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You Coach You Live Special

This week, hear Helen and Sarah hosting a live podcast in London and Manchester!

Together they explore the different topics covered in You Coach You with motivational speaker and podcast host Adrienne Herbert, Sanctus founder James Routledge, leadership expert Drew Povey, and psychologist Lee Chambers.

If you’d like some expert advice on how to invest in your resilience reserves, manage your time and attention, build your self-belief, develop a community around your career and pursue career progression with purpose, this episode is for you.

Enjoyed this episode? Listen to the extended podcast live recordings of You Coach You Live London or You Coach You Live Manchester.

Learn more about self-coaching by reading our article published in Harvard Business Review: How to become your own career coach.

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Episode Transcript

Podcast: You Coach You Live Special

Date: 8 February 2022


Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:02:20: Resilience: Lee Chambers

00:05:15: Time: Adrienne Herbert

00:10:55: Self-belief: James Routledge

00:14:24: Relationships: Adrienne Herbert

00:17:30: Progression: Drew Povey

00:20:22: Purpose: Lee Chambers

00:23:24: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hello and welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I'm Helen Tupper.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah Ellis.

Helen Tupper: And we're the hosts of the podcast, and this week we have a special episode for you.  We're always here every week talking about the ups, downs, ins and outs of Squiggly Careers, but today, you are going to hear our live You Coach You book launch event that we did, where we brought lots of different people, four different people actually, to Manchester and to London, to share with us some of their insight, some of their wisdom, connected to the chapters of our brand-new book.

Sarah Ellis: And so, like all of you listening, I actually wasn't at the London event, because I got COVID the day before our book launched, so that was a stressful week.  I'm absolutely fine now, but it does mean that I missed out on the conversation, which is another good reason for recording them, so that we can share them with everyone, because I'll get the opportunity to hear from Adrienne and James, who we'll introduce as we go through the podcast.  So, I'm really looking forward to hearing from them, because I couldn't be part of it on the evening either. Thank you to everybody who did come along, because we really appreciated having your support there, and it was so nice to see some people in person for the first time in a long time.

Helen Tupper: So, the way that we've structured this is, we have taken each of the chapters of the book, so you've got a chapter on resilience, on time, on self-belief, on relationships, on progression and on purpose, and then we have got a clip of each of our guests talking about their experiences and their insights related to each of those chapters. That does mean that we really weren't able to include the entire conversation, because it would be about a two-hour long podcast!  But what we have done is put some extended edits.  So, there's a London edit and a Manchester edit, which I feel sounds quite cool, Sarah; the London edit and the Manchester edit.

Sarah Ellis: Does it?

Helen Tupper: I don't know, maybe, I don't know!

Sarah Ellis: Or, maybe it's cool for us, I think!

Helen Tupper: Cool for us.  Anyway, if you do want to hear more from Adrienne, more from James, more from Lee, more from Drew, you'll be able to go and listen to those extended edits on our website; we'll put all the links for those in the show notes for you.

Sarah Ellis: So first, you're going to hear me talking to Lee Chambers, who's a psychologist and wellbeing consultant, and he's going to talk about resilience and how he actually lost the ability to walk, and how he found his way through that very knotty moment, not really in his career, but in his life. "It's always worth reminding ourselves, I think, that however shiny someone looks on the surface, I promise you no one has a straight line to success.  Everybody has these knotty moments, everyone has these really tough times, so we're actually going to ask you to tell us some tough stuff as a way to get to know you both.  So, maybe share something that has felt quite knotty for you, Lee, so far in your career; but also, what helped you to be resilient during that time?"

Lee Chambers: "Yeah, so I think a big one for me was losing the ability to walk and at the time, I was running a European video game company, so I was here, there and everywhere, running at 100 miles an hour, and then suddenly I literally stopped.  A big thing for me in that period was, it was very challenging.  I had two young children at the time, and I had to really start to think about the small things. "I had a lot of time to reflect, and I suppose what that really did for me, in a lot of ways, was give me the space to actually see that every step I took on that year to recover was a small win.  The lamppost became like big trophies, and a lot of those elements around resilience, I actually had to find ways to not suppress my emotions, because I did feel some despair, some grief, for losing the ability to walk, but I found ways to express that and I actually realised that resilience was quite creative a way to actually express myself to other people, to talk and to share and to ask for help, which sometimes, as a young man who wanted to take on the world and do everything, it was quite an eye-opening experience that so many people were there to support you. "

