Louise Humpington: Positive Impact - Law, International Development, Coaching & AI

S4E10: Louise Humpington shares her career journey from solicitor to international development and now strategy and coaching, all tied together with volunteering and a strong purpose.

https://www.kairosynthesis.com/

https://www.diverse-ai.org/

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Unexpected Career Podcast, where we share stories of real people and the twists and turns they have taken along their career journey. I am Megan Dunford, and as someone who found myself in the payments industry, largely by accident. I'm fascinated by people's careers unfold and how they've gotten to where they are today. It's also why I'm passionate about reducing the pressure on young people about going to university, what to take in school, and on getting that right first job My guest today is Louise Humpington, strategic advisor, executive coach, and voice for AI governance and ethics through her company, Kairosynthesis

Megan 0:40

okay, awesome. Well, so then let's, uh, let's do it. Let's get started so yeah, I always start every conversation with right at the beginning what did you wanna be when you grew up, when you were small? What ideas did you have about what career you wanted?

Louise 0:57

Yeah, that's a great question, Megan. And when we had our sort of pre-chat, I was thinking about it because you'd mentioned that quite often what you find when you're interviewing guests is that what they end up doing has some correlation or pattern to where they started their career thinking when they were little. And I was thinking to myself, "Oh, I don't think that sits right with me. I don't think that is me," because, you know, when I was three I wanted to be a ballerina, when I was five I wanted to be a nurse, and when I was seven I wanted to be a police person, and when I was 14 I wanted to be a forensic psychologist. And then I thought, "Actually, no, that's exactly me." Me and all my brilliant sort of, you know, neurodiversity has led me into exactly that kind of career trajectory. Things that on the surface don't appear to have any correlation to each other, but actually there is a consistent thread and theme that runs throughout it. So, yeah, that, that's the opener, I guess.

Megan 1:56

I love that, and I think that's so true in terms of it's like a thread. Very rarely is it what people actually do. That does happen, but there is sort of this underlying thread, whether it's an interest in helping people or I'm really curious about all sorts of things and I'm always kind of changing my mind. That's a thread. Or it's you know, I'm really interested in structure or things like that. And so what your job is might not be the same job, but there is this interest or skill or capability that does kind of stem from, oh, with the knowledge I had as a small child, I can see why I was interested in that and how it relates. So that's what one of the many reasons I love starting with that question. So you it sounds like, have many different kind of ideas of careers, growing up. So when it came time to think about going to college or university did you decide to go for further education? And then how did you make that decision and decide what to take in school.

Louise 3:02

Yeah, that, that's a really good question, actually. I think it does, it flips back to interests and things that are part of who I am which we've already sort of touched upon. So I was very heavily into drama at high school and beyond. And my drama teacher refused to speak to me for about a month after I told him I wasn't going to read theater studies at school. He was really committed to the performing arts and really wanted those that he saw as having a possible career in that space to pursue it. But I chose philosophy instead which again, seems like a bit of a divergence from being on the stage. But really isn't in many ways because it's about thinking of people, thinking of the way that we think, the way that we communicate, the way that we articulate ideas, and how we connect with each other, which is, you know, very much what a performer does on stage, is it takes this set of ideas and ideals, and it presents them in a particular way for an audience. And that's essentially what philosophy does as well. It takes contingent ideas, and it threads them into arguments which you then sort of present. After that I was actually working whilst I was at university for the Crown Prosecution Service. I'd got a temping job over the summer holidays, as lots of students do, and, I just really loved it and had some really good ideas for how they could improve the organizational efficiency, should we say, of the team. And they asked me to stay on after my six weeks was up, and I said, "Well, I'd love to, but I'm going into my final year of uni, and, I can't really." And they said, "Well, you know, we'll give you whatever you like except a pay rise because we haven't got budget for that." and I ended up negotiating a hybrid role where I could come and go as I pleased, took as much flexibility time as I wanted to do uni. So I actually did that for the whole of my final year. But it's what connected me to the law. And, you know, I would have chats... The Crown Prosecution office was based in a police station, so I had access to all the police officers and access to all the administrative staff, and also access to all the lawyers and chatted with all of them about what I was gonna do when I finished uni. And one of the the senior detectives said to me, I think with your brain and with your ability to articulate, you should definitely go with the legal route rather than the police route. You'd be brilliant at it, but, you know, I think that would be a really better use of your skills." So that's what I did. I signed back up to law school that year and, did my solicitor's finals eventually, did my training contract and qualified as a lawyer. So that was the start of my journey.

Megan 5:38

So amazing to get that advice and have the opportunity to also see it firsthand a little bit through your job. Because a lot of times we pick things like going into law without really having any background. So to have some understanding of what it actually meant, and then to have people who are willing to give you some advice and support you even if it's just in conversation as you're thinking about, well, what do I do next? That's always a hard point in your final year of university like, oh, wait, now,, what am I gonna do? I have to get a job potentially or, pursue the next level degree. And making those decisions is really hard and certainly I remember myself in my last year of school, going to a family event and everyone was like, "Oh, what are you gonna do when you graduate?" And it's like, "I don't know. Stop asking me." so- Yeah Have some people are willing to give you that advice combined with the opportunity to see some of it in action. That's pretty amazing.

Louise 6:42

Yeah. It was an absolute privilege and I do recognize it that, and I really feel for, the young people coming through now who don't necessarily have the same access to part-time jobs that we did when we were kids. You know, I've been working basically since I was 14 in one way or another. It started off with a paper round and then I worked as a Saturday girl in a hairdresser's, and I had a part-time job at a chip shop and all of these little things. But we don't allow young people the same access to opportunity now that we did then, and I think that a lot of my ability to grab every opportunity comes from that kind of real drive to see what does fit. And that's a real gap in our society at the moment I think is giving people the chance when you don't know if they're gonna be any good or, you know, they haven't got the skills already because, that's how you develop it, how you learn, it's how you grow. And I think that when people are looking at career changes as well, not knowing if they're gonna be any good for that space or if that space is gonna be any good for them is a really big decision to make. And when you haven't had that chance, and that's where things like volunteering are such an amazing opportunity for young people and for career changes to say, "Okay, I'm gonna dip my toe in, see what that world's really like and then have a chance to see what it, where it takes me." those are really, really great, ways to test out ideas and spaces.

