resilience Archives - Don't Stop Us Now

Purpose Powered Pioneer – Annie Crawford

October 10, 2024October 10, 2024
by Claire

Few people can say they’ve founded a non-profit that raises millions while creating a community that helps supporters achieve extraordinary physical challenges. Annie Crawford is one of those rare individuals.

As the founder of CanToo, a high-profile Australian charity running for nearly two decades, Annie has revolutionised fundraising for cancer research. CanToo organises physical challenges like ocean swims and half marathons, where participants receive months of professional coaching in exchange for fundraising commitments.

As a result, more than 20,000 people to date have achieved impressive physical challenges, and more than AUD$33 million has been raised to fund cancer research.

Aside from CanToo, Annie’s had some fascinating career experience including helping to build a very successful Biotech startup in San Francisco.

In this episode you’ll hear how:

How a Kombi van trip around Europe with her parents and 6 siblings impacted Annie’s world view (can you imagine 9 people in a Kombi van?!)
How Annie places values at the heart of what she does and how she built CanToo
Her ingredients for building a sustainable and successful organisation, and
How Annie learnt to overcome an almost paralysing fear of public speaking

Annie is a very down to earth and modest person and you can tell that her life and priorities have been shaped by family tragedy. With CanToo she’s built an incredible and fitting legacy.

Enjoy this episode with the inspiring and values-driven Annie Crawford.

Useful Links

CanToo website – check out their latest physical challenges

Interview

Recipe for Resilience and Growth – Dr Jacinta Jiménez

July 22, 2024July 22, 2024
by Claire

Here we are halfway through the year and if you’re anything like the amazing people we work with in our programs and coaching, many of you are feeling like it’s been a real slog.

Combine that with what’s going on in the world, and with the fact that hybrid working can make you feel more isolated and alone, we thought it timely to invite back on the show a very popular guest who happens to be a Stanford-trained psychologist, burnout expert, award winning author, and an amazing executive leadership coach, Dr Jacinta Jiménez.

We last featured Dr Jacinta on the show shortly after her award winning book, The Burnout Fix was published. Because we’re now seeing more, not less, burnout these days we’re so happy we were able to secure a window in Jacinta’s diary to hear the latest on wellbeing and taking care of ourselves and our teams at work.

You’ll hear:

How Dr Jacinta herself has had to come back from multiple operations including neurosurgery just last December which led to her having an unplanned stint in ICU
Her take on the importance of giving ourselves time to reflect, integrate and recuperate, whether we’ve been sick or not
How you’re not alone in feeling isolated as Dr Jacinta calls out a ‘Connection Crisis’ happening to us all,
And the practical things you can do if you’re feeling stretched too thin or burnt out

Enjoy this enriching conversation with the wise and compassionate Dr Jacinta Jiminez.

Useful Links

Our first interview with Jacinta – Fixing Burnout

Jacinta’s website

Jacinta on Linkedin

Interview

Stewarding the Man United Brand – Ellie Norman

February 14, 2024February 14, 2024
by Claire

We are back!! Yes, we know, we’ve had a long and awesome holiday :-)! We hope your year has got off to a great start too.

We have a blockbuster episode to leap into 2024 and it’s all about someone who stewards equally blockbusting brands.

Ellie Norman runs marketing, communications and fan engagement at one of the world’s biggest sporting brands, the famed football club, Manchester United. Our minds were officially blown when Ellie told us she has to market to 1.1 billion fans around the world. That’s an incredible audience for any marketer.

It’s not just the iconic Man United sporting brand that Ellie has experience with; she’s also been Global Director for Marketing and Communications at Formula One where she helped popularise the franchise.

In fact, Ellie’s career has featured a lot of male-dominated industries and sectors as she also spent six years in marketing roles with Honda Motors in Europe. Her take on how to thrive and succeed in these environments is uplifting.

We were struck by Ellie’s refreshing and inspiring way of thinking about her work on the global stage and, as you’ll hear, she shares: . . .

