Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Career Expert: Watch This If You Want a Successful Career

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Heather Elkington is one of the UK’s leading leadership experts, an author, and a TEDx speaker who has been featured in Forbes and GQ.We'll explore how to choose a career you’ll love, how to earn respect at work, and the biggest career mistakes every girl should know.What you’ll learn:👛 Hack to get paid x3 times your salary **🤍 How to stop being a people pleaser⭐ Ways to get other people to respect you✏️ 5 things you MUST include in your CVs🚩 How to spot red flags from your managerBut first, please don’t forget to subscribe and share, it really helps us to grow this podcast.Resources & links mentioned:@leadershipheatherLinks to subscribe / follow:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/her-discussions-by-dr-faye/id1835829612Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5viLYizHD4Zy6J42iqtPRoCan I ask you a BIG favour? 💙Please leave a review or rating. It helps us grow the podcast and bring you more amazing guests.Share with someone who needs this; it might help them live a happier, healthier life.Follow us on social media or join the broadcast channel to send us your questions for our guests. I'll leave the link here: https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==🛑 Disclaimers:Opinions are my own. This content is for educational / entertainment purposes and not medical or financial advice.

69% of employees say their manager has more impact on their mental health than their therapist, their doctor or their partner. Heather Elkinson is one of the UK's leading career experts, an author, a TEDx speaker and has been featured in Forbes and GQ. But today she is here on her discussions podcast. We'll be exploring people pleasing, being taken seriously in the workplace and what might be holding you back in your career that you don't even realise. The two things I felt the most vulnerable about were actually my superpowers.

I think that's a bad thing in a lot of ways because... You can underestimate me and I'm just going to show you what I can do. We have to come on to how to help women take criticism. No one's coming. Like no one is coming to save us and it has to be you. How do you want to fucking show up? Perfection avoids criticism. Excellence invites criticism.

But before we get into the conversation, please make sure that you're some or you have left a five-star review. Please, it really, really helps us. Keep bringing you guests to help you live a happier, healthier life. Thank you. Hi, I'm Heather Elkington and this is her discussions podcast. Heather, our community have sent in so many questions about succeeding in their careers and especially the unique problems women face like people pleasing and learning how to be assertive. But first, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what inspired you to go. into this and specifically what makes you want to inspire women to be better in their careers? Yeah. I think like most things in life, we become good at certain things because we mess it up so

much in the first place. And so as someone who I'm 30 years old now and I see my career as been around like, I started working when I was 15, 16, but my proper career really kicked off when I was like 20, 21 years old. And so 10 years, and I see my career in two very distinct parts. The first half being I was just the world's biggest people pleaser. I was burning myself into the ground, working the longest hours, doing everything that I thought would get me ahead when it turned out. It was actually the opposite. And I just went through this kind of pivotal point around like 25, 26 years old where I went through a breakup, moved city, so I moved from London back up to Manchester.

moved careers, had this whole career change. And I kind of took a bit of a step back because I'd gone from being in a management role, then moved into a PA role, which I want to talk about in a set because it was one of the most important roles they ever had. And then moved into this very small startup called GoProposal. I was the second member of staff. And over the next three, four, five years, we built that business from nothing, to them on the absolute ground up, all the way to multimillions in revenue.

And then in 2021, we sold it into SageGree. So huge corporate. And I overnight went from being an ops director in this very small business to an ops director inside a huge Futsi 100 corporate. And at this point, I'm like 27 years old managing five different global teams, you know, flying across the world to do different workshops, etc. And so my career really was in two halves. And the first half was just fear. Like everything I did was built, came from a place of fear. And, I am from the north and from a place called Doncaster, went to a very normal school, state school,

had a very northern accent when I first moved down to London. And I just was so vulnerable about so many things. My accent, my age, just, and I think Harrods didn't help. So I used to work at Harrods. It didn't help because you had to look perfect. They would check your outfit, check every crease in your dress, check every hair that was out of place.

And so I just felt so like a shell of myself. I felt so vulnerable. I had such huge levels of imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome is an interesting one because, and I'm going off on a bit of a tangent now, but it's an interesting one because there's a lot of rhetoric at the minute around, like, is imposter syndrome even real? Like, is it something that's just kind of made up to hold women back?

And I watched all the discourse around it and tried to understand, like, is it just made up? Have I just made this thing up in my head? but I truly could not find a better way to describe my feelings than feeling like an imposter, like feeling as though I was stood in rooms, in meeting rooms, on shop floors with a team where at any given moment someone was going to turn around and go,

you're too young to be here. You don't know what you're saying. Like, you don't articulate well enough to be sat in this meeting room right now. And so the first half was just fear. It was people pleasing. It was, yeah, imposter syndrome, being scared at any given moment. And also just disliking my job.

I just, and if anyone at the moment is in a place where you just feel really unfulfilled by your work, that for me, after doing that for a good, like, four or five years, just drove me to this point where I was like, I need to make some changes, relationship changes, location changes, career changes. So I went and joined a tiny startup and eventually moved from having some really bad managers to get into experience really great managers. So I had in the second part of that career, I had some incredible managers. I had this lady called Karen, who was my manager at Sage,

and she were rebranding the name Karen, by the way, because she was an awesome Karen. Nice. Lady called Karen at Sage, and she would just say my name in every room, like find opportunities for me, put me forward for things. And she just filled me with, like, so much pride to be a woman when I had had had negative experiences with that. Like, I used to work at a restaurant when I was younger, and the lady who was my manager It was just awful to me, to my friends, like holding us back, quite envious, quite jealous of things

and it felt like competition all the time. And so then getting to experience an amazing manager and just what they can do for your mental health, how excited you feel to go to work, how fulfilled you feel, how challenged you feel. I was like, shit, we need more of these people because how much of a better place would the world be if we had, everyone had an incredible manager? and there's a really great stat that is 69% of employees say their manager has more impact on their mental health than their therapist, the doctor or their partner. So their manager has more impact on their mental health. Yet so many managers never get any training. They are usually driven into like fear management tactics by their organisation because they have these huge targets.

They're under such big pressure. And so at some point along that journey, I was quite a young, in a director role at very young age, but really doing my best to make sure that my team felt safe, psychologically safe, they could experiment, and they could make mistakes, they could, they were challenged, like I'd pushed them to do things that they were slightly uncomfortable with, but it took a bit of courage to do, like doing webinars

or, you know, having the difficult conversations that we avoid, but it helped keep them challenged and fulfilled because they knew that I backed them, and if they made a mistake, I would take the fall for it as well. and then about three or four years ago we used to do this these six monthly surveys at sage where they'd survey every single person in the team to see how engaged they felt how much feedback they got from their manager anyone in bigger businesses will have done these before where you have these engagement surveys from the business and twice so we did it every

six months and twice my scores came back as the best in the business so there's tens of thousands of staff at stage across the globe. And mine were coming back as the best in the business. And so the learning and development director very quickly reached out. And she was like, we need to get you doing some training for our originally aspiring managers. And so they sent me all across the world to run these workshops for just how to be a great leader in the modern world.

