Gary Crotaz

Gary Crotaz 0:02
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things, or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. Today I am delighted to welcome Adwoa Akoto to the podcast. Adwoa is a British-Ghanaian actor, writer, model and entrepreneur. You may have seen her in 2020’s breakout TV show, I May Destroy You for HBO and BBC, a comedy drama exploring the question of sexual consent in contemporary life. And she’s got some fascinating projects in the works as well, which I’m sure we’ll hear a bit about. I was really interested to feature Adwoa on The Unlock Moment podcast as her path into acting was pretty unconventional. She studied economics and finance at university. And she’s maintained a parallel career in the business world of skincare and wellness as she’s pursued her passion for acting. Her skincare brand Dwira bridges decades of Ghanaian traditions, skincare and wellness rituals with British Good Manufacturing Practice standards to offer the best of both worlds. I can’t wait to hear more about what drives her and how she balances her priorities as she targets success and fulfilment in her career. And of course, the moment of remarkable clarity, where she figured out the right path ahead. Adwoa, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Adwoa Akoto 2:17
Ah, it’s my pleasure to be here.

Gary Crotaz 2:20
Thank you so much for joining. So start out with telling us a little bit about your story, a bit about your upbringing.

Adwoa Akoto 2:26
Oh right! Oh, so I am British-Ghanaian. I was born in the UK and I lived here for a few of my formative years. I want to say until about seven. Me and my family, we debate this all the time. But I did move to Ghana for about three, four years, again another debate. I came back to the UK in time to start year seven. So that’s our secondary school. We have very strong accents!

Gary Crotaz 2:54
And what kind of child were you?

Adwoa Akoto 2:57
Oh, wow! You know, I’ve always been creative. I’ve always kind of been… I used to write a lot. And I used to write books. And my mum always says, you know, Oh, my God, I should have published a book. Yeah, you should. But I remember no one would read my books, because I am from a very traditional African background, which I’m sure a lot of people can relate to. And it was always about studying to be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, it was never really about fiction, like, you know, it was all make believe what I was doing. So it wasn’t something that my parents wanted to encourage, not because they… I guess just because they didn’t know that was a viable path of a career way for me. So they just wanted me to focus on what could make me successful. Which they all thought I’d be a lawyer because I guess I loved to debate. I was a child that always asked, Why? And in an African household again, you just get told, you don’t ask and I’m always like, But why, but why? And like, I remember my dad used to say, he had a saying, Children should be seen and not heard. And you could hear me! So yeah, I was that child that you couldn’t really… I wasn’t the quiet child in the corner. I was definitely the one that took control. I was definitely the one that was, you know, I was like the bossy big sister, the cousin that told you what to do. I was that kind of child. So yeah.

Gary Crotaz 4:24
And where did the bug for acting start for you?

Adwoa Akoto 4:27
Right from a kid. You know, I think… when I think of my earliest childhood memories, and when my cousins or my siblings you know… my earliest childhood memories were dancing, you know, dancing competitions, dancing shows, films, or plays I should say, plays, gymnastics, all with me at the helm orchestrating it. Like everyone knew where to stand. It was me. I’m telling you, you’re standing here, you’re doing this, and everyone’s just going along for the ride. I actually remember vividly my sister being like, I don’t want to play! I’m like, You have to play! Oh God, I sound so militant! But, those are my earliest childhood memories. And actually, those are the earliest childhood memories for a lot of my family as well, like when we, when we talk about being together, it’s one of my projects. So I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t creating,

Gary Crotaz 5:21
We’ll come and talk about some of your strengths later, you’re one of the people that we’ve worked together before, on strengths. And one of your top five strengths, which is in the population a very uncommon strength, but is something called Command, which is this natural comfort with being the person that steps forward and says, This is everybody should be doing. It’s exactly what you describe as a young child, it’s quite interesting how young some people are when those strengths start to show up. So how did you balance that kind of, the creative spirit and the kind of family dynamic of, you know, doctor or lawyer or engineer, those kind of routes?

Adwoa Akoto 6:02
Oh, I think I… so like, from a very young age I’ve had a lot of responsibility. Like my mum called me the second mum, because I’m the oldest girl. And even though I’m the second-born, I often felt like the oldest because I had an older brother. And he also listened to me a lot. So it often felt like I was in charge of them a lot. And it’s weird, because I think when you have that responsibility, I almost thought of them as my children, right? Like my brother, my sister. So I almost kind of… I don’t think I put my needs on the backburner. But as I grew, I started to think, you know, the kind of background I come from, I can’t afford to not have, you know, I can’t afford to, to kind of take a risk with my life. And I think when you’re young and you’re kind of trying to figure it out, everything is very black and white and there’s no grey area. And for me, I was like, I always wanted to be the best. So I knew I was, I was quite good academically as well. So I was just like, you know, I and everyone told me I was going to be a lawyer, because I could debate really well. And I could really present an argument, if we had to convince mum and dad to do something, if we had to… It was Adwoa, send Adwoa in, and I would go in and on the spot I would make things up, which again is actually performance. I remember I’d stand there and think I was like a politician or lawyer and I, and I’d really like even gesticulate, like I had my whole body language. I don’t even know the content of what I was saying. But I know whatever passion I gave to them was so… but they’d laugh! So yeah I guess, like, I started to subscribe to this notion that I was going to be a lawyer. And I started to pick subjects and started to really gear my career path to being a lawyer. And I remember I was still acting because I loved it. And my school actually funded for me, they gave, I was part of the scholarship, I think it was a Hackney Young Actors Club, I can’t remember the exact name, but it took part at the Hackney Empire, which is, like a huge theatre in East London. And I got to go there every week and perform and act. And yeah, so for me, that was like a really nice outlet to have, it didn’t feel like I was giving it up. But in the same breath, I was still in school, and I was learning towards being a lawyer. And I just felt it was both performance and some, you know, like that… use language and like, I get to speak and not be scared to speak. And in my mind I was going to be a barrister. So I was like, well, when I’m representing people in court, I need to know how to present myself, I need to know how to do this. So it kind of married, like married together in my mind. I didn’t make a definitive choice, because I didn’t think I had to at that point.

Gary Crotaz 8:55
So you went to university and you studied economics and finance. And what happened when you came out of university? What happened with your career?

Adwoa Akoto 9:03
So just as a side note to university actually, because I’m talking about being a lawyer, and I went to do economics and finance, but I was such a… it’s weird, I wasn’t a rebellious child but I really wanted to live life on my own terms. But I remember when I got into college, I started to do, like, history and law kind of subjects and think, I don’t want to do law any more. I don’t want to be a lawyer. And then my dad was like, Well, why don’t you try being a doctor? So then I dropped all my subjects. Yeah, it was within a month of starting, and I didm because I was doing five A levels. And I did all science subjects, which I absolutely hated. I hated that even more, but I couldn’t drop it at that point. So I had to go through with it. And they weren’t my strong suit. And it was the one of the worst decisions I think, because I didn’t do well in like two of them but, and I had drama as one of the subjects just as a sidenote, but so going into uni I knew I couldn’t try and pursue the drama path that was very clear to me still, I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I didn’t want to be a doctor. What was the next best option? And I knew if I wasn’t an actor, like I always knew I wanted to be a businesswoman. You know, my mum in her early days was a businesswoman. And I just loved like the whole kind of lifestyle of it. And her like just being a businesswoman. So I thought, I’m going to pursue finance, because I learned that a lot of accountants were natural CEOs, or they went on to start their own businesses, they understood finance. So I decided to study economics and finance.

Gary Crotaz 10:26
And you came through that. And you went into into business after after you graduated?

Adwoa Akoto 10:30
No, no, oh my goodness. So I, oh God again, I was working, I got a job as young as I could, I think 14 years old, I was doing like the paper round or something. So I’ve always worked from the age of about 14. And right before I went to uni, at university, I got a job in a bank, which at the time I was super young to get a job at the bank, and no one around me had got it. So I was like, Oh, my God, this is amazing. So after uni, I kind of went into that full time, whilst exploring other options. And I think it was really a stalling tactic, because I really shouldn’t have and I was pursuing acting, but not really pursuing that. I think I was lost. I was very lost that early kind of days after uni. And then I kind of, I had to like, with the pressure of like, family, I just had to make a decision. And I went into accounting, which I decided in uni I wouldn’t do and, but I ended up doing and yeah, spent a few years just kind of feeling very, like I moved a lot as well, like I thought it was the company, I went like to smaller companies, I tried different firms, and it became apparent to me that it wasn’t for me.

Gary Crotaz 11:45
How did you know?

Adwoa Akoto 11:45
I hated going to work. And I think that’s such a strong word to use, but nothing that inspired me on a daily, I felt, and a lot of people had kind of said, Oh, this is what it’s like after university. This is what adulthood is like. So I was just like, this adulting, like this is such a dry life! Like we and I think… not even I think, I know that in my heart I always knew, like life was meant to be more than this. And I very quickly said to myself, I’m not a nine to five person. I’m not a nine to five person. This doesn’t work for me. So actually, this is a story that I forget most of the time, and I shouldn’t because it’s such a huge, huge kind of part of my life. The next job I went… so I decided to leave the industry of accounting and didn’t know what I wanted to do. But just knew I needed to make good money. And it couldn’t get in the way of my like, I couldn’t have a nine to five job. And also I had to, it had to make me feel good. That was so huge in terms of like, not just feel good for myself, but feel like I was making an impact on the world. And I found a job that I thought was like amazing because it was for an NGO, it was a night, I mean, they had different roles, but I applied for the night job which I remember going into the interview, they were so shocked that I’d applied for like the night role. It was manic and it was new, and it was so innovative. And there was just so much scope to put your own mark on it. Because no one knew what they were doing. So we were almost like making it up. And I was one of the first cohort, I think maybe the like second intake. So it was quite exciting. It was new, it was intense. But that is where I spent at least like two, three years.

Gary Crotaz 13:30
And what were you actually doing there?

Adwoa Akoto 13:31
I was managing, well I wasn’t managing, I was like an A&E reconnection worker. So we were working to like rehouse people who had… like it was housing. So I guess if you had, like it was emergency housing. So it wasn’t like, you know, you’ve been homeless for like two weeks. It was first time homeless people. And you had nowhere to go. And it was like a very quick response. And we had to try and get you rehoused in like 72 hours. That was our target.

Gary Crotaz 13:31
It feels like a huge contrast from what you described as a very dry world of banking and accounting, but you know, reasonably well paid and so on. And suddenly you’re thrust into this world of the NGO where you’re doing something sort of deeply impactful, deeply important to people. How did it feel transitioning from one to the other?

Adwoa Akoto 14:15
It was drama. Do you know, I remember, I think at the time, I wasn’t acting, but that was a stage because I met people from all walks of life, and I’m talking from, like, really kind of your trust fund kids who like had been cut off by their parents to people who had no status in the country and had to leave. And I think, for me, I didn’t have to really start to adapt my communication skills and learn how to deal with different people of different ages of different backgrounds. I was thrust in the deep end, it was so exciting. I think the first few years for me were so exciting because I was making such a huge change. Like I remember people would come back and give me gifts or cry, like I made, I want to say friends, but I couldn’t keep in contact with them. But I made connections that will stay with me for a lifetime in the sense of, I don’t hear from those people, but how they made me feel or how I made, how they told me I helped them or made them feel, I will never forget that, ever, you know. So I felt impactful. And for a few years, I think because I felt impactful, and because I was making a change. And also I had my days, so I didn’t feel like I was giving up my life. But what I didn’t realise was I was giving up my energy. So I just didn’t have the same energy to put into pursuing what I wanted to pursue. And then when I did start to pursue what I wanted to pursue, it was so hard because I would literally come off a 12 hour shift, I’d finish at like 8:30am, drive home, take a shower, sleep for maybe an hour or two. And then I might have an audition at 10am or maybe like 12 or something, you know. It was tough because we, at a time we weren’t doing self-tapes, you had to go into the room and, you know, do that whole kind of spiel. So I started to see the friction of, I’ve got the acting bug, it’s come back again. And I’ve got this job that I really love and I’m enjoying. But it was also getting to a point where I was burning out, a lot of things had changed so I was delivering a lot more bad news because of government regulations, it meant we just couldn’t and didn’t have the funding to help as much as we could. And I remember feeling like an impostor in a sense of, I would befriend these people. And they were telling me what their wants and needs were. And I wouldn’t know, I wouldn’t know that we couldn’t give them what they wanted. And at the time, it was all about encouraging them to take the offer that we were going to present to them. And I did not want to do that.

Gary Crotaz 16:47
It’s so interesting hearing the way that you tell this story. And it’s one of the reasons that I was so keen to get you on to talk about the journey you’ve been on. Because this connection with purpose and authenticity is so important to you. I know that’s true. It’s something that I write a lot about and it’s part of my thinking around The IDEA Mindset, the A of IDEA is Authenticity, and hearing those three phases. So the grey, dull, but profitable world of banking and accountancy, the inspiring and meaningful and impactful first phase of your time at the NGO. And then this transition to where a drive for something that is passionate and meaningful for you at some point driven by the intensity of the work, the nature of the messages you’re having to give, that kind of thing, starts to impact you personally? It’s a very common flow for people where they’re pursuing something that is really important to them. But it’s difficult sometimes to keep those barriers and those boundaries up. And did you feel that, that it was hard to separate the work from…?

Adwoa Akoto 18:00
Oh, yeah, I had to, like I had a ritual when I got home of how to wash away the work because physically, I remember at the time understanding why, I’d read at one point psychologists have psychologists. What? That doesn’t even make sense, you know, I was a lot younger. And then after, like, at this job, I started to understand why. Because you really are… like people really are offloading their problems onto you. And it’s… that period made me the most grateful I’d ever been in my life because I realised my problems in comparison, were nothing. I think when you talk about like barriers, for me, it became, it was, it was strong, because I started to feel like, Okay, I’m advancing. And, you know, and like I said, it was still quite new. And even though like I’d been there about three years, it was still quite a new ish. Like a lot of people didn’t know about it. And I would make suggestions, and without going into too many details, which I felt were really good and were really helpful. And because I was being promoted, I could have a bit more of a direct kind of my influence. But direct feedback from the top. And you know, being in these rooms where we discuss it. And I, I felt like the structure was too rigid, and I didn’t feel like the structure was adaptable. And I think at that point, for me, I realised I can’t make the change here that I wanted to, or that I feel that I want to and actually I’m going to work and doing things I don’t want to do and saying things to people I don’t want to say and having to deliver them offers. And I started to do this thing, right? Well, I’ve left now and I said, Well, you should look around you have options. You’re not supposed… we… that’s not our job, but I started to do that. So I was, I… that meant I wouldn’t hit target. We started to have these really strong targets as well. So I just… it felt a lot like banking to me actually. When we started to talk about targets, but now it felt like banking with real people’s lives, you know, like, yeah. And I knew, for me that, you know, I wouldn’t be here for much longer.

Gary Crotaz 20:15
And I hope the listener can tune into this narrative of the shift in how it feels to be doing what you’re doing. And it’s easy and difficult to say to people listen to your gut, because in a way, everybody knows what that means, and in a way it’s actually pretty difficult to really understand what you mean by that. But you know, what you’re feeling is this sense of, there’s a shift, what felt good and positive and productive and impactful before, those dynamics are starting to shift now. So bring me into this Unlock Moment for you. So what was happening for you when you reached this point of remarkable clarity as to the path ahead?

Adwoa Akoto 21:03
I managed to move into like another NGO, like felt more impactful, but I wasn’t there for long, because I think at that point, I’d already like, I was kind of, I’d gone in, and I was thinking, if this is the same spiel we have to do, I’m out – because now I was actually out there, like I would literally go out on the streets, I was able to see exactly like, whereas before I was in an office, and I was actually able to go and do outreach work and actually be outside, it was kind of both, I was in the office as well. But I also had, you know, time where I’d actually go out and kind of see what was going on and like be on the ground, you know, grassroots, so to speak. But I think at that point, I kind of knew it wasn’t about the work anymore. It was about me feeling like I wasn’t maximising the impact I could have here. So I took a step back. And I was really thinking about my life. And it took a while to get here. But the kind of I guess the purpose element came into play. And it was like, What is my purpose, like in life? What is my purpose? Because I so obviously want to impact these people. But I want to be an actor. How does that even correlate? And I remember, it came to me, and I was like, Well, you know, like, if I just follow the path that I want to do and follow my gut, I can be a lot more influential, I can actually change the narrative, I can start my own NGO if I wanted to. But by following my own path, I get to decide how I impact people and how I can help out people without the rigid structure of someone else’s corporation. That was like the first point where I knew for me, ownership was where it was at, it was about being able and having the freedom and flexibility to do and live life on my own terms. And acting, and entrepreneurship, which I’d always loved, gave me that outlet. So I didn’t know why I continued to shy away from it.

Gary Crotaz 22:55
So it was realising that the purpose was something about being able to have impact, but the route through which you could have that impact had a broader range of options than you’d been considering?

Adwoa Akoto 23:07
I think more so just knowing that following my dreams, and my gut would make me the most impactful than anything else I’ve done. You know, like, for me, it was, I’d listened to everyone else my whole life on how I should live my life. I listened to my parents, I’d listened to input from friends and religious leaders, I’d listened to work colleagues, I’ve always known in my heart this did not align with my spirit. But I’m thinking I’m too young to make these decisions. And then I look around and I’m like, well, whose life do I want? I want my own life. And I got to a stage where I was so fed up by life, like my life, I felt like I’d just fallen into my life. I didn’t choose this life. And I was living it. And I did not like it. And I’m like, Well, why don’t I change the narrative and start doing what I actually want to do?

Gary Crotaz 23:54
I really like that.

Adwoa Akoto 23:55
Yeah, I mean, and it was a quote that came to me. And I was like, Whoa. As actors, especially, like, you know, we all want to, we always want to do things. And we’re like, Oh, but we’re getting older. And I think it’s so funny because I was, I can’t remember where I was, but I saw this quote. And the quote was something along the lines of, I’m not worried about your next 10 years, which I was worried about my next 10 years, but the quote was like, I’m not worried about your next 10 years. I’m worried about your last 10 years. When you’re 80 or 90 and you’re on your deathbed or you’re talking to people, you’re talking to your family about your life, or you’re reflecting on your life. What does it read? What does it say? I don’t know, it clicked for me. I was like, everything in between is just the journey. To me it became it became real, like I was like, whoa, whoa, like, it’s the fun of just knowing that being a part of that journey is what… that’s where you’re going to get the most of your life experiences. That’s where you live. That’s where life, you’re life-ing. I like to use this word life-ing which isn’t a real word. But for me, I will like, it’s about the life-ing, like, why am I sitting on… because what was the alternative, was climbing up the corporate ladder or the management ladder and having a family and having children and having a white picket fence, and it sounds lovely, but it was never the life that I wanted. You know, I still want a family and all those things, but I knew it couldn’t be in a neatly tied box and, you know, like, nice little ribbon, mine was always going to be different, it was always going to be a bit more rogue, it was always going to be a bit more adventurous. And I was like, well, let’s do it. Let’s start this adventure.

Gary Crotaz 25:34
So your Unlock Moment was this clarity around taking ownership of the path ahead for you. And you keep using this word, impact.

Adwoa Akoto 25:43
Oh, okay!

Gary Crotaz 25:44
Unpack that for me. Impact on who?

Adwoa Akoto 25:51
Do you know I never even realised I’ve used the word impact so much until you mentioned it. And you’re right. I’ve probably mentioned it a few times. When I think of impact, I think of the world actually, I think of the world and you know, I was going to say people, but no, it’s actually the world because, and it’s something I’ve been reflecting on a lot this last two months, because I’ve been doing a lot of self-work and a lot of getting to know myself which CliftonStrengths helped with, but I’ve been thinking of, you know, like, I’m reading The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma. And there’s a line in there that one of the characters says, and like, who would cry when you die? They talk about this notion of becoming 1% better every day, which I love. Because my mind is, I never start at like, zero. Like we always look at people who are doing things that we want, and we compare ourselves to them. And it’s, we’re comparing our beginning to their end, which is ludicrous. Like why do we do that? Because what it does is it sets these unrealistic expectations. And when you don’t get it straight away, for myself, I’d like scarper away from whatever it was that I was trying to achieve. And actually, when I think of breaking these huge goals, which your IDEA Mindset also goes into, into small actionable goals, or you know, tasks, it now becomes a lot more real and solid. And I guess for me, it was like, Okay, so he’s talking about becoming 1% better. So who would cry when you die? And I realised I’m, at some point, I realised I’m just living to live. Like, I… what is my life? You know, yeah, maybe I bring joy to the people in my immediate circle. But I didn’t feel like I knew my purpose at the time, I didn’t feel like I was making any impact, I didn’t think I was changing or making the world a better place than it was when I got here. And for me, I think humans probably all think their like purpose is different. But I know I have this urge. And I know I have this in me that I need to leave the world in a better place than when I got here.

Gary Crotaz 27:52
How do you describe your why?

Adwoa Akoto 27:53
My why is giving a part of me to you. You know, like giving a part of me to you that changes you in a way that is positive, or leaving a part of me in this world that changes it in a way that is positive. I like to think singularly just because I think we impact people more or well, like we make more of an impact when we think of one thing we want to impact as opposed to I want to do this for the world. Sometimes you don’t realise creating one thing or like just focusing on the singular actually does impact the world in some way, shape or form.

Gary Crotaz 28:27
Well that’s interesting.

Adwoa Akoto 28:28
Yeah, no, that, I mean that’s something I also had to like, kind of dial back. Because when you have my kind of… like, even like, you know, I’ve got Activator, and I was listening to the… kind of notice we love starting things. We love starting so many things, we think on the grand scale.

Gary Crotaz 28:47
So we talked about before the journey through your career, of discovering a sense of purpose and connecting with this authenticity and impact. And even after you said, I didn’t realise I said it very much, you keep saying it! And then when I said to you, what do you mean by impact, impact for who? You thought about it very carefully and then you said, impact on the world, which is admirable and massive as a goal. And then actually, you came to a place where you said, But I recognise that sometimes I need to focus on the one thing to really make something happen. For a lot of people. I’ve worked with quite a lot of people where they are naturally high performers, they are ambitious, they are often competitive, or they’re maximizers, they’re looking to make things world-class. And it’s quite easy sometimes to get kind of lost in a desire to achieve something so huge that you end up not actually getting cut-through. So if you were to say, if you could do just one thing in terms of having impact, if you could look back on your life in that sort of last 10 years and think, Here’s something where I really made a difference. What would you be proud to have impacted?

Adwoa Akoto 30:11
Ooh [pause] creating stories I’d say.

Gary Crotaz 30:13
For who?

Adwoa Akoto 30:16
For who? [pause] That’s an interesting one, I think. I want to create stories that I [pause] I’ve grown up seeing, you know, I want to create stories that I can relate to. I want to create stories that make myself and people like me feel seen. I think of, like often I speak about this, and there’s like a niche gap where I’m British-Ghanaian. And I love that there’s a lot more African and diverse stories being told. I still feel like we could push that narrative, like I always say to people, and I say, you know, I don’t think yet they’ve seen me represented. I come from two different continents. And I know like, some people like, Oh, you have to choose if you’re African, like, you have to choose if you’re British. I’ve just spent the last six months of last year in Ghana, on my own without my family, like, you know, it’s where my family are from, but I’ve never been there without my family. And it was such an eye-opening experience filled with beautiful experiences, and also a lot of frustration. And you know, I’m not the only person who has kind of made that move back. And I think that was the beautiful part of it, it was like a melting pot of different cultures in the sense of there was African Americans, European Ghanians, you know like, there was so many different cultures that had come back home and either had moved home or visiting or kind of just like, maybe there for a few months. And so I got to, like, connect with a lot of different people. And we definitely have our own world, in the sense of, a lot of people didn’t completely feel like they belonged to like, for instance, I don’t feel like I’m completely British. But also there are parts in Ghana where you don’t feel like you’re completely Ghanaian. Because they remind you that actually, you know, you are other and that might also come from a place of privilege, because you do have a slight privilege sometimes, you know, when you… and I say sometimes, because there are a lot more like Ghanaians who are also very privileged. But then the masses who aren’t see you as this girl that’s come from this world, and you have a bit of a privilege there, right? So I remember thinking, Well, where exactly do I belong? And I’ve had this conversation with people, you really kind of have to create that home for yourself, like you really do. But when I was there, a lot of the stories that inspired me, I realised, was this world of belonging to multiple countries or multiple homes, which I think a lot of people could probably relate to more so than others. That I don’t really see. And I think we are increasingly becoming a more international… you know, people don’t live in just one place, or very rarely, like, you know, live in one place, I speak to so many people who actually are bicoastal, or tricoastal or, you know, kind of navigate to where they might live a few years here and then decide they don’t want to live here and move. You know, we live in that world a lot more now these days, you know, we have a lot of… a huge remote working, the digital nomad generation that travel the world and live life on their own terms. And I love that. And I think for me, I was like, I just want to really see people like myself who have that hybrid nationality be represented a lot more. So then I started to get a lot of inspiration for stories that bridge that gap. I guess when I say I’m creating, it’s for me to… It really is to allow people to understand my world, and by extension, our world, anyone else who connects with that same world.

Gary Crotaz 34:08
If you were going back into a school in London, and you were sitting down with a group of maybe 12 year old or 14 year old girls of British-Ghanaian heritage and talking to them about their future and what you’ve learned on your journey, what would you say to them?

Adwoa Akoto 34:22
Ooh I love this question. I absolutely love it. Just before I go into what I would say, I’ll tell you why I love it. So I’m an actress. And a lot of people talk about coming into the arts, coming into the arts as therapy. I remember thinking that in my early days, and then really not liking it because I’m like, Well, if it’s therapy, it means you’re running away from your actual life. And I felt like I was, I was playing pretend and lots of people were playing pretend to run away from their lives. And a teacher I had, she was just like, it’s just fun. Like it’s just fun. And when it comes down to the nitty gritty, it should just be fun. But one thing that acting did for me that changed me, and it’s done a lot of things for me, what changed me fundamentally as a person was, I was trying to book roles by playing someone else, and I never booked those roles. And the more I learned about my craft, and the more I became a better actress, I realised, and it is the notion of acting essentially, everyone and their nana will tell you this, all the casting directors, all the directors, the producers, everyone who’s in the industry will tell you, the actors that book are so authentically themselves, they bring themselves to every situation, the audition, the set, they are so themselves, because you know what, you are so unique. The attributes that you try and hide, the attributes you don’t like, the attributes that make you you can never be anyone else. And that’s the beauty of each and every one of us. So when I just started to lean into me, and not, What would a casting director want, what would the director want, not only was I having the time of my life, just having fun, I started to book work. And I’ve started to apply that principle to all areas of my life. So I guess when I go into these schools, what I’m saying to these young girls is, or boys, or young people is, be you, but be authentically you. You know, really, really focus on finding out who you are as a person, because that is the most joyful experience, my God, I’ve been playing a part so, for so long, I didn’t even know who I was or what I wanted anymore. And I have joy now, learning why I react a certain way to things, or why certain things trigger me, or why certain things make me really happy, or why I am drawn to certain things. And the more I learn about myself, and that’s why I love The IDEA Mindset so much, it was the CliftonStrengths profile, I had so many aha moments that made me think I’m leaning away from these attributes. And I’m not leaning into my strengths and thus my greatness. Because when you lean into your strengths, that is what’s going to get you from point A to point Z, you know, that’s what’s going to take you where you want to go. So I guess yeah, it’s just about telling these young people you already kind of have what, you know what you have in you. And I want to be very clear that I’m not saying you shouldn’t improve. Because there were things that I didn’t have that were holding me back or are holding me back from having the career that I want. And I’ve highlighted those things, and I’m working towards those things. But you really have to lean into being authentically, authentically you. It is the crutch of your life. Honestly, the minute you start learning who you are, and leaning into it, your life will absolutely change and for the best as well.

Gary Crotaz 37:55
And the moment where you really figured that out was when?

Adwoa Akoto 38:01
Ooh, when did I figure that out? [long pause] You know, it’s one of those messages you hear over and over again. And I started to realise a lot of things that I’m having my aha moments are not brand new. I’ve always heard them before, but it just didn’t click. Because maybe I wasn’t in the right mental space or physical space or whatever space, emotional space. [pause] When is the moment I really figured it out? I want to say when I was, it was during the pandemic, for sure. It was definitely during a pandemic. But yeah, yeah. You know what it was? It was the pandemic. And there was a point where, in my mind, I was like, the world is probably going to end. Oh, my goodness, this is it for us. And I remember thinking to myself, Thank God I quit my job a year ago, because for the last year I’ve been living the life of my dreams. I realised I had chosen the life I lived in the last year. And it wasn’t an easy year by the way, because, you know, I, it was the first time in my life I didn’t have consistent money coming through. I was having to fund myself with my house fund. The money I’d saved for a house. So it wasn’t an easy time period for me. My God was it fun?! Was it adventurous? It was exhilarating! And I realised at that point I have been living authentically me. And that’s what I love. So it was definitely I think at a point where it felt like the world could end which sounds really drastic, but really and truly we’ve all just lived through one of life’s probably most, most life changing eras really. I think this will go down in history. But it was when I guess, and this sounds so dire, I don’t like saying death. But it was when I felt like I was being faced with death and I wasn’t scared to die. And I think just to put that in context, I used to be so fearful of death. Like I always used to think I do not want to die before my time, because I do not want to die before I’ve left my legacy or my impact … that word again! And I felt like, at that point I was on my journey to where I needed to go. And even if I did go, I was going doing what I loved.

Gary Crotaz 40:32
This is why I love podcasting. This part of the conversation is why I love podcasting. Because if we were doing an interview, we were doing a media interview, someone feels like they need to ask you another question to fill in those gaps. In The IDEA Mindset, I have this phrase that’s something like, you have to give your brain space and time to do the thinking that it needs to do. And sometimes to find these remarkable moments of clarity, one of which you’ve just described, you just need to take the time to stop and think – and what I loved about that moment that you just had was, you didn’t know the answer to the question I just asked you. And you really had to think about it and explore. And when you found it, you realised how impactful a thing it was. And as a lesson to people listening, not about this particular topic, it’s very personal to you, you know, this is not other people’s challenge necessarily and other people’s question. But being comfortable to have that moment of silence, and to genuinely do the thinking and just wait until it comes. That’s how you find clarity. I have this little quote where I say to people, you can’t think to a deadline, by which I mean, if I tell you that you’ve got to figure it out by four o’clock on Friday afternoon, well you’re going to come to the best answer you can by four o’clock on Friday afternoon. Sometimes all you got to do is give it the time it takes. And when you give it the time, the conclusion you’re going to come to is so much more powerful a conclusion. And I’m absolutely fascinated by hearing you go through that journey just in the conversation we’ve had, around what impact really means, who you really want to be telling your story to, what you’re really going to be proud of in the long term. And it just helps you have that clarity and focus.

Adwoa Akoto 42:26
It does! I didn’t even realise a lot of the answers to the questions that you’re asking me, I’ve never really thought about in so much detail. So this has been really kind of enlightening for myself as well.

Gary Crotaz 42:40
So sit here early in summer of 2022. What’s coming up for you? What are you excited about over the next six to twelve months?

Adwoa Akoto 42:48
So much! No, I’m playing … well, I’m not playing but yeah. I have a few projects coming out, which is really exciting. Some of which I can’t mention. I have two TV dramas coming out on Sky. I’ve got a feature film, one of the, one is a horror and I play the lead in that, which is really, really cool. And I have another feature film, a musical feature film coming out. I’ve also filmed a comedy TV series in that, it’s probably going to come out early next year. And I’m working on creating, which I’m so, so excited about. I’m represented as a writer now as well. So I’m going to be delving into that a hell of a lot more. And I’m really excited for you to like see that aspect of me that I haven’t really shared a lot of before. So yeah. And also, my African skincare wellness brand, we are rebranding and expanding in a huge way. So we have skincare products, but we’re going to be moving into food supplements and also wellness and digital courses. So that’s exciting, even in-person community courses. So I’m really, really excited to kind of meet some of our customers in real life and any creatives or any like other people, like minded people out there as well, like in real life, it would be really cool because as I move in my life, I’ve I realised how much wellness and self-care and kind of preserving myself is so important to me, and it allows me to do my best work. And I’ve always kept those two aspects separate. But I will be merging those a lot more. So now even on my personal platform, I’ll be sharing a hell of a lot more of my current journey, my current routines and the things I put in place to make me have the best, most optimal life that I can have for myself.

Gary Crotaz 44:37
Fantastic. And where can people find out more about you?

Adwoa Akoto 44:39
So my website is currently under construction, but you can find me on social media. So across Instagram or Twitter, it’s @AdwoaAkoto_

Gary Crotaz 44:53
Fantastic. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For actor, writer and businesswoman Adwoa Akoto, it was when she figured out that she valued happiness over success when facing into a high profile role, and intentionally chose a different path that helped her build a life of her choosing, driven by a desire to live an authentic life. She’s such an inspiration to young people. And I’m so pleased she’s come in to share her story today. Adwoa, thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Adwoa Akoto 45:26
Thank you so much for having me. This was honestly such a great conversation. And I love, I love everything that you’re doing and sharing these stories because they’re so needed and we so need to like understand how we get to where we get to via our strengths, via our life stories. And yeah, continue to share these amazing stories. I listened to a few and they blew me away.

Gary Crotaz 45:50
Thank you so much! This has been The Unlock Moment, a podcast with me, Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook format. Follow me on Instagram, and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon!

Anthony Fletcher 0:07
Within about four years of being a startup, it was around a $60-$70 million business and super-profitable and negative working capital, and it went through a private equity buyout, you know, classic leveraged buyout taking advantage of the cash flow. And then it made its kind of, I suppose, first really big bet. And it was a big, I’d say, venture capital-style bet maybe, rather than a leveraged buyout-kind of bet, and we went to the US. As you said, at the start, my God, you know, it looked like for a while we’d cracked the US. The revenue growth was absolutely phenomenal. And we’d done it all while still servicing all that debt, you know, which, you know, felt, you know, very different to maybe some of our peers who were going to the US with war chests, you know, kind of stuffed with, stuffed with dollars.

Gary Crotaz 0:59
And so what happened next?

Anthony Fletcher 1:00
Well it all went wrong! The business was over maybe $100 million now. And it was very profitable in the UK. And you know, it was trending towards profitability in the US. In fact, we’d just made a dollar profit in the US and I’d framed it and given it to the guy running the US and congratulated him on being a proper business that could make money. You know, rather than it all being illusory. And a number of things happened in rapid succession. The first was the Royal Mail privatised in the UK, the prices went up by, like I probably, I don’t know if I can even say, but triple digit. Our largest cost. We spent more on posting the boxes to people than we did on the, some of the things we put in the boxes, the impact on the margin, your future expectations on cash flows, the what the EBITDA was going to look like in six months, and how people would react to that, was was pretty ferocious. So we were working through this. And then the United States Postal Service came to us six months later and said they were doing exactly the same. So over the next three years, there was sort of super-inflationary prices they had to put through. The combination of these two things meant that, rather than having reinvented the world, crazy revenue growth, profit, you were suddenly looking at going, this could quite easily disappear very quickly.

Gary Crotaz 1:11
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of the IDM mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound, that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things, or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. Today I am delighted to welcome to the podcast celebrated healthy food entrepreneur and CEO, Anthony Fletcher. I can promise you that you will be hungry by the end of this episode, So grab a healthy snack and settle in! Anthony is the founder of Believe in Science, a scientific R&D business that has worked out how to make a donut which tastes like Krispy Kreme but has as many calories as a slice of buttered toast. It’s called Urban Legend and last year secured 3 million pounds in funding. Anthony is most famous as the former CEO of Graze, the UK’s number one healthy snack brand that he joined from Innocent Drinks in 2009, soon after Graze was founded. An innovative business model delivered personalised snack boxes by post to people’s desks. I remember being a Graze aficionado back in the day when it first started out and it was a way of getting healthy and sometimes decadent snacks on the go. The business was incredibly successful. In 2012, Anthony became CEO, launched the Graze product in the US with a $32 million sales run rate in its first year and took the product into mainstream retail with distribution in over 40,000 stores. The business featured on the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 for high-growth businesses. Anthony led the sale of Graze first to private equity group Carlyle in 2012, and then to leading global consumer group Unilever in 2019. I can’t wait to hear more about Anthony’s perspective on leadership in a high-profile, high-growth business, his Unlock Moment and of course the lessons he’s learned along the way. And not to mention getting the inside track on the science of healthy donuts. Anthony it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Anthony Fletcher 5:02
Thanks very much, Gary.

Gary Crotaz 5:04
So tell me a little bit about your upbringing. Were you always a foodie? How did you end up in these food businesses?

Anthony Fletcher 5:10
So I had a really kind of traditional academic upbringing, you know, and went off to Oxford as a scientist, and then went off to Princeton in the US and did research. But I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I didn’t have the faintest how to be an entrepreneur. And I always maintain I got really, really lucky, but I just decided one day to go and knock on the door of Innocent Drinks in Shepherds Bush, because they seemed the sort of company you could approach and they ended up giving me a job. So I had this wonderful apprenticeship at this wonderful business, through all these different stages.

Gary Crotaz 5:48
When you say knock on the door, literally, what do you do?

Anthony Fletcher 5:51
I went to Shepherds Bush and I rang on the door, and I introduced myself and said, Can I speak to someone about a job?

Gary Crotaz 5:58
And what was your background? What had you been doing before then?

Anthony Fletcher 6:01
Well, I’d just finished this, the research. So I suppose I was a new graduate on the market. And I was idly filling out all of those forms for all of those well known brands, you know, which recent graduates go and join, and asked myself, did I really want to be a scientist? And one day decided to do this.

Gary Crotaz 6:22
And what stage was the Innocent business in that time when you first joined?

Anthony Fletcher 6:26
Yes, I think I was kind of a 20-something-th employee. So it was it was starting to rocket, and I suppose was in that sort of, it had cracked a formula and was starting to scale very quickly.

Gary Crotaz 6:40
And what kind of things were you doing when you first joined?

Anthony Fletcher 6:42
My first job at Innocent was in manufacturing, and they admitted later they gave me this job purely on the basis that I must be good at maths with my background. And my job was to work out how many smoothies needed to be made every day, and hence all of the ingredients and packaging, you know, strawberries and plastic bottles, which had to end up in our different factories at the time. Yeah, and I think I was just so lucky to be in this wonderful business and see the different stages, the kind of mucky, wild startup phases, and these, you know, these, these crazy bursts of growth you get, but also the tough times where the growth dies away, or the world just changes and how you deal with that. It was, it really was tremendous.

Gary Crotaz 7:27
And so how long were you at Innocent? And what’s your transition to Graze?

Anthony Fletcher 7:30
Yeah, so I was there through to kind of after the Coca Cola buyout, and this time, I was like, Oh I’ve learned something, I know how to be an entrepreneur, and I was driving my wife crazy making products at home, some of whom I still maintain would have been successful! But I never did any of them. And that’s because I came across the Graze box. And as you say, I just thought this was so radical, because it was a different way of going to the consumers in an industry I loved which was the food industry. And I got my job at Graze in exactly the same way as Innocent. I found out where the office was. And I went and knocked on the door and said exactly the same thing. And what I find is most entrepreneurs do need somebody to do something immediately. And they too, gave me a job.

Gary Crotaz 8:15
Amazing. And what was the Graze business when you, when you first joined?

Anthony Fletcher 8:18
I mean, there were seven founders, and I turned up, sort of, so I was maybe I was the second, the guy who had a forklift licence might have beaten me into the business. But yeah, I was there after the founders.

Gary Crotaz 8:32
And did you have a sense of mission or purpose around these food businesses?

Anthony Fletcher 8:37
I mean, Innocent was a business that was deeply driven by its values. I’d say Graze was deeply driven by how technology could be relevant to the food industry. And part of the fun or uncertainty was, could it be at all? No-one really knew whether people wanted consumer goods posted to them and personalization and things which fitted through letterbox and all these things. So to me it was wonderful because the business was full of all these people from technology. A lot of them had been, a lot of the founders had been at LoveFilm, when it was DVDs through the mail. I just thought it was fascinating, the data and the performance marketing and the relationship and the digital experiences you could create. I genuinely thought they were onto something.

Gary Crotaz 9:27
That’s interesting. So the connection with the businesses that they’d run before was about fitting something through a postbox not developing a food product.

Anthony Fletcher 9:35
Yeah, they were, they were very good at logistics, because you had to be to do the DVDs. And also oddly, they were very good at algorithms to decide what you should get. Because if you remember, Netflix [sic, LoveFilm] was all about picking DVDs you wanted and then they’d decide what to send you based on all sorts of factors. And this is what we were trying to figure out. People just couldn’t be bothered to spend lots of time telling us what they wanted. So we needed, it needed to be a service which entertained them without putting them off.

Gary Crotaz 10:06
And what did you bring from Innocent do you think that you brought into Graze?

Anthony Fletcher 10:11
I mean, I thought the technology was mind-bending, I thought the product was dreadful. I thought the brand, you know, it was very early stage. But also Innocent was a great company. So I had lots of thoughts on kind of what bits of Innocent I agreed and disagreed with and had some views on how they applied to Graze. And they ended up making me the CEO after a while, so I hopefully learned some good things from my time at Innocent.

Gary Crotaz 10:44
I’m always interested, people thinking about the first time they became a CEO. What was that journey for you, and what did it feel like, the first time you sat in that big chair? I don’t know whether it was actually a big chair, but the imaginary big chair of CEO-ship for the first time?

Anthony Fletcher 11:01
Yeah, I mean what happened was, for a while I was sort of this MD of the business or some people call it the COO in technology circles, and we had this visionary founder, Graham Bosher, but he was quite happy to let me kind of get on with a lot of things to allow him to concentrate on other things. But I think this is one of the key problems with my journey, is it all went very well to start with. So maybe I was lulled into a false sense of security. And I certainly overestimated I think, in the initial years, my own abilities.

Gary Crotaz 11:42
That’s interesting, we’ll come to some of those stories, and I think that’s, that’s a really fascinating part of your, your career where it became more challenging. In those early years where you’ve got this kind of, you’re on a bit of a rocket ship, you know, things are growing really fast, you know, how do you balance going fast with getting it right in that kind of business?

Anthony Fletcher 12:01
And I remember wrestling with this and having a certain amount of anxiety. Why isn’t this process in place? Or, you know, surely we’re, we need the perfectly documented renumeration policy, which, this is all wrapped up by a certain date each year and flows through into the budget, you know, et cetera, et cetera, a hundred things like that. I think my kind of reflection now is, you’ve just got to be very mindful of what are the most important bits to get in at any stage? And that’s a question of judgement. And if you try and put too much in, you probably can’t, and probably cause more harm than good, and if you don’t get some of the key processes in, things start unravelling pretty quickly, but I think it is one of the key jobs of the scale-up versus the startup CEO, is how to develop the organisation.

Gary Crotaz 12:52
And what’s the role of finding the right people? How important is that?

Anthony Fletcher 12:56
I mean, it’s the key. And again, timing is so strange in these rapid, rapid growth businesses. The person who’s the hero, you know, who’s driving the business one year can suddenly find that they’re not very comfortable with the next stage of the organisation or, maybe is a good manager but not a great executive in that business, or they go from being very popular to quite unpopular maybe, because of their personal style, just this… less tolerated. So, yeah I think trying to bring in the right people and trying to bring along the people already in the business, that’s definitely a difficult area emotionally and from a judgement perspective.

Gary Crotaz 13:44
Did you feel any sense of impostor syndrome in that CEO role?

Anthony Fletcher 13:50
No, I think I felt, as I said, I mean the business was in the Sunday Times Fast Track for three years and had 30% EBITDA margins and redefined a whole new channel to market which I think was dimly understood at that time, was it gonna be enormous or not? But in wilder moments you could definitely fantasise! So no, I don’t think I did. But I think I felt a lot of stress. And it was very demanding.

Gary Crotaz 14:19
And did you feel that there was anything missing from your toolkit as the business started to scale, as CEO? Or were you, did you feel as though you were sort of across all of the things that you needed to be able to be competent at?

Anthony Fletcher 14:33
I think I felt that it was very emotionally draining. And it was a little like a firehose, and we touched on just developing the organisation when you have kind of growing at 100% a year. But you know, there’s just a hundred things kind of pressing in on you and the organisation, and working out how to manage that I think is part of it.

Gary Crotaz 14:58
And how did you handle that pressure in the early years of CEO-ship?

Anthony Fletcher 15:01
By working very hard! And getting stuck into too many things. And, as I said, not spending enough time I think confronting or even being aware of what a different approach to building that management team might be. And whether that would even work in this sort of circumstance.

Gary Crotaz 15:22
So talk me through the shape of the business and how it started to shift as it scaled.

Anthony Fletcher 15:29
Within about four years of being a startup, it was around a $60-$70 million dollar business and super-profitable and negative working capital. And it went through a private equity buyout, a classic leveraged buyout taking advantage of the cash flow. And then it made its first really big bet. And it was a big, I’d say, venture capital-style bet maybe, rather than a leveraged buyout kind of bet, and we went to the US. And we went with this sort of MVP, data-led approach, where we fulfilled it all from the UK, launched the UK range, super-agile organisation iterating behind the data on a whole range of things, to de-risk the launch, then following through with all the big capex and warehouses on the ground, and Manhattan office, and all those things, and, as you said at the start, my God, you know, it looked like, for a while we’d cracked the US. And, you know, the revenue growth was absolutely phenomenal. And we’ve done it all, while still servicing all that debt, which felt very different to maybe some of our peers who were going to the US with war chests stuffed with dollars.

Gary Crotaz 16:56
And so what happened next?

Anthony Fletcher 16:58
Well it all went wrong. The business was over maybe $100 million now. And it was very profitable in the UK. And it was trending towards profitability in the US. In fact, we just made a dollar profit in the US, and I’d framed it and given it to the guy running the US and congratulated him on being a proper business that could make money, rather than it all being illusory. And you know, a number of things happened in rapid succession. The first was the Royal Mail privatised in the UK and the prices went up, I could probably go there, I don’t know if I can even say, but triple digit increase. And our largest cost, we spent more on posting the boxes to people than we did on some of the things we put in the boxes. The impact on the margin, your future expectations on cash flows, the what the EBITDA was going to look like in six months and how people would react to that, was pretty ferocious. So we were working through this. And then the United States Postal Service came to us six months later and said they were doing exactly the same. So over the next three years, there was sort of super-inflationary prices they had to put through. And the combination of these two things meant that, rather than having reinvented the world, you know, crazy revenue growth, profit, you were suddenly looking at going well, kind of, this could quite easily disappear very quickly.

Gary Crotaz 18:29
So you’re a CEO, at that point, that up to there, you’ve had this high growth, high profit, successful model, and you’ve very successfully built scale, grown it. And then you’ve got this fundamental challenge somewhat outside your control. How you feel.

Anthony Fletcher 18:48
Yeah, it all went started to go sideways very quickly, you know, what, were we going to be able to pay back the debt? What did our current shareholders think of me stroke? You know, the future prospects of the business? What would other shareholders, you know, think if we tried to get them in? And, you know, they peered at what was really going on, but below the budget, what did the employees think? Was the vision even relevant anymore? You know, how did the management team think this all started to spin out of control within? You know, a couple of months?

Gary Crotaz 19:27
And what did it do for the conversation around the table with the senior leaders?

Anthony Fletcher 19:31
One of the problems was, when you had the conversation, you know, was it a high quality conversation? But also when you had the conversation, how did people react personally, and could you have the tough conversation without people feeling crushed? Or had people around the table grasped the full context and hence the urgency, or the drama with which we need to change direction? Yeah, that kind of inertia which can creep in or disbelief or challenge of certain scenarios.

Gary Crotaz 20:04
And it required different things of you as the leader?

Anthony Fletcher 20:07
Correct, yeah. And I didn’t feel I had time to work through lots of these things I felt. You know, we had to be presenting plans and reacting very quickly.

Gary Crotaz 20:19
And at that stage, you’ve got external, significant external shareholders, owners, who are themselves demanding that you’ve got to manage,

Anthony Fletcher 20:29
Correct, and they wanted to know the story, and they wanted to know the way out of the story, if that was the story. And they wanted to know whether they should be doing some pretty dramatic things with the business such as, you know, culling large numbers of heads or dramatically dialling back on certain investments.

Gary Crotaz 20:49
So bring me into this time when you’re in the middle of this crisis period. And this is when you really start to look at yourself as a leader and the role that you’re playing with the team. What does that look like?

Anthony Fletcher 21:02
Yeah, I had a strong hunch that I wasn’t doing… that any illusion that, you know, this… I, maybe I was a good scale-up CEO and I kind of understood the how to run very fast, and put it together as I go… and the US… but I quickly realised that this was something completely different. And I was trying to find someone or something which helped me work through it.

Gary Crotaz 21:33
And what did you do?

Anthony Fletcher 21:34
Well I got lucky. And I came across an organisation called Critical Eye. And when I told this litany of issues to the people there, they kind of nodded and went, Oh, yes, sounds about normal! You know, welcome to not being the CEO of the tech business which has just struck gold and is riding this… this, this all sounds pretty normal. And they talked a lot of sense what to do. But also, I think they asked the question which occurred to them, as you know, kind of people who work with a lot of senior leaders is, Did I know what this was going to take, and how I might have to change and maybe how naive I was on certain things as well?

Gary Crotaz 22:24
Naivety can be helpful sometimes. And also then sometimes a hindrance.

Anthony Fletcher 22:29
Indeed, and what we agreed to do, which at the time I… the thing I hated was a two-day off site with the team. And of course, I’m sure everyone, anyone who’s just listening to this would ask the same question – can we do it in one day? Which was of course what we said, to which they were very firm, that no they couldn’t. So did something which was really quite rare for that business. And it had been, and especially in this kind of urgent crisis, which was we went off for two days with the team to properly talk this through.

Gary Crotaz 23:07
They led that conversation?

Anthony Fletcher 23:08
They led that conversation. And brought in a number of CEOs who’d gone through the same thing, who in a very unvarnished and honest way, talked about the reality of our situation, and what it had looked like for them moving beyond that.

Gary Crotaz 23:25
And do you think other people around the table in your team felt the same way you did?

Anthony Fletcher 23:30
I think by the end of two days, one of the advantages is we all felt the same. So rather than these discussions you were having, where people were just in fundamentally different places, by the end of it everyone was in exactly the same place on the nature of the challenge, how the team had to evolve. I put up my hands at the end of the meeting and said, Oh, my God, I’m going to have to evolve and it probably looks like this. And also, several of them came to me afterwards and said, I’m not up for this, which was helpful as well. Because, maybe part of the problem here was, you needed a set of execs for the journey we’ve been on, but maybe a slightly different set for the road ahead?

Gary Crotaz 24:15
There’s a great book by a guy called Marshall Goldsmith, who’s generally accepted as being the world’s number one executive coach. And I say to people, even if you don’t read the full book, read the title, and the title is, What got you here won’t get you there. And it is exactly this thing that you’re describing, where you can have a team that’s been incredibly successful growing to a certain point, and then there’s a pivot point where for some people, it’s not their bag, or it’s not their experience to be part of the next phase, and for other people, it can be but they need to evolve their thinking. And for you as a leader, was this moment of thinking, this is my future, but I have to be different, or were you thinking maybe this isn’t my skillset?

Anthony Fletcher 24:56
I definitely didn’t think I was, I definitely felt I’d got it wrong, that this made a lot of sense. And I needed to give it a try. And that would involve a lot of change.

Gary Crotaz 25:08
And when you say you, you got it wrong, do you think you actually got it wrong? Or do you think that you just needed to learn something new for the next phase?

Anthony Fletcher 25:15
No, I definitely got it wrong. Because I’m doing another startup now. And there’s no way I’m trying to do it the same way as Graze, I’m trying to do what I’ve learned. And my big mistake was to have these very intense relationships with the different members of the management team. Some people I shielded from the reality and the truth or other people, you, you tried to guide them more quickly towards what was going on. And what I’d missed was the benefit of educating the entire team on all the context in an unvarnished way. Being aware that some people will not be able to take that and being relaxed about then having that conversation with them, you know, and then having put that effort into the context and have… being a team that wants to do it together and feels that they can go through it together, you start to sort it out.

And so what did your role feel like in the middle of all of those individual relationships?

I mean, it was very intense. I think it was intense for me and I think it was intense for them. And it also just isn’t very effective, because it means you have to have conversations multiple times. And while all day management team meetings or offsites were once anathema to me, what I did come to see pretty quickly was actually they’re a very efficient way in lots of ways of, for instance, getting to alignment, or giving people a context which means that they will react differently away from the management team, or understanding how to turn a challenge into a bit of an esprit de corps, you know, and can pull a team together, you know, when sometimes maybe they were pretty disconnected from each other or, or worse.

Gary Crotaz 27:00
So it sounds like a bit of a shift from sort of uber-operator to leader.

Anthony Fletcher 27:09
Correct, yeah. And, and taking the time to build the team.

Gary Crotaz 27:16
I remember in a business that I was in the leadership team of, we actually looked at diaries and said, How much of our time should we spend thinking big picture, and how much should we spend running, operating the business? And we thought, if you step back, it should be about 60% big picture, because we were the only people that were really focused on that part, and 40% operating the business. And then we looked at how we actually spent our time, and it was about 95%, operating and 5% thinking big picture. And that was a real wake-up moment actually, when we thought, Well, if we’re spending 5% of our time thinking big picture, and it’s nobody else’s job to do that, you can have these real wake-up moments when you think about the way you spend your time, the amount of time you spend holding the reins versus the amount of time you spend stepping back and letting go and allowing the team to lead. Did it feel like letting go for you?

Anthony Fletcher 28:14
It did. And I think, this is one of the challenges with delegation, it isn’t always the answer. It’s a judgement call, you know, what should you be involved in? What shouldn’t you be involved in? So I maintain to the end of my time at Graze, where I certainly delegated a lot more and put a lot more effort into the team, but you still need to jump into some fires, you know, the idea that you should delegate everything is bonkers. And there are meetings you should go to and there are consumers you should do and there are things which, you know, I always felt required you to get involved in.

Gary Crotaz 28:57
I talk with a lot of leaders who recognise that they need to delegate more and let go more. And then when they reflect on doing it, they realise that they’ve intended very hard but nothing has actually changed very much. So, what practically did you do to shift yourself from so much operating to more delegating or leading?

Anthony Fletcher 29:18
Yeah, I think there’s a whole host of things. I mean, I think one of the ones is when things aren’t working, how curious are you about solving the problem right in front of you versus solving the reason it’s not working, which is often in an organisation that size, something to do with the organisational design or talent or communication of objectives or, you know, these other things or even how clear you were in the first place. So yeah, I think there’s a whole host of things like, you know, that you have to shift your personal behaviours.

Gary Crotaz 29:53
So this idea of an Unlock Moment, this idea of a remarkable moment of clarity. I mean, you’ve talked about the two day offsite with the team and external facilitation, so do you remember a specific moment within that where, that you thought, This has got to change?

Anthony Fletcher 30:10
Yeah, so I was sat by this very successful CEO at dinner. And he obviously had worked out I had a problem, you know, he was, he’d been around long enough to go, Yeah, this is the bright tech CEO who has a strong views that, you know, he’s, you know, all that. And he just told me a really basic story about spiders in the middle of the web, you know, and everyone coming to the spider to communicate. And you know, why that works? And why that doesn’t work. And yeah, it was, he was, he had diagnosed the situation correctly. And he told this almost nursery rhyme about spiders and webs. And I was like, oh, yeah, I think that’s exactly what’s happening here!

Gary Crotaz 30:54
And what came to mind in your own experience when he said that?

Anthony Fletcher 30:58
He was absolutely right. You know, he’d been around enough. And he’d worked me out pretty quickly and worked out a way to give me the feedback.

Gary Crotaz 31:11
And did you feel like you’ve missed something? When somebody gives you that, did you feel like it was so obvious, you should have thought about it for yourself, or not?

Anthony Fletcher 31:20
No, I think it was a click. As in I was like, Oh, he’s right. But you know, then your mind goes on to the, So what. Or, How do I do this? I’ve got a problem. You know, I need to evolve. And maybe like your earlier question, what does that look like?

Gary Crotaz 31:37
And what changed for you after that moment?

Anthony Fletcher 31:41
I mean, I think, for instance, we spent a meeting just writing down on a piece of paper, how we wanted to behave as a team. And we all agreed on it, and it was things such as the alignment in the room. And some of them I think many people would would recognise, but we just spent the time to sit down and agree it. And then in every meeting, we’d pull out the piece of paper and just put it on the middle of the table as a reminder. I mean, it’s so simple. But it was just the sort of thing you never felt there was the time or the importance to do.

Gary Crotaz 32:19
It’s interesting at the moment, there are so many businesses, so many people, particularly coming out of the pandemic, who are so overwhelmed and also fatigued from the last two years. And there’s a lot of things that will probably help around stepping back, seeing the big picture, making some big choices about how they focus their time. But everyone feels like they’re just running so fast, they can’t possibly get off the hamster wheel. And so you had a moment there where you were still running really fast, and the business was not slowing down. But you found ways to change some behaviours.

Anthony Fletcher 32:54
Correct. And, you know, what I then felt was, over the years which followed, we did sort the business out and it was a fundamentally different team. And you got to experiment with lots of ways of doing that in a very different way.

Gary Crotaz 33:12
And what feedback did you get back from the team in working in this new way?

Anthony Fletcher 33:16
Yeah, I mean, the people who were there from The Unlock Moment onwards, there weren’t a lot. So I think, one of the things I’ve said is that quite a few people, when confronted with the role, or maybe as they were exposed to the nature of the challenge, just sort of freaked out and were like, Well, you know, I’d rather go and work in something which is growing at 100% a year, than something which has stopped and there’s all these question marks. I mean, they thought, you know, many of them when I’ve spoken to them years later, similarly it was a game-changing moment for them, and they thought we’d make great progress. I mean, the interesting thing is many, you know, I personally feel that that sort of sharing in an executive team I always found incredibly useful. You know, what I found with many new executives though, is that being confronted with the big choices or being confronted with the genuine jeopardy, even in a larger business, they found very hard to deal with, and how do they balance that, knowing that, with how they then interact with their team, for instance.

Gary Crotaz 34:22
So you had to bring, to pull together a new team, a lot of new faces around that table and create a new sense of alignment and camaraderie around that table, working together for the next phase of growth of the business. And what support did you have as a CEO to transition your leadership over that period of time?

Anthony Fletcher 34:43
I mean, I had a coach who I found very useful. This coach, again, had been a CEO of multiple businesses, which I think is helpful. We had a chairman who again had been a CEO of multiple businesses, didn’t want to be the CEO but I think, again, had seen a lot of analogous situations. And, you know, I felt had a lot of empathy for the situation. So these were the things I found very helpful.

Gary Crotaz 35:13
So you had a close team of people around you that you could have open and honest conversations with about challenges, and… Did they bring solutions or not necessarily solutions?

Anthony Fletcher 35:24
When it worked, you know, and, you know, I’m sure lots of people listening have seen it work and not work. When it worked it was fantastic, you know, a diversity of people, their different areas of expertise, working things out and kind of taking the business to the next level, and we did have a lot to work out, a lot of wins from that point to where we ended up. But also, it doesn’t always work and people disagree or people get emotional, the quality of strategic discussion isn’t always sparkling.

Gary Crotaz 35:56
Was that hard for you, when you’ve been there almost from the beginning?

Anthony Fletcher 35:59
Yes, and one of the criticisms which was levelled at me certainly in later years was maybe because I’d been there so long, you know, I’d write off certain ideas, you know, maybe back in the mists of time they’d been tried or, you know, had certain views which were still unhelpful. So, you know, I think, despite trying very hard, I’d still hear that.

Gary Crotaz 36:23
So you took the business, with the team, through to the sale to Unilever. And then you stayed on for a time after that. What was the point when you thought, This is time now for me to move on?

Anthony Fletcher 36:35
Yeah. I really enjoyed the Unilever transition. And, you know, we went from being a business that was managing its cash flow and not have a lot of money in the bank, and an awful lot of people who always seem to want it, to not even having to do a cashflow forecast – was quite a highlight! Yeah. And you know, here was a business that, if you could find them, was full of experts who could answer your questions. I think the problem was, I’d just done it for 11 years, and I just couldn’t get as enthused about some of the things that used to enthuse me.

Gary Crotaz 37:10
So it was time. You moved on from Graze at that time, and you thought, you know, I’m done, I’ve spent all these years in innocent and then in Graze, I’m going to retire to my, you know, comfortable home by the beach, and and spend the rest of my days in, in peaceful harmony. And I’m certainly not going to obviously start up another high growth food startup…..?!

Anthony Fletcher 37:35
You got to remember Gary, that, you know, neither of these businesses I actually started so you know, that that was always hanging over me!

Gary Crotaz 37:44
So actually, so you had a desire then to found your own?

Anthony Fletcher 37:48
Yes. And this is the advantage when you found a business is, you can choose exactly what you want to do. I chose exactly what I want to do. You know, of course, I was aware of the market and trends and these sorts of things. But I picked something I was very interested in. Which was, you know, I was originally a scientist, and I genuinely believe science has most of the answers. And I wanted to see whether science could do something radical around sugar and fat reduction.

Gary Crotaz 38:17
And so where did it start? Where did Believe in Science and Urban Legend start?

Anthony Fletcher 38:22
So it started with a meeting with the chief nutritionist of Public Health England. And she basically said, you know, the problem is all the junk food has too much sugar and fat in it. And it’s great that Graze has come along and become the market-leading snack, that, you know, with a healthy, natural, you know, all the rest of it, but it isn’t moving the needle at all, everyone’s just eating more and more sugar and fat every year. And I was like, Yes, that’s the problem. And you know, natural food is too expensive. And natural food is only eaten by a certain proportion of the population. And always will be, and you’re never going to make the sort of margins which you can make on some of the more processed products. So that got me thinking about this idea of the bigger impact is taking the junk out of the junk food. And junk food is not going away. And we’re all part of our society. So the question really became, well, scientifically, just how much junk can you take out of junk food? And yeah, that was sort of the origins of the business.

Gary Crotaz 39:20
And the drive, the mission for you was a science one, was a public health one, or was a commercial one?

Anthony Fletcher 39:28
I think it was, you know, it’s a bit of all of them. You know, I was in love with the science and intrigued about what was going on in alternative meats. And you know, the extent to which clever scientists could work this out. And I took some of the money I’d made from Graze and literally bet it on a load of scientists, much to the dismay of my wife, but I kind of really enjoyed it. But I also do genuinely believe this is the problem and I love the food industry. I find it endlessly interesting and I’ve always worked in it and I kind of think no one’s really figured out how it can change course in any country in the world. So it’s a nice, big problem. And I’m interested in it and I want to be part of it. I don’t know, it’s got to be a commercial success, it’s got to make sense, you know, as well.

Gary Crotaz 40:17
So how does one make a healthy doughnut?

Anthony Fletcher 40:19
How? Well I think the question is how much of the sugar, fat and calories can you take out of a doughnut? And the bottom line is, it’s got a lot of all of these things in and for very good reasons. It’s not just taste, it’s, they have over 20 functional roles in the product. And everyone said it was impossible, which is very common with anyone starting a business, that you couldn’t, maybe you could take 10% of the sugar out, or 20%, you’re never gonna get 70% out and never mind the fat and the sugar at the same time. But the fun was, I went to a load of scientists who didn’t work for the food industry, and was like, Okay, let’s talk about this as a polymer science problem. Let’s talk about this as a rheology problem, how would you solve it? And that was part of the fun.

Gary Crotaz 41:10
I love seeing your energy and enthusiasm, particularly when you said, People thought we couldn’t do it.

Anthony Fletcher 41:15
It is a character, I hate being told that something is impossible, if I think it isn’t. And I think a few times in my career I have done things which you know, the market bet against, or the average person? And I’d say, this is another example that I’m like, Well, unless someone can tell me exactly why it can’t be done then I don’t believe you, you know, and some of the people saying it could never be done, I wasn’t convinced had really thought about this enough or spent enough money or really committed to it fully.

Gary Crotaz 41:48
And how many iterations did you need to go through before you got to a product that you could actually give to a customer.

Anthony Fletcher 41:56
I mean, this is all very, it’s all very hackneyed, but hundreds and hundreds, and, you know, lots of tests, and, you know, started in the kitchen, and then it moved to the utility room, and then the shed and then the basement, you know, as in the machines multiplied, you know, endless cupboards were taken over, I managed to get some people to lend me a lab at one stage, which was helpful, because this wasn’t just a kitchen table exercise anymore.

Gary Crotaz 42:21
Was there ever a moment in that journey where you thought, you know, maybe it can’t be done?

Anthony Fletcher 42:27
Yeah, my wife went to me one evening, she was like, just out of interest. I think she was looking at our joint bank account, you know, kind of, she was like, how sure have you, you know, this can be done. And I was like, oh, maybe 50:50 at this stage? And she just kind of nodded, you know, hmmm, a higher number than that.

Gary Crotaz 42:49
Was that what you really thought?

Anthony Fletcher 42:51
Yeah, it was, I mean, it was so bad when I when I started and I think the the advantage of having had this conversation with Public Health England was I was determined it had to get to this completely unnatural place. Else I think you’d have ended up with another product which was slightly lower in sugar and fat than the things on the market, you have to have a reason to, to try and go so radically beyond what has mainly been achieved within that sector.

Gary Crotaz 43:19
And do you remember your Willy Wonka moment where you first tasted the product and you thought, This is it, or I know now that it can work?

Anthony Fletcher 43:27
Yeah, there was there was a breakthrough moment. And that’s sort of what’s in our patent, you know, there’s a hundred optimisations, and there was one thing where it was like, Oh, good golly, that works! And yeah, I gave it to my wife. And she was like, Oh, that’s better. I think she was like, Yeah, moving in the right direction!

Gary Crotaz 43:46
And how long had you been doing it for that time when you got that breakthrough?

Anthony Fletcher 43:49
I mean, it was probably a year. I guess, I mean, this was definitely one of those things where I’d quite happily sit up late at night, feverishly reading scientific articles or you know, trouble sitting in the kitchen trying to puzzle things out so it’d been going on for a while by that stage.

Gary Crotaz 44:12
And does it feel different holding a doughnut that you originated compared with holding a Graze box that you’ve worked on but somebody else founded or an Innocent smoothie bottle that somebody else has created?

Anthony Fletcher 44:25
A consistent problem I have is a deep dissatisfaction with every product I’ve ever put my name to. So I sit there looking at the doughnut and you know, the core team know this, and all I can see is what’s holding it back from being a better product. I’ve never had that rosy…

Gary Crotaz 44:44
Do you think it’ll ever come?

Anthony Fletcher 44:45
No, I think it’s an unhealthy trait which can be healthy and unhealthy depending on how it manifests itself.

Gary Crotaz 44:54
So where is the business today and what’s your vision for it?

Anthony Fletcher 44:57
So we’ve been selling the product since last summer, you know, we’ve opened some pop up stores. And what will become clear I think in the next year is we definitely created something scientifically remarkable and interesting to the industry. But have we made something which consumers are going to go crazy for? And I think we will find, you know, we will find out whether consumers do want a viscoelastic doughnut that is expanded by a beam of steam that is, you know, then cleverly disguised as a indulgent squidgy doughnut.

Gary Crotaz 45:36
But you’re close to … maybe the word ‘viscoelastic’ might not end up in your final tagline! Have you employed anybody that’s knocked on your door and asked for a job?

Anthony Fletcher 45:45
As part of this? If people want to knock on my door, I’m very happy to see them. But I have many problems…

Gary Crotaz 45:52
…that do need smart young people to serve them!

Anthony Fletcher 45:55
Yeah, the exact pitch I made, several people have knocked on my door, is I was happy to do anything, was the key thing, which is different to knocking on a door and asking for a certain exec role with an exec salary. And you know, is… one is definitely… says something different about the individual than the than the other.

Gary Crotaz 46:13
Amazing. So I always like to ask a question of real experts in a particular field. And, and one here is, you know, there are so many people who are going to be sitting at their kitchen table with an idea for some new food product or a healthy food product. And maybe they’ve been testing things and they’re munching on something they think is pretty tasty. What’s your advice to somebody like that as to something they can do to figure out whether this is a hobby, or whether they should actually progress it as a business idea?

Anthony Fletcher 46:43
Yeah, so I think the first thing is, you know, are you onto something? And it probably needs to be a really remarkable product to break through. And then you’ve got to have a remarkably good way of explaining it, which is, people often describe it as the brand or the branding, or, you know, these sorts of words. And I think trying to work out whether you’ve got these two things is a good place to start.

Gary Crotaz 47:10
And how do you do that?

Anthony Fletcher 47:13
You know, I think you show it to people who aren’t families and friends who give terribly biassed advice, and see if you get a remarkable reaction. And what I’ve seen at both Graze and Innocent, but also many of my peers, is when they give the product to consumers, they engender a strong response. And then really all you’re doing when you grow that business is trying to get as many people to have that strong response as possible. And you know, people will adopt your, adopt your product. But most of the time, food products only get a bit of a ‘meh’ response. Oh yeah, it’s all right. Yeah, it’s nice, it’s really nice, you know, might buy it. So I think you’ve got to see that shock, or that transformational moment, which is going to be memorable, which is going to have the word of mouth, which is going to drive the habit change. Because it’s very difficult without that, you’ve got to be a global CPG company to put an average product in the market and drive it through the system.

Gary Crotaz 48:08
A lot of people, they, they themselves have a wow factor for their product. So they, they’re passionate about their product. They give it to people that they don’t know. And those people go, you know, it’s okay, to which what you’re saying is, they should at that point realise that it’s not got the wow factor for people that are not family and friends. How do you let go of something that you’re passionate about but you realise is not going to get the market reaction?

Anthony Fletcher 48:32
Yeah, I think this is the dilemma. Because most people get the okay response. The difference I think is the people who listen to the feedback and are so driven that they then go and work out how to get okay to wow, and that normally involves driving over some obstacles, some pretty significant obstacles of, which manifest themselves. So that’s always the response if you’ve, if you’ve produced a winner the first time … wow, yeah, hats off. But you know, this is the problem, it’s never really clear until you go a bit further down the road and then a bit further down the road and all of that takes time and money and energy and you know, the odds are against you so you know, I don’t know, I keep on going until the business fails, has always been my approach but that comes with a cost.

Gary Crotaz 49:23
So for you when you think about you, in your best self in a few years time, would you like to be doing in your perfect life?

Anthony Fletcher 49:34
I mean, the reason I started this business is because I genuinely at the bottom of my heart don’t think sugar and fat is quite as necessary as everyone says, and starting with bakery and doughnuts, you know, I’ve learned to a certain extent that that is true. And nothing makes me happier at the moment continuing to learn around this area and where it could go, and maybe we will look back in 10 or 20 years and think we were mad as the human race for consuming so much of this stuff, which causes so many issues for us. So, you know, I think that’s the thing I am sure… you know, there’s so many uncertainties but what I’m sure of is I find this problem fascinating. And I deeply believe that, you know, science has the answer, whether Believe in Science will be the company who succeeds in doing it, I don’t know. But yeah, that’s, that’s certainly what propels me every day.

Gary Crotaz 50:27
Fantastic. Where can people find out more about what you’re doing and where can they get hold of your healthy doughnuts?

Anthony Fletcher 50:32
Yes, so we’ve got a shop in Clapham and we’ve got a shop in Brighton which we’d love to see you in and if you go to our website and you’re happy to buy a very large minimum order quantity to carry a taxi, you can get it anywhere in London. But you know, nod nod, wink wink, hopefully you’ll be able to see it in a lot more convenient and closer locations soon.

Gary Crotaz 50:50
Fantastic. Thank you so much. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For healthy food entrepreneur and CEO Anthony Fletcher, it was recognising that he was holding on to all the reins and relationships and needed to let go, empower and align the individuals around the table, enabling the teams to deliver collectively at the highest level. It unlocked incredible performance and demonstrates how leadership is ultimately about mastering the art of letting go. Anthony is on a mission to remove the junk from junk food and I’m sure he’s onto a winner with the Urban Legend healthy doughnut. Anthony, thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Anthony Fletcher 51:28
Thank you very much, Gary.

Gary Crotaz 0:02
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things, or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. Today I am delighted to welcome Dolly Waddell to the podcast. Dolly is a coach and facilitator whose upbringing in the orbit of a highly-successful family business honed her natural instinct for entrepreneurship. She and I trained together in executive coaching at Henley Business School, and have remained firm friends ever since. Dolly has an energy and a spirit about her that is totally infectious. You’re about to see what I mean! And I’ve been keen to get her on the podcast for a while. In her work, she unlocks and activates a high-performance culture, searching out those lightning-bolt moments that create clarity and highly-engaged teams. I’m fascinated to learn more about the journey she’s been on that has shaped her unique outlook on life and the lessons she learned along the way. Strap yourselves in and let’s get into the conversation! Dolly, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment!

Dolly Waddell 1:53
Thanks, Gary. Hi everyone, very excited to be here.

Gary Crotaz 1:57
So Dolly, tell us a little bit about your upbringing and the journey you went on through to the point that you started to think about coaching as a career.

Dolly Waddell 2:05
So I was born in the North West and I went to boarding school at 8. I quite like popping that in because it was the days of cold baths and the cane. I just made it by a few years. So I’ve got some sort of hardcore stories to share on that. But then, so I was brought up in this, my, my dad runs a successful family business, luxury jewellery. And I’m the sixth generation. So it’s just always been the river I’ve swam in, seeing business, entrepreneurship. And as a family business, it’s been so integrated, it’s just what we talked about at the kitchen table. And, and then when I left school, I did a degree in linguistics, English Language and Linguistics, and went and worked in film production for four or five years. And then, yeah, and then lots of different bits and bobs have happened along my career along the way. Culminating three years ago in me realising it was all coming to a head in the fact that I, not dissimilar to you Gary, I want to help people live their best selves. And where I see most people collectively is in a corporate space. So I want to go into those spaces to help unlock or have lightning bolt moments for them like I’ve had for my own life.

Gary Crotaz 3:25
And when you think back to when you were growing up, is it part of your earliest memories being in this family with the business or you know, how old were you when that first came on your radar?

Dolly Waddell 3:37
So my dad used to do jewellery shows all over the country. And he used to go to Jersey and Guernsey, small islands called the Channel Islands in England. And he’d take me with him. And I remember thinking, This is the life! Because I’d be in a hotel room allowed to have room service aged seven, whilst he was doing a big jewellery show downstairs. And then I could go downstairs, try on all the jewellery, all these people from Jersey and Guernsey were going, Oh isn’t she adorable? As I was sort of marching around like a spoiled little brat with all this gorgeous jewellery on me with ice cream in my belly. And I thought Yeah, this is fun, and knowing all the people that worked for him over the years and you know, you sort of feel quite special going into a, into an established business store and everyone going, Oh hi Dolly, and you’re only 8, 9, 10, 12, 14. For better or worse, you feel like you’ve arrived!

Gary Crotaz 4:36
You know, as you know, I do quite a lot of work with the next generation of families and family businesses. And it’s interesting, for some of them, you know, the children grow up thinking at some point I want to be part of this business, I want to maybe lead this business, I see that it’s part of my destiny to one day lead this business, and others feel, it’s amazing growing up in this environment and observing and learning. But I feel strongly that I want to forge my own path that is different from the family business. Remember when you were working through, did you sort of face into that fork in the road at some point?

Dolly Waddell 5:14
It’s a great question. Do you know I think I was somewhere, I was in a slightly different lane. I don’t think I ever thought, Oh, I’ll work here. And I never thought, Oh I want it to be my own thing, I want to find my own way. I think I just, weirdly looking back, I think being a girl, I’m from a very traditional family, where the women don’t really work. And so I think that was probably just subconsciously, there is my future is to get married and have kids and do that. So I didn’t ever hop in the lane of, Oh what do I want to be? What do I want to do? And then, but then equally on the flip side, I went to a very successful school, I went to a really established school in England. And actually, it’s a real pity I look back because I didn’t ever have any kind of nurturing towards Who am I? What do I want to do? Where am I going to go? But hey ho, let’s just pump you with an amazing education. Where do you want to go to uni, just get it in the bag, go to uni. But actually, it was very rudderless, my upbringing in terms of where I was going, and it’s a point now where I seem as an adult, that played out, probably took me till I was in my mid to late 30s to really drill in and go, Heck, where am I going? Do I want to work for the family business? Do I want to forge my own way? And I asked those questions later on, rather than as a young girl.

Gary Crotaz 6:45
I know, in my, in my own experience, I always look back and think I’m amazed at it. It was in my late 20s, when I suddenly went, Do I really want to be a doctor? which was the thing I was training in at the time, and I look back and I think, why didn’t I think that 19, 20, 21, but I just didn’t, I just didn’t. And then I had this sort of wake-up moment of going, I don’t have to be on this conventional path that I was on.

Dolly Waddell 7:13
What’s tricky with that, Gary, sorry to interrupt, but just it’s so tricky to know, whether it’s an age thing, or whether it’s an opportunity, or nurtured thing. You know, my dad has a motto, he says, it’s, it’s what you’re like when you’re 30 that counts. So when everyone’s growing up, you know, I’ve got four kids, and when you’re saying, Oh, I hope they’re going to be alright. And all they’re not very good at the piano and all their friends are, or whatever it is. My dad is brilliant. He always goes, Doesn’t matter. It matters what they’re like when they’re 30. You don’t want to peak too soon.

Gary Crotaz 7:44
I love it. So, so you left university and you talked about you got married and you had children? And what did that path look like as you started off in your career?

Dolly Waddell 7:59
Well… When I was 23, I was working in film production as something called a production coordinator. And, and it was fast-paced. It was exciting. I was doing really well in it and advancing in a career. You know, I worked for Working Title, I worked for BBC, like, you know, it was really thrilling. And I was doing well. But then I actually had an experience which was a faith experience. I became a Christian very suddenly, unexpectedly, I wasn’t looking for it. And it really did start to sort of change my vision of what I wanted my future to be. And I think then at 23, it could be considered an Unlock Moment. Because I did have the courage suddenly to go, Ooh, hang on. Who am I? Where am I going? I want to be intentional with life. And with film, I’ve just fallen into it. Do I really want this? So having faith as part of my life’s equation, I then steered a slightly different route. And thought actually I want to work with teenagers and help them and I guess that’s where the coaching piece started.

Gary Crotaz 9:12
What triggered that for you at 23?

Dolly Waddell 9:14
I think looking at how I had wasted a lot of years as a teenager being lost. I’ve made some really bad choices and gotten in some real tricky situations from a lack of mentorship, and yet I’ve been at this fantastic school. You’d think I’d have, I would have nailed it. My teenage and early 20s life but I hadn’t I’d made really bad choices. So I think there was a part of me that wanted to go and sort of almost restore those years. So, and I love youth, I love teenagers. I mean my husband teases me whenever I’m with young people, they’re like Dolly, Dolly, Dolly! There’s something that, I just, I really connect with them and they like me, so it felt like a natural fit. So I started going to schools as a youth worker, as a speaker on things about faith and, and choices and life that happened to you as a teenager. So that’s, that sort of was that beginning of coaching in that context. And then I met my husband, who, also a man of Christian faith, was actually training to be a vicar. And here we got married, and I was like, Oh, my goodness. Now I’m a vicar’s wife. If you’re American it’s a pastor’s wife. And in England, like all the stereotypes of that, that, God bless you if this is your name, sorry, but it’s like you’re all called Joan. And you all grow marrows. And you love tea, and you’re very quiet and you wear frilly skirts. Like that’s the kind of, and I’m six foot guys, and I was wearing a tutu when I met my husband and had pink hair. And, you know, worked in film, and very vibrant, can’t stop moving my body because I’m such an extrovert, expressive, etc. So that already was, Ooh, how’s that gonna work? Yeah.

Gary Crotaz 11:08
And did you continue to be pink hair tutu vicar’s wife?

Dolly Waddell 11:12
Do you know, I think, well, I don’t think being a vicar’s wife channelled it out. But I think I did just get a little bit older. And there’s quite a lot of maintenance, all that. And you start having kids, you haven’t got time to dye your hair. But no, I think I just outgrew that. But I did always feel very authentic in my faith being me. So that’s, I never felt like a religious pressure to suddenly be, look the part. However, I think that the journey I went on, being married to a vicar and then having four children, there’s, there’s so many oughts and shoulds that crop up as they do in every sphere, and that there are just so many oughts and shoulds that slowly cracked away at me. And I think I actually did lose myself quite catastrophically over 12, 15 years in that role, which led me to my, you know, essentially a very big Unlock Moment, or a lightning bolt moment in my language.

Gary Crotaz 12:29
And it’s quite all-encompassing the work you were doing. I mean, when when I think of, when I imagine vicar’s wife, you know, and thinking, you know, pretty skirt and Sunday tea, so I’m thinking, the sort of quiet country churchyard in the little English village and so on. But you weren’t always working in a sort of rural environment as a vicar’s wife, you were in some quite tough environments?

Dolly Waddell 12:55
We definitely have done the rural thing, and where there’s lots of tea. And actually, there is the expectation to listen a lot. And what a privilege because you know, just the fact that my husband wears a dog collar means that it is a huge privilege, and one I’ve never taken for granted that people will just feel safe with you immediately. The wall of self-preservation is just down, and they come straight in. And I, whether it was a rural, quiet, typical setting that you might imagine, or we lived in East London and Leyton for five years. And there, I mean, it was so multicultural that there are 260 different languages and dialects spoken between where I lived and two tube stops away. It was so diverse and I’m white, and blonde, and my husband is as well and our children. We’ve got four white, blond children, people call us the blonde army. And you know, we just were the only all-white family in Leyton it felt like it, just so rich and so diverse. So whether I was there, or in a sleepy rural county, with everyone being white, what’s really interesting, Gary, is that people are people and I think that’s what I’ve learned, it’s just the story is different. And the narrative is different. But being a vicar’s wife is a role where people, regardless of your background, they just feel they can trust you, a bit like a doctor. And so I was, have been in thousands I would say of conversations that are really deep, really complex, really nuanced, really traumatic. I probably needed a psychology degree to have done it all really well. I’ve needed a counselling degree. I’ve needed, and I don’t have all these degrees by the way, in fact, the amount of, Wow we’re going in deep straightaway, and I, so I’ve learned so much in that about people, how they’re wired, what relationships mean, because none of us live in isolation, we’re all part of a network of something bigger. And so learning all that, seeing all that, however, it was really draining. Because if people are talking to you, they’re talking to a role, rather than talking to Dolly, who actually is very expressive and has got loads of ideas of her own. But all of that had to be very dormant, whilst really caring about the people in front of me. And then throw in just a small detail that I have four humans that wake up in the night, that want mummy, that get ear infections, that need me to read their books with them, which of course I want to do. But it’s, when you’re playing a role, a vicar’s wife role in a community, you don’t have many friends around, because you move to an environment, and you have to do everything in that and you, that is your new environment, you don’t have friends, there, you are a role immediately. So just trying to do the normal human stuff when you are representing a role, I found that quite difficult.

Gary Crotaz 16:20
And it’s so interesting hearing you describe that role, and having to play within the constraints of a role when you’re saying vicar’s wife, I’m also thinking, like, First Lady, or First Gentleman one day, we’ll have the First Gentleman, you know. So you’re at this point where there’s convention, there’s expectations, there’s, in some ways, constraints, but also opportunity and learning and all those things you describe. So bring me into this moment where you had this lightning bolt, this Unlock Moment of clarity as to what was going to happen next.

Dolly Waddell 16:58
To build up the what I was feeling prior to it, as opposed to just bumbling along and it happened, I was increasingly frustrated, but I didn’t know it was frustration. I was increasingly wanting to have more control of situations without being able to have it. So my husband would work. With a vicar you, it’s almost expected that you get, if they’re married, you get two for the price of one. So the vicar is the, it can be men or women, but in our instance, obviously, my husband is the man, he’s the vicar, you get him, but you get his wife for free. But there’s no set role. So it’s just a filler role, very much a filler role. And then as a mother, the role of mother – totally different to the relationships I have with my children, love that, that’s great. But the role of mother is quite fill-in as well. You just fill in the needs of others all the time, and cover the kind of domesticity, you know the food, making sure everything’s filled in. And I felt about four years ago, I was getting ill a lot physically, it was just this and that and this and that. Nothing ever really bad. But I think it was my body’s way of saying, Life ain’t working. You know, this just isn’t working out. I was getting, I would cry a lot. I got a bit of anxiety. I was like, what’s this about? Why do I get anxious? Because I’m very confident and it doesn’t feel congruent? I mean, does anxiety ever feel congruent to any of us? I don’t think so. So there were all these little symptoms. And I think I ended up getting really cross with my husband, because I felt that it was his job to open up my life, so to speak, you know, we’re working together. And yet all I ever felt really was like work experience. So I was getting cross with him. So it’s putting strain on our marriage. So with all of that going on, there was this day when I went on a retreat to Bath, a city in England. I don’t want to confuse you with thinking I’m in the bath, Gary and I had a misunderstanding on that a second ago. But yeah, so I was in a city called Bath. And when I went there, I went, I didn’t know why I was going, I just thought I’ll have two days away from the children, away from life, to just reflect, bring my faith into it. What am I doing with my life? And when I was there, I got a text from a friend from church saying, Dolly, I can’t wait to see you tonight at the training. And I texted back going, What training are you talking about? This is a friend from church. She said, Ooh, the training that you and Jim are doing – my husband’s Jim – you and Jim are doing at your house for us all. Something to do with church. And I thought I have no idea what she’s talking about. So I phoned my husband and said, What training are we doing tonight, babe? And he went, Oh, yeah, we’re doing a training for small groups, something like that. But I knew you’re away, so I didn’t tell you about it. But I said, But my name was on the email, right? And he said, Oh, yeah, I just forgot to take it off, you know, because it is us. And I left the phone call going, That summarises for me the problem. You get two for the price of one, but I feel like work experience, I don’t actually have a big enough place at the table to bring who I am. And yet, it’s so foggy being a vicar’s wife because my name was sort of on it, but it’s not. And I remember being so angry and so upset about that. It may sound trivial, but it was this, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back of feeling like two for the price of one and not having my value. And I remember crying. And if you let if you get this, you’re gonna love it. If you don’t get this, you’re gonna think, Oh my gosh, this lady’s mad. But I was crying looking in the mirror as I was crying. And as I was crying, Gary, I just, I got really into it. I remember thinking, I’m gonna have a jolly good cry now. And as I was staring at myself, and I was grieving at the woman I saw in front of me. And it was this feedback loop of emotionally feeling myself, feeling for myself, but seeing what I felt. And there was this, yeah, back and forth emotion with the woman I saw, with the woman I feel, and how disappointed and angry and fed up I was that I’ve been essentially allowing myself to be nothing more than work experience for 15 years. And yet, I know that I could run a church of my own, I know that I could run a business. I love building and I realised I wasn’t building. I was being passive. And I was waiting for my husband to give me permission to get on with my life. I was waiting for God to give me permission. You know, I have this thing now where I realised for me something that’s come out of my moment in this was, Wow, I think my husband, I think God, I think my dad, I think other people were a genie in a bottle, that if I just want it enough and hope for it enough and rub the lamp, they’ll come out and just go Ta dah! Dolly, we see you. You’re amazing. Come and run this, come and do this. And that was the big Unlock Moment. I realised no one else was going to do it. No one else was going to give me permission to be me. And, and then, what if it is me, I don’t even know. So I came back from Bath, having had this jolly big cry. And this realisation of no one’s gonna do it for me. And that was a really big paradigm shift that, Wow, my husband is not going to unlock my life. God isn’t, my dad isn’t, my friends aren’t. I have to. And it was, it was terrifying but exciting to think I quit waiting. I quit waiting for the life I want to happen. I’m going to start making a change.

