Forbes Under 30 Quits While Thriving

0:00I was one of the one of very few talent managers that was a person of colour. that the majority of people in my industry are white and middle class. So a lot of creators of colour wanted to be signed by me because they felt that trust in a shared experience and a shared lived experience. My plan was to not have a plan because I've had a plan for my whole life. I think I said that we were going to make a million and we made literally just under a million. That you were able to forecast so specifically how much money you were going to be making. And yet, four years on the line, you quit. Walk me through that decision.

0:31So, despite making the Forbes 30 under 30 list and building a company that generated over$4 million in lifetime revenue in under two years, she still decided to quit. In this episode, Chloe explains why and how her definition of success has nothing to do with accolades or money. Shift is an influencer talent management agency. We manage all different people. But the main focus is that we work with good people and people that are giving value to their audience. I think social media can be a very, very negative place and I didn't want to feed into that. I wanted to create an agency that approached diversity in the way that you should do, where you don't need to talk about it, you should just be doing it.

1:09You quit for a fundamental human-oriented reason. It wasn't about money, it wasn't about your career, it was just about who do I want to be. Asperger's and ADHD I was diagnosed with in the same year. Since the diagnosis, are you living your life differently? So much differently. is honestly the best thing that's ever happened to me. I went on a date with someone. He said to me that I remind him of Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory, who is also an autistic character. And it's funny when he said that. Was that a first date? Yeah. Wow. I don't care, right? No, but he said it in like a funny way, but I was like, actually, yeah, I do a lot of the same stuff as him.

1:49A lot of people, especially at a professional level, they define success through these accolades. So I'm successful if I'm on Forbes under 30 list or if I make this much money. How would you define success now? I think success is...

2:16Chloe, you're the founder of Shift, which is a company that enabled you to be recognized by Forbes. In this show, I've had the privilege of interviewing many ambitious young entrepreneurs that are included in Forbes list. But you're the only person that made it to the list through her first company and then she quit her company. It's quite a unique decision. and I strongly believe that in order for me to understand what drove you to decide that, I need to understand you at a fundamental personal level. How would you describe yourself? That's something I'm discovering now. I think what I've been saying to everyone is that this moving away from my company is figuring out who just Chloe is because I think so many of us are defined by our job title, right?

3:13And for pretty much my whole working life, I've said, oh, hi, I'm Chloe and I'm a founder or I'm a talent manager. I'm at whatever else, whatever jobs I had. And I think because I was so interlinked with my jobs, I actually don't fully know who I am as an individual person. So I can't really answer that question at the moment. Why do you think we follow that approach? Because I agree with you. Particularly in cities like London, the first thing, either the way you introduce yourself or the second question that someone is asking is, what's your name? What is it that you do? Exactly, exactly. And it's, it's, I didn't really notice it as much as I have in the last two weeks of me not working because people are asking me and I'm like, I don't know.

3:53I'm just Chloe. But I think, you know, we work in, we live in a capitalist society. And I think obviously you're, you're, it's like you live to work, which I don't think is right at all. So I think because in everyone's minds, we're living to work, therefore work is, you know, a massive part of who you are as an individual. and I think that's a shame I think it's important for people to figure out who they are outside of that I completely agree with you I personally believe that when you meet someone you're trying to understand as quickly as possible who they are so you can catalogue them in one way or another and then decide how to deal with them and I find it sad that the first thing that people think that would define very quickly who this person is is their profession yeah you're right it's true because when you say your job it's like now i know how to treat you which to be honest you should be treating everyone absolutely whether i say i'm a clean or a ceo it really doesn't matter um and that's definitely how i was brought up where it really doesn't matter what people do you treat everyone nicely and with respect as long as they're treating you nicely and with respect um but yeah it is it's such a massive divine defining factor of who an individual is when realistically like you know things have happened for you to be on this path that you're on now you could have made a completely different decision and been doing a completely different job you'd still be the like you right um so yeah yeah it is it's interesting how much significance we put on people's careers and jobs and yeah how we treat them many entrepreneurs knew they wanted to become entrepreneurs at a very young age did you always know you wanted to become an entrepreneur um i had businesses in school like Like, you know, silly businesses, pretty much everyone did, I think, at school.

5:40Like, I had my little tuck shop because when I was at school, Jamie Oliver had banned tuck shops from our schools, which we were all very angry about because we didn't get sweets anymore. So I sold sweets. What kind of sweets? So this was the difference between me and other people that were doing it. So most people went to Sainsbury's after school and they would buy donuts and sweets and stuff from Sainsbury's. And you can't put that much of a markup on Sainsbury's stuff because Sainsbury's stuff is already expensive. so what I did is I asked my dad to take me to macro which is like a wholesale right and bought a bunch of sweets very cheaply and then obviously marked it up more so I was making like 13 14 I think but I was making like considerably more profit than everyone else and I had way more range than everyone else um so yeah so I did that and then too many people were um were like jumping on it and doing it so I was like oh I'm gonna do something else so I started a nail shop in my classroom um I used to paint girls nails I went to an all-girls school I used to paint girls nails and then there was too much demand so I then started employing people and started giving I think from memory I think I used to charge like 50p per nail or something like that and I'd give people like 10p per 50p that I was making to like pay them and then again somebody else started a nail business.

6:48What was the driver to do these things was it money was it that you just found it fun? I don't think it's ever been money I don't think my driver in life has ever been money um I think I just liked it I think I like a challenge I like challenging myself I didn't feel super challenged at school um so I suppose it was probably me just trying to create something I also knew I wasn't allowed to do it so it probably was an element of doing something that I wasn't meant to be doing um and doing it well so yeah so I did that but all my teachers at school said I had to work for myself but it wasn't them kind of believing in me it was more so that they know that I I didn't listen to to teachers so it was like oh you're gonna have to work for yourself because you're not gonna listen to a boss so yeah it was kind of you know it was a message that was given to me throughout school and obviously I was kind of doing it anyway but it wasn't it wasn't really ever something where I was like yeah I'm I'm going to start my own business I'm going to work for myself it wasn't that it was more from a place of necessity because I had all the companies I'd worked for I wasn't happy there so I thought I'll I can I'll start my own one and do it better.

