From Design Consultant to Culture Strategist

LinkedIn: [00:00:01] Linkedin presents.

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:14] And today, we're incredibly excited to be sharing a new feature here on the SPARKED podcast, Career Transformation Stories. So we're inviting guests to share inspiring stories of their career change from reimagining the work that they're currently doing. So it just feels so much more alive to leaving behind unfulfilling jobs. Careers work to find or create new, more inspired, energized, purposeful, meaningful, and joy filled paths. And we're exploring how they're Sparketype has played a role in this journey. It's all about how we transform work into one of the best parts of our lives. So next up, we're diving into one woman's incredible career transition from elite design consultant to launching her own business, helping impact driven organizations tackle their biggest challenges. Now quick note you'll hear us mention something we call the Sparketypes in conversation. What is that? Turns out we all have a unique imprint for work that makes us come alive. This is your Sparketype when you discover yours. Everything, your entire work life, and even parts of your personal life and relationships, they just begin to make more sense. And until we know ours, we're kind of fumbling in the dark. And just like today's listener did, you can discover your Sparketype for free at sparketype.com. You'll find a link in the show notes. So my guest today is Kat Thackery, founder of a cutting edge consultancy, People Equals Purpose, focusing on transforming team dynamics and organizational culture. And for Kat, hitting the director level at a top design consultancy, it should have been a dream. But something was missing. Something that really left her feeling flat in her life. And as the relentless climb drained her passion and even began manifesting in physical symptoms of stress, she realized a deeper transformation was required. You'll hear the candid truth about cats journey, navigating self-doubt, societal expectations, and eventually summoning the vulnerability required to remain true to her authentic path as she launched this pioneering new venture.

Jonathan Fields: [00:02:11] Excited to share this story with you? I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED. Hey, so I want to let you know about something, especially if you're a coach, consultant, HR pro, or leader. Through our related research and training organization, Spark Endeavors, we've been developing next generation tools to really help make better, easier, and more confident career decisions like the Sparketype assessment, a powerful tool that helped well over a million people now and has generated over 50 million data points, making it one of the largest studies on work satisfaction in the world. And as the Sparketypes have grown into this global phenomenon, coaches and consultants, HR pros and leaders. They began asking us for help unlocking the power of the sparketype tools and body of work for clients and teams. So a number of years back, we created a professional level training and certification. The certified Sparketype Advisor Program, and enrollment is now open for the April training and for those ICF coaches. This training also provides a whopping 40 continuing education credits. So check out the details, see if it feels right, and apply today to save your spot at sparketype.com or just click the link in the show notes. Now. I'd like to start out often with with with the same kind of question. It's always a curiosity of mine, which is I'm curious whether when you were a kid, was there a story in your mind about work? You know, what it what it was or wasn't. Um, should students Expectations about what work would look like for you when you're growing up.

Kat Thackray: [00:03:57] It's a really good question. Um, and I've been thinking quite a lot about it recently because I've been thinking about it in terms of a groove, like, what's the groove that I've been set into for my life? What's that trajectory? And I feel like I'm sort of trying to claw my way up the sides of it a little bit and go off in a slightly different direction. So I was thinking about the the role models that were available when I was a kid and the things I wanted to be, not necessarily do, but like you think, well, I could be a teacher, I could be a mother, I could be a, you know, these were the the women that I saw in my life as a child were my mum, who stayed at home and looked after us, and the other like school mums and the teachers and that sort of those were the female options and I didn't like the look of any of those, thank you very much. Or my dad, who worked at the same company for his whole life, um, ascended the ranks until he didn't want to ascend the ranks anymore. Retired is having a lovely retirement and that didn't look quite like what I expected for myself either, but I didn't know anything else. So I suppose the the model that was really or not a model, but what was really expected of me was I was good at school.

Kat Thackray: [00:05:07] I did well in all my exams. There wasn't really a subject PE. I hated PE, which is physical education. I don't know if you have the same acronyms in in the States, but there wasn't really a subject that I, I didn't enjoy. And so I think the thing that was expected of me was to succeed, it was to fulfil my potential. And I'm making quote marks here, but it wasn't ever really clear what that potential was. It was sort of set within capitalism. So, you know, go do a job, climb the ladder. Um, for a while I wanted to be a barrister because I was good at speaking and quite argumentative, and it was sort of expected that I would get to the top of a profession and have the nice car and the nice house, and then I read a bunch of Naomi Klein in my teens and sort of decided that that wasn't that wasn't the right trajectory for me either. Um, and I suppose I've been casting around a little bit ever since. Um, in terms of making a life and making a career and making work work for me. So it's a good question.

