Broadcaster and journalist Maddy Savage shares why Sweden has captured her heart, the power of embracing a foreign language and how to create a portfolio career.

Hi, I'm Dhruti Shah, and this is my podcast Have you thought About? I'm a writer who loves to find out about what passions people are pursuing, especially if they managed to blend together skills and unusual ways. In each edition, I'm going to chat with someone I find particularly interesting and someone who has managed to fit things together in their life of profession that you might not think of as an obvious match. You're about to hear me chatting with Maddy Savage, a freelance journalist, broadcaster and runner.

Hi, Maddy, it's lovely to have you on the podcast. We met in London many moons ago. But you're speaking to me from Sweden, as you move there to live permanently several years ago. But what is it about Sweden that enticed you so?

So good question. And it's actually a question that I get asked a lot people always ask you, why did you move? And I actually think the more interesting question is, why did you stay I moved here because I really wanted to move abroad. And I had been to Scandinavia a number of times on assignments when I was at the BBC. And the things that appealed to me that enticed me were the nature I absolutely love the outdoors. And I just found it incredible. I remember going on this train journey in the west of Sweden, and just really spruce and pine forests and past all these lakes and red and yellow wooden houses. And the landscape here is just absolutely beautiful. Sweden has a better reputation for gender equality than other parts of the world. Now I've lived here I see more of the nuances that some of the things that I think outsiders think Sweden does perfectly, oh, maybe wouldn't give them 100%

it's a really nice place to live. And it's, people think it's cliched that Swedes care about work life balance, but they really do. And that's a massive difference for me compared to living in London, because even if you're someone that works hard, which I do as a freelancer, you're surrounded by other people who are kind of saying, Oh, you've been busy, shouldn't you slow down a bit, you know, let's do something slow. Let's go for a run. Let's go and walk in the woods, like you need to keep yourself in check. Whereas when I lived in London, I felt like sometimes you'd say to friends, or I had to, you know, work late to do X Y, Zed, and then it'd be like, Oh, me, too. Oh, well, I had to do this. Well, I had to do that. And it almost sometimes became a bit of a competition about who was working too hard. And I know that things have shifted a bit in the UK after COVID. And there's a lot more focus on mental health now. But certainly, that was a big difference for me when I moved here and a big reason why I stayed.

Is there anything though, that you miss about the UK while being in Sweden right now,

The banter, I don't want to diss the Swedes, but that kind of British right, you know, making a joke out of something taking the mickey out of each other. You know, even if you've had a bad day making a joke out of it. That's something I really miss. And I have got a good community of British friends here. I wasn't that interested in making British friends when I first moved here. I've been here for nine years. So it's something that I've found I've needed, the longer I've been here to sort of have people that have those common references. And you know, understand, when I am being sarcastic, you're making a joke. So I miss that. And I miss my family, obviously. And that's become more acute. I think, as my parents have got older, and my sister's had a baby. What don't I miss? I suppose yeah, that kind of competitive nature. I think the UK, it's hard to generalise. But people can be a bit more materialistic. I think you can have a better life here with less, although there's more sort of subtle undertone. Maybe for people here that are very wealthy, they don't show off about it as much. But you know, it's still there ias present. There is a lot of myths about the UK, but I feel very privileged that it's only a few hours door to door. I try not to fly all the time because of the environment. But it's obviously really important for me to see my friends and family.

Factoring that in and having your UK fix, you did say earlier about that outdoor living, embracing that as it were, there's a particular concept, I cannot pronounce it, but I'm hoping that you can, what's it called? And what does it involve?

So it's called Friluftsliv, oh I wish I'd done more of the historical research. I've written articles about this. It's basically a concept that I think a writer or philosopher kind of came up with. And it's the idea of being being out in nature and kind of being present, I suppose it's a really old version of kind of mindfulness. So Friluftsliv, the kind of outdoor life might be hiking or going and sitting by a lake and having a picnic. I'd say I interpret it more broadly. I love trail running. I live just a 10 minute run from a beautiful lake. I'm a member of an outdoor sauna club that was crowdfunded by my local community. So you can go there and have a sauna and then take a dip in the cold water. So I did that a couple of weeks ago when it was not completely frozen. But there were frozen bits of ice kind of floating around and there was snow on the ground. So that was really empowering.

