331. "Trapped in a Life Built Around Other’s Expectations? Here’s the Way Out" - Leanne & Al on Unbehaved podcast

29:23And then they said, right, you're going to be a teacher. I was like, okay. And they went, right, so go and do these A-levels. So I went and did these three A-levels, four A-levels, and I failed three of them and got an E in maths. So I was going to be, well, I'm a maths teacher because that's the only A-level I passed. So I scraped into university in the North and they were like, okay, well, yeah, I suppose you can come in. And I remember distinctly, I was sitting in front of the deputy headmaster. I must have been what? 19 on my first teaching practice and deputy headmaster we're in a school we're doing eight weeks teaching practice in school and the deputy master says if you work as hard as you seem to be working right now then in about 20 years time you can be sitting in my seat and you can be earning upwards of 28 000 pounds a year and i sat there and i went fuck this

30:18and i hate kids as well so i was like yeah let's let's not do that so i just blew it all up left university and went and into sales for like three years did door-to-door did phone all that kind of stuff started a business went well didn't go well went bankrupt all that the story is on the episode you referenced when we first chatted. But that's basically, I was like, no, I'm not having that kind of life. Thank you very much. Were there any stories that you were handed as children, adolescents that you had to let go of, or that held you back from actually living into the life that you have right now?

30:55Yes. Now, I'm going to be so careful because when I say this, I'm not blaming anyone in my family but we came from a family where it where it was forbidden to talk about money particularly at the dining table uh it was rude to ask how much someone earned um that money was something which was like this thing that nobody ever talked about and i have to be honest that is something i rebelled so hard against and went way too far the other way but i rebelled so hard against because that story of money is dirty and i i had to work with like i read something i'm sure it was like um norman vincent peele or jim roan or tony robbins or someone like that where they were saying look at how people you're around describe money they say he or she is filthy rich you know they say money is the root of all evil when actual fact the supposedly the quote is the love of money is the root of all evil and there's resentment and all that and you have to let all that go and it was deepak chopra i think who said that that money is like a river it just as soon as you try and keep it it stagnates and it just damages the entire the entire sort of like cash fund but if you if it's like a river where you think you can just dip in anytime you want take as much as you want then it's cool so that's why you should when you get money spend money give it away don't feel it as something which you're never ever going to get again that was really freaking tough took me 10 years of reading all these wanky health self-help books of trying to understand and change my language with my thoughts around that and i don't blame my parents don't blame my family anyway they grew up and they you know and it's like the way stories are handed down but that was mine

32:33Leanne:lee sorry you've probably got a better one not at all i think that's much better no i i think the only i was i was pretty fortunate actually as i said is the youngest and by the time it got to me my parents like whatever as long as you go to university you're cool so i think for probably the only thing was around having a family I guess I all come I'm an old millennial you know I'm 41 so it was kind of I always assumed that I was gonna have kids I'd you know go to school go to uni get a job have children maybe go back to work part time or try and figure out that dynamic and as I got older I guess I was waiting for that that desire to kick in that I'm ready to have kids I want to have kids now and it never really did and I felt really uncomfortable probably from the age of maybe like 28 to 35 when it's like this is the time and it never kicked in and I remember driving to see my friend and my mum was with me and she just had a baby and my mum just said to me do you ever think you'll have children and at this point I think I was probably about 35 I said I'm wait I've been waiting for that feeling to kick in that maternity again and it just hasn't happened and she went that's okay I think that was a moment I said okay maybe it is okay all right then and then since then it's not yeah it's just been something that isn't isn't going to be a part of of my life and I at this point I don't think it was ever meant to be but when I was younger I guess I always assumed I felt a pressure that it should be.

34:04I think things like that the stories where it's like we need someone else to just say that's okay and sometimes it's ourself who needs to say that's okay for you to just do the thing that you want to do? I mean, where do you live currently? Bosnian Herz, governor, near Croatia. Every time I talk to you, you're in a different place. Even that, just saying it's okay to live wherever you want to live and explore an adventure. Do you feel like it's been more that you have had to give yourselves permission to do this, or has it ever been something that you've worried about?

