#126 The SDR DiscoCall Podcast - Kirsten McCoy

Welcome to the SDR Disco Call Vidcast and Podcast, a show designed for brand new sales reps working in the world of tech sales. I'm your host, Neil Buyen, and I'm going to be taking you on a journey on the SDR Disco Call Vidcast and Podcast. Did you know that you can watch this show live with the guests on YouTube? This show is available on YouTube at happyselling .

io. Hello listeners, watchers, fans and subscribers of the SDR Disco Call Show. Welcome back for another chapter. If this is your first time joining, this show is all about the world of sales and sales development and specifically work in the world of tech sales.

The goal here is to go meet interesting people around the world that work in this profession to give you an insight as to what is this life. all about to give you tips insights and help you out within your sales career or if you're thinking about coming on board what is it all about my name is nil buyan and i'm your host if you're listening to this in your local podcast platform what could really do us a big favor is if you can make sure that you give this episode a rating maybe save it or share it with your sales bestie if you're watching this on our youtube channel please make sure you help out with the algorithm by liking commenting and subscribing down below because what that does with the algorithm is tell it that this is some good decent content and it can help many others out there.

Now with this guest this is somebody that I've been super excited to bring on board. This is somebody that I've personally known for a hell of a long time and I've seen this person grow through the world of sales and I've been proud to be their sales coach. Without further ado guest can you introduce yourself? Who are you?

Where are you based and where do you work? Hey everybody my name's Kirsten. As you can tell by my accent, I am based in Scotland, Glasgow specifically, and I am currently an SDR at Patchworks. Pleasure to have you on board.

Kirsten, really love having you here and thank you so much for joining. So as you said, you're based out in Scotland, you're an SDR and you're working at Patchworks. At a super high level, what does Patchworks do? Yeah, so...

short answer of patchworks what we do is we are integration specialists and so we basically help businesses connect all their systems get rid of manual workload and make their lives easier i love that thank you very much and what would be like the typical people that you're prospecting or trying to book meetings with kirsten Yeah, so typical ICP tends to be sort of retail and e -commerce. I'd say that's where about 80 % of our clientele is based. So I'm usually speaking to sort of e -commerce managers, directors and quite a lot of ops leaders as well.

That's the people I tend to speak to. Thank you very much for sharing. And what we also like to know Kirsten is outside of the world of sales. What are your, and there are quite a few, what are your passions, hobbies and interests, Kirsten?

Well, since you know me so well, I think we're both in agreement that the biggest one is football. Playing it at quite a high level and also watching my team as well. I mean, quite perfect timing. My country's just got to a qualification for a World Cup, which I've never seen in my lifetime.

I'd definitely say that's the biggest one. I've got a mini dachshund, so he keeps being busy with sort of walks and everything in between as well. So, yeah, just try to keep myself busy and also attend the gym quite a lot. So I'm very active out with work.

But in my downtime, when I just get a little bit of a chill time, I'd probably say gaming is the one. Love that. Thank you very much, Kristen. This person has so much energy audience.

Like, my hat goes off to them with the gym, with the football, with everything this person is like. going at life a hundred miles an hour but it's cool to know that you're chill as well kirsten but what we like to do at this point in the show is visit our guests linkedin profile and as a reminder with all of our guests you can always find their linkedin profiles within the show notes on the podcast and also in the youtube description and we always encourage for you to connect with our guests if you want to ask any questions pick their brains on any of the topics that we've discussed today.

But with Kirsten, we can see that you're somebody that does post a lot of good content out there on LinkedIn. So again, listeners and audience, please make sure you go follow, give one of our posts a like, a comment down below. That would really help her out on the algorithm. But you've had an impressive and colorful career.

So if we go like way back in the day, you've worked at Scottish Power. You've been an account development manager at Bogle and Boyd. You've worked as a BD at Persons Centred Software. You worked at Mintago, familiar with those guys.

And obviously, you worked at a really cool company called Henry Shine One, where we obviously met. And now you're in the life of SDRing at Patchworks. But what we'd love to know, Kirsten, if you could take us back into the beginning as to how did you get into this SDR life and what's the story? Yeah, so...

I'll be honest, I didn't know that this is the sort of career you could have in life. When I associated sales as a job, I just thought working behind a till in a local shop. I didn't realise that this was actually a job because nobody in my family does it or has done it. So even when I kind of announced I was a sort of SDR, they were like, what does that mean?

I don't know what that actually is. But this is something I wish was maybe taught a little bit more in school. for me yeah because it's it's obviously definitely something I think personality wise I was very well suited to and very are well suited to but when I left school I didn't know what I wanted to do quite a lot you know similar to most people I didn't have a plan didn't want to go to college didn't want to go to uni I just felt when it came to studying I probably wasn't the best academic person out there to do that sort of thing um now all my friends were going on holiday um typical you kind of leave sixth year and everybody goes in their last sort of venture before hitting adult life and i was like great i want to go but i need a job i need money to go um after school i went to college for one year and i thought okay i'll try and be a teacher i was kind of going down that route and i think what motivated me for that was my little brother's autistic And throughout school, he really struggled.

My mum had to homeschool him for a while because they just couldn't cope with his demands and his needs. So I kind of wanted to go in as an ASN teacher, specifically based on what the impact was on my family. And I wanted to change that for the better. So I had a part -time job at the Works, the retail company, whilst I was in college.

So I had a little bit of sales experience face -to -face there. And after I'd kind of completed my HNC at college, I was like, I kind of want a year just to work and just try and earn as much money as I can. An opportunity came up where one of my friends was working at Scottish Power. They said they were hiring again.

They were going for a hiring phase. And why don't I try and, you know, go for it? So I thought, let's do nothing to lose, everything to gain. Let's go for it.

See what happens. It's experience nonetheless. Ended up going for the interview and... I left the interview and within 15 minutes, I got a call back saying, like, you're cool to start on Monday.

So I was buzzing. I think that was the first sort of taste of adult life and achievements and accomplishments that I'd properly had and done on my own. So I went in blindsided. I had no idea what to expect.

I was like, right, okay, a bit cliched. I didn't even pay for my own gas and electric, still stayed at home. Okay, like, let's go. You know how it is.

This was a sort of contact centre. So first sort of couple of weeks was more just learning kind of what you're selling, what the company does, who you're speaking to, objection handling, all that sort of thing. And I was very overwhelmed. I really did not have a clue what was going on.

I was like, I don't know how I'm going to do. And that's something that I've always been very hard on myself. I doubt myself quite a lot and I wish I didn't. I'm getting a lot better now, but I always kind of put myself down without trying stuff.

instantly i was like oh i don't know how i'm gonna be and then you get the you're going on the phones and i was like oh no i don't know how this now usually they were like yeah in the first couple of rings or first couple of calls no one answers first call somebody picked up wow first call somebody picked up and they wanted a quote and i was like wow yeah that was an experience and a half but i thought it was great there was a mix of people i was one of the youngest i think i was eight just turned 18 there and there was a lot of older people a lot of experience there mixed groups you know there's people that were similar to myself there's people that were you know older than myself but it was a lot of good knowledge for me to learn and it was one of those ones we had targets where you had to maybe get sort of one a day sort of standards and quite quickly you know I'm very target driven and very competitive so if I've seen somebody else get one I was like I'll get two then no problem no worries so yeah And if we can pause here, because there's quite a few things I'd love to unpack.

And I love that journey. And that was like you breaking your teeth with into sales. But there was elements, like you said, when you was in education, you're seeing all your friends and they're all going on holiday. And you're thinking to yourself, right, I'm going to try this thing at college for a year.

And then you want to become a teacher and go into things like SCN and help people on the spectrum. So I also have to do a quick. hi blake daddy loves you because my boy um he's also autistic and we've been on that journey so daddy loves you hope you're cool he listens to these episodes and he always says dad give me a shout out but with yourself like when you were thinking about teaching and then you went and did your hnc like what was that transition going into so that when you finish that that like that final year and you think right i'm gonna go a job there must have been so many things going through your mind and like who you were and where you were going to and A lot of people say, what do you want to be when you grow up?

And I think that's one of the hardest questions to ask when you're younger because you have no experience. And as you said, I wish they taught us more about sales. What was that experience, that moment for you like, Kirsten? It was very overwhelming.

And even my wee brother, he's still my baby brother. He's 19, but he's always going to be my baby brother. He's in college now and, you know, the school he struggled in, they said, oh yeah, he won't make it. He won't make it.

He passed his exams flying colours. He's in college doing things he loves. He's so much more intelligent than me and I just wish everybody knew him because he's class, honestly. He's amazing.

I wanted to teach for him because I wanted to help people like him and I wanted to make sure no one went through the experience that me and my family went through, but more importantly him because I'd seen how much it affected him. I'll be honest, I didn't want to be a teacher. I'm very one thing I pride myself in is I'm very selfless I'll do things for other people before I do them for myself so I wasn't thinking of myself in that I thought that's what you had to do I thought you okay what was kind of drilled in my brain from being a kid was you become an apprentice you go to college or you go to uni yeah one of those and I was like I don't I don't I don't know I don't know what I want to do so yeah yeah I'm seeing all my my mates get you know crazy exam results and get accepted for uni and I was absolutely buzzing for them but I didn't want to go I didn't like there was and there was no pressure from my family to go either that's something I'm very happy with there was no pressure it was always you do what you feels right for you and you go for it and we'll support you but I think overall there was probably a sort of sense of relief of I don't need to go in too deep for the you know teaching route I didn't want to get in too far and then go nah I think it was one of those ones, something came around at the right time and it was an opportunity that I was like, you know, as I said, nothing to lose, everything to gain.

It's either going to go really well or it's not. And that's kind of catapulted my sales career. So it worked out for the best, really. I love that.

I love it. And thank you so much for sharing. And I think the interesting bit that you said, like when you went to Scottish Power, you're like, right, this is when you become an adult. right and you're in that mindset okay damn I'm in a job right and I think it does kind of remind me of my experience because before I started telesales and I was in that sort of same environment you had older people and you had these targets and trying to get that least one a day I had that experience and I remember prior to it because I dropped out of college twice and myself I didn't go to uni and I saw my peers going off and doing all these things and traveling and I was always going to Asia.

on their gap years and all that and i was like what the hell is all that stuff right but i think when i got into that office when i was working at a company called expert h i was like right i'm an adult i've got a job i've got a nine to five here's a career here's some money maybe i've made it and i'm safe obviously i didn't stay there for long but i was wondering like as you said you're you've got a job you've got a purpose you're the first call that you have they pick up and they're asking for a quote what and like you said you're doing training like objection handling what like now you're in tech sales what things did you think you learned at scottish power that's like kind of helping you today like what was that experience like a lot i probably there was a lot of older people and i won't lie when i walked into that sales place i was like expecting people my age i didn't expect older people and i grew friendships there with people that were like the same age as my mom and dad same age as my older siblings that i still talk to to this day and and they've taught me so much in life and i'd seen as mentors you know it's my early stage in my sales career who really really helped me so it taught me to always accept advice and always ask for help when you doesn't it's not a bad thing i used to always be embarrassed in school to put my hand up and ask for help or you know if all my friends are understanding something i'm like i don't want them to think i'm in a date here um but now i'm the sort of person i'll ask 20 questions I don't care like you can ask my boss now like the amount of times I'll slack him or phone him just to double check things or ask questions because it's only going to better myself so that's something that's definitely taught me don't be afraid to ask questions don't be afraid to learn new things and just ask about people's lives and you know because I always always ask them how did you get into this job then how are you still here how are you not a millionaire now you know I always laugh and always ask those questions and kind of find out about their lives and You know, a lot of things may be related, you know, and again, I've formed really good friendships, but it's definitely taught me that.

But I'd say it's also taught me to just be resilient. You know, when I started getting objection, really bad objections, it was sort of business to consumer. So I got a thick skin quick, you know. At first, I didn't realize the sort of things people could say to me on the phones.

Yeah. And there was days when I would walk away like, like. traumatized like you've just said that or they've said something about a family member or they've said something about me and i'm just like i can't i need to take a break right now this is this is so it taught me to be thick -skinned and not take anything personal like they're clearly having a bad day they're going for a shop yeah it's not a reflection on me they don't know me it's a phone call we're probably never going to meet don't stress don't worry so i think it definitely prepared me for objections now where I don't take offense I just kind of accept that probe a little bit more if they hang up they hang up it's not the end of the world you just need to move on to the next so that's probably the two biggest lessons I learned um not even just in work but just in life as well 100 % and I think like um thinking of that environment kind of that call center -esque sort of vibe my self -experience I think that's what we could say is exposure therapy for sales people Because you see, you hear the darker side of people when they're really rattled, they're pissed off, they swear at you.

And, you know, like you said, it's because they're probably having a bad day. They're taking out. And I don't know about you, but being in that environment and sometimes if somebody from customer services, from my, you know, EE account or, you know, something I'm dealing with, I was a little bit more empathetic to those people when I was speaking to them on the phone. And sometimes you could hear like the...

in their voice. And I'd say, and I used to say something, I said, I kind of do what you do. So I'm going to be the most easiest customer you're going to deal with today. I'm not going to be an asshole.

And some of them were like, thank you very much. You don't understand how much of a hard day it's been. But I think, you know, like in the world of SDR, sometimes you're going to get hit with objections, right? You're going to have people being not nice to you.

And I think sometimes I find it a little bit funny, like when I'm coaching some reps. where they tell me that they are traumatized by cold call and they can't believe a CFO said this to them or a head of sales say they don't take cold calls. And there is a weird bit where they haven't been exposed to that because maybe they've come out of uni and this is their first sales job and they're in shock with it. And for people like us, we're like, oh, well, it's just normal.

Don't worry about it. But the other side of it is sometimes they get a bit confused as to, well, we've got a really good solution. why wouldn't they be interested and there's this little bit of well they don't have to be interested yeah but I think to your point it helps build that thick skin and yeah if you can deal with people that are difficult over the phone and then in real life you know you can diffuse situations when things kick off right but what happened after Scottish Power for you then Kirsten what prompted that change to the next thing?

Yeah so I as I said it was a contact centre so when I worked at Scottish Power it was the only campaign we did at that. that sort of call center I always kind of asked like for me progression is a big thing I want to be somewhere where I can grow learn develop I would always kind of ask what can I do next I'd kind of progressed to a team leader role where I looked after not only my KPIs but my whole team's KPIs but I was in my opinion still too young to kind of go into a managerial role it wasn't something I wanted to do because I actually really enjoyed being on the phone so to step away from that I was like it didn't really make sense to me so an opportunity came up where i could go to bovlin boyd which was more a sort of account development managerial role um and i just thought again nothing to lose everything to gain like if i want to get better in my my career and not even just solely just put all my eggs in one basket for sales i kind of wanted to step into sort of maybe customer service and see if that was something i also liked account management and work out what was good for me and work out what was what I wanted to do because I was like okay I like sales this is good but I'm still missing something there's still something that I'm not really getting 100 % of what I need so I took that opportunity where it was a sort of lovely nice mix of sales but also account management so a lot to juggle but it kept me busy.

I love that I love that and as you said there what I loved about that is you were looking to explore different departments and different roles and I think that's a really mature mindset to do, like to see what is it all about and test it, see if it's something for you. Because I've worked with a lot of people where sometimes, you know, they've come into sales and they're not perhaps at the point that they want to be and they get very frustrated. And when I sometimes say to them, maybe explore different paths, like still you can stay in the company, but maybe think about going into customer success, you know, tech support or something like that.

Sometimes it's met with like, well. If I can't do the sales bit, then I'm a failure and I don't see the point. And this like sales is where I want to be. But I think by working in the other departments, you learn a lot of transferable skills.

So like within customer service, you learn to deal with shitty customers that aren't happy, but then you're also doing a lot of problem solving as well. And going into managerial thing, the way that I've always looked at it is if you want to get into sales and manage sales cycles, you have to manage stakeholders. so internally if you can manage stakeholders with your team those are skills that are going to learn as you said there was that something missing like that just wasn't clicking for you what tell me a little bit more about that yeah you know it was one of those everybody probably looked at me as if are you mental you're hitting your target you're very young you're the youngest sort of leader technically like team leader that we've got like you should be cruising it like I don't know why you're always wanting to do something else and yeah I think it's just always been my personality I just always want to be the best version of myself and I always want to just improve I don't ever just want to be static and just be like okay that's me achieved everything because I've not I've not I want to look back on my life and go I've done everything I could do that's lovely there was just something and I was like I don't want to go into management but I think there's something else within this sort of sales role or something else in sales that I could do that's gonna proper pinpoint everything and I was like I was at this point my job really was to get people on the phone get the bank details switch to a gas and electric goodbye I wanted to kind of see what happens after that call I kind of want to look after them and you know be that person that they can go to if they needed anything and you know I had one conversation that could last between 15 minutes and half an hour but after that they don't talk to me again and I was like And something just didn't, for me, it just didn't feel right.

I wanted to still have that connection with them afterwards and make sure that they were okay. And if anything else happens, like if somebody's done something for me, I always want to reflect back on it and go, oh, thanks for that. Or I need help with this. Can you direct me to this person?

I always wanted to have that relationship. And I just, that was lacking for me. I didn't have that relationship. So I wanted to be somewhere I could develop that a little bit more and see if there's any sort of other relationships you could get from that nurture.

or if there was any sort of, you know, different possible business that you could get from that as well. So what was that next step? What did you do in order to like take that leap? I ended up going to Bovell and Boyd.

And that's where I kind of looked into sort of account management. And that's where I kind of looked into how you nurture a relationship. These are clients that are technically like your clientele and you nurture them, you look after them, regular catch -ups. You kind of do your business with them, develop new ideas, develop new relationships.

They can do referrals. And I was like, oh, so it's still the sales aspect. But it's just a more relationship -based sort of sale, I guess. So when that opportunity came up, because it came, somebody actually cold called me for that role.

Really? Yeah, so somebody cold called me because I was working in Glasgow for Scottish Power. So it was like a train journey for me. And then the Beauville and Boyd one was in my area where I've grown up.

So it was literally where I lived in my town. Nicole called me and said, look, we are looking for this role. Is this something you're interested in? And I was like, account development?

I don't even know what that is. And they were like, well, it's sales. And then as soon as they said sales, I went, hello. I would like to hear more.

So they kind of explained it a little bit more and they just, you know, usual sort of what we'd class as discovery questions now. you know what are you looking for in your next role what's important to you what's lacking in your current role and once they kind of pinpointed all that was a very good call and it was a very good discovery call and once they'd done that they related it to the role and how it would help me and it was quite you know it was hard for me to say no to it and again that role came at quite a crazy time because the week I joined the week we locked down for Covid.

Wow really? Yeah, because it was my dad's birthday. So my dad, the 23rd of March. And I think I joined on the 22nd, I believe.

I joined on the 22nd, the day after. It was like, got a phone call, don't come in. We're going on lockdown. Jesus.

Because you're brand new. You need to be first from now. Oh my God. From then until June.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I was able, once they were kind of steady, because they'd never worked from home before. And because we were in the engineering space, we were still heavily required, really. And a lot of sort of work for hospitals, which was obviously needed.

So with that, they kind of needed me on board. And they were like, OK, we're steady now. We can give you your laptop and we can kind of teach you and you can kind of work from home now. So it was crazy.

It does sound crazy. I'm just curious where your mind must have been because here was you as a young person coming into Scottish Power. You're doing everything. You're smashing targets.

You're wanting to have that relationship post -sale because you cared about the people that you were talking to. And then here somebody comes and cold calls you like, hey, Kirsten, it's your future calling you. There's a cool role. And you're like, yeah, okay, cool.

Let's go for it. And then boom, the next day. you know you enter into lockdown what was like was there any doubts was there any fears like what what was going on in your head well there was loads of doubts I thought what the heck have I got myself into what is what have I done here I'm like should I phone my old job back and explain the situation like I panicked so much I really didn't know what to do Tracy my boss there shout out Tracy Hope she's watching. She was incredible.

She made me feel so much at ease. She was like, look, there's nothing for you to stress about. You're safe in this role. We are still a requirement.

We are still able to work. At the moment, I can't train you up because we're having to do a lot right now because of the demands, because of basically the state the world was in. We kept in regular touch on a fortnightly basis, just asking how I was. I'd probably say at the start it wasn't bad because I'd be honest, most of my friends were on.

furlough so this is at the stage when i was like okay i'm kind of getting paid to kind of just play yeah yeah yeah i don't really know but that novelty wore off after two weeks because i need to be productive i need to be busy i need to be doing stuff so not only did that stop my football stopped going to the gym stopped like i just i really just didn't know what to do and as much as it was a good thing i guess like it was nice for me to kind of spend a wee bit more time with family friends maybe look at new hobbies and stuff i'd probably say like not the worst thing but one of the things that came out of like lockdown was my anxiety heightened massively and i think when we went back to normality that was heightened a lot more And I do want to talk about the anxiety piece, if you're cool with that today.

And I'll come into that bit in a moment. But that snapshot of going into lockdown, because it happened to a lot of us, right? And yeah, I forgot the word furlough. That's completely like come out of my vocabulary.

I haven't heard that word in quite a while. Like you said, the world changed. And a lot of us had this moment where normality had stopped. And normality for us was, you know, going to a nine to five, secure, talking to people.

We would never fathom. that things would come to a stop but at that point a lot of business well everybody in the world didn't know how shit worked they didn't know how to do their job stuff they didn't know you know how to do business or you know like what we're going to do for a job and stuff like that for that point in time for me i was like early into the years of happy selling and i was well i remember i was traveling out to belgium with clients and then all of this thing lockdown come in i was just like shit Am I still a sales trainer?

What am I going to do? And that's when I adapted and went into online world, right? Where I said, well, cool, if I can't come see you, I can still train you and coach you on Zoom. And I had to fall in love with just being online.

And then one of my hobbies that came out of it was this podcast thing. Because I was alone at home. And the only way that I could connect with people was online and virtually. So I thought, fuck it, I'll start recording a podcast.

And that was the way that I stayed connected to the world of sales. as a self -employed guy i didn't work in an office i didn't work with the team i was working with myself but i was missing my sdrs out there in life so i was just like talking to those sort of people and you're right with the anxiety piece because i think when you were home alone and locked within that environment people were this memory it was a thing of like physical contact and stuff like that i think the funny thing for me kirsten i don't know about you was when we went into lockdown was coming out of that sort of stuff we had to have that social distancing thing.

Yeah, the two meters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember like people on the street, you'd walk past each other and make sure that you were not like they were on the other side of the street. And if you saw somebody walking up the pavement, you'd cross onto the other side.

It was so weird. But I think the other side of it, which I used to find funny, is that when things kind of went back to normal, people had a problem with social space. I remember like people would, I don't know if they purposely tried to walk into you. they just got a bit too close and they're rubbing shoulders and i was just like mankind has just gone a bit nuts like ever since we've had this space thing and it was just like i used to get pissed off with people because they were walking too close not because i was worried about covid or anything like that but there was this thing of people had this pent -up frustration of all this time they want to let out i don't know what was it like for you oh it was crazy it was absolutely crazy like remember you were only allowed out for like an hour a day yeah and i've been like I was like well what am I meant to do and I used to get really upset because at this point I stayed with my partner at the time I wasn't far away from I was literally five minutes down the road right but I missed home all I didn't know what was going on in the world I just wanted my mum and dad I mean they didn't know what was going on but you do feel that comfort of I just want my mum even to this day sometimes I'm like I just want my mum or dad but it was weird like I remember My dad used to go for his daily cycle and he'd cycle past and you'd hear his, I'd be doing something, you'd just hear his bell.

And I'm like, there's my dad. Hello, dad. So it was comforting in that sense, but it was also difficult because, you know, you couldn't just nip in their house and see them. You couldn't just go around.

And that was something, you know, trying to even explain to my nieces and nephews, I can't see you. They were young. They were like, what do you mean you can't see me? Like, I don't understand.

My little brother loved it. He was off school and everything. He was like, this is really great. So that was funny.

Remember there was the whole toilet roll incident in Pasta? Yeah, bro. You couldn't get toilet roll. People went crazy, bought loads of tins.

Genuinely, tins, loads of cans. Pasta was non -existent. You couldn't get pasta. And then they had to limit it.

two packets per person and you had to queue to get into your local supermarket you had to social distance i remember um in one of our morrisons there was a big queue around the car park and you couldn't park your car because there were so many people trying to like queue around it was but the thing that didn't make sense to me there even was you're social distancing us outside the shop but the second we go in it's a free -for -all yeah yeah again like without going into too deep and conspiracy theories and whatnot but i think during that time you really saw a different side to humanity and the way that people measured themselves against each other and who was more important and you know people grasping on people for breaking rules and all of this i was just like But the thing that I kind of realized there was when you cause mass fear, you have mass hysteria.

And that's when you see like the real sides of people. I remember the toilet roll thing. I was just like, are you serious? But I was just smart because I remember like seeing on the, but I'll be honest with you.

That sort of fear does hit you in a different way. Because when I started seeing people go nuts for toilet paper in my local Asda and you're thinking like. stuff you need to wipe your ass with like people are going nuts for it it's toilet paper but then in with myself i remember well i'm just gonna go on amazon and i remember like and i bought my stuff on amazon and i remember posting it on my insta saying well i'm covered i've got everything like why is everyone going nuts but it was just uh yeah like when you put it into a weird position i think it did show a sad side to the world this is where tiktok blew up though remember like this is and loads of people I remember the first thing my mum my mum was like I got TikTok I was like okay like cool I bought something off TikTok and I was like okay and it was like something like I bought 60 rolls of toilet roll and I was like mum why do you need 60 rolls of toilet roll because it's sold out everywhere and I was like as soon as one person starts it everyone just and that's where this all happens like it's just crazy like they follow a trend or somebody panics and then everyone else just panics and it's like yeah and i'm so glad you brought that up because i have to make a bit of an admission with tiktok right so i remember in the pandemic tiktok popped because it was just something new for people to do right because again we were living online at that point facebook social media was a way that we stayed connected and stopped going insane But I remember when the TikTok videos started coming onto my Insta feeds and from my friend's stories.

And here within, I saw parents and kids dancing together to songs and I became very bitter. Because from, and I'll be honest, I was very stupid in my way of thinking back then, but it was just like, I was thinking like, what the hell are you guys doing? Like, how is this helping you? What are you learning from it?

here's Neil that posts on LinkedIn and all this stuff about business and the podcast and all this and you guys are posting freaking dancing videos but now I'm a big TikTok fan I'm on it it helps with my business I'm posting and I had to go through that I remember I downloaded TikTok watch a couple of videos and I said this is shit and then I just uninstalled the app and I just said I'm not doing this man like what you guys are nuts And then a year or two later, I was like, I saw everybody on LinkedIn and everybody turned it.

And then I started seeing one or two salespeople on TikTok. And I was like, ah, here's an angle. And TikTok has helped me get to an audience that I would have never have met on LinkedIn. I would have never met on other social channels.

