Life Uncut - Working 9 to thrive! Uncut with Bec Brown

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Hey Lifers!It's a new year and most of us are back into the work grind!Today we are talking about the relationship that we have with work!Joining us is Bec Brown, author of "You've got this" and founder and managing director of the comms department to talk about:-Figuring out what we want to do with our careers-How we need to ditch the idea of a work/life balance and engage in career- life flow instead-How to work on our 'personal brands' to help us do better in our work environments-How to set yourself up for promotions and pay risesWe kick off this episode with some laughs about the best sex positions and how many items you can ask for from the grocery store when someone offers!You can find Bec on the gram here: @becbrowncomms & @thecommsdepartmentIf you'd like to get your hot little hands on her book:  www.penguin.com.au/books/youve-got-this-978176089785& her website is here: www.thecommsdepartment.com.auIf you liked the episode, share it with someone that you love because we love love! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. And I'm Brittany. God, it takes us a while to get the start of these episodes going sometimes. We've been here for what? 45 minutes do you reckon? Yeah but we just saw a lot of smack for a while. We tried to start it but then Britt hit the camera and you know what here we are. Well how you been babe? Do you know what I love? What's been happening? I just hit the camera and we started again and I said let's leave

it in there and talk about it it's funny and you said no no no we won't and then straight away you throw me under the bus. I panicked. I panicked. It's always better when it's your idea. It's like we're in a relationship. That's what you do in a relationship you like you slowly massage the other person you gaslight the other person into them thinking that it's their idea that was my idea oh anyway guys it is tuesday we are here we have a great little episode for you today i'm not going to tell you about it yet i'm not going to tell you about it yet i'm going to keep you hook line and sinker but laura you sort of went away this weekend what a suspenseful beginning of an episode that was you're listening to it but i won't tell you uh hang tight yeah look i did i

went away this weekend except I didn't go away this week he went down the road this is the weirdest thing and I didn't post this on my socials because I was so worried that like Daily Mail would pick this up and run a story and say that like Matt and I had had a big fight and I'd gone to stay somewhere else so I booked a hotel about 500 meters from my house literally down the road yeah down the road I was cutting laps past it like waving up into the window I booked it and I booked it Friday night and Saturday night and I stayed there I checked in at 5 p.m on Friday and i just went there to work i worked all weekend because we've got some very exciting things in the pipeline but it's very difficult to get work done when you've got two kids and

everything had been mounting and matt pretty much was just like i'm gonna book you into a hotel so you can get some work done the question is did you get any work done i did oh were you just like we were having bubble baths i'm ordering uber eats i'm in bed naked just masturbating for two days i'm masturbating for two days and i'm not doing it is call it research you know how difficult it was to not crack open a bottle of wine from the minibar I'm telling you the amount of self control I had to exercise well there's literally a bottle shop downstairs are you telling me you did not have one wine when you had two nights alone in a hotel I may have had a cheeky wine of course just a one a cheeky bottle but I genuinely I genuinely went away I went away to

work we weren't having a fight there's nothing wrong I went home for like two hours each day just to like give Matt a little break from the kids and then I went back to the hotel and I worked so it was successful yeah and for like multiple reasons also just like having two days break from matt really reignited some things that have been dormant for a little while like what our sex life so you had sex you had great sex you went away for two nights you got some work done you had a bottle of wine you came back and had great sex your girl is back so all in all it was a successful weekend for you yes well i mean got some work done got lucky do you know what it was a sex cessful weekend oh my god

your girl is back put it that way i'm on absolute fire okay i do have a question for you though all right yeah this is a great segue is this something that i know that i'm prepared for are you just gonna throw this out there no it's something that happened to me on the weekend and yeah and i need to get your take on it because i'm not sure if i went too far okay tell me what once again the suspense britney so how many is too many this is what i want to ask you how many is too many okay when you ask the question how many is too many i'm guessing that we're talking about sexual partners okay so you would think that but we're not okay on the weekend producer keisha as you guys laurie just said guys we have something really exciting come up and we

are working non-stop to bring it to you once again the suspense god this is the worst suspenseful episode you guys are gonna shoot like it's four minutes in and they've learned nothing everything is coming the end of the world is coming but we won't tell you when no so we're in home working producer Keisha sent me a text message hey Brit just heading up to Woolies can I get you anything I was like oh my gosh that'd be amazing I was like what did you want can you just get me a few avocados I'm like can you just get me two avocados and she was like yeah no worries and I was like amazing thank you so much and then a few seconds went past and I was like actually do you mind just getting me some tomatoes and some salad stuff as well and I had

a list of salad stuff and she's like sure anyway it just it just kept continuing I ended up with 35 items I sent her a whole shopping she's not your PA I didn't mean to but she offered and then I just kept rolling and then I kept thinking of what I needed now I ended up sending producer Keisha an entire shopping list and then I wrote to her I was like I just realized what the fuck I just sent you I've sent you a whole shopping list I was like do you regret asking me now I think because producer Keisha is employed by us and I pay her bills she very politely said no it's fine she got me like 35 to 40 she got me a whole grocery shop a whole shop you know that Woolies does shopping online you can do that yourself yeah but I was really in the moment but

that's my question is like how many is too many when someone says to you so even if it's your partner Matt if they're like hey I'm just ducking up to the store can I get you something I think it's different if it's your partner you can ask for a full shop if it's your employee you like if it's your employee and they offer to pick something up from Woolies for you you say no I'm fine you actually don't accept anything I actually went to the point of going and taking photos of stuff and googling the stuff I wanted the photos and I sent her the photos and it was like these are the chicken tenders that I love because you wanted specific brand names pretty what has happened to you you've turned into a monster I was a monster and then when I realized

I didn't realize in the moment I was just like shooting off what I needed and then when I looked back at the list I was mortified and I said oh I'm so sorry that don't actually worry which is like it's fine like I just need to put another 40 minutes onto my shop wait can okay now I just need to know did you actually make producer Keisha go and do your grocery shopping did she do it she did it yes correct fucking hell and I and she dropped them off to me it was like wow okay I'm just as shocked as everybody who's listening to this in their car or wherever you're listening to this right now Brittany I know it's not I'm not proud of it it's not my finest moment but the situation happened and I rolled with and I felt really guilty after I just really rolled

with someone offering to do something for me it's been a little while it's been a hot second I was like this is the best feeling in the world I'm just gonna own it yeah like and on Wednesday night Keisha's giving me a back massage I feel like my saving grace in this situation though is the fact that and I mean Keisha should be thanking me really because when she got to the store she didn't know what she wanted for her own shop so she duplicated exactly with my shopping list she just duplicated it and we ate the same thing for the week because she's like I can't think of what I want I'm going to get everything Brittany got I reckon the same thing I disagree I think she you're welcome Keisha I think she did it for time management because she'd already spent the entire

time that she'd allocated for her own shopping doing yours. So she was like, well, I better just double this order. Okay. Well, I do have something that I want to ask you, but before we get into that, I feel like we should tell people what they're listening to today. And that is we have interviewed an amazing woman. Her name is Beck Brown. Now Beck Brown is the founder and owner of the comms department. She's also the author of the book. You have got this. And the reason why we wanted to do this episode is because we thought coming back into the new year, I mean, we're still calling it the new year it's january it's december and we're like this new year new year 2022 but i feel like it's a very transformative time for a lot of people like after coming out of christmas

after starting you know a fresh year getting through january it's a real time where people kind of assess their careers and assess what they're doing with their life and want more money and want a bloody pay rise or they want to have a promotion or maybe they're not sure about the job that they're in and we're seeing so much these days people leaving the sort of traditional nine to five working for somebody else to create their own small business or to go out on their own and to start their own hustle so this conversation with Beck is all around how can you ask for more money how can you ask for that pay rise how can you ask for promotion but also just around like how do you forge out a creative career yeah also just how you can go about living your dream and

like Laura just said there are so many people and I've been there in the past Laura's been there in the past I feel like a lot of people have there are so many people that are in their nine to five or they're in their job and it's just because A, they're comfortable, B, they don't know how to get out and chase their dreams or they don't know what their dreams are. So we do talk about the steps that you can take and how to transition from doing a job you maybe don't really love and that isn't the passion and the end goal to transitioning into starting your own business and working really hard to create something you're happier with. So I think it was a really, really great chat and I think you guys are going to get a lot out of it. But before we get into that, there is one other

thing i wanted to talk to you about now after my sex cessful weekend i not the worst pun now is it laura not the worst i actually very serendipitously it was sent an email which was talking about different sex positions and i thought i stumbled across it on horn hub i don't know how it came across you should see my search history and what i had to do to accidentally stumble across this article okay so there has recently been an increase in the search for different types of sex positions. So 355% increase over the past week. And that is not just me. I'd like to say across the board, across the board, across the interweb. Yeah. I think everyone's getting ready for Valentine's day coming up. That is interesting. So in the past week, so what are we towards the

