Latest / Sukany4: The Walk and Talk Podcast / S2E3 - Coral Horn - Stanley Park - Founder of Pink Link Ladies Network and Enterprise Vision Awards

Transcript

S2E3 - Coral Horn - Stanley Park - Founder of Pink Link Ladies Network and Enterprise Vision Awards · Sukany4: The Walk and Talk Podcast

• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Sakania the podcast.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: In this series, we are exploring Lancashire, and today I am very excited to introduce you to my guest, Coral Horn.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Coral is the founder of the Pink Link Ladies Network, a supportive community for women in business who are ambitious to grow personally and professionally.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Coral is also founder of the Enterprise Vision Awards.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: The awards are now the UK's largest business awards dedicated solely to women.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: How wonderful does that sound?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Our walk took us five miles through Stanley Park, Salisbury Woods, and beyond.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, keeping up with Coral's story is almost as challenging as it was to keep up with Coral's walking face.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if you hear some panting along the way, that would be me.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: From scuba diving in the Cayman Islands to scaling Kilmanjaro, from record shops to corporate boardrooms, every step of the way, Coral story emanates.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Purpose, resilience, and no shortage of pink.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And thank goodness for that.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about reinvention, sisterhood, legacy, building platforms that uplift women, and spaces that make you feel like home.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: This wasn't just a walk, it was a masterclass.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Encourage community and carving your own path.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So lace up or settle in.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is not one you want to miss.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for having me.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Ah no, you're welcome.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you probably have only just done like the promenade area.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have, yes.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've done the I've taken a drive down in winter time to do the um illuminations and got stuck.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I didn't realise it was so popular.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yes, Manchester.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: To be five miles an hour.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, to be honest.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you live here, you don't tend to go down that often.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So today, when you had invited us to have this walk, I wanted you to t to take you to my walk.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think people have a perception of Blackpool, you know, it's all kiss me quick cats and all the rest of it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe don't see the beauty other than the beach areas and all the rest of it, yeah.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they think that's it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to take you to Stanley Park, yeah, and then we're gonna go through to um Lorthon's.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna go through to Salisbury Wood, and then we're gonna go back around the back of the DeVere, we're gonna go past the zoo and see if we can spot any uh elephants.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's cool.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's a really nice walk, yeah, and it just shows you some of the beauty areas of Blackpool.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that'd be good, yeah.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I guess we always just think about Blackpool in a very one-dimensional way, and of course, um stars in their eyes.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's always a popular one.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And also, because you've come to my house, you can see how close I am.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, is to have this around the corner, yeah.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Which is one of the reasons I like living where I am.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: The other side you've got straight to the motorway, there's shops, there's pubs, there's restaurants, yeah, everything you need.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then this side you get the park.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, amazing.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And have you always lived in Blackpool?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, um, I actually wasn't born in Blackpool.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually even not even an northerner.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: An imposter.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: I used to I'm actually a southern softie.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had no idea, Carl.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, I know.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: You your like accent is really northern.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, my dad's a southerner, okay, and my mum's Scottish, right?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Actually from the Black Isle, uh-huh, which is up near Inverness.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was born in Surrey, yeah, and then we moved to Scotland when I was six, and then lots of our relatives were coming to Blackpool, yeah, and we moved down here when I was ten.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I saw I think my accent, I started to speak.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I learned when I was in Surrey.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't say my fuzz very well.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um I always say I'm uh Southern Softy masquerading as a as a northern chick because I think northern is a cool oh I agree, I agree.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I found my spirit home when I moved to the north.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: But to be honest, most people think I've got a posh accent.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, but then when I go down to London, people are like, oh no, they say straight away she's a northern and that one, you know.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I moved away when I was 19 to Manchester.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, did you?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then I spent a period of time abroad as well over the years.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lived out in um Sulawesi.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Where's that?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Indonesia.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I lived out there.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how long were you there for?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um about 10 months.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was a scuba diving instructor.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, yeah.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Coral, oh my goodness, I'm overwhelmed already, and we've just started to talk.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Scuba diving.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I spent a bit of time out there.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then I went to Dubai, was out there for a while.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't really suit me, Dubai.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, not really for me.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then I went to Cayman's.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And lived in Cayman Islands.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh amazing.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So where your secret bank account is.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know it was great, loved it.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was getting a bit older, and my mum was like, Don't you think you should get like a proper job?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, scuba diving, obviously, in her eyes, was not a good job.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so even though you are in you from a point of view of you're supervising people while they're underwater, the audio care is massive.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, you know, you're in charge of people's lives.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yes, she said you're getting a bit old for that now.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Going to work in uh on the beach, yeah, bikini and uh flip-flops every day.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was good fun, yeah.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: That must have been quite hard to transition back to life in the UK with the weather and dryness.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know the half.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So literally, um I'd just signed up to do another year uh working the Caymans and we got hit by uh Ivan, category five hurricane.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god, yeah, so that's scary.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we lost everything really.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: We stayed for a few weeks after to do clean up and oh it was a crazy time living through a hurricane, you know, the aftermath of it.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um we couldn't get back on a flight anyway because the the airport was like decimated, yeah.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: So after a while when things got back and running, I literally okay?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, these lasers keep catching to the other shoe.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think I must walk weirdly.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go on, sorry, that's alright.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I came home and it was late October.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, you came back in the winter, I know, and I literally had a pair of cut-off jeans because I'd lost all my clothes.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh a guy who had knew a Khamanian I knew had given me a jumper, right?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Which was about three times too big for me, and um I had a pair of flip-flops.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, and so I was picked up by our family at Manchester Airport, it's doing what it normally does, yeah, throwing it down, yeah, yeah, and I look like a refugee.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh it was quite funny, but yeah, getting back to the UK in that weather was like, oh gosh, yeah.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So at that point I decided my parents were getting older, yeah, and I thought maybe it was time I was you know nearer to them, yeah, um, and not you know, gallivanting around as my mother would say.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, although I quite enjoyed gallivanting.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it sounds so exciting.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: What were kind of your key highlights from being away in island life?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I know it's an island, but do you know we would work hard, there would be some days we'd be up, we'd be at the dive centre for like 7, 7:30 in the morning, and if we were doing if I got dunked three times a day, which basically meant if I went diving three times every morning, morning we'd do two dives, afternoon we'd do two dives, yeah, and then we'd do another dive on a night dive.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it would be nine 9:30 before you know we're finishing.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it was long, yeah, but yeah, it was great.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we knew everybody on the island, yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if we rocked up to the hotel next door to the cocktail bar, yeah, we'd be getting like cocktails chucked our way, you know, by the barman and stuff like that.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was good, it was great like that.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, very social, yeah, lifelong friendships.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, still in touch with some of the people from Cayman.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, very special.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I sort of when you when we came out of the hurricane, because we were literally um our house, our house was on the beach on the south side, and the hurricane was coming to the south side.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we went to stay on the north side with a woman who we knew owned a bar in the north side.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a running theme here, how many people have?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And she lived on her own, and she said, You guys, because I shared a house with some of my work colleagues.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so we all went up there on the Friday and saw out the hurricane in her house.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Her house also had been barricaded, the wall, you know, the walls had been uh covered, yeah, the windows and everything.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Our our landlady hadn't done ours.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so from the Friday through to the Monday, yeah, we stayed in the house.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: There was five of us and my cat, naughty cat, um stuck in the house, no electricity, uh-huh, no running water.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can imagine five people all need them to go to live and it doesn't flush, um, and literally trying to stop the water coming penetrating through the ceiling and stuff.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we had stocked up on, we knew the hurricane was coming, yeah.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we stocked up on cans of food.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we literally ate cold beans and tuna and stuff like that.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um full on survival, isn't it?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but yeah, it was no radio, no mobile signal, yeah, no light, so we just had candles.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we came out on the Monday, my car was parked in front of a house, it had a tree on top of it.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that wasn't going anywhere.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh okay, I'm not driving that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we went out, yeah, and there were people in like, you know, those pickup trucks who were literally driving around picking up people who needed to get back like us to our house.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we jumped in the back of this pickup truck with a load of other people.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And as we went down the uh promenade area near the seafront, there was like houses where there had been like um residential uh apartments, yeah.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: There were like sticks, it was just like piles of rubble.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, the tarmac on the road had been picked up and moved.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was unbelievable.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: We got back to our house, it had already been looted.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, there was palm trees and boulders in our kitchen, everything had been underwater, yeah.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was crazy.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was very strange.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just sort of thought, hmm, do I want to go back?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because it it's not gonna be the same as when I was there.