The Wise Why

Mark Channon
Right. I just had. A flashback dropping people. Probably you. OK, that’s killing that. Ohh, yes. So morning. Good to see you again. Yeah. Tell you a little about me. You know what? It’s it’s it’s interesting because I’ve had probably like you a very eclectic. Background in career. In fact, I’ve had kind of many careers in my 50s now, so, you know, still young.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Stop giving my age away. Ohh no.

Mark Channon
I didn’t make a connection a lot that.

Mark Channon
Yeah. But you know. What very eclectic background. You know, like you was an actor for many, many years, so 15 years as an actor. And that was a big passion when in my 20s and in my 30s. And I did a whole bunch of other stuff which which I’ll I can kind of get into during that time. But then when we had our first kid. I I got out of the acting world and I went into the corporate world, which. Very. It was very, very different from what I was used to, but I let a. Lot. Of large digital products for like the BBC and Microsoft and Telegraph and and I left that world. Then I got into the startup space, which was really cool. Techs and startups. And then I do what I do today, which is run a coaching business and got production company but. I think. When I think back to when I was an actor and the thing that. Probably inspired me and changed my life in a big way in terms of what I do now. There was a friend of mine who was called Steve, Steve Rogers, not Captain America. Steve Rogers and I shared a flat with with Steve and Steve didn’t do small talk and he was always coming up with new ideas and I was sitting on his couch. Was unemployed actor at the time was actually working in the Prince Edward Theatre Bar. Crazy for you was on. I actually got the show the year later, but I was unemployed at time. Steve burst into room one day and. He said mark. Remember these 20 words? And I was like, alright, now I don’t have you, remember, but I I didn’t have a reputation of having that good of memory when it came to lines and stuff. It was really good. Everything else I was all over the place. In fact, my focus was everywhere. My memory was actually good. I didn’t realise it at the time. Steve gave me these 20 words. I memorised about four. It was appalling. It was not good. And then he shared the technique and this technique literally changed the course of my life and it was a memory technique. Now, back then, no one had really heard of this stuff. He did the technique. I remembered all 20 words like in sequence and he got #16. I’d say space shuttle. It was right. It blew my mind. Long story short, it kick started the journey for me when I got into memory techniques and A and A and a year later my agent called me up. And you know you’re an actor. Factors you never say no to anything. Can you write a whole. Yes, like you learn to ride. The. Horse, right? And she called me up and I was actually in the show crazy. The time was a year later and she said, Mark, you’ve always got lots of ideas, which I did. My head was just full of them. And she said, I’ve got friend production company called Action Time looking for a game show. Any ideas? I was like. Yes, give me half an hour and I and I just wrote this tirade. Ohh. Like text A4 paper, no computer back then. Didn’t have a lot of money and they would just pencil wrote this game show, sent it in. Long story short, it got picked up. So it was on ABC. It was called Monk houses memory master. 1995 ironically, no one. Remembers it. You remember it. You remember it.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Ohh no, I remember it because I remember we just bumped into each other, say 95. I was back in London and we were funny enough. Drinking that’s bad, isn’t it? I think it were. You must have been. You would come from the show and we were freeders. And you told me about it. And so I watched it and I saved my whole family.

Mark Channon
Yeah. Yeah. And it was a crazy time. Really it it was. I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was completely winging it, you know, create this game, show I was on there with Bob as well. And it was it. Was all kind of kicking off. I thought, what am I doing? But it did. It did throw me into this kind of world of memory and it was a guy called Tony Buzan, the late Tony Buzan, and he created he. It’s over 100 books. Who’s the creator of my? That and I met Tony back in the 90s and we had this conversation and he said, Mark, you have to compete in the World Memory Championships. I thought what what is this and why do I need to do this thing? And he said, you know, the first game will give you a 2000 digit number. You have one hour memorise as many digits as you can. I thought that sounds crazy. Why would I want to do this? But I did and I got quite good at this stuff. I was ranked as one of the first Grand Masters of memory in the world. Crazy title, but it’s a real thing. Third in the world. So that really started a development journey this continue. Over the last I was gonna say 25 years it’s not. It’s 30 years, right? The last 30. Years and it started with memory and then I started training people and working with people. So I worked with people for 30 years, you know, now I run a coaching business and training business as well and it’s it’s it’s it’s, it’s what I do. But back then it was always something. I was doing on the side. And and I’ve done that for a very, very long time and it started with memory, but then it was about focus and productivity. And work with people to achieve career goals or businesses and all sorts of other stuff, but there you go that there’s a little a little backdrop, some flavour of why I do, why do why am I here?

