The Longest Day Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this episode of The Longest Day podcast, host Leah Brown FRSA sits down with Alys Carlton, former mergers and acquisitions lawyer, executive coach, Non-Executive Director, and Chair of the Football Association of Wales to talk about a season marked out by grief and gratitude. Alys shares the extraordinary journey behind her "longest day" a 24-hour period that spanned a deeply personal loss and a pivotal career milestone. In this candid conversation, Alys opens up about navigating grief, professional ambition, and finding strength through challenging circumstances.

Key takeaways include 

• the importance of resilience and compartmentalisation when navigating both personal and professional challenges.

• how a portfolio career allows for greater flexibility and personal fulfillment, but requires perseverance and the willingness to keep pushing forward.

• the significance of family, mentorship, and legacy in shaping one's career and personal journey.

• strategies for maintaining focus and self-care during times of grief and high stress.

• the power of diverse leadership and governance in organisations, and how Alys plans to make a lasting impact in her role at the FAW.

On this weeks episode, Leah talks to Emma Ballard, the Editor of Women and Golf the only womens specific golf platform in the UK. Emmas Longest Day happened during a golf leadership development programme at St Andrews, Scotland, the home of golf. The golf industry is notoriously male dominated, so it was a big deal during the leadership programme to become vulnerable and open up about the issues she had with her career and the passionate things she wanted to achieve within the industry. It turned out to be the opportunity that made her look inside of herself and come away with a conviction to make a change within the industry. Through her Longest Day, Emma understood her own value and acknowledged that she knew what she was talking about on the issues around women and girls golf. She began to see her potential to have an impact and make a change in the industry. Emma is now in her fourth year at Women and Golf, shaping the narrative around women and girls golf across the UK. That time also widened her vista, extending her networks, and giving her the opportunity for coaching and mentoring. Emma would like womens golf to be better recognised as a whole as the womens game isnt valued as much as the mens. She just wants more women playing golf.

In this episode, Leah talks to Suzanne Knight MBA. Suzannes longest day was when a member of her team died suddenly, and she and her team grieved together. It was a time when they became more open to each other about what they were feeling; they connected in a way they had never done before. The sharing of mutual grief was an experience that could not be replicated. To this day, they are the closest colleagues and friends. It was the most difficult emotional journey she has gone through even at a time when there were ordinary life matters to deal with. She felt this especially in the smallest, most human things like packing up her colleagues desk and her personal items, then seeing her handwritten notes, a half-eaten box of chocolates.

Suzanne had always worked in spaces where problems and issues were not personal and so they didnt get to her. But her longest day had the weight of finality, one you couldnt return to. Suzanne learnt about perspective and about what matters, especially the role of family and friends. She has become more focused on checking on with people in her life, including herself by being explicit with the questions, like are you ok?, and what can I do to help?. Shes more intentional about making honest requests to be useful to others. For her work is work. It isnt life. Her number one activities are her priorities, her values, her integrity, and the way she engages with others.

Leah Brown host of The Longest Day Podcast interviews Leah Wilkinson, British Olympic hockey player, on not being selected to be on the 2012 GB Olympic team.

They discuss their formative years at Repton and what it looks like to navigate an uncharted path. In addition to supportive parents and colleagues, in her longest days Leah has herself to rely on. Her skills of how to bounce back, having resilience and grit, and being able to self-talk with positive reflections has meant she has kept going forwards to succeed.

Leah first fell in love with hockey when she was five. It is the love of the game that has enabled her to focus on why shes there, to be the best athlete, and to give her best performance. At 37 years old, she says fundamentally, Im still that five-year-old kid that picked up that hockey stick[with a] buzz when I get to the pitch. For her, its that passion that makes a person, forgive the pun, stick with the sport.

As Leah speaks to children and shows them her medals, she wants her legacy as a decorated Olympic and Commonwealth Games athlete to be to inspire the next generation to pick up a hockey stick. In her talks, she shares what she has learned so they can be inspired to do anything and follow their dreams!

On this weeks episode, have a listen to the conversation between Leah and David McQueen on his longest day and how he learnt how even if there are things beyond his control, he can manage the ones that are within it. It was a day when he and his wife, as ethnic minorities, experienced a lack of care in the maternity hospital. Calmly, he told the doctors of the need of his wife who was suffering immensely from the pain to have a C-section. Once the professionals decided to give Davids wife a C-section and the baby was born, he realised the power of life and the importance of cherishing it. He understood that life sometimes throws you curved balls but its how we respond that makes us who we are.

