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The Courage to Walk Away and Start Again · The BEYOND Podcast

• 0:00
  Unknown: So I'm speaking to that.
• 0:12
  Where did you grow up?
• 0:14
  Okay.
• 0:15
  As all my questions.
• 0:16
  So I grew up in, I was born in Poland and I grew up in sunny, amazing, beautiful
• 0:24
  South Africa, and I did all of my school and university and everything there.
• 0:29
  And then I moved to Europe and I've been working all over the world since then.
• 0:37
  We got to South Africa when I was about three and a half years old, so I don't
• 0:40
  remember the actual plane ride there.
• 0:43
  But my brothers and sisters thought that we'd be going to a land full
• 0:46
  of just giraffes and lions roaming around, which was not the case.
• 0:51
  It was not, but my word, it was a brilliant country to grow up.
• 0:56
  In sunny, gorgeous outdoor lifestyle.
• 1:00
  Absolute magic.
• 1:03
  Magic.
• 1:05
  And how did that shape you, do you think?
• 1:09
  Growing up in South Africa made me absolutely adore and appreciate
• 1:14
  nature, so that stayed with me forever.
• 1:17
  It also brought out, funny enough, an international adventure side
• 1:22
  in me, because being in South Africa, I felt that we were.
• 1:25
  Away from the rest of the world, away from Europe where everything was happening.
• 1:30
  And I used to remember going to the airport with my dad.
• 1:32
  He used to have a lot of international guests come and visit us.
• 1:34
  'cause he was in export and import.
• 1:36
  And I loved looking at the tags on their suitcases and they would be arriving from
• 1:40
  Milan and all these wonderful places.
• 1:42
  And I thought, my gosh, I just literally, the second I can go, I'm just gonna go
• 1:48
  and travel the world and work everywhere.
• 1:50
  And that's exactly what I did.
• 1:52
  So it's like.
• 1:53
  A foundation in nature and grounding, and it's my home, yes.
• 1:56
  But also the spirit for discovering the rest of the world.
• 2:01
  Definitely.
• 2:02
  Were you in a town or were you in farming?
• 2:05
  Yes, so I was in a. We were in a city in Pretoria, it's a capital.
• 2:11
  But then when I was older, I went to boarding school and I really
• 2:15
  wanted to go surprising to everyone.
• 2:17
  I wasn't sent there as a punishment.
• 2:19
  I absolutely loved it.
• 2:20
  And that was in the eastern cape, just surrounded by forests and it's
• 2:23
  got the ocean close by and it just was like the best place to go to
• 2:27
  school in the whole entire world.
• 2:29
  And I just saw boarding school as a massive sleepover.
• 2:32
  It was like a never ending party.
• 2:34
  And probably some of the best years of my entire life were spent in that
• 2:38
  school, and I absolutely love that.
• 2:40
  The thing is, when you go to boarding school.
• 2:43
  Because you're doing everything with each other all the time,
• 2:46
  every single day so much.
• 2:47
  You go to school together, you go to sleep at the same time.
• 2:50
  You brush your teeth together, you go through everyone's, things happen in
• 2:53
  your life, people pass away and so on.
• 2:55
  You share all these experiences so you become family.
• 2:59
  I. There was a boys school as well, which I definitely like to visit too, but you
• 3:02
  just make friends with these guys and the friendships lost forever and we understand
• 3:06
  each other in a way that only family can.
• 3:08
  Those bonds will never be broken.
• 3:10
  I just wanted to say something about my background.
• 3:14
  I'm the youngest of four kids and my parents could not be more different.
• 3:21
  My mom is one of those introverted, hardworking.
• 3:27
  Corporate ladder, cri climbing people that is just diligent.
• 3:31
  She works her hours.
• 3:32
  She does everything she has to do.
• 3:33
  She loves the security of a full-time job, did it extremely well, and
• 3:38
  just is very focused on hard work.
• 3:40
  Gets you everywhere.
• 3:41
  Come on routine.
• 3:42
  Let's go.
• 3:43
  Very disciplined in that way.
• 3:45
  My father, complete loose cannon extrovert, complete and utter risk
• 3:50
  taker, entrepreneur, rollercoaster.
• 3:54
  No stability whatsoever.
• 3:56
  And put us, I suppose, on that entrepreneurial rollercoaster.
• 4:00
  'cause he was always doing this export import business, which it would do
• 4:02
  well and that it wouldn't do so well and that it would do well again.
• 4:05
  So I've seen those sort of two different directions that one's career can take.
• 4:10
  You can go for more the stable, steady job and have that and be
• 4:16
  secure, or you can be more risky.
• 4:20
  But it is a genuine risk and you have to accept that, and you
• 4:23
  get on a rollercoaster, which is called entrepreneurship.
• 4:27
  And when it's good, it's really good.
• 4:28
  And when it's not good, it's really bad.
• 4:31
  So I've had those two options and I've explored both in my career.
• 4:38
  Why did you decide to go on The Apprentice?
