Don't Stop Us Now! Podcast

This week we look at the realities of being a startup founder. Becoming an entrepreneur and a founder is increasingly popular, even with school students where a recent survey showing that 40% of them now want to be entrepreneurs when they complete their studies. But it’s not all fame, fortune and delightful autonomy if you intend to build a business that will scale and survive. And we figured, who better to hear what being a founder is really like than one of Australia’s most successful female entrepreneurs, Cyan Ta’eed, the Co-Founder of the hugely successful digital marketplace, Envato (valued at over a billion dollars). Cyan is also the founder of the ethical chocolate company Hey Tiger and go milkshake, an app for Instagram influencers. In this episode she shares with us just how hard she and her co-founders worked to get Envato off the ground. It didn’t mean that they couldn’t choose where they’d work those long hours as you will hear in this fascinating insight into this Founders reality.

We have a very special episode this week because we’re sharing the vulnerable story of how one of our guests was subsequently fired from a high profile role in the US and how she navigated her way through the dark times that followed.  That guest is Heidi Hackemer and what she shares in this episode is so generous and valuable for all of us to hear; after all nothing is permanent and plans fall over on a regular basis. Heidi is a leading creative who had her own brand agency in New York and also headed up the Creative Studio at the philanthropic Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) in California. Not long after our first conversation with Heidi in July 2018 things went wrong, very wrong. Heidi was fired from CZI and not only that, when she got back to New York, she had to close her brand strategy agency, W&W too. We learnt about this because Heidi wrote an extremely brave and vulnerable article on Medium (link below) describing what had happened and how low she was feeling.Admiring he

This week’s future-proofing mini episode is all about making the most of meetings you attend at work. And seriously, this is one of the most important tools you have to develop your visibility and your reputation. How many times have you sat through a meeting trying to jump in and contribute, or worse, left a meeting realising you hadn’t said anything at all?As you’ll hear in today’s show, more than one senior executive uses the ‘15 minute Rule’ to hold themselves, and sometimes their direct reports, to account. In other words, have you contributed something or asked a question within the first 15 minutes of any meeting you attend? Hear some terrific advice from corporate highflyer and Honeywell’s President & CEO of Honeywell Connected Enterprise, Que Dallara who’s a strong believer in making sure you’re visible if you’re at the table.  So do not miss this episode if you sometimes leave a meeting wishing you’d made a particular point or had had the courage to ask that question that had

Can you believe it? Almost three years ago we started this podcast and now we’re excited to be releasing this, our 100th episode! A particular thank you to you if you’ve taken the time to review, subscribe or recommend our show as it really makes all our work that much more worthwhile. And we always love to hear from you, whether it’s guest or show ideas, or any feedback. Just email us here. This week’s 100th episode features a woman who has a pretty incredible story. Her name is Mouna Aouri and she’s a Tunisian who started out as a bridge engineer, including working for 7 years in Japan. (And Japan is NOT an easy place for women to work!)  After running a successful business in her home country of Tunisia, Mouna now works in Singapore with Beacon Fund which is investing in female entrepreneurs in South East Asia. Not only that, she launched and runs her own online community supporting women entrepreneurs called ‘Woomentum’. In this episode you’ll learn: Why Mouna left Tunisia to

This week’s mini episode is about keeping things in perspective and not taking things personally at work. We hear great advice from one of our wisest guests, Julia Paige, Uber’s global head of Social Impact. We both have in our time, and the wasted hours of angst trying to second-guess the motivations of others or their perceptions of us, were truly a waste of time.How often have you been rattled by something someone has said to you at work, then spent hours ruminating and worrying about how you're perceived by others? Spare yourself the pain and check out this mini episode to help you realise if it's work ...it's not personal!Useful LinksLink to Julia’s full interviewJulia on LinkedIn  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A recent Microsoft trends in work report showed that 40 billion more emails were sent in February 2021 than the previous February, due to the increase in remote working. No wonder so many of us are feeling burnt out and that our work/life boundaries are all askew! We’re happy to say our latest ‘How To’ episode is jam-packed with tips on how to appropriately say “No” at work, whether you’re an employee or work for yourself. We’re not saying it’s always right or easy to say “No” but what we do observe in our leadership work around the world is that some people say “Yes” way more than they need to and can be taken advantage of. If you think this might be you, then don’t miss this episode where you’ll learn:The reasons why we often find it hard to say “No”Great responses you can try when asked out of the blue to do something for someoneA useful framework one professional speaker and author uses to work out what to say “No” to; and An intuitive way to figure out what your true priorities are.&n

This week’s mini episode focuses on staying current with your skills in the fast changing world of work. Something that’s relevant for all of us given the pace of technology change! In this episode, we hear from drone and tech expert, Dr Catherine Ball, whom we featured on the show about a year and a half ago. She’s a real dynamo and a passionate believer in accessible lifelong learning. Cath is a strong believer in how important it is for corporates and individuals to think about re-training in order to keep up with where technology is taking us all. Plus she shares some great resources as well and you can see links to those below. Our take is this: don’t get overwhelmed with the full spectrum of change that’s happening in technology, take it one SMALL chunk at a time. Think about what one new skill or piece of knowledge would be most useful for you right now in your current role to help you to continue to grow and progress? Then find a short course or expert you can learn from - it might be a

We’re excited to bring you this week’s important conversation with psychologist, burnout expert, author and leadership coach, Dr Jacinta Jiménez.We’ve actually known Jacinta for some years and followed her great work on leadership, coaching and high performance with keen interest. We were really excited when she told us about her new book, The Burnout Fix.Jacinta has broken new ground with this book deconstructing and presenting burnout in an actionable way we’d never seen before, and all of it is science backed. Jacinta studied and obtained her doctorate in Psychology from Stanford University where she focused on peak performance, motivation and behaviour change.  What makes her so interesting to speak to and learn from is that she has also more recently spent several years in the tech startup world helping to build a coaching-at-scale business called BetterUp, in San Francisco. In this episode and in her new book, Jacinta deconstructs burnout and you’ll hear how: Her own 2 burnout e

This week’s mini episode is in honour of International Women’s Day. We don’t know about you but this feels like a bit of a watershed year in terms of gender equality and sexual harassment issues rising to almost boiling point in multiple places around the world. Now is the time to call out inequality, injustice and gendered violence when we see them in action. In this episode we reflect on:Why we still need to keep gender equality on the agenda and why IWD is importantHow the pandemic created a triple whammy for womenGreat advice on how you can call out bias when you encounter it at work, andHow virtual meetings haven’t necessarily improved things for women’s voices being heard. You’ll get to hear some advice from us and from one of our favourite guests, NASA’s Trudy Kortes, so enjoy this Future Proof Me episode. Useful LinksWomens March 4 Justice websitePetition to Australia’s Prime Minister on Gendered ViolenceTrudy Kortes episodeNASA websiteTrudy’s websiteTrudy LinkedinTrudy Instag

Have you ever felt totally blindsided or cheated? That’s exactly what happened to our guest this week who spent more than ten years building a startup into a huge success, only to find the company sold by the other investors without receiving a cent. Just two years later the business was valued at over 11 billion dollars!There’s no doubt that serial Scottish entrepreneur Lesley Eccles has ridden the startup rollercoaster on a grand scale. What we find so incredible and inspiring is how she’s bounced back from the devastating loss of her and her co-founders’ first business hit, FanDuel, to focus on starting a business all over again.Lesley says she felt she had no alternative but to start from scratch again - but this time she’s brought her knowledge of running and scaling a technology business to build the number one relationship and self care app, Relish.As Lesley shares her fascinating journey you’ll learn how:Lesley, her husband and their 3 other co-founders weren’t sure if their start up would b

Hello and welcome to this week’s Future Proof Me mini-episode. Valentine’s Day was only a week or two prior to us recording this episode and it really brought home how we’re often primed to make our self worth dependent on being loved or valued by others. Whereas what really counts, is what we think and say to ourselves! This brings us to the wisdom of the amazing 92 year old June Dally Watkins, whom we were lucky enough to feature on the show some time ago but still in her 90’s. Very sadly, she passed away early last year leaving an incredible legacy as a pioneering businesswoman and total inspiration.  In the first part of this week’s mini episode, you hear June talk, in her own inimitable way, about just how important it is to like and love yourself. Then we explore the labels we can unconsciously (or consciously) give ourselves and how these can really make a BIG difference. And they’re really influenced by how much we have self-worth, love and respect. We hear an inspir

Hello and welcome to another special episode of the show. For those of you listening in the past few weeks, you’ll know that we have finally relented to the many requests over time to share our own stories.Claire’s been overwhelmed with the responses to her episode that we aired two weeks ago and this week it’s Greta’s turn to be interviewed by Claire! Claire loved chatting with Greta about her innovative and fascinating career journey to date. Tune in now to hear: How Greta spent the very first part of her working career as a professional ballet dancerHow she hasn’t finished high school and doesn’t have an undergrad degree but managed to get an MBA and work at prestigious management consultancy, McKinsey & Company How, against all odds, she managed to secure her dream job working for an overseas organisation founded by Bono And, what she learnt from her time on the executive teams at eBay and Sydney Opera House. Without further ado, enjoy this episode with our inventive

This week’s mini ‘Future Proof Me’ episode is all about the power of dreaming big. One person who’s a passionate believer in the power of the dreams we make for ourselves is stationery and Swedish design entrepreneur, Kristina Karlsson - the founder of kikki.K. We had Kristina on the show around the time her business went into voluntary administration last year. It was a perfect storm and COVID was the last straw. However, the great news is that in August last year they found an investor and the brand and business lives on, still with Kristina and her husband Paul continuing to run the business.Kristina makes a big distinction between goal setting and dreaming. Goal setting is a rational process where you take reality into account, while dreaming, she says, is where you let go of reality and really think about what you would most love to happen - to create your dream life.  We also love how Kristina stresses you don’t have to be special to achieve great things…. Win One of Kristina’s

By popular demand, we’re excited to share a unique episode with you today. We’re pretty excited because we’ve been asked to do this since we launched the podcast nearly 3 years ago. If you haven’t already guessed, we’ve finally relented and will be sharing our own career stories and journeys with you. Today you get to hear all about Claire’s extraordinary career and journey. Whilst normally you’d hear both of us asking questions, of course today, only Greta is asking the questions. Claire, of course, will be answering them. (Yippee!) Greta was blown away by Claire’s remarkable career to date. In this episode you’ll learn how Claire: Received an award from the UK Prime Minister as one of Britain's People of the Year at the age of 26How a tragedy changed the course of her life What it was like working at Google and why they’re so innovativeAnd finally, why she left her plum job on the Google Australian leadership team Without further ado please enjoy this episode getting to know ou

We’re excited to share our first mini episode for 2021!It’s a topical one for many people, particularly those whose careers may have been affected in some way by COVID in the past year. We were blown away by the career story of Dr Emma Camp, a coral scientist, a UN Young Leader and a National Geographic Explorer, amongst numerous other accolades she’s earnt along the way. When you look at Emma’s LinkedIn profile now you would think she’s always been seen as a superstar but in fact, this is far from the truth. At the very beginning of her career, Emma really struggled to get her foot in the door of any kind of scientific research and she had to get both creative and very resilient to continue her dream of becoming a marine scientist. Don’t miss her story of the incredibly creative way she got her foot in the door and hear her advice on going after what you really want in your career. Enjoy this mini episode ....Useful LinksLink to Emma's full interview on Don't Stop Us Now!Emma’s

