Canada: The Language Of Leadership: Episode 1 - The Importance Of Striving For Constant Self-Improvement

with wheelchair basketball athlete, Amy Conroy

Join us for the first episode in our Language of Leadership podcast series, exploring the lessons business can take from sport when it comes to leadership. We have analysed the language used by elite individuals in sports and business, and developed six lessons for business leaders to take from sports leaders. In this series, we'll be discussing one lesson per episode with a leading figure in sport.

In this episode, broadcaster, Ayo Akinwolere, and Charlie Unwin, a sports performance psychologist, speak to wheelchair basketball athlete, Amy Conroy, about how sports leaders are distinct in their focus on constant self-improvement and how this can be translated into the world of business.

Transcript

Ayo Akinwolere: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Gowling WLG Language of Leadership podcast. I'm Ayo Akinwolere. I'm a broadcaster, changemaker and a World Record Swimmer and in this podcast series, we're going to be discussing what sports leaders can teach businesses about the science and art of getting the most from their teams and organisations. Working with my co-host, Charlie Unwin, a sports performance psychologist, Gowling WLG has analysed the language used by elite individuals in sport and business and developed six lessons for business leaders to take from the world of sport. In this podcast, we'll be talking about Striving for Constant Self-Improvement. Looking at how sports leaders are distinct in their focus on constant self-improvement and how this can be translated into the world of business. I'm also delighted today to welcome our guest, Amy Conroy, to talk to Charlie and I. But, before we get a brief introduction from Amy, Charlie, I think you should go first.

Charlie Unwin: Cheers Ayo, great to be here. So, I'm a performance psychologist as you mentioned. I work in three areas, that's sports, business and military. Um, and the thing that sort of comes together in all those three areas is human performance. It's something I've been fascinated for ages, my first career was in the army. So, I joined the army three days before the planes flew into the Twin Towers so for me, what I ended up doing was completely different to what I expected. As a Platoon Commander, I was on the front line in Iraq and in charge of 30 soldiers. I never imagined I'd ever be doing that, but I learned a lot about myself along the way. I was lucky to get seconded into that the British team and modern pentathlon, and understand Olympic sport a little bit more and the more I reflected on the training that I had, the experiences I had, the more that really psychology played a key role as to helping people achieve their own successes and it became something I kind of studied more formally and now I'm lucky enough to work with Premier League teams and academies in Olympic sports, with elite special forces, fighter pilots, and of course with business leaders, graduates as well in helping maximise their own human potential.

Ayo: Wow, I cannot wait to delve into your brain, sir. Gonna be really interesting. Amy?

Amy Conroy: Oh, tough to follow that. I'm gonna make mine up. My name is Amy Conroy. I'm a three-time Paralympian and I play wheelchair basketball for Great Britain. So, a bit of context of how I found wheelchair basketball. Back in the two leg days, always really sporty, and I started getting this pain in my knee. And I went back and forth to the doctors for the course of a year getting turned away and got to the point where I just started high school, you know, you've got two weeks to make a good first impression, make people think you're cool. Started collapsing and I remember one time my knee just kept giving away. And I panicked. And I crawled to the nearest building all in front of a guy that I fancied so not ideal at the time.

Ayo: Ugh. Interesting.

Amy: I know. At that point I went enough is enough my dignity is on the line here. My dad took me to A&E, and I remember very clearly being sat in the doctor's office being told that it was cancer, 50% chance of survival. I'd already lost my mum to cancer so I kind of thought, oh God this is it. Went into hospital the next day where I spent a year. My dad was there, my hero by my side every day, some sticky times, lost the hair, only time I've ever had nits, kick a girl while she's down. There were some touch and go times, lots of surgeries, lost my leg, and then kind of went into remission, re-learned to walk and found wheelchair basketball. And I've been playing ever since.

Ayo: That's insane. Wow. I mean, between the two of you, this should be a really fascinating conversation and how also, we bring this back into the world of business as well. So, I guess let's get going with this. Who knows where this is going to end up? But I'm sure there'll be a wonderful conversation regardless. So, Charlie, let's let's break it down them. From your perspective, this this idea of striving for constant self-improvement? How can we see this? How can we phrase this?

