Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome back to Voices in Health and Wellness. This is the show where we dive into the real world challenges, shifts, and stories shaping the future of health and wellness industries. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Greenland, and today's guest is someone who works who bridges psychology, business leadership, and human performance. Ruth Cooper Dixon. She's the founder of Ruth Cooper Dixon Limited and a champion for integrating mental well-being into professional culture. Ruth is also an award-winning positive psychology practitioner and speaker who's worked with organizations across the globe to rethink how well-being strategies are built and crucially communicated. So, Ruth, welcome and thank you very much for agreeing to join us this afternoon.

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 0:37

Thank you so much for having me. I love that intro. Can you just follow me around at different cars? Hey you go, this is me. I love that.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 0:47

No, you're welcome, you're welcome. So um, for those new to your work, could you give us a little snapshot of what you do and who you serve through Ruth Cooper Dix Unlimited?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 0:55

Yes, there's predominantly there's two clients that I have. One is um business to business. So um I I grew actually a very successful large consultancy and actually changed that, and I'll perhaps share a little bit about that, but I rebranded uh under my own name um at the end of 2023 for the launch of the the new year of 24. So that work tends to be predominantly global corporates, organisations. Um, I'm based in the UK, in Essex. I tend to work a lot in person in London, but as we know with the COVID pandemic and the way that work is now, it actually opened it up where I work a lot with organisations and their teams across, you know, across the globe and do a lot of global work, so working in different time zones as well. Um, and that's everything around the well-being strategy of an organization. So, right from that leadership board piece, whether that's training, coaching, um, you know, outlining the the well-being strategy right down to mental health first date training, so the whole spectrum really. Um, and and that has changed and it has evolved. It'll be 10 years in uh next week, October the 3rd. I've had the business, and it's as we know, it's this space has definitely evolved. Um and my other client is the business to consumer, and that's starting to grow a little bit more now because I spent a lot of time working predominantly with corporates, albeit you know, sometimes those people were one-to-one, you know, coaching clients. But um, I'm doing a lot more in the grief space, one-to-one. Um, so and also where people have come across me perhaps on a talk or a webinar that their organization that you know might have brought me in for World Mental Health Day, and they really like me and how I my approach and what I'm talking about, and they kind of want to be able to work with me, you know, on off their own sort of back. So that's starting to really develop, I feel like this year, particularly. And I suppose it's I've had more time because I'm not running a you know a team or quite you know, a large, a large, a larger, smaller business, if that makes sense. But yeah.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 3:07

Interesting. And what what inspired you to bring psychology into the workplace and leadership development? What's the kind of driver for this?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 3:14

