Series Two Finale: highlights and future plans

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I know from your feedback that you've been moved and touched in a variety of ways. And I think this is the power of real, meaningful conversations that that you can have to whether you dial it up at work or at home, I just want to encourage you to, to get beneath the surface that feel quite easy to stay on with people in our lives. So yeah.

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Welcome to the final episode of Series Two of unset. At work, I'm your host, Katherine Stagg Macy, and this is the podcast, where we've been diving into conversations that we often avoid at work. So as we wrap up the series, I want to reflect a little on this journey with you, and share what might come next, I'd love to stay in touch, feel free to email me Catherine at conversations at the edge.co. UK and share whatever topics or guests you'd like to hear more of about in the future. And you can also sign up for the weekly newsletter just to continue to receive insights and updates.

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That think is in the shownotes.

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Let's take a step back. It was two years ago when I conceived this idea of this podcast and it emerged in the aftermath of a group coaching program that I launched. That didn't work. It was a complete flop actually, no one signed up. And in the funk that came after that one of the great pieces of advice that I received at the time was to follow my energy. And what was it that was exciting me that would take me out of this funk.

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I'd had this idea of podcast and I kept putting it off because it felt like a lot of work. didn't feel like I had the capacity for it. But at that time, in that place of funk, I was like yeah, that that feels really exciting.

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Like some really creative project. The prospect of creating this podcast and having a platform for the conversations was exciting. So we're now can you believe it? 80 episodes in and unsent work is in the top 5% of global podcasts. That's a stat from listened notes, which looks at the popularity of podcasts amongst the 3.4 million podcasts are out there. So I'm really proud. I am so proud of the body of work that exists in this podcast. And on this journey. I've had some fantastic conversations, a lot of them that I really wasn't expecting in my thought of the idea of what I wanted to cover until at work. I very quickly came up with 20 topics 80 episodes in it just gives you the depth and the breadth of conversations that I didn't think we are having at work. So we had things we've touched on what HR really wants you to know about HR, how to have hard conversations like that's a perennial theme. I think for all of us the perhaps the more obvious things we didn't talk about at work like systems of oppression, including racism and anti fatness tips for redundancy, making menopause business as usual jokes in the workplace and how to deal with them. So yeah, the there is so much in the theme of answered at work, but I don't think I even realized that. Perhaps interestingly, as well as many guests shared really personal experiences that we had to engineer Daniel on here talking about her burnout on multiple occasions and how she recovered from Mia Hodgkinson, talking very openly about her bipolar disorder and how she's managed to find a workplace that can embrace and understand that recently there was Rebecca manda talking about grieving through the death of her son, her young son in the leadership position and coming back to work. And then Mr. heric, talking about being transgender, and what that's like in the workplace. So really broad range of very personal experiences that I was really touched by how open people were willing to share.

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And we've had a really wide range of guests as well, like senior leaders and founders, the therapist or breathwork, coach, financial advisor, interfaith minister, we've had an inclusive language expert, and ADHD specialist and HR consultant, like really the whole range of voices on the show, which is just thrilled me, I thought I'd share with you like a bit of a retrospective here what it is that I'm taking away, because perhaps it'll resonate with you whatever project you're taking on, whether that's a you're at work, or in your personal life.

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One of the key things for me is this idea of energy. So I said a few minutes ago that I'd taken that advice, and used where the energy was for me to start this podcast. And I think it's just a wonderful way of the for those of us overthinking I'm definitely in that category. I was thinking under feel and look for data and ROI and sometimes the way the we just need to do the project because gives us energy and trust that things come out of good things come from that. And yeah, and to put things off because you don't know what the ROI is, I think and helpful to yourself. I remember saying what would success look like for the podcast and I was looking for very hard stats and my business coach said why don't you just drop that and follow the energy?

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And I think if I had been very attached Defining what those hard stats were I don't think I would have started in if I had, I then would have beat myself up for not meeting those data points, which are, were just made up how was I to know what was possible if I'd never done any of this podcasting before.

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So the second takeaway for me is a reminder about real conversations, the real messy, open, honest conversations have an impact. I would personally move by lots of stories here.

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Michelle, tacky Bender talks about experiencing racism in the workplace. And I remember feeling really angry in the conversation with her about her having to deal with that. But then there's also people like Nick marks and Matt Chang who have a lot of experience in creating very positive, nourishing, thriving kind of cultures and workplaces. And those conversations definitely feeling really inspired. So I know from your feedback, that you've been moved and touched in a variety of ways, and I think this is the power of real, meaningful conversations that you can have to whether you dial it up at work or at home, I just want to encourage you to, to get beneath the surface that feel quite easy to stay on with people in our lives. So yeah, get real. And the final point, I would say, is playing the long game as hard but it pays off. I attended a podcast show in London a year ago and one of the presenters said, podcasting asks that you indie podcasting like this asks that you commit to at least three years before you see any reward and broader the broader sense financial listenership, whatever the matter is, and in a world of, you know, 3.4 million podcasts, it's easy to get caught up and comparisons of your favorite big podcast. But what's more important is to keep connected as to why you're doing this. And what matters to me is that you're here and listening and being moved in some way as I am by these conversations, and the podcast gave me that opportunity to do that. So whatever undertaking that you're on, I would encourage a longer term view than perhaps what feels comfortable, perhaps what's useful, I think we live in a world that is overly short term in their perspective. And I think we lose add in a lot of growth and learning and joy with that very short term focus. So play a long game and see what's what becomes available then. So as I wrap up here, I want to say that I realized that until it worked just by its very native topics is not always easy listening. And thank you, thank you for being here and for listening. And I hope if you just take one thing, one thing from these early episodes is that you aren't alone in whatever your experiences wherever you are in the world, wherever your whatever the type of work you're doing, and the kind of culture that you're in that you know, and feel that you're not alone. And I hope you see your experience reflected somewhere in the show with some somebody story. So what next, what I'm dialing back on social media podcast activities, at least for the summer, giving myself some space back. And so what happens the podcast and interview that I know, I need to take a step back and resource myself some more. In order to come back I have two ideas that I'm quite excited about. One is a bit more evolved advanced than the other. And that one is really based around a step that's that I find incredibly frustrating. That until very recently there in the UK, there were more CEOs called John than they were female CEOs and the footsie 100. So more CEOs called John than female CEOs and managers, it's men and there's a similar stand in the US. For the top 500 listed companies alerts.

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The name is not John But Richard or deck or Dickie. They're more Richard decks or Dickies than they are female CEOs. And so I would really get excited about the idea of interviewing 10 CEOs who by their gender or sexual orientation or skin color are naturally just underrepresented in the boardroom. And that what has there been experience been in getting to the position of the CEO because they I think they would have had such a different journey and have a different lens on all of this.

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That's the most evolved idea.

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The other idea is less formed.

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And I'm gonna keep quiet on that. For the moment that I'm confident that some space and time off from podcasting would allow the creative ideas and the capacity for this work to flow again, but I have I'm still coaching, still doing what one executive coaching and team coaching. So if that feels like something for you or your team, you get in touch, you know, they get ahold of me. And as always, there's my weekly newsletter to stay in touch with what I'm doing where I'm going inside stories that I like to share in that medium. And yeah, thank you again for being part of this journey. With answerde at work couldn't be here without you're listening is take care. We will read and signing off until the next season.