Wisepreneurs Podcast: Independent Professionals Building Expertise
Independent professionals turning accumulated expertise into sustainable practice. For experienced professionals, particularly women, who want to work on their own terms, not retire from meaningful work.
Working lives now extend far beyond what anyone predicted. Organisations need people who can navigate complexity and ambiguity, and increasingly, these professionals are choosing independence over employment.
Hosted by Nigel Rawlins, Wisepreneurs features conversations with experienced professionals about what it actually takes.
What we explore:
● Turning professional expertise into visible market presence
● Building business through partnerships and collaborative networks
● AI tools that amplify rather than replace experienced judgment
● Navigating the transition from employment to independent practice
● Sustaining cognitive vitality for the long term
85+ episodes. Real conversations. No motivational fluff.
Your accumulated expertise is your competitive advantage.
This podcast shows you how to systematically position it.
Find transcripts and more: https://www.wisepreneurs.au/
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelrawlins/
Subscribe to the newsletter: https://wisepreneurs.com.au/newsletter/
Episodes
87 episodes
Ben Legg Portfolio Careers After Corporate: From Google COO to The Portfolio Collective
Ben Legg served as COO of Google Europe, led Coca-Cola's India turnaround, worked at McKinsey, and served in the British Army's Royal Engineers before co-founding The Portfolio Collective, a 16,000-member community for portfolio professionals.<...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 87
•
51:59
Michael Zipursky Consulting Success: Why Conversations Beat Marketing Systems for Consultants
Building a consulting practice through relationships and conversations rather than marketing systems requires a specific set of mindset shifts that corporate experience does not prepare you for. For experienced independent professio...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 86
•
57:08
Dante St James The Generalist Advantage: Building Systemised Independent Practices
Experienced independent professionals building portfolio practices will find a practical operating model in this conversation with Dante St James. For generalists juggling multiple ventures, this episode maps the daily discipline and sy...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 85
•
56:38
Miklós Pohl OAM Professional Longevity: Music, Medicine, and Sustained Practice Beyond 70
At 78 Dr Miklós Pohl OAM is still practising medicine, performing chamber music internationally, and publishing books. His Wisepreneurs conversation explores how sustained creative engagement supports professional longevity and cognitive vitali...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 84
•
45:14
Darren Waldron AI Automation: How a Carpenter Built a Technology Practice from Scratch
Darren Waldron taught himself AI automation with no coding background and built a technology practice from a standing start. A carpenter by trade, now based in Zurich, he developed AI-powered lead management systems after experiencing firsthand...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 83
•
49:27
Melisa Liberman Business Development: Building a Sustainable Consulting Practice Without Employees
Systematic business development for independent consultants who want predictable revenue without employees or feast-famine cycles. Melisa Liberman coaches experienced professionals to build consulting practices generating $500,000+ using quanti...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 82
•
52:01
Meredith Fuller OAM Invisible Expertise: How Introverted Professionals Articulate What They Know
Experienced professionals who think deeply often feel invisible in workplaces that reward rapid responses over considered insight. Psychologist Meredith Fuller OAM, returning for her fourth Wisepreneurs conversation, draws on over 45 years coun...
•
1:03:16
Mark Trinham Sustainable Creative Practice: 30 Years of Independent Work Without Business Training
Thirty years of full-time independent practice, booked 18 months ahead, with no formal business training. Artist Mark Trinham offers one of the most practical case studies on the Wisepreneurs Podcast for how accumulated expertise becomes sustai...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 80
•
54:42
Jon Younger Professional Relevance: Positioning Expertise When AI Does the Routine Work
Positioning accumulated professional judgment when younger consultants cost less and AI handles routine knowledge work. Jon Younger has spent five decades understanding how talent evolves — from HR executive to independent advisor on the future...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 79
•
1:07:53
Mayumi Kataoka Forest Therapy: Why Cognitive Restoration Beats Another Productivity System
Forest therapy as cognitive restoration for over-connected professionals who keep optimising when they need to stop. Mayumi Kataoka is a certified forest therapy guide in Sydney who takes professionals on three-hour walks covering barely 1.2 ki...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 78
•
37:31
Anna Burgess Yang Business Automation: How Systems Kept Her FinTech Practice Running Through Surgery
Anna Burgess Yang built automation systems for her FinTech writing business that kept it running for two months while she recovered from brain tumour surgery, proving her operational frameworks worked under the hardest possible test.Anna...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 77
•
38:16
Michael Best Career Reinvention at 80: Complex Research and AI Tools After Five Decades in Medicine
Career reinvention at 80, mastering AI tools, Obsidian, and Zotero to write a scientific book he never planned. Dr Michael Best practised medicine for 50 years before a routine phone call during COVID introduced him to the endocanna...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 76
•
44:56
Robert Vlach Professional Reputation: Why Your Good Name Beats Personal Branding
Professional reputation built through decades of relationships beats personal branding built through content marketing. Robert Vlach leads Europe's largest freelance community, supporting over 250,000 professionals. In t...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 75
•
2:58:03
Amy Alkon Menopause and Cognitive Performance: Protecting Your Professional Edge Through Science
Menopause and cognitive performance for professional women: when brain fog, fatigue, and memory loss threaten your career edge, the problem is medical science, not you. Amy Alkon is an award-winning investigative science writer and ...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 74
•
1:22:46
Sönke Ahrens How to Take Smart Notes: Knowledge Systems for Experienced Professionals
Sönke Ahrens wrote How to Take Smart Notes and uses tools like Obsidian and Readwise to help professionals turn accumulated reading and experience into structured knowledge systems that support writing, consulting, and thought leadership.
