A Life Less Ordinary with Sophie Elwes
Hosted by Sophie Elwes, who knows a thing or two about overcoming difficulties, after sustaining a spinal cord injury in 2011. Each episode Sophie will interview an extraordinary guest who has faced and overcome enormous challenges and adversity and is achieving incredible things in spite of what they've had to deal with. She'll be finding out their story, about their greatest struggles and triumphs, and asking them what advice they would share with other people dealing with challenges of their own.
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 51 minutes
- Episodes
- 39
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2023
A Life Less Ordinary Host Finale! Sophie Elwes - Surviving despite the odds, carving your own destiny and being grateful for all of the things
For this epsiode Sophie is interviewed by her good friend Sarah Orr (who appeared in series two of A Life Less Ordinary with Sophie Elwes). Sophie tells her story from when she sustained her spinal c…
Jambo Truong - Witnessing his sister’s death at a young age, growing up queer and Asian in South Wales and and why trauma is your trajectory
Jambo Truong is a practitioner of integrative medicine with a specialism in complimentary medicine and therapies who has impressive credentials and a vast knowledge and repertoire of different practi…
Sophie Dear - How speaking to her inner child transformed her life, how to set boundaries and realise your self-worth
Sophie Dear is a yoga teacher and self-worth coach who struggled with insomnia and undiagnosed anxiety since the age of 15.
She appeared to have a thriving career in the TV industry but it wasn't unt…
Raquel Siganporia - Becoming a wheelchair user at age 11, top tips to assert yourself, and what she wishes people knew about sex and disability
Raquel Siganporia is the Director of Business Development and Senior Solicitor at Aspire Law and she sustained a spinal cord injury following surgery to correct the curvature of her spine, or scolios…
Adam Wilder - Authentic intimacy, honouring ourselves and why playfulness is sacred.
Adam is the founder of Togetherness which is a social enterprise whose purpose is to make meaningful connection more accessible in our culture.
Having been a people pleaser and studied it in depth, A…
Lauren Murrell - Getting a cancer diagnosis in her early twenties, manifestation and why main character energy works
Whilst in her last year of law school, in her early twenties, Lauren Murrell was diagnosed with an aggressive form of blood cancer (myeloid leukaemia) with only 20% chance of survival. Whilst she wa…
Melanie Woods - Becoming paralysed after being hit by a car, finding fun in the darkest of situations and competing at the Paralympics before she expected
Melanie Woods is a former PE teacher and GB Paralympic athlete who sustained a spinal cord injury after being hit by a car whilst riding her bike. She tells me about her experience of rehabilitation,…
Carlos Cervantes - Discovering meditation, cultivating creativity and becoming symptom free from bipolar disorder
This was such a special conversation with Carlos Cervantes who talks about his experiences in his late teens and early 20s of suffering from severe depression, 'overdoing it' on drink and drugs, drop…
Bonus episode! Dr Clair Pollard - A psychologist's guide to helping others, breaking her back in Namibia and thinking about the stories we tell ourselves
Working in the NHS for 27 years, Dr Clair Pollard is a Clinical Psychologist and Acting Director for a large psychology mental health trust in South London and a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. She …
LGBTQ+ pride month bonus episode! Rosie Wilby - post-traumatic growth after a breakup, reinvestigating monogamy and sex party etiquette
Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian, author and podcaster who has appeared a number of times on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Woman's Hour, Saturday Live and Four Thought. Her first book Is M…
Bonus episode! Alexandra Adams - Getting gaslit by medical staff, running out of resilience and blowing up on TikTok
Alexandra Adams was the first guest on this podcast, and the inspiration behind starting A Life Less Ordinary. She's also a medical student who is deaf-blind. In 2020 she went into hospital with sym…
Grace Spence Green - Radical acceptance, internalised ableism and how to ‘take up space’
Grace Spence Green is a junior doctor and a wheelchair user. Growing up, she had her heart set on becoming a doctor from the age of eight and was a keen competitive climber. In an extraordinary incid…
Mark Berry - Why training is for everyone, questioning limitations placed upon us and the gift of realising your self-worth
This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Berry who is my friend and personal trainer. We’ve known each other for years and every time I have a session with him, we end up deep in conversatio…
Gail Muller - Coping with chronic pain, hiking the Appalachian Trail and the power of surrender
Gail Muller is an adventurer, educator and author. Growing up in Cornwall, she was sporty and outdoorsy, but at 14 was told she’d need to use a wheelchair by the age of 40 due to muscular-skeletal is…
Kalim Smith - The healing power of plants, how serious injury brought out the adventurer in him and why listening to his gut paid off
Based partly in Carlsbad, CA and in Keauhou, Hawaii, Kalim Smith and I met a few years back at a ski race in New Hampshire, after which we discovered we had a mutual friend/relative and since then we…
James Dashwood - Addiction, coping mechanisms and the quest for connection
Head of Wellbeing at leading employee wellbeing platform, Better Space, James Dashwood is a father, a husband, and a recovering alcoholic.
Sober for seven years he has been on a journey of introspect…
Andrew Cotton - The power of breathwork, breaking his back surfing a 75ft wave, and using his mindset to overcome fear
Andrew Cotton is a big wave surfer and Red Bull athlete. Growing up in North Devon, he started at 7 and it became his life. He left school and worked in a local surfboard factory until the age of 25 …
Cathy Reay - Empowering her kids to find their own way, self acceptance and choosing the spaces to exist in
Cathy Reay is a writer, editor, disability consultant and influencer. She is also a single mother of two and her Instagram account provides a great insight into life as a mum with dwarfism, disabilit…
Gregory David Roberts - Spirituality, finding solace in solitary confinement and life in an Indian slum
Gregory David Roberts is the author of best selling novel, Shantaram and sequel, Mountain Shadow. Selling over 6 million copies, it is partly based on Gregory's own life experience of escaping prison…
Mo Gawdat - Engineering happiness, losing his beloved son Ali, and how to take control of your thoughts
Mo Gawdat is the former Chief Business Officer at Google X (aka the Moonshoot Factory) and before that had a successful career as a stock-trader and tech executive in Dubai. Despite having profession…