A snapshot into the life and mind of Cally Beaton. Top TV executive turned comedian, TV figure, writer, podcaster, speaker and coach, Cally gives priceless advice and insight into how and why she juggles multiple careers while being a single mother. Her thoughts on gender inequality in the workplace. And why she thinks she's still single at 50 .. all that plus more

Cally is the host of the notorious podcast Namaste Motherfu*ker

BWB is powered by Oury Clark.

businesswithoutbullshit.me

We record him.

We are, yeah.

Clear Throat.

Hello and welcome to Business Without Bullshit.

I'm Andy Orey and alongside me as my co-host p Stutz.

Hi Andy.

Very good.

Uh, and today we are joined by the wonderful, the one and only Callie Beaton.

Hi Callie.

Hi.

Thanks for having me on.

No, not at all.

Callie's, a British standup comedian, writer, and podcaster and host of the Notorious nama.

Stay motherfucker.

Good to meet another podcast with a swear word in the name.

How's that working out for you?

In Google, I, I saw your B word and I raised you the F word, so Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's got, we've asked, we've asterisked it now, which has helped.

Um, you, you said, uh, before we started, hence we're on, uh, zoom, that the DARI's a little, little packed at the moment.

What's, what's keeping you, uh, so juggling.

Uh, well, I guess it's the combination that, as well as doing the live comedy and the podcast, I still do, I do loads of, um, business speaking, so I do keynotes and after dinner speaking.

So I travel around the world doing a lot of that to a couple of those a week.

And Wow.

I still also have advisory roles in the TV industry, um, as well.

So I, I guess, and I still do a bit of, um, Executive coaching with a couple of media companies.

So yeah, I've got about five or six careers on the bubble, which is a quite enough.

When you do those keynote things, do you literally just turn up, give the keynote and exit?

I do, but I do write them bespoke, so I do write the speeches and uh, I, I host a lot of awards shows and stuff as well, so I did tons in that world and it's more than people realize, so it's lovely money, but you do work for your money.

It must be exhausting.

Award shows must be really exhausting.

Yeah, they're quite, they're, they're easy because you're just going off auto cue and doing a little bit of standup, but they're long.

But the, um, the business speaking, I think a lot of people on the circuit just knock out the same speech.

They have their speech and I, I'm quite bespoke, uh, with them.

So yeah, I love, I absolutely love doing it.

It's, it's my dual passion with the, the standup, but it's a heck of a juggle in terms of different, uh, and it also means I'm doing.

You know, there was a week, two weeks ago when I was filming Countdown all day on the Monday, filming a pilot all day on the Tuesday, gigging Tuesday night in Edinburgh, doing a breakfast keynote, keynote Wednesday at the Comedy store.

The next night.

It was just like all the different hats and day and night, day and night for about seven days.

Straight.

So it can be like that.

And um, yeah.

And as you guys know, having a holiday, when you do what we are all doing, you know, we're boxing and coxing, it's quite hard to go, oh, just safeguard a week and, and go away.

In fact, I just put something on Twitter.

Yeah, yeah.

I just listen on Twitter saying if you wanna get loads of working and you're a performer, just block out a week ring, fence it in blood.

I've had, I'm on my third major bit of.

Brilliant work.

I'm turning down for next week when I'm away with my daughter.

I just, it just keeps rolling in and I'm like, great.

I can't do it.

But it will keep rolling, rolling in it, you know, that's the thing you, I'm, I think we're all a bit like you feel like you can't turn anything down in case it's the last thing you ever get offered.

Yeah.

I think particularly te for me, tele and radio still, I mean, I am doing lots of tele now and I'm getting more, I get asked back on shows, so I'm starting to think, okay, it's not a fluke, but if I get offered a decent bit of TV work, I just think, I'm just not in a position yet to say, no.

Ask me again.

It's slightly part and parcel of, of, of being a performer, present, presenter a, you know, You know, I think back to, you know, I'm not that old, but I think back to 20 or more years ago, and it was very much, you should do one thing, and if you're doing more than one thing, there's something wrong with you and you're not, you know, jack of all trades or something, but doesn't feel like that anymore.

It feels like everybody does lots of things, but do you.

Do you think it's a good thing to do lots of things or, yeah, I, I remember reading Charles Hamdi's book, the Elephant and the Flea, um, and that was over 20 years ago now.

And, and as you know, the whole principle of that book was looking at, at the kind of what's become, I guess the gig economy.

And so it's not a new concept to think that you might split your career in a more sort of portfolio way.

I think one of the bits of advice I would always give to people is to always have a, at least have a side hustle.

So even if you have one main career, at the very least have a side hustle that may become your main hustle.

Um, or nowadays a lot of people are just begging forgiveness, not permission, and creating a working life they want.

But I think it's extremely healthy to be doing something else that is professional, that is not your main job.

And I've always done that throughout my.

You know, throughout 35 years of a career, you mentioned there's an old me and a new me.

The old me being, you know, a, a professional business executive, I assume in TV and the new me being more of a comedy performer.

What, out of interest, what do you think from business you've taken has been really helpful in comedy and, and vice versa?

Is there stuff from comedy now when you go back to business that's changed you?

Comedy massively helps you in business and helps you as a business speaker.

So as soon as you know how it, because it's that human connection thing, which I think is a superpower, and if you are capable of cutting through stuff with, uh, appropriate humor and if you are able to.

Command the attention of a room as a comic has to be able to do that is an enormously powerful way to start a negotiation or a serious business conversation.

So there's real power, obviously as a business speaker, you stand out if you, if you can command a room with humor, cuz not many business speakers do that.

But, so there's a lot that whenever I doubt what I'm doing as a comedian, I'm like, why am I hoofing round up and down the M one at four in the morning for beer tokens?

It's not quite that bad nowadays, but I, I remember why.

The business stuff, um, into comedy.

I think it's probably the way I would see it partly being on a stagecraft level.

I was used to commanding a room with some authority cuz I was used to hosting panels and doing keynote speeches.

So I guess stagecraft, you've got a bit of that, but it's a bit too rigid.

It's not appealing.

Stagecraft, you have to get a bit less slick.

But the key thing I think is actually just being professional.

In terms of being nice to work with.

So if someone books you for a gig, turn up on time, be polite, do the job they've paid you for, do it well.

Work hard.

Invoice them.

Yeah, thank them.

Follow up with do your books them So I treat, yeah, do your books.

So, I treat, I, I, I mean, on stage, I'm.

Obviously loose now, and I've learned to really let go and just enjoy it, which takes a long time when you've sat in boardrooms fighting for your life for two decades.

But it definitely is the case that that's, if I'd never had, I, I, I think there should be, um, a sort of slogan, everyone should be a barista.

Mm-hmm.

And not literally a barista, but everybody should do some kind of job like that where you are just racing around, being told what to do, having to turn up when you are knackered, cope with angry customers, just have a stint of it so that we all know.

That what we should be doing in order to be purchased, professional and capable.

And you have got not many, but there are comedians who've come straight out.

They've never done anything else.

And lots of them are brilliant and do everything brilliantly, um, including the sort of finessing stuff.

But I think it's, I dunno, I wouldn't have been able to be a comic.

In terms of how I managed myself and my life, and the corners that needed to be rubbed off me.

Yeah.

Until I'd had years to do something else.

So don't be a diva, basically.

Don't be a dick.

Yeah, be a Let's go with that Dick.

Don't be a dick.

No dicks.

No dicks.

Out of interest.

Further to that, The use of comedy is very interesting.

Like, and, and how you can relax people, you know, sometimes even with, with vulgar language.

But you know, obviously in British culture we, we, there's pretty much, you know, after Warn we deal a lot with foreign businesses that come here and after to warn them if the culture's not as similar, that it's like, let, we literally joke about everything, you know, it's okay in a meeting in Britain to talk about some very serious things.

Maybe your business going bust and we're still throwing in some jokes, you know.

And that's how we deal with it.

I recently had to do a presentation to the Canadians, Canadians, and produce some of the finest com comedians of all time.

But what I learned in that presentation is my jokes that, that make, uh, well, strangely people from Brooklyn, I've and, and Australia or British people laugh.

They were all deadpan.

Apparently Canadians are quite like that in public.

Do you find, you know, with this sort of, when you're saying using jokes, isn't that.

Quite a British thing.

I mean, you've, you are doing business internationally.

You've gotta be careful with humor or Well, yeah, you do.

You've got, but it's the same as comedy.

You've gotta read the room.

Mm-hmm.

So your words never save you.

So if you just have a way of doing things that isn't gonna be connecting with people, if you say, oh, this is my way of doing it and I'm one of these kind of people, it's, it's as much what the audience need to hear as what you want to say, whether it's in business or in comedy.

And I think the ability to read a room appropriately.

But there are ways to use humor appropriately.

I mean, I, I, one of the things, again, I was doing more in lockdown and coming out of lockdown was training like ex premiere league footballers and people like that to become after dinner speakers.

And they've all got amazing stories.

You know, Paralympian, you know, gold medal winners or whatever.

They've got incredible stories, but they don't always have a way of connecting with the humor of their stories or the anecdotes and the vulnerability, cuz we all know about their goals and their medals.

We wanna hear about that, but we know that we can look that up on Wikipedia.

Yeah.

If someone comes up who's a massive name in sport, I'd like to know, I'd like them to start with a story about when they kept missing goals when they were playing for Chelsea and their wife got shouted at at a shopping center and what that was like for their kids.

To hear that, I would find that an interesting entry point rather than them telling me about determination on the field.

So I, it's about vulnerability and, and creating humor even if you're not good at telling jokes.

The vulnerability aspect though is interesting because, You know, Brit and I, we love the underdog.

We love to hear about, you know, your failure and stuff.

And actually we don't like it when you start doing too well, all poppy syndrome in America, obviously they celebrate the thing.

Do you, do you think in America the vulnerability is always, do you think vulnerability is part of humanity?

It's always the engaging bit.

To, to know the weakness or it's to know your own weak weakness.

That's, that's all you need to know.

And then you can decide what you do or don't share.

But knowing your own vulnerability and connecting with who you actually are and what you actually think, and business on stage in life is enormously powerful.

So if I'm doing a speech, I do speeches, um, to thousands of people quite regularly.

So I'll be doing them in a kind of, yeah, like massive kind of venues, um, sort of o two size venues around the world.

And, and I never feel very confident, obviously, walking on stage in front of.

Five, 10,000 people.

I don't think, God, I'm amazing.

I'm like Beyonce, they're lucky to have me cuz I'm not an asshole.

But I think, um, it's about just noticing where you are at with what you are doing and modeling that.

So if you look about vulnerability in business, it's not about crying in boardrooms.

You know, I split up with my kid's dad when I was on the I T V board.

I had two tiny children and I was.

Dying inside.

But I never told anyone that.

But most of all, I never told myself that.

And I look at myself struggling through trying to be the best on that board and driving revenue, and it was hugely successful time on paper.

But I look back and if people say to me, what would you have done differently, then?

Two things I would've done differently.

The first thing I would've emitted to myself that things were bloody hard and worked out.

What I was actually genuinely kind of coping with and this, and therefore, from that, I'd probably asked for more allies and more support and it would've got a bit easier and I would've been a better role model for all the people who worked for me, who were parents of kids or women or people who might have also been struggling.

And I'd probably been able to do stuff to remove some barriers for them.

So I think vulnerability is one of the most courageous things we can, we can have in life and in business.

But it doesn't equate to bit crying or being weak.

It's just knowing the right people to admit it to, I suppose.

Yes.

Having your own personal boardroom I think is a nice way to think about it.

So have your allies.

It doesn't have to be even people in your business.

Yeah.

But who are those people that you can go into a huddle with?

It might be a friend, it might be someone in a similar industry and another business, it might be family.

Whoever it is, but you need a little huddle about boardroom size.

So, you know, average boardroom size, what is the average boardroom size?

I mean, I deal with all sorts.

Well, there was research done, wasn't there, and they just did a load of, well they certainly did research for how many women you need on boards.

Um, for there to be a meaning more than there are in terms of how effective.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

More than there are, but I think it was.

Three women.

Yeah.

You need three.

One is tokenistic, two starts to make a meaningful change, and three actually starts to mean that business isn't done as usual.

But if you, if you imagine having five to seven people as a minimum in your network and allies who will be, um, both soft and supportive and nurturing, but challenging allies as well.

So like a boardroom.

Yeah.

You know, you try and cast it with different personalities and different skills, but if your endeavor.

Is not to solve everything yourself, but to come up with a network of people around you who can help you solve it.

Then suddenly the hole is greater than the sum of the parts, and what you're engaged in becomes much more robust and interesting and genuinely more diverse as well.

That is such good advice.

It's a bit like the old trick, you know, if you're doing a speech, imagine if you're naked.

I mean, it's the same thing.

You're so no.

Imagine their name.

You better imagine their, not you.

Oh, yeah.

But actually, oh, damnit.

Uh, but it'll probably work if you're Matt.

Now, maybe it wouldn't work.

No, no, no, it wouldn't.

But we'd be let's is them almost allowing that sort of, you know, that, that, that sense, isn't it?

Yeah.

I've got it the wrong way around.

Just disaster.

That's amazing.

I'll tell you what it is that there are a few things that could make anyone a better public speaker, and the one of the, one of them is definitely humor.

But another one is if one of your first stories.

Tells them and shows them something that might seem quite vulnerable, that they feel quite privileged to have heard, that is not what they think they're gonna hear.

If you are the antithesis of an motivational speaker, they can see your facts.

You don't need to bang on about what you've done because that's why you've been booked.

What I want to know is what's the real story behind somebody?

So I think that that's, so, the vulnerability is a.

Brilliant way in.

It's a powerful way to become a speaker.

I think you're absolutely right because sometimes you know, particularly I guess with women, you go to a lot of events that are some sort of incredibly dynamic woman speaker.

And they, they present themselves as amazing and everything they've done is amazing.

And sometimes you come out of that thinking, oh, what's the fucking point?

I'm so, shit.

I come about over that think and I need to lose the stone.

I need to Yeah.

Give up.

And I, yeah, exactly.

So I, I really want to, and I do, I took my speeches.

I'm a huge amount of it.

It's about the things that have formed me that are difficult, like being the parent of a.

Kid with special needs and being a single parent and going to a boys' school and, and, and not belonging and, you know, having spells of depression and things like that.

And, and they, it's not a self-pitying story, but I mean, everyone has a story like that.

Yeah.

So that's what I wanna hear is how do you have that and still be successful?

I don't wanna hear.

If success means shutting down anything that's not successful or anything that resembles failure, I don't really want a piece of that success.

Uh, amen.

I mean, I, I, one of the reasons we're sitting here doing the podcast is when I listen to a lot of big podcasts, a lot of it's very evangelical.

They get someone's terribly successful, oh, you're terribly successful.

How'd you go?

Oh, well, everything went really, really well, and then I was terribly successful.

And it's like, oh, don't gimme that shit.

You know what I mean?

Tell me about the.

Guy who bullied you at school, so you've got a chip on your shoulder and you're determined to succeed so you worked harder or whatever.

You know?

I mean, it's something else.

Yeah.

I think if you are, I mean, I am, my life is still a mess, you know?

It's still a mess and I'm fitting the wheels as I fly the plane, and I'd sooner hear that story, because also that enables people to be courageous.

If you are, you know, you never learn as much from a good gig as a bad gig and as a standup, you literally learn that regularly.

But actually that's a good metaphor for all of us.

And if you're not willing to have a bad gig, you're never gonna take a risk.

And you'll never be able to actually do the things you really might be able to do because all that holds us back is a fear of failure.

We'd all do everything if we thought there was no possibility of failure.

Business without Bullshit is brought to you by Ari Clark, straight Talking Financial and legal advice since 1935.

You can find us@ariclark.com.

So we also like to ask people.

Uh, what you think is bullshit in your industry and why?

So I, I don't think it's just my industry and I'm gonna go probably more with my boardroom life than standup.

Yeah.

But it's a, it's gender based.

It won't surprise you to you.

No, no, I'm good with that.

Yeah.

It's not quite what you might be imagining though.

So obviously numbers wise, we are still in the minority in standup.

There are mil, not millions, but hundreds of really, really brilliant female standups.

There's no lack of talent for sure, but we are still, numbers wise, the minority.

Yeah.

But the thing that irks me more than that, or any assumptions about that, is that my experience in business, and I do now work across.

A lot of different sectors as a speaker, and I still have advisory roles to a couple of different boards, is that you still very often have women in very senior roles in business.

Actually running the business, but above them is usually a male decision maker or sign or offer.

So I think we've addressed things in that You've got enormous numbers of incredibly successful senior women doing the work, driving the revenue, making the things tick over.

But far too often there are still, there is still a male person above them, uh, ticking the books or getting some of the credit.

So I, I think we've got the female talents at the top, but often there's still a.

Male figure talent or maybe not male talent, A male person above them?

Yes.

A male figureheads.

And that, I see that maybe a bit less in media.

I definitely see it in, in sort of finance, kind of, well, you'll, you'll know, you know, law, it's not uncommon that the top, top dogs are still males.

And, um, I did a whi I won't say who for, but I did a, a sort of supporting women, uh, event for one of the biggest kind of global companies in the world this week.

And we were all there and, and there was one guy that was on the.

Panel.

He was a very senior guy in the organization and he just kept bringing the panel back to his experience of how he was a really good male ally and how he didn't realize how he wasn't a good male ally until he'd got involved in these women's groups.

But I thought the fact you keep taking the microphone.

Yeah.

There's six of us here and we've only got an hour and you've definitely spoken for more than 10 minutes.

That's a problem.

Because it's a women's event, so you know, it's great.

You're a male ally.

Please be on the stage.

What's the male Ally's?

Notice when to Yeah.

Support.

Well, somebody who's willing in business sup And it is important.

Yeah, it is.

Support, important to support, have male allies supporting women in business.

Or to have, um, you know, in an L G B T Q environment to have somebody straight supporting L G B T Q employees.

It is important to have allies.

But, but that don't mistake an ally for being the spokesperson.

But I've also, you know, done a lot of those kind of panels specifically about, uh, something gender-based or women in tech or something like that.

And you end up in a discussion about the panel saying, oh God, well we've got, you know, five women on this panel, so we need some men.

And I don't think you have that discussion the other way.

If you know you, you do.

Nowadays, I would say I don't, I don't think you always do now do not always.

But I, I see it a lot that people are like, oh my gosh, we've got five men here.

What we doing?

We've gotta have some women.

I think it is a discussion nowaday, but that is addressing.

Yeah, that's red redressing decades of imbalance though.

So I, and, and I can see why, and I know you are not saying that's frustrating, but I can see why some men might be saying that's frustrating.

But it does need such a sort of, it needs a rigorous redress, which is in its own right, clunky and then becomes quite ex excluding of other parties because of that.

But it is a massive gear shift.

I mean, it's the same as the, um, you know, we all know that statistic that a man with 60% of the qualifications will apply for a job and a woman will wait till she's got a hundred percent.

Yeah.

I mean, that is still a, I was, I did a.

Um, an event with a professor of economics who studies gender sort of statistics and diversity in business, and she said it's still, still the case.

Nothing's changed.

Um, that would fall under testosterone.

You know, I mean, testosterone gives you this confidence that you know what you're doing and there's an arrogance risk-taking and, and, and, you know, testosterone, but it's more than that, I'm sure.

But he, that example takes privilege.

Well, fits nicely as why is a man gonna do that.

Because we will take on, if we see the bigger bull and we are the little bull, we will take it on because you might win.

And in testosterone you can give women testosterone and women have testosterone.

You give them more testosterone.

You do.

That does have an impact.

Well, you, I'm sure it's more than that, but you shouldn't affect the effect of hormones.

Almost enormous part to play in this, in this how we, how we, but you are, you are also doing a slightly classic male thing of trying to explain it.

In one specific way, whereas I think it is more than that.

Sure.

That's very sexy.

Is that comment though, to be fair?

Well, because the word that sprung to my mind was mansplaining immediately.

Yeah.

But we, we, I think that's slightly unfair in the situation.

I had a very interesting thing in Iceland, um, because there is always the, you know, the, the, the big hot potato of having babies and.

Time off work for babies, and I still have a really interesting system.

We work a lot with Icelands.

Uh, the woman gets four months and then the man has to take four months and then there's three months mm-hmm.

That they share.

Very interesting.

Yeah, because the moment you, I've, I had someone work for me, I had three babies in about six years, and they were out there for three years and they need retraining.

It was a nightmare, you know, and, and I'm not saying maternity is, there's no good solutions or.

You do your best with the solution that the, you know, the solution that we have is probably as good as we could come up with, even if we spent days trying to think about it.

But I thought that solution's better.

Like, I was like, that's good because both were affected.

But taking four months outta work and someone is a hell of a lot less than someone taking almost a year.

And then there being, and also it forces the man to become, you know, and, and in this instance it forces both parents to act as sole parents because the other, you have to.

The man has to take the four months, the woman has to go back to work.

It's cuz it's a very small society.

It's the most feminine positive society in the world.

It's part of the, you know, being a very small group of people and you know, it's a bit like what happens during a war.

You know, it's all these sorts of things.

But I thought that was quite good.

What did you, what do you think about that?

Yeah, I think, and they're trying to do more of that.

I mean, paternity leave has, has improved radically in the last sort of 20.

My kid, my oldest kid is nearly 26.

So when I was having my kids, it was a terribly difficult environment to be a woman at senior level in business.

And things have definitely improved the end of the day.

The tough thing is that the women give birth to the babies.

Yeah.

And women breastfeed.

Babies breastfeed.

Yeah.

Women go through the pregnancy.

Yeah.

I mean, not that all women do or should, but there is and there is also, and women still take on a lot of the mental load of children, you know?

So the, so unfortunately, until we address, we need policies that support, but we also need cultural shifts, major cultural shifts.

And what you don't find, if I look on the circuit, if a woman who's had a baby within the last couple of months does a gig, everyone is like, oh, where's the baby?

If a man's.

The father of a baby who's under two months, no one's going, where's the baby?

Because they assume, well, of course the baby's with the mum.

So we've got some fundamental perception issues that a woman and be like, oh gosh, is the baby all right with you being at work?

You know, a man isn't asked that.

So I think we, we've, I think it's a brilliant star and I think we've got a lot to learn from Iceland.

Not least how much they drink.

Um, cuz they do have a laugh.

I've been there a few times and it's, yeah, they don't drink at lunch though.

I'm there a lot.

They don't drink at lunch.

They don't drink at lunch, but they do on the weekend, on a Friday night, that's when they'll hit it.

They're a bit like the Norwegians and stuff and they start about four o'clock with their, what they call evening cuz it's dark.

I mean it's dark when I have a drink it's like it's dark all day.

Like, so yeah, they're, they're a definition of evenings.

And very quickly you have a question which is going to an all boys school.

Kind of affect the way that, you know, cuz you obviously went quite quickly, very high up into to business.

And do you think that was the level of confidence that you were given early on in your, your sort of education?

Yeah.

I don't think I thought of myself as a woman or a girl.

I did some, I did um, the thing called the Hoffman process, which is a really fascinating thing that anyone listening can Google.

And it's all about unpacking your childhood patterns.

Yeah, in order to, it's, it's not therapy.

It's a sort of self-development thing.

It's an amazing thing.

It's a lot, lots of famous people have done it, but that's not why you should do it.

There's not much bad being written about it.

And people from, you know, the editor of GQ did it and lots of people have done it to try and debunk it.

But anyway, um, one of the things they do is you sort of get you, you get to know more about how you were as a child.

And I kept describing myself as it, when I was describing myself and one of the people on the running, it was like, why'd you call yourself it?

And I thought, oh yeah.

Cause I don't think I thought of myself as.

I think, I thought I was kind of genderless.

Not even their, not they, it.

So I think I navigated the first, um, 20, 30 years of my life in, in a way that I didn't really notice sexism or, or assume I should be any different.

I just assumed I was the same as everybody.

I now look back at some of the things that happened.

Back then, and I did ha, I had job interviews with Harvey Weinstein three different times to head up international fira Max.

So I, I literally, I was with people like that in rooms and it was completely weird.

Unacceptable shit happened all the time and I just didn't notice it.

Um, it doesn't mean it was, I, I shouldn't have normalized a lot of it.

So yes, I think I did operate very much in a male way, um, for a long time.

Very good.

We're gonna move on a little bit and we're gonna do what we call the five second rule, even though frankly it's, uh, we've, I dunno we've ever achieved it, but, uh, we're gonna basically ask you some questions to get, you know you a little better Very quickly.

You've got about five seconds to answer you to the questions.

Does that all make sense?

Are you ready, Kelly?

It does, yeah.

Fantastic.

DEQ music, AOF.

What was your first job selling ice creams in an ice cream van on Solsbury Plain.

That's wonderful.

Well, bombs went off in the background.

Exactly.

I did that one quick, didn't I?

Quick and dirty.

What was your worst job?

I would say that it was best and worst job was working on Camden Market, so paying my way through uni with a.

Stall on Camden Market.

Brilliant way to make money.

But the, uh, the kind of 12 hour days, what did you sell?

And the cold were quite hard.

Uh, 1930s textiles and clothing.

I managed to hook up with a stylist and film and television and just offer to flog off all her old stock once it had been used in a couple of films or TV shoots.

So it was entrepreneurial successful.

I was one of the best off students I knew, but it was hard.

Hard graft.

Favorite subjects at school?

Uh, English or So.

English and drama, I guess.

Those kind of things.

I never got to do drama.

I got drama.

Drama.

What the fuck?

Anyway, sorry.

Um, what's your special skill?

Connecting with people?

Oh, in the, as you.

Dare with whistle eyes to the, to the, to the comfort of Zoom.

I've been responsible for multimillions of dollars of revenue for some of the biggest companies in the world, and I don't think I've got any particular commercial prowess, but I do know how to get people to want to work with me and want to do the deal.

That's, that's all I've ever been good at.

What did you wanna be when you grew up?

Probably an actor or a presenter.

Yeah.

And then I parked it for 35 years.

But yeah, probably acting.

What did your parents want you to be?

Possibly a musician.

I was a good musician as a child, and they're both, uh, well, my dad is now a musician, so yeah, possibly something in musician.

What, what instruments are you playing or.

Uh, called classical music.

So yeah, piano mainly.

Yeah.

My dad's a Tims a classical Tims.

Oh wow.

He's um, uh, percussion, kettle drums, kettle drum.

The guy the back.

Yeah.

And there aren't many of them.

If you're a Tims, you get all the work.

There's not many Tim.

I bet.

It's like the basis Anyway.

Um, what's your go-to karaoke song?

I can't sing.

Uh, so anything that's, uh, kind of low, mid-range kind of male droney.

So Ian, jury, Lou Reed.

So sex and drugs and rock and roll.

Ian jury Or walk on the wild side?

Lou Reed stuff that's more talking Yeah.

In a male voice than singing.

You've given me a silly business side, well, silly website idea that you, you, you see, you have to sing a couple of things on the website and stuff, and then it goes right.

Here's your tracks.

Do you know what I mean?

They, oh, that would be good.

That is a good idea.

Yeah.

It might even be better than Ella.

I don't know.

Ella's pretty good, but we'll come back to Uber.

It's always worth the show.

My daughter's Cordela, I take it.

It's nothing to do with us.

It's umbrellas that are fuck fire available on an app or around London.

Oh, that's a great idea.

That's a good idea with advertising on them is my point.

But you know, we've never got it past, past the, uh, past the con.

That's a good, that is a good idea.

Because you pay tencor to buy one and you don't want one.

And I would also, I've virtually split up over boyfriends who've not had umbrellas when I've had an umbrella and they're taller than me and I'm want my umbrella cuz my hair needs an umbrella.

Come straight and they wanna share the umbrella.

I'm like, now the umbrella's up here.

You don't bring an umbrella.

We'll leave any man who wants to share your umbrella.

I'm telling you he's a man.

He can handle it.

You know, we can, we can add That's very sexist.

Well, it, it may be, but, but you, but we, we can deal.

We don't, it's again, sexist, but generally speaking, our hair is less of an issue, you know?

Yeah.

But is it also they don't have the right jackets, and I think I'm dating men who are basically children because they don't bring the right jacket.

They don't bring an umbrella.

Then I have to, I'm well prepared.

I've got look after them.

This is one single, it's a disaster.

Okay.

Anyone out there with a good jacket and umbrella?

You know what?

You know what?

You know what?

Head, head office, dogs, business or bullshit.

Business love dogs.

They should be everywhere.

Where, where is the office dog?

Well, I had this meme this morning, so I just, I think he was quite upset with me, but I decided, anyway, these, I've usually got a dog hanging around my legs.

Uh, very upset and keen to know the answer.

I usually have one hanging around my legs too.

So, yes, home office dog.

So I totally on board.

Have you ever been fired?

I've not been fired, but I did leave i t v with voluntary redundancy, which I know people say some people think it's like being fired, but, um, it wasn't really like being fired.

Well, Get paid.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

They're in the moods to do deals.

Yeah.

So, so I, I did, um, I, I took advantage of the Carlton Grard merger and got out and with some shares and some money and never looked back.

My friend did that at bbc and he said there was this very amusing moment when they're sort of asking who will take Volunt redundancy?

Or you have to be terribly like,

You've gotta keep a poker face here.

You gotta, you don't wanna, you don't wanna trip over yourself.

Running to HR there.

It's what's your vice?

This is like people, um, this is like the joke about job interviews, isn't it?

And someone says, what's your voice?

And they, I'm a perfectionist, but the reason I'm gonna say it still is because, um, it's not a humble brag.

I think a lot's been written, hasn't it, about how perfectionism and being compulsive is actually a barrier to success.

And I still have very compulsive needs to be the best at everything I do.

You know, it wasn't enough to be at the top of kind of boardrooms then I had to be on live at the Apollo as a standup.

Everything I do, I seem to have to get to the top of, and it's just not a balanced, healthy way to live.

So when I was on House of Games, I had to have a real word with myself to come across as a nice non-competitive person.

I was like, just pretend you're not competitive.

Smile, don't worry if you're losing, it's fine.

And I did manage to have front it out for the TV show cause it's only like five half hours.

But, um, I think, um, I think it's Brene Brown who's written as she has very interest in me on so many things, but she talks about as a counter to perfectionism, looking at healthy striving mm-hmm.

And mastery.

So what we're trying to do is master things rather than perfect them.

And actually that's a real helpful guiding line in what I now do for a living, where if you are a perfectionist and you're competitive, you're gonna drive yourself to an early grave with competitive envy, the things you're not getting.

Yeah.

But if everything you do, you think, am I mastering standup?

Am I getting better on these panel shows?

Is this thing I'm doing, is this breakfast keynote I'm doing making me better at what I do?

That is actually a really noble pursuit.

So you are measuring it against your own standards of, am I doing this better than I was?

Yes, that that is, and everyone, you don't have to be on stage to say that.

I think that is a revelatory mindset.

You can still be really ambitious and have really high standards, but you are only in a race against yourself, which is a much healthier place to be.

So that's it.

If there's anything you would like to tell anyone about a book or anything that people should check out of you.

I have got a book in the pipeline, so I've got a book in the pipeline, which is a hybrid of all we've been talking about comedy meets, business meets wellbeing, which is also what the podcast is.

So there's a book being written.

Podcast and people can check out.

Um, yeah, my real, I do a lot of reels on social media that do.

All right.

So anyone who wants to follow me on any platform, I am very visible.

Uh, so yeah, get, have a look and see what you find of my stuff.

So, yes, and my website's got, yeah, all my live stuff and all my other stuff on, what's your website?

Callie Beaton, is it?

Or.

Callie beaton.com.

Yeah, and there's a, there's a live page and there's all my media stuff I've done, so yeah, there's tons on there.

So there you have it.

This was this week's episode of Business Without Bullshit.

Thank you, Callie.

Thank you Pippa.

Thanks for having me.

Thank our producer.