Liz Bradford | The Sustainable High-Performance Blueprint you NEED for Business and Life

Welcome back to Entrepreneur Stories. Been looking forward to this discussion since we scheduled it a few weeks ago.

Yeah, very much so, Very pleased to be back. Thank you for having me.

Good to have you. So you landed this morning?

I did.

Straight plane from the uk. How's work life balance going for you?

It's a great day to ask, isn't it? So, four meetings so far today, a couple more after this.

Yeah.

But as you know, I'm not a huge fan of the term work life balance, so I think it would be hypocritical if I were to preach it too much.

Yeah.

But yeah, energizing. And it's fantastic to be back in Hong Kong even for a short period.

It's good to have you and it's good to hear it's energizing. We've had you on the show before, but for those who don't know you, maybe just briefly, what is it that you do and what's the story that kind of led you to what you're doing now?

So what I do is I help executives and founders, anyone really who is in a high pressure environment, which is a lot of people in Hong Kong, regain their energy and their kind of zest and manage large scale change or personal change, which sometimes that kind of transformation can be even harder. And I came to that because I used to be one of those executives and I had a fairly spectacular burnout just over a decade ago, went back into my role in banking, having kind of come back from that. But during that decade learned a lot around resilience, clarity, coaching, well being, and built a business on the side of my career in banking. And then about just over a year ago, stepped out and made the side hustle, the main hustle. And I'm very happy to say that business is booming now in terms of being able to help other people kind of learn the same things themselves, take care of themselves and essentially get their mojo back.

And that's physical, mental, 360 degrees lifestyle.

Yeah. So I talk a lot about four different pillars. So physical wellbeing is always the first, typically because a lot of my clients are a types, as am I. So physical is quite tangible. We can all track data and metrics and feel the difference very quickly. And it also is very closely interrelated with the second, which is around mental wellbeing and emotional well being. So there's a hormonal impact of physical exercise and taking care of ourselves physically that really impacts that. And then the other two are connected, well being. So connection and purpose of now study after study have shown how important that is to our wellbeing. And then the final one is financial wellbeing because without that it's very, very hard to really achieve mental well being if you don't have interesting a degree of financial well being as well. And a lot of that is purely just around control of finances and understanding how much is enough. Which in a market like Hong Kong can be very hard because you're surrounded by more, more, more, more all the time.

Yeah.

But yeah, so we work on financial well being as well.

So is that evolved? I don't think you mentioned financial last time.

Financial is very much an addition in the last year because it kept coming back and interestingly so like finances is the number one reason for divorce. And so it's very tied then also into purpose, connection, family and everything else. So it kept coming up whenever people were like, well, I have to keep going and what I'm doing even though I hate it because of the finances. And so I've worked with partners. I'm not a financial advisor, but I know plenty of people who are. So I work with partners who can then provide that kind of guidance and advice and kind of well being coaching on the finance side as well.

I guess sometimes it's also just the awareness that you can bring to the fact that the financial pressures that someone's going through along with the other regular, regular, the pressures that we face every day in other areas of our lives combined can have such a huge impact that it helps someone to actually focus on that. And I think sometimes we have to be reminded of the obvious. Right.

I think also to know it's normal.

Yeah.

Because that's the other thing. So quite often I, I talk a lot about purpose and you know that online I talk a lot about purpose. But that's all well and good when you've got a mortgage to pay and kids to put through school and you know, here in Hong Kong, club memberships and everything else, like there's a certain run rate or a burn rate on the cash that people have to maintain.

Yep.

In their minds to still be happy.

Yep.

However, unfortunately, what they're having to do to maintain that is what's making them unhappy.

Yeah.

And so it's. Even knowing that this is a very common experience takes away some of the stigma around it.

It's really interesting because in a Hong Kong context, everyone's looking at what's happening around them. Right. And it sets up perceived expectations of what life should be like. Someone's got a new car, someone's Got a new club membership, chasing that shiny object.

And it's all about status.

Yeah.

Really? Yeah. And it's proving that everything's okay on the outside.

Yeah. Fascinating. Can I ask you in practice if we talk about it sort of blending the science of performance with I kind of wrote here the art of leadership, but I'm also thinking about optimizing for outcomes. What does that look like when you meet a client? What do you go through with a new client? What does that look like? And how do you sort of identify where to focus? Because I guess it's different with everyone.

It's different with everyone. But there are fairly consistent frameworks that we apply certainly at the beginning and then we will tailor based on the output of those assessments. So we always do an energy assessment around where are people getting their energy? Where is it draining? How aware are they of their core values and their purpose? How aware are they of their energy vampires? Where do they see themselves in a few years time?

Energy vampires, I like that.

Energy vampires. We'll get into that maybe. And so we always start with that on that basis. And then very often people will come to me initially with something around their physical well being. So it's no secret at the moment there's a lot of workforce transformation, which is a euphemism for layoffs. And a lot of people are finding themselves in the position where they're either they've been laid off and they've got plenty of Runway, but they don't know what to do with themselves now. And they realize that they've focused all of their time and energy for the last 25 plus years into their career. Great title, lots of status. But then when they look around, they've neglected their health, they've neglected their relationships, they're not really sure what to do now. Or they've survived, which initially feels like the right outcome.

Survived in the, in the corporate world,

they're still in the role, but suddenly their role is three times bigger. Morale is tanking through the floor. They have to lead. And so the performance piece then comes into how do you operate at a level and peak performance of your own to take care of yourself, but also how do you lead others to do the same? Because people follow what we do, not what we say.

Yeah.

And so the peak performance component will really then be tailored around where are their current gaps and their pain points and how do we help them close those?

Yeah, yeah. It's unfortunate but I've kind of been there where it's all, everything's happening around you and you're expected to pick up the pieces. And it's. I think that's where the direction of a company and the direction, my direction suddenly parted ways. Yeah, we were going on different paths. You asked me the first question I think you asked me when you, when you walked in an hour or so ago was, how are your energy levels? Is that a starting point for most discussions?

I'm genuinely interested when I meet people because the other thing is I will flex how what I ask next or how I engage with someone, depending on if you'd said, I'm super drained.

Yeah.

And they're not going to be like, pop, pop, loads of questions. I'm going to take it a lot easier. But I genuinely, I find it very interesting. And you know, you always assume when you meet someone how they're doing, but when you actually ask, sometimes people will really surprise you.

Yeah, it's. I'm guessing it's kind of a sign, though, of what else is going on in your life. If your energy levels are high, then typically you're dealing with all the stresses of life pretty well. To a degree.

Yeah.

If you're being honest about it. If you're being honest about it. So in the run up to this discussion, you sent me an email and I'm going to quote, it said, I can be guilty. I can be guilty of exactly what I coach others on, over committing and putting myself last. And it's really not easy for a business owner or founder. There's, there's a real perceived, sometimes, real sometimes perceived responsibility that you have to everyone around you, be that your customers, your team. How do you manage that? And, and do you know, when you sent me that email, I kind of laughed because you talk a lot about not over committing and finding time for yourself and setting boundaries. How are you doing with that?

So I'm a big fan of the 8020 rule.

Yep.

In that 80% of the time, I will stick to exactly what I tell other people to do. 20%. I give myself the flex. So I would be like anyone who has worked with me would call me out as a hypocrite if I didn't admit to being a bit of a workaholic. That is my vice. I love my work. And this is where very often, particularly with founders, there is a massive burnout risk. Because if it's stuff that energizes us, it is harder to put it away when you know you need to stop. Or it is harder to say no to meetings when you're getting off a plane at 7:00am and you know, what you really ought to be doing is going to the gym and then having some protein and then having a nap. But no, you just go, go, go. And I think as long as you're doing that and you're building up those energy reserves, it's fine. It's very similar to how we fuel ourselves. It's very similar to how we rest and recover. But I do find, and I was. I said to you earlier, I was having a conversation with a founder today with a client, and she was saying that the thing that wakes me up at 3 is all the people who are expecting me to deliver, like, so my people, my clients. There's so much pressure, and that can be a really, really hard one to balance. And I think it's much harder as a founder than it is in the corporate world. And I don't mean that disrespectfully. I spent 21 years in the corporate world and there's plenty of pressure and stress there. But the buck doesn't stop with you in the corporate world. It really, really does as a founder and you've put yourself out there, it's your personal brand, and then it's people's livelihoods that are depending on you.

I think it's fascinating when we compare the pressures of the corporate world to the pressures of being a founder and a business owner. And I also wonder sometimes, and I wonder what you think about this. I tell my family, I tell myself, and I believe that I love my business and that it energizes me. And when I get asked, why are you working on the weekends? Or, you know, why have you come home and turned your computer on? I say, because I enjoy it. And actually I sleep better knowing that I've put things to bed before I go to bed, if that makes sense. I wonder sometimes, do you feel like we're kidding ourselves sometimes with that? Because it's hard to draw that boundary, isn't it? I know that mentally I am less active if I have put my work to bed, metaphorically, before I go to bed. Whereas if I know that there's something hanging over me, that's the time I'll wake up at 3 or 4am in the morning and think, I really should have done that last night. And then it's going to keep me awake.

And is there anything else that you could do other than doing it? Have you experimented with any other ways of deferring it and allowing your mind to switch off?

I guess the only way to defer it would be to tell the person who's waiting for you that you're going to get back to them as opposed to just leaving it hanging.

Yeah,

I probably don't do that enough.

So I've had to start to do that.

Okay.

Because multiple businesses, multiple clients and stakeholders, and that is exactly what I do now sometimes where I'm like, if I stay up, I'm gonna. I know I'm gonna go through my sleep meridian wave. So I know I'm gonna. If I sit in front of a screen, I know then it's two hours and I won't be out again, and that means I won't perform the next day. So now I do actually much more. So either I will brain dump it if it's something that I feel I need to do for myself or my team, but they don't know it's coming yet because I don't want to then spam them, or if it's somewhere where I know they're expecting it, I'll just be like, very sorry, couldn't get to this today. Thanks for your patience. It will be with you within this time frame and at least then my brain can switch off. But the alternative, and I used to do this when I was in banking, is to just push through and keep going. And so the reason I paused when you said, do you think we're kidding ourselves? I think the answer is. And it's the worst podcast answer. It depends. So it depends if it's genuinely energizing and you're enjoying it or if it's purely cortisol. And I know what purely cortisol feels like, because that was the 21 years I had in banking, because it was for someone else's agenda and not my purpose. I'm very grateful to everything it provided me, obviously, and the people I work with. But now it feels very different. But I do think it depends and I think. I think stopping and asking ourselves is very important. Like, am I doing this because I want to or am I doing this because I feel obliged to?

It's interesting because I think that. The analogy that a business is like a child means to me that as a founder, it means more when it's mine than when I was working for someone else. After a period of time, after 22 years in corporate, I think by the end of it, I realized I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was ticking boxes and doing it because I felt that was my job and I should be doing it. Whereas as a founder, I feel like I want to be doing it. I want my child to grow. I want my business to grow. I want my people to grow. I don't want to leave my people hanging, because if they're hanging, then something that means something else is hanging. Someone's waiting for an answer, because they're waiting for me for an answer. I think as a founder, and this is why I kind of ask whether we sometimes kid ourselves and how it's so difficult sometimes to draw those boundaries when it's your own business versus when it's when you're working for someone else. But at the same time, I would say that the people that I have, the best people that I have on my team, are the ones who feel a sense of ownership for the business and feel like this is their baby, too. Yeah. And we're all growing the baby. We're all helping to nourish it and make sure it grows the way we want it to.

Yeah. And I think that's a really important distinction, because when we bring people onto our team, when you're a founder, there's no room for people who don't pick up the slack.

Yeah.

But equally, if we don't step back and let them stretch, they're not going to learn.

Yeah.

So exactly the words that came out of my mouth when I was speaking to the founder earlier today to the client was, are they learning? Because she was saying, I feel so guilty because I'm not doing this for them. And I'm like, are they learning? And she was like, yeah, they're 100% learning. I said, have they given you any feedback that they are not enjoying it? She said, no, no. They seem to be loving it. In which case, why do you feel so guilty? Because you're not their mother. And so I think it's one of those things that we forget that when we were starting our careers, it was those times of stretch that we really grew and we built resilience and we learned what worked and what didn't. But for some reason, now that we're older, we want to protect everyone and do all of the heavy lifting.

I love that because I see my business and my team as my purpose, and I see my business growing and my team growing as my purpose. And when I feel like they're not growing and the business is not growing, that's when I get worried. And again, I, I, I wanted to talk about purpose, because I don't think most people think about purpose as their business or their, their careers. I think people want to have a purpose beyond their professional life, if that makes sense. And I think I Think you can have more than one purpose in life? I'm wondering, from your standpoint, do you have a definition of what it is or what it means to you?

