Lisa Burke Show

RTL Today

A place for conversation that spans life in Luxembourg and beyond. Each week an international guest list will reflect on the week’s news, plus a whole host of other topics: politics to pollination; education to entrepreneurship; science to singing. Luxembourg sits in the beating heart of Europe and its diverse population provides a global perspective on a number of world issues.

  1. 11 HR AGO

    Europe’s AI Superstar Slams “Catastrophic” Hiring Rules in Europe, 13/03/2026

    Mistral AI’s CEO Arthur Mensch calls time on 3‑Month Notice periods and points to the lack of CMOs in Europe, not talented engineering. Europe’s AI Champion With a Warning Arthur Mensch, co‑founder and CEO of Mistral AI, has become one of Europe’s most visible AI leaders, scaling his company from zero to around 800 employees in under three years. Speaking at the EIB Group Forum, he combined optimism about Europe’s AI potential with a blunt diagnosis of what is holding it back. For Mensch, Europe’s problem is no longer a lack of raw engineering talent, but the systems around it: hiring rules, fragmented regulations and shallow scale‑up experience at the executive level. Unless these are fixed, he argues, Europe risks remaining dependent on foreign AI providers for its economic, strategic and cultural future. “Viscosity of Hiring” Why Three Months Is a Catastrophe The most notable part of Mensch’s intervention, talking to a room-full of European executives and bureaucrats, was his attack on Europe’s “viscosity of hiring,” the drag created by long notice periods and HR rules that slow fast‑growing companies to a crawl. “The biggest problem in Europe are the notice periods… The viscosity of hiring is much, much higher than in the US. An employee who wants to leave his company has to give a three‑month notice period. And that’s a full catastrophe.” Mench believes that workers who want to leave should be able to move in about a week, not three months; the current system locks in talent and cripples high‑growth companies that need to assemble teams at startup speed, not bureaucratic speed. This viscosity exists across Europe, with some countries even worse than others, making it systematically harder to build fast‑scaling tech champions than in the US. 
“We should give more right to employees, make sure that if they want to leave their company, they can leave… in like a week.” For founders, investors and policymakers, he is precisely clear: if Europe wants to compete in AI, it cannot afford a labour market calibrated for a different era, and not global competition. The Hidden Talent Crisis: Not Engineers, But Executives Mensch also dismantles a familiar cliché: that Europe’s problem is a shortage of technical people. In his view, Europe is actually very good at producing junior engineers, and Mistral’s strategy is built around that. Mistral hires junior talent from across Europe, with major pools in Paris, Luxembourg, Warsaw, Germany, Greece and a large second office in London. The company deliberately opens local offices so people can stay in or near their hometowns, given the right project and compensation. They also bring back experienced Europeans from the US to inject seniority into teams. The real shortage, he says, is in senior leadership: “The biggest hurdle we find ourselves in is to hire senior people, executives, people that have scaled go‑to‑market teams, people that have scaled marketing teams. The talent shortage is not where you would expect it… Here, there’s basically zero CMO that actually can do what we need to do in Europe.” In Silicon Valley, he notes, he could interview ten strong CMO candidates in a week and hire one the week after. In Europe, he says, there are “basically zero” CMOs who have already done what a company like Mistral needs to do at scale. This is the deeper ecosystem problem: Europe has produced fewer companies that have already gone all the way from start‑up to IPO, so there are fewer seasoned executives who know how to ride that curve. Stock Options, Regulation Nightmares and Fragmented Rules Mensch is pragmatic about compensation and competes with the seven figure plus salaries at US tech giants. He says top recruits can earn similar salaries at Mistral, heavily leveraged with stock options and equity. Given the company’s trajectory, he argues that joining Mistral has already been more attractive financially than joining Google for some. However, he calls Europe’s fragmented stock option regimes “a bit of a nightmare” - there are effectively 27 different systems to navigate. He would welcome more unification, even though he recognises fiscal rules make that hard. This sits on top of broader regulatory friction: country‑by‑country tweaks to EU rules complicate life for fast‑growth companies, from tax and social security to HR processes. Scaling a European company means learning, then re‑learning, the rules in every new market. His core ask is simple: remove easy‑to‑fix blockers such as notice periods and fragmented stock option rules so that European scale‑ups can allocate their energy to technology and markets, not legal contortions. Sovereignty, Strategic Autonomy and Europe’s AI Cloud Despite his criticism, Mensch is in many ways betting on Europe. He founded Mistral after time at Google DeepMind and in French academia because he feared there would be no European champion in generative AI at all. He frames AI sovereignty in three pillars: Economic sovereignty: if Europe remains 80% dependent on US AI providers, value created here will be reinvested in R&D there, widening the gap. Business continuity: if critical processes across utilities, industry and public services run on foreign AI, Europe becomes a “client state” vulnerable to someone else’s off‑switch. Cultural plurality: AI systems are “interaction machines” with built‑in cultural biases; fully centralised control of these systems is, in his view, incompatible with democracy. Mistral’s response: - Build state‑of‑the‑art models that can be deeply customised for enterprises and states, including on‑premises deployment to keep sensitive data in‑house. - Focus on B2B rather than consumer, letting European companies and institutions serve their own end users. - Invest deliberately in multilingual capabilities, accepting slightly lower performance in English to raise performance in European languages such as French and German. 
“You can’t focus on just building domestic technology for Europe, you need to be an exporter.” Mensch is sharply critical of the concentration of consumer AI in a few global players and warns that this will be a major factor in upcoming elections. Open Source, Humanities and Bias: A Broader Vision of AI Mistral’s philosophy is strongly rooted in open source. Mensch insists that open technologies drive the internet and that Europe needs open, sovereign building blocks if it wants a say in how AI evolves. Contrary to stereotype, his teams are not only pure engineers. The research group is dominated by PhDs, but some are humanities‑trained. Journalists and other humanities experts work on “model behaviour”, ensuring outputs are usable, responsible and culturally aware. He cites a project with a humanities‑heavy Molière specialist team that used Mistral models to generate a new Molière play in the playwright’s style. On gender, he offers a snapshot: about a third of Mistral’s research team are women; over half of his leadership team are women; around a quarter of engineers are women. He argues that Europe “exits” women too early from research and scientific tracks and says Mistral actively does more outbound to potential female candidates to compensate for lower application rates. Bias inside the models remains, in his words, a “hard topic”, but one they tackle through specific evaluations and behaviour checks. The Future of AI in Europe, If Viscosity Falls In his closing remarks, Mensch describes AI as an inflection point big enough to redefine Europe’s economic structure. He sees an opportunity to create large‑scale, vertically integrated European AI cloud service providers that reduce dependency on foreign digital services. 
“The new dependency… is a process dependency and a business continuity risk. So we need such actors to emerge.” But his implicit condition is stark: Europe must make it possible to build and scale these actors at speed. That means tackling hiring viscosity, simplifying stock options and making it easier for European founders to assemble world‑class teams in weeks, not quarters. Arthur Mensch and Mistral is so far a success story -he issued a blueprint and a warning. Europe’s AI decade will be decided as much in HR law and fiscal codes as in research labs and data centres.