Charlie: Yeah, I mean, when you hear Amy talk about what's got her to where she is you can see the importance and the relevance of our own personal self-improvements and the journey and the things that we've got to overcome to achieve our goals and ambitions. But for me, sports leaders are distinct in their ability to develop human potential that that is their primary focus. I think in business, it's kind of the same. Businesses talk about developing people. But it often feels like more of a secondary focus. It's not because they know they don't realise it's important because I think they do. But fundamentally, they're focusing more on products on processes on services, and people more of a kind of afterthought. If we've got good people who are good at their job. If we help them then it's going to improve the bottom line. The other thing I suppose around this theme around constant self-improvement is that it's a process of adaptation. Practice and training is all about adapting mentally and physically to get better. And so, we've got to be able to apply that process more consciously which in sport gets done really, really well. Whereas in business, perhaps we can be less conscious about the process of human development and performance.

Ayo: Yeah, I'm interested in what you've talked about adapting. And I'm sure that's something you've had to do over time is to adapt to a new body to a new mindset and into a new world. In terms of adaptation, how do you see that or how have you seen that evolve in your in your life?

Amy: Yeah, I guess with adaptation, I think being open to change, and being able to deal with change is something that's so important in sport and in life, I guess there's kind of the two types of change that happened to you the stuff that happens to you. And I think the people, especially in sport, the ones who kind of can re-trajectory, is that a word? And re-evaluate where they're going. So within our team, we've often been told, oh we have to move cities, and a lot of people are, well I've built a house here, and I'm stuck in it and then the ones who moan and complain about it, are the ones who don't bounce back as quickly so I think being able to adapt to change, get on with it, pity parties don't really get you anywhere, at some point, you draw a line under the woe is me and get stuck in. I think they're the people who are self-accountable, who tend to do better. And then the change that you kind of bring upon yourself, whether that's the small one percenters atomic habits, where you break down everything you do, and you think, how can I improve in all these areas, to being open to big change, and it's cheesy, but seeing it as an opportunity, being like, thinking of yourself as someone who's like, if I wanted to do this, I would put myself out there and do it kind of back myself and do everything I can to make it happen.

Ayo: Talk about backing yourself, how important is it for you to think or recognise that you aren't the finished article?

Amy: 100%, I think confidence is obviously so important in sport and in life. But once that becomes arrogance and complacency, and you start settling, and you lose that hunger, I think that's where it can be dangerous, because I think they often say when you've won a championship, that's great. But It's always harder then for the next one, because people start settling, they maybe don't reflect so much on what their 'why' is, they lose that hunger. And then obviously you're a target then and people if you stay with what you're doing, if you always do what you've always done and you'll always be what you already are, or something like that one of those sayings.

Charlie: Yeah, it's very public as well, isn't it? What you do? People can analyse it on video, they can get into the ins and outs of your performance in a way that would never happen in business. More's the pity we'd probably learn a lot from you know, great business leaders. But yeah, being able to sort of change that narrative. It's interesting you mentioned, there's two things around changing the narrative, the story I tell myself, but also being able to update skills, update processes to make it better to constantly analyse, which it's quite, I suppose, a scary process to go through sometimes as well. It's scary, isn't it to have to keep self-improving?

Amy: It can be definitely, I think, sometimes in sport, it's easiest that I try and bring that into everyday life. Because in sport, you automatically after every session, you'll reflect, re-evaluate what you've done, you seek feedback and criticism, like you want to be told where you're going wrong. And sometimes we don't always do that in life, we don't see feedback as a good thing, but it helps. So, you always want to be improving. I think the most obvious thing is when you see kind of juniors first start playing, and you can see the people have this raw talent, and then they kind of can get complacent. And it's the ones, you know, cheesy and over said, but what's the saying, talent, hard work. Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn't work hard. And it's just so true. In sport, the people that kind of get a bit of success early, and then just don't kind of change and want to adapt and keep working. And they just kind of pfft.

Ayo: Yeah, I'm really interested in that. So cool, interesting. Now, it kind of brings us into what we're going to talk about next, really is the idea that improvement requires training and also practice, you know, you've got all that talent, but you've also got to practice and nurture it. Right. So, you know, it's interesting that sports leaders spend what 90% of their time training and also 10% of their time competing, but in business, the emphasis is often the other way round, isn't it? Amy? How would it impact your performance if you adopted the ratio, that ratio the other way around? So, 10% training?

Charlie: Yeah, yeah.

Amy: It would be a disaster.

Charlie: You don't think about that much in practising.

Amy: Yeah, that's surprising that that's the way in business because it just wouldn't work in sport. Kind of as I think when Muhammad Ali great quote saying about the hard work is done kind of behind the side-lines when no one's watching, kind of that's when you improve...

Ayo: It really is, isn't it?