• 4:41
  I spent the first part of my career working in billing systems
• 4:45
  implementations, and I was doing what following my mom's.
• 4:48
  Side of things.
• 4:49
  So be a good student, be a good employee.
• 4:53
  Work really hard and climb up to the absolute top that you
• 4:56
  possibly can dedicate yourself to that job and do it really well.
• 5:00
  And that's exactly what I did.
• 5:01
  I spent very long hours working for these big telecoms company.
• 5:05
  I would go wherever they wanted to send me.
• 5:07
  It fitted the travel.
• 5:09
  Go to Gambia tomorrow.
• 5:10
  Go tomorrow, Tania, the next day.
• 5:11
  Off you go to the Cayman Island.
• 5:12
  See you later.
• 5:12
  Bye-bye.
• 5:13
  I was just never ever at home.
• 5:15
  Always traveling and doing this job for my employer.
• 5:19
  Then I got pregnant and everything changed.
• 5:22
  Was I going to go into the middle of Africa and take malaria tablets?
• 5:28
  Yes or no?
• 5:29
  Was that going to be my life?
• 5:30
  No.
• 5:31
  So I had this period of quiet reflection at home with the kids
• 5:36
  thinking, what am I going to do now?
• 5:37
  Because everything that I've known career-wise has changed.
• 5:40
  Mm. Of course I could work in the office, but that wouldn't quite be right because.
• 5:45
  My whole job was going to these countries and implementing billing systems.
• 5:49
  So that just is not gonna happen.
• 5:51
  And if I'm there doing basic things, it would be a bit boring.
• 5:54
  So I didn't know what to do and I started thinking about entrepreneurship.
• 5:57
  Yeah.
• 5:58
  And I was watching The Apprentice and talking to my husband about
• 6:03
  how funny it would be, you know, to go on the show the next day.
• 6:08
  My daughter wakes up after watching this episode and says, mom, I had a dream.
• 6:13
  You were on The Apprentice.
• 6:15
  I said, are you serious?
• 6:16
  She goes, yes, I had a dream.
• 6:17
  You were on there.
• 6:19
  So I said to my husband, is that a sign?
• 6:20
  He goes, yeah, definitely a sign.
• 6:22
  So I thought, alright, let's apply.
• 6:24
  So I went online, saw the application form, and joking around, filled this
• 6:29
  thing out, not thinking it would lead anywhere at all, but it did.
• 6:34
  And they called me back and the interview process then
• 6:38
  started, which lasts many months.
• 6:40
  And the more I got into that process.
• 6:44
  The more it started to interest me and lure me in, and I saw it as a,
• 6:47
  a challenge on the entrepreneurial side that my dad always had because I
• 6:52
  knew instinctively that I could sell.
• 6:55
  That's one thing I can do, I can sell.
• 6:58
  And I knew that because I did all these little jobs as a student and I
• 7:01
  had to work in an alcohol shop, and I had to be an entertainer for kids.
• 7:04
  And I knew that I could work a crowd and I could convince people.
• 7:08
  So I thought, actually, I'm getting really into this.
• 7:10
  There's something tasty about this.
• 7:12
  But there was this other side of me going, oh no, don't go near the entrepreneurial
• 7:17
  beast because it comes with risks and a rollercoaster life and stress.
• 7:22
  But I thought, no, shush other voice.
• 7:24
  I'm gonna go for it.
• 7:25
  And I really enjoyed the whole competitive side of it.
• 7:30
  I loved going through the interview process.
• 7:32
  I loved.
• 7:33
  Every single task they threw at me, it was quite easy for me in many ways.
• 7:38
  So I thought, I actually stand a chance of winning this thing because
• 7:41
  the interview process is so easy and I swam through that process and got in.
• 7:46
  However,
• 7:50
  how much do you want me to go on with?
• 7:52
  Yeah, we
• 7:52
  might as well record the full story and have it,
• 7:54
  yeah.
• 7:55
  So yeah, so I went through the interview.
• 7:57
  I loved the interview process.
• 7:59
  Found it absolutely fascinating.
• 8:01
  I didn't mind playing a role of being this tough cookie and eliminating
• 8:06
  people and going, oh, you don't really know what you're doing and is play up
• 8:09
  to, you know, what they expect of you.
• 8:11
  I knew I'm a producer myself now, so I know what's expected, so I brought
• 8:16
  it to the table, whatever they wanted.
• 8:17
  Went through the stages, loved that challenge.
• 8:19
  Got in at the time when I got in onto the show,
• 8:26
  we were moving house from North London.
• 8:29
  Wow.
• 8:30
  My husband was running his own company and we had three little
• 8:36
  children below the age of 10, and they needed to get into schools.
• 8:41
  We needed to find a house.
• 8:43
  It was all, there was some issues with the sale of our house.
• 8:46
  There was a lot going on.
• 8:47
  It was the worst timing.
• 8:50
  In the whole world, let's put it that way.
• 8:52
  And I really didn't want to go anymore.
• 8:54
  It didn't suit me anymore to go in.
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  'cause I thought, I don't really have time for this.
