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I spent the first, I'm going to say, at least 25 years of my life being the most rampant people

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pleaser that I think could ever exist and walk on this earth as I like, grew through my leadership

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roles, grew through work. I came to learn very abruptly that those of us who are just going

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through life, people pleasing, avoiding all the difficult conversations, all the conflict. It is.

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Yes, it's a protection mechanism, but it can also be quite manipulative and I think some of the

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nicest. And when I say nice, as I'm referring to the word nice throughout this episode, I mean, keep

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the peace. I mean, avoid the conflict. Nice. They're going to give you the compliment. They're going to

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be lovely. Like everything's going to feel comfortable and you're going to win the approval

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in the moment if you're being nice. Some of the nicest people that I have ever worked with and,

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you know, even being friends with those people can be the most manipulative. And I think I have

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accidentally been there, too. I've accidentally been that person who I'm being so nice, avoiding

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all the conflict, avoiding saying the hard thing that I forget to be kind. And when I'm referring

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to the word kind throughout this episode. So if you Google the word night, you will get things

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like pleasant, agreeable, satisfactory. That's what being nice is. But if you Google the word kind and

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look at the Oxford Dictionary definition, kind is to be caring about other people is to be generous.

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And so niceness is very much like keeping the peace comfortable in the moment. If you are being

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a nice person, you are going to you're going to not upset anyone today, okay? You are going to

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avoid the difficult conversation, but avoid also the awkwardness that comes with that difficult

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conversation. Very nice. But if you are kind, on the other hand, it's just a slight difference. Being

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kind is being generous, being helpful, caring about other people, and therefore saying the thing that

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needs to be heard, saying the thing that needs to be said. And I think, like I say, this niceness, this

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people pleasing concept, just like ruled my life for the first 25 years. And it was only through

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leadership at work, I started to see how having these difficult conversations with people, even

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when they're awkward, even when they might upset people in the moment, was the only way that I

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could, like, accelerate my career, but also like start living true to who I really was. And so

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today we're going to discuss all the aspects of nice versus kind, why we have to stop being nice

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and stop being kind, and how that really impacts us inside work and outside of work, but also to

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take it a little bit deeper in that it's not just a case of stop being nice and stop being kind.

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Being nice can actually especially doing it after, I would say the age of like 2425 can be a bit

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manipulative. When we avoid saying the thing and avoid the conflict, it can potentially be

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manipulative because you are trying to manipulate the view that someone else has of you, and it's

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not always the best road to choose in life. So we're going to discuss all of that today. But

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welcome back to the boardroom, guys. We are well into this podcast now. It's been an absolute

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journey, kind of getting used to building this, getting used to creating it, talking in this way,

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having the option, you know, as I mentioned in the beginning, one of the big reasons for me starting

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this podcast was just the ability to have depth, because you will have seen most of my work

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through social media, but their social media is like 60 to 90 second video at best. And so what I

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really wanted to do here is have the ability to discuss some of these topics just in a lot more

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depth, and if you've followed me for any amount of time, you will have heard me say, stop being nice

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and stop being kind. But I have never really gone into depth on that. I've never really kind of

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explored all the facets of that. And so the place I really want to start is a conversation. One of

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the most difficult conversations I've ever had to have in my leadership career was I had to tell

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someone they had bad body odour, and the reason that conversation was so hard. I mean, you will

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know, like if you've ever had a friend who has body odour someone at work, it the the idea of

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telling someone that feels awful. You don't want to hurt their feelings. You don't want to upset

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them. Like you don't want to broach the elephant in the room. It feels awful to even consider

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saying it, however, when you're in a team. So at this point we had like, I want to say, there was

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maybe 10 or 12 people of us in that team, and I was the ops director already at that point, so

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very much responsible for the people in the room. And this person was about to become a manager. So

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he was, um, we'd all come back in after Covid, and he was about to build out his team and become a

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manager. And I knew that if his team members came into work and experienced the same thing that I

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was, which was the body odour, it would potentially diminish the respect that he he had. It would

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potentially like upset those team members. They would have to maybe have that awkward

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conversation or they would be going home talking about it. So I had a decision to make. Be nice.

