On this episode, Kat is joined by Demi Broughton, a key member of the team behind the High Performance Podcast. As the Corporate Events Manager she shares her top strategy for enhancing both personal and professional performance.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• It’s very easy to criticise other – as a society we’re very good at it – and lay blame on others. There aren’t enough people celebrating those small, unseen things that people are doing that are really good. Monday Club is something that I hope breaks through the mould of what you see on LinkedIn on a Monday and highlighting people I’ve enjoyed working with or are going unsung.
• A negative habit that has affected both my private and professional life is: First thing in the morning, before I’ve said hello to anyone, I’ve reached for my phone and read emails. We’re not being paid or expected to do that, so why are we doing it? It created a sense in me of never switching off. I now don’t touch my emails until I’ve had my morning cup of tea.
• I would never go to bed not knowing what tomorrow looks like. Of course, anything can happen at any time that I’m not in control of, but it sets me up so that when I wake up in the morning, I’m only revisiting what’s already been put in place for me. It takes the weight off.
• How I was able to break negative habits and bring in positive ones was I just reached breaking point with them. I don’t advise people to reach rock bottom before they change, but I didn’t want to live that way anymore; constantly being tired, developing physical and mental problems due to fatigue and blowing off social engagements because I didn’t have anything left in the tank.

BEST MOMENTS

• “We have a very flat hierarchy: Everyone is a manager in some sense of the word (running their own departments, owns what they do, has autonomy and power).”
• “Machines need to be switched off to recharge. So do we.”
• “Don’t have you phone ion your room but have a physical notepad and pen in case your brain is racing so you can write down in order what your day is going to look like.”
• “What would you want people to say about you at your eulogy? I’ll be damned if what they read out at mine wasn’t conducive with the life I want for myself knowing I had full control over achieving that.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

Demi Broughton is an award winning Corporate Events Manager at The High Performance Podcast, she’s responsible for planning, organising, and executing engaging and impactful events for listeners, guests, and sponsors. Demi leverages her expertise and skills to create memorable experiences that showcase your mission, values, and goals. Being well experienced in the industry, working with various clients and partners, from small businesses to global corporations. Demi is passionate about delivering high-quality events that inspire, educate, and entertain the podcast’s audience, and that reflect its field of expertise: high performance in business, sports, and life.

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ABOUT THE HOST

Kat started her career as a teacher, before moving into Tech where she worked in different executive roles within teaching and consulting working across the globe, both in the public and private sectors. Despite appearing 'successful' on the outside, she paid a heavy ‘life’ price. In 2016, her whole world collapsed. The reason? The compound effect of years of unhealthy and toxic habits that destroyed her health, relationship and career. She suffered a severe breakdown and lost everything. In the middle of this she got headhunted for her first CEO role. She rebuilt herself by changing just one small habit and built a series of positive habits which has transformed her professional and personal performance, resulting in her becoming the healthiest and happiest version of herself.

She is a positive habits international keynote speaker and teacher, giving talks and delivering high-impact programmes to organisations across the globe.

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On this episode, Kat is joined by Brett Callaghan, MD – South at Rubix, one of the largest suppliers of industrial products and services. Despite Rubrix’s strong people-first culture, Brett delves into the true responsibility for well-being and mental health. He also shares the one positive habit that has had the most incredible ripple effect on his marriage, relationship with his kids, as well as his work performance.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Well-being and mental health awareness has come to the top of the agenda more and it’s something we need to get much better at. Since covid. People realised quite quickly how fragile we are – and the world is – and everybody took the opportunity to look inward a bit more. Our business has taken a lot of learnings from that situation, and there are a lot better working practices and more consideration of people’s mental health now too.
• The biggest negative impact in my life that I’ve only recognised recently, is my lack of appreciation of how sleep impacted my life. I’d stay up late to get a couple of hours of chillout time to scroll on my phone or watch TV rather than spending time with my family. I now don’t allow my mobile phone to send me notifications now and I’ll choose when I want to go to my phone. At 10 o'clock I settle down to go to sleep, going to sleep properly helps me with brain fog which I sometimes get and I notice I’m not myself now if I do stay up late for a couple of nights in a row.
• As you get more senior in an organisation you feel like you need to be seen and have the mentality that whatever needs to be done I’m going to deliver and you can certainly de-prioritise some of this stuff. I’ve certainly been a victim of that myself, it’s subconscious, you just go that way and a couple of bits will fall off as you go and it’ll continue to drift if you don’t stay on top of it.