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  There are far more important things to do.
• 9:00
  However, I had gone to all that trouble was already in and I
• 9:05
  thought, okay, so I went in
• 9:10
  and yeah, going in was fascinating.
• 9:17
  Yeah, both fascinating and disturbing.
• 9:19
  I would say fascinating because you're now living in a world that's a non world.
• 9:25
  It's all, it's not real.
• 9:27
  The boardroom is a place that's a made up place with sheets on the walls and things.
• 9:33
  It's not a real place time.
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  You lose concept of time.
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  Your watch is taken away and it's, you're told where to go and when to go, and
• 9:42
  you drift in this alternate reality.
• 9:45
  Of someone else is deciding your schedule, you're completely controlled by them.
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  And you go to these places that are non places.
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  You speak to people that aren't really real in situations.
• 9:54
  That aren't that real.
• 9:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 9:56
  But they also are at the same time.
• 9:58
  'cause you'll be selling in a shop that's a real shop, but there's all
• 10:01
  these cameras around you and had to be set up and you had to wait five hours
• 10:04
  before you could do that and, and then you're also not allowed to talk to each
• 10:08
  other, the candidates because you might say something that will affect the show.
• 10:12
  And then your phone is taken away and you can't communicate with your
• 10:14
  family and all these sort of things.
• 10:17
  And I just, it's strange in that way to be submerged into this world.
• 10:22
  So it's a fascinating new world that you, one could never be
• 10:25
  prepared for, put it that way.
• 10:28
  So that, that's interesting.
• 10:29
  And then it's also disturbing because I touched on some of the things
• 10:33
  that you can't control where you go and what time you can't go outside.
• 10:38
  The house, for example, where you say you can't go for a walk,
• 10:41
  you're just simply not allowed to.
• 10:42
  You can't talk to everyone.
• 10:44
  You're simply not allowed to.
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  You can't eat when you want to eat because there is no
• 10:47
  food, or you get it much later.
• 10:49
  You can't wake up when you want to wake up.
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  You're told when to go to bed, which might be two o'clock,
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  three o'clock, you're woken up.
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  Five o'clock the cameras come in, so your whole concept and control
• 10:59
  mechanism goes out the window, which I find, which I did find very difficult.
• 11:05
  I didn't like someone else controlling everything about my schedule.
• 11:10
  And I think I also found that disturbing because it, I'm the sort
• 11:16
  of person I have to eat regularly.
• 11:18
  I just have a very high metabolism.
• 11:19
  Very high metabolism, and I have to eat, or my blood sugar drops
• 11:22
  and I become sluggish, and if I get stressed, then I don't eat.
• 11:25
  So I actually went into this vicious cycle of, because I didn't.
• 11:30
  Get food regularly.
• 11:31
  We'd go whole day, literally like nothing until 1130.
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  And then it's like, here's a sandwich.
• 11:37
  I like, some people can do that.
• 11:39
  I really can't do that.
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  Like, I just can't, I dunno why.
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  It's just my body's that way.
• 11:45
  So I, so then by the time that food comes, then I don't want to eat it.
• 11:50
  So then a whole day goes by and I've not eaten, and then the morning comes
• 11:54
  and we have to rush out the house at 5:00 AM I've had two or three
• 11:56
  hours sleep because I can't sleep.
• 11:58
  Because I'm more stressed than everyone else.
• 12:00
  'cause I'm just one of those light sleepers.
• 12:02
  So if we have those few hours, everyone else is sleeping and I'm
• 12:04
  listening and going, oh, are those the camera guys by the doors?
• 12:07
  I'm worrying if they're there.
• 12:09
  So I'm just an overthinker over warrior, which is, I'm sure
• 12:12
  people listening can relate.
• 12:13
  There are just some people that are more, they need a quiet place
• 12:18
  to sleep and they have to eat.
• 12:19
  Regular meals, and I'm just one of those people.
• 12:21
  I'm very sorry.
• 12:23
  So I found that kind of thing quite disturbing and then hard on my body.
• 12:28
  Physically, I found it physically difficult because in the
• 12:31
  morning when breakfast came, I would like literally gag.
• 12:33
  I did not want to eat the food.
• 12:35
  So it was just one of those vicious cycles.
• 12:38
  I'm not wanting to eat.
• 12:39
  However you get on with things, you progress.
• 12:42
  The tasks were going pretty well.
• 12:44
  I sold in every single task, either top seller or second top.
• 12:47
  So.
• 12:48
  In terms of the work that was in front of me, yeah, I can do that.
• 12:53
  Mm-hmm. Was I loving every minute of it?
• 12:55
  No.
• 12:55
  I was worrying about what's happening back home.
• 12:58
  How's my husband coping?
• 12:59
  What are we gonna do about the schools?
• 13:01
  What am I doing in this fake boardroom when I'm, I need to put them into school?
• 13:06
  So I had that drawing my attention away.
• 13:09
  And then I'm obviously not sleeping.
• 13:10
  I'm not eating.
• 13:12
  I suppose the big question is, what is Lord Sugar like?
• 13:16
  Yeah, so Lord Sugar is, he's another version of my own dad.
• 13:20
  They are basically the same personality.
• 13:22
  So I've seen his type, I know his, I know that whole strict, oh dude, my
• 13:28
  dad is exactly the same soft interior.
• 13:31
  I know he's got a soft interior and he's probably really nice, but when it comes
• 13:35
  to business ethic, he's like my dad.
• 13:38
  Which is you basically will be ground down to the to the ground to do
• 13:44
  something, and it doesn't matter if it takes you 16 hours and you've not
• 13:48
  eaten for five, it doesn't matter.
• 13:50
  You have to do that.
• 13:51
  That's business.
• 13:52
  Business comes first.
• 13:54
  Business is everything.
• 13:55
  Business is your God.
• 13:56
  You know?
• 13:57
  The money you make comes first because it's like there's this
• 14:01
  thing that entrepreneurs get.
• 14:03
  They get very hungry.
• 14:05
  For the money, they cha because that's the business.
• 14:07
  It's there to make profit.
• 14:08
  So that profit becomes everything.
• 14:12
  Everything.
• 14:13
  And he was all about that.
• 14:15
  And Lord Sugar's all about that and I'm not at all about that.
• 14:21
  I love the idea of the challenge and I love the idea of selling,
• 14:25
  but I don't love the idea of being controlled by money or anyone else.
• 14:29
  Then he obviously has to play a certain character, but it
• 14:31
  just started to grate at me.
• 14:32
  Is he around a lot on the set?
• 14:34
  He's never around on set.
• 14:36
  He's only in the boardroom, so yeah.
• 14:39
  So you've got the other, whoever the other two are that circle him around.
• 14:43
  Claude, and yeah.
• 14:45
  So you walked before the end.
• 14:47
  Why did you decide to walk and at what moment did you decide to work?
• 14:52
  Yeah, so I was going through all the tasks.
• 14:55
  I was doing pretty well.
• 14:58
  So no one really knew what was going on in my mind, but very early on I started to
• 15:02
  already have doubts about being in there.
• 15:05
  Think I'm wasting my time.
• 15:06
  This isn't real.
• 15:08
  I shouldn't be here.
• 15:09
  I'm not even enjoying it.
• 15:10
  Not sleeping very well, not eating very well.
• 15:12
  I don't like these high stress situations, especially when it's like it's fake.
• 15:16
  It's a TV thing.
• 15:18
  I've been in very high stress situations where I've had to implement
• 15:21
  a billing system on a deadline.
• 15:22
  Didn't know what I was doing, was in the middle of the Gambian jungle.
• 15:25
  All pressure was on me, but that's different.
• 15:28
  You stick with it, you do it, and then you go home.
• 15:33
  But this was playing and it was TV and it wasn't something important enough.
• 15:38
  Dare I say that for me personally?
• 15:42
  To endure that.
• 15:43
  So this started to already be messing with my head, even though I was doing these
• 15:46
  tasks and I let it out to the production team that I'm thinking about this.
• 15:50
  But they, oh no, don't do that.
• 15:51
  Don't do that, don't do that.
• 15:52
  So they were, they were talking me out of this a lot and I was
• 15:56
  going, I think I'm gonna walk now.
• 15:57
  I'm gonna do that.
• 15:57
  And I started to give them little hints.
• 15:59
  I'm like, no, don't do that.
• 16:00
  Don't do that, don't do that.
• 16:01
  And then it just, on the morning of one of the tasks, we were about to sit down
• 16:08
  and go through the whole thing and.
• 16:11
  Do it all.
• 16:11
  And I just thought, I'm just being controlled all the time.
• 16:15
  I need to get my control back of myself.
• 16:17
  If I'm not comfortable in this situation and it's not for me, why
• 16:21
  don't I just take control and say, actually, I don't like the process.
• 16:25
  Why don't I do that?
• 16:26
  I thought, well, in my own head I was like, don't do that.
• 16:28
  Don't do it.
• 16:30
  There are millions of people watching you do not do it.
• 16:32
  And I thought, no, but.
• 16:34
  Other bit of me arguing was, okay, you have to go with what
• 16:37
  you believe in your heart and your health is suffering from this.
• 16:41
  It's not quite right for your personality type.
• 16:44
  Let others go that love this sort of environment.
• 16:46
  So as soon as that thought came in that I can actually make this decision
• 16:49
  and go home now, I was like, so I just said it in the middle of the.
• 16:55
  I think it was like a more a meeting to discuss the task, and I did it there.
• 16:57
  I wasn't gonna wait till later the next day.
• 17:00
  I just decided I made that connection.
• 17:02
  I can actually go home just now, which is not true because after I left I
• 17:07
  had to refilm the exit four times.
• 17:09
  I. They begged me.
• 17:11
  They ran off me saying, Alexandra, come back.
• 17:12
  He says, please, we need to film it.
• 17:14
  I was like, oh, seriously.
