Communicating Belonging at Work

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Holding It Both Ways, a podcast for leaders that talks about the complex relationship between leadership and the human side of things. Now today we've got another amazing episode for you, and I'd love you all to say hello Tahara. Hello, how are you doing?

Hi Cynthia, thank you so much for having me.

Oh, it's such a delight to have you. But I wonder if you could just tell the folks a little bit about you so they can kind of understand the conversation we might have today.

Absolutely. So my name's Hira. I am a London-based tech founder, recent tech founder. My background is in internal comms and now I've recently just launched my own AI app in the internal comms space, which I'd love to talk to you about as well.

Oh, we definitely will be talking about that because it was so exciting. And I can't wait. I haven't seen the initial email, but I know I'm on the waitlist. So, excited to join. But we'll get to that. Now that folks kind of have a basis of understanding, I wonder if you could, because this is a conversation about people's leadership journey, why don't you kind of take us a little bit kind of through your journey into leadership. We'll talk about the change from being a leader to a founder in a moment, but really kind of where did you come from? How did you kind of progress through maybe up to that point where you said, I maybe need to do something different?

Yeah, so I started my career now, so it's been more than 10 years that I've been internal comms. And actually, I fell into the internal comms space. It wasn't something that I was— looking to do. I was very interested in marketing. I did business at uni. So I went to uni in London and I met so many different people who were all interested in different things because business is, again, it's such a vast subject. So we had finance, economics. And I always thought I really struggled, I think, throughout my career and throughout my education to really find my passion. And you always hear people saying, you find your passion and you find a job in it that's like such a sweet spot. And it would be amazing to find that. But I always really struggled with what I wanted to do. I started my education in business and law, very different what I'm doing now. Realized I didn't like it, moved straight into business, went into the kind of marketing specialism. And then I thought, you know what, let me try and find my feet. So I went through a couple of internships. I worked across a number of different industries. I worked in law. Finance, post-production, all that kind of stuff. And I really struggled again to find passion, and I fell into internal comms. I started off in marketing, and it was fine. Wasn't sure whether I liked it or not. And then I joined this amazing company. I had an amazing manager. She became like a mentor to me, and she really made me enjoy internal comms. And I think speaking to your internal people, resonating with your people of the company. They are what makes the company so great. And getting that opportunity from a global point of view, I started global comms very early in my career, and I know that's something that people build up to. So I had so much experience from such a young age, and I was always kind of the youngest in my team because I'd kind of get thrown into things here and there. And as much as it was quite daunting. I learned so much. And, you know, I had, as I mentioned, such a good mentor and a manager who really looked after me and taught me the ropes. And then, so, you know, just in terms of leadership, I always felt like I kind of hit a little bit of a wall when I was in my roles. I would get to a point where I'd be in a team where I would either move into a head of a comms role or into, you know, training for a director position. Obviously, that would take some time. And for some reason, I always felt that I would never be pushed for that opportunity, or I'd never get that opportunity, or someone would come in and take the role that I wanted to train myself for. And it would really make me feel, I guess, if I say this in a very kind of loose way, but being an ethnic minority, being a woman, you always have that in your mind. Like, is this the reason that why I'm not getting promoted? Is it my skill set? Is it this? So I would really push myself. I always felt like I worked doubly hard to really try and prove myself. And there was one turning point. There was two turning points in my career where I thought, you know what, I need to do something for myself. This was one. So I worked in this company. It's been for 5 years, and I was in internal comms, and I was like, I'm not going anywhere. There's no head of position for me. I need to push myself, right? And I spoke to the marketing director at the time, and I said, I want to do a dual role. There was an opportunity for a dual role, an internal comms with the marketing support. And I thought this could maybe, you know, change my role up a little bit. I'm getting kind of bored, right? And one of my colleagues at the time, she was in the marketing support role, and she said, I really don't want to do this role. I'll be very happy for you to take it. And I've already expressed my disinterest in this role that I don't want to do it. So I went and spoke to the marketing director and I said, I want to do this role. She offered me an MBA studying for a certificate or something. And she said, once you do that, then we can consider you for the role. And I thought, okay. So I applied for that and I thought, okay, right. I feel good about this. And then afterwards, I found out a couple of weeks later, my colleague who had expressed disinterest in the role had been promoted to that role that I was applying for. And that was a— I felt like I had the qualifications. I felt like I was pushing myself to do another additional qualification. I had the background. And because my colleague had expressed disinterest as well, I wasn't sure how I was fitting into that company. I wasn't sure where my career was going. I wasn't sure how I could progress there. So that was one turning point. And I felt I need to build myself up as a leader. Maybe people are looking at me. Maybe I'm not expressing myself in the right way. Maybe I'm doing too much, like letting my work talk for myself when actually it should be me advocating for myself. And maybe I'm not doing that in the right way. So that's one of the things I struggle. So again, the passion I struggled with, really advocating for myself I struggled with. And then I kind of sat down and I just took it and I said, okay, they chose her. I didn't fight for it. I didn't and I thought I need to make a change here. And I feel with leadership in general, I think leadership is translation and trust. If you're in a position of being a leader, the way that you talk about something, the way that you express it to your people, how you make them feel valued, how you make them feel respected, how you make them feel involved, how you make them feel like they're almost kind of on an inside scoop, that transparency that companies have with people and also managers have with their teams. I think that is such an important trait to have. I think it's so important as a leader to express that. And I think that's definitely what I wanted to do in my work going forward. Where is that transparency and how does the employee feel respected and valued? Because I know that I haven't felt respected and valued, and I know many people in my circles have felt the same way. So how do I, becoming a leader, becoming a founder, moving out of that space where I'm in a corporate arena, where there's so many personalities, there's so many obstacles and hurdles to go through, how do I make the— how do I make that employee experience work well for the employee, if that sort of makes sense?

