021 - Pit Pony Jane Lloyd - Classroom to Artist

In this final episode of 2024, we welcome Jane Lloyd—a former teacher of 14 years who traded in the classroom for a paintbrush and a new lease on life. Jane’s story is a perfect way to close out the year: a tale of transformation, resilience, and the power of pursuing what truly lights you up.

After years of dedicating herself to teaching art in schools, Jane decided she was done with the stress and exhaustion that teaching brought into her life. In July 2024, she stepped away from her vocation to embrace her passion as a full-time artist—and hasn’t looked back since.

In this episode, Jane shares:
🎨 How she transitioned from teacher to professional artist while building her business on the side.
🎨 Her creative approach to diversifying income, from commissions and prints to workshops and painting parties.
🎨 The profound emotional shift she’s experienced since leaving the classroom.
🎨 Practical advice for teachers (and anyone) considering their own leap of faith.
🎨 Her breathtaking “sliding doors” moment, and how it symbolises the new life she’s built.

Whether you’re a teacher looking for inspiration, an artist seeking courage, or someone considering a career change, Jane’s story will leave you feeling empowered and ready to tackle your dreams in the year ahead.

Tune in to hear how Jane rediscovered her passion, reclaimed her mental well-being, and built a life she truly loves—all in less than six months.

Useful links :

https://www.janelloydfineartist.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/JaneLloydArtist/
https://www.instagram.com/janelloydfineartist

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

Transcript

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. Coming up in this episode, I know, well I didn't know, but I knew, I had faith in myself that if I worked this hard and had belief in me that I could definitely make something of this. Hello and welcome to a lovely episode of the Pit Pony podcast.

I'm feeling all calm and serene already. We've got a wonderful guest, Jane Lloyd. Jane Lloyd lives in Wales and she was a teacher for 14 years.

And when Jane talks about going into teaching and choosing that career, she uses the word vocation, as many of us do. And she came into teaching straight from school and at the back of her mind all the time was her first teacher, Mrs Huxley, who she describes as her hero and she also describes as cuddly. I just love that.

So she goes in vocationally to be a teacher, primary by trade, but spends her time in a secondary school setting as an art teacher. Admittedly, she does other subjects as well, which many of the art teachers have to do. But by July 2024, she'd done, she was gone and she was not going back to teaching ever again. 

We're going to find out why in a minute, but in the meantime, welcome Jane, thank you for joining us. What do you do now? Hello, I'm Jane and I'm an artist. Oh, how proud are you to say that I am an artist? Perfect. 

Thank you, Jane. And I look forward to discussing that with you in a bit. But can you start us off by going back only recently, because you came out July 2024. 

Jane, what were the circumstances surrounding that decision to leave the job that you said was your vocation? The job itself had changed so much over the 14 years. It just wasn't the same as what it used to be. Various changes with structure of the school and hours that I used to spend with certain pupils were cut as a lot of non-core subjects are.

And so my hours were cut also through choice and behavioural issues, things like that, that I decided that this just wasn't for me anymore. How was that impacting you, Jane, from somebody who'd clearly enjoyed teaching? Was this having any kind of emotional impact, physical impact on you at this point? What were you like at that decision-making process as a person? It had a massive effect on me. I was finding it hard to sleep, worrying all the time. 

I'm a natural worrier anyway, but this was more than my natural worrying. I'd quite often spend mornings and evenings crying, and it just got to the point where I thought this isn't why I went into teaching, this wasn't how it's meant to be. Absolutely, and they're very common things, the lack of sleep, not looking after yourself. 

I think a lot of people, when they come to the end of the road, are making poor choices with regard to their health. Some of them overeat, undereat, they drink, they start smoking, and it's that. For somebody who was doing limited hours, did you feel that it just consumed your life, this anxiety and worry? Yeah, absolutely. 

