Saying yes can open up a world of opportunities, and in this episode, Tracy Pound shares her inspiring journey of embracing uncertainty and taking risks that led her to become the Chair of the Board of Directors for CompTIA.

With a wealth of experience in the tech industry and her own tech business, Tracy emphasises the importance of stepping out of comfort zones and the value of saying yes, even when it feels scary.

She reflects on her past struggles with self-doubt and imposter syndrome, highlighting how overcoming these challenges has shaped her career and personal growth.

Tracy also discusses the significance of emotional intelligence and resilience, urging listeners to recognise their worth and the power of choice in their lives.

Join Sara as she dives deep into Tracy's insights on balancing work and life, the importance of self-awareness, and how to cultivate a mindset that embraces learning and growth.

Takeaways:

• Saying yes can be intimidating, but it opens doors to new opportunities and experiences.
• Women often seek certainty, but embracing uncertainty can lead to personal growth and success.
• Tracy's journey shows that taking risks and saying yes can lead to unexpected achievements.
• Realising your worth is essential
• The importance of emotional intelligence and resilience in navigating personal and professional challenges cannot be overstated.
• Life is full of cycles; embracing change and learning from experiences can lead to fulfillment.

You can find Tracy here:

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximity/

Website: https://maximity.co.uk/

CompTIA Website: https://www.comptia.org/

Follow Sara on social media or send her a message with what you loved about the episode

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startoverwithsara/  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/startoverwithsara/   

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saraburton/   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@startoverwithsara  

Website: https://www.saraburton.co.uk/  

Saying yes is a little bit scary sometimes, but actually it's a whole load of fun because you get to learn new stuff, you get to meet new people, you get to succeed in ways that you never, ever thought you would.

I mean, I never.

If you.

If you were to take me back 15 years, I never had it on my career path to be chair of the Board of Directors for Comptia.

So, you know, saying yes takes you into whole new territories.

And I think for a lot of women, they want more certainty.

And I've heard it so many times because I do quite a lot of talks around dei and it's a passionate topic for me, too.

And I've heard so many people say, you know, women traditionally will say no if they don't know enough of something, whereas I don't.

I will say yes, shut my eyes, cross my fingers, jump in.

Because it's rare that you completely fail.

Absolutely rare.

You work hard, you have some scary times, but ultimately you succeed.

And you come out of that as a better person with a new skill set and a whole new set of opportunities.

Welcome to Start over and Rise.

I'm Sarah Burton, your host, and this is the podcast for you.

If you are ready for fresh starts to reclaim your power and create the life that you truly desire.

Whether you're navigating a major life change, recovering from a setback, or simply just feeling a bit stuck, or that something is missing, this is your space for inspiration, practical tools, and empowering conversations.

Each week, we'll dive into topics that.

Help you step into the person you're.

Meant to be so that you can rise to your new desired heights.

Because here's the truth.

It's never too late to make a change, and it's never too early to start over with your thinking, with your approach, with your attitude.

Attitude so that you can be, do and have all you want in your life.

So let's get started.

Hey, gorgeous, it's Sara here.

Thanks for joining me again on Start over and Rise to the lady that you heard at the start is Tracey Pound.

She is the managing director of Maximity Limited and she is involved in two other businesses.

She is very experienced in business and she's also the chairperson of the board of Comptia, which is a global organization that she's going to tell you all about with regards to tech.

She has a diverse amount of experience and in this interview today, we dive into all sorts of things from what it was like when she set up her very first business when she had a baby, and all the challenges that came with that, the labeling of having a lifestyle business.

We dive into that.

We talk about self awareness, emotional intelligence, all sorts of different things.

It's a great interview, I really enjoyed it.

We could have gone on for hours and hours but in the meantime I want you to sit back, enjoy the conversation very much taking some of the key principles of personal development and how we feel about ourselves and how we're conditioned and when we recognize where that conditioning comes from and what we do about it, how it can change your life really, really very quickly.

So it's a very positive conversation and I'm excited to get started with it.

So no more chat from me.

Here is Tracey.

So I'm Tracey Pound.

I work in technology in it.

I have my own business which is 24 years old.

It's maximity and we're a consulting and ERP implementation company for business.

I also co own an insurance brokerage with my husband, that's Prism Solutions.

And I also co own a cyber security organization that places level three techs in predominantly IT organizations that's called RedCorp.

I'm exhausted.

I'm exhausted just listening to everything that you're involved in.

So how did this all come about?

Are you sitting comfortably?

So this came about.

It's quite, it's an unusual route because everything I've done, I've never had a set standard career.

You know, I didn't go to university and a degree and work my way up.

I've never had a kind of a set career in that way and COMPTI is no exception to that.

So you know, you'd get a situation where everything would suddenly get painted and all the charts would get updated because there was an audit coming.

And for me, if you're going to do something, it should have a business value that drives what you're doing.

And when I saw this request coming through saying we're going to write a standard for the IT industry, I thought, well, if you're going to write a standard for my industry, I want to be involved in it.

So I stuck my hand up and said, yes, I'll be part of the pilot project, yes, I'll go through this 60 page document that you've written that would be the starter of the standard.

And I did that and I went to a meeting and at the meeting I was quite vocal because I am and because I have a voice and I want to use it hopefully for the right reasons.

And I was then asked to become an author of that standard, which I did.

So the standard that came out was called Accredit UK and I authored the, or co authored the main part of it.

And also a lot of the structure in that standard was ideas that had come up as part of the process I went through that got sold to COMPTIA and became one of their trust marks and we were all co opted into COMPTIA and became members.

I had never heard of CompTIA, didn't know who they were, what they did at all because I don't work on the certification side.

So, you know, I'm not a tech professional in terms of I need very in depth networking knowledge or cabling knowledge and things like that.

So for the first year I ignored all these emails that came across because there were a lot of them and I didn't understand them, there was no kind of context to it.

And somebody said, if you want to get a real feel for CompTIA, go to one of the community meetings and there happened to be one in Coventry.

So I went to that.

Loved it, loved their ethos, loved their inclusivity, loved what they were sharing in terms of knowledge to try and help IT people improve their businesses.

And because I really do struggle to say no, when they asked for people to join their education faculty, I said, yeah, I'd love to be part of the education faculty.

So I sort of came in as a member join the education faculty, which is you deliver member education.

So I spent years before COVID traveling all the way across Europe, in France, Spain, Italy, Germany or in the us, the uk, all over the place, delivering COMPTIA training, which, which I absolutely love.

And that got me on the radar of the board directors in the US and in particular a lovely lady called Nancy Hamovic who headed up all the communities.

So I did.

And that was one of those moments where you sit there and you think, I know I'm going to say yes, but really I should be saying no because I can't do this.

You know, I've got a little business in the uk, but, well, why would anybody want me on the board of directors?

And I spent probably a good six to eight months when I first joined with huge imposter syndrome.

And I'm on the board with people who are high up in Dell and Hewlett Packard and these huge great global tech companies.

And there's me with my tiny little consulting business in the middle of England.

And then it struck me that they wouldn't have asked me to join if they didn't value what I had to say.

And it started a change in the way that I viewed me and the value that I could bring to something else.

Not in an egotistic way.

You know, it's not standing there going, well, yeah, you need to listen to me.

It was just that those people in that room, I'm their customer, I'm their demographic, and I'm a member of the organization.

So I see firsthand how well everything gets done or where the gaps are, where the opportunities are, and that they genuinely wanted to hear from me.

So it gave me a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose because I'm just interested in things.

So I really do struggle to say no.

And I was asked to join the governance committee, so I joined that, chaired that, was asked to join the Audit Finance Investment Committee, joined that, chair that.

And then I was asked to take over as overall chair of the board.

And by the time you get to that point, because you've kind of been through everything else that there is in CompTIA, it's an easier step up to it.

Although it's a huge responsibility, it's a global organization.

I've learned so much about so many different things, about the law, about international law, international finance, US finance, how global organizations work.

So, you know, I.

I've gotten a lot back as well as hopefully being able to.

To give to it.

And then I can bring that learning back to my little business because that helps me then when we're doing our work, to position, because I've got a different understanding of, of the way that the world works and the way that business works.

I did tell you I could talk Franklin, didn't I?

I'm so.

No, it's absolutely fascinating stuff.

I love that journey because you are Just demonstrating the power of saying yes.

Do you think that has been instrumental in how your journey has evolved?

For sure.

So when I was little, two major things happened to me.

One, I was about seven and we were in a parent teacher meeting.

And I still remember sitting in that classroom as the teacher told my mother, like, I'm not here.

She'll never amount to anything because she talks too much.

And that sunk in and it made me a very quiet child at school and very conformist.

But when it came to taking my IT exams, I was told I couldn't take it because I'm not good enough at maths now.

I'm not.

I'm nowhere.

I'm not good at maths at all.

But you don't need maths for the vast majority of it.

You need logical thinking.

And I had to fight very hard to be allowed to study it, which I won.

And that kind of gave me my first taste of if you try, if you want to do something, if you try hard at it and you really want it, you can get it.

So when people say no to you, that's not necessarily a brick wall.

You can push through that if you really, really want to.

And, you know, you have that intent and that desire to be on the other side of it.

So I saw some success in that.

And then when I started work, it opened up a whole new life to me.

So, you know, I didn't enjoy school as most.

Well, a lot of children didn't.

It wasn't a nice learning experience.

I struggled through it.

I was only ever average at best.

But that's because the system doesn't allow different types of people to flourish.

If you don't fit the square box, then you're kind of outside the main parameters for succeeding.

And that's so wrong because it holds so many people back.

So when I started work as a programmer, I discovered there was something I loved and there was something that I loved that I could get support on and people would help me to be more successful.

So there was no set path to a career.

There was nobody to say, you have to look like this, sound like this, act like this in order to have that job.

So I kind of forged my own path through because I could and because nobody told me I couldn't.

So I was a manager by the time I was 21, because I decided at the ripe old age of 21 that I wanted to manage a team of people, and I was able to go out and secure a job that allowed me to do that and talk about being dropped from a great height and you either sink or swim, but you learn stuff that way and you learn valuable lessons.

And I learned a lesson on working for people that weren't really very good and very supportive.

That ground my confidence away completely.

But I learned how not to manage people.

So it's made me very aware of taking people into account when you're looking after them in those kind of managerial roles, in any role where you've got responsibility to look after people because they matter, they count.

So it gave me a lot of empathy, it gave me a lot of ability to see things from a perspective other than my own, because I know that my own hadn't been taken into account in that role.

So I think saying yes is a little bit scary sometimes, but actually it's a whole load of fun because you get to learn new stuff, you get to meet new people, you get to succeed in ways that you never, ever thought you would.

I mean, I never.

If you, if you were to take me back 15 years, I never had it on my career path to be chair of the Board of Directors for Comptia.

So, you know, saying yes takes you into whole new territories.

And I think for a lot of women, they want more certainty.

And I've heard it so many times because I do quite a lot of talks around dei and it's a passionate topic for me too.

And I've heard so many people say, you know, women traditionally will say no if they don't know enough of something, whereas I don't.

I will say yes, shut my eyes, cross my fingers, jumping, because it's rare that you completely fail.

Absolutely rare.

You work hard, you have some scary times, but ultimately you succeed and you come out of that as a better person with a new skill set and, and a whole new set of opportunities.

It's so true.

I think school is to blame in many respects.

They do squash people's creativity if they.

Are a little bit different or they.

Want to look at things in a different way.

I did go college, university and so on, but my goodness, it was.

It was quite a fight.

But I think when we have that confidence in ourselves or that we trust that whatever happens will make the most of.

Of what's to come next, then failure takes on a whole new personality, a whole new character to me that I think some people see as scary, like you say, and like, you and I were like, well, what's the worst that can happen.

I can only learn from this.

You referred to your business as my little business.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your little business?

Yeah, I certainly can.

And prior to that I worked in Reading.

So I live in the Midlands, I worked in reading.

I had 124 miles to get to the office and I thought, there is no way I can do that with a baby.

So I.

I left and I really didn't want to go and work for somebody else.

I wanted to do something for me, something that gave me flexibility and something where if people, you know, if my children were ill, nobody could say, well, you can't have the time off, or they've got a school play or somewhere they want to go.

Nobody could tell me I couldn't do it.

So I wanted to be in control of my destiny.

So to start with, the first few years were really very much lifestyle.

And I know that sometimes people say a lifestyle business in a derogatory way.

I do not view a lifestyle business in a derogatory way.

A lifestyle business is about balance.

That doesn't mean you're any lesser of a business person in any way, shape or form.

It means that you have priorities that are outside of work and you're prepared to make that sacrifice and have the time between your personal life and your work life.

And I think that's a strength.

And I think we've seen a lot of that after Covid in people wanting to get a little bit more balance back in their life.

So I started off kind of the first four or five years just me.

And I got to the stage where I was really busy and I sat on the fence for a long time, a very, very long time going between do I grow?

Do I say no?

Do I grow?

Do I say no?

And I'd wake up one day and think, yes, I'm going to employ somebody and the next day, no, I'm going to just say no to these people.

And I did that for a good two years.

I procrastinated because I just could not work out the best thing to do.

And I made the leap in the end.

And I have a lovely team of people that work with me now, Simon, Dave and Bronya, and they're absolutely brilliant.

So we spend a lot of our time doing business central implementations.

Now, that won't mean much to many people at all, but it's taking people's prospecting system, putting it with their accounting system with their stock or job control system.

So all the key business systems in the business, putting them in an end to end solution, so you put the data in one end, goes all the way through the system so you're not having to rekey it, you don't get data problems, all sorts of things like that.

And it's a lovely cloud based application and it's Microsoft's business central.

So the implementations for that, some can be quite small, some can be really big.

So they can take anywhere between a month and 18 months.

There's a huge range of them, but it's endlessly fascinating.

I love business and you know, all of my team, we just, we love to learn how other people run an organization, what makes that organization tick, how can we help them to become more successful by having better systems at their fingertips to use.

So we do a lot of training as well on Excel, on Word, PowerPoint, we do a lot on teams and we just like to expand people's understanding of what they could do more of in their business if they had a better handle on the technology that they're probably already paying for.

So it's about leveraging that technology and we have fun.

You know, it's not about just really hard work.

We do work hard, but we have fun along the way.

It's great.

I'm so fortunate to work with these people.

You are so passionate about everything that you do.

I love it.

And fun, I think is a word that sometimes is totally underestimated.

I think we need more fun in business.

When people are loving what they do, there's so much more committed, they're so much more fulfilled, they're so much more creative and can add to things.

It's, it's, yeah, we, we all need to be doing more of that.

Can I just take you back for a second?

When you were saying about you started up your business and the lifestyle derogatory side of things because oh my goodness, I have experienced that and I can remember when I first started my business, I don't know if you did this almost being fearful that if somebody wanted to, to book me or have a meeting at school, run time, there was this fear of, I can't say that you're smiling at me.

I can't say, um, oh, I can't do it because you know, I've got to go and get my children because I had been so conditioned from my previous corporate career that that was just unprofessional.

As a woman, you didn't bring your family side into work it, it would show weakness.

And that is so, so wrong.

I had a moment where I suddenly realized I could just say, I can't do that time.

That was really empowering.

But did, was this something that you, that you experienced as well?

Yes, hugely.

Because I came from that corporate background as well.

And in that corporate background, you are, you're not a person.

You are an employee of an organization that owns you almost, and you don't matter.

The output of the work that you do matter, and the length of time that you stay visible in a working capacity matters.

Anything outside of that is, is not appropriate in that life, as you say.

And for the first, probably good two or three years, I was exactly the same as you.

I felt that it was something I shouldn't express and that I felt really guilty at telling people, I can't make that appointment.

I can't do this, because in the back of my mind was, well, you've got to be available between this hour and that hour, and you've got to look this, this certain way.

And it, it did take me a long time to get out of that.

And actually my husband Peter helped with that because, you know, he's always been very hands on with my children and would pick them up from school, take them places when I couldn't.

And he never, ever has had a problem saying to people, I've got to go and pick the kids up, and then I can do this afterwards.

And you listen to that and you see him succeed and people go, okay, yeah, that's all right.

And you start to realize, actually the problem is the conditioning in my head, not the actual situation.

So it did take me a long time to get over that.

But very much like you, I felt that I was lesser as a business person because I wasn't working full hours and in a, in a standard way and now couldn't care less.

You know, if, if my team want to have time off for anything, they can have time off because I know that they'll make that time up.

And if they don't want to work 9 to 5, they don't need to work 9 to 5.

If there's, if there's nothing that's going to cause a problem from a client delivery point of view.

Yeah, if they want to go off for two hours at lunchtime, go off and do what you want for two hours at lunchtime, work the extra hour when it suits you.

And you know, if we're really busy, I know then that you'll put the time and the effort into it without me.

Having to say, can we all stay late?

Can we do this?

They'll do it naturally because it's give and take.

So, you know, I really value that flexibility for me, but also for my whole team because I think that's important alongside having fun as well, is being flexible.

Because these days you can, you don't have to be in the office, you don't have to drag everybody in on a car journey when every other one person's on the road and it's just a nightmare.

You can let people work at home and you have to manage outcomes in a different way.

And I think, you know, looking back on my corporate life and looking back at the corporate world, there's a lot that will need to change from a management perspective to make it successful and fit for purpose going forward in the 21st century.

Because if you measure people by the length of time they sit at their desk, or by how busy they seem to be or how by stressed they seem to be, those aren't real measures of somebody's ability to do a good job.

So we're going to have to change, you know, how do we measure people's performance?

What are the outcomes, what are those?

What's important to the business, what's quantitative and what's qualitative.

And there's a lot of change, I think from a management perspective that is going to be needed to come in to make people use technology better and to give people that real hit at a work life balance.

I've decided there's no such thing.

You know, it's something we can aim for.

Soon as you get there, something changes.

So it's about aiming for it rather than getting to it because I don't know, I'd love to know if somebody's actually got work life balance and maintained it.

And what, what actually is that anyway?

I think sometimes you're juggling things.

Sometimes work has to come first, sometimes family has to come first.

And I think once you're really clear about who you are and your, your values, you know, once you're really clear about what actually matters to you, that makes life an awful lot easier.

And that translates perfectly into business as well.

Businesses need to be clear on what matters most in terms of how they're run, how they service their, their clients and so on.

I've been out of the corporate world for a long time now and I have to say sometimes I forget that some of this stuff is still going on.

We're more about being part of the solution rather than being part of the problem.

And Our own self awareness is so important.

Like you said, you realized it was your own conditioning.

I had the same thing.

It was actually.

I don't have to be like this.

We can free ourselves from this conditioning that we have.

What would you say needs to really happen?

Right.

If you could govern the uk.

Yeah.

What would be the biggest thing you would change for?

I was going to say women, but.

I want to say individuals that want more flexibility in their life.

Oh my gosh, where do I start?

You know, if I were to run the uk, there's lots of things I would change.

You know, I would.

The law needs to be brought up to date and a load of it scrapped.

The education system needs scrapping and sorting out.

The health service needs a lot of work doing to make it work.

All of our utilities need sorting out.

You know, we have so many systems that are hundreds of years old that actually are not fit for purpose today.

But we still try and just evolve them and because I guess it's too big a job to reinvent them, but we're really struggling because they need reinventing.

But you know, if you're looking for something that would help women succeed more, I think it would be to give women the inner confidence to know that they can do what they want, want to do, to have the strength and the resilience to go out and try it.

And if somebody says no, not to be beaten back down by that because they're not necessarily saying no to you as a person, they're just saying no because something isn't right.

At that point in time and years ago, I was never very good at sales.

The first day I started my business, I sat up at my desk with a copy of the Yellow pages and a phone and I thought, I have no idea how to sell.

Where do I start?

What do I say?

And I had no coaching, never done sales before.

And I started at the beginning of the Alphabet ringing companies and somebody that I rang said, you sound absolutely desperate for business.

And I thought, well, I am.

And I put the phone down.

I thought, that's it.

I'm never cold calling in my life.

You know, it put me off for years.

And then I had some proper sales training and we were taught to learn the distinction between I and I.

So the ego I and the outer eye.

And if somebody says no to you, it's not that they are saying no to you as a person because they don't know you.

So it's not a rejection of you, it's just a rejection of what you're saying.

At that time, that doesn't make you a bad person.

That doesn't mean you can't do something.

It just means, no, nothing more than that.

Just, just know at that point in time and if you get through that, you start to build that inner confidence to know that you're okay.

And I think, you know, we don't teach emotional resilience, we don't teach emotional intelligence.

We really ought to because you so many people struggle with their past, they struggle with the way they were brought up, with the relationships they've had, with their parenting.

And if we had more emotional intelligence, if we were taught how to treat people, how to view things, we would not have some of the conversations that we have.

We would not hold ourselves back in the way that we do.

And a lot of people struggle, I think, with lack of self esteem.

So you know, that they have a job, they do something in life that keeps them going, but not that they're hugely in control of it.

It's just what they've always done.

So they're comfortable with it.

And if something rocks that, it rocks their very foundation.

And we need to stop that.

We need to build some self esteem, particularly into women and particularly into women in business.

And if they've been in that corporate world and they've just been beaten back and told you stay where you are, you're fine where you are, don't try and do anything more.

They just need to have that self esteem to know I'm okay.

You know, you can say that I'm okay and I will succeed.

This is what I'm going to do because I'm going to take control of my future and I'm going to move myself forward.

So that self esteem and certainty is absolutely something that I would change if I had the ability to do it.

I couldn't agree more with you.

Everything that I do with people in business when I'm coaching and what is actually holding them back?

What is stopping them from being more creative or innovative or going for things?

It's like decades of conditioning.

And I was talking with a client today and we're talking about indecision.

And once we stripped away the shoulds, the unwritten rules as to how you're supposed to run a business, how you're supposed to deal with clients and so on, and actually free people from these things, they always know exactly what it is that they want to do it, exactly how they're going to do it, but they're holding themselves back because of exactly all of those things that you were talking about women, actually.

Now, the more I see these things about midlife women who are, you know, being made redundant, they're being sort of cast aside, invisible to sort of the corporate working world.

And I know there are plenty that are succeeding, of course, but these are trends that are happening.

Thank goodness we now live in a world where you just need access to the Internet, some good ideas, some core skills, and you can set up things for yourself.

We now, you know, we don't have the same barriers of entry to business that we used to have many years ago.

And so we.

We need to be having more of these conversations to.

To ensure that women are listening to this and going, yeah, I just need to find a way and also stop.

Stop getting in my own way.

And that's not to blame or shame, but I do think it's.

It's an important thing for us to start.

Yeah.

You know, taking ourselves seriously, making ourselves part of the solution rather than the problem.

Yeah, I completely agree with you.

And, you know, it's not a fault thing, as you say.

It's not a blame thing.

It's a set of circumstances, and it's social conditioning.

And I think we're starting to wake up to that now and not to play the game according to those old rules.

So, you know, we're changing the way that we want to operate, and we have the ability to do that, and we always have a choice.

And, you know, I say to so many women that I come across who are not happy in the work that they're doing, you always have a choice.

You don't have to work there.

But a lot of them stay there because they don't feel they have the confidence and the skill set to go and do something else.

So, you know, but you don't.

You don't have to do what you're doing today.

If it does not fill you with joy, why are you doing it?

We spend so much of our lives at work.

If you don't enjoy it, don't do it.

Go and retrain, take some time out, start a business, go and work with.

With a friend, go and volunteer.

There are so many different things that you can do.

And I'm not trying to say that, you know, oh, well, it's okay for her.

She's got all these roles, so she's fine.

I understand we need to make money.

And, you know, I still need to make money.

I have to contribute to the household, too.

So, you know, we have drivers that are very practical, that sit behind why we do what we do.

But if you're going to do something, make it something that you enjoy doing and you won't fail.

You may have some hard times as you transition, but if you've got a plan and you've got a goal and you know what's needed to get to that goal, you just need the next step.

Just do the one step that's in front of you.

And if that means that you have to resign from the job that you're in, line something else up beforehand and then do it.

But you don't have to stay stuck in what you're doing right now if it doesn't, if you don't enjoy it.

Choice is one of my favourite words.

I think it's one of the most empowering things that we can give ourselves.

I've been in situations and I've worked with quite a lot of people who, they don't like their choices, so they feel they don't have a choice.

And I'm very much.

We might not like your choices, but you still can make a choice.

And it's not having to be forever.

You can make that choice because that choice might lead you to another opportunity that maybe you don't even know is there.

Which brings back to your story of saying, yes, I loved what you said about the whole.

Hang on a minute, me and my little business and then that realization of, well, they've invited me, they, they've asked me to do this.

They see the value in, in your contribution and thank goodness you were able to see it yourself.

Yes, because I think if I hadn't, I would have been off that board because I would not have performed, because I would have.

My, the way that I interact would have been more informed by fear than by confidence.

And I think then when you don't feel that you're confident in what you're doing and what you're saying, that comes across.

And people, people feel that around you.

And if you're trying to, to say, you know, well, I'm, I'm this type of person with this sort of level of experience.

If you don't demonstrate it, you, you lose a bit of credibility.

So, you know, you, you almost, you have to perform up to the level that you're at, not at the bottom of where you sometimes feel that you are.

Another thing that you've mentioned a few times, which I'd like to pull out here, is you've very much been yourself.

You have been who you are.

How do you keep track of who you are?

That's a really interesting question.

So, you know, when I worked in the corporate world.

I was very much of that view, that you are a work person and you're an outside of work person, that they're two different people.

And it never sat well with me because at the end of the day, you're one person.

We are only one person.

We can skew the way that we are to fit with different groups of people in different environments.

But our core values, our ethics, our culture, what we really, truly believe in is the same, irrespective of the environment that you're in.

And so coming out of that corporate world where I couldn't.

Didn't feel that I could do that, that was one thing I wanted to do, was just to be true to me, because it makes life so much easier because you don't have to wear masks for different situations.

You can just be you.

And I've also realized not everybody's everybody.

You know, there are people I get people who get on well with me.

There are people who don't massively like me and people I don't massively like.

That's life.

I don't go out my way to be nasty to people.

I never would.

But, you know, if people don't like me or they don't see me as the one that they really want to talk to, that's okay.

And that's where diversity comes in, because people like people like them.

So if you look like somebody, sound like somebody, act like somebody, they get you more, more easily.

And if you've got diverse people and you start to see other people like other people rather than you, it's okay.

That's just the way the world works.

And that goes across everything, everything that you do.

And that's not to say that some people are better than others, because they're not.

We're kind of.

We are human.

We're all human beings.

We all have feelings.

We all get hurt and upset.

We all have joy.

But just some people get on better with other people, and that's okay.

So, you know, I don't mind.

But the people who get on with me are people who are.

Who get me.

And I am a very passionate person.

And, you know, I can't sit still and I can't not show that passion because it's just who I am.

And I'm sure that irritates some people, so they'd rather get on with other members of my team.

It's fine.

I don't take objection to that.

I sometimes have to temper me, but I don't mind being me.

I'm going to pick you up on that.

When do you have to temper you.

So I've done quite a few personality analysis things and I've done emotional intelligence testing and so I.

And, and they're all quite accurate, but just in different ways.

So I know I'm a D, I'm a high D.

I.

And I irritate people who are essays, who are the opposite of me, who want to go through detail, they want to take things more slowly, whereas I'm decisive.

You know that.

That's it.

I've heard what you've got to say.

I've made a decision, I'm off.

And people who are not like that struggle with people like me.

So I have to temper that enthusiasm, knowing that if I'm trying to bring people on a journey, then I've got to work with them when their style, rather than force them into my style.

So I'm much more aware of who I am with things like that and I'm quite banksy at times and I'm sure that irritates certain people.

And if you're in a room full of senior execs and you're trying to do a presentation to win a big ERP implementation, you've got to be able to take into account the different emotional styles and ways of operating that there are in that room.

So I'll do it in that environment, I'll do it at home.

If I need to have perhaps a difficult conversation, I'll make sure that my communication style is in line with whoever I'm talking to, because otherwise you don't get the outcome out of it.

So I do temper my personality in those kinds of situations, not to be unreal, but just to help make sure that I can get a point across to somebody who thinks differently.

To me being a surprise to you, I'm high Di as well.

The reason I asked you that is because I think some of the things that we were talking about earlier, about being in alignment, knowing who you are and being able to be you, is so freeing.

I think when people try and change who they are, when they wear those masks, when they try to show up as someone else, and I've done it, I had a work me and a personal me, and.

And when you're.

You're a mum as well, you know, you've got many different roles, you can almost get yourself into this Tasmanian Devil style management of masks that it burns you out.

And every time I see.

I've had three in my life, burnouts, and every time it happens, it's because I'VE compromised on who I am or I've gone against what is important to me or I've tried to dampen down something and it's so important.

There's a difference, isn't there, between tempering and, you know, communicating?

It's all still self awareness.

So I don't really see that.

That's really not the same as masking, is it?

It's.

No, it's not.

Because to me masking is being inauthentic.

And I don't, you know, my aim is not to be inauthentic.

It's to be sensitive to the fact that somebody else is not necessarily the same as me.

And if I can adjust my style of acting, talking, communicating and listening to make the most of a situation that helps somebody else, then that is what I should do.

Because that's the right thing.

Otherwise you're just in conflict with people sometimes.

Yeah.

And it's so unnecessary.

And this is why understanding diversity and how people work and personalities and so on is so important.

And it.

We really do need to become more aware of those things.

And it definitely starts with us.

It definitely starts with.

Within ourselves, for sure.

Goodness me, I'm very aware of the time.

We could go on for hours.

I don't know about you, I'm having a wonderful time in terms of your wide and varied experiences.

And I love the juxtaposition of.

And I'm using your turn here, your little business, your global position within CompTIA.

What would.

If someone's struggling with what they want to be doing and, and how they want to be doing it, because Startup.

And Rise very much is.

If things aren't working for you, let them go and pursue a different way or a different thing.

It's starting over with your thinking, with your attitude, with, you know, your approach to things.

What would be a lovely piece of advice to give someone who maybe is stuck at the moment and is uncertain about their future, but knows they've got something else inside them that they want to pursue?

I would start dreaming, I would start thinking about can I see myself doing this?

Can I see myself doing that?

What would that involve?

What would that mean?

How can I get there?

How can I try it out?

I'd be curious, you know, I would be healthily curious and dream a little about what that future could look like if I were doing whatever it is that's different.

And for me, you know, I was really lucky.

I always knew what I wanted to do.

I always wanted to work in it.

I know I'm in the Minority and people often don't know what they want to do.

And it's really hard because how do you get to a point where you do know what you want to do?

And sometimes you've got to go down different dead ends to realize, actually, I don't want to do that.

So the other way of looking at it is, what don't you want to do?

Because that then hones down the list of things that you might want to do.

But just.

Just dream, Just, you know, close your eyes, spend some time thinking and visualizing yourself in a new situation.

How would you feel?

How would you act?

How would you dress?

What would you look like?

What would you say?

Where would you be?

What would it mean to your family, to your personal life?

Just insert yourself into that little world of where you might want to be and see how it feels.

And if it feels great, see what you can do to try it out.

If it doesn't feel great, put it on the back burner and look at something else and just try stuff.

Don't say no.

Don't shut down the opportunities that you've got.

Because you never know.

As you said, you never know where things can end up.

And variety is the spice of life.

So say yes more often and you get a lot of good things coming out of it.

Sometimes they're a bit bad, but you have a choice.

You can get yourself out of it.

You learn a lesson.

There is no failure.

All there is is learning.

We don't ultimately fail completely.

We can't.

It would take an awful lot to do.

So, you know, learn a lesson, move forward, stay positive.

I think you and I are quite similar.

We are very positive people.

And I.

Not everybody in the world is.

And I recognize that we need that different type of personality.

Otherwise it'd be very boring if there were lots of IDs out there jumping around, full of enthusiasm, all the.

But, you know, if you're struggling with something, there is always hope.

There is always a way through, There is always a future.

Nothing bad ever lasts.

It's always in cycles.

Life is in cycles.

And there's a lot of good that comes around the corner.

And the bad times are lessons.

That's how I look at them.

Absolutely wonderful.

There's two phrases that I have.

And my children are.

Well, you know, they're adults now, but their eyes roll when I say it.

But as they're getting older, they're beginning to see the value in it.

And one of them is the learning is in the doing.

You know, sometimes I've said to them.

You know what?

This is something you're going to have to learn by experience.

Yes.

And the other one is give it a go and then you'll know.

And I think those two between them have us covered, don't they?

For.

Yeah.

For how much we can get on with things and not be.

Take the fear out of things and put the excitement and adventure into it and it can look completely different.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think fear and excitement are very close together.

So if you're, if you're in a fearful situation, if you think about being excited sometimes you can push yourself over from fear to excitement.

And that is very true.

Tracy, you've been a fabulous guest.

Thank you so much.

And I wish you, you know, every success in the future.

And I say that as if I'm saying goodbye to you.

I won't be saying goodbye to you.

No.

I better see you again at some point.

Thank you so much for coming on the show.

You're very welcome.

Thank you too.

So there we go.

That was Tracey.

I was very grateful that she came onto the show and really enjoyed that conversation.

But what did it mean to you?

What were your key takeaways from it?

Was there anything that you picked up on that maybe resonated with you, perhaps helped you think about a situation that you might be in at the moment or something that you're dealing with?

I would love to hear from you, check out the show notes.

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So all that's left for me to say is remember it is never too late to make a change.

The there's always a choice and it's never too early to start over with your thinking, your beliefs, your attitude and your approach to life and business.

And if you need some help with that and you're looking for some positive action to take and you think you might like to work with me, then check out saraburton.co.uk.

so you have a great week.

Thank you so much for joining me again and I'll see you soon.

Take care.

Bye.