end of Jan? Okay. So people are doing their due diligence. That's like three weeks out of Valentine's day. I told you January is a very transformative time in the year where people are wanting to try new things, broaden their expansion, open up their minds and also other areas of their body open up for their legs I did want to talk to you about some of the most common sex positions and I also wanted to get your take I have a few questions for you first up what is your favorite sex position like if you had to pin down one where would you what would you do that is subjective because it depends what the purpose is and what the end goal of that is because there are certain positions you do for different reasons you don't do all your positions

well I don't think missionary because I'm always tired yeah but you don't do missionary is probably one of my favorites in all honesty and it's not because it's exciting or anything it's just because it always gets the job done like always you can missionary is so reliable it is the most reliable sex position that there is I think without a doubt is it the most exciting no it's also wildly underrated though I think missionary because like missionary is also very intimate if you're like someone who likes to gaze into your partner's eyes there's a lot of connection with missionary I think but you also don't have to either like you can close your eyes and look over their shoulder or something like you don't have to have that intense connection but I would say if I had to

pick one that I could only do for the rest of my life judge me if you will it would be missionary I have zero judgment because I feel like this okay this has turned into the most fucking boring section but I'm agreeing like missionary is so what's your favorite missionary yeah missionary like I mean I've obviously tried all the others actually not all of them some of them here like real what tell me what's on the list okay I'm gonna run you through a couple the lotus so the lotus is basically a lot of these are very yoga-esque as well so like so you gotta be flexible a little bit of a workout so the lotus is when i mean i'm gonna refer to this as though it's a heterosexual couple just because like well that's what the pictures are that i'm looking at but the

lotus is basically when the guy sits cross-legged and then the girl sits in his lap with her legs wrapped around him okay intimate nice but sometimes a bit hard to get like the up and down motion that is a hard to get emotion yeah like i just i've just googled i've googled the position i'm not feeling it you're not feeling it okay we'll put that one down at like a seven out of ten like how would you rank that five okay the next one is the splitting bamboo where the girl like lays on her side on the bed and then she lifts her leg up to be like at a 90 degree angle and then the guy kind of mounts like jiggies on in yeah the size the side of the leg it's kind of a bit like lazy sex sort of like he's like he just humps her leg a bit no not he's like well i

just gave her a picture and he's her legs over one shoulder and it looks like he's like humping the leg obviously he's in her but i feel obviously it's not a laura 2.0 where he humps the back of your leg he's not having sex at the back of her leg yeah he's like in her but like as the female you don't have to do a lot in this position there's a lot of just laying there okay lazy i'm waiting for a rating on this one oh i mean like it depends are you hung over and really tired then it's probably high on the list because you're like let's get it over with i mean lazy sex is great but i feel like sometimes the adventurous sex is overrated i feel like people need to feel like they need to be really adventurous to jazz up in the bedroom and it's great but i don't think

anyone's getting to the finish line doing a handstand it's almost like having shower sex is also overrated shower shower pool any water it's not it's not actually lubricating like you think it's going to be lubricating but if anything it just actually makes things dry but wet at the same time and all it's so dry all those sexy movies that you watch growing up i just feel like it's setting you up for failure you know all the sexy pool scenes fake news pool sex is terrible i have another one here and i feel like this is one when i say lazy sex i feel like that this is one that we can all get behind it's when you both just lay on your side and kind of cuddle from behind like you're having a snuggle and who does the movement then he just slips it in well you

both i guess you both could kind of do a little bit depends on who's the laziest no i feel like I feel like this is my favourite. After missionary, it's this one. I feel like, I mean, that is great. Yes, that is great hungover sex again. And then you can just roll onto your stomach and he can roll onto your back so you don't have to do anything. What do you mean?

Oh, wow, we are getting such an insight. Okay, I love that this whole article. Laura's like, I swear to God I stumbled across this sex article, but here I am having overthought every single position. Well, and then you can say you've done two sex positions in one, kind of like a laying down doggy style and a side sex. so we know laura's deep dark secrets when she's like we got so frisky last night we did it like two positions you're like cool you were on your side and then you rolled to your front i want to

know one more thing what is the craziest sex position you've ever tried i did handstand sex once how wait how do you do or you've got to do like a handstand you did the handstand yes you do you do the handstand and he's standing up he goes down into you yeah so you have to be so you have to be like a contortionist it's not for the faint-hearted don't try this doesn't it hurt your arms after a while everything and does he hold you up whilst he it wasn't overly successful it wasn't overly successful but this is my point this is why i'm saying adventurous sex is overrated i think because people like to feel like they're doing all these crazy things but it never really works like the really crazy stuff never works what have you done i feel like you

like it starts like you do it for like 30 seconds and then you change to something else at least you ticked it off the list i was not strong enough to go for longer than 30 seconds okay well i guess it was kind of having sex but it wasn't like penile penetration this is so graphic sorry fuck daily mail this is gonna happen he picked me up and was standing up and my legs were on his like like i was on his shoulders you and i could touch the roof whilst he was going down at me it was a lot oh my god and it was so unnecessary because i was so scared i was gonna Just lay down. Just lay on the bed.

I couldn't even get into it. I was like, oh, and then trying to pretend like I was liking it and I wasn't. And anyway. Wow. He'd never missed a leg day, that guy. I'm sorry, Dad. Tune out.

Sorry, Matt. Anyway, guys, that is it from the whole sex position chat. I'm sure Bec is loving that that's going to be what prefaces her conversation. She wants off this podcast right now. Before we get into Bec, though, we do want to bring our favourite segment, Accidentally Unfiltered. All right. I'm going to kick it off with one that is so aptly fitting to the start of this

conversation. When I first started dating my boyfriend, now fiance, we did long distance for a year. One weekend, he had come to visit me in Victoria. At the time, I was living in my parents' place. We were in the lounge room watching a movie and things started to heat up a little bit. Both my parents were at home. So being the very respectful teenager that I was, we decided to go to the bedroom. So polite. So there we were in the bedroom and the bed had a bit of a squeak to it so we decided we would take things to the floor things had progressed pretty quickly we were so in the moment and we're making up for lost time that's when we moved into doggy style just then the door squeaked open and my boyfriend turned around mid-pump to lock eyes

with my dad my whole soul left my body as my boyfriend asked should we finish no no you do not finish your abort mission immediately imagine asking the dad should i finish like or should i stop also what do you do though if you're past naked doing doggy style looking in your dad and eyes like i mean what do you do oh no you imagine if that was matt and that was your teenage marley oh no why would you go there because i just think that dad he's gonna to lose his shit. That kid can never come back. You know what? I once walked in my mom in doggy style and I reckon that's just as bad. That's so much worse. Sorry, mom. I think she listens to this podcast. It was a long time ago. A long, long time ago. I should hope so. Actually, I don't know

what's better if it was a long time ago or recently. Anyway. All right. Hit me with your axelion filter. Okay. This one's so unfortunate. Back in the day when Snapchat was a thing, I went to send a sexy pic to a few boys that I was chatting up. Instead of sending it to each of them separately, I accidentally created a group that they could all see each other's Snapchat names in the group. I almost had a heart attack. I sent the picture in my panic state.

I couldn't work out how to delete the group. So instead, I just left the group. One of the guys, she just left the group. one of the guys sent me a screenshot of the conversation saying Sophie has left the group and to my horror the boys continued on chatting in the group afterwards R.I.P me I die thinking about it Sophie has created a group of all the boys she likes sent a nude and then panicked and left the group now these boys don't know each other there is a group of six people that can see each other's names that have the same girl's nude and then she just Sophie leaves the group I

just like that as a mic drop like sophie has left the building and the country see you later fellas she has checked out also i like the time efficiency that she put into this she's like my time is precious and i do not have enough of it to be sending you individual nudes here is one from the archives ladies and gentlemen it's also like the people and there are so many online dating the people that just do a copy and paste text of people but they forget to change the name and they just start it people do it all the time yeah come on guys you need to put a little bit of effort in. Or you did it or you received it. I think it's happened on both sides of the coin. I think I did it to a guy and it's definitely happened to me. Anyway, we can all learn from each other's

mistakes, can't we? Oh, RIP Sophie. All right, let's get into the chat with Bec. Guys, we're so excited to have Bec on the podcast today. Bec is a PR wizard, currently the founder and managing director of the comms department, and she is the author of a very exceptional book called You Have Got This. It is the essential career handbook for a creative woman. Bec, welcome to Life Uncut. Thank you so much. Now, I didn't know Bec, but you and I have been in contact for so long without actually knowing who each other are. Like we, I mean, obviously we know who you are. No, but when this came today, I didn't realize you'd been the person I'd been emailing for so long. We've had things to do with each other in

radio, in PR, so many times. So it's nice to meet you in the flesh. And can I just say, you're now sitting in my house you are getting a very behind the scenes look at how we record i'm going to have to get you to sign a waiver a non-disclaimer where you tell no one our secrets and what really goes down here but no thank you for coming on board today and i hope you know how we start our episodes yes accidentally unfiltered we want you to embarrass yourself on a national level i love this i've got to say i'm quite honored because i love listening to you accidentally unfiltered so to be able to do one it's quite an honor just adding to the pot it's a pot of embarrassment that everyone feels but also it's a very humanizing way of getting

