Hello and welcome to the dive deep climb high Podcast. I'm Mel Louis Zoo. And together with my guests, we explore all different aspects of leadership in higher education. With inspiring stories, practical tips, and a little bit of fishiness. This show will help you dive deep into the leader you are and climb high, unleashing your power and potential. dive deep. Climb high can do leadership in a world of calm. Hello, and welcome back if you're a regular listener to the show, a very warm welcome if you're joining us for the first time. This podcast has been created to help leaders in higher education. My aim is to create a community that can learn and grow together. To do this, I need your help. The more people that download, subscribe, rate and review this show, the more the podcast algorithms will ensure it pops up across the globe. I love the community we are creating. And together with your help, we can encourage even more people to join us today. It's my absolute pleasure to be speaking to someone I would describe as a bit of a superwoman she launched and ran Specsavers in Northern Europe, leading it to become a market leader in the Netherlands. In 2019, she took a change in direction and set up her own business wise mines to help female entrepreneurs find purpose led growth on their own terms. She also works with graduates who want to unleash their entrepreneurial spirit once they have left university. There is not much this woman does not know about leadership. And she has designed a fascinating concept called the Powerball. More on that later. This promises to be a Corker of a conversation you are not going to want to miss. Please welcome the hugely talented Julie Perkins.
Well, now I don't think in my life I've ever been introduced in that way. So fantastically. And I'm quite honored at one stage. I thought this is fantastic. I can't wait to listen to her. And then I realized you were describing why. So thank you.
The pre call that we had was incredible. I learned so much about you. Actually when you just throw in Oh, I'm second generation Specsavers. What does that mean? Oh, my mum and dad own Specsavers? What is not a wonder you know a lot about leadership. But let's dive in. And perhaps it'd be really interesting for people to I guess to understand the bit of your career, and why you set up? Why is mine. So had this change in direction?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, as you sort of sort of kind of introduced, I am a product of a high paced entrepreneurial family. And I think sort of subconsciously, you're part of leadership from a very young age, you know, nobody walks into your house and winches about the boss at work because they're the boss. And you know, so you start to really think about, you know, what does make a great company from a very early age. You know, the gathering of people, the continual parties and positivity around a house of people coming in and being a part of it. And I think that really, from an early age gave me that taste of, of leadership from gathering a lot of the right people together. And of course, Specsavers has grown on partnership. And that also taught me from an early age that if you want success, share success early share wealth, share responsibility. And these things, of course, when I was 1516, and you know, you pretend you don't care, but something you're absorbing all the time what it feels like. So, I suppose now in my 50s, I'm a product of of that entrepreneurial style, but also that mix of success being a driver, of course, but also failure. And those times when you're in those extreme positions. I think that's when you learn leadership the most. And I'm the first to talk about that journey of when things didn't go to plan. So really sort of a driver, but I suppose a recipe of failure curiosity Tea and just being that that driver of knowing that there's always something that can be done better. There's always something that you can do in a better way. And I think that probably summarizes how then I went to open Specsavers in the Netherlands where a lot of my successes equally, my failures, as a leader, I was very young came to pass, and then in my 50s chose to open my own company supporting female entrepreneurs. So that's kind of how I got there a mixture of good drive and failures. I love that
so many wonderful phrases, they're gathering lots of people together sharing wealth and responsibility, a recipe for for failure and curiosity. I love that leadership is a recipe for failure and curiosity. How true is that? So where to start? So for you, and you've alluded to it, that sort of recipe for failure, and curiosity. Can you give us an example of that of when you experienced that?
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. As I said, with my introduction, I don't hide it because wise wines. And the company I built now was based on a mixture of what went well, and what didn't, because, you know, when you see female entrepreneurs or young leaders coming in, if we can give them a very honest viewpoint of the things that they face as early as possible, they can. I mean, you've got to learn from your own patterns, of course, but you can learn very quickly from other people's patterns of failure, and success. And that's what I've tried to do with wise minds. But I think the really big story of my biggest learning, I think, was when I was sort of sat in the garden at 3am. And I was opening up Specsavers in the middle of the big recession, 2008, nine. And in Northern Europe, in a sort of very highly competitive marketplace. It's a very lonely place to be. And I think I sat there, you know, hands to the air as if I was asking my last resort, what can I do? And I went in the next day, and I shared with my direct leadership team, who were a group of amazing people, I learned that from my mother, always recruit and gather yourself by better people than how you define yourself. And I told them this story of what happened and how I ended up at 3am in the morning, and I said, you know, what more do we do? And of course, the answer is, Julie, stop doing so much. And I think that was this journey of them telling me to basically make myself redundant, and to reposition myself in a new position. So basically, very young leadership holding on tight. And if you look at growth as a series of waves in any project you're on, I had one foot on the wave of the five years, and another foot on the company that was growing forward, there was nothing wrong with the concept. Of course, it was a proven concept. But what happens is, you've got your foot on both ways. And then slowly, I was drowning in the middle, and being slapped on the head by the wave that was trying to get past. And I think that was my very first honest conversation about failure and how you can go to the feedback of others. I get what you're saying, I accept what you're saying. And how do we do it. I mean, of course, it wasn't instant, I'm going to be honest, it took me a bit of reflection, I'm not that much of an angel. But, you know, eventually, when you actually begin to understand and that you open yourself to listen to others. It was so true, I was building a company around me. And it was still a very young company. And the fear of the recession and debt and money makes you hold tight, but really successes from creating the space. But when you're a young entrepreneur, you know, and you're holding on to this baby that you've built, it's a very hard thing. And you know, at the beginning, it's an ugly baby, and you're the only one that loves it. And it's trying desperately to grow up and you're still trying to nurture it as it was in the beginning. So I think that was that very first failure of leadership, the hardest lesson, which is space, and that quite often when you're in a problem, and you're always looking around whose fault is it? What's gone wrong? What's wrong with the concept? It's not clear enough in the marketplace is the very first question as the leader is, what am I doing wrong? And I think as a young leader, that's a very hard question to do, especially where you feel so responsible, is what are you doing? That could be better? And then the journey went because I was felt so comfortable with this group of people, we're still friends today, you know, that said, make yourself redundant. Are you still doing what you love and love what you do? What position do you want to be giving yourself in that new wave? And what's that team that you leave behind to look after the older wave, not to let it go. But to understand what trust is. And that's all about sharing purpose and values, which was the beginning of our 12 month journey to market leadership position, which was, you know, with no more marketing, not spending a penny, we were spending quite a lot of money, but we weren't spending any more because of it. It started to grow because people had the space to be the best that they could be. And I had the space to be the best leader, because I was happy. Yeah, I was enjoy. And that was, I think the biggest lesson of leadership I had was leadership is about trust and the space to let go. And I noticed I haven't said the word delegation, because it's not about delegation. Because you know, people don't delegate delegate well, until you create trust, and a unity and a purpose and a shared way of celebrating. You can't delegate, you're too into it. You can't give up this growing child to somebody else. There's got to be a purpose, a like minded sharing of purpose and trust. So that's why I haven't said delegate. I love that.
So united by your purpose and your values. Helps build that trust. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. Especially what you celebrate. Yeah.
And the concept you've talked about quite a bit. And it's a really interesting one. And I'd be really keen to understand how, what I think leaders are any, not just young leaders, but people that have been in their career a lot that space to let go. Because actually, when most people do hear the problem, it's like, right, we need to have a meeting and we need to be here or we need to thrash it out. Crisis. We're on wall. Exactly. Exactly. And yet, actually, from what I'm taking from that, it's almost like the polar opposite of that. Have I got that? Correct? That's right.
