Nicky Lowe [00:00:06]:
Hi, it’s Nicky Lowe, and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host, and for nearly 2 decades now, I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show, I share evidence-based insights from my coaching, leadership, and psychological expertise, and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work life and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join Join me and my special guests as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time. I’m so happy that you’re here, and let’s get on with today’s episode. Hi and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host Nikki, and this episode is a little bit different because this month marks 20 years since I started my business. And even saying that out loud feels slightly surreal, like 20 years.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:05]:
So on the 6th of September, 2006, I launched Luminate, which is my business that I’ve been running for 20 years. And I wasn’t quite sure whether to record this episode because I didn’t want this to be one of those slightly self-congratulatory milestone episodes where I tell you all the things I’ve achieved over the last 2 decades. That’s really not what I want this to be about. What I found myself thinking about as I’ve approached this anniversary is really what those 20 years have taught me, because those 2 decades give you quite a lot of data. There have been some amazing opportunities, but there have been some really difficult seasons. I’ve made some good decisions and I’ve made some spectacularly bad ones. I’ve created this— things that work brilliantly and things that really haven’t. You know, I’ve become a mum, I’ve experienced burnout, I’ve reinvented my business more than once, and I’ve invested a huge amount in my own development.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:19]:
And I’ve had the privilege of sitting alongside thousands of people as they’ve navigated their careers and their lives. And just as importantly, I’ve changed. So that’s what I want to explore with you today— 20 things I’ve learned in those 20 years. And it’s not because I’ve got it all figured out, like, far from it, but because these are things I couldn’t have known when I started my business, the things that I’ve really had to live through to understand. And my hope is that wherever you are in your own life or career There’s something in these lessons for you too. You know, maybe you’ve experienced a loss or a difficult season and you’re wondering how to make meaning from it. Maybe there’s a leap you’ve been thinking about taking, but fear or uncertainty are keeping you where you are. Maybe you’re questioning the career you’ve built and wondering whether the version of success you’re pursuing still fits who you are now.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:24]:
Maybe you’re navigating motherhood alongside ambition and trying to work out what you actually want this chapter to look like. Or perhaps nothing dramatic is happening at all, but this quiet feeling that something needs to evolve. So these lessons I’m going to share with you aren’t really about how to stay in business for 20 years. They’re about change. They’re about courage. They’re about knowing yourself. They’re about redefining success and about navigating seasons when things don’t go to plan. And ultimately, they’re about how we build careers without losing sight of the lives we’re building alongside them.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:10]:
So, before I get into the lessons, I think I need to take you back to where all this began, because Luminate didn’t begin with a business plan or this massive entrepreneurial idea. It began with loss. So, back in 2005, a year before I launched, I was working for a Silicon Valley tech company. I was in a global role, working as a global account director, and on paper my career looked incredibly successful. Like, I was on the 6-figure salary, I’d got the stock and share scheme, I’d got the company car, I’d got The— we’d just bought a big farmhouse in the countryside that we were renovating. Like, everything on paper looked great. I was traveling internationally, I was progressing, and I’d worked really hard to get where I was. But the truth was that for quite a few years, I felt like my career was sucking the soul out of me.

Nicky Lowe [00:05:08]:
I wasn’t happy, and I think somewhere inside I knew that But I didn’t know what else I could do, and I didn’t know what else could pay me that amount of money that I was building my lifestyle around. Um, so I kept thinking, I’ll just work harder and it’ll get easier, and I’ll just do another year and then it’ll all come together. And I decided to book a holiday because I, I just was struggling. And I, looking back, I think I was nearing burnout, but I didn’t know it at the time. So I booked to go on holiday to the Maldives with my he’s now my husband, but at the time he was my, my boyfriend, Andy. And we were a week into our 2-week holiday in paradise, and I got a phone call from my brother to say that my mum had died completely suddenly and unexpectedly. And I was halfway across the world, and I remember sitting looking out to this beach and beautiful sea in paradise as we were trying to navigate getting flights home. And it was 24 hours before I could get a flight home.

Nicky Lowe [00:06:21]:
And I kind of was sat having this really bizarre experience of being in one of the most beautiful places in the world, coming to terms with like the worst possible news I ever could. And then there was the long journey home. And a few days later, I arrived back and went to the hospital where my mum had been taken, and stood beside her body for the last time. And I’d never been in the presence of someone who’d died before. And not only was it the first pain I’d ever seen like that, it was the person I loved most in the world. And that changes something in you, and it certainly changed something in me. I think it changed my relationship with time, with success, with what mattered. And I want to be really clear about this, because hindsight can make our stories much neater than they actually are.

Nicky Lowe [00:07:17]:
My mum dying didn’t suddenly make me hate my career. I already knew something wasn’t right. What losing her did was give me perspective and the courage to confront what I already knew. Because the life I was building didn’t feel like the life I wanted to live. And I started asking myself some pretty confronting questions like, how do I actually want to spend my time knowing that you never know how short your time is? So am I spending my time in a way that I want to? You know, what difference do I want to make? You know, if that was my time cut short, am I making the difference I want to make? And actually, when my own life is measured, like when my own time comes, what will actually matter? And I’d already been introduced to coaching through my corporate career as a way of leading and developing people. I’d actually gone on a training course about managing cross-cultural teams, and they’d introduced me to this concept of coaching, and I’d not heard of it before. And what I came to realise was I was probably doing some of that in my own leadership. But I wanted to learn more, and I’d seen how powerful coaching conversations could be when I started to apply it in my own leadership.

Nicky Lowe [00:08:33]:
And then I eventually hired my own exec coach, and I fell in love with coaching. And I think that planted the seed. So when my mum died, that seed just kind of started to grow and flourish because I fell in love with coaching because it was not about giving people answers, but it’s what can happen when someone asks you a question that helps you see yourself differently, when someone creates enough space for you to hear what you actually think. And I remember thinking, I want to learn how to do this for other people. So I decided to hand my notice in and retrain as an exec coach. So I did that, and I took that year to retrain and qualify. And then on the 6th of September 2006, I launched Illuminate. Into my business, my exec coaching business, and I had absolutely no idea where it would lead.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:31]:
And that’s what brings me to the first lesson in my 20 lessons, which is bet on yourself. Like, leaving my corporate career didn’t make any sense on paper. You know, I was on a good salary, I was on a good track record, I was on this good success track. And I invested kind of years into building my career, and I remember speaking to people about my idea, and so many people thought I was crazy. Like, why would you walk away from the big career? Why would you walk away from the big salary? And I think the big thing I learned is that whenever we make a big decision, other people inevitably view it through their own lens, their own appetite for risk perhaps, their own values, their own idea of what success looks like. And if we’re not careful, we start living according to somebody else’s definition of a good life. And I’ve learned that at some point you have to self-source your own definition of success, and hopefully sooner rather than later. And taking that bet on yourself— and I remember thinking that taking that bet doesn’t mean you know that it’s going to work out, you know, I certainly didn’t know that.

Nicky Lowe [00:10:53]:
It’s more, whatever happens, I trust myself to respond. And that takes a degree of self-assurance, but it’s a different kind of confidence because it’s a confidence in not knowing what the outcome’s gonna be, but trusting you’ve got the resourcefulness. So that first lesson about taking a bet on yourself, and I’m so glad I did. Lesson 2, and this hasn’t always been easy, is about becoming your own best cheerleader. Running a business has probably been one of the greatest exercises in emotional resilience I’ve ever experienced because there are so many setbacks. I mean, particularly when I first launched, like, I, I just qualified as a coach, I’d got no experience, people didn’t know me as that, I hadn’t got relationships with organisations, it wasn’t like I’d got an HR background or, you know, anything like that to really catapult me forward. So, I had to learn how to really believe in myself. And that confidence— often confidence is an evidence-based belief, but I’d got no evidence that I could do, do it because I hadn’t gone out and won the clients yet.