• 17:16
  But I did them the courtesy.
• 17:17
  I came back and I did it.
• 17:18
  I did the You're fired as well.
• 17:20
  So I thought, 'cause I don't hate The Apprentice.
• 17:22
  I still like the whole thing.
• 17:23
  I would do it all again.
• 17:24
  I've got, I love the whole thing.
• 17:26
  It's just that I think what I don't like about it is the deliberate, stressful
• 17:31
  thing that I guess makes good tv, but it's also unnecessary in today's day and age.
• 17:36
  And I didn't like it being done to me.
• 17:38
  So walked.
• 17:39
  Did you get any help from them afterwards?
• 17:41
  As in psychological help?
• 17:44
  There's been some TV shows around the Yeah,
• 17:46
  so that's a very interesting question.
• 17:48
  After I left, it was traumatic for me because I had to enjoy
• 17:50
  people saying, you quit.
• 17:51
  You did this, you did that.
• 17:53
  It was a really difficult thing for me to overcome, especially because
• 17:58
  I have a professional career.
• 18:00
  I have to go back into the business workplace.
• 18:02
  I don't want people thinking, oh, you're gonna walk off.
• 18:04
  Like, I won't, I promise you, but it's, it's such a horrible thing to
• 18:07
  deal with, and no, I didn't get any support, but in the form of apprentice,
• 18:10
  but I did thank God in the form of my family and my husband, who's
• 18:14
  my absolute rock and soulmate, and my kids just being back with them.
• 18:18
  That really helped me.
• 18:19
  But I know many candidates that have suffered and they've had
• 18:23
  to go and get their own help.
• 18:25
  They've had to see therapists, they've had very bad spirals
• 18:29
  from what's happened to them.
• 18:29
  Obviously also the trolling, but just the sheer trauma.
• 18:33
  From the Apprentice where you know when you're going on the show, they
• 18:38
  actually contact your doctors to warn your surgery that you will be put under
• 18:43
  massive amount of stress in all ways.
• 18:47
  So I didn't quite understand what that meant until I got on there
• 18:52
  and people react in different ways.
• 18:55
  I guess you wouldn't do it again.
• 18:56
  It,
• 18:57
  I would, you would, I would do it again, because when would I ever
• 19:00
  have a learning experience of this magnitude, when, you know, I'm a
• 19:04
  better person going through something that difficult, that public it, it
• 19:12
  obviously, it propelled me into the whole media and comms fields, which I love.
• 19:17
  I love the whole TV side of it.
• 19:19
  Like I'm saying the cameras and everything that it's interesting for me.
• 19:22
  Production video, I do that now.
• 19:24
  I find that all fascinating.
• 19:25
  I love it.
• 19:26
  So it was a huge learning experience and it's given me confidence that like I can
• 19:32
  go into the ultimate interview and pass.
• 19:35
  If and if I wanted to stay, I could have stayed.
• 19:39
  But it's also taught me my weak side, that I am a person, that I do have to sleep.
• 19:45
  I do have to.
• 19:47
  Eat on time as my I stress affects me, and I'm not like an invincible
• 19:53
  Hulk that's walking around.
• 19:54
  I'm not a super human.
• 19:55
  We're all human, and I think it's given me a deep respect for the balance in life.
• 20:01
  How do you define success in the ever evolving landscape of
• 20:04
  marketing and business, particularly considering the importance of mental
• 20:08
  health and pushing boundaries?
• 20:11
  So.
• 20:13
  Success.
• 20:14
  You typically think how much you know, how rich are you, how much are you making?
• 20:17
  Like that's how we in in most people's minds.
• 20:21
  I think it is changing now.
• 20:23
  I think it is.
• 20:24
  How happy are you?
• 20:25
  Because obviously we all know someone that's wealthy, that isn't that
• 20:29
  happy, and that's absolutely true.
• 20:30
  Life is so short and I wouldn't swap my life with people
• 20:36
  that are wealthier than me.
• 20:38
  I wouldn't, I just wouldn't because.
• 20:40
  I'm happy with my life and for me, if you're happy with what you're
• 20:44
  doing, you are enjoying yourself.
• 20:46
  Ultimately, are you enjoying what you do?
• 20:48
  Do you like where you are in your life?
• 20:50
  That's a massive success.
• 20:51
  Doesn't matter what you're doing.
• 20:53
  Doesn't matter how rich you are.
• 20:54
  I'm going to be interviewing a few other people on this, on the Beyond
• 20:58
  the Boardroom podcast, and some of them are very successful in terms of
• 21:03
  financials, but it, that is never what I'm looking for at the financials.
• 21:08
  Unless that's your only goal in life.
• 21:10
  Yeah.
• 21:10
  I've always measured success initially in the amount that
• 21:15
  I would push myself at work.
• 21:17
  I need to perform better than anyone else in the office.
• 21:22
  I need to work longer hours, I need to work harder.
• 21:25
  I need to be of more value to the clients.
• 21:28
  'cause I was in consulting.
