Ep. 317 Stories matter with Nick Jemetta

In this week’s episode, Anna Lundberg welcomes Nick Jemetta, a former corporate professional turned mind health advocate and public speaker. Nick shares his transformative career journey, the power of vulnerability, and his holistic approach to mind health, offering insights into redefining success and maintaining balance. Tune in to learn how you can navigate career transitions and cultivate a fulfilling professional life.

Connect with Nick on LinkedIn.

Key moments:

[00:00] Intro by Anna Lundberg and overview of the episode

[02:31] Nick Jemetta’s career journey from corporate marketing to mind health advocacy

[10:01] The importance of vulnerability and creating the mind health network at Argos

[17:46] Redefining success post-redundancy and shifting to a holistic view of success

[24:31] Challenges and learnings as a self-employed entrepreneur

[31:16] Building a personal brand without a website and leveraging LinkedIn

[38:01] Work-life balance, setting boundaries, and being present for family

[45:51] Final reflections and gratitude

Resources mentioned:

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Anna’s website AnnaSELundberg.com

Connect with Nick on LinkedIn

*Now live* Stories Matter website

Stories Matter

Anna Lundberg:

Hello everybody, and welcome back to the podcast and to this month’s interview. And I’m here with Nick Demeter and I always like to share how we met, and it’s always a very random, fortuitous circumstance. And that’s part of why I do this podcast, is because I get to have the excuse to talk to interesting people and to bring them into my world. But Nick and I met recently in a programme called Mic Drop, which is all about helping us become better speakers, paid speakers ideally, which is what I’m focusing on at the moment. So it’s been a focus of mine this year. And as soon as I heard Nick’s very brief story, or at least I heard a brief part of the story, we’ll hear more today. I knew that it would be an interesting conversation, so enough of me babbling on. Nick, thank you so much for coming on.

Anna Lundberg:

Welcome to the podcast. Could you tell us all what were you doing before, as it were, and what are you doing today?

Nick Jemetta:

Well, thank you so much for having me on. I know, and no pressure when you say I’m interesting, so let’s see whether or not we can prove that out of. So I have had a pretty interesting career and quite unexpected in terms of how I saw my career panning out, which I suppose is one of the things I like to talk and share about. I went to university, studied marketing and business studies. The reason I did that, to be honest, was because I didn’t know what else to do and I was following in my dad’s footsteps. I imagine the nodding suggests you hear that a lot, and I hear that a lot now in the speaking work that I do. And when I came out of university, some of my friends were going travelling, but I felt the need to have that certainty of what the next step looked like. So I went straight into a graduate job and my career fought kind of through marketing.

Nick Jemetta:

And then I picked up an interest in digital marketing and technology that then forked into what I now know as product management. And product management in its very simplest form, is working with other amazing people to build digital products using technology that add value. And I managed to navigate a career with big businesses, big brands, brands like BT, Argos, Sainsburys. And I always anticipated being in a corporate career, if Im honest. But in 2018, my career took quite an interesting fork and that was a fork into mind health and wellbeing. And I’d always struggled with my mental health, but it wasn’t something I ever felt comfortable talking about. I certainly never felt comfortable talking about it. At work.

Nick Jemetta:

But the 20 July 2018, my life changed because on that day, I shared to a group of four or five strangers that I’d struggled with my mind health, and I’ve been through some pretty dark times, but had found a way to come out of that. Their reaction to me sharing that story changed the direction of my life because they said to me, you need to do something with this if you feel able and willing, sharing your story can inspire hope in so many other people. And that set me on a journey. It took me back into my workplace. So I was juggling this full time digital product job. I then co founded and chaired the first ever network within Argos that was focused on mind health and wellbeing. And that then took me on this incredible journey to becoming a public speaker, to becoming a fundraiser in lockdown around this topic, raising over 10,000 pounds for charity during lockdown. And ironically, it actually led me on a path to burnout.

Nick Jemetta:

So I ended up burning out. I was now in kind of a digital leadership role at this point. And even though I had sort of picked up this awareness and this knowledge of what it meant to look after our mind health, what I learned when I burned out was that being self aware about how we feel is one thing, but taking action is quite another. And unfortunately, I found myself in what I now look back on as a quite a toxic work culture. A very difficult relationship with a line manager. I was signed off sick from work, and it was really, really difficult time because my mind health had been pretty stable for quite a few years until that point, and I was seeing made redundant. It wasn’t connected to my ill health, but that helped me make a decision, which was that I’d had enough of the corporate world. I felt that maybe my boundaries had been crossed and I hadn’t managed my boundaries in the right way.

Nick Jemetta:

I’d had a young family by this point, and I made the decision to go on my own. And that’s when I founded stories matter. And I’ve been running stories matter since then. So it’s been two and a half years now of self employment after 17 years in the corporate world.

Anna Lundberg:

It definitely sounds like stories matter, given that the pivotal of you sharing a story and having that land, and it’s so interesting, isn’t it, how opening up and being vulnerable will always help you connect with other people and you never know what that’s going to lead to. It sounds like a bit of a perfect storm then, that kind of conversation that you had your own health as well, and I’m curious, because you’re using the word mind health, and usually that’s not the term I would use myself. So tell me more about that, because you’re in this world. So what is the difference between mind health, mental health, what’s the nuance there?

Nick Jemetta:

So, for a long time, I used the framing of mental health, and depending on the context, I might still use that, but I think mental health is still associated with a huge degree of stigma. Most of that stigma tends to be, excuse me, tends to be quite negative. I think mind health for me is a bit more holistic, it’s a bit more encompassing, and it actually recognises that our mind health is something that can be a force for good for us. And therefore, the more we lean into our mind health, the more we nurture our mind health, the better that is for us, the better that is for our health, for our mindset, for our careers, for our personal lives. And I think in society at large, we need to be much more proactive and much less preventative when it comes to the health of our brains. And I think the language we use has a huge impact on the. How we choose to do that. And speaking as a man, and I said earlier, I was the classic man, where I didn’t want to speak up, I didn’t want to appear weak and vulnerable.

Nick Jemetta:

And you just said, when you are able to be a bit vulnerable, actually, that unlocks a lot of purpose and a lot of hope and a lot of power, which is why now I’m almost a bit militant sometimes about the language that we use at work, in the media, in day to day conversations, because our language does have a massive impact on not only how someone feels, but whether or not they feel able and equipped to get the right support and to do the things that they need to do to get themselves into a good place.

Anna Lundberg:

Oh, that’s so interesting, because I haven’t heard that phrase. But even just using a slightly different word does make you stop and think. And as you say, language is so important how we use it. I had one of my early frameworks I developed in my coaching work, and I sort of touched tangentially on the space of well being and so on, was thinking about the different levels of well being, almost like Maslow’s hierarchy. I split it into sort of, there’s physical, mental, emotional, mind, heart, you know, there are those different aspects to it, aren’t there? And I think, yeah, mind certainly sounds more positive. It’s the shame, even now, that there is still, I guess, a subconscious, lurking stigma. I always think that, you know, oh, I’m going to the gym. I went to the gym today, played tennis.

Anna Lundberg:

Physical health, you go to the doctor, that’s so normal. You would never, well, maybe you would. You would never judge somebody for being off ill because they have a cold or the flu or something. You. And then for whatever reason, we haven’t quite got there, but things are changing, so it’s positive. But that’s really interesting. Thanks for sharing the term terminology, I think is really important. And if we go back, you said you followed sort of in your father’s footprints.

Anna Lundberg:

I was nodding along there because I also had a similar. I didn’t study marketing or business at all, so I accidentally ended up in that world. But I then ended up in digital marketing and again, have kind of pivoted into a not dissimilar space to you. But I chose a course because I couldn’t make a decision as well. It was a broad course with three subjects, and it was just. And then I did a master because that was just easier to continue studying than making a decision. So what were you thinking, if at all, about success at that time? Was it just kind of the default thing, oh, dad does this, I’ll do that. And, you know, as you said, I need a job.

Anna Lundberg:

Need to, you know, how much were you thinking about what your goals were and what success meant to you at that point?

Nick Jemetta:

Very little. I think I was, I was adopting the kind of pre programmed response to that answer, which, you know, when I was at that point, I think it was three things. It was, it was security, safety and status. They were the things that were, that were drummed into me. It was having a secure job for life in inverted commons, because at that point, that was still the narrative that I understood would map out my career path. You needed to do something that was quite safe, quite risk free, you know, very solid, very stable. And then the final one, which I struggle with the most, was that you started your career at point x, and at some point in the future, you would progress to such a degree that you’d achieve status. And by status, what I mean by that is the job title, the office, the salary, the stress.