to know someone like I mean we could ask tell us about your childhood or you know tell us about where you've been but instead I want to know what you've done that you wish you hadn't I know we've all done things where we've gone oh no what is my life the emails we get people are in their embarrassing moment as they speak and they're emailing us they're like this is happening live I am live streaming my embarrassing moment too oh that's great so mine's a few years old it was back when we could travel a bit more freely and I was in New York on a business trip and it was a really big deal it was my first big trip overseas to be doing business and I was going to the global headquarters of this client and I had really really bad jet lag which I don't usually get

but I was being careful so I set two alarms and I laid all my clothes out the night before and I was all organized and I woke up yes I slept through both my alarms and I had 30 minutes to get across town and be in this meeting so thankfully for my organization the night before I pulled on my clothes so I had like a really nice little high-waisted pencil skirt and this silk shirt and some nice high heels and I ran out the door thankfully jumped in a cab and doing my hair and makeup on the way and I got to the meeting and I was like oh my god okay just perform you're on let's do this so I did the meeting and it went incredibly well I finished the whole meeting and I went outside and finished it and I thought, I'm amazing, I'm high-fiving myself, I'm congratulating

myself, I'm really feeling myself and I hail a yellow cab like a true New Yorker yet again, sitting in the cab all the way back to the hotel going, I'm the best, I'm so amazing. I got out of the cab in front of this beautiful hotel that I was staying at and it had the doormen out the front, there were people everywhere, it was like peak hour, there were people absolutely everywhere and I stepped out of the cab and the cab drove off and as I stepped out the zip on my skirt just busted and my skirt fell to my ass like a cape like a big reveal and I'm standing on one of the busiest streets in Manhattan in my bright pink lace g-string it sounds like a city moment it really it really was and what had happened was in my haste that morning to get

dressed I'd been wearing my skirt back to front all morning and it had put such a strain on my zip that it had just busted and that idea that in New York that you know people don't really care what happens and you could be running down the street with your hair on fire and nobody pays any attention to you I can tell you that is not true absolutely everybody turned around looked at me smirking snickering laughing it was mortified so could you see in okay so my brain was trying to jump ahead that whole chat and I was like she's forgotten a bra her shirt totally she nipples out in the middle of a chat like a work meeting the reason they were like you've got the job is because they could see your nipples but the question is was it obvious that your skirt was backwards like

was it something that you could have maybe gotten away with or would they be looking at you saying this poor thing we'll give her the job because she doesn't know she can't dress herself I'm not sure I really don't know and I trust me I thought of that too the entire time but I was more relieved at the fact that my skirt hadn't just fallen off in front of the client as opposed to all these people I didn't know but I probably didn't mind too much. Do you know what Bec I'm going to give you a little bit of like comfort in numbers here I was once standing in the food court in David Jones in Sydney and I had three mangoes in my hands and I sneezed and my because I didn't have free hands so I was holding three mangoes like nursing them between my chest and my hands and

I sneezed and the exact same thing happened my skirt exploded and fell down around my ankles And I had forgotten that that even happened until now. Well, I'm going to one-up both of you. That's what you came here for, guys. It's turned into an accidentally unfiltered competition. I used to work in an operating theatre. I did all the medical imaging in the theatre in operations. And I had these scrubs on.

There were only extra large scrubs left. They didn't fit me. So I tied them as tight as I could. I had a lead gown on that protects you from radiation. All the surgeons were there. There were reps there. There were nurses, scrub nurses. Hot surgeons too.

Hot surgeons. also old surgeons very old surgeons and the lead gown that I wore dropped to the ground and it was so heavy that it pulled my pants down and my hands were full of this equipment that takes up half the room and I was standing in the operating theater making eye contact and I couldn't pull my pants up because I was in the middle of screening a live operation so I stood there working with my pants down and I was like I burnt your eyes everyone there's nothing to see here. I also love that you came with a work accidentally unfiltered like it had to be work related now back the reason why we got you that was it was a wrap all I can think of is how you would have made that surgeon's day

like they would have been loving last yeah I think they're a bit excited and they kept asking for me back by name so they're like hey we'll take Brittany thank you very much now back the reason why we wanted to get you on the podcast and to do this episode is because heading into well relatively the new year still in January but it's really a time of transition for a lot of people it's a lot of time where we consider like what work what job we want to be doing whether we're enjoying the work that we're doing what even is life what even yeah do we want to start a business are we on the right track like you know do we feel like we're being appreciated in our workplace there's so many facets that I think at this time of year we start to really consider around our

work and Britt and I were we've never done an episode solely dedicated to kind of unpacking what takes up so much of our life outside of relationships is our work relationships and our work life. And you've written an incredible book. You have got this. What was the original inspiration behind writing the book? There were three reasons that I wrote this book. And one was I had a lot of graduates and professionals coming to me for career advice who either were trying to get a leg up in their own industry or work out what they really wanted to do or wanted to start their own business and so I was already compiling a lot of that information I'm a writer so I always like to write a big email and I was sending it off anyway so I'd already started to compile all of

this information and I also the big one for me was that I personally had a really rough time navigating my own career in my late teens and early 20s like really rough in my efforts to create a successful career I ended up with anxiety depression eating disorders it was not a great place for me and I learned a lot through scientific journals I learned a lot through research I learned a lot through my own experience good and bad about what I should and shouldn't be doing and I just wanted to be able to share that information and that knowledge because I wish that somebody had been able to give me a book with a whole bunch of short tips and hacks to say if you just follow these things your work life is going to be a lot easier and it's going to be a lot

happier as well. It's so interesting isn't it because we talk about this in terms of relationships like no one gives you a manual and like your 20s is so fucking hard because you're trying to figure out like what is the right way to navigate these relationships how do you kind of work your way through what's right for you what works for you it's such a confusing time of life but no one really ever talks about it in a work sense and I think that the exact same problems apply with almost less direction there's a lot of people out there who seem to enjoy their work but there's a lot of people who truly hate Monday to Friday and they live for the weekend and so what was it about writing this kind of like manual or handbook like how did you compile this information when you say

you lived your 20s what was it about your own experience in your 20s and in your workplace that you were like no I need to impart this knowledge yeah so when I was 25 I had what I call my quarter life crisis where I realized that this career that I'd been working towards since I was a little girl which at the time was to be a singer and entertainer was not actually fulfilling me and wasn't making me happy and I was heartbroken because I'd worked on this since I was like 10 years old I'd been having singing and dancing lessons the entire time and I'd studied at the conservatorium and studied music and it was absolutely my life and I was traveling overseas doing that doing the job I was performing in musicals and on stage in jazz

bands and I loved it but the lifestyle was grueling so this was right before smartphones and social media really took off so I was really quite isolated from my family and friends I'm also quite a day person so for somebody who's having to work at night all the time it actually probably wasn't a great thing for me to be doing and I was under scrutiny all the time and these days life on the stage is a little bit easier there's a lot more diversity there's a lot more care for talent but back then if you weren't a certain size and a certain look you were just cast aside and because of that I developed quite bad eating disorders and they carried through for quite a long time and so I landed in Sydney I'd been traveling all over the world and I came back

to Sydney when I just turned 25 I didn't know anybody here wasn't my hometown and I decided that I needed to take stock and really work out what I wanted to do next so I went back to uni and studied media and communications and that led to my next career which was in public relations but again so many lessons learned through that and I was also somebody who was quite independent I didn't like asking for advice some of it came from not wanting to bother people and also not really knowing who to reach out to I didn't know anyone who worked in PR I also didn't know anybody who worked in music and entertainment back when I was a young girl as well so I really admire anybody who can give somebody a leg up somebody who can be generous with information and somebody

who's happy to actually spend time telling somebody their secrets I think a lot of people feel that if they give away all their secrets then somebody will do better than them and take over their career and suddenly there'll be nothing left for them I really do have the sense that the universe is a very abundant space and there's enough for everybody and there's enough to go around the pie is very big and it's ever expanding and there's a piece enough for everybody so the more we expand our knowledge the more that we share our information the better this world is going to be and also the better our workspaces are going to be i mean we love pies here at that's the wrong kind of pie brett we also love sharing our pie but we couldn't agree more and

laura and i i mean we have these discussions all in private we plan on having a discussion more on this platform but australia really does have this level of tall poppy syndrome and i still can't quite get my head around it there is a level i sort of feel bad saying this there's a level of like women supporting women and people supporting people but there's a level of it that I don't believe there's a level of it that I see where I think that people are putting on a front and a face you know they're pretending that they're more supportive of people than they actually are how long were you stuck doing what you were doing before you realized you didn't like it so were you two years deep two years hating every single day or was it only a few months until you changed your

mind because I know there are a lot of people that do not want to go to their job every single day for years but they don't know how to change it yeah that's a good question for me I think I was lucky in that it was probably only it was probably only a year and I was more torn I didn't want to leave that industry and I tried so many ways to think of how I could make it work in fact I was like maybe I could work during the days so I started working as a children's entertainer with a band bit like the Wiggles which I find hilarious because now we look after the PR for the Wiggles. It's a small world. It really is. I mean, Emma's just left, so you could stay. It's my spot. It's finally my time. But what was actually kind of interesting was when I moved into

