The Metta Interview - Episode 14 with guest Bianca Barratt
In this episode, Le Trente founder and host Anne V. Mühlethaler welcomes Bianca Barratt, a journalist and writer with over a decade in the British media, five of them as a Forbes Senior Contributor, with bylines in Vogue, The Sunday Times, Cosmopolitan, the BBC and the Evening Standard. Sitting on the receiving end of roughly a hundred pitches a day taught her something uncomfortable: the people who get covered aren't better at their jobs, they just know what a journalist needs and when. That became The Scoop, which merged this August with Pressflow, where she is now a director and co-founder.
They begin, as Anne likes to, with joy and curiosity, and Bianca offers a thoughtful perspective on her life given recent personal tragedy. Asked to introduce herself, Bianca eschews the job title first and instead focuses on her creative persona: how she is a writer, a storyteller. She talks about growing up a voracious reader in the years before personal screens, and about how early she understood that storytelling was something universal and almost primal, a way of being connected to the world.
Bianca and Anne also explore the tipping point, unique to each of us, where striving for a thing starts taking more than it gives, and the better question Bianca found on the far side of it: not what do I have to do, but who would I have to be for this to come naturally?
Along the way, they discuss wholeheartedness, scattered attention, Thich Nhat Hanh on washing the dishes, Korean drama, and a CEO with a serious commitment to Dungeons & Dragons.
Happy listening!
On potential, the quest for authenticity, and showing up for what matters.
The big alive question Bianca Brings to this interview is: how do I make sure I'm living up to my full potential?
ABOUT BIANCA BARRATT
Bianca Barratt has spent over a decade as a working journalist, five of those years as a Forbes Senior Contributor, with bylines running through Vogue, The Sunday Times, Cosmopolitan, the BBC and the Evening Standard.
Sitting on the receiving end of roughly a hundred pitches a day teaches you something uncomfortable: the people who get covered aren't better at their jobs than everyone else, they just know what a journalist needs and when. Which is why she built The Scoop, a media training business that handed founders and small business owners the insider version through courses, workshops, pitch coaching and a community.
Members went on to land Forbes, The Times, ITV News, Stylist, The Telegraph and Harvard Business Review, without an agency or a retainer.
Then came Jelena Skene, who'd already built Pressflow with her husband Graham. Jelena knows what to do with coverage once you've got it, which is the part almost nobody talks about, and Graham is the developer who turns the two of them into something you can actually use. The Scoop merged with Pressflow this August, with Bianca coming on as a director and co-founder and the platform launches in its new form this autumn.
CONNECT WITH BIANCA + SELECT EPISODE LINKS
Bianca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bianca_barratt/
Pressflow: https://www.pressflow.io/news/pressflow-3-0
Pressflow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisispressflow/
Bianca's masterclass for Le Trente, September 2026: How to get featured in the media (without hiring a PR agency)
Mentioned in this episode:
Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness
James Joyce, Ulysses
Brian Little's TED Talk on personality and personal projects, the Canadian psychologist Anne couldn't name in the moment: https://www.ted.com/talks/brian_little_who_are_you_really_the_puzzle_of_personality
Debbie Millman's Design Matters conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz, where Anne first heard the Joyce line: https://designobserver.com/feature/jacqueline-novogratz/40321
CONNECT WITH ANNE V
Website: AnneVMuhlethaler.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anne-v-muhlethaler
Instagram: @annvi
BlueSky: @annvi.bsky.social
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