And yeah, so I kind of smacked my old self. Even that, give yourself a lot of credit because if I was my brother's age, right, when he was... probably about 15 16 17 during sort of covid time ish if i was his age and i had tiktok and i seen str content or your content or anything i would have had more of an understanding of what being an str was and i would have been like that might be a route to go down none of this was taught to me yeah none of this was taught ever even like career fairs i've always said i'll go and it's like what can you bring and i'll go I'm an SDR what's an SDR I'll come and explain it to the kids and if it's something they want to discuss further with me or look further into we can have a chat because I didn't know anything about this and like you're actually teaching the younger generation what this is they might look at it and go don't even have a clue but down the line they'll be in a job where they actually are an SDR themselves or they have SDRs that source business for their company they're everywhere 100%.

And this will become a clip for TikTok 100%, right? But you're right, because the aha moment for me was, I remember I was on LinkedIn and I came across a post about TikTok and ByteDance, where it said that TikTok has now over -ranked Google as the number one search engine in the world. And I was like, no, you're going to miss a trick here if you're not careful. And you're right, I've had a lot of people in my TikTok DMs that have come across my content.

where they didn't really know too much about tech sales or their friend worked in it and they're trying to find out more stuff then i've got a lot of followers are saying i like your content it helps me now understand this or i've now got into that role or people have reached out me saying can you help me find a recruiter for that sort of stuff or you know i've had people come into coach on call that don't work in sales and to your point it's um like i always say to people like if you're going to be multi -channel in terms of content creation you've got linkedin which is where most of us business professionals are.

And on Instagram, not all of those business professionals are Insta, but there is a different audience and TikTok's a different audience as well. And that's why I always put out different versions on those platforms to try and reach other people, right? But yeah, I think it was Gary, we've got to be careful, otherwise we're going to be talking about content all day long. But Gary Vaynerchuk kind of said his...

You know, ethos is like be out onto these social channels because if you're on different platforms, you're going to connect with different audiences. In terms of that content, putting it out there is to educate people as to what it is. And if we think about it, like back in the day, if you look at companies like Curry's, so for our US audiences around the world, that's like an electrical home store department shop, right? But back in the days, if we heard about a company, we would just think you go work for them.

But then they're now on social media where they show behind the scenes of what is it like to actually work there? Like, what is it like going into a day into the office? What is it like, you know, doing a stock take or they do funny reels and videos and people are more interested in those businesses. But when we were younger, we never had an insight as to what is it like inside the company?

What is it like to work in there? We just had it as big logo. You go do a job and you get a salary. That was it.

So I think that's where, you know, so yeah, so this is a point Gary Vaynerchuk said back in the day, social media was a way for friends and family to stay connected. But now social media has turned into interest media. What are people interested in? That's why they go into social media to find out about those things.

And this is one of the reasons we have the show. But anyway, we have gone on a massive tangent and I'd love to come back to yourself sales career wise. So, you know, obviously you was at. Boval and Boyd and then you had a couple of stints at Person Centred Software you went to Montago and then came to Henry Shine what were the headlines going through those career changes Gus?

Yeah so Boval and Boyd I was kind of in a position again there was no progression there for me and I was like okay what can I do what can I do what can I do I got reached out to from somebody at Mintago. Well, before that, I got a job offer somewhere else. I'd accepted the job offer and two weeks before I was due to start, they basically said, oh, the job doesn't exist anymore, sorry. And I was like, no.

So I put up a post and I was like, look, I need help. Can anybody help me? Anybody know hiring? Mintago reached out, explained the situation.

They went, look, if you help us kind of get started up and running and stuff, you know, if you find a better opportunity for yourself or something more suited, you know, you can go to that. I was very, very thankful for them. Everything was great. So I ended up doing that, which was perfect.

And PCS, person -centered software, that was kind of beforehand. That was cold email, I believe. Very cold outreach, you see. Works.

See if it's relevant. Make it personal because it works, I promise you. I've got like two, three jobs out of it. They reached out to me just based on my LinkedIn, actually, and based on kind of what I was doing previously.

And they said that they were looking for, they'd never had an SDR before. So they were looking for some SDRs and they hired a few. That was sort of my first taste of SaaS, I'd say. So that was sort of SaaS sales in the care industry.

So helping residential homes and care homes go from paper -based to digital. Because that's kind of the way they were going. But obviously being in a care home, it was a little bit more behind than other. places i guess yeah yeah so that was solely my role sort of cold calling specifically um demos for my bdm so that was my first sort of tester of having assigned bdms booking demos hitting targets looking after a region attending shows like actual in -person care shows so it was my first test of quite a lot which i found very interesting and it was one of those when i was like this is kind of interesting i like this but it was one of those i kind of felt maybe i'm ready to move on to be a sort of bdr bdm sort of thing um but there was no opportunities there an opportunity came up where i got the opportunity to be a sort of bdm um and slash account executives and then like two weeks before i was due to start they were like yeah the job doesn't exist anymore see you later and i was like great so stepped in and I'll always be thankful for Mintico great company great with what they do but they were like I'll help you if you help me sort of thing so again was really really thankful for the position to be in there we're both very very honest and open with you know this isn't maybe my end goal end destination but you know I'm happy to put the work in for somebody that believes in me and they did that they did that massively and then from that I seen the job opportunity come up for Henry Shine 1 and I was like maybe I was like because of what happened right I had it in my head maybe this is like God telling me you're not ready you're an A yet why don't we just start your roots because I was I was knocked down a peg or two I was like this is you know I need to start again and I was like what do I know I know being an SDR I know that I know what to do I can get and I know I was confident in my ability but I knew I could also get better so I was like let's just go SDR role again build the blocks back up and then If we want to be an AE down the line, then we can test the waters.

So I ended up going to Henrich M1, SAS, more in the dental industry. That's where we met. We met there. Yeah.

And when I was there, there was only one other SDR. So it was still quite relatively new, the role. there was a base there but there was quite a lot that maybe I threw in some ideas from previous roles I thought hey this could work this we could change this etc etc and when I joined there was two of us and then when I kind of left there was about five or six SDRs so we built up quite quite a lot yeah I met some really really good friends there people I still speak to on a sort of weekly basis now what they do obviously helping the dental world really really good product and you know I had a really good experience and there was a lot of highs and lows there um but I think they all made me a better person as well so that's also where we met and I got some extra coaching and got a lot of wisdom from you as well so yeah it was it was a win -win it was indeed and I love now we're coming into this chapter with Henry Shum because I can categorically remember it was around September 2023 that we first met and I was assigned your sales coach and again I'm not going to go into the deeps and ins and outs of our conversations because That's between us and confidential.

But I remember like rocking up to the zoom and I did like back then I was a very, uh, what'd you call it? Meticulous sales coach. So I did my prep. I went onto LinkedIn, checked you out and everything like that.

Checked out Henry shine. And I was familiar with Henry shine as well because they were once one of my customers way back in the day. But you had this person joining the zoom and I was kind of like cursing, like, what's your goals? Like what are you looking to do?

Where can you help? And everything like that. I remember we were talking about emails, cold calls, and just like your rhythm. I think the thing that you wanted help with was structure as how to run your own sort of unit within yourself.

And you talked me about maybe going into leadership in the future and all these aspirations. And I remember I was just like, I like this person. There's a lot in this person that reminds you of myself when I started out. So I had a lot of time for you and I still do.