PR as well, I didn't immediately love it at all. I felt so out of my depth. There was still a part of me going, no, I'd much rather be back singing and performing. And I was starting at the bottom. Nobody likes to start at the bottom because it was new and I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't feel accomplished at it so that very first PR job that I had when I was in Sydney while I was still studying I studied by correspondence so I did online learning with Deakin University and that allowed me to be able to work because I still needed to pay my rent and everything like I still needed to support myself I come from two working class parents who I'm certainly not a trust fund kid or anything we've all had to work to get to where we are and so I was working during

the day still doing singing and things at night and studying and then my first PR job I cried on the bus most days on the way to work because I hated it my boss was like quite she was amazing but very devil wears prada completely completely that's exactly it was exactly devil wears prada and I didn't particularly know what I was doing also wasn't sure if I was the right career for me but I knew that if I dedicated some time to it gave it a year just kept working hard put my head down kept doing the things that perhaps other people didn't want to do and just learned on the job that something would happen at the end of it and the other thing that I realised too which is hard when you're in it it was only a year out of my life if I really hated it I could probably go

back to singing or I could do something else and I try to remind myself that now I'm 42 now and often people will go oh it's too late to start a new career I think that's rubbish I could throw my business away tomorrow not that I would but I could and start again and we can start again at any time so it's always a great thing to remember. I really love that you've touched on this because I think that this can be something and I know it's something that I struggled with when I had a career pivot it's this idea that I've done so many years of study I've put so many years into this career there's almost like a mourning that identity say this also I have some friends who work in medicine and it's like but I thought I was going to have this career I thought I was

going to be a surgeon or I thought I was going to be an anaesthetist and then they've gotten into the career and don't particularly like it or it's not what they thought it was going to be but it's the dealing with the breakdown of the identity and this what they had hoped for themselves to then think about pivoting and going and trying something new and maybe seeing that pivot as a failure what would you say to somebody who is at that cornerstone or that fork in the road and they've just spent all these years 10 years investing into what their career life is but now they think fuck it's not what I want and maybe I need to change do you know I just kind of chills thinking about that because the best part about that is nothing is ever wasted so the

experience that you have doing whatever it is you've trained to do will come up again at some point in your life and you'll be able to use it so even if you were moving from medicine through to entertainment like me that is literally my life exactly but the rigor and the structure that you probably had to have in your medical career to be able to put that into your entertainment career so that you actually have a framework around you that will support you when you're in an industry that is very up and down and quite volatile is probably going to be the best thing for you whereas if somebody entered entertainment with absolutely no structure no routines no ideas of kind of how the wider world worked they're going to find it a lot more difficult

than you will i do really believe that exactly what you just said that everything you were doing is knowledge and he's setting you up for what is to come there is literally something and I'm talking relationships work life experience everything is something you can draw on even like this podcast now the things that we have both done in the past is what's helping us to achieve what we're achieving now because we can draw back on those experiences for me it was really hard to transition from having a medical background to entertainment it was something that I knew I wanted to do but I never really knew how and I had a very hard time letting go and moving on and I think that is what happens to a lot of people they don't know how to physically take the

jump how do I do it how do I actually get out of what I'm doing how do I start a business that's not going to make any money for a while what advice would you give to someone who's in that transitional phase between moving from one career into another or wanting to start something but they don't have the funds or they don't have the ability to just go cool I'm going to quit and start a new business or they physically don't know how yeah so the first thing you want to do is give yourself the confidence that you're making the right decision and to do that everything that you do in life needs to come back to your values and what you stand for and that will come down to the way that you present yourself to the world in addition to making you really happy so once you

know what your values are the idea around values is these are your guiding lights so whenever you're about to make any decision you then look at your values or your priorities and say is this thing that I'm about to do going to support or hinder my values and then you make your decision either way so everyone's values are completely different so my advice would be do a brainstorm so get a piece of paper out just start writing pop on your computer I personally prefer to write like pen on paper because studies have shown that you are 45 to 80 percent more likely to actually act on something if you've physically written it down so write these things down it can be like what is the most important thing to you or what is the thing that you want to achieve in life and those things

really different to everybody it could be I want to be really healthy I want to start a charity I want to be famous I want to run a marathon I want to create a business that employs lots of people it could be so many things I want to practice law I want to work in entertainment I want to work as a vet like it is limitless but the best way to look at it is make sure that everything on that list actually applies to you and isn't what your family or your friends want you to do or what you think you should be doing because often what society kind of tells us we should be doing what our family and friends want us to be doing isn't quite the right thing if you're really influenced by what your family and friends are kind of wanting you to do then perhaps

having great relationships with your family and friends is really important to you and is a core value and priority so once you've got this huge page of things you need to prioritize them into a list of 10. So the best way to do that is say, if I could only have one of these things as my top priority, what's it going to be? And then you choose one and then you choose the next one and then you choose the next one and you'll end up with a list of like 10 things. What's really interesting is that these priorities will change and shift over the course of your life. So what I prioritise and what my values are now, vastly different to five years ago, completely different to 10, 15 years ago. And that's okay, we're under no obligation to remain the same people for our

whole lives so we can just change as we need to but once you've got your list of values go through them and shorten them down to like one word so for example if one of your priorities is to have a really successful career that might be success or if you want to make a lot of money it could just be wealth or if you want to start a family that might just be family so you'll have a list of these 10 things and then every decision that you choose to make you come back to that list of 10 things and say if I do this if I take this job are these priorities being looked after so values number one next one are passions so your passions or your curiosities are the things that set you alight they're the things that get you out of bed in the morning they're the things that time stands

still when they're happening they're the things that make you do a podcast at six o'clock in the morning or at midnight when the kids are still asleep you're not making any money from it yeah And you're like, why are we doing this? There were definitely days where I was like, this is not, I don't know what this is anymore. So when you've got those passions organised, same thing, do a brainstorm, write them all down. Say, what do I really love to do?

Do I love podcasting? Do I love painting? Do I love coding? Do I love creating events? Like it could be absolutely anything. And again, it's really particular to you and you only. They're often the things that you're really good at. Your passions are things, generally speaking,

that you're very good or that you're good at or that you'd like to do then refine that list and say which ones am I actually great at like really good at intrinsically like for example problem solving could be on there they could be hard skills like being a writer or they could be soft skills which is like problem solving or being an empathetic person or being a good communicator go through and decide in that list of passions what it is you're actually good at or that you're willing to put the time and effort in to become good at so if you wanted to become a singer and you're like I'm okay but I don't think I'm amazing are you really willing to put in the time and effort to be having singing lessons to do all the practice and dedicate all of that because if you're

not then singing probably shouldn't be on your list because you're really not going to do it so you've got your values which are your priorities then you've got your passions which are the things that you really want to do and the things that you love and then you just start looking at them overlapping and then decide if this career move that you want to move into is going to have those two things kind of intersecting a couple more questions that you can ask yourself which are your dream life questions am i crazy yes that's always out there to that you always say yes of course but that was like a fun kind of crazy fun crazy but the one dream life question is to say if i had all the money in the world never had to worry about paying bills ever again

how would I spend my time what would I actually be doing that's such a good question do you think Laura you're doing you'd be still doing the same thing well I think I'd be in the Bahamas I think I'd be there for a few weeks and then I would come back we'd be podcasting from the Bahamas so things might be elevated but you know what you would probably still be podcasting and you would still have Tony May and you would still be acting but you would be probably doing it somewhere really awesome it's choosing whether or not that's what you'd want to do the other dream life question that's really important to ask yourself is if I do these things am I going to be happy and am I going to be a good person who's a good person in society because you might

choose to start a really profitable business that's earning millions and millions of dollars or you might decide that you want to be a lawyer in a huge law firm however if you look at your priorities and your values you might have to reconcile the fact that you're not going to be able for a few years until you've built that business up you're not going to be able to manage some of those other values or priorities you're not going to be able to spend time on them you're not going to be able to spend time on your other passions so you have to decide whether or not you can do that and if you can't maybe it's time for a different career shift maybe that's not the right one for you and then coming back to you know am I going to be a good human can I be

somebody who's in this world who's contributing to society and doing things ethically and sustainably as well I think that's always a good start what do you think in terms of like so for example a lot of people who get into creative careers it's because it's their hobby it's their passion but then there is such a big shift and change in turning something that you love into turning it into your work and I know for a lot of people and friends of mine who have tried to turn their creative passions into their work they've almost come to resent what they used to love but how would you suggest somebody who's trying to transition a passion into their career how do they keep that passion alive yeah I feel you on that one and it's so funny because if I had at

