Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:00:27: Secret Leaders podcast

00:01:30: Progression possibilities
00:05:00: Stage 1: develop a mind map
00:07:18: Stage 1(a): how
00:08:53: Sarah's progression possibilities
00:11:06: Helen's progression possibilities
00:12:39: Stage 2: prioritising possibilities
00:17:34: Balancing energy and relevance
00:19:50: Don't wait for a job

00:20:31: Stage 3: prototype your possibilities
00:23:59: Stage 4: signal the support you need
00:28:31: Dealing with rejection

00:30:44: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah Ellis.

Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen Tupper.

Sarah Ellis: You're listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast where each week we chat about a different topic to do with work and share some ideas for action, tools and techniques and the odd bit of advice in the hope of helping you, and to be honest us, navigate the Squiggly world of work we all find ourselves in.

Helen Tupper: As ever, this Podcast is as much for us as it is for hopefully some people that might listen to it!  Before we get started with today's topic, we thought we would just let you know about another podcast that we both enjoy listening to, which is the Secret Leaders podcast.  It is particularly good if you have an interest in all things entrepreneurial; I don't think you have to be an entrepreneur to listen to it.

When I was at Virgin, if I had known about the podcast, I would have listened to it then because I think it would have created lots of different ideas that I could have brought into that business.  On the podcast, they speak to founders of lots of different organisations like Deliveroo and Jo Malone and Monzo and they have a really in-depth conversation about the reality of being an entrepreneur; when things work, when things don't work.  I think Dan Murray-Serter, who is one of the hosts, asks some really, really great questions that really dives into people's experience like their practical learning, some of the emotional insights that they get from the highs and lows of being an entrepreneur. 

So yeah, we really love it and recommend it and you can find it everywhere that you find Squiggly.  If you just search for Secret Leaders, you will find it.  Let us know if you listen and what you think.

Sarah Ellis: Today we're going to be talking about this idea of progression possibilities.  We thought this was a useful topic to cover for a few different reasons.  Firstly, we know that the pandemic, which I can't really talk about in the past tense really, but the ongoing pandemic has prompted lots of people to re-evaluate how they want to progress in their careers, what's important to them in their careers and what that means for what next; whether that's what's next in the next in the next few months or whether that's what next generally, a bigger question. 

I also think for some people it's meant that the pandemic has maybe stalled your progression; you were hoping to progress in one direction and that now feels not very possible; or you're perhaps feeling a bit stuck and disappointed that you were hoping something was going to happen and something outside of your control means that you're left feeling like you're not progressing in the way that you would like to be.  There's a reason that we put these two words together, "progression" and "possibilities", because I think in possibilities, it probably gives you a clue for how we're going to talk about this idea of progression today.

In Squiggly Careers, there are a few principles of progression that we always find useful to share at the start of any workshop that we do on this topic.  We thought we'd just talk through quickly because I think they frame our conversation today, and then we're going to get very, very practical because I think a lot of you will nod your head along to the next few things that I'm going to say on these principles and then you will just be saying to me, "Help me with the how.  I already get what you mean".

We know that in Squiggly Careers we develop in different directions, so the idea that our progression is only about promotion feels really limiting, and so we've got to start thinking more about possibilities rather than a plan.  We've got to have an exploring mindset, rather than thinking about only what next when we apply for a role, and we've got to start thinking about directions rather than being fixed to a destination or fixed to one particular future.

This requires us, I think, to be more open, more curious, more adaptable in our thinking; but what we never want to take away from is that we still really want you to be really ambitious for what you can do in your career.  This is not saying that we don't think promotions are not a good thing, of course they are, but I think we want to really encourage everybody to think about all the different ways that you can progress and how you can keep growing, how you can keep improving, how you can keep learning.

Helen Tupper: So, in order to make this topic really practical, we're going to talk through a four-stage process which I actually haven't designed.  It's normally me who has processes, Sarah has prepared for today and she's created a process, so I'm very impressed; but the process has a good intention which is to help you with your progression possibilities.  You can start this at any stage, but we'll talk through kind of four different parts of the process and start where it feels right for you. 

The first thing we'll talk about is how you can develop a mind map of your progression possibilities; then we'll talk about prioritising them; then we'll talk about prototyping those progression priorities; and then the last thing we'll talk about is how you can signal the support that you need.  Like I said, you might be at a different stage, you might already have quite a lot of clarity on your progression priorities, but maybe the thing that's getting in your way is you don't know how to get the support; or maybe you're just thinking, "I don't really know where I want to go, I just know that I want to go somewhere", in which case the starting one that I'm going to talk about is probably a good place for you.

