#565 Networks, Progression and Guilt: Six Career Opinions From Emma Grede | Start With Yourself

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1:17Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. An extraordinary career is always the result of an extraordinary effort. And I'm very excited because I love this person. And I've loved this person for ages. The person is Emma Greed. Are we ready for statement number one? It has not been my experience that people achieve great things by doing less.

1:49Helen:Do you agree with this? An extraordinary career is extraordinary as long as you think it's extraordinary. Yes. I've got the capability here. I can lead this team or I can run this scale of projects. And you have made that choice. I think that's the difference. I know why I'm doing this versus this is happening to me. If you want to have a great career, I think you have to create opportunity. That has to come from... Doing stuff. Yeah, I think otherwise you kind of have the career that everyone else has. You don't always have to agree with everything you read. But if you're going to think critically, then go, well, what?

2:21Helen:What would an alternative be? What could this look like? What would feel more useful?

2:29Helen:Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm Helen. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast. Every week we borrow some brilliance from a person, a place, a feeling, an object. The list is getting longer of things we're borrowing brilliance from. But it's endless. So that means the podcast will never end. And we do try to turn that Borrow Brilliance and that curiosity into useful actions for you and your squiggly career. And this episode is another one of our episodes in partnership with the Brilliant Post-it. And we are going to be talking about a someone. So we're borrowing brilliance from a someone. And we're going to combine it.

3:04And we think, why have they got this here? This is because this is Post-it's tabletop meeting chart. and we are going to be using it in the episode to talk about the person we are borrowing brilliance from. And I'm very excited because I love this person and I've loved this person for ages. The person is Emma Greed, who has recently come out with this book, Start With Yourself, which has been all over social media. I think she's been very smart with PR, I would say. I didn't even know who she was. I was going to say, because I'd followed her for ages.

3:33Helen:How did you find out about her? Because of all the controversial things that were happening. And I think people that we must follow, on Amazing If or like people I'm aware of. That's how it kind of came into my consciousness. Okay. You know, people reacting. And I was like, who is this? And you were like, well. Well, let me tell you about my love of Emma Greed. So if you don't know who Emma Greed is, she is the founder of Skims, which is a shapewear business that's gone into all kinds of, I saw them advertise this morning. They've done some collaboration with Nike. Probably known most for the, I don't actually know of exactly what Kim Kardashian's involvement is it.

4:11I don't know whether she's co-founded or whether she's like got a brand. I don't know quite what the equity arrangement is there. Something Kardashian based. But Emma Green is the founder of it. Like she is a super smart businesswoman. She has like number of different businesses that she runs. She's also part of the founder of Good American, which is the business that I guess is visibly fronted by Khloe Kardashian. So she's built quite a lot of brands with the Kardashians, but then she's got other brands as well. And as well as being a brilliant businesswoman, she also is a mum of four children she talks very openly about like parenting and how she manages that alongside a job and she also this is probably this probably it might have been my way into emma greed her fashion is amazing oh that makes more sense now because i was thinking i don't know who this is i don't want to undermine her business brilliance but that's okay to be into fashion and you love fashion so like her handbag collection is my dream okay i literally screenshot every handbag that she has yeah honestly my phone is full of screenshots a little ai agent i absolutely love her fashion there's feathers and there's leather and there's sequins and there's silk and it all happens at once and yeah cool it is it is my dream but we are not talking about fashion today and actually i should say there's two other things that i've i've intentionally not planned to talk about because i'm not sure how helpful it is for the podcast so as well as fashion which we're ruling out um in the book which is it's going to be kind I guess the spark for our conversation today um the book start with yourself has a lot in there about parenting and it also has a lot in about entrepreneurship which I think is really interesting but I'm conscious that majority of our listeners are managing careers in companies we do definitely have lots of people that manage their own company but majority of listeners are in company so I wanted to pick out some statements that Emma Greed has sort of said and written about that I think have the broadest relevance for everybody.

