00:00: Squiggly Careers Podcast is a weekly show that focuses on your career
00:46: Sarah went to an event hosted by the London Interdisciplinary School
07:15: My cynicism would be whether the promotion process is fair for everyone
09:53: Where does our cynicism come from? And I suspect it often starts with experiences
12:40: Lord Hastings says small actions add up and they can be the smallest of actions
16:13: When we are cynical, we are more tempted to spend time with others
18:28: Stephen Bartlett says it’s important to be curious about others’ values
23:59: When you are cynical, you keep things for yourself because you win
27:49: We’ve talked before about the five minute favour and what it can look like
31:35: Helen says the bigger business becomes, the more grounded she feels
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 borrow some brilliance from something that we have been reading, watching, listening to or attending, which links to today’s topic. And we connect that to your Squiggly Career and give you some insights and ideas that you can easily put into action. And if you are listening for the first time, welcome. We’ve got lots of episodes that you can search through to find what you might need to know right now just go to amazingif.com to find all of our episodes and free tools. And every episode that we put out in the world comes with a pod sheet which is a simple one page summary that you can download just to make it a bit easier for you to reflect, take action and learn more. So, Sarah, what are we going to talk about today?
Sarah Ellis: So this week I went to an event that was hosted by a university called LIS, which stands for the London Interdisciplinary School. And this is the university that I wish had existed when I was 18.
Helen Tupper: Well, no, because you wouldn’t have continued university with me.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I was coming, I was going to say that I was going to
Helen Tupper: Come on to that sliding doors moment.
Sarah Ellis: It is a sliding doors moment. So let’s be grateful for the fact that it exists now. But it didn’t, maybe then. And the reason that I love it and I have spent some time there and I’ve met some of their students is rather than sort of choosing a discipline, their argument is things are interconnected, like problems are interconnected. Specialising too soon is maybe limiting and they talk about bringing together experts and knowledge from across art, science and humanities. So when I’ve talked to people there in terms of some of the things that they’re studying, they might be at the same time looking at systems thinking, but also some things around code, also organisational behaviour. So you know, they’ll be combining different like topics and disciplines around a problem and very naturally, very kind of purposeful in their, in their approach. Someone from our team has actually done a course there as well. It’s very collect the dots and connect the dots. I think they do use connect the dots as a phrase. But if I was summarising it to someone else, that’s why I think it’s really interesting. And they were putting on an event last night, I think actually as part of their MBA programme. But other people could come. With someone called Lord Michael Hastings, who like really, really interesting. So in lots of ways quite a ladder like career. Obviously I didn’t call him on it in front of everyone. He worked at KPMG, I think for like 30 years, but doing a really interesting job around sort of global citizenship, I think he described it as. But he now, like since leaving, over the last like eight or nine years, has a very squiggly career. He didn’t use those words yet, but his time will come and he was very curious, so I actually think I might even send him a copy. And he now does things, like things with UNICEF with One Young World, a lot of charity things. He does a lot of prison work and yeah, spends his time in with lots of different people and places and sort of the headline was around leading responsibly in an uncertain world. But I felt like the focus of the conversation was all about combating cynicism. And so that got me thinking about, well, what does cynicism look and feel like in the context of a squiggly career? Like, how could it get in our way and what could we do instead? So I would say just in case anyone did go to that event, I actually do know one person who listens to the podcast who did go, oh,
Helen Tupper: Did you see them?
Sarah Ellis: Well, no. They messaged me on LinkedIn afterwards and said they had to leave a little bit early. But she was like, oh, I spotted you. And I would have loved to have said hi. And she’s read Squiggly and Lobster. And I met somebody who works as an intern. The person I sat next to, I was very, very brave.
Helen Tupper: I actually think, because I know what else you were doing that day, that it was very important that you were very easy to go home that night.
Sarah Ellis: So I was so, you know, like the right versus left decision. As in I could have kept walking across a bridge to go home. And I didn’t. But I loved the girl I sat next to. I will keep anonymous. Obviously I haven’t asked her permission to say her name, but she is an intern. And so it was really interesting listening to her. Like she, she is already squiggly. Obviously I showed her the podcast, but she was like, she’s Italian and she thought maybe she was going to do law, but then actually she’s now interning at a very big, very well known charity and then works with somebody who has actually been on the podcast before. I was like, what are the chances? We’re probably quite high, maybe quite high
Helen Tupper: because of who ends up in the room.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what was really interesting, I talked to her at the end and she was like, oh, I’d really like a how to guide. She. I think that’s what she was sort of maybe hoping for from the evening. And actually the evening was very zoomed out, really big picture, lots of inspiring stories. But quite hard to figure out maybe what does this mean for me? You know, like all of us in our normal everyday jobs, like, how can I make sure that I don’t become cynical and that doesn’t get in my way? Because really what he was talking about was kind of big world, kind of big examples. And I thought, oh, that’s reassuring. That actually what she is looking for is that level of the kind of the – what does this mean to me? So then I promised her we’d do a podcast on it. So if only one person listens to this podcast, it’s going to be useful for her.
Helen Tupper: So let me just, can I play my thinking back with you? So what we’re saying is that cynicism will get in the way of your squiggly career success.
Sarah Ellis: Yep.
Helen Tupper: Okay. And that what we want to do is spot when we are most likely to be cynical. Like other like triggers for cynicism situations, maybe like squiggly situations where cynicism can creep in. And then we want to swap cynicism for something that is actually much more helpful in that situation.
Sarah Ellis: It might be less about anticipating situations. When I’ve started thinking about this, I think it might be about recognising what it sounds like for you. Because initially when I started to look at like cynicism, which is, you know, we believe that people are maybe not doing things in a great way and people are maybe being selfish or dishonest. You think, well, I’m never cynical. That’s never me. But I think when you start to think about it in a more sort of day to day way, and you and I were talking about this before, you do start to recognise what this sounds like for all of us. Because of course I think we are all cynical some of the time. Cynical about the people that we work for, the people that we work with, the organisations that we’re in, the industry that we are part of. And I think that is normal, you know, to have to have like a dose of cynicism along the way, I think is normal. I think it is noticing whether, you know, if that cynicism becomes a bit more pervasive. Yeah and it’s kind of driving your thinking, then I think actually it can become really. It can become really limiting. So do you want some of the ‘sounds like statements’ I came up with?
Helen Tupper: I hope these aren’t my sounds like statements. We’ll see.
Sarah Ellis: No, no. Maybe I’ll say each one. And you can. We’ll perhaps reflect on whether, like, we would have ever, you know, we would ever have thought this as part of our squeaky career. So my manager won’t let me move to another team.
Helen Tupper: Actually, I have definitely had that one because I remember being in sales and wanting to work in marketing and being very cynical about whether the organisation. It wasn’t my manager, actually. It was like the organisation.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, yeah.
Helen Tupper: As this human thing in my head would make that move possible. I was like, oh, people, they don’t move people from one to another.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that’s one great. My organisation just doesn’t invest in learning.
Helen Tupper: Maybe I’ve had that a bit. I remember thinking with my MBA, like, it was more. I remember my MBA and be like, I wasn’t at the right level for it. I mean, I’ve kind of fought against it. But the slight cynicism at the start was that I’m not senior enough for them to make that investment in me.
Sarah Ellis: That’s probably what I sounded like sometimes. And I think it’s not always lovely to admit, but I reckon we all think this some of the time it’s not worth helping other people because I don’t. I don’t get any support, I’m not getting any help.
Helen Tupper: I’ve heard it, I had it. I don’t think I said that. I’ve heard it, like, from people, but I think that’s mine.
Sarah Ellis: The promotion process isn’t fair. It’s rigged to work for certain people.
Helen Tupper: Have I said that? Have you said that?
Sarah Ellis: Whether I’ve said it out loud in quite that way, but I think it sometimes it sounds like in your head. I think I’ve definitely thought that in companies, you know, where you’re like, you’re cynical about. I think my cynicism would be whether the promotion process is a fair process for everyone. Like, it’s not fair for everyone.
Helen Tupper: I think I probably, you know, less about promotion. I think I’ve probably said to myself, and maybe out loud to other people, there’s no point applying for that job because they’ve already got someone in mind for the role.
Sarah Ellis: Yes that’s what I would have thought.
Helen Tupper: Yeah.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think I’ve thought that and then have been made to apply for it anyway and been like, well, there’s literally no point because I’m never going to get it. And then my last one was my organisation are going to use AI as a way to justify cost savings and redundancies, which I do hear from people now. Sometimes I think there is an interesting balance here with these statements. Sometimes I think we think them because they are based on facts or evidence or experiences. And so I was interested in. I was like, well, where does our cynicism come from? And I suspect it often starts with that.
Helen Tupper: Right.
Sarah Ellis: You know, we’ve. We’ve been part of maybe a promotion process that we didn’t feel was fair. And then you become cynical because of it. And I think it’s almost recognising that. That, that might be true, that might have happened. But then if you sort of stay cynical, then it can hold you back and it’s sort of only you that it’s holding back. You’re often cynical about things outside of yourself, but it’s actually you that it’s affecting.
Helen Tupper: I don’t know if it is any of you that hold you back, because I was thinking about. I totally get your point about experiences that can inform it. But I also think if you are spending time with cynics, you know, if you’ve got, like, cynical cultures and then it becomes, like, received wisdom. Like, they’re like, oh, there’s no point, because this is always the way it works around here. And then you kind of find yourself believing that it’s sort of contagious in a way, as a way of being. So I think maybe it doesn’t just. If you are being overtly cynical and you’re saying these statements, like the ripple effects of it.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah.
Helen Tupper: I wonder whether it does start to make other people, they start to maybe adopt some of this thinking.
Sarah Ellis: Well, if we were being super honest. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes you and I might be cynical about some things with each other. But I think we are quite mindful of not letting it go on for too long. I think we are sometimes cynical for almost like we have 30 seconds. I can go on 30 seconds. We almost give ourselves permission to be, like, 30 seconds of being cynical. And then I think we both go – we get we get that it’s actually not helpful. But actually, I think if one of us kept going with it a bit, I think I would definitely start to believe you. And I’d be like, oh, yeah, maybe. What’s the point? Yeah, it’s like, yeah, yeah. Against us or not. Crediting us or whatever. Whatever those examples, whatever those examples might be. So what we’ve done is we’ve taken some specific situations where we might be tempted to be a bit more cynical. I’m going to describe what Lord Hastings sort of suggested and this is very much my summary, because he told lots of stories and I’ve. distilled it into an action. And he did give some really interesting examples, very much from the outside world. So I am going to mention them briefly because, you know, when we talk about borrowing brilliance and being really curious, he told me stories and talked about places and examples that were so far away from my reality that I was. I think it’s really good for you. You know, like, I’ve watched different videos because of that conversation. And then we are going to talk about, like, well, what does this mean in the context of your Squiggly Career? Like, how do you make sure the kind of Squiggly Career mindset wins versus the cynical mindset? So the first challenge is problems are so big that I feel powerless. So this might be, you know, I feel powerless to change the structure of an organisation. I feel powerless because I’m not a senior, is people who are making decisions. And Lord Hastings would argue small actions add up and they can be the smallest of actions, but if you take them consistently, it adds up to giving you power. And there is this brilliant video, I’ve been on the National Geographic website this morning about a guy where he lives on this island and there was loads of deforestation and he said he didn’t sort of know that he was going to do it for this long, but he just decided to plant a tree every day and he did it for 37 years. And then they show, like, what has happened to this island. It is so, like, lush with greenery. And also the seeds all started spreading and he was like, oh, yeah, it got easier because I could just like, basically take cuttings and grow and grow things. There are elephants in this video, Tigers. And you’re just like. And I know that’s, you know, it’s one example, it’s one story, but still, it is a good sort of distillation of what he’s trying to get to here. Just because you are small in a big system, like in a big organisation, it doesn’t mean that you haven’t got any power. And that power comes from you doing something.