Step 1 or Stage 1: you don't have to start with number one but I'm going to, is to develop a mind map of your progression possibilities.  The reason that we would want to do this is because it helps you to explore all those different directions that Sarah talked about.  Sometimes we can be a little bit limited in our thinking, maybe based on what we can see.  It's those known knowns, like, "I can only progress into things that I can see in front of me", but actually when we just think a bit broader and think about, "What would it look like if I did a sideways move?" or, "What would it look like if I went outside of the organisation?" or, "What would it look like if I did a complete pivot?"  That can sometimes unlock opportunities and we don't want to constrain ourselves too quickly by going, "Oh well I can't do that", or, "That wouldn't give me the salary I need", or, "I haven't got the skills to do that", because that then just takes us right back to the known knowns and the stuff that we can see today.

We want to be unconstrained and curious and explore, and then we can do all the other bits of analysis later but that's the first stage.

Sarah Ellis: I wonder if sometimes to your point, you also feel like your progression in the past, because I think I definitely thought like this for a while, is about following in other people's footsteps.  You often use that phrase about going, "We've kind of move away from thinking we've always got to do things in the way that they've done before", especially now with how we're all working and hopefully resetting in positive ways, to actually think about, "What feels right for me?" taking a bit more ownership and being more personalised in your progression.

I think I took the exact opposite approach to that in at least the first ten years of my career, where I think I just thought, "That's what somebody else has done, so that's what I should do".  I think it's moving away from this idea of what you "should do" versus thinking, "What do I want to do?  How do I want to progress?  What feels really interesting and motivating for me?"  We just, I think, want to let go of some of those assumptions that we sometimes inadvertently make about what progression means.

Helen Tupper: Maybe just give yourself a bit of permission as well that it's okay to look at things.  You looking at a pivot, or moving to a different organisation, doesn't mean you're actually going to do it.  If you do explore it and want to do it that's also fine, but give yourself permission to develop in different ways.

So, how then?  As Sarah said let's talk about the how.  What you want to do to start this is to just think about as many different progression possibilities as you can, maybe in a mind map, grab pen, paper, the word "progression" in the middle, and then just write down what are all the ways in which you could progress your career.  Sarah and I did this, and we got to 15 different ways; we'll share some of our examples with you, but it will be interesting to see how many you got.  I don't know, maybe if you're able to press pause and find a pen and paper and before we tell you some of the ones that we got to, see how many of these you get to.

If you've got other ones we would love to know, maybe we can get a longer list than 15, but here are some of the ones that we came up with when we were thinking about all the different progression possibilities: job-crafting, secondments, learning something new or maybe stretching your strengths in a different direction, a side project, volunteering, shadowing and also promotions.  We just wanted to be really clear on this; we're not anti-promotion.  I think actually we're quite pro-promotions, we quite like promotions for lots of different reasons, it's just it's not the only thing you can do to progress.  When you think it is you often limit a lot of the opportunities.  That is just 7 of the 15 that we thought about and hopefully you've had some of those and maybe some other ones as well.

We thought we might bring it to life a little bit because sometimes it feels, "They're just words, aren't they?"  Maybe if we talk about some different progression possibilities that we acted on in our career to bring it to life.  Sarah, do you want to go first with one?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I was thinking about a progression possibility that I explored where I wasn't really following in anyone's footsteps, so that felt quite a brave thing to do at the time, and that was really progressing by changing how I was working so that I could then work on multiple things. 

So, I was working at Sainsbury's at the time, a food retailer here in the UK, and my progression possibility was thinking, "I'd like to spend more time in Amazing if, but I'd still like to be at Sainsbury's.  I want to have my cake and eat it too", essentially.  I want the best of both worlds because I love them both, so I started to work a four-day week at Sainsbury's so I would have one day to work on Amazing if.

At the time this was really unusual.  Now four-day weeks are much more common now, which is a great thing, but I didn't know very many people at my level in the organisation who were working a four-day week.  I also didn't know anyone who worked a four-day week so they could spend one day on their side project that was very different to what they were doing in their day job.  I remember being really nervous about it, and I've talked about it before, it took me quite a long time to almost have the conversation, because I'm not brilliant at those really brave conversations.  I think about things a lot first, so I really have to build myself up to approaching how I was going to do this, what this was going to look like.

