Your Career Journey

Rethinking Success Through Career and Life Transitions with Caroline Patrick

• Emma Graham

Share episode

Today, I’m joined by Caroline Patrick for a thoughtful, honest conversation about how our definition of success shifts over time, often in ways we don’t expect.

Caroline shares her career story, which starts with dreams of becoming a police officer, moves into marketing, and eventually leads her into senior leadership roles focused on stakeholder engagement. Along the way, life throws some huge curveballs, including surviving the Boxing Day tsunami and later making the decision to take a year off to travel with her family.

We talk about the moments that force you to stop and reassess, the courage it takes to step away from the path you thought you were on, and why success in one season of life might look completely different in the next.

We also cover the importance of being proactive rather than reactive in your career, letting go of other people’s expectations, and building confidence through self-awareness and intentional choices, even when those choices feel uncomfortable.

This is the perfect conversation to kick off the New Year; it's for anyone who’s questioning what “success” really means to them right now, or feeling a quiet nudge that something needs to change.

To connect with Caroline:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinepatrick/

Can you also find episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EmmaGrahamCareerCoach/videos

Your host, Emma Graham, Career Coach and ex-recruiter, is here to help you with:

💡 Gain clarity on what’s important to you
💡 Confidently communicate your value
💡 Build a personal brand and a strong network
💡 Take a strategic approach to your next move
💡 Navigate the job market effectively
💡 Build career confidence with a repeatable success blueprint

🌐 Explore my coaching programs and free resources:
Website: https://www.egconsulting.au/
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/emmajgraham
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmagrahamcareercoach/

🎁 Free Resources:
📄 CV Development Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/cv-advice
📄 LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/linkedin-profile-guide

📅 Book Your FREE Career Strategy Discovery Call:
https://calendly.com/emmagrahamconsulting/discovery-call

Emma:

Hello and welcome to Your Career Journey, the podcast designed to be your compass through the twists and turns of career development. Today I'm joined by Caroline Patrick, who began her career as a marketer before taking on broader leadership and exec level roles for an honest conversation about how our definition of success shifts over time, often in ways we don't expect, and the importance of defining success for yourself. So I'm joined today by Caroline. Caroline Patrick, welcome. Thanks, Emma. It's lovely to be here. Lovely to be here with you too. So we're going to be talking today about how you define success, how you've done that through different seasons of your career. And I have to say, this is one of my absolute favourite topics. So I'm really interested to chat to you about it because I know that you've got some you've got some thoughts as well. Before we get into that, we'd love to understand a bit more about your career journey and and how you've kind of built that thus far. So take me take me back. Was it always marketing? Did you always know that was the direction that you wanted to go in?

Caroline:

No, actually, Emma, when I was at school, I wanted to be a police officer. And yeah, I did. I did my work experience with the Metropolitan Police in London. How cool. And I loved it. I was about 15 or 16, and I just loved it. And I'd never thought about marketing, it never crossed my mind. I don't have anybody in my family that's a marketer. My parents came from a hospitality background. And so when it came time to choose sort of A levels and career, that was around the time and I was living in the UK, and it was around the time that there was some serious issues going on with terrorism around the IRA. And so my parents were very, very nervous about me becoming a police officer. And they basically said, look, you know, we don't really think that this is what we want for you. And long story short, I ended up at Southampton Institute doing a degree in marketing because I actually didn't do very well in my A levels. So then I kind of had to make a decision about the study that I was going to do. And I ended up doing a marketing degree. And partly that was influenced by a lady who worked for my father at the hotel company that he ran at the time. And she was so glamorous. And I thought, I think that I could that that could be me. It's a really glamorous woman. Oh love it. So anyway, so I ended up doing a degree in marketing. And just by luck and chance, I ended up getting a fabulous entry-level role in marketing with Lloyd's Bank. And so that was just a great beginning. And from there, it really set my, I guess, my first 10 years, which was working in marketing roles in large publicly listed companies, both in the UK and Australia. So worked for Lloyd's, worked for Insurance Australia Group in Australia, and also worked for Bendigo Bank. And so really pure marketing roles in large financial services businesses. Then I I I just made a huge change about 10 years ago when I decided I want to ex I wanted to expand out of marketing. And that's not because I didn't love marketing. I just felt like there was I just wanted to do more. And so no, I never I never had a plan to work in marketing, but certainly I did for the first 10 years of my career.

Emma:

I I love looking back and I think it's always so interesting the the little moments that that can really change trajectory over, you know, whole careers. It's certainly, you know, decades of of how it's how it turns out. And it's always fascinating what that what that was. And she said it was a very glamorous lady. You thought, well, that must be what marketing's like.

