1:22

And so before we actually kick off the conversation, I thought I'm gonna

1:24

do like a little one minute exercise.

1:28

And the, what I'm gonna ask each of you to do is to, to essentially talk

1:32

about every single job that you've done since childhood for one minute.

1:37

I've already got some random memories coming. Okay.

1:41

Right, I'll go. So, paper round, tennis coach, worked in a call center, aerobics, uh, teacher.

1:49

Then the big company, Boots, Glaxo Smith Kline, Barclays, Sainsbury's,

1:55

running a creative agency, uh, creating my own company, all about careers.

2:00

Cool. Okay. Laurence.

2:02

Chief bottle up bottle upper, I think you might call it my parents' pub, which then

2:06

turned into being a barman, cleaner, um, pot washer, desktop publishing operator.

2:13

I don't think those things exist anymore. Graphic designer, web designer, interaction designer, um, snooker coach,

2:22

boats, uh, hiring renter person on the Hyde Park, which lasted about a day.

2:27

Um, accounted for two weeks when I was about 16 and never did it again.

2:31

Uh, I sold head ties, African head ties in a warehouse in, in, uh, west London.

2:36

And I guess you could say these days.

2:39

Coach, events, planner, facilitator, and, uh, winger.

2:45

Did you say? Uh, also selling fish at Waitrose?

2:47

Oh, no, I forgot that. Right.

2:51

Okay. Um, paper round, uh, selling bread at Sainsbury's.

2:58

Um, then, oh my god, maths tutor, trying to book last minute hotel

3:05

space for a travel company, junior web coder, web technical

3:13

architect, uh, freelance developer.

3:16

Oh, uh, janitor in a hotel, in a, in a hospital, uh, his work experience, uh,

3:24

cleaning up Wembley Stadium after the Rolling Stones, uh, sandwich shop mate,

3:30

uh, um, sandwich person, uh, cleaning up in a cafe, Burton's men's wear, Gap, sales

3:38

executive, and now entrepreneur, coach.

3:44

Whoa, boom. Boom. So let us start.

3:48

Um, hello, Sarah.

3:51

How about, uh, introducing for those of the audience that aren't familiar with

3:57

your work, um, what you do at the moment, yeah, and, and who you are trying to

4:03

help and how you're trying to help them. Uh, well, we'd like to help everyone, uh, which we know is a bit of a

4:08

catchall, but our, our purpose is to make careers better for everyone.

4:13

And one of the reasons that we started Amazing If is that we

4:16

recognized lots of career development was really only available for

4:20

sort of the fortunate for you. Certainly if you were in big corporate organizations as I was, um, often it

4:26

was quite level dependent or whether you could afford to fund it for yourself,

4:31

and it was all quite, quite ladder like as well sort of careers for a long time

4:34

have been about climbing the ladder. That's our frame of reference.

4:39

That's the shape that springs to mind when we think about describing a career.

4:44

And myself and Helen, we are absolutely accidental entrepreneurs.

4:49

Uh, we are both, we were both very, very happy in our big kind of

4:52

corporate settings and environments and, and enjoying enjoying the

4:55

work that we both did there. And, um, we were having just a conversation over a coffee one day

5:01

where we talked about this sort of changing shape of careers and I did

5:06

the slightly cliche napkin drawing where I drew this sort of squiggle

5:09

and said, I think squiggly careers feels much more reflective of both

5:14

our experiences now, but also all of these teams that we're leading

5:17

the conversations that we're having.

5:20

And actually for us, the interesting thing, uh, it was almost less now sort

5:24

of squiggly as a way, a shape of careers.

5:26

'Cause most people get that, they get that really quickly.

5:29

The bit that we spend most of our time on is how do we help people with their

5:32

squiggly careers in a very useful way?

5:35

Useful is our number one value at Amazing If.

5:38

So, we want to be really practical, try and avoid career cliches that are just

5:43

often demotivating rather than motivating.

5:45

And in the work that we do, whether it's the podcasts that we do, or books or

5:50

workshops, or just creating free tools, I want somebody to, to be able to use

5:55

those things and think this is useful for me, regardless of whether you are in

5:59

your first job, whether you are in your 50th job, whether you want to deepen your

6:03

specialism or whether you want to try working for yourself for the first time.

6:08

And so that's sort of, we know we'll never be done, um, and we

6:11

know we always have more to do, but that's how I spend all my time.

6:15

I, I like the idea of finding a job that will never be done because if

6:19

you like it, then you've got a job for life, which ironically is something

6:23

that we also trying to talk about, which is like, is that exists anymore.

6:28

Um, so a question I had was, you talked about the, the challenges.

6:35

Well, what I heard was something around about challenges of this idea

6:38

of that, you know, everyone's more or less got a squiggly career it feels.

6:40

What, what kind of difficulties do you find people have with

6:46

confronting that and just. You know, working with that idea?

6:50

Well I think there's, uh, challenges that individuals have and I think there's

6:53

challenges that organizations have and they are actually sometimes different.

6:57

So individually, I think letting go of the ladder, depending on how committed

7:01

to that ladder and climbing that ladder you've bitten can feel really hard.

7:05

Um, I found it hard to, to move out of big organizations.

7:08

I could have started my own company sooner, definitely.

7:11

Some of the practical things were in place for me to have made that

7:14

squiggle, um, quicker than I did.

7:17

And letting go of my, the identity and the status that I'd sort of created in

7:22

this more ladder like world, uh, took a bit of a mindset shift and a bit of

7:27

a reframe in terms of, well, what does success look like for me in my career?

7:31

And I started my career thinking success equals climbing that

7:34

ladder as far and as fast as I can and trying to get to the top.

7:39

I couldn't have told you what the top was, but I, I thought that's what success was.

7:43

And so you've sort of gotta let go of that and figure out for yourself.

7:46

You've gotta ask yourself harder questions like, what does it mean

7:49

to be successful in my career? And, and you are, rather than sub subscribing to almost someone else's

7:54

definition, which is easier and you're told what to do and you're

7:58

told where to go, you've kind of gotta figure it out for yourself.

8:01

So I think that could feel hard. In terms of squiggly careers.

8:04

Though, I would say in my experience, the individuals get squiggly

8:08

careers, whether they are working in a massive corporate bank or they

8:11

are running their own companies. People get, get the idea pretty quickly.

8:15

The idea that we're all work in progress. We're all unlearning, relearning, and learning all the time,

8:20

that we're gonna have four or five different types of career.

8:23

That you've gotta take accountability and ownership for your own career.

8:26

I don't really spend that much time persuading individuals of the idea.

8:30

Organizations are different because, uh, the legacy of that ladder means

8:34

they've got, uh, structures in place that are sort of quite ladder alike.

8:39

And for some organizations they might recognize the shift, but,

8:43

but making that happen is hard.

8:45

So to give you a practical example of one of the toughest challenges, and I

8:49

think it's important, we don't shy away from these ones and talking about money,

8:53

okay, I'm, I'm gonna embrace a squiggly career in my organization and I'm gonna

8:57

squiggle and stay as we would describe it.

8:59

I'm gonna move from marketing to corporate responsibility.

9:02

That's what I did in Sainsbury's.

9:04

Okay, so what happens in terms of pay and pay rises?

9:08

Because historically pay is pinned to climbing that ladder.

9:13

So, you know, pay and money is really important for everyone 'cos, it is not

9:17

our only motivator, but it is important. So if I want to squiggle, does that then mean that I have to let go of,

9:24

uh, like financial reward or can an organization create an environment where

9:28

I can progress and also still increase my earnings, increase my level of

9:33

reward based on transferring my talent and the experiences that I've got?

9:37

And that is a really big shift for organizations, and it's

9:40

hard for them to do because traditionally pay is all about level.

9:45

Uh, so that, that, that's just one example of one of the tough things that

9:48

I think organizations are grappling with because actually they want flow of people.

9:53

It's way more expensive to recruit someone new than to reimagine

9:57

retention, which is why we do loads of experiments with companies at the

10:01

moment about, uh, career safaris.

10:03

So give people the chance to go and just like, try out a

10:06

different area in a different team. Um, and some of those experiments you can do quite quickly and quite easily.

10:12

But there are some really big structural things that I think we

10:14

can't shy away from if we really want to make this the reality.

10:18

If organizations want their people to flow very freely, um, rather

10:22

than straight away look to leave, which is what happens at the moment,

10:25

I want to do something different. About 60 to 70% of people automatically go, well, I've gotta, I've gotta leave.

10:31

But what happens if you enjoy your organization, if you've got a good

10:33

values fit, if you like the people, I, I don't want those people to

10:37

feel like they've got to leave much better to stay to squiggle and stay.

10:41

But again, it can't mean jeopardizing income for people or pay, or

10:45

people feeling like they've gotta start again from scratch.

10:47

Mm-hmm. So there's some knotty problems as we would describe them when it comes

10:51

to squiggly careers, but we are, we are finding our way through those.

10:54

And I think the organizations that are the most impressive

10:57

are very good at experimenting. So rather than.

11:00

Trying to have all of the answers, they, they involve people in creating and

11:05

then they try stuff out and they're the organizations that seem to be making

11:08

the most progress that we work with. This is gonna be of a little bit of a detail, but I couldn't help but just

11:13

latch onto this, this idea of money and, and I'm gonna think about value, because

11:19

you talked about this, these levels, and I've seen this in a lot of jobs and

11:24

I talked to my wife about this is like different grades, different levels.

11:27

So if you're at this level, you get paid this much of it, this, that. So it's really clear and transparent how much you get paid, uh,

11:33

depending on the level you're at. And then there's how much value you create for a business.

11:39

And I'm not sure how sometimes they equate.

11:41

And for the individual, what value means to them as well in terms of their lives.

11:47

So there's this thing around, okay, I go from, I don't know, you said marketing

11:51

to corporate responsibility, social responsibility for instance, and I'm

11:55

just gonna speak out loud here, it might be incorrect, totally incorrect.

11:59

And say the, there's a pay cut there, for instance.

12:02

So on one hand there's a perception of, oh, that's value.

12:06

Well, from the company it seems that potentially valued less from

12:09

a terms of monetary perspective. But then from a personal point of view, you can either say, think, oh,

12:14

that job is like less value in general because we are equating money to value.

12:19

But then what does it mean? What does, and you're talking about, what does success mean to me?

12:24

What does that also then terms in mean in terms of the value that

12:27

I get from working in that role? I Yeah, I think there are a few things.

12:31

I think one of the things that we spend quite a lot of time helping people with

12:35

is the value of your transferable talents.

12:38

So we can't help but see the things that we are good at in the

12:41

context of how we use them today. So I can't help but think, um, okay.

12:45

One of the things I'm great at is starting stuff from scratch.

12:47

Like I love developing new ideas. And if you ask me to give some examples of that, I can give it.

12:52

But in the here and now, because that's, we're present focused and we're sort

12:56

of very good at being short term. But if I'm going to think about, squiggling in a different direction,

13:02

um, if I'm gonna go and do something new, if I decide I'm gonna go and

13:04

do something different, I've got to figure out how to transfer that

13:08

talent so it's useful potentially by using it in a different way.

13:12

That's what's really va that's something that I value 'cause I enjoy

13:16

it and that's where I find my flow. But also it is valuable.

13:19

So it's value valuable to me in terms of, I, I like spending time

13:23

on that and I've got to figure out how is that useful for other people.

13:27

And so part of that I think is asking some how questions.

13:30

So rather than going, what do I do?

13:33

It's almost like what helps me to do my job really well?

13:36

What is it about how I do my job that helps me to succeed?

13:41

And then start to figure out, well then how could that be helpful somewhere else?

13:44

So that having that confidence that you don't have to keep using

13:47

those things that you're good at in the way that you use them today.

13:50

You know that, um, what have got us here won't get us there.

13:53

And we are all like, we are all unlearning and relearning all the time.

