Are your fitness trackers actually helping you...or quietly making things worse?

In this mini episode, Kathy takes a deep dive into the world of wearable trackers: steps, sleep scores, HRV, and the growing body of research that suggests obsessively monitoring all of it might be doing more harm than good.

From the surprising (and very made-up) origins of the 10,000 steps target, to the genuinely wild science around orthosomnia - where your sleep tracker gives you worse sleep - this minipod will make you think twice before checking your wrist first thing in the morning.

In a slightly different episode Kathy sits down with ops VA Helen Taylor and tech specialist Chris Davies for a proper conversation about AI.Not a how-to, but an honest look at how small business owners and solopreneurs are actually using it, where it falls flat, and what separates the people getting real value from the ones walking away disappointed.

From writing and admin to thinking partnerships and customer-facing tools, they cover the practical, the less obvious, and the genuinely tricky questions about what AI means for the future of knowledge work.

If you've ever pulled the lever once, got a mediocre answer, and closed the tab then take a listen and maybe you'll pull the lever a few more times in future.Connect with Chris here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-davies-819113186/Read Ruben Hassid's newsletter on AI: https://ruben.substack.com/Useful links:https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10032626-prompt-engineering-best-practices-for-chatgpthttps://www.anthropic.com/research/labor-market-impacts

In this minipod Kathy takes a brief detour from planners and systems to explore something every productivity framework quietly depends on: happiness.

Drawing on Yale psychologist Laurie Santos's wildly popular Science of Wellbeing course, this episode unpacks why the things we chase most fiercely, promotion, money, status, rarely deliver the lasting happiness we expect. Santos calls it the satisfaction treadmill, and once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Kathy shares the three research-backed habits that actually move the needle, and why the uncomfortable truth is that we already know what makes us happy. We're just very busy not choosing it.

Kathy is joined by Natanya Gidoomal, interior designer, somatic trauma-informed coach, and neuroscience enthusiast, for a conversation that will make you look at the room you're sitting in very differently.

Natanya's journey through design, coaching, and lived experience has led her to one powerful insight: your workspace isn't just a backdrop. It's actively shaping how you think, feel, and work.

Together they dig into the science of clutter (and why it's doing what you think it's doing to your brain), the truth about colour psychology, why physical comfort goes way beyond getting a decent chair, and how beauty, nature, and texture all have a genuine role in a productive environment.

Whether your desk is a disaster zone or a minimalist dream, this episode gives you practical, neuroscience-backed steps to make your workspace work harder foryou.

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In this minipod Kathy explores the relationship between micro wins and macro goals, and why those small, unglamorous daily actions are the real fuel behind big ambitions.

Drawing on the work of performance expert Brad Stulberg, Kathy unpacks why the journey matters more than the destination, how to build mental resilience without making it feel like an SAS selection process, and why your brain is basically a Labrador puppy that needs regular treats.

From marathon runners to physio exercises, she makes the case for celebrating the tiny wins that most of us gloss straight over.

Plus: the "done list," the dopamine hit hiding in your inbox, and why every Everest climber starts by putting their socks on.

This week Kathy and co-host Claire Ennion dig into Dan Martell's bestseller Buy Back Your Time, and ask what if the thing holding your business back isn't your product, your market, or your team - it's you? Martell's central argument is simple but radical: stop hiring to grow your business and start hiring to get your time back. That means auditing what you're doing, working out what your time is actually worth, and letting go of the tasks that are quietly stealing your best hours.In this episode, Kathy and Claire unpack the DRIP Matrix (Delegate, Replace, Invest, Produce), the Buyback Loop, and why your first hire probably shouldn't be a salesperson. There's also a healthy debate about back-to-back meetings, the Replacement Ladder, and why video SOPs might just change your life.Because the goal isn't a more efficient business. It's a life worth buying back.

Kathy takes a deep dive into gamification and what neuroscience actually has to say about it.

In this mini episode, she explores how borrowing tricks from video games and apps like Duolingo can hijack your brain's reward system and make even the most tedious tasks feel genuinely motivating.

From points systems and streaks to Pomodoro timers and celebrating micro-wins, Kathy shares four practical hacks to make your to-do list something your brain actually wants to engage with.

Serious didn't make you excited about expenses. Stickers might.

In this episode, Kathy and Helen Taylor dig into The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom.

Bloom walked away from a high-flying finance career with all the markers of success and a hollow feeling he couldn't explain. This book is what he figured out.

Time, social, mental, physical, and financial wealth: most of us spend our working lives chasing the fifth while quietly going bankrupt in the other four. Kathy and Helen get personal about the parents calculation that reframes everything, the pyrrhic victory trap, and whether productivity culture might actually be making the whole problem worse.

A thought-provoking, honest conversation about what you're really optimising for.Five types of wealth. Make sure you're not ignoring four of them.