And I think you know, I live in a capital city, Stockholm, but it only has a million people and the whole country has a population of 10 million people. So that is is a lot of space. So you can live in an urban environment, but still be really close to nature, even some of the most built up suburbs, you're never far from a lake or a forest. And for me, that does just give me a sense of peace, to be able to go for a walk and feel the soft ground under my feet and see trees around me. This is something my mom says, ever since COVID, this has been a hot topic in the UK. And she's like, but you're already doing all that stuff that people are telling us to do here.

But how do you get motivated to go outside when it's freezing cold, like that's one of the things in the UK. It's like, oh, no, it's raining, it's miserable. I'll just sort of sit and just be miserable.

Well, the Swedes have a phrase, which is there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes. And so it really is about wrapping up and having the right gear. Actually, I would say I'm not the best at this compared to some of my friends who really invested in in the best possible gear you can get. One of them's even got electric gloves to keep her hands really warm. When the snows outside, it's pretty and you kind of want to go into that winter wonderland. The hardest days are as it was about a week ago when the snow kind of froze, basically. So it is a bit of a health hazard kind of walking across the street. Sometimes, if it hasn't been cleared or or gritted, Swedes are really good at having different traditions. And I think when you live in a cold, dark country, you know that you have to seize that moment that there's only a few hours of daylight, you know, you're going to feel better if you get outside and take that walk. And that's been in the mentality and been passed down through generations and, you know, gets kind of absorbed by a lot of people that move here.

But then there's also the kind of indoor cosy traditions having a mug of warm wine, be that alcoholic or non alcoholic, going for a sauna to warm up. And having those kinds of cosy rituals that come alongside the kind of spending time out in the harsh elements of the nature side of life here. I mean, not everyone loves it, you know, you can't package an entire population and say that everyone here goes out for brisk walks on the weekend. There's lots of people that spend their weekends, on the sofa watching Netflix, and I do that too, sometimes as well. But it is a mentality, I used to give this analogy when I first moved here, and this isn't so much about the outdoors, but it's about exercise. I felt like in a sort of UK office culture, if someone said to you, or you know, we're all going to the pub, you know, come and have a drink. And if you said Oh no, I'm gonna go to the gym. They'd be like, what? Come on, just come for one, don't go to the gym. Whereas here, people will be like, oh, what gym? Are you training for? Anything? Like, what exercise do you like? It's so embedded in life. And again, that's an anecdote that I think has, you know, worn off a bit because I do think exercises become a lot more part of people's everyday life in the UK. It's not just like weirdo sporty people that do it. People understand the importance of it. But yeah, slightly different values and norms here that I really feel drawn to.

How did you learn so much about the culture? Is it just as you were living there? Did you have to go to a school of Sweden? Or how did it actually come about they like, Okay, this is what it's about. This is how I can assimilate myself, but also remain true to the fact that I have British roots.

A bit of interest, a bit of alignment with who I already was a bit of luck. One of the biggest things that's that's happened to me since I moved here is I joined a running club after about a year, and that has now evolved into a different running club. I was then surrounded by kind of outdoorsy people that were running throughout the year, both Swedes and other international people. And I think there's something you know, when you have to start over again, in a new place, you're kind of choosing people based a lot more on your interests and what you have in common. I mean, I'm still really close to friends from school and uni. And some of us have a lot in common in terms of hobbies, but some of them are of a historical friendship.

Whereas here, I think Swedes tend to socialise through having hobbies, I was kind of given that tip very early on, but also then, you know, it's hobbies that I enjoy, which connects with wanting to be outdoors and, and do those sorts of things. And then I guess, as a journalist, there's been a lot of topics that I've written about, like Friluftsliv, like looking at the way Swedes handle things like parental leave, or work life balance. And so I guess I've done a lot of research along the way through my work that has kind of helped me to kind of scratch under the surface of this Swedish culture.