the start of my career worked out what my values were what my passions were and asked myself those dream life questions probably wouldn't have become a performer I wouldn't have become a singer I would have kept it as a hobby because I loved it I loved to sing but I didn't necessarily love all the practice I didn't necessarily love performing at night I didn't love lugging all my band gear from venue to venue some musicians love that they just think it's the best ever and they're the people who should be doing that so once you've established whether or not this truly is your passion it is putting the sort of frameworks around you that will support you to be able to do the parts of the business that you really love the most I'm the same so running the comms department when you're

running a business there's the business side of everything and if you've got team and employees there's a whole lot of admin that just comes with all of that combined with the new business of making sure that there's you know clients in the pipeline to keep us all sustainable and then on top of that you're doing the actual work and when I had a really big team of people and I was constantly just doing all the admin I would get to the end of the day and go I haven't done a single creative piece of PR all day totally and I hate it and so I had to restructure my business to ensure that I had people who I really trusted and who knew exactly what they were doing to be able to manage those parts of the business that I didn't particularly want to do so that I could

get back to doing the parts that I really loved having said that I also think that there needs to be a good healthy dose of reality that there will always be crap parts of your job that you don't particularly enjoy but you do them anyway totally totally it's about perspective really like you said, there's bad that's going to come with the good. There's highs and there's lows in everything and they can't run without each other. It's like dating. You've got to get through the shit to get to the good stuff. Like you have to go through those toes to get to that beautiful prince at the end. But that brings me perfectly to the whole work-life balance. Now you speak about career life flow and work-life balance. What is the difference between career life flow? Say that

10 times fast. What is the difference between career life flow and work-life balance? So we've all heard of work-life balance. It's been around for a long time and I think it's really antiquated now and it's probably needs a new definition because work-life balance was that ancient idea that on one side you had work and on the other side you had life and they never met and they never mixed and who are those people who do that I have no idea but what generally happens so imagine you've got like a playground seesaw and on one end you've got work and then you put lots of work on one end and the other end shoots up and that's your life end so you put some life on you catch up with your family and friends and then you kind of try to even out the work and

the life so that it's on an even keel but over time what generally happens is that work gets busy so more and more work gets dumped onto the work end and so life shoots up empty again so you stack more and more life on there you're trying to do more life admin you're trying to catch up with your family and friends you're trying to exercise you're trying to sleep you're trying to eat well you're trying to do all of those things and over time all that happens is your seesaw gets heavier and heavier and heavier on either end until one day it just snaps and shatters into a million pieces and that's where you get burnout that's where you get hating your job that's where you get depression that's where you get anxiety and it's just such a road to

misery so career life flow is a different idea but it works more in today's workforce as well where because of today's tech we can be contactable all the time doesn't mean we should be but we can be working at all hours of the day and night so a really great idea of it is so career is anything to do with your work so it's your actual day-to-day work your job but also the relationships with all the people pertaining to your work so it might be your bosses your colleagues your clients your customers and then you have your life which is your sleep your exercise your eating your family your friends your appointments your hobbies anything that kind of doesn't fit into your career bucket. Of course, there's often a lot of crossover, particularly if you really love the

work that you're doing. There's often a lot of crossover. You'll have a lot of the people that I work with are really good friends of mine. So same obviously for you guys. And then you have flow. So career, life, flow. Flow is the way that you flow like a river in between both of those activities. And rather than the idea that work and life never meet, your career and your life be segmented down into smaller chunks throughout the day smaller segments throughout the day and then you very mindfully kind of flow from one to the other like you might get up at six or seven in the morning and then you'll head off and you might do some exercise or you might look after your kids so that's kind of falling into the life bucket but meanwhile you're checking some emails

and then you might have 30 minutes of checking your emails and doing that and then you start to get ready and then perhaps you're getting ready to go to work so you've done like maybe an hour of life and then 30 minutes of career and then you'll flow throughout the day in that way so this is different though to multitasking so multitasking is the idea that you're doing multiple things at once and there's this kind of myth that women are very good at well it's true women are very good at multitasking if multitasking actually existed what you're actually doing when you're multitasking is swapping between tasks really really fast one after the other and what happens is your brain all the studies have shown that your brain absolutely hates that over a long

period of time it just makes you really exhausted and is yet another recipe for burnout so when you're doing your career and when you're doing your life try to complete one task really finish that off take a pause and then move on to the next one and flow into the next one instead so it does mean that your work day for example might look like you're working from six in the morning through till nine at night but you segmented enough life moments throughout that day to ensure that your life hours are being met as well so the way that you could do it you can end up mapping out again and get your pen and paper out and just map out like some segments say from six to seven I'm going to do this from eight till nine I'm going to do this from nine till twelve I'm going to do this

just map out and then put in the hours that you would spend on your career and that also includes the time you're thinking about your career because I know as a person I know we kind of think a lot about our careers and where we want to be going so allocate those into the career buckets and then into your life buckets just make sure that you're really scheduling in all of those things that are important to you you want to be able to look back at the end of the day and go I've worked from six till eight but I've also had some really great life moments I went for a walk or I went and got a coffee or I jumped in the ocean really quickly exactly and you did that mindfully so when you were having when you went for that walk when you went and had that coffee when you jumped in the

ocean when you caught up with your girlfriends you were doing just that you weren't thinking about work at the same time and that's probably the hard bit like the amount of times where I'm sure there's so many people listening to this where you're like trying to answer emails but you're also watching your kids and you're doing both jobs a bit shit and that is what makes you feel like not only are you doing everything but you're not doing anything well at the same time and that kind of adds to this feeling of not just work dissatisfaction but just feeling like you're not good at your job it's really discouraging it's so discouraging I think it's important to have a level of realism here as well when you start your own business or when you

take a leap into something that's yours that you are building from the ground up you have to work harder than you normally would you have to put the hours in because you don't have money to pay anyone else yet and I think I think people need to be realistic and I think people get discouraged by that they start their own business they realize how much goes into it it's always going to be like that until it takes off or you make just enough to get someone in to help you well it's that old adage as well of like I quit my nine to five to work 24 7 that's what so many people who run people who run their own businesses it's like like the amount of friends I have who run their own businesses who are like I don't stop like I used to have a normal work-life balance and now

I just work and there's no balance and I have no life yeah what do you think for people who work in a creative industry and for women specifically who work in a creative industry what are some of the biggest challenges that you see women face so a lot of women to that exact point don't back themselves and they don't put themselves forward for things that they would probably be really good at until they think they're perfect at it unlike men who will happily apply for a job that they are completely unqualified for it's something like 80 of men apply for jobs they're not qualified for and like 20 of women do because we wait until well it's in this imposter syndrome that we all face that's not thinking we're good enough, they're never going to give us that job.

If I just do one more course, if I just get a little bit more experience, whereas a man's like, fuck, I'll do it. I've never studied that in my life. But yeah, sure, give me a pair of eyes. Let me take this job. Where do you think that comes from? It's extraordinary, isn't it? It's extraordinary.

I've made many hires over the course of the last 10 years and seeing resumes that come through to me and people who apply for jobs. And I would absolutely say that that statistic is right because the amount of incredibly highly qualified, I would say overqualified women who apply versus some of the men that would apply who have not met any of the criteria. He's like, I'm a gardener, but I would love to come into this industry. You know, there's that statistic was probably about two years old now, but I highly doubt it's changed very much that if you're a CEO in Australia, you're 40% more likely to be named

John or Peter than you are to be a woman. That's wild. I'm changing my name to Peter. so deeply relate to this and this is like a bit of a personal anecdote but like I've worked in retail for 15 years now I've run Tony May for 10 years I cannot tell you the amount of men who have had no experience in retail who like to sit me down when I go out for dinner or whatever and drill me on my business but also give their advice on how I should run my retail business and blows my fucking mind because sometimes I'm there like but what is your experience like well they're a man and they'll say they'll say oh you need to get your manufacturing done you need to get this outsourcing done you should be housing it in these way and I'm like what are you

talking about you know nothing and I know that we're being quite generalized in this and saying this and I know that we're making some sweeping stereotypes there are some great men out there but I do reinforce what you said that women truly don't back themselves in this industry and it takes a lot of time to feel like we are experts I don't feel like I'm an expert in my industry even though I've worked in it for 15 years we do have imposter syndrome and that is that is across genders that all genders have imposter syndrome but women are particularly vulnerable to it in thinking that they must have all their ducks in a row have all the information ready to go be prepared get it all ready then make the leap and I don't think you can have everything ready

to go particularly not in today's world we're moving in such a fast-paced world that you need to sometimes yes you do need to have a certain amount of preparation done and you don't want to be walking into an industry where you have no idea what you're doing, but you do need to just take that leap of faith. One of the early things that I learned, which is in the book too, is just about nobody really knows what they're doing. And you don't realize that until you're in the ranks and you're in working with people that people really don't know what they're doing. We're all faking it. So true. What are some tactical steps that someone who really feels like they don't back themselves in the industry, what can they do? Not just like improve their self-worth, but like

go out there and ask for a pay rise or go out there and do some very actionable things to be better in their workplace yeah there's a few things so one is about mentors so find somebody in your industry or your organization who's gone before you who's generous with their time and is happy to have a chat to you it's all about seeking information so you've got to be a little researcher got to be a scientist you've got to work out again what you do know and what you don't know So find out in every industry, or let's just say you're working in a big organisation, that organisation has its own company values and it has its priorities. So it has things that it values.

