#080: Meet Our Women on a Mission for Season SIX!

Welcome back to the Women on a Mission show.  

Whether you’re new to the show or you’ve been with us since the beginning, or joined us at any point along the way, welcome to Season Six! 

This is a shorter than usual episode where, as promised, I reveal the guest list for this season. As the seasons roll past, it’s becoming quite the place to be and I certainly feel incredibly privileged to bring you this very special selection of interviews.  I genuinely believe that in the sharing of our stories, lies our learning, and our inspiration.
 
Let me take you through the guest list, to whet your appetite

Our launch guest for this season is Lou Featherstone of LuinLuLand. As you’ll hear later this week, we met on a vlogging course, run by Mi Elverson of the Vlog Academy, and I think it would be fair to say that one of us took to vlogging like a fish to water. If you follow either of us on Instagram you’ll definitely know which one I mean!

Lou describes herself as a Midlife Menopausal Mindset Shifter, am Accidental Middle Age Influencer, and a Vibratory advocate & Positivity Rebel.   As CEO of the Zero Fucks Club she is dedicated to empowering women to step outside their comfort zone and try new things & find thier confidence in middle age. 

I’ll be sharing more about her mission later this week, so do hit the follow button now, wherever you are listening, because this is one episode you do NOT want to miss!

Turning to my other guests, in no particular order……

The name of the guest I’m going to introduce next may be familiar to some of my longer term listeners because she’s popped up a couple of times when I’ve asked what is one of my favourite questions now – who inspires you!  At least two of my previous guests have mentioned Veronica Pullen at this point, and I thought it was time I invited her to share the story of her mission. Veronica  is the online marketing and copywriting expert for introverted and ambiverted coaches, therapists and service-providers who want to create standout social media content that builds engagement, authority and trust, and sizzling sales copy that brings perfect-fit prospects flocking. That was a bit of a tongue twister!! Veronica was one of the first women I met online when I set up my own business, and I’m really looking forward to sharing her mission with you later this series.

Next up it’s Kate Flounders, founder of the Safeguarding Association. A  specialist in safeguarding 15-25year olds, she uses her legal knowledge and skills from an almost 20 year legal career - and as an independent safeguarding chair and trustee – she helps safeguarding leads to feel confident in the external and internal processes necessary to protect those young people they work with. Kate lives in the north east with her two golden retrievers and spends her downtime on the beach.  She is one of those lucky people who has fully embraced the online/remote working life which enables her to work with professionals across the country. If you remember some of the earlier episodes where I talked about the influence of Clubhouse on my podcasting journey, Kate was one of my 3 co-hosts on the Coffee, Grow and Go adventure so I’m really looking forward to catching up with her and her mission soon!

My next guest came to my attention when she was competing in the Channel 4 programme, Make Me Prime Minister, a reality show that some have described as the political equivalent of The Apprentice, hosted by Alistair Campbell and Baroness Warsi (VARSI).  Natalie Balmain was the (well deserved, in my humble view) eventual winner and in a late night Twitter exchange on the night of the final, she kindly agreed to join me on the show. Natalie is a campaigner, designer and broadcaster, with a special interest in the role of capitalism in democracy, and how wealth-based policy influencing shapes the fabric of society. She lives in Manchester with her rescue dog Tito, and spends her free time advocating for awareness of Type 1 Diabetes and ADHD, both of which she lives with herself. Natalie first came to the media's attention in 2017 when she launched a clothing range for women living with Type 1 Diabetes, that allowed them to do their injections or wear their insulin pumps more easily.  Natalie was an inspiration to talk to and I can’t wait to share our conversation with you!

[COMPETITION TIME:
Today I'm asking for your help. I'm on a mission to stop women playing small so that they can think, dream and be bigger in leading the change they want to see in the world. And I need your help to reach more women.

As a thank you, I'll be giving away a free online coaching session each month during this season. So four lucky listeners will win an hour with me during Season Six.

It's super easy to enter.

Go to the Apple or Goodpods platform and leave a review of this episode telling us how it helped you or why you enjoyed it.