    19 min

  2. 3 DAYS AGO

    Defending Our Future: Why Ukraine’s Fight is the Frontline of European Security, 10/03/2026

    Nobel laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk and Deputy Minister Alona Shkrum join Lisa Burke to discuss the Advocacy Coalition and the cost of silence for Europe My Guests: - Her Excellency Ambassador Barbara Karpetová, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg - Inna Yaramenko, the Representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and Vice President at LUkraine - Oleksandra Matviichuk, Chairwoman of the Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. - Alona Shkrum, First Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine. - Kristina Mikulova, Head of Regional Hub for Eastern Europe for the European Investment Bank In this powerful episode, the conversation shifts from the abstract concept of 'aid' to the urgent reality of strategic investment in European security. As Ukraine enters its fourth year of full-scale invasion, a new initiative has been developed by Ambassador Karpetová with the help of Inna Yaramenko. 'The Advocacy Coalition - Defending Our Future Now' has launched in Luxembourg to remind the continent that defending Ukraine is synonymous with defending the future of democracy itself. This year-long set of events will pass the baton between the founding embassies: Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and the United Kingdom, to stand united in the conviction that defending Ukraine means defending Europe’s future. Beyond Charity: A Strategic Investment Supporting Ukraine in 2026 is now viewed as a strategic investment in the infrastructure of European security. Alona Shkrum, Ukraine’s First Deputy Minister for Reconstruction, explained that waiting for hostilities to cease before rebuilding is not an option. "If we do not reconstruct water, utilities, energy supply, schools, and hospitals, then people will leave," she noted, emphasising that keeping the economy functioning allows Ukraine to fund its own defence and protect the eastern borders of the European Union. The scale of destruction is staggering: the road damage alone is equivalent to the distance from Luxembourg to Iran, and the amount of housing destroyed, over 3 million units, exceeds the total housing stock of Denmark. Humanising the Numbers Whilst the statistics are overwhelming, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk focuses on "humanising the numbers". She shared the harrowing story of 10-year-old Ilya from Mariupol, whose mother died in his arms in a frozen apartment after they were caught in Russian shelling. Matviichuk also recounted the experience of Professor Ihor Kozlovskyi, a philosopher who spent 700 days in captivity and gave lectures on philosophy to rats in his solitary cell just to hear a human voice. "Dignity is action," Matviichuk told the audience, asserting that the "accountability gap" in international law must be closed by establishing a Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression. A Year of Intensive Advocacy The Advocacy Coalition, a partnership between LUkraine, the European Commission, and nine resident embassies in Luxembourg (but they're open for more partners), will host monthly events throughout 2026. These events will tackle critical themes such as countering disinformation, reconstruction, and the role of the Ukrainian diaspora. The first event will take place at the European Parliament in Luxembourg on March 23, featuring a keynote address by Matviichuk, focussing on the abducted children. Unity as the Strongest Weapon The message from my guests underlines that unity is the strongest weapon against authoritarianism. As Ambassador Barbara Karpetová noted, even a small nation like Luxembourg can provide "shared inspiration" by standing together, mirroring the visionary leadership of historical figures like Pierre Werner, former Prime Minister of Luxembourg, whose home she now resides in. The Power of Ordinary People Matviichuk emphasises that "ordinary people can do extraordinary things". Inna cites the 700 Luxembourgish families who offered to host refugees within just three days after the invasion began. Digital Engagement: The Coalition is launching an Advocacy Platform, a digital ecosystem featuring authentic testimonies from diplomats, volunteers, and citizens to humanise the impact of solidarity.

    1h 33m

  3. 6 DAYS AGO

    Pastor Sally Azar, Ashraf Al-Ajrami: Israel Palestine: Two Voices on Occupation, Identity, and Europe’s Role, 07/03/2026

