Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:03:08: A big thank you
00:05:01: Introducing Anna Whitehouse
00:07.28: Moment of pride
00:10:55: Short-term motivation
00:15:36: Avoiding transference
00:21:32: Creating a community
00:29:02: Introducing Lucy Aylen
00:30:31: Confidence in fashion
00:35:35: Resilience and learning from failure
00:39:42: Designing a busy day
00:42:07: Growing a successful business
00:48:43: Introducing Peter
00:50:26: Meaning and/or money
00:55:50: Work, wellbeing and money
00:59:29: Classic money mistakes
01:04:58: Approaching the topic of pay rises
01:12:39: Career advice
01:16:24: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Welcome to a very special episode of the Squiggly Careers podcast.  We've been talking about Squiggly Careers for around 10 years now, and we're nearly at 400 episodes, so we thought it was an amazing opportunity to get some incredible guests together to share their advice, ideas, and words of wisdom with you, live from the Curzon Cinema at Soho.  We're going to be talking about three topics: meaning, motivation and money, three things I think are important for all of us, probably all at the same time.  We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for being here, everybody.  In case you don't know, because I feel like if you listen to the podcast, you just hear our voices, and you maybe don't know which one is which --

Sarah Ellis: They know!

Helen Tupper: Do you think?

Sarah Ellis: They know.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, thank you.  I'm Helen, that's Sarah.  Harsh; friendly! 

Sarah Ellis: Come and chat to me.

Helen Tupper: Come and chat to Sarah later at the bar.  Thank you so much for being here.  It's been so long since we've got the Squiggly Careers audience together.  I think the last time was when we did the launch for You Coach You, which is a little bit sad, because you had COVID for the first one who did, and yeah, it was a bit weird doing Squiggly without Sarah.  So, I'm very, very happy that we are here together with all of you.  And today marks a bit of a special moment for us.  So, it is ten years since the start of all things Squiggly Careers, since Sarah and I were in Paddington and we were talking about our careers, because that's the kind of geeky thing that we do, and we were just talking about work and how work was going for us; and Sarah drew a squiggle on the paper and said, "Our careers are feeling a bit like this".  And then we just sort of ran with it!

I don't I don't really know where the confidence came from to start helping people with Squiggly Careers or to create a podcast or to write a book or to do a bit; I'm not sure where it came from.

Sarah Ellis: Naïve, I think.

Helen Tupper: Naïve, yeah, naïve.  But we did it and it kept going and it kept growing and now it's many things.  It's a podcast that's just achieved four million downloads, very exciting, thank you.  Well, it's all of you, it's basically you're listening an awful lot, thank you.

Sarah Ellis: I don't ever listen, so…!

Helen Tupper: You never listen.  I listened to the podcast this week, and we say "so" and "like" a lot, so that's normally my feedback.  And it's books and it's a business, and we never could have imagined that would be what it is.  And thank you for all of your support, being here tonight, the support that you give us and sharing.  And so tonight, Squiggly Careers Live, we have got three brilliant guests, so you're not going to hear loads from us tonight, actually.  We wanted to give you some learning, because it wouldn't be a Squiggly Careers podcast if we didn't help you learn and take action. 

So, we are going to be talking to Anna, who you probably know as Mother Pukka; we're going to be talking to Lucy, who's the founder of an amazing business called Never Fully Dressed; and we're going to be talking to Peter, who is a financial expert who is going to help us talk confidently about getting a pay rise. 

Sarah Ellis: Amongst other things.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, and many other things, but priorities everyone!  So, we're going to talk about all that kind of stuff.  We'll introduce them properly as we go, but that is the plan for this evening. 

Sarah Ellis: And just before we do get started, we do want to just take a moment to really recognise all of you, because all of those things that we have just talked about just wouldn't have happened or wouldn't have been possible if you hadn't all gone out there and shared Squiggly and recommended it and told your friend and told your sister and told your boss.  Those things make a massive difference to us.  It's how we've been able to scale Squiggly.  So much good stuff has come from the sponsorship and advocacy that you have all shown us.  So, we do really want to recognise that, we don't take any of it for granted and just really appreciate it.  I still can't believe that given the majority of the podcast, we don't look like this.  Helen always looks quite glamorous, but I'm usually in my pyjamas, sometimes with a G&T, it depends how the day's gone. 

Helen Tupper: You start with a cup of tea.  I reckon when we first started the podcast, you had a cup of tea and a dressing gown. 

Sarah Ellis: Now it's a gin and tonic.  That is what's happened in the last, -- that's what she has done to me! 

Helen Tupper: Me?!  That is not me. 

Sarah Ellis: And my six year old. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah. 

Sarah Ellis: So, to be fair, Anna got me through having that six year old, six years ago, so that's another story.  But we do really want to just say thank you and how much we do appreciate it.  We read every review, we appreciate every recommendation.  Every time somebody pops up on LinkedIn and says, "Have you seen this Squiggly Career book?"  Or when someone's talking about, "Oh, careers are a bit different", and one of you is on LinkedIn going, quite passively aggressively, which I really enjoy, "Have you heard about Squiggly?  Because I think you'll find they've already done this".  They are my favourite moments in a day. 

Helen Tupper: They are the WhatsApps that I get.

Sarah Ellis: I'm screenshotting.  I'm like, "Someone else doing the hard work for us!"  So, we absolutely love that, so thank you.  So, the theme for this evening is money, motivation and meaning.  And we're going to talk about all of those three topics with each of our guests. 

Helen Tupper: And so, I'm going to swap Sarah for Anna, which I've wanted to do for a while.  No, I'm joking!  So, can you welcome our first guest to the stage, Anna's coming up now.  Thank you, everybody.

Thank you so much, Anna, for being on the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I'm so excited to talk to you.  For people that don't know, Anna is many things, but an author and an activist, the creator of the Flex Appeal campaign, which is all about making flexibility for all.  And I feel like your work has impacted me at multiple points in my Squiggly Career, which you don't know, but I'm going to now tell you and embarrass you.  So Flex Appeal and Mother Pukka started in 2015.  That was the year that my son was born, my first child.  And I felt really thankful that I was working for a really flexible company. 

I was working for Virgin and they gave me a lot of support.  And I suddenly quite quickly realised that that wasn't the norm when I saw your work and I talked to my friends about the problems that they were having, about being a parent and managing that with their working responsibilities.  And then I went to then work for Microsoft and I started this community called the New Work Network, where we were talking about accelerating the adoption of flexible work practices, particularly in large companies.  And then I went from that to being a trustee of Working Families, which is all about parents and carers and helping them to manage this mix of their life. 

Over and over again, the person that was referenced in those conversations and in those communities and in those meetings, was Anna, the work of Mother Pukka, the campaign of Flex Appeal, the drive that you were doing to make a difference.  It was your name that kept coming up all the time, and so I'm really excited to talk about that work and what you've achieved.  But also, I think the thing that has really stuck out to me is the impact that an individual can make.  I feel like a lot of the time, we assume that making a difference is the role of institutions or organisations, because they've got scale, but I think what you have proven in your work is that with passion and purpose and perseverance, actually an individual can make a huge amount of difference.  I think that is something that has inspired me and I'm really excited to share it with people today, so thank you. 

Anna Whitehouse: I think have a big moment for what you've achieved here.  Let's have a big round of applause.  I don't think you can underestimate having someone voice, I think sometimes, the pain.  They are pain points with work and family, trying to balance the two, and you've definitely done that, that sort of EQ that was needed along the way.  You helped me too.

Helen Tupper: I love this, people helping people everybody!  Remember that chapter in the book?  It's on your seats.  So, let's talk a bit about pride.  I mean, I have been obviously following Anna on Instagram for a long time, and there were loads of pride moments in the last week alone, including some great outfits, but I'll park that for now.  Looking at all of the work that you have done and all the different things that you have achieved, what points of pride really stand out for you?

Anna Whitehouse: I'm going to just preface this with the fact I forgot to put a bra on today, and I'm wearing quite a sheer dress, so before we go into pride, I just think if anything slips, just let's sit with that!

Helen Tupper: Thank you!  Mainly it's an audio-only format.

Anna Whitehouse: Okay, great.  I think, do you know what?  It's not necessarily a moment.  You can get a promotion, you can get more money, you can maybe get an accolade or achievement.  I think what it is, if we're talking about purpose, is I know when I'm raising my two little girls, they're 10 and 6, that I'm raising them to work hard in their ABCs, their GCSEs perhaps, perhaps A-levels, if that's where they go, perhaps a degree, their first job.  I think that juncture of getting your first job is the most pivotal moment in your life. 