We also have something to celebrate because just recently you've just been doing classes studying had an exam. Tell us more.

Yeah so I don't know if I've passed it yet. I think I probably passed it. I don't know if I've got the grade that I was hoping for. But I've been taking Swedish exams, which basically puts me at the level that if I wanted to study a course, at university, which was taught in Swedish, I would be able to do that course. So it's kind of like doing a level English language and literature if you'd grown up in the UK. What the Swedes do differently actually, I was given the same literature to read and the same questions to answer as Swedes who have grown up here with Swedish as their first language. But Swedes who have grown up here who have Swedish, as a second language, take the same course that I did. And our essays are marked in a slightly different way. So we're basically given a bit more grace for making certain grammatical errors, or, you know, maybe not using our language in the in the perfect way. But we're judged on the fact we've understood the material, and we've been able to interpret it and write a structured essay or given given oral presentation. So it's, it's interesting, I'm not going to go into the politics of it. But I think, you know, it's interesting that we're not as people that haven't grown up with Swedish as our first language. And we're not necessarily expected to hit the exact same level in order to be able to progress in life to take that university course. Because I guess the assumption is that if you carry on working in Swedish or studying in Swedish, you're only going to get better.

So rather than it take you a really, really long time to get perfect, you're kind of able to continue along that path. So I don't have any specific ideas for further study. But since it's free to study in Sweden, it's something that I would really like to do in future and even just doing this course has given me a taster of enjoying learning again, it's been great reading Swedish literature and speeches with a focus on rhetoric and kind of analysing them. Yeah, I don't know what's next. But it's been nice to have a goal and to learn, and just to feel like I'm doing something valuable with my spare time.

But how did you make the time to do this? Like, what was the catalyst to get you onto the course in the first place? And then is it evening classes? Is it online? Is it with a group of people have you had to have study buddies? How do you actually go back to school at a later age because we're both, you know, in our 40s now.

It's been a mixed journey. For me when I first moved here, the company I worked for, which is an English language news site, The Local - they paid for me to have lessons. For the two years that I worked there, then I think I paid for one course for myself, then there was kind of a long plateau, I found a Swedish teacher that lived in my neighbourhood. And speaking about getting out there in extreme weather, she was my teacher during COVID.

So we went for an hour long, socially distance, walk in the snow, every Monday for about three months and just talked. And then the course I did was free, because by this point, I have my Swedish citizenship and was kind of ready to do something more formal. But I actually chose to do this as a remote learning digital course, so that I could be flexible. So I had to watch online lectures read certain material, and it was quite cleverly laid out in the course, you kind of had different targets and boxes to tick. So it was quite a good digital platform to encourage you to kind of make sure that you were hitting all the different deadlines. So it was supposed to be 10 hours a week. And you know, maybe some weeks it was 12. And some weeks, it was two, that worked really well for me to make sure I could fit that around busy periods at work and less busy periods. But essentially, I spent a lot of Sundays, studying parts of this course, I'm looking forward to having my Sundays back.

You said there was a bit of a break in between? What was the thing that gave me the impetus to go back to it because a lot of people will start something and I've been guilty of this. And then you just leave it even though there are other milestones that you could approach but you've gone back and you've tried to finish, what was it that gave you that motivation that perhaps others can learn from to keep going?

I think it's a whole mix of things, I really wanted to feel like I could say that I was fluent in Swedish. And I've always been the kind of person that you could tell me 10 times I'm good at Swedish, but I kind of need a bit of proof. And maybe that comes from low self confidence. But I wanted to have something tangible that proved that I'd got to that level. And also to open up opportunities for the future. I absolutely love being journalist. But you know, this is a profession, which is a bit shaky at the moment there's the economy is tricky all over the world. So kind of it's tricky. As a freelancer with commissions. We've also got the growth of AI and wondering what that will do to certain industries. So I just thought, if I can get to the level where I could study something else, it gives me more options in the future.

