Why we all need to slow down in 2026 - Emma Harris

0:06Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. Now, you're probably listening to this just before 2026 is about to begin. And this conversation we're about to have is a really, really important one. My next guest, Emma Harris, has had an incredibly successful career. She's managed some huge brands. She's worked in sales and marketing. But something happened in her life that changed her forever. And she has a message that I want everyone to listen to about how you manage your life and how you manage your career. This is a really important conversation. I'm not going to steal much thunder because I want you to listen to this.

0:35Here we go. Emma Harris, welcome to the show. Thank you. Great to have you. And I've been really looking forward to this conversation because you've done some amazing senior marketing roles and got an incredible career, both kind of brand side and agency side. And I'd love to tap up your experience and find out what you've learned along the way. But maybe start at the beginning. Why marketing and how did you get into it in the first place? Well, it started in sales, actually. I mean, well, back in the day, my first job was a B2B marketing role and it was sort of across sales and marketing. I learned a lot.

1:05It was a very small business, so it was kind of the CEO, me, and a small team of people. And when I came out of there, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And I ended up at this assessment centre for what was called Bass then, that's now Molson Cools, and got into a sales role in FMCG. And there is no brand, well, there's no industry, I think, more than beer, where you really learn about brands, because basically it's the same shit in different tins. so really learning about people's choices based on that color or that brand that advertising you know it was Foster's versus Carling at the time and we were trying to get Carling on the bar in North London where no one wanted to drink it and then we sponsored the premiership we bought the sponsorship for Reading and Leeds Festival so we got music we got sport we bought distribution in places like Hanover Grand and Ministry of Sound.

2:00And that was it. It transformed. And Carling became number one during my time there. And you come out with any FMCG role. You've been in it, right? The training and the development you get. We had our own P &L as well. So we were finance manager, brand manager. We were loaning people. We were investing in bars in London. There's still some bars that I drive past. Now, this is about 30 years ago that I think, wow, I invested in that. and then came out and then went to Eurostar, went into sales in Eurostar. So a lot of people don't know this. My journey at Eurostar was basically every nine months me going, sorted that, next.

2:37And I went into the business team and very soon realized that the way the brand was positioned was very much a leisure brand, that they didn't really understand the opportunity in the business market. And I was in the right place at the right time. It was 2001. The business had grown for eight years and it was all really, really, you know, everyone was saying, it's really easy. You get bonuses every year because we just grow. And then 9-11 happened. Oh, no. And then the arse fell out of the business market and no one knew what to do because really they hadn't really been selling. They'd just been sort of order taking.

3:12And there I was from this sort of gritty to two decimal place, very margin driven background. And I was just right place, right time. And so very soon I took over business sales. then I took over all of UK sales, then I took off global sales. And one of my big legacies at Eurostar, although there are a few, was making the business take the business market seriously, recognise the opportunity with the margins, create an end-to-end customer experience. We didn't even have a property loyalty programme then. So creating proper loyalty. There were people flying BA during the week for business and then taking their wife on Eurostar at the weekend.

3:48And we're like, then we're not on their radar. are. So really transformed. We went to the board and said, look, this is the opportunity. We need proper lounges. We need a proper end-to-end experience. We need marketing. I was buying pages in The Economist with my trade marketing budget. And yeah, we really transformed that. And so, and then I was working with Mr. Nugent, who you know. He was my work husband. He was running marketing. I was running sales. We were a real duo. And I talk a lot now with the clients we work with about the importance of sales and marketing working together. We worked so well together.

4:23We had one team and Greg would come up with a maverick idea that he knew the board would say no to. He'd come to me, say, this is a great idea. I'd go to the bosses, convince them, they'd go to Greg as if it was their idea. And it was a beautiful thing. So when Greg left, giving me the marketing team was just a no brainer for them. And that's really unusual. I work with a lot of clients where that divide between commercial and marketing is a constant tension. So yeah, that was my journey. I was at Eurostar, then I led marketing there for about five years, and then jumped out and set up a glow.