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Don't say anything. Don't upset him. Don't hurt the peace. You know, this is going to be an upsetting

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conversation and upsetting thing for someone to hear or have the courage, have the guts to lean

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into that awkwardness, knowing that this is something that that person needs to hear in order

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to, like, grow in order to, I guess, just get over that, that thing that they have and probably no

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one's ever told them before, which makes me really sad. So I had the conversation. I literally just

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messaged him on slack and was like, can you just come and meet me in the kitchen quickly for a

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short conversation? I met him and I said, look, this is going to be a tough one to say out loud, but I

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wanted you to know that you do have bad body odour and that was it. And I just said it. I just

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ripped off the plaster, said it out loud, and in the moment he was really upset. He was embarrassed.

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He was definitely a bit angry at me. Like I remember him being a bit like emotionally

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triggered and sort of angry, almost blaming me a little bit and questioning, and that's all. Okay.

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That's all. Okay. And you will recognise, you know, if you've ever had a difficult conversation with

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anyone. Friends, people in your team told them something that you know is going to help them in

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the long run, but is hurtful in that moment. You will know that in that moment, some of that

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frustration and anger is going to come out at you because you are the messenger and you just have

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to get so comfortable knowing that that's okay and it won't last forever. And it's okay that they

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feel those anger, frustration, whatever embarrassment, and you're going to have to kind of

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hold space for some of that. But knowing that in the long term, not only are you helping to grow

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that person, helping them to get through something, you also will build respect. Like we all have that

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friend who is slightly too honest, who will say the thing that no one else is willing to say. We

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respect them, generally respect them so much because we know where we stand with them. Okay,

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every now and again something they say may cut through, cut a little deep, twist the knife a bit,

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but in general, we respect them so much more because we know that they're not hiding anything.

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And then the conclusion to that conversation as well was he went home that evening, literally

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messaged me the next day, came in to work, messaged me and was like, Heather, we've sort it out. It just

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so happened that me and I think him and his partner were washing their clothes and drying

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their clothes in a part of the house that was smelly, so it wasn't even actually body odour. I

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think it was something to do with the way they were washing their clothes and they fixed it. It

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was sorted literally overnight. And then I went on to have an incredible working relationship with

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that person for years and years to come, still friends with him to this day, even though we don't

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work together, because I didn't avoid that thing. The respect was built in that moment. Another

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difficult conversation I've had to have recently was with one of my closest friends, whereby and

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this is going to. This may sound so like petty because it's about wedding stuff and but if

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anyone's going through the wedding process at the minute, you all know that organising a wedding,

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lots of drama comes up. Lots of, you know, there's relationships that have to be talked about. And

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for me, one of the difficult conversations came up whereby I was the maid of honour for one of my

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best friends last year, and I couldn't make her maid of honour for my wedding this year because I

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have two really, really close friends and I could have made them both maid of honour. I know this

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sounds so petty saying out loud, but it's like I could have made them both maid of honour. But we

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only have five bridesmaids. I didn't want to kind of, like, dilute the role, and I just. I wanted my

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maid of honour, who is my best friend, Hannah. I wanted that role to to for her to know how

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special she is, know how much she means to me. And so I had to kind of text one of my other friends

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who potentially had some expectation around being maid of honour and just say, I love you, but I'm

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going to just have one maid of honour. And she was so good about it, and I ruminated over that

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conversation for about five days. Should I say something? I don't want to leave her in the dark.

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Should I just make her maid of honour? I still want her to know how loved she is because it

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didn't ruin my relationship with her. It wasn't supposed to be. You know, like I love this person

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more than you. I just really only wanted one maid of honour, and I'd kind of made that decision. And

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if you're going through the wedding process, you will know it's very easy to make people pleasing

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decisions because there are so many people, family, friends who want a say, who have an opinion, who

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make judgement, and it is so easy to fall into, oh, I'll just do this because it will make that

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person happy. You really, really have to. Because weddings are so expensive, so time consuming and

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so important. Like it's such a special day that you have to make decisions based on what you and

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your partner want and what's best for the both of you. And so I sent her that text. We had the

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conversation about it, and she was fucking brilliant as I knew she would be because she's an

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amazing friend. She was like, Heather. I'm so grateful you told me. Um, but honestly, I respect it.

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And she was also still my bridesmaid, so it was still like a really special ask as well for her

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to be one of my bridesmaids. And it was. I ruminated over that conversation for days and

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days. Do I send the message? Do I how do I speak to her? How do I say it? Do I even tell her? And I'm so

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glad I did. Because now we're three months out from the wedding. This happened like a year ago,

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three months out from the wedding. And it just means I get to have all the people I love around

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me. I've been so honest with all of them. They all know kind of exactly what what? I guess I don't

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know what position, I guess weird, but like what? I guess I need them to help me with. So that was

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another difficult one. Just as an example, another big example where people pleasing really came

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into play for me was I remember the first time, this was probably the first time I ever had to

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have a difficult conversation at work, which was I worked at Harrods. I was an assistant manager on

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the shop floor in the chocolate hall, and I had a team of about eight people, and we would have like

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4 or 5 of those people on the shop floor at any one time. Everyone worked shifts. The shop opened. I

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remember what was, I want to say like eight till eight most days. And we I was managing shift

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patterns. And as you know, when you work shift, if someone's late for their shift, if someone cancels

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their shift last minute, it has a huge knock on impact on the rest of the team. And there's a

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member of the team who she was older than me. She'd worked there for longer than I had. She had

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lots of like, inbuilt relationships with people in the team already. People tended to like her

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respect. I don't know, that was probably in question, but just liked her like she was a big

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voice on the team. Yet she kept letting us down with shifts, with lateness, and it had this huge

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knock on impact on the team, and I knew I had to have a conversation with her about it. So this is

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going back to like 21 year old Heather first proper management role. I'd been in supervisor

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roles before, but proper first proper like the buck stops with me kind of thing. I'd identified

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that this was a problem. So one day I plucked up the courage to go and have the conversation. Just

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take it to the side and say, look, your lateness is deeply impacting the rest of the team. Um, it's,

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you know, it's hard for us to manage these shift patterns as is. You're requesting shifts. We're

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giving them to you. But when you turn up late, even by just 15 minutes, it's really impact. Someone

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else has to stay to cover that. They might miss a bus. They may then end up getting home an hour

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later than they had to. All because you just missed your bus in the morning for the 10th time

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this month. And so I know it seems so small. I know it seems like, yeah, that's an easy conversation to

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have. But 21 year old me, speaking to the person who was like liked the most in the team was just

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really tough. But one of the things that happened to me that changed my mind and opinion on this

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idea about nice versus kindness was when it happened in reverse. So it happened to me. Someone

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gave me some really difficult feedback that upset me in the moment, hurt me in the moment, but turned

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out turned into this like huge growth opportunity. So I want to rewind you to it was 2020,

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2019, 2020 and we were going through the sale of go proposal to sage. So go proposal I've mentioned

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before was the business that I worked inside. I was the second member of staff. It was a tech

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company. We sold proposal software to accountants, and we scaled that business up to multi millions

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in revenue and sold it into sage. Who? Sage who? Big Footsie 100 tech company, one of the biggest tech

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companies in the world. And as we were going through the sale of go proposal to sage, one of

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the ways that a business is valued. So like how many millions of pounds it will sell for

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essentially is like one of the key metrics that they look at is how ingrained in the business is

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that founder. So how much does the business have a dependency on the founder? Now, the founder of that

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business was very deeply ingrained. He'd built it from the ground up. He was a big visionary. He was

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like, um, a influencer in the accountancy space. And he was brilliant. But the business did rely on him.

