Squiggly Year in Review

Timestamps 

00:00:00: Introduction 00:01:34: The year in a word 00:04:38: Lasting memories 00:08:59: The year's surprises 00:12:43: Hard times 00:18:42: Learning from your mistakes 00:25:43: Experimenting 00:31:43: Personal growth 00:38:31: Looking ahead to 2022 00:45:33: Action: Write a summary letter 00:46:17: A quick recap 00:47:08: Final thoughts  

Interview Transcription 

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah.  Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen.  Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we talk about a different topic to do with work and discuss ideas for action and advice that we hope will help you, and it always helps us, to navigate our Squiggly Careers.  Helen Tupper: And as we approach the end of this year, we thought we'd press pause and reflect on all the things that have happened and share a few of our highs, lows, some happy moments and some things that we've learnt along the way.  And also, two bits of news: we are together for this podcast, which is a rarity, because we normally do it virtually, so that's always quite fun.  Sarah Ellis: I've got popcorn.  Helen's got nothing, she's not even got a drink.  Helen Tupper: I had lunch though.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I've got three drinks and some popcorn, and you're just sitting there with nothing!  Helen Tupper: Because, point two is that we've not told each other the answers to the seven questions that we have developed to reflect on this year.  So, these answers are going to be a bit of a surprise for you and for us.  Sarah Ellis: I feel like we're doing our end-of-year review live.  Helen Tupper: We are, and we're doing it in person, so I haven't even got the anonymity of being behind Zoom or something!  Sarah Ellis: I'll just keep my eyes on the screen the whole time, on my notes!  Helen Tupper: No eye contact!  So, this could be an interesting episode, everybody.  We do want it to be useful for you as well; useful is one of our values.  So, the PodSheet that accompanies this week's episode, you'll be able to download that.  It will have the questions, and we thought we'd also include some of our favourite recommendations of things to read, watch and listen to, that we have engaged with this year.  So, that's what will be on the PodSheet.  You can get the link for that in the show notes, or if you can't find that, just email us at helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com.   Sarah Ellis: So, are we starting with a warmup?    Helen Tupper: Yeah.  Sarah Ellis: Is this an official question, or not an official question?  Helen Tupper: No, this is my warmup question, Sarah, just to ease us into the seven questions.  The warmup question is, the year in a word?   Sarah Ellis: Are we allowed to describe why we chose that, or do we literally have to say it?  Are you already getting annoyed that I'm like, "How much leeway have I got?"  Helen Tupper: Can you see that Sarah's not had much input into these questions and now she's, "If I was thinking about this…"  You just have to say the word and then you can explain it.  So, Sarah, your year in a word.  Sarah Ellis: Useful.  Helen Tupper: Oh!  Sarah Ellis: Have we got the same word?  Helen Tupper: I've got the same word!  Sarah Ellis: Look how happy that makes you!  That is cute, that is actually quite cute.  Helen Tupper: That is cute!  Go on, give me your reason?  Sarah Ellis: So, I think it's been a really useful year for us to learn about ourselves and our business, Amazing If, and what we want to do and where we want to go.  So, I think there's been some usefulness internally that probably people don't see as much of, the stuff below the service, and I really hope we have been even more useful for our community.    So, I think some things we've done around the podcast, which is mainly all the work you do all around PodSheet and PodPlus and PodMail, where we've now put everything in one place; but way beyond the podcast, even the workshops that we do, the playlists that we create, I feel like that value has just sung from everything that we've done this year.  And I think at times, that's meant that we've had a lot on, or it's set a really high bar for us, because we're always asking ourselves that question, "How can we make this more useful?" or, "What makes this useful?"  And, because we're now so clear about that, you really see through anything that's a bit rubbish.  So, whenever I've done something where I'm like, "This is not that useful", you can't let it go anymore, because I think that is a really guiding principle now.  So, yeah, useful.  Helen Tupper: I'm really, really similar.  Sarah Ellis: It's going to be a really boring podcast if we just have the same answers for everything!  Helen Tupper: Maybe we should have talked about this before!  No, mine was really similar in terms of why I had "useful".  Do you know what I thought was interesting?  The word of the year that we started out with was "improvement".  So, this year was supposed to be about improvement, and instead of attaching ourselves to that, I think we have probably improved, but "useful" has really stuck.  The other thing that I find interesting is that, that is a business value that now just feels so deeply part of us.  You know when you think about organisational values, and sometimes you say them and you have to go, "What's the third one; what's the fourth one?"  But I don't think I will ever forget useful.  It comes up in all of our -- I'm so attached to that as a value now for us in our business.  Sarah Ellis: What's interesting is that's not been there from the start.  Given that we've both said it, it feels like it's really part of our DNA, I think it always have been, but probably it was one of those, we talk about values can be unconscious and sometimes you've got to keep reflecting on them, talk about them, and you discover your DNA.  Even though you might think it's really natural, and now when you say it to people, they're like, "Yeah, that's exactly how we would describe you", but it's not like for the past seven or eight years, we've always talked about useful as a word, but I think it's become the real shining light, hasn't it, in our work.  Helen Tupper: Well, that was a nice warmup.  Sarah Ellis: It was a good warmup.  Helen Tupper: It makes us feel warm.  Helen Tupper: Exactly, it did what it said on the tin!  Let's see, so official question number one.  Sarah Ellis: Official question number one.  Helen Tupper: What's the memory that will last longest from 2021?  Sarah Ellis: Partly to do with the TED Talk, but it's not the TED Talk itself.  It was the moment where we were practising our TED Talk in a park, in the pouring rain, standing quite a long way from each other, and it feels like a real pandemic memory.  It just felt bizarre.  I felt like, "I can't imagine how this is ever going to translate into something at Abbey Road Studios that we're going to be proud of.  We were both there with our hoods up, and then you had to set up a camera to try and film us from a distance, and there were grannies walking past with their dogs, and people just watching us, interrupting us halfway through as we were trying to memorise it.  But what's really interesting is, I've got really fond memories of that.  But even though there was lots of it that you were like, "This is really hard", this is not obviously your ideal situation or context to be practising something that was so important to us, I remember just going, "If there's anyone who can find their way through this moment, it will be us".  