We need to get off the "woke treadmill" and start *actually* moving forwards: Deborah Williams, The Women's Association

0:00Welcome to Strategy and Tragedy, the UK's top 20 business show. I'm your host, Stephanie Melodia, and if this is your first time tuning in, then a very big warm welcome. And if you're tuning back, then it is a pleasure to see you again. I am so excited to interview my next guest, Deborah Williams. She is the founder and CEO of the Women's Association, building a lifelong ecosystem to ensure women and girls have the support they need to reach their full potential at every stage of life. Definitely a mission I resonate with. founded in 2018 after deborah was awakened by research for her dissertation exploring the stories of women in leadership across industries the women's association has grown into a powerful force for gender equality deborah also holds an ma in gender and women's studies in sociology from lancaster university which has provided the foundation for her life's work deborah welcome to strategy and tragedy thank you for having me oh this is absolutely amazing already we're hitting like all my favorite words my favorite topics I'm so excited to dive into all this so I specifically kept in that wording around you being awakened during your dissertation was there a specific discovery that led to this mission you're on now yeah there was actually so I was studying business and management at for my first degree at university and I was doing my dissertation I've always been kind of fascinated by the concept of leadership not because I actually saw myself as a leader but because I constantly for our education got put in leadership positions even when I was trying to hide away from leadership so I would always like someone would say we need a leader for this project and I would not put my hand up not make our contact and I'd always get picked and so it made me fascinated by the concept of leadership so when it came to my dissertation I thought I want to do something called leadership my tutor at the time said leadership is way too broad pick a specific area and so then he literally googled in his office topics around leadership like women something something I can't remember what you put in there so then he brought up the concept of women leadership so I was like okay I'm a woman leadership is interesting let me explore and so very quickly I and I like to say naively decided that my dissertation was going to be on how far women had come and like everything that was right about women in leadership and so I was looking for articles looking for like pieces of like research that could back up my title and I couldn't find it and I remember at the time there was an article in the Guardian I think it was that said women in leadership positions are less than they were 10 years before wow and so I was like what literally so that was direction 100 % So that was the moment that I was like, okay, now I need to understand why.

2:56And then I need to understand why they've not told us this. And because in education, we were always told that girls outperformed boys. So naturally you think when you get to the workplace, women will be at the top because we got the best grades, quote unquote. So I was like, how does this make sense that it's actually gone backwards? So then I was like, okay, I'm going to need to speak to people and build my own research. so I was going around interviewing different senior leaders in different industries retail built environment education just to understand what their experiences were and why I was seeing all of this stuff online and all of it was going fine and then it was my last interview that I'll never forget went to a glass building really tall glass building and I remember asking my boyfriend at the time to come with me because when I googled the building I was like they're gonna send me out because I don't know like I belong there.

3:48So if they send me out, just wait at the bus stop for me and I'll come out. Even though I had an appointment, I just had that assumption that I didn't look like I belonged. So went in, had the interview, great interview, packing my bags away, finished everything. And she literally burst into tears. And obviously I'm a university student. I'm thinking, what did I say? What did I do? What's happening? And she was like, I just spoke to you about my love for architecture, but I'm actually about like prepping myself to leave because I've hit a ceiling and everything she spoke to me about wasn't about that ceiling it was about her love for it and how far she's come how proud she is of herself and she was like I feel like I've misrepresented myself and like the reality of what I'm going through to you so I just need to tell you this is my reality I'm leaving the industry I'm going to work in psychology and I was like is there no hope for you to like get into a higher position somewhere else and she was like I'm working in one of the top three in this industry if I'm if I've got to this ceiling at this point what's to say I won't reach the same ceiling and she literally said to me I'll never like forget this she said when I go to the rooms of when they're about to pick who's going to be promoted the men always rotate the women stay the same and I'm not going to leave and go to the pub after work to schmooze my way to the top I'm going to stay true to myself I'm a mum I have a family so I'm not going to do that and that feels like the only way I'm going to get there I remember coming out of that interview and I was like I need to do something I don't know what it is that I'm going to do but I need to do something but then the catch is I had extreme low confidence didn't believe in myself wanted to be told what direction to go into so it was like how am I with the way I am going to build anything that's going to change the experiences of women like this or future women um what year was this can i fact check 2013 okay so like over 10 years ago yeah no literally so um so yeah that's literally what awakened me because before that i didn't even know this was a thing i didn't know that women in leadership was a conversation women in the workplace was a conversation i just naively assumed we're all just like this validates your work even more so because you didn't go out you didn't set out to find the research to fit your thesis no the opposite happened yeah which is so much more powerful yeah to naively as you put it look at the you know gather the evidence for the positive side of it and actually struggling to find that and the truth kind of revealing itself to you can i also just to get it straight this really powerful interview you had i'm covered in goosebumps listening to you on that story the main bit of this interview was this woman telling you what just like what she thought she should be saying and sort of giving you the party lines 100 as opposed to the reality yeah so she was definitely powerful in that interview she was a representative of her organization yeah right when it was time to leave she became herself and and so it was like i've told you all of this stuff but this is the actual truth and i'm so glad that i got that truth because it just helped to to really put the stuff into perspective and even during that dissertation period i remember i spoke to a woman and she was like she was the only woman on the board it was time for a board meeting she came in her boss pulled her onto his lap and slapped the table was like now we're ready what to go and everyone laughed and i was like naively again i was like so is was he arrested was like what happened to him was he reprimanded and she whispered and she said he's next door and she was like i'm in my 60s i'm at the end of my career what's the point this is sickening i do feel sick and imagine feel it a university student yeah that's got all these dreams and hopes for what i'm gonna do in the future and now i've just been like slapped by this reality yeah and it's like what am I going to do how do I then become another story like these women's stories or do I do something to change it and try and do something about it and that's where it was like I need to do something I don't know how yeah but I need to well sat here in 2026 spoiler alert she did do something about it so if you're tuning into this right now then first of all a big heartfelt thank you.

8:22I really appreciate it. And secondly, there's a very high chance that you're on your own entrepreneurial journey right now. So whether you're a first time founder and you're figuring things out and you feel like you're on your own, or if you've done it before and realize that actually this whole entrepreneurship business is a lot easier said than done, then I might be able to help you. If you feel like you vibe with my energy and feel like you need some of that professional big sister direction, support and advice, then I'm opening up a few select spots for that one-to-one coaching mentorship and growth strategy for ambitious founders there's a link in the show notes so check it out and i would love to hear from you all right let's get back to the episode what are those next steps like let's go back to you leaving that glass high rise i really appreciate you sort of painting a mental image there of that building and immediately you sort of saying i'm not i don't belong here and everything else so you leave you meet your boyfriend who's waiting for you yeah i assume you shared with him like what you just experience yeah what do you do next and especially with you know I know the power of role models for example and you're kind of alluding to like someone like me someone who looks like me yeah did you have anyone to look to were there any practical steps you took to yeah no so I didn't have anyone to look to I feel like that was the first time I stepped out of line I was very much someone that just where you tell me I need to be yeah I'll be there yeah how long I need to be therefore just tell me and I'll do it and that was the first time I was like oh I'm gonna try and figure something out and what ended up happening was I spoke to my boyfriend and he was very entrepreneurial and so he was like pushing me because I was like I need to do something right it was like I was still waiting for that person to tell me to still give me permission 100 % and he was that right person to do that and so then the first thing I did was I wanted to bring more of the types of women that I sat down with to speak to my friends at uni and like for them to see the reality because I felt like the I just see in the curtain pulled and none of them none of them got it none of them understood it and because of ethics I couldn't go into detail of the conversations I had so it was like okay how do I get them to understand let me invite women to speak to them and let's just go from there and to be fair at first I thought let me just do this one moment this one event interesting and we'll leave it at that the event was like it was so um like basic very very beginner no mics yeah you could hear every like literally um paper that was rustled and all that kind of stuff it was just I just need you guys to hear what's happening yeah like no one's telling us this is about so let's hear it and then after that we had 150 women sign up and we only had a space for 50 and then I got emails and was like when's the next one when's the next one and I was like there is no next one like what do I do now and then that's kind of where this is another real validation point in your entrepreneurial journey I mean I can imagine maybe even at this point you're not even calling yourself an entrepreneur even though you are even though you've identified a real problem yeah you're setting out to find a solution and you're not kind of you know rome wasn't built in a day you're just taking small baby step you're doing something that feels like within your power what are the resources available to me right here right now what can i do and i think too often people do think of like oh the big picture the big vision everything else it's like literally i know it's such a cliche but like start small start making you know baby steps start taking moves and along the way not only does that break down and remove the overwhelm for you but you're gathering that market validation even though you weren't probably weren't aware that was what you were doing but getting that demand and getting that uptake yeah that's what it was it was it was market validation in your early entrepreneurial journey and for me it was like i need these emails to stop i need them to go away stop telling me i need to do more i just don't want to do anything So my next question was going to be around you describing burdened by this passion.

12:29Yeah. And I feel like you've already touched on that. But I'd love to hear more about I guess what you've sort of said is what you've seen you can't unsee. Yeah. And it's this case of like someone's got to do something. Yeah. So can you expand on that expression? I think for me, I believed in the change that needed to happen more than I believed in my ability to be that change. yeah so it was like okay I don't believe in myself how am I going to lead this vision and so my first thing was who can I work for that's doing something in this space that I can support and they can tell me what to do again and I can just follow their lead and at the time I felt like the focus wasn't on what I had just discovered so when I was hearing people talk about women in the workplace at that time the focus was on how do we get from five percent women in leadership to 15 percent but i've just spoken to women who are the five percent whose experiences are rubbish so it's not about how do you increase the number it's how do you improve the experience and stop that five percent getting smaller exactly 100 and no one's talking about the experience everyone's talking about the number because numbers are easier to navigate experiences are more unpredictable so then I was like okay I want to create something that focuses on the woman and then later on it became focuses on the girl as opposed to putting any kind of number to it and it was a burden and passion because I didn't want it like I didn't I almost didn't want to have discovered this thing I just wanted to go down that familiar path that I was used to everyone understood, everyone could celebrate if I got a top job and I was working in Canary Wharf amazing, I'm doing business what are you doing?

14:22I didn't want to deal with that ignorance is bliss I don't want to see the brothers, no problem carry on but it was a heavy weight on my shoulders because I've now discovered this thing and then also a part of me knows that I have the ability somewhere deep inside to do something about it but I'm too scared to uncover that ability so I'm just now like pacing through life not ever expecting that something is gonna bring that thing out of me and it now has so we'll talk more about the women's association and better understand you know what what it is exactly how you're having that impact but sticking with this self-confidence journey for you for a sec because of course there's enough there there's a spark you said that you had your boyfriend in those early days he supported you entrepreneur himself i imagine that reception after that event was really encouraging was there anything else along your journey that's helping you to gather evidence to prove to yourself that you can do this um i think i think it's how people interact with me because I never felt like I had something about myself like and but then I appreciated that there's just something that makes people want to support what I'm doing even if I don't have a name for it I don't have a full proof idea something makes people gravitate towards me and I think that helps me to appreciate that there probably is something about you that you just don't understand or you've not been shown it you've not like been encouraged from a young age that you are this person you're unique and you're etc etc so I think seeing that and seeing how people reacted to at this time I'm literally just going to different events and I'm connecting with people I have no I don't even know how many different pitches I gave at every event of what I'm doing because I didn't have a strong idea of what I was building but whatever I said I really felt like people gravitated towards it and they would give me a card.

