Culture will make or break your business 💎 | Gemma Price

One of the things that really stood out to me as a non-negotiable when I became an employer was culture. And it is such a core strand of the business. It's as important to me as profit. It is as important to me as customers. And it's a non-negotiable. By culture, I know that it gets banded around a lot. We have a great culture. I am someone that sees something, sees it as an opportunity for growth and improvement. So I guess I just jumble this all into one big melting pot of what matters to me.

This week's Millennial Master is Gemma Price, founder and CEO of HubJam. From taking a leap of faith into self-employment to building a thriving business that's now a global leader in the education tech space, Gemma has redefined what it means to blend flexibility, culture, and growth. In this episode, we talk about building a culture-first business and how flexibility and well-being fueled her team's success, turning challenges into opportunities with scaling her business during the pandemic, and mastering mindset, the tools and habits that keep her grounded and thriving as a leader. This episode is brought to you by Offwork. Gym memberships, gift cards, free coffee, and pizza Fridays. Well, these staff perks just don't cut it anymore. That's why Offwork gives your team something they already love— travel. They can book their own flights, pick their own hotels, and plan the perfect getaway, all with the travel fund you set up for them. It's super easy. Just set the contributions and OffWork handles the rest. Better time off means less burnout, more motivation, and happier employees. Give your team a perk they'll actually love. Check out OffWork today on offwork.com. Millennial Masters is proudly sponsored by Jolt. The UK's top web hosting service. Whether you're launching a WordPress site or scaling up a custom app, every great project needs a reliable home. That's why Jolt has hosting plans starting at just £3.95 a month, with unbeatable deals on domain registrations too. Why Jolt? It's a no-brainer. There's no waiting around, with support within 30 seconds on live chat, your site stays live no matter what with over 99.99% network uptime, and you can also pay with Bitcoin or American Express so you can rack up those points too. How good is that? Sign up today and enjoy your first 3 months free. Head to jolt.co.uk to get started.

Gemma, welcome to Millennial Masters.

Thank you. Hello.

So you made a big jump from marketing into self-employment without a backup plan before working from home was trendy. Tell me the inception story.

Yeah, gosh, it sounds crazy when you put it like that. Uh, yeah, so, um, I have a background working in, in marketing. I'd worked in a number of employed roles in the education sector primarily. So working for Lincoln College Group, I worked for Lincoln Minster School, very much education marketing was my bag. I've always been interested in. And yeah, I, um, I'd implemented HubSpot CRM. In a couple of places and I just had that niggling feeling that I needed to do more with that. That's what I was really passionate about. I could see the potential. So yeah, I, I just, I did, it was never like my plan to just step out there and say, I'm going to start a business, but it is the best thing I ever did. So I, yeah, I just decided I would look into consultancy and taking my skills out there to more broadly. I had a young family. My daughter was, was a 6-month-old at that time. So it was a mixture of sort of a lifestyle choice and wanting to be there with family, as well as this just gut feeling that people needed this. So yeah, it was a big leap of faith, but it was based on a strong feeling that I could do it.

You had to take a big plunge. You told me before that people were asking you, why are you going from a good job into self-employment? But you, you had to believe in you to take that plunge without a backup plan. How, how did you find the strength to do that?

I, I am one that likes to forge my own path. I am somebody that if I see something that excites me and interests me, I want to throw myself into it and just do the best that I can. Um, and it served me pretty well. So I think, you know, it was hard when people that I looked up to were telling me most businesses go under within a couple of years, you won't make a profit, what are you doing, you've got a good salary. But it wasn't, it was never really about any of that for me. I'm not one that's driven by titles. I'm not driven by just big numbers on a salary. It's, there's more than that. For me, it's a lot more about fulfillment and purpose and achievement. And so I could just, when I could see this potential and I feel that pull to, to, to give it a go. If it hadn't worked, then I would have taken another path and divert and go on that path. Like, I think I, um, I'm probably quite, uh, probably a little bit of stubbornness there when it comes to idea through when I'm passionate about it. So I think it probably served me well here.

So you were looking to work from home circa 2019, so before it became trendy to work from home or compulsory later on. And you were, you also had a newborn baby and it was a matter of conjuncture as well, right?

Yeah. So it was, I came from an education background and in education, everybody runs to a timetable, right? So, you know, you eat at the same time, you even go to the bathroom at the same time. And I found, I was starting to find that quite, quite stifling. Especially when I was having sleepless nights. I'd gone back from maternity leave. The stuff that I wanted to do didn't need me to be sat in an office. There was lots of distractions. There was lots of hate. You know, there's always politics and all the things going on that aren't— that detract me from the stuff I really want to be doing. And so I wanted flexibility above all else. And it's really hard going back to work. As a new parent, um, and finding that balance. My career has always mattered to me so much, but so has being a mum. So I think it was that, um, yeah, finding a way that I could do both of them things. And for me, that flexibility in the working from home was a way to achieve that. I am also— I, I am a home person. I love being at home. I like to work in my slippers. There was a big appeal there. Saying that, in 2019, it was not the done thing. It was still a bit radical. Why do you want to work from home? I think at that time, because it wasn't so commonplace, it was, you know, are you working? Don't you get distracted? Like, how do you trust that you'll get the job done? So yeah, I set up a little desk in what was then our dining room and just got to work. For me, it allowed me to be fully focused on my work. I obviously had childcare, otherwise there would be no chance, but it allowed me to be fully focused and not waste valuable time at the start and end of the day with any sort of commuting.

And you basically turned a product that you were using in your job into your business. Tell me the background of that, how you got hooked into it. And then how you transitioned it into your business.

Yeah. So it was, so it's, it's HubSpot CRM software that I had applied in the education space for marketing and admissions. So I had implemented it there. It's not sector-specific software, which is good because education software typically is quite behind the curve. So it was quite a radical move anyway, just implementing it. In a school and we saw results from it. And then I ended up, people would call me from other schools saying, you've implemented HubSpot, how does that work for you? And more and more people were asking me what we were doing. And I realized at that point that this was quite unusual. It was quite a, yeah, quite a radical step that I'd taken without really realizing. I would say when you're within a school or any educational institution, You are in a bubble. You, you know, you don't really mix massively with, with other similar organizations. So I maybe hadn't realized it wasn't normal to implement there, especially at that point. And I just really enjoyed using it. It was intuitive. It was everything I wanted at that time to help me see the results that I wanted to get from our marketing. And then it was really that pivotal moment for me was coming back from, I took a short maternity leave with my daughter and coming back from that and I just wasn't feeling it anymore. My, a lot of the day-to-day stuff in my job I wasn't feeling. And the bit that I was really, really wanted to spend more time doing was the HubSpot side of things, like just improving the processes. I love the data. I am a bit of a nerd. So, um, uh, diving into the data, seeing conversions, knowing when I could report on something, what had led to those results. So all of that stuff excited me. Commuting every day. With a young baby at home did not. So yeah, I, I wasn't sure what exactly at that point what I would do. I just knew I was feeling a change was needed. And by this point, I'd made some really good contacts at HubSpot and their European headquarters is in Dublin. And I'd made a few contacts who work from that office. I remember going for a walk in the Arboretum in Lincoln and saying, just saying to them on the phone, Do I come work for you? Is there anything I could do? Like, I'm really interested in HubSpot. I've made a big impact. But, you know, their office, it was in Ireland. There wasn't a UK office at the time.

That was a longer commute.