Like post-COVID, we're coming back into the office. We've got Gen Z in the workforce. You know, how to manage in the modern workplace. And so my mission now, it really, my mission is to build a world where everyone loves the work they do. I just think how much happier could we all be if everyone could find a sense of challenge and fulfillment from their job? And I believe that starts with managers. There's so many points that I really need to pick up on.

I think first and foremost, you might be listening at home thinking, oh, I don't want to be a manager. Why is this relevant to me? But the reality is for most people to progress in your career. most of the time that involves progressing through management. And I think that's a bad thing in a lot of ways because not everyone makes a good manager. A good manager is a completely different skill set

at what your job might be. Giving people who are good at their jobs, the tools to also be good managers is so, so, so important. There was a video that I watched about imposter syndrome and the person on it was saying imposter syndrome doesn't exist, like what you're saying. I witnessed my mum who she was a school, nurse for when she was a nurse, then she got her first management position in her 50s. I think

I was 18 doing my A levels. And I witnessed her the night before she started that job, freaking the fuck out. Excuse my language. Freaking the fuck out. This woman who, she had raised two children, you know, being in her career for 20, 30 years, traveled the world. And she was panicking at her first time managing people. Imposter syndrome does exist. It exists for men, but it is worse for for women. I do completely understand the narrative of sometimes we do more damage like you were saying being northern, being state educated, being a woman, there are prejudices that exist when classisms, sexisms that do exist. But I do often wonder how much damage we do to ourselves by over-emphasising the importance those prejudices have on our life.

I had a job in orthopedics in a central London hospital. Now, anyone who works in medicine knows that orthopedics is a very, very, very male-dominated specialty. What is orthopedics? Bones. Bones. Bones.

Male-dominated, often privately educated male-dominated, and especially in London, even more so in London. And every morning at 8am, we would have a trauma meeting, which would be a meeting in front of all the consultants.

So I looked out, across this sea of mostly privately educated, very well-spoken, older men, and me as the doctor who'd maybe been on call overnight, I would then be expected to present these patients. And I'm a yapper, you know, like I'm a big, at this point, I'm talking on the internet all day, every day. I would stand up in front of that meeting and completely freeze and just went completely red in the face, choked on my words to the point where it would send me into such a panic. When I finished that job, I got pretty all right feedback, but one of the feedback I looked terrified every time I did the presented at the trauma meeting, which was absolutely true.

But I did a little bit of reflection afterwards and I reflected on how much that came from my perceptions of how I thought they would perceive me versus I bet all of them were pretty, well, most of them were pretty nice consultants. I bet none of them were sat there going, she sounds so common or, you know, whatever. Well, it might have been thinking that, but how much I was making it worse myself? What, like, practical ways have you found to manage imposter syndrome? Because I still have to deal with that all the time. Yeah, you've definitely hit the nail on the head in that, like, the bigger picture is we can't control how people see us. We never will be able to. And we can do the work as in,

you know, from my perspective, I can help people overcome bias because that's what it is when those people are sat in that room watching us speak and they think Northern or whatever, it's bias that exists in their head. And so the bigger work for me to do is to help undo those biases. But in the moment, for an individual trying to overcome imposter syndrome, you're right. It's all inside our head. And it's rightfully there. It's valid. It's not something that, you know, we need to be annoyed at ourself at. A big realisation for me was that all the things I felt the most vulnerable about. And at that given time, it was my Northern accent and my age. that was the main thing, the main two things.

I realized that the two things I felt the most vulnerable about were actually my superpowers. Like they were the reason why it was so important I was in that room. And so, for example, being Northern, being state educated, I thought it was holding me back. But actually, my voice was really needed in those spaces where there wasn't other Northerners, there wasn't other state educated people.

And I'm sure your voice will have been much needed as well. And then same with my age. like, you know, when I moved to Sage, this is when I really started to undo a lot of the imposter syndrome that I had. I found myself sat in boardrooms week in week out, looking around the room, everyone, at least 20 years, my senior, if not more. And I had the realization that actually my age, it's really important that I'm here because you need a voice in that room that helps to show the perspective of someone else. And that's why diversity is important in general, in a bigger picture. So really try to think about what are those vulnerabilities, like pinpoint them down,

try not to think imposter syndrome's really hard to overcome, but when we start to pin down the exact thing that's causing it, the root cause, it gets a lot easier to deal with because you can just compartmentalize it, talk to a friend about it, talk to, even, I always think there's always someone that we're looking for approval from, like always, in every room, in every career situation we find ourselves in. There's usually one person in that room that's making us feel the most nervous. And I found by having a conversation with that person and telling them that you feel that way really disarms it. So there was a guy and he was my boss's boss at Sage. And he was brilliant. He was an incredible leader. Like the kind that is so kind but really

assertive. Yeah. And kind of points out, really gives you lots of feedback, points things out. But I felt as though I was just seeking approval from him all the time. I was like, does he think I've done a good job? because he think I've done a good job. And one day I was like, I'm just going to tell him. I'm just going to tell him just so you know, most of the time I just want to hear from you that I'm doing a good job. And I need to undo that a little bit. And he kind of laughed at first and was like, Heather, you are doing a great job.

Of course you are. You're just harsh on yourself because you're always raising the bar. And I think when you have that conversation, it really disarms it. And someone asked me a few years ago like how do you get people at work to respect you? It was like, how do you get other people to respect you? And I was like, you actually can't.

Like you can't control how other people feel about you. You can't control how other people see you. But what you can do is respect yourself so much that other people have no choice. And so it's like really try to bring all those feelings internally stop outsourcing approval or outsourcing. you know, you want this person to think you've done a good job. It's like, no, when you look in the mirror, when you take your makeup off at night,

do you look in the mirror and go, yes, bitch, we did it? Or do you look in the mirror and you go, oh, I wish this person thought this and I want to text them and I feel bad about myself. And even if those feelings do creep in because they do, like for all of us, just start to undo them. Have a different conversation with yourself in your head. Like that voice in your head just start to go, no, we did. And you know what? If we made a mistake, so be it. We won't do it again. We'll know for it.

Exactly. Number one, you said something about always raising the bar. And I think that is we need to come on to perfectionism also as women because that is that is sabotage and I think a lot of women's careers and leading often to burn out. The other thing I want is pick up on is the emphasis you put on respecting yourself. One of the tactics that I've tried to build up for imposter syndrome that I'd love to hear your thoughts on is I have like, a notes app on my phone and I put in every time that I feel like I've achieved something, not an externally validating achievement. So graduating, getting a degree, whatever.