16:23And I remember there was one event that I went to. It was a women in finance event and the main speaker was just amazing. And I was like, I need to speak to her. I'm not going to speak to her. I can't speak to her. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to get my stuff and go. I called again, my boyfriend at the time. I was like, I really want to speak to this woman. He's now my husband, by the way. I was wondering, I was like, is the boyfriend still in the picture? I'm very happy to hear he's now your husband. Shout out. What's his name? Sifas Sifas Williams Sifas yeah shout out to Sifas yeah man allyship in action 100 % lifting supporting women I love it 100 % and he was like just go speak to her she's just another person I didn't speak to her I literally was heading for the door got my bag she came over to get her bag at the same time my god meant to be 100 % I was like I need to speak to you now because you've literally come over here I don't know what spill I gave her and she was like I've got this one nice card that I was about to give someone, but I really want to give it to you.

17:21And I was like, well, where you've promised it to someone, don't not give it to them. I'll take a picture of it and I'll be in contact. And that person has been an advisor since that time, even onto kind of me actually building the Women's Association and to where I am now. This is spine tingling. Like moments like these, you can't help but question some other force, desi, manifesting, divine timing. Do you believe in any of those? Yeah, no, I am a very strong believer in God. And the fact that like for me, even in times when I didn't fully understand God or my relationship with God, I just felt like you're always looking out for me.

18:03And like, I'm trying to figure it out as I go. And even in the mess of what feels like it is in my mind, there's still so much clarity and so many different moves that are being made. Even when I didn't feel like I deserved it, like getting companies to sign up to a program that I was still like figuring it out and I don't know how I'm going to do it and getting them to buy into and I'm just I always would ask why people would offer me stuff free things and I'm just like why it's so humble Deborah no honestly I honestly and I remember there was one meeting I literally asked the guy he was like we have this event space it's a really big event space really well known and you can do events here every month for free why so I was like I don't want to ask this but why did you just offer me that and he was like there's just something about you what is it about me that I really want to know what this thing is but I feel like that gave me the confidence that figuring it out on the go and being the way I am is not a disadvantage.

19:11I was taught that in business, you have to be sure and you have to take risk and you have to, like, be almost bullish in your approach and take no for an answer and all this stuff. And that is, I'm the complete opposite of that. I am just, you take, like, take me as you see me kind of thing. Like, I'm very easygoing. Like, I will be overly honest to people. and so it was like i just never saw myself in what people class as entrepreneur which is why i don't even use it yeah for myself and so it's just seeing that that i could be myself and i could get support whilst i'm figuring out made me feel like okay when i figured this thing out i'm i really believe in not just the vision but my ability to make that vision happen amazing there's just too many good things especially that speaker crossing paths with them as well was just like that was spooky yeah that it becomes unignorable right like you're sent you know the same message yeah as many times as you need to hear it and act on it and as much as you definitely you're more you're more kind of attract than chase you definitely have that kind of like more easy going kind of energy and stuff which i can see people really kind of loving and respecting and admiring about you but i think it would be remiss of us to also not mention the strength of the mission and you're saying about kind of these opportunities falling in your lap and attracting these things and everything falling into place it does speak to the mission that you're on right and i think maybe that's where again to the overwhelm that some founders might feel it's like it's all on me it's all on like what i'm building what i'm doing like but if again you're solving a real problem and it's getting people worked up and people can easily understand it you know that's half the battle yeah yeah so with the women's association i'm going to read out my notes here so you're building an ecosystem i love this to help women and girls to make their dreams a reality yeah because i'm quote here when you have the right support around you your dreams stand a real chance so tell us more about this ecosystem that you're building and tangibly how this helps not only girls and women but society as a home yeah so i think very early on and throughout building the women's association i wanted to make sure that i have real contact with the people that i'm building this for because because i didn't start from i just want to be an entrepreneur which is not a negative way of starting but that wasn't my journey yeah i wanted to make sure that if i'm going to keep doing this it's not just for the sake of saying i have a business yeah it's because it's really helping the people that i said i want to help so i will always sit down with multiple women multiple girls every year um to check in where are we now how what's happening what's going on for you etc etc so then I got to a place where it was a lot of information it was domestic abuse it was workplace um discrimination it was the motherhood penalty it was so many different things yeah that I had no idea where to start these events felt like nothing compared to what is actually happening and so I've gone through throughout the because I actively started the business in 2021 like it I founded it before that but actively started the work in 2021 for the Women's Association and it started off as okay I want to do as many programs as possible and events to make sure that women and girls constantly have a space that they can go to every year where they can be inspired they can be upskilled they can build community and they can be themselves um and then i think in the last couple years what i realized is whatever the solution is needs to be as ongoing and as intense as these inequalities that women and girls are facing are and so yeah and so as much as i have within my business currently three-month program I have a one-week program I have one day like insight days but the reality is for us to really combat the inequalities it needs to be lifelong it needs to be ongoing and you have some women who I work at this amazing company for example and they support me in x y z ways and then I need to leave that company for whatever reason and I go to another company I don't have that same support why should their support end because they've left an organization that support is needed and it's it's helping so for me it's like okay if I'm gonna build something I want it to be lifelong I want it to be an ecosystem support where we have people we have companies that understand the need for the support and are working with us to create as many opportunities for women and girls um in a year um because the inequalities we face don't have a start and end date they are ongoing they just evolve over time and sorry i was just going to say with the myriad of you know problems you know that's just the tip of the iceberg you mentioned a few there are there any top problems that you're focused on solving with the women's association so right now our main focus is on careers yeah um and uh for girls it's on access to um organizations to opportunities so we work with a lot of girls from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who have never had work experience have never had a mentor and we focus on giving them their first access for women it's about supporting where they are and where they want to be and removing as many barriers in between amazing by creating opportunities and programs again but then also community and so that women can support each other whilst i'm still working to build what this ecosystem wants to look like yeah because it takes commitment from companies etc yeah that focus makes a lot of sense right the career development it feeds into the financial empowerment the progression the self-empowerment in a very kind of real practical way and of course there's a myriad of all these different problems but that does feel like a very kind of good cornerstone to start kind of tackling the rest because i think when you're doing well especially if you've got the financial means yeah when you've got that self-respect and everything else it i would you know imagine it does make some things like leaving a toxic relationship that be easier right because you've got the means because you've got the self-respect and confidence yeah and then you mentioned as well about focusing on younger women girls is there a particular age that you've seen that like girls are the most susceptible uh that's a good question i feel like we we've worked with girls from as young as 12 all the way to 18.

26:00And I think at 12, the concept of future is very hard to grasp for some girls, not all girls. And so creating opportunities for them, it's like this was an amazing experience. But what does this really mean? Whereas when you get to the 16 to 18 year olds, they're thinking about their future. But where we do find it beneficial to work with the younger age group is the their understanding of self and the influence of other things other noises that make them question their self this is exactly what's going to come on to yeah yeah so yeah because what i'm kind of gleaning from that and correct me if i'm wrong but it sounds as though you know you get in there early enough yeah before they're even starting to like properly think about it and more crucially to your point before they've got other perhaps negative influences or confidence knocks to help kind of get them on that right track so again sort of similar question in the point in a girl or young women's journey I don't know if you have the data on this but is there also another point where and they may be more susceptible to outside influence so it's actually before 12 it's I think there was a study on this it was um especially now for this younger generation where they have access to tech so much more.

27:25I think it was eight years old where they start to become more aware of outside voices. And so I've spoken to a lot of primary school teachers and what they see is you have kids that come in nursery reception and they're so bubbly. They don't care about being like anything. They're just exploring. and then by the time they get to year five, year six, this idea of what's cool, what's not cool is so high on their agenda. They become more reserved, quieter and then when they go to secondary school, the first couple of years of secondary school are brutal because so much focus for girls is put on how you look and so if you don't have the cliche look, you're automatically kind of sidelined and then that affects how you see yourself, that affects your confidence that affects what opportunities you put yourself forward for so with the younger years we do a lot of work on self and loving yourself and i've even been starting to look at how we can work with girls from year five and six yeah um to help limit that um that impact that it has on them at that age so that we're not catching them at a point where so really the damage is done exactly yeah oh deborah i love it what a fantastic mission are there any other externalities you can talk to that influence a girl's confidence when she starts to get to that age because like i remember coming across this study about girls self-confidence just like nose diving in puberty yeah and you mentioned there around like social media exacerbating that i guess is there anything else that's more just kind of like the unconscious bias the systemic problems of like women's place in society yeah yeah tell me about that 100 so we did a research piece a couple years back yeah a couple years back now um where we wanted to understand when girls first understand that they're different to boys um because obviously from a very young age that at first everyone is just the same and and there's not a real difference and one of the girls said something that was so profound and it stuck with me she was like the first time she understood that she was different from a boy was when she was in primary school and the teacher said can I get two strong boys to help me pull the tv into the room because they were going to watch something and she was like I could have done like I'm strong enough to do that and that was primary school and she was like she just questioned it in her mind but then she left it and then there was a consistent idea of when there's anything sporty or anything um that engages like that involves movement and heavy lifting or whatever it is boys would always get picked and then it was like girls are always being corrected for their posture their the way they sit how where their skirt is sitting etc so then she was like i understand that boys are kind of their strength is what's focused on and girls it's their looks and i'm thinking you understood that in primary school and then you then fast forward to now and you look at social media and how that consistently puts women in a specific box yeah and places emphasis on how we look even more so and the image of what a perfect quote-unquote woman looks like is always changing and it's like okay so if today it's it's really slim woman should I lose weight to become really slim and then tomorrow it's curves but in the right places so then should I then change my body to that and you have girls that are really struggling and they're just looking online and they don't see themselves represented and even when they do it's cut it's a very far and few few far between whatever the statement is yeah and so it's like it's not enough to make them feel like i'm good enough and like i've spoken to so many girls about it girls that have been on the verge of they've been sent to get mental health support because they can like considering suicide to girls that are just like it doesn't make me feel good about myself yeah and we did a a survey last year where we said okay how does social media make you feel and I think we had like hundreds of girls fill it in and it was equal anxious as it was connected so one of the biggest issues is it's making them feel connected it's making them feel like they're aware of what's going on but it's making them feel anxious at the same time it's such a trap exactly you're trapped so the idea of don't go on social media doesn't even exist because I will miss out on everything that's happening and FOMO is a real thing so yeah it's it there's so much that I'm I want to do in that space because I feel like phone social media was introduced way before self-love was and so now self-love is filtered through what we see online and I can love myself if social media tells me that I'm worthy of love because of the way I look um as opposed to I love myself just because I love myself and it's impacting like our generation let alone their generation that are growing up with it Can't even imagine.

32:32Oh, my God, I'm so glad the Women's Association exists. And I think this goes back to like all these other people you came across who were so attracted and want to get involved because this is a real problem, let alone if you've got kids, which will come on to as well. But I just want to share a stat that blew my mind, and I'd love to just get your take on this, was actually shared with me by another fantastic guest called Lauren Curry, who told me that the UN did this report that showed that 90%, that is 9-0, not 19, 90 % of the global population have a negativity bias towards women. Wow. Isn't that disgusting?

33:13That's crazy. I feel sick even saying it. I genuinely feel sick even saying it. So I was like flabbergasted. You can imagine my reaction when Lauren sat where you are now, told me that. And of course that includes both men and women. And it kind of manifests in a variety of different ways. One that stuck with me is like the pitch of women's versus men's voices. Because if you've got a lower pitch and you sound more manly, that commands just more gravitas, more respect. And I've even seen some women purposely put on a deeper voice and kind of use it to their advantage. one of the most famous examples which makes me laugh is uh is it katie holmes am i getting that name right elizabeth holmes of theranos she was like the defrauded founder of this blood testing like unicorn in silicon valley and uh yeah she basically modeled her whole personal brand on steve jobs like she literally would wear like the black turtlenecks and she purposely made her voice she would go around like talking like a man like purposely made this effort because she knew that and she was like armed with that insight and she was like okay well if that's the game i need to play i'm gonna play i just want to win right so that's just like one example of just like the baritone like speaking with a lower voice all that sort of stuff so yeah i just kind of want to get like your your reaction to that stat like you seem as shocked as i am yeah no 100 % i'm shocked but it's like but they're not at the same time right i've spoken to too many women and had too many experiences at this point to kind of understand.

34:47I think it was before COVID. There were so many people talking about how far we come and I was so frustrated because I was like, I feel like we're celebrating. What should never have even existed in the first place. Literally, yeah. And I'm just like, I understand the need to highlight the progress, but overly celebrating things that shouldn't have existed with you i'm totally with you it was i was so frustrated i'm just getting all backed up yeah no it was it was and i was like nobody sees this and then covid happens and then people start talking about like women have gone all the way back and i'm thinking did we ever come yeah but i'm like did we come far in the first place because something like covid should not have taken us back if what we made was real progress What we made was noise.

35:38And noise doesn't symbolise progress. I'm totally with you. And so I understand as much as I can the state of play for women today from conversations that I have with women. I sat down with a woman years ago who told me she always used to wear her hair up, always wearing black and blue suits. She's a blonde woman. Never wore makeup because she was like, I did not want to stand out. I really stood up because I was a woman. And when I met her at the time, she was wearing red lipstick, hair down. And she was like, I made a decision that I was going to be myself. But again, her decision came later in life when she was in leadership position.

36:19So you can be that because you've almost proven that you're worthy of some type of respect because you're a leader. I'm with you. Now that you've got there. A hundred percent. Now you've got the permission. But there's another woman who's just started. she still doesn't feel like she can wear her hair down and that's what we need to focus on we need to focus on not putting women in a position where we're constantly moulding ourselves to a broken system but actually take a hard long look at the system and who does it really serve because when we look at it it serves the minority of minorities for the system to be the way it is and so we actually need to focus on how do we build better because it serves everyone if we live in a world that's more inclusive and there are so many people that get it there's so many people that don't but I just feel like the focus has been put in the wrong places and I also feel like when I see all these statistics that there was a statistic about the confidence of girls it was like I think it was like 82 % of girls um didn't feel confident or something along those lines and I'm like okay what do we do with these numbers right what are we doing thanks for that exactly and then also after a while people become desensitized to that method of reporting yeah people just see another report right hundreds of pages and it's kind of like shock and then we go back to normal but we actually need to do something to change things yeah we need to stop prescribing um plasters to like real gashes like Like we need to actually deal with the issue by creating deep systemic solutions.

38:02And so, yeah. And I know the question I'm about to ask you does not have a simple answer, but what can you point to succinctly that are like the main blockers to this progress? Because like we both know the patriarchal system serves nobody. And it just, you know, in so many ways, it just doesn't make sense. And obviously I'm a victim of this seems so obvious to me and I feel so passionate about this. So like, why? Why is the world like this? Yeah, yeah. What can you speak to on that? I think there's different parts to it. There's a lack of understanding for the damage that this has caused generations and generations.

38:43and so what keeps happening is I feel like inequalities are identified and then women are being drip fed our rights enough to pacify us but not enough to liberate us and so it's like okay okay you've made enough noise about the right to vote let's give some women the right to vote because it wasn't all women at first that got the right to vote and then it's like okay okay you've made enough noise let's give all women the right to vote but we're still not being treated as we should so it's like when is it going to get to a point where you understand the problem enough to appreciate that the little pieces of pacification not enough are not enough to actually liberate women and then i feel like the image of a woman has been so tarnished by media and And it's it lives like it's a living thing in the sense that how people have seen women back in the day in ads and like where they would have ads where women are always in the kitchen and washing up or juggling multiple things and in a pretty dress looking really happy has not gone away.

