Being Accountable for Your Health in Business — with Libby Swan of Axioned

Libby is the founder of Axioned, in the last 14 years they’ve got 80 people across the UK, the US and India. 

Libby lives a life that requires her to be in the UK, the US and India frequently. 

Which sounds on paper, but the reality is, it comes with it’s challenges.

And this was one of those times. 

She was in an unfamiliar place, hadn’t seen her family, including her husband, for a really long time. And she felt alone. 

And as a result, wasn’t able to give the energy to her business that she wanted to. 

In the months that from this low moment, Libby consciously inquired into how she could prevent this from happening again. 

In this episode we discuss,

• How reflecting has helped her in business and in life
• The what, when and who of questioning yourself
• Accepting that sometimes you make mistakes

Libby realised that she was much more intertwined with the business than she thought — tune in to hear how she stepped back, and how the business benefits from this perspective.

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Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com

Transcript

James:

So I'm delighted to welcome to show today Libby, she's the co-founder of Actioned, and for the last 14 years, they've got 80 people across the uk, the US, and India welcome Libby.

Libby: Yes. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

James: So today everything's going really well, but we're jumping in the coaching time machine to go to a mount. In the past, or maybe it wasn't, when, when are we going back to.

Libby: Uh, wait. I think we said that we'd be going back to a time, um, in 2022, which I felt was like just before the official end of the pandemic, but yeah, we're going back to October, 2022. and I was in the uk. And yeah. Experienced, uh, a down period that I hadn't experienced for quite some time.

James: Okay, so, so it's October 22, 2. You're in the uk. Where, where are you?

Libby: Uh, I was actually, I don't remember the neighborhood. Um, I know I was south of the river. I think it's Zi. I was in an Airbnb. 

James: okay, so you're in a sort unfamiliar place. You haven't seen your family for a while, and what, what's, what's going on? I.

Libby: Gosh. Yeah. It's funny when you say it like that. I can. Feel those feelings too, a little bit too closely. Um, and yeah, I was, I was alone. So, I live a life that isn't necessarily easy at times. Um, Um, obviously we have locations in the us, UK, and India, and I tend to split my life across, across those locations.

And sometimes when I'm talking about that to people, people are like, oh, that's so awesome and it's great. Um, but I think like anything in life, the grass is sometimes greener on the other side of the fence, so, What it does mean is that I, uh, have learned to be highly adaptable cuz I really have no choice.

Um, but I am sometimes in environments where I'm by myself and or in an unfamiliar environment. And I think I was just at my tipping point in October, 2022 with respect to, um, being in an environment that I wasn't familiar with and being alone again.

James: Mm. And, and, and, and how did that sort of show up? By the fee? Personally, or, or, or into the business?

Libby: both like it did show up into the business in the sense that, um, I was not my normal positive, um, focused, prioritized self. Uh, so for example, in getting together with team members, I could just, I. I was not injecting them with the energy that they need from a leader. 

James: Could, could, it feels like you, you, there's, 

There's a lot of structural difficulty baked into that thing you say, like, it, it seems exciting being in three different countries and moving between the three, but it is quite disconcerting and hard builder routine . I, I think what it sounds like is that un, unlike many founders, There are, there are many factors to being a founder, which are quite wearing and actually life as a founder is about giving out energy. Often you give it out to your team, you go out to your clients, you go out to the public,

Libby: Right.

James: and there are not many ways to get energy back in.

Libby: Right.

James: it sounds like in this moment, like you weren't getting the validation from the business that necessarily you wanted or had been getting you'd, which, which kind of made, might made you question like, why am I. In a room by myself in a new place, away from my family, away from my husband. Like, what?

What's going on?

Libby: What's going on? Why am I doing all this? Like, yeah. The rewards, if I'm not seeing the results. Yeah. You hit the nail on the head. Thank you. Yeah, that's, that's that, that's, that's your strength, James.

James: You? What's, but, but I think other founders listening, I think it's a very sort of, Recognizable, but like how do we stop ourselves getting into that moment?

Libby: Hmm.

James: Because, I mean is with the pandemic, it was there some particular challenges, but it is something that people hit time and time again. And it's quite interesting that you say you've been doing this for what you've been doing for 14 years.

It's only in the last six months that you've kind of put in place these, these time zones and activity plans and stuff. So I'm, I'm curious why, like, was it as a result of October that these things came in place?

Libby: Well, it's just the result of October is just more consciousness of what can I do to avoid this scenario? I'm, I'm a okay, and I totally understand that another scenario will happen and it's gonna challenge me and I'm not gonna be exactly happy about it, but I'm always like, you know, What can I do to prevent, like, like retrospective?

What can I do to prevent another one of those? Um, and so I think, yeah, I, I haven't really asked myself that question necessarily, but I think yes, I think I just become, I've become, I guess, for lack of a word, stricter with myself of like, no, Libby. This is you, this is your makeup. You need to do these things in order to avoid these results.

Um, so I've just become more conscious of the, what me and my makeup needs as an input in order to maintain a certain level of equilibrium. So yeah, I think it was probably October that drove a lot of that. Yeah.

James: Hmm. Cause it sounds like the numbers aren't necessarily a good judge of the input. What you said was, oh, well look, we came off this and look back it off the pandemic. Basically goose our numbers for two years.

Libby: Right,

James: in the same way, like you, you're now doing all the right things in terms of protecting yourself, giving energy, and the numbers aren't necessarily yet come through, but there's just like an undersigned just acceptance, a better version of you as showing up.

Libby: Yeah, the, a better version of me is showing up and, and just that I need to, you know, I can't stop, uh, reflecting and growing. Really, I have no, no choice. There is like, I think maybe October might have been a bit of a moment where there was friction with that like, I needed to grow in a certain way, but I wasn't,

James: Hmm.

Libby: um, , and I think I was talking about this with you recently in terms of I am not, The company, as much as I have been heavily invested and involved in growing it, I'm not the company.

Um, I'm a separate individual serving the company. And this company has growth goals and this company has people that en employs and, and the company serves the growth goals of those people. Um, in both in terms of salary, but also in terms of. Career and professional growth. I wanna ensure that as an element, Libby is doing the best job that she can to serve that company, which then serves these people and, and vice versa.

And there's all inter, you know, there's. Lines going both ways, but I want to always be comfortable myself in questioning, am I doing the right job for this? Am I doing the right job for this? Am I doing the right job for this? And, and what are the other options? Like what if I was to put this person in?

Libby's place. Right? And what could, how could that impact the whole system? Um, I wanna be able to question that, and I wanna be able to question that 

James: I think it's a really ization, I think a lot of founders would regard either the themselves in the business interchangeable or describe the business as their baby,

Libby: Mm-hmm.

James: both of which lead to very emotionally entangled states. And it's kinda like, oh, I've grown by 20% in the last two years, as opposed to my.

Company has grown in the last two years and I, and I feel that's quite, actually quite hard to like dis quite pain, like quite a painful transition to like separate yourself into two entities.

Libby: and it led to more of a light shining moment from that perspective as well.

So, um, Yeah, I feel like I'm in a, a healthier place with my relationship to all the elements, if that makes sense. 

James: Hmm. But, but you've taken the time since to reflect and think how you do it differently

Libby: yeah. Yeah. And then the, the funny thing is in talking about this openly, I'm now thinking, oh gosh, who's the audience gonna be consuming this podcast? And, and is it right? And yeah. But, oh, there's an element in which sometimes you have to turn off the second guessing. So

James: well, I, I mean, just, just, just, just to co collude briefly, I, I think. My personal take is, it sounds like the one emphasis is like transparency. Like we, we, we, we say transparency is good, but there's an element of like how you deliver that transparency when, how you're showing up, when you deliver that.

Like it's not a, just a unilateral good cause it can be just dumping as opposed to transparency. See,

But I think that as founders, if we're not looking at are we the right. Founders can just be right for certain parts of the journey. And actually they've got huge strengths. So it may be they're best deployed in other things.

And I think to constantly come back to that and sense check that is a, is good leadership not flawed. I think it's flawed to go, oh, I'm, I'm the perfect person to, to run this business for. For, because I'm great. I mean that's, that feels to be slight, a slightly more dangerous approach to take.

Libby: yeah, yeah, definitely. It's, it's not, it's not an easy one to solve for, I think though, when, when you're a privately owned, And, um, co-founded, like we're a husband and wife, couple that own it. So it's like the idea of then, you know, replacing elements of us or in, it's not an easy one to solve for. And I don't, I think there are, there are also other priorities that we need to do as a, as, as a company.

Um, I think, I don't necessarily think that is the number one thing that we need to be solving for right now. But it did. What it did lead to is, Honestly, it led to kind of bringing this in and like identifying, well, who do we need on our leadership team? And then before getting there, we're like, well, let's get our vision clearer.

So My goal is that having greater clarity on like what is, what is it that we're going after and what's the journey that we'll be on, and therefore what are the people we need to support? Then this next stage of the journey that we're on, irrespective of who I am and but also looking at, okay, well what strengths do I bring to the table?

Do I not bring to the table? What strengths do other people bring to the table? Do they not? And therefore, where is the missing gaps and how are we gonna then achieve this vision that we've laid out? So all of this. As messy as it sounds, has led us to, I think for me, this clarity about where, where we're going next, and then just holding patience to get to that point, 

James: just, just, I mean, use the word replace and I wonder where that, I mean, that's quite sort of a, a fixed sort of terminology. I wonder. It's just like empowering. It's like how do I empower all the people in the team to be the very best version of themself in service of the company vision.

Libby: Yes.

James: does, by doing that, does that open up other opportunities to put, bring other skill sets in?

Libby: Yes. that's the right rephrasing of it. and I wanna hone in on what you said before, this whole idea of transparency that sometimes we think it's dumping. That's been, I think, a development need in mind that I've identified in the last, since that October timeframe. I feel like I have sometimes a tendency to dump that I've become more conscious of, and I ha I have work to do on it.

Um, but again, it just falls in the list of priorities of where I have work to do and, and. But I thank you for kind of giving it, uh, it gave me a framing that's very helpful.

James: Oh, my pleasure. The nature of being a founder is a highly stressful. Energy demanding role and therefore it doesn't take too much to take you, take us over the edge.

It feels like there are some behaviors and just beliefs that kind of can cause problem I being over close the business or I need to kill myself like business or I am the business. Like it's, that's not helpful, but even just having the realization is not enough. It then takes the time to do the work and really look at it and put in place sort of new processes, new ways of working, new support systems, sort of new vision of what, of what that looks like, so that you can truly make the change into one where it, it really works for you both from a business perspective, but from a personal one.

Libby: Yeah. Well, hey, you guided me there. Um, and I, again, I think, I hope you include this because I think you're really powerful in what you do and, and what you're able to bring out. And then, um, kind of summarize and shape to help that person in terms of what they're sharing. See it. It's like you're taking something and then you're molding it and saying, here, this is what you gave me.

Does that sound right? And, um, you're, you're, you're spot on with, in, in how you're able to take all those inputs and then shape them so that people can see, um, or clearly. So I really appreciate the conversations we've had and this one included.