4:58Wow. You're absolutely right about it's very unusual to kind of have so much sales experience in going to marketing. I mean, I've done some sales roles, I've run sales, van sales teams, even, you know, and I find it incredibly helpful. But very few marketers seem to have sales experience. I just wonder from your perspective, what advantage does it have as a marketer to have done sales roles before and what can kind of sales teach marketers? I mean, massively, because you're just obsessed with the customer, which most marketers are, but to start with what the customer needs, which is what all that sales are trying to do, is to find what's the customer problem, how am I going to solve it?

5:35That's what sales is. Sales isn't convincing you to buy something you don't really need. So as a marketeer to always start with a problem it's for me it's just been an absolute no-brainer and also not doing stuff that doesn't move the noodle you know always making sure whatever we do is getting buns on seats and not just doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff so i think that combination of things meant that what we did always really landed and we did we had i had 10 years of record sales at year and start 10 years of growth and that is during you know even 2001 2008 we started the year with a fire in the tunnel that shut services then we came out of that into a recession and we did everyone was saying no one's going to travel it's going to be a disaster and we did a big piece of research working the four is actually did a big piece of research state of the nation research and people were saying i think it was the beginning of the sort of journey we're on now where people were doing the jobs of two people and working stupid long hours and you know rather than saying they're not going to travel what they were saying is that that uh habits of the big three-week holiday in the summer they'd rather take more smaller breaks that was the that was the insight so we went out with a big campaign called little break big difference to really encourage the need you know we heard people wanted to reconnect with their loved ones recharge their batteries and there had been with the explosion of low-cost airlines this trend for i want to go to talon i want to go to all these crazy places that i to explore but people were too knackered for that they want to go somewhere where they can get off a train or a plane and just it just relaxed straight away so we really leaned into that and even in 2008 we had a record year even in 2009 with our crisis when the trains got stuck in the tunnel which was another learning curve we had we had 10 years of record growth let's drill down into that a little bit because you casually mentioned a fire in the tunnel and a train breaking down the tunnel like how do you respond as the person in charge of sales and marketing to such a catastrophic event like that Yeah, I mean, interestingly, the tunnel fire, we were in control of the comms.

7:54Nine months later, social media had launched. And we were caught short by that. So we'd launched social media with this little break, big difference social media platform. And we were working with We Are Social. Robin, not long set of the business, they were tiny. We were like a really big customer for them. And Robin kept saying to me, you've got to integrate this into corporate comms. But we had a new corporate comms director. and I was like, let me prove it works because it was a dark art at the time. So once we've proved it works, then we'll integrate it into corporate comms. And so when the trains got stuck in the tunnel and people were telling us on Twitter what was happening before our ops team, it was a shit show.

8:34And we, yeah, we were messaging them back from Little Break With Difference. I mean, you know, from the platform, that was the only social media handle that we had. So it was an absolute, it was a complete disaster. and we learned a lot we had no crisis comms process we had no gold command like I said so they were telling us what was happening before we knew and we we did learn a huge amount we had a behavioral psychologist amazing guy by the name of Dr John Armstrong who I paid on a retainer and I'd like give him a problem on a Monday and he'd come back with the answer on a Friday and what what we one tends to do when you've fucked up like that is to keep apologizing you think that's what we need to do we need to keep saying sorry but what John worked out is that our customers particularly our lower customers is the ones you've got to focus on particularly when you've got that business market where you've got about a thousand customers that are delivering about 10 percent of your turnover because they're literally backs and forth and he said you've got to stop talking about it now you've said sorry you've just got to get back they want you to get back to being trusted so we learned a lot yeah because your instinct is to just keep saying sorry and keep talking about it.

9:41But he said, no, just shut the fuck up. Stop talking about it. Get back to being reliable, which we were beforehand. So we actually re-skinned a little break with difference and got that back out again. And even that year, we had a record growth and we learned a huge amount. And ironically, or nightmarishly, the trains got stuck again the following year. And it always happens at Christmas. So us saying to people, only travel if it's urgent. Everyone was going home. There was no such thing as non-urgent. than when it happened the second year. My God, were our comms good? Because that's the thing with people just want to know.

