Ep 88: Softness as strength, with Laura Uglow

Before we begin, a gentle heads-up that today's conversation touches on grief, loss and suicide. Please look after yourself while listening, and pause or skip ahead if you need to.   In today's episode, I'm joined by Lynn Guthrie, a person-centred counsellor and the founder of The Empathic Therapist, for a conversation about a subject we haven't yet explored on the podcast: grief and loss.   Lynn's story is anything but linear, and we explore how her working life encompassed everything from a stint as a Butlins Redcoat, to opening the first English-speaking salon in Baku. However it was the loss of her own mum that first introduced her to counselling, and set her on a very different - not to say challenging - path.   We talk about why Lynn is so passionate about demystifying death, but also why grief can extend well beyond bereavement, taking in everything from the end of a friendship to the changes of midlife, and why that matters in terms of how kindly we treat ourselves.   As you might expect, we cover some highly emotive areas, but our conversation is not without lightness too, including the revelation that is outsourcing the ironing!   So if you're experiencing grief in any form, or you're supporting someone else, I hope this feels like a gentle and kind place to explore the experience further.   Enjoy the show!     Connect with Lynn: Website: TheEmpathicTherapist.co.uk Facebook: TheEmpathicTherapist Instagram: The.EmpathicTherapist Instagram post: The Grief Iceberg   Today's sponsor: Areta Press submissions email [email protected]  Areta Press newsletter sign up: https://mailchi.mp/aretapress/newsletter   Connect with Jo:   HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/    HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/   HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp   HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/

In today's episode, something a little different: I'm the one in the guest seat... because Vicki Knights, who joined me on this podcast back in Episode 51, invited me onto her own show, Showing Up, and she has kindly agreed to let us share the conversation here on my podcast feed.   If you haven't met Vicki yet, you're in for a treat. She's a visibility strategist, branding photographer and positive psychology practitioner, with a gift for helping people be seen and heard by those who most need to hear them, all while staying completely themselves.   She is one of the warmest, most generous and most encouraging people I know, and her podcast is full of the kind of honest, practical wisdom that makes showing up feel a lot less daunting. If you'd like to know more about Vicki's own story, do go back and listen to Episode 51, where I got to ask her all the questions.   Our conversation here comes from my own area of expertise, as we hone in on self-confidence and imposter syndrome. I talk about where the 'who am I to teach?' voice comes from, and what has helped me quieten it. I even got to share a poem at the end!   Thanks again Vicki, and enjoy the show!     Connect with Vicki: Website: https://www.Vickiknights.co.uk including her April Visibility retreat in Barcelona Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamvickiknights/ Vicki's Podcast: https://vickiknights.co.uk/showingup Episode 51 of the HDSDI podcast, with Vicki Knights: Apple Podcasts Episode 51 of the HDSDI podcast, with Vicki Knights: Spotify     Connect with Jo:   HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/    HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/   HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp   HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/

In today's episode, Pam Cottman is back for a catch-up five years after her first appearance way back on Episode 12. You'll recall that Pam is a resilience coach, but now also the host of the podcast 'Lessons in Resilience', and the author of her debut book, Being Resilient(ish): A Realistic Guide to Building Self-Belief, Confidence, and Clarity in Busy Lives.   Pam has had a lot going on since we last spoke: a house build, two children growing up fast, perimenopause, and a business finding its feet after the pandemic. We talk about how easily all of that gets left out when we only share the shiny bits of our work, and how much of it happens quietly in the background.   Of course we have a brilliant discussion around resilience too, and all about the 'ish' in the book's title, what it was like to write it around family life and running a business, and some of the key themes that Pam conveys so beautifully and empathetically.   So if your plate is full and you suspect you're due a bit more grace, I reckon this one is for you! Enjoy the show!   Connect with Pam: pamcottman.com Insta: @pamcottman Pam's Podcast: Lessons In Resilience Book: Being Resilent(ish) Check out my first conversation with Pam, back from episode 12 of the HDSDI podcast, here   Today's sponsor: Areta Press submissions email [email protected]  Areta Press newsletter sign up: https://mailchi.mp/aretapress/newsletter   Connect with Jo:   HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/    HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/   HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp   HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/

