Shows
Wisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsAlisha Hook Career Coaching: Networks and Reputation in a Shifting Job MarketAlisha Hook spent 25 years in talent acquisition and HR across Australia and the UK before founding Your Career Edge, a career coaching and fractional talent consultancy based in Melbourne.Alisha explains why professional reputation carries more weight than a polished resume in the current job market, where AI-generated applications have made candidates harder to differentiate. She covers three trends reshaping how people find work: job hugging, peek-a-boo jobs, and anti-perks. The conversation extends to practical career coaching strategies including building career advocates, networking as ongoing career currency rather than a last-minute scramble, and un...
2026-06-1844 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsJohanna Rothman Independent Consulting: Principles That Outlast Every TrendJohanna Rothman has worked as an independent consultant since 1994 and written 21 books on management, consulting, and professional writing, including Successful Independent Consulting.Johanna uses the Consulting Role Grid from Champion, Kiel and McLendon (1990) to draw a distinction that matters for every experienced professional: hands-on experts who take no responsibility for client growth are really contractors, not consultants. She explains the nine consulting roles from reflective observer to trusted advisor, why retainer agreements serve both consultant and client better than hourly billing, and how continual planning replaces rigid annual plans. The conversation includes her re...
2026-06-0458 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsBex Thomas Intentional Career Breaks: Sabbaticals That Lead to Real ChangeBex Thomas spent 20 years in recruitment before an intentional career break became the catalyst for a portfolio career as a career transition coach, sabbatical coach, and podcast host of Sabbatical Stories.Bex explains her five-question framework for planning intentional career breaks: why you are taking the break, when to take it, where to go, who to spend time with, and who you want to become afterwards. She describes the financial planning behind extended breaks, including spending time in countries where Australian dollars stretch further. For experienced professionals sensing their current role no longer fi...
2026-05-2147 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsMargareta Krizova Freelance Advice: Six Questions for Professional ReinventionMargareta Křížová offers freelance advice for professional reinvention, sharing six questions that replace the business plan.After co-founding a boutique M&A advisory firm in Prague in 1993, Margareta spent almost 30 years in dealmaking before selling her equity stake at 53 to rebuild as an independent freelancer. She now combines selective advisory work with entrepreneurship mentoring and runs the NEWTON University Business Accelerator, now in its fifth year with 14 projects in acceleration.Her six questions (what do you sell, who will buy it, why, what is your go-to market, what is your pricing strategy, and d...
2026-05-0750 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsJanine Garner Expertise Monetisation: How Women Build Independent Consulting PracticesJanine Garner helps women entrepreneurs over 50 turn accumulated expertise into independent consulting practices that charge what professional judgment is worth. After 20 years in corporate marketing, finishing as group marketing director for the Oroton Group overseeing Oroton and Ralph Lauren brands across Australia and Asia, Janine built a seven-figure mentoring business focused on expertise monetisation for experienced women leaving corporate careers.In this conversation, Janine explains why experienced women consistently underprice themselves when starting independent practices, often earning less per hour than a fast-food worker despite decades of professional knowledge. She shares her days-down-dollars-up business strategy for restructuring...
2026-04-2356 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsElla Zhang Expertise Building: Micro Habits for Experienced ConsultantsElla Zhang helps experienced professionals monetise hard-won expertise through inner operating systems that rebuild leadership capability from the inside out. From her Sydney consulting practice, she draws on neuroscience and Chinese medicine to design micro habits that make capability stick where one-off training programs fail.Ella explains how four inner operating systems, mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical, shape sustainable performance for independent consultants. She covers diagnosing organisational issues by root cause rather than surface symptom, why micro habits outlast workshops, and how values alignment prevents burnout.The conversation includes her own burnout recovery i...
2026-04-0952 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsBen Legg Portfolio Careers and Expertise Monetisation: From Google COO to SolopreneurBen Legg helps experienced professionals monetise expertise as co-founder of The Portfolio Collective, a 16,000-member community for portfolio careers. Before that he was COO of Google Europe, led Coca-Cola's India turnaround, worked at McKinsey, and served in the British Army's Royal Engineers.Ben explains why experienced professionals are leaving corporate careers for portfolio work, covering the practical mechanics of building advisory practices, keynote speaking, and consulting across multiple clients. He introduces the Designer vs Hamster framework for working on your career rather than inside it.Ben shares how fractional work actually finds people: 20% t...
