The Connect With Purpose Project
Your purpose is not some distant destination reserved for a few—it’s already within you, waiting to be heard. Often, it’s in the quiet whispers we try to ignore that hold the key to our deepest calling. This podcast is about listening to those whispers and taking the first steps, even when it feels scary.
Our guests have faced the same struggles—feeling stuck, unsure, or burned out—but found their way by trusting that inner voice. If you’re alive, your mission is not complete. You’re here for a reason.
The Connect With Purpose Project
From 9 to Thrive: How Diary of a CEO’s Team Tests, Learns & Grows with Purpose
You’ve listened to Diary of a CEO. You’ve heard the billion-streams headlines. But what’s it really like behind the scenes of Steven Bartlett’s media empire?
In this special bonus episode—recorded live at The Podcast Show in London—we sit down with Natasha Birk, Creator Ventures Manager at Flight Story, the company co-founded by Bartlett to help brands grow through world-class content, strategy, and storytelling. She reveals the exceptional culture within Flight Story that immediately captivated her, and how you can apply that in your role, department, and organization at large.
Natasha also shares the journey she took from teen entrepreneur to helping shape one of the world’s most impactful business podcasts. Along the way, she reveals powerful, practical insights you can apply—whether you’re leading a team in a C-level role, building your own brand, or pushing innovation inside an organization of any size.
We talk about:
- How to actually tell a brand story that sticks
- Why testing beats guessing (and how the team at Diary of a CEO does it)
- The "good side" of AI and how to use it to supercharge your day
- What corporate teams can learn from creators—and vice versa
If you’re ready to grow with purpose, this one’s for you.
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Know someone who's flipped the table on their career to follow their life's purpose? Let us know at titan-one.co.
Where we are with Diary of a CEO and what has now become Flight Story, it genuinely just feels like an entrepreneurs playground, like every day. We've got, you know, experts in their field all around us. We're starting businesses on the back of creators. We're, you know, looking at, how can we do things differently in the industry? And yeah, for me, that's just the most exciting thing to do every single day.
Nicole Gottselig:Hello and welcome to connect with purpose, where we uncover the journeys of remarkable people who have turned their passions into a Purpose Driven Life. I'm your host. Nicole gotzeleg, and whether you're on your own quest for meaning or simply curious how others have navigated their paths. This show is here to inspire and guide you along the way. If you're one of the millions of fans of Diary of a CEO, you know it's not just another business podcast. It's really a cultural force, and with over a billion streams, Steven Bartlett has turned deep human conversations into must hear content for entrepreneurs and executives alike, with iconic guests intersecting every road, including the likes of Richard Branson, Michelle Obama, Mr. Beast, Simon Sinek, Mel C the list just goes on. This show has reshaped what it means to connect with purpose in business and in life, and behind all that success, a team of remarkable minds helping to make it happen. Today's guest is one of those minds, Natasha Burke, a dynamic force and the creator ventures manager at flight story, the agency co founded by Steven Bartlett that's helping brands grow through bold storytelling and relentless experimentation. I sat down with Natasha at the podcast show in London to dive into her story how she began her career, building a global green beauty brand in her early 20s to now launching new ventures for one of the most listened to and influential podcast ecosystems in the world. She brings fresh thinking, unmatched energy and actionable insight into everything she touches and more importantly, we learn how Natasha's approach can help you. So whether you're a career marketer, a creative a team lead, climbing the ladder, or a C level, leading your company to new heights, tap into your own entrepreneurial playground and reshape the way you think about innovation at work, in this episode, you're going to learn what goes into creating world class brand storytelling, how to scale content that actually connects, how to test, learn and lead without needing a billion dollar budget, and how the right culture unlocks extraordinary performance. So let's get into it. Hey everyone, it's Nicole from connect with corpus here, and I am here live from the London podcast show and sitting down with us today for a special bonus episode is Natasha Burke. Natasha is a creator ventures manager for flight story where she works with Steven Bartlett on Diary of a CEO. And I just sat in on Natasha's session today, and it was all about creator entrepreneurship. And first of all, before we dive into our special episode, Natasha, welcome to Connect With Purpose.
