Ollie Cook spent nine years training full-time to reach the Olympics. When Tokyo ended in a heartbreaking fourth-place finish, he faced a difficult decision: return for another Games or build a different future.

In this episode, host Anne-Marie Kruk talks with Ollie about his journey into rowing, spending three years as a reserve, and discovering that working harder wasn’t the same as having the tools to improve.

They explore how studying the physical, psychological and philosophical sides of performance changed his approach, and how mentoring through the True Athlete Project helped him navigate uncertainty. Ollie also speaks openly about Olympic disappointment, the difficulty of leaving sport, and finding new opportunities at Oxford.

That next chapter included helping create a programme bringing local schoolchildren into the university through sport and learning. He shares how it grew, why removing financial barriers matters, and his belief that we have a responsibility to leave things better for future generations.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• How Ollie found his way into rowing and the British national team

• What changed after three years as a reserve, injury and setbacks

• Why performance involves more than physical training

• How mentoring and a sense of purpose helped him through uncertainty

• What it meant to leave rowing without the Olympic ending he wanted

• How sport can open doors to education and opportunity

New episodes every Tuesday.

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse

YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse

Amazon Music → https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse

What’s it like to put your arm inside a shark’s mouth or swim beside a rare white whale?

In this ocean special, Anne-Marie brings together highlights and previously unheard footage from three extraordinary guests:

🦈 Cristina Zenato shares how she began removing fishing hooks from sharks, the personalities she’s come to know, and why some sharks settle into her lap.

🐋 Pip Jacobs from ORRCA reveals why leopard seals sometimes require police assistance and how a remarkable white-whale sighting became an international detective story.

🌊 Tris Sheen takes us into the water with the albino humpback calf Siale, before sharing unexpected encounters with swimming pigs and squid.

With her own love of the ocean and six years as a volunteer surf lifesaver on Bondi Beach, Anne-Marie explores the curiosity, compassion and joy these encounters inspire.

🎧 Find the full conversations with each of these guests on The Greaterverse.

💫 Follow or subscribe for more incredible people doing incredible things.

New episodes every Tuesday.

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@greaterversepod⁠

YouTube → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Amazon Music → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse⁠⁠⁠⁠

Episode Resources: Cristina Zenato

Instagram → @cristinazenato

Episode Resources: ORRCA

Instagram → @orrcaaustralia

Website → https://www.orrca.org.au/

Episode Resources: Tris Sheen/ Tribe Wildlife

Instagram → @tris_sheenie / @tribe_wildlife

Website → https://www.tribewildlife.com/

What if a small, hand-sewn heart helped save someone’s life?

In this special episode for World Mental Health Day, I bring together conversations about happiness, connection and the small things that can make a profound difference, with moments from four incredible guests, most of which have never been shared before.

I also share a little of my own story: how living with PTSD led me to create The Greaterverse podcast, and how these conversations have helped me find joy again.

Joining me are Joshua Coombes, Toby Maguire, Shreeya Giri and Sarah De Jonge. Together, we explore facing discomfort, meditation, changing priorities, making time for fun and the comfort of knowing someone cares.

There’s laughter, there are emotional moments, and there are ideas you might want to take into your own life.

Each guest’s full conversation is available on The Greaterverse, wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow for new episodes every Tuesday.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of PTSD and suicide. If you’re struggling with your mental health, please reach out to your GP or a mental health support service where you live.

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse⁠⁠⁠⁠

YouTube → ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse⁠⁠⁠⁠

Amazon Music → ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse⁠⁠⁠

Episode Resources: Joshua Coombes

Instagram → @joshuacoombes

Website → https://www.joshuacoombes.com/

Episode Resources: Toby Maguire

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/toby-maguire-coaching/

Website → https://www.tobymaguire.com/

Episode Resources: Shreeya Giri

Instagram → happyminds.health

Episode Resources: Sarah De Jonge

Instagram → @1000_hearts

Website → https://www.1000hearts.com.au/

Danielle Alakija reached the Olympics at just 16. Running took her from Fiji onto the world stage, but her story didn’t end at the finish line.

In this episode, host Anne-Marie Kruk, talks with Danielle about loving the feeling of running, finding her way into sports photography, and using the camera to show female athletes for their strength, skill and years of work.

They discuss what young women in sport need to be safe, why women’s sport deserves greater investment, and what it’s like to be one of very few Black women in the photographers’ room. Danielle also shares how she built The SOLI Group, how growing up in Fiji, climate change has never felt like a distant issue, and why using her platform as an athlete to advocate for climate action through Adapt2Win is so important.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• What took Danielle to the Olympics at 16, and why she still loves to run
• How she moved from competing to photographing athletes
• Why strength and skill should be central to images of women in sport
• Her perspective on opportunity, representation and equal respect
• Why she’s bringing an athlete’s voice to climate action

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New episodes every Tuesday.

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → ⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse⁠⁠⁠

YouTube → ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse⁠⁠⁠

Amazon Music → ⁠⁠⁠https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse⁠⁠

Episode Resources: Danielle Alakija, The SOLI Group

Instagram → @daniellealakija

TikTok → @daniellealakija

At 28, newly married and building her career, Allie Brummel discovered that the lump she had been told was “nothing” was triple-negative breast cancer.

