When Success Stops Feeling Like Success

0:00If your eyes are the windows to your soul and your glasses are the windows to your eyes, then it's pretty important to find your perfect frames. That's why at Warby Parker, we've made shopping for eyewear as easy and fun as can be. Peruse endless styles in our stores, or use our app to virtually try on frames and get personalized recommendations. To find your next favorite pair of glasses, sunglasses, or contact lenses, or to locate your nearest Warby Parker store, head over to warbyparker.com. That's warbyparker.com. I'm Danny White-Scorn and this is Behind the Title. Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Ali Reid, Chief Growth Officer at BrainLabs.

0:39Ali joins me to discuss her experience with regaining more of a work-life balance after leaving her role of CEO at a top five media agency. On the outside, everything looks like it could not be better, but on the inside I was falling apart. I didn't know how to cope with the pressure because being a CEO of a top five media agency in the UK is a lot, right? you give a lot, you sacrifice a lot and that's fine because that's what the job is and if you wanted to be a CEO then you know that there's going to be a lot expected of you. Failure to me was walking away from the job. I've worked so hard to get here, how could I possibly now go actually I can't do it anymore.

1:19Ali welcome to Behind the Title, it's wonderful to have you here. I guess for those that may not know who you are, maybe a bit of an intro about you, your background, and then specifically why it was important for you to come on to Behind the Title today. So, yeah, I'm about 25 years into my industry career. So I've worked in media or creative, a little stint client side as well for the, you know, the best halcyon days of the decades of advertising. and obviously going into a really interesting time now. Broadly, media has been where I've called my home. So, currently the chief growth officer at BrainLabs.

2:03And then prior to that, my most recent role was the chief exec of PhD UK. Why I'm here today, I am 46. I am probably a little bit early for the menopause, but that's broadly what I was going to talk about today. it's more than that though because I think it's more around um your kind of personal codes your superpowers the things that got me here that got me to this kind of level in my career and then how they can evaporate overnight um and and that happens to people I think uh for different reasons for me it was a biological reason a biological trigger um so it's you know it's about talking about the menopause but actually I want to just talk about more broadly how you might react and how others can help, I think, in a situation where you lose that sense of self and understanding that it's okay to talk about that.

2:58And we need to talk about that in this industry, because I think everyone expects everyone to have at that level, a really clear answer and everything mapped out. And like, no, no qualms about anything and just having all the answers. And sometimes those answers just suddenly disappear when you've had them in like the cheat sheet. So just trying to have that conversation around, it's okay to not be okay for whatever reason. And, you know, there's other people going through it too. And unless we sort of admit that, the next generation coming up will think that they always have to be nailing it.

3:30And then the pressure will just keep building. What intrigues me, and maybe you can help demystify this. So if you've been a CEO of a business, and then you go into a role that is not a CEO, so a chief growth officer. How did that feel? Or was it just a, is that, is that a parallel move? Is that a demotion? Is that a promo? I don't understand it personally. I'm at a level just below that. So I'm, I'm intrigued for myself and I'm sure others will. Sure. I had a very difficult time stepping away from that role. I loved PhD. The people around me, the team that I had built, the results that were coming through.

4:10They just very recently won agency of the year. Obviously, I wasn't there to sort of stand up and celebrate with everybody. But it was a real moment to sort of see the journey that the agency had come on since I started. I joined just sort of in the middle of COVID in 2022 or the end of COVID. So it was hard. but I think when it was sort of the eye of the storm, so summer last year, I sort of went into this change, the change as we call it, as a euphemism. And I didn't know how to cope with the pressure because being a CEO of a top five media agency in the UK is a lot, right? You give a lot, you sacrifice a lot.

4:55And that's fine because that's what the job is. And if you know that there's going to be a lot expected of you, a lot that potentially takes you away from your family. To just add an extra layer of stress, I actually lived in Malta for the whole time that I worked at PhD or for the most of it because my husband works for the foreign office. So, I was weekly commuting. I used to work in Malta on a Monday, fly Monday night. I'd be in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, which is when everyone's in the office really. I get a very late flight back on Thursday, land about two o 'clock in the morning on Friday morning, get up at six o 'clock for the kids' school run on a Friday and then do a day working a bolt on Friday.