Absolutely. Thank you. That was such a wonderfully detailed thing. So many points to touch on with it. You're right. A lot of people have this kind of an assumption. Some will think, oh, well, a leader, that's when you're promoted to a particular title or some role. And that's, quote, a leadership role. And what I've gotten in the habit of trying to communicate to folks is that leadership is an action. You know, when we talk about leading and, you know, to your point, everyone feeling, you know, that they belong. And obviously you need to learn about different people and you need to have different skill sets and knowledge, which I think will lead into our conversation coming up really well. But, you know, that is a skill, what I call inclusive intelligence, that you have to build And only when you kind of get it can you create an environment where the people belong. I did love the fact that you talked about kind of that early part of your career of having a mentor because as a certified mentor, I'm very big on mentorships. I've been blessed to have mentors through much of my corporate career days. And now, of course, people are coming to me you know, saying, Cynthia, could you mentor me? You know, I've got 7 different mentees in 4 different countries currently. So it's, it's an interesting dance to be able to really apply that in different settings and, you know, different countries which have different kind of socio-political, religious connotations as to their environment. And, you know, how do you develop it? Certainly, Based upon my look and my basic background, you wouldn't perceive that I have that kind of experience. And I think that was to your point that many of the folks in your circle and that I've talked to and perhaps have identity similar to yours, they're feeling like they're not getting it, right? We're being overlooked. We're being not heard. We're having more hurdles put up. For some perception to deal with it versus, you know, as you experienced that it may just well have been, quote, their game. But the simple fact, oh no, I'm not interested, and all of a sudden behind your back you think you're developing to an opportunity and in fact it's actually been taken away from you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, were you fortunate enough in any other part of that kind of career cycle to have other mentors or folks that attempted to be mentors, or were you really left alone to have to figure it all out on your— by yourself?

Yeah, I would probably say the latter, and that probably is maybe me not realizing the potential of mentoring. I think, you know, I've also, you know, my background is quite, you know, I guess sometimes, you know, my family's particularly disciplined, and I mean disciplined in a kind of structured kind of way in terms of how we live our life. I've had a lovely childhood. My parents are great, but they come from very disciplined backgrounds. And I think that discipline went into my work to be like, I need to be independent, I need to be focused, I need to really push myself. And it was all on me, me, me. And I think I didn't realize the benefit of actually having a mentor to do that. And when I did have the mentor in my manager. I think she did her best with kind of the resources that she had, and she would push, try and push me forward for roles or try and push me forward to go and do other things. And we're still in touch to this day. And I think you get to see from a mentor point of view as well, you get to see not only the professional side of things, but also from a personal point of view. For example, for her, I always loved the way that she raised her children. She would tell me things about her personal life and how involved that she makes her children feel in her life. And I've even taken those elements and applied it to my daily life with, with my children. So, you know, there's, there's so many parts of mentoring that not only on the professional side you can learn so much about it. So I do really regret, maybe that was probably on me, that I didn't, uh, reach out to, you know, get proper mentoring. And I think that really would have progressed my career in different ways. It would have opened opportunities in different ways. It would have trained me in other ways, you know, in terms of my own personal confidence. My confidence in terms of, you know, the way that I speak and again advocating for myself. So yeah, I do think it was the latter, but it's probably a 50-50 thing.

Well, absolutely. I mean, one is to ask, the other is, you know, if you are in a corporate setting, like, with inside the organization, actively, you know, picking people that, that again, that you feel that you can bring something to and to help them, right? That was certainly for me a part of, you know, what I brought. It was more intriguing when I stepped outside that space, which is kind of where you are today. So I, I kind of want to close off that discussion on that piece is, do you mentor today? Is that a part of where you're at in your career path, or are you very much focused on being the founder and this exciting project that we'll talk about in a moment? Is that kind of where all your energy is going?

Or how does that work? Yeah, I really love the idea of mentoring somebody. I think now at this moment, I'm fully focused on the app and pushing that forward because obviously it's such a big project. But I have actually had friends and previous colleagues reach out to me and say, how did you get to this point? How did you think of this idea? And I've just sat with them and I said, this is how I did it. You know, if you know, they've always been really interested in how did I get that idea in the first place. You know, I know it's already aligned to my business and aligned to my experience. They said, how did you even get to that point? How did you research it? How did you do this? And I thought, you know, actually, that could be a good mentoring opportunity. I think when I'm further on in my career, I'm learning so much, you know, in terms of launching a business. I've always been on the internal side of things, and now I'm having to do— I do— I'm like a one-man band at the moment. I'm doing the marketing, I'm doing the promoting, I'm doing the posts, I'm doing the, the inside. I mean, I've got an amazing team who have developed it for me. Yeah. And also I did hire a mentor in the sales space who is helping me to sell because I know that that's not my forte. And I think hopefully I'll hire somebody to do that for me. But I think it's a very important skill to have, and it's built me in so many ways. So I do feel like mentoring down the line, you know, once, you know, hopefully my business is successful and I'm able to step away from it a little bit, that I could teach other people to do things. Because I know, you know, there's so many people in my position. And I think particularly after, you know, the year of 2020 that we had around COVID, and, you know, I think especially, you know, being in the UK, you know, aside from that sort of political climate that we're in at the moment, but just how tough it is to live in this country at the moment, the rising expenses, the rising taxes, the uncertainty. It feels like things are very uncertain at the moment. And I think people are now looking to these things that we call side hustles or passion projects. They're looking to these a bit more to say, how can I really make a benefit out of this to support my life? Just generally because of the world we're living at the moment. And also I think that people are saying, actually, if I don't feel like corporate life is the life for me— that some people actually love corporate and they love the kind of safety and security it brings. And, you know, but there are people who actually say, you know, actually, I need to find something that I enjoy doing and can make a benefit from it as well. So, yeah, I think, you know, both of those things, you know, I would love to mentor down the line. I think, you know, I love talking to people. I love helping them to bring their ideas around. And I think I'm realizing that maybe my passion is creating ideas and bringing those ideas to life because I even have more ideas that is aside from my app at the moment that are completely not related to internal comms and my experience, but it's something that I want to work on. So I think we're all growing as people and we all realize that we like different things and we want to do different things. So yeah, it would be great to mentor.