Nicky Lowe [00:12:05]:
And there are times, even like years into running my business, where there are proposals I really wanted to win and didn’t win. There’s ideas that I’ve launched that I think thought were good and that nobody has brought. There’s been really quiet months. Like we talk about in business, the feast and famine. There are months when you feel like you’re in famine, where it’s just quiet and you feel like customers are choosing other people. As I say, there’s things that I’ve launched and there’s been crickets. Like, no, nobody’s kind of responded. And one of the most important distinctions I think I’ve learned through that process is the difference between self-criticism and self-correction.

Nicky Lowe [00:12:50]:
Because self-criticism can say, like, what’s wrong with me? And that can be quite damaging because you go looking for an answer to that, and the answer is not going to be helpful, is it? Whereas self-correction asks, what can I learn from this? You know, you might have the same disappointing result, but it gives you a completely different internal response. And I’m still practicing this. Can I look honestly at something that hasn’t worked? You know, can I take responsibility? Can I learn? And can I change? Without turning the result into a verdict on me. Because I think what’s really important is when your confidence is entirely dependent on that last piece of external validation you’ve received, you’re on a pretty exhausting rollercoaster, and it’s a really rocky, like, tricky ground to be standing on because it— and at any point it can crumble. So becoming your best cheerleader is being able to rely on internal sources of validation and not go to self-criticism when things are not working out. Lesson 3 has been that everything has seasons, and I love this metaphor now, but I didn’t know it when I started my business. You know, we know that, like, in our world we live in nature that is defined by the seasons, you know, spring, summer, autumn, winter. But there are also those seasons in business and life.

Nicky Lowe [00:14:23]:
So spring is about when you’re planting the seeds, you’re starting again, you’re creating. And then there are summers where things seem to flourish and you can see everything’s in bloom. And then there are autumns when you’re harvesting what’s worked and perhaps you’re pruning what hasn’t. And then there are winters where it looks like nothing is happening. And I think over the years, particularly early in my business, I thought in— when I was experiencing winters in my business, I thought something was wrong, you know, that I needed to work harder, fix it, or do more. And I think now I have much more respect for the seasons in my business and respect for the winter. Because actually incredibly important things have happened in my business when externally it’s looked like not much is happening at all. Like, I’ve been doing the reflection, I’ve been doing the learning, the recalibration, perhaps the rest, and the reinvention has actually come in those winters.

Nicky Lowe [00:15:29]:
So I think the 20 years I’ve learned that longevity isn’t about somehow keeping yourself permanently in summers, because that’s impossible, It’s about recognising the season you’re in, respecting it, and knowing how to work with it. Lesson 4 is about investing in yourself. I don’t even want to think about how much money I’ve spent on development over the years, whether it be my qualifications, my accreditations, my coaching training, my supervision, therapy, books, training programmes. Conferences, like you name it. And I love that kind of investing in yourself, and I think it has been such an important part of my success in business because, you know, some of those things have given me more knowledge or capability, and others have fundamentally changed me. And I think Often we think in business about spending money on websites or technology or marketing, but ultimately, particularly in a business like mine, I’m one of the instruments through which the work happens. So investing in the person making the decisions and doing the work has given me some of the greatest returns in my business. Lesson 5 is about becoming a parent can change your ambition without diminishing it.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:05]:
Now, obviously, this one is particularly relevant to the podcast because becoming a mum changed my relationship with ambition far more than I expected. So, I started my business before I had my children. So, my— obviously, my business is 20 years old and my eldest child is 13 and a half. So, I had a, you know, a big chunk of time running my business before I had children. And I knew that I still wanted to run my business, but I had no idea what that might look like. And I still wanted to do meaningful work. I still wanted to grow. I still wanted to make an impact.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:43]:
But suddenly I also wanted to be present for my children and protect my health and my relationships and actually experience the life I was working so hard to create. And if you’ve listened to that podcast for a while, you know that I really struggled with that tension. And at times that career and caring conundrum took me under. It literally hit the burnout wall. And there were moments where I genuinely questioned whether I’d somehow become less ambitious. And I realised now I hadn’t. My ambition was evolving because I was evolving and my life was evolving. You know, my capacity had changed, my priorities had changed.

