005 - Pit Pony Sarah Dunwood: From Teacher to COO

In this episode, we flip the script as Sharon interviews Sarah about her own pit pony journey! Sarah takes us back to her 24-year teaching career, all the ‘heads’ she’s held (literally all of them, except her own sometimes), and what it felt like when that life came to a sudden, brutal stop. We dive into the messy aftermath, from grappling with the financial fallout to Sarah’s "Netflix, crisps, and sofa phase." And yes, her son had to adult her for a bit. Spoiler: it involves writing lists and a lot of tea.

We also get into the highs and lows of finding herself on the other side of the classroom and landing the role of Chief Operations Officer at Conexus Tuition (spoiler: Sharon might’ve had something to do with that). Tune in to hear about Sarah’s surprising path from the world of teaching to business, and how she discovered a huge part of herself along the way, including her realization of being neurodivergent.

Full of laughter, deep dives into identity, and a few emotional moments, this episode is a celebration of Sarah’s resilience, the power of saying ‘no,’ and how sometimes life’s biggest curveballs can lead to the best opportunities. Grab a cuppa and join us for a heartwarming chat!

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Edited with finesse by our Podcast Super Producer, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

Transcript

Sharon Cawley: 0:00

aSharon, hello and welcome to the pit pony podcast with myself, Sharon Cawley

Sarah Dunwood: 0:11

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,

Sharon Cawley: 0:26

Hello listeners, well, this is a little bit of a special episode for me, because I get to sit here and hold space with my dear, dear friend, Sarah dunwood, who's going to share with us today her pit pony journey in a very, very special episode. So let me begin by introducing Sarah dunwood, 24 years a teacher. Started in 1995 as a business studies teacher who, throughout her career, held the role of head of year, head of department, head of house, assistant head, SENCO deputy, all the heads, apart from her head, really worked through the ranks. She describes herself as guided into teaching. She was not one of those who was born to teach in that respect. But what she will admit quite freely is once she did get into the gang, she was in it, and in her own words, all in loved it. Absolutely loved it. The schools she worked at were in challenging circumstances with those, those rough diamonds of kids who and we know them, if you've been there, they can give you such nightmares. But when Ofsted are in. They prepared to go toe to toe with the Ofsted inspector if they're going to have a go at the teacher that they have given grief to. So she always worked in what I like to call the rufty Tufty schools, and she was in for life exit strategy was her pension. Never, ever, did she consider leaving that job that was her heart and her soul that she made sacrifices for and was pretty damn good at, but in 2019 that ended that career ended with a very, very brutal full stop. So you sit in front of me today, my friend. What's your job?

Sarah Dunwood: 2:27

I'm Chief Operations Officer at Connexus tuition.

Sharon Cawley: 2:32

Hey, we'll get into that in a bit. What's your boss like?

Unknown: 2:35

Yeah, she's

Sharon Cawley: 2:36

all right, okay, yep, noted. So what we do now, Sarah is I like to ask our guests to almost change the structure of stories. And what I do with our guests under normal circumstances is I ask them to talk about the circumstances in which they left the classroom. And for a variety of reasons. We are unable to do that with you as a guest. So we will draw our own conclusions. We will pause that particular period of your life. So where I want to start with you is pit pony, what's happened? Has happened, and I want you to take me back to the day, the time you were raised from underground. Flung from underground, you landed in that field, and you were dazed and you were stunned, and you started your life as a true pit pony on the other side of the classroom. So thank you, Sarah, in the first instance, for giving this time. But can you take us back to the aftermath of when you left the classroom? Yeah, I

Sarah Dunwood: 3:49

think it's important with the aftermath to go almost to the to the the split second of when that aftermath started. And for me, it's it was the minute I walked out of the front doors of the skull. Because it was that kind of I walked out the building and a variety of things started happening in my head. A 20 minute drive home in which I'd inadvertently done what we talk about in the pit pony. I done my bottom line mentally in the drive home, trying to figure out how on earth, because I believed that I needed that that salary, which at that point in time, was a hefty chunk. It was over three, 3000 quid a month coming into the house. I was the breadwinner. I had a son who was just about to start university, and, of course, his student loan and all of that sort of stuff was based on my salary at that point in time. So I had a lot of things to think about, but essentially, by the time I got home, because fope. Focusing on that stopped me focusing on the other reality of what was happening, focusing on right how much do I need to earn to keep a roof over our heads? Was something very practical that I could focus on and allowed me to reassure myself that actually, if I couldn't find a comparable job quickly, straight away, that we'd be okay anyway to figure it out. So I think that was important. But what that did was it kind of gave me a false a false narrative for a little bit because, because I didn't immediately focus on what had actually happened and what the real consequences of that were going to be.

Sharon Cawley: 5:51

I think it sounds like you're in shock, yeah, yeah. And

Sarah Dunwood: 5:54

shock for me is, wait, let me do something with numbers that will distract me. So that's fundamentally what happened. So, yeah, I was in shock, and and people who who know us and have seen me, and you chat in different contexts, will know parts of the story that I didn't go home. I went to my local coffee Emporium, had a conversation with somebody who was there, who I knew at the time, and they kind of looked very surprised. What are you doing here at 11 o'clock in the morning? And the words that fell out of my mouth were, I think I've just walked out of my job, and about 20 minutes later, my son appeared. He was, was, he was either, he was either at the back end of 18 or just about to turn 19, and basically adulted me in for about 20 minutes. What's happened? Tell me what's happened. This is what you're gonna do. You're gonna go home, you're gonna write it all down. You're going to get on the phone to your union, and I will sit with you, and if you can't tell them, I will tell them what you've written down. So I mean that even now, even no but it still blokes mind and and that afternoon actually is, it's hazy, but it's clear I know what I did. I spoke to, I got through to my union guy very quickly, very responsive. I was super well supported by him through that, that aftermath period, but also once, once the adrenaline had gone, of of everything that had happened and the conversation that practically needed to take place, and I was sat alone. I found myself plunged and I do mean, it was brutal. My mind flipped to, I don't want to be here. I don't believe that I should be here, and actually, my husband and my child would be financially better off if I wasn't here right now. Wow.

Sharon Cawley: 8:16

So very quick, because a lot of people talk about they go through like a zombie period. Things are happening to them and around them. They're functioning, but they're not present and engaged, but once you did what you needed to do, I think the word plunge goes really sums that up. So within a matter of days, was this hours? That was hours, this is in the same period. So you then, is that when you sat, you must have just sat on your T at that point, or did you go to bed? What? What was it?

Sarah Dunwood: 8:56

My son was at home and, and knew, yeah. I mean, I was, I was a I was a zombie. And you and I know that there is a photo me that I took in that moment, and it's probably the illest I have ever looked. And that is saying some something for somebody who suffered with a chronic illness, for for and still does. But I was dead behind the eyes, is the only way I can describe it when I look at that picture, and my son, I think, recognized that and told me to ring the doctors. And I rang the doctors, got an appointment for the next morning, and went in and and had a complete breakdown with my doctor. They held space for me again. They were amazing. And categorically, she was really blunt about it. You are not going back there. I'm signing you off. Um, she put me on some pretty heavy. Duty antidepressants, and that would be for me. I did then have a zombie phase. I had about six to eight weeks where medication was settling in. I referred to it flippantly, but it's only to mask the reality is my Netflix, Netflix, crisps and sofa phase, but that's fundamentally was, was my life for about six to eight weeks. I know that I did go out because my doctor said to me, you need to go out. You need to go and walk, go to places that that that mean something to you. So I know because I've got photographs that I went to the Liverpool Anglican cathedral, and that I went to my favorite beach, and that I did those things, but I wasn't present. I was there, but I wasn't present. And actually, if it wasn't for that photographic evidence of of that period of time, I genuinely couldn't tell you, aside from the very practical kind of stuff about exiting the skull, I couldn't tell you what happened in that six weeks. Very,

Sharon Cawley: 11:13

very, very common. It's very common for people who find that they've they've hemorrhaged. It almost becomes like this, no man's land where they they are just there in body, but your mental health snapped,

Sarah Dunwood: 11:30

yeah, and physical symptoms with that as well. I mean, palpitations, oh my god, if you've never had heart palpitations, they are terrifying. Felt like it was coming out of my mouth, my heart at times, and and insomnia and, and I know, essentially became that kind of teenage nocturnal creature that that happens in the summer holidays, where it was four o'clock in the morning before I actually just fell asleep, exhausted and then not functioning during the day and essentially just I was broken

Sharon Cawley: 12:09

because we've talked previously about a job being something that we use to leverage a financial re enumeration in order to keep a roof over our head. But it wasn't your job. It was your life. It was your identity. It had been something that you probably in your sleep, knew every single room in that building, every person, every child, and the grief and the loss and the shock and it's a job and people, it's like having a sudden death within the family, because what you've described is exactly that a period of grief and shock and horror, and it's a job, and people don't realize the impact that that has on an individual.

Sarah Dunwood: 12:58

It's it was the thing for me that compounded it is that that is sat in the midst of that grief was other people's grief was friends that I couldn't talk to, but also family. And going back to your to your introduction about I was very much guided into teaching. I actually wanted to be when I was a teenager. Was either a forensic scientist or a lawyer. The Forensic Scientist went out the window when I realized actually that it might involve blood stuff that I don't make blood. Yeah. So that went out the window, and law went out of the window fundamentally, because I discovered boys in the sixth form and I didn't apply myself. Not wrong with that. No, I know I didn't do well in my A levels. And if that is the understatement of the century, there were, there were a spectacular catastrophe. But I was, I was guided into, I did four years at uni, but I did two years on a on a business and finance high National Diploma to kind of get me in. And then I did a shortened two year Bachelor of Education. But it was my stepdad who who guided me that way, because he was a lecturer, and, and all of that sort of stuff, and, and there was a sense of pride within within both of my sets of parents, my mom and my stepdad, my dad and my stepmom, of who I was as a teacher. And that kind of projected pride and the the unpicking of, how do I tell my dad that that this isn't this is not me anymore, and the circumstances and how do I tell my mom, because both very different creatures. And both of them sat on opposite sides of my shoulders, going, Do this, do that. That actually made it all the more complex. And I don't think that's unusual. I don't think that's specific to me. I suspect a lot of our pit ponies, actually, it's not just about them in that moment, about everybody else that sits around them. So I think unpicking some of that for me at that point in time, I just kind of had to roll with it, even though it was, it was deeply painful, and I think it will probably come on to this. I had to do a lot of unpicking a little bit later on down the line to resolve my own guilt from that, that immediate aftermath, yeah, this

Sharon Cawley: 15:49

the shame of letting people down, and then also interspersed with anger, because this was thrust upon you and I. We did not choose to leave. We didn't plan an exit. We didn't say, well, we'll work the bottom line out, and then we'll put in a resignation equally have the same amount of impact, but when it's not been your choice, yeah, there's something that sits around that as well. Now, I suppose we could argue we did have choices in different ways, but we ways, but we didn't. We all know positions that we get ourselves into when the writing's on the wall, and that happens to a lot of pit ponies. This isn't what I want. Now, if you've decided to come out of the classroom and you've got a plan, and it's going to be the best thing, but you then have to fight against the grief of I don't want this. So how am I going to find it within myself to stand up and thrive when it's not it's like a woman who can't get over a divorce because her husband's left her he's behaved appallingly, but she still wants to be married. So it's very different than to have the glow up and to go out and get yourself on Tinder, because fundamentally, what you want is still available to you. And it took it's been taken away from you, so

Sarah Dunwood: 17:08

it's and I think maybe for people with different personalities, I don't know whether this is peculiar to me, but my life was very controlled in terms of, and it was to do with living by bells, being there at a certain time, half terms this. But there was a control and a degree of I knew what was happening when, and as much as it might have been sucking the life out of me in terms of the amount of hours and all of that that sat around it. Everything was known. Everything was part of a plan, and that plan was a retirement at 55 however many years in the pension camper van, all the rest of it, when everything was measured and controlled, and suddenly I was in a position where, where, the where, the only way I can describe it is it felt like the world was spiraling around me, and I had no control. I couldn't I couldn't put the brakes on everything that was going on around me. So to go from and you know me, you know me and my daily work, and you also know the journey that I've also come on in the last years that now makes complete sense to me. Know what I know about myself now I actually was thrown into a meltdown that lasted for a protracted period of time.

Sharon Cawley: 18:45

How long would you say you sat in that position for? Because that was the aftermath. How long did that sedentary, for want of a better expression, how long did that sit with you?

