Welcome to Leadership Journeys.
I'm psychologist Leona Deakin and we are delving into the minds of successful women
to find out how they've achieved the things that they have.
On our last episode we heard from the lovely Dr Catherine Scott,
the Chief Executive Officer of Yorkshire Cancer Research.
She talked to us about the tireless work her and her team are doing
to raise awareness of the impact of exercise on recovering from cancer
but also remaining cancer free.
It's a really inspirational insight into a really fabulous leader.
On today's episode...
I took a job on a drama and the producer took me in the office and went,
you know good.
And I just burst into tears because it was a real shock.
She was another part of my life that fuelled me to think,
fuck you.
What do you do if you have a dream
but the whole world tells you you're not up for it and you can't do it?
Well, turns out she was up for it and she could do it.
Today on Leadership Journeys I am talking to the wonderful Lauren York,
CEO of UK Locations.
This is a company that provides film, TV, advertising locations to brands,
broadcasters and streamers. So very glam.
So UK Locations was started by Lauren's brother-in-law, in fact, Nick Jones.
And when he tragically passed away, Lauren stepped in to help her sister run the business.
What started out as an offer of family support turned into quite the impressive career.
One Lauren never really expected but which has taught her about herself
and what it takes to succeed, even when you feel overwhelmed or out of your depth.
So welcome, Lauren.
Thank you. Nice intro.
Thanks, I practiced it.
Love it.
So we're here in your office of UK Locations, which is in Leeds.
You've just been telling me about some of the wonderful locations that you host for your clients.
So these are like millionaires' mansions, are they not?
Is that what you're saying?
We do all sorts of locations, but I would say the majority of our locations are like unbelievable,
beautiful, huge mansions basically, you know, of the very high net worth people.
And it still astounds me and I'm still so thankful.
And it's such an honor to be let into somebody's house because everyone's house is like their kingdom, isn't it?
Whether it's big, small, whatever it is, it's your sanctuary.
And when somebody is allowing you into the house, it's such an honor.
I always think that, like, it's such an honor to be able to A, go into the house, find out who they are,
find out their stories.
It's just still, I still love that part of the job.
So, yeah, getting into people's houses is just amazing.
It sounds really cool.
And that, I mean, we all love to have a little nosy around houses.
I think that's why some of those TV shows are really interesting, aren't they?
Because we like to have a little look about, see how other people live and you're getting that real high life insight.
And so those locations, how are they then used for your clients?
So are they for adverts or are they for dramas or?
Yeah, I mean, we work across all different client segments.
So we work on big dramas.
We work on big Netflix dramas.
We did Fool Me Once, which was a big Netflix drama.
Yeah, that was an amazing house.
It was an amazing house.
That's one of our location partners house.
Absolutely amazing.
Yeah, so beautiful house.
And they used it for eight weeks, that house.
And we work on loads of big dramas.
We work with all the streamers.
We work with all the broadcasters.
But then we also work on big photo campaigns.
We work on digital shoots.
Yeah, this is what I love about my job and my career as an organizational psychologist is every now and then I meet somebody
and they tell me about their job.
And I think, I never knew that even existed as a thing.
Like that's such a cool thing to be involved in.
Yeah. And you know what?
Whenever I tell anybody what I do, they're like, wow, I cannot believe you get to do that.
That's so interesting.
I think when you're in it all the time, obviously it just becomes normal.
But sometimes when I do step away from it, I'm like, God, my job is insane.
Look what we get to do.
Look who we get to work with.
Look what houses we get to go in.
It is amazing.
And yeah, I am really, really grateful for what I do.
It's so cool.
So take us back then to you, to Lauren as a kind of late teens, early 20s.
Like what were you anticipating or hoping that you were going to do career wise?
Did you have a clear idea at that stage?
I have always known I'd work in TV.
Honestly, since I've been tiny, I remember watching TV and just thinking, wow, that how do you get in that box?
Because that is what I want to do.
And it never, ever went away, even throughout my teens, when the careers advisor in the library asked me what I wanted to do,
I said, I want to work in TV.
And they said, I'd maybe think of something different.
And I just thought that was the first spark.
And I just thought, absolutely not.
I'm going to prove you wrong.
And like I said, it never went away.
I went to uni and I did TV.
When I was at uni, I did loads of work placements, worked on Emmerdale, worked at Yorkshire TV loads, did loads of free work,
wrote loads of letters to loads of production companies, hundreds of letters just to see if I could do anything for free.
So, yeah, it's always, always been my passion.
It's never, ever gone away.
And it sounds so determined.
I mean, I remember, I think a lot of us can relate to that careers chat because I was told that I wasn't smart enough to be a lawyer.
Because I was thinking of law.
And then when I think of what I've done in my career, I'm like, of course I was smart enough to be a lawyer.
But I actually listened to them.
But you didn't.
So what was it about your character, do you think, that made you think, no, no, no, was it just that desire was so big?
Or was there some, is there something else about your personality that's just a bit contrary, maybe?
I don't know, to be honest.
All I do know, though, is that the desire was so big.
And I like, I'm so grateful for that because I've spoken to many people before and they didn't know what they wanted to do.
And I actually think that's a lot harder.
But I knew, I always knew, still always know, you know, it's never, ever gone away.
No matter the ups and downs of this career, I've never thought maybe I should leave doing what I want to do.
I've always come back to it.
So, yeah, it's definitely just something within me and the passion of working in entertainment, basically.
Yeah, and following that dream.
Yeah.
However, you did, you started well.
You got this work in TV.
You were in TV, but you didn't stay.
So what happened there?
Did something put you off?
