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Inspire Club EP #14 - Fiona Spencer
7 Plays4 years ago
In this episode we talk with Fiona Spencer, Strategist at Home
Fiona has worked with some of the world’s leading brands to deliver award-winning engagement and communications campaigns. As a strategist at Home, Fiona works with employee engagement and communication experts working with organisations to champion new ways to engage people in businesses across the globe.
In her chat with Matt, Fiona highlights what she learned working with James Dyson alongside his Foundation, the biggest problems facing people during the pandemic as well as some of her greatest (and nerve-racking) life experiences.
We hope you enjoy it.
In order to have great communication teams, constant education and communication training is key to discover what the latest practices in the field are.
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Updates
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Inspire Club brought to you by Inspiring Workplaces.
00:00:10
Speaker
Here in the UK, spring has sprung and sunnier times are ahead, we hope, as well as maybe a bit of freedom from what has basically been a year-long lockdown. We have had periods where we've been set free. I'm still amazed that I was able to get married during one of those brief windows of time. But updates from me and my life, I suppose, my co-host, Ruth Dance,
00:00:37
Speaker
did the last episode with Emma Bridger. So in that time, I've gone and bought a house, which is really exciting. It wasn't on the agenda for at least another two to three years, but my father-in-law sent us a link for a big project, something again, I'd never wanted to do. I liked just moving in and cracking on with life. So we've bought a house, a big project that's going to take about seven months to renovate. So I'm currently doing this podcast in lockdown,
00:01:06
Speaker
and this is a posterity more than anything, from my old teenage bedroom, living with my mum, my brand new wife and my brand new puppy. So things are a bit stressful, I think you can probably quite say, life in my, things in my life right now, but really exciting. We think
00:01:25
Speaker
we're thinking let's just get all the stuff that usually causes the most stress in life out the way during the most stressful period in a
Introduction to Fiona Spencer and Home EX
00:01:32
Speaker
century. So I'm really looking forward to this chat with somebody that always has a smile and looks like the spring has sprung when every time I see her and so to our guest Fiona Spencer. Fiona is a strategist at home, the leading employee experience agency. Before embarking on her adventure
00:01:54
Speaker
at Agency Adventures, should I say. Fiona looked after internal comms at global technology brand Dyson and went on to set up the IC function fashion retailer Superdry, both brands I love and have bought. Working at Home is our first agency role and is already working with some of the world's leading organizations. And she's also been an integral part of building and launching Home EX.
00:02:20
Speaker
which is Holmes pioneering employee experience subscription service. The tongue sister for Monday morning. Designed to inspire, upskill, and build community. If you haven't seen it, it's crazily good. There is so much on it. Eyes green with envy about how they've been able to build so much. So I really would recommend checking it out. Even cooler is actually Fiona's a classically trained singer.
00:02:50
Speaker
And it's music is a first love, so can't wait to ask her those questions. And when she's not working, she's usually found singing with a chamber choir or listening to the Smiths. And that's why I'm going to deviate from our first ever question. I'm going to say, hello, Fiona, how are you? Hey, that was quite the intro, Matt. Thank you. It's OK. And this is going to be a break from tradition at the Inspire Club. What's your favorite Smith song? What's the song you sing?
00:03:19
Speaker
There is a light that never goes out. It has to be. We've actually got a big print of it in our living room at home. I just love it. I would actually, so funny enough, Matt, I was meant to get married last year, but I didn't. So I've done the opposite for you. We've postponed it until next year now. So I have been dying for that to be our first dance. And my other half was like, you cannot have a song about getting hit by a bus as your first dance on a Saturday night.
00:03:45
Speaker
But I would, I absolutely would because I love it. You've got time to work on it. We had, I'm not sure I'm supposed to say this, because we had our marriage with just our parents and it was beautiful and probably the way I'd like to have done it, but my wife's still got her dream wedding in mind and we're going to do that.
00:04:07
Speaker
in probably five, we said five years. We just said, we postponed it once, then postponed it a second time. And we said, this thing's supposed to be fun. Rather than stress, will it happen? So we just went five years. So we're going to have a big party in five years. But we danced to Bruce Springsteen, Dancing in the Dark. So, which I think I might get shot now for saying, because we were going to do that in five years time as well. But we'll have to come up with another song. Oh, we'll still do it. Do it twice. Why not?
00:04:37
Speaker
Well, I also, I'll save the podcast my impression. I love the Smiths and I always sing a dance around singing this charming man and the pitch and tone that I think resembles Morrissey's voice. So I will never ever replicate that on here, I promise.
Inspirations in Work
00:04:55
Speaker
But anyway, to our first real question of the podcast and the only role of Inspire Club, can you share a story of someone who's inspired you in the world of work and why?
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, so this is a really tricky question. I kind of spent a lot of time thinking about it. And it's not often that you actually kind of stop and look back on your whole career and try and think about all of the different people that you've met. So it's a really lovely question just to take that time and do it. And I say that I'm kind of inspired every day because I work in a female owned and female ran business at home.
00:05:28
Speaker
So Carol Whitworth, our founder and then Hattie Roach and Liz Clover, our co-MDs, are always kind of inspiring me to think differently and it's just really nice to see kind of women in those roles and doing great things. But the name I kept coming back to, even though we're kind of politically not necessarily aligned, is James Dyson.
00:05:47
Speaker
So when I graduated, my first job was working for the James Dyson Foundation. And that's Dyson's charity, which is set up to inspire the next generation of engineers. And you can imagine, Matt, I'm coming out of university with an English degree and suddenly I'm talking to engineers about engineering. And that was a little bit strange and wild, but at the time that role sat within the comms team. So I used to do a bit of PR, internal comms, CSR, but spent the majority of the time with the charity and James was the trustee. So I used to sit right outside his office
00:06:17
Speaker
And we'd regularly spend time kind of preparing different proposals or working on lobbying the government about design and technology education.
00:06:25
Speaker
and occasionally just doing kind of like op-eds for newspapers and all that kind of stuff. So I found myself a 22 year old graduate suddenly spending lots of time with James Dyson, which is really quite strange. But I think what was inspiring about that and what is something that's kind of guided me in my career, which is why I had to pick him, is to do with embracing failure and that whole ethos about the fact that you can actually learn more when things go wrong than when things go right.
00:06:50
Speaker
And it's always okay to kind of challenge the status quo just to make things better and do things a bit differently.
00:06:58
Speaker
And I think the other thing is that James is like really set on working and hiring young people. So while sometimes I'd be having that kind of imposter syndrome voice in my head saying like, how am I doing this? James would be happy to send me off to do lectures at Cambridge University or to I consulted on the design and technology GCSE curriculum with the education secretary on his behalf. And again, that
00:07:21
Speaker
You know, that's all totally bizarre. And without having an engineering background, I thought, how has this happened? But the point is I knew him and I knew what his desires were. And I was able to communicate that and to do that to make it happen.
Innovation and Workplace Improvement
00:07:32
Speaker
So I guess I just learned really quickly that you don't necessarily have to have decades of experience to go out and do good things in the world. And I never tried not to let my age or my gender or anything like that hold me back. So I know he's probably a bit of a weird choice, but he was the first person that I kind of thought of and I kept coming back to.
00:07:51
Speaker
Well, not a weird choice, it's a fantastic story and glad they had such a positive impact. I just love listening to that. I think one of the things that we try and talk about within our team all the time is
00:08:10
Speaker
just try something and that is the embracing failure. If you don't try you'll never know and it's amazing where it can take you and the journey you can go on and what usually then comes out of that is other great ideas. So you know where you might start on one journey and then you might end up at a totally different destination.
00:08:33
Speaker
but it's fantastic and I absolutely love hearing the Embracing Failure piece and challenging and being curious because I keep coming back to this on my podcasts all the time but asking why and being a rebel and always just changing challenging conventions so thank you so much for that story and we will thank you James. Is he Sir James Dyson?
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. With the paper bit of a laugh amongst my friends that I'd be like, oh, James said, and they'd all be like, well, thank you, Sir James, for inspiring Fiona. And what a great, what a great first gig out of university. Wow. So what's your why? What drives you on a daily basis? I'm just really lucky because I genuinely love my job.
00:09:24
Speaker
And it's something I bang on about all the time to anyone who listens. So I think my why is that I'm really passionate about the fact that work doesn't have to be difficult and uncomfortable and work can actually really fit within your life and actually your work much better and deliver better things if you're really enjoying it and you're making it an environment that's kind of good and healthy for you and everyone around you. So I think
00:09:47
Speaker
I'm really passionate about helping organisations to identify what's not working and finding ways to improve that. I see my friends working in really poor environments and I just really don't think it has to be like that for anyone or in any sector. So I'd really like to make that a reality. And then I think beyond that, on a personal level, I'm driven to be really great at it. And that was why I wanted to come and work in an agency.