• 21:30
  And I, and I measured my success on the amount of basically graft
• 21:35
  hard grafting that I was doing.
• 21:37
  Then on the entrepreneurial side, I started to measure how am I,
• 21:42
  how much am I making this year?
• 21:44
  How much am I making the next year?
• 21:46
  Is that graph going up?
• 21:48
  How many people am I hiring?
• 21:50
  Is it enough?
• 21:50
  Is it, and now where I am, it's like, how much balance do I have?
• 21:57
  So, yes, I'm working, I'm going to go see my client and I'm gonna dedicate
• 22:01
  fabulous hours to this client.
• 22:04
  That client, they'll get my time.
• 22:06
  But can I also make time to go for a walk with my dog?
• 22:10
  And can I, is there enough time to hang out with my kids, my family, my husband?
• 22:15
  Because if there isn't, that's not success to me.
• 22:17
  Something's out of balance.
• 22:19
  If you look at Steve Jobs and you think, is he success?
• 22:23
  Was Steve Jobs successful?
• 22:26
  He gave his life to Apple.
• 22:29
  But you think could he have been more successful by just
• 22:34
  balancing maybe Steve Jobs?
• 22:36
  Focus on your diet.
• 22:38
  Did you eat today before you run off to that office?
• 22:40
  Did. Hang on a minute.
• 22:41
  Have you slept?
• 22:43
  Did you have breakfast?
• 22:44
  Eat that breakfast.
• 22:45
  Now go off and do your, do a couple of hours and then by the way, go
• 22:49
  for a little walk to de-stress.
• 22:50
  He might still be here with us.
• 22:52
  Lots of ways to look at things.
• 22:54
  Can you recall a pivotal moment in your career where your definition of
• 22:58
  success fundamentally changed, perhaps involving a shift towards prioritizing
• 23:03
  mental health and personal growth?
• 23:05
  So the shift in my life where everything changed was the apprentice
• 23:11
  It, the moment where I realized that I can't abuse my body.
• 23:20
  In that way and that my body has certain needs that maybe are
• 23:24
  different to the next person.
• 23:26
  It's hard to accept that.
• 23:28
  But they can sleep.
• 23:29
  How come?
• 23:30
  They can sleep and I can't sleep?
• 23:31
  What's wrong with me?
• 23:32
  But listen, they can sleep.
• 23:34
  They can sleep through snoring.
• 23:35
  There were girls and they were snoring.
• 23:37
  I can't do it.
• 23:38
  I just can't sleep through snoring.
• 23:40
  But some people can.
• 23:40
  So they just sleep differently.
• 23:43
  They had appetite.
• 23:44
  I didn't.
• 23:44
  It's, I had to accept that I need to be kinder to myself if I'm going
• 23:49
  to perform and be successful in all these areas as a really good
• 23:53
  mom, as a brilliant wife, brilliant career person, also sports person.
• 23:57
  'cause I love sports.
• 23:58
  If I'm going to excel at these things, I better be nice to my body and give it.
• 24:04
  All the nutrition it needs, the sleep, and not be too stressed.
• 24:07
  Just world of marketing.
• 24:09
  How do you personally measure success beyond traditional metrics like
• 24:13
  revenue and profit, especially in terms of fostering a healthy work-life
• 24:17
  balance and mental resilience?
• 24:20
  So I'm selective about the clients that I work with.
• 24:23
  I want to offer the absolute best service.
• 24:25
  So to measure success really, for me is very simple.
• 24:30
  All my.
• 24:31
  Clients happy with the service I'm offering?
• 24:34
  Are they smiling when they see me?
• 24:37
  Are the meetings pleasant?
• 24:39
  Uh, it's the feeling that you get and you know when that relationship
• 24:43
  is good and you know when they see value in you and when it's working.
• 24:46
  And I love that that emotion that I get when my client's happy is the best thing.
• 24:55
  It's the best feeling.
• 24:56
  It's, it means more to me than what they pay.
• 24:59
  It means more because.
• 25:01
  Even if they were paying and they were upset with me, that
• 25:03
  would deeply affect me deeply.
• 25:07
  I wanted to offer that service and I want to absolutely make sure that they've got
• 25:11
  everything they need and that relationship is working and we're both happy.
• 25:15
  It's about
• 25:17
  happiness'.
• 25:19
  Drawing from your experience as a former BBC apprentice candidate, what lessons
• 25:23
  have you learned about success that you apply to your current endeavors?
• 25:27
  What I've started to do, and I've become.
• 25:31
  Pretty good at it, pretty disciplined at it is keeping a schedule and sticking
• 25:37
  to that schedule so I know what I want to accomplish in a day, what I
• 25:42
  want to accomplish in a day, and what I need to accomplish in that day.
• 25:47
  And I schedule it.
• 25:48
  I put things in the calendar.
• 25:51
  I booked that meeting with that person.
• 25:54
  Organize whatever it is, that training session, make sure you've put in that
• 25:58
  slot to do research for your clients.
• 26:00
  What, whatever it is, I schedule it, I time it, and there's a system going.