Amy: And then you're ready to go once it's showtime. Like the hard work is done in private so you can succeed in public.

Charlie: And that's as much a mental thing....

Amy: Yeah.

Charlie: ...as a physical thing as well isn't it, that confidence? I think that 90% of athletes say where do you get your confidence from? I get my confidence from knowing what I've done...

Amy: Yeah. Yeah.

Charlie: ...in preparation and being able to recall those experiences...

Amy Conroy: Exactly.

Charlie: ...and that's why in psychology, getting athletes to visualise and go back over those positive experiences is an important anchor, it's like a priming for us to being able to compete at our best. But it is a challenge, right? In business because the goal of business is sometimes very different, we're constantly performing all the time and having the time or the luxury as they might say, to be able to self-improve to be able to focus on having a go at something with the risk of getting it wrong. And I think great leaders create the space for that, they create a space where people. they can, they can fail, they can have a go at something with the goal of self-improvement with the goal of getting better.

Amy: 100%. I've noticed that I've had various coaches throughout the years, and people who can create, like leaders who create an environment that feels like psychologically safe to take risks, like failing is good. That's when you learn. Often when people have success, they're complacent. And you often don't reflect because like, oh, we're fine. And it's when you fail, it's when you have to kind of, no matter at what stage it is, you have to reflect that, okay, where is it going wrong? And being able to take risks is so important, because again, goes back to change, if you're not willing to, kind of, if you're staying in your comfort zone, not a lot happens there. It's comfortable.

Ayo: So interesting, just before we started recording the podcast, we were talking about various leaders, coaches, I was talking about leaders might might sense as well. And this is something I'm always fascinated in and probably interested from to hear from your perspective.

How can the way leaders feel about themselves, so, if you've got a leader that's used to you know, beating themselves up about getting things right all the time. That can also reflect on on their teams. Right?

Charlie: Yeah, totally yeah yeah. I mean leaders almost are the mirror to their own teams. I do a lot funnily enough in the equestrian world, which is very interesting because how you are as a person is mirrored in the horse, which is a very intuitive animal and horses don't rationalise, so you can't convince through rational conversation a horse, you know half a ton of animal to do something. But they rather they mirror or reflect back how, how you make them feel. So, being able to manage yourself as a leader as a coach becomes really important because that instills confidence. I mean Amy, you must have had so many coaches and performance directors and people who influence you. The way they sort of present themselves and they are able to demonstrate that their own kind of desire to want to self-improve to be humble, right? That must make a huge difference to how you and the team operate.

Amy: Definitely, I think in sport it all seems to stem from the coach or the leader, the environment that's created, and I guess I've obviously I've never coached, but I've captained for Tokyo, and I realised like the importance of vulnerability in leadership. Because in sports sometimes it can be a bit toxic like you don't want to seem like you're you're weak or you're struggling, you want to seem like a strong leader, whereas actually everyone struggles. And it was during lockdown, my dad was really, really sick and it was just me caring for him, and I was like oh my God, I'm going to lose him he's dying and he's fine now, but at the time I was like I don't know what like I don't know what to do I'm struggling and it was really scary, but opening up to the team over Zoom and then everyone else started opening up and then we connected on so much more of a deep level because obviously everyone does struggle and it's authentic to say if you are and having a safe environment where some people could be like actually, I'm not doing okay, it created such meaningful relationships and then because we had each other's back more kind of off court, on court when pressure hits and normally people get defensive and take things personally because they knew like you know ride or die I've got your back off court, on court people could take feedback better. So, it's like taking the time to get to know people on a personal level. I found like it, it's helping on court.

Ayo: This is really interesting because this this brings me our next point about performance over results because, you know, as a sports fan, we're often only focused on the result, right? Has our team won? By what margins? I'm an Arsenal fan it's been a...

Amy: Have we embarrassed them enough?

Ayo: ...Yeah, it's been an okay season, but I want us to get top 4. But you know, for sports leaders in particular, is the result the most important thing or is it more creating an environment that encourages others to come forward to get that destined result?

Amy: That's such a good question, and when I first started I thought it's win or nothing and no matter what it takes to get there, whereas actually I've realised, kind of we've had games where we went in like big games where we've won, but we expected to win and we came away and you can just tell by the energy and the changing room afterwards, like we're not pleased with ourselves, 'cause we had all these goals and things we wanted to achieve and we just didn't do it. And again, we've lost but then, like actually we hit what we wanted to do, so 100% the scoreline doesn't necessarily mean it's good.

Ayo: C'mon you know.

Amy: I'm too competitive, I'll never, I'll always take a win over whatever cost, but that's such a good point.

Charlie: But you're always one step removed, aren't you from the score? So, it plays on your emotions, but you're always one step removed? The only thing that you can directly control is how you perform, forget the charts the statistics that you know all of that stuff at the end that the media create a narrative around. The only thing that you can control is how you perform together and there's a really, there's a really important implication to all of this that, something I notice, comparing the work I do in sports environments to business environments is that, in sports people have a much more nuanced language for performance. They get underneath the surface, and they can describe you know that they have 10 different words that might describe the sort of nuances of confidence, or the nuances of a certain technique that in business it always comes back to, you know this is what we're trying to achieve this is the, this is the end goal, go away, do your job. That language is a product I think of articulating, talking about the processes, the inputs, and talking off the pitch rather than just having the experience on the pitch as well. I mean, is that something you notice? Or is that just bread and butter for you?

Amy: I mean because it sounds bizarre kind of how you said about control what you can control and focus on that and how businesses will say oh, here's a goal go away and work on it, yet when you're saying about the 90% work, 10% training 'cause it just seems to conflict itself really. And I guess preparation for me is that is where you get the confidence and like we're talking about is the result the most important thing I think if you do everything you can to put yourself in the best position 'cause you owe it to yourself if that's your goal, you're like fine I'm all into this it hurts more when you put you know, your heart on the line for something but if you give it everything, and it doesn't go your way I think that's when you have no regrets. Sorry just to link back to the point you said about is performance and the score the most important thing.

Ayo: Yeah, I'm I'm also interested in the fact that you know you, you obviously play within a team, but do you ever think if we don't do well, coach is going to be really annoyed with us?

Amy: Oh yeah, yeah, oh we've...

Ayo: Is that, is that a motivator?

Amy: We've, for me personally, no, I don't think that would motivate me, I like compliments, no I'm very aware out of the corner of my eye if the coach is kind of, you know, throwing his clipboard and you think oh no, oh no you dread it and it gets in your head. So, the power of leadership, and the vibes that they create, I think my dissertation was on confidence in sport and I think females especially look to the coach or the leader to see like oh how we're doing, what's the vibe here, are we happy? Are we not?

Charlie: Yeah.

Ayo: Is there a difference between a male female mix on that in confidence in sport? Is that anything you've noticed?

Charlie: Yeah, I, I think there is generally I have to be, you know, very careful talking about that, but I think we do generally derive confidence from different areas, I mean that there's a greater level of competitiveness, but we're talking about the elite level of sport, right?

Ayo: Yeah, for sure for sure of course.

Charlie: There's not going to be a single human being that isn't immensely competitive at that level of sport. But interestingly competitive, competitiveness creates a meaning or an energy to what we're doing a reason for wanting to do it, but from what Amy says and it's repeated by every great sportsman you'll ever meet as that energy, that competitiveness is channeled into those discrete processes. And when it comes to self-improvement, every individual who is performing well is in control of their own incremental improvement. They know what they're trying to do and they have faith that everyone else in their team and around them is knows what they're trying to do as well, to incrementally improve and that word incremental I think is so important because, it's so easy to judge ourselves for the final outcome, you know, we invest in in sport it might be you know, winning the title, but in business it's about getting that promotion getting promoted to sort of partner or whatever it might be. Or hitting that sales target. And the more we obsess about that, the more we lose sight of the incremental challenges that motivate us on a day-to-day basis that allow us to get out of bed in the morning excited to say I'm this is what I'm trying to work at.

Ayo: It's interesting what he was just saying because I've just seen you get quite excited because you're operating at the highest level. But often it's the smaller tweaks that bring the better results. Right?

Amy: Completely and I got that wrong for years because I would think OK, I'm going to want to get selected that's when I'll reach this elusive happiness that's the goal, that's when I'll be happy, and then it was like OK well no when I'm in starting five, or we've got gold medals when we're world champions and I just wasn't getting the balance right of enjoying the journey and focusing on the smaller wins. And I guess something I could relate to that off court, is when I was first learning to walk, and I'd been in hospital. I'd been in a hospital bed, I was incredibly puny unlike now, I'm massive, gains.

Ayo: You're stacked man, you're stacked, you're good to go.