10:15If your plane's delayed or your train's delayed, you just want information and that keeps everyone calm. So we did learn a huge amount. I've done a lot of talk about crisis comms. Don't over-explain. Don't, you know, don't lean into it too much. Say, yeah, sorry, we fucked up. We're going to fix it. Say, how are you going to fix it? Fix it and then get on with it. And then get on. I had a similar-ish experience, actually. on um i did had to relaunch lucasade and ribena after the sugar tax in 2017 so we were taking a lot of sugar out changing the formulation and because these are like heritage brands with so much love i mean 18 85 years old and whenever you change a tiny thing on those brands that i mean we had i think we changed the ribena formulation a few years prior and it's called ribena gate because the amount of complaints that came in and tesco you know it was a really big deal um and i remember like we took two different approaches on lucozade we leaned into it we told everybody we talked about it we you know apologized you know on twitter for people that are complaining and it just created this massive noise and i did some research which was really interesting after the event we lost a huge amount right and afterwards i looked at why have you stopped drinking lucozade and the number one answer by far was i heard people talking about how bad it was it wasn't that they'd tried it and didn't like the new formula it was the noise that the that we had created as much as anyone else yeah so i took that took a lesson then when we did the same thing on ribena about nine months later instead what i did is i doubled down on telling everyone it tastes great with a campaign they'd seen before and mentioned nothing about the fact the formula had changed not a peep sales went up and i was like wow you know how interesting that you think because the corporate comms are saying to you you must be on the right side of history you must do the right thing you must tell everybody everything you're doing yeah the danger with that is you tell them too much yeah um and they don't want to hear it they want to hear the positive not negative if consumers love a brand they want to be able to love it so don't keep reminding them that you know that it's changed yeah exactly exactly now you had a an amazing 10 year tenure you talked about kind of consistent growth over a long period of time um it's unusual to be in a role for that long i know the role changed in that time as well what do you know about marketing from having been in a role for that period of time versus that it feels like anyway today we are so short term chasing the number the next week next month next quarter what do you know about marketing having kind of overseen a brand for that length of time well I mean I think just the fact that it changed so much and within that time I also led the change management when we opened St Pancras so I did lots of different things within that time we did a massive entire rebrand what I know about marketing is that it's all about the people and that's that was the big thing I'm a very people led marketeer when I first met the legend that is Sherilyn Shackle she interviewed me when she was a headhunter for a job we can't even remember now what the job was we just became best friends within about 20 minutes but um she said to me you're very peopley for a marketeer all you've really talked about is your team and what you achieved and all their development and how proud you are of them and and I was like yeah and I was very blessed at Eurostar as I was in my time at FMCG, A, that I was given a lot of bandwidth around me and also that they invested a lot in my development.

13:32So I did NLP twice, actually. I did the NLP practitioner program. I was taught how to be a coach. I engaged in, we had a business called Planet K2, who I'm still very involved with. I was an NED from them, I think, from about 2008. And they're all about human performance. and they're about understanding that performance in sport. So the guys at Planet K2 have spent 30 years in elite sport and apply all that knowledge and understanding to business. So I came out of Eurostar, of course, with an understanding that marketing is about understanding customer need, you know, and solving those problems.

14:11Also that you're only as good as your people. What advice would you give, you know, leaders today about how to get the best out of people and best out of teams? Well, I mean, I think it starts with the brand. So that was the big thing that I recognized. When I started doing this consulting work, I would focus on the brand. A lot of people said my reputation at Eurostar was to transform the brand. And then I'd be like, right, where's the CPO? Where's the HRD? Let's get this embedded into the business. Let's make sure we're rewarding people on the right behaviors. Everyone knows how to show up to deliver on the brand.

14:46And there'd be tumbleweed. People didn't realize that's the job. So that's why I set up Glow. And the big advice for me is, you know, people don't map people experience with the same energy as customer experience. You know, any brands like our customer experience has to be loaded with a brand. What about your people experience from your employer brand that's external right the way through to that, even that process of recruitment and a bit that we call from yes to desk, which is when someone accepts a job and then there's that gap, which is usually tumbleweed, until they start their first day.

15:23And packing that with that brand experience, making sure that they know that from day one, this is what we expect of you. This is how you need to show up and deliver the brand. And at every moment that they're there, every touch point is loaded with those brand messages, those brand promises. Everything moves in the same direction. decisions are made quicker. It's just, it's that classic sort of getting everyone on the bus. And that's the bit people miss. So the people experience the one thing. And second is ensuring people feel valued, feel seen, feel looked after. You know, people are being thrashed at the moment.