6:05More about careers than some of the kind of wider things that she might discuss or talk about. I just didn't want to talk to one population in the Squiggly Careers community. I wanted to talk to as many people as possible. So here's the plan. I have picked out six sort of statements that she has written about in this book. And Sarah doesn't know what these statements are. And so I'm going to, they're on here, they're pre-written on here. So we're going to like get each one up at a time. I'm going to read a little bit. So I've kind of put the key statement on here. And I'm going to share a bit more context from the book.

6:37And I want to get Sarah's perspective on, do you agree with this? Yeah. Do you think it's true? And also, if you do think it is true, what do you currently do that kind of supports this statement? And we'll just have a little bit of a chat about it. Are we ready for statement number one? Yeah, let's get our massive flip chart. They're getting bigger, everyone.

6:57Helen:It's very exciting. Oh, my God, that's actually true. We've gone from the big yellow ones. They get bigger and bigger. So the big tabletop ones. Okay. Okay. So in your squiggly career, Emma Greed would say you should expect guilt. Right. Let me expand on that for you. Okay. Okay. Expect guilt. It can be a helpful and healthy check when you're out of balance in your life, have fallen out of integrity or need to put something wrong right. Okay. So what do you think? guilt because I think we don't guilt she's I think when we think about guilt it feels like it's quite a negative emotion I don't I don't hear conversations at work where people are going when was the last time you felt guilty or I don't I don't ever hear like that kind of a conversation around guilt and I think what she is saying is like actually guilt can be a good thing for your self-awareness and actually tuning into what's making me feel guilty can then help you take action i think people talk about guilt a lot more to do with parenting like you do hear that yeah um and that's like i feel guilty that i'm spreading myself too thinly or i'm not here or i'm not there um which i also don't feel i don't i would say controversial statements yeah i wouldn't say guilt is top of my mind generally for anything um do you like so what's your first question do i do i expect guilt no do you think do you think that does that resonate with you as a statement Because I read it.

8:29I mean, it's a big book. But I picked out things that I thought, oh, that's an interesting point. And actually, I think we could, I think I could have conversations with people that I don't have about what's making you feel guilty right now. What does that tell you about how you're working? What could you differently? So the first real question that I have in my mind for you is, what, if anything, do you feel guilty about right now?

8:54Helen:Very little. and I don't even know if this is guilt but when I was really I was really trying to think about this then when you sort of shared that statement I sometimes feel guilty that I've not spent more time on certain pieces of work okay does that count yeah so sometimes I'll think oh I would I would have liked to have done more on that research more worked harder on it and I haven't been able to for whatever reason and I feel guilty because I'm like oh I think that could have I could have tried harder or that could have been better if I had not I don't know just relaxed at home and spent an extra hour prepping for the podcast you know like the choices that you make um and sometimes I see like I'll see something that maybe we've done in our company and I'll be or like, yeah, I chose not to do that or I made a different choice and I do feel a bit guilty because I can see it's not as good as I would like it to be.

9:55Helen:So I think my guilt is all to do with like things not being as good as I want them to be. So like a quality trigger. Yes. Because, but what are you worried? So you feel guilty that the quality of something isn't good enough. Yeah. And so what? So people are spending time with something that isn't worthy of their time. Well, there's something that could have been better if I'd have spent more time on it. So let's think about it. It can be a healthy and helpful check when you're out of balance or falling out of integrity or you need to put something wrong right. So if that is your signal, like a quality guilt is a signal, how could you put that wrong right?

10:33What would you do differently if you became more aware of guilt?

10:36Helen:Well, I mean, some of this, like nobody wants the answer to. So some of this equals micromanagement, essentially. So especially if you've listened to our episode on like good enough is great. I think some of it, some of it, I think I choose to not get involved. And I might then still feel guilty because I'm like, well, I wish I could. And it's, yeah, it's a funny one, the guilt thing for me, because I think it could be dangerous because it could go, it could force me in an unhelpful direction. It is not helpful in excess. She does say that at the end. But I was thinking, I was in a different place.