Helen Tupper: What was your first job?  I know it was journalism, wasn't it? 

Anna Whitehouse: Oh, God, it was a journalist.  I was a junior reporter on Practical Caravan magazine.

Helen Tupper: Oh, that's a sexy start!

Anna Whitehouse: That would be the moment.  And I soon was amplified to the role of Senior Reporter on Practical Motorhomes. 

Helen Tupper: Wow!  All the motoring things. 

Anna Whitehouse: I think one should question if there's ever an impractical caravan!  So, I think that moment of pride is probably from the moment where I knew I wasn't raising them for the same fall that I had, which was when I left my job at the L'Oréal Group, didn't leave because I wasn't worth it, still work for them.  I've just done a campaign with Garnier, there's no bad blood, they were representative of a lot of industries, a lot of businesses that had this stock phrase, I think we've all heard.  When I asked for that little bit of flexibility in the workforce, "Well, if we do it for you, we're going to have to do it for other people.  It's going to open the floodgates".  And I remember thinking, "Well, open them, because people are drowning behind them". 

So, a moment of pride is going home to my daughters knowing it won't be distinctly different, but the moment that I got pregnant, my life, my working life changed and went into free fall.  And I know that that gap, hopefully that gender pay gap, that pensions gap, that pleasure gap, all the gaps, the gaping holes of inequality, by all of us being in rooms like this, talking, amplifying, we're closing those gaps.  So, yeah, it's not going to be immaculate when my girls get into the workplace, but that fall that I had won't be quite as high.  So, you can win all the awards in all the world, but it's a bigger picture, it's structural change.

Helen Tupper: So, structural change, pride being the future that you're creating for your family, who are 10 and 6 at the moment, that's potentially a long way off; not the very distant future, but it's not tomorrow. 

Sarah Ellis: All right, calling me out!  I'm doing my best, babe!

Helen Tupper: I'm following it with a new question, a new question coming up!  But when you've got a goal that's so big, like flexibility for all, the thing that you're proud of is a future you're creating for your family, how do you see successes that are more short term, and how do you celebrate them, you know, to keep your motivation, keep your momentum?  You've got this massive zoom-out goal, but what are the things that you zoom into so that you can see the progress that you're already making?

Anna Whitehouse: It's connecting with, to be honest, right now everybody in this room.  It's everybody knowing that they're not alone in the things they've gone through; it's that every day I hear maybe a message from somebody saying, whether it's through Squiggly Careers, whether it's through Flex Appeal, whether it's through Working Families, Fawcett Society, all these organisations that are committed to turning the dial on that inequality that sits in the workplace.  And I think the moments that really sit with me, I spoke about this on Instagram, it's not about necessarily women saying, "Oh, I've just managed to get that job and look after my children", it's actually the men going, "I've just been able to flipping parent at work". 

It's the inversion of what we're fighting for that gives me the most pride, gives me these moments of going, this is not about going, "Right, women have it hard and men need to sit in the corner", it's about a guy who got in touch with me a couple of months ago and he said, "I put my flexible working request into my boss.  My boss in a Magic Circle law firm said, 'Well, can't your wife do that?  Can't your wife pick up the kids?'"  And he was like, "Well, my wife's a brain surgeon.  So yes, she can maybe, but let's pick a lane here between legislation and brains".  But it was the, I was going to say unconscious bias; just bias, that even sits there in those big places.  And all he wanted to do was parent.  So, I think it's those human connections, like Accenture now, after all the work that thousands of us are doing, it's not just one person, there's not just one organisation that's doing this, it's noise from a collective whole; it's just knowing that that noise is affecting change within one industry. 

I'll give you one other example.  This is stuff that's happening in 2023.  An HR assistant got in touch with me recently and she said, "I found a list of 15 women's names on an Excel spreadsheet within our server".  And I said, "These are women who've just got married.  Are we sending them flowers?  What are we doing with this?"  They were women who weren't up for promotion because of fear they might get pregnant.  And that's 2023.  And I hear, when you say the good bits like, "I've just felt empowered to go in and ask for flexible working", the stuff that gets me out of bed is moments like that.  The chilling nature of that is a boss going, "Can't your missus do it?"  "Well, no, I want to do it".  There's nothing more masculine than a man caring for his child.  That is what I would say to that.

Helen Tupper: And a lot of clapping, I love it.

Anna Whitehouse: This is really validating. 

Helen Tupper: This is what I asked Sarah to do for me. 

Anna Whitehouse: I actually bought a picture my daughter drew of me before coming here, because she knew, she said, "Oh, you're doing a big talk".  And they know what it's all about and it's really, really representative.  But the thing I liked about it, if you talk about pride is, this is all a bit chaotic and that's apparently like my head when I lose my temperature, which this is just the cuddles bit.  But this I like.  If we're talking about moments of pride, that's the tree trunk, the solidarity.  And I think we constantly think that we're failing, that we're somehow never doing enough; that child's crying at nursery when we have to leave for that moment to start the working day; that we're shushing them and saying, "Just a minute".  Who here's said, "Just a minute" to your child?  Show of hands.  "Yeah, okay, just a minute".  And then you go, "Just a second".  And then they're going, "It's been one second".  You're like, "All right, just five hours", and you're in this constant state and actually think, "God, I'm shushing them and I'm blocking floods over there and my husband and I are not getting on", and it feels so heavy.

But then when you see a little picture like that, ignoring the top half, you are their stability, whether you are stay at home or work away, really take purpose and pride in the fact you're their tree trunk, your roots are there, whether you're at home or not.

Helen Tupper: I love that, and I love that you brought it with you as well. 

Anna Whitehouse: I know.  I just thought, you know…

Helen Tupper: Guilty that I've not got a picture.  Some extra mother guilt.

Anna Whitehouse: I drew it myself. 

Helen Tupper: Okay, great story, Anna!

Anna Whitehouse: I don't see my kids! 

Helen Tupper: They think I'm a tree trunk, too!  I just want to go back to the communications you get about the positive impact that you make, but also the difficult things that people are facing.  And they come to you because you listen and you're there and you're advocating for them.  Have you come across this concept of transference? 

Anna Whitehouse: No. 

Helen Tupper: So, coaches have talked about this, which is where when you're coaching somebody who might be going through a tough time, transference is when you basically absorb their emotions.  So, you want to help them but retain a level of distance, which means that you can still be objective.  But obviously, if you're high empathy and you're also hearing a lot of difficult stories, that's hard to keep that boundary up.

I'm thinking that you must get emailed, your Instagram messages, people will probably stop you when you're outside and say, "Oh, this has happened and isn't it unfair?"  How do you protect your energy so that you can support people at scale, when on an individual level people are connecting with you and wanting your advice? 

Anna Whitehouse: I think that's a really good question.  It's one that's quite a common denominator, I think, across everybody.  It took me a long time to realise that for fighting for flexible working, I was burning out.  I was probably the least flexibly working person out there because, I mean, I was just on the floor most of the time.  And what I did is I started looking at the structure of my day.  And I remember the first time I did it, almost like an Out of Office, that you put in a digital marker almost, I would say at 5.00pm, "I'm out of office".  And I wrote, during bath time, being slowly bored to death by Igglepiggle, and I'd humanised my Out of Office so that there was a picture.  It wasn't corporate, it wasn't a bookend that was distant.  It was, "I am a mother, front and foremost, I'm a mother".  And that only happened, I think, maybe six, seven months ago, putting these little holders in, communicating in a digital sphere that I'm not there in this world that's 24/7, saved my mind a bit. 

I got my daughters to create a devices box.  So we bought a little wooden box and they painted it with smiley faces and all kinds of things.  And every day, we put our phones in there at that point.  It doesn't always work, I'm not saying it does, but seeing that box that they've created, the guilt when you go onto your phone -- 

Helen Tupper: "I'm just going to get my phone out of the beautiful box you've created". 

Anna Whitehouse: Yeah, and looking at it going, "Shame, shame".  And so, I started ringfencing things a bit and I think, in a way, we all can.  So, when we're working from home, for example, definitely something I did in the pandemic, an incredible scientist posted her routine from working from home.  She would get up, get showered, get dressed as if she was going to the office, walk around the block and then come to her laptop.  And she'd do that psychologically to just go, "Started my day", and then, again, bookending it with, "Out of Office, I'm in the trenches of Igglepiggle, and I'm a mother too".  And it's humanising the workforce. 