16:01How can you do your best work? I know John Amici talked to you about this. But how can people do their best work when they're exhausted and they're running? You know, I mean, this is why Slow the Fuck Down is so big at the moment. because everywhere you look, people, and I use this phrase a lot, are drinking from a fire hose, and that's overwhelming. So for me, it's put your people first. For me, the one question to ask your team is, how do you feel on a Sunday night? And if you dread Monday, then do something about it. But I look forward to Mondays. You know, we've got a team day on the 7th of January, which was like our second day back after Christmas.

16:39I can't wait. You know, I'm going to enjoy Christmas with the kids, but I'm so excited about getting back in. So that's, I think, make sure you just fill it with joy. Because life's short. Poking people first also means choosing the right people to be on the journey as well, doesn't it? So what's the one or two things that you look for when you hire somebody? I mean, the first thing is making sure that they're right for that role. Because a lot of us like to recruit in the similar vein of ours. Oh, they're like me. Surely not. Yes, we do. We have those egos. And I'm an extreme red-yellow. I am like the top of that circle so I'm very big picture I'm very fast-paced I mean no I need people around me and we've got a small and perfectly formed team where I've got a lot of green and a lot of blue because without that I'm just gonna run a million miles an hour I have very little completed finisher energy in me I can do detail but I don't love it so for me it's about recognizing what actually is is the thing that you need and it might be you So sometimes you need to create that tension.

17:42You need people that are going to, you know, for me, I need people that are going to slow me down and help me create that rigor around me so that I'm not just running a million miles an hour. I couldn't agree with you more. I know I was joking about, you know, we love to hire an image, don't we, because it's the chemistry and the bonding over ideas. But you're absolutely right. I mean, the best relationships I've had in my career have been people that are completely opposite to me. And actually, we just improve each other, you know, and, you know, good at coming up with ideas, but good at execution.

18:08they're often very different skill sets aren't they yeah it's good to have both of them together now you mentioned Glur a couple of times and this of course is the agency that you set up yeah um what was it like going from kind of a big brand role in a recognized brand to setting your own thing up that's quite a big jump to make isn't it yeah I think it was an immediate thing I sort of left Eurostar I was I had a baby I wasn't sure whether I was going to be an earth mother or throw a nanny at her so I did the consulting for a while and then I had a stint at a job working someone which didn't go well.

18:37I had six really difficult months. I'm not going to say what the brand is. And I got bullied and I got fired. And it was an organization that didn't really get brand. And I'd lost a baby while I was there. My mum had died. It was a really shit year. And when I came out of that, I said, right, I'm not working for anyone else again. And I manifested, which I'm a big manifester, that I wanted to have a certain role. And actually, I ended up working at Virgin Management in Paddington. I really wanted to get close to that brand for a long time. I've always thought it was an incredible brand with a brilliant heritage.

19:12And I ended up running a thing called Virgin Sport for Freddie, who is Holly's husband. And that's when I said, right, OK, this is something. I was working with AKQA. It was a great project. I was like, right, this feels right. Coming in to deliver transformation and then going out again. And that top of the circle, red, yellow, means I love getting in, driving change. But the actual execution bit, I lose my energy for. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to do this properly. I'm going to set up glow. Just before you get into that, you casually mentioned all the challenges you had. I mean, that's a lot, isn't it?

19:48It was a shit year. Yeah. How did you bounce back from that? And how do you think, looking back, that actually helped shape what came next? I have an amazing coach and I recommend everyone to have an amazing coach. I remember that really tough time that day I got fired and I stood on a platform, a train station and called her and was crying and she said, what do you want? And I described literally the role I ended up doing at Virgin and having a car parking space. I had a one year old at the time who I wasn't seeing because we were in the office five days a week. and I was like I want to be you know flexible working I want when I go to work I want a car parking space I described the whole thing and that was July and by October it happened so that for me and having a really clear vision about what it is I wanted and what was important to me and I continue to do that because it evolves and then so this takes you to your journey of creating GLOW presumably that's what happened there so what was what is GLOW here to do and what you know What's it been like setting up your own agency?