But the point was, and as we go through the different stages, that really helped me to progress.  It helped me to progress in terms of thinking about creativity generally, it gave me a lot more space for creativity that was relevant for both of my roles, I think I learned a lot about managing my time and I was definitely progressing in terms of, "How do I make these two different things work together side by side, so I can be equally brilliant at both?"

It felt like a real time of learning and development and also just enjoyment and energy.  I think I had so much energy at that time, because I loved that combination; I loved both of what I was doing, it wasn't that I was doing it because I thought I really want to go and work in Amazing if.  At that time I didn't; I really liked the one day, that felt about right for me.  I felt like I was actually developing in so many different directions when I made that progression possibility happen, and it was something I had never imagined earlier in my career, that that would be something that would be really important and motivating for me.

Helen Tupper: Mine's quite different; an example of a progression possibility for me was a sideways move within an organisation.  So, I did have a lot of linear moves, I had a lot of promotion moves, but I also had some sideways moves and one of the most memorable was when I was at Eon because it happened so quickly actually.  

So I went into Eon into one role that wasn't quite the right fit for me, and I ended up making a sideways move into a role that was a really good fit for me.  It matched my strengths, it was a role in innovation and it was a role that I really enjoyed.  And the reason it was -- in of itself, it was a progression possibility for me because it was a sideways move, which was a new role; but the reason it was more than just a sideways role was because I was doing this job that I'd never done before, with a team that I've never worked with before, in an organisation actually that was still very new.  I think this all happened within my first four months within the company, and so I think the progression was the learning that I was doing on the job.

Actually I think that role was almost like a bit of a progression amplifier for me, because it increased my confidence, it enabled me to progress as a manager, it enabled me to progress because it gave me different confidence in that role that I could do things I'd never done before; it meant that later on in my career I was probably a bit braver because of it.  So, I also think some progression possibilities are actually so powerful that they create other ones off the back of it and I didn't know that that was going to do it at the time, but I look back on it now and think it definitely was.

Sarah Ellis: So, as you're doing your mind map, one thing to watch out for, which is why we wanted to give you those examples there, is I would discourage you from just writing a mind map that says, "Do a side project, volunteer a bit more", try and be more specific.  If I was doing it back when I was at Sainsbury's, I wouldn't have written, "Side project", I would have written, "Spend more time on Amazing if".  If you're thinking about something like job-crafting or role redesign, try and be as specific as you can about what that might look like. 

It doesn't need to be exact because there might be some things where you think, "Well, I don't know what I don't know", but try not to just describe in general terms all of the ways that anyone could progress; try and describe as many different ways as possible that you can come up with that you can progress because this is about you and your progression.

Now, you've done that, you've hopefully got a bit of paper with lots and lots of words on, lots of arrows, and you're now thinking, "So what?"  That was my favourite stage of any process is just that bit and I think, "That was fun", and now you've got to do something with that.  You've got to think, "What's the outcome from that?  Where do I go next?"

Stage 2 is about prioritising the possibilities that you've generated, like figuring out, "What does this mean for me in the here and now?"  There is one big question to ask yourself and then two things which are more about getting to these priorities in slightly more of a kind of ranking style of way, and I think the first thing to do, and this is more of a coach yourself question, is about just reflecting for yourself generally and just think about why is progression motivating for you in your career at the moment.  Let's ground it in a kind of where you are today, "Why do you want to progress?"

We have this assumption that we should all be progressing maybe all in the same direction or at the same time.  Certainly, I felt like that loads of time in my career, and I felt pressure from peers and all that stuff because we can't help but compare ourselves to other people.  I think this is that moment of just having that awareness of thinking, "Is progression important to me, because I really love learning and I just want to learn something new or kind of grow in a new direction?  Is it because I want to get more experience in an area I'm already enjoying?  Is it because I want to try something completely new, or I want to try out something I'm just really curious about?"  Just answer the why question. 

It is often quite a hard one, but it gets you to the root cause of just making sure that you're not progressing for progression's sake and also, progressing in a way that doesn't work for you.  When you've got this clarity, it also gives you confidence when you then get onto some of these really practical things.

Mine is partly about more opportunities to live my values fundamentally, so I keep coming back to my four values are achievement, ideas, learning and variety and any progression that helps me to have more of those values in my life always feel really motivating, which makes sense because our values are things that motivate and drive us. 

