Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the influence and impact podcast for female leaders. My name is Carla Miller, and I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self doubt, become brilliant at influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. We'll be talking about all the different topics that affect you as a woman leading today. Think of it as personal development meets professional development, and I want to become the leadership BFF you didn't know you were missing until now.

In this episode of the influence and impact podcast, I catch up with Harriet Minter, author of working from home how to build a career you love when you're not in the office, Harriet's been writing about women and work for the past 15 years. So we explore a lot of interesting topics, including managing your team remotely, the future of hybrid working strategies, the building your brand and profile when working remotely, exactly how to ask for a pay rise and generally asking for what you want, and her simple framework for communicating your strengths. Harris is a journalist, author and flexible work specialist. She focuses on a variety of issues relating to women the future of work, media and diversity. She has written for publications including the Guardian the times and she has a monthly column in one of my favourite magazines, psychologies, she's a regular speaker on women's rights, organisational change, workplace diversity and just getting stuff done. She has given to TED Talks and appeared on the BBC and Sky News, as well as her media work. She coaches individuals to help them achieve their professional goals and provides brands with diversity and content marketing consultancy. I have known Harriet for a few years, she is incredibly impressive and inspiring and lovely. And I'm really excited to share this episode with you. So Harriet, fantastic to have you on the podcast. How are you doing today?

Harriet Minter 02:12
Oh, well, thank you for having me. I am good. I have just finished a four day weekend where I promised myself that I was not going to work over the weekend, which is like a lovely things do but then obviously you get open your inbox like at the end of the four days. Yeah. Oh, no. And also, I don't know about you, but I have like Mondays as my kind of doing things day. So Monday is like, all the things this can sound really silly. But all things that require actual doing of that you can't, you know, there's no thinking it's not thinking or planning or anything like that. It's like, oh, I have to write my newsletter, I have to record my podcast, etc, etc. And so then if you don't have a Monday, you just arrive on Tuesday, like, oh, none of these things have been done. The fairies have not been the magic elves have not done them. Well, I've been on holiday, so I'm just gonna do them all myself now.

Carla Miller 03:05
Yeah, that's the double edged sword of the long weekend, isn't it? I took a break. My toddler has just given up napping. Which is because you learned he was a great nap. But he was like a two and a half hour. When he had one or at least our car, the car has disappeared. He he now has freedom and I can no longer. So yeah, I have no choice but to not work on weekends, which is probably a really good thing. But yeah, again, I came back to a bigger to do list than I would have liked. But at least we're coming back to work in our own homes like everybody else in the world. Which brings me to what we're here to talk about. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your background? And about your fabulous new book?

Harriet Minter 03:49
Yeah, definitely. So my background is that I have been a journalist for about 15 years now. Although I feel like I've been saying 15 years for quite a long time. So maybe it's more than that. And for the kind of latter half of that I've specialised in writing about women and work. So that has been my specialist subject. I've just always been really fascinated by kind of women and ambition and why work is different for women than it is for men, the different ways we approach it, why there are fewer women at the top than there are men. All of those kind of big questions that when you are a young woman at work, you sort of assume other people have answered already. And then the further up the ladder you go, you realise that not only a kind of all the women that you started with disappearing, but also that nobody has answered those questions that actually if you don't turn your attention to them, nobody's gonna answer them for you. So you might find yourself actually sitting by the side of the road thinking Hang on if I hadn't thought about that. I'd still be in a job right now. So I've always been really interested in it. And I started my journalism career writing about law for lawyers, but about five Isn't it I went and worked for The Guardian. And while I was working for The Guardian, I started a section for them called Women in Leadership, which was all about women in leadership does what it says on the tin, got to interview lots of amazing female leaders got to think about kind of the really big societal issues that affected work, but also, the day to day things that made work better or worse for all of us. I've did that role for about four years. And then about the three year mark, I realised that I just wasn't very happy at work. And it was a bit of an awkward thing to admit, because people would say to me all the time, well, you must love your job, you've got the best job in journalism. You know, I was working for The Guardian. At the time, the Guardian was the most read newspaper in the world. It was just this huge deal to be a part of it. And I got to just write about this really interesting topic and meet these amazing women. And yet, I was going to work every day being a bit like, what am I achieving here? And so I ended up hiring a coach who is how we met. So it's our mutual friend, he's having this kind of problem as an early midlife crisis, of who am I what am I here to do? What's my purpose in the world? How can I achieve that. And a year later, I left my full time job at The Guardian went freelance, and kind of made this decision where I was like, Okay, I'm going to retrain as a coach. And I'm going to go and work in organisations and help organisations do work better, with the kind of underlying motive that if I did that, I would be able to surreptitiously get more women to the top of those organisations. And I'm going to give up being a journalist, I'm going to stop doing that. And then in the way these things always happen.

Then I left my job on the Thursday, and by the following Monday, I had a column for psychologies magazine. I had appeared on BBC Breakfast, and I think it was the times that asked me to write an article for them. I was like, huh, this is weird, because I thought I had stopped being a journalist. And I'm doing more journalism I've ever done before. So now I have a kind of hybrid life. So I spent about 50% of my time still doing journalism. So I have a radio show, and podcast called badass women's are, I have still have my column for psychologies magazine. And I write for all sorts of different people. So literally, all the broadsheets or the magazines. And then I'm also a coach and consultant for organisations. So I go into organisations and help them with I mean, I say help them do work better. Now, what that problem looks like changes all the time. But essentially, it comes down to working out what is going on in their organisation that is getting in the way of them being the organisation they want to be, and then helping them kind of pull that apart and make it better. And right now, I'm have just launched a new product, which works with organisations to help them do kind of the future of work better.

So I'm sure you're seeing this a lot, but lots of people are talking about what work is going to look like in the coming years. And so for organisations, what tends to happen is at an organisational level you go, Okay, we know now that we've had a year of working from home, so everyone still wants to work from home at least part time. So all the research says that the vast majority of us want to do up to three days a week from home. So we're going to as an organisation, we're going to issue some guidelines about flexible working. And there we go, we've issued our guidelines, our work here is done. And there's individuals who go into that organisation. And we're like, Well, yeah, but actually, that what I want, when it comes to flexibility is and then the people who get stuck in the middle, or the team leaders who are like, Okay, well, the organisation says this, the people in my team want this. And in order for my team to deliver the work that I wanted to do I need this. So how do we make all that work? And so I'm working with those team leaders to really help them kind of translate organisational policy and individual needs in something that works for them. And how I came to be doing that, which is the thing that I should be talking about. And I'm so bad at doing my own promo. And you should be talking about is that in June last year, in the middle of lockdown, a publisher approached me and said, would I be interested in writing a book about working from home? And I wish that I could say this isn't my idea. But unfortunately, I did not have that level of foresight. If I did, I'd be using it to play the lottery. But they had noticed, obviously, that all of this team had been working from home for a few months. And then I actually traditionally when we've talked about working from home, we've talked about working from home as the thing you do when you kind of want to prioritise your life over your career. So maybe you've got to a certain point in your career and you're like, Okay, I'm not gonna go any further, I want to have a better work life balance. So I'm going to ask if I can work from home a couple of days a week. But in the world that we are, I think moving into where more of us regularly work remotely? How do you do that? And still remain ambitious for your career? So how do you still push your career forward? How do you ensure that you get the opportunities that you have the conversations that you meet the people you need to be meeting, if you can't rely on physically being in the same place all the time. And I thought that was really fascinating because I have regularly worked from home since about 2007.
I fundamentally believe it is a part of my own career success. And I just generally have a bit of a problem with the concept that we should all be in the office at the same time, regardless of how we work, what's helps us be productive, where we live all of those things. And so the chance to write a book, which is about helping people generally, but women specifically, design a working life that works for them. Just felt too good to pass up. So last year whilst and locked down, I wrote a book, which is sad that it took a global pandemic to get me to do the thing that I've been talking about doing for about 10 years, but it got there. And wfh, how to build a career you love when you're not in the office, launched last month. So that's what I've been up to. That's a really long answer. Sorry.

Carla Miller 11:38
Really busy.

Harriet Minter 11:42
Yes. Do you know it's really funny, a friend of mine talked about this idea, which is what she call it. I can't remember. But the concept is essentially a rival disappointment. So how we're kind of constantly moving towards the next thing, and then we get there and we're like, okay, then now we'll move on. And I have that in a really bad way. And I'm constantly trying to appreciate the, okay, you've done this thing, you get to sit in it and enjoy it and be in it for a while and not have to move on to the next thing instantly. But I don't do that. So I just end up being very busy instead is

Carla Miller 12:22
It’s the dopamine hit. So I was talking about this on the last podcast episode I did. We have these different emotional systems go through our body. And one of them is the drive system, which you and I think have a lot where we just really goal driven and you get a hit of dopamine every time you take something off your list. But the thing is, then we achieve our goal, we get that hit of dopamine, but it doesn't last very long. Now, the next one, and we totally forget about the ones that we've had. So we're addicted to that. And so the other two systems are basically soothing, which sounds nice and relaxing. And Fred, the self doubt, and basically, you need to spend more time in your soothing system.

Harriet Minter 13:01
I mean, I feel like that's the story of my life. I definitely am like, Yeah, I'm definitely somebody who's addicted to anything that hits that bit of dopamine doesn't matter what it is. Oh, yeah, lovely. Because then I can get out of the system, which is going but what about this? And this happens? And have you thought about this? And maybe you can't do that?

Carla Miller 13:21
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's all super impressive. I've watched you over the last few years. And in my head, I'm like, Harriet is actually Superwoman. Is she doing all of this? And looking after her dog at the same time? She's obviously really...

Harriet Minter 13:35
That is the hardest bit about being a dog mum.

Carla Miller 13:39
when we think about your book, what did you learn through the process? Were there things that you thought you had nothing but change? What was kind of that? You had?

Harriet Minter 13:50
So I learned, I guess the stuff that I learned about working from home itself and the stuff that I learned about kind of the process of creating a big project. So as a journalist, you know, a big project for me is like 1500 words. And then you write a book, which is 70,000 words, and you're like, Oh, God, I can't knock this out in half an hour. So there was something for me, which was really around discipline. I'm not a naturally disciplined person at all, it's very difficult for me. So kind of creating a discipline which said, Okay, you have to write this much each week. And not just that, but actually also for me kind of stopping. So going, Okay, well, actually, you're only going to be able to write this much each week. If you don't go on a massive writing binge at 9pm at night and keep going till 2am In the morning, you're not going to write very good stuff, you're going to have to rewrite it, you're not going to have the energy to do it later on. So there was definitely a discipline piece. And there was also a piece around accepting that things maybe weren't going to look the way that I wanted them to look. So I I really wanted to be somebody in my head, who as a writer, got up every morning at 630 sat at her desk wrote as the sun was rising, was very zen about it. And actually, the way I ended up writing a lot of the book was working out for each chapter, what I wanted to say and what I wanted to talk about putting that down in bullet format, and then literally sticking my dictaphone on and talking for an hour about the things that I knew about that. And then typing that up, and then writing from there. So some of that would end up in the book, but most of it get edited out. But having those words on the page, having that structure meant then that I could write. And I sort of for a while felt really guilty about that, because I was like, this isn't this isn't how somebody writes a book isn't how it's done. But actually, it as a friend of mine said that you've cracked the code. You've written a book in three months. That's amazing. So kind of understanding that it just wasn't going to look the way that I thought it was going to look. But that is okay and that is really important.

Carla Miller 16:08
Love that pit because I'm about to write a book. So

Harriet Minter 16:12
I think it's Do you know what I am? So started thinking about what I was going to write for a second book, obviously, because there was like a vision one, let's just move on. And I sat down, started trying to write it and I said, Oh, my god so hard. Like Harriet, that's because you forgot that wasn't how you wrote the first one. Yeah, it's a I think it was I think I stole that from Brene. Brown. I think that's how Brene Brown writes her books.

Carla Miller 16:38
Excellent. Well, it's I like any kind of hack that makes things easier than staring at a blank screen. So

Harriet Minter 16:43
absolutely. It's not supposed to be that hard.
Carla Miller 16:46
So what did you learn about working from home?

Harriet Minter 16:49
So the first thing I guess, that I learned about working from home was that sometimes the things that we that that we do kind of unconsciously, when we are in the office, or when we're out and about regularly meeting people can feel incredibly natural when we're doing them unconsciously when they're just part of our day, and can feel incredibly awkward when we have to be structured about them. However, I also realised I didn't know anybody who was successful in their career who hadn't been structured about these things, regardless of where they're working from. So specifically, this sort of stuff that when I was researching and thinking about what I wanted to include in the book, the things that people asked, like, how do you build your networks? When you're not, you know, you're not in the same place as people? How do you make sure you're seen and heard, if people can't physically see what you're doing? How do you ensure that you're not forgotten about? And I realised, like, for so many of us, we were dealing with those problems in the office by simply being in the office. And that that was where this culture of presenteeism had come from. Because when we were starting out on our journey, the way that we ensured we were noticed, or ensure people knew we were doing well was by being in front of them. And that then what happens is, as we become managers and leaders, we go, okay, well, I know that I'm, I know that I was in the office till 11pm Every night, so therefore, if somebody's in the office 11pm Every night, they're probably working as hard as I was. We don't start to really pull it apart and analyse it consciously. So the things that I had to start doing with the book, were taking all of those into individual pieces. So how do you build a network? How do you ensure your boss is clear on the value bring? How do you manage a team if they're not in the same room as you and really pull them apart and be like, Okay, actually, if you're going to manage a team that aren't in the same room, as you?

Well, the first thing you have to realise is that managing that team is your job. And nothing, nothing else is the job right? Managing the team is the job. And what that means is that you can't say to somebody, you know what, we've got a weekly one to one this week, but we're just going to move it because I need to, we're going to move it to next week, or we're just gotta forget about it, because I need to get to another meeting. Because you are not going to have another chance to catch up with that person, you're not going to bump into them in the coffee queue, you are not going to see them at at lunch, you're not going to bump into them in the elevator. So you're not going to be able to get that connection time with them, unless you keep that one to one to keep the one to one. And just understanding that those things that are kind of casual connections in our working life, have to become conscious, we have to have conscious connections. And when we do that, the joy of it is that a we can do less of them, which is great. I'm very much of anything that we can kind of scale down and also we can be far more targeted and I'm much more intentional about them, which means we get better comes out, we get better understanding what's going on in our team or our boss needs, what the people in our network need. And we get more value from these connections. And things actually move faster. So those are some of the things I learned. But it is an ongoing process. And I do think the next year, two years, we're going to see so much trial and error when it comes to remote working. And there will be lots more to learn from it.

Carla Miller 20:32
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I am. So I set up my leadership work, the online programmes a couple of years ago now. And then we go into lockdown, and everyone's asking you about asked me about influencing remotely? I might? I don't know. I haven't done it. Yeah. Until then, I was like, everything they're dealing with, I have dealt with and then I've been learning. Everybody's learning like the chief execs alone. Yeah. I think there's this expectation that that people at the top have the answers, but they don't. And they need to be honest about the fact that they don't have those answers.

Harriet Minter 21:10
They really don't. And also that, actually, the thing I really want people at the top to be honest about is that they're going to get it wrong, that they're going to trial, some stuff and get it wrong. But what we need to be doing is committing to saying even if it doesn't work, that doesn't mean we're just going to give up. So talking of my dog, my dog has been a bit ill and I was thinking about changing her diet, and I spoke somebody about changing her diet, and they said is the will probably happen is that it will get worse before it gets better. And what most people do is go, Oh, my God, it's got worse, well, I'm just going to stop here, then I'm, we're just gonna go back to where we were at, but actually we stick with it, then it gets really good. And so often with our working practices, we trial something, and it feels a bit uncomfortable, or it doesn't quite work the way we thought it was going to or a few people get it, but lots of people don't. And so rather than saying, Okay, how do we evolve it? How do we make it better? We go, oh, well, that hasn't worked. It's been a bit difficult. So we'll just go back to what we know. And that I think is a sign of a great leaders when they can say, Okay, this hasn't worked. What can we do next?

Carla Miller 22:25
Hmm, absolutely. And in terms of working from home, so I mean, our our attitudes that have completely shifted, haven't it? Yeah, it was mostly I mean, let's forget Goldman Sachs and CO but I was doing well. I didn't know if people could work productively from home. I didn't know if we can productively from home. And many things we can do well from home, something's a bit harder something. Yeah. What do you think if you were to look at what are the foundations? If you're leading a team, what are the foundations for making? I mean, let's just start with working from home, we can move on to the complexities of data, that making that work, what would you say you need to have in place or have thought about as a leader.

Harriet Minter 23:08
So the first thing I'd say is understand that working from home looks different for everybody. So if you are working from home, the chances are that a lot of the time, you're probably not actually at home. So the past year has not been working from home as it is normally, I can tell you that somebody has worked from home pretty much full time for the last four years, the last year has not been how we usually do it. So the chances are that you're not gonna be working from home, you're going to be out, you're going to be in your local coffee shop and a co working space, in the office, at home, in your shed in your spare room, all of those things. So you need some like practicals, right, you need to have good Wi Fi, you need to have equipment that is not going to ruin your back in 10 years time, lots of companies are essentially opening themselves up to massive lawsuits because they've told their staff to go work remotely, but they haven't done a check of what theirs, what their staffs working options now look like.
So they're all working from their bed, and they're screwing up their backs. And so you need to think about all of that stuff for yourself and for your team. You also need to realise that actually, if you've got younger people working in your team, they might not have the facilities to do that. So don't start imposing ideas about what your working structure looks like. Without talking to the people throughout your team. It's fabulous to be able to work from home wherever you feel like if you have a beautiful home with a lovely office space, loads of quiet and brilliant Wi Fi. If you are working from home, in a house share with five other people who all want to be on the Wi Fi on a zoom call at the same time. It doesn't work as well. So just kind of understanding some of those nuances. And then the third thing is really understanding that when People are working remotely.

Communication is the key, because you cannot have those moments where you can clear up miscommunications. So they won't happen. So you have to communicate clearly first time around. And so what I mean by that is when you're having meetings with people, you have to say to them, okay, so can you tell me about just what you're taking away from this meeting? What do you think the agreed actions are? What have you heard today? You really check that what you're saying is being interpreted in the way that you want it to be interpreted by the person listening? Because if we don't do that, we run into a whole world of problems. I mean, I'm sure you have I definitely have opened an email from someone read it. I mean, oh, I don't know. I don't know why they're being so grumpy with me. I did it what I haven't done what's right, and why they're being so grumpy. And then, you know, I read it back a little bit later. And I'm like, Oh, actually, I don't think they're being grumpy at all. They just, you know, didn't feel the need for five exclamation marks today. There is when we are not physically together. So we can't hear tone of it's on an email. We can't read body language, we can't have those moments where we see the other person looking confused. And so we try and, you know, reward ourselves for them. We open up space for lots and lots and lots of miscommunication. And so saying, Actually, we have to spend more time being more focused and clearer about what we're saying, is the number one thing you can do to ensure that you have an easier working life and a happier remote working team.

Carla Miller 26:43
Okay, good to know, has it I wonder if it shifted over the pandemic, because certainly at the beginning, I was talking to a lot of managers who felt that the duty of care was much higher towards the team at that point, because there was such a lot of anxiety going on as well and lasting and to some extent things have moved on. But I haven't met a single person that isn't exhausted by the constant zoom meetings, yes, more like than it was daily check ins with your team, and then the more coffees and all these things, which sounds like great ideas until you try and fit them all into your diary. We're not meant to stare at a screen

Harriet Minter 27:23
No. One of the things I say in the book is, you know, nobody is ever going to hate you for saying, shall we do this as a phone call instead? makes me so happy when somebody says Should we do a phone call? Or like, Yes, let's. So the thing about video conferencing is not is to do as little of it as you can, but to do it really well. And what I mean by that is to do things like, Yeah, let's have a kind of virtual coffee and check in. But do that in a way where either you say it's 20 minutes, and you're really clear about what you're going to talk about. Or you do what me and a friend of mine do, where we switch on Zoom, but we're kind of in the background with each other.
And we're just working away normally, but it feels like we've got somebody there. So we can ask questions, and we have a bit of a chat, and then we go back to work. So it's not this formalised intensive process. US use Zoom less than you need, you think you should, right. So always ask yourself, Does this need to be a video call? Could it be a telephone call? Can it be an email, no zoom meeting should be over 45 minutes really, like actually, as humans, that level of concentration that is required for us to stare at a screen 45 minutes is insane. So particularly if you want to have a productive day, or you want to have a productive team, the less time you can ask them to stare at their screen, the more time they have to be productive, because most of us after a 45 minute zoom call you to like go and lie down in a dark room for good 15 to 20 minutes. So 45 minutes absolute max. And what that might mean is that you end up having to break up meetings or you end up having to set people pre work. So can we come having thought about these questions? Can you come with solutions to these problems? Can we have a five minute phone call in advance so I know exactly what it is you're gonna want to talk about. And I can go and think about it. And this is all stuff that I particularly love because I'm somebody who and I kind of introvert to extrovert scale sits right in the middle. So I'm always going to appreciate somebody giving me a bit of time to think about things.

Getting into these habits of being people who plan meetings so that we actually know what we're going to talk about in that meeting. Is really, it's a good thing to do, regardless of where you are. If you're having the meeting on Zoom or in person. How much time do we waste turning up to a meeting room? Well, I don't know what the meetings about I don't know what we need to discuss. I don't know what we need to agree. Yeah. Particularly and I say this as somebody who's come from that background. If you work in a creative environment, and you go When and you have a really great chat, and you come up with some great ideas, and everybody leaves, and nothing has been agreed, and there are no follow ups. And strangely enough, two weeks later, you have exactly the same meeting. So actually getting some processing, and being more thoughtful about that stuff can be a real learning for us. But to do that, we have to say actually, do you know what? spending eight hours a day on Zoom calls? Is not. It's not working. So how do we bring that down?

Carla Miller 30:34
Absolutely. That is almost the default rather than the default being? Yes, I'll attend this meeting the default. Why are we having?

Harriet Minter 30:41
Absolutely. And I also say, you know, when, when companies are now saying to people actually want you back in the office, you need to be able to say why. And a lot of the time, we think this applies to a lot of our working lives that we don't think about it enough. Why are we doing this? So if you're an organisation, and you cannot succinctly explain to your employees, why it is they've been able to work remotely, perfectly happily for a year, but now they have to be back in the office, you're not going to have happy teams, when you say to them, actually, we need you back in the office. So you should actually really be thinking about oh, hang on, what's the stuff that we do better in the office. So some of the stuff we do better is we do that connection time better. So it is easy to have those coffee and catch ups. We do probably collaboration better. We do. Maybe we do. As a team, we do our investigation piece better, whatever it is getting clear about what that stuff is, and then designing your office to help that is really important.
Because if you're saying actually the reason we need people back in the office is because the collaboration piece has been really hard when everyone's been remote. So we need some time to get people back into the collaborate and work together. And then you sit them all individual pods. Well, how does that work? So kind of thinking about what it is you need people to do remotely what it is you need them to do in person, and how you articulate that is really important. And then that flows into Okay, well, why are we having this same meeting? For example? What do we want to get out of it? Or why do we have a weekly or weekly team newsletter? What's the point of that? What benefit is it bring all of these things that sometimes we're doing just because we've kind of been doing them and getting clear about what we want from them instead, I think it's really important. I have to apologise because my dog is lying next to me in storing and it's I assume you can hear snoring in the background. I'm really sorry.

Carla Miller 32:48
I can't I can't hear I have a child minder next door. Hopefully you can't hear that. And earlier on, you said there are some things that we do better. What are the things we do better?

Harriet Minter 33:03
Oh, definitely. I mean, so what we've generally found is that people doing things which require quiet concentration, focus and detail. So that stuff is generally better done remotely. And that's really obvious for all of us, you never think about the work that requires that really difficult heads kind of churning thought process. That is hard to do. If you've got people who can pop past your desk any moment, if you've got lots of visual stuff that you can be distracted by, if you're going to be called into different meetings with people all the time, that stuff is actually we do better. And we do quicker when we have a bit of dedicated space to ourselves. And so anything that is research, writing, planning, organisation, admin, anything like that is better done in your own dedicated space. And what I have found from working from home and lots of people I've spoken to her fan, is that actually having a bit of time from home, even if you're not doing it full time, and having a bit of time from home allows you to deal with all those bits that otherwise kind of get left on the side and are always hanging over you. Because one of the things we definitely know working from home is that people get more done in a shorter period of time. So because we simply don't have those distractions, we don't have somebody popping to our desk or we don't have somebody chatting away in the background. So it's actually much easier for us to achieve more in a short period of time. So when you've got a long list of all those little things that need to be done, you're much better off blocking the morning out and saying I'm blocked out my diary I'm not available and working from home closing the door. You will get it done in half the time and stuff like that. It's really having that space to just focus on yourself and what you You need to get done is invaluable.

Carla Miller 35:02
When I when I talk to the members of influence and impact something that comes up a lot I know you talked about in your book is that profile and influencing side of things. So and I think in particularly for if we move to more of a hybrid solution, and people are in the office less how, how do they connect in with those stakeholders? How do they project their brand when they've just not got the same touch points?

Harriet Minter 35:27
Yeah. Before? So the first thing is to really think about what your brand is, right? So not just the kind of what do you do, but how do you do it? And think then about okay, well, now that I know that, how do I make that go across all of my communications? So thinking about things like what's in your email signature? Or what's the tone that you put forward on email? What's your background? When you do a zoom meeting? What's in? How do you show up to that Zoom meeting, so what's the energy you bring to the room, all of that stuff, working out what that is, and then being consistent about it. And that's the same rule that you would apply in person, you apply it remotely as well, right? So if you know that your brand is energetic, creative, and risk taking, and then every time somebody has a Zoom meeting with you, you're sat in a completely white room, or they you know, where they can't see the background, and nobody's gonna get a sense of that. So use some of that stuff to give people a sense of your brand. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, you have to be deliberate about it. So you have to work out, okay, who are the people that I have to influence? And how am I going to ensure that I have a touch point with them, if not, every week, at least every month? And so I think about this as in, and lots of people feel really uncomfortable about that, right? So lots of you feel like Oh, my God, it's gonna be so awkward. I'm gonna have to email your boss and tell them I've done this stuff. And oh, it's awful. I hate it.

Yes, but also, if you think about it, your boss's job is to know what's going on in the organisation. So if you email them and say, Hey, I just want to let you know that this week, this, this, this has happened. And I have achieved this, this and this, you're just helping them do their job. Alright, so look at it from that point of view, and then be consistent with it. And the example I give back consistency is this guy that I used to work with. And it's really unfortunate that when I talk about branding, it always comes back to personal branding, it always comes back to the guys because I don't know if they get talked it at like primary school or something, they get taken into a separate room. But they are just on it. So I used to work with this guy, and he just had this absolutely incredible ability of whatever he wanted. He just got so nobody would ever say no to him. Every time we wanted to get a project up and running. He got budget for it every time a new team member Yeah, that's fine. You can add man just got it all the time. And he'd one day I asked him like, just just be honest with me like, What is the secret here? What are you doing? That means nobody ever says no to you. And he said he's I can tell you my secret is I spent 60% of my time internal networking. Not external. Bear in mind, he was client facing. So you know, a big part of his job was external networking. 60% of his time, internal networking. That's a huge amount of time, right. But the investment that he was putting in the payoff was that he had the best team. He had the most budget and pretty certainly was on the most money. He had the most influence. Everybody knew who he was. And he never worried about, okay, I've made this great relationship with this person. But if they leave what happens, because everybody knew him.

Carla Miller 38:48
It's really interesting. I quite often talk about the difference between those stressed out overwhelmed, frustrated managers that can navigate internally. And I always say the stressed out ones actually spend all their time on their team. So it's slightly contradicts what you spend all their time in their team, no headspace for themselves, and no influencing nothing very cold as and actually those are successful, take a bit more time for themselves, empower their team to do things. Spend some of their time on that influencing and stakeholders, and I call it influencing because we like that word better.
Harriet Minter 39:24
Yeah. Oh, God. I mean, everybody hates networking. I hate I hate the word networking and I hate the word personal brand. Nobody has yet rebranded personal brand, and I wish they would because it's so epic. But like that's, that's the thing. It is about influence, influence and power, and we shouldn't be afraid of those two things. So really carving out that time to do it. And I say in the book that what you really want to be aiming for is kind of three conscious connections every week. So first with your boss directly, second with either your boss's boss or your boss's peers. So somebody kind of not directly a boss, but who has influence over your boss, and then three, somebody external, that is going to help your career in some way that you want to know that is going to give me some wisdom, somebody that actually, you know, maybe in five years time is gonna give you a new job, all of those things. And if you just did three, which is not a lot, that's three hours max of your week, and it doesn't have to be a meeting, it can literally be an email. So it could be less, you could do all three and 15 minutes, if we were fast. You did three of those every week, within a year, you would have the most powerful network.

Carla Miller 40:33
Twitter get on Twitter for an hour and like ignore the stuff that depresses you. Get on Twitter, and network externally there. So all those three, the hardest one, I perceive is the your boss's boss, you feel like you have to have a reason to talk to them. How can they navigate that?

Harriet Minter 40:52
You do. I mean, I think so the trick that I really like is bringing up your boss to your boss's boss, so that you don't necessarily have to be talking about yourself the whole time. Although I would argue if you're not talking about yourself, 75% of the time, this is not, it's not working in your favour. But you know, thinking about just let again, that letting them know, hey, I want to let you know I'm working on this project has happened. And big thank you to my boss, so and so because they really helped on this. But I've done this to go. And thank you too. It might be that actually you see something that you know they've been they're interested in or they're working on. So if you know, for example, there is a big, remote working project going on at work, and everyone's talking about how it's going to work. And you've seen something that is here's what Google is doing. You send them a link, you say hey, I don't know if you've seen this, but I thought it was interesting, and I wanted to pass it on. It could be that you do something as simple as say. Just telling him about like something else you've seen on another team, it's happening. So I really like this. If you have your boss's peers, if you don't have any connection with your boss's peers, and they are great people to know, right? Because A, if your boss leaves and they get replaced by somebody, you want the people that are then going to be their colleagues to say good things about you, and be if they leave and go somewhere else. And that somewhere else needs somebody at your boss's level doing your boss's job, they might call you for that. Right? So like they're very useful people to know. So I really like if somebody in their team does something interesting, just replying that and saying, Hey, I really thought this was such a great project. It looks amazing. I would love to help you by doing X, Y Zed, or do let me know next time there's anything I can do to help or I saw this and thought it'd be useful too. Whatever it is.

Carla Miller 42:38
I love that. And I think women are naturally good at championing others, I think absolutely do that. Particularly our team. But I really like the idea of doing it sideways and upwards as well. I want to go back to something you said a minute ago about how if you're not beating yourself up 75% of the time, yeah, what you're doing. And I used to struggle with that, to be honest, I still struggle with that I'd much rather gloss over someone else and talk about myself. How do people start to overcome me? Why Why should it be that much? And how can we get over that icky feeling?

Harriet Minter 43:13
So the reason I say 75% of the time is it's a little bit like, you know, when you go to a doctor, and they say, Okay, well, you've you, if you look at your diet, what you want to do with your diet is, you know, 80% of your eating well 80% of the time, then what you're doing the other 20% Doesn't really matter, right? So if you're eating 80%, the time and 20%, you can kind of let it go. Now, I've talked to doctors about this. And the reason I say 80% is because they know that if they ask people to aim for 80%, they will probably hit 60%. And that is fine. And so when I say if you're doing 75%, that's because I know then people do probably hit 50% of the time. And that's also okay. But it's all very well to pick up other people. And that is really important. And it's a beautiful thing to do. And it's a great way of building connections. But if we don't also talk about ourselves, what happens is we then miss out on things. And so what I suggest people do in the book is not talked about, I'm several into this, I've done this, and it's so great. But instead, you use the formula of what you're good at that you love. I'm sure we probably did we do this and I was working with your car probably. And essentially what this format is, is it gets people to talk about their passions, right?

So we tend to be passionate about stuff that we love, and we are good at. And so think about something you've done recently that you're proud of in your career. And then I want you to say why you love it and why you're good at it. Not just why you love it and then over and over again lead or whatever, or not just why you're good at it, but why you love it and why you're good at it. And when we do that we come across as passionate and exciting. And people are naturally drawn to that. So, when we actually just say, what we're good at, if you think about it last time, you heard somebody say, I'm really great at this. For a start, we tend not to believe people, because we're like, always the evidence. And secondly, we tend to be a little bit put off by it, right, we can feel a bit like, oh, it's particularly for if you're British, obviously, like, Oh, it's a little bit like bragging, we're not very into that. But when we say to people, I really get this. And I just absolutely love doing it. Because it's so exciting. And it lights me up. And I feel so thrilled about it. People just just drawn to that energy. And the more you challenge yourself to do it, the more you'll see that response. And the more you see the response, the more comfortable you will feel doing it. And so if you are somebody who finds it really hard to say, you know, I've done this, or I'm proud of their Sorry, I'm good at this. Just give yourself a little challenge. And your challenge is I'm good at this. And I love it because and see if that feels easier.

Carla Miller 45:58
I love that formula. I've started I don't use that formula. But I've started realising that actually by owning my strengths, my superpowers, my achievements, you're creating that space for other women to do. I did a I did open heart. About a year ago. Now. I got all this great feedback, but one person wrote and said, wasn't half of this her telling us how good she was.
First, I was really offended. what if i bloody was, I was showing that it is okay to own your successes. Like I bet that if a man had done it, then they wouldn't have gone. Oh, what's he? What's he doing? Like that? And the point actually, it wasn't even talking about how good I was. I was talking about achievements and how they were possible. Despite the fact things hadn't come naturally to me. Yeah, first place and having a growth mindset. But isn't it interesting how people felt threatened or one person felt threatened just by taking up more space, but others were like, she's taking up more space, maybe it's okay for me to as well.

Harriet Minter 47:04
And also this idea that actually it's, it's really does nobody any favours, if we dim our light, it does nobody any favours, because what happens if somebody really needs your skills, but you don't tell them about it, so they don't get access to them? Or worse, you don't tell them about it. So they promote somebody else. He's really bad at those things, which happens all the time. And so we actually don't do anyone any favours when we hold back on who we are. Now, I don't like people who start telling you they're brilliant at something, and it becomes very quickly, very obvious that they're not. But very often we can sort of say, Oh, I don't know if I don't know if I'm very good at that. I don't know if I can say I'm very good. Because I don't know if I am well, here's the thing. Do people regularly ask you to do it? When you do it to people have majority good or no feedback? And I say no feedback? Because if it was bad people will tell you about it. If they don't tell you about this gentleman's it's good. Are you regularly asked to do it? i You have you been doing it for a number of years without anybody's lodging, significant complaints? If all of that is true, then you can take it pretty much as fact that you are good at this thing. And so that's the thing is, you know, we, we so often look for some maps of external validation. We don't need that. Right. You all you're good at it. Unless people are specifically telling you otherwise. You are good at it. And you can own it.

Carla Miller 48:34
I love that actually did a podcast episode specifically on not seeking validation externally? Because I do that. And it's that hungry ghosts, however much you get, you still don't really believe it? You've got to find it from within yourself. As you were talking about that. I was reminded of something you were talking about before this book, which was about asking for a pay rise?

Harriet Minter 48:56
Oh, yes. I love asking for a pay raise.

Carla Miller 49:00
Let’s talk about that because I know that that's something so many people struggle with.

Harriet Minter 49:03
It is it's a funny one. I am constantly learning on this topic. And what I would say is the thing I have learned this year, about this topic, I've learned two things, actually. The first of which is that it is easier to be let's say extreme in your request for a pay rise when you're feeling really good about yourself, right? So when you're self care is super high. When you are feeling tired or rundown or perhaps like you haven't had a lot of communication from your boss recently, you haven't seen them recently.
You're not feeling very connected to them. It suddenly becomes much harder and we tend to drop ourselves down. So that's the first thing. The second thing I'm actually learnt this year is so just before locked out the first lockdown. So yeah, just before the first lockdown. I started dating somebody and then we ended up living together for the past year because it was government mandated and It has been really interesting seeing how men approach negotiation and figures, because it ain't like the women do it. They are plucking the numbers out of thin air. And that has been really interesting to me. And so realising that actually what I sometimes think of as an extreme ask, probably isn't. So, I would encourage, encourage everyone, if you are thinking of going for a pay raise, first of all, do your own little bit of self care first. So get yourself in a good place. Look after yourself, remind yourself all the things you've done brilliantly, write your list of things that show really why you deserve this. You know, big yourself up as much as you can see, you're going in feeling Philippines. But then the second thing is, don't ask for what you want. Ask for the most. I mean, I think Cindy Gallup says asked for the highest number you can ask for without laughing, which is a great target to go for.

Right. I mean, I would say ask for the highest number you can ask for without actually throwing up. But whichever way you want to go. Just go big, because if they don't have the money, you're not gonna get it, you are not taking it from somebody else. You do not not deserve it. You are not greedy for asking for it. You're not greedy for wanting it, you're not a bad person for earning loads of money, whatever the story is, in the back of your head, asked for the stupid amounts of money, because that is what the men are doing. And we kind of need to work out the pay gap.

Carla Miller 51:27
I remember when I used to lead a team of about 12. And there were two guys in the team wrestle women. None of the women ever asked me for a promotion or a pay rise. Yeah, two guys regularly asked me one of them would ask me every time we had a one to one. And I was like I answered this last time, you're getting more paid for your role showing me what more you can do. Yeah, more value. And we can look at it but I'm not gonna change on my just because you kept on asking. But it was really interesting. Just the difference between here there was no shame whatsoever. It was we filled with this feeling of shame. Like we were just being wrong just for asking. It was really fascinating.

Harriet Minter 52:08
And also say that somehow, we shouldn't want it. You know, I really, I really felt like I feel for better or worse. And there is a lot for worse around it. We have socialised men to think it's okay to want money. Right. And that's given them lots of their own issues, lots of their own problems. And it definitely means that, you know, men are forced into careers and choices that perhaps they wouldn't if we gave them the kind of option of not, you know, still being fabulous and wonderful people without having to annex money. But they have been socialised to think that wanting money is a good thing. And women haven't. And so we can be a bit reticent to say, actually, I really want to be a millionaire. Actually, I want to you want to be a billionaire. Actually, I want to have the most in this company, I deserve it, I want it. And I think there is something really empowering about kind of creating a better relationship with money, and a relationship where we own our desire for money. Right? Because even if you are not somebody who is materialistic, even if you don't want, you know, a big house or a fast car, or whatever, most of us want time, most of us want ease. Most of us want freedom, most of us want choice. Most of us wants security, all of that comes with money. Not entirely, right.
There are lots of other things that can get those things to but if you want a direct route to it, money is usually it. And we really need to teach women to kind of own those desires. And say that's okay. But because I think when we can do that, first of all, I think, you know, shouldn't be about men, but just to give them a reason why it would be good for them, because that always helps. You know, it would free men up, right, it would free men up from feeling that they had a responsibility or that their value is dependent upon this. And it would free women up from feeling like okay, well, we've kind of been letting the club but only if we keep quiet and we're well behaved. Just for both for both genders, I think it would be a really empowering choice just to say actually, you know what my relationship with money is good. I want some of it. I know what I want, and I'm gonna go and get it.

Carla Miller 54:39
I think as you were saying that and thinking about the story you were telling earlier about the guy who spent all this time networking Yeah, what you were gonna say is that he was his secret was he asked.

Harriet Minter 54:50
I mean he does he asked for I mean, he asked for. I remember my boss was also his boss telling me that he asked for a pay raise every not every be one to one but every other one to one. And he I mean, that's why I got paid the most this way to be the most.

Carla Miller 55:07
Maybe I'm just hardcore.

Harriet Minter 55:10
Everyone. So actually, as you were saying that I was thinking, I wonder this would be a really interesting thing to find out if male or female managers respond to it differently, because women are like, because we're set, we're much more used to hearing No, when we request fair, right. So that's the other thing, right? We always say, oh, women don't ask. Women do ask, but we hear no more regularly. And so then we learn to not ask. But because we're used to hearing that know whether we're more comfortable saying no. Whereas men are used to hearing the Yes. So then feel really uncomfortable saying no, I don't know. But I think it could be.

Carla Miller 55:46
Quite possibly. Yeah. I also think we think a lot about equity. And what's my first thought would be what about all the other? Yeah, well, they're actually working harder. Yeah. Whilst maybe that's not how everyone automatically thinks. I remember someone was telling me I think they were Victoria Beckham makeup artist, I think, or they were friends with her. Yeah. secret to her success. She said, I asked she someone else actually said Ask, ask, ask. And this was kind of around the time when she was just going from Spice Girl to respected. Yeah. And there's like, of course, yeah. But it didn't even occur to so many of us most of the time to ask for what we want. I know, you and I've had relationships that I've never really done that in a relationship where if I have I fully expected the know, before I got it. Yeah. Asking for what you want is so simple, and yet so powerful when you actually do it.

Harriet Minter 56:48
When I was having my kind of early midlife crisis, and I was working with a coach. And one of the one of the exercises that she got me to do was each morning, I had to sit down, do some journaling, and write down three things I wanted that day, and they could be as big, small, ridiculous and not ridiculous as I liked. But then I had to go and ask people for them. And so it and I lived by myself at this point, so it wasn't even like, oh, so I really want a coffee. Okay, well, I just asked my boyfriend to make me a coffee, you know, I had to go to prayer and be like, Hi, can I have a free coffee. And just the kind of the level of ridiculousness of it was extreme. But also it kind of got you a bit immune to it. And there is obviously not to kind of be replicated, but there is a community of men called pickup artists, right, who claim to have some incredible skills with women, and they can get any women they want, whatever. But they do this, this community runs a lot of coaching for young men who feel very unconfident with women. And one of the things they do is what's called rejection training, where they basically take them on a night out, and they say, right, now you're going to ask 100 women to have sex with you, off you go. Now, obviously, this isn't great for the 100 women on the receiving end of this. But what happens is that, you know, 99 times out of 100, those boys get a No, all right, no, no, go away. Who are you I'm calling the police don't get get away from me. But that level of rejection gets them just really used to it, it's a really useful thing and becomes the asking becomes very simple. Because just so immune to the rejection.

Carla Miller 58:30
It’s interesting. Like even just talking about the idea, and this is why I'm scared of hiring. I'd have to do something scary like that. I worked with another coach. And it was an optional exercise to go shopping centre and lie on the floor, and just lie on the floor. And it was it was helping you not care about what other people think.

Harriet Minter 58:50
That’s hard.

Carla Miller 58:53
no way. Do the other option exercise, which is to sit silently for three hours, like no phone. No noise. But yeah, it's we've got so much so many layers of uncomfortable from layers of training by society, what's right and what's not right. And I shouldn't feel that uncomfortable with the idea of having to go and ask for something.

Harriet Minter 59:23
And also, just like that, you just never know when people are gonna say yes, that's the thing, right? You never know. I mean, I think got a radio show because I asked for a radio show. I didn't have any experience in it. Didn't really know what I was doing. But I said something I really wanted a radio show. And they said, Well, I can't help you. But I know somebody you might be able to and kind of three runs later I had a radio show.

Carla Miller 59:44
I mean, I'm bonkers. The podcast. So I've been really good at reaching out to Pete. I mean, you and I know each other anyway, that reaching out to people who were very much on that kind of profile level above me. Yeah. But then I'm like, what I'm doing that for my listeners. So that's like Hey, for me, but yeah, I need to get better at just asking anyway, I've totally gone off tangent that I didn't set.

Harriet Minter 1:00:06
No, it certainly, it's my most interesting, interesting topic is like desire and getting your desires fulfilled. I think that's fascinating.

Carla Miller 1:00:14
We’ll need to chat about that more another time. And let's just, before we bring this to an end, I know that you are starting to work more on this idea of hybrid working, and I'm sure there are a lot of people who are sitting here going, Okay, well, I kind of the working from home, I kind of got a bit of stability. Now, I do not know what the future holds for my team, I do not want to sit in a room and have half my team there and half of them virtually, which is my idea of how was a facility? When we say hybrid, What does that even?

Harriet Minter 1:00:41
So hybrid is currently being used for this. Okay, well, if we want some people in the office, and we want some people remote, how do we do it? I think what hybrid essentially means is, hang on, we've lost this excuse I talked about earlier, which is we need you in the office, because so that doesn't exist, except apparently still a Goldman Sachs, but wherever else didn't really exist. And if you want in a kind of talent war, if you want the best talent, you need to be able to give them the working style they're going to most appreciate. And for some people that will mean time in the office, and for some people that will mean time from home. And so what we're gonna end up with is a bit of a mishmash where we go, okay, how do we make this work? I think most companies, what they will find is that in order to create a hybrid model, which essentially allows people a level of flexibility as to where and when they work, in order to do that, they are going to have to get really clear on the actions that constitute productivity. So how do we know that people are doing stuff that actually adds value to the business that meets their job requirements, etc? And they're going to have to think about what are the behaviours that show an inclusive organisation, regardless of where you are, because what we could really run into is a two tier system of people who are in the office versus people who are not in the office. And so that might be thinking about things like, Okay, well, actually, all meetings are remote first. So all meetings are set up with a remote timescale.

But it turns out that all of you are in the office and you do it in person. Or that actually, we agree that everybody has to be in the office for these days each month, because that's all for your team these days each month. And there are certain things that get done on those days. So that's our collaboration time, that's all working out our issues time. That's our thinking about, you know what our next move is time, whatever it is. Or it might be that actually go Do you know what? We operate fully remote, we operate fully remote, but we have space for people who need to come in to a space. So we're not working from an office, we're all remote working, but some of us might be working in this space that we have created. But working that stuff out. Now, that's what will create a hybrid model.
And I suspect that when we talk about when people talk about a hybrid model, what they're looking at right now is a compromise model. But what they should actually be thinking about is what is going to be the way that allows our team to work best to achieve the goals we've set out.

Carla Miller 1:03:07
How does this align with the idea of focusing more on productivity than on presenteeism? So when all this kicked off, I was like, Maybe this will finally lead to what I would love to see, which is where it really isn't about sitting at a desk doing things a nine to five, it really is I'm hiring you like with consultants, I'm hiring you are freelance. Yeah, yeah, there's task done. And the world of work is not set up like that. So I want to run my business like that. But there's no employment contracts. Yeah. Like that. I can't give someone an employment contract that doesn't give them hours that they need to work. Do you think that this is gonna leverage a shift in that? That kind of thinking?

Harriet Minter 1:03:50
I think it will, but I think it will be slow. So I think where we will start, for example, on that kind of hours, workpiece, I think we'll we'll start is we'll start with something where we'll say your core hours are 20 hours a week 10 till two or whatever it is five days a week, I have to do the math, there's I can't work out what that is your core hours of this, but we expect you to achieve this, this and this within a 40 hour week or whatever. So we're setting out the clear goals for that role, the clear objectives for that role, we're setting out a minimum mandated period, and we're probably setting out a maximum mandated period. So we're actually trying to curb some overwork as well. Because one of the things I think we will see a big problem with if we don't do that is people working extreme hours, because they don't have the kind of societal conventions of the office, right. So if the entire office leaves at 6pm, generally we leave at 6pm to I think that is where it will gradually move to. And then from there, perhaps we will become a society that actually our employment practices change. So maybe we only ever employ people and 12 month contracts, and then we review those 12 month contracts every year or or maybe we'll be an organisation where we employ people for specific objectives. And we review those objectives every six months. And we review the objectives of the company as a whole. And we move people around accordingly. I think we are going to go into a massive shift. But I suspect that that's going to take a longer period of time than just this one year of remote work.

Carla Miller 1:05:22
Yeah,I thought. What country is that? I don't know if you know, there's a country that's moving to a four day week.

Harriet Minter 1:05:28
Oh, now, I want to say as an obvious answer, Sweden, but it's not Sweden.

Carla Miller 1:05:35
I remember the radar and commentators saying don't they have siestas as well, so my, basically doing their work

Harriet Minter 1:05:42
It might be, but I mean, I think the thing is, like, you just need people to get the work done. the how and the why of it is not it really shouldn't be our business we've made that bit the business. You know, we've made the how do you work? Where do you work? What does that work look like? What time do you do it? We've put so much effort into that, and not enough time into the what needs to happen for this person to get this job done. That's the bit we should be focusing on. Not the hours location, desk, setup, setup, etc.

Carla Miller 1:06:12
Absolutely. I read something on Instagram, which really rang true for me, which is basically the world of work as we have known it was basically designed for the 1950s. Husband, you had a housewife at home. Absolutely everything. Yeah, totally was.

Harriet Minter 1:06:28
Absolutely, I will say like, you know, efficiently, nine to five, five days a week was created by Henry Ford in 1921. For production workers on a car manufacturing line. And he worked out that was the way to maximise productivity. And here we are very few of us are now call works on a production line. And yet, we're working to that nine to five, five days a week. Why? Right. And, like, let's just, let's accept that. One of the things that hasn't caught up with us, which hasn't caught up with our tech, which hasn't caught up with our behaviour patterns, is our working practices, and spend some time addressing it. So that work is fit for the 21st century.

Carla Miller 1:07:13
I love that. And so if an organisation or an individual wants to find out more about you, and how they can work with you, etc. Where can they go.

Harriet Minter 1:07:22
So, you can find me on all social medias at homerenter, always feel free to drop me a DM or say hello, I love that, you can find my website, which is hartman.com. And if you want to buy the book, it is available on all good retailers, including the inevitable Amazon and the brilliant bookshop.org, which supports small local book shops.

Carla Miller 1:07:43
Lovely. And then I would like to say thank you. To have you on here. If you were to leave listeners with one piece of advice about any of the topics that we've talked about, or one thing they take away from listening to this conversation, what would you hope that would be?

Harriet Minter 1:07:59
I mean, the best piece of advice that anyone ever gave me and I think is, you know, the one that I always pass on is when doubt, proceed until apprehend it. And if you do that, if you just follow the desire, follow what you want, keep going. If it's wrong, at some point, somebody will tell you, but if they don't, you know, you're pretty much onto a good thing. So keep going.

Carla Miller 1:08:25
Fantastic. Okay, so everyone needs to go and proceed until apprehended. And I need to go on the things I can ask for. Like always see the list?

Harriet Minter 1:08:38
Yes. Thank you, lovely talk to you, too.

Carla Miller 1:08:41
If you're a female leader who would like to step into your potential as a leader and become more inspiring and impactful, then the first step to doing that is understanding yourself better. And I've got a quiz to help you do that. It's called Discover Your leadership personality. And you will find out what your strengths are, how you may be holding yourself back, and the next three steps that you can take to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. To take the quiz, just head on over to my website, which is Carla Miller training.com/quiz. And you can take this five minute quiz there. Listen up. If any of these resonate with you, then I've got something that is going to really help you. So are you a leader or manager who worries about work, particularly things that are out of your control? Do you experience impostor syndrome and stress over whether or not you're doing a good enough job as a manager or a leader? Do you struggle to switch off from work? And that could be negatively impacting your sleep your time with friends and family or your happiness levels? Would you like to be able to stop worrying and focus all of that energy and attention on more positive and productive things? Or are you feeling overwhelmed and need more headspace? If any of those resonate with you, then you are not alone.

I work with a lot of female leaders, and many of them were describing these challenges to me, which is why I created my free online masterclass for female managers and leaders. It's called Stop worrying about work and get more done. And on it, I share the Five proven strategies to say goodbye to worry and sleepless nights and say hello to a better work life balance and increase productivity. To book a spot, simply visit my website, Carla Miller training.com. And you will see all the details there. I would love to see you on there. And let's get rid of that worry. And those sleepless nights, I have set myself a mission of empowering 10,000 women in their careers by 2030.

So if you'd like to help me with that mission, there's a couple of things you could do. If you haven't already subscribed and rated and reviewed this podcast, please do so that would be brilliant. It really helps bring it to other people's attention. And I'd also really love to know what you have taken away from this episode. Take a screenshot of yourself listening to this episode, and post it on social media and tag me I am this is Carla Miller on Instagram, on LinkedIn. I'm Carla Miller one I would love to know what the main takeaway you got from this episode is so take a screenshot tag me and tell me what your main takeaway is.