And I think we just enjoyed it, probably because we'd not seen each other for a while.  But also, you have to laugh at those things, because if you ever take those things too seriously, or take yourself too seriously, you lose the fun; and I actually just remember really enjoying it.  I think we knew deep down we'd got a talk we were proud of, and it didn't matter that we were standing in a park, and it was bleak, it was cold, it was raining so much.  Helen Tupper: So, we recorded that so that we could watch it back and just see how we were sounding, and I've since thought, "That would be good social content".  Then I've looked at it and I was like, "That is awful!"  Sarah Ellis: What, we are awful; or just raining?  Helen Tupper: It's really grey and miserable looking, you and I look like caterpillars with ten coats on, because we'd got really warm coats on.  Sarah Ellis: You couldn't even go in a café at that time, could you, so we couldn't even afterwards go and sit and have a coffee.  So, I think we'd got a takeaway drink from somewhere, and then we both just got back in our cars and drove home!  Helen Tupper: We were in a bandstand with graffiti on it and a dog walking around!  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, there was that dog quite a lot and luckily, because it was raining, it wasn't too busy, but I was just like, "This will probably never happen again in quite this way, but I think if we can find our way through rain in a bandstand, where you couldn't really get close to each other, I think we can find our way through most things".  It gave me a lot of confidence.  Helen Tupper: So, that was one of mine, but my other one was the day we filmed the LinkedIn ad, for so many reasons.  Sarah Ellis: Oh, yeah, are you going to tell the truth about that day?  Helen Tupper: So, I was a little bit hungover on the day of the LinkedIn ad/quite a lot hungover!  Sarah Ellis: I turned up and you could barely talk.  Helen Tupper: I had quite a croaky throat on that day and should anyone -- it might have just finished by the time this podcast goes out, there might be one more week.  So, if anyone sees the ad, just listen to my voice and you'll hear the croakiness in my voice, now that you know.  So, yes, I'd had a night out the night before, quite a late one, and also I didn't quite -- I knew we were doing some filming, but I'd never filmed an ad before.  So, we were in this studio, I got there a bit early, there weren't many people there to begin with, it was like an artist's studio.  So, I was on my own and then Sarah arrived.  And then, within about half an hour, 50 people arrived, who all knew exactly what they were doing and were obviously working to a schedule with a lot of confidence and clarity about what needed to be done, and I just felt like I was in this whirlwind of people.  Sarah Ellis: I turned up and it just looked like you were so overwhelmed.  You were just sitting in a corner just like, "I don't know what's happening".  Helen Tupper: I think I was both hungover and overwhelmed, and there were photographers and they were like, "Stand on staircases", and then there were people going, "Haze; shut the doors for the haze".  Do you remember that smoke?  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, the haze.  Helen Tupper: I was like, "What's the haze?"  And then I was like, "Oh, there's a Squiggly sculpture", I didn't know there was going to be a Squiggly sculpture, and I didn't know the people, so I didn't know who was doing what job, and I had to wear a boiler suit and I was very distressed about wearing a boiler suit!  Sarah Ellis: You really were!  Helen Tupper: So, it was all just, I think, very new, very overwhelming, but also quite exciting, because you didn't really know what that was going to become.  And I think from then, that was July, and that advert went live and just ran for the rest of this year and we've had so many comments.  And it's the memory of that day that has then been immortalised in film.  So, yeah, it was a fun time.  Sarah Ellis: Maybe I'll start by asking you the next question then.  Helen Tupper: Okay.  Sarah Ellis: So, this is question two now: what has surprised you about the last year?  Helen Tupper: I think the cumulative impact of all the things we've done.  That might sound like, "That's a really boring thing, Helen".  Sarah Ellis: Does sound quite boring, to be fair!  "Cumulative impact"; I'm forever trying to get you, "Don't sound too corporate", and you've just given the most corporate sentence of all time!  Helen Tupper: Do you know what it is?  I look at some of the things that we get to do now, some of the opportunities that we have, some of the places that we can take the podcast to and our business, running career developments for companies.  I think it's how everything has connected.  It's the podcast plus the book plus the ad plus the work that we do every day with organisations, and when we started our business, we didn't have some massive strategic plan that over an eight-year period, we would do all these things, and it would build on each other, and it would become this business that we both love and is growing and is making a difference to people; it didn't start there.  It started off, "How can we work together and do something we love that can help people?"  Now, I think what has surprised me, is I see all of those different separate pieces coming together into something quite significant, and I look at it and go, "Wow, if we'd started out with that strategy, that would have been really smart".  But now I just go, it's consistency, consistency of how we make careers better for everybody, and staying very focused on that.  It is a lot of effort and energy, and it has been quite a lot of opportunity.  But this year, I think I've been surprised at how much all of that has come together and is now starting to really accelerate our impact, in a way that I'm really proud and excited by.  Sarah Ellis: I had a couple of things.  The first thing was, I feel like the more we have worked together, and I think people probably know that we've known each other for a long time, because we've been friends for a long time, but really only worked together probably very intensely for a year, 18 months.  And I think sometimes I'm surprised by both how similar we are some of the time, and also how different we are.  And almost the more we work together, the more I see our similarities and I see our differences, and I find that interesting, unsurprisingly.  Helen Tupper: It's quite nice that there are layers to our friendship that, 20 years in, we can still be realising new things about each other; it's quite nice.  Sarah Ellis: And at times, I think I have been surprised sometimes where maybe we have different points of view, or different approaches, and I think, "Oh, I hadn't expected that" or, "That's really interesting and we can learn from that", and we can be even better because we're both similar and different.  I thought that surprised me.  Then I think the other thing that surprised me is, you can be doing what you love and what gives you so much energy, but that you still sometimes find it hard to practise what you preach.  I mean, I hope that no one ever thinks that we are perfect, because we are so far from that, but sometimes I will either be interviewing someone, or I'll learn about an idea or concept and then I'll think, "I don't do that myself and I really want to".  