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, I would love to go back one day.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you haven't been since?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, no, I've just been hard at it.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what year was it you got back?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right, so it will have been um 2006.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I think yeah.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: So 2006.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: We see you started Pink Link Ladies Networking in 2009.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a journey to there from 2006.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So when I got back, I'm literally oh suitcase full of like clothes just knacked.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, half of half my suitcase was full of sand.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like okay, gotta start again.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh it was obviously coming up to Christmas, you know.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not a great time to be looking for a job.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: But um a friend of mine was working at BT, yeah, and I used to work with her at the newspaper.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So um she said they're taking on sales reps.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, previously I've been a sales manager and you know, an area manager, yeah.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I need a job.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she said they don't hire managers externally, you have to start.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so I said, okay, no problems.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I was lucky enough to uh to get a job straight away with BT and started literally in the November.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I stopped with them by I did one campaign with them, yeah, and then by the uh March of the following year I was promoted to sales manager anyway.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh were you?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it was good, had an income, we got a car, you know.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um and good reset time.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good to be back, yeah, you know, doing was it strange to be at a desk job all of a sudden?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: To be honest, I was a rep.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we only spent one yeah, we spent one day in the office, appointment making, and then we were out on the road.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh okay.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So actually up in your neck of the woods, yeah.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Our first campaign was Cumbria.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: We used to stay at the um the hotel at Penriff.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh did you?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so literally go up on a Sunday night, yeah, and we stopped there for the entire week.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh cool, um yeah, sounds cool, but it's like you don't see your friends, you know, you're living out of the hotel, you know, the shine goes off quite quickly.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so then I became a manager, managed the sales team, and then it was like okay, they're 118-118.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember those guys, they were setting up, and a load of us were poached to set up their new offices.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, amazing, okay.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so here's a canya.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you need to have a little look.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you see along there?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: All the heron.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, oh that's loads of heron here, it's so beautiful.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is such a stunning walk, isn't it?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just love that it's right on your doorstep as well.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the heron are just amazing.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is it kind of an area of like special protection or something?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, but it has won lots of awards, has it?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's won the the Stanley Park area, yeah, has actually been awarded the best park in the UK.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Has it really?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's locked down, yeah, you've got that.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Good intel.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So and like there's loads of areas where they feed birds and squirrels coming and squirrels.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I know, just in case we see any, yeah, and if not, we'll just drop them in areas for them before we get back.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so yeah, I ended up moving to 118-118 and helping.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just uh helped uh set up the area, sound at Sulfur Keys.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I was there for a while.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh okay.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that was yours.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So was BT in Manchester as well then?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the office was um we had one in Manchester, yeah, and then another one in Preston.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um then the one where I was at 118, 118 was where Media City is now.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So while I was there, they were just starting to build that area.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Went down the other week, it looks completely different.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's so modern, isn't it?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't recognise it.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because we were literally in the first building that was there, right?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is stunning coral.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: You like this?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's beautiful.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: The lake's gorgeous, isn't it?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: It really is, and actually, you know, it doesn't matter that it's grey and a bit coldy, and I'm a bit sniffly because it's okay.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, brought tissues as well.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: It does make it okay when you see it like this.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and actually in the middle of quite a busy road as well.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's good.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: All this wildlife.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got so many birds here though, as well.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've got such a variety.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's nice to be able to hear them.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and also you'll start to see the moorhens.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I love their chicks when they have them.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they are they look like aliens.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, do they?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, have you ever seen them?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so in the next month or so we'll start to see them in this area here where the trees are all low on the water, oh yeah, they nest under there.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so you'll see the little families of half a dozen chicks.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and they have the biggest feet, yeah, like bright red feet and tiny little bodies.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they literally look like something you'd illustrate, you know.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're like cartoon characters, they're so cute.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait for them coming back again this year.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's amazing.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're my favourite thing to see.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, then when you look up in the trees, they see oh, yeah, all the nests.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's the herons' nests, yeah.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can see the heron in there?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, you can.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's amazing.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so they will be nesting with their eggs and stuff at this time, yeah.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then you'll start to see the chicks coming out, yeah, and then eventually you'll see them sitting in those nests, yeah, and then eventually sort of taking their first flights.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's so lovely.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I do this walk, yeah.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, two or three times a week.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, this is a go-to, yeah, yeah.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So last year, yeah, you were a bit early, yeah.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: But last year in this other side of the park, uh-huh, we had um owls.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did you?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it was amazing because there were three babies.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So cute, so nice to see um just the amount of different birds that we have living here, you know.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we forget that we we live in such a urbanised area, yeah.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so we've got the traffic to the left of us, yeah.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: All this going on in the in the lake.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's fabulous.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit of escapism in the middle of um yeah, and I think we would we have our lives are so fast moving, they are, you know.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Every day it's like I get to the end of the day, it's like Cricky! What's happening?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's flown by.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we often take the time to just stop, take everything in, and just take a moment to sort of look around us and actually appreciate the nature and our surroundings, yeah.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why I love this walk because you get a bit of everything.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: You do, you do.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you described it to me, I thought it sounded perfect, and I'm really excited about popping out of the zoo.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, zoos are very um oh yeah, look at that.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Little is that a heron?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we'll also be guessing um always fun diving, yeah.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: The signets soon as well.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course, yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so uh last year we had one swan had seven uh signets, and you she would have them all on her back under her wings, and just around you could spot her around the lakeside.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh that's wonderful, yeah.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so how did we get from 118 to Pink Link, ladies?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, do you know what?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Corporate and culture, yeah, yeah.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I had my fill basically.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I remember one time I was having I'd organised a training session with my team, we booked a hotel room, and then I got a call as I was setting out, which would have been like you know, sort of quarter eight or something like that, you know, early.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, oh can you go to head office?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we need to do you something there now, blah blah, and I'm like What about the team?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, just tell them to get on with the work, you know, go home, get yourself down.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Head office was Windsor.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, okay, I've now got to drive from Blackpool to Windsor.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to go home, pack a bag, head straight to Windsor for some change in the company.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was like, okay, we now need you to go to Cardiff.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: After being there for a number of days and having extremely late nights where the team's together, this is the management team.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we're working till like midnight, one in the morning, you know?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a life.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, okay, now head off to Cardiff.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh okay.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember literally like a nodding dog, you know, on the motorway, thinking this is not good.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I pulled into a service station.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I'm gonna have to have a kit, I had a kit in the car, and then carried on.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought this isn't doing my health and well-being any good at all.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I might be earning a lot of money, yeah.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: But what's the point in it?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, what's the point if I'm not spending time with my friends, family doing things, you know, and again as well at that point, you know, the technology wasn't the same as we have now, so a lot of reports were done by hand.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, doing written reports in duplicate, the paperwork was crazy.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you literally would be up till midnight just getting your reports done uh most nights, and the culture was not great.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, I was one female in the north, the other female went off sick, and the managers, the male managers, when we had lunch, yeah, they'd off the school off.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh uh, that my team would go out for lunch, and I'd be sat on my toddl, you know, it was quite it wasn't the best of places, yeah, it wasn't very inclusive.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I just decided sounds very isolating.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had enough, yeah.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And every year there would be, and I always found this in corporate, yeah, that every year there would be come December, yeah, there would be a call.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it was always okay.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're changing the names of your job description, you all have to reapply for your jobs.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh dear, and I'd never worried about that because I was a top performer, yeah.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody ever gets rid of somebody who makes the money, yeah.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I always performed higher than everybody else.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: I had to because I was the only woman.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was twice as hard as well.