Caroline:

I did. And then how funny, Emma, that I found my way back to policing in inverted commerce because when I left Bendigo and I looked for a role that was a broader, broader portfolio of functions to lead, I ended up working in health insurance, but a health insurer that insured the police all around Australia. So I actually spent a few years working in that community, and not as a police officer, but certainly very closely with them. And actually, I must say, you know, I do I have great admiration and respect for the policing community here in Australia because they do do an incredible job. But at the same time, I did see firsthand the effects that it has on people working in that community. And I think with hindsight, you know, probably my parents were right.

Emma:

Yeah. And like you say, like that point in time in the UK, I remember it well. I was in London then as well, and it was almost weekly that there would be an IRA bomb often in the cars or litter bins, which is why if you've ever been to London, there's no bins anywhere. That's that's why. Yeah, because yeah, it happened all the time, and it was it was pretty it was pretty full on. So I can I can understand your parents not thinking that that was perhaps the the way they wanted you to go. Do you do you remember kind of in hindsight when you perhaps first and it may have been quite unconscious at the time, I know it certainly was for me looking back, but when you sort of first started to think about what success actually meant to you, and perhaps in those early years, were you even consciously working towards a definition, or or was it just about getting more experience and and seeing where it took you?

Caroline:

No, I was absolutely gung-ho at the beginning of my career. I remember having a conversation with my granddad who lived with us, and he's been dead, you know, more than a decade, and he died when he was 90. So this was a long conversation that happened a long time ago. But I remember saying to him, you know, I'm gonna be CEO of Lloyd's Bank one day. So I was absolutely gung-ho in my career at the very beginning. And you know, those first 10 years, I was absolutely climbing the ladder, you know, and my time with Lloyd's the first four years of my career, I was promoted three times. So I was absolutely gung ho, and I really, really wanted to be successful in terms of a job title. But that changed enormously around 2004, actually, because I was working in Sydney and I'd met my husband in 2000, my now husband in 2004, but I also survived the Boxing Day tsunami, and that changed, yeah. Wow.

Emma:

My family and I were on holiday, profound impact, I'm sure.

Caroline:

And that did have a profound impact, and so it made me think very differently about what I wanted from my life, not necessarily my career, but from my life, and we made a pretty bold move. And my husband and I we moved to the Adelaide Hills and we raised our family there, and so that changed again, it changed the trajectory of my career because living and working in South Australia or in Adelaide is is different, it's smaller and there's less head offices there. And so while you can't necessarily pursue a big brand career as easily as you can in other places, it does enable you to be more creative around the choices that you make. And in fact, the 10 years that I had, sort of between 2015 and probably 2025 to be fair, yeah, was really around making sure that I was working on interesting projects, things that I wouldn't necessarily have the chance to do if I was just climbing the ladder in an organization. And so during, you know, over the last 10 years I've worked on things like bringing a new national health insurance fund to market, turning around a retail credit finance business, overhauling the customer experience for a superannuation fund. And these are things that you don't often get the opportunity to do. And so I think for me, you know, that that that decision to move to Adelaide, the decision to look at broader portfolios that had marketing as one component, but also do things that were a little bit different, really enabled me to find variety and challenge and really put myself out of my comfort zone. So it did, yeah, surviving a natural disaster like that, it really makes you think incredibly differently about what you want from your life, and it changes your perspective on so many things. Yeah. So I can see that when I look back, you know, there's been particular moments in time where I've had a major pivot.

Emma:

I think it's often the way, uh it's certainly been true for in my own life, and I I've seen it in other people's lives as well. Something really profound like that, and it often is something incredibly difficult and a very, you know, quote unquote sort of negative situation that that someone's been in that actually leads to a real wholesale change. Because I wonder as human beings, perhaps we almost need that level of jolt to kind of you know shock us and to go, is this what you want to do? Like, do you actually want to make a change? Because I think it's so easy, and again, certainly I've done it myself to go, oh, you know, maybe I'd like something different, but here I am, you know, just going along quite nicely, and there's nothing really wrong, so I'll just keep going along this nice little path that I'm on. And say sometimes I think it takes something really big to actually shake that and go, maybe, maybe it, maybe it isn't right, maybe there is something, something different.

Caroline:

Yeah, I think that's right, Emma. And I think the other thing too is once you've had that jolt and you've made a bold move as a result, it's easier to make another bold move and another bold move. Very good. Because it's it's very easy to stay in the familiar and in the comfort zone, and it is super comfortable, it's lovely. Yeah, and then you make another bold move and you make another bold move, it just becomes easier and easier, and you have appetite for that. So when something doesn't feel right, and that was the case for me at sort of in 2021 when my husband and I decided to take the kids out of school and go traveling for a year. So I left my role that I'd been doing with the South Australian government, and that was a really challenging decision because it was an executive role. I really loved it. I had an amazing boss, you know, I loved my team, I really enjoyed the work, but it was exhausting. It was a really tough job, and I wanted to we wanted to take a year off, and and we'd been talking about that for a long time. And leaving that, people were. What are you doing? Yeah. Oh my goodness. But it felt it felt like the right thing to do, and also the window was closing. Like we talked about this for so long, and it got to the point where the kids were of an age, and we said, Well, we've either got to stop talking about it or we actually have to do it. Or do it, and so we did it, and that was another jolt, so another bold move, but another jolt that actually changed my perspectives again. And I think with hindsight now, it did change my perspective on success because I had thought success with hindsight was about job title, was about sacrifice, was about you know, working, putting in putting in a lot of hours. And I think now success for me is more about that sustainability, not sacrifice, and and that's certainly not always been the case for me. So, you know, something might look successful, but does it feel successful? And I wasn't feeling successful in how much time I was giving to my family, you know, the balance wasn't right, and so when we took that year off and we traveled around Australia, we we bought a caravan and we rented out the house and we traveled around and we spent a year living together and reconnecting as a family. Coming back was incredibly tough because I had changed so much, and I came back to a life that was in the same place, in the same house, with the same friends, and the same location, and it took a whole 12 months to actually sort of work through the pain and the loss that I felt of the life that I had had before, which was so clear for me. I was on I was on a career trajectory that was so clear for me at that point, and it all changed, and so I had to work through that, and it was incredibly hard, really, really hard.

Emma:

I'm sure.

Caroline:

Yeah, and since then we've moved to Victoria and we live on the Mornington Peninsula now. I work in a completely different sector. I've built a board portfolio, I've written a book, and so for me now, you know, success is not so much about a job title, but it's about the contribution that I'm making. And does that make me feel happy and content? And am I ticking off things that have always been on the bucket list for me that I thought I would never be able to do, like write and publish a book, for example.

Emma:

I absolutely love that, and you know, it's one of the main reasons I wanted to have this conversation. To you've done so many different things and and kind of had a number of those sort of different experiences, and so interesting. Something you said there when you were talking about when you made the actually two things that really stood out when you made the decision to take the year off and and to go travelling. One was the opinions of other people, which was exactly what I'd expect them to be saying, because I think that's just the way of the world, isn't it? But you said that it just felt right, and I think sometimes those those types of decisions, it is really hard to explain it to someone else sometimes, and and sometimes you actually can't explain it to someone else because you might not even be able to articulate it outwardly, you know. You can't quite put your finger on sometimes what isn't exactly right, but you just have this sense of it's not quite right. I I know, I know I need to do something different, or I can't explain why I think X, Y, and Z is the right thing to do, but but I just kind of know it is. So I I thought that was really interesting. And the other thing I I sort of laughed when you said it was you reached that point where we're either gonna do this thing or we have to stop talking about it. Like, how how much of your life can you keep saying, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do without actually doing it. You you've got to go, you've got to go one way or the other, haven't you?

Caroline:

Yeah, and often as I've found now a few years out from coming back from that year away, is you you often don't see what you were going through, you don't see what you were going through at the time because you're in it. And hindsight's such a wonderful thing, but that you actually need a lot of distance. So now, sort of three years out, I can actually see that I needed to make a really big change in my life. You know, I didn't have a balance, I was absolutely neglecting my family. I barely saw my children. And so for me, now it's about how do I create that balance where I'm still feeling, you know, challenged and satisfied and fulfilled in my main role, but I also have a variety of other things that bring me great joy and contentment, but at the same time also to some extent put me out of my comfort zone. So recently, for example, I've I sit on two boards, one in South Australia and one here in Victoria, and I chair a subcommittee on both of those boards. Now, one subcommittee is a subcommittee that I'm really familiar with. It's around marketing and customer experience, and and that is something I feel very comfortable with. But the new subcommittee that I'm chairing is a people and culture and people and culture committee. And so for me, that's putting myself completely out of my comfort zone. You know, while I've led teams, I've never worked in HR or led a people and culture division. So it's very unfamiliar, and I'm having to learn and get very involved in the new legislation around psychosocial hazards, for example, and how do we build culture and how do we measure performance and how do we remunerate on KPIs? And you know, we're hiring for a new CEO at the moment. So succession planning is also going to be important coming down the track. So there's a whole bunch of things there that I'm having to learn, and it's a steep learning curve for sure. So it's great to have that variety because all of these things now come together and they bring this really different kind of holistic career picture for me. So I'm not just focused on marketing, which I was, you know, many years ago. Now I'm thinking about marketing and stakeholder engagement and community engagement and all the things I do with my boards. And then, you know, as you know, Emma, from our previous conversations, I've had to put myself out there and market myself when I published my book and in the lead up to publishing my book. So that has been probably, I'd say, the most challenging thing because it's so deeply personal, you know, and you're putting yourself out there and it's not comfortable at all. And for a woman in particular, the ego is challenging, you know. What are people gonna think? And um, so that's been you know a couple of years of putting myself into different contexts and yeah, defining success differently. And and as you know, I recently went on a trip to Outback South Australia and we met some incredibly interesting people who run businesses out in the middle of nowhere. For example, Australia's most isolated pub at Mount Dare near the Northern Territory border, um the western side of the Simpson Desert, so incredibly remote. And people are choosing to live these incredibly wild and wonderful, adventurous lives. And they're people that you just wouldn't generally meet in your everyday life. So that made me think again that people define success in so many different ways.

Emma:

And I think at the end of the day, it is actually quite a personal thing, and yet there's there's definitely sort of you know societal definitions, parental definitions, you know, there's all these different things kind of floating around, but it is actually really personal because the things that are really important to me might not be the things that are really important to you, and and vice versa. And if you're not orientating yourself towards those things, what are you doing at the end of the day? But I think we're all so susceptible to those outside pressures that can very easily, I was gonna say, knock us off course, and and maybe that's not correct because I think actually what does happen is it certainly in my own experience it it sets us on our first course, and it perhaps isn't until a little bit later in life when we start to question it and go, is this actually what I want? Or like with your example, you know, or something really extreme happens and and kind of jolts you to think about things differently. But it's always been so interesting to me, this this sense of I don't know how to, what would you say, almost like you know, following the rules and and this is this is what you should be doing, like this is how you should be building a career, these are the things that should be important to in your life, you know, etc. etc. etc. But it's so personal at the end of the day. It it really should, in my opinion, come down to to the individual and how they want to prioritize their time and and the choices that they want to make for themselves. And I totally agree with your point there about distance being so helpful. I think both distance in terms of time, but also physical distance. I think often when you're again, it's been true for me, when you're you know having those kind of existential moments of like, what do I what am I doing here? What do I want to be doing? Physically removing yourself and and going away to a you know completely different location, it it does change your thinking, and I think it perhaps just gives you that that space to to consider things from from different. angles and and look at things differently. Yeah. And also and also to your example there in the Northern Territory, you know, meeting different types of people, talking to people who have, you know, made completely different choices and are living their lives in in really different ways. I just think is so interesting. And I think you can always kind of take something away from from those conversations. Not that you know you necessarily want to run off and open a open a pub in the middle of nowhere. Like that might not be the challenge that you want to take on, but you can certainly take on some of that spirit, can't you? And and and maybe live by live by that a bit more.

Caroline:

You can and it's interesting the point you make about you know removing yourself from the rules. I think what I've learned by moving to the other side of the world and having lived here now for half my life is you can understand what is innate so what is in your DNA and what you can never walk away from and how the environment shapes you. So I think the opportunities that I've had in Australia are probably very different to the opportunities that I would have had in the UK. But then I think I would have been closer to the expectations of my parents and family. And so I think there's something in that around you know once you've given yourself that physical and mental distance and you end up you know shaping a life that makes you joyful and happy and satisfied and fulfilled and all of those things. And then you can look at that and say well this is probably what would have been the same if I'd stayed in the UK and this is what is different. So you do and I recognise that in myself there are certain things in the way that I operate that are very similar to my parents and I think I'll never get away from that. But at the same time I live in a completely different location with a completely different lifestyle with a completely different outlook on life. So that's really interesting about removing yourself from the rules and it also takes courage too and you know years ago I read that book by Bronnie Ware about the five regrets of the dying and that was when I was trying to make sense of a few things for me and one of the things that she one of the rules that she has or one of the learnings that she has in there is you know you you should live a life that you want and not what others expect of you. And then but she also talks about you know you're not going to lie on your deathbed and wish you'd worked harder so there's a whole bunch of really good you know insights in there from her time working as a palliative care nurse. And and I think as you do mature and you do get a little bit older and you do start to think about you know that time is precious and the time that you have left and that does sound incredibly reflective. But I think that's true of anyone as you start to lose friends as you start to lose family members you know that time that you have it it just becomes more precious and so you do really want to think about you know what does success look like for me and success in one season of a life it absolutely doesn't look the same in another season of your life and that's influenced by family and and friends and and career and context and timing and and all of those things. And so you do get to a point where you know if you start to feel like something's not right or you start to feel agitated you've got to pay attention to those feelings because they're telling you something. And it was you know 12 months back from my trip and I'm sitting in my my amazingly gorgeous cottage in the Adelaide Hills where I had lived for 20 years incredibly happily and I started to feel like something wasn't right. You know this place wasn't right for me. And that was incredibly painful and when I told my husband he was shocked because we thought we'd you know we'd die there and it wasn't it didn't feel right and so I started to think about what I actually wanted and I literally took a blank piece of paper and I started to write it down. And once I started to write it down I actually realized that that the place that we were living and the life that I was living wasn't right anymore. And so yeah we made another bold move. And and they're painful transitions like they are painful transitions. I left you know friends that I'd known for you know most of my life now my my well certainly my adult life and that's really special to me because like you I'm from the UK and so those school friends are not necessarily here.

Emma:

Yeah. So it's hard they're painful transitions but they I think they enable you to grow enormously and move into different phases of your career different phases of your life different phases of success yeah you you make a really important point there and I love that phrasing of kind of seasons of your career and and life because it I I think it's it's really true but there's something in the by admitting that something no longer is right or something's no longer serving you it doesn't mean that it wasn't previously right. It doesn't mean that those previous 20 years weren't absolutely amazing and you didn't love them and you didn't enjoy them it just means that at this present point in time it's no longer right and I think certainly from a lot of the conversations that that I have I think people sometimes struggle with that that well if I'm saying it's not right that means that it's that it was wrong and that it was always wrong. You're like no it's it's it's different you know time changes you're different you know in 20 years you change enormously and I think it's that you can say that you can say that something wasn't or isn't right now but it was you know been right for most of that time and it it's okay to to kind of move move away from that and I think sometimes people struggle with that that distinction.

Caroline:

Yeah and I think the other thing that people struggle with too is you know people or their friends are saying you should do this you should start your own consulting business. Yeah you should and and that happened to me during that year that I came back. You should start your own consulting business. So I did and I hated it I hated it and that was something I'd never wanted to do I'd never had an appetite to do I did found I didn't like it. But that was also good because I recognized that I needed I need to be around a team I need to be in a larger organization you know I'm very social you know I love being part of something that's running towards something I just love that. And when I look back on the the times I've been happiest in my career has been when I've had a visionary leader who has set this incredibly amazing strategy of whatever kind and then we've all got in the bus as the analogy goes and we have you know literally run towards that and there's been energy and adrenaline and it's been you know tough but it's fun and whenever I've had the best time at work that's always so it's not necessarily again around the job title it's around when I am at work what is that environment that is created that I am a part of and that's what makes it enjoyable and fun for me. And that can be you know that that's been in financial services but it's also been now in the sector that I work in which is utilities which is critical infrastructure which is completely different. So you know I think there's so many definitions of success and so many lenses at which to look at it from and it's kind of like a prism you know you you have to kind of look at it through all these different ways and end up with the beautiful rainbow that comes out the other side to to really understand what it is for you. But certainly for me I've also looked at patterns in my career not just from the environment that I've worked in but what the work that I really enjoy doing. And while I loved working in marketing because it's so dynamic and it's such a jigsaw puzzle and it's so you know much fun often you know I've really moved towards engagement. So my my roles now are much more around stakeholder engagement, media reputation operating in a lot more ambiguity. So I I think you know you also kind of have to look at what you enjoy and what you're good at. And I think you know and success can come from that.

Emma:

I think of it essentially is they're all data points right like the the thing the example with the you did consultancy and you didn't like it. That's a data point. This this type of environment I didn't enjoy it and I didn't enjoy it for these for these reasons. This type of environment I love and I enjoy them for these reasons and it's it's data and it enables you to make a more informed decision and and a more kind of thought through decision which I think is is really probably what we're all all striving for you know that you're not just going oh I love this brand I'll go and work in that organisation and then you get there and for whatever reason you hate it well because the brand isn't the isn't the role like you know it but it's so easy to to kind of get sucked in I think sometimes by those by those things but if you actually drill down into it and get super specific and I loved what you said earlier about the blank sheet of paper I I think it's a great I think it's a great place to start because it really enables you to be more intentional and and to really start to design you know what how you want your how you want to spend your time and how you want that to look and sure you know I don't live in cloud cuckoo land you're never going to get 100% of that but if you are working towards those things with clarity and and with some kind of plan you're gonna get much further to them much closer to them than you than you would do otherwise and I think the other thing that's wrapped up in so much of what you've said that I think is really important is again two things actually one being super intentional but the second is being proactive like what do I want how do I want that to look and and not just kind of going oh I wonder what's out there you know I'll apply for for this and and and that might that might work out but it also might not you know because unless you're being the driving force and the to use your your bus analogy unless you're driving your own bus it it's so much harder but to have that that amount of proactivity I think is it's not easy but it really does enable you to to design and and to make far more intentional choices I think or certainly that's been been my experience.

Caroline:

And and you've also I think got to be open and open-minded to other opportunities that you may not necessarily have thought of you know it was actually really hard when I transitioned from being a marketer to being you know something else that was like this you know jack of all trades because I was not just in marketing anymore I had all these portfolios under me that many of which I actually didn't understand or know much about so and that's that's really hard to go from something that you've spent your professional life being a part of because it's also part of your identity you know after doing a degree in marketing and then working in marketing for so long I was a marketer. I am a marketer and then you find it really really hard to describe yourself and it's really interesting you know when you go to write your headline on LinkedIn and I went through a massive process I had to do this a few years ago and you know who am I what do I do and I I have no idea because I'm not I'm not an engagement specialist I'm not a marketer I know I'm a leader but that's kind of broad you know so so you you have to really kind of a pin these things down but then b have an open mind to you know what does what does that look like for you and then how do you start to describe yourself and it's actually taken me a long time now to actually think of myself as an engagement leader because I felt like a I'd betrayed my marketing profession of which I was highly involved in I was highly involved with the AMI I was an AMI patron you know I was lucky enough to win Australian Marketer of the Year back in 2015 and that was an incredible moment in time. So it's you know there's an identity that that wraps itself up in that profession. And so as you move into other roles and you start to broaden out or you start to change or you start to find variety and start to build that new portfolio of that life intentionally yeah you kind of at the same time you've got to pin it down as well as being open-minded it's it's kind of counterintuitive really yeah yeah it is and and I also thinking back to your point about the you know confessions on a on a deathbed there's something in there around regret I think as well of certainly for me it's been true.

Emma:

I think you regret the things that you didn't do far more than the things you did and I think that's part of that open-mindedness of like I I actually don't know how this is gonna work out but do you know what let me give it a try you know what's the worst that can happen well the worst that can happen is that it maybe doesn't work out and then I'll go back and do X, Y, and Z and actually you know that's not that bad. But I think the I think living with regret is is actually far more challenging than living with I tried it it didn't work it's a data point you know I know what not to do and to go and to go on like that. But like you said it it's quite a it's almost a bit counterintuitive isn't it of of how you sort of balance those well I want to be open minded but I also want to be a little bit prescriptive about the things that I'm looking for and maybe it's that the the things themselves you can be quite prescriptive about but the way that they're wrapped up you you might be quite open minded about that because that might be a completely new industry. That might be going to utilities and and going into a space that you haven't previously been in.

Caroline:

It might be going into a you know taking on some of that people and culture responsibility when you haven't done that before but there's still those things in there that you love like you obviously love challenging yourself and and taking on new things and learning and curiosity and all of those kind of things but it's yeah it's a balance isn't it kind of between those between those two things or maybe not a balance so much as finding the sweet spot perhaps I think that's right and you know I do like challenging myself and I do like putting myself into new environments and feeling a little bit out of my depth you know I don't love feeling completely out of my depth but probably it's good for you yeah but yeah it's it it's also about confidence and you know when you start when the the pieces start to slot into place your confidence grows your confidence grows and you know you don't want ever you don't want that to tip into arrogance but when you have confidence and you have confidence in yourself everything just seems suddenly to start working and you know it's when things are working you get that flywheel effect and so one thing leads to another which leads to another which leads to another and then suddenly you wake up one day and you think wow you know what a what a great life I'm living and how happy am I and how content do I feel and you know I think I've got to a point in my life now having had a you know a couple of times where I've had to pivot and a few bold moves and knowing that I can do that and feeling more confident in myself that I I know that whatever I take on next you know I might throw myself in the deep end but I'm probably going to be able to swim. And you know surrounding yourself with people too you know your cheerleaders your advisory board your mentors you know it's so important to have people to bounce things off and and I think you know you in your coaching Emma you would see people probably come to you with a real lack of confidence they might have been made redundant or they're struggling with you know their next move or they're feeling like things are just not right and then you know you'll see that that transition and when people come out the other side of that you know it's so wonderful to watch somebody go through that and find their way and then and then start to you know start to really fly. It's just wonderful and I've I've been working with a coach myself this year and she's really helped me think deeply about the next moves that I want to make whether that's you know role board positions life and so I went into that process with this is where I think I'd like to go and I've come out the other end of the sausage machine at the end of the year with a completely different view of what like what I want my next 10 years to look like.

Emma:

So you know surrounding yourself with people who make you feel confident can be a sounding board you know can help you work through those things is really important and you know I know that that's the role that you play for so I mean confidence is such a such an intangible thing but it it really is so so integral and particularly in that for someone who is actively job searching it's it's really challenging because the longer that process goes on and and the more knocks you take you know human nature down down the confidence goes and and then it becomes a little bit kind of self self-fulfilling but it's to your earlier point as well about challenging yourself and and putting you putting yourself outside of your comfort zone it's I think it's really hard the the very first time when you don't have any evidence when you you don't have that that kind of track record to look back on and go well look I've I've done this I've I've done this lots of times before not this exact thing but put myself in uncomfortable positions lots of times before I back myself I know I can figure it out like to me that's that's real confidence. It's that very very first step when you don't have that kind of stack of evidence that step I think you you do just kind of have to be brave and and figure it figure it out but as you go as you go on yes you're you're taking on new things yes you're doing things that you haven't done before but you've got that confidence in yourself to say well I figured it out in the past I'll figure it out again and and that I think is a really really powerful thing because that's when you kind of feel a little bit unstoppable of like well yeah I'll I know I can figure it out. I I I back myself.

Caroline:

Yeah and it's so it's so true and when I was going through that painful year in 2023 where I was really struggling with all sorts of things trying to work out what I wanted to do and not enjoying doing my consultancy work and just feeling yeah lost. One of the things that I did learn was that it's really about what you can control and what you can't control. So when you're applying for jobs you can control that to some extent because you can apply but you can't control whether they're going to select you or you can't control any of that. And so I started posting on LinkedIn quite regularly and I could control that. And then I started writing my book and I could control that. And actually as it turned out one of my LinkedIn articles was what became a book because I started writing about some patterns I was seeing in the marketing community and what was inhibiting marketers from career success now. And so I'd seen I'd seen these patterns I wanted to write a LinkedIn post about it and the LinkedIn post you know it was not it it was too many words for a LinkedIn post So then I was planning to write an article and then it eventually became a book. And you know, during that process was when I started to build a lot of confidence, having come out of a period where I wasn't feeling confident. And so I think you know, if you're in that situation, grab something that you can control. And that could be sharing your knowledge, advice, and expertise on LinkedIn, whether that's for posts, articles, you know, mentoring somebody. You know, there's a whole range of things that you can do that you can control and that will then help you build that confidence back. And then once you have that confidence, it it it comes, it comes out in the way you present yourself, the energy you have, the way you show up, and that confidence has a ripple effect. And when you then show up to interviews looking and feeling differently, you then have different conversations, you answer questions differently, you present yourself differently, and suddenly things change. And I've seen that not just in myself, but in so many other people, where you've had a knock, you've been made redundant, you've lost your confidence, and I've been there myself. And then you build back your confidence, suddenly getting more interviews, you're getting in front of more people, and then suddenly the fit and the alignment comes, and bang, you're in a role that you thrive in that you probably never expected, or in a situation that you're thriving in that you've never expected. And so I think there's a real it's really important to make sure that you grab a few things that you can absolutely control that will build your confidence.

Emma:

100%. And I think it goes back to that point about being proactive because the things that you can't control are the reactive things that I applied, but they're not, you know, for getting upset because you've been ghosted. Sure, that sucks. They should have responded to you, of course they should. But you can't do anything about that. So don't waste the energy on that. Put your energy into those more proactive tasks. And as you say, the more you do that, the more you network, have conversations, share thoughts on LinkedIn, you know, get a mentor, mentor other people, all of those, all of those proactive activities. Totally agree with you. They they build and multiple benefits. You you build your confidence, you're talking to more people, you're putting yourself out there, you're opening yourself up to far more avenues of of opportunities, and it's that that kind of element of proactivity. What what action can I take? How can I to drive my drive my own bus analogy again, be the captain of my own ship rather than relying or waiting for other people to to come back to me to respond to me? You know, it's it's a really tough one when you're just constantly putting yourself out there and not getting anything back.

Caroline:

Yeah, and you can't do that. So what can you do to you absolutely can 100% success and success leads to success. And you know, I think I I I see I've got a I've quite a few friends at the moment who uh, you know, are looking for looking for new roles, and you're right, you have to be proactive and put yourself out there, but you have to be proactive and put yourself out there in a multitude of ways. Yes, and you do have to think about what does success mean for me, what does success mean for me more broadly? How can I create my own success? What can I control? And so there's there's a process that you have to go through, and I think it's very difficult to do that by yourself, and sometimes it's actually very difficult to do that with your family members and your closest friends because they have an enormous bias because they love you. And so going through that with someone who's independent, and this is why I think this year has been so eye-opening for me because working with my coach, you know, she is not my friend, she's not my family, she challenges me, she holds me accountable. And from a definition of success that I had 12 months ago, I've reshaped that definition definition of success, and that's been across a 12-month period in a new environment, in a new industry, in a new location, in a new life. And so it's constantly evolving. So you it's not a set and forget thing. So when we talked about seasons, you know, it might not even be a season, it could just be a six or twelve-month period. Yeah, it's important to take that time to sit down and get that blank sheet of paper out and say, you know, what do I want success to look like for me? What does it mean for me? Not when I compare myself to somebody else. Um, comparison is definitely the thief of joy. Although, if you are comparing yourself to somebody else, you should ask yourself why. Like, what is it that they are doing that you want for yourself? Yes, because there's some clues there, and so don't compare yourself, but use them as data points.

Emma:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm all about the data points. It's so true, and I think the fact that you do you pit it on the head, the fact that you do find yourself comparing, find yourself comparing to them. There is something in there that you're admiring that you wish perhaps you had or that you wish that you were doing. So figure out what that is and start doing it. Yeah, I know that's an oversimplification, but that's uh ultimately what it what it comes down to, doesn't it?

Caroline:

And everyone gravitates to different things, right? So I've always gravitated to I want to write a book. Like that had always been a thing for me. I didn't know if it was going to be a fiction or a non-fiction or what. I mean, I actually I sort of saw myself as a kind of you know new Barbara Erskine because she was a favourite of mine when I was when I was a young person.

Emma:

But still could happen.

Caroline:

Still could happen. Caroline don't limit yourself. That's true, that's true. My next book might be a fiction book. But I'd always but I'd always known that I wanted to write a book. I just didn't know what shape that would take. And now I've done that, and I know I've I know I can do it. My husband said to me one day, he said, we were out walking, and he said to me, I I said to him, Did you think I could do it? And he said, I knew you could do it, but I don't I didn't know if you would do it, was what he said to me. It's very diplomatic. It's very diplomatic, yeah. So I always knew I wanted to write a book, and and so now I've ticked that off, but it's where you gravitate to, and everyone gravitates to to something, and and that's where your passions and your interests lie, and you gotta listen to that. You have. Yeah.

Emma:

Final question, Caroline, and it's always the final question here, and that is what do you know now that you wish you knew then? Oh, what do I know now that I wish I'd known then?

Caroline:

I think I'd probably go back to time being precious, Emma. I think time is so unbelievably precious. I've had some friends, you know, depart along the way, and they didn't get to do some of the things that I've been able to do in the last sort of 10 or 15 years. I think make the most of this time and make sure that you're doing things that you really enjoy and surround yourself with really good people. And every now and again, I think just stop and pause and take a moment and say, Am I feeling good? Like, am I feeling good about myself? Am I feeling good about my life? Am I feeling good about my career? What's feeling good, what's not feeling good, and what's not feeling good, change it.

Emma:

Love it. Great place to finish. And here, here, I wholeheartedly, wholeheartedly agree with that. Thank you so much, Caroline. Really, really appreciate you taking the time and yeah, sharing your your journey and and the things that you've the things that you've learned. And I think this is a lovely place actually to kick off the to kick off the year and and for people to hopefully take some some ideas and inspirations as to how they might want to spend their next 12 months. So thank you very much.

Caroline:

It's been a pleasure, Emma, and just lovely to spend some time with you.

Emma:

Before you go, I've got a quick favour to ask. If you enjoyed this episode or something in it resonated with you, I'd love it if you could leave a quick review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's one of the best ways to help more people find the show, and I love to hear what's landing with you. Just scroll down in the app, tap a star rating, and if you've got 30 seconds, leave a few words too. Thanks again for listening. I really appreciate it.

Head Shot

Emma Graham

Host