And when you are studying an organisation, you want to find out what's so valuable. Like what does the CEO and the executive leadership team all value? Is it just revenue? Are they just trying to make as many sales as possible? Do they want the most creative ideas? do they want people who are really good connectors and can bring the team together like what is it that people value and if you're like i have no idea like where to start just ask your boss and if your boss doesn't know ask their boss if you want to pay your eyes don't just ask

your boss how do i ask you for a pay rise you need to definitely not but it's so sorry in vs exactly don't just say under the guise of i'd like a pay rise so i'd like to know what's valuable to you so then i can put it in a piece of paper and write send it back to you so instead you'd be saying I want to do the best possible job that I can for this organization and I really want to know what this organization values and like the top line the big bird's eye view like what is everybody here trying to achieve so that I can then do that in my job and then once you know that you can start making sure that you are hitting every KPI in your world that builds towards that as well so that's very like that's a very top line thing that you can do but if you're looking for a

pay rise if you're looking for a promotion then once you've done the research on the company to kind of understand what's going on most companies will have reviews or promotion times some only doing them annually in a dream world you'd be doing them quarterly find out when they are find out what the deal is absolutely everyone is different speak to HR find out what happens then do your preparation for it so work out all of the things that you've done to contribute to that organization so think of it be your own PR basically go okay what are all the amazing things that I've done? Who did I come into contact with? What big deals did I do? Or if that's too high level, it might just be simply, was I doing my job really, really well every day for the last

however long you've been working there? And what did I contribute to that was really important and valuable to the company? So do your preparation, then practice talking about that and put it into succinct language that is easy to talk through because you want to be able to explain that you've done that without coming across sounding like you're a crazy narcissist who's just really interested in yourself so practice creating a bit of a script about what you know is important to the company and say you know I've been working at this company for three years now and I've really realized that obviously generating sales is really important making sure that we're always hitting our sales targets is important but I also know that's really important to be bringing in new

business so over the last three years here's how I've done that and here's what I'd like to do in the future to try to build that even more and take this company into an even better position in order to do that I'd really like to apply for a pay rise and I'd like to talk to you about that and it's as simple as that so getting that out you do need to of course know like if you if your company and organization's just been through a pandemic and your industry was really badly hit and they're fired half the company yeah and there's no pay rises for a while obviously pick your moments like it might be that company isn't going to be in a position to however you'll never know until you put your hand up so again while talking through how your empathy like you have

empathy for the company you know what the company's been through talking through all of the values that they have and how you've contributed to them and then just really simply ask do you know if there will be any scope for promotions or pay rises in the near future and I think it's important to note that this doesn't just affect women like not that long ago I helped a male friend get a pay rise he didn't know how to approach it he didn't know if he should approach it and I think it's just about having a level of confidence and knowing that you're capable and knowing your worth yeah know your value oh that should be on everyone's like billboards above their homes when I say know your value your value your personal value has nothing to do with your

work your personal value has everything to do with who you are as a human being and in your place in the world but knowing your financial value in a workplace is really important and again it comes back to knowing how the work that you're doing is contributing to the overall success of the organization that you're wanting to get the promotion for so if you can really easily demonstrate that the things that you've been doing at your work have contributed to the financial success of your company then that is on you thank like well done that's on you so you should be shouting that out loud and proud one of the things as like a business owner is just preparation go in there armed with the details go in there saying like here it is I've written it

out here's what I've achieved here are my successes in the company I think that that speaks volumes and walking into these discussions where you're asking for a pay rise or you're asking for promotion really kind of I'm not saying go and put together a powerpoint you could if you wanted to but like hey why not go hard yeah like putting together almost like a little bit of a debate as to why you deserve that really goes a long way as well because there might be things or there might be an overall you know success that the business has had but you would hope that your manager is across how you've contributed to it but often they're so busy worrying about their own job that they're not completely across what you've done so it's really great to be able to go out there and

just once again, explain and lay it all out and be like, this is how hard I've worked this year. This is what I've achieved. I find that the creative industry can be a tricky one for a lot of people. And I think it's also, I don't think I know it's a hugely undervalued skillset for a lot of women. You know, we do a lot of things for free, for example, whether it be people who are graphic designers who go out there and do free logos or photographers who do time for prints. Like I think our services in a creative industry can be incredibly undervalued. What would you say to somebody who is in that initial startup period, who is like trying, okay, how do I get my work out there? Maybe doing too much for free or giving away too

much of themselves. How can someone build value around their business and really build respect around what their product is? Setting boundaries straight up to know what it is you're prepared to be paid for and what you're prepared not to be. It can be quite dangerous from an early stage if you start working for free, because the expectation then is that it will always be free. A really great example of this on a global scale is when all of the news sites used to give away free content. Oh yeah, I'm still dirty that you have to pay for subscriptions. I know, every time I go on the Daily Telegraph, I'm like, damn it, I'm not buying that article. I'll find it on Daily Mail for free. Someone will repost it. It's true. So the challenges

that they now have to make people pay for their content when it used to be free is very, very hard. so I would be very mindful of not doing things for free when you can when you are starting out now that can be very challenging don't get me wrong it can be very hard interning like for example anybody who ever works for us they're always paid positions we've never ever had unpaid interns for example so we always make sure that if you are doing a job you get paid for it in some way shape or form the best thing you can be doing is just finding out what the going rate is supposed to be for that industry so just do some googling just you can jump on and find out go to seek or career one they can tell you the average rate of pay for that particular work that you're

doing and then if you wanted to you know reduce that rate a bit because you knew that's fine you can always start lower and then push your rates up higher as you go but rule number one is just don't work for free the exception to that rule is if you are literally dipping your toe in the water to try to work out if that's going to be the career for you or you're kind of gaining some experience so if you do have your day job and you're dipping into helping out with some events or you're helping out launching a restaurant or something and they've asked you to help then sure you might want to do things like that for free as you go but as you get to the point where you perhaps want to leave that business and start your own just don't work for free. I was gonna say it

also comes back to that overarching banner that we're going to stick in front of everyone's houses which is know your worth I guess like for so many people I think we undervalue what our skill set is or we under quote on things because on one hand you don't want to miss out on the work but on the other hand you like you want to be competitive against what other people are but I think for so many of us asking for money you know setting your prices can be something that's so challenging and it also feels a little bit debilitating to send out an invoice under your own name and be like oh that's it like you know and what are they going to think of that like what are going to think of this quote if you're starting a new business and you're also if you're the

jack of all trades you're the person who does the accounts you're the person who does the PR the branding everything I think a really clever little tactic is to create a new email address with a different person's name and that's the person that sends out quotes that's the person that sends out invoices and that way you aren't being the person who's asking for money so maybe you have Sally from accounts and Sally from accounts is the one that deals with all the money and that way there's a little bit of separation there especially if that's something that you struggle with or that it gives you a bit of anxiety or makes you feel like oh maybe I'm maybe I'm asking for too much spoiler Sally is you yeah you're not but nobody nobody needs to

know that I think I'm gonna have to change my account name now I think a prime example of this of having a level of sometimes you might offer a service for free really good example is when we got producer Keisha on board we didn't search for producer Keisha producer Keisha slid into our DM and she's done this mind you but she read your book and it left a big impact on her she read your book she slid into our emails and she just said this is my experience I love your podcast she said all the right things can I edit something for you for free this is her saying I don't want any money but it's just trying to prove her worth prove her skill set can I edit some one or two weeks for you for free you can get my vibe you can see if you like me and then we can talk and we

said absolutely you can do that but we will pay you for it because I guess coming from a creative industry too we knew that we could have absolutely in that sense we could have said yeah let's see what she's got like why not and we could have not paid her and I think that that is a prime time of when maybe you can get away with it because she's approached us but we value people's work and after being in your own business you realize that well they're at night time taking their own time they're putting their own effort in they're doing their own skill set they're very experienced so in that sense we paid her. But I think that's a really good example of if you're trying to get the foot in the door, Keisha got a job from that. She took a risk. She jumped in out of nowhere. There wasn't

a position at that time going, well, there pretty much was, but we hadn't advertised it yet. It was just divine timing, divine intervention. But it's a prime example. She got a job from saying, hey, you know what? I want this. I'm going to go and try and get it myself. And she was very clever in the way that she also kind of gave a time limit on it. She didn't say, I'm going to work for you for free forever she was like this is a sample of my work you know let me come and do some work for you for a little while so it's a bit like dipping your toe in the water to say look I'd like to try and work on an event to see if I can prove my worth and show what I do and that's a great idea because the event is a one-off you're not saying I'm going to do all