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He'd built the marketing. The marketing was built off of his face. The emails came from him. The

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sales were done by him. The development of the product was generally like he came up with the

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ideas and then passed them over to the devs. This everything, just every corner of the business did

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heavily rely on the founder. So this is where at this point the ops director role came in to go

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proposal. That's where the opportunity came from, because we needed someone to systemise the

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business to essentially remove and to systemise and remove every single aspect of the business

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away from the founder and put it back in the hands of the team to delegate to systemise, to

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automate. And so that's where I got the role, and I went through that process, spent about 12 months

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going through the process of systemising this business from the inside out. Which is why, like

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when I talk about being an ops nerd, this is what I mean. And this is why I think we've been able to

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build so much with clustered, which is obviously our new SaaS tech platform. Um, for managers, for AI

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intelligence inside your culture, also with fresh leadership world. And we've got a team of three. We

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have a team of three people. Obviously we have brilliant like functions of the business that we

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outsource, but ultimately we are able to be very lean because we systemise everything. So anyway,

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I'm getting off track. So fast forward about a year. We're going through this process of

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systemising the business. We're about to sell it. And when we get to these last sales conversations

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whereby were stood in boardrooms selling the business, selling go proposal into sage, it has to

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be me that does a lot of the presenting, because if it was the founder that did it again, it would

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show that the founder was, you know, the key dependency inside the business. So it had to be me

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that did these presentations. There was one day we'd gone. So Sage's headquarters in London is at

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the top of the shard. They may have moved now, but I believe they were, but they were at the top of

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the shard at the time, 17th floor. And they had one of the big fancy boardrooms, like you could see

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all of London. Incredibly beautiful. There was about 25 people seated in this boardroom, and we

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went in to do the presentation. Me and the founder, I stood up, delivered this presentation. I'd been

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so nervous to do it. Like this is multi, multi tens of millions of pounds. This deal I had practised

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1,000,001 times the night before and I'd been like pacing up and down. I'd been so nervous

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practising breathing, understanding how to, you know speak, etc.. Get into the meeting. Deliver the

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presentation. Walk out and I'm like, you know what? I think I've smashed that. I think I did a really

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good job. The founder pulls me to the side and says, Heather, I just need to give you some

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feedback. I'm like, ah, here we fucking go. So I just need to give you some feedback. And he said, you

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speak so fast that people in the room are really struggling to understand what you say when you

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present. I just need you to slow down, like take a breath, slow down. And in the moment. So we'd come

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out of this presentation like maybe two minutes earlier. In the moment, I was embarrassed. I was a

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bit annoyed. I was a bit like, I'm selling you a fucking business, mate. Like, how dare you give me

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this feedback? Like, just let me kind of live in this ego moment, you know, celebration moment. But I

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processed it, went back to the hotel room that evening and kind of started to look at how to

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slow down my talking. I started watching YouTube videos about, you know, how to present, how to slow

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down my talking, how to give a great public speech. Speech and eventually started listening to

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podcasts about just about how to get better at that process. All off the back of this feedback. If

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you ask a therapist why you speak so fast, a therapist will tell you it's because you think

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you're boring people, so you speed through as much as you can. You just speak as fast as possible

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because you think no one could possibly want to hear what I have to say. So you talk as fast as

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possible. Try and get it over as quickly as possible, and you don't have confidence in your

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own voice. Essentially, you think you're boring people. You don't have that confidence in your

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voice. So I went on this journey of finding confidence in my voice, just watching YouTube

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videos, practising. I used to go to an organisation called Toastmasters. It's a global organisation,

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completely free, non-profit. You go and you stand in a room with anywhere from like 10 to 20 people,

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and you do a five minute pitch and you practice your public speaking in front of people and you

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all complement each other, give each other feedback, help each other. And it also just helps

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you practice. I then eventually I went to a conference and did a talk at a conference. Still

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terrified. Nervous, fearful, but did it and practised it and had the courage to do it and

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practice my cadence. Fast forward to today. I'm literally my voice is my entire career,

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whether it's, you know, social media, this podcast that you're listening to. I've just been to the

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Cayman Islands to do a talk on a stage at a conference, being paid all expenses paid, and paid

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a big old fee to stand on a stage and speak in front of hundreds of people. All because I found

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that confidence in my own voice, because I had the courage to, three years ago, start posting videos

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on TikTok. And I just looked back at that moment when I got the feedback from that founder outside

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that room. And I think if I hadn't have heard it in that moment, even when it upset me, even when it

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made me embarrassed and angry, there is a potential that I would have never gone on that

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journey of finding the confidence in my own voice. And one of the big reasons why I started posting

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on TikTok in the first place was because when we moved into sage, I got asked by the learning and

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development Director Inside Sage to run leadership workshops for our aspiring managers.