7:51I think when you're young if your parents support your decisions is quite important because it builds up a lot of confidence in your decision making and it clearly it sounds like your dad driving you to macro was supporting that were you trying to model their their approach to life so were they entrepreneurs themselves no no no my dad's well my dad's a builder I mean he's been a builder since he was like 16 I think he's now a property surveyor but he was a builder for most of his life and my mom works in social housing so yeah yeah she neither of my parents were entrepreneurs they're both working class jobs I think my parents I'm so thankful to my parents for how they raised me because it was very much that they wanted me to be successful but they didn't tell me what success was it was like we want you to do as well as you can do and they pushed me because they knew I could do well, they knew I was smart and they pushed my brother in a completely different way because his brain works in a different way to mine so I think yeah my parents always supported me and anything I wanted to do they tried their best to make sure I could do it so yeah I was I was really lucky growing up that yeah my parents never really it's like stopped me from doing anything they also didn't push me to go to uni they didn't push me to be in any specific job um but they did push me to do well if that makes sense they allowed you to become whoever you wanted to exactly exactly which I think is such an important thing for parents to do um because I've got a lot of friends around me from different especially especially from specific cultures where their parents are very specific and you know you need to be this this or this and that's that's it um so i'm happy that i didn't have that experience i'm grateful that i didn't have that experience what did you start in uni um event management it's basically business management but with events focus um i i didn't really i chose to do it obviously but it was again it was kind of from a point of necessity where not necessity put necessity put i put on myself but um i was training to be a dancer for pretty much my whole life and then what kind of dancer um i was doing contemporary and ballet but i also i basically did every every different style of dance but contemporary was what i was really really like i really liked doing contemporary and i went to um laban which is like quite quite a good dance school in the uk um so i was training there and then i decided at 16 that i was going to give up dancing um which is probably i don't really regret anything in my life but that was a that's definitely a regret because I wasn't the best dancer at Laban I was I'd always been the best dancer at like school and after school clubs and things like that but I wasn't the best dancer at Laban and I didn't like not being the best which is a very toxic trait when I was when I was younger but I didn't like being not being the best and I remember I went to my um my tutor at the time and I said to him I'm not gonna I'm not gonna carry on because I'm not the best because I hadn't been doing ballet since I was three which a lot of the girls in my um in the classes had been doing and he said to me that you're not the best but you're the person that's improved the most and at 16 I didn't understand that like it's that wasn't I was like okay well I'm still not the best but actually looking back as an adult that was such a powerful thing that he said to me that I just didn't recognize at the time so yeah so I gave up dancing and then had a bit of a not midlife because I was 16 but whatever life crisis that is at that age and had no idea what I was going to do because I put all my time and energy into dancing for literally since I was like six years old I've been doing some form of musical theatre acting dancing um so I had no idea what I was going to do I also knew I wanted to go to university to be honest it was mainly to just prove to people that I could and say that I had a degree which again not a good trait um so I sat down with my mum and she got this like massive university book out that had like all the different topics and subjects and universities in England and I looked through and we were trying to figure out what my strengths were so we kind of figured out that events management was good because it coupled like my creativity with my organizational skills and I didn't have to be kind of front and center I could do things behind the scenes so yeah that's how I ended up doing event management do you think that was a wrong choice it's I don't think anything's a wrong choice because that was a knock-on effect for everything else that's happened in my life um but I think I could have I probably should have done something else um I wish I'd I was kind of juggling a few different things so I wanted to do psychology I wish I'd done psychology because I really found psychology interesting at college um what else did I I was thinking of doing law again I really like law so I should have done law there were so many different things I was juggling and I think I kind of went with the safe choice of oh I'll just do events management because that's that seems fine and like I'll have fun doing events and that's it um but I think it's it's difficult because as we're there's so much like emphasis put on us making choices at a really young age we shouldn't be having to figure out what we're doing with the rest of our life at 16 years old that makes absolutely no sense and even at uni like you're going to uni like 18 i took a gap year but 18 19 you're really young you you can't make a decision on your whole future it's not only that you're very young but the education system doesn't prepare you for you to be able to make such a such an important decision because you're asking an 18 year old kid to decide something that won't determine his or her rest of her life, but would guide them into one path or another.

13:04And not so long ago, probably two weeks or three weeks ago, that same kid needed to raise his or her hand to go to a toilet. Yeah. Needed to ask for permission. So you're not teaching these kids to understand what freedom looks like, what critical thinking looks like, how testing trial and error looks like. And yet a few weeks later, you're asking them to make such an important decision. And it's not only that we believe it's an important decision. They kept telling us. Yeah, that is the most important decision. That is the most important decision. But hey, can I go to the toilet? I need your permission.

13:38So I find that quite interesting and controversial. Yeah, I was going to pick up your point you said about critical thinking. And I think actually schools completely strip that away from you because actually I got in trouble a lot at school. And the main reason I got in trouble was because I was questioning teachers. And not questioning them saying like, oh, I know more than you or you're wrong. It was more so you've said something and I need to understand it more. So like, can you explain it more? Or like, oh, why is that this? And I would get in trouble all the time for questioning teachers or like just questioning things.

14:10And my parents taught me to question things. They told me not to just, you know, if someone's told you something, doesn't mean it's the truth. So yeah, it's crazy that they dampened that element of you. But then, yeah, a couple of years later, oh yeah, it's time for you to choose your whole life now. I agree. See you later. I had similar teachers and I've had different educations and all of them, they have synergy. So I went to a Spanish school, I went to an English school and I also went to an American school. And they all applied the same principle, but they portrayed that principle in different ways.

14:42So for instance, in the Spanish and the English school, they would not like you to challenge an idea. But also if you were asking too many questions, you would be bothering the teacher and the teacher would be like, You're just slowing the class down and whatever. And then the American school, usually the teacher would start by saying, there are no wrong questions. And you're like, oh, that's great. That's different. That's refreshing. And then you start asking many questions. And then you can tell that the teacher is very much bothered and not answering to the last ones. And you're like, but you just told me that there are no wrong questions.

