Squiggly Careers

Is your current way of working holding you back from your next career milestone? Sometimes, the very habits that helped you succeed in the past can become obstacles to your future progress. Drawing on Marshall Goldsmith’s concept of 'What Got You Here Won't Get You There', Helen explores what it means to develop this skill, and what your default response to it reveals about you. 🎯 What You'll Lea...

Ever wondered what sets high-performing 'super teams' apart from those that are stalling? It's not just about talent, but a shared belief in your collective ability to learn, adapt, and succeed together. In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from a feeling and dive deep into one of the most relevant topics in work and careers right now. Drawing on the latest research into high-perform...

Are you a conversational narcissist? In this Squiggly Shortcut, Sarah introduces a deceptively simple idea from Celeste Headlee that will change how you listen, and make you notice everyone else's conversations differently too. 🎯 What You'll Learn – What a shift response is, why we all do it, and why it matters more than you might think – What a support response sounds like in practice, and how i...

Uncertainty isn't going anywhere. So what if the goal wasn't to get rid of it, but to get better at holding it? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from a feeling and dive deep into one of the most relevant topics in work and careers right now. Drawing on Margaret Heffernan's Embracing Uncertainty, Sam Conniff and Katherine Templar-Lewis's Uncertainty Toolkit, and a brilliant HBR ar...

Your career doesn't need a bigger network, it needs a better one. In this Squiggly Shortcut, Helen shares the four roles that matter most for your career community, and why focusing on just these four makes building your career relationships feel a lot more doable. 🎯 What You'll Learn – What a mentor actually is (and why they don't need to be senior or long-term to be valuable) – Why a peer — som...

How close are you to yourself, your team and the people you serve? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from the concept of zero distance, a philosophy championed by brands like e.l.f. Beauty, and turn it into one of the most honest and practical self-reflection exercises they've done on the podcast. Using Post-it® Notes and a simple scale, they plot themselves live on six different...

In a world that keeps telling you to learn faster, what if slowing down was actually the smarter move? In this Squiggly Shortcut, Sarah makes the case for slow learning, and shares three questions and three actions to help you get started. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why slow learning and fast learning aren't competing, they're complementary – Three questions from the beautiful Slow Learning website to...

What if the key to navigating uncertainty wasn't a better plan - but a better experiment? In this episode, Sarah borrows brilliance from Anne-Laure Le Cunff, author of Tiny Experiments. Together they explore what it means to have an experimental mindset, how to design a tiny experiment using the PACT framework, and why the only experiments that fail are the ones you don't learn from. If you've eve...

Most people wait until they're ready to make a career move before having career conversations. In this Squiggly Shortcut, Helen shares the only script you need to make curious career conversations feel less daunting and a lot more useful. 🎯 What You'll Learn – What a curious career conversation actually is, and why having them regularly (not just when you're ready to move) makes a real difference...

Emma Grede has some strong opinions about careers, and not everyone will agree with all of them. In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from Start With Yourself, Emma's new book, picking out six of her most provocative statements and asking the question: do we agree? Emma Grede, co-founder of Skims and Good American, is refreshingly unfiltered about what it takes to build a career on y...

In a world full of words, the people who communicate with clarity, humanity and story will stand out. In the fifth and final episode of this special series, Helen and Aneesh Rahman close out Open to Work with the last of the five Cs, communication, and why it might be the skill that ties everything together. From Martin Luther King to Pixar to the pressure of a TED Talk, this is a conversation abo...

What if compassion isn't just a nice-to-have, but one of the most important skills for the future of work? In day four of this special five-part series, Helen and Aneesh Rahman explore the fourth C, compassion, and why the new world of work demands something the industrial age actively discouraged. From quietening your inner critic to really listening to a colleague, this is a conversation about w...

Creativity isn't a talent some people have and others don't, it's a skill. In day three of this special five-part series, Helen and Aneesh Rahman explore the third C, creativity, and why it's becoming one of the highest-value human skills in an age when AI can generate generic content at scale. From Pixar's science of storytelling to the neuroscience of flow, this is a conversation that will chang...

Even if you're not changing jobs, your job is changing. In day two of this special five-part series, Helen and Aneesh Rahman explore the second C, courage, and why it's becoming one of the most important skills you can bring to work right now. From Polynesian wayfarers to Apollo 13 to leaving a high-profile CNN career to become an unpaid intern on a presidential campaign, courage has always been a...

What if the future of work isn't less human...but more human? In this special episode, Helen kicks off a brand new five-part series borrowing brilliance from Open to Work, a brilliant new book by Aneesh Rahman, Chief Economic Opportunity Officer at LinkedIn, and former Obama speechwriter. Over the next five days, Helen and Aneesh will explore the five human skills that matter most in the age of AI...

Are you a fix-it-fast problem solver? In this Squiggly Shortcut, Helen makes the case for slowing down before you jump to solutions. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why surface-level fixes create ping pong problems that just keep coming back – How to use two simple questions "why is this a problem?" and "why is this an issue?" to get to the cause – How to turn your answers into better, more targeted soluti...

Have you ever noticed how much more you get done in the week before a holiday? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from the goal gradient effect; the research-backed finding that the closer we are to a finish line, the harder and faster we push, and turn it into something genuinely practical for your career. Sarah introduces Finish Line Fridays: a simple way to use the psychology of...

Ever sent a reply you immediately regretted, or said something in the heat of the moment you wish you hadn't? In this Squiggly Shortcut, Sarah makes the case for the 24 hour rule, and shares the research that backs up why waiting is almost always worth it. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why giving yourself 24 hours moves you beyond fight, flight or freeze (and why sleep is doing more work than you think)...

How much of your working week are you spending on things you're genuinely great at, and how much is quietly draining you? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from Gay Hendricks' Zone of Genius framework, sparked by Emma Grede's book Start With Yourself, and turn it into one of the most practically useful exercises they've tried in a while. They work through all 4 zones live, compete...

Does your inner critic get loudest exactly when you need it to be quiet? In this Squiggly Shortcut, Helen unpacks what self-sabotage actually looks and feels like at work, and shares four simple things you can do to start turning the volume down. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why self-sabotage tends to show up hardest in the moments that matter most (and what that costs you over time) – How to spot the s...

Have you ever finished a week at work and wondered what you actually did that mattered? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from David Graeber's book Bulls*it Jobs...and find it uncomfortably relatable. Helen and Sarah explore what pointless work actually looks like, why it's more common than most of us admit, and, crucially, what you can do if you find yourself in it. 🎯 What You'l...

Feeling overwhelmed at work? In this Squiggly Shortcut, Sarah shares three strategies that got her through a particularly full-on week, starting with something most of us don't do nearly enough. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why signalling early to the people around you is one of the most useful things you can do when you're overwhelmed (and how to tell them what kind of help you actually need) – Why emp...

Could a framework change the way you think about your time, your strengths, or your team? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from three tried-and-tested strategic models, and put them to the test with AI prompts, Post-it® Big Notes, and a live coaching conversation to see how useful they actually are. From a classic time management matrix to a strengths development tool to a team e...

Should you stay or should you go? In this Squiggly Shortcut, Helen shares a simple matrix to help you think more clearly about one of the most common career questions she gets asked, and move beyond gut feeling alone. 🎯 What You'll Learn– How to use a two-by-two matrix to work out where you are right now in your career– What to do if you love where you work but aren't learning (and why this isn't...

Are you a "track everything" person or a "just do the thing" person? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from the world of gamification — and have a genuinely fun debate about whether it actually works for your career. Helen comes in as a convert (she gamifies her sleep, her deep sleep, her exercise, her steps, and possibly her vegetables). Sarah comes in as a sceptic. What unfolds...