your events for the next year for free so that was a really great way that she did that and she did it with heart she did it in a personalized way so she would have talked about everything she loves about you guys when you would have read it I have no idea what she actually wrote but I'm sure that everything that she had in there showed that she understood who you were what you stood for what you valued she got the brief she understood the brief well I think that that then ties into this whole idea around personal brand she totally understood the brief and when she came and approached us she obviously took a few nuggets from the podcast and different things but can you talk to me a little bit around what is a personal brand how important is a personal brand

and how do we cultivate one? There's a few questions there. How do you change your personal brand too? If you had something for a while and you're like, it's not my vibe anymore. Oh, that's a good one. That's a great question. So your personal brand

is how you showcase yourself to the world. And in a professional setting, it's obviously how you showcase yourself in a work environment. So a brand itself is the sum total of what you value and what you prioritize and then how you show that out to the world. so keep in mind that every day of our lives we're on show so our audience every day are our

colleagues our bosses our clients our customers any other suppliers stakeholders our family our friends we have a lot of audiences and then online obviously if you have a social media presence or an online web presence then that's all people who are going to those sites are obviously your audience as well so when you are looking to decide what your personal professional brand should be it all comes back to your values so you decide what your values and your priorities are your list of 10 things and that's how you operate and every decision that you make every email that you send every conversation that you have every report that you file needs to be in line with who you've decided to be and if that's somebody who strives for excellence if that's somebody

who strives to be successful if that's somebody who strives to create some wealth then it would have all of those things in mind. People also want reliability and consistency. So over time, it's a bit like building a brick wall. Like every little action that you take is another brick in that wall. And over time and over the course of your career, that wall gets higher and higher and stronger and stronger. And so it's consistently conveying your values to the world through the work that you do. Well, it doesn't matter who you are these days. It doesn't matter if you have a public profile or not everyone to a level if you have an instagram you have a profile and you have a brand baby whether you want to admit it or not every time you go for a job it was highly likely

your potential employer is going to look at your instagram absolutely our instagrams now and it's a crazy world it's a cv whether you make it or not whether it's intentional or not it's a cv someone's going to go and say let me get a feel of who this person is to see if they're going to fit to see if they're right, to see if their public reflection is going to reflect our brand. And that is something you need to be super conscious of. So maybe if you are, you can be so bloody good at your job and you could be a wild party animal on the weekends. Maybe you put your Instagram on private when you go for a job and it shouldn't have to be like that, but this is the world we live in. It's a fact. Your employee is going to have a look at who you are and it's

unfair but people can and will judge you before they know you it's literally just the world we live in I know and like you think when you say that it's like we shouldn't be discriminated against for being the people that we are like that's all true but at the same time like for example if I was going to hire a babysitter and then I could see that they're getting munted on a Saturday night not the babysitter I want you know like the one that's at home reading the book yes you will if you're posting photos of you with Sally Hepworth that's the person I'm gonna lie up I'm hiring Sally Hepworth to look after my children actually she was a bit wild maybe but she went to sex clubs but also in this idea of personal brand how can we cultivate a

personal brand if somebody hasn't really thought about it if they've got their Instagram and they're like how do I create or curate a personal brand where can they start so if you're doing it on your social media and the things that you care about are let's just use an example of somebody who wanted to be a teacher so imagine that you really wanted to become a teacher and so you are deciding to put something on your social media whether it's your instagram your linkedin your twitter your facebook keep in mind too you don't need to use all of those platforms so the best way if you're using your social media for your career it's choose the social media platform where your audience is and your audience are your bosses or your clients or your customers

so work out where they are and then decide which platform you need to be on so for example I have a lot of sort of c-suite level execs who are in their 50s and 60s so I'm often on LinkedIn and Facebook with them more so they are not watching me on TikTok so it's kind of just choosing what platforms you need to be on you don't need to be on every platform and you don't even need to be posting all the time unless what you're trying to do is convey your creativity like if you're a graphic designer using Instagram is the perfect way to actually show off what you can do because it's a visual medium so work out which platforms right for you first then decide what it is that's important to you so if you're that teacher obviously liking children's probably important

liking education liking research liking books liking any kind of learning teaching it might be something about the environment so whatever it is that's authentic to you though you don't want to manufacture some fake persona that's not who you actually are well there's a prime example I don't know if you guys saw this it was only in the last probably month but there was a girl oh I think she was from I don't know if she might be in the UK or America but she worked for an airline she had quite a big platform on TikTok you know that you're nodding back she had a big platform on TikTok and part of her TikTok was sort of outing secrets of the airline and it was quite innocent and quite funny she had a big audience anyway the airline got wind of it and they sacked

her so I just think and I don't know what happened with that I don't know if she fought that and got her job back I'm pretty sure she didn't but the idea is you are a reflection of your workplace and these things are going to creep up and there are going to be issues if you want to be a teacher and you post a photo that says I fucking hate kids I'm never babysitting my niece and nephew again you're probably not going to get the job yeah and even every department has a HR department that has every company has a social media policy except us we are hr we are everything that's great but everybody has a social media policy find out what it is do your research it comes back to being prepared so find out what the social media policy is and then for example if you're at your work if

you're in an environment where they love you posting on social media and talking about what the company's up to just double check before you post things to make sure that you're not posting something that's confidential or you're not supposed to be posting about yet like that airline well I guess at the end of the day it was a confidentiality breach yeah yeah exactly but also I think in this it's interesting when you said like you know you don't need to be posting every day I think maybe if you haven't considered this idea that social media can be a tool for employment that it can be a vehicle to actually help progress your career and I don't just mean like having a work Instagram because a lot of people will have like you know a brand Instagram or something else

but having consistency across both, I think something that I have definitely seen and I like happen is somebody having a brand Instagram and they're polished and perfect on their brand Instagram, but then writing nasty comments with their personal Instagram, or just being a different version. It's like, you don't get to separate the two that is you that all ties into your personal brand. And I saw it recently, actually on Abby Chatfield, it was a woman who was a psychologist and she wrote her Instagram as a psychologist was great but then she'd written a really negative quite body shaming comment and it had all been linked back and then she was outed for it on insta and it's like that all ties into your brand that is who you are on social media well now if

someone saw that they're like well I'm probably not going to go to you as a psychologist no and that stuff the problem with the internet is that it stays there it's not just a once-off it's not something that you said to a friend that has a lifespan that goes beyond one comment so I think that's where we be careful never wipe it you see all these people that accidentally post something online for two seconds just takes that one person to screen grab it and then it's on there for eternity consider doing a social media audit as well because we've all now been posting on social media for a very long time and if you were to go back all through your tweets or your posts are you sure what's back from five years ago or 10 years ago is something that you would be happy

to say and happy to have out there about you now certainly I've seen situations with clients where they've had hires who somebody has found out something that they've tweeted and it was years ago and they would have been very young when they did it but it was quite racist and they were sacked immediately for it and that person didn't even know it was there like they've forgotten about it and don't get me wrong they should never have posted it but also times change like back then it was borderline like probably still was never right in the moment but it certainly wasn't as bad as it is now probably more acceptable at the time if they felt like they could post it we've seen it play out in the media we've seen it play out with media personalities that the stuff

that you say five ten years ago it still matters and yes people change absolutely but in that same essence like that stuff it gets recorded the internet knows and that shit can come back and bite you in the ass i remember when we went on the bachelor i did that i went back through my cleanse i went through my feet and not because there's anything like in terms of racism or things like that there are a lot of drunk photos they do tell you they're like look if there's anything that you don't want to be plastered everywhere go and have a look so I just thought I wonder what there is and it wasn't too bad it was for me it was more just like awkward photos or things like that or ex-boyfriends that maybe I don't want them brought back into it so I did

that and I'm sure everyone that's gone on any sort of show like that has done that and I think that's a really really great tip for anyone going for a new employment have a quick look it's your CV people who are hiring at the moment want to make the right decision hiring somebody is an expensive exercise for any organization and they want to make sure they're hiring the right person and they will absolutely do their research so they're going back to 2010 they are they're going to myspace back in the day you would post a whole photo album from going out and getting drunk on a saturday night and then i that was what i did i went back and i was like i was so drunk and i thought that that album hey fun saturday night whatever the album title was i'm in the

trolley drunk being pushed down the street was a good idea to post on the internet what was they thinking it's a different time we've evolved some of it is fun and look you will be there will certainly be organizations like if i'm looking at somebody's socials i look at it with a fairly like generous lens where i'm like oh well you know they were 19 well how much fun they were having do you know what looks like you had fun that's great i'm not exactly so i do think that with social media and the evolution of it people are now probably going well it was a moment in time and that's not who they are now but you know if you're looking back a year and seeing posts that are not on brand with the company that you're about to be representing or to your point as well

about like that psychologist who posted something awful like I've definitely not made hires based on some of the passive aggressive behavior that I've seen people happy to do and some people do oh no that's not who I am professionally that's just in my personal life I do not subscribe to that same girlfriend same thing like it's who you are in your personal life is who you are in your professional life it is not Jekyll and Hyde we're lucky that like our professional life is our personal life you guys know all our deep dark and dirty secrets no you know what you're gonna get but Becky you've got your book right in front of you and I can see you have a multitude of post-it notes poking out left right and center I just want to ask you obviously you've thought