13:57

Like, you know, how I use my strengths in the context of a

13:59

small, fast-growing organization is so different to Sainsbury's.

14:03

And I think that's one of the things that I was fearful of. I was like, well, I'm, I'm good in a big company.

14:07

I, I can see how I am valuable in this company, but does that value diminish?

14:14

Like, is it still useful when I then go and run a company,

14:17

which I've never done before? So I, so I don't know. So I think one of the things with squiggly careers that everyone's getting

14:21

more used to is that sense of, firstly, there is always an unknown when you

14:27

squiggle because you've often not done it before, but you've got to have

14:31

confidence in your transferrable talents.

14:34

So I've got to have confidence that, uh, my ability to develop

14:38

people that are, that I love starting to start from scratch.

14:41

I'm, I'm good with a blank piece of paper. I'm really good at, uh, long-term relationship building, that

14:46

those things are really valuable. Assets or transferable talents that I can take with me wherever I go, um,

14:53

and feeling like they will be useful.

14:56

So you've got to be confident to talk about them for a start.

14:58

I think you've also got to have that. There's sort of a push and pull that happens and you want people to sort

15:03

of pull you towards them as well. You don't wanna feel like you're pushing yourself on people.

15:07

And I think when I moved from marketing to corporate responsibility, I would say

15:11

a really significant enabler of that was the director that I was going to work for.

15:17

Who, who I had never worked in corporate responsibility and I was gonna be head of

15:21

corporate responsibility for a FTSE 100.

15:23

That feels on paper, I would say like quite a big risk for that director.

15:28

You know, she's putting a lot of trust in my transferable talents.

15:32

So I think the, we shouldn't underestimate the kind of role of leadership and people

15:37

who've got the ability to kind of pull those transferable talents and have

15:41

the confidence in people's potential. I do see it time and time again.

15:44

People are capable of more they give than they give themselves

15:47

credit for, definitely. People can transfer their talent and lots of things are learnable.

15:53

Most things are learnable. I didn't know anything about court responsibility reporting, for example.

16:00

But could I demonstrate that I had learned things before that

16:03

I got the good learning agility? It's sometimes described as, yes, that was what was important.

16:09

Have I got right the right learning mindset? Have I got that learning agility?

16:12

Okay, well, Does Sarah know anything about corporate responsibility reporting?

16:16

No. Do I believe that she can learn it and that she'll be motivated

16:21

to do that and driven to do that? Yes. Okay, fine.

16:24

I sort of, I'll, I, the value in Sarah is in her transferrable talent,

16:28

and I believe that she can learn the things that are very learnable.

16:32

And we're seeing, I felt like I was quite an exception to the rule

16:36

when I first did that, but we are now seeing so many more examples.

16:39

And I think I get emails every week from someone who has sort of rethought how they

16:43

think about their career for themselves and their organization have helped them to

16:47

do that, and they've now moved from being a scientist to being a senior HR person.

16:53

We had one example of that this week, and she was just, she's

16:56

absolutely flying, she's loving. It. Does, does that mean she wants to work in HR forever?

17:00

Like who knows? There is no point in doing five year career plans anymore.

17:05

They're just not useful. Much better off to think about how are we growing?

17:09

How are we developing, how are we being curious about where

17:12

our careers could take us? I, I was, it was interesting there, you talked about there's the, there's the

17:17

content, the knowledge which you can acquire, but then there's also what's

17:21

important, the capability to learn, so the ability to learn and also, so something

17:27

here are you talking about the why, the curiosity to learn, the motivation

17:31

to actually do something different. And I just wanted to like pass over to Laurence as well.

17:35

'cause given his, the start of his career, there were some transferable

17:39

skills that you brought from your first job to web design.

17:42

But yeah, I dunno. Do you want to, was there anything there in that, that,

17:45

that resonated with your own path? Laurence?

17:48

Well, there's my own path, but I think there's also the path that, we, we

17:52

meet a lot of people who are at a point in transition and, you know, many of

17:54

them are either starting a business or running a business or looking to

17:58

maybe start a new business, you know, reinvent their business or pivot.

18:02

And the one thing I'm seeing a lot of is there's a lot of fear, because

18:07

there's a fear of committing to something and they can't see the, almost, like

18:12

you said, the transferable skills or the intangibles that actually can

18:16

serve them, even if that turns out not to be the right move for them.

18:19

And I think when I look back to my career, I, I know always had this

18:24

confidence that what's, you know, what's the worst that could happen?

18:26

I'll, I'll have more skills, more experiences, probably a bigger

18:31

network and, uh, a lot more assets and intangibles in my resources that

18:37

I wouldn't have had if I hadn't tried. And so I think this talks to, I think a lot of people.

18:41

If we, if people can paint a picture of the things that they can take

18:43

with them, even if it doesn't succeed, I think it just gives

18:46

people more confidence to actually, uh, try things out, like you said.

18:50

And I love that idea of a career safari.

18:52

I'm almost thinking like a Startup safari. Like you go on a, on a journey and you, you try things out and you've go on an

18:57

adventure, and at the very least you'll take a lot of things with you, even if

19:01

it doesn't turn out to be success in the, in the way you thought about it.

19:05

I think you are right in that what often stops us is, you know, we try to make sure

19:09

this is gonna be the perfect move to make.

19:11

And, and you, you try to kind of have all the certainty and make sure that,

19:15

um, you sort of got that concrete sense of, you know, I've thought about this

19:18

and I, I sort of guaranteed to succeed.

19:21

But I think that is, um, a mistake to kind of have that sense of certainty in a world

19:26

that is always changing and uncertain. The best thing that you can do is think, Does it feel like I'm

19:32

going to get to, you know, use my strengths, kinda stretch my strengths?

19:35

Does it feel like there's a good values fit? You know, in terms of I'm gonna be motivated in the work that I'm doing.

19:40

And I think to your point, a really practical question I always ask everybody

19:44

is What will be true in 12 months time that isn't true today if you do this job?

19:50

And, and does that feel worth it? Does that feel like the right thing for you?

19:54

Um, and asking yourself like, well, what am I going to learn?

19:56

How am I going to grow ? Um, and I think that is often, certainly for me, in my own experience,

20:02

when I was thinking about moving into Amazing If or not, I just

20:05

thought, Well, do you know what? In 12 months or in 18 months time, let's imagine like lots of businesses,

20:10

our business doesn't work out. What will have been true in like the next 18 months?

20:16

Oh, well, I will get to have worked. I would've had the opportunity to work and create something with my best friend.

20:21

So I, my co-founder is, is also one of my best friends.

20:23

So I go, okay, well that, that feels like a fun thing to do.

20:27

Uh, worst case scenario, do I feel like someone will give me a job

20:30

that will, that will pay my mortgage and my childcare costs essentially?

20:33

Yeah, probably. Like I feel like I've got a good career community around me that in

20:37

terms of my essentials, my must-haves in terms of really practical things.

20:42

If it doesn't work out, I think I'll be able to get a job.

20:44

Okay, well that feels useful. What new skills would I have gained?

20:47

Okay, well I'm gonna be using my strengths in a completely different situation

20:51

and context, and that feels exciting. I feel really motivated by that.

20:55

And when I think about my four values and I think about, Do I feel

20:58

like those values are gonna show up in running my own company in the

21:02

way that they did in Sainsbury's? No, but do I feel they'll still be present?

21:06

Like if anything, even more? And I think it was probably the values that were the tipping point for me.

21:11

So when I sort of really went, I often see values as a bit like a career criteria

21:16

of kind of going well, if there're a lens to look at choices through, I think I've

21:21

made the bravest choices in my career and they've often also been the best choices.

21:26

So the bravest and the best choices when I've sort of zoomed out a

21:30

little bit from just the job title or pay, or exactly the company and

21:36

just thought, Right, my values are achievement ideas, learning and variety.

21:42

How, what kind of fit do I feel like I've got with those four values and this

21:47

opportunity, this move that I could make? And if those things don't feel like they're gonna be present, it

21:51

probably isn't the right thing for me. But if I feel pretty confident that those things are gonna be there, and I've

21:56

talked about them really transparently about being important to me, then that's

21:59

helped me to kind of do some probably unconventional things along the way.

22:04

It helped me to work a four day week at Sainsbury's when no one

22:07

was working a four day week. Um, particularly not to do a random business thingy for the other one day.

22:13

Uh, there was a few people who looked after their kids, but no one who did kind of what I did.

22:17

Um, you know, I went to be a managing director for a creative agency.

22:21

Went sort of from big clients to an agency. No one sort of goes that way round.

22:24

Everyone goes agency into client side.

22:27

So I sort of, I suppose I, I had the confidence and clarity to, for some

22:32

of my more ambitious squiggles, if you want to think of them like that.

22:35

I think because I knew what was most important to me and, and had the ability

22:39

to sort of stress test opportunities and options versus those values.

22:45

So I, the way I heard you phrase, it's like these values are the lens through

22:50

which you can make big decisions or these more important decisions.

22:54

And the question that springs to mind is, okay, what are my values?

22:58

Which are really my values, which are the values that I maybe inherited

23:01

from the culture of society, the company, the family that I'm in?

23:06

Because I was, I, I know this is a question really around you, up until

23:11

you started Amazing If and you left, you had a, were they the same values?

23:15

'Cause they were, yeah. You had made decisions to go to that.

23:18

So, on one hand, what's coming to mind is like those values would tell

23:22

you to stay as well as tell you to leave, or was there something else

23:28

that helped you with that shift? So I think your, your core values stay really consistent.

23:34

So your core values are what makes you, you, they're sort of your d n a

23:37

or for better or for worse, actually.

23:40

So, you know, my achievement value works for me, and you can also imagine, it's

23:44

not hard to imagine how an achievement value can also work against you.

23:48

You could work too much, um, you might jeopardize other parts

23:51

of your life as a result of it. So, you know, values are just sort of you, your core values.

23:57

We have loads of things that are important to us, but there's usually sort of

24:00

three to five things that really matter.

24:03

And if you ever do a kind of career graph of your highs and your lows, I

24:07

guarantee you that all of your highs and your lows of your career so far in

24:11

your highs, your values will be very present, and in your lows, your values

24:15

will be missing or there'll be some tensional conflict with those values.

24:18

And so you are spot on in terms of, for example, at Sainsbury's,

24:22

was I living my values? Was there a kind of a good fit with my values?

24:25

Yep, absolutely. Achievement ideas, learning variety.

24:29

But there's a scale, you know, there's always shades of gray.

24:32

So if I was thinking very practically on a scale of zero to 10, how much was

24:36

I living each of those values, no one lives their values 10 all of the time.

24:41

And also we don't have work values and personal values.

24:43

So some of living those values are things that you do outside of work and

24:47

other things that you are interested in. But I could probably look at that criteria and think, oh, maybe

24:51

achievement might be an eight out of 10 ideas might be more like a six.

24:56

You don't have quite as much freedom, um, in the big world

24:58

of kind of corporate structures. Um, learning maybe a seven, variety at that point.

25:03

Probably more like a six. Um, because I like variety in terms of where I work and how I work.

25:08

And then there was quite a few limitations kind of back in that pre pandemic world.

25:13

And so when I then looked to, okay, making a decision to go and work for

25:17

a smaller company, making a decision to go and work for myself, it wasn't

25:20

that those values were a zero because I think if they're a zero, you

25:23

are, you are moving much quicker. That's when you're kind of going do something different because

25:27

you'll be unhappy pretty quickly.

25:30

You know, you'll really, you won't be getting, you won't be feeling particularly motivated.

25:33

But I think I then thought in Amazing If I had already tried it out.

25:37

So I was already doing it one day a week for, for a while.

25:40

And I was doing it on the side. Amazing If was a side project for a long time.

25:43

So I wasn't going into the complete unknown. And we know from research, the most successful career change,

25:50

unfortunately, and slightly boringly happens incrementally and slowly.

