Laura Allen Podcast Transcript

Melody Moore [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the Secret Resume podcast. I’m Melody Moore, consultant, coach and all round curious human being. I’ve spent over 20 years helping leaders unlock potential their own, their teams and their organisations. On this podcast we dive into our guests messy magical lives to hear the stories that don’t make it onto their resume or, or their LinkedIn profile, but shape who they really are at work and in life. Before we dive in, I want to tell you about something that I’m really excited about, which is our being free membership. We’re developing an online community which is designed for people who are interested in personal growth. If you’re navigating career transitions, maybe feeling stuck or burnt out or simply seeking more meaning in your life, then this is for you. Membership gives you access to a range of resources, a supportive community and monthly group coaching calls.

Melody Moore [00:01:00]:
It will allow you to explore what freedom means to you on your own terms. Head to www.liberareconsulting.co.uk being free to join the waitlist. My guest today is Laura Allen. Laura, welcome to the Secret Resume and could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Laura Allen [00:01:25]:
Yeah. Hello. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here. I love having these kinds of conversations. So my name is Laura Allen and I am an operations and people partner. So what does that mean? I work with small businesses teaming up with small business owners specifically to help them in the areas of operations and people, AKA hr. And you know, that part of what I do is really built off of years of being in HR, being head of HR, shared services for FTSE 100 and more recently being a business coaching consultant.

Laura Allen [00:02:03]:
And I went down that path and what I realised was the people that I was attracted to and were attracted to working with me were really looking for operational support, how to streamline their business and make it more efficient so they could feel less stressed and how to build high performing teams, manage people and get all those processes in place that need to be there. So yeah, that’s that, that’s the basics of me and I’m based in London.

Melody Moore [00:02:30]:
And when you’re doing those things, are you working with the small businesses in groups? Are you working with them on a one to one basis? What’s your business model?

Laura Allen [00:02:42]:
Yeah, so it’s all one to one and it’s basically now a fractional model, which is really exciting. So for anyone that doesn’t know what that means is that I will go in and spend time within their, their businesses, whether it’s a few hours a week, whether it’s days a week on a fractional basis. So they get 100% of my brain power and expertise but at a fraction of the cost because I’m only in there for a fraction of the time just to deliver on what it is that they need at that point in time. So yeah, I, I would love to do more group kind of stuff and I think there is, there’s scope in the future to as an intro to me and how I can help people but everything I do is kind of one to one of a special spoke to that business owner and their business.

Melody Moore [00:03:25]:
I only recently, well maybe in the last year or so come across this term of fractional. I think it’s a really interesting model and I think I’ve known people who’ve been doing it and maybe not called it fractional before. Is that an American? Is that where it’s come from?

Laura Allen [00:03:41]:
Yeah. So fractional is really big over in the States it is popular Here you’ll hear of fractional CFO, sacrifactional CMOs and people going in. And I’m actually creating a fractional agency that is I will get on to like the next part of my, my business and life. But I’m hopefully starting the process of putting together a fractional agency to help fractional C suite talent to connect with startups and small businesses because I think that’s just where the future of work is going.

Melody Moore [00:04:13]:
So I want to be on it. How does it work? Does somebody have you for a set day a week? Do they have certain number of hours a week? How does. I’m not, I can’t imagine how it works.

Laura Allen [00:04:26]:
Yeah, so it really depends on their need. So for some people it might just be one day a week. So you go in and you just work with them one day a week and in the fractional role you’re not in the doing as such. It’s more strategic support and it’s done on a deliverables basis. So it could be a couple of hours, it could be two, three days a week for a six month period to help that startup get from point A to point B. So it’s yeah, very dependent. I mean my, my work is a bit of a blend of still coaching and consulting. So sometimes I’m just having calls with people just to help coach them through an issue.

Laura Allen [00:05:02]:
Sometimes we are doing more consulting and I’m advising on solutions and helping them, you know, draw up paperwork or processes etc. But the fractional model its is usually just strategy and on a deliverables basis. So I’m a Bit of a. I’m a bit of a hybrid. I’m a bit of a mismatch at the moment as it all kind of builds out, which I love. I like the flexibility to say, what do you need? Let’s build the package and the service that you need, as opposed to me just saying it’s one thing or not.

Melody Moore [00:05:32]:
I like that. But it’s usually for a fixed term, then it’s for a specific thing that they’re needing support with.

Laura Allen [00:05:40]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve got clients now that have got me a monthly retainer, so we just have a call every month. We catch up, we work out where they’re at, what they’re struggling with, and I’ll offer guidance and support and send them on their way. But, yeah, it’s. It’s normally fractional is for a period.

Melody Moore [00:05:57]:
Well, I’ve learned something today.

Laura Allen [00:06:00]:
Watch this space. You’ll start seeing me posting about it on LinkedIn.

Melody Moore [00:06:03]:
Yeah, I think it’s really interesting and I totally think it’s the direction we’re going. So I think it’s really. That’s why I was really keen to have you. As soon as you said that’s what you did, I said, oh, you must come on the podcast, because it’s just really for me to let. No, it’s. I think people are keen to understand how these things work. So, yeah, yeah, fantastic. Right, let’s take a leap back in time, shall we, and talk about the beginning of your career.

Melody Moore [00:06:31]:
So the start of your HR career and there was someone you worked with who was quite. Quite influential in that. Do you want to talk a bit about that?

Laura Allen [00:06:39]:
Yeah. Amazing. So I guess I need to go back a little bit further just to. To give the context around that. So I Left school at 16, as people do, went to college for eight weeks. Hated it, really struggled, dropped out and I went to work full time at Boots. The chemist. That’s where I was, was my Saturday job.

Laura Allen [00:06:58]:
They took me on full time and I did eight years at Boots and did everything within a store and became an assistant store manager and then I became a trainer for them in. In London. And it was at that point I thought, right, what is this that I’m loving? It’s learning and development. It’s people, it’s training, it’s hr. So I went and did my CIPD level three, which is sort of the entry level of qualification, because I didn’t even have A levels or anything, because I didn’t go to college or uni, so I had to do the level Three, which was great. And then I said, right, it’s time to quit retail and go into hr. Now, I’d spent eight years building my way up to a certain position within Boots to then have to take a pay cut and also to take a position drop to go into my HR career. Now when I interviewed for that role at my previous company, which was a footsie 100, I, the guy that interviewed me, his name was Andy and we got on really well straight away and he actually used to work for Boots as well in their head office.

Laura Allen [00:07:55]:
So he was like, oh yeah, cool, I understand, like where you’ve come from, etc. Now, although I had a bit of admin experience, I didn’t have the level of admin experience that they were looking for to become a HR system. And we had the interview and I said, look, I understand what you’re looking for. I’m a fast learner, I’m ready to pull up my sleeves, get like, get stuck in. And the HR manager, a female, actually said she didn’t want to hire me. She said she hasn’t got the level of experience we’re looking for. And he fought for me and said, she’s exactly what we need. Like you, you don’t understand what it’s like to work in retail.

Laura Allen [00:08:33]:
Like if she’s been working. My last store before I went to HR was Piccadilly Circus in London. And if you’ve ever been to London, you that’s just that it is a circus, right? And I was in that store. So I know I had a team. At one point it was 200 people. So you’re asking me to go from managing 200 people to HR administration? Like, I was confident that with the right training I could do what they were asking me to do. And he saw that in me and he sort of said, I can teach her the skills. It’s, it’s the attitude that I can’t teach her and she, I don’t need to because she’s got it.

Laura Allen [00:09:06]:
So he fought really hard for me and that’s. That that got me into that role and I was so grateful for that. And so he was my, my team leader, he was my direct line manager and he trained me everything I knew about HR and employee relations and nature, administration. But he was so much more than that for me. He became a friend and he became a someone I could confined in, someone that understood me more than I understood myself at that point. So context again, undiagnosed autism. Didn’t find that out until early, just last year. So in my 20s, around that time I was very ambitious, very hard working.

Laura Allen [00:09:51]:
I was, had this dream of being a HR director. I put everything, every ounce of my energy into my career, into progressing and to doing what needed to be done. I was extremely hard on myself and that used to show up in my emotions. I used to. Because I had such high perfectionist tendencies, I became like so wound up all the time with things and my work never, my work never suffered as in my work was immaculate but it was at the detriment to me, my emotions, how I feel and I would be quite emotional and stuff like that. And he became, you know, he’d pull me into a room, be like, are you okay today? Like take a breath, chill out, we’re good, you know, you’re fine. And I remember one year my pdr, he, he made some comment like, you don’t need to give 100% all the time. If you gave me 70% of your capabilities, I would still be dead chuffed and giving you like a top mark, whatever it was a four.

Laura Allen [00:10:49]:
And I was like, but the way my brain worked was why would I give you 70%? I’m here to give you 100% and I’m going to give you 100%. And 70% just isn’t, doesn’t exist in my world. So he was just really good at helping me to go easier on myself. He recognised what I was doing when I didn’t. Alongside that whole period of time, I was in a really toxic relationship with a guy who was verbally abusive. I found out he had a secret drug addiction, he had a secret child that I knew nothing about. We, we lived together and all of this came out as well. And so you can imagine little young me who’s quite independent and a bit of a go getter finding out all of stuff was going on around me as well, was, was really, really, really difficult.

Laura Allen [00:11:37]:
So yeah, Andy was just so much more than just a boss and someone who was teaching me how to do the job. He was holding space for me at a time when I honestly hated men and thought, you know, every man in the world could get in the bin. And he was showing me this compassion in this way that actually not every guy is like that. And he, he’d said that to me. He was like, look, not every guy is going to be like this. I promise you, I promise you. And I was like, no, you’re all horrible. So he was just, and he’s still to this day, I mean, I left that career, I left that role, sorry, that company Back in 2023, me and him still speak regularly.

Laura Allen [00:12:12]:
He’s more of like a mentor to me now in the HR space. Now I’m out operating on my own. I will always have him and to, to bounce off of them stuff. So, yeah, he was, he. He helped me in a time when I didn’t realise that I needed help.

Melody Moore [00:12:28]:
How was it to go from running a really big team, earning a certain amount of money, having a certain. To earning less, I’m guessing, having less status.

Laura Allen [00:12:40]:
Yeah.

Melody Moore [00:12:40]:
How did that feel emotionally?

Laura Allen [00:12:43]:
So I think that was part of the reason I became so determined and sort of like wound up to, to, to, to perform, because I had spent eight years getting to that point and then I went straight down to the bottom of the HR coordinator. And like I say, I was, I was entry level. Nobody knew who I was. I was learning the ropes for the first time, having to rebuild those reputation, those relationships in the organisation and, and I really believe that relationships are important. People need to know who you are and how you can help them if you’re in hr. So it was hard, it was really difficult, but I, I did it, I took the sacrifice because I saw what the gain could be for it. But I think that’s why I was always working so hard, because I was like, I need to get back up that ladder, I need to get back up that ladder. Like, I need people to know me for what I was at that level because to everyone else I was, and I put this in quotation marks, just a HR coordinator.

Laura Allen [00:13:34]:
But in Boots I was something much higher than that. So, yeah, weird, weird feeling.

Melody Moore [00:13:40]:
You said you could see the gain. I guess I’m curious as to what that game was, but also why hr? What was it that drew you to hr?

Laura Allen [00:13:51]:
So the gain was that I could see a really clear career progression, go into HR administration, learn, er, become HR advisor, HR Business Partner Director. For me, it’s about impact. So I started working full time at Boots, as I said, when I was 16. And the thing for me was people. I love working with customers. I loved, like, taking on complex stuff, helping people leave a store really happy, whether I was in the pharmacy dispensing the medication, whether I was managing Mother To Tell or as a photo consultant for a period of time. That was, that was fun. But I loved helping people.

Laura Allen [00:14:26]:
I loved becoming a manager at Boots and developing teams, bringing in new people. So for me, I thought, well, if I go into hr, I can have more impact, I can help more people. So that was always my driving, my driving force. Yeah. And I could see that. Right, there’s a really clear path here. And I don’t have to work weekends anymore.

Melody Moore [00:14:48]:
I’m sure that would be very attractive now.

Laura Allen [00:14:52]:
I work every day.

Melody Moore [00:14:55]:
Yeah, that’s the myth of owning your own business. Isn’t it supposed to be more flexible? You just end up working more.

Laura Allen [00:15:01]:
Exactly.

Melody Moore [00:15:02]:
So let’s move on then to. So 2019. You had a more challenging period at work. Are you happy to talk about that?

Laura Allen [00:15:12]:
Yeah. So. So 2016 was when I started and I rapidly progressed in that business. I spoke very openly about my career ambitions, got promoted, got put onto lots of projects and I was in charge of the HR system workday. So big, big global HRS system that the business implemented when I joined and I project managed that. I, because I worked so hard, became a very helpful person. I became an expert in that space. I was the only one that knew what I knew.

Laura Allen [00:15:44]:
I basically made myself indispensable, which obviously sometimes is a gift and a curse. I. Working with that HR system meant that I worked really closely with a group, with a team in group, which was like the more head office I was. UK they were. And an opportunity came up to go work in their team and basically do what I’d done in the uk, but to help them push out this system globally but also be responsible for the uk. Because I said to them, I don’t want to leave the UK behind, like, there’s still so much work to be done. They said, yes, amazing. We want.

Laura Allen [00:16:17]:
You offered me a 20k pay rise and I was what, in my late 20s at the time? 27, 28. And I was like, that’s, that’s huge, that’s insane. And my finance director in the UK blocked it and the MD blocked it and basically said, we’re not going to let you go because we know we’ve got some stuff coming up over the hill next year and we need you in the role that you’re in to help us deliver. They basically had a big acquisition that they knew was coming over the hill and it absolutely broke me because I was working so hard to progress in my career and do the things I wanted to do and working so hard for this company, making sure everything I did was to the highest of standards and then to be told that no, you can’t move and by the way, we’re actually going to hold, prevent you from taking a 20,000 pound salary increase. I just broke and I had severe burnout. I started having panic attacks in the office and yeah, I ended up going and having A lot of therapy. And I remember one day specifically I was due to go to a therapy session at half past five, it was five o’ clock. And I got a note from this direct, this finance director, to say, I need these reports on my desk by tomorrow morning.

Laura Allen [00:17:32]:
And usually I would have just stayed late to do that. And then I was like, I’ve got my therapy appointment. Do I go, do I not go to therapy? What do I do? And that’s when, like, the breath has started getting out of control. And I just walked up my desk, went into the corner of the room, started completely hyperventilating in an office full of people, but no one could see what was happening because I just went and like, face the corner of the room for a moment and I just said to myself, laura, this is the exact reason you need to go to therapy. So I just shut my laptop down and I went to that session and I turned up at this guy’s door just in floods of tears. And he was like, whoa, okay, come on in, let’s see what’s going on and what I discovered through this process with him, this therapist, his name was Dr. Z. On the first session, he said to me, you’ve got two choices here.

Laura Allen [00:18:18]:
I can sit and listen to you cry for the next six weeks, how many sessions we’ve got, or I can help you learn the tools that you need to start managing yourself better because you’re a perfectionist and you’re working 100 miles an hour the entire time that you’re awake and it’s not okay and you’ve burnt out. So which would you prefer? And I was like, okay, give me the tools.

Melody Moore [00:18:43]:
Did you say that? Can I do a bit of crying too?

Laura Allen [00:18:46]:
Yeah, I was just like, just let me get these couple of tears out. But I, I, I’d had to talk therapy. Like I had a, I had, I have a history of poor mental health. I first got diagnosed with depression when I was 16. Again, undiagnosed autumn ism. Who, who knew that the whole college school to college transition was going to spin me out. This is all stuff that I’m now learning. Now that’s making a lot of sense.

Laura Allen [00:19:07]:
But I’d had talk therapy before and, and, and I didn’t think at that time talk therapy is what I wanted. What I needed was tools. So this guy taught me to again, like my manager had been saying for years and years and years, like, chill out, to work out what actually is a priority. You know, don’t have to give 100 to everything that you do take. Take your foot off the accelerator a little bit and. And go from there. And so just that. And then the one day he told me, he was like, right, you need to listen to this.

Laura Allen [00:19:39]:
Perfection doesn’t exist. My brain. I just want you to like a picture, like a. Like things moving around in a brain, like, trying to make that fit. And my brain was like, no, that doesn’t fit. Perfection’s a thing. What are you saying? He had to dismantle my belief system. And I cannot.

Laura Allen [00:19:59]:
That’s the one thing in my whole entire life I cannot explain. The feeling of having someone say something to me that I. I believed in so deeply to my core that I had to let go of. It was bizarre. Whereas now I’m like, meh, that’s all right. That’s about 60 off it pops. I’ve had to learn to embrace. I’ve had to learn to embrace imperfection.

Laura Allen [00:20:21]:
And especially being a solopreneur running my business, you can’t wait for perfection at all. So, you know, of course, there are certain things that we’re talking, like contracts going out and stuff like that. That’s got to be 100. But there are so many things in my life now that I’ll just let go. Lesser standard, which is still probably a really high standard to other people, but to me, it’s not my 100%.

Melody Moore [00:20:45]:
And how does that feel?

Laura Allen [00:20:46]:
Does.

Melody Moore [00:20:47]:
Do you still, like. Do you have to fight yourself to let it go, or have you got to a point where actually it doesn’t bother you as much?

Laura Allen [00:20:56]:
So there are definitely moments where I think I, like, I’ll procrastinate because I want something to be perfect. I’m like, oh, I’m just not going to start doing it. Like, for example, this week I needed to record a vsl, a video sales letter. And I could have done it three months ago and I didn’t because I was like, I want it to be perfect. I want to get a studio, I want to have the right mics, I want to have all of this stuff. Like, it didn’t need to be that way. And eventually I was like, I’ll just go and go and do it. So, yes, there are still areas that I recognise and I need to pull myself out of it, but it’s easier than it was.

Laura Allen [00:21:30]:
And I find that energetically, things don’t drain me the way that they used to.

Melody Moore [00:21:35]:
And what were the certain techniques he taught you? What. What was. What was the most helpful in helping you let go of that perfectionism?

Laura Allen [00:21:45]:
So one of the things that he sort of did, he drew like a. An axes, right? And he sort of bottom left hand corner. He was like, this is you when you wake up in the morning. And he kind of just drew his pen and went straight up to the top of the bar. He said, this is you as soon as you’re awake. And then he just went across the top to the right. He’s like, this is you the whole time you’re awake. And then he shot it back down again to the bottom.

Laura Allen [00:22:07]:
When I went to sleep, he said, you don’t have any kind of like ebbs and flows and like downtime. He said, you wake up, you go straight to the gym as soon as your eyes are open. You train really hard, you go to the work, you go to gym, you come home, you do something, then you go to bed. He’s like, that’s not sustainable. You need to find those moments of. Of rest and relaxation and stuff like that. Which I thought was that specifically was really helpful just to see that visually and go, yeah, you are right. That is from the minute I wake up at six o’ clock in the morning to when I go to bed at 10, I’m on all the time.

Laura Allen [00:22:41]:
So that was helpful. And then there was the. I think it’s called the Eisenhower matrix, where you kind of look at something that needs to be important and actioned now, or it’s important and can be delayed, or something that’s not important and can be delegated. So just having that tool to go, right, this is the task. Does it need to be done now or can I push that back? And I think that’s why I’m now quite an organised. Well, I was organised before, but now I’m quite good at just sort of saying, yeah, that is important, but that’s not going to be due until next Thursday when I’ve got that client call, so I’ll put some time in on Wednesday to do it that doesn’t need to be done today. So I drop that out of my mind.

Melody Moore [00:23:20]:
So there’s something about prioritisation that’s. Yeah, it’s still important, but it’s a not for now.

Laura Allen [00:23:27]:
Yeah. And I think most people struggle with prioritisation, especially if they’ve got busy work going on. And most people, I like to utilise my calendar, for example, and time block things. And I know that I’ve got to build a presentation for a corporate workshop in a couple of weeks. So next week I’m like, right, where have I got gap three hours. That’s Going to be solid. Focus time on that and becoming protective of that time. Like someone says, oh, you free? Nope, I need to get that done.

Laura Allen [00:23:51]:
Otherwise the panicky side of me will kick in because I haven’t done it.

Melody Moore [00:23:58]:
Yeah, I’m the same. I’m a big planner. I always have put time in. You know, I worked in a big, very busy consultancy, and if you didn’t plan and book that time in, then somebody would take it and then you’d have no time to do anything. So, yeah, I’ve always been and still am. Even though nobody can take my time now, no one can look in my diary. I still block, block out time to do things because I think it’s. It’s the only way for me to get things done.

Melody Moore [00:24:26]:
It kind of makes me do it as well.

Laura Allen [00:24:28]:
Yeah, definitely. It’s the best way.

Melody Moore [00:24:31]:
So what, as a result of the panic attacks and things, what happened? Did they subside? Did you start to feel better? The therapy helped by the sounds of things.

Laura Allen [00:24:44]:
Yeah. So this was happening in kind of the September, October time of 2019. I actually had a holiday at that time. I went to Dubai. My best friend had just moved out six months prior. So I was going out to see her. And this is how I knew that I wasn’t okay, because I was. I met.

Laura Allen [00:25:00]:
Meeting her at this restaurant and sitting down for dinner. And I just cried for like three hours over dinner in the most beautiful place in Dubai. And every time the waitress came over, I was just sat there crying my eyes out. And I was like, I’m not okay. And so the therapy, that little break, gave me a bit of a circuit break. But that’s. That wasn’t enough. It was time.

Laura Allen [00:25:21]:
It was therapy. It was learning how to better control myself. And then that took me into kind of the start of 2020, and. And by the February time, I was like, okay, I know I’m not happy here. This whole situation with them cutting me off, this promotion to go to this other thing, it’s not cool. I’m not happy with it, and I don’t want to stick around for this anymore. So this is going to be the year that I need to change my career. And then Covid started, and I was like, I’m gonna sit where I am for a minute.

Laura Allen [00:25:53]:
And at that exact time, my new manager, lovely lady, got furloughed because her daughter was taken really poorly around that time, and she wasn’t going to come back to work. And that’s when they said to me, do you want to manage the HR Shared services. And I was like, nope, they want to. Don’t make me do it. And then. And I remember it was the. Who became my boss in the end, the finance, financial controller. He said to me, it’ll be really great opportunity for you to, like, manage people.

Laura Allen [00:26:26]:
And I went, let me just stop you right there. I took my first team when I was 16. I said, I had 200 people under me at Boots. I don’t need to do this. And he was like, oh, I know, but it’d be really great experience for you, you know, and. And he’s. He, Adam was the nicest guy. And it sending in a puppy with little puppy dog eyes, like, please, can you do it? And I couldn’t say no.

Laura Allen [00:26:51]:
And so I ended up taking over the shared service centre during COVID So, yeah.

Melody Moore [00:26:59]:
We always used to joke in my old workplace that if someone came to you and said, oh, it’s a development opportunity for you, it was literally they were just trying to get something off their plate. And it was like the standard line for trying to persuade someone to do something that they didn’t want to do.

Laura Allen [00:27:15]:
100. No one wanted to do it. And. And I was the right person to do it. I know I was the right person to do it. That was the team that I came into, I became. When I came in as a HR coordinator, I knew everything about that department. I built the HR system that that department was using and was running on like there was no one better to do it than me.

Laura Allen [00:27:35]:
But yeah, I went in kicking and screaming, that’s for sure.

Melody Moore [00:27:38]:
Why did you not want to do it?

Laura Allen [00:27:40]:
Just because I wanted out. I wanted out. Like, I’d had this situation happen to me and I was like, no. I went out of here like, I don’t want you sucking me in. I need to find out what’s this next thing to happen like. So I was. I was really keen to get out, but especially as I knew that they were going to ask me to do that and not give me any more money for it. And they didn’t until like six, seven months down the line.

Laura Allen [00:28:00]:
Their whole thing was about, you’ve got to prove that you can do the job. And then when you prove that you can do the job, we’ll give you the money. Like that really toxic way of managing things. And yeah, so I knew I was like, great, I’m about to get lumbered with all of this stuff for no extra money when I don’t actually want to be here anymore. The only thing that I was excited about with the fact was they basically said that the whole department is a bit broken. Previous managers in there haven’t done the best job. Team are struggling. Every process needs to be ripped out and rebuilt.

Laura Allen [00:28:33]:
And we want it to be slicker. We want it to be more data driven. We want everything to be automated. So that’s what I did. I went in and I worked out exactly how many hours a week the team was spending on certain tasks. And I did my best to automate as much as possible so they could free up their time to actually deal with the queries that were coming in from. From the thing. And they got me on that because they know that’s the sort of thing that I love.

Laura Allen [00:28:56]:
I’m a. I’m a process person. So I was like, all right, cool. I’m just gonna smash this up and rebuild it how I think it should be. And that’s what I did for the three years. Or. Yeah, three years before. Before I ended up leaving.

Melody Moore [00:29:09]:
And you were doing that during COVID then. How was that? Trying to do a big transformation when everybody’s presumably working at home?

Laura Allen [00:29:18]:
Yeah, well, they furloughed most of the team as well, so. So because they did a big hiring freeze and they. And they furloughed a lot of the frontline colleagues until we became okay. And key workers, they needed to go back out and service because the company goes in and services public places and everything was shut down. Pubs, restaurants, and all of that. So a lot of people got furloughed. I was pulled in to help support the payments on that, which were difficult because the government kept changing their mind every five minutes. So I don’t know how you’re supposed to calculate stuff, but I found that super interesting.

Laura Allen [00:29:49]:
And then the team was changing as well. I had HR administrators leave. I had to hire new ones in, which, again, was interesting, because we were in that working from home phase. And had I have hired someone, been in the office, they would have sat next to me and had trained them as we went. But it was. It was. To be honest, this might sound a bit crazy to some people, but it was some of the best years. It was the best years I had.

Laura Allen [00:30:10]:
I got to work from home. I got to just crack on and do things. It was really interesting work, and I pretty much got left alone to do it. It was like, how you getting on, doing great, cool off, off you go. Taking on the team was interesting. I had a. I had a dream team. I’m not going to lie.

Laura Allen [00:30:27]:
They were just awesome. They. They trusted me. They believed in me. We had a really good rapport across the team. I could trust them and we just got through it.

Melody Moore [00:30:41]:
So do you regret. Well, I guess let me ask this different way. If the fact that you enjoyed it, you got a lot from it, does that make. Take the sting out of the fact that they wouldn’t let you go off and take that other role?

Laura Allen [00:30:58]:
So that particular director moved on. Funny enough, he went to the place. He went up to the place where I thought I was going to be going. So kind of like, oh, I’m glad I didn’t go there. So I kind of had to just let that go and just accepted that it was covered job stability, but I ended up just enjoying it anyway. So did it take the sting out? No. I think I’ll never forgive for what that was because I think it was a really a hole move from him and the. The managing director.

Laura Allen [00:31:30]:
It was a selfish one. And then when that time came and that acquisition came across and, and it was all out in the open about what they wanted me to do, I was like, well, this makes sense. Like, I get it, but I don’t think people should be able to have that level of control over people’s careers. It’s not. It’s not cool. And I always used to say to my team, like, I may not be able to give you the development opportunities that you want in house, but I’ll do everything I can to train you to the point where you can leave me and go and do it elsewhere. Because you need to own your career and if the opportunity isn’t here, then you need to just crack on.

Melody Moore [00:32:09]:
So during that period, you also had a really difficult time in your personal life as well.

Laura Allen [00:32:17]:
Yes, yes. So. So that was all. So March Covert happened or started, and that was when, you know, they were like, oh, can you manage the shared services? Etc. At the same time, my mum was starting to experience lots of problems with her stomach, feeling unwell, dealing with constipation, being sick. She went to the doctors and hospital nine times, basically got told, take lactulose. You’ve got anxiety because it’s covered, don’t worry about it. Kept getting pushed back.

Laura Allen [00:32:51]:
And my mom was a hypochondriac, like she was, and we used to take the piss out of her because I was like, oh, what are you popping a pill for now? Like, oh. Like, she, she did like her pills and she did, if, if any. If I said, oh, I’m struggling, oh, I’ve got this pain, she’d, like, go to the doctors and so when she was saying this to us, we were a bit like, oh, okay, you okay? And then. But it wasn’t right, she wasn’t okay. And then on the last time, she went to the hospital and said, look, I’m not okay. And the time before that, they’d gone in, they’d done bloods, they’d done everything and said, no, you’ve got something slow, but we’ll give you some of this stuff, and sent basically a drip and send you on your way. And the final time she went in, she complained about having a bad back and a pain around the back of her back. And the army doctor at the time said, okay, like putting all these dots together, we need to send you for a CT scan.

Laura Allen [00:33:44]:
And this was in the June of 2020. And they basically said, you’ve got pancreatic cancer. And that was it. So she was given a year, give or take a few months, and she lasted four months. So she passed away in the October 2020. And so it’s interesting because as I said a minute ago, and you rightly pointed out, those were some of the best years in my career. That’s when I did some of my best work and the company got some of the best results out of me. Like, nobody other than my team and my boss would have known that I was going through all of that in my personal life.

Laura Allen [00:34:22]:
And I think I just almost threw myself into that work. Like between the hours of. Whenever it was half eight and five, I had to work. My mum was in and out of hospitals and hospices. Sometimes I could see her, sometimes I couldn’t because of COVID restrictions. There was nothing that I could physically do other than just work. So I got my head down and it worked. When it came to her passing away, we kind of knew that she was going to come to that moment.

Laura Allen [00:34:48]:
She went into the hospice for end of life care. And I basically sent a massive email to everyone at work, like a handover and that’s it. And then I logged off and I was with her for the last five days now, but I’ll be fine. Yeah, the last five days. And she passed away with. With us all by her side, which is what she wanted. She wanted us there. So that was my dad, me, my brother and my sister.

Laura Allen [00:35:21]:
And yeah, that was 2020. So it was a lot. We were very lucky. We were very lucky that it happened between two lockdowns because there were lots of people who lost loved ones during that period that couldn’t be with them. And I cannot imagine, like having to say goodbye to my mum through a window. I just, I think I would have, I think I would have smashed windows and broken doors down to get there, to be honest, because I regretted that the day that she came back from the hospital to tell us, like, yeah, I’ve got cancer and this is what they’ve said. Couldn’t even hug her. I was on the other side of a very large room and to see your mum tell you that she’s gonna die and you can’t, you can’t even hug her.

Laura Allen [00:36:08]:
Like, it’s super. So, yeah, there was a, there was a lot for that and I just. That for me was the biggest wake up call. I was 28 at the time. My mum died at 61. And I remember just sitting there thinking, if I’ve only got half of my life left or like, if I’ve got another 28 years, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be doing this. Sat working for a company who has wronged me quite seriously in the past, doing something that I, deep down, no, isn’t my forever job.

Laura Allen [00:36:47]:
It’s not, it’s not. Not just what I’m capable of. So much more than this. And I want to live my life for me. And I feel very trapped and restricted in what it is that I’m doing. So since my mum passed away, my entire life has changed. Like, I have changed everything from my career, like, moving, outlook on life, travelling, and I will get onto that in a second. But it was the worst thing that could have ever happened.

Laura Allen [00:37:14]:
But it also was the biggest blessing for me because I chose to take action off the back of it. I chose to say, right, what can I, what can I do from this situation?

Melody Moore [00:37:27]:
I’m so sorry, that’s hard to talk about.

Laura Allen [00:37:31]:
I wasn’t expecting to cry. You know, I can talk about these things quite factually normally, but I think, you know, recalling all of that is, yes, it’s difficult. And we just had Mother’s Day, you know, just the other day and every year it kind of, I’m getting better with it and stuff. And I, and I, I used to avoid social media a lot on Mother’s Day. Now I’m okay with it. And I’ve got friends that are all having babies, so it’s important that I check in with them and see how they’re doing on that day. But I think under I, I feel quite quiet and drained on that day because I think there’s just this underlying feeling of like, okay, like there’s no there’s no Mother’s Day for me anymore, but I imagine she’s up there drinking tea and eating cake with her mom. My grand.

Laura Allen [00:38:19]:
God knows they love their cake.

Melody Moore [00:38:25]:
And you. Yeah, you said it kind of gave you that kick up the ass too.

Laura Allen [00:38:30]:
Yeah.

Melody Moore [00:38:30]:
You know, go and do something different. And you went travelling. Yeah.

Laura Allen [00:38:35]:
Yes, yes, that’s it. So I was like, oh, my goodness me. So I started working when I was 16. I’d never done a gap year, didn’t go to university, had I’d done a couple of holidays and things. I’d gone to Cyprus and Spain. I’d never travelled, I’d never. I never had an interest in it because I was like, career, career, career, career, career. And I thought, I need to go and do something for me.

Laura Allen [00:38:57]:
And so I requested a sabbatical and that got granted. So I took two months off in the October of 2021 and me and my friend went to Costa Rica. So we flew out, we were going to do Borneo. That was where I wanted to go originally, but it was still closed because it was covered. And we flew to Costa Rica and we just spent six weeks with a little car travelling around the country and we did everything that we could whilst we were there and it was incredible. And it was the first time I was, you know, travelling, spending time in different cultures, learning about different things, so. And what happened was I was seeing people at the beach in little beach cafes, tapping away on their laptops, closing their laptops, walking outside, picking up a surfboard, jumping in the sea and surfing. And I was like, what, what is going on? They’re working out here.

Laura Allen [00:39:53]:
Like, how are they managing that? I wonder what their jobs are. How is it working? I’d never been exposed, really to note being a nomad or the ability to work remotely. It wasn’t really a thing at that point, or it was, but not as well known. And my career had always been in employment, working in retail and working in corporate. So no one in my family did that kind of work. No one in my social circles did that work. It was either trades or corporate or retail. So it just opened my eyes to this whole other possibility and, and way of working.

Laura Allen [00:40:26]:
And I thought, I want me a piece of that pie. Basically, I was like, what are you doing? And how can I do that? So that, that was really amazing that, that like, shattered limiting beliefs because I had this belief that I would only ever be able to work either in HR or at least in a 9 to 5 behind a desk. Like, that’s what I thought Where. Where I was. So when I came back from that trip, I was like, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? And I was asking the universe and I was like, please, like, give me a sign. What. How can I change my career? I didn’t realise there was career coaches out there. I didn’t realise that there was a process that you could follow to really identify what that next move is.

Laura Allen [00:41:12]:
And I was just walking about four months in later, I was walking across the kitchen in my flat and the word coaching just came into my head and I was. It was like. It was a. Like an intuitive thing, like, dropped in and I was like, oh, that’s. That’s interesting. And I parked it and carried on with my day. And then I sat down after work and I was like, coaching. I was like, well, that makes sense.

Laura Allen [00:41:35]:
Like helping people with something. Like, my whole career has been around developing, growing teams, training and development, coaching people throughout their journey. That’s what I do in hr, it’s what I did in boots. Like, coaching could be a really interesting route and actually I could do that remotely from a laptop. And that’s when I started like, like Instagramming, like remote coaches and just got my eyes absolutely open to the world of life coaching and all of these other amazing careers that I didn’t know existed because I wasn’t looking amazing.

Melody Moore [00:42:08]:
I’m quite jealous about that too. They gave you two months sabbatical. Seems quite, quite nice. So when you went back, though, you were. You went back into the same place you were working whilst you figured out what to do next?

Laura Allen [00:42:23]:
Yeah, so I. So what I did, I basically on that trip, I decided, right, I want to work four days a week, I need to start scaling back what I’m doing to get some head space, to get some. Yeah, to kind of work this out. And. And my sister at this point was really struggling. She was really struggling with her mental health and she’s got two young boys, so. So I was living on my own throughout Covid. I was single, have my own place.

Laura Allen [00:42:47]:
And so I. I had space to grieve and I had time to grieve. She didn’t because she had her young family to look after all the time. And that started to play catch up with her a little bit later. And so I came back from my sabbatical and I said to them, I want to drop Fridays and work four days a week. And my boss at the time said, absolutely fine. He said, I thought you were going to quit, so if you just want to Drop a day, like, cool, let’s do it. Like, they were really happy for me to do that.

Laura Allen [00:43:13]:
So that then gave me the headspace to think about what it was that I wanted to do. And I was able to spend a bit more time with my sister and, and my family. And then basically what happened when I realised I wanted to do coaching was I ended up signing up to a coaching course and having that day off gave me the ability to retrain and study. I had some courses on Saturday, some of them Fridays, and so I just had more bandwidth to be able to go, right, what do I need to study for what, what skills do I need to learn?

Melody Moore [00:43:43]:
I’m curious as well. You were talking about, you know, it changed, you know, your limiting beliefs. Where do you think that sense of that real career focus and that perfectionism, that’s a really kind of strong drive. Where do you think that has come from?

Laura Allen [00:44:02]:
My dad.

Melody Moore [00:44:04]:
That was a great answer.

Laura Allen [00:44:06]:
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s always similar to. For a lot of people. So my, my, my mum always worked part time because she sort of helped raise the three kids sort of thing. My dad had a. He was a civil engineer. He used to night vision goggles for the RAF. He had a stable 9 to 5 that he was in that company for 39 years before he got married. Redundant when he was like in his 50s.

Laura Allen [00:44:32]:
So I had always been around someone and was told, you get a stable job and you stick in it and you do what you need to do and you provide and you pay. You know, you, you get a good salary, you get a pension. Pensions are important. He used to drum that one in. Pension, pension, pension. So that’s what I did. I went to work at 16 and because I think I had a much earlier start than everyone I know, everyone went to college and then university and started their careers much later than I did. I just started from a lot younger age and I got the praise from my parents of, oh, well done, you’ve got a job.

Laura Allen [00:45:08]:
And I actually moved out when I was 21 because me and my dad just butted head. Was so similar and I hate to admit that, but we’re so similar. And I moved out when I was 21, so I grew up really quickly compared to a lot of people. So, yeah, it was just in my head that, you know, stable job, it’s important. Can’t work for yourself. That’s a no, no. Like all the instability of it all and I didn’t know any different and I’d never questioned any different.

Melody Moore [00:45:37]:
There Were no role models of entrepreneurs, people doing their own business in your family?

Laura Allen [00:45:44]:
Nothing, Absolutely nothing. And as well, I think like from a, from an earnings perspective as well. Like my dad was always like, oh, I’m not after lots of money, I just want to be able to provide for the family sort of thing. And I remember surpassing his highest earnings when I was in my mid-20s or late 20s and he was really shocked by it. He was like, oh, you’re, you’re earning more than I was when I was full time sort of thing. And so I was constantly like trying to do the right thing but also then breaking the rules a little bit by going a bit higher, being a bit more ambitious. And I remember when I was going through those difficult times in my HR career and getting quite emotional and upset about the fact that I’d gone for this promotion and had been taken away from me and I remember him, oh so clearly just being like, you don’t need to do all of that, just stick in the role and just, just coast like you don’t need. I tried being a manager and I hated it.

Laura Allen [00:46:36]:
Like, don’t worry about it, don’t, don’t, don’t be ambitious, don’t, don’t try and push yourself. You don’t need to, you just need to have to pay bills and go on a holiday. Yeah, that’s it. And so that was what I was being fed, so that’s what I took in.

Melody Moore [00:46:51]:
And how is he reacting now? You’ve decided to work for yourself and leave behind that stability. Is he anxious?

Laura Allen [00:47:00]:
So I didn’t tell him. So when I, I didn’t tell him. So I left there in 2020, the summer of 2023. I didn’t tell him, I don’t think until at some point last year because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to hear it, I didn’t need to hear it. Like, I’m a sensible person. I knew what the lecture was going to be like, how are you going to pay for your mortgage? What’s happening with your pension? How are you going to survive? I wanted to go and just do it and then be able to say, hey, look, look what I did. So that’s what I did. And now he, you know, he’s really pleased and proud.

Laura Allen [00:47:37]:
He doesn’t ask too many questions to be honest. He’s a, he’s a 70 year old man that just hasn’t really got the interest. But he will say, how’s it going? Are you okay? And I’m like, yeah, everything’s good. So, yeah. But yeah, I didn’t tell him. I remember my. My sister, like, nearly with it drop once on like a Sunday dinner and I just, like, shot her look across the table. And thankfully my dad wasn’t paying attention because I was like, I just, just.

Laura Allen [00:47:59]:
I just don’t need the negativity. I don’t need the. Someone questioning my. My autonomy, basically.

Melody Moore [00:48:09]:
So the last person on your list is your boyfriend Ryan, who you met in 2024, is that right?

Laura Allen [00:48:19]:
Yep, 2024. Y.

Melody Moore [00:48:22]:
So you met him and your autism diagnosis, they’re kind of all bunched together in our final point here, but they’re related. Y. About that.

Laura Allen [00:48:33]:
Yeah. So. So I mentioned earlier that I’d had a really awful, toxic relationship in my early 20s and the one before that was awful. I’d been cheated on by that guy as well. And so I’d never had a loving relationship where I was treated as an equal. I’d never had someone look to me and be. And be proud and show me off or, you know, understand my career as well, because I always used to date, like, tradesmen, which is fine, nothing wrong with that. But like, when I was in a corporate career dating someone who was a gas engineer, he never quite understood what I did or how it worked, etc.

Laura Allen [00:49:09]:
So Ryan and I met on LinkedIn, which, by the way, is not a dating site. There was nothing. Let me just caveat that there is nothing unprofessional that happened via that platform. But I randomly saw him one day posting about stuff and I was like, oh, who’s this guy? And I started looking at all of his work and I was like, this guy is doing something that I’m really passionate about. And I wish I’d pushed for, like. I remember doing my mental health first day training back in 2027. No, 2017. And coming back into the company being like, mental health’s gonna be huge.

Laura Allen [00:49:42]:
We need to do all of this stuff. And it just wasn’t a priority for them. And I wish I’d pushed and pushed and pushed that, and I didn’t because I had my own. My own health issues going on. And anyway, so we. We met. I messaged him on LinkedIn. I was like, love what you’re doing.

Laura Allen [00:49:56]:
If you’re ever about in London, we should grab coffee. We’d love to hear more about what you’re doing. He gets these messages all the time. Bless him. And so he kind of just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like fobbed it off kind of thing. And then he released a Book. And so he had his book launch at the start of January and I couldn’t go to the in person one, but I went to the online book launch. And after that call, on that Zoom call, I sent him a message on LinkedIn to say thanks for inviting me.

Laura Allen [00:50:25]:
He’d sent me a message on Instagram saying, thanks for coming. And then by the time we moved to Instagram, it was a bit more of, like, friendly conversation, a bit more chatter. We realised that we both love the same, like, bands and music and DJs and stuff. And then he gave me the classic, oh, I don’t really like, use, like Instagram and I get notifications. Do you want to move us to WhatsApp? Like, smooth transition there. Smooth, smooth ride. We carried on the conversation and it was really great. And he was actually going to speak at a conference a couple of weeks later in Athens and he said to me, like, really casually, I’ll.

Laura Allen [00:51:02]:
I’m going to do this conference on the Thursday and then spend the weekend in Athens and fly home on the Sunday. He was like, you should, you should come. And I sat there and I thought, no, I couldn’t do that. No, could I? Should I go to Athens? Have I got anything on that weekend? And. And that was it. And I booked my flights and booked an Airbnb and I went to Athens and that was our first date. So we, we met. I knew we’d get on.

Laura Allen [00:51:27]:
It was that whole thing that my friends were like, oh, my goodness, I can’t believe you’re doing that. What if you don’t like him? I thought, I know enough about him to know that we’ll get on and we’ll have a nice weekend, regardless of whether, whether we hit it off romantically or not. It’s going to be fine. And that was that. That was, that was February 2024 and we’ve not left each other’s side since. And yeah, we’re moving in together in a couple of weeks. So. Ryan is a very special individual.

Laura Allen [00:51:55]:
He is amazing. If you don’t, if you’ve never heard of him, go and check out. Yeah, his, his LinkedIn, see what he does.

Melody Moore [00:52:02]:
What’s his last name? We haven’t mentioned that.

Laura Allen [00:52:04]:
So. Yeah, so sorry. Ryan Hopkins, author, speaker. And he is very open about his own challenges and history with mental health. He had bulimia, he works for a mental health startup and he’s also neurodivergent. So he knew that he had adhd, he knew that he had dyslexia and dyspraxia. And he went for an autism diagnosis and he was diagnosed with autism. So when we first met, he said to me, he was like, are you autistic? And I said, I don’t think so.

Laura Allen [00:52:49]:
He was like, he was like, I think you are. I was like, I think you are. I was like, I was like, who are you calling autistic? And yeah, he went for this diagnosis and he said to me, he was like, why don’t you, why don’t you go for one? And I was like, are you serious? Like, do you think I am? He was like, yeah, I think there’s some things that you might learn about yourself is that at the end of the day, like, it’s up to you what you do with the information. It doesn’t have to change who you are or what you do. You don’t have to tell anyone, but you can learn. So with my relationship, and this is why I picked this one, I had never felt so comfortable around another human being as I did Brian. I could just fully be myself and relax. And yeah, there was all these.

Laura Allen [00:53:35]:
It’s really hard to explain, but it’s like there are certain things that I do and habits and behaviours that I have that only really come around when I’m with Ryan and I feel super relaxed. And so we went for this. I have the diagnosis. And the guy was like, yeah, he was like, we don’t say the words high functioning because that’s not a thing, but you are on the high functioning end of autism. You have learned how to mask how to be, how to, how to, how to say the right things, do the right things. He said, but yes, you are on the spectrum. And suddenly I was like, oh, that makes sense. So in my, in my WhatsApp group with my friends, who I’ve known most of them, if not all of them since I was about 15, I was like, oh, guys, so I’m not this kind of shell collecting, frog loving weirdo, Apparently I have autism.

Laura Allen [00:54:26]:
And they all just replied and were like, like, oh, that’s good. Like really glad that you, you’ve got that clarity. And I put back, none of you seem surprised by this. And they were like, we’re not. Like, we’ve always known, we’ve always known like that you’re, that you’re different from us and that you have different behaviours, different mannerisms, different like you, you handle situations differently. We didn’t know it was autism, but we’ve always known. So we’re just really pleased that you’ve, you’ve got that clarity. And if you need anything, think us from us to be different, then just let us know.

Laura Allen [00:54:58]:
So I was like, oh, okay. And then I went to my family and I said, hey, family, I’ve. Apparently I’ve got autism. And they all went, yeah, that makes sense. I was like, oh, my God, everyone knows this but me. And, yeah, so it’s been a journey. It’s been a real journey over the last six months, specifically recalling certain situations in my career, in my life, understanding certain things. Like, I’m not very good with touch.

Laura Allen [00:55:29]:
I get very upset and angry and funny when, you know, soft touch is not something I enjoy. Ryan will hate me saying this, but, like, I hate sharing a duvet. Like, I will not share a duvet. I have to be able to have my own duvet and wrap myself up like a burrito for me to relax and sleep. Otherwise, I can’t sleep. Noises, lights, all of these things that I just thought were just normal or me being difficult. Turns out it’s a part of my autism, so. And then from a career perspective, I remember, like, really key things.

Laura Allen [00:56:04]:
I used to be really bad at butting in and not knowing when it was my time to talk and saying things that are a bit too blunt or, you know, that people like, I’ve always had empathy, and I’ve always had emotional intelligence, but there has definitely been times when I’ve said things I probably shouldn’t have said. And I remember very clearly when I was in my early HR career, I used to keep. Like, when someone was talking to me, I’d constantly interject. And this. This lady was just like, you need to stop doing that. That’s really bad. It’s really rude. And my whole brain was like, okay, that’s not how we do this.

Laura Allen [00:56:41]:
And then I. I learned to. To communicate. And so all these situations, dropping out of college, not being able to deal with that, having that depressive episode when I was in my. When I was in my teens, having the breakdown after that situation happened at work, which, by the way, I think anyone, regardless of, like, being neurodivergent or not, would have. Would have struggled with all of these moments in my life, suddenly go, oh, that’s why I deal with things the way that I do, and that’s why my brain does the things that it does. So, yeah, a lot on. Pick from that one.

Laura Allen [00:57:19]:
That’s.

Melody Moore [00:57:19]:
It changed having the diagnosis. What has changed, if anything? Have you changed how you do things?

Laura Allen [00:57:29]:
I wouldn’t say that I’ve changed anything that I do. I just have A bit more self compassion for myself. And it means that Ryan and I, I know the things that he struggles with and he knows the things that I struggle with and we understand why. We say we’ve got a very spicy relationship. You know, I know that he is not very good with change of plans and uncertainty and he needs to know, he knows that I’m not great with certain things like the, the touch and stuff like that. So it’s, it’s, it’s learning what works and realising that one another, like, I’m genuinely not being difficult. I’m. This is something I’m struggling with and I actually had a very interesting situation that only happened like two weeks ago when we were on holiday.

Laura Allen [00:58:18]:
It’s the first time in a long, long time that I’ve got to this point. So we were walking back to our room after dinner and it was the first night that we’d got to this island that we were staying on and we were walking down the road and Ryan said, oh, let’s go down the beach. He says, you know, I haven’t walked across the beach yet now. It was dark, couldn’t see anything and there was a load of wind that was coming off the water and I was like, no, let’s not go that way, let’s just go the roadway. And he’s like. And he gets into that headspace of, no, this is the plan, this is the plan. Off we go. So he starts walking towards there and I didn’t want to cause a scene and go off on my own, so I said, so I went with him.

Laura Allen [00:58:53]:
But every, every fibre in my being didn’t want to do it because I knew, like my logical brain was saying, this is a stupid thing. It’s going to take ages to walk that way. It’s really windy, it’s pitch black, you can’t see where you’re going, all of this. So we’re walking and I, by the time we got to our room, my entire body was filled with rage and upset and emotion and it was like so intense that I was, was hysterically crying and he was like, what is going on? And I now call it a tism attack. But this was like a situation where like a full body didn’t want to do something and someone made me do it and I could not regulate myself after that. You know, we had to sit outside for ages and try and calm back down again. And I was, I was so angry at myself because that’s how I get. I was like, why have I.

Laura Allen [00:59:44]:
Why is this such a Big deal. And I didn’t die. Oh, no. We walked across the beach at night. I didn’t die. Like, what was the problem? But that’s. That’s those moments where I’m like, this isn’t. For some people, that wouldn’t have been an issue, but for me and internally it was an issue.

Laura Allen [01:00:00]:
So, yeah, and I was so angry. I was like, oh, I haven’t felt. I’ve not had one of these moments in, like, four years. And I didn’t even know what they were until now. I can kind of go, oh, this is clearly like my brain and how it. How it operates. So, yeah, we’re learning. We’re learning.

Laura Allen [01:00:16]:
He needed, in that moment when I said, I don’t think this is a good idea to stop and listen to me and. And work. Find a way of working together.

Melody Moore [01:00:25]:
And I guess the. The beautiful thing about you both having autism is that it gives you that empathy for each other because you’re. You’re maybe able to recognise it or, you know, that you. That, you know, you might not. It might not manifest itself in the same way for both of you, but you. You kind of understand.

Laura Allen [01:00:47]:
Yeah.

Melody Moore [01:00:48]:
Much better than someone who doesn’t have autism.

Laura Allen [01:00:51]:
Yeah, definitely. And his is different as well, because he’s got the ADHD side of it, so he’s already hd. We. We walked across Spain and Portugal last year. We did the Camino.

Melody Moore [01:01:01]:
Oh, lovely.

Laura Allen [01:01:02]:
It was amazing. So Ryan had done the French fruit himself before, and the way that his brain works is if there’s a plan and a goal, that’s it. There’s no deviating from that plan. He needs to make it to that. To that end goal. So he pushes himself and his body through a lot because he. He doesn’t believe in giving up. That’s how he works.

Laura Allen [01:01:23]:
Going on this walk with me and I was struggling physically, I had a lot of pain in my hip. I wasn’t doing so great on the walk. He had to become more compassionate. He had to take into account me and my needs, which was something was really good for him because he was like, you know, ordinarily he’d have just kept walking and just got it done quicker or. Or whatever, or wouldn’t have made certain stops or wouldn’t have diverted, but because that was something that I needed in that moment, it forced him to put someone else in front of himself, which he said he’d never had to do before. So that was a massive lesson for him that he was really grateful for. Because. Because I said to him I was like, well, if you’re going to date me for the rest of your life then you need to be prepared that I’m not going to walk that fast and I’m not going to go that as fast as you are.

Laura Allen [01:02:08]:
So you got to slow down, honey.

Melody Moore [01:02:11]:
I love that. So let’s move on to. You’ve already talked a little bit about the fact you left. You’ve set up working for yourself. What is next for you?

Laura Allen [01:02:23]:
Yeah. So know I’m absolutely loving what I’m doing at the moment working with these small business owners. I, the way I say it is I’m like, I’m giving you the big corporate experience in your small, your small business. I’ve got a lot of knowledge and skills in this area that I’m very passionate about passing on. So the operations and people partner fractional role is going to continue. For now, what I would like to do is create a fractional agency. As I mentioned at the start of the, the call, I think, think I know I’ve got it within me to be a CEO of a business that was kind of when I started my HR career was to become a finance director, a HR director. So I do see my longer term vision of creating a company rather than it being me.

Laura Allen [01:03:06]:
But for now I want to get involved with more companies, different types. I mean my clients now are so broad. I’ve got a load of ex military, like veterans in the defence space and then I’ve got a lady that owns an E commerce business that sells fertility products. So I’ve got like two really different. Yeah, I’ve got loads. I’ve got. My client range at the moment is so diverse and that’s what I love. It’s being able to give these skills to different people and different businesses at different stages.

Laura Allen [01:03:37]:
It’s interesting for me and I think it’s, it’s great for them to be able to get the stuff that they probably never thought that they could even afford or really understood why they needed.

Melody Moore [01:03:49]:
How do you help people understand what they need when they don’t know they need it? Because that’s my experience with small businesses, with startups, you know, even quite big startups, they like the fluid kind of everybody pitching in, kind of chaos. But as you become bigger, as your organisation grows, you have to bring in some process and some structure. But people don’t, don’t they resist it? How do you help convince them?

Laura Allen [01:04:20]:
Yeah, absolutely. So funny enough, I was just having a conversation with a head of, a fractional head of people today about this. So the Processes and the, the structure, the bit that a lot of people try and avoid and don’t think is important is something you really should put in from the beginning. And it’s there to protect the business, it’s there to protect employees. Simple things like policies, SOPs, having job descriptions. Like as an employee, you want a job description because if more and more stuff gets getting putting on your plate and you’re not seeing any additional renumeration for it, how are you going to have a conversation and say what you’re giving me is outside the scope of my role, therefore I should be, you know, remunerated. And from a line manager point of view or an organisational point of view, you, how can you hold people accountable to their role and performance, manage people properly, if you don’t even have it laid out what their role actually is? So I always say to people that, yes, these me may feel like pointless tasks to you now, but in six months time, if you start having issues, you’re going to be so grateful that you have got these basics in place. Yeah, sops like said that you can train people up quickly, especially in startups and small businesses, you haven’t really got time to put loads of energy into training people.

Laura Allen [01:05:40]:
You need to say, here’s the manual, here’s the stuff you’re going to be responsible for, go through, read it, come back to me and tell me if you don’t understand anything and then let’s go. That’s just the reality of it. You don’t get the luxury of like six months of training someone. So by having these processes in place, you can do that speed, which ultimately is the goal. So I tried to highlight the pain that they’re going to face if they don’t do it. But older me, they said a decision, at the end of the day they can choose not to do it. But I’m like, don’t come back to me when it all hits the fan, do not come back to me because I’m not going to work that up. And then they ring me up and I’m like, all right, come and then I’ll fix it.

Melody Moore [01:06:20]:
And how would you envisage an agency? I know that’s a fairly recent kind of brainchild of yours to, to build an agency, but how would you see that working?

Laura Allen [01:06:31]:
Okay, so I see it as a marketplace. So it’s going to be a site where I will list fractional C suite talent and, and it’ll be like everyone will have a profile. You can go and you can see who they are. What they’ve done, what they’re really known for, if there’s certain sectors that they’re. They work in, understand more about their previous clients, projects they’ve worked on. And that platform will be where startups and stuff can go to actually, you know, shop, basically shop for those people that will allow them to then connect, book a call and then go through their process, which usually involves kind of a bit of a discovery going in and identifying what the business actually needs support with. So say a HR person, oh, you’re trying to grow, like what, what are you missing at the moment that you need to help you grow? And then they would agree what that contract looks like. And my dream is to have all of that payments and everything run through US contracts.

Laura Allen [01:07:25]:
So to take away the admin for the fractional person so they can just get straight in and start delivering the good stuff because that’s what it’s all about. And this idea for me is it’s twofold, it’s. I really want to champion the rights of people who choose to exit corporate who have all of this wealth of knowledge and experience but want to work differently, want to work autonomously, want to have that freedom. I want to champion that for them and give them the space that they can still, still work and give that stuff. And then I’m really passionate about giving small businesses the big business experience because I’ve seen the power of me going in from a footsie 100 to a small business and then just being blown away by all of the stuff that I’ve told them, which to me is like I could just say in my sleep and the impact that that’s then had on their organisation and their teams. So yeah, it’s kind of, I’m seeing it from both sides and really wanting to create this space.

Melody Moore [01:08:24]:
That’s one of the things I say about my business is they get the global consultancy experience but for half the price.

Laura Allen [01:08:32]:
Yeah, amazing.

Melody Moore [01:08:34]:
Yeah, I think it’s, I think you’re right. Just because a business is small doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have access to really excellent advice. What about any books that you’d recommend? Are you a big reader? Other than Ryan’s book obviously you’d Recommend.

Laura Allen [01:08:51]:
Yeah. So 52 weeks of well being a no nonsense guide is Ryan’s book which actually funny. It’s a laughing, it’s a running joke that I’ve actually only read two, two thirds of it now, three quarters of it. I hear him talk about it all the time. Okay guys, like I, I know the Book Inside out so I’m not a massive reader I have gone through points in my life where I’ve read the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss actually changed that was, that was one of the big things that I was like oh my goodness me, I can do something different and this makes so much sense and it really inspired me at the start when I was thinking about changing my career There was a book that I read called the Road Less Travelled by I think it’s Scott Peak I remember that being having quite a big influence on me and oh my goodness me it’s gonna go out of my head There was a book it’s got a horse on the front and it’s gonna annoy me that I can’t remember what it is it was the first time I ever learned about the voice inside my head head so it talked about the roommate that you have inside your head that voice that’s constantly narrating everything you do all day every day I, I was with the protect with the perfectionism I was really self critical and I had this voice in my head that was always put me down telling me to do better constantly it would bring up things from the past that happened six years ago and be like oh you remember when you did that? Oh that was awful that was cringy and I learned about this thing the NID the negative internal dialogue that I could actually learn to control wrong and so I, I turned into a person I said right who is it? What do they look like? What do they sound like? Like how can I. I had to put a Persona around it so that I could recognise it and shut it down and recognise it was just the roommate it wasn’t me so that’s when Mona was born she was Mona. The, the Mona literally that was one of the biggest shifts for me I think internally because I was able to recognise I was like no that’s not, I don’t, don’t need to listen to that Shut down Mona shut up Mona shut up. She always used to go off when I was brushing my teeth of an evening like recapping my day for me telling me lots of negative things I used to just find myself getting in like a really dark hole and be like how have I ended up here? Like goodness sake.

Laura Allen [01:11:03]:
So anyway that, that book is going to drive me nuts I’m going to find out what it is and I’m going to get you to put in the show notes because honestly it was amazing I’m now thinking about I just.

Melody Moore [01:11:11]:
Need to Google book With horse on them. Now it’s got the word black beauty in my head and clearly it’s not.

Laura Allen [01:11:17]:
That it’s so annoying. It would normally be on this shelf right here, but it’s packed in a box because I’m moving. So I’m reading a book at the moment that I’m thoroughly enjoying. I’ve got it here on my desk which is Founder versus Investor. It’s so the Honest Truth about Venture Capital From Startup to ipo. What I found so interesting about this is it’s written from the point of view of a founder and a vc. So they’re talking about the entire journey that you need to go on. Sharing their own experiences as well.

Laura Allen [01:11:49]:
Sometimes they agree, sometimes they don’t agree. And obviously that’s, that’s. I find that really interesting. It’s written so well and I’m so absorbed in it. So with me looking to create this agency, I recognise that’s more of a space that I’m getting into. So yes, thoroughly enjoyed that. So yeah, honestly, the book with the.

Melody Moore [01:12:08]:
Horse, you’ll remember it. You can send me a message. I will put it in the show. Show notes. So there’s probably people listening to this shouting going, it’s such and such a book. Well, they will actually hear it.

Laura Allen [01:12:22]:
Wait there, wait there. I know it’s right in this box. I have to tell you because it’s gonna drive me up. There we go. Okay. Really tiny horse.

Melody Moore [01:12:38]:
Oh, it’s a very small horse. I was imagining a big horse on it.

Laura Allen [01:12:42]:
It. No, no, no. So it’s the Untethered Store, the Untethered Soul, the Journey Beyond Yourself. And it’s by Michael a singer. Who are you really? Is what it says on the back. So it’s a self help transformation book. But it just made me. Yeah.

Laura Allen [01:13:00]:
At that point when I was like, I’m gonna change my career. Like it made me look at myself and really understand more about what was going on because I think you can always learn more about yourself. Self development never really ends.

Melody Moore [01:13:12]:
Totally, totally. What about some advice for your younger self?

Laura Allen [01:13:19]:
Oh, Laura, don’t do it. Just stay young forever. I think it goes back to the advice that Andy was giving me for years and just go easy on yourself, enjoy it. Take off the pressure. Just be happy, live life. And that really is how I try and do things now. I’m. I’m about experiences, people being happy.

Laura Allen [01:13:44]:
Like if it doesn’t make me happy, I’m going to work out why. And, and I know you can’t, you can’t Avoid everything but being really honest to myself and is this the right thing for me or am I doing this for someone else and just, yeah, being a bit more selfish, really.

Melody Moore [01:14:02]:
Yeah, I often see that, you know, having worked in a big consult, so you got lots of younger people coming in. People are super, super ambitious and I think, you know, I work with a lot of people who are in their sort of 40s and 50s and, and they realise that, you know, they may have been very ambitious, they may have got somewhere very quickly and then they have that kind of, well, is this it Moment? Because actually they’re going to work for another 20 odd years. You know, if you’re in your 40s, you’re easily going to work more than 20 years. You’re only probably halfway through, through your career. But we have such a rush and people realise that there was no need to rush because, you know, we work for a really long time.

Laura Allen [01:14:48]:
We do. And I think, you know, I went self employed when I was 29, 30, I can’t remember now. It’s all, well, it must be. No, I must have been 30 because I’m gonna be 33 this year. I felt like I was behind and then the thought of like starting this fractional agency, I’m like, oh Gosh, I only 33 this year. I’m already behind doing that and always feeling like we’re behind. But you’re so right. Most people will work until their, you know, 60s and 70s unless they choose not to.

Laura Allen [01:15:14]:
And they, and they can afford not to. I mean, lovely. If I could just retire at 40. Well, I need to say, but people, please buy some more of Ryan’s books because I need to retire.

Melody Moore [01:15:28]:
You have to write your own book.

Laura Allen [01:15:29]:
I know.

Melody Moore [01:15:31]:
Well, I started my own business when I was 51, so you’re definitely ahead of me.

Laura Allen [01:15:35]:
Well, there you go. Exactly.

Melody Moore [01:15:38]:
What about your story then? Reflecting back on the story you’ve just told, Any themes that you identify that have come to light as you’ve been talking?

Laura Allen [01:15:49]:
Yeah, I mean, I don’t like to sit here and say that I’ve had a tragic life and get the violin out out, because there are people that have it a lot worse off than me and, and stuff. But I have unfortunately had a lot of dark things happen in my life, whether it be mental health, you know, that, that time in 2019, I did have suicide ideation. I was really struggling. I pretty much everyone in my family has passed away now, apart from my dad, my brother, my sister. So I’ve seen a lot of, of losses And I really just, I think I’ve learned to come over, overcome things quite quickly now. When I was younger I didn’t and, and things used to knock me back a lot harder. And I think one thing I didn’t mention thinking back about it now is that when my mum passed away I had friends and people that knew me say you’re handling this really well because you two, three years ago would not have handled this well. Well, me in my 20s when I was going through that career phase and very emotional, not knowing how to manage my emotions, the slightest thing would knock me down and I would quite struggle with it.

Laura Allen [01:16:57]:
But that big breakdown in 2019 and learning those tools and learning how to be better with myself almost prepared me for what was to come in 2020, which I had obviously no idea was going to come along. So I’ve, I think my whole journey has been around knockback bouncing back, like knock back bouncing back and recognising that you just, you have to keep going. Unfortunately there’s always going to be knockbacks in life but it is how you choose to approach them and it’s okay to acknowledge something and say, well that was, that was pretty awful but you either stay with that or you, you move forward. And, and, and I choose now to just constantly keep moving forward.

Melody Moore [01:17:43]:
What I admire from your story is you’ve had these knockbacks and you’ve allowed them to shape you so you’ve not kind of bounced back in a rigid way, which is what some people do. They’re resilient and they kind of things slide off them. You’ve kind of let them come into you and shape you in a really positive way.

Laura Allen [01:18:08]:
Yeah. 100 I don’t know, I wouldn’t change. Obviously that sounds very horrible because I obviously would do anything in the world to have my mum back but like career wise and stuff like that, I wouldn’t change everything that’s happened. It’s, I wouldn’t have met Ryan if I hadn’t of changed my career and ended up on LinkedIn. And I was single for seven years before that and I’d never experienced what it felt like to have love and that person, my partner, my best friend, like my biggest advocate. And for me to be able to give that love to someone knowing that it’s truly like received and, and, and wanted, well, I hope it’s wanted. It’s got no choice. So yeah, everything’s just got me to here and I’m, I’m honestly really happy, happy in my life, happy in my personal life, moving to London, just having amazing trips and holidays.

Laura Allen [01:18:58]:
I’m working in a business that I’ve created with clients that I, that I have great working relationships with. We’re doing great things. And so it’s a weird, it’s a weird thing to kind of sit here and go, oh, my God, I love my life, but I do, I really do. And there were moments in my life where I couldn’t have been any further from that.

Melody Moore [01:19:18]:
So, you know, if you had to, you know, finish off with a takeaway for the listeners, what, what would your takeaway for them be?

Laura Allen [01:19:30]:
Everything is temporary. I think it’s the only, that, that quote. The only, the only permanence is. Permanence is impermanence. I might have just murdered that. Sorry. Everything is temporary, right? If you’re in a moment, you’re in a lull, you’re feeling uninspired, you’re going through a difficult time, it’s temporary. And there is other things on the horizon for you, hopefully better things for you.

Laura Allen [01:19:57]:
And yeah, ask for help. Don’t do things alone. There are people and experts in every different shape and size these days that can support with it, whether it’s a personal issue, a relationship issue, a business issue. And so go and get help to where you want to be. Get that clarity of where you want to go and find out what, what the gaps are and, and get support. Because everything is temporary. You could be in a completely different place pace in one month, two month, six months time.

Melody Moore [01:20:29]:
Love that. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really, really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you very much.

Laura Allen [01:20:37]:
Thank you for having me. I look forward to listening to it.

Melody Moore [01:20:41]:
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