So maybe if I go through the exercise I do with people for them to identify that, yeah, that would be awesome. And this will normally take a few takes for people to actually do in terms of physically writing it down. And people feel a lot of resistance when it comes to writing a purpose statement. But it's really combined of three things. So the first is core values. And quite often people are surprised that they have their own individual. It's not the corporate ones on a wall, but their own personal core values. They are foundational, so they're formed when we're very young, depending on the environment in which we're in, what was expected of us, the relationships we have. And we normally have about three to five really core fundamental values that will never change, even if we don't like them or we want a shinier core value. Once you understand that, you can select kind of the environment in which you're working that will work with them and the people you're working with, it don't have to be identical because it's very unlikely they will. But people who are not contradicting those core values. So core values, then strengths. So we all have things that come naturally to us that do not to other people, and we take them for granted very often. So it's always quite an interesting exercise to ask other people, what do you think I'm really good at? And very often that will surprise you because it's stuff that you just do unconsciously, but very competently. So a combination of core values, strengths, and then the last one is your passions. So. And I'm not one of those people that says, follow your passions. I'm not deluding myself. But the things that we do where we are in flow and we suddenly realize two hours have gone and we're still going and we're still energized and we barely notice the time slip past. Now, the combination of those three things typically will indicate what our purpose is. It's kind of the stuff we would do if money was no object and we didn't get paid and everything else. And it will be the combination of those three things will be very unique to individuals. So once you've identified your purpose, and I think that people really struggle with this because they think their purpose should be changing the world.

Yeah.

No one thinks, oh, it's enough to have a purpose of, like, taking care of my Family, taking care of my dog, whatever it may be. It could be something super small in terms of it's never going to change the world on an enormous scale, but everything changes the world. So if you're taking care of your family, the ripple and the impact of that, particularly if you have children, you're raising humans who then know how to go and take care of other people and other people and other people. So. But I think people get so caught up in it that it has to be, like, revolutionary in some way, and it doesn't. It just has to be understanding what really drives you and keeps you happy. So, yes, most people don't go to their day jobs because it's their purpose, but they might be funding their purpose. They might be working in order to provide for what is their purpose.

I think it's really important that you don't get caught up in this narrative that your purpose needs to be this great big thing of saving the world or saving the planet. And I think that social media and a lot of things that we see today talk about purpose, never really define it, but the word has certain connotations and sets certain expectations in your head that. And people. People feel like, I need to find this thing. Yeah. And I feel like sometimes it's. It's a quest that you're never going to. You're never going to achieve if you. If you're looking for this. This thing that's out there. I really like the way you defined it as core values, strengths and passions and kind of the way those three things come together. And I do think the one thing that gets missed is strength. A lot of time I don't think people talk about strength. And I don't always think that people even completely appreciate what their own strengths are sometimes. You said it yourself, sometimes it takes someone to tell you very much what your strength is. I mean, I was told by an old boss that, you know, your superpower is dealing with your team. And I'd never even. I sort of walked away from that discussion going, has he been drinking? You know, like, where did that come from? But over time, I started to understand where he was coming from and sort of it felt good, felt good to hear it, and it felt good to sort of lean into it a little bit as well. You know, it's interesting when it comes. When it comes from someone else as well, and it helps you to define it. So when you go through this exercise with people, because I've heard it so much recently, people have, like you said, lost their jobs, their business is closed. They kids have left the house and it's an empty nest. What, what does the exercise look like that you go through? Do you literally ask them to write out what are their core values, what are their strengths, what are their passions? And then where does it sort of go from there? Do you, do you talk?

Then we combine it into a sentence which is around the purpose statement which is like, I do this to help this. And it will be a population or an individual or something else. But it's always like, what's the impact you're having? So they can, and that's typically the purpose. And it can be like I say, it could be I go to work to provide for my family so they can achieve any of their dreams. Or it could be, I'll take mine for example, I help others unlock their potential so they can achieve their dreams in terms of helping set people free. Right. So it doesn't have to be world changing. I'm never going to start a revolution. But the impact you can have on one individual by working with them again has enormous ripple effects. And I work with senior people and I very made that decision very consciously over a decade ago. That was always the dream. Get as senior as you can. Because if you can change things at the top, you will change the culture in an organization. So if people see their senior leader going to the gym, leaving on time, prioritizing family, they will start to do it within the organization. If someone just sends out a memo saying we expect you to leave at 6 and go and take care, but they stay till 8, it's not going to happen. And so it's one of those that we put the statement together and then we put it into actionable. So if I'm living my purpose, what am I doing like? And then they describe their ideal week, the ideal day, and then we do the gap analysis of, well, what needs to change to start to bring you 1% closer to that every day. And as you will know from exponential change and everything else, the more you can compound those different changes within a few months, people are living a completely different life that they didn't think was possible.

Yeah, it's an interesting exercise to go through, I think where I, in my head, what I'm struggling with is that when your purpose is your business and your people, it gets harder to draw the boundaries that we all know that we need to draw to maintain our energy levels and our health outcomes and all those other things. And I go back to, anytime I get asked the question, are you stressed? I say no. I've always said that. All my life I've said no. And I used to go away on vacation very rarely, but I used to go away on vacation when I was in a corporate job. And inevitably within the first two days, I was sick.

I remember you telling me this. Yeah.

And now I go away on vacation and I think I'm. I'm not kidding myself when I say I'm not stressed because I might sleep a lot and I might be a bit lethargic, but I never get sick. And. And you know this. I was away last week, and for the first two or three days, I was very lethargic. It was almost like all the adrenaline that was keeping me going had just gone. Gone out of my body. But I didn't fall sick. And I was thinking back five years ago when I was in corporate, I almost know that I would have been sick. And I just. I kind of wonder what the. What the different things going on there are in our body. Because it was almost like clockwork that I would fall sick. And even the day that I left the company for good, we flew to Canada. And for the first week, I was sick as a dog. Yeah. And. And then I had a great holiday. It was a nice long holiday, thankfully, because I just left corporate. So I was.

You didn't know you're going back to, you know.

You know.

Yeah.

But I. I just find that fascinating that, that the body can sort of react that way. And. And so I kind of feel like maybe I'm not kidding myself, that this really is my purpose and I'm really enjoying it. And yes, I need downtime and my body's telling me that, yes, you went on vacation and you needed to.

Yeah. I mean, the thing is, we all need stress.

Yeah.

And people think of stress as a bad thing.

I love that.

But stress is what gets us up in the morning. And so there are different types of stress. So eustress is the type of stress that will motivate us, get us moving. Think about before a presentation or a podcast or anything that gets your blood pumping. So adrenaline, cortisol, they're pumped into your system, and we're designed for that. The human body is designed to do that so that we can perform at our peak. But the intention then is the stressor dissipates and we go back down into recovery and we will consolidate the gains and build resilience once we're back in our comfort zone and we can go back out into the growth zone and the stretch zone again in the future. The problem with the corporate workplace these days is the whole system is designed to keep you up here, and we're not built for that. So we end up with adrenal fatigue, so our bodies can't even produce any more stress hormones. We end up with our immune system being suppressed. So then the minute that you decompress, your immune system comes back up and online and suddenly realizes you've got these bugs that you weren't even like. And then, boom, you're down because your immune system is then fighting all of the infection. Everything else. So it's. We're just not built to constantly be under chronic stress. If we can come back down and back up. And I'm sure you do that. I mean, we were talking before, you were saying, by Friday, I'm ready for the weekend. Yeah, but now you've got the weekend. But you're not sat there stressing about the corporate politics or being asked to do restructures you don't believe in or whatever it may have been. It's all of your own doing. You are in control of what happens with the business, with your team, everything else. And that's a very different type of stress. And that's a positive stress.

