When I Grow Up

My guest this episode is Writer and Speaker, Emma Rosen. A high achiever academically, Emma progressed through school and university with the necessary grades and experience to land her dream role on the Civil Service’s prestigious Graduate Scheme.

Within two weeks she knew it wasn’t for her. After a year, something had to change so she wrote a list of all the jobs she’d dreamed of doing growing up. Just before her 24th birthday, she quit her job to embark on – what she called – a radical sabbatical. Her aim: to try 25 careers before she turned 25, through shadowing, work experience and ‘just giving things a go’.

From archaeology in Transylvania, tour guiding amid violent protests in Venezuela to being an extra in a major movie, Emma gained invaluable insight into both herself and the modern workplace. Emma now works as a writer and speaker, focusing on millennials in the workforce. She specialises in promoting portfolio careers and alternative ways of working; advocating for more diverse careers education for young people, with a far greater emphasis on work experience.

Emma is a girl after my own heart. It's not often I meet someone else who has tried as many careers as I have. I love the fact that she wears it as a badge of honour, and not something to be ashamed of. As Emma says, it's not often we marry the first person we date, so why do we so often stick in a long monogamous relationship with the first career we try out too?

We talk all about Emma's childhood dreams and how her early choices were defined by experimentation and keeping her interests as broad as possible - something that she now celebrates in her current career. She explains how what she thought to be her 'dream job' at the Civil Service quickly turned into quite the opposite, and how she set about having a 'radical sabbatical' to try and work out what she really wanted. Emma tells me all about this year and the 25 jobs she did in one year, before she turned 25\. She also dishes out plenty of fantastic advice for Millennials in the workplace.

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Order Emma's Book: [The Radical Sabbatical: The Millennial Handbook to the Quarter Life Crisis](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radical-Sabbatical-Millennial-Handbook-Quarter/dp/191138273X)

"Follow the breadcrumbs. Just follow those little nudges, whispers, signs and clues of what you enjoy and what your soul really enjoys. be really honest about that. If you want to change your life, start by doing more things that you love. Surround yourself by people that inspire you rather than drain you. Have more friendships with people who are doing things that they’re really excited about."

My guest this episode is Certified Health Coach, International Speaker, Bestselling Author and Actress, Mel Wells.

At the age of 18, Mel landed her dream job as an actress on popular UK soap Hollyoaks. On the surface, she had it all. But beyond the magazine covers and showbiz parties, Mel was suffering from an Eating Disorder that ruled her life, leaving her feeling empty and unhappy.

In 2012, Mel’s life changed forever when her Dad died from cancer. Combating her struggles with food became more urgent and purposeful, and Mel trained in nutrition to become a health coach. Over time, Mel healed her relationship with herself and food, and embarked on a second career, launching a coaching business. Her passion, she says, is “helping women establish a brand new relationship with food” and for the past five years she’s been doing just that. She is Hay House’s Youngest author has been featured in Forbes Under 30, Women’s Health, Cosmopolitan and more as a leading women’s expert in her field.

In early 2018, Mel made the brave decision to return back to where it all began, almost a decade later, to pursue a career in acting once again. She said: “It’s never too late to return to that inner child inside of you - that little girl full of dreams - and make her come alive again.”

In this episode, Mel and I talk all about her childhood ambition to become an actress and how she manifested this. She opens up about how issues with body image and food took complete hold of her life for six years. Mel speaks candidly about what this was like, but also how a new path opened up as a result of this very struggle.

As an author of two bestselling books, Mel shares plenty of fantastic advice for people craving what she calls a "full up" life. She explains how she helps other women and how you can help yourself too. And finally, she also speaks about the future and how she is returning to what her inner-child desired (while doing everything else). Mel really is a true multi-tracked, multi-talented, multi-hyphenate.

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"What are you not willing to not find out about? I think that’s something everyone could examine. Whether we want to or not, we are all going to wonder about some stuff. We don’t all get to know what it feels like to be an Olympic athlete or a movie star. There are just things we don’t get to experience as just one person, in one lifetime. We do get to choose to some extent what we choose as a fantasy and what we try out.