15:14So ultimately, it's the same thing, just with a different wrapping. So you start toying with different businesses. your parents are supportive they allow you and enable you to be whoever you want to be yeah then you go into event management you realize that it's not for you and then what happens afterwards right before you found shift yeah did you get a job yeah yeah so I um left events I really liked events actually just the company I was working for I didn't enjoy working for them so I was kind of scrambling I just needed I just need a job because I've never not worked so I was like I need a job.

15:51I need to find anything. So you didn't finish uni? No, no, I finished uni. I did events after uni. So I graduated. I actually moved, I moved out. I lived in Bournemouth because that's where I went to uni. I had moved out of Bournemouth on like the Friday and started my new job on like the Monday. I'd never take breaks, which is funny. But yeah, so I left my events job. I'd been traveling all around the world doing like massive corporate events. It was really fun. And I got a job as a talent assistant in an influencer talent management agency. it wasn't really something I was passionate about I didn't ever I didn't even follow influencers what does a talent assistant do well I worked for a small agency so I did a lot more than probably talent assistants at bigger agencies but it's um it's just kind of learning to be honest it's like the the first in the steps of regression of being a talent manager essentially yeah so it's like emails usually kind of the the quote-unquote easier tasks of like reaching out about like gifting and you know managing people's calendars and that kind of thing um but yeah I didn't it wasn't really something I was super excited about in my head I was like oh I'll start and then while I'm there I'll figure out what I actually want to do and then I started and I was good at it and I liked my team so I carried on so I was the first company for a year I then got poached and worked for another company and then within that company I left and thought no I'm just going to do it myself in the same industry yeah yeah yeah so I worked in the industry for two years basically yeah about two and a half years before I started shift um and I just had looked at things and thought I think I can do it better and then you start shift what is shift uh shift is uh an influencer talent management agency um the we don't have like a specific vertical in terms of like we just manage fashion or anything like that we manage all different people but the main focus is that we work with good people and people that are giving value to their audience i think social media can be a very very negative place and i don't didn't want to feed into that um so yeah talent management agency full service so we've brought out books with some of our talent done like tv shows um podcasts all of that kind of stuff as well as the the brand deals which is what actually i should probably explain because people don't i realize people watching might not know what an influencer talent management agency does but basically we're the middleman between a brand and the influencer so brands will or marketing agencies will pay influencers to promote whatever product or service they're trying to promote so you worked for two years in two different companies yeah in the same industry that you start creating a company yeah so why did you start a company?

18:15what was the differentiating factor? why did you think this was a good idea? I could see gaps in the industry I could see a gap where there was around the time of when I was at the second agency there was a massive focus on diversity but it was very much diversity to say you're being diverse rather than actually truly believing in diversity and inclusion so it felt very tick boxy to me Whereas like, oh, we've got one of these people, we've got one of these people, rather than just bringing people in because they're good people. So I wanted to create an agency that approached diversity in the way that you should do, where you shouldn't talk.

18:48You don't need to talk about it. You should just be doing it. And it's funny because you'll see if you look at any podcast I've ever been on, people always talk about, oh, your agency is so diverse. But it's never mentioned at all on the website. I specifically never use that word on the website because you shouldn't have to say it. You should just be doing it and you should be able to see that you're doing it. We should normalize it. yeah like why are we not just doing it shouldn't you shouldn't have to think about it you should just be doing it so that was quite a big thing for me and also why um I think because I've seen how like how much representation matters um I think growing up I didn't see anyone from where I was from because I didn't you need to see what you need to see something to be it so I think where I grew up I didn't see people that look like me who sounded like me um who were doing well like I just didn't see that.

19:37So you need to be the representation. That would make you believe that you can do well yourself. I think it's hard to see yourself in a position where you can't see anyone that looks like you're from a similar background to you. So I think that's important. And I think similarly with adverts and marketing, I remember when I was a kid not seeing any mixed families, not really that many black people within adverts, eating cereal or whatever. You didn't see it. And as much as that sounds really trivial, you do notice it as a child when you're tuning in your TV and you're just not seeing anyone that looks like you.

20:10Or when you are seeing people that look like you, it's more so portrayed in like council estates and gangs and violence and that kind of thing. And actually, you need to be able to see people that look like you. So I think someone said it to me once, you can't be who you can't see, right? So I think, one, I wanted to become that person for people, but also I wanted to make sure that we were representing people within the industry that were diverse and were you know like pushing good messages because those are the people that should be marketing products not potentially like toxic people so yeah that was a that was a really big deal for me and I also just wanted to create a company that people enjoyed working for because I hadn't really enjoyed working for the majority of companies I've worked for in my life and I've had a lot of jobs so um yeah those were the two driving factors really I also just don't like a boss telling me what to do so I thought I'd do it myself I got that feeling it's a very powerful idea how did you take this idea into a reality like describe to me the baby step so how did you fundraise did you actually fundraise in the initial stages how did you hire the first person yeah it's i'll be super transparent it's not hard to start a talent management agency okay you could start one tomorrow would it be a successful one it might not be but you can start one very easily pretty much all you need is a laptop a phone and an internet connection the main thing for me was the connections that I'd built over the course of those like two years working in the industry and the reputation I built up so it meant that we could sign people from the start and have a very strong starting roster because I knew people in the industry so most people that start agencies they'll start with a lot of people that you've never heard of and very small creators whereas we could start with these big names because people knew me and trusted me and you know came over from other agencies um with me and then yeah that was that was kind of it and then the our first hire was actually someone i worked with before um a guy called adam so he worked with me at my the agency i was looking for just i'm trying to understand the biggest contributing factor so what you're saying is that um what i'll what enabled you to start and excel quickly is that you were able to bring talents from the two previous agencies that you worked for the first agents i didn't take anyone from the first agency the second agency i took basically half of their talent um but again that's because they hadn't designed their company well enough to retain talent um i think that's a big thing that not a lot of agencies think of like how are you going to make sure that when your talent managers leave your talent aren't going to leave with them how you do that is making sure that your talent have a rep and have a relationship with everyone within your agency so every creator that comes in has a knows all of the team which means that if any one of the team leaves it's unlikely they're going to leave as well if i'm a talent and i was working sorry i was represented by your previous agency and you want to approach me how would you win me over i didn't approach any of them because i couldn't because of my because of my contract yeah um but people knew i was starting an agency they knew i'd left the other agency they went to you yeah interesting yeah yeah genuinely about half their talent that agency actually um shut down a few years later okay um but yeah i think one i'm someone that has integrity and i'm honest there's not a lot of people in the industry that are super honest so i think people people value that as a as a trait especially when you're someone who's pretty much control it not controlling but you've got a big hand in their career you're the person that's the face of their their i don't know their persona you're you're the person that's doing emails and you're their voice right so you need to have someone that you're going to trust um you're handling a lot of their money as well you're probably invoicing their so they were trusting you to represent them when all you had was a laptop and a computer yeah right yeah but it was my it was my reputation that's the thing and i think um yeah it was a big thing also it's worth noting i was one of the one of very few create um talent managers that was a person of color that the majority of people in my industry are um white middle and white middle class so a lot of creators of color wanted to be signed by me because they felt that trust in a shared experience and a shared lived experience so um that was that was quite a big thing as well and that's probably why i'd built up quite a big reputation because i was one of very few especially at the level i was at um which again was a big passion of mine to try to get more people into the industry, like working in the industry that came from all different backgrounds.