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Because I was just having all these wins in leadership. There is a potential that when

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opportunity came across my desk in, you know, 2022, whenever it was that if I could have said no,

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maybe I wasn't ready for it, maybe I didn't have the confidence to do those workshops. They sent me

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all over the world to run these training workshops internally. And you all these moments of

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feedback is such a gift for human beings. It it hurts. It's a real like stab to the ego. It really

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hurts us. But it's such a gift. And I think when I got to see that the other way around and

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understand how impactful it is to be told something, because you can you can look at that

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founder, you can look at the person who gives you the feedback and think, what a twat. You know, how

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annoying, how frustrating. Blame them. That's not me. Or you can take a bit of ownership for it and go,

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you know what? That person's gone out of their way to tell me the thing that no one else dare tell

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me. They've gone out of the way. They've put their awkwardness to the side and said, I am going to

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tell you this thing that I think you really need to hear in order to grow. And now why are we not

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seeking it? Like looking for that feedback all the time? Like I am now, someone who is so obsessed

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with this feedback. We have our one on ones this week with the team, and in that one on one, I

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always ask if there's one thing you could change about the way I manage you. What would it be? If

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there's one thing you could change about the team culture? What would it be? Because I'm constantly

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feedback is such a gift that you actually can't expect people to give it to you. You have to go

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and find it. If you really want to grow and learn, you have to go and find it. And I've learned this

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like really hard. Now, as a business owner in the I, it's so easy to avoid getting feedback on your

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services on your product. The first time we run fresh Start, I avoided any negativity. I was like,

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let's get the testimonials, let's get the good stories, the positive stuff, without realising.

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Actually, you know, 5% of each cohort may have things that they could say that would really help

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you improve it for the next cohort. That would make it five times more successful next time. And

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it wasn't until the cohort two and three where I started to say, actually, we need to hear the hard

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stuff as well. And it's tough because I've put so much effort and love and energy into building

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this thing inside. Fresh start, which is our six week course for a six week bootcamp for new

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managers, by the way. I've put so much love and energy into this thing that I don't want to hear

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the bad things. I don't want to hear if anyone's unhappy with it, because you should be happy

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because I built it, that's just not the case. And so we now go looking for feedback. Every time I

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run workshops with teams, I'm like, tell me everything. I can take it. I want to hear the good

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stuff. I want to hear the bad stuff, the ugly stuff. I can take it. And it feels hard when you first

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get that email. I got one recently. I ran workshops with this incredible business in Australia, and I

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asked them for feedback afterwards and I was like, look, I can take it. And it was quite a new format

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for me because we were the way that they ran was the team were all sat around a table together and

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I was delivering it remotely. So I was like, look, give me any feedback on the format? What worked

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well, what didn't. And he sent me a list of ten bullet points, most of them really great, most of

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it really good feedback. Talking about how, like me telling stories really helped people connect, blah

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blah blah. But inside those ten bullet points was also the feedback that when the format is

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delivering one person on zoom to lots of people in a room, it can feel quite, um, jarring. Because

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obviously, if I'm saying there's anyone got any questions? Everyone in that room is looking around

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each other thinking, is that person going to ask, is that person going to ask? And when you have it

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on zoom, where you've got like individuals sat on their own at their own laptop, we can use the chat

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function. People can put their hand up using those functions. All good. When you're in a physical room

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with people, people can just put their hand up. People can like, understand them, read the energy

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of the room. All good. But when you mix the two, something gets a little bit jarring. And that was

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such good feedback, because now I know that if ever that, you know, if ever I run workshops

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remotely again, I just make sure that we have a way of either splitting those people up or I go

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to them. Whatever. Um, but all this feedback just helps us move forward. As a business owner, we

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cannot avoid it as a leader. We cannot avoid it. It hurts in the moment, it stings in the moment, but

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we need to know it in order to grow. But I want to hear from you. Comment wherever you listening to

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this as a comment function. Comment on this episode and let me know. What is the hardest

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conversation that you've ever had to have, or what conversation are you avoiding because we can talk

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about them in the next episode. Don't use names. Keep it anonymous. Um, but we can talk about them

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in the next episode. Like what conversations are you finding really tough? And then something else

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that I really want to broach here is this idea that I recently explored on a Substack post of

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mine, which is is people pleasing? Is niceness just manipulation in

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disguise? And I think before the age of and I always like to think of 24, 25 as when my

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prefrontal cortex fully developed. So I kind of like any mistakes that I made before the age of

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like 24, 25. I kind of just write them off as like, we're just growing up. We're just we've got a lot

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of growing up to do, but everything after that. It's not that we can't make mistakes, of course.

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It's just more now. I know if I don't have a difficult conversation, I'm not avoiding it just

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because of society and maybe safety and pressure, I am making a conscious choice to avoid that

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conversation. I'm making a conscious choice for comfort. Therefore, is niceness. Is this concept of

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niceness actually just manipulation? This is rife in the bigger the organisation gets, and you start

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to get the clicks and you start to get the silos. People who are really nice to your face, really

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nice to you on meetings, you know. Oh, thank you for pulling that together. Thank you for doing that.

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Yeah. Everything's fine. No worries. If not, everything's all good. Yeah. Then go behind your

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back and we'll be like, oh, I didn't think that. That's what standard of work was up to par. I

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thought they were really negative. I thought they brought a bad energy today, causing drama behind

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the scenes, yet never having that difficult conversation with you to your face. We can

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disguise it as niceness because that person is complimenting us in person. We can say, oh, they're

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really nice, they're really lovely. Maybe they're just a bit shy, or we can just. Or we can actually

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call it what I believe it is, which is it's manipulative, like, especially as we move into

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adulthood, like no longer can we afford in leadership especially, we are responsible

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now for the happiness of human beings inside work. We're not responsible for them all the time, but

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inside work, making sure that work positively impacts them in their life, and it challenges them

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and fulfils them and doesn't have the opposite impact, which is it's negative. They hate it. It

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makes them anxious. We can only do that if we stop avoiding these difficult conversations. And so the

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question I want you to ask yourself, it's a tough question to answer, but this is one I have had to

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really unpack recently. Is my people pleasing? Is it actually help?

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Like, is it actually because I'm just too nice? Or am I working so hard

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to protect this version of myself that is liked, that people like that people want to

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work with? Because it's easy? I'm easy to work with. Which one is it? Because when

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the longer we keep avoiding this conflict, it's hurting no one but you. It's hurt no one's career

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but yours. It's hurting no one's happiness ultimately, than yours. Because those people will

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eventually find the things out. They will get that feedback, but it'll come from somewhere else. That

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person who had body odour that wouldn't have, you know, that wouldn't have been ignored for much

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longer. Someone else would have told him. He would have found out in a different way, but maybe not

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in a way that that was as kind as I could do it. Maybe not in a way that was as respectful as I

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could do it. Maybe his new team member would have come in and, you know, like just lost a bit of

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respect for him because of that problem, because of that issue. And he would have found out that

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way, I don't know. And it could have damaged his career. But it's like I just I have to ask myself

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this question all the time. Am I truly doing this because I'm just being nice and avoiding conflict,

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or am I doing it because I just want to protect? I want to be liked. I want to be liked by everyone.

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Well, being liked and being respected are two totally different things. Um, I had

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bosses in my life who I actually found a bit annoying and frustrating, but I

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massively respected them. Um, because they would tell me what I needed to hear. They would ask me

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the hard questions. They would challenge me. They would push me. They would always be respectful.

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They weren't necessarily arseholes. Like, there's a difference. There's there is a point where someone

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can just be cruel. Um, and you will come across those people. And I think it's very easy to make

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that distinction because, you know, when that feedback isn't coming from a good place, you know,

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when that message, you know, is just someone acting out of their own fear and frustration and

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therefore you'll know when to not take that on. But the majority of the time, if someone goes out

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of their way to give you that feedback at work, I'm just grateful for it. And so I've had many

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bosses who, you know, I don't. They annoy me. I don't necessarily like them because I'm frustrated by

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them on a regular basis, because they hold me to really high standards, but I respect them. And

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wouldn't you rather be that, like, wouldn't you rather be that boss to someone else? We're not

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here to just make best friends with everyone. We're here to challenge, fulfil, build respect, grow

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people. If you have a team member that's in your team, this is the way I see it. If I have someone

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that's in my team for, let's say, 2 to 3 years, I think that's the average career span these days

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anyway. If I have the honour of having someone brilliant with me for three years, my mission

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while they're with me is just to grow them as and fulfil them and challenge them as much as

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possible. So wherever they go next, whatever career they're they pursue, if they stay in my business

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or go elsewhere, they just leave better. They leave more supported, less anxious, more skilled,

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feeling more confident in themselves, a better version of themselves. That's it. And that doesn't

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come with them liking you all the time. I'm sorry. You can't. You can't be liked all the time in

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order to do that. So stop being nice and start being kind. Today is what I would say. What

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difficult conversation do you need to go and have? What conversation are you avoiding? Friend, family,

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person at work all it all fits in together. It all becomes one. Um, and I would also say

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no. What hills you want to die on? There are some hills that aren't worth dying on. There are some

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pieces of feedback that are so far gone and I would not say with your team, sometimes this is

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with family, I would. I will say this sometimes with family, there are some things that are so far

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gone that it's almost like I'm going to protect my peace here, but know where your boundaries lie.

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Know where your standards are. Like, hold those high standards for yourself and other people

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around you. Expect nothing but the best from yourself. And yeah, go and have that difficult

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conversation today. Now, this podcast isn't sponsored by anyone external because it is very

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new, but it is going to be sponsored technically by custard, which is our new product. So custard is

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a manager intelligence platform that we have built. We've built it with professional class AI.

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So this is not a vibe coded product. It has been built with very kind of strict strong data

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regulations in place. So what custard will do is survey your team as a pull survey. We are fighting

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against those crappy annual surveys that literally no one uses and becomes no one even.

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It's hard to even get the team to fill them out, and it's even harder to actually use that data

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because it's so out of date and so big. So we use weekly pulse surveys super quick for the team.

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Literally takes the team like less than 30s to fill out the answers. You then as a manager get a

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full dashboard of data, full dashboard, understanding how your team feel. But then and

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this is the most important part, that we do not even have competitors in this space, because what

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we've built is so brilliant. We use AI mixed with all of my resources, everything I have ever built.

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So all of my YouTube videos, Substack articles, and fresh start. All of the all of the resources and

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leadership workshops I have ever built to give you exact practical actions. You as the manager to

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tell you exactly what to do about it. So to take how your team are feeling and the actions that

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you need to take to improve the culture inside your team, to level them up to become a better

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leader. A lot of it will be around having these difficult conversations. And so go and start a

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free trial of custard. Today it's completely free to get started. You can use it as an individual

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manager or you can use it across the business. We have some great bundles. If you bring all of your

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managers in and level all the leadership team up at the same time across the business, improve the

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culture. So as a podcast listener, we always have very sneaky special offers on because we disguise

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these offers in the podcast because we know that you are our most the audience that we're most

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grateful for. So thank you for making it all the way here. So go to the show notes. There will be a

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link in the description where you can claim whatever podcast stuff we've got on. We've always

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got great ones on. And so go to the link in the description right now. And I'd love to see you

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inside clustered. Other than that, I think the only other question I want to ask you is this is the

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first episode where we've brought in more plants, we've got more plants. So if you're watching the

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video version of this, just tell me, is this too many plants? I kind of like the jungle vibes, but

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just tell me, is it too many plants? Do we need more plants? Um, what do you think? This podcast is

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still relatively new, but we are going nowhere. We plan to keep going and keep going because it's

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just so much fun and so helpful. And we know that this is the kind of education that, I mean, I need

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it, it's therapy for me. But we are still figuring out the set. We're just making small changes each

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week. So tell me what you think. Any feedback is very much valuable. And please subscribe. Please

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review us. That's so helpful. As a new podcast you can click whether you're on Spotify, Apple, Amazon,

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YouTube, click like, click subscribe and leave us a review. Because again, all helpful in talking about

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feedback. It's all helpful okay. Thank you. I'll see you next week.