Today I’m interviewing Maria Evans, who is a coach and mentor for teenagers and works one-to-one with young people on their self-confidence and self-belief. I was really keen to talk to Maria because I feel like a lot of the issues affecting teenagers are also really relevant to us as adults - especially how addicted we may feel to our phones, and the way we compare ourselves and our lives to what we see online - so we chatted a lot about that and what we are each doing to cultivate a healthier relationship with screens. We also talked about how Maria left teaching, trained as social media manager, bravely decided it wasn’t for her than moved into this really unique kind of coaching business, and how she is unlearning a lot of things as she starts her business, and the importance of all of us finding our spark.

"These platforms are designed to be addictive, they’re designed to keep you there and keep you on for as long as possible." - Maria Evans

Some of the things we talked about:

• The joy and the stress of teaching and why Maria quit to become self-employed
• Starting off doing one thing and realising it wasn't right for her - and the feelings that can bring up
• How training in social media management showed Maria its dangers
• All the mindset stuff that goes into starting something new
• The problem with teens and social media (and the boundaries we all need to set)
• The difficulty;ty in enforcing phone & social media boundaries when you run an online business
• A little bit of nostalgic chat about the good old days of early technology!
• Learning to “read” the truth of images we are bombarded with online
• The importance of allowing children (and ourselves!) to find our spark