Natasha Birk:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Nicole Gottselig:I would love to introduce the audience to who you are, and one of the things that struck me so much about you as you are, someone who really lives life on purpose and as a creator yourself, as an entrepreneur and a founder, you've definitely said no to a corporate system and a certain nine to five grind per se, and you've definitely carved a niche for yourself, which is so inspiring to any creator out there, from an Individual creator to a big brand or business, so just walk us through your career trajectory a little bit. And how did you just get to be, like, I'm doing my own thing.
Natasha Birk:Yeah, no, it's super interesting. Like you say it's, it's been a journey, and one that, yeah, if I had looked at myself three, five, you know, years in the future and thought, is this where I'm gonna be, you know, I probably couldn't even picture that in my head, which is amazing, but yeah, essentially, to take you back to little old me, started my first business when I was 10 years old, knocking on doors on my street, selling artwork that I'd created. I think just from a very young age, I was always kind of like, had that entrepreneurial spirit, just very much like, Yeah, well, I made money doing that, so why not try something else and keep trying those different things? So I think, yeah, basically, at a young age, I got that evidence very quickly. So I was like, Okay, let me keep trying more things and which, yeah, then when I was about 20 years old, started my first e commerce brand, Laguna lashes, a sustainable eyelash brand, and its whole mission was about essentially eliminating the classic problem in the beauty industry. And again, huge success. Ended up winning a global green beauty award. So naturally, when I was kind of like finishing my studies, I was like, I'm not gonna join a company. Like, I like this entrepreneurship thing. I was fascinated by businesses, the way they. Work that all the kind of architecture behind them. And yeah, I was like, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be, you know, taking that entrepreneur over it, and I'm gonna be doing my own thing. Then, yeah, got a couple messages, and I've been in contact with the Steven Bartlett Diary of a CEO team. And yeah, it started as a one month contract. Essentially, they were like, you know, they needed me for a specific project. And I was like, this is perfect. I'll give it a little test run, and then I'll go Bucha my business. And absolutely fell in love with the culture, the people, the way the whole organization is built. It's not your like, you just said there. Like, it's not your typical nine to five. I think I had, like, if someone had said, Are you gonna go and get a job? It's almost like I had this allergic reaction. Oh, allergic reaction. I was like, never, like, I'm doing my own thing. But honestly, like, where we are with Darius and what has now become flight story, it genuinely just feels like an entrepreneurs playground, like every day we've got, you know, experts in their field all around us. We're starting businesses on the back of creators where, you know, looking at, how can we do things differently in the industry? And yeah, for me, that's just the most exciting thing to do every single day. Oh,
Nicole Gottselig:I can feel this energy that comes out of you. So when you were standing on the stage, I can, I could see your whole face, and your whole eyes light up as you were actually giving this presentation. And I actually felt part of your story with you. So you really have a way of actually bringing people into the story. So how could they start to own their stories online and think more like you, like an entrepreneur, I think more like a business, and not just like, Okay, gotta create something, dump it off and then whatever.
Natasha Birk:I think, yeah, that's the thing. Like you say, especially for businesses, sometimes there's this idea of, like, there's a certain way to post, so there's a certain way to kind of tell your story, but at the end of the day, like, even you know you're mentioning the stage there, like we're all people, and we're people connecting with people. So just because there's that screen in between us, kind of almost, it's really interesting thing, because you could have one conversation with someone in person, and they're like, lit up about their business. They're like, this is the best thing ever. And then they'll go and write, let's say, LinkedIn posts about it. And like, where's that energy gone? Like, it just completely gets lost. And I think looking at it through the lens of, like, yeah, you're speaking to a human. Forget what platform it is. Forget, you know, kind of like, all those different things, what? Yeah, like, what is your story? And how can you tell it in a way that you would actually just say it to a genuine human being. What's the language you would use? How do you get them engaged? Like, that's the way that I think that a lot of people kind of sometimes try and over engineer it and take those, like, the energy and the fun out of it. So I would say that, yeah, also, yeah, remembering that kind of like you said the purpose and the why that? Why that you're doing it. A lot of people can say it in person, but then they get behind a screen and they're like, You can't do it anymore. You know, I'll completely kind of re engineer it.
