The Instructor Podcast with Terry Cook talking.

With leaders, innovators, experts and game changers.

About what drives them.

Welcome to the Instructor Podcast.

This is a show that helps you become an even more awesome driving instructor and run a better business.

As always, I am your Jolly Northern host, Terry Cook.

I'm delighted to be here.

Even more delighted that you have chosen to listen because we are back with a very special bonus episode for you today.

Because if you've been listening to the show for a while, you will know that whenever I come across something that excites me, something that I find really interesting, and I will get them on the show to talk about that thing.

And we are here today to talk about a brand new national driving school that is putting the emphasis on supporting its instructors.

And this really caught my attention for a reason that you'll find out in, in the episode.

But I am joined today by Phil Cowley and Diana Todd, who have launched this driving school.

And it's a fascinating conversation, listening to them and their insights with one or two surprises thrown in as well.

And it's normally at this point of the show when I ask you to go and click subscribe or check out the Instructor Podcast Premium or something like that.

Instead, today I am going to ask you to go and check out the Facebook page for this driving school, which you can find a link for in the show notes or you can go and search for the page itself, supporting driving instructors and go with that.

Give that a like and a follow and if you feel an extra generous a share.

But for now, let's get stuck into the episode.

So we are now joined by Phil Cowley and Diana Todd and we are here to talk about the brand new national driving school.

I won't say what it's called yet.

I'll let you tell us.

Phil, let's come to you first.

First of all, what is it called and why did you decide to start a national driving school?

So it's called support driving school.

And we'll get to why, as we, as we go through the podcast, why did I decide to start a national driving school?

Because it's January and I do crazy stuff in January.

So no, I, I think there is an element here of, and I've heard you talk about this before, when, if you see a problem or an issue or something that you, you don't like within the industry, you can sit there and you can whine about it and you can moan and be upset about it and, and do your best to maybe support people within that.

And I've done that.

I've done the moan about the national driving schools not supporting their PDIs and ADIs enough and I've supported a lot of their PDIs and ADIs individually.

For me, it, I wanted to do more and this is my way of doing more is, is starting a school that does support their PDIs and ADIs in many ways and will dig into the ways as possible.

But there was a second sort of kind of string to wanting to go national.

And again, I think actually, Terry, you inspired this in a.

You were talking about how.

Well, actually I think I'd fought with the idea before and then this was like, yeah, that makes sense.

So you were talking about how as instructors, you do make a difference to your, to your learners.

And if you can change one learner a few dials along the, along the sort of, kind of dial of road safety and make them a little bit safer on the road, you're making a difference to road safety.

And I think that's fantastic.

And I agree and I think absolutely, as we're out there as driving instructors, we should, that's what should be in our mindset at all times is can I, can I move that dial for this learner?

But I want it to be bigger than that.

I wanted to make a more of a difference on the road.

And in my mind, this school by supporting them through all the ways that we're going to support our ADIs and PDIs is we're hopefully going to create an army of driving instructors out there delivering top quality driving lessons, which then will have a bigger effect on road safety.

Because if you've got one instructor making a difference, that's going to have a small effect on road safety.

If you've got a hundred instructors making a difference on the road, that's however many pupils every year going on the road with the right attitude and the right mentality and being taught the right way, that's going to have an effect on road safety.

So that was my main reason.

I mean, just before I move on, I want to touch back on the point there of that phrase, an army of driving instructors delivering road safety.

Because I know you've spoke to me about that before and I just can imagine there being instructors listening now.

They're going, well, I deliver road safety.

You know, do you think that there's.

That we need to do more?

Is that it?

It's an army of drivers delivering more road safety, going above what is commonplace?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think everything we do in the car should be road safety.

And it is for a lot of instructors, 100%, I think probably is for all instructors to a certain extent.

So absolutely, I think we should do more and we should be having more conversations about their post test drive in more conversations about their behavior post test and things that are going to affect their driving after the test and decisions they're going to be making after the test and creating drivers to have the knowledge to make good, safe decisions or at least understand those decisions.

So, yeah, I think we could do more, but I also think that I can't necessarily influence all those drivers of what they do in their lessons because they're not part of my driving school.

I can by offering training and putting out videos and doing podcasts and absolutely, we can make an influence in there.

But I think actually having a driving school and I very much want this driving school to have an ethos and have a culture within the school of one instructors always wanting to improve and always wanting to get better at their job.

But I think that people who have the attitude and people who listen to this podcast, to be honest, because they're listening because they want to improve, they also then instill that into their learners, because that's also part of what you need to do for road safety is instill that into our learners that they, when they pass their test, that.

I hate the phrase, like, you start learning after you pass your test, but you carry on learning after you pass your test and you carry on getting better.

And I think if you've got that growth mindset, you're going to hopefully push that onto your learners as well.

Well, you work with Diana under the Inspire instructor training banner and decided to launch it together rather than just you.

I know the initial inclination was from you, but he decided to do that together as a pair.

So, Diana, what are your thoughts around this national driving school?

What's your thinking behind?

Is it similar to Phil?

Anything you want to add on?

He bullies me most days, so I think, you know, I just went along with it.

No, I'm joking.

I miss.

No, to be honest with you, I think what I have seen with Phil is that he, he's great at visualizing what success looks like in the industry.

And when I say success, I don't mean our own individual success.

I mean success in changing the way that the industry is.

I like the fact that when we were having a conversation about it, we were talking about changing people's mindsets, almost celebrating the fact that, yes, our learners want to drive and pass their tests, but they also want to stay alive after it.

And what I liked.

And this is, this has always kind of been ingrained in my training, my teaching, my supportive driving instructors and learners.

But what I especially liked with Phil is he doesn't do things in small doses.

You know, I was quite happy, you know, Todd's driver training didn't really sort of think bigger picture, if I'm honest.

And he has this ability who is almost infectious, you know, in the nicest possible way, where he, he projects his vision so succinctly, probably better than I'm doing now, so well and so passionately, you think, why the hell wouldn't I want to be part of that?

Like, it was just really nice.

This is probably the nicest I've ever been to him, actually.

But it really is, to be fair.

But, but that's true.

You know, I came off this call, I had this call with Phil, and in fact, when we were having that conversation, I was like, I'll help you.

You know, I'll train any of the instructors that are up here.

And he was like, no, no, you know, I want you to be a part of it.

I don't just want you like, like, training people.

I want you to, like, help support people.

And, you know, and I was like, oh, yeah, I actually really want that too.

And came off the call and spoke, spoke to my husband.

I was like, I think we're setting up a national driving school.

He's like, what?

What tonight?

What's happening?

He's like, oh, it's January.

But, yeah.

So I think, I think, I think what I'm trying to say is the vision was too good for me not to be a part of it, because actually, we're not the type of people to sit and bump our gums about the things we don't like.

We just crack on and do what we can with what we've got.

So why can't what we got be bigger and better for everybody?

Phil, Diana says you don't do things by halves, and she's right, because you've decided actually to do this by thirds because you have taken on another secret person.

So who have you asked to join you and why?

Well, it's the most handsome man in the industry.

So, yeah, we asked Terry to join us.

This came about when we were creating our list of mentors.

And we'll get on to our mentors later.

But we got to Terry on that list, and I looked at it and I was like, like, Terry needs to be part of this.

Because I, I, I, I would describe myself as probably the biggest fan of the Instructor podcast.

And I've said this before and I'll fight anyone who argues, but I think big part of that is because we are similar in a lot of our values.

And so when looking at doing this national driving school, like I've already said when I described it, I was inspired by things that you had said and I thought, Terry, as part of this is just going to make it better.

It and you already have actually, just in conversations that we've had already.

So that's already been proven to be a good decision.

I.

We have a similar ethos on business.

We have a similar ethos on how we would want to treat our instructors and treat our learners.

We have a similar ethos on road safety and making things happen.

Like you've made this instructor podcast happen.

So I think, yeah, for me it was, it was a no brainer.

And I naturally, again, when I said to Diana about it, you didn't blink an eye.

It was like, yeah, that makes sense.

So it's.

Yeah, I think we are, we are aligned and it makes sense that we do this together.

And I think it'll be bigger and better because of that.

I remember coming on the first season of the Inspire podcast and saying at the end of there that if you don't like the way the industry is, then change it.

You know, if you don't like the associations and start your own association.

I remember you almost shutting me down a little bit.