BEST MOMENTS

• “There seems to be two types of person: those who are willing to embrace positive change and accept help and those who feel they’ve already got a handle on it and aren’t willing to show that vulnerability.”
• “The people closest to you have the ability to influence you, even if you don’t take it so well in the first instance.”
• “It’s said that a habit sticks after 21 days, but in business it needs to be 12 months.”
• “We’ve seen our business in particular, but the world as well, improve so quickly in these areas, but there’s such a way to go.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

Brett Callaghan is as experienced Operational and Commercial leader with a demonstrated history of working in the mechanical and industrial engineering industry. Skilled in Branch Operation, Negotiation, Business Relationship Management, Operations Management, and Sales. Strong sales professional striving to go the extra mile every day.

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ABOUT THE HOST

Kat started her career as a teacher, before moving into Tech where she worked in different executive roles within teaching and consulting working across the globe, both in the public and private sector. Despite appearing 'successful' on the outside, she paid a heavy ‘life’ price. In 2016, her whole world collapsed. The reason? The compound effect of years of unhealthy and toxic habits that destroyed her health, relationship and career. She suffered a severe breakdown and lost everything. In the middle of this she got headhunted for her first CEO role. She rebuilt herself by changing just one small habit, and built a series of positive habits which has transformed her professional and personal performance, resulting in becoming the healthiest and happiest version of herself.

She is a positive habits international keynote speaker and teacher, giving talks and delivering high impact programmes to organisations across the globe.

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In this episode Kat is joined by Sonia Murton, voted Top 100 women in Construction, she’s changing the game by doing things differently. Sonia shares her experience of divorce, the impact that had on work and home, and the most incredible twist.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Working with contractors, I’ve worked with all the different kinds of trades on site, everybody letting each other down, so I decided to create a business where I do self-delivery bringing people from different trades together to deliver 85% of on-site work.
• The construction industry is massively male dominated. My top tier management is 75% women. I think we have a different perspective on things, we look at things differently.
• I’m a strong and positive person. Getting divorced is a process that takes years, and it really knocks it out of you. I learned a lot from that divorce, but I wasn’t prepared for the emotional rollercoaster. It also had negative impacts on my family and everybody being disappointed, but it really knocked me emotionally.
• You always think the grass is greener, but when you realise that this person is your true love and soul mate and the person you want to spend your life with, nobody else out there ticks the boxes. Sometimes you have to go through all that to realise that what you had was so brilliant and why the hell did we break up? Everything comes with age, and you can look back and learn from the mistakes. I’m happy that I went through it and it will never happen again.

BEST MOMENTS

“I do what I love every day, I do it will, and I like to make sure we all have great fun on the journey.”
“We do building and construction with a feminine flair.”
“We were doing to many things apart and not enough things together. Those that play together stay together.”
“The piece of paper and the vows aren’t the glue for us, we know we’re meant to be together; we know we love each other dearly; we’ll do anything for each other.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

Sonia Murton is the Founder and Managing Director of Westbury FM, a specialist provider of property maintenance services to clients and facilities providers across central London and the home counties.

Following a successful career as an Account Manager, Sonia established Westbury to disrupt the FM industry. Her vision was to create an organisation to deliver ‘much more than maintenance’. Today Westbury self-deliver hard, soft and specialist FM services to customers across a diverse range of sectors. Adopting a service-led, technology-enabled approach, Westbury care for the unique needs of each customer and their buildings 24/7.

Sonia’s success has been recognised through the award of The Independent’s E2E Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs and Top 100 Influential Women in Construction.

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ABOUT THE HOST

Kat started her career as a teacher, before moving into Tech where she worked in different executive roles within teaching and consulting working across the globe, both in the public and private sector. Despite appearing 'successful' on the outside, she paid a heavy ‘life’ price. In 2016, her whole world collapsed. The reason? The compound effect of years of unhealthy and toxic habits that destroyed her health, relationship and career. She suffered a severe breakdown and lost everything. In the middle of this she got headhunted for her first CEO role. She rebuilt herself by changing just one small habit, and built a series of positive habits which has transformed her professional and personal performance, resulting in becoming the healthiest and happiest version of herself.