34:35Leanne:I'm not sure I've ever worried about that. I've worried about it. Have you? Oh, you go first then. I worried that our friends a lot of our friends will describe our life as going oh it sounds amazing i mean it's not for me and it's like that is a very odd thing to hear really clearly sounds cool not for me and so it was took me a long while to realize that they were essentially closing that door so that they didn't feel like they were missing out or this is my interpretation this is so it's typical this is typical white male privilege isn't it deciding how other people are thinking but this is what I was thinking is that potentially that's what they're doing just like I've probably done the same with children and go it's not for me because then I've gone right I don't need to worry about that anymore I don't need to regret it I'd rather regret I'd rather regret not having children than regret having them and so it's like okay cool so that's kind of I suppose the bit that did bother me at first and also I was one of those expat you know idiots who'd come back and go oh I I've forgotten the name for this.

35:38What is it? Is it a pen? Is it a pen? I don't even have the finished word for it. You know what I mean? I was trying to make it work too hard. So, yeah, I was pretty unbearable.

35:48Leanne:So, I don't know. I think during that time, maybe it was my context. As I mentioned, I was working for a fully remote business and the MD and her husband were in business together and working remotely and travelled and members of the team travelled and lived in different places. So, I was in an environment where there was lots of people doing it. So, it didn't feel like I was very unique in that within our friendship group yes but not in terms of of people in my work world how is your livelihood made up right now and are you working full-time full-time what does a typical day or week look like well we first started doing the pod um we were doing we're probably doing 30 hours each a week weren't we on the podcast and i was like oh man i was like i've got final cut pro up and i've got side chains on and i was adding effects and i was cutting everything and we have realized that there's actually an 80-20 to that and we've managed to get it down to probably would you say about 10 to 15 hours each a week yeah probably typically monday and tuesdays are podcast days aren't they where we'll record we do two episodes a week so we'll record those prep whatever we need to for the coming week we'll maybe do two to three interviews a week so yeah yeah it's part-time the podcast consultancy rolls in and rolls out as the nature of any any consultancy or freelance will know sometimes it's busy sometimes it's not um but i i think that the key thing for us is in that downtime is constantly thinking one of three things how do we improve the podcast how do we continue to innovate it and make it interesting so people still listen what formats are getting tired in terms of the podcasting world how do we change those how do we appeal to a broader audience do we go back to video all these big questions we probably spend as much time talking about podcasts as we do creating it in terms of how we can make it better, who we want on as guests, what we want to be talking about.

37:34Leanne:And that will include a lot of research, a lot of reading what's happening in news in the world of work. So we're kind of on top of that. The second thing is around products for our consultancy clients. So we have our own employee engagement product that we've had for a while. We're currently developing a management training product, which has been taking up some of our time. And the final thing, really, if I'm being honest, is around life planning. It's like, well, how and where do we want to live is a fair conversation we have to have most weeks, especially when you're abroad and you're battling with visas and the Foreign Office doesn't know and you have to leave the country for three months and go to Bulgaria.

38:11Leanne:Like some of our choices and our working week is filled up with how do we stay in this country we're currently in. So that's probably how our time is split. And being completely transparent financially right now, the majority comes from the podcast. Mm-hmm. That's a dream. One thing that, Al, you had mentioned on the podcast that I listen to, which I'll put in the show notes, is you said a quote, your focus being on how you can help someone. That a lot of the times you see the show as a vehicle for highlighting other people and celebrating them and making them look good. And I feel like this is a common thread throughout a lot of the things that I've heard both of you talking about all the way from Samaritans through where we are today, which is helping other people.

38:56It's part of a transition that I advocate for moving from transactional to relational, being of service to people and not trying to squeeze the most out of everyone that you meet. I wanted to just talk a little bit about that. And for the humans out there that want to push back on this of like, well, you could get more out of those relationships. How do we help people understand the profound beauty and value of being relational instead of transactional? I think first of all read your book because your story around the magazine that you built everything you've done is it just seems like it's so relational and there's a lot to be said I think a lot of people are and I don't mean this in a bad way although I probably do are very selfish and self no self-centered is a better way and very self-centered because that's the nature of being a human, you have to look, you have to look out for yourself.

39:54If you can start to expand away from that and go, right, well, look, I'm going to be okay if I can help as many other people be okay as possible. Magical things happen, as you know, Megan, magical things happen. Again, that quote, I'm not going to say it because it's in the podcast and I said it about five times and I was cringing every time I said it, but something like the quickest way to get what you want is to help other people get what they want. It's look, think about sales, right? Demonstrate you can help someone by actually helping them. If I went to you and you said, I want to grow my part, and I went, tell you what, have a look at your analyst next week, and you suddenly got an extra 5 ,000 listeners, right?

40:30And I went, I did that. Do you want to give me five grand a month and I'll get you another 10 ,000? You may or may not say it, but you're certainly not going to tell me to go away. You're going to consider it. So I've helped you. I've demonstrated I can help you by actually helping you. And I think that is such an important lesson in anything, because you're going to get what you want by helping people get what I want. I feel like I've gone a little bit sort of like 70s hippie here and we should be passing around some kind of wet cigarette. But Lee, can you put a little bit of bones or a little bit of skin on those bones?

41:01Leanne:A mantra that Al and I have is nothing's wasted. Even when you find yourself in a situation doing work on something you're not really getting paid for or not very much for and it's taking more of your time, our mantra is always nothing is wasted because we're learning something from this. We're making a connection here. and there's been so many examples where later down the line by nurturing that relationship by giving that that time to somebody has come back in terms of either a paid job or a connection to somebody else that becomes a client or or just the opportunity to to have conversations with people who you connect with in a way that needs to feed you in especially times like this and even the bad times nothing's nothing's wasted and I am a big fan of positive psychology and I can get a bit a little bit woo with it and I don't get woo very often but I do with this because I think it is you you have to train yourself to be positive you have to train yourself to to be grateful and you have to train yourself through that to be resilient like when like I joked before about getting kicked out of Bosnia having to move to Bulgaria for two months but we did last summer and we had two days notice to uproot our entire life in a house that we'd rented out for nine months and wouldn't get the money back to have to find it three years before that when we did show nomading we were in bulgaria with a guy called niko who was lovely bit chaotic bit crazy loved him describe him as a toddler with wine that's the helicopter and helicopter crazy guy but we we put our time in and we were really you know we enjoy spending time with him but equally I think he enjoys spending time more with us than we did with him at times but you know welcomed him in and and kept that relationship going so when this happened to us and we hadn't seen him for three four years we messaged him we're like Nico bit of a pickle needs to leave the country any chance we can stay in that house she went to us six years ago he's like yeah of course she can see you in a week so this generally there's always things that are gonna you're gonna come back to when when you need help if you've helped somebody if you're paying it forward it sounds so cheesy but it's just the way you know humanity works it's almost like a bank account isn't it if i've paid in to somebody's bank account with goodwill and and helping them over the years and they're certainly to make withdrawal they're much more likely to be there to help me and that's that's how the world should work oh i like that so you're saying pay into your bank account before you try and make withdrawal or they should be overdrawn on goodwill oh that should be a book I think it probably is.

43:33Leanne:I think I stole that from somebody. And also just really quick practical thing for your listeners is if anyone is considering creating a podcast or they already have a nascent podcast, stop making it about you and getting your name out there and make it about getting other people. because, God, the number of people who are, you can email them and they are like your level four and they're level 100. And you go, would you like to come on the podcast? And they go, sure. And you're like, how the hell am I speaking to this person who I have been worshipping my entire life? You're obviously nodding.

