Shows
Wisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseJanine Garner Commercialising Expertise: How Women Build Independent Consulting PracticesJanine Garner spent 20 years in corporate marketing, finishing as group marketing director for the Oroton Group overseeing Oroton and Ralph Lauren brands across Australia and Asia, before building her own seven-figure mentoring business helping professional women commercialise accumulated expertise into independent consulting practices.Janine explains why experienced women consistently underprice themselves when leaving corporate careers, often earning less per hour than a fast-food worker despite decades of professional judgment. She shares her days-down-dollars-up business strategy and breaks down the four-role network model from her book It’s Who You Know: promoters who champion you, teach...
2026-04-2356 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseElla Zhang Professional Operating Systems for Experienced ConsultantsElla Zhang helps experienced professionals monetize 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. 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 in 2007, her...
2026-04-0952 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseBen Legg Portfolio Careers for Independent Professionals: From Google COOBen Legg helps experienced professionals monetize 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, and shares how fractional work actually finds people: 20% th...
2026-03-2651 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseMichael 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseDante 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseMiklós 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseDarren 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseMelisa 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseMeredith 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. Psychologist Meredith Fuller OAM, returning for her fourth Wisepreneurs conversation, draws 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 something new....
2025-12-121h 03Wisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseMark 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseJon 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseMayumi 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseAnna 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseMichael 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseRobert 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseAmy 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseSönke Ahrens How to Take Smart Notes: Knowledge Systems for Experienced ProfessionalsSönke Ahrens wrote How to Take Smart Notes and uses tools like Obsidian and Readwise to help professionals turn accumulated reading and experience into structured knowledge systems that support writing, consulting, and thought leadership.Sönke explains how externalising expertise into structured notes makes decades of professional learning retrievable and useful rather than forgotten. He goes beyond tool recommendations into how knowledge management practices support cognitive vitality and sustained professional output over a long independent career. The conversation covers how digital note-taking clarifies thinking, develops a distinctive professional voice, and builds the foun...
2025-07-1857 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseSue 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseLaetitia 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseLaurie Smale Digital Storytelling at 79: From School Dropout to YouTube Creator Through MentorshipDigital storytelling at 79 after leaving school at 13 — proof that reinvention has no expiry date when mentorship meets courage. Laurie Smale walked away from school after brutal treatment by a maths teacher and began working in a junkyard under the guidance of Old Bill, his first mentor. Decades later he returned to education, graduating with honours at 37. Most recently, he launched his Magic Minutes YouTube series at 78 with the support of digital mentor Sue Ellson. Laurie's journey from sleeping beside a furnace to building a personal brand online illustrates how lived experience become...
2025-06-0645 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseTomáš 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseKim 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseFilip Drimalka The Future of No Work: AI-Powered Career Independence for One-Person BusinessesFilip Drimalka wrote The Future of No Work and helps independent professionals build AI-enhanced workflows that turn one-person operations into sustainable businesses without traditional employment structures.Filip explains why AI fluency is becoming essential for career independence and how experienced professionals can integrate AI tools into daily work without losing the human judgement that makes their expertise valuable. He covers 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 specialists. The conversation addresses ho...
2025-02-1432 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseMichal 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 min
WeirdiesThe Woman in Black (1989)on this Ghost Weirdies for Christmas episode I am looking at The Woman in Black from 1989, starring Adrian Rawlins, Bernard Hepton, David Daker and Pauline Moran. It was written by Nigel Kneale, based upon Susan Hill's 1983 novella. It was directed by Herbert Wise.
Blue Sky weirdies.bsky.social
email weirdiespod@gmail.com
begging bowl ko-fi.com/weirdies
2024-12-1135 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseAnna Burgess Yang Solopreneur Workflow: Airtable, Zapier, and AI for Freelance Content WritingAnna Burgess Yang uses Airtable, Zapier, and generative AI to run a freelance content writing business built on lean thinking principles, after leaving a FinTech executive career to work independently while raising three children.Anna explains how automation tools eliminate repetitive tasks, how lean principles help her prioritise what actually matters, and how generative AI repurposes and expands creative output without replacing her voice. She shares specific habits that make solo practice sustainable, including starting her day at 4am and building a client pipeline through authentic LinkedIn updates rather than marketing tactics. Her appro...
2024-11-2949 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseKrisna 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseTonianne 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertisePeter 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 | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseGail Greatorex Product Safety Consulting: From Government Regulation to Independent PracticeGail Greatorex spent 25 years in product safety, moving from the Australian government to independent consulting where she helps businesses navigate consumer protection laws, compliance, and product recalls.Gail explains how self-employment allows her to choose projects aligned with her values, including her work 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 specific risks posed by everyday products like button batteries and toppling furniture, and her role in shaping regulatory standards that protect consumers. Her career demonstrates how deep regulatory ex...
2024-09-1348 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseEliška Šestáková Building Smarter Knowledge Systems for Independent Professional PracticeIn 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 organisational infrastructure.Drawing from her background in computer science, Eliška explains how systems like Zettelkasten and tools like Roam Research help independent professionals organise accumulated expertise into usable, searchable knowledge. The conversation covers how deliberate note-taking practices strengthen pattern recognition, support...
2024-09-0654 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseLeanne Shelton AI for Independent Professionals: Keeping the Human EdgeALeanne 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 creative industry, why prompt engineering matters for content professionals, and how to overcome the fear of AI replacing creative work. Leanne shares how her copywriting experience gives her a practical perspective on where AI amplifies...
2024-08-3047 minWisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseCedric Chin Testing Business Ideas Against Evidence: Pattern Recognition for Independent ProfessionalsCedric 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 Vietnam. He introduces Leo DiBello's Triad Model and naturalistic decision making as practical frameworks for evaluating whether a business idea will survive contact with reality. The conversation covers how accumulated expertise becomes more valuable when continuously tested against complex business environments, an...
2024-08-231h 11Wisepreneurs | Women Entrepreneurs Over 50 Monetizing ExpertiseKaren Wickre Freelance Editing After Big Tech: Building Confidence and Connections in Your 70sKaren Wickre left senior roles at Google and Twitter to build a freelance editing practice grounded in the authentic relationships she'd cultivated across decades in Silicon Valley.In this second conversation, Karen shares how continuous professional growth and adaptability sustain an independent career well into your 70s. She explains why genuine, mutually beneficial connections matter more than transactional networking, and how the confidence that comes from accumulated experience makes freelance work both viable and fulfilling. Her approach treats every professional relationship as a two-way exchange rather than a career transaction.Wisepreneurs ex...
2024-08-1655 min