So I started my career at 19 at working at Rolls-Royce Aerospace, which is where I'm from in Derbyshire, and I ended up working in business and change programs and not knowing anything really then about psychology or organizational change, but I I kind of saw the impact of what change had on organisations. And back then, change, you know, in the late 90s was this kind of glamorous, cool thing that happened, you know, it was all planned out, and not like we think of it now as change happening all the time and frequently. So um I learned lots actually very early on in my career, without even probably taking on board knowing the depth of it of kind of how people responded to change at work and emotions and behaviour. And um, I learned from that, and and so stayed in business. I actually then became uh a trained project manager, and I actually ended up spending a lot of time working in London um in finance, in investment banking and wealth management again as a HR project manager, I suppose, because the you know, most of the time, again back in the early NOTAs, mid-Nortas, it was more project managers were either product-facing or they were IT, they weren't people project managers. Again, that was a fairly new thing. So I was working a lot with uh onboarding employee, you know, setting up those programs, working on leadership programs, um, seeing the whole employee lifecycle. And so that I suppose looking back, there was always a I always describe it as there was a thread of people to everything I did, although I wasn't HR, I wasn't well-being. Um and and so that kind of evolved. And then I'm when diversity and inclusion became um sort of very high on the agenda, I ended up working in a consultancy and I started working on designing programs when unconscious bias training became a bit more of a hot topic and inclusive leadership, inclusive recruitment, because I'd spent a lot of time understanding that in organizations. But I was always really fascinated because um for me, mental health and well-being was mental health particularly was only ever considered under sort of disability and um from the Equality Act. And I was very much a you know somebody who really um was passionate about wellness. I'm you know, I'm a runner, I've always done a lot of fitness, I've always tried to look after myself. That's always been something that's been part of me. But I felt like well-being was something that was around us and it changed as we changed and we grow older, and life changes and um different things come and impact on us. And it was my own lived experience. So 2015, um, I went through a series of personal life changes. So a divorce, relationship breakdown. I kind of threw myself into my job to kind of distract from what was happening at home, which we, you know, lots of us can do as a coping strategy, which again worked for a period of time, performance was massively high, and then of course, moving into that strain zone pretty much hit crisis. And I'd always had panic attacks. I'd had them since I started work at 19, but I didn't tell anybody about them. I mean, even my mum was a nurse and she wasn't a mental health nurse, so you know she says, well, maybe it's your blood pressure or something. So we we I just never really spoke. I was too ashamed, I couldn't really understand why because it was so physical. It was sweating and going red, and um, it was something that I just kind of had all these very elaborate um avoidance mechanisms and coping strategies to deal with, and and it often manifested a lot, it was more in the workplace, but I had a very sort of severe panic attack at work um in that summer of 2015 and was signed off work, and that's when I was kind of very fortunate, rushed into therapy, and that's when also when I was diagnosed with panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder at the time, which was then this whole light bulb moment. But I also couldn't figure out when I came back into work why no one wanted to talk about it, and I I got you know, now that it was very traumatic, it happened in a small office, and you know, the glass, the glass walls and everything. Um, and I I think I it I kind of likened it to if you'd been off with a physical health condition or if you'd been diagnosed with a physical health condition, like no one really wanted to bring it up. And I suppose back then it was something, and still is now in lots of places that stigma that's attached to whether I say anything, don't I say anything. So I chose I chose to be very open. And what I found was the more that I spoke about my experience, the more people went, oh, me too, or or something similar, or my sister, or I had a boss once, and it'd start all these conversations. So I couldn't figure out why we weren't talking about it more at work, and so I decided to leave. And I don't I actually don't really know it wasn't like I went, oh, I'm gonna start a business on this, it was just I'm gonna leave and bang the drum about this at you know, in organizations. And I had a very good city network in London, so and I had a lot of EDI uh equality, diversity and inclusion um network from from work as well. Um and yeah, I think it the it was the very early adopters that kind of were sort of like, yeah, this is something we want to get on board with, and mental health first aid training hadn't long been in the UK as well, in England. So that was kind of evolving as a product. Um, and some of you know, some forward-thinking corporates were really looking at that. Um, so I trained in that and also decided to go and do my MSE and apply positive psychology and coaching psychology. Um, because I just that really resonated with me as a as a psychology discipline. Um I liked the fact it talked about becoming well and looking after yourself, preventative, but it also, as positive psychology has evolved over the last couple of decades, it looks more at resilience and death and grief and you know, all the difficult parts of life as well. And um, yeah, I just wanted, I guess, the academic underpinning, because I've always believed in when you're talking about these things. Yes, lived experience is very important, and it's great for a talk on a certain topic, but for me it was about being informed and yeah, I suppose taking my career in a different direction kind of almost at that point, you know, mid was coming into sort of midlife. Um, so yeah, that's a very long explanation. No, thank you.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 10:00

It's just really fascinating to hear the backstory and how it's led you to do what you do today. I mean, can you just still down what with all that you do at the moment, what was your core mission and and how has it kind of evolved over time?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 10:14

So I always say my core mission is helping people put themselves back together when I sort of usually say say a swear word, when everything falls apart. And you know, and I believe that is true for organizations as well, you know, when everything falls apart. I think I've seen that happen, you know, over COVID, and then subsequently trying to understand the future of work and our workplaces are so fragmented and what's happening in the world as well, and the impact that has. So I you know it kind of works with organizations and with with individuals, and also where individuals feel like everything's, you know, how to sort of support people to rebuild themselves. And I think that's probably gotten much clearer, I think, for me now, whereas before in the past, I definitely had that. But as the as my consultancy grew and the demand was there for more training, and I had a bigger team, and then I brought people on board, and I had people that delivered training for me, it became much more about helping organizations to sort of ingrain that culture of positive mental wealth, as I call it. Um, so that's that still exists, but I think because I spend a lot of time working with organizations now who are really going through a lot of change continually, and how do they support their employees through that and also but rebuild for what's next, I think.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 11:44

Fascinating. Um what about marketing all of this? I mean, I don't know how um sort of your potential customers' clients see this at the outset. But how do you go about marketing this and kind of getting your message over and the importance of all of this?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 11:59

It's so interesting that you asked that question because I I've always I've had over at different points in in my business, and I've just actually taken back on board my original marketing freelance who was with me for quite a number of years, but I think the work that I've done really speaks for itself, and so I've ended up, for example, in certain industries like the law, the legal profession, insurance, where people have referred me, or then I've worked with an organ, and I what I really love is the fact that a lot of my clients I've been working with now five, six, seven, eight years and been a part of their well-being strategy and journey as an organization. Um, and so that's continually to evolve, and then where people have moved elsewhere, you know, and they've taken a different job, and then they've gone, oh, we we need I need to bring you in because I like the way that you work. And but I think it's I think what's interesting, and I was talking to a client about this this morning, is that there is, I think this the space has changed quite a bit where um I don't get as much sort of ad hoc requests for talks and webinars. And I'm wondering, you know, I think the clients that I tend to work with are very strategic and that you know, then they're not oh, it's World Mental Health Day, let's just run a talk and that's it for the rest of the year. I think there was a period of that where organizations felt that that's how they did well-being. And and of course, like if I'm going to do a talk, I'll make it as impactful, I give handouts, and you know, I'm not necessarily always always going to turn work down. But I think personally as well, in the last 18 months, since I, you know, there's only so much time I have available. I probably work more on that deeper level uh with an organization, which for me I like to see the real value of that. That's really I find that quite you know really rewarding when I'm in a client next week and they were one of my original organisations that I trained back in 2016, you know, with their first mental health, first data care whore. They've now got a huge global well-being uh committee that that spans all levels from you know right up to partner level, and you know, they're all trained and they're doing these amazing things. So I've I've been part of that, which is I you know, I just think is really great. So I feel like you have a deeper impact.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 14:34

Amazing. Are there any um specific trends or pressures that you think have pushed leaders and organizations to take this stuff more seriously?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 14:42

Yeah, I think what happened with COVID was really interesting because the all, you know, there was that pause as we headed into the first lockdown in March, and then all the organization again, testament to the types of businesses I work with, they were all like, right, what do we need to do? Let's get this all, you know, what can we do to support our people? And that went obviously on for a number of years. Um, so I think those organizations have kind of carried on that, and despite what has come out, particularly in the US recently, with the change in president and everything with regards to equality, diversity, inclusion, particularly because often mental health and well-being can often sit into that space. But again, um, I feel like uh the organizations I work with, where they've perhaps re-strategised around that, that still hasn't been less of a priority. And I think organizations are realizing I think the the world in what's happening even on a global stage, and not only that, but what's also happening in here in in England, in the UK, people are struggling enough already, and then combined with the pressures of work, it doesn't leave a lot of capacity for people at all. If if you know most people are reacting, most people are, you know, lots of people are I don't know to use always use a phrase burnt out, but the people, you know, people aren't necessarily looking after themselves in the best way, and but there's a lot of pressure, pressure comes on all from all different sides. So yeah, I think it's I think it's a really tough. I say I I do a lot of people manager training, and I kind of start off with like you know, it's a really hard job, and I don't have a magic answer because it is. I mean, I I think it'd be really difficult to be a feeble manager right now. There's a lot, there's a lot happening to support everybody individually, it's a lot.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 16:42

I mean, presumably the the forward-thinking companies can see this as a return on investment, because of you know, productivity, less time off sick, um, better employee satisfaction, less turnover, that kind of stuff.

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 16:53

Yeah, I mean, there is all of that where we know, you know. Well, the original study that was done by Warwick University years ago was that you know, people, if they're productive, if they're happy at work, they're 12% more productive. We know if people are, you know, not necessarily uh commuting the whole time. We've seen lots of um data and studies that have been done around the four-day work week, which recently the pilot within those all those organizations completed, and people were finding they were more productive, even working the four days um rather than the five. Um, the flexibility around a hybrid working for those in corporate jobs where that's an option. But again, it comes back to managers knowing, you know, there's a lot here around things like psychological safety and building trust. And um, I was I did a training earlier on this week, and one of the managers was saying to me, Well, I've got a fully remote person. How do I build that relationship with them, you know, on an informal level? And I was sort of saying, Well, because they are remote, you probably need to put in the diary at least once a month. They're, you know, start off with an hour, but it might be a bit less than that, but just a catch-up, which is informal, which you not you actually say, look, we're not gonna talk about work, I'd just love to spend a bit of time with you because you don't get that interaction that I have with everyone else when they come in. And we have those informal, you know, I hate the phrase water cooler chats, but you know, just the the general conversation that if I'm in the office three days a week, I'm gonna get with that manager. So, you know, there is there has been a lot of consultancy studies that have been done around where remote workers or those that are hybrid but don't go into the office very much, they you're obviously going to lose that connection if if those conversations aren't being had anywhere else. Um, there's gonna be a disparity there. And yeah, we're seeing that with people feeling more lonely as well.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 18:49