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:05] Yeah. I mean, it sounds.

Kat Thackray: [00:06:06] A bit of a messy answer.

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:07] But I mean, isn't it always with most of us? You know, it's sort of like we have all these different influences and often, you know, the immediate family influences are different than our peer group, and then they're different from once we start to get glimpses like Naomi Klein, like of, oh, well, maybe there's actually something that I haven't even thought about that's non, you know, aligned with the more conventional offerings. We start to kind of question. But it is it's so interesting to me where people often start and then um, like those moments where you start to go beyond questioning and say, huh, maybe something more significant has to happen. So so you end up going out into the world of work, you move through school and you spend a solid chunk of time in the professional world as a service design consultant. Tell me what that actually means.

Kat Thackray: [00:06:53] It means what's the short way? So it's based on design thinking, which is an idea that's been around for a few decades now. And it's essentially there's all sorts of models and so on. But really it's about let's define the problem really well, make sure we're solving the right thing. Let's gather evidence about how we might what's happening for all the people that are experiencing that problem within the whole system, within the whole service. So quite often it's applied in public sector or the healthcare system where you've got, for example, a diagnostic pathway, you're going from one end to the other and you're thinking about the context of the whole thing. So you you understand the problem, you gather evidence, you come up with a bunch of ideas about how you might solve it. You try out as many of those ideas as you can't cross off immediately. You accept that most of them will be rubbish, and then you do the one that works. That's that service design and it's very at its heart, it's. It's just a problem solving methodology. It's just an innovation methodology. And when I found it, I was like, this is perfect because I went, oh, it might not surprise you based on what I've just said, but I was all set up to go and study French in business at university, and I had my halls booked, which is your student accommodation.

Kat Thackray: [00:08:03] And I was, I don't know about I think it was July and we start in September in the UK and I thought, I don't want to do this, I don't want I don't want to go and study that. I can't do that. And my parents were away and my boss was away because I was doing a temp job. Luckily I'd been temping at the same place, so I had a good relationship with her. But I spent two weeks waiting for my parents to come home from holiday and I sat them down. Mum, dad, I want to go to art school and they were like, oh, that's fine darling. What? What? That's not what I expected. And I had to write my boss a note, like, I'm really sorry. Um, so I went, I did an illustration degree, and at the end of that I realised I don't want to be an illustrator. I'm. It's all I love using my hands. I love making things, but things, but I wasn't using my brain enough. I was engaging my creativity. But I wasn't learning. I wasn't doing that sort of problem solving that I like to do. And then I just was in the wilderness years for my sort of early 20s and casting around. And I moved into the marketing team and I did a strategic marketing qualification, and that, I think, put me on the radar of this person as sort of ambitious and keen to learn.

Kat Thackray: [00:09:06] So we had a new head of marketing and she said, well, we need a service design team because this whole industry is changing really radically and we haven't really been customer centric before. We need to know how we can transform the services that we offer to be something that people actually need, and you're going to be on it. Can you apply for this job, please? And that was my first service design job. And I got I got the job I get to draw things with with felt tip pens on bits of paper. And I get to engage really deeply in thinking about problems. And I get to go and talk to people about their lives and their worlds. And I'm a very nosy person. So that was that. It just felt like. Like I felt like coming home, finding this job. And then I sort of wanted to move outside of applying that within the sort of private sector. And I wanted to do sort of design for good and feel like I was working on projects that made the world better. And so the rest of my design career was about finding ways to move closer to that space. But fundamentally, it was sort of deepening the practice and staying on that on that track.

Jonathan Fields: [00:10:09] Yeah. I mean, that's so interesting. I think, you know, when most people hear the word design, they oftentimes they think about, well, it's this visual thing where I'm creating visual representations, or maybe it's designing a space, or maybe it's designing a home or apparel, whatever it may be. The whole idea I'm deeply familiar with like design thinking and human centered design and, and a lot of I think a lot of folks aren't exposed to this, this whole world or this notion that, you know, there's a whole group of people where they sort of like they they deconstructed the way that designers think and said, let's apply this to other things like services, like entire companies or organizations or streams. And that there's a whole like there's a whole world of work that wraps around that. I think Ideo is probably one of the most famous firms that literally built in, you know, a global consulting agency around this approach. So you're doing this right and you're deepening into it. You're working on big public sector projects. You're, as you describe, like you get to be nosy. You get to like, right. You get to talk to people. What what happens that makes you say, okay, this actually isn't working for me anymore?