This week, Anne-Marie is joined by Allie Brumel, breast cancer survivor and co-founder of The Breasties: a global nonprofit supporting people affected by breast and gynaecological cancers through community, education and advocacy.

What began with social-media connections, informal meet-ups and a retreat for 20 people has grown into a global community, including Camp Breastie, which now welcomes more than 500 people.

Allie shares why survivorship was one of the hardest parts of her experience, how creating The Breasties became intertwined with her own healing and why the organisation believes that “community is treatment.”

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• Why Allie had to advocate for herself after her concerns were initially dismissed
• How The Breasties grew from informal meet-ups into a global community
• Why connection and story-sharing can transform individual lives, systems and policy
• How Allie’s experience of parenthood after cancer inspired new support and advocacy for families

New Episodes Every Tuesday

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → ⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse⁠⁠

YouTube → ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse⁠⁠

Amazon Music → ⁠⁠https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse⁠

Episode Resources: The Breasties

Instagram → @the_breasties

YouTube → @thebreasties

Website → ⁠https://thebreasties.org

Sharks have survived five mass extinctions, can sense hurricanes before they arrive and have distinct personalities. Yet we continue to view more than 500 different species through one narrow lens: something to fear.

In this episode, Anne-Marie is joined by Cristina Zenato, shark ecologist and behaviourist, professional diver, cave explorer and ocean advocate who has spent more than three decades working alongside sharks in The Bahamas.

Cristina shares how her childhood dream of becoming an “underwater scuba ranger with sharks for friends” became her life, and why that journey was anything but straightforward.

From helping to secure legal protection for sharks in The Bahamas to personally removing more than 400 hooks from their bodies, Cristina’s work is grounded in trust, understanding and love.

This conversation challenges what we think we know about sharks and explores how individual actions can come together to create meaningful change for our oceans.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• Why treating every shark as though it were the same animal distorts our understanding of more than 500 species
• How sharks communicate, their individual personalities and super powers
• Why Cristina began removing hooks from sharks
• How her childhood dream survived rejection, setbacks and having to rebuild her life’s work
• Why protecting the ocean begins with the small choices each of us makes every day

New Episodes Every Tuesday

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse⁠

YouTube → ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse⁠

Amazon Music → ⁠https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse

Episode Resources: Cristina Zenato

Instagram → @cristinazenato

Website → www.cristinazenato.com

For Alek Lev, creativity is not simply about what gets made. It is about the life lived while making it.

In this episode of The Greaterverse, Anne-Marie Kruk is joined by Alek Lev, director, writer, producer, editor, podcaster and nationally certified American Sign Language interpreter.

Alek’s creative path has taken him from making films with two VCRs as a child to theatre, filmmaking and working behind the scenes on How I Met Your Mother, where he created digital content, DVD extras and the show’s original podcast. Along the way, an almost accidental decision to study American Sign Language led to nearly 25 years of interpreting and deep, long-standing creative collaborations within the Deaf community.

Today, Alek produces How We Made Your Mother with Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas, directs one-person theatre and continues experimenting with new ways of telling stories, including an entirely improvised feature film created from nothing over four days.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• How Alek helped create the original How I Met Your Mother podcast before podcasting became mainstream
• What learning American Sign Language taught him about Deaf culture, community and representation
• Why Deaf creatives need opportunities and influence behind the camera, not only roles in front of it
• How Alek and a team of improvisers created an entire feature film without a script, characters or plot
• Why he, Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas chose creative independence when making How We Made Your Mother

New Episodes Every Tuesday

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse

YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse

Amazon Music → https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse

Episode Resources: Alek Lev/How We Made Your Mother

Instagram → @howwemadeyourmother

Alek Lev Website → aleklev.com

HWMYM Website: https://www.howwemadeyourmother.com/

For Joshua Coombes, connection begins with one thing: truly seeing the person in front of you.

In this episode of The Greaterverse, Anne-Marie Kruk is joined by Joshua Coombes, speaker, author, educator and founder of #DoSomethingForNothing, a movement encouraging people to use their skills and time to connect with others.

Joshua’s journey began when he took his scissors onto the streets of London and started offering free haircuts to people experiencing homelessness. What began as a simple act grew into a decade of encounters around the world that challenged his understanding of helping others and taught him the power of meeting people with dignity, openness and vulnerability.

Today, Joshua is bringing those lessons into schools, encouraging young people to look beyond conventional ideas of success and explore what genuinely sparks their interest.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• Why Joshua believes we should ask young people why they want to pursue something, not simply what they want to be

• What people experiencing homelessness taught him about dignity, vulnerability and human connection

• Why the advice that resonates may be confirming something we already know

• How learning to face discomfort helped Joshua develop greater self-compassion

• Why sitting beneath a tree without your phone might reveal more than you expect

  
  

New Episodes Every Tuesday

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse

YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse

Amazon Music → https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse

Episode Resources: Joshua Coombes

Instagram → @joshuacoombes

Website → joshuacoombes.com