And it also gives me something to focus on that's quite concrete, while other things are a bit shaky in the world. And then yeah, I guess personal reasons as well. Like I'm single at the moment. So I had a bit more time I would like to meet someone here. It's good to be able to speak Swedish in any situation and also wanting to progress my career here. So I've been working with the podcasting company this year that does podcasts in Swedish, but had been looking into doing more bilingual projects. So that was my first job where I was going into the office and actually speaking Swedish every day two days a week for some longer periods as well during the first six months of this year, and that really helped improve my Swedish And that's something I'd really like to do with the Swedish. I've got now to potentially be working more in both languages, which will give me more opportunities as I progress in my career here.

Nicely takes me on to the fact that yes, you are a freelancer and you have this portfolio career. So you've got to do multiple connecting things. So from having moved to Sweden, and you had a really strong and you do still have a strong successful broadcast career, what have you been doing that's been, I guess, out of your comfort zone and embracing those different income streams.

Portfolio career, for me looks like being a journalist. So responding mostly to news and working on features, working on longer form audio projects, so audio and documentaries, and working as an event host. And the event host is the kind of thing that just sort of evolved in a really brilliant way, after a couple of years of living here and working for this English language news site, the local where I got management skills, learn a lot more about digital news. But after that time, I really felt like I was missing, going out and interviewing people and kind of doing the nitty gritty news gathering and working in a more multimedia way. So I decided to go freelance. And I also started a podcast called The Stockholm, where I interviewed inspiring entrepreneurs and creatives based in Stockholm, in 15 minute episodes, which I thought was perfect for a short commute within Stockholm, or a fika break, which is a break for a coffee and a cake, which is another very Swedish tradition. And through that I got quite noticed, especially in the tech scene, because I was interviewing a lot of entrepreneurs. And I was connected to one entrepreneur who was putting on a conference about the UN development goals and how startups could help with that. And I basically offered to do that for a token fee. And then there was someone in the audience who worked Telia, which is one of the big mobile phone networks, but they also organise conferences around different themes around tech and society. So I did something for them. And then it kind of snowballed. I started working at conferences in Norway and in Denmark, as well as in Sweden, because I think in some ways, I mean, I'm tiny, I'm 150 Something centimetres, but I can be a bit of a big fish in a small pond here, because there's not that many native English speakers with my broadcasting background. And although I think it's really scary speaking in front of a live audience, way more so than on the radio,

when you know, there's millions of listeners, I took to it. So hosting panel discussions on the stage, it is journalism, it's very, very similar to when I hosted radio shows, I used to be a film presenter on a programme on the BBC World Service called World have your say, where people would phone in and talk about different topics, it could be people affected by a natural disaster, or it could it could be more kind of experts discussing one particular topic. And I really feel like that was such a great grounding for me for understanding how to drive a discussion to make sure that everybody's involved, everybody's included, the focus is the guests, not you. And bringing together all of the themes that you were hoping to cover, while also being open to kind of taking a discussion in a bit of a different direction. And I find that works really well for me, because it feels very authentic. A lot of journalists who are freelancers do copywriting on the side, or maybe some PR on the side. That's tricky for me to do as a someone that works a lot with public service broadcasters. Whereas the events feel more impartial and closer to the skill set and close to the things that I love doing, which is hearing people's stories and interviewing people.

Fantastic. One of the things that you said earlier was about confidence and talk and raised that issue of perhaps having low self confidence, which I also don't have as well, but yet people think I'm super, super confident. Now, as a journalist, you've got to have that appearance of being quite confident being able to approach pretty much anybody. So are there any tips that used to get you into that journalist persona to get you into that broadcaster mode to get you into that public speaker? situation? Is there anything you do any rituals or anything that you do in order to build up that confidence for that specific event?

