Powrup

Someone offers you a board seat and your first question is ‘how much time will it take?’ (Fair enough, but it’s probably four to six hours a month, and the upside is huge.) In this episode of Powrup, Nat and Kristen chat about living with no regrets, or ‘no regurts’, as one viral tattoo put it. They talk about why people at the end of their lives regret what they didn’t do far more than what they...

Got a cookbook somewhere in your kitchen that hasn’t been opened in years? Chances are it’s too fussy, needs too many ingredients, and doesn’t fit the reality of our full lives. For our very first Powrup Plus, Nat and Kristen chat with Margo Flanagan and Rosa Power from Two Raw Sisters, the cooks behind six bestselling cookbooks and their latest, How We Cook. They talk about food, work, and why ‘w...

Remember the group project where you did most of the work and everyone got the same grade? At work, it can be more of the same, whether it’s a collaborative project or even a team you’re leading. Do high performers get the short end of the stick? In this ep of Powrup, Nat and Kristen talk about capable people who keep picking up the slack and tiptoe towards burnout - it's called the burden of...

Ask someone chasing a promotion whether they should work at the next level before they get it, and plenty say no thanks. Ask the person doing the promoting and the answer’s almost always yes. In this ep, Nat and Kristen take a middle ground. Things like speaking up in meetings like a peer, linking your work to revenue, cost or culture, and making the value you add easy to see (visibility for its o...

We've noticed a trend lately: Powrsuiters sharing that they want to back themselves more when under pressure. Getting the words out is the first step, but it’s the uncertain twenty seconds after, when you’re braced for someone to question you, that stops many of us speaking up at all. In this ep of Powrup, Nat and Kristen talk through both. They share a four-point sticky note to fill in before...

The usual advice when a job ends is to work out what you want first, then make a move. Kristen has given that advice to plenty of Powrsuit members, and in this ep of Powrup, Nat and Kristen question it. They talk about the awkward in-between stage after a redundancy, time at home with kids or outgrowing your role (there's even a word for it: liminality). They draw on Herminia Ibarra's year...

Neutrality used to cost you nothing but now it costs reach. We start with the flashpoints doing the rounds: Ed Sheeran, Sydney Sweeney, Meghan Markle, Jacinda Ardern, return to office mandates, private school vs public school (we could go on). Then the work version, where you can't mute anyone and the project's still due. Using Jessica Tarlov's new book 'I Disagree' as a frame:...

Queen bee syndrome is when senior women pull the ladder up behind them. It's real, it's been studied, and the research points to structure rather than personality. We start with the Sydney Sweeney ad and the pick me girl label, then get to the thing Powrsuiters say in hushed tones on calls: one of my worst managers was a woman. A few reasons it happens. There's often only one seat, so...

Are people ruder now, or have the norms just shifted under our feet? Speakerphone conversations in the airport lounge, QR code ordering when you've just paid close to a hundred dollars for a couple of burgers and beers, ghosting meetings and catchups - is this the new normal? A researcher has been asking people about rudeness since the 90s and the number has climbed every time, with the bigges...

Your brain has a default time zone: Past, present or future. Kristen found out about it at a dinner party, went home and got AI to test her, and ran a shorter version on Nat. Someone more junior gets the promotion you wanted and it's 9pm, what are you doing? If you're past focused you work out how something happened, which is great for spotting patterns and for backing yourself based on yo...

Your calendar probably isn't a plan. It's a receipt for everything other people asked you to do. We've heard a few common ways people run a calendar. As a receipt, where it's just a record of what you're delivering for everyone else. As a watch list, where you accept everything and then triage it on a Sunday night. Or as a Tetris board, where the blocks are constantly moving ar...

Networking is the thing most of us dread, so here's how to actually work a room without wanting to hide in the women’s toilet. We start with the liking gap - the research showing people walk away thinking they tanked terribly while everyone else rated them an A. Then in Powrsuit fashion, Nat and Kristen get practical: the walk-in plan, why heading straight for the drinks table gives you a job...

Quiet quitting is back - and it makes no sense. Jobs are at an all time low, unemployment all time high, and yet work disengagement is off the charts? Nat and Kristen dig into why people are checking out when you'd most expect them to cling on. They cover what’s going on (poor management, burnout and broken promises), and why Gen Z are more likely to quiet quit than boomers. Plus the differenc...

There's a difference between feedback and criticism, and often what we get is the latter dressed up as the former. So we pull the two apart: feedback is clear, actionable and comes from someone who wants you to win, while criticism can be someone venting and making it your problem. We also dig into why women often get judged on personality rather than work (abrasive, strident, 'too intense'), and...

Nat and Kristen get into why dating apps have got so bad - and general swipe fatigue (the same friction-removing tech logic has leaked into job hunting), and why Gen Z are heading back to real-life 'third places' like run clubs and work for dating. Then the bit that actually matters for your career: why who you partner with makes or breaks it. Loved it? Share it and leave us a 5-star revie...

Nat and Kristen turned up in matching green tops to talk about the roles we all slip into when things go sideways - victim, villain and hero. Kristen owns up to being a chronic hero (that dopamine hit of solving everyone's problem, whether they asked or not), Nat cops to villain as her go-to, and they use a very unhinged Married At First Sight dinner party to show all three playing out in real...

A Powrsuiter put her hand up for a stretch role, got it, then froze - terrified that asking questions would make her look stupid. Nat and Kristen unpack why that's textbook imposter phenomenon, and why the first 90 days are for diagnosing before you prescribe, not hitting the ground running (a pretty damaging bit of advice, when you think about it). They cover the listening tour, why no one&#3...

Kristen got cornered at a party by a guy insisting women are outstripping men on every metric, and spent the weekend rarked up about it (now officially in the Oxford English Dictionary, by the way). So Nat and Kristen come armed with the stats they wished they'd had - like why 40 years of women dominating university hasn't dented the C-suite, and the broken rung that sees just 89 women pro...

Nat and Kristen dig into allyship after an event where the allies in the room got an actual rule sheet - turn up, listen, don't take up space. One of them still found a moment to stand up and announce that men get man flu, and honestly, it was a highlight. They debate what an ally even is, why sponsorship beats mentorship for closing leadership gaps, and the difference between welcoming allies and...

A Powrsuiter came to us with a familiar problem: she's scheduling one-on-ones, building rapport, sending proactive updates - and her manager's response is... nothing. Not hostility, just indifference. Turns out she’s probably missing one critical angle. Nat and Kristen dig into the direct conversation worth having - one that's about strategic alignment, not reassurance-seeking - and ho...

Nat and Kristen get into why the most useful question in any meeting - the basic, obvious, 'dumb' one - is almost always the one nobody asks! Turns out 70% of people are holding back in meetings, doing constant mental maths about whether it's worth it. They get into the blue collar vs white collar question thing, what psychological safety actually looks like in real life, and three que...

Nat and Kristen take a quiz to find out what kind of follower they actually are (Nat's a recovering chaos-agent, Kristen's an eye-roller with a popcorn habit). They get into the five followership styles - passive, alienated, survivor, conformist, effective - and why almost everyone reckons they're the 'good' one, which obviously can't be true. If you've ever saved your...

Nat and Kristen dig into the motivation gap that's showing up everywhere right now - teams low on initiative, leaders exhausted by it, and nobody quite sure why. They cover a few reasons people are checked out (spoiler: six years of economic chaos can do that), why change fatigue is different this time, and whether the generational blame game is actually useful. Plus: why running faster is not the...

Nat and Kristen get into why so many of us treat a meeting invite like a court summons - accepting on autopilot, turning up unprepared, and wondering why we feel busy but not strategic. Turns out, saying yes to everything gets you a great reputation as a doer, and quietly sidelines you from the rooms where decisions actually happen. They cover the practical fixes too: how to graciously decline or...

Nat and Kristen wrote their own obituaries - one involves a yacht, gin martinis, Michelle Obama, and a request for dramatic sobbing (guess who). The other is a manifesto. Both are surprisingly useful. This episode is about using your obituary as a filter: for your values, your career, and whether you're actually living the life you want or just a very organised version of the default one. Plus...