Back to Resilience Unravelled. And in front of me, is Julie Perkins, who is resplendent in Orange. And I guess there's a reason why you're in Orange today, Julie, where in the world are you?
Julie:Well, I'm actually doing this from Amsterdam, where I live, and today is Kings Day in Amsterdam, where the whole country, all 15 million people, dress in orange and go out to celebrate the day off that they're given. So, it's a very festive, jubilant day is today. Hence me being in Orange, at least for afterwards. Not for this moment, but for afterwards, for sure.
Russell:And of course, we have great fondness over here for William of Orange and all that sort of stuff.
Julie:Indeed.
Russell:What was orange. I mean, what was the derivation of Orange? Is it county or something?
Julie:No, I don't think so. I think it's just from the origin of the Netherlands. It's the William of Orange colour. I think it must be back before the Spanish, actually. I have no idea. It's a very good question. My history is lacking on this one, and I feel as sort of someone who's lived here for 20 years, I should know the answer to that.
Russell:If you see, if you've been doing the British immigration test, you would need it to have known that was right.
Julie:I was here before the inverters happened, so I was allowed to stay.
Russell:Oh, my goodness. That's another story. Well, it's a delight to meet you, Julie. Why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us what it is that you do.
Julie:So, I support female entrepreneurs to grow their businesses in a more seamless way. I started my company Wise Minds after a fantastic 20-year career, opening up Specsavers in the Netherlands and in Northern Europe. And along that journey gained experience. And I thought, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to use that experience in order to support female entrepreneurs to grow their business in a more seamless way. Learning what probably took me ten years to learn in hopefully three months. So that's a little bit about what I do.
Russell:Fantastic. All right. Okay. So, I mean, we've all heard of Specsavers, certainly here in the side of the pond, should have gone there, I understand, but are you struggling to hear me or are you okay, I.
Julie:Was on that last bit. Sorry.
Russell:No worries. Hello, I'm here.
Julie:Hello.
Rusell:That’s podcast gold, that bit, people pay extra for bits like that. So, I was saying, actually, the Specsavers thing is fascinating. Tell us a bit about your career before you got to this point, then tell us about your story.
Julie:Well, I think the first journey of learning I come from a big entrepreneurial family, so it's quite fast moving and quite sort of dynamic, and I took Specsavers into the Netherlands. It was the very first country we went to outside the UK. And I think that's probably where the greatest learning in any situation comes, especially for myself, because you move from a sort of market leadership position and take into a country and it's a real struggle. And your greatest learning there comes from that moment. And for me, we started opening during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 and everything about Specsavers was in place, but it was chugging along. And I remember the story begins at 03:00 a.m. In the morning, and I was sat in my garden with my hands in the air as if to say, what more can I do? How can something work there and not here?
Russell:And the recession, et cetera, was a real burden and to cut a long story short, went into the office the next day surrounded by great people. And I had recounted the story of my frustration of why we were chugging along. And their reply to me was, are you still doing what you love and love what you do? And immediately I thought, very nice question, thank you for the care, but we've got sort of millions here that we're trying to solve. But really the question that was my first big learning that I've taken into what I do today was this importance of in times of turmoil, in times of real struggle, the greatest learning was to go back to yourself and how you build back yourself in order to be able to face that resilience. And I think, of course, the story turned out fantastically. Specsavers continues to grow in northern Europe.
Julie:But at that moment in 2008/9 I think that was one of the pivotal points of my learning about how to grow businesses and beyond that, how to actually face the challenges of life without doing more, because that's what I was doing. I think that's a natural thing. Do more, do more. And understanding this how actually by just taking that step back, taking that journey. And I think that was the pivotal point for me.
Russell:Okay, well, let's unpack that person. Are you doing what you love and love what you're doing? Was that it? What was it about the question, first of all, that made you think and then how did you make sense of what you thought?