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally, twice as good, and I think that probably didn't help me, you know, because like when I was getting you know Northwest manager of the year, yeah, the boys weren't, yeah, you know, probably uh another reason they didn't invite me for lunch, you know.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you had to work hard so much harder to be recognised, um, to justify why you had that post, I think, you know.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I was never worried about being let go, yeah.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: But when it came around, yeah, and they always said if anybody wants to volunteer to go, yeah, I'd already decided I'd have enough going, and I was already planning my first business, and so I took the opportunity to sit and put my hand up and said, I'll go.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so I took a payout and went because I knew I was gonna leave anyway, yeah.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like, why drag it out?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take the opportunity to go.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now it was a great exit for me.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And how um how much of an advance of doing that had you already considered what your business venture was going to be?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've I well, to be honest, my roles previously as a salesperson, a sales manager, we were meeting um businesses all the time, right, and we had massive amounts of training in sales, and you were meeting lots of smaller business owners, yeah, didn't have a structure in place.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd already sort of got the idea to set up a sales coaching company.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, yeah.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I did, yeah.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because I could see there was a market for it.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: If they'd had the training and knowledge we had, yeah, then they could benefit from it, yeah, and help increase their sales, yeah.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's what I did.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I set up my first training company.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what was that called?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh acting in sales coaching.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, don't forget.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: So this one is uh Salisbury Wood.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are loads of trees down, so I don't know if it's storm damage, yeah, but it's such a shame because it's beautiful carving.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's loads of trees in here down.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: We wrote courses, um, had them accredited by the ILM.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then what's that?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: That was the ILM done.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um Institute of Leadership and Management.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that they were rubber stamped, approved.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then yeah, we went out and did sales training.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: But we did work, so this stuff here.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, we fell wild garlic.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wild garlic.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: The whole place is covered in wild garlic.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it smells gorgeous.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's a place in Alberson, the Buddhist temple.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been to the Buddhist temple.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they have a massive wild garlic area.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the whole place here is just covered.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So some days when it's sunny, oh my gosh, the smell in here is just amazing.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's overwhelming.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: It is totally quite overwhelming.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you can use the leaves.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can cook with them.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you can use the leaves, you can use them for cooking, um, which actually I need to do.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't get the ones near the front.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, make sure you give them a good wash.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is beautiful coral.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you see all that.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: You personally own this walk now for me.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: This coral's walk.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: When uh when I was clay c um training for Kilimanjaro, I used to do this five times a week.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that would knock me up 25 miles.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, so yeah, I know it pretty well.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is great, and also to train for something like Kilimanjaro and be able to do it from your doorstep outside is perfect.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I did go to the gym as well, yeah.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: F milk.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do the strength training, don't you for that kind of walk?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: But we will come to Kilimanjaro, and that one so late, so that's another story.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: That could be a podcast in itself.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: It could, it could actually morning guys.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, that was toy people.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, so what happened was yeah, as I was doing this in the training business, we were doing a lot within enterprise, so we were working a lot with new starts, and we had a section that was a whole section that was all about lead generation, and whenever we got to that part, um all the women we were meeting who were new in the businesses, so quite new starts.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: When it got to the talk about networking, how there's an area that they could lead generate from, they were like, never, I'm never going back.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they were going because I knew in the first year of our business the 50% of the business we brought in had come as a direct result of networking.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: The other 50 was me targeting specific companies that I thought would be good for us, i.e., the good companies for us to work with.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like a cold call tonight.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when they're all saying to me, and when I say all, it was repeated so many times, yeah, that they didn't like networking, they'd had poor experiences, yeah, um, they'd never go again.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking these women are missing out potentially on what could have been 50% of their turnover generated through networking.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's incredible stats.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, what?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I I asked why.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I did market research, yes, and I asked 50 women what they didn't like about networking, yeah, what they wanted, how much they wanted to pay, yeah, various questions around you know, um, what they were looking for, and that's when I sent pick set pink link up basically.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I set it up on the back of the feedback.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we had we made sure the timing was after the school run.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: We made sure it was only once a month because there's new businesses having to come every week.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um just can't afford the time.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was a time out, and it was also sometimes it took the shine off it.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, coming to us once a month, yeah, they really look forward to coming to see everybody.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, it can be quite stressful to put yourself in that situation when it's uh out of your comfort zone thing to do.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very daunting if you're going on your own, yeah.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're new to networking, you don't know anybody, yeah, having no expect you know, you not don't know what to expect, you know, all those sus things.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um how do you describe networking?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's gorgeous.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh pretty.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: How do you describe networking to people who don't know what it is?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um to be honest, when people ask me what I do who aren't in business, yeah, I just say I run events because they don't understand what networking is.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's easier for me to say, Oh yeah, I run events to women.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: When it's a business person who asks me, then I'll go into what networking is and why it benefits and how it can benefit.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so really it's just saying it's a group.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, it's women, yeah.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: A group of women who are all like-minded, yeah, who are all in business, that all go through the same challenges and struggles, but by coming together, you can help and support one another with information, you know, saying don't do it that way I did it, didn't work, you know, all of that sort of stuff sharing the best and failures that helps you to think, okay, because when you start running your own business, you've got to know about everything.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well that's impossible, isn't it?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, it isn't possible.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: So and that's overwhelming.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: So having people around you have been there, done that, yeah, um, just helps you to make better choices.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And also think, oh, I've got a friend now, yeah, that I know I can trust and go to about this issue or challenge or what have you.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got for your style here.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, golf course.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a walk if you haven't passed the golf course.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the road forks here, okay.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you can go that way, which is the short route.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: And go that way, that's a long route.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I always go the long route.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: I had a weekend with my cousin and we went to a House of Happiness event in Manchester, which is a Silver Race.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was really oh, a friend of mine went to one up in uh Kendall the other week.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, Kendall's doing Silver Race as well.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, I think I did 25,000 steps.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, to be honest, there are, I mean, we have uh lady within our network that runs a support group for women who choose not to have alcohol in their lives.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and for some of them, yes, maybe they've experienced issues around alcoholism.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Others, they just choose not to drink.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lifestyle choice.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think as well, it's really good because the pressure, I think, sometimes if you go out and you say, Oh, I'm just having a soft drink, yeah.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: People are like, Why are you not drinking?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a strange one, isn't it?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because actually, why should you drink?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't, you know, they had badges at this event saying sober, not boring.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly, yeah.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a strange thing to think that we have to spell that out.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I absolutely get it.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Last year at the Evers we did uh two cocktails for the drinks reception, both of them non-alcoholic.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: If I remember, um, because we wanted to put that message across.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's okay to have a drink that's not alcohol, you're not boring, you're just choosing to leave a different lifestyle, exactly.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh don't get me wrong, I like a drink, yeah.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, yeah, it's all about moderation.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Although I do tend to just drink water when I'm walking.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: I tend to drink water most of the time.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: I do as well.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have people visiting or friends visiting.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds okay.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's either water or wine or gin.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really do squash or fizzy drinks, I've got tonic.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I tend to just drink water.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm the same.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Water, wine or gin.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it tends to be this time of the day, it's just the water.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Just the water, yeah.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, although I do like tonic with lemon and a slice of ginger.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, do you?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that sounds right.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's nice, yeah.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're like trying not to have a drink, yeah, I because there are at times while I'll go, okay, I need to have some drink free nights.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Robin there.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love seeing a robin.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: I do as well.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good idea.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I find some I don't like lots of carbonated drinks, but I will have a no-fat tonic with ginger and uh uh ginger and lemon in.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well that sounds ace.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: I might do that tonight.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's good.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds really refreshing actually.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is, yeah.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got the golf course on the other side here as well.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so networking then.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: So how many did you start with?
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's huge now.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought we'll have Blackpool and that'll be it, you know.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then like we launched in September in Blackpool, that was our first meeting at 20 hour nine.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: And how many people were there?
