Prison, Single Parenthood & Refusing to Be Defined by Either

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0:36katie thank you so much it is a pleasure to have you here um i've watched you from afar on linkedin that sounds weirder than it is um but uh you have built an incredible uh personal brand i would say and um and you posted something recently which which intrigued me and i thought i'm definitely going to get you on and at very short notice you've come in so maybe um you could help uh give insight to what i know to the audience about you your background a bit about you know what you're up to now and um why it was important to come on to behind the title oh my goodness there's a lot for me to i know i gave you four things yeah you're gonna you're giving me a long stage maybe start maybe start with a bit about who you are and your background yeah guys get strapped in Here we go.

1:25It's exciting. Who am I? Who is Katie Street? Great question to start with. Well, first up, I think probably one of my most important jobs in life is I'm a mum. So I'm going to go there first. Yay. I am a mum of a daughter who is just about to turn 18. So she's definitely my proudest life achievement without fail. But also I run a business. So I've got a marketing agency. we do B2B marketing for quite big brands actually nowadays. So I started off way back when, in fact, we're seven years old next week. Not even that actually, on the 20th of May. I know, nearly happy birthday. So we started out as an agency for agencies, which is probably how we connected because I had quite a big community in the agency world.

2:15But now we only really work with tech companies. So this morning we were hosting an event with Microsoft. My clients are people like Shopify, Adobe, Contentful. I'm trying to think of other big brands that you guys will know that are listening. Apps Flyer. I mean, you've already reeled off a few there. So many big ones. And we tend to do what I call people-powered marketing. So I guess very person-centered, which means we do a lot of events. Very commercially focused, like lead gen focused. Events and content, podcasts, all this kind of stuff. um but for tech companies so that's I guess two of the biggest things that I guess I that define Katie today um but I mean I get I've been lots of different things over the years you know I have once not for a very long time been a wife um I um I've been a daughter I am a daughter a sister I am all the things and I've had I guess an interesting an interesting life with lots of and downs which is why you've asked me to come on hey i mean you wrote it i'm just nearly gonna give you a platform to share it um but i well i think it is uh i mean for me i was fascinated to read it and then when we spoke on the phone i was also and i never asked this i was i was more intrigued as to why you felt it was important to come onto the podcast what what drew you to it as a platform yeah well one because you sent me a lovely message that's a good good email manners you do you're really lovely um but i think for me like you know i guess uh it may look i know i am successful i am successful but i think there's a lot of content out in the world about you know people you know up up up up up everyone's doing brilliantly it makes people feel i don't know sometimes a bit inadequate even I feel like that sometimes I'm like I'm not doing enough or oh my god look at these you know girls or men in their 20s that are doing so much more than me why didn't I do that in my 20s why is it taking me till I'm 40 or whatever um and I think for me it's about sharing you know some of the realities of the journey and actually the more I speak to people and speaking to another client yesterday who I went for dinner with that you know some of the most successful people have not had an easy time probably not had an easy childhood you know they're motivated for a reason and as well as sharing the good and the inspirational stuff that might get you noticed I think it's really important to share the story and some of the struggles that help you know shape the people that become successful and it's not just an up you know journey for everyone For me, it's been up, down, left, right.

5:09And that's all part of who I am. And I think I try. I try. As you know, I post a lot on LinkedIn. I try to share the good, the bad and just be quite open, honest and real about everything rather than trying to show up as a fake version of me or the polished version of me. I think it's really important for me to share everything that sits underneath, in between and outside of what people might put as polished social media content. That must be an interesting balance that you need to strike with your now 18-year-old. Because assumedly, obviously, she's gone through an era of seeing what, or possibly feeling that she needs to be a certain way in order to conform and fit in and shape a certain view of herself.

6:02But then probably is maybe coming out a bit of that now. Yeah, I mean, she's very different to me. but also very similar to me of course she is my daughter I overshare everything I really do, I'm a very open book and that's not necessarily who she is and she doesn't want to be and she doesn't, you know, she will never be someone that posts on social media all the time like I do she's very confident, she's very brilliant but she's owning her own space in the world and finding her own way and she's obviously you know seen me do all the crazy things that i do um and some of that she might do but most of the time i think you know she's she's different to me uh but she's grown into her she's grown into herself she wants to be she's very studious she's incredibly bright i could never do with it like she's gonna she's studying to be a criminal defense barrister um and she's gonna ace all her exams might come in handy i know yeah we'll get into that shortly yeah well I wonder what inspired her to do that.

7:06I mean, that is, guys, you've got to keep listening now. There is something that's happened in her life that has inspired her to do that. And she actually put that in her applications to university. Oh, really? Wow. So, you know, she therefore has been accepted into every single uni she's applied for and because she's getting amazing grades. So, yeah, I mean, life is a rich tapestry. I've been on quite the journey. I'm sure I've had a lot of ups and downs. I'm sure there's a lot more to come. But yeah, she's definitely my proudest asset. I love that. I love that. Just when I think that I've not covered off every topic on the podcast, we speak, and I realise that, and at the moment I'm going to fact check.

7:53Someone might be able to fact check. Fact check. You can't cut this, by the way. Fact check. You can fact check me. facts checked me it is actually quite hard to say it is hard to say I don't really edit much but it's really interesting because obviously you raised I guess your daughter was a single parent for a period of time well the whole time and I was looking and I didn't believe this but around 2 million there were 2 million single parents with dependent children in the UK single mothers are heading around about 84 to 90 percent of those families so you're talking the best part of nearly 1.67 million people females that are single parents raising their children um you know one in four families headed by a single mother like and I thought to myself we've not covered this before and I bet you within my organization and certainly the industry and wider there will be so many people that are not only trying to build incredible role or be an incredible role model for their child but are also trying to build a career be successful like what what does that does that feel or probably not now did it feel pressured at the beginning did did you feel overwhelmed and maybe briefly just touch on what were the things that helped you overcome some of that uh in terms of mentally just pushing yourself through oh my god darling there is so i know there's so much me to unpack yeah i love this question um so first up i think there's um a lot of stats that i don't agree with about single mum Are you going to question these fact checks?

9:53No, no, no. I like the fact check. Got it. There we go. But I think there's a lot of stats out there about how, you know, basically single female parent families, children are underprivileged. I do not feel that my daughter is underprivileged. Is that the right word? I don't know if I've just made that up. No, it's true. But is underprivileged. I actually feel like she is a very well-rounded child because I have single-parented her. And I think for me, that's come with some benefits. I didn't have... She didn't really know any swear words until she was about 11 because it was just me and her living on her own and I didn't really need to swear at anyone.

10:35So she's grown up... I was quite young when I had her. She's grown up with me. How old? Well, 25. Yeah, you can do the maths. 43 now she's about to be 18 so yeah 25 um and she you know there's definitely like there's there's a lot to unpack here I've definitely held a lot of mum guilt like when so we'll go into the story in a minute but her dad went to prison when she was 13 months old he was taken one day basically never came home so from 13 months until she was seven he wasn't there so she did used to go and see him she's not estranged from her father he's been actually a very good dad to her but obviously there were periods of her life where he just wasn't there so you know I was the one teaching her how to ride a bike on my own I was the one cooking dinner I was holding down a full-time job I got you know when he left I was like how on earth am I gonna afford to live I mean there were lots of other things going on as well but um how am I going to afford to parent her somehow now um with a bit of help from his mum and his family I managed to kind of get her through private school so I don't know how I managed this um without you know I didn't we didn't really go on many holidays or do much at all in those earlier years maybe go to the odd festival or something camp festival um but you know I struggled through I felt guilty I was always at work I was never I was never at the school gates picking her up I was never the mum you know I don't know like going to school and helping out or you know supporting on a school trip I was always at work work has very much you know come first for me so that I could provide not not above Lola you know to me I've put work first so that I can provide her with the life that she has and now you know we can afford to do wonderful things in fact I don't know if you saw this but I was recently on tv show with her i i saw you talk about it but i haven't seen it i mean go watch it rich holiday poor holiday it was a blast but that kind of explored the you know the sacrifices i have met chosen to make to do what i thought was the best way of parenting her and you know touch wood she's turned out bloody brilliant so you know i've only ever done what i what felt right for me and that's not for everyone there'll be lots of other you know mums out there that you know choose to stay at home that don't take the career path that I decided to take which came with its own sacrifices but you take the other path that comes with its own sacrifices I won't make any assumptions but were you on the rich holiday we were the rich holiday yeah as in you experienced it or the other person experienced it so new format for the show this year um which was much better so we're part of the first series that does the new format we were the rich people right so we with a rich holiday and then they pair you up with another couple who, or another family that are the poor holiday and you both go on both holidays together.

13:31The way it used to be was a bit more like rich house, poor house where you just swap houses and you do it separately and come together at the end whereas we actually did all of it together. We've become very good friends actually with the family that we did. Is it out? It is out. It's out, yeah. Where did you go for both holidays? On Channel 5. We went to Sardinia which sounds like it isn't particularly a poor holiday but you have to watch it okay could we could we hack could we hack the poor holiday you could probably find some clips and put it in there's that there it was it was really good fun but you know for lola and you know there are lots of things that annoy her yeah about like i never stop work like when we're on holiday i run my own business it's incredible you know i don't get a holiday like it's very rare that I just turn off my phone block slack someone doesn't message me about something you know doing the things that we do um come with sacrifices I travel a lot you know we've been in already this we're in May now already this year I spent the beginning of the year in Abu Dhabi in Dubai for work then I've been in Las Vegas San Francisco LA um we're off to Barcelona and cans for lions, which isn't long, long away.

14:45So I'm away a lot. You know, it comes with its sacrifices. And it wasn't always possible for me to do all of that. When she was three, four, five years old and I was on my own, I was asking school mums to have sleepovers on a school night, which is just not even a, because I didn't have anyone else to help me. My mum has got bipolar. She wasn't really someone that I could rely on for babysitting. My dad was in his 80s. I used to pick up from school sometimes um but you know I didn't have a family support network so I had it was hard that's interesting and you I mean for those that don't know and you know obviously we spoke but I think you grew up with your mum who yes had extreme bipolar disorder and ultimately from a young age were I guess to an extent in care um for a period well yes and no So what happened was, oh my God, I mean, I could go really deep here, but the light version is my mum, like people talk about having a nervous breakdown.

15:49My mum had a psychotic breakdown, like straight jacketed breakdown when I was about 11, 12 years old. I couldn't remember who I was. I mean, she did come back to reality, but, you know, was put into a mental institution. I saw it. It was incredibly scary. People talk about having a nervous breakdown and I'm like, hmm. But it's not, it's very different. Not the one that I've experienced. Yeah, and it's totally different. It was really scary, and I was little. I lost my mum at a very, very young age, and then she didn't fully ever recover. She self-medicated with alcohol. I had a stepdad who was quite abusive, and he ended up dying quite early on.

16:34I'm actually quite close with mum now. She's done a lot of work. She is now medicated. she didn't actually get diagnosed with bipolar probably till about 16 17 years ago so you're a huge part of my life she was just she was ill she was on the wrong medication she you know I mean maybe the bipolar didn't even come until later but you know she had a lot she's been in and out of you know mental health hospitals you know two or three times where she was actually sectioned so you know life wasn't the most simple um for me and you know I guess a little bit scary but the more i speak to people like this you know we don't speak about this stuff enough like it you know i don't some ways i don't in the corporate world no not to well and that's a big i think i said this to you when we were chatting you know pre the podcast is i felt embarrassed a lot of the time especially when i was employed you know now i run my own business i feel i have a much more you know i have a i have an ability to have a bit more freedom of speech because i don't really give a shit and if someone doesn't like me because my mum's got bipolar or because my husband went to prison then they can fuck off I don't want to work with them anyway there's a social clip right there yeah well hey um but I think when I was looking for a job or you know was employed I was thinking well they won't want to employ me if I if they hear that about me because I don't know I think the world's become a lot more open as well but they won't want to give me a job because I'm tarnished and I'm not this you know I think we're all so conditioned to think that you have to be perfect everything has to be on the up all the time and put a brave face on and smile through it and and I've done that for a lot of my life in my 20s and 30s I was definitely that person now not so much now I'm I want to be more honest because I want other younger women in my you know in my shoes to go do you know what I can get through this and I can do this and not everything is supposed to be perfect and the world is flawed and yes yeah I love this I'm not going to name and shame any influencers but I you know I love a lot of you know great people in our industries content who I follow but I look at it and I think it's not like stop just putting the good stuff out because it makes a lot of people feel like shit and like you're not achieving in life so just be more real about you know not everything oh yeah i'm here i mean i am going to probably post that you know i'm recording at spotify today because it's quite cool but i also will post about i don't know something really shit that's happened in contrast because i think it's really important to be real it's it's um it's what it is the main reason why i started this podcast is sharing my own lived experience of being in recovery there is in my view and not it's not for everyone not everyone's going to feel comfortable sharing it and I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to but what I am suggesting is is that if you have experienced things and you are comfortable sharing them you should share them you should share them with your team you share them with the people you work with you know ultimately you have no idea what anyone's going through at any one time and how the smallest conversation to share, I guess, your experience or a moment with someone can have a real impact.

19:57The podcast itself, the messages I've received since season two, the film season three as we speak, but across the two seasons, people messaging me with, you have no idea how much that changed my perspective on things, or I've sent it on to my sister who found it really helpful, there was one person who messaged me who was really unwell and didn't want to talk to their wife about it or their employer and they want to go to a doctor and I just happened to message that person once or twice with my own lived experience I didn't tell them what to do and that was the end of the conversation three weeks later I messaged to check in just to see how they were doing and they said so much better I went to the doctor and had a conversation my wife my employer and i just and i thought to myself at that point this this is meaningful because if it helps one then the job is done like that's my that's my view is that do i would i love this to hit 10 million downloads and streams sure but it's not my aspiration my aspiration is to help people and actually i find often the the short form content helps people more than the long-form content um i want to i want to kind of flip it up a gear and and and you've spoiled it already i know we've gone straight in but was there a moment uh i guess during your life or your career in which externally the facade everything looks great the shop window is you know beautifully dressed but the stock room is absolutely crumbling it is a mess because just inside you don't know how to manage what's going on in your life oh yeah I mean definitely I mean one constantly I would say like I think I'm one of those sort of you know I've done very well at appearing like this swan that's like everything's fine on the outside you give that perception and masking because you know I grew up with a mum who was very ill so I learned how to do that and showing up at school every day and appearing fine when literally my whole world was breaking behind me from a very young age you know I like well like like we well like you know from the post that I did you know I moved out of home and moved to a hostel when I was like I said 16 on the post that I did but I actually think I might have been 15 I was really young so I was very used to you know going to school pretending everything was fine when literally nothing was fine and you know it was horrendous so I think I learned that at a very young age that sometimes you've got to do that you know wipe away the tears everything's fine ah lovely smile away you know masking and and also like not um you know this is something that I'm trying to get better at not feeling the feelings I find it very easy to just ignore and just move on and like you know I can be really crying and really upset about something and then just be on a call the next minute and be fine which I don't get that impression right now no but I I do I can I can hide being upset I'm I'm very good at being um I guess I'm quite an empath very good at engaging with other people's emotions and feeling for other people not very good at doing that for myself which is quite a big admission that I don't tend to get upset about things that affect my life but if someone was telling me a story about them and something bad that happened to them I'd end up crying so it's like it's like I can't can't feel sorry for myself kind of weird behavior so I think I've I've kind of always had this kind of grounding because of what happened with mum and then of course it happened all over again with my husband and And there I was again in a very different but similar position.

23:56But this time quite public. Quite public, yeah, because people... I mean, I lost my job. I was also arrested. Nearly went to prison myself. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I was... They were trying to do me for knowingly accepting criminal money, basically. and I was the only wife in the conspiracy that didn't go to jail the only wife because I wasn't you know putting money through a bank account basically um so yeah and then again then like you know I had to get a job I had to earn money I needed you know even though I had you know I was on bail from the um from the police I had to report to the police station twice a week forgot got to do it a couple of times, got arrested, put in a cell overnight, had to get someone to come and babysit Lola.

24:47She was about, yeah, she was 13 months old when he got arrested, so I don't know, 15, 16 months at this point. But to the outward world, I went and got a new job, I was working, I was trying to launch another business. Yeah, because what else was I going to do? Well, I guess the other thing I could have done is been on benefits and not done anything, but that just isn't me, so that isn't what I did. Wow. yeah so that so i think there's been lots of and and therefore because i guess i've had those two very you know tragic things like other little things don't really maybe affect me like they do other people because i i'm like well if i've done that nothing else is going to be that bad um i've been if i can get through that horrendousness and i'm also a bit like what's the fucking worst that can happen which probably does me a big favor in business because i am naturally quite a risk taker um and i don't i just think well red or black yeah i've already done yeah what would i choose red or black do you know what i don't know maybe black i haven't got a consistent no i haven't i not the number 27 because my birthday is 27 and the number seven okay so if ask me a number I'd say 27 or 7 color red or black meh interesting um when when he was arrested