5:35I think that was getting very difficult. But I think also because when the menopause came on and all my hormones sort of fell off a cliff, all of my resilience and all of my superpowers around just being able to work and work through anything sort of just slightly left me. and I remember at one point my husband was like you're just really unhappy even though you're getting all the results you're winning all the pitches you're getting all these awards you know on the outside everything looks like it could not be better but on the inside I was falling apart and he was like is it worth it is it worth it um you know what what would what would taking a step back look like for you and I remember talking to him and also to my therapist who's amazing.

6:19And I said, I can't, that's failure. Like I've worked so hard to get here. How could I possibly now go, oh, actually I can't do it anymore. And I'll take a sideways move or, and it was, it was sort of a culmination of speaking to both of them where they said, like not failing isn't, isn't an option that's actually going to make you happy. And it's not failure anyway, because being unhappy is the failure. Like actually, like you had to, I had to reframe it in my mind. And I think also the final thing that sort of was pushed me towards it was my children are 14, 15 and 16. So, I did pump them out quite quickly.

6:57And they needed me more. And it's that age, you know, big kids, big problems. And, you know, they're amazing children, but they just needed more of me. And for me to be able to give them the time before they all disappeared. You know, they're going to leave home soon. I just wanted to find a moment where I was not the boss, where you have to have that responsibility and shoulder everything, which meant that time away from your children, which was becoming more precious. The older they got was just going to sort of seep away and then it would be too late. So for me, you know, this is still, you know, it's still a very senior role.

7:33Incredibly senior. Yeah, no, no. I mean, like, It's not like I've taken my foot off the gas in one respect, but it is a different pace and it's his different expectation. So I'm very happy to let someone else be the boss now. I have a great boss. We have a great relationship. And, you know, I still work in new biz. I've still, you know, pumped out a lot of work this week. So it's not like the foot has been totally taken off the accelerator. But for me, it's the right thing to do in my career for my family and for my mental health and physical health. Yeah, naturally. I think what's interesting, because there is that world of growth now, right?

8:13And everyone is relentlessly focused. But if I go back a second, I think you teed up one of the first questions I was going to ask, which was, it felt like maybe that was the point where on the outside, everything, the veneer looked wonderful. you know for all intent purposes anyone saw you and thought got the job got family traveling back and forth to Malta this is amazing but was that was that the only time or the big time where you know actually behind everything you were crumbling or were there other moments in your career that you've you've experienced that it sounds odd to say it um but it really was the only time and that's why it was so confusing so I'm not I'm not you know the next bit I'm going to say is not to sort of put me on a pedestal or anything, but you know, I'm never, ever the smartest person in the room.

9:05I will always put my, I'm not the smartest media planner. I'm not the most commercial. I'm not ever the, the, the kind of the halcyon of it, but my superpowers are resilience, which is ironic given this is now about how that resilience left me, but resilience, like I could work harder. I could work harder and longer than most people. It was around having a sense of competition and winning. Like I just, ever since I was a kid, If I can't win it, I won't play it. I'm like that person. Again, probably why I've ended up in new business. Yeah, never let your kids win. I'm so super competitive. And that sense of drive, I think, is rewarded in media.

9:41You know, working really hard and having a sense of doing, pulling out all stops, never leaving any stone unturned to win. And then the final one is, you know, I think I do create followerships. You know, it is, there are groups of people that I think I'm able to bring along on the journey. And so, all of those things got me to where I was or am, I suppose. And, you know, I had cancer when I was 33, very young, absolutely fine now. So, that was a sort of a, you know, a difficult year. But then I was working actually remotely again from Italy into the OMD EMEA office and I was still flying and doing, you know, meetings with my clients and things like that.