Sarah Dunwood: 19:00

It was it. It was about eight to 10 weeks we broke it. And I say we my my husband and my family, we broke it by decamping me to my parents in Spain. And I was so there was a complete right out, let's go, let's go and do this for a few days and and that actually, that did break it, and that also came at the time where there was a, a definite drawing of a line on what had been happening, And it was all signed off, if you like. Um, so there was a hard stop, a change of scenery and and in that moment, I'd started, or in that in that period, I'd started tinkering around the edges of what I thought I was going to do next,

Sharon Cawley: 19:59

so that. That's That's great, and thanks for sharing the aftermath, Sarah, because I think, I think it's really important, because again, we go back to life after teaching just somebody listening to that, and you're talking about the physical response, the emotional response. It's normal. It is normal for somebody to to to react in that way when something like that happens, because if we're not careful what's happened in that aftermath is exactly what you've alluded to. We have considered ourselves strong. We can do an 80 hour. We can raise kid and keep a house. Because we're hard. We work hard. We're strong. We've got resilience. We've got strength to then have to be talking about panic attacks and not sleeping and becoming nocturnal. The word that we then say to ourselves is we're weak. Yeah, we I'm I'm better than this. I'm stronger than this. Well, actually, know what you are is absolutely normal and it's okay to be reacting in that way, because the pain comes when you're fighting with yourself in that rather than just leaning into it and going, it's okay that I'm feeling this way. But

Sarah Dunwood: 21:14

it but I also think, and it's the benefit of hindsight, isn't it? Um, and, and for both of us, hindsight as well, compounded by what we know from our conversations with other people reflecting back that was a relatively short period of time whilst in it, there was there was no concept of, when is this going to stop hurting. When am I going to stop feeling like this? I

Sharon Cawley: 21:44

don't know how much longer I can keep this together for correct

Sarah Dunwood: 21:48

and it's the unknown of it and and for me, this is what's important about, about everybody's pit pony stories, is actually part of part of that is for anybody who's going through it, actually, please know and trust that there is an end to it, and there is something beyond it and and actually, that doesn't help in terms of sitting in it, but it does help a little bit if you know that there is an end point

Sharon Cawley: 22:23

correct? If I could have walked through the door and I would have been a complete stranger at that point, so it would be slightly weird and just sat there and went, you're sat on the city looking like you look, having the bleak, very bleak thoughts that you were having at the time, because you've shared that with me privately. If I could have walked in and gone, okay, Sarah, in 10 weeks, what needs to be done is going to be done, and you're going to be in Spain, and within a couple of years, this is going to happen, and then by the third year this is going to happen, you would have gone, okay, I'll give you, I'll give you eight weeks of this. That's fine. You're absolutely right. Because we go back to we've chunked our lives into half terms. We measure time all the time, and then all of a sudden, there is no end game. There is no break. And we don't know when the end. We know it's going to be all right in the end, but what we're desperate for, well, when is that end? Because I've not got the strength to do this anymore, so, so that was the aftermath. Now we go back to the fight back the the period in your life where you've splattered in this field now you've you're almost stood up, you're not thriving, you don't know where you are. I know there was the certain key things that happened. And I think one of the things that was a really important thing that happened to you was your brother came into play. Your brother came in and he grabbed you by the collar, and he went, right, let's make a list, because you love a list. Sarah, talk me through what your brother did with you, which I think was, was something that was you've always referred back to and helped you. It was a great crutch in the first instance. What did your brother do? So going

Sarah Dunwood: 24:22

back to chunks of time every half term I'm down at my my brother's with his with his family, my my nephews and his wife, and I had this strange moment of going in term time, obviously, because I'm I could, but being like He's my younger brother, but at times, is very much behaves like he's my older

Sharon Cawley: 24:50

brother. Oh, siblings pass the baton, don't they? Of who's in charge? Yeah.

Sarah Dunwood: 24:54

Oh yeah. Cycle round and and it. Chris. He will not mind me mentioning his name, and very much, kind of over, over two or three days with quite a lot of whiskey consumed, to be fair, of an evening, kind of guided me through the you don't need to be a teacher. He was in the world of business. He was a business analyst, um, and what he one of the things he did with me was sat me down and said, right, you tell me what you do as a teacher, as a deputy head, all of the things, all of the skills that you've got, and I will translate them into what they mean in the world of business, how they could be applied, what they're referred to, what the different lingo, jargon, so that you can start applying for jobs that are not in a context that you're familiar with. And that was that was massively helpful. Because I think for me, I was very entrenched in that, and we hear it all of the time, and we reframe it for other people, but I was in the I'm just a teacher.

Sharon Cawley: 26:13

I think what he did very cleverly, whether it whether he meant to or not, on a very practical level, yes, that would help, but on a very different level. He made a list of your value. He made a list of your value irrespective of a title. This is what you can do, and you probably didn't realize it at the time, but looking at that probably shifted you into thinking I am a commodity, probably only very, very minuscule in where you were at the moment because of how low you were, but he created with, you know, your worth, and we talk about that a great deal, and all of a sudden you've Got a list of something of value and worth outside of teaching. Now I should imagine you were fighting against some of that because I still want to be a teacher, and you're taking it away from me and and now I've got to see how this would work in the world of the corporate Well, I don't want to be in the world. So how did you make peace with the fact that you'd left and you were going to now start to engage in a life where you're not a teacher. Because when I first met you, and I'm not going to jump ahead in the story, you did, you were somebody who couldn't even look at a handout, who didn't even want to see a kid in school uniform. So how did you move from accepting that you weren't going to be a teacher, to come into terms with the fact that your your work was going to be non educational. The iron is not missing me there was going to be non educational.

Sarah Dunwood: 27:53

I actually, well, I didn't come to terms with it until a bit later. Um, I'd made a very kind of immediate is that I'd made a decision I was not having anything to do with education ever again. I was done. Yeah, I fell out with it. Didn't I fell out with it and and actually, again, I've done the work in that moment I fell out with a school and a system that I that I had loved and and worked with, and then had to unpick that a little bit later on. But categorically, that was a no, I've been burned. I've been cheated on. Yeah, it's

Sharon Cawley: 28:43

I'm not going back into a relationship,

Sarah Dunwood: 28:46

absolutely so. So actually, in some respects, that was quite easy. The floundering had come about with that's okay. You've made that decision now,

Sharon Cawley: 28:58

and what the bloody hell are you going to

Sarah Dunwood: 29:00

do, absolutely so. So, yeah, that wasn't actually that difficult in some respects. And the other thing, the other thing that we talked about, is that I'd spent, I'd spent a number of years doing some photography on the side. I'd shot about 20 weddings at that point. And I had been on BBC sky at night for some of my Astro photography. I was I was now a good photographer, and actually he said to me, because I had occasionally tinkered around the idea, and I can track back on Facebook, memories of kind of 2013 2014 thinking about maybe going into business and maybe giving up teaching, but the false gods very much, kept me there. And he said to me, Well, you've got nothing to lose at this point. What? Not make a go of that, even if it's just for now, why not make a go of that and that? Actually, I did a lot of work on that in terms of getting, getting myself officially set out, set up and outward facing in that regard.