Amy Conroy: And I was just kind of, my rehab was standing for like 3 seconds a day shaking, crying, which my dad mocks me about today, with a Zimmer frame and I knew where I wanted to be I want to be able to walk freely and it just felt so far away. You know when there's like a storm in between and all you can see is like one step ahead of you, so important just to like manageable goals 'cause if you look into future, you think I'm nowhere near I want to be. It can feel so daunting, and demoralising and you feel like am I ever going to get there. So, I think the small incremental gains, daily check-ins, and praise yourself when you know, you do well I think we don't hype ourselves up enough. Like be your own hype man, with things when you're like looking back how far you've come like, hell yeah, I did that. I think that's so important.

Charlie: That that link to emotion is important one.

Ayo: That's yeah, so true.

Charlie: Yeah, it's a really important link, that link to emotion because you know, we've got that down as another, you know, talking point for this which is being better at recognising success and people talk about this a lot in business. The term that gets commonly used is celebrating success. And I think generally people genuinely think that means going out, you know having a few drinks at the end of the year or you know when we win a pitch or a new piece of work, let's go out and celebrate. That for me, I mean, I don't know about how you feel Amy? But that for me is not what celebrating success means. It's about being able to accurately and precisely anchor positive feeling or what we call effects to key processes, to key behaviors, that we can repeat next time we do this. Thereby kind of reinforcing those go-to behaviours. If we do this, we will be successful next time. So, I think there's a slightly different interpretation of what celebrating success means, but the emotions important right?

Amy: Yeah 100%.

Ayo: Yeah, but you know when we bring this back into sort of the business context and talk about celebration, how important is it, I guess as a leader, to celebrate the individuals as much as celebrating the business as a whole? Because you know at the end of the year, we've made certain certain profit, we've smashed it, but incrementally, it's all the cogs within that that...

Charlie: Yeah.

Ayo: ...have managed to get you to where you are right? How important is it to be aware of the individuals within those places?

Charlie: And that gets so easily lost right, in the melee of everything else that's going on. I mean the most inspiring thing for me about Paralympic sports is that you've got these individuals who have all got their own sort of narrative as to what's got them there and sometimes struggling with their own challenges. And we've, you know, heard Amy talking about very real-life challenges. When people turn up to work every morning that they are not performers, as such, they're human beings that they all come with their own challenges and leaders forget that sometimes. If they can play to, if they can tune into that, they can use it to their benefit, because even the most challenging of narratives that people might have in their own lives can be used to great effect and great energy and great motivation if the leader is prepared to tap into that, to understand that, to just ask about that, be curious. Whereas I think it's too easy to detach that sort that human side from the goal of the organisation, the goal of the team. And where that does happen in sport, because, let's face it, it can and it does, you kind of lose that ingredient that great sports teams have in that.

Amy: Definitely. Because we were speaking about that briefly earlier, just everyone talked about their own, the power of your own why and your why is great like motivation is great, but it's not realistic kind of always like, 5am in the morning, you don't expect, woo, let's go for a run, that's not going to happen. After I've had a bad game, I want to be sitting on the sofa watching Netflix, eating Monster Munch, so like your why is what makes you like, no I'm going to go kind of shoot alone, not for Instagram clout, not for my coach, for me. So, you know, your why makes you tick, often when we don't take the time to know what other people whys are and if you see them kind of get defensive or angry think, oh well they're just having a bad day. It's like, well, no. Did you trigger them? What are their values? Take the time to get to know what makes them tick. Why do they do this? How can you motivate them? I think that's such an underused tool in general in sport especially.

Ayo: No, for for sure, but I also you guys are talking about I mean, obviously we're talking about leaders here, but like we're all working within teams, right? So, as team members we should also be vigilant of the of the people around us and how they move some sometimes everyone's like, well, it's up to the leader to set that environment, but you're also empowered to do that as well, right?

Charlie: Yeah, you are. I definitely think it's important that the leader mirrors that because the leader can very quickly deprioritise that and people unconsciously, largely will unprioritise it for themselves.

If my boss doesn't think that's important, why should I invest as Amy describes, what could be quite a vulnerable process? Why should I take that risk? So the leader has to be able to role model this and I think good leaders, you know that they share what it is they're working on their own incremental gains, the little things that they're trying to get better and might not have been so good at in the past and when they do that, well, it's quite, it can be quite profound with the team.

Ayo: I just did erm go for it, go for it.

Amy: No no well, just just to like to contradict your point like a small bit. That's so true about the power of leaders, but just from kind of experience with coaches sometimes, if you have a coach that isn't great necessarily. No, not naming anyone...

Ayo: Exactly.