    Jerusalem pastor Sally Azar and analyst Ashraf Al-Ajrami on daily life under occupation, peace principles, and what Europe can do now. My guests this week are Rev. Sally Azar, political analyst and former Palestinian Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs Ashraf Al-Ajrami, and Meryem-Lyn Oral, Communications Manager from EPICON. Rev. Sally Azar and Ashraf Al-Ajrami came to Luxembourg with the EU-funded European-Palestinian-Israeli Trilateral Dialogue Initiative (EPICON) to speak honestly about what life feels like to grow up in Israel and Palestine. Jerusalem-born pastor Sally Azar (the first female Palestinian pastor, ordained in 2023) describes a childhood where crisis becomes routine: "You’re always protected… to not really know what’s going on around you.” Azar explains how separation is built into daily movement and also the mindset: “We live next to each other and not really with each other,” as people go to different schools, use different buses, and live in different neighbourhoods. And then there are the literal walls purposely dividing people. This is not shared humanity, and people on each side of the wall do not truly know how people live on the other side. Political analyst and former Palestinian Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, Ashraf Al-Ajrami, traces how a child’s sense of injustice can harden. “I felt the occupation since my childhood,” he says, describing how the idea of resistance took hold early. Ashraf spent twelve years in Israeli prisons living in inhumane conditions. Both guests return repeatedly to the same tension: the conflict’s engines are political power, rights, and forced inequality, not religious. Sally underlines “we’re not fighting Jews… we’re fighting an Israeli occupation,” knowing the sensitivity around confusing political critique with antisemitism. And yet, in the middle of the bleakest realities, she insists on a moral counterweight: “there’s nothing more powerful than love.” So what, concretely, can Europe do? Al-Ajrami argues that this is not charity but self-interest: “It is a flavour of the values of Europe,” he says, pointing to the economic and security consequences when conflict grinds on. They both urge Europe to act with one, confident voice, and to enforce human rights not hatred and separation. Links (all at the end) EPICON https://linktr.ee/epicon.project Sally Azar https://www.elca.org/people/rev-sally-azar Ashraf Al-Ajrami https://www.all4palestine.org/ModelDetails.aspx?gid=14&mid=88205&lang=en

  4. 28 FEB

    Lord Chancellor Chris Smith on AI, Education, Free Speech and the Future, 28/02/2026

    Cambridge Chancellor joins Lisa Burke to explore AI’s impact on education, free speech, climate challenges and why universities still matter. On this episode of The Lisa Burke Show, Lisa welcomes The Rt Hon the Lord Chris Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury and the 109th Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. A former Labour Cabinet Minister, culture champion, environmental leader and the first openly gay Cabinet Minister in the world, Lord Smith reflects on a lifetime of public service and the evolving role of universities in a fast‑changing world. He describes a university’s purpose as more than teaching or research: it is a place where “truth is honoured, evidence is sought, and debate happens.” At Cambridge, he reminds new students that they’re not there to become better than others, but to become “the best version of themselves.” Yet he is clear that university is not the right path for everyone, arguing that the UK’s push toward 50% university attendance diluted its value. On AI, Lord Smith recognises the power of large models to analyse vast bodies of knowledge instantly, but stresses the need for human judgment: AI can imitate style, but “it can’t be genuinely creative.” He warns too of our “post‑Trump age,” where misinformation has become normalised, making critical thinking more essential than ever. Lord Smith also reflects on his legacy as Culture Secretary, where he introduced free admission to UK national museums. A moment with a father and daughter at the Science Museum, he says, confirmed that “a career in public life was worth it.” Museums, he argues, are part of a nation’s collective memory and should never be gated by wealth. In discussing climate challenges, Chancellor Smith draws from his years chairing the Environment Agency, emphasising the need to trust scientific experts and to prioritise resources wisely. His lifelong love of the Scottish mountains began in a school expedition to Torridon, a formative experience that shaped his passion for nature and environmental stewardship. As Chancellor, he sees his role as both ambassador and advocate for higher education, calling the UK university fees system “broken” and in urgent need of reform. Above all, he places hope in the next generation: “Whenever I despair, I think about our young people… and that gives me hope.” A conversation spanning education, ethics, environment and the future, this episode is a powerful reminder of why leadership grounded in empathy, curiosity and truth still matters.

