Never build the business you tried to escape

Thank you. Thank you, it's really lovely to join you today and I said, I really love what I've seen of your work so far. I you've been doing a great job.

Well, before this, used to be a builder and I loved that career. So I spent 10 years in the UK construction industry, mostly as a setting out engineer and then as a site manager. like concrete and cranes just make my heart very happy. so, I mean, I loved the job, but what I didn't love was the experience that I had having like in performing the job and whether that was like cultural things that affected all of us like. long hours and presenteeism and this really kind of aggressive nature that was in the construction industry back then. So we're to the early late 90s, 2000s. But the other thing was on top of all of that, I also got quite a lot of discrimination on the fact that I was a woman. And quite frankly, quite a lot of people didn't expect me to be there and weren't too sure what to do with the fact that I was. And because of that, I ended up leaving the industry. But the thing that happened before I left, was there was an awful lot of equality and diversity initiatives that were put in place allegedly to help me. And what I found was that they made my life a lot harder. So diversity training that was focused on the law made people really frustrated and there was quite a bit of backlash. Women in construction days wanted me to provide solutions but didn't give me anything. And so what ended up happening was I thought, okay, so there's got to be a better way of achieving equality. And so I figured, you know, I'm an engineer and I fix problems. I'll just go out and fix this one and bless my naivety. I was hoping like I'd get it sorted for about lunchtime and be back on the building sites. But 19 years later, I still haven't quite unraveled that knot, but I like to think that I'm getting there.

Yeah, massively. So a PhD is a funny thing. I describe it as one of the best and very worst things I've ever done in my life. It took me some dark old places, but it also changed the way that I think because what a PhD does is it helps you understand how to answer questions. A lot of people will talk about doing research at the moment when they mean a quick Google. When you do a PhD, it really teaches you how to, what research is, what you're looking at, what truth actually is. And It's an extraordinary thing that's many layered. And what that's meant, especially in a field like the one that I'm working in, which is around people and how people behave and how people respond, we can often be quite anecdotal on that and think about the few people that we've met. So with the basis of a PhD, which has helped me to understand how to do research that really understands what's anecdotal and what's part of a bigger picture, it allows me to then start to really pull together ideas in a way that are more likely to have a meaningful outcome, which I can then put back into my practice and test in my practice. And sometimes they work and other times they reveal, actually there was a bit of context missing here. So this research was brilliant, but because we didn't think about this one thing here, perhaps how people feel about the way that the organization treats them before we put an equality and diversity initiative into it. It meant that even though this would be a great equality initiative in this company, it's not working in this one. And then we take that back to the research and we do some more research to find out, that an anecdotal thing or was that part of a bigger problem? And so that kind of cycle continues, which for me is beautiful and it's happiness, quite frankly. And also I like to think that it gets us closer to finding out what actually works. And I suppose, I should say, for my clients, it gives them a better return on investment and more chance that things will come out. you know, sometimes I think clients are a very selfish way for me to get to do the research that I want to do without having to write an extraordinary amount of funding bits.

Yeah, I think it's mostly that we, I certainly wasn't taught in school or even in my first degree what research really is. And I think even within some PhDs, like the hard science PhDs, we don't really talk a lot about this thing that we call epistemology, which is what is truth. So we kind of believe, you know, some things are science and other things aren't science. When actually it's about understanding that, you know, if you're going to work in the, in chemistry, then it's much easier to determine, not easier, everything's difficult in its own way, but in terms of what is true, it's much easier to understand what truth is. A plus B usually will equal C. When we're working with people, man, they get up to all sorts. And so we can't say, like even if we do an experiment with people, which psychologists increasingly find out, put someone in a room and we... take away all of the other variables and we'll say, okay, so this person will act in this way. But the minute we pop them back out into the real world and all those sociological factors happen, then they behave in a completely different way. So for me, one of the biggest challenges with research is that we don't understand, we are not taught within our schools, generally in the UK, I don't know if it's any different, even in beautiful Czechia, but we're not generally taught what critical thinking is and what... that epistemological what is truth is in different contexts. And that means that when people research, they're obviously coming, they're often coming from a different sort of base level. So they're, what they believe to be truth, because that's what everyone else is doing, perhaps isn't truth. And I don't think that that's a bad thing, because I think that that means that people have got a thirst for research and a thirst for knowing more. And I think that's what we need to build on. I don't think this is about putting people down, but it's rather about going, okay, so come and have a look at what research is, because it's pretty exciting when we don't talk about it in these kind of stuffy feeling academic terms, but rather in a, you know, this is just a process, a pathway for being able to understand more about something. And I think the other really important thing about research is understanding that it's not an end game. Like, it's not that I've done the research and I've made my mind up and that is it. I think any good researcher always wants to be wrong and expects to be wrong in 10 years time. I want to be wrong in 10 years time because people are too confusing. The idea that any one paper could get it all right now, it just feels a bit too much for me. What we want is to create that paper and then someone else to create their paper, which tells us something else and someone else. And then in 10 years time, you know, something completely different. And that's exciting and that's beautiful. And sometimes I think we see that as changing our mind means you've failed. Actually, I think it's the opposite. Changing our mind means we've learned more and we understand what to do with that information. And it's really beautiful.

Yeah, so there was a point when my business was much bigger. We had 15 people all in, six full-time, rest on sort of part-time contracts. And I was chasing what I was told success in business was, which was turnover, profit margins, all of these external things. And what I found was I became busier and I didn't become happier. And it just kept happening that more people, more stuff, busier, busier, busier, less happy, less happy, less happy. And then something happened. We had a slightly bad client and everything went pear shaped. had to make a whole bunch of redundancy. There was a lot of crying. It happens in business. I think most people have been through it. And in that very sad space, I started to think about, do I want that back again? And what I started to realize is that wasn't what happiness was for me. And so I kind of remodeled my business a little bit. And so now what I allow it to do is I will build up teams if I need it for a project. But my end goal isn't my turnover. My end goal isn't those things. My end goal is more around allowing me to do the research that I want, allowing me to create the products that I want, allowing me to have the work life balance that I want. More importantly, allowing me to turn down the clients. that I don't want to work with. My headspace and my happiness are my success. And it took a long time to get there. I used to get very distressed when, and this happens a lot to women, I don't know if it happens to men a lot, when men in rooms would say, well, how many people are in your business? What's your turnover? And if you answered a number that was less than 50, they'd be like, no, it's not a real business then. And that used to distress me at the time. Whereas now I'll be like, okay, what time do you get home at night? How often do you see your family? Like, how much anxiety do you have? What does, does your life look like a life you want? Are you just waiting for retirement? Because I love my job pretty much every day. I'd say 80 % of the time I love my job and the other 20 % of the time, man, I've got to do my taxes. I don't mind giving the money away. I just hate that finance bit. So it's... I think it's that for me. Success is do I love what I come in to do and do that I love the way that I've organized to do it. And if I have, then that is success for me. I think other people want more money and that's grand for them.

Absolutely.

got lots of hard positions. I had a year where I lost a baby. The business went down and I had to make four people redundant. And one of my PhD supervisors advised that I stop doing the PhD. So there was quite a lot that went on in that time. And I'm not saying having a baby fixes everything by any means, but I am saying... having the opportunity to have some time away from everything was really, really helpful. And, but I mean, to be fair, that level of burnout, because I think it was burnout that I was going through, which has then impacted upon the PhD, because you cannot do that level of critical thinking, or at least I was certainly was not able to with burnout. So everything kind of crashes, right? And, having that time away really, really helped, but it took a long time. And I think that that's incredibly important because I Think when we're, like I'm somebody who, you know, in the construction industry, you're expected to work 60 hours basic a week. That's just really normal. We didn't, we didn't know that other people were going, that's too many hours. We're just slogging on and doing 90 when we need to. And so I was doing the same when I started my business. This is what I mean about this change in what success looks like. And, and like this constant push, push, push, push, like it can eventually lead somewhere not great. And so having that time was really, really helpful. Don't get me wrong, was pretty horrible. I'm not recommending burnout for anyone. Avoid it. Try and look after your mental health. You are enough as people. But like when I came out from the other side, do you know I'm happier? And I wonder if I hadn't gone through it, would I have a business that didn't make me happy? And I always think that's quite an interesting question. I might've had more money, but don't get me wrong, doing grand with the money. have a number I have to hit a year. And then after I hit that number, I wander off with research for a bit and have a lovely time. But before I was chasing more than the money that I needed because I thought I had to. yeah, so I think that that kind of out of bad can come good. But I think that that's my terrible toxic way. I always want to try and find what's the good that can come out of this bad. And it helps me to recover and get on and do the next thing. And also where am I to fault for this? Cause I could certainly find a lot of other people to blame, but if I'm not finding a way that I can be better, there's very little point in the failure in the first place. And there's always a way that you can mess it up. And I think that that's okay. Just what did I do wrong? What can I learn? What am I going to try and do better next time?

Yeah, absolutely. It's about, what is that expression? One of my favorites, happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want. And like by all means, I think it was Kahneman who talked about, like this was a good few years ago, so the number will have changed. If you had around 50,000 pounds, the more money that you bring in after around 50,000 pounds, think it was dollars at the time, it's clearly more because the world's gone up. Any money that you bring in after that doesn't make you any happier. You need that base level of money. to feel happy and to survive and to give you everything that you need. But anything after that doesn't improve your happiness. So if you're chasing it for happiness, it's not going to give you that. So you need to go back to what gives you happiness. For me, it's research. And, you know, I wish it was something more exciting and cool, but it's not. My nerdy little brain just wants to find stuff out and I'm happy for it to have that now. And I think that it's that. We're so obsessed with money and... thinking that money's important and I think it's killing us and I think it's destroying our friendships and our goals and our ability to be truthful and honest with one another, especially, you know, my heart breaks for those growing up in a world where media is everywhere and telling them this glorified vision of life and not just because of the pressure to fulfill that, but also because you miss out on the beautiful, messy, griminess of getting it wrong. And being okay with getting it wrong and laughing at, Jesus, why did I ever think that that was a good idea? And it's okay to make our mistakes. But I imagine the pressure put upon people when you're constantly, I mean, I don't really engage very much with social media now, partly because it was infecting me. And if I, a 40, well, I'm 48 now, but at the time, as I was a 40 year old woman, couldn't handle it, then. What hope does someone who's brain developing have? yeah, I suppose, I think that's one of the reasons I wanted to come on this podcast today was to help people to understand, know, give a counter message of like, Jesus fail. Like fail and have a lovely time doing it. And just don't, don't worry too much about the things other people see as success. Worry about the things that your, your lovely brain loves. Like wander off after then.

Yeah, it's not enough when you get there. Whereas if you've learned to love that journey, it's always enough. When my business had more people within it, we achieved some really quite extraordinary things. won, you think I was a builder and then suddenly I started a consultancy and then within I think about four years I was turning over about 400,000 pounds, sorry, 300,000 pounds. which isn't bad when you come from a council house and no one else in your family is supporting you to do it all from scratch. It was a pretty impressive thing. I spoke at the House of Lords, did all sorts of amazing stuff, but I don't think I ever really quite enjoyed it because I was always looking to achieve something else. And don't get me wrong, I'm still very ambitious. I'm still trying to do that. But now it's about making more of an effort to enjoy that, like you say, what you're doing along the way. to take joy in that, that's the thing, isn't it? Like we're not gonna be around for very long. We might as well have a nice time before we die. Hey, those are my words of wisdom. Have a nice time before you die.

I think, I think for me, it's around not necessarily find what you love, because there can be plenty of things that you love that you probably shouldn't turn into a business, but rather what you're interested in and and make sure that you've built in enough time to do what you love within what you're interested in. Like make sure that your work can bring you joy. Like I come from a background where my dad and my mom didn't finish schools without, with qualifications. So the jobs that they had were kind of low skilled jobs where they weren't treated very well. Their working lives were not lives that brought them joy. and I'm in an extraordinary position where I have a working life that brings me joy. So I think it's that, like try and find a way to have that joy and don't get me wrong. I realized that having a business that's run for 19 years gives me extraordinarily privilege, which isn't open to everyone. But if you are, you know, sailing your own ship, then make sure that your business doesn't turn into the thing that you were trying to escape in another company. Make sure that you design it in a way that that brings you what you love.

I think LinkedIn at the moment, if you search Chrissie McCarthy, I'll be there. There's a blue background. I look very serious on my face. We've got a website. It's nowhere near as beautiful as yours though. Martin Winchester did a beautiful job on it. So that's www.thecovey.co.uk.

Thank you very much for your time. Bye. Thank you, Michael.