Megan 8:10

That's an important point You so often don't know until you try things, but it is getting harder and harder to try things in the current environment. So as you said, for young people often they're discouraged to get part-time jobs 'cause they should be concentrating on school and getting good grades. But there are also just less part-time jobs out there. And on top of that, people always want to hire people with experience already, even if it's working in a cafe or in a coffee shop or retail. Often they are looking for people who have done that before. So even in those spaces which traditionally, certainly when, you know, I was younger, those were the kind of part-time jobs you could get when you were in high school and things like that. And it's similar, in industries in general they don't necessarily want to take chances, and a lot of that is, the economy, the rate of change, just the uncertainty for everyone. But you do need to find ways to experiment and try things, so volunteering I think is a great way to do it. Having conversations with people. Even, this is something I saw on TikTok, but, someone was doing a challenge for the month for themselves of I'm just gonna try to do scary things for the month and do something every day. And one of the things she did one day is she was in her coffee shop where she bought her coffee every day, and she's like, "Could I make my coffee?" And they generously let her come around and showed her how to make it. Even those really small things are Opportunities to try and see and learn something new, whether it's in your career or otherwise. I think it's a good point of yeah, you have to try and experiment and see- not only is it a fit for them potentially hirings you or whatever, but also more importantly, is it a fit for you? Is it something you're actually interested in? Absolutely.

Louise 10:04

Absolutely. And I think there's another really important point around all of this conversation, Megan, which is that, as a society, and I see this very much so with the sort of the younger generations coming through, we're so afraid of making mistakes these days. We are so afraid of trying something and failing, and there's this-- it's almost become this sort of pathological instinct that you have to be polished, and you have to be complete, and you have to be already able to do 125% of the job before you even go for it. Yeah. And I think that's a really, really dangerous place for society to be leading us and for young people to have this as their kind of aspiration because we learn our best skills and we have our best experiences when we have tried and failed. Because we are the ones that have actually put in the work, put in the effort to then get up- go again and not be ashamed of that. And, and the shame and the stigma that we have around failing, around not achieving I think is really hindering people in a way that is very, very damaging to self-esteem, but also really damaging to the job market. Because if you don't have psychologically safe teams who feel comfortable picking each other up and saying, "Don't worry about it, you know, that didn't quite work out, but let's have a look, let's rethink, let's try again, let's use our collective skills to see what, an improved solution might be or an enhanced opportunity might look like," we're not feeding each other with that really good stuff that kind of builds that robustness and that resilience in workplace cultures, but also in ourselves as well.

Megan 11:44

Yeah. So true. And it's, that's how you learn. So if you want the skills, you have to be willing to take the chance at the beginning of, well, I'm not gonna be that good at it at the beginning- Yeah but I have to keep going if I want to be better. And not everyone's gonna get to the same level of better- No but you have to start somewhere. And I do wonder if social media, well, I'm sure it does play into it 'cause you see the finished product so often and you're like, "Oh, they were just naturally good at it," or, they have an innate talent but actually for 99% of people, there's a lot of work that goes into it before you ever see some finished product online. It's like even now- And with the

Louise 12:28

introduction of AI as well, we can't even be clear what we are seeing a lot of the time now. Yes,

Megan 12:33

yeah. Is that actually even a person?

Louise 12:35

Absolutely. Exactly right. I was on BBC Radio Wales the other day speaking about exactly this, and they were noticing that on social media there are lots and lots of adverts popping up, which, you know, are completely in breach of the advertising standards, regulations, and conduct rules. But it was all these sort of fitness gurus and health regimes saying, "Do this in 30 days and you're gonna have a body like that." and that was not even a body, it was AI. Yeah. It was a deep fake and so realistic and convincing actually, you couldn't necessarily tell that you weren't being fed accuracy or truth because the tech was so good, you know? And that's something, again, we've got to shift our mindsets once again into, not being scared or cynical of everything, but just having that healthy skepticism to go, "Hold on a second. Okay. Is that piece of information true? Is there somewhere else I can verify that? Is this, you know, what's the agenda behind the person that's saying it or the company that's feeding me this information?" And really being a bit more critical about how we think through what information we're being exposed to and what our kids are being exposed to, too.

Megan 13:49

And it's getting harder and harder. So it's something, it's a skill we need to be developing now where there can be some, markers still, that help distinguish, so for sure. So you took law, so after your first degree, you went and got your law degree. What was your first job after you finished law?

Louise 14:11

Well, I was really fortunate to actually get a first job in law. When I was at the University of Law, so this is quite a long time ago now there were-- it was-- very much a sort of patriarchally driven industry still. I think, you know, to a large extent it still probably is. But what was really interesting about my year was that sixty percent of the graduates were women. So the glass ceiling still existed at that point in time, very much so. But it was a whole generation of women coming through that were gonna be the ones that, that break through it, and they have to a large extent. But there is still a very big gap between women at the top levels of law, even twenty-odd years later than there is now. So what's happened in those sort of intervening twenty years? What happened to my generation of women who all graduated? Was it that they realized that the industry wasn't for them? Did they never go into it in the first place because they didn't get that access to opportunity to enable them to complete their training contract? Was it that they took family career breaks and never went back to it? Was it that it just wasn't sustainable for them with family commitments? It shouldn't be the case that you have to choose one or the other. But unfortunately, the expectations still do heap on women in a disproportionate way. What are the back-to-work penalties that women face that men don't? All of those things. But I was really fortunate to get my paralegal contract with the company that I was also going to do my training contract with. So I spent two years as a paralegal and developed my own caseload as a litigator and then did my training contract before I qualified. So after that I moved organizations at that point and went to a different law firm, called Eversheds Sutherland, which is an international global firm, and was working in their financial services dispute resolution team during the credit crisis. So you can imagine that was fun. So I was really, really fortunate to to be able to get that. But, it took a lot of energy, and it took a lot of drive, and it took a lot of battering down doors. And, you know, I'm still friends with a solicitor, actually. Well, he was a barrister, actually, Who had dual rights. He was a solicitor and a barrister. And he still jokes you know, 20 years on that I didn't stop hounding him until he gave me some work experience. And we're still friends to this day. But it literally took that sort of resilience and that kind of- Yeah you know, I am going to keep going. I am not going to rest. 'Cause I knew that in order to get those contracts, I would have to have some experience on my CV. Yeah. And even having worked for the Crown Prosecution Service, which gave me a headstart compared to other people trying to enter the field, it still wasn't enough. I still needed more. So it's, it's a lot, and, you know, it's not a route that anyone could suggest is an easygoing one if you don't already have those contacts, which I didn't. You know, I don't come from a family or a background that has access to that kind of level of opportunity, that sort of level of privilege, although I have had really fantastic opportunities that I've been privy to that other people wouldn't have. So I think there's a lot of luck in it as well.

Megan 17:15

Yeah, for sure. And I think that's always, every industry has that. If you have contacts, obviously that's going to help kinda get a foot in the door. And then to your point, there is a little bit of luck involved in terms of you can do a summer role that then turns into a role that you were able to design a bit yourself in your final year of school, so that then helps you have a slightly different CV and experience that helps open doors as well. But it's definitely easiest if you have those direct contacts, and that is the case in most every industry, and it's really unfortunate because it does keep a lot of people not necessarily out, but it makes it a lot harder and they have to work a lot harder and you know, not everyone's up for that, and fair enough. I mean, why should they have to work extra hard? So I think it it kinda keeps things the same sometimes, which is unfortunate.

Louise 18:14

Yep. Absolutely. and it institutionalizes those biases and that discrimination as well in a way that everybody just considers to be normal. And once it becomes normative, it's not very much will or desire to shift and change when there's a significant chunk of people that it benefits. And it's usually the people who have created those systems in the first place that it benefits the most. And we can map that history all the way back to the Industrial Revolution where it was you know, white privileged middle-class men for the- Mm-hmm and upper-class men for the most part who were designing the systems actually we still all work in. Yeah. Is it any wonder that there's all this discrimination, these barriers to access when actually these systems were never designed for us in the first place?

Megan 19:00

100%, and- Because things continue to work in these reinforcing ways that aren't necessarily visible, 'cause it's just a system, so we don't necessarily see how it's working unless you look it can be really easy to, dismiss things as... So like in technology it's often oh, it's a pipeline problem. There just aren't enough women interested in tech or STEM or whatever. Mm-hmm. But in your example, your graduating class was 60% women, and now 20 years later, there still are disproportionately fewer women at that leadership level- Yeah Within the legal industry. So it's not- Yeah the pipeline problem isn't the problem.

Louise 19:47

No, it's absolutely not a pipeline problem, and actually AI is making it worse, because we know that there are discriminations and biases and colonial legacies and all of those things embedded into the architecture of the tools. You know, the foundational layer, the data sets that all of these tools were trained on are our human history. And we all know that our human history is biased and flawed and assumptive and baked in discrimination and colonial legacy. Yeah. So it is no surprise that these discriminations and these biases are being amplified by those tools because that's what they were trained to do. You know, they were trained on those data sets. And there was a fantastic woman that I've been following on LinkedIn who did a phenomenal piece of work around exactly what we're talking about, which was blind testing male and female CVs. Exactly the same CV, but one with Emily and one with James as a name, putting them into AI, and consistently it was the male who was favored simply by virtue of being a man. Yeah. So we know, it is now fact, it is verifiably researched and evidenced that actually AI is discriminatory in the way that it produces outputs, and that it's 100% down to the data that it's been trained on. But actually, there are some really fantastic organizations who are going, "Whoa, hold on a second. This is not good enough. We're gonna do something about it." there's a brilliant lady called Toyosi Duke that I am doing some content work for an organization called Diverse AI. And they've currently cleaned up, I think it's 7 million pieces of data to make sure that they are ethical, to make sure that they are diverse and not baked in this sort of discrimination, so that they can try and redress the balance on what it is that our- AI tools are being trained on. And that kind of work is absolutely phenomenal. It's superb, and it's a really, really great example of what can happen when those who are left out of the conversation typically go, "Oh, hold on a second. Not on my watch." You know? Yeah. Nothing about me without me. And, you know, she's former Google, she knows the industry well, and she's gone, "Okay, this is not okay. We're gonna do something about this." And she and another phenomenal woman called Steph Wright set up Diverse AI. I'm really very fortunate to be volunteering for them. Back to my volunteering days. But really loving just the boundaries that they're pushing, and the way that they are not accepting these narratives that are being pushed by big tech and the tech bros, so to speak. I love it. I think it's absolutely phenomenal.

Megan 22:30

And what you were just touching on a lot of the conversation is, well, the tech isn't biased, and the tech maybe isn't designed to be biased, but because, to your point, it's just pulling on human history worth of data- Yep which is biased. And the easy thing is like, oh, that's just the information that exists, and that's what it's learning on. But if you want a different future, you actually have to do work on the data first, and that's- Totally A piece that hasn't been happening, so. I

Louise 22:59

yeah, and not just the data as well, actually the teams who are building these things, you know? Mm-hmm. If you design a product which is only being designed from the perspective of a man or a homogenous group of some description, it is going to have an output which favors them, but also which doesn't think about the things that might be important for somebody else. And-

Megan 23:23

Yeah And there's so many stories and cases of that exact type of situation. So you've touched a little bit on what you're doing now indirectly. Maybe take us on the journey from being a solicitor to what you're doing now.

Louise 23:41

Sure. Um, I had a, I'm not gonna lie, I had a pretty difficult PDR with my senior when I was at my law firm. And I reacted very badly to it. As well as my day job as a solicitor, I was also doing a lot of their CSR work. So I was their community investment manager. I was arranging all the volunteering initiatives and all the community investment work with a fabulous organization called Business in the Community, which brings together corporate organizations to see what they can collectively do. So we did a lot of our own initiatives in-house, but we also worked with these great organizations. And my boss was very unhappy the amount of time that I was spending doing this. And I did make the point vehemently that actually all of this was voluntary. I was doing this over and above my billable hours. So I was hitting my targets as far as the expectations of my contract were concerned. But he said, "Yes, but you've got another 500 non-chargeable hours on my department. So you've done your 1,500 chargeable hours that you had to do, and now you've done another 500 hours which has skewed my statistics 'cause now it looks like I've got all these non-chargeable hours which are not accounted for. And as far as I'm concerned, lawyers shouldn't be doing charity work." And I said, "Well, that's fine for you to have an opinion on that, but your equity partners have made a different decision. You know you're in that room. You've got that voice around that table." Yeah. "And clearly the fact that the firm has put itself behind doing this work means that you've been outvoted. Sorry about that. Don't take it out on me because you don't like the decision that your mostly male colleagues have made." that didn't go down well, as you can imagine. But, you know, I just felt really strongly that this was-- I was being penalized-

Megan 25:28

Yeah

Louise 25:28

for something that he was cross about and he was taking it out on me, and I wasn't gonna have that. And then I also thought to myself, "Actually, do you know what? Is there a little bit of what he's suggesting, which is that I'm not as committed to my financial services dispute resolution role- Mm um, that has an element of truth to it?" And it is the fact that I'm reacting so strongly to it actually because he might be a little bit right as well. And I reflected on that, and then I thought to myself, "Actually, do you know what? If you said to me, 'Louise, you can have a whole day to yourself. Do as you please.' What would you choose to do?" Yeah.

Megan 26:01

And

Louise 26:02

I was like, "Well, it wouldn't be financial services dispute resolution." You know, that's what I'm being paid to do and it's what I'm good at, but it's not what I would choose to do. I would choose to go and do the CSR work. So at that point in time, I was coming up to 30, and I was like, "Do I wanna spend the rest of my career doing something that I am good at but I'm not all in? It's not my passion." and fortunately, again, because I'd been doing this volunteering work, I knew where my passions lay, so I deliberately then started looking at opportunities where I might be able to pivot into the third sector. And I found a role with a very small charity that needed some upskilling and needed a new injection of professional sort of support. And I thought, "Actually, I could do, I could do good things with these guys." so I took on the executive director role supported them for a couple of years. But then that gave me the kind of senior level, experience I needed on my CV to then start looking at other opportunities. Other opportunities then existed. And I thought to myself, "I really would like to take this overseas. I'd like, my work to be able to take me around the world to an extent." So I looked at opportunities that might give me that field experience as well and was fortunate enough to have a break between contracts and a little bit of savings. So again, went to an organization that was working in The Gambia and said, "Look-" I can help you. I can give you my time for four months for free if you'll take me on as a consultant in order to do a project for you. Needless to say, they were happy as Larry. But again, it got onto my CV the thing that I needed in order to take that next step, and that next step for me was as the country director for Oxfam in Papua New Guinea. So I moved out back to the Pacific, where actually I'd grown up for a period of my childhood and started working there. But again, you know, these volunteering opportunities were always concurrent. So whether it was with I don't know, a trustee of Cardiff Women's Aid, or whether it was a non-executive director for Amnesty International, that volunteering stream has always, A, opened doors for me, but B, also given me skills that I needed to take the next step in what I wanted my career to be. And so that's been a consistent pattern of my life and experience. And again, what I'm doing with Diverse AI is another iteration of that. I've now moved into bringing all of those different lenses from my career so far. So that's legal, regulatory, financial services, human rights, gender empowerment you know, sustainable livelihoods, climate change adaptation. All those things that I've had experience of over my career, I can now bring those lenses to technology and AI in a way that is a very different point of view from the perspective that traditionally exists within tech. But a really, really important one to opening up the playing field in a way that says, "Hold on a second. You're making all these choices and decisions on tools which impact globally billions and billions and billions of people, but without those voices in the room." And so this is how I got into the sort of the ethics and governance of AI. And again, volunteering with organizations has been a way to help open doors for me, but also helped me to learn about those different points of view so that I can bolster the case that I'm trying to make, which is that this is a network. Accountability and control of these products is something that everybody has responsibility for

Megan 29:38

I, I love what you're saying about how all those experiences come together, and that how you've gained them through different ways. So volunteering being such a strong part of how you've built those skills, how you've even created opportunities for yourself. You were interested in going and doing more field-type work, and so you started with volunteering. And such a great way to do it in a really practical way of I can give you four months. I will do a project for you for free." And again, it's two things. It's helping you build out your CV. It's helping the charity with something really practical in a project that they need support on, which they might not normally get it in that sort of focused project way. And it's also another experiment for you of like "I'm only giving four months." So at the end if actually I find out this wasn't for me-

Louise 30:36

Yep

Megan 30:36

you know, that's information and you can take that experience and pivot in a different way. Or as it was in your case, it was like, "Okay, yeah, it's building me towards being able to then make that part of my role and take on a- Yeah a role overseas." Yeah. So I love all of that. And then, yeah, as you were saying, how it all pulls together into what you're doing now, and really supports the vision and passion around, all these perspectives are important, and so many of these things are built by a handful of primarily white men in Silicon Valley. And that's not a diverse viewpoint. You know- Oh, no They're all in the same location even. And so really, yeah, bringing in all this experience and perspective you've gained through both your jobs and your volunteering experience is really cool.

Louise 31:25

Yeah. And I think, that sometimes it can be really hard to either have the confidence or to have the opportunity to do these volunteering things, you know? Mm-hmm. It's not necessarily a given that you'll be able to do this, but if you do see a volunteering role that you think, "Oh, actually, I'd love to be able to do that, but maybe I don't have the skills at the moment," there are bundles of free courses available. So have a look at what your skill set. Do yourself a little skill set audit, and you can even use AI to do that. Punch your CV, anonymized please- so, protect your privacy and your data. But punch your CV into a tool and say, you know, "Where are the gaps if I was trying to get to here? What are the skills that I need to develop?" 'Cause I think we get too bogged down with the role we are doing and the jobs that are required for that role- Yeah rather than looking at transferable skills. And once you identify a skill gap There's a course that you can do to learn about that. You know, Coursera is a really fantastic place. There's, you know, whatever your particular area of interest is or, skill set aspiration is, there will be a free course for it. You don't need to be spending thousands of pounds or getting yourself into debt or anything like that. Pretty much everything I've learned over, the last wee while about AI has been from free courses actually. I've not paid for any of these things. I've learned by listening. I've learned by going on podcasts. I've learned by writing. I've learned by researching. I've learned by doing free courses. I've learned by connecting with people already doing this work. And for me, I've been fortunate that I can then tie it back to the regulatory and governance and law work that I already had within my kind of my toolbox.

Megan 33:03

I love what you were just saying about, how, you've explored and done this research and taken these free courses, and then tied it back to all the things you already had in your toolbox from your previous roles and experience, like in regulatory, et cetera. And I think it also ties back to what you were saying very early on in the conversation of we're all So afraid to make mistakes and not be perfect. And I think it goes back to that we feel like we're stuck on a track. Oh, I'm in this industry, or I'm in this role, and I can't make a change because I don't have all the things. But there are ways to gain those things, and actually a lot of times you have a lot more than you think you do. Yeah. Because most skills are transferable. It can be hard to see how they're transferable- Yeah Yourself. So, talking to other people and reaching out to people who are in roles that might be interesting to you and understanding what they do and, you can start to see those connections. But also then, you know, taking a free course, doing a little bit of research, those things are really helpful to fill those gaps. But they're also, again, really helpful to be like, is it actually gonna be for you? 'Cause again, you don't know- Yeah What a role is until you're in it. But these are ways to learn more about it, and there are so many free ways to do it. So it could be volunteering- Absolutely it could be a course, it can be so many different things. And then what makes us all have a unique perspective and be in a position to add even more value bringing all the-- our diverse background experiences, even as individuals together, 'cause that will create your own individual perspective, which then helps the wider conversation. Whether it's in AI, or it's in financial services, or it's in technology, or it's in the service industry, whatever it is, that those unique skills and experiences that each- Yeah individual brings to the table, that's what diversity is. I mean, we often do like the check the box- Absolutely because obviously we have to start somewhere, but it is so much more than that. It's all the individual experiences and backgrounds.

Louise 35:19

Absolutely. It is the depth and it is the breadth of everything that, that you are the sum of all of the experiences that you've ever had. Every single holiday you've been on, every job you've done, every interaction you've had, the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between. And I think we forget that sometimes. We're not just who we are right at this point in time, we are everything that's ever happened to us, whether that is something that's been done to us or something we have done ourselves. And I think that's a really important part of reflecting both what it is that makes you unique and valuable, but also what some of your stumbling blocks might be, what some of your barriers might be. And one of the exercises I do a lot when I'm doing coaching work is essentially a sort of a person mapping exercise, is the way I usually describe it, where you sit down and you say, "Okay, well, who am I now? What are my experiences? And let's see how they connect with each other. Let's see whether that was a positive experience and connection or a negative experience and connection." And where you identify that something maybe wasn't an optimal experience for you, you can also see how that might be impacting on the choices you make now, and the decisions you're making, or the things that you're afraid to try out because of those poor negative past experiences. Mm-hmm. So that can be either an area you identify as something to work on for yourself, or it can be something that makes you say, "Actually, do you know what? I really do need to stay away from that for my own mental health or for my own self-esteem or for whatever other reason." And so that can help you then to define actually the areas that are a really positive, safe fruitful space for you to be in. Yeah. And I think that's a really important part of reflecting back on, on your own life and experiences, but also seeing really positive ways to move things forward. You can identify what the barriers are

Megan 37:14

and

Louise 37:14

what the blockers are, then you can identify either what you can do to change that- Mm-hmm whether that's upskilling or whether that is some more reflection work on dealing with maybe something that's a bit traumatic for you or something that needs healing. And I don't mean it in a sort of a woo kind of way. I mean- Yeah You know, we've all got things that we need to heal from. And we sometimes often don't give ourselves the space and the time to acknowledge that that's the case- Right 'cause we're busy and we just get on with things- Yeah or we think if we pander to it too much, it will become a thing, and it doesn't need to. But I think actually, giving yourself the space and the permission, if you like, to say, "Actually, do you know what? I was really hurt by that. That really upset me," or, "I felt very strongly that, I was treated unfairly in that situation." Mm-hmm. Or, "That actually was really damaging for my for my self-esteem." whatever it is, those are things that we can acknowledge in order to move on from, as opposed to absorbing them into the sort of psyche that we own currently. And I think there's a lot to be said, again, with acting out who it is that you aspire to be even before- Mm-hmm you get there. Because the only way that we can affect behavioral change, whether that's in the community or whether that is for ourselves, is by changing the habits that we have fallen into. Some of them are gonna be really positive habits, some of them not so much. But if you can recognize those patterns of behavior, you can identify what needs to stop or shift or change in order to create for yourself new patterns of behavior. And it does mean that sometimes you have to sort of fake it till you make it, if you like. You have to just keep doing it consistently in order to change that habit, but that's how patterns form, and that's how behaviors change. And so recognizing and understanding that that's part of our psychological process is the really empowering part of saying, "I can do something about this." It's gonna be hard, and it's gonna be not something that feels comfortable to begin with 'cause it's not part of your habit-forming process, but it is the thing that creates that positive change when it's needed.

Megan 39:20

Yeah, and it's the exact same thing as learning a new skill it's gonna be hard. You don't quite know what you're doing. A lot of people don't like that phrase, fake it till you make it, but to me, it is. It's just learning a new skill. It's... It could be tennis. Like, I would like to play tennis. That's the habit I'm changing or the fake it till you make it. And so I have to take a lesson, or I have to get out on the court, and I'm gonna be really bad at the beginning, but I'm gonna keep going, and I will get better over time. Yeah. That's all fake it till you make it is. It's- Yeah learning a new skill. It just happens to be maybe a habit in this case of, reframing something or doing things in a different way. But that is in a sense a skill, and it's just learning that. And so- it's the same thing.

Louise 40:06

Yeah. And think we've become kind of- skeptical of that phrase because there are so many people who are pretty fraudulent when it comes to presenting. You know, the snake oil sales person has come out and said, "I'm an expert, and I can do this and that and the other," and actually you scratch the surface and really there's nothing to hold that up. So that's kind of where we've shied away from a negative version of what that looks like. But actually there's a really positive version of it as well which is, you know, if you want to phrase it slightly differently, showing up. Showing up consistently and- Mm-hmm knowing what your goal is. And within coaching we talk about SMART goals. So it's a really good mechanism for identifying the, what you need to have for a goal to be really successful, and it needs to be specific, and it needs to be measurable. Where am I? A. It needs to be achievable, it needs to be realistic, and it needs to be time-bound. So using that mnemonic, is a really, really good way of saying, "Okay what is it that I'm trying to achieve and what do I need in order to do that thing?" and actually if you've got job aspirations or career aspirations, go online and hunt out some job descriptions, and then look at the skills that they have in that JD or in that advert and say, "Okay, what is it that I need to do in order to achieve that thing?" And actually, I think a lot of the time if you sit there and you really do some reflective journaling or with your CV or really sit there and do some sort of self-awareness work about what your experiences have been, you'll probably find there's analogous experiences or skills that you've got. So instead of just looking at the skill itself, look at the tasks that you do. Mm. You know, what does that, what do you need in order to achieve that task? Because if you can achieve that task, you probably find that there's skills embedded within it which are transferable, but we don't think about it because we're so oriented to say, "My job involves doing X, Y, and Z And we don't see how they transfer into other areas or industries. So again, that's a really good part of your mapping exercise that can be done to... And if you're not sure, ask a friend. You know? Mm-hmm. Ask someone that knows you really well. Say, "Hey, look," what does this look like for you as far as my engagement, interactions, and skills are concerned?" Like, "Where do you see my skills lying? What do you think are my positives? Where are the areas that maybe, if you can bring yourself to ask the question, that I could improve or might, you know, maybe not be my strongest skill set so that I can look at areas in which I can improve that?"

Megan 42:48

Yeah, so true, and like breaking down the task into what does it actually take to complete the task, that's where the skills are. They're underneath. Yeah. And so often the task is the same, they've just given it a different name because it's a different industry, so we call it something slightly different or has a different acronym. And I think the other thing, yeah, talking to friends and peers and colleagues is really helpful. And you can also talk to people in those industries and if you don't know what the task means in that context of like, "Hey," "tell me a little bit about what your job is," or, "What does this task mean?" That's where, having a network or reaching out to people, this is where, LinkedIn can be potentially quite good and- Mm-hmm in my experience, most people love to help. And the hard part is asking the question, so being brave enough to ask. And it goes back to the fake it till you make it most of that is just being brave, to do something that you are scared to do, that you don't quite know how to do yet, that feels a bit uncomfortable. And doing it even though you feel scared. To use the younger generation's language, not worry about being cringe. Just- Ah Show up and put yourself out there a bit.

Louise 44:04

Absolutely. And actually if you don't feel confident doing that with a real human, that is a space where AI can be helpful for you. It's designed to be helpful. It's designed to be sycophantic. It's designed to- Yeah big you up. So if you want a little bit of confidence, go to Claude or ChatGPT and ask that. Ask it to tell you all the brilliant things that you are so that you get a bit of confidence before you go speak to a real human first. Yeah. I love

Megan 44:28

that.

Louise 44:28

But actually, you know, I'm joking, but it genuinely is a really good way of, of helping you to frame your abilities in a positive way. Mm-hmm. But actually, you can also ask it to do the opposite as well. You can say to it, "Please give me the steel person response to this as well. Where are the areas where there is a gap, and what can I do?" Because it's great at skimming off, "Well, there's a free course you could do here," or- Mm-hmm this is what this task means in this industry, but you'd need to have this skill in order to do it, and here's how you can get it." It's really good at that kind of thing, so there's genuinely a space for using it in that way to give you the confidence to then say, "Okay, I don't feel like I'm completely out of my depth here" before I go speak to a real human- Yeah who might be able to open some doors for me or at least give me some real-life input into what that means in the industry in real terms.

Megan 45:17

That's a great suggestion to use it on both sides of help me see all the positives and give me a confidence boost and on the other hand help me identify the gaps or the questions someone might have so that I can, look at how to fill those gaps. As you said, it's a great way to use AI. So you've had this winding career that's touched on many different things and I think you have sort of touched on this as well, but when you look back with hindsight, are there some common threads you see or connections that you see between these things that maybe on paper look quite diverse and unconnected?

Louise 45:58

Yeah, I mean, the consistent thread through all of this is that I am who I am. I am neurodivergent. I work three times faster than anybody else does. I've got about 1,500 different tabs in my head open concurrently. You know, that's who I am. I bounce from thing to thing. I'm really good at ideas. I'm really good at seeing a strategy from start to finish and seeing it in that sort of multimodal network way. That's how my brain naturally works. What I'm not so brilliant at is the finishing bit. So, I know that once I come up with something as a suggestion or an idea, I then need to put mechanisms in place for myself to make sure the job gets done. But I recognize that as being something I'm not good at. So, you know, I set myself up with accountability buddies who, if I've got a task that I have to finish, I give them permission to hassle me or hound me or check in, depending on how I'm feeling about it. So that's a sort of a recognition of the bits that I'm not so good at as well.

Megan 47:02

Yeah.

Louise 47:03

But it also is an example of why I have jumped from thing to thing so fast, so that's very much a consistent thread throughout all of that. But I think the other consistent thread is that I've always wanted to use my skills in a way that I felt was Positively enhancing life or society or the world- Mm-hmm Or somebody else. For me, if I had sort of, you know, making a bucket loads of money as my driver, I probably just would've stayed as a lawyer, but it's never been about that for me. It's always been about- Yeah How can I push boundaries? How can I change things in a positive way? How can I help people who haven't got that voice to create a platform and a space where that voice is heard? Not speaking for them- Mm-hmm and providing spaces for other voices. So again, whether it's law, whether it's philosophy, whether it's international development, whether it is the work I'm doing around the ethics and governance of AI, for me, it's always about how people are frequently unrepresented in a way that actually doesn't do any of us any good. And really shifting that balance, breaking those systems down, changing the status quo. Those are the things that drive me. Yeah. Those are the things that feel really important. So there are consistent threads all the way through that. But it's, a lot of it really is about knowing myself and doing a lot of that work on myself, recognizing the good, bad, and ugly of everything that I am and everything that I've experienced and then making deliberate choices, to say, "Actually, do you know what, that's really not a positive space for me," or, "That's really not a positive relationship for me, and I need to step away from that." And being very intentional about the decisions that I make, Because we've all been through sort of dark spaces in our lives and, I've had some quite gnarly periods of my time as well, which have accrued because of burnout, but also because of various other factors that were going on at the time. But recognizing now what I need in order to avoid that situation is a part of learning how I can be my best self, not just for myself, but for everybody else around me as well. And, you know, that is a very long journey to go down. Yeah. And something I frequently don't get right. But I am trying. I'm always trying.

Megan 49:32

The hard thing about that is, like everything, the easiest way to learn that is to experience it, which is what makes it the hard part. You can't know in advance necessarily, that this environment isn't gonna be the right environment for me, or actually this is the level that I will burn out. Because until you experience, you're like, "Oh, now I've, I've hit it." You don't know until you're there, unfortunately. There's things you can do, and I think there's a lot more dialogue about it now, so I think that helps people at least think about it in advance, certainly, I think for people, you know our generation, there was no conversation about it, and so we-

Louise 50:14

Yeah

Megan 50:14

we found out because we ran into the wall, and so that's, how we learned where the wall was. But I think the other thing that you were touching on is there is this larger purpose that threads through, and I can definitely see how that connects to all the different things you've done. On one hand, that can make you more open to things like burnout, 'cause when you're driven by something so much bigger than yourself- Yeah It's hard to prioritize yourself sometimes in that. But the other thing you were saying too about, learning about yourself, and whether it's okay, I need to put in some structure or tools or little tricks that are gonna help me, say, finish something. So I love that you,, use accountability buddies, for some things. But, then also knowing that about yourself so that when you're building a team or asking someone to pick up something for you in whatever way in your life, you're picking people who are going to be that balance and pick up the things that you're maybe not as good at or you don't enjoy as much, so that's another way to get balance as you're building a team or outsourcing things in your life if you have the opportunity to do that. Knowing those bits about yourself is really helpful as you make those decisions as well.

Louise 51:36

And as a leader, those are really, really important things to be open about with your teams as well. You know, if you are a leader who acknowledges mistakes, doesn't make a big fuss about them- Mm it's very clear to your team that you make them too, and it's all okay. If we screw up something, we can resolve it. One of the things I always, always said to my teams was, "Whatever the mistake is, it doesn't matter. There will be a fix for it. And we can do that together, and that's okay." And so I think, being the sort of person who is open enough to give permission to get it wrong is a really important part of leadership. But the other really important part is is being open enough to allow people to have their own personality as being their authentic selves.

Megan 52:26

Yeah.

Louise 52:27

And as an ADHD woman who has spent most of her life and career masking it's something that we do really well. We are able to recognize when We might be too much, or we are recognizing when some things are, gonna be difficult for us as a task or as a skill. And so being honest about that and being honest about, the bits that you're not so good at, as well as the bits that you are good at, are a really good way of actually mentoring people through as well. So you can say to your team, "Okay, right, this is the project. I know that when we get to this point, I'm gonna get bored, or I'm gonna move on, or this is something that's coming up for me that's gonna take my time and my attention away from it. Can we have someone who will step in and I'll mentor them into doing that job instead?" Mm-hmm. And that's a really great way of saying, "This is not my skill set. This is not my best place. Can I provide this as a leadership development opportunity for someone else and mentor them into it, or find someone who else, who could mentor them into it?" I think acknowledging all of those things within a team is a really great way of creating sort of high-performing teams, but also creating cultures which feel safe and comfortable, and a psychological safety to see mistakes as being a positive part of development rather than something to batter people over the head with.

Megan 53:52

Yeah, and as you were saying, I think it does so many different things. It creates a safety, first of all, if you are open about it, your team will be more comfortable being open about where they might need help or if they made a mistake or things like that. But also, it's giving development opportunities, and it's also making the likelihood of success for the project much higher because we're acknowledging upfront where we're gonna need to flex as a team, and other people are gonna need to step in, and how we best use our skills as a team, Yeah to deliver. So I mean, it sounds like such- So

Louise 54:32

you start becoming the bottleneck.

Megan 54:34

Yeah, and it sounds like such a simple thing, but it doesn't happen as often as it should, and it creates so many positives from that very small step and example of just- being open about your own shortcomings or opportunities to be a bottleneck, whether it's a skill set or there's this board meeting coming up and I'm gonna get sucked into that, so other people are gonna have to do the prep, those weeks leading up to the board meeting- Yep 'cause I'll be over there. All those conversations are so important.

Louise 55:07

Yep. Yep. We underestimate the art of delegation. Yeah.

Megan 55:10

And it's so

Louise 55:11

hard to do. It's so hard to do when you're busy because actually- Mm-hmm Teaching and coaching somebody else and giving them, giving them that opportunity, gifting that to them- Yeah Is time-consuming. But it is how you build the next generation of people who are going to be those model leaders that can be really positive for the teams that they work with. You know, I was struck this week. I did an article, a really cross actually, Ryan Breslow, who's, one of these tech bros in Silicon Valley, and he described himself as a conscious leader, and he'd left the company and then he'd come back, and he said, "Oh, there's this toxic culture, and they're all entitled, and they're not working hard enough, and I sacked the entire HR team." And he's very proud of this. He's presenting it as being someone who's tried the progressive way of doing things, and it didn't work 'cause they all became entitled and not hardworking enough. And so he's had to go back to this sort of hardline management, and I'm like, no, conscious leadership didn't fail. You failed to do conscious leadership.

Megan 56:10

Yeah.

Louise 56:10

Aand I think, these sort of exonerations that people give themselves really are unhelpful. And so he's replaced his hardworking executive HR team who frankly have all been through a very difficult market together and there clearly are difficulties within the company and the culture of it. But he's replaced them with juniors who aren't the question. And, that's not a solution.

Megan 56:42

No. That sounds like the opposite of how you want to fix culture.

Louise 56:46

Absolutely.

Megan 56:48

Another look back question, when you look at your career, what do you think 15-year-old, 16-year-old Louise would think about what you're doing now?

Louise 56:58

Hello. Actually that makes me a bit emotional. I think she'd be, I think she'd be very proud of herself. I think she would also be maybe a little bit disappointed that I still don't feel like I've achieved all the things that... I don't know why this has caught me. Sorry, Megan. That's all right. No, no, no, it's, it's, it's a, it's a really good, you know, that instinctive visceral reaction is probably a, something I need to go and work on. Because it's obviously something that has, touched me. You know, I am a high achiever. I've always set these very high expectations and standards for myself. And in spite of everything I have achieved, I still feel like I haven't done enough, and I haven't been enough, and I haven't reached my potential. And that's still the case. That's still the case even at 46. And I think that 15-year-old me and 46-year-old me probably are still the same person in that regard. I'm still that 15, 16-year-old going, "What do I need to do in order to achieve more?" and maybe at 46, now's the time when I need to give myself permission to go, "Actually, you are enough. You've done enough. And anything else you do is an extra as opposed to, something that's a requirement." so I think there is a lot of positive things that she would see, and she might even have the energy to say, "Don't be ridiculous." She might be the person that I need to speak to stop, giving myself a hard time actually, 'cause I think she probably would give me the sort of advice that I would give somebody else, and maybe that's what I need to hear as well.

Megan 58:41

That's really powerful. And I think what's interesting about doing the podcast and asking people to look back on their career journey and share it and- From an outside perspective, someone who, this is the second time we've had a conversation, your career is so impressive, and you've done such interesting things and for such a bigger purpose that I find it very inspiring. And so I do hope, when people go through this journey with me looking back at their career, it can be a chance to say, "Oh, wait, I've done all those things." Yeah. "I did more than I thought," 'cause we're so often stuck in what we're doing right now, what we hope the right now will be, and where it will go- Yeah that we kind of forget all those amazing things we did that led us to the point we're at now. So I agree that your 15-year-old self would, say, "No, wait. Look at all the things you've done."

Louise 59:36

Yeah.

Megan 59:37

For sure.

Louise 59:37

And I think that's the thing about me, though. And again, that's about acknowledging who I am. I can feel proud of those things. I can acknowledge those things. I can see them for what they are. I can recognize that they're great and impressive or interesting or whatever. But it's the never enough bit. That's where I am my own worst enemy. That's where my self-saboteur comes into its own. It's not that I don't acknowledge and recognize the things I have done- Yeah it's that I don't recognize that... No, it's not, not even recognition, it's that... I'm not satisfied with that having been enough.

Megan 1:00:15

Yeah.

Louise 1:00:15

And that's what... I suppose that's also part of why I strive for more, strive for more, strive for more. I love it in many, many ways, but I also need to maybe just do a little bit of self-reflection work on why it is that I'm doing what I do. And maybe putting myself into the mission a bit more than just having it as this sort of overarching thing that I do for everybody else. I mean, I don't want anybody to think I'm some sort of, tech bro thinking person who's gonna sit there and go, "The world is broken. I'm the one that has to fix it," like we see frequently from those types. And which I've written about in my blog. So it's not coming at it from that point of view. It's more about what can I contribute, where I've got skills, where I've got privilege, where I've got opportunities other people haven't had or don't have, how can I use those things in a way that makes it just that little bit easier for someone else? I

Megan 1:01:13

think it goes back to what I was, mentioning before. Sometimes when you have that larger purpose, it's easier to end up at burnout, it's also why it might feel like it's never enough because you have this bigger purpose about helping the world and society. And you're not gonna be able to fix it by yourself, unfortunately. Yeah. And maybe even in our lifetimes. But

Louise 1:01:37

also

Megan 1:01:38

because- Certainly

Louise 1:01:38

nothing can be fixed if I'm being completely honest.

Megan 1:01:40

Yeah. Yeah. And it's back to the perfection thing. There isn't really such a thing as fixed. It's like how do we evolve and keep guiding it. Um- It is

Louise 1:01:49

a, it is an evolution, and it's a how can we make things better rather than- Yeah you know, how can we solve this problem? These are not things that are gonna go away anytime soon, and I don't think they probably ever will because humanity runs counter frequently to,

Megan 1:02:05

Our best interests

Louise 1:02:07

Yes, our own best interest and those of other people. Yeah. And that's always going to be a tension and a friction in the way that we interact and the way that things evolve. So for me, I suppose just making it a bit better for some people is enough actually. Yeah. I have to say that is enough.

Megan 1:02:24

Yeah. I 100% agree. And maybe related to this conversation we're just having now, if you could go back in time, is there a piece of advice you would give yourself, whether at 15 or at any point in your career journey?

Louise 1:02:39

Yeah, I think the thing I've learned, certainly in my 40s since I had quite a big crash a few years ago, is to make sure that I embed time and space to stop into my life. Mm. You know, my mom always talked about me burning the candle at both ends and her being exhausted just looking at me. That, that's a frequent thing that's come up in my life, and it's not healthy.

Megan 1:03:04

Yeah.

Louise 1:03:05

It can be done, but it's not healthy, and it will catch up with you eventually. Mm. And if I had understood that and built those blocks into my life previously... But then on the other hand, I wouldn't be told you know, I had to experience it for myself.

Megan 1:03:22

Mm.

Louise 1:03:23

And I think that's the thing about resilience. I was talking to another coaching client the other day, and we were talking about resilience and being proud of themselves because they'd been confronted by a situation which was a really strong testament of how far they'd come in their own journey to build up the kind of resilience because they recognized that that situation previously might have really caused a very negative, detrimental backside for them, and that didn't happen. And that was a fantastic, brilliant testament to all the work that they'd done, all the goals they'd set, all the things that they had worked on. But I think it's a real shame that it takes us being confronted by the worst thing that could happen to us- Right.

Megan 1:04:07

Yeah

Louise 1:04:07

for us to know that we've actually developed that resilience, 'cause it's not something you can test out until you're confronted by the thing that's problematic in the first place. So, that's a bit of a difficulty, but it does also show that even the worst, the thing that could be our worst nightmare is something that you can overcome, that you can come back from.

Megan 1:04:29

Yeah. Yes. I think that's very true, and and I think it's great advice and something great for all of us to reflect on in our own needs and journeys. So to wrap us up, because we've done a lot of looking backwards when you look forward, whether it's to, tomorrow or five years from now, what are you looking forward to? What are you excited about? What's next?

Louise 1:04:56

I think I found a little home in this little new industry that I've carved out for myself. Because a bit like AI, I never stop. A bit like AI, I am constantly evolving, and I pride myself and I enjoy having that multi-nodal set of ecosystems and connections, and that's what this new career pathway is opening up for me, is that I don't have to be stuck with one point of view and one job and one network. Actually, what this does is it gives me the access to all those different things that I can do. So I can be doing some coaching work. I can be doing some, speaking opportunities. I can be doing some, really hardcore academic research on a, a thing around the latest development of tech or AI or whatever it happens to be. I can also be doing some high-level strategic thinking and business development work with corporate clients or with those types of organizations. I can incorporate volunteering into all of that. And I can do it all concurrently, but with a common theme and a common set of knowledge and experience that, that sits across all of them. So that really lends itself to my strengths, which is being able to bounce around from thing to thing- Mm-hmm being able to see the gaps between the connections. So I don't see this as being something that's going away anytime soon. But what it evolves into, who knows? Who knows? It's very exciting. None of us know how technology's gonna evolve over the next five years. But what I do know is that we need more different voices in those conversations, and I'm determined to be one of them.

Megan 1:06:42

Yeah. Amazing. I love your passion for it. And I'm excited to see where obviously technology goes, but also everything that you're doing and contributing, to the conversation. Thank you so much for coming on. I could literally talk to you all day. I've taken up way more time than we had scheduled. So thank you so much for coming on- Yeah, of course and sharing your story. I appreciate it so much.

Louise 1:07:09

Megan, I've had such a good time with you as well.

1:07:11

It's such a great conversation with Louise, and really could have spoken with her all day. A few of the things I took away from our conversation were, first of all, volunteering. Volunteering has been a constant through Louise's journey, and she has of course used it as an opportunity to give her skills and experience back. But it has also been a way to learn skills, create new career pathways, and to be part of the wider conversation. Second, higher purpose. While the advice is always to find your purpose, I personally don't think it is necessary, or it could be something smaller. But you can hear how it drives Louise, and there's so much passion and excitement in her voice. But you also hear some of the potential downsides that you need to keep in mind, like burnout or maybe feeling like it's never enough. Third, know yourself. Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, and preferences is a really powerful way to intentionally make decisions and build your career, and you hear how Louise has done that in her journey. And there are a lot of tools that can help you with that, like AI, but it is also an ongoing process that never really finishes. Lastly, Louise's advice to make sure you embed time and space to stop is a good reminder for all of us. With the pace of the world and the pressure to always hustle, we won't be given the time, so we need to create it. Otherwise, it ultimately leads to a crash thank you for listening to the Unexpected Career podcast. This was the last episode of season four, so please follow, share, and rate on your favorite podcast provider, and you'll be the first to know when season five is here. The Unexpected Career podcast is produced, edited, and hosted by me, Megan Dunford, and we'll see you soon for season five