Or, you're creating your own business so you think, "Surely, I should be able to have all the freedom to design everything in a way that should work".  In your head you go, "I should be able to make this the perfect experiment for what you could do to make careers better for everyone".  But there are still times where you can't, or you maybe do things without consciously knowing what you're choosing to do, or you make mistakes along the way.  So, I think sometimes that has surprised me where, even when you're doing something you love, you can still end up doing things where you think, "That's been a really hard day" or, "Crikey, I really need a break" or, "That's been really tough".  So, even though I never ever get Sunday night dread and I never get fear, and that's amazing, I look forward to work every single day; but also probably this year for the first time, I've also had days where I've thought, "I need to stop working" as well.  Helen Tupper: I agree.  I think that links a little bit with the next question.  So, the next question is, what have you found the hardest this year?  Sarah Ellis: You know when you're answering these questions and I was thinking, it's hard not to be topical and timely in terms of your response, because of what is top of mind, which to me also really proves a point of why you should ask yourself these questions quite regularly.  We're doing this at the end of the year, but I think if you asked these questions every quarter and you noted down what you thought, I can remember some things being hard earlier in the year, but you know when it merges into one?  Helen Tupper: Yeah, recency bias.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I do think you do get a bit of that.  So, I've picked two and I've tried to pick one from the start of the year and one very recent one.  So, one thing definitely hard, I get a lot of joy from writing.  So, we were still writing You Coach You at the start of this year; I spent some of that time in quite a kind of isolated room by myself, not really talking to anyone, I enjoy working in that way.  And I think we found a really good rhythm to that, but it was still hard.  I think things can be hard and enjoyable.  So, writing a book I think is hard and enjoyable at the same time, because when you get a tool or a page where you know this works, that's a really good feeling, but that can sometimes be the 20th draft, it can sometimes be the 2nd draft; but it's very rarely the 1st draft.  So, I remember finding that hard and enjoyable, so I think those things can coexist.  I also found last Thursday really hard.  Helen Tupper: What was last Thursday?  Sarah Ellis: I had a meltdown at Clapham Junction Station!  Helen Tupper: Oh, yeah, I thought that might be linked to some recollections; recency bias!  Sarah Ellis: So, like I say, I shouldn't just talk about that, but I definitely had a moment in the last couple of weeks where I got to the point of overwhelm, and feeling like I couldn't find my way through that overwhelm, and that felt really hard.  And also, when a feeling feels something you've not experienced in quite that way before, I think that makes it extra hard.    So, I've definitely felt really busy before, or I've felt, "Wow, I've got a lot to achieve, or a lot to do", but I think I'm quite comfortable with that feeling, and that feels quite familiar for me.  So, I recognise that and you have your own coping techniques.  You have your, "This is how I approach those moments of being busy or having some really big and important things to do", and I think I got to the point a couple of weeks ago where I just thought, "It is just too much and all of those things feel very important and I can't see my way through them".  So, you're just going round and round in spirals in your head and not going to sleep, essentially.  So, I had a little minor meltdown for a couple of days, and I'm all fine now.  Maybe we'll talk about it a bit more again, but that's the first time I think I've ever felt like that in my career, and I was like, "Oh, that's really interesting".  With all the different jobs you've done and when you're running your own thing, perhaps people would think you would never get to that point, but I definitely did, and I feel a lot better now through some of the things that then happened over the 48 hours afterwards; but I did sort of have a, "Can I just hide under a duvet for a little while?" moment.  Helen Tupper: It did sound like that, yeah.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, so there you go, that's what I found hard.  What about you?  Helen Tupper: Well, it's interesting what you mentioned about the book; it's not the thing that I wrote.  But I do remember at the time, which I've probably forgotten about, it's a good prompt, that chapter where we --  Sarah Ellis: Nearly fell out?  Helen Tupper: Yeah, we nearly fell out!  And Sarah and I, we don't really properly fall out, but we do disagree about stuff.  There was a chapter in our new book on relationships, and basically we'd just both come at the chapter from a slightly different perspective.  One of us had done the first draft and I can't remember, but basically we kept fundamentally changing each other's work to the point at which it was frustrating, because it was like, "What is the point of me looking at this chapter if you're just going to rewrite it completely?"  We were both coming to that conclusion and we had a bit of a difficult late night.  Sarah Ellis: No, you WhatsAppd me at 4.45am!  I woke up one morning to about seven WhatsApp messages that had been sent about 5.00am, with you basically getting quite angry about this chapter.  I was like, "Wow, that's something quite interesting to wake up to"!  Helen Tupper: "Good morning, I'm very frustrated by these chapter amends"!  Sarah Ellis: Slash angry, is the word she's not saying.  She was sounding more angry than frustrated, I would say.  Helen Tupper: I need to find these texts and maybe share them!  Sarah Ellis: Oh, God, no!  There is no way you can share those!    Helen Tupper: Okay, so now there's two things we're not sharing with anybody: early angry morning texts and pictures or videos of us --  Sarah Ellis: Us in the rain, yeah.  Helen Tupper: -- in the rain, but they exist, everybody!  So, yes, I do remember that as a moment that felt quite challenging.  But actually, the thing that I've found hardest this year is switching off.  Like Sarah said, we genuinely do love what we do, and we do spend a lot of time doing it.  I think because we both like doing what we do, we sort of feed each other sometimes.  Sarah will have an idea and then I'll pick up on it.  So, even in that time when sometimes you might press pause, one of us will restart the thinking, because there's something in our mind.    If I think this year, I've worked on holiday, both my holidays actually.  I did a podcast online in Wales, which I quite enjoyed, that one in the car.  And then, the recent holiday in rainy Lake District, I also worked.  And it's a choice to do that, but sometimes it has felt like I've also needed to do it, because we had various things on, and I think it's probably not sustainable to do that.  I do need some time to switch off, but I have found that hard to do, because I love doing what we do and I also have had such an amount of work that I haven't always found it easy to switch off.    