•
Season 1
•
Episode 73
•
57:56
Sue Ellson Starting a Business After 60: LinkedIn, Financial Security, and Career Reinvention
Starting a business after 60 using LinkedIn, relationships, and minimal cost strategies for financial security during career transition. Sue Ellson has been an independent consultant since 1994 and joined LinkedIn in 2003. ...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 72
•
52:19
Laetitia Vitaud Career Reinvention After 60: Why Your 150 Relationships Beat Startup Capital
Episode OverviewCareer reinvention after 60 using your professional relationships as startup capital rather than cash, savings, or business loans. Laetitia Vitaud is a feminist and work-revolution thinker returning for...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 71
•
55:54
Laurie Smale Digital Storytelling at 79: From School Dropout to YouTube Creator Through Mentorship
Digital storytelling at 79 after leaving school at 13 — proof that reinvention has no expiry date when mentorship meets courage. Laurie Smale walked away from school after brutal treatment by a maths teacher and began working in a j...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 70
•
45:07
Tomáš Baránek Deep Reading as Professional Edge: Why Books Still Build Expertise in the AI Era
Deep reading as cognitive investment for independent professionals building expertise when AI floods the world with shallow content. Tomáš Baránek runs Melvil Publishing in Czechia, selecting nonfiction titles with long-term value f...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 69
•
59:16
Kim Watty Retirement by Design: How Professional Women Plan Beyond Finances
Retirement planning for professional women that addresses identity, purpose, and community rather than finances alone.Kim Watty spent three decades in Australian academia as an accounting professor before co-founding The Main Act with he...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 68
•
42:57
Filip Drimalka The Future of No Work: AI-Powered Career Independence for One-Person Businesses
Filip Drimalka wrote The Future of No Work and helps independent professionals build AI-enhanced workflows that turn one-person operations into sustainable businesses without traditional employment structures.Filip explains why AI fluenc...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 67
•
32:18
Michal Novotný Preventive Wellness: Physical Foundations for Sustained Independent Practice
Preventive wellness strategies for independent professionals whose practice needs to last another 10 or 20 years beyond traditional retirement. Michal Novotný is a physiotherapist and fitness coach who has worked with elite athletes...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 66
•
48:58
Anna Burgess Yang Solopreneur Workflow: Airtable, Zapier, and AI for Freelance Content Writing
Anna Burgess Yang uses Airtable, Zapier, and generative AI to run a freelance content writing business built on lean thinking principles, after leaving a FinTech executive career to work independently while raising three children.Anna ex...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 65
•
49:57
Krisna Hanks Metabolic Sparks: Why Movement Breaks Beat Exercise for Sedentary Professionals
Movement breaks throughout the day matter more than a morning workout if you sit for hours as an independent professional over 50. Krisna Hanks is a metabolic health expert and Director of Employee Wellness Programs at Ovadia Heart ...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 64
•
47:47
Tonianne DeMaria Personal Kanban: Visual Workflow Systems for Independent Professionals
Tonianne DeMaria co-wrote Personal Kanban to help professionals make work visible through simple workflow systems that replace conventional task management with better decision-making and sustained energy.Tonianne explains why standard p...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 63
•
1:05:32