Episode One with Cathy Presland: making the world a little fairer and a little better

ABOUT THIS EPISODE’S GUEST

Cathy Presland is an executive coach and leadership consultant, former economist, public policy professional, and senior leader.

An adviser to Governments and international organisations around the world for over twenty years, she has lived and worked in Africa, where she designed and led global anti-poverty initiatives including setting up a micro-lending fund for women, working for a policy think tank, and consulting for the World Bank, the European Union, and other governments and international organisations along the way. She had held senior positions in the public sector, working alongside heads of government, negotiated EU regulations, and headed up the strategic development of multi-billion-euro economic development funds.

In 2009, she moved away from the world of large-scale change in 2009 to become the person behind the scenes who supports the leaders of today and tomorrow. A highly regarded trainer, she had over 24,000 students in my online training courses, was a tutor for the Guardian Masterclasses series, and is the author of Write! Stop waiting, start writing, a well-regarded guide on writing non-fiction. She is Co-Lead at the RSA’s Coaching Network.

Cathy can be contacted at:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinepresland/ 

Website:  www.cathypresland.com  

REFERENCES:

Flow: The Psychology of Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The Royal Society of Arts

ABOUT YOUR HOST: CAROLYN

The Reason is hosted by Carolyn Parry who spent 17 successful but largely unfulfilling years in business heading away from who she really was and into an existential crisis that led to burnout. That experience led her to retrain as a certified career and life coach and remains at the heart of her passion for careers work.

Now twenty years on, she is an award-winning certified career/life coach and TEDx speaker. She runs Career Alchemy, a coaching practice that has helped thousands of early-stage and established professionals to create purpose-led careers they love. ​ 

President of the Career Development Institute, the professional body for the career development

This short clip explains briefly why "The Reason" podcast has changed its name to "Change Your Story".

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Transcript

The Reason Podcast Episode One with Cathy Presland

[00:00:00] 

[00:00:07] One of the key indicators of true happiness in life is how much meaning we experience. Every day, millions of professionals of all ages and stages do work that feels largely pointless and leaves them feeling uninspired with the only real benefit being the money that comes with the work.

[00:00:25] The pandemic has shone once in a lifetime spotlight on what we want from our lives and continues to provide the impetus for us to rework our working lives in a way that works for us, so we feel inspired and motivated because what we do truly matters.

[00:00:40] Sometimes it's hard to find a way to do something better, but we can find inspiration from the career stories of others who found their true sense of purpose and meaning on their journey.

[00:00:50] My name's Carolyn Parry, and I'm an award-winning career and life coach, and every fortnight I'll be joined by an inspirational guest for a conversation about their career [00:01:00] journey, the highs, the lows, and the lessons they've learned, which I hope will inspire and entertain you as part of your career journey to finding your why.

[00:01:09] Welcome to The Reason.

[00:01:14] So Cathy, welcome to the very first episode of The Reason. And I'm absolutely delighted that you are my first guest. We go back quite away now, I think, and we were just talking before we came on air, whether it's back to a connection through Aberystwyth university where I worked and you were in the Welsh government, or if it was through you running a writing course at the time, and of course, you've got your book, "Write". 

[00:01:40] You've been writing a career story, which is really interesting, and for those who haven't come across you yet, Cathy is a fascinating person, a former development economist, and a policy advisor for over 20 years to governments, international organizations across the globe at the highest level, right through to, for instance, the first, First Minister in Wales, Rhodri Morgan. 

[00:02:02] And then after about 20 or so years changed direction heading down the route of becoming a coach and a trainer, notable highlights over twenty-four thousand students on her online training course and being a tutor for the guardian masterclass series. And I think that's one of the reasons that I first knew you as well, but the story of course starts well before that, however.

[00:02:23] You did let's see if my research is right here, a first degree in geography that was in Edinburgh, a Manchester lass originally, and shortly after your first degree came a post-graduate certificate in economics at Birkbeck and then a couple of years later on, but very early stage career, still an M Phil in political economy, a bit of economics and politics thrown together, looking at the macro picture.

[00:02:48] Really interesting as a set of courses that you've studied, but I'm really interested in what kicked you off beforehand. And before we explore what [00:03:00] I'm fondly calling these three chapters of work, because there have been three distinct phases in your career so far. So what was it got you started right at the beginning?

[00:03:13] I guess that's the heavy sigh and how I've even interpreted that question. Just let me say thank you, Carolyn. It's so nice too, I can see you. I know listeners can't see you, but it's so nice to see you. And to be honest, to be asked this, so I'm going to start kind of back back and say that I've always felt like I've had a really clear thread. And I know it's easy to look back and some people listening to this will be in a muddle they won't be able to see threads or even know that threads like exist. But to me, it looks really clear that there's like kind of thread around equality and justice and economic inequality. And I think that came very firmly from my parents who grew up in relatively poor circumstances.

[00:04:05] My Mum was not an activist, but a very strong advocate for social justice and feminism in a way ahead of her generation. And actually at her funeral, one of my friends said to me "Oh, your mum was way ahead of her time. She was a kind of a woman ahead of the generation that she lived in."

[00:04:24] And I'd never really thought about it like that. But I think coming from her, that's something, which is, I felt like it's been really clear, pretty much through everything that I've done that sense of knowing that there's something a little fairer and a little better in the world.

[00:04:45] And how fortunate that we're talking about this now against the context of leveling up, which is seen as the new bright thing, and yet your mother decades and decades ago was already on that pathway. And I think it's probably fair to say that in that first chapter of work that you did, that shone through, didn't it because you set up a microfinance organization for women in Swazi land in the 1990s.

[00:05:14] And even now that might be slightly on the edge of mainstream. So tell me a little bit about how that happened. 

[00:05:22] Yeah, well, that came after I did my M Phil, I don't know where this one came from, maybe my dad actually traveled extensively in the war and had thought about immigrating. Maybe it comes from him who knows, but he I think at various points before they had me tried to persuade my Mum to immigrate and she was always dead set against it, so maybe I got a bit of a travel bug from him, but I'd always been interested in overseas and my influence focused on development economics.

[00:05:47] I studied around gender wage equality in developing countries. And so from that, I was looking for an overseas posting that was the logical place to go. And that was just what came up [00:06:00] at the time. So that was the opportunity that came. And yeah, microfinance was, that was in the really early days of microfinance.

[00:06:07] The Grameen bank in Bangladesh had been pioneering this model, but you know, not new to cooperatives in Victorian Britain. Like they said, it's nothing new in the world. But that was my first experience of spending longish contracts overseas. I think we were there about three and a half years altogether, I met my now-husband while we were over there, had my first child at the end of that period. So yeah, some big personal changes there as well. 

[00:06:29] So that was, I guess, just taking the next thing that came along. And it's interesting. I remember, when I took that post, I was coming out of the MPhil and one of my lectures actually advised me against it. He said, "No, you shouldn't take this. You should wait for something better", but we take what's in front of us and we make the choices that we make. It's not something that I ever think: 'Would I waited? Would I have done something different? I think he wanted me to go into an international organization.

[00:06:56] So I just say that, cause I know sometimes people are listening, thinking: 'Should I take this job? Should I not take this job?' and I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to that. I think we're on the path that we're on. So, that led me to Swaziland.

[00:07:06] Let's have a little conversation around, is there a right or a wrong choice to make, because clearly you made that choice and somebody put another choice in front of you that wasn't the right one. So if you spent a minute or two, just thinking back to that moment, did you have some form of an inner sense that that was the way to go an innocent inner sense maybe, but that was the direction because it felt intrinsically part of who you are because of your Mum.

[00:07:35] I think so. I think I was excited by the fact that it was a relatively innovative prospect. It was obviously gender-focused and a number of things that I've done have been gender-focused. So there was that aspect to it. I do appreciate large organizations as we'll come on to talk about. I worked in government for many years so I've worked in the very largest of organizations. But I haven't necessarily placed certain organizations in a sort of mental hierarchy. It isn't like I need the prestige of working for this kind of organization.

[00:08:05] I felt it's much more about the kind of work that's possible. And sometimes larger organizations have advantages because people have specialist functions. And so there could be delegations of certain things. So I don't think, I felt like, oh, I have to wait for a certain kind of organization to come along.

[00:08:22] So it did feel at the time it was almost like a... I wouldn't say it was that I had a real strong feeling it was right. But it was almost like, I didn't really question it. It just felt like 

[00:08:34] an unconsciously comfortable choice. 

[00:08:35] Yeah, definitely. -At least a less conscious choice. Yeah. And I think I've always, I remember somebody at a later point actually, I did a number of things on as special projects, and I remember my line manager on one of those when the work was coming to an end saying, "Oh, you know, you're looking for a stable job now.

[00:08:54] Right. And then he sort of looks at me and he answered his own question and just laughed and said, I suppose not. And I think, I've felt pretty much a trust in that it hasn't occurred to me that there isn't going to be something and maybe it's a kind of innocent trust. And again, you're looking back, like that feels true.

[00:09:13] And I know it's a question that, people ask me, and oh, well, what if this doesn't work? How it's it swell, then there'll be something else. It's a definitely have that sense that even if there are rocky phases, there's always going to be something else. 

[00:09:31] It strikes me that, and I know from the clients that I work with, that when you have rocky phases, actually, those are the things that contain the seeds of great learning. They are life's way of nudging you onto a different path, it seems to me. But sometimes people still aren't clear which path to go down.

[00:09:49] So have you ever had any of those moments where you felt absolutely lost in your career? 

[00:09:56] Well, let me separate that into two because feeling absolutely lost full stop, I think is a, I don't want to say it's a common feeling, but my imagination is that it's a universal feeling, that we all feel that at some point.

[00:10:11] I wouldn't think it's at all uncommon. I think in the career, a couple of points strike me. One after we came back from Swaziland. And then we went to Namibia and then we came back to the UK and I joined the British Council managing development contracts.

[00:10:31] And I remember. A few months into that job I'd been in the microfinance fund and then I've been in a policy research position and a kind of think tank. And I remember feeling in the British Council, that the nature of the job felt as if it came with a lot of administrative process-y project.

[00:10:54] And I felt, I don't know it was lost in my career, but I felt like the job wasn't  playing to the things that I wanted to do. It wasn't the policy content that I really relished. And so I did go through a phase there of being probably pretty unhappy in that job, kind of finding my feet. What is this for me? What is the nature of it?

[00:11:16] I don't know if I asked myself if I made a wrong decision, but yeah, for sure, at that point it looked like this is not really what I thought it was and I'm not sure it's what I want to be doing at this point. 

[00:11:28] I think that's really interesting and very apposite on the day we mark the passing of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who wrote of course, the work Flow and spent so much of his life, helping people to understand concepts around happiness and creativity and human fulfillment.

[00:11:46] And of course, what you weren't in there doing those jobs by the sound of it, was in a sense.

[00:11:51] Yeah. 

[00:11:52] So when are you in a sense of flow what's flow for you? Is that when you're coaching or training or something else?

[00:12:00] Yeah, well, it's definitely changed over the years, I think. And at that point and actually for some time afterwards, I joined the Welsh government after that.

[00:12:08] It is, it's a kind of a combination of things for me. I think I like to engage my brain in a thinking process. Not that that can't apply to anything, but just my particular flavor of it felt during those years, for sure that I needed a bit of a why that made sense to me, like I needed to be in touch with whether it's the equality strand that we've talked about. A lot of my career has been focused on antipoverty working one way or another.

[00:12:38] So I felt I needed to see some dots being joined in terms of what I was doing. And then I think like for many people and, you know, definitely have this at the British Council, the engagement with colleagues and I like working as part of a team.

[00:12:52] I've always absolutely loved managing staff. I mean, so many people say how much they hate it, but I loved having a team. I loved having people around me, projects, different people contributing their different pieces. And now in my work as a coach and that's another useful transition to, talk about, I think is I just really loved the conversations, the deep conversations one on one.

[00:13:16] I just love that sense of being alive in a moment with another person. I think it's everything. 

[00:13:26] I totally agree. As, you know, share the joy of that as something that we're both privileged to do. There is something I'm going to use the word sacred with a little 's' in that moment. When you are holding a safe space for a client to explore who they are and the difference they want to make to the world in whatever shape or form that might be. 

[00:13:47] Absolutely

[00:13:49] When you hold that space, of course, other things pop up because you allow the time and space for that creative process, wherever that might come from to actually [00:14:00] take place.

[00:14:02] Let's go back a little step, because I'm aware that we talked about three chapters of your life, and we've talked already about Cathy, the international development worker, and the micro finance and the British Council and how the opportunities have come up in front of you.

[00:14:20] And then of course there was this shift to the next chapter. Which was a chapter in Wales as you know, a country that is very close to my heart. And I know is to yours too, where you found yourself in that early adopter position again.

[00:14:34] Again, the influence of your mother, I think, where you were working alongside the first ever First Minister for Wales, the celebrated universally, despite political divides, Rhodri Morgan, who made such a massive impact to the country of Wales and politics and opening up and leveling up at a stage when that term didn't exist. So how did that switch from international [00:15:00] development worker to adviser to senior politicians, in Wales from Swazi land and the other countries in between, how did that happen?

[00:15:09] Well, that's a catalog of coincidences. So we'd been back in the UK, I think about three years. And my husband had a job with government in the Northwest of England and we were back in Manchester and then the office that he worked for was going to close.

[00:15:29] And he was given the choice of either going to Newport in South Wales or going to London. So we just had the second child by. And we didn't really know what to do. We were sort of weighing up options. And I didn't particularly want to go to London, but I had been looking at jobs anyway in London. I actually had applied for and been offered a job with DTI as it was then, the Department of Trade and Industry as a grade seven policy analyst.

[00:15:59] And on the basis of that, we, I think thought we were London bound and then decided, you know what, this is crazy with two young children and, you know, my work is relatively well paid, but it's not super well paid. Do we want that lifestyle? So we decided to take a bit of a leap of faith and moved to Newport in South Wales.

[00:16:23] And so, I approached the government economics service office there and said, have you got any jobs? And they said, well, you know, you'll have to apply. And then I think I went and met with somebody and it turned out because I had already got a job offer with DTI, even though I never actually started with them, they were able to transfer me straight into the Welsh Assembly government.

[00:16:47] So it was a complete set of coincidences and fortune. I didn't ask for the transfer, but it came out in conversation. Well, actually, if you've already got this job, and I'd been through all the security vetting and I had everything other than a start date, they said, actually, we can just move you.

[00:17:07] It's funny how that happens. And you know, again, I guess another general lesson there is it's, it's often not on us to necessarily know how these things are going to happen. So we'd thought we were going in one direction. We decided you know what, we're going to go in another direction.

[00:17:26] And that sense of just turning up and saying, this is who I am, this is what I've got. Have you got any suggestions or ideas for me? And then the actual, you know, the mechanism has a transfer, in that case, was something that just arose because it was already there. I didn't motivate in any way.

[00:17:44] It didn't even occur to me that it would be something relevant, but yeah, just these things just happen. I think I ended up being at the Welsh Assembly Government oh, a long time. Yeah, I can't remember now how long, but quite a long time, 13, 14 years, something of that, I think I was in government.

[00:18:00] So around a decade of working right at the heart of Welsh government at its real infancy as a devolved nation, that must have been really exciting, wasn't it? 

[00:18:12] It was really exciting and I really enjoyed the enthusiasm and the excitement that came from that very, very early de-evolution yeah. It was, and I think the politicians definitely contributed to that. How can we really make this work.? How can we be as professional as we possibly can?

[00:18:35] How can we serve, obviously the people of Wales, and, I think the spirits have a kind of intellectual excitement as well. You know, we're not just here to implement a political agenda. We want to look at what we can do, which is evidence-based, which makes sense. 

[00:18:50] It's really interesting listening to you talk there because in the role I have looking after members of the Career Development Institute in Wales. I do quite a lot interfacing [00:19:00] with what's going on with government policy and so forth.

[00:19:02] And that word 'evidenced' comes up time and time again. And Wales always makes its choices based on the evidence and also a bit of trailblazing. I'm sure you've been following the work of Sophie Howe, the first person sitting as the Future Generations Commissioner in Wales and the first future generations commissioner in the world.

[00:19:20] I'm going to be very partisan here now as a proud, Welsh woman. To see a very small nation of three and a bit million people doing stuff that's world-leading and almost on the rugby field occasionally as well, which is even better in some ways, isn't it? But I think what's really interesting is that that experience that you had, that you went from doing that geography degree right through to the heart of government in Wales and still having that entrepreneurial spirit as well, that never left you did it?

[00:19:47] It never did it that spirit of adventure.

[00:19:55] It is, there is a kind of intrepreneurial I guess, element to it, but I think it's a spirit of adventure and I really like the trailblazing idea. And I know in Wales we formed a lot of alliances with obviously the other devolved administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland, but also that sense of being outward-looking, I think.

[00:20:11] The importance of home, but also the importance of internationalism. I think it was a really nice balance. Definitely, we're sitting in days when some board policy would be very welcomed. 

[00:20:26] How, how much is that spirit of adventure still with you in moving you forward now? 

[00:20:35] Yeah, I think it's still there.

[00:20:38] I'm going to say it's quieter. Having said that I'm just about to start cold water swimming this weekend. So maybe it's not that might not that quiet! 

[00:20:45] It might not be when you dive in or wade in! 