39:55even down to the fact that there's so many movies that exist where when a woman is in a strong position what happens her husband's cheating on her or she's seen as bossy or she's not liked 100 % and it's like it's those that type of messaging is still telling us that it's not right and who's perpetuating it why who's that serving it but the thing is I feel like because it's it's actually not subtle but it feels like it's so subtle because it's just a movie or it's just an ad people aren't really understanding that this is actually doing damage and people are now positioning women in a specific box because of what they've been so used to seeing yeah and so like I spoke to a friend about something she was navigating at work and I was talking about unfortunately the reason that you're butting heads probably with um another a man in your workplace it's probably because he's not comfortable with being challenged by you as a woman because he's got an image of women yeah in his mind yeah and that image is not being like someone that can challenge him and so it's it's felt I feel in moments like that where it's like a woman's place yeah is yeah dot dot yeah and that image still hasn't really changed I think there's a lack of understanding for the damage it's creating on society as a whole because women's contribution is being so devalued and then there's a true lack of understanding of the role of a woman because of the image that has been perpetuated for years and it's still being perpetuated now something else you wrote that i loved was let's get back to kind of the dreaming and get on a bit more of a positive kind of note here you wrote i love what you wrote here you wrote somewhere along the way many of us were taught to dream smaller my goal is to help bring that power were back because some of the greatest movements in history started with just one person and a dream now imagine if every woman and girl had the support to act on hers and so from childhood so many of us are taught that our ambitions must fit with the socially approved molds so how can we start to dream bigger and give ourselves that permission to have big ambitions and what's your big dreams yeah no i think it's it's about making sure that the infrastructure exists to not kill those dreams because I think for so long those dreams have been killed so trusting that it's a safe space for my dreams to kind of exist and for me to kind of plant the seeds is a big thing and I think the infrastructure and having the conversation that we acknowledge that there's a problem in this area and we're going to focus on that is is is a really big step but I think also So finding a way to become more in tune with our true, most authentic version of ourselves.

42:51Because I think we lose that as time goes on. Yeah. As kids, we're so ourselves. Yeah. Like you can't even stop them from being themselves kind of thing. and then you put kids in kids with big dreams and kids with big ambitions and drive and excitement for life into different systems that tell them that this is the way we do things here and eventually we kill that thing yeah and so for example my son is really great at drawing but if he's put in an environment where they say we reward grades for maths english and science that dream of him and that passion and excitement he has for drawing eventually starts to go away because it doesn't belong yeah and so he might like he won't because we will drill it in him and and we've put in an environment that supports that but the typical kind of idea of that is someone could get to the age of 50 and never even remember that they love to draw yeah because it's it's slowly but surely been kind of taken out of them 100 yeah and so being being able to come into into who you are who you truly are forget social media forget all the voices and all the noise and exist for a moment I feel it's so powerful to understand okay who am I who do I want to be um what do I love what don't I love and one of the I have like a series I've started I haven't put it out yet but it's called dream diary and I'm talking to people and I always ask them what was your the first dream that you remember.

44:26Love it. And I think one of the beautiful things is somehow, somewhere along the way, a lot of the people that I spoke to found their way back to the childhood dream. And they didn't even, they didn't try to. It just happened. Because it's in their nature, right? It's their calling. It's part of their path. But most of those people stepped out of line. Same way I stepped out of line. They didn't follow that path. So I think that's the way to kind of bring the power of dreaming back is through self first. get to know your inner child again what is your ultimate dream for the women's association and if it's as successful as it could be what would the world look like in 10 years time my ultimate dream for the women's association is

45:11for women and girls to have a space that whenever the world society tells them no there's always a space that tells them yes and doesn't just tell them yes by way of like words provides the ecosystem for that yes to become a tangible thing and so I see it where there's a 15 year old girl that's like I need to do work experience and I don't know where to get access and someone says the women's association has opportunities for you to get work experience and there's a 60 year old woman who says I'm thinking of retirement and I don't know how to invest um the the like my pension and they say you can check the women's association they have information so that every time there's a need that comes up for women and girls we're meeting that need and because right now there are so many gaps so many holes in systems from girlhood to womanhood there's holes in education there's holes in the workplace there's holes in healthcare and what you keep finding is women finding really amazing creative ways to fill those holes and when you look at some point 100 when you look at a lot of the businesses run by a lot of women that I've spoken to they came from my needs weren't being met yeah and so I had to create something which is beautiful but wouldn't it be even more beautiful if it already existed 100 yeah and it kind of goes back to what you were saying with the fight right and it's like you have to the taylor swift you know lyrics of like i have to run twice as fast to get half as far knowing i'd get there faster if i were a man yeah yeah really resonated what you were saying with just like you know being fed these scraps just to pacify and it's like that is exhausting what can some of my entrepreneur listeners do with the women association how can it benefit them the main thing for right now is just being part of the conversation yeah whilst i'm building out what the next phase wants to look like intriguing yeah no because i feel like i feel like i really understand what i need to do next but the first thing i need to do is take a kind of community to make it a real community there's so many people that have interacted with been impacted by supported the women's association over the years but that hasn't been consistent like we haven't built that inter-consistent community so I want to build that and then step into the next phase amazing um so yeah so stay like keep in touch and and stay tuned and engage with any conversations because I want to also be more vocal about the gaps because I've just got too many women and girls stories to not have them out there in some way and I want to like I've already made a post about motherhood and work and so many women commented of like, this is what I went through and this is what I went through and this is what I went through.

48:10And even just the beauty of 20, 50 plus comments of women that are saying, like I've gone through it too, is so powerful. And so then that then becomes, okay, also an understanding for me of the position for women currently. Yeah. And then I can build from that. Yeah, exactly. It makes sense. Okay, so watch this space. Obviously, we'll pop all the links and everything in the show notes. My penultimate question, you've mentioned a couple of times, well, actually, there you handed me a perfect segue on a platter around like motherhood, which I did want to talk about. You mentioned that you, you mentioned your son earlier, but I know that you're a mum of four.

