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#216 Rhik Samadder: Life Writing & Truth Telling Sep 12, 2019

Show notes

Today's guest is Rhik Samadder: a writer, actor and broadcaster. He has a regular column with The Guardian and created their cult ‘Inspect a Gadget ’ feature. He has written for The Observer, Men’s Health and Prospect magazine, as well as being a guest, presenter and host on various radio shows. Rhik studied acting at Drama Centre London and appeared on HBO, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 (credits including Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Doctors) as well as a lead role with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In this episode we discuss his bestselling debut memoir I Never Said I Loved You which is out now. Please rate and review if you enjoyed it.

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#215 Chelsea Kwakye: On Taking Up Space Sep 05, 2019

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Chelsea Kwakye is the author of the book Taking Up Space co-authored with author and friend Ore Ogunbiyi. She is also a history graduate from Cambridge University and Taking Up Space tackle issues of accessibility, unrepresentative curriculums, race and discrimination within university spaces. This is the second title from #Merky Books, a partnership between Penguin and Stormzy, who has also announced that he is funding two Cambridge scholarships for black students in the UK. Whilst at Cambridge, Chelsea was the only black girl in her year group of around 200 people studying History, making it a very difficult environment to navigate - this is what we discuss in this episode of the podcast. She is currently studying at the University of Law in preparation for her training contract with a city law firm in London starting in 2020. She is one busy woman. Hope you enjoy this one and as usual please leave a rating or review if you enjoyed it. <3

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#214 Sofie Hagen: Comedy + Boundaries Aug 29, 2019

Show notes

Today's episode is with Sofie Hagen, a voice you many recognise from many of your fave podcasts, including The Guilty Feminist when it first launched. She also hosts her own brilliant podcasts Made of Human, Secret Dinosaur Cult and Comedians Telling Stuff.First and foremost though, she is an award-winning stand-up comedian, author of the book Happy Fat, a fat activist and a blogger.

She has been named one of British comedy's most exciting talents, as well as the winner of the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer, and her show this year The Bum Swing and has had rave reviews.

If you missed her show in Edinburgh, then you can still catch it at The Soho Theatre 10th - 14th September, and the rest of the tour!

Go see it and buy her book! Hope you enjoy this episode and if you did, please do rate and review on iTunes :)

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#213 Leah Hazard: Burnout In The NHS Aug 22, 2019

Show notes

Today's guest is Leah Hazard, bestselling author and a NHS midwife. We recorded this episode on a sunny day in Edinburgh, in a lovely brand new suite in the Market Street Hotel - so a huge thank you to them for kindly letting us use it to record!

Leah studied at Harvard and then left a career in television to pursue her lifelong interest in women’s health after the birth of her first daughter. She soon began working as a doula, supporting women in pregnancy and attending numerous births in homes and hospitals across the country. The birth of Leah’s second daughter prompted Leah to make the leap into midwifery.

Her book Hard Pushed is a Sunday Times bestseller published by Penguin. Her book paints a realistic picture of what happens behind the scenes in labour wards, and informs the reader on the many different roles midwives take on. Leah explains why the midwives we often see on TV or in pop culture sometimes create a simplistic and unhelpful impression of what actually goes on. In this episode we mainly talk about her book and the important topic of burnout within the NHS. Please rate and review if you enjoyed it!

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#212 Lauren Mahon: The Story Of Girl Vs Cancer Aug 15, 2019

Show notes

Lauren Mahon is a broadcaster, presenter, writer, influencer, charity campaigner and founder of Girl vs Cancer. She is a co-host of the number one iTunes podcast You Me & The Big C, a podcast all about 'kicking cancer’s arse' on BBC 5Live with Deborah James. Lauren won this year’s Inspirational Founder Of The Year award at the Stylist LIVE Retail Awards and the Triumph Award at the Inaugural Stylist Remarkable Women Awards 2019.

In the last two years, she has masterminded the design and distribution of a range of boobie emblazoned slogan t-shirts aka TIT-TEES, raising over 60,000 for her chosen charities, culminating in a special collaboration with Miss Selfridge. She has featured on BBC Breakfast, Stand Up To Cancer and The One Show, talking to millions of television viewers about her life experiences; from cancer, to dating, to fashion and everything in between.

Hope you enjoy listening to Lauren's inspiring story. Check out Girl Vs Cancer here: https://girlvscancer.co.uk/

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#211 Otegha Uwagba & Polly MacKenzie on Self-Employment, Managing Your Money & Mental Health (Recorded LIVE with NatWest) Aug 08, 2019