Nicole Gottselig:What does a typical day look like for you? Because it seems like you have many hands in many different places, like, does your day start at 5am or,
Natasha Birk:as in my routine, or my work day?
Nicole Gottselig:Let's just go with your work day.
Natasha Birk:Let's go with my work day. I always say at the minute, we've got a huge push, even as a company, but just in general, fascinated by, obviously, huge advancements in AI and all those different things. And had a few people come up to us and talk about that specifically today, like, literally at the first half an hour to hour of every single day, I block out to just be like, testing new tools, trying new things, building new things, you know, using different models and platforms, because it's one of them. And people even said it today, like, which platform should I use? It changes every day. Like, there's a new one coming out every day, every week. And I think that, yeah, unless you're kind of like spending your time investing to understand them, it's so easy to get left behind. So, yeah, that's kind of like the first half an hour to hour of every day, and then, honestly, after that, it is completely varied every single day. Sometimes it'll be more, you know, kind of like Team brainstorms meetings executed on certain projects that we've got live teams with the meetings of the marketing team. How do we grow our existing products? How do we launch our new products? And so, honestly, yeah, every day is completely different, and that's the way I love it. You know, all still kind of going towards that same North Star and vision, but, yeah, completely varied. And I Yeah, wouldn't have it any other way.
Nicole Gottselig:Oh, I love that. And I know with your role at flight story, obviously, growing an audience and connecting with an audience is imperative. It's why you're all here. And without an audience, there's there's no nothing's been a function, right? So one thing you also mentioned in your presentation that really was like a light bulb for me, is, how do you take the guesswork out of what your audience wants and needs from me, and how do you drill into giving them what it is that's going to make their lives better, make their jobs better, make them just feel better,
Natasha Birk:probably two sides of the coin. First of all, it does kind of start with knowing what you want to create content about. I think what's really interesting at the minute is that there's actually so many different niches and audiences online. So it's not necessarily, like, if you've got a certain niche, let's say it's gaming, let's say it's, you know, business, entrepreneurship, it's finance. I was chatting someone before that has an investments podcast, and he's kind of like building his audience there. The amazing thing now is that there are so many different niches that it's first like understanding who, who do you actually want to speak to? Like, are you speaking to the business owners? Are you speaking to the, you know, the corporate leaders, and you want to inspire them? Let's say so. First of all, understanding who those people are, because it's interesting as well, in terms like audience and social so that you might find a certain piece of content that attracts a certain audience. But months down the line, six months past, 12 months past, you've built up your followers. Let's say you got 50,000 100,000 you've got, you know, half a million, and you go, wait, but they're not buying the products that I've just made them. Let's say you've created some course or product like you wanted to create for corporate leaders. Well, maybe it's because they're not buying them, because they're not your target target audience. And actually, yes, you've been creating this content for the wrong audience all along. So I think it, yeah, fundamentally, it starts with, who are you trying to attract and why? And then it's understanding, like you say, it's almost the other side of it, okay, what content or are they already engaging with? And again, this is an interesting one, because speaking again in person, we'll know there's many different parts of a person's life. You know, if someone's kind of engaging in content about entrepreneurship and business. They may also engage with fashion content, beauty content, all these different things. There's almost all these different facets of that person. And I think that, yeah, sometimes we forget that online, and we create content specifically for like, that one lens of the person, whereas actually get creative, like, go out there, test things. And I think that that's the comparing thing in terms of, like, killing the guesswork and what your audience wants, like, we don't know, and what they want today might be different from tomorrow. So try, you know, test different pieces of content. If you're thinking like, oh, do they do? They prefer short form or long form, try one of each. Which one perform better? And if you know, would they prefer more lifestyle content, or would they prefer me sitting down to a camera and doing it like this, try five of each which one perform better and just constantly looking at the data to be like, Okay, now I know kind of which ones that they're they're engaging with,
Nicole Gottselig:because I know on Diary of a CEO, Steven Barlett said, Hey, we Sometimes test like 10 thumbnails on a YouTube video and like, or, I'm sure it's Yeah, right, yeah. And meanwhile, I'm like, Oh, I use my one, you know, thumbnail, and I just kind of hope for the best, right? But you guys are out there actually trying multiple, multiple and then you and then you see what works.
Natasha Birk:I think that's thing is that, like, we, we always Yeah, without fail, aim to kill the guesswork. Because what one, you know, we've been doing some work recently on a new brand that we're working on for a brand new venture. And all of us had favorites. All of us were like, that's the best brand. Like, this one's the best brand, you know, Steve was like, this one, so I think it's cool. And then the winner came and we're like, well, the data doesn't lie. Like a you can't, like, when the data comes back, that's the winning thumbnail. That's the winning brand. The data doesn't lie. And I think a lot of people can get caught up in, you know, their personal opinions and what then, you know, a flight story. We literally doesn't matter. Like, whatever the data says, like, that's where we go and, and, yeah, knowing that that kind of like, is the way forward. Because the thing is, those little decisions as well over time compound. So like you say, those little thumbnails, those, you know, picking the brand where, like, if we can do as much of killing the guesswork upfront, we're saving ourselves in marketing spend, and, you know, in paid ads down the line, in trying to educate people about what this actually is, all those micro kind of experiments and tests. And you're only gonna make our jobs easier in the long run.
Nicole Gottselig:You also bring up about AI and keeping up with AI as well. What tools do you find help make your job like so much easier than maybe even a year ago?
Natasha Birk:So one of the things kind of, even when you mentioned about what do you do start your day, previously to like building these previously to building these tools, it would be going and searching, staying up to date with all the different things. What's happening in the Creator economy, what's happening with creative brands? What are the new tools in E commerce, all these different things. So now, yeah, basically built an AI that sends the filters through them based on, like, what I am interested in, what are the key topics that I'm wanting to get on? And you know, it knows everything from like, where I'm wanting to go in my career, what am I going to learn next? And then it'll filter those and send them direct to my inbox. So then it's like, I'm not wasting all that time, you know, going through Google on the new search, thinking which ones are relevant to me. It's already done that work for me. I know. Yeah, we're trying to turn them into, like, a summary now, so it's actually just an extract. Yeah? Then it's like constantly staying up to date with those things. And
Nicole Gottselig:that's brilliant. I think there's the New York Times last year or year before, talked about this is the good side of a right taking away that the boring stuff, the tedious task, so you can actually hyper focus on where it is that you need to go to help you grow in your course up.
Natasha Birk:It's absolutely, I always say, don't. Some people are and, you know, there's understandably, sometimes apprehensions about AI and kind of where it's going. And you don't have to outsource your superpower, keep that, but everything else. At the end of the day, it's time wasted. If you have a superpower, focus on that. And how can you make every other part of your kind of your role, what you do 10 times more efficient. Like you say,
Nicole Gottselig:I love that. I've been working as a writer for more than a decade, and people always like, Oh, aren't you scared AI is going to take away your job? And anybody? Oh, not at all. No. So I can actually focus on the stuff I really love to do, and then AI can take care of the boring stuff or the formatting or the things.
Natasha Birk:But anyway,
Nicole Gottselig:you know, yeah, so exactly beautiful. So where do you get your inspiration from? And where do you keep yourself, you know? Like, if I was to say to you, you know, Natasha, I don't know what I want to write about. I am a creator. I bought this great company. Where am I going to find an idea? You just seem to have them to come naturally to you. What would you say to me?