24:22Interesting.

24:27So you started this in 2021 and by 2023, your company was generating over£3 million in lifetime revenue. Yeah. Now, from the outside, it seems that things were going well for you. Was this the outcome of a carefully curated plan or you just didn't expect that they would perform that way i knew i knew it would i knew it would um i think it's funny actually you know when you set up a company bank account you have to say you have to say oh we're probably going to make about this much a year or in the first year or whatever and i i correctly guessed um because i'm someone who interesting by how much percentage was were you up or down by 10 from your forecast we were pretty much bang on i think i said that we were gonna make a million and we made just literally just under a million i can't remember off the top of my head it was 900 incredibly unusual yeah but i think i but you were you were um question so yeah do you think you were able to forecast that so accurately because you knew what these talents were producing for your previous agency so it was more of a copy paste more or less i think one i knew how much the talent we're making yeah i knew who we were likely to be able to get um and then i also thought we're probably going to be able to assign people that are more or less aligned or maybe a little bit below a little bit above so i could kind of average everything out um but also i'm i think i'm very good at creating processes and systems and we were known well we are known as one of the most efficient agencies in the industry because we we get things done um because i set up all of the processes before anyone started coming in which i think is a big thing a lot of people try to figure out the processes as they go along and actually you need to design it and then people can slot in a bit easier um and everyone gets it and i made it super simple because i don't know about you but i've had some crazy jobs where i'm like why have you got so many like so many different things you need to do to get to the end point it makes no sense so yeah just keep it that's the definition of corporate do you know what i mean oh my gosh it just makes no sense yeah like you're having 20 meetings a day i agree why to maybe just change the color of the next logo of the company right and at the end after 20 minutes 20 20 meetings nobody decides yeah you start you stuck with the same color anyway so who cares um and i think this is this is incredibly impressive because if you're able to forecast so accurately the revenues of your first year, it allows you to structure your cost in a very efficient way.

26:53Yeah. In your industry, in talent management agencies, what is the typical percentage of profitability? So generally, talent management agencies take 20 % of... So you made 200 grand that year. Yeah. um well a bit a bit more because i did my own talks and stuff which is like a hundred percent goes in um so yeah you generally take 20 this is unusual it's there are already two factors that are quite unusual and i've sat down in front of many cross-sector entrepreneurs yeah um the first one is that you were able to forecast so specifically how much money you were going to be making from a revenue perspective in year one and number two being profitable in year one now it seems that things were going not great, absolutely great for you.

27:43You had this power that enabled you to predict what was going to happen for you, for your future. And this is probably one of the things that new entrepreneurs struggle most with because it's so unstable and that can impact you personally. But in your case, this was not a problem. In fact, it's the opposite. If you were saying things are going to be A, B, C, and D, it's actually going to be A, B, C, and D. now if you fast forward to 2024 this is where I'm shocked by your your story things are going well you can't even foresee what's going to happen in your career and yet three years down the line you quit four years four years down the line you quit walk me through that decision so I think as I said when I was saying about how I even got into the industry it was just because I needed a job right I didn't have this huge passion for influencers I didn't have this huge passion for marketing i wasn't i didn't care about any of that stuff i just needed a job and then i was good at it so i carried on and then it kind of carried on rolling and rolling and then i was like oh well i'm doing very well at this thing i'm gonna start a business in this thing and it kept on rolling and rolling and i think around my i turned 30 last year um last summer and around the time of my 30th birthday like just before i then start i think a lot of people have this around 30 where you just start thinking about your life but i was just thinking and i was like am i happy um and I don't think I realized that I wasn't um and I think I'd had these thoughts throughout the whole of shift to be honest where I was like do I enjoy this but I always attributed it to something that was going wrong at the time so like a talent was being difficult or we would you know things were going on so I and then I was feeling it around my birthday when nothing was going wrong everything was completely fine with the business so I was like oh if I'm still feeling this way and no external factors are like contributing to this feeling then it must be my actual feeling um so that was kind of the first thought and then I just kept on ruminating on it really and just thinking of it more and more and a big tipping point for me was and this is quite a morbid thing that I thought but I thought if I got diagnosed with something that was going to like kill me in a year right now would I still want to do this job and I thought no I thought I shouldn't have to wait until I'm about to die.

