Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction 00:03:43: A day in the life of a Rear Admiral 00:05:48: Squiggling within the same organisation 00:09:09: Make the most of mentorship 00:10:59: Jim's three rules 00:13:00: Dealing with imposter syndrome 00:18:17: A sideways squiggle is as good as a promotion 00:23:11: How ego and fear can hold you back 00:26:12: Understand your strengths and weaknesses 00:28:36: Jim's career advice 00:31:02: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen, and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where each week Sarah and I come together to share with you some insights and ideas to help you with your Squiggly Career, to support you in the successes and navigate through the knotty moments.  This week is National Careers Week in the UK, and it has inspired us to have four very different Squiggly Career Conversations, to give you a window into someone else's world of work, and inspire you about the different directions that your Squiggly Career can take you in. Our conversations this week include Sarah's discussion with Eric Sim, whose career story is full of resilience and bravery and possibilities and pivots; BBC journalist, Simon Mundie, who talked to me about progression and how to create and not wait for career opportunities; Sarah's conversation with Steph Douglas, who's the Founder of Don't Buy Her Flowers.  We're connected and have followed Steph on Instagram, and she talks to Sarah about the realities of running your own business, so some great insights into entrepreneurship there; and today's conversation, which is myself talking to Jim MacLeod, a Royal Navy Rear Admiral, who shares some fascinating insights on how to squiggle and stay in an organisation.  I talk to him about his 33-year-long career in the Navy, and all the different and diverse things that he has done, and what he's learnt about how to develop in different directions in one organisation. So, I hope you take a lot out of this conversation.  Please do let us know how you found this series and whether you want us to do more Squiggly Career Conversations.  You can always email us.  We're helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com. Jim, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast. Jim MacLeod: Thank you. Helen Tupper: I feel like, from a dinner at the end of last year, I finally got you into a conversation talking about your career! Jim MacLeod: Yes, it's taken a while, we've been busy. Helen Tupper: Yes, we have been busy, and it might be the last time you say yes at a dinner again when someone randomly, maybe slightly tipsily, asks you to come on a podcast! Jim MacLeod: Not at all, I'm delighted to be here, Helen, thank you. Helen Tupper: So, the reason when we met, I was so, "Wow, what an amazing career", is because you are a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy, which I don't think I've ever spoken to a Rear Admiral before, so it's a very distinct and impressive career; and when I dived in a bit deeper into what got you there, I became even more fascinated. So, it's a 33-year-long career in the Royal Navy, that has taken you from at the start, transitioning from engineering to working in defence policy, from working on strategy in the Middle East to Strategic HR for the whole of the Navy, and then driving improvements in gender diversity to managing the defence relationship with the Royal Family.  It is a diverse, different and distinct career that has all happened in one place, in the Royal Navy. Jim MacLeod: Yeah, that's right, and I'm at the end of my 33-year career now, and if I look back at the 15-, 16-year-old boy who was walking down Wellington Street in Leeds going into the Royal Navy Careers' office, and I said to him, "This is what you're going to do for the next 33 years", I wouldn't believe myself, and looking back at what have been some fabulous opportunities and experiences that I've enjoyed within that career. I was doing a little bit of looking at some of your work, Helen, after we met at that dinner, and very much enjoying your descriptions of a Squiggly Career, and absolutely, looking back, I think that's a really nice description for how my career's panned out, and you covered the range of jobs I've done. Helen Tupper: And in terms of that range, in the job that you do now, because I don't think it is one that will feel familiar to the vast majority of people listening to this podcast, me included, what is an average day in the life of a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy? Jim MacLeod: Well, the easy answer is, there is no average day, and it depends which Rear Admiral you talk to.  But for me, in this final job that I've been in, I have been in Strategic HR for the military, for all the Navy, the Air Force and the Army, so I've been responsible for HR policy for around 180,000 servicewomen, servicemen, reserves and regulars, looking at all elements from recruitment, retention, education, resettlement skills and how are we looking at the workforce for the future.  The technical term is Strategic Workforce Planning, but really looking at, have we got the right skills coming through into the organisation to continue to deliver in what I believe is a first-class military, and continue to protect the nation's interests. So, that's kind of what my overall job is.  There is no average day, and that's what makes it fascinating and fun. Helen Tupper: I think one of the reasons that I was so excited when we spoke, is one of the things that Sarah and I are passionate about is helping people to squiggle and stay in an organisation.  