So what happened was I started working in drama.
I worked in the location department.
I always thought that working in TV was going to be really creative.
And, you know, I was going to be writing scripts or, you know, that type of thing.
I really, you know, it was such a dream.
But then the reality of working in a drama wasn't what I thought.
So the hours were, we were doing 18-hour days.
It was, I was working in location, so we were outside a lot in the cold, in the wet.
It was not a very nice environment.
When you're working in drama, it's very, very stressful.
Things change all the time.
There's quite a lot of blame culture.
Things might have changed now, but, you know, this was my experience at the time.
Quite a lot of bullying.
And I did it for three years.
And the other thing is not only are you working 18-hour days,
you tend to work six days a week.
So really you're only having one day off.
And I wasn't seeing any of my family.
I wasn't seeing my boyfriend.
I wasn't seeing my friends.
And I just thought, what is this about?
This is not what I expected at all.
And I remember that on one production,
the gaffer who heads up the lighting basically of the whole production,
took me aside and he said, Lauren, get out now.
He was like, you're young.
Get out before you get so used to this kind of money,
because you do get paid well.
And he said, get out while you can learn to do something different.
He said, this is not a great environment.
It's not very nice.
People aren't very nice.
So get out now.
And I just thought, God, I just need to listen to him and really get out.
And I was feeling really sad.
And I didn't, I was obviously stressed, tired,
all those things that everybody else on the production was as well.
And so I left and I retrained.
I did a night course and I retrained in marketing.
And then I got a job at Aviva doing marketing.
That's quite different.
So now you're in financial services.
So you've gone from working in TV to basically an office job,
albeit in marketing, which is the more creative end of a corporate environment.
But you said there, it was sad.
Did you feel like, oh gosh, I chased my dream.
And then it just wasn't what I wanted it to be or thought it would be.
I really felt like I'd gone into the wrong type of TV,
because there are so many different versions of TV.
You can work in drama, like I said, which was my experience.
You can work in factual, which is things like making a goggle box
where it tends to be, the hours aren't as bad.
It's not as intensive as drama.
People tend to be nicer.
Or you can work in TV commercials.
So you can be freelance.
There's so many different elements or you can be in script.
But I was in locations on drama.
So really I'd chosen probably the longest hours, the more outside, the coldest,
all those kind of things.
I'd chosen that.
I was sad.
But I think the straw that broke the camel's back is I took a job on a BBC drama
and I moved from locations into the office.
So they wanted a production secretary,
which is never something I've done.
And I said, I've never done this before, so I'm letting you know that.
I've only ever worked in locations.
No, don't worry. We'll train you. We'll train you.
I was like, OK, well, wow, what an amazing experience.
And I used to travel from Leeds to Granada Studio every day,
so to Manchester every day. It's quite a lot.
And about two weeks in Shabbat, I thought, well, I don't feel like they're training me.
They're just telling me, could you sort these scripts out?
Can you book these hotels for all these actors?
And some are in Europe, some are in England,
and you've got to do it in line with their age and when their timings and all that kind of thing.
I thought, nobody's explaining how you do this to me.
And then I was like, right, well, just keep going, keep going.
And then a week later, the producer took me in the office and went, you know good.
And I was like, it was such a shock.
And she said, you know good, you're going to have to leave today.
And I was like, OK.
And I just burst into tears because it was a real shock.
And I kind of like was looking around the office at my boss,
the person that was looking after me, and she just put her head down.
She said, you know, you're going to have to go now, get your stuff, go.
And that was it, done.
And so I remember going outside and just crying so much.
I was on the phone to my boyfriend, who's now my husband,
and I was just telling him what had happened.
And I just thought, you know what, I can't be in this industry.
This industry is not for me.
You know, all these things were going through my head.
I'm no good. I can't do this.
And also, I don't want to work with these people.
These people are not my people at all.
They told me they were going to train me, didn't train me.
And you know what, at that point, I vowed to myself, I said, like,
that producer, one day I'm going to get back in touch with her
and I'm going to thank her for this.
And that's what I thought to myself.
I thought, I'm not going to be rude, horrible, anything like that.
I'm going to thank her.
And I haven't done that yet, but I have looked her up and I will do it.
And I'm not going to do it in any kind of horrible way.
But she was another part of my life that fueled me to think, fuck you.
You know what I mean? I just thought, like, how dare you?
Yeah, how dare you.
But you know what, it had knocked me down and I thought,
you know what, I'm just going to try something else.
And then that's when I went into marketing.
So that's what, you know, it had gone on for a long time.
The gaffer had a word with me and then that thing happened.
And I just thought, nah, I'm not doing this.
Out, I'm so left.
And that makes me so angry because in my job as a leadership psychologist
coaching lots of people, staff and leaders in organizations,
when I hear these stories of managers who just say things unthinkingly
or they put pressure on people or they give them an unrealistic job preview
and then don't train them and then tell them they're crap.
It makes me angry because I'm like, you have no right.
Because this doesn't just affect that person's career, which is bad enough.
It potentially affects their confidence, their self-esteem,
their potential.
It has such an impact on how they think about themselves and what they can do.
And I think for you to have that, well, obviously you had good support
from your boyfriend, now husband, and that's always good to lean on, isn't it?
But that presence of mind to think I'm going to pick myself up,
brush myself off and one day, one day I'll be able to look back
and see this as helpful.
And I think that's almost the essence of resilience, isn't it?
Resilience isn't about our ability to avoid bad things happening or to avoid pain.
It's about how quickly we can get up again afterwards.
I mean, to be fair, as a producer, TV is so high-pressured.
There's so much at stake all the time.
I'm sure you obviously carry that experience with you.
And these things become like a little compass, don't they,
of what to do or not to do.
We learn so much from the people that we see that do things wrong.
And all of that experience is probably helping your leadership to evolve.
Yeah.
So you go into marketing, you're in a viva.
What was that like?
I felt stifled.
I felt claustrophobic.
I was working in pensions marketing.
I mean, does it get any more boring?
Oh my God.
I mean, you've gone from one extreme to another.
But you know what?
I have to say the thing that I learned about working in corporate,
because I went from a viva, then I went to Bradford and Bingley,
so working in corporate was amazing in the sense of I got trained really well,
you had good values, they looked after people.
I learned how to manage up.
I learned how to manage expectations.
I learned how to, you know, all the stuff that you don't learn in TV,
you just expected to know.
You know, they really, and also I learned things about professionalism,
processes, efficiency, all that kind of thing that honestly,
that part of my life has really, really had a massively positive effect
on my business now because I've taken the professionalism of corporate life
and I've applied it to TV where there isn't so much of that, I have to say.
So I will always be truly grateful for that time in corporate life.
Like I met some amazing people, learned so much stuff,
but I felt stifled and I felt like I couldn't be my true self.
I didn't feel like my opinion really countered.
It just didn't feel right.
Yes.
It wasn't right, but it was OK.
It was OK.
Were you aware in the moment of what you were learning
or has that been more of a hindsight?
It's been a hindsight.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, I loved how they do, you know, a lot of corporates,
they really value people and they put a lot of attention on training
and they'll develop you.
And again, that doesn't happen in TV.
People don't have time for it because they're moving from one job to another to another.
So they don't have time to train you.
It's like, no, you just got to learn it and you just got to know it.
Whereas in corporate life, you know, they really want to develop you
and they put time and effort and everything into you
and they'll take time to train you.
And I loved that.
I loved that.
And so I did really thrive in that environment and I did well,
but I had a nagging feeling it just wasn't right for me.
I just knew.
There's something, isn't there, about that kind of intuition.
So there's a lovely piece of research by Angela Duckworth,
who's an American psychologist, and she did this whole thing that she termed GRIT,
which is an acronym.
So it's having a growth mindset, being resilient, using your intuition and being tenacious.
And she said being gritty is a factor in whether we succeed or not.
So her research is all about that achieving success.
But that intuitive bit that she talks about where she says,
our bodies try and tell us something and it isn't some magical insights,
some spiritual thing even that's coming to us.
It's usually based on the brain's prior experience and maybe its prior desires,
like what it really wants to be doing.
And it's giving you that feeling of discomfort or dissonance, you know,
that sort of like I'm doing well here and I'm learning things and I should be OK,
but why do I not feel OK?
And her advice is listen to that intuition because it is telling you something powerful.
You wouldn't be feeling it if there wasn't a reason.
So interrogate it and find out whether there's something there going on,
which presumably there was for you that you just felt this isn't really me.
No. And I always felt like I wanted to move on.
OK. I just didn't feel...
You didn't know how.
Yeah. And I just didn't. It just, like I said, it just didn't feel right.
Whereas the work I do now completely feels right.
I don't... I never question it. It never comes up ever.
That's powerful, isn't it?
Yeah. And the interesting thing is like one of my bosses from Bradford & Bingley,
who I adore, he was an amazing manager. Absolutely love him.
I'm still in contact with him now.
He was really shocked when I took over UKELLOCATIONS and made a success of it.
And I'm not saying that he thought that I would never make a success of stuff.
He just didn't see that in me when I worked there.
But that's because I wasn't able to show that about myself.
Yeah.
I wasn't able to show or couldn't be who I was fully could be, basically.
Because I think in corporate life, you're quite restrained.
You know, there's so much red tape, you know, there's so many silos on there.
It's really hard to get out of different teams.
You get pigeonholed really quickly.
Absolutely.
And so, you know, I don't like that.
And that didn't work for me.
It's interesting that Charles Handy, who was like a management writer back in the 80s,
he said he used like imagery to describe different cultures.
And the corporate environment he did is like Greek temple.
So he said like the triangle at the top, which is the roof,
that's got your board, your chief exec, your directors, your non-execs in it.
And then all of the columns that are holding it up are your finance, your marketing, your HR.
And you can't jump between those things.
They're, like you say, really siloed.
And then so you're really, it's really nice in a way that it's quite secure and safe
and really clear what your roles and responsibilities are.
But in comparison, he described a small organisation like UK Locations as more of a spider's web.
Where he's like, so basically everyone's connected and everyone's doing a bit of everything.
And everyone can have a go and people take risks and they have to be brave and bold
because they're trying something new.
And that was when you were describing those different environments,
like you can't test yourself in that Greek temple, can you?
Whereas in the spider's web, you can jump to wherever and have a go at anything
that you're willing to have a go at.
And I think, you know, corporate life suits different people, doesn't it?
Because some people like the safety of stuff, don't they?
They like to know exactly what they're doing.
Exactly how they get to the next stage.
They don't want to try different things.
But for me, that wasn't my vibe.
I didn't flourish in that situation.
I didn't like being restrained and I didn't, yeah.
And so even though you had that intuition and you knew it wasn't for you,
it was fate really that brought you to UK Locations.
Well, the thing is, I mean, after that corporate life, I went travelling.
I went on my own and I travelled for 10 months.
Oh, right. Was that to break the...
Yeah. To give yourself a bit of space?
Yeah, it was. And I was just, I knew, I remember being, again,
the straw that broke the camel's back as I was on this training.
Brad from Bingley put me on this training day in London
and it was some kind of management training.
And I was listening to it and I just thought, oh my God, I'm done.
I am done. I couldn't, I just thought, this is not, no, I've done it now.
This is my time. I'm out of here.
And I just thought that day I went home and I decided I'd be going travelling.
And Bradford and Bingley were making everyone redundant anyway
because obviously they folded.
And I just thought, I'm out. I'm not moving to another financial services.
I'm done. And then I went travelling after that.
Just going back, you told me that while you were working in TV,
you'd introduced your sister, is that right?
Yes.
So my boss at Yorkshire TV was Nick Jones, who was a very successful location manager.
And he was my boss when I worked on the Kay Mellor show,
it was like Fat Friends.
And I set him up on a blind date with my sister.
They got together and had children.
Lovely.
Yeah.
And then he set up UK locations.
Yes, that's right.
And how long was he running that then?
I think it was around three to four years that he was running it for.
Yes.
And then sadly he passed away.
He did, yeah. He died in a car crash.
Obviously my sister was left with a three and four year old at the time.
So I moved in with my sister to help her look after the children.
And so at what point did you offer them to help with this?
Because now I'm seeing that link between you working on locations,
because you were saying I picked the wrong thing in hindsight.
I should have gone to one of the other areas,
but actually it was quite fortuitous that you've done location.
Well, one, you met Nick.
Yeah.
But then suddenly there was a business here that actually you knew a bit about.
Yeah, totally.
And so my sister was running the business.
She's a nurse. She was obviously grieving.
It was very difficult.
It was also the start of the last recession, so 2008.
So it was pretty hard.
It was hard for her.
And Nick was the business. He was a face of business.
He was so charismatic. He was such an amazing person.
People just adored him.
So you can totally see why the business had done well.
But obviously without him, it was just a different beast basically.
And so I said to my sister, you know, should I work in it?
And then there was a few difficult conversations because we were both working in it.
And it just wasn't quite working.
So we just decided like Sal would go back to nursing and obviously look after the children.
And I would just give UK locations a go.
And I just thought, what is the worst that could happen?
Because the worst thing has happened.
So actually, even if it doesn't work out, I will just get another job.
It doesn't matter.
And then so that's what happened.
And that's a brave move, isn't it?
Because here you have a business that, like you say, is about the individual really
and about the relationships presumably he had.
Yeah.
And then you step into it and that's one, a hard act to follow,
especially as he's not with you anymore.
And also he's a family member that you love and you've lost.
So, I mean, to step into that, how did you feel in that?
I mean, was that scary?
Do you know what? It wasn't.
And I tell you why, because like I said, the worst thing had happened.
And there was just bigger fish to fry.
You know, it wasn't scary.
I just thought, fuck it, what's going to happen?
You know, it doesn't matter really.
And so that's why I just did it.
And, you know, my husband had gone back to university at this point.
He was studying civil engineering.
And obviously I started working at UK locations.
We were earning a lot of money because the business wasn't doing very well.
We had no money. We had no money.
I mean, you know, we didn't even have TV.
We used to watch TV on his phone together.
So we really had hit rock bottom.
But you know what?
Like I said, it wasn't worse than losing Nick.
So nothing was worse than that.
So everything seemed better.
So in perspective, it was a small thing to be doing really.
And it was totally.
And I just gave myself space and I just thought,
if it doesn't work, it does not work.
It's OK.
Yeah, yeah. And gave yourself permission to just have a go and see what you could do.
So what did you do over the next few years then with that business?
Because you've turned it into something else, presumably.
Yeah, I mean, I initially I followed the same model that Nick had done.
So, you know, he was hiring locations, but he was also a location manager.
So what would happen is he'd hire location on a shoot,
but he would also be on that shoot, like looking after the location.
And so his business model was getting paid from the location.
He'd get a location fee, but he would also get a fee for being a location manager.
Obviously, I wasn't a location manager, but I had worked in drama as a location assistant.
So I basically just replicated what he did.
And I said I was a location manager.
So I used to go on these shoots.
And honestly, I say, oh, my goodness, what am I doing?
You know, I'd be on these shoots.
And really, I didn't really know what I was doing, but I just thought, right,
I was so determined to do it that I just did it.
So, you know, I'd be on these shoots and be there at four in the morning,
opening up and getting ready to get the unit in and things like that,
and getting all the production in and then finishing at like 12 at night on that day
and then driving home.
And I did that for about two years.
So I replicated what he did for two years.
And I went to see every single client.
That was the other thing that I did.
And I reintroduced myself, told them the story.
Obviously, they knew Nick had died.
And I must say, people were so receptive because they loved him so much.
And they were so kind to me.
So I think they felt they helped me and they booked stuff through me just because of Nick.
So, you know, it wasn't my doing that I turned all around.
I have to say they really helped me.
But then after two years, I thought, oh, God, this is I'm not a location manager.
I'm not. And I don't want to be.
I don't want to.
You know, because everything I'd hated at the beginning when I was younger,
I was doing again, you know, getting up at four o'clock in the morning,
doing those really long hours.
I just thought, this isn't me.
It's not what I want to do.
But I've done it and I've got it to this stage.
But now I need to change it.
So that's when I changed the business model.
And then we were more just about the locations.
So we were in a location agency and we worked with location managers
and we put them on different shoots.
OK, yeah.
So that's when that kind of changed, really.
And when you were doing that two years of being the location manager,
what did you learn about yourself over that period of time?
Oh, I don't like being cold.
I don't like parking cars.
These are good life lessons though.
I think we can all we can all take from this.
You did it as well. So you went in there.
You weren't a location manager.
So you faked it.
But you went in and you did it.
You found out you didn't like it, but you did it.
I think that's just really cool, isn't it?
Because the fact you had that perspective of,
well, the worst thing has already happened.
So what does it matter?
I'll just go along and I'll do it.
And you must have felt on those sets sometimes like someone in a minute
is going to tap me on the shoulder and go,
what do you think you're doing?
I mean, a lot of the time I was just really open with people
and people obviously knew that Nick had died.
So again, people were very kind.
And I think they allowed me to just try my best.
And I do think in those situations in TV,
if you are just honest, open, kind, try your hardest.
I don't think people can really argue with that, can they?
You know, if you're giving it your all and you're doing a good job
and you'll be nice to people.
Well, you learned you could do it.
Yeah.
You could do it, not only run the business,
but you could go and be a location manager,
even though you hadn't been a location manager before.
And I think there's a lesson there for all of us, isn't there,
about if you want to do something and have a go, just go have a go.
Because you might discover that you can do it.
Then you might discover you don't like it.
And then you have to do something about that, don't you?
So once you've changed the business, so now it's just an agency.
And then did that feel different then for you?
Because presumably now this was your concept,
your baby.
Did that change things?
Yeah, it did.
I guess I always thought, is this right for me?
Is this what I should be doing?
Because at that point I didn't feel completely comfortable, I have to say.
I still felt like I was being a bit of an imposter,
didn't really know what I was doing, feeling my way through things.
And I think I was doing every single element of the business,
and at that point I learned I couldn't do accounts.
I'm so bad at things like that, maths, accounts.
Commercially, I'm brilliant.
But the actual account side of stuff, absolutely terrible.
I was like not missing invoices, not getting people to pay, all that kind of thing.
So then it has a real detriment effect on the business, doesn't it?
And at that point my husband had started working in civil engineering,
not really liking it.
And so he was starting to really love photography,
and he's really good at maths.
So at that point we were like, well, why don't you join the business?
You can photograph all our locations, and then also you can do accounts.
Really, I love that delegation.
Just like you're good at maths, you do it.
Love it.
So that's what happened.
He joined the business there.
He's really brilliant at IT processes, things like that.
So he kind of sort of...
You married well.
So he really sorted out.
Also, he had worked in locations too.
So he'd had that experience.
So he joined the business, I think this was probably about eight years ago,
and that was a real turning point for us,
because then I could concentrate on the sales, kind of client side of stuff,
bringing in more locations, and he could focus on the other elements.
Yeah, that was a massive turning point.
It was also, you know, it's tricky working with your husband, I have to say.
It's difficult.
So that came with all its...
Well, it must be quite intensive, because you're together at work,
you're together at home, and so it's like, what are you talking about?
Do you just talk about work at home?
Because normally we go home to our partners, we tell them a bit about our day,
they tell a bit about their day, but you've been together.
So there's something there, I imagine you have to differentiate quite clearly.
And I was pregnant at this time, you know, with my first baby.
So there was a lot going on, definitely.
I mean, you're stacking in the challenges there, really, aren't you, Lauren?
Just getting them in there.
Just why not? I'm a bit bored, let's just have the baby in.
Like, running a business isn't enough.
And then you got to the point, you told me before,
where the business was doing well, and then it started to plateau,
and then you had a bit of a crisis of confidence, didn't you?
Yeah, massively, yeah.
So I got it to a level where it was doing well,
but it was still kind of like a lifestyle business, I would say.
You know, you could still run it from home.
Maybe we had two employees, and then there was James and I as well.
It plateaued for about two or three years, and I just didn't know what to do.
Honestly, I thought, how do you make this go bigger?
How do you grow it?
And then I started turning on myself and thinking, well, maybe I'm not good.
Maybe running a business just isn't me. I can't do it.
So that's what I kept thinking.
And, you know, I turned to the lep in Leeds and tried to get some strategic help,
but it never kind of landed, and I don't know.
I just didn't really know how to strategically grow it
because I didn't know how to do strategy, basically.
And I just thought, well, maybe I'm just not good at that.
Maybe I'm not strategic.
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought.
And then at that point, I thought, do you know, I'm just going to sell it.
I'm just going to sell it because what is the point?
I'm just not very good at this, and I'll just go back to marketing
and I'll work for somebody else. That's what I thought.
And then it was the lep, actually, in Leeds that came to me and they said,
like, there's this Goldman Sachs program and it's free,
but it's hard to get onto, but they help you grow your business
by teaching you how to grow your business.
And I looked and I thought, oh, my God, this looks like I just,
it's just perfect for me. I need to do it.
And I applied once and I didn't get on it.
And then I applied again and I got on it.
And I remember when they told me and I just burst into tears in the interview
because it meant so much to me for somebody to believe that I could do it.
And I just couldn't believe that I'd been given that opportunity.
And after all that voice in your head that was saying, maybe you can't,
maybe you shouldn't, maybe it's not you, to then have an external person
and then a big brand like that that know what they're doing, saying,
yeah, come join us. We think you've got what it takes.
That must have an amazing impact on your confidence.
It did. And then I, yeah, like I said, I couldn't believe it.
And then when I got on it and when I started doing it,
it completely changed my life.
It completely changed how I felt about myself, how my ability, my belief, my ability.
Because they do, the training is so amazing.
So they give you four months of strategic growth training
at Oxford University Business School.
You're getting taught by the people who run multimillion pound businesses.
So they know how to bloody do it.
And the program is so well set up.
And I just drank it in. I just loved every single second of it.
It was so amazing. I loved it so much.
And I will always be so thankful to Goldman Sachs for that.
It was just life changing.
And I've told them, I've told them loads of times how I feel about it.
Because after I finished, to be among other CEOs of companies,
everybody there owns the business.
No one can't not own the business.
And so you then among all the people who feel the same way about stuff.
So they all say, is it me? Can I do this?
You've got this group of people you can say, this is happening in my business.
Has that ever happened? Yes, it happened to me.
And this is how I did it.
And you're like, oh, my God, that's just just the information I need.
And it just like gets you there so much quicker.
And then the confidence thing, you're like, you know, did that happen to you?
Yeah, and I made that mistake. Oh, my God, I made that mistake, too.
How did you get right? Oh, my God, it's not just me.
It's not me. And I so empowering.
Like, I just couldn't believe how amazing that was, because I thought I can bloody do this.
And so when I finished that program after finished, we doubled turnover.
We doubled the team.
We made more money than we'd ever made ever.
We took the whole team skiing, you know, because we were making so much money then.
And it was so amazing.
And I thought, oh, my God, I am actually really good at this.
So it wasn't that you couldn't do it.
It's that you didn't have the Intel.
You didn't have the data, the know how, the network. That was what was missing.
It was nothing about you, your passion, your ambition, your work ethic,
all those things that, you know, make you Lauren.
There was nothing deficient there.
It was just that input and the support and the reassurance that, oh, my God, we all have that.
Oh, yeah, that's definitely I fell over just the same.
This is what I did to get up again. And that reassuring support.
Yeah. And, you know, they still now when you're part of Goldman Sachs program, you're there for life.
Basically, you're part of their alumni.
So we we all now meet regularly.
They still do regular get togethers.
We're on WhatsApp with the people, you know, so you just have like on speed dial people.
You just go like I'm feeling like this. I've got this HR issue.
This is happening to me. Don't worry. I know this person.
Don't worry. That happened to me. And I did this.
I that now for me, that comfort blanket is all that I needed.
And I just needed to know how to write a strategy, how to really understand how I grow a business.
And now I have that. You know, I feel like I can do anything really.
I mean, the imposter syndrome still comes in at times without a doubt.
You know, I'm launching something new at the moment.
Imposter syndrome is coming again, but it's nowhere near what it used to be
because I now feel like I've got the building blocks.
I know how to grow a business. I know what you need to do.
Yes. And so I know that if I just put those frameworks in place, it will happen.
And I think that imposter syndrome, that's where the mind is being helpful.
I think it's really healthy when we go into something new and novel to feel that sense of,
oh, I might not be good enough. I might need to do something different.
Because I think that gives us the adrenaline, the fire in our belly to go and find things
and learn things and pay attention or just to get up and on it a little bit more,
get out of bed a bit earlier, work a little bit later.
It's that anxiety that's fueling something productive rather than the other version of anxiety
where we just let it overwhelm us and we can't then act because we feel overwhelmed with it.
Whereas I think that level of imposter syndrome, when you're in something new,
I think that's really healthy.
Yeah. I mean, with the new element of the business that we're about to,
what I'm working on now, we're going to launch next year.
Like I said, the feelings of imposter syndrome have come in again.
And then also the anxiety around, will it work? Won't it work? Can I do it?
All those kind of things. And that happened over a three-week period.
And I wasn't sleeping properly. I was allowing it to infiltrate my whole life basically.
And I took a step back from it and I had a word with a friend of mine who's a psychologist.
And she really helped me put it into perspective and reframe how I feel about it.
And so I now see that it's a project that I'm working on.
It might work, it might not work, but I will give it my best shot.
There's productive worry and there's unproductive worry.
So if I'm worrying about something overnight, I now get out of bed and I write,
is it productive worry? If it is productive worry, I then put a date to it.
So I will do this by then. So I know that I'm going to do that.
If it's unproductive worry, I put it in another column and I put my values to it.
So say, for example, this will never work.
If that's one of my unproductive worries, I will look at that and I think it might not work,
but I'm going to give it my best shot because that is one of my values.
I want to do it so much and I have a passion and an interest to do it so much.
So if it doesn't work, at least I've tried. At least I've given it my all.
And you will learn. You will learn.
And I think that's one of the things that we forget sometimes when we're feeling scared of something,
that whether it succeeds or whether it fails, we will be different at the end of that process.
We will have grown in our understanding of ourselves, our understanding of that piece of work,
our understanding of the world and other people.
So every experience is a learning experience, isn't it?
And I think if we focus more on what can I learn rather than will I succeed,
that can, like you say, just calm everything down and just manage that anxiety.
I love that two columns, though, productive and unproductive.
And then some people would be like, and then I just focus on the productive.
But you're actually actively thinking about the unproductive and reframing that.
Yeah. And that's really cool. I can see how that must be really powerful.
Yeah, completely, because it allows you to understand that that worry is important.
It is. It's not ignoring it. I'm not thinking just go away. Why am I anxious?
It is. It's my body telling me, you know, it's a fight or flight, isn't it?
My body, the cortisol in my body, my body's doing a good thing
by trying to keep me awake at night worrying about stuff.
But I have to reframe that in my head.
And I, you know, so my friend told me just thank your body for doing the job it's doing.
But then say, I'm OK. It's OK. I'm safe. And this is what I'm going to do about her.
And actually, that has been so powerful. So I'm now sleeping better.
You know, and I don't feel the pressure of the new project.
I just think I am grateful for the opportunity to work on this new project.
And I am going to enjoy it. Enjoy it. Absolutely.
And the brain has such great advice from your friend.
And the brain doesn't know why the cortisol level has gone up.
It's such a primitive system.
And essentially, our cortisol level fight and flight kicks in because we're escaping with our lives.
That's fundamentally what it's there for.
And so if you have lots of cortisol in your system, if you're really stressed and anxious
and you're thinking lots about being stressed and anxious and the thing that's stressing you,
your brain won't let you go into a deep sleep.
It won't let you sleep through the night because it thinks something's coming to get you
because the brain, you know, it's evolving slowly.
It doesn't understand that that stressor is a negative email you got or a new project coming.
It thinks it's a saber-toothed tiger. You know, it doesn't know yet.
And so just understanding that, yes, it is doing something helpful, but actually just calming everything down.
Like you're saying you're doing the Pilates and all the things that remove like a little bit of gentle exercise,
good bit of fresh air, distracting yourself from the stressors.
These are all the things that calm our physiology down, drop our cortisol levels, allow us to sleep.
Yeah. And I think it's, you know, for me as well, like my tendency is to jump feet first in and to give it everything.
And that thing of giving it everything for me is like waking up at five, starting work then before the children get up,
working as much as I possibly can, try and work in weekends. But that is my, that's what I tend to do.
So I have to look at that and think that's not healthy.
And so what is healthy is really setting boundaries.
And, you know, so now if I get up at five, I don't do work. I'll do meditation and I do some breathing exercises.
Or I might even watch TV, you know, because that will allow my, for me personally, allows my brain to relax.
And then, you know, every day I'll do an hour's exercise and I will fit that into my working day because it allows me to work better and to be better and to help with my mental health.
It reduces my anxiety. And so I know all these things about me.
So I try not to get back into how I would normally do stuff or, you know, it's like an addiction to it really.
But I have to really set my boundaries around it.
Yeah. And it's really normal, isn't it, that if you've got something big going on or something difficult going on, it makes sense to work longer and work harder and not take a break.
But what we have to realize is that cortisol makes us tunnel vision. So it's basically saying don't look away.
Don't look away from the threat. Keep your attention on the threat.
But resilience wise, we can't sustain that. Eventually we're not sleeping very well and then we're going to get sick.
So you when we first spoke, you got a cold, hadn't you?
Because you're in all of that and all of that thing. Whereas we're really resilient.
Human beings are really resilient when we have this pattern of stress, rest, stress, rest, stress, rest.
So sitting, watching the TV, doing meditation, thinking about something other than the project is really healthy stuff.
And it makes such a difference. And you're living that, aren't you?
You're like, oh, my gosh, I'm feeling so much better. Just a couple of weeks on. Yeah.
Because you've changed how you're thinking about this thing and how you're responding to it.
Yeah, it wasn't working for me. How I was doing before.
And then also, you know, it affects everybody. It affects my kids, affects my husband, my team here. You know, that is not a great.
I can't lead a team in that position of complete stress and tiredness.
You're going to be techy. Exactly.
So, yeah, just as a kind of final area, really, you talked about the bad bosses you'd had in the past.
Yeah. How do you lead your team now? What's your philosophy? What are your leadership values?
How do you try and approach it? Yeah. So in our work, we don't have any hierarchical structure.
Obviously, we have roles of what and responsibilities of what we do.
But no one does not the structure of, you know, no one can't talk to me, has to go through somebody else. None of that.
Everybody's opinion really matters.
And we encourage people to say what they think so that we can think about, you know, that we can make a decision together.
Because the thing is, I don't know everything. And I don't want to know everything either, because that's insane.
I wouldn't be able to do that. And so I want to hear everyone's opinions and I want them to feel valued.
And that's how we kind of work here. So everyone has a voice. Everyone's opinion counts.
You know, I don't make the final decision on maybe the bigger and important, bigger things I do.
But, you know, I'll say to them, you know, what do you think about that?
Well, I think this. Yeah, you are right. That is definitely the best way to do it.
The other thing is, like, for me, it's holding your hands up and saying sorry.
The other day I made a mistake and it had an effect on one of the team members with a client.
And I came into the office and I straight away apologized to her because she had the brunt of it.
And I went to the client and I told them the situation that I it would be me. I had done that.
None of my team. It was all to do with me. And I was sorry. It wouldn't happen again.
And then we carried on because I think that it's not fair to allow somebody else to take the brunt of something that I had done.
And also, why not just hold your hands up and say it was me.
This is what I'm going to do next time. Or it won't happen again. I'm really sorry. Let's move forward with this.
Oh, my God. I'm just imagining some of my client groups listening to this and thinking, I want to go and work for Lauren.
Because this is the opposite of what some people get. But there's a humility in it.
So it's not just asking people's opinions.
It's being prepared for them to have a better idea or a better insight from what you're saying, isn't it?
Isn't just about going through the motions of everyone has a voice, but I'm the boss and I decide.
It's everyone has a voice because more brains are more intelligent than one brain.
So let's be in this together and use all those different insights.
And also, you know, everyone makes mistakes, don't they?
Everyone makes mistakes. Repeated mistakes is another thing.
But mistakes, owning it and apologizing for me is really powerful because and then learning from it.
You know, that's really powerful. And I want them to do that, too.
I want us all to be feel comfortable in owning our shit, basically. If we've done something wrong, just own up to it.
We'll sort it out and let's move on. We don't repeat it.
You know, I do that with the kids as well, you know.
It is. It's like being a good parent, isn't it?
And it's role modeling the behavior you want.
You know, that whole thing of, you know, the kids aren't allowed to have their tech at the table when you're eating dinner.
So why is mom and dad got their phone in their hand?