But I remember like, it was only like two or three weeks later that we booked in our next one -to -one. And I remember coming into the call and I was like, how are you? And you just saw this massive smile on your face and you'd like booked 15 meetings in the space of like two or three weeks since we last met. And I was like, God damn, this person knows what they're doing.

And I was super proud of you. And I think like with our, like for a bit of transparency, like with our coaching relationship, you're a pleasure to coach and to meet with because. you know we spoke about a lot of things about career sdr life life in general i learned a lot about you with your sporting world and how you took that athletic mindset into your work ethic and i think a lot of the times like where you were a sort of person that you didn't like injustice like you said if you saw something going wrong elsewhere you didn't like it and you wanted to not so much put up a fight but stand up for what is right right and i had a lot of admiration still do for that but I think you know like when I used to see you pop up in my calendar like cool it's Kirsten would love to to chat to you but like for you what was coaching like what is coaching for you like how how do you like if somebody's out there just thinking like you know I get coaching my manager or stuff like that like what was coaching for you Kirsten?

Before I stepped into it I didn't really know what to expect I was like I don't really know we just basically kind of got told we're going to have some external coaching yeah and I was like okay like I didn't really know like I was like on what though and it was like whatever you want and I was like okay fair enough but I think we kind of hit the ground running and obviously because we kind of got to pick our coaches your sort of journey I was like it's kind of the similar journey that I want to do I was like you've been in the same position as me so it'll probably be really easy to talk to you and explain that you'll understand how I'm feeling rather than just somebody that's never done the role so I think yeah quite quickly hit the ground running and you were always somebody and still are somebody I can go to personal life coaching life you never make me feel silly I think it's very good to have somebody that you can go to out with work for advice or for structure or for anything really you know somebody that doesn't know the situation proper honest sort of opinion on it I think that's something I always appreciated because there's maybe sometimes I'd come and ask for your opinion on certain aspects like how should I deal with this am I being too pushy is this is this appropriate that sort of thing and you would always just be straight up and that's something I always appreciated yeah like I think coaching is for everyone and for anyone it doesn't matter who you are what age you are what job you're in I think everybody needs somebody that they can speak to and like that's something that down the line I'd love to do a little bit more of is coaching I've I mean I've still had you know thanks to you some of the clips and stuff that you've put up on like then people reaching out to me going look I've seen you on social media can you give me a bit of advice tips or tricks and stuff so you know I've didn't really see myself as a mentor or a coach but the more I kind of think about it I'm like well I've been captain of my football team previously like I've played football for years like I've done coaching as well for a few football teams I'm like technically I am a mentor in a way and a coach in a way and so it's comforting knowing that people see my journey and relate to it but it's also comforting that people come to me for advice and want to speak to me and that's somebody I've always wanted to be somebody that can be a comfort blanket for people and they can come and speak to me and they can have somebody because right at the start like as I say my transition from school to to work I didn't have that person I didn't know what I was doing I was a bit crazy I was going here there and everywhere just hoping for the best and look it worked out but you won't always have that so yeah if I can help anybody then that's that's the goal I love that beautifully put Kirsten and to like give you credit like the reasons why I enjoyed like coaching you and being your coaches you gave a shit about the right things right you were always thinking forward as to like how can you move the needle not in just with yourself but like with team members within the department you were very proactive and like you cared for what you were doing and i think a lot of the time where you know you said earlier in this episode there was that self -doubt and i could see it within you in points but my job was not to like point it out and say stop doubting yourself but it was getting you to the point of believing in yourself and helping you remember how far you'd come i think that was like one of the anchor points for a lot of our chats with each other is like do you remember when you did this do you remember when you did this and it was reminding you that to help push you forward because there's an old quote from les brown sometimes you have to believe the belief in others of you before you start believing in yourself and it starts kicking in and like you know seeing you on linkedin and like you've joined us on coach on call where you gave nimco like some advice as well and i could see like that's the the sales love that you're putting back out into the community and that's the point of it like You want to be that person that you didn't have all those years back.

And that's sometimes what I try to be for a lot of people out there. But seeing you come into your own. And I saw a recent LinkedIn post where somebody gave you kudos for giving them advice. And I was just like, that's the shit.

That's why we do it, right? So I'm proud to have seen you now becoming the coach and helping others. And I highly recommend that for our audience. If anybody needs some help to reach out to Kirsten, she's a great person to speak to.

She's got a wealth of experience. So shouts out to you, Kirsten. The other bits that I'd love to talk about is, as you just alluded to, like the sports element in your life, playing football and stuff. There's a side to you people may not know.

Tell us a little bit more about Kirsten and football, dude. Yeah, like football's my life, honestly. Thanks to my dad and my granddad for that. They brought me up in football, me and my sister.

Really weird, actually. The boys in my family hate football. The girls love it. My dad always went, fair, I love it.

And I think it's just highlighted as well, even with that little comment, the Scottish game is growing massively. But even on top of that, the women's game is growing massively. And that's something I'm delighted about. When I was younger, I'd actually done martial arts.

I'd done taekwondo first. And I was like, yeah, this is cool. But I want to play football. My dad's like, okay, I'm happy with that.

Like, let's go. Dad was my biggest supporter. Granddad was my biggest supporter. Took me to all my training sessions, all my games.

My big sister as well, I'd say she's the first role model I've ever had in my life. Everything my sister done, Shannon, I was like, I'll go and do that. I'll do that. So what we'd do is she played football on the same team.

So she'd have a game on a Saturday. I'd have a game on a Sunday. She'd always stay because she was my stepsister. So she'd always stay on the Saturday after our game.

We'd watch Bend It Like Beckham religiously on a Saturday. And then on a Sunday, we'd go to my game. And we'd be travelling all around. It'd be, you know, kind of local games to an hour and a half, two hours away and stuff.

And that's just what my weekends consisted of. So it's something I've always loved. It's something that I've kind of just always appreciated, just having that. And, you know, you start off as a kid, seven asides, and as you get older, you kind of...

okay I really like this position or I really want to do this or focus more on this and ended up getting really lucky me and my sister my sister went to Rangers Celtic so yeah a bit divided there my dad loved it I'm a Celtic fan so for me it was absolutely you know we're all Celtic fans but my sister couldn't turn down that opportunity of even playing for Rangers so We had two professionals, basically, in the household and I adored it. It was my life and I thought, I've made it.

I was a young kid and I went, that's it, sit back, relax. That's my life. Don't worry, mum, I'll pay for the mortgage. Like, that's who I was.

But no, jokes aside, I didn't even look at it like that. I just, in my head, I just was like, I'm playing football. Like, I see these teams on the telly and they wanted me. That's kind of how I felt.