Although I was trying to be very strict that on my days off I wouldn't do any schoolwork, that would inevitably trickle in at certain times of the year. And you, as an art teacher as well, you live, breathe, and sleep, and everything consumes you with art. I know people think it's an easy subject, and it's, you know, you just put something on the table and the children draw it, but there's so, so much more to it than that. 

And if you want the children to pick up on your passion, then you have to put the hours in to create that passion within them. Did you feel, because Sarah's a non-core by trade as well, business studies. Sarah, how did you feel when you were having to teach the other subjects and make up the time? Did you find that you had to dilute your passion for your subject, which was business studies, like Jane was talking about a bit earlier there, that you're not delivering the vocation that you went in to do? Yeah, I think it's harder delivering something that's not the thing that you invested so much time in at the start.

And for me, it had always been business studies and economics. I'm completely nerdy. I love that stuff. 

And I think it takes much more effort to deliver something that's not your specialism, but with the same amount of commitment and passion. And I think that's, that's the dichotomy, isn't it? For non-core subjects, I think, because we do tend to get deployed much more easily. You don't want to do a disservice to the children. 

So it takes so much more work than somebody who's naturally a maths teacher or a geography teacher or a history teacher. And yeah, it's draining. It's draining. 

But I think what's interesting with both of you now, and I'm going to pull this in as a theme, because there's a parallel here, which I think is quite interesting. Sometimes our default position when a business studies teacher comes out of the classroom, or an art teacher comes out of the classroom, they think they have to drop that subject in order to make a living. They have to redirect themselves. 

Do I skill up as an English teacher if I still want to do this? Or do I retrain to go into the civil service? Now, Sarah and Jane, you've both got something in common here. Your subjects are serving you in your new careers, so to speak. Sarah, you're a chief operations officer at Conexus. 

You make business decisions all the time. What have been your transferable skills as a business teacher into the world of business? Oh my God, we haven't got long enough. I can't, you know me. 

Keep it brief. Keep it brief. I think for me, I don't know what it's like for Jane in terms of... And she will talk to us about that, I'm sure. 

But for me, I've been able to take everything that I have been teaching children about kind of in the abstract, and I'm now doing it for real. So, I'm applying marketing strategy. I have my hands in cash flow and profit and loss accounts with our chief finance officer. 

I'm doing everything that I taught, but for real. And actually, there's a bit of me now that if I went back to teaching, which I never will, but if I went back to teaching, that would make my teaching so much the richer for it because I've done it for real. It's brilliant. 

It is absolutely brilliant. So, and it beautifully, beautifully leads in now to how you started our conversation, Jane. You're an artist. 

Is it George Bernard Shaw who said, those who can do, and those who can't teach. So, you're now doing the do. You're the artist. 

Talk us through. We've left that behind as the art teacher. You're now an artist. 

You've stepped away from teaching the subject. Well, you have and you haven't. We'll come onto that in a to have enough self-worth to say, I'm going to be an artist. 

Walk us through that, my friend. I've always been very creative. Obviously, being an art teacher, you have to be. 

The pupils saw me putting my artwork out there into the world, into the local community, which was brilliant. As Sarah just said, it really enhanced all my lessons and my work with them. The way I think I did it was building up alongside my job. 

So, I was still using my couple of days off that I had, evenings, any spare moment I had, building up a website, building up my Facebook page, and really plugging at it as an artist. Other things as well that I also do alongside that, using the skills that I have accumulated in the art room, using those to provide school workshops. So, a lot of schools, they don't have a dedicated art teacher, and so I would be able to go in and do that as a workshop. 

There are grants to be had from various institutions, the Arts Council, the Welsh Arts Council in my case. And I've also been running painting parties, liner printing workshops, and they've been really, really good. And people locally, they come to quite a lot of them. 

I've got some regular customers that come, which is lovely. I'm very appreciative of all of them. Wow. 

Okay. There's so much there, Sarah. The steam coming off Sarah's pen, because what you've done there is, in probably about a minute and a half, is give enough inspiration and enough creative little thought bubbles for an art teacher looking to step out of the classroom. 

So, let me start by unpicking the first thing you did. You branded yourself. You branded yourself as an artist, and you put a business behind that, a Facebook page, a website. 

So, one of your income streams as an ex-art teacher is you as an artist. We'll come on to the schools and the workshops in a minute, painting parties, and all of that. But you as an artist, what can you actually do? Do you sell your pictures, your prints? Do you exhibit? Talk us through what that income stream is like for you as an artist. 

Yeah. So, all of what you've just said. So, I started drawing realistically, trying to help the pupils to draw realistically. 

And from that, I got quite a few commissions from people. So, pet paintings, pet drawings, things like that, portraits. And so, that started building my little portfolio of work. 

I soon cottoned on to the fact that obviously that was a one-off payment. And so, a lot of hours go into doing something like that. Like, you're talking about 40 plus per drawing or painting. 

So, I thought there's got to be another way of me not spending as much time. And so, I also do limited edition prints. I do prints, open edition prints.

I print on to coasters, and tote bags, and notebooks. And I've got a little...I've been very, very lucky. In the last year, I've got a space with a local artist cooperative in the local town of Dolgellau, which I really had to think about very carefully because I had to have two days in the shop selling the work, basically. 

So, that had to fit in around my job. But obviously, Saturdays, that's what I did. I made them Saturdays. 

And that is fabulous. I love that because I meet so many people and have discussions about my artwork and what they like. I mean, it sounds perfect. 

And am I right in thinking that you were doing this alongside your job in the school you wanted to get out of? Yes. So, there was a slow build. So, I think it's important at this point. 

I think this is where it offers a lifeline of hope. You don't have to plow on in as the teacher. You can start to build an exit strategy behind you.

And a lot of our pit ponies do, Jane. They might start with small bits of tutoring, or they've got a product like as a chocolatier or something that they are starting to plan an escape route. Did you find, and I think I know the answer to this question because I just saw your face light up, you're working in a school, you're unhappy, but your joy was on a Saturday. 

Part of your exit strategy, did it support your mental health whilst in the school because it offered you hope? Absolutely. That was what kept me, really kept me going. It really did. 

Because I knew, I know, well, I didn't know, but I knew I had faith in myself that if I worked this hard and had belief in me, that I could definitely make something of this. Wow. I love that. 

And that will come onto your mindset. That's the mental health, isn't it? The positive self-talk all the time rather than doom and gloom. I have got a solution. 

I'm going to work hard at it. And I think what came across to me as well, I don't know about you, Sarah, but I listened to when you talked about the 40 hours and then the prints. There's a bit of natural business acumen there, Sarah.

What did you think? Yeah. I mean, I'm furiously scribbling down notes because that's how I process things. But it was that, it was almost been a natural evolution, but without you even thinking about it, of how best to capitalise on my time, that high ticket price for one-off, they're never going to come back because they've had their portrait. 

I get it. And I'm the person who goes to Dugethley. I mean, I love that neck of the woods anyway, but we go to North Wales.

I am that person who is in art shops, buying coasters, buying the limited edition prints because I love it. And that is a nice, natural repeating trade, isn't it? It's straightforward. It's done. 

I'm not underplaying your talent, but once it's done, it's done. And it can just sit there and keep recurring. I love that. 

Love that. And I think then what that comes on to is you then threw an absolute golden nugget into the mix and you just rattled off and you went, I want to go into schools and do workshops because there are grants available and they've not got specialist art teachers. And my pen starts going, I'm like, all right. 

So she's found herself into the art community. She's passionate about what she's producing as her craft. Oh no, no, no.

I'm going to add another string to my bow and I'm going to remain with a foot in education. Now I know you're Wales and it's a different world, literally. Talk us through what you've done, because bearing in mind the time of the recording now is November 2024 and you exited in July 2024.

And we've spoken to many people who've been able to reflect on a five-year period of arrival. We're talking months here and you're throwing all this into the mixer for us. Now I know you started further back. 