10:25I had that cold cap thing means that you don't lose all your hair. So, nobody, some people didn't even know I had cancer until I sort of, you know, had to bring it up in whatever conversation. And that was fine. My mother died in the middle of the biggest pitch of my career to date at that point. And she died on a Monday. I was in the pitch room on a Wednesday. I'm not recommending it, but it was also my way of dealing with the grief. I couldn't process it at that point. You know, I had been commuting backwards and forwards. And when people heard that I had three kids in Malta, but I was also commuting 3000 miles a week, they were like, and you run an agency?

10:59Like, how do you do it? None of that was ever a problem. It was, that was my superpower. COVID, I was running the new biz. I was the managing director at Essence. I was sort of half running the agency with my amazing boss, Tim at the time, but also in charge of new business. And all the way through that, homeschooling three children in French because my kids went to a French school, which was like the biggest mistake I'd ever made because I never thought I was actually going to have to because I don't speak French. So, I was Google translating and AI didn't exist yet. So, I didn't have that help.

11:33And I did it. It was like, it's fine. I will do all of that and I will run the agency and I will do, you know. So, that's why it was so weird last summer because I was like, all of the things that have got me to where I've got to are not working now. and my code that my values around those sort of those things that I knew I could always do they just left and I started having anxiety which I'd never had in my life before so I didn't know what it was when it happened I remember waking up at four o 'clock in the morning and like literally couldn't lie down but couldn't stand up I was like why is my body not working I don't know what this thing is inside me so I went to work at four o 'clock in the morning I was 10 minutes walk from from South Bank, just because my flat was very close, given Malta's so far away, I wanted to make that last commute very close.

12:19And you can get into the building any time of day. And I was sort of walking around, obviously, nobody's there. But I didn't know what else to do. I was like, because there was another pitch on, because there's always a pitch on. So, I thought maybe I'll go and do some thinking and working on that. And it was only when I started talking about these symptoms to my husband. And then I started reading some articles. You know, I would like to say pretty well-educated woman, but I still didn't realize that's what was happening to me, that these were symptoms of the menopause. And so, it was when I started piecing that together, I was like, oh, okay, I think that's what's happening to me.

12:56So, then I spoke to a few people that I knew had either gone or going through the menopause and they said, yep. And I was like, why didn't you tell me this is what happens? And they're like, well, you're not supposed to talk about this stuff. You're just supposed to pretend it's all fine, keep calm and carry on. Nobody wants to talk about women's problems. You know, women basically, when they go through the menopause are desexualized and people are you know trying to all be very attractive into a certain age you know we're all having botox we're all doing these things to kind of pretend we're not aging um so you you don't hadn't got a group of people i didn't have a community of people that were talking about it to prepare me not that it's their job to do that but that's part of why i want to be on the chat today because i think i've got to talk about it i think otherwise Otherwise when it happens, if you're not prepared, and there's only so prepared you can be, you might not get the help and the support that you need as quickly as you can.

13:46And then you might start feeling that crumbling. It kind of brings me to this point of why don't people want to talk about it? And was there something at the time when you were going through this that you wish you'd said to someone? And that could have been out loud. Maybe you weren't ready. You know, maybe actually now you've just, you've kind of understood more about it and accepted where you are. But yeah, why don't people talk? And was there something you wish you'd said at the time when you understood and you learned this? Maybe walking around at 4am. Yeah, I think it is with, and it's not just the menopause, but I think it shows or it feels like potentially it's showing a weakness.

14:28and when you are doing a very big job, there is this expectation that you are like, if you look a little bit out of control, that sends ripples, right? You cast a big shadow as a CEO. You say things and you might say it meant one way, but someone will hear it a different way because of who you are, it's attributed a different level of importance or meaning. so you know that anyway as you prepare to step up into into being that kind of role so you're just very aware of what you put on show and what you do and don't talk about and how you present yourself now obviously in the last four or five years mental health has changed in terms of you know the accessibility of sharing these conversations which is absolutely the right thing I think but there are just some subjects that I think are still a bit more taboo and I think it's also linked to the fact women still are not equal in the workplace.