Gary Crotaz 23:17
A quick one for you. I’m getting a lot of feedback from listeners to say they’d like to know more about my own philosophy on how to achieve an Unlock Moment in your life or career. Go and buy a copy of my book, The IDEA Mindset to discover your identity and direction for a future with engagement and authenticity. In it you’ll discover more about my own story, my learnings on how to achieve clarity and change. And of course, lots of interesting self-study exercises in bite-sized modules. You can get The IDEA Mindset in physical book, ebook and audiobook formats from all the usual sources. Thanks for listening and back to the conversation. And when you had that realisation, what emotions were you feeling at that point?

Dolly Waddell 24:02
I think I felt a few different things. I felt relief that I’d finally said it just. A bit probably I could, never been an alcoholic but that, that moment when you say, Hi my name is Dolly and I’m an alcoholic, for example, the relief that just owning it is like Hi, I’m Dolly and I’ve been a victim to my own life. I finally called it, so there was great relief in the awareness piece. I think I felt really relieved when I went home and told my husband. I said, here’s the thing, I’m now changing the rules of how I do my life. And, and that was scary and sad. Scary because I didn’t know what the new rules looked like. And sad because it was letting go of a kind of an ideal and the ideal for us was, Oh let’s do church leadership together, and I realised that I just couldn’t be in that game the way it had existed anymore. So that was, there was a grievance in that.

Gary Crotaz 25:12
You used a really powerful word there. I’ve been a victim of my own life. Unpack what victim means to you.

Dolly Waddell 25:21
I think victim, probably… I’ve been really passive, without realising, which is actually terrifying, because you wouldn’t look at me ever, you know, and think, Oh, she’s a passive lady. Because I’m not. I’m, I’ve always been like having a kid, I’m like, let’s do this. Like, I’m a really on it mum, I get really stuck into stuff, I’ve never been a kind of just, oh I’ll just fizzle out into the background. It’s, it hid very well, being passive. But being passive, say, feeling like a victim to other people meant I could hide behind that and not actually face my ow, my own demons, of the fact that I was just letting life happen to me. And, and being a victim to… you know instead I just thought, Oh, I’m a victim. It’s not my fault. It’s God’s fault. It’s my husband’s fault. It’s their fault. They need to call me up, they need to make my life happen. So I’m a victim. But actually, I was just a victim to my own demons. And my own passivity. But it was subtle, it was so subtle.

Gary Crotaz 26:29
It’s really interesting. And then you said, I need to change the rules.

Dolly Waddell 26:34
I’m really excited about what change the rules means. Because you can have an aha moment, you can have an Unlock Moment, a lightning bolt moment, like I did in Bath. And, and go, I can’t keep living the way I am. But going back with just a kind of fresh sentence of, Hey, I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ve got a new, you know, I’ve got, I’ve got something inside that needs to come alive. That’s great. But it’s, if we’re not careful. And this is what I see a lot. In in lives, really from what I’ve been coaching with all these nuanced things. I see people with great intentions verbally. But then the culture around them doesn’t enable that language to become a reality. There’s a chasm between the current reality you live in, and the language and the insights you’ve now got. And, and I realised that in order to make my new reality, my new realisations and insights a reality, I had to change the culture around me, so that it could lift me into that space. So to unpack that, I’ve got four kids, they don’t wake up and go, Oh, my mum has totally had a Unlock Moment. Let’s all help her. Like, no way, they wake up and have the same needs the same wants. Where’s Mum, is she coming to pick me up? You know, they’re just cracking on with the reality they know, right? I’ve got a husband who I’ve just come back and gone. Hey, babe, I don’t want to work in church anymore. Please can you not have my name on your emails? I’ve got a whole new thing going. He’s like, Say what, okay, sure. Babe, on Wednesday, can you come and do this thing with me? You know, life carries on. And you’ve got your family who know that, you know, my dad is such a great fan of the fact that I work in church, it’s a noble thing to say your daughter does, you know, and he’s totally genuine with it. But you know, Jim and Dolly run churches. So you’ve got all of this reality around you, and all of these oughts and shoulds that will keep you locked into the old reality. So to change it, you’ve got to change the rules. It’s like, you’ve been playing football for years, and you suddenly want to learn rugby, that is a different rulebook. And you’ve got to have, take that time to learn what the new rules are, you’ll never be good at rugby. And, and it’s sad, because you might be much better at rugby than you were at football. But you’ve got to go through that transition. So what I did was, I put things in place to enable the culture around me to change so that I could grow into this new self. Things like, I said to my husband, some new rules, literally, I said, you can no longer have my name on any email, unless you ask. And it wasn’t as sort of nanananana like, So there, it was a, Hey, I love you so much. I’m really for you. I’m really for your work and really for church. And because of that, I want to give my best to church and to the people we work with. And I know that my best isn’t the way it has been. So from now on, you don’t get to put my name on emails, unless you ask. You can’t ever assume that I’ll be at an event without intentionally asking me and I will check my diary and check where I’m at, to decide if I’m going to bring that and I think just having a few rules like that with him made me and him realise. You just bring it into the focus of, I know my worth. I know I’m really brilliant. Not in an arrogant way but I want to bring that because I know that will bring the change that you want, that God wants, that the church needs, but we have to have a value system for it. So this is, I was changing the rules to put that system in place.

Gary Crotaz 30:11
I hear in that something about taking control.

Dolly Waddell 30:15
Yeah, well, but control can be quite a dirty word. Because it can, it can sound like, Oh control freak. So controlling, especially women and control, I’ve always been a bit scared of the word control. And, and I think it’s the word I’ve rather used is agency. And it’s, and it’s sort of taking the wheel more, rather than sitting in the backseat. And, and having more intention in life rather than being accidental, especially in church cultures, because control is like, only God has control, lay down all control. That’s why it’s got that dirty connotation in the networks I’ve been in. So I was very mindful of saying, I want more agency. I want to be intentional, not accidental with… but it’s exactly that Gary, yeah, it is, boiled down, it is having that sense of self at the wheel.

Gary Crotaz 31:10
I mean, it’s fascinating, that I can hear all of these constraints and walls, I mean, you know, just like that the, you know, a word that is just a word, like control, for you has really pretty strong connotations for a whole variety of reasons. And lots of people are like that, that’s like, something that can be helpful for them. You know, you found a way of identifying a word that works for you, to help you to get to where you need to get to. But for a lot of people, you know, the route forward is blocked by convention in society and opinion, and history and upbringing, and all those kinds of things that they won’t necessarily even realise is going on for them when they just don’t go to that place. And actually, for you, you found a way to, as you say, change the rules, and create the environment that… you know, you weren’t extracting yourself from situation, you were bringing your best self to the situation, at the time of your choosing in the way that you knew that you were going to be able to give what you wanted to be giving. It’s very powerful.

Dolly Waddell 32:21
Well, yeah, thanks. I mean, I think it is, I look back and think it was powerful. Like even with my children, I sat them down, with my husband, and said, guys, and I used the words, I’m changing the rules. I have been a mummy that’s available all the time for everything. And now that’s changing, because I feel I need to grow into my best self, and like, but I need your help. And I said, this is how I need your help. And I brought them into the story with me. And that’s been really fun and empowering, because I see a lot of women guilty, feeling lots of guilt when they have to work. And I really didn’t want that to be in my rulebook, but I’m very aware of that it could be. Because mums, there’s a hot wire in us that’s like, do feel a bit guilty. But do more, do more, do more, should, should should. And so changing the rules with them has been quite liberating. Because they are, they’re on my board. So I have a contract in my drawer. They’re my trustees. And my contract is, you know, I have board meetings with them asking their opinions, so that they’re very much part of my growth journey. And I think probably as well, the family business piece, just creating my family business.

Gary Crotaz 33:35
How old are your trustees?

Dolly Waddell 33:37
So my most mature trustee is 13. And my, my protege is five, and we’ve got a range in between, 5, 7, 12 and 13. Yeah, but they actually bring terrific advice! Most of their advice involves sweets, so…

Gary Crotaz 33:54
Just bring into life for me an example of something you brought to a board meeting.

Dolly Waddell 34:00
Oh, so I’ve said, Guys, I was doing a some workshops with a company and they phoned me and they said. Great, could you do a recap session? And I went, Oh, great, sure. Booked it in. And went, I don’t really know how to do it. What will I do for a recap session? So I called a board meeting. And I said to my trustees, what do your teachers do when they want to recap stuff? And my whichever one it was, 12 year old I think said, We do a test. So I went, Oh, a test, that’s a good idea. What would be a really fun test, and I think one of them went, Give us sweets. I went, Done! So I went away and created a really fun test with sweets involved, and actually it was an hour long test with a company, we all had loads of fun and I sent out loads of sweets at the end and it was a great, it was great!

Gary Crotaz 34:46
There’s something about shaping the life you want in the way you want and in your unique self coming through. Like that’s a very Dolly thing to do in a brilliant way and it’s just this narrative that comes through so strongly that the label of, you know, vicar’s wife, or member of the family, whatever it is, you know, those kinds of labels that may have defined or constrainted you for many years, and you’re breaking through to, well, I’m going to do things my way, in a way that helps people, it benefits people, you know, you’re not, you’re not closing yourself off in a, in a sort of hermit way at all, that you’re, you’re setting the rules in a way that enables you to bring your best self. So from the, from starting to have this realisation and make changes over the following few years, what changed after that moment?

Dolly Waddell 35:40
What was really, what was really profound for me was, I said, part of my change in the rules, that first month or two, I said, From now on, I’m working on Wednesdays. Now for a woman who’s been working on and off for years informally, two for the price of one, I’m now saying no, I work from eight till seven every Wednesday. And I said to my husband, you do all the domesticity, food, everything, like the whole rule change. So he was up for that. And that first day, that first Wednesday, I remember Googling, what shall I do? I was genuinely like, right? I had my, I had my laptop. I had my desk, I had my new pencil sharpened. You know, I was like, Great! Oh, help now what? So literally Googled it! And I mean, I can’t even remember the answers. They weren’t, they weren’t that relevant. Now I ended up thinking, Do you know the only hunch I’ve got, and this is where we’re all wired differently. But I think for me, I get gut feelings. And my gut feeling was I just kept getting the name of this guy I vaguely know who had a job. Turns out was consultancy, has a job. And every time he talked about it, I always went Oh, that sounds so cool. So I thought I just feel I should phone him and ask him what the name of the job is. Because I’m not, I wasn’t used to the language of all the corporate stuff. Although I have been working with people in churches, yes. But they all have jobs. And they’re all in the corporate space. So, but I just hadn’t sort of plunged into, Yeah, what’s the vibe with all this? Phoned him and he said, Oh I’m a consultant. He told me what he did. And I, I basically boiled it down to, So you help people just really get who they are, and crack on with it and do it well, so they can do their jobs well, and he went, yeah, basically, I went, Oh, my gosh, I’ve been doing that for 15 years. I love that. Can you get paid for that? And he was like, yes. Oh, how much do you get paid? And he told me I went, Hell yeah, I could do that. So then anyway, he laughed and gave me some pointers. And I thought, let’s explore this because I have been doing this without the borders and boundaries of it for 15 years. And something in me that I have since learned through personality stuff. So I’ve done Clifton’s Strength Finders, Gary, I know you’re expert in that I’ve done Myers Briggs and DISC and the Five Voices, but boiled down my personality wiring is I am strategic and a strong communicator. In Clifton Strength Finders-land and the Woo. But if you know DISC, I’m very red, quite yellow, look yellow, but I’m actually very red, direct, want to build, want to kind of be strategic and functional. So it made a lot of sense to me why being pastoral and quiet and listening to everyone for years has always felt not authentic for me. And consultancy, the playground of that is way more suited to me. Because it is let’s build. What’s the bottom line? We’ve got metrics involved. Yes! You know, I just love all that, like you can measure what we’re doing, and see tangible success. The entrepreneur spirit in me from business, the river I’ve swum my whole life, I’m always into profit. So I only want, anything I do has to make a difference to that, is, is, is locked in there. So when I spoke to this chap and heard what he did, I thought this is brilliant. And I started just following the breadcrumbs of consultancy. And I realised I don’t have enough experience in hardcore strategy. So sadly, that’s something I can’t yet bring to the table commercially. But what I can bring to the table is people dynamics and the strategy around people and how they’re wired and how to make them flourish. And within that is a lot of change the rules. So that’s, that was my, when I latched on and went, Oh, I’ve got an innate nature that will be good at that. I have really been doing that for 15 years in a different narrative. I then just started the process of getting some training around it, so that I could catch up with language, with tools, with concepts that are already in the business world linguistically so that I can catch the wind and sail in that space.

Gary Crotaz 40:01
And it’s amazing for me, you know, I’ve watched you now building this incredibly successful people-centred coaching / facilitation business over the years, you know, since, since making that sort of mindset shift. And now you’re, you’re working with all these leading brands with, with this kind of work, with their top leaders. When you look back, what have you learned about yourself, going through that change?

Dolly Waddell 40:28
I, do you know, I’ve really learnt that knowing yourself. And I don’t mean in a kind of, Oh, go find yourself in a gap year, knowing yourself, I’ve done all that. And that’s great. I mean, knowing yourself quite objectively, of which things like, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I used to roll my eyes at, when I’d hear about personality profiles, and psychometrics and coaching, but knowing yourself with a bit of data. And knowing that actually, what I really learned is that humans, we’re so wonderfully unique. I’m a real pedal pusher for that, we’re so unique, so marvellous, we’ve got such wonderful experiences that make us different. But we are actually quite predictable. And you knew, just go with me on this analogy. In football, you have set plays, set pieces, if you take a corner, there’s set pieces, sp which piece are you’re gonna play? Our personalities have set pieces. So when my personality type gets stressed, do you know what, only a few variables, I pretty much play a set play. You know, when you get stressed, Gary, your personality type will be prone to doing set pieces. It’s like that. And I think once I saw that, as data in front of me almost. I went, Oh my gosh, this is, this is so much, so helpful. And now, I’ve now got data to to change the rules. Even things like just for years, the oughts and shoulds were for me to be present-orientated, very friendly, very kind, and non-confrontational. Actually, the data is, No I’m wired to be very confrontational, don’t really love detail, but I’ll do it, but I’d rather be future-focused rather than constantly in the present. Having data like that just, it’s been such an expansive, expansive experience or journey rather than a confining one. And I think often with personality stuff, you can feel it’s quite confining and binding. But for me, it’s been the very opposite. It’s helped me understand my husband better. It’s, it’s just brought into sharp focus all my intuition and my instincts, but it’s given me that language to expand into my best self. And, and I don’t get ill anymore, isn’t that interesting, I have way more energy than I used to. But yet, I’m doing more. And I think it’s because I’ve aligned myself to my nature, rather than to the kind of nurture at the oughts and the shoulds. It’s been really, really liberating. I mean, my friends and my family watching go, it’s like a light switch has just come on. But, yeah, and I have a picture on my desk, which I’ll show you now, of a mountain. So I love John Maxwell, who’s a great motivational speaker. And he talks about an uphill climb or downhill slide. And that is just a word that’s gone in for me. So I have this mountain of Everest or something on my desk, just to remind me, I keep, I want to go up the mountain of myself. And just keep going, keep refining. And otherwise, if you forget that piece, you do slide down the mountain, and you do lose yourself.

Gary Crotaz 43:43
So here we are in 2022, what’s coming up for you? What are you, what are you planning for the next six to twelve months?

Dolly Waddell 43:49
I… Well, with, with work, I am very much just keeping on keeping on. I want to, I want to build really thoroughly. So I’m wanting to get as much exposure as I can to teams and leaders to, to bring what I have but also to learn from companies. I’m so excited to be in companies and keep learning. So there is a sense of me just wanting to keep building my reps, I suppose of experience and learning along the way, whilst bringing what I bring and partnering. I just, I just love partnering with people. And as I said, it’s always, I just love being with people and teams. So I’ll be happy doing that forever in many ways. So keeping on with that, but I do, I do really want to get into the space of keynote speaking and bringing messages that I’ve got that bring inspiration. That would, that would make me come alive. Definitely.

Gary Crotaz 44:55
Where can people find out more about you and the work you do?

Dolly Waddell 44:58
Well, LinkedIn I’m Dolly Waddell on LinkedIn and Instagram @dollywaddell. And my website has always got up to date things, you get on my mailing list. I do lots of blogs. So you can see me that way. And I am starting a podcast of my very own. So keep, keep your eyes peeled on my social media platforms for information on when that’s coming out but hopefully that’ll be coming out in the autumn.

Gary Crotaz 45:26
Fantastic. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For executive coach and facilitator Dolly Waddell, it was a moment of tough self-reflection that made her realise that she had to change the rules, define her own future and take ownership of the path ahead. That moment of realisation enabled her to let go of the pressure of expectation that was exhausting her and driving her to burnout and to refocus her energy on a life that brings out her best self every day. Now she’s helping others to go on that same journey. Wherever Dolly is, you can be sure the future is bright, energised and exciting. Dolly, thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Dolly Waddell 46:09
Thanks Gary, it’s been great to be here.

Gary Crotaz 46:13
This has been The Unlock Moment, a podcast with me Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook format. Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon!

Joanne Clifton 0:07
I think people have an image of a Russian dance teacher, how strict they could be. I mean she, yeah, she was lovely on the other hand, but she was very, very strict. And I knew that right from our first group practice, I’d had my first few lessons. And I did the practice. And she called me over. And she was like, If you’re not going to do the things that we worked on in the lesson, if you’re not going to listen to me, you can go back to England, because we don’t need you here. And that was like the biggest shock to me. For a second. I was like, she shouldn’t talk to me like that! But then the second later, I was like, Oh, my gosh, I’m in the right place. My Russian coach, she got me to stand barefoot on a marble floor, not even on the wooden sprung floor, on the hard marble cold floor for an hour and a half, with my heels off the floor, my knees slightly bent, and she was on the floor. And if I wobbled, or if a heel went down, she actually had a horsewhip, and would whip my ankles. And it didn’t matter if I was crying. It didn’t matter if I was cramping. She was not having any excuse. I had to stay there for an hour and a half. Yeah, I’m just going to be open and honest. It was a lot. It was a heck of a lot of pressure immediately put on me to get to his standard very quickly. You know, obviously a six-times world champion. He didn’t want to lose the seventh. It got tough. It did get tough. I needed therapy. Every morning I would go to therapy, which helped. I got eating disorders because, you know, I was suddenly expected to be a professional world champion. What does that mean? You’re the best in everything. So, you know, it just took my coach to say you need to lose a bit of weight for me to take that to the extreme. I took it to the absolute extreme and lived off 11 espressos a day and I had eating disorders. I mean, there’s a video on YouTube. And you can see that I’m not like, “Yay!” I’m not I’m not giving it like, “Oh my God, we won the World Championship!” After, at that point, what was it, 26 years of training, and everything that I’d gone through in the past few years. And also a few years before that training-wise and stuff. Like, you can see that I’m quite serious on the podium. And I think through my mind, I’m going, “Was that worth it?” And I’m also probably going, “Did I dance my best?” And then also in my mind, I’m going, “Okay, that’s that done. Next?” It was a weird day. So weird! I believe everything, I am one of them people who believes everything in life happens for a reason. And I was meant to go through all that. And I was meant to win the World Championship. So there was literally nothing that I would change about my past.

Gary Crotaz 3:19
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to a very special edition of The Unlock Moment podcast. Today I am delighted to welcome World Ballroom Dancing Champion, Strictly Champion and musical theatre star Joanne Clifton to the podcast. You will probably know Joanne best for her appearances on the hit TV show Strictly Come Dancing, in the US and other countries that’s Dancing With The Stars. Between 2014 and 2016 she appeared as a professional dancer every week on the BBC show, winning the Christmas special with pop singer Harry Judd in 2015 and the iconic Strictly trophy with TV presenter Ore Oduba in 2016. Since then she has forged a successful career on stage, starring in shows as diverse as Thoroughly Modern Millie, Flashdance and The Rocky Horror Show. But the part of Joanne’s life that we don’t get to hear so much about is before her TV career. And it’s actually where I know her the best. Born and brought up in the fishing port town of Grimsby, she became one of the very best ballroom dancers the UK has ever produced. Joanne won the British Championship five times, the Italian Championship three times, the European Professional Championship, and finally the World Professional Showdance Championship in 2013. I’m absolutely fascinated to discover more about the mindset of that person who became the very best in the world, and The Unlock Moment that led to a radical career change. Joanne, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Joanne Clifton 5:45
Well thank you for having me. I’m actually really excited to talk about it because I don’t actually talk about that part of my career that much. And just hearing you reading up on what I have actually achieved, it’s not that I’ve forgotten, but I don’t say it that much, or hear it that much, or talk about it. So it’s actually quite weird hearing you listing off all those achievements – I was like, Oh my gosh, yes, yeah!

Gary Crotaz 6:06
That person sounds really interesting! I’d like to be friends with them! So tell me a little bit about where your dancing career started. How old were you when you started dancing?

Joanne Clifton 6:11
Well, I’m from a dancing family. So Strictly fans will know that I have an older brother called Kevin who is also a dancer, but my parents were dancers, my auntie, my grandparents on my dad’s side. So it was basically nearly all of us were dancers. So I kind of… well the thing was, my parents didn’t want us to get into dancing as much since they’d been through it and knows the sacrifices and how much it was going to cost, and all of this. But they had a dance school up in Grimsby. And when my grandparents couldn’t look after us, we had to go to their classes as kids. So my brother started joining in. And because he’s the older one, I kind of just copied him and we kind of would join in with the dance classes and mum and dad would kind of like, Oh, well, they really enjoy it. So let’s go for it. And that’s how it all started. So I was like four and Kevin was five when we did our first competition, which we won, because we were the only ones in it!

Gary Crotaz 7:01
That’s the best way, that’s the easiest way to win a competition for sure! I was also four years old when I first started dancing actually, I went to classes that you weren’t allowed to start till you were five, but my older brothers also were in those classes. And I think they felt sorry for me and allowed me in when I was four years old. I didn’t do my first competition till I was about nine. How old were you when you first started competing?

Joanne Clifton 7:32
Oh, first one was I was four. I was in an Alice in Wonderland dress, from Disney. I was just in a little Alice in Wonderland dress. And my brother was in a little bow tie and a shirt and trousers. Yes, so we started competitions straight away. I guess mum and dad just threw us in the deep end.

Gary Crotaz 7:52
And were you competitive when you were little?

Joanne Clifton 7:55
I wasn’t competitive through… so I danced with my brother until we were about I’m going to say 13 and 14 or something like that. And I wasn’t competitive throughout that whole time. He was. He was like proper competitive. He would throw tantrums in the car if we hadn’t got the result that we wanted on the way home. I didn’t mind that much. I was just enjoying life. And just like going, copying him really. I wasn’t that bothered. So no, I wasn’t competitive at all really, as a kid. I mean, it’s so weird because now I’m a stage performer and we’ve kind of, me and my brother have kind of almost swapped personalities. He was really outgoing and really, really like facial expressions and all this. I was very shy. I never used to smile when I used to dance. Literally as a kid it was really hard for my dad to get any kind of performance out of me. I was just going along with the music, kind of thing. But now I’m the more outgoing one and Kevin’s the more introvert so it’s weird how we’ve swapped.

Gary Crotaz 8:58
There’s a very interesting story I think we’re going to talk through around these sort of mindset shifts through your life actually. So then you’ve got to your mid-teenage years, and at some point you decided you wanted to really take it seriously, and you ended up moving to Italy.

Joanne Clifton 9:14
In two minds really, I wanted to do musical theatre as well. I did have lessons in singing and acting as well and I loved it. But at that time actually, between going to Italy and dancing with my brother, I had to dance with someone else. And they split up with me, they split up dancing with me. They decided it. And for some reason that set off a little bit of a fire in me to kind of go, Well I’ll show you! So at that time, I saw a dancer in Blackpool, which is the main championships for ballroom dancers, and I really liked the style and it was this Italian dancer called Paolo Bosco. So we wrote to his coach and to him to see whether he would be open to looking for a new partner and dancing with someone from England and stuff like that. And he said, No. The coach said that they had someone else. So I went over to Bologna with my dad, and tried out with this other guy who was really lovely. And there was something so exciting to me about starting completely afresh, like in a different country, far away from my old dance partner in a club system. And doing just ballroom, which is what my family weren’t doing. They did ballroom but they were mainly Latin, my family. So I went and focused on the ballroom side, and there was something really exciting about that. So I chose to go down the ballroom dancing route, rather than going with musical theatre.

Gary Crotaz 10:47
So a fire was lit under you by a person saying they don’t want to dance with you any more. And the consequence of that was a girl from Grimsby, this fishing port town, that you decided to go and not just visit Bologna but move there.

Joanne Clifton 11:04
I ended up moving there at 16, I think I was turning 17, so … but yeah, with no family coming with me or anything, I lived in the dance school, in a little apartment attached to the side of it, which had a door into one of the practice halls, where the coach would come bang on the door actually and say, Come on, you need to practise! I moved there by myself, didn’t speak the language.

Gary Crotaz 11:30
I was going to say, how fluent was your Italian at the point that you moved?

Joanne Clifton 11:33
None, I didn’t know anything. Absolutely nothing. So I just learned when I was there. And it was weird because I did five years of German at school. And it was my best subject, I got an A* in my GCSEs. And I forgot all my German. But living in Italy, it must have taken me just about a year and a bit, I got fluent straightaway, because not many of them spoke in English at that time when I moved over. So I just was listening to Italian, Italian, Italian all the time so I had to learn quickly.

Gary Crotaz 12:02
And paint a picture of where this was, you know, where in Italy this was, what what the environment was like that you moved into. So it was a big city, a small town?

Joanne Clifton 12:11
It’s a small little village I would say, outside of Bologna, about 40 minutes outside Bologna actually, called Molinella. And basically the best way to describe this – it’s very flat, very hot and humid, lots and lots of mosquitoes. And I think the best way to describe it is you either walk along the road and seeing like old people on bicycles, or dancers dragging cases and bags. So it’s basically a little village that my coach had created. He was from that village anyway, but he created this little dance, almost a little dance village for competitors to go and live in and train there. And there was obviously the main studio, there was a second studio when I first moved over. Now I think there’s, you know, there’s a gym and there’s yet another studio. But at the time there was a gym quite close, there was a little swimming pool, lots and lots of bars and cafes and a pizzeria.

Gary Crotaz 13:11
It’s amazing. And people that have read my book, The IDEA Mindset. I’ve talked a little bit about this, because obviously, if people know I was also a ballroom dancer, and you taught me when my wife Mildred and I went over to Italy, we used to go there once a month.

Joanne Clifton 13:23
And we used to, and we did we did a stamina training together, didn’t we?

Gary Crotaz 13:27
We did! You and I danced together and I realised how completely unfit I was! I think you were the peak of your performance and I very much wasn’t! But no, it’s an amazing place because … I describe it to people who don’t know ballroom dancing, I say, imagine if you were a runner and you went to Kenya or Ethiopia to train with the athletes that are out there and you get there and you’d realise that they’re all so much better than you it’s not even funny. But at the same time, it’s this completely immersive environment. So the fact that it’s not in a big city, the fact that there are no distractions, it’s, as you say, old people on bicycles or dancers that’s, that’s what’s there. And that helped you to progress your dancing ability, to be immersed in that kind of environment?

Joanne Clifton 14:15
It was a totally different experience from training in England. I’m not putting down the training in England that I did, at all. But in England, you don’t have a club system, you kind of like dance with your dance partner and you guys make all your decisions, who you want to go for lessons with, and when, and how many, which competitions you do, what dress you’re going to wear. You make all those decisions. Whereas in Italy I found this massive difference straightaway because we had a coach and this coach made the decisions for you. You’re going to have lessons with this person, this person, this person, on this day, this day, this day, and you’re going to do that many hours. You’re going to practice this many hours. Otherwise I’m going to come knocking on the door. You’re going to go to the gym. You’re going to have a dress that suits you, like, I don’t know, if you’ve got a big bum like me, don’t put massive big feathers on the bum, do you know what I mean? Because you’re accentuating it even more! So they kind of knew you, studied you and did what was best for you and made decisions for you. And you had to follow what your coach said. So I felt immediately that this massive change and that it seemed much more serious and much more focused. And we were almost treated like, well we were, like athletes. And we even had to go sit on Wednesdays in Academy, which means we all sat at desks. So those of you who aren’t dancers, you think, Oh, if you train in dancing, you’re just training physically, all the time, but no, we had a Wednesday where you would just sit at desks and learn like sports psychology, sports nutrition, technique, and you’d be writing down notes on it all the time. So it’s very much like a university, I think, of dance.

I remember coming to those and we spoke no Italian at the time we were coming, you were completely fluent at that point. But they had simultaneous translation at the side of the room. So people that were coming in from around the world and people were coming, when we were there, people coming from Vancouver, people were coming from Vladivostok, you know, all around the world every month would come in and spend time in this environment. And one of the Italian dancers was at the side of the room translating and you all had an earpiece in. You felt like you were at the UN, it was crazy.

Yeah, well this is the thing, like, I think so many people from all over the world would come into this school and one of the reasons why I was going as well, one because it was different, the style of dance seemed different to me. More exciting somehow, more taking risks which I really liked. And two because it was churning out all these champions. So you want to go to the place that’s churning out all the world champions, don’t you? You want to go to that best place and that’s I think what drove me to go there on my own, having been quite a shy, introverted child beforehand. That drove me, seeing that all these world champions being from this one school and how they were dancing, that was the drive that was like, Do you know what, I want to be like that. So that’s why I went there.

And one of the things I always found fascinating about about the school was the influence of the two people that led the school. One was, the husband and wife couple, one was Italian, one was Russian. And I always felt like they brought something different from one another, with something of their influence. What did you take from that mix of Italian and Russian mindset in the way the school was run?

Yeah, well, the Russian definitely, if you imagine… I think people have an image of a Russian dance teacher, how strict they could be. I mean she, yeah she was lovely on the other hand, but she was very, very strict and I knew that right from our first group practice. I’d had my first few lessons, and I did the practice. And she called me over. And she was like, If you’re not going to do the things that we worked on in the lesson, if you’re not going to listen to me, you can go back to England, because we don’t need you here. And that was like the biggest shock to me, coming from a place where the teachers in England obviously, are amazing, but they’re very much like, Okay, that was a bit better. Let’s try it again. To, You can go back to where you came from. I was in so much shock. And I think I just realised, Oh my gosh, I’m in a completely different world here. So yeah, she was very, very strict with me from the word go.

Gary Crotaz 18:36
And when she said that to you, what did it make you think or do?

Joanne Clifton 18:42
I was, I was actually shocked – yes. For a second, I was like, She shouldn’t talk to me like that! But then the second later, I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m in the right place. Because I actually liked it. Having someone take complete control and give me direction of how to get where I wanted to be. And just be brutally honest. It was kind of refreshing in a way. So yeah, I was a bit hurt at first because I wasn’t used to it. But then I was like, I mean, I’m definitely in the right place. And straight away I toughened up, which is one thing that I will always thank them for. Toughening me up.

Gary Crotaz 19:22
Tell me about the intensity of the work compared with what you were doing back in England. Were you dancing longer hours when you were training? Were you doing more rounds, more dances? You know, what was that like?

Joanne Clifton 19:35
I mean from the word go, it was, you know, when we had… as I said, the coach would come and knock on the door if we slept in too long. You know, at 8:30 they’d come and bang on the door and knock and say, You need to be out there practising. So it was a lot tougher already. And we had all these extra things as well that we weren’t being told before. Like training in the gym for example. Yeah, we heard, Oh, we maybe we should be training in the gym, and things like that. But we didn’t really, we weren’t forced to do it. Whereas in Italy we were forced to do a certain amount of hours, or they told us we’d be thrown out the club. There was stamina training every week, stamina training where they’d get us to dance rounds and rounds and rounds and do lots of exercises and stuff, just to strengthen us in all these different ways technically, but then also to get our heart rates going. We were measured with our heart rates, we had all these machines on us all the time. Even when there was, let’s say, there was a competition in Singapore or something like that, they would work out the time difference so that we would be practising our finals at the same time as it would be in Singapore, when it got to the competition, for a few weeks beforehand. So we got ourselves into the time difference kind of thing a few weeks beforehand, so we might have been doing finals at 4am in the morning some weeks, because that would be the time that we’d be dancing when we go to Singapore. It was, yeah, it was a lot! We were in that studio from, I’m going to say about seven, half seven in the morning, till 11 at night with just say one hour break for lunch. And as you got better and better and progressed in your career, obviously, then you have to start teaching to then earn your money to get your lessons, to pay for your private lessons. So in that we also had to add the teaching as well. So sometimes we’d spend a whole day like practising in the morning, then stamina practice, then gym, technical practice, our own practice, then a lesson with one of our coaches, or a guest teacher, then a group practice, and then we’d have to teach after the group practice, because that’s the only time we could do it. So the days were absolutely filled with dance, and with anything to do with our dancing career, like every single day, and our coaches were so strict with us that we were taught, you know, we can’t have more than four days off a year. Which looking back, I go, Oh, we probably could have had, but it was very much like, you know, if we miss a day, if we’ve worked in such detail of how much to rotate our left side in degrees on the day before and then take a day off, it’s not going to be in our body anymore, our bodies might have changed a bit and our muscle memory of it has changed. So we were taught very much that you shouldn’t have too much time off.

Gary Crotaz 22:38
And so at a moment when you’re on the side of the floor, about to walk on to the floor in the final of some huge championship, what did that intensity of training do for your mindset in terms of how confident you felt about the performance you were about to deliver,

Joanne Clifton 22:54
I feel like I could dance a bit freer. We’ll talk about freedom later on, but like a bit freer, because you know that you’ve done the work, you know that you’ve done that in. So if you go to Blackpool, for example, and Blackpool is well known for its long music, like you have to dance for two, two and a half minutes nonstop. And then five dances in the semi-final and then five dances in the final. Beforehand I’d have been like, Oh, I hope I can get through this. Having been at the school in Italy, having known that I do that every week. More than that, sometimes we’d dance six minute dances and just have to keep going. Knowing that I’m able to dance and keep going with six minutes for five dances each time, it’s really calming to then go, Oh, well two minutes, or two and a half minutes, it’ll be easy then, it’ll just fly by. Same with the technical stuff, the hours that you do, the more hours you do on the technical stuff, the more that it’s in your body, the more that then you don’t have to think about it when you actually go out and do your performance. You’ve done the practice and your mind knows that you are able to do it.

Gary Crotaz 24:03
Tell me about the exercise called ‘tortura’.

Joanne Clifton 24:07
That’s the one on your toes, isn’t it? Is it? I can’t remember? Oh my gosh, yeah. ‘Tortura’, which obviously, it means torture. What was it, stand on your toes and not wobble for a certain amount of time? Now, yeah, we did that in group practices and group performance practices. But I think the one time that I do actually remember, that really stands out is that I… it was when I started dancing with Paolo, who was six-times world champion already. So I feel like I had to step up my game really quickly because I went from being sixth in the amateur category to dance with this six-times world champion, and so a lot of lessons were on me, obviously, but my Russian coach, she got me to stand barefoot on a marble floor, not even on the wooden sprung floor, on the hard marble cold floor for an hour and a half, with my heels off the floor, my knees slightly bent, and she was on the floor, and if I wobbled, or if a heel went down, she actually had a horsewhip, and would whip my ankles. And it didn’t matter if I was crying, it didn’t matter if I was cramping, she was not having any excuse, I had to stay there for an hour and a half. And that is why it’s called torture.

Gary Crotaz 25:31
And how did it feel being in that environment? When you think back to what it felt like at the time, what were you thinking?

Joanne Clifton 25:38
That was obviously the moment where things got tougher, dancing with someone who was that high level. It wasn’t pleasant, I’m not going to say it’s pleasant, but you kind of, the way that it had been installed in our brains through the years of being there and through the years of Academy, it just felt like this is what you have to do to become a champion. This is the stuff. This is me working hard. Looking back, yeah probably I wasn’t the happiest. But I was still determined. And I look at it as though, you know, if I hadn’t gone through these kinds of ‘tortura’, through this torture, and through this way of training, would I be where I am today? Probably not. If I hadn’t stayed there for the hour and a half with my ankles, would my ankles have been strong enough to do a perfect closing of the feet in a natural turn in the waltz in the World Championship? Maybe not, you know.

Gary Crotaz 26:36
Talk to me about, in this phase then, your spirit of competition. So you said when you were little, you weren’t a natural competitor. But at this stage when you were British champion, you’re working towards being European champion and World champion. How competitive were you, personally?

Joanne Clifton 26:53
I’m extremely competitive. Even now I’m extremely competitive. In anything. But I, yeah, that was… dancing with the six-times world champion, and being surrounded by as well in the school, all our rivals really – we had a lot of other world champions there, and our rivals, and just being against them all this time, for all these years, every single day, seeing how much they do, and how hard they’re working, and what results they’re getting, and what we’re getting, and who’s beating who, and who’s in a… oh my gosh, like I am a completely different person to how I was when I was a kid, like honestly, I would never have thought, looking how I used to be as a child, I would never have thought I would have turned into the person that I am today, competitive-wise, and also strength- and courage-wise, and confidence-wise as well. There was so much stuff that I went through in that school that people don’t realise and don’t know, like, I was speaking to my boyfriend’s parents last week, and we were talking about the fact that I, there was one time we went to Belgium to compete and we had no money after the competition to book a hotel, to stay in a hotel. So we had to go straight to the airport. It was snowing, the airport was closed, and it opened at 6am. This was after the competition. So we got there about 1am. We had to open up some cardboard boxes that were in this storeroom and huddle together to try and keep warm all through the night just to then get home because we didn’t have enough money to stay in a hotel. There’s things like me going to, going off to Canada by myself to teach, things like me taking myself off to Taiwan for a week to teach by myself, like my mum would never… even now I don’t think she even believes that I could ever be able to do that. Things like nearly missing a flight. So I needed to get, I needed a taxi. But there was no taxis, or I needed a bus and there was no buses. So I, just this guy just asked me, he was like, Do you need a lift? and I just hopped in the car with a random guy in America by myself to get from one airport to the other to catch a flight. And all of this stuff like has made me so strong now, and people who know me would, if they didn’t know this stuff, they probably wouldn’t believe that I am this kind of stronger person because I have been through all of this. And the way that I’ve been trained and everything like that, because I think sometimes I’m quite just the happy, jolly little person and they think I’m quite weak with it, or a little bit of a pushover.

Gary Crotaz 29:36
It’s really interesting because for people that don’t know the dance world, and they think, you know, somebody who was world champion in a professional sport, well, you know, you probably have a, you know, a chauffeur-driven car to pick you up at the airport or, you know, you probably have, you know, all sorts of the trappings that come with being a successful, probably reasonably wealthy, you know, professional competitor, if you were a tennis player or golfer or something like that. What does it look like to be, you know, a high-level professional competitive ballroom dancer in terms of the money?

Joanne Clifton 30:14
Oh, in terms of the money, well if you’re high, high level you can earn a lot of money through teaching. And through shows, when you do shows, you can earn quite a lot. But in terms of like prize money, I wouldn’t say that it’s anywhere, not even close to being near other high-level sportspeople in different sports. Like I think maximum, maximum that… I think we won a lot for the World Dancesport Games. Anything else, even like the World Championship, I don’t think it was even over 1000 Euro, ever. So… and that’s right at the top. So I think mainly, all these millions of dancers who are trying to get to the top are actually paying themselves to go and do competitions and get a result. So in terms of like competition money, nothing, really. But in terms, if you are a top-level dancer, you can earn a lot from teaching and shows.

Gary Crotaz 31:15
But then you also then have to pay out for the cost of your travel, your accommodation, your lessons, your outfits, all of that?

Joanne Clifton 31:22
Absolutely! And it’s so expensive. I’ll be honest, my mum and dad had to help me until I was about 26, 27. Because I couldn’t do it. Because I was in the school with, as we’ve said, so many… there’s kind of like a tier kind of way in the school. It’s too difficult to explain on the podcast, but you’ve got your your different levels of where you’re at. So until you’re right up in the second or the first level, you can’t really earn that much. And people don’t want to really come to you for lessons. If you’re in that school and that’s where you live and train, and they’ve got the possibility there to have lessons with our coaches, then on the second tier the lessons with the world champions. And then on the third tier maybe like lessons with people who are in the semi-final, when you’re in like the 48, no one’s going to… the top 48 in the world, no one’s going to book lessons with you. So you’re not earning anything. You don’t earn anything, when you’re down in those tiers over there, and you’re paying out so much for your weekly lessons. And you have to have at least probably four a week with the two coaches. And then you’ve got your technical lessons with the guy who… the main technique book guy, you’ve got your lessons with the personal trainer to pay out, you’ve got your Academy day to pay out, you’ve got your group sessions, you’ve got your stamina sessions, you’ve got all of this to pay out, and you’re not earning a single penny. I remember there was some times when me and my boyfriend at the time were living off like the crackers, just packets of crackers, because that’s all we could afford. Or there was definitely another week as well… another, well I say week, month, few months that I just lived off muesli because I couldn’t afford anything else. I’d just buy muesli and just have it three times a day because I couldn’t afford anything else. And you know, you feel bad. Of course your parents… if my parents knew that I was living off that they’d be like, no, no, no, have some money, but you feel bad constantly asking for your parents’ money. And there was also a time where my ex-boyfriend smoked as well. And we didn’t have any, literally zero money to get from where we lived to the dance studio. So he was, I remember him trying to sell his cigarettes to get just two euro to get us, like, well four euro, two euro each to get us to the studio, because we didn’t have any money. It’s mental.

Gary Crotaz 33:54
It’s so interesting to hear that story. So at that time, when you were living off crackers or muesli, and that’s what you could afford to eat, what were your results at that time, performance-wise?

Joanne Clifton 34:09
I mean, that must have been when we were getting to… around, I think, top 12 in the amateur category maybe, 24, 12, yeah?