26:10what what did that do to your sense of self and your sense of self-worth and I guess the ability to still feel a level of confidence to go out there and just like you are now which is just fuck it I'm great at my job I'm really good but at the same time you've got criminal charges possibly coming against you your daughter's been left overnight with some people whilst you're what does that do to your sense of self and self-worth yeah i mean not great things obviously i think i was more ashamed worried what other people would think about me you know so i think yeah i probably did feel a bit shitter about myself back then but you know naturally because it was you know it was scary times I think because I was more scared about what might happen that I I might go to prison um I was more worried about that than I was thinking about my self-worth I was just more like fuck I don't want my baby to grow up without a mum or dad I think that's that so I was more consumed with that at the time and just like, you know, trying to exist than anything else.

27:25Do you think you've masked stuff over the years? Oh, 100%, yeah, 100%. And not, do you know what? You know, I mean, I think everyone's like this. You're 20s, you're just like, survive, exist, grow, do well at my career. Yeah, obviously I had a few curveballs chucked at me. But I don't think I ever really took time to understand who Katie is until, you know, which is probably why I've never really had a decent, like, relationship. love relationship because I never really took the time to understand who Katie was I was on survival mode for so long that I never really went what does Katie want, who is Katie what traumas has she been through I've done that work now so I think it was more that I just didn't really didn't really give myself any attention and then therefore every relationship I've been in I've been with not some total fuck up because there might be some listening but you know people that have need rescuing in some way and then all my energy has gone into must fix this person and help them and do that you know rather than because it's easier to do that than it is to focus on me what do you think you're protecting yourself from by masking and hiding and rescuing other people well i've done some work on this with my therapist I guess getting hurt because I'm so um worried about I guess I don't know loving someone or like actually you know proper like properly feeling anything and then I get hurt so I think that's probably a big been a big big part of why but maybe not anymore I you know I don't want to continue the shit relationship cycle that I have had with men um not saying i'm going to go to women but i'm not going to continue doing that i'm yeah i do i do still like men annoyingly i wish i didn't that is a future topic we are covering on the podcast i should add yeah i mean i honestly i really wish i did fancy women because i have got the most incredible network of amazing women who have helped me so much i've done quite I helped Madfest launch their female leaders club.

29:41I'm such a passionate advocate for women, helping women. And with a lot of my girlfriends, we joke, like, one day we'll just live in a women's commune and buy a big house together and help each other, because that's what us women often do. And I've got so many amazing women that I'm friends with who've scaled and sold their businesses, who are huge inspirations to me. So, yeah, I wish I did fancy women, because I feel like life would be much easier. but annoyingly I don't. I'm not saying that all men are bad. I think I've just picked not ones that have been great for me. I'm sure lots would love to dive deep into this topic and we could probably go for hours on it.

30:19We could. What interests me the most is as a leader how you are still able to show up in these environments whilst masking all this stuff. all these problems and challenges that you've experienced and still carry on smiling because that's to an extent it's what you said before about whilst you may not be putting that out there externally people might see that you know now and and say well why don't you become more honest with what's going on with Katie why don't you share more is there a reason why well now I am I guess I'm getting better because I think I spent so long I wasn't masking in a way like I didn't want to

31:18how am I looking to phrase this it wasn't that I was trying to hide anything but I didn't want people to think badly of me and I think the world has also changed a lot 20 years ago people would have been a bit more judgmental like you know I when you know my husband went to prison he you know I lost my job because people didn't want to be associated with that or they thought it was bad and people didn't trust me because I had been in that scenario you know and that I think I hope you know because people are more open um the world you know is a bit more trusting and is a bit more open you know there is a lot more talk about diversity and inclusion you know just because you know traditionally you know rich people from you know and I am you I am from a very middle-class family I can't hide that you know I grew up in a huge big house with a bloody stream and half an acre of land and a bloody apple orchard like you know I'm not from a I'm not from a you know rough upbringing but you know traditionally you know people from those kind of walks of life do better than you know people that maybe have grown up on a council estate i do think that is changing because education is better as in not even i'm not talking about actual education i'm talking about you know the education of people and we talk about these things more so i think as i've got older and you know i wish i'd i wish i'd known this in my 20s and would have been brave enough to be more honest um but i you know at the time the way the world was 20 years ago it just wasn't it wasn't how I don't think I would have got to where I am today if I'd been honest I think I would have lost jobs I would you know people would have been like we're worried she's not gonna be able to do the job because she's got a lot going on but somehow I could but not everyone can but I think the world has changed and we have moved on and we're more accepting accommodating um was there a title or were there were there things that you wish you had said to people when you'd over or you'd experienced some of these things um whether it you know was a family member you know a past partner an employer things that possibly held you back at the time or you regretted um do you know the only thing that i wish i'd done differently now is maybe told my employers more about the fact that I didn't you know they knew I was a single mum but I don't think they knew the extent of single mum um you know because maybe they would have been a bit more lenient with me and let me finish to go and pick their love from school more um in fact they probably would have been like especially after a time and you know I was in I remember one specific boss that I had at a big digital transformation agency I was working at and he was like wow like you should have told me that because like you don't have to be here till six o 'clock every day you can just go and be a mom like but I was so worried to like say oh this is my situation because you know maybe if I'd said that in the job interview like I wouldn't have got the job well I wouldn't I wouldn't have I mean this wouldn't have been the right place to say it but so I think there are things like that that I wish I'd done more because I think I wouldn't have missed out on so much for Lola when she was little.

34:38Are there, as a single mum, do you find there are triggers or things that trigger you around the world of work and single parenting? I think as a parent, you feel guilty, whatever you do. You feel guilty if you're not at work because you're not being as good a role model as you think you might be able to be. You feel guilty if you are at work because you're not spending enough time with them. so one thing that I I've heard this from someone years ago and it's kind of always been my motto is like choose your hard like every route in life hard choose your hard so all routes in life are going to be hard choose the one that is the less least hard or your you sits most comfortably with you so therefore you know for me going to work is part of who I am like you know I am ambitious I really enjoy work it lights me up that's part of who I am yes it removes me from some of the day-to-day of being a mum but it's also enabled you know me to bring up a child who's also incredibly ambitious um I wasn't the mum that was sat there doing her homework with her or for her which I used to feel quite bad about like other mums would be sat there all night doing the homework with their kid whereas I'd be I'd be telling her well you go and do it I've got my homework to do like we'd both be working separately but it's meant that she self-sufficient she's self-sufficient she knows that she needs to do her work she is not relying on me to answer all the questions for her so she actually learned stuff whereas a lot of her friends whose mums probably helped them more who thought they were doing them a favor i don't know maybe they weren't doing them a favor like she's actually learned on her own so i think there are things at the time that I beat myself up about.

36:24But that was the right route for me. And I chose the version of hard and there were things that were hard, but that was the version that sat most comfortably with me. What's been the hardest part as a single parent? I think missing out on stuff. Missing out on stuff. But I consciously chose to miss out on stuff. It's fascinating. Every single person that's come on this podcast that has children, every single person has said the same thing yeah they placed their career and growth and i guess success ahead of spending time with their kids and no regrets necessarily but just on reflection i wish i would have done it differently yeah and and my hope is is that when people hear these episodes and i don't know you know again the demographics or the age of people listen to it is a range right it's it's 20 to 60 so but my hope is that people hear this and recognize if if they are building a career you can have that and a family yeah i think the world has become more accepting and tolerant yeah you can leave at 3 p.m yeah exactly you can yeah i think you know as someone who started their own business i remember i mean this is anyone who's thinking about starting your own business this is definite advice this is this is not the first business you started no you know this is probably well officially actually the third uh third time lucky um but you know i started my business thinking i need a better work-life balance running my own business will mean that i get to spend more time with my daughter and she would have been 10 when i started street um and i thought yep this is you know this is going to give me a or maybe 11 actually um you know this is going to give me more time with lola of course it didn't give me more time with lola it's given me less time with lola and it hit you know we were in year one and covid and she was just starting senior school um and i spent you know 11 12 hours a day working in a tiny room at home while actually my ex-boyfriend at the time was sat playing fortnight with her most of the time downstairs i'd be like i'm sunbathing and having fun in the garden and I'd come down like you know white as a ghost having been sat at the screen all day and they've been having a great fun time outside but you know that's the what it's provided me with is me and Lola get to do amazing things like I go on all these work trips she of course gets I mean she's doing her A-levels at the moment but you know she gets invited along to those she gets to she gets you know we go on amazing holidays she gets to do other things and I do you know we We do loads of stuff together.

39:08We go to the gym together two or three times a week. We make sure that at the end of each day now, I do try and finish at like six, half six. It might mean I have to log back on later some evenings. But we always try, especially when it's not raining, to go for a dog walk at the end of the day and have a chat. So I think I've tried to navigate. And now, especially because I'm losing her soon, because she's going to uni, and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Do it with more work. Yeah, probably. No, I'm actually really going to try not to. Might even start dating. Like, who knows? Might be time.

39:43Is it a thing that you just start? I don't know. I'm just a bit rubbish. I don't go on the apps. I don't feel I have time. Do you need to make time? Yes, probably at some point. But also because my life is so full with work. We do a lot of events. I'm quite a social person. I've got a lot of friends. I spend a lot of my free time with Lola at the moment. I haven't really got time. But I do know, at some point, I do want to do that, just maybe not quite yet. Wait till she's gone to uni. I mean, it's imminent. It's happening. One of the things that's really interesting, and I've talked to a previous guest, he does a lot of, we're starting around men's mental fitness.

40:30Nice. So I look at that as the solution to what men's mental health is, which is the problem. um but it was about not looking back but what do you what do you what would you like lola to know about yourself prior to her coming along the good things god who even was i do you know what i think i forget i'm such a forward task focus like future future future excited excited this is next what's next i mean i also have recently been diagnosed finally with adhd which came as a surprise to me but not to anyone else that knows me apparently um so i don't i don't probably i mean we've done a lot of going back on the podcast today and i have got a lot better at doing that in therapy over the last sort of five years um what would i want lola to know about the katie before lola god i can't even remember that person i think i was probably very similar um probably partied a bit too much um but was the same you know i was always ambitious my career was always really important to me um yeah what would i want to i don't know what i'd want lola to know about her i think she probably does know her and i don't think i've changed that much i think i'm still the same person katie that you were yeah i think that you you find so i'm you know obviously I've gone through some change in my life and so you know my stepson Harry aside the fact that he's getting to an age he's going to secondary school and therefore I'm I'm less cool doesn't really want to engage how can you say that well it's interesting because I used to play a lot of football and so my dad sent me a package of things recently and I was in I was in some papers and magazines not not not not anything big but when I showed that to him suddenly he was like what who's that you were good at football and so it's like another life that I'm and I'm so removed from now I don't really follow football I don't play football and so I asked that because it's it's something that I experienced recently where suddenly he knew something about me bear in mind he had been in his life since he was 18 months old um but it was something he experienced about me that he wouldn't know because i don't talk about it now so there was methods to the uh to the question and there's a reason why i asked it um do you think that uh do you think that over the last street agency 10 years right no seven years seven years a baby um do you think there was a moment as part of that where you've had to really and I think I might know the answer to this where you've looked in front of the mirror and had to have kind of a chat with yourself to kind of put your big girl pants on and just get on with it I mean I think the whole time of running an agency or running a business you have to you you kind of have to do that i think the the defining moment for my business well there's been two defining moments first up when covid hit yeah because i thought that was one of them yeah because i was like i'm not gonna freaking let this fail i've only the business had only started like nine months before so i just literally knuckled down of course the word pivot became everyone's favorite word then but you know we were in events you know events led marketing agency as we are today you couldn't do events anymore so we had to very quickly adjust to webinars learning zoom and we did it and it worked brilliantly and actually we probably had our biggest year of growth um and we even got an award from the drum i think that year is like one of the fastest growth agencies like we did i don't know how but those 12 hours i was spending in my little converted bedroom office whilst they were playing fortnight did pay off so that was probably the first one since running my own business the second one um was we grew quite quickly and i probably didn't focus on the culture as much as i did as grow grow grow we i'm a very task focused person now i'm very good with people i love people but i probably don't check in with the team or i'm not as like soft as i could be because i'm like have you done this do this what's this like i forget to go i'm not the someone that comes and goes how was your week well I do on a Monday we go how's your weekend but I forget to be like hi how are you I'm just like have you done this where's this what's this like I'm straight into that and I think when and also when I you know when you're busy and you're stressed and you're running a business and you're on everything and we're a small business you're circa a million pound turnover about 10 staff like it I'm wearing a lot of hats I'm doing a lot of jobs I'm jumping from thing to thing sometimes I forget you know the staff are probably just