15:32Gender pay gaps are still struggling in lots of places. Lots of women still leave work around having children, et cetera. So, we've made huge strides, obviously, as an industry in that respect. But as a woman, I think as well, you've got to not work twice as hard because I don't think that's quite true. But you do have to have a level of control that I think is respected, which has been set by a very patriarchal system around what leadership and strength looks like in a CEO role in the workplace. So, I think that's the kind of double whammy. It's like, you don't want to sort of put things out there which might upset people or make people concerned or make you feel like you're not in control of this big responsibility and that you can't do the job.

16:20But then there's also this extra layer, I think, around women who mask and hide in the workplace, more than men anyway, in certain areas. I posted an open letter to, we have something in my previous job at PhD, which was a minds group, a kind of mental health group. and we had this open letter system and we had, they were brilliant. They used to be sent around the agency and we had someone who talked about hypochondria. We talked, we had people talking about miscarriage, et cetera. And they said, Ali, have you got anything that you want to share? And I was like, do you know what? I am going to share this because I'm like, I'm going through this now.

16:59And lots of people had borne the brunt of what was happening to me, but not knowing why I was acting in that way. I was missing meetings because I was like anxious and not knowing how to turn up to that meeting. I was forgetting things. I was, you know, having to take time to go and do medical appointments. And I was also just a bit, I mean, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I was a bit batshit sometimes. I was just a bit crazy. I remember one of my colleagues used to say, you are not in a cave alley. And this person who I was stressing about, they are not a saber tooth tiger. Like, and I remember I used to chart that back to myself.

17:36It was a way for her to sort of, you know, dispel a little bit of the stress and we used to laugh about it. But she was able, someone I was able to open up to, who I was very close to. So, she knew when I wasn't quite myself what was going on, but the rest of the agency or my senior leadership team probably didn't. So, I wanted to sort of share it so people could go, oh, okay, I can help or I understand a bit more. And then that letter went sort of viral within OMG. So, not just within the PhD agencies, but into our sister agencies, because it got read by someone who said, you know, more people should read this.

18:07And then they said, you should be putting this more into the industry. So then it went on LinkedIn and that's obviously, I think, where you saw it and got in contact with me. So do I wish I'd said something? I mean, I did in the end say something. Could I have said something earlier? Potentially, but I think I still, like you said, I didn't really know what I was dealing with yet. I didn't really know whether it was going to like just go away overnight, that I would get some HRT and I'd be fine, which isn't quite what happened. I'm much better now and I do control my symptoms much better. but I wanted to sort of see whether it was a blip and you could kind of almost ignore it and nothing to see here and then I could carry on as normal but when I realized it wasn't a blip and it wasn't going to go away um immediately or wasn't going to be softened as quickly as I wanted that's when I decided to sort of speak up about it when I when I when I first thought about menopause I just thought tummy tummy troubles this is what I mean again I read up on it and you know yes hot flashes night sweats mood anxiety lack of sleep but again the brain fog you know just forgetting stuff weight gain um skin changes um also more importantly mental health as you talked about that resilience that you know it may not be an obvious mental health illness but suddenly everything that you stand for and represent just dissipates and just goes.

19:35So as a senior leader, are there or have there been triggers that really kind of either pushed you to your kind of limits being a senior leader? How do you manage that? Because that's not easy, right? Because it is keep calm and carry on and almost probably don't sweat the small stuff, but you've got person A over there that saber-tooth tiger is, do you know what I mean, saying this and you're like, you know. And then over here, you've got just actual medical or triggers that might lead to medical kind of reactions, maybe to the menopause. So how have you managed those triggers and are there certain triggers either across your career or during kind of your menopause that have either made it worse or better?

20:21um so i think there's two sort of elements to that i think from a physical or mental trigger linked to the menopause specifically um i it was mostly mental for me like i didn't really get the hot flushes i didn't really it wasn't like i sort of you know have to go and open a window and go hot in here and stuff like you know it was more uh losing the sense of who i was because because it did create the confusion. It did create the anxiety and the kind of the loss of confidence because I'd always had the answer. I always had a answer. I mean, I'm not saying I always had always the right answers through my whole career.

