00:00:00: Introduction
00:00:54: The quote
00:01:05: The inspiration behind the quote
00:02:42: How it helps others
00:04:20: Ideas for action…
00:05:18: … 1: put values before validation
00:06:36: … 2: collaborate, don’t compete
00:07:57: … 3: be better, not the best
00:10:11: The benefits of using scales
00:11:03: The hardest parts
00:14:07: Final thoughts
Helen Tupper: Hi, I’m Helen.
Sarah Ellis: And I’m Sarah.
Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly show where we talk about the ins, the outs, the ups and the downs of work, and give you some tools, some advice, but hopefully a bit of confidence and control over your career. And this is an episode in, I guess, a special series we’re doing for the summer. We’ve got a theme, which are quotes that have inspired our career, which we want to turn into action for everybody else. And they’re slightly different in terms of format, so we’re only doing them for around 15 minutes. So, hopefully a short, inspiring listen that helps you to take action with your development. That is the aim.
We’ve got two quotes each that have inspired us. And if you’re regular listeners, you’ll know that Sarah and I are quite different, so they are quite different quotes. And then we’re going to interview each other to understand what the quote is, why it matters to us, and ideas we think that can be helpful for other people to implement it. So, I think Sarah is interviewing today.
Sarah Ellis: So, Helen, what’s the quote that you’re choosing? What’s a quote that’s inspired you in your Squiggly Career?
Helen Tupper: The quote is, “To run your own race”, short and simple.
Sarah Ellis: Short and simple. And what was it that appealed to you about that quote? Do you remember where you were maybe the first time you heard it or you read it?
Helen Tupper: I think it was probably early days of Instagram, so I can’t attribute it to anyone. I really can’t remember when I saw it, but it was like early, early days of scrolling through Instagram and seeing inspiring stuff, of the era of the, “Love your job” quote, which did not make the cut. But, “Run your own race” did. And I think it helped me because at the time, do you know, at the time I would have been probably in Virgin. And I think that is definitely a place where confidence gremlins could creep in, because everyone’s so interesting and doing cool things and everyone looks quite shiny, and I wasn’t. I’d come from a very corporate place before I went to Virgin. And also, I was starting this side project, I think, with you. So, I didn’t feel like I was, I mean, not that it’s a place that really values conformity, but I felt like —
Sarah Ellis: Are you saying Amazing If isn’t cool?
Helen Tupper: I’m not sure we’re the cool people! I’m not sure that’s us. But the point is, when you run your own race, you are not trying to be like other people. You are kind of aware of what is meaningful to you, and that is what’s motivating for you, and that kind of drives your development. So, I think it definitely was a point in my time when I could have felt comparison getting in the way of my confidence. So, I think I gravitated towards this quote and I found it very reinforcing for me, and it has stayed with me. I mean, I go on about this quote all the time.
Sarah Ellis: And when you have shared it with other people, because I’ve heard you share it with other people, I share it on your behalf with other people, how do you think it could be helpful for all of us, not just you and your personal experiences?
Helen Tupper: Well, I think that when I think about the Squiggly skills, I see confidence, of all of our Squiggly skills, which we will be talking about on our Sprint which is coming very soon, I see confidence as the one that gets in most people’s way, the one that holds most people back. So, I feel like it will help people because I know that confidence is getting in the way of lots of people’s careers. And I think this is a statement that can help people overcome some of those gremlins. But I think there are some particularly actionable insights that we can take away from it. Would you like me to share?
Sarah Ellis: I would. I think one of the reflections I have, as somebody who sometimes has a comparison gremlin, is that it’s probably easier than ever to almost not run your own race, because other people’s careers are really visible. You spend some time on LinkedIn, and you might fall into that trap of thinking, “Why don’t I do that?” or, “Other people are doing this”. And so, that, kind of going back to kind of being confident in yourself and what you want to do, it probably feels more important now that it maybe even did when we first started working. I think it’s always felt important, but I found it more useful probably over the past five or six years than I did, say, in the first five or six years of my career.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, I think you’re right. I think there’s just more points of data now that I think maybe kind of affect how you might feel about your career development. It’s just more visible, isn’t it, that stuff that can lead to comparison?
Sarah Ellis: So, we were very keen in this summer series to turn these quotes into action. Actually, one of the reasons that we even started Amazing If is that there were quite a few of these quotes knocking around Instagram in the early days and on the words of some walls of offices. And actually, I think they can work for you or against you, because they can feel just quite vague or generic, or if you’re sceptical like me or a good critical thinker, it’s quite easy to pull these things apart, you know, “Oh, well it’s fine for Helen to say to run her own race, because look how brilliant she is, and look at all the things that she’s achieved. That’s easy for you to say, but it’s really hard for me to do”. So, we are very aware of that, and we’ve both tried to come up with three actions for each of our quotes to go, “If this feels helpful for you, what might you actually do?” turning that awareness into action. Let’s have those notes, Helen.
Helen Tupper: Okay. I’ve got a bit of alliteration going on, because that is obviously just where my brain goes. So, the first thing is, if you want to run your own race, I think you have to put values before validation. So, I think one of the things that gets in the way of people running their own race is when they’re comparing their career or they’re looking for other people to say that they’re doing a good job, they’re looking for that reinforcement from other people. And I think if you’re going to actually run your own race, you have to kind of go inwards, without being too cheesy about it all. I think you have to think about, “Well, what am I actually motivated by? What really drives me?” And I think you have to focus really hard on that. Because I might look at you and I might think, “Oh, Sarah’s so good at that”, or, “I should be more like Sarah”.
But actually, what I try to do is kind of go, “What matters to me?” Freedom, growth, energy and achievement, they are my values. “How do I get more of that? Like, make decisions with that in mind, and I will be happier over the long term”. And if you don’t know what your values are, because I think that requires an awareness of your values, in order to be able to do that, we have got a free toolkit on values, which is on our website, amazingif.com, which you can go and use, and it will work you through some activities and processes which will get you to that type of clarity. But I think that’s point number one, values over validation.
Sarah Ellis: Okay.
Helen Tupper: Okay. Point number two is collaborate, don’t compete.
Sarah Ellis: You’ve used alliteration for all of them.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, of course I have.
Sarah Ellis: I’ve used alliteration for none of mine, just to manage expectations!
Helen Tupper: Obviously! So, yeah, collaborate, don’t compete. So, I think when you are not running your own race, I think it is very easy to start to compare and compete, compare and compete. And I mean, I’m just not wired that way, that just doesn’t do it for me. But I think that is what helps me stay true to this quote, because I kind of go, “Well, I’ll just collaborate with those people”. So, when I see, I’m like, “They’re doing a great job. Great. I’m going to go and collaborate with them”, or, “I’m going to try and advocate for their work, because I think it’s great.”
Sarah Ellis: You definitely have that mindsight. I think more than anyone I’ve ever worked with, when someone else does something well, I feel like your first thought is, “Oh, how can I learn from that person so that I can do that thing well?” And I almost feel like we wouldn’t be friends if you didn’t have that mindset, because that’s how we met.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, that’s so true.
Sarah Ellis: Isn’t it? Like, imagine if that wasn’t you, because you are definitely wired that way. I think you sort of get curious, but you kind of get competitive with yourself. It’s quite an unusual type of competition that you have.
Helen Tupper: Oh, that’s my third point.
Sarah Ellis: You’re joking!
Helen Tupper: It is my third point. But my third point is focus on being better, not the best.
Sarah Ellis: Right.
Helen Tupper: So, I think it goes back to it. So, I never have a desire. In running my own race, I’m not actually trying to be the best at running. I mean, that would be a bad thing for me, wouldn’t it? I’d never get started. But I’m not trying to be the best at running. I’m not trying to beat other people, that doesn’t connect with me at all. I am always trying to be better, I’m always trying to run a better race. So, I’m like, “Oh, what can I learn? What would I do differently? Who’s doing it well, that I might be able to experiment?” I’m always, always trying to be better, but I’m not trying to be the best, because I think as soon as you let that creep in, like the better, the competing, the validating, then I think you get to start a win-lose mentality, and that is not what the running your own race thing means to me anyway.
Sarah Ellis: And how do you make that one practical? Because I think a lot of people would listen to that and think, “Okay, great, much easier and feels more accessible for all of us to go, ‘Okay, I’m going to be a better me versus Helen or better versus Jack, or whoever. How do you figure out what better looks like?”
