Click here to text into the show. Ask a question, provide feedback or suggest an idea for an episode.

Lee and Michelle sit down with Emily Massey, a London-based professional model and disability advocate with a story that goes far deeper than the camera. What starts as a warm catch-up about shoot locations, hiking trails, and the great "where should I move?" debate quickly becomes one of the most candid conversations the podcast has hosted.

Emily is sharp, funny, and refreshingly direct. She describes herself as "homeless" in her own body, yet she's also the person who just completed a 42-kilometre hike, passing out on slopes and still finishing every kilometre.

Emily opens up about growing up in Singapore with a body that never quite behaved the way she expected. Years of unexplained symptoms, regular dislocations, migraines, and eventually seizures led her on a long medical journey that finally resulted in a diagnosis of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), along with a cluster of related conditions including Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), bipolar disorder, ADHD, and asthma.

Rather than stepping back from life, Emily stepped into one of the most physically demanding and visually scrutinised industries there is. She talks honestly about the year she barely left the house, how a trip to a hairdresser set her on the path to full-time modelling, and what it actually takes to walk a runway when your body might decide to do something entirely different.

The conversation covers a lot of ground:

• What it means to live with an invisible illness in a highly visible career
• How Emily manages pain and joint instability on set through constant movement, and why what looks like expressive flow posing is often just survival
• Her experience having a seizure immediately after coming offstage during a L'Oreal tour, and the unexpectedly compassionate response from the brand
• The reality of being called "the fat model" during fashion week, and the fashion industry's retreat from body diversity in the wake of weight-loss medication trends
• The pressure of having your measurements publicly listed and what that does to your relationship with your own body
• Why she chose to start sharing her health journey on social media, and what she hopes it gives to others who feel isolated or unseen
• Her plans to launch a modelling agency specifically for disabled models, and her frustration with tokenism in the current industry
• ADHD as a creative advantage, and why she and Lee both describe neurodivergence as a superpower rather than a limitation

Find Emily on social media via her Instagram channel at https://www.instagram.com/emily_masseyy/

The channel includes a beautiful poem written by Emily entitled "Not Your Inspiration, Not Your Tragedy 🩼🌈". Watch and importantly listen here https://www.instagram.com/p/DMPt2Rgsr2M/

Find Emily on social media via the links in the episode description. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it, and leave a comment. We love hearing from you.

Courage and Confidence is hosted by Lee Iggulden and Michelle Rogers.

Find Lee at:

• Website: https://welshotimaging.co.uk/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leeatwelshot/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lee.iggulden

Find Michelle at:

• Web: https://www.thinkingspacecoaching.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkingspacecoaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmichellerogers/

Click here to text into the show. Ask a question, provide feedback or suggest an idea for an episode.

Courage and Confidence Podcast – Season 3, Episode 5: "Fitting In"

What happens when one photograph online sends your thoughts spiralling? In this wonderfully honest and personal episode, Lee shares how a single image from an event she'd chosen not to attend triggered a cascade of self-doubt — and asks the question so many of us quietly wrestle with but rarely say out loud: would I have fitted in?

What follows is a warm, candid and genuinely thought-provoking conversation in which Michelle gently unpicks the difference between fitting in and belonging — and why that distinction matters more than we might think.

Drawing on the research of Brené Brown, the poetry of Maya Angelou, and a rather unexpected detour into Enid Blyton and The Faraway Tree, Lee and Michelle explore:

• The difference between fitting in and belonging and why one costs you everything while the other asks nothing of you
• How a single image on social media can trigger a whole chain of limiting beliefs about age, appearance and self-worth
• The Faustian bargain of fitting in Brené Brown's powerful insight that if you win approval by pretending to be someone you're not, the hustle never stops
• Strong back, soft front, the courage to stand firm in who you are while remaining open, honest and vulnerable
• Why social media gives us an illusion of belonging and how the polished images we see (and post) may be doing more harm than we realise
• Lee's lightbulb moment and realising that the only thing standing between her and that event was a pair of clean jeans and a bit of mascara
• Those that mind don't matter, and those that matter don't mind and why the people around Lee's birthday barbecue won't care one bit about her Crocs

This episode is a reminder that the most exhausting thing in the world is trying to be something you're not — and that the people who are truly your people will never ask you to.

🎧 Listen now — and ask yourself: where have you been trying to fit in, when you already belong?

Find Lee at:

• Website: https://welshotimaging.co.uk/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leeatwelshot/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lee.iggulden

Find Michelle at:

• Web: https://www.thinkingspacecoaching.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkingspacecoaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmichellerogers/

Click here to text into the show. Ask a question, provide feedback or suggest an idea for an episode.

Courage and Confidence Podcast – Season 3, Episode 4: "When Opportunities Feel Like Hard Work"

What if the opportunity that could change everything is right in front of you — but you can't see it because it looks too much like hard work? In this thought-provoking episode, Lee and Michelle explore one of the most quietly powerful ideas they've tackled yet, inspired by a quote from Thomas Edison: "Opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls and it looks like work."

The conversation takes a brilliantly unexpected turn when Michelle reveals that Lee has no idea what they're going to talk about — making for some wonderfully honest, unguarded moments as Lee works through the ideas in real time, including a few genuine lightbulb moments of her own.

Together they unpick why we so often miss, dismiss, or talk ourselves out of opportunities — and what we can do about it:

• Why "overnight success" is a myth — from Thomas Edison's 10,000 failed experiments to Messi's 17 years of preparation for his "breakthrough" moment
• The iceberg effect — we only ever see other people's highlights, never the hard work beneath the surface
• How limiting beliefs act as a filter — quietly screening out opportunities before we've even consciously considered them
• The difference between opportunities we grab and ones we don't — and what that reveals about our fears and self-belief
• Why the work involved isn't always physical — sometimes it's mental, emotional, or simply a matter of getting your head around an idea
• The power of the pause — before you say no to something, ask yourself: is this actually an opportunity in disguise?

Michelle's challenge to listeners is simple but powerful: think of something you've been putting off. What are you actually waiting for? And what might happen if you just did the work?

A genuinely eye-opening episode that will have you looking at the situations in your own life with fresh eyes.

🎧 Listen now — and start spotting the opportunities you've been walking past.

Find Lee at:

• Website: https://welshotimaging.co.uk/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leeatwelshot/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lee.iggulden

Find Michelle at:

• Web: https://www.thinkingspacecoaching.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkingspacecoaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmichellerogers/