The Pit Pony Podcast - Life After Teaching
Sharon Cawley and Sarah Dunwood talk to former teachers about exiting from the classroom and thriving.
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The Pit Pony Podcast - Life After Teaching
002 - The Life After Teaching Pit Pony YouTube Video Explained
Hello again! It’s Sharon and Sarah, back with another episode of the Pit Pony Podcast. Today, we’re sharing the behind-the-scenes story of the Pit Pony YouTube video, which somehow got over 100,000 views – despite a few technical hiccups (thanks, tech gods). Spoiler alert: it was almost a total disaster, but we made it through!
What We Chat About:
- Tech Woes and Triumphs: So, picture this – we’re all set to record the famous Pit Pony video with our amazing friend Su Bowie, and right in the middle of Su’s heartfelt story, Sarah’s computer throws a wobbly. It wouldn’t be us if things went perfectly, right? But don’t worry – we got there in the end, even if Sarah’s mic sounded like she was calling from inside a cupboard.
- Su’s “Tree Moment”: Sue shared her raw and powerful story about the time she seriously considered driving into a tree, just to give herself a break from teaching. It sparked a massive response in the group, with hundreds of teachers saying, “I thought it was just me.” It was a turning point that made us realise just how many teachers were feeling the same way.
- The Pit Pony Plan: We also dive into the financial side of leaving teaching – yes, that slightly scary but totally do-able blueprint. Sharon’s got a way with breaking it all down (bank statements, daily targets, and no more takeout coffees), so you can start working toward freedom without panic.
- Why We’re Pit Ponies: We explain why “pit pony” is more than just a catchy name. Teachers, like pit ponies, spend their whole lives in a system that often feels inescapable. But, as we’ve learned, there is a way out, and it doesn’t involve sacrificing your sanity.
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Edited with finesse by our Podcast Super Producer, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real
Sharon, hello and welcome to the pit pony podcast with myself, Sharon Cawley and me Sarah dunwood, in which we talk to teachers from all walks of life who exited the classroom from what they thought was a job for life and thrived on the other side of teaching,
Sarah Dunwood:hello friend,
Sharon Cawley:hello caller.
Sarah Dunwood:Should we? Should we talk about the video that nearly never was
Sharon Cawley:You mean the pit pony video we put up on YouTube that over 100,000 people have watched. Yes, should we? Should we start by how it nearly never happened? Please,
Sarah Dunwood:in in the first of a series of catalog of disasters with me, with tech, we'd, we'd sat down on a Sunday afternoon, hadn't we, and we'll get to the reason why we did that. But we sat down on a Sunday afternoon, started recording with me, you and Sue. Had just had a very heartfelt Sue, sharing a story, and then and then my computer pretty much decided to explode and just cut us off. So, yeah, so there was
Sharon Cawley:so, so you disappear. And I'm saying, and I'm saying to the sobbing Sue Bowie, thanks ever so much for sharing that. I know it's opened all wounds, but we're probably gonna offer you to ask it, to do it again when Sarah can boot back up her computer. So can you hold all that grief and trauma, and can you reshare it? So,
Sarah Dunwood:yes, and then, then, just to compound things, I had to get on an old computer, which is why, on the video, my my sound is, it's like I'm in a cupboard three miles away. You and still not clear. So, so when, when? When, if, if any of you do listen to the episode, which is going to be released as a standalone podcast. Just to for some context,
Sharon Cawley:I am there, but you can't hear me. So yeah. And interestingly, if you watch it on YouTube, not only do you look like you're sat in a cupboard, you look like you're sat in a pool of shame because you've just put Sue Bowie through it, and you look stunned for about the first 15 minutes. So So we've started somewhere in the middle of an anecdote before we've actually really contextualized for our wonderful listeners, what is this pit pony video that's actually gone into the vernacular of the world of teaching the pit pony video, Sarah, how did it all come about? What are your recollections?