I get that. So it has probably been two to three years. You've only been out since the 20, you've only been out July 2024. 

So you've not, haven't reached out broken. You bruised, but you're in there swinging, which I like. You suddenly went workshops within schools. 

Let's get into that one, shall we, please? What are you doing there? So that was a complete accident. I was contacted by a friend who was a head teacher in a primary school and they wanted to do a, I can't think of the word in English. I think it's like a bridging between year six and secondary.

Transition. Transition. Okay. 

Thank you. And they wanted that to be an art activity, but that they would do the art in the primary school and then that would be put into the secondary school as a mural. So we came up with the idea of little MDF squares and they would each do a picture on the square and paint them with acrylics. 

This was all led by me in, I think it was a day in each school. I think there were three schools and all of those little tiles, they went to the secondary school and were put up on the wall so that when these year sevens turned up in September, that they had something on the wall that reassured them and they were fine. They were going to be okay. 

Well, if there's any head teachers listening, if there's any, if anybody was listening to that and that was happening with my child, I would just be so invested in that secondary school for that level. I've been involved in transition projects and, you know, getting to know the school, but that was beautiful that they, they clearly value art. So you had a head teacher who, and a community that valued what you have. 

And I think that's what's coming through to me. We talked about art and, you know, as a subject in school, it's not really valued and it's considered a soft subject and that kind of thing. And people think it's just about putting something on a table and draw it. 

Well, actually you've just told me immediately, the word that's coming through in my head is value. You've got value for what goes in your shop. You've got value for what goes on your website. 

You're being valued still with an education. Wowzers Sarah, what's your thoughts on that? I think there's, there's, there's a little step beyond that. And it, I think it goes back to what I said. 

Art in schools, very much like music, a lot of the creative subjects has been massively, and I'm generalizing, but it's been stripped out and it's become quite niche in terms of that, that particular cluster of very arty, talented kids. But I think where art hasn't gone and, and all the creative stuff is that there's adults who really do value and appreciate art and music and want to go to the theatre. And I am that person. 

I am completely that person. And what, what I'm hearing and really love is the, is the other stuff you mentioned, the painting parties. And, and I'm guessing that, that you're probably doing adult workshops and things where adults in their thirties and forties and fifties, who perhaps really did love art at school, but didn't do anything with it. 

And now coming back as adults and going, yeah, I can get messy. I can do this. I, it, it's mindful. 

It, it helps me. And, and that just for me personally, that's the sort of thing that I would love if that was in my community. Really do, because it's value for me in so many different ways. 

Is that what you're doing? Are you working with adults as well? Yeah, absolutely. The painting parties is mainly adults and a lot of them are those people who haven't picked up a paintbrush since they were in school and they're very fearful. But the way that it, it works is beautiful because you can either have a blank canvas and paint what the set kind of painting, or I do all the outlines for you and you have all the colours there ready for you and you just love the process and enjoy the painting process. 

And honestly, we go over time. We, this is where my time planning goes completely to pot because every time it's more like three hours instead of two. But every single person leaves that room with a smile, with pride, like completely relaxed because they've accomplished something. 

They've, they've enjoyed what they've done. It's so, so important. Just talking to you and picturing that. 

What I did a couple of, I told you about this Sarah, a couple of weeks ago. It kept popping up on my Facebook. Now I'm an impulse buyer. 

Seriously, if it, honestly, two glasses of wine, Amazon Prime deliveries. I'm thinking who's ordered that? Oh my God, it's me. I've bought a paint by numbers kit. 

Okay. For exactly that reason, for exactly that reason. However, it's not proving to worked out as well as I would have liked because I've got to take the kitchen table. 

I've got to get the paint pots out and my house isn't set up like that. But to, to know that I could go and do that in a venue with somebody there supporting me, it was a break away from, from what I was doing. It's amazing. 

