Dr Desirée Cox describes her extraordinary journey from growing up in a tough urban area in the Bahamas to becoming a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. She focuses on her medical studies at Oxford and her pioneering work to establish a regulatory framework for stem cell research in her home country. In this podcast interview, Dr Cox also explains her love of painting, and her efforts to ensure others reach their potential. Referring to advice she shared at a lecture at Pembroke in June 2017, she highlights the importance of hope, resilience, authentic conversations and harnessing your own personal story in an age of short attention spans and technological disruption. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/