Career Change Confidence: Trusting Your Gut in Creative Industries - Chloe Hodge

What if everything you've been told about career success is completely wrong?
In this inaugural episode of Successful AF, host Jess West sits down with arts professional Chloe Hodge for a raw conversation about career change confidence, ditching the prestige trap, and finding fulfilling work that aligns with your values.

Chloe's career transition from struggling on £8.55/hour at the Royal Academy to running international arts projects in Ukraine showcases female entrepreneurship in creative fields. She shares honest insights about creative career advice, why she chose passion over high-paying graduate schemes, and how trusting your instincts can lead to professional fulfillment.

Perfect for listeners seeking confidence tips for major life decisions and career motivation to pursue meaningful work.

• Guest Name: Chloe Hodge
• Bio: Program Director running artist projects and architectural heritage restorations in Ukraine during the full-scale invasion. Creative industry professional with experience across prestigious London institutions including the Royal Academy of Arts. Holds a Master's in Curating from the Royal College of Art.

Episode Outline

1. Building Career Confidence: The £8.55 Decision That Changed Everything
   • Why Chloe chose purposeful work over lucrative graduate schemes
   • Confidence tips for following your instincts over financial security
2. Creative Industry Reality Check: From Prestige to Breakdown
   • What it's really like working at "dream" institutions
   • Recognizing when success on paper doesn't equal personal fulfillment
   • The danger of seeking external validation in creative careers
3. Female Entrepreneurship: Redefining Success on Your Own Terms
   • How Chloe redefined success throughout her career journey
   • Professional development through meaningful relationships and projects
4. Career Transition Breakthrough: From Breakdown to New Beginnings
   • The conversation that gave her permission to make a career change
   • Overcoming financial barriers in creative industries
   • Confidence building strategies for naturally introverted professionals
5. Purpose-Driven Work: Leading Projects in a War Zone
   • Female leadership in international creative projects
   • How crisis brings out the best in workplace culture
   • Work-life balance lessons from a broken ankle

Key Takeaways for Career Success

• Trust your intuition - even when it doesn't make logical sense
• Prestige doesn't equal happiness or professional fulfilment
• Sometimes you need the "wrong" job to appreciate meaningful work
• Career success means integrity, supportive relationships, and purpose
• Financial barriers in creative industries are real but not insurmountable
• Authenticity beats trying to fit into the wrong environment

Love this episode? Hit subscribe and leave us a review! And if you know someone who's redefining success on their own terms, nominate them at successfulafpod@gmail.com - we're always looking for incredible people to feature.

Connect with Jess:

Instagram: @kalicoaching.co

Website: www.kalicoaching.co.uk

Transcript

Meet Chloe Hodge: A Journey in the Arts

Early Career & Education

Navigating the Art World: Challenges and Triumphs

Balancing Multiple Roles and Overcoming Setbacks

Redefining Success and Personal Growth

Challenges in the UK Art Scene

Overcoming Financial and Confidence Barriers

Advice to My Younger Self

The Ankle Incident and Lessons Learned

0:02

What if everything you've been told about success is wrong? Welcome to Successful af, the podcast for women who've checked all the boxes but still feel empty inside. You know the story. Perfect cv, impressive job title. Everyone thinks you've got it all figured out, but behind closed doors, you're working yourself into the ground and wondering why success feels so exhausting. Fantasizing about opening a jam shop in the country. Or perhaps that's just me. I'm Jess West, and I've been exactly where you are. Corporate climber by day, anxious mess by night until I realized the game was rigged from the start. Each week on successful af, we are rewriting the rules. No more grinding until you break. No more pretending perfectionism is a superpower. No more building your worth. On other people's scorecards. We'll hear from women who've cracked the code, the ones who set actual boundaries that stick and learn to succeed without sacrificing their sanity. This isn't your typical lean in and work harder advice. This is about dismantling the achievement trap and building something better, because here's the truth, you can be successful without being miserable. You can have ambition without anxiety, and you can finally stop feeling like a fraud in your own life. Ready to get successful? Af, subscribe now and let's burn down the old playbook together. Today I am delighted to be joined by my good friend Chloe Hodge for our first ever episode of successful af. Chloe and I met in late 2021 when we did our 200 hour yoga teacher training together. Neither of us teach yoga anymore, but we have managed to stay friends since meeting. Between us, we've had about nine different roles with various organizations. I asked Chloe to be on the podcast mostly because she's an excellent human being, but also because she's got a fascinating job and I figured other people would be interested in it too, as well as her story. We go all over the place in this chat, so get yourself a tea and settle in. I. Chloe, welcome. Thanks Jess. I'm very pleased to be here and I'm very excited to be on the first episode, so thank you for having me. Yeah, let's get going. Yeah. Firstly, tell us your story. So tell us what you do now and then tell us how you got there. So I'm gonna start from the beginning go, but before that, so at the moment I am working as program director for a project which no one will have heard of, but that's why I love it so much. I am running a program of artist projects in Ukraine and outside of Ukraine with Ukrainian artists as well as running architectural heritage projects and restorations and supporting museums and galleries and artists financially as well during the full scale invasion. So it's very close to my heart. I have an amazing team who are based in the us, the uk, and in Ukraine. So I work entirely remotely, which is quite unusual apart from when I'm in, in Ukraine. But it's been quite a long, and I was going to say convoluted, but actually when I look back, it wasn't that convoluted road to getting here. So I'm gonna start from the beginning with art school because I think it was from that point that I decided to work in an area that I felt really passionate about. I. Regardless of the financial gain. And feeling brave enough to do that was down to my mother, who has always been freelance, who has always encouraged me to do what I felt passionate about. And when it came to going to university, I had the decision I could have decided between doing studying English or history or a social science or the arts. And my mom said to me, what do you think you can do for three years straight without getting bored or fed up? And I get bored and fed up very easily. So I chose fine art. So I studied fine art for three years and decided I didn't wanna be an artist. And when I came out I worked in arts pr, so I wrote for various arts magazines until I wasn't really sure that I wanted to me work in marketing anymore. So I did a course for runners at Pinewood Studios because I thought maybe I wanted to work in film. So by this point I was about 23 and I did this running course and a little bit of running on arts documentaries. And I applied for three jobs when I was 23, 1 of which was a graduate scheme with Downton Abbey, one of which is a graduate scheme with the BBC, and one of which was a part-time position at the Royal Academy of Arts being paid eight pounds, 55 an hour, I think it was, to work as their broadcast liaison in the press office. And the two graduate schemes were three years long, had like great salaries for where I was at, and the salaries increased as you stayed on the course. I got accepted of all three jobs and instead of choosing the graduate schemes, I chose the eight pound 55 an hour part-time job at the Royal Academy. Because I thought I have always wanted to work at the ra, this is incredible. I wanna be around these projects. And I struggled along in a flat in white chapel for those the two years I worked there. But they were actually really formative years because I was working with people I found really impressive. I, it cemented this idea that I definitely did wanna work in the arts. I could do it because I found it so difficult to get a job that I really liked before that. And actually it was the first time I spoke to curators and thought, I really want your job. This is what I wanna do. And I thought, but how can I don't have the qualifications. I didn't feel I had enough confidence to apply for a master's until my boss at the time said to me, why don't you just apply to the Royal College of Art? And I said, I can't apply to the Royal College of Art. I can't. I can't, I'll never get in. And she said, just do it. Just apply. So I didn't tell anybody. I think I told my mother, but I didn't tell the partner I lived with at the time. I didn't tell any of my friends. And I read one book on curating by Hans Ulrich Aris, who is extremely well known in my world. And I was running late for my interview. But when I got there, my reason for running Nate was,'cause I've been working on an Ansel Kfa show at the Royal Academy, and anybody who knows artists will know that he's really well known. So I bumbled into this room and said, I'm sorry I'm so late. I've just been working on the Kfa Show and I didn't. Feel that would've worked to my advantage at the time. But actually I think rushing in from working at quite a well-known artist show probably did me some favors. So I got onto that curating course and that was quite disruptive because I had not planned to get onto it. I just didn't think there was a chance. But it was because somebody at the RA said to me, just give it a go. And so from then on that's what that really changed my career direction. So my masters were two, was two years long. There were 20 of us in the class very small. And it completely transformed the way that I looked at the arts and what was possible. And after that I had become really interested in biennials and public art. So art, made for non exhibition audiences that works, are available for everybody. When I finished my masters, I also reached a juncture in my personal life. So I no longer essentially had a reason to stay in London. And I am half Kiwi, so my mother's a New Zealander. So having developed a really strong interest in Biennials during my master's, I applied for a job at Biennale of Sydney because I can work in Australia and New Zealand on my passport. And I got the job and they said to me, can you be here in 10 days? And I thought, oh my God, can I but I could. I You just walked out of your life in London, just that's it. Yeah, absolutely. I'd already walked out of my life in London a few weeks before that. Okay. And ended up at my, back at my family's house. Anybody listening can guess what happened. So I upped to Dixon, went to Sydney, and it was the best decision ever. And I got a job there that I couldn't have got in London because the art world is much smaller there, so there was far less competition. So I was really lucky in that sense. One of the things that's consistent in my career. Backstory is working two jobs at a time. Most people that work in the arts will have worked two jobs at a time, most of the time because you don't get paid well enough most of the time. So while I was in Sydney, I also got a job at Taipei Biennial. So I was working remotely for Taipei Biennial whilst working in Sydney in person on that biennial. And it was great because Taipei, I was doing research, Sydney, I was doing install I was doing, two set two quite different jobs, both on Biennials at the same time. After about six months of Sydney, I became really homesick and I'd installed the show and thought I wanna go home. So I did. And when I came back to London, I applied for a job at public arts agency. I. Which no one will have heard of. But that was very formative because I had a brilliant all female team. And I learned a huge amount from them. By the time I was 29, things started to go wrong in my eyes because I started to become attached to the wrong things. So all of my colleagues from my masters were working for extremely well-known institutions. And I felt really, I felt it was a problem that I was doing, something I was really enjoying and really cared about. The work I was doing was in East London and with very deprived communities, but I thought no one knows who these people are. And no, no one knows the artists I'm working with. No one knows the company I work for. So I applied for a job as head of exhibitions for a very well known YBA blue chip artist. And I got that job, and that was a maternity cover job. And actually, although I will explain why in a way, this was a. Bad career move. I would always say that taking mat cover jobs is a really good idea in the arts at least because it's how you get two, you jump up two rungs on the ladder faster than if you were to take a full-time job because they will give you a chance for nine months a year. I couldn't have got head of exhibitions job if it wasn't mat cover at the age of 29. So I worked for that artist for a period of time. It was pretty hellish. I learned a lot. I got to travel a lot until COVID hit. So when COVID hit and I was working at the artist studio, I did actually lose my job because the contract ended. And I was unemployed for six months. I could not get a job. I went onto Universal Credit for six months. I'm not ashamed of that. I would always urge anybody who becomes unemployed, if you can go on universal credit, I don't think there's a problem with it. If you have always been a taxpayer, that is what they're there for. It meant that I could actually pay my rent and I didn't lose my flat, it's there for a reason and especially if you're only gonna be on temporarily. And during that time, worked with a friend on a project, which was a remote residency program for artists in Southeast Asia. We just did it ourselves. We got a grant from the Arts Council to do it, and that kind of kept my mind going because. Applying for jobs for six months is, that doesn't sound like a long time. It's a really long time. I think it's important just to recognize that you can be unemployed for. Months and it feels like forever at the time, but when you look back, it's nothing really. And being able to do a short term project with a friend from my masters that actually had some quite nice outcomes that really kept me going and it kept her going during COVID, which was pretty difficult for everybody. And then during COVID, I worked remotely for two organizations. One was a high speed rail network that people may be aware of as many internal problems. And I left quite quickly because I couldn't bear the destruction of the countryside. Before you move on though, what were you doing for them?'cause obviously, You weren't building the railways. No, I wasn't building the railways. So I worked, I went back to public art. Having left the public art agency to work for a sculptor who makes very shiny, very commercial work I went back to public art. So I was working on a scheme for a public park in Ling in West London involving commissioning an artist. But the ethics I. Internally, we're just so far away from what my priorities are. So that's what I was doing. So back to public art and at the same time doubling up again. I was working for a car manufacturer, but it was their first ever arts program, which was great. And again, this is another brilliant job that I really enjoyed, but I felt totally self-conscious about it.'cause I thought, I'm working for a car company. Everyone who I know in the arts must think, what the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this? But I was having great time. I was, it was the first time I had really good work, travel it really well, nice hotels, going to great places, being sent to art fairs as well as work trips. And I was quite a senior member of the team. I was running the commissioning program. But I just couldn't kick this feeling of oh, but I'm not working in a really well-known institution, so there's a problem here. So I applied for a job and I got the job that gave me the worst mental health crisis of my life. But I was so proud of myself. Yeah, it looked great on paper. It looked great on paper. It's the reason I've got the job now. Okay, good. There you go. Benefits. But it is a real lesson. To myself for the future, and it has totally changed how I will ever approach applying for a job or taking a job ever again. I lasted almost three years in that institution. I moved between three jobs, the first job. I completed the rehang of the museum, which happens once every 10 years. For some reason, they thought it was possible for you to do that in three days a week. So that's what my contract was. So then I took on a second job internally to curator a project so I could make up five days a week in the same institution so that I wasn't trying to do two entirely separate jobs, but I basically completely sold my soul to them without realizing it. And I am proud. I think of what I did that. I know it was very good work. The quality of the work. Yeah. I don't think there was any problem with that, but I'd say I'm proud of the work I did there, but I'm not proud of myself for doing it because I was sacrificing my happiness, my respect for