Times when I thought that I could not do something and I have managed to do it. So the best example I have is, can you drive? Yeah. Yeah, you've got you drive. So do you remember sitting in the car on your first, did you drive manual? Not anymore, but I did. Yeah. You passed your test in your manual, do you remember sitting the first time in your driver's lesson or, you know, first time trying to drive a car and realizing that you have to do the gear and we have to press the clutch and do the gearbox at the same time and find the bite and drive a car and not crashing to anyone and indicate and do-da-da-da-da-do-do-do-do all these different things? And I just remember being sat there thinking, I am never going to be able to do this. This is too much.

I have, I can't comprehend how people, how so many people can drive. And then, three months later I had passed my test and I could drive. And so it's not, you know, how many, so many other people can drive. It's not, it's not a big achievement, but it was one of those points where I proved myself wrong and I proved myself, proved to myself, I am capable of change. I am capable of growth. I'm capable of learning new things. So I just have this list down in my phone and every time I feel imposter syndrome creep up, I try and look at that list, ground myself in the fact. rather than these narratives that I'm telling myself.

And I guess that is my version of trying to respect myself and ignore the external noise. Yeah, I really love that example. And I guess you could apply it to like every single thing in life in that, you know, you were talking about the meeting where you stood up and you were nervous. I guess if you were to do that now, would you feel the same? No, because I think I've had a lot of reflection

a lot of reflection time away from it. Yeah. So, you know, you did a TEDx talk recently. Yeah. How nerve-wracking was it? Oh, my, oh, my Lord, oh, I see. Yeah. I have never been more nervous

than when I was stood behind the curtain before going on to that TEDx stage. Like, it was terrifying. But what we have to remember is all of these things, they're just like muscles that we have to flex and grow and do the reps.

And eventually, you know, we pick up the 3KD dumbbell at first and it feels really hard to do the lunge. and then eventually you're like, hang on, I've got a 40KG barbell on my back. When did this happen? How did I do this? And you just have to put in the reps and eventually it becomes easy. And public speaking is definitely that for me. Because the first time I ever stood on a stage was it was a conference years ago.

It must have been like 2018 or something. And I was just doing it as a, my workplace. We needed someone to stand on stage and like sell the product. And it was so simple. It was such a simple presentation. It was basically like a product demo. I, an hour before, I couldn't sleep the night before. An hour before I was in the toilet at the conference at Excel. And I was like, I'm going to have to find a reason to call in sick. I'm going to have to, I need to run away. I can call in sick. I can ring someone, tell them I'm ill. Someone else can do it.

I can't do this. I was shaking, terrified. Like every nerve in my body was on fire and alive. then I go on stage, I stand up and I do it, like four people showed up, but I was still terrified. I think that probably made it worse, to be honest. I was still terrified. At the end, I was like, has anyone got any questions? No, okay, amazing, goodbye. So terrified. Now, like, I stood on a stage just before Christmas, this was like a really sort of, finally, Heather, we feel like this, stood on a stage in front of a few hundred people and delivered a talk that I feel so confident in. I love, it's such a powerful message. Stop being nice, start being kind. is the talk. And I didn't feel a scrap of nerves. I felt excitement. I felt like, you know,

I can't wait to share these things with these people because I know how impactful it is. And it's not about me. It's not about me doing an amazing job. It's saying the words that someone needs to hear in the audience. And that's another thing is I kind of took it away from my performance. Because you can't mess up. You can't, you can't make mistakes when it's, you know, you could miss a word. You could forget a slide. No one knows. Like, who knows, but you. And so, and everyone in the audience is rooting for you anyway. If you mess up, I don't know if anyone's ever been to a conference where someone's clearly nervous on stage.

And all you sat there thinking is, oh, you're doing amazing. You know, no one's thinking, get her off the stage or, you know, why have they put, you? You're just thinking, how brave, like amazing. I'm so glad that you're up there doing that. And the next time you do this, it's going to be simpler. And I'm going to back you and I'm going to clap and I'm going to laugh and I'm going to, you know, laugh at your jokes and all that stuff. and so yeah, really good example.

Perfectionism, I used to think I was a perfectionist, but I'm not. I'm actually quite chaotic. I'm quite a chaotic person. Like I'm very much like a version one is better than version non. Like we need to move forward. But someone told me something a couple of years ago that really helped me with perfectionism,

which was you think that perfectionism is excellence. Yeah. But perfectionism and excellence are two different things. And the main difference is perfection avoids criticism. Excellence invites criticism. And so it's like the same thing. They're both really high standards of an output. But excellence doesn't require every single duck to be in a row.

It doesn't require, you know, I want to get to the point where there's no negative feedback and everyone loves it. It just requires your standards to be really high. you to keep improving and then inviting feedback and inviting criticism, whereas perfection like stifles you before you can get to that point. And so if you feel like you're a perfectionist and, you know, certain things are holding you back, try to think what would excellence look like in this situation? So I still want my standards to be really high. I never want to drop those standards. But instead of having to be perfect, think how do I, you know, move forward, even if it feels a little bit messy, but we know it's the best I can do right now. And so that, like, finding the

difference between those two words really helped me. We have to come on to how to help women take criticism, because I think everything feeds into each other, you know, the imposter syndrome, the lack of respect that often we have for ourselves internally, and then the difficulty that then leads to us taking criticism, because we exist in a world, unfortunately, where women are told day and day out that we are not good enough we're not pretty enough we're not skinny enough we're not curvy enough we're not loud enough you know we're not confident enough we're too confident we constantly receive all this feedback that puts us down yeah and then that makes it harder then for us to take criticism in the workplace but before we come on to how women can get

better at taking criticism in the workplace we're going to do our section by or bye by so basically I'm going to show you a card and you're going to tell me whether you would buy this so you like it or whether you'd say bye-bye as in like goodbye. No, we don't want this. Yeah. Starting with LinkedIn. Yeah, bye, definitely. LinkedIn was, it's a great way to share your wins. Like women are far too humble. We are far too, we do incredible work as much, if not more as the boys. We do an incredible incredible work. And we just don't shout it out enough. We don't talk about our wins. We're just so, so humble. And for me, LinkedIn was a platform where I started posting on LinkedIn before any other platform. And it was a place where I could just document like stories and team wins and career

wins. And it's a great way. I think LinkedIn was one of the big reasons why I got such big pay rises when I was at Sage because the CEO knew my name. He was a CEO of a Futsi 100 company. Like this guy manages technically like 20,000 people. I'm like however many rungs below him. He shouldn't know who I am. But because I was posting on LinkedIn and he was obviously interested in the narrative around the business online, he knew who I was.

He came to see me. He would message me occasionally. I got put forward for opportunities on like internal panels. And so, yeah, massive buy. Yeah. I hate LinkedIn. So far. I hate LinkedIn.

