Upbeat Vibes at BBC Radio Nottingham: Sarah J Naylor, Olivia Swift, Mark Dennison
Just love doing my ‘Loose Lady’ stint on the Mark Dennison Show at BBC Radio Nottingham on a Friday morning.
This is something I have been doing since early 2013 I think, although my first appearance on the show may have been at the end of 2012 – I really can’t remember, but I love it! I tend to get booked for 3 or 4 appearances during the course of the year. I think May is the next one.
For those of you who haven’t heard the show, the format is 2 ‘Loose Ladies’ and Mark, talking for approximately 40 minutes of his show; we discuss current affairs topics and throw our spin on things. Whilst some of the subjects can be serious – on the last show, for example, we discussed the issues around knife crime – plenty of the subject matter tends to be a lot more light-hearted so much laughter and fun prevails.
When I made my most recent appearance, it happened to be International Women’s Day and we discussed our feelings around this subject.
On a personal level, I tend to believe I can do whatever I want to do and never question whether I can do something or not because I’m not a man. I just get on with it and it’s seen me through over the years. In the early days of working in recruitment, it was still commonplace for women to wear skirts and heels to work, but I just decided that I would wear a trouser suit – it was smart (a rather lovely Hobbs linen suit to be precise), and I thought nothing of it. I don’t have an issue with a man wearing a skirt to work if he so wishes so why, in my mind, would wearing trousers be an issue? Going in with that mindset, in a non-aggressive way I hasten to add, meant that I didn’t receive any complaints.
I look at the energy of people rather than the difference in sex, unless I’m on my Bumble dating app that is!! I believe we can achieve what we want to achieve depending upon the reality of our physicality and mental capacity.
Unlike caller Roy – a regular apparently – who appears to believe that what women really want is to stay at home whilst men go out to work. That may suit some women; I think sometimes we do try to do too much but within a relationship where there are children or other personal requirements, this set up might be just fine. In the same way, a woman can go out to work and the man stay at home. It’s all about balance and working out what’s best on an individual basis.
Personally, I’ve always worked. At times it would’ve been great to stay at home or have the freedom to do whatever I wanted without needing to go out to work. However, I think I would’ve gone stir crazy!
Anyway, back to the show. It was, as ever, great fun – Mark is a fabulous presenter and each time I go along, I get to meet lots of brilliant women and catch up with the BBC members of staff whose friendly faces have become very familiar indeed to me.
Such a great start to Friday!
To be honest, I would love to have a regular slot on the radio or, better still, a radio show of my own, and/or a chat show … it’s part of my bigger picture and I’m sure it will happen. At present, whilst also coaching, I’m focusing a lot of my efforts on growing my recruitment business / agency.
So much to do. Lots of hard work but I’m mindful of keeping it fun too!
Top tips
- Do things you love doing
- Laugh a lot
- Mix with your tribe
- Have a bigger picture in place
- Believe in yourself
And if you’d like to chat then please do get in touch and book a FREE chat.