I wouldn't say it's been a big problem this year, but as we keep going and keep growing, I think that just becomes a harder problem that I have to solve.  And some of it is within me; some of it is, I have to let it go; and some of it is, well it has to go somewhere.  I think they are two hard things to solve with that one.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it, that rationally you know you need to take a break, and you know objectively your brain will be better if you take a break.  And then I think there's the rational and then the practical where you're like, "Well, yes, but these two things still have to happen".  Or, sometimes it feels hard, doesn't it, to make priority choices, or say not to things, or to explain to someone you can't do something when you thought you were going to do it, and just feels easier to just do it.  So, let's stay with you.  We're doing the hard stuff right in the middle, I feel, here.  So, this is the fourth question.  We talk a lot, and we've talked a lot this year about the importance of making mistakes, mistakes being okay, getting used to being comfortable with making mistakes, and most importantly what you learn from them.  So, an example of a mistake you've made this year and what have you learnt?  Helen Tupper: So, this is a bit of recency bias, but it has cropped up quite a lot, and the issue is I don't think I've learnt from it.  So, just keep repeating it!  I've learnt that it's a problem, everybody!  So, my problem-solving-ness I think means that sometimes I can derail a meeting with it, and that has happened, hasn't it?    We've been in meetings together when something has cropped up, like we've got a lot of things to talk about, but maybe the second item on an agenda is something where there's a problem, and I go into problem-solving mode, and I am quite detailed about it, "We could do this, we could do this", and it takes away from the rest of the conversation that we need to have, and it doesn't need to be solved in that moment.  But because I like fixing things fast, I find it hard to pick up a problem and pause it until later.  I want to solve it and get it done, and I don't think that's quite helpful.  Then, if I think about your -- are we going to call it The Clapham Junction Meltdown?  Sarah Ellis: Yeah!  Helen Tupper: Okay, the Clapham Junction meltdown, I think a similar thing happened there, which is I heard a problem, which actually wasn't a problem, and I went into problem-solving solution, because I was like, "I can hear there is a problem that needs fixing fast.  This is the way we will fix that problem fast", and that wasn't the actual problem.  So, I think the mistake that I'm sometimes making is that all problems need to be fixed fast, and that they need to be fixed fast by me, actually.  I'm hoping I will get better at doing something with that learning, because at the moment, I think I'm still making the mistake!  But what's that conscious incompetence?  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that's good.  Helen Tupper: That's where I'm at at the moment, consciously incompetent with my problem-solving.  Sarah Ellis: Better than being unconsciously incompetent!  Helen Tupper: That's probably one of the things I've learnt this year.  Sarah Ellis: That's the learning, the learning is your self-awareness.  So, if you're thinking about self-awareness and action, you've got the self-awareness bit, you now just need to think about the action.   Helen Tupper: 2022 action: slow down the problem-solving!  You don't have to fix everything fast and you don't have to do it yourself.  Go on, what's a mistake you've made this year?  Sarah Ellis: I can think of lots.  Some of them are more task-focused mistakes, and some of them are more people-focused mistakes, and some of them might be more project.  I was like, "I can almost categorise my mistakes into people, project, process", those kinds of things, which I actually found it easier to think of examples when I thought of it that way.  I think one people mistake that I made this year is, I gave somebody some feedback very quickly on something that had gone wrong, and I delivered that feedback too quickly.  What I think I hadn't appreciated, and we talk about it's good to give feedback as close to the moment as possible while it's still fresh, and most of the time I think that can work.  But I think there are sometimes points where you need to leave space for people to absorb, especially when people have maybe gone, "A mistake has been made", or something hasn't happened in the way that you hoped.    I think my default reaction, a bit like your default reaction is to fix problems fast, my default reaction is to go, "Okay, no worries.  Right, what can we learn; what can we do differently next time?" and I'm also in continual improvement, my head is always continually improving myself, everything else, everyone else, every project.  And I hadn't quite realised until this year that that was quite as evident as it is.  I don't think I had the self-awareness of that, and I don't think probably other people had seen it in me as much until now.  So, interestingly, I talked to a previous boss about this the other week and said, "I'm noticing actually I've got a real drive for continual improvement, and that can be really helpful, but also it can be detrimental if delivered in the wrong way", and she just went, "Yeah, I can see that".  So clearly, it's not that big a surprise, is it, and maybe it's slightly more part of me than I'd appreciated.  It's not just that example.  I can think of quite a few examples of things that we work on where, at the moment, I haven't quite figured out the balance of going, "Continual improvement is a useful mindset, but how do I apply that in a way that is helpful?"  So, sometimes I don't apply it at all, because I get fearful of, I don't want to hurt someone's feelings or I think maybe it doesn't matter, but then it does matter.  To me, I'm going, "Well, this would help us next time".  So, sometimes I think I do nothing, so that's not great; and then sometimes, I think the things that I do are not helpful.  And so, I think I've made some mistakes in actually quite a few different things this year that have also been driven by that continual improvement thing that I have in me that I think I hadn't recognised until now.    A bit like you I go, "I think I've got the awareness now", and I think these things do take a bit of a while to figure out, and you sort of have to make some mistakes.  So, you could really beat yourself up I think about the mistakes that we've talked about, and you do a bit.  Often you feel, "That wasn't good enough, I want to be better than that", but knowing that I think, "Well, at least I've made those mistakes now, so now I can think about what can I learn and what can I try".  And you might try and different approach or technique and it might not work.  I think you might continue to still make some mistakes.  I think if you feel it's binary, you're probably putting yourself in the wrong mindset.  Helen Tupper: Do you know what I think it is?  Sometimes I think it's Radical Candor gone wrong.  So, you know Radical Candor is the scale of the extent to which you can challenge directly, and that you care personally.  You actually really care personally about everything.  You care about people, you care about the business, but sometimes I think you challenge directly, and you don't always surface the care personally, but you do, you do deeply, really deeply; but I think you just come out with a challenge, like the "even better if", the "what I think we could do differently", "this is what went wrong here", and it's almost like maybe it's more explicitly stating the care personally, because the risk is -- well, this is never you, but the risk is obnoxious aggression, isn't it, where you're not seen to be caring personally, and you continually challenge directly; that's the worst case scenario.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I think for me, you can imagine that could also feel very relentless in a sort of a, "we never hear good news".  If you're working with me, you might feel like you're only hearing the "even better ifs", because sometimes maybe the "what's working well" goes unsaid, or I've thought about it in my head, but not said it out loud.  So, yeah, loads of mistakes.  Then I could think about loads of smaller mistakes.  I mean, I didn't find it hard to come up with mistakes!  But I think the thing that's changed for me is I used to find mistakes really difficult.  They were definitely a fixed mindset trigger for me, and it meant that sometimes I wouldn't do something, or I'd spend too long overthinking things where I had made a mistake.  The thing I'm proud of this year, one of the things around mistakes I'm proud of, is I've got much better at thinking, "Well, that is a mistake and that's okay to make mistakes and what am I going to try differently; what do I do differently?"  So, because it's such a fixed mindset thing for me, I feel like even being able to talk about mistakes feels quite unusual.  It's not something I've spent much time in my career doing.  Helen Tupper: I think that links to the next question, words that we have reclaimed: mistakes; and the second one would be "experiments".  I feel like we've actually started to quite own that word and talk about it.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it's really helped us actually, hasn't it?  Helen Tupper: Really helped us.  So the next question is, what have you experimented with for the first time this year?  And maybe before we answer that, the point here is that this about beginner's mindset, doing something not because you always know it's going to succeed, but because you're trying it out for the first time, you're going into new spaces, or you're trying new skills, and it's a really important part of how we grow.    As soon as you make the assumption that it has to be successful, you start to put a pressure on it, you don't push yourself; but this idea of what are we experimenting, just to try it out, just to learn, not to always succeed, really starts to kind of just create new opportunities, a big more fun, some more exploration.  So, what is something you've experimented with this year?  Sarah Ellis: Well, I actually don't take the credit for this, so this was actually a "we", this was a royal we.  Helen Tupper: Let's see if it's the same one.  Sarah Ellis: What have "we" experimented with for the first time?  But I think, to reiterate your point, even just using the word "experiment" has meant that we have said yes to doing some things that we would definitely have said no to, or done in a very different way, because of the expectation we would have placed on ourselves.  So, earlier this year, we launched our first Squiggly Careers Advocates Programme, which is 100 people who just advocate for Squiggly Careers with the work that they do with the organisations they're in.  And I think when we first talked about that, we'd got lots of other things on, and it would have been really easy to not do that, or to put a lot of pressure on ourselves in terms of what that had to be and the time we had to invest in that, or what that had to become.  I think we had just started about this idea of, "What are our experiments as Amazing If?"  And, we sort of decided/you talked me into going, "Let's just see it as an experiment.  Let's see it as something to try out", and I think that has been such a success as a result of that, because it's meant that we use it quite a lot, and also we're not attached to it in the same way that I think we are some other things that are probably critical to our success of Amazing If and to what we do.  Then, like you say, you can be a bit more playful, you can be a bit more fun, you can try some stuff out.  You do what worked well, even better if, in a slightly different way when it's an experiment versus if you're going, there are some things that you really want to set yourself a high standard for, because they're really important that you get right.  And I think also even sharing the fact that it's an experiment with our advocates, so we've said it out loud, they know that, we've not even tried to predetermine whether we would do it again, and I think for you and I, we both find that hard to not be, "Well, where is this going; how will we build on this; how do we make it even better next year?"  I see you, in particular, work really hard to not do that for this.  I watch you, because I don't find that as difficult, but I see you go, "Of course, if we decided to do another Squiggly Career Advocates…" when we review whether it has been successful.  Helen Tupper: I do find it hard, because I feel like my tendency, like basically I would like to have a Squiggly Career Advocate Alumni where people from this year do different things.  I've got all these ideas about how we could grow and scale it, but I have to stop, because I don't know if we will continue it.  And whether we will continue it or not, I think has to be an insight and feedback from the advocates about whether it has actually helped them to do what they're doing more and support them, or not, and it's not my opinion, it's their insight and I do have to stop myself from trying to take it further.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  So, I think that has actually been quite transformational for our business, and it's something I even heard someone talking about last week in terms of attitudes to risk.  People talk about, "As a team or as an organisation, how do you work out your risk profile?" and I always think that sounds really abstract and hard to get your head around.    Whereas, I think if you as a team, and I think this is something we might do for Amazing If for next year, if you look at your objectives and then your key results, I think as part of then thinking, "Well, what does that mean in terms of what I work on and how I work?" which of those things where you think, "I really want to make sure we do a brilliant job of that", like we really wanted to make sure we did a brilliant job of You Coach You.  To me, that felt completely non-negotiable.    So then, you approach that in terms of how much time you invest, how much you do it together versus one of you might go off and make a bit of progress versus if you're going, "It's an experiment", you change your mindset.  And I think doing that even more intentionally, also doing that as a team, because I think you and I have done that this year to go, "This feels interesting", and it has been really helpful.  I wish I'd done it more in my corporate career.   Helen Tupper: Well, I've started doing it.  I haven't told you about this, because you'll think I'm going rogue, but I have started it with clients now.  Sarah Ellis: What?!  Helen Tupper: One of my clients, I just pitched an experimental session, where we're going to mix very different groups of people in one session to see whether that makes the learning last longer.  