Sarah Dunwood:For me, there's, there's three things, but I'm going to let you talk about two of them. The one for me is that Sue, who is also one of our moderators on the group. She was Sue Bowie Lou belly, she was one of our very early group members. She she joined when we only had a couple of 100 members, and she'd put a post on talking about her story, and in that in that post, she talked about the fact that she'd identified a tree to crash into, not To finish herself off, but to give herself whiplash or break a leg so she could have six weeks off work to give herself some respite. And that post just resulted in an outpouring of comments from other people along the lines of, oh my goodness, I thought it was just me. I had a barrier, I had a bridge, I had this, I had that, and the tree became the tree is now very much a symbol. It's referred to as the tree in the grape. But it was that for me, that was like, I we need to talk to sue about that. But I know that there was something else as well.
Sharon Cawley:Yeah, you're absolutely right. And the tree to work out on your route to school in a morning, which Sue did she passed this tree? Didn't she, and as a maths teacher, hadn't she worked up speed and the angles and the impact that she had to have at this moment in her time to just harm herself enough. And I think she said something, just a broken leg would have done it for me. And then at that point, as two people, we we absolutely. I read the comments of what people were putting I think one member talked about she got the train to school every morning and considered just sticking her arm out. Wow. So so we knew, even at that point, something really, I don't want to use the word special, but something really visceral. Yeah, I
Sarah Dunwood:the really visceral response to that, particularly in my own context of of where my mental health had been when I exited teaching. So it was, it was really palpable. And for me, it was the it was the concept of wanting to harm, to give yourself some guilt free time away from the environment
Sharon Cawley:that was making you feel so bad in the first place. Hey, that environment is teaching, which, by its own definition of school, puts children's mental health concern. It's to get yourself away from your job, which is a school and a classroom. It was, it was mind blowing, but just to and I'll talk about my motivation for wanting to record the pit pony video. The Pit pony video for those people who haven't seen it was a YouTube video with three women myself, Sharon Carly, Sarah dunwood, and Sue Bowie, who had exited the classroom. And it was a captured conversation that fundamentally goes into two main purposes and parts. Sue shares her story about the tree and the mental health and the impact that teaching was having on her at that time. Layered on top of that for years, I like to consider myself one of the original OG pit ponies because I'd exited the classroom, and I think this is the important part of the pit pony. Those three women were totally financially dependent upon that job, completely dependent. We were breadwinners. I was a lone parent. We'd not got high earning partners. We were the original, trapped in a job that we could not possibly consider leaving because of finances, childcare, holidays, and we were trapped in a world of pain that the very thought of exiting the classroom sent us into a flat spin, and we talked about how we did it, because I had worked out a very simplistic financial blueprint for leaving the classroom and the pit pony, in essence, captured conversations I was having, 3456, times a week, and I would get on the phone to someone, or I'd drive across prior to life after teaching, sit down with someone with a pen and paper. And this is the essence of the video, because, you know what's interesting about it? In our group, Sarah, people say I've not watched it. I'm too frightened to watch this pony video because they don't know what the what it's about, and that the heart of it is a very, very simple blueprint. You go to the last three months of your bank statements, you work out what you need to spend and what you are wasting. You strip your finances right back to basics. You divide that financial income over your four weeks. Then you do five days of those weeks, and you work out what you need to generate a day to keep a roof over your head. And we do it really, really. We walk through Sue's bottom line. We walk through my bottom line, what we got rid of and how we managed to put ourselves in a financial situation where we go, I need to bring in 85 pounds a day, and we're aware it's dated and aged, and we're going to do a little bit of a pre record in front of the original pit pony video. But Sue talked about exiting the classroom and cleaning caravans for 85 quid a day, which kept the wolf from the door. So for me, it captured a resource for teachers to go and actually get a tangible plan about how to leave the classroom. So Sue talked about her mental health issues and then how she found the strength to do this so. So in that respect. It became, and still is, an incredible, powerful watch that people watch multiple times. Do you remember at our conference? Sarah, so we we have a conference that we do through Connexus, which is another world in which we live. We have a tutors conference. And just what did I do? At the start I spoke. I was speaking to a room of 200 people, approximately, yeah, what quest? What did I ask them to do?
Sarah Dunwood:Stand up if you've watched the pit pony video.
Sharon Cawley:And all about two American people who were in the room. The room got to its feet, and that was really powerful for me, because we look at the metrics, we look at the numbers on YouTube. Don't even know what it is at this point today, but it's, I think it's about 120,000 people have watched it, but to see 200 people stand up and one woman shouted, it's changed my life.
Sarah Dunwood:Exactly. I'm sat here with goosebumps now, because I'm the same as you when, when there's you know me. I love a good bit of statistical analysis. I'm a complete nerd. I do love it. So I do know how many times the videos be watched, and all the rest of it, but, but they're, they're abstract numbers, to see that many people stand up with with me, you and Sue at the front boom as well. Was a really emotional moment in and of itself. So that's just brought that back home. And I think as well, when we, when we were in that position, and it was only a couple of months ago that the overwhelm from that for Sue, and she will not mind me saying this, because 200 people saw this. It, it took the legs from underneath Sue. Because, actually, I that was about Sue's story and your financial blueprint. And I think for sue to actually see so many people go that massively impacted on me. Was a really emotional moment for her. But yeah, it was. It was a few moment
Sharon Cawley:because I think what we do is, and this is what we talk about this all the time. We talk about it on the 25th hour of the day that we're on the phone to each other, because we've got a really, really beautiful friendship and and I think that shines through with everything we do. We're so aligned in our values. We're so aligned with our purpose, me and they in the can be on the phone, right? And whilst we're on the phone, you can be texting me or replying to something I've done on WhatsApp, or we're on Messenger, on the lap chat, then we're dealing with a work email, and I think to we keep our feet on the ground, so we don't lean into the hundreds and 1000s and the metrics. And that's why I stay away from it, to be honest, because the minute it becomes real and we start to absorb the impact within us that it's having on people, it'll frighten us to death and we'll shrink so we actually like to quite like what we're doing today, me and you were just sat chatting, and in my head, I'm thinking, no one's going to listen to us too rambling on about a pony video. So yes, it started with Sue. It started with the financial blueprint and bringing those things together. But I think what else it did, it brought the word and the concept of the tree very much to the fore in teachers minds. But let's not lose sight of the wording that sits behind it, the pit pony. We are on a pit pony podcast, and what had happened the night before, I was chatting to sue on the phone, and I said to her, Do you know what you are? You classic Sue. You're a pit pony. You're an educational pit pony. It's from Cornwall, Sue Sharon, what's a pit pony? I'm like, oh, so So, so. But I think it's worth just pulling that out a bit really, what is a pit pony in terms of a teacher, a TA, a head teacher, going back to what a pit pony literally was. They were a worker, an animal born and spending most of its working life underground and aware of a world above it, and then, either through illness or retirement, is raised out of that pit into a world that completely stuns it. Well, take your average teacher. You. Where are they? By the age of four, they're in school. They're led by bells. They go to the toilet at break time. If they're looking as a kid, you can Oh yeah, I'm walking through the journey of a kid. They are in and out of classrooms. They've got textbooks, exercise books. They go to the dinner Hall. Now you imagine then doing your A levels. You have a break for about three or four years at university. You've still got a timetable, you've got tutors, you've got seminars, you've got lectures throughout your 1819, 2021, you're still in education, and then guess what you do? By the age of 22 you're alright, straight back in, and when you're straight back in, and that's what it's been all of your life, not just your working life, all of your life you do. You center everything around weekends, because you don't take a Thursday off with annual leave. You go on holidays at certain time in the year. You work two half terms. You know, one of the things I talk about, teachers do two forms of marking. They mark books and they mark time, yeah,
Sarah Dunwood:and I'm a mark in time. You've just hit on something, for me is you do live to the next holiday, almost as a marker in the sand of I can catch up at that point. I can catch up with my life admin. I shouldn't catch up with cleaning the house and and catching up on work that that there isn't time to do. And the the inevitable thing that happens the older you get as well, is those those half terms do feel like they get quicker, and then there's a moment where you go, I've counted my life in half terms for 20 odd years. Where's my life gone?
Sharon Cawley:Correct? And then when you do get those moments where you you have a break, because it's a half turn, every man and his dog's on half turn. So booking holidays become more expensive, even checking the kids to the local swimming baths, everybody's there. So you live in this world. And you use expressions like, well, it's a school night. There's a concert coming on. Well, it's on a Thursday. It's a school night. That's still the mentality we had when we were seven years old. Come on. It's a school night. You need an early night. And then what you know, and then what else happens is, if you find yourself as that educational pit pony in a toxic school environment, because some people will talk about it and say it suits me, we go full on at term time, and then I shut my laptop and we go caravanning for two weeks at Easter, perfect. But if you are then in a toxic environment as the educational pit pony, one of the biggest mental health pain points we have in life after teaching is Sunday nights. Oh, goodness,
Sarah Dunwood:yeah. Antiques, roadshow, music, anyone? Oh,
Sharon Cawley:trauma, trauma Last of the Summer wagging game over. You know, it's and we have a spike in our Facebook group on a Sunday night because they've managed to get through till Friday. They collapse on a Friday night, Doom, scrolling, wine, Netflix. They've got to then RAM everything into the Saturday to convince themselves they are having a life. Then by the time it come, you're right, it's the smell of Sunday dinner is it's Bisto. That's it. And it's interesting,
Sarah Dunwood:isn't it funny, how certain things evoke memories. I used to as an adult, go to my dad's every Sunday with my then husband and my young child, and we'd have Sunday dinner, but it was a hard rule in my head. We had to be away from dads by five o'clock, so I had time to get my child home, bathed, into bed, ready for school, so I could then work to and everything, working around everything in life, working around what have I got to do? What have I got to do for work?
Sharon Cawley:And I think that's where we become the pit pony, because I talk about this a great deal. To me, a job is on three levels. Fundamentally, human beings work to leverage a financial renumeration in order to buy stuff, food, rent, mortgages. That's fundamentally why we. Work. It is a financial transaction for services, labor, trade, goods. That's great. So therefore, if you are doing that, then proportionally, it should only be a certain amount of your time, because I'm going to just pluck some figures, because I know you as a nerd will go that percentage that you've just done. Sharon, doesn't work out. So just bear with me. If I'm working 40 hours a week, okay, but in a week there's way more hours than that, then those 40 hours should provide a standard of living for the rest of my time. But if the rest of my time is then consumed by that job, in my head, exactly what you said, cutting across what was technically your day off, you're still working. So that's the that's the baseline a job should provide you with a financial exchange in order to live. What's really great is if that job also provides a purpose and you enjoy it, and there is job satisfaction, and whilst you're doing it, it's great, but it doesn't take over your life, and you actually get what we used to call job satisfaction, superb. But then I think this is where, as pit ponies, we get it wrong. We don't see what we do in the classroom as a job. We've skipped those first two stages. It's our vocation. It's our vocation. It is. It's about the kids. It's and we attach all of this guilt to what we do. I can't possibly take time off because of the kids I am serving. I am on purpose. Well, number one, your teacher's salary a that much. Number two, you can't be doing those things if you're in a toxic workplace. This is what the top of that pyramid should look like. I have monetized my joy. Actually, I don't even feel like I have a job. I am paid to do what I love, and that's where we get it wrong. As teachers, we think we're being paid to do what we love, because that's how it started, but very quickly you think about yourself as an NQT can't believe they were paying me doing this. I'm getting, I'm getting a getting salary at the end of the month for this amazing wall display of dawn. And I'm picking the book I want to do with the kids.
Sarah Dunwood:And just context, mine and your NQT years were very different than what an ECT had to do we we went into the profession in in what was a really lovely time to go into the profession. So please don't think that we're sat here as two middle aged women going, Oh, that's great when you start teaching. Now we know it's not, but from our perspective, it really was. It was
Sharon Cawley:mid 90s that the Halcyon years, you rocked up at your head of department, said, right, watch fancy teaching. There's your stock cupboard. I didn't even know the word scheme of work, and never had a lesson observation. So you're absolutely right. We're talking about how that felt at the beginning. Well, that's almost what your trauma bonded to. Why doesn't it feel like that anymore? So, and I think it's important, that's the pit pony, that's the person who's known no different than this educational structure of their world. So with that in mind, that's why people, even though they know they're unhappy, they they know they've got a tree, they know they are totally financially dependent upon it as a lifestyle, are absolutely frightened to death at the thought of leaving because a true pit pony, and in education goals, I'm just a teacher. What else can I do?
Sarah Dunwood:Hate that word just, but it is true they
Sharon Cawley:do if I'm not a teacher, if I'm not a TA, what on earth can I do? And that's where, and that's the true pit pony. I mean, how am I going to cope if I've not got the six weeks holidays for child care? How? How am I going to cope if I and this is where the gas like themselves, I can finish at three o'clock in a day and pick my kids up. Yeah. But do you. Yeah, you might finish pick the kids up, and then what happens the minute they shut their eyes? You're back working again. We become trauma. Bonded to that. To what false circle, false narrative. And that's what I mean by that pit pony. Because when you do come above ground, you lose. Sometimes we stay in the known, even though it's painful, because the unknown is even more scary. It's like marriages. I'd rather stay in a bad marriage, because at least I know Better the devil you know kind of thing, and I think that's what the pit pony was about towards the end as well. Because when these people were resisting, I'm just a teacher, when they were having those conversations with me, it's all well and good. Sharon, 85 pound a day. But what can I do? Yeah, but I don't Yes, I could be an Amazon van driver, but what? And the minute we re we meet resistance with the pit ponies. This was, this was the moment I think where, and I think this is possibly the reason why 200 people stood up in this room, because I deliver a hard conceptual question, Do you have children, and I would say, on average, most of them do. Do you have kids? Yes, tell me what through the lens of your child's eyes they are seeing now they're seeing a mum who's saying, I'm going to have to take you from granddad's. Now, I know you're playing Lego with him, but we need to go. They're seeing a mum who is trying, this was my trick, flick four pages at once in the reading book to get to the end. When I'm reading with my kid. Mum, you skipping pages again? I know because, because of the anxiety, because I've got that much to do when I get downstairs. Do I really need a bath. Do you really need a bath tonight? So I say, what's the what's the lens that your kids are looking through? And nine times out of 10, they'll say, they see me cry. They see me drinking too much. They see me arguing with my husband, who's telling me to leave. Right? And then I say to them, what is the biggest role model for a child? They watch our behaviors. They very rarely listen to our words, but they copy our behaviors. What are you teaching your child about what a job looks like and feels like in your home? Because if you can't get out for 85 pound a day because you don't see your own self worth. Then if it's going to impact your kid later on in life, and at that point, that's the epiphany of the pit pony. What am I modeling for my kids with what I'm teaching them about staying in toxic environments. You're teaching your children that you stick at a bad relationship, you stick at a job where you are not happy, you stick in situations. And that's the liberating moment for I think the people who've watched it, I might not see my self worth, but I am not damaging my kids with my inability to leave the job. And some people, Sarah, they stay in the classroom when theirs isn't even the wage that keeps the roof above their heads. Yeah,
Sarah Dunwood:yeah. That blows my mind. Every time we have conversation with somebody, and we get to that, I that nub of it, and actually, that's now a starting point, isn't it? Because, because the number of times that you or I have had conversations, and it's and it's desperate, and then we get to that, that question of, are you the breadwinner? Is there another income in the house there, and there's a, oh, yeah, my my wife, my partner, my husband, they, they I don't need to work. Oh, my goodness, then what are you doing?
Sharon Cawley:These are, these are how my conversations start in An Evening with members in crisis, and I'm brutal because my time is so, so pressured, because there's so many I say, right? Okay, first question, no preamble. What's the critical incident that's made you post in the group? I really, really focus them in I was brought into my head teacher's office. Today, I have been suspended from school pending this, right? Perfect. I have gone to the doctors. I've not been able to get out of the car today because I can't stop crying, and I've been sent home, right? Let me start there, then within, and I pause them. Sometimes I have to do deep breathing exercises with them on the phone. And then my next question is this. Talk to me about your money, and the first question I tend to ask is, how much is your mortgage or your rent? Because I can get a ballpark then, and some of them are so low, 500 pound a month, right? Okay, I've got some skin in the game here. If you're only having to find 500 Are you on your own? Do you have a partner? And we start from there, because there are people who are real pit ponies who don't have to work or then they'll say, Sarah, I only work three days a week, right? So you're working three days a week, the two days you you have off, you're catching up on the three days that you need to do. And how much you bringing home, 1400 pound a month? Do you need that 1400 pound a month? No, and then. But I've got an exam class, but we can't get supply at my school. Bang. Have you got your own kids? Yes, and that's then how I break down that pit pony mentality. They come out. And I don't know if you found this with the countless people you've talked to who've been pit ponies, once they're in that field, I see them a bit like a foal, you know, that's just been born. His legs are shaky and wobbly, yeah? And they're a bit dazed and stunned, because they've lost their identity, yeah,
Sarah Dunwood:yeah, because that's that goes back to the the I'm just a teacher, um, actually isn't rooted in diminishing being a teacher. It's the it's all I know, and it's right at the core of my identity. What What am I? What am I? Who am I? If I'm not a teacher?
Sharon Cawley:Another thing that I get, and I speak to men and women in the 40s, and I know it would have happened to me. They're too frightened to tell their parents, yeah, because they go back to that, those halcyon days that we talked about, where their parents were going. They've got a job for life. How was Sue's a teacher? Wow, because the parents of pit ponies in the main females, over 40, men, over 50. They're the ones who are getting the bullseye on the back. But we'll talk about that another day. Their parents came from a generation where teachers were in the same vein as solicitors and doctors, so the pride they've got attached to the with their parents is a trauma bond as well. So do you know what I always say? This is what you need to say to your mum and dad. Tell them you are having a sabbatical for a year, because nobody knows what a sabbatical is, and it sounds really good. Tell them you are going on sabbatical for a year, and you are tinkering around the edges of consultancy that will shut your parents up and go, Oh, that's genius. Don't worry, Mum, I'm leaving teaching. I'm not leaving teaching. I'm having a sabbatical for a year, and I am going to become an educational consultant, then go get a job in Marks and Spencers, because that's all your parents need to hear. So I now know I'm responsible for many teachers in the profession lying to their elderly parents. So I'll take that one for the team.
Sarah Dunwood:I mean, it's right, it's the cycle, it's the circle of life that you lie to them when you're a teenager, but why not when you're a bit older?
Sharon Cawley:Oh, my God. But I know my dad would have been absolutely he could have seen me on my knees. Now my dad wasn't with me when, when I left and I hemorrhaged out, I absolutely hemorrhaged out. He would have gaslit me through love. Sharon, it's your pension. It would have been my own physical limiting self beliefs that would have kept me in that classroom, because there is no greater image or metaphor or symbol than the pit pony because they were bloody loyal workers down the mine, correct, relentless, load me back up again with more coal and send me down that track. Because even when they were raised above into their fields, they still followed the same track and pit pony fields, particularly where I was brought up, they had circles in them, because that was what the pit pony still did. So you can't have a better metaphor to hang it on, because it works on so many levels. You cannot have a better and more powerful opening story from Sue Bowie that resonates on so so many levels. Sadly, then you have the basic go to your last three months with the bank statements and get rid of bloody sky sport and your gym membership
Sarah Dunwood:and your daily coffee at Starbucks
Sharon Cawley:Your takeaways, because you know what you'll be eating fresh and making casseroles and saving a fortune, and then you have some of the mindset stuff at the end, where we talk about the role model you're being for your child. We talk about how you can create your own CPD. With mindset, you can start reading great books like the law of attraction, watching TED Talks meditation, how you can create a healing plan for yourself outside of the classroom. So I think what we captured that day despite the tech you, to be fair, Sarah, I have been on a zoom with you where you were struck by the lightning. I'm like, Well, you weren't, you weren't. Ty
Sarah Dunwood:what? Yeah, it did. It art. Well, my phone, literally, our phone, caught fire. Um, the computer was fried. I have the worst look, genuinely with tech before,
Sharon Cawley:oh my God, and I'm sucked up as you I'm zooming this bolt of lightning goes behind you. And even before, we've started recording the pit pony podcast episodes, and they are going to be fantastic, because what we've now done is we've expand we've expanded it into a franchise of the pit pony sequels. We've got everyday pit ponies coming on talking about their moments when they're raised above ground, the strategies they use to thrive. They're fantastic. I mean, you know, the quality of the guests that we've got lined up, it's amazing. But that video, to me, is one of the most powerful things you can sit down and watch. If you are feeling really low, I've had people send me messages where they've screenshot. They're watching it on the big screen in the house, and I'm original.
Sarah Dunwood:No, I yeah, my hair wasn't even brushed. I don't know, mate I've lost in the pit of shame for Howie and the original video. Oh,
Sharon Cawley:my God, I'm wearing glasses, and I've got a pair of sunglasses on my head. I've got all the glasses going on. But what we've done is going back to our tech issues. We've made absolutely sure we've belt and braced everything this time, rather than doing, shall we we still do that thing? Don't we go? No one's going to listen to this anyway. So what does it matter? What does it matter? What does it matter? But I think just bringing it to a close now, it's, I think this has been an important episode to contextualize that pit pony video, which has aged relatively well. The figures probably still don't work out. And
Sarah Dunwood:there's principles, isn't it? Is how you, how you get to get to your bottom line, and then fundamentally, is, is right at the heart of that, because without being able to do that, and it's, it's one of those things where it feels really obvious when you talk about it. Oh, yeah, that makes complete sense. But unless, unless it's in your head to do that, and we will talk about this in a in a different episode, what I did when I came out of teaching, because I'd done that unless it's for sometimes it's so blindingly obvious that you don't see it. And that was it for me with the pit pony video. It was the right do this, this and this, because when you get down to that daily rate and you go, what,
Sharon Cawley:it's less than 100 quid that I need to take home, right? Well, I can go and do X, Y and Z for that, yeah. And people, people then have to do a mindset shift where they go. I can't. I need three grand. So when anybody ever says that to me, I sit and I go, right, okay, let's have a look where that comes from. And sometimes I was, I was doing one the other the other night on the phone, and I was saying, Well, my children's school, my my meals for my children at school, it's quite a lot. Said, Well, how much does it come to these school meals? Because that was a sticking point. For some reason, she'd fixated on school meals. And I think it's more an indication of people's mental state, to be honest, than clinging
Sarah Dunwood:on and their time and that, yeah, clinging on.
Sharon Cawley:And then when I actually got to the real nub of it, the kid takes pack lunches and occasionally has a school dinner. Okay? Yeah, because the false gaslighting that we do, yeah, and there's so many different ways, and the three grand I can, I can pull that down quite, quite easily, because your kids ballet lessons or your holiday or whatever it is that you are wasting that money on what we always say about the pit pony video is it is a lifeboat. It is not forever. You will build back up. There are so many things you can be doing. You can be tutoring, you can be marking. You can be working in a shop. You can have a part time job in the civil service. You do whatever you need to do to pull in that bottom line, and I'm telling you now, it flips it for me, because when an employer sits in front of you and says, What did you used to do? And you shrug your shoulders in shame and say, I was a teacher, they will snatch your hand off for the work for your work ethic alone, your 80 hour weeks that you take as normal. So yes, I think the pit pony as a concept has stood the test of time and worked really well. I think the pit pony podcasts are going to provide the inspiration and the blueprints of people's experiences that will become so, so powerful for people who are in that pit, see how it works on every level. That's the English teacher in me.
Sarah Dunwood:I've been thinking that all the way along, yeah, just can't help yourself.
Sharon Cawley:Can't help myself. I'm getting it. I'm getting extra marks for extending that metaphor right the way through sustaining it along the way. It's brilliant. So thank you. Thanks for spending some time talking about this, Sarah, because it really nearly didn't happen because of you. Yeah, Bless me, Father, I have sinned. So thank you to our listeners for indulging us again, talking about the pit pony and where it's all come from. And we just hope what's provided for you in the pit pony podcast will be as powerful. And if you subscribe to whatever channel you are listening to, you will get them out weekly. We're talking to real live pit ponies, the range of accents. Oh my god, it's going to be a cacophony of accents our podcast. It really is. It's not just going to be our northern grinding vowels. So you're going to get, you're going to get some southerners and some jardiers and some Scottish people and some posh we've got them all. Got them all. So, so that what that will be the antidote to our accent. So thank you for listening to this episode, a special episode, and I think, one that was needed to contextualize a very powerful, powerful piece of video that has changed so many people's lives, and from both of Sarah and I, I hope you were one of them. Thank you, as always, for listening to our pitpony podcast. On behalf of Sarah, our guests and all involved with the production, we're so grateful for your support. Please subscribe to our channels, follow us on social media, and we look forward to seeing you next time when we will have another inspirational story from a fellow pit pony who has exited the classroom and thrive. You