Nicky Lowe [00:18:26]:
And my definition of success had changed, but that hadn’t diluted my ambition, but it had broadened my definition of success. And I think that was a really powerful reframe for me because at times I kind of questioned, like, was I playing with my business? I felt like I wasn’t a proper businesswoman because I was trying to do it around my children and wasn’t doing the hours that I perhaps had done before. And I belittled myself and my business in that process, but I now completely own that I have a different definition of success and I love it, and I am just as ambitious as I’ve always been, but I, I channel it in a different way. Lesson 6 is about experiment more and stay curious. If I was running my business exactly as I did back when I started, I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have a business anymore because the world has changed, technology has changed, work has changed, leadership has changed, and my clients have changed, and so have I. So Illuminate had to change too, and at points I found that easier than others. So I’ve experimented with different services, programs, technology, content, partnerships, marketing, and some experiments have worked amazingly, but plenty didn’t. And luckily, I think I found that experimenting easier than some of the people because I’m naturally hugely curious.

Nicky Lowe [00:20:03]:
And so I followed my curiosity. And I remember in, um, COVID, actually, because I’d already started Wisdom for Working Mums a few years before, and so I had an online platform platform. I had a way of connecting to people virtually where a lot of my, um, counterparts in the industry hadn’t. They were only doing face-to-face stuff. And I remember a number of them reaching out in COVID and going, how did you do it? What have you learned? And realizing— and I hadn’t realized up to that point— oh gosh, I’d evolved before I’d been forced to in a lot of ways. And I suppose motherhood did force me because I couldn’t work the hours or just trade my time for money in the way that I did before. But I’ve, I’ve really embraced that experimental side of myself, that innovative type side of myself. And increasingly, I’m less interested in protecting what I’ve built in the business.

Nicky Lowe [00:20:59]:
I’m more and more interested in staying curious about what it could become, because we know longevity isn’t repeating yesterday’s successful formula forever. It requires reinvention, and I think I’ve done that over the years. But along with that lesson, lesson 7 is the fact that creating something is vulnerable. And this was something I learned from the work of Brené Brown. And if you’ve not come across Brené Brown, like, oh my gosh, you need to seek out her work. Brené is, like, amazing. She talks about the power of vulnerability and how we have to dare greatly and lean into vulnerability. It’s the birthplace of joy and creativity and innovation.

Nicky Lowe [00:21:47]:
And I remember hearing her say that creativity is one of the hardest things to do because it’s one of the most vulnerable things to do. And I heard that and thought, okay, I get it at some level, but I’m not somebody who’s a creator. Like, I didn’t see myself as being creative. Um, so like heard the lesson intellectually but didn’t like understand it. But then I came to realize that what I do in business as an entrepreneur is an act of creation. And I think that hit me the first time I ever decided to launch an online masterclass, and I was kind of marketing it out to the world, and I hit this huge amount of resistance. And I found myself telling myself this story like, I don’t want to do this, this isn’t what I want to do. And I was like, what’s going on here? Because nobody’s forcing you to do this.