myself, and respect for my own self care the whole time. And I didn't form friendships internally because it's so competitive. And there is not, I. A sense of internal support. So without being too damning about that institution my experience was negative very negative. The projects that I completed were, I was, the day that they would open, I would feel brilliant. But that's, that counts for about five days out of three years because the projects take a long time to realize and that's not good enough. So I spent many months deciding whether or not I could leave, could I leave the pension's? So good. The maternity cover's so good. It's really well known. I could have a job here for life. But I then went to an opening. I went to an art, an exhibition opening, and I bumped into somebody who I didn't know, but who'd been working at a similar museum, and everyone who works in London. At these arts museums has a similar story. They get to a certain number of years, I think it's normally less than five, and they think, how can I get out? Can I get out? Can I leave? Could I leave? But the status is so high. And so I had this conversation with this guy and he just left. And I said, how did you do it? How did you find another job? And now, in hindsight, I think that's insane. You say to a stranger how did you leave your job? How could you ever find another job? But he said to me just look for something in all of the places you wouldn't normally look for a job. Very basic advice. But I took that to its furthest point and was looking everywhere. And eventually found my job. Via another job at the same institution, same organization on a very small American Arts Jobs website. But I owe my current role in part to this conversation with somebody who just recently had the guts to leave their job. Because I was really finding it difficult to leave and actually that's another lesson that I've always found it quite easy to leave jobs. I know when I've learned enough and I know when I want to go. But working in an institution that everybody in the arts respects so much, it becomes very difficult to leave because you feel that you have to keep justifying yourself to others and to yourself. So it's another lesson to not necessarily take those, to not take roles because you're attached to the name. Yeah. It's that's a lot easier said than done though, right? I think, arts or elsewhere, like it's really hard to leave a very prestigious role. But you did. Yeah, and I'm very pleased. And now the irony is that before my last job, all I wanted was to work somewhere that everybody knew the name of. And now I'm so thrilled to work somewhere that no one knows. No one knows this company at all. Nobody knows anything about this organization. We're brand new. Basically we have fewer than a thousand followers and Instagram. And I'm thrilled because I know the quality of what we're doing is good and I really believe in it. And it's not small fry. We've got artists who are. Extremely well known. And in one case, an artist who's the best known artist from the region of the world that he is based in. So it's not small fry, but it's not about status, it's about doing things well and for audiences to experience them well. Amazing. I love your story. There's so many lessons that you can pull on from there and I think, we'll delve into those, do you think you would have been able to get to a place of peace without having taken the prestigious role with the name attached? Or do you think you needed to do that in order to realize that it just wasn't for you? Yeah, I think I definitely needed to do it. I needed to do it. So that I knew what that felt like and so that I felt I ticked it off and also so that I felt I was good enough to have done it because although I've, been fairly successful so far. It's not because I have particularly high confidence levels, so I needed to work there and to see myself achieve things there, to know that I could do it. And I also think I needed to stay there for much longer than probably was healthy, so that I recognized that I was a square peg in a round hole. And it, but it wasn't a problem with. Me, it was a really poor fit. I think I needed the time and I needed to change roles there. I also think that I needed that job so that I now know that if a doctor ever says to me again, you need to take two months off on stress. I don't say, no, I couldn't possibly do that. The museum needs me. And I'll put myself first. and I think that kind of leads us to our next question, right? So what does success mean to you? I think now it's very simple, but getting to that point of simplicity is actually very difficult and actually huge privilege. So now I'd say it's managing projects or running projects. Actually, I. That I believe in with people I respect and I like, and having enough money not to worry. And although that sounds really simple, it's quite hard to get there because it is such a privilege to be working on projects that you really believe in and to be conceiving them and to actually be working with people that you think you can learn things from, that you do aspire to be like. That's a really lucky position to be in. So I think, that's what I would say. I feel a success now and putting yourself first. I love that. And I think it's very rare, as you say, for people to even like the job they do, let alone, really enjoy it. So I think that's, Amazing. I. You've covered this, but I'd love to hear you summarize it. How has your definition of success changed throughout your career? My definition of success has changed dramatically since the beginning of my career. But I think it went wrong in my late twenties, which is strange. I'm not sure if that's because you become more self-aware as you get older, but I don't think I thought really about what success meant to me early on. I knew that I wasn't quite happy in my career in my very early twenties, but I was very young then I did my masters and that was very tough. And then the first, I'd say four years after that, ma I, or th three and a half years, I was just happy because I felt like I was just moving ahead with things I was interested in. You're just excited because you're young. And then when I got to, yeah, 28, 29, I and I'm now 35 I suddenly looked at those people I'd been on my masters with and I thought, oh, there's something so wrong with what I'm doing. And that's when I really attached success to, I must be working at this place with this name, and this is what will make me important and. It also means that you are no longer really attaching your success to yourself and what you are doing and whether you are proud of what you're doing as an individual or the way you are working or the way you are treating people. I don't think I was treating anybody particularly badly, but I mean by that, that I was attaching success completely to, if you were to look at a piece of paper, this is what I'm doing. Okay. Whereas now I feel that success has a lot more to do with integrity and being proud of what you are doing and knowing that you're being considerate of people and knowing that you're helping other people up the ladder. So yeah, I think. It's really due to my latest role that my definition of success has changed so dramatically. But that's because I've seen now that I can do something I really love and I can feel successful at it because it's going well. But also I have a really supportive team and we tell each other that we're doing well. And that makes a big difference too. So yeah, my definition of success has it's gone back and forth. It started off as internal. It then became very externally attached for about four years and then has come back to being internal again. And I hope it stays that way. Yeah. But it took a very negative experience to be cemented maybe, hopefully this way. Yeah. I also love what you said there about, your team and like just telling each other, you're doing a good job. I don't think there's enough celebration. I think you said, on when you launched your big projects at the museum and you'd have that one day where you'd feel completely elated. But actually that sort of sustained approach of it's going really well, we are doing really well and that like continual reinforcement that everyone is working and pulling in the same direction and in the right direction, I think is really underestimated.'cause I think it can be so easy in a lot of places just to keep going, what's next? What's next? And that's internal as well, but also external. And actually finding a place where those things can be both internal and external in a way that you're continuing to review progress rather than just this is the pinnacle and we have to get there, I think is huge. I totally agree and I think, where I work now no. Organization is perfect and of course we do have to do a lot of hopping from one project to another as well. And sometimes you don't feel the time to acknowledge the previous successes or the current successes. What I would say is that where I work now, we are working in a war zone. So one of the reasons for this level of support we give one another is that my team is based in Europe and the US predominantly but we also have many Ukrainian colleagues. And so of course we are very supportive towards them. So then. That support then circulates throughout everybody's working life. But the reason I'm mentioning that is that I do think it's really rare to work somewhere that there is a general sense of support. And I do think that is just particularly present where I work now because it's necessary because we're dealing with quite a changeable, difficult situation on a daily basis on the ground. And so you need to be checking in on people as to whether they're okay. And that's to a very different level that you would normally with colleagues that you see in the office. So yeah, there's a level of humanity and good treatment of one another that has entered our more corporate way of working because of quite an unusual situation to be working in. Yeah. And yeah, the reason I'm mentioning that is just because I don't expect to have this same level of positive feedback and supportive ways of working in future organizations really, because, and I don't think everybody can necessarily, because it's just difficult to maintain sometimes. I'm really interested to talk about that.'cause do you not think it could be carried forward? Yeah, perhaps it could be carried forward. I think maybe what it is that I've just never experienced it really before. Yeah. I worked in the public arts organization. I worked in. With all women. We are still very good friends. We have one WhatsApp group together and we call women artists as a joke because why do we use this term? Women artists? We don't talk about men artists. So we've yes, we've got this WhatsApp group. We're all very supportive of one another. But we had a horrible boss, so there was mutual support within the team, but not from above. So whereas where I work now, it's just the first time I've ever encountered general mutual support. Also, it may be symptomatic of not just having British colleagues. I think the art world in the UK is pretty competitive and pretty unpleasant. A lot of the time. People think of it as fluffy and nice. It's. So far in the other direction, it's unbelievable. But yeah, I think I do think you have to carry forward positive ways of working. It's something I've tried to do a lot. When I left that public arts organization, there was somebody I tried to train up into my role. I've tried to stay across her career and mentor her a little bit. You were saying in the public arts space, like you had a really challenging boss. I think sometimes those sort of challenges can bring out the best in people but also. From what you've said about the UK art scene and the competitive nature, it feels like it's almost like either it becomes very supportive or it becomes very competitive and it's interesting to see that split and I wonder what you think might be at the root of that. Like why in some instances do we become a lot more supportive and in other instances it's almost like the resources are so scarce that we have to compete. But I dunno if there's any rational rationale behind that. It is a big question as to why some workplaces can feel mutually supportive and others can't. But I think if I just looked at my experience, which is, fairly short I think it comes from the top. I think that if you have an insecure director or an insecure CEO or boss then something about that I. Seems to then affect the way the team work. I'm not sure if that's, because then certain people try to manage up and try and take, try to take space in that directorial role and then are not collegial to other people. I'm not sure if it's because the leadership simply aren't encouraging positive ways of working because they're too focused on their own role. But whatever the reason is, when I've worked in situations where whoever is the leader is not particularly great at their job or doesn't feel comfortable in their job, that is when I've had problems internally with colleagues. Maybe it's also just because if a leader is struggling, then so is the rest of the team, and then you are under-resourced and you don't have the time to give to other people when you are struggling because the whole organization is struggling because the leader is struggling, as they managed to cover that up most of the time. But in terms of encouraging positive ways of working, I think, where I work at the moment is a really good example because we are encouraged to, take away days together and things like that. That's quite common in the normal corporate world, but in the arts world, it's not at all because there is not normally the money to do things like that. It has, it comes down to resourcing that time spent together as well. And the team properly, so you have enough people. It's all basic things, I also think that a fundamental thing is also having a really clear structure. Having a clear organizational chart, structure hierarchy so people actually know what is in, within their scope of work and what is somebody else's, and no one's fighting over work because that's another really common thing in well has been a common thing in my experience in arts jobs, that it's never that clear who's working on what project and who can take how much space on what, and then people end up becoming competitive and fighting. So I think one of the problems of working in the arts is that people talk about flattening the hierarchy, collaboration, creativity, giving each other space and all of this looseness actually just. More often than not leads to problems because collaboration. Okay. But