00:10:10
Speaker
just to kind of push that and to work with people who are really the best in the game. And that's something that I feel like I found in home and that's probably why I'm enjoying it so much.
Future of Work and Flexibility
00:10:18
Speaker
So yeah, I think that's my why. Awesome. Long may that continue. Yeah, Hattie and Liz and Carol all inspiring in their own ways. So yeah, fantastic team to be working with. So for you, what's a major workplace priority right now?
00:10:37
Speaker
I mean, I guess there's kind of only one answer to this at the minute, which I think is working out what the future of work looks like in your organization. What I keep kind of reminding people of at the minute is that the people who are returning to your office in the weeks and months to come are not the same people that they were 12 months ago. We've all been through so much and experienced a totally different way of working.
00:10:59
Speaker
Some of us love it and some of us don't but either way we've proved that it's possible and you know I think going back and trying to move backwards just isn't an option so practically I think that means listening to your people asking what they want and then looking at how to implement that in a way that fits for both of you and it's also about upskincing line managers so supporting them in leading hybrid teams and
00:11:22
Speaker
of taking a look at that end-to-end employee experience and thinking about how your culture comes to life across all of those different touch points whether they're working remotely or whether they're in the office and together and it's really good to see organisations kind of starting to embrace that and think about what that might look like because something that's not always talked about in these terms but I think is like really important and why we really need to do this right now is that
00:11:45
Speaker
Flexibility is a key route to a truly inclusive workplace. That traditional nine to five actually doesn't work for so many people, like for parents, for carers or, you know, just people that don't necessarily want to work at nine o'clock in the morning, you know, they exist. So the more we can do to create healthy cultures right now, or whilst we have the opportunity, the better. It's just a real, like, pivotal moment for our industry, I think. So, yeah, I guess researching and implementing new structures that are going to be fit for the future.
00:12:15
Speaker
Fantastic points. Not the same people returning and also not the same expectations.
00:12:23
Speaker
that people's expectations have changed. And it's interesting seeing all the posts on LinkedIn right now, what should it look like when we're returning? And it just beggars belief that when it's just not saying offer choice, be flexible and empower your people to work when they want to work. After a whole year of should be going back to how it was, should it be totally at home?
00:12:48
Speaker
No, it should be. If you've not learnt that you need to give the people your best tools and flexible ways of working to enable to perform at their best for you and your organisation, then I think there's no hope for some people. Although I genuinely believe there's hope for everybody. And it's quite exciting in a sense that
00:13:13
Speaker
It was my own experience, probably the negative experience of the workplace that made me start my own business to give me my own freedom and flexibilities.
Stress Management and Leadership
00:13:24
Speaker
So you say some people don't want to work at 9. I don't want to work at 5pm. I'd rather work earlier and finish earlier. Just to hint to anybody listening out there who might contact me about 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
00:13:37
Speaker
But now hopefully people won't necessarily need to go start their own businesses. They might be able to get what they need to work and perform within their own workplace. So let's hope that the future is bright in that sense. Once we get out of lockdown, I'm still not confident about the dates that the government are banding around. In fact, I just don't listen to them. Whenever I have something to stop
00:14:05
Speaker
knocks on my bedroom door and says, now you can leave, then that's when I'll leave. So yeah, I think this is a good one I'd like to revisit actually, having bought a house and I think you've just said you bought a house too. What's the best way of beating stress in your opinion?
00:14:26
Speaker
I mean I think it's different for everyone but for me carving time for myself every single day and it's exercising so I go for a walk and the walking thing is definitely a lockdown thing and it's something that I'm keeping because I go for a walk every day listen to a podcast just get outside get some fresh air clear my head and then I'll try and do some exercise probably like
00:14:47
Speaker
I don't know, five times a week-ish if I can, which I know sounds like a lot, but I do it for my brain. I 100% do it for my brain. I just, I feel so much better when I do it. I never regret it. And I think at the minute, it just really punctuates the day and I really do enough sitting down at the rest of the time, like, sitting in my sofa to become the norm. So, so I think it's that. And actually, as you said, we've just bought a house that we're renovating. And I said to my other half, I
00:15:13
Speaker
I need to keep the exercise part. I don't want to stop doing that when we're doing the house. Like, because I just, I just got into a really good routine and habit with it. And then there's something I just want to keep doing because I don't feel stressed. And I think that's, it's helped me to kind of manage all those things. So I think it's just about discipline. I know that's really boring, but it is, it's a learned habit for me, but something that I've kind of got quite good at, I think.