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, yeah, really good.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: We had like 40 people turned up for launch.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we actually had an official launch event um of an evening, yeah, I had a couple of speakers, yeah, and then people were saying, When are you coming to Preston?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I mean Preston, I was just gonna do Blackpool.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you were being prodded to so we launched in the Preston in the January, and then yeah, it's just um it got to a point where I actually enjoyed that more than the training.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I just decided to phase it out.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well and there's a lot of people in business have said to me when you start in a business, please concentrate on the one thing.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you divide your time up too much and you don't put enough effort in, it'll never grow, you know.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I it got to the point a few years in, I just thought I really just want to concentrate on this, and that's when the training company, you know, we ceased on the training business, concentrated on Pink Link, but then Pink Link had grown by then, you know, we've started the Evers.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so and with um so just pointing back then to your first Blackpool networking event, um, how did that go?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Exciting, yeah, yeah.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: And do you know what?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: There were people who came to that meeting and joined, uh-huh.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Still with me now.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which is crazy.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I look at them now more so as friends, yeah, you know, because that's like 16 years this year.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing, um, and still members of life, you know.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Although we have seen a lot of change, people come and go, yeah.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh over the years, we've seen we've gone through births, babies, newborn babies, deaths unfortunately, you know, yeah, uh, marriages, yeah, divorces, yeah.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and you go through all of that with people.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna tuck my lacing and pop back out, yeah.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that's why it becomes more of a relationship, yeah.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that does help with trust building, confidence building.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so with the 40 people that arrived that day, how was how was the atmosphere?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Was the excitement, was the nervousness?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Really exciting.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think you have to I always think you have to have a measure of both.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you know, uh yes, excited, yeah, but also I was nervous.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, there was always that people book on and you have that feeling in your pick stomach, yeah.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Are they actually gonna show up?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you worry.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you can hear those birds, wow.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you worry if they're actually going to turn on.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so they're coming, but are they actually gonna come?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: That was quite something.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was kind of starting a movement because I I wonder how many people who came to that first, not the first one in Bradpool, but who come to their first Pink Link meeting thinking, oh, I'm just gonna give it a go, but I don't think it's gonna help me.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: And about two years later are still coming.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was those that were really nervous at networking, yeah, had been elsewhere, had those poor experiences, yeah, came to Pink Link, really found their confidence through the support of the other women, yeah, and then were really confident at doing their pitches, yeah, and then went off to do networking elsewhere in mixed groups again.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's really good.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some sometimes you know they would stay with us, but they do alternative, and I always say that that's a good thing.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't see other groups as competition.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, if the women are learning and they're gaining from it, then they should do as much as they want.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: We love these mushrooms, see.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a thing.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, yeah.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Little tree mushrooms, they look like staircase.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: They do.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: You actually do want people to go to other networking groups, yeah.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're progressing and succeeding, yeah.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: We don't own our customer, no, you know.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um I always think in a positive way, yeah, that if they've come through us really for the first time and they're going, Oh my god, I can't stand networking, and I don't want to even say my name.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that happened in so many uh instances where people didn't want to even say hello, yeah, I'm my name is, you know, and do a 60-second pitch, to be going elsewhere, you know, a year down the line and feeling confident to stand up in front of a group, yeah, um, and do that 60-second pitch, that should be something we're proud of, you know.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that's great.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, we've done something good there.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: And statistically, and just generally through generations and millennia, women are known to keep themselves at the bottom of the pile, aren't they?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we don't tend to promote ourselves or because we're we're just naturally falling into that make sure everyone's okay role, yeah, before we put our own life jacket on, and trying to come out of that is really hard when it's a societal sort of pressure as well.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's uh really important, and I think that's another part of the networking part um is for the women to come together to talk about the struggles, yeah, because once they get back home, they slip back into a different role.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, now they are mother, yeah, you know, or wife, you know, and it changes the dynamics again back to well, they're not really interested in the business, and they also don't understand a lot of it sometimes.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they just want to know what they're getting for tea, yeah, or is my gym kit ready?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, and why are they doing this?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't we just stop?
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, yeah, and I get that from the women a lot where they said, you know, maybe their partner or husband or what have you, yeah, is not maybe as supportive, yeah, as they could be.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like what you're messing about with, yeah, it's not making any money, yeah.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, shit.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who does make loads of money when they first start out the business?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Passion and also skill.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: And resilience.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: And resilience, yeah, uh determination, yeah.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all of those things to keep going.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've got horses.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, there's often horses along here.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: How lovely.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Aside you'd love this walk.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: I do love it, it's just making me smile so much.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what's lovely about this bit is that the all the blossom coming out now.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that'd be really nice time.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many different trees and fauna around here.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the changes for the season as you come through is beautiful.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: Morning ladies.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Are they friendly?
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is it I'm an advantage?
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, penna.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: Are you gorgeous?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Spinnippy, we're we've got a good stride on and the thermals.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: See you later.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's difficult to be the person who can see your own potential but be surrounded by people who don't.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where this network really helps, isn't it?
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and family as well.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm gonna admit something here, yeah, and I'm hoping my mother will never ever listen to this podcast.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um but yeah, I mean even my mum at one point.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Saying to me, I remember saying, When are you going to like ramp it up and stop messing about being so small?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, yeah.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in her eyes, you know, and that that's the thing I think about success, right?
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: We all measure success differently.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, okay, I'm not a multimillionaire, and I'm never saying I'm gonna be that, yeah.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, it's the outcomes.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when we've got a woman who comes through Pink Link and her confidence is on the floor, yeah, and now she's striving out and she's succeeding and doing well, yeah.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is a win, yeah, you know, absolutely, and those supposedly small things, yeah, that's what makes it all that's what it's all about.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really quite uh altruistic, isn't it?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my dad never said he was proud of me.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh um until we got to until I took the Evers to the Winter Gardens.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow oh that was I guess that was relatable to him as a so my dad had been brought up in Surrey, he from middle class family, yeah.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: He had gone to um catering college, yeah, he did his training at the Savoy, the Dorchester in London, he'd done a buffet for Prince Charles, you know.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Really, yeah.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and when we came to Blackpool at the time we moved, I ended up going into the worst school in Blackpool.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh really?
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not down now.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was in last year, and my sister, they realised okay, that's a really shit school to sent her to an all-girls school.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I came out of school with one GCSE.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: I had no intention of going to uni.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had enough, I just wanted to work, yeah.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that always disappointed him, right?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: But they had a hotel, so I was brought up in a hotel since I was eight.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, and invariably, yeah, we had we had a Scottish waitress, Jackie her name was, yeah, and uh she liked to drink the Jackie, did she?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the amount of times my mum would say, get your uniform off, uh-huh, get your your pinny, you know, your waitressing pinny on, yeah.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Jackie's not turned up.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: We've got guests, you know, a room full of guests need the breakfast, and then the best thing's changing, and then dining rooms turned up.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I was the uh sickest cooks child in school came out, sick notes I got, yeah.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I was working.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you had to hop out.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you know, because they were running a small business, yeah, and when people let them down like that, it was like that came to me.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: So did you make the connection with um sort of your your journey to being an entrepreneur and setting up pink link um by the training company?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: Did you make the connection that actually you've always had entrepreneurship in your life from childhood?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I suppose so, but I think I'd lacked the confidence to do it.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think I only got the confidence once when I got the idea, yeah, but also when I saw there was amazing practi a practice that I saw around me, um, but also some terrible practice.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: But when I when I left school, yeah, um I went back to sixth form college for one year to do my English, yeah, mainly because my English teacher in school said I'd never get my English, right?
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: Which I didn't.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: So just to piss her off, really, I decided okay, I'm gonna go do another year and I will get that bloody English, which I did.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I started working in the local record shop on a YTS.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm an old bird, so I remember YTS.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was£40 a week.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, yeah.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, I did well in the record shop, yeah, ended up being assistant manager, okay, and then when I'd gone to work at the record shop, I worked for Richard Branson.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: I remember meeting him one day, he just walked in the shop.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's like unannounced.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we didn't know he was coming, but you've got you've got to bear in mind is we didn't have mobile phones and stuff.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was doing um he was doing like a PR stunt down in Blackpool on the promenade, yeah, and so it was to do with um the cleanliness of the sea, yeah.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so he just came in and said, Hey, I'm Richard.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Yeah, I think I know that.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, I'm like bullstruck, like I'm about 17, you know, and I'm like, shit, that was Richard Branson.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: So he pulls up the count the counter, he said, Can I use the phone?
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: I went, Yeah, yeah, come through, and then showed him what the phone is.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: So here was obviously no mobiles, you know, yeah, no internet back there.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so yeah, he came in to use the phone, and then I had a quick chit-chat and then off he turtled.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was laughing.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what happened at work today, love?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Richard Branson came in, yeah.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Nice scoot around here, yeah.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I enjoyed working in the record shop.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was good fun, it was very trendy, yeah, you know, to be in the working of records.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, long story short, I moved to Manchester, and there was a guy who was expanding.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: He had a little indie shop in Stockport.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this bit's beautiful with the arch, isn't it?
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, um he was looking for somebody to help him expand.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he asked the record company reps, okay, you know, who used to go in then.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: That was back when we used to have vinyl and CDs and a bit of a resurrection, isn't it?
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so the record company reps, my name came up a number of times.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool, yeah.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so he kind of reached out to me and said, Fancy having a meet, so yeah, basically took me on.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we had an independent shop in Stockpool where it was all very trendy, yeah, back streets type thing, white label records, we've got all the late stamp stuff in, everybody went to him, yeah, and he wanted to expand, and I helped him to um start six new stores, right?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: So basically I became his area manager, yeah, gave me a car.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh fab.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had the Jeep at one point, a little zuki soft top Jeep, which was really cute.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: So is this just timing wise?