Yeah, that was a bit too much. And I didn't want to move, you know, I've got family, I've got connections, I've got homes. So very quickly I realized that going to work for them wasn't an option for me. And so it was at that point I learned about partners. HubSpot Partners, which is essentially, there's completely separate businesses, but that can help to sell and service and consult on the software. And so my immediate thing was maybe I'll look for jobs at Partners. And I started to research, I even had a job offer from one that I had on my desk, like a printout of this thing just for me to look at and see how I felt about it. But it just, just kept looking at things thinking I could do that better, or I would do that my way, or I would do that differently. And the other partners and everything. They were doing a great job, but it's not what I wanted to do. And I think for me, that was it for me when the penny dropped that I have ideas, I have a good feeling and, you know, and some evidence that there's a need for this. And I'm ready for a change combined with the fact I was looking for the flexibility. I'd say it was like a perfect recipe for, you know, the lightbulb moment of maybe I just need to go for this. So I think that's quite unusual. Now I've spoken to all the business owners and entrepreneurs. It's quite unusual, I think, to have gone on that journey. Like, I feel like a lot of people felt that early on. When I look back, I can see probably the signs were always there that I would do, start a business. But my particular route is like, I haven't seen it. It took me to get to that point, the perfect maybe alchemy of everything for me to go, maybe I should just start my own business. So we became a HubSpot partner from the beginning. And I was set out to be a consultant helping other people implement HubSpot.

But the beginning wasn't easy because very shortly after you set up your business, a global event changed the face of everything that we know so far. How did 2020 and the pandemic become a turning point for your business?

Yeah, it was, it was hard. So I left, so I launched the business in November 2019 and I was still employed up until December. So I was sort of doing both for a month as I used up holiday and things like that. So I'd started to put down some roots. I had my first few clients and, you know, I was amazed at what they were willing to pay me, frankly, at that point. To do this job. You know, I hadn't ever thought of it. You know, I was still in the stage of defining my services and defining all, you know, all the bits I needed to plan and building my website. So I was very fortunate that because I had lots of connections already, that my first few paying clients were there before I'd actually left employment. And I would just, I would say by the, by the time we were early 2020, just pre-pandemic, I had started to establish brand, I'd started to establish our own marketing, our website, and define everything. And I was just starting to have other conversations beyond my sort of first two clients that I had from the off. But, you know, I was just starting to get out there. And then when the, when all the pandemic hit and the news, it was all you could see. And I just, to begin with, I guess like everybody, I was just a bit shell-shocked. I didn't really know what it meant. It was uncharted territory completely. What I realized very quickly was that I would not be eligible for anything like furlough that everyone seemed to be, everyone seemed to be getting. I knew that was not an option. I also, because I hadn't been self-employed long enough, wasn't eligible for any government support. And so it was a case of sink or swim, to be honest. I, um, it really focused me and I remember vividly this moment sitting on the sofa crying to my husband, what have I done? Like, what are we going to do? I've got to pay the bills. And it really just dawned on me the gravity of the situation because I hadn't gone into this with a big pot of money to build a business from. I was starting from nothing and built every bit of income I'd then had to just put back in the business. So, mm-hmm. Was scary. I think I just, I needed that moment to process it all. Let myself feel scared and let myself feel all of that. But I do a lot, I always have been interested in doing a lot of mindset. And I realized at that point, okay, we've had that moment, let's move on. We need to make a plan. We are where we are. I was trying to engage with prospects, pick up the conversations that I'd tentatively started, and nobody answered the phone. Every school was shut at that point. Every college was shut. Every university was shut. Certainly implementing a new CRM and improving their marketing process was not top priority. So it was a big, yeah, just a big wake-up call and I just had to work as hard as I could just doing what I could. So in that moment, there were no sales leads. I had the ones I'd already sold to and I had to keep working with them, which I did. And that saw me through. All I could do was focus on, use the time to focus on our own marketing. So, uh, I remember, I think in the first month of the pandemic, I wrote 80 blog articles. Which is the sign of someone losing their mind, I think. I just thought, I'm probably never, hopefully, never going to get this much time again. So what can I do? Strip away all the stuff I can't control. I can bring my ideas, my knowledge, my expertise of the sector. We were servicing the education sector, funnily enough. So I knew my audience very well. Um, so yeah, I just threw myself in. I wrote a load of articles. I worked on the website. I did lots of like design and social media and connecting with people just in our shared panic, to be honest. So rather than trying to sell to people, it was just, gosh, how are you finding it? Is there anything I can do to help? Was my approach. And actually, as is often the case with challenges, they actually became a really good accelerator. Once we got past that horrible period, suddenly what it had done was shone a light on the fact that none of these people in my target audience were able to work remotely. All the admissions in schools and colleges just stopped because they weren't on site. They weren't in offices, their computers and their software were all outdated. And you can't stop admissions. If you stop admissions, nobody goes to college, university, or school anymore, right? It doesn't, it doesn't work. You can't do that. And so, I think it was around sort of July, August 2020, when we really started to see the positive effects of the pandemic and people were willing to hop on a Zoom call instead of insist on me going to visit them. So it actually made it easier for me to meet and sell to more people. People had spent a lot of their spare time reading blog articles, which I was happily churning out at that point. We generated quite a lot of subscribers. I'd connected with quite a few people on LinkedIn, and then they had recognized, gosh, we need to sort this out. And there was still the threat of looming lockdowns, I think, as things were relaxing. So people were maybe more willing than they actually would have been to engage in conversation with me then. And then from that point onwards, it was just growth.

So The turning point for you became when you started converting those soft leads that you created and connections that you created through personal branding into actual clients in the education sector.

Yeah. Yeah. I think people had started to trust, um, started to trust HubJam as a brand and trust me. Um, so they had seen that I was trying to be helpful. I was never pushy in any of my approach. Um, they had seen the need and I was there with the content to say, look, this is, we can help with this. And here's some free resources. We did loads of free resources just to help people. And also I had quite a good network anyway, coming from the sector. So those people in, you know, in schools and in colleges who already knew me from the work being employed were then looking for these solutions. So I was the first person they thought of. So, they were coming to me saying, "Don't you help with this sort of thing now? Can we have a chat?" So it really, a lot of people started coming out of the woodwork who I maybe hadn't heard from for quite some time, were suddenly saying, "Oh, can we hop on a call?" So that, I'd say the strength of my existing networks in the space helped at that point. And then beyond that, when I had my first few clients had sort of wrapped up or had done the bulk of the work, they'd implemented HubSpot, they were seeing these results and they were then starting to talk. So suddenly we started getting lots of word of mouth leads as well as the organic leads that were coming from the marketing and the brand stuff I'd been doing. Yeah. And it, by the end of 2020, I realized that I'm going to need to hire. And so it has gone, it was, it was a rollercoaster of a year for everybody.

From panic to I need to hire.