In today's episode, my guest is Jo Hooper - a former crisis communications specialist who now runs Get Wildly Free, a coaching business centred around empowering clients to say 'no!'   Jo talks us through how it all came to be, dating back to her early PR career where saying yes to everything was the norm; to the point that she ended up balancing client crises with walking her boss's children to school, before the pressure eventually tipped into two clinical breakdowns. It's a conversation that doesn't shy away from how bad it got, or from the realisation that rest alone was never going to undo years of running on empty.   From there we progress to YOLO - a phrase Jo leans on regularly, and one that turns out to carry real weight, tied to losing her father when she was sixteen. It reframes the rest of the conversation: from 'permission slaps' (like permission slips, but with more force!), to the options she believes every business owner already has access to, but rarely lets themselves use.   We even spend a fair amount of time discussing her dahlias, which turn out to be a lot more relevant to the conversation than you might think!   Enjoy the show!   Connect with Jo Hooper: Insta: @JoHooperCoach Youtube: @JoHooperCoach LinkedIn: @JoHooperCoach www.getwildlyfree.co.uk   Today's sponsor: Izz Whizz VA, founded by Isabelle Pearcey. As a special offer, Isabelle and her team are offering a 'Your PA for the Day' experience - a full day of senior executive support for just £297. Visit izzwhizzva.co.uk to book a free discovery call, quoting 'HDSDI'.    Connect with Jo:   HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/    HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/   HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp   HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/

In today's episode, my guest is Marie Kelly - professional cricketer and founder of Versatail, a headwear brand born from a question that's oddly obvious once you hear it: why does every cap and bobble hat assume you've got short hair!?   Marie walks us through her path to becoming a professional cricketer, and how the game's ups and downs offer an almost perfect mirror for life - throwing up lessons that apply just as much off the pitch as on it.   Yet it was frustration with her own kit, not a grand business plan, that led to Versatail; we chart Marie's progress from cutting holes into her whole team's caps so her teammates could wear their hair up, to selling her house to fund a fully developed version of the idea, all the way to being featured in the fashion section of Cosmopolitan.   Marie's bravery and entrepreneurial knack are obvious to anyone who listens, and I love how she draws a direct line from the pitch to the business: the comfort with rejection, the refusal to stay too high or too low, the belief that steady effort compounds even when nobody's watching. It's a properly grounded conversation about building something from a problem only you seem to have noticed - and having the nerve to actually go and fix it. It's the kind of episode that leaves you feeling genuinely inspired!   Enjoy the show!   Connect with Marie: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/versatail.uk/ https://www.instagram.com/mariekelly96/?hl=en https://www.versatail.co.uk   Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@VersatailUK  Insta post: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQfHJ0bAAZA/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==   Today's sponsor: Izz Whizz VA, founded by Isabelle Pearcey. As a special offer, Isabelle and her team are offering a 'Your PA for the Day' experience - a full day of senior executive support for just £297. Visit izzwhizzva.co.uk to book a free discovery call, quoting 'HDSDI'.    Connect with Jo:   HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/    HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/   HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp   HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/

In today's episode, I'm joined by the wonderful Isabelle Pearcey, founder of the virtual assistant agency Izz Whizz VA, who spent a decade in the legal world before an unexpected health crisis changed the direction of her entire life.   In our conversation, Isabelle talks candidly about contracting long COVID in early 2021 — a diagnosis nobody fully understood at the time — and what it meant to barely leave her bed for three months.   From there we trace how Izz Whizz VA came to be: a laptop at the kitchen table, a leap of faith, and a business that grew fast once she leaned into skills she already had from years in legal support. Isabelle explains why she eventually chose to specialise and build a small team rather than take everything on herself, and how her legal background shows up today as a love of order and structure, paired with genuine warmth for the people she works with.   So whether you've faced your own version of rebuilding from nothing, or you just fancy a few sharper productivity habits, this conversation has something in it for you.   Enjoy the show!   Connect with Isabelle: izzwhizzva.co.uk   Today's sponsor: Izz Whizz VA, founded by Isabelle Pearcey. As a special offer, Isabelle and her team are offering a 'Your PA for the Day' experience - a full day of senior executive support for just £297. Visit izzwhizzva.co.uk to book a free discovery call, quoting 'HDSDI'.    Connect with Jo:   HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/    HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/   HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp   HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/

In today's episode, I sit down with Lucy Colgan, host of The Wilderness of Creativity, a brilliant podcast exploring how creativity shapes our mental health, wellbeing and sense of self.   Lucy takes us behind the scenes of how and why the podcast came to be and how it became almost accidentally, somewhere to rebuild a sense of self. Nearly a hundred episodes and two years on, she reflects on what it's taught her about mentorship, her own voice, and giving herself permission not to be an expert.   From there, the conversation opens out into a bigger question Lucy's been sitting with for years: why the value of creativity in schools still needs defending after three decades of research already proving it. She makes a brilliant and compelling case.   So if you've ever wondered whether creativity is something you're allowed to claim for yourself, this episode might be exactly what you need to hear!   Enjoy the show!   Connect with Lucy: Podcast: https://the-wilderness-of-creativity.captivate.fm Instagram @TheWildernessofCreativity Youtube https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcx00CuX4CdoQnIvZL6_XO0V2NAYLofFa Substack: https://thewildernessofcreativity.substack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lucy.colgan.2024   Today's sponsor: Izz Whizz VA, founded by Isabelle Pearcey. As a special offer, Isabelle and her team are offering a 'Your PA for the Day' experience - a full day of senior executive support for just £297. Visit izzwhizzva.co.uk to book a free discovery call, quoting 'HDSDI'.    Connect with Jo:   HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/    HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/   HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp   HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/

In today's episode, my guest is Kate Harrison — founder of ChroME and the woman behind 'Kate the Colour' — and we spend the whole hour on something I didn't expect a business podcast to cover this deeply: colour as energy, and what happens when you lose yours entirely.   Kate's route here wasn't a straight line. Twenty-five years of self-employment, a high street styling studio that won a Grazia award, a pregnancy that ended in preeclampsia and postnatal depression, and — more recently — her husband's breakdown, which left her rebuilding alone and, in her words, sat in 'a pit of greyness.' It was there that a chromatherapy course she'd taken during lockdown suddenly clicked into something bigger: colour not as decoration, but as frequency, and how you can choose which one you wear each day.   Its a fascinating conversation that explores the idea of 'soul shades' - how each of us carries a dominant colour energy - and that mismatching it to our role or environment is often exactly why something feels off. By the end I found myself thinking about my own wardrobe completely differently - and about how much choice we actually have over the mood we bring to a day. I hope it resonates with you in a similar way.   Enjoy the show!   Connect with Kate: Insta: @KateTheColour @ChromeColour chro-me.co.uk   Connect with Jo:   HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/    HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/   HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp   HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/

In today's episode, I sit down with Laura Uglow - mother, author, breathwork facilitator and soul guide healer - to talk about the winding road that led her into more than two decades supporting women through health, wellness and, eventually, deep inner work.   Laura traces how her practice evolved from the physical (nutrition, personal training, Pilates) into something far more holistic, after noticing that the women she worked with were carrying far more than tired muscles - they were exhausted from holding everything together for everyone else. That realisation, paired with her own experience of grief, burnout and anxiety, set her on the path to breathwork, Angelic Reiki, meditation and somatic practice, and ultimately to writing.   In fact we spend a good chunk of the conversation on her new book, Soul Freedom, and the 'Liberated Woman Method' that underpins it. Laura even reads two pieces from the book live on the episode, and there's something genuinely moving about hearing them in her own voice.   Perhaps what I most took away is Laura's resolve that softness is not weakness - that choosing yourself, slowing down, and trusting your own timing is its own kind of quiet power. If you've ever felt guilty for putting yourself first, this one's worth your time.   Enjoy the show!   Connect with Laura: Website: https://www.laurauglow.com Soul Freedom book on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/SoulFreedomLauraUglow   Connect with Jo:   HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/    HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/   HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp   HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/

In today's episode, I chat with Michele Ferron, the founder of Good Tuesday - a beautifully designed stationery brand built around a simple but powerful idea: that planning isn't just a productivity tool, it's a way of making space for the things that matter most to you. Michele's story is a wonderfully unconventional one. Living on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, studying in the Netherlands and eventually finding herself in Cornwall - not entirely by design - her path to building a business was anything but linear, but created a rich foundation of layered experience, all of which feeds directly into what she's building today. We discuss how it all began with a single Etsy listing, running a values-led, B Corp-certified business, the reality of juggling a growing team of ten (including her life partner) whilst bringing up three children, all with a refreshing honesty about what works and what doesn't.  Michele also shares how being diagnosed with ADHD shaped the very heart of Good Tuesday's mission - and why the right planning tools can be genuinely life-changing, not just convenient. Enjoy the show! Connect with Michele https://goodtuesday.com Insta: https://www.instagram.com/goodtuesday/   Connect with Jo: HDSDI Networking: https://howdoesshedoit.life/networking/  HDSDI Free Stuff: https://howdoesshedoit.life/free-stuff/ HDSDI mailing list sign-up: https://howdoesshedoit.kartra.com/page/NewsletterSignUp HDSDI Membership: https://howdoesshedoit.life/membership/ Email me to book a 1:1 Discovery call: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram to continue the conversation and get updates about the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/howdoesshedoitlife/