Wisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own Terms

Deep reading as cognitive investment for independent professionals building expertise when AI floods the world with shallow content.  Tomáš Baránek runs Melvil Publishing in Czechia, selecting nonfiction titles with long-term value from authors like Yuval Noah Harari and David Grann, deliberately limiting annual titles to focus on quality over volume.  He explains why over-relying on AI for writin...

Retirement planning for professional women that addresses identity, purpose, and community rather than finances alone. Kim Watty spent three decades in Australian academia as an accounting professor before co-founding The Main Act with her daughter Prue. Their Retirement by Design program uses Stanford Business School methodology where women create three odyssey plans for different possible future...

Filip Drimalka helps independent professionals build AI-enhanced workflows that turn one-person operations into sustainable businesses without traditional employment structures.  He wrote The Future of No Work and explains why AI fluency is becoming essential for career independence. Filip covers how experienced professionals can integrate AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and NotebookLM into daily w...

Preventive wellness strategies for independent professionals whose practice needs to last another 10 or 20 years beyond traditional retirement.  Michal Novotný is a physiotherapist and fitness coach who has worked with elite athletes and public figures, authored bestselling health books, and developed practical approaches to sustainable physical wellbeing.  He explains why prevention outperforms t...

Anna Burgess Yang shares her solopreneur workflow for building independent professional practice with lean thinking, automation, and AI. After leaving a FinTech executive career to work independently while raising three children, Anna built a content writing business around systems that eliminate repetitive work.  She uses Zapier to connect her tools, Airtable to track everything she has written a...

Movement breaks throughout the day matter more than a morning workout if you sit for hours as an independent professional over 50.  Krisna Hanks is a metabolic health expert and Director of Employee Wellness Programs at Ovadia Heart Health.  She introduces the concept of the active couch potato — people who exercise regularly yet still sit for long hours, undermining their own health habits.  Kris...

Tonianne DeMaria co-wrote Personal Kanban to help professionals make work visible through simple workflow systems that replace conventional task management with better decision-making and sustained energy. Tonianne explains why standard productivity approaches fail independent professionals juggling multiple clients, projects, and competing priorities without organisational structure.  Drawing fro...

Emergent strategy as a design framework for independent professionals and consultants managing business uncertainty without organisational support.  Peter Compo is author of The Emergent Approach to Strategy, drawing on 25 years of experience at DuPont.  He explains how identifying key obstacles, eliminating bottlenecks, and creating strategic rules for decision-making help independent practitione...

Gail Greatorex turned 25 years of product safety expertise at the ACCC into a solopreneur consulting practice, helping businesses navigate consumer protection laws, compliance, and product recalls. Gail explains how self-employment allows her to choose projects aligned with her values, including co-founding ClimateWise Associations to connect climate risk with product safety. She covers the rising...

In this episode, host Nigel Rawlins speaks with Eliška Šestáková, an academic and personal knowledge management specialist from the Czech Republic, about how structured note-taking systems support sustained independent professional work.  Eliška's approach connects directly to the cognitive tools that experienced professionals need to manage complex, long-running projects without organisation...

ALeanne Shelton helps experienced professionals integrate AI into independent practice without losing the human judgment that makes their work worth paying for. She spent ten years as a copywriter and content marketer before founding Human Edge AI Training in Sydney, helping businesses adopt AI while preserving human-centric values in their output. She explains the growing impact of AI on the crea...

Cedric Chin founded Commoncog to help professionals develop business expertise through rigorous testing of ideas against real-world evidence rather than relying on theory or conventional frameworks. Cedric explains how experienced professionals develop pattern recognition and strategic judgement through deliberate practice, drawing on his background in competitive judo and leading a startup in Vie...

Karen Wickre shows experienced professionals how career independence works well beyond conventional retirement age, drawing on senior roles at Google and Twitter and decades of authentic relationship-building across Silicon Valley. Karen explains why genuine, mutually beneficial connections matter more than transactional networking for solopreneurs monetising expertise. Her approach treats every p...

Danielle Joworski helps women entrepreneurs over 50 build visibility and overcome the compounding barriers of ageism, sexism, and self-doubt.  A visibility strategist and fractional COO based near Toronto, she moved from a corporate microbiology career to entrepreneurship at 40 and has spent nine years learning what actually works for solopreneur women whose expertise deserves attention.  Danielle...

Jane Hudson built an independent L&D consultancy specialising in regulatory training after leaving corporate employment, and returns to Wisepreneurs 50 episodes after her first appearance to share what she's learned running the practice. Jane covers the practical realities of L&D consulting as a solo operator, including managing remote teams, developing effective pricing strategies, a...

Peter Hatherley built Authored Intelligence to give independent professionals practical AI tools for SEO and content strategy, including Semantic Author and Conceptuality. Peter explains the difference between generative and interactive AI and why that distinction matters for professionals creating their own content.  He walks through how semantic entities work in modern SEO, moving beyond keyword...

Dr Holly Whelan helps experienced professionals build sustainable health habits using behaviour change science drawn from neuroscience research, global brand management at Unilever, and her co-founded ventures Habit Partners and Younger Lives. Holly explains how sustainable habits differ from short-term health interventions and why neuroscience research matters for professionals trying to maintain...

Debbie Jenkins wrote Stop the Credibility Crisis and Stop Writing Books Nobody Reads after moving from engineering into publishing, building a practice around short books as professional authority tools. Debbie explains why concise, focused books outperform longer volumes for establishing credibility and generating passive income.  She walks through the practical strategy of writing books that peo...

NNatasha Ginnivan researches how aging stereotypes undermine experienced professionals before they even open their mouths, and what the evidence shows about countering them. Based in the Blue Mountains and Sydney, she studies cultural attitudes toward aging, longevity, and positive aging practices. Natasha explains how stereotypes about older workers affect professional identity, why social connec...

Emma Williams moved from a career in physics and Magnetic Resonance Imaging research to building an independent coaching practice that helps STEM professionals navigate the transition from academia to industry. She is the author of Leaving Academia: Ditch the Blanket, Take the Skills. Emma explains the specific challenges academics face when leaving research, including how to recognise transferabl...

Michael Greenberg specialises in digital operations, helping businesses optimise workflows through AI tools, automation systems, and strategic outsourcing rather than adding more hours to the working week. Michael walks through practical approaches to integrating AI and automation into daily business operations, including specific note-taking tools and workflow applications that reduce manual effo...

Annette Densham co-founded the Audacious Agency to help business owners use storytelling and business awards as practical visibility strategies, drawing on her background in journalism and PR. Annette explains how business award submissions work as a structured approach to professional visibility rather than just a trophy exercise.  She covers how to identify the right awards, craft compelling nar...

Kate Toon created Recipe for SEO Success to teach solopreneurs SEO, copywriting, and how to build sustainable online income. With 16 years in business and four podcasts, Kate shares practical frameworks for solopreneurs building visible online presence:  why every service business needs a WordPress site they own and control,  how SEO works as a long-term discoverability strategy,  why personal bra...

Gill Andrews wrote Making Your Website Work to teach solopreneurs how website copy generates inquiries from the right clients.  A CRO consultant and conversion copywriter based in Germany, Gill works exclusively with English-speaking service providers. The conversation covers what makes website copy generate inquiries rather than just traffic:  leading with clarity, relevancy, and value in the fir...

Fiona Allman-Treen builds business-generating websites using a five-step strategy and ideal client research for solopreneurs. Based in Hastings, UK, Fiona's agency creates custom WordPress and Shopify websites for service businesses and scaling companies.  The conversation covers  why most websites fail as shop windows rather than business assets,  how to define your ideal client using demogr...