If you take a screenshot and share it on your own socials, you'll get an extra entry for each post. Use the hashtag #womenonamission and remember to tag me in so that we see it.

The winner will be announced on the first episode of the following month, so do keep listening.]


The next guest on my list joins us from across the pond in Philadelphia.  Dara Goldberg and I met a couple of years ago on Clubhouse and soon found ourselves invited as speakers on an online summit for Women who Spark after 50!  Dara is a writer, speaker, pro age advocate, and the Founder of the Endless Beauty Collective, a national initiative designed to get the beauty industry to stop telling women their beauty declines with age and spending millions to try to avoid aging is the only answer. Dara has also developed a groundbreaking Pro Age Beauty Brand Guide that includes the growing number of beauty brands that are not ageist. A Founding Contributor to the Pro Age Woman Magazine, Dara’s work has also been published in the HuffPost and Forbes and on the Kuel Life Platform. I see Dara’s name regularly pop up in various articles and podcast interviews, and I’m really looking forward to hearing the latest on her mission when we speak.

Next up, is someone much closer to home. I’m sure you’ve all realised by now that I like to have at least one local guest per season, and this season it’s Frances Beecher, Chief Executive of LLamau, Wales’ leading homeless Charity for young people and women.  By profession, Frances is a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist, and between her therapeutic and leadership roles she has worked extensively in the violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence and homelessness sectors. She was the founder and first chair of Cymorth Cymru - Wales’ umbrella body for organisations working with homeless people in Wales and is also the founder and Chair of the End Youth Homelessness Cymru coalition, a partnership of charities, agencies, academia and businesses that have joined forces to raise awareness and take a radical approach to ending youth homelessness in Wales. Frances was named as a New Radical by the Joseph Rowntree Trust alongside Michael Sheen, and more recently as one of the Future Generations Top 100 Changemakers – Acting today for a Better tomorrow. What more can I say?  She’s 100% a woman on a mission and I can’t wait to find out more about her story.

And finally, someone who I’m sure will be very well known by many of you, particularly any BBC Radio 2 listeners! Janey Lee Grace is an Amazon No 1 Best-selling author, speaker, and was co-presenter on the UK’s biggest radio show, BBC Radio 2’s  Steve Wright in the Afternoon for 24 years!

Janey has written five books on Holistic living including the number One Amazon best seller Imperfectly Natural Woman and the latest book has just been published.  “Happy Healthy Sober – Ditch the booze and take control of your life” encourages everyone to look again at their relationship with alcohol.  After ditching the booze Janey launched a podcast ‘Alcohol Free Life’ focusing on sober self-care, she gave a TEDx talk “Sobriety Rocks- Who Knew!” in July 2019 and launched The Sober Club - a membership portal and community for people who are committed to sobriety and want to ‘upscale’ their life without the booze and focus on health and wellbeing.

Janey is passionate about encouraging people to ditch the chemicals, focus on great nutrition, selfcare, and finding their purpose as she found for herself that quitting the booze was the missing link in the ‘holistic living’ picture.  Janey and I have so many online friends in common, and yet we’ve never spoken, so I was super pleased when she said yes to joining me on the show and I’m looking forward to catching up with her soon.

And that, my friend, is our guest list for Season Six! 

As always, on alternate weeks I will be looking back at the interview episodes to see what we can learn from the most recent guest, and sharing my thoughts in our Insights episodes.  The Insights episodes are intentionally shorter, aiming to help you either identify where to prioritise your time if you’ve missed an interview or two, or to offer an additional perspective by sharing what stood out for me as I listened.

Our first guest of the season joins me later this week, so don’t miss it!

So, my friend, that is our eclectic line up of impact-driven women for Season Six. Hit follow or subscribe right now, wherever you are listening, to make sure that you don’t miss a single episode! Recordings are already well underway and I am really enjoying talking to another group of impact driven guests. I think that you’re really going to enjoy meeting them over the next few months and listening to their stories. It’s that sharing of experiences that not only encourages us to do and be more when all is going well, but also fills us with inspiration when we need to keep going too.

I can’t wait to share them with you….. Join me!