11:07I was thinking, so you said like a quality guilt. And because you, the worry is that people are spending time on something that isn't to the quality that you think it should be at but that's your perception and it's their time yeah so surely you should ask them like on a scale of one to ten if you were to evaluate the quality of this I don't know whatever the thing is you're worried about yeah project content podcast whatever it would be on a scale of one to ten like how useful did you find that yeah if people are going oh I don't know seven out of ten it would be even better if you might actually get some or maybe they're going ten out of ten I don't know but the point is you don't know So you could have this perception of quality and guilt about other people's reality that is not their reality.

11:50Helen:Yeah, I think I'm very much using my own, my own judgment and my own view without, without seeking like other people's. I was thinking mine, what do I feel guilty about at the moment? I would probably say not getting back to people. Yeah, I feel like, you know, I'm like, oh, someone has taken the time to get in touch with me and I've not taken the time to get back to them. um and I was thinking is help is it a helpful and healthy check I don't know it just makes me feel more guilty I'm like now I've brought it up now I feel even more guilty because I'm like all those people sat in my inbox I've not gone back to yet um have I fallen out of integrity I've not gone back I had that this morning so I had that exact example where someone had emailed us partly to say thank you for something I'd done like a zoom session I'd done um but was also sharing some things that were quite hard and it had taken me a little while to go back I was never going to not go back but it had taken me a while um and I was feeling guilty about that actually so and it and I'd never it was on my mind it played on my mind the whole time and I responded this morning and I was thinking that didn't take very long and what stopped me from doing that sooner okay and I think it was because in my mind it was going to take me longer than it did actually what it took me was a focused five minutes you know to then be like to do that quickly and I was also including like a link to something that I'd be helped that I thought would be helpful and I was thinking if I had just done that in the moment and or probably someone in our team could have been just as helpful as me and say you know back to like the because I'm the same I always feel guilty if I've taken ages and someone has because they put effort in right and then like that took me let's say two weeks to respond to yeah it was about two weeks i could so imagine that i could already feel that yeah and i was like oh okay that's that and also that's not what i because what if that that might mean a lot to that person and then feel like they're like are they ghosting are they like why are they not replying um and so that did to your point on like can guilt be a useful prompt a bit of like a bit of data for your development i think it made me think actually that didn't need to take two weeks either I need to put some time in my diary where I have like focused five minutes and I literally go this is a focused five this is a focused five and I am going to work my way through them and I think probably like Sarah who helps us in our team could almost help me by going here are the ones you need to do you know like get it all ready to go into an action so based on this like expecting guilt do you think you would benefit from if you reflected at the end of a week or at the end of fortnight what do i what have i felt guilty about over the last five days for example do you think that would be a useful reflection for you or do you think it would put you in a negative headspace well and our whole point of doing this is to like is to just respond right to respond reflect i don't like the word and i i think the word can be quite unhelpful so i don't think i want to ask myself questions about guilt because i think it might get me into I already feel bad you know I already I think it might make me feel worse yeah versus um you know even doing like what would be my biggest even better if for this week it would be to have got back to that person sooner how am I going to do that that feels like a more positive way for you to respond to the same situation yeah so I don't think it's a word that I want to kind of bring into my week more okay okay we will not accept guilt as a way in okay our next one let's turn it over and next one i'm moving on in the book um you can do all things you just can't do them all at the same time and this is a part of the book um where she talks a lot about trade-offs and she's really really honest in the book about in order for her to be successful with all these different things that she's doing she makes a lot of trade-offs like and the kid things she'll be like i don't go to that meeting I don't I don't do that thing and she says basically she doesn't feel guilty back to this kind of guilt point it just come up as a thing she's like she's not guilty about a lot she's unashamedly herself I would say um and she's like you just have to know that you just can't do all the things and that's okay you don't need to feel guilty about it whereas some people they think doing everything is success and then they are more likely to burn out or they want to project perfection rather than admit that they can't do everything and kind of own and own that trade-off where where are you at with that statement i think that's helpful what's your thoughts on it i think it's actually really helpful for people in their jobs to prioritize so that's probably not what people when people first read that kind of statement and you know you've seen versions of that statement around people will be like oh you can't be all things to all people and work-life balance etc I'm like actually maybe what's more helpful thinking about this like in a different way or in a new way is you know everybody's to-do list is longer than the time that they have yeah like everybody whenever I do that in a workshop I'm like who has more to do than time everyone's like me um and you kind of can't do everything on your to-do list and you probably can't do everything you want to do at work you know like that sort of a you're setting yourself an impossible task and I was thinking back to kind of a time in a job where I think I was very focused on what I could do and really trying to put a lot of energy and effort into like my strengths and doing things doing a few things really really well and that really paid off for me in my career in my progression and I think it still like pays off for me and I notice actually when I do try to do all things at work you know like if I start to get involved in more things you can see this and you're always like oh can you not um basically but when I do do that actually it means I get a bit antsy and a bit frustrated and I'm like oh that's not right and this is not right or whatever it might be and that I think is me trying to do all things whereas I think when I go, okay, here are the two things where I'm going to really try and be brilliant.