30:00Do you think there would ever be a job that you would want to stick to if you're dying in a year? I don't know. I think, I think people that really love, especially with their own business, I think you'd want to still have some level of involvement of it or something. But I, I just really felt like, no, I don't, I don't want to. And I think, yeah, that, that really was a big tipping point. And I started thinking more and more about what, what it was that I did enjoy about the job. And I spoke to my mum about it actually. And it was very much it's more so they're helping people something I really care about is helping people in whatever way you can and I think that was the thing that I enjoyed where it was like you know creators that were coming from other agencies maybe that hadn't been treating them well or they weren't making that much money or whatever and helping them to make their dreams become a reality like we had a creator who I remember I had a conversation with him I think two years ago was it two years ago yeah two years ago in January like our kickoff meeting and I was like oh what's what do you want to do this year and he said oh this this and this and like a long term plan you know years in the future I want to do a book and by the end of that year we'd got him a book deal and now he's an incredible author his book is out and all of that kind of stuff and like those kinds of things made me feel really fulfilled because I helped someone to not because we got a book deal it's because I helped someone to you know get that dream that they wanted I really like doing talks at schools I didn't really care that much about doing talks at these big corporate things i liked the school talks and the young people talks and that kind of thing so yeah i just realized that i don't actually like influencer management or marketing um i just more like the people that i was working with basically did you leave or you closed the company so i so i sold my shares i sold my share so when i bought in adam who was the first hire i bought him in as a as a director because we worked with each other before and i knew he had skills that i didn't have so I bought him in as a director sorry so he he bought me out of the company basically which was about a six-month process so I told him I wanted to leave in November yeah November last year and then as I said I left two weeks ago so April this year this was an incredibly brave decision Chloe because things people usually quit when things aren't going well yeah I quit And you quit when things were going incredibly well.

32:19But you quit for a fundamental human-oriented reason. It wasn't about money. It wasn't about your career. It was just about who do I want to be? What is it that I really like? And I find that very powerful and important. A lot of people might be struggling with a similar decision right now in their lives. It could be at a personal level or at a professional level. And probably what is preventing them from quitting is the fear of the feelings they're going to be having the weeks after, the months after. How did you feel right after you made the decision? Yeah, it was scary. It was scary. So I decided by myself and then I went to my parents and I told them, and I'm not a cryo, I don't really cry, but I really cried and I think as I say obviously we've spoken about this my parents are super supportive so they were like yeah we agree and they'd also seen how hard I've been working and how much of my life had gone into not only my business but work prior to that as well um so they were really supportive I then spoke to Adam and then I spoke to a couple of my friends but I think it was the the more I was saying it out loud obviously you can have a thought in your head right but as soon as I kind of started saying it out loud I was like oh wow like I've this is the decision I've made I'm going to go um and I was I was scared to be honest I think my main thing was fear around the fact that I didn't really have a plan and that was my my plan was to not have a plan because I've had a plan for my whole life and I wanted to not have a plan to allow myself to just figure out what it is that I enjoy and what I'm passionate about because I think when you jump from job to job to job and you're you're really hard working and really focused on those careers you don't really have time for external factors to you know seep in and see what other things that you enjoy doing outside of that job so that that is is my plan and was my plan at the time and I think that was where the fear came from the kind of unknown of what am I good like what's going to happen and also to be honest like I've put so much time into building this career and building my name within this space and I know that I won't go back to the marketing industry so it's like I'm kind of I don't really want to say throwing away but that's the only word I can think of now I'm kind of throwing all of that progress away to potentially have to start completely again somewhere else or within a new industry um I don't think I'll fail like I'm I'm I know myself enough to know that like I'll I'll be all right but it's still quite scary just not knowing what that next step is when you're someone who has basically planned their whole life as I've never I've never left a job and not had another job lined up I've always had something to go to as I say I literally I got my um my graduate job in February and I graduated in like may do you know what i mean so i i always make sure i've got it got something ready to go it's been seven months since you quit you still don't know so i left i left two weeks ago but i made the decision okay seven months ago yeah all right in 2024 so last year you were diagnosed with asperger's what is this condition yeah so sorry it was um two years no two years ago i was Okay.

35:31So Asperger's and ADHD I was diagnosed with in the same year. So Asperger's is on the autism spectrum. So it's a form of autism. To be honest, like I'm still understanding it myself. I also try to, with neurodiversity, there's a lot of information online, especially on social media now. It's kind of just like forced on you. I've tried to not look into that too much because I want to understand my own like neurodiversity rather than just neurodiversity as a whole but essentially I'm on the autistic spectrum basically but um the difference from my understanding um the difference between kind of autism and Asperger's is that usually kids with autism will speak quite late so they maybe will start speaking and um have that development around like four or something whereas kids with Asperger's start speaking early so I was speaking before I was one um and walking and all of that kind of stuff um quite often people with asperger's are seen as like blunt or rude just because we're very straight to the point which you might have seen um but yeah i because i got diagnosed later in life um i kind of developed very good masking skills where i you know day to day you wouldn't really guess that i was on the autistic spectrum what triggered you to go and get checked so during lockdown i was watching have you heard of the show love on the spectrum no it's on netflix it's like basically a date a dating show for autistic people essentially it's like showing autistic people dating um and it meant to be people across the spectrum to be honest it's more people on the kind of the i don't know what the word is but like further along the spectrum than me but still that's what it is yeah and i was watching it and i couldn't tell you what it was but someone said something on the show and i was like oh my gosh that's exactly how i feel and i've never heard someone like say it and i'd always felt throughout my life that my brain work differently to other people in a sense of I quite often was misunderstood people quite often thought I was being rude when I I didn't mean to be rude or I didn't think I was being rude um I I had difficulty sometimes in social situations um so weirdly that one thing on Love on the Spectrum triggered me to be like do you know what actually and I went to speak to my mum because I was living with my parents during lockdown and I spoke to my mum and I said oh I think I was watching this show and I think I might be autistic and she was like yeah I think so I think so too and she'd had the thought a year before um but i just hadn't said it to me because i went on a date with someone and i think i might have dropped something some food or something on my trouser and i'm not really someone that gets embarrassed so i just went oh and then just wiped it off and he said to me that i remind him of um sheldon cooper from big bang theory who is also an autistic character and it's funny when he said that i was like first date yeah i don't care right He said it in like a funny way, but I was like, yeah, but he said it and I was like, actually, yeah, I've got, I do a lot of the same stuff as him.

38:22You know, he's got his spot on the seat. I have my spot on the seat and I hate when other people sit on my little spot on the sofa. So it was just kind of all of these things coming in. And then we started looking at my family as a whole and there's neurodiversity within my family. Generally, we've got quite a lot of people that are dyslexic within my family and things like that. So, yeah, luckily for me, I had the means to do it privately because I think it's quite a long process during it, like going through the NHS. um but yeah so i i went and did the test and the doctor told me that i have that since the diagnosis are you living your life differently so much differently it's honestly the the best thing that's that's ever happened to me um it's weird i felt i feel conflicted sometimes where i'm like do i wish i knew sooner or not i think i'm happy that i know now even though i do think knowing sooner might have made certain situations easier for me but i think with this new understanding of myself I am way less hard on myself I think I used to come away from social situations and be like oh why did I say that or why did I do that and now I understand why I do and say things um I think I'm actually way more in control of my emotions now because I understand my emotions and my feelings and how my brain works um I have better tools to communicate with people in terms of how I like to be communicated with and how I you know interact with people but yeah it's honest honestly the best the best thing because i i understand myself now and i think i was speaking to my brother actually and he said the same thing that the past couple of years i've seemed way happier than i ever have in my life and i think it's just that understanding of myself how do they test this so with um with asperger's or with with autism it's quite quite lengthy so you have to do it with a parent um so i did a video call but basically do a video call with a doctor and your parent has to talk about like your early development in your early years it was quite funny hearing my mum say certain things because I still do certain things as an adult that I didn't realize I'd been doing my whole life like um she said that when I they were talking about like how I used to play as a kid and she said that you know I'd go to the um the park and I have a lot of older cousins um but my I would have been an only child at the time because my brother wouldn't have been born yet but I would go to the park um and just play by myself and just be having a great time by myself this is probably why I go on solo holidays as well I'd be having a great time by myself and other kids would see me playing and having a good time so they would come over to me and ask to play and I'd be like yeah sure and I'd play with them and then I'd get bored and I'd leave and I'd just go and go and play by myself again and I think even at secondary school that's I didn't really actively try to make friends with people I just you know people came and were friends with me I didn't have one I've never had one friendship group I've had loads of different friendship groups because I feel like I can't spend long times of like long periods of time with like one person so I kind of move around all these things are traits of an autistic person um from my understanding yeah asperger's um I don't want to comment too much on like specific traits on autistic and asperger's I don't know enough about it um and I also I've seen a lot of misinformation where people are probably misdiagnosing themselves because they've heard one clip of someone say something and they relate to it um I keep on seeing videos about you know using certain spoons is then you're autistic because I can only use certain cutlery but that doesn't mean you're autistic if you only use certain cutlery so the misinformation is pretty mad um but yeah so you sit down with the doctor your parent talks about your development and then you talk about your like adult development and relationships and things like that um it's it's long i think i was maybe on the phone for like two two three hours to them um so it was super long um but yeah he he he told me his diagnosis at the end and then he sends me like a long overview sorry overview is this a condition that you have for the rest of your life yeah it's it's neuro it's um it's a neuro what's the word neurodevelopment no neurological it's basically yeah you're yeah i can't think of what the word is but yeah it's my brain it's how it's basically there we go yeah it's basically how my brain works so my brain is just works differently to someone who's neurotypical so similarly to like if someone's dyslexic they'll just they're just dyslexic so um yeah it's just that i've got a slightly different brain I find that also very powerful.

42:26I was reading a statistic and don't quote me exactly on the numbers, but basically it was saying that a big percentage of millionaires in the UK are dyslexic. Yeah. And then I listened to a podcast in which the founder of Soho House was saying that he's dyslexic. And that was probably the reason why he became so successful, because in entrepreneurship, you're facing problems of different natures on a daily basis. Some are big, some are small, some are about human resources, some about finance. And we live right now in a world in which we don't listen to understand, we listen to respond. but as a dyslexic person, you need to simplify whatever it is in front of you.

43:14So he was forced to really unpack every problem to its foundations. And then that allowed him to really understand and make probably the best decisions. And I found that super interesting. Yeah, there's a lot of founders who are autistic and have ADHD as well. Loads, loads of founders and like quite a lot of really successful people that are just neurodiverse generally. I think it's maybe because your brain works slightly differently to the majority of people in the world. You approach problems differently and you can see things slightly differently from other people. So you might see solutions that they might not see.

43:51I think with me, you were saying about my foresight. I've got really good foresight because I've had to develop because I didn't know I had autism throughout my life and I kind of had to try to assimilate to everyone else and try to fit in and look quote unquote normal. I'm really good at recognizing patterns because I know, because I'm not great at social situations, I basically assessed and made a big log in my head of what the cause and effect of things are. So I know that if you come to me and you're crying, okay, that probably means that you want me to do X, Y, and Z, and then I can do X, Y, and Z.

44:23But you know, the first few interactions of that, I might not have known exactly what to do. So I kind of download all of that data, and then I can assess situations that are happening in real time, which also means that sometimes I can kind of see into the future essentially because I'm like okay cool if this has happened then this is likely going to happen next and this is likely going to happen to happen next um so yeah so it's it's definitely helped I don't like when people call it the super their superpower because I think I I personally don't think it's my superpower but I think it's definitely helped me in in my life walk me through the challenges so what are some examples in which asperger's is not ideal so social social situations are probably the biggest one which is quite difficult as a founder especially in marketing because you've got so many like events and networking things and all of that kind of stuff and you know networking and small talk is quite difficult for me because i just don't i don't know what the word is but i don't deem them as like super valuable in my brain so i'm like i don't want to do this i just want to go on to the next thing or do something else um so that's quite difficult but again because I was undiagnosed for a long time I found a lot of ways to to deal with that so I kind of had a bit of a list in my head of like small talk things that I would say to people if I needed to say it the weather is always a great one especially in England um so yeah that social situations um I also think being a manager like of of um like staff sometimes that made it difficult because you know if if staff were you know I've had you know my team like crying to me about like personal situations and I find that very, I find it very difficult when people cry around me because I just don't know what to do.

45:57I always try my best, but it always makes me feel uncomfortable. So it's quite difficult as a manager because, you know, as a friend, my friends know, don't cry around Chloe because she doesn't know what to do and she's going to get awkward. But when you're managing your staff, you can't just be like, oh, I can't deal with this. So you have to deal with it, which sometimes I found quite difficult. I also have, and this is the thing with autistic people generally, a very strong sense of justice so when I deem some someone to be doing something that is like unjust or wrong I feel so strongly towards it which isn't always a good thing as a as a founder and as a manager because you can't fight every fire and you can't deal with every injustice that's going on in the world around you so but then I suppose the injustice thing has probably helped me as well because it's made me you know who I am and feel so strongly about the business that I built so So yeah, those are probably the main two, I would say.