And I think my first proper... high moment was getting that call from my dad telling me but I think the first sort of low moment was actually getting told that you know you've not been picked to play next season and you've been dropped I generally thought my life was over I was really really young and I just thought I don't want to play football anymore I'm scared I don't there's nothing at this point I was like there's nothing else I'm good at because I'd put so much time and effort into football I was like I don't really know what to do but that's probably where a lot of my resilience and determination comes where I it was kind of a nah I've got a point to prove you don't want me in the team no problem at all I'll go somewhere that does want me in the team brilliant so you know I never gave up I went back to my local sort of boys club and just worked through the ranks and you know started out as sort of a fullback playing right back and centre back and kind of went through a load of positions just to find where I wanted to be and you know it was difficult you know but looking back there's a lot of lessons and a lot of things that I've probably taken from my childhood naturally that I probably didn't realise that I've got into the sales career like my dad's always told me if you want something you work for it that's something I always got told you want something You work for it.

And some of my friends maybe got things handed to them a wee bit nicer. And I used to always look at them and go, how are they getting that? I need to do chores. I need to do the dishes.

I need to do this. If I want something, I put 110 % effort into it now. And that's the sort of personality I've got now, thanks to my parents. And with that, being at an elite academy, you get told if you're not playing or training with 100 % intensity.

If you're not in here putting in 100 % effort, if you're not being a good teammate, you are not in this squad. And that's kind of, okay, every day I come into work, I need to be the best version of myself. Every day I'm on the phones, I need to make sure I'm hitting them with objections, I'm hitting them with sort of discovery questions, I'm probing, you know, I need to make sure I'm at my A game every single day. I need to make sure my admin's on point.

I need to make sure I'm constantly speaking to my AEs properly. I need to make sure I'm present at meetings. I need to know what's new, who's went live, what's happening. I need to keep up with content.

And it's all these spinning plates that you need to look after to make sure that you're the best version of yourself. But again, just holding myself accountable for everything I do. But the same thing I've done at football. Sometimes if I felt...

Something that my grandad used to always say is I would come off and go, I've not scored. I've not scored I've not done this and he'd go did you do everything you could do on that pitch and I'd go yeah you've had a good game then that's what he'd say to me you've had a good game and at first I was like yeah but we lost no you've had a good game you've done everything you could do that's in your power you've had a good game and at first I'd be like I don't know what he's talking about but okay we've lost why is he happy with me but then as I've got older you know there's some days I don't book meetings but I'll say to myself have I done everything I could do today yes could I have done anything different to change anyone's mind no you've had a good day then and that's something I've carried on throughout my life so yeah I think being in that environment at a young age kind of helped me grow up a little bit more and kind of helped me be in that sort of professional environment and I think that's probably prepped me quite a lot for for work environment and a sales environment too 100 % and I remember like many analogies that you would take into your work ethic from like coming into football I remember sometimes you'd come in talking about like games and how that would build you up and then you know coaching other younger girls in like in their matches as well and like helping scouts and all of that sort of stuff so I think it's kind of like the only way that I can relate to that Kirsten is my life outside of sales is like with music so for what football is to you music and performing is for me And there are a hell of a lot of things that you can like transfer over.

But it's kind of like having a Clark Kent and Superman personality. So like Clark Kent is what you do from nine to five. And then Superman is when you go to play those games and stuff like that. But the other side of it is, and as I mentioned earlier, I hope that you're comfortable talking about this on the topic of anxiety, right?

Because here we have somebody who is smashing it out in her sales life. You're always trying to hit higher. go for those goals you're somebody that comes across as confident you're playing football like you're being selected like for top teams and all of this and there was this element of like anxiety and without going into too many details i remember at one point we had a conversation where there was some travel needed for you to go like present in front of people and that was bringing anxieties and as your coach it kind of shocked me i was like oh shit is that the case like would you be open and comfortable sharing about like what is anxiety for you and how has it affected your life and how have you worked through it yeah yeah absolutely I think it's something that people don't speak about enough and I think they need to um I've still got anxiety to this day and I don't think it ever goes away I don't think I've ever not had it I think I've just been able to cope with it or deal with it um well but yeah there's been a lot of traumatic things that have happened in my life that have related to it from sort of abusive relationships to sort of personal issues and stuff and that have kind of knocked me off and with that this was kind of heightened during COVID time where I didn't have support systems I didn't have family I couldn't speak to anyone I genuinely genuinely didn't know what to do and at this point as well during COVID I lost a lot of my friends due to suicide because of how they were feeling and they didn't open up so I don't think it's something that ever goes away but I think it's something you do need to open up about and speak about like it's not easy but there's sometimes I just phone my friends and go look I'll be honest with you I'm having a bit of a crap day right just talk to me and they're like sure cool brilliant and we'll just go on a tangent about speaking about the most random things you could think of but even just that conversation will help there's times where I was too scared to leave my house because I'm scared I'll see somebody that I didn't really want to see or you know get some sort of PTSD sort of feelings and just you know feel that way of just I'm not good enough and I don't want to sort of be here sort of thing that was more common than I thought I thought I was going crazy and I thought I'm a pure weirdo and this isn't normal to think this it's alright it's fine people have good days people have bad days I'm not perfect no one is and you know some of the people I look up to in terms of footballers they've came out and said I get anxiety I get nervous for games and you know I would look at them and go Like, you live such a lavish life.

Like, how? Like, just off topic, I'm watching I'm a Celeb at the moment and one of the contestants, Shona, who's been on EastEnders for as long as I can remember, she's came out and spoke about her social anxiety. And I sat there and I said to my partner, I went, I know it sounds pure cliched and I know it sounds like, how have you got anxiety? But I was like, I would never have imagined her to have anxiety because she's on screen every day.

But it just goes to show you they can portray a character so well. It's not them. People have, you know, you don't know what's going through people's lives. You don't know what people are dealing with.

People will probably see me in this podcast and think, okay, I've got a good understanding of who Kirsten is. But they don't know me. They don't know who I am, what I've been through. They've not been there for the last 26 years of my life.

And, you know, everybody has their sort of dark days, but everyone has their good days. And I think the most important thing to do is just talk. Or what I used to do is I used to write things down. and then delete them and when i delete them they're out my head and i'm like okay i feel a bit better um but just speak go for a walk go to the gym the gym helps me physically for football but also mentally when i'm just not in the mood or not having a great day and just having good coaches and good mentors um gets you gets you going as well but it's okay not to feel okay and i think it's very important i think especially with a lot of my friends are male they're like nah can't talk about how i feel it's fine it's fine even if you don't know how you feel but you just don't feel right it's all right there's nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about um there's loads of highs and lows in life it was only last week i was genuinely really really in a sort of down place and i didn't really want to do anything and then on tuesday i was sitting breaking my heart crying of tears of joy because my country's made it to a world you know you've got highs and lows of life but i think it's all just sort of milestones in your life and I think if you always kind of reflect on where you are, where you have been and where you're going, it's just a bad day, not a bad life.

And I think that's something I always need to kind of remind myself as well. Thank you. Thank you for being honest. Thank you for being vulnerable.