As I got back onto my feet, it actually caused me to Squiggle in a big way!  I went back into what I originally studied, and after 12 years of studying and completing a degree, I actually then went back in and started that career.  And sometimes, the resilience from the journey, from the twists and the turns, from the times where you redirect and sidestep actually really offer you a way to stop, to pause and to see where you want to push and progress for the next bit of momentum that you generate.  And for me, obviously that was quite a knotty time. "I suppose, as I undid that knot, I actually found a lot of little lessons and little treasures, things about me that I didn't know, that as I unpicked that knot, I actually started to see that there's probably more I could do, and it really started to help me see how I could take on a different journey, really thinking and taking my kids by my side."

Helen Tupper: So, Lee's story was so inspiring, and I do hope you're going to listen to that extended edit with him in Manchester, because there's so much wisdom that he was sharing with us.  Next, you're going to hear from me talking to Adrienne Herbert.  Adrienne is the host of Power Hour podcast, and also the book, Power Hour, as well, so she felt like a very appropriate person to talk to about time. 

So, this is what she had to say about how we can reclaim time for ourselves. "So, one of the other chapters is around time, and I thought it would be brilliant, as host of the Power Hour podcast and author of the book about Power Hour, who else should we talk to about time, but Adrienne.  So, the reason we put time in the book as a chapter, was because conversations about, 'Feeling like my time is well spent' or, 'How do I find work/life fit?' or, 'Feeling like I'm overwhelmed', we often have people come to us for help in that space. Why do you think it is a challenge for people, and what have you learnt through the conversations that you've had and the work that you do that can help people with their time?"

Adrienne Herbert: "I think time is a resource that I think at the moment, we've never been more time poor.  I think most people, from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until they go to bed, until they go back to sleep, there are so many demands on our time now and our attention, our energy, I think the ability to actually focus on one thing.  I talk about reclaiming your time, and that's the whole concept of the Power Hour.  I say to people, 'Reclaim some of your time before you give all of that time, energy, focus, whatever to everything and everyone else, because there will always be things there to distract you and to pull you away from it'.

"So, it's quite interesting when we think about time and saying, okay, time management or productivity; it's not about cramming every minute of every day, every hour has to be useful or productive or used well, time well spent.  What does that really mean?  When we think about time well spent, or the idea that actually, you can't manage time, you can't get more of it, we can't buy it, we can't get a refund, we can't get more time back; it is a finite resource and just accepting that as well can be quite, I don't know, just think about it in a different way and think, okay, if you're doing something that is fulfilling, using your time in the service of others, it's not always a way of measure; what's the output? "I think that's what we've become quite used to, is measuring our output of how we use our time, how we spend our time in trying to basically squeeze more out of it, which isn't always possible.  So, yeah, I think when it comes to how people can start to think about that and what they can do with that, it's really just doing an honest assessment and looking and saying, 'Okay, what are the things that I spend a lot of time on that I enjoy, that energise me, that give me more energy than they take; and what are things that I feel are a drain on my time, or they're an obligation or a commitment?' "If you do feel like you're time poor, why; where is this being spent? 

So, really assessing it and being quite honest and saying it's not selfish or self-indulgent to reclaim time and say, 'I'm going to spend the first hour', or whatever hour or whatever day, 'doing something for me'.  It is absolutely necessary.  We cannot give all of our time away, and free time has become availability.  Maybe it's just free time that needs to be ring-fenced and kept.  So, I hope that answers the question."

Helen Tupper: "No, it does.  I'm going to come back actually a little bit on Power Hour to just really get into that to make it as actionable as possible for people. "In the book actually, we talk about time trade-offs and trade-ups, that to your point around finite time, you can't just keep adding stuff in.  It's fine to want to achieve stuff, but you have to sometimes make trade-offs in terms of what you're choosing to spend your time on, so that you can focus on the things that are important to you.  They're not necessarily long-term commitments, they're just right here, right now.  You need to make some choices, we've got to make hard choices. "So, maybe just talk to us a little bit about the Power Hour, how people can make that work for them as a concept with their time."

Adrienne Herbert: "Sure.  So, as I mentioned, it's about reclaiming time.  So for me, it is the first hour of the day, because for me, as someone who's an extrovert, someone who's easily distracted, someone who loves to talk, that's the only time in my day when I can actually find solitude, because my son is still asleep and no one's sending me emails or messages, or whatever, so I can use that first hour to do whatever I want.  I can go for a run, I can listen to a podcast, I can stretch, I can write, I can do whatever. 

You could literally make a tea and do nothing.  It seems quite counter of you getting up early to do nothing; but again, if that's something that you need, white space to enjoy, then that's what the Power Hour is in its simplest form, it's take that first hour. "But if people want to think about, again, why should I do it, how to start, it's like, what are the things that you constantly say, 'I don't have time for that.  I wish could read more books, but I don't have time.  I wish I could get into running, I don't have time', or the kids and work and there's all these things and you won't have more time.  We all think that, don't we, 'I'm really full at the moment, but I'll loop back to you next Thursday, there'll be more time', like two months or next year, and that's for so many people, I say in the book, 'Tomorrow stays tomorrow' for so many people. "When the kids are older, when I've got more money, when I've lost more weight, when I have more time; we're kidding ourselves.  So, I really want to -- I use the word 'power', because it's actually quite empowering as well to say, 'I deserve to start my day with something that, for me, is going to fill me up, is going to energise me, is a priority'.  So, anything that's a priority shouldn't be at the bottom of a list.  You've done everything else in the day, the work, the kids, everything and then whatever's left of you, 'If I have time, I'll do that thing'.  Put yourself at the top of your priority list."

Helen Tupper: So, the other guest that joined me when I didn't have Sarah on stage with me in London was James Routledge, and James is the founder of an amazing organisation called Sanctus, which is all about changing the conversation around mental health and giving people the skills to support themselves with their mental health too.  He talked about where he got his self-belief from, so self-belief is one of the chapters in the book.

James is so grounded and he's gone through so much change in his career actually; businesses that have succeeded and also a business that didn't succeed, so this is his insights on where he gets his self-belief from. "James, I just wanted to you a little bit about self-belief, because I look at you and your career, and I see some of the amazing things that you've achieved, like how you scaled Sanctus, the fact that you started a business at university when you were right at that point.  I sense that you've got a high level of self-belief, so I'd love to explore that a little bit, because it may be, 'Actually, Helen…'  So, I sense that you have and I'm just intrigued about where it comes from, how do you not have limiting beliefs that hold you back?"

James Routledge: "As soon as you said the word, I started thinking about my mum and dad, thinking about the privilege I've had, I suppose, in just being told from an early age that I can do anything I want.  I think I've always felt like that really, not that I've ever done everything I've ever wanted, but I've always felt capable, I think, which I feel really lucky to say. "But other than that, I think it's a bit of a knife edge, because on the other side of a high amount of self-belief, there's also a high amount of doubt at times, like I can still be a really harsh critic of myself, I can set myself really high standards, or be really, really hard on myself. 

So, I think I've had a great privilege to be given a massive platform to go on and try stuff and take risks.  I've got a weird relationship with risk really, I'm happy to give anything a go really, I don't really mind failing. "My first business at uni, for example, yeah, it was great to give it a go, but it was a failure, it was a flat-out failure in terms of a business, but I just kind of followed my instincts with it really.  And I feel really lucky to say that.  I think that is a real privilege to say that.  But I have always just felt like I could and why not give it a go, and if it doesn't work, then what's the worst that can happen, which is a sentence I often say to myself in my head."

Helen Tupper: "Okay, that's quite interesting actually, about that sentence and that mantra.  We often talk about this duality between your inner critic and your inner coach, and what we really want to do is turn down the volume on the inner critic and turn up the volume on the inner coach.  That's why, in the book, there's 100 coach-yourself questions that, in the moment that your inner critic starts to turn the volume up, you can ask yourself a coach-yourself question to turn the volume up on the inner coach. "So, you said there, for example, when maybe the doubt might show up, that inner critic pops out, you will say, 'What's the worst that can happen in that situation?'"

James Routledge: "Yeah, and I think what I've learnt to do, though, is also value the inner critic and really listen to that voice rather than reject it, because I think it's really easy to -- maybe there's a part of you that's scared, you're about to make a new career move or change jobs or apply for a new job or start a business, and there'll be part of you that's anxious and scared.  I think I used to try and really cut that side of me off and wouldn't talk about my emotions.  I wouldn't be vulnerable, I wouldn't share how I felt, and then I think over time, I've learnt to bring that part of me in and find spaces where that part of me, that small, scared, tired little boy, give him room to talk, and that can then resolve and you can feel more confident and able to move forward."

Helen Tupper: And now, we're going to hear back from Adrienne one more time about the community she has built around her career, because relationships is one of the things we talk about and focus on in You Coach You, and she's got a great community that we can all learn from how she's developed that. "How consciously have you built that community around your career?"

Adrienne Herbert: "That's a great question, because I definitely don't think at the start that it was a conscious choice.  Probably now, on reflection, I know how important it is and it's interesting when you mentioned about your parents, and I guess that feeling of them instilling in you that you could do anything and try anything and then being happy to fail.  Because, I think mine was really the opposite of that actually, and just thinking I definitely felt as a young child quite independent, but in a way that was, well actually, there's no one really to do it except you. "Also, we mentioned as well around doubt and self-doubt, and sometimes I think, is your doubt self-doubt, or is it someone else's doubt within you?' for example, a teacher or a parent. 

No seriously, because it can be that you're like, actually that person may have doubted you and not think that you can necessarily achieve, and again we're going right in there, but back at school, I don't think any of my teachers probably thought that I could read a book, let alone write a book.  And for me and my siblings, there just wasn't this expectation of us to achieve anything, and we all have, we're all high achievers. "It's interesting that that idea of self-doubt, sometimes it's other people's doubt and you can go, 'Actually, you've underestimated me', and that can be quite motivating.  We can have a bit of a chip on our shoulder maybe and think, 'I'm going to show you'; but actually, I think it can be, regardless of whether it's a good or a bad, you know, instead of an optimist, it can really channel that. "So, the question about network is that, maybe because I didn't necessarily have that, I've always really, really valued friendships.  I've always valued -- as I said, I'm an extrovert, I value conversation, I ask a lot of questions, I'm curious.  So, it's probably partly my personality anyway. 

But I think having other people, creating my own family, creating my own network of friends or people I can, I guess, lean on for support, or people who I can ask for advice, or people who I can champion them and lift them up and say, 'You know what, you're fantastic, you should go for that!' "I'm the ultimate encourager, I will be the one to tell you, 'You should do it, you should start a business, you should start writing a book, you're fantastic, you should go for it', and so in turn, people get that energy and then they're like, 'Actually, Adrienne, you're right, I can do it and you're great!' and I'm like, 'I know!'  It's this idea of hyping each other up to the point where that network becomes so powerful that you're like, 'I can introduce you to that person, I know this person, I'm going to email them now', and you become like a connector. "So, yeah, building your own network is really powerful, and if you don't have one or you don't feel like you have a career coach or people in your support, you can go out and find those people and create it later on."

Sarah Ellis: And so, now you're going to hear Helen talk to Drew Povey.  Some of you might know Drew if you watched Educating Manchester, and Drew talks a bit about progression and how he has developed in so many different directions in his career, and how he made choices and thought about his Squiggle and where his Squiggle could take him. Then, we go into talking to both Drew and Lee about purpose, about what purpose means to them in their career, and how they really have connected all the dots together to have a career, and to spend their time doing work that feels really purposeful and meaningful for them.

Helen Tupper: "What has connected those different careers that you've gone through?"

Drew Povey: "It's a really good question, one of which it was only when we've been talking about, I've probably reflected on it.  Loads of different careers.  To me, it doesn't seem like that, so it might do: head teacher, teacher, working in sport, doing a lot of leadership coaching, keynote speaking, helping shape organisational culture, loads of different things; and some weird ones.  I was a doorman!"

Helen Tupper: "I didn't know that!"

Drew Povey: "I know, yeah.  I think how a lot of it came about was, we've all seen the graph, haven't we, and I love the Squiggly term as well, because you've got performance over time, success is not linear.  It's ridiculous.  One of the things I really disagreed with in schools about ten years ago was these flightpaths of progression for kids.  Who learns like that?  Life's not like that, is it?  It's not linear. "I think it was the fact that I always wanted to help people develop.  That's why I got into coaching very, very early, sports coaching, way before education, and then started to work in elite sport.  It's about helping those athletes develop, and then it went into teaching, because at the end of it I thought, 'Well, I need a backup for sport' and I ended up becoming -- my degree was in PE, Sports Science, Theology, Philosophy and RE, all rolled into one, which is good for being a rugby playing monk, or whatever."

Helen Tupper: "Unique!"

Drew Povey: "Unique, yeah.  Only me in the world that's got a degree like that.  So, I ended up becoming an RE teacher.  And again, for me, it didn't seem bazaar.  I'm doing sport, I was helping people develop, I'll be a teacher and that will be helping people develop.  And then I'll write some leadership stuff, because I think that will help people develop, and I'll coach people, because that will help people develop, and I'll do some keynotes, because that… "So for me, it seemed to make sense.  It was only when you were looking at me going, 'What exactly the hell do you do, man?' when we've had our conversation, I was going, 'Well, it just makes sense to me'.  So, I think that's probably what I'd say.  It makes sense to me, but it was all by accident, not design.  Things just seemed to feel right, because of this skillset that I thought I had at the time."

Helen Tupper: "And, almost it's become very purposeful for you now to do different things that can help people develop?"

Drew Povey: "Yeah, everything's about that.  So, our business is not run commercially in that there has to be a commercial side.  We don't choose our work based on that.  We work with the police, we work with Greater Manchester Cancer, The Christie, I'm on with them Thursday.  We do work in elite sport and I'm working at the Welsh Rugby Union tomorrow, Hull KR Rugby League team, working in football. "But we choose the work based on impact.  Can we help those people develop?  We do it, regardless of the money.  If we can't help them develop, then we'll probably not do that, because it's not in our skillset, and I know where that is and where it's not."

Sarah Ellis: "So, Lee, just continuing on with purpose and the final chapter in the book is all about purpose, what does that mean for you?  When you're thinking about having a purposeful career or having a meaningful career, or whatever word really works for you, what does that mean for you; what's your starting point?"

Lee Chambers: "Well, the starting point is never going to someone on Instagram who says, 'I'll help you find your purpose!' because we all know deep down that we kind of uncover it little by little, chiselling away, gradually starting to get a little bit more of a vision of what we are underneath the skin.  And the starting point for me was always to reflect back on the journey that I'd been on, to look at the things that I enjoyed, and drill a bit deeper into why.  But then, also to flip that, the things I didn't enjoy in the workplace, the people I didn't enjoy working with, and really starting to dig a little bit deeper into why I didn't enjoy that scenario, why I didn't enjoy working in that position, why I didn't enjoy that atmosphere.

"What I gradually found by asking myself those questions, it really started to become more clear.  There was an underlying thread across all the different careers that I'd had, whether I was working in corporate finance, elite sport, local government video games, psychology; there was always an underlying thread, very similar to Drew's.  I got a lot of fulfilment from empowering and enabling others to do more than they were currently doing. "For me, starting to see that, no matter what business I was running, no matter what job I was in, it was always that that pushed me on to be happy and fulfilled in the work that I was doing.  And that didn't mean that I'd go to work bouncing and skipping in every morning.  I like to pretend that I do that now. 

Some mornings, I'm peeling myself up, my kids have been running riot during the night.  But more than ever, that purpose is gradually digging down to find those roots, the roots of you that have started to spread, all the different skills on those roots. "But you don't live as a tree on your own, you're in a forest.  There's lots of other people's roots under there as well.  They cross, you collaborate with more people than you generally believe, and your purpose can also be found through those collaborations with other people, as they will often have a vision of you that you don't always have of yourself. "Just one thing that I suggest everyone do, once you've started to master some of the skills in You Coach You, you can then take it a step further and start supervising yourself as you coach yourself, and go into the third person and start to write your own scripts, like you were writing the Coronation Street scripts; because sometimes, seeing yourself in third person, you actually start to see your purpose flowing as you navigate the world, almost like you're an actor in a soap opera."

Helen Tupper: So, we really hope you have got a bit of a feel for what those events were like, and you've been inspired by some of the conversations that we had with people.  We thought it was really important to try and bring to life some of those things that we address in the book, and hope that that has done that for you.

If you do want to hear more, so as we said, you can get the extended edits, you can get the links to those in the show notes and they'll be on our website, amazingif.com.  Of course, if you want some support with any of those areas, that is what the book is there for.  Each of the chapters have lots of ideas for actions, lots of coach-yourself questions.  You Coach You is a book designed to help you support yourself, so that you can overcome challenges that are inevitable in our Squiggly Careers, and take control, as much as you can, when it might feel like quite a lot is changing around you.  We know that coaching is one of the ways that you can take back a bit of control over your career.

Sarah Ellis: So, as always, we really appreciate you all listening and spending your precious time with us.  We hope you found the episode useful, and we'll be back again next week.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.

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