18:03Helen:Like I put a lot of effort into preparing for a couple of the podcasts that we've recorded today. And I feel like that was useful. You turned up this morning, I'd done some good work. And then that meant that we could have a more helpful conversation, I hope for our listeners. And that was me making some trade-offs around how I spent my time over the last few weeks. I listened to the same podcast twice you could be like well that's not doing all things right that's doing the same thing twice all in pursuit of like one or two things so prioritizing is hard and I don't think people necessarily connect that with prioritizing but I wonder if it's quite a helpful frame I was I was just thinking in the team context as well what questions if you held this to be true for a team yeah nice questions would you ask of each other and I think I might say like what do you need to trade-off this week so that you can get that thing done nice um that could be a nice question um what needs to be on your not for now list so that you can move that thing forward um i actually really like the not for now list because my worry that with this sort of statement sometimes is that you go you can do all the things you just can't do them all at the same time so people just like go i'm not gonna do that i'm not gonna do that yeah i think it probably has some importance like it was on the list because it is important so you don't just want to lose it I almost want a kind of now we could just kind of now and not for now and just having this well we're gonna you know this is what we're focusing on that's just not for now but I don't want to lose it and dismiss it because I think sometimes you can be like well you just can't do it all and you just have that kind of slightly flippant aptitude about things yeah I like that I think I think I've interpreted it at an individual level how can I prioritize yeah and then you've done how can we prioritize yeah some good questions there to ask it a one-to-one I would say with a manager yeah so if you're a manager you could do what you've just done and ask about like what are you not going to do this week so that you can really do a good job of this but also you could ask that question of your manager right you know like yeah here are the five things that feel important for this week I was planning to prioritize one and two and then if I get to three four five great yeah but like is that what you would do yeah um does that feel like the right does that feel like the right choices and trade-offs I always think if you're making trade-offs together with other people it's easier than making them in isolation and also it's very rare that your trade-offs don't impact other people so if I let's say I had traded off podcast preparation and I hadn't told you yeah this week yeah and I had turned up this morning with you know a bit but not but not load then and you hadn't known that you might have been like oh wow well, crikey, we're starting from scratch a bit here.

20:42Helen:That's quite unsettling for you and also probably quite annoying and quite frustrating. And then you might even be like, well, look, if I had known, I could have done some of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or we could have got some help. Telling people your trade-offs is probably an important insight here. If you just make the trade-off in isolation, it has an impact you probably don't appreciate. So that's probably... And you and I also do this to go slightly into life, which I never like to do too much because I prefer talking about work stuff or career stuff. But when you and I are trading off work to other things, we will often tell each other.