I think the control thing is huge. Feeling in control and feeling like you can pull the lever that you need to pull or the levers that you need to pull. You can walk away if you really want to. Yeah. I mean, it's not an easy thing to do, but you. You have that ability. And in corporate, sometimes it can feel like everything around you is happening and you have no control whatsoever over it. It's like being on that. The, you know, the. On the hamster wheel. Yeah. And just running and running and running and not quite understanding why you're doing it.

Yeah.

Ticking the boxes every day just to

get everyone doing it right. So it becomes the norm. So it becomes very hard to put your hand up and go, do we really know why we're doing this?

Yeah.

And it. So it just. Again, it's. The whole system is designed for that way. And the challenge that we have as a society is that we genuinely don't know what the world is going to look like in five years. When you look at the acceleration of AI, and I'm not necessarily talking about superintelligence or anything else, but if you look at people think of AI as an automation issue and now it's going to do parts of my job. AI is fundamentally redesigning the systems in which we work and people just aren't noticing yet. So if you think the biggest layoffs have been announced last month in the us the last time we saw anything like this was with the advent of mobile phones and the shift because of the lack of friction once you could start to do stuff on the move. AI, because of the connectivity and the coordination it's capable of. When you look at agentic AI, for example, that's just the beginning. So the whole system is changing. So people know that their jobs are at risk. And there's the whole thing of like, AI won't take your job, the person who uses AI will take your job. We don't even know what those jobs are. And so people are now feeling they have no control even within the corporates, less control than they had before. And you and I are kind of lucky because I think in a few years everyone's gonna have their own thing and hopefully everyone will have their own thing that they've designed in alignment with their purpose. But right now people can't see that way through yet. Yeah. And so there's a lot of stress in the system and there's a lot of stress going on in individuals minds, but also family, households and society as a whole.

Interesting. I think if you're at the very end of your career or you're at the very beginning of your career, then you have an opportunity to either get through this or pivot. But if you're in that middle phase, it's got to be incredibly worrying for you. You've, you know, you're 10, 15 years into your corporate career and you're thinking you're going to be here for another 10 or 15 years and this is all happening around you.

Yeah.

Again, it's that sense of control. You just don't have it.

And I'm going to say something that's very on PC. If you're in the middle of your career and you're male, it's even more scary right now. And that, you know, completely explains a lot of the behaviors, the rhetoric, everything that's coming through because people are scared. Yeah. And nothing is.

Maybe talk about that a little bit. Why? Why'd you say that?

So I came up career wise on a wave of more women being put into jobs. So we were trained. I was given enormous support, for which I'm very, very grateful. I was given coaching, which is how I fell into coaching because it was my first experience of having a coach. And, and I'm very open about that. Like there was an opportunity and I took it. And I think it's disingenuous for Anyone to go, oh, no, I'm not going to take a job just because I'm a woman. It's like, I know I can do that job. Why wouldn't I?

Anyone would.

So there was this huge wave and this huge push. And even before AI came in and started to take white collar jobs, which is the biggest shift mentally, men were under immense pressure because there is still a societal expectation that they are the breadwinners. And there is still, you know, people are wired to take care of their people. So if you're then put in a situation where you have less opportunities, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the system shouldn't be equalized. I believe it should. But there is friction and disruption in that meantime. And it means that men in particular lose their sense of identity. Because if you're not the one who's able to bring home the bread for want of a better term, and if you're suddenly shifting into a very different dynamic at home, and even if you're a younger male and it's harder to find a mate now because you're no longer as desirable and a woman can go out and take care of herself, she doesn't actually need anything. A really scary place to be in.

Yeah.

And people are acting then from a place of scarcity, not from a place of abundance. And when we act from a place of scarcity, highly competitive zero sum games make bad decisions. We make terrible decisions.

Yeah.

Whereas ironically, we are in an era of abundance and we should all be there. But we're trying to change centuries of human wiring in one generation.

Yeah.

And it's not easy for a woman either. So you speak to any woman of my generation and we were told you can have it all. So we went, we got it all. And it turns out that's a bad deal. Now I'm just really tired. So it's like it's not easy on either side, but I think it's just something that hopefully the generations below us have observed and learned and iterated.

Has your purpose evolved since corporate and is it still evolving? Do you feel it's evolving and what does that look like?

So I think all of our purposes evolve. I think so core values will stay the same. Strengths we learn as well. So sometimes those will flex and passions will learn as well. So I think for me, one of my passions is learning and always learning new stuff. So it's hard to keep everything the same. If you're learning new areas, if you're learning new ways of having an influence or an impact and just expanding your perspective, to be honest. So yes, my purpose has definitely evolved, I would say over the last 10 years. But the consistent theme has always been trying to help people see that they are acting within constraints they set upon themselves and that it's within their power to set themselves free. And by that I mean we're always doing, particularly when we're younger, we're doing what we think society expects of us. I did the same. So it's not a criticism, but you tick all of those boxes, to use your phrase. And then when I was growing up, people used to almost jokingly call it a midlife crisis and they were always talking about guys. But midlife crisis. So it would be like the Ferrari or the girlfriend or whatever it was. But we're all in that stage now because you tick all of those boxes and you're like, is this it? Like is this. On paper I'm successful, I think I probably have more potential. But this doesn't feel like I want to do this for another 20 years. And we, because we're in this era of abundance, we actually have the ability to even think about that. Whereas previous generations were still just putting food on the table. Right. And so I work with a lot of people who on the outside, incredibly successful, on the inside, miserable. And so that's consistent around purpose.