And one of the myths that sometimes people have when they think about Squiggly Careers, is that Squiggly Careers means moving from organisation to organisation, and not sticking with one thing.  For some people, Squiggly might mean that; it's very extreme.  I might mean a career full of constant change that you are creating for yourself by moving around different organisations. It's not that that is bad, but we don't think that that's the majority of what people's experience of what a Squiggly Career will be; and that actually, when we think about Squiggly Careers, it's how can I squiggle within the organisation that I'm in?  You can often create a lot more opportunity, because you've got those relationships and you've got that knowledge, and you can stretch some of those skills that you've got in the different directions in quite a safe way. So, I wanted to get a bit of insight from your experience of, what has helped you to squiggle and stay within the Royal Navy? Jim MacLeod: I think a number of things.  One is, it's a relatively large organisation, so there are lots of opportunities.  I think we are an organisation that values our people, and therefore we invest in our people and we see it's important to give people opportunities to broaden, because they'll continue learning and developing themselves and bringing those skills back.  And as a leader, I think that's really important within my own area. I was responsible, as a Director for Strategic HR, and I had a relatively large team, and I always encouraged people to promote out or move out into other areas of defence, because they would broaden, they would learn more and then, if they'd enjoyed working with me and the team they were in, they would come back with that experience.  So, from an organisational perspective, Squiggly Careers are a really good investment in your staff; it helps them develop and bring those skills to bear. From an individual perspective, I found that what Squiggly Careers have allowed me to do is to expand my skills, and the things that I enjoy doing, continue to do them in different environments and continue to stay challenged.  And I always reflect on the story of challenge and the video games analogy.  We've all played these little video games on our phones and these apps, and if it's too easy, you stop doing it, you get bored; if it's too hard, you stop doing it; but if it's just challenging enough, you keep doing it forever and ever. I think, if you can get a career that's continually challenging you, you move on, there's a step, you learn and you think, "Oh my God, I didn't think I'd ever be able to do that.  Look, I'm now doing it really well", I think that's so rewarding and so motivating, and organisations that can tap into that motivation of individuals, I think, will continue to develop the best people to work with them. Helen Tupper: And, in terms of the opportunities that you've had, how many of those opportunities have presented themselves to you, so someone's gone, "Here's a great move for you in this new area"; and how many have you proactively gone out and explored and found for yourself? Jim MacLeod: So, I've always had this view that if you chase a particular job, you're likely to end up disappointed, because if you're chasing a particular point in time, you'll have a view of what that point in time is going to be like, and it might quite not be what you want, or you might not do it.  I've always had this view that I know what I enjoy doing, and therefore I try to find roles and jobs that are going to allow me to do things I enjoy. For me, I enjoy working with people.  Early on in my career, I enjoyed working with technology and engineering.  And I enjoyed making a difference and challenging.  So, what I did, whenever I was talking to my career managers, or looking at roles in the future, I looked at the types of things which would challenge me, the types of things that would play to my strengths, and then make it clear that those were the sorts of things that I wanted to do.  The Navy and the military have been very good in giving me lots of different opportunities, but I very much, I think, made my own luck in explaining to people the things that I enjoy doing are as I discussed with you. The other thing that I found really important was having those conversations with my mentors, and I can't stress enough the importance of chatting with people who've been through the system and mentorship, because they really helped me to understand what I could do in the future.  There's no way you would have seen the 28-year-old Lieutenant MacLeod, who'd just left a warship, and said to him, "You'll be responsible for the Middle East defence policy during the Arab Spring", there's no way I would ever have believed that.  I would have thought, "I couldn't do that, no way can I do that". But what people did that I worked for, they continually stretched me and said, "Have you thought about the following?  Here are some opportunities, we think you'd be good at this".  So, I went along and moved into new jobs with that complete trepidation of, "Oh my God, I'm going to get found out, I don't know what's happening.  I've just left this really comfortable space where everybody trusts me, and I've just moved into something new.  Oh my God, I'm going to get found out". What I learned in my career was just about everybody feels like that and actually, everybody just pretends they don't, which reminds me of my three rules; I've got to tell you about my three rules in a minute.  And, what I learnt as I went through my career was actually, this is normal to feel like this, and even to the point now, when people join and work for me, I say to them, "If after three months, you still don't really feel -- don't worry about it.  