Through that day, David wants to be present around the wellbeing of his children. It gave him opportunities for conversations with other fathers on the question of how they could challenge the notions around being black fathers.
His experience of nurturing his daughters made him see, as a leadership coach, that his clients are individuals with emotions and a lot on their minds. He finds out about how they present based on their answers to how they are with their friends and family.
From his parenting and coaching, David has learnt to have a sense of distance, to have the courage to ask questions that challenge, and to help them navigate their way through difficulties. Ultimately, he comes from a place of love, nurture, and care.

On this weeks episode, Leah talks to Dr Lynn Robson, Dean of Regents Park College, Safeguarding Lead, Director of the Visiting Student Programme and Tutorial Fellow in English Literature. Lynns longest day encompassed the COVID pandemic, from its announcement to its conclusion by the end of which she was exhausted and unable to carry on. All her roles during that time were relentless as there was no time off from bearing responsibilities. Although Lynn learned that she had more strength than she thought she had, she realised that there were limits to her strength and that she needed to recognise her own vulnerability. Her salvation came when she was able to say to somebody else, Im finding this hard, and I dont know what to do. Saying this is not a form of weakness but is vital for a leader to take the lead in expressing. As Lynn adds, if we discuss it and we support one another, its likely that we will find a solution. It's been a life-long lesson to value herself and see what others value in her. So, it comes as no surprise that Lynn wants her students as future leaders to learn how to value themselves, see who they are with all their talents and importance without waiting for somebody else to tell them their worth.

Welcome to our fourth Seasons first episode!

Listen to Leahs conversation with Caroline Sabourin who enjoys a 30-year career in organising Motorsports events globally while running a Sports Car Championship of 60 international teams. Carolines longest day was in 2000 when during the Australian Grand Prix, at the final race, one of the cars went sideways and was thrown in the air by another car, causing significant damage to other cars that had to crash into the wall. At Race Control, she and Tim Bamford, the Australian Grand Prix Chief Executive, took the hardest decision of her career which was to cancel the race. Against this in the background was that she and her colleagues had to underwrite the cost of the loss of TV rights if anything went wrong with the race. It was a huge undertaking but because it was so special they went ahead with it. Motorsport is life for Caroline. She counts it as a blessing to have been raised in the sport even if it is one where something goes wrong, generally it goes stupendously wrong. But she was brought up to remain calm in the middle of a problem and deal with it. Shes a believer that anything is achievable and its corollary that the only limitation is the belief in yourself. On all the billboards in the race, the saying advertised was Make every second count a saying she lives by.

This week, Anne-Marie Imafidon is Leahs guest on The Longest Day. She is a keynote speaker, presenter, and co-founder of Stemettes, the enterprise inspiring the next generation of women into STEM roles.

As a leader, Anne-Marie is all things to all people: she will never ask someone to do something she wouldnt or couldnt do herself. One of the advantages of this approach is that trust, authenticity, and inspiration empower her colleagues to step up in their roles. Another is that it gives her, as a leader, gravitas because of the value she brings to the different spaces shes in.

Anne-Marie consciously does not have yes people around her, finding that her closest allies are her most critical ones. The reason for this is that she knows shes human and not perfect. So having critical friends and reading the negative comments as well as the positive ones give her perspective.

She reflects on how everyone has a sphere of influence. But she asks questions about what that means, what power looks like, the nature of the system and how it works, and what are the levers needed to bring change. As a leader she builds, measures, and learns. As a role model, she exercises her agency in the room and leaves things better than she found them.

In this weeks podcast, Leah welcomes Professor Lucy Easthope, the UKs leading authority on recovering from disaster. During the COVID pandemic she advised the Prime Ministers Office, governmental departments, and charities. She is author of When the Dust Settles: Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope from an Expert in Disaster. Her longest day was waiting for the invasion of Iraq while she was based at the mortuary. It was March 2003 and something old died in her but something new was born. There was a plan for the deceased soldiers, those bringing them back, the bringing of the coffins, a plan for their bereaved families, and the viewing of their loved ones. Her longest day resulted in making use of the plan that was needed from the outset. For Lucy, there is great power in working on the principle that we are the help others need. On her paternal side, given their strong Methodist faith, she grew up with believing that everyone was her neighbour. Many of the female matriarchs in her family were teachers and they always provided help. It is, therefore, unsurprising that at the age of 10, Lucy realised that emergency planning was going to be her speciality. Her advice to young people is to get a good sense of you early on. We need to come alongside the young and help them express what they are not and what they are. After all, who we are in our souls is vital.