Series Six Roundup Transcript

Melody Moore [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Secret Resume podcast, hosted by me, Melody Moore. In this podcast we explore the people, places and experiences that have shaped my guests, those which have influenced who they are as people and where they are in their work life today, or as I like to call it, their secret resume. Before we dive in, I want to tell you about something that I’m really excited about, 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. 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.

Melody Moore [00:01:04]:
Welcome everybody. Welcome to this summary of the six series of the Secret Resume podcast. This is just me today, just Melody here. I’ve got a confession to make that this is the second time that I’ve recorded this episode and that’s because I recorded it earlier today and obviously it was excellent and I did my best work and my microphone wasn’t working so I had it switched off. This is second time around, so hopefully I will have improved from having a rehearsal of this episode. So really excited to do something a little different to the usual episodes. I’m just going to talk a little bit about the range of entrepreneurs that I spoke to in in series six. I spoke to them about their journeys, about their views on entrepreneurship, really enjoyed speaking to them.

Melody Moore [00:01:59]:
And whilst they came from different industries, different backgrounds, from running a software company through to hosting yoga retreats, it’s really interesting how there were some key themes that emerged across the different guests. And so today I’m going to talk to you about four lessons I learned from interviewing these fabulous guests. So lessons on the entrepreneurship journey, on resilience, work, life balance and the importance of the right people and having the right people around you. So whether you’re an entrepreneur yourself, whether you’re perhaps thinking, thinking about becoming one, considering a big career shift perhaps, or maybe just looking for inspiration. Because a lot of these messages and a lot of these lessons are equally applicable if you work for yourself or whether you work for a big corporate or in public sector, whatever, they’re going to be relevant to you. So let’s jump straight in. So lesson number one, it was around the guests journey into entrepreneurship and I think there’s a commonly held perception. And it’s maybe a myth that entrepreneurs are born that way and they’re going to become entrepreneurs no matter what.

Melody Moore [00:03:18]:
And that people set out knowing that they’re going to build business. And that wasn’t the reality for many of my guests. Many of my guests started working in corporations, in consulting, in marketing and sorts of different things really. So they didn’t necessarily plan or set out to build businesses and to become entrepreneurs themselves. They kind of fell into it. So Lisa Smith, good example from Ginger Bakers. She wasn’t working for herself and then when she came back from Hong Kong, back to the uk, she was looking around saying, well, what is it that I can do? Well, I can bake. And then she went, started going to farmers markets and has built up in 20 years later got this fabulous business which is both direct to customers and wholesale.

Melody Moore [00:04:05]:
Or perhaps Stephan Dubois from Pointer Pro. He moved from corporate consulting into software development and built up his own business in software development. But it was a snowboarding accident that actually gave him the time to reflect and to develop his ideas for his own business. So I guess it often starts as maybe an experiment, a side project or a side hustle, someone spotting a problem and deciding that they’ve got the solution to that problem. But what I also heard was that people were agile, they pivoted, they adjusted all the consulting words there as they moved along. So Stefan, again, a really good example, he started out with the survey platform. He found that market was super competitive. So actually he pivoted to, or they pivoted to developing a platform for automated assessments so that people could self service and create assessments for themselves.

Melody Moore [00:05:12]:
So it’s not necessarily that the idea that you set out with is where you’re going to end up. So I think lesson one, short and sweet really. If you’re thinking of starting a business, start small, stay flexible. See whether your idea is working or not and be prepared to pivot. Okay, lesson number two, this is about setbacks. Let’s be honest. Resilience. I had a setback this morning.

Melody Moore [00:05:44]:
I forgot to turn on my microphone when recording the session. So that was a setback for me. There is no avoiding problems. There’s no avoiding setbacks either in business or in life. Everybody is going to experience something that doesn’t go right. And what really stood out to me is how many of my guests had faced serious challenges and their response to those challenges. So Lisa again talked about her earlier with Ginger Baker. She her business got completely flooded and she also got diagnosed personally with cancer.

Melody Moore [00:06:24]:
And she Talks about the sheer bloody mindedness that was required both to get her business back on its feet and running within a few days really after being flooded. But also the personal resilience and the importance of having people around her in her community and in her employees to support her while she was ill as well, when she had her own personal health problems. But also Jenny Clark was a good example. You know, she. And this kind of links I think to this pivoting idea as well. But you know, she experienced the digital nomad lifestyle, but actually, you know, reflecting on that and has developed and evolved her ideas around what freedom really means. And actually what does entrepreneurship mean actually? And what does working for yourself mean? And actually there’s a glamorization of entrepreneurism, but actually the reality is far more challenging than you might think. And we talked about how people don’t talk about the fact that I’ve met people who haven’t paid themselves for years because they’ve been reinvesting in their business.

Melody Moore [00:07:34]:
And there’s sort of the less glamorous side of entrepreneurialism that doesn’t get talked about so much. So, yeah, just sort of bouncing back and understanding the pressure. It’s not all sunshine and roses. And John Parkin again was a really good example. He had personal health struggles and actually he turned that into developing his entire philosophy around his fuck it books. His whole philosophy. It’s not just his books. It’s a philosophy that created a very successful retreat business on the back of that.

Melody Moore [00:08:10]:
So helping other people to let go of their stress and perfectionism. So he turned his own personal struggles into something that was incredibly powerful for other people. What makes people able to bounce back from setbacks. And I think it’s about stability. It’s about when you’re experiencing something negative, having that ability to both experience it, but know that there’s an opportunity in there, that there’s something that you can learn that some. There’s that phrase, this too shall pass. Everything changes, Everything passes positive and negative. And so knowing that there’s something on the other side of it.

Melody Moore [00:08:54]:
And actually so many people I meet, entrepreneurs, people who’ve been made redundant, people who are having very difficult times in their lives, often talk about the lessons they learned and how good it was for them. It doesn’t feel like it at the time, but I think just knowing that there is learning and there is opportunity in this is something that’s really powerful. And I think this really links to the previous one about that ability to pivot, ability to kind of be light on your feet and. And nimble. And I think that is one of the real benefits of being a small business rather than a large business. And I’ve worked for both small and large businesses and a lot of my clients obviously are large organisations. That ability to be nimble as a small organisation and pivot and make changes really quickly is incredibly powerful. And it’s much easier as a small business to be resilient, to bounce back from things, make changes, than it is for a big organisation where there’s a lot more bureaucracy and a lot more interested parties.

Melody Moore [00:10:00]:
So lesson two is when things go wrong, and it is when, not if, they go wrong, the question is not how do I stop this going wrong? How do I deal with this? The question is, how do I learn from it? How do I keep moving? I’m a big fan of the phrase, you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. I really like the idea of you can’t change the world and you can’t change what’s happening to you. Sometimes you can’t change other people, you can’t change circumstances, but the only thing that you can change is yourself. The only thing you can change is your business and your approach and your mindset. Okay, number three, this is everybody’s favourite phrase, work life balance. Some people. It’s not some people’s favourite phrase, is it? Some people really don’t like it. Some people talk about work life integration.

Melody Moore [00:10:56]:
I don’t like that phrase. That, to me is a sense of everything being really mushed together and actually probably work taking over your life. If I’m honest, I don’t think of work life balance as meaning that there has to be equal balance between the two. And I think that’s why some people have a real issue with that phrase, because they’re thinking that work and life have to be equally balanced. That’s not what it means to me. Work life balance to me is about how much balance, how much of each is appropriate for you. And if it’s too much one way or the other, then you’re out of balance. But, you know, this could be balanced.

Melody Moore [00:11:36]:
This could be balanced. Sorry, if you’re just listening and not watching on YouTube, I’m showing it a bit like seesaw. So this for me is actually more about avoiding burnout. It’s a huge issue, huge potential issue for most entrepreneurs. And I would say that most people who work for themselves, whether they call themselves an entrepreneur or not, have experienced burnout at some point. And it’s just as important a question for anybody in any organisation, it’s not unique to people who own their own business. But pretty much everybody who I’ve interviewed, the entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed, has talked about burning out, working too much, working too long hours. For Carol Driver, it was about doing two jobs while she was working as a journalist.

Melody Moore [00:12:30]:
For Stefan, he talked about that balance and making sure that he’s doing things outside of work. But he also, I think, made an interesting point that actually trying to do too much out of work is also stressful. So. And it really made me think about what is stressful for people and what causes the burnout is often trying to do everything. I’ve seen some conversations and been part of some conversations recently about whether, as a woman, you can have it all. And my view is you can have it all, but not all at the same time. And I think there’s this idea that we all should be able to do everything all of the time. We should see our friends, we can do our hobbies, we can work, we can be with our children, we can be with our partner, we can be good children to our parents, good friends.

Melody Moore [00:13:23]:
Whatever it is, it’s too much. So for me, work life balance is about priorities, about understanding what are the most important things to me. I actually have a balance wheel which I use with my clients. I’ll put a link. You can, if you join our community, you can download it, but you can think about what are the most important things to me. Where do I not have enough of this in my life? So it’s about prioritising what really matters, making sure that you arrange your life in a way that allows you to do those things that really matter to you. So not trying to do everything, focus on what really matters and really linked to that. Often it’s about what is success.

Melody Moore [00:14:11]:
And quite a few of the people who I interviewed talked about what does success mean to them. And it’s not just about chasing financial goals. We hear all the time, it’s a six figure business, it’s a seven figure business, but. But actually for many of my guests, and this also includes previous guests from other episodes, talk about having a more of a fulfilling life. Anne Damgaard in particular talked about that. A life that works for you and a business that works for you, rather than chasing these kind of artificially imposed ideals about what is success? It’s financial success or is it. Is it actually having a good home life? Is it actually being able to do the things that you want? And it’s very easy to get caught up, particularly as an entrepreneur, I think, in thinking that your business has to explode and you have to be all over LinkedIn and Instagram and you have to have however many followers. And it’s very easy to get caught up in that view, and particularly because people are just showing the shiny bits of their life.

Melody Moore [00:15:14]:
We’ve talked about this with Jenny as well. People show the shiny sort of edited versions of their life on social media and people get caught up in thinking that they have to be like these other people. But actually what the other people are showing is not the truth or reality either. So being very clear about what success means to you rather than to anyone else can really help, I think, with the work life balance and avoiding burnout because it helps you. You focus and prioritise the most important things. So lesson number three, work life balance isn’t necessarily about doing less. It’s about doing the right things and giving yourself permission to say no. And this is such a powerful thing for many people that I work with, entrepreneurs or not, the ability to say no and understand why you’re saying no because it’s the right decision for you.

Melody Moore [00:16:10]:
Really hard, super important. Okay, number four, this is about the importance of people, which I know sounds a very vague and high level lesson. But many of my guests had a teacher, a mentor, a boss who really helped shape them. And that is absolutely true for pretty much everybody that I have interviewed on the Secret Resume podcast so far. But I think what’s important here is a lot of those relationships just happened. They weren’t intentional. And I think what is really important when you’re building your own business is being intentional about the networks that you have. And I often think about networks from a internal work perspective.

Melody Moore [00:16:58]:
So what, what who are you relying on? Who are you using? Who are your colleagues? Who’s your mentor, who’s your coach, whoever? Different roles that different people play in supporting you and helping you move forward, helping you think about the way that you approach things. Those relationships have been incredibly important to me. But it can be about being intentional. You can’t just assume that these people are going to turn up. You may need to go and find them, or you may need to know them and you need to go and connect with them. And then from a personal perspective, there’s also who do you have supporting you in your home life? So for me as a single parent who’s helping me, supporting me with my childcare, I have a dog who’s helping me and supporting me look after my dog when I’m having to go off and travel Having that support network around you enables you to focus on the business rather than on everything else. I was saying to a client the other day who’s she’s super busy, her husband’s super busy, they both work for big corporates. She’s taken on someone in sort of a housekeeper role.

Melody Moore [00:18:04]:
And part of the joy of that is taking all of those things that were in her head and being able to put them into somebody else’s head. So actually freeing up. It’s not just a time thing, it’s a mental capacity thing. And what we don’t do as entrepreneurs often enough, I think, is actually allow others to take things out of our heads, to take that load from us and allow us to focus on the things that are really going to make the difference. So having the right people and linked to that is actually networking. And this is perhaps less about having the right people to make you successful. This is about finding clients, finding collaborators, going and finding ideas. But networking play a really important role for people.

Melody Moore [00:18:52]:
Joe Omani talked about it, Stefan talked about it, this idea of maybe giving away some of your expertise for free in order to build relationships. And a lot of people who are experts in sales and business development will talk about know, like and trust. Your potential clients need to know you, they need to like you and they need to trust you. And that doesn’t happen overnight. So people need a certain number of hours of interacting with you or seeing you in order to build that know, like and trust. So that might be through listening to a podcast, for instance, but it’s also about actually interacting, engaging with, seeing you’re a decent person and building a relationship. So networking, it’s not just about going out and finding immediate sales opportunities. Networking is about building longer term connections and relationships that may at some point in the future turn into clients.

Melody Moore [00:19:56]:
So I think lesson four is quite a broad one, but it’s about nobody succeeding alone. Whether it’s mentors or friends or business networks, you can’t be an entrepreneur if you don’t like selling and you don’t like engaging with people. Very difficult to do because people buy people. So the more conscious and mindful you are about the people you surround yourself with and the networks that you build, the more successful you will be. So come to the end of the episode. Just to summarise my four big takeaways from the series six. One is you don’t have to be an entrepreneur from birth, but start small, experiment, pivot when needed. Number two, setbacks happen, personal setbacks, business setbacks.

Melody Moore [00:20:48]:
It’s not about avoiding failure, it’s about learning from it. Lesson 3 Balance isn’t about doing less, it’s about choosing what matters. And it’s about learning to say no. And it’s about letting go of the rest, delegating it, deciding not to do it. And 4 success is not a solo journey. Build relationships, build your team around you, find your mentors and also do the same for other people. Support other people. Give your advice and expertise for free as a way of building trust with individuals.

Melody Moore [00:21:27]:
I hope you enjoyed this brief summary. I really, really enjoyed talking to the entrepreneurs. I thought it was a really interesting series and I learned a huge amount from from talking to each of them. I’ve got two more series coming up. One where I’m going to be interviewing people who are leaders in the HR field, and then also a series where I’m going to be interviewing interviewing coaches and therapists. So look out for those. Next one should probably be out in the next month or so, so yeah, I hope to see you there. This podcast is brought to you by Liberare Consulting.

Melody Moore [00:22:08]:
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