20:54I mean, again, it's evolved. So it's a small but beautifully formed organisation. So it started off sort of me and some freelancers and it's sort of grown. The idea behind it is that inside-out branding. It's that you cannot have, say, one thing and do another. And the infinite loop between brand and culture that has to exist, whereas most agencies will sort of stop at the colouring in and do all the external stuff. We make sure that we've always got engagement from HR and that we're delivering that engagement piece, taking it from with us and driving it across the business. And that's the idea about Glow.

21:27We really do sort of get under the skin of a business and we partner with the leaders and drive that transformation. And it has evolved because now, obviously, Glow, one of the sort of the backbones of Glow is about helping people slow the fuck down. Any advice for being your own boss? I think for me, one of the things that I've been really clear about is about the clients that I choose. we had some clients where you're sort of cap in hand we had a client in manchester you know something went wrong and my team would be constantly stressed out and crying on the phone and and if something go wrong i'd be on the train to manchester to try and sort them out and as i recovered i thought fuck that fuck that i will only work with people it's always got to be peer to peer at least and i think often because of also the fact that i'm chair of the global marketing academy and i'm a fellow of the marketing society there's almost sometimes it's like i'm not the boss but they'll look up to me so the advice i'm giving them is really genuinely considered because there's nothing worse than feeling like a supplier you know that sort of happiness that's that's the biggest thing i think for me is choose who you work with now we must get on to an event that happened right because your world changes doesn't it after this point yeah can you tell me what happened?

22:43Well as many people know on 30th May 22 I'm in New York so at the time I was on the exec team for the social element which is Tamara Littleton's amazing business and we'd had a week of board meetings the week before I'd been in Chicago with WPP and it was the Friday we'd had a long week and I was in a restaurant having brunch stood up to go to the loo and had a cardiac arrest and for those people that don't know a cardiac arrest is not a heart attack it is lights out That's what happened to Christian Erikson in the Euros. And unless you have a doctor or a defibrillator near you, you die. 91 % of people die.

23:20And I just happened to have, there were three people in the restaurant, so Tamara and Lynn Frost, just screaming, please help us, please help us. And three people came over, two women and a man, and they were all doctors, and they gave me CPR and saved my life. And then ambulance came in seven minutes, which is unheard of in New York. My heart stopped again twice in the ambulance. They didn't think I was going to make it. and I made a full recovery. Absolute miracle. Of the 9 % of people survive that, 60 % get brain damage. So it's, I really am a walking miracle. Less than 5 % of people would be in your position.

23:56And as I recovered, when I woke up in ICU, all I could think about was what the fuck have I been doing? Because as I said, I've done NLP and I've studied human performance as part of the Planet K2. And there I was. And I've been talking for years. years I did a lot of speaking particularly at the marketing academy about how to live a life and how our unconscious minds run on fear and now not to lean into it and I realized I've been I was a hairdresser with bad hair I was somebody who was putting myself last I wasn't looking after my well-being I mean the only reason they thought this could have happened and was stress and I shared this on LinkedIn left with my phone which is stupid idea the kids didn't know I was ill my clients didn't know I was ill I should have kept it quiet but I was off my tits on morphine so I can't blame myself I shared this post on LinkedIn a picture of myself you know oxygen up my nose saying look I'm I'm a big believer that social media shouldn't just be for the positive and here I am in ICU I'm lucky to be alive I've got four kids I'm on the PTA I'm the trustee of the charity which is the marketing academy foundation I'm running two businesses I'm always putting everyone first and here I am don't be me everyone who's reading this everywhere I look people are burning out please take a moment to put yourself first sit in a park go and look at the birds take a breath in massive capital slow the fuck down and it broke LinkedIn I mean it got 9 million views which is just unheard of yeah it was shared thousands of times 90 ,000 reactions like nearly 10 ,000 and comments um and that was that was the birth of slow the fuck down i mean what a moment and and you know well thank you for sharing it by the way um and putting on to linkedin because everyone's chasing everything on linkedin aren't they all the time and the pressure to show up to pose to do this thing to juggle that and everything else what would be you know that's a obviously a life-changing experience you went through and i'm thanks so thankful you sat here today what would be your advice to everybody then having gone through that i mean the big thing is that it look it's tough right now right let's not pretend there is a lot of stress you know we're in a we're in a i always say the world's going to hell in a handcart you know it's a perfect storm of economics and politics and war and recession and everything that's happening it's hard enough and what we are doing and what are we are pre-wired state is to think negatively so 95 of our behavior is unconscious and 85 % of our 65 ,000 thoughts a day are negative.