I, and I think maybe it is the whole. whole womanly thing of you don't want to talk about your wins. If you are listening right now and you also hate LinkedIn, what advice would you give to just get in your foot in the door trying? Yeah. LinkedIn is a place where there's just huge opportunity. I would argue that I don't want to say Instagram and TikTok are saturated because there's always space. There's always room for brilliant people. But LinkedIn is a place where it is so pale, stale male. that if you come to the table with something interesting to say, everyone, like it's so needed,

the different opinions on there are so needed. I hate LinkedIn probably in the same way that you do in that, I know what it looks like, I know what it feels like, and sometimes you go on there and it's just people shout, you know, I've done this and I've done this with my B2B SaaS business and tech and blah, blah, blah, and I get that. But if you can look past that,

it's just a huge opportunity. So when I was, the reason I started posting on LinkedIn was years and years ago, there was two reasons. One, I hated networking. I still do. I hate networking events. I avoid them like the plague, right? And everyone's like, your network is your net worth, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, but I hate these events.

I hate small talk. Hate the awkwardness. I leave just feeling drained. I just don't enjoy it. So, but I know it's important for people to know me and know my name. So LinkedIn was my tool where I was like, okay, how do I get my name? two people and so they know what I stand for, they know the work I'm doing, they know what I'm about without having to put so much time and energy into these events. That was one reason. The second reason

was this time five years ago I was skin. Like paycheck to paycheck doesn't even cut it. It was like paycheck, then alone and then, you know, like eating the rice that's at the back of the cupboard kind of skin. And but I kept hearing people saying like you need to be investing in your 20s. It's the time to invest at, you know, compound interest, blah, blah, blah. But I was like, but I don't have any money. And they were like, you can start an investment bank with 20 pound a month. I didn't even, I didn't have 20 pound a month. I probably did, but I didn't.

I didn't feel like I had 20 pound a month. So I was like, how do I invest in me and future me without spending a single penny? And it was by putting an extra hour in my morning, so I would get up early to do LinkedIn, into crafting a LinkedIn post, telling people my stories. And at the time I was post on LinkedIn, I had no intention of leaving corporate going self-employed. I was just doing it because I saw it as I'm investing time into future me. And I don't know what dividends it's going to pay.

I don't know how it's going to work. But all I know is I need to tell these stories and I need to document this. Even if it doesn't reach anyone, I'll document it for me and I'll document it for my team. And so it was just this idea that. but how do I invest without cash? And that was what LinkedIn was for me. It was a really great tool to do that. So we buy.

Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Coffee chats. Ooh. In what way? I guess in the maybe reaching out to someone being like, hey, can we have a coffee chat? Like, there's a networking approach, maybe, I would say. I'm going to say bye-bye.

because I'm uncomfortable with it, only because I think coffee chat, as the way it's like written there, it can feel a bit invaluable. So I would say if the intention here is like we want a network, we want maybe to find mentors, to create bonds with people, start by offering them value first. That's how I got all the best mentors in my life. So I was like, again, I don't have money. You're way more skilled than I am. But I could help. you post on LinkedIn or I could help talk to you about how I'm running my team at Sage and you know maybe people at Sage who were had been there decades longer than I had and I wanted to learn from them I was like well like why don't I help tell you a little bit about what I'm

doing with my team and I'd love to learn about your team and so it's not the coffee chats are a bad thing I just time is our most valuable asset like it's the only finite asset really it's the only finite resource that we have and so people, the reason I'm saying bye-bye is because a lot of people reach out to me and ask for coffee chats and I just think, but it's not going to be useful for anyone. I say we've got eight hours recording today. At the end of the day, I want to go home and I want to spend time with my boyfriend or like call my mum or, but yeah, if someone said, oh, could I come shadow the podcast for the day, like see what you do for the recordings and then, you know, in lunch, we're just chatting it. And then

you can say, oh, I can take some content for you during the podcast. There is, we, it's not about being transactional, it's about valuing someone's time, I think, is, okay, yeah. Definitely. But if it's a threat, but that being said, the reason I was like, in what way is because I'm someone, I really value the existing relationships I have with like my family and my friends.

And over the last couple of years, it's gone really high up in my priority list to invest time in them, in our relationship, you know, just be with. the more and it gets harder, I think, as you get older because certain people have got kids, married, moved to different parts of the country. And so in that sense,

it's become a lot more valuable for me. Like, my mum lives about an hour and a half away from me, which isn't that far. And ordinarily, we would just let, like, weeks, sometimes months pass, where we'd just be on WhatsApp, maybe FaceTime. And now I'm like, if three weeks passes, I'm like, I need to go and see my mum and, like, spend time and invest in her

because I love her and I want our relationship to just deeper, because we're not going to be here forever. And so in that sense, and same with friends. Like two of my best friends now live a little bit away from me. And I used to think, oh, it's such a fath to travel and go far, whatever. Now I'm like, no, it's not. That's the best way I could spend a day of my life. So in that sense, yes.

In like a networking, mentoring sense, no. Love. Brilliant. A CV of the Americans a resume. Yeah, I'm going to say bye. I think we've just gone through a recruitment process with Tisha, who's sat in the room, who's our social media exec, and has past deprivation and is brilliant and incredible in every single way. And so we went through this recruitment process and I was doing so much research because the world of recruitment has changed drastically over the last few years with AI, video, like so many things. And so I was like, so what is the best way then? If it's not a CV, what's the best way to get like a really quick view? of someone's skills and experience and all that jazz. For me, a CV still does that. It still shows that.

And I think a lot of recruitment processes now will say things like, you know, ditch the CV and send us a video, a five-minute video, or get experimental and whatever. And I think that's okay a little bit later on in the process. But I think at the beginning, it's naive of us to think as employers that we are more special than every other business out there

and I think like Tisha will be the first to tell you it's really hard at the minute to find a job and so you want a fast way to get information to people and I don't want people in the first instance to have to spend like a day thinking of something writing something or build it whatever I want a CV and then we go a bit deeper after that so maybe 10% of those CVs will make it through

and then at that point there's commitment from me and I would expect more commitment from them. So bye. I'm still a CV girl, still a CV girl. Quick one, top tips. Your five top tips for CVs. Show a bit of personality. It's interesting because people think that you shouldn't, but not like a photo or anything that could trigger bias,

but just personality in the term, in the sense of like, if there's something you love, something that makes you stand out, talk about it on your CV, because I read every CV. Even if we get like hundreds, I will put time into properly looking at every single one because I'm like, it's a human being, this is their future.

And if you've written just anything slightly off kilter, I'm like, oh, what was that? Amazing. So that, the second thing I would say is talk about results and not input. So a lot of people on a CV will be like, I ran the social media for this, or I, you know, managed a team of five. And it's like, yeah, but what were the results? Tell me what were those results.

So I got 10 million impressions in a year. I took our following from X to Y. I show just results because that's what speaks volumes. Yeah, and I would have to echo the personality thing. Because I also think if you're looking through when I've gone through a process and I'm looking through quite a few CVs, the people who put on their CV, like I, I don't know, want a baking competition or, you know, just it doesn't have to take up too much space. I don't think if it's not really relevant to the role,

but just a little spark of this is who I am as a person. And it keeps, it makes you memorable as well, I think. 100%. More of a controversial one. University degrees. Bye, bye, bye, bye. No, so anything academic, doctor, obviously. Yeah. Anything that needs higher education, 100% yes.