And so you don't have to go that far.

But you're like, no, I don't like national with Air national driving schools running, so I'm going to start my own.

But no, I was tough to be asked and I'll be honest, kind of have to battle my own ego a little bit because one of my goals I'd set for this year for 2025, was to evolve TC Drive, which is my little driving school, car driving school.

It was just me, but it was to evolve that.

It was to take on other instructors.

It was to branch out more into the theory.

It was, you know, I had this whole thing mapped out.

So then when you guys come along, one of my like mental blocks was, oh, I'm not going to be doing it all alone.

I'll have to share credit, you know, all this kind of stuff.

So there was a real ego thing there for me.

But I'm open enough and honest enough to admit that.

But when I step back, it's like, what's going to be better?

You know, three people who have the same vision or two people have the same Vision.

One person over here that's got the same vision but competing against each other.

And that doesn't mean that TC Drive is going away.

I still have my own little driving school over here in the corner, but it's, it's this support driving school.

Um, I was chuffed to be asked.

I'm chuffed to be on board.

I love the, the vision behind it.

I love the, the conversation.

I love the people who've got on board already, which we'll come back to in a moment.

But I'm going to come to you Diane now because I want to ask you about the name, I want to ask you about the name of support.

I genuinely can't remember how that came about.

So where did that come from?

And also, do you want to lead on to the mentors?

But I think Phil touched on there.

So do you want to lead on to what we're doing with the mentors and how that might make us a little bit different?

Yeah, so I think one of the biggest challenges that the industry has had, especially for schools that want to, to grow bigger and better, is how do you stay connected with what's going on day to day in the driving lessons in the little town?

I don't know, let's say in, you know, Newton Abbott for example, or in the Wirral or, or in Leeds.

But I think that for us it was really important that every person within our driving school felt support.

Now that can be support the way they want it.

You know, if they are the type of person that likes to check in sporadically, then, then that can be for them.

If it's the type of person that would like to have regular one to ones, then we have that for them too.

If the learners want to have a little bit more hands on approach with the parents and what have you, we can do that.

So I think it, it, it is multifaceted, which was one of the, the reasons we come up with that name.

And we were brainstorming quite a few names actually.

I think it was your suggestion initially that with the, with the, the name Support Terry, I'm pretty sure it was you that came up with that.

So that was good because it does exactly what it says on the 10th and that that's what we're hoping to achieve and the way that we want to do that is it's not going to be the Phil, Terry and Diana show, it's going to be a collection of trusted mentors, people that we respect within the industry.

They have thrown themselves into cpd, they've developed their own skills, they have excellent rapport building and people that are genuinely caring and kind.

And we've got these lovely, well placed people throughout the whole of the UK, which is so exciting considering it's like 8th of February.

And they are going to help us steer this, they're going to help us support the instructors, the learners.

They're going to be the person that checks in and has a cup of tea with them.

They're going to be the person that proactively, sort of make sure that everybody feels still connected and our core values is very much aligned with growth.

So they themselves are going to grow their own core skills and develop their own skills.

This is a new direction for them as well, or for most of them.

And I think what's been lacking, or certainly our experience has been lacking, is that sense of community.

So that's one of our other core values where we want to create little micro communities that feed into a greater community.

And I think actually in our own, when we look at our individual contributions towards the industry, we've all been community focused already and these people absolutely carry that ethos.

And yeah, I think that's, that's how we plan on making sure that our core values still stay aligned the more we develop.

The school must admit I'm slightly embarrassed because just before we started recording today I was talking about how awesome my memory is for conversation.

You've told me that I come up with this name and I cannot remember that genuinely, but I do love it, so it makes sense.

But I think it epitomizes.

What.

So when you come and pitch this school to me and I asked you to tell me about it and tell me why and all this stuff, the word that you kept saying over and over again was support.

And we had a conversation, I think it was me and you, Phil, actually we had a conversation around my training and how I used to get a phone call from Red Driving School every week I trained with Red and every week they would ring me and I loved this chat and it went on for like five or six weeks and then they were like, do you still want it?

And I'm like, no, I think I might.

Let's move it to fortnightly.

And I think I moved it to monthly and then I just stopped.

But I love that it was having someone to touch base with now.

I don't think there's enough out there, I really don't.

Especially in the national driving schools.

I think it's more prominent in local schools.

So that's why I love this idea.

That idea of support.

But you also kind of spoke about the mentors there.

You came to me with this list of potential mentors and I'm just like ticking them all.

But yep, yep, yep.

Admittedly I don't know them all that well, so there's a few I didn't know.

But what I think I've got a good eye for, and not just with instructor stuff, but we all, throughout my career and my life almost is spotting potential.

I think I've always been good at spotting potential.

That's what I'm seeing in this and in these people.

But what's also pleasing me is we're now maxed out on mensores.

We like, we've had to have this conversation and say, right, we're done now because we need to now start putting other things in place.

So Phil, I want to come to you for this.

Do you want to tell us a bit about how we're going to support the mentors and how we're going to support anyone that comes on along on a franchise?

Yeah, and I think actually this is probably one of the key things that, the reasons why we put the mentors in place and wanted that to be, and I've described it when I was talking to the mentors as they're going to be the core of the business in a way because I think it's really easy to go out there and say you're the big schools don't support you.

We will so easy to say that it's a great little marketing tool and people might believe you.

But actually what I wanted to do when we, when we suggested the mentor idea was go, no, this is how we're going to do it.

Like we put our money where our mouth is and quite literally actually, so it's.

We wanted to kind of go like prove that there's going to be a system in place to go from, from like, like Diana was saying, from learner to us.

There's always a step there that they're getting supported.

So how they do that.

Well, first of all, we, we're going to be supporting the mentors by training them.

We're going to deliver a.

Train the trainer course for them to, to make sure they're up to, to, to standard and again feel supported.

They will be on regular zooms with us so that they feel like they've got the information they need because we wouldn't want anyone sort of kind of wanting to put the wrong information out or not sure about information.

I think they should always have someone they can go to, to check in on information, but also so that if they have a PDI who, who is struggling, that PDI can, can ask that question.

If the mentor doesn't necessarily know the answer, then they can come to us and if we don't know the answer, we'll find someone who does.

It's like, I think sometimes it can get lost in the training in the industry and I've been to see lots of PDIs who've been given the wrong information by a trainer and I don't blame that trainer because I'm sure they are doing their best for that pdi, but maybe they don't have the person to go to.

And I think it's having that thing in place that if you don't know, ask.

And we can kind of have that system all the way up to us.

But also like, we don't know everything, but we know people who know stuff.

So that's kind of why we want to add, to filter down all the way through to the learners, anybody joining the franchise.

So how are we supporting you guys?

Because that's like, that's going to be the sort of the go to, isn't it?

Like feeling supported.

You're going to be enjoying your job, therefore you're going to be delivering great lessons.

So they will be weekly Zoom meetings that you can attend if you, if you want to as a.

They're not compulsory, but again, it's there for you to, to jump in if you, if, if you want to and you need some questions again or actually if you just want to have a chat and just, just narrow about a driving test you had this week or you've got this pupil who can't do this or something.

You just want to have a chat about it.

Like, you know what it's like when instructors get around, get around at a test center.

It's going to probably have a similar vibe.

We're also going to be going out to meet with the mentors individually and, and therefore the PDIs that they're supporting or ADIs that they're supporting.

So it's going to be face to face as well, because that's better.

Basically.

It's all nice and it's all good being so kind of part of the Zoom communities.

And I think Zoom has been fantastic for our industry and allow people to connect, but there's nothing beats or kind of like popping in for a cup of tea and having a, having a chat.

How else are we supporting them?

So how else are we supporting them?

So we're developing A train, the trainer course as well, so that they feel, I'm just stepping in here, if that's okay.

We're developing a train, the trainer course, but we will also ask them to deliver a minimum of a training course for their little mentees as well.

And of course we're going to help them with that, you know, so again, it's asking them to do something, but that's all part of the growth aspect of our community.

So they, they, they are going to be given that opportunity to grow as well.

We are going to pop in their car once a year and, you know, watch one of their lessons, making sure that the standards that they are striving for are what we do want to filter down.

And of course, we're there to help them.

But you know what I really like?

I like the fact that we're not tying anybody in.

I like the fact that we are saying, we are going to do such a good job of this, you're not going to want to leave us and see if you do, that's okay.