26:30And our unconscious minds don't know the difference between something we're imagining or reality. So we've got this sort of, this engine constantly saying, this is going to go wrong, this is going to go wrong. And our unconscious minds don't know time. So we're constantly catastrophizing and we're reacting on that because whatever we believe drives our feelings, which drives our behavior, which creates the outcome, which is the self-fulfilling prophecy. So we're mitigating fear constantly. And that's what creates stress. And it's about breaking that cycle. Are you making decisions? Are you feeling something?

27:05Are you responding something? Because of an imaginary thought that isn't real. And that's the bit that I interrupt. People say to me, oh, that's why you're going to Australia. You're not slowing the fuck down. And I'm like, slow the fuck down is not about doing less. it is about taking a breath before you do things before you respond to things to recognize the choices that you're making to make sure that those are the ones that are right for you you know i'm lying in an icu bed in new york with a five-year-old at home i've got four kids and thinking you know have i made the right choices to make sure i'm around for him no so it's just that often you know we imagine the worst and we act on the worst and it's not real why am i working at 11 30 at night because some part of me is believing if i don't send that email then i'll lose that account and then i'll never my i'll lose my house and my kids will die on the street actually no that doesn't exist i can shut my laptop and i can go to bed yeah and that's the big advice and you know what it's amazing isn't it that when we do slow down we end up speeding up there's a real contradiction that people don't realize because the clarity you get the thoughts that come to your minds the the the energy you restore in yourself actually prepares you to to kind of accelerate it's funny i had um zaria parvez on the podcast recently she's the woman behind the success of duolingo she's probably i don't know one of the world's best social media managers you know what i mean like she's invented duo tens of millions of followers she's in culture i mean what she's done is amazing right and i asked her for like what's the one bit of advice and she said get bored i'm like oh really and because she said you've got to take time to be boring to be bored because actually that's where all the processing happens that's where the ideas come that's where the reset happens and she's like i'm off social media after a certain time but you're managing one of the biggest brands in the world but presumably on it the whole time and said no i can't be to be good at my job that's exactly what i can't do when do we have our best ideas in the shower when we're falling asleep you know you cannot be creative when you're running and that that is people don't understand that slowing down absolutely so we run slow the down programs for businesses that we've sort of taken slow the fact down right into the middle of glow and that is about saying right everyone's running often they're running in different directions let's take a moment let's work out actually what is it you're trying to achieve getting laser clarity on that because often when things are running so fast people forget to actually set the vision and direction let's make sure we prioritize the things that are going to actually get the bums on the seats let's align our behaviors let's take a moment now that needs investment in time and energy and often time feels like the impossible luxury right now but we can get them to get together and do that and then they find they're saying no more they're doing less because they're focusing on the stuff that actually makes a difference and exactly what you're saying it's about not speeding up as in getting back to running but you're creating growth you are getting people to prioritize their own mental and physical well-being there's so much evidence that says that makes you more productive and you're aligning everyone so people move faster so it is it's it's absolutely that it's slowing the fuck down to speed the fuck up the prioritization is so important because everything you say yes to that's not right is getting in the way of doing the right thing for your business, isn't it?