Thank you for sharing and opening up. And I hope it gives some sort of comfort to anybody that is listening out there as well. And you're right. There is this element of what we call masking.

masking is when you're you know perhaps an online personality you're talking to people you're performing you're doing all these things you're having to be a leader you're having to be a lot of labels for a lot of people and then there can be the other side of who you truly are when the doors are closed and everything like that and you know like we've had decent discussions on both of our personal lives when we were going through stuff and helping each other out and that so again a big thank you to you um curse and i'll never forget that but You know, some people can be shocked when they look at somebody they look up to and think, oh shit, you go through this thing as well?

And I think that's why it's right to be speaking about it more. So like, you know, we go through traumatic things and it can cause anxieties. Like sometimes with me, I get funny in social situations, right? I am somebody that can MC, I can like coach, I can go to an offsite, I can come do a podcast, I can be on screen.

But there is a Neil that doesn't like humans and doesn't like people and just likes to be a recluse. And shut down because I have like a social battery. Yeah. You know, I can only put it on for so long where, you know, sometimes like my mates will ring me and I'm like, bro, today is just not one of them days I'm in a talking mood and I just need some space.

Like, is anything wrong? I said, nothing's really wrong, but I just don't really want to talk to anyone. But having those elements of doubts or, you know, butterflies or fears. And I think the way that I've kind of tricked my brain, Kirsten, is if something scares me.

I'm more in the habit of just throwing myself into it nowadays it's kind of like that shock therapy we're talking about cold calling when you get told to piss off on the phone because I feel the more I put myself in those situations the more comfortable I'll become with them and with the unknown and it sometimes almost gets to the point where you become so desensitized to horrible things that you can just face anything but having those anxieties are real and I think talking about them and I think you know going over in careers with I've had really great managers or people I can confide into but I've had some really people that just don't get it and whereas I used to get bitter towards them because they didn't understand it but I'm like unless you've experienced it you wouldn't understand it right but is there any advice you'd give to people like if they're having those anxieties or they're facing something difficult and like you said he's in lockdown you had no one to turn to like you said talking to people is good but Is there any signs you can give to people that may, or if you see somebody with these sort of signs, maybe like reach out to them to see if they're cool?

Any advice? Yeah, like I'll just even touch on stuff that still happens to me and I always feel guilty about it, but I'm so glad like my current relationship, my partner is very, very, she knows me very well. So she can, if I'm going into one of my, I'm about to have a panic attack, she can clock it before it happens and she'll. divert the full situation my mum and dad can clock it very very well my little brother who everybody assumes people with autism aren't clued up that boy knows me better than most people he booms and even my mini dash hound he's just like okay I'll do something silly to take your mind off things so that you can think what is he doing he's great as well but like for instance I plan to go Christmas shopping with my partner to pick things up got to the the sort of shop area of where we're going i just froze i went i can't go in i was i don't want to go in i was like i'm very go in the shops and leave i've got everything i need but she's very i want to look around and she's in for about 45 minutes and i'm like i can't do this i've got like like a sort of map in my head and a checklist of what we're doing and she'll just add things and it just sends me into overload but i'll just freeze i'll either talk really fast or i won't talk at all i'll a proper like we'll just be sweating i'll be shaking i'll be fidgety i'll just start like doing really weird things i can't stay still i need to just keep moving and keep looking about and as soon as i'm in that sort of mindset carly's pretty good and kind of divert situations or start talking about something I like that she doesn't care about she's not the biggest football fan but she'll just start going oh so have you got a game this weekend I'm like yeah yeah I got a game and she'll just divert it that way which does distract me and does calm me down but if you ever kind of see somebody either talking too much not talking at all fidgeting looks a wee bit antsy kind of doesn't know if they're here or there don't say what's wrong because that will say overload don't start staring or anything but just start making conversation about something random or if you know the person will start talking about some one of their interests because it would really well calm them down that's what kind of eases me i've got like my little grand blesser she gets me like worry rocks and it's just like certain things so i'll always have them in like my pockets or something like in jackets i'll usually wear and i just kind of hold them and just you know kind of like a sensory thing right yeah yeah It's more of a mental thing.

If I know I've got it, I know I'm safe, if that makes sense. So I'll always have stuff like that and I'll always have earpods. So if I ever need to kind of just put an earpod in, put a song on, pretty good that way. So that's kind of how I kind of, I guess, regulate myself or calm myself down.

But yeah, that's probably my coping mechanisms. I love that. Thank you so much, Kirsten, again, for being open and for being honest. And what I would love to do for our listeners, watchers out there, like I will be.

finding links for the topics that we're talking about today for anybody that's looking for support make sure that you check them out in the show notes down below and in the description but again thank you kirsten well kirsten this has been an episode and chapter that i've really been looking forward to and i'm really happy that it's happened today so thank you coming on board and i definitely think we're going to have to get you back on the show to see how life at patch works and how things are going on and how you're becoming a coach and mentor to many in the near future as well but if we could go back to you know that young Kirsten that was seeing all of her mates going off to uni and you were kind of saying to yourself you've got this job also at Scottish Power like you're adulting that if you could go back to her and give her like three bits of advice what would those three bits be to that younger Kirsten believe in yourself first and foremost put your heart and soul in everything you do have fun just have fun please I think people forget no matter what aspect of life that they're walking in they forget to have fun see if you're not enjoying your job it's not the right job for you people always look at my job and go you cold call people you annoy people I love my work I love I'm helping people I absolutely adore it and there's a quote that always sticks it's from a Scottish artist called Jerry Cinnamon and it's the start of his song Canter and it's this is the beginning of the rest of your life and that's basically my leaving school it's just everything's just fell into place i mean a lot of people say you fell into place you're lucky but i put the work in so it's like it's not luck it's me putting work in so have fun is the main one but just always believe in yourself because i'm my worst critic and sometimes i need to cut myself a wee bit of slap well said coach well said thank you so much and are there any shout outs that you'd like to give on today's episode kirsten shout out patchworks everybody check them out very very good at what we do you'll probably get a call from me as well um just family and friends everybody that's kind of helped me supported me yourself just everybody that's always been there for me whenever i've needed it most um and just all my linkedin family as well you know who you are who always support me like my posts make sure everything's all good and just regularly keep up to date with myself And thank you to you, Kirsten, for being you and being that person for other people, including your coach in the past.

A massive shout out to you. But also a massive big thank you to all of our listeners, watchers and subscribers on joining us on this beautiful journey with Kirsten. As a gentle reminder, if you're listening to this in your local podcast platform, if you could please give us a rating. Share this episode with yourselves best if any of these topics have resonated with you today.

And if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure that you like, comment and subscribe down below. By having that engagement lets the algorithm know that this is good content and it will reach many more people out there. But if you've got any thoughts, any feedback, any questions you want to put. Put them down as well.

And as mentioned, Kirsten's LinkedIn profile will be within the show notes. If you want to connect with her, talk about what we've spoken today, please reach out. But Kirsten, always a pleasure, never a chore. We look forward to having you back on the show in the near future, but I'm wishing you and your fans and your family and everybody out there in Cali as well and the Dasher and happy selling and a great weekend.