Apple Podcasts
SpotifyScwair One presents Speaking of Success (SÖS) – episode six with inclusion consultant and facilitator Helen Bazuaye, on discernment in a noisy world, why nerves never really leave, and why joy might be the most radical act available to us right now.
Helen Bazuaye has spent her career in rooms full of strong personalities – editing magazines, facilitating boardrooms, training corporate teams, and building a programme for care-experienced young people from the ground up. And yet, when it comes to standing on a stage and speaking for herself, she’s deliberately held back.
In this conversation, Helen talks honestly about what it really means to use your voice, the difference between speaking at people and speaking with them, and why joy – not anger – might be the most radical act available to us right now.
We cover: the unexpected through-line from magazine editor to inclusion consultant, why being nervous never goes away (and why that’s fine), the difference between performing and connecting, and what the We Are Here project means to her, and to the young people it reaches.
It’s a rich, warm, and quietly urgent conversation.
The line that stayed with me: ‘Our joy is a powerful thing.’
I delayed this podcast for years because I didn’t trust my own voice. Helen’s been holding back from the stage on purpose.
Different reasons. Same place. This conversation moved me.
In this episode you’ll learn…
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The unexpected through-line from teen magazine editor to inclusion consultant – and what each redundancy taught Helen about pivoting before she could see where she was going.
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Why nerves never go away, even after twenty years of holding rooms. Helen’s stomach still “turns to water” before every session – and why that turns out to be exactly the right thing.
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The difference between performing and connecting – what Creative Equals and Curve facilitation training taught Helen that most public speaking advice misses entirely.
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Why Helen has deliberately held back from the stage, and what she means when she says “the air is full of people’s noise and chatter” – the discernment question every creative needs to be asking right now.
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We Are Here – the social impact programme Helen built from the ground up for care-experienced young people, the moment she realised her own care experience was the through-line, and the unexpected guests (a CEO, an author, a magazine designer) who turned up for it.
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What it actually takes to run a workshop for 500+ people across global time zones during lockdown – and why the prep work matters more than anything that happens on the day.
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The radical act of joy – why Helen thinks joy, not anger, might be the most important thing creatives can hold onto right now, and what that has to do with citizens, consumers, and the algorithms keeping us all stirred up.