30:36And it's only when you slow down you go, well, do I really need to do that? Is that really the right thing to do? And actually making that decision, prioritization is key, isn't it? Absolutely, because it's the fear that makes you say yes. So what if we don't do that? And you're not even really listening to the thought. If I say no to that and we're missing the biggest opportunity, you know, it's like we're not signing the Beatles. You know, you're always, it's like business FOMO, that if I don't do that and that is not real and that kind of behavior, breaking that cycle what evidence do we have we're marketeers we like evidence what evidence do i have i don't have any right don't do it you're absolutely right tapping into the emotion of it i know daniel kahneman talks about you know the the experience of a negative emotion is twice as powerful as the pleasure of a positive one so we do without realizing put more stock on those negative emotions like fear and anger and things like that so we're driven more by those than we by the positive yeah and the body keeps the score you know you're you're increasing your blood pressure you're creating cortisol in your body it's it and then you end up in icu in new york you know it keeps the score and we can choose that four o 'clock in the morning i had it this morning i woke up at four and you know the mind starts whirring and all the negativity and it's just about saying stop you know i don't know if you've read the power of now but that's what i can't tell talks about you know we live most of our lives in the past we can't change or in a future that hasn't happened yet and it's back saying right it's actually four o 'clock in the morning all that's happening is he's snoring the dog's asleep on my foot it's all okay yeah blood pressure down heart rate down cortisol gone i mean the power of your story i mean lots of power to your story but one of the powerful things about your story is it for a lot of people it could have been too late that lesson right because because often often we don't realize what pressure we're putting on our bodies because we're going so fast we're not stopping to do the exercise we're not stopping to get a health check i mean i suffer from both high blood pressure and high cholesterol the amount of pills i take you'd be shocked right and you just think well he looks relatively normal and on top of it and laid back kind of guy right you know not true you know what i mean uh but you don't discover that when it was almost too late for you wasn't it and that's that's why i think this is such an important conversation and that's why i'm passionate about it and that's why i'll keep talking about it because if i can get a message to one person to do something differently and that is you know think about what in the week you need what space you need what downtime you need you know athletes don't train seven days a week and i hear more and more about people working weekends working late into the night that is not performance that's not high performance that's a really good point i do a fair bit of cycling and when i read the coaching advice they say the strength comes in the day off yeah right so you do the training and actually you're putting the body under stress you're you know you're you're damaged you're slightly damaging the muscles you get stronger in the recovery that's actually where the jump happens exactly the same idea isn't it exactly and there's no clarity of thought in the overwhelm my eight year old knows that last night uh he had a bit of a meltdown and i was saying right we need to make a decision and he went mum i can't think straight i'm overwhelmed don't you understand what happens when you're overwhelmed and i thought oh wow therein speaks the truth yeah oh i know it's hilarious your kids always tell you about yourself recently i was saying come on get ready for school we're going to be late and I'm going to be late and I've got my training and he went great manifesting mom oh I love it when kids do that I know call you out on your own beliefs now we're on the verge as we're calling this on verge 2026 right um anyone listening that's thinking entering a new year it's a great time isn't it new year to begin to think about what as your words kind of what you want to manifest this year what advice would you give to somebody about how to approach this new year?

34:15Well, going back to the manifestation, you know, start at the end. So when you're at the beginning of the year, right, I've got to do all these things this year and it's so overwhelming and it feels insurmountable. So an exercise that we do both for personal growth, but also for team and leadership growth is you go into a future and you literally just go into that moment. We pick a date in the future and say, right, what does that, let's describe the conditions of that day. And from a personal point of view, I get people to describe that one day from the minute they wake up, how they're starting the day with some yoga or some exercise and, you know, walking past their new sofa and what's happening in their life and get them to cover home, work, relationships, health and finance.

35:01Do it in the present tense. Put some smart objectives in there. And then at the end of it, summarize that day with three words of how it feels. And then do a vision board that goes with it. So I'm a personal, that's how I do it every January. I go forward to January the future year and it works. Because your unconscious mind that doesn't know time, it's basically like putting a postcode in your sat nav. It's saying, this is where we're going. 95 % of that behavior is unconscious, programming. From a business point of view, what you're doing by going into the future is you're removing the shackles of today.

35:36So where it's you're in now and it all feels really hard and we can't do this and we haven't got that. we go into the future we use a process called the neurological levels of change it's a theory by a guy called robert diltz it's an nlp theory and you identify all the different levels from the top of what's your purpose what's your identity like how people talking about you what the beliefs that have got you here what are the behaviors what are the capabilities what's happened externally to you and we paint this beautiful picture where you know they're number one and they've won these awards and everything's amazing and create the conditions that have got there then we go back to today and you unpick the same process and sort of this is a bit like therapy I'm picking all the stuff that's holding us back and then you build the bridge how are we going to get from there to there if you start the year with that clarity what you've got is a really clear vision this is our picture of success identification of all the things you need to focus on.