For me, I could have been OK in my other situation. I just wasn’t willing to not find out what it was like to live in New York, pursue a creative career and try being with someone else or on my own. When I came to that conclusion, it was so urgent."

My guest this episode is Man Repeller's Deputy Editor, Haley Nahman. A 2011 business graduate, Haley started her career as an Office Manager in Silicon Valley, before forging a successful path in Human Resources at a Design Firm. While her life in San Francisco was rather rosy, she couldn’t help but wonder what life would be like in New York City pursuing her dream of being a writer.

After hearing that one of her favourite websites Man Repeller was hiring, she sent founder Leandra some writing samples from the blog she wrote outside of work. Much to her astonishment, she was offered a junior writer position. This was one ‘what if’ that she couldn’t leave unanswered, and she boarded a plane to the Big Apple where she has now lived for almost three years and risen to the role of Deputy Editor.

If you've read Haley's work on Man Repeller, you'll know it's infused with honesty, making it wholeheartedly relatable. For me, this conversation did precisely what her writing does. She beautifully articulated the human experience - and unease so many feel around their work and identity - in the most soothing and reassuring way.

We talked all about her early career in HR and how her former life in San Francisco could easily have been equal to her current New York experience. She explained the driving forces behind her decision to leave a career, relationship and city that was perfectly fine in favour of the unknown. We also discussed how she landed her role at Man Repeller and some of the pitfalls of doing what you love for a living.

While Haley is pretty much doing her dream job, she acknowledges that this is not always possible for some people and offered invaluable advice to people lacking fulfilment day-to-day. We also touched upon some of her writing, friendship, and much more… You can tell Haley used to work in HR because she has a talent for understanding people.

**You can read Haley's Man Repeller Stories we discussed here:**

[10 Things I've Learned Since Moving to New York](https://www.manrepeller.com/2016/08/things-ive-learned-since-moving-to-nyc.html)

[Unpopular Opinion: Internships Are Overrated](https://www.manrepeller.com/2017/01/internships-are-overrated.html)

[Changing My Life Didn't Change Me As Much As I Thought It Would](https://www.manrepeller.com/2018/08/finding-happiness.html)

[Does Everyone Have A Friendship Complex Or Just Me?](https://www.manrepeller.com/2018/02/making-friends-as-an-adult.html)

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[Read Haley's stories on Man Repeller](https://www.manrepeller.com/author/haley-nahman)

Image credit: [Edith Young](https://www.instagram.com/edithwyoung)

"I didn't know what I wanted to and not until very recently did I discover that. I've had lots of different career paths but I still managed to get myself into some really good positions in terms of work. It's not the end of the world if you don't know what you want to do until you're 30, 35, 40 or whatever. That's just part of life. You've just got to roll with it." 

My guest this episode is Podcaster, Coach and Social Media Producer Alex Manzi. Born and bred in London, Alex says he “never got on with” with school and found greater purpose working at his Uncle’s delicatessen at the weekends.

 It wasn’t a surprise, then, that Alex decided to forgo University in favour of hitting the ground running in the workplace. From working in a pasta factory to delivery driving, he spent his first year as a jack-of-all-trades before working at a factory for almost three years.

 While he considers this a dark and directionless time, it was also when he created his Music Blog 'We Are SME' and Club Night called Wanderlust. By day, he was stretching canvases onto their frames and by night he was furiously writing about his favourite new musicians. Eventually, he landed his first job in Media at an Events and Marketing firm, before embarking on a career in Advertising. 

In 2014, he became BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Social Media Producer, where he spent four and a half years tweeting and Instagramming about music. At a point, however, he couldn’t help but feel something was missing. He stooped back into that familiar dark place, finding solace in motivational podcasts and books. This motivated him to create his very own podcast ‘Dreamer’s Disease’ - a podcast dedicated to telling the inspirational stories of others, in a bid to inspire himself and his audience. 

Almost 80,000 plays later and after four years at 1Xtra, Alex has now taken a leap to pursue his passion full-time, to see where Dreamer’s Disease can take him.

I had the pleasure of working with Alex at the BBC and was so impressed when he started his own podcast on the side. Seeing him go ahead and pursue his dreams stoked a fire inside me, and served as an inspiration to get my podcast off the ground. I absolutely love how honest and candid Alex is when talking about some of life's more difficult subjects. 

In this relatable chat, Alex talks about how he felt lost for most of his twenties, unsure of what he really wanted to do. He explains how his decision to reject the usual path of university in favour of working has served him in the long run, and how feeling directionless has been the cause of some of his darkest moments. Alex also explains how he found purpose and re-discovered himself, to now be in a position to help others do the same with his Podcast Dreamer's Disease and new Coaching Business. 

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“Life is difficult sometimes. The fact that something is difficult, hard or boring doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the wrong thing for you. It may be important to work out why it’s so difficult, hard and boring and try and go a bit deeper… You don’t have to like every situation you’re in. Life is full of suffering and we need to develop resilience."

My guest this week is Forensic Psychiatrist, Dr Gwen Adshead. She is a leader in a very specialist field, in which she seeks to understand and treat the behaviour of some of the most vilified and socially rejected members of society.

Currently working at Ravenswood House in Hampshire and a women’s prison in Surrey, she previously worked at Broadmoor Hospital for more than a decade, an institution home to more than 200 men convicted and accused of the most heinous of crimes.

With over 20 years of practice in the NHS, Gwen qualified in medicine in 1983\. Since then, she has become a contributing member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She also works with young offenders, supports crime victims and has written over 100 academic papers in addition to co-editing textbooks about Psychotherapy and Forensic Psychiatry.

Gwen is a regular guest on radio and television, where she has discussed the nature of evil, criminality and the state of the Health Service is the UK. Her “Desert Island Discs” is also an absolute must-listen. Having known she wanted to be a doctor from the age of 7, Gwen says she still can’t think of anything more interesting than being a Psychiatrist.

I discovered Gwen when I listened to her Desert Island Discs, first broadcast in 2010 (and an absolute must-listen if you haven’t heard it). I was fascinated to hear her talk about her path in life, but also the nature and origin of evil and what happens to trigger someone to commit a serious offence. In this episode, we talk all about how Gwen found her calling, how she dealt with difficult decisions and navigated her career, the power of being open-minded, reflections on her time at Broadmoor and working with people for whom everything went wrong. We also talked about what it means to grow up from a psychological standpoint and how important learning to deal with difficulty is - a perspective we don't hear enough.

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Listen to [**Gwen's Desert Island Discs**](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00syzlf)

"I'm still in this mindset of I have no idea where I'm going to be in the next five years. It messes with my head. It's very exciting because there are so many opportunities and you can go in whichever direction you want, but as someone who is very goal-oriented, it's very bizarre to not really know where the industry is going to be. It's not all in my control."

My guest this week is Personal Trainer and Fitness Blogger, Zanna Van Dijk. Her website bio states that she finds it “hard to define her job”.  But why define it when you have your finger in an impressive number of pies? These pies include but are not limited to, being: a Trainer, Adidas Global Ambassador, BBC Podcast Host, Author, Blogger, Vlogger, and co-founder of The Girl Gains.

A 2014 graduate of the University of Sheffield, Zanna studied Speech Sciences. It wasn’t until her second year at university, when she discovered her passion for fitness, that her idea for her future started to change. After graduating, she set off around the world backpacking. It was this journey of self-discovery that confirmed Zanna’s commitment to a career in fitness. Upon returning to the UK, Zanna moved to London to complete a six-week Personal Training course – and hasn’t looked back since.  

Over the past few years, Zanna has juggled personal training alongside a whole host of projects to become a famous face in the fitness world and has published her first book called ‘Strong’. Beyond smoothies and squats, Zanna is passionate about sustainability and the environment. An Explorer and Ocean Lover, Zanna recently launched a sustainable swimwear brand called Stay Wild and wants to make caring about the environment cool.

When offering advice on starting a business, Zanna says “find your passion, embrace the challenge and you’ll work harder than you ever thought you could.” And work hard is precisely what Zanna has done to get so far aged just 25 years old. 

Zanna was literally a DREAM to talk to. Having never had a traditional 9-5 job, she's been forging a truly modern career. We talked all about growing up and how bullying shaped her, how she discovered her passion for fitness, deciding not to pursue a career in Speech Science (even if her Mum was a bit disappointed!), the magic of stepping outside your comfort zone... and SO much more. 

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"The quickest way to tell my story is 'Oh, I quit my job!' But of course, I didn't just quit like that. There were months of turmoil beforehand, saving, making a plan. There are lots of things that go on in the background to ensure that I could leap and feel comfortable. This meant I could make changes not based on fear."

My guest this week is Career Coach, Lauren Kay. Born and bred in the North of England, she followed her childhood ambitions to become a lawyer. Following some study and a dose of inspiration from Ally McBeal, she wound up in London in her dream job. Fast-forward six years in a corporate legal office with many professional accolades under her belt, she soon found herself feeling empty. The sheen had worn off her shiny London life – and indeed herself. Trapped, overworked and undervalued, she set off on a mission for fulfilment. Cue packing up her London life and setting off an adventure around the world. She peeled away, layer by layer, in search of the most authentic version of herself, which she has found since living a, what she calls, ‘Freedom based lifestyle’ in Bali for the last two years. Committed to helping others do the same, Lauren says her biggest desire is “for all humans to be their happiest and most successful – so that they can shine their brightest in the world.”

I first met Lauren when I was contemplating moving to Bali. I'd seen her Instagram and thought that working on the beach with a coconut in hand looked far preferable than being slouched in an office chair in a gloomy London. After grabbing coffee with her on one of her quick visits home, however, I realised that this idea of the Digital Nomad lifestyle perpetuated by Instagram is dangerous, and often inaccurate. Of course, it's paradise, but it's also life too.

Lauren's decision to quit a career in Law in favour of something more aligned with her values, though, really inspired me. She talks so passionately about this and I love how she is helping others really tap into what they care about. In this episode, we talk all about how she came to the realisation that a career in Law wasn't for her, redefining success in a meaningful way, the realities of the Digital Nomad lifestyle that Instagram doesn't show, the power of intention setting... and much more! 

If you enjoy this episode When I Grow Up, I would LOVE it if you could leave a review or comment… it really helps with getting it out there.

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“I always felt this strange sense of otherness as a child, just because of the colour of my skin. I am sure there are many people who have versions of that, whether you have afflictions that others think disable you, that don't in any way disable you. I knew full well, because of the environment I grew up in, the pigmentation of my skin made literally no difference to my ability to do anything. So I've always looked at the world from that perspective, that this must apply to everyone. Everybody must have something inside them that others judge will reduce their capacity for anything - whether it's for learning, love, creative output or self-actualization. It is completely nonsensical. Of all the things as a child that I carry with me. It's completely determined the path I've taken through life.”

My guest this week is the New York Public Library’s Chief Digital Officer, Tony Ageh. He is the visionary behind innovations such as The Guide at The Guardian and Wired UK, and also one of the founding fathers of BBC iPlayer – the BBC’s pioneering streaming and catch-up service. An early disrupter and proponent of change in the 80s and 90s, Tony began his career in publishing, and even helped launch Richard Branson’s London listings magazine, Event. Tony’s reputation for leading change earned him an invitation to join The Guardian Media Group, and by the mid-1990s, he was Head of Product Development. 

From The Guardian he re-joined Branson to work on the launch of virgin.net, before spending 12 years at the BBC, where he rose to the much-coveted positions of Controller of Internet and Controller of BBC Archive Development. In 2016, Tony ventured across the pond to become Chief Digital Officer of the NYPL, where he is currently unleashing big ideas to digitally transform the institution. Tony was recognised for his work at the BBC when awarded an OBE for his services to digital media in 2015\. On future-proofing ideas, especially through large organisations at the BBC, Tony has said: “I am good at making ideas survive that process, which means they survive the outside world.”  

Tony is one fascinating man, with a tale or two (or twenty!) to tell. Change has been such a huge part of Tony’s career and throughout his career he has sat on the cusp of it, in the best possible way. Tony told me all about how he has navigated and executed change throughout his career, often in the face of great resistance. The story of BBC iPlayer is a case in point and a story you simply have to hear. I’m not going to give any spoilers, but it started with a visit to the pub and well over 84 meetings. We also touched upon his big decision to leave the BBC and venture to a new city and new job at the New York Public Library. 

If you enjoy this episode of the When I Grow Up Podcast, I would love it if you could rate or review, as it really helps to spread the word. 

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"I really thought about it. I sought the counsel of people I trusted. I spent time feeling settled about it and I still arrived at the decision that I want to go. The only person I could blame was myself and in that moment I trusted myself to know it was the right decision for me."

My guest this week is the storyteller Temi Hollist. Hailing from Northampton, she’s a seasoned creative with truly global experience – having laid her hat in London, New York and most recently, Berlin. Starting her career at BBC Worldwide (now BBC Studios) in London, she climbed the ladder all the way to the glittering city lights of the Big Apple to become Director of Creative Strategy at the BBC, before moving to do the same at global news giant, The Guardian.

Temi then made the courageous decision to leave New York to pursue her passion. She packed her bags to study music production in Berlin, where she’s lived for the past two years. In this time, she’s earned a Diploma in Music Production, released her debut EP, produced experiential events, and a whole host of films and pilots.

When I started this podcast, I always knew I wanted to interview Temi. The universe put us in touch with each other and although I’ve never met her in person (she’s now in Berlin and I’m in New York), we’ve had so many inspiring and real conversations via Skype along the way. So much so, that she feels like a great friend now. I always feel so pumped for life after talking to her and know that other people will feel the same after listening to her.

She’s one of those amazing people who has taken a ‘leap’ towards what she wants and I admire her so much for it. Temi and I talked about: How she made a leap from a high-powered corporate job in New York to the unknown in Berlin, how these ‘leaps’ aren’t as binary or dramatic as they may initially seem, as well as practical tips on doing the same — if you’ve ever entertained the idea!

If you enjoy this episode When I Grow Up, I would LOVE it if you could leave a review or comment… it really helps with getting it out there.

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"A lot of people underestimate their 'superpower' or 'Zone of Genius'. Everyone has something that they really enjoy or are really good at - and probably better at it than most people. At first glance, it might not look like the type of skill that is job-orientated. It's the kind of task that doesn't bore you. It's probably something you do when you're not thinking. It could also be something that gives you energy after you do it."

My guest this week is Career Coach and Business Strategist Ciara Davies. After working in education, the arts, HR, and international trade negotiations, she scored her dream job as an attaché at a British embassy overseas. It wasn’t long, however, before she missed the satisfaction of making a positive difference to people’s lives on a personal level. This is when serendipity intervened in the form of an opportunity to train as an internal coach to other staff in the Foreign Service.

Fast-forward a few years, and now she’s a full-time Career Coach, helping people identify their unique talents and define their own version of success in work and life. Nothing gives her more satisfaction than working with clients to realise their ambitions. A graduate of Cambridge University, she’s one smart cookie who’s brought about her own career evolution and is now on a mission to help others do the same.

Ciara Davies is a very special guest because not only is she someone who has made a significant career change herself, but she also coaches other people to do the same. Double whammy. Naturally, Ciara had plenty of fantastic advice to share. We talked all about: How following your curiosity can help you find your so-called ‘zone of genius', why people are unhappy in their jobs and what they can do about it, as well as how you can get clear on what you REALLY desire. We also chatted sharks and hula hooping. Intrigued? You’ll have to listen.

Ciara also very kindly offered you guys a FREE Career Ignition Session valued at 197 Euros. Head over to [http://ciaradavies.com/podcastoffer/](http://ciaradavies.com/podcastoffer/) to sign-up!

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