46:53But I'm sure there's more. To be fair, with my ADHD, it's just focus. It's very difficult for me to focus on things.

47:03You've had a very interesting life. Multi-layered. What is the greatest lesson you've learned in your journey? What is the greatest lesson I've learned? I think, and we'll see this lesson play out, I think it's to stay true to yourself um I think in business when you have a clear like clear missions clear values you have to stay true to that and I think that's why shift was so successful because you know if a creator wasn't aligning with us how no matter how much money they were making we wouldn't be working with them anymore and it meant that we had real integrity within our company you knew what you were getting with our company and actually we would we always did well because you know we'd get rid of the people that weren't aligned and then we'd bring in more people that were aligned um it also makes it way easier to make decisions because you just look at it and say is this aligned or not no okay cool we're not going to do it so I think in business that's helpful and for yourself I think that's how I came to this decision because I probably tried to put it off for ages but I really thought what was right for me and what was true to me and what I was doing wasn't true to me so I had to move away from that decision to make another one but yeah I think having a good understanding of what your values are is is helpful in every space in your life I think.

48:16I agree with you I personally believe that we learn very little from success and we learn almost everything from our failures yet there are some failures there are some mistakes just a few that are better avoided can you recall a mistake that that you would have rather avoided? Business-wise or just generally in life? Let's see where your mind takes you. I'm trying to think of a mistake. I don't know, because I don't really look at things as mistakes, because I think everything happens for a reason. And if something's happened, it needed to happen for other things to happen. I'm trying to think of something.

48:55I think of a mistake.

48:58Do you know what I think a mistake was? And I've had to unlearn this for myself, is that for the vast majority of my life, I was living not to please people, but I wanted to be recognised by people and I wanted people to think I was doing well. I always wanted people to think I was doing well. And I think that led me to do a lot of things that weren't fully true to me because I was doing it more so for other people. I didn't care if people liked me, but I did care if people respected me and they thought I was doing well and successful. So I think that was probably the biggest mistake of my life because it made me do so many things that then weren't right for me.

49:40Yeah, just living for other people in any way, people pleasing, anything. I'm not people pleasing, but anything like that. Yeah, I think you've just got to live for yourself. Obviously, you know, you think about other people, but you need to live for yourself for sure. So that's probably it's a massive it's like massive and all encompassing. But that's probably the mistake. If you're honest with yourself, do you still care about what people think of you? yeah I think so I think it's difficult to not um and I suppose hopefully within this time that I have off I can try to unlearn that I've deleted social media so that's one thing because I think social media makes it very difficult to not think about what other people think of you um so yeah no I think I do but definitely not as much as I used to and not in the same way that I used to I want people to think I'm a good person I think that's important I think everyone should try to be a good person um but i'm not how would you define being a good person um i always say there's a big difference between being a good person and being a nice person i don't care about being a nice person i always want to be a good person i think it's just being how do you define good that's a really how would you define good i don't know i'm trying to think what the what the definition of even is of good i think should be your definition yeah no i'm just I'm trying to think, I just always use the word good, but it's true.

50:57What on earth does good mean? I think I'm not religious, but I think you see this across all religions. It's just to treat other people the way you want to be treated, essentially. You treat people kindly. You help people and they need to be helped without wanting or needing anything back in return. You don't help in order to receive. You just help because it's the right thing to do. I think that's how I've always lived just trying to do what's right not always what's best but doing what's right so yeah but it's right I'm going to think about that actually what on earth is good I'm going to also look up the actual definition of good because I don't know what it is if you could go back and talk to your younger self and give her one advice let's say 10 years ago what would you advise her?

51:51um what would i invite how old was i 20 doesn't even feel like that long ago um it was obviously 10 years ago i think stop being so hard on yourself um i think as i said i was i think i was really hard on myself when i was younger and i didn't like myself when i was younger um i would actively not spend time by myself because i didn't enjoy my own company which is funny because it's complete opposite now I love spending time on myself um but I think it's very hard when you're when you're young probably maybe more so when you're a young woman but maybe it's everyone but I think you're so focused on external factors that it just it can just beat down on you and I think I was very focused on external factors um how people felt about me how people treated me I used to really think about situations over and over again and I think I just needed to step back a bit from myself and just allow myself to be me um so yeah I think that's probably the advice I would give myself I wish I'd come to that conclusion and that realization earlier in life just you know you've got to you've got to like yourself um and I think not enough people spend enough time focusing on that understanding of themselves and liking of themselves and as I say with this new understanding that I got a couple of years ago I feel so much better and I think everyone you don't have to be neurodiverse to do that but like i think everyone needs to have that it's that kind of self-reflection and understanding yeah to just i think just to live a happier and less heavy life i think i felt really deep let's talk about external validations in 2024 you made it to forbes under 30 list what does this mean to you um so Forbes was a big one like I really wanted to get onto the Forbes under 30 list um since I've got on it I feel less less like that but maybe that's just because I've got on it um I think to me it was the last like externally validating thing that I wanted um and I really did once I got it I was like okay cool I now can quit I'm like not even that I can quit no I didn't think But I was still cool with it for then.

54:08But I was like, I don't need anything else now. Because I'd had awards before and I'd had all of that stuff before. But I was like, okay, I don't need anything else. I need to stop doing things for those things now. I need to stop thinking about, oh, I didn't get that award somebody else did. I need to stop that. I do think with Forbes, obviously, it's from such a massive pool of people. I don't know how many it is, but I'm sure there's loads of people that apply for for Forbes or get nominated for Forbes and for the under 30 list and I think to be recognized is really empowering by people who don't know who you are who aren't in your industry it's you know cross industry and all that kind of stuff and I think it just made me feel like um yeah it felt like a massive achievement and I was really proud of myself for getting on there and also again being that like you can't be you can't see like it's I'm happy that I'm on there as a person who maybe, you know, not a lot of people would think would be on that list.