Amy: ...but then people in the team can then almost, that can manifest as excuses for themselves, but ah well, he's bringing negative energy to the side. But there's still accountability for yourself and being very aware of the energy, like energy is so magnetic, you guys have great energy. You can feel the energy in the room now. And just like being accountable for what you bring and are you an energy sucker? Like if things are going badly in kind of life, the office, on court, are you the one who then brings people up with the energy or? And I've just from personal experience, notice sometimes people can blame others and say no, I think put yourself first. Look at what you're doing before you're pointing fingers at on. Our coach is making me feel not confident, OK, well, what you're doing about it? So what?

Ayo: That's kind of what I was, I was sort of playing devil's advocate in many respects, because I was interested to hear your view and your view on that as someone who fundamentally works with within a team and someone who fundamentally works with leaders as well and also sports people. Because I'm interested in the fact that we all need to be accountable for how we navigate these spaces, right? I mean, I'm working for a company. Obviously, I'm listening to my leader, and they create the ethos and the environment in which I'm working in. But also, I have to reflect on myself and what's firstly, what's success for me. How do I want to interact with the people that I work with? And who am I with in this working environment? And that's what I was trying to sort of allude to in many respects, if that makes any sense?

Charlie: Yeah, do you know what, I think we've hit upon the very reason we're talking about the subject of continuous self-improvement because in sport, if the emphasis is more on personal improvement, it's easier to take that accountability. If in business there's less, there's less accountability for my personal reactions to pressure, to stress, to goals then because I don't know, I'm not given help, I'm not coached on how to respond to that. I'm not coached on how to take a deep breath, relax, how I can respond better to emotive situations when we're kind of, you know, the equivalent of one down you know one goal down in extra time or whatever it might be. Therefore, it's harder to take accountability if our fundamental culture isn't about self-improvement in the first place.

Ayo: Really good, honestly, we could be here all day.

Amy: We're legends, aren't we?

Ayo: I know I know, we're saving the world right now. Let's sort of bring it back because the podcast is coming to a close. Super lively conversation. Honestly, we could be here for hours, but I did want to ask one final thing and I guess let's go back to the idea of our business leaders. If there's one thing that they can take away from this podcast, what should that be? Let's start with you on this one Charlie. We'll finish with you.

Charlie: I think certainly coming at it from the bit you know, what can businesses and business leaders learn? There's a key difference, I think, between training and practice and I think helping people feel that they're a work in progress means emphasising practice. That might be more realistic in the business environment. Every day we have the opportunity to practice doing something well. We've just got to be more tuned into it. We've just got to be more conscious of it. As a leader, a leader can act as a coach in that regard and being able to help individuals understand, what is it you want to practice to either have more fun, have greater impact, or sell more, whatever it might be and you're trying to do in the team. So, I think seeing you know you're not trying to learn on the job, well, you are learning on the job in business, much more so. But being clear what that means, and being able to create a structure for learning, for reflection, for being able to identify goals that we can control at a personal level. So that we can feel those individual gains and incremental improvements on a daily basis. So, for me it it's creating that. That will allow businesses to, I think, realise the benefits that a lot of sports folk do.

Ayo: There we go Amy, what should they take?What should they take away from this, the one message?

Amy: I guess the main thing for me with incremental gains would just be like being open to change.

Being that guy who will kind of, you can be your own hype man with things, but also hold yourself accountable and not having excuses. And also if things aren't going well, if you're working yourself and you're going through a tough time, I guess like we said with mental health speaking about it, but also kind of almost in life, it's when your back's up against the wall and you're trying to dig deep and I don't know if I'm strong enough to get through this. They're the times when you can kind of bear when you don't want to give up they're the times when you can really make yourself proud and impress yourself and then look back and think if I can get through that like I can get through anything I trust myself now kind of the resilience, so I think if anyone is on their self-improvement journey and they're kind of thinking, I don't know if I'm strong enough for this. They're the times when that's when you get resilient. You don't get that when things are easy and positive. That's when it's easy, it's when times are tough that you can really grow and always make the best like biggest changes. And it might feel awful at the time, but it will pass, and things work better, and you'll become so much of a stronger character from it. So, because self-improvement can be daunting and it can be tough and you can have setbacks, but as long as you kind of keep getting up after each setback. You'll be flying.

Ayo: Ah look, thank you so much for coming in Amy. It's been brilliant to hear your thoughts on this and Charlie as always, absolutely fantastic and thank you guys for listening as well. Hopefully join us for the next one.

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