There's so many things that are going on in that way. For teachers like yourself, there's a surge in people joining adult choirs to sing. It's huge now joining choirs. 

And I see women of a certain age and they're up there and they're singing. There are drama activities. We've got a great tutor who works for us, Lee, who does amateur dramatics. 

And Sarah's right. It's about going back to what we were our hobbies and our loves. And I think what we are saying quite categorically is there is a market for that.

Can I jump in and go back to COVID times? Because where we all defaulted to in COVID was creative. It was making things. It was painting things. 

It was baking things. What? It was, yeah, it, it was that because there is something intrinsic about being creative. And, and it is something, I think it is something that is very, very human that we need that.

And I think when we don't have it in some way, it might be reading, it could be anything. But I think there's, there's something there. And I think COVID 2020, 21, for a lot of people reignited that for the adults, particularly in terms of, oh, we've been on this treadmill for 20 years of our working lives. 

We've got a breathing space. I did it. I, I mean, you know me, Sharon, I've got piles of paint in the background. 

I've got canvases. I've got your artwork up on my wall in the den. Correct. 

And it was COVID. It was absolutely COVID. So I just, it, for me, Jane, listening to you, I am, I'm super excited about the fact that it's art anyway, but it, it goes to that human thing of, yes, we all want to be creative. 

And actually as an art teacher, as a, as a non-core getting out of teaching, isn't necessarily about going and replacing it with something that's like teaching. It can be very, very different. And I think that's, that's just such a positive message that I'm hearing. 

I think it acts as an antidote to the noise of social media, the work, the daily grind. It's like going back to post-war England, isn't it? It's, it's really going back to baking and, and that kind of stuff. And in many ways, what you've chosen as your exit strategy, it's, it's meta, it's helping you heal.

It's, it's, it's the perfect solution in many ways. Now, I don't want to make it sound as though it's been effortless because leaving a job you loved can't have been easy. So how's your anxiety now that you ventured into this world within less than five months? Have there been the physical changes and the emotional changes that you were looking for really, really quickly out of teaching? Yeah, it's, it's taken me a long time. 

I think October was when I really felt like I'd relaxed and I'd, I was happy. Um, I was ill all over summer and September obviously was a very strange month because I should have been in the classroom in my head. I'm so much more relaxed.

I'm so much happier. I've, if you spoke to my husband, he would tell you the change in me is amazing. I'd like a different person, honestly. 

I know that sounds, that sounds cliche, but I sleep, I'm sleeping better. I wake up more refreshed. I look forward to my day. 

I've got more gratitude. Yeah, it's, it's just brilliant. Because what's interesting, Jane, really early doors when we released the original Pit Pony video on YouTube, what we were able to do during lockdown was Sarah and I used to open a Zoom call on a Wednesday evening for people to come in, to just talk, to chat, to have our advice and network really. 

My writing's thinking you were an early doors Pit Pony, um, dropping on a Zoom call. Tell us about that. I was, um, just out of interest, really, you know, sort of dipping your toe in the water, right? What, how could I actually leave? Um, and I, we were, we were on a Zoom call. 

I think there were three of us, maybe four in the, in the call. And I remember you saying to me, I don't know if it is the way that I am. I'm quite a lighthearted person. 

I always see the positives, try to. But I remember you saying to me, you seem to be okay. You don't seem to be suffering or have as much anxiety as the others.

But at that point I was still desperate to get out. I, yeah. But that, that actual video, that Zoom was brilliant because it made me think in a different way. 

It made me think I don't have to replace my salary. Why would I when, you know, what I'm going to be doing is completely different and money isn't the be all and end all. I think we've got it in our heads that we've got this salary and we've got to make that amount of money. 

And you don't because your health is so much more important. And once you make that decision, your health improves and then doors open and you start seeing things changing and things come to you. Oh, well, I'll tell you something as a storyteller.

You've just nicely paragraphed me into the next one because you've used the word doors opening. Thank you for that segue. If this was a written essay, I would have just up to grade with what you've done there because I am going to talk to you about doors. 

I'm going to ask you about sliding doors. Can you pinpoint for us, Jane, in everything that you've got going on at the moment, a sliding doors moment in your life that you know you would not be experiencing if you'd have stayed in that classroom? Yeah, I think it all comes down to like the moment when you actually open your front door and you go to leave and you are rushing, you're going to the car, it's dark, you've got to get in that car and you've got to rush and get to school. For me now, my sliding doors moment, I think, is actually opening my front door, taking a deep breath of the fresh air that I've got around me. 

I've got mountains of views, the mountains, the sea, the estuary. I've got a pet sheep that comes to greet me every morning and it's just... I really don't have any words because that is it for me. In a nugget, it's that life now that is so different and it's beautiful. 

Oh, Jane, well, we're going to thank you. I'm going to leave it. I just feel as though I've had a meditation session myself because that was so powerful, so powerful and so inspirational and on behalf of myself and Sarah and everybody who's listened to that beautiful capture of your story, I'd like to thank you and wish you every single success as you venture into your life outside of teaching.

Thank you very much to both of you for having me on. It's been lovely. Hello, Sarah. 

I'm going to speak on your behalf because we always play guess what's in your head. I think you loved that. I think that's probably one of your favourites. 

It was all about the art, wasn't it? Yeah, and for somebody who's a complete nerd, loves the science, loves the maths, loves all the business stuff, the creative stuff is right at the core of me. So, a super giddy to talk to an artist. It's brought back wonderful memories of art at high school with my art teachers. 

You can smell the room, can't you, just by talking? You can smell it. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. And do you know what I remember? Do you remember the old big Belfast sinks that were all splashed with paint and they had an old... never clean. 

Yeah, never clean. Never clean. Never clean. 

But yeah, but more than that, from a business perspective, from a getting out perspective, just how naturally she's found her way into that idea of multiple income streams but actually sat within a core of art being at the heart of it. I just loved it. I think what she did for me, if I was listening to this as a heads up, she got her ducks lined up in a row prior to exiting. 

And by getting those ducks lined up in a row, it was helping her cope before she became too broken. And that was her plan, her plan. And yes, a lot of it's evolved and it's not been a linear or a straightforward thing, but she started tinkering around certain edges and they grew. 

But what she also said was she had faith. She was already harnessing a mindset of positivity with her mindfulness that this was going to be okay because she'd done that where she said, I don't need to earn this much money. She'd gone true Pit Pony blueprint. 

What do I need to live? How can I do it? That for me, she said that she had complete faith in herself and you talk about unwavering faith in whatever it is that we're doing at any given moment in time. I think that was critical. I think also she's talked about a little bit of a blueprint there that's transferable to other things, whether it's creative or something else. 

The idea of looking at how much time she was doing in terms of high intensity, time-consuming tasks for non-repeat clients in business terms, and then looking at what else she could do using those skillsets that would generate return, recurring revenue. And I think that applies in tuition, it applies in photography, it applies in a variety of different businesses that you could set up regardless of your skillset, that idea of trade-off of time and value. So that was really interesting to me to hear it articulated in the perspective of a creative sector, that that's actually really applicable to different scenarios that some of our pit ponies might be thinking about. 

And if you take the word creative out of it, and you go along with the theory of what we talked about with the soft subjects and non-core, let's pluck a subject, food technology, cooking, home ec, whatever you want to call it. You'll sat there and you go, I'm so niche in what I do. Well actually, her high-end tickets could be wedding cakes. 

She decides that I don't want to do wedding cakes anymore, there's no repeat business, you know, unless you're a A-hole. Therein lies another story. Working in a shop, selling you cakes on a Saturday, I'm surrounded with lots of other bakers and artisans, whatever.

