Out of Hours: The Podcast

Sharmadean Reid is a serial entrepreneur, based in London. She’s an inspiration to many women around the world, and is widely known for her impact on culture, the beauty industry, and women’s empowerment - and she received an MBE in 2015 for her services.Her entrepreneurial journey started at University, where she created a zine called WAH - a zine - as a side project. She then set up the nail salon, WAH nails, also originally as a side project. She is now founder and CEO of The Stack World - an ecosystem for women, which creates content, builds communities and hosts events for women.Her personal mission is to empower women economically and socially through tech, and much of her life has been spent bringing people together and harnessing new technology for social impact.In this conversation, we talk about why she’s so excited about the future of the internet - what many are calling web3 - why she learnt about NFTs, the role of participation in new companies, and why she’s been working on a Stack DAO - her latest experiment.Terms:WEB3 NFT (non-fungible token)DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation)Sign up to the Out of Hours newsletter here!

Today on the show we have Dave Potter. Dave is a retired psychotherapist, and he specialises in anxiety, stress, and trauma. He created his side project, Palouse Mindfulness, when he was a working therapist, as a way to share a particular meditation practice that has changed his life, called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.MBSR, it’s a meditation therapy, originally designed for stress management, and it is used now for treating illnesses including depression, anxiety, chronic pain, cancer, diabetes and immune disorders.Dave Potter had been interested in meditation since the 70s, and received his training as a MBSR instructor while he was a therapist, through University of Massachusetts Medical School - which was actually where Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of MBSR, founded the Center for Mindfulness and began MBSR.MBSR is a life-changing course, but if done in person - like all courses it can be expensive. Dave wanted to create a free version of this life-changing course - to bring the lessons to everyone who needs it. Single-handedly he leant on his previous experience in software, to create the Palouse Mindfulness website. The result is a true labour of love. He has personally recorded meditation sessions, curated online teaching content, and painstakingly written up exercises and built the website - all for free - all so people who need it most can access the benefits of MBSR through a free self-paced course. It has helped thousands.Dave is an incredible person, and I was moved by this conversation. We talk about why people procrastinate with meditation, the benefits of starting something on the side, altruism, dealing with difficult situations and why meditation is as important as sleep.Check out Palouse Mindfulness here.Sign up to the Out of Hours Substack newsletter here

Today on the podcast we have Polina Marinova Pompliano. She’s the founder and author at the hugely popular newsletter The Profile.What is the profile?The Profile is a newsletter, which started on the side when she was full time at Fortune Magazine and she has since turned into a paid newsletter, and her full time job. The Profile studies the most successful and interesting people in business, entertainment, tech, sports, and more - with the goal of sharing lessons from the most exceptional people and business.It’s been read and promoted by people like Dwayne Johnson - the rock - and Alexis Ohanian - who’s an investor and the founder of Reddit.Why listen to this episode?This episode really is an essential listen for any online creators. We go deep into the details.We talk about how the newsletter started as a project for family and friendsWhy perfectionism kills ideas because builds expectationsWhy you should have a back up projectWhy you should write for yourself not the audienceWhen to leave your jobWhat it’s like being in a relationship with two entrepreneursSign up to The Profile hereSign up to Out of Hours newsletter herePlease do reach out on Twitter, or by leaving a review, and let me know if you like the episode!