We'll help.

I think.

I just think that is where we put our support badge, if you like.

And to top it all off, we pay them.

All of our mentors are getting paid to develop themselves, paid to be part of this fantastic community of change.

I like that.

Community of change.

And I just, I think we, you know, we've also got weekly meetings.

We will have rotated mentor meetings as well.

So, you know, Tenny will do a week, I'll do a week, Phil will do a week, and then we'll do Rio.

And plus the franchisees will have their weekly meetings.

So there's so many opportunities there because I think as well, you don't know what you don't know.

And that's where the community comes in and where that conversation piece comes in as well.

I recently went to cinema to see the film Better Man.

In fact, I'm off to see it again tomorrow.

I don't know if you've seen it, but warning 21.

I bawled my ass out from minute three to the time it finished, right?

It was ridiculous.

But there's a.

I won't spoil anything, but there's a scene in there from when Robbie Williams performed his old 40s songs.

Did the production on.

I think it was on the BBC.

And he got his dad up to sing with him.

Now, they didn't show this in the film, but on the actual thing that he watched, his dad messed up when he was singing and Robbie just went, it's not just me that does it then.

And Robbie took over and carried on and I don't know, but that just reminded me of that.

Then guys, Phil went off piste a little bit and Diana came and saved him.

But that's, to me, that's something I said during the meeting we had with the mentors recently, that we will mess up from time to time.

All right, that one messing up, but you get my point.

The thing I like about the being three of us, so we're, you know, all three of three of us are half decent, we can fill in and for each of us, weaknesses, so I think that's valid.

But one thing you both mentioned there that I'm genuinely excited about is the face to face element as well.

You know, the fact that I'm going to go and meet the mentors and the franchisees and I think I just want to hammer home a little bit here.

The, the difference.

So if you were listening to this and you're thinking, you know what?

I want this support, I want to, I want to come under this driving school banner.

You come and join us as a franchisee, you're getting your own mentor straight away.

And that mentor is limited to a certain number of franchisees.

So they're only going to take on board what they can manage and they will look after you, they will provide you with training.

We will then provide you with training, we will also look after you.

There's all kinds of cool stuff.

We've got events planned for you, we've got stuff tied in around the Expo, all this kind of cool stuff.

So if you come on as a franchisee, you will be looked after in a way that I believe, and I can't prove this, but it's probably better than anyone else is on a national level just to chuck that out there.

There's some local schools doing fantastic jobs, isn't there, Phil?

So, yeah, I think that if you come on, you're just going to get looked after.

Now, if you're not coming on, but maybe you're training PDIs or you're training ADIs, but you don't want that to come on the part of your franchise.

You can send them this way as well.

We'll talk in anyone that's half decent.

And on that note, I want to survive who we will and who we won't take.

So I'm going to start with who we won't take and I'll let you guys take who we will take because I don't want anyone coming to us as a mentor, as a franchisee.

That doesn't really care about their own development.

I don't want anyone coming here that thinks just teaching someone to break is enough to go down the road safety route.

I don't want anyone coming here that doesn't want to use other resources, such as the honest truth.

Now, this is all stuff that's going to be incorporated and chucked at you when you come anywhere, you'll have all these resources.

We're not going to mandate use every single one because there might be some that will be not perfect for everyone, which is completely fine.

But we don't want people who aren't willing to embrace change.

We want to provide you with resources that you then use the bulk of.

So if you don't want to do that, if you don't want to improve, then this isn't the place place for you.

But I've said who we don't want.

I'll let you guys tell us everyone who we do want.

So I.

What you touched on there was one of the first criteria for the mentors, which was like that growth mindset.

So 100%, like this school is going to be full of driving instructors who want to grow and want to want to improve, want to deliver that road safety.

What I do think as well, and we've talked about this before, is everyone's on a different part of their journey.

So I think when you're new to the role or if you're a PDI looking for something different, we don't expect you to be out there delivering like the same lessons as maybe somebody who's been doing it 10 years and has got that far in their driving instructor career.

But we want you to have that mindset to want to get there, because we will support you to get there.

That that's the key is we don't what we don't want.

And I know I said you were, I said before the podcast that you're really good at saying what we don't want.

And now I'm doing this like it's that people who want to just turn up, do your job, go home, don't care, just like I'll do a lesson.

Like, we want people who want to care about those pupils and push those people forward.

So, yeah, I suppose that's who we do want, is the ones that care.

Basically.

We want instructors who want to be the best, want to change the industry.

And I think build up other people.

I think that's, that's so, so important to us that, you know, we want to see somebody reach down and help someone, you know, that.

That sort of helping, nurturing attitude where, you know, we're not.

They're not competing against each other.

We are changing, we're helping.

And I think that's.

I love it.

I love already the little community that we've created where.

And I don't want to single anybody out, but, you know, there's.

There's already been little messages of support in this mentorship, the mentor group, and, like, offers of.

Of advice.

And I just.

And that's what we want.

That's what we.

We hopefully want to create is.

Is somebody that cares enough to want to develop themselves and others.

I want to touch on a couple of things here.

So first of all, I just want to mention the mentors again that you mentioned there, the ones you've got already, because they are awesome.

You know, we've.

We've had plenty of conversations with you guys.

We had a big group, Zoom, the other day, and just the enthusiasm behind these guys.

So I wish I was a PDI coincidence industry now.

I wish that I had this.

And that's no disrespect to anyone that I worked with in the past, but it's like, this is different.

This feels a bit special to me.

I would love to come into this little group here.

And we are maxed out with that.

We just are.

We couldn't have any more mentors at the moment, not at least until we build up the franchisees, because we're at the very start.

This is the exciting thing.

We're at this position now.

This only gets bigger.

This only gets better.

And I think this, that, that aspect of it is really exciting.

So, you know, there will come a point where we need to hire new mentors, and we're going to go into the franchisees first.

You know, if you've got any ambitions to.

To evolve and move forward, you want to come on as a franchisee now, because we're going to get first dibs on those before we look outside for the promotion, if you like, for a Becca word, lack of a better word.

But I think the other thing I just want to touch on here is that your thing exciting me, which is that there's been other driving schools, other national driving schools that have already been announced this year.

I'm not going to name them because I'll forget one or two and then I'll feel bad because I've missed them and it'll feel like I'm sticking out.

But there have been others and I'm loving the people behind them.

So even if we look just ourselves for a second at support driving school, we can never be the only national school.

We couldn't have like this massive monopoly.

But I think it's awesome that there's like three or four now that we're not going to join together, but there's three or four that almost competing against the other national schools, you know, and that's exciting for me because we want to do things properly.

We're prioritizing people over profit.

And one of the things that I said or that we've spoke about actually was why don't other big driving schools do this?

And if we're being honest, when we looked at the numbers, we found out because, oh, crap, that's going to cost us a bit.

But we're doing it anyway because it's not about as much as humanly possible.

It's about people over profit.

And that kind of aspect is exciting me.

And I know that the other schools, again, I won't mention them, but do taking that approach as well.

So I just think that's.

This is why I'm excited for 2025 for instructors.

I think there's just some, some really awesome stuff coming out there.

So is there anything else you guys want to mention to touch onto that?

I, I wanted to sort of kind of add.

You, you mentioned that mentor meeting that we had like a nice group meeting together.

And it was really interesting, that meeting, because that, like, we, we've talked as we've gone through this podcast that originally this was like my sort of kind of dream to go do this sort of, kind of big national school.

Spoke to Diana.

Obviously she was coming in for like, Terry.

Yep, you need to come in as well.

And so, but at that point it was still just an idea.

It was just like, this is an idea, let's do this, let's go change the industry.

And we haven't done it yet, to be fair.

So we need to go, but we need to go prove ourselves and go, go, go and actually implement this.

But then when have we now ever not said, like done what we, we said we're going to take.

But actually that meeting was really interesting for me because I thought those, the mentors were going to be like, yeah, okay, it's a nice idea, I like it.

Yeah, we'll come up with, yeah, we'll probably join you.

That like sort of quite muted sort of kind of idea.

But the, the response we got back was, no, I want to be part of this.

Like, this is different.

This is going to make a difference to the Industry.

This is my, like, how I want to be in the industry.

And it was very much like they were on board, like fully on board, like, let's go change the industry together.

And that was amazing because I think it was the proof in the pudding that what we're talking about doing does matter and does and will make a difference.

And now we just gotta go do it.

Oh, I like that.

We're all still doing the job.

We're all driving instructors, we're all teaching learners.

We have the similar stories we can.

And it's.

It's real life examples.

It's not.

And this isn't a slight.

Just situations arise, don't they?

And it takes you away from whatever you're doing day to day.

And I totally understand that.

I love the fact that we're still teaching learners.

I love the fact that a big part of our community is people sitting in the back of my lessons and going, well, what did you do that for, Diana?

I was like, well, let me share with you this.

And sometimes I don't get it right.

And I put my, like, literally put my, My myself in that hot seat, if, if, if you know what I mean.

But because the job is tough.

It's a wonderful job.

It's a fabulous job, but it's a tough job, and we are still doing it.

And, and you know what I really love is when we all spoke, we all talked about how we were all still going to be like, teaching learners and still being involved in that process.

You know, we were, we were never, never, ever going to be hands off.

The community starts from us.

And I just, I really, really enjoyed that.

The other thing, like, we are driving.

You kind of touch it there.

We're also human driving instructors.

You know, we've met mistakes.

We're human.

I met several this week.

You know, but I think that it's one of the things that I've particularly embraced over the last 12 months is owning that and talking about that publicly.

And why do the stuff like the Friday fails on the Facebook group, when I recently started the F Word podcast that I do around failure.

And I embrace that.

And I think that if we share as fails as much as we share as wins, that helps people as well.

You know, we, we learn from positive and negative.

But I just want to give like a final, I don't know, a final point, if you like, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, I'd love to be a mentor.

I'd love to be supporting, you know, other instructors within the support Driving school.

Great.

You may well be welcome at some point because we will hopefully need to grow that at some point.

But as I said before, we maxed out.

But if you are thinking how else you can be involved, you can join the franchise.

That franchise is going to be open.

All the stuff that we've spoke about today, plus more stuff that we've missed, stuff that we haven't said, we will have other ways to support you as well.

It is very new.

So if you want to reach us, if you want to contact us, it's a very simple way.

You can go to the Facebook page supporting driving instructors and you can just message us through there.

Or you know how to find me, you know how to find Philande, you can reach individually through there.

It doesn't matter who you get to go to Thor, Diana, they'll reply you quicker than me.

But either way, you know, I didn't say that.

But you can reach out and you can have a chat.

There is no forceful here, there's no hard sell or anything like that.

If you are thinking you want a bit more support, you're welcome to come along and join.

I think the other thing, last thing I want to touch on is somewhat Diana mentioned earlier about not holding people to a contract for years and stuff like that.

Yes, 100%, that's something I'm passionate about.

You won't be beholden to us for years.

Give us a bit of noise, don't just, I'm quitting tomorrow.

But we will also help you develop your business.

You know, it's a franchise.

The idea of a franchise is that you grow that franchise, you run your business, that element of that business.

So, yes, we will provide you with learners, but we're not talking about that because of course we're going to send you learners.

I'm not going to give you a number because numbers change, but we will help you with that business.

So if at any point you go, you know what, I do want to leave, for whatever reason, you'll be in a better position to leave because you'll have more ideas of how to do run that when you do.

But also, as Diana said, we want to be good enough so you don't.

So that's a little challenge for us.

And if, if everyone decides to leave, then we've made a big mistake somewhere.

So, yeah, just a little call to action there.

If you've got any interest at all in becoming a mentor, let us know.

We can put you on a short list, but we are going to be picking from the franchisees that come along first.

So my final call there is anything you guys want to finish on?

Excellent.

So both shaking the head there, which.

Is I, I just want to finish with let's, let's go do this.

A lot more polite than what I said, but yeah, big thank you for joining me today, guys.

I love this project.

Thank you for inviting me onto it.

I think it's going to be awesome.

I think we'll make a success of it.

Not quite 100% sure what that definition of success is yet, but I think we'll make a success of it.

I think the journey is going to be awesome.

I think it's going to be fun.

And yeah, big thank you for inviting me along and thank you for joining me today.

Thank you.

The instructor podcast with Terry Cook, talking.

With leaders, innovators, experts and game changers.

About what drives them.