21:16Helen:Like you was at me one day this week and you went, basically I'm done. I think you said it. You said it slightly nicer than that. But I think you were, actually not even gently, you were saying to me, we've had some very long days this week and you were like, I'm out. And I was like, I'm going to stop. I'm going to, I won't WhatsApp it now. Yeah. Because you were like, I now need to just trade off a bit of work time for just a bit of, I mean, I seem to be just going to sleep probably just i think i was watching something on netflix i think it was like nine o 'clock yeah because the context of sarah and me is we're we're not in the day we're often with companies and with learners and so when we are kind of connecting catching up it's often in the evening when we're back and i think i was just like i just need to not talk about work for the next like hour at least at least an hour just an hour just an hour to sit here and just watch something like not particularly uh cognitively challenging i think that is you know like talk about your trade-offs yeah that's a good outcome for that one good all right more on board with number three we've got six so okay we're on number three oh i like this one i've got loads also i've got loads of underlines in the book on this one you can tell i like this one um okay um an extraordinary career is always the result of an extraordinary effort let me give you some context here so what she says in the book is you basically have you have to put more in you have to put more in, which I think some people find controversial because they say, well, I'm not being paid to put more in.

22:39I'm being paid to do a certain set of hours. And she basically calls that and says, well, fine, but if you want to be successful, you're going to have to do more. So she says, I refuse to tell people that they can be really successful without giving 150%, without waking up most days and doing some type of work, or at least thinking about work. It has not been my experience that people achieve great things by doing less and i mean there's more there's just more this everyone i know who's extremely successful is a little bit of a workaholic i mean there's just there's just more and more on that theme so as somebody who runs her own business and has had some big jobs in big companies um what's your take on this

23:22Helen:so i can see why it's controversial so there are some things that are really tricky right so So there is a point, and I have heard this from lots of people, and I think probably you and I have both been in this situation before. You know where you are not being paid for the job that you do? And do I think that does happen, and sometimes you have to accept that for a period of time in pursuit of something that you want to do? Yes, not forever. You know that thing of like, you're doing two people's jobs, or you're doing loads, loads more and that's not being reflected or rewarded or recognised does not feel good, right?

24:04Helen:I think if you are doing that for a bit to show, well, I've got the capability here, I can lead this team or I can run this scale of projects and you have made that choice. You're like, I know why I'm doing this versus this is happening to me and no one asked me if I wanted to do this and then I'm not being paid for all the extra time or whatever it might be. I think you have a very different relationship with it. I suppose everybody I know who I admire, who I think, who I would describe as extraordinary and that's not really about their job title. It's more just about I admire them or they inspire me or whatever it might be.

24:46Helen:I always feel like they've put in a lot of effort. There are people who are incredibly talented. you know just like naturally incredibly talented but then I just think then they add on loads and loads of effort and so no wonder they're brilliant to work for or no wonder they're in influential jobs or writing books I love to read or whatever it might be um because the effort is like you're trying really really hard and I suppose because I think well I try really hard and I see and I do see other people try really hard and I think sometimes from a distance you can look at those very quote-unquote successful people and you can be like oh you know are they working point are they working that hard and they always are yeah that's their point so there's a few points that that she makes in here one is a perception point of when you see that you know the whole overnight success thing yeah I mean never true yeah and she's like it's just not true like and so she makes this point like now she is sort of building a brand because she wants to share what she's learned to help other people but she says you probably didn't know about me before because I was building a business yeah that i was spending my time building lots of businesses and it was hard and it took a lot of effort and now i'm choosing to build myself as a brand and help other people with it so don't assume that because you might have only just seen someone's success they've only just started working on their success if i look at emma greed right who i don't know i haven't followed her i could just be like wow look at that she's she's massive yeah because i don't know any of like the backstory to where she's got to yeah and i think that kind of my own my own experiences you know you can look at a ceo right that you're working with for the first time and you can be like oh they're you know swanning in and out of meetings they've got so much support and then i worked with a few quite closely and they work really really hard yeah like i i've still never worked with people who are in those big kind of senior like full-on roles and maybe it's not true everywhere but certainly the ones that i've worked for we're all putting in a lot of effort not just hours but they cared and they were they were trying hard yeah um and yes they had got a lot of support around them and all those kind of things but they were still they were still working really hard yeah i think that i was just i was i've got to do that so i think this is i mean the strong words on the extraordinary careers extraordinary the strong words i do i do think that you have to create if you want to have a great career i think you have to create opportunity and i think that that has to come from you doing stuff yeah i think otherwise you kind of have the career that everyone else has and so i you know we did a side project so the reason we run that this business now is because we did a side project on top of a full-time job for about five years yeah um it sounds hard isn't it when you describe it like that i know i don't think we realized we're building a business no that's true to be fair but it was an extraordinary effort we were doing really big things in the day jobs and then children came along and we still still did all of this so I do think I'm I do think that took extraordinary effort to do some of what we were doing then and I think it has led to what I think is an extraordinary career but I was remembering an important point though right it's like I think what makes this more appealing is an extraordinary career is extraordinary as long as you all as long as you think it's extraordinary yes it doesn't have to be by anyone else's definition because I think sometimes you might look at this and be like it is well have I made it to be a CEO or not but when I think about people who've had extraordinary careers I'm thinking like Margaret Heffernan who we talked about recently in uncertainty podcast yeah I'm like that's an extraordinary career Pip Jameson yeah Pip's got an extraordinary career like brilliant business doing loads of great stuff and it's and I don't know whether those people would like self-identify in that way but you know you're like people listening to this might be like oh I'm not extraordinary and I'm like well you are I think if you are working hard having an impact like making a difference that's that's extraordinary like that's something more than just I go to work every day and you don't have to do that either that's a choice isn't it you're like well do I how much because the word effort is interesting how much effort do I want to put in to my work how much effort do I want to put into my career and that also might change at different points in your squiggly career yeah I do like that the word extraordinary is subjective and individual and that this is more like if you want to have your version of that you're probably going to have to put some effort into it which i think is always true yeah otherwise you're going to get someone else's version of it um i feel like we're now writing our version of her book we know we've already got enough books of our own we're not going to do that okay so let's move on to number four um i'll explain this one because it might not make sense straight away we push off conversations that we really need to have okay um so this is in the section which talks about building a brand and a business and it's all around difficult conversations.

29:34So I'll just read the little paragraph and then I'll come to your reflections. Because so many of us feel afraid of conflict, the truth and making other people uncomfortable, we push off conversations that we really need to have and we hold on to relationships that no longer serve for fear of having the hard conversation and moving forward. What do you think? Do you identify with it in your own career?

29:59Helen:Well, yeah, because I hate conflict. so I may pick this one out for you and because uh I definitely have a confident scrambling around conflict which I have worked very hard to cage I think it is true and it's the reason that say the hard thing is in learn like a lobster because we we know uh hard conversations difficult conversations are shell-shedding moments they are hard to say hard to hear hard to hold um Um, and I think I'm getting better at doing them because you just see how important they are for you to get better, for other people to get better. Um, and I was reading an interesting, there's a good HBR article out at the moment, maybe a future podcast, who knows?

30:41Helen:But one of the things that it talks about under feedback, and it's all about like super teams, high performing teams, is that in a high performing team, they're good at feedback, but particularly they do give, they sort of give criticism, but in a way that is always received in that feels like continual growth like you feel like you're on someone's side so you do say the hard thing but it's always delivered in a way where someone's like okay well that might be hard to hear but it's it's going to help me to get better um but I think doing that well takes loads of practice and is really hard so I think even knowing like we spent quite a lot of time thinking about this and talking about this and I still do sometimes actually I would say I still let's say at least every month will push off a conversation that I really do need to have because I use this sometimes when I talk to groups about this one you know the for me it doesn't pass the is it worth it filter so I think in my head oh is it worth the conversation is it yeah I have this like is it worth the conversation well how do you even what's your criteria for is it worth it I just I'll just think like it'll be like have I got the time to do it well yeah it's like people you're making excuses, right?

