Have you ever pushed yourself harder, done all the "right" things, and still felt worse? Sarah Ann Macklin is a model turned nutritionist, author of Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard (Penguin Random House), and host of the acclaimed Live Well Be Well podcast, one of the UK's top health shows dedicated to demystifying wellbeing with compassion and evidence-backed insight.

In this episode, Sarah Ann shares her personal story of being hospitalised at 23 despite following every health protocol she had been given, and how that experience sent her down a completely different path, one that led her to a radical rethinking of what health actually means.

We explore why self-compassion is not a soft, feel-good concept but a science-backed performance and leadership tool, and how the relentless self-criticism most of us carry is quietly driving inflammation, poor metabolic function, and burnout. Sarah Ann also unpacks the fascinating research of Dr. Ellen Langer, whose hotel maid study showed that simply changing your perception of what you are doing can change your physiology.

For leaders, this conversation asks a question most never think to ask: not what do I need to do to get results, but how do I need to be? Sarah Ann introduces her three-stage model of self-compassion and explains why understanding whether you are a thinker or a feeler is the key to knowing which tools will actually work for you.

You will leave this conversation with a fresh lens on health, performance, and what it really means to be on your own side.

You can connect with Sarah Thorpe Scott on:

• her website: ⁠https://www.thorpe-scott.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-thorpe-scott-93a78a12

• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/thorpe__scott/

• by subscribing to Sarah's ⁠Field Notes newsletter⁠: https://sarahthorpescott.myflodesk.com/podcast-join

  
  

Find out more about Sarah and Matthew's Nervous System Summit ⁠here⁠: ⁠https://www.thorpe-scott.com/nervoussystem⁠.

You can hear more from Sarah Ann Macklin:

• on her⁠ website: https://www.sarahannmacklin.com/
• on⁠ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/⁠

You can find her book Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard wherever books are sold.

If you’d like to revisit this conversation, you can check out the transcript: https://www.thorpe-scott.com/sarah-ann-macklin-transcript

Production support from ⁠Rethink Audio⁠ & Alice Giuditta.