Sarah Ellis: Okay, that's okay.  Helen Tupper: I've pitched it to them as a 60-minute experiment, and that may then change how we deliver future programmes.  But I think, yeah, the more people you can enlist in your experiments, the better.  So, mine would be that, definitely that one, the joint one.    I think on a smaller scale, I found it really useful to experiment with a few different tools and things, like the Squiggly Career Knowledge Navigator?  So, I basically start with some kind of alliterative idea, like that one, or what was the one that I did last week?  The Balanced Squiggly Career Score Card; loved that one!  So, I start with some random idea, normally at breakfast, everybody, when I'm usually fuelled by coffee.  Sarah Ellis: I usually wake up to it again.  I mean you should see, everybody, the WhatsApps that I wake up to sometimes.  I just never quite know what's going to come my way.  Helen Tupper: I sort of sketch it out and I'm like, "I could just make this on Canva in 20 minutes", and then I put this experimental thing out and see what sticks.  That for me is really interesting too, because sometimes it doesn't really go anywhere and I go, "That probably wasn't a very useful thing to put out in the world".  Sometimes people share it and use it and like it, and then it helps me go, "What could we do more with that?"  But it never has to be successful, and it never has to be perfect.  I always look at it and go, "Oh, gosh, there's a few typos on there".  But the point is not perfection; the point is experimentation.  So, yeah, that's probably a smaller scale one of mine that I've enjoyed doing.  Sarah Ellis: So, let's stay with you for a second then, so on question six, just in case anyone's not following, we'll perhaps summarise the questions at the end.  Helen Tupper: We will, and it's on the PodSheet, everyone.  Sarah Ellis: How have you grown this year?  Helen Tupper: It will be interesting to see whether you think this is true.    Sarah Ellis: Okay.  Helen Tupper: So, I think I've got better at knowing what I need and then acting on it.  So I think for quite a lot of time in my career, I've sort of been a chameleon to the organisation I've been in, and then I don't think I've been Helen at the end of it.  So, I've adapted to what that organisation has needed me to be, and how they've needed me to show up, and I've sort of morphed into their culture and lost a bit of myself along the way.  I think this year, if I think about some specific examples, I have realised that I need a lot more social connection with you, and I've realised that.  Sarah Ellis: Do you think?!  Helen Tupper: But as a result, I've joined some different networks this year, some new ones.  I've really looked at my diary to make sure that I've got that in, and I feel much more excited and energised because of it.  Boundaries: I have an office space and Sarah doesn't.   Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that's true, yeah.  Helen Tupper: That's because I recognised that I was just feeling a bit flat spending all of my time in this place.  I know that you would go out for a walk, but you would still come back to the same place, and that just wasn't working for me.  As our business has changed, it wasn't working for me to be in that place, so that would be another one.  Exercise would be another one.  I've realised that I need that.  And if you think, there's been quite a few times in my diary where I've been quite fixed about, "I'm leaving at 5.00pm to go and do that".  If you think about Helen two years ago, I wouldn't have done that.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that would never have happened.  You'd never done exercise, let alone leave to go and do some exercise!  Helen Tupper: So, when I started thinking about it, I actually felt really pleased that I have got a lot clearer on what helps me to be at my best, and that self-awareness; but also, really putting that into action.  I don't think I've compromised on it, I think I've stuck to those things.  I've got the office, I've prioritised those things in my diary, and I've protected it quite well, and that's quite un-Helen, I think.  What about you; how have you grown this year?  Sarah Ellis: I think I have got better, though I still find it hard, at difficult conversations and difficult decisions.  So, to use the Clapham Junction meltdown, that I feel is going to go down in a tiny bit of history, partly because a few people know about it now, because some of those people helped me, I think probably even a year ago, that would have just stayed in my head and I wouldn't have had any conversations with anyone.  So, for me, that feels good, that feels like growth.  And I think I'm probably better at difficult decisions than I am difficult conversations.  So, difficult conversations, I feel like I've got better at.  I feel like even when, let's say, we're talking to clients, I don't feel I would compromise what we think is the right thing to do.  You know your instinct is often to say yes to everyone, because you want to be helpful?  I think I'm good now at saying, "That's not what we would recommend, and this is why", and having those difficult conversations in the moment, which often previously I would have thought about those things after a conversation.  Then, you either have to write an email, or you just don't say anything, and then you're already stuck to that thing that's happened.  So, I think I'm getting more used to those and continually growing.  I've also written down more of a technical skill.  So, I think writing's one of those things that the more you do it, the better you get, probably like most skills.  And I don't think either of us actually are the best writers; I could name millions of people who are better at writing than both of us!  So, I think it's always hard, it's always hard for both of us, and we have quite different writing styles.  But I think I feel like I have grown in terms of your ability to find your voice, to feel confident about writing.  I'm really proud of our first Harvard Business Review article, and that's a very different type of writing, actually, to writing for LinkedIn, which is a very different type of writing to writing a book.  So actually, the breadth of both of our abilities to write for a number of different, whether it's like where you're going to read it, but also who's reading it, when are they reading it, knowing when something needs to be three bullet points, or when something can have a bit more space, I feel I'm getting better at.  It's something I want to continue to improve in.  Probably the one I'm worst at is Instagram, where I want to write a mini essay.  Helen Tupper: That should be your even better if, for next year.  Sarah Ellis: No thank you, no thanks!  Helen Tupper: That's like, "Yes, you should do that!"  Sarah Ellis: So, I don't ever want to write something with emoticons, I'd rather talk about it on a podcast, or I'd rather write a longer article.  Helen Tupper: No, making careers better for everyone, social media does have a lot of reach.  Sarah Ellis: I know it does.  But you're also very good at it.  It's good to stick to your strengths!  I wrote one recently and it was very good, thank you, so I do; but I think my speed, you would all be really surprised how long it takes me to write an Instagram post.  I would say it takes Helen circa one minute to five minutes.  It takes me half an hour thinking about it at least, if not more, and then probably one draft.  