I Love My Job: Recent Episodes
Melanie MacGregor
I remember that feeling when I left university, wondering what I should do for a living. I wasn't drawn to anything in particular at that point (the inspiration came much later) and I wish someone had sat me down and said "take your time, it's a big decision; and don't let money be your only guide." In this podcast, we listen to people who have embarked on a career that means something to them. Not just a job, but a vocation. Some have known all along it was what they wanted to do, and others have changed direction mid-career. What is life like when your job feels like a part of who you are?
Today I'm talking to Chef Jean-Pierre, who I found out about when a friend put me on to his YouTube channel. He demonstrates how to cook anything from classic French onion soup to the perfect steak, and strawberry tart.
At last count he had 1.6 million followers. You quickly understand why when you take a look at what he does, or more to the point how he does it. He has a great sense of humour, a zest for life, and above all the desire to explain the "why" behind fundamental cooking techniques.
This is a man who has been cooking for more than 50 years, since he started his apprenticeship in a 3-star Michelin restaurant in France. So imagine how happy I was when he answered an email out of the blue, asking if I could interview him. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Today I'm talking to Tim, who after working his way through different jobs in the travel industry, took a leap of faith 10 years ago to become a freelance mountain guide.
Tim leads groups of either adults or school children in places as diverse as the Scottish Highlands, Nepal and East Africa. He not only guides people around the mountains, he also tries to teach his guests something about the area’s wildlife, history and culture.
One of the places that Tim works for is Wilderness Scotland. In his bio on their website, Tim is asked what some of his biggest personal travel adventures have been. His answer includes trekking the 21-day Annapurna circuit in Nepal, ski touring inside the Arctic Circle in Norway, canoeing down the Zambezi River, and a 10-day sea kayak expedition in Greenland.
This is clearly someone who loves to explore the world and I started my chat with Tim by asking him how far back we would have to go to find when the travel bug began.
Today I’m talking to Zoë, who flies helicopters that transport people from Aberdeen in Scotland to offshore oil and gas platforms in the North Sea.
Before moving over to commercial flying, Zoë was in the military, having trained at the highly-regarded Sandhurst academy.
Even before I spoke to Zoë, I got the impression that she was a high achiever and when I listen back to the recording of our interview I can hear in my voice that I was a bit intimidated by the image I had of her in my mind.
But you’ll hear Zoë talk about moments early on in her career when she didn’t yet have the confidence she has today, and about how she dealt with setbacks when things didn’t go to plan.
Those are the moments I’m always hoping to hear about when I interview someone - a glimpse into what that person went through (good and bad) to get to where they are today.
Today I’m talking to Victoria Watson, creative producer at Eyebolls, her own animation company in Scotland. Eyebolls creates things like cinema ads and short films using live action (real people) or animation. It sounds like Victoria was hooked on animation before she even left school. This is one of those stories where teachers tried to tell Victoria she would never get into art school. She very much proved them wrong. Not only did she get in, she built a career in animation. And she now has her own award-winning studio.
https://www.instagram.com/weareeyebolls
Today I’m talking to Niamh and Mark, who realised a long-held dream when in December 2017 they took over the Pyrenees Cycling Lodge in France, right near the border with Spain.
Tucked away in a picturesque village, the lodge has breathtaking views of the Pyrenees from its bedroom windows. The cyclists who arrive from around the world on holiday only have to concentrate on one thing - cycling up and down the famous Tour de France climbs on their doorstep. Niamh and Mark look after everything else, including cooking breakfast and dinner. That means working seven days a week, up early and going to bed late, for what can be a five-month season.
Theirs is a wonderful success story and it’s tempting to be jealous of the life they have created. But it takes guts to not only pack up and move your life to a foreign country, but also to buy a business there and take on all of the administration in a foreign language.
I hope you enjoy their story.
https://pyreneescyclinglodge.com
www.facebook.com/pyreneescyclinglodge
www.instagram.com/pyreneescyclinglodge
Today I’m talking to John Flinders.
John is a classically trained pianist who graduated from York University and then the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He was drawn to the idea of being on stage with other musicians, working together, more so than playing as a solo concert pianist. That took him down the path of becoming an accompanist, which means he plays for soloists such as clarinet players or singers who are performing at a concert or for a music competition or exam.
His life as an accompanist sounds very rewarding because he is always working side by side with another musician and, as John says, he can work on a piece of music with one musician, then work on the same piece with someone else a week later and it will be an entirely different experience.
John is a great example of what happens when as you leave school, you give yourself the time and space to acknowledge what you are really drawn to doing and you let your career evolve from there.
Today I'm talking to Rebecca Roger Cruz, a Venezuelan singer, songwriter, and vocal coach. Rebecca lives in France and I saw her perform in December as part of the group Aa'in (Rebecca plus a Venezuelan guitarist and a Colombian musician, who switched effortlessly between instruments including the double bass).
I knew nothing about the concert beforehand - someone had recommended it to me - but it ended up being one of the best concerts I’ve seen in years.
Rebecca has an incredible presence on stage. She seems to be able to sing as if nobody is watching, even though she's standing on stage in front of a crowd.
I got in touch after the concert on the off chance that she would agree to an interview, and she did! I finally got to ask questions I have wanted to ask so many live performers - how it feels to walk on stage, what day-to-day life as a musician is like, and about the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.
Rebecca Roger Cruz
https://www.instagram.com/beccarogercruz
AA'IN
https://www.facebook.com/aainmusica
https://www.youtube.com/@aainmusica
Parranda La Cruz
https://www.instagram.com/parrandalacruz
https://www.youtube.com/@parrandalacruz
Today I’m talking to Stan Medved.
Stan has quite an unusual job. He works for a large global company that has its own three business jets to fly the company’s executives around the world. Stan is not only one of the pilots, he's also in charge of the three-jet operation, which he runs essentially like a small airline within the company.
When I met Stan cycling last year, he immediately came across as very friendly, kind and easy to chat to. What I love about doing these interviews is that they show a whole other side of people’s lives that you would never otherwise know about from only meeting them socially. And yet what people like Stan do for a living often seems to very much reflect their personality and their career choices seem to have been driven by what is important to them personally and what satisfies them in life.
Today I'm talking to Adam Turner.
Adam started playing squash when he was six years old and he basically hasn’t stopped since.
He was clearly a talented and motivated young player because he reached no. 1 in England for under 13s and then again for under 15s.
In the interview, Adam talks about the choices you face between turning professional as a sports person and, alternatively, continuing to play at a high level but as a semi-professional.
He seems to have found the right balance for him personally, where he still plays squash semi-professionally, while also working as the head squash coach at the Hallamshire Tennis & Squash Club in Sheffield, one of the UK’s largest private sports clubs.
You can hear the love of the game in Adam’s voice and how much satisfaction it gives him to watch the people he coaches enjoy that game that’s given him so much personally.
I met Orissa in July when I rode a few stages of the Tour de France (which I talk about in the episode Something a Little Different). Orissa was one of the physios looking after us as cyclists and she did that work to take a quick breather from her full-time job at Great Ormond Street, considered to be the UK’s leading children’s hospital. Before the interview, I had no idea of the breadth of work that physios do, well beyond sporting injuries. With all that Orissa has achieved, it's hard to believe that she is only 27. She seems to have really found her niche with the work that she does.
Meet Pierre, who talks in this interview about how laughing can be an escape from the difficulties of life and how, as he said, love is joy. Pierre's clown character is Anatol, someone who Pierre says has a big heart. But I think it is Pierre who has the big heart. He has a wonderful and irresistible take on life and he does a great job of describing what motivated him to become a clown and how vital that job is to his own happiness.
https://www.leriremedecin.org
https://www.leriremedecin.org/nous-connaitre/equipe/les-clowns/nancy.html?i=clown-anatole
I first met a therapeutic clown a couple of years ago and I was captivated as he described what his work was about - walking into a hospital room in clown character, with his heart on his sleeve, and inviting the child in front of him to put aside for a moment all the difficulties and worries connected to their stay in hospital.
Then my path crossed a few months ago with two more clowns, Suzie and Diane, and I was delighted when they agreed to this interview about what it means to be a clown.
https://tenterhooks.org
www.suzieferguson.com/blog
www.heartsminds.org.uk/diane-thornton-shares-the-rewards-of-being-a-hospital-clowndoctor
Tim built the company Innovatise from scratch with his business partner and today the apps the company has developed attract 2.1 million users per month. He started his career with IBM and went on to work for Intel in Silicon Valley. Once back in the UK, he got involved with some IT startups that he went on to sell. He has clearly struck a very successful balance between his technical background and his ability to build and run a successful business.
Golda Fischer grew up speaking three languages - German, Hungarian and English. She also grew up with a love for the theatre and she has managed to combine both into quite an unusual job. Golda translates the surtitles that enable someone to watch a live performance in a language that isn't their own. But her job goes beyond simply translating. The nature of live performance is such that creating and displaying surtitles for an opera or a play is not a process that can be automated. So Golda's job involves working closely with people backstage, giving her insight into the fascinating and creative world behind the curtain of a performance.
Emma Bell rose quickly through the ranks during her first career, becoming one of the youngest people to make partner in a law firm in Scotland. She went on to become a judge. On the back of a lightbulb moment, Emma followed her instinct and began developing her own business as a coach, working with themes such as leadership, resilience, and conflict resolution. You only need to read the testimonials on her website to see the positive and lasting impact she has on her clients. Equally though, Emma is not shy talking about failure. And you can't help but see the sense and logic behind the strategies she has found in common across people around the world who have managed to overcome and rebuild in the face of even the most unimaginable adversity.
On the heels of my interview with Joe, meet Chlöe.
Chlöe and Joe met during their ambulance technician training a year ago.
I've asked both of them almost the same questions, because ultimately everyone's take on the same situation is going to be unique.
One thing both Chlöe and Joe have in common from my perspective is that they already show so much poise after only a year in a job that must come with so much pressure ...
Listening to how Chlöe describes her day so calmly and gently, it's easy to forget the real nature of the job she does every day. Her patients are clearly in very capable hands.
This was a very special interview for me and it stayed in my mind for several days afterwards. Joe is my nephew. I have photos of him from when he was about five years old. He's now 22 and his job is genuinely to save lives. In the past, I mainly caught up with Joe at Christmas or a similar big family gathering. But this time it was just him and me, and I was totally taken aback by how well-considered his answers to my questions were. It's all too easy to underestimate someone in their 20s and what they are already more than capable of achieving.
I vividly remember my first clarinet lesson with Jean, who was there to help me prepare for a music exam. I felt very self-conscious as I played my exam pieces in front of her, a professional clarinettist, and I was pretty mortified with how I sounded. But I quickly realised that my lessons were never going to be about me feeling embarrassed about my playing, they were about working hard together so that I improved my sound. And that was what made Jean a very special teacher, let alone a brilliant musician.
https://jean-johnson.com