Something I meant to say earlier was Accenture now hire based on EQ as well as IQ, and I think that's a world that we're going to.  And I think the more that we put those human placeholders in, like Leaving Loudly, Robbert Rietbroek from PepsiCo, he implemented this policy within his team.  It costs nothing, it's so basic, and he just said to his team, "When you leave, don't do the sloping out and putting your coat on the chair and going to the toilet and never coming back.  Like, that's not a way to work as a team.  Own it, 'I'm off to pick up May'", I mean, unless you've obviously a personal gynaecological appointment.  I'm sure there's some lines on that, obviously! 

Helen Tupper: "Off to see the specialist".

Anna Whitehouse: But I think it's the using of your voice and the confidence in your role as a caregiver, perhaps it doesn't have to be just parenting.  It could be that you want to go and see your boyfriend.  I think that there's this expectation that working in a healthy way is the sole reserve of parents.  No, it should be for everyone.  My fight has never been actually for any of the human reasons we're speaking about, it has been for business benefit, it's been for cold hard cash.  Because when you actually empower your workforce, good ones, not the bad ones, I've said this over and over, how often have you seen flexible working being implemented and there's one person at home in their undercrackers watching Homes Under the Hammer, and they bring the whole thing down, because then you suddenly give a chink in the armour, and your boss can go, "Well, it didn't work for us, because he was watching Homes Under the Hammer in his undercrackers".  Actually, that employee probably was stalking his ex on Instagram or Facebook in the office.  So, recruitment's a really big point here. 

But when you are good at your job, and there's a hell of a lot of talent in here, own that bit of you.  Really, right now, own your talent.  Own it, sit with it, don't see it as a secondary thing, it is huge.  And then on the other side of that, own your caregiving role, give them equal mental weight, really hold that.  And that's, you see, the conflict that we're on every day.  So, we can hold that in this room.  But employers, businesses, the working world, even now after a pandemic that's bulldozed the working world as we knew it, the world isn't set up for that.  But you know, there's strength in numbers, there's strength in this room, there's strength in this podcast, there's voices that are rising.  Own those two parts of your life.  Don't creep out of the office embarrassed that you're going to pick up your child from nursery.

Helen Tupper: And I think there's a huge power shift that happens when people come together, like a collective, to do that.  So, as an individual, sort of pioneering that approach, that can feel quite difficult, like you have been an individual pioneering that approach.  But when a community comes together and says, "Well, this is now the way we want to work", then that suddenly creates a very different power shift, I think, with how companies approach this.  And so on that point of community, because I think you have galvanised a community, you've got like 450,000 followers. 

Anna Whitehouse: Furious women. 

Helen Tupper: Furious!  "We demand change", but great!

Anna Whitehouse: I've got 97% women following me, so if there's any guys in the room, I'd really appreciate it. 

Helen Tupper: Get on board! 

Anna Whitehouse: It's kind of like preaching to the converted.  We're all just angry blue boxes in a jar, and I actually really need, my aim is to get it to 50/50.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, and I saw that.  I was obviously reading some things that you've been talking about recently and this kind of shift from flexible working to inclusive working, and this is for everybody, this benefits businesses like men, women, it benefits everybody.  But that point on community, how do you think you have created that community?  Have you given them a cause; is that the cause they needed; is that what they got behind?  And what advice have you got for other people who want to create a community around something that's meaningful to them, whether it's flexible working or Squiggly Careers, whatever they want to do; what have you learned about creating a community?

Anna Whitehouse: I think I became an accidental activist, and I think that says quite a lot.  I remember on Instagram, I had 62 followers and I was posting about avocado toast for quite a while. 

Helen Tupper: I do like avocado toast. 

Anna Whitehouse: That dates us, right?  That was, I don't know, throwback Thursdays were the thing in the day.  And I remember actually hitting a pain point where I had to leave my job because I couldn't make it work through inflexibility.  All I'd asked for from the L'Oreal group was to come in 15 minutes earlier and leave 15 minutes earlier.  And I just think, I often look at them and if you ask about any success, I'm not going just, "Well done me", I'm going, "Look what you lost".  That's actually, I think, what I see those moments as, is I could have been working for you, could have been flogging your mascara, but here we are. 

I think in terms of community, I think don't be afraid of using your voice with, and this is an important point, with an empathetic purpose, because my point has never been to lambast businesses.  I will never lambast men, I love men, I want to bring men in so that they can actually turn the dial on what they want.  My partner, my ex-partner and I, obviously flex working didn't work out for us, he's great.  And we still do talks together because he wanted his voice in the conversation.  He's like, "I'm a great dad.  I love dadding, and I hate that the working world finds it emasculating that I want to care for my own child".  The conversation is very much on those two sides of the coin. 

I think any advice I could give, it's better in a case study, is at HSBC, a wonderful HR assistant reached out to me and she said, "I just feel so voiceless.  I see incredible women disappearing at that juncture of childbirth.  Either they feel lacking confidence coming back and they just go, 'I can't afford childcare, it was just like paying to go to work', so that's one element; or they don't feel supported coming back; or they move out of London perhaps and there's a commute issue, you know, there's so many reasons".  But ultimately a lot of those women, she said, reach out to her again once they've moved out of London, they've given up their job because it was the only option, when actually they wanted to retain that huge part of them.

Right, my little girls, I'm saying, I'm raising them, ABCs, GCSEs, A-levels, that moment, everybody think right now when you've got that first job, you've got that computer, it didn't matter what the job was, you were in business and it was huge, and all that just disappears overnight because of an inflexible system that we're sitting in.  And so I said to her, "Well, how do you want to communicate your frustration?"  Because she said, "I think the issue in our business is that there's one rule for one manager who's quite empathetic, and then another rule for another one, and it's not consistent.  And I just feel like it's creating tension, it's creating frustration, we're losing great talent".  And I said, "Well, have you thought of asking for funding for an internal podcast?  It doesn't go outside of HSBC, because I think a lot of companies would get quite nervous".  And she's like, "Okay". 

Then we got a strategy together, she pitched it to HR director.  And every month she interviewed, as an HR assistant, took her one hour that her boss afforded her as part of this, interviewing minds like yours, you know, Fawcett Society, Jolie Brearley from Pregnant Then Screwed, me, getting these voices into her business.  And then, she wrote into the managerial contracts that -- this was with her boss -- that every manager every month had to listen to this one-hour podcast.  So, she affected change by reaching out, we talked about it, and it might not be me, it could be.  For me, it was Sophie Walker, the former leader of the Women's Equality Party.  I reached out to her and I said, "How do you keep going through all the trolling, because I'm drowning?" 

She helped me build up an armour going, "Keep focusing, this is where you've got to go.  People are going to hate you.  Guys are going to say, 'You're one of those mums who probably puts her kids in an Uber and sends them to nursery'".  I was like, "I would if they take them, 100%, but they won't.  So, let's not make assumptions".  And I think it's just to try and give maybe an understanding in that example, that no voice or no position is too small to make a little bit of change.  Because what she did there was take a kernel of frustration, what I've done is taken a kernel frustration, I put it on Instagram, I said, "I can't post about avocado toast any more, I'm hacked off, I'm very talented, I've lost my job to date, well not lost it, I've had to walk away from it, which was even worse, because I couldn't make it work around my children and I'm like, 'Why is this happening?'" and it opened the floodgates, quite literally. 

I then started looking into it.  How is there information out there that 54,000 women every single year lose their jobs for simply having a baby; how have I only just found this out?  It's been whispers in my NCT groups, it's been just quiet assumptions that, "She'll never come back".  It's been somebody coming into a position, right, this is something tangible you can do.  When you are covering for someone on maternity leave, if your boss says, "She's probably not coming back", let's lead with, "She might be [or] she will be".  Turning the dial of language, turning the dial of change, each of us can in those moments, instead of playing into a structure that's pushing predominantly women out and not allowing men to care-give, we can each have our voice heard.  And I thought, yeah, HSBC, I thought that was a great example. 

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for making that so real.  And I think it's a really good moment now to kind of leave all of Anna's wonderful work with you to simmer in your brain and we'll come back to some questions.  But I think the thing that I'm taking away is this idea of like a kernel of frustration, like whatever, you can create change if it starts with a kernel of frustration, and we can all be accidental activists, that we don't have to wait for somebody else to do this.  We can get on Instagram, we can start an internal podcast, we can write a blog or share a post.