I just feel as though it's become a little bit of a scam and it kind of preys on the vulnerable, this idea that you have to pay an absolute fortune to learn something that you may not use. That being said, I think the most important, my university degree taught me absolutely nothing. So I did business management, which is funny because I now manage businesses and manage people

and talk about management. But in that degree, we just learned. I mean, I barely ever went. I was just drunk half the time. So I barely ever went. But in the lectures, we were just learning theory. It was all Kaiser, Ford production line, like textbook management. The day I stepped on the Harrod shop floor to assistant manage a team of eight people, I very quickly realized everything I'd learned was useless. None of it mattered. I'd never used it since. And like the level of imposter syndrome, emotion that I felt a degree could have never taught me. The one thing I did really value from doing a degree

was just moving out of my hometown. That was it. And so just getting away from home and spending three years in a city, I went to Newcastle uni, in a city away from family with new people, learning like, Doncaster is very uncultural.

It's not very multicultural at all. And so it was the first time that I like made friends with and lived with people from other parts of the world. And it just opened my eyes to like a whole better side of the world. And so that I love, but I think you can achieve that by just moving out of your hometown for a couple of years. So yeah, so just take them with a pinch of salt. Unpaid internships. No, bye-bye. They annoy me.

Bye-bye. Yeah. I am someone who people giving me their time is the most valuable thing I could ever ask for them. I would, just from a personal perspective, I would never, ever not pay someone. I have done them. Like, I wanted to be a lawyer at one point and I did like a law work experience, did an internship with them over summer. And it just made me realize how much I didn't want to be a lawyer. So it was valuable for me.

But I just, if someone was to come in and said to me, can I work for you unpaid? The first thing I would say was, no, I'll pay you. because I want that value transaction to feel fair. It's like you will never see me have anything gifted on my stories. I get small businesses that are run by my friends. I would always pay them. If a small business reached out,

like a content studio reached out to me from Manchester and they were like, can you come and film some content for the day? We'll give you the space for free. We just would love you to tag you in it. And I was like, well, no, because I normally pay hundreds of pounds. So I was like, I would love to come, but please let me pay you

and then if it's great, I'll talk about it because I just, I, yeah, I think it's quite a personal thing but I am just someone who there is nothing that I will pay for. Like it makes me angry when, like I'm a big tipper. I just, I don't know, money talks and I just think from someone who's gone from

not having much money at all to now I have the absolute privilege of being able to afford things, I want to pay people for that work. Yeah. And I think it's fair. Yeah. And yeah, I would agree.

And I think that often we'll come on to this is that often women in the workplace are branded pushovers or too soft. And kind of links to what you're saying. I personally feel the same is I don't think that women's kindness, generally as women's kindness, is ever a bad thing. Yeah. So people might say, well, why would you, maybe you need to be a bit more cutthroat. Maybe you need to just take a bit more. But I don't think we're doing a service to the world by telling women to put, to get rid of those qualities.

You know, being kind, being fair, a strength and not weaknesses. 100%. We'll come on to that a little bit, a little bit later on. Drinks have to work. Oh. This is going to have to be in the middle because it's a, in moderation, fine, great bonding opportunity. Just be aware.

that some of the most toxic, gossipy, difficult cultures can be built in drinks after work. And you have to be aware of things like, when we had a really small team, it was fun because everyone drank, you know, everyone, no one had kids. And so it felt very fair. But when we started to grow as a business, some people didn't drink,

whether it was for just out of choice or if it was religious reasons or health reasons. And if you then centre also. interaction at work around drinking, it just very quickly becomes really divisive and unfair for people. And I started to notice that when the business I was working inside grew. And so I just started to put a lot more impetus on let's do social events that don't revolve around drinking. As a manager, like when you get more senior, absolutely not. You could go for one. That's fine. Absolutely go for one. If you are drunk around your team, you need to sort

yourself out. Yeah. Absolutely not. Yeah. I hate it. I hate the feeling of vulnerability the next day. I hate the anxiety and it's just not. Yeah. I have people that I get probably a little bit too drink around and then my friends and people who are close to me. I wouldn't, personally. But then also I think you've touched a really important point about how it can be an unfair advantage if you do drink. What advice would you give to someone who maybe they don't drink for whatever reason? Maybe it's religious reasons or, you know, they just don't, it's perfectly valid to just not drink, even if it's not a religious reason, if they feel like they're missing out on those opportunities. Yeah.

Because they're not going to like drinks after work and having that bonding time. First of all, it's really hard. And so my partner doesn't drink and she hasn't drank for three years now, over three years. And so I've seen and understood really deeply just how alcohol-centered the UK is, everything. Like literally it spans into every. interaction that we have specifically in the UK. And it's, so it's really hard is the first thing to acknowledge. So if you, because I've had many, she won't mind me saying this,

like deep chats with my partner where she can feel, you almost start thinking like, am I the problem? Like, is it me? Why can't I enjoy myself anymore? Why can't let my hair down? But it's not you. You're not the problem. You're the heroes.

And I'm grateful for you and thank you because you're much better than me because I can't do it. So that's the first thing is just like allow yourself to know that what you're doing is really, really hard. Make some suggestions, point it out to your boss. Like, if you're in a working culture where it really is drink heavy, you're probably not going to be able to change it. And so I would say try to change your environment

because I've been in those environments. And by the way, I don't want to come off as preachy here when I'm like, don't drink because I've been there. I've been that person who's been out until 3am with people at work and the next morning just felt like shit. Trust me, I was that for many years. So this is not to be preachy, but it's like, there does come a point where you have to choose what you prioritize.

And for me, that was my mental health. And for me, it was also, I stopped caring about staying out drinking when I got happier. Yeah. So, like, the more happy I got in my personal life, the more happy I felt at home, the more comfortable I felt being at home. Like my favorite thing in the world to do now,

if you would say like, what's your perfect, like, Friday night, it would be me and Shah, my partner, sat on the sofa, ordering a pizza, watching TV. And it's like, because I don't need more. That's just happy. That's just happiness. Yeah. And so then when you find yourself, you know, at 9pm

and everyone's on like their fifth pint, if you find yourself in that situation, when home is really happy, you're sat there going, why am I here? This is not fun. Fun is at home. Enjoyables at home. Whereas the times.