2026-03-2651 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsMichael Zipursky Consulting Success: Why Conversations Beat Marketing for Independent ConsultantsMichael Zipursky studied 1,300 coaching engagements to show how experienced consultants build expertise-driven practices.Building a consulting practice through relationships and conversations rather than marketing systems requires a specific set of mindset shifts that corporate experience does not prepare you for. For experienced independent professionals navigating this transition, Michael Zipursky maps the precise patterns he has observed across 1,300 coaching engagements in 75 industries at Consulting Success.Michael Zipursky is the co-founder of Consulting Success and author of Consulting Success and The Elite Consulting Mind. Before building Consulting Success into a global coaching practice, he...
2026-03-1257 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsDante St James The Generalist Advantage: Building Systemised Independent PracticesExperienced independent professionals building portfolio practices will find a practical operating model in this conversation with Dante St James. For generalists juggling multiple ventures, this episode maps the daily discipline and systemisation that lets diverse expertise run without you at the centre.Dante traces how a failed startup, a pandemic-era cafe purchase, and a digital marketing exit became a self-running portfolio spanning hospitality, executive education, and AI-powered software. He explains his 20/20/60 daily structure for learning, self-marketing, and execution, his McDonald's-informed approach to systemising small operations, and why vibe coding lets solopreneurs build software pr...
2026-02-2656 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsMiklós Pohl OAM Professional Longevity: Music, Medicine, and Sustained Practice Beyond 70Dr Miklós Pohl OAM at 78 shows how expertise sustains professional longevity across medicine, chamber music, and publishingHis Wisepreneurs conversation explores how sustained creative engagement supports professional longevity and cognitive vitality for experienced professionals who have no intention of retiring.A Melbourne-based plastic surgeon, violinist, and founder of the Australian Doctors Orchestra, Miklós Pohl arrived in Australia as a nine-year-old refugee from Hungary during the 1956 Revolution. Music has been a constant thread through seven decades of professional life, from childhood violin lessons to performing across the globe.During COVID, he...
2026-02-1245 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsDarren Waldron Solopreneur AI Automation: How a Carpenter Built an Independent Technology PracticeDarren Waldron, a Zurich carpenter-turned-solopreneur, built an independent AI automation practice with no coding background. A carpenter by trade, now based in Zurich, he developed AI-powered lead management systems after experiencing firsthand how slowly businesses follow up with potential customers.His company DS Walden specialises in two services that independent professionals and small businesses can learn from. Database reactivation uses custom AI trained on a business's products, services, and brand voice, deployed via SMS or WhatsApp to reengage leads from previous marketing campaigns. Speed to lead addresses the gap between when someone submits th...
2026-01-2949 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsMelisa Liberman Solopreneur Business Development for Experienced ConsultantsSystematic business development for independent consultants who want predictable revenue without employees or feast-famine cycles. Melisa Liberman coaches experienced professionals to build consulting practices generating $500,000+ using quantifiable metrics rather than hope-based pipeline management.A consultant for 13 years and now a coach for independent professionals, Melisa explains why consultants who think like CEOs rather than subject matter experts scale faster. Her Business Development Formula creates predictable pipeline through diagnostic conversations that eliminate adversarial selling.The conversation covers six pathways for generating leads without cold outreach, how AI amplifies consulting capability while human judgment justifies premium rates...
2026-01-0152 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsMeredith Fuller OAM Invisible Expertise: How Introverted Professionals Articulate What They KnowExperienced professionals who think deeply often feel invisible in workplaces that reward rapid responses over considered insight. Now retired as a psychologist Meredith Fuller OAM, returns for her fourth Wisepreneurs conversation, drawing on over 45 years counselling professionals who don't quite fit to explain why this happens and what to do about it.Meredith introduces the concept of liminal space, the uncomfortable transition between who you were and who you are becoming, and reframes it as productive territory rather than professional limbo. For independent professionals navigating career transitions, this distinction changes how you understand the discomfort of building...
2025-12-121h 03Wisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsMark Trinham Sustainable Creative Practice: 30 Years of Independent Work Without Business TrainingThirty years of full-time independent practice, booked 18 months ahead, with no formal business training. Artist Mark Trinham offers one of the most practical case studies on the Wisepreneurs Podcast for how accumulated expertise becomes sustainable revenue when you learn to position it as premium capability.Mark moved from illustration and graphic design into public art and large-scale sculpture, developing a business model through trial and decades of learning when to say yes and when to say no. His collaboration company amplifies rather than dilutes his creative voice, and his positioning around environmental connection and place-based s...
2025-11-2854 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsJon Younger Professional Relevance: Positioning Expertise When AI Does the Routine WorkPositioning accumulated professional judgment when younger consultants cost less and AI handles routine knowledge work. Jon Younger has spent five decades understanding how talent evolves — from HR executive to independent advisor on the future of work and AI. At 73, he addresses the challenge experienced professionals rarely voice: how do you justify premium rates in an era of automation? Jon explains why diagnostic capabilities built over decades remain valuable despite AIHow the traditional four-stage career model breaks down, and What business architecture independent practitioners actually needYou'll hear specific frameworks for using AI as cognitive amplification rathe...
