Welcome to the Work Joy Jam podcast. I'm your host Beth Stalwart, and every week I am joined by a person from the world of work who has a perspective on workjoy. And today I am joined by the wonderful Sarah Browning. She is the founder of the Time for kindness program, am and a kindness cheerleader and communicator. And she helps organizations, especially in the not for profit world, find ways to communicate their kindness stories. And I think this subject is so important when we think about workjoy and they're really, really related, this idea of noticing kindness when we see it, of sharing it, when we see it, of thinking the kindest possible way that we could do something, even when those things might be really, really tough. So I really hope you enjoy this conversation. I know I did. Welcome to the Workjoy Jam podcast. I am very excited today to be joined by the wonderful Sarah Browning. And Sarah and I met a few months ago, I can't even remember how. Via some kind of mutual something or other, I'm sure. And I asked Sarah to come on because I think she's got some really interesting things to talk about, especially in the world of kindness, which is something I think we all need more of in our lives. But rather than me introduce Sarah properly, I'm going to hand over to you. Sarah, can you tell us who you are? I feel like scylla black, like who you are, what you do and how your career got you to where you are today.

Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's very exciting to be here. And as you say, I'm sure we'll talk about all sorts of things, but kindness is one of my favorite topics, so it will be great to talk about it. But in terms of my career, so I had a very academic education, which worked really, really well for me. I like learning, so that was fantastic. But it was set up a little bit more to sort of take you onto the next step. So it meant that I went to university to do my favorite school subject. And then when I graduated, I had no idea what I wanted to do proper job. So I went traveling.

Yeah, just ignore the question.

But then I came back and my first job, because I needed some money, really was as a pensions administrator for a big financial company, which was not something I dreamed of, but in actual fact gave me a really good opportunity to have a look around and see what do people do in work, what are there? And from there I discovered what turned out to be the internal communications team, and that became my job, basically. And I did that for many years, first of all at the financial company. And then when I left there, I went to cancer research UK and was also in the internal comms team there and I had always loved stories and writing and that sort of thing. My degree was languages, so it was all quite natural. And when I left Cancer Research UK, I decided to set up my own business. And because I'd been working in the charity sector, I carried on working with not for profit organisations and helping them to be effective in their communication and beyond their internal comms, but to connect with all sorts of different audiences. And that's what I've continued to do up until today, the last couple of years, that has also evolved to be thinking about I got to thinking about I talked about my clients wanting the better or having a vision, I suppose, of a better world and I got to thinking, but what do I mean by that? And that's when the kindness started to sort of be articulated, I suppose, when I realized that I mean a kinder world and beyond that, I believe there's lots of kindness in the world already, I just don't think we talk about it enough. And so the Time for Kindness program, which I now run alongside my communications work, is all about amplifying and sharing stories of the kindness that already exists in the world. And that's about giving people positivity hope in a world that, let's be honest, doesn't always give it to us. But it is there, and we need to train ourselves to notice it more.

So true and I'm really interested in it and there's so many things I want to pick up on as well. So are you all right if I dive in with some thoughts and some questions?

Please do.