Skip to content
Melo Podcasts Home
CategoriesLanguagesFollowing

Episode · Squiggly Careers

#568 Why Slowing Down Makes You a Better Learner

18 Jun 2026 · 4 min

Play episode WhatsApp Download

Episode notes

In a world that keeps telling you to learn faster, what if slowing down was actually the smarter move? In this Squiggly Shortcut, Sarah makes the case for slow learning, and shares three questions and three actions to help you get started. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why slow learning and fast learning aren't competing, they're complementary – Three questions from the beautiful Slow Learning website to help you zoom out and reflect on how you learn – Why asking one "why" question every day is one of the simplest ways to slow down your thinking – How to take a more intentional (and less…

Podcast

Squiggly Careers

The Squiggly Career · Business · English

Squiggly Careers is a weekly podcast that will help you take control of your career development. Hosted by the founders of Squiggly Careers. (https://www.squigglycareers.com/), Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper, together they cover all things work: from how to manage stress and overcome your…

More from Squiggly Careers All episodes →

  1. 7 Jul 2026 · 48 min

    #573 How to build a super team

    Ever wondered what sets high-performing 'super teams' apart from those that are stalling? It's not just about talent, but a shared belief in your collective ability to learn, adapt, and succeed together. In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from a feeling and dive deep into one of the most relevant topics in work and careers right now. Drawing on the latest research into high-performing team dynamics and Helen and Sarah's own team-building frameworks, they explore how every team member can influence performance, and what your default response to collaboration reveals about you.…

  2. 2 Jul 2026 · 5 min

    #572 The Listening Habit That Changes Every Conversation

    Are you a conversational narcissist? In this Squiggly Shortcut, Sarah introduces a deceptively simple idea from Celeste Headlee that will change how you listen, and make you notice everyone else's conversations differently too. 🎯 What You'll Learn – What a shift response is, why we all do it, and why it matters more than you might think – What a support response sounds like in practice, and how it changes the dynamic of a conversation – Why assuming your experience is the same as someone else's can get in the way of really listening – How to notice your own patterns over the next week, and…

  3. 30 Jun 2026 · 41 min

    #571 How to Get Better at Holding Uncertainty at Work

    Uncertainty isn't going anywhere. So what if the goal wasn't to get rid of it, but to get better at holding it? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from a feeling and dive deep into one of the most relevant topics in work and careers right now. Drawing on Margaret Heffernan's Embracing Uncertainty, Sam Conniff and Katherine Templar-Lewis's Uncertainty Toolkit, and a brilliant HBR article, they explore what it really means to develop the capacity to hold uncertainty, and what your default response to it reveals about you. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why the goal isn't uncertainty to…

  4. 25 Jun 2026 · 8 min

    #570 The Four People Every Squiggly Career Network Needs

    Your career doesn't need a bigger network, it needs a better one. In this Squiggly Shortcut, Helen shares the four roles that matter most for your career community, and why focusing on just these four makes building your career relationships feel a lot more doable. 🎯 What You'll Learn – What a mentor actually is (and why they don't need to be senior or long-term to be valuable) – Why a peer — someone going through what you're going through right now — can be one of the biggest accelerators for your career – How to spot a sponsor and what you need to do before they'll advocate for you – Why a…

  5. 23 Jun 2026 · 50 min

    #569 Why zero distance will make you better at your job

    How close are you to yourself, your team and the people you serve? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from the concept of zero distance, a philosophy championed by brands like e.l.f. Beauty, and turn it into one of the most honest and practical self-reflection exercises they've done on the podcast. Using Post-it® Notes and a simple scale, they plot themselves live on six different dimensions of distance, from how well they know their own strengths and feelings, to how much feedback they really get from their team, to how close they are to the people they're there to help.…

  6. 16 Jun 2026 · 41 min

    #567 How to use Tiny experiments to make progress at work | Tiny Experiments

    What if the key to navigating uncertainty wasn't a better plan - but a better experiment? In this episode, Sarah borrows brilliance from Anne-Laure Le Cunff, author of Tiny Experiments. Together they explore what it means to have an experimental mindset, how to design a tiny experiment using the PACT framework, and why the only experiments that fail are the ones you don't learn from. If you've ever felt stuck waiting for the perfect plan, this episode will give you possibilities you'll be energised by. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why a linear mindset is like climbing a ladder, and why an…

  7. 11 Jun 2026 · 5 min

    #566 The Only Script You Need for Curious Career Conversations

    Most people wait until they're ready to make a career move before having career conversations. In this Squiggly Shortcut, Helen shares the only script you need to make curious career conversations feel less daunting and a lot more useful. 🎯 What You'll Learn – What a curious career conversation actually is, and why having them regularly (not just when you're ready to move) makes a real difference – How to make the ask in a way that's low pressure and easy to say yes to – Three questions to structure the conversation: one to get people talking, one about strengths, and one about…

  8. 9 Jun 2026 · 48 min

    #565 Networks, Progression and Guilt: Six Career Opinions From Emma Grede | Start With Yourself

    Emma Grede has some strong opinions about careers, and not everyone will agree with all of them. In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from Start With Yourself, Emma's new book, picking out six of her most provocative statements and asking the question: do we agree? Emma Grede, co-founder of Skims and Good American, is refreshingly unfiltered about what it takes to build a career on your own terms. Helen has curated the statements most relevant to squiggly careers, and Sarah hasn't seen them in advance. What follows is honest, at times uncomfortable, and occasionally results in…

  9. 5 Jun 2026 · 12 min

    Communication and how to use it to create opportunity in your career (Day 5) | Open to Work

    In a world full of words, the people who communicate with clarity, humanity and story will stand out. In the fifth and final episode of this special series, Helen and Aneesh Rahman close out Open to Work with the last of the five Cs, communication, and why it might be the skill that ties everything together. From Martin Luther King to Pixar to the pressure of a TED Talk, this is a conversation about why great communication has never been more human, and what you can do to make yours more so. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why AI making generic communication universally available raises (not lowers)…

  10. 4 Jun 2026 · 11 min

    Compassion and why being more human is becoming a career advantage (Day 4) | Open to Work

    What if compassion isn't just a nice-to-have, but one of the most important skills for the future of work? In day four of this special five-part series, Helen and Aneesh Rahman explore the fourth C, compassion, and why the new world of work demands something the industrial age actively discouraged. From quietening your inner critic to really listening to a colleague, this is a conversation about what it means to be more human at work, starting with yourself. 🎯 What You'll Learn – Why compassion wasn't valued in the industrial age (and why that's changing fast) – Why compassion for yourself…

Take it with you

The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.

Get it on Google Play