You know, it's those simple things, isn't it? What you're doing will instruct others about what's appropriate behavior, what we should be doing.
If you're honest and you're willing to hold your hands up and if you're willing to say you're sorry and you ask people their opinions,
well, that's encouraging your team to do the same and telling them something about the kind of environment you want to build.
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, my children will call me out and stuff.
I mean, they're five and eight. But, you know, they'll say, mommy, but you said this about this.
And I'm like, OK, did I? OK, thank you for that. Thank you for bringing that up.
And OK, well, maybe I did it because of this or oh, thank you.
Yes, I appreciate that. And I won't do that again.
But I really praise them when they call me out because they're not being rude.
They're not being, you know, difficult. They're they feel like they can tell me and have a voice.
And I think why I want to know that. And you want them to grow up like that, because essentially as a child,
telling your parent, giving your parent feedback, you're speaking the truth to power.
And if you speak the truth to power and power listens, you go out into the world as an adult thinking power is going to listen.
How empowering is that as a lesson in childhood?
But also, don't you think like kids have an opinion far too soon, though, really?
Like before you have kids, like you think it's going to be like a Disney movie and it's not, is it?
They like they do. But you know, one of my worst hates is when is when kids are shut down.
Yeah. No, you're right. Or when any person is shut down. I don't like it.
It triggers me. I don't know. Maybe because of past things. I don't know.
But I think everybody has should be given the chance to voice their opinion about something.
And then we discuss it, whether what opinion you go with in the end. Fine.
But everybody should be given the chance to voice how they feel about a situation completely.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's very disempowering and suppressing to have someone sitting there with a burning idea or a burning concern and they're not able to express it.
Like how much stress is that creating in another person or in a child?
And so, yeah, it's part of your values. Yeah, completely.
Yeah. So I'm really getting a sense of how you lead. And it sounds fabulous.
Really, it does, Lauren. And I'm sure it's part of that secret to success.
Goldman Sachs aside, I think, you know, the fact that you're leading your people in that way is facilitating everything that's happening and the good things that are happening.
But we're all learning, aren't we? We're all learning.
There's always room for growth, isn't there? And there's always room for feedback, isn't there?
You know, as well, like, you know, so I definitely don't know it all and I definitely have made mistakes in the past.
How boring would life be there if you already knew it all now? And so there was no more learning.
Yeah, life done. Yeah, done. I'm finished. I'm finished.
And I meet some people who I think they do genuinely think that they're finished. Right.
And it's not healthy. And I don't think they're happy. No.
I think there's something fundamental about the human being wanting to grow and develop and be better tomorrow than we were today.
So when you think back to that teenage, young version of Lauren, what would she think of where you are now?
You know, I think she would be so proud and also pleased at where she'd got.
If I was to give myself some kind of advice, I would say there's always another way.
That would be my advice to anyone, really.
And, you know, as one door closes, I know it's cliche, but another one can open as long as you're looking for that door.
And that has been my career. It has gone, you know, sideways, ups, downs, all over.
But really, I've been on that path to where I want to be. And that's making entertainment and being creative.
And things don't always go the way that you expect them to go.
But you've just got to keep looking for a different way and a different route to get there.
And don't allow anybody to tell you, you cannot do it. Yes.
And if we could all believe that a little younger in life, I think so many of us get to that insight later.
But like you say, if you could whisper in her ear, it would be like, just keep your mind open.
I mean, it sounds like just the way that you've approached your career has been very open minded.
So you've known what you wanted, really, since you were young.
But how you've got there is wiggled around.
But you've just kind of followed that, taken what you can from it.
And it seems like quite reflective as you've been going, like you're describing insights you've gained along the way, which not everybody can do.
So you're obviously somebody who's occasionally stopping and thinking, OK, so what was that experience like in the finance sector?
What did that give me?
And, you know, what were those bosses telling me about myself or the world or how not to lead?
So you're paying attention to those experiences and feeding it into your own tactics and approach.
And I think that's great. I think there's a massive lesson to that.
But also you just your enthusiasm, you know, you just hear you're enthusiastic.
You love what you do. Yeah. And that's infectious, isn't it? Yeah.
Who wouldn't want to be around that? It's lovely.
Oh, Lauren, it's been great. Is there anything else that you would like to say to women that are following in your footsteps?
Is there anything I mean, similar to what I said before, I think for women leaders or any, you know, women who are starting out with something,
the thing that will get you there is your passion and your grit.
Really? You know, honestly, that's that's it at the end of day, because people will tell you tear your strips off you and people will say, you know, you're not doing the right thing or that will definitely happen.
There's no two ways about it, especially when you're going out on your own in corporate life.
You're a bit more sheltered, I think anyway.
But when you're you're doing it for yourself, you're running your own business, you know, that thick skin, it doesn't just happen.
But you have to have a really clear vision of where you want to be.
And so when people do when it doesn't quite work or when people do tear bits off you, you can just keep thinking, I'm just going to keep going with this.
I'm just going to keep going with it and just find a different route.
And that is honestly what I would. It's not easy and it's not quick, but it does work if you keep going with it.
Wow. What a great piece of advice. Be more gritty.
Stick at it and who knows what you can achieve.
Lauren, thank you so much. Thank you. I've had an amazing time. It's been great, hasn't it?
I feel like we're just mates now.
In the next episode. It's really about confidence.
I mean, there's a huge sort of notion of manifestation and how you manifest your dreams.
And that kind of supports the idea that that confidence and belief in yourself will will see you through to where you want to go.
Because if you give up, you're not going to take those steps that you would have taken if you believed in yourself.