• 26:06
  So those things get done and then that consistency continues, and then you form
• 26:12
  habits and you are basically engineering, programming your life in a way that makes
• 26:18
  you happy and gives you all those things.
• 26:20
  Do I want to.
• 26:21
  Be fit and strong.
• 26:22
  Yes.
• 26:22
  Do I want good nutrition?
• 26:23
  Yes. Do I want happy clients?
• 26:25
  Yes.
• 26:25
  Do I want happy kids?
• 26:26
  Yes.
• 26:27
  So all of those things need to be planned.
• 26:29
  They really do.
• 26:30
  It sounds very regimented, but if you don't plan it, you will waste
• 26:35
  your time anyway and it will go.
• 26:38
  How do you balance achieving personal success with contributing
• 26:42
  to the success of the teams or organizations you're involved with?
• 26:45
  E
• 26:46
  every person that I work with is.
• 26:50
  You know, carefully selected, handpicked.
• 26:52
  We go through process of several interviews and then
• 26:55
  we start to work together.
• 26:56
  And similar to my friends in boarding school where you have
• 26:59
  that bond, you get really close to the people that you work with.
• 27:03
  And a trust forms, bond forms and just, I want to make sure that.
• 27:10
  You know, my clients are happy and the relationship is really good.
• 27:13
  It's really important to me that the team that I work with are happy
• 27:16
  that they like what they're doing, that they're also having fun.
• 27:20
  'cause if they're not motivated, they don't wanna do it.
• 27:22
  It's just never gonna work.
• 27:23
  So luckily the people that work with me love what they do, and we
• 27:29
  also, the personalities get along.
• 27:31
  We enjoy working together.
• 27:33
  It's just a good atmosphere and we wanna get the job done and
• 27:36
  we know what we're doing and we trust each other professionally.
• 27:39
  We trust each other's advice and so on.
• 27:42
  So it's very much a collaboration and it just works.
• 27:47
  As someone who has pursued both traditional and alternative paths to
• 27:51
  success, what advice would you offer aspiring marketers about defining success?
• 27:59
  So the advice that I would give to anyone about anything they do in their
• 28:05
  life, full stop with professional.
• 28:07
  Business life, whatever it is, that you've gotta be brave enough to do
• 28:14
  what your gut says is right to trust that voice within you, that instinct.
• 28:21
  So if you, for example, want something really badly, let's say an easy analogy.
• 28:27
  Let's say you see someone across the room and you think, oh, I
• 28:32
  really wanna talk to that person.
• 28:33
  That, that, that is exactly my type.
• 28:37
  They've got everything that I like.
• 28:38
  I'm really scared.
• 28:39
  I don't wanna do it, but I think that, wow, that my advice,
• 28:44
  if you ever feel something's pulling, you go, absolutely go.
• 28:49
  At the same time.
• 28:51
  If you feel a repellent and you feel the ick, professionally,
• 28:55
  personally, cut that cord.
• 29:00
  Cool.
• 29:02
  What strategies do you employ to stay motivated and focused on your goal?
• 29:07
  Particularly when faced with setbacks or challenges,
• 29:11
  the tactics I now employ have changed than what I used to.
• 29:16
  So I am now very much focused on health and wellbeing.
• 29:21
  And I don't mean that in the fluffy kind of like wellbeing on social media.
• 29:25
  It's just been overused, but it is genuinely, are you getting enough iron?
• 29:32
  Like actually are you take, have a blood test, measure your storage levels?
• 29:36
  Are you getting enough vitamin D?
• 29:38
  Because that can make you feel really rotten.
• 29:40
  You can get autoimmune disease, you can get a whole lot of nasty things.
• 29:43
  Are you sleeping and is your sleep hygiene good?
• 29:45
  Like deep uninterrupted sleep?
• 29:48
  Are you relaxing?
• 29:50
  Because if you find that mind going a bit too, and it's disturbing
• 29:53
  you, you're waking up at night, you're anxious, whatever.
• 29:56
  So those sort of basic things I've gone back to.
• 30:00
  And I make sure that those are right before I try to do anything
• 30:03
  else, and I make sure they're right for myself and my family.
• 30:09
  Lastly, reflecting on your journey, what do you consider to be your
• 30:13
  most significant achievement?
• 30:15
  Gosh, I've had three quite big challenges in my life.
• 30:23
  The first was I got a tropical disease when I lived in South
• 30:27
  Africa called Bill Haria.
• 30:29
  And it sounds really gross, but it's like these snails that live in the soil.
• 30:34
  And I went water skiing with a bunch of my friends and I got, when I got
• 30:38
  off the boat, I jumped off the boat into this mud, and I remember seeing
• 30:42
  the mud squish between my toes.
• 30:44
  It was really gross, but I didn't know that at that moment in that mud lived
• 30:49
  these horrible snails and they go in and they then multiply in your body
• 30:53
  and they start to attack your body.
• 30:55
  So I then started to lose weight.
• 30:56
  This was at uni.
• 30:57
  It become really.
