The importance of having fun with Carmen Alfonso Rico
Make Space for Growth Podcast
You can feel the energy in the voice or the video. It is contagious. A breath of fresh air in a world that is almost afraid of joy. That is how I felt coming out of recording the new season of the podcast with Carmen Alfonso Rico. It is not every day that you meet someone who is unapologetic about having fun and enjoying what she is doing. Kicking off with politics Carmen wanted to be the US Secretary of State when she was a little girl. Note she was not a US national or living in the US, but that did not seem to stop her. Serendipity determined she would start her career in...
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Listening to Yourself with Samreen Ghani
Make Space for Growth Podcast
Before the summer break, I reconnected with old colleague Samreen Ghani to talk about her journey and her role as President of Moonbug Studios. It had been a long time since our M&A times together! And we end up finding ourselves in a similar life reflection on "how you measure your life"! The Early Days Samreen did not follow the expected path. Her earliest memory from childhood was spelling the word "doctor", which was exciting for her parents as she grew up. In Pakistan, her expected paths would have been doctor, engineer, lawyer or banker if she wanted to define herself...
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Believing in Serendipity with Rita Vilas-Boas
Make Space for Growth Podcast
Rita Vilas Boas first connected with me on Linkedin. After a lot of online engagement, we finally met in person last year to find out we shared . When she was a little girl, Rita wanted to dismantle things and figure out how things worked, but deep down, she wanted to be part of Fame, and dance on a Taxi roof in the streets of New York. Can you picture it? Different lives Rita studied biotechnology but soon found out about marketing, where she started her career. She threw herself into it and got a job at Loreal. For 20 years, she was a marketer in multinationals and large family...
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Finding your happiness with Sabine Tejerina
Make Space for Growth Podcast
When she was a little girl, Sabine wanted to be a businesswoman. In the middle of the pandemic, faced with economic distress in parts of the world and her day job helping large companies restructure and prepare for the economic downfall of Covid, she went on a life change. She became an entrepreneur and has since then been living the rollercoaster of start-up life. "It's not always the big decisions that impact your life", Clay Christensen Share ownership as a goal The idea for Upstreet started with a focus on rewarding customers for loyalty through company shares. Research shows that...
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A life dedicated to purpose with Daniela Barone Soares
Make Space for Growth Podcast
It is unusual to find someone who wanted to be something as a child that they are today. Daniela started volunteering at age 12 and she always knew her life would be dedicated to making the problems of the world better. These experiences increased her resolve to do something about it, even if she did not know how. A glide path "When you look back, it all seems to make sense" Daniela However, it was not so rational at the time. As Daniela was working in Private Equity, she realized her skillset was truly invaluable in the social sector and realized she could start making a difference in this...
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A life dedicated to purpose with Daniela Barone Soares
Make Space for Growth Podcast
It is unusual to find someone who wanted to be something as a child that they are today. Daniela started volunteering at age 12 and she always knew her life would be dedicated to making the problems of the world better. These experiences increased her resolve to do something about it, even if she did not know how. A glide path "When you look back, it all seems to make sense" Daniela However, it was not so rational at the time. As Daniela was working in Private Equity, she realized her skillset was truly invaluable in the social sector and realized she could start making a difference in this...
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Never waste a good crisis with Inês Santos Silva
Make Space for Growth Podcast
With a love for learning since early age, I have a feeling Inês will be learning for many years to come. She is passionate about innovation, and is not scared about solving a challenge. You just have to look at her resume to see this. I lost count of the number of roles and ventures in her profile. A fast-starter Ines assessed start-ups needed support way before it was cool to talk about accelerator programs. So she designed one. And expanded it to multiple cities. She determined there was a need for social ventures long before social impact was a concept. So she dedicated her efforts...
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Never waste a good crisis with Ines Santos Silva
Make Space for Growth Podcast
With a love for learning since early age, I have a feeling Inês will be learning for many years to come. She is passionate about innovation, and is not scared about solving a challenge. You just have to look at her resume to see this. I lost count of the number of roles and ventures in her profile. A fast-starter Ines assessed start-ups needed support way before it was cool to talk about accelerator programs. So she designed one. And expanded it to multiple cities. She determined there was a need for social ventures long before social impact was a concept. So she dedicated her efforts...
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Creating Space - Launching Season 3
Make Space for Growth Podcast
Today, I am bringing you the launch of Season 3 - Creating Space. In order to tell you more about the upcoming season, I feel I need to go back in time and explain my concept of word of the year. Because Space is my word of the year. For the last 3 years, I have been defining myself a word of the year. Why a word of the year? I already have goals, values, and even a vision board. I found a word goes beyond and through all that. A word gives me a true north. Believe In 2020, my word of the year was . And that belief helped me hold it together - do you remember the year of Covid? I acted...
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A Journey back through the Season
Make Space for Growth Podcast
For the Season Finale, I went around the world and down into my memory to pick the highlights of this season. What I learnt, what I discovered, what I was impressed about. There is no bittersweet taste in getting to the end of a season. In fact, it is exciting to look back and remember all the amazing women that crossed my path. After the hard to forget year of 2020, my goal was to bring to light in 2021, the stories of what are now almost 2 years of this pandemic, but more importantly, how each of us is looking to lift ourselves up, look forward and face life stronger and together. As for...
info_outlineToday, I am bringing you the launch of Season 3 - Creating Space. In order to tell you more about the upcoming season, I feel I need to go back in time and explain my concept of word of the year. Because Space is my word of the year.
For the last 3 years, I have been defining myself a word of the year. Why a word of the year? I already have goals, values, and even a vision board. I found a word goes beyond and through all that. A word gives me a true north.
Believe
In 2020, my word of the year was BELIEVE. And that belief helped me hold it together - do you remember the year of Covid? I acted through the year (or most of it) with a belief in myself that I did not think was possible. One I had not lived before. Believing in myself in a way that was sometimes blinding but also re-energising. It made me float through ideas, see the positive in all the crazy times, find new avenues, unleash dreams. When was the last time you believed that your dreams would be possible? That YOU are possible? Somehow, along the way, my beliefs have been shaken. I fought hard to dig the word back out into my life towards the year-end. And I did not let go of it. In all honesty, I almost thought of keeping it for 2021.
Fearless
But I took the next step on the belief highway. Believing can only lead to one thing - no fear. As I reflected on how I looked forward to 2021, I landed on a theme of courage. One that stemmed from a newly built belief in the possibilities. And one that I felt I needed to feel stronger and stand up again. After the year of Covid, where we recognisably lived with more fear for life than in many of the past years - even if not ours, for those of our loved ones, I recognised I can't be bold or brave if I have fear. So the word was FEARLESS. And that was no doubt a driving north through the year. In moments of doubt, hesitation, and fear where a choice was required. I carried on.
Space
And now SPACE. I took longer than usual to land on my word of the year for 2022. As I reflected, I started seeing a word come up often in my gratitudes. Space. The small bits of space I had felt rejuvenating, if not a lot of them. So I decided to dedicate this year, and this season of the podcast, to the ability to find, create and enjoy space in our lives.
Space is not a single event in time, it is something you continuously need to have. So as we go through these series, I will speak to our guests about their path, their business, their careers. But also about how they find space. Space to explore, think, feel and be.
Join me, for this journey, to find out how. It is time to create space.