Show notes

Welcome back to Ctrl Alt Delete. This episode is a special live recording in partnership with Natwest (#ad). I recently featured in a video with NatWest and Refinery29 looking at the challenges the modern workforce faces, with a spotlight on finances. We discussed mental health, late payments and how to prepare to quit your job. So this time I wanted to ask two very knowledgeable people their thoughts on these topics. Recorded Live with Natwest at RocketSpace in London, Polly, Otegha and I discussed some of the insights from the early stages of a piece of research NatWest and Demos have been undertaking into the financial lives of the modern liquid workforce. The aim of the research is to identify what changes or solutions the financial services industry could make to improve the financial lives of people like myself and I’m sure many of you listening to this podcast. The 'liquid workforce' is an umbrella term for a variety of jobs that don’t fit the 9 – 5 (I hadn't actually heard of it before) consisting of gig-economy workers, partial-freelancers and different types of self-employment. In many ways it's a great time to be going it alone, running a side-hustle or working flexibly, but there's also many challenges we still face as our working lives and working cultures continue to change and evolve. This is particularly true as some sectors are still slightly behind the curve in catering for us, be that childcare services, housing or banking. In this episode I chat to Otegha Uwagba (founder of Women Who and author of forthcoming book We Need To Talk About Money) and Polly Mackenzie (CEO of Demos and founder of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, a charity working to break the link between financial difficulty and mental health problems). Hope you enjoy!

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#210 Liz Ward: Do You Want To PIVOT? Jul 31, 2019

Show notes

Liz Ward is a personal/business coach with over 12 years experience developing and mentoring high performing individuals, from entrepreneurs in the start up world to people in corporate management roles. With a background in brand, digital and business development, her career history includes the rebrand of the Millennium Dome to The O2, then London 2012 Opening Ceremony campaigns and global digital strategy for spirits giant, Bacardi-Martini.

After a case of severe burnout, Liz pivoted her career in 2013 and left the 9-5 corporate world. She led marketing and product strategy for disruptive tech startups and then launched Slick Pivot in 2016, a new mission to help people to pivot their careers and businesses for more happiness and growth.

Liz now helps new and seasoned entrepreneurs get good at change and supports their pivot journeys through one to one coaching, team workshops, and events. Whether that is quitting that 9-5, starting that business and developing the right mindset for success.

"The common theme for these pivotal moments is that they all started with a feeling of pain or something needing to change."

We have ALL had those moments where we realise we want to make a change, for me it was quitting my job three years ago to write my books and do this podcast, but it can be really hard to make such big decisions and craft a plan.

I loved chatting to Liz and hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

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#209 Jehane Noujaim: On Her Netflix Exposé of the Cambridge Analytica Scandal Jul 25, 2019

Show notes

This week's guest is Oscar-nominated filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, who alongside her husband Karim Amer, directed the new Netflix documentary THE GREAT HACK which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It's out now, and the Guardian has already given it five stars.

The documentary uncovers the dark world of data exploitation online. It follows the personal stories of some key players on different sides of the explosive Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data scandal. Carole Cadwalladr from the Guardian who has spend years investigating, Brittany Kaiser who went from interning on the Barack Obama campaign to working on the Cambridge Analytica Trump campaign. It's informative, entertaining with some pretty scary revelations. Even if you know a bit about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it's fascinating to see the people behind it, and their individual motivations.

Data has surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable asset. People and companies everywhere are in a battle for control of our most intimate personal details. THE GREAT HACK forces us to question the origin of the information we consume daily. What do we give up when we click the yes box on the T&Cs on social media apps? It is available to watch now on Netflix, I recommend a viewing.

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#208 From The Archives! Lucy Sheridan: On Social Media Comparison Jul 11, 2019

Show notes

While I am on a very short podcast hiatus, I hope you don't mind that I will be re-posting some of my favourite episodes from over the three years. (I'm back with a bang in August!) This episode was a popular one, with Lucy Sheridan: the world’s first and only Comparison Coach.

Lucy is an author and life coach who specialises in her helping her clients get over the ~compare and despair~ that can be heightened via social media (*cough* Instagram)

She has a new book coming out called the Comparison Cure, and it is out in December 2019 so get pre-ordering. it's packed full of tips, examples and exercises to help you take back control of who you are and what you want, this empowering book is the necessary antidote we all need to the toxic comparison culture we're living in.

The Times’ calls Lucy “one of the UK’s most successful coaches”, she was also recently listed in the Sunday Times Style in an article called “Meet The New Wellbeing Coaches”, and she’s been featured on Oprah’s ‘Life Class’ series multiple times.

In this episode Lucy and I discuss what our own personal comparison triggers are, what to do when *you’re* the trigger for someone else’s comparison, online mental health, and setting your own personal and professional boundaries. I’m proud to be sharing this very honest episode on comparison, and I hope you enjoy it!

You can find Lucy Sheridan here proofcoaching.com or on Instagram @lucysheridan <3

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#207 From The Archives! Will Young: On Setting Boundaries Jul 04, 2019

Show notes

While I am on a very short podcast hiatus, I hope you don't mind that I will be re-posting some of my favourite episodes from over the three years. Here is my episode with the brilliant Will Young. We all know Will from this Pop Idol success back in the noughties -- I was a fan then and I am now too -- but now for a different reason: his new podcast with his friend Chris Sweeney called HOMO SAPIENS. They describe it as “two gay guys talking to people we think are interesting” and were heavily inspired by BBC’s Woman’s Hour. Each weekly episode tackles a diverse mix of LGBTQ+ subjects He’s been nominated for an Olivier Award and was also nominated for the Guardian Pride Power List 2017.

Subscribe to Homo Sapiens on iTunes or Acast. Hope you enjoy this episode!

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