Julie:Well, I think when you're sort of in this sort of sharing moment with your team and it was years ago. It was a few years ago, I think it's such a question, you expect it to be, let's do more marketing, let's do more, let's sit, let's open up the table and put more strategies onto the table. And I think that's a natural way of reacting because that creates comradeship, that task force, which actually in adverse situations, people love, let's get together in a team, let's do more. Let's bring each other and care for each other that way. And I think it was a very challenging question. What I wasn't expecting, do you love what you do? And I was like I wanted to say, well, of course I do. I'm here, I'm working 18 hours a day to make sure this brand is fantastic. Why would I do that if I didn't love what I do?
Julie:So actually, it was a real important question to poke some assumption that I had made, because, of course, when you think about it and someone pushes back and says, I know you're spending 18 hours a day on this and you're thinking about it, but do you still love it? I think it's a real challenging question to ask.
Russell:What's the relevance of it?
Julie:Well, I think the relevance as it unfolded was that what had happened over the fact that you were working so hard, your blinkers come down. And I think that you are in a situation where you start to build the company around you. You start to hold on to everything that you're in, only to yourself, because you're working on it and you're burying it and you're slowly building a cave around you. And I think that when I look back on a lot of challenging situations, I think that's a really big thing and definitely something now. When female entrepreneurs come to me, the biggest challenge, or one of the biggest challenges is exactly the same as I was back in 2008 is that we work so hard to ensure that what we believe comes true. That we forget about ourselves. We forget about the impact that we're having on others or the situation, and we're on a hamster wheel.
Julie:But that hamster wheel now has no light, so you're just running in the dark. And of course, in hindsight, there's nothing effective about that. But at the time, you think you're doing everything you possibly can in order to achieve what you really believe.
Russell:Did the question make you change anything?
Julie:Yeah. Well, luckily, I was surrounded by a great group of people, of which it didn't happen instantly. I'm not going to kid myself. I'm not like, oh, thank you for that. There was a bit of, you've got to be kidding. But when you actually look back on it, what I realised I was doing is that the wave of growth that I was on was really galloping fast. But the new wave of growth, what the success was there, was trying to overtake me, and I was galloping alongside it, trying to hold on to this wave of growth, holding on to the next. So basically, on each, slowly sinking in between. And I think once you realised how much I was doing that, I didn't need to do that. I had this great team was, how do you create the space to let go? And I think a lot of people would say, you need to delegate more.
Julie:That's not the answer. It's strange, but it's not of course, you do. Well, I wasn't stupid. I knew that was the answer. But actually, how do you prepare yourself to create that trust, to let go of what you need to in order to create that space? And in fact, that's what really the answer that I found with asking the people, well, what is that asking the team? And what had happened was that rather than working with the company organisational purpose, what you do is you merge into it and everything becomes you. So, the first thing I did was to really create space. Who am I? What do I believe? And how can I translate that into the company that I work with or was growing at the time? And that space allowed you to be able to see, and then you can see what you need, where you need to go, how you position yourself.
Julie:And that leaves the space for obviously, others to rise and achieve and live their best lives as well. But in times of where the impact, especially in an entrepreneurial position, where everything's being thrown at you at left, right and centre, you need to be able to ground yourself and know who you are and how you translate yourself into that situation rather than be that situation. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It sounds so simple now, but when you're in it and your passion and everything is holding on for that, it's very easy thing to forget. And you do merge in times of crisis or challenge. Sorry.
Russell:Yeah. So, what I'm picking up here is that a question gives you perspective, which is why people use coaches in the first place, that skilled questioning thing. And that works in large organisations. But there's a lot of people who work in the world who are on their own, or they're running small charities, or they are cash poor and resource poor. Do you think that question still works, or is it a different question?
Julie:I think it probably works even larger than it did to me. I think when entrepreneurs come to me, either they're working for charities, social enterprises and small companies. Your passion and your willingness will get you so far, and I always liken it to sort of Mount Everest. And your passion will get you to in a business situation, will get you to Camp Four. You've gone through everything, but at Camp Four, you're burdened by the energy that it's taken for you to actually become a viable proposition, a viable company or charity. And in order to be able to grow, you need to be able to ask yourself that question because you need space for others. You need to decide what that is. And the starting point actually costs you no more money, and it will give you something, which is what are your values in your life?
Julie:What's taken you to this place that you are, and why are you taking the choices that you're taking now? And actually, even by doing that space becomes priceless. You don't need money for that. The space that you create between yourself and the purpose of your organisation is where the magic happens really, where you can begin to see clearly, take better decisions, not take with you what got you there because it's not necessarily what's going to take you up to the next wave and I think that costs you nothing.
Russell:You see that's really interesting.
Russell:I remember having a conversation with a private equity firm many years ago where you did a lot of human capital audits or looking at the validity of an investment succeed by assessing the management capability for example. And I remember them saying that there's a type of person that's great at business start-ups getting them to a certain level but then they frequently can't get them any further. Some of us have our capacity, some of that scale, some is opportunity, most of it's just experience and somehow, they don't have that. And then you have the people who are next good at the next stage which is sort of the slightly matured like managing the teenager as it were. Then you have the next phase which is you're in the sort of big corporate life and you're doing that phase and the next thing is the big buyouts emergence acquisitions sort of truly international thing.
Russell:And their view was really sorry, I'm oversimplifying that for effect, but their view is that you couldn't transition between one stage and the next and actually very few people do this. In fact, so few people do that they're noted because they can't. So, there's often reasons for that. But I find it interesting and I'm just wondering in my own mind that it's a fatuous question, but I wonder if there's a different question for each person at their different stage. Which is why I asked you about your stage which is like stage two in a bit or something, but you're sort of using the same question for stage one. And I've also been troubled by this follow your passion thing because psychology is a lot about mining this happiness and the passion and where you are rather than waiting to have it visited on you as if it's just seeped through the steeler ceiling and hit you in the head.
Russell:So I'm trying to reconcile these different approaches of what you're saying. I just wondered if you had a view.
Julie:It's one of my favourite subjects because we like to understand patterns in life and I think the way businesses grow, especially in early stages is very similar but the person is unique but the way businesses grow is not. And the biggest challenge that I try to face is the ones that have this we're going to use the analogy of growing child have the baby and the baby's growing up as a teen and they're still trying to nurture it like a baby. But the question that I think is interesting is what motivates the founder because of course they're referring to the founder's trap where the founder continues to hold the baby whilst it's trying to be a teenager. And I think if you know yourself, it's not about trying to fix yourself one wave, but if you understand the waves, you can ask yourself the question each one.
Julie:You've got to keep growing, keep repositioning yourself, and as long as you feel fulfilled your values are being answered and you feel motivated, then that wave continues. But also, I've been in situations where supporting entrepreneurs that are their values still making them fulfilled? Is this still what they want to do? And sometimes then right to sell out. But I think as long as you're making and reinventing sorry, renewing yourself is a better word. Renewing yourself in each wave, as long as you're connected. But the problem comes and they're absolutely right when the founder itself is stuck between one wave and two, like the example I gave at the beginning. And I think if you can renew yourself, I think there is always the advantage that you can lead into the future. But it depends on what you let go of, because, of course, you need a different team at each wave.
Julie:And if it's too much to you that, oh, it's not like it used to be. This time to get out. But you can get out with grace.
Russell:I'm just wondering whether dodging that bullet rather than just allowing something to fail is actually an opportunity loss because we learn so much through failure as well as success, obviously, but yeah, absolutely. I forget the academic used to talk about these organisational pain points in that growth structure and actually part of it is that there is a failure, which is why sometimes you lose a CEO or someone like that, someone moves on and then you bring another person in. And I just wonder if there's a self-awareness that comes from just allowing it to fail or allowing oneself to fail rather than constantly renewing.
Julie:Yeah, but the failure will come naturally, but it comes through the redundancy, it comes through choice rather than the founder. How can we remove them? How can we get them out? And I think by constantly renewing yourself, you become, and you stay very aware of yourself and your influence on it. So that founders don't want to be unhappy, but they'll sort of say, I'm not sure this is for me anymore. I don't know whether you want to reinvent yourself on the wave or if it's time to get off. Whereas of course, with entrepreneurs, I'm looking at their journey, their role, and we put them first, so we like to give them the choices of and we always say whatever growth is to you. And I think from an early stage, if you get people used to making themselves redundant on a regular basis, then they'll naturally do it when there is time to move on.