31:54Helen:But like, is it, it's like, have I got the time to do it? Well, does it really matter? Do I believe this person's actually going to do anything with this? It's like, there's things that go through my mind. And I think, and the point is, it doesn't make it past the, like, is it worth it? You go, no. So what do you do? You push off the conversations. So I would say of everything actually we've talked about so far, this is the one where I'm like, I still need to get better at this i think i hold myself and other people back because i'm still not as good at this as i would like i i think i'm better at this you are and i was trying to think like why i think i mean i still put off conversations but i was thinking i think i practice this more so i text you this morning i mean i had a bit of a grumpy start to the day to be honest but i was on the train i was on a train this morning and i thought there's absolutely no way that Sarah would do what I did this morning never in a million years so my the reason I'm saying this example because I think I low pressure practice this you know like so many feel afraid of conflict the truth or making other people feel uncomfortable I think I low pressure practice this so that if I do have to do it in work I'm it's not the first time I've done it for a while yeah I was on the train this morning in the quiet coach obviously who doesn't love the quiet coach the quiet coach it was quite early I was a little bit tired I was trying to get ready for the podcast etc etc um and there was a lady on the seat in front of me who was on the phone talking very loudly now for the first five minutes i was like you go give her a bit of a pass yeah like who might have something going on at home who knows what like off you go and then a lady next to me it was so loud that the lady kind of i could see her she left and went to a different carriage i was like okay and i said i'll just leave it i'll just leave it i'll put my headphones in unfortunately for her my airpods were flat oh no so then i was listening a bit longer and then somebody else moved and i was like no that'd be me i'd move yeah no no i was like nope this is had enough now i actually really want to do some work oh it's making me tense to think about it what did you say i stood up i waved at the woman who didn't see me i think she was so engrossed in her conversation um and i pointed out it was awful oh my god this is making me so tense but i pointed at the quiet coach thing and i just sort of shrugged and was like because i think she couldn't So you mimed it.

34:09You didn't even say anything.

34:11Helen:You mimed your aggression. I'm like, oh my God. So there was no actual words. Well, no, because she had headphones in, so she couldn't hear me anyway. So what happened? She stopped talking. Did she apologise? No, but... Interesting. And then she got off at a stop before me. But my point is that, I mean, I don't know how, I mean, I probably made it feel a bit awkward, to be fair, but she was in the carriage. And I did let her talk for 15 minutes really loudly before I intervened. And two people left the carriage i felt like there's enough there's enough in here i'm going to say what other people are saying thank you to you a man smiled at me who was opposite a little knowing a little knowing smile um so but i think i'm not afraid to do that i'm um and that probably did make that lady feel a bit uncomfortable but i did feel like i'd given it the chance and i think so that makes me a little bit more confident at doing it in other in other situations and i think i'm also doing this i didn't used to be very good at this you know they are holding on to relationships that no longer serve I think I'm getting a little bit better.

35:07Yeah, you are getting better at that. At kind of really thinking about what relationships serve me best now. And you really have to get over, oh, I'm a bad person. Because you feel like I should spend time with everybody. I don't have that one. Is that interesting? Because you never spend time with them in the first place. Or I'm having to stop spending time with some people. So I'm having to stop rather than. Well, I only spend time with people I really, really like anyway. That's about five people. You're fine on that front of your filter. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so this point, this one, you relate to this.

35:38100%. Okay. And is there anything that you think you could do differently?

35:44Helen:I think sometimes, I think I've got to make a choice to, like I said, the kind of the what, the is it worth it thing. Yeah. I think all of my things around that are just excuses. Okay. I don't think they're like valid. And so I'm just, I think I need to ask myself, like I mean you're just giving yourself an excuse probably what I need to get better at is I do just need to practice um and accept that sometimes I might not do it really well or sometimes it I don't or that it's probably going to feel uncomfortable but I maybe have a bit of an accountability partner in you like sometimes you will maybe say to me oh you know you need to say that or you need to do that but then you'll never ask me if I've actually done it okay oh I like that challenge So that is probably the thing that would make the difference for me.

36:33Helen:Right. Is you saying to me, oh, you're going to have that chat? Yeah. Like, oh, like when, you know, the when. Like, when are you going to do that? You do like a when. All right, I'll be your when. I do like a when. I'll be your when to help you with that one. Right, two more. Okay. Oh, I loved this one. I loved this one. Okay. It's not about networking. It's about building a network. 50%. No, no, no. Okay, so the point she's making here, I might not read this one because I can just explain it. The point that she's making here is that lots of people go to networking events and think that they are networking.

37:08Whereas Sheen's saying, actually, what you need to do is you need to build a network. And that is different from just rocking up at a networking event. That is much more intentional. If you're going to build a network, you've got to know what you need. You've got to be confident enough to make the ask. You've got to maintain the relationships in it. Like that is harder, but much more important for your career. That is a bit of a cop out. that doesn't actually convert into value. You might have a nice night, but you're probably not going to build a good network.

37:35Helen:Yeah. What do you think? I think I realised quite a long time ago that this was true. So when I first started networking, I was like, right, okay, I'll go to an event. I'll force myself to do it. I don't want to, but I will. I'd go, obviously not really talk to anyone if I could avoid it, maybe have a little chat with somebody, but then I'd just leave. And I think I very quickly learned the difference between, like it's okay to go to an event and just listen yeah I went to one this week um with a friend called five by 15 which are always really good and it was about the art five people talking about the art that changed them and I went with one person who I was going with and talked to that one person and that's not networking I think honestly previously I would have said to myself oh that's me trying to go to something I mean probably not in art but you know like in those areas um because I realized that's what was happening and also I'm safer and feel more comfortable just like listening and learning and then I think I flipped my approach to also think about what does building a network mean for me and using our definition of networking people helping people I then went oh I'm going to build a network by helping people which is how like lots of the career development stuff I started to do in the days before we were a team unbelievably um and when I used to do some like leadership learning and some volunteering outside of work And that was all about building my network in my own way.

38:55Helen:So I think it's really true, very valuable. But I think there are lots of different ways to build a network. Yeah, she does make, I mean, in the book, there are quite a few points around gender differences in the book from her perspective. And she does make a point here that she sees that women tend to do networking and men tend to build better networks, as in they make the asks. They know what they need. they're bolder and more confident in making the asks and kind of you know really managing those relationships tightly so I you know I'm not going to necessarily ask you for your perception on that but I think it's an interesting point when I when I read this um I'd actually just been to an event and it just made me reflect on at that event was I networking or building a network and I thought I think I was just networking and it was nice but actually if the network is what makes the biggest difference to your development then am I spending enough time doing that or am I just going to nice events where I'm networking you know it's it made me think about that and I'm not sure on the gender thing because I do think it can depend on obviously like the industry but I would say obviously we go to quite a lot of events where we're speaking we're like doing keynotes or workshops whatever it might be and I was at one the other week where there's no reason why that gender why there would be a gender imbalance but their room was 70 female to reflect kind of what emma's saying there um but the two people who came up to me at the end uh to ask for help or connections were both men and i mean sample size of one event yeah um and that's not kind of always true but maybe it's just a watch out or like just something to think about like less about gender but just more like how you show up at those events.

40:38My counter one would be that I was at a LinkedIn event recently where I was also speaking and it was with influencers. And I mean, almost everyone came to me afterwards. They were like, well, can we do this? Can we do that? Because I think it was more of a, yeah, it wasn't nothing to do with gender. It was more about their role. I think their role is to create. And so they're very good at like creating and asking. So yeah, I kind of didn't see it play out there. All right, last but not least, we are going to, ah i quite like this one's around team stuff the last one you can't build anything of value by yourself and so quite a bold statement but let me contextualize it a little bit um so you can't build anything of value by yourself everything you do will be better by bringing other people into it to teach you what you don't know to add strength where you might be weak to give you leverage on your time and energy and to give you an honest reflection of how you're showing up in the world so it's a bold statement but it's in the context of you are better with other people