Your Time With James Sweetman

This week I’m stepping outside my comfort zone, because I’m speaking about a personal topic – my journey with cancer. Thankfully, earlier this month, I received some great news, all my tests were clear and my consultant doesn’t need to see me again for a year. Over the last 7 years, I’ve attended hospital for tests, operations and treatments every few months, so it’s su

This week I’m joined by James Parnell to chat about the neuroscience of well-being. Amongst his many qualifications, James is a mental fitness coach, is an expert in the area of applied neuroscience and brain health and he’s the founder of The Wellbeing Gym. James shares many tips, techniques and insightful acronyms, including ‘PROMISE,’ a way to achieve balance across the

This week I’m pondering the question – am I addicted to self-improvement? It might sound like an odd question for someone who has worked full time in the personal development industry for the last twenty years, but too much of anything is not so good, and there is a dark side to self-help, one that presupposes that who you are isn’t enough. I’ll take you through some of the

As someone who has worked as a professional motivational speaker for 20 years, and who has delivered countless presentation skills workshops, this week I’ll show you how to present confidently to senior managers. In addition to best practices around opening strongly, handling questions and using visuals, because delivering presentations is also about self-belief, exercising coura

What role does courage play in your life? There are six different types of courage and this week, I’ll take you through each one, so you can see how many you recognise. I also look at why being brave is not the same as being courageous. Courage is often associated with grand acts of heroism, but in reality, courage is more nuanced and deeply personal. Courage underpins so many fa

Most of us operate a belief that goes something like -one day when I achieve enough, earn enough, am successful enough, slim enough, spiritual enough, loving enough, qualified enough, or selfless enough then I will feel worthy. On my podcast this week, to that limiting belief I’m saying, enough. I’m delving into the topic of worthiness. I’ll take you through what has been a g

This week I’m exploring the topic of habits and how even well-intentioned habits can be the hidden cause of boredom in our lives. Just as organisations apply kaizen techniques to enhance productivity, we can personalise that drive for continuous improvement in our quest for greater prosperity, or success. But life is not an assembly plant and we are not machines. So this week, I

We all know the adage - when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. That’s the theory, but in reality, sometimes life just punches you in the guts. I’m currently experiencing just such a time. In fact, over the last few years it seems that I’ve had so many lemons thrown at me that I could open a lemonade factory! On this week’s episode I speak about how I cope with life�

I’m starting this new series of episodes with an inspirational guest, Jack Kavanagh. In 2012, Jack suffered a life changing spinal cord injury leaving him with 15% muscle function. In the years since, Jack has challenged the perceived limitations of his situation. I was honoured to chat with Jack about his story. Jack poses some insightful questions to reflect upon, including how

In the final episode of this series, I’m exploring a topic that I’ve been working on personally and that’s overthinking. In particular, I share 8 strategies we can use to stop us falling into the bottomless pit of worrying excessively about the future, or ruminating on the past. When I realised that overthinking was the source of my exhaustion, I researched ways that would he