Nicky Lowe [00:22:46]:
You’ve chosen to do this and you wanted to do it. So why are you now saying you don’t want to? What is this resistance about? And I realised I was having like this vulnerability hangover that I was taking something that existed in my head and I was putting it out into the world. And then everybody else gets to decide what they think about it. You know, they can love it, they can ignore it, they can criticise it, they can reject it, and I couldn’t control that. And I had to realise that that was like me leaning into my vulnerability of creating something. And I’ve learned that resilience isn’t necessarily about kind of developing a thicker skin. For me, it’s more about understanding what does the possibility of that rejection activate in me? You know, do I become defensive? Do I withdraw? Do I procrastinate? Do I work harder to prove myself? Do I start doubting everything? The goal isn’t to stop caring about what people think. Clearly, it’s really important to me what people, you know, think.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:51]:
It’s learning not to let somebody else’s response to my work determine my worth. Lesson 8 is about self-awareness giving you agency. One of my favourite questions, and sometimes one of my least favourite questions, is, What am I contributing to this? So if I hit a problem or a disagreement or friction or things don’t work out, asking myself, what am I contributing to this? Notice that’s not how is everything my fault? That isn’t the question, but it’s like, what’s my part? Like, what assumption am I making? What’s this triggering in me? What story am I telling myself about it? And I find that incredibly empowering because it gives me personal power. Because when everything is somebody else’s or something else’s fault, I’ve got very little power over that. But when I can see my contribution, I can see where I’ve got choices. And that’s why for me, self-awareness isn’t about self-blame. It’s about self-agency because that awareness creates choice, which I think fundamentally is what I’m doing with any coaching clients. And raising their awareness to give them more choice about the decisions or the actions that they take.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:13]:
Lesson 9 is what got you here won’t necessarily get you there. And this is something I work with my coaching clients on. Often what gets us to one level in leadership isn’t what’s going to get us to the next level, and we kind of have to undo some of our learning. And our greatest strengths can almost eventually become our greatest constraints. You know, if you take the example of a phenomenal work ethic can become the answer is always to work harder. Perfectionism can create exceptional standards, but then also make delegation almost impossible. Independence can make you resourceful, but can make you then terrible at asking for help. Perhaps being the person who’s always had the answers can make it incredibly difficult to let go and let go and let somebody else know more than you.

Nicky Lowe [00:26:08]:
So sometimes growth isn’t about adding another capability or another tool in your toolkit. Sometimes it’s about relinquishing a behavior, a belief, or an identity that served you brilliantly in the past. Because what gets us to one level— and I’ve had to kind of— that’s the evolution that I’ve gone through in my business, that what got you to one level absolutely deserves respect, but doesn’t automatically deserve to come where you’re going next. And I’ve had to let go of certain parts of my identity that I over-relied on to get to the next level. Lesson 10 is about have the conversation, and this is still a learning edge for me. Like, I naturally like harmony, and I care about relationships, and I can see other people’s perspectives, which can mean that I don’t always respect my perspective when there’s a difficult conversation to have. And in the past, I’ve avoided difficult conversations because I don’t want to upset somebody or be misunderstood. And perhaps you’ve done this too.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:21]:
You don’t have the conversation, but you have it approximately 47 million times in your head. And usually the imaginary version is far worse than the real one. And I’ve learned that avoiding the discomfort doesn’t remove it, it usually prolongs it, and in certain cases has made it worse. So I’ve really developed my capacity. As I say, it’s still a work in process, but I’ve really developed my capacity to practice saying things earlier, clear, more clearly, more kindly. And it’s almost that if you’ve come across the work of Kim Scott of Radical Candour, you know, I care so deeply that I’m going to say this directly. And accepting that the courage to do that doesn’t mean you’re comfortable doing it, but it means you’re willing to enter the discomfort because the relationship or the issue matters. And that has been like a powerful lesson for me and one that I’m really proud that I’ve developed my capacity Like, I am so much more able to lean into those conversations more powerfully.

Nicky Lowe [00:28:26]:
So that’s 10 lessons, and you might already notice that we’re moving further and further away from lessons about how to run a successful business. And that’s probably the thing that struck me most as I’ve been reflecting on these, because the next 10 are even less about business. They’re really about how I want to work, lead, and live. So lesson 11 is about don’t be a lone wolf. I started my business alone, but I absolutely didn’t build it alone. There have been friends, family members that have cheerleaded me along the way. There have been coaches, mentors, supervisors, colleagues, associates, team members, and of course my friends and family. They’ve challenged me, they’ve encouraged me, they’ve introduced me to someone, they’ve taught me something, or simply reminded me just to keep going.

Nicky Lowe [00:29:27]:
And I’ve been in a place of over-independence in the past, like I have been the lone wolf, definitely in the past. And I think capable people are particularly susceptible To kind of over-reliance and over-independence, because there’s that little voice that says, well, I can figure it out myself. And yes, you probably can, but why does that mean you should? And one of my favourite reminders now is you don’t kind of get extra points for doing life the hard way. There’s no, like, medal for, like, oh, you did it harder. I— one of my greatest joys, and you’ve probably heard me talk about this before, has been the team that I’ve built. Like, I— when I first started thinking about hiring a team, I was like, I don’t need a team. I enjoy working on my own. I’m not like— I’m not— although I can be extrovert, I love my introverted time, and I love my independence, but now one of the things that I’m most proud of is the team that I’ve built around me.

Nicky Lowe [00:30:41]:
And I think I stayed in lone wolf for longer than I probably should have done, and I’m so glad that I’m no longer in that. Lesson 12 is you don’t have to do everything you’re capable of. And this is related to lesson 11. You know, I’m a doer. If something needs sorting, I’ll sort it. If there’s a problem, I’ll solve it. And that has served me brilliantly for years until it didn’t, because that capability can become a trap. You think, well, it’d be quicker if I do it, and sometimes it will, but leadership requires a different question.

Nicky Lowe [00:31:18]:
Not can I do this, but am I the best person to do this? Is this the best use of my time and energy? And actually, good leadership means stepping back so somebody else can step forward. And I love that I have got people that are in their zone of genius around me that can do stuff far better than I can. Like, I just love that. Lesson 13 is about keep learning. And I, I think I said earlier, like, I genuinely think curiosity has been one of my greatest assets. I love learning. Like, people laugh at me, those that close to me, and my clients will know I can recommend— if you want a book recommendation, I can give you one. I love to read books, and I’m actually— one of my superpowers, which I didn’t realize, I thought everybody did this, but I’m really good at retaining information from books.

Nicky Lowe [00:32:09]:
So I can, I can tell you quotes from books, like concepts from books that have made a difference to me. So I love that. Like, I love books, I love podcasts, I love courses, I love learning from people in conversations. I also love kind of my qualifications, and I’m constantly getting qualifications. I think in the early years in my business, I did it to kind of give myself the badge of I’m good enough, and now I just do it because I love it. And increasingly, I love finding people who know more about something than I do and saying, you know more, can I learn from you? And that can be in any area of my business. Like, literally a couple of months ago, I, I had this thing that when I was looking at myself on video, on podcasts, I was like, my makeup just looks awful. Like, I see teenagers these days that watch all the YouTube videos and like are phenomenal at doing makeup.

Nicky Lowe [00:33:04]:
I’ve never been good at doing my makeup, and I actually find doing makeup stressful. So I was like, I know this incredible lady that lives near me called Rebecca who’s like a phenomenal makeup artist. And I was like, can I hire her to give me a makeup lesson? And honestly, she was incredible. What I learned about what brushes to use and what my skin needs, and it was, it was worth its weight in gold. And I think there’s something incredibly powerful about not trying to be the expert in every room. And the more experienced I’ve become, the more comfortable I’ve become saying, I don’t know, like, and I want to learn from the best. My knowledge from 2006 couldn’t sustain the work I do today. I’ve had to keep learning, and that has fueled my ability to keep evolving.

Nicky Lowe [00:33:56]:
Lesson 14 is that sometimes the bravest career decision isn’t the most impressive one. Because I think we have this very particular picture of career progress, you know, a bigger role, a bigger salary, a bigger team, a bigger title, you know, it’s up, up, up, bigger, bigger, bigger. But some of the bravest career decisions I’ve made and witnessed other people making don’t always look impressive from the outside. It might be a sideways move. It might be saying no. It might be leaving, starting again, taking less money in exchange for more life, choosing meaning over prestige. A career decision doesn’t have to look impressive on LinkedIn to be transformational in real life. And I think my own business exists because I made one of those decisions.

Nicky Lowe [00:34:50]:
Lesson 15 is success isn’t success if it costs you your health. This is the one I wish I hadn’t had to learn the hard way. You know, my experience of burnout, um, coming up to 13 years ago fundamentally changed how I understand high performance because some of the qualities I’d been praised for throughout my career, you know, the drive, the conscientiousness, the high standards, the ability to keep going, they became liabilities when I didn’t know when to stop. And that’s the uncomfortable thing about strengths. Overused, they become your weakness. And our bodies have an extraordinary ability to compensate. So they can keep pushing until they no longer can. So I no longer see wellbeing as something separate from performance.

Nicky Lowe [00:35:43]:
It’s one of the conditions that makes sustainable performance possible. Because no level of professional success compensates for losing your ability to enjoy the life you’ve worked so hard to create. And I’ve learned that the hard way. And that’s why I’m really like, I try to surround my people, myself with people that prioritise their health and wellbeing as much as their success. And that’s what I love about like my team. We’ve each got like one of the things that we’ve got is Oura rings and we’re, we’re often looking at each other’s, like, how well did you sleep last night? What can we take off your plate today if you didn’t sleep very well? And, you know, they put their bodies before their business, and I can so easily override my body with my business. So surrounding myself with people helps me to remember this lesson because it doesn’t always come naturally to me. Lesson 16 is rest is part of performance, not the reward for it.

Nicky Lowe [00:36:45]:
And I think this might be one of the hardest ones for us as working mums. For years, I treated rest as something I’d get to when everything was done, which would be absolutely fine if everything were ever done, but there’s always another email, there’s always another task, and then you close the laptop and there’s a meal to make, the kitchen to clean. The school form or the bag to pack, you know, something or somebody needs me. So the list, I don’t think ever reaches zero. I was going to say rarely, but it never does. It never reaches zero. So if rest has to be earned by completing everything, you can spend your whole life trying to qualify for it. And I’ve had to fundamentally rethink that.

Nicky Lowe [00:37:29]:
Like, recovery isn’t the opposite of performance. It’s one of the things that makes sustainable performance possible. And we shouldn’t have to become exhausted before we’re allowed to rest. So, I have to keep guardrails in place for me to remember to do this. You know, making sure I book my holidays, making sure that I don’t overcommit, making sure that I have weekends that are restful and more kind of grounding. But rest is a fundamental part of performance. Lesson 17 is your definition of success is allowed to change. You know, the version of success I wanted in my 20s isn’t the version I want now.

Nicky Lowe [00:38:11]:
Thank goodness. Like, I’m different, my circumstances are different, my priorities, my priorities are different. And yet we can spend years pursuing goals chosen by an earlier version of ourselves without really stopping to ask, do I still want this? So these are the questions that I kind of return to, like, what matters to me now? What am I no longer willing to sacrifice? What kind of life am I actually creating? Because changing your definition of success isn’t moving the goalposts, it’s sometimes just evidence that you’ve, you’ve grown. Lesson 18 is that your life outside work isn’t separate from your leadership, and I I think this has become one of the central beliefs underpinning everything I do. Leadership is never just about work. It’s about being human, in my opinion. We don’t arrive at work as these neatly compartmentalised professional beings that can just shut off our kind of personal lives. You know, we arrive after a sleepless night with a child, or an argument with our partner, or worrying about a parent or a friend, or grieving somebody.