Kirsty van den Bulk
Because you’re right and I, and I think people don’t realise that, you know, one of on one of these. Says I was. Asked what what are the skills do actors have? And I was like, wow, they’re not just people who can prance around on stage and maybe learn a few lines. Actually, they know how to set deadlines. They know how to achieve a goal. They have studied and they understand a lot of structure business. I was like, do you know? And. One of the biggest things we know is how to. Sell ourselves and. We really do know about sales and they were like, but how do you know all of this? And. What do you think an act has to do? I mean, I I’ve always joked about an actor only opens the curtains in the afternoon because it gives them something to do, but that’s just not the case, is it? Although we’ve all been there dosing on people’s couches, absolutely paying us, we’re waiting for that next job and doing all the filling jobs, but those food. In jobs just like you. They shape us.

Mark Channon
Hmm yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I don’t know if you could touch about what maybe was the worst filling job you’ve ever done.

Mark Channon
So many so many. You know what? In my younger days, before I could, I started, you know, late night is I’m my own business. So I was doing that in between jobs. But in the early days, there was one the worst 10. OK. I know what it was. It just came in my head. Telly sales. Remember those telly sales? Advert geez. OK, so it was a Tele sales job and you’re right, as an actor, you got all these transferable. Skills, you know, you you. Literally learn how to manage emotions and deal with stress and you know, create confidence and all those sort of things. And I was always really good at getting jobs because I could just wing it in the interview and I’ve never done any kind of sales in my life. And we did this tell the sales job, but this was not a good job, I mean. The this company you. Know it really should not have been around and we were selling. It was the time when there was a big thing. About how computer. Screens. What impacting your vision.

Mark Channon
Right. And so they’d be selling these screens that sat on the screens, but it was a real scam and we’d call people up. And we had this script and you get to the point where you get to the CEO, you’d be having the conversation with the CEO. They think they’re getting something for free. And it’s all this whole thing. And then you land them with like a 10K. Check and you still can have your credit card. It was, it was. It was a crazy thing, but I actually left out on the same day because my, my, my ethics, even though as an actor, right, my morals would not let me do that gig. I thought I cannot do this. I was. So that’s probably the widest 1.Mar Chan

Kirsty van den Bulk
I did. I did. Encyclopaedia Britannica and pounded the streets. Yeah, I mean. What can what can you say? And I can say I sold every single type of Botanic, you know, insect food. Yeah. The the the range. And then I got out there because I just wanted to complete the entire range and know that I could do it. And then I was. Out it was me.

Mark Channon
I learned so much.

Kirsty van den Bulk
You along the way you you’ve talked about, I think you mentioned Steve, but who else has inspired you along the way?