Gary Crotaz 34:19
In the world? And in the British Championships?

Joanne Clifton 34:21
I think we won around that time. I don’t know. I can’t remember!

Gary Crotaz 34:26
But that brings it to life. So you’re probably British champion?

Joanne Clifton 34:29
Yeah.

Gary Crotaz 34:30
Like British national champion, and in the top 12 in the world, and you couldn’t afford to eat.

Joanne Clifton 34:34
No! The top 12 in the world in the amateur section. And that is why we had so many tiers above us, because there’s the professional category as well. And then you had the world champions in the amateur. And then, you know, that you go down, you go down, you go down. So nobody wanted lessons with us at that time. Plus being in Italy, being a British champion, people were like, well that doesn’t, you know, it’s not very appealing to the Italians, they want the Italian champion. Do you know what I mean? So we didn’t actually earn that much, even though we were getting good results.

Gary Crotaz 35:05
So when you look back to that time, and you think of the moment where you were not in your best, technically, but at your best in terms of feeling like, I really love what I’m doing right now, like, in your best self, in that part of your career, what do you think about?

Joanne Clifton 35:24
I was very happy at the beginning when I first went over, because everything was new obviously, and it felt great. The higher I got in terms of results, obviously things got harder. And it gave me more anxiety. And it was, yeah, things got hard. But if I think of when I’m, when I was happy, I had a really good relationship with my dance partner that I was dancing with at the time. And the fact that I was there, that’s right, it’s weird because I had this conversation with another girl, an English girl who moved to Italy as well. The fact that you’re there in a different country, away from the other people that you’ve competed against before, you feel like you’re doing something so different and it gives you this weird feeling. Not necessarily, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re better or anything like that, but you’re just away from that, you’ve decided to break out of that pack and go into this other place. And that’s how I felt the first few years there, being in this sunny Italy, living there, speaking another language, being around Italians and all these other people from around the world who would come in, who were coming to the school, and practising alongside other world champions and things like that. And I think you know, the first, up to about 20, up to my early 20s, that was my happiest time. And, actually, you know, toughest in terms of money, getting by, kind of thing. But happy. I was going and I was trained in a certain way and I just felt cool. Do you know what I mean?

Gary Crotaz 37:01
And you loved the competing bit? You loved the artistry of the dance? What was it about the dancing that you loved?

Joanne Clifton 37:08
Competing bit yeah. But the fact that I was dancing differently as well, I was dancing differently to how I’d ever done. And people were allowing me to. I was able to explore, we were able to explore with a coach how different styles of steps and taking risks and… everything that I’d seen that I wanted to do, I was doing. And I had a dance partner as well who, he didn’t practice as much as maybe we should have done but he let me dance how I wanted to dance. And that got us to a certain level as well. So like what, yeah, I had a nice dance partner.

Gary Crotaz 37:50
And did you want to be like somebody else? Did you aspire to be like another dancer? Or did you aspire to be something unique?

Joanne Clifton 38:00
I looked up to a woman who actually was a coach in another school actually called Alessandra Bucciarelli, she was my idol because they really, really, really thought out the box. As a female dancer, she really thought out the box and did different stuff that nobody would have ever done before. So I wanted to be not the same as her. I didn’t want to dance like her. But I wanted to do what she was doing. I wanted to take the risk as a female dancer and do different things which people could love or hate but at least they… I wanted to give people the feeling that I had watching her, which was, What is she going to do next? Like when she walks on the floor? Oh my gosh, what is she going to do? Because something fabulous is about to happen, and I don’t know when it’s going to be. That’s the feeling that I wanted to give other people.

Gary Crotaz 38:57
And do you remember the first time you achieved that?

Joanne Clifton 39:01
I don’t know about the first time. What I did love was coming back from Italy because I did represent England for a long time, even though I was dancing with an Italian. So coming back to dance the British Championship and seeing my competitors from before, and seeing the judges and the professionals that were sat around the floor, seeing them around there and coming out and dancing a slightly different style and taking risks, that gave me a real buzz. It’s either, You’re going to love it or hate it, but I’m going to make you watch me. And so coming back to England dancing differently, that I absolutely love but I can’t remember a specific first time.

Gary Crotaz 39:47
That’s interesting, that they’re going to love it or they’re going to hate it, because they didn’t all love it did they? They didn’t all love the new style?

Joanne Clifton 39:53
No, because I think some people are very traditionalist, some people seeing things that are new and risky… Sometimes you know, if it… anyway, but if they don’t understand how you’re doing it, themselves, if they don’t understand it, it’s probably they don’t particularly… Like, I’m going to put it like this, for example, I was on Strictly. And when I was on strictly there wasn’t the Couple’s Choice. Now there’s the Couple’s Choice. And I don’t particularly like it. I don’t particularly like it because in my opinion, it takes it away from the Showdance. But also, I don’t understand those styles of dance. If you ask me to do contemporary dance, or whatever, I can’t do it. I don’t understand it myself. So what do I say? That I don’t like it. And I think that’s how some people in England saw our style of dancing. We did stuff that they didn’t quite understand or know how to do themselves. So automatically it was like, I don’t like it. But I kind of liked the fact that they don’t like that, like didn’t like it. Isn’t, is that weird? I don’t know, I just liked to be different. And I liked to stand out. And don’t get me wrong, some of our risk-taking was wrong. It was rubbish. You know, oh, let’s try doing a step like this, with my neck like this? And it was probably too far. And it was a bit rubbish. Didn’t work. But the excitement of that was so much for me, it was… I buzzed off it, I absolutely loved it.

Gary Crotaz 41:29
Do you feel like you’re a rebel at heart?

Joanne Clifton 41:32
I wouldn’t say I’m a rebel?! I’d say I like to be different. I do like to stand out, I do. And maybe that’s a competitive thing, I don’t know. I just, I do like to be different. And I don’t know, I feel like I’ve always liked to be slightly different, because that’s why, partly why I’m going say, not fully why. But I also went the ballroom route rather than the Latin with, you know, I like to be different to what the rest of my family has done. Maybe that’s also to not be compared or whatever, but also, because I just do like to be different.

Gary Crotaz 42:06
For the longest time in this environment in Italy, with all of these people coaching you, the people that you were around, this environment that you were in, brought out the best in you, brought out your best dancing, brought out this ability to create something very special and different and new. And you were advancing yourself in many different ways. And then at some point you, you change partners, so you had this opportunity to dance with Paolo, who was the multiple-time world champion, and as you described before, you said that things changed at that point because the expectation was different. So talk to me a little bit about how that felt, how that shift felt, to start going for a much higher level of performance and a higher level of competition result.

Joanne Clifton 42:56
Yeah, I’m just going to be open and honest … it was a lot, it was a heck of a lot of pressure immediately put on me to get to his standard very quickly, you know, obviously a six-times world champion, he didn’t want to lose the seventh. And now he’s just taken someone on who was sixth in the amateur category, not the professional. So there was a lot of pressure. Training got harder. Even the way I was spoke to was tougher. We can say it’s tough love from coaches. You know, I was told on a regular basis, No, if he danced with that chair over there, it’d be the same thing. Things like that. And maybe it was tough love, maybe… because, you know, I had been with that school for so long, at that point, maybe they knew that I work off things like a fight. If they tell me I can’t do something, they know that I work that way, I’ll work harder to to prove them. Right, so you know, the way they spoke to me including dance partners, including the coaches, it was, it got tough, it did get tough. I needed therapy. Every morning, I would go to therapy, which helped. I got eating disorders because, you know, I was suddenly expected to be a professional world champion. What does that mean? You’re the best in everything. So, you know, it just took my coach to say, You need to lose a bit of weight, for me to take that to the extreme. I took it to the absolute extreme and lived off 11 espressos a day and I had eating disorders. But I kept going, kept going. It caused all sorts of problems. Like, we won’t go into that too much. But even with you know, practice. I wasn’t allowed really to speak because it was considered wasting time. So if if my dance partner felt that there was something wrong, him being the leader and the more experienced, would say it. And if I disagreed I wasn’t really allowed to say it back because it was… I couldn’t say anything back because it was considered wasting time if we argued. If we’re arguing, that’s wasting time whereas our rivals, whoever we’re competing against for being world champion, for the next World Championships, probably weren’t arguing, we were told. So they were practising. And they were getting ahead of us. So I wasn’t really allowed to speak. I remember one time having my mouth sellotaped. I had to do everything that Paolo said in terms of, you know, he could call me at 11 o’clock at night and say, You need to get up because we need to get into the studio and practise till 2am, because I’m not happy with the way you did this, that or the other. There was always something wrong, and not in a bad way. Well, it can be considered bad. There was always, you know, it could always be better. There was always, there was never really a moment where we were like, Oh, yeah, you did that really well. It was like, No, we need to improve on this, this, this, this and things were looked at and worked on in much more minute detail, to the nearest degree. And you know, whilst he was teaching, he’d say you need to go and do the torture exercise for example, for another hour and a half. And I would have to do it in front of the mirror so that he could see that I was doing it. Things like that. I also would then get more teaching opportunities, obviously, I’m dancing with a world champion, but his dance partner from before was still working together with him and she retired. So it was kind of three of us in this kind of teaching trio. But so then it was considered better and more organised if one person had the diary. And that was Paolo. So if he had the diary then he would sort out who’s teaching what, when, and stuff but also, you know, I had to be careful how I spoke or if I upset anybody, like, because I wasn’t in charge of the diary, I would find myself with no lessons the next day to teach if I had said something out of order or whatever. So I you know, I was on my tiptoes the whole time, walking on eggshells.

Gary Crotaz 47:22
Yeah, a real shift in the feeling of training, feeling of working with somebody, and… You know, a lot of people who would have heard like high performance podcasts and you listen to people who’ve become a world champion, often there is something a little bit obsessive about the way they think and the way they train because of course to become the best in the world, when everybody else who are, you know, the most talented are also working incredibly hard, it can be a bit nuts in a certain kind of way, in the way that, you know, there are many people who become very, very good, but still in a way that is just enjoyable in every way. There’s a lot of people who’ve gone through that experience of going, To reach my ultimate goal, I do find myself in a situation that is often not fun.

Joanne Clifton 48:18
Yeah.

Gary Crotaz 48:18
…in the way that it was before. But then you’re describing here some elements where, by the nature of you’re in a team of two, a particularly intense type of environment, it’s very, if you’re on your own, becoming a world champion, if you’re a sprinter or something, that’s one thing, or if you’re in a team of 11 or 15, that something. There’s something very intense about being just you and one other person?

Joanne Clifton 48:41
It was intense, it was very, very intense, especially because of the difference of level that we were at, at that time. And so I had to just go with whatever he said. Because he knew best, he was the six-time world champion. What was I going to say? Oh, no, you’re wrong. Do you know what I mean? So there’s a lot of times where I was so tired, so anxious from all eyes on me, all eyes on me, because why did he choose to dance with me? Do you know what I mean? Why? Let’s have a look. You know, there’s a lot jealously and stuff like that, but…

Gary Crotaz 49:14
And you mentioned that it started to impact your resilience, your mental health, in some ways with anxiety or, and you’ve talked about eating disorders and so on. So, you know, it had real impact on you in that period of time.

Joanne Clifton 49:28
Absolutely. And I think, it doesn’t make me sad. It just, it was so tough. When I say tough, I mean it was really, really tough. Physically, mentally, just everything at that time when I was trying to win a world championship, for me, you know, it wasn’t particularly like that I couldn’t go, Oh, yeah, it was so exciting. It’s so glamorous. It was so happy. Because it wasn’t. It was the opposite of that. It was such hard work. Such hard work. And draining. It was draining. And because I was dancing with someone who was so good, so good. And he knew what was right, more than me. And I just accepted it. But like, even when we we won the European Championship, I remember, I come off and he wasn’t happy with the way that I danced. So it wasn’t a happy day, you know, when we won, it wasn’t great, because he’d been unhappy with how I’d danced.

Gary Crotaz 50:28
And you’d just won the European Championship.

Joanne Clifton 50:30
Yeah.

Gary Crotaz 50:31
So take me into the day, I think December 2013. We were there. In Merano, in northern Italy.

Joanne Clifton 50:41
That’s the day we did win the World Championship, finally. I mean there’s a video on YouTube. And you can see that I’m not like, Yay!!! I’m not giving it like, Oh my God, we won the World Championship! After, at that point, what was it 26 years of training, and everything that I’d gone through in the past few years. And also a few years before that, training-wise and stuff. Like, you can see that I’m quite serious on the podium. And I think through my mind, I’m going, Was it worth it. And also, I was also probably going, Did I dance my best? And then also in my mind, I’m going, Okay, that’s that done. Next? It was a weird day. So weird. So flippin’ weird. Obviously, I’m so grateful and so happy that we won. Obviously. And afterwards, when when I saw my parents, stuff like that, celebrations, stuff like that. But that moment on the podium, you can watch it on YouTube, I am serious. Because I had so many things going through my mind.

Gary Crotaz 51:53
Do you wish you hadn’t? Do you wish you hadn’t had that journey? And do you wish you’d stopped before starting that partnership?

Joanne Clifton 52:01
No. I believe everything… I am one of them people who believes everything in life happens for a reason. And I was meant to go through all that. And I was meant to win the World Championship. That was my goal. I loved dancing, I loved performing. And once I’d moved to Italy, that was my goal, to become world champion. That was it. And however hard times were, if I’d have given up, or if I’d have answered back, or if I’d have done anything different, I wouldn’t be where I am today in terms of dancing, in terms of performance, in terms of work ethic. Because even now, like, in my musical theatre career, you know, I’m there, I won’t take a day off. Even if I’ve got the sniffles or anything like that, like, I have to be on death’s door. I popped a calf muscle on the second show of Flashdance and was told that I needed to be out of action for three weeks. And I was like, No, because I’ve trained with people in that school who’ve had a broken bone in their foot and carried on dancing for five years before they got it sorted. So if they can do that, then I can do this. So all of that, what I went through, has helped my work ethic. It’s made me appreciate things more, like working in happier environments and stuff like that. What else? Like strength and courage, courage to carry on, courage to pick myself up. It’s given me all of that. And I would not be the Joanne that I am today without my training there. I probably wouldn’t have got on to Strictly. I probably from Strictly, then it wouldn’t have helped me to bring, I wouldn’t have springboarded to musical theatre. So there is literally nothing that I would change about my past.

Gary Crotaz 53:57
So that moment of transition from one partnership to the next. So the transition into this partnership that became the one where you won the world championship. If you could port yourself back in time, and put your arm around the shoulder of that Joanne Clifton and say something to her. You said you wouldn’t change what you did. But what would you say to that Joanne Clifton?

Joanne Clifton 54:23
I’d put my arm around her and I’d say remember why you started this. And remember how much you love it. Because no matter what, however, like whatever’s happened before or after in the training room or not? Well, when I go on that floor, I love performing – performing is what I do. So the buzz of that, remember the buzz of the performance, close your eyes and imagine yourself winning that gold medal. And that gold medal which is now on my parents’ table in their house. And every time I look at it I’m like, I achieved that. Remember what that’s going to feel like, and just keep going. What got me through those times was remembering that, and also was my dad always telling me from a young age that I’m invincible. So I even at one point wanted to get a little tattoo saying Invincible on my arm. That. And also, it sounds really weird, but my granddad fought in the war and I always would bring my… in the tough times over there in Italy when I’d be like, gosh, if my granddad can get through a war, seeing his friends being shot down, and stuff like that, I can get through this. And it would give me the strength to carry on. And I also took any defeats or any bad words or any sentence that made me feel unappreciated, I took it as more of a challenge at that time working up to World Champion. I would take it as a, I’ll show you. The same as when the guy in England stopped dancing with me, that was the same attitude that I’ve had the whole time. Okay, you think I can’t do it, you think I’m the same as that sofa over there? I’ll show you. And I would go in an hour earlier by myself, to practise.

Gary Crotaz 56:17
Interesting. So something that I think is striking here is that we’ve talked about these incredible stories that most people will not know about you. And we haven’t yet come to The Unlock Moment. So this Unlock Moment is a moment, a real flash of remarkable clarity about the path ahead. And for you, your Unlock Moment happened after you’d won the World Championship. So talk us through a little bit about what was it that brought you this clarity, that helped you decide what happened next.

Joanne Clifton 56:53
Well, as I said before, there was a kind of tier system in the school. And we won’t go into the details, but it got like to about seven months later, now I’d had the offer for Strictly and Burn The Floor. So I knew I was going to go and do that. But I decided to stay at the school, and train and teach until I was going to go off and do that. But we were at this training camp and someone said something to me which basically put me back in a tier. Now bearing in mind this is after I’ve won a world championship, so I was the current world champion at this time. But I was put in a lower tier. Now whether that was a strategy to keep me at the school, and not go and do Strictly, or not. Whatever it was, I snapped. I had had enough of feeling undervalued, not respected. Yeah, just something inside me snapped. And that very day of being… having been told that information that made me snap, that very day I called my parents. I said, I’m coming home. I got my… because we had someone working for us, I got that secretary that… I said will you cancel all my teaching. Because I’m going. I went up to my coach and I said thank you for these 14 years of training and getting me to World Champion, but I’m letting you know that I’m leaving right now. I went, I got my pupils to drive me to the airport. And I sent a text to anybody I’d had any problems with and just was very honest with them. This is what really happened. Bla bla bla bla bla. I made peace with myself with that. Got on that plane. I got off the plane. The feeling of freedom, and that I could breathe, and this excitement of what was going to happen next, was, I can’t even describe it. I can’t describe it. But I just snapped. That was it. I’d had enough. I’d had enough. I’d won. I’d won. I had nothing else to prove to anybody. And I wasn’t going to have anybody else undervalue me, miss, you know, say, say anything bad to me. I was certainly never ever, and I swore to myself on that plane, never ever going to take, you know, be under control of somebody else, especially a man. I was going to take control of my own life, my own way now, that was going to take me forward. I was going to do what I want and I was going to be happy. And I am.

Gary Crotaz 59:43
Did you see that situation coming? Or was it out of the blue?

Joanne Clifton 59:48
The snap was out of the blue, because obviously I am so… I was and am still grateful to the school for what they, where they got me too. I knew I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t at my happiest. But I thought I would get through those months leading up to the change in my life and going on to Strictly and stuff like that. I thought I’d get through that, you know, and it’d be fine. But just rediscovering, still, still undervalued at a world champion level. No. I just, I just went, and I just got on the plane back to England. And that was that, never, I’ve never been back.

Gary Crotaz 1:00:32
You’ve never been back?

Joanne Clifton 1:00:34
I’ve never been back. I’m in touch with people from school, very good friends with actually one of my biggest rivals, Tjaša, who now I have my own podcast with, which is great. Like, I see her now, and she will come over and we’d do workshops together and catch up and stuff like that. And it’s wonderful. So I’m still friends with people there. But I haven’t stepped foot back in the training room. And I’ve never once spoken to my male coach. I’ve spoken to my Russian female coach, like, we’ll send messages every so often, happy birthdays, Happy Christmas, how are you getting on, kind of thing. Never once spoken to my male coach again.

Gary Crotaz 1:01:13
Unpack this freedom that you talked about. So you had this overwhelming sense of freedom from the plane.

Joanne Clifton 1:01:21
Because I felt like, without being big-headed, I just felt, I’ve done it. I don’t, I’m a world champion in my own right. He didn’t win it by himself. You know? I won it too, I’m a world champion. And that I had nothing to prove to anyone anymore, in the ballroom dancing world. Nothing. You know, all my life I’d probably felt that I had a little bit to prove, whether it was right from childhood, you know, Kevin was maybe slightly known as the more talented, outgoing one, and I needed more work or whatever, didn’t need to prove that anymore. Whether it was, Oh Paolo’s taken on an amateur girl to dance with, didn’t need to prove that anymore, I won. Any person that said, you know, there were people who said, Oh, she’s too much of a shy person or too much of a home bird. She’ll never last in Italy. 14 years, did that, didn’t need to prove that to anyone anymore. Oh, she’s too shy, too introvert, she will never have the courage to do this, that or the other, travel on her own or go teach and do lectures by herself, done that. Didn’t need to prove that anymore. And for some reason, I was just like, I’ve done it, I’ve done it. And now it’s a new chapter. And my life has opened up, I don’t need to depend on anybody. Because I’ve done it. And all that hard work, all the sweat, all the blood, all the tears, because there was blood, ha! And there was a lot of tears. All of that that I went through, I was like, I got through that. And I’ve done it. And that’s made me a strong person. And I feel like I can conquer the world now on my own. And that’s the freedom that I had when I got off the plane.

Gary Crotaz 1:03:00
And what did it do for your sense of anxiety?

Joanne Clifton 1:03:04
I, no, that was lifted. I wasn’t anxious at all. Obviously, I had Strictly to look forward to so I wasn’t anxious in terms of where’s my career going to go next, I’m completely without anything. I didn’t have pressure. There wasn’t, there wasn’t pressure coming, coming out of that school. Coming away from it, sorry, not out of it. Coming away from it. The pressure was lifted. I think, you know, it’s left me with good things. It’s left me with really good things. As I said before, work ethic, work ethic, strength, courage, stuff like that.

Gary Crotaz 1:03:46
What do you want people to take from your experience. And I know before we’ve talked about, you know, the impact you want to have on other women.

Joanne Clifton 1:03:58
Especially women. I want them to know that you can reach your goal and even if it gets hard, you can get through it. You can have the strength if you just have the right mindset. I mean, if you completely don’t love your passion anymore, and you just don’t like, you’ve fallen out of love with it, then that’s fine as well, walk away. But it’s the fact that you can. If you’ve got a goal you can get there, no matter how hard, no matter what things you can you have to go through and then have the courage to then, once you’ve done that, you don’t have to be stuck there. You don’t have to forever live under anyone. Once you’ve done what you personally want to achieve, not what other people want for you, from you. What you personally want to achieve. Once you’ve done that, if you still love it, have the courage to walk away if you’re not happy. Because then the opportunities are endless. And you’ve learned from, you can take all that you’ve been through and learn from it and turn it into something positive. Don’t always leave something, something that maybe, as I said to you, I wasn’t, I wasn’t the happiest that I’ve ever been. So I could just look back on that and think of it as a terrible time and just associate it with all the negative stuff. Or you switch it, and you can turn it into something positive. I had to go through that, to get where I am today, and I would not change a single thing.

Gary Crotaz 1:05:28
I think I hear you claiming it, claiming your own achievements, claiming your success from that time.

Joanne Clifton 1:05:36
Yeah. Oh, yeah. But I’m… it’s not just about the medals. Actually, the medals are probably the least thing here. I did, I did win. And that was my goal. And of course, you know, I didn’t want to give up before that. But my main achievements were with myself, learning to be strong, learning to be courageous, learning to be independent. Learning to just have the strength to get back up when you’re knocked down. And when you’re knocked down daily, confidence-wise, just because everybody’s eyes are on you. It’s hard.

Gary Crotaz 1:06:14
Tell us now on, when you’re on stage in a performance, how does that mindset that you developed in the ballroom world translate to being a musical theatre environment?

Joanne Clifton 1:06:27
Musical theatre is so different anyway because, for me, because we’re not just two of us dancing, and there isn’t that kind of pressure still of like, Oh, is my dance partner still thinking I’m dancing okay? Or am I disturbing him or her or vice versa, whatever. Musical theatre, what I love about it is that nobody’s bigger than the show itself. So we come together as a company, no matter what role that you’re in, whether you’re a lead, or whether you’re third tree from the left, but it has to be an amazing show. And I love the buzz of that coming together. And as a company, making the audience feel something and giving them you know, this escapism for two hours. Doesn’t mean that I’m still not competitive. Like, I know that musical theatre, it’s not a competition really. It’s just putting on a great show for the audience. But doesn’t mean I’m not competitive anymore. It doesn’t mean like, I’ve lost that at all. I am extremely competitive. But I’m competitive with myself. Which sounds really, you know, one of them bleurgh things to say, but I am, like, I there’s no way I can go on stage ever. Even if I’m feeling slightly under the weather, or if I’ve got an injury or whatever, and somebody tells me I’m, Just take it easy … there’s no way I can take it easy. Because I feel, I feel like I’m not, I’m not doing my best and I have to do my best every time. I need to better myself every performance and if I don’t, I get angry at myself.

Gary Crotaz 1:08:11
What’s the moment in your theatre career when you think back and you think that was a moment when it was just right? I was in the right place? Like it was, that was it, if I could bottle that, that would be what I bottle.

Joanne Clifton 1:08:28
There’s one moment that does stand out, but it’s not in the sense of, Oh, that was my best performance, because I tried to do that every night, or sometimes twice a day. And sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m not but there isn’t one in that sense. But in, in a certain sense there’s always my very first show in a UK tour. So this is, you know, I did fringe shows before that, smaller shows, got a role in Thoroughly Modern Millie, as Millie, in a UK tour. Now, I’d just come off of Strictly so the people in the audience knew me as a dancer, right? And I know that there’s a whole thing about whether people are stunt-casted, whether they’re trained or not trained, whether it’s right or wrong that you get the role if you’ve been on TV or not. What people don’t know is that I am trained. I just trained privately, I just haven’t got a big known theatre school on my CV. There’s a lot of people who were like, Ah, we know she can, whether it’s on Twitter, whatever, We know she can dance but she’s probably hired just because of Strictly, bet she can’t sing or act. And what Millie starts as is the doors open after the overture. I’ve got my back to the audience with two suitcases in my hand and I turn around, and I’m completely on the stage by myself. And I sing! Don’t dance. So, Millie, first big opening night, turning round and being able to just sing, and show people that I can act and sing, and I’m not just a dancer, then that was a really important moment for me. Really, really important moment. And that was kind of like a moment where when I realised I was in a proper big theatre that, yeah, I had made that big ol’ leap at 33, change of career, a change of career at 33. From being just a dancer.

Gary Crotaz 1:10:29
What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want people to remember you for?

Joanne Clifton 1:10:36
I want people to remember me for being a great performer, for my performances, but also being a nice person with it. Obviously performing because I’m a performer, all what we’ve talked about that, you know, that’s what I live for. And obviously, to be known, I have a great one, making the audience feel something raw, something real. That. But in terms of being a nice person, and it’s not so much like, because of me trying to be appreciated by other people, it’s not so much that. And whether this comes from, you know, my grandma always saying, remember where you came from, you come from Grimsby, or whether it was how I have been treated in the past, and I didn’t like it. And I wouldn’t like to be treated that again. Or to ever treat someone like that. Whether it’s that or that, I just fully believe that the energy that you have, whatever you put out, that’s what you’re going to get back. And I want to carry on living in my happy world. I consider myself a really happy person. Now don’t get me wrong, of course, you know, when there’s difficult times, especially now in the theatre world, I’m going to go through not having a job. I think there’s anxieties, of course there’s all of that. But I’m so happy, I’m just a happy person in general, like I’m, I’m taking, I’m taking me not working say right now not as a, Oh my gosh, you know I’m a failure! I’m taking it as, Oh my gosh, this is really exciting, what’s going to come next?! And I feel like, because I’m like that, then something nice is going to come. So that’s why I want to be remembered as nice as well, because I think the energy that you can put out, you get back.

Gary Crotaz 1:12:29
I know you’re an inspiration to so many people, a lot of young women, a lot of young girls coming into the dance world, coming into the acting world as well. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For World Champion dancer Joanne Clifton, it was recognising that the only validation that mattered was how she felt about herself. And that gave her the courage and the spirit to forge her own path and craft a new career that led her to where she is today. A much loved TV and theatre star. Joanne as ever it has been a delight to spend time in your company. Thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Joanne Clifton 1:13:08
Thanks for having me!

Gary Crotaz 1:13:13
This has been The Unlock Moment, a podcast with me, Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook format. Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon!

Gary Crotaz 0:02
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things, or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. Now, most people know that I used to be a professional competitive ballroom dancer, but it’s not so well known that I’m a Trustee of the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, where I’ll celebrate my three-year anniversary this summer. When I first went to see the School, I met its inspirational Principal, Amanda Britton, and the great strides the School has made in recent years are testament to her vision, energy, leadership, and incredible perseverance with her team through tough pandemic times. One of the world’s foremost specialist providers of professional ballet and contemporary dance training, the history of the Rambert School in London can be traced back as far as 1920 when Polish émigré and former Ballets Russes dancer Marie Rambert established the School. Over the years the School, now based at the iconic Clifton Lodge in Richmond, has produced some of the leading dancers and choreographers of our time, including Frederick Ashton, Anthony Tudor, Christopher Bruce and this year’s winner of the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance, Arielle Smith. An incredible four of the ten finalists in the BBC’s Young Dancer 2022 are current students of Rambert School. Amanda Britton, Rambert School’s Chief Executive, Principal and Artistic Director is herself an alumna of the school and joined the closely-related dance company, then called Ballet Rambert, back in 1984. She was appointed to lead the Rambert School in July 2015 and has overseen a huge amount of change, development and growth since then. And of course, keeping the school delivering world-class dance training using online learning through the pandemic. I can’t wait to hear her take on the secrets of successful leadership through these unprecedented times. Let’s get into the conversation. Amanda, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Amanda Britton 2:50
Thank you, Gary, it’s wonderful to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Gary Crotaz 2:54
Thank you for joining. So we know each other quite well. But there’s an awful lot I don’t know about you. So tell me something about how you first got into dance and what your inspiration was as a young dancer.

Amanda Britton 3:04
Well, my sister, elder sister, was going to ballet classes, she’s five years older than me. So at the tender age of three, I started pestering my mother to join my sister at ballet. And finally my mother gave in so after about six months, I was probably, as I say, about three and a half – off I went to my first ballet class, and I remember distinctly being taught to skip around the studio. And just feeling like it was easy. There were other… it was clear, there were other people who couldn’t skip, the step hop thing was, you know, too much coordination. But for me, it was easy, and it felt good, you know, sort of feeling the space and skipping around. And yeah, that’s where it started.

Gary Crotaz 3:53
I started dancing when I was four years old. And I got in trouble because I put my hand on the back of the knee of the, of the lady dance teacher and her husband came to my parents and said, your little boy is touching the back of mine, my wife’s knee. And it was because that’s how tall I was. That was where I could, where I could reach, being being four years old, so… it’s funny, you know, looking back all that way to, to, as a child. And you were very, you took dancing very seriously as you were growing up?

Amanda Britton 4:19
From about seven. In fact I think I’ve always known, you know, it was, it was so deep inside me and I have no idea where it came from. My mother had done some dancing, there’s no other dance in my family. I just was totally passionate about it. And so by seven, eight years old, I was dancing four nights a week. At 12 I announced to my parents that that teacher in my local dance school had taught me everything that, you know, she could and it was time that I moved on somewhere else. And so I left home at 12 and I didn’t go to a boarding school because there wasn’t really one that was suitable. So I moved into a sort of boarding house in Bournemouth, I grew up in Worcestershire, so it was a long way. And I transferred to the local grammar school. I was, I’d been through my 11 plus. And I lived basically independently from the age of 12. And danced every day. And the woman who was my teacher, my lead teacher at that time, had been a dancer with Ballet Rambert, in the late 40s. And that was where my association with Rambert began.

Gary Crotaz 5:26
Amazing. And what did your parents think about you leaving home at the age of 12 to go dance?

Amanda Britton 5:33
When my children were 12 years old, I looked at them and thought, How did my parents do that? There’s no way I would let one of my sons leave home at this age, but they just, I don’t know, they just let me I think I was just so determined that they couldn’t sort of stop me. And so they found the best situation they could and they trusted the woman who was taking care of me. I mean, these days with safeguarding you could never do that! But yeah, they, they let me go!

Gary Crotaz 6:03
And what form of dancing were you doing? Was it ballet? Or was it a mix of different styles?

Amanda Britton 6:07
It was ballet and something that she called contemporary dance, which was rooted in some Graham work and some work that they’ve done in Ballet Rambert. So yeah, that was… and then some tap and some acrobatics and all the rest of it as well. The commercial stuff!

Gary Crotaz 6:23
And what was the time when, when you, when you went from – I love doing, I love dancing to, This is actually what I want to make my life? Do you remember how old you were?

Amanda Britton 6:33
Oh, probably about seven. Yeah. I’ve only ever wanted to be a dancer. And I, as I say, I have no idea where that comes from.

Gary Crotaz 6:42
And as you’re going through your teenage years, and you started to look at how you get into professional dancing, what did that route look like for you?

Amanda Britton 6:51
Scary. Unknown. I started to audition for vocational schools at sort of 16, so in other words, looking to move away from the school in Bournemouth and I went to the Royal Ballet School and got to the second stage and got turned down. Terrible feet. Terrible en pointe. I had no… there wasn’t much alternative in those days, it was sort of ballet or musical theatre. But then my teacher said, There’s a new Rambert School, because Rambert had split into and there was a new school opening called the Rambert Academy, that was based round the corner from the current school in Twickenham. She said this looks good. It’s associated with the Company. Why don’t you audition there? And so at 16 I moved to Twickenham. Yeah, round the corner from where I now live!

Gary Crotaz 7:38
And you remember walking through the doors of the Academy as it was then, on your first day? Do you remember what that felt like?

Amanda Britton 7:44
I remember the audition day. It was terrifying. And I remember the early months when I was there, feeling like a fish out of water. Lots of other students had come from vocational ballet schools. And even though I’d been training hard, I was quite far behind. I had a lot of catching up to do. But it was an incredible two years, I only spent two years there. And it was unbelievable. Yeah, really eye opening.

Gary Crotaz 8:10
And now when, when you see new students walking in on their first day, does it bring back memories for you? Do you feel you remember your time doing the same thing?

Amanda Britton 8:18
Absolutely. And I say to them, even in the audition talk I say I remember my audition day. I know how you feel. I can… it’s such a strong memory, you know? Yeah, of course.

Gary Crotaz 8:29
And do you think it’s strange for them hearing the principal of the School talking in that way?

Amanda Britton 8:35
No, I think it’s reassuring.

Gary Crotaz 8:37
It’s interesting. And I know, I mean, you have a number of people in your team who who also have a background with, with the School, that, that sense of family in the School is very important.

Amanda Britton 8:45
Yeah, it is. We call it the spirit, you know, the Rambert spirit. Somehow I think she’s still here somewhere. But I think actually in dance, you know, as in many things, you know, certain things do get handed down through the generations from one set of students to another. So in some ways, I think there is still a bit of Rambert herself still in the school here.

Gary Crotaz 9:06
And tell me a little bit about about Marie Rambert and what she means to you in, in your own, you know, dance life and contemporary for you.

Amanda Britton 9:15
You know, this is a difficult one. Because it’s so deep inside me, it’s hard to capture. You know, when trustees ask me about the Rambert method and what that means, it’s, it is hard to put into words. I think, I didn’t meet Rambert herself. That’s the first thing to say. But when I came to the school, and when I joined the company, her presence was very, very tangible. I could, you know, I could really sense it, I think something to do with expression, freedom of expression on stage. Sort of integrity, in the movement. Total belief in the movement, whatever it is, however contemporary it may be. Creativity, of course, and she had a very strong sense of bringing out the individual, and all of those things, I think we’ve really cherished and still, you know, nurture in the School in our young people here. So I think there’s a wonderful quote where she said something like, [Dame Ninette] de Valois had a wonderful sense of, you know, business and how to create something that was on a magnificent scale. But that she didn’t want to create a row of lookalikes. She wanted her dancers to be individuals. And I think, you know, that’s really stuck with me all these years.

Gary Crotaz 10:30
And it’s interesting, you know, having a School that is named after a person, I mean, do you feel like that comes with sort of, some weight to it, or, you know, something you have to sort of live up to or hold on to?

Amanda Britton 10:43
I do. I think, you know, one’s history is so important, it’s a hundred years of history, as you said, and I think that’s what makes this school distinctive, in many ways. So although one has to, of course, change with time, and, you know, change your curriculum. And, you know, there’s been so many, been through so many changes, particularly in the last few years with COVID. And, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement’s had a massive impact in dance in so many ways. But I think, you know, you have to hold on to those kind of original innovations and ideas somehow, so that you don’t sort of throw the baby out with the bathwater. And that’s really important to me, certainly, when I took over this role. And I had a sort of major review of the curriculum, not necessarily what was taught, but how it was taught. And the intensity of the training, but I really had that in the back of my mind, you know, don’t let go of everything. Because some things are really important and are really what make it what it is, if that makes sense.

Gary Crotaz 11:47
Yeah. So take us on through the story. So from being a student in, in the Academy back then, what, what was your professional dance career as a dancer and then later as a teacher?

Amanda Britton 11:59
So at the age of 17, only in my second year at the School, Christopher Bruce, the choreographer, came into the school to restage a work. It’s actually a work that we’re about to put on this summer as part of our … it was supposed to be in the centenary celebrations, but obviously got postponed. It’s called Dancing Day. It was a piece that was made on students of the school, and he was invited to come back and restage it, this was 1983, 84, beg your pardon. And so I was cast in the work. I had never seen anything like this choreography, I was absolutely blown away by it, so inspired and terrified and admiring of him in equal measure. And so worked my socks off and performing that work in the summer of that year was just such a highlight, you know, with my however many years of dancing already. Off the back of that I was invited to take class with then Ballet Rambert. I remember that first class I turned up, was absolutely terrified. Chiswick Studios. And off the back of that, I was eventually invited to join the company. And I was 18 years old, by the, by the time I joined, and by far the youngest in the Company. So the first couple of weeks they, you know, somebody teased me that I was supposed to do the washing up and I believed them. I was so naive, I fell into every elephant trap under the sun. Anyway, I was sort of an apprentice and they didn’t have apprentices at the time. But that was the idea, that they would sort of train me up and give me opportunities. And so yeah, that’s how I started. I spent about a year sort of sitting on the radiator watching and covering work, and then trying to get on stage and making a complete pig’s ear of it because I hadn’t had enough rehearsal. And then finally, I got a couple of breaks where, you know, somebody got sick or injured. They threw Amanda on. She knew the work, she did all right. And then I started to get cast in works properly in my own right and spent nearly 10 years there, w working with some unbelievable choreographers. Chris Bruce included, he’s now the Patron of the school. Richard Alston, Siobhan Davies, a number of amazing postmodern American choreographers. Merce Cunningham. Trisha Brown. So yeah, it was, it was an unbelievable 10 years. Toured the world, had an, had an incredible time. Met my husband! Yeah.

Gary Crotaz 14:34
Amazing, amazing and, and after your performing career, you then, you then came into teaching and you, you came back into to the school as a member of the team.

Amanda Britton 14:44
I did. So I spent three years working at London Contemporary Dance School where I did a Master’s degree as well, which was really interesting, first experience of higher education, eye opening. And then I was invited to come back to Rambert School to head up the newly-validated degree programme. And, and to deliver the academic programme as well as to teach contemporary dance. So yeah, I spent 10 years, sort of working on that, working under Ross McKim, who was then the Principal of the school, learning a lot from him. I remember I, I spent, you know, the first couple of years thinking, gosh, maybe one day, you know, I might apply for a role like that, watching him and then just thinking, There’s no way I’m ever going to apply for a role like that. So, yeah.

Gary Crotaz 15:31
And I think that’s something that, that I’d really like to understand more about. I mean, this is, this is coming into your Unlock Moment, this, this moment of, when you first, you know, took on the leadership of the school. So take us into that, that moment of, of, of when it was first a possibility that you might, that that might, that might be something that you could, you could take on,

Amanda Britton 15:54
I was getting itchy feet. I’d applied for a couple of roles elsewhere. I felt, you know, it was time to move on. I was painfully aware that my ability to teach full on contemporary dance was limited. I was already in my 40s. You know, I was like, I don’t want to be doing that in my 50s. Because, you know, it’s getting harder to get up from the floor now! And to be honest, you know, I felt ready to take on a leadership role, I had strong views of what this school should be, could be doing. Strong views of other training. And I just felt, yeah, I just felt like, you know, I was ready to have my, to have the autonomy to take that sort of more powerful role and have a chance to move something forward. So I applied for some roles outside of school, actually, and got very far with one in Hong Kong. And about the same time, the then Principal announced his retirement. And I thought, Okay, this is it, this is kind of now or never. So, put together my application, did, you know, the rounds of interviews. It was unbelievably difficult to be an internal candidate. I knew all four panel members extremely well, one of whom had been, in fact, two of whom had been colleagues of mine in Rambert Company. So it was awkward. I had to present of course, my vision for the School, it was, it was very, very stressful. And I got to the end of that, and thought, Well, I think I’ve cocked up, you know, I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s gonna happen. And then, just before Christmas that year, I remember the Chair of the Board phoned me up and said, we’d like to offer you the role, and I fell on the floor! So, so yeah, and then I spent, you know, about six months, while my predecessor was, you know, planning to step down and really handing over to me in many ways, and making plans for the future, and so on. So I had a sort of transition period. But it was strange. I remember the day my colleagues, the other members of staff, found out that I was to be the new Principal. And literally the second they found out, they started looking at me and speaking to me differently. And I found that really, really strange. You’ve known me years, it’s me. It’s me, but because they knew I was going to be their, their boss, they changed the way they felt about me instantly.

Gary Crotaz 18:24
I went to an event years ago by a very successful chief executive in the retail industry. And he said, The last day I knew that my jokes were funny was the day before I became chief executive. And when you were taking on that role, I mean, there were some things that would have come very naturally to you, you know, you understood the history, you had your your views, your opinion on the creative direction, of the School, all those kinds of things. And this is the case for, I mean, I think there’s something that really resonates for a lot of people considering their first chief executive-type role. Were there things that were ahead of you that you had not done before? Not had to own before that felt daunting to you?

Amanda Britton 19:05
Oh, yes, absolutely. So I knew a lot about the higher education aspects of our offer. The student-facing ones particularly. What I didn’t know was exactly how the School was funded in terms of, you know, real numbers. I didn’t know about our exact sums of government funding. I didn’t know basically, anything about the financial, you know, financial details of what went on. I knew broadly, you know, I had a rough idea, but not the kind of, the numbers. I didn’t know in terms of recruitment, how, you know, you’d start with your number in your audition process and kind of crunched down to our 45 or however many we take, that was completely a new thing for me. And then I suppose, you know working with a Board of Trustees. I’d presented before, I’d spoken to students, I’d spoken to staff, never to a Board. And I think I’ve really had to work at that skill. You know, I’m quite happy dancing. But speaking, that’s, yeah, that’s a whole new thing!

Gary Crotaz 20:20
And for some people, when when they look at those kinds of challenges, you know, somebody like you who hadn’t come from a business background, you’d come from a, from a dance background. Some people might look into those challenges and say, I can’t do that, you know. So it’s a lovely idea, but I just couldn’t do that. What did you feel when you, when you looked at that list of things and said, you know, This isn’t my background, this isn’t my experience, I don’t have this knowledge. What did you feel?

Amanda Britton 20:47
That’s a great question. I love a challenge. I, I like to be in control. I’m not a control freak, I don’t think, I’m very happy to delegate, you know, get a good team and delegate to them. I think that’s really important. But I do like to be, I’ve realised, I like to be driving the bus, not a passenger. And so the, it was the best feeling, to be really honest with you. And I think, you know, when I talk about, if you’d like The Unlock Moment, it’s all around sort of getting my hands on the, you know, the sort of nuts and bolts of the finances, around the business decisions, around where we were going to invest, where we were going to pull away, and so on. And that has actually been the aspect of the role that I’ve enjoyed the most.

