If you’re like Laurence and Carlos, following a squiggly life isn’t just a matter of circumstance, it’s in your nature.

Sarah Ellis, cofounder of AmazingIf, says in her TED talk with her cofounder Helen Tupper “The legacy of the ladder is all around us.” That’s the career ladder; the linear view of life where work is all about straight line progression.

Many of us were led to believe that progressing in life was as simple as ABC: school to university to graduate training scheme to skilled professional to moving up the hierarchy to getting paid more, to success.

However, Carlos and Laurence didn’t follow that path. Instinctively they knew that it didn’t suit them. It didn’t excite them.

They followed a more meandering road. Carlos been an academic, a web designer, a freelancer, an entrepreneur, an event manager, a retreat host, an online course creator, a community builder and a coach… This wasn’t a path that he’d predicted but for him it’s now all starting to make sense.

When you follow a squiggly path it’s hard to understand how all your skills, knowledge and experience thread together, and therefore how to use them in the next stage of your journey.

“A squiggly career is both full of uncertainty and full of possibility. Change is happening all the time. Some of it is in our control, and some of it's not.” says Helen in her and Sarah’s talk.

Accepting this change is the secret to your resilience and understanding the meaning of your squiggly path is key to taking advantage of your future opportunities. However, you can only understand what it all means when you spend time pausing, reflecting, and asking yourself the right questions.

On this episode, Laurence and Carlos are joined by one of the cofounders of AmazingIf and co-author of the books Squiggly Careers and You Coach You, Sarah Ellis.

They talk about Sarah’s own squiggly career, her transition to entrepreneurship and what success means to her. This conversation is designed to inspire you to make important changes in your career and also make you feel more comfortable with living a squiggly life.

And so before we actually kick off the conversation, I thought I'm gonna

do like a little one minute exercise.

And the, what I'm gonna ask each of you to do is to, to essentially talk

about every single job that you've done since childhood for one minute.

I've already got some random memories coming.

Okay.

Right, I'll go.

So, paper round, tennis coach, worked in a call center, aerobics, uh, teacher.

Then the big company, Boots, Glaxo Smith Kline, Barclays, Sainsbury's,

running a creative agency, uh, creating my own company, all about careers.

Cool.

Okay.

Laurence.

Chief bottle up bottle upper, I think you might call it my parents' pub, which then

turned into being a barman, cleaner, um, pot washer, desktop publishing operator.

I don't think those things exist anymore.

Graphic designer, web designer, interaction designer, um, snooker coach,

boats, uh, hiring renter person on the Hyde Park, which lasted about a day.

Um, accounted for two weeks when I was about 16 and never did it again.

Uh, I sold head ties, African head ties in a warehouse in, in, uh, west London.

And I guess you could say these days.

Coach, events, planner, facilitator, and, uh, winger.

Did you say?

Uh, also selling fish at Waitrose?

Oh, no, I forgot that.

Right.

Okay.

Um, paper round, uh, selling bread at Sainsbury's.

Um, then, oh my god, maths tutor, trying to book last minute hotel

space for a travel company, junior web coder, web technical

architect, uh, freelance developer.

Oh, uh, janitor in a hotel, in a, in a hospital, uh, his work experience, uh,

cleaning up Wembley Stadium after the Rolling Stones, uh, sandwich shop mate,

uh, um, sandwich person, uh, cleaning up in a cafe, Burton's men's wear, Gap, sales

executive, and now entrepreneur, coach.

Whoa, boom.

Boom.

So let us start.

Um, hello, Sarah.

How about, uh, introducing for those of the audience that aren't familiar with

your work, um, what you do at the moment, yeah, and, and who you are trying to

help and how you're trying to help them.

Uh, well, we'd like to help everyone, uh, which we know is a bit of a

catchall, but our, our purpose is to make careers better for everyone.

And one of the reasons that we started Amazing If is that we

recognized lots of career development was really only available for

sort of the fortunate for you.

Certainly if you were in big corporate organizations as I was, um, often it

was quite level dependent or whether you could afford to fund it for yourself,

and it was all quite, quite ladder like as well sort of careers for a long time

have been about climbing the ladder.

That's our frame of reference.

That's the shape that springs to mind when we think about describing a career.

And myself and Helen, we are absolutely accidental entrepreneurs.

Uh, we are both, we were both very, very happy in our big kind of

corporate settings and environments and, and enjoying enjoying the

work that we both did there.

And, um, we were having just a conversation over a coffee one day

where we talked about this sort of changing shape of careers and I did

the slightly cliche napkin drawing where I drew this sort of squiggle

and said, I think squiggly careers feels much more reflective of both

our experiences now, but also all of these teams that we're leading

the conversations that we're having.

And actually for us, the interesting thing, uh, it was almost less now sort

of squiggly as a way, a shape of careers.

'Cause most people get that, they get that really quickly.

The bit that we spend most of our time on is how do we help people with their

squiggly careers in a very useful way?

Useful is our number one value at Amazing If.

So, we want to be really practical, try and avoid career cliches that are just

often demotivating rather than motivating.

And in the work that we do, whether it's the podcasts that we do, or books or

workshops, or just creating free tools, I want somebody to, to be able to use

those things and think this is useful for me, regardless of whether you are in

your first job, whether you are in your 50th job, whether you want to deepen your

specialism or whether you want to try working for yourself for the first time.

And so that's sort of, we know we'll never be done, um, and we

know we always have more to do, but that's how I spend all my time.

I, I like the idea of finding a job that will never be done because if

you like it, then you've got a job for life, which ironically is something

that we also trying to talk about, which is like, is that exists anymore.

Um, so a question I had was, you talked about the, the challenges.

Well, what I heard was something around about challenges of this idea

of that, you know, everyone's more or less got a squiggly career it feels.

What, what kind of difficulties do you find people have with

confronting that and just.

You know, working with that idea?

Well I think there's, uh, challenges that individuals have and I think there's

challenges that organizations have and they are actually sometimes different.

So individually, I think letting go of the ladder, depending on how committed

to that ladder and climbing that ladder you've bitten can feel really hard.

Um, I found it hard to, to move out of big organizations.

I could have started my own company sooner, definitely.

Some of the practical things were in place for me to have made that

squiggle, um, quicker than I did.

And letting go of my, the identity and the status that I'd sort of created in

this more ladder like world, uh, took a bit of a mindset shift and a bit of

a reframe in terms of, well, what does success look like for me in my career?

And I started my career thinking success equals climbing that

ladder as far and as fast as I can and trying to get to the top.

I couldn't have told you what the top was, but I, I thought that's what success was.

And so you've sort of gotta let go of that and figure out for yourself.

You've gotta ask yourself harder questions like, what does it mean

to be successful in my career?

And, and you are, rather than sub subscribing to almost someone else's

definition, which is easier and you're told what to do and you're

told where to go, you've kind of gotta figure it out for yourself.

So I think that could feel hard.

In terms of squiggly careers.

Though, I would say in my experience, the individuals get squiggly

careers, whether they are working in a massive corporate bank or they

are running their own companies.

People get, get the idea pretty quickly.

The idea that we're all work in progress.

We're all unlearning, relearning, and learning all the time,

that we're gonna have four or five different types of career.

That you've gotta take accountability and ownership for your own career.

I don't really spend that much time persuading individuals of the idea.

Organizations are different because, uh, the legacy of that ladder means

they've got, uh, structures in place that are sort of quite ladder alike.

And for some organizations they might recognize the shift, but,

but making that happen is hard.

So to give you a practical example of one of the toughest challenges, and I

think it's important, we don't shy away from these ones and talking about money,

okay, I'm, I'm gonna embrace a squiggly career in my organization and I'm gonna

squiggle and stay as we would describe it.

I'm gonna move from marketing to corporate responsibility.

That's what I did in Sainsbury's.

Okay, so what happens in terms of pay and pay rises?

Because historically pay is pinned to climbing that ladder.

So, you know, pay and money is really important for everyone 'cos, it is not

our only motivator, but it is important.

So if I want to squiggle, does that then mean that I have to let go of,

uh, like financial reward or can an organization create an environment where

I can progress and also still increase my earnings, increase my level of

reward based on transferring my talent and the experiences that I've got?

And that is a really big shift for organizations, and it's

hard for them to do because traditionally pay is all about level.

Uh, so that, that, that's just one example of one of the tough things that

I think organizations are grappling with because actually they want flow of people.

It's way more expensive to recruit someone new than to reimagine

retention, which is why we do loads of experiments with companies at the

moment about, uh, career safaris.

So give people the chance to go and just like, try out a

different area in a different team.

Um, and some of those experiments you can do quite quickly and quite easily.

But there are some really big structural things that I think we

can't shy away from if we really want to make this the reality.

If organizations want their people to flow very freely, um, rather

than straight away look to leave, which is what happens at the moment,

I want to do something different.

About 60 to 70% of people automatically go, well, I've gotta, I've gotta leave.

But what happens if you enjoy your organization, if you've got a good

values fit, if you like the people, I, I don't want those people to

feel like they've got to leave much better to stay to squiggle and stay.

But again, it can't mean jeopardizing income for people or pay, or

people feeling like they've gotta start again from scratch.

Mm-hmm.

So there's some knotty problems as we would describe them when it comes

to squiggly careers, but we are, we are finding our way through those.

And I think the organizations that are the most impressive

are very good at experimenting.

So rather than.

Trying to have all of the answers, they, they involve people in creating and

then they try stuff out and they're the organizations that seem to be making

the most progress that we work with.

This is gonna be of a little bit of a detail, but I couldn't help but just

latch onto this, this idea of money and, and I'm gonna think about value, because

you talked about this, these levels, and I've seen this in a lot of jobs and

I talked to my wife about this is like different grades, different levels.

So if you're at this level, you get paid this much of it, this, that.

So it's really clear and transparent how much you get paid, uh,

depending on the level you're at.

And then there's how much value you create for a business.

And I'm not sure how sometimes they equate.

And for the individual, what value means to them as well in terms of their lives.

So there's this thing around, okay, I go from, I don't know, you said marketing

to corporate responsibility, social responsibility for instance, and I'm

just gonna speak out loud here, it might be incorrect, totally incorrect.

And say the, there's a pay cut there, for instance.

So on one hand there's a perception of, oh, that's value.

Well, from the company it seems that potentially valued less from

a terms of monetary perspective.

But then from a personal point of view, you can either say, think, oh,

that job is like less value in general because we are equating money to value.

But then what does it mean?

What does, and you're talking about, what does success mean to me?

What does that also then terms in mean in terms of the value that

I get from working in that role?

I

Yeah, I think there are a few things.

I think one of the things that we spend quite a lot of time helping people with

is the value of your transferable talents.

So we can't help but see the things that we are good at in the

context of how we use them today.

So I can't help but think, um, okay.

One of the things I'm great at is starting stuff from scratch.

Like I love developing new ideas.

And if you ask me to give some examples of that, I can give it.

But in the here and now, because that's, we're present focused and we're sort

of very good at being short term.

But if I'm going to think about, squiggling in a different direction,

um, if I'm gonna go and do something new, if I decide I'm gonna go and

do something different, I've got to figure out how to transfer that

talent so it's useful potentially by using it in a different way.

That's what's really va that's something that I value 'cause I enjoy

it and that's where I find my flow.

But also it is valuable.

So it's value valuable to me in terms of, I, I like spending time

on that and I've got to figure out how is that useful for other people.

And so part of that I think is asking some how questions.

So rather than going, what do I do?

It's almost like what helps me to do my job really well?

What is it about how I do my job that helps me to succeed?

And then start to figure out, well then how could that be helpful somewhere else?

So that having that confidence that you don't have to keep using

those things that you're good at in the way that you use them today.

You know that, um, what have got us here won't get us there.

And we are all like, we are all unlearning and relearning all the time.

Like, you know, how I use my strengths in the context of a

small, fast-growing organization is so different to Sainsbury's.

And I think that's one of the things that I was fearful of.

I was like, well, I'm, I'm good in a big company.

I, I can see how I am valuable in this company, but does that value diminish?

Like, is it still useful when I then go and run a company,

which I've never done before?

So I, so I don't know.

So I think one of the things with squiggly careers that everyone's getting

more used to is that sense of, firstly, there is always an unknown when you

squiggle because you've often not done it before, but you've got to have

confidence in your transferrable talents.

So I've got to have confidence that, uh, my ability to develop

people that are, that I love starting to start from scratch.

I'm, I'm good with a blank piece of paper.

I'm really good at, uh, long-term relationship building, that

those things are really valuable.

Assets or transferable talents that I can take with me wherever I go, um,

and feeling like they will be useful.

So you've got to be confident to talk about them for a start.

I think you've also got to have that.

There's sort of a push and pull that happens and you want people to sort

of pull you towards them as well.

You don't wanna feel like you're pushing yourself on people.

And I think when I moved from marketing to corporate responsibility, I would say

a really significant enabler of that was the director that I was going to work for.

Who, who I had never worked in corporate responsibility and I was gonna be head of

corporate responsibility for a FTSE 100.

That feels on paper, I would say like quite a big risk for that director.

You know, she's putting a lot of trust in my transferable talents.

So I think the, we shouldn't underestimate the kind of role of leadership and people

who've got the ability to kind of pull those transferable talents and have

the confidence in people's potential.

I do see it time and time again.

People are capable of more they give than they give themselves

credit for, definitely.

People can transfer their talent and lots of things are learnable.

Most things are learnable.

I didn't know anything about court responsibility reporting, for example.

But could I demonstrate that I had learned things before that

I got the good learning agility?

It's sometimes described as, yes, that was what was important.

Have I got right the right learning mindset?

Have I got that learning agility?

Okay, well, Does Sarah know anything about corporate responsibility reporting?

No.

Do I believe that she can learn it and that she'll be motivated

to do that and driven to do that?

Yes.

Okay, fine.

I sort of, I'll, I, the value in Sarah is in her transferrable talent,

and I believe that she can learn the things that are very learnable.

And we're seeing, I felt like I was quite an exception to the rule

when I first did that, but we are now seeing so many more examples.

And I think I get emails every week from someone who has sort of rethought how they

think about their career for themselves and their organization have helped them to

do that, and they've now moved from being a scientist to being a senior HR person.

We had one example of that this week, and she was just, she's

absolutely flying, she's loving.

It.

Does, does that mean she wants to work in HR forever?

Like who knows?

There is no point in doing five year career plans anymore.

They're just not useful.

Much better off to think about how are we growing?

How are we developing, how are we being curious about where

our careers could take us?

I, I was, it was interesting there, you talked about there's the, there's the

content, the knowledge which you can acquire, but then there's also what's

important, the capability to learn, so the ability to learn and also, so something

here are you talking about the why, the curiosity to learn, the motivation

to actually do something different.

And I just wanted to like pass over to Laurence as well.

'cause given his, the start of his career, there were some transferable

skills that you brought from your first job to web design.

But yeah, I dunno.

Do you want to, was there anything there in that, that,

that resonated with your own path?

Laurence?

Well, there's my own path, but I think there's also the path that, we, we

meet a lot of people who are at a point in transition and, you know, many of

them are either starting a business or running a business or looking to

maybe start a new business, you know, reinvent their business or pivot.

And the one thing I'm seeing a lot of is there's a lot of fear, because

there's a fear of committing to something and they can't see the, almost, like

you said, the transferable skills or the intangibles that actually can

serve them, even if that turns out not to be the right move for them.

And I think when I look back to my career, I, I know always had this

confidence that what's, you know, what's the worst that could happen?

I'll, I'll have more skills, more experiences, probably a bigger

network and, uh, a lot more assets and intangibles in my resources that

I wouldn't have had if I hadn't tried.

And so I think this talks to, I think a lot of people.

If we, if people can paint a picture of the things that they can take

with them, even if it doesn't succeed, I think it just gives

people more confidence to actually, uh, try things out, like you said.

And I love that idea of a career safari.

I'm almost thinking like a Startup safari.

Like you go on a, on a journey and you, you try things out and you've go on an

adventure, and at the very least you'll take a lot of things with you, even if

it doesn't turn out to be success in the, in the way you thought about it.

I think you are right in that what often stops us is, you know, we try to make sure

this is gonna be the perfect move to make.

And, and you, you try to kind of have all the certainty and make sure that,

um, you sort of got that concrete sense of, you know, I've thought about this

and I, I sort of guaranteed to succeed.

But I think that is, um, a mistake to kind of have that sense of certainty in a world

that is always changing and uncertain.

The best thing that you can do is think, Does it feel like I'm

going to get to, you know, use my strengths, kinda stretch my strengths?

Does it feel like there's a good values fit?

You know, in terms of I'm gonna be motivated in the work that I'm doing.

And I think to your point, a really practical question I always ask everybody

is What will be true in 12 months time that isn't true today if you do this job?

And, and does that feel worth it?

Does that feel like the right thing for you?

Um, and asking yourself like, well, what am I going to learn?

How am I going to grow

? Um, and I think that is often, certainly for me, in my own experience,

when I was thinking about moving into Amazing If or not, I just

thought, Well, do you know what?

In 12 months or in 18 months time, let's imagine like lots of businesses,

our business doesn't work out.

What will have been true in like the next 18 months?

Oh, well, I will get to have worked.

I would've had the opportunity to work and create something with my best friend.

So I, my co-founder is, is also one of my best friends.

So I go, okay, well that, that feels like a fun thing to do.

Uh, worst case scenario, do I feel like someone will give me a job

that will, that will pay my mortgage and my childcare costs essentially?

Yeah, probably.

Like I feel like I've got a good career community around me that in

terms of my essentials, my must-haves in terms of really practical things.

If it doesn't work out, I think I'll be able to get a job.

Okay, well that feels useful.

What new skills would I have gained?

Okay, well I'm gonna be using my strengths in a completely different situation

and context, and that feels exciting.

I feel really motivated by that.

And when I think about my four values and I think about, Do I feel

like those values are gonna show up in running my own company in the

way that they did in Sainsbury's?

No, but do I feel they'll still be present?

Like if anything, even more?

And I think it was probably the values that were the tipping point for me.

So when I sort of really went, I often see values as a bit like a career criteria

of kind of going well, if there're a lens to look at choices through, I think I've

made the bravest choices in my career and they've often also been the best choices.

So the bravest and the best choices when I've sort of zoomed out a

little bit from just the job title or pay, or exactly the company and

just thought, Right, my values are achievement ideas, learning and variety.

How, what kind of fit do I feel like I've got with those four values and this

opportunity, this move that I could make?

And if those things don't feel like they're gonna be present, it

probably isn't the right thing for me.

But if I feel pretty confident that those things are gonna be there, and I've

talked about them really transparently about being important to me, then that's

helped me to kind of do some probably unconventional things along the way.

It helped me to work a four day week at Sainsbury's when no one

was working a four day week.

Um, particularly not to do a random business thingy for the other one day.

Uh, there was a few people who looked after their kids, but no

one who did kind of what I did.

Um, you know, I went to be a managing director for a creative agency.

Went sort of from big clients to an agency.

No one sort of goes that way round.

Everyone goes agency into client side.

So I sort of, I suppose I, I had the confidence and clarity to, for some

of my more ambitious squiggles, if you want to think of them like that.

I think because I knew what was most important to me and, and had the ability

to sort of stress test opportunities and options versus those values.

So I, the way I heard you phrase, it's like these values are the lens through

which you can make big decisions or these more important decisions.

And the question that springs to mind is, okay, what are my values?

Which are really my values, which are the values that I maybe inherited

from the culture of society, the company, the family that I'm in?

Because I was, I, I know this is a question really around you, up until

you started Amazing If and you left, you had a, were they the same values?

'Cause they were, yeah.

You had made decisions to go to that.

So, on one hand, what's coming to mind is like those values would tell

you to stay as well as tell you to leave, or was there something else

that helped you with that shift?

So I think your, your core values stay really consistent.

So your core values are what makes you, you, they're sort of your d n a

or for better or for worse, actually.

So, you know, my achievement value works for me, and you can also imagine, it's

not hard to imagine how an achievement value can also work against you.

You could work too much, um, you might jeopardize other parts

of your life as a result of it.

So, you know, values are just sort of you, your core values.

We have loads of things that are important to us, but there's usually sort of

three to five things that really matter.

And if you ever do a kind of career graph of your highs and your lows, I

guarantee you that all of your highs and your lows of your career so far in

your highs, your values will be very present, and in your lows, your values

will be missing or there'll be some tensional conflict with those values.

And so you are spot on in terms of, for example, at Sainsbury's,

was I living my values?

Was there a kind of a good fit with my values?

Yep, absolutely.

Achievement ideas, learning variety.

But there's a scale, you know, there's always shades of gray.

So if I was thinking very practically on a scale of zero to 10, how much was

I living each of those values, no one lives their values 10 all of the time.

And also we don't have work values and personal values.

So some of living those values are things that you do outside of work and

other things that you are interested in.

But I could probably look at that criteria and think, oh, maybe

achievement might be an eight out of 10 ideas might be more like a six.

You don't have quite as much freedom, um, in the big world

of kind of corporate structures.

Um, learning maybe a seven, variety at that point.

Probably more like a six.

Um, because I like variety in terms of where I work and how I work.

And then there was quite a few limitations kind of back in that pre pandemic world.

And so when I then looked to, okay, making a decision to go and work for

a smaller company, making a decision to go and work for myself, it wasn't

that those values were a zero because I think if they're a zero, you

are, you are moving much quicker.

That's when you're kind of going do something different because

you'll be unhappy pretty quickly.

You know, you'll really, you won't be getting, you won't be

feeling particularly motivated.

But I think I then thought in Amazing If I had already tried it out.

So I was already doing it one day a week for, for a while.

And I was doing it on the side.

Amazing If was a side project for a long time.

So I wasn't going into the complete unknown.

And we know from research, the most successful career change,

unfortunately, and slightly boringly happens incrementally and slowly.

So I very, I sort of very slowly like edged my way through

making that career change.

So I think I got quite a lot of confidence that I, not only was I gonna get to live

my values running Amazing If, but maybe those numbers would be even higher.

I didn't quite know, 'cause I'd never done it full time, but I'd done it

enough, we were already, we'd already written a book, we'd already done a

podcast for a couple of years, i, I, I've known Helen, my co-founder for 23 years.

So that gave me that extra level of confidence.

But I still, but I still didn't know.

I still wasn't sure.

There is still that I think that final point where you have to take the deep

breath and, and decide to go for it.

And there are some things I think you can put in place that

will set you up for success.

But then, I did all of that good stuff that I've just described,

and I left my job in January, 2020.

And so for 10 weeks, life was amazing.

Best decision ever.

Our book did really well.

We got good clients, it was all looking good.

And 10 weeks later, the pandemic hit and I watched our revenue disappear

for the rest of the year in three days.

So everybody's shape that, the pandemic looks different, but, but we fell off

a cliff lit, literally disappeared.

Um, now there's a kind of happy ending to the story.

Like we also recovered very quickly.

So we, we were okay, but you know, I could have done every career development

exercise and tool ever invented, and, and I could never have anticipated that.

But we did have some things in place that got us through that tough time.

We got cash flow.

Really practically, I've got the right people around me in

terms of confidence and just a bit of support, uh, reassurance.

Um, and we've got some other things that we could do during that time to kind of

keep increasing our profile and things.

So like I say, it doesn't, there is no, oh, well if I do this, there's,

there's like this formula for success.

We, we kind of know that's not true.

But I do think when I see people take a lot of ownership for their career and,

and kind of create and design their own career, they're always the people who

just seem to be enjoying their day to day.

They get to the end of the week and they think Was my time

at work well spent this week?

And nine times outta 10, they're going, Yeah, there's some tough moments and

there's some knotty moments along the way.

There's a bit of stress here and there because who doesn't have that?

But they are feeling good about the value that they add.

They are also feeling valuable.

And whether that's you are running a massive FTSE or whether you are a

freelancer, I think those questions are important for all of us.

So when I'm thinking back at the values, for some reason, because of the

way you're using that, I was thinking of graphic equalizers ,was like,

all right, that's an eight, that's a six, that's a seven, that's a six.

And then it's like, oh, Amazing If, let's push everything up to ten.

It's like, how could I actually live a life where everything is like maxed out.

But at the same time, what I heard was that there was,

there's still a leap of faith.

There's still this like, I don't know if that's gonna be right.

And so on one hand there's this, I could stay this place, which I would

say there's safety there and structure.

Yeah.

Or I could jump into this place which was uncertain and potentially adventurous.

And you talked about the four values you have, but I assume

there's also something here.

I just wanna do something different.

I don't know whether, for me there was, I want to do something different.

I think it was.

I want to create something.

I think that was the, that was the mo for me personally, that was my motivation.

Um, because doing differently, I think for me perhaps would've been, oh, well,

I'm sort of not as happy over here and I want to just do something different.

I think it was more, you know, when you have, um, I always ask

people when we, I say to everyone, do an energy audit of your week.

And so at the end of every day, just ask yourself one coaching question, which

is what gave me the most energy today?

So of everything that you did, maybe it was the hour where you spoke to

no one, and you found your flow, like writing something, maybe it was

when you problem solving, you were collaborating, whatever it might be.

What I realized is that moment of high energy for me where I was finding my

flow were those Amazing If moments.

So it was sort of like the, oh, well maybe I, maybe I'm

very good in this current job.

Maybe I found a way to be very good, or, but maybe there's, maybe I could be great.

Maybe I could, given how much energy this, these other things give me,

um, this seems to be where I'm at my best and I seem to be better.

I just seem to be that bit better when I am doing a career development workshop.

It gives me so much energy.

I seem to find my flow, I seem to use my strengths, um, all of the

indicators feel positive essentially.

And so I think it was more about that going to that sense of energy and

enjoyment and going, I imagine if, like, wouldn't it be amazing If this could

be my, what I spent more of my time on.

Um, and like I say, that happened, that was, I mean we've been doing

Amazing If since 2013 where like the slowest tort us of all time.

but I think that's been really good for us.

That, that meant that we.

We tested our ideas, we let go of stuff that failed along the way.

We made sure that we wanted to work together.

And so then it happened very naturally and organically.

Um, and I, and I think that's been a kind of really good thing,

really, really good thing for us.

But again, it doesn't mean it's always easy.

Like, um, I mentioned to you the other day, I definitely had a moment

last year where I wanted to hide under a duvet, semi permanently.

Um, and I'd never felt like that in corporate world, ever.

So I had never felt like that working in any big brand.

I'd never thought, I wish I could escape the world for a week.

Um, and last year I definitely had that moment and that felt

really unfamiliar and quite scary.

Yeah.

So thank you for, for mentioning that.

And I, I'd like to, if possible, just for, for people who've, who may

experience that kind of phase or just, um, themselves will recognize that.

I'd like to talk a bit more to that as well.

Um, I'm also curious about some parallels here.

'cause what I heard when you're talking about this transition to amazing, if

there's this idea of an energy or, so, where do you, where are you getting

a lot of energy and, and figuring out where the energy's coming from.

But then it's real need to create, I want to create something.

That's what I heard.

And so I, when, you know, one of the things that I think many of the people

are attracted to our community is like, it isn't necessarily about the money.

And sometimes it isn't necessarily about the impact.

It's that I just wanna make something for myself.

There is something inside that I want to birth, and I want to use my time

in the most energetic way that feels most energetically, uh, aligned.

Well, yeah, so many parallels.

You know, starting a business with friends, being starting business

around the same time, about 2012, 2013, we started Happy Startup School,

running it as a side project for, we had two years I think, of the agency

and Happy Startup as a side project.

So there's lots of parallels there.

Um, and also just the dip.

Yeah, like you talked about those moments.

I think we definitely had those over the years.

Certainly, I'd say probably about three or four years ago, um, we

just had a crazy year doing event after event and just saying yes to

everything because we weren't sure what the right thing was to do.

And getting to a point, um, where I just thought, I can't do another year like that

as, as fun as it was, need to either stop, stop doing some things, build some better

habits or, um, yeah, bring in more help.

And so, In some ways, I wonder whether those are the times when

they almost need to happen to know what your limits are, what your

boundaries are, and, and actually which of the bits you enjoy doing.

And like you said, that energy audit, I think is so powerful because that

was actually the thing I got from trying to decide between what do we do?

We, you know, do we stick with twist?

Do we go with the safe agency?

We could see the business, we could see the future.

We could see the, there was a plan, you know, there was a, a model to follow and

we knew people who were ahead of us and we could sort of use them as mentors.

But it wasn't really exciting.

It wasn't really energizing me.

And I don't think it was either Carlos.

Versus we're doing this thing on the side, but it's just feels like fun.

It feels like play, and I'm getting so much off it, so much energy off it.

And the people we're meeting and within a few months of starting Happy Startup

School, we probably had more, more sort of positive energy coming back

to us than we'd had in 10 years of running an agency as good as it was.

So it just, like you said, it felt like a different level

of experience really of work.

I'd never, I've never experienced that before, that feeling of

depth that I'd not experienced.

And so that was what was calling me.

I was getting a buzz off the energy of others, um, rather than just,

there's times when I enjoy writing and I get energy off that too.

But there's definitely that feeling of, yeah, this is where I need to be.

This is where I'm best used to people.

Yeah.

And on that kind of the, the dip or the, the, the duvet week, what were you able to

identify what it was and then, or was it just a phase that you had to run through?

How, how did that manifest for you, Sarah?

So what was interesting about that moment is I think it's probably the first time

where I, I couldn't see, I couldn't see, uh, my way through a period of time.

So we're all, everyone's always busy and we've always got loads of things that were

sort of fitting together, but I'd always experienced, you know, I, I could have

got a lot of capacity and I was able to always think, have confidence in myself.

I will find my way through this.

Yeah, we've got some big things happening, but I feel good about, uh, you know,

I've got the right people and I'm, I'm on my own confidence in my own abilities.

And I think that was the big difference for me is I, I looked ahead to the

next two or three months and I thought, I, I can't, I can't strategically,

I can't put all the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that works.

I, I don't get it.

I don't get how this is going to happen.

Uh, so I felt out of control and I don't like, I don't like being out of control.

I've got high need for control, and, and I think it, that was just

a very unfamiliar feeling for me.

And so interestingly, so I rang my co-founder.

I was, it was like a freezing cold day.

I was at Clapham Junction Station.

It was like snowing, like, but not in a nice, pretty snow way, in

like a cold, sleety, horrible way.

Um, rang Helen, my co-founder, who's a real extrovert.

She's a real doer.

I'm more of a thinker.

And what was, what was interesting in that moment is when I spoke to her and

was sort of trying to describe it less articulately, and this might have not

been that articulate, but in terms of what I've just sort of talked to you

how I was feeling and what I was worried about, she, she didn't really get it.

So what she moved to really quickly, which is what we would do 99% of

the time, is like, how can I help?

What do we need to do?

What action should we take?

And I sort of refused to be drawn into that conversation.

I was sort of like, No, no, I'm not, I'm not really there yet.

I didn't, I, and I sort of didn't really, I just almost couldn't react.

And then I, we sort of, I sort of just like hung up, hung, hung up the phone, and

straight away we were like, that's weird.

That just didn't feel right.

That doesn't feel like other conversations.

What, what sort, something went wrong there.

And what's interesting is she went home to her husband, and then talked to him

and she was like, I've just had this really weird conversation with Sarah.

And he sort of said to her, oh, I think perhaps you didn't

give Sarah what she needed.

Um, and you're so action focused you sometimes forget to have empathy.

Now that's a really harsh bit of feedback that only a husband

could probably give a wife.

Um, now Helen then, so between us, I was already really struggling.

Helen then gets really upset because her husband has just told

her she hasn't got any empathy, um, which she absolutely does have.

And then she gets really worried that she hasn't then helped me.

And so what was so funny that Friday night, and I mean I think you have

to laugh by this point, is like we are both trying to like bath our kids

and stuff kind of just between us sort of falling apart all over the

place that we're what is happening?

Um, and it all happened quite quickly.

And what was interesting is we've always talked about, um, fix friction fast.

And that wasn't really friction, but when something doesn't feel

right, calling it and just sort of saying this doesn't feel right.

And that being okay.

And actually what I really needed in that moment, all I needed

was someone to listen to me.

I just needed a kind of pure listener, um, with lots of empathy just to

support and sort of, I just needed someone to be there, you know, just

kind of completely just be there.

And so actually I went to a different friend, a friend I've worked with before.

Um, he's great and he sort of had a very different response to Helen and he's a

very different sort of person to Helen.

He was like, have a drink.

That was his first response, like, get, get the g and t out.

Then his next response was like, whatcha you doing at the weekend?

Like you do, like, do something fun at the weekend, almost

like, forget about work for now.

Sort of just lock it away for a bit.

I know it's not going to go away, but just like almost distract yourself.

So he had a very, very different response, and that was actually what

I needed in that, in that moment.

And so it was actually really good for our relationship, for Helen and

I to know that sometimes we don't always have to be each other's answer.

That's, that's a good thing.

You don't want, we always say you don't want your development to be dependent on

anyone or certainly not any one person.

Um, and also it helped us to realize that we can get through those hard moments.

And it really made us press pause.

And it made us press pause and go, okay, that's, it was such a

significant response from me and one that neither of us sort of seen that

it really made us stop and evaluate.

Okay, so why, what triggered that?

What is that about?

Like, why, what do we need to do differently?

We asked ourselves some really hard questions and you can't

change things overnight.

And a lot of the changes that actually we then may took six to nine months to make

because you can't just drop everything.

You know, you've, you've made commitment.

But you can, you can always, I think, do something differently.

There's always something, there's always something you can either

say no to, you can get some help or, um, you can deprioritize.

It might not feel very comfortable.

It might not feel very fun, but there's always something at least a

little bit around the edges because the bigger changes do tend to take

a bit longer, certainly that's been my experience over the last year.

So albeit I don't really want to experience that in quite that same

way again because it wasn't, I can laugh about it now, but at that

time it didn't, didn't feel great.

I'm sort of grateful for it because I feel like we are a better business

because of my Clapham Junction meltdown.

And I talked, I've talked about it a few times now that, you know, I

feel like I can laugh at myself about it and I get people emailing me to

think like, I forget that people listen to our podcast sometimes.

And then I got my mum emailing me being like, are you okay?

'Cause my mum listens, she's like our biggest fan.

She's like, Are you okay?

Is everything all right?

And I was like, oh yeah, I sort of forgot.

I forgot that by saying these these things out loud, there are people

who actually do know me really well, who then might be worried.

And so it was all, it was all fine.

Um, but I think it was a valuable insight for me that you can be doing

the job you really want to be doing and that you designed and that I, I love.

And those things can still happen.

And that's okay.

That's okay.

It doesn't mean you are in the wrong job.

It doesn't mean I should not do Amazing If.

It just means it's a hard moment.

It's one of those naughty moments where you've gotta find your way

through it and you've gotta get unstuck and, and that's okay.

Mm-hmm.

I call them AFGOs, another fucking growth opportunity.

And it's, it is like, what I heard there was, there's like a period where the next

three months or so looked really bleak.

Like there's like a dark shadow and not knowing what was next.

And it felt like just pausing and stopping and not being in the fixing mode straight

away gave some space to imagine what could be, as opposed to, oh my God, this

train is gonna hit me in about whatever.

There's the future is inevitable.

Kind of feeling it felt like, or oblique future was inevitable.

And we talk a lot about, in our community, well we've been inherited

the idea of the power of pause from a good friend Sally Ann Airy.

And we've also, uh, done a couple of initiatives.

One called the Day of Nothing, and also we've done a retreat

called the Week of Nothing.

Well, I think, well the Day of Nothing came out of, in the midst of the pandemic

really, there was a lot of, we didn't do our summer camp and so there was a, uh,

a call for us to do a virtual version of it, and the energy just wasn't there,

and I just didn't feel right to try and recreate that experience online because

it's a completely different thing.

Um, and so actually that was almost a backlash to that in, in

terms of wanting to switch off rather than stay switched on.

Um, but I think it's, I suppose anyone who runs their own business, I think the

more you, um, work as an entrepreneur, you realize the importance of space

and the importance of, um, that time away from the business, whether it's

a walk in the morning or just yeah, uh, five minutes grabbing a coffee,

that, that moment of pause I think is so powerful for our ideas, for our,

um, sanity and for our wellbeing.

And so, yeah, the Week of Nothing was really an extension of that, where we

spent five days in lovely center and Somerset, um, pausing, which again,

for a lot of people, scary as well.

It's like Summer Camp next weekend.

We were talking about this this morning, me and Carlos, you know,

for some people coming back, it's a great chance to reconnect.

It's almost like a reunion.

For new people it can be scary, this idea of leaving your kids at home,

if you've got kids for three days and creating space for yourself.

Even if you know you probably need it, there's a fear of what happens when

you create it, because I think we're so used to having a day's program

that, I dunno if you find this on your Fridays, that there's a space

that you create that you put trust in, but ultimately things emerge that you

maybe didn't expect or feelings might pop up that you weren't planning for.

And so I.

It comes with a word of warning, I suppose.

And that's where I think, I think a community and people around you

so important so that they can pick you up when those things come up

that maybe are there anyway, but you just have so many layers on

top that you don't always see them.

So for me, it's just a bit of letting the guard down and unraveling those layers so

we can actually know what's really going on rather than just carry on as normal.

And ideally preempting those moments where you're not hiding on VO for

a week or even a month, but you put yourself first for a change.

I think the other thing is, um, which you mentioned earlier in our

conversation today, is you realize you're in it for the long term.

And so to to, to do that, you know, like I, I think, well, I, I love what

I do so much that I still, I want to be able to do it in 10 years time,

in 20 years time or 30 years time.

we talk about this in the communities, this idea of sustainability, there's

financial sustainability, then there's energetic sustainability.

And our ability to, to always be in that space of creativity, be

in that optimistic space where we feel that, you know, we want, we're

motivated to continue with the work.

And, and having those times to pause.

Would hope to, to end on, um, because this is one of the things I heard Sarah

talk about before when she was making the transition to Amazing If was to have.

Good support around you.

and we can maybe talk a little bit to that, myself and Laurence

But maybe, Sarah, are you back?

So I think Sarahs gonna try and reboot her

Squiggly connection.

Her squiggly connection.

Well, one thing that came to mind that I was gonna actually ask Sarah was

this, so she talked a lot about the transferable skills and these intangibles

when you do something different, transfer careers or start a new business.

But I think, um, there's something about having a story to tell

other people, 'cause I think that's always the issue, isn't it?

If you're doing something different and someone ask a question or it doesn't

work out, what do you say to people?

And so in some ways, I've found that's having people around you is really

helpful with that because they can help you craft a story that makes sense,

um, even if something didn't work.

Rather than just, I tried something, I feel like a failure.

Um, I feel like an embarrassment because people ask me what

went wrong and did it work?

You know, how's it going with the business?

Is it going great?

You know, people ask things, how's business?

Which can be a tough question when business isn't going well and, and as

if that's the only measure of like, things are going well because the

business is going well or vice versa.

So yeah, that, that story piece I think is so important.

And I think that's really hard to create on your own because

you're wrapped in something.

So whether it's having a mentor coach or just peers or a community around you to

say, Have you thought about it this way?

Try reframing it this way.

And then they then have something to say when someone says, how's it going?

They say, I'm okay and this is what I've got from it, and then moving

on, rather than, I feel like a failure because it was so binary

that it either worked or it didn't.

Yeah.

And what I liked, um, was picking up from what Sarah's story around that

kind of duvet week was also, rather than jumping into fixing things.

And we have all have people who can fix problems for us that we can lean on.

There's also people who can hold space for us and just give us a chance to

just share what's really going on.

And, um, when it comes to this idea of creating, finding support,

traditionally I think business owners or people starting business, they

think, oh, I'm gonna need an accountant.

I need a lawyer, I need Aweber designer, I need a graphic designer.

You know, all of these kind of more tangible kind of levels of support,

but not necessarily the emotional side.

And maybe they think, oh, my partner or my family or some

friends will be able to do that.

Not necessarily though, if they haven't necessarily had the same experience or

aren't in the same frame of reference of you in terms of like starting

something new, starting a business, stepping into something uncertain.

And so for me, there's something here around having people around you that not

only understand the journey, but also understand the type of journey you're

going on, that isn't just about the money.

And this is why I think our community's important is that.

When even when you're saying large, oh, business isn't going well, if you

look, you can look at it from a very simple lens of how much money you are

making, but business could be going well because I've still got the freedom.

I'm still doing what I want.

It's just at the moment, the money isn't doing the way I'd like it to or isn't

working the way I'd like it to work.

But it doesn't mean business isn't going well, it's just

not performing in that lens.

And so like you're saying, how do we expand the story that I'm still

on the journey I need to take?

It's just certain bits that are still challenging rather than, oh, the

business is screwed because we're not making the revenue that we said we were

gonna make in our Q4 planning meeting.

It's like, no, just going through a hard patch.

I, like Sarah said, that's an element of doing the right thing.

You know, enjoying each week, enjoying each day, and then doing

the right thing, living your values.

And over time, those tough weeks get balanced out by the better

weeks rather than it being sort of, yeah, peaks and troughs,

And I think it's nice to have to meet Sarah and to talk to him was for me,

because then surrounding yourself with and connecting with people who

also appreciate that way of working, who also think of it not purely in

very simple terms around business.

So, um, it's a shame that we weren't able to say goodbye

to you, Sarah, uh, properly.

I hope you're still there listening.

Um, thank you.

Please share in the chat, uh, because you haven't had a chance to do your

shameless promotion bit, um, a link to Amazing If or anything that's going on,

uh, for you at the moment that you'd like people to pay attention to, 'cause there

is the podcast as well and you have the new book, uh, You Coach You as well as

the previous books, Squiggly Careers.

Um, so if you wanna find out more about that, the Squiggly Careers

podcast, please look that up.

If you're interested in finding out more about Sarah and her co-founder Helen,

and there's AmazingIf.com and you'll find out about their books as well.