Mark Channon
You know, a lot of people. So Steve, you know, I tend to have, I guess, people that I meet in my life where sometimes we’ll end up collaborating. So I have quite a few collaborators. There were, there was, I guess, an actor that I worked with. We did coastline together. Then we did Scrooge, and then we ended up setting up a company and we got the rights to Terry practise weird sisters. I just phoned Terry’s agent up one day, Colin Smith. And I was like. Yeah, we’re producers. And we wanna put on a West End production of Weird sisters. I love to buy the rights. And we did. And we got the rights and and so I’ve always been. There’s always been these collaborations that have happened, certain people that I’ve met with the same one in my start up and a few businesses that run and I use it. There’s certain people that I meet. And we end up doing something together, I’d say. Outside of that. I mean, obviously my wife because, you know, I’ve known Zoe for she was always an actor and she did that since she was a kid, probably like you and very young, she started. And she actually works, and she’s working right now below us. So. So this we’ve got a studio and 7UP. She sees downstairs running Pilates. Right now, she’s got all the reformer kit, but I think together we keep each other straight. You know, we we keep each others kind of head on and making sure that we’re going in the right direction. So she’s always been a a big part of. A lot. How many years? OK, 2024 years. OK. There you go. So. That’s quite a. While and then. You know, there’s other people that I guess have influenced me in terms of what I do. You know, when I was really young, I got into Tony Robbins and I did that in my 20s. And I was like, OK, I start to learn about some of those coaching strategies. Then when I was in the BBC I had like one of my a great manager there. Uh Matt and he was brilliant and I started to understand more about. Running teams in high performance teams and things like that, so there’s been key people. I’d say throughout my life that have had an impact and many of these people I I kind of still see you. Know still interact.

Kirsty van den Bulk
With what was it like, though? I mean, I know what it was like for me, and I talked about it openly, what it was like to. Go to make that decision to move. From being the actor, the performer, and go into the corporate space because that’s where we have a real crossover cause I did exactly the same thing. What was it like? What was that decision process?

Mark Channon
Absolutely crazy. You know, I remember it, OK, I’ve never said this story, so I remember. I remember the moment it happened because, well, we were having our first kid, Zach and. Myself and Zoe at the time, none of us wanted to tour. There was work out there. And you can get Western gig and that’s great. But actually none of us wanted to. I wanted to be there, you know, I thought I don’t wanna be away for six months or a year when I got kicked. And so there, there was that moment there. But I always remember I I’d actually been. I taught myself how to code websites and many years before, so I was like build the websites I was. I was. I was gonna do stuff on the site. But the the when I first got. Into corporate the first gig was the BBC. And I I think maybe me and Zoe had a a debate about something, and I thought, you know, I’m just gonna get a gig. And I wrote in and I got this gig contracting initially for the BBC. And so that that was when it started and when I got on got in there, it was temporary in my mind, this was not what I was doing. I did not make a decision to be in the corporate space. It was not how it was built. Like I was praying. Unorganised. You know, I was last minute with everything. It’s like this was not. I mean, very different people who know me now. It’s like, really like with what I do. But it was not my natural go to state. But then I kind of got caught up. I actually really enjoyed it. And I I started build the websites and then they offered me. A job. And I thought, oh. Well, OK, I’ll take it. I’ll take the gig. It reluctantly took the first gig, and then they promoted me and I thought, I want to get promoted because I want to be here. You know, I want to. And then they promoted me again, and I got promoted again, like, what’s going on, you know, six years later, and I end up, you know, was leading all these big products for the BBC. And then I went to Microsoft and led the Skype website. And then. So it was like it. It caught up on me. It it it was a slow burner. But I will say that it was probably I learned so much. There. I got the point where it I knew it wasn’t the right fit for me. I had to go back to what I was doing. I mean, I was still running my business. I always had a side hustle. It was always coaching, working with companies. But I got the point where I realised I had to leave and get back to what I really wanted to do and what I what I thought was here to do. So it was an interesting time, but learned so much just about particularly about leadership and high performance and and teams and et cetera, you get put into practise.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So explain about your coaching because it’s it’s high performance, it’s leadership. And you know, we we both, I I love the fact that our journeys are are kind of got this sneaky wonky pivoting, I don’t know, crazy old path that got us to where we are today. But talk to me about what you actually do as you’re in your coaching.