Then I go back and I think about it a bit more, and Helen is really shaking her head.  And I do realise, that's very anti-social media.  So, I've got some unlearning and relearning to do when it comes to writing.   Helen Tupper: I really need to give you one social media post a week for your speed development.  But I also think, "But I want it to get posted!"  Sarah Ellis: To go out!  Helen Tupper: Maybe I won't give you that challenge.  Sarah Ellis: I'd actually written it last week, and you were there on WhatsApp giving me a hard time, "Have you written your post yet?"  I was like, "Yes!"    Helen Tupper: I think that was about the third time I asked, and I was trying to ask really nicely.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, you did ask nicely.  I think that was because of the meltdown though, you were walking on eggshells, "Are you okay?  Have you done the work that you're meant to be doing?"  Helen Tupper: "If you wouldn't mind!"  Sarah Ellis: And my exercise one, which I don't know whether it counts as exercise really, but a bit like you said you've tried to prioritise doing some exercise, I am good at knowing that walking is an important part of my work.  Like you say, "You will go for a walk".  I think there have definitely been times where I feel I have not had time to go for a walk in the day and I've still gone, and there's been implications of doing that.  And also, I think you know when you feel that pressure of being really busy, but still going out for a walk?  Somehow it just feels wrong, it feels like the wrong thing to do.  But I just know I feel so much better when I have been outside during the day.  To your point as well about working in one room when you're working more virtually than out and about.  Funnily enough, it's completely different if I'm out and about.  I don't feel that same sense of being, "I must go for a walk".  It's more, if I'm at home during the day, going out at some point, ideally early afternoon when I think you get that early afternoon lull.  And I think particularly, funnily enough, if the sun is shining, I actually get quite angry and frustrated with myself and the world if it's sunny and I'm inside all day.  I feel a real draw to spend some time outside.  And I'm lucky I live near a beautiful park, I live near a river, I can very easily go and do that.  Helen Tupper: I get so many voice notes from Sarah when she's had a good walk.  That's when I know; I'm like, "Oh my gosh, there's 20 ideas and 4 voice notes here on my WhatsApp!"  Honestly, everyone, our WhatsApps, there must be a book in our WhatsApps of stuff!   Sarah Ellis: Not a book I'd want to read!  No one would want to read that book.  So, yeah, some good growth, I think, for both of us this year.  Final question, I'll ask you first.  Number seven, what are you most looking forward to next year, other than working with me?  Obviously, that was going to be your first, I'd say.  Helen Tupper: I'm just going to skip that one, because that's obvious.  So, I've got a personal and a professional.  Sarah Ellis: Oh, okay.  Now I feel bad, because I didn't do the personal one, or that didn't even cross my mind!  Helen Tupper: So, my professional one is You Coach You.  I'm so excited about sharing that book with everybody, and it's more than just we spent quite a lot of time working on it and it's finally here to share; it's more than that.  Part of the reason we've written that book is about our commitment to democratising development, and I really see coaching as a capability that everybody should have access to.    Sarah and I often talk about the difference between coach, as a person, which is brilliant and coach, as an approach, which is also brilliant; they're both valuable.  And I think the more people that we can help take a coaching approach to their career development, the more people will be able to help themselves, with whatever knotty moments they have, whatever challenges, whatever conundrums, and the better they will be equipped to have conversations with their managers, their mentors, and if they're fortunate enough to have a coach, their coach.  And, I just feel like it is the next bit of our making careers benefit everybody.  It's a big sort of brick in that wall.  Sarah Ellis: You should get it soon, it's meant to come through.  We should be getting the first ones that have come off the production line, if that's the right phrase.  Helen Tupper: I don't think it will be warm though, because I think it will have been posted!  Sarah Ellis: And also, it's chucking down with rain today.  It might be there when we get home today, or maybe tomorrow.  Helen Tupper: Very excited.  Sarah Ellis: If I spot a typo, I'm going to cry.  Helen Tupper: Don't look for typos.  Sarah Ellis: Don't look for typos, just flick through it.  So, what's your personal one?  Helen Tupper: Holidays.  So basically, in 2022 --  Sarah Ellis: You're just going to go on holiday a lot and not work ideally?  Helen Tupper: Yes.  Well, I've got two hot holidays booked.  Sarah Ellis: Hard to work on a hot holiday, hopefully.  Helen Tupper: Yeah.  February and then October, and I just want to get on a plane.  I was never a massive traveller, but I guess when you can't do something, you really want to do it.  But I really want to get on an aeroplane, I want to go and see some different things, I want my children to see some different things, I want to make memories with them that aren't just in my village.  Sarah Ellis: So cheesy!  "I want to make memories"; you sound like an advert!  Just because you've been in an advert now!  Helen Tupper: But when I think about my memories of a child, it was the first time I tried some weird food that I'd not had before, or learning to swim in a pool.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, mine was Scarborough, which is absolutely brilliant for a holiday.  You can learn to swim in lovely, grey, Scarborough seas.  Really cold.  Helen Tupper: Scarborough's fine.  But yeah, I am looking forward to some hot holidays, on an aeroplane, and just having some of those experiences and making some of those memories.  So, fingers crossed that happens.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I hope so.  And you don't have to take your laptop, and you could maybe turn your phone off.  Helen Tupper: Yes.  Sarah Ellis: She's looking at me now, everybody, saying, "I've heard what you've said and I'm going to make that happen".  Helen Tupper: I'll hold you to it!  Okay, what are you most looking forward to?  Sarah Ellis: I thought about the book as well, so I'm not going to repeat that.  I'm really looking forward to seeing where our team can take us in 2022.  So, I think probably next year for the first time, lots of people we work with are freelance, or work with us part time or some of the time; but I feel for the first time ever that we are now more than each other, that Amazing If is more than just the two of us.  Obviously, we still matter, I hope!  Maybe by this time next year, everyone will have superseded us, and imagine how much rest you'd get; amazing.  But I think I'm just excited about that, about the potential of different skills and personalities and perspectives, and because I do believe when you get a really brilliant team together, and I've been fortunate enough to be part of those teams a couple of times in my career, you do things that you can't anticipate; you're better in ways that you can't imagine.  It almost doesn't worry me that I don't know what that looks like yet, but I am excited about what it could look like.  Helen Tupper: I already see it though.  You know, the people in our team, I already see it and I go, "That's better than what we would have done.  That's not a question I would have asked.  This is amazing.  This is so much better because of it".  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and so as good as I think we are as a team, I think we'll be even better with all the right people working with us and making us better and challenging us.  And maybe this can be my personal one?  Helen Tupper: You're going to make one up now!  Sarah Ellis: No, I had written this down anyway, because it's quite selfish.  It's around, I've been planning to go to DO Lectures in Wales for two or three years.  It's been cancelled twice.  So, I think I was meant to go 2020 and 2021, and in 2022 I hope I will be able to go.  So, DO Lectures is, I can't remember now how long it is, maybe three or four days in Wales, loads of really interesting speakers; a couple of people have been on the podcast as guests, people like Bobette Buster.  Helen Tupper: David, the Founder, coming on very soon as well.  Sarah Ellis: Oh, of course he is.  That's exciting.  Yeah, I'm just looking forward to that, because I've followed the work of DO Lectures, and I really like the DO Books, and I really admire lots of the people that they get to write the books.  So, you know when you already feel like you're part of that community, but not as close as you'd like to be, through no one's fault, and I'd really like to learn from them and what they've done and what they've created, and I will see David swimming in the sea!  I always think, "That looks very invigorating.  I don't know if I want to swim in the sea".  Helen Tupper: It sounds like a social media post in the making, Sarah!  Sarah Ellis: I don't think you're allowed to take your phones.  I sort of hope you're not.  I sort of feel like it's, what happens at DO Lectures stays at DO Lectures, other than what they're filming.  They actually make loads of the videos available for free on their website.  Helen Tupper: Yeah, the speeches.  Sarah Ellis: Sort of like an alternative to TED, I would say, if you wanted more of a long watch and a bit more story.  You know TED is like the short, concise edit.  If you go and watch some of those videos, I feel like you get more of a sense of space and people sharing a bit more of their stories.  So, I always actually really like watching those, and they're really well produced, really good quality films, so I'd really recommend those.  So, I'm really looking forward to that, and it will put me out of my comfort zone as well, because even on one hand, I look forward to it; but on the other hand, I'm scared of all of those people that I don't know, and having to stay with people I don't know.  That is a good thing to be scared of doing those things.  Helen Tupper: It's you getting into your courage zone.    Sarah Ellis: It is.  The learning bit is my comfort zone, then the new people is my courage zone.  Helen Tupper: So, having gone through seven questions to reflect on 2021, how are you feeling; it was quite intense?  Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it is quite intense, isn't it?  How am I feeling?  I don't know.  Helen Tupper: I might need a cup of tea, a glass of wine!  Sarah Ellis: I'm feeling, why did we not do this over a gin and tonic?  Why have I only got a cup of tea and some popcorn?  I think it makes me feel like I want to write something down, or I want to think about the "so whats", like, "So what does this mean for 2022?"  Also, what do I want to remember, because I do think you feel different towards the end of a year, so we're recording this mid-December, and then you feel different in January.  It's really easy to get back into routines and doing what you did before, and you can easily have exactly the same conversation in a year's time, and I hate the idea of that.  I don't like the idea of losing the insights, the awareness that you probably do feel at a certain moment in time during a year.  So, that's how I feel.  I feel like I want to take what we've talked about, for both you and for me, because I want to sort of, like you say, be your partner in some of the things you want to also get better at.  Helen Tupper: I agree, and I wonder whether we could consider this action to take away.  I feel like I want to write a letter to myself, like the reflections I've got now, both to myself and also what I've heard you talk about, to make sure that I could support you.  And I want to open it in six months' time.  I don't want to wait until the end of next year to do it, but I want to open it in six months' time and, not hold myself to account, but go, "That's what you were thinking six months ago.  How is that going, because you still have six months to put any of that stuff into action, and support Sarah putting it into action?"  Sarah Ellis: We can do that.  Helen Tupper: Yeah, shall we do it?  So, it's a letter to ourselves we're going to keep, and then a date in our diary to open it.  Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  You can do a social media post!  Helen Tupper: Can I, can I?!  Sarah Ellis: Well, in six months' time.  Helen Tupper: Can you write neatly on a nice envelope that's got some aesthetic something?   Sarah Ellis: Sure.  Helen Tupper: Okay, great!  So, let's just recap those questions for you.  So, if you want to start with a warmup, it was, what was your year in a word.  Then the seven questions: what's the memory that will last longest from 2021; what has surprised you about the year; what have you found hardest this year; what is a mistake you've made and what have you learnt from it; what have you experimented with for the first time; how have you grown; and, what are you most looking forward to next year?  We're going to be starting 2022 with an episode all about designing your development, so how you can kickstart your career development for the year ahead, and we'll also be letting you know how you can get hold of our free 12-month Squiggly Career calendar that can support you as well.  So, that's in that first episode of the year.  Then, we're going to be following that with lots of different episodes all around You Coach You.  We've got lots of guest speakers, and Sarah and I are going to be sharing insights because if you did not know, the book comes out in January, everybody; it's finally here.  Very excited.  Sarah Ellis: And finally, we just wanted to say, whether this is your first episode, I mean if this is, this is quite an introduction, isn't it, into Squiggly Careers; you feel like you probably know us quite well now.  Usually, there are lots of ideas for actions and tools, but this has probably been listening to us a little bit more than usual.  And we know that some of you, because you've shared it with us, we've made it to the top of your listens on Spotify.  Thank you so much, it does blow us away.  And every single review and rating we get, we appreciate your support so much.  We still sometimes forget that it is more than just each other and my mum listening, and we know that lots of you recommend it to different people, that you come back every week, and we really appreciate all of your feedback and support; it means we can keep doing what we're doing, and it just means that we really enjoy it.  So, thank you all so much, and we'll speak to you again soon.  Bye for now.  Helen Tupper: Bye, everybody.