Yeah. I hear you loud and clear on that. It's for me, it, the realization of becoming an entrepreneur was, God, I really miss that sales department and that, you know, that, that accounting department. It's like, yeah, they really do take a lot off, you know, kind of idea. So yeah, it was really the recognition of all the things that you don't really factor in and obviously probably aren't day one immediate problems, but they do build and, you know, they certainly do become liabilities to the business. But you're right, it's good that you've got some support and coaching on that sales side because that absolutely is another skill set that needs to be developed and honed. I want to kind of take us into— you've got this amazing project going, but you kind of alluded, you know, people are asking what led— so you've given us a bit of you know, your history, where you kind of came from. What didn't you tell us in that history that led to the creation of this idea? As your friends have asked you, you know, how did you get here? And what for you were those flags that just said, you know, I should do something about this? Or probably if you're like me, it was somebody should do something about this, and then it was I should do something about this, and then it kind of evolved. What did that look like that isn't the story that you've already shared with us?

So I think throughout my career, I'm South Asian, I'm Muslim. I have been born and raised in London. I've been very much pushed into that corporate environment of always being visible and trying to fit in with the teams. And I think earlier on in my career, I've had this idea kind of lingering around for a long time. And I think with the introduction of AI and how it can really kind of speed things up for you and kind of give you that research support, I think this was like the perfect time to launch this idea. So in my career, I always felt a little bit on the outside just because of who I am, the values I had. I don't drink. I would really try. I've always been told, make sure you go to everyone's leaving drinks, make sure you network, make sure you do this. And I was like, wow, I'm really putting myself out there. But these are my basic bottom values. And I always get told, why are you not drinking? Why are you not getting involved? And I always felt like I was doing something wrong. And I thought, I'm not the only person in the world that doesn't drink or is not always going to be at leaving drinks. Is actually, you know, I have my own religious holidays. I celebrate things in my own way. And, you know, I even heard from friends, I heard from colleagues that, you know, oh, you know, I need to take a day off. I've got a religious holiday coming up. How do I ask my manager for this? And, you know, for example, you know, I celebrate Eid, and Eid is, you know, it's either on one day or the other day because you're looking out. The way that Eid is, it's after Ramadan finishes, you have to wait for a new moon. And once you see the moon, then you can celebrate Eid. And that's really hard to kind of explain to a manager and be like, actually, I don't know what day I need off. So it was things like this. I would feel the same and think there's such a gap here for not only recognizing those kind of faith, that faith inclusion or faith exclusion that businesses were doing, but also the education around why people are taking these holidays, when people are taking holidays, what are those religious holidays. And particularly at my last company, I feel like I thought, this is it, I have to do this idea. So at my last company, being in internal comms, we always wear a lot of hats sometimes when you don't have the resource and don't have the budget behind expanding the teams, especially for those who are DEI specialists.. And so I was wearing a hat where they wanted to run a lot of campaigns for the next few months around particular days. Like, there was Pride Month and there was International Women's Day. Now, these days have been around for many, many years. Many businesses celebrate it. And I think as businesses, they have definitely progressed. But I do feel like there's a lot of work to do. So at this last company, I did the whole campaign. I got everyone together. We had comms silos in different countries, got them all together. Yeah. Great campaign. It went to leadership and they said, no, we're not ready for this. Strip it back completely. We're just going to send a generic message. If all of the com silos want to do their own thing around Pride, go for it. And then I thought, this can't be right. We're so far ahead. Pride Month is not something that's new. It's something that's been going on for decades now. And I just felt that, you know, one, there was a few pain points here. One, the business didn't feel comfortable talking about something that maybe they could get backlash about in the way that they say it. You know, I think that was one of the things. You know, I think a lot of people now, if they have a bad experience with a company, they're very quick to, you know, go on LinkedIn and say, had a bad experience. So it's a reputation. So secondly, there's no education around it. Why are we doing this? What's the context? Second, lack of resource, internal comms. We sometimes as well maybe hesitate to say, am I saying this in the right way? Is it inclusive? Is it bias-free? Am I using the right language? So there's a few pain points here. And again, we know in general that if employees feel valued, they feel respected, they feel seen at work, their productivity doubles. There's less employee turnover. Being an inclusive company shouldn't be something that's a tick box. Or something that you just say at a moment in time. It should be something that's just embedded in your everyday language, in the everyday messages. Absolutely. I think we can 100% agree on that. And I thought, you know what, I have worked now in two global and European companies and I keep seeing the same problem. So I sat down, I did a lot of research, and I created this app called Welton AI. And what it does is it helps those experts who are struggling in, in that space. It helps you plan your messages, so it gives you a calendar of all of these global events going on. So not only just within faith, it's within, you know, social observances like we mentioned International Women's Day, International Men's Day, World Earth Day. You know, what is aligned to the business values? If they want to focus on sustainability, they want to focus on gender equity, you know, what are those days that they need to be celebrating, they need to be talking about? So that's how this app is embedding those conversations into everyday language. And it's making it easy for those experts because we know we wear a lot of hats at the time. So it's really that kind of assistant for you to say, you need to celebrate your people as a manager. If you have a diverse workforce and not only from a faith perspective, if they're neurodivergent, if they have accessibility issues, how do you support them? And I think that support for people, for employees, for new mothers. When I went back to my last role, I did not have any onboarding support. I was nursing my children. I didn't have any support on that side, and I thought there's a gap there as well. You know, this, this app could help businesses, not only businesses but also those employees who are really feeling outside of the circle many times before. Um, so yeah, really that was the, the kind of, um, the idea behind it, and I particularly now with everything that's going on in the world, I think something like this is even more important to really strengthen that in companies. And, you know, there's a lot of companies who are pulling out DEI initiatives, and this should be, you know, something to say that we can make it easier for you.

Absolutely. And, you know, what I love is that you're addressing a pain point, almost the the other side of the pain point that I try and address, which is helping those leaders that you talked about gain the comfort, whether it's through one-on-one private mentoring, whether it's through some programmatic offering, being able to help them get to that point where they go yes to those kinds of campaigns that you had put together. And now you've provided a tool that really allows people to kind of leverage that and bring about, as you talked about, that intersectional component of not just one part of someone's identity, but, you know, all of them. It's amazing. I've been— one of the most popular things I've been doing, some speaking over the summer and kind of late spring, has been about intersectionality, like I mean, talking about intersectionality and Pride, like you would think we wouldn't have to have that conversation, but it's very much one that's not clearly understood. So, I hear you. And it's about kind of bringing that into context for organizations initially from an awareness. But then, being able to communicate it as you're providing a solution to be able to help do is, is amazing. Is there— do companies have the, the ability to kind of go, look, we can't support everything, but, you know, we will support kind of, you know, this, this, this, this? We, we definitely want to support gender equity, um, we definitely want to support, um, you know, uh, the recognition if, if the, the Pride— the broader Pride community is important. I mean, it's approaching almost certainly with the Gen Z, I mean, you know, 18 to 24-year-olds. Statistics, early statistics are showing us 20% of the workforce are identifying in that space. And it's not only sexuality, it is gender that comes into play. So I find that that's for me and some of my work and my own personal background, that's Like, you know, like, wow, whoever thought that would be so big? But, you know, I always use the analogy and I wonder if you've come across, you know, a scenario where like a lot of people go, well, okay, well, let's talk about, say for instance, for folks that identify as Black. Well, according to the last census in the UK, that was about 11% of the whole population. What I find so amazing is that within the gender equity work that we do— and I mean, that's where I started my advocacy work, was working on behalf of gender equity, representing all women— and we talk about, you know, a horrendous number of, you know, I think it's in excess of 130 years till we hit pay equity under the current trend. But back to that identity for those that identify as Black. If we talk about just in the C-suite, when I looked at the statistics last, it took 2 more people to make a C-suite like a CEO, COO kind of role. And we would hit comparatively, we would actually hit that 11% marker. What is so disappointing is that it's in excess of 270 years. This is not a new problem. And yet the equity based upon perception of race is 270 years. Based upon gender, it's 130 years.

Goodness. I mean, when you, when you sometimes hear those stats, you know, it's bad, right? But when you hear those stats out loud, you can't comprehend. There are so many ways that we could solve this problem, and it's very easy. It's very easy. And to think that we still need to bring out tools, we still need to bring out practices, we still need to educate, we still need to get those people again. As I said, I've always worked doubly hard you know, to do that. And someone who is Black would feel the same way and say, I've had to work doubly hard because I know that not only is, you know, is it very difficult in the corporate world anyway, but I have all of these other things that work against me. Because it's very clear in the statistics that this is how people feel. Yeah. And it discourages people from trying to apply for those positions. And why do you think people then branch off to go and lead their own business, to go and be an entrepreneur, to go and do something else, to go and find— because they know that they can excel in that leadership position. So why do those companies not promote that? And why do they not help them?

Absolutely. I mean, I find it so intriguing, you know, that the story, you know, that you're sharing in terms of how that evolution has happened. I mean, for me, I never really thought about becoming an entrepreneur, but the reality was that in my last corporate role as the C-suite technology executive, I was asked to reinvent the technology corporate platform. And the way that I went about it was I finally came to the idea, well, with the rapid adoption of cloud and what I call compute everywhere, anytime, any device, the reality was that I needed to pretend that I'm a new startup. And my job is to put the existing company out of business. Because it's quite plausible in the world today that if you get your messaging wrong, if you are not on target answering the pain points of your customers, that's what it was. And it was that kind of idea that I leaned back on when I decided to do this for myself and become an entrepreneur was because the realization I could disrupt. Even if I'm, you know, one voice, I could disrupt, and I'm bringing a huge insight, much as, as you already are in this space. So the World Tone product, where you're working on the launch, um, yeah, you're very close.

I'm close. I've done a little bit of a, of a soft launch. So what I really want to do is get it out to those experts, get it out to those people who are— so really it's targeted towards the people-facing teams. So internal comms, HR, DEI specialists, even executive assistants, because we know sometimes they can wear comms hats or need to work with the people quite closely. So really, I want to get people on the platform to test it, to give me feedback. It's in a beta stage, I would say. And I've got a lot of interest from clients. I've got a lot of interest from clients even in different countries. But really, I want them to get a good product and I want to test it out for the next few weeks. And I'm hoping sort of early next year I will have a full official launch to get people on it, get people using it, and it will be, you know, good to go. I'd say we're probably 85 to 90% there. And I feel, you know, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I think it's always really difficult with things like this because, you know, you know, in a year from now, you know, the app is going to be completely different to what it is now. But I don't want to lose the core of the product, the core, you know, um, specialism of it. You know, I want it to be inclusive. I want it to reach those, you know, um, people who would really benefit. And I, and I want it to help employees, you know, of a business. And that's my main goal for it. So yeah, it's, it's in beta stage now. So I'm, I'm just looking for testers, getting people on, getting people using it. And hopefully, hopefully, uh, in a few weeks it'll be good to go.

Wonderful. Are you still taking names on your waitlist?

Yes. Yes. So I have a waitlist open. So on my website, it's www.worldtone.ai, and there's a little waitlist button that you can join. It says try World Tone AI for free, and you can try it for free, give me feedback, and it's got all of the contact details on there.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, hopefully folks that are listening that went, that's for me, they can get in and help you get to that point. You've talked about a number of times how this idea of this aspect of your identity, how it's kind of intersected into your career journey and ultimately into, you know, both leading but also striving to achieve a leadership position. Has that fundamentally being kind of a driving piece for you? I mean, my work was driven by the experience that I had as me and how I never want another person to have to experience that. And so I want to bring that wealth of experience and insight to organizations to help them ensure that they never repeat the process with another employee. Was your experience a driver or motivator behind the scenes for you?