36:36So that's your priorities. And the belief, because again, belief drives feelings, drives behavior. If you've seen that picture of the future, that belief, that 95 % of the behavior will take you there. So that's what we're doing a thing called the 12 days in January, follow us on LinkedIn. And it goes through the steps to get you there. And it's a combination of doing the work and making sure that you're taking your team with you. So they're individually doing all that. And it really does set you up for success for the year. Would you advise sharing it publicly? Because I know sometimes I've kind of gone, right, I'm going to do this this year.

37:11It feels scary when you do that. You're like, what if I don't do it? There's something about, I mean, maybe it's not necessarily publicly, but at least be accountable to other people to say, this is what I'm going to do. And there's something about that, isn't there? Keeping you honest. I think so. I think the more you express something, you know, set goals, achieve more, do it externally. You're holding yourself to account. I have a little accountability group, actually. Myself, the amazing Sophie Devonshire, CEO of the Marketing Society, and a wonderful friend, Julie Dolman, who's a complete legend in our world.

37:42And the three of us, every week we have an accountability group where on a Friday we share our challenges and wins for the week. And we give each other feedback and support and we share our thoughts and worries. And it's a beautiful thing. So I would do externally and I'd also find those groups that you can keep holding yourself accountable for and because you know it does it creates that momentum I love that so much Corey Marchesote one of my favorite CMOs and guests on the podcast she talks about having a personal board of directors which I love yeah like and she was like you don't have one John what are you doing how have you got this far with that one sort of thing but a set of people and they may cover different aspects of your life but when you're in a time where you have to make a big decision or you're in a crisis or you need to pick you need to be picked up or you need advice on something you don't know about then she'll be able to call on any one of them yeah i like that oh that's good and that's a bit of accountability in that as well somebody to remind you you know you said you're going to do this and you know stretch your thinking yeah i love that a lot sherrylyn talks about the village and you need somebody who's you're a great supporter a great coach a great challenger and a great share i can't remember the different ones one of my clients we were in a session and she listened showing and looked at me and went you're all four of those but yeah it's really important to what we call it the tribe to make sure that you've got that tribe you know most people in your life will be taking energy away from you you know we have a finite amount we talk a lot about energy management if you imagine you've got a cup of energy most people are drilling holes in the bottom your kids your kids are taking a lot out of that and your money who's the people that put that energy back in in in holding to account but also encouraging you they know you they see you and making sure you've got that tribe it's so important that's such good advice i'm always shocked in in the roles that i've done the percentage of people that actually want you to fail yeah and want to drain energy from you want to criticize you and so you you need that rebalance you need a team around you that are going to see you for what you are and going to encourage you and pick you up on that kind of and keep you i love that emma thank you that's just really inspiring and uh yeah i'm going to take a lot of that advice by the way because i could really do with this as well get off those tablets 100 man yeah i mean it's it's it's a real wake-up call i bought i got i got given a whoop actually which is um a little shout out to whoop here but gives you so much data about how you sleep how much stress you're under heart rate blood pressure and it's just knowing that information is a real wake-up call and i've changed my lifestyle just the last two months since having this it's a really good bit of feedback so yeah sometimes the technology can help with it as well yeah absolutely and you know whatever prompts you need yeah you know i have lots of rhythms lots of rhythms and rituals to make sure that i'm choosing all the right things so on a sunday for example i spend just 15 20 minutes planning the week when I'm going to exercise sometimes it's like a sweaty workout sometimes it's yoga and stretching what I'm going to wear every day actually I do this is why I wear black t-shirts by the way just in case anyone wants to get up and I don't have to make that decision but it just it removes that tension but yeah just planning your week when you're going to do things for you when you're going to and what you need to achieve every day also how you want to feel every day that sort of using a bit of manifestation in there all those what are the rhythms and rituals that are going to keep you sane even i write down what nights i'm going to go to bed really early you know knowing at the moment it's you know silly season there's a lot nights out so where possible put those measures in if it's tech that you need great but it's just prioritizing you know one of the headlines i talk about is work out what matters and prioritize it sounds really obvious but unless you don't consciously do that that's where the sort of fear and the unconscious you know mitigation will take you take you down it will well I think that's almost a perfect place to end actually because that is top advice and thank you for sharing that take notes everybody because there's a lot of wisdom in there and don't make you know don't be caught out like you were that time oh my god that's a big story yeah look after yourself thank you for sharing it thank you thanks a lot John thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored CMO.

41:53I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on x at Uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn, where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.