Yeah. And it was my, and I upgraded from my dining table to a shed in the garden that I was really proud of. You know, it was, it was a summer house and it was a nice shed, but I insulated that and I made it into a lovely little home office. And yeah, we very quickly, I realized that I had an opportunity. Do I continue as a consultant? The business at that point was me. And do I continue to that? And it would have been fine. It would have been great. I could do it. I was, I was good at it and I was learning all the time, but I just see this big opportunity in front of me. I'd never thought that far ahead, if I'm honest. I thought that if I could build it so I could have an income as a consultant, then I was doing all right. And with a young baby, that was as far ahead as I could think. It was all just a big unknown. And so to suddenly have moment where I'm like, do I, do I hire? How do I hire? What does it mean to be an employer? What does it mean to, you know, what do I need to think about? Suddenly the risk is bigger, right? There's a lot more financial risk, a lot, and you're committed to so much more. Then there's things like employment law and contracts and stuff that I'd never really thought about and didn't really want to think about, but I could see the opportunity was there and I'd realized by that point, we were the only ones doing what we were doing. We were the only ones in the world that were shouting about HubSpot for Education. And don't get me wrong, there's 6,000 other partners out there as well, but we were doing good. We were hitting various metrics and things that we can refer to. We were accelerating, you know, we became a Gold Partner within 3 months of launching, which was pretty unheard of. We climbed through the ranks very quickly within HubSpot. Because our servicing was good, our clients were seeing results, we were selling well. So we then started to get a really positive reputation at HubSpot, which meant that they were then bringing us more leads as well, saying, hey, do you want to service these? These would be a great fit for you. Because of our sector specialism, we became recognized very quickly. I just, yeah, I felt, gosh, if I've got this opportunity here, I'm just going to have to embrace it and learn. I'll wing it until I work out what to do. So yeah, I hired my first employee in January 2021, which was a big turning point.

And how big is your team now? And how many clients across how many continents do you service? You obviously started locally, just yourself. And I just want to give a bit of sense of perspective, how it evolved.

Yeah, it evolved very quickly. Yeah. So from, from one employee in January 2021, my first employee. We are now a team of 20, and we have in the region of 180 customers around the world in 5 continents, in around 17 countries. And we work with independent schools, colleges, university providers, some, some software companies that service the education sector. And we have a— we're a Diamond HubSpot partner, so in the top few percent of partners in the world, very well respected. So yeah, it, it was a bit crazy. It was like, hold onto your hats, here we go. And I think it was exciting. It was a scary, it was a difficult ride as well because every day was uncharted territory. When you look at what I would consider like typical like business people in my mind, I'm not educated in growing a business. My background was media production. Way back and then marketing. So, so I hadn't done the theory. What I thought running a business was, you need a business plan and then you need to go and get some sort of funding and then you need to, you know, there was like a, I don't know, I painted this picture in my head of what real business people did. And I never identified with that. I didn't follow the rulebook. Even as a HubSpot partner, people were saying at that point in 2020 onwards, so that's our time, people were If you were a HubSpot partner, you were a marketing agency. And whilst I could have done that, right, my background was marketing, it just didn't feel like quite what I wanted to do. It was the HubSpot and the operational side that was exciting me and the strategy and not the day-to-day. I didn't want to be producing content. I'd done that. I was ready for something different. So as I was growing the business, time and time again, people were saying, 'Oh, could you do a bit of marketing for us?' Or, 'Could you do some copywriting? Could you do some graphic design? Do you know anyone? Would you do this?' And it was so— I found myself thinking, gosh, I'd like the money, do we just do it? And then I had to keep coming back to what was my gut telling me. I am very intuitive. I'm very in tune with what I feel to be the right approach, as well as looking at figures and stats, obviously. But so I, um, I just kept coming back to, is that really what the business I want to grow? Because there's loads of marketing agencies out there. So differentiating yourself in that market is going to be harder. Also, you're going to need to hire very different skill sets. Scaling is going to be more challenging. Maybe we could have done it, but it was just not where my heart was. So I turned away quite a lot of work along the way where people were saying, would you do this? Oh, you're a HubSpot partner. That means you're a marketing agency. And I just ignored the rulebook and said, no, no, this is what we do. And that I'd say was, was really hard for me when I started hiring and payroll and every month I have to, I have to make ends meet and I have to make a good profit and we have to keep growing to facilitate what we were then on this, on this train, right? It was rolling. We have to do it. It was really hard to then turn work away and trust that that wasn't our journey. Especially when it felt like everyone around, including probably HubSpot a bit as well at that point, were expecting that that's what we would do. So you're a marketing agency. I'm like, no, we're not. And what we were doing didn't exist at the time. We were probably, um, just paving the way. Um, because now it's very recognized in the HubSpot ecosystem that there's lots of partners who are not marketing agencies. In fact, there's lots of marketing agencies that have stopped doing that. And have become implementation partners and strategic specialists. And I think one of the key things that I've reflected on more recently is that I had no role models at that point. There wasn't anybody doing it. And I think because of that, I never got swayed to follow maybe somebody else's path. I just fixed with what's our path and put everything into that, which has ended up being probably our biggest strength.

So staying focused on your aim and learning when to say no is crucial in the journey because otherwise you can get easily distracted and wear too many hats and not be good at any of them.

Yeah. Master of all trade, was it? I can't remember the saying.

Master of not all trade.

That's the one. Exactly. Like, and also the same applies for sectors. We, we were From the beginning, we were education and nonprofit because I'd done some voluntary stuff in the past. I had experience in the charity space. And when I started HubSpot, started as a HubSpot partner, sorry, that we chose we're going to be education and nonprofit. And that was it. HubJam equals this. And I tried to do a lot of work around, even now, think HubSpot for education, think HubJam. But we're, that, but there was a risk attached with that. Going that heavy into a niche, if something drastically affects the sector that we serve, then that's going to hugely affect us, right? We, we've put a lot of our eggs in the same basket here. And I was aware of that. There were moments where people said, would you consider diversifying? And diversifying is something that I always thought would be a good thing for business, right? You diversify, you've got more different revenue streams. And it just, I've got to be honest, it just didn't appeal to me. And I just thought, but I know what we're doing here. If we do this really well and no one else is doing this really well, why would I dabble in these other sectors where there's already partners doing that? Instead, we stay in our lane. We then don't have loads of competition. We actually slip under the radar quite a bit. You know, people, oh, that's HubGen, that's just education. Meanwhile, we're cleaning up what is a global industry. Education is always going to be there. It might change. It might change in funding. Government changes will impact things, of course. But if we're, we're not limited by location, there's education all around the world. I would say we're limited by language. We are just English servicing. Whether we explore expanding that in future, we do come across Particularly like Latin America, a lot of Spanish-speaking countries. I would love us to be able to service those markets, but who knows.

And the journey of scaling your team from 1 to then 2, so by 100%, uh, and then to 20, uh, I'm pretty sure it was also peppered with quite a few challenges. How did you ensure that you hired the right people, especially when they were going to be working remotely?

Yeah, that was a big thing. So my, my first employee who I hired, I'd worked with before and she, she was fantastic and really got stuck in and brought a lot in the early days of the company. It was, it was so valuable. She was ultimately offered a bigger salary by a bigger HubSpot partner and left. And hadn't stayed that long. That was one of them pivotal moments. Again, I feel like there's a series of these pivotal moments, but I was like, oh gosh, I have just started to rely on somebody else. I've now taken on more work than I can service. We have to do well reputationally. This is a key moment for us. Now who do I hire? Like I hadn't, again, I hadn't foreseen it. Maybe I should have been a little more prepared for that. But there's nothing like a big challenge to make you think on your feet. So Okay, let's hire. We had started, we'd hired, uh, I think the next 2 employees by that point, but it was, they were very different roles. It was very, they were very junior. They weren't ready to be delivering what I had then sold. So it became very apparent to me, firstly, that turnover of staff is a major risk factor in a business because especially when we are very leash aligned, we're We are experts. I can't just go and hire someone. Like, even if we were a marketing agency, I mean, you still need to hire the right people, but if I wanted to hire a marketing executive, there's loads out there, right? There was nobody out there. We were leading the way in this space, really. So I had nobody I could just hire. And there were HubSpot partners who'd been on the scene for 15 years, who'd been marketing agencies that had expanded into massive global companies. Who could pay way more than I could pay. And they are, they still are and do actively poach staff. Generally, they're lovely companies, but they're in the same market, right? They need to grow. So they're looking and I can't compete. So it was a moment for me where I, I, yeah, I do a lot of reflection. I do a lot of journaling and I really think a lot about things, thinking really.