25:55

So I very, I sort of very slowly like edged my way through

26:00

making that career change. So I think I got quite a lot of confidence that I, not only was I gonna get to live

26:05

my values running Amazing If, but maybe those numbers would be even higher.

26:10

I didn't quite know, 'cause I'd never done it full time, but I'd done it

26:12

enough, we were already, we'd already written a book, we'd already done a

26:16

podcast for a couple of years, i, I, I've known Helen, my co-founder for 23 years.

26:21

So that gave me that extra level of confidence.

26:24

But I still, but I still didn't know. I still wasn't sure.

26:26

There is still that I think that final point where you have to take the deep

26:30

breath and, and decide to go for it.

26:33

And there are some things I think you can put in place that

26:35

will set you up for success. But then, I did all of that good stuff that I've just described,

26:40

and I left my job in January, 2020.

26:43

And so for 10 weeks, life was amazing.

26:46

Best decision ever. Our book did really well.

26:49

We got good clients, it was all looking good.

26:51

And 10 weeks later, the pandemic hit and I watched our revenue disappear

26:56

for the rest of the year in three days.

26:59

So everybody's shape that, the pandemic looks different, but, but we fell off

27:03

a cliff lit, literally disappeared. Um, now there's a kind of happy ending to the story.

27:07

Like we also recovered very quickly. So we, we were okay, but you know, I could have done every career development

27:13

exercise and tool ever invented, and, and I could never have anticipated that.

27:18

But we did have some things in place that got us through that tough time.

27:22

We got cash flow. Really practically, I've got the right people around me in

27:27

terms of confidence and just a bit of support, uh, reassurance.

27:31

Um, and we've got some other things that we could do during that time to kind of

27:34

keep increasing our profile and things.

27:36

So like I say, it doesn't, there is no, oh, well if I do this, there's,

27:41

there's like this formula for success. We, we kind of know that's not true.

27:44

But I do think when I see people take a lot of ownership for their career and,

27:49

and kind of create and design their own career, they're always the people who

27:53

just seem to be enjoying their day to day.

27:55

They get to the end of the week and they think Was my time

27:57

at work well spent this week? And nine times outta 10, they're going, Yeah, there's some tough moments and

28:03

there's some knotty moments along the way. There's a bit of stress here and there because who doesn't have that?

28:07

But they are feeling good about the value that they add.

28:10

They are also feeling valuable. And whether that's you are running a massive FTSE or whether you are a

28:15

freelancer, I think those questions are important for all of us.

28:19

So when I'm thinking back at the values, for some reason, because of the

28:22

way you're using that, I was thinking of graphic equalizers ,was like,

28:25

all right, that's an eight, that's a six, that's a seven, that's a six.

28:29

And then it's like, oh, Amazing If, let's push everything up to ten.

28:32

It's like, how could I actually live a life where everything is like maxed out.

28:38

But at the same time, what I heard was that there was,

28:40

there's still a leap of faith. There's still this like, I don't know if that's gonna be right.

28:45

And so on one hand there's this, I could stay this place, which I would

28:48

say there's safety there and structure. Yeah. Or I could jump into this place which was uncertain and potentially adventurous.

28:57

And you talked about the four values you have, but I assume

28:59

there's also something here. I just wanna do something different.

29:02

I don't know whether, for me there was, I want to do something different.

29:05

I think it was. I want to create something.

29:09

I think that was the, that was the mo for me personally, that was my motivation.

29:14

Um, because doing differently, I think for me perhaps would've been, oh, well,

29:18

I'm sort of not as happy over here and I want to just do something different.

29:22

I think it was more, you know, when you have, um, I always ask

29:26

people when we, I say to everyone, do an energy audit of your week.

29:29

And so at the end of every day, just ask yourself one coaching question, which

29:32

is what gave me the most energy today? So of everything that you did, maybe it was the hour where you spoke to

29:38

no one, and you found your flow, like writing something, maybe it was

29:41

when you problem solving, you were collaborating, whatever it might be.

29:44

What I realized is that moment of high energy for me where I was finding my

29:49

flow were those Amazing If moments.

29:52

So it was sort of like the, oh, well maybe I, maybe I'm

29:56

very good in this current job. Maybe I found a way to be very good, or, but maybe there's, maybe I could be great.

30:03

Maybe I could, given how much energy this, these other things give me,

30:07

um, this seems to be where I'm at my best and I seem to be better.

30:11

I just seem to be that bit better when I am doing a career development workshop.

30:15

It gives me so much energy. I seem to find my flow, I seem to use my strengths, um, all of the

30:20

indicators feel positive essentially.

30:23

And so I think it was more about that going to that sense of energy and

30:28

enjoyment and going, I imagine if, like, wouldn't it be amazing If this could

30:33

be my, what I spent more of my time on.

30:35

Um, and like I say, that happened, that was, I mean we've been doing

30:38

Amazing If since 2013 where like the slowest tort us of all time.

30:43

but I think that's been really good for us. That, that meant that we.

30:46

We tested our ideas, we let go of stuff that failed along the way.

30:50

We made sure that we wanted to work together. And so then it happened very naturally and organically.

30:56

Um, and I, and I think that's been a kind of really good thing,

30:59

really, really good thing for us. But again, it doesn't mean it's always easy.

31:02

Like, um, I mentioned to you the other day, I definitely had a moment

31:05

last year where I wanted to hide under a duvet, semi permanently.

31:09

Um, and I'd never felt like that in corporate world, ever.

31:13

So I had never felt like that working in any big brand.

31:16

I'd never thought, I wish I could escape the world for a week.

31:19

Um, and last year I definitely had that moment and that felt

31:22

really unfamiliar and quite scary.

31:25

Yeah. So thank you for, for mentioning that.

31:28

And I, I'd like to, if possible, just for, for people who've, who may

31:32

experience that kind of phase or just, um, themselves will recognize that.

31:36

I'd like to talk a bit more to that as well.

31:38

Um, I'm also curious about some parallels here.

31:41

'cause what I heard when you're talking about this transition to amazing, if

31:45

there's this idea of an energy or, so, where do you, where are you getting

31:49

a lot of energy and, and figuring out where the energy's coming from.

31:53

But then it's real need to create, I want to create something.

31:56

That's what I heard. And so I, when, you know, one of the things that I think many of the people

32:01

are attracted to our community is like, it isn't necessarily about the money.

32:06

And sometimes it isn't necessarily about the impact.

32:08

It's that I just wanna make something for myself.

32:11

There is something inside that I want to birth, and I want to use my time

32:17

in the most energetic way that feels most energetically, uh, aligned.

32:21

Well, yeah, so many parallels. You know, starting a business with friends, being starting business

32:27

around the same time, about 2012, 2013, we started Happy Startup School,

32:31

running it as a side project for, we had two years I think, of the agency

32:35

and Happy Startup as a side project.

32:37

So there's lots of parallels there. Um, and also just the dip.

32:41

Yeah, like you talked about those moments. I think we definitely had those over the years.

32:44

Certainly, I'd say probably about three or four years ago, um, we

32:48

just had a crazy year doing event after event and just saying yes to

32:51

everything because we weren't sure what the right thing was to do.

32:54

And getting to a point, um, where I just thought, I can't do another year like that

32:59

as, as fun as it was, need to either stop, stop doing some things, build some better

33:02

habits or, um, yeah, bring in more help.

33:06

And so, In some ways, I wonder whether those are the times when

33:10

they almost need to happen to know what your limits are, what your

33:12

boundaries are, and, and actually which of the bits you enjoy doing.

33:15

And like you said, that energy audit, I think is so powerful because that

33:19

was actually the thing I got from trying to decide between what do we do?

33:22

We, you know, do we stick with twist? Do we go with the safe agency?

33:25

We could see the business, we could see the future. We could see the, there was a plan, you know, there was a, a model to follow and

33:30

we knew people who were ahead of us and we could sort of use them as mentors.

33:34

But it wasn't really exciting. It wasn't really energizing me.

33:36

And I don't think it was either Carlos.

33:38

Versus we're doing this thing on the side, but it's just feels like fun.

33:42

It feels like play, and I'm getting so much off it, so much energy off it.

33:46

And the people we're meeting and within a few months of starting Happy Startup

33:50

School, we probably had more, more sort of positive energy coming back

33:55

to us than we'd had in 10 years of running an agency as good as it was.

33:58

So it just, like you said, it felt like a different level

34:00

of experience really of work.

34:02

I'd never, I've never experienced that before, that feeling of

34:05

depth that I'd not experienced. And so that was what was calling me.

34:08

I was getting a buzz off the energy of others, um, rather than just,

34:12

there's times when I enjoy writing and I get energy off that too.

34:15

But there's definitely that feeling of, yeah, this is where I need to be.

34:19

This is where I'm best used to people.

34:21

Yeah. And on that kind of the, the dip or the, the, the duvet week, what were you able to

34:28

identify what it was and then, or was it just a phase that you had to run through?

34:33

How, how did that manifest for you, Sarah? So what was interesting about that moment is I think it's probably the first time

34:39

where I, I couldn't see, I couldn't see, uh, my way through a period of time.

34:45

So we're all, everyone's always busy and we've always got loads of things that were

34:48

sort of fitting together, but I'd always experienced, you know, I, I could have

34:52

got a lot of capacity and I was able to always think, have confidence in myself.

34:58

I will find my way through this. Yeah, we've got some big things happening, but I feel good about, uh, you know,

35:03

I've got the right people and I'm, I'm on my own confidence in my own abilities.

35:07

And I think that was the big difference for me is I, I looked ahead to the

35:11

next two or three months and I thought, I, I can't, I can't strategically,

35:16

I can't put all the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that works.

35:20

I, I don't get it. I don't get how this is going to happen.

35:23

Uh, so I felt out of control and I don't like, I don't like being out of control.

35:28

I've got high need for control, and, and I think it, that was just

35:31

a very unfamiliar feeling for me.

35:34

And so interestingly, so I rang my co-founder.

35:37

I was, it was like a freezing cold day. I was at Clapham Junction Station.

35:40

It was like snowing, like, but not in a nice, pretty snow way, in

35:44

like a cold, sleety, horrible way.

35:46

Um, rang Helen, my co-founder, who's a real extrovert.

35:49

She's a real doer. I'm more of a thinker.

35:52

And what was, what was interesting in that moment is when I spoke to her and

35:56

was sort of trying to describe it less articulately, and this might have not

35:59

been that articulate, but in terms of what I've just sort of talked to you

36:03

how I was feeling and what I was worried about, she, she didn't really get it.

36:08

So what she moved to really quickly, which is what we would do 99% of

36:11

the time, is like, how can I help? What do we need to do?

36:14

What action should we take? And I sort of refused to be drawn into that conversation.

36:19

I was sort of like, No, no, I'm not, I'm not really there yet.

36:23

I didn't, I, and I sort of didn't really, I just almost couldn't react.

36:26

And then I, we sort of, I sort of just like hung up, hung, hung up the phone, and

36:30

straight away we were like, that's weird.

36:33

That just didn't feel right. That doesn't feel like other conversations.

36:37

What, what sort, something went wrong there. And what's interesting is she went home to her husband, and then talked to him

36:43

and she was like, I've just had this really weird conversation with Sarah.

36:45

And he sort of said to her, oh, I think perhaps you didn't

36:49

give Sarah what she needed. Um, and you're so action focused you sometimes forget to have empathy.

36:54

Now that's a really harsh bit of feedback that only a husband

36:57

could probably give a wife. Um, now Helen then, so between us, I was already really struggling.

37:02

Helen then gets really upset because her husband has just told

37:05

her she hasn't got any empathy, um, which she absolutely does have.

37:08

And then she gets really worried that she hasn't then helped me.

37:12

And so what was so funny that Friday night, and I mean I think you have

37:15

to laugh by this point, is like we are both trying to like bath our kids

37:18

and stuff kind of just between us sort of falling apart all over the

37:21

place that we're what is happening? Um, and it all happened quite quickly.

37:25

And what was interesting is we've always talked about, um, fix friction fast.

37:31

And that wasn't really friction, but when something doesn't feel

37:34

right, calling it and just sort of saying this doesn't feel right.

37:37

And that being okay. And actually what I really needed in that moment, all I needed

37:41

was someone to listen to me. I just needed a kind of pure listener, um, with lots of empathy just to

37:48

support and sort of, I just needed someone to be there, you know, just

37:51

kind of completely just be there. And so actually I went to a different friend, a friend I've worked with before.

37:56

Um, he's great and he sort of had a very different response to Helen and he's a

38:01

very different sort of person to Helen. He was like, have a drink.

38:04

That was his first response, like, get, get the g and t out.

38:08

Then his next response was like, whatcha you doing at the weekend?

38:10

Like you do, like, do something fun at the weekend, almost

38:13

like, forget about work for now. Sort of just lock it away for a bit.

38:18

I know it's not going to go away, but just like almost distract yourself.

38:21

So he had a very, very different response, and that was actually what

38:24

I needed in that, in that moment. And so it was actually really good for our relationship, for Helen and

38:30

I to know that sometimes we don't always have to be each other's answer.

38:33

That's, that's a good thing. You don't want, we always say you don't want your development to be dependent on

38:37

anyone or certainly not any one person.

38:40

Um, and also it helped us to realize that we can get through those hard moments.

38:45

And it really made us press pause. And it made us press pause and go, okay, that's, it was such a

38:51

significant response from me and one that neither of us sort of seen that

38:56

it really made us stop and evaluate. Okay, so why, what triggered that?

39:01

What is that about? Like, why, what do we need to do differently?

39:04

We asked ourselves some really hard questions and you can't

39:07

change things overnight. And a lot of the changes that actually we then may took six to nine months to make

39:13

because you can't just drop everything. You know, you've, you've made commitment.

39:16

But you can, you can always, I think, do something differently.

39:20

There's always something, there's always something you can either

39:23

say no to, you can get some help or, um, you can deprioritize.

39:28

It might not feel very comfortable. It might not feel very fun, but there's always something at least a

39:32

little bit around the edges because the bigger changes do tend to take

39:35

a bit longer, certainly that's been my experience over the last year.

39:38

So albeit I don't really want to experience that in quite that same

39:42

way again because it wasn't, I can laugh about it now, but at that

39:45

time it didn't, didn't feel great. I'm sort of grateful for it because I feel like we are a better business

39:51

because of my Clapham Junction meltdown. And I talked, I've talked about it a few times now that, you know, I

39:56

feel like I can laugh at myself about it and I get people emailing me to

39:59

think like, I forget that people listen to our podcast sometimes.

40:02

And then I got my mum emailing me being like, are you okay?

40:05

'Cause my mum listens, she's like our biggest fan.

40:07

She's like, Are you okay? Is everything all right? And I was like, oh yeah, I sort of forgot.

40:10

I forgot that by saying these these things out loud, there are people

40:13

who actually do know me really well, who then might be worried.

40:16

And so it was all, it was all fine.

40:19

Um, but I think it was a valuable insight for me that you can be doing

40:24

the job you really want to be doing and that you designed and that I, I love.

40:28

And those things can still happen. And that's okay.

40:31

That's okay. It doesn't mean you are in the wrong job. It doesn't mean I should not do Amazing If.

40:35

It just means it's a hard moment. It's one of those naughty moments where you've gotta find your way

40:41

through it and you've gotta get unstuck and, and that's okay.

40:44

Mm-hmm. I call them AFGOs, another fucking growth opportunity.

40:48

And it's, it is like, what I heard there was, there's like a period where the next

40:55

three months or so looked really bleak.

40:58

Like there's like a dark shadow and not knowing what was next.

41:04

And it felt like just pausing and stopping and not being in the fixing mode straight

41:09

away gave some space to imagine what could be, as opposed to, oh my God, this

41:18

train is gonna hit me in about whatever.

41:20

There's the future is inevitable. Kind of feeling it felt like, or oblique future was inevitable.

41:26

And we talk a lot about, in our community, well we've been inherited

41:31

the idea of the power of pause from a good friend Sally Ann Airy.

41:35

And we've also, uh, done a couple of initiatives.

41:38

One called the Day of Nothing, and also we've done a retreat

41:41

called the Week of Nothing. Well, I think, well the Day of Nothing came out of, in the midst of the pandemic

41:46

really, there was a lot of, we didn't do our summer camp and so there was a, uh,

41:51

a call for us to do a virtual version of it, and the energy just wasn't there,

41:55

and I just didn't feel right to try and recreate that experience online because

41:57

it's a completely different thing. Um, and so actually that was almost a backlash to that in, in

42:02

terms of wanting to switch off rather than stay switched on.

42:05

Um, but I think it's, I suppose anyone who runs their own business, I think the

42:09

more you, um, work as an entrepreneur, you realize the importance of space

42:14

and the importance of, um, that time away from the business, whether it's

42:17

a walk in the morning or just yeah, uh, five minutes grabbing a coffee,

42:21

that, that moment of pause I think is so powerful for our ideas, for our,

42:24

um, sanity and for our wellbeing. And so, yeah, the Week of Nothing was really an extension of that, where we

42:28

spent five days in lovely center and Somerset, um, pausing, which again,

42:34

for a lot of people, scary as well. It's like Summer Camp next weekend.

42:36

We were talking about this this morning, me and Carlos, you know,

42:38

for some people coming back, it's a great chance to reconnect.

42:40

It's almost like a reunion. For new people it can be scary, this idea of leaving your kids at home,

42:45

if you've got kids for three days and creating space for yourself.

42:49

Even if you know you probably need it, there's a fear of what happens when

42:52

you create it, because I think we're so used to having a day's program

42:56

that, I dunno if you find this on your Fridays, that there's a space

42:59

that you create that you put trust in, but ultimately things emerge that you

43:02

maybe didn't expect or feelings might pop up that you weren't planning for.

43:05

And so I. It comes with a word of warning, I suppose.

43:08

And that's where I think, I think a community and people around you

43:11

so important so that they can pick you up when those things come up

43:14

that maybe are there anyway, but you just have so many layers on

43:16

top that you don't always see them. So for me, it's just a bit of letting the guard down and unraveling those layers so

43:22

we can actually know what's really going on rather than just carry on as normal.

43:26

And ideally preempting those moments where you're not hiding on VO for

43:30

a week or even a month, but you put yourself first for a change.

43:34

I think the other thing is, um, which you mentioned earlier in our

43:37

conversation today, is you realize you're in it for the long term.

43:41

And so to to, to do that, you know, like I, I think, well, I, I love what

43:46

I do so much that I still, I want to be able to do it in 10 years time,

43:49

in 20 years time or 30 years time.

43:53

we talk about this in the communities, this idea of sustainability, there's

43:56

financial sustainability, then there's energetic sustainability.

43:59

And our ability to, to always be in that space of creativity, be

44:05

in that optimistic space where we feel that, you know, we want, we're

44:08

motivated to continue with the work.

44:10

And, and having those times to pause. Would hope to, to end on, um, because this is one of the things I heard Sarah

44:17

talk about before when she was making the transition to Amazing If was to have.

44:23

Good support around you. and we can maybe talk a little bit to that, myself and Laurence

44:27

But maybe, Sarah, are you back? So I think Sarahs gonna try and reboot her

44:32

Squiggly connection. Her squiggly connection. Well, one thing that came to mind that I was gonna actually ask Sarah was

44:37

this, so she talked a lot about the transferable skills and these intangibles

44:41

when you do something different, transfer careers or start a new business.

44:44

But I think, um, there's something about having a story to tell

44:49

other people, 'cause I think that's always the issue, isn't it?

44:51

If you're doing something different and someone ask a question or it doesn't

44:54

work out, what do you say to people? And so in some ways, I've found that's having people around you is really

44:59

helpful with that because they can help you craft a story that makes sense,

45:04

um, even if something didn't work. Rather than just, I tried something, I feel like a failure.

45:09

Um, I feel like an embarrassment because people ask me what

45:11

went wrong and did it work? You know, how's it going with the business?

45:14

Is it going great? You know, people ask things, how's business?

45:17

Which can be a tough question when business isn't going well and, and as

45:20

if that's the only measure of like, things are going well because the

45:22

business is going well or vice versa.

45:24

So yeah, that, that story piece I think is so important.

45:28

And I think that's really hard to create on your own because you're wrapped in something.

45:31

So whether it's having a mentor coach or just peers or a community around you to

45:35

say, Have you thought about it this way?

45:38

Try reframing it this way. And then they then have something to say when someone says, how's it going?

45:43

They say, I'm okay and this is what I've got from it, and then moving

45:46

on, rather than, I feel like a failure because it was so binary

45:50

that it either worked or it didn't. Yeah. And what I liked, um, was picking up from what Sarah's story around that

45:57

kind of duvet week was also, rather than jumping into fixing things.

46:03

And we have all have people who can fix problems for us that we can lean on.

46:08

There's also people who can hold space for us and just give us a chance to

46:12

just share what's really going on. And, um, when it comes to this idea of creating, finding support,

46:19

traditionally I think business owners or people starting business, they

46:22

think, oh, I'm gonna need an accountant. I need a lawyer, I need Aweber designer, I need a graphic designer.

46:27

You know, all of these kind of more tangible kind of levels of support,

46:33

but not necessarily the emotional side.

46:35

And maybe they think, oh, my partner or my family or some

46:38

friends will be able to do that. Not necessarily though, if they haven't necessarily had the same experience or

46:44

aren't in the same frame of reference of you in terms of like starting

46:48

something new, starting a business, stepping into something uncertain.

46:51

And so for me, there's something here around having people around you that not

46:56

only understand the journey, but also understand the type of journey you're

46:59

going on, that isn't just about the money.

47:02

And this is why I think our community's important is that.

47:05

When even when you're saying large, oh, business isn't going well, if you

47:08

look, you can look at it from a very simple lens of how much money you are

47:11

making, but business could be going well because I've still got the freedom.

47:15

I'm still doing what I want. It's just at the moment, the money isn't doing the way I'd like it to or isn't

47:20

working the way I'd like it to work. But it doesn't mean business isn't going well, it's just

47:23

not performing in that lens. And so like you're saying, how do we expand the story that I'm still

47:29

on the journey I need to take? It's just certain bits that are still challenging rather than, oh, the

47:34

business is screwed because we're not making the revenue that we said we were

47:37

gonna make in our Q4 planning meeting.

47:39

It's like, no, just going through a hard patch.

47:42

I, like Sarah said, that's an element of doing the right thing.

47:45

You know, enjoying each week, enjoying each day, and then doing

47:48

the right thing, living your values. And over time, those tough weeks get balanced out by the better

47:53

weeks rather than it being sort of, yeah, peaks and troughs,

47:57

And I think it's nice to have to meet Sarah and to talk to him was for me,

48:00

because then surrounding yourself with and connecting with people who

48:04

also appreciate that way of working, who also think of it not purely in

48:10

very simple terms around business. So, um, it's a shame that we weren't able to say goodbye

48:15

to you, Sarah, uh, properly. I hope you're still there listening.

48:19

Um, thank you. Please share in the chat, uh, because you haven't had a chance to do your

48:23

shameless promotion bit, um, a link to Amazing If or anything that's going on,

48:30

uh, for you at the moment that you'd like people to pay attention to, 'cause there

48:33

is the podcast as well and you have the new book, uh, You Coach You as well as

48:38

the previous books, Squiggly Careers.

48:41

Um, so if you wanna find out more about that, the Squiggly Careers

48:45

podcast, please look that up. If you're interested in finding out more about Sarah and her co-founder Helen,

48:51

and there's AmazingIf.com and you'll find out about their books as well.