Multiple hats

A 10-minute Fire Chat on transferable STEM skills, perfectionism, working smarter and making space for creative work.What if the biggest barrier to your next step is not a lack of time, money or skills, but the belief that you need more of all three before you can begin?🔍 What You'll Learn:Many STEM professionals assume their technical skills only matter inside their current field. Then they work longer, wait to feel ready and quietly hope their work will speak for itself. This episode challenges those assumptions.Recognise how analytical thinking, problem-solving and perseverance can transfer beyond the technical work you were trained to do.Stop confusing longer hours with better results, and put your effort into the action most likely to change the outcome.Use one small, finished action to test an idea, build confidence and move past perfectionism.Play this 10-minute episode to identify what is really holding you back and choose one practical step you can take this week.🧠 About the Guest:Dr Anupama Hariharan began her career as a dentist before moving into clinical research. Alongside her STEM career, she has become a published poet and fiction author.In this Fire Chat, she explains how scientific discipline supports her creative work, why perfection is overrated and how completing an eight-day writing challenge gave her the confidence to publish her first book.📌 Episode Highlights:00:00 The beliefs that quietly hold scientists back01:20 From dentistry and clinical research to becoming an author01:45 The scientific skills that transfer beyond technical roles02:20 What working smarter actually looks like02:50 Why the book cover deserved focused attention04:15 Is done really better than perfect?05:00 What nature teaches us about beauty and imperfection06:40 What is good enough to start?07:40 Turning existing work into a practical first step08:10 Completing a 21-day writing challenge in eight days09:20 Facing rejection without giving away your creative voice10:05 How science and creativity can strengthen each other🔗 Resources Mentioned:Listen to the full conversation: The Scientist and the StorytellerThe Sound of Your Name: Chiang Mai Saga by Dr Anupama HariharanExplore Antoni Gaudi's architecture in Barcelona🤔 Reflection Time:Which ability do you dismiss as "just part of being a scientist", even though it could help you in a different role, business or creative project?Where are you working longer because you have not decided which action will make the biggest difference?What could you finish within the next eight days to prove to yourself that you are ready to begin?

What if your scientific career and your creative life were never competing identities?What if one could make the other stronger?Dr. Anupama Hariharan has built a long career across dentistry and clinical research. She is also a published poet and fiction author.For years, the writer in her stayed mostly in the background. Not because the talent was missing, but because the scientific path looked safer, more serious and easier to explain.Once she gave that creative identity a real place in her life, everything shifted.In this episode, you will learn:Why being analytical does not make you less creativeHow scientific skills such as research, structure, discipline and project thinking can support creative workHow to stop treating your creative identity as less legitimate than your professional oneWhy you do not need to leave your career to take another part of yourself seriouslyHow grief, frustration and difficult experiences can be channelled into meaningful workWhat can happen when you stop waiting for permission and give an idea a proper chanceWhy creativity still needs strategy, visibility and commercial thinking if you want the work to reach peopleHow small acts of confidence create evidence that you are capable of moreAnu’s story is not about abandoning science to become an author.It is about recognising that the scientist and the storyteller can exist in the same person.Your creative side is not necessarily a distraction from your serious career. It may be the part of you that brings back energy, perspective and a stronger sense of self.The question is not always, "Which identity should I choose?"Sometimes the better question is, "Which part of me have I kept hidden because it did not look sensible enough on paper?"

What happens when “there has to be more than this” becomes the start of a completely different career.🔍 What You’ll Learn:Many STEM professionals assume career reinvention starts with a perfect plan, a business idea, or a dramatic leap.The reality is usually much messier.In this episode, Rachel Service shares how a period of burnout and depression eventually led her to build a multi-million dollar training business, despite having no business plan, no roadmap, and no idea what “corporate rates” even meant when she got her first client. You’ll discover:How to recognise when you’ve outgrown a version of your life and what to do about itWhy you don’t need the full picture before taking your first step toward a new career or businessPractical ways to build momentum, find your first opportunities, and test ideas without taking reckless risksIf you’ve been sitting on an idea, craving something more, or wondering whether you could build a different future, this episode will give you permission to start before you’re ready.🧠 About the Guest:Rachel Service is the founder and CEO of Happiness Concierge, a workplace training company that has worked with more than 200 organisations and trained thousands of employees and leaders. After experiencing burnout, anxiety, and depression, Rachel slowly rebuilt her life, eventually creating a business that allows her to work on her own terms while helping others create healthier workplaces. 📌 Episode Highlights:00:00 The moment “there has to be more” becomes impossible to ignore03:00 Burnout, depression, and crying through a Beyoncé concert04:30 Why Rachel called her business Happiness Concierge06:30 Starting without a master plan and following curiosity instead07:30 The power of nurturing an alternative reality before taking action08:30 How Rachel discovered she wanted to become a speaker09:00 The first free talk that unexpectedly led to paid work10:30 Building momentum through visibility and borrowing audiences12:00 Why nobody is waiting to discover you14:00 Working for free, building credibility, and finding your first customers16:00 Different pathways to entrepreneurship depending on your risk profile18:30 How to handle family members who don’t understand your ambitions22:00 Why people struggle to imagine future versions of you25:00 Rachel’s biggest business mistakes and lessons learned27:00 The role of tiny experiments in career reinvention🔗 Resources Mentioned:There Has To Be More by Rachel ServiceSquarespaceBeyoncé🤔 Reflection Time:What is the “there has to be more” feeling trying to tell you right now?If you removed the pressure of having the perfect plan, what tiny experiment could you run this month?Are you seeking advice from people who have actually walked the path you want to take, or only from people who understand your current path?One idea from Rachel that stayed with me:“Show them because they can’t imagine.”People cannot support, hire, promote, or buy from a version of you they’ve never seen before. Sometimes the next step isn’t becoming something new. It’s giving people evidence that you’re already becoming it. This is ultimately an episode about permission. Permission to explore. Permission to test. Permission to imagine a different future before you know exactly how you’ll get there. 

What if the biggest thing holding your career back isn’t a lack of skills, experience, or opportunity, but a belief you’ve been carrying for years?🔍 What You’ll Learn:Many STEM professionals underestimate the value of their skills, overestimate the need for perfection, and assume hard work alone will create opportunities.In this quick-fire episode, Rachel Service tackles four common beliefs that keep scientists playing small and offers practical ways to think differently.You’ll discover:Why your scientific training gives you highly transferable skills that employers desperately needWhy working hard stops being enough as your career progresses, and what replaces itHow perfectionism disguises itself as professionalism and keeps talented people stuckIf you’ve ever thought “I’m just a scientist”, “I’m not ready”, or “I just need to work harder”, this episode will challenge those assumptions in under 10 minutes.🧠 About the Guest:Rachel Service is the founder and CEO of Happiness Concierge, a workplace training company that has worked with more than 200 organisations. Following her own experience with burnout and depression, Rachel built a business helping people improve communication, leadership, workplace culture, and career satisfaction. 📌 Episode Highlights:00:00 The beliefs that quietly hold STEM professionals back02:30 Rachel’s accidental entrepreneurship story and the burnout that started it all03:15 “I’m just a scientist” and why that’s completely wrong04:00 The scientific skills that transfer into almost any career04:30 Does your work really speak for itself?05:00 Why career growth eventually becomes a PR campaign05:30 Done versus perfect, and the real fear underneath perfectionism06:45 The question to ask when you think you don’t have enough time, money, or resources🔗 Resources Mentioned:There Has To Be More by Rachel ServicePrevious long-form episode with Rachel Service on motivation and the “whinge phase”🤔 Reflection Time:Which belief have you been carrying: “I’m just a scientist”, “I need to work harder”, “My work speaks for itself”, or “I’m not ready yet”?What skill do you use every day that you underestimate because it comes naturally to you?What’s one small action you could take this week if you stopped waiting to feel completely ready?One of my favourite insights from Rachel was this:“It’s not about being perfect. It’s about learning to live with the idea that someone might see your incompetence.” That’s uncomfortable. But it’s also where growth starts.

Have you ever looked around at the career you worked so hard to build and thought, “Surely there has to be more than this?”🔍 What You’ll Learn:Many STEM professionals spend years building expertise, only to find themselves feeling flat, bored, frustrated, or disconnected from their work. The challenge is not always burnout. Sometimes you’ve simply outgrown the role, environment, or version of yourself that got you there.In this episode, leadership coach and Happiness Concierge founder Rachel Service shares a practical framework to understand what motivates you, recognise when something is off, and start creating a career that better aligns with who you are today.You’ll discover:How to recognise the signs that you’ve entered the “whinge phase” before it turns into burnoutThe nine workplace motivation factors and how understanding yours can help you make better career decisionsA practical roadmap for moving from frustration and feeling stuck to meaningful action, without blowing up your life overnightPlay this episode if you’re feeling restless, uninspired, or trapped in a career that no longer fits, and want practical tools to start creating a better path forward.🧠 About the Guest:Rachel Service is the founder and CEO of Happiness Concierge, a leadership and workplace training company that has worked with more than 200 organisations. After experiencing anxiety, burnout, and depression herself, Rachel built a business dedicated to helping people create healthier, more fulfilling working lives.Alongside running her company, she is studying psychology at the University of Melbourne and continues to explore the science of motivation, wellbeing, and human behaviour. 📌 Episode Highlights:00:00 Why feeling flat at work is often a motivation problem, not a capability problem04:00 Rachel’s burnout story and the moment she realised there had to be more08:30 What motivation really means and why willpower alone isn’t enough12:00 The “whinge phase”: recognising when you’ve outgrown your work16:00 The 9 workplace motivation factors that drive career satisfaction18:00 Angelique’s experience with autonomy, creativity, and feeling boxed in23:00 Can work meet all your needs, or should motivation come from multiple parts of life?28:00 The hidden cost of staying stuck30:00 Why permission and identity are often the biggest barriers to change35:00 Creating an alternative reality and nurturing new possibilities43:00 Tiny actions that build momentum toward career change46:00 How to have honest conversations with your manager before it’s too late51:00 A practical roadmap for moving from frustration to action🔗 Resources Mentioned:There Has To Be More by Rachel ServiceAdam GrantGive and TakeJames ClearAtomic HabitsBeyoncéMichelle Obama🤔 Reflection Time:Which of the nine motivation factors matter most to you today, and are they being met in your current role?If you knew you didn’t have to act on it immediately, what would your ideal work-life setup look like?What is one small action you could take this week to explore a different possibility, without committing to a major change?If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who seems permanently stuck in the “whinge phase”. Sometimes awareness is the first step toward building a career that actually fits. 