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is this before you went off to the cave and last year?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I was only 20.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, you know.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of success for that age.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so by 21 working with Russ, yeah.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um I bought a house.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I got my first house.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um back in the day, and it was like£30,000.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'd be lucky to get a decent car for that now.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I bought my first house.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, had the Suzuki soft top, which was not good on the motorway because it was very noisy.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um great for looking at the illumination.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but and also, you know, at 20 it was quite yeah, it was really cool, you know.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, people are like, oh, they're in a soft top Jeep, you know.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was quite funny.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I ended up running about six stores with him.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I was in charge of all the staff, he made me director of the company.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: So by 21, was that was my first.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's really, I think, yeah, where my first entrepreneurial stuff came from.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because we would be sitting, I remember doing Wigan.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: We had a shop opened in Wigan, the shopping centre there.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: One o'clock in the morning.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're still putting finishing touches to the store, you know.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next morning we're open mega early.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: A queue outside, yeah.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a band in, yeah.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: There was a dance band in to do record signing, yeah, um, music blaring.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he was the first, he had these units where you could put the headphones on and choose the CD you wanted.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: That was always something.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was mean at our price.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we it was mega trendy, you know.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: He was always Russ was really good at getting that sort of stuff that others didn't.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he was always um slightly cheaper.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: So he would like, he was a real hard negotiator with the uh record company reps.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't say they liked him, right?
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: But they respected him because he had so all his stores had Gallup machines.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: What's that?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, like when you have your barcode, yeah, you scan it through.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Gallup would choose a certain amount of record stores around the UK to put in a Gallup machine.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you sold something, it went through the Gallup machine.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, that was how the chart was created.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I see, okay.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a record company rep and you know you've got, say, four record shops in one town, yeah, and you know one of them's got a gallop machine, yeah, you haven't got enough stock for all of the four.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: Who's getting the stock?
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: The one with a gallop machine, you do not want that saw to run out on a Saturday when it's going to help to compile that week's chart on your single, potentially being number one or not.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: So Warney always got his stock.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: Incredible.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: But also, there would usually be a deal.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: Buy ten, buy ten CDs, get one free.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but Russ would leverage that, leverage that power he had because he knew the value of what he had.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: You want the record to be number one?
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do me a better deal.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: So when I said they might not have always liked him, yeah.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: They respected him as a business person.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: He drove a hard deal.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: He knew the value that he had.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of learning from that as well for you, isn't there?
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was really learning.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, ladies.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah, so yeah, he worked hard, negotiated hard.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: Always was one step in front of the compet competition.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he had a good reputation.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if something was coming out, everybody knew he'd have it first.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a change.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's all changed now.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm on Spotify, yeah.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's all downloaded.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's all online, yeah.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there is still something nice about I think using a vinyl player.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've got one, albeit hooked up to Bluetooth speaker.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, there's something nice about it.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: Just like working through the soundtrack.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so it taught me a lot.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: It taught me a lot about stock control, yeah, cash flow, yeah, you know, um, it managing people, yeah.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there were so many things.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, what made you decide to then go travelling and visit a slightly more booking like style?
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um I lost my sister.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm sorry to say that.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she um she passed away, she was only 30 with cancer.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think at that point I was sort of six years in working there, and uh it made me realise how precious life was, yeah, and how things could just happen.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: She had three small children, right?
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, four, four, six, and seven, yeah, timing.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that was a wake-up call.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think we all have those, yeah, you know.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh so I took a picture from a magazine of an island in Fiji.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, and I stuck it on the wall in the office vision boarding, and I didn't even know what a bloody vision board was then.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that that was my first experience of a vision board.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I stuck it on the wall and I said to the the girls, you know, the admin girls, so I'm going there next year.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like looking at me, yeah right.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, whatever.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like because I was like Russie's right-hand woman, and it was like like that's not happening, you know, you're not gonna go anywhere.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, I did.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good for you.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I did I rented out my house.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, sold the car, yeah, and I booked a trip around the world for a year.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so all the way around the world, one-way ticket all the way around.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: Fabulous.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh got a backpack and thought, right, off I go.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you were in a good position because you had you were solvent.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what?
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have that much money, yeah.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um skills.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: I had about this sounds crazy, I had something like£1,100, right?
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um bearing in mind, this is a long time ago, so yeah.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: Which which is a lot then.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was, but still, for a year, no.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I got jobs along the way.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I ended up being a year and a half.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: I kept extending my trips.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like that.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: I really like this place.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'll stay a bit longer, put that flight off.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: Freedom to do that is amazing.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I did go to that island in Fiji.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had a month in there, it's beautiful.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so travels are really good.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been somebody that likes travelling and likes to experience different cultures.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I always try something different food-wise.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I'm always up for doing things.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much growth from travelling, isn't it?
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: And also to just to connect with yourself, spend time with yourself and know who you are.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: And just meeting other people from different countries with different cultures.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very enriching.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I did.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: 18 months.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when I came back, Russ said, Oh yeah, do you want to come back?
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I did for 18 months.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my mind was not on Russ, I said it's more about having a good time and seeing having adventures.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: Russ hadn't forgotten.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, so he said, Come back.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he said, We're in Scotland now, I'll give you a BMW.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I'll fly you up to Scotland when you have to go there.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he'd expand it.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I said no.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's behind me.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I'm always one for that.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to move forward, you can't keep looking back at stuff.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, I agree.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: But his company was called Music Zone.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I came up with his slogan because he one of his big pulls was he was always slightly cheaper than his competitors.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, his strap line I came up with was more music, less notes.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right, very good.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: You should have.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's ace.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, now I said, Nat, yeah.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I've got to literally I just said that's your dream.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta find mine.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, yeah, you can't keep popping up his dream.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I need to find out what I really wanted to do.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so yeah, so I took an amazing job.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when I said that I am being completely sarcastic, it was 50 quid a week, yeah.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh with commission on top as a telesales at the local newspaper.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I know.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that sounds quite tough.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I thought yeah, might as well give it a go, you know?
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, so I remember my first day at work, we'd had really bad snow.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now we don't get a lot of snow in Blackpool.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, it was horrendous, buses couldn't get through.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: I walked over a male in the snow to get to work, but it was my first day.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I thought I can't not go just because it's really snowy.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well I got there was no bugger there because it was snowing, just the care looking at me like, is she mad?
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I hung about hello.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: I hung about the caretaker, was there, a couple of people started filtering in anyway.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually eventually my boss came on, and I think she said go home and come back tomorrow.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, okay, yeah, uh, so my first day, my first day, it was like okay, I was working on a magazine they did.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the yellow pages, yeah, there's a script, pick the phone up and start calling.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that was that was your training.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's training, but you know what?
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah people all always women say to me about sales, yeah, that it's one of those things that really scares them, right?
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they don't enjoy it.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I found it was just talking to people, you know.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: Initially, you know, it was like you could I'm more than talking to people, listening to them, you know.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what is it they're telling me that that they need?
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, what is it we do that I can help them with that?
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, yeah.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's I guess it's it's important to making people feel heard, isn't it?
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was a rep within three months taking that job.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I was made a rep, got a car, all the works.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I ended up sitting on the board of that company, running two newspapers and sales team.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and what does it mean to sit on the board?
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh you know, at times, yeah, it wasn't easy, right?
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I am not, is probably why I am not, probably why I am self-employed.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um I can go a bit rogue, you know?
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_00: I like I say what I think, yeah, when maybe there are times that I should learn to shut up.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh especially when you're working within a company, yeah, and they're doing something you think is a really stupid idea because they haven't asked the staff and the team, and you think you're talking absolute nonsense.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, at that point it's not your place to say that you do.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot of people don't, so yeah.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I was probably, I think when I did they used to do those disc analysis things when you went for jobs and stuff, yeah.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think mine came up with like unmanageable, you know.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm owning that one, yeah.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, no, it was good.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, from the other point of view, sitting on the board, yes.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: I had a say at the table.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was part of a team, you know, with the other board members from the different departments.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it was important from that point of view to have an understanding of what the company was trying to do, where we were going, what the you know the goals were, um, and how we were all playing a part.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_00: So on a serious point of view, yeah, that was it.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, it was I think I was the youngest female to sit on that board at the time.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: Was there any other women on the board?