Kat Thackray: [00:11:20] I think I it's yeah, it's a good question. I got promoted enough times that my job title changed. So instead of being a designer or a design consultant, I was a director. And that prompted a sort of a real identity shift for me. So I had been a designer and people said, what do you do? I would say I am a designer. Like, I don't do design. I am a designer. That's my that's my whole identity. And I, I still had this. So the expectations around success and about, um, meeting my potential is something that I've only really begun to deconstruct quite recently. So up until this point, I'd been carrying this idea that I, whatever my job was, I needed to do it really well. I had to sort of, you know, fulfill this potential. And then I got to this point where that wasn't what I was called anymore. And so I had the opportunity to, um, to really think about my professional life in a way that I'd been sort of knocked off my knocked off my balance. And I just realized that it was making me deeply unhappy. Actually, I think the, the, the work that I had ended up doing, it still had the potential to be that sort of work that set me on fire, and that felt like solving a real problem in the world and had the chance to learn deeply about things, work in a team of people who cared also about solving the problem, and were committed to doing the work on themselves to get to the point where they could make a good solution to that. But consistently and for months and months and months and months and months, it hadn't been.

Kat Thackray: [00:13:00] And my body started to tell me, you know, my hair started falling out. I had a weird rash that just developed and just kept going. And I went to the pharmacist and they sort of said, no, you're not dying, but we don't know what it is. And I was waking up with my hands in fists and my teeth clenched, and I so I think I this this pause where I had to reassess, helped me notice all of the things that my body was trying to tell me, which was, you're not happy in your job. This isn't making you happy anymore. And you keep going because you have this vision of what design design thinking can achieve and what design thinking can be. And actually the reality of the work that gets done, particularly sort of I think it's changed a little bit. We all had a lot of hope and the design community maybe five, ten years ago, and then the work and the landscape has shifted slightly and it keeps sort of gently shifting, and it feels a bit less hopeful now. I don't want to speak for a whole sort of profession, but I think I certainly was feeling like I don't think I don't think this is ever going to be realized, this vision for what I feel this could be and could do. And then I had to figure out what on earth what what else am I gonna do? What else am I going to be? So that was yeah, that was a real challenge at that point.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:15] Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting, right? Also because for you, you know, like you, you have years at that point steeped in this thinking methodology for how to identify a problem, approach it with empathy, really understand what's underneath it and figure out like what are the contributors? Gather information, prototype solutions and then figure out how to move forward. And now, like you're in that spot where like the problem is yours. And the problem is like the very, the very application of that is in some way and the culture around it maybe, and sort of like the larger context just isn't working anymore. So it's like it's almost like like how do you how do you navigate your way out of that? And do you use the very same approach to solve the problem that you're in, or do you kind of like break the mold and try and approach it a different way?

Kat Thackray: [00:15:04] That's a really good point. I had always been I think I read something like Design Your Own Career. I don't know when I was in my mid-twenties, probably, and that was about you don't have to find the perfect job, but pay attention. You know, each each role is a chance for you to gather, gather data. What do you enjoy? What don't you enjoy, and how can you find the next thing that will consolidate what you do enjoy and leave behind as much of what you don't as possible? And I'd really done that up until up until the point where I had this sort of identity crisis, what am I going to do? I think one thing that I had, this is a little bit of a segue, and I'll answer your question about how did I solve the problem at the end of it? Because I don't I don't know that I used a very good methodology, honestly. But what I had noticed was that I for kind of like over a year I'd been saying this, we're doing the wrong thing, right? We're going into these big old institutionalized chunks of organizations and we're saying, look at our whizzy innovation methodology. We will solve your problems. And then a lot of a lot of service design work is sort of making service blueprints, user journey maps, prototypes. Quite often you're drawing boxes on bits of paper or digitally and drawing arrows between them and saying, this thing should go to here and sort of mapping out how things ought to work. And I was saying, well, people kept saying, oh, this is amazing. This is brilliant what you've done. And I was I would think, well, no, not really. The thing that's amazing is that you have all trusted me enough to tell me the things that I needed, that you weren't telling each other.

Kat Thackray: [00:16:37] So I could draw the right boxes in the right order. The work that I have done here is not this map. It is putting you and you in a meeting that I made up every week for half an hour, for two months, until you're talking to each other now. And so I'd just been really gradually realizing that I felt like the problem that wasn't being addressed was actually relationships and teams and how they work together. And I was getting really fed up with going into that context without the but without the agency to to say, I need, I need to I'm going to need to speak to your senior leadership team, and we're going to need to work together on this, and I'm going to be asking you questions about your culture and your context and how you work together as a team. And you should be expecting me to try and change that so that we can reach the outcome that you need to reach, because that's the work that needs to happen here. Um, and so how I solved the problem of I'm unhappy. Was sort of dived headfirst into opening a business specifically addressing that problem. And I say I dived headfirst. I spent six months working with a very good coach, and I had a very good counsellor, and I did a lot of exploration to get to this point. But it definitely has felt like doing one of those sort of perfect swallow dives off a cliff and just sort of hoping that the wings will open behind me.

Jonathan Fields: [00:17:55] Right. It's like pretty much any entrepreneurial venture. It ends up feeling like that. So when you decide, okay, so there's this deeper relational thing that actually is at the heart of both of the problems that I solve and what I do, and also kind of like what lights you up, you know, did you think at that moment, well, can I actually stay here and change what I do in a meaningful way, or can I stay in this quote industry or in a similar role, but actually get more of what I want versus starting my own thing entirely. Or were you just like, you know what, I just want full control over this. I'm willing to take the risk and go all in. I'm curious about like, that moment where you're like, I'm going to close the door on working for someone else and then open the door on just taking a shot at doing it myself.

Kat Thackray: [00:18:46] I think that two bits of the answer here. Number one is that I had been having conversations with my boss, who was the MD of the consultancy that I worked for, and I'm still in that transition. Right? I'm finishing up in a month or so. So I reduce my hours to part time and then handed in my notice a little while ago. But I'd been talking to him about this for a long time and sort of saying, I really feel like this is a service that we could be offering. You know, we could be saying we do, you know, end to end transformation or however we want to package it using words that the industry recognizes or make something up ourselves. And he was thinking about the proposition and the positioning of the consultancy and he decided to go in a different direction. So I had started off like, can we, can we play with this idea within the safety of the thing that I know? Right. Because as discussed, I'm not from an entrepreneurial background. I don't know anyone who, you know, who runs a business. I mean, the MD that I just mentioned, my boss clearly did, and he does a very good job of it.

Kat Thackray: [00:19:45] So I had I had that model and I had been at the time of the promotion, one of my new objectives was to learn more about how a consultancy is run and start to get involved in that. So I'd been sort of dabbling my toe a little bit over here, and I think how I made that decision was really my body told me, you know, I was just unhappy doing the work that I was doing. I was on a long term client project that really wasn't going to change. It was it was too big and too messy. And the contractual situation meant that we didn't have the the sort of the ability to do the work and know that that would have needed to be done. For this to be the place where I could implement some of this, you know. So yeah, it was just yeah, that was the choice. It was stay in this client and know that know that what I was doing wasn't the best I had to offer or start something else.

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:38] Yeah. I mean.

Kat Thackray: [00:20:39] Probably there were more options, but,

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:41] I love also that you were you were attuned enough to your body, to your physical signs, to and to like aid to first notice them. Because I feel like so often, so many of us, we kind of disconnect from the head down. We're like, you know, we just walk through life in this fiercely sort of cognitive, intellectual way, and we kind of ignore all the signals that come from our, our bodies and then and then to notice and say, okay, so I'm feeling these physical things that are like symptoms that I don't want. And maybe there's something else going on here, like maybe these are also maybe this is data that's speaking to something bigger, not just, you know, an immediate irritation, whatever it is that I'm feeling, but maybe there's something bigger, more systemic, more more psychological, more emotional. Maybe there's a bigger change that's underneath all of this. So it's I'm always fascinated when people are both aware of those signals and then are able to translate them or examine them and say like, huh? Like I wonder if there's something deeper or bigger happening here. So when you then make the decision to go out on your own, and as we're having this conversation, this is still a very new thing for you. Tell me what what what is the what is the shape of what you're intending to create start to take.

Kat Thackray: [00:21:55] There's the I described it to someone the other day and they said, that's not a business, that that's an industry. So I can have big visions. Um, I think there's the problem that I want to solve is there's a lot of really good people. There's a lot of really smart people trying really hard to solve the problems that we have in the world. Right? There's millions of people working in sustainability net zero moving us towards a circular economy, thinking about how we reduce biodiversity, we reverse biodiversity loss. How are we going to clean up the oceans? What are we going to do about the gender pay gap? What are we going to do about racism? People are working really hard on all of these things, and what I've observed is that it's not that they're not good at their job that they were hired for and have trained exclusively to do. It's not that they're not motivated. It's not that they're turning up to work remotely and like having a bath for most of the day. It's that the culture that they're existing within is either causing burnout and just really making people sick, or it's that they they can't get done what they need to get done right. The way that the team engages with each other doesn't allow people to say, I think we should do this, or I'm worried about this, or I've got this great idea. Decisions take really long, a really long time to get made. It can feel like really beating your head against a brick wall, pushing a boulder up a hill. You know all of these metaphors to try and get the good thing done.

Kat Thackray: [00:23:21] And so I was thinking about, well, what can what can I do to help to help kind of that move along. The relational bit is, is what I've spent my career really developing. So that's where I can intervene. So the first phase that I've launched is a consultancy which is helping impact organisations. Again in quotes. People don't like purpose led people don't like impacts. You can't. There's not a word that you can use that nobody's nobody's got a problem with. But but helping impact organisations just really untangle all of that relational stuff so that the teams that they've got can do the work that they are here to do. And I think there's three intervention points there. The first is that the organisation level. So what's the what's the culture like. Let's let's help the leadership team untangle the big ball of cotton wool. That is culture, right? It's so fuzzy. How can I give you a little thread that you can pull on and begin to work with. So there's a bit of a an auditing and an understanding piece there that then can help. Okay. So it's psychological safety that's the problem or. Oh right okay. People really don't have trust in the leadership team here. What do we do about that. The second is on a team level. So sort of a collaboration collaboration coaching approach. You know this team is not quite working together. We need someone to help us figure out what that is and help us get to the point where things just feel easy. And then I think the third one, and this is where I'm feeling more and more interested at the moment, is the is this is the individual.

Kat Thackray: [00:24:48] Because I have experienced this, I've had a lot of therapy by this point in my life. Um, and each time I get better as a leader, I get better as a team member. I get better as an employee. I get better at giving feedback and receiving feedback, and I get better at being wrong. And I get better at letting my ideas go. And I feel like quite often we don't bring 100% productive to work. But we that's not because we're not trying. It's because we haven't had the space to work through some of that stuff with someone who's going to be compassionate and empathetic and let us lay it out and sift through it and understand it so that we can figure out where it comes from, and maybe listen to that part of us in a different way, and find a way to show up at work. That still allows us to have the experiences and the hang ups that we might have, but doesn't express those in a way which is detrimental to working together. And then the 5 to 10 year plan is what if we taught this stuff? What if we taught this in schools? You know, in schools you're given? Oh, well, we do group work. You put me in a group and you said work. That's not teaching group work. So what if people were entering the workplace just with that sort of empathy and listening and creative collaboration skills that I think this world so desperately needs now that we are really left with the problems that require Complex interdisciplinary systems level thinking to get solved.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:15] Yeah, I mean, it's a big vision to hold and also so needed. And that third element of what you were describing also I so agree I feel like oftentimes you know like we there are are there are interventions, there's consulting, there are people out there, there are organizations that kind of speak to the first and the second, but nobody wants to talk about the third because that's about that's about going deep on a personal level, you know, that's about deepening self-awareness, deepening self-realization, self-actualization. Those feel like really either too personal or too fluffy in the context of business. And, and we love to disconnect them and say, like, you know, I don't have to deal with all that stuff. And I can still show up and be hyper effective and really good at my job and connect all the dots and motivate teams and do amazing work. It's like, well, yes. And up until a point, like, you know, like, but you're measuring it against a baseline of sort of like where you are now. But what if you actually did all this work, you know, like how much more potential is available to you to step into the work that you're doing? If you actually went a little bit deeper into who you are, what matters to you, like understanding why and how you show up in a functional and a dysfunctional way and then exploring that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:29] But it's there's such a weird tension that's always existed in doing that, and especially in the context of doing that in, you know, a, you know, in how it might affect the way that you show up, lead, perform in an organizational context. But I think that also ties into because I've been curious, I know you're your primary and your shadow Sparketype are the maven scientist, if I remember correctly. So for those who are new to this, it's a simple paradigm that helps us understand the underlying impulse for work that makes us come alive. The Maven is a drive to learn. It's just a fierce, fierce desire to know more every day. And The scientist is all about problem solving. And oftentimes the deeper the thornier, the more complex the better. So it sounds like what you're doing right now is just, like, really well aligned with you being able to center that again in the work and maybe a way that you hadn't been feeling it in the prior position.

Kat Thackray: [00:28:24] I think that one of the sort of challenges for the for both, actually, because I think this is my understanding and maybe that's because I am a person and I'm like, well, I'm very coherent, but I feel like the maven is learning and then the scientist is problem solving. And that's kind of you have to do one to do the other, right. But both of them have the similar, um, kind of risk, which is trying to boil the ocean, trying to solve all the problems, trying to trying to learn everything. And so one of the things that I'm trying to do at the moment is get that field of inquiry down to a manageable level because like, what are the economic, Sociological or psychological trauma related, blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Factors that cause us to be at work in the way that we are at work is is to is too much to tackle. But there is definitely something in that, in that intersection between sort of progress towards sustainability and a sort of a happier and better world. And I want to say the human sciences. I don't think that's a widely accepted term, but like the bucket of things which makes us who we are. So yes, and I think I'm not there yet because I'm still I'm still trying to boil the ocean and I need to I need to get it down. But one of the things that I have been doing is, um, I've started a newsletter, which is a place for me to kind of put my, my reading and my thinking and reach out to interesting people and talk to them about what they're doing and how they're constructing their work lives and why that is. Um, and then kind of Situate that in the context of maybe the academic research or, you know, other other theories. So but again, that's big that needs to be brought in. So that's my focus for the next little while is.

Jonathan Fields: [00:30:16] I love that and I love that you brought this up also. Right. Because so often, like, you know, not just for these two different, um, drives, you know, the maven and the scientist, but for a number of different ones, you know, like, especially for the maven, you're like, I just love to learn. So there's a universe of possibilities to just go deeper and discover and learn. Same thing with when you're a scientist. Most people who are not don't have this orientation often run from problem identification and problem solving. They kind of like, ooh, that's hard. But but scientists are kind of like, ooh, like you're just constantly scanning the horizon for the universe of potential problems that you can solve. And it's really easy to get caught up with both of those. And as you described, like trying to boil the ocean. And rather than just saying, okay, maybe the ocean actually needs to be boiled. But I need to start with this one glass of water. And you know.

Kat Thackray: [00:31:07] And,sorry, go on.

Jonathan Fields: [00:31:09] It's a challenge. No, I was just going to say, like, it's a very common challenge.

Kat Thackray: [00:31:13] Yeah. And I was going to say accepting that has been really hard for me. Like, I can only I can fill a kettle and I can maybe boil a kettle if I apply myself. Right. I am one person. This is a big world. These these systems are massive and complex and filled with lots of people trying really hard to change tiny bits of them. And that is the most that I will be able to do in this lifetime. And so what if I just take the pressure off myself a tiny little bit to not try and solve all of the problems all at once? But that's there's there's some grief attached with that as well, because I think I, I, you know, I really do. I see that there's a lot of things that could be that need solved here. Um, and so acknowledging that I can't solve them all is also sort of to acknowledge that they can't all be solved, you know? That's not a tick box that we can tick, tick. There we go. Carbon. Not a problem anymore. All good.

Jonathan Fields: [00:32:11] My, my approach has been to to sort of, like, look at a lot of different things and say, okay, so this is a not now thing. Like I don't have to I don't have to entirely take it off my plate forever. But I'm like, okay, just not now. Like, this is interesting. It's real. There's probably energy I could devote to it. Maybe I could make it a dent in it. But in sort of like the world of things that it makes sense for me to focus on. It's a not now thing. And maybe I get to it. Maybe not. Um, that helps me with the grief side a little bit. Not entirely, but I'd be lying if I said it did. But it kind of like, you know, it. It softens it just a bit. So as we're having this conversation as as you shared, like this is this is pretty new. You're sort of like, you're you're building the car as you're driving it, more or less. Um, and in the tail end of transitioning out of the work that you were doing, and then really focusing in defining what this new thing is going to be. I realized it's very early in your journey, but if somebody's listening to this and they're kind of like nodding along, saying, yeah, this sounds really interesting, and maybe they're thinking about exploring their version of something similar. Any words of wisdom come to mind?

Kat Thackray: [00:33:19] Oh, that's such a good question. I think the wisdom I would offer is I would say when people say it takes time, they don't mean your time. They mean calendar time. You can go because I come from a consultancy background, right? So I'm used to working really fast. I'm used to being sold on a day rate and having a client with a set budget that I need to deliver the thing that they need delivered in. I don't know, ten days. That's not how it works. If you are building a network, if you're building a relationship business, you need to go and meet the people to build the relationships with, and then you meet them for coffee when their calendar allows. And maybe that's three months time. And then you have your first nice chat, and then you have the next conversation. And maybe that's a month away. So I think the thing that really I have found the most surprising was just it is slow, it's really slow. And you can't really influence that because it's not you can't just work harder and make it happen faster, which is another thing that's difficult to learn. And I think as well I the fixed mindset growth mindset thing, I think I've always been quite good at having a growth mindset. You know, I'm not good at this yet. I don't know how to do this yet, but I really found that with starting a business, there were certain elements where I was really fixed. I'm not good at sales, I'm not good at, you know, I'm not good at this.

Kat Thackray: [00:34:51] I don't know how to do that. That's an opportunity, right? That I need to. I need to be. So what can I how can I turn this into something that's exciting for myself? How can I turn this into. I'm going to go and learn about how to be a brilliant salesperson in a way that because I had this idea right about what it means to be a salesperson and actually that's that's not true, but in a way that aligns with my values. How can I do this really well? And then I think the third thing would be, again, I'm just I'm banging the same drum here, but be aware of what you bring to it. For when I was starting to think about this, I was I would sit down and try and write my value proposition, or I would try and write some copy for my website that I hadn't even started to build yet. Or I would try and write down a bit of a LinkedIn post that would say, here's what I am, here's who I am, and here's what I'm doing. And every time I would just go and do something else, I would go and browse in the fridge, or I would just go and like, pace around the living room or something, and I just wouldn't do it. Um, and my boyfriend was saying he was he's been super supportive the whole time. He would say, like, you're going to be amazing at this. If I didn't think that you would do it, I wouldn't tell you that you could. And I think you're going to do a great job.

Kat Thackray: [00:35:58] And eventually I said, I don't need that, because if I was going to believe that based on you just saying it, I would believe it by now. What I need from you is to help me figure out why. I just feel horrible every time I sit down and try and say, I believe I'm I'm good at this, I believe I'm worth this. And so he really patiently asked me a bunch of questions while we were out walking around on the coast. It was lovely. And it was it was just there was a bunch of stuff from when I was a teenager that was still scared of being seen, still scared of saying, I can do this in case, in case someone said, no, you can't, who do you think you are? And once I realized that, it really unlocked my ability to, um, to sit down and just take the risk and be brave and say, you know what, there is still a chance that someone's going to write in all caps on LinkedIn. You're a liar and a fraud. Guess what? It didn't happen. So I think that that's something that surprised me. You know, people say it's hard. They don't say like, emotionally and psychologically, you will have to do a lot of work, possibly to understand how you're getting in your own way and to, to, to get out of your own way. So if I had known that from the beginning, I might I might have had a bit of a head start, you know.

Jonathan Fields: [00:37:11] I love that. Um. Thank you. Thanks for sharing your story. And thank you for, um, those final bits of wisdom. Super valuable.

Kat Thackray: [00:37:18] Thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure.

Jonathan Fields: [00:37:25] And if you'd like to share your career transformation story on the SPARKED podcast, to inspire others to maybe feel less stuck or unsure about their own career paths, we encourage you to apply to be a guest and check out the form in the show notes, because we believe that everyone deserves to find fulfilment and purpose in their work. And remember, if you're at a moment of exploration, looking to find and do or even create work that makes you come more fully alive, that brings more meaning and purpose and joy into your life. Take the time to discover your own personal Sparketype for free at sparketype.com. It'll open your eyes to a deeper understanding of yourself and open the door to possibility like never before. And hey, if you're finding value in these conversations, please just take an extra second right now to follow and rate SPARKED in your favorite podcast app. This is so helpful in helping others find the show and growing our community so that we can all come alive and work in life together. This episode of SPARKED was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and Me, Jonathan Fields. Production and editing by Sarah Harney. Special thanks to Shelley Adelle for her research on this episode. Until next time. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED.