life stories on the I Was Gonnae podcast.

This week’s Iwasgonnae guest is Jackie Galbraith. When Jackie was at school, she decided she wanted to be a police officer but at 5 1” tells us ‘that wasn’t going to happen’. But her career advisors at school had other ideas for her and were confident she would achieve enough Highers to go to University. However, going to University wasn’t going to be straightforward when she at that time wanted to study apartheid and ended up having to travel 500miles for her chosen subject.

As a young person Jackie was ‘inspired and at the same time terrified, by George Orwell but she loved his use of the English language. Jackie tells us she really ‘bangs the drum’ about keeping English ‘language simple and plain, not educational or political, communicate simply and clearly so all people can understand it’.

Her advice to the next generation is to ‘be your best person, take your passions and take that energy’ and 'do your very best', ‘because by doing that you will get yourself noticed’.

Listen to more of Jackie’s career and life stories on the IWG Charity Podcast.

This week's guest is Kerry Sharp interim Managing Director at Scottish Enterprise.

Kerry Sharp enjoyed numbers at school and got involved in the young enterprise scheme which was her early introduction to business and entrepreneurialism. Kerry tells us she ‘managed to get on the graduate banking scheme at the Bank of Scotland’ and ‘got exposure to personal, retail, business, corporate and through the process decided I liked the corporate side’.

Kerry is currently the interim MD, Scottish Economic Development, Scottish Enterprise, and was ‘attracted to the mix of the investment and the public sector side, because it's more than just the money and the financial returns’. Kerry tells us ‘the pleasure of what we do is that we see it (new businesses) from something which is a concept through to something which is impactful and hopefully creating lots of jobs at the same time’.

Best piece of advice that Kerry was given ‘the harder you work the luckier you will be’.

Hear more of Kerry’s career and life story now at the #IIWasGonnae podcast on Spotify.

The podcast is part of the Scottish Registered charity #IWasGonnae - we are always looking for donations to help provide our services to inspire young people. If you would like to help please go to our Just Giving website – https://www.justgiving.com/iwasgonnae

If you would like to sponsor one of our #IWasGonnae charity services, please contact one of our team for more details.

This week's guest is Simon Cotton Chief Executive at Johnstons of Elgin, Textile Manufacturing and Fashion.

Simon Cotton – Has had his hands full guiding his ‘great team’ at Johnstons of Elgin through the past 18 months of the COVID pandemic and has now got a different challenge with customer demand increasing and having to hire people to keep up with that demand.

Simon was brought up in Glasgow and reflects positively on his education experience especially at Strathclyde University ‘with one of the best business schools in Scotland’ where he specialised in marketing. Simon also tells us he is a real advocator of lifelong learning ‘and we try to have that in work and try to give everybody opportunities to grow and learn and take on new things’.

Simon says it’s a ‘privilege’ to work at Johnstons of Elgin and says ‘we have over 100 people who have been with us for over 20 years so amazing depth of knowledge and passion’ and ‘you see the pride coming through on everything they do’ people with ‘genuine pride for making a fantastic product’ ‘with real craftsmanship’ ‘it’s great to be part of it’.

Listen to more of Simon's career and life stories now.