Mark Channon
Yeah. So there’s there’s a few different types of people that I work with, and I guess in terms of the outcomes that they’re looking for, I tend to think of it in three buckets. So I work with people who are either trying to. Move up in their career or they want to shift career entirely, particularly off the back of COVID. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but I mean, you heard about the great resignation, the great resignation, 2.0 and lots of people becoming dissatisfied with where they are. So a lot of the clients that I work with, they make a shift. They tend to be more senior. Management up to C-Suite. That and they’re making, let’s say bigger changes, so it takes them a long time to do that. And I also have group programmes that run for people who maybe you know, they want, they want one stuff, but they still want to make a shift. So that’s kind of one back at people that. Park with the second bucket. Are usually finders, finders, CEOs and there’s two types of coaching that I do there. One is more around right thing, right time productivity, high accountability, high ownership follow through. Get this stuff done because the lives are just so crazy. They got a lot going on and the other type of coach I do with them is I partner with. Someone called Ash Moya, so he will. All there running lean books. I actually one of his coaches when he needs to and he’ll give me startups. It’s all work with founding teams and that’s more of a business business modelling and traction and I’ve got big product background. So we it’s a different type of coaching, you know looking at their actual business and how. They grow their business. But we always get into the mind stuff because you can’t. Not. Yeah. And the third type of person I. Work with are usually people who want to improve. Generally, when it comes to things like you know productivity, I mean I I see that some of the challenges, all time, procrastination, the killer, I mean it comes up all the time. Obviously some of the obvious one perfectionism interestingly comes up a lot with the people that I work with. I just need to get it right, right. And they lose their progress. You know, distractions, we living in this distracted. World where creatures of distraction. I read this paper. 2018 Ian felt acorn. They did an experiment on macaque monkeys and humans and discovered that as humans, we go in and out of attention four times every second. Now this made a lot of sense to me. So oh, that was fine, right? We’re built to be distracted. So distractions is a real killer when it comes to productivity. And then you’ve got the emotional stuff over overthinking, you know, overwhelming impulsive syndrome, confidence sector. So these are the kind of challenges that I’ll. Help people work through, but then practically, you’re you’re helping people to achieve something that they want to achieve that they think is going to make them feel more fulfilled.
Kirsty van den Bulk
And you’ve written books, right? You’re you’re not just. You’re not just a coach. You’re not just an actor. You’re not just a a dad. You’re also a published. Ohh. I’m running a production company and I love the name of the of the production company. We’re gonna come on to that in a minute. You’re also. A published author, right?

Mark Channon
Yeah, yeah. So Holder is my publisher for a Nick, Karen for. So I’ve got a number of books out there. I’ve got a couple of memory books. The the memory workbook and improve your memory, sharing your full kits which. I did with Holder. And as you can probably guess, the title is focused on memory, but it’s very it’s very practical. Yeah, I’m very much a practitioner. When I start to do all this memory stuff, I don’t really want to compete in championships and do all that. I mean, look I I value it in terms of the skill that you build. I was much more interested in how do I use this in my life for those moments when I remember stuff on the fly, there’s a conversation or whether it’s I want to learn a whole new skill set and that’s really what. Kind of and inspired me. Got me going. So the books really talked to that idea and and then I wrote one book a few years back called Learning Your Lines. And this was a real passion project. And Nick Kern is a publisher that one. So you, Nick Carr’s biggest acting publisher in the UK and that I I love writing. That book it. Was my favourite book to write and I do have another book. That I’m just starting kind of the research thing. Which is all about superhuman productivity and how do you kind of make that happen for you, bring that into your life?

Kirsty van den Bulk
And can you expand a bit bit further on that or not?

Mark Channon
Well, no, I can’t. It’s it’s, it’s the the books at the early stages, but the principles I’ve been put into practise for many years now with people and you know I attend you know, whenever I talk about productivity and it. Sounds a bit happy. Super human. Productivity. But there’s a there’s a reality behind it. Kids, I tend to think of this in three chunks that there’s 8 levers. Whenever I help people want to improve the productivity, I always talk about 8 specific levers that if you’re able to dial up. Your productivity in a hole is gonna go through the roof. You’re also gonna feel more balanced. You know, these are things the first ones about activating your you’re in their superpower, and this is about your focus, your memory, being able to create and break habits. Because when you can do those things, IE keep attention, do the deep work, not get distracted by all the To Do List. That. The stuff that creates impact you start to move forward when you can learn quickly, make things stick. This is a I mean this kind of stuff that I did in the. Memory championships, people. Go what? That’s impossible. But it’s not like we could all do it. Everyone can improve the memory and learn things that are all. Value to you. And they’re just that thing you’ve been able to design habits. So that’s the first chunk. The next chunk is all around creating a productivity, let’s say system or routine that works for you. We’re all different. I was very last minute. Some people are super structured. You need not one size does not fit all. You need to work stuff that works for you. And last there is really focused around your. Ability to regulate emotions. Now, as actors, we were doing this, this, this is where we lived, right? You we were creating. Emotions and you can’t force that stuff. You can’t push it. There’s ways to have emotion happen to you, whether it’s a positive emotion or whether it’s a -1. And once you understand that and you’re able to take control of. Hey this gives. You a huge amount of resilience in your life. So I mean that there’s the the kind of shape of it. I’ve written it. Yeah, but you.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Know it’s it’s shape. I love it. So I talk about this thing called aim a lot, which is you acknowledge you’re identifying, you move on and it comes from a parenting course. I I was on, but I’ve switched it.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Because I wanted to make it work for me, and I generally tell people that you’ve got to acknowledge the emotions so you don’t cause a lot of times, people Partick when it’s comes to public speaking, they try to squish this emotion down and if you squish it down. It’s going to come out like a firework. And it’s going to explode everywhere. So I say people to people, you’ve got to acknowledge that emotion. And once you can acknowledge it, you can then identify that actually it’s OK because I’m Pete speaking today and I’m just nervous. So it’s OK because I’m going to the doctors and I’m getting test results and I’m nervous or whatever it is. You can identify why you’re nervous. And then you can take that breath. And you can. Move on. So I love what you’ve just talked. Which of course brings me on to your production company and your name for the production company because you didn’t just grow you. I mean, you live in seven Oaks now, but you’re not from 7 oaks originally.

Mark Channon
Ohh you can tell right? Kids have got 7 olds accents, so well, I come from, we call it posh, but there you go, very articulated. You know what? When I first I come from Mastrick in in Aberdeen. Hit anyone that lives in Mastrick. And you know, I I I I I had a great upbringing. My school was pretty rough, if I’m honest. I went to, you know, and then and I kind of hacked through my my what you call GCSE’s now I gotta scrape through it. It was an interesting thing but yeah I came from Maastricht when I first came down no one understood a word. I was saying I don’t know if you can remember this, but I also used to speak slang. I thought you got there and I got to the tune, right. No one understood what I was saying. And and apologies. Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I just understood all of that. You know, that’s. Line.

Mark Channon
Anyone in Scottish right now is saying that’s not some weird accent you’ve got.
Kirsty van den Bulk
How are you doing? What’s it again? How are you doing?

Mark Channon
Feeding how you did.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah, Lee, how you doing? I could. I got I I remember the chap in. A while bit.

Mark Channon
You know, it’s probably so bad any any one of my friends from a kid that you know what? Stop it right now anyway. So my production company, I set this up a couple of years ago and obviously there’s. There’s a thread here from when I was an actor to to what I do today and you know my first startup that I created. Well, it wasn’t my first actually, but it was. I think my third but third startup that I did was called blink with a queue and it was a live. Streaming game show. It was essentially HQ trivia, but it was aimed at GCSE. Students who want to study, and we did a show every day to help kids, and so that kind of got me back into the kind of production space. And then I went to NFT X national films. I was in school, and I thought, hey, I need to get what’s build some skills to produce. And I realised it was very much like being a product person. Yes, to build that skill set. And so a couple of years ago, there was an opportunity to produce something, and it was video production. Initially this is 2 parts of the the production company, one is video production. And I thought what can I call this? I wanna call it something that means something because and I thought I’m gonna call it mastrick Mastrick productions. It means nothing to anyone else but to me it means a lot because there’s. It’s a little odd to where I come from and yeah, so that that was the trigger part. But you know, there’s there’s a film production side that work now which is very early and you know, right now I’m just getting scripts and building as. And but but the the world is not hugely dissimilar to when you go through the startup journey and you get investment and then you, you know, you bring something to market and you gotta get out there, etcetera. So package things up. It’s very, very similar. So there you go. Juggling juggling many things.