Gary Crotaz 21:37
And it’s interesting now looking back, because you’ve been in that role since 2015. And if you look back, and you think, you know, if you were advising somebody taking on their first chief executive role, and you think, what were some things that you did in that first sort of three months or six months that you look back, and you think I’m really glad I did that, as one of the early things that you did to get that control? What were some of those things that you’re pleased you did?

Amanda Britton 22:04
Restructure the team. The restructure of the team was the best thing I did. I wasn’t happy with the previous structure, and it didn’t feel like mine, you know, I needed to get the, get the right people in the right roles. I’m sure, you know, that’s a fairly obvious thing to say. But I do believe that’s the crucial piece of the puzzle. It’s quite a big role. It’s a smallish school, 140 students, 10 or so postgraduate students, and a number of things around that in terms of our outreach work and other things, activities that we do, but it’s a smallish school, but the role is very broad. The artistic, the educational, the financial, you know, all of those aspects, take a lot of work, especially these days, in terms of the amount of regulation that we have in higher education. And so, you know, finding the right people, and really trusting them, and being able to delegate to them, was the best thing I did.

Gary Crotaz 23:04
So you’ve been in that role for, for five years in kind of pre-pandemic, normal pre-pandemic times, and obviously, lots of, lots of, lots of changes and development and growth happened in that time. And then, you know, come sort of March 2020, suddenly, the pandemic hit. So, you know, what was the impact of that on, on a dance school delivering, you know, dance training in studios with everybody together, what happened?

Amanda Britton 23:30
It was devastating. And, you know, I talk about enjoying being in control, I had just about got used to that, you know, I’m driving the bus, I know where we’re going, you know, we’ve developed our strategy, I feel, I felt much more confident in every aspect of the role. And then suddenly I was no longer in control. You know, the… COVID was driving the bus and the government, or the government scientists, or whoever, and that I found unbelievably stressful, because one of the things I care about a lot is supporting both students and staff. And I think we have a very strong and supportive, as I think you said in your intro, a very family atmosphere here. And suddenly, we were split apart. I couldn’t reach, I couldn’t pull people together. I couldn’t get people in the room and sort of get everyone on the same page, either teams of staff or groups of students. And I think I pride myself on being quite good at that. Everybody was in a complete state of panic. Everybody’s experience of COVID was really different. And so managing and supporting however many, 200 people through a completely unknown kind of navigating through, you know, this crazy time. I think I’ve likened it before to sort of steering a very small ship through the Southern Ocean in a storm, it was absolutely awful. I don’t mind saying it, it was awful.

Gary Crotaz 25:07
And just bring to life for the listeners. So you didn’t stop the activities of the School, you couldn’t just say, Well, we’ll come back when this is over and start teaching again? And, you know, the students at the school. I mean, they live in local houses and digs and all sorts of things, don’t they, around. So what did that look like? So when you started activities without being able to bring everybody together in the studio, what were you actually doing?

Amanda Britton 25:32
So we pivoted on to Zoom within three weeks. Everything. When I say everything, I mean ballet classes, contemporary dance classes, obviously academic work, lectures and so on, creative improvisation classes, Pilates and conditioning classes, everything moved on to Zoom. So we had teachers in their own homes holding onto their mantelpiece for a ballet barre, demonstrating, and students in their student digs, or some of them had managed to escape, the first lockdown, some of them had managed to get back to their own countries. And I should say now, our students come from 23 different countries at the moment. So time zones were interesting, because they wanted to join Zoom classes live. Some of them, it was four in the morning, if they were in Trinidad, and others, you know, it was the other end of the day, six, seven o’clock at night, if they’re in Australia. So they would be in their own homes joining in the class, the teacher would set the combination, the exercise, and then would go up to the screen with the little Zoom windows, and be peering at the students who were, you know, doing the work in their living rooms, giving them feedback on their work, just as we do in the studio. It was a big challenge.

Gary Crotaz 26:46
I think, I’m going to put a link in the show notes to this film that Blair Moore, one of the students made, called Away As One, and that brings, that, that shows what the students were doing. And I think it’s one of the most powerful things I’ve seen coming out of the School, because, you know, I never believed that it was really possible to continue that sort of world-class dance training in that format – you could do something. But, but actually, you know, the resilience of the staff and students was, was quite incredible.

Amanda Britton 27:15
I agree.

Gary Crotaz 27:17
What happened with, with the mood in the school, at that time? How were people feeling, how the students and staff feeling at that time?

Amanda Britton 27:24
When the pandemic first hit, we have a lot of Italian students. And so there were people running around crying, because their families were so stressed that they were, you know, they wanted them to come home before the borders shut. That was a terrible time. For much of the pandemic, we were not allowed in the School, when we were allowed in it was in small groups, socially distanced, with one-way systems and so on, all the doors and windows open. So none of the creative interaction, social interaction, or peer observation that usually takes place, you know, just by students watching each other through the studio windows, none of that could happen, which meant that they weren’t learning really from each other, in the same way as normal. Course, they could also, they couldn’t touch each other either. So there was no partner work for at least a year, which is such a crucial part of what they do. It was, it was very, very upsetting, and stressful.

Gary Crotaz 28:25
I mean, as you come out of the pandemic, I remember, I was in the audience. You, you standing on the stage at the Linbury Theatre under the Royal Opera House in London, for the first performance back, you know, in that amazing theatre with the students. How did it feel for you?

Amanda Britton 28:41
So I walked out. And I’d been asked to say a few words, and I had them prepared. And somebody started applauding, and then the, you know, the, the audience, socially distanced audience all applauded, and it completely knocked the wind out of my sails. And I could feel the emotion rising up, I can’t cry, you know, but honestly, it was overwhelming. And then seeing the students perform work that they literally put together in a few weeks, because, you know, we’d been in lockdown, and we’d only got a short period of time to put it together. So there was an intensity about it. And a sort of, they’re always passionate, but you know, an emotion and a feeling of being back together again, that I think, I hope the audience could really feel that as well.

Gary Crotaz 29:27
And what did you learn about the School and the team? Now when you look back to how it was managed through that time,

Amanda Britton 29:36
I learned a lot about managing a team in a very difficult, in very difficult circumstances, when we didn’t necessarily all agree with each other. And normally, we’re very coherent. We’re very we communicate very well. There’s a lot of humour. There’s a lot of care for each other. A lot of us have known each other for a very long time. But we would be in Zoom meetings, you know, with the key COVID sort of staff. And we would be at loggerheads, because opinions were so varied, and it was very, very difficult to manage, it would have been hard in the room. But on Zoom was doubly hard with people who were really not in agreement. And, you know, I remember one awful meeting. You, we were just basically having a massive kind of barney about how we were going to deal with things. And everybody was really zipped up and really kind of anxious. And on the pad, you know, my notepad in front of me, I just wrote, “I want to give up.” And that was the lowest moment, it was just the only way I could express. I just don’t know how I’m going to pull everyone together through this. But of course we did.

Gary Crotaz 30:48
What was the next thing that happened? After you wrote, I want to give up?

Amanda Britton 30:54
I think I, we came off Zoom, I went for a walk. And you know, there’s always that strength, feeling inside, inside you that, you know, we’ve got to get through this, this school is 100 years old, it’s absolutely amazing. I’m not going to see it close on my watch. Somehow, we have to find a way. And then you just reach out to your colleagues. And you you know, try and, try and bring everybody back onto the same page. But it was certainly challenging.

Gary Crotaz 31:22
It’s something that I work with people a lot on, going through all sorts of changes, not always as extraordinary as a pandemic. But, that to get to the positive future, you often have to go through a dip that is worse than today. And that feels like guilt and frustration and anger and hostility and all these kinds of things. And there is the lowest moment. And often you can name it. And you can say, What did I do right in that moment. So actually what you articulate that, there I think really will resonate with so many people when they hear, because they’ll think I know when I was when I wrote the “I want to give up” note. And for some people, they can’t get past that note, actually. And what’s interesting for me to hear is what it was that brought you through was back to what it’s always been for you, which is the power of the School, and the family, and the history, and the, and your, you know, your journey with it. And the team’s journey, and your journey with that team. All those things, that, that’s what makes it so special.

Amanda Britton 32:22
Yeah, that’s right.

Gary Crotaz 32:23
So when you, when you look at the school today, what makes it a special place for students to learn, do you think?

Amanda Britton 32:31
I think that family atmosphere that I’ve spoken about, I think the creative exchange that goes on, is quite extraordinary. So we have those students coming from 23 different countries, they’ve come from very different, obviously, very different backgrounds. Don’t even need to say that. Very different dance and educational backgrounds as well. And one of the things we advertise and look for in our audition process is, you know, that sort of openness, that willingness to share creatively. And I think, aside from the technical training, which is extraordinary here, we have some just unbelievable teachers. And the training is very intense. So you know, that is is vital. And is at the front and centre of what we do. But I think it’s you know, that creative exchange, the opportunity to make work, to watch each other, to learn from each other, and at a sort of socio-cultural level as well as a creative dance level. I think that’s pretty special.

Gary Crotaz 33:34
And I think it’s a really important theme that’s been coming through in recent years, and I know it’s really central to your vision for the School, is this theme around access and participation. So broadening access, making it such that the most talented dancer, regardless of means, can, can be trained at the School. So what does that look like do you think for the School over the coming years?

Amanda Britton 33:56
So this was one of the first areas where I really started something from scratch. There hadn’t been any, really any outreach at the school before I took the role. And so in many ways, it was a sort of door waiting to be pushed open. You know, it was, it was easy, that so many people want to engage with with Rambert, we’re lucky we have this amazing name and reputation. And so suddenly, a lot of opportunities opened up from nothing. We were running summer schools, we were getting school, local schools in here. We had a programme running with some local secondary schools where our third year students would go out and create a work and then bring it in here. We were developing partnerships with youth programmes and so on. So we have a strong three to five year plan for expansion of that. And really, that’s just about looking for new opportunities, particularly post-pandemic because of course, those sorts of things dried up, and just strengthening those, and building those partnerships. You know, looking at schools across our London community, you know, building different kinds of opportunities there. And then I suppose the the biggest piece of work is we’re hoping to go, to become independently registered with the Office For Students as a higher education institution. We have been part of an umbrella organisation called the Conservative For Dance and Drama, but we’re currently all splitting apart very amicably, and going our own independent way. And as part of that work, we have to have our own Access plan. It’s called an Access and Participation Plan. And that’s about, that plan is about building our widening participation work in lots of different ways, building pipelines for students from all sorts of different backgrounds to be able to come into this School. And really, it’s the thing I’m probably the most passionate about, you know, when I first started teaching, it was for Rambert’s, the company’s Outreach Department. I used to go out on a Saturday on tour and, you know, teach a workshop based on some repertory and… to non-dancers, I mean, and it’s something that I’m, I’m really passionate about, I suppose because I love dance so much. And I love contemporary dance. And I just think everybody should have a go, because it feels so great.

Gary Crotaz 36:11
And it’s an expensive thing to do, isn’t it, to train in School, I mean it’s a university course, it’s university fees, and living fees, and so on. So what’s the, what’s the role of funding to support your students from, from different backgrounds to be able to come and train at the School?

Amanda Britton 36:30
Yeah, so it is expensive, but important to say, as I said, it’s not a private school. So we’re part of higher education and UK students will take student loans to come here. That’s not to say, you know, that, that’s a significant undertaking of course. And then there are living costs. And of course, for dance students who are going to be training 30 to 35 hours a week, as opposed to a normal university student. You know, it is hard to have time and the energy to work alongside your training and support yourself financially. So all of those things are, you know, it’s a huge undertaking for a family to come here. Our overseas students pay pretty much double that. So around £19,000 a year plus living expenses. We’re in a lovely part of southwest London. It’s expensive to live around here. And so it’s really important to us that we provide some bursary and some scholarship funding to ensure that we’re offering places to students on the basis of talent, not on the basis of ability to pay. And that’s absolutely fundamental to what we do. To that end, we fundraise as much as we possibly can to offer both in-year bursaries to students in terms of sort of hardship, means tested bursaries, also support so that for instance in third year they can go off and audition, those auditions might be in Europe or further overseas, and also offer some scholarship funding for our very talented overseas students. We have worked out that the cost for overseas students, that is really what it costs us to train a student around between 18 and 19,000 pounds a year. And that’s because our training is so intense, many hours in the day, one-to-one coaching as well as larger classes, a big group of staff, a huge group of student support staff, and so on. So, yeah, it’s intense,

Gary Crotaz 38:26
And what facilities do the students have access to when they, when they come to the School?

Amanda Britton 38:30
So we have five studios, we’re just extending one of them actually, to make it larger. They are beautiful, it’s a beautiful space, beautiful building. We’re very, very lucky to be here. We have academic facilities, it’s a degree programme, obviously, all of the you know, a library and the various resources they need, online and physical. We have a very strong student support team. So that’s a pastoral person, a full time osteopath, who looks after students when they’re injured, but also helps them kind of understand how to get the best out of their physical structure. We have a full time conditioning Pilates tutor. We have English language tutor, dyslexia, someone who helps students with specific learning differences, an amazing teaching faculty, all of whom have been professional dancers. So of course, they’re in the studio with them. They’re also working with them, you know, in tutorials and one-to-ones. And then finally, a lot of guest professionals. So between sort of 75 and 100 in a year of professionals who might come in here to teach workshops, create work, and so on, teach improvisation. This year, we’ve been privileged to work with Akram Khan company, who came for residency in January. And then just last week, we had some dancers from Hofesh Schechter’s company come in and work with our second year students. And we also had Matthew Bourne’s company coming in and working with students this year as well. So we, we’ve got that sort of engagement with, with professionals, which is really, really important for them as they make that transition into life as professional dancers.

Gary Crotaz 40:08
Amazing. And the students rate their experience don’t they, in the UK system.

Amanda Britton 40:12
Yeah, we do pretty well in the National Student Survey. So consistently in the 90 to 95% student satisfaction, which is something we’re obviously really proud of.

Gary Crotaz 40:21
And where do the alumni from the School end up, where do they go?

Amanda Britton 40:25
Well, they go back around the world. Pretty much everywhere. Many in the UK, mostly contemporary dance companies, some go off and make their own work. As soon as they leave. You mentioned Arielle Smith, she only graduated about four or five years ago. Just won an Olivier Award. So pretty much any contemporary dance company in the UK will have students from Rambert School. I mentioned Akram’s company, Matthew Bourne, many students from here, Rambert, of course, the company, National Company Wales, Phoenix Dance Company, Motionhouse, lots of the smaller companies, and then abroad throughout Europe, I won’t mention everywhere. We’ve got some Australians that have gone back and are in Sydney Dance Company. Yeah, they’re worldwide, we get everywhere!

Gary Crotaz 41:14
And tell me a little about your, your, your favourite project, and mine also, which is the Rambert Grades project, give me a little taster of Rambert Grades.

Amanda Britton 41:23
So about 15 years ago, I was teaching a little, some little classes outside of, outside of school. And to young, to young kids, and I just had this kind of flash of, There isn’t a contemporary dance syllabus for young people, you know, there’s ballet syllabus, there’s obviously music grades, there’s drama, there’s LAMDA Exams, there isn’t a contemporary dance syllabus, and there really wasn’t at the time, anything. And I began to think I wonder if we could start one. And I think that was one of the things you know, when I first took this role, suddenly I’m driving the bus, you know, I brought it to the attention of the board. And of course, everyone thought it was a brilliant idea. So we’ve, we’ve been developing that now for probably five years seriously, it’s, it is a syllabus, grades one to eight. It’s it is about contemporary dance technique, learning all those lovely things, feeling free and moving in the space and all of that stuff. But it’s also very much about creativity, improvisation, and performance. And, and those sorts of areas of improvisation and, you know, building that confidence to put your own ideas forward have, you know, that’s such sort of transferable skills to be gained from that? So, so yes, we’re sort of growing the business from scratch. We currently have about 140 teachers, we’re building some very exciting new partnerships at the moment, everybody who’s engaged with it absolutely loves it. And so we’re hoping it will expand and hopefully globally.

Gary Crotaz 42:58
Fantastic. And, this is a hard last question. What legacy would you like to leave behind at Rambert School?

Amanda Britton 43:07
Gosh. Well, in a way, it’s not hard, because I realised pretty quickly, that, that maybe what I needed to do was to build the financial sustainability of the School and with opportunities like Rambert Grades. And with some of the other activities we were starting to build, and with a new approach to sort of fundraising to really try and diversify and build new, build new relationships, that maybe I had the opportunity to do that. I want to leave the school in a, I mean, one could never have a very secure place in this world. You know, it’s, there’s so much uncertainty, who could have predicted COVID? Government funding is always uncertain, you know, we never really know what’s going to happen. But if I could hand on a School that was a little bit more sure of its finances, of its business plan, of its sort of longer-term strategy in that respect. I feel like the next person coming in, maybe could concentrate maybe more on the artistic if they you know, if that was felt to be the right thing to do. And maybe that would be a luxury that I haven’t had. Although having said that I’ve made lots of changes artistically as well!

Gary Crotaz 44:24
I’ve heard all those as you’ve talked through. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For Amanda Britton. It was realising that she was ready to take on the top job and go from having an opinion on the future to being the person leading it. Dancer teacher, to Principal, Artistic Director, Chief Executive. It was a mindset-shift that unlocked her full potential as a natural leader and is driving a vibrant and exciting future for the Rambert School. I’m very proud to work with Amanda and her whole team. Amanda, thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Amanda Britton 45:00
Thank you.

Gary Crotaz 45:02
This has been The Unlock Moment, a podcast with me Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook formats. Follow me on Instagram, and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon!

Gary Crotaz 0:02
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound, that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things, or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. Today, it is my great pleasure to welcome Brett Sammels to the podcast. I met Brett last year when he hosted me on the Open Mic Marketing podcast. When he’s not in front of a microphone, he is the Managing Director of LAW Creative, a leading European full-service marketing agency, and now part of the Selbey Anderson Group of companies. Brett has been in marketing since the age of 11, when he helped out in the school holidays in his father’s business. He is a graduate of Loughborough University and worked in sales and marketing at a global multinational. In 2006, Brett joined a startup family advertising agency that he quickly helped to build into one of Europe’s leading independent marcoms businesses with many blue-chip global clients. Brett is a business survivor with one global financial crash and one global pandemic behind him. And in a more understanding world where ‘it’s good to talk’, he claims to have been honed in businesses and in a business family where failure and self-obsession were never really agenda options. I can’t wait to find out more. Brett, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Brett Sammels 2:11
Thank you very much for having me Gary, it’s nice to do the return leg!

Gary Crotaz 2:15
Exactly and lovely to be, yeah, to have our roles reversed. So business survivor – something that you feel defines you?

Brett Sammels 2:23
If you’re in the game long enough, there’s probably some things that you will, you will experience as you go through that. For me, as well as all the, you know, the usual ups and downs that you have running a business, the two big ones have really been the financial crash in 2008, and then the more recent pandemic. So, yeah, coming out the end of those and still managing to be successful, I guess makes you a survivor.

Gary Crotaz 2:50
And there’s something in your DNA, you think, that that makes you suited to this kind of uncertain environment?

Brett Sammels 2:56
I think, you know, from a, from a very early age, my father had, had always had his own businesses. So I think you grow up around that. And you see all of the trials and tribulations that go with that. I, you know, I didn’t get to see him that often because of the hours that he worked and saw all of the, the difficulties that went with that. And I think resilience is probably a key element to kind of getting through that, you know, getting knocked down, dusting yourself off and getting back up again and moving forward. And I think that’s something that has certainly defined, defined my working career.

Gary Crotaz 3:40
So bring us into the early part of the story when you first graduated from university and how you first got into your career, what kind of things were you doing?

Brett Sammels 3:47
Sure. So I left university. I joined a major global multinational that was in the printing business. And I had worked for them in a marketing role during a kind of year in business as part of my degree. So it felt quite natural to go back there. I knew, knew the business, knew some of the people in the business, so it seemed like a good fit. I did that. I came back in a sales capacity. Something that Clive Woodward and I share, so he went to Loughborough and then worked for the same multinational … I haven’t had the chance to win the Rugby World Cup yet but you know, maybe, maybe, maybe one day! So yeah, worked, worked in sales, really good grounding in, in sales. But I think I always felt like a very small cog in a big wheel. There was a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and challenges. It was very difficult to get things done, it was you know, big, a big oil tanker to have to kind of turn around. And I think my, my kind of career came to a crossroads there where I could have moved on. And I think with that particular company, you know, if you were there much longer than a few years, you were there for life, you know, they were kind of 30, 30 year-ers and, and I think, you know, that would have been okay. It’s just that it didn’t really excite me. And I just felt like I wanted to do something else. So that, that really came as a crossroads for me.

Gary Crotaz 5:34
And when you were younger, you know, you describe you were 11 when you first started helping out in your, in your dad’s business, there’s a little bit of the sort of entrepreneur experience there.

Brett Sammels 5:44
Absolutely a good, good way to earn some pocket money, but yeah, I am, I’d, I’d work in his, his agencies. In the, in the summer holidays, I’d be stuffing envelopes for for mailers, or I’d be doing kind of mail drops or just helping out in and around the business. So it was a really good grounding for me, I suppose, in, in what it took to run a business and the things that you needed to be able to do that.

Gary Crotaz 6:11
And we’re here to talk a little bit about this idea of an Unlock Moment. So moments of real clarity and change for you. And for you there was something about this time when you first joined the family business that you know, over time you now lead many years on. So tell me about that time? And where were you when you started first to explore joining joining this family business?

Brett Sammels 6:35
So I think, I think there were, there were two things kind of running in parallel at that time. There was working for the company that I worked with, I could remember they were they were running a sales incentive at the time where they gave you the money upfront and on the proviso that you would sell a certain amount of their products. And I was aligned with the field salesperson at that time, who was saying, Yep, Brett, we’re definitely going to hit this, you’ve, you know, you’ve got your pipeline, I’ve got this great deal that’s going to happen, we should go for the top amount. And, and at the time, the, you know, the money was, was a lot of money. And, you know, I trusted him and went for that. And of course, as I’m sure the story would, would play out, he didn’t get that deal. And so, and being the sort of young, foolish, 24 year old that I was that money kind of came in and quickly departed from, from my bank account. So I then spent the next 12 months repaying that. So out of every salary check that I got. And it was a fairly meagre salary at that time, it went back. And I think I just felt that the business that I was working for, it didn’t really align to my, my personal values. And, and so I started having a look around to see what was out there and purely by chance at the time my father said, Well, you know, I’m, I’m looking for an account manager, and, you know, is that something that you would be interested in? And I don’t think, you know, we we never really intended to work together. And I think there’s a lot of things that, that go with a family business, and you hear horror stories of, you know, people getting on, not getting on and falling out, and it just being an absolute car crash. And so I was, I was slightly hesitant, and I was actually hesitant because I’ve got a really fantastic relationship with my father, you know, we’ve, we’ve always got on incredibly well, he’s been someone that I’ve, I’ve really looked up to, and so there was an element of hesitation there. But I think, I just, I think I thought, well look, let’s try it. Let’s see what happens. And we’ll go from there. And, and I think, you know, as well, joining a startup, the business hadn’t been going that long, I think there was, there was four people when I joined. You know, there’s a lot of things that come with that as well. So it was, it was kind of a double whammy really of kind of personal family things and start up as well. So it was definitely a leap into the unknown, but one I’m very pleased that I did.

A bit different, the sort of holiday pocket money job and then proper contract PAYE you know, it’s your career ahead of you?

I think so, I think, I think as well, you know, there’s the, you know, father’s son in the business and, you know, preferential treatment. I actually think I got treated worse than everyone in the business at the time. But I think that’s, you know, that was fair enough and, and a good, a good way to be on my father’s part, but yeah, it was just, you know, going into a business that I was somewhat familiar of, and having done marketing elements in my degree and at the previous company as well, it doesn’t quite prepare you, I think, for the for the real world. And all of the lectures in the world can’t really prepare you for, for that. And it was just, you know, I was very fortunate that there were some great people in the business that I could really learn from and, and try and just soak up everything that I could to try and be successful.

Gary Crotaz 10:27
And you said in your, or I said in your introduction, honed in a business family where failure and self obsession were never really agenda options. What do you mean by that?

Brett Sammels 10:36
So my, you know, both, both my parents, but my, my dad in particular came from very, very humble beginnings. They were a very, you know, poor family, my dad had an incredibly difficult childhood and upbringing. And I think everything, everything mattered so, so much, you know, that failure was never really an option. And of course, you know, in your working career, you, everyone fails at things. And actually, you, you kind of, well, certainly I have had my best learnings from, from the things that haven’t gone right, but, but, you know, we could never lose the war, you could lose a few battles, but you had to win the war, because there wasn’t any other alternative. And I think, you know, we live in a world now where there’s a lot of introspection, and I think that’s good, because I think, you know, that, that helps people with their careers and their life, livelihoods, but I suppose, and you’ll know this Gary, that it’s, it’s the balance, you know, between thinking and doing, and if you’re not doing the doing, then you never really get very far in your career. So, you know, my family was always incredibly supportive and open, but you just got on with stuff, and you just had to do it. And, and I think that gave me a sense of purpose and a sense of drive and a sense of responsibility that, you know, has, has served me pretty well then when it, when it’s come into later life

Gary Crotaz 12:14
And the weight of the family name, when you, you know, you came into the business and you’re in, in the business for a long time. What did you have to do to navigate and manage, you know, how you operate as part of the team?

Brett Sammels 12:29
I think there’s, there’s two sides to that. You know, the, the, the wonderful thing about my, my father has always been that he has always listened and respected my opinion. And that’s not always the case with family businesses, you get the kind of, the Patriarch in the family who thinks they know everything and doesn’t want to listen, doesn’t want to take advice, and, you know, it’s their way or the highway. And so that, that always massively helped. And I think, you know, my father has always been able to stay very current with things because he’s accepted, you know, advice from, from other people. So that that massively kind of helped me but I think as well, you have to prove yourself, you know, very, very early on in my career in the agency, I brought in some, some decent sized accounts into the business, probably three or four. And, and that kind of, I think sets the, sets the bar, you have to, you know, you can’t live, live in a shadow, you have to do things your way and prove yourself and do that. I, just going back to my, my previous company, a very quick story. So I was working in sales at the time for that company. And I can remember, having handed my notice in, there was a couple of us actually, we were having a joint leaving do. And I said to a couple of the senior managers of that company, oh, you know, we’re, we’re having a leaving do, we’re going to such and such place, we’ve got some live music, and it should be a really fun evening would love, love for you to be there. They said, Well, Brett, if if that’s the way you you sell, then I really worry about the next company that you’re going to! Now having probably done 10s of millions of pounds worth of sales since that, that always kind of sticks in my mind as, as something that’s always driven me and and something I kind of go back to but, you know, just going back to your question, I think, I think in a family business, you have to add value and have your part. One thing I haven’t mentioned in that business there was also my my stepmum as well. So there was three of us, my father, stepmother, and and me and we all brought different things to the table. My, my father, very, very creative. My stepmum, amazing at the kind of client relationship side and the running of the business. And for me it was around the digital side and bringing that in. When when I first joined the company, it was a, more of a design business. And we kind of moved that a lot more into the realms of digital. So we kind of each played our part and added our own value to the success of the business.

Gary Crotaz 12:43
And how did you compartmentalise work family and family family?

Brett Sammels 15:42
Genuinely, Gary, I don’t think I did. I don’t think I did. You know, we were very, we’re all very close. And we would, you know, eat sleep and, and work business. And so I don’t think we ever did that particularly well. And I suppose you can see that as a good thing or a bad thing. But I think, I think we were all just very aligned. And there was a level of trust there that has been, you know, the cornerstone for the business. You know, my, my father had previous agencies, told me some awful stories about things that people did in those, those, those businesses and, you know, lack of trust. And I think we were really fortunate that we all trusted each other. We were all aligned. So, you know, around the dinner table on a Sunday, you didn’t really mind talking about business too much. And everyone managed somehow to maintain a really good kind of working and personal relationship as well. It’s not always easy.

Gary Crotaz 16:49
And what did you have to do to keep the non-family members feeling as engaged, because obviously they’re not around your dinner table?

Brett Sammels 16:56
I think that’s to do probably with culture for the business, I think you set, set that culture, ours was always a very, a flat structure. So it wasn’t very hierarchical. And I think people bought into that culture, we always tried to lead from the front, we’d never expect anyone to do something that we wouldn’t be prepared to do ourselves. And so, you know, whether, whether we made that as a kind of extended family, maybe, we’ve always tried to really look after everyone who’s, who’s ever worked with us, you know, you go through challenges. I mentioned before the 2008 crash, the pandemic where, you know, unfortunately, you have to lose people in order to save everyone else. And that can be incredibly difficult. But I think overall, we’ve always tried to lead by example. I think, I think in some rare cases, that can be challenging for people. I think sometimes in business, there’s, there’s those kind of corporate games where people try and, you know, side more with one person or do something, but we were always very aligned. So that was always pretty impossible for, for that to happen. So yeah, I think, I think setting the culture, making everyone feel included in the business, and trying to reward and recognise, you know, where people have done a fantastic job.

Gary Crotaz 18:29
And I think I’m hearing there that it’s quite a deliberate thing, you’ve got to think quite deliberately, because I can imagine that is quite easy to drift into not doing some of the things that you need to do because you’ve got this additional family dynamic that isn’t there in, in a non-family business. So was it something that you were mindful of all the time that this was a family business, and there were these additional dynamics, or did that, did it not feel like that?

Brett Sammels 18:55
I don’t think we ever treated it as a family business. You know, it was always very professional. You know, I would always call my father Keith, rather than anything else. And so I don’t think we ever betrayed ourselves as that family business. It was just three directors, you know, doing a good job, you know, building a business and growing that as successfully as we possibly could. So whether that was a conscious decision or not, I just think that, you know, when you’re, when you’re running a business, when you’re responsible for other people, and you know, we’ve been very fortunate to grow our business to 55 people, you know, I don’t think you can apply a family dynamic. It’s trying to take the best things out of being a family and not any of the bad things, and I think If you can do that, it’s a good recipe for a successful business.

Gary Crotaz 20:04
It’s really, it’s, it’s really interesting to hear how you, how you describe that. And as you know, I do quite a lot of work in coaching family members in family businesses, particularly the next generation, who are at some point going to potentially take on leadership of, of the business. And that happened for you. So at some point, you did take on leadership of the agency. So talk to me about the journey you went through from when you first thought this is something that might happen, I might want it to happen. How did you prepare for taking on that role? And how did that eventually come through?

Brett Sammels 20:39
There’s probably a correct answer to this, Gary, there’s probably, then there’s the honest answer to this as well, I’ll try to give both, they, they are kind of interlinked, but… so I joined LAW as an account manager. And I’d come from a sales background. So I was very keen on sales and bringing in new business to the agency. And it’s, of course, the lifeblood of any agency is new business and the ability to generate, you know, new opportunities. So I started doing that, you know, it was at a time when you had business cards and things, I just thought, no one’s taking me seriously as an account manager, I need to be an account director. So I got some cards printed with account director on. I got those out, I told everyone I was the account director, lo and behold, business starts coming in when you know, you do well, there’s no one else to work on that business. It’s a small company. So I’m the account director, I’m working on it. So, you know, the offset of that, of course, is in incredible impostor syndrome. Where, you know, I think I joined, I was 25. I knew a bit about sales, a little bit about marketing. And you kind of think, well, I don’t know if people are going to take me seriously, you know, how, you know, what, why would a marketing director want to talk to me? You know, they know a lot more than than I do. And so I think part of that development, and part of you know, my advice to anyone with with impostor syndrome is just to try and absorb as much information as you can, and that, that can take lots of different forms. You know, I’ve been very lucky in my career to have some really good mentors that I could talk to and lean on, you know, with the, the World Wide Web, there is so much information now that you can get and I think so the way that I managed to overcome that, at times, really not, not crippling, but just always there and tough and difficult impostor syndrome was to really try and educate myself as much as I could in the things that are important. And then I think beyond that, I think just time, you know, it’s always a really difficult one, particularly with, with, with younger people, and I know this from, from when I joined, that, you kind of, you want to get on and you want to know everything and you want to, you know, get somewhere as quickly as possible. But there is no substitute for time really, you know, in amongst all of those amazing wins that we had with, with the agency, there were crippling difficulties and, you know, pitches that I lost and mistakes that I made. And, you know, and I think learning from all of those has been an incredible part of my developmental journey. And then kind of longer term, by the time, you know, probably two or three years ago, now I was, I was, you know, a director of the business and had kind of worked my way up. And then it was about looking at potentially selling the business. So, you know, I have, I’d absolutely loved working, you know, with my, my father and my, my stepmum, and, you know, if you could freeze that, you know, particular moment in time, I’d have, you know, I’d have done that I’d have taken that in a heartbeat. And, but you can’t and time moves on and you know, my as I said, my, my father had been running businesses since he was 21. And, you know, had decided that he had wanted to take a step back as had my, my, my stepmother. We were probably right at the peak of our powers in terms of an agency, we were a top 20 independent agency in the UK. And it seemed like a good time to look at a potential buyer and go on a new journey. And I think for me, I’d done this for a long time. I was looking for a bigger train set to play with and so we we kind of looked at some potential buyers, selected one, it’s probably another whole podcast that I could talk to you about that because we had a deal on the table that was going to go through on the, on the 23rd of March. And instead of the deal going through, we went into national lockdown, and the deal got taken away, which was, which was tough. Another one you have to pick yourself up from. But I think, I think it’s been a, a gradual journey to that. And, and, you know, since the sale, I’ve become, you know, the MD of LAW, what a time to become the, you know, the boss! But, you know, it’s been a phenomenal journey, and one that I’ve loved, and just going back to that kind of switch from, you know, the kind of big change for me. You know, this, this business has been incredibly difficult, but, but ultimately, I’ve loved every second of it. And I think you should do something always workwise that, that you enjoy, it doesn’t have to be your biggest passion. Like I like sport, and I like video… well, I used to like video games before kids, you don’t get a lot of time for that now. But, you know, I had a lot of other passions. But, but but I really enjoy this, this industry, you know, no day is ever the same. And I’ve, you know, despite the challenges, it’s been an amazing career. And something that I’ve really loved.

Gary Crotaz 26:30
And do you remember. I mean, I think it was in the context of the, of the acquisition, that you took on the lead role, do you remember, the first time you stepped behind that, I don’t know whether you had an enormous wooden desk, but I’m imagining this enormous wooden desk and an oil painting on the wall and a high back chair and probably a white fluffy cat or something, you sat in that chair for the first time? What did it feel like on that first day, having been part of that business for all these years? To be the boss?

Brett Sammels 26:59
Oh, I wish, I wish I did have that desk and office. That sounds, sounds good. But yeah, it’s a lot more sort of open plan now, unfortunately! But I think there had been a gradual change, probably the years before, where we’d all had quite senior or significant roles, just doing different things. So I think I’d already had some of that kind of leadership experience and had, you know, worked on some big pitches myself, you know, solely that we’d won with, with, you know, as part of a team in the agency. So look, I’m not going to, you know, lie and say, it was not challenging and not, you know, worrying at times. But I think, you know, going back to all of those experiences, and, you know, putting yourself out there and not always winning at those and, you know, feeling success and failure, I think that, that built me to be ready for when I’ve taken over and gosh, you know, what a time to take over. But it’s been great. You know, it’s been a good journey. I’m lucky that we have a good senior leadership team, there’s some great people in the business, who have worked with me, and you know, we continue to grow and move forward now as part of a group.

Gary Crotaz 28:30
And if you were talking to your 25 year old self now, with all that wisdom and experience of the ups and the downs you’ve experienced over the years, what would you say to that 25 year old?

Brett Sammels 28:40
Probably not to worry as much. I wouldn’t say that I’m, I’m a huge worrier, but I think, you know, some of, some of those things that happen through your working career at the time, they feel like really big things. But, but the reality of those is that you, that is an experience that you will learn from. You know, I try and always say never to try and make the same mistake twice. But I think, I think as long as you give 100% always, you know, you go into everything with, with, with maximum effort. You, you try and do that in the most positive, decent way that you can. I don’t think you can go, you can go too far wrong. I was, I was… Very early on in my in my life. I think I was eight, I am, I started doing taekwondo. Well actually I went to one tap dance lesson. And the teacher was really horrible. And so from that, slightly strangely I then went to do taekwondo, which I did for I think three or four years, got, got my black belt. I was at the time one of one of the youngest in the country to get a black belt, I was competing and did pretty well at that. And I would encourage anyone to, you know, with children to get them into something like that, because whilst you know, it is about fighting and punching and kicking, you know, there are a lot of very good tenets that go with that. So in taekwondo, there’s five tenets. So there’s courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit, which is kind of, I suppose, having the courage to stand up for your beliefs, and always giving maximum effort. And I think, for me, that was a really good grounding into the way I wanted to kind of behave and act moving forward as well. So whether, whether I was talking to my sort of 25 year old or 11 year old self, I think it would be to kind of stick to, stick to some of those values. And, and then you, you can’t go too far wrong.

Gary Crotaz 31:01
I love that. And it’s really powerful the way you describe it. So you sit here in 2022, leading in one of the top agencies in the country, what makes LAW Creative distinctive?

Brett Sammels 31:15
It’s really hard for, for agencies in, I would say, the current environment. So there’s probably 20,000 agencies in the UK, I think, a lot of the values that we’ve, we’ve put into the business, probably, probably family, family values, you know, around, doing what you say you’re going to do, you know, giving it 100%, you know, being respectful of others, of your team members, of your clients. I think that’s given us a position that we would go the extra mile for our clients, you know, I’m sure a lot of agencies would say they do that. But I think for us, you know, our average client tenure is 10 years, which in this industry is, you know, unheard of, really. So I think it’s the values that we have as a business, that we, that we build internally with our team, and then try to deliver externally on behalf of our clients that has stood us in, in very good stead for, for all of this time. And, you know, now it’s about being part of a group and, and, and kind of working with, with other agencies to kind of deliver that as well. So it’s a, it’s an exciting time for the business.

Gary Crotaz 32:37
And your kind of areas of focus or specialism?

Brett Sammels 32:40
Yeah, so again, we’re a full service agency. And again, that, that has its challenges. You know, we, you get a lot of specialists. But I think, what’s always worked for us, that’s always worked very well for us, and I’m not sure I, I like the term one stop shop, but I think clients tend to trust us. So we’re not a single service agency that’s telling a client, just look, you should do this, you should do this, because that’s all we do. You know, we will pick the right channels for our clients. And of course, you know, nowadays it’s predominantly digital. So we’ve got a performance marketing team, a social media team, branding strategy, a lot of kind of creative, big ideas. But I think for us, it’s always been about, you know, about culture and about delivery for, for our clients and you know, doing, doing things when when you say you’re going to do them.

Gary Crotaz 33:44
Fantastic. And where can people find out more about you and about LAW Creative?

Brett Sammels 33:48
Yeah, so there’s a few ways. So we’re LAWCreative.co.uk for our business website. We also during the pandemic got a government grant to build a really nice podcast studio, which is where I’m talking to you from now. So which is HertsPodcastStudio. We’re also doing a very interesting thing at a group level which, which people might be interested in. So Selbey Anderson is our our owner and parent company. They’re in the process of setting up something called Selbey Labs, which is going to look at delivering insights at a cultural, behavioural and data level as well. So it’s a really exciting proposition for us to be able to take to our clients because in effect, it will be clients coming in with with challenges, problems, difficulties and being in a safe environment with real experts in all sorts of different fields from business transformation to workplace strategy to creative to behavioural science, data science to really solve those problems. So Selbey Labs coming very soon and something that I’m really excited about.

Gary Crotaz 35:09
Fantastic. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity when you suddenly know the right path ahead for markets here and self-styled business survivor Brett Sammels. It was decided he wants to take the leap, follow his entrepreneurial instinct and join the early-stage family business. 16 years on, he’s still there and taking it from strength to strength. Brett, thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Brett Sammels 35:33
Thanks, Gary. It’s a pleasure. Thank you.

Gary Crotaz 35:37
This has been The Unlock Moment a podcast with me Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook format. Follow me on Instagram, and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon!

Gary Crotaz 0:02
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things, or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. Today it is my great pleasure to welcome Normand Ciarlo to the show. Normand and I met in early 2020 when I was working with Selfridges Group in London. It was pretty much the last week we were able to travel pre-pandemic. And Normand was running one of the Group’s flagship Canadian locations, Montreal’s fabulous and beautifully refurbished luxury department store, Holt Renfrew Ogilvy. A quarter a million square feet of retail space, housing the most incredible luxury brands in the world from Dior to Chanel, Prada to Hermes, and Louis Vuitton. But the thing that I felt made Normand really distinctive is his deep connection with the theatre of retail. And once I learned about our shared background as professional dancers, it all became clear. Something I learned from Normand is how you can find your most impactful leadership style by transferring your skills and experiences from position to position no matter how different they are. And it was striking to me as a visitor to his retail theatre that he really was the master of ceremonies. Having made a few major career pivots in my time, I always appreciate learning more about the journey of others who have done the same, who have conquered their fears of taking the leap and embraced the challenge of learning a new set of skills. He’s one of the most inspiring retail leaders I’ve met in my time, and I know you’ll learn a lot from our conversation. Normand, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Normand Ciarlo 2:28
Thank you, Gary. I’m very, very happy and feel privileged to be part of this moment with you and your listeners.

Gary Crotaz 2:35
I think it’s going to be a fantastic conversation. So tell us a little bit about your story and where your journey started before you ever got anywhere near retail.

Normand Ciarlo 2:45
Yeah, so I always preface my career in retail with my first career and love, which was the performing art, which I was a professional dancer. I started doing folk dancing, learning character dancing, which gave me some classical training. And I was part of this Montreal group that, we represented Canada, at the 1976 Olympics Opening and Closing and so on. And then when I discovered the passion that I had for dance, and also not just a passion, but it was natural for me, I was not a trained ballet dancer, and I didn’t need that rigour training to be able to perform, I tapped into the natural talent that I had. And, and of course, we’re going back a couple of decades now when the landscape of dancing was a little bit different. And when you were a male dancer, and you auditioned, there was not as many in those days. So there was a little bit of an opportunity. And that presented itself and I seized it. And I was able to be hired very early in my career with a professional production company from the US. That actually allowed me to develop my, my 14 years career as a dancer. I finished that career on cruise ship, basically, because it was a job and I needed the money and it was a chance for me to travel. But I was there for quite a long time. I lasted about on cruise ship for about five years. And usually after a year, on cruise ship, it becomes a career because the life is, on board is a little bit tough. So, so I decided to actually use that time on cruise ship to keep dancing, but also broadened my expertise into maybe some managerial skills and some responsibilities. So I became an assistant cruise director, and I became a production manager. So basically I started learning what my next career would be while I was actually finishing my first career, not really knowing at the time that I was doing so but basically I was layering this transition to what I call the so-called real world and coming back on land, and actually then decided what I was going to do.

Gary Crotaz 5:11
When you look back to your performance career. And you think of, you know, sort of the, the highlight of your career, what is that, that you’re thinking back to which performance is that you’re doing? Or what is it that you’re doing when you, when you look back to that, that stage of your, of your life?

