Meet Hazel, you’ve probably never heard of her…I hadn’t before a few weeks ago and then whilst doing my show, everyone was continually requesting songs from this new Bollywood film called ‘Bodyguard‘.

I had to know what all the fuss was about so I went to see the movie with a friend. Just before I did I got a call from someone asking if I’d like to interview someone called Hazel…my first reaction was – “who-what-now?”

He went on to explain that she was a actress in this new film and so I said, sure, lets go for it.

In the Movie Hazel plays a character called ‘Maya’ who is the best buds with ‘Divya’, played by Kareena Kapoor.

Hazel and I connected over Skype and spent over an hour nattering away and I was blown away by her story.

She got rejected by 13 of the big performing arts schools in London. She tried to stand out by using the Vagina Monologues, as her monologue; it backfired!

Hazel appeared in Harry Potter in small roles and was also doing some modelling but didn’t get any big breaks.

She then spent a few years in Mumbai, getting small amounts of work but again still not cracking the big time. Eventually, after running short of money she came back to London.

Whilst in London, she happened to get invited to a to the filming of a movie in which Bollywood superstar, Salman Khan, was starring. Salman approached her because he thought she might be cold and gave her his coat.

She then told him her story and he said to her, “don’t give up, go back to Mumbai and he’d try and help her”. Things didn’t happen straight away, it still took some a long time before her first big break but now just the door has just begun to open.

For me, when I heard her story, in many ways I could relate but the key thing that stood out was that fact she persisted despite the early setbacks.

I’ve always said that you never know which door, which event, or which opportunity is going to be your king-maker. You just have to keep going for long enough to allow that moment to come.

If you’ve just started a new venture, don’t give up, keep going, no matter the setbacks, you too could be the next Hazel.

Even though Bollywood is the biggest film industry in the world, no doubt, we’ll be seeing much more of Hazel on the big screen in Hollywood too. Keep an eye out for her!

Hear a snip of her story below:

And just for fun – Hazel telling me a joke…

Last Friday I had the great privilege of interviewing a rising star of t.v. and music, Karen David. She was born in the Himalayas and has been acting for quite some time.

Karen is currently on BBC1 Drama, Waterloo Road and plays the new Spanish Teacher, Franchesca.

I’ve only just seen the first two episodes of season 6 and now I am totally hooked. Karen, if you’re reading this…damn you!

She is also an amazing singer and has just released a new song called ‘Hypnotize’. I’ve uploaded the interview for you to listen to and you can also follow her on twitter.

I had so much fun doing the interview and she didn’t mind me poking fun at her. Have a listen and enjoy!

Last year when I was doing the breakfast show at Westside Radio my co-host, Chloe and I decided to do a wind up on her mum.

Although I used to enjoy hearing my favourite DJ’s doing a wind up I wasn’t keen to do it on my own show.

In that moment though I thought why not and lets just pray her mum takes it with the humour with which it was intended.

So for a bit of Friday fun I thought I’d post the wind up here as a pod-cast you can listen to.

We had all sorts of trouble getting through to her mum. Every time we called the phone was either busy or it went to answer phone. We persisted for a whole hour and eventually we got through to her.

To set the scene I was posing as a police officer and I had arrested my co-host for a small crime. I’m one of these people who has trouble controlling their laughter and throughout the whole time I just wanted to burst out laughing!

Somehow I managed to hold it together but Chloe was in the background totally losing the plot. She almost had to leave the room and especially the point where her mum said she didn’t drink milk and when I said I blamed the parents!

Press play:

After that I got a bit of a taste for the wind up and so I started calling up this call centre regularly and making strange requests.

They took in good spirit but eventually they decided to start getting their own back on us at the studio and they started ringing us to do wind-ups on us. It didn’t work of course; we were way to smart for that! *ahem*

What’s the best wind up you’ve ever done or the funniest one that’s ever been done on you?

One thing I love about doing comedy and radio is that it has put me in touch with some amazing people. I managed to interview two such individuals recently and converted them into podcasts which you can listen to from here.

The first interview is with Nina Wadia who is a very well known comedy actress. She first shot to fame with the comedy sketch show Goodness Gracious Me and has more recently been a regular feature on the british soap Eastenders. I met her a couple of weeks ago and she was so friendly I just had to get an interview with her on the Breakfast Show!

The second Interview is with Priya Lakhani and she is the creator of the Masala Masala sauce range. She recently won the Business Entrepreneur Of The Year Award and I managed to get her for an interview on my Backchat Show.

Both interviews are so inspiring and entertaining and I felt greedy keeping them to myself so I just had to share them with you. Enjoy and feel free to leave some comments.

Last Thursday I was fortunate to go see Dr John Demartini back in action again giving a wonderful talk about ‘The Riches Within’.

Last year I managed to spend the whole weekend with him at his ‘Breakthrough Experience’ in London and even so he still has a bottomless pit of knowledge to share with his audience.

I was also privileged enough to interview him as well for my radio show and so I posed some questions about how we can empower youth better and tackle some of the challenges we face.

You can listen to the recording by clicking ‘play’ below.

From the talk some of my favourite quotes were:

“Any part of your life that you do not empower someone else will overpower.”

“The master lives in a world of transformation and not the world of loss or gain.”

“Nothing is missing from your life. It’s just in a form you do not recognise.”

He’ll be back in London in March and so when he does I’ll be sure to post up a link of where you can get tickets to see this amazing speaker in action.