This conversation with Moira Carmenate is slightly unusual for the podcast, because Moira isn’t just the guest. She’s also my mum.

Recording this episode felt a little like opening a family archive that probably should have stayed closed. Behind the stories, though, is a mindset that shaped much of how I think about resilience and getting back up when things fall apart.

Moira grew up in Scotland under extremely difficult circumstances and lost the only stable figure in her life by the age of seventeen. From there she rebuilt repeatedly. She ran a hotel in her twenties, escaped an abusive marriage with two young children, started again from nothing, and eventually built a successful career in financial services where she became one of the few women in senior leadership roles at the time.

Later in life she reinvented herself ag ...