So yeah. What does it look like? You when you go into a company, how do you kind of get under the bonnet and work out what a client needs? What's your kind of process for sorting them out?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 19:00

I generally see so first of all, it's kind of like what else do you have? What have you got in place at the moment? Um, what what is the you know, asking sort of a I suppose a series of different kind of coaching questions, like what does the what does the leadership think of well-being and mental health? What are you, what's your exec sponsorship, who have you got as champions, what are your toxic or hotspot areas in the business, where do you know you've got problems, um, what's going well? And you know, from a positive psychology perspective of appreciative inquiry, you know, what's going well, what can you do more of? And also where what what can this look like? You know, I I've had clients or potential clients who've said, Oh, I you know, I we need three cohorts of mental health first aiders. I'm like, okay, but what else are you doing? Because you train a bunch of people up for two days and then then what? What how do how are they supported? What do they do? Who tells the rest of the organization about them? How do they show up? You know, all of these, how do you monitor the data from the conversations they're having? Um, so there's it's more of that strategic roadmap and figuring out what that looks like. And I that's I think what's been so different for me is working with clients to say, um, what does you know, what does 20, for example, at the moment I'm doing lots of these types of conversations since um since the beginning of this month, really. What does 2026 look like? Because they, you know, the HR well-being or the business leaders who are responsible for this, and you know, they have they have their budget, or they kind of they're either being allocated their budget or they're putting in their requests for budgets for the start of next year. So it's kind of like, well, what can I how can I maximise this as well? What can that look like? And I think because I've worked with people for so long now, they trust me to kind of go, you know, this is what we could do instead, or this is how we could squeeze this, or especially those I've worked with for a while, you know, this is why I could, if you're buying all of this, I can we can look at discounting some stuff because I want it to make it as value add as possible. So it's really, yeah, just seeing where what that looks like, and then having a I think they like it because they have a plan and it doesn't feel like you're just throwing paint at a wall and just seeing if it's gonna, you know, or jelly, whatever the phrase is, just throwing something at the you know, and thinking, oh, we've we've done it, and then wondering why nothing's changed.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 21:29

So is there anything that's particularly resonating with your clients right now in all the sort of things that you offer them? Is there certain things that stick more than others?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 21:37

Um I think um so mental health first aid has always been a program which I think is popular. It you know, it's it's something that adds to the framework of a workplace well-being strategy, and and it's very, very useful. Grief, I'm finding is becoming a bit more of a hot topic, understanding grief and making sure managers know how to support someone who's going through a bereavement and also recognizing grief comes in many shapes and forms. Um, and I'm doing a lot more talks around that, a lot more coaching around that as well, which I think is really great, and seeing organizations think about what's their grief policy, you know, how does that look? How does that translate? What support do you have internally for grief and bereavement? So grief is definitely one. Um, as I said before, change is is kind of very much a hot topic, like navigating change, how does that impact? You know, just from some of the base, I think people really like the the basics around the neuroscience about understanding how the brain responds to change and you know, looking at things like the change curve and those models which enable people to oh this so this is why I respond in this way, and and also as an organization, as a team, how do we you know kind of move through this process together and support each other? So that that's another area that's been really uh a big deal. And then I've lots of the usual stuff, living with anxiety, navigating anxiety. Um they're probably kind of some of the the main ones, and and then you know, lots lots of the I suppose it's like you know, when you think of flavour of the month, but you know, things like menopause have become much more prevalent, talking about that, which is not an area that I'm I generally talk about or an expert in, but I know organizations doing great work about menopause policy and training and support and having open conversations about that, and um supporting employees who are neurodivergent, but also being able to equip managers to have those those conversations and um signposting and adjustments and support, which enables, you know, from a social model of social model of disability, it just creates inclusion for everybody, some of those, some of those practical adjustments. So um I got to do a a launch in an organization over the summer uh for the Sunflower Lanyard, the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Lanyard. One of my clients um launched that with so I did was a keynote speaker with their CEO uh because I wear mine when I travel. Um so yeah, I think you know things like that are becoming um kind of at the forefront as well.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 24:15

And on the flip side, are there any things that are particularly frustrating or feel like bottlenecks in the work that you do?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 24:22

Um I still feel that even now, after 10 years, if I'm being brutally honest, I still feel there is still that gap between sort of the leadership and then putting things into plan. Like, so you know, the I always remember I always remember describing it as like um the Christ the Christmas cake, the traditional Christmas cake. So you've got all your employees, which are all your raisins and your cake mix and everything, and then you've got that Marzipan layer, which is your people managers usually, uh leaders who are often really squoze because they get stuff from the top and they've got all of this stuff to manage and look after as well as their own jobs and their own mental health and well-being and performance. Um, and then you've got this lovely icing, and you know, I think I find not always is well-being, it's seen as still this thing on the side. It's not part of, you know, I I would love it, and maybe not just yet, maybe for not another, maybe a couple of decades, like start to ease out of work. But I would love it so that well-being isn't part of what's happening as a as the business in the business processes, and it's you know, it's part of the training for appraisals and understanding those and how people work. And when we look at a project or a program of work in an organization, are we thinking about with the resources from a well-being lens and resilience, you know, and I know that from being a project manager, manage programs of work. So, yes, we've got you know all these names on a list, but do we think about the the person behind that? And I just don't know if that's I still think there's a disconnect there, which there shouldn't be. And I think that is changing in lots of the organizations I do work with, but I think there's still it's still seen as something that is separate to uh you know, business as usual, and it should be just if you've got people, you've got you've got a well-being, you need a well-being plan, right? Yeah.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 26:37

So um obviously you're a business person, you run a very successful business. Are there any particular metrics or signals that you watch out for in what you do, whether it's growth, impact, engagement? What do you kind of look at to make sure that you're having the impact that you need?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 26:50

Um it depends if my accountant's gonna listen to this. He's been my best friend for a long time since I was 14. Um, he'll be like, Ruth, you should know all of these answers. So I do, yeah, obviously making, you know, making a profit. I think I think it's been really hard. And I still think it is often for people who who work in well-being, wellness, you know, when we deeply passionately care about what we're doing, that sometimes making money can feel a little at odds with that. And you know, for a when I had my bigger consultancy, I actually had a social enterprise where I would do um pro bono work. So I did a program for women who'd experienced domestic abuse and violence for a charity and had a team of volunteers, coaches, professional coaches who who supported me. And I actually coached humanitarian aid workers out in the field. Um, I've just started, I'm about to start a programme now, but when that closed down when my consultancy all changed, um, and and what I used to do is I have part of my revenue, 20% of everything that I build in my consultancy would go to the um to that organization. So it was kind of a CSR for clients to work with me as well, because they were part of that social impact. And we we had kind of key metrics around what we would measure. Um, I've just started doing some, well, I'm about to start doing a pro bono coaching program for um a certain population of a of a charity that I'm working with, and we're just about to launch that hopefully very soon. So I feel like I'm able to give something back there. But yeah, I think for me it's so it's it's the impact that I have from you know, feedback that I get. I often get asked to give quotes to clients. I was in a company report for one of the law firms, the annual company report from the responsible business side. So those kind of qualitative measures I really love to be able to see and be a part of. Um, and I think from a marketing perspective, you know, having a reach, um, you know, that is important. I think because there's so much, as you say, so much content out there. For me, it's about having that fee, it's often the feedback. I I launched my own podcast three weeks ago and it and I had over 2,000 downloads. Now I was genuinely shocked by that because I thought if 50 people downloaded it, I would be happy. So, you know, as you said, people, as we were chatting offline before, I think you can get so I in the past as well, with my ADHD brain, I can get so hung up on an arbitrary number, sometimes something I've set for myself, and will literally you know burn myself out to get to something, which in fact didn't mean anything in the first place. So I suppose it's profit making a living for me. Um, I've got a bit more of a team now again, which is really lovely because I started 2024 off with nobody, and so the last few months I've brought even more back office staff on, which is great. Um, so that's really supporting my mental health, and yeah, just having that great impact, having opportunities, talking to like you today, you know, things that perhaps wouldn't even come along before. So, yeah, great.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 29:59

So

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 30:00

assume that where would you like to see your work go in the next six to twelve months so fairly fairly short term but what's the what's on the what's on the cards for you so I am about to launch hopefully end of October a online course for individuals on demand uh online training course I suppose training course uh for beyond the it's called beyond the grief so practical sort of coaching grief support if you've had therapy or you're stuck and you need that kind of you know practical tools to enable yourself to move forward at your own pace um something I've been wanting to do for a while so that's going to launch next month so I'd love that to be successful I'd love to see that be taken up that would be really really cool for me to do that. And I've just started I'm starting grief circles next month um as a kind of an opportunity for people to come together and just listen and support each other like as a non-therapeutic space with me facilitating that. And so I'm I'm hoping those will take off and um I'm doing a lot more on kind of radio as well in the media and so I have a dream I'd love to be able to host a sort of classical music wellbeing type show. So that's I'm gonna put that out there into the universe that would be something that I would be extremely happy if that came along very different from the day job but amazing yeah yeah I love I love I'm on the radio tomorrow I I have a breakfast show on local radio I do on a fr I do it on a Friday but um I really love radios you'd probably say I could talk I could talk for days I have to remember to play some music but um yeah classical music was a big part of my life when I was unwell and it really kind of um supported me as a as a self-care tool so yeah um if I was to give you a magic wand to change one thing about how your business operates or scales what would that be? Oh that's such a good question that's such a good coaching question as well um one thing that I could change I think it would be to have more people supporting me that enables us to get more of the the products and support out there to individuals that they can use and support for themselves so it frees up my time that would be that would be kind of the dream um which I'm slowly starting to happen again now but not for not for anyone else to be I suppose doing the work that I do but just having a better you know a bigger team at the back office to to kind of do that support um I think that would be great and just see sort of a a bigger impact and a wider impact. Yeah.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 32:56

Is that just about sort of the back office or do you want sort of to replicate yourself and have more of yourselves working?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 33:02

No I don't actually because that's what I did that's what I did with the consultancy and um yeah I I think I've done that and I think it was it was really successful and I think but I changed so much and I know what my brain likes and I know how I like to work and um and like you said with the radio I love I call it my ribbons from it from my ADHD for perspective when I was working with my own coach when I was diagnosed at the end of 2022 and um I like having all these different strands to what I do and that they make me feel ribbon y so as you said the radio brings me a lot of joy it's very different to being in a corporate but they both offset each other and I like the fact that my week looks very diverse and nothing ever looks the same week in week out probably to probably to the uh the chaotic nature the rest of my team think it looks like but it's good fun and I'm loving it. So yeah I found my second wind 10 years in so it's good.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 34:04

Amazing if your um business suddenly got 10 times the visibility and who knows what might happen with this podcast and a huge influx of new leads or inquiries what would what would be the first thing that breaks and hopefully not you.

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 34:16

Yeah no I don't think it would be me. I think we would bring in very quickly um we which we have done for some of our design work but bringing another admin support um which is is we're probably not far off that now because my assistant is is becoming much more as an exec assistant and knows me through and through and knows my diary and knows my brain and knows how I operate having that kind of sort of a a support that could you know if loads of leads came in we would know how to sort of manage that. And also being able I think I'm in a better position now where and a stronger position and more discerning of actually that isn't for me I'll pass it on to somebody else you know it's not for me or this isn't the right type of you know or the not is it really the work that I want to do and I think in the past it would be oh it's work let's do it and pass it out to the team whereas now I'm like do I have time for this does it fill me up is it good business um am I the best person for it all of those sort of qualifying questions.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 35:22

Yeah and finally looking back if you were to start all over again tomorrow would you do anything differently?

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 35:28

No because I feel like I did that at the end of I think 2023 we know the website the name changed the website changed it started January the 1st just me and it was a big team before I had to relearn everything. So I feel like I've gone through that evolution and and actually that was really I was looking back now I mean that was a really brave thing to do but also could have been completely stupid but actually worked in my favour. I suppose there was lots of I had lots of support and mentorship and I knew I was in the my intuition told me that it was the right thing to do but actually with some distance for a lot that could have gone horribly wrong in lots of ways um if I hadn't have done the process right. So yeah.

Dr_Andrew_Greenland: 36:16

On that rate Ruth thank you so much for your time this afternoon this has been a really brilliant conversation thank you for your openness your honesty I think your perspective on blending authentic leadership with well being messaging is something that more founders and companies need to hear. So thank you very much for your time.

Ruth_Cooper-Dickson: 36:30

Thank you Andrew