Yeah. I mean, you know, that the the problem that we had, obviously, multitude was holding on, it's not just happening overnight. But it really starts off with what you celebrate as a team. And I know that sounds really a right. So you just have a party, I don't mean by celebrating is that we had incredible people, but it's creating a unity. That's step one, a unity and purpose. And just going back to the sort of the crisis is that everybody loves a crisis? Why does everybody love a crisis leadership, because it's got a purpose, a crisis, it's got a measure, and it's exciting, and it's doing something different, and everyone's got the space to come together, whatever your function is, and get involved. And, you know, we were brilliant at crisises, at Specsavers, we used to make up names, project this and project that. But actually, if you create that way of doing things in your everyday work, you don't need necessarily, we always going to have these these projects. But those projects of changing crisis shouldn't be more exciting than what you do every day. So take the leadership learning of the crisis room, where there is always a role for and translate it into what you do every day to create the purpose, the space so that everybody round there that you're leading can be the best that you can be. And you can open up functions, you know, there's no hierarchy of functions, yet, I celebrated record weeks. So I was creating a hierarchy of functions, because marketing and advertising and communication thought that they were above the ship development, human resources and stuff because it was all about the marketing message that price, you know, but actually, when you create a unified celebration, which is what's what are we trying to change, and we dropped record weeks, and we moved more into what's the likelihood of that customer returning in two years, which was something that the 1700 people could share equally, nobody owned it doesn't matter if you're at reception picked up the phone, it didn't matter if you're in the stores or you were marketing, nobody owned it more than anyone else. So we dropped this hierarchy of function, which sometimes was hard for you know, marketeers who like to own but look Was there space for that, but we all owned equally. The crisis room, the crisis room was just happened to be the company. And we equally celebrated. And we measured the likelihood to return in two years. And everybody there knew their contribution. It was equal, whatever your role was. And we basically, retrained, refocused and had the conversations on the purpose and values, and I weaned myself out. So it happened that I was leading the brand, the purpose, the values, etc, which we put together called the Powerball it wasn't called the Powerball then. But that was my job, me and my powerful. It was kind of like in terms of my partnership. And number one, I didn't feel as lonely, horrible, you know, it's, it's that whole thing, there wasn't the blame culture, there wasn't the it's your fault. It's my fault. It's this, it was, what are we doing as a team, because we celebrated as one, there was no individual celebrations, which sounds very reasonable, but we didn't need it, because the meetings had a more cross functional view. So actually, learning and development and training was sometimes more important than the message itself, but it was equal. And everybody in the meetings had to contribute towards the common goal, which meant equal contribution. So that means the people that have sat back in meetings before, like X, Y, and Zed, everybody had to step in, you aren't your chair on the table, because purpose was shared by everybody. And it was just, it was a game changer, as simple as it sounds, because then you have that confidence to be the leader that you are, and to delegate to people who share the vision share the purpose, the values equally, it's just a much more broader way of discussing and a much more enjoyable way of working to be honest. You know, there were many little examples, which obviously, we're talking about the Powerball I'll throw in because you kind of think, Oh, my goodness, it's obvious.
It's so interesting, because what you're saying, and my own leadership journey was I started with a very small team, and I had a big team. wasn't wasn't 1700 people, big team, but it was a big team. And there was always that argument, well, you have a small team, so you can do it. And actually, people listening to this may be managing small teams, they may be managing large teams. But actually, what you're showing is that that approach can work, irrespective of the size of the organization, but someone needs to hold that vision or the group need to collectively hold that vision that they have this shared purpose, and that everyone contributes equally to it.
Yeah, absolutely. As I say, to entrepreneurs, I mean, I working with very early stage entrepreneurs, so it's often there may be a co founder, an intern, they're still bootstrapping a lot. So you get a lot of people working part time suppliers in their really diverse ecosystems. But what we do is we use it to say because I say, as long as it's more than you, then it has a role. They said, I'm not sure because I've thought of it on my own, I go, do you have customers, they go, yeah, so you're not on your own. Because the relationship with the customer has to be aligned, because their needs are changing. So therefore, you need to stay aligned with them. No one's ever on their own, you know, in business. So it's very sort of small teams and big teams, it doesn't matter. It's about where you unite. And of course, as individuals, we've all got our own personal values, what's important to us. And of course, during COVID, I think we dug those out of the box, I haven't bothered to think about the last, you know, decade. And I think we all sort of asked ourselves, what do we want from this world? What do we want from life. So now, they're never been as strong as ever with people. So this role of the company, the organization, whether it's small or big, you know, it's now got to accommodate other people's fulfillments. And you know, what we've discovered over the past two years about importance. So it's even more important that a company has very clearly defined purpose and values, because you've got these people who are really clear on their values now, and they're trying to find where they fit. And are your values fitting with theirs. And if you don't have them, they'll just create their own values and sit and be incredibly wonderful, but very ineffective towards your vision. So you want to see what you can magnetize to them, where are they linking their values into? And I think that's very, very important because recruit If your team has changed as well, you know, some of the best recruitment ads that are running moment are done purely on values. This is our values, do you share them? So we don't even ask about skill. So this connection to values and the leadership values of yourself and your company, become incredibly important in today's organization and the world. And doesn't matter if it's small. It doesn't matter what your ecosystem is, whether it's a University College, or a business, as we see them retail, service, online, you name it, the label doesn't matter. If you're gathering people together. It's a very important aspect. I wasn't challenged people go, Yeah, but I'm developing a microchip. I go, what are you going to use it for? A Martian on the moon? No, then it's for a human, it's still got a human end. So that's still part of your journey. So it's always for something.
Brilliant. Brilliant. So you alluded to it, and I alluded to it in my introduction, the Powerball.
Powerball. Yes. You know, everybody had projects during COVID, lockdown. You know, I think everyone sort of thought, well, what am I going to do? I didn't realize it was gonna be so long. But I joined a couple of people, because we were obviously in the Netherlands could go out but not. And we spent the three months of the initial lockdown developing this Powerball, because I thought to myself, what can we do to at that time, save businesses? You know, lot people were shopping for people or doing good. I thought, well, I've what how can I be useful? So we thought we put this message out saying, Does anyone want their business saved? Or, you know, we'll give you a hand, you know? And we got responses. And I was like, Oh, right. Okay, now, I didn't know what I expected. I thought, oh, gosh, I got to do something now. And so we developed this Powerball is if to say, what are you aligning to, because for clarity of message, and the thing was, during COVID, when people had real choice about what to spend their money on, and what not to, I think you have to be very, very pure, with your message very clear. And it had to be super worthwhile. And that's really what we did at Specsavers back in the time when the recession, we had to literally clear out everything, and make sure that everything we did focused on that core message. So I thought, Is there a way that I can take that learning of that recession and make it into something that young entrepreneurs can pick up? Who are trying to create clarity, you know, the only thing that matters, and we created this power ball, which was what are truly your four growth drivers that make a business that's aligned a purpose led organization. And I don't mean the purpose led why people say yes, we do this, we do this the actual purpose that's embedded in a company, that becomes a part of the decisions you make the part of your future, your, you can virtually smell it, it's that tangible. So we developed the pebble, which has the alignment, horizontal and vertical of the purpose relationship, your customer, the way that you work, your customer journey, being customer, first, your team, and what you celebrate together, how you put those people together, so that they can have the space that you want. So that means often making the founder redundant to begin with and put in the back end just like me, and really clarifying what are you here for? What's the purpose? And how do you measure that success? So we created the Powerball and 16 questions and the growth evaluation, which, you know, when the entrepreneurs came to me during COVID, they were like, Okay, we need to save it, etcetera, etcetera. And of course, money is important. So I said, Okay, how much money do you have? How many months produce survive on current whole thing. So we used to work out a very small budget. So we said, right, that's that. So now we know it's not money driven for the next three months. Now we're going to focus on and they always used to think I'd go advertising marketing, of course, it's important, but the right messages and the beginning of that is the origin of who you are. And it was just this beautiful journey of how to get the founder out of their own business in crisis, which is the complete opposite to what an entrepreneur does. But actually, just like me, it was the true answer, to be able to lead the crisis in that case, and to be able to grow and of course, they went on with the space between them and their company that when the world did change back then now leading their business not leading from within and that's been a big change and the Powerball is measured by its percentage inflation and deflation. So if you're deflated, I will say, you're all these forces hitting you left, right and center with a deflated machine as a football trying to push through is squashed. When it's inflated, it can really be your power of growth. And it's this simplistic way of thinking, me and my power ball of what you align and how you make choices, what's the block, where is the deflation, and quite often it can be you got the wrong supplier, or you're not aligned with a team member, or perhaps you've over engineered your message. And it just helps to make those very initial conversations. And to help you lead clarity, once you get clarity, you've got growth, you've got the space to grow. And, you know, we'd had this conversation about everything being businesses, that's universities, higher education and stuff like this. And the world today is all about ecosystems, much more complex is now sort of old fashioned hierarchy half the time. So it's this beautiful way of trying to align the best of everybody, when not everybody reports into you, you can't have a meeting and go Hello, this is why leadership, this is what we'll do, you know, you've got to try and naturally take this broad view of leadership. And, you know, even my suppliers that I work with today, for wise mines, they know the Powerball as well as I do. Because you know, when you go in, something's not working. We don't go it's me. It's you. It's like that we start off by going, uh, where are we deflating? And it's a much more pleasant way of having a difficult conversation.
Yeah. And we talked about that in the pre call, again, about the idea of the Powerball. Not just working for entrepreneurs, but teams or people that are having to work collaboratively, which is often what they have to do well, in many organizations, but especially in universities and academia, but having that idea that, actually, we're all responsible for the power, but we've all got our hands on it. And we can feel that it's deflating, or we can feel that it's inflating. And what do we need to do? And it is that way of bringing everyone together. Yeah. So when you launch this idea, to young leaders, entrepreneurs, what is their initial reaction to it?
Well, it's funny because they do the questionnaire. And then it comes back, and they can read it. And you know, and it gives them initial ideas about where they could look. And it gives them the outcome of what could be happening in their business, because they're misaligned. So we do the Powerball. But we also do the Chi, which is how you support it with organizational structure, how you make decisions, and how you create value. And they go, Oh, my goodness, that that is me. And I say, yes, because you're unique, but the way businesses grow is not there are known patterns of the way businesses grow. So automatically, they go, Oh, my goodness. So it's not just me and my leadership, I'm not being rubbish, or I'm not failing, no, you're actually exactly where you need to be. Because now you know where you are, you can start predicting the patterns and undo it. And you know, the everyday challenges that sometimes leaders face where perhaps functions or in the case of universities, departments don't work together. And it's, you know, I'll give you the example just to, you can map it out. But I remember doing a massive summer promotion, launch. And marketing got this amazing record sales. So course what we do, we're all celebrating, you know, the hierarchy of genius and marketing. But we hadn't ordered enough product to cover the entire weeks that the promotion was on, for example. So marketing brain product, and the store's brain product and product names, marketing. And it's a conflict, it's negative energy. And I'm stood there as the leader going, Oh, my goodness, oh, don't worry, and all this stuff. And I just think if that team had sat down with the Powerball, what's the purpose? How do we unite? You can have a broader conversation that brings in more people, for example, to make it very Peter and Jamie a penny Annika. That's what can happen. And when you get complex and functions, it's never going to be solved. It's always going to leave a bad taste. No one ever walks out unless they're the winners and thinks, oh, do it better next time if they're the ones that have taken the hit. But with the Powerball We nicknamed it a bit like the blame ball, once you push something into third position, it's everybody's responsibility. And therefore you have a joint conversation because As the center, the leader is purpose is the vision, what does that purpose mean? What we're going to do with it, I mean, it sounds a little bit too good to be true, but you'll have a much more effective conversation. It doesn't mean someone's not there doing the next steps, by the way, you know, we still have a functional role. But what we come together and how we bring projects together, comes from a high level. So it means that everybody uplifts and has space. And I think, in this world have more ecosystem style teams now. Or even with people working at home and working in the office, that situation, you've got a unity without having to spell it out, without having to put that through. And it's probably because I have mentors, you mentioned to the beginning graduates or near graduates from uni. And I had a couple around the other day, and they were interviewing me about life of an entrepreneur. And I said, So what's the purpose of this? They were like, well, because I get graded, you know, it says, That's it. But what's the real purpose, so I tried to take them up the hierarchy, this is really interesting. I said, because if you set a small purpose, or a goal, for every meeting that you have as high up as you can, your questions will be different, there might even be better. And that actually, if you create a big purpose, it brings you more a broader subject. And you may even enjoy it more, because grades are great, but they're an outcome of you being genius in the actual assignment. So it was just beautiful things, we stopped and did it again. And then we talked more about the purpose of why they're interviewing me. You know, it's a very simple example. But that's how we can try and get people to look broader to other than the tasks that they're given. And I think that's very important in the sort of ecosystem that a lot of these graduates are going to be walking into, about that self responsibility, they need to know where you fit in. And that's not always on a sort of capability level, you know, I am in PR, I am in this, you need to understand this joint journey above yourself. And I think it's such an important leadership lesson for young people about seeing the bigger picture, because they're going on this incredible word for themselves as well. Yeah,
absolutely. And I think that what you're saying there as well, and the research shows that young graduates are coming out whether they're going down the entrepreneurial route, or going to work for another organization, actually, they want to work with organizations that share their values. And it's not about creating clones, but it's about creating that commonality that brings people together.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's such a beautiful way about the word clone. I think people fear that unity, because they think there'll be a clone. And I said, the whole thing is, you'll never be a clone, because there's only one of you. And that's why the very first part of my program, and I think it would just be amazing if there'll be a lesson in schools or university about it is defining your personal purpose and values as a starting point. And of course, we're always evolving. But the very first thing I do with our entrepreneurs is who are you, because unless you know who you are, you can read as many leadership books as you want, but what you hang it off, because you can't become the book. So you're coming to get ideas, this is you, before you know what leader you're going to be, you need to know who you are. Because this isn't about making clones of leaders, you know, in terms of this, your lead already, as a young person, you're a leader of yourself. And if you know how to lead yourself, you can then look upon yourself to others. And then you could read 30 leadership books and go, Oh, that's a great idea. But you put them on you, you don't just absorb and then today, I'm going to be COVID today, and then tomorrow, we're going to be this. You're trying to create a pattern that's recognizable for you as a leader. Who are you as a leader, who are you first? I love that month one of my leadership program that one. Oh, I love that. Oh, no, that is so true that I feel I feel honored that we're alive. Because it's so true. Is that because you know, absolutely, absolutely. You
can't do anything unless you know yourself and understand yourself. And I think that's a journey that actually if you look at we tend to get there eventually in our 40s or 50s. Yeah, but actually, if we can bring that forward, for people to have that experience as early as possible, then we are creating, you know, really powerful leaders of tomorrow and not letting life get eventually get us there. And some people never get let
know there's some people don't. You know, I love that conversation about the role models because, you know, I said I come from a very high paced entrepreneurial family. I had these two incredible role model balls for my entrepreneurial life. But it took me a while to realize to establish me first because you Chris got these role models in your like they're there. That's the way of doing it. And they were very successful. And that is the way of doing it for that. And you know, to develop your own voice, and then absorb what your role models can bring you is incredibly important. Because authenticity as a leader, it has to be who you are as, especially with some of the younger women I work with, who have doubts of can they achieve or what they doing, I said, but you've got one thing that you know that stronger than anything, they're like, what, what, what you. And once you can define it your voice, and turning passion into a purpose is incredibly important. Because when you're passionate, it's emotion, it's drive. And yes, of course, you want to save the world, I work with a lot of sustainable companies, you want to save the world, you want to make it better for future generations. And I love that. But you need to translate it into a purpose that brings other people with you so that your passion isn't overwhelming. And just doing that their values, how to put it into the values of their company. comps, clears the space and brings a curiosity for others to join. Rather than before they're explaining it, it's like goes on for about 20 minutes, and you think I love it. They seem to know what they're doing and then being there. But when you just give people a taster, you make them curious to go I like that, I want to join that. And there's space because people can understand it. And they're trying to link their values on to a great idea, not a person a great idea. And I think this beautiful way of turning passion, which I used to wear as a badge of honor. Oh, juice is so passionate, I got all Thank you. But I think to a lot of people that was tremendously probably overwhelmed. And I think when you can bring that into a defined purpose of who you are as a leader, it makes you predictable. And people like predictability. You know, it's like a door handle, you know, press the door handle, door handle is supposed to go down and open the door. And that predictability is human. That's what we look for. And that's part of being a leader is being predictable, reliable. But you have to define yourself first.
Yeah, totally agree completely and utterly. So when have you had to dive deep? And what impact did that have on you?
Well, I think I've talked about the recession very much with Specsavers. And, of course, I dove deep there. But in fact, even though it's nothing to do with business, I think my biggest business challenge, which is gonna sound very surprising, when I say was when I needed to manage cancer. And I thought to myself, What am I good at? When you first hear that noise? You have got no idea who you're going to be. But when you first hear those words, you think what am I good at? I'm good at running businesses. And I actually went on to run cancer to myself, not to everybody, it's not I had a flip chart, as a business. So I had that purpose. I had the roles I had everybody mapped out, of course, the most amazing on ecologist, friends and family with the fan clubs. And, you know, and started to build a strategy around it. What's my job description, and is concerned, very embarrassing. I actually wrote myself a little job description, you will turn up as your best, you will try and take a picture every day of something that's joyful that and I ran it like a business. And I ran it like the Powerball. Even though of course it's not. But I think I had to dig very depth there. But I think that gave me security to be aligned to what I knew I was good at which is building businesses, what can I take from that, that brings me a feeling of being in control. But of course, you're never in control of anything. But it gives you that feeling. I felt that I was contributing towards my health and well being that was very important for me. So this powerful in this way of trying to align teams and where you sit in into it, you know, whether it's leading the business small, big or medium, or crisis in other parts of your life. It's a beautiful way of perhaps looking at it. And I think that's where I'd have very deep.