Anna Whitehouse: Look at me, braless, in a Never Fully Dressed dress!

Helen Tupper: Anna, thank you so much.

Anna Whitehouse: Thank you.

Helen Tupper: Anna will be back at the end to take your questions.  Thank you so much everybody.  We would like to introduce you to our second guest this evening, Lucy Aylen.  So, Lucy is the founder of a hugely fast-growing fashion business, called Never Fully Dressed, which I have many items in my wardrobe, and this is just an excuse to get some more.  I can literally name outfits.

Sarah Ellis: She can!

Helen Tupper: I actually can.  And Lucy's business is really all around inclusivity, so kind of sizes for everybody; it's around sustainability, which I think is such a focus for yours, but it's hard in fast fashion; and it's also around positivity, like it is the most positive thing to follow on Instagram.  It's bright and colourful and I'm always like, "There's new stuff!"  I've been a fan of the brand for ages and then I was at a festival earlier this year and I saw Lucy walk past, and I don't think it was very cool to do this, but I basically left my friends and ran over and I was like, "I really love your brand and your videos are really cool and I think you're really inspiring" and I think you were very polite. 

Lucy Aylen: I mean, I was probably drunk!

Helen Tupper: I mean, I was also a little bit drunk.  But Lucy was very polite and said, "Thank you very much".  And then I was like, "Right, let's get you on the podcast".  So, I'm very grateful for that moment, and I'm really excited to talk to Lucy about the business that she has built and what's behind that brand, and particularly focusing in on motivation, like how do you grow a business that's growing internationally, 1.5 million followers on Instagram?  And Lucy also has three children as well.  So, there's a lot going on in your world.  Thank you for being here and welcome to the podcast. 

Lucy Aylen: Thank you for having me.

Helen Tupper: So, I thought it would be good to start with confidence, because when I look at your brand and when I experience your brand, I get a sense of confidence.  I get a sense of it's colourful, it's bold, it's about empowering women, helping women to be confident in their bodies.  And I wondered for you, where has that confidence come from in yourself and the business; and how intentional was it to make that part of your brand, to use fashion to empower women and help them to be confident?

Lucy Aylen: So, I don't think I'm confident.  I'm sitting here and I feel nervous.  I think it's just quite genuine, even when people are on set with us, like we were shooting today, and I think it's just so genuine in our love for people, and I think women are amazing and just making them realise that, do you know what I mean?  I used to downplay what I did, I was a bit embarrassed, like, "Oh, I just make clothes".  But actually, if you've got a mum, a heart surgeon, whatever you're doing, if we give that little bit of confidence, you see when someone walks out of a changing room and they just stand different, and a smile is a little bit, you're never fully dressed without a smile.  Yeah, buy the clothes, but I don't really care what you're wearing as long as you wear that confidence and that smile; it's just beautiful to see in someone, to see a woman, a man, feel that about themselves and realise how amazing they already are.  We're just a bit of a through road to them getting there.

Helen Tupper: And I saw as well, because you started your business like a market still, right, and then I think a big part of what I see in the brand, the really clever stuff if you watch all the reels, it's like you'll take a -- does anyone watch the wrapping of the skirts and then of the dress?  You have such a skill with how you do it.  And then you'll turn a skirt into a dress --

Lucy Aylen: Into a tent, into a house --

Helen Tupper: I mean, I try to do this at home.

Lucy Aylen: -- a three bedroom house, two up, two down.

Helen Tupper: You make it look very easy and I've tried it and it's not that easy.  But I think the way that you also -- not everyone has to look the same.  You're like, "Well, take this and do this with it".  You help people to kind of adapt, and that's I think how you're giving people that power to create something that makes them feel confident, is really positive.

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, I think we design and fit in that way.  It kind of was an accident, I think, when it started.  So, when I used to do the market stalls, I didn't come from a design background.  I could make a big, oversized shape, so everything was one size, but kind of oversized.  So then, you'd have different people coming to the stall and it'd be how do you make that work for you?  It was quite see-through, so okay, my mum might wear it with a cami and jeans, or whatever; someone trendy might just wear knickers or belt it.  It was just bringing out that creativity in a customer, in someone, and making it their own, so a bit of a canvas like that.

Now, we've come a long way.  Now we do a kind of a 0, so a 2 to a 30.  I say we design in that way, so from January, every dress is designed to be worn back-to-front, for nursing, for breastfeeding.  And it kind of started as a bit of a hack.  If you've got a zip-back dress, you wear it back to front, and then we'll place the print so it works, but you can then have access and breastfeed, so stuff like that.  So, it's making the necklines different, or making elements of flexibility, or channels, or how you can change it that's in the design process now.  So again, if you like that print but you're not a high-neck person, or whatever it is, just giving them those flexible elements to make it work for their body. 

Helen Tupper: I think it's very different to normal fashion where we're supposed to kind of fit into one thing and that's supposed to work for everybody.  I think you're designing with that inclusivity first, it's kind of your products are designed with that in mind. 

Lucy Aylen: Yeah.  Everyone, they're the beautiful thing, it's not your part of someone else's story, do you know what I mean, to not think of your brand or your business or whatever you're doing as the main event.  I'm playing a part in everyone else's life, so yeah, making it work for them, I think.  And everyone's individuality is the beautiful thing.  I find any form of eliteness boring, do you know what I mean, whatever it is. 

It makes its challenges as well, because I think we do appeal to such -- our audience is so wide.  So then especially on social and stuff, still trying to make it resonate with specific customers is a challenge, but amazing.  We've just opened a shop in New York, and you're in the changing room, and our customers are so diverse.  It's amazing, and they're all just like a big cheerleading thing.  Like all the customers are coming out, and they're all just celebrating each other.  It's so beautiful.  It's a pleasure, it's an honour as well.

Helen Tupper: Beyoncé as well.

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, and Beyonce.

Sarah Ellis: And Tess Daly this weekend on Strictly.  I'll shout for you!

Lucy Aylen: Thank you.  But it's, yeah, it's I'll say humbling to be a part of.  You'll have women in the New York store crying.  Like, if you're over a UK 16, you can't physically shop anywhere in New York.  There's a crap selection in Nordstrom, for example, but there's nowhere to shop.  So, yeah, you have people in tears in the store being like, "Oh my gosh, thank you", which I mean, "It's not me, we're all doing that".  But, yeah, it's beautiful to see women just loving celebrating each other.

Sarah Ellis: And, Lucy, you can hear in the way you're describing running your company, your passion and your drive.  But running a company is hard, right, unless you've got a magic formula you're about to tell us, which I would very much appreciate.

Lucy Aylen: A magic secret formula.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  But it's relentless, it's hard work, you make mistakes, things go wrong.  How do you find your way through those, what we sometimes describe, those knotty moments when things are really hard, when it feels really tough?  And yeah, there's all the upside, which is brilliant, but there are also the late nights, and I'm imagining particularly with anything to do with fashion and supply chain, there's a lot that can go wrong. 

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, I think like anything really just bring it down to simple steps.  My dad, when we used to go running, he'd say to me, "If you think you've got to do X amount of miles, but all you have to focus on in that moment in time is just putting one foot in front of the other, and then you get there".  So, the tiny small changes I think are what get you there.  A bit like Anna said, there's not one thing that you are proud of or whatever.  For me it's just resilience.  I think it's such a key thing that I don't see it as much in maybe people coming through in the workforce.  I think it's maybe an older-fashioned thing.  I just think resilience is really key and something we should install in our kids.  What's her name?  Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, I think she's amazing.  But when she used to come home from school, her dad would say, "What did you fail at today?"  And if they didn't have anything to say it'd be like, "What waste of a day".

I think it's changing your mindset on how you see, not failure, I mean that's not really a thing, it's just learning points.  So, all of those things that are wrong, like I've got a sticker on my phone, "A smooth sea never made for a good sailor".  So, all of those things that are wrong, it's just changing your mindset on not seeing them as setbacks or disappointments or failures, they're all just all part of that process.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it's so interesting because I think sometimes it's so easy when things go wrong to think, if something's failed, I'm a failure versus if something fails, oh well, I've never failed to learn, and I think that's such a big mindset shift.  And certainly we get used to things going wrong, and it's really hard not to blame yourself or not to beat yourself up and you become your own worst critic, and I hear that from people all the time that they are so hard on themselves.  Whereas, I think if we sort of have that, almost your attitude is very inclusive as well as your clothes, you're like, "Well, everybody makes mistakes, nobody is perfect.  But actually, if we're pushing ourselves, we're going to be even more imperfect, but then we're probably going to learn more as a result". 

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, I think a few things there.  Obviously, when I was running -- we support Tommy's, we were training for a marathon for Tommy's, so I was running this rap song and at the start of it is, "No one asked for perfection, just honesty".  So, I think as long as you approach anything, like if some crazy thing has gone wrong in the office, if someone comes to me and goes, "This is what's wrong".  "Okay, cool.  How do we deal with that?" rather than finding out that something went wrong and someone wasn't up front.  I think as long as you come to anything with honesty, "Okay, cool.  We've lost a massive account, or you've done that.  Okay, how do we maybe not do that next time?  Or, how do we work around that?" 

I think another thing, like I know when you asked for the show of hands, "What are we here for, money or meaning or motivation?" for me, at this stage in my life, that meaning point is quite important for me.  And I come to work to learn rather than earn and I think that for me means installing that in our team as well.  And just that whole journey is the most enjoyable, exciting, I love learning, whatever it is.  I think that's what keeps me motivated.

Helen Tupper: So, I'm quite fascinated, Sarah and I were debating about whether I was allowed to ask this question, because I'm quite fascinated --

Lucy Aylen: Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies! 

Helen Tupper: -- about designing your day.  Because you are, you're growing the business, you've got the team, your business is international, so things are happening all over the day, you've got big social media, you've got three kids.

Lucy Aylen: Don't believe anything you see.  What do they say, "Believe nothing of what you hear, half of what you see…", no, "Nothing of what you read…", whatever it is, yeah.  So, don't believe anything you see on Instagram!

Helen Tupper: Okay, got it!  But I guess my question is, how do you design your day so that it works well for you?  Like, how do you prioritise, how do you plan, how do you get all this stuff in, in a day?

Lucy Aylen: You have the same amount of hours in the day as Beyoncé does, do you know what I mean?  If someone can achieve something, it's doable.  A bit like what you said, you start, what difference you want to make.  And I think you subconsciously, again -- sorry, I'm dropping a lot of people -- Margaret Thatcher, but they say, "Start thinking something, then it moves into words", you start saying it, then you start doing it, and then you start being it.  So, I think you just change that mindset of, yeah, what you want to achieve.  I think I'm just, I'm probably not stable enough to ever be bored or mentally stable to have time on my hands, I just make sure I'm busy all the time.

Helen Tupper: So, you wake up in the morning, you're like, "I'm just going to be busy today", or you're like, "I wake up…"

Lucy Aylen: No, it's just so much to do, I suppose.  I've got a good nanny, let's say, I've got a good nanny.  Exercise for me, if you're talking practically, exercise for me, getting up.  I'm trying to get up earlier.  I think I don't enjoy when I'm when I wake up with the kids.  You're not in a good mindset when you're waking up, so I'm trying -- and again, I'm not perfect so of course I do this and I don't do it, but I try to wake up before the kids and then you feel in a different mindset, whether you just stretch for ten minutes or some form of physical activity, or I run or whatever, I compartmentalise my time and my mind, I think, so you're present in what you're doing.

Helen Tupper: Practically, the to-do list, I'm fascinated by to-do lists.

Lucy Aylen: I love a list, I've got lists within lists.  My dad used to be the same, I probably inherited it from him.  He used to drive me to work in his van and he would have Post-it Notes all over the dashboard; I like a list.  If someone new joins us at work and I'm talking, I probably don't do this, when I used to talk them through what they're doing and they're not writing stuff down, I'm a bit like, "You're not going to last long.  Are you writing this down?  This is gold". 

Helen Tupper: That is so you!

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, I would write everything, everything down. 

Helen Tupper: Sarah's looking over the Zoom screen, like, "Is this being written down?  Is this actually happening?" 

Lucy Aylen: Even now if I'm in a meeting, I've got people that do that now, "Is someone writing this down?"  So, as long as I know it's being written, then I can scribble things out or then I'll move things into another list or, yeah, it needs to be in a tangible --

Helen Tupper: Yeah, okay. 

Lucy Aylen: Tangible.  I write, yeah, still like an old-fashioned write things down, yeah.

Sarah Ellis: And so, Lucy, as your business has grown, it's grown fast and it's really big and it's really global, what do you think has helped you to encourage everybody to stay as motivated and as committed to your vision?  You articulate and have such clarity about your brand and what makes you feel great about it and the difference that you're making.  Listening to you, you're a founder that cares, that's really clear.  But it's very different when maybe it's someone's first job, maybe they're sitting in front of their laptop for the first time, and so they are inevitably not going to feel naturally that same sense of connection.  So, how do you engage now and motivate people, working in lots of different ways in different parts of the world, who probably weren't there at the start; I'm guessing most of them weren't there at the start? 

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, I struggled with that.  We do have quite a few who were there when we started and they've grown.  I think pre-COVID there were probably 10, 12 of us and I found that quite easy.  We were in a small office, everyone was on board and everyone knew the brand, it was just in everyone's DNA.  COVID, we grew quite a lot and then coming back into the office, I struggled with that, and I think we were such a bigger beast then.  We were hiring and people were coming from more corporate backgrounds, and I think for me to establish and being able to communicate what we were as a brand, I don't think I was great at then.  We've actually just got a new non-exec who kind of sits between myself and management now, which has been a bit of a breath of fresh air.  So, now it's about us installing that in our top management. 

So, I think it's making sure that somehow it filters down with everyone.  If you can't then do that with every level, making sure your management are all on board, and then the next level of management.  So, I think it's about filtering it down that way.  And we're arranging actually for the first time, a bit of a strategy day, that sounds quite corporate, but on making sure we do communicate those values.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think what's really refreshing to hear from you there is that you asked for help, you know that you don't feel like you have to solve it all yourself. 

Lucy Aylen: I didn't do that for a long time, I think.  My sister works in, she's got a real job, like works in the City, and so she used to always want to talk to me about the finances and I think I used to shun it quite a lot.  I think that's maybe being a woman.  I mean, I think only now I think, "Okay, I'm happy to do something like this or talk.  I think I'm okay at what I do, like I'm knowledgeable enough to talk about it", but I wouldn't have done that before.  I would have just been like, "Oh, I'm just really lucky being where I am".

Sarah Ellis: Not owning your talent.

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, no, I've never done that.  And I used to sit -- it was only then when we kind of were exploring.  So we're self-funded, I own it, we've never had investment or anything.  And when I was exploring that for the first time, I was sitting there just with these middle-aged white men offering you money.  I didn't feel confident in, "Okay, this is why we're so amazing", and actually making that decision to be like, "No, I can do this, I know what we need", or whatever.  But yeah, that confidence thing probably is only just…  But we're getting there, yeah.

Sarah Ellis: And I would guess there are probably quite a few people here who have a business idea, have something that they think they might like to get off the ground at some point, but that transition from working for other people to working for yourself can feel really scary.  It often feels quite hard to at least let go of the idea of the security and stability that perhaps being employed offers you.  But then you talk to so many people like, "Oh, well, I've got this idea, I could do this thing".  You know, Helen and I both had that experience.  It took us a long time to let go of what we were doing before to basically own our talents in a way that we thought, "Are they going to be transferable to something different?"  What advice would you give to anyone here who has got that niggle of a business idea that perhaps hasn't quite got started yet?

Lucy Aylen: So, I've never really worked for anyone else, so I've not had that transition.  I was a waitress, do you know what I mean?  I'm a failed actress, hence why I'm so nervous!  No wonder I didn't make it on stage.  We were talking earlier on, I think we're so lucky with social now that that bedroom business can be a thing.  When I first started, there was no Instagram.  I was at the market.  That was my route to market of getting product out there, talking to people.  So, now you've got social media, how amazing.  When I first started, or I say even before that, you used to have to have a big budget to go and do an advertising campaign, or whatever it is, whereas now you can really, like you say, have that honest voice and a community builds.  Things can really spread on social, which I think if you use it wisely, and that honesty piece that we were talking about, I think if something roots in that and now with algorithms, whether they're good or bad, but people can find that.

I think home in first on that real niche thing that you are, because those communities are tight and are really supportive and it can grow from there.  So, I think we're really lucky that you've got that.  Use those small networks on all -- I mean there's so many channels now.  And maybe where you think your community are, maybe it might not be Instagram, it might be a different channel or a different community or something, start there, build small and get a stronger army of community, and then they'll tell you if it's crap.  We're so lucky our followers and stuff are so honest.  And then you know whether to just give up.  I think it's tough as well when you're really passionate about something and people are like, "Follow your dream".  And no, you're not very good at it!  So, you've got to have a level of honesty.  Have a mum like me and you won't delve on that too much. 

Sarah Ellis: "How have you failed today?"

Lucy Aylen: Yeah!  But go for it.  I just think, I mean, life's too short.  Like we said, just go for it.

Sarah Ellis: As long as it's a good idea!

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, or you're good at it. 

Helen Tupper: Having you two, working with you two, I think I'd be like, "Oh, I must be better.  The pressure, the pressure.  Lucy, thank you so much for sharing the journey with us.  And I'd like to volunteer.  If you ever want some Squiggly learning for your team. 

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, amazing!

Helen Tupper: You know I would.

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, I'd love it.  We should do that.

Helen Tupper: I'll get clothes...!

Lucy Aylen: Oh, amazing.  Yeah, yeah, we'll trade you!

Sarah Ellis: I mean, if you poach her, I'll be absolutely furious.

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, please.  I'd love to.

Helen Tupper: Done.  It's a done deal.  Ask someone to step on stage and no one says no.  That's my top tip, or at festivals! 

Lucy Aylen: That was a bad idea.  Don't follow through with that. 

Helen Tupper: Lucy, thank you so much for sharing your story with us and talking to us about the growth of the business and what motivates you to keep going and very much looking forward to following even more success. 

Lucy Aylen: Thank you so much.  Well done, amazing. 

Sarah Ellis: Thank you, Lucy.  You're really inspiring.  Okay.  Our final guest for this evening, we are now going to get on to money.  What stops you talking about pay?  Before I do my introduction of Peter, I'm actually going to start by asking Peter that question.  What do you think stops people talking about pay?

Peter Komolafe: I think it's taboo to talk about money for whatever reason, even more so in the workplace.  I think a lot of organisations have it written in the contract that you're not supposed to.  So, on top of all of the reticence of trying to find out whether you're the best paid or the least paid in your team, that HR angle is also an input into the conversation as well.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it's so interesting.  I think there's a lot of fear and also I think it's that societal pressure of maybe particularly, I don't know if it works across every country, but when you're British, that's not something we would talk about. 

Peter Komolafe: It's very impolite, isn't it?  That's what I've discovered.  You just don't talk about money or anything like that, stiff upper lip and all that.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, yeah.  And so Peter and I met in a Welsh field, which is never how I start any story, but we were both in Wales, in deepest, darkest Wales, right?  It's really far. 

Peter Komolafe: Indeed, yeah. 

Sarah Ellis: And we went to something called DO Lectures, and if you've not come across DO before, DO Books, the podcasts they do, the talks they do, they're always incredible, very inspiring.  And I was there listening and heard Peter talk about money in a way where I thought, it's so refreshing to have somebody who is so open and prepared to talk about this pretty taboo topic of money.  And I think when we talk about Squiggly Careers, I think it's an area that is actually underexplored.  I don't think we've done as much as we would like to.  And I think so often it feels like there's a bit of a compromise.  And that's where I want to start. 

I think a lot of people have a sense of, "I've got to make a choice.  It's either meaning or money, but I can't have both".  And I just wondered whether you feel like from the conversations that you've had and all the organisations you've worked with, do you think that is still a pretty binary choice, so we've got one or the other, or do you think there is a happy medium to be found?

Peter Komolafe: I think for most people, there is kind of this dichotomy of you can't have both, but I've learned that you can.  And I think meaning is even more important when it comes to the reality of money, particularly with how we deal with it on a day-to-day basis.  I do a lot of work.  My profession is, I'm a qualified financial advisor.  I stepped away from that, though, I don't advise anymore.  And the reason why I did that was because through 17 years in financial services, there was so much that I picked up.  For me, I started to ask myself, "Why didn't I know about any of this when I was 18, 19, 20 years old?"  The difference it would have made to me would have been huge. 

Through the years, being a financial advisor and certainly doing what I do now with my podcast and my YouTube channel and all the books that I've written, one thing I've learned is that meaning is integral to how you interface with money.  And so I'll talk a little bit about behavioural psychology.  And I spoke about this at the farm.  What is your first memory of money?  Seriously think about that.  In my book, I talk about the fact that my first memory of money was when I was 6 years old, I was fostered from 3 months to 8 years old, because my parents are Nigerian, they came over here in the 1970s.  And back then, what they used to do is they used to put an ad in the paper and ask families just to apply and look after their kids, and that's what they did with me.  There was no safeguarding, nothing.  It was absolutely crazy.  I was very, very lucky with the foster parents that I ended up having. 

But my first lesson was, at our dinner table, every single night, we were eating beans on toast, spaghetti hoops, whereas my mate next door, Glen, his mom, she just cooked amazing.  It was like Nigella Lawson was in there, it was absolutely mad, the aromas that came out of the kitchen.  But at 6 years old, I started to realise, "Well actually, they can afford better dinners than we can", and that little idea right there set in a mindset of scarcity.  And that is hugely, hugely impactful when you get into adulthood, because one of two things tend to happen.  For me at least, let me speak about my experience, when I got into Canary Wharf and I don't have a university degree, I started working for an investment house there out of the blue, I say out of the blue, it was luck and a little bit of hard work.  I started to earn money that I never thought I was ever going to earn.  I was homeless, and then to be in a position where I'm earning £100,000 a year, I'm going mad. 

My idols were the rappers of the 1990s, and those guys were all about gold chains and luxury cars and all of this physical, ostentatious display of wealth.  So, I thought that that's what it's supposed to be.  And for me, my scarcity mindset then meant that when I started earning decent money, I replicated that.  I basically treated it as though, "Right, I might not have this for a while, so I've got to spend this and enjoy it whilst it lasts", and that's hugely counterproductive when it comes to how you interface with money.  And meaning is so important because unless you have a reason why you're doing what you're doing, my saying is, "Money's a tool, life is for living".  The only function of money is to help you build the life, create the environment for you to do the things that you want to do and enjoy the things that you want to enjoy in life for the brief time that we are here.  It's no more complicated than that really, honestly, and having meaning allows you to channel what you do with money, it gives you purpose.  It gives you a clear path of what you actually need to use that money for from a practical point of view.

Sarah Ellis: And if you think, when Peter and I were chatting before this, I didn't ask him about my mortgage.  I was like, "But you were a financial advisor for quite a long time.  Just a few specific questions that the audience might be interested in", making some surreptitious notes about the things I've not done.  And so, Peter was talking to me about your relationship with money, it comes from these memories you have, and actually one of the things that I definitely have is sort of an avoidance mindset.  And in lots of ways, it doesn't make sense, but it goes back to me thinking, "Oh, but I'm not very good at maths".  And so because I'm not very good at maths, I can't add up very well in my head, I'm just going to avoid this as a topic and be very head in the sand about it.  Also, my partner of 25 years is an accountant.  So I was like, that's not for me.  Also, he's very good at everything I'm not. 

So, when you see what you're not, then it really reinforces, you just think, "Well, I'm just not going to go anywhere near it".  And then I think that was just reinforced for me by actually being very passive.  So I was like, actually even from one conversation I realised when talking to Peter, I was like, "Right, I avoid it, I've been really passive".  We talk all the time about encouraging people, take ownership, take control of your career development and then I started to think, same for money.  Actually, if you want to make your money work for you and for your life and for your career, you have to have that same sense of ownership.  And I think I was hoping someone else was going to do the hard work for me.  So slowly but surely, this year, I've been trying really hard to ask the questions that you feel really scared about. 

One of the things that, Peter, you were talking to me about was the relationship between work, well-being and money.  And I wonder if you could just talk to everybody a little bit more about that, because I think sometimes those things aren't connected.  And yet, from the work that you've done and the organisations that you spend time with, you can see, we all know that if you can't pay your rent, it's very hard to be motivated at work.

Peter Komolafe: I mean, there is a huge movement, I think, certainly since the pandemic and lockdown, for organisations to be more proactive in helping their employees be more productive and at least have a better approach, from a practical point of view, with money.  Now that's hard, because I speak to a lot of these companies and like, "Well, we can't offer pay rises.  We can't do that for everyone, we'll go bankrupt".  So I'm like, "Well, depends how big you are.  You probably could, but you don't want to because of policy".  And so there's a huge impetus on employees right now to do the right thing. 

But really when you start to look at the data, from a corporate point of view, and this is the stuff that I always try and relay to companies, we know that if people, their employees, are either stressed about money, worried about money, they are less productive, they feel like, "Actually, we're going to up and leave", and the number for that is actually they're 1.5 times more likely to just go look for another job.  We know that they struggle to retain new employees as a result of that and productivity basically drops.  And in the private sector, 2019, this is before the pandemic, it cost the private sector £1.5 billion.  I would love to know what that number is for 2020, 2021; we don't have that data out just yet.  So we know that in the workplace, it is a huge concern. 

So for employees, what I tend to do, we go and we do workshops.  And I say, look, there are very, very quick wins that a lot of employers can basically use.  I mean, a lot of them will have employee benefit schemes, and that will include a whole host of benefits that you will be entitled to.  But the problem is, like all things when it comes to things like money, it's poorly communicated.  Nobody really understands what this X benefit here looks like or what it basically means, what it translates to.  And I guess if you're in a position at the moment where you're looking at your workplace and you're thinking, "Actually, you know what, I've got a few things that I need to sort out here", and that's taking your mind off work, ask the question, what is in the employee benefits package?  Because a lot of the time there's some really, really good stuff in there that you may not even realise.  We talked about childcare a little bit earlier on.  How expensive is that? 

Sarah Ellis: Very.

Peter Komolafe: I mean, I don't have kids yet, but my mate, Mike, he's got kids and he tells me how much it costs and I'm just like, wow, it's unbelievable, like "wowsers!"  But there are some employee benefits that will be able to offer some help towards that.  The thing is we don't talk about any of this eloquently enough because it's too scary, it's too taboo.  And I like to think that that is slowly changing, but there are quick wins within the workplace.  You know, the worst thing you can do is go into work and not be able to communicate with your employer.  I'd like to think that that's changing.  They know that they need to create a safer space these days, but it is going to be a work in progress. 

But ask smart questions.  That's one of the things that I wish that I'd learned when I was 18, 19 years old.  I didn't even know the questions to be asked, to be honest, because I was in a bank with a bank offering me a credit card and I was thinking, "Hey, I'm an adult now.  This is what adults do, right?"  Little did I know.  So naïve!

Sarah Ellis: So, on the point about being naïve, what are some of the classic money mistakes that you see people make time and time again, that you get a bit frustrated because you just feel like, "If people only knew … they would put themselves in a much better position and give themselves some of that ownership and that control over their money"; what are the couple of things?  Where would you start if maybe somebody here is feeling similar to me where you're like, "Oh, this feels scary, feels very intimidating, I've not got much practice"; how do we go from maybe making some of the classic mistakes to actually feeling like we're starting to take control?

Peter Komolafe: This is a really good question.  I'm going to answer this just by pointing out something that is almost a social norm for us.  It goes back to a little bit of what I talked about earlier on around your earliest memory of money and what kind of belief that instils in you.  Trust me, there is so much value in trying to answer that question for yourself.  It took me years to be able to understand it for me.  And it was through the process of writing my book through the back end of last year that I really started to dig deep and really started to think about how I broke some of my own bad habits associated with my scarcity mindset.  But if you can really think about what are the triggers that make you make the financial decisions that you do; and where does that actually come from? 

So the silliest thing, one of the silliest things that I've done, is I'm an impulsive spender, even to now, but I've learned how to control it.  But I didn't have any control over it.  So, what I would do is in Canary Wharf, bonus day, everyone's celebrating, you go out and you go and buy a £1,000 pair of trainers; that's just normal stuff.  And for me, I look at it now and I'm so ashamed to even say that, but it's because of social norms.  The social norm of, and everyone will hopefully be able to align themselves with this, a lot of people, at least I did, we keep up with the Joneses.  So, we buy certain things because either, "Oh, my mate [or] my next door neighbour's got this", and we forget the real question, do we need it?  Do we need it or do we want it?  Knowing the difference between wants and needs is very, very important.  And also alongside that, trying to be intentional.  This is why I talk about meaning.  Meaning is so, so important. 

I do a lot of talks around the psychology of money, what it really means when you think about your beliefs.  So for me, it was scarcity.  People will talk about having an abundance mindset.  That's great, but it can be also very, very counterintuitive and actually quite damaging, more so than having a scarcity mindset; really understanding where that actually comes from and digging down into it.  For me, I think most people don't really have a clear distinction between wants and needs, but most of all, people don't actually have any idea of what their meaning, what their goal is.  Why are you here?  What do you want this to be all about?  Why do you go to work on the 9.00 to 5.00 every single day?  Most people go to work and they absolutely hate it.  They hate their boss, they hate their colleagues, they hate everything about it.  You wake up on a Sunday morning, I've been there, wake up on a Sunday morning, and you are dreading the fact that you've got to wake up on a Monday.  So, what is all this for? 

I think for me, and especially from a psychological point of view, when you really dig deep into the psychology of this, the decisions you have to make with money and finances, just in life generally, the decisions are so much easier to understand and clearer to know once you have a compass that is guiding you, and that compass is the meaning.  So, understanding that really is the main thing for me.  And we can talk about practical things around money, budgeting, you know, we can talk about having an emergency fund and avoiding debt and all this kind of stuff.  It means nothing without that fundamental anchor around, what is this all about?  What is this meaning?  What is the goal for?  And we talk about habits.  Habits are so hard to break.  You can try and control them half the time, but new habits are easier to form than breaking old habits.  And how do you form new habits?  By having some kind of tangible goal that you're working towards that instils a practice, action that you repeat in order for it to become a habit.  And when it comes to your finances, that is so, so important.

Sarah Ellis: My partner said to me the other day -- we've started saving now, so my little boy is 6.  And because we'd had our conversation, my partner, Tom, was like, "Who is this Peter guy?  Why are we now saving for Max to go to university?"  And I was like, "Well, because I want him to have the option.  I don't care if he doesn't want to go".  But I was like, "But if we're going to support him, if we start now, it can be a little amount of money every month versus where am I going to find this money?  By that point, I want to be, I don't know, doing a PhD or something completely different.  So, I want to give myself options".  

So, I think what you helped me to do just from our conversation is connecting the dots between really zooming out, so what matters to you, what really motivates you.  It matters to me that Max has options and choices.  I don't really mind what they are, I just want him to have options and choices.  And then really zoomed into, "Okay, well what does that mean I need to do today; and could I find that money every month by spending a bit less on, let's face it, Amazon?"  Yes, probably.  So, it gets you to some really helpful conclusions. 

I do want to talk about pay rises because I think we should.  I was thinking about what really helped me to get more confident having conversations about money with people who are in positions of power, where you probably are further down the hierarchy than they are.  And I think it was because I saw it role-modelled very well.  So, I was very lucky to work for one leader who created a really safe space for conversations around money, was very objective about it, very practical, and actually, going back to Anna's point, really encouraged me to own my talents.  She was like, "Well, don't be apologetic about your worth.  Actually be confident about it.  You don't need to be arrogant, but be confident about what your worth is and what you bring and talk about what it is that you want, what does that look like?  And part of that is your pay".  And so, I think she almost taught me to do it, even though she was the person that I was asking.  But I think for a lot of people, they're not in that position. 

So, if someone is listening today and they're thinking, "I need to have that conversation with my manager, but I'm dreading it.  And when I show up, I do lose all of my confidence, I forget all of my good stuff", what are some of the things that you've seen work really well in that moment where you are asking an individual, and then broadly an organisation, to pay you more money?  Maybe you feel like you're underpaid, maybe you feel like you're not paid in terms of parity versus your peers, maybe you know that.  There are often ways and means and I think then people are kind of going, "Well, I know that my value isn't being represented and so I need to have that, often what feels like an incredibly awkward and hard conversation".

Peter Komolafe: Yeah, I'll talk about this from experience as well.  So I worked in Canary Wharf between 2012 and 2017 and I started off as a telephone boy on the phones, making phone calls, trying to get people into meetings with the guys out on the road.  And those guys out on the road were the ones making all of the money, they were making some serious cash.  So I started on, I think it was £28,000 at that point in 2012.  And through five years, I worked my way from a telephone boy all the way up into the executive team of this company, which is a Fortune 100 company.  So, this is how I approached it. 

I think whenever you enter into any kind of conversation around pay or any conversation that means that you're taking a jump up and you want an adequate amount of compensation to represent the new position that you're taking and the work that is required, it's important to be prepared, really prepared.  So for me, what I did is I knew where I was in terms of my position, my input, and my productivity and what I brought to the business.  In five years, I was responsible for £120 million worth of business.  So I took that and said, "Look, this is what I bring to the table.  I know for a fact that I'm better than this person, that person, this person.  This is my name in the league tables for the past six months".  Demonstrable evidence really, really helps you in those kinds of conversations. 

Now, the first thing that you have to get over is the nerves, that you're actually speaking to someone who's a little bit higher up than you.  And I think, ultimately, you've got to be a little bit tactful.  You can't go in there war and peace.  You've got to pick whether you're going to be passive aggressive versus aggressive, or just going to be -- don't be passive, because passive just means they can just tell you no, and that's it.  Let them know that you mean business.  Be prepared.  One of the worst things you can do in that kind of situation is also walk into that meeting having never rehearsed what you are going to say.  Speak it, like really speak it.  Rehearse it to yourself in the mirror.  Be like, "Okay, these are the points that I want to make, this is the evidence I'm going to lay out, this is the narrative around it, this is my ask".  Don't ask before you show the evidence.  Give them all the reasons why you want a pay rise, why they should give you a pay rise, then ask for the pay rise. 

Also, don't be shy to tell them as well.  In the end, for me, I had to go, "Listen, I've been waiting for this promotion.  You said no to me three times, giving it to people that didn't really deserve it.  Their numbers were way lower than mine.  So, if at the fourth time of trying, and I've asked you, what is it that I need to fix?  What do I need to improve?  I've done all of it.  I can evidence that I've done all of it; if at that point you tell me no, I'm going to go find somewhere else to go work, someone else who will see my value".  And it's crazy to me that in the corporate structures and in workplaces right now, a lot of the time you have to leave a business to go to another place to get a pay rise.  It's crazy to me.  I just think about the talent that is lost in workplaces because of that one stupid HR policy.  It's absolutely nuts to me. 

But you've got to articulate it properly, but be bold, demonstrate your value in any way, shape that you can.  Be assertive with it, but actually say, "Look, these are my expectations.  This is what I want".  If you know that a colleague is being paid more than you, say, "I know that this person, or a number of people in the team are being paid more than me.  I would like to be on parity with them, I want a little bit more.  And look, if this isn't something that you're going to be able to do, this isn't matching my livelihood, this isn't matching what I need to do for my family, for my goals, I'll have to go find somewhere else".  And at least then you put all of your chips on the table and you can start to negotiate from there, hopefully. 

But really, if a company after all of that doesn't want to hear what you have to say, then I question whether you're in the right place in the first place.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think that's very good advice.  I think the one thing, two things actually that really stuck with me, is say it out loud, so practise it, but also see it as a series of conversations.  I think one of the things that I always found difficult was I put too much pressure on myself to solve everything in one conversation.  I'd be like, "Peter, my manager, we need to have this conversation, it's going to be really intense and we're going to resolve everything in the next 30 minutes in the middle of a Monday".  And actually, I think once I let go of that, and actually then when I was leading teams and maybe people were having the conversation with me, I started to recognise actually I was certainly much more effective, because I think you do have to do this in a way that feels authentic to you and I'm not a combative conversationalist.  I do want a more collaborative approach that works better for me. 

So then I sort of thought, "Well actually, over the next month, I'm going to have a series of conversations with my manager, HR about this.  I'm not going to solve it all at once, but", also to your point, "I'm going to have a deadline in mind.  And so actually, if something doesn't change by this point, I am going to think about doing things differently".  And I think your point is so important.  We talk a lot to organisations about this idea of squiggle and stay, like why you should want to keep people in your organisations.  Because as you said, losing people, it costs so much to get somebody new in your organisation and then to get people up to speed.  There's an incredible amount of research that just shows just how long the learning curve is when somebody is new versus actually if you just move internally and maybe you give somebody a pay rise as a result, maybe they've transferred their talents or they're doing something different.  Actually, their learning curve is much, much quicker.  I think it's like a win for everyone, but I think sometimes that short-termism and also just what we've all got used to and the default policies feels too hard to challenge.  I think we all need to have that kind of challenger mindset. 

Peter Komolafe: Yeah and for a lot of employers, it's a risk bringing someone in and losing talent that they don't already know.  And it's also worthwhile just noting, in the corporate space when it comes to career, people who are more assertive get ahead.  If you don't ask, you don't get, that's simply how it works. 

Sarah Ellis: And on that note…!

Helen Tupper: We just want to close out, you had a chance to chat to each other about your best piece of career advice.  And whenever we do Ask the Expert episodes, we always ask people, "What's your best piece of career advice?" and Sarah and I like furiously writing notes down.  So we thought we would close out today's conversation, and just going with your best piece of career advice to inspire us and to inspire the audience.  So, Anna, we'll start with you, what are your words of wisdom? 

Anna Whitehouse: Well, the first one was what I said, is that I think don't underestimate, like you said, the people that can help you, so use ego to your advantage.  But the main one is probably focus maybe on the area, the space, the industry, the company that you want to be in, and get as close as you can.  Don't expect to hit targets straightaway.  I came into Haymarket Publishing as a Sales Executive on Planning Magazine, and I knew it was a good little foothold in there.  I then emailed the Editorial Director every day relentlessly until he just thought, "This is harassment, and I'm just going to have to see her for five minutes".  And then I presented my magazine that I'd created saying, "Look, any job that comes up in the editorial realm, I won't let you down".  And he eventually did.  And I think my relentlessness eventually got me in.  But I think don't feel like, "Right, well, if I don't get that job, the specific job in a specific place, then I failed, or it just feels too big".  Get as close as you can and keep circling.  Circle, circle, circle, and then go in.  Yeah, it's quite an intense image, I know, but there you go!

Helen Tupper: It's great advice, thank you.  Peter, over to you.

Peter Komolafe: Oh man, you know what?  My career has been so weird.  It's been really, really weird.  I mean, I got my job in a bank because I was on benefit I was homeless, came on benefits, was told, "You need to go for this interview".  And at that point, I had a load of debt with credit cards and chequebooks that I'd bounced.  And I was like, "I'm not going to get a job at this bank, so I don't want to have a job there".  I got a job.  15 years later, I'm doing this now.  And what I do now, it's a byproduct of my career in financial services.  And so, I guess my advice would be to be open-minded.  If someone said to me in 2019, when I was being headhunted by a discretionary fund manager to go work for them at the beginning of 2020, that I wouldn't be in that company, I'd be doing this online and I'd have a relatively successful business online, having done TV with Anna and I've got a book and all this other stuff, I would have been like, "No, you're dreaming".  And if I told my 17-year-old self, 18, 19-year-old self, when I was sleeping on the streets, that I would be doing this, I'd also be saying, "Absolutely not". 

So, be open-minded, I guess, but also, as you probably gather from the way I speak, I'm very, very assertive in what I want, knowing what I want, and be vocal, be upfront.  If you have a clear understanding of what your goal is, go after it, and be certain.  Be really, really, you know, I wouldn't say forceful, but assertive with what you want.  And that, for me, has paid a lot of dividends thus far.

Helen Tupper: Thanks so much.  And, Lucy, last words to you.

Lucy Aylen: They sound serious.  I was going to say enjoy it, I think!

Helen Tupper: That's great!

Lucy Aylen: Yeah, but it's short, do you know what I mean?  And within that, like I say, change that narrative of failure.  So, if you fall off the stage, oh, you've made people laugh.  Look for that positive in any failure element, whatever it is.  So, enjoy it, be kind, work hard.  Like I say, if you're going for a pay rise and you're saying, "Oh, but next to me is earning more than me", work harder than him, otherwise you've not really got a leg to stand on.  Yeah, work hard.

Helen Tupper: My best career advice is to always run your own race. 

Sarah Ellis: And mine is to never live the same year twice.  So, that is it for this evening.  Again, we really wanted to thank our guests.  If we can give our guests a massive round of applause for being here.  And we also really want to thank you for being here tonight.  I know it's never easy to come out in an evening.  We had lots of debates about, does this work; and we know that there's childcare and people have got babysitters and partners and...  which we are very grateful for!

So, thank you for coming to spend some time with us.  We hope it's lived up to our value at Amazing If of being useful, and that it's felt like Squiggly Careers but perhaps that little bit more and everybody in a room together.  We're going to stick around, come and say hi to us.  We'd love to see you but thanks again, have a lovely evening.

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much everybody.