Then she realises that a great transition project would be doing some baking or cooking or food technology from primary school to secondary school. And then she does baking classes for mindfulness. If you are creative, not necessarily in your subject, but you're creative with what you can leverage with your gift and your talent, that applies to music, drama, that applies to PE, it applies to anything if you are creative with the God-given gift you've got.

And I think that's what's brilliant, there's talent. Some of my music teachers were so talented and they were working for pittance in a school thinking, well the only thing I can do is be a secretary. Such talented drama teachers, design technology, woodwork, pottery, all of those things that are your absolute passion, get creative in a different sense and leverage it because what she then talked about was even in a short period of time, being able to open her front door and appreciate everything around her. 

I thought that was a beautiful slide indoors. She really did go deep metaphor without, didn't she? Yeah, yeah, and knowing where she is, I know, my envy at knowing what that view is outside of her door and actually for me it was the, and we've had some people say this to us recently and you take away the low level of it, I'm aware that the leaves have changed colour. That's actually massive when you've been on the treadmill for so long that you look up and it's Christmas. 

So no, I'm deeply envious of the sheep as well. But also, what a sad indication, sad indictment of our lives when one of the best things we have is that we can notice nature, that actually she opens that front door now and instead of bailing into a car, leaving in the morning when it's dark, coming back. We've got to take a step back I think at some point and start to put value, not financial value on a lifestyle. 

You can't, you can't get away from that and it's very difficult to articulate to somebody who's, we see it on the group, don't we? The question of if I take this pay cut, is it manageable? Now take away the, can I manage it? As long as your baseline is covered, there is, it is very difficult to quantify to somebody who's not gone through it, the difference, the quality of life and being present with the people around you and being able to go out on a school night or know that you can book in, I've got something this weekend, I'm going to see Monty Don from Gardener's World. Of course you are. On a Sunday afternoon, I wouldn't have done that when I was at school because Sunday afternoon would have been for marking and it's, you, it's so difficult to pin that down for somebody who hasn't yet taken that leap of faith that that is worth so much more than having a couple of extra hundred quid in the bank each month. 

It's a concept you cannot capture unless you've gone through it and one of the levelers for me in huge critical decision points in my life, because we're in the world of business and we no longer work in half terms, even though our business is education, what's underpinning our business is quarters. So I very much see life in terms of quarters now. Well, okay, if we take a hundred as really old and we break down those hundred years into quarters, well, I've done naught to 25, thick, I've done 25 to 50, I'm over halfway, I'm in my third quarter, if we want to then layer that onto the seasons of the year in keeping with where we've just come from, I'm in my autumn because 75 to a hundred is the winter of our lives. 

Now, I know people who live very healthy lives, but I think coming over the hill at 75, you're going to have a experiences that are 52. So if I've got 23 years left in my autumn, I've got 23 Christmases, I've got 23 summers, I've got 23, so many different things that if I put that down, all of a sudden you're asking me to put a price on my time and that's when you suddenly go, no, I do want to see these autumn leaves, we're going out for tea tonight and I'm going to go out for tea on a Thursday night with the kids and some of their friends and here's the difference, that's all I'm going to be thinking about. My stomach's not going to be churning because I've got to get back to do something, I'm not going to be worrying about the cost of it, I'm going to be present in Nando's. 

Sorry, I don't even know what that reaction was, honesty, it's the only common ground we've got that everybody can have something and I'm going to be there and I'm going to have a window seat and I'm going to people watch, I'm going to choose what I want to eat and be present and enjoy it and unless you've experienced that, but you can relate to the churning and the panic, that's not life and get a pen and paper out and work out how many years you've potentially got left God willing, what season of your life you're in and what you're going to do about it because that's what Jane did, she brought us to nature, she sat in nature and she is absolutely experiencing and drinking in every single moment of her life and I'm going to leave you with this, she left in July 2024 and it's November 2024, it can be done and she's making time work for her. That was a great one wasn't it pal, it's all right, I'm going for a millipion and I'm going to Nando's, I will see you on the other side my friend, enjoy.