Are you avoiding difficult conversations at work or at home and finding you pay the price for it down the line? Scarlett McCabe is the co-founder and CEO of Debate Mate Training, an organisation that has spent 15 years teaching young people and leaders how to think critically, communicate clearly, and disagree productively.

In this conversation, Scarlett makes the case that our collective ability to disagree well has collapsed, and that the cost shows up everywhere, from quiet quitting and disengagement to toxic conflict and poor decision-making. She traces her own We Don't Have to Live Like This moment to an early investor meeting where she lost her cool, matched the energy of a combative room, and left feeling like she had given away the win. That moment became the foundation of everything she now teaches.

We explore why listening to understand rather than to respond is the single most powerful thing you can do before any difficult conversation, how to find common ground even when you fundamentally disagree, and why disagreement over a misunderstanding is, as Scarlett puts it, almost unforgivable, because it is entirely solvable.

You will leave this conversation with a two-step framework for any high-stakes conversation, a reframe on conflict as a route to connection rather than a threat to it, and a simple pause practice that works whether you are in a boardroom or a kitchen.

Find out more about Debate Mate Training at: https://www.debatematetrain.com

You can connect with Sarah on:

• her website: www.thorpe-scott.com

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarahthorpescott

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thorpe__scott

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

If you’d like to revisit this conversation, you can check out the transcript: ​​https://thorpe-scott.com/scarlett-mccabe-transcript​​

Production support from ⁠Rethink Audio⁠ & Alice Giuditta.

Are you pushing yourself to stay on top of everything—yet feeling as though the ‘aliveness’ has been quietly optimised out of your life?

In this episode, we welcome Oliver Burkeman, bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks and Meditations for Mortals and former Guardian columnist on productivity and living well. Oliver reflects on his decade-long journey from cynicism to sincerity, sharing how his search for the perfect system ultimately revealed a deeper truth: the effort to conquer our limits is fundamentally at odds with reality.

We explore the pervasive urge to “clench”—a physical and psychological bracing against life—and how this habit pulls us away from the truth of our finite time. Oliver argues that embracing our limitations is not a failure, but a powerful gateway to greater freedom. Challenging the modern obsession with mastering time, he offers a more humane perspective on living well.

This conversation invites you to rethink what truly matters, loosen your grip on constant optimisation, and rediscover a more intuitive approach to time—one that restores your capacity to feel fully alive, present, and human.

You can connect with Sarah on:

• her website: www.thorpe-scott.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarahthorpescott
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thorpe__scott
• by subscribing to Sarah's ⁠Field Notes newsletter⁠: https://sarahthorpescott.myflodesk.com/podcast-join

If you’d like to revisit this conversation, you can check out the transcript: https://thorpe-scott.com/oliver-burkeman-transcript

Production support from ⁠Rethink Audio⁠ & Alice Giuditta.

Do you feel like you slip back into childhood dynamics the moment you visit your parents? Kan Yan is the founder of Parents Reimagined, a platform helping people transform adult parent-child relationships, something even high-performing adults struggle with.

To help us make sense of these dynamics, Kan shares his personal journey of healing a difficult relationship with his father and offers a roadmap for shifting from a hierarchical "Parent-Child" dynamic to a balanced "Adult-Adult" connection.

Kan brings a huge breadth of knowledge to the show, leaving you with the building blocks to create deeper connections with your parents and, in turn, your own children.

You can connect with Sarah on:

• her website: ⁠www.thorpe-scott.com⁠
• LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/sarahthorpescott⁠
• Instagram: ⁠www.instagram.com/thorpe__scott⁠
• by subscribing to Sarah's ⁠Field Notes newsletter⁠: ⁠https://sarahthorpescott.myflodesk.com/podcast-join

Find out about Sarah’s Nervous System Summit ⁠here⁠: www.thorpe-scott.com/nervoussystem.

If you’d like to revisit this conversation, you can check out the transcript: https://thorpe-scott.com/kan-yan-transcript

Production support from ⁠Rethink Audio⁠ & Alice Giuditta.