Nicky Lowe [00:39:21]:
You know, navigating hormonal changes, celebrating something wonderful, or carrying something nobody else in that meeting knows anything about. And our lives influence our leadership, and our leadership influences our lives. And for me, you can’t separate them. It’s developing the capacity to lead well within the reality of a whole human life. And lesson 19 is people matter more than anything else. 20 years has given me a lot of ways to measure success, you know, whether it’s my revenue, my profit, my clients, my programmes, my awards, my podcast downloads. But when I look back, the 20 years aren’t about those things. What I think about is the people.

Nicky Lowe [00:40:10]:
I think about the clients who’ve trusted me at incredibly vulnerable moments in their lives, or really personal information. It’s the person stepping into a role they weren’t sure they were capable of, or the person who chose their health before their body forced them to. The working mum who realised she didn’t simply need to get better at coping, or the leader who finally had the conversation they’re avoiding. It’s also about the people that have supported me through those 20 years. And being trusted with those moments is one of the greatest privileges of the work I do. And after 20 years, that’s what means something to me. And lesson 20, the final lesson, is probably the most important one. Don’t postpone your life.

Nicky Lowe [00:41:07]:
And it’s the lesson underneath all of them. And it’s where this whole story began. I think losing my mum taught me very abruptly that time isn’t guaranteed, and I know that, and I know it in a way that I wish I didn’t. And I still forget. I still catch myself thinking, I’ll slow down after this project, or I’ll look after myself when work settles down, or I’ll spend more time with the people I love when I’m less busy. There’s always another reason to postpone. But life doesn’t begin when we’ve finished achieving. You know, this is life, this ordinary Wednesday when you might be listening to this podcast.

Nicky Lowe [00:41:46]:
It’s the mad dash of the school run, the meeting you’re worried about, the deadline, the dog walk, the bedtime story, the career you’re building, and the people waiting for you when you close your laptop. Like, this is it. This is life. And perhaps the biggest thing that 20 years has taught me is, you know, that 20 years ago, losing my mum forced me to question the life I was creating. 20 years later, I think I’m still answering that question, and maybe we all are, and maybe that’s kind of what life’s about. It’s why my mission has never simply been about helping people become better leaders. It’s about helping people build careers and lives, that they don’t have to wait for a crisis to reevaluate. It’s often when we hit that brick wall of a, you know, health crisis, a bereavement, a loss, that we start to question our life and make those changes.

Nicky Lowe [00:42:44]:
And I don’t want people to have to hit those walls. I don’t want them to have to wait for the crisis. And I don’t say that glibly. I know we don’t all have the same choices. We don’t all have the same freedom. There are systems we’re part of, responsibilities that we carry, and circumstances we didn’t choose. But perhaps within those realities, there are places where we have more choice than we might realise. And that’s where the work begins.

Nicky Lowe [00:43:12]:
So I’m going to leave you with the question I’ve been sitting with as I’ve marked this anniversary. Are you building a successful career or a successful life? And what would it look like to have both? 20 years ago was one of the most painful experiences of my life, but it has become part of the purpose behind the work that I do today. And if I’m honest, the person I wish I could share this milestone with more than anyone is my mum, and I would give anything for her to be here to see what grew from that decision. And I hope she’s proud. And I’m incredibly grateful for the work, for the people, and for everything I’ve learned, and for the fact that 20 years later I’m still learning. So thank you for being part of this journey, whether you’ve listened to this podcast from the beginning or this is your first episode you’ve ever heard. Thank you. So 20 years 20 lessons and still learning.

Nicky Lowe [00:44:16]:
Until next time, take care. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom for Working Mums, I’d love for you to share it on social media or with the amazing women in your life. I’d also love to connect with you, so head over to illuminate-group.co.uk where you’ll find ways to stay in touch. And if this If this episode resonated with you, one of the best ways to support the show is by subscribing and leaving a review on iTunes. Your review helps other women discover this resource, so together we can lift each other up as we rise. So thanks for listening. Until next time, take care. Thank you.