Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:02:00: When Jodie did PodPlus

00:02:44: Introducing Jodie

00:03:53: Your version of success

00:05:15: Ace cards

00:09:50: Jodie's personal success system

00:13:51: Questions to create your own success system

00:23:19: Further tips from Jodie

00:26:54: Dealing with failure

00:30:21: Not alienating others

00:32:37: Jodie's career advice

00:33:18: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen Tupper and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly show where we talk about the ins and outs of work, discuss some of the topics that are on people's mind and give you some tools, questions and support to help you feel a bit more in control of your career development and a bit more confident about the actions that you take.  Today, I'm not joined by Sarah, my normal co-host, I'm actually going to be joined by Jodie Cook, who is a long-time friend and somebody whose work I've followed and I have found really, really helpful.  So, I'm hoping it will do the same for you too, because the topic we're going to talk about is success; not always an easy one, I think one that can sometimes seem a bit shiny, a bit alienating.  

But what I love about Jodie is she makes it really, really practical for people to think about, "Well what does success mean to me?  And how can I design my development and manage my career in a way that means that I'm more likely to achieve the things that I want to?" So, you'll hear Jodie's opinions on success; she will talk through this idea of ace cards that I really like, thinking about your super-strengths and how you bring them to life; and then we're going to get into, how do you design and make use of your own success system?  And it's a process of looking at what you've done so far in your career and using some of that insight to help you with what you might want to do in the future.  So, lots and lots of practical tools, insights, stories and examples to help you.  I think we should just get started. Jodie, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.

Jodie Cook: So, excited to be here.

Helen Tupper: I feel like it's been a long time in the making.  We've known each other for ages and I think we were just trying to find the right moment for you to come and share your wisdom with all of our lovely listeners.

Jodie Cook: Yeah, for sure.  Yeah, it had to be the right moment, the right topic.  You've been on my vision board since 2022, so it's very fun to be sitting here talking to you about this stuff right now.

Helen Tupper: You know, we did PodPlus together, which some of our listeners will have been at and lots of them won't have, because Jodie was in London, and I was like, "Come on to PodPlus", and we ended up going down a discussion around success, which our PodPlus community absolutely loved.  I had so many messages afterwards going, "Jodie's amazing, that was really helpful".  And so, I think I was like, "That's the thing", we're going to help people talk practically about what success means and how we can design our work around success, and hear some of your stories along the way. 

So, I'm conscious lots of people don't know who you are, so maybe in a nutshell, who is Jodie, what do you do and where does this, I don't know, this kind of focus on success come into it?

Jodie Cook: Oh my goodness, good question, who am I?  So, I first entered the world of business at 22 when I started my first business; it was a social media agency.  I built it and sold it ten years later, and then wrote a book called Ten Year Career about that experience, and during that time made a ton of mistakes, but also created a business that ran without me that had a team of 20 people.  

And while I was doing that, I travelled the world, worked from about 30 different cities, started competing internationally in powerlifting, and then took a bit of a career break, I would call it, where I ran lots of experiments for two years, and then a year ago started a new business.  So, there's lots of different lessons and milestones in there. But I am very, I'm going to use the word 'obsessed' with success as a topic.  

And just to caveat that, I don't mean success like, I think it's very subjective, and I think it's very different across different people.  So, whenever I say success, I mean your version of success.  But one of my favourite things to do is help people find their version of success, and then help them use their superpowers to create it in their own lives.

Helen Tupper: And so, on that point, "Create your version of success, use your superpowers to make it happen", does that mean then that for you, it's not, you are or aren't a successful person, so it's not like it is a trait, it is innate, I am or I am not; for you, success and the ability to achieve the things that you want to is more of a talent, like that is a learnable thing, we can learn to be successful?

Jodie Cook: Very much so, I think you can learn to be successful.  I think the first thing, probably 80% of it, is defining what success even looks like, because it will look completely different for you than other people, and then I think you can work towards it.  One big lesson I feel like I've learned is that I will never underestimate the intensity required to do something well.  And I think what happens is if you do underestimate the intensity required to do something well, you see someone else doing something and you think, "Oh, they must have this innate ability to do it [or] they're just talented [or] it's just their genetics", and really it's just, no, they just work freaking hard to get there. 

So, I think it's more freeing to realise that it is a thing that you can work on that you can get better at, because then you don't see other people as these superhuman people with these talents and skills that they were born with, you see it as like, "No, if they can do it, I can do it too, but I can do it with my own version of success, whatever that is".

Helen Tupper: And I guess I'm just trying to think,  other people have got advantages that I haven't.  They've got an education advantage or they've got a whole load of privileges and advantages that it's easier for that person to be successful than it is for me.  What's your take on that?

Jodie Cook: I think this links to something I think about a lot, which is ace cards.  I think other people make it look easy because they are simply playing their ace cards.  They found out what they are and they are using them.  But if you don't find your own ace cards, you're probably trapped in this comparison.  You know in school, we were just taught in subjects, but not everyone is talented in subjects.  So, if someone happens to be very good at maths, then that might be an ace card of theirs; but if you're trying to be good at maths and it's not one of your ace cards, then you're going to be like, "Oh, I'm a failure", or you're just going to think you can't do it, and then you're going to think someone else is really good at maths and, "I'm not, therefore I'll never succeed".  But yours might just be something else.  So then, I feel like if you identify an ace card, you can engineer everything you do to use that ace card more.

 Because I think you're similar, right, and you were just saying with you and Sarah, you have different ace cards, so you spend your energies in different ways and that grows the business together.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, and I think that's actually a really interesting point around team ace cards.  So, I guess the questions that are in my mind are, how does an individual identify their ace cards?  Some people might know it and some people might need some help with it.

 And then I'm thinking, "If you are individuals in a team and you share your ace cards --" do you know what it makes me think about?  You know those cards, that card game where you put them all together in like, you put two cards in a tower and then you end up with a bigger tower because I'm thinking they're all little ace cards going together?

Jodie Cook: Yeah, yeah.

Helen Tupper: But in theory, if everyone knows their ace cards and everyone puts them together, theoretically the team is bigger, better and stronger, unless there's a bit of competing with the ace cards going on.

Jodie Cook: I think it's fascinating in a team sense.  So, my operations manager, Joanna, we've worked together for a very long time.  We have completely different ace cards, almost the other end of the spectrum ace cards.  And do you ever remember Mr Muscle; he loves the jobs you hate?

Helen Tupper: Yes!

Jodie Cook: That's exactly what it is, but there is someone out there who loves the jobs you hate, and that's because their ace cards are different to your ace cards.  But I think talking about it with your team is a really big thing.  I feel like another way of finding your ace cards is, think about the insults you've had in the past.

Helen Tupper: That's hilarious!  Okay, keep going.

Jodie Cook: So, Melissa is a friend who's recently started her own business, and one of the things that her old workplace used to say to her, there was someone in her old team who used to call her, "Mel who does the most".  And she said it as like, "Oh, why are you doing this?  Why are you going in over and above, you goody two-shoes?" type thing.  It was kind of an insult.  But when she talked to me about it, I was like, "Hell, yeah, Mel who does the most?  Yeah, you are Mel who does the most, and that's why you're smashing all the targets, that's why you're starting your own business, that's why you're doing something, because this is your thing", and I had it myself.  A friend of a friend once called me 'intense' and I was like, "No, am I?  This is terrible".  But then I was like, "Hell, yeah, I'm intense, this is great!"

So it's like, you think of the insults you've had that other people are throwing at you, and mainly they're throwing those insults at you because they cannot handle your bigness, the space you're taking up.  They can't handle it, so they have to try and bring you down.  But they are the sources of your ace cards, because your intensity, your work capacity, whatever it is, it's like this is the thing that makes you you.

Helen Tupper: I remember a very senior person saying to me earlier on in my career that I came across as an enthusiastic puppy dog.

Jodie Cook: Yes!

Helen Tupper: And it's because I get so excited about things.  I'm like, "Yes, yes, yes, let's do that, let's make it happen!" and I can see it.  At the time, I think I probably spent about 18 months after that trying to tone that down, because I was like, "Oh, this clearly isn't welcomed.  I need to be more serious and this is not welcomed".  And on reflection now, I think that is actually part of my ace card, like that enthusiasm and energy to get things going is part of my ace card.  But it just wasn't right for that role or that particular context in that company.  And so, I think maybe when you know your ace card, it's also easier for you to find fit, right, because you want to work with people and in places where you get to play that card?

Jodie Cook: Yeah, it's never, "Play it down", it's never, "Tone yourself down", it's always, "Be more you".

Helen Tupper: Yeah, "Be more you", love it.  The enthusiastic puppy dog is released now onto the world in the form of Squiggly Careers energy!  So, let's talk about a process then.  So, I guess perhaps part of the process of thinking, "How do I create the success that I want for myself in my career?" part of it is potentially, know what ace cards you've got.  What follows that then?  Maybe I know what that is, how do I design my work, manage my career in a way that is more likely to lead to success?

Jodie Cook: I believe that everyone has a personal success system.  No two success systems are the same, but once you find yours, you can apply it to every area of your life and you can achieve anything you want.  And I see this time and time again.

Helen Tupper: It's a big promise, Jodie!

Jodie Cook: It's so there, but I feel like once you're tuned into it, you will notice it everywhere.  So, billionaires have success systems.  Jeff Bezos has a success system because every idea he had or had when he was running Amazon, he would write a press release about it, send it to a subsection of his list.  If it got interest, he would build it and he wouldn't care if he had to kill it, because that was just his success system, he kept it going.  And so, that's the system that allowed him to create lots of different successes, like Kindle and the products we know and love, and also the failures that we've probably forgotten about.

Helen Tupper: So, given that 'intense' is maybe one of your ace cards, what's your success system?

Jodie Cook: Yeah, so mine's got six very specific phases.  So firstly, I will set the intention.  So, I just decide that I want to do something and I make it very clear, like I write it down and I say, "This is what I want to do".  The second thing I will do is I will speak to people who have done it, and that's so important, because how I best learn is by speaking to someone who's done the thing and just talking to them about how they've done the thing.  And then, I will turn those conversations, probably multiple people, turn those multiple conversations into a plan.  For me, what works is splitting down this plan into something I can do every single day.  So, it might be 30 minutes a day or 90 minutes a day, but every single day.  And I really like the idea of stringing good days together and not skipping a day.  And then after that, I will visualise it.  So, I'll shut my eyes and imagine something coming true, or that success I've got in mind actually happening.

So, when I sold my agency, before I sold my agency, I wrote myself a pretend cheque, and it was how much I wanted to sell for, it was the date I wanted to sell, it was from the perfect buyer, and it was what was it for.  And it was like, I felt in my body it coming true.  I kind of imagined the person I would be who received the news that we had now sold.  And then my step six is, just persist.  So, similar to the puppy that you mentioned earlier, it's that puppy mentality of just keep going.  And if I look back, I first think I did this when I sold my agency.  But then when I realised that was my success system, I applied it to writing a book and getting a mainstream publisher.  But then, pretty much everything I've done, it's followed that exact process.  So now, I feel like everything in the future is kind of simple because it's like, "Oh, I just need to follow these six steps and now I can do anything", which gives you this new sense of confidence that you can just conquer the world.

Helen Tupper: So, you can retrospectively look back at the successes that you've had and use that to decode your success system, and then you can proactively apply that to things that you want to do in the future so that your actions are more likely to lead to success?

Jodie Cook: Exactly.  Look at what you've achieved in the past, the things that meant the most to you, the things that you are really quite proud of, and then dig into where were you when you had that news, what did you do, what were the actions you took, who were the people that were around you?  You might find that your success, every success you've ever had, might always involve one place or one person or one situation or one way of thinking or working.  There will be patterns, and if you find the patterns, you can put that down into a five- or six-step process.  And then, yeah, exactly that, you can apply it going forward and it will work.

Helen Tupper: So, I wonder if you can ask me some questions that can help me to identify my success system; and that these questions, other people can apply to their past experiences?  So, I'm putting you on the spot, but you ask me questions that will help me live create my success system.  And then I will type these questions up, I will put them in the PodSheet so that people, after they've listened today, they can go through these questions and they can look at Jodie's success system and apply it to their own experience.  So, it's putting us both on the spot, because I'm going to have to share openly --

Jodie Cook: Let's go!

Helen Tupper: -- and you're going to have to ask the questions.  But you're good, what did you say, like, going live?  Jodie's great when she goes live.  So, this is Jodie going live.  All right, help me.

Jodie Cook: Let's test that!

Helen Tupper: What's my success system?

Jodie Cook: So, without thinking too much, tell me about the thing that you've done that you're most proud of in your career?

Helen Tupper: I am most proud of just one thing.  There's loads of things, but I'm really proud of making the move from a corporate career to running my own business, because that was, I sort of had to leave my identity behind as a corporate person, and that was like a reputational risk.  There was also financial risk, and I wasn't brought up in an environment where people did that, you know.  My family worked for companies and that's what they did, they didn't run businesses.  So, the making that leap of doing something quite difficult and turning it into what it's become, I'm really proud of.

Jodie Cook: What was the catalyst for that change?

Helen Tupper: It was looking into a future that didn't feel very appealing, but on the surface looked really amazing.  But I was like, "Oh, actually, if I stay here, this is what this will look like, and it should feel amazing, but it just doesn't", and feeling like, "I have more potential to give, and I want the freedom to be able to do that".

Jodie Cook: Was there anything that happened that provoked the action?  So, if that was the catalyst that created the thought, what was the move that created the action?

Helen Tupper: Two things: a book deal from Penguin, and realising that actually I needed to make some choices, because this was a new thing, and if I wanted to do it, I needed to make choices; and my children were at an age where my work was having an impact on spending time with them, which it always would.  I wasn't anti that, but what I wanted to feel was that it was worth it; the time spent on my work was worth it, given that was time that I wasn't going to be spending with my children.  Those two things, I think, were quite pivotal.

Jodie Cook: Firstly, did you know that it would potentially be a success from the start?  And if you did, what gave you the inkling that it would?

Helen Tupper: No, I did not know it would be a success.  I thought I would have to do some other things at the same time in order to be able to do the thing that I loved and afford to do it.  So, no, I did not know.  I didn't start going, "This is going to be successful".  I started going, "This is something I want to do, and if I don't do it now, then what else am I waiting for?"

Jodie Cook: And who did you talk to about potentially making the move?

Helen Tupper: I talked to friends who all were like, "That makes complete sense".  I talked to my manager who said, "Interesting, but can we talk about how this is going to happen?  Don't go yet".  And I talked to my husband who was also like, "Interesting, we've got a mortgage to pay"!  So, there were various levels of challenge in communicating it.

Jodie Cook: And then, when you had decided that you were going to do it, how did that play out in your actions?

Helen Tupper: Once I'd decided, a past pattern of my behaviour is, once I've decided, I'm laser focused on making it happen.  So, I think once I've got over, "Should I, shouldn't I, there's a bit of risk here, chat to a few people", I decided I was going to do it and then nothing, no other noise is around that decision.  I'm very like, "I know what I'm doing, I know what date I'm going to do it, this will happen", from that point.

Jodie Cook: How quickly did you take action?

Helen Tupper: Really quickly.  I think I had those conversations all within a week of each other.  Once it's in my head, I've got to get it out.  So, I had all those conversations within a week of each other, then I handed my notice in.  I had a long notice period, but in the background I was building it up so that on the day that I officially left, it was already moving, it was already momentum with it.

Jodie Cook: And then, what was the first milestone or stage where you were reassured that you'd make the right choice?

Helen Tupper: It's a great question!  Day two of working full-time on my own.  Day one, I sat there being like, "There's nothing in my diary.  What do I do?  I've had years of things being in my diary.  There's nothing in my diary".  And then day two, we had a conversation with somebody who worked for a very large organisation.  We ended up pitching, winning, and running career development training for everybody in that organisation over an 18-month period.  And that was a day-two conversation.

Jodie Cook: Did that turn into a programme that you delivered again and again?

Helen Tupper: Yes.  Yeah, absolutely.

Jodie Cook: So, if we go right back to the start, I feel like there's more at the start.  So, we've got, "Because the kids were at the right age"; we've got, "Because of the Penguin book deal"; was there anything -- was it the Penguin book deal?  Yeah?

Helen Tupper: Well, I was also offered an opportunity internally that was a sort of perfect-on-paper kind of position.  And I thought, "If that's not what you want, what do you want?"  There were those three things.  There was like, "You're being given this amazing opportunity here and something's not quite clicking; you've got to prioritise because you've now got another thing on your plate; and you want to think about what are you communicating to your children about the work that you're doing".  It was those three things that came together that was a bit of a tipping point in my decision-making.

Jodie Cook: Nice.  I love that there's an element of legacy in there, thinking about that from the beginning.  So, in the theme of You Coach You, is there anything that you've said that's made you think, "Oh, yeah, that is a key point", and potentially that's something that you've done elsewhere as well in something else that you've achieved, maybe in the best-selling book thing or maybe the amazing podcast thing; can you see any patterns from you talking it through?

Helen Tupper: That once I have made a decision there, I go after it in a very driven and determined way.  I might hover a little bit, I might consult a little bit around the decision, but once I've gone through that difficulty and made a decision, drive follows it, a lot of drive follows it.

Jodie Cook: So, I think there is a system here.  Do you feel like there's a system?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I think difficulty, decision, and drive equals success to me.  So, there's some form of like, "Oh, it's a tricky thing, it doesn't feel quite right, I'm not sure this is how I want it".  There's like this difficult moment, and then I am good at then making a decision, "This is what I'm going to do".  And then, once that decision has been made, basically a whole load of drive, energy.  You know the ace-card thing you talked about earlier, I think that is where that then goes into full, I don't know, full energy goes into that, puppy dog is released at that moment and makes that thing happen. 

So, I wonder, on my own reflections, I wonder if the learning for me is actually, those moments of difficulty, when it's not quite clicking, other people might feel a bit disappointed or disillusioned or demotivated by that, but I guess recognising the success system, as you've sort of got me to, makes me think, "Oh, no, for me, actually those moments of difficulty are what ultimately enables me to get to success, because I know it's difficult, I make a decision and then drive follows it and then I get to the outcome", is perhaps where I'm getting to in the conversation.

Jodie Cook: I think the start of it's really powerful, especially if it does start with difficulty or adversity of some kind, because that's powerful because anything that comes up in the future, if you know to recognise that as, "Oh, something good is going to happen now", then you can't be swayed, you can't be thrown off track, because you'll just see a difficulty and you'll be like, "Right, I'm going to make some moves now".  Has that shown up anywhere else?

Helen Tupper: What, difficulty driving success?

Jodie Cook: Yes.

Helen Tupper: Oh, yeah, absolutely.  We had problems with the purchase of our second book that then led to, "Okay, this is what we're going to do".  And then, all of my energy went into making that decision happen and getting to a good outcome.  I think difficulty creates something for me to solve sometimes, and that's probably the other thing that I'm good at, is solving stuff quickly.  And so, maybe it's a bit of a sort of magnet for my success, is when stuff feels hard or it's going wrong.  It just gives me a chance to play the ace cards.

Jodie Cook: Yeah, and that's why it's so personal, because not everyone does thrive from that.  Some people wouldn't start off a whole successful system from adversity or difficulty.  So, we've got that happening, then we've got you basically rolling with an idea, setting a deadline, having fast execution and being able to activate puppy mode and just go.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, activate puppy mode!  It is really interesting what's coming from our chat, you know, that whole point of follow the insults and reflect on the strength that you have within that, rather than playing it small; reflect on your experiences and the patterns of your success; and then sort of put those things together, like you know you talk about superpowers, put the strengths, put the patterns together, and then see what that system looks like for you, and knowing that everyone's system is different.  I think it's a really powerful, reflective process. 

You're obviously super-skilled at it, in listening to me and asking me questions.  Is it as simple as taking some of those questions and people just asking them of themselves?  Have you got any other tips for helping people to think through their success system?

Jodie Cook: Definitely asking yourself those questions, definitely journalling.  I think also, taking the pressure off finding it straight away.  I think you're not going to just come up with it, and then all of a sudden it's going to make sense and you're going to be able to apply it to everything and apply it to everything going forward.  It's almost recognising that the first thing you put forward is a theory and you're just seeing if the theory is right with no pressure for it to be. 

But I think writing down a draft to start with is definitely the first part.  Show other people, other people who have shared in your success, maybe it was a company success that someone in your team was involved in, show them and say, "This is I think the system that I followed to make this happen, are there any parts I'm missing?" because that's so big.  We underplay, you know when something feels easy to you, so you underplay the difficulty of it, but really someone else will be like, "No, that was really difficult and you smashed that, that's definitely a part of your success system".  So, having the back-and-forth discussion I think is really useful as well. Same with ace cards.  I think if someone's thinking, "Oh, what are my ace cards?" ask other people.  Ask three friends.  We did this exercise in a training a couple of weeks ago, where I wrote a message that someone could send to three people to say, "Hey, I'm on a training right now. 

I've been tasked to come up with my ace cards.  Can you think of skills that I have that I'm potentially not using or not maximising?"  And your true friends will tell you, your true friends who want you to be the best version of you, will say, "Oh, yeah, you're really good at this and I don't think you make enough of it", and then you're like, "Cool, maybe that's my ace card".  So, both of those things; talk to people.

Helen Tupper: There's a nice build on, we do an exercise when we're doing strengths sometimes where we get people to message in WhatsApp, because it's often the quickest way of doing it, but like, "What strengths am I using when you see me at my best?"  But I like the one that you've got there which is, "What do you think I'm good at that I'm not using as much as I could?"  I wonder whether it would lead to slightly different answers to give people that permission to share that with you.

Jodie Cook: And especially if you've got a really good relationship with someone and you can kind of call them out on things, because a friend, he was in my training and then he sent me the message about what his ace cards are, and then I told him what I thought they were.  And then he said, "How do you think I'm not using them, or how do you think I'm missing out something?" 

And I said, "You're skilled at all these things, and it would lend themselves really well to having a very good online presence.  Do you think your online presence is reflective of your ace cards?"  And he's like, "No, because if I'm good-looking, if I'm good on camera, if I'm good at articulating, if I've got a good offline network, then yeah, maybe I should be doing that".  And so, you're just planting the seeds in people's heads that they could potentially cook up a different cake with their ingredients.

Helen Tupper: I want to come back to something you said about Jeff Bezos, which I don't know how often you get asked that question.  But you said, he kind of put his ideas out and basically saw what took off, and some of those we now know as products and services and some of them we don't, because they were failures that very quickly get forgotten.  And so, I just want to talk about failure for a moment.  I'm a bit conscious about talking about failure, because I saw this really funny LinkedIn post in the week from a lady called Amy who basically said, "Will people stop talking about how failure leads to success, because it's really cheesy and it's really annoying and failure sometimes feels really hard".  But I want to get your thoughts on, "Does having a success system mean that we always succeed?  And if failure is still a reality, how do we deal with it when it happens?"

Jodie Cook: I just don't think that resilient people ever think they've failed.  I just don't think that's how they see it.  I feel like that's something that the media maybe glamourises.  So you might say, "Oh, this actor, they failed, or this pop star, they failed, or this politician, they failed", and we might say, "Oh, that was a big failure".  But they would probably say something different.  Like, if you said to any given disgraced politician, "Was that a big failure?" they'd be like, "Oh, I just said a few things I shouldn't, but actually I didn't want that job anyway and now I've got a much better life and I'm doing this and I'm consulting and I'm doing…"  They wouldn't even say, "Oh, yes, I failed".  It's just probably a label that other people use more than you use, and I think business leaders, it's the same.  Unless someone died, they'll probably always say, "It was for the best", because that's in their nature.  They're optimistic, they can move past something, they can be resourceful.  There's a phrase that I think about quite a lot that's, "Pessimists get proven right, but optimists get rich"!

Helen Tupper: Why does that statement, that mean something to you?

Jodie Cook: Because if you're like, "Oh, okay, yeah, I failed, I'm a failure, that really bad thing happened", then yeah, you are.  But if you just think, "This thing happened and I can move past it and I can just learn from it, and actually it is for the best, because now something better can come along and it's freed up the space for something better to come along", then you're more of an optimist and that's just a better place to be for everyone.

Helen Tupper: It's like that that statement, "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're probably right".  It always makes me think about how I approach projects from the outset.  Are you approaching it with a think-you-can or a think-you-can't mindset, because that will inform what follows?

Jodie Cook: Maybe the question just, "Says who?"  So, "Oh, it's a failure", "Says who?  Well, I'm not calling it a failure, so are you calling it a failure?"  It just doesn't matter, only you can decide.  And if you say, "It's not a failure, it was actually the best thing that could have ever happened", then it's not and it's okay.

Helen Tupper: So, don't over-identify with the word basically, what does failure really mean for anyone anyway?

Jodie Cook: Yeah, but then also it's just made me think of someone else's success system, and that's Sarah Blakely, the Spanx founder.  And from childhood, she would sit around the kitchen table and her dad would say to her, "Did you fail today?  Tell me how you failed today?"  And so, he reframed failure as a really good thing, because he was like, "Well, if you're going to make requests, you're going to get rejected, so that might be seen as a failure, but I want you to move towards those".  And so, that led to her coming up with her invention, knocking on door after door of all the suppliers and eventually getting the supplier that would change her entire career and make her a billionaire as well.  So, there's just so many different ways of looking at it.

Helen Tupper: One last question around, how do I maintain my focus on success in a way that doesn't alienate people that might not have the same focus on it?

Jodie Cook: I think the reality is you probably will alienate people, because if someone doesn't have a level of ambition for their life as you have for yours, then you probably are eventually going to drift apart, and maybe that's okay.  I think if you look at the opposite of that, the first situation is you become the best version of you, you define your version of success, you move towards it, you support other people in their own versions of success, because you're so happy with yours that you can appreciate you're not competing with anyone, you're on your path, they're on theirs, you support them. 

The opposite of that is that you dumb yourself down, make yourself small, take up less space, be less puppy dog or use your ace cards less or use your success system less in order to, what, not feel lonely, have more in common?  I think that would be a terrible existence.  I think you would feel more lonely because you'd feel like you were a smaller version of you.  I think you'd have regret and I think that it would end up not being very good.  So, I think the opposite of that is the best way forward.

Helen Tupper: So, don't make yourself smaller in order to make other people feel better; define your success system and just go after it?

Jodie Cook: I think so.  I just think it's not about you.  If someone can't handle you in your biggest version, it's not you, you don't have to change anything, they have to.  Everything's a mirror.  They're seeing something that they cannot see in themselves, so they feel threatened.  So, they feel like they want to, I don't know, lash out, be angry, put you down, try and take you off your high horse or wherever they feel like you are, but it's definitely not your problem to deal with.

Helen Tupper: I love that, and I think that's a really nice end for people, because I hear a lot from people who, they have ambitions and they have energy, but they feel like they have to sometimes hide or modify that, because they're not necessarily in an environment where that is encouraged.  And so, I think it's a nice, it's a lovely, it's a very practical process that people can go through, but I think it's a lovely message to end with.  But I want to ask you, I did say that was the last question, I lied; one more question.  Your best piece of career advice, Jodie, for our listeners, which might go beyond success, it's entirely up to you, but just a little last bit of wisdom to share with our listeners.

Jodie Cook: Stop asking for permission.  Everyone else is making it up and that means that you can too.  You don't need anyone else's approval to do anything, you don't need anyone else to let you in.  There's plenty of resources, people, platforms, everything out there for you to build your own house instead of knocking on doors all the time.  And anyone can do it, they just need to start.

Helen Tupper: Amazing.  So, where can people go to for some more inspiration from Jodie after this conversation?

Jodie Cook: Well, I blog a lot from jodiecook.com, and then I'm very active on LinkedIn.  So, if you search me there and say, "Hey!" I would love to hear from anyone who's listened to this, who has thoughts.  Definitely tell me your success system if you've come up with it, and if you want to run it by me, I would love to see that.  I live and breathe this stuff; it's super-interesting.

Helen Tupper: And Jodie, I saw on LinkedIn, you just passed a big follower milestone as well.  You were reintroducing yourself to your thousands and thousands of followers.

Jodie Cook: Yeah, yeah, that was fun to do.  Yeah, I mean I've put LinkedIn as something I'm very focused on right now.  I'm following my own success system with building it up, and it's working but it's fun, because it means I get to meet all these amazing people from all around the world.  And especially when you get over the initial hurdle of showing up online and being like, "Oh my goodness, who does she think she is?" to it being a very fun place to hang out, and you kind of enjoy showing up there, that's when you know that it's working.

Helen Tupper: Yeah.  So, what I will do is I'll put all the questions that Jodie shared with me.  I'll put them in a flow on the PodSheet so that if you want to reflect on those for yourself and generate your own success system, you'll be able to do that.  And then, yeah, share it with me, share it with Jodie on LinkedIn because we would love to see it as well, and maybe we'll create a few examples of success systems that we can share with people to inspire them beyond this episode.  But Jodie, thank you very, very much for sharing all your insights with us today, I've loved chatting with you, as ever.

Jodie Cook: Yes, thank you so much.

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for listening to today's podcast with me and Jodie Cook.  We're back next week with another episode with Sarah.  If you found this useful, please get in touch with us either by email, helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com, or on LinkedIn, and that's all for now.  Bye everyone.