Kirsty van den Bulk
No, you’re not. I just love. The fact that you just never stop, you never stop moving. And of course I understood the the dark was it. Dark or slang?

Mark Channon
I mean, Doric is from up there but I I guess we term it slang I I don’t know if that’s insulting now it might be, I don’t know.

Kirsty van den Bulk
You know, I did invite some people from Aberdeen onto the feed, so we’ll I’ll no doubt I will find out. So Malik, so Malik too, suffers.

Mark Channon
Oh, really? OK. Correct.

Kirsty van den Bulk
When does he said to say hello? And then Magnus space is this one of your friends, Magnus faith. And this is great stuff for understand your productivity programme, Mark and then Yemi, who’s also. He’s brilliant. He’s on, been on. I can’t remember what episode. Couple of episodes ago. I tell people quite often that one of the key skills to improve your memory retention is through learning.

Mark Channon
Level.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Forget. For example, do you have to keep a phone number in your memory nowadays? What’s? What’s thoughts on this?

Mark Channon
No. No, so so I’m super practical. Yeah, I’m a practitioner. I love reading the research. I read all the research out there, you know. You know? Yeah. Think about memory technique. It’s funny. Been around for 2000 years and it’s only the last five. Well, five years. That’s been some specific research that’s talked to what’s actually happening with the kind of techniques I teach. But in terms of things like phone numbers, no, I’m not going to bother doing that because I’ve got my phone like I would have done before the phone existed. But I don’t do that and I’m a big geek. I love tech. You know, I want to spend my time memorising things that create impact. For me as a coach, when I’m doing a coaching session, I don’t take notes. I memorise what’s being said. I lay things down. It allows, you’ll know this system like, you know, deep listening mode, active listening, and I’ll I’ll use a little creative technique where I’ll create a picture for the key problems people have said. Never share your pictures. The key problems people have the desired outcomes. They want to achieve the actions you’re going to take. Then you can play that stuff back. I used to do that in meetings when I was in the corporate world as well. People say you’re not. Making any notes and you play. A bunch of stuff back they go. Oh, that’s weird. But, but there’s something about forgetting as well. You know, our memory is fallible, it’s fluid. We can mess with the memory. We can create false memories, and it’s OK to not to be able to recall something straight away or even forget something. In line with that, though, that there’s a there’s a habit that most people have. They’ll try to remember something and immediately. They’ll say I can’t remember. I’ve forgotten when you say that your brain stopped searching when, in actual fact, what you should do is give yourself a beat. Give yourself a moment and ask yourself, OK, what do I think? This is? Even if I was to guess or you know what, that will come back to me. Create that habit. You start to remember. Do more and that’s a really simple thing to do. You use prime in your brain, you direct in it. It’s like when you meet someone on the street, can’t remember. Them two days later. Oh, it was Kirsty.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I I love it. That’s well, I I’m visual and I tell people what you know. Don’t you’ve? I’m sure you’ve seen it. Where I’ve said ditch the script. In fact, I sent you an e-mail. Don’t write this down. We’re gonna ring this. It’s all improv. I have no idea where I. I don’t know my questions out this morning, and it’s it’s about keeping it fluid. It’s about keeping everything fresh.

Mark Channon
Obviously, obviously.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And I use active listening, but I’m a big visual person and all of my all of my videos are done with me. Think about visuals. I do write a few notes normal, but because I’m dyslexic, I’ve got no hope of spelling, so it’s normally a doodle that has on the page that will remind me of what it is and my memory. If I lost my memory I would be. Gutted because I can bring up. Dennis hates this. I can bring up an argument from years ago and quote the wording and he’s like.

