As a leader of a business it’s up to you to tell everyone where you’re going.

It’s your responsibility to create a clear vision for everyone to buy into and have clarity as to the direction and relevance of their work.

However, in an ever-changing world what happens when you don’t have all the answers.

How do you balance the vulnerability of not knowing with the need for a clear vision of the future?

And how do you cope, after spending a big chunk of your life knowing exactly where you’re going and what you’re aiming for, when you need to change but don’t know what that change should be.

You can do all the rational analysis you want but you can still feel unclear.

This is where being more in tune with your body can help.

And cultivating (and trusting) your instincts.

On this episode of the Friday Fireside we’re joined by Pauline Tenner, author of Laid Bare: What The Business Leader Learnt From The Stripper.

It’s a self-help book for business leaders and entrepreneurs that care about employee well-being and business profitability.

But the bit that interested me was how it talks to showing up unapologetically in your role as a business leader.

I’m also fascinated by Paulina’s current journey of transitioning out of her business and finding a new path.

As well as an author, Paulina is an entrepreneur, an angel investor, TEDx speaker and a founder of GrantTree. She started her business with a purpose to help tech startups navigate the complex world of government funding and since 2010 has grown her team organically from 2 to 50 and raised over £200M for more than 600 technology startups.

A couple of fascinating aspects of GrantTree are that it has an open culture company which pioneered a self set salary scheme and that it also employs holacracy in its management approach.

Her new book, which encapsulated her learnings is now a Hot New Release on Amazon which you can pre-order here [http://www.paulinatenner.com/book.](http://www.paulinatenner.com/book.)

Mentioned in this episode:

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How can learning to dance.

Burlesque teach you to be a better leader?

Paulina Tana is an author speaker and founder of Grant Tree, an organization

that helps founders find funding.

She also recently wrote the book, Laid Bare, What a Business

Leader Learned from the Stripper.

In this episode, we hear about the innovative way she ran her

business and why she decided to become a burlesque dancer.

We hear about her journey of leadership and how practicing

vulnerability within the workplace has helped her and her employees grow.

For Paulina, entrepreneurship has been a real journey of self discovery.

And through burlesque she's been able to embody a different style of leadership.

Previously, she'd been harnessing more masculine energies with her

ambition, decisiveness, need to make impact and desire to create change.

Through burlesque, she reawakened her feminine qualities that enabled her to

be more playful, intuitive, and creative.

The more she immersed herself in burlesque, the more she was able

to appreciate taking time purely for herself, her pleasure, her

enjoyment, and joy in the moment.

This helped her lead with a different quality.

She was able to listen to people differently.

She made decisions differently.

She checked in with her body more, and learned to surrender to

situations rather than fight them.

She finds wisdom now in challenging situations and looks for what they

are teaching her about herself.

If you are curious about a different way of leading or running your

company, and if you are on your own journey of finding the leadership

style that works, then listen on.

So at the moment I am an angel investor in startups.

Uh, book author, I just have a book, uh, coming up, um, at the end of this month.

it's, uh, might be the most unusual business book you've had your hands on

because, uh, at some point in my startup career, uh, I was maybe two or three

years into the development of Grant Tree.

I felt really kind of stuck in my head, tired, uh, very much in

my rational mind all the time.

And I encountered burlesque, and I decided I was going to become a

bare list showgirl, which I did.

Uh, it was a lot of fun and, uh, it was one of the best adventures of my life.

And I, um, wrote a book about how dancing burlesque has, um, empowered me and

changed my leadership style and about kind of feminine and masculine forces

within every single one of us, which I'm sure we're gonna talk about later.

And I an advisor to my company, which I grew over the last 10 years.

So I'm no longer kind of an active executive in it.

I'm an advisor.

has about 50 people in it, and it deals with grants and government funding.

And whilst.

what the company does is not particularly exciting, we are grant funding consultancy

how we do it and how we organize ourselves is much more interesting.

So we are a company that operates Holocracy, which you may know, or might

not know from Zappos and Tony Hsieh.

So it's some, an alternative governance structure to a hierarchy.

We have transparent financials, so everybody knows what the company's figures

are at any point and self set pay, so people are empowered to set their own

salaries, which is, uh, yeah, quite edgy.

It's not the easiest path, maybe.

So it's just, what was your motivation for building your company in that way?

Yeah.

So, um, from the very start I actually, uh, started the company

with my, then boyfriend, now husband.

Uh, so we kinda from the very start, wanted to build something that was

different to the kind of workplaces we've experienced, and built the kind

of company where if we were looking for a job we would want to work in.

And we started asking ourselves questions, you know, is this whole kind of reporting

lines, hierarchy, uh, that kind of structure, is that the end of it all?

Is that, is there an alternative at all?

And I just remember when we first hired an organizational coach and he came in and

he, um, started, you know, drawing a big org chart on the, uh, on the, on the white

board and said, okay, is what company's going, going to look like in five years.

This is who's gonna report to who.

And we just thought our heart sank.

Exactly the kind of workplaces we've left behind is that

what we are recreating here?

So, um, it so happens that from the start, you know, people, we started

hiring, you know, one and a half years into the existence of the company

and then further on, um, we gave them access to financial accounts.

We just thought it's gonna be easier, you know, instead of kind of holding

that information to ourselves, being able to tell them, okay.

This is how the company's performing.

You know, educate them a little bit about how to run a business as well.

So yeah, I'd say the key motivation has been to build something, uh, different

to not recreate the kind of places where we've just escaped as employees.

Because I remember when we were starting our company, one of the reasons I

was interested in it and this whole idea of a bit more flat structure

is that I hated managing people.

Mm.

And it was like how, and this idea then being sucked into just nearly feeling

like a school teacher mm-hmm or like a headmaster, just telling people what to

do and maybe setting rules and parameters.

We never got to the size, or, you know, even had the, got into the full mindset

of actually trying to do it ourselves.

But I knew that, you know, as well as it being a different way of working

and it's like, you know, a new way of working, there was something deeper for

me about, I just don't wanna be at the top of a tree or something like that,

or just feeling like it's it's um, I don't know, there, there, this kind of

sense of like having to lead in that way.

I dunno if any of that was for you or was it purely, just, you were

curious about a new way of doing things and didn't wanna do things

you wanted to do things differently?

Yeah, I guess there was a sense of, um, disappointment with, with where

modern companies are in general.

So, um, those of you who've read Reinventing Organizations by

Frederic Laloux, uh, just kind of become our organizational

bible at some point, you know.

He shows how human organizations have evolved together with the

evolution of human consciousness.

And I just felt that, you know, we can do better than this.

This is not a system designed to, to empower people, to really have

them like discover their talents, to really grow, to really have autonomy.

This is not a system designed to do that.

So, um, that's when we thought okay, well, let's kind of go on a journey

looking for our own structure.

And we ended up with Holocracy, but there are kind of many possible

answers for those of you who are looking for alternative governance

and operational structures out there.

You already talked about raising consciousness and growth, sounds like

about empowering humans, which is something that we are passionate and

fascinated about within our community.

There's something here around then how you do that in practice?

And what that means for the people in a, in a company who might just,

who are looking for structure, and like being told what to do.

oh yeah.

I wouldn't say we've got a particular experience with Holocracy.

I think we always tried to decentralized decision making and,

and trying to, um, empower people.

Um, I wouldn't say we always got it right.

I think for me, well, maybe there's a question about recruitment because

I know we tried to take people or our small team on a journey with us.

And, uh, when we first started out our agency, we were recruiting quite young.

So people, you know, fresh out of uni and training them up in our approach.

And that was, uh, our desire to sort of integrate them in our, our process.

But then we realized maybe they weren't the sort of people who really wanted

to have lots of responsibility and, and to have that freedom in some way.

So I wonder whether have you had to recruit differently or was it always

in there from the start in terms of this culture and way of thinking?

Cuz it's it's like you said, counterculture, which

maybe not everyone wants.

Absolutely.

It's not for everyone.

And, um, we had to refine our recruitment approach quite a few times.

What we've done, I think, well is overcommunicate from the start.

This is what you're getting yourself into by joining the company.

You know, we've made many, many mistakes in our recruitment.

So for example, I remember Elon, we were recruiting, uh, people asking them for a

two minute video, uh, to tell us why they feel they're good fit with the company.

And we ended up with a bunch of extravert people, surprise, surprise.

I saw people that were more like us, other than people that are truly D diverse.

Um,

So what we arrived at is that system where, you know, we brought

in a methodology from robert Kegan known as subject object interview.

I know it sounds very technical, but it's all about helping you determine

levels of personal maturity and ability to deal with complexity.

So it's like an open ended interview, um, all to do with, um, somebody's

worldview and the way they create meaning as opposed to their professional

capability, which you know, is another stage of interview that we do.

But this comes first.

And it shows us what life experience people have had is in terms of,

you know, allowing them to put on this different hats, uh, being able

to put on these different hats.

Hats of a manager.

Because everybody is their own manager effectively in our organization, which

means that you have to have this inherent ability to be able to kind of step away

from your day to day and kind of look at yourself from a manager's perspective.

And people in our company resolve their own conflicts, set their own pay as we

discussed, so it's all about finding people that, um, are able to deal

with complexity and will, uh, thrive in it as opposed to, uh, struggle.

So I'm now curious about how does that work and, you know, would you, how do

you make a judgment on that in terms of, you know, I don't know is probably more

complex and deep for the, to talk about it too much, but just, I just picture

into, like, what do you look out for?

What kind of things are you looking to hear?

Or maybe things that you are awarding signals for?

Yeah.

So I would love for our organization to get to a point where one day it can, uh,

kind of recruit people no matter what they are in terms of their life experience

and, and kind of help them grow.

But at this point, I think we are.

Best use it for people who have kind of gone to, and there's levels

to assess it within that interview structure to, um, what, uh, Robert

Kegan calls the self authoring stage, um, as opposed to self socialized.

So, um, socialized stages when somebody is kind of not super well rooted

within themselves, but may change or become influenced by different

environments so that they operate in.

So work, home, friends, etcetera.

And, uh, self authoring person is somebody who has, is very, very well

centered within themselves, aware of their boundaries, aware of the values, um, and

there are ways to kind of detect that within an open conversation that's being

steered in right ways to, to assess this.

I've heard that term used before, um, particularly around storytelling

and telling the story of your life.

Yep.

And this idea of being, you know, essentially, um, being in control of

the ship that is your life rather than having someone else's someone else steer.

Um, which sounds quite for me, there's an overlap with an entrepreneurial spirit.

And so I'm curious about that in terms of, I, I, I imagine people like that wanting

to work for themselves and wanting to build their own business potentially.

Is that something that you've seen with your employees?

Is that an, that entrepreneurial spirit or is there something different that you see?

Yeah.

So, uh, yeah, that does can, and does often go hand in hand with being kind

of enterprising and, uh, being able to, um, pick things up and define new

systems and, uh, define new structures as opposed to following existing ones.

So I guess, yes.

I, I'm not sure if it's a prerequisite, I haven't actually thought about it, but

it definitely really helps to be a self authoring person if you are about to,

um, create a new system, for example.

It just really kinda lends itself that kind of approach to, um, life to be able

to yeah, be an effective entrepreneur or even an human being in an organization.

You know, I've got this image now you are kind of like filtering, um, based on

this quite more intrinsically motivated view, um, approach to life and, and

the world and work, and I'm not sure, you know, I'm not a hundred percent

clear about, you know, what stage these people may be professionally, and I

assume they might depend on the kind of roles you want them to take on.

But I, I have an image like this is, this is, this is ongoing work,

you know, we're never done with this kind of like understanding what's

motivating us and where we want to go.

Is there, do you do much of that work within the organization?

Do you find people, you know, you talked about wanting to create organizations

where people grow as I heard.

Yeah.

Is that something that you, you actively did as well

within the, for your employees?

Absolutely.

So there's just so many workshops and things we've had within the

team to help us, um, give difficult feedback for example, or help

us, uh, resolve conflicts um.

So absolutely I see work as a place where you should, um, go to in order to

grow and meet your mastery and like meet your shadow as well as opposed to any

enough money to do that somewhere else.

You know, that's just stupid.

Um, so.

We definitely I'd like to think provide that kind of platform and push.

Because in that kind of environment, open, uh, pay environment, you're definitely

pushed to grow, uh, while telling people precisely what they need to do

or how to grow, because that, I think everybody needs to, to out for themselves,

everybody has their own life path.

I think we are not in a position to tell people this is what you should do.

Step by step to become a fuller human being.

Uh, we can give them a push and we can, um, give them opportunities

to explore by themselves.

It feels like there's a parallel to what we are trying to do

with our community Laurence, no?

In terms of just opening the door to different ways of thinking in order

to help with that personal growth, as well as the business growth.

The phrase Holocracy as a spiritual journey came to mind?

well, we, we talk about entrepreneurship in that way.

You know, it's an amazing tool for self development and growth.

Entrepreneurship is a spiritual journey.

That's what I believe entirely.

Oh yeah.

We're gonna dive into that one later.

Definitely.

Um,

But I suppose within that, like you said, even from an employee point of

view, they're being challenged with things like their relationship to money

and their ability to be vulnerable and to be challenged and get feedback.

You know, those are things that it sounds like as part of your culture,

you're doing anyway, if they're to be part of this complex system.

you've adopted Holacracy, it sounds like you've embraced it.

How is it benefiting you?

So firstly, people are definitely more empowered than they would

be in a hierarchical setup.

They take more ownership of their work.

Um, the company's much more, much more agile and responsive to changing

market conditions because within Holocracy the idea is that you can

very, very quickly affect change.

Uh, if there's something that stands in the way of one of your roles within

the organization being effective, then it can very quickly affect change.

So that kind of keeps us quite agile.

Um, I think it really contributes to the kind of wholesome culture, even though on

the face of it, Holacracy to many people appear is quite rigid because there is

a kind of specific format of meetings, et cetera, it actually, I believe

leaves more space for the humanity, for the kind of, not the professional

side of things, but the, all the rest of it to, um, be brought in as well.

I was talking to someone yesterday, who's a friend of ours called

Tom Nixon and I think he may have worked with you at some point.

Yes he has.

Yeah.

We were talking about Holocracy and I was, well, he was, I

called it Holocracy he called it Holacracy and I just got confused.

We had to call the whole thing off.

Um, but I was trying to work in my head like, well, the thing that that

came up for me is like, when you have these systems, uh, how companies or

organizations or leaders kind of like, they buy into them because they think

they're gonna increase the bottom line.

And it's like a silver bullet to make, you know, a more profitable business.

And I'm wondering is that, is that really the case?

Cause it then starts to feel like a, like a, uh, a process for making

more money, as opposed to if what I understood it to be is a philosophy.

So is because there's the business benefit, but is, I assume there's

also is more of a case of a human benefit rather than just bottom line?

Absolutely.

Um, so it's more a case of, as I said at the beginning, creating a kind of

workplace that we would wanna work in if we were looking for a job today.

So, um, a much more aligned, wholesome, fulfilling place where you can actually

grow and you can actually feel like an adult human me being, because

I think hierarchy kind of treats people as toddlers most of the time.

And guess what, like, if you treat people as toddlers, they're going to

show up as toddlers, uh, or at least, you know, be somehow encouraged to.

Whereas if you really trust people as adults and treat them as adults in, in

the workplace, then the whole kind of journey of mastery kind of begins and

you can see them shine, and it's one of the most satisfying things as a leader,

see people really develop and, and shine and, uh, and meet their darkness as well.

Ooh, that's an interesting one to, uh, pursue.

Okay.

Um, so I wanted to start off with first, like I, I hear the need for you,

you know, like to see people grow in an organization to be part of that,

nearly like a catalyst, it sounds like.

Creating a place where you, you can see that there's something, maybe

I, I feel you get benefit from it.

It gives you energy.

So maybe just share a bit about just articulating that is like, what is,

what is it that you really loved about doing that and what, what at a

personal level for you, what gave you energy and maybe also what you found

really challenging around being in an leading an organization like that?

So what gave me energy is seeing people kind of step up and really

shine and really kind of meet challenges on the level I thought

wouldn't want to, or be capable to.

Challenges that we've encountered?

Yeah, of course.

Um, there's been challenges with adoption of Holacracy.

So, um, we brought in external coach from Amsterdam because that's the

birthplace of Holocracy to help navigate, the transition from a kind

of, I wouldn't say a normal company, but a normalish company to Holacracy.

And, uh, yeah, there were difficult points.

There were points where people were rebelling.

Like, why am I doing this?

This is stupid.

Like, I don't see the point.

Um, and it took some people much longer to see the benefits of it than, than others.

And maybe pinpointing something or being a bit more specific here, and

it might not be the case for you, but some along the lines of also for

you and your partner being founders of the business, was there any issue

around seeding control or feeling like things might need not be going in the

direction you want them to and then dealing with with that personally?

Yeah.

So giving up control is a huge thing within Holacracy and a lot of

companies that try to adopt Holacracy don't actually give control away to

the team, but there is kind of like a, what they call shadow hierarchy.

I think at the beginning we definitely experienced some of that being true

as in people, well, where would come and, um, for example, having

coffee with one of us and would say, what do you think about this?

And we need to, we needed to catch ourselves there and say, hang on a second,

you are a fully empowered individual.

We're in the structure to make a decision about this.

Like, I, I can kind of give you some feedback, but this is by no means should

kind of be the final answer for you.

So I think it's difficult because there is still a perceived hierarchy when

you're the founder, uh, or a leader within a business, and to kind of

really get rid of that is, you know, takes time, is not always the easiest.

Yeah.

And it's of course challenging for any founder, because you are used to

controlling things and you're used to knowing exactly where things are going

and suddenly you need to give people freedom to make their own mistakes, to

get things wrong over and over sometimes.

And that can be painful to go through that transition.

So, yeah.

Again, entrepreneurship is spiritual journey.

Thank you have been having conversation with someone recently about this idea

of control, um, and my relationship to it within our community.

Even, you know, this, it isn't even like a structured hierarchical

organization, but there is this.

Tension between giving empowering people to be creative within a space and to

express themselves and the, the need, the personal need to make sure it's done well.

and done right.

Yeah, I'm probably the last person to, uh, preach about letting go.

Um, well I think like a lot of recovering designers, um, I'm kind

of, uh, perfectionism and, uh, I think letting go of something that

you've created for yourself is, is probably the biggest gift, but also

the biggest challenge, I think so yeah.

I commend you for doing it, but I've, I've not found it easy at all.

Like Carla said how, you know, it feels like being creative, being, having

authorship and ownership, but within a container and, and knowing what's in

and what's out has, that's always been a struggle for me, because, um, yeah, I'm

guessing there are things that aren't in line with your vision for the company, but

other people might wanna drive forward.

So yeah.

Love to know how you navigate that.

Um, or whether it's just a process of, like you said, the more you

do it, the better you get at this and the more you trust, not, it's

not about trust for me actually.

It's, it's more just about the personal feeling of like Carla said,

I have no control of what happens.

Yeah, definitely the bad, the more you do it, the better you get it, get

at it, but you just need to kind of face your own darkness and your own

control freak part as a founder and, uh, reconcile that and, um, allow really,

truly allow people to fuck things up.

It's just not easy.

When you see that, like somebody's making a decision, that's just gonna

bite them back in the ass, uh, you still need to let them make it.

Okay.

So we've, I think said darkness at least three or four times

in the past five minutes and

We could apply this to parenting too.

I'm sure.

Like all this letting them fuck up.

So you mentioned that word a few times.

What does that mean to you?

So there is the whole shadow part of us.

So things that sit in our shadow that we are not maybe consciously aware of, but

that, you know, um, vices that we have and things that we do and behaviors that we

have that are not kind of really aligned with our kind of higher selves, I guess.

And darkness is also, you know, I talk a lot about in my book also about mental

health and the journey of my mental health in my kind of entrepreneurial

career and darkness for me also points to, yeah, difficulties, which I think

everybody encounters, regardless of whether you have challenges, mental

health related challenges like I had, or, or not, I, Yeah, the chaos within

us, you know, the, the angst within us, the, um, self depreciation, self-judgment

thoughts, for example, the anger, the fear, the kind of unresolved traumas.

Um, it's just a lot that can be put in that bag of darkness.

When you're building an organization that feels like there's a,

a level of personal growth.

That's part of working there, working with that darkness, however, wanna term it as

a leader, but also, and I would say having potentially people explore that themselves

within a company, that sounds really challenging and potentially really messy.

I think it's a fallacy that, you know, you can separate work

from life and that you can be a different person entirely worried.

Like you can probably try put on a mask and kind of have a

fake smile and fake fake makeup.

But, um, I think all of us go from massive transitions in life that will

absolutely affect how we work, how we perform, how, how effective we are,

how much up for dealing with work relation related challenges we are.

So, yeah, my, my challenges definitely kind of were visible in the workplace.

And, um, I still remember the decisions I made where I wasn't

really fully centered and grounded.

I, um, remember, you know, maybe having conversations that I shouldn't

have had at least not in that way.

And here's when we touch on vulnerability kind of vulnerable and

exposed is really tough, but brings just the next level of power, I think.

When people kind of truly see you, that you're comfortable with exposing

your vulner vulnerabilities as a leader that usually goes with yeah,

a lot of actually respect and, um, what is even more important, they feel

like they have the space to be in the vulnerable place in the work as well.

I think that's one of the things that I was put off by thinking about going

into, uh, even like, as a bit of a catchall phrase, corporate world, you

know, there's, there's a very clear path for me that, um, I could have

followed given my own sort of journey, but there was, I remember the phrase

that always rings in my mind is I, if I ever joined one of those companies,

I knew I would die a little inside.

And, and there's a real fear of being squashed.

I dunno why.

But there was, and I think now thinking back, it was very much about not

being able to not only be myself, just work out who I am, then you join an

organization and you need to be this.

And there's another cookie cutter approach of the type of, and I'm

thinking like, these massive consultancy type things like, um, I don't know,

Accenture and all that stuff is like, oh yeah, go down the consultancy room.

But they, everyone looks the same and everyone just goes

through the same process.

And that, that for me, just, yeah, there was something inside the, like

the gut level, oh, I just feels, feels like I'll be committing soulful

suicide by doing something like that.

But then the alternative is then trying to work it out for yourself.

I mean, we wanna call as someone in our community ran a call about, um,

authentic workplaces and how to, you know, show up as our full selves or

whatever that means in, in the workplace.

And yeah, there's definitely something about, I think, safety, but also,

not feeling like you said, you're just bringing in one part of your

personality or your potential.

And it, and it sounds like what you're doing is by being more open

and vulnerable yourself, giving permission for other people to

then feel safe to do that for them.

And, and yeah.

Yeah.

That's pretty well put us both off in different ways being in environments

where everyone's got their guard up, and so therefore you've got your guard

up and so you can't be yourself because no one's showing you how to do it,

And I also love kind of someone saying the darkness is like pieces to shine the light

on and integrate evidence and get rid of.

Absolutely, they kind of form us as human beings.

They really kind of add to the richness and to the beauty of

who we are as complex creatures.

Uh, so yeah, totally believe in being able to kind of meet and hold your darkness.

I did this, uh, another controversial talk I'm quite good

at controversial called Parallels Between Entrepreneurship and BDSM.

Oh, nice.

And I talked about, um, how, you know, BDSM is meeting your darkness,

meeting your like conscious kink is basically meeting your darkness.

Same if you're on an entrepreneurial journey, you're gonna

inevitably meet your darkness.

Um, yeah.

And it's just a journey of conscious entrepreneur meeting your darkness

and integrating what you found there into you, you know, your identity.

So, alright, let's start going there now.

Um, I'm, I'm wanting to know now how the taking up by less dancing, cuz I

feel there's something around being seen and being vulnerable there.

But I don't know if that's, you know, if I understood that correctly.

My belief is you need to be a particular type of person to

do that, but maybe I'm wrong.

So I've always been a bit of a showgirl kind of somewhere inside.

And I think everybody, every one of us has a show ban or a showgirl

that kind of in there, whether whether or not you wanna channel it

into burlesque is another question.

But, uh, I've always had this kind of read out real desire to test the

boundaries of what's like politically or socially acceptable and kind of

balance on the, on the border, on the edge of what's considered appropriate.

And I just remember that longing within me, uh, when I was maybe two,

three years into the development of my business to really go back

to that place in me, which felt so freaking juicy, which felt rebellious,

provocative, creative, uh, full of life.

And I felt like I was like, I was really good at what I was doing, but

I was stuck in my head all the time.

I was in my, kind of what I call in the masculine, you know, ambition,

drive decisions, uh, kind of that penetrative force that wants to move

the world and like change things about, and, um, leave a mark make a mark.

And I was not really in that kind of playful, intuitive, uh, creative, uh,

place at all, which is kind of associated at least according to tantra with

the, in a feminine or divine feminine.

And, um, I just felt like, you know, the best part of me was dying, and I was

like, I gotta do something to stop that, like, this is not who I want to become.

So Carlos, you were talking about, um, how it eats away a piece of your soul

being in kind of corporate organization.

I think any type of business activity can do that if you are not

careful enough to really grow on multiple levels as a human being.

As you kind of go through life, um, you can become that

kind of professional machine.

You really can.

It's probably easier to do that if you are in a big corporate

company, as opposed to a startup.

But still, what I found is that I just needed to do something, uh, to get

back to myself to really feel that creative, rebellious fire in me again.

And it was just this pure serendipity.

It was one day in Piccadilly Circus, walking from one meeting to another.

I stumbled upon that place called Café de Paris.

if you, if any, one of you has seen Last Night in Soho, that movie kind

of features, it's quite cool, kind of like cabaret cafe kind of place.

And, um, I saw a fragment of a burlesque show rehearsal and I was

like, wow, this is just so out there.

This is ridiculous, like feathers and sequence and glitter and like, God,

like in another life, that could be me.

And then I was like, well, hang on a second.

I don't have another life.

Like, I mean, there must be a way, one becomes a show girl.

I can surely like, find out how to do it.

And I sent a few emails to a few girlfriends, and I got recommendation

school and the rest is history.

Um, it was just an exhilarating journey.

Absolutely putting me in touch with my embodied wisdom, with my kind

of, oh, this creative, feminine fire within me, which it really, uh, it's

just, yeah, one of the places I love being in the most within myself.

It's just been a beautiful journey.

And as a matter of fact, I just, my, my husband bought me a place on a burlesque

course, uh, as a Christmas present.

So I just started another burlesque course now to create another act and

to get in touch with that place of like creativity, pure potential, like kind

of tongue in cheek, self ironic, fun, sexy, uh, place that I love so much.

I'd love to see a corporate retreat with that as one of the activities.

I, so I wanted just say I could sense just like the energy when you were talking

about burlesque, there's this like this real, you seem to you, when you, when you

were talking, you went to another place, you weren't with us for a while cause

you were just living in this fiery place.

And so that's, you know, one of the things that we try and stress and talk

about within the work that we do at the Happy Startup School is understanding and

tapping, tapping into these core emotional needs, how that is the fuel for not only

the fuel for the work that we do, the tangible work, but I also think there's

this obsession with getting to the end, you know, whether that's retirement or

the exit and how I feel we can lose touch with what is the experience in the moment.

How are we actually.

Enjoying experiencing living the work, as opposed to just doing the work.

And what I get, I got a sense from you is like, particularly when you

went off this different plane for a bit was like, there's this whole

quality of energy that something you bring to your life because of it.

Absolutely.

I think you can all find that place.

It doesn't have to be burlesque.

It could be like a weird hobby, or it could be like a passion you have as

a kid, or it could be even a certain friendship that brings up that part

of us, uh, that aliveness that spark.

Um, but I think it's so important, particularly as you are in the startup

world or running your own startup or creating or about to kind of fundraise

or exit or whatever, um, and being kind of really immersed in your business.

It's so important to find a piece of your piece of yourself that's just, you know,

reserved for and playful exploration, there's nothing to do with your company.

The thing that comes to mind mentioned this a few times lately,

cuz I've just finished a book 4,000 Weeks, Oliver Berkman's book.

And he talked about the difference between telic and atelic activities.

So doing things that have a clear outcome versus things that are just

done for the joy of doing them.

And I think as a society, we're almost obsessed by, for example, like I got my

kid, a drum kit behind me for Christmas and I've ended up playing on it more

than he has I think and loving it.

Um, and then in my head I'm like, okay, and now I need to join a band again.

And no, no.

I just I'm loving, playing for playing sake.

And I think we all have this obsession with, by doing burlesque

then now to become a burlesque teacher and go and teach work.

No, no, you love burlesque for doing burlesque.

I need to read that book as well.

I think it's, there's just so much to be said for being in the moment and doing

things that put us in the moment that put us in touch with our emotions, that

put us in touch with our bodies that just make us feel fully aligned with

our energy, with our kind of life force.

Um, as opposed to constantly doing things that have an outcome.

Yeah.

I love it.

Absolutely love it.

And it can make it less fun too.

I've found particularly at first with my kids, some of them, two of them I've got,

but yeah, one of them start to lose the interest as soon as it becomes about the,

the winning, you know, about the outcome.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

I'm, I'm just picturing a contrast here because there's a way of looking at

the world where it's dangerous and you shouldn't do anything too risky cuz you

might put your future in jeopardy or that kind of nearly the fear of death thing

of like, oh, I can't do anything too risky just in case it really hurts me.

And then there's this element of actually, without stepping out of that comfort

zone, what are you actually missing?

In terms of what I heard you say is like the full experience of life.

Um, and it's, there's, I, I feel, not that it's a mission and not that we wanna

push people to do this, but just to be able to shed a light on the fact that

you can live in that little comfortable circle, or you could step out of it

into somewhere that's actually no idea where you're gonna, where is gonna take

you, what it will give you, but you may find you look at life differently.

Absolutely.

And that kind of starts to feed back to who you are as a leader.

So that's why I felt like the more, that's what I discovered.

The more I was immersing myself in things like burlesque, you know, at

least finding time for things that were just purely for me and my pleasure and

my enjoyment and my joy in the moment, the more I became different as a leader.

It was a different quality to, to how I listened to people, for example, or

how I make decisions, how I checked in with my body about, you know, what

might be the right decision or what's the, the outcome that I'm looking for.

Uh, the more I learned to surrender to, instead of all the time to kind, trying

to push and influence things, surrender to what already is, and try to find

wisdom in that and try to find how a given problem is trying to change me as opposed

to, you know, how I might change the circumstances to fix at a given problem.

So it just, the more you incorporate your kind of.

Playful creative rebellious side.

The more it will transform the entirety of you, including your leadership.

Boom, that's a t-shirt there

So I I'm now getting to this, uh, understanding of being able to be

more bold, being able to like take decisions or follow paths that

rationally might not make sense.

But there's something else that could drive you to do that and that to lead

you into places that you need to be.

And I'm relating it now to where you are now, because what I heard is now

you're transitioning out of the business.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And how much?

Maybe not any, but I'm wondering how much of that journey, that personal

spiritual journey has informed you about your need to take and, or

to look for something different.

Sure.

So at some point kind of a certain chapter has passed that I really is

a totally beautiful and transforming experience, being the founder of Grant

Tree, but that there is much more to me and I need to look for that next thing,

even that if that means starting from scratch or even if that means feeling

much more stupid in a given role.

Mm-hmm.

And it also felt like I needed a break to kind of reintegrate all that

I've experienced into myself and, um, really descend what I'm about all over

again, you know, what I, what I want to do with my life and with my time.

So that's when I decided to take time out, write a book, publish it, promote

it, and look for my next challenge while still being an advisor to Grant Tree.

One of the things that we are doing on our, we run this Vision 2020 program,

and, and at the core of it, you are talking to some of the things that

we are, we are trying to communicate within the program about being

discerning more discerning about the next steps and where you're going next.

But this, this past week we've been asking them to work out loud, to

essentially use social media, this idea of promoting oneself, but really about

how we express ourselves in public, in order to understand ourselves better.

And I see there's a parallel here with you in the book, and I'm trying to make

sense of all the things that you've done and you've put you've experienced.

And I correct me if I'm wrong.

It sounds like by writing the book, you've understood yourself better.

Oh, absolutely.

Was a kind of huge, like running a business, you know, giving

birth to a book is a little bit like giving birth to a business.

It kind of ends up reflecting back things at you.

You would come again to darkness full circle because that's part as well,

your brilliance in your darkness.

And, um, yeah, was a very vulnerable process because I talk a lot about

my mental health, about kind of things that I faced on the journey of

building the company that we've built.

Um, so, beautiful vulnerable process.

And, uh, yeah, definitely not my last book, this experience

has been so positive.

Even though, you know, part of it were frustrating.

So I'm really creative.

So I obviously love the initial bit of producing the so-called vomit edit,

or you just like bash everything onto kind of paper or keyboards and then,

you know, edit and re-edit and reedit and it's uh, yeah, it can get tedious

and the promotion can get tough as well because, uh, there's just so much,

there's always, there's never enough that you're doing to put your book out there.

Yeah, I'm in the, the vomit stage.

Uh, well, hot mess, whatever people call it.

Yeah.

It's like you said, it's a, it's a journey.

So, um, yeah, I'm in the midst of it, but, um, I think it's somebody who left

a semester this morning from the states.

We know.

Well, he's, I dunno if he's finished his book as he Bob, but he's, uh, someone

He's in process still.

The way he described it as like I'm only ever doing this once.

I've heard lots of people say that and then they end up writing

another one, five years later, but.

What I remember him describing it as was like giving birth to a baby wrapped

in Barb wire and coated in salt.

And I was like, that's tough.

that's a hard one.

Um, so actually I wanted to pick up on the last bit there about basically getting

the word out about your book and the promotion bit, and it's like, you know it.

What is it that drives you to do that?

Cause for some people that feels like, oh, it's a bit self-indulgent and you're

just trying to shout about yourself.

Yeah, sure.

So there's a lot of vulnerability in it and, um, I think a bit of wisdom around

creating a conscious organization.

So I really think, and based on early feedback, I know that it can

be useful and helpful to people.

So, I feel that it would actually be beautiful for my people to benefit

from my journey and, uh, kind of not make some of the same mistakes and be

hopefully inspired by some of the things.

So kind of that, that drives me to get that book out there.

And also their, a bit of their kind of enterprising business person's

mindset comes in as well when I'm like, oh, how do I hit this target?

Or like, how do I like get to the next level?

So that comes in as well.

Thank you.

Paulina.

We fascinat come to the end of our time.

Yes, it was truly, I just didn't re didn't know where we were gonna

go with this conversation, but it felt like we definitely went

to where it needed to get to,

Fascinating topic really feels like we could have gone even further

with, uh, any of those issues.

Um, so yeah, I appreciate you giving your time and well done for, uh, Getting the

book out there, cuz it's no mean feat giving everything else that's going on.

Thank you.

And uh, really love the work that you're doing guys since

start the Happy Startup School.

And I'd love to be part of, kind of more discussions and events to come.

So keep me in mind, really enjoyed that.

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