Normand Ciarlo 5:28
I think for me, because I was more of a natural-born dancer, and I was not trained, and I was lucky enough to start earning my living as a performer-dancer, is the fact that I was able to kind of learn on the job. So every performance, every show, every choreographer, every ensemble that I was part of, for me was a new experience. I didn’t have it in me so, so basically, the environment itself, and also the skills that was required, the behaviour that was required, not the skills, the behaviour that was required to be a good performer, meaning discipline, resilience, focus, team spirit, because I was not a lead dancer, I was always part of an ensemble. So I was part of what we, you know, representing a group. So, so even if we all love the spotlight, it was not always the case. So you have to work in a team. So I was able to really develop these, you know, whatever the, what was required from us, for us to survive. We all travelled, we were six months with a job, maybe three months without, and the time that we were together, also, these people become your family basically. So it’s, it’s, it’s an engagement, that’s very, very awkward, because today, in today’s job, on land, in a normal circumstance, yeah, your co-workers are actually people that you are close with, and you may actually spend more time with them than your significant others. But as a professional dancer, you literally live and eat and work, because you’re all abroad, or you’re all from somewhere else. And I think that was actually something that I learned quite a lot. It’s that balance that you need to have with the work and the life.

Gary Crotaz 7:21
And I think that’s really powerful. Because I know in my own experience as a professional ballroom dancer, and I work quite a lot with dancers today in different styles, but also with sports people, you see a lot of people coming into the corporate world and leadership who haven’t necessarily got formal or traditional business and management training, but what they’ve learned in the dance world or on the, on the football pitch, or whatever, can be really impactful, particularly around high-performance leadership. And it’s difficult sometimes to explain that to people who haven’t necessarily been in that kind of environment. But I, but I know, you know, my own sort of coaching and leadership work, I probably spend more time talking about ballroom dancing than I do about, you know, my life in strategy or whatever. But there’s something very intangible about that. And I know when we met, it was, it came across really clearly for me.

Normand Ciarlo 8:16
it’s actually interesting that, the fact that, people are curious of what they don’t know, right? So when they look at my resume, even today, I still keep my professional career at the bottom of my resume. And, and when I speak to people, they actually go straight to that time. And it’s only because that’s the area they’re unfamiliar. Because the rest if I, you know, since I’m a strong retailer, they can speak to me every job, every job that I had in retail, regardless which brand I worked with, but they don’t know about the cruise ship life, or the dancing life. Interestingly it’s this seen enough, also one thing that I learned a lot, and this is a very current topic when we talk about empathy. Especially today, you know, we speak through COVID, we’ve seen a bunch of articles about what really is leadership and, and, and, you know, I think that empathy is really the sum of a lot of experience of a lifetime. I think young leaders are learning or are living through life, learning what empathy needs to look like, and needs to feel like for themselves and others. But I think that when you had a career in the art, especially where you had to learn a lot about resilience and a lot about… it’s, it’s not an easy world, you have to have a lot of self confidence if you don’t have a lot of self-esteem. And also you’re dealing with people around you that are fear of doing this, feeling the same way, so I discovered that my dancing world really, really shaped me around what empathy should look like. And in today’s world, I’m using this all the time. And I remember moments when I was a dancer, and today as a VP at Holt’s, where I had to be empathetic. And actually I used pretty much the same approach.

Gary Crotaz 10:10
So, you know, fast-forward a few years, and you start to be in retail leadership roles. So how did you get into that? And what kind of things were you doing when you, when you first came into the retail world?

Normand Ciarlo 10:22
Well, the anecdotal piece of this is, I was kind of searching to see what was going to be my next move after being on cruise ship. I always had managerial or leadership position as dance captain or production manager. So I knew deep inside, I had some of the skillset that, you know, manager or leaders already were developing. And I was definitely them at the time, not really understanding where I was in my, my development, but I knew that something was there. And somebody actually just said, Well, you know what Norm, she says, Use your experience as a professional dancer. And if I’m going to suggest to you a sector that you should go into, it’s retail, because retail is just like being on stage. And it really resonated for me. And of course, at the time, when we spoke about retail, it was probably a little bit more of a a task-oriented retail environment. Because when I launched my career, I started as a manager of a cookie store, a gourmet cookie store. So it was very, you know, it was there was not a lot of strategic vision, and so on and so on. But, um, but it was like a core competency that you need to develop. And I was very lucky to have somebody that identified that environment for me, because it was true, as soon as I got into retail, I immediately saw the competition that could occur in a retail environment, amongst stores, amongst other manager, good competition, you know, but at the same time it was interesting. And it was that that actually pleased me the most is the fact that I was able to, by my performance and my work, still shine. You know, it was not on stage with a spotlight, you know, with an audience. But it was a way for me to get that validation that an entertainer constantly look for. Retail gave that to me. So I think it was really, really interesting. And because it was such a natural fit for me, again, a little bit like dance was a natural fit for me. The retail sector allowed me to actually be also very natural. Because also, I was, I always say it was a second career for me. And I was, you know, in my early 30s, when I actually joined the retail sector. And it’s interesting because I’ve actually worked with people that had like 40 years experience in retail, where I was still kind of like in my 20 years of retail, because I started a little bit later in my career. But I really, truly believe that, yes, the tenure is important. But what’s more important is really the quality of the learnings that you’ve got. And as you go through your career in retail, one thing that I, when I speak very highly, or I try to explain a lot to people about transferable skill, is that from opportunity to opportunity, position to position, you need to challenge yourself to something uncomfortable. And you know, because I think that there’s no real growth personally, I think, as a leader, if you don’t allow yourself. You can leverage your strength and just move on to, you know, I’m good at this, I’m just going to keep doing this. And I always say That’s actually great. I think it but I don’t see longevity in that, I always find that you get better results from a career perspective, that if one job to another job, you allow yourself to say, I’m gonna go to this position, because I know I need to be better in this sector of my job. And I have many examples through my career that I did that. And actually most of my job that when I change, I always saw it because I wanted to go challenge myself into a sector that I was not as good, which eventually makes you I call it you know, I say in retail, We’re always expert generalists, and I know it’s a weird name but and it’s not that you need to be an expert in everything, but everybody perceive you as an expert. So when you work into VP or GM as I was at Holts, I had to understand brand matrix, allocation, store planning, HR, operation, sales, P&L, and all of that necessarily, you don’t need to be an expert of it. You just need to know it all in order to be a great leader of a store, but the perception from others was that you were an expert. So I always find it I will say I always say you know in retail you become an expert generalist. because you wear a lot of hats at the same time.

Gary Crotaz 15:03
So we’re here to talk about The Unlock Moment, which is this flash of remarkable clarity in your journey where you suddenly figured out the path ahead and figured out what was really important to you in driving your, your direction of travel. So bring us into the beginning of the story back in 2001, where you first started to really engage with what your purpose was.

Normand Ciarlo 15:25
Yeah, actually, it’s very interesting, because it was very, very, it was a moment that everybody in the world felt, and it was 9/11, on September 11, right? And I was in a visit with the CEO of the company, it was The Gap I was working in, and the tower actually were attacked, while we had a huge corporate visit. And for anybody that’s listening right now, that’s been in retail, they all understand what those corporate visit could look like, the stress level that we all laugh, at those days about those. And, and you know, and, you know, I remember at that nine o’clock in the morning, when things happen, and everybody’s phone starts ringing. Through that day, I became a little bit feeling worthless, through the whole day, to a point where I had to actually, you know, get a hold of myself and basically tell my guests, who was from San Francisco and Toronto, say, Go back to your train, go back home. Not that you’re not welcome in Montreal anymore, but the priorities have just shifted in a second. And I don’t think this visit is actually what’s important. And after that night, which actually happens to be my birthday, which is actually interesting, on September 11, I went back home, and I was sitting there with my husband, and we were watching, like everybody else on TV, what’s going on. And, and I realised that in the scope of everything that was happening. I was like, what, what can I do? Like, who am I? So basically, what I did is I actually, were actually searching for a purpose. I was going, how can I help? I was really basically first of all wanting to help. But on the flip side, what I was realising is that deep inside of me, I was not valuing what I was doing, as a executive leader into a retail sector being purposeful. I basically said, I sell T shirts, like what does that mean? Like, you know, what, how do I help the world during that. And it was interesting, because that was probably The Unlock Moment that it took me a good 15 years to actually figure out what purpose really meant for me. And, and then I was, I had cancer, two cancers in one year. I’m in remission. Everything is good today, very blessed. But interestingly enough, is after my cancer, where everybody goes through these experience, and to sympathise with everybody that’s probably gone through this, but you reflect a lot because you are faced with this possibility that your life might be shorten, and you might have not accomplished everything, and you self-reflect a lot. And what I realised is that purpose was not a thing. Purpose was a mindset, it was something that I actually had to figure out on my own. Nobody was going to give me a plaque, or nobody was going to give me a trophy for being purposeful, I actually have to figure this out on my own. And as I was retrospecting, and I start listening to what I have done for my family, my friends, my husband, my colleague, the people that are reporting to me, I identify them as I use this word Provider. And that word gave me a sense of purpose. And today, in 2022, I still believe that my purpose in life is to Provide and in many, many, many facets, but at least it gave me a sense of purpose. And it also gave me a little bit of a, you know, from an ego perspective, it gives you direction, it gives you a little bit of sense of what you, who you are, and what you want to be. So today now, it is a style that I have, and I am a provider and regardless in which environment I am, if I’m at a barbecue, I’ll probably be the one that always going to jump on the barbecue to cook the meat. If I’m at work, I’ll actually ended up doing something. But it’s a little bit expected from me now, but that’s fine, because that’s who I am. That’s what my purpose. So it’s interesting because it’s a mindset, a lot more than actually a to do.

Gary Crotaz 19:46
And it’s really interesting the, the length of time between 2001 where you first started to talk about it, and then this moment and I appreciate, you know, that such challenging situation you’re going through health-wise, but actually something that came out of it was a real clarity about what it was that you’ve been sort of thinking about for all of that time. And when you look back to that, sort of 15 year or so time period, did it feel like you were missing something? Or did it feel like you missed out on something? Or did it feel like it was just the right time for everything to come together?

Normand Ciarlo 20:24
No, I don’t think I was feeling, you know, other than sometime feeling helpless a little bit, but I think everybody sometime feels helpless. When you see, you know, when you see bad situation, you know, what you, what you see on TV? Or, you know, especially with things like with the war, and, you know, everything that goes on, everybody feels helpless? A little bit? No, I think that you, you know, I always go by you don’t know what you don’t know. And I think for me, it was, it was progressive, because it took me that time to actually really understand what was the purpose that I had, and what was those tangible things that I was doing, that was making me a provider. And, you know, as my career evolved, I stayed in touch with a lot of my employees that I had, I still talk to some dancers that I used to dance with way back then. And you know, as you, as you separate, people then remembers you for certain things, you know, not for a lot of things. And funny enough, a lot of the things that people remembered me was for the fact that I was contributing, I had an impact, I was a provider. So with time, when people start telling me and I start a trend, I, oh, I didn’t know I had that impact on that person. Oh, I did not understand that I actually contribute that way, at the moment. But in retrospect, people kept reminding me that that’s what they remember of me. So it took me all that time, because maybe I was a slow convincer, I don’t know. Or I, you know, maybe I should check my ego, maybe it’s too small, some people are too big. But at the end of the day, it took me quite a while to realise that there was a trend in what people saw in me, even people that were not really in my life anymore. And then I kind of like, you know, start thinking about it, and I start thinking about it as I was doing it in the real time. And then I, that’s when I actually saw that the purpose of providing to others. And also at, one thing that was interesting is that when I went through my cancer, I had to learn to provide to myself. That’s also a huge learning is that you can, you can be a provider and lose sight of who you are, what you are and what you need. But one thing you need to remember is you also need to provide for yourself, and that was the illness that taught me that because I was not really good with that at the beginning.

Gary Crotaz 22:47
And bring to life what you mean by that, to provide for yourself,

Normand Ciarlo 22:51
Take care of yourself, basically, you know. It’s the old say about put the mask on yourself before you put it on somebody else. You know, I, you know, I was not even aware of how much I needed to do that until I got ill. And somebody explained to me that in order to get better, I had to do that. And you know, and an expert had to tell me, a doctor or a scientist had to explain that to me. But it’s when he told me and I had to, and I realised that when I start assessing, I’m like, Oh, I really need to take care of myself, because I might not come up out of this as strong as I, as I did, because I did come out of it very strong. So I think it was really interesting that the providing is not only outward, it needs to be inward also. So you know, meditation, self-reflection, be true to yourself, nobody’s perfect. Just accept, accept your flaws. Some people love you for it. Some people hate you for it, but I mean, it’s who you are. And that’s what providing for yourself really mean, is that self-accepting of who you are.

Gary Crotaz 24:02
And when you think back to that time, and you think, throughout that, that, that time when, when you were diagnosed and going through treatment and so on. Was there a particular moment which really felt like the wake-up call that this was the, this was the beginning of the, of your new future? This is the beginning of the new way of thinking?

Normand Ciarlo 24:26
Yeah, I think it was. I think it’s the fact that when you go through something like that, I always say you cured of moments like that 50% is medical and the other 50% is the support system that you’ve got around yourself. I truly believe that the fact that I allowed myself to recognise that I had a very strong support system. I had a phenomenal husband that carried me through this. That was probably kind of like another unlocking moment to see how, how much I value the support that you have yourself. People in this retail industry, we’re not very good at allow people to help us. I don’t know if it’s, I don’t know if, I think that there’s a whole other podcast on that Gary, but it’s actually interesting that the way that retail is, the DNA of retail, because of the competition, the company, you know, the landscape and everything, it does not allow your, a lot of those leaders to take care of themselves. But on the flip side, not a lot of people ask for help. People tend to want to do it on their own, they’re afraid that they’re going to sell the secret sauce, or whatever. And I think that’s very interesting. And when when you go through an illness, that you know that 50% of the healing will happen by allowing other people to help you when you’re vulnerable. I think that’s also very, very clear. And I still have some issues sometime with this. And I think it’s because I’m a true retailer that I don’t tend to ask for help. But I remember that I can actually say today, the healing of coming out of remission in a cancer was really the fact that I was, I allowed myself, I didn’t provide any more, then I was providing inward by allowing myself to be helped.

Gary Crotaz 26:22
And how did that experience and that sort of transition in your thinking, impact you as a leader over the following years? And today, how are you different today, because you’ve been through that?

Normand Ciarlo 26:35
There was a lot of things that I thought that it was so important that they became so non-important for me. I also recognise that as I was actually, you know, going through my career, and also from, you know, an age and maturity as a human being, I also became much more aware of the things that I was really good. So just to tell you a little bit in where I talked about transferable skill, and challenging yourself constantly, to go from one job to another and actually put yourself into an environment where you’re going to learn, I would say that since my cancer, I’ve probably leveraged a lot more my strength. And I adopted a little bit of a pay it forward mentality, saying that I’ve got some really good strong baggage that I’ve acquired through my career. And it became a little bit more kind of like I, I went back to my providing mindset. But I, you know, it’s interesting, because now what I tend to do is instead of focusing on the whatnot, and what you’re not good at, and everything, it’s really kind of an approach of like, How can I help you to be better, I truly believe and I truly believe that everybody has the potential of success. I’ve always, I’ve always done that. And I remember not long time ago, we had a huge conversation about, you know, ending somebody’s employment, and I actually fought tooth and nails. And I said, No, we cannot, because I don’t think we’ve done everything we should have to support that person. And the day that we are going to decide that that person is no longer with this organisation, it will be the day that we can all hold hands and say, it might be not be the right fit, we’ve done everything we could, and then we’re going to make that decision. But I think a lot of times people forget that they also have a little bit of that responsibility to help others. So I’m a little bit in a mindset now that because of my experience, a little bit unconventional. I’m a little bit of a leader that can actually switch a little bit leadership style, depending on the situation. And I adapt a little bit more of a different leadership style with different people in order to make sure that ensure myself that I’m actually fully capable of supporting them, and they are going to get the most out of it. So I would say it became a little bit more of a less about intaking and more about out-taking for me and I think since about, while I was at Holt Renfrew, I had to really had to stretch my leadership style because it was a very, very tough time. It was a humongous project. And, and the only reason we managed to do it through COVID was because we had a fantastic team, the human capital was way more richer than the investment we, we did in the building. And that’s the reason why the store is successful today. I think it’s the human capital that count.

Gary Crotaz 29:40
It’s such an important topic at the moment with the Great Reset or the Great Resignation, whatever, whatever you want to call it. You know, I talk a lot in my work about how to build a deep sense of engagement and authenticity in your work, it’s the heart of my book, The IDEA Mindset. What do you think leaders need to be doing in 2022 to create a great place to work for all members of the team?

Normand Ciarlo 30:04
Well, if and I’m going to say this in the very honest way, they really, every individual needs to ask themselves, am I somebody that understand what diversity and inclusion and belonging means? I’m a little bit tired myself of hearing organisation, claiming that they’re diverse and inclusion, but when you actually ask them what really diverse and inclusive means they can all give you a diverse definition, where they usually bring it back to race, or gender, or equality or, you know, what the the natural thing we usually put next to diversity. But when it comes to inclusion, they very rarely understand what that means. And for me, inclusion means belonging, meaning that a sense of belonging regardless if you’re in a relationship, if you’re in a group setting, if you’re in a community environment, or in your job, if you don’t have that engagement with your employer, your friends, your colleagues, your partner, your husband, your wife, your kids, if the word engagement is not, does not live through the relationship that you have, one of the two persons will not feel that they belong. And I always say that belonging is much more important than the whole, I don’t say that the topic of diversity / inclusion is not important. But if you assess the belonging, automatically, you kind of open up the door to diversity and inclusion. So I truly, I’m a firm, firm believer that anybody in today’s leadership role. They might hear their words D&I as the thing of the moment. But what they need to say that it’s always been there, we haven’t been great as a society doing it. And ask people about it. I think don’t limit yourself to a social debate. You know, ask your friends, what does that mean to you? Ask your employee. What does diversity and inclusion means to you? And you will see, the only thing that people, every human being on this earth wants to belong somewhere. And that’s kind of like a natural thing.

Gary Crotaz 32:37
I think it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a really, really interesting take to say diversity and inclusion is important. But dial into the sense of belonging, I think that’s a really, really powerful theme. So if I’m, if I’m a leader, and I’m walking into, for the sake of argument, a retail store and just talking to the team on the shop floor, what does it sound like? What kind of things do people say, as example, when they feel a sense of belonging? And what does it sound like when they’re doing their jobs, but they don’t feel that sense of belonging, do you think?

Normand Ciarlo 33:11
I personally think that when people feel that they belong, they will become a lot more transparent than honest. They’ll also, it’s also going to build a humongous sense of trust in the organisation. If people feel like they belong, they want to have a, I call it, you know, I call it everybody, it’s the self-worth, right? Why do I bring to the organisation? What have I done today that helped the business, right? That’s what sense of belonging really means. A lot of organisation or leader, they think that the sense of belonging is something that you have to teach or coach, no, the only thing you need to do as a leader is enable an environment where people can feel that they belong. That’s when a leadership needs to do, they just need to enable an environment. And those are just true, availability, active listening, let them tell you what they think. And don’t, don’t disagree. I mean, you might not, you might actually debate, and they’ll want to debate most of the time. But I found that when I actually let people talk to me, and I’m a great debater, I love a good debate. And I used to be on the sales floor. And I actually had to educate my staff of Yeah, what you’re telling me makes sense. But let me explain to you a little bit, the reality of what that would look like. And most of the time because I engage into a professional conversation, and I’ve explained to them that either from a budget perspective, it didn’t work or from an ROI, it was not part of our strategy. People didn’t feel engaged and they was like, Oh, now I get it, and they would walk away say, Hey, I spoke to the VP and he explained to me, and you know, all of the other associate that were like chitter-chatting on the floor about it, I created an ally that helped me explaining what the reality was. And then they also felt that they were belonging because they knew, right? It’s the transparency and the trust that you actually have to do as a leader. It’s really important.

Gary Crotaz 35:11
And when you’re talking to an organisation that is very much in the early stages of that kind of journey, and they want to do something, but they kind of didn’t know where to start. where’s a, where’s a great place to start in starting to develop that kind of culture?

Normand Ciarlo 35:26
Well, I think there’s there’s twofold to this, I think there’s, there’s needs to be an honest assessment that they need to do it, not just use the word because it’s a hot words right now, in all organisations. So the worst thing is that, what I would say to you. Diversity and Inclusion is not a Human Resources issue. Diversity and inclusion is, needs to be part of the corporate world, right? Everybody, the President, the CEO, the Chair, everybody needs to have their own journey on diversity and inclusion. So it’s not a programme, it’s not a to do, it’s not a checklist. The second thing I would say, once you’ve admit, and you’ve assessed, that you’ve actually have an opportunity in that area, is you need to go back to the population and scope and survey your people. First of all, you need to understand how diverse are we? Are we diverse? Oh, we are, great! So maybe, you know, we can actually just leverage the fact that we’re already diverse, or is our, which most organisation will realise, is that their general population is somewhat diverse, but their executive is not. And they need to lead by example. And that’s actually kind of a huge, right now it’s a huge elephant on the table, that some companies said, we’re so diverse, we hired from all genders, sexuality, but then you look back and you go on Lincoln, and you decide to look at their org chart and going, not so diverse after all! But that’s actually, it’s something that every organisation needs to have kind of the self-assessment. And I think if it starts from there, then the rest is just called, it’s just called life, you just call, it’s changing the way that you look at thing, it’s having conversation, like we’re having today, it’s having good debate with your friend about what it means. It’s asking people, What does that mean for you, and then I learned from because my husband and I always have these conversation, and, and we had different views. And it was very interesting, because I was very passionate about things that, by listening, I realised that, you know, my point of view was came from a really strong point of view. But I also learned that I might actually be in a different area than some others, and I’ve got to be very, in order to be inclusive, I’ve got to be very, very aware that not everybody’s going to agree with me. Right?

Gary Crotaz 37:53
And I think, yeah, I mean, that’s an amazing point, a really important one, that diversity of thought is as important as diversity of ethnicity and, you know, language and, you know, gender and all the other, all the other factors, but diversity of thinking is, is, is really what it’s about. It’s not about having, you know, having the right, whatever is perceived as the sort of the right faces in the room. That’s not the point, you know, you’re kind of missing the point, to your point about about belonging. So, and if you cast your yourself forward in five to 10 years, and you think about where you’d love retail to get to in terms of diversity, inclusion, belonging, what would that look like, in a time where we’ve sort of progressed to the next level?

Normand Ciarlo 38:36
Well, ideally, I don’t know if five, five years is going to be, I think we’ve got a way to go. But ideally, what I would like for it to be is that we don’t have to talk about it anymore. Basically, it should just be that that’s who we are, you know, yeah, we’ll we’ll call it diverse and inclusive, because those are words in the, in the dictionary, and we all know about it. But, you know, I, let’s let’s believe that we’re not going to be, we’re not going to be discussing the fact that the executive team is not diverse, but the general population is diverse. Let’s allow people that are the best be their best, regardless who they are. And I think that’s probably one of the things that I find that there’s still a lot of stigma about it is, you know, I explained inclusion in this way, because a lot of people talks about inclusion around race and stuff like that. Inclusion, somebody that feels included, is that if you have a project and you know that one person on your team is the best for the job, don’t fight it, give it to them, allow them to be that person that’s going to lead that project. That’s inclusivity. That’s being that, it’s not because Sally Sue has a marketing job, but this person really understand this project and could really do well, well, don’t limit that other person and exclude them from it because Sally Sue is in the job, because Sally Sue might actually not be able to do it as well as this person. And that’s where we need to be more flexible from an organisation point of view and allow people to say, you know, people complain, one of the biggest thing, and I know you know that Gary, is that when you speak to compensation, and you speak to retention, people don’t really bring salary first, what they want is they want to belong, and they want to develop, that’s the two things they want to do at the beginning, then they want to get paid for what they do. And I agree, because I do too, when I work, but at the end of the day, that’s if people would be as inclusive as they could be. Development would not also be a huge piece of conversation, because people would develop in their job. But we tend to put people in silos. Well, you’re a sales associate in mens, and you’re only going to learn about mens, well, I’m sorry. Maybe they know more about beauty that you know, and that allowed them to actually explore that area. So that to me, is inclusivity.

Gary Crotaz 41:17
It’s a really important message, and you’ve articulated it really pretty well. So thank you for that. So Normand, when you look ahead to you know, the rest of 2022, what’s coming up for you?

Normand Ciarlo 41:29
Well, actually what’s coming up, as I’m speaking to you today, I’m actually right now in kind of a career move where actually I’m looking for my next challenge. And I think that what I’m actually want to do is really continue to be this retail expert, and being able to leverage my expertise and leverage my knowledge, as much as a human being as a retailer, and help an organisation to actually succeed. I mean, today, channel of revenues are so diverse with omni channel and E comm and everything that’s going on with social media and the way that our sales associate can sell. And I think that it’s very interesting to be forward-thinking. And, you know, I still want to believe that my grey hair are helping me to think forward not holding me back. So yes, so I’m open to my next challenge right now. I’m really looking forward to be able to provide to an organisation the expertise and become an asset of any organisation that would actually win need any kind of help. So that’s very important for me, the sentence, again it’s a sense of belonging, also, I want to be able to work for an organisation where I’m going to feel like I belong, and I can have an impact.

Gary Crotaz 42:54
Amazing. And if there are, you know, recruiters listening, what part of the world are you focused on finding your next opportunity?

Normand Ciarlo 43:01
Actually, we’re in Canada right now, I think, really, what’s interesting right now, and because I mean, I’m kind of on the market, the remote, the hybrid model, and the remote working is something very interesting, which allows, you know, recruiters or company to seek talent a little bit outside their comfort zone, because we’ve learned the past three years or two and a half years anyway, that it works. So, so I’m based in Montreal, right now, I’m living in Toronto, but I really am based out of Montreal. So for me, my expertise really reside into the North America market. That’s really where my retail landscape has been for all of my past year, but I’m diverse, I go from, you know, from Apple to luxury to specialty retail. So basically in Canada, the area of Canada that’s really where I’m aiming for.

Gary Crotaz 43:56
Amazing and I can vouch for your, for your incredible skills as a retail leader. So you know, that that is without doubt. And where can people find out more about you?

Normand Ciarlo 44:05
I’m LinkedIn actually right now, the best thing is all my information is there. So if they look in there under Normand Ciarlo, my name is, you said it very well by the way, my name is Normand Ciarlo, they can find it on there. Find me on LinkedIn, and they can actually contact me right from there. All my informations are on there.

Gary Crotaz 44:26
That’s fantastic. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For Normand Ciarlo, it was experience with cancer that brought meaning to his purpose and helped him see the importance of a powerful mindset in creating a working life that plays to your strengths, and a leadership culture that promotes diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Normand, thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Normand Ciarlo 44:52
Thank you, Gary. Thank you very much to your listener Thank you.

Gary Crotaz 44:56
This has been The Unlock Moment, a podcast with me Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook format. F follow me on Instagram, and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon

Tayo Rockson 0:07
And so almost 10 years ago, I was driving to work, in my burgundy Toyota Camry at the time. And then I got to the part where the road merges into the highway and I was cruising down my lane 60 miles an hour and all of a sudden, my lane gets cut into half. This neighbouring car loses control, and then I’m swerving out of the way so I won’t get hit and I smashed into the left guardrail boof, right guardrail boof, back and forth … I hit two cars, and then all of a sudden, you know, I hit the left guardrail again. And I’m certain I’m about to flip over this bridge, because of the impact. Adrenaline is kicking in, my, my life is flashing before my eyes and, and the only thought that came to my mind was, Have you done everything you said you were going to do? All the things I’ve been doing in secret, the books, the poems, my ideas about social justice, I’d been writing, just experiences that I’d been processing, whatever I’d been going through, they all came. I was like you, you, Nelson Mandela, and Oprah Winfrey, your role models, you haven’t done anything. You’re doing everything else based on what you think is supposed to be, you’re not doing what you want to do. And I thought, Wow, 22, this is it!

Gary Crotaz 1:24
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. Today I’m delighted to be talking to an inspiring thought leader in diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism, New York-based Tayo Rockson. He calls himself a polymath-in-progress. Tayo is a writer, speaker, consultant, podcaster, poet, professor, co-founder and brand strategist at UYD Management, a strategic consulting firm that empowers organisations to incorporate sustainable diversity and inclusion practices. As the son of a diplomat, Tayo grew up understanding the nuances of multicultural diversity while living on four continents. He leveraged his experiences to establish himself as an authority in communicating effectively across cultures and personal branding. He graced various stages to share his knowledge, including TEDx, the prestigious Chautauqua Institution in New York and the United Nations. Tayo is the host of As Told By Nomads, a podcast ranked in the top five tier of the top 25 business podcasts for entrepreneurs on Entrepreneur.com. I was delighted to be featured back in March, so if you want to hear our roles reversed as interviewer and interviewee, then go dig out that episode! Tayo is the author of a book, Use Your Difference To Make A Difference. And he’s been a visiting professor at the prestigious Imperial College Business School. He also does incredible bite-sized thought leadership on his Instagram channel, go check it out after the show. Tayo it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Tayo Rockson 3:54
It’s truly an honour and I am happy to be on the other side of this. This is so much fun.

Gary Crotaz 3:58
I’m looking forward to learning a lot about you over the next little while. So polymath-in-progress, I really love it. Unpack that for us, what’s polymath-in-progress mean?

Tayo Rockson 4:08
So for a lot of my life, I have always had varied interests. And when I was growing up, it was always choose this or choose that, you know, be a doctor, be a lawyer, be an engineer, and I have had a love for social sciences and arts, the combined nature of studying human behaviour but also expressing oneself. And I didn’t quite find any lane for myself and so, you know, we’ll get to The Unlock Moments that I had in my life. But it wasn’t until I had a mindset shift that I wasn’t limited, I was actually limitless, that I started really having more bravery to pursue a lot of these things and so things I’ve been doing in secret, writing and all those things became more public and so, I can’t remember when, when I came across the term polymath but it, you know, synonym of multihyphenate, renaissance person, and so I really just liked the term polymath and I thought, hmm. If I define myself as a polymath-in-progress, it means I’m continuously learning as opposed to having a fixed, you know, end to my potential.

Gary Crotaz 5:14
I love it. So take us back to when you were growing up, what were you like when you were growing up? What was the environment that you grew up in?

Tayo Rockson 5:19
I was always a ball of energy. My, my parents and brothers will, will tell you that, you know, this guy’s, he doesn’t need an Energizer. Or he doesn’t need an energy drink. He’s always so, you know, wrapped up in, in drama and, and I’ve always had a flair for dramatics. But my name is Tayo, which is short for Akintayo, which means a warrior or the brave one has brought us joy. And in many ways, I’ve always felt that I was always living up to my name. Because in the early phases of my life, the first decade, I spent my time living in and out of three dictatorships or three military regimes, and two of them were dictatorships. And you know, there was a brief period in Sweden because my dad was a diplomat. And, you know, when you think about anyone that’s lived in a dictatorship, you just find yourself normalising certain behaviours, right? You hear a faint gunshot, wounds, you see people in exile on a news station, you hear muffled discussions amongst your parents, and then your parents will tell you what not to say. Because I, you know, I’ve always had a, I don’t, I’ve always had something against oppression and suppression. And so I always lean towards people there were fighting for social justice. And so I just sort of knew all those things at once. You know, I knew what not to say, I was always an energetic ball of, you know, joy I tried to be, and I always was intimately aware of the proximity to danger that we were at, and how that depended on what we said, who we knew and what we, you know, what we did. And so that was the first decade of my life before we transitioned to civilian rule.

Gary Crotaz 6:56
And a really formative time for you. I mean, you were, you were, I mean, almost too young to really understand what’s going on. But as you say, it’s your normalised experiences, the gunshot, the muffled conversations and all of that. And, you know, how did you process that then, as you, you know, became a teenager and become, became a young adult?

Tayo Rockson 6:56
I had a delayed processing, if I’m even being honest, it wasn’t until I got to college, university that I fully was able to process it. But back then, you know, as you know, as men we’re often taught to just suppress our emotions. And I would just get so good at suppressing certain things. Because I wanted to bring joy or smile, right. And so I just, I just knew something was going on. But I knew how to compartmentalise a lot. And we would wake up, you would hear someone get shot in the news, or someone you looked up to is now missing or something like that, and you go to school, and then you come back, and we won’t talk about it. But then the next day, something else had happened, and go to school. I remember, in early 90s, when someone who has my middle name, Abiola, won an election, and all of a sudden the election was annulled. And we were like, Huh, okay. And so it was, it was more of those things where things were just happening so rapidly, you will get banned by the United States or United Nations. Oh, and it will just sort of just take it, and take it and take it. And obviously those things built up for a long time, they, until they couldn’t stay in my body anymore for, for a while. But when I was that young, I just took in the information, put them somewhere else, and then went the next day. So yeah.

Gary Crotaz 8:49
And how did that impact your sense of having sort of stable foundations, growing up in that kind of environment?

Tayo Rockson 8:57
It may, it played a big role. I’m the oldest, so I’m the oldest of three boys in Nigeria, if you’re the oldest, you have a huge sense of responsibility. So I’ve always had, you know, the responsibility of being a role model, or at least set in some table. I certainly feel it a lot initially. But that was just thrust upon me from such a young age. That to me, this is where nature and nurture plays, I think my natural inclination is to want to lead so I was, I was grateful that my nature and nurture align in that sense, but I was, that, the role it played was, make sure everyone else is okay. All right, you got your brothers here, and just make sure that you can either distract them or at least set a good example of resilience. Now, upon reflecting, I can see the toxic elements of resilience in that sense. But I can also see how going through all that helped me see you know, the world through a unique lens and then build the positive type of resilience. And for the audience, I think the negative type of resilience and the positive type of resilience are very subtle, right? The negative resilience will be when you are suppressing so much at the expense of yourself. And you are saying, No, I’m just pushing through tough times, and there’s no honesty there. And then the positive type of resilience would be, you’re going through hard times, you’re acknowledging that they’re hard times, but you still know that you can push through, because inevitably, you’re going to get to where you want to get to, right? So one involves a level of honesty and dealing sitting with emotions, and the other just involves evading them completely.

Gary Crotaz 10:32
I love that. And it’s really important to acknowledge the difference between those two. How did that start then to impact your choices when you thought about going to college and start to travel and, you know, the kind of career path you were thinking about taking?

Tayo Rockson 10:47
So I mean, it impacted everything. I thought safely, you got to be safe, you got to do this. I ironically, if you… and the people in the audience probably can’t see it, so I have a lot of basketball memorabilia behind me. I initially, you know, outside of the football and tennis dreams, basketball was my longest dream for the longest time. But because of the environment I grew in, my parents, my parents were like, you’re not gonna do that. That’s not what you’re going to do. And so I just used to just have that as a secret dream. But one of the reasons is that there wasn’t any stability there that, you know, I understand my parents reasoning with that. And so I didn’t go to the camps. I didn’t, you know, play all those things. But anytime I found the basketball court, I would always want to play and I had all these secret dreams, I used to have articles of my favourite athletes and see their routines and what they used to eat. And so, you know, it became too late for me when I, when I went to college. And so I started looking at the safe things. My mom wanted me to be a doctor, my dad wanted me to be a lawyer, and so I was like, you know, I’ll try this law thing. But eventually I fell in love with, you know, the idea of business. But the way it played a role was I was just thinking, what is going to make you the most money? And what is going to provide some sense of stability for your family?

Gary Crotaz 12:04
And where were you in the world at that time?

Tayo Rockson 12:07
At that time, I had lived in Burkina Faso, Vietnam, Sweden, Nigeria. So I was now in the United States, Virginia. Yeah.

Gary Crotaz 12:17
Virginia. So bring us into this Unlock Moment, which I think is a really, I mean, it’s an incredible story. I know we’ve talked about it before, that started to shape your thinking about, about the future,. What happened for you?

Tayo Rockson 12:32
So in Virginia, I just graduated from college, and I had over 85 job rejections, and I would have gotten it on one and if I was, you know, a terrible student, but I wasn’t, I mean, I graduated with honours, and I had done everything that I was supposed to do. You know, I was the Head of Marketing at two nonprofits, I had whatever extra-curricular you needed. You know, I spoke multiple languages, and I started getting all these rejections, you know, based on how we can’t pronounce your name. We’re not sure if we can provide a visa. You know, this is, we think you’re too idealistic. You know, you get all these things. And then I eventually wound up convincing one of the people that had given me an internship to you know, give me a job, I said, Hey, look, I just have a year to find a job, otherwise I have to go back to Nigeria. Do you think there’s any position? And at the time Twitter was just in its infancy. And so I had a following on Twitter. And they said, well, we’ll try whatever the social media thing, you have a marketing degree, right? So let’s figure this thing out. And I got there, and they didn’t believe in social media. So they quickly changed my role to sales. And I didn’t have any orientation. And I just found myself in a world I’d never even imagined for myself. And, you know, I would be stretching the hours. I felt very, very, very much like a stranger inside my own body. And the worst thing was, I felt like I had no choice though. I felt like you know, 85 job rejections. This company’s at least taking a chance on me with sponsoring a visa, stick it out. That was my thought. Stick it out. Doesn’t matter. Who are you to complain. And so almost 10 years ago, I was driving to work, in my burgundy Toyota Camry at the time. And then I got to the part where the road merges into the highway and I was cruising down my lane 60 miles an hour and all of a sudden, my lane gets cut into half. This neighbouring car loses control, and then I’m swerving out of the way so I won’t get hit and I smash into the left guardrail boof, the right guardrail boof, back and forth. I hit two cars, and then all of a sudden, you know, I hit the left guardrail again, and I’m certain I’m about to flip over this bridge because of the impact and adrenaline is kicking in, my, my life is flashing before my eyes, and the only thought that came to my mind was, have you done everything you said you were gonna do? And for me, all the things I’ve been doing in secret, the books, the poems, my ideas about social justice, I’d been writing, just experiences that I’d been processing, whatever I’ve been going through. They all came, it was like you, Nelson Mandela, and Oprah Winfrey, your role models, you haven’t done anything, you’re doing everything else based on what you think you’re supposed to, but you’re not doing what you want to do. And I thought, Wow, 22. This is it! And adrenaline kicked in at the same time. And I just, I don’t know, I just pushed through the car. And I somehow got out of the car. And then I was standing in the middle of the highway and then debris everywhere, cars zooming in, and my car is completely totaled. But thankfully, nothing happened to me. And no one else was hurt. And, you know, I took it as a sign. And I, it really was the moment where things unlocked. And I’ve said this to you before is, I used to have that fear of failure. And then it became fear of not achieving my potential. Because when, when you you’re faced with your mortality, and you see who you could be, and then you have no chance to be that person, it becomes this, this reminder to you that if you ever, you’re ever given a second chance, do your best to get to that, that, you know, pathway for yourself.

Gary Crotaz 16:17
It’s an incredible story and just reflecting as you’re saying that, you were talking about negative resilience and positive resilience. And then here we really are saying negative fear and positive fear.

Tayo Rockson 16:29
That’s a good observation. Yeah, I mean, I that’s Wow. Yeah, I like that. I think so. Yeah. Because, to me, I don’t think fear is a bad thing in and of itself. But what we do with that fear is what matters, right? And so, sometimes people use fear to avoid themselves. And sometimes people use fear to see themselves, right. And so when you avoid yourself, and you see yourself, it’s a completely different reality, based on whatever the world is great in, and I think for once I was able to see myself, and even though I had gone through several rejections, and all those, you know, it wasn’t for lack of trying, you know, based on several things like that. I got a second wind, for some reason that said, regardless of whatever failures we have, or you’ve had, and you’ve certainly tried, you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do. They’re still somewhere there and it might take, you just have an unrelentless faith in yourself to push through, because what would eventually happen for the next few years would actually bear that out. I, you know, more rejections were coming. Broke-ness was coming, if people weren’t seeing all those things. But if I didn’t get to that point where I had accepted that, just because hardships come to you, doesn’t mean it’s the end of the journey. I don’t know that I would have had the courage to continue.

Gary Crotaz 17:51
And when you think back to that time, you’re 22. And you’re still very early in your career, you’ve had this extraordinary experience. And you had this idea of, have I achieved my potential? What, what did you think your potential was? What did that represent for you at that time?

Tayo Rockson 18:11
Yeah, no, it represented, I didn’t even quite have the full picture. But I felt like I wanted to leave a legacy to the extent that the late Nelson Mandela did. And Oprah had, right, so with Nelson Mandela, it was the idea of fighting for something. And being a symbol of freedom. Right? I haven’t… lived under dictatorships. He was the one that I saw in a black nation being the first black president. And so for me back then, even though I wasn’t fully processing everything, I liked and admired what it’s like to fight for something, 27 years in jail, and have that conviction, even though there’s just a lot of oppression. And then when Oprah was creating a platform for voices. And so I thought if I paired the idea of fighting for freedom and giving people opportunities to tell their story, that I was uniquely suited for something like that, I didn’t know what that would look like. But I just felt like if I could just, you know, do those two things, that will be great. And I just found myself always being attracted to, to those two, because even when I was coming back from school when I was younger, when we were in Burkina Faso, it’s a French speaking country in West Africa. My mom always had the Oprah Winfrey Show on and that was where we built, I really developed a bond with Oprah where I would have so much going on in school, I’ll be very depressed, people will make fun of, you know, how I looked or accents, everything. But you come back and you know, Oprah is having someone cry on TV, or something. And I’m like, oh, yeah, I see. I can see myself there. So I just felt like it was an extension of that couch that she had with the guests. And I never forgot that comfort. So yeah.

Gary Crotaz 19:43
What’s so striking hearing you is that at one level, you’re 22, you’re fairly fresh out of college, you’re in a sales team of a company, your social media. And then on the other hand, you’ve got this extraordinary life experience, you know, through your life, as you described, but you’ve also got these huge dreams. Like it’s not, you know, I want to, in the next three years get promoted to the next level in my in my sales role, although, of course, you might also have wanted to do that. But that you you said, you know, you want to fight for something, you want to have a platform, you want do something bigger and of course you’ve gone on to, to do those things, it’s incredible. But at that time, what gave you that level of drive and ambition to achieve above and beyond what your average, you know, recent grad, was looking to do with their life?

Tayo Rockson 20:37
Well, the accident really woke me up, right? Remember, I said one of the feedback I got for one of my job interviews was I was too idealistic, and I wrestled with that for most of my life, a lot of times people would say that my dreams aren’t possible. And I’ll hear this from people I love, because they will tell me that, Look, what you want requires people to actually go away from systemic things. And I don’t know, I never felt bad about that. Until I heard it enough. And I thought, Wait, are these people right? And they’re in, this is, to go back to Nelson Mandela thing, the reason that 27 years in jail really mattered to me, I was like, Oh, my goodness, you know, at the time I was 22, I was like, I can’t, this guy spent more years in jail than I’m alive! And I just admired someone’s conviction to do that. Because for me, up until that point, I’d always heard no, no, no. And then every time I would reflect on Mandela story, I’d be like, Oh, it’s possible. I mean, it might not be, I don’t want to go to jail. But it is possible in that, in that way. And I was attracted to that. Because I found inspiration in that. And I just didn’t believe I was the only one. I just felt, if I could put enough momentum into some idea of movement where people could fully be themselves, people could come out and start saying the same thing. And then it’ll build a momentum. And you know, it was just, you know, so you could call it naïveté at the time. But I just felt like, even if it’s not me, there’s some level of that that needs to happen. And all the heroes I’ve admired, whether it’s Superman, you know, your Black Panther, any of them, they’ve always had an element of belief in something. And then people following afterwards.

I was gonna say, naivety wasn’t, wasn’t a word that was coming to mind. But belief was.

Belief, oh well there you go.

Gary Crotaz 22:27
Yeah, interesting. And so what happened next?

Tayo Rockson 22:32
So I made the decision to quit my job. This is when I started doing audacious things. So, when you’re not a citizen in America, you know, you get married, you go to school, or you, you know, you get another job. And you knew, I was quitting the job, I wasn’t getting married. And so I needed to come down in visa status, basically, to go back to school. And so I started applying to schools in New York, almost exclusively. And the reason I chose New York was, I had gone, basketball at this point, you know, is a big passion of mine. One of my mentors had gotten a job in New York City and he had moved there. And I went to go see LeBron, he was in Miami Heat at the time. So I went to go see him play the New York Knicks. And as soon as I landed, I don’t know, whatever happened to my body, I felt alive. I was in a very small college town prior to that. And that’s my type of personality needs to be attracted to energy, where potential is endless. And so I don’t know what it was, I said, I need to be in this city. This reminds me of where I’m from, Lagos, Nigeria, where anything is possible. And there’s a lot of noise and dirt everywhere. And so I just thought, Okay, well, maybe if I, you know, change in my environment is going to be important for me, because I need to be inspired even when I can’t tap that internally. And so I started applying. And then I, you know, I told you a lot of rejections come, I got rejected from a bunch of schools. You know, I had a low GMAT score, which is the score you’re supposed to have. And so they kept rejecting me because of that, and then I had a high GPA. And then Fordham, the school I eventually went to, conditionally accepted me. And they said, you know, we’ll, we’ll conditionally accept you. But, you know, because of your quantitatives, your scores, we’re a little worried so maybe take these three classes, you know, business law, statistics. I always forget the third one. But there was another one, and then we’ll see, we’ll reevaluate later on. And I took those three, and then I added two more without their knowledge, because I had done the math, that if I did it, I wouldn’t graduate in two years, I would graduate in two and a half years. And so I just took five, just so that I could, you know, catch up. And then I got, I think, a 3.9, I didn’t, I did really well, and, you know, a 3.8 or something like that. And then when the semester was over, I went to the office and I said, Look, my grades, and they said, Why do you take five? I said, Does it matter, I got the grades? It’s like, grrr fine. And so they lifted it up. They weren’t happy that I skewed the rules. And so that was the first step, so getting that academic ban off. And then, you know, at that time I listened to a lot of podcasts. And I said, I made a promise to myself. You’re going to be your best self, you’re going to commit and you’re just going to try and show somehow the idea of creating a podcast got into me after I listened to a few of those. In 2014, for me, was when I launched this pod, the podcast that I have, and I took, I just bought a course on podcasting. And then I, you know, started recording. And around that time of podcasting, I come across the term TCK, Third Culture Kids. Third Culture Kids, for those that don’t know, refers to people who spent the formative periods of their lives outside of their culture. So army brats, you know, diplomatic kids, anyone that sort of had an international life and moved in and out, or was in transit nature. Finding the word was, was a godsend for me, because I found, Oh, my gosh, I can relate to this. You know, it was a Buzzfeed article, something, signs that you’re a TCK, you think in all these things. And then I got the idea of going to where that community was, I joined every Facebook group, I have used the hashtag #TCK. And I said, I’m going to be a voice for this community. And because I am, I mean, I have the lived experience of it. And so I just started doing, you know, writing articles around it. I said, Hey, you know, have you ever wondered what it’s like to get a job or be this way at home and be this way there. And then when the podcast came, I said, I’m watching the podcast, I’m going to talk to a bunch of TCKs about embracing global identity, I think our experience is gonna be great to teach people how to do the same. And then I went from 85 job rejections to 85 yeses, around, right, 85 yeses, and I thought, Whoa, people really care about me seeing them. And so I, you know, now I put it out there. So I had to record and so the podcast emerged out of that, and then that gave me real, real confidence in my voice, for there.

Gary Crotaz 26:55
I love that story. Because I, in my coaching, I work a lot with people about finding the environment where you’re at your best, finding your home space, you know, finding your, the thing that connects what you do with what you really care about, what you value, what, you know what’s at the heart of your purpose, and I feel as though, you know, there is a seam that runs through around your refusal to accept that anything is impossible, you know, three courses to five another good example. But there’s also something about, you know, as you’re saying, you know, finding this fight, finding this cause, and this idea that, you know, in that moment, you found both a home, you know, connecting with people with, with shared lived experience as you, but also that thing you said which I really liked, which was, If we tell the story then it will teach so many people something, and you know that, I mean, 2014 feels like such a long time ago, now, in the whole diversity and inclusion, you know, sort of journey that people are going on, and personally, I feel, you know, really, still relatively uninformed in it. I feel like I’m early in my stage of properly, you know, learning and understanding. But when I think back to 2014, it was like, it wasn’t a topic on the agenda at all in many entities, many organisations. And you’d seen early on that that was the thing, not only that you wanted to talk to people with shared experience, but you actually wanted to, to start to, to raise the profile of that conversation.

Tayo Rockson 28:24
Yeah, I mean, it had been around for a while, but it wasn’t mainstream, right? So it would be, it will be in and out, we would have conversations. And around that time, finding confidence in my lived experience was something I needed to develop so the TCK community, you know, helped me understand that my lived experience mattered. And I said, I didn’t fully process all those things I went through, it was after the accident I started doing that, right. So after the accident, I started really reflecting on what my life is. And I said, you know that you lived in five countries and four continents before you were, by the time you were 17, right? And you lived under three military regimes, two dictatorships. And I just really started starting from there. And I thought, Ah, this is why I think the way I think, let me sit with this. And so when I found that BuzzFeed article about signs you’re TCK, I could see this connecting thread and that and then I kept thinking about my actual name, you know, a warrior that has brought us joy, or the brave one that has brought us joy, and I kept thinking, no these things can’t be coincidences here, you know, you, you’re uniquely created, and you’ve lived this way for something that you, by, in your natural disposition, you always want to fight for something. And so I latched on to the idea of my experience not being a deficit, and actually being an experience, you know, I always got job rejections based on my experience. And then I said, No, I’m just gonna define my experience and own it. And so I said, it’s time we take ownership of that. And so as it morphed into diversity, equity and inclusion, it really, the underlying theme of all these things that I wanted to fight for was this idea of my mission statement, which is, Use your difference to make a difference. I started observing that differences have been used throughout history to, you know, eliminate people or to suppress people or to gaslight people, or people are often threatened by something that’s different from them. And in my experience, I’ve often been the different person, or I’ve come across a lot of people that are different from me. And I thought, what if we changed our relationship with differences? And so finding that lane for myself became this obsessive mission of mine, where I said, you can’t just dismiss something that is not something you’re used to because you don’t know it, you have to make an effort to know it, especially if you’re an institution that is supposed to, you know, serve everyone in the community. And so it was like it yeah, it was a series of those things. And these ideas I’m sharing with you, they didn’t come linearly, like, I’ll be writing something. And I’ll come up with a phrase, that’s how use your difference to make a difference came up. Or I’ll be walking down, I’ll be interviewing someone and then I will sit marinate an idea. And I think, oh, my gosh, I’ll write a note, and then wake up one night, I’ll like, Yep, that’s it! So it was just a bunch of all these things, putting it together, then eventually, you know, bore fruit, but it was a, it was a frustrating experience, because I wasn’t making any money. And I was in school, and everyone at school thought I was outside of my mind, they thought, aren’t you supposed to be going to recruiting trips, you’re getting an MBA and Deloitte is here, go to Deloitte! And then I was like, no, I’m just trying to just podcast someone’s in Australia, so I have to wake up, you know, and they just thought, What is a podcast? What are you doing? You’re wasting money. And, yeah, so it was a bunch of all those things. But I don’t know, I just kept seeing all these ideas in my head.

Gary Crotaz 31:43
And I want people to listen really carefully to that story you’ve just told because, in my language, I talk about The IDEA Mindset, this, this, the confluence of clarity on your Identity, and your Direction for a future with deep Engagement and Authenticity. That’s the I-D-E-A of The IDEA Mindset. And you were describing, you know, when you came out from, from, from, from school, from college, and you’re applying for roles where they’re evaluating based on, you know, I don’t know, skills, experience and a bunch of other things they probably shouldn’t be measuring on, but they still were. And you’re getting 85 rejections. And then you said, you know, I could go and have a conversation with Deloitte, but I choose not to actually, I chose to decide what I personally stand for, what I think is important, what’s, you know, what, what connects with my values and purpose and you start to, to shape a narrative about that, and people got it, they, it feels very right, and you turned 85 noes into 85 yeses. And it’s fascinating. There’s a lot of people who’ve built you know, huge personal profiles in the last few years. And it comes down to authenticity, it comes down to, you know, it is completely true, that they genuinely care about the thing that they talk about. And you see a lot of people who are trying to build a profile by kind of repeating what they’ve seen somebody else say on YouTube, which sounded smart, and they’re, they’re sort of pushing that out there. But it isn’t them. It doesn’t make sense for them. It’s not their own experience. It’s not their own learning. And I think something that’s really powerful about you, and I encourage the listener to go and listen to some of the things that you’ve posted on, on, on Instagram, is I think it’s really authentic for you. And I think you’ve found that deep connection. When was the first time that you felt that you taught somebody outside of your community, you know, that needed to hear this stuff? Do you remember that sort of sense of this is, this is going outside my, my group?

Tayo Rockson 33:51
It was early days of the podcast, I gotten this long email from someone who’s much older than me. And she just bawled, like, she shared a story. She said, you know, she’s in a marriage, in an interracial marriage. I think, you know, she was also someone from an Asian descent and as she was married to someone from an African descent and then she was just sharing how hearing my story and stories really gave her ownership of her identity for the first time because she never knew what it was that she was wrestling with. And I remember thinking, Wait, me? I’m like 23 or 24! And so, but she then she would just use one detail after detail detail, and then shortly after that I got more emails from people of varying age ranges and I thought, Who is listening to this podcast? We didn’t have all the analytics then, and I was like who has listened to this podcast? And then you know in the Facebook groups I joined people would say I really like this episode, and they would really pull out specific moments, and it would become think pieces based on that, and I thought to myself, Wow, I didn’t even see this! So I was, you know, trying to start an idea of what I was, and I was doing it for myself, and hopefully people, a few people will listen in, you know, outside of my mom. But I didn’t realise that there was such a yearning for belonging out there. I felt it. But I didn’t realise that people would latch on to it. And so, once that started to happen, and I started to get emails, to me, that was enough for me, I thought. Well, I just have to do this, you know, I have to figure this out, you know, I have to make sure that I continue to show up consistently for this. And then it was that, but it was an email, yeah.

Gary Crotaz 35:37
And it’s really interesting, I come back to that, the age thing, I’ve been talking to people recently about this idea that, you know, when I, when I look to my own experience, and you always forget that other people are different from you, and they have different experiences, they have different needs, and desires, and so on. And, you know, I was listening recently, there’s a guy in the UK called Steven Bartlett, who does one of the biggest podcasts in the UK. And he was, he’s still in his 20s. And he’s, you know, got millions of viewers, millions of listeners and viewers on YouTube. And he was interviewing the, the guy that founded Gymshark, the athletic wear chain, who’s also in his 20s. And I’m sitting there going, I feel really old right now. But I think one of the things that’s really interesting, I’ve heard so many people listen to this particular interview, and, you know, who are, you know, decades older, and, you know, often very, very experienced retailers, for example. And, and they’ve learned so much from hearing two people who are young, and sort of not knocked back by decades of, sort of, you know, the kind of rat race, and they’ve got that fresh thinking. And actually, I do think the wonderful thing about the podcasts, sort of, community now is it doesn’t matter whether you’re 23, or you’re 53, or you’re 103. You know, it’s about have you said something that made somebody think, you know, and I think there’s there’s something in that, that, that I think it’s really powerful.

Tayo Rockson 37:07
Yes, yes, I agree. Even when I’m a professor, as a professor, what I always ultimately want to give my students is that just permission to think, you know, is to critically think through everything. And for me, you asked earlier about why I always, I don’t know, always wanted to push against whatever was a standard is because, you know, all around me, I used to always see things that I felt like were wrong, but people will just accept. And in my head, maybe it’s because my parents made me read so early on, you have to read, you have to read, I just couldn’t reconcile the heroes that I would look at in the book and the community that we were, I was watching, and I thought, like, is this how? Oh, it’s not I know you know it’s not okay for you, just like it’s okay. So, for some reason, I felt like if we had more people being willing to push against the status quo, we’ll actually have a better society as opposed to people just accepting the status quo. So yeah.

Gary Crotaz 38:04
I talk to a lot of organisations at the moment that are relatively early in their journeys of properly getting their heads around diversity, equity and inclusion. And from your experience, what are some of the kinds of things that organisations at that stage are really getting it right? And what are the areas where, where they’re getting it wrong, or, or haven’t yet got off the starting blocks, what they do to get going, would you say?

Tayo Rockson 38:28
The thing that people don’t talk about enough with diversity, equity and inclusion is that there’s an awareness of self that has to come first. This is where a lot of people get it wrong, right? Awareness of self and awareness of environment. And the reason I said awareness of self is, you need to know what you think about certain issues and you need to be honest about it. This is just you, in front of the mirror or with your family members. Don’t worry about judgement or anything, you need to be able to tell yourself if you are sexist, or homophobic, or whatever it is, and you need to then reflect on the roots of those things. Because if you don’t start with yourself, and you start with, I don’t know, I think I’m supposed to do this, it’s never going to be authentic, you know, you will miss out on how to create a safe space for belonging. And so when you start with yourself, you’re then able to recognise what your biases are, what your triggers are, and what your values are, right? So you then know your, your, what I call your BTVs, your biases, triggers and your values. And from that point, you can make a decision to work on those and to unlearn certain things and relearn certain things. That’s, that has to be the start and those organisations that are good at creating safe spaces for people to really unpack and unlearn those things are usually the ones that can then do it as a habit because they will have the conversation amongst themselves. Yeah, you know, when I hired that person, I was thinking of this first or, Yeah, you know, I grew up in this background. That’s why I think this way, I’m working on all these things. Organisations that often fail are the ones that just go, they just react, right. They don’t reflect, just go… Yeah, there’s a movement around this. We got to capitalise on this. Let’s do that. But the people that get hurt in the process are the people that you’re supposed to be serving, or you know, you’re not truly seeing them. You know, they just feel like they’re numbers in your, in your, in your quota system. And then when they, when they feel like they’re just numbers, what happens is, when the trend dies, you know that they’re not going to feel, you know, you didn’t do the work to feel, make them feel safe. So they’ll leave. And so I always say, it starts with education of self, and then education of environment, right, you have to know how you think, and then why the world reacts a certain way. But when you are educating me and moving from education of self to education of environment, you then become more aware of things like privileges, and, you know, things that cause marginalisation, or, Oh, people accept me because of this, or like that dadadah. Or this makes me marginalised in this area. And so if you can do those things in tandem, you’d be at a good place.

Gary Crotaz 40:51
And so when you’re in that, you know, that first conversation with the chairman or the CEO of the, you know, some big shot organisation, and you have that conversation with them, you know, that’s a hard, I mean, that’s a hard conversation to have for you? And it’s a hard thing for them to hear?

Tayo Rockson 41:08
Yeah.

Gary Crotaz 41:09
Do you have some people who, who get it and accept it, and you have other people that push back on the idea?

Tayo Rockson 41:15
Oh, yeah, I get a lot of pushback, consistently. And it’s funny, I used to get more pushback initially. And I remember when the murder of George Floyd happened, you know, you could really see the difference, right? You could see people who, a lot of companies just felt like they had to do it, otherwise, they will be in trouble. But when you’re asking the question, I always ask the same question. Why do you want to do this? You know, and I always go to the multiple levels of why, you know, not outside of George Floyd then tell me why. And anyone that can’t really answer the question of, well, you know, we’ve failed fundamentally, we feel like this is gonna be, you know, a problem. We don’t do that, we, I know that this person is complaining about this, that just lets me know what my starting point is. And then I will often offer them, I’ll say, your answer has to be deeper than that. Because I’ll tell you this for a fact, this is going to fade away, if you’re only doing it because of what’s happened in the moment. And I’m off. I mean, I’m on this now I have the privilege of choice of clients. But before that, I will say there’s many entrepreneurs before that, one of the things that I used to do is, I used to take any, anyone, I just thought, Yes, I got a client! And that was never fulfilling for me, but at least it paid rent for the, for the, for the, for the first few months. And then I think once I started really understanding the power of my voice, and then understanding that I could speak as well, I started looking at ways to become a speaker of it as well, so that I could attract outbound leads, instead of just always seeking. And that gave me more opportunity to be able to say no to people, but yeah, I mean, I can’t say it’s not difficult. It’s just, you have to pick your battles sometimes with organisations!

Gary Crotaz 43:01
And when you’re on the TEDx stage, or in some other sort of speaking environment, and, and, you know, you’re reaching so many more people, you know, with the podcast and the book and so on, you’re reaching so many more people. And you play that back to that moment in, you know, you’re sliding down the carriageway in the car, and you’re thinking, you know, have I achieved my potential? Now you reflect, do you, do you feel like you’re achieving your potential? Or do you feel like there’s a load more to go you haven’t even imagined yet?

Tayo Rockson 43:29
Oh, there’s a lot more to go. I haven’t scratched the surface, but I’m in the process of achieving it. I, you know, I am, the three industries that I want to be able to to fundamentally disrupt are media, education and workplaces, right. So education as a professor right now. I’m in the process of learning and putting in my hours, right. So I can eventually learn the best way to redesign curriculums. With my workspaces, I’ve been doing this for a long time, and making sure that I’m continuously coming up with case studies that, that, that can share and then with media, there’s a lot of, I have a lot of goals I haven’t achieved, right, podcasting is one element, but I eventually want to be able to showrun shows and write more books and tell stories that haven’t been told. And I understand that it’s all a process, right? As I gather more stories, meet more people, those ideas will be sparked, the connections will be made. But me, yeah, no, I’m excited by whatever the possibilities, but I have, I don’t feel like I’ve even scratched anything yet. Because there’s so much to achieve.

Gary Crotaz 44:32
And this is a hard question but, but what does, what does legacy mean for you? You said to me once I have to define my own legacy.

Tayo Rockson 44:40
Yeah. You know, I, to me, legacy is, by its definition, how you’re remembered right? How people will remember you, good or bad. And when I think about my personal legacy, I just hope that people can say, because of him, they were, you know, they felt more confident or comfortable being themselves. And, and the reason why I want it to be that is because I truly believe we live in a world of people that are strangers to themselves. And they might be successful. Right financially, right? But I don’t know if they’re always successful internally, right? And so if, if someone can come across, you know, any of my works and feel like I want to do something that I’ve always wanted to do, I feel like I’ve done my job then.

Gary Crotaz 45:31
Amazing. Where can people find out more about you and the work that you do?

Tayo Rockson 45:34
So TayoRockson everywhere. I’m now more Tiktok these days, but, so TayoRockson on LinkedIn, on Tiktok or any social media platform, my podcast is called As Told By Nomads and my book is called Use Your difference To Make A Difference.

Gary Crotaz 45:49
Yeah, it’s amazing. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For Tayo Rockson, it was a near-death experience in a car accident that shifted his mindset from a crippling fear of failure to fear of not achieving his potential. It sparked a reassessment of his priorities and goals. And he’s having so much impact today in the work he’s doing in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion. I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more from him in the future, and I’ve loved this conversation. Tayo, thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Tayo Rockson 46:22
Thank you, Gary.

Gary Crotaz 46:26
This has been The Unlock Moment a podcast with me, Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook format. Follow me on Instagram, and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon!

Chris Tibbetts 0:00
“You’re going to have to make some serious changes to your life otherwise you’re not going to see your 50th birthday.” I was, “Alright”, I think it was 10 years away. Typical doctor, being overdramatic. I said, “Okay doc, no problem.” So I then came back three days later and this was the start of my Unlock Moment Gary. I walked in. And normally you have to enter this data on the form and the receptionists don’t know who you are. And you tried to speak to know, they’re obviously very busy, and very professional. I walked in and she says, “Ah yes, Mr. Tibbets.” I said, “Yes?” She says, “The doctor’s waiting for you, and he’s in consultation room one or zero, he’s on the ground floor, it’s on the ground floor.” I think, That’s not his normal room. And he’s waiting for me? A doctor has never, ever been waiting for me for an appointment. You’ll know Gary, doctors are never waiting for you. And receptionists never greet you and shepherd you into the room. So again, Right, this is odd. So I walk in and basically he says, “Take a seat.” He said, “You know our last conversation?” I said, “Yes doc?” He says, he said, “You’ve got, I give you sort of ten years to change your life?” he says. “Yep.” He says, “I give you six months,” he says, “If you don’t make radical changes, you’ll be dead, you won’t see your 40th birthday. In fact, you could die at any point now.”

Gary Crotaz 1:29
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things or brought about significant change in their life, and you will be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. In today’s very special interview, I’m joined by executive coach, transformation specialist and international speaker, Chris Tibbetts, who has lost over 100kg, that’s 220 pounds, battling an overeating disorder and mental health issues. He now helps others to be in the best shape, both physically and mentally. Chris and I met many years ago before he embarked on his journey of change. And then re-connected a couple of years ago when he told me all about what’s happened since – I was blown away. Physical wellness and mental resilience are topics I’m passionate about. And I don’t know many people who bring them to life with as much honesty and authenticity. Chris, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Chris Tibbetts 3:10
Thank you very much for having me, Gary. Yes, I do remember working those many long hours together all those years ago. And yes, and then reconnecting recently, it was just great and thank you for inviting me on the podcast.

Gary Crotaz 3:25
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being here. So to get us started, tell, tell me a little bit about what you were like when you were growing up? And what was the, what was the journey for how your weight started first to get out of control?

Chris Tibbetts 3:37
I’ve done a lot of work on myself, as you’d understand. And I’ve managed to trace my beginning of my eating disorder back to probably about nine years old. And this is going to sound a really sad story, but it’s not. My brother had a road traffic accident and he broke his neck and ended up with a spinal injury. And almost overnight, obviously my mum and dad’s focus had to be on his wellbeing. So I was very kindly put into the care of my brother’s best friends, our family friends, and for sort of six months I lived with them. Now, the, this, the woman, Barbara, the most amazing, caring, loving woman in the world. But her way of dealing with things was food. So if you were happy, she’d bake. If you were sad, she’d cook. And that was the thing. So again, I had this very traumatic incident. And the linkage was food. And she’s a very wonderful, loving woman. Typical, she’s about five foot nothing, always wore a pinny and a housecoat. Typical sort of late 70s, early 80s housewife as you’d describe it, but she was amazing. But she also had some habits, that you always cleared your plates. You always did this. But, so I understood it from then. Then obviously with my brother having his accident and my parents’ focus being on them, again I have no, there’s no bad, there’s no nothing, challenge there. But I found comfort in the bakery. So I’d go to the woman in the bakery to get a connection, to get adult connection, to get, you know, solace. And the cakes were good. Or I’d go to a fish and chip shop. So, but when you’re 10, 11, it doesn’t really matter because I was out all day playing, I was busy burning calories, it wasn’t a problem. But I can look back now and see that there was a connection, I only, I found connection and love and support in food. And I sought it with people. Then as I grew up, I played a lot of sport, had a very healthy appetite. My biggest challenge with weight came when I was 17. And I got injured, I tore my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in my knee. And almost overnight, I’d gone from playing rugby five times a week, training three times a week, going to the gym, to not be able to anything. But at 17, I also found alcohol, I found food. So I was still consuming everything I was doing before, but I had no outlet for it. So surprise, surprise, I started to put weight on. And then I got recovered, got a bit healthier, but I never had that drive to do sport I used to have. So I’d put a bit of weight on, obviously by moving a bit more I lost weight. Then I moved away. And then throughout my life, I met my first wife, who was a feeder. I put weight on, then every time we had a child, I sort of lost week, cos I thought I had that, Oh I’ve got to be a dad now, I’ve got to be healthy, and I lose weight for that. And throughout my sort of 30s, I would yo-yo diet between, every time I had a child I put weight on, lose weight. But I was always big. And that was it really, it’s all sort of, you know, I got to sort of 30s, I just yo-yo’ed. I would lose weight, put it on, lose weight, put it on.

Gary Crotaz 7:08
And describe where you were at when you were at your heaviest.

Chris Tibbetts 7:12
So once I, I suppose I lost my last load, last significant amount of weight probably in the early 2000s when we had my daughter. Lost weight for that, and I did really well. And then over time I started to put weight back on. And then throughout my 30s I left a, I went to work for myself. And it’s the corporate world, obviously started working on projects with the likes of yourself, Gary. And I had the combined, combination of travel, stress and boundless amounts of money to buy food whenever I wanted to buy food. And that was my sort of response was, I would comfort eat, I’d stress eat, you know, it was, sort of gave me sort of protection. And comfort. At that point my marriage was sort of deteriorating as well. And I was in a very sort of toxic relationship. So actually, food then became even more of a sort of comfort for me. And I never saw myself, you know, as big as I thought I was.

Gary Crotaz 8:16
And how heavy were you at your peak?

Chris Tibbetts 8:18
At my peak I tipped the scales at 34 stone, 210 kilos. Yeah. Plus, maybe it was. It was a lot.

Gary Crotaz 8:34
210 kilos. That’s, that’s 460 pounds. That’s a body mass, body mass index over 50, I think you were.

Chris Tibbetts 8:40
Oh, yeah, easily. Yeah, easily.

Gary Crotaz 8:44
And that was impacting, I mean obviously, from a weight perspective that was impacting your health. How did it feel for you to be that weight? What were the issues that you were dealing with?

Chris Tibbetts 8:55
It’s, when I look back, or at the time I was kidding myself, I used to sort of like say, Well, I play golf every day. So I’m okay. I’m sort of, but everything was difficult. You know, getting clothes was difficult. Getting in and out of cars was difficult. Travelling on trains was difficult. Flying, you know, was, you know, if I flew Ryanair or EasyJet, I had to buy two seats, because there’s no way I’d fit in a normal seat. So yeah, everything was just harder. You know, but to me, it was almost like my weight was a suit of armour. It was to protect me from my terrible marriage and also to protect myself from any sort of, gave me sort of a sense of bravado, a sense of, you know, fill the room, I was a big, you know, could be a big character. And it’s like, so it’s just a protective need. But in terms of health, I was just, just struggling, just getting by I think, and it wasn’t until I went on holiday, well, when my business trip to Dubai and I had sort of breathing difficulties and all the other things that then made me think, ooh, perhaps, perhaps I need to get myself sorted. But I used to kid myself I’m okay. I never saw myself as the person the size I was.

Gary Crotaz 10:05
And we’re here to talk about the this idea of an Unlock Moment, a moment of remarkable clarity when you suddenly figured out the path ahead. Tell me about that meeting with a doctor.

Chris Tibbetts 10:17
Yeah, so we’ve been on a trip to Dubai, a business trip, and a sort of golfing trip. And because there’d been a problem with the hotels, my business partner and myself had to share room for a night. And in that night, you know, woke up the next morning, and he just stared at me and said, I’m never doing that again. I was like, Why? He says, Well, he says the noise you made was just, was horrific. I says, What, I don’t use snore. He said, No it wasn’t snoring, it was almost like a noise from sort of like, a zombie movie. This constant sort of deep rumbling of breathing, he says, but the problem is, you know, if that wasn’t bad enough, when you weren’t making that noise, you weren’t breathing! And I thought you were dead about three times because you just weren’t breathing! And I was like, Okay, you know, sort of bit of a shock, especially when someone close to you says that to you. So I came back from the trip, I thought, well, I’m 39, I’m coming up to 40, perhaps I should get myself checked out. And basically went to go and see the GP, who’s a good friend of mine, we played rugby together, and walked into see him. And he’s looked at me and he says, Hi Tibbsy, you’re looking well, which is obviously a doctor’s euphemism for You’ve put weight on. And I said, Oh, I explained the story. He says, Oh well, let’s go see what the damage you’ve done to yourself is. I said, Okay then. And so he said, So just step on the scales. So I stepped on them. And basically, they were those Salter ones that go around to I think 26 or 28 stone. I stood on it, the dial went round, and then didn’t move. So I basically broke the scales. And he looked at me and he says, Did you know they’re brand new? And do you know how expensive they are? I was like, Well, alright doc, sorry! He says, Right, okay. Well, it says we’ve obviously got a problem there. And then there was a seat, the normal, traditional doctor’s seat. He says, Take a seat. And I couldn’t get into it, I was sort of like trying to wedge myself into it. He was like going, I think you just need to go and, we need to run some tests. He says, Look, you know, looking at the size of you, looking at that, he says, you know, let’s go and get some blood tests and give you some things, and he says and then when you’re at the hospital, they’ve got a seat you can sit on and we can get an accurate weight for you. I went, Okay, no problem. He says, So come back and see me in a week and we’ll see what what the damage is. So I sort of came back the following week, saw him and he said, Take a seat. No joviality, just take a seat, so I took a seat. This time, it was a slightly wider one. The old Jeremy Kyle Show, they used to have slightly wider seats for the larger characters. So I had a wider seat so I could sit down. And he said, Right, we haven’t got all your tests results in, but he says, The first initial markers are, you know, you’re borderline diabetic, you’ve got high blood pressure, you’ve got high cholesterol. He says, You’ve got this marker, this marker, you know, Basically, he goes, It’s a miracle that you’re still walking. He says, But, he says, you know, you’ve got something that you should have all of these challenges, he says, but I’ve sent some more tests away for some more analysis because some we weren’t sure with. I said, Okay, no problem. He says, You can come back, they’ll be back in a couple of days, make an appointment for three days’ time. He says, But, I said, I’m looking at you, I’m looking at you now. He says, Look, if you, you’re going to have to make some serious changes to your life otherwise you’re not going to see your 50th birthday. I think, That’s 10 years away. Typical doctor, being overdramatic. I said, Okay doc, no problem. So I then came back three days later, and this was the start of my Unlock Moment Gary. I walked in. And normally you have to enter this data on the form and the receptionists don’t know who you are. And you try to speak to them, you know, they’re obviously very busy and very professional. I walked in, and they said, Ah yes, Mr. Tibbetts! I said, Yes? She says, The doctor’s waiting for you. And he’s in consultation room one, or zero, it’s on the ground floor, it’s on the ground floor. I think, That’s not his normal room? And he’s waiting for me? A doctor has never, ever been waiting for me for an appointment. You’ll know Gary, doctors are never waiting for you! And the receptionists never greet you and shepherd you into the room. So again, ooh, this is a bit odd. So I walk in. And basically he says, take a seat. He said, You know our last conversation? I said, Yes doc? He says, You’ve got, I give you sort of like 10 years to change your life? He says, I give you six months. He says, If you don’t make radical changes, you’ll be dead, you won’t see your 40th birthday. In fact, you could die at any point, now, from the stats. He’d looked at my oxygen levels and looked at all these sort of things, he says, you know, You could die at any point. He says, So you really need to make some radical changes to your lifestyle. And I said, Right, okay. And at this point I didn’t actually think about myself, I was thinking, Oh, what about what about my mum and my brother, my business partner, my kids, my wife. It didn’t actually hit me, of that I was thinking, oh, what about everybody else? What are they going to do? How am I going to deal with this for them? And just at that point, he’s started like, writing, so I’ve got this drug, this drug, this drug, this dietician, this. I says, Look, doc, says, What can I do so I don’t have to have all these drugs? If I don’t pull it off, I don’t mind, you know, I’ll quite happily take whatever drugs. He says, Basically, in four weeks, you’re going to have to have lost basically two stone. I was like going, Hm, okay, doesn’t sound very healthy to me. But hey, you know, I said, Okay. He says, If you don’t lose, you’ve got to show a determination that you’re going to lose weight. So I went, Okay, no problem doc, I can do that. Because don’t forget, I’ve had a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. I knew all the diets out there. So I resorted to my traditional diet of cornflakes and tuna fish and mashed potato. I’m obviously at 34 stone, if you go from eating, well probably about 4 or 5,000 calories a day to about 1,500, 2,000, you’re going to lose weight. So I lost weight. Obviously, not very healthily. Came back, saw him. He says, Look, okay, you’ve shown you can do it. You’ve shown that you’ve got the determination. He says, I don’t agree with the method you’ve done so perhaps we just need to get some help. So I had some conversation with dieticians and, and other people who said, But you shown you can do this. So I started to make that change. But the biggest change I was making at this point was realising that actually, my environment wasn’t right for me. There was a lot of things that was creating my desire to eat. And that was the first time I probably started to realise it.

Gary Crotaz 17:07
And what was the transition from hearing that news that you could die at any time, to really internalising what that means for you, and you having to make change? Was that immediate? Or did it take some time for you to get your head around that?

Chris Tibbetts 17:23
I think the knowing I need to make change was almost immediate. But that the, again, when you have something like this happen, you can make these drastic changes, you can always make change. You know, it’s like, I was given a very powerful why? I think the problem was I didn’t believe it enough. I was almost like, like throughout my life, I was just going, I’ll do enough and I’ll get by. I’ll do that, you know, I’ll get rid of this problem. I’ll just throw all my effort at it. And I’ll solve the problem. It wasn’t until I started having some success, and I started losing weight and I started to feel a bit more happier about myself. And then I realised there’s a lot of contributing factors to why you know I was doing, because almost overnight Gary I became single-focused, single-minded on the fact that what I ate. I didn’t let anything interfere with me, I didn’t know anything sort of distract me. You know, wherever I went, I was, I was almost on it, I was planned, I was structured. And that was great. But I almost knew that wasn’t going to serve me for the rest of my life. It was going to do me for a period of time. And for me, the sort of second Unlock Moment was I then started working away in London, which is great because I had more control. I rented a flat, I was the only, I was the only person responsible for what I ate. And, but when I used to come home at weekends, it was almost like people were sabotaging me.

Gary Crotaz 18:48
And what was the thing that was motivating you to make this a fundamental change that was going to happen and was going to stick, in a way that hadn’t happened before when you were yo-yo’ing? What was, what changed for that?

Chris Tibbetts 19:03
I think for me this time, I’m always sort of reigniting my enjoyment of exercise, because I’d sort of, to begin with I lost weight by just walking. And then I lost enough weight, and then being in London I had access to a gym, there was a gym below each of the flats where I lived. So I could actually just have that sort of confidence of, of I want to improve myself, I want to do things, I wanted to get back to the, the sort of 17-year-old athlete again. And that, that enjoyment of training, that enjoyment of exercise and, and having a sort of passion and that sort of spurred on, that’s what’s sort of the difference in it. And, you know, almost for the first time in my life doing things for myself.

Gary Crotaz 19:43
And initially on that journey you were pretty successful in, in losing a significant amount of weight?

Chris Tibbetts 19:49
Yeah, I was very successful. I sort of, I think I dropped down to about 19 stone, so if you imagine 15 stone weight loss is quite impressive, and then I’m quite tall so even at sort of 19 stone, because I was working out a lot, I still, don’t get me wrong, I still had fat. But I’ve been working out. So I was a lot healthier, I was a lot better, you know, and I didn’t have as much fat. So, you know, I’d lost a significant amount of weight, but not down to what the lowest I went to. But it was a massive change. And it made me feel more confident and self-assured.

Gary Crotaz 20:24
When did it become clear that you needed to regain that control? When, when did it come clear that you that you’d lost that?

Chris Tibbetts 20:31
Again for about five years… So if you imagine in, was it 2012, 2011? They told me that… no, no. So yeah, in 2011 I was told I had sort of like six months live. In 2012 I was 40. For the next five years, I basically went from about 18 stone up to about 26 stone. I sort of had a, I had three wardrobes, I had a Thin Wardrobe, I had a Putting A Bit Of Weight On and I had my I’ve Put All My Weight Back On. So I had three wardrobes, and again, because they were there, you gradually just, Oh, these trousers are a bit tight, I’ll put these ones on. So you just sort of like didn’t really notice it so much. And it wasn’t until sort of five years into, this would have been about 2016, I left, I got headhunted and joined National Express. And then a year into that, I had a breakdown. And my food, my eating, had got completely out of control. And I was a functioning person who was, you know, dealing with stress, but I, you know, I had a meltdown. And then we’d won an award. And there was a photograph of me winning this award. And basically the photo of the guy who was on the aeroplane in 2011, who was about to die, the, that was almost like the same person who was looking at me again, that same look in the eyes, that same feeling, that same, you know, and I realised that actually I’d sunk back to those levels, the weight had come back on, I’d got out of control, and I realised I had to do something because I wasn’t going to diet or work my way out of this one. I had to address, I had a problem. And the underlying moment I went to, something crazy, I went to a Starbucks in Shrewsbury of all places, don’t ask me why I went there. I had no connection with them. I basically, I was living in Sandbach at the time, got to Crewe. I was actually, oh, go to office in Birmingham. No, I don’t want to go to Birmingham. I looked at the departures, where’s there… oh Shrewsbury, oh I’ll just go there. Don’t ask me why. Shows my mental state at the time. And went into Starbucks. And I ordered my cinnamon swirl and my caramel macchiato. And basically, I can’t tell you what happened for four hours of my life. I lost four hours completely. But next minute, I’m thinking, four hours passed. I’ve obviously drank the coffee and at the cinnamon swirl, but I’ve got, it’s a complete blank. And I thought, Right. I need to get some help. I need to just nip this in the bud and, and find out what’s going on. And I tried, you know, nutritional, I went to a clinic. But like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, I broke out of there, didn’t like that. Didn’t do, didn’t like the group therapy, didn’t like the individual therapy. I’ve used it since for other things. And it’s great, but I just didn’t do it. So a friend of mine suggested going to Overeaters Anonymous, I was like going, never heard of that. I’ve obviously heard of Alcoholics Anonymous and the others, but never heard of that. So he says, No go to it. And I went to it and whilst, whilst I don’t fully agree with all of it, it saved my life. Just by following this process, by following steps, by actually accepting that I had a problem and accepting that I needed to deal with it. And that it’s my problem. And I’ve got to own it. And I’m responsible for this. And this, by giving over to higher power, that’s going to say, to take that responsibility, was really important. But you know, this whole sense of renewal, this whole sense of apologising for actions and accepting, and, it was really important to me, because I’ve been through this process. And in the end that was my starting point in my journey.

Gary Crotaz 24:26
And I think that’s a really powerful part of your story that this is not at the beginning of the journey. It’s not, you know, you’d made very significant practical changes to your lifestyle, you’d lost a huge amount of weight. But it wasn’t sticking. And there was a point where you recognised and started to act on the fact that there was an addiction going on and lots of other elements around, and starting to find people that can help you who, who also, you know, have experience in that space and get it. And we’ve talked about it before that the mix of people around you, both, you know, medical professionals, but also people who’ve had that experience. And I think that’s a really, that’s really important for you in terms of enabling you to switch from up and down to something that sustains over time.

Chris Tibbetts 25:19
Yeah.

Gary Crotaz 25:20
And what did, what did it feel like being in a room with other people who had been through, or were going through the same thing as you?

Chris Tibbetts 25:27
It was almost comforting. It was almost as sort of like, you’re not on your own anymore. And that was the biggest struggle I found is that I couldn’t explain to people my feelings because most people will say, Well, just don’t eat it. You know, my wife bless her. She’s amazing, but she’s like, but just don’t eat it. Why would you do that? If you didn’t want it? Don’t eat it. Or if you want to eat it, eat it. But it’s like, well, yeah, but that doesn’t work for me. You know, I’m, I’m wired in a different way. You know, I, if I see that, I don’t care if I’m full. I’ll eat the second pizza, I’ll eat the third pizza. Even if it’s making me ill, you know. Because I just can’t stop and getting, being in a room with people, people saying the same things. Almost you know for the first couple of meetings. I just didn’t say a word. I just listened. I was like, Oh, my God, there’s somebody saying, I’m not on my own. And there’s other people who struggled. What was interesting is, for me, which shocked me completely as a big guy as I was, the sponsor I actually hired was anorexic, she’s a recovering anorexic, I’m thinking, How on earth can you at sort of seven stone understand me at 30 stone. And it was a complete, but she did. And she understood because she said it’s about the addiction, it’s not you know, mine was I wasn’t going to eat, yours is you want to eat. But it’s still the same driving behaviours, it’s still the same process that you deal with, it’s still the same lies you’re telling. There’s just, there’s just a different way around.

Gary Crotaz 26:45
And so when you look at your, your life and your routine now and the things you have in place to, to, to be where you are now and to sustain that over time, what does that look like? What are the things that you’re doing that, that are different now from before?

Chris Tibbetts 27:03
I think, you know, one is having a sort of routine, although I did have a routine till I was ill, I’ll sort of take aside, but I still use some of the principles. So I still journal daily, it was really important for me to ask myself a series of questions in the morning, and a series of questions in the evening about, you know, what, what am I looking to achieve? How am I achieving them? Then gratitude, you know, really focus on being grateful for one being alive and grateful for the people around me and showing that and almost giving, not to expect to get anything back was the biggest thing. I want to give things. I don’t expect anything back. If you get something back, that’s great. But when you have that attitude, quite often, you get an abundance of things back to you by not expecting anything. Meditation, you know meditation is an important part of of my life now. And I spent a lot of time working with an Ishaya monk on this to understand this, to understand this stillness, this quietness, this calming my mind down. And then I use sort of breathing techniques, again, similar to that. But again, the sort of cold water, cold therapy again, is really quite important for just allowing myself to reconnect. So I’m almost taking control of my life, because I think they’re just really important to me.

Gary Crotaz 28:17
And where are you today in terms of weight and health and so on?

Chris Tibbetts 28:21
I’m probably, I’m still, I put a little bit of weight on because I stopped training, because I got injured, but you know what, I’m comfortable with that, I’m happy. You know, I’m probably just, probably about half a stone heavier than I’d like to be. But I’m not bothered by it. The thing is, I very rarely weigh myself now anymore. That’s the challenge, I just don’t weigh myself but I think when I did, I was like about, you know, because then I’ve been ill, I’ve been, had COVID, like everyone else has. And I hadn’t had the activity levels I’ve had. So that’s fine. And I know I’ll change, I can either eat less and I’ll lose weight or I can just go back to be more active. But in effect, I’m comfortable. I have no binge urges. I have no, you know I haven’t slipped back to being an overeater, I’ve, I’ve sort of found that level comfortable place I’m in.

Gary Crotaz 29:13
And in this constant battle for you to stay in that place, it’s not something you can sort of forget about? You have to stay on top of it.

Chris Tibbetts 29:22
Every single day, every single day. So one thing I say at night is, is, the first thing I say in the morning is just give me the grace to get through the day without a binge, and then then at nighttime I go, you know, thank God I haven’t binged today. You know, because again, it can still happen, you know, I can still, you know, I talk to my clients, I’m quite open with them. I say you know, things throw up at you. Things get, hit you with them and no matter all the good work I’ve done, I said the difference between me now and in the past is I may slip up, but actually that’s fine. And that’s good for me because it allows me to show me that I’m still human and it’s still there. And that, you know, I can learn from it. And what was different, what, what made me relent? What, what made me decide that I’m going to eat those chocolate bars or eat that cake, eat those cakes, now I’m not talking about one off, it’s if I have a, you know if I have a cake one day, I’m not going to beat myself up because it’s part of my life. But if I decided that I’m going to eat a pizza, and then cakes and and chocolate, and it was all excessive, then I’d have to ask myself what’s caused that, what’s triggered that, why have I lost that control? And again, I can just sort of work through it and understand it.

Gary Crotaz 30:36
And tell me about the moment when you decided to make this your career to help other people going through this kind of journey.

Chris Tibbetts 30:44
It was interesting, because I’d sort of been made, I took a redundancy from National Express, I thought, do you know what, I’ll just go back to being a management consultant. Be dead easy, you know, really, you know, nice couple of, really good money, flexibility. And I did, I set up a company, I was doing that. And then one day, a guy I was working with called Alex Meyers. He said, I’d really love you to tell your story to my programme, my guys, I said they’ll get a lot of benefit from it. Alright? Yeah. Okay, no problem. So I did a sort of slide deck and did the… sent it across to him. And he says, first he goes you put a typo in there, he says. Why? He says, You put you lost 100 kilos? Ah yeah, I should put 110. But yeah, you’re right. No, no, no, you’ve lost a hundred? Yeah, I’ve lost 100 kilos. He went, I didn’t know. I went, Yeah. And in this sort of conversation, sharing my story. I sort of had your Unlock Moment, I had an epiphany. I realised that this is what I have to do. The conversation I’m having with these guys. The questions they’re asking, the answers I’m giving, is that I just said, I need to do this. I need to do this at whatever, you know, almost at whatever cost to me. And I also realised I couldn’t do it as a side thing, I couldn’t do it as a, oh I’ll do this on the side, I’ll help a few people out. But I’ll still keep bringing the money in, because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have committed to it, I would just have been sort of a half-baked thing. And I’d already done a lot of work for free for people because I’d been a sponsor for Overeaters Anonymous, and I’d been in groups and I’ve done that. So I’d already cut my teeth, so to speak, I thought, okay, perhaps this could be a career, I don’t know. But I then embarked on it as a career.

Gary Crotaz 32:34
And what does it look like? When you start to work with somebody?

Chris Tibbetts 32:40
Well, I start by just making sure they’re ready. I turn away, which is crazy for a guy in business, about 50% of my business. Because I have a call with him and I go, you’re not ready. I says, You’re, you’re just not ready. You’re, you’re you’re looking for a fix, you’re looking for somebody to do the work for you, you’re looking for 90 days, and you’re going to lose all this weight. I said, I’m the wrong person, if you do want to do that, because, you know, I want lifelong change. I don’t, you know, I don’t ever set people weight-loss targets and I ever talk about weight loss with them. Weight loss is a byproduct of my, working with me, because we’re going to cut out all of that ridiculous additional food you’re eating through the bingeing and emotional eating. So when I work with people, I sort of sit down and we sort of have a strategy, we have a plan, I get to understand where they’ve, you know, first, the most important thing you need to do is create this big why? Because that’s what’s going to be used when we try to work with the inner voice and I, you know, my inner voice is called Fred, by the way from from Drop Dead Fred. And I use it to clients to try and break through, this, this whole voice that’s there, that’s, that’s encouraging you and you know, reasoning with you when you know it’s not even practical. So we work very hard on understanding that. We talk about creating routines, don’t even start thinking about planning your food, planning, because most people fail because they don’t actually have a meal plan. They get up and they go, I won’t eat today. Or they’ll forget or they’ll get busy and then all of a sudden they’re reaching for junk food, they’re reaching for processed foods, they’re reaching for food that is not going to be nutritious, it’s not going to help, it’s not gonna serve them. It’s not gonna help them feel stronger, it’s not going to help them feel mentally alert. So it’s almost working on that principle. So very quickly, we sort of like, okay, we’ll map out 90 days, we’ll map out where you think these triggers are, where, what do you want to achieve? What, what part of your life is suffering, what, where is this holding you back? And then from there, we can then just put plans in place to say, Okay, you know, let’s start understanding where these trigger points are. Let’s understand what are the lies that your inner voice is telling you, because it will be telling you something that makes it compelling to go and eat that food when you don’t eat it. When when you’re on the third bar of chocolate, because you’re, because you’re not even tasting the chocolate at that point, but you’re doing it because it’s almost an inbred behaviour. Don’t forget, this voice lives in the sort of lizard brain, the amygdala, it’s, it’s fight or flight, it’s there to protect you. So there is no reasoning. Well just think about it, where that voice is, where it lives, there is no thinking about it, there is no, it’s designed to save your life and protect you. So you don’t have a chance to argue it. Now, if you can’t, then that’s when you need to move the conversation up into the higher brain and have the conversation there. But if you already, I say to people, if you’ve already got the food in your hand, it’s too late. So that fork in the road, that decision that put you on the path to eating is a lot further back than people think about it. And if you need to have it, if you need a strategy for that moment, it’s in your hand. Good luck. Because that’s going to be really hard to beat.

Gary Crotaz 36:06
And the people that are the right people for you to be working with, they’re in the right place to start on that journey? How did they describe the experience of working with you?

Chris Tibbetts 36:16
Because I’ve been where they’ve been, they almost have an honesty factor with me because they can’t actually lie to me, because I’ve told all the lies myself. So I know when people are not feeding themselves. I know, I know. And I ask them the questions, because they’re always like, Are you reading my mind? I’m not reading their mind. I just know where they’re at, because I’ve been there. So they almost go, how did you know that? How did you know I was thinking that? Like, because I thought that, I’ve been there. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t get right all the time. But most of the time we can get it right and go, What’s causing that, why are you making you feel that, I think they just feel like they’ve, for the first time in their life, they’ve got somebody with them who actually believes that they can do this. And for them, it’s almost the first time they’ve had this. They’ll have worked with coaches and PTs and people before. But this is the first time that somebody’s gone, You can do this, and I believe in you. And that’s what they feel, they feel like… I liken myself to Liam Neeson from Taken, I have a unique set of skills that make me a nightmare for people like that!

Gary Crotaz 37:22
And what does it feel like for you to see somebody making that change that they weren’t making before? You know, through working with you?

Chris Tibbetts 37:32
I think it’s, you know, it sounds very grandiose, but you can’t actually buy that feeling. You know, I, in an ideal world, Gary, I would win the lottery and I’d coach people for free. But actually I still wouldn’t coach people for free. Because when you do stuff for free, people don’t value it. And I think, for me, being able to see that transformation, I’m working with a guy at the moment and he’s like, he’s lost 40 pounds, but that 40 pounds is irrelevant. It’s the change in his mindset, it’s that change in how he’s talking to himself, it’s a change that he’s not, you know, running himself down, he’s not beating himself up, you know, this whole change in his mentality is the biggest thing, you say, I say to people a lot, you know, the change, the weight loss happens from the neck up. You know, that’s where all the change happens. Yes, you get the bodily change from below. But actually, if you don’t change the mindset, you’re not gonna lose weight. I’m just seeing that change in people.

Gary Crotaz 38:35
That’s really powerful. Where can people find out more about you, Chris?

Chris Tibbetts 38:39
So, if they go on Instagram, or Facebook, I’m at theemotionaleatingcoachUK, or my website, http://www.emotionaleatingcoach.uk or LinkedIn. Chris Tibbetts.

Gary Crotaz 38:55
fantastic. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For Chris, it was a conversation with his doctor who told him he could die at any moment that gave him a massive wake up call about the impact of his weight on his health. It’s been a tough journey since then, with many ups and downs. But Chris is now empowering others to fundamentally change their lifestyle based on his own experience of making remarkable change happen. Chris, thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Chris Tibbetts 39:25
Thank you Gary. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Gary Crotaz 39:28
This has been The Unlock Moment, a podcast with me Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook format. Follow me on Instagram, and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon!

Nick Novak 0:06
I was so caught up in my, in my own self-confidence that, Oh, I’d done it, I’d figured it out, I had the formula for my happiness. Now I’m, I’m continuing this startup journey, this, this entrepreneurial hustle, I’m building things, it’s exciting, you know, doing the, doing the late hours, grinding it out, doing, doing cool stuff, the stuff that the world needs is really cool too! I, you know, I thought I was in such a good place. And the reality is, is I was, you know, completely burned out. We’re driving through this. And honestly, she gave me a bit of a wake-up call, you know, she was pointing out the impact to my health, the impact to my friends and family, the things that I was, the things that I wasn’t investing in. It was just very clear to me that I had to make a change.

Gary Crotaz 1:12
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things, or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. Today I’m so pleased to be joined by my good friend Nick Novak, dialling in today from Scotland. Nick is a social impact entrepreneur, investor, non-executive director and consultant. With over 15 years of driving growth for social enterprises across the UK, US and Africa, Nick is passionate about building customer-centric organisations that deliver positive impact. Despite living in Britain since 2012, he’s still no closer to losing his American accent or his love for baseball. I love talking on The Unlock Moment to people I know well, because I always learn so much that is new. And I’m sure today’s conversation will be no different. Nick, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Nick Novak 2:53
Gary, it is fantastic to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me!

Gary Crotaz 2:57
How do you indulge your love for baseball whilst in the UK? Is there baseball in the UK? Or do you have to watch American baseball?

Nick Novak 3:04
So first of all, I was delighted to learn there is baseball in the UK. I was not expecting to find it. But, so we’ve been here, we’ve been here 10 years, actually 10 years as of yesterday, believe it or not, to the day. But shortly after arriving, we found a pickup game that has been played in Hyde Park every Sunday morning for something along the lines of the last 50 years. And it’s a, it’s a collection of expats and other people who are passing through and anyone’s welcome to join. I think we honestly just walked past them on a Sunday and I saw people playing baseball and I couldn’t believe my eyes. So I went over and had a chat and went to a couple of games. And they educated me on baseball in the UK, which is not not very far reaching, it, there isn’t, there aren’t really too many teams or leagues. The equivalent in the US would be something like a minor league team. But there are, there are, there are teams that play and I think one of the, one of the guys who joined on a Sunday was an umpire in one of those teams and it was just it was such a delight. So, so that is, yes is a little bit of baseball in the UK. I think when I talk with people about baseball here they say something like Oh, yeah, rounders, right? We played that in school, right? Something like that.

Gary Crotaz 4:18
Exactly. That’s, that’s what we played, rounders! And you have no idea what we’re talking about! I was quite good at rounders actually but I probably finished at the age of, I don’t know, 11 or 12, something like that.

Nick Novak 4:26
I got pulled into a game of rounders a few years ago, and I think I played it a tad too aggressively because I was bringing my baseball face to it. I was super into it. But it was good fun. It was good fun. So, so that and yes, I still follow my local team from the town I grew up in, which is Cleveland, Ohio. I have the Major League Baseball app. I subscribe to the games. I’ve watched them every now and then and for having a Sunday picnic, let’s say in a park somewhere, we might often just tune into the game on one of our phones and kind of just listen in live. So yeah, we stay tuned in. It is one of my happy places. First of all, Gary, I love that you’re asking about baseball because it’s so rare that I get to talk about it. It’s, it’s actually quite a joy. I’m sort of racking my brain of what do I say about baseball. I grew up going to baseball games with, with my my mother in particular. And sometimes my grandfather. At the time they were known as the Cleveland Indians, they’re now they’re now the Cleveland Guardians as of this season. We would go to these games in this giant stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. It was one of the largest baseball stadiums in the country at the time. But they were a terrible team. So there was never anyone there, you had all these empty seats. And so, so we’d get seats that were close to the field. And, and I would have enough space to kind of wobble around. And I learned, so I literally learned how to walk at a baseball stadium.

Gary Crotaz 5:59
How old were you? When you when you first went to baseball do you think?

Nick Novak 6:01
Yeah, I was, I was probably two or three when I first went to my first game, I don’t know. As I’m thinking about it, I must have been younger now. But my mom has this great story about how, when I was entering into the stadium one time that they were asking me how old I was. And if you were three or under, I think you got to go in free or something like that. And you know, I’m a toddler, my pronunciation isn’t that great. So I was, either I knew that I could say that I was free, or I was actually three years old. But all they were hearing was I’m free, I’m free, I get to go to a baseball game! And then, so…

Gary Crotaz 6:39
And you played when you were growing up?

Nick Novak 6:41
I played a little bit of baseball, played a little bit of softball, I played in the local rec leagues as they would call them. So this is just the the teams that aren’t tied to a school or anything, but anyone in a community can join. And I think like a good American kid, I played catch with my mom, most summer nights in front of the house and, oh, oh man, Gary, you’re putting me in my happy place now, this is wonderful. I never get to talk about this stuff.

Gary Crotaz 7:10
And it’s interesting, because I know we’re going to come and talk all about, you know, finding that life that you love. But it’s interesting, what you say there, is something I think I talk to a lot of people and they say that, that they’ve got a place when they know that they’re happy. And they’re not always, they don’t always get to find that spot.

Nick Novak 7:31
It’s challenging, it’s challenging, because there are things that have been tied to me since my childhood like baseball, where I can draw a very clear narrative on why it makes me happy. You know, I can, I can see the lines from childhood, to connections to friends, to memories with family. And it’s something that I can check in with when I watch a game or listen on the radio or, you know, it’s it’s a very, it’s a very simple straight line. And, and yet, you know, it is such a really small part of my life. And I think the challenge for for me over the past 10, 15 years has been really understanding, Okay, yes, that’s one little thing that I spend maybe an hour of my time on every week, maybe less. But clearly, that’s not the the entirety of things that make me happy. That’s not the entirety of things that bring me joy, that certainly doesn’t give me purpose. And going on the journey of understanding what are the things that make me happy and, and intentionally investing in those has been, has been the work over the past decade plus. And I’m so glad that you know, we started down that path. My wife and I started exploring this shortly after we were married, coming up on 15 years. And it was, it was something we kind of very intentionally stepped in together as we were thinking about how do we build a marriage? How do we build a relationship? And it is something that we continue to check in on and continue to work on together. And it’s, it’s been really enlightening.

Gary Crotaz 9:18
So today your career is, is what you might term a sort of pluralist or portfolio career, you do many, many different things. Was it always like that? Or did you start out in your career more sort of focused in, in doing one thing?

Nick Novak 9:34
Absolutely focused on one thing, yeah. So I think I had a much more traditional career at the start. So my, my background is in psychology and computer science. And I very, very quickly after university jumped into a career in IT because that’s kind of what I knew, that’s what I had been doing. I had some internships, it just very naturally went from one thing to another. So I worked in a, worked in a university system in, in tech, for a brief time worked at the University of Michigan in their Department of Psychology, sort of working with faculty and staff and helping them to manage the tech in their labs, which was a, for me a really interesting combination of my, of my tech and psychology backgrounds, because it’s one of the premier psych departments in the world. So that was, that was kind of fun. But it was very much I think, like a lot of people, moving organically from one thing to the next, you know, I had a plan, I wasn’t exactly, you know, stumbling forward and just living passively. But it was, in many ways, kind of the path of least resistance, and probably around 2007, when my wife and I were thinking about getting married, and we’re looking at what was coming next in life, and she had always had a dream of moving to New York, and we just started looking for jobs and just sort of, sort of hunting, see what was out there. And I was really grateful to connect with a team working in, in the education technology space, really doing some, some leading edge work with lots of the largest cities and, and several states across the US deploying this learning management system. And I, you know, jumped in with them, we moved to New York, we kind of made the jump and I was working in this rapidly expanding edtech space, which, you know, now this, this space has absolutely exploded, especially on the other side of the pandemic, but, but even then, it felt like it was just growing so rapidly, and thrilled to be a part of it. But it was, you know, very much a linear path. I continued that path in London, and we can kind of talk about what that, that story has been as well. But it really wasn’t until probably about 2017 that I started thinking about, again, those values, and how did I, how did I serve them? And was I serving them? And what, you know, I sort of sat down and told myself, at one point in my life, you know, these are the things that are important to me. But was I actually investing in those things on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis? And I think the answer very clearly was No. And so the portfolio career that emerged, I think was a product of investing in those things that made me happy, investing in those values. So the things that I do today cover a range of topics. So I’m involved on the edtech investment side, I’ve worked with a fund called UFI Ventures. And we’re investing in really kind of adult skills development. So sort of edtech for adults. I’ve worked with a range of startups in the primary and secondary side, whether it’s a bit of mentoring, or kind of even jumping in as part-time co-founder, let’s say to help them get a product off the ground, and kind of everything in between. But then in addition to that, because I’m choosing to spend time, not just in that edtech space, but, but invest in those things that really get me excited and bring joy. I’m also doing quite a bit of volunteer work, I’m kind of working in the wider world of impact and kind of getting a little bit into housing and homelessness. And I think because I haven’t boxed myself into solely working on a nine to five job Monday through Friday, it’s certainly given me more options. Yeah, there are days when I wonder, Am I you know, am I doing the right thing? Maybe it’s a little bit scary. But what I’ve very, very intentionally done is said, I’m going to trust that if I’m investing in these things that are core to who I am, that it’s going to work out. And, you know, I’ve been doing that for a little over five years. And so far, so good.

And I think I hear when you’re describing that, a phase in your career where your identity was something around, you know, psychology and computing, IT pre when edtech was a thing, maybe, I don’t know, is it through that edtech journey that you’ve transitioned into more of this identity as a, as an entrepreneur mindset?

Definitely, I think I had the great fortune of working with some amazing people early in my career. So when I moved to New York, I joined this team called Schoolnet and worked alongside a few individuals who were growing that business, Jonathan Harber, Luyen Chou, several others that have become major names in the space today. And I was able to support them in this journey we were going on, it was absolutely, you know, it was incredible. And so I think a little bit of their entrepreneurial spirit rubbed off on me, but also I think I was able to see what the journey looked like firsthand, I was able to understand what it meant to grow something, what it meant to kind of be that scrappy team that’s trying to trying to build something, to introduce something new to the market. it and it was, it was such an amazing education, I was so grateful for it to join at that point. And yeah, I think it absolutely just set me up for the startups that followed.

Gary Crotaz 15:09
And when you started in that, in that role in the US, did you know then what you were getting yourself into?

Nick Novak 15:14
I had no idea, I was terrified! I think, I think I showed up at that company the first day, and I was coming from a university setting, I was coming from very comfortable, well funded massive institutions, and jumping to a scale up, and they were, you know, they were doing okay, they weren’t in the early startup days, you know, they had, they’d been running for a few years. But it was still a massive shift for me. And I remember, I remember, I think I was wearing, you know, a tie my first day. And I remember showing up at, I think, eight o’clock at the office. And, and, first of all, not only the only person wearing a tie, but also the only person in New York showing up at work at eight o’clock, and colleagues are fumbling it around like 9:30, 10 or whatever. And, you know, I’m there, I’m showing up at 8 and I’m working till 5. Isn’t this is what everybody does? I don’t understand! And, you know, everyone was, was really delightful. I can look at that, look at that kid now and see how naive he was, just the whole experience. But I was so grateful also to be welcomed by everyone and sort of be being taken under their, under their wings, and just taught so much about what it meant to build a tech company. It was a great journey, a really great journey.

Gary Crotaz 16:34
And you were open in your mindset then to learn and to do things outside your comfort zone?

Nick Novak 16:40
Absolutely, I think I was able to jump into that partially because of the great community at that, that company. And also, I think I just bought into the whole energy of New York City to be honest, the, the hustle culture, the whole thing, and for better for worse, I loved stepping out into the, into the energy of the city after work. I, you know, would often, we lived in lower Manhattan and the office was in Midtown. And I would often step out and, and walk home from there, which would take an hour plus, you know, just soaking in the energy of the city the whole way. And, and oh, yeah, it was just, it was the perfect thing for me at that moment in my life. And I don’t think I appreciated how transformative it was at the time. But I can look back on it now. And I can just see the entrepreneurial hustle energy of New York City just seeping into this 27 year old as he’s figuring out his life. And it was great. I’m so I’m so glad that I had that.

Gary Crotaz 17:45
Jumping in with both feet. And, you know, you’re describing that sort of being fully immersed in the New York, whole New York culture and environment, you know, in work, out of work, the whole, the whole 24/7 thing. Tell me about how you got your first job in London?

Nick Novak 18:05
Yeah, so you’ll be familiar with the story a little bit, it is interesting. So I was living in New York, first of all right? Working at this company, loving every minute of it. We were doing quite well, you know, I was spending 100% of my time travelling domestically across the US. I was running some of our biggest projects, helping us to close some of our biggest deals, it was, it was a company where I had, you know, I’d started as very, very junior and then risen through the ranks and just was having a blast running some really big, impactful stuff, working with state governments, meeting with elected leaders was just absolutely brilliant. So I’m kind of riding this high. And my wife, Allison is, is in London every every month for about two or three weeks. And at some point, we said, you know, we’re married, we’d like to see each other. How do we make this work? And so we started thinking about, Oh, well, maybe we should, we should make the jump. Her company been itching to relocate her for a little while and right about that time also, our company in New York was acquired by Pearson. So it felt like we were over the scrappy kids to finally made it. We had all this resource, we had options. But also it was a nice time for me to reevaluate, you know, where do I want to go next? And so, so we gave her company the, the green light and said, Yep, we’re going to do it. We reached out to you guys, reached out to you and Mildred. And I think, I think we had lunch at some point with you. We hadn’t even moved yet. We’re just having lunch and sitting down saying, Hey, I think we’re going to, we’re going to do this, we’re going to, telling you what we’re kind of looking for. And then I get a call from Mildred or an email from Mildred a couple of weeks later, saying, I kind of met these guys because they’re moving into our old office space and as Mildred’s moving out. And, and they said they’re, you know, they’re looking for some sort of education technology guy. They’re kind of hard to find, and, and I believe as Mildred tells it, I think I know a guy, and she brings up my website or something and she’s like, No, no, no, really actually, this might be the guy. And one thing leads to another, I connect with, with this brand new team. They had some designs and, and some ideas, a bit of a business plan, very, very early-stage product that they were working on. And I was, I was brought in effectively on what kind of felt like day two with the business. You talk about jumping in with both feet, and just saying, Hey, this is an interesting opportunity. I’m going to see where it goes. It was exactly one of those moments. You know, I met up with, with the co-founders, had a, had a quick lunch while, while again, we hadn’t even moved to London yet. I think we were just still, we were still working on the move. We were still just trying to get the logistics ironed out. Sat down with these guys, had a great conversation, we got on really well. And before I knew it, I had a, had a contract signed up, before, actually before we even officially relocated. It was just, it was clearly meant to be. So yes, I owe, and will forever owe Mildred a huge thank you for that connection. But it genuinely was one of these things where, you know, it felt like I was, I was being led somewhere. And I just had to trust that and I just had to, to say, hey, here’s an opportunity, things are clicking, I’m going to try to show up as myself. And if, if it works, it works. And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Gary Crotaz 21:57
It reminds me of that great quote by Sheryl Sandberg. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat, just get on.

Nick Novak 22:05
It was a little bit like that. More than just being offered the seat, it was very clear that, that I was ready to sit in that seat, that everything had just aligned, I didn’t feel like I was in over my head, it felt like everything in my career had led me to that point. And it was, it was just fun to say yes to it. When you see the rocket ship in front of you, and you just go for it, it can be quite a rush.

Gary Crotaz 22:34
When I’m working with my coaching clients, one of the first things that we talk about is values. Because if you don’t know what your values are, and, and when I say values, I mean not only things that are important to you, but things that are so important to you that you change your behaviours as a result of them, you start to do things you weren’t doing before, you stop doing things that don’t fit with your values. If you don’t have that then it can be quite difficult to make these kind of decisions. And I’m, I’m noticing in your, in your story that I think the time when you first thought, thought about with, with your wife, mapping out what those values were, that was before you started in that, in that role. So, so how did that help you to be able to make that decision to jump on the rocket ship?

Nick Novak 23:27
I’m not sure I, I fully, I fully knew what to do with my values. In 2007 we… this was in 2008 rather, sorry, we were just married. And we had sort of sat down at some point and said, you know, we hear, we hear money’s this thing that can really, really get in the middle of relationships, it can tear people up, like we should, we should read some books, we should kind of get our house in order on this. And again, a very naive exploration of, of just what what it meant to tackle that issue in a marriage. And so we picked up a whole bunch of books. And one of those was… and I cringe every time I think about this title, but you know, it is what it is! It’s by David Bach. It’s called Smart Couples Finish Rich and, oh boy, I know, I know! If only your listeners could see that you’re laughing! Oh, my God, this title! But, aside from any of the financial advice in it, it had this exercise which was quite transformative. And it’s one that I often come back to. And it was something that he called the Value Circle. And there’s, you can get into the complexities of, of the actual Circle itself and weighing things up and blah, blah, blah, all that but it really just boils down to this. It’s understanding what are the five things that make you happy, you know, not ranking them, just what are sort of five pillars of your life? That bring you joy, that make you happy. Asking yourself what those are, mapping it, and then investing in that. You know, not just saying, Oh, I like to go camping, I like to do this, or whatever. It’s, it’s, it’s saying these are the, these are the things that really, not just make me who I am, but really bring me joy on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. And then doing something about it together, whether it’s as a couple, how you spend your money, or spend your time, or whatever it is, it’s it’s truly just making sure that you invest intentionally in that. And so we read this book, and we go through the exercise and I, and I, and I think I very quickly rattle off my, my five. Freedom, and that isn’t like in an a Go America way! Freedom for me meant owning my time, you know, being able to spend my time the way I want. The second one, which was quite abstract and, and Allison gives me a little bit of grief for, understandably. Second one is is Energy. And for me what that means is doing things like this, is new experiences, new people, jumping in and trying things, and you know, that was one that was kind of difficult for me to wrap my head around. I think when I first said it, I was equating it to skydiving or something like that, just you know, I grew up as a very introverted kid, or at least I thought I did. I was, I was a very nerdy kid, still quite a nerdy kid! But, but that, but that, to me meant, meant introvert. And I think what I’ve discovered over time is actually I do get my energy from being around other people, I am an extrovert. Understanding that and leaning into that matters, you know, it means that, you know, I’ll want to do the podcast with Gary, or I’ll want to go get a coffee with someone, you know, or I’m just gonna ping that, that CEO on LinkedIn and say, Hey, how can I help, I’m just gonna sort of reach out and do things, have new experiences, and new people. Values three and four were our Friends and Family. Maybe self-explanatory, but for me it’s something that has always been, always been important. And that, that can mean not just spending time with people. But if, for example, when I was in New York, saying that family was important meant on that walk home from, from Midtown, from time to time, or if I’m getting off the subway, or whatever it would be, I would just take out my phone and pick one of the family or friends favourites and talk to someone for 15 minutes or an hour or whatever it would be. But I would just, in my mind, mark that time as my sort of friends and family catch-up time. And that may sound like a really minor thing. But it meant that I had this discipline of doing it every week. And that discipline of investing in something that, that I know brings me happiness. And then the fifth one for me is Service. And, and this value can, can take shape in a number of different ways. Sometimes it, it overlaps quite a bit with, with faith, but it, but I’d say the more abstract version is, with my whole life, I’ve just wanted to help. You know if anyone ever said what I wanted to do in my career, with my time, I would almost always respond with, Oh I just want to help people. And I didn’t really know what that meant for a long time. But I knew that it was something that I was called to do in some capacity. And I think it was this which drove me to social enterprise very early on in my career. Freedom, Energy, Family, Friends and Service. And I mapped these in 2008. Some of them were pretty clear to me. So the family and friends thing, getting on the phone with someone, giving them, giving someone a call from time to time, that was clear. Freedom, Energy, I’m not sure I totally understood how to make that work. But that’s where it started. And then it was about going on this journey over the following nearly 15 years to look at, Okay, well how do I really, intentionally invest in these things? How do I make it more than just a phone call from time to time? And when I’m feeling low, when I’m feeling unhappy, when I’m feeling beaten down by something, taking a step back and saying, am I investing in my values? In almost every case, I can look back and I can see very clearly my unhappiness with work, or life, or whatever it might be. There’s a clear correlation between that unhappiness and a lack of investment in the things that I’ve said make me happy.

Gary Crotaz 29:47
It’s very interesting.

Nick Novak 29:48
It’s so clear. And what’s so funny about all this is, this doesn’t sound overly complex. It’s not. But you know, we get so caught up in the whirlwind of life or get caught up in doing that thing that we think we’re supposed to be doing, or just trying to get that project over the line or whatever it is, that, you know, perhaps in some cases, because we’ve jumped in with two feet to try to do that one thing, to just do it really, really well, we sometimes forget the, actually you need to jump in with two feet to the next thing, you need to take time away, you need to understand when it’s time to step back from something, those have been hard, hard learned lessons.

Gary Crotaz 30:30
It’s why I really wanted to, to bring you on to tell the story, because, so where The Unlock Moment came from, was when I was doing my first work with with coaches a few years back. And actually, episode number one of the podcast is with a guy called Samuel Haughton, who’s an actor, he was one of the first people I worked with. And what I figured out was that knowing is a different point in the journey from an Unlock Moment, or the Unlock Moment. So knowing is, I give you a piece of paper or give you an exercise, do you want to think about and write down what you think your values are, and what that means and how it manifests. And you can do the homework, and you can write it down, and you can read it through, and you can go, Yeah, that makes sense. There’s a different moment, which is the Unlock Moment, which is when it suddenly becomes clear. And that can be any time of day or night. It can be when you’re doing the work. But it could be when you’re doing the washing up, it could be when you walking the dog. It could be when you’re in the shower, it’s the moment where you, it sort of all lands. And I remember with, with Sam, it was probably five or six months after he’d done the work to evaluate two particular choices. And he was in, he was travelling, he was in Korea on a project. And he texted me at four o’clock in the morning my time and some crazy time for his time. And he went, I figured it out. I think this is the answer. And I was like, I don’t know whether that’s the right answer or not. But the fact that you’re texting me at four o’clock in the morning implies that it’s probably quite important to you. And there’s something similar in this story, because that, when you did the work was a long time before what you describe as your Unlock Moment. So bring us into that time where, you know, it’s, it suddenly became clear what you need to do with this thing that you’d created years previously.

Nick Novak 32:39
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s very clear to me when that happened, because I, I was so caught up in my, in my own self-confidence that, Oh, I had done it, I’d figured it out, I had the formula for my happiness. And now I’m, I’m continuing this startup journey, this, this entrepreneurial hustle, I’m building things, it’s exciting, you know, doing the, doing the late hours, grinding it out, you know, doing doing cool stuff, the stuff that the world thinks is really cool, too! I, you know, I thought I was in such a good place. And the reality is, is I was, you know, completely burned out. As I think happens to so many people who are, who are building their own things, you, you can kind of get caught up in it, and you can lose part of yourself. And I think I really did. You know, if I look at how I was spending my time, it looks so much like any other startup leadership, team member, where you’re doing the long nights, and you’re, you know, you’re maybe not seeing friends and family, but you’re, you’re getting that thing rolled out that’s getting lots of praise. And it’s seems like it’s going well, but I you know, I feel like I genuinely kind of had blinders on for the rest of the world for a couple of years there. I think I became aware that I had cut people and other special moments out of my life. And that was kind of shocking to me. And so I decided to take a step back, to really look at the values that I had laid out for myself and to ask if I was investing in those things, if I was doing the things that I say are so important to me. You know, did I have freedom to spend my time the way I wanted to? Was I getting energised by going out and having new experiences with new people? Was I investing in my friends and family? Was I of service to others and the answer across the board was pretty much, No. I took a step back. And I remember kind of getting advice from friends, from my wife, and saying, you should just take a few months off and just, just kind of just, just sit and play video games for a few months, something like, just decompress. But I think once I realised what I wasn’t doing, I just got so excited about doing it right, about investing in myself again. So it started off with going to the gym every day, having breakfast with my wife every day, and you know, making her breakfast and, and enjoying that time together. And I’m happy to say that’s a tradition that we’ve kept pretty much every day since, which has been wonderful. And then I started reaching out into my professional network, I started getting those coffees with other entrepreneurs, just to, just to say hello, or pick their brain or, you know, help out in a project here and there, whatever it might be. I started volunteering more, I started getting, you know, getting a pint with, with someone, you know, during the week, during the evening, you know, I started being able to spend more time with, with family, and I just started doing these things. And, and every week, I would be asking myself, Okay, what did you do this week that fed freedom that fed energy, family, friends and service? Organically from that process, this portfolio career emerged where I have more freedom. Yes, it’s a little bit scary sometimes, because I don’t have the nine to five job. But I do have the freedom, which I say is important to me. And I have to continue to remind myself of that. I get energy from all these new interactions. And, you know, I’m, I am, I’m just, I just found myself doing it. I had a consultancy that that emerged from all those conversations, going up, having those coffees that people, had peers in the industry pulled me into various projects. And I had sort of told myself, right, well, let’s kind of go down this path for a month, maybe two months, let’s see how it goes. Let’s see if I can replace my income with, with this new way of doing things, and if I can, great, then, then maybe this is, this is going to work. And then we’ll try it the next month, and the next month, and so on and so forth. I got to a month later. And actually, the pieces were coming together, and then got to two months later, and three months later, it just, it worked out. And it was such an amazing thing to see because I was making these moves intentionally. But I wasn’t trying to just focus on one traditional path. I wasn’t trying to just chase after one thing in particular, I was just really genuinely every week just trying to say, am I living my life in accordance with my values? I’ve just tried to keep doing that since. And the journey is evolving. But that was, that was really, that was that Unlock Moment for me, when I saw the fruit of investing in myself in this very, very short term, very focused, very intentional way, just immediately started paying off.

Gary Crotaz 38:29
So I want to bring you back up a little bit. So, context for the listener, so you joined Arbor, you know, one room. Which number employee, were you?

Nick Novak 38:43
Actual number employee, probably something around five?

Gary Crotaz 38:47
And at the point that, that you finished with, with that business, paint a picture of what, what that business was?

Nick Novak 38:54
So when I joined, we were, so first of all, it’s an education company. And so they were building a database for, for schools, and it’s an oversimplification. But if you think about, if you think about Salesforce or something like that, you know, schools all around the world have to have their own version of that. But traditionally, it’s only been used to collect data on who’s here, who are the staff that are, that are here today, basic attendance, and then that information is submitted to the government. And it, it has, you know, over time, it’ll maybe process some academic information too. But it was really used as a compliance tool more than anything else, it wasn’t really being used to drive instruction. So informed decisions on policy and it wasn’t being used to engage parents. It wasn’t really being used to address the the day-to-day challenges of the school. And so we were building a challenger product. We were working with one very, very patient, alpha client, and the time I left, they had a footprint in one out of every three schools in England.

Gary Crotaz 40:11
It’s amazing, isn’t it? From those small beginnings?

Nick Novak 40:15
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So I was, again, really excited about it, put a lot of energy into it and kind of built my life around that thing for about five and a half years.

Gary Crotaz 40:24
So when when you’ve had, you’d had that experience, it’d been very intensive, very successful. Very intensive, you describe that you, you’d reached in your sort of whole working life, this, this, you know, a point of burnout. When was the moment when you knew that you needed to apply your values in a different way, you need to think about them differently? Do you remember the trigger where it was a particular moment when you thought this becomes real?

Nick Novak 40:53
So I don’t know that I’ve really ever told this story, but I remember very clearly. So we were back in the US, my wife and I were back in the US. And we were taking a drive in this area called the Emerald Necklace in Ohio, which is essentially a, it’s called the emerald necklace because if you look on a map there’s a string of parks that, that sort of form this shape around Northern Ohio. And so we’re, we’re driving through this, and honestly, she gave me a bit of a wake-up call, you know, she was pointing out the impact to my health, the impact to my friends and family, the things that I was, things that I wasn’t investing in. It was just very clear to me that I had to make a change. And we came back from that trip. And in my mind, I had you know, I had I decided to step back, and we kind of got the ball rolling on that. But it was a, it was a very clear moment for me. It was entirely about me actually, nothing about the company at all, it was purely just, How am I living my life? And what are the, what are the things that I need to be investing in? It took me, I think it took it took me several months to take the jump to do it. But that was very much the moment when I realised that I needed to make that change.

Gary Crotaz 42:22
I talk to quite a lot of people about the concept of a post-it note moment. A post-it note moment from my own background, and I’ve told the story in a couple of other episodes where, I had a particular situation in, in a role I was in, where I decided coming out of a meeting that I was at some point going to move on and I walked past my colleague’s desk, wrote on a post-it note, “I’m leaving,” and put the post-it note on her desk and carried on walking. And she said, Where are you going? When are you leaving? And I said, I don’t know, I haven’t decided that yet. All I’ve decided is that at some point in time I’m leaving. So you know, as we talked about, there, there can be a, quite a significant gap in time between knowing what your values are, and figuring out that actually, you’ve got to do something differently to align with them. Equally, there can be a gap in time between having your Unlock Moment that I know this has got to change, and then you described over the next few months, you actually go through the process of starting to make that change happen. And I think a lot of people that I talk to, they, they can’t move forward because they feel that that’s all got to be the same. But actually, I’m not sure it does. I think that, that you’ve got to find that Unlock Moment of clarity. Once you have clarity, the strategy, the plan, putting it into action isn’t easy, but, but it’s going to happen. Because you’ve got that clarity.

Nick Novak 43:48
Absolutely, absolutely. It’s just the decision to do it. It’s deciding you’re gonna go to the moon, but you don’t know how you’re going to get there. But you’re just deciding to do it. And then you start working on it.

Gary Crotaz 43:59
And what was it about the environment for you, and I say environment in a very holistic way, that made you able to hear that message from your wife, and find that Unlock Moment of clarity?

Nick Novak 44:13
I think when you’re sitting down with… this I would hope for for most people, for most of us… when you’re sitting down with someone who’s one of the most, if not the most important people in your life, there’s a certain way they can say something that really makes sure that you’re listening. It’s not about getting into a fight or a debate. It’s just you know when someone you love looks you in the eye and and they know that they have your attention and they tell you a truth about yourself. I think it was that simple. It was that simple. And then it was, Okay, now what am I going to do about it? And once I heard it, once I received it, once I understood what it meant for me that I needed a change, the decision was made, the decision to do something different was, was, was made, then it came to me to figure out what does different mean? And, and I knew it had, had to be significant, I knew it had to be drastic. But it was just about then putting into action, as I say, trying to figure out how to get to the moon.

Gary Crotaz 45:40
And when you look back now, with the benefit of hindsight, what what have you learned about yourself, having gone through that experience?

Nick Novak 45:52
I’ve learned that therapy is great. I recommend it for everyone! I think I have learned to listen to, listen to my body, probably more than I ever have really. So when I’m, when I’m tired, when I’m exhausted, trying to understand why, when I’m frustrated, when I feel stuck, just being able to take a step back and try to understand why. You know, like some people will get that from from meditation. It certainly has its parallels there. But even if you’re not doing a formal meditation, just being able to just observe what is happening in your mind, what is happening in your body, trying to understand what action you need to take to change whatever’s coming next, I think that, that’s something I learned. And not to get, you know, too, too sappy on you Gary, but I think the other big thing that I have learned over the last couple of years truly, is just to understand what it is to be loved unconditionally, you know, to know that I can make mistakes in my life, and it’s okay. And then I’ll still be loved tomorrow. I can continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. And it’s okay, you know, that, that my, my choices, my successes are, are not the thing that will, that will decrease or increase the love in my life, you know, I just, that I just am loved as a baseline, you know, by people, by God, that it’s there. I think that has been probably one of the most significant revelations for me over the last couple of years. So that, so basically love, God and therapy, those are the three things.

Gary Crotaz 47:53
So bring you right into the present. And you’re sitting up in Scotland looking out the window at the beautiful Highlands of Scotland. What does that represent for you now in terms of this life you’ve created?

Nick Novak 48:05
Um, yeah, yeah, this, I think it’s interesting. This is another one of these, you just jump in with two feet. So, so we are avid mountaineers, as you know, we you know, we try to get out whenever we can, bit of hiking, hill walking, bit of rock climbing. And that’s been great fun. It’s something that we’ve, we’ve invested more and more in the past few years. So we have for the longest time thought we should, we should have a place in the Highlands. And we had debated it and we weren’t sure when, but you know, we could casually be looking and we were away for, for New Years. We’ve had a tradition for, for many years of going to a small farm outside of Fort William. And it’s right on the edge of the, of this range called the Grey Corries, which is not too far from, from Ben Nevis. And we were just sitting there, sitting around the fire on another terribly stormy, rainy day, we were up there for 10 days, we had two days of good weather. So we had lots of time to reflect on life and priorities and all that. And as part of that we, we found ourselves just thinking, Oh, well, you know, it’s got to be here. We’ve thought about Wales, thought about some other places, we just, we love this space. We love being in the outdoors. We know how healthy it is for, for us, we know that we want to share it with people. We know that we want to be more active in the outdoors. You know, there are all sorts of ideas around professional things you might do in the outdoors as well. Allison, a couple of years ago picked up her mountain leader certification. So we’re really thinking about stringing that together in a few different ways. Really just came down to sort of jumping in that we, we decided that we were going to do it. And so we, we once again started looking at places in January, this place popped on the market, we saw it. And I think over the span of a week, we went from seeing this listing to putting in our offer. And that was it. And here we are, we’re now stripping wallpaper for the next, you know, couple months, assembling furniture and all that. But it really was one of these, these, these moments of clarity, we just, we knew that being up here was good for the soul, it was going to be good for people in our lives, we want to share with them and, and in, in a way kind of following, just following the formula that we’ve seen in other times in our lives, when you see that, that opportunity that comes up, you go for it. And then if the pieces are falling into place, you keep following it, it’s that sign that you are where you need to be. And actually, since we showed up here a week ago now, it feels like, you know, every time we go find a piece of furniture on Gumtree, or we you know, go to meet a neighbour or, whatever task we’re trying, it just feels like every little piece is falling into place and giving us the signals that we’re in, we are where we need to be. So trying to jump in with both feet and make the most of the opportunity. And we’ll see where it leads us.

Gary Crotaz 51:29
I think it’s an amazing story. And I love how that sort of closes out the story. Because that, that common thread that runs all the way through in terms of, you know, sort of following your heart, jumping in with both feet. And, you know, taking a chance on things leads you to a place that enables you to live, live life with values. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For Nick, it was the realisation that knowing your values is not enough, you have to start living intentionally by them to truly create the life you love. Shifting from knowing to doing changed everything and enabled him to shape a life with a deep sense of purpose, impact and authenticity. Nick, thank you so much for joining me today on The Unlock Moment.

Nick Novak 52:16
Gary this has been so great. Really just thank you for the opportunity to share and, and I hope that we will pick up something useful from this.

Gary Crotaz 52:25
Thank you so much, Nick, and for people that want to find out more about you, where can they find out, find out more about you?

Nick Novak 52:30
So you can find me on LinkedIn, Nicholas Novak. Or you can go to NicholasNovak.com That’ll connect you to all the social channels and, and my consultancy and everything else that I’m doing.

Gary Crotaz 52:41
Fantastic. And we’ll put all the links in show notes for listeners as well. Thank you so much for joining today.

Nick Novak 52:45
Thank you, Gary.

Gary Crotaz 52:48
This has been The Unlock Moment, a podcast with me Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook formats. Follow me on Instagram, and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon!