Stepping into Workplace Resilience: Dr Jo Burrell and Dr Felicity Baker

In this week's episode of the Business of Psychology podcast I'm joined by Dr Jo Burrell and Dr Felicity Baker from Ultimate Resilience. I'm really excited to talk to them about the business they have built together that helps workplaces create psychologically healthy teams through evaluation, training and professional support.

Full show notes and a transcript of this episode are available at The Business of Psychology

Links for Jo And Felicity:

LinkedIn: 

Dr Jo Burrell

Dr Felicity Baker

Ultimate Resilience

Website: www.ultimateresilience.co.uk

Introducing the Skills-based Model of Personal Resilience 

An Unguided Web-Based Resilience Training Programme for NHS Keyworkers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Usability Study

HRZone Articles:

Measuring the impact of the four-day week

Taking care of HR: Bringing supportive supervision to those who need it most

Employee wellbeing: how to make peer-led staff support safe and sustainable

Rosie on Instagram:

@rosiegilderthorp

@thepregnancypsychologist

The highlights

• Jo and Felicity tell us about who they are, and what Ultimate Resilience does  00:24
• Felicity and Jo talk about how they went from the idea to getting off the ground 03:05
• I ask Jo and Felicity if they remember any particularly striking differences between the NHS clinical setting and what was useful in workplaces 09:47
• Felicity and Jo reflect on some of the challenges they faced in this journey 16:12
• I ask how they have gone about developing the relationships they need 19:36
• I ask Jo and Felicity if there is anything they would have done differently 25:42
• Jo and Felicity give us their advice for psychologists or therapists that are thinking about stepping into workplace work 33:17
• I ask them what’s next for the future of Ultimate Resilience 37:20
• Jo and Felicity tell us where we can find them 39:34

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SPEAKERS

Rosie Gilderthorp, Jo Burrell, Felicity Baker

Hello, and welcome to the Business of Psychology Podcast. Today I'm joined by Dr Jo Burrell and Dr Felicity Baker from Ultimate Resilience. I'm really excited to talk to you guys today about the business that you've built together. So without further ado, I will ask you to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about who you are, and what Ultimate Resilience does. So Jo, we'll come to you first.

Thank you, Rosie. So as you said, I'm Jo Burrell. I'm a clinical psychologist, I qualified in 2001. And Felicity and I set up our business 10 years ago this year, Ultimate Resilience. We started out part time, we were both working in the NHS at the time. And we run training, coaching, evaluation for workplaces, across a whole range of sectors actually. But I would say our biggest customers are largely charities and public sector organisations. We might say a bit more about how that's come to be at some point. But yes, so we're in the workplace wellbeing space. And yeah, that's what we do.

It sounds really interesting. So can you tell us a little bit, and maybe Felicity, we'll start with you, a bit about your background before you came to the work you're doing now?

Yes, yeah, we were both working in the NHS, as Joe said, in adult mental health in Nottingham. And we've done that for a number of years. And we were both managers in the service that we were working in. And yeah, so we were working with sort of complex chronic, psychological difficulties mainly, but we were also working in an IAPT service. So, this is for those people who don't know, and improving access to psychological therapy service, which is really aimed at offering some support and therapy to people who are kind of quite early on in their journey with mental health problems, to try and catch people early. So one of the things we were offering was a stress management group. And, and that was, that was working really well, I mean so well that some of the clients that we had were saying this would be really great in our organisation, could you, could you deliver it to our colleagues? And this is something that we explored. But obviously, within the NHS has no capacity for doing that. So that's why we sort of came, our business came about, that's why we set up.

That's interesting. Some of the best business ideas come from what we're directly asked to provide. I think often, if we're really listening to people, they just tell us what we need to be providing out there. So I mean, you've made it sound incredibly simple there, somebody asked you to do something, and he just did it. But I'm guessing it wasn't that simple. But can you tell me a little bit about how it went from that idea that nudge, this would be something that's worth doing, to actually getting off the ground?

Yeah, so basically, as Jo said, we were working, we were both working full time in the NHS. And we started doing this part time, we developed a training course. We were just doing sort of stress management, but when we started looking at the literature, and we looked at the workplace and the sort of things that people in the workplace were needing, we started thinking more about resilience and well being, and we developed a course, and we just put it out there. We sent out emails to people and I remember the day that we got the first email back saying, oh, yes, I'd be interested in a chat about this. I was like, okay, I need to lie down on the floor now, because someone's actually saying they want this. And yeah, and from there, we just sort of, you know, progressed it and with that organisation, we did quite a lot of work over several years. And then we just sort of put it out as well to other organisations.

I love that story, because I'm often talking in my membership about how much easier it is to sell to organisations than it is to sell to consumers. Consumers being kind of members of the general public, who may not have heard of us yet. And often that's because if you can hit on something that a HR director or another decision maker is struggling with, and you have a solution and you're credible, then they've got the money in their pocket to spend on it. They want to, they want to buy in that service from you. Whereas for a consumer, it can take a lot longer to educate them about who we are, what our qualifications mean, how we might be helpful. So thank you for sharing that because I think a lot of people are very surprised at how much shorter that journey can be when you hit on the right thing that that HR director or whoever it is, is actually struggling with. So you were very shocked and surprised. But can you tell me a little bit about how that first delivery went? What was it like delivering that course for the first time?

Nerve wracking! Yeah, very nerve racking, in fact. And, yeah, I mean, you're testing it out, aren't you? You, you know, you design something. And we, we actually designed a model of personal resilience at the same time as, as the workshop itself, which we've since published. But, you know, so we're kind of testing out the delivery, as well as the model, and how it resonates with people. I think, though, that, you know, coming from a clinical background really helped because we had a sense of what people need, how to engage people in psychological ideas, how to talk to people about psychological ideas, you know, I think we brought a lot of skills that we had already that really helped us. But it was really nerve wracking. And, of course, you know, evaluating and getting feedback, and really watching and thinking about how people respond is so important. I mean, I think we've done a huge amount of that over our time. And we still do a lot of it. Because, you know, you need to know that what you're doing works. And we've, you know, that core training, what we call our essential resilience training course, we're still running, it's still our most popular product. But it's been through all sorts of different versions and incarnations, and of course, when the pandemic came, we had to suddenly do everything online, so we had to make it into an online live course. But yeah, we're still listening to the feedback and learning about what people need.

This is interesting, actually, because I've done some work with organisations, but it's all been post pandemic. So when you started talking about it, I immediately thought of it as an online offering. But actually, you were going in and physically delivering in person.

Absolutely. We did everything face to face. So we were doing training and coaching largely pre pandemic, and we were doing everything face to face. And so we were, you know, the area that, the geographical area that we were covering was much smaller than it is now, because we were going to places that we could get to in our car, you know. Sometimes we went a bit further afield, we did Bristol, we worked in Bristol, you know, we did go a bit further afield. But now we work right across the country and even you know, internationally at points. Because we suddenly can because the pandemic changed everything, didn't it?

Wow. So when you started out on this journey, and you were delivering those first few courses, were you balancing that with working full time in the NHS?

No, we were both part time by that point. So I think there was something that was kind of, you know, about just circumstance that we found ourselves both working part time, and we had a space, and we got our first booking. And we delivered the course. And then in the summer after that first booking, we got another booking in the sort of September and that was when we produced our model of resilience basically. So we did it once, then we, you know, we learned from that experience, and we devised our model, and then we you know, rolled it out from there onwards. But we, yeah, we had some space and part time space to be able to do that. And we continued to work part time in the NHS for a number of years until we went to being full time just with the business.

Brilliant. So I think it's really helpful for people to hear that process that you didn't deliver the course and it was perfect and you just accelerated it from there. Actually, this was an evaluation process. And it continues to be that yes, I think that's really important to understand, because often that imposter syndrome in us tells us that we can't make the phone call, we can't send the email until we've got the perfect product, but actually it's not possible is it. Until you've got in front of people and delivered it, it's impossible to know what's going to work and what's not.

Absolutely. And of course, we then had to do it again with moving to online delivery because it's a different beast. You know, you can't do a full day's workshop online, all in one go. That doesn't work. You can't even do half a day really, it doesn't, really it needs to be in shorter chunks because people don't have the capacity. People interact very differently online. You know, so we yeah, we did have to do the whole thing again, and we're still doing it, as I said.

Can you remember any of the particularly big differences between what you delivered in the NHS clinical setting and what was useful in workplaces? Do you remember any particularly striking differences you noticed?

I'm not quite clear, can you? Can you explain your question?

Yeah, I know, it's a tricky one. But I'm just thinking that a lot of the time when clinicians think about striking out into the workplace, they imagined that they'll be met with completely different struggles, completely different set of challenges and will struggle to rise to that. I'm just wondering if you could reflect on, you know, what was new and what was different about it? But also maybe what was similar? I didn't prepare you very well, for that question, I am sorry, throwing you in the deep end, I just became curious.

Yeah. Go on Felicity, yeah, yeah...

I was just thinking, it's an interesting one, that we're struggling to answer it in a way because I think when you're dealing with people's psychology, people are people at the end of the day, and, you know, the sorts of things that are contributing to work stress, are the sorts similar sorts of things that it bring people into clinics, you know, if they've been burning out, they've taken time off work, but you're just catching it off, and you're catching it earlier. So I suppose people weren't struggling as much often as you would see them when you saw them clinically. Although I have to say that there were people who, on that, there still are people who attend our workshops, who are currently off sick. And it's easier for them to do that, because of the online delivery now, of course, but we've had people come into sessions before face to face who, at the end of the training, you find out that they're currently off sick, or that, you know, we do a follow up session, and we find out that they've gone back into the workplace, having changed their views, and changed their ideas about themselves and their role in their difficulties. So I suppose that's, you know, that's something, you know, people are people, and that's what we work with, and we adapt and develop our approach, according to the people that are in the room, just as you were doing in a workshop delivered in the NHS.

I think it sounds like very rewarding work. Is there anything that you kind of miss about working in the clinical setting? Or are you both still doing some of that,

We're both still doing a small amount of clinical work separate to Ultimate Resilience. And, and I guess that's, you know, professionally, I think that's good for us, because we're keeping our hand in with our clinical skills and doing some traditional clinical work. So I think we don't miss, we don't miss the clinical work, because we're still doing a bit of it. I think it's, I think at times I miss the NHS, you know, I mean, there's lots of it, I don't miss, because we know what the NHS is like nowadays, and how many challenges there are for people working in the NHS, but I missed the kind of the camaraderie and the you know, and also being able to deliver, you know, services for free to people, because it's a great thing to be able to do that, isn't it? So, yeah.

Is that your experience as well Felicity?

Yeah, I mean, I really love my one to one work. So, you know, I'm pleased to be able to continue, I just do one day, a week clinical. But we also do one to one as part of the business. So we do the resilience coaching. And we also do resilience supervision, for leaders and managers. So in some ways, because it's still going on, there isn't anything to miss, it just gives us a good balance of different things. And one of the things I like about the group training, though, is the creativity of it. And you know, we're often adapting things, changing things, developing new courses for organisations, so we're still using our kind of assessment and formulation skills within the organisation to find out what is it that they're struggling with? What do their staff need? What can we deliver? How can we support them with that? So, you know, the work is, you know, really varied. And yeah, I there's nothing that I really miss, because I think I've, you know, I'm lucky enough to have it all really,

I think, if anything, I mean, that's one of the things you know, reflecting before this meeting today about working, you know, doing what we do, I realised that actually, I think we use a broader range of our skills through this work than we did in the NHS. I think in the NHS, you know, we didn't have as many opportunities to do things like research. Neither of us were published before we had our business and we're now, you know, we've got several academic articles out there, we're contributing to a book chapter at the moment about organisational resilience. You know, we've had more opportunities to do that. We're going into organisations doing evaluations, and those sorts of things. So we're using our research skills. We're doing group work and individual work, we're doing training, so it does, I feel like, there's no part of me as a clinical psychologist is frustrated, because I'm not able to do some of the things that I was trained to do, you know, and we're working a lot with leaders and things like that. And, you know, leadership is part of the training of being a clinical psychologist, too. So we, you know, we're using that full range of skills, which I think is really, that's really rewarding about it.

And I think that's often true in independent work, because ultimately, you're shaping a service, you're able to make sure that your, your job effectively involves all of those components, whereas it rarely does in an employed role of any sort, whether it's the NHS or somewhere else, you often get put into a box, this is what the organisation wants you to do. Whereas you both have the freedom to say, actually, you know, I feel like it'd be really beneficial for us to evaluate this tool or spend a bit longer in the formulation for this organisation. Yeah, so I can imagine that being extremely rewarding. But of course, there are challenges always, when we start up a business, can you reflect on some of the challenges that you face in this journey? Anything that sticks out?

Well, I suppose that... yeah Jo's just saying loads, what we love about the work is still using our psychology skills, and like Jo says, they're so varied, and so on. What we've really, we've had to learn so much about having a business, we've had to, you know, sales and marketing, it's still really difficult, we're still learning. You know, we've been on courses and we're, you know, we're, you know, thing, it's just there's so much that you aren't prepared for, that you don't realise and actually, things that you don't love doing, but are necessary to be able to get your, your course, your training, your coaching out there to businesses. And what we've found is that, although we had that, the early success, actually, it has been a lot of work, you know, we have had to overcome those negative thoughts that tell you that you can't keep ringing someone, you know, they're gonna get fed up of hearing from you. You know, and actually getting to speak to the person who's interested, motivated, has the authority to sign off some training or our interventions is very difficult. So there's been a lot of, a lot of challenges.

Yes, that is definitely the hardest part, finding the decision maker who has the power to say yes to you, and getting them to pick up the phone, or answer an email, really challenging. So seeing as we've strayed into this kind of marketing territory, which we all know, I love so much, can you describe a little bit about how that client acquisition if you, like happens for you, how you find the organisations that you work with?

So I would say word of mouth is still a really important thing for us. And, you know, I noticed on your, one of your recent podcasts, you talked a lot about relationships. And, you know, I think relationships are hugely important. And we're, I think, learning over time to build and nurture those relationships much more. I mean, in the early days, if someone you know, purchased a service from us, and then you know, it happened, and we delivered it, and we evaluated it, and we didn't hear from them, we wouldn't contact them again. Seems ridiculous now, because of course, now we have a process. You know, we keep in contact with people, we keep sending emails, we keep, because you know what, typically, what happens is that they do go away and reflect and think about what they need, and they've focused on other things for a while, and then suddenly, they go, oh, I think we might need this. And you know, if we're in their minds, because we've been emailing them, and they've seen us on LinkedIn, and etc, etc, then they're much more likely to come back to us. So you know that. Yeah. And then, like I said, word of mouth, definitely, I think is probably one of our biggest routes. I think we've, LinkedIn is our place in terms of social media, we've learned that that's the place to be. And certainly, over time, we have, you know, received, we've certainly had work through LinkedIn sometimes through people that we knew years ago, and you know, got back in contact with us. And some work comes through the website, I would say, but I think word of mouth is probably still our biggest route.

That doesn't surprise me at all. Because if you think about it, who would you trust to deliver training within your organisation? You're going to ask for recommendations, aren't you from people that you trust and value the opinion of. So I think word of mouth for any psychological interventions is always going to be the number one. How have you gone about developing some of the relationships that you need?

How have we developed them? I don't know...

Probably very naturally, people often struggle to answer that question because it kind of happens. But if you've, if there's anything you can reflect on that might help somebody at the beginning of their journey that would be useful.

I think I mean, I think like I said that sort of like, like Felicity said to you know, you worry about pestering people, that you're pestering people, and actually, we very rarely actually end up thinking having that confirmed, because people are busy doing all sorts of different things, and they've got lots of different priorities, and you pop up every now and then and you feel like you're pestering them, but you're not, you know, it's once every, whatever, a couple of weeks, or whatever it is. But I just think that systematic kind of just staying, staying in the forefront of people's consciousness, you know, it's really important because actually, one of the challenges for us now is that this is a big market, there are a lot of competitors in our market now in comparison to when we first started. And so there are other companies, you know, with our clients that we want to work with, there are other organisations vying for their business. So you know, if we've got an existing relationship with them, we're already ahead of the game, and reminding them that we're still there, and we're still doing stuff and we're still innovating. And we've got new products and new services and blah blah blah is, you know, the way to making sure they come back to us rather than one of the competitors. But you know, things like regular emails, I mean, we've got, you know, we're sending out regular blogs and that kind of stuff. We've got a big subscriber list now that we've built up over a long period, you know, so those sorts of things, it's just one of the, one of the challenges in our business, I think, is that, particularly because we work in public sector and charitable organisations, mainly, they don't necessarily have the money to commit to a really long term relationship. So we're having to keep reminding them that we exist, so that when they do suddenly have the money, which is often like year end, or we've got a bit of spare cash here, or we'd like to do this, that we're in the forefront of their minds.

And I think also, that that relationship isn't just about selling, it's about keeping in mind that we have something to offer that's going to be helpful for them. And that's a real motivator for us. You know, it's about making a difference, helping people to make lasting change. And so I think, you know, when you have those little negative thoughts that say you're pestering someone, it's actually just reminding yourself that you're actually being helpful. You're, you know, you're getting in touch, you're checking in how they're doing. Are there any issues? You know, is there anything that we can help with, which isn't necessarily about us getting money for that. But as Jo said, it keeps us in the forefront of their minds and that helps to, you know, when they are looking for something, to get them to, you know, get in touch with us.

I'm glad you said that Felicity, because it reminds me that I've had, you know, a handful of people who've said, I liked these chats that we have, you know, because it gives me the space to think about this particular area of my work, and to think about what steps we need to take and or things that I need to do, or it gives me, you know, so I phone up and I say how, you know, how are you doing? How are things going with workplace wellbeing? How are you just, you know, what, what needs do you have? Anything that you need to be thinking about? And we have a little bit of a chat. And like Felicity said, it doesn't necessarily lead to a sale, necessarily. But to be helpful, I think is really, you know, important. And actually, sometimes we want to be even more helpful. I want to be more, want more opportunities to be helpful, even if an organisation doesn't buy from us. Because if they've had an experience of us being helpful, then that's a benefit to us. Because they're going to say to someone else, oh, I know this company, and they were really helpful to me. So potentially, it leads to a sale, even if it's not through them.

Yeah, I think that is a really important way of looking at it. And often people get really anxious about making sales calls. But I think you're right, if you can hold on to that attitude that I'm going to try and be helpful on this call so that people will leave feeling like there's reciprocity in this relationship. I don't just want their money for nothing. Yes, ideally, I'd like some money so that I can come in and do something that they need. And often in those conversations, people will tell you about needs you wouldn't have identified yourself. So for example, I was really surprised, on a call recently, that a company that I thought wasn't the most psychologically minded have been really worrying about whether they're supporting their neurodivergent workforce fully. I mean, that's not something I offer, but I was able to signpost them. But I was, I was really interested that they'd identified that need, and I wouldn't have predicted it in that particular sector. So you learn something on these conversations, whether they lead to a sale for you, maybe in this case, a sale for somebody else, or whether it's just building that goodwill towards your company. I think it's really valuable.

And I think often for them, it helps them to understand what they need, because often people come to us not actually being fully clear what they need. They think they need something, but they're not quite sure what it is, so the conversation helps them to clarify that.

Yeah, absolutely. And, again, that's the skills that you bring, as psychologists around formulation, asking those clarifying questions that bring that insight for people. So, you know, if you were going to go through the whole journey again, is there anything that you would do differently, do you think?

Wow, that's a really interesting question. I think we would have got onto LinkedIn earlier. I think that's one thing. I think we kind of tried lots of different, you know, we tried the different social medias. And obviously, the social media landscape is changing all the time. So you know, 10 years ago, it was nothing like it is now. But I think that, yeah, having, having settled on LinkedIn, finally, you know, and we have been active on there a few years now. But you know, I think we would have, I would have definitely landed there earlier, I think we would have been less, you know, I think we just had no sense of what it means to market yourself as a business because you work in the NHS and the work just comes to you, you don't have to ask for it to come. That's one thing you definitely don't have to do is invite it, because it's always there, you know, there's always too much of it, if anything, and so, yeah, just that kind of like not being scared to kind of promote yourself, to market yourself, to shout about what you're doing and how well you're doing. And, you know, even now, it's still, there's a little bit of reticence in us I think. I did a post a couple of weeks ago about the work that we did in March, because we had a really busy, great week, a great month, because we did, we did, we delivered services right across a range of all the services we offer. So it was really rewarding month for us. And even that felt like, a bit like are we shouting too loud, you know, are we showing off? There's still that part of us, I think that, you know, finds it difficult. And you know, that might be surprising to hear, given that we've been running for 10 years. But yeah, I think I would have done that more. And I had another thing in my head and I can't think what it was now. Felicity, you might want to add something?

Well, it's hard to, it's really hard to put yourself back because with the knowledge we have now, if we'd had this knowledge then I would perhaps have done things differently. But I know that for us, particularly because we started out part time, it's been a gradual growth. And there are messages that we hear now, about things we could do, that we did hear five years ago, but we just weren't ready to really hear it and act on it. So I think, you know, we could have taken a completely different path, thrown ourselves in at the deep end and just said, right, we're doing this, we're gonna make it work. But I don't think knowing what we're both like, I don't think either of us would have taken that approach. And so I think in some ways, this gradual kind of growth that we've done and gradual sorting out of things like oh, I dunno, having a business dashboard, and, you know, keeping a record of our income and things like, which is absolutely basic, I don't think anything could have happened any sooner or differently in a way. So yeah, I'm struggling to think of anything that I would personally have done differently.

I think that's right. I mean, I think that when you think about the idea of going into business, you imagine you just take this huge leap and, you know, you take the plunge and whatever happens happens, and I just don't, in reality, most people aren't in a position to be able to do that, they're not in a financial position to be able to do that. And so your alternative choice is to go at a much slower pace alongside something else that's earning you a regular income. And you know, we both had to do that, we've got families and you know, so it, that kind of meant it had to be a slower thing. It wasn't just let's throw ourselves in it sink or swim, we had to have a safety net there all of the time. And that meant it was a, yeah, it was a much more gradual process. And I think that's okay. There's something about going at your own pace, isn't there? At a pace that's right for you and your life and your life circumstances that's really important.

Absolutely, I couldn't agree with that more. And I think, you know what you were saying about the marketing journey as well, that is something you have to live through, I think you have to have that lived experience of feeling really uncomfortable and, and fighting through and sort of doing it anyway, in order to get to the place where you are now where you feel as comfortable as you can be about the messages you're putting out there. Because there'll always be part of us that wants to hide sometimes, you know, it's part of values driven action, isn't it, that we're always on that threshold of discomfort. But actually, knowing that you've been through that is what teaches you that you can go through it again, that you can put something else out there that you can, you know, press post on that post that feels a bit scary, because you've done it, there's just no substitute for that journey, I don't think.

And I think that, I'm just thinking back now to what it was like in the early days. And I certainly remember feeling like you're in the NHS, you know, you're confident, you're competent, you know what you're doing, you know how the organisation works. And then when you go into business you're like, it's like putting your head above the parapet and realising that there's this whole world out there, that actually you don't know anything about. And that can be quite a shock. And so I think just being aware of that, and taking it step by step and making sense of it, where are the differences? Where are the similarities? How can I understand this? These are all things that are going to help you along that journey. So yeah, I think the NHS I felt looking back even though you know, it was super busy in high demand, it felt like a nice cocoon. And then suddenly you're out in the real world with the big girls and boys. And you're like, okay, can I do this? Have I got anything to offer?

What I think is important to acknowledge with that though, because I know that feeling so well, because I study for an MBA at Warwick Business School, and everybody else there is some kind of executive in some kind of very high flying company. And I'm like, oh my God, I don't understand the corporate world, like this is a whole different ball game. But actually, what I'm learning is that those experiences that you have in the NHS or other public sector organisations, they're valuable to those people just like their experience is valuable to us. And actually, that cross pollination, I think, is really helpful. And there's a lot from our kind of old lives that we bring to what we're doing now. And I think, you know, maybe at the beginning of my business, I didn't recognise that as much as I do now. It's easy to be hard on yourself, I think when you step into the business world and feel inadequate, but actually, our experiences have been different. But I think that's really helpful in a lot of cases. So, you know, just before we wrap up today, I was wondering if either of you have any advice that you might give to other psychologists or therapists that are thinking about stepping into workplace work?

I think, I think be clear about your offer is the first thing I would say. You know, you talk about niche and you know, being clear about what your business offer is, I think that's important, because you could do all manner of stuff and even in the workplace wellbeing space, be clear about what it is that you're doing. And it doesn't necessarily have to be completely unique. But I think being clear about it is important. And I think that we have our USP, if you come from a mental health background, your USP is that you're a mental health professional. So there are lots of people out there in the workplace wellbeing space, who come from very different backgrounds. And what we offer is absolutely our expertise and knowledge and training, you know, so I think that if you're interested in working in that space, and you have, you know, a mental health qualification, shout about it. You know, make sure people are aware and clear, because I think there's also a lot of, there's... the level of understanding because we you know, our experience in the NHS means we know the difference between a CBT therapist and a psychodynamic therapists you know, and a counsellor and a clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist. And in the workplace wellbeing space, people don't know the differences, they don't understand the differences. So they're all the same to them. And someone with a mental health first aid training or qualification to them is the same thing as a clinical psychologist. So there's a lot of educating to do and being really clear about why you're training is so important and different.

And I would add to just put yourself out there into, into the ether, you know, be heard, if you can develop some sort of thought leadership where you show that you have those skills, and they're different to perhaps what other people are offering, you're more likely to get business. But I would say if you're thinking of going into, like private therapy, it's a very different kettle of fish, and you don't need to put yourself out there in quite the same way and actually, you don't need to market yourself in quite, quite the same way either. Because there's so much of that work around that you can pick it up quite easily.

Yeah, it's definitely a very different ballpark. But I think I love what you said there about the thought leadership and having something which distinguishes you. And it sounds like you've really achieved that through the model that you've developed. And you mentioned publications as well. Do you feel that that's helped solidify your business and your position?

I think that being able to show people that we have that knowledge, and that what we've written, our model is unique, no one else is working in quite the same way around resilience and well being as we are, it is all evidence based, it introduces the idea of working out of an evidence base and looking at the research. So we're not just like coming up with airy fairy ideas from nowhere. This is stuff that has been shown to be effective. And I think that's quite a persuasive argument. And from that, we've actually got a lot of business just from having had that model out there. You know, we've had some really interesting partnerships. We're working currently with a couple of new ones, which we're really excited about taking us in a different direction. And hopefully later this year, our chapter will be out in this, in the book that Jo mentioned. And, you know, again, that's giving people an idea of what workplace resilience is like, and how can you achieve it. And I think, if they read the chapter, that's going to be really helpful for them. And maybe some of that will come back to us, and people want to talk to us about it and work with us. So I think, yeah, having that, having your knowledge out there is really important.

It sounds like it's really exciting times for you at the moment. So what's what's next, where do you see the future of Ultimate Resilience going?

We've got loads of ideas, we're working, working with someone on an app at the moment, we've got more research in the pipeline. So we're always really excited to do research and sort of progress the evidence base on resilience and well being. And we're also really interested in bringing more soft skills into the workplace, because we know that managers and leaders who have soft skills who are able to create psychological safety in the workplace, where people feel that they can belong, and they can be themselves and they don't fear judgement and criticism, they're more likely to function well. And that's going to be good for the person, their team, the organisation. So we're really excited about those sorts of developments and the training that we offer around those different issues.

It sounds really exciting. Sorry, go ahead Jo...

I was just going to say, I think our next kind of challenge is to expand. You know, so we have some associates that do bits and pieces of work with us here and there as stuff comes in. But I think there's something about a kind of more systematic growth, that that's our next step really, as a business that where we've, you know, we've got some regular people who are working with us and delivering some of our training and our coaching and so on. And that's quite a big step for us and for any business, isn't it? And it's thinking about timing, and making sure we've got enough of a flow of business coming in and, you know, all those sorts of things. So yeah, I think in terms of, you know, challenges, that's our next big challenge as a business, is to do that next step of growth.

Absolutely, a very exciting threshold to be on but also can be quite an intimidating one. So I imagine that there are going to be lots of people listening to this that want to have a look at your model and have a look at all the stuff that you've been talking about today. Where's the best place for them to go and find you?

So our website is ultimateresilience.co.uk. We're published in the Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology. The Skills Based Model of Personal Resilience is the article. Anywhere else Felicity? Oh LinkedIn!

They can see a summary of the article on the website. So if they put Skills Based Model on our search on our website, they can have a little look at it and then there's a link to the actual paper itself. Also, they can read it on ResearchGate if they want to have a look at the preprint for that.

Yes. And we're both individually on LinkedIn as doctors, Dr Jo Burrell, Dr Felicity Baker, and we have an Ultimate Resilience company page as well.

Brilliant. So I'll put all those links in the show notes for this episode so that people can go and do a bit of stalking because I think a lot of people will want to after this. Thank you so much for giving me your time today. I think that was fascinating, and I hope that it's helped a few people listening to this to feel a bit more confident about stepping into workplace work.

Thank you, Rosie.