• 30:58
  And my mom was abroad.
• 31:00
  I was living in the student residence and when she saw me I was basically like
• 31:03
  skeletal, like 49 kilograms or something.
• 31:05
  She was like, there's something very wrong with you, and I was
• 31:09
  really struggling to study.
• 31:12
  I was doing my university finals and I knew that if I didn't make it, my mom was
• 31:15
  like, you will go and work with your dad.
• 31:18
  If you fail this degree.
• 31:20
  So I was like, there is no way I'm working with dad.
• 31:23
  So I was like, dying to pass this degree.
• 31:27
  And then eventually they did the blood test.
• 31:28
  They were like, listen, she needs to take this peral, these
• 31:31
  tablets like poison basically.
• 31:33
  But she needs to take it now.
• 31:34
  She can die from this snail stuff, but she also can't take them if she's studying
• 31:39
  because it's gonna ruin her concentration.
• 31:41
  So I had to go through that final, those final exams in my degree.
• 31:47
  On whatever I had left in my body.
• 31:50
  So that was that.
• 31:52
  That was so hard.
• 31:53
  I was lying down like that and putting those energy, the powder, the energy
• 31:57
  powder on my tongue and just writing, and that's how I wrote my exams.
• 32:01
  But I passed that.
• 32:02
  I passed.
• 32:03
  I got everything I did well.
• 32:04
  So right.
• 32:05
  If I can do that, I could do anything.
• 32:07
  Took the tablets.
• 32:07
  My energy was like, Popeye felt really good, overcame that.
• 32:11
  So I thought right now that's a really good thing.
• 32:13
  Like you can overcome it.
• 32:14
  You can push your body.
• 32:16
  And then I went into the Gambian Jungle and I was overwhelmed because
• 32:21
  I didn't really have the training that I needed to do the thing that
• 32:24
  I had to do, but I had to do it.
• 32:25
  There was no, sorry, you've gotta implement the billing
• 32:28
  system for the country.
• 32:29
  Oh, you dunno, that's not anyone's problem but yours.
• 32:32
  So you have to learn to piece things together like a puzzle.
• 32:36
  And you have to go back to books and you have to phone people and
• 32:41
  communicate and analyze and do that.
• 32:45
  And.
• 32:45
  When I accomplished that, I thought that was really good.
• 32:49
  Obviously apprentice was difficult, I suppose as well.
• 32:52
  In many ways.
• 32:53
  Overcoming that was hard for me and especially because
• 32:55
  it did affect my health.
• 32:57
  And it's like also being someone that's always been very healthy and
• 33:01
  like sports minded and that I've had to realize as well, that listen,
• 33:05
  you're not an invincible person.
• 33:07
  You have to work with your health and.
• 33:10
  It might not be perfect or whatever, but you've gotta work with what
• 33:13
  you've got and that's your lot.
• 33:14
  That's what you've been dealt, and you now have to take that and make the most of it.
• 33:18
  So I suppose those are my challenges so far amongst other things.
• 33:22
  But in terms of professional
• 33:24
  Alexandra, where can people contact you to find out more about?
• 33:28
  So I'm actually on Instagram at King Do Alexandra, and I am on Twitter as well.
• 33:35
  I'm on the usual Places and Alexandra King website where you'll find information
• 33:39
  about my agency, the podcast coming out, which is Beyond the Boardroom, which
• 33:43
  is going to explore the real person.
• 33:47
  Behind these TV personalities that you see?
• 33:49
  Like what makes them tick, really?
• 33:51
  What makes them tick, really?
• 33:53
  Not the pretend bravado and how much do you earn, but like actually, what's your
• 33:56
  mindset when you're gonna go for something big in your life, like a huge interview?
• 34:01
  Or do you decide you, you wanna go for the apprentices?
• 34:04
  Like what gives you that confidence in your mind?
• 34:06
  What takes you from fear and going, oh no, that I couldn't do that to doing it?
• 34:11
  What is the step in your head?
• 34:14
  So I undergo like a thing of.
• 34:16
  My mom's always said to me, everything's made for people.
• 34:20
  Everything's made for people.
• 34:22
  The jobs are created by people.
• 34:24
  If that person can do it, you can do it.
• 34:26
  Nothing is so out of your reach.
• 34:27
  Like even if you wanted to become like a brain surgeon or something
• 34:30
  else difficult, you'd have to go.
• 34:31
  But it's possible.
• 34:33
  It's possible if you really wanted to go down that route.
• 34:36
  And that's made me think if I decide to do something, then.
• 34:41
  I could probably make it happen if I put enough energy and time into it.
• 34:44
  So I've got that sort of mindset that nothing's really off
• 34:49
  bounds, nothing's out of scope.
• 34:51
  If I want it, I can get it.
• 34:54
  And I have that genuine belief in putting energy into things and getting a result.
• 35:00
  Once you put it in, you can see with fitness and your own body
• 35:03
  and that you put in the work and the consistency, you get a result.
• 35:07
  So
• 35:09
  that's.