Natasha Birk:What do you care about? Like, what you know? Like, with inspiration, it's going to come in different ways to different people, but at the end of the day it comes like, I could be like, I get inspiration from it, and I listen to this book up and I read this book and blah blah, and you could read them and be like, but that doesn't resonate with me. It's still not at the end of the day like, inspiration only strikes when it's actually coupled with what you care about and kind of your why. So why do you want to write the book? Like, what are you hoping to achieve with that? And I think that then, yeah, then kind of like, seeking out where could those bits of inspiration come from? So like, I say, yeah, for me, it's definitely, you know, kind of keeping up to date with what's in the industry. Podcasts. I do love listening to them. I love listening to people who've done things previously that I would like to potentially do in the future. You know, hearing their story, hearing how they built their companies, their businesses, and, yeah, incredibly lucky to be at again, flight story room surrounded by these people. And definitely, yeah, meeting people on that same wavelength that are building things, that are passionate, that are creative. I would say, firstly, what do you care about and why? And then kind of, like, build the inspiration around that.
Nicole Gottselig:So starting with your why, you know, and I love that, because energy is contagious. And you know, energy you when somebody walks in a room, energy never lies, right? People can say, Eddie, I can say, you know, Natasha, I'm the best podcaster, right? But you're gonna feel, you're gonna feel the energy, right? And, you know, maybe net energy that's not like, that's lower and like kind of dragging you down, that's gonna drag you down, and so surrounding yourself with more upliftment and people that can inspire you to build and grow and be better. Yeah, I'm a firm believer in that, too. So my final question to you is, who would you love to have dinner with, alive or not here on the earth anymore?
Natasha Birk:I would have to say, Emma Grede, Co Founder of Skims. She's built Good American. She came on the podcast recently, and I was like, Oh, I wasn't there. She's incredible, huge inspiration, just the way that she kind of like, built her career, how she's built on everything from the thing that she did previously. And yeah, 100% I would, I would go for dinner with Emma.
Nicole Gottselig:You know, I watched that episode. And one of the things I took away from that is this going into work and being with people, and this is where all the the connections happen, and all the the everything interaction, everything's happened. So I really took that away, as well as somebody who's been somebody who's been in the remote workforce for a while, I'm like, yeah, you've got to be out in the world. And that's why we come to events like this too, to get inspired like people like you, and to to keep us going and going and watering houses.
Natasha Birk:I think that's it as well, right? It's like, and I find it super inspiring when someone you know, like Emma and Steve, is this a lot as well? Of like, when you know people that are at a certain position, but I know Emma said it previously, of like, it's not just about being at the top, it's about kicking the door open for more people to walk through. And I think that's just, like, such an incredible kind of like, legacy to build. Is that? Like, yeah, you're not only working up the top for that. It's like, how can also help other people come up to
Nicole Gottselig:that's really what we're all here for. We're all here to help and serve others. Thank you for sharing
Natasha Birk:no worries. Thank you so much for having me.
Nicole Gottselig:Thanks for being part of this episode of Connect With Purpose. If you found today's conversation inspiring, please subscribe and leave us a review. It helps us reach more listeners like you who are seeking meaningful stories and insights, and remember, living with purpose isn't some far off destination. It's a journey that we're all on together. So if you aren't living your purpose fully right now, don't worry. You're still alive. Your mission on earth is not complete. So until next time, I'm Nicole Gottselig, and this is Connect With Purpose.
Mark Glucki:Thanks for joining us on Connect With Purpose. Produced by Titan One. Connect With Purpose is hosted by Nicole Gottseligh, Executive Producer, Mark Glucki, producer, Sian Sue. Editor and Sound Design by Fina Charleson, show creator, Scott Lanaway, special. Thanks. To Bernard Magri at Beast Collective and Mark Edwards editing Monica low and Dave Chau design and Charlie the office dog. Do you have an inspiring story? Or maybe you know someone who's followed their passion to find a new purpose? Reach out at connectwithpurpose.ca — We'd love to hear from you.