Oh, that's so interesting, because I think, yeah, lots of us end up having different personas. Actually, I would say I feel there was quite a lot of pressure at the beginning of my career as a broadcaster to to have gravitas. You know, I was sometimes told I didn't have gravitas. And I sounded too young. And you know, some of those things stick in your mind. And I think now there's a lot more acceptance for different types of people and different types of personalities. So I try and be myself. And I think that has taken away some of the pressure of feeling like I have to be somebody completely different. If I'm on stage, you know, I'll feel more comfortable. Yeah, cracking a joke or trying to have more personal interaction rather than feeling like oh, I've got to be this professional journalist in a suit, you know, every second of the day, and I also kind of dress a bit more like myself these days. I used to always feel like I had to put on a suit jacket got a bit more comfortable in my own skin. But there is a self confidence issue. One thing I've started doing before events, especially if they're not in Stockholm is just making sure that I take a walk around the block in the fresh air. It's such a simple thing. But just being outside in the fresh air for 10 minutes helps to clear my head and helps me to see that you know, there's a world outside whatever conference I'm in, that's way more important than probably what's happening on that day. But I think there's a part of me that does run on autopilot, it's quite fascinating for people that know me well and kind of know, the sort of more vulnerable side of me, and you know, there's that side. And then there's the person that's like somehow managing to chair a panel discussion in front of 5000 people. I think the other thing I do is because I don't know if I'm an introvert, but I definitely have introvert tendencies. So it's building in breaks. So making sure I get a good sleep the

night before, and not forcing myself to maybe network after the event. Sometimes I would feel like I had to stick around for hours, but I would just be exhausted after kind of being up on stage, often for a full day. So now all, you know, make my polite excuses. And it hasn't affected the number of events I'm being asked to host. Yeah, that's something that kind of happened in the pandemic, when more events were going online. And I remember I did this one event, and then I just shut down my laptop and I thought, Wow, I'm at home, I can just get into my pyjamas now, and sit on the sofa. Whereas if this event had been physical, it would have been Oh, I've got to go and have a drink and work the room. And so yeah, now I'll maybe have wondering can say thank you to the people that invited me and maybe speak to a few people that I think are particularly interesting, or if they did an inspiring speech and I want to sort of ask them more questions, but then our slope off home and and go to bed, early

Journalists and freelancers can be prone to burnout, because of that sort of taking lots on especially when times are quiet. So even perhaps you overcompensate, what have you been doing in order to make sure that you don't go into burnout times?

I think a lot of it comes down to the exercise and the time outdoors, and really ring fencing time for things that I believe to be just as important to me as work. So you know, I basically run every Tuesday and every Saturday, I haven't been able to do that as much this year because of various injuries. But kind of no matter what work is going on, I'll always try and meet that. And that gives me both a sense of community time outdoors and exercise, all of that stuff of just looking after yourself. And I actually sometimes think when I'm most busy, probably November 2023, I'm making a documentary, I'm finishing off the assignments for my Swedish course, I'm sort of trying to plan and get new jobs for the new year. But I was making sure that I was going doing fitness classes and yoga, and running. Sometimes it's almost easier to fit that stuff in when you're busy. I mean, I don't have kids, I have more time than some. But I also think if you are running your own business and your own household and making all the decisions yourself, that's something that I find quite exhausting. And so sometimes there's the burnout from just I need to choose a new blind for my lounge, but I'm exhausted because I've done X Y Zed this week, and I just wish I had someone there that could go get that one. So yeah, I have managed to not burn out. But I've definitely been close a lot of times and I think sometimes I have been fortunate in that the events pay well, so I can sometimes afford to not be working as intensely at other points. I've never been somebody that needs kind of loads of labels or fancy stuff around me. So I value time with my friends and family and doing my hobbies. So the aspiration for me isn't necessarily to grow a multi staff production company. It's to sort of be able to afford to do the things I enjoy in the work that I enjoy doing. Yeah I know, I'm very lucky to be able to do that.

Thank you to Maddy Savage, freelance journalist, podcast post and broadcaster. Do you have an interdisciplinary life? I'd love to hear from you. And maybe we can chat on this podcast that goes with my newsletter, which is called Have You Thought About and can be found via www.dhruti shah.com. Please join me next time for a fun conversation with another guest who likes to mix up lots of things in their life. Do listen to past episodes and rate and review the podcast if you've enjoyed it. Thank you to Rian Shah for the music.