My guest today is Lauren Currie OBE, the Founder of UPFRONT, an organisation on a mission to change confidence, visibility, and power for 10 million women.

I start by asking Lauren what does confidence means to her personally and how she has learned to cultivate it?

Lauren describes confidence, not as a lack of doubt or feeling ready, but learning to show up and speak up even when full of doubt. She is, she says, still on a confidence journey. The world is not a place that is kind to confident women - she is continually unlearning, reconnecting with her gift for being onstage and inspiring others, and saying yes to hard things before feeling ready for them. Confidence differs across our lives and it’s vital we all can see that being modelled to us.

We might appear very confident to others, but just because they can’t see our inner critic or our fears, doesn’t mean they’re not there. We all have moments of self doubt and nervousness, and confident people don’t feel confident all the time…

Lauren explains how the Upfront Bonds work: impressively, the average salary increase post-attendance is 46%, and 82% of attendees are more likely to apply for a job they wouldn’t have applied for before the Bond.

Lauren also talks about past career mistakes: rather than failures, she sees these as lessons in disguise, data, insights, information, and opportunities to be better and grow.

We also discuss her upcoming book “Taylor Meets The Trick” which aims to help children and families understand the patriarchy and was inspired by her son Atlas, who has long blonde hair and is often mistaken for a girl. Taylor learns about the rules for boys and rules for girls, and through the book starts challenging the neat little boxes that we are expected to fit into. There are also guides and resources at the end to support adults to continue the conversation.

Tune in to listen to all of this, plus Lauren’s experience of moving to Sweden, her advice for anyone with a young family thinking about moving to another country, and what she would change if we gave her a magic wand!

You can find out more about Lauren and her work at Upfront by visiting https://www.weareupfront.com/, and https://www.instagram.com/upfrontglobal/

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You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org and connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/