Excellent. That's why we're here.

Yeah. And I just. I just thought, I can't be in this position again. This could happen all the time. And it's exhausting. It's hard. And it's a threat to the business. And frankly, it makes me just not want to hire anyone and go and hide back in my dining room and do that on my own. I've had the moments very much, but I'm like, no, come on, you know, get on with it, fight the fight, you'll get there. And so, um, yeah, it was just, I recognized that I didn't want to be losing team members. And I recognized just how important, what is it that we can offer that other companies can't? And there was something that I brought with me from experiences in loads of different roles, every role, you know, from bar work back at university all the way through my employed roles. One of the things that really stood out to me as a non-negotiable when I became an employer was culture. And it is such a a core strand of the business. It's as important to me as profit. It is as important to me as customers. And it's a non-negotiable. By culture, I know that it gets banded around a lot. We have a great culture, you know.

I was about to ask if you can give us some examples. A lot of people indeed talk about culture, but you, you've clearly developed one and you feel very strongly about it. So if you can elaborate a little bit about what makes Hub Gem culture a great place, then that'd be super useful.

Yeah, it's, so we, I took what I had experienced, which was lack of flexibility, which was feeling torn between being a mum, being an employee, and then ultimately being a business owner as well, and stretching myself and feeling like sometimes I felt when I was employed, like I was one person outside of work and a different person inside of work. And that I couldn't always be authentic to really what I was passionate about because you're trying to fit in to existing structures, right? And I saw lots in education, there's lots of institutional bad habits, red tape, like we've just always done it that way is, they might as well have it above the door in a lot of places. So that frustrates me. I am someone that sees something, sees it as an opportunity for growth and improvement. So I guess I just jumbled this all into one big melting pot of what matters to me. I found that I had this unique opportunity. Like, I've gotta, I can't just talk the talk. I would do that better. Now I've got the chance. I can walk the walk and I can prove that I can do it differently. And I really wanted to prove that you can have something very special, and I will come onto specifics, but something very special culture-wise. And have a successful business that you didn't need to treat employees as a way to make money, right? Because I, I'm very— what I recognize very clearly, and more and more clearly by the month, to be honest, it's just how amazing human beings are and how amazing communities of human beings and teams are. And I think that along the way in business, things have lost, right? It's all become about efficiencies. I am big on efficiency, right? So my business is built on efficiency. I'm all for that, but it's been at the expense of the people. I don't want to have to justify why I want to go to my child's nativity and miss a business meeting. I want to work around how do I achieve both of these? And I want to, I want whoever I'm working for, or now whoever works with me, to want to problem solve that together as if it's a business problem, because if my team members feel torn between who they really are and who they are at work, or their family responsibilities and, and things that clearly matter to them and should matter to them more than work, and who they are in work, then there's a problem. And so I set out from the moment I employed that I would never, I would never make things harder for people as long as they were trying to do the right thing. And so that is key to our culture now. So what does that look like day to day? So start with flexibility. That's an easy one. And actually in the last few years, more and more people have adopted this, right? Post-COVID, there's more flexible working, there's more working from home, there's more, there's even been, you know, employment law changes to accommodate flexible working requests. So it's, it's very much front of mind. So what does that mean? If a team member at Hubjam wants to take their dog for a walk in the afternoon, I don't need to know about it. Just go do it. It's fine. I genuinely couldn't care less in the nicest possible way, right? That sounds lovely. You go do it. Because what I'm seeing is that individual is gonna have a happy dog. I'm all for a happy, happy pet. They're gonna have, they're gonna feel happier. Their mental wellbeing is gonna feel better. They're gonna be physically better if they're looking after themselves. And they're gonna be so grateful that they didn't feel they had to choose that when they do come back to work, they'll be able to apply themselves and will be loyal to the company. That's a very basic example, but it underpins everything. So we are fully remote. We, I do have a home office and I have a couple of team members that can, can work in the office, but it's not compulsory. And with that, I'm not clock watching. I'm not saying, what time do you check on? I'm not micromanaging. We don't do any of that. It's a case of this is what's expected. And there are some high expectations. But we give people the autonomy to get on with it. And we give them the capacity to. So if I found out that a team member was working over their contracted hours, that's a me problem, right? That means that I am giving too much work to them to be done within that time. Or it could mean that they're not efficient enough and we need to improve things. But because I know that the people within the team, because we connect with them on an individual level, and I, again, I can talk more to that in a second, but because I know them and I trust them wholeheartedly, I know that even if they are being inefficient, it's not a malicious act. It's not even incompetency. It's a lack of training. It's a lack of support in an area. Maybe they've just not had the guidance they needed. And I take that really seriously. So we check in with employees. So we have a clear leadership structure. Every leader in our company has to go through a leadership program before they can even become a line manager. And involves coursework, right? And no one goes, but they really enjoy it. And that involves reflection. So they have to write about their experiences where they found something challenging and how they overcame it. And then we mentor and discuss that. To help them in future. Every line manager. When it comes to individuals in the company, we have one-to-ones with line managers every week. We have all sorts of check-ins. So we use Slack as our communication platform. Did ban individual emails, which is nice. So everything's on Slack, which I do think really aids the collaboration. We have wellbeing channels with wellbeing check-ins and people just share emojis on how they're feeling that day. People are very open if someone's feeling, even if they put busy, right? They put a little B and it means busy. Then that is a sign that a leader just needs to check in and say, hey, I see you're busy this week. How are you doing? What are you working on? Do you need any help with your priorities? Do you need me to help delegate some of this elsewhere in the team? So it is a constant temperature check on each person's wellbeing in the company. There are sort of other things we do that you would expect that, you know, occupational health, lots of things regarding just, just wellbeing. So we, we do lots of just general wellbeing check-ins. We pay for a Headspace subscription for all team members and they can meditate if they want to or do lessons on mental resilience and wellbeing. That's been really powerful. We have social groups almost like at university when you have like societies and clubs, we have those. So we have a wine club. I'm a founding member. We have, we, we have a Yeah, we have a, like a baking Slack channel where people can, uh, food channel. We have a pets channel. We have a group, a social group for parents, um, and support groups as well. So we send out a parent newsletter to support parents, um, with celebrating life and ranting about life if they need to. So it's really a holistic approach, um, but it underpins everything. We, I am very, very proud of some of the things that we've been recognized for here. There's this lovely shiny trophy here. We were named Great Place to Work last year, UK Great Place to Work. We were up against companies with big wellbeing budgets, much bigger, right? Ones who, I don't know what I would consider like big companies who really care about this. And we won nationally to be recognized. We have been named finalists every year for, I think, I think we're our 4th year running in the Great British Workplace Wellbeing Awards. We were nominated in categories like Best Support for Remote Workers, Best Wellbeing Strategy. I think, lost count, I think we're up to like 12, I think, different awards for wellbeing. We don't just say it. We really mean it. And a more recent development, I'm training to become a Master Intuitive Psychology Coach. Okay. Helping them as well.

So I'll ask you a little bit about your continued studies in a bit, but I wanted to try and hit the nail there and see if you agree with me that you don't have to have huge budgets on wellbeing to look after your staff and make sure that they feel part of the team and included.

