Mambition

Five hours at York Railway Museum with my 2 and 4 year old kids. Countless moments of just... waiting. But in those margins—while our children explore, play, chase each other—something unexpected happens: we find our people. Dr. Seuss called it "The Waiting Place" in Oh, the Places You'll Go! A place where everyone's stuck, just waiting for something to happen. It sounds depressi...

7am. Freezing beach. 700 strangers. And we're about to get completely naked and run into the North Sea. This episode isn't just about a skinny dip. It's about flexing the muscle of getting comfortable with discomfort. Doing new things, scary things—not despite being mothers, but alongside it. Here's the truth: so many women are so conscious of their post-baby bodies that they hold...

A fire engine whizzed past me yesterday, and I instinctively said "WOW!" and waved. Then I realised—I wasn't even with my kids. My 2 and 4-year-old have completely recalibrated what joy looks like for me. Their threshold for delight is impossibly low: a puddle can make their entire morning. Meanwhile, I had trained myself that joy needed to be earned through massive achievements—big...

"If I'm leaving my child, it has to be worth it." That one question led Jools Tyrer to completely reinvent her career. Flight attendant → teacher → defense sector → transformational coach and podcaster (Mama's Flightpath). She took redundancy twice. Once by choice to travel the world. Once unexpectedly—losing her identity and security overnight. Both times, she turned the space i...

My 2-year-old daughter is genuinely upset every day that she's not yet 3. So this year, I'm taking a page from her book and celebrating my birthday loud and rebelliously. Mambition light me up so it makes sense that I record an podcast episode sharing 36 lessons from 36 years. I reflect on loss and perspective, motherhood and identity, resilience and action, self-care in the trenches, building and...

Elena Shirokaya spent 12 years crushing it in private equity - until her body forced a reckoning. Now she teaches high-achieving women what she learned the hard way: your nervous system speaks a language most of us ignore. She's not here to tell you to meditate more. She's here to explain why your chronic fatigue, anxiety, and Sunday night dread are data - not weakness. And how somatic pra...

Nobody told me that going back to basics would feel this radical. A month ago, I started a daily walking habit. 5,000 steps. Nothing fancy. Just trainers on and out the door. In this episode, I share why this one small thing has made such a big difference—and why doing something for yourself, even something small, makes you a better parent. Going through major life changes right now, being outside...

We did a thing! It's called Manbition! And Dr. Hasan Merali fits right in! He's not here for parenting advice, but to share what toddlers taught him about living. This pediatric ER physician spent 15 years watching children maintain joy in their worst moments. Turns out, they were teaching him about curiosity, persistence, presence, and fearless question-asking. In this episode we explore...

What happens when a stranger on the train says "You have such an amazing mummy" and it makes you glow for hours? Why does recognition about our parenting hit differently than praise in any other area of life? In this episode I explore the feedback vacuum of motherhood - where there's no performance review telling you you're succeeding. We dive into why effort doesn't equal ou...

Most ambitious women hit motherhood and immediately start negotiating with themselves: "I'll get back to my real goals when my children are older." But what if that entire premise just keeps you waiting? This episode challenges the foundational lie that motherhood puts your life on pause. Instead of waiting for this season to end, and for your true life to begin, I'm showing you...

Ever felt torn between loving your children fiercely and chasing your own ambitious dreams? This is for you. Inspired by Dr. Seuss, 'Oh the places you'll go'. Ahhh the beautiful chaos of modern motherhood - 46 browser tabs constantly open (should I start that business? Write that book? Launch that podcast?) to the moment you realise constraints actually show you the way forward. Someti...

What happens when you realise you've been climbing someone else's ladder for 15 years? Kate walked away from her Chanel executive role to build something entirely her own. Now recognised in Small Biz 100's most inspiring businesses for 2025, she reveals the messy truth about reconstructing your career identity after motherhood. This conversation will challenge everything you think you...

The wisdom we think we're teaching our kids? We need to hear it ourselves. Reading to my 2 and 4-year-old every night, I've realised these aren't just bedtime stories - they're life lessons I desperately needed to hear. Here are four of our favourite books and what they're actually teaching me: 🐠 The Power of Belief (Tiddler) - We all need that one person who believes our stor...

What happens when my 4-year-old son believes he can fix a broken train? Or when Alex's son gets asked to design planets for his nursery? We let them try - and discover the confidence-competence cycle in action. In this episode we explore how these "successful" moments create evidence their ideas work, why confidence builds neural pathways for learning, and how today's pretend fix...

What if the random chapters of your life weren't random at all - but quietly building the exact mother your children would need? From suing a major corporation to helping a friend escape abuse, from quitting a soul-crushing job to starting a business with just my savings and hope - I'm sharing six of mine. Looking back I realise that every brave thing I've done became an invisible superpower that...

What if your toughest moments aren't roadblocks, but deposits in your children's emotional bank account? Picture this: You're crying in your car after another rejection, wondering if you should just give up. But what if that breakdown is actually preparing you to sit with your teenager when their heart gets shattered? Every struggle you face - the career pivot, the business launch, the...

You know how we got to know each other during pregnancy, bonded even deeper when our children were born weeks apart, and then started talking about doing something together? Well, that "something" became this podcast - and 80 episodes later, we're sharing how that crazy idea turned into a real friendship. In this episode, we share the story of how we went from strangers to genuine friends - and wh...

Sometimes the 4-year-old has the better strategy than the adult trying to fix everything! Picture this: London Zoo playground, my son got bumped while climbing and refused to let it go - despite my attempts to brush it off with "these things happen." Instead he insisted we find the boy to tell him it hurt! What a lesson in trusting children's emotional intelligence instead of imposing our coping m...

At 16 with no qualifications, someone told Alison Dunn to "be a secretary and get married." That comment lit a fire that turned her into an award-winning CEO leading 230+ employees and transforming communities across the North East. Alison's journey from secretary to lawyer to CEO is raw fuel for anyone refusing to shrink their ambitions. She gets brutally honest about the 15 years she spent adopt...

Children might just be the secret to unlocking the kindness we've forgotten exists in the world!! This week I'm sharing the story behind my viral LinkedIn post about dragging a pushchair through London Underground with my 2 and 4-year-old - expecting hostile stares but getting something completely different. I'm breaking down exactly what happened: strangers lifting pushchairs, the DLR...

Growing up, Sarah Chalmers-Page's dining table was filled with oil workers from around the world. Her father would invite colleagues home, and young Sarah would show them her toys. It sounds simple, but this gave her something most of us never get—the radical understanding that people are just people, not stereotypes. This early lesson in challenging preconceptions shaped everything: her NHS caree...

What happens when the person who usually wears strength as armor decides to drop the mask? In this deeply vulnerable episode, I'm sharing why I'm choosing not to hide during one of my most challenging chapters. Mambition was built on shared pain - mine and Alex's - and if we only showed up when everything was perfect, we'd be lying to you. Today I'm talking about: How losing my mum at 9 taught me...

Ready to retire as your child's cruise director and discover the magic of doing absolutely nothing? Just in time for summer holidays when the pressure to entertain is at its peak! This isn't just about surviving the holidays - it's about embracing boredom as a superpower that sparks creativity, independence, and actual peace! ✨ Alex is keeping it real about why constantly entertaining...

Five years ago to this recording date, Sarah Jepson got the call that changed everything - full custody of her children. But winning custody was just one part of her incredible journey. Sarah built a business during maternity leave as her escape from an abusive relationship. She went from binge drinking to sobriety, masculine hustle to feminine power, and survival mode to thriving as founder of Si...

Don't worry, Tiffany didn't abandon ship! She is on holiday! So this week it's just Alex flying solo sharing her deeply personal story that she's never told in full before. After her 20-week scan changed everything, she went from workplace high-performer to navigating a medical crisis in pregnancy, a newborn with a rare lung condition, and a workplace that had no idea how to suppor...