Most career advice assumes you want the same thing: a stable job, a clear ladder, a company that takes care of you. For a growing number of people, that assumption is wrong — and the gap between the work they're doing and the work they actually want is widening.

New Work Order is a podcast for people sitting with that gap.

Hosted by Graeme Goulden and Mickela Sonola (both sweat equity partners at Sweqlink) the show is a series of honest, unhurried conversations about what happens when you step off the traditional career path. Not to glamourise it, and not to give you a roadmap. Just to talk about it properly, with people who are living it.

Graeme started building a portfolio career before that phrase even had a name. A background in journalism led him into product management, community building, and mentoring across the startup world while bringing Product Tank to Manchester. He's been figuring out his own version of work for two decades, and he's still at it. 

Mickela started as a writer and theatre performer, built a freelance career on her own terms, and is now back in Manchester exploring what building her own business might look like. Her perspective on careers, flexibility, and ownership comes from someone who has always carved her own path across industries, roles, and places.

Neither of them found that the 9-to-5 quite fit. That's where the show begins.

Season 1 out now

The season opens with Graeme and Mickela introducing themselves and unpacking sweat equity. Not the jargon version, but the real one: what it means to invest your skills instead of your cash, and why it matters now. From there, the series goes deeper into portfolio careers, the future of work, the impact of AI, and what it actually takes to stay relevant in a landscape that's shifting faster than most advice can keep up with.

One episode brings in Sweqlink's founder, Judy Leung (a sweat equity partner herself before leading the company). She talks about how to spot a good opportunity, how to read an equity agreement, and what the red flags look like. A useful episode, and a candid one.

Sweat equity has been part of the startup world for years. It just doesn't get talked about much — except when something goes wrong. This podcast is an attempt to change that, by having the kinds of conversations that usually stay in private. About risk, and ownership, and what it means to build something when you're not doing it for a salary.

New Work Order doesn't offer advice. It has conversations. If you've ever felt like the standard career script wasn't written with you in mind, this one might be.

Episode 1 lands 6th July 2026.

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts