Success was loud. Burnout was louder.

0:00Business is booming, but you know what really helped? Zero. The accounting platform for small businesses. I used to think unpaid bills were just part of it. Ugh. But batch payments? Wow. Automated accounts payable? Even better. All in one place? That's a big one. And I can keep track from my phone while I get the job done. No bills in sight. What a life. Do right by yourself and your business and search XERO for your free trial. Conditions apply. I'm Danny Wyattscorn and this is Behind the Title. I'm delighted to be joined by Hannah Blake today, Managing Director of Creator and New Media at Daily Mail Group.

0:40Hannah's had an illustrious career and she talks to us today about how she's navigated the world of entrepreneurialism but also working in the big corporate world. When you're pretending everything is fine, you feel like you're lying. The thing that weighed most heavy was the people and wanting to make sure that they weren't made redundant. You feel like you've failed. You feel, how have we got to this situation? Could I have done something differently?

1:10Hannah, welcome. Lovely to see you on Behind the Title. And I think it's been quite a few years since we caught up with each other. For those that may not know you, it would be great if you could just introduce yourself, a bit about your background and I guess why it was important for you to come on behind the title today. Well thank you for having me it's good to be back together after many years so my name is Hannah Blake I'm currently the managing director of creator and new media at Daily Mail it's a new role effectively it's just bringing together all of our social media propositions and we're doing a lot with creators in-house at the Daily Mail so I guess just I'm the bow trying to bring it all together now.

1:53But my background has always been either in sort of innovation roles within big media companies, both agencies and publishers, as well as doing my own media businesses. So I've done kind of two startups. So always like towing that line between being a bit of an entrepreneur, and then running around like a bull in a china shop in big corporates trying to trying to be that like innovation. I wouldn't say that you're a bull in a china shop in fact i would say that you are the most considered person when i worked with you never kind of be running around charging forcing your way in so perception maybe things have changed maybe you are now now i am or a silent assassin like maybe a combo of the both yeah i would say more silent okay and why was it important for you to come on uh the podcast I'll say what, what, when I reached out to you, um, obviously I kind of shared a bit about what we're trying to do.

2:50What was it that kind of stood out, uh, that made you feel like actually, yeah, I'm going to come on. Yeah. I think for me, I mean, I'm 36 now and I never dreamed I would be here at all. Um, I was played by insecurity growing up. I didn't think I was good at anything. I, I was actually with somebody the other day and they were talking about how their daughter's not very good at maths and those and she's just a bit of a creative and actually like oh what's she gonna do and that that was so me and you are often discounted at school or university if you can't do the sort of like clever subjects and so I wish that I'd been able to kind of look up to people or been able to listen to something that inspired me that even if you're not kind of academically smart like everybody else or not everybody else but the people you compare yourself to you can still go on and carve a fun and interesting career and and also you can do that still by you know you can be insecure and you can have all these worries but you can still do good stuff so and I think what you've done with the show is it's about giving back and you know paving the way for other people yeah I mean academically I was I was not very good four C's four D's left school uh I was actually asked to leave my family home at 16 um and and this is not about poor me but I do genuinely believe that academics are amazing if your your brain and your personality are engineered towards that um but at the same time I believe that you can build a career and a future for yourself if you are passionate about something if you you know are hard working and you kind of are willing to put the graft in and I guess believe in yourself a little bit which which is hard I think to your point before behind the title is really about bringing people like yourself in and others that are willing to share kind of their experience and hopefully inspire as you said others around them I guess with that in mind and I never would have I never would you said it before I never would have put you down as someone that was insecure when you were younger and maybe there's some maybe there's some parts of that you can expand on have there been moments where you know again on the outside everything is just rosy it looks great polished you know veneer exterior but on the inside not particularly feeling good about yourself perhaps you know maybe you're crumbling maybe there's you know it's like the swan analogy just paddling frantically you know underwater and up top looking great yeah like a few examples for sure and I think a lot of the time like my I'm quite an upbeat person and I love people and so a lot of the time I want to show up and I do show up in a kind of very positive way but there's definitely been times where things were absolutely just like crumbling behind the scenes and it was such a challenge to try and put on that kind of exterior.

5:56A couple of examples. So one was I had a business that had done really well for four years. It was kind of trailblazing a bit in the podcast space, but basically we were running out of cash and we were trying to get the company acquired or soft landed somewhere. and it was me and my co-founder at the time and we were just having to sort of pretend everything was normal to the team give people tasks to do like as if bau was carrying on and people were like super excited about their you know where where what product are we building next and you know sort of basically pretend that there was a future whilst knowing full well that in the space of two months we were either going to get acquired or we're going to have to let everybody go and me and her would literally like and I think it was sort of covid time so we would be on zooms and we would pretend everything was fine and then we would just go to the pub it can't no it wouldn't have been covid times because we were able to go to the pub and we would just sit there because we knew we were waiting for like one or two emails that was it the outcome would be just from two emails from two different people and trying to kind of pretend everything is fine and motivate a team and keep them going and but basically knowing you're you're really near the end we weren't really paying ourselves anything anymore and it was just like a really tough time to balance balance the two and then another example is actually quite recently um with eliza which is a fashion and beauty social publisher i launched within the mail for you it's now about three and a half four years old amazing publication by the way oh thank you thank you it was really tough to launch it within a big company trying to drive innovation within corporates is hard and I fought so hard like I was just fighting so much and really actually audiences loved it brands were loving it but it was like internal buy-in it's always the hardest getting all your internal champions on board and just when Eliza was doing really well and everyone was was backing it I was like I can't do this anymore I just feel like my soul has disappeared I just was exhausted and I felt like I'd totally given everything and I had no nothing personally I was like what why I just was questioning everything and in the end I just took like two or three months off this summer to just recharge and you left the business I left the business and it was weird because it was just when it was going great I'd done all the fighting I'd had to prove everything like all the hard stuff I'd done and then suddenly it was time to shine and I was just like I can't do this right now left the business unpaid just decided to take a break yeah and actually the person I reported to at the time who was amazing through this I just was like this has to I this is so important to me now to take the time off that I can't I don't I that's this is going to happen this year and I don't really and did you have a did you have an end date on that time or I took two months off that was an agreement with the business but I just and actually I didn't really know whether I would even come back I was like I'll take two months but if I don't want to come back I'll say island island side um but actually the two months was just a really great chance to just reconnect back with myself and I've come back and actually I feel revived and I feel full of energy again but it was a real I don't know just I guess it's like your body's warning sign.

9:23It's like you've got to sort of stop a bit and just recalibrate and re-figure out if this is where you want to go. And I think when you're really like focused on launching something, like I think why I talk about being a billionaire china shop is because it's just like it's you just drive with crazy force. And you don't stop to think, am I driving in the right direction? Is this even what I want? Why am I fighting so hard? I was given some really great advice from someone, be careful what you wish for. Driving, driving, driving, driving to what? What is the end goal? Yes, more responsibility, the title, the opportunity, the money.

10:03All that sort of stuff is amazing. And it made me really think because the last few years I've had to pause and think what's right for me, for where I am in my career, what's right for me and my family. it is tricky sometimes because you don't know if you are making the right decision you know and you can ask as many people you can ask 10 people get 10 different opinions um i want to go back before i move on on two points the first one was um when you when you were in the startup and because i've been in a startup uh and i was quite close with the founder and i saw behind the scenes you know and his role was keep us all motivated now he was very transparent with us around this is the runway we've got this is how long we have left to either drive more positive revenue or indeed you know find some sort of aqua higher soft landing behind closed doors though what's going on in in your head how do you how do you cope with that do you feel do you feel like failure do you feel like sod this you know stop like yeah how do you how do you manage that i mean look i'll caveat this all by saying i am a privileged entrepreneur and that i knew that if it all failed i'm not going to be out on the streets my parents would look after you know like and then so many people don't even have that so um i'm always conscious that i knew that even if it all failed i wasn't going to be on the streets.

11:35But yeah, there's like a real fail, you know, kind of, yeah, you feel like you failed. You feel, how have we got to this situation? Could I have done something differently? But in a way at that point, you're not even, all you are doing is desperately trying to find a way to keep it surviving. So you go into this kind of crazy survival mode. And I remember once a very smart man called Henry Lane Fox spoke to me and he said, when you're working in these situations, like you have to be prepared to go down with the ship. You can't abandon ship. And the reason why that's so powerful is not many people get to the depths of trying so hard to make something survive.

12:19And you learn so much from being right at the bottom. and that will always stay with me because I do believe that I collected so much data at the bottom of how to do things how not to do things what it takes to survive that that's really helped me kind of onto my like you know take me on some next part of my career so in a way like actually afterwards you you kind of feel maybe a bit of a failure and you wish it could have done differently but at the time you are just doing anything tunnel vision to survive yeah it's somewhat probably easier to just not focus on the failure or possible impending failure um and even then i think as i say the word failure it's not a failure actually it's an experience to be able to do that create something just because it hasn't necessarily yielded a positive cash you know situation that doesn't mean that it i don't know to me just checking myself there because it's not a failure yeah um and i think we we struggle to sometimes give ourselves more credit yeah what's due um and when you're in a big corporate i don't want to say failure is an old thing but in a big corporate they just move on yeah move on the whole time and i think probably the thing that weighed most heavy was the people yeah and wanting to make sure that they weren't made redundant or they didn't have a job anymore and i think that was kind of the because also when you're pretending everything is fine you feel like you're lying and that's not a nice position to be in and yeah it just comes that you know all these people for the last four years have invested their career in in our thing and it's not you feel like you're not giving them what they signed up for and and I think it was more that sort of personal weight that I'm so happy that we we managed to make sure everybody remained in employment and that didn't have to happen but that that's definitely the thing and and with any business change when people's jobs are on the line and they're lively that that's the thing that keeps you yeah of course stuck and up at night and when you went and when you went um and you time out help people understand you talked about reconnecting with you know you and what matter like what did that actually mean what did you do how did you I guess from the moment you left to the moment you then decided I'm ready to go back what were the things that kind of put Hannah back together if it was I just felt I didn't know who I was anymore and I didn't know what motivated me other than work I didn't know how I was perceived anymore in the world I don't know it sounds kind of a strange thing to say but I just was a bit like what is the point of all of this you know I I don't have a family I don't have a husband and so I think when you're on your own you are a bit like I can't what am I meant to do just go to work every day and come home and repeat the whole thing and I'm not nurturing anything else I'm not building anything else anywhere I don't have time to either and I just got myself into a total crisis headspin and so when I went away it was basically about like getting stuff out my brain get work get everything out like what exists without all of that um and just just so I basically went off and surf for two months like I started learning to surf a few years ago and where did you go Indonesia amazing um it's now my like entire personality everyone's like oh here she goes I'm out surfing again and also I'm not very good so that's also quite embarrassing I just loved doing the most simple thing which was like waking up every morning being in the water learning something that's so hard and just doing it for the pure joy of doing it and there being no pressure to be good and knowing that I probably can never be that good and meeting people from all over the world and just having really I think yeah just slow conversations like often in London we're like oh I've got a dinner but I've actually got two hours and then I'm gonna hear and you like sometimes with my friends I'm like okay what's the lowdown like quick what's going on in your life there's no time to just get to know someone slowly reveal yourself slowly and I just felt like my nervous system just dropped and I just felt like truly myself like I just I just I just felt like I was me it sounds so weird but so when I kind of came back I felt like I'd got all the bullshit out my head all this kind of like ego who I am or how I turn up in London and the other thing is people don't care when you're away I wasn't gonna be like well this is my career and this is who I am everyone's like well you realize you're replaceable right firstly you're totally replaceable and also no one cares about that they care about who are you as a person what have you got to give in the world that's not your job and so it was a really important lesson and you know what two months if I agonized over this decision for well over a year.

17:42It became my entire, am I going to do this? Am I going to quit my job? Oh my God, what am I going to do? I told everybody, every friend, oh my God, it became my internal drama. Everyone's like, just go. It's only two months, but it felt so difficult. But actually it is only two months and I would encourage anyone to do it because nothing fell off. I thought I was going to just, you know, mess up my career and, but nothing happened. I did it prior to coming to media, actually. I had a business cleaning cars for seven, eight years. And I was successful. But I just, I wasn't mentally stimulated. And I wanted to do something different.

18:18But I actually needed to break in order to figure that out. And then fast forward, we are where we are. So I can wholeheartedly advocate for that. If we kind of just shift a little bit of a gear then. So, and maybe you found this in the entrepreneurial world, whether you were talking to investors or whether you're in the corporate world. I mean, we must've worked together, what, 10 years ago, maybe? If I've been, yeah, probably about 10 years ago. You were, like I was, you were young, right? And I think that the world has changed quite a lot. But were there moments in your career or even in your personal life in which you'd wish you'd said something that you kind of either now regret or just thought, wish I would have called out that person or wish I would have done something different or wish I would have repositioned myself in that environment or situation.

19:18I think one of the overwhelming things, particularly early on in my career, is I wish I said, I don't understand. Please, can you tell me more about this thing? Very early on, actually, when I left where we were, I went and worked for a big kind of like startup incubator VC. And we looked at businesses across a whole spectrum of sectors from AI and deep tech and beauty and travel. And I felt like I needed to know everything. And like that's a really broad spectrum of things to know about. And I felt so insecure. I was surrounded by amazing entrepreneurs and business people. And I just would go to meetings and be like, oh, yeah, yeah.

19:58And think I've got a fucking clue what anyone is talking about. and I remember going to South by Southwest in Austin and it was like the most amazing experience only went once and it was incredible and I remember there being a panel of judges and they were listening to all these startup pitches and I can't remember who this guy was but he was very established and very cool and he kept being like sorry I just I don't understand can you please explain to me what you actually mean by this and I thought that on a panel on a panel And he kept because he was listening to all these pitches. And it just suddenly made me think, it's okay to not know everything.

20:35And actually, it's on the person who does know this thing to really explain it properly. And I just wish I'd had the confidence earlier on to put my hand up basically and say, please explain. I don't understand this. because when you don't do that you just walk around with very limited knowledge actually not learning because you're just too scared to admit that you don't know something and I see it all the time now you can see people nodding along and I think you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about like just ask I make an active point either with clients or in pitches or just in life situations of say you know an acronym and I'm like what does that mean because I think the reality is there is an expectation if you're sitting in a room you've earned the right to sit in there therefore it must mean that you know everything yeah um and so I do encourage that quite a lot there are probably triggers as well in the workplace and and that's probably one of them where people feel triggered by I can't ask that because you know it's gonna impact negatively on how people perceive me are there are there triggers that you've experienced you know again either in the boardroom or in a corporate world that really kind of push you perhaps there were some as you took your break perhaps there were some before perhaps they're perhaps they're different now perhaps you don't get triggered because you're i'm so zen you're so zen out surfing um but we have you know it it is quite interesting from people with um neurodiversity they've been talking about some of their triggers all the way through to people with addiction um what triggers hannah in the workplace and and how do you kind of manage or cope with some of that stuff i i feel like i get triggered a lot and i someone once said to me you're quite irritable aren't you but i'm not in my personal life i don't think ask my friends but i think when you're trying to do something new somewhere big there's so much red tape there's so much process for process sake it's quite a lot of captain vagues around like no real answers to anything and when you're trying to go from a to b and all of this stuff gets in your way it can be incredibly frustrating and so i feel that often the kind of corporate structure can can trigger me a lot because but by the way the reason a corporate structure exists is to build a repeatable model that's churning out the same stuff that's why it's meant to be like that but when you're trying to launch something new you can't work like that because you can't move forward and you're sort of trying to you know move quickly and build so trying to get the two to come together is very difficult but what you do need is is sort of a collaborative mindset um and often it's kind of like no I don't want to get involved in that so that sort of like lean back mentality winds me up because I think if all come together we can we can figure this out together um a vagueness winds me up because it's like tell me what you actually what do you want and what do you mean and don't be very you know because that doesn't help anybody try and fix problem or come to a solution so yeah and then a kind of um people pretending that they know what they're talking about when they clearly don't you said before yeah just totally totally winds me up so yeah lots of things why do you show that or is it is it you've I think you said people said you seem irritable so is it visible I think it probably becomes more visible now I think as I've got more confident in in why I'm turning up to a place and what I'm trying to achieve I am more visible it's actually something I'm trying to work on because I feel that sometimes it can be unprofessional and I've recently started trying to work with someone to to maybe just rough down the the sharp edges a bit because um i think i'm so tunnel vision sometimes i forget that other people are coming to a meeting or a conversation with different priorities and they're not my priorities and that's okay that's actually totally valid and to to just have a kind of level of professionalism in those situations and not let it show because actually sometimes when you show those sorts of emotion I'm really big on showing emotion in the workplace I like I don't you know I've cried a lot in the workplace I don't mind that but I think being angry and irritable is not necessarily great emotion to show and so I am trying to work on that because I think when you do get that vagueness um I think I I've always struggled with competing agendas and the idea that either there's a there's an agenda over everyone's and then there's everyone else's and i'm like well that competes with that and that also competes with that and i don't even understand what your agenda is but you're kind of nodding along i think it is it is tricky i i don't i don't think there's a an easy way to i think it's just there is a level of acceptance which is just you know i think it sounds like you you probably got to where I got to as well at a certain stage where and I'm I'm I'm definitely not zen let's just be clear about that um but there are moments that I have where I'm just like you know what I'm just ambivalent I'm very much like just it is what it is support that and actually what I find is is the times that I lean in to when I'm feeling frustrated when I'm feeling um irritable when I'm feeling discontent um there's normally a couple of triggers for me right which is one I'm hungry um two I'm angry and it's it I'm angry about something I don't know what it may be it could be work personal possibly lonely um and occasionally tired right so like halt like it's just hungry angry lonely tired if I am any one of those four things I need to just pause yeah and take a breath um but trying to do that when you're in the mode of mindset like I don't know I've done all that kind of personality psychographic profiling and when it comes to conflict I actually go quite analytical and I take a step back um but then there's the other side of me which just charges forward sometimes um and so i don't think you're alone there um it's it's it's fairly common i think as you get more responsibility as well i guess um and you might have covered off before was there a moment where you had to kind of have a word with yourself in the mirror and just metaphorically or physically right where you had to just say what the f is going on and i like you need to kind of pull yourself together you seem quite you seem quite strong in yourself anyway but did you ever find yourself really having to kind of get on with it or have a little pep talk with yourself or throughout my whole career it's been kind of personality driven by me so it's like it's my business my thing I'm trailblazing you know I I do like the limelight a little bit so it's like it's my story and it's my struggle I never have got that from you really which is just so bizarre like I don't get I actually in all the time I spent with you I genuinely see you as an incredibly humble oh that's nice to know I think it's an insecurity of mine actually because I think I feel like a lot of it has you know it's been my struggle my fight um and I remember once being pitching one of my companies and one of my sort of friendly investors said to me you know it's a great pitch Hannah but it feels quite like labored like like you can start your pitch again from it doesn't have to be from zero to one your pitch like well you know I've been through all these struggles you can kind of start afresh and give somebody a new version of your pitch it doesn't have to be this kind of like life struggle to get here which is such a good piece of advice because sometimes you think you have to carry your story and you have to tell your story and I think that is often a nice thing to do but in a pitching or business mode you don't have to show all your cards you don't have to show all the kind of gritty bits you can present you can reinvent and present a different version which um was a really good piece of advice and made me laugh a lot because I used to go into pitches and be like listen to my story it's been so hard to get here and you know it's not that motivating Did you do amateur dramatics when you were younger?

29:32No, I didn't. But I think I was fairly amateur dramatic myself. So I didn't need to. But yeah, I just felt like I had to carry my story. And that was the thing that people were buying into. And actually, it's not true. You can keep reinventing yourself. But the mirror kind of moment I have had quite recently was I've taken on this new role. And it's a great opportunity. But I have a team now who are with me. and I've always had a team but this team are it's not a startup like we're quite sort of established now we've got and it's no longer the Hannah show and somebody said to me recently like I think you've got to work on it not being the Hannah show and that really struck with me because firstly I thought that sounded quite um it made me feel a bit embarrassed because I feel like maybe a lot of this has been a bit not ego driven but like I put my and I've had to put myself forward and fight the fights and everything but she was like you need to find a way to allow other people to rise up and present your version of the show but it doesn't just have to be the Hannah show and that's something that really I've I am working on now because I'm I think I'm moving into a slightly different phase of my career where I do want other people to shine and move up and you know and yeah it was a tough tough kind of reflection to look at because I found that quite embarrassing when someone told me that because I thought my god like that's a bit cringe that I've just been all like that's all me as you're saying that I'm I'm thinking to myself I've always tried to kind of elevate the people around me because I know that I'm only as good as the people like genuinely as the people around me like yes I can put on the show but all those other people are actually the ones that are enabling it to happen it's the same as this right there's people that are doing the editing there's people that are kind of using the cameras and sound and but when I've had feedback in the past not necessarily exactly the same as that it is it's like my like I'll always have 360 feedback my 360 feedback consistently for the last 15 years has been just be mindful of other people in the room and the pace that they go at they don't move at your pace yeah and your pace is not the pace that everyone should be looking at yeah it's not like a marathon like I'm setting and I think in the workplace nowadays it's so different there's so many different personalities behaviors values that you need to be able to take in and try and address and apply in everything you do so and I think for a while I was you know it's not that I wasn't thinking of my team no no no but it's like you are leading in a in a direction and it's kind of like strap in or kind of don't you know and and people there are people are motivated by that a lot of the time but actually you're right it's about bringing people on the journey like empathizing with different people's different reasons to show up at work why are they here taking a bit of time to care and and you know yeah get your vision out but through through other people um so that's definitely like a conscious thing I'm thinking about working on trying to be better at I think that's pretty brave just to kind of sit here and say is that as a leader there's one side of me which has had to do that to trailblaze to push my way through and and make things happen and I I personally would challenge it I don't think it's ego driven I think it's just it's it's a byproduct of wanting to succeed having a passion having a vision but the advice was probably quite sound in that if you can kind of measure that a little bit more and almost kind of dial that back but get others to do that for you I think everyone succeeds yeah and then you you're not so burnt out and you're not so kind of like crazy in your own mind because other people are helping you and feel bought into the into the vision so and you know another kind of like thing I do I have done is try to create a kind of us against the world mentality so with back in with my team I'll be like this crazy thing is happening outside these doors and like these idiots don't know what they're doing and like ranting away because in my view I'm like I want them to know that it's us against the big baddies and the world and the investors and whatever and someone said to me the other day do you think that's motivating for them though and I was like oh maybe not maybe it's not actually that motivating because probably what they're seeing is a woman sort of like slightly out of control or not even out of control but just not again this kind of idea of like professionalizing and actually being like choose one or two people you can have more of an honest conversation with but you don't need to I thought it was a motivating force for the whole team to be like guys the big baddies out there you know together we're gonna conquer them but actually a lot of people are like I don't want to be involved in this that sounds like drama and that sounds hard work and it probably sounds a bit unstable and my job might be at risk and I didn't appreciate that and I think again it's it's choosing not to not to reveal everything all the time to everyone because that's not necessarily motivating for people um I mean just by nature of the last five minutes we've been talking it couldn't be more spot on for behind the title you know this is about leaders showing up differently and the very fact that you can sit there and be honest and say this is the feedback I've received and you know maybe I have been or maybe I haven't been or I should be I think that to me that's hugely encouraging because I think there's an expectation that as senior leaders, you just got everything buttoned down.