How not going to University has driven her career choices in a good way
How Ellie makes big decisions about her career
Why sports marketing flips the traditional marketing model on its head
How she helped popularise the Formula 1 brand and make it less elitist
And how she handles the Man United brand and its legion of distraught fans when the team isn’t performing on the field.

We think you’ll love this inspiring conversation with the positive and gutsy Ellie Norman.

Useful Links

Ellie on LinkedIn

Manchester United website

Manchester United on Youtube

Manchester United on Instagram

Manchester United on Facebook

Manchester United on Tiktok

Manchester United on X

And if you loved this podcast, you might like our interview with Lucinda Barlow, Head of International Marketing at Uber

Interview

Compassion + Contribution – Dr Lineo Thahane

November 17, 2023November 17, 2023
by Claire

If you’re anything like us and fed up with all the bleak news, then this week’s episode may be just what you need; a guaranteed dose of positivity, progress and inspiration!

We’re joined by the humble and impressive Dr Lineo Thahane. Lineo is a paediatrician and is Executive Director of a major medical clinic in the Kingdom of Lesotho called the Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation Lesotho.

Lesotho, a tiny country in southern Africa, is ranked number two in terms of the countries with the highest proportion of its adult population living with HIV in the world. Nearly one in 4 adults is HIV positive and many children are too.

Lineo was born and raised in the US but her parents were both from Lesotho and so Lineo spent summer holidays back in Lesotho with her extended family. There, she was able to experience what it was like to live in her parents’ country of birth and, as she grew older, she felt a deep sense of unfairness at the differences in the standard of living in the US versus that of Lesotho.

As you will hear, this convinced Lineo to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a doctor so that she could return to Lesotho and help make a difference to the quality of healthcare the average person could receive there.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How nearly 10% of Lesotho’s children are orphans
How Lineo stays positive despite the sometimes confronting experiences and challenges she has faced treating sick babies and children
Why she continues to work in Lesotho when she could be living comfortably in the US,
And what Lineo has learnt about the challenges of transitioning from being a specialist doctor to becoming a leader of a large organisation with nearly 800 employees.

This is a fascinating, moving and uplifting conversation. Don’t miss this episode with the compassionate and dedicated Dr Lineo Thahane.

Useful Links:

Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation website

Texas Children’s Global Health – Lesotho

World AIDS Day 2023

Top Tips

Burning Out? Top Tips from Claire’s Health ‘Intervention’

October 8, 2023
by Claire

Burning Out? Top Tips from Claire’s Health ‘Intervention’

Feeling burnt out? Wondering how you’ll get to the end of the year? Well that’s exactly how Claire was feeling a few weeks ago. . . until she decided an intervention was needed.

A gruelling work schedule for ten months plus a second bout of Covid earlier this year left Claire wondering if she’d ever feel 100% again. So, realising she had a short window of time, she did what any self-respecting woman lucky enough to be in a position to do: she booked herself into a health retreat!

The good news is that you don’t have to go anywhere to learn what Claire learnt during her retreat because we’re sharing all the goodies here.

In this episode you’ll hear:

What made Claire choose the retreat she did
The massive insight she had about her behaviours in the past two years
How she survived without her mobile or wifi
Fun facts about the gut, and
Her key takeaway habits and rituals – that you can easily do too.

Plus you’ll hear why you should think of your body (not your bank balance) as your retirement fund.

Suffice to say we had a lot of fun talking about Claire’s week away and we think you’ll have fun listening too. Plus, your body may well thank you for it….

Useful Links:

Eden Health Retreat

Elise de Giovanni – Functional Neurology Tops – her website has lots of great tips and videos

Interview

Taking on Goliath – Sue Fennessy

July 11, 2023July 11, 2023
by Claire

We have a truly incredible guest in this week’s episode. We don’t think we’ve ever met someone with so much drive and conviction as serial entrepreneur, Sue Fennessy.