44:04You know exactly what I'm talking about. Oh, I mean, I was 29 years old and sent a cold email to John Mackey, the co-founder of Whole Foods and said, do you want to be on the cover of my business magazine? That PS doesn't even exist yet. I'm going to crowdfund it this summer. And he was like, sure. And I was like, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. And so then I had to do it. But then he was on the cover of the damn magazine. And that's how we got into every Whole Foods in the country. So speaking of helping people, you all take lots of people's questions, workplace surgery. It's a whole segment.

44:32What are some of the patterns or trends you're seeing in 2026 that feel different than the last

44:39Leanne:couple of years fear around ai fear and i mean fear is an immersion like it's not stress it's not insecurity it's fear for livelihoods for professions for identities that people have built over decades being taken away by something potentially maybe we don't know i think that's been a big shift and I think more maybe more nuanced a couple of years ago talking about well-being and DEI was a very positive space to be now well-being has become a bit of a buzzword and DEI the pushbacks it's brutal it's brutal and people are some of the questions we get and people are feeling that we had one didn't we not too long ago about somebody who different DEI programs are being rolled back and values being changed on the website and how do they respond to it so and again a lot around identity i think before that it was work yes was part of our identity and there was things wrapped up in that and especially in terms of things like burnout which could be very difficult for people to deal with and particularly for entrepreneurs to deal with but i think in terms of threats to identity in a way and at a depth that i've not seen in my career i think i'd add to that and it's probably quite related but the polarization that's happened it happened on social media now it's happening in work where people are asking questions like well i'm now working for a boomer how the hell am i supposed to deal with a boomer because i'm i'm a gen z and it's like this is a you could you might you probably have grandparents how do you deal with them all right you have to go over and reset their router from time to time and replace the batteries and remote control but otherwise you don't have to talk to them so why are we making this all about them and us and i think that's one of the one of the issues which is so sad about the dei stuff is the dei was meant to bring us together um and now it seems like almost oh well they're the kind of company that does dei but we're not because we are smart and then you just see it all unlike are you for we're not going to use the word but that that man are you against that man um are you this are you that boomers versus this you're a side pick a side exactly people say don't stop being sheep and stuff it's like hold on a minute sheep's lovely sheep is how we existed for 10 000 years as an entire like herd of people organizations that's how we protected ourselves and now we're going all right well we europe's crap because they do this and they've got all that and america's better and then europe's going yeah but you know what if we break our leg don't cost us anything does it you know what i mean and it's like wait aren't we all just nice people who are just trying to get along in the world and just do the best of what we've got i don't know and you know what that's actually where we get most of our we don't get trolled very often unless we do mention that word um the t yeah pt every time trolled even if it's just been passing um i wouldn't speculate as to how and why that happens but it does for engagement though yeah it's good for engagement um but yeah we get trolled on things that we we more recently we never we never did in the first two years of our podcast anything around diversity inclusion anything around belonging we did an episode on transgender rights my goodness the comments we had on that episode it's things that yeah between 2022 and 2024 we would talk about openly and And people would be supportive, people would comment, share.

48:18Leanne:And now all of those topics, the last two years have become, you're absolutely right, a point of divide. And people just want to just stamp where they stand on that side of the argument. And it's a bit frightening, actually. How do you deal with the trolls?