the things that stand out for you or the things that people are gonna get the most benefit from can you just tell us as I guess a bit of a wrap-up what are the main points that you would want to drive across or what are the things that people come to you the most for so the most is okay this is a few things so sorry if they're a bit scattered this won't be very linear it'll be more imagine this like a brainstorm but all right so the main take-homes that probably underpin everything that you've got this was about is to know what you stand for in order to stand out you need to know what you stand for so know what your values are and then work out what your passions are ask yourself that question if I had all the money in the world what is it that I'd be doing and if you

can work towards that then great it might take time in fact it will take time these overnight successes that we see all the time they're a minority they are such a minority it's insane and people do think overnight success but they don't see the hard yards that you've been doing for years beforehand they don't see all of that work that happens behind the scenes if you are going to start a business prepare to work harder than you've ever worked in your entire life that is just the nature of running your own show but on the upside if you are starting your own business it is I think one of the most satisfying fulfilling things you can do in your career because the buck does end with you like you're responsible for the successes you're responsible

for the failures but you can do it what else would I say I think some good things are is know that if you're going to have a great career you want it to be sustainable so while working 24 7 for a short period of time is very normal particularly if you're first starting out you can't do that forever you can't do that as a marathon you will burn out so putting structures into your life like getting enough sleep sounds boring but it's so important like most of us Laura and I look at each other we're like I have two kids two children you know it's true two years you really have you're in the trenches right now like when you've got young kids that is the hardest hardest time of anyone's career ever and life and it comes down to sleeping when

you can taking a nap when you can and knowing that these days will pass and this too shall pass that's a very important quote sleep but trying to prioritize sleep prioritize healthy lifestyles doing some kind of fitness or movement it doesn't have to be hard go for a walk get outside get some sunlight eat healthy food eat regularly it's so easy to just kind of forget to eat when you're working really hard and then suddenly you get to night time and you kind of eat everything in the fridge at once really try to schedule and put it in your diary schedule in breakfast lunch dinner put it in it seems really boring to have these structures in place but they are what you absolutely need to do to create great work there's this amazing quote by a French novelist called

Gustave Flaubert and he said a name isn't it amazing to paraphrase because the translation is a bit strange but he said be orderly and calm in your life so that you may be fierce and original in your work and the idea is that you create these great frameworks of looking after yourself having a healthy body and a healthy mind in order to do really creative interesting fascinating work that makes a difference in the world well we're even trying like something we're trying to do here at Life Uncut with all three of us employees is because for example Laura will be the first person to say I don't even know when the last time you did any actual exercise because you don't have any time but we would no but that out me no no but I'm saying part of what we want to

do now is in our work day is an hour walk we want to start the Monday work day with an hour walk and maybe we are talking on that walk like it's still a meeting it's whatever but we're going to put that in because I think it's really important for what you said to try some semblance of balance so what would be your advice for people that are getting I guess discouraged from failure or because it is there's a time where you want to throw it in the bin and you're like I can't do it anymore like I'm not going to make it making mistakes is a very normal part of running any kind of business having a career we are human we'll always make mistakes and one of the markers of a really successful person isn't somebody who never fails it's somebody who makes mistakes

learns from them and gets over them as quickly as possible something that a lot of people like if you've made a terrible mistake or you've had a fail and you're feeling discouraged a lot of people end it there they go well one I can't do it obviously I can't do it so that's it or they go that was awful and I've lost money and I've lost time and I've lost friends or whatever sanity yes exactly I'm losing my mind and that can be really scary and gives you a lot of anxiety but if you can put that aside for a moment and decide again it's very boring but we come back to our values if that thing that you want to do is in your values and your passions if that's in there you're just going to have to get back up again and do it again the one thing you've got to do

is learn from your mistake so this is where again you come back and you be a research scientist and you do an analysis of what happened and what went wrong and that can take time you've got to really sit down and go okay well what was the scenario why didn't it work what could I do next time to make it work is it worth me doing it again do I go down that route so you've really got to just decide whether or not you're going to do that again but you've got to make the mistake do the research to find out why find out how to not do it that way again and then just get back up and do it again. Bec thank you so much for coming on today you've got this is your book for anybody that needs a little bit of help going in the right direction figuring out what they want

finding out how to get that pay rise it's an absolutely brilliant book producer keisha swears by it got her a job so it's done something for someone beck thank you so much for coming and giving us time today and being a part of the pod thank you brit and laura and honestly hearing that about keisha like that's why you write a book when you have somebody whose life has actually been made better because of something that you've written and shared that's why people write books So just to finish with one question, you've seen us online, you've heard us, now you've seen us in person. How's our personal brand?

You two are so on brand, it's ridiculous. Thanks, Bec. All right, guys, you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our low light of each and every week. I think you guys already know what my highlight was. But anyway, Brittany, what was your highlight? What was your highlight?

The sex or the weekend away by yourself or the bottle of wine or? It wasn't a bottle of wine. It was literally a glass of wine. Just FYI. I'll tell you in a second. You can go first. What was your suck? Start with that. My suck this week is, I guess it's in preparation for next week. I'm moving house next week. You're preparing for something to suck in your life. I'm preparing like the sucker started. No, moving sucks. And I've started to just go through a lot of my stuff and I only have a one bedroom and a sunroom, but it is surprising how much stuff you accumulate. Isn't it wild how much shit that you just put into cupboards and then when I don't even have cupboards I'm like where is this stuff when you do a cleanup

if you listen to last week's episode you'll already know this but basically Britt and I are both moving on the same day we're doing a bit of like house shuffling Britt's moving into my apartment I'm moving into a new house and I did the clean outs of like our top cupboards like one of them was our medicine cabinet there is literally pills in there like vitamins from 1997 to 100% that have been off for four years sunscreen that's been out of date for two years I just did this big it's I find it do you know what I find it very cathartic to do a clean out like this I feel good about it it's my sweet actually it's not my sweet okay what's your sweet then my sweet is that my new co-host on radio Mitch Turi this is going to be the shout out I got a knock on my door

oh it must have been Monday night I'd been messaging him and I said I was feeling really flat and really down and out and that's it he was live on air when we were talking he was like messaging me between his breaks and then I got a knock on the door and I got like a liter tub of Anita's ice cream like the most delicious ice cream that I love sent to my door love from Mitch so that was just so cute he was live on air he's like do you know how hard it is to order a new barista while you're live on air so that was definitely my sweet getting a tub of ice cream sent to my door if you guys have listened to the radio show which we put up on our podcast feed it's in the libraries Mitch is our co-host on the Saturday morning show and he's an absolute

fucking angel and we love him and also I'm jealous that I didn't get any ice cream but okay well we talk about that another day he's buying my love I'm sad too Brittany Mitch anyone listening I'm sad this is my address send me ice cream my suck for the week do you know what like apart from like working a lot which is not a suck like it's I feel like very accomplished that I've managed to get through so much stuff my suck was just that I couldn't spend my weekend with the girls like I really it sounds silly but even just having two days away from them I really really miss them and when I got home Marley was like mommy where'd you go you go to do the works and I was like yeah I'm gonna go to the work just down the road mommy has to pay the bills mommy's 500 meters down the

road but no I just I love the age that they both are I love spending time with them I can't believe Lola is almost one like I just feel like time is going so quickly so I genuinely felt like I've missed spending quality time with the kids in the past week so that's my suck and my sweet for the week is that I'm moving fucking house and Lola. What was that voice? I don't even know, but I can't tell you honestly, guys, Lola has been sleeping in a hallway. Like I know we joke about it, but I'm not actually joking. Like she has slept in a hallway for her entire life. She has slept in a portacot for her entire life. And now we're finally moving to a house that has three bedrooms. We're going to have a backyard. Like it's just everything that we have wanted to have

as a little family of four and like it's it's happening on Friday so I'm super excited I wanted to be noted that I've been telling Laura she needs to move for about 18 months but I'm glad you finally got there do you know what it is though and I've realized this I'm like I'm weirdly a creature of habit as much as I like to do new things I don't really like change when it comes to my space and when it comes to my routine I really struggle with cafes the places you walk I know I felt the same when I was going to move too I didn't want to move suburbs because I was like but this is what I do every morning and this is where I go totally and it's almost like it's just a safety thing and a familiarity thing and I think also like the apartment that we live

in now even though it's just a rental it's not something I've never felt an attachment to a home before but like we brought both of our babies into the world in that apartment you know like we had sex in there I had sex in that apartment oh no I've got to move in there far out but I have so many really beautiful memories of starting a family in that apartment and so I feel a lot more attached to it than what I think I normally ever have and so yeah it's been a it's been a big thing to kind of reconcile but i'm really really excited about this week so friday we are moving house brit is moving house it's all happening and that is it from us guys if you have loved the episode please jump on to apple podcast you can also do it on spotify now the cheeky kids at

spotify have finally caught up leave us a review let us know what you thought of the episode and don't your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell your friends and share the love because we love Thanks for watching!