Hello, Happy New Year and welcome to our first episode for 2021!We couldn’t think of a better guest to start the year with than social entrepreneur Ronni Kahn, the Founder and CEO of OzHarvest. Ronni is a South African who’s lived in Australia for many years. The story of how she founded and then grew OzHarvest is really quite something. If you’re not familiar with OzHarvest, it’s Australia’s leading food rescue organisation, ensuring that quality, untouched food from supermarkets and big events gets delivered to provide meals for those in need and saving good food going to landfill. Incredibly OzHarvest has delivered 160 million meals in Australia to date. Plus, it’s expanded overseas as well. Ronni recently released her memoir, called A Repurposed Life and we explore her fascinating life and career journey in this episode including: How Ronni’s early life, from growing up in South Africa, to living on a kibbutz in Israel helped shape her ultimate purpose to end food waste How h

We can’t think of a better note to finish 2020 on than this week’s episode with an incredible woman and international leader, Michelle Guthrie.Michelle may be best known for her time as Managing Director at the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation which is Australia’s equivalent to the UK’s BBC). She was dismissed halfway through her contract amidst great public controversy.Prior to her role with the ABC, Michelle spent much of her career based in Asia where she was CEO of Star TV with more than 4,000 staff; and she also spent 5 years at Google Asia Pacific as a Managing Director there.Nowadays, Michelle sits on a number of company boards and advises tech companies on scaling globally.We had a really fascinating and uplifting conversation with Michelle and you’ll hear how:Michelle transitioned her career from lawyer to global media and technology executiveJoining Google after running Star TV was a bit of a culture shockShe bounced back from her very public end at the ABC and how she thinks of this time;An

In this week’s Future Proof Me mini episode we explore one aspect of a topic we’ve been asked a lot about this year. That topic is career transition and today we dive a little deeper on one thing that can be a major consideration for some, and that’s their financial security.  Particularly in this time of COVID, it’s understandable if you’re giving extra thought to your finances. Of course it’s not everything, but it’s a really interesting topic because sometimes it can be hard to think purely rationally about money and one’s medium term financial security.  It’s why this mini episode revisits the refreshing and calm, practical thinking of one of our former guests, Katie Vanneck-Smith. Katie chose to leave her high paying job as President of Dow Jones in New York to co-found a media startup called Tortoise in the UK. You’ll hear about the thought process she went through to work out whether she could afford to make this change and still support her family. And how she’s scaled back th

Welcome to our latest How To episode, the last one for 2020!This week we’re exploring how to end this year on a positive note. It’s been such a crazy year! From Australia and California's shocking bushfires to the global COVID pandemic, which has led to so much disruption to all our lives.We like to think of the end of the calendar year as a great opportunity to be a circuit breaker. With so many people right now feeling exhausted, this is a great chance for us all to start the process of recharging our batteries and freshening our outlook over the Holiday season.In this episode we share 4 great tips that you can choose from to help you reset, clear your head and generally position yourself in the best possible way to enjoy December and start 2021 feeling much more positive. We explore everything from humour, to reflecting on your 2020 actions, to telling someone how much you appreciate them. So if you want to end 2020 in the best possible way then this is the episode for you. Enjoy! Interestin

With the crazy year that 2020 has been and many people feeling exhausted as we come into the Holiday season, this week’s mini episode may be exactly what you need. In ‘Taking Control of Your Calendar’ we revisit some great advice from drone expert and Associate Professor, Dr Cath Ball on optimising your time and calendar. As she puts it so adroitly, she now thinks of emails simply as other people telling you how to use your time. Cath is something of a dynamo - you can hear it in the way she speaks - so many fantastic thoughts, all at a million miles per hour. Cath had to learn some important lessons when she left corporate life and started working for herself. Particularly once she had her first baby, she realised just how priceless her time was and how easy it was to let other people control her time. So if you’re feeling like your diary is out of your control then you’ll love Cath’s thoughts and advice on ensuring how you spend your time works for you. Whether you work for yourself or f