21:04Certainly not. But just not having that sense of confidence and knowing what I was doing was the right thing. And I was sort of second guessing myself, having to check around me. you know also I think that was then sort of feeding upwards to the management and they were like well where's that strength of character that we know Ali has is she really nailing it right now so then I was sort of going oh my gosh I'm now worrying them and I'm so all of those it was it was the triggers around not being able to be as forceful and as resilient as I had always been because again like I said that was one of my superpowers um and I guess the other trigger which is something which I now look back on and I think to myself, I was triggered at the time, but I didn't know how to put my foot down around it, was when nobody asked me to come in after my mum died and present.

22:00That was my decision. I'd worked on this pitch for nine months. I was not going to let it go at that point. But I also, that was my way of dealing with grief. I worked through my grief, which is everyone's got a different way of doing it. I wouldn't recommend my way, but it worked for me. It's a way. Yeah. But I think sometimes in this industry, we ask extraordinarily unreasonable things, not everywhere, not every agency, but I think there is this sort of expectation that you will just do it because if you don't, you're not really committed or you're not really a leader. So again, not sort of talking about any names or when this happened.

22:41But I was told I needed to bring someone back from a different country who was on paternity leave. First baby. So three or four day old baby. And like, no, we need to bring her back for a pitch. And I did it because I didn't think I couldn't. It was my job as CEO. You have to do the difficult things. You have to ask the people to do difficult things. But I hated doing it. I was like, he's never going to get that time back with his kid in that moment. There's other examples. Someone was moving house during a big meeting and we made them come in. I was like, they're moving house. It's a really straight, like moving house is like stressful after death and divorce, like number three or something.

23:21And we were just adding this stress onto their day. So now my trigger is, you know, why do we, we work in media. Obviously I'm very passionate about what we do and what we do does matter. I'm not one of those people that says we're not saving lives. We're obviously not saving lives. But at the same time, it does matter what we do. And I take a huge amount of kind of personal value and status and purpose from my job. I mean, I've been a workaholic my whole life. I'm not going to say that we don't sometimes have to do things which are just sorry that you just got to JFDI, right? But there are times now, and these are the things that trigger me it's like where we just go have we asked too much this time like what's what's actually going to happen if we don't have do this one thing or have this one person here um and so for me working in a new environment where we take a much more pragmatic look at that versus i think broadly how whole codes you know if i'm honest operate um is is means i'm being triggered a lot less at the moment yeah i don't think it's just our industry i think the world world um i don't think we ask enough what is the cost of what we're asking and i don't mean the monetary cost what is the physical mental social i'll even go as far as spiritual because i am quite spiritual cost on a group or an individual um and i i'm unfortunately one of those people that sometimes allows that to happen because I do it myself.

24:59And that's the hardest thing. Because then I say to my team, no, no, no, don't worry, sign off. Like sometimes I'm like, I'll walk around and I'll just like, come on, come on, I'll grab the top of their laptop and I'll shut it. Let's go, let's go. And I'm like, unfortunately they are emulating probably a lot of how I work. From a role modeling perspective, I'm much more aware of it now. So I had a kind of an experience where as part of a process, I had to leave on a Friday at a certain time and we needed to come in on the weekend. And I was going to come in, but I had to leave at a certain time on the Saturday.

25:37And it was the first time I think that I'd actually set some boundaries. so I met my other half and you know I have a stepson who's now 10 years old and so kids were never really on my agenda um like you're very into my work and and that was the first time that I'd actually respected the boundaries of my partner by by leaving on the Saturday I love the idea that boundaries is leaving at a certain time on Saturday rather than going into not going into the office of the first place well it's an Interesting. No. So, so the boundaries were, she had arrangements on the Friday night, had them for a while.

26:14We'd had plans for my stepson's birthday on the Saturday. It wasn't his birthday, but we'd have plans with some, some friends. And so I respected the boundary on the Friday by leaving. So she could do her thing. That felt like it'd been in the diary. She planned it. Um, and then I actually didn't go on the Saturday cause I received a call, which was don't worry we're going to give you time back and and I'll be honest with you it took me a couple of months to process that because I thought to myself Jesus like to your point like I was expected to be there and and I wasn't there and I got to a stage in the end where I thought fuck it like i give everything to my job and for the pure and simple fact that i may not have been able to stay all day friday and all day saturday and possibly maybe even a sunday if people don't have enough belief that i will turn up and show up on the day that's fine that's their stuff yeah that's not my stuff that's them having a level of control And that's fine.

27:30But I think it is really interesting that we in our industry, any industry, we feel this innate pressure, you know, to just show up all the time. And I think in, you know, in new business, because obviously I'm working sort of solely in new business at the moment, that's almost become expected of how you win. Right. Like if I, so for example, if I'm in a pitch working with my current agency and we're not quite where we need to be, we won't ask people to work on the weekend. Like that's just a thing here. Whereas in my previous role, it's like, well, if we want to win, we've got to come in. And so I'm conscious that there may be boat lengths that I'm getting behind now.

28:15And, you know, in my job, my KPI is pretty clear, right? You either win or lose a pitch. There's no half measures. So I'm now starting to think about how I cheat. How do I win? But I also protect people's time with their family and their mental health, etc. et cetera. You know, what can I do with AI that allows me to get much more efficient? And so we're really investing heavily in that, not just for clients, but for our own internal processes so that I can be ahead of my competitors in that respect and do things quicker so that we can spend the time with our loved ones when we should be. And the other thing is, is I'm also putting my hand up and saying, we can bring in extra people.

28:55There's, you know, there's an amazing sort of lots of different types of businesses that I think are springing up right now. One that comes to mind is 300. So I don't know if you know Patrick, Patrick Ryan. He's got a consultancy now, which is all around growth and new business. So I'll just pay him to come in and help and move us along quicker. So you've got these two different cheats, I think, which allows us still to win because winning is obviously still the end game. And I'm very competitive as I sort of set out. But how do you win in a way that isn't so old school, you know, sitting in a war room, ordering pizzas on a Wednesday, wishing that you were watching your kids' football match?

29:36I mean, there must be a better way, right? Because I don't think clients are going to change anytime soon. You know, we've got the pitch positive pledge, et cetera. But I think the expectations of what we deliver is still as big as it's ever been. And yeah, having a cheat sheet around how you do that, but protecting your people is my it's my kind of thing now that I'm trying to do. I think it's a really interesting topic and actually probably one we could, we could probably do a whole podcast on. So just, uh, let's just go back a second then. Um, it sounds like that moment of your previous role to where you are now, was there, um, um, like a single piece of feedback that may have been from your husband, um, colleagues, was there a physical metaphorical moment where you stood in front of the mirror?

30:21you said Ali pull yourself together or like what was the what was the actual point was it that four in the morning walk you know for example no no I was still well in the trenches after that 4am that was probably in the sort of February March time if I'm really brutally honest it was a bit of a moment in the year where I'd just been nominated for media leader of the year PhD been nominated for the agency the year we'd already won the Grand Prix in in the campaign awards and we'd, you know, we'd retain Sainsbury's VW. And yet there was this feeling that the cost of all those things that I should be so happy, but I wasn't.

31:05And I think I knew it was because I wasn't spending enough time with my family. I knew it wasn't because I was controlling my emotions particularly well. And I was like, if I'm not happy now doing this, when everything's brilliant on the outside and I'm sort of, then what does happiness look like? What is, you know, and this is how I had to reframe failure in my mind. So, failure to me was walking away from the job because I didn't want to say I couldn't do it or that I wasn't enjoying it. But it was, I think it was my therapist actually that said to me, isn't failure being really unhappy and everything else is kind of falling in a different place for you.