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we had we had a lady who was in charge of the classified department.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then me.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she'd been in classified for years.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: I really respected her.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_00: She was rich she'd really good at a job.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she was really good with a team, uh-huh, amazing results, yeah.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, and then um no, we had 9-11 happened.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, yeah.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the bottom fell out, you know, completely.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd had my the newspaper I worked on, we hadn't missed a target in two years, right?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: We were smashing out of the park, yeah, you know, like literally the sun shone from all of my orifices, yeah.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was like I could do no wrong.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then 9-11 happened, and the entire company was suffering from it, everybody was missing, you know, and we were coming in weekends, we were coming up with you know, new ideas, things to create, to put in, to help to try to get the confidence back in spending.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we we were all stressed, you know.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we were all uh feeling it, you know, putting loads of hours in and trying to G teams up when it's like hard, really hard.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's something that's out of your control, yeah, you know.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um this was like not just happening to us, it was happening to at all across the yeah, probably across the world, you know.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um so we went to a board meeting, yeah.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was my birthday, oh December.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: So my birthday's just before Christmas, yeah.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the guy who was like the MD at the time um started asking for the reports, and the lady who ran classified was giving her a report and he was like giving her a bit of hard time about it, and she started crying.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, and it continued.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, and uh I had my line manager ahead of me.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: Was sitting there looking at my face, which is like thunder.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can imagine.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm thinking this is not okay.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is not okay.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there thinking, this is not okay.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: She's obviously stressed.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: This woman had an exemplary uh record at the company.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_00: Really good performances, was a lovely woman.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I did not feel it was appropriate to treat somebody like that.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_00: So as soon as we came out of the meeting, I'm sat there with my arms crossed.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: The entire body language is do not come anywhere near.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, came out of the meeting, my line manager came straight out after me.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I said I told him what I thought.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I said, if this is the management style, I don't want to be a manager here.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not interested.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we broke up that day for Christmas when we came back in, 2nd of January.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_00: I handed my note to say.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: You did it.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: I said that's it.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_00: I said I thought about it, said over Christmas, yeah.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't for me anymore.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I left.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_00: I had to work for emotional snow.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um once you've decided once something like that happens, it's so hard, isn't it?
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: But do you know as well what I saw?
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: Myself in another 10 years.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought if they can't respect her after that length of service, I agree.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: What that's not gonna change because it's me.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: I will be here in another 10 years.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, yeah.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I just went, right, that's me, I'm done.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: 50 years.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh my manager was not happy.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_00: But so um, so when you set up Pink Link, yeah, you were saying about your exemplary skills at taglines and marketing and PR.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: God, um how does the what what does the pink stand for and how do you come to that?
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that was sort of born out of I spent so much of my time in corporate being a woman surrounded by a lot of men.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't play football, yeah, really watch football, didn't play golf, you know, and you really want to fit the stereotype of trying to fit into that.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_00: I went to work most days, if I'm honest, in a black suit.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh you did.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was like I was going to walk.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it was like, come on, then I will show you, I can do this job.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is that to not is that to blend in and not stand out as a woman?
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, probably.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_00: Probably a bit.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_00: So many people do that.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing was I felt that if I was too girly, yeah, then they would I wouldn't be taken seriously, you know.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to work looking like the man from milk tray outfits, you know.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh yeah, I I hid any feminine femininity because I thought it would be negative, it would show my weaknesses, um, and I needed to be respected as an equal.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting that as women we carry that when actually we bring so much to party, which is I know, yeah, but it wasn't encouraged, yeah.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that aspect wasn't nurtured.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you see this bit here coming, that's the back of the zoo.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes along here, yeah, get the giraffes and the elephants coming.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh amazing, yeah.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_00: So done there today, but there's another bit we might see.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it looks like a giraffe section.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you know, you're rowed by the horses, you might see an elephant in a minute or even a tiger.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_00: Even a tiger, yeah.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was um so the pink came from me finally sort of saying, Do you know what?
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to be female, you know.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: I am good enough.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm bloody better than some of the people.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um it shouldn't matter that I'm a girl, that I'm a woman.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the pink came from passion, so having passion about your business, because that's how I felt women set up a lot of their businesses because they were passionate about something.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I for inspiring, yeah.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So for the women to inspire others, yeah.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, N was for the networking, yeah, and K was about knowledge, sharing knowledge.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So really strong words, the whole part of the pink part was always about that, really.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because I wanted to set up something that was around those sort of um areas or values, yeah, and such a strong link back to your lived experience in the corporate world.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because if finally I was going, like if you'd have asked me all of those years ago to Kanye, yeah, would I be spending all this time with women?
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, No.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I was a diving instructor, yeah, again, I was in a minority as a diving instructor, you know, it was all around men who were five foot two and a half, yeah.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're all big, burly guys.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember another experience of one of the older guys from diving when I was coming to do my rescue course, because there's so many courses you had to work through to become an instructor.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he said to me, What are you doing?
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I have to do my rescue course.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You'll never pass it.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're small, because I'm too small.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, young, how are you going to drag that guy that's you know unconscious in the water?
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're that size, you're just a girl.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Goodness me.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought restrictive.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, I'll probably show you, mate.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good for you.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_00: So he didn't know who's talking to coral.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_00: When I did take my um instructor course, yeah, once I'd worked all the way through to that, I could have stuck at instructor.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So then I was able to train uh people to dive, you know, up to the instructor level.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_00: But um there was only one guy who had above that in our dive school, he owned the shop.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_00: None of the other instructors did that, went any further.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I took the master scuba diving instructor, which meant I could instruct instructors to become instructors.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I was the only one.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I did that.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Phenomenal.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just thought, do you know what?
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's the top, that's the highest level.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna go for that.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I'll show you you can't do rescue.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And also just by being there and showing up, you're showing other people.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you can look like me.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm also showing other women.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean, yeah.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like we're told we can't do stuff.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and look at me, I've done it.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like so.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can get a little bit, I get a bit between my teeth.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, good for you though, because I think you have to challenge these systems and push back and say, well, you you know, everyone's frame of reference is very different, and unless we show them a different reference point, they're gonna believe what they're telling themselves.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Pink Link then came the Evil Awards.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, uh, when was that conceived?
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that happened back in 2011.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, do you remember I said that's a short route?
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're back at that park.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Fabulous.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um basically um 2011.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 2000.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I used to go to the Northwest Development Agency and there I was a woman's ambassador for them.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and what does that mean?
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, that we would uh connect with women and make sure that we were doing our utmost to let them know about the women's ambassadors and they would have a quarterly, I think quarterly there was a get-together of of women in business with them.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Christine McVeigh was in charge of the women's ambassadors, she's an MP in parliament now.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And um anyway, they used to run uh a North West Women in Business Awards at Ruby Hall, yeah, and I got to go.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was fabulous because I was meeting all these women that were really real trailblazers.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Another Robin down there on the other.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and uh I was really inspired by them.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was quite young in my business.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thought, crikey, look at these girls, they're really doing well, you know.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, got amazing businesses, and the fact that they were talking to me, yeah, you know, I was like, wow, yeah, I now know such and such, you know, it was so nice to connect with these women, they were so inspiring.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and also many of them were really happy to sort of give you their time and knowledge, you know.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, you had the credit.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we had the credit crunch, uh-huh, and uh funding was cut in the January 2011, uh-huh.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I went, Oh gutted, you know, I won't be going to that anymore.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, why don't I just start one?
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's how it started.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh amazing! It was a crazy idea.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well that's phenomenal, because actually, why not?
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well I'd never done an awards before, yeah.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought, well, it can't be that hard, can it?
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I went away and did some research, yeah.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, oh my gosh, they want so much money for this, don't they?
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, yeah.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: We had it back in Ruby Hall.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and when I'd gone to their uh previous awards, they'd had about 225.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, well, let's put a measure in here.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always one for setting goals and measurements.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, forget 150, I'll be happy.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if I get 200, I thought I'd be ecstatic because this is like the first one, yeah.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_00: 306.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, sold out, crammed it.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So year two we went into the extended into the back room, yeah.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sold out again, 380.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh year three went to the Hilton, yeah, sold out again for 480.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, and then I took the decision to take it to the Winter Gardens, yeah, which was a massive leap.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it's it's an amazing building, but yeah, it also comes with an amazingly high price tag.
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of pressure to sell those tables.
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot of pressure to get sponsorships and pay for everything, you know.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the audio-visual equipment that's needed in a room that size.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I w I remember getting my first quote.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I said to the guy, I don't want to buy an island, mate.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to buy some lights, lights and vision and sound for one night, you know.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_00: But that's good.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm now into the tens of thousands, yeah.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Paying for things like that, you know, on top of it's so well known now, isn't it?
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so now we're national and obviously the most we've had now is 75.
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I've got to be honest, it was a bit noisy that year.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so yeah.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm happy when we're around the 650 marks, yeah.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's 725 is phenomenal.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's controlling people, now their noise levels, yeah.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting the garlic again.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I am getting the garlic again.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's just such a pretty path, isn't it?
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, after another robin.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_00: More robins.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_00: After a few prosecos, yeah.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_00: You tend to find the levels noise goes up.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're trying to go through the categories, you need to keep attention to stuff.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, that gets tricky.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so yeah, and that never I never envisaged that.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, people on the journey, as they say, when they saw the growth of it, were saying to me, Oh, you know, Coral, what's happening?
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yeah, you know, the growth of this.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I I always said, Listen, yeah, it's a tiger, but I've got it graspfully gripped at its tail.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm on it, you know, don't worry, I know.
• 1:18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we've had to develop and change things as we've gone.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we continue to.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And also, you know, the impact to the people that win the awards or get nominated is phenomenal, isn't it?
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just something that you thought I'd do for fun.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, the outcomes for the winners, for many of the winners, are amazing.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hello.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_00: So last year, one of our winners, because we do press releases and stuff for everyone, um, one of the the BBC picked it up.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they put an article on their website, you know the one I'm talking about.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we saw the ladies on the Tuesday, they came to the winners' gathering in London, and the article went out on Sunday on the BBC.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, We've done a thousand orders since Sunday.
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Phenomenal.
• 1:19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yeah, that's amazing.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're helping to raise profiles like that, yeah, and the outcomes, sometimes it's financial, sometimes it's other things, you know.
• 1:19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um they go on to win other awards, get more recognition, and that again, it's like the networking, you know.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_00: We've had somebody come through the Evers for the first time, yeah, and sometimes they'll say, I never entered before because I didn't have the confidence.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then when they win, yeah, and you see them elsewhere getting more accolade, yeah.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 1:19:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's brilliant, you know.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because it's talking for itself, then isn't it?
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Getting the calved muscles going now, aren't we?
• 1:19:49
  SPEAKER_00: This little hill.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's slightly uphill, yeah.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Having attended my first Evers last year, it was just wonderful.
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is that your first time?
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was my first time, it was just so nice.
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_00: You looked beautiful, your dress, thank you, gorgeous.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I like the Evers to be that excuse for women to really go to town and express themselves in anything that they want to.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_00: I always people say to me, What's the dress code?
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my my response is always the same, whatever makes you feel fabulous, yeah, because it's your night, you know.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not conforming, is it?
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, yeah.
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we've had all sorts, yeah, um, and continue to, and I think that's great.
• 1:20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's excellent.
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_00: So on my table there was a winner, and they had picked out who the winner was for their category, and it wasn't them.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So when it was announced, it was genuine flabbergasted wide eyes, rabbits and headlights, tears.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was just so wonderful.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really like that when they're not expecting it.
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because to be honest, I can never call because I don't do the judging, I see the applications, yeah.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't judge them, yeah, and I think sometimes as well, some people who maybe think that they'll get it, maybe make the mistake of not putting the effort in for the judging panel, yeah, and so don't come across as well.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, yeah.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas those that really put that effort in, yeah, you know, and they make the most of that opportunity, come away and the judges go, oh she was just amazing, you know, blew us away.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh that's great.
• 1:21:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we touched on loads of really interesting stuff, um, and we did then very quickly talk about Kilimanjaro, yeah.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_00: So is that the sort of thing you do in your downtime?
• 1:21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Call the mountains.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ah there's a whole story on this Kilimanjaro, but yeah.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I did Kilimanjaro not last year but October 23.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was like literally nine days after the awards, I was off to Tanzania.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'd had a really um difficult year in 2023.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Coming out of Covid was hard, you know, 80% of my business was lost.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and yeah, yeah, it was like going back nine years financially, it was like really hard to rebuild everything to where we were and just sort of getting through that, and then a lot of other things were happening around in the business world, competitors starting up, and you know, the whole landscape changing slightly.
• 1:22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and um my um best mate from across the road took ill.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um she was actually it was just after the Evers, right, and in the year before, right, and uh turned out she had uh cancer of the esophagus.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god, oh god, and um so yeah, she lived across the street uh 14 years, you know.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I remember her daughter Maisie going to school at four, you know.
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, she would um she didn't tell anyone apart from her sisters initially, and I was sworn to secrecy.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um her sisters would go around the evening, so they'd go around in the day.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd finish work and I'd pop over the road to see her.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so yeah, I would be around with her after work every night, yeah, and then pop in at weekends.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So she was um she basically couldn't eat.
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So she had a tube up her nose, and um she was like six stone, you know, she was wasting away before her eyes.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh she had to tell her family at the Christmas time because they were getting a bit suspects to what the heck was going on.
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's when she had a tube inserted.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then in the January, yeah, I found a lump in my neck.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh goodness, Nico.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what the hell I'm doing.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm literally looking to the sky going, give us a break, you know?
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I kept it quiet.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh after a couple of weeks, I went to the walk-in.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thought I'm not going to the doctors, I'll just go walking centre.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um Saturday, I'd literally been with my friend, uh, she needed some cat food and stuff, so I'd done some shopping, had a cup of tea with her, left her, gone to the walk-in, and uh they gave me a cancer referral card, and I was like, You are shitting me.
• 1:24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, yeah.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is like making my stomach.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how is that going?
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't tell anyone.
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there was so much stuff going on, and my biggest concern was my friend, you know.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so after that, I went to town and I was supposed to be meeting my sister in town.
• 1:24:53
  SPEAKER_00: My sister had breast cancer a number of years ago.
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we went to the coffee shop, yeah, I sat down and I said, I told her what happened.
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, right, you know, I said, don't tell mum and dad.
• 1:25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my dad's got onset dementia.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 1:25:07
  SPEAKER_00: I thought he's not gonna understand and it's gonna upset him.
• 1:25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, long story short, I was referred and I had to have half my thyroid removed.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but my friend took a big downturn.
• 1:25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh she had chemotherapy, right?
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they'd left it till 63 days, which is the time is their limit, I believe.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're you have a cancer referral, you're told you will be seeing the 63 days.
• 1:25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she was six three days.
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And all that time she couldn't eat or drink.
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you can imagine the state of her.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_00: What they also didn't do was do another scan to see what was going on.
• 1:25:54
  SPEAKER_00: It changed.
• 1:25:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, yeah, there's a long story on that one.
• 1:25:59
  SPEAKER_00: But um when they treated her, it didn't make her any better, it actually made her worse.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So she passed away on February the 28th.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know what happens after February 28th, we have International Women's Day.
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I had International Women's Day, yeah.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh on the 8th of March, and then I went in to have my firewood removed the next morning on a slunt told everybody.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Apart from Lizzie.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_00: The team knew, my sister knew, yeah.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I told my mum.
• 1:26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_00: After Lou died, I told mum.
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then my dad found out the day I was in.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I was really lucky.
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was dealt with really quickly, yeah.
• 1:26:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they removed it and they said it was benign.
• 1:26:44
  SPEAKER_00: So when I went back for my because basically, when they do it, they detected cancerous cells and they said, look, this has got a chance of turning into cancer.
• 1:26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So either we take it out now, or you take your chances.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, amazing.
• 1:26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, okay, had to think about it, but I didn't get a lot of time to think about it.
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, I saw the saw the guy with the results, uh, the consultant, and the next day I was told that's your date, you're going in.
• 1:27:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, um, so yeah, so I had now a nice fit scarf.
• 1:27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, beautiful.
• 1:27:17
  SPEAKER_00: My wall wound.
• 1:27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm still here.
• 1:27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, goodness me, that's a lot in a short space of time.
• 1:27:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I went back to the consultant, yeah, and when he said I didn't need any more treatment, that was all good to go.
• 1:27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I said, right, let's go away.
• 1:27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, can I climb Kilimanjaro?
• 1:27:36
  SPEAKER_00: He said, if you really want to, I said, right, I'll do that then.
• 1:27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_00: So as I was part of the women supporting women, part of the Princess Trust at the time, and they'd floated this Kilimanjaro trip.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they wanted 10 women to do it.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went, okay, so it was like the May.
• 1:27:55
  SPEAKER_00: I just said, okay, I'll sign up for it.
• 1:27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I signed up for Kilimanjaro, yeah.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_00: But like we talked earlier, when you have these massive things that happen in your life, it reminds you again how short life is.
• 1:28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_00: What's important?
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, why are you worried about certain things?
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I just went, right, okay, I'm going to do Kilamanjaro.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_00: So a friend of mine really into hiking goes, does all that hiking in the lakes.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she said to me, I said, to her, do you want to come do Kilamanjaro?
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_00: She said, You're off your trolley.
• 1:28:26
  SPEAKER_00: She says, You don't even hike.
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_00: She says, I'm really experienced hiker, and even I'm not ready for Kilamanjaro.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, surely it can't be that hard.
• 1:28:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like one foot in front of another.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's walking.
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that upwards a little bit.
• 1:28:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was my attitude to it.
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought, well, people do it, don't they?
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it can't be too difficult.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't I do that?
• 1:28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah.
• 1:28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually a really strong recurring theme with this chat is why can't I do it if other people can do it?
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I limit myself?
• 1:29:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're only here once, aren't we?
• 1:29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I did have to do a lot of training.
• 1:29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said at the beginning of this walk, I would do this five times a week.
• 1:29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was getting up at the crack of dawn, so I was out at 6 30, you know?
• 1:29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:29:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it takes an hour and a half.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um for work, yeah.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_00: So and then once I'd done this in the morning, I'd then be at the gym three, four times a week.
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then oh, it was massive, yeah, massive.
• 1:29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was going through to Burnley to um the college over there because they have an oh look at me.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was going to the elite training area, which is where they have all this specialised equipment for athletes, you know, sports people, yeah.
• 1:29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And there's little old me doing uh training.
• 1:29:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they have their chamber where you can go and you do exercises.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool, and they so they take the altitude down in the chamber.
• 1:30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so your body, yeah, yeah, your body gets used to having experienced hard exercise.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Really great.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, at this various because that's what's a lot of people, isn't it?
• 1:30:13
  SPEAKER_00: The altitude.
• 1:30:13
  SPEAKER_00: The altitude of sickness.
• 1:30:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I just drive through and do that a couple of times a week, yeah, two or three times a week in the build-up.
• 1:30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so my body got used to understanding what it was like to perform strenuous activity at altitude.
• 1:30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, it was quite a crazy sign.
• 1:30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:32
  SPEAKER_00: I look back now and I think I don't know how I fitted it all in, yeah, really.
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because actually you're still rebuilding yourself and your business.
• 1:30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was I was grieving.
• 1:30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And grieving, yeah.
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I took I asked my friend's family if I could take some of her ashes.
• 1:30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I took that lovely, oh my god, it's gonna make me cry.
• 1:30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:53
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I took the ashes with me.
• 1:30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when I got to the top, so we did the summit.
• 1:30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_00: We got started off at like half eleven at night.
• 1:31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:31:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a night walk.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Walk.
• 1:31:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's just walking, coral.
• 1:31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was minus 19.
• 1:31:12
  unknown: Wow.
• 1:31:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's so cold.
• 1:31:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do cold well.
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, you don't even think about that because you're thinking it's gonna joke in the hot, but you're in the skies.
• 1:31:21
  SPEAKER_00: 25 mile hour winds, right?
• 1:31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, and it's literally all scree, straight up, and you're in the dark, you just put your headlights on, you know, your lights are happening all the rest.
• 1:31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, that's better because you don't know the time.
• 1:31:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad I didn't see where we were.
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I came down the next same table, I was like shit, it never got me up there.
• 1:31:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_00: So when it got it took us nine hours to get up, yeah.
• 1:31:46
  SPEAKER_00: People were throwing up.
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we couldn't eat, and all that time we didn't eat.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think I ate uh they were giving us glucose tablets.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they were literally when we took breaks, yeah, and we were sat on whatever rock we perched on.
• 1:31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the porters and the crew, yeah, you know, who are guides, yeah, literally were just poking in glucose tablets into our mouths, we couldn't speak, it was like, oh my god, so hard.
• 1:32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and there were times when physically just putting your leg, doing that one foot in front of another was so difficult.
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I did, as I was going through it, I thought I have to do this because my friend didn't have any choice.
• 1:32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she had to go through every day being sick and literally wasting away.
• 1:32:32
  SPEAKER_00: She had to find so much um determination to keep going.
• 1:32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, so I thought I can't not, I've got to keep doing it.
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so by the time we were exhausted, by the time I got to the top, yeah, and I spread her ashes on the top.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_00: How emotional was that?
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Very, yeah, yeah, it still is now, yeah, you know.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just went off on my own away from the group, yeah, and I just did it on my own, and then it took three hours to get down.
• 1:33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, they get the porters and the guys drag you down, they just get you off.
• 1:33:05
  SPEAKER_00: They need to get you off as soon as possible, right?
• 1:33:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that you're no longer at the altitude.
• 1:33:10
  SPEAKER_00: The longer you stay up there, obviously, yeah, uh the worse the effects can have.
• 1:33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so yeah, wow.
• 1:33:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I did uh Kilimanjaro, yeah, which was just incredible.
• 1:33:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was more than just doing Kilimanjaro, wasn't it?
• 1:33:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is a whole culmination of things.
• 1:33:28
  SPEAKER_00: There was a bracelet, my friend from my friend stuff.
• 1:33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was given a few bits, and that's you know, I was given the ship chance to choose something, yeah.
• 1:33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I chose like a really cheap bracelet, it was just you know, one of those wire ones, you know, it's like made from leather, like a leather one.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it wasn't expensive.
• 1:33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 1:33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'd worn it every day, yeah.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, since she'd passed, yeah.
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd put a little heart on it, and I'd had her the day she'd passed engraved and her initials on it, and I'd yeah, I'd done the same heart for her daughter, yeah.
• 1:34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh day five, I lost it.
• 1:34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I was, yeah.
• 1:34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in a way I sort of thought it was symbolic.
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I thought I know it sounds crazy, but I'm like thinking, I think she's trying to tell me I need to let go now.
• 1:34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Move forward, yeah, keep moving forward with not to forget her, but to move on with my life, you know.
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think yeah, I think that's a really strong statement actually because grief is a really strange, very strange, and everyone does it differently.
• 1:34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but there is a perception that you're meant to be perpetually unhappy.
• 1:34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, I'm not, yeah.
• 1:34:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's good to be sad and to it's healthy to cry, and it can come in waves, can't it?
• 1:34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's fairly out of the blue for years, or you might not think about it for years and years and things.
• 1:35:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think well, this is it.
• 1:35:04
  SPEAKER_00: After she I think the difference was none of our friends were allowed to see her, she wouldn't see anybody, so and she wouldn't see any of her other friends.
• 1:35:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I was the only friend that she would allow to go and see her, and I'd spent over three and a half months with her, yeah, literally going through the whole thing with her, you know, going around trying to make her laugh, and telling her crazy stuff that was going on and all of those things.
• 1:35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I said my friends, our mutual friends, missed the opportunities to say goodbye, yeah, but at the same time, I say, No, do you know what?
• 1:35:37
  SPEAKER_00: You also missed seeing how ill she was, you know.
• 1:35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and she was protecting everyone, she was, yeah.
• 1:35:45
  SPEAKER_00: The week before she passed was the last time I saw her, yeah, and uh I had took round gin eye sollies.
• 1:35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, did she because she couldn't drink a drink because she could only like suck ice cubes, yeah, and so I'd made these gin eye sollies and the family were at the house, yeah.
• 1:36:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um I said, Can I give her gin i solli?
• 1:36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we were it was a bit like John Lennon, the Yoko owner, we had a bed in, so like because she couldn't get out of bed, you know.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we we literally stayed on her bed, yeah, laughing about stuff, drinking these eye sollies, yeah, and even her family said it was the last best night she ever had.
• 1:36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's you know, and so I think it's how we things we do for other people to make those memories, yeah, definitely.
• 1:36:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, oh how wonderful! And we're back at your house.
• 1:36:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are, and the postman's been and look at that! Oh, but life is continuing, it is, it's the small things that remind us that it's just a life goes on, and I think that that was the thing for me.
• 1:36:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had to get used to the fact that life just is gonna carry on, you know.
• 1:36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's yeah, it's lovely that you have that friendship, so I will always have that friendship.
• 1:36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, certainly.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, how was that book for you?
• 1:37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing, I loved it.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, thank you very much, Coral.
• 1:37:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 1:37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we could do a follow-up and a follow-up to the follow-up, to be honest.
• 1:37:13
  SPEAKER_00: You are so interesting to talk to.
• 1:37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was really I hope I didn't overshare too much.
• 1:37:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
• 1:37:19
  SPEAKER_00: You want me to be honest?
• 1:37:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about oversharing, but that's what we love.
• 1:37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and thank you.
• 1:37:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was through Stanley Park and Salisbury Woods, learning about Coral, from leaving school to going to the Cayman Islands, to coming back, to starting again, to going into stales, to setting up her own enterprise, to learning about herself and understanding the importance of uplifting each other, uplifting women, providing a platform.
• 1:38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just incredible.
• 1:38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Coral, thank you so much for sharing with us and also for trusting us with some deeply personal challenges as well, and the way in which you navigated those challenges is truly incredible.
• 1:38:39
  SPEAKER_00: If Coral's story has resonated with you, I'd love to hear how it has, and please do get involved in the conversations on social media, either LinkedIn, TikTok, Substack, Blue Sky, or YouTube.
• 1:38:59
  SPEAKER_00: We also have a backlog of previous brilliant guests that you might find interesting, so please do check those out too.
• 1:39:09
  SPEAKER_00: One more conversation, and oh my goodness, it was so enriching.
• 1:39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, take care, stay curious, and keep following your own path.