    49 min

  5. 21 FEB

    How to Thrive in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, 21/02/2026

    Where can we retain the human touch, impactfully, in the age of AI? Thomas Scherer, cloud architect & computer scientist working for Google joins Lisa. One Saturday night, Thomas sat down with Gemini and asked, "What will make me the happiest person in the world?" Over the course of the next few hours, he got some fascinating results. All of this is part of the story of AI in our lives today, but there is so much more. This conversation is a small reflection of where we are with AI and why we should embrace its benefits, learning as much as we can with careful curiosity. From Horses to Cars “What do I do with my horse-riding skills now that the car has been invented?” With this statement, Thomas reminds us that mega shifts in our human experience is historically normal, and a reflection of the human mind’s brilliance. The AI Shift is just another technological step change. AI is replacing ‘commodity tasks’ - those which are repetitive, standardised processes, providing us with more time to lean into creativity. We become the navigator whilst the more mundane jobs could be taken over by AI. A new way to Search Traditional search engines try to match words whereas modern AI systems match meaning. When you search for trousers for instance, AI systems can use images and semantic understanding to infer style, intent, and context rather than just scanning for the keyword ‘pants or trousers.’ Large language models (LLMs) such as Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and so on, predict the most likely next word, turning colossal amounts of data into fluent conversation, explanation, and even advice based solely on statistical probability of word patterns. We don’t even need to invent the perfect query as they can also predict this. AI as Your Collaborative Partner Used well, AI is more like a creative collaborator: a brainstorming partner that proposes alternative angles, structures, and prompts. For small businesses, it can become an extra “virtual team,” generating draft podcasts, social posts, or marketing visuals that can then be curated and refined. But all the while, it remains the human who sets the objectives and the required tone. This also lends itself to the possibility of many people becoming autonomous, single-person businesses. Agents: When AIs Start Working Together When you give an AI tools and sub-tasks, it can orchestrate them toward a goal. One agent might create images; another might check whether those images match the brief (e.g. 'sunny landscape, not rain’); together, they negotiate improvements until the output fits what you asked for. Even non-technical people can use early agent-like products. NotebookLM, for instance, lets you upload documents, then: - Ask questions about them in natural language. - Generate personalised podcasts from your own material that you can listen to during a commute. - Work across multiple languages, both in sources and in the audio you generate. A recurring complaint in companies is: “Our data is too messy to do AI.” That is partly true for training bespoke models: bad data in, bad model out, but paradoxically, AI is also very good at cleaning data in the first place. You can literally give such a tool a messy folder of information and ask to make sense of it. Because it understands patterns in addresses, email formats, names, and categories, AI can, for example: - Standardise your contact lists so mailings no longer bounce. - Extract fields from scanned paperwork and fill out forms for you. - Help you perform a “data spring clean” on everything from CRM records to home admin. For an individual drowning in paperwork, this is transformative: scan, upload, and ask the AI to pre-fill or summarise, then you simply review and sign. Everyday Simplifications with AI You do not need to be a computer scientist to get real value from AI. A good starting sequence for a normal day could include: - Identify what you hate doing: repetitive emails, calendar logistics, summarising long documents, or form-filling. - Ask the AI directly: “Show me how to use you to spend less time on this task,” then iterate based on its suggestions. - Start with non-sensitive data and low‑risk tasks, and only move to personal or client material once you understand the provider’s terms and privacy guarantees. People in Luxembourg working across languages can also benefit from live translation and dubbing: tools already exist that let you speak in German and be heard in French or English in your own voice, with a slight delay, in meetings or recorded content. Jobs, Risk, and the Human Edge AI is reshaping the job market. In the UK, one study found that companies using AI had eliminated 11% of previous roles and left another 12% unfilled, while creating 19% new roles, which is a net loss of 4% overall, with the UK faring worse than the US on the balance between jobs lost and created. That reality naturally fuels both excitement and anxiety. What AI targets first are commodity tasks: copy-pasting, routine classification, basic template writing, or standardised analysis. The more your work relies on unique human context, judgment, empathy, and rapport, from live concerts to therapy and even parenting, the harder it is to replace. The opportunity, and pressure, is to climb the value chain: stop being the engine that moves the data and become the navigator who decides where to go. Trust, Safety, and Owning Your Self Image and Voice As AI systems get better at imitating voices and faces, distinguishing fake from real becomes a societal survival skill. Voice scams already exploit cloned speech to convince parents their child is in danger, and manipulated images can travel faster than fact‑checks. Two layers of protection are emerging: - Technical safeguards such as watermarking in generated images or audio, which allow downstream tools to flag AI‑created content. - Legal and ethical frameworks like GDPR in Europe, which treat your appearance and voice as personal data requiring your consent for alteration and reuse. - Providers also increasingly commit to indemnifying users when material generated within the rules is later challenged on copyright grounds, shifting some of the risk back to the platforms that trained the models. Prompting: Talking to AI so It Really Helps You do not need to be a prompt engineer, but a few habits make a big difference. First, describe what you do want rather than only what you do not want: “Keep the face unchanged and brighten the background” works better than “Don’t change the face.” Second, you can use AI to improve your own prompts: - Tell it your goal (“I want a video that shows X for Y audience”). - Ask: “Write a detailed prompt I can paste into a video/image generator.” - Edit the suggested prompt so it fits your tone, context, and constraints. Over time, this becomes a self-teaching loop: the AI drafts the prompt, you tweak and observe the output, and your intuitive sense of what to ask for gets sharper. AI, Emotions, and the Limits of the Machine Some people now confide in chatbots as if they were friends or therapists. In one late-night experiment, Thomas asked Gemini to interview him and figure out what would make him “the happiest person in the world”; the system eventually pointed out contradictions in his answers and nudged him toward deeper reflection. That shows how AI can mirror back patterns in your own thinking and ask probing questions. But it still lacks the embodied empathy, nuanced perception, and ethical responsibility of a trained human therapist, who reads not just words but tone, pauses, posture, and history. AI can supplement support; it should not replace serious care. Why You Should Start Now Paradoxically, Thomas’s biggest fear is not that AI will take over, but that people will be left behind because they are too afraid to try it. Like refusing to learn to drive when everyone else has moved to cars, opting out of AI entirely risks shrinking your options just as the toolset explodes. The most practical stance is curious, critical use: test it, set boundaries, keep the human touch at the centre, and let the machines handle the drudgery.

    53 min

  6. 20 FEB

    Nathan Sneyd, Tony Whiteman, Matthew Dennis-Soto: Rugby culture, community and Oxbridge meets RCL, 20/02/2026

    Rugby Club Luxembourg hosts Oxbridge this weekend in Stade Josy Barthel. This weekend on The Lisa Burke Show, rugby takes centre stage as Rugby Club Luxembourg (RCL) prepares to welcome a combined Oxford-Cambridge “Oxbridge” team to Stade Josy Barthel for what is believed to be their first ever visit to the Grand Duchy. Seniors player and schools rugby coordinator Matthew Dennis Soto explains that the fixture offers a perfect mid‑season test for RCL, while also reconnecting him with university teammates from his PGCE days at Oxford, in a match he jokes might even mark a “secret retirement” at 80 minutes. The game also plugs Luxembourg directly into one of the sport’s oldest traditions: the varsity rugby culture that has produced generations of international players since the first iconic Oxbridge match in 1872. On the show, Matthew tells us how the Oxford and Cambridge system has historically functioned as an informal England trial, with selectors once taking 15 to 20 players from a single varsity match into national squads. Today, professional academies have taken over much of that role, but the commitment remains close to professional standards: double daily training sessions, gym and pitch work, video analysis and eight hours of study woven through the day. That intensity, he argues, leaves graduates ready for both professional rugby and demanding careers beyond sport, thanks to a culture where “buy‑in” is non‑negotiable and no one can simply skip training because they are tired. RCL’s aim is to build that ethos, with more Luxembourgish now spoken at training than English or French, and a growing number of locally raised players feeding into the national team. Rugby Club Luxembourg: 500 members, 54 nationalities, one “tribe” Vice President Tony Whiteman sketches the remarkable growth of RCL, founded in 1973 and now boasting around 500 active members encompassing players, referees and coaches, making it one of Luxembourg’s largest sporting organisations. The club currently represents 54 nationalities and competes in Germany’s First Division, a notable achievement for a country of Luxembourg’s size and a testament to decades of volunteer‑driven development. Tony’s own story mirrors that journey: arriving from New Zealand “for 18 months” to play rugby, finding community in the legendary Irish pub The Black Stuff, and staying to build a life, a family and a career, helped along by a network of club members who even opened professional doors in finance. And he has done the same for so many more. Belonging, discipline and life skills on and off the pitch A recurring theme of the discussion is rugby’s unique capacity to create belonging across ages, body types and backgrounds. Nathan Sneyd, now a familiar voice from “Let’s Talk Sport” and a long‑standing squash coach in Luxembourg, describes rugby as a “jigsaw of athletes”, where fast and slow, tall and short, heavy and light all fit together in different positions toward a shared objective. That sense of purpose and identity, symbolised by a simple shirt colour, translates into powerful benefits for mental health and social integration, especially for newcomers who might otherwise dismiss Luxembourg as “quiet” if they never join a club or community. Tony highlights rugby’s thread of decency: respect for referees, listening to coaches, learning discipline from adults outside the family, as a life school that employers value, noting that his own first job in Luxembourg came precisely because a manager trusted the work ethic of sportspeople. Women’s rugby and infrastructure: the next frontier Looking ahead, the guests agree that women’s rugby represents one of the biggest growth opportunities, both globally and at RCL. The club has established a women’s section with regular training, and women’s rugby is cited as one of the fastest‑growing areas of the sport, yet limited pitch space in Luxembourg City is now a hard constraint on how far that momentum can go. As Director of Rugby Antoine Alric (who could not join the recording) works across elite competition, 350‑plus youth players and an expanding women’s programme, the club is lobbying for at least half a pitch more in the short term and, eventually, a second ground to match demand. For listeners inspired to get involved, Nathan underlines how approachable Luxembourg’s sporting community is: from elite racer Dylan Pereira inviting Instagram messages from aspiring drivers to RCL’s own open‑door culture, often the first step is as simple as showing up or sending a message, and letting the game, and the community around it, do the rest. https://rcl.lu/

    58 min

  7. 14 FEB

    Veronique Scheer, Gabrielle Staiger, Rick Serrano: Movement and Love: the most refined dance of all, 14/02/2026

    The power of movement & defining the love you want: movement choirs; nervous system regulation & a ten-step path to figure out the type of love you deserve On this episode of The Lisa Burke Show, dancers Veronique Scheer and Gabrielle Staiger talk about how the body stores emotions. Mentor Rick Serrano walks through a simple checklist to define a partner that matches your life goals and one deserving of you. Traumatic Injury to Identity Shift, Education and Trauma-Healing workshops Veronique Scheer, founder of Very Unique Yoga, was a professional musical theatre performer living her dream life in Barcelona as a young adult. This dream was abruptly halted by a devastating motorbike accident at 21. Through years of rehabilitation, a law degree (plan B) and reinvention, Veronique turned to yoga, pilates and trauma-healing practice. She realised that movement could me more than performance or aesthetics; it could be a tool for nervous system regulation, trauma healing and identity reconstruction. “The nervous system governs how we experience life.” Today, Veronique’s work blends movement science, hormonal literacy and nervous system education into a holistic approach, particularly supporting women navigating stress, burnout, postnatal recovery and life transitions. She distinguishes between nervous system regulation and long‑term training, emphasising that our reactions often arise from stored patterns in the nervous system long before cognition catches up. Co-regulation in couples Veronique also conducts couples yoga classes, and can see how their nervous systems sync in a calming or dysregulated way. Through workshops and couple classes, she sees first‑hand how movement can reveal communication patterns, power struggles, people‑pleasing and sexual disconnect. These workshops also show how playful, shared movement can help partners remember why they fell in love. Using practices such as AcroYoga, she watches trust, control and surrender play out physically: some couples re‑discover laughter and tenderness; others confront that their relationship may actually be over. Veronique’s upcoming digital academy and app (launching 2026) brings together: - Nervous system regulation - Hormonal health education - Trauma-aware movement - Conscious relationship development

    1h 23m

  8. 7 FEB

    Natalia Wrona, Dr Susanne Folchette-Tomasewski, Anthony Sternotte: How to Build Confidence, 07/02/2026

    How do you show up in your own body, to yourself? What’s your own internal dialogue? And how does that manifest as confidence?
 Confidence is a trainable skill, which is a good thing as it can influence so many aspects of our lives from work to personal relationships, even to the relationship we have with our own body and mind. It’s shaped by mindset, nutrition, hormones and fluctuates through the various changes and challenges of life. Confidence as a Skill: how to Build Self-Belief Founded by Natalia Wrona, Confidence House was created in response to a recurring pattern Natalia observed over nearly two decades of working closely as a make-up artist and photographer with clients: many people appear confident externally, yet feel deeply disconnected internally. Through guided make-up lessons, image advice, and ‘self-confidence photography’, clients are offered a safe space to reconnect with themselves. These sessions are about reclaiming a connection to your own external-facing body. “Caring for one’s appearance is not superficial. It can be a powerful act of self-respect. When we treat ourselves with intention, we begin to rebuild confidence from the inside out.” But confidence is built on the inside, some of which we have control over (nutrition, sport, sleep) and some of which is outside of our control to some degree (life events, hormonal fluctuations). Menopause, Hormones and Confidence For many women (and men - something we speak about less at the moment), hormonal transitions play a major role in confidence. That reality is at the heart of Lëtz Menopause, a non-profit association raising awareness around perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause in Luxembourg. Dr. Susanne Folschette, explains that confidence loss during hormonal transitions is often misunderstood or misdiagnosed. Anxiety, sleep disruption, brain fog, and self-doubt can begin years before menopause itself, frequently without women realising what is happening. Education is transformative. Understanding the biological changes at play reduces fear, restores self-trust, and allows women to advocate for themselves. Menopause is a natural transition that deserves informed support, evidence-based care, and open conversation. ‘Mr. Breakfast’ on Nutrition, the Brain and Emotional Confidence Confidence is also biochemical. University lecturer and micro-nutrition specialist Anthony Sternotte highlights how nutrition directly influences mood, emotional regulation, and resilience. Micro-nutrient deficiencies, including iron, zinc, B-vitamins, and amino acids, can impair neurotransmitter production, affecting serotonin, dopamine, and melatonin. Skipping meals, particularly breakfast and lunch, may feel efficient, but over time it undermines energy, focus, and emotional stability. Nutrition supports confidence by supporting the brain. A well-nourished body creates the conditions for calm, clarity, and self-belief, especially during periods of stress or hormonal change. Confidence Development Is Multidimensional and Trainable Confidence as a skill can grow when we: - understand what is happening in our bodies and take care to listen - nourish ourselves properly - set boundaries and protect our energy - invest time in self-care and self-knowledge - allow ourselves to be seen, imperfectly and honestly Confidence is about trusting yourself even when things feel uncertain. To just keep going. Suggested Reading on Confidence and Self-Esteem To deepen the journey of confidence development, our guests recommend these books: - Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway — Susan Jeffers - The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem — Nathaniel Branden - The Gifts of Imperfection — Brené Brown

    57 min
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About

A place for conversation that spans life in Luxembourg and beyond. Each week an international guest list will reflect on the week’s news, plus a whole host of other topics: politics to pollination; education to entrepreneurship; science to singing. Luxembourg sits in the beating heart of Europe and its diverse population provides a global perspective on a number of world issues.

Information

  • Channel
    RTL Today
  • Creator
    RTL - Lisa Burke
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    88
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © CLT-UFA S.A.
  • Show Website
    Lisa Burke Show

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