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My guest today is the incredible Elizabeth Gilbert, one of my biggest inspirations​ of all time​. I turn to her work whenever feeling a bit lost. She is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love, Big Magic and The Signature of All Things (plus many others). Big Magic is the book I recommen​d​ to anyone struggling with a creative project. It is really practical, fun and helps creatives understand how to work alongside fear.Elizabeth's NEW book is already a #1 bestseller and is called City Of Girls, a delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don’t have to be a good girl to be a good person. We discuss all sorts: the weather forecast in our minds; how being a relaxed women (not a strong women) is a radical move; why we should check in which people more often; how creativity changes everything (and us) and how to break the habit of negative self talk. Hope you enjoy this one :) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dame Stephanie Shirley ​is tech pioneer, entrepreneur and philanthropist. She also goes by the name "Steve" which she used to sign business letters to potential clients when they were not responding to her.​ If you haven't already, go and watch her Ted Talk it is funny and moving and super interesting to hear what it was like being a woman in tech during the 60s.In 1939 ​Steve arrived in ​B​ritain unaccompanied​, a​s child refugee during the war, and​ when she was 29​ she started what became her multimillion-pound IT software consultancy, from which she made a £150m fortune - on her dining room table with £6 in 1962​. ​She retired in 1993 to concentrate on philanthropic work, since then she has given away at least £65 million via her charity Shirley Foundation. She continues to give to a range of causes including autism research, a cause she was drawn to through her late son Giles who had autism.​ Her Damehood in the Millennium honours was for services to IT.​She was awarded the Order of Companions of Honour in the Queen's Birthday Honours in June 2017.Aged 85 she remains married to her first husband Derek.In this episode, we talk about her brilliant memoir Let It Go. In this episode we talk about workplace misogyny, making money, resilience, giving back, and why it's importance to keep learning. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

*Please go to charitywateruk.org/emma*My guest today is Scott Harrison, founder of Charity Water, and New York Times Bestselling Author of Thirst.Really excited for you to hear Scott's story behind setting up this incredible charity that has now raised more than 360 million dollars, provided over 9.5 million people with clean, safe drinking water.and funded over 35,000 water projects in 27 countries.Scott set up Charity Water in 2006, having seen the effects of dirty water firsthand. The organisation set out on a big mission, to bring clean water to every person living without it, and an even bigger vision - to reinvent charity with an innovative 100% model and radical transparency, proving every single water project funded.And I'm SUPER excited to also share that I am doing a Charity Water fundraiser for my 30th birthday. I am 30 this week!so if you enjoy this podcast, I'm asking you for a small gift for my birthday, to go to charity water...it would absolutely amazing if you could do this one small thing and donate to my fundraiser. You can give anything. Go to charitywateruk.org/emmaWhy am I asking you to do this?​  Over 600 million people in the world are still living without clean water. Every day, about thousands of children die from diseases caused by unsafe water. It's not okay. But we can all do something to help.What I love about charity: water, is that 100% of the money will be used to build clean water projects, and when they’re complete, they will send us photos and GPS ​link so we can see the exact community we helped and the water points they build.Just a reminder that it's charitywateruk.org/emmaHope you enjoy listening to this episode and thank you so much in advance!!!​ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dustin Lance Black is my guest today! Lance has been named as one of the 50 most powerful LGBTQ+ people in America for the last decade. He is an Academy Award® winning filmmaker, writer, and social activist. He won the Oscar and two WGA Awards for his screenplay MILK, the biopic of activist Harvey Milk starring Sean Penn. He was also a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which successfully led the federal cases for marriage equality in California and Virginia. Lance's memoir MAMA’S BOY is out now, an absolutely incredible book, aboutgrowing up in a conservative Mormon household outside San Antonio, Texas. The book is about his relationship with his mother, Anne, who sadly contracted polio when she was two years old and endured many surgeries throughout her life. Lance came out to his mother at twenty-one, and Mama's Boy explores what it took to remain a family despite such division of belief. Mama's Boy is the story of building bridges, of family, foundations, turmoil, tragedy, elation, and love. It is a story needed now more than ever. There is so much more I could say about Lance, but most of all, he was so lovely, and warm and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting him and going to his home in London to record. <3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Jessica Pan, author of Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert’s Year of Living Dangerously. This is an incredibly funny and frank book all about how Jess decided to drastically change her life for a whole year. An introvert by nature, she decides to live like an extrovert for a year with the help of some experts and mentors along the way. She embraces some horrors. She takes on a series of challenges: improv, a solo holiday, public speaking and talking to strangers on the tube. Jess reports back, and it's laugh out loud, but also rather inspiring.We talk about getting out of our comfort zones, how talking to strangers actually makes us happier, how at a certain age we lose friends and how to make new ones and much more. Hope you enjoy this one! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Poorna Bell is award-winning journalist of 15 years and a digital expert having worked as UK Exec Editor and Global Lifestyle Head for Huffington Post. She currently writes for Grazia, The iPaper, The Guardian, Red magazine, and Stylist. She was recently named one of Balance magazine’s top 100 wellness personalities, a Stylist magazine Rising Star, a judge for the Mind Media Awards and British Book Awards, plus so much more.Her debut non-fiction book Chase The Rainbow (Simon & Schuster) came out last year; a moving memoir about how Poorna's life was affected —but not defined—by the suicide of her husband Rob. Ariana Huffington said about the book: ‘Chase the Rainbow is a game-changing book. Poorna Bell’s moving account of the pressures on modern men could be a life-saver." Poorna's second book In Search Of Silence is out now, all about her deeply personal journey which asks us all to define what 'happiness' truly means to each of us. In this episode we discuss the inspiration behind this second memoir, her wariness of self-help books, and what she's learned along the way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Philippa Perry is an author, psychotherapist, factual presenter for radio and television and someone I've been a fan of ever since I read her book called How to Stay Sane back in 2012. After volunteering with the Samaritans, Philippa trained as a psychotherapist and worked in the mental health field for several years before writing her graphic novel, Couch Fiction which lays bare the process of psychotherapy, published in 2010. Philippa is also an agony aunt for Red Magazine and contributes to The Guardian. She has presented several documentaries including The Truth about Children Who Lie for BBC Radio 4, Being Bipolar for Channel 4 and How To Be A Surrealist with Philippa Perry for BBC Four.Her most recent book, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did), was a number one Sunday Times bestseller - a book all about what really matters and what behaviour it is important to avoid - the vital dos and don'ts of parenting. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the hugely inspiring activist, writer, and lecturer Rachel Cargle. I recorded this episode at The Wing in New York, which was fun. I first came across Rachel's work on Instagram. She was recently on Red Table Talk a US roundtable show streamed on Facebook and hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith and Rachel's clip on white privilege went viral, and I really wanted to spread her message on this podcast. Her activist and academic work are rooted in providing intellectual discourse, tools, and resources that explore the intersection of race and womanhood. Her social media platforms now have a community of over 250k people which have grown pretty quickly since one of her signs at the Woman's March in 2018 went viral.  Rachel guides conversations, encourages critical thinking and nurtures meaningful engagement with people all over the world. She is one busy woman, currently teaching and attending Columbia University where she is studying anthropology and women's studies. I am thrilled we got a chance to sit down and talk, hope you enjoy the episode! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elizabeth Day is an author, journalist and broadcaster. She has written 4 critically aclaimed novels, including The Party which was a Richard and Judy bookclub pick. Elizabeth is a currently columnist for You magazine on the Mail on Sunday and a feature writer for numerous publications in the UK and US including The Telegraph, The Times, the Guardian, New York Magazine, the Observer, Vogue, Grazia, Elle, The Pool and Vanity Fair. Her chart-topping podcast, How To Fail With Elizabeth Day, is a celebration of the things that haven't gone right. Every week, in a one-on-one interview, a guest discusses what they have learned from failure. Interviewees have included Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lily Allen, Alastair Campbell and Dolly Alderton. Her book How To fail, based on the podcast, is out now, a brilliantly honest memoir about celebrating the things that go wrong.We talk about personal writing, success 'triggers', fertility, friendship, failures and why your own definition of success is super important. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Candice Carty-Williams is an author, culture writer and journalist based in London. Her book Queenie came out recently in the UK and US, about a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London called Queenie Jenkins, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. Oprah has called it 'brazenly hilarious" and it's been called The Black Bridget Jones. She writes regularly to i-D, Refinery29, BEAT Magazine, and more, and her pieces, especially those about blackness, sex, and identity have been shared and read globally. Candice created and launched the Guardian and 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, before moving to Vintage Books. We discuss writing Queenie, the universal topics within it, how to get published and why you should proactively ask for criticism, however hard that might be. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.