Episode Four with Julia Goodfellow Smith: from bank manager to environmentalist, author and adventurer

Julia Goodfellow Smith is a self-confessed adventurer, speaker, writer, and author of best-selling books. But that’s not how she started out.

Originally a management scientist born in the era of Thatcherism, she became a small business banker but found the constraints of working in the corporate world made her feel like a square peg in a round hole.

Her desire for more freedom led to investing in a franchise helping businesses to reduce their energy costs. Meanwhile, the call she heard in her childhood from the Save The Whale advertising campaign always stayed in the background and led eventually to her developing an environmental career. A significant emotional event served to remind her that life is for living and a more recent health scare paved the way to becoming the best-selling author and adventurer she is today.

Tune in to find out why she has always volunteered, what it takes to write a book that publishers want to publish, and discover how walking the Camino Way changed Julia for good.

Julia can be contacted via:
Website: https://linktr.ee/juliagsauthorspeaker
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juliagsauthor/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliagoodfellowsmith/


SHOW REFERENCES:
Significant Emotional Experiences and values – developed by John Massey

Quality of life assessment – free questionnaire from the World Health Organisation  

Michael Heppell

The Conservation Volunteers

The Royal Society of Arts

JCI

Rotary

The WI

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Carolyn: We all have a story. 

[00:00:05] Sometimes it's a story we choose and sometimes it's a story we fall into. That choice can either work for us or against us. Now, according to experts Gallup, on average, we spend 81,396 hours at work over the course of our lifetime. And in fact, the only thing we spend more time doing than working is sleeping.

[00:00:25] And yet, as Gallup's research shows, only around one in 10 people in the UK truly love the work they do. And that's the reason for this podcast to help the nine out of 10 who dread the thought of weekday mornings. I remember myself how that felt before I changed my own career story.

[00:00:43] So if the thought of those weekday mornings fills you with dread, or that quiet voice keeps telling you there is something better waiting for you, why not join me for a conversation with an inspirational guest about how they've successfully changed their career?

[00:00:56] Full of ideas, strategies, and insights drawn from those real-life stories, the Change Your Story Podcast will help you to discover your "why" and what else really matters to you so that you too can create a working life you love.

[00:01:11] My name's Carolyn Parry, and I'm an award-winning career and life coach.

[00:01:15] And every fortnight, I'll be joined by an inspirational guest for a conversation about their career journey, the highs, the lows, and the lessons they've learned, which I hope will inspire and entertain you as part of your journey to finding your career why.

[00:01:31] Welcome to Change Your Story. 

[00:01:33] It's my absolute pleasure to welcome Julia Goodfellow Smith to this episode of Change Your Story. Lovely to welcome you here, Julia. 

[00:01:40] Julia: Thank you very much, Carolyn. It's a pleasure to be on.

[00:01:43] Carolyn: Now we connected online through a group run by Michael Heppell, the motivational speaker, called Team 17, didn't we? Where we were assigned as buddies to each other. And it turns out actually we have a lot in common and a lot more than you might think from growing up in the same place as we've just discovered to being fellows of the Royal Society of Arts and a shared interest in purpose as a theme amongst others.

[00:02:06] So if you are listening to this podcast and you haven't come across Julia before you are in for a treat today. Julia is a freelance writer, a speaker, an environmentalist, and she describes herself as a self-employed adventurer who's writing and speaking to inspire people to love life and achieve their goals and dreams.

[00:02:22] She's a bestselling author with a number of books published, including "Live Your Bucket List, Simple Steps to Ignite Your Dreams, Face your Fears, and Live an Extraordinary Life Starting Today", and a number of walking books, which I know we're going to talk about later. And then a little later after that we'll probably be exploring what's really exciting because she's just about to launch her next book, which is all around walking the Camino de Santiago.

[00:02:44] So some interesting and exciting things ahead, but that's not where your career started as a speaker or a writer, is it Julia? It started doing something quite different. So, you grew up in the Camberley Lightwater area and in fact you went to a school down the road from where I lived, I've just [00:03:00] discovered, which is really quite funny down in the sort of Camberley area.

[00:03:03] Strange, how coincidence happens, isn't it? Your first degree was a BSc in Management Science at Hull University. That is quite a long way from being a writer and an environmentalist, isn't it? How did you choose that?

[00:03:19] Julia: I don't whether I should be embarrassed to admit this now, but I was a, I was a Thatcher child. I grew up in the 1980s, and I wanted to be some hot shot businessperson, so I went and did a degree in management science. I was quite rebellious I guess, as a child, and I wanted to travel a long way from home, which is why I ended up in Hull.

[00:03:40] Carolyn: Yes. I think there are a lot of people with Thatcher children, so I wouldn't worry about that. It was what it was at the time. And clearly your values have shifted quite considerably, which we'll see as we go through the story of your career.

[00:03:50] You talked about going a long way from home as well. That's a frequent driver for young people though Hull is quite a long way away, isn't it? What happened after you finished your degree?

[00:03:59] Julia: I graduated in 1991, which was the height of a recession or the depths of a recession. I guess most of the people that I graduated with didn't graduate into work, and I had already decided by then that I wanted to work in the environmental sector. I wanted to do something to save the planet as I would've thought about it then. So, I went and volunteered full-time for a charity called The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, which is now just The Conservation Volunteers as a means to learn skills within the, conservation sector.

[00:04:32] Carolyn: So where did that save the planet initiative come? Where did that, that desire to do that from somebody who was a self-confessed Thatcher child.

[00:04:42] Julia: Ah! I also grew up in the period of saving the whale,

[00:04:46] Carolyn: Ah,

[00:04:46] Julia: and I think those campaigns really hit me. I actually did some work experience when I was a teenager for the Worldwide Fund for Nature as it was then. It's changed its name over the years, and

[00:05:00] I was interested in conservation and the environment, even though I was a Thatcher child. And it came to a head when I was at university and I thought, this is really important. I think that we were just at the verge of banning whaling, if I remember rightly, on the time scales. And so I had heightened awareness of these sorts of issues at the time,

[00:05:22] Carolyn: And clearly decided that management science really wasn't all it was cracked up to be. If you wanted to go and save a whale.

[00:05:27] Julia: I might have gone to work using management science. it was operations analysis, and it's a very mathematical degree. Nobody was recruiting anybody in that sector when I graduated, essentially. So, I didn't have that option, and it wasn't until later years that I thought that could actually have been really useful in terms of environmental protection, because it's all about using resources effectively. A lot of the maths could have been used to really help companies use less energy, for example.

[00:06:05] Carolyn: You can't be what you can't see if, if nobody said, here's an opportunity. You know what you are talking about there is connecting something that people will see in one space, but not realize that they can take those same skills and use them a context where they're actually working, making the difference they want to make in something they care about. And that isn't something that's obvious to people because normally it's the linear thing about, oh, I'm going to something maths related. But we don't think about the context of where we use that maths. And I think that's what you've just described there so neatly. 

[00:06:32] So you've got this degree, you go and do this volunteering and then you end up being paid to work there.

[00:06:39] That must have been exciting having come from that awful experience of I just can't get a job and I, I understand what that's like. I've worked with clients who have it. I had it myself when I graduated almost just under a decade earlier. Did it affect your confidence?

[00:06:54] Julia: You know, I don't think it did. I just took it that this is what was happening in the world. If I'd have been the only person at university who didn't walk straight into a job, then I might have had my confidence knocked, but I don't think it, I don't think it did. It just made me think about how I could use my time productively. And I did go on and use my time productively. I just wasn't paid for it.

[00:07:16] Carolyn: That's really insightful, isn't it? And that's really important for people who are going through a bit of a tough time now. Maybe it's I can't get a job. Maybe it's being made redundant. Uh, it feels like it you are the only person in the world it's happening to, but if you can recognize there are others going through it, it makes it feel a little bit less personal and just something that happens in careers.

[00:07:35] So working for the British Trust for Conservation volunteers, what was that like?

[00:07:42] Julia: Generally I loved it. I love actually doing the work that they were helping people to do. I love planting trees, building drystone walls. I've built thousands of stone steps all across North Yorkshire and I really enjoy the fact that I've left a bit of a legacy with all of that, and then I could help other people to do the same thing either in their local conservation, volunteering groups in my first job or on conservation working holidays, which is my second role within the organization.

[00:08:15] It was completely inspiring working for a charity that was doing such good work, but they also treated their staff pretty well as well. So we had a lot of training. I had good managers. I really enjoyed it at the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers. Until...

[00:08:31] Carolyn: Until - the word until! What happened next? This is a duff duff moment. 

[00:08:35] Julia: It was a very flat organization, and I got to the point where there was nowhere else for me to go. I reported into one of the directors who reported into the chief executive. I wasn't going to be able to bridge that gap, so I had to go somewhere else and do something else or remain static. And you'll realize through this interview that I'm not a remaining static sort of person.

[00:08:56] Carolyn: It doesn't surprise me that you don't let the grass grow under your [00:09:00] feet. Julia, a great thing to have built all those steps and people still be walking up and down them today, I suspect.

[00:09:05] But you changed direction after seven years of working in conservation and to work for a bank. How did that come about? That's not a straight on, is it? That's a real swerve, a curve ball there. What happened?

[00:09:18] Julia: I can see why it might seem like a swerve, but I had a plan. I knew that I was working in the sector where a lot of other people had worked in the same sector for a long time, and I thought it would be really helpful to go out into the wider world, out into the business world or the finance world, and bring some skills back into environmental management later on in my career. So, I thought that banking would be a great place to do that. I actually applied for jobs in accountancy and banking actually, the sort of accountancy that's business consulting, and chose banking.

[00:09:53] Carolyn: Now you went in an interesting way, didn't you? Because it was seven years since you've graduated or thereabouts, and yet you went in as a graduate trainee. I don't know whether that's quite as possible these days, but that's what you did. What happened from that moment when you, you joined, you did your graduate training bit. How did you then progress? Were the steps you had to take to be able to do that?

[00:10:14] Julia: Within the bank itself?

[00:10:16] Carolyn: Yeah.

[00:10:18] Julia: To be a manager in HSBC at the time, you had to have a degree in financial services, so they paid for me to do the degree and I did that. They also gave us some extra time off to be able to do it. So within two years I got a degree in financial services, which enabled me, as I say, to be a manager in the bank. But

[00:10:38] I found that I didn't really get on very well with banking. I felt like I was a square peg in a round hole. It just didn't suit me as a career. I learned loads that I could take back doing something else, which was the intention, but I, I really didn't get on with it at all. So I didn't stay there forever as you already know,

[00:10:59] Carolyn: But not everybody listening knows. I'm just amazed that you did a bachelor's degree in two years whilst working. I know they gave you time off, but I'm sure it wasn't two full years they gave you off. That's quite spectacular. Did you find that a struggle at all doing that amount of learning that quickly whilst working?

[00:11:16] Julia: I'm an absolute fan of lifelong learning, so I really enjoyed it, I was pretty dedicated to doing it and self-disciplined. So I set myself a number of hours each evening that I would work after work on the banking exams for however many days a week it was, and how many hours I would work at the weekend. And that's what I did, full stop. I wanted to get it done. I wanted to learn, I wanted to progress in the bank still at that point, and I loved it. I just love learning, so it suited me fine.

[00:11:47] Carolyn: Just as well, you loved learning because that's real. That's being quite a hard task master an age when lots of other people will be out at weekends going and just relaxing and maybe having a bit of a good time. So there's a real clear steer there that if you want to get somewhere, you've got to put the hours in.

[00:11:59] Dreams only come true by the effort and the graft that gets you there, don't they? 

[00:12:02] So, seven years in the bank almost, and a little bit restless feet and a sense of I don't fit this. How did you know you really didn't fit it?

[00:12:11] Julia: I, hmm. I just knew, I just knew fundamentally that this isn't where I wanted to be and where I wanted to work. You spend an awful lot of time at work. One of the catalysts was a speaker who came to talk to all of the managers, and he stood up on the stage and he said: "If you don't wake up on Monday morning and think, yes, I get to go into work today, then you're in the wrong job."

[00:12:42] And I sat there and I thought, oh my goodness. Monday mornings my stomach sinks, you know, my heart sinks and I really didn't want to go into work. And I thought, he's absolutely right. I'm not doing the right thing. So that was the real catalyst that made me move.

[00:12:58] Carolyn: It's funny, isn't it? How you can have what seems like a totally random experience of you go into work as normal one day and up pops this chap on the stage and he says something and you go, oh my goodness. He's absolutely right. And we can walk through our lives unconsciously doing the same thing day in, day out, not ever looking down on our lives and conscious choices after we've been somewhere for a while and then suddenly there's a wakeup call.

[00:13:25] Sometimes that can become through illness, sometimes it comes through redundancy. In your case, it came through an inspirational speaker who went: "What are you doing here?" In coded speak and here you are on your way to becoming an inspirational speaker. We'll leave that thought sit there I think for a minute.

[00:13:44] Seven years in the bank with a wake up call that says, what am I doing here? I seem to have left environmental stuff quite some way behind, I would think is what you were thinking at the time maybe. And yet you carried on for another period working in business finance, didn't you? What was that?

[00:14:02] Julia: I'd always wanted to be self-employed. It had been my bucket list since I know I was at school, I guess going back to the Thatcher years, and I thought, this is my opportunity to become self-employed, but I was working for one of the biggest employers in the world and taking a step straight into self-employment, I didn't feel was going to work, and I didn't know what I would do anyway, so I had a look at franchise opportunities and I found a franchise called Expense Reduction Analysts. As soon as I looked at that and started investigating, I thought, this is something I can do. This is something that I would be brilliant at. And I was, so, it was a really good choice. 

[00:14:40] Carolyn: Excellent.

[00:14:41] Julia: I made the move. I very quickly earned a lot of money and did very well as an expense reduction analyst, helping businesses reduce their overhead costs.

[00:14:51] Carolyn: Did it light your soul up?

[00:14:56] Julia: it was fun. It was a game, and I was really good at playing it. I was still in the mode of thinking, I'm developing skills that will be useful to, to take back. And I also think that a role like that actually perform a useful function in society because it takes some of the fat out of contracts and what have you and, and makes things work better.

[00:15:19] But maybe I was deluding myself. I started wanting to work on energy management and helping people reduce their costs by reducing their energy management. Because by this time I was getting really concerned about climate change and I thought it was time to weave myself back into the environmental world and I thought I might be able to do it through the franchise. But being a franchise, you are pretty restricted on what you can and can't do, and I couldn't find a way to make it work the way that I wanted it to work within the franchise. So it was time for another change.

[00:15:51] Carolyn: Another chapter. Another chapter in the story that is Julia's interesting joy and journey through life collecting skills, knowledge, experience, finding fun, and sometimes questioning whether it's quite right or not. Interesting that you went: "I want to be self-employed." That often happens to people, and the question is, is it the right self-employment for me or not?

[00:16:14] And you took the safer route, because I suspect you had a strong value at that stage about security of income, which is why you went invested in a franchise, so you knew the risk was minimal as you said, and then it still didn't quite do it. Now, we'll come back to what happened next in a minute, but at that point you actually got quite heavily involved in volunteering and I just wonder whether that franchise and that ability to be more flexible through the semi self-employment of franchise, if you like, gave you some time and space to do some other things, because I know volunteering was something you did an awful lot of in that period, not least through the Junior Chamber International.

[00:16:49] Julia: That's right. I've almost always done a lot of volunteering. It's just a part of my nature to do that, starting from when I was a very small child organizing garden fetes to raise money for Save the Children Fund and all the way through my life, apart from those years when I was doing that degree in financial services, when I just didn't have the capacity to volunteer as well as work full-time as well as do the degree. I've always been involved in volunteering one way or another. When I was working as an expense reduction analyst, I thought it would be useful to join a networking organization and I found Junior Chamber International, and I joined for that reason. It didn't take me long to realize that it wasn't a brilliant networking opportunity for me within the business, but you're absolutely right.

[00:17:31] Being self-employed, I had the time to put into it and I loved, JCI, it's a fabulous organization and it gives you an opportunity to develop lots of skills outside of the workplace. That's where I started public speaking really, although I'd done some training in the bank, that's when I really started picking up my public speaking skills. I led teams, I organized events, and I helped other people to develop their skills and confidence as well. It's just a fabulous organization and I was really proud to be a part of it. I've actually been made a senator now, which is a lifelong member of the organization.

[00:18:06] Carolyn: Oh, fantastic. You did some other volunteering didn't you? You were doing some things for the RSA in Worcester area. Tell me a bit about that.

[00:18:13] Julia: I've been a fellow of the RSA, the Royal Society of Arts for decades, I can't remember when I joined. And it was an organization that I hadn't really had a lot to do with. I'd read the magazine when it came out and not really done anything else until I moved to Worcestershire. First of all, I ran the local group, so we had local meetings and I organized speakers from within the local membership. And that was good networking actually, because I met lots of people. It wasn't intentional networking, but I was doing something to help them and they saw that and appreciated it. And I also became a fellowship counsellor with the RSA at the time, representing fellows to the National Board And again, it was just a great opportunity to contribute to another great charity.

[00:19:10] Carolyn: It's funny, isn't it? You know when you start giving freely, it changes the dynamic. When you go into networking and people go: "Oh, what is it that person wants?", the guard is up, and they don't tend to respond. But when you are open-hearted, open-minded and put offers out there just because you want to, opportunities start to flow freely. You Went and did a lot more at that same time as well, didn't you? Because you went to become a committee member for the Malvern Community and then you did some work for the Women's Institute in that area as well. How was that?

[00:19:40] Julia: I did. When we moved to Malvern, my husband and I, we did an awful lot of stuff together. We both agreed actually that it would be good for us to do some activities that weren't together. So I joined the WI because he couldn't join the WI and it had to be apart from him. There was something like eight WIs in Malvern at the time. It's a vibrant organization and again, it is an organization that I have loved being a part of. It's just natural that I was at a meeting one day, I'd only just joined this particular institute and they said, if we don't get a treasurer, we're going to have to close.

[00:20:14] So my hand went up in the air - "I can do that job."

[00:20:19] Carolyn: Why doesn't that surprise me?

[00:20:23] Julia: And so yes, there I was on, on the committee of the local WI as well.

[00:20:29] Carolyn: So how did that help you? How does all that volunteering help apart from you know, we all, when we give freely, we get a thing called the helpers high that is a natural part of being human. You give, you don't give to receive, you give, and then you may well get a feeling of, gosh, I enjoyed doing that, I helped, I made a difference. And that's the dopamine bit, the helpers high. Apart from that, how else did being part of these organizations and all the other bits of volunteering you've done what, what's that done for you as an individual over the time?

[00:20:56] Julia: It's helped me to develop my networks more generally. When I move into a place, if I start volunteering, you can very quickly become friendly with a lot of people and that's where you then start becoming friends with people, for example, I've recently moved to Llanelli in West Wales, and I've joined Rotary in Llanelli, and one of the reasons that I joined Rotary is because they are heavily involved in the community here in Llanelli, and joining has meant that I've met a lot of people who have similar values to me and have a lot of fun. And so very quickly I've made some friends in the area. I love that. I love that sense of belonging. It's not just a helpers' high. I like being a part of something as well.

[00:21:41] Carolyn: It's connection as well, isn't it? It's belonging and with that comes connection and that sense of I'm not alone. There's somebody who can help should I need it, but I'm also up for helping anybody who needs that help as well, and if we can do that on our way through life, what a wonderful thing to do.

[00:21:57] Julia: Absolutely.

[00:21:58] Carolyn: Let's go back a little bit to working as an assessor and with the franchise and your first experience of self-employment. What did you learn from that? 

[00:22:10] Julia: The big thing I learned when I joined the franchise was that I could be successful. When I was in banking, as I say, square peg, round hole, I didn't ever really feel like I got on like I wanted to. And stepping out into the franchise doing something that I was really good at, that I succeeded in, gave me a real confidence boost. And I loved being self-employed as well. I loved the freedom of self-employment.

[00:22:34] Carolyn: Was there a point when you went, this is all well and good, but it's not really quite doing it for me. It's not giving me enough of what I really want.

[00:22:45] Julia: Yes, I, I met my husband Mike, who has worked in environmental management and sustainability for his entire career. He started talking to me about energy efficiency and saving money for businesses by helping them reduce their energy consumption. And I thought this fitted really well with a cost management consultancy, but I couldn't quite fit it in with the franchise.

[00:23:10] It's the freedom again, that a franchise gives you the freedom of self-employment, but also restricts what you can do understandably, because that's the model that they know works. And I couldn't quite fit the energy management idea into the franchise, but it seemed to me to fit really well with where I'd always wanted to go to.

[00:23:29] It felt like the next step forwards of going back to work in environmental protection and bringing in all of the skills that I'd learned in banking and in cost management consultancy and taking that into environmental consultancy. So that's when Mike and I went into business together into Quest For Future Solutions and I started working as an environmental consultant.

[00:23:51] Carolyn: Now, isn't that interesting? You meet somebody, you've gone on this massive journey out away from the environmental truth that you hold if you like, and picked up all these skills on the way in that big journey out, you meet somebody and it's a little bit, I think, a sense of coming home where it all suddenly starts to come together and make more sense and you can do work that genuinely starts to help the planet. Is that how it felt?

[00:24:18] Julia: Yes. I had always had a plan, but the detail of the plan was always a bit fuzzy. So I always knew that I wanted to go back into environmental management and I had this opportunity and suddenly it felt like everything fitted together, the skills that I developed in the bank helped me develop my cost management business and those skills that I developed there were going to then help me also be a self-employed environmental consultant. And I was learning new skills partly from Mike, partly from training courses and what have you to help me along the way as well, which fits with the lifelong learning idea too.

[00:24:53] So yes, it did feel a bit like coming home. It was what I'd intended to do, and I'd achieved it because I did get back into environmental protection work.

[00:25:02] Carolyn: How interesting. I'm sure you've seen and heard the quote from Steve Jobs about making sense of your life where he talks about looking backwards and joining the dots, and of course we could all go, well, it's easy to do that in hindsight, isn't it?

[00:25:14] But you had a plan, you just didn't have the details you said, and then miraculously stuff eventually brings that together. I wonder if there was a moment partway through that journey before you went, “Yes, it's all connected up” where you ever went: “Is this ever going to work? Is this plan that I had ever going to turn into reality”, that you may be lost a bit of faith on the way.

[00:25:34] Julia: You know, I don't think there was, it was a plan. It didn't have a deadline. It was just a plan. 

[00:25:41] Carolyn: Was it more of an ambition and an aim rather than a plan? Cause the plans normally got timescales against it and you held your faith through a long time of 14 years in banking and the franchise stuff and all of that change. It was a long time, wasn't it? 

[00:25:58] Julia: It was. I didn't ever take my eye off the goal. I didn't know how I was going to get to it, and then I was given the opportunity. I didn't ever feel lost in that I still felt like I was on the path back to where I wanted to go to. I just didn't know how I was going to make that step until the opportunity was there. But of course, I was looking for the opportunity as well.

[00:26:17] Carolyn: So that's the important thing, isn't it? It's the looking for the opportunity. If we know what we are looking for, we can find it. If we walk into a shoe shop and we know we need a pair of boots for mountain hiking, we know the colour, the make and the style, the price and the brand and all the other things, we can have that experience where we are looking around the shop and the boots almost leap off the shelf at us and they wave and they go: "Hello, I'm here. Try me."

[00:26:37] And you put them on, you pay the money because they fit, and you leave. But if you don't know what you're looking for, you can't find it. And that's the power of the reticular activating system, isn't it? Keeping constantly scanning for that opportunity to bring it all together for all the skills, the experience, the knowledge, and your passion and sense of purpose to do something that helps planet, to coalesce, to come together in this one opportunity. Quest.

[00:27:07] Interesting it's called Quest because you've been on a quest to get to that point. 

[00:27:09] Julia: I have, we are on a Quest.

[00:27:11] Carolyn: We are all on a quest, aren't we? We may not call it that, but we are all are on a quest. What was it like being on that quest with your husband? Or what is it like being on that quest with your husband?

[00:27:20] Julia: was fantastic and I only used the past tense there because that's not where I'm focusing my time now. I really enjoyed working with Mike. We always worked on different projects to each other within the business. We handed over from time to time, you know, we'd hand a project over from one to the other, but we weren't working on the same projects as each other at the same time as each other on the whole.

[00:27:46] I could benefit a lot from Mike's experience of having worked in the industry for however many decades he already had. And I could also, as I say, bring in the skills that I'd learned and fact the confidence. I think one of the things that, when you were speaking earlier, I, I wanted to bring out was the fact that I don't think I'd have been ready before then. I think I needed those years of being successful and good at something to then go into consultancy and feel like I could go into the meetings with the directors and what have you and be on a par with them and have the conversations that we needed to have. So it was a journey that I needed to go on to get to the point that I was at.

[00:28:27] Carolyn: And then as they say, when the person's right, the opportunity appears and that's what your patient journey was about, gathering all of the stuff that when you combine it with the other things turns it into a little bit of magic and it becomes a magic quest rather than just a quest.

[00:28:43] I was interested to hear you talking then about, it was fantastic working with my husband and then you said we both worked on different projects, and I think that's an important point. As somebody who spent 10 years self-employed, working with my husband, I know only too well the value in each having a separate area, which is your thing, but working together collectively for a single aim.

[00:29:04] That gives you both the space to contribute and grow as professionals with that common aim keeping you together as well. And not everybody can do that, can they? It's not the easiest of gigs for some couples, I don't think.

[00:29:17] Julia: Well, it worked really well for us. We could bounce ideas off each other and what have you without feeling like we were stepping on each other's toes or anything like that. 

[00:29:25] Carolyn: So when you were working with Mike at the time, I know you started to do a little bit of freelance writing, didn't you, tell me a bit about that.

[00:29:34] Julia: I've always enjoyed writing, and Mike and I bought a woodland. It was something when we first met, we both said that we'd both always wanted to own a woodland and we'd got to the point where we did own a woodland and I was a member of the Small Woodland Owners Group on Facebook, and they said something about looking for people to write in the magazine. So I, said to them, look, I've just bought a woodland. I can write a column for you in your magazine. Why don't you take me on as a writer and I can talk to people about the experience of owning a Woodland. And I, I really enjoyed doing the writing and I wrote a few other bits and pieces for, Transform, which is the journal for members of the Institute for Environmental Management and Assessment, and a few other bits and pieces, but I didn't really have time to give it the attention that I wanted to. I also wanted to write books. I give a lot of energy to whatever I'm doing, and I was giving all of my energy to the consultancy work, and I didn't really have space to do the writing that I wanted to do.

[00:30:35] Carolyn: Again, there's that opportunity. "I see an opportunity. I'm going to follow it." So there's, I think, often in the back of your brain, that reticular activating system, looking for the equivalent of that pair of boots in the shop looking for that opportunity, whether it's to write, whether it's to contribute, whether it's to connect, belong, make a difference, constantly scanning and finding opportunities.

[00:30:54] And of course what you seek finds you because you're aware and you see it. And therefore the next step then is just to have the confidence to take the step. And having had that experience or the franchise, you've got that confidence just to keep taking the step on the basis, I suspect of what's the worst that could happen. Is that a philosophy that you have?

[00:31:11] Julia: I do. Yes. 

[00:31:13] Carolyn: I thought you might!

[00:31:14] Julia: As Mike says, is anybody going to die?

[00:31:17] Carolyn: Yeah. What's the worst can happen? Nobody died. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:31:19] You carried on writing Living Woods's Magazine. I'm writing a book at the moment about career change, as you know. What advice would you have for aspiring authors like me and anybody else who's listening to this, who's going, my gosh, it seems like a mountain to climb. What advice do you have for us?

[00:31:35] Julia: Oh, for writing a book. Well, I am an absolute fan mind mapping and planning, you'll find out if you read my book, which will come onto later, I'm sure. 

[00:31:45] Carolyn: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:46] Julia: So I would always start a book. I do start a book usually with a mind map to show me what I want to include in it, what am I going to cover, and then I pull that together. They tend to be messy, sprawling things, and I'll pull that together into some sort of a, a tidier plan that looks like it has, you know, chapters and headings, subheadings, and what have you. 

[00:32:05] And then you've got a basis of what to write because all you need to do then is pick the thing that you're going to write about and start writing. And I know it sounds simple, but I find using that whole mind mapping process to just have a brain splurge onto the page and then tidying it up, really helps me. And I don't really suffer from writer's block because I can always pick one of the subjects that I'm going to write about and just sit down and write about it. Ah! The other thing, the first draft can be rubbish. As you've got as you've got words on the page, you are making progress. You can tidy them up afterwards. 

[00:32:38] Carolyn: I'm about 4,000 words in. I'm hoping there's not too much rubbish, but there's a lot more stuff to be written yet. Really helpful. And that's the sort of technique you use with your career planning as well, isn't it? You can mind map to identify, your aptitude, your skills, your knowledge and your experience, what I call the ASKE (A S K E). You can start to draw connections and themes and you can keep that updated and then always have that opportunity mindset to spot the next thing that might fit because the mind maps in your head.

[00:33:03] Really interesting. Thank you for those words of comfort. I will keep persevering. 

[00:33:07] So you've been developing this freelance writing, still working with Mike in Quest, on your magic quest together, and then another chapter, another change, back into working for others. How did that come about?

[00:33:23] Julia: I'd spent a few years by that point in environmental consultancy, and I'd helped lots of businesses improve their environmental performance by going in and talking to them about what they could do and how they could do it. But I wasn't actually getting my hands dirty, doing the work, making it happen on the ground, and I just felt what I'd really like to have the experience of doing that. So I pushed aside my concerns about going back into employment and the restrictions of employment, and decided that I would apply for some jobs as a, as an environmental manager, one of which I got in a construction business. And so, yes, I went back into being employed again.

[00:34:01] Carolyn: How was that for you?

[00:34:02] Julia: By and large, terrible.

[00:34:06] Carolyn: I was braced for that. When we suppress that quiet voice that goes: "Really?" it's not always the best thing to do, is it? So, what happened, Julia?

[00:34:16] Julia: I should have known better. I'd spent the last, I don't know, 14 years talking about I don't know, how I could ever have been employed, that self-employment really suited me well and what have you. And then I went back to people watching the hours that I worked, having personal development reviews, having all of the restrictions of working for a big company. Commuting! I had a daily commute into Birmingham. It was taking me about three hours a day out of my time getting to and from work 

[00:34:47] Carolyn: Ouch.

[00:34:48] Julia: And I found all of that really hard. And then I had a health scare. 

[00:34:55] Carolyn: No. 

[00:34:55] Julia: First of all, I had whooping cough and I didn't know what it was for months. [00:35:00] All I did was get up, go to work, come home, sleep, get up, go to work, come home and sleep. And it took months for anybody to find out what it was. It was whooping cough, which is great because there are no long-term implications for adults with whooping cough. But at the consultation, when I found out what it was, I found out that I've always had what I've thought of as small lungs. And it turns out that it's some sort of restricted respiratory condition that I have. And I said to the consultant: "Well, I'll just carry on the same as I always have with this, presumably, and it's not going to have any impact. And he said: "Well, as you get older, you'll be susceptible to respiratory disease," and the world changed in an instant when he said that.

[00:35:41] I thought there are so many things I want to do with my life, and spending three hours a day traveling into work, it was actually more than that a lot of the time because the trains were up the spout at the time. But spending half my life traveling in and out of Birmingham on a train to go to a job that I was struggling with being employed again, was not how I wanted to spend my life. [00:36:00] If as I got older, I was more likely to have respiratory difficulties, I can be employed than if I want to be. 

[00:36:05] It was time to make a big change in my life. I started by writing a list of the different jobs that I could do next. What could I do? What could I pick up and really enjoy? And about sixth on the list was adventurer. And I just could not get past the word adventurer.

[00:36:22] I thought that's what I want to do. This is the time to do something completely different. And it would give me an opportunity to write and develop my public speaking as well. So that's what I did. I stayed in employment for another three or four months, and then I moved on into a world of adventure.

[00:36:43] Carolyn: So, adventurer, now that's not a word that normally pops into people's head. Sixth on the list, so it'd been buzzing around in your head a while. Where did it come?

[00:36:55] Julia: There were various things that happened I think that built up to this moment. I had a friend who walked the Camino, two or three years before that. And she went off walking for five weeks. And I'd never known anybody who'd go for a five weeklong walk before. Certainly not a woman on their own. And I just thought that was amazing. And then I met some other people, I met somebody at work actually who'd cycled around the Baltic. I was thinking, hold on a second. I want to do these things. And I think it just built, and I saw more and more of these things than other people were doing and thought, I want more of that in my life.

[00:37:41] Carolyn: Was there a sense of the ticking clock of life having had that red flag/opportunity of a health scare? Did that cause you to notice the passage of time and go, heck, life is too short not to squeeze the juice out of it. I want more.

[00:37:59] Julia: I concluded that back in my thirties, and somehow these things can slip a little bit, can't they? 

[00:38:07] Carolyn: By a decade or two! 

[00:38:08] Julia: Well, no, because I had been doing exciting things. I'd become self-employed. I had been taking life by the horns, but in a different way. My mum died when I was in my earlier 30s, 

[00:38:18] Carolyn: Okay.

[00:38:19] Julia: and she died six months before she was due to retire. So I promised myself then that I would not wait until retirement to go out and have some fun because I don't know that I'm going to reach retirement.

[00:38:32] By that point, I was in my fifties. My mom died when she was 59. So yes, I could, I can see those years ticking by and, and 59 getting closer and closer, and I just thought, I can do these things now. I'm fit and healthy. If I want to go on long walks or long bike rides or do adventurous things, I can do it now. In 10 years' time, I might not be here, but I might not be fit and healthy enough to be able to do it.

[00:38:57] So therefore, I should get moving now, and if I need to go back to work afterwards or sit in an office, then I can do that then. Now I want to be out and about.

[00:39:08] Carolyn: So, seizing the day, making the leap of faith into this world of adventuring, a world of writing and speaking. What was the first metaphorical walk or mountain you went on when it comes to writing a book?

[00:39:23] Julia: The biggest mountain to climb when it comes to writing a book is actually thinking that somebody might want to read it. And having that degree of confidence in yourself, which is something I think every writer suffers from sometimes. Having said that I want to be out there doing adventurous things, I'm also an author. I spend an awful lot of time at my desk writing. 

[00:39:46] And you just have those moments of thinking, am I doing this? Nobody's going to want to read it anyway. I'm not going to be able to help anybody. And those moments of lack of confidence, I found over the years that confidence ebbs and flows and you have to keep building it up to keep it at a high level. And so I think as, as an author, that's one of the biggest mountains that any of us have to climb.

[00:40:08] Carolyn: So when you think about that first book that you wrote, which one was that? Which one are you claiming as your first book? Because there might be another book that you wrote that you've never let see the light of day. I don't know. But what's the first book that you are claiming as your first success?

[00:40:23] Julia: Okay, well that's a very well phrased question. The book that I consider really to be my first book is Live Your Bucket List. I had written one earlier called The Me and Menopause. I got it over the line, but I knew nothing about book production or anything. It looks awful. It's more like a booklet than a book. So, the first one I did properly was Live Your Bucket List.

[00:40:45] Carolyn: So, you self-published that or were you published by someone?

[00:40:48] Julia: I self-published that one. 

[00:40:50] Carolyn: That's a big journey, isn't it? Not just writing it, but also self-publishing. And the self-publishing is a process which you can learn quite easily, but you have to do all the bit beforehand and do those confidence ebbs and flows, the ups and downs, the author rollercoaster to get to the point of publishing.

[00:41:06] Did it take you long and how did you keep your confidence up? Because there's a parallel there between writing and between people who are aiming for a career destination but can't quite get there yet. So how did you keep that confidence flowing and keep yourself moving forward? Now, I know you are determined.

[00:41:24] We've already heard how you had time scales identified and hours scheduled when you were doing your second degree, but that's different when you're doing something for somebody else, isn't it? Rather than writing a book that you're not sure somebody else is going to want to read. How did you keep that going?

[00:41:39] What was the motivational magic there?

[00:41:41] Julia: Well, I set myself a deadline. I gave myself three months to write and publish the book in. I did some training with an organization, Self-Publishing School and they have accountability buddies. So I've got a brilliant accountability buddy who I'm actually meeting with later on today. We still get together and check up on each other and what projects we're working on now to make sure that we are, we're still moving forwards.

[00:42:07] And I went public is one of the things that I always say to people. If you want a bit of motivation for, well for me it works really well. If I've told people I'm going to do something, it will happen. So I went public and I told the world that I was writing a book. I went onto Facebook and LinkedIn and what have you, sent the message far and wide and also told people when I thought it would be published, I said I'd have it published by the end of June in 2021. And it was published, I think on the 21st of June 2021.

[00:42:39] Carolyn: Well done, you, What was the reaction when you went public and said, I'm doing this thing? How do people respond?

[00:42:44] Julia: Supportively, I would say. Lots of people offered to join my launch team for the book. I don't think people were particularly surprised that I was going to this so when I made it public, I think they just accepted that Julia's working on another project, and it'll happen. And its just how life is!

[00:43:05] Carolyn: Oh, that's a Julia moment. Again. We'll move on. We'll see what happens in three months’ time. And of course, you delivered because it's quite clear you are somebody who, when you set your mind on something, you deliver it, whatever that might be. 

[00:43:17] Tell me a bit about the Bucket List book. It would be really interesting to hear what publishing that book did for you, particularly somebody who's self-employed and wants to make a living or does make a living out of being a speaker, and a writer. How did it help you?

[00:43:32] Julia: It's helped me in a number of ways, actually. First of all, obviously I'm selling copies of the book so that I am confident that I am helping people improve their lives because they're buying the book and hopefully they're taking the advice that I give in that book and, and changing things in their lives. It has been the basis of speaking arrangements with companies. So they've seen that I've got a book and they're very happy to have me come and speak to their staff.

[00:44:00] I think one of the biggest things it's done for me is show mainstream publishers that I can write and that I do have that self-discipline to pull everything together to a time scale and actually make a book happen. Now, mainstream publishers. Obviously, I don't need to do most of that if I'm working with them but knowing that they've got somebody who can pull something together, I think probably gives them some confidence that I'll understand their processes as I'm going through them. So they have editors working on a book, and that I'll understand that that needs to be done and that I will have the discipline to get the manuscript to them by deadlines and, and what have you. So I think it's actually helped me to get mainstream publishing deals.

[00:44:46] Carolyn: And you've got one of those recently, haven't you? And I know that there's been a really important period of life where you have gone on your own quest, experience, exploration, walking the Camino Way. Where are you in that journey now?

[00:45:08] Julia: Okay. Well, I have, oh, I was going to say three publishing deals. I've got four publishing deals actually, because I have a publisher who wants to publish Live Your Bucket List.

[00:45:19] Carolyn: Wow.

[00:45:20] Julia: Although it's self-published at the moment, it will be relaunched later this year as a book published by a publisher. And I have three others in progress. None of them are out and available in the shops yet, because something about publishing that anybody who's thinking of writing a book might need to know if you're not self-publishing. So first of all, you have no control over the time scales or very little control over the time scales. And secondly, publishers move far more slowly than you can move as an individual.

[00:45:47] Carolyn: Is that an echo of the self that's been employed and self-employed perhaps, Julia? Am I hearing that frustration? 

[00:45:54] Julia: It might be. Yes.

[00:45:55] Carolyn: I recognize that one.

[00:45:57] Julia: I've loved working with the publishers that I'm working with. I love it. But it does seem infeasibly slow to me getting a book to market when I know that I've published and launched a book within three months. 

[00:46:10] It's just a different process when you're working with a publisher. They're printing copies. All of my books are print on demand, which is different. So I suspect that through my publishing career, I'll have some books that are self-published and some that are published. So there should be two that are being published this year, and I've got another one that's coming up in the future with publishers. And then I'm writing a book about my Camino journey as well that, I anticipate will be self-published in a couple of months.

[00:46:38] Carolyn: Fantastic. So, we've dangled a carrot between us, I think, about the Camino journey. What was that like for you as a speaker, a writer, a human being?

[00:46:50] Julia: Let's start with the last bit of that, I think. What was it like as a human being? I walked four weeks’ worth of the French route, which is the most popular route of the Camino de Santiago in June and July last year, 2022, and then I walked the last week of the Portuguese route into Santiago with my husband at Christmas, and they were both completely different experiences.

[00:47:17] It felt to me when I got back after the initial four weeks, like it wasn't quite over yet. And when Mike said to me: "Why don't we do a week together in the run up to Christmas?" I just thought, oh, yes. And at the end of that Camino, I just felt a sense of closure that I hadn't felt at the end of the summer. I learned an incredible amount about myself, and I found it really helpful. It was a real confidence boost as well, the walk in the summer and then the walk before Christmas. My husband and I have always had a 10 year plan since we met each other, and it needed a bit of updating, so we spent our week redoing our 10 year plan, whereas the first Camino was more, I wanted to see how a pilgrimage might be different from any other long distance walk that I'd done. And I really just walked with an open heart to see what happened, and something magic did happen in that month. It was absolutely fabulous, and it was just finished off nicely with the week in the run up to Christmas as well. What it's also done as well, of course, is provide me with material for another book. As I say, I'm well into the throes of writing that now. I talked about the rubbish first draft is perfectly all right. My first draft for the part of the book about the summer Camino is polished and, and shiny now, the draft for the winter part of the Camino is improving, it's not quite as rough as the first draft, but I'm getting there and so it'll shortly be with my editor to move that forwards as well. So it is provided me a lot on a personal basis and obviously things to include in a new book 

[00:49:05] Carolyn: You've dangled a carrot there for me! That bit about something magic happened. What was that?

[00:49:11] Julia: I talked about how important it is keep topping up your confidence as you go through life. It can get knocked. You don't just gain your confidence and keep it forever. When I went on this walk, there's something called the Iron Cross, the Cruz de Ferro. Some people walk towards it for sort of four weeks before they get there.

[00:49:36] I walk towards it for, for a couple of weeks and people carry a stone with them when they're walking and it's their burden that they're going to leave at the Iron Cross. And as I walked, I thought about what my burden was going to be. I carried it, but I didn't really know what it was. So I had this stone with me and I thought, I don't what it is I need to leave. And it was only the morning of walking up to the Iron Cross that I realized, I thought I might want to release the grief for my mother, for my mother dying young. And I got to Iron Cross and I thought, no, I don't want to release, actually, I want to hold that with me, keep that with me, but carry it lightly.

[00:50:18] I don't want to carry it as a burden. I want to carry it lightly with me, but I don't want to lose the grief. And so I looked down at my stone and I thought, well, what is this? If it's not a grief for my mother, what is it that I'm leaving behind? And as I walked up to the cross, I realized what it was. It's that thought as a writer "is anybody really going to want to read what I've written?" It's that fear that all you are doing is wasting your time, and it's not going to help anybody or appeal to them. And so that's the thing that I left behind. And it doesn't work instantly. You don't just leave the stone behind and then think, yay, I'm brilliant for the rest of your life. I know it doesn't work like that.

[00:51:01] Carolyn: If only.

[00:51:05] Julia: The rest of the Camino helped to build that. The people that I met, the people that I spent time with, the whole experience of it really helped me to build that confidence in myself as somebody who can help other people and can help other people through my writing.

[00:51:20] Carolyn: That is indeed a very magic thing to discover. Thank you very much for sharing your explorations and quests and experiences through life and sharing with us all those different chapters that have enabled you to change your story to become the inspirational speaker, writer, and adventurer that I know you are.

[00:51:44] Now, that's one last question that I need to ask of course before we conclude your journey. I always ask a guest to share a quote or a book or a piece of music or something, a movie that resonates with them. What's yours?

[00:52:02] Julia: For me, there's a quote that I absolutely live my life by, and it's by Hunter S Thompson. "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming. Wow, what a ride!

[00:52:31] Carolyn: I don't think you can say fairer than that, Julia. That absolutely epitomizes your journey through your working life and indeed the life with your husband as well. You've done the Camino Way and life your way so far, all the very best for what is in front of you, along the rest of that way.

[00:52:52] I am looking forward to seeing those books, reading them, and following your story to see what the next chapters bring.

[00:52:58] Good luck with it all.

[00:52:59] Julia: Thank you very much, Carolyn. It's been a pleasure. 

[00:53:01] Carolyn: Thank you.

[00:53:02] We know deep down if what we're doing is right, we all have a voice. That quiet voice that knows what's good for us, the voice within which expresses disquiet. The trick is to listen to that voice, to trust it, and to take our courage in both hands so that we can move in the direction of something new which calls to us.

[00:53:25] As the saying goes, we can't be what we can't see until something in someone else's story inspires us to take the next step, to try something new, to adventure.

[00:53:36] If this episode has helped you to do just that, to change your story in some way, then please share it in the show notes that go with it on your social media channels. That way, it can help others that you know to escape from a job they hate and find a career they love. 

[00:53:52] I do hope you'll join me next time when we'll be hearing from another inspirational guest to help you continue to change your story for the better. 

[00:54:00] See you soon.