Sue’s vision for her latest, purpose-led-business ‘WeAre8’ is absolutely epic. So large is the vision, that she’s spent the past 8 years building the technology platform required to take on the social media giants of the world. Yes, this one woman ‘tour de force’ is taking on the goliaths of social media with a determination to make social media better for all.

She’s also invested more than $11 million of her own money to get WeAre8 to where it is today. She’s been able to do this because of her phenomenal track record building and exiting businesses. To date, she’s scaled and sold three previous businesses.

The last business that Sue co-founded and then sold in 2022, the global Standard Media Index, was bought for $200million. SMI, as it’s also known, was a pioneering data and technology business recording global media spends across different advertising channels. It required years of persistence and serious influence skills to get all the world’s largest media agencies on board to have access to all that data. Sue has these in spades!

These days, after numerous years living in New York, Sue is based in London where we visited her at her HQ in central London.

In this epic conversation you’ll learn :

How Sue thinks about her Purpose in life
How she plans to transform the worlds of social media AND digital advertising
The high personal cost of Sue’s single minded focus on making WeAre8 a success; and
The crazy and sexist things Venture Capitalists have said to her.

In short, this is a truly memorable conversation so please enjoy this episode with the purposeful and driven, Sue Fennessy.

Useful Links

WeAre8: https://www.weare8.com/

Sue on LInkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-fennessy/

Top Tips

5 years in – Here’s what we’ve Learnt

June 6, 2023June 6, 2023
by Claire

Blow out the candles and sing a merry tune for Don’t Stop Us Now! is 5 years old!

A lot has happened in the past 5 years and we’re so grateful to have had some incredible conversations with incredibly inspiring women.

So in this special birthday episode, we take a step back and reflect on the key insights and lessons our guests have shared over more than 165 episodes. What we find is that there are common themes that keep cropping up again and again.

Whether it’s a female leader and innovator in London, Bangkok, Silicon Valley or Costa Rica or Sydney, it turns out there are universal challenges our amazing guests have faced. We’ve also faced them and we’re pretty sure these are challenges that you’ve likely had, or may be facing too, they’re that universal.

It’s not that our stellar guests are in a different league to the rest of us, it’s simply that they’ve found a way to work through these challenges en route to their success.

And you can too.

In this episode you’ll hear:

The 5 key challenges that crop up again and again
The lessons to navigate these challenges more successfully
Thoughts, confessions and struggles from leaders including internationally renowned author and speaker, Rachel Botsman; former entrepreneur and current member of the House of Lords and board director of Chanel, Martha Lane Fox and Forbes Philanthropy Hero, Audette Exel; and…
How we all have fear and if we’re not feeling a bit of it right now, then we’re playing too safe.

In short, this episode is jam-packed with 5 years worth of wisdom.

So grab a slice of (birthday) cake and enjoy our special 5th birthday episode.

Episodes we feature:

Rachel Botsman – https://dontstopusnow.co/ever-wanted-to-do-a-ted-talk/

Audette Exel – https://dontstopusnow.co/audette-exel-make-your-own-rules/

Courtney Hohne – https://dontstopusnow.co/courtney-hohne-the-truth-about-innovation/

Lindley Edwards – https://dontstopusnow.co/lindley-edwards-wisdom-to-live-work-by/

Caroline Issa – https://dontstopusnow.co/caroline-issa-feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway/

Holly Ransom – https://dontstopusnow.co/holly-ransom-curious-on-purpose/

Martha Lane Fox – https://dontstopusnow.co/martha-lane-fox-a-powerful-voice-where-few-women-are-heard/

Que Dallara – https://dontstopusnow.co/que-dallara-unlocks-what-it-takes-to-be-successful/

Tina Sharkey – https://dontstopusnow.co/tina-sharkey-web-pioneer-industry-disruptor-tech-legend/

Ann Sherry – https://dontstopusnow.co/ann-sherry-the-positive-change-agent/

Julia Paige – https://dontstopusnow.co/julia-paige-the-stories-we-tell-ourselves/

Interview

Winning Ways – Zali Steggall

May 2, 2023May 2, 2023
by Claire

Today we have a big ‘first’ for this podcast, our first Olympic medallist!