Mark Channon
What a great skill.

Kirsty van den Bulk
How would you do that? And I was like, but you said and he’s like, do I really? Uh huh? I love this so this where the tables turn. You’ve been in the. Hot seat for. About I don’t know nearly 29 minutes. I think I know it. It flies by. People don’t believe me that yeah, 29 minutes. People don’t believe me that this is quick and it’s it’s it. I love doing this. It’s it’s so much fun for me on a Friday.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Morning. Except this day. So this might turn the tables and it’s right?

Mark Channon
Again, time play rules. Yeah, I see some.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Stuff. Yeah, you get to ask me. You get get to. Ask. Me a question.

Mark Channon
OK. OK. Let me think we give one. Well, you know we we’ve known. Each other for, well, a long time. Since the 80s. John Hughes since the 80s. So OK. OK, a simple question to ask. Maybe that’s as. Simple to answer. When you think about the journey you’ve been on, maybe particularly in in your business, the businesses, the things that you’ve done in your life and you know, like me, you’ve done a whole bunch of different things. What’s the one? What’s the one key lesson? That. You would take from your life and share with someone else to make a difference for them. What would that do?

Kirsty van den Bulk
So it has to be. Don’t plan too far. That probably sounds really strange, but you don’t know what’s gonna come in the future and you don’t know. So when I was when you met me at 16, you. Know we were. Full of ideals. I was going to be. This I was gonna be an actor. You know, I was gonna. I don’t know where I was gonna go, but I knew that that’s what I was gonna do. And I did it for many, many years. I I thought I was gonna get to the RSC and never got to the RSC. And, you know, Shakespeare was definitely my passion. But I did get on TV, which I hadn’t planned. And then I didn’t. Plan to get divorced and find myself back in London and wake up one day without my career because of various different things and and so you know, overnight, when I moved back from Scotland back down to the to England, I lost my career. I didn’t plan to then go back to university, so back to arts. I didn’t plan to then go into the corporate world and I certainly didn’t plan to get really high up in the corporate world and then turn it all on its head because I decided my husband and I, you know, became into our lives. And then from being coming into our lives. I didn’t plan. And that Dennis would get a big job. And one of us would have to be the person ready to collect from school. And so I didn’t plan to launch KBTV. So I would say one don’t plan and two, never stop learning because you’ve gotta be able to be adaptable. You’ve gotta be able to be resilient and you’ve gotta be able to flex. And I think the flex a woo way is a really important thing. Me, because you’ve got to be able to. End and not break. And so you’ve got to be visiting in and sometimes you will find yourself right down at that black bottom. And I’ve been there where you’re just going. I’ve got no money. I’ve got no future. I’m stupid. I am not worthy. I have gone right. Down to that debt where I thought I was totally useless, and now I look at my life and I’ve I’m a mum, I’m running my own business. I have a beautiful husband and I do my best to help and pay the support and love and kindness that I have received with gratitude forward so. Think even if you’re right down at the. Depths. Looking at that black black dog going, I have no idea. I will say that you can hit that bottom and you can bounce back up, so don’t plan. Don’t wallow, either find your way out. But if you and the other thing is to ask for help, ask for help. Ask for help. So I think that’s probably it. If that’s a good enough answer.

Mark Channon
That’s a great one. I love it. That was that was so much there. You got don’t plan to continue standing in that resilience and ask. For help, love it. Brilliant.

Kirsty van den Bulk
There you go. As I said, I have no idea where my brain’s gonna go. But and it’s all improv, right? Thank you so much for joining me. It’s been a blast. Ohh. Brilliant. We’ve just had a quick, quick, new message from dual Guy. I always worry about saying that wrong morning.

Mark Channon
Yes, and.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Great insights here. She’s a goal setting coach, so thank you for everyone who’s joined us. Mark, thank you.

Mark Channon
All brilliant. Thank you, Kirsty. I’ve loved this. This has been great fun. Cheers. No, seriously, it’s brilliant.