48:40Leanne:How do we deal with trolls? Well, first of all, on a slightly like, what we've tried to do is go, when we start getting trolls, it means we're getting attention. It means that we've probably made it. Yeah. No, we don't mean like made it, but you know what I mean? At least, what do they say? The opposite of love isn't hate is ambivalence. So we are still on the spectrum of love and hate. We're on that side. People care enough to sit there and go, I'm going to write to these very strange English people and tell them just how the man has got a face like a melted candle. you know what the only the only trolls i that i ever rise to is when they question the evidence like it's a point of opinion if it's a point of of you know discrimination or hatred like that's you you're not welcome here i think i've only ever deleted a handful of comments and most of those were on the transgender episode that we did because they just don't need to be in the world and our guests don't need to see that that type of feedback but it's around the evidence so i get into arguments with people who will like I talk about about diverse teams and and how diverse thinking and therefore demographic diversity can also be good for team performance and someone was like cite your source so I was like you know what fair I didn't mention my source so here you go receipt receipt yeah exactly so that's how I push back with with evidence but otherwise it's people's opinions it's it's conversation unless it's discrimination or hatred which we just delete and remove um as i'll said let them go it's it's engagement and it's they tend to tie themselves in knots more than we they don't need our intervention most of the time and also megan you probably noticed yourself that i know you're nowhere near as old as us but but you probably when you get a little older you're sort of like going don't really care what you think if the truth be told i don't if if i know you and i and i still probably don't care much about what you think about me but if i don't know you i couldn't give a shiny shite i saw tom holland and i'm not i don't i'm not a big fan of tom holland but i don't i don't i don't dislike the guy that's gonna be clipped i don't know him but he was um he was on interview and somebody was asking me about that and he was like if somebody says something bad about me my only concern is if has that have they got my phone number if they've got my phone number then they should really be talking to me and saying that's my face if they've not i don't know him whatever and i think that's kind of when you creating content and putting stuff out into the world it can just be about i don't i don't know you whatever nice i love that and also leanne and i are the exact same age so i just gotten to the genuinely just couldn't give two shits stage and it is glorious and wonderful all right we have a rapid by a round.

51:20Truth lies work. Hardest truth you've ever had to come to terms with.

51:28Leanne:You're not that important. When I got my first management job, my HR director sat me down and went, just because you're a manager doesn't mean you're that important. You're not that important. You're disposable if you don't do a good job. And he was right. Brutal, but right. Yep. Wow. That is so much better than mine. Oh, sure. Mine's really cheesy, but money doesn't make you happy. And the lack of money doesn't make you happy. It's, yeah. I'm going to leave it there because there's so many tomes on that that I don't even need to go into it. Okay. The biggest lie you've ever been told, or the best lie you've ever told.

52:13Leanne:The overthinking. we both look at al okay biggest lie ever told megan was that i was running a legal off license that delivered alcohol when actual fact what i'd done is just basically ordered everything for every single person in the world and printed out an order sheet and i had literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper so if the police came and said why did why didn't megan order three bottled wine i go give me a minute i'll go find it and i've proved it so that's probably the biggest lie I've ever told. This was to get around licensing restrictions. Sorry, yes, I should have given that context.

52:47I didn't give that context. That's also very niche because that's English licensing law from like 2001. I mean, who cares?

52:54Leanne:But the point is the licensing man said no and you went hold my beer. I will print out every possible order should I ever get audited. If you can imagine me as a slightly more british or a much more british not as good looking slightly less cool mike ross from suits that was my role in that business lee i think i'm not sure anyone told me this but i think it a lie that i i believe to be a thing was that psychologists have to be very professional and put together and and speak well and not swear and remember the big words and present themselves to the world in a way that is Oxford, Cambridge, Ivy League.

53:38Leanne:And I've learned very recently that that's a lie. People want authenticity and how it is. And I don't use the big words because I can't remember them. I'm from the north of England, so I'm never going to sound posh and fancy. But the fact is, hopefully I can talk about psychology in a way that makes sense to people who aren't psychologists. most outdated work norm or practice that you wish people would change? Mice Briggs, Mice Briggs, please, for the love of everything in the world, can we put Mice Briggs in the bin already, please? Yes, I think you know what Leanne feels about that. I would probably say somewhere between the whole return to office thing where offices, in certain cases, offices do make a big difference if you're in a very creative environment where you need to be around people.

54:25Mad men, for example, wouldn't have worked if they all worked at home. If you were to give people a permission slip to unbehave around anything, a societal script, a workplace script, whatever it is, what is the permission slip that you wish you could give people to stop behaving in one certain way?

54:42Leanne:Stop behaving in the way you think or the people expect. Whether it be in your life, your career, where you live, how you work, what you do. stop trying to make decisions based on what you think other people think is right or is the norm so you have my permission slip to make decisions based on what you want and what work for you and your values and the way that you want to live do that wow i cannot beat that so i'm just gonna add the tiny little thing of if if you say i'm gonna go and live in don't live in bali but if you're going to go live in lombok or something you're going to go for benign months to germany then the voice that tells you that you're wrong and it's a stupid idea try and identify whose voice that is because if that's your parents that's your grandparents that's a friend just think that's probably the person who's holding you back the most permission to pursue the stupid ideas oh look at that mic drop but these are expensive to don't do that we've mentioned the podcast many times where do people find you how do people best support you i think basically just search online truth lies and work we come up um any way you look uh the website's truth lies and work.com and just spotify wherever you get your podcast search for truth lies and work and more importantly go search for leanne elliott on linkedin because she is a LinkedIn queen.

56:09She responds to every single comment, good or bad. Don't look, don't search for me. Eventually.

56:16Leanne:It sometimes takes me a little while, but that's, that's where you should go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Amazing questions. We love you so much. Oh, I love you guys. All right, my friend, before I sign off for the day, here are my key unbehaved lessons that I took away from today's episode. Number one, sometimes that fuck this moment is the most important career decision that you're ever going to make. Al's moment of sitting in front of the deputy headmaster at age 19, hearing about his 28 ,000 pound future and firmly saying, nope, is pretty much the seed of what he and Leanne have built.

56:55The ability to listen to that voice inside of you that pushes back and tells you that something is wrong or not for you, no matter what you feel like you should be doing. Number two, authenticity is the name of the game. I'll put it best. The way that we talk on the microphone is the way we talk in real life. And that's what draws people to their show. Every attempt to manufacture a more professional version of yourself is a barrier between you and the other people that would actually resonate with you. And this is how they built the UK's number one management podcast is by refusing to sound like every other management podcast out there.

57:30Leanne's closing line speaks to this as well. Stop behaving in the way you think other people expect. Make decisions based on what you want, what works for you and your values. That is authenticity. It's the whole shift. Every big decision that changed their lives came from letting go of seeking external approval. Number three, true success is built on being relational instead of transactional. Leanne talking about how nothing is wasted, especially when it's in service of other people or helping someone else. You never know when it's going to come back around. Think of it more as paying into that bank account with goodwill.

58:06Every relationship that you nurture without expectation of return compounds and creates a better future for you and the other person that you're helping. And last but not least, number four, when you're in the trenches, building something new and it starts to feel hard. The key steps that they brought up were fall in love with what you're doing. Make sure you're having fun. Strive for continual improvement. just getting 1 % better each time and do it your own way. That's all for today. If you liked the episode, maybe share it with someone who needs it and check out Truth, Lies & Work and Unbehaved on any major podcast platform and maybe even subscribe or write something nice.

58:45It would make my entire damn day. Until next time. That was our episode with Megan French done by MFD on Unbehaved. If you haven't already, go subscribe to a show right now. search Unbehave wherever you get your podcasts or head to meganfrenchdumbar.com forward slash podcast.

59:01Leanne:Yeah, she asked the kind of questions that most hosts probably wouldn't or would feel a bit awkward and comfortable. And yeah, the whole backcast log is just brilliant. Well worth a listen. Go now. Okay, next Tuesday, we're back with a proper summer sessions episode, I think is our last one as well. And this one's very sad. Well, not end of summer, just end of our summer sessions and this one is potentially a bit of a car crash because we're revisiting the predictions we made back in new year for 2026 we actually cover a few years i think we go all the way back to 2022 when we were just baby podcasters babies yeah so let's just say that our hit rate in terms of getting stuff right isn't great no but we will be honest we'll tell you exactly what we got wrong why and the couple of things we surprisingly probably accidentally got right yeah yeah so Yeah, cool.

59:51Leanne:This is Truth, Lies and Work. If you weren't sure, we'll see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. See you.