However Zali Steggall, Olympian, barrister and now an independent member of parliament in Australia is so much more than these labels!

Last year, Zali was re-elected to Federal Parliament after a stunning and, for some, an astonishing victory in the same seat at the previous election, three years earlier.

Zali really is a pioneer (and winner) in so many fields: she was Australia’s first ever individual medallist and first Australian female medallist at a Winter Olympic Games. Plus, when she won the World Championship slalom skiing event a year later in 1999, she became the first ever person from the southern hemisphere ever to win that event.

Not one to do anything by halves, when Zali was first elected as a member of Parliament in 2019 she defeated a former Prime Minister! What’s more, she did all this as an independent candidate with no big political party to support her, however she had an army of enthusiastic supporters and volunteers.

In this episode you’ll hear:

The key things Zali learnt from her Olympic skiing career that still serve her well today
Zali’s strategies for dealing with the fear of failure
How she made the transition from being a competitive skier to becoming a barrister
Why Zali decided to enter the competitive and often antagonistic world of politics
How she deals with negativity and criticism; and
The one thing she wants you to walk away with.

Zali truly has unique stories, experiences and advice to share so enjoy this episode with the indefatigable and purposeful Zali Steggall.

*For full transparency, Greta worked pro bono on Zali’s re-election campaign last year for several months.

Useful Links

Zali’s website:

Amazon link to Zali’s mum’s book Alpine Beach: (it’s an e book)

Photo credit: Zoom /Allsport

Interview

Marching to Her Own Beat – Dot Bustelo

December 8, 2022December 23, 2022
by Claire

Our guest on the show today pivoted away from a long standing career in the music industry to found a venture focused on the visual arts.

Dot Bustello is founder and CEO of a business called Loupe, which streams and sells art from around the world and in doing so helps make all those black TV screens in our daily lives way more interesting and appealing.

Not only that, Loupe is ranked number one lifestyle app in 73 countries on Apple TV.

Dot founded Loupe seven years ago after spending nearly ten years at Apple as well as being a music producer.

Never one to believe in having a conventional career, in this episode you’ll hear Dot explain:

How she came up with the idea for Loupe and why she couldn’t believe it hadn’t already been done
The key thing she learnt after nearly a decade working at Apple
Why she thinks NFTs (non fungible tokens) are so revolutionary
Dot’s firm belief that we all have more control over what we do in our careers than most people think; and
The number 1 habit Dot relies on to stay focussed and centred.

Enjoy this fascinating conversation with the uniquely creative and entrepreneurial Dot Bustelo.

Useful Links

Loupe website – stream for free and buy art here

Loupe Insta

Dot on LinkedIn

Interview

Become Boss of Your Brain – Professor Selena Bartlett

November 23, 2022November 23, 2022
by Claire

Our guest on the podcast this week is Professor Selena Bartlett, an Australian neuroscientist who’s life’s work is all about understanding how our brains work.

Selena has held senior roles with leading research institutes in the US and Australia and she’s currently leading pioneering research into addiction and obesity at the Queensland University of Technology.

What drew us to Selena’s story is not only her passion to understand how our brains work but also her mission to educate us non-neuroscientists about the things we can do to improve our brain’s health and even completely change our lives.

In this episode you’ll hear:

The very personal reason Selena switched her career path away from pharmacy towards neuroscience as a young woman
Selena’s fascinating explanation of what causes mental illnesses such as schizophrenia
How she overcame her sugar addiction when she realised the impact it has on the brain
Some radically simple things we can all do to improve our brain’s health; and
Why Selena thinks becoming ‘boss of your brain’ can completely change the direction of your life.

Enjoy this fascinating conversation with the passionate and pioneering Professor – Selena Bartlett.

Useful Links:

Selena’s website: https://www.profselenabartlett.com/

Selena’s podcast: Thriving Minds

Selena on LinkedIn