If after six months, you still feel like that, maybe we've got a problem and we might need to look at it, but feeling like you're out of your depth at the start is par for the course, and you will very quickly get your feet, move forward and you'll look back and you'll think, 'Oh my God, look what I've done, look what I've achieved'". I mention my three rules, because I think these are really important, and I learnt these as an engineer.  My three rules are, "If something's broken, what was the last thing you did to it, because that's probably what broke it?", and that applies to not just engineering, but any social systems and things like that.  My second rule is, "If I can't explain something to somebody in three minutes so they understand it, I don't understand it well enough", and that includes explaining why we need to do things, why things are happening, and that rule has worked really well for me. My third rule, and probably the most important is, "Nobody really knows what's going on all the time, so just sound confident and crack on", and it works wonders.  So, I learnt those as an engineer, and they've worked wonders for me throughout my career. Helen Tupper: It's a bit like a career masterclass in our Squiggly skills.  So, we have these five skills that we think are most helpful for most people to succeed in a Squiggly Career, whatever success means to people.  The first two are values and strengths, so when you were talking about moving around in your career and you said, "I had a clarity on what I enjoyed and what I was good at", that's values and strengths.  The next one is all around confidence, so I'd love to come back to that a little bit, the fact that you recognise you had imposter syndrome, or what we call "a confidence gremlin", and you found a way to cage it so it didn't hold you back, and I'd love to come back to that, because I think it prevents people from doing some Squiggly moves. Then you talked about the mentors, and our fourth Squiggly skill is around network, so making sure that you have the community around your career.  And then we talk about future and future possibilities, and being open to the directions that you could develop in, and I feel like your career is such a great description of how all those things have come to bear, to take you to where you are now and give you all of that diverse experience along the way. Jim MacLeod: Maybe I could write a book on it, only I think someone's already closed the market on me! Helen Tupper: Jim's view on the Squiggly Career!  I like it, you do it, you could definitely do that.  It could be a compendium to the Squiggly Career! Let's talk about confidence, because imposter syndrome, you mentioned it that it came up with almost every move, and I think for a lot of people, it would prevent them taking the action, because they would say, "This is too challenging [or] I can't do this, because I've not done it before", and it sounds like you acknowledged that you had that fear, but you were able to move through it, and also help other people with it.  Is there anything practically, other than just to fight the fear and do it anyway, is there anything that's practically helped you to move forward when you might have that imposter syndrome in your career? Jim MacLeod: Yeah, I think there is.  I still get it, I manage it much better now.  But what I do is I think about times in my career when I've been successful, particularly times when I've been acknowledged as successful by other people, and at times when I was surprised or pleased by that.  I recall, "I think I can remember that", I can even remember the feeling how it felt when somebody recognised that I'd done well.  And I refer back to that in my head.  I think, "You've been here before, you've done this and it went well". So, I kind of have those moments in my career, clearly people at the start of their career, whenever you look back in life, there are things when you think, "Oh my God, I did that!" and just focusing back on, "Oh my God, I did that!" you can tell by the emotion in my voice, it's an emotional response, it's not an analytical response.  So, that's really important to me. The other thing that I've found is, and I do this in meetings, I walk out of a meeting and I overanalyse myself and I think, "Oh my God, I said something really stupid there".  And rather than ruminating on it and going over and over it in my head, I think, "Well, I probably said ten things, and I probably said six things that were average, and I probably said a few things that people went, 'That's really good', and I probably said one or two things that people thought perhaps wasn't quite right".  But on balance, I'll have walked out of there saying more good than not, so I would have added value, and other people will have discounted the things I said that I thought were bad.  So, I kind of back myself in that I wouldn't be where I am if I didn't generally make the right decisions, so I have the confidence that I probably do the right thing. The other thing that I think is really important is, we rarely ever make a decision that's 180 degrees wrong.  And the worst thing we can do is not make decisions.  So, I think making a decision, but then being prepared to go, "I didn't get that quite right", and having that ability, that humility, particularly the leader; but having that humility to go, "I could have done that a bit better, but we're still moving the right way.  I'll correct what we're doing and move forward". So, I think my three tools are: remember I've been here before and I've succeeded; remember that I wouldn't be here if I didn't generally make the right decisions, so it will be fine; and then on the third piece, I just trust in myself and I'm prepared to say, "That wasn't quite right", and therefore people judge me as being Jim and human and fallible, and therefore I haven't set up a false pretence that I'm going to be right all the time, they feel much more empowered, and as an organisation or as a team, we can move forward.  So, I think those are probably my three tips for how I dealt with that confidence gremlin. Helen Tupper: We often talk about vision boards, you know, when you're thinking about where you want to go in the future, but you can't quite get specific about it, create a vision board and it will give you that sense of direction.  But in our new book, You Coach You, we have a chapter on self-belief, and in there, there's an exercise around creating a pride postcard, so basically writing to yourself about something that you have done well, and bringing in all of that richness.  Because, you know when you said, "You can hear it in my voice", and remembering who you were working with and what you were doing and how it felt like, to ground yourself in that moment, rather than let your gremlin stop you from moving forward.  I think it's a really powerful exercise to do. Jim MacLeod: I think so.  And I think also, I had some very good advice from somebody, maybe two decades ago now, that when that little gremlin -- and I always have an image of it sat on my shoulder going, "Jim, you're an idiot, you can't do that".  And what this individual told me really wisely was to, in my head, take the time to say, "Thank you, Mr Gremlin, I acknowledge your point, but I'm quite happy with where I'm going", but to consciously think that through, and so that I've acknowledged it but moved on and I don't ignore it.  Because, I think if you ignore it, it's always there, and I almost turn my head and say, "Thanks very much for pointing this out, and I acknowledge your point, but I'm quite comfortable, thank you".  I don't know, maybe that's just me, but I find that works. Helen Tupper: It isn't just you.  Susan Kane has written a brilliant book on emotional agility, and she talks about using your doubts as data, and you can't do that unless you acknowledge them like, "What is this voice and what's it saying?  Where's it coming from?"  You have to learn to listen to it; not learn to let it lead you, but learn to listen to it.  I think it is a skill, but some people, you get in denial about it or defensive, or you try to just ignore it, but it's still just sat there.  So, definitely not just you. One of the other things that I see holding people's Squiggly Career opportunities back when they're in an organisation, so limits their opportunity to squiggle and stay, is when they default to thinking that progression must be promotion.  So, "I've got this filter in my mind that the only good way to progress is to get promoted.  I can't see a promotion in this organisation, therefore I have to leave".  What has your experience been in terms of your progression; has every move been upwards, or have they been in different directions, because it's quite hierarchical, I imagine, the Navy? Jim MacLeod: Yeah.  The military is very hierarchical for good reasons.  No, I'd love to say I got promoted out of every rank at the earliest opportunity and have never spent more than one job in every rank, but that's not the case. Helen Tupper: Would you love to say that, or actually do you think your career wouldn't as been as rich? Jim MacLeod: Yeah, I do.  I tell people who are off to command warships, you do that in your 30s, or people in the Army command in their regiments or their squadrons and wings in the Air Force, and I tell them to enjoy it.  Don't rush through this part of your career where you're working really closely with the servicewomen and servicemen who are out there, because our people are absolutely amazing. Whenever I'm in senior leadership now, and I spend a lot of time in the Ministry of Defence, I make sure that I get out and meet our people, because they are awesome and they do the most incredible things, and often in difficult conditions.  You can always catch up later on, but you will never be able to replace that experience.  And I think that plays to your point on Squiggly Careers. I think we attach too much to promotion; for some people, that's probably how they are.  For me, I attach my value system to, "Am I doing a good job?  How do I know I'm doing a good job?  Because people are telling me".  It's my kryptonite, but also one of my strengths, I care about what people think.  And to move from one job to another that's not promotion offers opportunities to do something different, to do something new, to learn skills that you might need later on. I think for Squiggly Careers, that's really important.  You get in that breadth of skills across a range of different areas.  For me, I jumped from engineering, engineering technical support, across into some high-consequence, low-frequency safety stuff, pretty core engineering.  I then found myself working in defence policy, looking at what capability do we need for the future, doing scenario modelling; and then, moved across from there, ended up working with the Army in Iraq with the Americans in Baghdad.  From there, back to sea, and then out into a Middle East policy job, all of which relied on the core skills that I brought to the party which was, I like to understand why we're doing things, what's the problem we're trying to fix.  So, all of those were building on my core skillset, but they were using them in different ways. You can't get much further apart than Middle East politics and high-consequence safety cases.  