What does it actually mean to matter? Not after retirement, not in theory, but right now, today, as a whole person?

In this episode, Timmy Cheung is joined by his beloved friend and people leader Katherine Billingham-Mohamed, who introduces the concept of mattering from Jennifer Breheny Wallace's book (feeling valued plus adding value equals mattering) and unpacks its five core principles: recognition, reliance, importance, ego extension, and attunement.

A warm, honest, and genuinely human conversation about leadership, belonging, doing good to feel good, and why the people who radiate energy are always worth keeping close.

A UFC fighter who lost his father and still stepped into the octagon. A god who lost everything and kept showing up. And a man on the underground to Canary Wharf, blasting hard rock into his ears, tearing up, feeling completely hollow - and then walking through the door and switching it all off.

In this episode, Timmy Cheung asks the question most organisations are too focused on output to ever ask: what is actually happening behind the performance? Featuring Serghei Spivac, Thor, a dog named Shelby, and Andrew Marritt's central argument (featured in David Green's April 2026 curation) that the purpose of analysis is not insight. It is better decisions.

What if the biggest threat to your career isn't burnout, redundancy, or a difficult manager... but the fact that you quietly turned off three of your four burners and didn't even notice until the gas ran out completely?

In this episode, Timmy Cheung unpacks the Four Burners Theory by David Sedaris (family, friends, health, and work) and what happens when one consumes everything else. Featuring Peter Parker's guilt, Reed Richards' obliviousness, a manager who punished him for being with a friend at 7pm, and a body that started sending signals his mind refused to receive.

This one's personal. Really personal.

What happens when the thing that defined you: the role, the purpose, the reason you got up every morning, quietly stops needing you back?

In this episode, Timmy Cheung explores the retirement nobody talks about honestly. Not the pension pot. Not the gold watch. The grief. Drawing on the film Logan, a Wall Street Journal piece on the concept of a "mattering span," and a deeply personal reflection on watching his own parents figure out who they were once the family takeaway closed its doors. This episode asks the question most organisations are nowhere near ready to answer. What happens to a person when the world stops calling on them?

There's a question that runs underneath every promotion, every job title, every carefully built career. Almost nobody asks it. In this episode, Timmy Cheung explores what happens when work becomes the entirety of who you are, drawing on Tajfel's Social Identity Theory, Carmy Berzatto's identity crisis in The Bear, and a deceptively simple question from a Season 1 episode of Frasier that an entire psychiatrist couldn't answer.

Because your job title is not your identity. It's a role an organisation gave you, and could take back at any moment. So before you reach for it the next time someone asks what you do, ask yourself the only question that actually matters. Are you happy?

Voice Notes While the Data Loads. Season 2.

Feelings drive everything.

You showed up. Every single time. You stayed in the choir for five years when two were mandatory. You volunteered. You worked the front desk. You went above and beyond at every job, in every team, in every organisation. And the recognition? Never quite matched the effort.

In this episode, Timmy Cheung unpacks the gap between what we give and what we get back. From a dusty school plaque his daughter was using as a toy, to the retail colleague who deserved the promotion that went elsewhere, to the loneliest feeling you can have at work: does anyone actually see this?

Featuring Adams' Equity Theory, a shoutout to the manager who got it right, and a reminder that value doesn't always arrive in the form you expect.

Voice Notes While the Data Loads. Season 2.

Feelings drive everything.

What happens when you grow up in a Chinese takeaway, where directness is the language, arguments are sorted in seconds, and the next order is always waiting... and then walk into your first proper office environment completely unprepared?

In this episode, Timmy Cheung tells the story of the mistake that almost derailed his career before it even started. A piece of feedback that came from the wrong person. A vent to a junior colleague that went exactly where you'd expect. And a brand that took a hit before he even knew he had one to protect. Featuring Goffman's Dramaturgical Theory, the Johari Window, the Meisner technique, and a lesson about the unwritten rulebook that nobody hands you on day one.

Presenting Voice Notes While the Data Loads - Season 2: Episode XIII

We've all had a bad interview. But have you ever had one so bad that the interviewer got their phone out mid-answer? In this episode, Timmy Cheung revisits the worst interview of his career the afternoon he took off, the presentation he over-prepared, the out-of-body experience of hearing himself say entirely the wrong thing... and the moment he realised the interview was actually telling him something far more important than whether he'd got the job. Here's what nobody tells you before you walk into that room: you are also interviewing them. Featuring the work of Liz Ryan, founder of Human Workplace, and a reminder that a rejection letter does not define your value. Presenting Voice Notes While the Data Loads: Season 2 - Feelings drive everything.

Season 2 is here and this time, we're going somewhere the data can't follow. In this opening episode, Timmy Cheung unpacks why feelings, not figures, are the real drivers of human behaviour at work.

From a senior leader who cleared the room with one sentence, to an NHS appointment that left him feeling like a number on a conveyor belt, to Queen Ramonda commanding the UN with nothing but dignity, this episode asks the question every People Analytics professional should be sitting with: are you measuring what actually matters?

Season 2 of Voice Notes While the Data Loads!

Season 1 reminded us it's about people, not just numbers. Season 2 explores the uncomfortable truth: feelings drive decisions more than data ever will.

From tantrums that tank your brand to interviews that change everything. From childhood awards that taught you about value to when work becomes your entire identity. From retirement's identity crisis to why "it's just business" always feels personal.

Plus various guests along the way...

10 episodes blending personal stories, psychology, LOADS of Comic Book and film references, and people analytics insights.

Season 2 drops soon.