who's leading the project and giving each other space. Okay, but when is it too much space? It doesn't necessarily work. I think, artists can work in that way, but we are not, the artists the one, we're the ones organizing the artists and getting things done. So yeah, I think that's really interesting. It's the sort of the level, like we don't, as humans function particularly well in ambiguity. And I think what you've hit on there is so interesting that the sort of structure of the art world is structured around the way that artists like to work. But actually that doesn't necessarily work for the structural support around those artists. And that's where the struggle can come from. And I don't think that's unique to the art world, to be honest. I think actually, having that very clear delineation of who's doing what is, also applicable to corporate and beyond. Yeah. And coming back to where I work now, fundamentally it's a corporate organization carrying out arts projects. So actually perhaps that's why we're also happy. Yeah. You've got the perfect balance. It's got the corporate structure and the lovely projects. Yeah. And you have, you've actually talked about this a lot, but I'd be curious to hear what else comes up. What barriers or challenges have you had to overcome to get to your point now where you are successful af? The barriers I've had to overcome have been predominantly financial. I work in the arts. It is a nightmare when it comes to being paid. Enough to be alive. The biggest culprits are the best known museums. I'm sorry to say that. But when an organization knows that you want to work there, because everybody wants to work there and there's a huge long line they will not reward you that financially. I know that they often can't. So that's been a real issue. And throughout my career, I have tutored on the side. I paid for my master's through tutoring. I have tutored alongside huge projects in London because the tutoring pays better than the museum. So that's been a barrier to, I'm not sure if that's a barrier to success, but that could have easily been a reason to just stop working in the industry and just to give up. Another barrier has just been confidence. I think in my last role, even though on paper I was doing really huge projects, I felt such a lack of support internally, which I don't think, I think my immediate colleagues and even my sort of line managers wanted to be supportive, but they didn't feel supported. I'm saying that because I do totally respect every, everything that everybody there does and did. But I think I didn't feel supported, and therefore lost a lot of confidence. So I think confidence has been a barrier throughout. I think I naturally don't have particularly strong self-esteem or self-confidence. Even though I seem to be quite happy just to go with my gut most of the time and just think this is a good idea, therefore I'm gonna do this. So yeah, putting myself forward for things has sometimes been difficult. I think I'm also always really concerned about appearing overconfident or arrogant or entitled. And that's a bit of a hangup of mine. So I, and I don't accept praise very easily. So that's a little bit of a barrier and I think, that's one of those things that my current partner says, you need to learn how to take credit better. But I'm fine with being very modest actually. And I think you get more comfortable with it as time goes by. There have been practical barriers in terms of when you work in the industry, I work in, once you choose your course, it's quite difficult to move. So if you were to start in commercial galleries, you are stuck working in commercial galleries. If you work in museums, you're stuck in that area. I luckily stuck myself in commissioning from very early on and I'm very happy to be stuck in commissioning'cause that's what I like to do. But it's something to be really aware of that if you're going, if you're going into the arts, you get pigeonholed pretty quickly. And it's, it can be quite difficult to move out of that or it can be slow. And I think another barrier for me, which links to the finances has been location in terms of arts jobs in the UK tend to be mainly in London, which is really expensive to live in if you are working in an arts job based in London. You are working internationally and you are living in London as I am now, it's fine because international arts jobs pay a lot better. Just to be totally upfront. But that is the real difficulty and I don't know how people are managing now and I don't dunno how 25 year olds can possibly be working entry level arts jobs in London, if they don't have parental help or some other, you, they need financial help. I don't see how it's possible to live in town and work there too, if you are not in a fairly senior role, which is really sad. And that's not down to the museums themselves, it's down to public funding. So yeah, it's a pretty sore state of affairs really, for the arts in the UK at the moment. I'd be interested to hear, and you've touched on it, but like how you have overcome them. Obviously, you took financially, like you now work for an international organization and that's, the only way to overcome that, which is, quite sad actually, the fact that this is where we've got to as a country. But how have you overcome your confidence barrier? I would say just by trying to ignore the voice that says you're not. Honestly. Yeah. And also I'm really lucky because I have a partner who says to me, you've done all of this. It's on your cv. You can therefore do this. And also, my mother has been amazing. A lot of the reason that I am where I am now is down to her and not down to financial support from her. It's down to the fact that she was freelance throughout her life. She hasn't got a career portfolio. But she moved between different industries. And she's always backed me to say, to apply for new things and to say, yes, you can do it. And so if you want to leave, you can leave yeah, so I think having supportive family and friends and partner helps a lot. But really it's sometimes the thing with having low self-confidence is that you can also reason with it. You can also say to yourself, I know you don't think you're good enough to get that job, but have a go. Because if you do look at your CV, it does make sense that they might consider you. It's just, it's that constant battle between reasoning with your mind and, looking at what your brain is telling you and then reading out what you've got on paper. And it's silly for me to now think I can't get certain roles because, for example, in my current role, I've worked with some of these artists before, it would make sense that I would work with them again. Yeah. So you just have to try. One of the things I often work on is like mining for confidence and almost just going back and like looking at the evidence and being like, and you've talked about it there, like looking at your CV and going, yeah, like actually, this says this. And there's that whole stat around women they'll only apply for a job where they think they can take everything on the, this is what you must have. Whereas men will apply after any, let's say they've got five out of 10. I think it is erroneous to gender that because I don't think that's necessarily the case. But I think there is an element of sometimes you've just gotta go, fuck it. I can do this. And it can be really hard to shut that voice up in your head that's you absolutely can't. And managing that and being like, here's a piece of like almost distracting it and going you, you go over here's what I've done, i'm just gonna focus on writing this application for now. And I think that's a big part of just letting go of that annoyance. Yeah, I totally agree. And yeah, I know this statistic that is it's something like, yeah, women will only apply for a job if they feel that they took a hundred percent outta the boxes, whereas men will apply. If they feel they tick 60 or 70% and I actually in recent years have just started to use that and just pretend I'm this man in this stat. Even though, yeah, we shouldn't gender stereotype things like that at all. But just think, fine. If a man would apply and he's got 70%, then why don't I? And I think mining for confidence is a really good way of phrasing it. You have to, Look at the evidence and be like, sorry, why do you not think you can get that? I also think there's something slightly wrong with me in that I find job applications quite satisfying and enjoyable. It's like I find them a little, I really enjoy writing and I find them a little challenge. And then I also think, okay, I, I like, I make it a game and I'm like, okay, if I can do more than half today, then I can get, I I. Put down the number of hours I can do it in. And then it's like you've hit a target with it, whether or not you get the job. But I think I love it. You're just gamifying the job application system, gamifying the job applications and also I think it's quite good to keep, to try and do applications. In my mind, you should really be applying for jobs once a year just to see what you get back. Even if you don't want a new job. Just to see where you are sitting and how you're presenting yourself. In my case, because I work in the arts, it's really important to try and take the temperature of the job market regularly because sometimes there is nothing, sometimes there is a lot. Yeah, saying that I'm so happy in my current job, I'm not sure that I would look for any jobs within the next six months, but, I think it's just good to keep putting yourself forward. Yeah, and I think also another way of improving your confidence is just to see people that work in the same industry as you regularly. I think we all act so remotely now, and I don't tend to, since COVID, I don't tend to attend exhibition openings at all in the same way as I used to, which is the way that you see colleagues working in your sector and have, and acquaintances more than friends. And it's important to go to those things and to talk to people because you can, using social media now and seeing a lot of our friends or former colleagues over socials means that you can just think, oh, everyone's having the best time ever. They absolutely love their jobs and they're doing these incredible things and it's totally skewed. And you just need to be having like real time conversations with people working in the same sector as you to actually understand how they're feeling about things. Most of the time it's a hell of a lot worse than what's on Instagram. Or if there's nothing on their Instagram, then it's probably a lot better. So yeah, I think that helps. Yeah, I think that's so true. Final question. What advice would you give to your 21-year-old self? This is my favorite question. And I thought about it a lot. So I'm gonna throw in some personal with the professional here. And I'm gonna split your question up if that's okay. Great. Yeah. Do, yeah. Make it your question. Great. Thank you. So my advice to my 21-year-old self, so I think I was a pretty sound mind when I was 21 in some ways. But I don't think I needed career advice because I think I was very excited about what I was doing and I just threw myself into whatever I could. So my advice to my 21-year-old self is just eat more. That's the advice to the 21-year-old. You don't need to control that. That's fine. You need it. It's fuel. Then I'm going to pick my 25-year-old self and my 30-year-old self. So when I was 25, I just left my master's and I was, as I mentioned before, I flew off to Sydney to work on this job. But before that, there was a lot of umming and erring and indecision about where I should be and what I should do. And I think my advice to the 25-year-old self, and I did do this, but I would double down on it and just say, trust your gut. Go for it. Everything will be fine. So that's the advice the 25-year-old self is just keep going for it. Because for some reason in my kind of early to mid late twenties, I was still quite good at looking at opportunities and saying, this looks like something I can do and something I will enjoy. I think it's because you're still really growing at that point. And just going for it. So that's my advice to them. Then my advice to my 30-year-old self. Which I would say is where things started to go wrong, or maybe that's also to do with the expectations you start to put on yourself when you're 30. Yeah. Is my God, the advice I have for her. I'd say take this job. So that's the job at the museum, but you do not owe them your health. You do not owe them your mental health. You never owe any employer that they will not give you what you expect.'cause for some reason you're expecting more from them than is likely. So sometimes these places can offer you the moon on a stick, but they don't. That's all just to keep you there. And I think just you need to recognize when you start to feel like a square peg in a round hole and you're sitting at the bottom of your flat stairs every day crying once you've parked your bike up and your boyfriend's shouting you down from the landing, are you crying at the bottom of the stairs again? Aw. You could probably really listen to that. And I was not being bullied at work. I was not failing. I was doing well. I was, everything that came back was, I was doing extremely good job. I got promoted, but it simply was a terrible fit. And actually it's that I think is the most difficult experience I've ever had at work. And it's really hard to define, but it's a really important thing to try and untangle within yourself or with a therapist if they can get that out of you, is that sometimes it's just not a good fit. And it doesn't matter if, it doesn't matter that the projects you're opening are opening exactly as planned and they look great and the reviews are good and your colleagues are happy with it and the director's happy with it. If you just cannot feel happy, then that's just not worth it and it's just wrong. And maybe you can't quite define why it's wrong, but it doesn't really matter if you can't quite define it. And I think that was my big problem though, is I couldn't, and I still can't now quite get a sentence for what was wrong, but something in it just, I was just incredibly unhappy. And so I think, yeah, the. The advice of 30-year-old self is just listen to your gut in a different way. When you are unhappy and you know you're unhappy and you're contacting former colleagues to say, we work together, can I talk to you because I'm just not sure what's wrong. Just trust yourself like, if you are really unhappy, yeah, I think listen to yourself and your own mental health as much as you can. It's ridiculous because if I compare what I'm doing now to what I was doing, then what I was doing then was, I cycled 20 minutes to work every day in a very safe, very lovely, very green location in London. I worked from 10 till six. And it was very lovely, nice environment, beautiful museum to walk around. Everyone was very cordial, very polite. And then I'd go home and. I was earning terribly, but that's by the bye. If I compare that to what I'm doing now, which is when I go to work in Ukraine, I'm awake most of the night. Most of the time I'm there because we have air aids. Most of the people I'm working with have got PTSD because of what's going on. They are incredible and it's amazing that they worked the level that they do, which is the same level as we all work at outside of war zones. And it's all extremely stressful and it takes two days to get there, but I find that I'm much happier because I believe in what we're doing. Everybody is kind and we're supporting one another. And and yeah, on the last trip I broke my ankle and yet still I love my job more than the last one. Do we just, should we finish on the ankle story? What happened with your ankle? So I was in Kiev and it was our last day there and we were due to go to Warsaw the next day and then after that to Venice Biennale to open the architecture Biennale, which we worked on the Ukrainian pavilion for. It's totally unrelated to the full scale invasion, there is a work related lesson to be learned, but I have to apologize to anybody that actually knows me because they heard far too much about this angle than is fair. But basically I was leaving this show in Kiev, this exhibition and this wonderful artist had shown me around her exhibition and I was so excited to be there.'cause I'd met her before, but I hadn't seen her work in person. And the show was stunning. And it's all about women's experiences of full-scale invasion and specifically mother's experiences as well. And I'm now working with her, so I'm thrilled. And actually that kind of makes the ankle worth it, yeah, let's say it because she's great. But I was running out of this show in a hurry, as always, one of my big problems and I had just received an edit of a film we were making about one of the artist projects. And I was voice noting, edits to the editor whilst rushing out of this exhibition for a car that was pulling up to pick me up to take me to another meeting. And one of the things with our trips to Ukraine is that often we jam pack in so many things because we're only there for a week or two at a time and we want to see everybody that we're working with. So I was running for this car whilst voice noting, not looking at the ground. I was wearing a long, smart, nice coat, which caught on a bollard, and I just fell down a curb and snapped my ankle in half. Basically. I was lying on the floor screaming. And then and then in the ambulance, I immediately was voice outing my colleagues and the person I was due to meet at this work, this fabrication. Factory saying, oh, this, I must have been totally delirious. Hi, I'm so sorry. I'll probably be off the, I won't be on the social media call today'cause I've just broken my ankle and I'm in am an ambulance. I won't be idiot to the meeting at the production place because I have just broken my ankle. I'm being injected with some quite strong painkillers. Having a broken ankle is not great and it's gonna be a long road. But I have thought about it in relation to this podcast today as well because there are various lessons to be learned and I hope I learned them for life, which is one stop trying to do too many things at the same time all the time, which I'm a terrible culprit of. And it probably partly comes down to this having to have had. To work two jobs consistently throughout my arts career. And I don't have to do that anymore, which is great. So I can stop doing a, and there's that saying, isn't it do one thing well or many things badly. And the other lesson I learned, or it's not a lesson, but when I was in Kyiv lying in hospital for five days, I had visited like my Ukrainian colleagues visited me, artists and curators I'm working with visited me. I got so many bunches of flowers, presents presence, phone calls. I got so many messages and I just thought, this is the most caring group of people I've ever worked with. And maybe it's brought me closer to some of them because you also, in times like that, you speak on a non-work related level. So yeah, I'm very grateful to them all for that. But really, you have to learn that lesson to rush around less and try and just think about your next steps literally, slowly and carefully instead of running around all the time. Yeah. So although I just, I know that's part of my character and I probably never will change. I love the honesty there. Here's what I should learn. I'm not going to, you should all learn to slow down, but also some people be who you are. Yeah. That's a good, I also think that's another good work related lesson be who you are. Because when you find yourself as a square peg in a round hole, you need to not try and become the round peg. Just be who you are and just be like this is wrong. Because if you, as I did, try and start buying floral shirts to become the round peg and try and start to change little things about yourself, you're realizing that this is just not gonna work. What happened to the floral shirts after you left? Hate them. I hate them and I've not worn them since. Oh Chloe, thank you so much. This has been such an interesting chat. I've learned so much. We've known each other for a really long time. We're actually very good friends and we talk a lot and I've still learned loads about you today. So thank you for your time. It is been really enjoyable. I think it's really wonderful to reflect on. Career, even if you're only in your mid thirties. Because it helps you to understand what was linear progression where the turns you took were slightly misinformed or didn't work for you. Like it's, I think it's quite important to try and go through your story as you put it fairly regularly because it does help you work out when you were doing things that aligned with your own interests priorities and when you were doing things that you just felt you should yeah. Beautiful. On that note, thank you ever so much. Thank you so much for listening today, and thanks to Chloe for her candor and honesty. My key takeaways from this conversation are numerous, but top three, always listen to your gut. Slow down and don't try and change yourself to fit in somewhere. Oh, and also, if you hate floral shirts, don't buy them. If this conversation sparks something for you, I want to hear about it. Send me your thoughts, your questions, your holy shit. That's exactly what I'm going through. Moments, whatever's on your mind. Drop me a line at successful AF pod@gmail.com. And here's the thing, I'm always looking for incredible women to feature on this show. Women who've broken the mold redefine success on their own terms or are in the thick of that transformation right now. If that's you or someone you know, don't be shy. Nominate yourself or them at successful af pod@gmail.com. Also, do me a solid and like, and subscribe. Maybe send it to your mates too, because the more we share, the more we prove that there's more than just one way to be successful. Af. Thank you and see you next week.