Awesomely Off-Topic: Books, Brands, Business and Everything Else We’re Not Supposed to Say Out Loud

Everything can be going perfectly fine, and then suddenly the land is double booked, the schedule collapses, half your plan becomes impossible, and someone is shouting at your people in the heat. We’ve just lived that reality at one of our retreats, and what still amazes us is this: it ended up being one of the most magical, grounding, transformational weekends we’ve ever held. So we’re unpacking...

Ever noticed how the second you feel uncertain, you suddenly want everyone’s opinion? We’ve both done it, and it can turn one simple choice into a messy tangle of voices, pros and cons, and “helpful” advice that drags you away from what you actually wanted. We talk about the decision making trap: why the urge to ask a 17th person is often a sign you’ve lost touch with your own clarity, not a sign...

Someone can sit in the same room as you, hear the same talks, and still walk away with a completely different turning point. On the drive home from Atomicon in Newcastle, we debrief the moments that actually changed things for us, not just the speaker notes, but the conversations before and after, the little realisations that land when the adrenaline drops. We dig into the pressure to niche down a...

An AI handed us a list of “Ask Me Anything” questions and we made the bold choice to answer them cold. That’s how you end up trying to explain bingo to an alien anthropologist, debating why angling feels like a bizarre human ritual, and wondering which completely normal thing should have gone extinct by now. It’s fast, messy, and very us.  We bounce from the ridiculous to the oddly revealing: poin...

We walk into the studio doing what we do best: trying something new with zero guarantees it will go smoothly. Two dogs under the desk, a new bit of kit rolling, and a very real reminder that life rarely waits for a perfect plan. From there, we get honest about why “winging it” has become a put-down, and why we think it should be a badge of competence rather than a confession of failure. We pull ap...

Tilly was with us for 14 years and eight months, woven into our home, our working days, and the quiet background of so many calls. When she died, we had no interest in pretending everything was “fine” just because we run businesses. Grief doesn’t care about your calendar, and being self-employed doesn’t magically create extra emotional capacity. So we talk honestly about what it feels like to keep...

We went to the London Podcast Show expecting to feel like the newbies who’d been getting it all wrong, and we came home with the opposite feeling: we’ve already built a lot of the foundations, and now we know exactly which levers to pull next. If you’re building a podcast, a personal brand, or a content engine for your business, this chat is our honest download of what actually stuck from the bigg...

Some stories sound dramatic until you have lived them. We’re talking about the moments that almost broke us as a couple and the very real ways stress can turn love into a battleground: paranoia, spiralling thoughts, silence that feels safer than honesty, and the gut-wrenching fear that the person you trust most might leave. We share a turning point on a trip to Vancouver, how suspicion escalated i...

WARNING : Episode contains mentions of suicidal ideation and emotional trauma.  We’re going to take you back to a time before dating apps, before video calls, and before “out” felt like something you could say without scanning the room. Our love story starts with a UK lesbian magazine, a Dial-a-Diva message line, and a meeting plan so romantic we both ended up at the wrong service station. But the...

Rest can feel like cheating, even when you’re running on empty, and that uncomfortable truth says a lot about how we’ve been trained to measure worth. We’re coming off a bank holiday weekend and we thought a couple of nights away near Sherwood Forest would mean proper downtime. Instead, we caught ourselves doing what so many self-employed people do: packing the laptop “just in case”, checking sche...

Some beliefs don’t just sit in your head, they invoice you every day. We’re talking about the “truths” we inherited from family, school, workplaces, and culture, then carried for years without checking the evidence. The big one? That low, sticky story of “I’m not good enough”, how it shows up as rejecting compliments, feeling like the odd one out, and slipping into self-criticism when we’re overti...

Some people are brilliant at what they do - yet still get overlooked, underpaid, underbooked or stuck wondering why things are not moving. In this week’s episode, Taz and Asha unpack the uncomfortable truth that talent alone is rarely the full answer. Being good matters, of course, but visibility, relationships, consistency, confidence, timing, courage and how you show up in the world all play a p...

🎙️ Episode 4: Myth-Busting Visibility - What Nobody Tells You Everyone bangs on about visibility like it’s the golden ticket. Show up. Go viral. Get a TEDx talk. Land some PR. Build a following. Job done… right? Not quite. In this episode, we’re getting honest about the side of visibility that doesn’t make the highlight reel. The stuff people don’t warn you about. The expectations that don’t match...

BOOKABLE OR BROKE? What most speaker training misses Speaker training is everywhere right now - and so are the promises. Big stages. Big fees. Fully booked calendars. But what happens when you’ve paid thousands… and still aren’t getting booked? In this episode, we’re getting properly honest about what’s actually going on behind the scenes of the speaker training industry. Because having a great st...

We woke up this morning and something slightly weird had happened… there were a lot more of you here than there were a few days ago. So if you’ve just found us, this is a quick hello. We talk books, brands, business… and quite a lot of things we probably shouldn’t say out loud. This episode was recorded in the car on the way to see Taz’s mum in hospital, so expect tangents, traffic cones, red kite...

Do you remember the first time someone paid you for what’s in your head… not what’s in your hands? In this episode, we rewind to the messy, brilliant, slightly chaotic beginnings of getting paid for our brains. From £45 “I’ll charge you for my time then” moments… to kitchen table strategy sessions… to building a business off the back of relationships, reputation and being brave enough to ask. We t...

Welcome to season 2. This time, we’re bringing a bit more shape to the chaos - starting by going right back to where it all began. Before the books, the businesses and the podcast, we were both young journalists learning fast in local newsrooms. In this episode, we talk about the lessons that stayed with us - writing hooks, interviewing people, working to deadlines, spotting spin, standing your gr...

For your second BONUS episode between seasons, Taz and Asha share exciting plans for the future of Awesomely Off-Topic. Thanks so much for all your support so far - you rock! Something you’d love us to know? Send us a message - we’d love to hear from you. Support the show ✨ Unfiltered. Unedited. Awesomely Off-Topic. New episodes every Tuesday. Follow us on Instagram for more rants, rambles and ra...

The one we recorded in the shadow of the Acropolis, on a balmy evening in Athens. We meant to upload this way earluer - it was recorded in September 2025, but hey, better late than never! Enjoy x Something you’d love us to know? Send us a message - we’d love to hear from you. Support the show ✨ Unfiltered. Unedited. Awesomely Off-Topic. New episodes every Tuesday. Follow us on Instagram for more...

When we started Awesomely Off-Topic , we had no studio, no production team, and absolutely no idea what we were doing. What we did have was a couple of microphones, a stubborn belief that podcasting shouldn’t cost a fortune, and the willingness to figure it out as we went along. Forty episodes later, we’ve recorded in offices, cars, woodlands, and anywhere else we could make it work. We’ve upgrade...

Episode 39 - ADHD: Superpower, Disability… or Both? Is ADHD a superpower… or a disability? It’s a question that keeps popping up online, and every time it does the internet seems to split into camps. Some people argue that calling ADHD a superpower minimises the very real struggles people face. Others say recognising the gifts that can come with it helps them stop seeing themselves as broken. In t...

WE'RE OUT IN THE WILD - AND YOU'RE COMING WITH US! We've been banging on about the importance of 'Inspiration Days' for yonks and, this week, we've decided to bring you along for the experience. We have our posh new microphones (though there was a bit of a technical panic when we realised we'd forgotten the adaptor, plus we need to remember not to get too close w...

Episode 37 – The AI Devolution: Broetry, Bots and the Death of Voice Everyone’s calling it an AI revolution. We’re asking whether it’s becoming a devolution. In this episode of Awesomely Off-Topic , we take a proper look at what’s happening when creativity gets outsourced a little too eagerly. Not from a place of panic. Not from a place of fear. But from lived experience. We use AI. We value AI. B...

Episode 36: Ecosystem vs Egosystem – The Difference Between Building Community and Building a Cult Leadership isn’t the problem. Exploitation is. In this episode, we dive headfirst into a question that makes a lot of people uncomfortable: Are you building an ecosystem… or an egosystem? We talk about the subtle (and not-so-subtle) difference between healthy leadership and hierarchical control. Betw...

We tried to record a podcast in the car. While it was moving. Honestly? Not our best idea! In this very weird-sounding episode (why do tyres on tarmac make it sound like we're underwater?!) we talk productivity hacks, outsourcing, books v social media, working in the smallest room and Dee Atkins (makes us do things we don't really want to, does things for us when we won't/don't...