Julie:And it will leave also some very important foundations of the value and the foundation of that company in when they do sell or when they do exit. And I'm not sure that failure in terms of that black and white failure is the answer. I think there is ways of creating that same evolution but leaving something very good behind. But I think that's early stage for sure.
Russell:Yeah, but I'm also thinking that actually I've seen the opposite happen where you have CEOs are all into their passion, passion, but they actually miss the fundamentals out, which is the management piece, the leadership piece, the holding people to account piece and they sort of float in the ether of otherworldly strategizing. I mean, working with an organisation, I had far too much strategy, not enough management and so this is a delicate balance and I think sometimes the passion and maybe there's a pendulum here, maybe we're focused too much in the past on competence and now we're focusing a lot on passion. But what I've always said is show me a leader with competence first because if you have one with passion and no competence, what you end up with six months’ time is a leader with no passion and no competence. So, if I was ever going to have one, I'd rather have the competence thing.
Julie:I totally agree.
Russell:Yeah. And I think it's that challenge. There is this sweet spot in terms of how far away from the organization you get because you can be brilliant at something and terrible at it. So, you can be brilliant at passion based enterprise, actually not very good at executing it.
Julie:That's right. That's why we work very much on passion to purpose right in the very first sessions. Because I agree what an entrepreneur comes on, they say you are so passionate about it, and I was always told you're so passionate about what you do. And I used to wear it like this badge of honour until you understand that passion can be overwhelming for people unclear and actually can really push the confidence away and this sort of very enthusiastic person. So, I totally agree with what you're saying, but this passion into purpose is a very important part and I was surrounded, as I said right at the beginning, growing up in an entrepreneurial family who shared success very early on in partnership. I watched and was a part of Mary and Doug passing on that responsibility to the leadership of every store of functions very early on.
Julie:And I think that was probably a lesson I subconsciously learnt about the importance of where the founder sits. And I agree sometimes you don't want to be the founder that's still holding on and turning up to meetings, but there's a role of the founder and if that fulfils you at every single stage, brilliant. And if it doesn't, it also gives you the space so that you're not going, oh, if I go, they're going to miss me because the infrastructure is there, and your legacy is there. And I think that's sometimes what founders fear. If I go, the legacy of what I was really passionate about will go. And I think if you evolve, it for.
Russell:And that's fascinating. It's just spurious view, isn't it? Because the legacy comes five years after you've left, not the minute you leave. And people don't seem to understand that I'm creating a legacy that say, well, no, that's not your job. The next person creates your legacy. And I also believe exactly what you're saying. I had someone very simple, someone who owns a solar business wholesaling and retailing and lots of stuff. And I said, so what's your exit strategy? And he looked at me and said, what do you mean? What is an exit strategy? He said to me, I said, what's the business for? And I'd never thought about it because people don't because actually, they think of a way of making money and then they go and make money, and then suddenly, 20 years later, they go, I'm really rich and not that satisfied. And then someone look at them and say, you're really rich.
Russell:Satisfaction comes from different places because business and I think there's obviously there's a bit of a new age idea I don't mean new age and spiritual sense. A new idea that your business has to be your entire life and it's entirely okay to have your business as the place where you go to make money and then you live your life somewhere else because your business is only part of life. And I think people, they identify so closely with it, they lose that focus and then you can't do your renewal and then they make themselves indispensable and they create the fires to make their business fail, don't they?
Julie:They do. And I think that's this joy about passion to purpose and this separation from very early stage because especially with many women entrepreneurs that I work with, there are all these traits, the masculine and feminine traits of life. And funny enough, they're not gender orientated. It just so happens that women have more feminine traits. But a lot of those feminine traits are about the broad view, are about the gathering of people, et cetera, and the holding on. And that family orientated traits. And these can really go in your favour as you're leading through challenging situations. But also, by finding out who you are, what it enables you to do is to play the whole keyboard of traits, the masculine ones, about quick decision making, direct thinking and understanding at each stage how you take your choices and your decisions. And I think that is very important for understanding how to keep that space and how to invite other people in.
Julie:And I think that is a very important part as you're growing businesses is to keep that space between, so we're not holding on. And you take then the full view of life, this is my business, I have space, this is my family space. And hobbies. A lot of people think I'm being overwhelmed by my business, and I just think, well, once you know yourself, you can see the space between everything. As they say on a spiritual, there is only life. There's not a false division, there's not work life, there's only life. And you have all these channels where you can place whoever you are in it and do whatever you wish. That is what we try and achieve by trying to separate them from the business so they don't become it.
Russell:Yes, and I think that's very hard when you're doing a small business. Yeah, interesting. Fascinating. We could do this all day. Do you work with trans people as well as females? Do you work with trans females or is it gender?
Julie:Females only, I think really, because a lot of people say, what do you just work with women? And I think I work with those people who have got and want to grow a more purpose led orientated company. So that those people who want to be driving purpose into what they do, and purpose led companies, I think very much. Obviously, they were very alive during COVID when we’re looking towards doing things right for the community and doing things that are right for everybody. But for me, it doesn't matter. I think the feminine traits mean that it's more geared towards women owning businesses, but to be quite honest, it's the more business that I'm interested in, and the way people wish to grow, it would be the best answer for that one.
Russell:Nicely dodged. That’s a minefield, eh?
Julie:Well, it's difficult because is it about that or is it about the fact that people have got great ideas in the community that are very purpose led, that are very making something in the community better, whether that community be your town, your village or your country or beyond those borders. And that's really what I'm very passionate about, is how to be growing in a purpose led way, using the whole keyboard of traits, feminine and masculine traits, in terms of how we wish to grow. And that is more the style in which I open up. But I've helped many businesses of all gender, really, in terms of opening up. It's more the approach that we take.
Russell:And like everything, it's the chemistry you have between the business owner and yourself, isn't it? Or the people in your organisation. It's that thing. So how can people find out more about you, Julie, and your team and where it is, how it all works?
Julie:Yeah, well, we've got website wysminds.com, we're also on LinkedIn and obviously social media.
Russell:It's wise with a why, isn't it?
Julie:Wise with a why? And a very young person taught me that because I was on a course on digital writing which I was terrible at, but they were very good. And he said, what's your company? I said, oh, it's wyseminds.com. And he went, that makes you sound really old because you look wise. He said, why don't you change the I to a Y? And I went, very good idea. And I love that collaboration between the sort of spirits of the young. I love it. wyseminds.com why is with a why? And there you can get involved. There’re loads of free stories there. You can find out a little bit about what we do. There are free introductory offers on the course, and there's a growth evaluation that you can fill out that gives you the sort of starting point. You get a bespoke guide back and everything to go, how ready am I to grow?
Julie:And it gives you an indication of where you sit with purpose, how aligned you are and how strong the core of your business is to grow and how ready, which I think is the starting point of any growth journey.
Russell:Yeah, love it. And I'm guessing it's for anyone in any size organisation, middle leader, top leaders, boards, whatever you want, really, because actually, that purpose-based thing is applicable to anybody, really, isn't it?
Julie:Very much so. And it's open to everybody. It's open to anybody who feels overwhelmed, frustrated, or stuck or wants the challenge of growth. But quite often, people are stuck in a no man's land where they kind of falling out of love with what they do, what they once loved, and they go, why don't I love this anymore? This is one of the big questions that people find themselves. Why does this feel burdenless now?
Russell:Yes. Fascinating. Brilliant. Okay, then. There you are, Julie Perkins from Wyseminds, wise with y.com. And check out the site, have a look, have a session. It's all priced in euros on the site, so there's going to be a currency head scratching moment from other parts of the country and other parts of the world. But I remember Euros and you see them on holiday now, so there you go. So, Julie, thank you so much for spending time with us today.
Julie:Thank you very much for having me. Russell, it's been a pleasure.
Russell:You take care.