What To Do Next‪?‬ The podcast to orient yourself in life

"There is only one relationship in one’s life that will always be there. And that’s the relationship with myself."

This time we had the pleasure to talk with Joachim Brackx who had a successful career as a singer and composer before turning to entrepreneurship. 

In this episode, we discussed the importance of relating to oneself to figure out what to do next. 

As he healed himself from trauma, grew as a human being, and connected with others and himself more deeply, he decided to help others walk a similar path. This is how the podcast Relating to Self was born, based on the insight that the most important relationship we will ever have is the one we have with ourselves. 

Joachim also records meditations for Insight Timer, is a member of Sandbox, and leads VectoriaDesigns, a crafting company. He is passionate about ethics, compassion, relating, and good food.

If you want to receive Joachim's emails: http://relatingtoself.com/

If you want to listen to Joachim's podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relating-to-self/id1560585485

If you want to use Joachim's guided meditations: https://insighttimer.com/joachim

If you want to connect with Joachim:

https://www.facebook.com/joachimbrackx

https://www.instagram.com/joachimbrackx/

https://twitter.com/JoachimBrackx

or by email: joachim.brackx@gmail.com

#9 David Mendes

“Break the isolation to expand and broaden your horizon”

This time, we had the pleasure of talking with David Mendes, the host the Papa PhD Podcast, who holds a PhD in cell biology and spent more than 11 years in the medical communication and linguistic services industry. In his own podcast, David explores career and life balance for academic and graduate researchers.

In this episode, he shares what he has learnt exploring the different ways people have juggled professional and personal life after academia.

David has since started his own business offering language services in the biomedical domain and has recently co-founded PhDesign, a media agency dedicated exclusively to serving the research community and to bridging the gap between the lab and society.

Now a father of two, he is interested in exploring the different ways people have juggled professional and personal life after completing their graduate degree. This curiosity and a strong will to help those now going through graduate school is what led him to launch the Papa PhD podcast.

You can find more about David and Papa PhD here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmendesdasilva/

Twitter: @papaphdpodcast

Instagram: @papaphdpodcast

“I believe chance is always something you can steer a little bit in your life.”

This time, we had the pleasure of talking with Claude Clément, who has extensive career background in biomedical engineer and neurotechnologies. In this episode, he is sharing his life journey all the way from choosing a university degree to leading innovation in healthcare technologies. 

Claude has first worked in R&D for the watch industry (Swatch Group), then entered the world of medical technologies by heading the diversification activities of Swatch in the field of wearable programmable drug delivery pumps. Afterwards, he spent 27 years in the field of active implantable medical devices, as Dir of Manufacturing Engineering at Intermedics (now Boston Scientific), as Plant Manager of the Swiss operations at Medtronic and later as a consultant for major companies, mainly in the field of pacemakers and for various highly innovative start-ups.

Beginning of 2015, he joined the Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-Engineering, as CTO, putting in place and growing advanced projects for long term implantable Brain Computer Interfaces for movement restoration of paralyzed people and interaction with brain circuits. Claude left the Wyss Center in the beginning of 2020 and he is currently retired. Nonetheless, he is still active as a freelance consultant in the field of active implantable devices and Chairman of the BioAlps Association, a diversified life science cluster in Western Switzerland.

You can find more about Claude here:

linkedin.com/in/claude-clément-a879737

“…little details like that, and if you put them all together, they give you a way to be, a system.”

This time, we had the pleasure of talking with Malisa Niederhauser, a fashion designer from Geneva. In this episode, we discuss the importance of feeling like you're in the right place and keeping a positive outlook to figure out what to do next.

Malisa Niederhauser is an independent designer and pattern maker in the garment industry. Born in South America and raised in Geneva, she now lives and works in the Swiss countryside with her two children and husband.

She is currently developing a project to help clothing brands transition towards sustainability in their design process and production cycle. A plan, she hopes, will be on track by the end of the year.

Her hobbies include all things DIY like furniture hacking, handbag making and cake baking. She also loves to teach sewing skills to youngsters and adults, especially those who believe that making their own wardrobe is the answer to a sustainable way of enjoying beautiful clothes.

You can find more about Malisa here:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/malisa-ruibal-niederhauser-54184714a

“There’s so much we are not in control of, and that’s why having extra strings to your bow is always useful.” 

In this episode, we had the pleasure to talk with Holly Prescott, who is a career guidance practitioner specialising in working with PhD researchers on career transitions. 

Together, we discuss the Keep, Lose, Add method and the importance of role models when deciding what to do next. 

Holly is currently the Careers Adviser for Postgraduate Researchers at the University of Birmingham (UK) and in February 2021 she founded the PhD Careers blog ‘PostGradual.’ Holly completed her PhD in English Literature at the University of Birmingham in 2011. Since completing her PhD, she gained four years' experience in graduate student recruitment before moving over to postgraduate careers support. To aid this move, between 2014-16 she went back to studying part-time for a professional career guidance qualification. Holly lives with a rare eye condition called AZOOR which causes significant visual field defects; outside of work she volunteers for the British sight loss charity RNIB. 

You can discover more about Holly and her blog here: 

PhD Careers Blog website: https://phd-careers.co.uk/ 

Twitter: @holby83 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/holly-prescott/

“You have to juggle, you have to adapt you can’t map out every single day.”

In this episode, we had the pleasure to talk with Fran Beytrison, who started Alp Safari, a glamping site in the heart of Valais, Switzerland. 

Together, we explore how to narrow down the numerous possibilities of directions in which to orient oneself, and leverage life’s constraints as well as your past experience to find a new path in life.

Fran’s career in humanitarian work brought her around the world in Sudan, Afghanistan, Jordan, Lebanon and Congo, providing help to victims of conflicts and displaced populations. She met her husband in Chad, and after 10 years of moving around and changing countries every year, they settled with their two kids in Switzerland, the native country of her husband, in Valais. That’s when she started to ask herself again: “What to do next?”

You can discover more about Alp Safari here:

- https://alpsafari.ch/fr/

- https://www.lenouvelliste.ch