Yeah, I think about that sometimes. When I was growing up, I always thought my father worked incredibly hard. But when I look at how we work today and the pace of life, I mean I, I actually remember the days even before the fax machine where he used to go to the telex office to see if he'd got a telex or not. And he was, he used to say to me, if there's no telex, there's no work. If there's telex, that means there's an inquiry from a buyer somewhere who wants to buy something and then I have to work and find out, you know, source it and price it and send him a quote and work with a factory. And he was down the cricket nets at 4:30 in the evening and then came home for dinner and then he'd go back to work in the morning. And I kind of look at that compared to our lives now and we talk about being in an era of abundance or an era of abundance and stuff. But so much is so different to, to how our parents generation grew up. Yeah. And it's only getting faster, it's not getting slower, you know, because I don't think they sat there at 4 in the morning. Maybe they did if the business wasn't good, but it wasn't. I didn't get back to that email, and I should have done. You know, it's just the way. The way things have evolved is. Is interesting. And I don't. I really don't want to. I don't want to keep bashing corporate. But you said something super interesting about your purpose evolving as you sort of educate yourself, grow, learn new things. I feel like the last five years, at least at corporate, that completely stopped for me. I was working so hard, just doing the stuff that I had to do. There was no time to grow. There was no time to be curious about anything else. And I almost felt. I've kind of used the analogy of being in a horse race with the blinkers on and not seeing anything that was going on around me apart from what I saw at home with the family and just, you know, running the race. And then you leave the corporate world and you take the blinkers off, and it's almost like, oh, my God, there is this whole big world around me that I have completely forgotten about or not being exposed to. And things change pretty quickly. I would say within six months, I started to. To be interested in things that I would never be interested in before.

So if you hadn't already told me about the sickness.

Yeah.

And coming off when you say that, I would immediately diagnose burnout.

Interesting, because.

Well, two things that you mentioned. So, first of all, the narrowing of vision. So that means we're thinking with our limbic system, that part of our brain, which means just constant adrenaline and cortisol. That's just survival. Right. So everything narrows and we no longer have the capacity to be curious. And then the second thing was you said, and then I, after a few months, became interested again. So withdrawal is one of the first symptoms of burnout, when we just stop really caring or even noticing stuff that's happening on the periphery or anything expansive. So, yeah, so even if you hadn't told me about your immune system and your. The stress decompression making you sick all the time, and you stopped, I would immediately then be going, oh, that's interesting. That sounds a lot like burnout.

Yeah, you stop. You stop listening to the news, you stop reading the newspaper, you stop reading books.

So the latter the worst thing. News. Yeah.

Yeah, today. Yeah, Today news is today.

News is.

I don't know what news is designed

to make you burn out.

Yeah.

But, yeah.

And honestly, podcasting has been just huge for me because I still. I don't Read that much. But I. I probably listen to a podcast today in the gym or in the car, on the mtr, wherever I am, and. And I feel like it's changed the way I think about so many things. One of the things that I worry about, though, is that there is so much advice out there, and people are trying to. You know, we, We. We kind of talked about this before, but you have these narratives of hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, if you're running a business. And then you have this other narrative out there that I keep seeing of you can work 20 to 25 hours a week and you can optimize everything and lie on a beach and. And make lots of money. And I find both of them so dangerous because I just think it's different for everyone and that we're all on a spectrum of what we can and can't live with comfortably. How do you. How do you feel about that? Because you talk a lot about optimizing for outcomes.

Yeah, I mean, outcome for me is. And someone really stopped me in my tracks, actually. I was interviewing them on a podcast the other day, and they were talking about productivity, and they said, we're really confused, like, particularly executives or people in the professional services. And he coaches a lot of people there as well. And he said, people think I want. They just say to me, I need more capacity. I need more time so I can be more productive. And he's like, do you know what the definition of productivity is? He said, productivity is more output for less input. But what you're asking me is, how do I find more time? And I get the same question all the time, like, how do I create more time to do more work? And he's like, that's the opposite of productivity. What you're asking is to do be less efficient effectively, rather than look at your points of leverage and really prioritize what will generate the most output and optimize for the outcomes that you want. And I think. And really, like, he just put it so articulately, I haven't done it any service there, but it's true. And so. And I talk a lot about optimization, but optimization for the goals that are unique to you. So to your point, what floats our boat is different for every single person. What we need is different for every single person. Back in March, I went from being in Hong Kong to then being in a farm in the. In Wilt, in the middle of nowhere, and you suddenly realize, I actually don't need very much. But here in Hong Kong, you feel like, you need stuff all the time, right?

Yeah.

And it's not a conscious thing. It's just being influenced by the environment that you're in. And so for all of us having. And I'm not suggesting that you should do anything that drastic, but experimenting with what do we actually need versus what do we feel we need because we're being influenced by the environment in which we're in is critical. Because actually, there are two ways in which you can find. I don't know if the word is relief or freedom. So money buys us, freedom buys us freedom and choice. And when people are saying, hustle, hustle, hustle, they're saying, you've got to work really hard. You've got to do this. But the reason is because then once you make your money, you've got your freedom. And then people who are selling the 20 hours a week, a, they're selling a course, inevitably at some point, there's an operating system or a course or something that they're selling. But B, the more we cut our expenses, the more relief we have from pressure, like, the less pressure there is on us. And so somewhere between those two, experimenting with those two levers can be very, very powerful for people, because money is just a tool at the end of the day.

Yeah.

But we've fixated on it becoming the objective.

Yep.

But it doesn't matter how much we earn. If you have enough to put aside and you've got Runway and you can take care of yourself and your people, really doesn't matter. It doesn't define us. But we have created a society in which it does.

Yeah. And we're all on a spectrum. And this is. This is what I try and tell people, is you've got to take from all of this advice what is right and applicable to you and your situation today. And there are people that I listen to a lot. I listen to Hormozi a lot. He is work 24 7, and, you know, pretty much he said, I sleep six or seven hours a night, I work out, and I work, and that's all I do. But every podcast that I listen to with him, I take one or two things away from something that he's done. But I'll never take away the. The hustle, hustle, hustle thing, because one thing that I've learned, and it's taken me a long time to kind of figure this out myself, and then I heard it on a podcast, articulated, and I was like, that is exactly. It was optimized for energy over time, because when you have Energy you to your point about productivity, that is when I'm productive and you mentioned somewhere about the worst time to make decisions is 2pm and it really kind of resonated with me because I will hit a point in the day pretty much every day where I know I'm no longer productive. And honestly that's normally the point where I'm like I'm going to go home and I may get it back on to work two or three hours later. But I, without that downtime, I'm just wasting my time sitting at my desk. You know, I, I either end up doom scrolling or just answering rubbish emails saying yes, approved or do you know, bank transfer or something. I mean yes, it's productive because it needs to be done but I know I'm no longer thinking productively about the business and how I can impact it and I'm no longer, when someone comes to me, I know I'm not in the right frame to get, give them the feedback or make the decision.

Yeah.

And then I regret it the next day I'm like, we really should have done that differently. You know, there was a, there was a better way to do that.

Yeah.

Because I'm clearer now.