48:47Three. Oh, sorry. Where did I get four from? Sorry, my bad. Maybe I'm picking up on something. um and i honestly believe that mums are just the super like women of the world i feel like you know for all the like productivity hacks and time blocking and whatever else like a mum could just come in and like run circles around like the most productive person but with you deborah you absolutely take the biscuit when it comes to productivity so i couldn't let you leave the studio without asking you there was a particular point not only you an entrepreneur and mom of three and everything else is going on at the moment but there was a particular point I think when you were doing your studies you were also working you had a day job alongside this you can maybe paint a more accurate picture of what your life looked like yeah how did you do it and how and what inspiration can we take from you on the productivity side of things at least for me I want to know I was working in the NHS as a receptionist I actually worked two jobs in the NHS oh my god um one part-time and then one was kind of zero hour um and then I was studying two masters so I did an MBA which I started in 2016 and that was supposed to last for three years and then in my first year of studying I met with a woman and she was like I did a gender and women's studies masters in Lancaster and I was like I didn't even know that there were any other topics other than like business law medicine right so I need to do yeah MA in gender and women's studies yeah at Lancaster so I applied and I thought if I do them both part-time it will be like just doing one full-time masters but it wasn't it was like it wasn't at all because it was a masters it was so full-on and then the mba was london the mark that the ma was um lancaster so i would literally work monday to thursday in a gp surgery thursday i'd travel to lancaster stay there till friday have my lectures on friday and then come back friday evening and then some of my um nba lectures would be in london on the weekend sometimes so i was literally doing that for two years oh my god and do you have kids at this point no so just when i was about to do the dissertation for both i found out i was pregnant so i now need to do i think it was two 20 000 word dissertations and this is pre-chat gbt as well

51:30100 % and also what I didn't even mention was there was moments where there was clashes so I'd have one exam yeah I'd have exams for both courses on the same day and I have to be like I'm also doing this other masters and they're like what in the world are you doing this makes me feel so just listening no literally and it was crazy because when I was coming to the end of the masters people were like what are you going to do with all this free time not knowing that I was pregnant so then I gave birth to well then I was pregnant with my first child and I'd already founded the women's association at that time I hadn't started it but I knew that that's what I wanted to do um and then left the GP surgery because of some inequalities I experienced there and then decided I was going to do the women's association didn't really know how or what exactly how I was going to start and then i decided i wanted to do a campaign i was going to launch it in march 2020 uh for women's month and it was like 2020 vision i really had high hopes for 2020 and i was due to give birth june 2020 um and then covid here and then i got hit with covid and i was five months six months pregnant at the time that's scary it was very scary because they had very little information right and they were like we should keep you in the hospital but we're going to keep you in a COVID ward and it's really high risk.

52:51Yeah, along with everyone else with COVID. That makes sense. Literally. So I was at home just nursing this COVID with literally water because they didn't know what it meant and what harm it could do to me, to the baby, et cetera, et cetera. So then I postponed the launch of what I was going to do to 2021. Yeah, I'm glad to hear it. And then, yeah, no, I needed to take some time and chill for a bit. So 2021, I launched the campaign. I also launched a program giving girls six months of work experience mentorship at different companies. And then 2021, I got pregnant again. 2022, I gave birth to my daughter, Phoenix, and then still building the business.

53:36And then finally comes Trinity in last year. She turned one literally yesterday. So is it two girls, one boy? Yeah. Nice. and so for me the past kind of since 2021 till now it's been juggling raising kids and building a business right and it's been one of those things where you just can't make it up there's some days where it feels like i made a plan and the plan went well oh my goodness and then there's some days where it's most days where it's just like what is a plan how is this my reality right and i have to also mention there's a couple of things we're recording at the time and i saw this on yours as well so you loved it we're recording at the time of the 2016 trend going around on socials yeah yeah so it's also really nice to have this chat with this kind of like trend going on and so you post like your flashback and i mean that must feel like a completely different lifetime literally it was like the craziest ride of my life and i didn't know how I was doing it I was just functioning off of pure passion yeah and like desire for change and I never knew ever that I could be so passionate about something that I would push myself so much and I didn't even know what I was going to do with it right just because I felt like me doing this is going to help me to help other people and it was it blows my mind because it just and i always used to be the type of person it's like i don't have time i don't have time then i was like i've got all the time in the world because i just did two masters and i was working isn't it amazing how far passion can take you yeah that's the ultimate productivity hack right let alone like cold showers time blocking this that and the other if you care about something if you're passionate about it oh yeah you'll find the time yeah there's another great book energize by simon alexander on and he talks about when you're in love and like especially you know in those early days when you've got the butterflies you can't stop thinking about the person and you know how giddy you feel about getting ready to go on a date see them you know and it's like you do that excitement that energy and like you'll find the time you'll you'll make it happen you do these things yeah no it's it's it's so true and i think one of the biggest things for me especially someone that never thought I would be in this position where I've built something.

56:08I never even thought I'd be in a position where I'd be talking to you. Like if you had met me years and years ago, I was literally just kind of like, I'm happy to be in the back of a room. I'm happy not to be seen like kind of thing. And being so passionate, I didn't realise how much it could bring out of me what's already existed and always existed, but I just didn't know it. and in such a way that I'm like a completely different person than I was then and I'm doing something that really drives me because also as a parent you think consistently what world am I leaving for my kids and especially there's so much going on in the world that is so hard to navigate and to hear and to deal with but it's knowing that there's there's moments of like there's really amazing moments of transformation there's girls that have never had access that have been like thank you so much because like you gave me that first step through the door in a place where I didn't even think I belonged and it takes me back to that glass tall building that I was in where I didn't feel like I belonged and I did something different for someone so that I did they didn't feel how I felt yeah amazing and so that's what really drives me it's that understanding of who I'm doing it for why I'm doing it and what the north star looks like where am I going and what type of world do I want to see and I would say that for anyone that's building something is just being really clear about why who and how really helps and in that order yeah in that order Debra this is so impactful I mean transformative is the word that comes to mind as I'm like hearing your story like this huge shift and some you know being very practical as well like some great business lessons to there as well we're saying about like attracting people to what you're building but in addition to who you are and how you hold yourself it is that mission that people get behind and again I've had some other incredible entrepreneurs that if you are in that alignment if you've got the passion fueling you because your north star is clear enough and your mission resounds with enough other people, success becomes inevitable.