00:15:38
Speaker
So yeah, boring answer for exercising. It's true. I need to do a lot of exercise because lockdown hasn't been kind. But since moving in to my old home, we went personal stuff here. We never allowed a dog. And I find as growing up and.
00:15:57
Speaker
So we've moved back in to a house where I was never allowed a dog with a dog, a puppy no less, who's very boisterous. So I've been getting up at 6am every morning and taking him off for an hour-long walk to take a bit of the energy out of him for being around my mum all day.
00:16:18
Speaker
It's been fantastic. I come back really relaxed and having had that one hour walk with my phone is not with me. And yeah, having tried to get into that routine now, I need to do more than just the hour walk. But yeah, I'd really endorse what you're saying about just getting out and having some exercise and just getting away from the house. It's so important.
00:16:43
Speaker
What do you think, and you've obviously had some fantastic people you've worked with, but what's the most important quality in a leader in your eyes?
00:16:54
Speaker
I think it's probably empathy, and I think there's things that kind of flow on from that. But I think if you can understand where your team are coming from, then you'll be better able to make the decisions that are right for them, but also to be able to communicate with them better. So I think, you know, there's other things that come into it, but the empathy is kind of the starting place. And I also think it's a muscle that you really grow as a leader.
00:17:15
Speaker
And as you get to know your team, once you crack it, you build that trust and loyalty and create a positive team environment. And it takes time, but it's just kind of trying to take yourself into their shoes and think about what they might be thinking before you make any decisions. So I think it's empathy. That's something that's kind of consistent with all the best leaders that I've had.
00:17:36
Speaker
fantastic, a muscle you really need to grow, and I suppose exercise quite often to make it more powerful. No, I wholeheartedly agree. Let's see where else we could go to right now. What's your go-to productivity trick?
00:17:54
Speaker
Um, I think it's probably list making, so I'm a real scribbler. I, I've tried all these online versions, but just nothing beats my notepad and my pen. So, um, I'll make a list. I prioritize what's on it. Sometimes I'll plug that into my diary to block that time because.
00:18:11
Speaker
it gives me a kind of short sharp deadline and that's definitely when I'm at my best. I am someone who leaves things until I've only just got just enough time to do them which probably not my favourite thing about myself but it's something I recognise in myself so I'm able to manage it so yeah I think it's just kind of trying to get those chunks into the day to make that happen. I want to talk with the kindred spirit about leaving things for the last minute. Is it the danger? What is it about giving yourself that stress and anxiety?
00:18:41
Speaker
I think it is, it's got to be something to do with that. I think it's a bit of the adrenaline of, I don't know. I think it's just focus as well. Like when I know I don't have a choice, I have to do it. So there's no other option. You can't go off just like fiddling around with different things. You just have to do it right now. And I think that's what it is for me. But it's got to be something in that. I think it's like, it's almost a bad habit and yet it works quite well for me and I can be quite productive. So, you know, I guess everyone's different, Almay. That's definitely my one.
00:19:11
Speaker
the new bungee jumping, leaving everything to the end, the adrenaline rush. I cannot think of anything worse than doing a bungee jump. I've watched my other Hearthstone one. I've seen pictures of it. I've seen a video of it. I can't even look at him doing it. That is my worst nightmare.
00:19:32
Speaker
Awesome. So, okay, let's move on to some more personal stuff now. A bit like the Smiths. If you're a teacher, what would you teach?
Literature and Reading Habits
00:19:43
Speaker
Probably English, that's what I studied at university. But the reason I picked it is that I think actually books are a really great way to kind of covertly teach life lessons, history, empathy, cultures, like you name it really. So I think I just try and make kids fall in love with either reading books or listening to books because when I was at school, if you didn't like to read, then you didn't necessarily kind of get into things like that. Whereas actually we've got so many audio books and podcasts and other ways to kind of get into that now.
00:20:11
Speaker
But it is a way to just learn different things in a way that's kind of stimulating and interesting. So I had a really great English teacher who there's no doubt that without her kind of encouragement and kind words, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. So I think being able to bring that to someone else, it's like one of the best things that you can do. I think such a great profession. So probably English. Fantastic. Quick, quick snap question then. What's your favorite book?
00:20:41
Speaker
Oh God, that's a really hard question. I know, I know, I won't hold you to it. I don't know, I'm reading at the minute, I'm reading Girl, Woman, Other, which is absolutely amazing. I really love Untamed by Glennon Doyle.
00:20:57
Speaker
Lots of different things really, but I've really got back into it, trying to read, I tried to read like a book a month last year, which I didn't manage for obvious reasons. But just having that kind of like impetus made me start to think a bit more broadly about what I like to read. Everything I know about love, Dolly Alderson, another great book. So lots of different things. So people can come and ask me and we'll start at Probert Club. Because I'm always looking for ideas as well.
00:21:22
Speaker
It kind of comes back down to discipline again, I like you're saying with exercise, because every time I read a book, I love reading the book. I genuinely love reading, but I don't I don't just I don't put it into my, my day to day. And it's pretty quite very simple just to have half an hour at the end of the day to read a book.
00:21:40
Speaker
reading before bed is so good for sleep. If you're not, you know, I'm not someone who, I used to be someone who'd drift off really easily, but for some reason I'm not anymore. So when I read, I sleep so much better and that another, it's like another incentive to do it. So put it beside the bed. That's my top tip. Top tip. And that means you put your phone down, which also helps with sleep too, because of the blue, blue light. So there you go. So you can thank Fiona for your better sleep. So, okay. Early bird or night owl.
00:22:09
Speaker
Oh, night owl, but I really wish I wasn't. I'm just not a morning person. I force myself, I get up and move, but it's not my, I'm not a nice person in the morning. It's not that, I just don't really talk much. I'm just like quietly just adjusting to the day. And I do find myself more like in the evening, sadly. But yeah, night owl. I love that. That might be the quote that we have on social media. Not really a morning person, I do get up and move.
00:22:39
Speaker
Well, I feel that something on the internet isn't there that's like, I'm not an early bird or a night owl. I'm some kind of permanently exhausted pigeon. I think that sometimes I fall into that because, you know, I don't want to, I don't, I can't catalyse on my evening activities. That's just not the day that I have. So, you know, sort of floating around.
00:22:58
Speaker
Okay, now this I know, I know this is a very
Music and Entertainment Favorites
00:23:01
Speaker
hard question. So we won't hold you to it either. Well, that's I might I have a thinking what it might be. What's your favorite album? And what, what do you what song do you put on to get you fired up?
00:23:15
Speaker
I thought about this a lot. This is so tricky for me and it's partly because I kind of enjoy pretty much every single genre of music. I can't really think of one that I don't like. It's really hard to kind of pin down on just one. So I thought about the album that I always go back to and listen to a lot and that I've listened to kind of for my whole life. So I've gone for Fleetwood Mac Rumours.
00:23:36
Speaker
My mum loved it when, well, she still does. We went to see them last year with my husband the year before now, actually. I'm losing track of time in this strange lockdown blending of years. But it's just a great album. It's a classic. You can't go wrong with it. So that's probably my favorite album, although there's lots of other contenders. I nearly picked a Nina Simone album that is kind of a family classic for us as well. And then I think in terms of song that gets me going,
00:24:04
Speaker
I've gone for Stevie Wonder, Sir Duke, because as soon as it starts, you want to dance. It's so uplifting. And I think there's also lots of different settings that you can listen to it too. So I've gone for that one. I nearly went for Chemical Brothers Go. That would be my backup. That's one that's a bit more like, I don't know, feisty, I suppose. But Sir Duke's just pure joy. So that's why I pitched that.
00:24:32
Speaker
We might sneak both of those onto our playlist because they are both absolutely brilliant songs for different reasons. Go is my wife's favorite Campbell Brothers song. It's awesome. But Sir Duke, I've now got the trumpets in my head at the beginning. Yeah, you'll have a good day. As soon as I finish talking with you Fiona, I'm off to listen to Sir Duke. And Fluid Mac Rumors, yeah, wow.
00:24:58
Speaker
absolutely amazing. I watched a documentary with Brian Johnston who from ACDC is doing, he goes and visits some of his old musical friends who live on the road and he went to see Mick Fleetwood living in Hawaii now, up on top of a volcano that looks like the Gloucestershire countryside and they talked all about rumours and the band and yeah it's just I think
00:25:23
Speaker
aside from all the amazing songs on that album it's the fact how it was made as well makes it even more you know intriguing and everything that went on they really did that how do you put those personal things aside and create music like that it's crazy maybe that's what
00:25:41
Speaker
You know, you know, in the chain, those songs that come out of that then because of everything else going on and they're more singing it in the way they're singing. Absolutely amazing. I'm getting goosebumps talking about it. So great song choices. Thank you so much. What's the funniest thing that's happened to you recently?
00:26:00
Speaker
I really struggled with this one. It is such a sad indictment of my life but it's just, you know, lockdown isn't it? There's not as much fun and games as normal but all I kept thinking about is just my mum. My mum in general. My mum's Irish and she's just got that lovely Irish charm that makes everything she does really funny and every zoo we've had with her lately.
00:26:24
Speaker
has just involved her saying something completely daft that's made us all laugh. So I kind of want to be there in situations where my mum is my funniest thing in my life right now. Your Irish mum. Oh, I can imagine. Yeah. Sounds fantastic. Sounds fantastic. Favourite film you can just turn on and watch?
00:26:49
Speaker
I've gone for 500 days of summer. I just really love it. If you haven't watched it, I really recommend it. It's got an amazing soundtrack, which also features a Smith. So obviously that makes me happy, but I just love, I love the characters. I love the way that it builds. It also like moves backwards and forwards in time. So it's just really like creatively done. And it's such a, it's just brilliant film, really easy watch, great acting. I love it. It's great.
00:27:14
Speaker
Is that the one with Zoey Deshamel, or am I saying that name right or wrong? What's his name? Joseph Hewitt-Levitt or something like that? Gordon Levitt, Gordon Levitt. Yeah. Awesome. But yeah, it's great. And it's set in LA. So it's just a great film. Really enjoy it. Hopefully we'll have 500 days of summer once we get out of lockdown. Something you've done and will never do again.
Travel Stories and Recommendations
00:27:44
Speaker
So, weirdly, my question to this is really similar to the answer that you gave on your episode of the broadcast, Matt, because I did a zip wire in Costa Rica. Oh, wow.
00:27:54
Speaker
And in fairness, I think I probably would have enjoyed it, except for the fact that I got myself stuck on the first wire, because I was wearing one of those plastic poncho things, as you do in the rainforest, you know, the only outfit choice. And as I started the zip wire, my poncho just started filling with air. And that meant I couldn't see the end of the wire and it opened your leg, so you slow down. So I kind of thought, what am I going to do here?
00:28:18
Speaker
So I let go with one hand and like squatted the air out of my poncho but as I did that it made me swing out to the side and then just slowly come to a stop at the top of the rainforest on the very first wire and some man had to like pull his way out across the wire and push me to the other side and I just stared at the sky the whole time because I could see the tops of the trees and I thought
00:28:38
Speaker
If you look down, you are going to freak out. So I just didn't, I just stared at the sky. And then, as you know, once you've done one, you've then got about 12 wires to get to the bottom, so I had to keep doing it. It's just my mum and dad were watching from the side and they said there's this little pink dot, like dangling above the rainforest. Oh, no. So I'm not sure I can do that again, although maybe I should. Yeah, I enjoyed the zip wire thing. It was just this stupid,
00:29:08
Speaker
rope swing at the jump there's like the reverse bungee where you jump feet first at the end that again what I blame my blame my wife she went oh let's I'll do that and then she hated it more than I did um so I only did it because you walked out first I had to follow you know so um peer pressure where in Costa Rica? Oh gosh that's a really good question we traveled around a bit we went into San Jose and then we went to the cloud forest
00:29:37
Speaker
We did like rainforest turtles and by the water and stuff. And then we went into the cloud forest. We went near the volcano. So was it Monteverde maybe? Yeah, yeah, that's it. OK, yeah. Well, we've done the same one then. There you go. At different times of life. So this might be the answer to the next question. I don't know. Maybe the zip line had a negative impact on Costa Rica. Where's the best place you've ever visited? I think it probably is Costa Rica. Pura Vida.
00:30:07
Speaker
It's just yeah and I think also because I didn't really know that much about it before I went and I think that really helped because you don't have any expectations and just where I went it just kind of blew my mind that it was so like beautiful and all the wildlife and stuff.
00:30:22
Speaker
So I think it's got to be there but I think if there's anywhere that I'm kind of thinking about now where I might need to go there as soon as I can, it's California, it has to be because we did a road trip out there in 2018 and we got engaged in Malibu, so it's like a special place and I'd really like to go back and you know just spend a bit more time there and we've got some friends that live out there in Monterey as well.
00:30:44
Speaker
So it's just a beautiful, beautiful part of the world. Great food, great people, great weather. So hopefully in the not too distant future, we might get back out there. Fantastic. Yeah. Have you gone well watching in Monterey or? Yeah, we went out on what you call it, those little orange boats. Yeah, and it's amazing what you see and you can sometimes see them from the coast, like even when you're not out on a boat. So many of them. It's just stunning. I absolutely love it there.
00:31:14
Speaker
That's my first flight booked. We had one for New York in June because Ivy was supposed to be a bridesmaid for one of our American friends in New York. But it looks like that's going to come round too soon. So that might be yet another flight that we have to get a refund for. But the next one we've got booked is Los Angeles because my brother
00:31:39
Speaker
has had my first ever niece during lockdown with his husband. And so we're hoping to get out there first of October. And it'll be the first time I've ever been to LA as well, because he's moved from Boston to LA during this lockdown too. So he hasn't done things by halves either. So I love to get to see Malibu. It always looks so, so amazing.
00:32:03
Speaker
Well, I'll send you my restaurant recommendation. Amazing. And then Monterey, I think that's home to my golf course, I want to play the most, Pebble Beach. It's also got an amazing aquarium, weirdly. And I know that sounds a bit strange, because you're like right next to the sea and aquariums are inside. But it is amazing. It's by far the best one I've ever been to. So I highly recommend
00:32:28
Speaker
done on the list and okay your last question had so much fun so thank you very much but who would you who would you recommend to be try and get on the spy club
00:32:42
Speaker
Um, gosh, again, quite a hard question.
Potential Guests and Episode Wrap-Up
00:32:45
Speaker
I've got two answers. The first one is, um, Glennon Doyle, who I mentioned earlier, cause she wrote this book called Untamed, which is, I just, I've never read something like that where I've really like had to keep putting it down to think about what I've just read. Cause it really changed my perspective on certain things. And it's basically, it's kind of a memoir.
00:33:03
Speaker
but it's all about how we all strive to be this thing and keep pushing and pushing and pushing when actually if we just took a minute and listened to the voice inside of us rather than the voices outside of us and we might make different decisions and not be kind of pushing our lives into this certain direction because it's what we think we should be doing and it's just like really beautifully written and really funny and it's a really great read so I highly recommend that I think she'd be brilliant on this because she just talks about you know cultural expectations and the
00:33:32
Speaker
pros and cons of that and how you can navigate that and align yourself with what they are so that everything kind of fits together so you'd be great. My second answer to that is
00:33:41
Speaker
absolutely Carol Whitworth who is the founder of Home because she will be full of stories and I'm sure she'd like love to come on at some point and tell you all about Home but also about her band Doreen Doreen which are an 80s match-up cover band who I saw at Glastonbury a couple of years ago and they're a riot so yeah Carol would be great too.
00:34:06
Speaker
Carol is amazing. Comes from a similar part of the world to my mum, the North East, so Northumberland County, Durham Way, or used to be, yeah. So, yeah, Carol's awesome, but Glennon Doyle sounds very interesting. I'm going to go look up that book as well, actually. It sounds like a journey that we all go on.
00:34:29
Speaker
Yeah, a journey we all go on to try and find, listen to the voice inside rather than all the stuff around us. It's, yeah, that's very, very good advice and a great place to end. So Fiona, it was, we recorded this everybody at Monday at 11 a.m. So not a morning person and on a Monday, I congratulate you for having been an amazing guest. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Well, we'll be back. There's lots going on.
00:34:57
Speaker
With inspiring workplaces over the coming months. We've got a really exciting announcement coming very very soon that will impact people all over the world positively we hope so Watch this space will be back again with another episode of inspire club very soon. Take care. Bye. Bye