Yes, I would say, yeah, definitely. I think, you know, sometimes I feel where when you've, you know, I think everyone struggles in their career. You know, we've all got personal challenges as well. And I think, you know, there was one something that I mentioned at the beginning to say there were two turning points for me to say that I want to push myself into a different direction and go into a leadership role. So in 2020, after COVID happened, my mum was one of the longest COVID patients in the UK. She was in a coma for 3 months, and I had been through a number of life changes in that year. I feel like that year was particularly pivotal for me to push myself into that kind of leadership role. I'm the youngest in my family. I have one older sister. I've always been babied a little bit. And my sister's taken on a lot of that kind of stress that you have in a kind of elder sister situation. And also, I think culturally as well, how people view younger children and elder children, certainly in my culture. And I think that because that year was so pivotal, I just recently got married. I had moved in with my husband and his family, and then COVID hit. I wasn't able to see my family. I was living with essentially strangers, even though I love them dearly. But that moment, I felt that that was probably the first time in my life where I felt particularly alone because I was in a completely new environment and I had all these personal challenges. I had just started a new job as well. So I just got married, mum was in hospital, started a new role. So it was something that I feel like really kind of altered my brain chemistry in a way to say, if this is what it feels like, not only do I feel kind of alienated in terms of work, I feel kind of alienated in life at the moment. And I felt that it made me— it's really hard to explain. I think it also made me feel, because I was so detached from everyone, I thought, I don't feel like I have any direction right now. I am kind of being tugged in loads of different ways. I feel like almost I need to step up for my family because of what's happening with my mom. I need to step up as a wife and a daughter-in-law. I need to step up in work because I'm new and I have push myself. And I thought, you know, if I can get through this year with everything that's happened, I am destined for greatness. And I know that feels— you know, I've always really kind of not talked down to myself, but also almost been a bit of a doormouse. It's really strange in terms of that advocation for myself. I think I've always really said that I could do it, but let me take a step back, let me do some research, let me figure it out. And I thought to myself after that year, I thought I need to switch things up, right? And I got through that year. Everyone's okay, everyone's fine. I got through everything. I think mentally it was extremely tough and a lot of that mental pressure going through my role, going through all of the changes in that role. And I think that was a really pivotal time for me. And I think based on all of my experiences up until then, in terms of being, feeling quite alienated and feeling that maybe corporate life wasn't for me. If corporate life is not for me, what is for me? And that kind of time to really figure out what I wanted to do, to really figure out where my direction was, to really figure out I've now got I have two small children. How do I want to balance my life with them as well? I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to create this business. But how do I manage my life with them? There have been so many times where I felt I should just go back to what I find comfortable. I find corporate life very comfortable. I have that security. I can take days off. I have this. And I thought, no, I can't. I don't think I could put myself in a position again where again, I feel like I'm promised a role or I'm promised a direction or I'm promised something and I don't end up achieving that. And I feel like I don't want to waste time. I think after that year was particularly hard. I thought, first of all, time is everything. And my mental state, my mental well-being, what is it that I find that makes me happy and gives me that opportunity as well? Gives me the opportunity to be my own person.