[00:20:47] I know my husband thinks I'm crazy, but anyway, we'll see. It's still there. I feel actually quite settled in what I'm doing at the moment.

[00:20:55] And I do sometimes think, I think we're a similar sort of age and I do feel myself. I don't want to say by the end of my career, but I definitely feel like I remember a moment. The moment actually, when I left the Welsh government. I loved my job and I know people leave and become self-employed because they don't like what they're doing or there a personal reason or whatever, they, they reach a moment where it's really questioning what they're doing.

[00:21:20] And I had a slightly different question to myself, which is I loved what I was doing. And I wondered what else there was that I could do. I asked myself that question. I could do this for the rest of my career, but do I want to, or do I want to try some other things as well and see what else is out there?

[00:21:39] And I wonder if that's a slightly unusual question and it comes from that adventurous side.

[00:21:45] I was going to say once an adventurer, always an adventurer. So you moved into running your own coaching business. And, as you say we've both followed the same thing and gone from stable employment into starting up coaching businesses.

[00:21:58] So I think we both [00:22:00] understand that that takes a leap of faith, a leap of confidence, a lot of hard work. Are you glad you did? 

[00:22:09] Oh, it's been a crazy ride. At this point in time, I'm really glad I did. For a while. I wasn't a hundred percent sure and I didn't know, that's not true. I was gonna say, I wasn't sure I'd made the right move.

[00:22:18] And I checked out. Don't think I ever of that, but for while I definitely felt I thought I was going to do something. And then it took a while to settle itself and sort itself out. I had done an executive coaching qualification as part of a leadership development program.

[00:22:38] And I started there and then I added writing and some other elements to it and it felt like it was missing something I didn't really know what it was. But at this point now years on, I wonder if sometimes those slightly less grounded or slightly rockier phases, are just par for the course?

[00:22:58] And we take avenues and  we learn something and we bring it back. There are many, many people who have got as good, probably much better intellect than I have. And I feel as if there are a few of us who are in this world of really trying to understand what it is about the human individual, the human species, what it is that actually makes that intellectual policy-driven or whatever, what it is that makes that work. 

[00:23:32] So that sense of ...

[00:23:35] ...we live in our heads, but actually, maybe we should be living in our hearts because that's a more rounded way where we've got head and heart together, both deciding. And of course, if you look at the work of Daniel Kahneman "Thinking fast and slow", that's what he talks about, isn't it.

[00:23:50] Systems one where you are working through the unconscious mind, intuition, which is more often right than wrong versus the intellect, System Two, which is a negative preset, is always trying to prove that something might be wrong or justify decisions and can talk us out of what are very wise decisions founded on that intuition, that sense that we talked about earlier, but sometimes we don't have the confidence to follow because System Two is about keeping us safe. 

[00:24:20] And I think there's a system three, which is not firmly based in Kahneman's work, but when I think about that and I do love his work, I think there is a third piece, which is an awareness of which system we are operating from in any moment.

[00:24:37] And I don't think that has given enough credit that we do have a self-awareness. We know when we're overthinking, we know when we're not thinking enough analytically. And so that kind of higher awareness, a higher consciousness.

[00:24:54] I don't want to put words in his mouth and call it System Three, but I think 

[00:24:57] Why not? Maybe that's the spirit of adventure coming through there! 

[00:25:02] I think that's present and very difficult to describe. And I think in, again, particularly in sort of Western European mode of thinking, not geographically, but conceptually where we're taught that the intuitive sense, which I think is like a preconscious almost it's that it's not that it isn't based on fact, but it isn't necessarily in fact so it's like we know that something is hot or cold and it has a temperature to it. But at the same time, we have a knowledge of it being hot or cold. You know, there is something that is really there, but we're not necessarily bringing it into an analyzed form. And I think we're trained into thinking somehow that's a lesser way of thinking.

[00:25:47] And so we trip ourselves up with an attachment to our models and our evidence and not realizing that we just make those all up anyway.

[00:26:00] And sometimes the leap of faith is better. 

[00:26:03] Yeah. Yeah. And those bigger questions that like, what's it all for any way in a positive sense, like what, what are we doing here?

[00:26:12] Yeah. Sometimes just being able to elevate out of the hamster wheel or whatever it is. I think it's really critical. 

[00:26:20] So Cathy, what are you here for?

[00:26:28] Oh, why am I here?

[00:26:33] I'm going silent because I, I mean, there's so many ways I could answer this question. Part of me thinks we're all just here to live, we're all here to engage with life. I do think about it a lot. I've thought about it a lot in a metaphysical sense, but also in the sense of how can I make the most positive contribution given where I am in my career, life experience, all of those things. 

[00:27:04] I've come to the conclusion that I don't know the answer that it's going to be something that there is not an answer to. And at the same time, I think the most, the most useful thing I feel like I can offer, in a work sense and other senses as well, is that System Three thinking that I put into Danny Kahneman's words - shining that light and waking someone up to that sense of awareness of how they are thinking, how they are living, how they are sleepwalking almost, or walking through the world in a maze of thinking, to help people get that perspective on who they are.

[00:27:53] I know you do a lot of work with The Royal Society of Arts, and I know you're co-leader of their volunteer coaching network. That connects up with this, doesn't it? 

[00:28:05] It does. I 

[00:28:06] was looking at a book this morning and something stood out to me. And it's from Martin Luther King and he said, "All life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny."

[00:28:28] Wow. That's a big one. 

[00:28:31] That's a big one. Isn't it? 

[00:28:33] And it just pulls together strands of what we've been talking about. That sense of being in a space, being open, the synchronicity of an opportunity, and the space to walk forward and into it. Have you done that more than once? 

[00:28:49] Don't, we all do it every day?

[00:28:50] I don't want to be completely metaphysical. Isn't it something that we do all of the time? And I think one of the pieces of that quote, which I've become more and more aware of is he said: "tied into a single garment of destiny."

[00:29:06] And for me, I don't interpret that as a path or a predetermination, but I, I interpret. I interpret it for me and for the world that there is this, I know Adam Smith called it the invisible hand, but there is this sense of something that is conceptually so much bigger than me, that I can't possibly conceive of what it is, let alone even trying to understand it with all of my very clever intellectual systems thinking. 

[00:29:32] And just to accept that I don't know. I can't possibly know enough about all of the pieces, how they interrelate. And so therefore it makes sense to me to go forward with some sense of trust in the unknown.

[00:29:53] That's a beautiful sentiment trust in the unknown, and that implies a trust in [00:30:00] yourself as well, doesn't it?

[00:30:01] Yeah, completely, completely. And that's not to say that I walk around all of the time in this mist of self-confidence or self-assurance, that's not true. It's all, but foundationally, what I see in people is an incredible capacity for rebalancing and finding their way.

[00:30:22] And I know you've been through this. I've had my phases. The people you talk to will be going through this as well. That is part of the nature of being human. And if we can somehow kind of amplify that and turn down the doubts and the worries and that, you know, if we can kind of shine the spotlight on that power and capacity that we've got, I think great things are possible or just a happy life.

[00:30:56] Or even just a happy life! That's a great  reason to be here, Cathy, isn't it?

[00:31:03] And I think this question of, you know, we spend a lot of hours in work and we spend a lot of mental space thinking about the hours that we spend in work. And I just think it's a really valuable reflection for people to go through and to do what they really want to be doing with this wild and precious life. I think it's Mary Oliver's. 

[00:31:27] We've got one shot. We get the gift once. We need to spend it consciously, rather than leave it evaporate and fritter through our fingers.

[00:31:36] It's been an absolute privilege talking to you this afternoon and exploring all the different elements of the point of a reason and what your specific reason is.

[00:31:47] So at this point, I want to say a massive diolch yn fawr iawn, thank you very much, indeed. 

[00:31:53] Thank you for asking.

[00:31:54] Great conversation. 

[00:31:56] And we'll share links in the show notes to your website, to your book, and anything else you think is helpful for anybody listening to, to engage with. 

[00:32:06] The motivation behind why people make the choices they do is as varied as the different landscapes, music, and art around the globe. Every one of our career journeys is filled with hope with disappointments and with lessons as we move to our most authentic selves and express them through the work we do.

[00:32:23] As the saying goes, we can't be what we can't see. And yet to take on a new identity that calls to us to move in the direction of that new becoming, we need to listen to the quiet voice inside whilst also being nudged by inspiration from others to take the next step, to try something new, to adventure. 

[00:32:42] I hope this episode of the reason has given you food for thought in some way, whether through hearing a different career journey or because of something in the links and resources shared in the show notes. If this episode of The Reason has helped you, please share it via your social media channels so that it can help others to find their reason and [00:33:00] to live a happier working life they love.

[00:33:02] I look forward to welcoming you back next time when I'll be joined by another inspirational guest to share their career journey to find their reason.