Sharon Cawley: 30:19

So and can I just interrupt you at this point, Sarah, because I'm I'm acutely aware that this is 2019 so okay, if you're talking about all of this in 2019 I'm hoping our listeners are about to make the great leap between what you're doing in 2019 to prepare for your launch in 2020 so what were you doing in 2019

Sarah Dunwood: 30:45

a ton of promotion? I'd I'd procured contracts. I'd booked in, I won't swear but a lot of weddings for 2020 a ton

Sharon Cawley: 30:58

of a ton of them for 2020 Sarah for 2020 for weddings. Brilliant. I

Sarah Dunwood: 31:05

always sat in this lovely little bubble of great I've got bookings. I can see that my bottom line actually going to be covered. I'd won a Business Award. Theo pafitus Does something called SBS, small business. Sunday, I'd, I'd, I'd won that in kind of, I don't know, September, October, time. I mean, what could go wrong? Sarah, what could possibly go absolutely, what could possibly go wrong? Fast Forward, march 2020 when all of the deposits that had been paid for those multiple bookings suddenly had to go back out of my bank account to people correct,

Sharon Cawley: 31:52

because we had a global pandemic and the world was shut down. But at the same time, in your stepping into the world of business, because you did. You did step in, albeit tentatively, what you did, and I think it's something that's that's really important for teachers who are coming out of the classroom, who don't want to go back into teaching, but they're setting up their own business. You understood the power of networking. And not everybody knows what networking is in the business world. Okay, so in that aftermath, where you live in Warrington, there's a huge business park, and they were holding a networking event. And for those of you who don't know what a networking event is, it is hosted by networking communities. It's, it's hosted by venues and people in the world of business with different businesses, web designers, tuition businesses, any business, goals and goals and meets and networks with similar minded people. They tend to have a speaker. You pay for tea and coffee, and then you make contacts. So you'd worked out the power of networking, and there was a networking event at Birchwood business park. What happened? Sarah, well, well, and, and you,

Sarah Dunwood: 33:17

I'm going to hand this over to you in a second, because you tell this

Sharon Cawley: 33:21

story way better than I. I tell all stories better, Sarah, well, and that's because

Sarah Dunwood: 33:27

you're an English teacher and a variety of other reasons. But I'd, interestingly, the reason I'd, I'd gone to that network meeting was not necessarily because I understood the power of networking. There was a little bit of morbid curiosity, because the person who was the key speaker in that networking meeting was somebody that I'd worked with 20 years ago. Do not say their name, not God. And, and I just out of just sheer like, oh, I A I'd like to go, why notary? Why not wonder if he remembers Me? Blah, blah, blah. There was just a bit of that. And, and and I have no real, no real idea about what to expect, but I think it's important at this point in time to go, at that point in time, you and I were not in each other's worlds. Nope, no. So I'd gone into this place massively overwhelmed again for reasons that have since become apparent and and you walk in

Sharon Cawley: 34:47

so as you're entering the building, Rutherford House, what is going on in our dual narrative now listeners, is in another section of Rutherford House. I have a head office, Connexus tuition. Head offices at Rutherford House, and they host monthly network meetings, and it's literally a walk down the corridor for me. And they do free tea and coffee, normally a really good meal afterwards. And obviously you don't have to pay for it if you are a tenant in the building. So I'm off. I am making my way down the east at this point to this networking meeting, and it's open networking for the first, say, 20 minutes. So you go around with your tea and coffee. You go, Hi, how are you? What's your name? So I done this a couple of times, and then I I spot probably what is the most hostile looking figure imaginable in what's supposed to be a social networking event whose body language was closed. I think you might have even had a beanie pull down on your head. I did it.

Sarah Dunwood: 35:56

I had I had a beanie, I had a scarf wrap around my neck to kind of cover up to my chin, and I was using a mug of tea as as my shield. Yeah,

Sharon Cawley: 36:08

you'd got your Doc Martens on. You'd got a face like a slapped ass. And I'm like, okay, as she has, she got this memo, all right, she read the subtext here. So I go over and go, Hello. I'm Sharon. I have a tuition business in the building. Hello. Okay, there's a bit more. And, okay, this is going to be tough. It was like speed dating with somebody who doesn't want to be there. And my name is Sarah. I'm a photographer. Okay, okay. And then I can't quite remember the conversation that we had, but we started chit chatting. And I think you did say, did you say at that point you'd been a teacher? Yeah, yes. So, oh, oh, really, I've got, I've got a tuition business. And we chit chatted. And then there's a photograph of us somewhere. We're actually not even sat next to each other, because as I walk down the corridor and I sit down, you choose not to even sit with me, despite the fact that we've obviously got something in common, I've been really nice and open. I sit down. You sit three rows in front. I'm like, okay, mean girl, and I think afterwards, we start to talk, don't we about about the photography, and I invite you to come and take some headshots of our franchisees. But it's hard work. It's hard work getting stuff out of you, but slowly but surely, you start to come across to Rutherford House. Don't you have a coffee and just sort of like sit in an environment, bizarrely, because all of my head office team have always been ex teachers, I think you find some familiarity, then in a world with people who have shared the same carpet space as you metaphorically and our existing out side of teaching now this is coming up. And your business. You were designing your own website, your marketing material, your branding, you were working freelance for other agencies, doing portrait photography. So it was clear, and I'm running a face to face tuition business, so it's great, as we're entering into 2020, and then slowly but surely, you do some work for us and and you're taking the photographs and the ice cap melts, and we start to have a laugh. We start to have some fun. You do pop up stalls at my daughter's school and oh my Christ, you've forgotten about that. That's one been banished to the trauma bin of things I do not want to recall in my life, bring Father Christmas hats on kids heads. So you go through that, but slowly, I don't think you can help yourself. You are guided again and brought back in to the world of education, because one day, I think we were desperate for a tutor, desperate for a tutor. And I said, I know your subject was business studies, but what else can you teach? And you said, Well, I've

Sarah Dunwood: 39:38

done English for five years, I've done math, I've done science, done a bit of geography, summary, bit of history.

Sharon Cawley: 39:48

What do you need? All of them, all of the subjects. So dead interestingly, and I think this is this is important to go back to, because we don't talk about. About this a lot. You came and tutored alongside me in Lim Baptist church just prior to lockdown, face to face, and you're doing English. We'd met, we'd planned, we knew exactly what you were doing, and you absolutely know your stuff where English is concerned. There's no two ways about it, but going in, standing in front of children again, I walked through the double doors at Lynn Baptist Church with you, and I visibly saw the color drain from you before that session started. What was going on there.

Sarah Dunwood: 40:41

I couldn't tell you, probably a bit of internal kicking myself that I'd put a boundary in never having anything to do with education, not gonna, not gonna do this. Oh, what so you are, because actually it's gonna bring in a bit of money. So there were, there was probably a bit of that. And I think fundamentally, it was trauma, because what I what was going through my head was, what if I mess it up? What if, actually, what happened was true when I really am a rubbish teacher, and what happens if I do it in front of these other tutors who are in this room, who are clearly great, and this woman who's put her faith in me, who's also becoming my really good friend, what happens if I mess it

Sharon Cawley: 41:36

up? Because then what I did on that particular day, I moved my group so you were in my eyeline. You're magical. Those kids at Lim Baptist Church were going. They were, even though it's a different socioeconomic background, they were you ruffty Tufty diamonds who'd already done six hours that day at school. They were the rugby lads. They were whatever. They were the weird and the wacky. And you had a year eight group, and you were absolutely just as soon as they sat down, spotlights Come on, tits and teeth, you were right back in it and it literally, you did not miss a beat. But then afterwards, whilst you were in the moment and in the flow. It's like driving. Put the key in the ignition off. We were going. The kids were hanging off. You're only teaching spag. You were literally teaching the importance of a semi colon on 340 minute sessions. And they were laughing, and they were rocking and rolling, and then you fell apart again as we left. Yeah,

Sarah Dunwood: 42:39

and it's interesting in terms of timing with that, because that was that was in the January, and that first week where I did that tuition, I also knew I wasn't going to be there the following week, and because this leads into another pivotal moment, because I was going to be away for three days at this big photography conference. So I think in my head, it kind of compartmentalized it a little bit, as is almost this is like a tester, let me let me see. But I think the it's that adrenaline rush of and and I used to get it like it never went away in teaching the adrenaline rush of a great lesson with kids, no matter what it was and and what whatever it got.

Sharon Cawley: 43:33

Oh, it's, it's, it's educational crack, and

Sarah Dunwood: 43:37

it is absolutely so I think what had happened was, was I'd, I'd gone up, because you're absolutely right. It was like, flick of a switch on, I'm in teacher mode or tutor mode, um, and then I think they that it was like the switch was immediately switched off at the end of it. And, and it's the, it's the almost again, the plunge again from there to, oh my god, I did that. And then the overthink of, oh my god. Was it alright? What does Shiva think about it? She being you, obviously, and, and the, just the I had more questions than answers, and none of those questions were relevant questions, yes, um, but they were the questions that circumstance had had caused me to start asking about myself in every in every particular situation. And

Sharon Cawley: 44:36

I do want, I do want to touch on what you did in terms of your own mental health in another swim lane. At the moment, I really want to stick with how you you thrived in the world of work with your business. Now, obviously we've alluded to the fact that it all went to hell in a handcart by the by March. Um, for both of us, for both of us, because what. Whilst you you were having to return deposits, you fell through the cracks where covid was concerned. You hadn't got business premises that allowed you a 10 grand grant. You weren't a limited company. Sole traders in their infancy fell down those cracks. So I will never forget you were tutoring with me in Newton the willows in a church hall, because by that point, fast forward, you would you were doing every session known to man. You were doing science. You honestly, probably, probably one of the best and most flexible tutors we've ever had, in that respect. And we're in a church hall in Newton, the willows and Boris Johnson shut schools. And when I talk to pit ponies, covid has been such a pivotal point in their lives about deciding whether to go back, the changing mindset Life is too short. The impact that lockdown has had on people. And post lockdown, we'll never really be able to measure that metric, because people made decisions in that time. Now, what we weren't able to do as teachers was be locked down teaching from online. We were scrambling in the world of business connects us at that point, probably had about 18 franchises. Our face to face classes were going we were refunding massive amounts of money within the tuition world. But then something, something quite magical happened. And this is where you just utterly you transformed, not overnight, but it really opened my eyes. In year one, Connexus tuition became one of the first 27 providers for the National tutoring program, and we had to write a bid. And at that point, you were turning up to the opening of an envelope. One thing I will say about you is, whatever the opportunity was, whatever you needed to do, as low as you'd been, you were going and yes, there might be rejection. I'm volunteering. I'm not being paid, but you kept yourself in the mixer. You absolutely did so you'd gone from a tutor to almost like this volunteer within my world who did the safeguarding element of the bid, because she's teaching the power of the apostrophe, but I have yet to meet anybody in my experience who knows more about keeping children safe in education than you do 100% and all of a sudden, this woman with the beanie and the bloody Doc Martens and can mainline coffee, the likes of which I've never known In my life, is producing really, really good stuff. And I mean really good stuff, and the strength of the stuff you wrote, I think was instrumental in our success in year one. In year one, you were still, you were running, you were going into schools as a tutor, but it was becoming quite clear that my business was it was getting ahead of itself with the amount of tutoring we had to do. We weren't set up for systems and procedures that we needed to do to hold a national contract with the Department for Education. I can say it now that the National tutoring program is finished at the time, we were blagging it because we weren't set up. But in that fortune favors the brave, we ran a national contract from the back of an envelope in year one, quite frankly,

Sarah Dunwood: 48:54

yeah, and I just want to qualify that, because you were set up, but not as efficient,

Sharon Cawley: 49:01

right? Yeah,

Sarah Dunwood: 49:03

the worst

Sharon Cawley: 49:04

prepared to the extent we should have been. We did it, and we did it incredibly well. Our results were fantastic. But by year two, you'd you'd become our safeguarding lead for the whole organization. You were still tutoring, but then you were asking questions of the business that was so insightful, and I was becoming more and more reliant upon you. I was becoming more and more reliant upon you because the team I had at the time the business was outgrowing. And more than anything, I was using you as a soundboard, just as mates and the stuff you are coming up with the way your mind works. And we will come on to that. I'll do another spoiler a lot, but your, your non typical way of thinking. You see, I'm dropping breadcrumbs, Sarah, your non. Typical way of approaching things and thinking about things, the solution focus you had. I'm like, Who is this woman? And what year would you say the old Connexus 1.0 went because I knew I needed, I knew I needed to skill this business upright. So I met with a franchise consultant and told her everything that I needed, and she told me what I needed. And I said, Sarah dunwood can do that. Yeah, that Sarah be brilliant at that. And I said to her, I said to her at the end of the meeting, I think what I need for this business is a Sarah dunwood, okay, and that's what I'd come to. I needed somebody like you in charge of operations at the business. And then we went out for lunch, didn't we? And I was saying, Sarah, right? This is what I'm going to do. Thanks for all your support with with what you've been saying. I've met with Sarah Taggart, and what she said is, I need to go and find Sarah dunwood. And I sat back and smiled, and what did you say?

Sarah Dunwood: 51:12

Why not Sarah dunwood?

Sharon Cawley: 51:15

And I went, you'd come and work for me full time.

Sarah Dunwood: 51:18

I think, I think my words were, I'd bite your freaking arm off.

Sharon Cawley: 51:24

So then we ordered a meal, and you started work the

Sarah Dunwood: 51:29

next day, the next day. And I think what's important about that as well is that I knew as soon as that was there in front of me, which I never expected that it would be, but I didn't even ask you about pay. I just went, Yeah, I'll do it because, because by that point, I knew I wanted to be in that world. That was what I was loving. And actually I'd have been doing, I'd been doing it anyway, sound, using me as a soundboard, and all the rest of it. Yeah, okay, not bothered about the pay, as long as my mortgage is paid. Yeah, whatever. I'm

Sharon Cawley: 52:17

all right, yeah. And I think that's awesome. And I think then what happened? And we've talked about this at great length, all of those dark times, all of the fus turned into thank yous, because in that period from 2019 to 2021 22 you had found yourself with your dream job. I am still working in education. I am still keeping children safe. I'm still in the mixer with kids when you want to turn up at grappanolec servicemen and just wind them up like you do. But I am also then utilizing my skills as a SENCO. I am also utilizing my teaching skills, because you train our franchisees, so you're teaching and training all the time. But what I'm also doing is leaning back upon a real business background through the subject you taught. So you understand the world of business. You understand the terminology. So you're in education, one strand of your life, you're in the world of business, creating our systems, our processing, our auditing, everything we do in that business. You've got your fingers in those pies. You utilize the software, the automation of our business is unrecognizable as a result of what you have done and your knowledge you've built the business. There's no two ways about it, and you're still in education, teaching, keeping kids safe. So actually, thank you for what you did to me, because you now don't work for a living,

Sarah Dunwood: 54:04

correct, correct? I absolutely categorically, I do work for a living. I work really hard at it, but it does not feel like work. It's, it's, I mean, fundamentally, I'm a sloth. If I can stay in bed all day or will day, but I do not have any sense of dread or Biff about going into work. I will,

Sharon Cawley: 54:34

and ironically, where your office is, your window seat with all of your stuff around you that you need, you would have had to have walked past and gone down that corridor on the first day you went to that networking meeting. Yeah, you walk that corridor every day, the corridor that took you to that network meeting where you didn't even sit with me. You then walked out and now the second room is. And is your office and your team is there. And when you now walk across the business park, it's not because the doctors told you to get out every day. It's because you're going for your coffee when you go there usual. Would you like it like you are treated like the Queen of Sheba and and that's true, true true thrival. So. So I think what I would like to do with you now, because that's not, I mean, it's not even come close to some of your achievements, by the way, but what I would like you to do now is, and it probably leans into some of the work you had to do alongside this to get to this. What advice on any level, Sarah, would you give to a pit pony, particularly a pit pony who has plunged, okay? What advice would you give to somebody listening who hasn't done their three years hard yards and is sat on the city where you were at one point,

Sarah Dunwood: 56:02

multifaceted. I think one of the things that I realized very quickly is that the money that comes into the house doesn't need to come from one place that and I was doing multiple things at different times. I was tutoring, I was doing traveling to people's houses and taking portrait photos for another company who were paying me a commission. It was rubbish, but it was always in the back of my mind. It was, it was always just going to be, it's just a stepping stone for this couple of months to make sure that there's enough money coming in. And I think getting into that mindset of it's actually okay to be doing multiple different things, and for that all to be, to be tying up was was, um, perversely, quite liberating, because you you're not doing the same thing over and over again and and

Sharon Cawley: 56:59

you can ramp up more of what you like and drop down what you don't like. I'll have more hours doing the photography, but less hours do it. Yeah, you can pick and choose. I did.

Sarah Dunwood: 57:09

I ramped up the tutor, I ramped up the tutoring and and dropped off that photography for other people because, because the circumstances of that wasn't right, and I very quickly recognized some toxic behaviors with that as well. And it was like no, been there, done that, not doing that again. So I think that's important as well, that that it's okay to walk away, that the first thing out of teaching is not necessarily going to be your next forever job. And I think shifting away from a mentality of, I've got to find that thing that takes my five days a week and gives me one salary part actually suddenly allows you to be a bit more creative and a bit more flexible. Yeah? Do a day of supply. Yeah? Do two afternoons a week at Aldi. Make it a jigsaw that that brings your money in. And I think that for me was really important. The other thing for me was about investing, investing my my time and my energy and some money that I didn't have, quite frankly, in getting the right people to talk to so, so I had some talking therapy anyway, but I also around about the same time as you were were deposited in my life, another really amazing woman appeared in my life as Well, and you two were kind of like you formed my little Holy Trinity with me, and she became my coach. Did a lot of work with me, initially in terms of of unpicking and helping me to start healing, but also was working with me from a business perspective. She helped me with with the photography business, and I remember it quite distinctly that that she said to me, one day, I need to throw you a bit of a curveball, and you're not gonna like it, but I don't think your time in education is done. And honestly, I couldn't speak to her two days. I was raging. I was raging. This to me,

Sharon Cawley: 59:22

How dare she, how dare she, when

Sarah Dunwood: 59:24

I bared my soul to you and told you how traumatized I am and I never want to have anything to do with it again, and she just, she just kept pushing and how right she was. But I think that, and it might not be coaching, it might, it might be networking meetings, but I think it's there's the power of connection. For me, finding people who who give you different things that that allow you to start to heal, allow you to start. To find some trust in yourself again, and to believe that there is, there is something, that there is going to be a way for me to

Sharon Cawley: 1:00:11

I think that's, I think, I think what you've just done there without realizing it is alluded to. So let's, let's go back over that timeline. You know, you come out in 2019 This is lockdown. The your world has just gone boom. So is mine. But what do me and you then both decide to do on Wednesday night? I've got about that bit, yeah, well,

Sarah Dunwood: 1:00:38

and that that sits with the timing of Claire my coach, Claire Louise, the timing of her curveball, and that's how we refer to it, even now we're really good friends. Now was that that came just around about the same week that we set up the Facebook group life after teaching and and I think that had been the the glimmer for her, where she gone. Well, why she done that? Now, in my mind, I've done that because I want to support other people who are in a similar situation to where I was moving on from, whereas she's seen that as rightly, yeah, you still want to be in the education world, but just doing something different. But yeah. June 2020, we were still in lockdown, still

Sharon Cawley: 1:01:31

in lockdown, still scrabbling for our lives, still doing everything we can, but suddenly, when actually there needs to be a space for people here, because I do believe covid is a defining moment for teachers. Sue Bowie from the pit pony video talks about covid being a good thing. Yes, she was on camp for a lot of teachers, covid was that moment where they suddenly went we are now no longer. We're still ruled by bells. We still but we can go out of the house when we want. We're not doing the commute to work. We've not got we've got pressures, but different kinds of pressures. So during that period where you are, where you are building yourself up. You You're absolutely right. Your coach was everything Claire. I've met Claire Louise, and I can clearly see the impact that that she had on you and and actually, when you go back to some of the vision boarding and the work that you did during that time, everything you ever said you wanted to do has actually come to fruition and and I know that that you are incredibly supportive to many, many members of our group who've been through this situation you've been through which you can't talk about, you know, and you are helping a lot of people in that position, which is so so the advice is connection. The advice is get out there. The advice is find that value within yourself that you have, because if it's there and you're in the right place at the right time, somebody like me will recognize it. You can't have it taken away from you. It's there.

Sarah Dunwood: 1:03:24

I think there's, there's, there's a couple of other things for me. One, and I think you might have taught me this is the power of no as a complete sentence. And I think I framed it slightly differently in my head, that there, there are three categories of things, things I will say yes to, things I will say no to, and things I will say not yet to, because it's not the right time. And I think being able because, again, as and I'm generalizing, I hate generalizing, but as teachers in in a system, it's not very often that you can say no and and you become intrinsically disempowered. Is, is what I believe, because you you are told by different and doesn't matter what level you're at, there is always somebody above you who's going to tell you what you need to be doing. So learning to say no has been has been really positive. But also, I don't want this to sound twee, but actually, self care is massively important, and self care is not what I thought self care was when I was a teacher. Self care for me was having a bath on a Sunday night and putting a face mask on. And it's not that, and it's the for me actually being able to go, okay, yeah, I'm going out for a walk now, and I do it in work time. You know? I do? I go for a half hour walk. Usually I'm on the phone to you. I. But, but that is self care. Because I'm out, I'm exercising, I'm getting some daylight, I'm away from my desk, and that's completely okay in our world to do that when you need to do it, you can't do that as a teacher more often than not. So I think self care for me, that that being able to say yes to things, gigs, going to a gig with self care for me, I

Sharon Cawley: 1:05:29

just about to say we had a conversation only the other week, and I said, How does your life actually look differently now? And you talked me through and you said I didn't have a social life. I had friends who were teachers that that we you know that I knew I never went out in the week and never really did anything at the weekend. So what does your life look like now? Sarah, from a social, self care point of view, that you do well, I

Sarah Dunwood: 1:06:01

mean, music, music for me is everything. So actually, gigs, gigs, gigs, gigs, whether they're big ones, little ones, whatever, supporting my son,

Sharon Cawley: 1:06:11

whether they're on a Thursday night, Friday night, and there is no

Sarah Dunwood: 1:06:15

such thing as a school night for me now, and and simple things. I mean, this will probably date really quickly, but this week, we've had the second in a year of an opportunity of people seeing the Aurora, the Northern Lights in England and I stayed up till about three o'clock in the morning taking photographs. Had I been teaching, I'd have been in bed at 10 o'clock, and I'd have missed it all. And so it's those for me, and I think I've had this conversation with you even in the last 24 hours, that there's a concept of finding glimmers, the things that they might be really little, tiny, insignificant things, but they're things that make you go that's great and and those for me, being able to, yes, wander across and get a coffee from my favorite barista, or or step outside and and look up at the night sky and know that actually, if I'm a bit sluggish the next morning, nobody is going to tell me off, but I've not missed that moment, because that moment brought me a bit of joy. And that for me is self care, is is being able to say yes to things that previously I would have had to have gone. I can't. I'm at work tomorrow. Why

Sharon Cawley: 1:07:43

would you have ever have had a National Trust membership? Because you would never have got the but the difference is, and I think this is an important point, everything you've just talked about, there needs to be kept in mind when people are working out their bottom line and saying, I took a 12 grand pay cut, okay? You took a 12 grand pay cut, which over 12 months probably is the square root of nothing, right? You took a 12 grand pay cut. Put a price on what you've just said. Put a price on those moments. Put a price on something I'm now going to talk to you about, which is totally life changing for you. Okay, I believe, had you have carried on in teaching, you would have remained unaware for the whole of your life, that you are what Sarah dunwood autistic. When did you realize, despite having spotted it from 100 yards for a kid, you leaving the classroom allowed one of the most life changing discoveries to happen in your later life, that you are neuro divergent. Talk me through that aspect.

Sarah Dunwood: 1:09:14

I can't remember the precise moment. I can remember bits along the way and I can remember that that first year of me being formally in the business, where I felt secure enough to and I I'm going to use the phrase, and we haven't done it, but to kind of tentatively step towards going toe to Toe with you, and I disagreed with me that I had a bit of security there and and what I started to realize in our communication with each other is that that we would sometimes be talking about things feel like that we were at cross purposes. But then when we came. Ran to it and unpicked it. We were both coming out the same thing. But it was my it was my processing and the way I was receiving messages and and words and, and also where my where my own, where my own words were coming from. So you'll hear it in this podcast. You'll hear where my brain is processing what I need to say, because it's a pause and I just need it to process it. I'd never realized that in school, because you bounce from one thing to another, to another to another, and everything's regimented but chaotic complete schrodingers world and and I'd never had time to sit and and see my own traits. So I think it started to to to emerge in terms of me trying to understand, or why I wasn't being, why I wasn't able to make my my meaning clear, sometimes to you, when in my head it was crystal, bloody clear, and why sometimes I was misunderstanding where you were coming from in a conversation, when, actually, when we unpicked it, I was like, All right, it was clear. Yeah, yeah, completely. So I think there was, there was that, and me coming to a point of, right? I know I used to use the word no or but as a, as a punctuation mark. In my mind, we've come to this in the last 12 months. We understand what that is now, but for people receiving me going no, in my mind, that was me. Just, please allow me to take a breath and take a B, whereas that was being received as being quite stroppy and and that was not intent, and that that kind of came out where, where I realized actually, right, I need to, there's something going on here. What is this? I also

Sharon Cawley: 1:12:18

think it was, it was layered in, layered with another opportunity as well. Because, yes, we spend a lot of time together, and we work incredibly hard, but we can have our phones with us all day. Okay, when we're working hard, we can be doing other things as well, and your world opened up with reading and podcasts and going down rabbit holes that I don't think you have the opportunity to do as a teacher. Now I know you, and obviously now I know you, with where you are in your world, you going down a rabbit hole and becoming obsessed, pretty much normal stuff, because you'll then emerge back out the rabbit hole, probably as a leading expert in it, and particularly when Dr dunwood, Dr dunwood, how can I help you and and I think things were circling around you to do with the neurodiverse world, and they were Coming up more you were coming into contact with people through life after teaching who were saying, I'm neurodivergent. I've had a diagnosis, or I know I am. I'm self diagnosed. And I think once you stepped into Oh, so this can happen to adults. You don't need to be diagnosed at the age of eight and banged on Ritalin like we did in the 90s. What's going on here? And you started with just some breadcrumbs, and then one night, you rang me, and you went, I've just done a diagnostic on myself, and I am autistic. Like, okay, I don't know anything about this world. My natural reaction, because, until I've dived into it and understand it, right, well, how can we cure that? What do we need to do? And you're like, No, no, no, no, no, stop. And then your tribe around you have gone on this journey with you, haven't they? Because you're in a state. Can you imagine that in a school, how difficult it is for people to discover how their mind works, and then I can't tell I'm a head teacher, so

Sarah Dunwood: 1:14:30

I'll say, I mean, yeah, I'm very lucky. I have, I have found my different tribes and and I have, I've done the work on that, and it's interesting, because you talk about that self diagnostic. I remember having that conversation with you, and I remember your immediately, an immediate perspective was to jump to, well, are you going to get a formal diagnosis and it and yes, how can we fix it? I. And I think at the time I was I shied away from from getting a diagnosis and and I've shifted in my mindset for a variety of reasons over the past few months that that I am now going through that process to to formalize it. And those reasons quite personal to me, and I'm not going to talk about them, but I think one of the things that it's done for me is made me realize, and this is I hadn't realized how common this was, particularly in women, is that the labels that I'd had put on me even prior to exiting, when my mental health really was in the gutter, but I suffered with anxiety and depression and a number of things and and the default position of of the cycle of GPS that I've been see over the years has been, oh, it's anxiety, oh it's stress, oh it's this. And actually, a lot of my experiences now, with the benefit of hindsight, they're not, they're to do with how my brain works, but they weren't necessarily anxiety or depression. So

Sharon Cawley: 1:16:25

if we, if we flip that moment in time where you walk into the networking meeting, and I did this specifically, you'd still walk into a networking meeting like that, because that is you would be out of your depth with how to navigate around that situation. You would clutch your cup of tea. I've seen you speak in a room full of franchisees, and you held that same cup of tea. Your mental health

Sarah Dunwood: 1:16:52

even at conference. At conference this year, I in a, in a in a place with 200 people with with people coming up to me, going, please, can I have a selfie with you, as they were doing with you? And yeah, I'll smile for that selfie and all the rest of it. But inside the internal wrangling that was taking place over that and I my my shield this time was a big pink folder with all of my lists and everything that was happening that was my shield.

Sharon Cawley: 1:17:23

So, so, in many ways, one of the biggest gifts that you've had is that you've been able to take a step back. So, and I know that in the first instance, and it is a journey, it is a journey that you've you've gone on with this. You are coming to peace with with everything now it's making things make sense, but at first it certainly wasn't it. You're not great place, and I think that's very common when people get an awareness later on in life, but put a price on that drop in salary for you, not knowing what you know now. So there are those glimmers of moments, and then there are huge gifts like this that would have never, ever have happened. And what I'd like to do now, I would like you to think about this one for me. Sarah dunwood, watch your sliding doors moment. We like to bring our podcast episodes to a close by asking our pit pony guests the sliding doors question. We are referencing the 1998 film with Gwyneth Paltrow. If you know, you know, but if you don't, I strongly recommend you watch the film. We ask them if they can share a moment of their lives that they know categorically they wouldn't have experienced had they have stayed in the classroom.

Sarah Dunwood: 1:18:58

Um, there's loads, but my first one, my first one, I don't know whether this will surprise you or not actually, my first one was getting my first, not my first, my second photographer's pit pass, and standing in the photography pit at Brian Ferry's feet on a skull night taking photos of him.

Sharon Cawley: 1:19:29

Okay, right? Well, you've come in hard. You've come in hard with that one my friend, two weeks before covid lockdown, correct? Two weeks before they went now we're not having you doing that. That's not what you're meant to do. You're the reason we had a global pandemic, because you were going down the wrong route. The Universe had to do something big to send that message. Any other sliding doors? Moments,

Sarah Dunwood: 1:19:54

there's, there's lots, and actually, some of them are, are. Are centered around quite difficult things. In all honesty, one of those been very recent. It's been this year, which has been the the loss of my stepfather, but the sliding doors moment in that was that literally, in the space of every of 10 minutes of getting the phone call. I was in a position where I was about to go to Spain, and there was no question. There was no setting cover work. There was no What do I do about this? You'd swept my handbag up. You told me to get in the car and go and pack my case, and two hours later, I was on a flight to Spain and and that, for me, was a really critical one, because I could be there in that moment straight away, but my mum and my brother and that would not have happened and that and that. And I know it's sad, but actually on on the flight, and it was one of the things that I've talked to mum about, thank God that I'm not where I was five years ago, because I would not have been in a position to drop everything and run.

Sharon Cawley: 1:21:18

Oh no, no way, no way, not and not even only about permission, but giving yourself permission. Well, how can I were in the middle of an inspection, or we've got this coming up, or we've got that coming up and, and I know that it has been an incredibly difficult time for you, but, but we nod back to the person who guided you into education, and I think that's a beautiful way to end it. Really the person who guided you in with everything you've gone through, you were able to be there at the time it mattered the most when he exited. So Sarah, I just want to take this, this opportunity on behalf of everybody who's listening to thank you for that, because sometimes it can be very difficult to relive something that, to be perfectly honest, a lot of it's been buried and put under but I know many, many people will take great solace and comfort from your words, because it was an extremity, and it's an extremity of two halves. You were absolutely plummeting, and you hit an absolute rock bottom, and it's one of the hardest rock bottom stories I ever listened to. But by God, your thrival story is through the roof. When you organized a conference for 200 ex teachers, we had the likes of drew Povey at the helm, and you did every single minute of that with one focus for me to have a good time. That was it. You organized the logistics and everything of the national tutors conference this year. You stood in your power. And as I say, what an amazing thrival story, and it will always be my deepest honor and a privilege to be your friend.

Sarah Dunwood: 1:23:02

Thank you so much, Sharon,

Sharon Cawley: 1:23:04

thank you. Thank you, as always, for listening to our pit pony 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.