At this point, I think I start to link together values and progression and whenever I have made a mistake in progressing for the sake of progression, usually due to shiny objects, which are very appealing on the surface, and make those understandable decisions, that kind of shininess tarnishes quite quickly because you're not living your values more, you're probably doing something ultimately for the wrong reasons; not to say some of those basics of salary and job title and promotions are not important, we know that they are, but again if that's the only reason you are doing something and I have done that in the past, I think quite quickly you lose that sense of it feeling motivating.  So I think, that's the thing that I keep coming back to, is connecting my progression with my values, what about you?

Helen Tupper: I think I get to a similar place, actually.  I articulate it slightly differently, so I was thinking, "What is progression and motivating for me in my career at the moment?"  I would say it's about testing or stretching my potential.  I feel like I've got unrealised potential and I will only work out what's unrealised when I push my progression.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: Then if I think back to your point on values, one of my values is growth and I think it's that driving.  It's like, "How much can I grow; where can I grow?"  I am using my progression to push my growth, so I think pairing what we're going to talk about now with some reflection on your values which is Episode 42 of the Podcast everybody, could be useful.

Sarah Ellis: You've done that, you've asked yourself a big question and that's a hard question.  That's a question you might need to keep coming back to, please don't worry if you can't answer that as you're listening.  You might want to keep going through the stages, but know that that's an important question to not let go of.  Now, look at your progression possibilities, so all of the different ideas that you've written down in that mind map, and you're going to think about two things.  Firstly, of those progression possibilities, which ones do you get really excited and energised about when you can imagine them happening.

When you really think about those things becoming a reality, which are the ones where you get most excited about and almost I get a bit like, "Oh I just want that to happen", because you're either really intrigued or you're really energised; and we would encourage you to maybe pick two or three, so almost try and force rank, all of those ideas you came up with, which are the three that you're just like, "Oh I'd love that to be true", you're imagining it in reality.

Then ask yourself the question, of all the different ideas that you came up with, which ones also feel most relevant for you so then you kind of go, relevant for you right now in your role, because you might have some that you're really energised about.  I can definitely think of some, where I think I'd be really energised about that, but it's not relevant right now.  It's definitely something I don't want to forget, and I perhaps want to keep coming back to, but it's not my priority in terms of energy and efforts like this week, this month, this year, for example.  You're sort of trying to work out the overlap of energy and relevance.

When you've got those, which are the ones that you end up with a tick in terms of energy and relevance and then also go back to that question and just do that sense check of, and, "Does it also help me to realise that point in terms of why I want to progress?" because I think you could have something where you're like, "I'd be quite excited about that and it feels useful for me at the moment", but if it doesn't link back to why progression is ultimately motivating for you, it might just be a bit of a stress test to think about, should that be a priority; and maybe it still is and that's okay because you've done the thinking, but maybe it might be less of a priority if it's not going to feel really motivating for you.

Hopefully you've got two or three at this point, you've gone really big and wide, you've thought a bit about why this matters, and you've now got two or three progression possibilities that you want to take action on.  It's at this point where until now I think you've been doing, thinking, reflecting and awareness and it's at stage 3 where we move from awareness into action.

Helen Tupper: Actually, on this stage, I feel like this is the one that often goes wrong for people, where they have a progression possibility that they're quite excited by or might feel like it aligns with what's motivating for them, but they basically wait for a job.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: They're liked, "I'd love to do this", and they're like, "Where is that job?  Where is that magical side project?"  In waiting, if they don't see that opportunity, they might get a bit disillusioned or demotivated and they feel like their career's out of their control.  What we want to do is give you back a bit of control so that you're not dependent on this magical progression possibility just materialising magically in front of you.  The way to do that is to prototype your progression possibilities and particularly the ones that you want to prioritise. 

So, in order to do that, the first thing you do is just get clear on which is the one that you want to make happen, so that's what Sarah talked about just then.  Write that one down, and then just go back to why it's important to you; because sometimes, let's say you've got a progression possibility of you want to become a manager for the first time, let's say that's the thing, that is the thing that I'm really interested in being and it feels relevant for me right now.  What you could then leap to is you could go straight to the how and you're like, "How could I do that?  I could apply for a job as a manager, that's what needs to be done".

In doing that we've actually limited our opportunities to move that progression possibility forward, so what can help to give you some more options and to give you back a bit more control is instead of just going from the what you want to do, and the how you could do it, bring in another bit of reflection, bring in that why again.  So if I use that example, what do you want to do?  What do you want to make happen?  "I want to be a manager for the first time".  Now let's think about why, go back to why it's important, "Because I want to help other people to develop; because I want to help the business have a bigger impact", what is the reason that becoming a manager is important to you, because it's very rarely just for the job title; there's something else that's driving you to want to do that thing?

Now, when you think about the how, think about it in the context of the why, so, it's not, "How can I become a manager", it's, "How could I help other people to develop".  When you attach the how to the why and not just the what, you can often generate more ideas.  For example, to talk it through, how could I make it happen if my why is developing people?  I could mentor people, for example; maybe I could volunteer some of my time to go and work with HR on the induction process for new people coming into the organisation; maybe I could start a side project, which is basically what Sarah and I did having had some of those desires for us and our learning.  Maybe you could go and get developed by somebody else so that you could observe what they do and think about how it could help you. 

There are just so many other ways when you start to prototype in that way, and you will have a higher degree of control over some of those things than others.  We're not saying dismiss the, "I want to become a manager", but what we are saying is while you are perhaps waiting for that opportunity to emerge, there are other things that you can do that can fulfil that need, that thing that's important to you.

One other thing you can do as well is if you do get stuck with the how else could I and you're like, "I don't know, I actually don't know, if you think about other people that you might know and how else they might do it, like if I think about becoming a manager for the first time and developing some of those skills like for developing people; if I thought, "Well if I got stuck with my ideas, if I thought, 'How would Sarah Ellis do it?'  Sarah Ellis would probably volunteer some time for a charity or a social enterprise and do it that way". 

Then if I thought about my friend Kay, how would she do it; she'd just go and talk to random people and spark up conversations and see where they got to.  Or if I thought about my old manager James, he would be confident enough to ask other people for opportunities to do it.  Even if you just put yourself in their perspective and frame of mind, you might generate a few more ideas that might help you.

Sarah Ellis: That's a good idea and a perfect Segway to stage 4.  Stage 4 is about signalling the support that you need for your progression possibilities, because though we have really tried to encourage everybody to really take ownership for this, we also know that to do this really well you always involve other people.  Often other people can influence some of these progression possibilities, they can support you, don't also feel like you have to do this in isolation.  Three things to think about in terms of signalling the support that you need.

The first thing is that your commitment will always create commitment from other people.  What we mean by this is when you're going to have conversations with people or when you're suggesting the things that you would like, the ways that you would like to progress, perhaps you're having conversations with managers or mentors; showing that you are halfway there yourself; showing that you've done some of the work, that you're really committed to this I think is really important, because sometimes we can get a bit dependent on other people for our development and maybe expect people to tell us the answers.  I say that having definitely done it.

I would have had a lot of clarity, because I'm very achievement orientated, "This is what I want to do", and then almost been talking to my manager and gone, "Can you just sort that out then, please?"  You're like, "Okay, that's probably not the way it's going to work", so I think if you can show you've made some progress, you've done some of this work and this thinking that we've talked about, then that creates commitment from other people because they can see that you're really serious. 

If I think of how, particularly some of the learning that I really wanted to do in my career, I was like a dog with a bone.  I was very understanding that organisations couldn't always support me to do the things that I wanted to do and some of the learning, but I never let it go.  They'd be like, "Okay, can we have a conversation about this in three months' time?"  I'd literally be marking it in my diary in three months' time I'd be popping up again and saying, "That's still really important to me.  I've gone away and done these things, let me know what you're thinking about this now", or, "Have you had the opportunity to make progresses with the actions you talked about that you were going to go on?"

People knew that I was persistent, and I'd got grit and I wasn't going away and that does definitely create --

Helen Tupper: That's Sarah in a nutshell!

Sarah Ellis: It creates commitment though.

Helen Tupper: Tenacious to the core.

Sarah Ellis: It does work.

Helen Tupper: It does.

Sarah Ellis: But do make sure you've done the hard work first and then you'll get that reciprocated.  The second thing, and this I wish I had done when I was doing the four-day week thing, this is about involving rather than feeling like you have to solve everything for yourself.  I turned up to my manager to talk about wanting to work a four-day week with about a 20-page PowerPoint slide presentation.  I did not need to do that; I'd got a really good relationship with my manager.  What I needed to do was involve her in my thinking, because she had really good quality thinking to contribute too. 

So, I think I went with all of the answers because I thought that's what I needed to do and I think whether it's managers or sponsors or informal mentors or peers, or just friends at work that you get on really well with, don't be afraid to let people know what you're thinking about because I often think when you do this well, you get more ideas in answer to your, "How else?", question.  It means you get more ways to prototype it.  People can say, "Yeah, that might be quite hard to do in that way, but have you thought about this?"  You might think, "No, I hadn't thought about that", "Okay, great I'll add that to my list of ideas that I could prototype.

Helen Tupper: That definitely happened to me when I was at Microsoft and it's probably one of the only times, I've been brave enough to do it, involve rather solve.  I didn't take the completed answer to my manager when I was thinking, "Do I stay, or do I leave and do Amazing if, or could I do some hybrid thing?"  I was like, "This is what I'm thinking, and I don't know what the options are, and I'd really like your opinion".  Actually, they did generate -- because I remember my husband had said to me, "You're being really black and white about this, Helen, about whether you stay or you go; just explore it".  There were more options on the table for me than I had imagined myself.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I do appreciate to do this, you've got to have high trust relationships and probably feel psychological safety.  Some people I'm sure will be listening to this thinking, "That's not realistic for me".  If you're in a bit of tough or a tricky or even worse, a toxic work environment, clearly doing this is really hard, but also don't forget that's where you don't always need to have conversations with people in your organisations about this.  Think about networks, think about communities that you could become part of that also might give you some of that support, might give you some of those ideas, some of those options.  So, involve people along the way, show people your working out.

The last thing we wanted to talk about, which is less about an idea for action but more about wanting to be realistic about Squiggly Careers, which is how we respond to rejection, to when things don't go to plan and I think particularly over the past year and 18 months, perhaps people's plans -- you'd worked really hard for something, you'd got goals, you've achieved your objectives, and that progression hasn't happened.  That does feel really hard and that's where we can feel quite demotivated and we lose our mojo; you lose your motivation and mojo in lots of ways.

We've talked about this idea before; it's not about ignoring or avoiding those emotions, it's thinking about, "What's going to help me to make some positive progress?"  This might be about starting small, it might be about going, "This thing I was hoping for is off the table at the moment, but what could I do?"  Here, if you really feel like you're in this position I would encourage you to do, and I always do this in circles for some reason, I don't know why, but I would do the circles of control. 

What's in my circle of control and what's out of my circle of control?  Even if the things in the circle of your control feel small, start there.  Start from what's in your circle; you can always control what you learn, at least to some extent, and hopefully there's always some free learning that you can do that you've got to find a bit of time, but hopefully it might not cost you anything.  You can hopefully go and have curious career conversations; this is also about remembering people really enjoy helping other people, so who are those people?  Who can you just go and have some chats with?  And particularly if you're in that position of maybe things haven't gone your way, and do feel hard or you're feeling quite stuck, don't be afraid to share that with the right people and places that you feel comfortable, and either ask for some help and also, just focus on a bit of positive progress through the things that in the circle of your control.

Helen Tupper: I also think, whenever I think about all the times when my progression hasn't gone the way I've wanted it to, that a bit of optimism by osmosis, so spending some time with the people that make you feel good.

Sarah Ellis: It's a good idea.

Helen Tupper: They inspire you or they just believe in you, or you just feel better when you're with them, and I just think that kind of gives you that resilience and means that you can just keep progressing even if it wasn't in the way that you thought you might be.

Sarah Ellis: We really hope that's been helpful.  We'd love to hear from you.  We'd love to know if it has been helpful, and you can get in touch with us really easily.  Instagram is probably the best way, we're just @amazingif on Instagram, or you can email us with an email address.

Helen Tupper: Yes, at Helen&Sarah@squigglycareers.com.  I know that we've talked through this process today, but we'll document it in the podsheet as well, so you can get that from amazingif.com; just go to the podcast page and it will have those four steps that we've talked about in detail so that you can worth them through, and lots of the questions that we've asked, so have a look there. 

If you want to dive a bit deeper into it, on the Thursday of the week that this Podcast comes out, we will do PodPlus Live so you can come and we'll demo and bring some of the stuff to life.  You can also watch the recording of it back if you can't make it or if you're listening to this at some point in the distant future, you'll be able to watch the recording of PodPlus back and again that's just on Amazingif.com.

Sarah Ellis: So that's everything for this week, as always thank you so much for listening, we really appreciate it, and we'll be back to speak to you again, soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.