58:25I mean, not in a completely different space, but like Hector Hughes of Unplugged comes to mind as well. So he's the founder of these cabins that's all around digital detoxes because it's the same thing as well. It's just like, we're spending too much time online. We're addicted, phone addiction. And again, it's something that's like, I don't need to be using like sophisticated techie language to explain that to you. You can say that to anyone and it resonates and people get it and to your point when you think of that when you take that long view and you look at what will the world look like if I'm successful in 10 years time kids or no kids like that really does put things into perspective so Debra my traditional closing question I feel like we maybe covered this with the with my first question to you but let me know if there's anything else that comes up it's called strategy and tragedy for a reason because often the best lessons come from the biggest tragedies we've recovered a few of them already but is there another tragedy you'd like to share that's taught you an unforgettable lesson I really struggled with understanding the right first hires because again I'm someone that's typically not from like a business background even though I study business but I didn't have a deep understanding of business and how it works.

59:43And so I had a hire that was... She basically, for maybe like nine months, had been trying to sabotage my work. And I was so heartbroken. But at the same time, I ignored all of the feelings I had for a long time. You got instincts. 100%. I had those instincts. for a while but I ignored them and I ignored them because I felt like I wanted to be different I want to be a different employer I want to give people more benefit of the doubts and even more benefit of the doubts and I want to be more accommodating and I want to be more flexible because that's what I'm preaching um and also because you just don't want it to be true 100 % like it's easy to just be like no yeah I don't want to be right yeah no not at all and I I feel like one of the biggest lessons I learned from that is trust, give absolute trust to yourself and your instincts above anything else.

1:00:49Because if it does, it's very rare that it will steer you into the wrong direction. Do you connect that to your religion at all, your faith? Yeah. Yeah, because I feel like I've been someone that's always tried to... I was raised in a church and then I went for a period where I was trying to figure it out myself. And then it was like I found my way back to God over time. And I feel like God and the idea of God is not physically present with me in this room. And so I constantly have tried to be like, God, I know you've got me. But just one second, I've got me too. And so I'm just going to do this over here and I'm going to help you help me.

1:01:38because I can feel kind of the effort that I'm putting in. And I'm just hoping and trusting, which is a very different thing. But I had to let go of all of the things that I felt I could do. Because as a person, there's so many inadequacies. There's so many things that you can't, at a certain point, you can't do anything anymore. And I feel like if I had lent on God more, I would have been in a position where I would have listened to that instinct that I had. Yeah. And I wouldn't have thought there was so many moments that I was just like, this is a red flag. This is an issue. This is something that I need to raise.

1:02:17But it's like, how do I raise it? Because of the business I'm running and because of my nature, which is very laid back, there's an expectation of the type of leader that I'm going to be. Yeah. And for the wrong person, that is a leader that you can take advantage of. Yeah. And I was so, again, naive to that. Yeah. I just thought people, if someone works for me, they understand the vision they understand the mission and that would be greater than anything and that would govern them the same way it governs me yeah but this is not their baby that they're building this is mine and I can't even put that on someone else for you to take it as the way I take it but for me it's like it's about trusting in God it's about listening to those moments where I'm just like this doesn't feel right and again it goes back to trusting myself yeah exactly I think for a long time again it's listen to other people other people telling me giving me permission yeah to even trust myself yeah and so then when it was at a time where i really needed to trust myself and i could have done with trusting myself because it would have saved me six months of everything that i then had to navigate the the repercussions of it it's like okay like you you know you enough you know you more than anyone when you like you're telling yourself this is off yeah trust that it's off yeah and figure out why later don't question why it's off yeah and shut that voice down right almost as if like oh i'm i'm being pessimistic yeah exactly i'm just not like yeah i'm making a big deal out of it it's no big deal exactly yeah exactly but when you're taught to dismiss your feelings or like dismiss your emotions, don't be too emotional.

1:03:57Yeah. Be very logical. Yeah. And this is working in some areas. So focus on that and just keep going. Then you land yourself in a position where nine months later, you're now building back in ways that you didn't need to. Yeah. And also recovering from a heartbreak because it felt like a heartbreak. I can imagine completely. So, yeah. And very meta with all of this, right? Like you started out with your journey into learning more about leadership and then doubling down more into women's leadership and then the whole mission with the Women's Association and almost how it's gone full circle back to you as a female leader of a business in this space.

1:04:33Deborah, thank you so much. I feel like this was such a treat, such a luxury. I mean, even now I feel like this is still the tip of the iceberg. But we do need to wrap things up because I think this is an extended version for our listeners. yeah thank you not only for coming on the show and sharing these amazing stories and um and what you've uncovered but honestly for the work that you're doing because this needs to exist right and i think that's another validation point that you're on the right path and you're doing something that where success is inevitable because the world needs this yeah so thank you for having me thank you for having me i appreciate it it's been fun and thank you so much for listening i really hope that you've enjoyed this.

1:05:15If you have, you know what to do. Please hit that follow and subscribe button wherever you're listening. Episodes are weekly every Wednesday morning at 6am UK time. So I hope to see you next time. Thanks a lot. Bye.