I mean, they're apples and seesaws.  But the skillsets I used was that questioning of, "What's the problem we're trying to fix?  What are the views of everybody around there?  What's stopping us from getting there?"  But one of the things that I really learned was, everyone will tell you why things can't happen; but if you flip that and say, "Okay, tell me what I need to do to make it happen", and you shift an organisation's thinking and culture. So, the skills that I learnt as an engineer and my three rules, you know, what broke it; why is it not working; can you explain it to me and sound confident, and my skills that I'd learnt in my early part of my career, applied just as well in all those different jobs.  And what they did was gave me huge amounts of breadth that I could then use later on. So, now I'm director level, Rear Admiral, I use those skills that I picked up by working with Middle-Eastern countries and some of the amazing things they taught me, working with the health and safety executives, working with people on ships, from all these different jobs, but they all reinforce the core skillset that is Jim MacLeod, and made me who I am.  So, if I'd have stayed in engineering and bounced through the system, I don't know if I would have even got to be Rear Admiral.  I might have sealed in doubt somewhere, because I just couldn't apply my skills to the breadth of challenges that you get at more senior positions.  I've probably gone completely off-piste there! Helen Tupper: No, not at all.  For us, it's all about that transferability of your talents, rather than thinking how you transfer one title to another, because that gets much more limited.  It does make me think though, one of the things that gets in the way of making some of those braver, more different moves, other than confidence, which we touched on, is maybe a bit of ego like, "Is a sideways move a successful move?" and also maybe a little bit of fear, like comparison, "But my peers seem to be getting promoted, or moving faster forward in their career than I am".  So, how have you unhooked yourself from either ego getting in your way, or that kind of fear of missing out or being slower, that career comparison holding you back? Jim MacLeod: I think that's a really fair question, Helen, because it's very easy, and I could critique myself, to say, "You would say that, wouldn't you, Jim, because you've got to be Rear Admiral".  I think we do tend to view ourselves on how we're doing relative to our peers and that promotion.  I think that's false, and I think we overplay that, because when I look back, I don't look at the points in time when I was promoted, I look at the roles that I did and the impact that I had. So, I don't review my career through a lens of promotion and advancement; I view it through, "I feel like I did a really good job there, I feel like I made a real impact, that things are better because I did that job, regardless of what the rank was.  But you're right, I think it is hard.  And I say this to people in the military, "It's not a rush to the top".  People will get to the point that they're going to get to.  I've met people who've been promoted a bit later, but they are better for it. Helen Tupper: Progression pressure, I think, means that people start to compete and make decisions that aren't necessarily the right decisions for them; whereas, when you take the time to get the insight that you've talked about, like your three rules, if only everybody had their three rules, imagine if everybody had that clarity that you talked about, about, "This is what I do well, let's think about how I can apply it", and then explored and got curious about their career, about where it could take them to. That might not mean there's an opportunity today, but when that opportunity is there, it's much more likely to be a role that you're going to enjoy and have an impact in, and that's what then creates the next one.  So, I think it's a really important thing.  It's not always instant, but it's better because of it. Helen Tupper: I think you're right, and one of the things I missed saying is, do jobs that you think you're going to enjoy, because if you enjoy, you'll do well in it; and if you do well in it, you'll enjoy it.  But you'll also get noticed and you'll move through the system.  I counsel people all the time who come and tell me, "I want to do that job".  You don't, because when we started with that, it might not be the right thing for you.  What is it you're good at, what is it you enjoy?  Back it, go and do more of that.  You'll do well, and if you do well, you'll progress, because opportunities will open for you that you haven't seen before; whereas, if you're tied to this linear, your brain won't see these opportunities, people won't see you for the breadth that you bring, so you self-limit if you do that. Helen Tupper: We talk about how your strengths can be self-fulfilling in a Squiggly Career, like if you work out what gives you energy and what you want to be known for, show up with that as much as possible, and people will match to you with more things that need that thing that you want to be known for, and you get into this very positive Squiggly cycle in your career. Jim MacLeod: I couldn't agree more, and it's that, understand where your strengths are and areas where you're not as strong.  Make sure your areas where you're not as strong aren't going to hold you back, but then don't invest too much time in them, because you're not strong in them, you probably don't enjoy them, you're going to invest time in them, just make sure they don't hold you back.  Put all that energy into things that you really like, because you'll massively increase your potential.  And as you say, people will recognise that, and people will then match you and open opportunities for you that you never even thought. In the Middle East job I keep referring to, I worked for another individual in a job before, and he'd seen what I brought and thought, "Actually, Jim might be quite good in this job.  It's not where we would normally put someone with his skillset, but I've seen how he operates".  So, he brought me in and it was great, but that was about things that I'd done five years before had an impact in the future. I think that's one of the things I've learnt in my career, is things I did 10, 15 years ago, the way I was 10, 15 years ago, still ripples through today.  And things that I did, relationships I built, reputations that I've built, still ripple on.  And I love that phrase, "You are the story people tell about you", and that's really important to me.  I know who I want to be, I know I'm probably not that person, but I do want the stories that people tell about me for me to look at them and go, "Actually, I'd be quite pleased, I'd be quite happy for my children to hear those stories.  Daddy did all right". So, in my Squiggly Career has been -- it's been a Squiggly Career, it's not been a series of lines that are linear, it's not been a series of steps that are not related, it's been a journey through these amazing experiences, working in what I think is the best military in the world, with some of the best people that you could hope to work with, and doing things that matter. Helen Tupper: So, as a final piece of advice to someone that's listening now, I'm imaging that someone's listening going, "Wow, what a fascinating career, and done some amazing things and that's really inspirational.  But I work in an organisation, I want to move around and I want to develop in different directions, but it seems a bit siloed.  I'm not sure, where do I get started?  Do I go build some relationships; do I go reflect on my strengths?"  What would you say to that person who's listening now, inspired by your story, but thinking, "Where do I get started in my organisation?" Jim MacLeod: I can only reflect on my experience, and a couple of things that would jump to mind were, we talked about it, back your strengths and trust yourself.  Do you know what, one of the things that I've said to people that work for me is, when you're in meetings or when you're doing things, imagine you're one or two ranks higher and what would you then do, and do it.  I'm not going to give you the pay for that rank, but do it.  You're unlikely to do anything badly wrong, and you might do something that's really clever that no one thought about. So, some of that is about backing yourself, don't self-limit.  And I can't stress the importance enough of mentoring and spending some time just to find people in the organisation who think like you, and who you can talk to, because they may have opportunities that you are completely unaware of.  When they get to know you, and they go, "Oh, I was chatting with Jim.  He's got some whacky ideas about that.  Maybe I'll stick him in front of the X, see what he's got to say", and all of a sudden a door opens that you never thought was going to open, and somebody says, "We've got this project that we need to run.  Jim, can you have a go at it?" I think those would be the two things: back yourself; and spend some time talking to people. Helen Tupper: I'm a big fan of alliteration, because I think it sticks.  So, my three Ss from that are: make sure your strengths stand out; don't self-limit; and then, get the support that you need.  That is what I'm going to take away from those bits of advice, so thank you very much for that.  And thank you very much for coming on the podcast. I was thinking, what is the story that I will tell about Jim MacLeod; to that last question that you answered, what will I tell to people from my conversation with you?  And I will say someone who is wise, humble, supportive and inspiring.  So, I don't know if they're the stories that you want to hear about yourself, but they're the ones that I will be sharing on your behalf. Jim MacLeod: That's really kind, I'm really touched by that, thank you very much, Helen. Helen Tupper: Well, thank you very much, and good luck with all that's going to happen next and now in your Squiggly Career as well. Jim MacLeod: Yes, I've got a bit squiggle coming up as I look to, where do I go next after my career in the military. Helen Tupper: Big question, brilliant question, can't wait to see!  Thank you very much for your time. Jim MacLeod: Thanks, Helen, speak to you soon. Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for listening to today's podcast.  If you are inspired to explore how you could develop in different directions, have a look at the government's Skills for Life website, where there are loads of free courses and learning.  The link to get there is just gov.uk/skillsforlife, and we'll put it in the show notes as well.  There's so much there, whether you want to learn more about the basics of coding, or about green skills, or tech, there's so much there. They're all run by experts in each area, and lots of them are remote courses too, so you can do them when it works for you, and that's just a benefit for everyone with learning, isn't it?  But thank you very much for listening today, and if you'd like to get in touch, you've got any feedback, it's just helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com, and we always appreciate rating, reviewing, subscribing the podcast, because it helps us to help more people with their Squiggly Career.