Yeah, that's amazing. It's, I mean, it really struck me when you were talking about, you know, that feeling, if you will, talking down to yourself. And I mean, it's something that I say to a lot of my mentees. They're not all women, but I have mentored many women through year-long programs. And The one thing that I try and instill, because society will do everything else to undo it, is hang around me long enough and I'll have you believing you're as amazing as I know you are. And I think that that is so missing for so many women because I know that socialization for men, that's actually instilled and built And yet it's not in the same way. There's a lot more, um, probably from a societal perspective, the FUD factor, what I call fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And that, you know, the fear of getting it wrong because, well, nice girls don't. And what we're taught is, as nice girls, there's a whole bunch of things we don't do, right? And it sounds like even within a cultural setting, you may have had other restrictions in terms of that expected behavior and kind of how you fit in that, you know, add on top of that. So yeah, that is— because for me, that's some of the, oh my gosh, I can't believe the world's like this, that I've had the ability to see the world, you know, as I like to say, one leader with two genders worth of experience. And it's like, Yeah, absolutely unbelievable. Given that, I wasn't going to ask the question, but you raised it in such a unique way, I wanted to touch on it because I don't think that it has a specific— but I want to talk about kind of what you've learned, you know, lessons for leaders. But I also wanted to ask you whether or not becoming a mother has changed your perception on leadership as well.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it's been, yeah, a very, very big turning point for me. I think that, um, I've definitely become more confident after having children because I know if I advocate for them, you know, I— it's really changed the way I, um, talk about myself. I definitely think it's changed the way that I lead It's because I think becoming a mother is multitasking at 24/7. Your brain never really switches off, and especially with children at this age. I think when they get older, it gets a little bit easier. But I think at this age, when they're small, when your brain never really switches off, I think how it's affected my kind of leadership style. I am definitely— how I would describe myself as a leader is I'm empathetic. I like to observe before asking questions. I want to hear from the other person first before I ask anything. And I think that it's made me a little bit more fierce in a way. The way that I'm fiercely protective over my children, I think I feel fiercely protective over my product and the way that I kind of think about my business. I've definitely had people say, oh, you should change this or you should do that. And I'm like, no, this is the core of my product. I'm going to really defend that and I'm really going to look after that. And I think if it's definitely been challenging for me to come out of that space of that kind of corporate employee kind of mindset to be like, actually, no, I am the CEO, I am the founder of a company and I need to almost talk like a founder of the company. And I remember my has been saying to me, he's amazing at sales, and he said, I want you to learn in your own way because that is only going to strengthen you as a person. I can help you with sales, I will, but I want you to go through that journey yourself because only then will you really hone those skills. So I think those skills, how I manifest myself as a leader as well, it's only the start of my journey. Right? So I know that, you know, looking back in a year's time, you know, how those skills that I've learned on the way and those skills that I've really done myself and I've really progressed myself, is that's what's going to make me a strong leader. And I think definitely, you know, having my two children is going, you know, has been the biggest factor for me. Yeah. Um, but certainly kind of being thrown into the deep end a little bit and knowing that I am the only person who is going to make this business a success and I need to count on myself and I am going to make mistakes. I am going to— it's going to take me some time to change my mindset. But I think once the more conversations I have with people, the more I put my business out there, the more I talk to people, the more I network, the more I learn from other people. How did they manage their business? How did they talk about their business? How did they talk about themselves? How do they talk to their employees? Only then can I really find out exactly the kind of leader that I want to be in a year's time and what kind of lessons I'm going to carry with me. So, yeah, certainly it's extremely transformative. I'm loving the process. I'm loving everything. I'm loving building. I'm loving talking to people about it. It's been a really good journey so far. And I would highly recommend this to anybody looking to pick up a passion project and think about doing it. And I think we have a lot of resources at our fingertips. I know it's difficult, especially when you're juggling a lot of things personally. I know it's not easy with children and other things as well. It's not just children. We all have personal struggles and personal things going on. But really, I think that you can lose yourself in motherhood. And I definitely think I did at points. So, you know, to do something like this, to have something for you to focus on, you know, not only as a mother but as a woman, as your own identity, is really, really important. So yeah, highly recommend.

Brilliant, brilliant. Remember, folks, that's Worldtone.ai, www.worldtone.ai. Get in now because who knows where it's going to take you next. What is— what's the big dream? Where, where, where do you see the World Tone journey taking you? Kind of from a very big picture, we're not going to hold you to any promises, but where do you kind of envision that taking you?

I would love World Tone to be implemented globally. You know, I would love businesses to look at World Tone and say, I want to do inclusive comms. I want to look after my people. Worldtone is the place to go. I want it to be that kind of product. You think about Facebook, you think about Meta, you think about Microsoft. I want it to be a product that people think about and know that this is what I want to use as part of my company. And I want to take it globally. I hope it does. I've got a lot of interest for it. And I hope that it's a product that really helps businesses and helps people. And then I hope that I can take a step back and enjoy time with my kids and see where life takes me. And hopefully I can bring other ideas to life. But yeah, I would really love that for Worldtone. I would love it to be something that people recognize.

That's amazing. Well, here is crossing everything possible to send all the great energy your way in order to have that happen. Um, before I kind of do the, the thank you and the closeout, is there anything we haven't talked about you wanted to touch on, um, or last words of wisdom you'd love to leave with our audience?

Um, you know, I always kind of go by this one quote every time I've kind of been in internal comms, and it was by Maya Angelou, who said, people don't remember what you said to them. They remember how you made them feel. And I think I take that in certain parts of my life, the way that I speak to people, the way that I engage with people, the way that I engage with myself. I think just always remember that people will remember how you made them feel, whether that's good or whether that's bad. That power is kind of in your hands. So It's just something I like to think about when I go through everyday life.

Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for making the time to be here with me today and to share the exciting development of Worldtone.ai. And folks, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. Please make sure you hit the subscribe, follow along. We've got lots of great episodes that already been published and shared that you can go back and watch some amazing leadership stories. And who knows, you could be our next guest. So feel free to drop me a note if you believe you have a leadership story that's worth telling on Holding It Both Ways. Thanks everyone. Have a great day.

Bye. Bye.