when I was like the person who was out late and trying to get everyone else to stay out late and wanted to do all that was when I was unhappy in my relationship with myself, with my relationship with my partner at the time at home because home wasn't happy. And so like if anyone's listening to this who is the person who stays out too late, the questions I would ask myself is like, what are we masking? Like what are we trying to avoid because I was avoiding home for a long time. My self-esteem was at my lowest. I felt like I could only be liked if I was the fun, loud one. I never got drunk when it was work drinks because I just, I think I saw a lot of people get drunk at the after-work drinks at the hospital. And if anyone knows doctors, like,

they like to let their hair down. And I just watching that, maybe like a couple of them I came late and I was like, God, I'm never going to be that person. But when I was younger, like when I worked, there was one really bad, really bad time when I was a lifeguard. Oh my God. I just got absolutely, I think I got kicked out of after our work's drinks because I was so drunk. Yeah. Yeah. And like I, but I thought that I could only be valued if I was fun. Yeah. And by when I was drunk, I was the most fun version of A. As my self-esteem has grown, I've realized you are valuable for so many more things. You don't need to be the fun one all the time. Exactly. It's okay. And there's so much more power, I think, can going home. Like, you quickly realize when you,

you've said no, it's the hardest to say no the first time. The first time you make the decision to go home at half six or seven instead of 10 or 1 a.m. is the hardest because that's the time you're going to get the most resistance from people. You want to say it out loud, but you know people are going to be like, what do you mean you go and hear? Why are you being boring? You're not usually like this. You do it once. You do it twice. It's a bit uncomfortable. You do it three times. And then eventually people know you. My friends, I'm the first one to go home now. They know that. They know that about me. And it's not uncomfortable. And like I just, it took me a while. The first time you do it is hard, but then after that, it feels like you're reclaiming power over yourself. Yeah.

Oh, friends with your team. Yeah. I'm a big buy for this. I think it would be completely impossible to not be friends with your team. And I think especially when you have a great team that works well together, building those bonds is important. There has to be boundaries always. And I would say those boundaries start with don't do things like after work drinks. Or if you do go for, like go for one, go for dinner, keep it civilised, but you're, you don't want to be friends in a way that impacts work. Like, I always think friendships have gone too far when it becomes like gossipy and almost it feels like a place to just moan and be negative about work. Because even though it's good to have that comfort, like don't get me wrong, you want

the comfort in people, you want someone that you can share things with, fine. But when it becomes like, you can't find, it starts to feel as you can't find any joy in work anymore because you're just complaining all the time to other people. And you constantly, you know, if something happens at work, you message five other people, can you believe this? They've done this again. And it just starts to be, yeah, it becomes a bit toxic. So 100% friends with your team.

Build the bonds. Be friends with them. I don't think I've ever not been friends with my team. I used to think it was a bad idea. And then I just quickly realized it'd be impossible not to be. So yeah, go for it. Just know your boundaries. You spend more time with you, the people you work with

than your friends and your family. So it should be. I think you'd be a bit miserable if you weren't friends with your team. It'd be hard. I want to come on to how. Can women get better at taking criticism or feedback? I would, if you truly want to get better at receiving it, go and look for it. So don't wait for it to come to you.

Go and look for it. And the ways that I do that is ask my team in one-on-ones, how could I be a better manager to you? What have I done this month that, you know, you didn't quite agree with or you would have done differently? What do you? And I'll ask them for positive. So I'll say things like, what do you love about the way I manage you? what do you wish you could change about the way I manage you? And ask, but you don't have to be a manager to ask that question.

You could ask people around you, you know, ask peers, ask your seniors. What do you love about the way we work together and what do you wish you could change? And when you receive it in a way that's like you've invited it, you've asked for it, it's just flexing that muscle again and getting comfortable with hearing those things. Also just really try to, I see feedback as a very kind gift all the time. if you look back on all the times in your life when someone's had a really uncomfortable conversation with you about something that you've done

and for me there's maybe only two or three examples of that, like really uncomfortable things where they've pointed something out that they're unhappy with. At the time, it really hurts. Like it upsets you, you feel awful, it just hurts. But in hindsight, they are some of the most, like, pivotal, important moments, whether it's in friendships or in my career. And I'm just so grateful to that person for having the courage to speak to me about that thing.

Because the other option is they never say anything, which is what most of us do. We avoid it. We avoid the conflict. And then you get years down the line and it just builds resentment and no one gets to learn or grow from it. And so try to really change the idea of criticism and feedback in your head to be a gift. because it takes a lot of courage for someone to come to you and tell you something. And usually that person has put a lot of effort into it.

Now that being said, with everything, there's always caveats, there's always knobbeds who tell you that, like, people at work who, and usually in my experience, this has been meant. Actually, you know what? The woman who managed me at the restaurant was also like this. And it feels like they're just picking at things. And you will know when that line has been crossed.

Like, you will know if it's a fair criticism or not. by the way it makes you feel. Like if it does point at a bit of an insecurity and it feels a bit like it's hurtful, then usually there's something there and there's something to be unpacked. Whereas if you hear it and you're just like, what? What are they talking about? And you'll know, you will know in yourself

and just take some time. Like sometimes I think if someone gives me feedback where I'm not sure I agree with them, I always think to myself, I'll just give it until tomorrow. Like I'll sleep on it, have an evening to think about it, have a morning to think about it. And usually by the next day, my brain's kind of gone, yeah,

yeah, that does make sense. I can see where they're coming from. And occasionally I've gone back to them and being like, look, I can see where I've gone wrong here. But I just want to tell you why I thought that was okay, talk you through my process and, you know, maybe have an opportunity to like talk about the criticism a bit more from both sides. But you can only have that conversation properly when it's done with a little bit of reflection. You can't have it when someone gives you feedback and you just get really heated and angry at them. Because usually then we're just operating from a place of fear and emotion. Yeah, you're in your animal brain, aren't you? Yeah. Do you still, if you were to get feedback, do you still get that pit in the stomach feeling of,

oh, God, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So I think maybe that's part of it, is actually recognizing, do you know what, we're not going to be these emotionalist people? Never, never, never, never. I am, I, do you know stoicism, the philosophy of stoicism? So I read stoic philosophy every single day, whether it's fiction books, nonfiction, watch YouTube videos, follow people on Instagram, like stoicism is a huge part on my life. And people tend to think that stoicism is like not having emotion,

but it's not, it's feeling the emotion really deeply, but just choosing how to act. So instead of being reactive and going, okay, something's made me angry, so I'm going to shout and punch a wall or, you know, throw it back in someone's face, I'm actually going to feel that anger because it's good, anger's good, you know?

The only reason women got the vote is because someone got really fucking angry and decided to jump in front of a horse. And so it's like, thank you. Anger's good. We want anger. That being said, you can't let it take over your actions. So we just have to be very cautious

that when we feel those anger, sadness, frustration, whatever it is, we need to choose what we do next and not let the emotion choose it for us. I love that. I'm going to have to listen to some stoicism now. Do it? Yeah. A really good place to start is there's a book called The Daily Stoic

written by Ryan Holiday, who is the biggest green flag of a man to ever exist. He is probably like if you were to ask me, who really inspires me as a person online, as an author, it's him and he's got a book called Daily Stoic. He's got like 10 Stoic books. And it's every morning you just read a passage from like a meditation that was written by the ancient Greeks centuries ago. It then explains it in like modern day terms.

And it's just it's almost like a bit of an affirmation, a great way to start your day. So I'd start there with the daily Stoic. Nice. So next we have a section where a member of the community has sent in a voice note question. Oh, nice. I'm wondering if you have any. tips on how to be friendly but assertive at the same time in the workplace? How to be friendly but assertive?

So I don't think they are opposites. I think they can be hand, like they can go hand in hand. The way, so whenever anyone mentions the word, aggressive or assertive, I have to just remind them that they're very different things. And people tend to confuse them. So people tend to think that when we're assertive, the person on the receiving end might go, oh, they were quite aggressive.

And I'm like, no, that's different. Aggressive is like someone's squaring up with you. Someone's getting in your face, you know, causing havoc. Assertive is just someone knows their self. They know their place, they know what they want to say, and they say it without softening it. That's not aggressive. You're not threatened.

You're not in a place of, like, threat. So assertive is just, I would say assertive, like, is one of the friendliest things that you can do. It's one of the kindest things you can do because you're not softening your message, like you're not softening the words that you want to say. And so I think, yeah, friendly and assertive in my head can really easily go hand in hand

because we think like friendliness has to be soft and again, back to that people pleasing and niceness and comforting and we soften things. But in my head, the kindest, therefore friendliest thing we can do is say what needs to be said. So that's, yeah. Yeah, I think about one of my favorite, favourite, favorite bosses that I ever had

and that was my last rotation as a doctor. And she was so, so, so friendly. Every morning she'd ask us how our weekend was, you know, we knew a lot about her life. She knew a lot about our life. So friendly. If she asked me a question, I didn't know the answer. She'd say, Faye, why do you not know the answer to that?

She'd say, Faye, you should have known that. Yeah. but then she would also give me very direct feedback, then immediately move on and we'd be chit-chatting. It was the most, it was almost as if you just stripped away everything that we're taught about, everything we're thought about what we should be and just got to the bare bones of, you know, two people who work together, you're friendly with them, you're interested in their life, you care about them.

There's something that, you know, in that moment, you're like that, you should have known that. go go she was like tonight you're going to read up on that we move on yeah you know it was it's almost painfully simple and it was the best boss I ever had learned so much but I also felt so cared for yeah absolutely a hundred percent and that's it is why people again yeah we think that friendliness has to be this like soft conflict avoidant for some reason we've associated being a friend with being that, and it's not anymore in my head, like being friendly, the people I want in my life are the people who tell it how it is and just, you know, say the thing, say it out loud, even if it takes a bit of courage to say it. That being said, I can appreciate that people in the workplace

can be taken aback by it. Like, I've had, when I've managed teams before where I've got lots of different personalities, I've had so many people come to me and be like, I'm struggling to work with this person because they're just so direct and they're so assertive. But as a manager, I challenge them. I don't go, oh, let me get them to soften their language. Let me get them to, you know, chill it out of it. I'm like, but why does that feel? Why does someone being honest and telling you the truth and kind of cutting through with their language? I need you to visit. Like, why does that upset you so much? It's okay that it does because we've kind of taught ourselves to be softened, but yeah, like, why is it that that hurts? And so I think if you ever get the feedback

that you're too assertive, too aggressive, whatever that is, again, take a little bit of time to reflect. Because I think even when we get this and we know it's wrong, still go away and think about it because it shows the person on the receiving end that you have just taken some time, you're not just coming back defensively, and come back to them the next day and I would just say, look, I really appreciate you bringing this feedback to me, but I don't really want to build a culture here where we're all dancing around each other. I'm direct. I say the thing and therefore I'm going to get the results and I'm going to get us all moving and I'm going to get us all working together because everyone else is just avoiding these uncomfortable conversations. And that's

okay. I think if you're someone who is naturally more assertive, don't soften that. Like, don't let it, don't dim your lie we need more of it i know and you're right with when you try and soften something all it does is it you you build the resentment because you feel yourself restraining yourself and then what happens when you restrain yourself often then you can just yeah pop later on and it's interesting that you said your best manager was someone who's direct and same like the the boss's boss that i was talking about who i was seeking approval from he was so direct sometimes to the point where I almost felt like crying, but I would go away thinking, fuck, I needed that, I needed to hear that.

I'm so glad someone's told me that. And so I think it's an issue with the receiving as opposed to anyone needing to be less direct. Love that. We've got another voice note question. I will play for you now. Nice. Hi, my question is, when you are in the first few years of your career,

how can you get taken seriously and advance your career, especially when you are seen as just a young little girl and not as a woman that has a lot of potential? Thank you. Because of other people's biases, you're never going to be fully, like, taken seriously. And just going back to that idea of we can't control how people see us, you never will control that.

What you can control is just how much you, respect and see yourself in that situation. So there was some very emotional language in that voice note. Like little girl is emotional and I get it like I've felt like that before. I always say sometimes my imposter syndrome comes out because I feel like I'm a silly little girl. Yeah. You know and that that is quite internalised. Yeah exactly. And so first of all, stop using those words about yourself because it's not true. You're not a silly little girl. You're a woman who I'm sure is incredible at what they do. So just look at that language. And then instead of trying to get other people to see you in a certain way,

how do you see yourself in that way? One of the best things I ever kind of came to terms with was being underestimated is actually really powerful. And I felt, especially in the first part of my career, very underestimated. I felt as though, you know, people didn't quite take my opinion seriously. It took a lot more effort for me to get people to listen to me than it did other people in a room. And it used to really annoy me. And just like the person on that voice note, I would think, how do I get them to see me differently?

And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to show you. I'm just going to, you can underestimate me, and I'm just going to show you what I can do. And so actions will speak a million times louder than words. Show them what you do. I always, I'm someone who, I am a hard worker, and I think hard work is viewed a little bit as like a dirty word these days.

Like the hustle culture, it has gone too far, but I am someone who just, just always worked really hard. And when I say work hard, you don't have to work crazy hours. Like, it doesn't involve that. It's just be there, be focused, care about what your seniors care about. And if you put in that hard work in the first few years of your career, it will pay the dividends. Someone said to me once, like, if you work three times harder than you get paid, you will eventually get paid three times more than how much you work. And you only have to do that for a short amount of time and then it does pay the dividends. And I don't mean, again, I want to reiterate, when I say

hard work, I'm not saying get up at 5 a.m. hustle, go to, you know, work till the moment you go to bed. Getting yourself out. Yeah, it's just that if you are a career person, if you want a big career, uh, where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now. Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary.

You're just going to have to work hard in the beginning because people are going to see you like that. And you've just got to not see yourself like that. Like, respect yourself, know that your time will come. There's another great quote, and sorry to be so cliche, just pinging all these quotes out, but there's a future version of you that's begging you not to skip this part. And it's like we're constantly in this mode of, but I want to be further. I want more money.

I want a bigger title. I want, you know, the thing, whatever it is you're chasing. And that's okay. I dream big as well. Like,

I want those things. But there's not a minute of my life where I allow myself to not go, I'm exactly where I'm meant to be. I'm not meant to be any further ahead. I'm not meant to be any further back. I'm exactly where I'm meant to be, and I'm putting in the hours to pay those dream dividends later. And so, yeah, just respect yourself, just respect the journey, because people are going to see you like that and fucking prove them wrong.

Prove them wrong. You know, the whole underestimating, being underestimated is your superpower. I can absolutely attest that. I don't know if anyone's been to a restaurant and you're really and you're all, really hyping it up in your head. You're thinking, I don't know, maybe like a roast dinner. You're like, oh, I can absolutely. I'm so excited for my roast. I'm so excited for my roast. And then you bite into your roast and it's the deadest roast

you've ever eaten in your entire life. Like, imagine people expecting so much from you and then disappointing them. When people expect you to do absolutely like nothing because you're a woman, whatever. Then you're always surprised. I want to share a little story about the moment I realized how much damage I'd been doing

calling myself this silly little girl. And, you know, I need to stop using that language, as if you rightfully said, it was literally like two weeks ago. We had Helen O'Neill, CEO of Hittily. I've watched your, yeah, yeah. She did a talk at my uni, just one of our lectures. And she is drop dead. Like, she's stunning. Like so, so, so gorgeous. Really well dressed, really well, beautifully put together, quite glam. And then she's talking, she's making lots of jokes. She's

using lots of profanities. She's quite casual in the way that she's talking to us. And I was sat there thinking, you know, all the things that I have belittled, you know, belittled myself for, I've told myself that I can't be too glant because I'll be taken, I won't be taken seriously. I've told myself, you've got a tone down maybe your sense of humour a little bit because you won't be taken seriously. All these things that I've told myself, you can't do that, Faye, because it all just reinforce people's view of you.

And she was stood up there doing all of those things as an extremely successful woman. And not only that, when she was speaking, you could see how obsessed she is with the data. That was the most important thing. She was obsessed with doing her job really, really, really well. And because she was so good at her job, all the external things had either not got in the way or if they had, she had moved past them.

And arguably, she probably does stand out more. She does stand out more because of all those things that make her unique. And it was a moment where I just sat back and I thought, God, for how many years have I been telling myself that I need to change myself to fit into a box of what professionalism is. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was my little story. And I bet that she, Helen. Yes. I bet if you were to ask her about like earlier in her career, she probably didn't always feel that way. Like I'm sure there will have been points where she felt underestimated or am I too this? Am I too glam? Too much?

Too loud. Too funny. Too brash. ever, and there does just have to come a point where all of it, we just bring it back in, and this is what Stoicism's taught me more than anything else, is like, stop outsourcing feelings of success of, you know, what makes you great to other people. How do you want to fucking show up? It's like, what do you want, how do you want to look?

Do you want to wear the most colourful, crazy, silly outfit where you stand on stage and someone goes, oh my God, what? What's she wearing? But it's someone else in that audience is going, I wish I had the confidence. She looks awesome. Like I wish I had that confidence. The workplace and the world just needs you exactly as you are.

My constituency in Manchester has just got a green MP for the first time. Oh my God. Hand of the plumber. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's just she, the thing, I think the reason she has just been so successful and I don't even just mean in getting the vote. I mean people have just.

taken to her. Like she's had this huge, her PR has just taken off, people just want to listen to her, want to see, hear what she has to say. It's because she's so herself. There is no hiding. She's exactly who she says she is. She's still posting, like, talking, you know, she's on, posting her Instagram videos where she's just like in doing a get ready with me to go to parliament, like, and you get to see her thought process around picking an outfit. And that, in my opinion, It's like, I need people like that to look up to. I just need people who are so comfortable with their accent, with the way they dress, with the way they look, with their job.

Like, she's literally a plumber. When she did her acceptance speech, when she got voted in, she stood on stage and she was like, I'm really sorry to my client because I'm going to have to cancel because I've got to go down to London to be an MP. And it's like, we just need that. So whatever you are feeling insecure about, if you've ever like, you know, thought,

I want to wear something a bit funkier, a bit sillier. But what will people think? It's like, no, people need to see that. People need... Fuck what people think. Exactly. People just need you to be you. And I'm still working.

Like, again, I'm being a bit preachy. I think it's a journey that we will all continue to go on forever. And we will never reach that true state of like, I don't care what anyone else thinks. Because I'd love to think that I do. My skin has got so much thicker since being on social media. I'm sure you're the same. like the comments, waking up every single morning

to seeing people talk shit about you on the internet is a whole different level of like, you have to appreciate yourself. But I just don't think I'll ever be there. Like, I don't think we ever, there's an end point because it's so wired into like, I think, I guess people pleasing is just tribal. Like it's from day one, from when we were, you know, cavemen.

It's like you, you needed people to like you, to be accepted into the tribe, otherwise you'd be eaten by a bear. And so it's so instinctive, but in modern society where we've got distraction, social media, pressure, government, all these things

as external forces trying to dictate what people pleasing looks like, like what being liked looks like. We've got to remove. It just doesn't work anymore. And so, yeah, so find you, I always think with people pleasing, find your village

Like find your people and for me that's my closest friends and it's my family and it's my partner those people are my village I'm happy to people please for them like I will if they need me I'm there I will drop things

I'm there to help them everyone else you kind of just have to accept a level of like I'm never going to please them I'm never going to please everyone with what I say what I wear what I look like how I act and as long as my family love me

and my friends love me and I'm acting in a kind way I'm helping like society and people who are less privileged than I am. As long as I feel as I'm living a life that runs that way, then everything else is just noise. I love that. Heather, we've been asking all the guests on this podcast a question, which is what do you wish every woman knew by the time she was 25?

No one is coming to save you. I wish everyone would realise sooner that I think we, again, the word outsource, we expect other people to give us the pay rise, give us the promotion, arrange the event, take the next step in our career, have the courage to have the conversation, and we kind of expect other people to give our life, like, the journey that we want. And I just wish all of us collectively when no one's coming, like no one is coming to save us and it has to be you. If you want something,

you are the only one that's going to give it to you. You're the only one that's going to go for it. And it just goes back to that huge, like, I have a big sense of just personal ownership and extreme ownership over everything that I do and that happens to me. And just take that, like stop outsourcing all of it to other people and take it internally.

I love that. And I also love how you're so passionate about living in a society that helps the underprivilege because I think that often we can figure, that those two things can exist. You can be someone, because I'm the same. I'm someone who I'm so self-motivated, so ambitious.

No one, like I need to take ownership for my own life, but also passionate about helping others. And too often those two things aren't acknowledged as existing together. So I just think you've been an absolutely phenomenal guest, and I know that anyone listening will go about their day, feeling so much more motivated and powerful in themselves after hearing what you've just said. Well, I hope so.

Good, good. Thank you so, so, so, so much. Thank you so much for having me.