2025-11-141h 07Wisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsMayumi Kataoka Forest Therapy: Cognitive Recovery for Independent ProfessionalsForest therapy as cognitive restoration for over-connected professionals who keep optimising when they need to stop. Mayumi Kataoka is a certified forest therapy guide in Sydney who takes professionals on three-hour walks covering barely 1.2 kilometres.Participants consistently report losing track of time and finding clarity they did not know they were missing.Mayumi's path from IT professional and martial arts instructor to nature photographer to forest therapy guide built the observational capacity she now brings to her practice.She explains the science behind shinrin-yoku, why our genes expect natural environments, and how systematic...
2025-10-3037 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsAnna Burgess Yang Business Automation for Independent Solopreneur PracticeAnna Burgess Yang helps experienced solopreneurs build automation systems that keep an independent practice running when the founder cannot work. Her FinTech writing business ran for two months while she recovered from brain tumour surgery, proving her operational frameworks worked under the hardest possible test.Anna walks through the specific tools and workflows that made this possible, from Zapier automations generating social media content to the financial buffers that eliminated money stress during recovery.She explains how three years of systematic business building, including strategic financial planning, emergency preparation, and operational architecture, transformed her independent...
2025-10-1738 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsMichael Best Career Reinvention at 80: Complex Research and AI Tools After Five Decades in MedicineCareer reinvention at 80, mastering AI tools, Obsidian, and Zotero to write a scientific book he never planned. Dr Michael Best practised medicine for 50 years before a routine phone call during COVID introduced him to the endocannabinoid system — a biological network in every human body that he'd never learned about in medical school. Now he's deep into original research, proving that intellectual challenge sustains cognitive vitality rather than diminishing it. Michael reveals why mainstream medicine ignores what patients experience How accumulated expertise transforms technology from threat to strategic advantage, and Why serendipity combined with professional curiosi...
2025-10-0344 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsRobert Vlach Professional Reputation: Why Your Good Name Beats Personal BrandingProfessional reputation built through decades of relationships beats personal branding built through content marketing. Robert Vlach leads Europe's largest freelance community, supporting over 250,000 professionals. In this three-hour conversation, our longest episode, he explains why experienced independent professionals should stop competing with younger workers on their terms. Robert covers why pattern recognition from 20+ years of practice creates unbeatable market advantages, How career capital converts to client relationshipsWhy experience commands premium rates, and How critical thinking separates seasoned professionals from AI-assisted competitorsHe wrote The Freelance Way and has spent two decades working with freelance commu...
2025-08-282h 58Wisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsAmy Alkon Menopause and Cognitive Performance: Protecting Your Professional Edge Through ScienceMenopause and cognitive performance for professional women: when brain fog, fatigue, and memory loss threaten your career edge, the problem is medical science, not you. Amy Alkon is an award-winning investigative science writer and author of Going Menopostal. She exposes the gap between what medical research knows about menopausal care and what most doctors actually provide, leaving accomplished women to mistake a solvable physiological issue for burnout or professional decline. Amy explains why self-advocacy matters when the medical system fails to connect menopause with cognitive symptoms, and what the science actually supports for protecting your mi...
2025-08-011h 22Wisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsSönke Ahrens Turning Professional Experience Into Lasting Insight with Smart NotesSönke Ahrens helps experienced professionals turn accumulated expertise into structured knowledge systems that support writing, consulting, and thought leadership. He wrote How to Take Smart Notes and uses tools like Obsidian, Readwise, and Zotero to make decades of professional learning retrievable and useful rather than forgotten.Sönke explains how externalising expertise into structured notes supports cognitive vitality and sustained professional output over a long independent career. He goes beyond tool recommendations into how knowledge management practices clarify thinking, develop a distinctive professional voice, and build the foundation for authority-based practices.For exp...
2025-07-1857 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsSue Ellson Starting a Business After 60: LinkedIn, Financial Security, and Career ReinventionStarting a business after 60 using LinkedIn, relationships, and minimal cost strategies for financial security during career transition. Sue Ellson has been an independent consultant since 1994 and joined LinkedIn in 2003. She's authored five books including Gigsters and is recognised internationally as a leading expert on the platform. In this conversation, Sue offers a practical roadmap for professional women considering entrepreneurship after 60. She explains her 'job for now' concept for maintaining financial security during transition, why your professional relationships are more powerful than any marketing tactic for combating ageism, and how to launch with minimal cos...
2025-07-0452 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsLaetitia Vitaud Career Reinvention After 60: Why Your 150 Relationships Beat Startup CapitalEpisode OverviewCareer reinvention after 60 using your professional relationships as startup capital rather than cash, savings, or business loans. Laetitia Vitaud is a feminist and work-revolution thinker returning for her third Wisepreneurs appearance. She explains why the 150 trusted connections you've nurtured across your career are the most valuable business asset you ownHow seasonal work rhythms create sustainable practice rather than burnout, and Why older professionals have a genuine cognitive edge with AI because decades of critical thinking outperform younger workers' technical fluencyLaetitia offers practical frameworks for women over 60 considering solo ven...
2025-06-2055 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsLaurie Smale Career Change After 50: From Junkyard to YouTube Creator at 79Laurie Smale left school at 13 to work in a junkyard and at 79 produces his own Magic Minutes YouTube series after learning digital tools from scratch with LinkedIn specialist Sue Ellson.Between the junkyard and YouTube, Laurie worked in an Italian glass factory at Frankston (sleeping beside the furnace at 13), returned to education at 37, graduated from Melbourne University with honours in Italian, built a career as a communication skills speaker through the National Speakers Association, and wrote three books including Finding Me, Finding You. The conversation covers how he overcame a lifelong fear of technology rooted i...
2025-06-0645 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsTomáš Baránek Deep Reading as Professional Edge: Why Books Still Build Expertise in the AI EraDeep 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 writing, thinking, and decision-making erodes the cognitive depth that experienced professionals depend on for their livelihood. Now studying machine learning at 53, Tomáš brings a practitioner's perspective on critical thinking, resisting digital overwhelm, and why slow intentio...
2025-05-2359 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsKim Watty Retirement by Design: How Professional Women Plan Beyond FinancesRetirement 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 futures across an eight-week guided process. Kim explains why 62% of women wish they had planned better for retirement, what experienced professional women lose when they leave organisational identity without a framework for what comes next, and why the emotional and social dimensions...
2025-05-0942 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsFilip Drimalka The Future of No Work: AI Tools for Independent Professional PracticeFilip 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 work without losing the human judgement that makes their expertise valuable. He addresses the practical shift from traditional employment to working independently, how automation is redefining knowledge work roles, and why generalists who integrate AI effectively hold a competitive advantage over narrow s...
2025-02-1432 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsMichal Novotný Preventive Wellness: Physical Foundations for Sustained Independent PracticePreventive 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 treatmentHow small consistent habits compound over decades, and What experienced professionals can learn from elite athletic preparationMichal covers how integrating regular movement, diet awareness, and mindfulness supports the cognitive vitality that sustained independent practice demands. For professionals building practices on accumulated exper...
2024-12-1348 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsAnna Burgess Yang Solopreneur Workflow: AI for Independent ProfessionalsAnna 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 across categories, and ChatGPT Pro to repurpose blog posts into LinkedIn content automatically through Buffer, where she keeps 160 posts queued ahead.Anna explains how lean principles help her decide what matters and what to cut, why a...
2024-11-2949 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsKrisna Hanks Metabolic Sparks: Why Movement Breaks Beat Exercise for Sedentary ProfessionalsMovement 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. Krisna explains how small frequent metabolic sparks boost resilience and mental clarityWhy core metabolic markers like blood pressure, glucose, and triglycerides reveal the real cost of prolonged sitting, and How proactive wellness outper...
2024-11-0847 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsTonianne DeMaria Personal Kanban: Visual Workflow Systems for Independent ProfessionalsTonianne 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 from her journey from fashion to productivity practice, she covers the neuroscience behind overcommitment and cognitive overload, and how visual systems address these challenges at their source rather than adding another layer of pressure. The conversation also introduces David Rock's SCARF model, a framework for understanding how st...
2024-09-271h 05Wisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsPeter Compo Emergent Strategy: A Design Framework for Independent Professionals Managing UncertaintyEmergent 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 practitioners maintain progress when direction needs to shift. Peter's methodology connects concepts from music and science to business strategy, offering a structured approach to uncertainty that replaces rigid planning with disciplined adaptability. For experienced professionals whose accumulated expertise needs a framework for...
2024-09-2051 minWisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own TermsGail Greatorex Expert Positioning: From Government Regulator to SolopreneurGail 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 challenges of e-commerce safety and third-party sellers, the risks posed by everyday products like button batteries and toppling furniture, and her role in shaping regulatory standards that protect consumers.For experienced professionals moving from institutional roles to independent practice...
2024-09-1348 min