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Squiggly Careers

The Squiggly Career

Squiggly Careers is a weekly podcast that will help you take control of your career development. Hosted by the founders of Amazing If (https://www.amazingif.com/), Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper, together they cover all things work: from how to manage stress and overcome your confidence gremlins to micro-aggressions and discovering your strengths. Each episode is full of ideas, actions, hints, and tips that you can put into practice straight away. 


Every so often they take a break from talking to each other to interview other people who are leading the way in making work better. Past guests include entrepreneur and philanthropist Dame Stephanie Shirley, author of The Joy of Work Bruce Daisley, and neuroscience expert Amy Brann. 


The Squiggly Careers podcast has been recommended by Harvard Business Review, Stylist, Marie Claire and Management Today.


For more ideas, tools and inspiration every week, you can also sign up to their newsletter Squiggly Careers in Action.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  • 600 episodes
  • Updated Thursday

Episodes600

Newest first
  • Nov 11, 2025 · 34 min

    The Marshmallow Test: How to Master Delayed Gratification for Career Success

    <p>🦞 Join our Learn Like a Lobster Sprint: <a href="https://bit.ly/4oZzJ3F" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/4oZzJ3F</a></p><br><p>This week on the Squiggly Careers podcast, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from a sweet source — the marshmallow experiment — to explore how the science of delayed gratification applies to our work and career choices.</p><br><p>Inspired by the famous psychology study, they unpack what it means to make one marshmallow versus two marshmallow

  • Nov 4, 2025 · 44 min

    Team Emotional Intelligence: The Secret to High-Performing Teams

    <p>This week on the Squiggly Careers podcast, Sarah and Helen borrow brilliance from Vanessa Urch Druskat’s research on team emotional intelligence, first featured in Harvard Business Review.</p><br><p>While emotional intelligence is often talked about at an individual level, this episode explores what happens when you apply it to teams — and how emotional awareness can build motivation, trust, and high performance together.</p><br><p>Sarah shares how she used AI (Claude) to turn Druskat’s resea

  • Oct 28, 2025 · 36 min

    The Psychology of Seats: How To Boost Your Impact & Influence At Work

    <p>This week on the Squiggly Careers podcast, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from an unexpected source — the psychology of seats. Inspired by a conversation about how we choose where to sit, Helen talks about how your seating choices can shape the way you feel, behave, and influence others at work. From safe seats that help us feel in control to power positions in meetings and even virtual seating on video calls, this episode reveals how something as simple as your seat can affect confidence,

  • Oct 21, 2025 · 39 min

    Map Your Career: 5 Visual Tools to Find Clarity and Direction

    <p>This week on the Squiggly Careers podcast, Sarah and Helen borrow brilliance from an unexpected source — maps. Inspired by Jürgen Appelo’s Substack post “I Started Drawing Maps”, they explore how mapping can help you find clarity, confidence and direction in your squiggly career.</p><br><p>You’ll hear about five different types of maps you can create to understand yourself and your work better — from mapping your energy and relationships to visualising your skills, possibilities and problems.

  • Oct 14, 2025 · 33 min

    Are You Wasting Your Talent? (Why Moral Ambition Matters)

    <p>What does it mean to live — and work — with moral ambition? In this episode of the Squiggly Careers podcast, Sarah introduces ideas from Rutger Bregman’s book Moral Ambition and Helen helps turn them into practical actions you can apply in your own career.</p><br><p>You’ll hear why moral ambition is about using your 80,000 working hours wisely, how to close the belief–behaviour gap, and what small steps you can take to make a bigger difference. Together, Helen and Sarah explore how to connect

  • Oct 7, 2025 · 27 min

    Why Bringing Your Authentic Self To Work Is Bad Advice

    <p>Is “just be yourself at work” really the best advice? In this 500th episode of the Squiggly Careers podcast, Helen and Sarah explore the tricky topic of authenticity — and why being 100% yourself at work might not always help you succeed.</p><br><p>Borrowing brilliance from Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, they discuss the difference between effective vs. ineffective authenticity, why trust often matters more than “being real,” and how to adapt without feeling fake. You’ll learn three practical a

  • Sep 30, 2025 · 33 min

    Learn Smarter: The Feynman Technique, Don’t Know Notebook & Problem Testing

    <p>What can a Nobel Prize-winning physicist teach us about navigating squiggly careers? In this new <em>Borrowed Brilliance</em> format, Helen introduces the curiosity-driven ideas of Richard Feynman and Sarah helps turn them into practical actions for work. Together, they explore how Feynman’s playful approach to learning can help all of us grow with more clarity and confidence.You’ll discover the power of the Feynman Technique, why keeping a Don’t Know Notebook builds smarter learning habits,

  • Sep 23, 2025 · 46 min

    Learn Like a Lobster: How to Keep Growing in Your Career

    <p>Big news! 🎉 Pre-orders for Helen and Sarah’s brand-new book *Learn Like a Lobster* are now live. In this special episode, they share why lobsters are the perfect metaphor for modern learning, what makes the book different, and how you can start “learning like a lobster” right away. You’ll hear about the free Learn Like a Lobster Library, discover three big lobster-inspired lessons, and get practical tools you can experiment with today.</p><br><p>🦞 Pre-order Learn Like A Lobster below:</p><p

  • Sep 19, 2025 · 13 min

    AI Skills Sprint: How To Design Your Future Career Using AI

    <p>This is the fifth and final episode of the Squiggly Careers x AI skills sprint series.</p><br><p>Today, Helen and Sarah talk about exploring Future Possibilities in your career. As careers become less linear and more unpredictable, having multiple options and directions is essential for resilience and control.</p><br><p>In this episode, they show how to use AI prompts to generate a mind map of career possibilities, from obvious to ambitious, pivot, and dream options. They also introduce an AI

  • Sep 18, 2025 · 13 min

    AI Skills Sprint: How To Make Networking Easy with AI

    <p>This is the fourth episode of the Squiggly Careers x AI skills sprint series. Today, Helen and Sarah are talking about Networking. Before you skip this one (we know some of you want to!), remember this squiggly stat: 70% of people's roles come through connections.</p><br><p>The key is reframing networking from "people knowing people" to "people helping people." This creates career karma - when you help others, good things come back to you over time.</p><br><p>In this episode, Helen and Sarah

  • Sep 17, 2025 · 12 min

    AI Skills Sprint: How to cage confidence gremlins that are getting in the way of your growth

    <p>This is the third episode of the Squiggly Careers x AI skills sprint series and today Helen and Sarah are tackling Confidence. We all have gremlins - those beliefs, doubts and fears that hold us back in our careers. They're often hidden and they can grow when we don't address them. When you learn to cage them, you get better at navigating tough moments and saying yes to opportunities that stretch you.</p><br><p>In this episode, Helen and Sarah introduce their brand-new custom Gremlins GPT - a

  • Sep 16, 2025 · 12 min

    AI Skills Sprint: How To Identify Your Values (Your Filter For Your Future)

    <p>This is the second episode of the Squiggly Careers x AI skills sprint series and today Helen and Sarah are diving into Values. Your values are what motivate and drive you - they're your internal compass that guides decision-making and career choices.</p><br><p>In this episode, Helen and Sarah share the best tool for identifying your values and how AI can accelerate the actions you take about your values, turning them into a brilliant filter for your future. They'll show you practical ways to

  • Sep 15, 2025 · 12 min

    AI Skills Sprint: How To Discover Your Strengths Using AI (in 10 Minutes)

    <p>This is the first episode of the Squiggly Careers x AI skills sprint series and today Helen and Sarah are kicking things off with Day 1: Strengths.</p><br><p>Our strengths are what we're known for - they shape how we show up and help us make more impact at work. And because strengths develop throughout your career, it's important to keep reflecting on them.</p><br><p>In this episode, Helen and Sarah share how to give AI the right prompts to help you spot your strengths in action, stretch your