What if starting something new in your STEM career is less risky than staying stuck in a path that no longer fits?🔍 What You’ll Learn:When STEM professionals think about career change, entrepreneurship, or starting something on the side, we often treat it like a one-way door.As if trying means burning the whole house down.But after interviewing multiple STEM founders, one pattern keeps coming up: many of us already have a safety net. Not a perfect one. Not a magical one. But a real one, built from our skills, experience, networks, adaptability, and ability to get another job if we need to.In this solo episode, I unpack what founders like Shilpa Agarwal, Dr. Lorien Parker, Natalie Chapman, Catherine O Mahony, Viv Allen, Sue Pillans, Cassie Leonard and others teach us about taking risks without being reckless.You’ll learn:• Why your STEM skills may give you more fallback options than you think• How founders use timeframes, milestones, and financial boundaries to make risk manageable• Why entrepreneurship does not need to replace your whole income from day one• How to think about money honestly without letting fear make every decision• Why “I haven’t made it yet” is often a moving target, not a useful rule• How to give yourself permission to test an idea before waiting for everyone else to approve itListen to this episode if you have an idea, a side project, or a career move sitting in the “too risky” basket, and you need a more practical way to think about what the real risk is.🧠 About This Solo Episode:This is a reflective takeaway episode from Multiple Hats, where I pull one theme from multiple founder conversations and ask what it means for STEM professionals designing their own path.This one is about the safety net we often forget we already have. It is not about pretending money does not matter. It does. Annoyingly, very much.But it is about asking better questions:What can I test?What is my fallback?What is the timeframe?What money can I touch, and what is off limits?And what might it cost me if I never try?📌 Episode Highlights:00:00 The idea that stuck after Shilpa Agarwal’s interview01:45 Why STEM professionals often underestimate their own safety net02:30 Risk is not just about courage, it is about scaffolding03:20 Shilpa’s three-year promise to keep showing up04:00 Dr. Lorien Parker on milestones, boundaries, and not touching home money06:00 Natalie Chapman on getting her first client through a former boss07:30 Catherine O Mahony on leaving well and turning trust into opportunity08:30 Viv Allen on staying lean and building through word of mouth09:30 Sue Pillans on the financial reality of self-employment11:30 Why life stage changes your risk profile12:00 Cassie Leonard on accepting a lower income for a more aligned life13:30 Shilpa Agarwal on family values, spending, and living within the experiment14:20 The mistake of pretending money does not matter15:00 The bigger mistake of letting money fear stop you completely15:40 What Sue Pillans asks: what is the worst that can happen?16:00 Shilpa’s advice to serve the person in front of you17:30 Why you do not need permission from your peers, manager, parents, or LinkedIn network20:00 The “I haven’t made it yet” trap21:00 Why enough might be today, not some future milestone🔗 Resources Mentioned:• Shilpa Agarwal, founder of ClinEQ Training and Chapter One Publishers• Dr. Lorien Parker, founder of SciencePlay Kids• Natalie Chapman, founder of gemaker• Catherine O Mahony, founder of On Q Recruitment• Viv Allen, founder of Vivacity Health• Sue Pillans, graphic recorder and founder of Dr Suzie Starfish• Cassie Leonard, aerospace engineer turned author, coach and founder🤔 Reflection Time:What safety net do you already have that you keep dismissing?What would make your idea feel safer to test: a timeframe, a money boundary, a milestone, or a fallback plan?What are you waiting to feel “ready enough” for, and what would change if today was already enough to begin?