Thank you for sharing that and I'm sure that will be hugely helpful to people out there that are facing their own challenges outside of work and how they they deal with them. And it also makes me feel absolutely right in labeling you as a super well because you know that positivity and that ability to find what worked for you in order to be able to battle that. So thank you. Amazing. Thank you. When have you felt like a fish that climbed a tree?
Well, funnily enough, as an entrepreneur, you're on a roller coaster all the time. And when I worked for Specsavers, even though it was recession, it was a crisis out here, you know that you're part of a bigger function. When you're an entrepreneur, you're very much on your own. So I think it's very much a daily basis of the challenge of being efficient, climbing up that tree, the challenges in there. I think social media for me, and actually marketing my own business was a huge one, I normally had a team that did that. And I think leadership of myself was a big thing. And so I took my values coming back, and I had this Powell called Martha and it would be what would Martha do? And I would always try and picture Martha, with my values going, if she's living her absolute values, how would she cope with this? How would she go into networking? How would she opened up her own Instagram account, which was horrifying to me, and it gave me something to aim for. As much as it sounds, really, this is going Martha. So it's a way of trying to grow yourself through your values when you're on your own. And I've been a Martha forever Afghan I'd heard about her but I hadn't worked with Martha do and I still use it to the day when I've got to go into a networking or something or do a presentation that makes me really nervous. I always go by what would Martha do. And I write this quarter of a little page about this journey Martha would have with obviously, my values, I'm not writing about somebody else, you know, what would bother you? It's like little aim, like, okay, so I'm now going and then eventually, of course, you don't go in as Martha, you merge into yourself, but it gives you like, a little picture to, to kind of, yeah, manifest a little bit. So I often do that, which helps me push because constantly there's always something with entrepreneurship that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. And very not me. So. Yeah, what would Martha do?
For you climb the tree, your climbing partner is Martha to get out battery. So love it. Love it. Love it? Who will be my climbing partner? I should put her on that today. Do you know what I knew this was going to be a Corker of a conversation. I mean so much content so many brilliant ideas in this thank you so so much for sharing those with me. How can people get in touch find out more about you about your company
wise minds.com And it's wise with a why because the young person told me to use a why not and I because I would make me old cheeky but I listened. Why is mine stock calm and on there you can actually look for the growth valuation. So if you fancy doing your Powerball, even for a member of a team, you know just where it says company, just put team a team is a company within a company. So have a go find out how aligned your Powerball is have a bit of fun. So that's number one. And of course, I'm on LinkedIn wise mind sort of Julie Perkins. But what would be fun? Just have a look at your Powerball see what your inflation is.
And you mentioned as well, Instagram, you've got your Instagram account mustn't forget that.
I do I have it there. I have it as my little nemesis. But Martha has one. So what must keep up with it?
I'm just getting to grips with Instagram. So it might be Hades of a certain age is all I'm saying.
People interested in this. I know. I know. But I keep getting told that I should so Okay, okay. I will put all those links in the show notes. So yeah, again, thank you so so much. I have loved, loved loved chatting with you. What final words of wisdom would you like to leave people with today?
I think as a leader, it has to be, you know, to ask yourself the questions about blocks. It has to be about who am I as a leader, and have I got enough space between me and what I'm doing that space is the biggest golden nugget that you'll have. And it gives room for everybody to be the best that they can be.
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the dive D climb high podcast with me, Mel Luisi. To help build a community of leadership listeners, please leave me an apple podcast five star review. Remember, our fishy adventure doesn't have to end here. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram and twitter. Links are in the shownotes dive D climb high can do leadership in a world of calm