Absolutely. You don't need You don't need to be in an office as well. I know there's, uh, there's often a fear of remote working. It won't— it's not right for everybody. I completely know that. But to, to be recognized for our culture, despite not— we're not spending a lot on this. I guess in terms of allocating time, we allocate time to it. Um, so there's a, there's a cost obviously there, but I don't really look at it too much, um, because the benefits are so big. Uh, we have, uh, yeah, we Everyone is remote and yet I genuinely feel more part of this team than when I've worked on location in offices with people. And I would say that, but so do the team. So I think it's, it is just recognizing first of all, that culture does not equal perks. Culture is not, hey, we buy you a coffee every month, but treat you like rubbish the majority of the time you're in. We are very careful and it does come down to hiring. I know you mentioned that.

I was going to ask you now. Yes. You, you obviously mentioned a bit of staff turnover and by having a team of 20 by now, it means that in 5 years, it means that you, you've experienced quite a few things. And I was hoping you can share some of the learnings and some of the red flags and the green flags that you look out for when you're hiring now.

Yes, culture is everything, right? So that will, obviously a big part of that is making sure that we hire well. And there's a few things that we do when we're hiring. We do ask the team if they know of anybody that would be a good culture fit. And some of our good, some of our exceptional recent hires have been not, not friends necessarily, like really close. There's, there's risks with that. But people where they go, oh my God, this person. 'cause it's just amazing. I just think culture fit, they'd be great. So that's been really helpful. And because people are so happy here, they're so happy to recommend people too. And so that sort of helps a lot. We've actually had a few clients who've said, 'We want to come and work for you. It's amazing. We love the culture,' because our clients experience the culture as well firsthand. A typical, say, consultant in our company, which is one of our bigger teams. They would meet with a client at least 2 hours every week for months. We become part of their team and then there's all the offline stuff we do with them. So they feel our culture. We've had people work with us because of our culture and then say, what are your services? Like genuinely, that has happened a few times. So, so yeah, when we hire, assuming we're putting a vacancy out and we've not had any sort of introductions to anybody who would be a good fit. Automatically.

So now you start with introductions and then if nothing comes up immediately or at the right time, then you go outside and hire.

Yeah, it depends on the role. I mean, it does depend on the role. We like to have introductions if there are any, but we would probably still put the vacancy out to market as well. But really depends. Sometimes you want just a complete wildcard, right? You never know what that's going to bring. So I try not to go in with too many assumptions, but we do really, we're very grateful for recommendations as well. So yeah, we, when we start with the job spec, right? It drives me mad when job specs don't include salary. Like, well, that's not fair. It implies like you're hiding something. We're very transparent about everything through recruitment and all the way through the company, actually. The team are very in the loop on finances and performance as well. And that, that starts at the very beginning. So our job specs are detailed. They are about 10 pages long, might not be right for everybody, but the people that it's right for will work for us, right? So, um, we, we dive in and actually the first 4 pages of our job spec is all about culture. It's all about that. And if someone's not a good fit and that doesn't resonate with them, then, then there's no point applying, right? If they don't want to, if that doesn't matter to them, we're not the right place. So there's a lot, there's a lot of that in there. There's a lot around the team, how we work together. And we're really checking when people are reading about the jobs, I want them to understand that this is not just another company. This is not just an agency where you're going to join for a couple of months, build your skills and move on. Right? This is different. This is something special. And it's recognized as special. It helps that we've got the accolades and how to recognize that. But you, you only have to spend 5 minutes on a call with our team and you feel it, or you only have to see Slack for 1 hour and you feel it. And so from the beginning, we make sure that that comes above everything. So if people are just looking at salary or just looking at progression or just looking at even just the day-to-day responsibilities, probably missing something. Then, so we take applications. We don't, we don't like look at CVs or anything like that. It's if you want to apply, then there's an application form and that application form asks personal stuff as well. Because we're hiring an individual. We're not hiring an employee of another company, right? We're not, I don't care. I'm hiring the whole person and that includes the person outside of work. So we ask a lot more about the personal stuff as well as experience, of course. We get people to record a little video about their hobbies and interests, and we accept that it's painful for most people, and that's fine. It doesn't need to be polished. What we want is someone to go, I am so sorry, I'm finding this really awkward, but I'm going to do my best. Amazing. Because I would feel the same, right?

So you're trying to get them out of their comfort zone.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. We really want them to feel open with us. Like we broke down that barrier. Then what we don't want is egos coming in and going, look at all our lovely experience, because I, within reason, I, that's not what I'm hiring them.

Any other red flags that other entrepreneurs and business owners should keep in mind when scaling up their teams?

Yeah, so when, when hiring, we have themes that we base our interview questions on, and we always do a couple of rounds of interview, always. Some of the things, and we've, again, we have learned some hard lessons here along the way. It hasn't, we've had to get to this. Through trial and error, but, uh, we, when we hire, we have themes and we score interviews for fairness, but also so that we, so we have weighted scores. So for example, culture fit will outweigh experience fit always. So the scores will be higher, reflected more highly. And I think more employers need to keep that in mind because where we've had bad hires, where it's not worked out, and we have had Well, where it has not worked out, it has been a bad culture fit. That has been the problem. Yes, it's then had symptoms in performance or conduct or whatever it might be, but at its heart was that that individual, we did not know them well enough as a whole person when we hired them. And so it was a culture problem, right? And so we hire on coachability. That's a key thing for us. Somebody must be willing to accept feedback and see it as an opportunity for growth. We will not hire, if we get on interviews and we see ego, everyone has it, it's fine, it's not a bad thing, there are no bad parts, right? We're all, we're just whole. But if we get on and someone is, you can see it usually like finger pointing or blame or, but I did this to save the day, you know, those sorts of things. I know that's, isn't that It's not a no, but we need to get to the bottom of exactly why they feel that way. I want to understand their map of the world that allowed— because everyone is a product of all their experiences in work and outside of work. And if they felt something with it, then there's two sides to everything. And you— it's actually, when you think of it through this lens instead, it's glaringly obvious interviews because people will come on and they'll be Yes, and then I did this and then I did this. And now an interview is to say, you're right, you're selling yourself. You are, you're sitting to prove yourself. And I think this is where it can go wrong with so many hires is that they will say all the things that are going to impress you, but you've not really understood their map of the world. So when you hire them and you have to work with them and they're part of your culture and they start to ripple around your team and your clients and actually their perception of the world based on them as an individual and how open they are to feedback within work and outside of work can give you some really good indicators as to what's going to happen. So, my favorite interview question, or one of, is, is tell us about a time you received feedback you didn't agree with and what you did about it. And everyone goes, oh, because they're ready, right? We start off with easy ones. Tell me about your experience and all the boring stuff that I can read on the CV anyway if I wanted to. And then they get to this one and they go, oh, hmm, you really struggle. And it's amazing. I don't want to, I don't wanna make it hard, but what I care about is how they reflect. Are they able to reflect in that moment under pressure? Because when you need people to reflect is when they're under pressure. You need someone to not jump into, well, there was this time that you need them to reflect in that moment. And so, yeah, we, that's a really good one. And I would, one of our recent hires, just to give you an example of a really good answer here, she said, she said, I'm finding that really hard. And I'm like, honesty, amazing. That's fine. We all find things hard. Let's not pretend we're all some superhero that can just like, obviously you can find it hard. Okay, no problem. Take your time. And I said, do you mind me asking why you find it hard? What is it you're finding hard about it? You'll start to see it's not really the answer I'm after, it's the approach. And she said, so she had a military background. There'd been elements in the military and obviously there's lots of stuff on coachability in the military. And she said, it's just, I've been, I just feel like every bit of feedback, there's something to learn from it. So for me to say I didn't agree with it. Really doesn't sit right with me. I might not have agreed fully with every bit of how it was portrayed, but for me to blanket say I didn't agree with it means that I'm not recognizing any part I played in that feedback. Sign up now, you've got the job, it's yours.

Hired.

And on the other hand, you know, a bad example, and we did have a couple of these, that were saying things like, well, yeah, there was this project and then what happened? And they go very, you know, in their story. They've not reflected on the story, even if they are talking about something in the past, you hope they've reflected on. They're in the story, they're reliving it, they're talking you through exactly what happened, the narrative, and then they say, yeah, and I just, they didn't understand, they this, they that, they this, I this, I that, and it's us and them.

And finger pointing, like you said earlier, which is a red flag for you.

Yeah, straight away, and you can see it, and that's You know, sometimes those things happen and that's, that's fine. But then, I want to hear why they didn't agree with it. And then I'll, if they're still not getting it right, and we do try and make it easy for people, if they get it and they said, so then what I did, I went to management and this, and they talk about operationally how they fixed it, but they're not talking about how they addressed the root of the problem, which was either a communication issue between them and somebody else, or a they didn't receive something right and that they're very quickly going to defensive mode. I will sometimes then dig deeper if they're still not getting it. And I'll say, okay, so on reflection, what would you have done differently? Well, maybe I should have brought management in sooner. And it's for me that if you hire people who have a wasn't them or a finger-pointing mentality, and it could have been operationally, they did all the right things, right? And they could have had a point. Yeah, that sounded really rubbish. But what they could, for me, I want to hire people that are self-reflective, that can say, actually, it was really tough and I actually found that really hard. So I did go to management because I needed some support, but it also did make me reflect on this. It's quite a different approach. I don't know if other people do that or whether that's just because I'm a mindset nerd. I don't know, but it's really obvious to me now when we hire. Who we don't want.

That's certainly something that you've learned and developed along the way. And as you shared earlier, your training was in media production. Your background was in marketing, and then you evolved into an entrepreneur and then business owner. What sort of tools have you used to continue growing and developing? Was it reading? If there were any books that inspired you, I'm really keen to hear for the Millennial Masters Book Club. Do you listen to podcasts? Did you have a mentor? What route did you take in personal development and making sure that you build your skills to not only be a business, but also grow a business?

All of the above. So, um, I will say when I talk about development, as with my whole ethos of the stuff I've already said, There is no such thing as professional development. Yes, I have a job. I am an entrepreneur. I have a role. I have a— but I'm a human being that is also being developed from my other experiences. So any development is personal development, whether it's a formal qualification and the lessons that come with that. I, again, I really try and blur the boundaries, right? It is not me reading a book. Because I fancy switching off on an evening versus me learning. For me, it is all. So, start with some books. So there is one book that I read just as I started, and I pick it up most months and get something else from it. It's called Dear Female Founder, and it is just a series of letters written by female business owners. To be honest, the gender doesn't really matter. The reason that it resonates so much is that they talk about motherhood as well. Um, Daniel Ionescu. But they've written letters, they're all people that have gone on to grow very, very successful businesses. We're talking billions. And they've written a series of letters and some are really heartfelt, some are just reality checks, some are like, look, get on with it and like hard words. And every time I pick that up, I read something that resonates. And you know what? Above all else, I connect with them on a human level because the letters are very heartfelt. And I think Gosh, I have also experienced that. And yeah, it's amazing.

What would be in your letter?

Ooh, it would be that it is growing a business is the hardest thing I have ever done. And I have given birth to two children, right? And I raised them and kept them alive, which I'm really proud of, and everything in between. But growing a business tests me every day. I don't know what my comfort zone looks like anymore. I don't think I have one. I don't know. I just, if there's something that's uncomfortable, I just go, okay, I can deal with this. And I get, I get stuck in. And I think the letter that I would write now would say, don't think that because you've read the business book and because you've studied a background in it, or because you, you've got a really good business plan. That you've got all your answers because nobody does. And I just admire anybody that has the guts to take a decision and the risks involved. And I would just say to be kind to yourself because there are days where it is hard. I still have days where I want to just hide under a duvet and cry and wish it would all go away. I have days where I'm like, there is no emergency exit really for a business owner, right? If you're gonna— I don't want to, But if you're with a, if you're like, it's not like in a job where you hand your notice in. It's a case of showing up every day, putting one foot in front of the other. And even when you don't have the answers, going anyway and doing your best. And sometimes it'll work and sometimes it won't, but it's about dusting yourself off and not having a, allowing yourself that coachability, right? So it didn't work. Okay. I'm going to move on from that. I'm going to process it and move on, which is why I think it's mental resilience as much as business. Yeah, that's my letter. Um, but all the books that I've, that I've read that have made a big impact have actually been primarily mindset books. Um, so, uh, The Chimp Paradox is a classic. That's amazing talking about sort of how your brain works and how to control your chimp. I wish everyone could control their chimp. The world would be a lovely place. There's a really good book called The Emotional Overdraft, which is all about the emotional toll of running a business. And for me, that was one Wow, a book that covers business and mindset. So yeah, I do read. I meditate every day. I journal every day without fail. I get up early to do that because self-reflection is key. I really think a lot about how I handle situations, how I can better do things next time, but I don't beat myself up. And I think people fall into that trap, right? Oh God, why did I do that? Or I'm gonna let it down. It doesn't matter, we all make mistakes, move on. Like, so for me, that self-reflection is key. I listen to, um, I listen to podcasts, um, I, uh, A Diary of a CEO, it's— I mean, everyone knows about one now, it's huge. But I lean into the ones that are around mindset and resilience. There's a few episodes with Mo Gawdat was the Chief Business Officer, also known for Google X, on the Diary of a CEO podcast. Genuinely life-changing. I went and bought all his books and read all of them after that. So yeah.

So we'll add them to the show notes as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. They are just them that really hit differently. But what I think is, I don't read a lot of business books. In fact, I was, I was racking my brains before this, before this conversation. There is one business book that I do recommend that is business and not mindset. Although naturally there's a blend because there always is. And it's, uh, it was actually bought to me, bought for me by HubSpot with a note from the CEO of HubSpot in it. And it's called Move Fast and Fix Things. Um, and that is, it's like a one-week plan to, it's a little week really, if you do it however long, but it's about taking away the barriers that stop you pivoting and moving fast as a, in a business and making sure that you can implement lasting change without a lot of the challenges of the change. That was probably one of the most businessy business books I've read. And it, I implemented stuff straight away off the bat.

That's a great list. And as I said, I'll make sure to include them in the show notes for this episode. Gemma, you mentioned having a child was a catalyst for starting your own business. And then later on you had another child. Looking back, how has motherhood changed your worldview and shaped your business perspective?

Oh, that's, yeah. Okay. So I have a 1-year-old. So I have a very young baby. It was a year ago I had to take a break out. I'm the CEO of HubJam and I had to take a break from the business, which is a scary prospect.

How did you manage that? How did you manage to, to take a break from your own business less than 5 years in?

I, uh, I had no choice. I had a baby for the first week, and it was— that was hard in itself. So I also had an amazing team. I had a really strong team who will not let me down, who I trust wholeheartedly, who will do an excellent job. And I don't need to worry because the team— all the team wanted was for me to take maternity leave and enjoy it. And they rallied round, they sorted everything. In fact, performance was up in some areas. So maybe I'll do it more often. Not have more children and take more breaks. Yeah, it's just having an amazing team who, uh, Hope Jam is more than me. Hope Jam is not me. It was never about ego anyway. It was never about, as I said, the title or the salary. It's about community that make an impact. And that's what I needed in that moment, having a child. In terms of how motherhood has shaped me. I was never identified as like a typical maternal figure. I love being a mum without a doubt. It's also really tough at times and sometimes I don't love it. Um, and, but I was never like, oh, I can't wait to have kids or anything. I just, I knew I wanted to and that was that. But my career has always mattered to me and fulfilling a purpose and making a difference in the world has always mattered to me. So, uh, it was for me, my big question was like, How do I do all of it? I wanna do all of it. How is that possible? There's not many, there are more and more, but there, there hasn't always been a lot of role models of people who do that. You know, to be a female business owner immediately puts you in a smaller, right, in the minority. To be a female business owner in a tech space, even smaller. To be a female business owner as a mum of two young children in the tech space, you know, we're into the handfuls of people really. There's not that many. And I think I did lack role models, especially when people who cared about what I care about, about culture, about mindset and all that stuff. So for me, being a mum, it's challenges. And when I say being a mum, being a parent, challenges. I, you know, when other people get up and they have like a lovely morning routine and they go, we have a healthy breakfast, I pop 15 minutes. I think so, yeah. I like those people you see on Instagram that are living the dream. Right. My morning does not look like that. My morning looks like being screamed at from the second I wake up. I do, as I say, I get up extra early to beat the rush because I know I want to meditate and journal. That is non-negotiable, but I have to get up.

Okay, those are your key two habits to productivity and mindfulness.

Yes, it's everything. It's the whole picture, right? And I do that at like 5 AM before the one-year-old wakes up. So, So it's, you know, and then I get up and while non-parents are probably eating their breakfast in peace, maybe looking at the news, maybe doing some exercise, I am like some sort of director in a really chaotic film set. Right, you over there, you over there, have you got your clothes on? I need to do your hair, need to do your teeth, need to get you breakfast. I know my husband is great as well, but it is frantic. And yeah, I think, so when I arrive at my desk, I've already done a good few hours of work to some extent. And, but what I think it makes me more productive. I finish work at 5 o'clock every day. How many business owners and CEOs can say that? And I do it because that's not my whole world, right? I love my business and I care deeply about the success of it, but I also love my kids and I am not missing out on my kids. Obviously, if something urgent happened, I'd be there, but, and so I've built into the culture. That it's not acceptable to be sacrificing your home life in order to have a successful career. So yeah, I think it makes me more aware of not just burning out.

You got a little bit ahead of me there with the sacrifices, because I know from my experience to start a business and to grow a business, it still involves sacrifices. So what would you say is the biggest sacrifice you've had to make to date to be where you are? Today, even though you're not as compromising about it now, half a decade in?

Generally, the biggest sacrifice has been probably mental wellbeing of myself. Sleepless nights. And I don't mean that like sleepless nights. I mean like tearing my hair out. Oh my God, what am I going to do? And hence why I've then focused so much more on mindset. I don't feel that anymore. But I did. Yeah, I was under a lot of stress for a chunk, like the, I'd say from like from sort of hiring and then the first few years of hiring and trying to scale. We scaled very rapidly, so there was a lot that came with that, and keeping the quality and service and the money and all that. It was just a lot. And I guess there were times when I wasn't present. Little one would be, uh, my eldest would be talking to me and I'd be like, yeah, great, but I need to get back my heads in this. And that's not how I ever wanted to be. I would find that the reason I started the business was for flexibility. And suddenly I had less flexibility than I'd ever had because I was, I don't know, tied to these things that needed me in work. So yeah, those, there were sacrifices. I've never missed anything really important for my kids. Like I'm still, I've always been there at breakfast times and I'm always there unless I'm traveling maybe, but they quite enjoy the holiday with Daddy. I think they enjoy that, um, we can have a piece of tea, like it's fine. But yeah, that, um, I'm very, I'm very conscious of it. Um, I probably have sacrificed some holidays and me time along the way, but I would say that's probably more from having kids than having a business, if I'm honest. Uh, yeah, I genuinely, I don't, mental wellbeing, just chilled out time, the ability to relax. Was my biggest challenge for a couple of years. And now with all my mindset tips and tricks and my meditation, I just, I don't feel that anymore. And it's amazing now. It's just reiterated to me that you can, you can do it all. You can have the business and the family and the wellbeing. You just have to be fully committed to doing that and know that it will still be tough. And you just have to be okay with that.

You also said you are studying for a new degree. Which is closely tying in with mindset and everything else you shared up until now about your, your tricks to remaining productive and focused. What are the key takeaways from that so far?

Studying alongside all of this, it doesn't leave for a lot of free hours in the day, but with regards to the course, so it's, it's, it's part of, it's run by the Intuitive Psychology Association. I'm part, I'm the third ever, part of the third ever cohort in the world. Um, and they're very selective about who goes on to this program. There is nothing else like it. It is taking the world by storm, the coaching world, and I think it's going to be huge. Uh, so I am training to become an intuitive psychology coach. What does that mean? So it is about tapping into people's subconscious to unlock the stuff deep within them that is holding them back. Now. And the best thing about it is that, because I've also been through this coaching, so I have been coached, and so I know what it's like. Um, and you might think, yeah, but I know, and you know, it's quite an arrogant approach, but you know, I know it all. Well, of course I know how that affected me because we, we go at everything, and in business more than ever, we go with our conscious minds, the brain that's problem-solving, the brain that's rational, the brain that blames, the brain that's the one that puts the mask up every day and just gets on with it. How often, unless you are a keen meditator, do we dip into subconscious and allow any room for those parts? And so this course, and I've started coaching now, I'm still, I'm not qualified yet, but I'm starting to get stuck in and it basically is coaching where people close down their eyes and immediately people go, oh my God, I'm vulnerable. Oh God, why would I do that? It's so weird. I go on Zoom and I shut my eyes. Why? But it's amazing. And what you find is a deep connection. The majority of people, regardless of who they are, will cry. The majority of people will find, come across something that they never even knew they were carrying. I was doing it, things came up from my childhood. Nothing like major, but like an outfit that my mum made me wear when I was 8 years old that clearly had an impact. It bubbled up one day consciously. I have no memory of this. And yet it was influencing my behavior today as a business leader. Because of one day, one outfit that I had to wear that I didn't agree with as a child. So within this coaching, we unpick that. And it's based on the firm belief that there are no bad parts and that we have to allow parts of us that we have spent years in our conscious mind suppressing, allow it to step forward, unravel it so that we can be the best version of ourselves. And we actually have all the answers we need. So typically what you'd see is a symptom. Right? Burnout, workaholic, or anxiety, or I've just struggled to trust people, or relationship problems, or whatever it might be. It's a symptom. And so within this style of coaching, it brings people inwards, completely inwards. It's very vulnerable. It's quite scary the first, like when you're not used to it. And then before long it becomes a safe space because you realize that you, you unpick stuff, your intuition talks to you in images and in feelings and colors. It can do language, but it's not like strung together sentences. So you can tell when somebody is in that zone because of the way that they start to speak. They slow right down. Their words will come to them. They cannot, when you're in that space, you can't talk really through like a narrative and hop and change. Like you, it's a very different headspace. And I'd say the closest you can get to it outside of coaching is this new sort of like similarities with certain types of therapies. So it's psychotherapy and hypnosis. There's similarities. They are not the same thing. There are distinct differences. And deep meditation, for anybody that's done deep meditation, there's an element of that. The difference is that as an intuitive psychology coach, I can take what comes up and know how to navigate it, to unpick, recognize, bring it to the front of mind, let it go, and ultimately move towards the future. So it's really exciting. I'm very passionate about it, very interested in it. And yeah, I'm going to bring it. I've already done a group session with the Hub Gem team just last week for the first time. I'm looking at on a work level, because as I say, we bring our whole selves to work. Leaders. I want to work with leaders, helping them to be the best leaders they can be, both within Hub Gem. And also I'm going to be doing some private coaching, um, for business leaders, entrepreneurs, people that feel there's something blocking them. Something they're struggling with and don't quite know where it's coming from or how to overcome it. That's what I really want to help people do.

I have the perfect idea for that with the Millennial Masters Group, which you are a select part of now. We can, we can start there. But just to dial it back, because I think you touched on something really interesting, which I have noticed as well. And I realized more both in my personal life and noticed around other people as well, how much things that happened in our childhood influence how we are today and how we act today, consciously and unconsciously. And the moment you start reflecting and understanding those behaviours, that's when you have a chance to course correct or adapt in order to grow and improve.

Yeah, I, there's so much and they are complicated. We're not the mask that we put on every day that goes into a job interview and says, here's who I am. We are not that person. We might tell ourselves that person and we might spend a lifetime convincing ourselves we are, but we know we're not really. If you actually get to it, we know that's not true. We just spend a lifetime trying to cover up who we really are. And it's not nothing bad here. And I will say we are trauma— as a coach, I am trauma-informed, trauma with a big T. It's quite different from trauma with a little t. We all experience things differently. We're this complicated person that is an amalgamation of all of our past experiences inside and outside of work, our childhood. And we just spend years layering and layering and layering. And if we don't stop to self-reflect, especially when we're in challenging positions, like as an entrepreneur or in leadership positions where we are leading others, how can we possibly do that well in a connected way if we don't really know who we actually are anymore. And that is something that I see in people and I'm becoming more and more aware of it in people because I'm so, you can just see when people are not acting from their true self. And it does, the intuitive psychology stuff, it does step into the woo woo a little bit. It's, it's science.

That was going to be my next question, but you tackle it now.

No problem. Um, they're science-backed techniques. But they are based on intuition and deeper connection. So the, this is why it's so unique. The founders of APA are, they're both very well-renowned coaches in their own right, working with corporates and with celebs and all sorts, but they are also from psychotherapy, one of them particularly from a psychotherapy background, or science trained, and everything that goes into this is science-backed. So I don't, like with everything, I think with I don't know if that's a, just a human thing. We like to put things in neat little boxes with a little ribbon on and pretend it's all lovely, right? We say science, spirituality. We say work, home. We do, right? And we label things as completely separate. And yet they never ever are. So this course is the blend and that's very deliberate. And actually when you look, um, if anyone says it, I'm just a nerd with this stuff, but if you look at more modern psychology studies and the, the latest in brain science, and you only have to look at the fact that the NHS recommend mindfulness. A few years ago, that was the realms of spirituality only, right? And it was a big separate thing. And now it's been recommended as a very well-recognized and evidence-backed way to overcome some of the most serious mental health things that we face. We are in a mental health crisis. People are struggling more than ever with not being connected. And I think if we, I don't have all the answers, but I do think if we stop trying to see things as science and spirituality, or spirituality scares people, it reminds them of like religion. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about just connecting with yourself and mindset. And if we just let it all blend and just be happy with the fact it is a blended mess. I am a blended mess. And I'm going to suggest you probably are as well. And that's okay.

Hands up.

Which leads me to my question. And that's because I was reading about it actually yesterday, imposter syndrome. You mentioned as well that you had to find at the beginning the power and the strength to believe in you, not doubt yourself and find your path. How do you overcome it? Or live with it is more my key question to wrap up our discussion.

Yeah, it won't surprise you to know it's a topic I've read a lot about and think about a lot. Um, I believe imposter syndrome comes from one of these unresolved parts that we have spent years masking. I do think there's an element of it being natural to human nature, right? If we take our our chimp brain, it's comparing, right? Comparison is, is a survival mechanism that our brains have to make sure that we are thriving in the jungle, right? And we've inherited that part of the brain still exists today. So I do think some of it is just there, but what we do, we, we label it, we try and put it in a neat box and say, this is what it is and it is bad. There are no bad parts. It isn't bad. It is. It just is. It's there. We recognize it and then we can work with it. We need to accept it. I do think it's exacerbated somewhat by people not being, living authentically and intuitively. Yeah.

Is that because of social media? Just to drop that one in play as well.

It certainly doesn't help. Yes. I think it's hard. Like, you know, and we're all guilty of it. If I put a picture on social media, I'm like, oh God, do I look tired? Do I look, does that picture look nice? Does that, you know, we care what other people thing, even if we say we don't. And that's again, inherent, is normal. But I think what we, what we don't always recognize is that if we are not living intuitively, authentically to who we are, because we have become experts at wearing a million different masks, we go into the workplace and say, here's who I am. I am a successful entrepreneur. Then the second you have a bad day as a successful entrepreneur, Which incidentally everyone does. We go, oh, maybe I'm not a successful entrepreneur. And the chips kicking off because it's like, this is who I am. I need to stay king of the jungle. Right. And it, and we go into this spiral and we compare more and we get in our heads and we, we unravel. And the more we do that, the more we compare, the more we panic. And I do think that that exacerbates imposter syndrome. So I think an element of it is normal. And I think a self-aware person who is living intuitively would say, you know what, I recognize that sometimes I compare myself to others and it doesn't feel good. I'm just going to be mindful of that. And maybe I'll put some techniques in place to reflect on that. Maybe it's journaling or meditating or just chatting to a friend, if you will, being honest about it. And I think the more of these conversations that happen, the more we realize, oh look, there's another messy human being, as is Azalea. There is nobody that doesn't have this. And I think it is interesting, the topic of imposter syndrome, because it has become so recognized and actually, um, in quite an interesting turn of events, it's become big on social media. I've met people talking about imposter syndrome on the very platform that gives them the most imposter syndrome, right? But I think it's about, you don't need to wear it as a badge of honor and it just become another big label that I have imposter syndrome. It just, you know, sometimes I compare myself to others, it doesn't feel great. I'm gonna reflect on that and try and work out where it's coming from. And, and it probably a lot of the time is just that one of the masks that we've put in place to protect ourselves, either from something in childhood or something that happened yesterday, it doesn't matter. But we'll have put something in place to protect us. And then that comes under threat because someone's doing it better or looks like they are. And then that chimp starts hopping. And we kick off. So I do think it's all linked. And this is why I just don't think we can separate out the person, the psychology, the intuition, and all of that from the world of work and business and entrepreneurship. And in fact, I would go as far as to say it's more important for entrepreneurs because you will face the biggest challenges you've ever faced. You will face the days where your mindset and resilience is tested beyond anything that you know. And the greatest thing you can do for yourself And if you're an employer, the greatest thing you can do for your team is to educate them on mindset. And let's stop pretending we're all these shiny social media superheroes who just don't have anything wrong with them. Because we're— we do, all of us do. And it's not wrong, it's just different.

Gemma, that is an amazing line to finish our conversation for today. It's been an amazing insight. Excited to, to hear your story and how you made it all work and linked and growing. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Millennial Masters.

Thank you so much, I've really enjoyed it.

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