Helen Tupper: So Sarah and I were chatting about what this would mean. And clearly it’s not about planting trees in your company. It’s got to be about something else. And we were thinking, okay, so if you’re being cynical, it would sound a bit like, in the context of your career, I’m never going to have any time to learn. I’m too busy. I’ve got too much to do in this company, so what’s the point in trying? And it is actually quite interesting because we do hear a version of that when we start talking to people about Learning Like a Lobster. Like, you will often say, what gets in the way of your learning? And people are like, oh, not got enough time, too much to do, overwhelmed by my work. But if we were taking the Lord Hastings approach, then, and we were trying to think more about small actions add up, then you might think more about, okay, well, what if I just did five minutes of learning a day? And I’m not trying to dramatically redesign my work. I’m just going to do five minutes of learning a day. And a bit like the trees, this adds up over time. If you plant the seed of five minutes of learning a day, you get to 25 minutes a week, 100 minutes a month, 1200 minutes a year. And in total, that gets you to over two days of learning. And the five minutes might not seem like a lot, but two days of learning that you just would have missed if you didn’t do that small action could actually be really significant. And I also think, you know, you talked about, it’s not just about the minutes a day or the tree that got planted every day. It is about how suddenly those trees started doing something else. Like the, you know, the unintended beneficial consequences. Yeah, I think if you committed five minutes of learning a day, I think you might start sharing that learning with other people, and they’re learning too. I think you might start being more curious about what other people are learning and have new points of connection. Like, there are positive consequences that I don’t think you can predict that can come from just this, like, very simple small action. So we thought that was a way to sort of think about moving away from cynicism that could help your learning.
Sarah Ellis: So the next observation is that when we are cynical, we are much more tempted to spend time with people who almost agree with our cynicism. So that’s a sort of. It’s almost like a cynic echo chamber trap. People like you, but you’ve almost like you say you’re kind of all being kind of cynical together, and that probably feels quite comfortable. Was his Observation, but nothing’s getting any better. And he had this phrase, which actually I did. I kind of wrote this down. Cause I was like, oh, this is a really interesting thing. Like, do. Do I always do this? He said, spend time with people who help us to be better people. I was like, oh, that’s interesting. And part of, I think not the only way, but part of spending time with people who make us better people is listening to people you disagree with. So he talks a lot about, he makes a lot of time for relationships. You could just hear in all of his examples how important he feels relationships are to your development and to his career. And he was talking about, like, people he meets up with, where he’s almost intentionally meeting up with them because they have a very different world view to him. And he wants to learn, he wants to kind of listen. And he also gave an example of watching a political party in the UK called Reform, where he said, like, he’s like, I don’t personally agree it’s not his political view, but he was like, but I’m always going to watch it because otherwise, you know, like, it’s easy to be like a cynic from a distance. Yeah and he’s also very anti sort of hiding behind your phone. And yeah. He acknowledges. He was saying, we’re sort of almost losing that ability to connect and have those conversations where you get sort of healthy discourse. Somebody, like, use that phrase in the room. And I was like, oh, yeah, that’s kind of really, really interesting. Like, we’re seeing quite a lot of work at the moment about loneliness and disconnection at work and sort of not having some of those conversations where we might feel uncomfortable. But then actually it might. It might kind of quell your cynicism. Because actually you do hear a different point of view.
Helen Tupper: And I know on that point of, like, being able to be in a conversation with somebody whose point of view might not be agree, might not agree with. And I know Stephen Bartlett can be a bit marmite. I know he’s been in the news recently for some things that were said in a podcast. So I’m just going to skip over that. But I am going to recognise some stuff that I’ve been hearing him saying. He gets a lot of flack for having certain people on his podcast who other people don’t agree with, like. Like in politics and stuff like that. And he never says which political party he supports because he’s like, well, that’s not the point. I’m having a curious conversation, and do I agree with everything that everyone says on my podcast?
Sarah Ellis: No.
Helen Tupper: But do I want to develop the ability to listen and learn from other people’s perspectives, even when they’re not my own? Yes. And I actually really admire him. And I agree with Lord Hastings that we’re losing this ability to hold and have a conversation with someone who sees the world very differently to you. And I’m not saying we should all have a podcast to just bring people that we disagree on with, but in a work sense, Sarah and I were thinking, okay, what’s the way that could be useful to do this? And potentially in teams as well? We think it’s values. So values are the things that motivate and drive you. And the point of values is sort of recognising that we’re all different and that that’s. That’s okay. And it is quite easy to connect with people who have similar values to you, and it can be trickier to spend time with people who have distinct and different values to you. But it is quite helpful. It’s very helpful to understand, okay, what. When we’re working together, you’re likely to see this very differently to me. So I’ll give the example of, you know, one of my values is freedom, for example, which tends to mean I like a lot of space. I hate to feel like my thoughts and time is constrained or controlled by other people. But if I’m working with somebody else who has efficiency, perhaps as a value, or is very. Has, like, rigour and clarity, those sorts of things, I do feel a bit of tension, and I could. I could be at risk of just dismissing that person. Oh, you know, that’s so, so annoying. They’re so frustrating. But actually, what I want to do is be able to say and learn from, okay, well, how is that way of working potentially better? Or how could we be better together? Like, how could my need for freedom and that person’s need for process actually result in a better outcome? And it’s more about just asking the question, you might think. I’m actually not sure it does. But being willing to. Willing to be curious about that rather than just dismiss somebody for being different. I think that’s the important thing.
Sarah Ellis: And I think you don’t always have to know each other’s values for this to be able to do this. Like, if you do brilliant and use our values in teams, resources and the podcasts that we’ve got. But it could just be thinking about and spotting what you think motivates and drives someone and seeing that it’s very different to you. Like, I think I have missed opportunities in my career to, like, learn and grow, because I did spot that what they were motivated by was very different. And so I backed away. I was like, oh, well, no, they.
Helen Tupper: We’re not going to get on.
Sarah Ellis: No, they think differently to me. They approach things differently to me. And so sort of almost, I’m out because. And probably, actually, as I’ve got probably a bit older now, now I can definitely approach that with curiosity. You sort of. You can kind of go, I’m just going to get curious, or you can go, I’m going to sort of just get out of here. And I think when I was probably also, like, I think it’s probably linked to confidence, when I was less confident, I almost wouldn’t even know how to navigate those conversations. I think sometimes what can really help you here is if you can see someone else do it really well. And so I did remember, I do remember, like, working for one leader where, like, they would, you know, like, they would have kind of quite, not confrontational, just challenging conversations with quite a lot of different people and she would be quite challenging and people would be quite challenging back, and it was all fine and like, you know, almost like, I think I needed to see that it was all fine and that afterwards they’d still come out of those rooms, like, laughing and joking or going, oh, no, I don’t know. Just talk. Like, you know, they could. They could just walk out and almost like, we need to have that conversation and we are really different and we’ve listened to each other. It’s been productive and we still. Not necessarily. Not necessarily still agreeing. Yeah, it doesn’t. You don’t have to always get to the place where, like, you’re suddenly, you look like the same. So if you can see it, do see someone do it. Well, I think, like, watch what they do. And I think what they do is they ask really good questions, they genuinely listen and they almost manage to. And I still think I find this quite hard. You almost enjoy the process. Listening to Lord Hastings, you could just tell he almost relished the conversations. He was like, I want to hear someone who’s very different to me tell me the frame, isn’t it? Like, I actually think actually I’m going to enjoy. I want to enjoy it not because I want to argue. But I’m going to enjoy learning, I think as well, you know, you said, like, watch someone else. I think as well, like, listen to the statements, steal the statements that they say. Because, like, I’ve definitely heard people say, oh, actually I see that differently, or I’ve got a different perspective on this. And it’s a way, I think you can still own your point of view. You don’t, you don’t have to like, hide it. But I think just having a way to bring it in that maybe doesn’t feel too confrontational is a useful way to make sure you stay sort of in conversation mode.
Sarah Ellis: So the next one is that when you are more cynical, you keep things for yourself because you think, well, that’s how I win. So essentially you, I suppose you have a view of the world that’s quite win, win, loss, you know, almost like, well, I’m not going to share things, I’m not going to give things, I’m going to take and then make the most of it for myself. So it’s like, it’s selfish, right? It’s very I focused, which I always think when you first describe it, sounds, sounds awful. But then equally we could probably like all think of moments where you just think, well, quite, I have to put myself first because if I don’t, who else will? And yeah, that’s understandable. And his point of view is that we all need to like, practise giving things up and giving things away and how important that is. And he told a really good story about when he. So he grew up in Jamaica and I think they’d had, I think it was maybe like a natural disaster or certainly something had happened in the country and he was, he was younger and people were sending like supplies to the, to the country and so his family got this like, box of onions, apples and soap and he was like. It was a really weird combination. But that’s just what I think. He got sent from this, like, family in Canada and what his mum did was they could have kept, right, all of the apples, all the onions, all the. So. And she divided it all up into a bag. So every bag had one of each and then she like gave it out to the local community. So, you know, like seeing things role modelled. So I think he just sort of has in his DNA that thing of like, well, if you share, everybody is better because of it. And actually my sister told me about these really nice cafes in the UK which are called repair cafes, which is the idea that you give Your skills and technical expertise, you know, if you’ve got, like, practical skills. I don’t have any of these, so it’s. It’s very hard for me to understand. But let’s imagine you are a retired engineer. I don’t know. You could mend a coffee maker, you could mend a toaster. Millions of things I don’t know how to do. And what you do is you go to these cafes and people volunteer their time and their skills to mend your kid’s bike, like, for free. And people are just doing those things. And part of it is because they don’t want things to go to waste. You don’t. Don’t throw the toaster away. We can mend the toaster. It’s just like, I can’t mend the toaster, so I would probably throw it away. So it’s like waste. But also, then you go and sit and have, like, a chat and a conversation with somebody, and you’re also connecting with someone who probably is retired, probably quite enjoys a conversation. And my sister came away from that experience, so I learned a lot about the guy who she was chatting to, and he’d mended things. She was like, he was amazing. You know, people have got all of these skills and they’re really, really happy to share. And I was like, oh, that’s like a. That is a perfect example of a community of sharers.
Helen Tupper: Oh, it’s lovely.
Sarah Ellis: I know. Like, you get.
Helen Tupper: You get sustainability, you counteract the loneliness thing that’s going on, and you get potentially some intergenerational relationships.
Sarah Ellis: And also just practical help, you know, like, your toaster has been mended. And I was like, so this happened to me yesterday. And actually, you do know this. My shirt broke.
Helen Tupper: I do know.
Sarah Ellis: Because we were together. Two buttons on my shirt broke, and I don’t know how to sew.
Helen Tupper: I can do that for you.
Sarah Ellis: But I was like, oh, maybe I could go to a repair cafe,
Helen Tupper: bring me your shirt.
Sarah Ellis: I’m not going to bring you my shirt. We don’t even live that close, that close to each other. But I was. I was like, oh, I wouldn’t mind going to, like, one of those. And I bet you someone there would be really good at sewing, actually.
Helen Tupper: You’d much rather go to a repair cafe than give your shirt to me.
Sarah Ellis: I was like, oh, that’d be. That’s. But then I was like, is that too embarrassing? Because I can’t. Maybe I should. Maybe I should try it for myself. But I was like, But I don’t trust my abilities. Also, it’s like my most expensive shirt. Like I don’t have very many expensive clothes. And I was like, this is actually something I want to look after because I really love it. So maybe I’ll go to a pear cafe.
Helen Tupper: Oh, I’ll message you afterwards about ways in which you can sort that problem out. Okay, so our idea here, and it’s one that we’ve talked about before, but I think, you know, in this spirit of generosity, I think what you also have to recognise that this doesn’t have to take a lot of time and we’ve talked before about the five minute favour and it is just about thinking about what, what could a five minute favour look like. And that could be making an introduction, which I think is a very generous thing to do because you’re connecting some people that you know and you’re not expecting anything in giving without keeping score is what we’ve said before. And I think that’s very, very much this. And I think it is. I don’t think this always happens unless you have it as an intention. You know, like I’m going to do a five minute favour this Friday. I think if you can create a bit of a rhythm, it becomes easier to remember otherwise it’s a nice idea that you just might not remember to do. But I do think like 5 minute favour on a Friday can then just become a nice kind of giving intention in your week. And I think then it becomes nice and you don’t have to keep this stuff to yourself. And it could be your strengths, it could be your time, it could be your connections, but I think you can get quite creative with what giving could look like for you.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah. And I think you can scale it up and scale it down so it doesn’t always have to stay the same. Like, I think I’ve had moments where if I was scoring myself on like a generosity scale, like I did loads of really good stuff that I was really proud of and then my life changed and so I got less time. So I was more in the five minute favour world and now I think a lot more about how we, the work we do with squiggly careers, how can we be really generous, how can we be giving? And we’ve got some new work coming soon with some people who are perhaps not even into their squiggly careers yet that I’m really excited about, which is kind of our version of like, how can we give away from the company that we run, our money, our time, our expertise, and we’re being really thoughtful and intentional about that because I think I sort of had a bit of a realisation with this where I was like, I want to be really generous and I. I hope that’s what people would say about, you know, some of the resources that we create. But actually, to your point, if you don’t create like a system or a rhythm or a way of doing this, it becomes more of like a. Oh, yeah, I’m. It’s like a say, do gap thing. Of course, of course I. Of course I want to be generous, and, like, this really matters to me and it does, but then it doesn’t actually come to fruition like you. You know, like, it doesn’t make it into kind of the real, real world. So I think anything that you can do to sort of make it a habit. I remember I used to have someone in my team that Sainsbury’s, where she used to go and have dinner once a week. I think it was through, like, Age UK with somebody older, and she would just go and have dinner with them once a week. But, you know, like, that was like a she. But she never missed that because every Wednesday she’d go and see Dottie or whoever it was. And I just think there were, like, loads of ways to do it. But if you’re hoping it’s going to happen or like waiting for it to happen, it’s tricky. And then the last one is feeling cynical that you’re just not in control of your life, which sounds really bleak, does that. But I do think people at the moment, you know, with what’s going on in the news, and I got this sense at this event that I went to people being like, I feel really out of control and no one, no one kind of likes that feeling. And he did have a really nice statement here where Lord Hastings said, you’ve got to do something every day that grounds you. And, yeah, he talked about. He’s religious and he reads the Bible every day. And actually the way that he was describing that, it went way beyond reading a bit of the Bible every day. You could just see how this was like, just an imperative as kind of part of his life. It grounded him, it gave him perspective and it was sort of spiritual in his way. And actually people in the room were talking about, like, it sort of doesn’t matter what you believe in or who you believe in, but a way of grounding you every day that sort of gives you perspective, feels really important. So what’s one way you’re doing that at the moment, Helen, because I already know the answer to this. I am.
Helen Tupper: I’m growing things.
Sarah Ellis: You are finding lots of seeds.
Helen Tupper: I honestly, I’m finding it. Something’s happened to me this year, but I think.
Sarah Ellis: You having a midlife squiggly crisis.
Helen Tupper: Well, I don’t know, really. I think it is the bigger our business becomes, and I sort of don’t love using the word busy, but there’s a lot going on, a variety going on in what we’re doing. And so the bigger and the busier we become, the more I feel grounded in simple and small things. So this year I’m growing some stuff. Never really grown anything before, so far. On the grow. Ah, pun, pun in there. On the grow, I have chilies, I have beetroot, I have chard, I have peppers, I have many things on the grow, but I’m just finding it. I mean, I don’t know whether these things will last, like, literally, as in whether they’ll go beyond the seed stage, but I am finding it just like, it’s very simple and is not fancy or anything, but I’m finding it just quite grounding when we do loads of, like, shiny stuff and we’re travelling and doing all things learn, like a lobster, which I love. It is quite nice. Just do something very simple. So I am finding that quite grounding. What about you?
Sarah Ellis: Mine is so. I’ve always liked walking and people who listen to podcasts will know that that’s true. But my newer one is the discovery of BBC Radio 3 Unwind, which is essentially a radio station that encourages you to, like, relax and kind of chill out. And if you had described to be that radio station, interestingly, I don’t think I would have listened. I would have been like, oh, it doesn’t sound right for me. I do actually really like, like, classical relaxing music. But they will also occasionally just intersperse this music with last night, for example, I got. I got in the car and I was kind of a bit distracted and a bit annoyed by something, but then this guy with, like, a beautiful Irish accent just told me to imagine that I was in Iceland. And I was like, well, I’ve been to Iceland, so I can imagine. And then he was talking about, like, the rivers and how, like, the relaxing state that kind of water helps you, like how water helps you to relax. And he was like, just imagine, like, the ebbs and the flows and, like, water washes away. And I was just like, yes, great.
Sarah Ellis: What’s really interesting is that I’m not really like concentrating on it because I was driving, but I honestly got out of that car and I’d not had it on for the first 10 minutes and I had had it on for the second 10 minutes and I felt so much better. Perspective, more pragmatic. I’d kind of calmed down because.
Helen Tupper: My WhatsApp messages before and after this moment were considerably different.
Sarah Ellis: And it’s so. You know, it’s like. It’s so interesting, isn’t it? Because, I mean, you and I. I mean, I would never, ever want anyone to read those. But if you did look at that, you can literally map it. You can be like, I was getting really quite annoyed about something and then I sort of got out the car, my messages got shorter, more specific. I was like, yeah, that’s fine, let’s do that. And it was. And also, you know, the whole, like, then my evening was a lot better, so it just really grounded me. And so you don’t want to listen to it all of the time, because if you do, you’d never get anything done because you’d be thinking about the
Helen Tupper: ebbs and the flows in Iceland.
Sarah Ellis: Oh, yeah. You know, just chill out the whole time. But in certain moments, I do find it, like, really helpful. And I think particularly because you need grounding. Right. When things do feel out of control. I think probably I was feeling my own mini version of out of control a bit there. And also I was getting frustrated with something that’s not in my control and it just. Yeah, it was really good. So I wonder whether, like, nature music.
Helen Tupper: Yeah. Maybe the point is whether whatever it is, it’s finding the thing that works for you that helps you to just have a moment. I suppose it’s maybe even getting into the territory of active rest, like Alex Pan work, that sort of moment that kind of helps you disconnect from whatever else is going on in your brain and just have, like, a moment for you. Yeah. Well, I very much enjoyed learning your evening at LIS. No, I liked it. I feel like it’s taken my brain to a new place and made me think about when might I be being cynical, that I might not have labelled it as that and what would be a better response to it? We will summarise all of this in the pod sheet, everybody, and some of the links. If you want to watch the man growing trees on an island, we’ll put all the links to that stuff in the pod sheet. So you can find the pod sheet in the show notes. Or go to our website Amazing if dot com. There’s a page with all of our podcasts on. So if you find the episode that you want and you click on that, you’ll see like short summaries. You’ll see a downloadable thing that you can use on yourself or with a team. Lots of extra things that you can learn on the website.
Sarah Ellis: So we hope you’re enjoying the episodes. If you ever have any ideas of things that we could borrow brilliance from people, places, books, events, objects even, you can always email us. We’re helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com but that’s everything for this week. Thank you so much for listening and we’re back with you again soon. Bye for now.
Helen Tupper: Bye everyone. Sam.