as stressed out as I am and I need to give them a bit of a hug and love or at least a virtual hug and love so when we grew really quickly in those first few years a lot of people then left because at the same time as well because they were unhappy also the kind of work we were doing wasn't we'd evolved into more of like this email bit which wasn't really us um so then we pivoted again and we moved back to what we originally you know set out to do which was more around events connecting people in real life the human element of marketing which is why you know my business is all around people powered marketing so we've moved back to that and yes you know we had to get a bit smaller for a bit but now you know we're back up again um and hopefully we'll continue to go up and then i mean the economy can throw you left right and center um but you know we're in a much better place so i think i do i had to i had to put my pull my big girl pants up or put them on or whatever because it was my fault you know the buck stops with me at the end of the day it's my business i effed up um and i nearly you know lost the business because of it but luckily you know we have managed you know times have been it's not easy running a business times have been very tough at points sometimes i do you know i do think like why on earth am i doing this i could just go and freelance and probably earn more money and be less stressed and do less work but there's something that's driving me not to do that so here we are you know what the having had a business before working the world of marketing for me I have a very different or sorry I feel like I have a different mentality to maybe people that work in any corporate environment that may have not worked for themselves because you end up starting to treat it like it's your own yeah I think when you were in a business that you're employed by you know it's it's very different and so that same mentality that you have now I apply that but working in the organization I do yeah you know I believe that there are some people that will want to build careers and there are some people that are happy to turn up and do the job and that's there's nothing wrong with that either and i think actually the more that people are open and and honest about that i think is is really helpful for for them and their colleagues um we're going to bring it to a close because that has been an action-packed session i didn't go i didn't go too deep i didn't go too deep but there was a moment where i was like she's gonna cry we've got her on the ropes we've got her on the ropes um no but but in all fairness like such an incredible story um of you know coming from a really challenging childhood you know i guess you know when you actually start to i think i think you mentioned yes yesterday when we spoke um when when your mom actually got the diagnosis suddenly you could label it and suddenly you could identify okay that's why and that must have been a massive a massive change for you as well yeah totally because you know you finally you know understand what was maybe going on beneath the surface and actually why I'm also happy because I'm pretty sure my mum's got ADHD that I have taken the time over the past you know five years I probably didn't even think about having ADHD until about two years ago when it all went it's all blown up and I know everyone's got ADHD but it's been really helpful for me and maybe one of the reasons my mum had a breakdown is because maybe she had diagnosed ADHD and didn't know didn't have the coping mechanisms and you know she's a very different person to me she's not she's not got the ambition that I have she's just a different type of person so you know I've managed it well she wasn't able to manage it and maybe you know if she'd had that diagnosis and understood herself better um you know maybe she wouldn't have had breakdown I don't know who knows so but yeah I think for me you know understanding myself now I am so much happier that I understand also because of the internal monologue for me with ADHD I have spent so many years beating myself up like why can't I do that why do I always leave things to the last minute why am I you know always late for everything and what I literally can't like my daughter will be like mum you're making yourself late but I because you know there's this whole adrenaline rush thing like I kind of thrive on the okay now I've got enough adrenaline to go and do what it is I need to do um so but I don't I don't give myself a hard time about it as much now I mean literally I'm like a couple of months into my diagnosis um I go do you know what my brain just works differently and that's how it's fueled and so there's definite benefits for me personally whether I'll ever take meds or not I don't know um I'm not saying no I'm not saying yes but right now I'm you know coasting with it love it so as to bring us to a close we finish every episode where we give uh you a chance to um offer a permission slip a permission slip to people that are listening to think feel say or do something differently that will change them or someone else's uh someone else's life what would that be from you i would say give yourself permission to be honest to be truly honest not just with everyone else but with yourself because i wish i had taken the time and done the work that i've done in my late 30s and early 40s a lot earlier so you know be honest with yourself and be honest with others amazing i feel like this is a high five yeah it's been an awesome awesome session thank you so much for coming on we've loved it and i look forward to seeing the episode out in the wild and you can even snip that bit out about how much you need to care more for your team for your team so they can hold you accountable yes they will love it thank you so much thanks danny take care see you yay amazing thank you well done

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