Helen Tupper: I use, I mean obviously one of our tools, so I feel like you’ve loaded me so I can talk about one of our tools. But ‘what works well’, ‘even better if’, I use all the time, like almost every day, and I will use it to self-reflect. So, today, I’ve had a feedback conversation, I’ve done a presentation, both of those things I will self-reflect, “What worked well, even better if”, because I’ll be doing both of those things again in the future. And it stops you being too self-critical, because you have to acknowledge what you did well, but it also helps you, you know, the getting-better bit is really useful. But I will often ask other people for their insights on that too. And often, I’ll ask you, I’ll ask the team, I’ll ask other people. So, I am just gathering a lot of ‘what went well, even better if’ feedback all the time. And I don’t necessarily act on all of it, but I’m gathering the information so I can make a decision about what bits I want to make better.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, so you can be really specific. Sometimes we talk about, don’t we, how useful scales are?
Helen Tupper: Yeah.
Sarah Ellis: I think if you give yourself a score out of 10, if you were like, “Right, I want to be a better presenter”, and you do a lot of presenting, you might already be an 8, but you could then go, “Right, well, what would take me from an 8 to a 9?” And you could get ‘even better if’ feedback to give you ideas that would give you data for your development. And people might say, I don’t know, let’s imagine people said, “Talk a bit slower, Helen”.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, let’s imagine!
Sarah Ellis: Sometimes you might talk quite fast. And so, then you go, “Okay, well I understand that an 8 to a 9 might look a bit like pace and practising, varying my pace so I don’t lose my energy and I can keep my authenticity, but equally recognising that sometimes slowing down can really make a point”. And it’s just those small changes, but I guess they all add up over time. And I’m interested to know, with Run Your Own Race, what are the moments when that’s hardest for you? Because I think you talk very clearly about how you do this, because you’ve lived with this quote for a while, it’s kind of been part of your life for a while, but there still must be moments where this feels difficult to do.
Helen Tupper: The moment that I have to repeat it the most is probably, it’s group situations. It’s group situations with a lot of impressive people. And I can give you a very specific example. I’m like, “Sarah knows, because of course she knows me”, but in the last couple of years, I became part of this EY Winning Women network. Those women are absolutely amazing. They are running international businesses with complex issues, large teams, they have amazing commercial knowledge. I mean, they’re amazing. And I will sometimes be in the room with them and there are so many of them, it is really easy to sit at a table and feel like you are not, I don’t know if it’s not good enough, not doing it right, or not growing in the same way, or all this. There’s just many messages of sort of gremlin noise around you in that room. And I really have to kind of go, “Run your own race, run your own race, you’re not trying to be like everybody else, you’re proud of what you’re doing”.
Sarah Ellis: I often think it’s quite helpful to maybe ask yourself, “When am I at most risk of forgetting something that’s important to me?” And I think you can start to spot the situations and then you figure out like, “Well, what do I need to remind myself of?” Because I do find comparison can creep in for me really, really quickly, and I don’t think that will ever not be true. So, one of my risks would be if I spent too long on LinkedIn, for example, I don’t think that would be good for me, and also because I’m comparing myself often on LinkedIn to people who are much more extrovert than I am. If I look at people, I admire their content, I’ll be like, “Well, but they are starting from a very different place to me”. And so, sometimes I think it’s also about limiting those sorts of things in a way that’s useful, because I think, “Well, okay, but that’s not me, that’s not what I’m trying to do”. So, actually just being thoughtful about, if this matters to me, if running your own race matters to me, what do I need to do more of, less of, but also what do I need to watch out for?
Helen Tupper: Also, maybe a final point to close on, I think the opposite of running your own race is running someone else’s race. And I think that that is a very risky way of managing your career, because you get to the end of that race and you’re really not happy with where you are or who you are. And I think maybe that’s motivating for people as well, you know, carrot or stick, in terms of what works for you. But that’s not something that I find motivating for my career.
Sarah Ellis: So, we hope you find these episodes useful, perhaps feeling slightly different to our normal episodes. We’re trying to keep them short for the summer. A bit different interviewing each other, which is quite a nice change.
Helen Tupper: You’re a good interviewer.
Sarah Ellis: Thanks very much. And we’ll be back again next week where we will be swapping roles, and Helen will be talking to me about one of my favourite quotes. I don’t know if we should reveal it.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, give a tease. What’s the quote?
Sarah Ellis: “Never live the same year twice”.
Helen Tupper: Oh, I can’t wait. All right, speak next week.
Sarah Ellis: Thank you so much for listening, everyone. Bye for now.