35:32It's all good because to some extent externally people see, back to the beginning, people see something, but they don't know about everything else going on behind the scenes. Equally, the amount of times that I might have a conversation with someone and it won't go the way that I guess either of us expected and it can be very easy for me to be despondent or frustrated or annoyed with that individual, but I don't know what's going on for them. You know, have they just had a bereavement? Have they had some bad news at work? Is their kids sick at the moment? And I think that it leans towards this in the least woke way possible.

36:17It leans towards this kind of era we are in society, which I do think you need to be more accommodating. You do need to be more sensitive because and and and I guess show some more empathy because the reality is is that not everyone nowadays I think even more so actually not everyone is is on that same path I think people are making active choices to change and be different um and that that for me is quite liberating and so this podcast is is aimed to I think do exactly what it's what it's what it's doing in this conversation now um I guess we'll kind of bring it to a bit of a close then you I mean, you've kind of given lots of permission through this chat, but we talk about the permission slip.

37:02Is there kind of permission you'd give to others as to things they can think, say, feel, do in their everyday, whether it's personal or professional, that might just change their perspective on the next year, five, ten years ahead? because quite a lot of life lessons that you've shared today. I think one of the biggest pieces of advice I would give anyone, and I get so frustrated when I don't see this, and actually Davina McCall said this. She said it first, but I was thinking it first, I'm sure. Davina, I'm coming for you. But she said, sit at the front. And I used to do that when I was, I used to go to even at university like lecture halls or events.

37:52And people will leave like three rows at the front empty. You want to sit at the back because they're sort of half not engaged and they're half not lent in. Sit at the front. You've paid for this thing. You've paid for your degree. You've paid for this event. Like be at the front. Be engaged. Go and get everything from this experience. Because if you're at the back, you are already signaling that you're not that bothered. You don't want to receive that information. and kind of what comes with sitting at the front is then and ask some questions ask questions ask I don't understand what you meant by this like be engaged because actually like you will get a lot from that way more um and even in meetings now like sometimes kind of you're talking and anyone got any questions nothing and I and again from a visibility point of view if you want to kind of get on in your career that the curious people the people asking questions the people showing up at the front will go further they're not any smarter than anyone else but they're showing with their body language I'm here I'm willing I'm engaged um and so that's my my permission slip is just the front row not the back row take it love it what a great way to finish Hannah it's been a delight to have you to see you um and and to see your kind of career flourish and thank you and I think you to me certainly are an inspiration to others around um certainly kind of starting your career at a young age so I really appreciate your time thank you for coming on today and I look forward to everyone here in this episode thank you

40:04We'll see you next time. What a life. Do right by yourself and your business and search Xero for your free trial. Conditions apply.