Yeah. And I think it's. So 2:00pm is, it's a very broad generalization of course because people have different circadian rhythms and it will be different depending on people's patterns and everything else. But generally there's that afternoon slump where all we're looking for is a dopamine hit. And so it might be clearing my inbox and just doing to your point, just rubbish. It feels good but really it's just productive procrastination. Right. It's not actually getting on with anything proper but it's. And we all do it. But we are also trained well those of us who haven't been entrepreneurs for our entire lives. We're also trained that you just push through it and you just sit there and you just do stuff and you look busy. But it just means we continue to then not replenish our energy stores, not go for a walk, not, I don't know about you, I have my best ideas if I'm walking the dog or in the shower and I'm not doing that at 2pm and I'm sat there just going. So it just, we need, and particularly now and particularly in the future when I think we will actually have less working hours that we need to do, we have an opportunity to redesign and identify our own personal energy patterns. When, you know, just observing and this is something I do with clients a lot. Break the hour up the day up into two hour blocks and just observe for three days. When did you have the most energy? What were you doing? When did you have like. And throughout the day.

So when you say two hour blocks, what does that look like?

So from, let's say from 6 to 8, 8am Okay. 8 to 10am Okay. 10am to 12pm just break the whole day up and just observe when you have the most energy. And we just do it for three days. It's not hugely onerous, but then we audit. Well, what were you doing at those times and when were you making big decisions? When were you having difficult conversations? So for you, managing your team comes naturally. That's quite rare for most of us. We have to really think about when am I going to bring my best to this feedback conversation, for example, because to your point, if I'm doing that at 3pm and I'm tired and I'm a blood sugar's gone down through the floor, I am not going to be the nicest person giving that feedback. Right. Whereas if I'm doing that at 9am, we go and get a coffee together, we go for a walking meeting, I'm going to be a much nicer manager. Yeah. So it's things like that and it just means we can reflect and then they'll start to make tweaks in terms of how am I managing my workload or what I want to get done based on my energy as opposed to just a time block. Now that's easier said than done because a lot of people's diaries are dictated or they think they're dictated by other people. Amazingly, when they start to suggest changes, they realize they have a lot more control over their diary. And back to your point around control, that means they feel more empowered and they're much more energized anyway.

Yeah.

Because none of us likes feeling. We're just dancing to someone else's tune.

Yeah. You talked about managing a team coming naturally to me. I think one of the things that I really struggle with though is the difficult discussions.

Really.

Yeah.

So you're human because.

Yeah. I mean, you said earlier that you're brutal with feedback and I think I need to be more brutal. Honestly, I think I'm always trying to. I'm very glass half full and sometimes I think I couch the feedback a little bit without being as blunt as I should be so that it lands. But I'm working on it.

And it's never one size fits all. It depends on the audience as well, right. And we forget that about communication because particularly when we know we have to give difficult feedback or have a challenging conversation, we're really worried about it. And so we bring that stress into the conversation as opposed to what we really ought to be thinking about is what does this person need to hear to improve?

Yeah.

I'm a really big fan of Brene Brown and one of the quotes she has is direct is kind of like it's not kind to let people keep doing the wrong thing just because we don't want to have the conversation. We don't want to be seen as the bad guy or girl. Sorry. But yeah, and so I am very direct with feedback and some people really don't like that. And that's okay because hopefully by the time I'm giving people feedback, they trust me enough to know it's coming from a very positive place. But there have definitely been times where I've messed that up in the past and it maybe hasn't even been coming from that positive place because I wasn't happy and I wasn't aligned with my purpose. Yeah, same.

How do you, how do you optimize for energy? I know you got it, you've got a bunch of devices on. Does that, does that help you?

It helps me a lot. So I'm a big, I like data.

Yeah.

But there's a, you know, there's the knowledge action gap. I can know something from the data. I still have to close the gap in terms of doing something about it.

Yep.

I manage my energy in terms of the 8020 rule. So I will have a couple of days a week where I'm pushing really hard, particularly because I have multiple teams, multiple businesses and so they need a lot of stuff early in the week. I do work through the weekends quite a lot. I might have say Sunday afternoon off, do Sunday roast with my family, go for a walk, that kind of thing. But I do work through the weekends because that for me is my down time when I can do my strategic thinking. I can really get the Runway ready for everyone else to hit the ground on Monday or Tuesday. And then I do coach quite a few clients at weekends as well because they're very busy people in the week. So. But then I will have say like a Tuesday and a Wednesday, they will be much easier days for me. And then the other thing I do is just, it's a non negotiable for me for exercise because it energizes me and always in the morning, I mean, if I can't do it in the morning, then it will happen in the afternoon, but ideally in the morning. And so my diary is blocked until 9:30 every morning. It's very like I will make exceptions if I have to, but it's very rare that I do because I know that I will show up much better for the rest of the day if I've got that and if I also, I really like to sleep without an alarm. So that. Which was not a luxury I had when I was in corporate. So I indulge myself in that now because it means that I will wake up when my body is ready as opposed to dictated by the fact I have like a 7:30am meeting.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Is the Tuesday, Wednesday thing intentional? I think those are sort of down days.

It just sort of worked out that way because by then I've had all my briefing meetings with the team on Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday morning, typically. And it means that I know they've got what they need and they can always get hold of me. It's not. I'm not available, but I'm doing the stuff that is a bit more, I would say, energizing and lighter for me. So it might be stuff around content.

Yeah.

Might be stuff around interviewing for my podcast. Like, stuff I find very energizing, but not stuff where I'm having to be really cerebrally.

Yeah.

Active, if that makes sense. And then by sort of like Thursday, Friday, everything's come back around the sun in terms of we've done this. What does it look? And then it's feedback and then it's iteration and it's whatever in time for the weekend. So.

Interesting, interesting. See, I have most of my meetings Monday and then Thursday, Friday. So we have the early meeting in the week and then sort of the end to sort of see where we are. And then we have another meeting on Monday, partly because we're. A lot of our business is sales and a lot of that happens on the weekends as well. So I wanted to ask you, without the benefit of all these devices that we have today, I'm wearing my. Whoop, you're wearing yours and your aura ring and your Apple watch. And I've got my Apple watch at home. If we take those out of the equation, what are the signs that you've experienced or you've seen or you know of that a crash is coming? You mentioned the blinkers earlier.

Yeah.

And you said that I was probably close to a crash.

Yeah.

And I probably was. I was sick for a week when I left and, you know, maybe that was the crash and it was a short one, but, you know, I knew. I knew I wasn't going back.

So, yeah, I mean, there are a few symptoms that I would always look out for. So one is being withdrawn. So from things that you used to find enjoyable or just things in the periphery that would otherwise have interested you. So realizing that, you know, maybe that's for a week or two and that's fine, but if it's consecutively for a few weeks, that's not necessarily great. Another massive indicator is withdrawing from personal relationships. So struggling when you go home to then engage with people that you care about, or just, you know, canceling plans with friends and feeling a sense of relief, that kind of thing, if that keeps happening. And I'm introverted, so don't get me wrong, zero judgment. I love doing that sometimes. Or I love it even better when someone cancels on me and I'm like, yes, yeah. But if it's happening all the time, that's a problem. Digestive issues, very, very common. So there's an enormous link between the gut and the brain. I think everyone knows that now, but maybe I'm in an echo chamber. But there's a lot of research around about if you're particularly stressed, if you have a lot of cortisol being dumped, which is the primary stress hormone into your system all the time, you really struggle to digest certain foods. And so you will end up very often with diarrhea or irritable bowel syndrome and that kind of stuff. It just really means your body is not getting the nutrients that it needs and your hormonal balance is off sometimes comfort eating. So we will very often go after dopamine or comfort in any way we can. And then the other thing is just the inability to switch off. So interrupted sleep patterns or even just at the end of the day, closing the laptop or the shutting down the PC, but not actually being able to stop ruminating over things as well.

I guess also when you're in that state, one of the things that you definitely can't do, which I feel like I've been able to do since I left corporate, which is why I kind of bring it up, is pushing yourself outside your comfort zone because you've got the blinkers on and all of this stuff is going on. And I, you know, I. I kind of look back and laugh a little bit that I remember when my kids were in junior school and they came home talking about this thing that they called growth mindset. And I, I honestly, at corporate, I rolled my eyes a bit and thought, what Are they teaching these kids? And now I am all in on this. Yeah. You know, and it's so interesting how perspectives can change as. As this. You know, you said it kind of the environment you're in, the situation around you. Because I'm, I'm. I'm now the one telling my kids, you know, push yourself, go outside your comfort zone. This is. This is where growth happens. This is where you're gonna. You're gonna become better at what you'd want to be, what you want to do. Do you have any thoughts on.

On.

On sort of people who are struggling with this or why this is important? Because for me, it's been a game changer. And I'll give you the example of this podcast. There is I. In 2021, someone sent me a message on LinkedIn and said, Banyan should start a podcast. And I rolled my eyes.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Maybe that's your trigger. Next time you catch yourself doing it, you're like, oh, I'm just going to manifest that in your life.

I kind of roll my eyes and go, why would I want to do a podcast? I'm so busy trying to grow this business and stuff. And then one thing led to another, and we had panel discussions for entrepreneurs in the space, and I was on a panel, and then I hosted it. And the next thing I knew, I was like, God, I'm learning so much from this. And it just sort of evolved from there. You know, it's. It's just interesting to me that when we don't push ourselves, we really do

stand still, and we're designed to push ourselves. Like the human species have been successful because we are wired to push ourselves out of our comfort zones. And I think the problem is, and this goes back to stress is a good thing, not a bad thing. We wouldn't do stuff unless we were motivated by stress. And we're always designed to keep striving for more. That's potentially one of the biggest problems coming in. If we do have something like universal basic income, if everything's covered, what are we working towards?

Yeah.

So I think it's super important. I think growth, mindset, and grit are very, very important characteristics that we should be nurturing in our children. So it's amazing to hear that the schooling system is actually teaching them, because I certainly wasn't taught about it.

No, I wasn't either, which is. Which is why I think it was. It surprised me. I was like, well, what happened to maths, English, you know, French, but gross.

Mindset is very closely linked to Adaptability. And adaptability is one of the key skills that will set future winners apart. Right. Not necessarily what we were talking.

Exactly. And it's, it's, it's exactly what you said. It's teaching the kids the skills that they are going to need to be successful together with the academic rigor and, and the facts and, and just the, the stuff that you need to know from maths and English and history and languages. Yeah, but for us, that, that, that wasn't there. It was just the maths, history, English, you know.

Yeah. For me, it was great learning. I learned more at university about how to just survive and take care of myself. An adult.

Yeah.

I think, I mean, I studied it and Industrial Revolution and the change that technologies can have, which now looks like perfect timing, but really is just luck. But I learned a lot more about how to just show up, be responsible, be accountable, and adapt. But if we're teaching that in schools now, along with one thing that really bugs me that we never taught and I don't think is taught very well now, is financial literacy, how to take care of your finances. Because I think a lot of the stuff I'm coaching now later in life would be completely unnecessary if people were taught about compound interest and the basics and, you know, how to have passive income from a younger age. But if they're teaching kids that. Plus mindfulness, which a lot of schools have on their curriculum now, I think it's just incredible.

Yeah, I'm fascinated with the financial literacy piece, actually, and the fact that it plays into purpose and just mental health and, and to that end we actually have coming on, I think, in February. I don't know if you know Christina Nicole, who founded Sophia.

Yep. I was speaking to Nicole just last week.

Okay.

Amazing work.

Yeah. So they're going to be, they're going to be on Entrepreneur Stories in, in February actually here. So that, that's something I'm really, really looking forward to diving into. A lot of what we've talked about is investing in yourself and, and the importance of just being conscious of that. What do most people come to you for? I mean, is. Is this something that people are conscious of before they come to you, or is it something that you almost have to put front and center for them and, and make them more aware?

So people don't come to me because everything is sunshine and flowers. They're normally either concerned that they are on the verge of burnout or they want to understand why they're feeling quite so lackluster about life or they're going through a big transition. And it may be that that transition is personal. So it may be their job, it may be their marriage, it may be their, to your point, empty nesters and just feeling empty and a lack of purpose. Or it may be that they are leading transformation as well. So from a corporate side, I help corporates effectively upskill their leadership so that they have the tools to be able to lead those big transformations. Because no one wants to be, and I've been that boss. No one wants to be the boss that's letting people go and then trying to motivate people and get morale back up and change a business model. But the vast majority of leaders are having to do that today. And so the more responsible corporates have realized there is a gap between the support that those people currently have because they've been trained as managers, not leaders, and the ongoing support they're going to need to really get people back up off their heels, onto their toes. And so a big part of it is really just about transformation, hence transform, perform. So how do you transform and maintain performance? And on the individual level it's quite often, well, being related to start, but then you pick at that very tangible surface level issue and you realize there's a bit more underneath that people want to work on.

It's interesting from hearing about corporate restructuring, one of the things that I was thinking about when you were talking about that is even away from the corporates, For smaller companies and entrepreneurs who are running small businesses, you still have to go through this in a different kind of way. But we reimagined our business in Vietnam about two and a half years ago, brought in a new leader and we have, I think two people out of the 30 on the team that are still there from when we reimagined our business. But the business and, and we were on a very small base. So when I say this, I don't want to be silly expectations, but we were at a very small base. The business is literally in 30 months, 10 times the size it was from when we made these changes. And it wasn't even that we were letting everyone go. It was that the nature of the business changed and people didn't want to be there anymore. But it was still a very stressful period with new leadership coming in and just changing the way we did things. And I think that there's a lot of talk about corporate restructuring, but I think that for any business there's always this balance of making sure you have the right people on the team to get the business to where you Want it to be and where, you know, it can go. And those tough decisions are not easy to make, especially when you're a people person and people pleaser. And I sometimes feel I fall into that. That bracket and, you know, but at the end of the day, it's a business. Yeah. Do you. Do you have a lot of entrepreneurs coming to you with the same challenges? Because you talked about corporates.

Yeah. Most of the founders that I work with are dealing with exactly that. But burnout because. Or risk of burnout, I should say, because they are taking so much personal accountability for their teams. And I do think even in corporate, the easiest. The people that have the easiest ride in a corporate restructure are the people at the top. Because everyone is just a spreadsheet on the team level. It's exactly like the founder, because people have coached these people, work with these people. They might have a team of 10. It's still very personal when you're deciding who has to go.

Yeah.

Or you're changing things so much that, you know, some people will want to leave. It's still very personal. But from an entrepreneur perspective or a founder perspective or small business, it's very hard. It's very personal. And I watched. So I grew up on a farm. I watched my father go through this twice growing up. And I like my. My dad, as with everyone when you're growing up, like, he's your hero. Right. But he really was like a giant man. Strong. Everything else. Four kids. We had a proper patriarchy household and stuff. It crushed him. It crushed him. I mean, like, full breakdown twice, having to let people go. And so I never took lightly what it meant because it was so personal. When it's your own business, it's the community that you work in. You know, he was employing people in the village, that kind of stuff. And they watched him grow up. And I think that's how it feels. When it's your own business, you'd call it your baby. I wouldn't know because I don't have children, but I can see what you mean. And I come from a background that is very commercially minded. And I'm also, when I'm working with people, keen to remind them that it is a business. But also, people always have options. People can choose to stay on the bus and go in the direction you're all going in, or they can get off the bus.

Yeah.

You just have to decide the course of the bus. Yeah. And make sure you've got the right people in the right seats. And I think I've Stolen that directly from Jim Rohn. But it's. But it really resonated when I was reading. I think it's B2B that he writes. Or. Okay, it's a great book, but it's. People have choices and options, and I think that founders in particular take all of that on themselves. And the question I ask is, how long do you want to do this for? How long do you want to run your business? Because you've got a choice. You can either keep carrying all of that load or you can put some of that down. And I can guarantee you will keep going longer and supporting more people and new talent and growing the people that you do want to stay on the bus.

And that's how the business will scale. Yeah. Because otherwise there's a limit to where it's going to go if you're.

Yeah.

Doing everything yourself.

And it's also okay that the people who were starting a business.

Yeah.

Aren't the right people to grow it. A lot of them are miserable when they're being pushed into roles or scope or bandwidth that they never intended to be in as well, so. But actually being able to have those conversations and manage that conflict is a critical skill that, again, we are not taught in schools.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how so much of this comes back to education. Liz, what have we not spoken about today that you think could be relevant to this discussion?

It's a really good question, I think, in terms of what to leave people with. The thing that continues to surprise me, and it shouldn't, because I'm fairly long in the tooth now, is just how quick we are, whether we're founders, managers, leaders, working corporate mothers, fathers, whatever it may be, how quick we are to put ourselves last. And we're so outwardly focused that this. And it always comes back to the question of, like, how long do you want to be doing this? So a big part of the reason why my purpose has changed recently is I recently nursed my mother in her final months, and that meant. Which I'm incredibly grateful I got the opportunity to do. It was brutal, but I'm really pleased I did it. And I spent a lot of time on hospital wards watching people who. Because of the wonders. And I genuinely mean that. I'm not being sarcastic, the wonders of medicine have another 10, 15 years ahead of them, but the quality of their life is going to be exceptionally poor. And they will not have independence. They can't do the stuff they want to do. They can't live the lives they want. And a big part of that. And the reason why I've refocused the business now on people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and very much on well being as opposed to leadership development, which was the primary focus before, is there are interventions we can take accountability for now. And I know you're very good at this, that mean that we won't be in that situation, that we will live very healthily in our 70s, our 80s, our 90s. Many of us are going to make it to 100. Most of us will be working well beyond we're 80. And my question is always, how long do you want to do this for? And if it's a long time, why are you putting yourself last?

Yeah, I think it's a great point. Firstly, sorry about your mother.

Thank you.

Sorry about your mother. And that must have been incredibly difficult. But also I, I know from speaking to you and seeing you post how much you took from that experience as well. But it goes back to something we said earlier about investing in yourself as your number one project. Because I feel like when you do that, and it's taken me a long time to realize that, is that when you put yourself, whether it's first, second or third, as long as you're not last, you give yourself an opportunity to be there for everyone else. Because when you put yourself last, you're actually not there for everyone else when you need to be and when you can be. And I think that's something that I, I've taken away and seen the difference in my life when I optimize for energy and optimize for just, you know, being able to focus on what's happening around me rather than just on my work. And I love what you said about, it's almost like quality of life over long longevity. I have this chat, I'm have a boys chat group. We all boys, I think do, and, and there's a few of us on this group and there's some of us saying, some of them saying, well, I'm probably going to die at 65 or 70 because both my parents did and my grandparents did. And I'm like, you're probably going to live to 90 to 100.

Yeah.

You know, and if you're not optimizing for quality of life now, then those years are going to look very different potentially. And there's no guarantees in life, but give yourself the chance that those years are going to look better and you're going to be able to do the things that you want to do. You know, for me, I just, I'm always thinking about my children and my grandchildren and wanting to enjoy them and do things that I know that my parents can't do with their grandchildren today. So I think it's a great way of leaving it. Liz, thank you for making the effort to be here. You're always so open and lean into your personal experiences and to share insights and it's incredibly valuable and powerful. And I think if people take the time to read what your posts and listen to what you say, then they give themselves a chance to, to improve their own lives and circumstances. And thank you for what you do. I know they can find you on LinkedIn. They can find you on Twitter, I believe. I'm not on Twitter.

No, I try and avoid it if I'm honest. But yeah, no, LinkedIn is my primary

kind of channel and it's amazing content. So if you're listening, do follow Liz Bradford. But again, thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Really enjoyed the discussion and particularly coming straight off a plane.

No, my absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. And you know, hopefully if it makes one person stop and think about not putting themselves last, then job done, purpose served. So thank you very, very much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Great place to finish.