31:51And how could you reframe failure into something which is not doing something about it? Like if you stay, that's almost failing. It wasn't like a moment looking in the mirror, but it was a sort of lots of gradual conversations that nudged me closer to making one of the most difficult decisions of my career. Mostly because the team around me and the momentum we had was just second to none. I just love that agency. I think people always say that about their agencies, but I will always have a piece of purple PhD in my blood. And it was hard to walk away from that as much. I knew I'd miss them a lot.

32:34You seem very at peace with it though. I am now because I've moved back from Malta. So we are now living in Brixton, less sunny, but a lot, lots for all to commute. My kids have got their mum back after four years of commuting and CEOing. And, you know, I now get home in time to cook them dinner and I can go and watch their volleyball matches on the weekend. And, and I'm in a, and I'm in a place now, I think in my career where I've, you know, got the t-shirt like you you know I was one of those business directors said you know what I think I am going to try and be a CEO I think I really do want to do that um but I don't feel like a burning desire to go back to do that again interestingly I feel happier healthier I'm I still would say I'm probably a workaholic I will still work till midnight I will still do a weekend you know when I need to get to hit a deadline um but I've got much more balance in a way that I didn't have up, you know, in weirdly the menopause, even though it was one of the most difficult things that ever happened to me, it's probably given me something which I had never had up until that point, which was some kind of balance.

33:42My other half tells me regularly, your to-do list will never be done, Danny. The minute you clear it, there'll be five other things on there. So that's literally what my husband said. But what's fascinating is I'm probably where you were five, seven, eight years ago, where I'm thinking about where next. And I've got more of a balance And it does feel like a bit of a thankless task being in some of those leadership positions unless, and this is my big kicker, is you have the, I guess, the foresight and the confidence to lead with that vulnerability, lead with that openness, that honesty, put people at the heart of everything that you do.

34:24because I believe that if you put people at the heart of everything you do, you will unlock far better output, productivity, culture, mood, like it just, and it baffles me that we've lost sight of that. But I a hundred percent agree with that. And it has always been a huge part of what I think my leadership style has been. I think sometimes you, you get to a point where you have to compromise that though. And there are expectations from you, you know, and you have to be able to shoulder it with the responsibility of you don't always get to make the decisions that make people happy. You have to make the tough ones too.

35:02That's part of the job. That's why you've given, you know, that level of responsibility. So, but I 100 % agree with you on that. Like the other thing I was saying, which I'm trying to start a movement, not just around talking about the menopause, but I just think we need to have more fun. Like if people are having fun, they work harder anyway. They give you so much more discretionary effort. It goes, the time goes quicker and the work gets better. And to be really designed and thoughtful around how you create a fun environment, you actually end up working harder than if you sort of put the, you know, the hammer down on how you expect people to be like really productive.

35:41So yeah, I'm always trying to think about how i'm injecting fun into everything that we do as well well the i don't know if it was you that shared it but there was the uh i loved this campaign i saw there was a menopause mandate and it was uh davina mccall um i forget the other uh super talented actress and amazon um where they were effectively putting menopause on sale for like just under a pound 99 pence oh wow i haven't seen this um and it was effectively a donation that you made to the charity yeah and it was all about rating you know your experience with menopause and it was shot in 80s style and i just thought it was a really is that the right word satrical like it was quite it was quite um it was quite a funny way of being able to kind of probably demystify what either some people think is quite serious or don't have any idea about um and i think that's important as well.

36:37Like my experience will be completely different to someone else's. Like I struggled and I found eventually a way through it. Some people can sail through it, you know, they're like, what are you talking about? And I think that's another thing, like some, some women don't want to talk about it because it's not really affected them as much. And they don't want women to get a bad name that we are complaining about. It's something else that women put on their feminist, you know, kind of manifesto. So, I am very aware and conscious that I am not flying the flag of this is how menopause happens and this is therefore what you should do because everybody will experience it differently.

37:14Some people will find it much more of a physical thing, some mental, some won't have any symptoms at all and some people will, you know, get every symptom than the sum. So, you know, it's, it's important to make sure that it's more the conversation around it rather than saying you should do this or this is going to happen to you. So, be scared. Like I don't want to, there's no scare mongering that I want to do as part of this conversation. It's very much just having an awareness that you're definitely not alone because there's lots of people that will go through it. But also if you, you know, if you're a man or if you are a family member or if you're an employer that you can ask, you know, is there anything that you need?

37:55What can we do to make this better? You know, just having that conversation and that person might still not say, they might say, I'm fine, please don't bring this up. I don't want to talk about it. And that's fine as well. But I think to, you know, to your point around that campaign, trying to find a way to make something a bit more fun and lighthearted and engage people. So it's not like this, we all don't want to talk about this, I think is important. And they've done an amazing job, right? Because in the last few years, it has become, I mean, even though I've seen all of their stuff, I still had no idea what was happening to me.

38:28So I was like, what am I doing here? But yeah, the more I think it does get talked about, it will allow the different experiences of menopause and how we can support them um be be more effectively you know uh worked through so so if we kind of bring this to a bit of a close um we we we talk about the permission slip um on the podcast and it's designed to and you kind of cover some of it off there a second ago but it's designed to encourage people to think about if they're you know if there's one thing that you know you could say that would encourage people to think, feel, do, act differently, either around growing your career and growing your career with something like menopause or something else that's going on, what would that be from you?

39:20So I think the permission slip that I would give is that not always hiding things because you think it's going to be seen as a weakness, which is a very generic thing. And I'm sure people would say, oh yes, we've been doing vulnerability for a while now, so you should be able to talk about this. But I think knowing that it is unreasonable some things that we are being asked to do when you're getting to a certain level of your career and being able to voice that and say, no, actually, I think that's not okay. And I would like to talk about it. I think it's difficult to do, but I think it's more important that we do it to your point around putting people first.

40:02and then specifically around you know the menopause it's just being able to say I know that something's happening and I would like to have a conversation about how you can support me as a as an employer or as a manager or you know you know I eventually did give myself permission to do both of those things but you can wear yourself down for a long time building up the courage to do those. And if you could give permission to a leader to do something differently around menopause in their organisation, what would that be? Do you know what? I think, interestingly, more and more agencies have menopause policies.

40:43They get written down, it becomes a tick box, you can put it in your little creds and stuff like that. No one ever reads them. I hadn't even read my own menopause policy that I sort of ticked off as, like again, right. I'm holding my hand up to that. So I was like, oh, I know we've got one. So I had a look at it. There's no point having those if you're not going to then socialize them, explain to people what they mean, why we need it in the first place, what it's designed to do, when you invoke it, invoke it. But so I would give permission or advice to leaders, both men and women, to actually take those out of the drawer, do a bit of maths, work out how many women are perimenopausal or menopausal potentially in their leadership team or in their agency as a whole and go, there's probably a good 20, 30 % of people that would really benefit to know what this is about.

41:35And it might not be happening to them yet. And we have a very young industry, right? 25, 26-year-olds are not worried about the menopause and neither should they be, right? So, it probably is for the slightly older generation in the agency, But those 25 year olds will probably be working for women who are of menopausal age, depending if they're managing partners or C-suite. So, again, it's not something that doesn't apply to men or doesn't apply to a different generation and only older ladies and older women. It really does affect a lot of people. So having the permission to actually go, I'm going to bring this out and talk about it because we've got it for a reason.

42:13Let's see if we can use it for good. Ali you've I think brought to life exactly why people need to understand more about this today but also being a senior leader in the industry coming on showing up differently for me is amazing and thank you for responding to the message coming on and being so honest in the podcast it's been great to have you and I know that people will absolutely eat this episode up so thanks again thank you for having me I've had a lot of fun

43:08Ali Reed: We'll see you next time. on the latest innovations. All the newness is all on sale right now during the Livewell sale on The Drop by GNC.