She is a positive habits international keynote speaker and teacher, giving talks and delivering high impact programmes to organisations across the globe.

LinkedIn

Instagram

In this episode, we delve into the paradox of modern life where discussions around wellbeing, mental health, and self-care are more prevalent than ever, yet stress and burnout are at an all-time high. We explore the disconnect between talking about self-care and actually implementing it, emphasising the importance of prioritising activities and relationships that rejuvenate us. Kat highlights how often we sacrifice our own needs, spending disproportionate amounts of time on tasks that drain us and focusing on others' needs over our own.

The conversation also touches on the significance of investing in oneself, whether it’s through gaining new knowledge, developing skills, or exploring fresh ideas. Our host shares personal insights on how dedicating resources to self-improvement has fostered personal growth in various aspects of life. By consistently allocating time and money towards personal development, whether for the mind, body, or professional life, one can achieve remarkable growth and wellbeing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• I feel like we talk about looking after ourselves, wellbeing, mental health more than ever before yet people are more stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted. That’s because there’s a big gap between talking about it and taking action.
• We spend too little time on the things that give us energy and we enjoy, quality time with the people we love. We spend an imbalanced amount of time on things that don’t matter, things that steal our time and energy, and prioritising other people’s needs over our own.
• I’ve learned over the years that investing in myself in terms gaining new skills, ideas, and knowledge that helps me to grow in different areas is SO important. You can grow so much as an individual when you invest in yourself. A lot of what I spend my money on each month is investing in myself, whether that’s my brain, body or business.

BEST MOMENTS

“I don’t think we view looking after ourselves as an investment in our mental and physical health, but that’s the narrative that needs to change.”
“You can be the best version of yourself when you invest in it, in your body and your brain, for a few minutes, regularly.”
“The first step in wanting to make a change is starting to notice something that you weren’t aware of.”

ABOUT THE HOST

Kat started her career as a teacher, before moving into Tech where she worked in different executive roles within teaching and consulting working across the globe, both in the public and private sector. Despite appearing 'successful' on the outside, she paid a heavy ‘life’ price. In 2016, her whole world collapsed. The reason? The compound effect of years of unhealthy and toxic habits that destroyed her health, relationship and career. She suffered a severe breakdown and lost everything. In the middle of this she got headhunted for her first CEO role. She rebuilt herself by changing just one small habit, and built a series of positive habits which has transformed her professional and personal performance, resulting in becoming the healthiest and happiest version of herself.

She is a positive habits international keynote speaker and teacher, giving talks and delivering high impact programmes to organisations across the globe.

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In this episode, Kat is joined by Mark Clemmit to talk about working with some of the biggest names and brands in football. In this episode, he reveals the first thing he does each morning that has fuelled his remarkable career success and discusses the significance of the little things and the power of being present.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• I like hearing people’s life stories. We’re all completely unique, none of the 8 billion people in the world have has the same genetics, upbringing, education, brilliant/terrible things that have happened to them, how they got to the other side. It’s always fascinated me. As much as football has always been my career, I’m not a technical obsessive, the thing for me is how it must feel to have 70,000 people tell you you’ve made the wrong decision. It gives you an appreciation of life as well.
• I’ve been self-employed my entire life and I’ve always been big-picture-orientated, if there are sacrifices to be made in the short term, I’ll do them because I don’t want to have the gnawing feeling in the long term that I didn’t do the big picture option. It’s about residual gains: If I want to amess £10,000, it looks really daunting, but if I sacrifice the daily cost of a cup of coffee and put that in a jar then I’ll eventually get there.
• In one of my coaching engagements with a client, I’ve devised a system of “must know, nice to know, let it go”, so if she’s squeezed for time there are certain items she absolutely has to tell her audience, the next tier would be good and enhancing to do, and then there’s stuff that could fill the story out but can be let go. This can be applied to your daily to-do list.
• My performance is going to be affected by hunger, anger, loneliness, and tiredness. If you’re any of those things you’re not going to be the best version of yourself. I’m a late-to-bed person, but I do always try to get to sleep before midnight.