55:09Like I tick a lot of diversity boxes and not that I like the ticking boxes, but I do. So yeah, it's great to be that representation for other people that, you know, might not feel like they can be on it. I did a video actually on, I don't make videos on TikTok, but I did a video on TikTok specifically talking about how I got on the list and who I am and things like that. Because I think people assume that everyone on the Forbes under 30 list is like this billionaire yeah do you know i mean everyone thinks that where it's like oh they've got a massive company and they're a billionaire and they've done this and this and it's like not not really i'm just a normal person um and i want people to know that things like that are attainable to them but also at the same time it's not the be all and end or if you don't get it it doesn't mean that you're not doing well that you're not successful and all those kind of things so yeah i feel a bit conflicted about it now but still it's nice to be nice to be recognized i I think, especially when you've put in a lot of work.

56:03For a lot of people, especially at a professional level, when they're young, and I think you, not now, but perhaps a few years ago, also fall under that category. They define success through these accolades. So I'm successful if I'm on Forbes under 30 list or if I make this much money. How would you define success now? I think what is success to me I think success is is definitely just for the individual I don't think you can tell other people what success is I think you need to decide that you're successful I think for me personally success is that I know I'm being a good person and that I'm happy I think I think happiness is actually no not happiness contentment I always strive for contentment not happiness because happiness is fleeting and contentment can be constant but I think yeah being content is success to me I think that's something that I've strived to be for a long time um and yeah I've been feeling content for the past couple years I think and I'm I feel like that is a success in itself especially just you know personal development and learning yeah I definitely tied a lot of my success to all the accolades before but you know it doesn't it doesn't mean as much as you you kind of think it means to me anyway so yeah contentment because you're content you're successful now I feel successful in myself yeah and I think especially looking at myself you know as you say 10 years ago I was not content at all I was very unhappy um so yeah I think the the development and learning for myself as a as a human being I'm I feel successful in that um and that's a more state more constant state right like obviously jobs you can't always control jobs even if you own your own company you know the economy and there's so many things that can impact just work and jobs um you can't really control it whereas you can control yourself to some degree and like how you feel about yourself so i think it's probably a better better thing to focus on for me anyway um than than like as i say more external factors so yeah i feel like i feel successful at the moment um that might come and go but at the moment I do thank you Chloe um I respect I have a deep respect for people that are constantly trying to understand and identify who they are I believe that we live in a world that is also regularly trying to define who we need to be yeah what is it that we need to like what is it that we need to buy who do we need to marry and they're narrowing our definition of success or our overall picture of happiness.

59:02And I believe that the only real way in which we can start nurturing our happiness is by getting to know ourselves. And fortunately, there are so many people that they don't get to know themselves in their entire lives. You're 30, you're incredibly young, and you've made the very brave decision to quit your company, a very successful company, to understand yourself and to understand yourself better. So I thank you for sharing your story. And I know that there's a lot of people listening to this that would feel identified in one way or another. And most of the people that know me, I would really want to clarify this.

59:43I'm not a person that has ever privately or publicly advocated for quitting. But if there is one exception to this rule, which is my rule, is that you are allowed or not only allowed, encouraged to quit in the pursuit of your self-identity. And that is the only reason that I believe that quitting is not only valid, but it is absolutely necessary. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I completely agree. I'm the same. I always tell people, even if you are going to leave something, then you should be going somewhere else. So yeah, no, I completely agree. And thank you. I really appreciate it. And there's one more thing that I want you to share with me.

1:00:25We were discussing it before the episode started, but you're going now to New York on a solo trip and you go for dinners by yourself and you do other solo trips by yourself. Why do you do this? And what are the benefits that you're getting from this? Because a lot of people would want to do this and I include myself. Yeah, no, as I said to you earlier, like I think everyone should go even just once, even if you can go once and hate it and never do it again. But I think everyone should experience it. I think as you were saying about, you know, the importance of getting to know yourself being alone in somewhere that's not familiar to you is a really quick way to understand yourself as a person and you kind of have the freedom you know if you're on holiday you have the freedom to kind of do what you want you can get up when you want you can go and eat when you want you can go and do stuff when you want you can spend the whole day in bed if you want to you can you know do whatever you want to and you can meet people and experience things as yourself rather than with someone I think sometimes you know if you're with friends with a partner you're experiencing things together and therefore their their experience of it kind of is kind of entwined with yours so yeah I I love it because I just don't like doing things that other people want to do basically so I like doing my I like doing my own thing um probably I I probably am quite a selfish person um that's why I don't really want kids anytime soon because I care about myself too much but um yeah I think I think the real there's a real freedom in traveling by yourself um obviously there's there's pros and cons of it there's you know you have to go out for dinner every day by like by yourself or you know you have you don't have to make friends you can try to make friends if you want to you can sometimes I have made friends sometimes I haven't um but yeah I do think there's a real freedom in that exploration um and I definitely encourage everyone to do it even as I said to you even if it's just like going to Barcelona or something for two days like somewhere somewhere easy or quick or going somewhere that you've already been so you have some kind of familiarity with with the environment um but yeah the only thing i would say is as a as a female solo traveler i don't then do a lot of the like evening stuff that i might want to do like i don't really go out too much in the evening just from a safety perspective um which sometimes is a bit annoying because it's like i would love to go to this like party or this thing but i know that it's not maybe not the safest thing for me to do so that's that's definitely the downfall of it but um yeah it's and there's one more thing that i want to add to that so it is slightly different to be single and do a solo trip and being in a relationship oh yeah for sure and do a solo trip because a lot of people that are in a relationship that are listening to this might be thinking approaching this conversation with my partner is going to be hard because naturally my partner would think that there is something fundamentally wrong not only with the identity of this person, of my partner, but also within their relationship.

1:03:13And I personally don't think that if you have a true partnership and that other person really loves you in the simplest and most natural way or definition of love, they should allow you the space to be whoever you want to be. And ultimately, if someone is putting barriers because of insecurities and fears for you to do that solo trip, which is something that it is not that big of a deal, that should raise a question mark on whether you should be with that person and i just want to leave that out there most most definitely but yeah i think even if you're in a partnership maybe even encourage the other person to do so as well like oh i'm gonna go away for this weekend maybe you should go away for the weekend you know we can do we can do solo trips together and i think if obviously you come back to each other but doing things like this it allows you to become a better version of yourself yeah at a personal level so with your partner with your parents with your friends but also at a professional level definitely definitely yeah i completely agree thank you thank you