BEST MOMENTS

“I have a morning routine, but sometimes I have to compromise it. I could make my morning routine last 2 hours because I have a portfolio career which gives me flexibility.”
“Quality lives don’t happen by accident we make them happen.”
“You can apply Kaizen techniques to anything in your life from the mortgage, to exercise, to redecorating.”
“We can’t have everything we want all the time, that’s not how the world works.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

Mark Clemmit, known to many as Clem, is a reporter on BBC One's Football Focus and one of the longest established voices on BBC Radio 5 Live. He has also reported for BBC One's topical daily magazine programme, The One Show and is a former Times Columnist.

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ABOUT THE HOST

Kat started her career as a teacher, before moving into Tech where she worked in different executive roles within teaching and consulting working across the globe, both in the public and private sector. Despite appearing 'successful' on the outside, she paid a heavy ‘life’ price. In 2016, her whole world collapsed. The reason? The compound effect of years of unhealthy and toxic habits that destroyed her health, relationship and career. She suffered a severe breakdown and lost everything. In the middle of this she got headhunted for her first CEO role. She rebuilt herself by changing just one small habit, and built a series of positive habits which has transformed her professional and personal performance, resulting in becoming the healthiest and happiest version of herself.

She is a positive habits international keynote speaker and teacher, giving talks and delivering high impact programmes to organisations across the globe.

LinkedIn

Instagram

We are facing the greatest global pandemic of all time. Burnout, anxiety, and stress are at an all-time high. People are the greatest asset of an organisation. The better people look after themselves, the better they perform in all areas of life - both at work and home.

Every single tiny choice we make during the day is shaping our lives, directly impacting how we feel and experience life. After getting the biggest wake-up call of losing everything in my life in 2016 I had no choice but to face my habits and make a change. The changes at first seemed so insignificant that I didn't believe they would make a difference. BUT they did.

The Positive Habits Podcast is for people who want to live a better life, with higher energy levels, less stress, better relationships and ultimately to supercharge their performance in all areas of life.

I'm on a mission to help people improve their well-being with one small habit change.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• As a child, I remember the number 1 goal was getting to school, mornings were very stressful and as soon as you opened your eyes it was 100mph to get out of the door. Every day felt like rinse and repeat. As an adult we go through something similar; we wake up on autopilot, those who have children get them ready for school before getting ready for work themselves.
• We’re in the middle of a global mental health pandemic but there are so many habits we have that are 100% shaping the way we feel and experience our lives, our energy levels, our mood, our ability to focus, our performance at work and home, how well we look after ourselves. All of this is linked to our habits. Most people’s daily habits are damaging to their mental health and ability to cope with life’s stresses.
• Our phones have become our alarm clocks so it’s so easy to look at them within a nanosecond of opening your eyes and to create all that stress about the day ahead before you’ve even properly opened your eyes. The brain isn’t ready for that information yet.
• The belief that the harder you work the more successful you’ll be is still so powerful and pertinent in society today. The challenge with that mentality and frame of mind is that it doesn’t take into account: At what cost?

BEST MOMENTS

• “In 2016 I nearly lost my life. It happened without any warning, and it was the compound effect of years of unhealthy and toxic habits.”
• “My life started to change when I changed my habits.”
• “One Wednesday everything changed, and I noticed my thoughts for the first time.”
• “We can improve our own wellbeing when we start doing more of the things that give us energy and that we love.”

ABOUT THE HOST

Kat started her career as a teacher, before moving into Tech where she worked in different executive roles within teaching and consulting working across the globe, both in the public and private sector. Despite appearing 'successful' on the outside, she paid a heavy ‘life’ price. In 2016, her whole world collapsed. The reason? The compound effect of years of unhealthy and toxic habits that destroyed her health, relationship and career. She suffered a severe breakdown and lost everything. In the middle of this she got headhunted for her first CEO role. She rebuilt herself by changing just one small habit, and built a series of positive habits which has transformed her professional and personal performance, resulting in becoming the healthiest and happiest version of herself.

She is a positive habits international keynote speaker and teacher, giving talks and delivering high impact programmes to organisations across the globe.

LinkedIn

Instagram