Nick Jemetta:

That, to me was what success looked like. And I found that very difficult because I didn’t actually believe, a, I could do it, or b, I wanted to do it. But the problem I had was I didnt really see another route other than that. I never considered myself an entrepreneur. When I looked at the entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, straight away I put myself in the box of well thats definitely not me. So therefore the only other option is to follow the strict career path?

Anna Lundberg:

No, same. Absolutely. And so how do you view success today after these two and a half years working for yourself and bringing your mind health to the fore?

Nick Jemetta:

I mean the way I view success today is it’s like a 360 degree pivot. And now I’ve got a young family. I’m so glad that I’ve had the experience I have so that I can give them a more holistic view as to what they personally might define as success. And I suppose from my point of view now it’s much more about impact. Am I making an impact in the here and now? Am I agitating change that will be a bit more fundamental and a bit less firefighting? Am I creating an impact that I can say hand on heart is going to make the workplace better for my children? So ive got a longer term view of success that outlives me and that was something that I never had when I was in a corporate career. It was a very short term silo view of success. I think I also now value freedom and choice and when you work for yourself you have those things. I value potential in a way I never did before because it’s almost like my wings were clipped in a way in the corporate world I was put in a box and had these labels applied.

Nick Jemetta:

. But I feel very free to know that actually there are so many things out there I don’t even know I’m going to achieve yet. But I am going to look back and be really proud of all the things that I end up doing. And the final thing for me, which is probably the most important, is that I want to live my life and I want to be present to make the memories, because so many of the memories that we’ve got in our lives, whether we have families or whether we have other priorities, are one off events. And for me personally, I really don’t want to miss those one off events. Sat in meetings or commuting 5 hours a day to work. I recognise that that might sound quite privileged, but the reality is I’ve had to work hard and I’ve been through some really tough times in the last two decades. So I almost feel like maybe halfway through my career, but in a weird way, I feel like my career is just starting and that’s a really, really energising way to wake up every morning, to be honest with you.

Anna Lundberg:

Yeah, it’s very different. I always see those Facebook reminders of sort of 15 years ago. Every Monday I wrote Monday blues and every Friday it was DGIF. And that’s just not my life now at all. That energy you have. Yeah. The freedom, the potential. I love that.

Anna Lundberg:

The long term versus short term is really interesting. I feel like coming out of school, I don’t know about you, but I had a lot of naive assumptions about how I could help the world. And I studied international development, I wanted to help children in Africa. It was all very sort of impact in a kind of a superficial way, I suppose. And then, as you say, quickly you get drawn into the corporate world and focusing on PowerPoint presentations and in my case, selling beauty products and things, which is amazing. And I so admired the people who were passionate about that and I had the best time and I learned so much, etc. Etcetera. And yet there’s so much more since then.

Anna Lundberg:

And as you said, looking back is so powerful because I didn’t even know what a podcast was again, 1213 years ago, pre leaving corporate, and here I am sort of recording podcasts. You know, you want to write a book, you’ve written a book, you want to speak on a stage, speak on a stage. All these things that you just wouldn’t have imagined, I certainly didn’t imagine before. So that’s, that’s really exciting. And I suppose what going back again to those pivotal moments and you talked about, of course, that first conversation you had and when you realised, oh, actually I might be able to do something with this, but then also your own burnout and of course, in fact, the redundancy. So that kind of all conspired to push you in this direction or pull you, however you want to call it, it always sounds very. With hindsight it sounds great, right? As Steve Jobs said, you connect the dots looking back. But what were the challenges the last two and a half years? What are some of the challenges you’ve faced along the way and how have you got the support or have you overcome those challenges to get to where you are today?

Nick Jemetta:

I mean, I think one of the, I think almost as a challenge and an opportunity was that I got very excited about the opportunity to build a business and to go on my own, but I was so naive about what that meant. And there’s this level of what I call informed naivety where I want to know enough that I’ll step forward, but not so much that I’m so fearful that I sort of never take the action. I’m someone that I really prioritise progress over perfection. I like to take small, consistent actions because I believe in the power of compounding and I’m happy to experiment. I’m happy if things go wrong because I prioritise learning as an equal outcome to revenue because I honestly think that you can always make more money, but those opportunities to learn and to yield insight and to build relationships dont always come along quite as often. So thats why I say that learning and revenue are equal outcomes for me. But one of the most obvious challenges was I came out of the corporate world, I had some redundancy, but to begin with I was so far away from the mindset you need of not knowing when the next paycheck is going to come in. The first thing I did after coming out of the corporate world was to get a contract to become a contractor.

Nick Jemetta:

I just needed the certainty to know that every single month I was going to get a paycheck. But I soon realised that that was really only a halfway house. So mindset wise, it took quite a big leap of faith for me to be okay with the fact that I may not know when my first paycheck was going to come. And I think it’s only in hindsight I recognise that having that mindset of abundance, the next client is out there, the next lead is out there, the next big opportunity is out there is so much easier to do when you have some financial resilience. When you dont have the financial resilience is really when that mindset is tested. And I have had times where the finances havent been there and sometimes its really hard to keep going. But its only, I think, when you look back and you see the effect of that compounding that you realise that the day you give up could be the day before a door opens. So for me it’s about maintaining that level of consistency, but also being able to pause, to take a break, to step back, as you said earlier, to look after yourself.

Nick Jemetta:

Because having burned out in the corporate world, the last thing I wanted to do was go back down that same path when working for myself, because otherwise I really was no better off.

Anna Lundberg:

And that’s normal. I think I did the same initially when I left, I kind of left with a vague idea of starting my own business, but then I had recruiters coming and there were jobs on the table and even just changing to different industry initially I thought, and then after that, like you, I did the contracting thing and it can be great because it gives you that stability and income and status, I suppose. But as you say, there’s a spectrum, I guess, of freedom and security and to some extent you do have to kind of go all in on it and have the faith, and that’s really, really hard. And I think the natural response in that moment when the money’s not coming in is to lean back. I’ve had group business coaching programmes for years where that’s always a moment where people start looking for other jobs, applying, worrying and questioning themselves, rather than, hey, okay, money’s not coming in, what can I do? Lean in. What can I learn from what’s not working? Am I actually taking action? And usually that’s not the case. And it’s not to say that it’s your fault, but I can always tell, actually, I’m not earning so much now. That’s because three months ago I was off, you know, for Christmas or doing the things I was supposed to be doing.

Anna Lundberg:

So that consistency is so important. But it’s not the sexy stuff I was saying. It’s not the big fancy launch or the big ta da. It’s the little things, as you said, the little lessons, little actions here and there that compound over time. I think that’s a really important reminder, a hard message to learn, to sort of get to really embed in your consciousness, but an important one, because that way you can really. I have both the sort of mental resilience and then, as you said, obviously having the financial pipeline to be able to have that luxury of experimenting and not needing the money. Because if you need the money, I always say, then you do need to have a job or something. Right.

Anna Lundberg:

Because otherwise you’re going to get yourself in all kinds of trouble.

Nick Jemetta:

Yeah, I mean, I think very often it’s about habit change and habit building, which is why I. I’ve intentionally spent time listening to James Clear’s atomic habits. And one of the things that he talks about that always sticks with me is, you know, when you’ve built a great habit, when you continue to practise the habit, even when you really don’t want to.

Anna Lundberg:

Yes.

Nick Jemetta:

Yeah. And how I try to apply that, albeit sometimes I’m inconsistent, is showing up on LinkedIn when I may not want to, or when I want to go into my shell and I don’t want to go to a networking event. You know, I force myself to do that if I don’t feel like writing on that day. Well, maybe instead of writing an entire article, I might just try and write the headline and that leans back into this progress over perfection piece. So I also think about how I can stack my habits just to try and demonstrate to myself that I’m always not only moving forward but like I said earlier, learning, because I think its the compound effect of everything we learn that eventually yields the insights, the nuggets, the opportunities, and ultimately the opportunity to generate revenue and spin up new business ventures.

Anna Lundberg:

Absolutely. And speaking of business ventures, you mentioned stories matter. Id love to hear more about that. So what is your business model? Who are you working with? What are you doing? How do you make money?

Nick Jemetta:

How do I make money? Well, that’s evolved. As I mentioned, it started with me being as a contractor and a consultant, but I’ve moved away from hands on work now. So what’s quite interesting, I suppose, that a lot of people struggle to get their head around, is that I’m what I describe as multi passionate. So I have a central mission which is to make work better. That’s my, that’s my kind of long term mission. My vision there is to help to develop empowered leaders who role model, trust, impact and wellbeing. And that sounds quite grandiose, but if I break that down at a very high level, I work with one audience, which is the audience I know very well. So this is product leaders and product teams, and I’m helping these people do their work better, I’m helping them develop their mindsets, I’m helping them see a better return on the investment they’re making in technology by also helping the people become better.

Nick Jemetta:

And I do that because I’ve got ten years experience in that industry. So I act as a coach, an advisor, a trainer in those sectors. But the other bit of work I do, which sounds disconnected but actually the themes really cross over, is that I do a lot of keynote speaking and that’s how we meth through mic drop. And my keynote speaking has developed for me, purely sharing my mind health story to me, talking a bit more holistically now about what I think we need to do to fundamentally change the dial, to make work healthier, to make work cultures more vibrant, which is we need to start recognising the power of EQ and the power of human skills, particularly amongst leaders, because I see so often that the stats on wellbeing, the stats on mind health at work are pretty devastating. And there’s loads of people that are raising funding for billions of dollars and they’re producing the next app or the next. What I’d describe as quick fix. But one of the stats that no one seems to be thinking as much about is the impact that managers have on wellbeing. I think there’s a real opportunity to show managers that there’s a better and by better I mean, a more impactful, a healthier, a more human centred way to lead that not only delivers great business outcomes, but actually makes work somewhere people want to be.

Nick Jemetta:

And for me, not only is that a win win, but it also has a very cleared line directly back to my mission to make work better. Because I believe if we can help managers be better managers, then we can make make work better. And, you know, it’s quite a lofty ambition. And when I was in the corporate world, I would never have dreamt that I would even be considering taking on this kind of challenge, because it’s quite vague, it’s quite vast, there’s no guarantee whether or not it’s going to work, but there’s enough evidence that tells me that managers need more support. So that’s the other part of my business that I’m just starting to, to explore right now. And I really just love having these different avenues because it allows me to build different income streams, it allows me to build quite a vast network and it just means I have to work a bit harder on my marketing and my messaging because I don’t have a very thinly defined niche and a lot of coaches will. I mean, I get coaches all the time writing to me on LinkedIn saying, have you considered niching down? I’ve almost got a default. It’s like, yes, I have.

Nick Jemetta:

But I’m actually going to approach this as more like a portfolio career is sort of how I see it. I’m solving big, important, impactful problems and if I have to do that in a slightly messy, roundabout way, and if it takes me ten years, then that’s okay.

Anna Lundberg:

So this is why I wanted to talk to you and I would love to go down the rabbit hole of the nature of the work that you’re doing because this, I think, is where we need to talk because I’m in that space as well. In terms of supporting.

Nick Jemetta:

Perfect. This is an offline conversation or a.

Anna Lundberg:

Very long podcast only because I think more interesting for this particular audience now is this idea of being multi passionate and having a portfolio career, because I’ve always evangelised that and it has always made it harder, as you say, with marketing, whether we do okay, I need to be single minded with my posts on LinkedIn or your little bio. It has to be super clear. I help this person do this thing, everything. The great advice that people, including me, tell you to do when you’re doing your business. But the beauty of having this kind of business, or if you can call it a business, even there’s a book called thought leaders, where they team of people now based in Australia, and they compare sort of the brain surgeons practise to the business. So they almost identify that as kind of, I would say sort of solopreneur expert, independent expert. But it’s the space where you’re not building a business, you’re certainly not going to be vc funded and have startup vibe and so. And it’s you, and the beauty of you as the personal brand is that you have different strands of, in terms of interest, in terms of your experiences, in terms of the value you can bring, in terms of audiences and so on, and that can and will evolve as you evolve.

Anna Lundberg:

And, you know, it’s a combination of being proactive. Of course, if I want to do keynote talks on the importance of human skills in the face of AI, then that will be maybe something I focus on for the next few months in my LinkedIn posts. But in the meantime, if someone comes to me and says, hey, can you coach this group of managers on this topic or can you mentor these people on this? Then of course that’s something I’m still excited about and it’s still something absolutely can and want to do. And I think that’s the difference. And I think it’s important to talk about that because, as you say, so many coaches and business models kind of say, no, you have to be really going in on, okay, I help coaches in this space go from one to one programmes to group programmes, or I help high potential executives in this industry do XYZ and so on. And I think, as we’re demonstrating, I think that’s nothing necessary. So hopefully that gives people permission, if they need permission, to kind of relax a little bit on the niche front. By all means, be clear and focused in your messaging, but recognise that you can have these different strings to your bow.

Anna Lundberg:

And in fact, it’s really powerful, as you said, to have those different income streams, right? It could be. And again, the thought leaders guys talk about the different methods or modes of speaking, coaching, training, authoring and so on, but it could also be the same message to different types of audiences, it can be different messages to the same audience. And all of that is within, underneath Nick Geometa, underneath possibly even stories that matter, right? Yeah. That’s the beauty of it. That’s the flexibility, the freedom, which is why we wanted to have this kind of business or thought leadership practise, whatever you want to call it.

Nick Jemetta:

Yeah. And it’s such a clear articulation. It’s something I want more people to to be thinking about and not to be afraid of. Because when I started the business, if you can call it that, or when I decided to become a solopreneur, there was a part of me that felt this pressure of coming up with the next big idea to start getting funding to scale the business, to recruit a load of people to sell it. And I still get people asking me, well, what’s your plan for scaling it? And I don’t really have a plan for scaling it. I want to scale my impact. That’s what I want to scale. The way in which I do that, how I might pivot, how I might take a slightly securitous route that’s the beauty for me because I’m not interested in building a business that someone else wants to buy.

Nick Jemetta:

I’m interested in building a business that lives to my values that we talked about earlier in terms of what success looks like, that it works with my family, but that gives me the energy and the passion to get out of bed every morning because I think you said earlier, one of the things I. I sort of. I test myself on it sort of a sense cheque, a pulse cheque, is if I didn’t need to worry about school runs and my diary, would I know what day it was? And if I knew what day it was, how would I feel about which day of the week it was? And the reason that I have that cheque is because for a long time in the corporate world, particularly in probably the last twelve months, where my mind health was in decline and where I was heading towards burnout, the Sunday night dread actually began. Probably Sunday lunchtime. And having that feeling every single week is just draining and you start to wonder, well, there must be more to life than losing half a day every week worrying about what might happen. When I log on at 09:00 on Monday and I genuinely don’t have that feeling anymore, there’s still stress, there’s still pressure. I might still get a bit anxious about a talk I’m doing or some work with a client, but I can channel that in a much healthier way and it’s a much more positive way of having those challenging emotions. So all the time I feel like that I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing.

Anna Lundberg:

It’s a good little cheque and I always think it’s sort of emperor’s new clothes. It’s looking at that once you’re there on the outside of. I remember, and it was years ago, I was in the city and I just, you know, those stock photos where you have, like, everything’s in black and then there’s like a yellow duck or a yellow umbrella. I was wearing a bright blue coat and literally, obviously, every other person was in a dark grey black suit looking down on the phone looking absolutely miserable. And I was like singing loud, just. But the contrast. And I don’t want to be in any way, like, arrogant or patronising people, but sometimes you just look at the, what are you doing? And obviously I think the pandemic has shaken things up a bit and so many people have woken up to maybe it isn’t normal to have that dread on Sunday nights, and of course everybody doesn’t have it, but if you do, maybe it’s a moment to reflect and try to think about what you could do differently. And I think it comes down a little bit, again to what we were talking about before, about the expectations coming out of school and university and so on.

Anna Lundberg:

If your parents do a certain thing, if your friends are going a certain path, that becomes okay, that’s what you need to do. And I think society, we’ve kind of woken up to this idea of, okay, you can have a startup and you can run a business and you can maybe sell it later on, and that’s become a little bit more normalised, but still this kind of. And I struggle with the naming of it, lifestyle business I played around with, but it’s. And it’s often contrasted with the kind of more the business that you then sell and make millions and so on, but it just sounds a bit critical, you know, oh, it’s just a lifestyle business, like you’re selling. You knitted hats on etsy or something. It’s just this is, as you say, isn’t this what life’s all about? I’m making an impact, I’m earning money, more or less, depending on what I can or want to make. I’m being able to be present with my family, I’m prioritising my hobbies and travel and health or whatever it is. I mean, I feel like that is, that’s the only thing that matters, in a way.

Anna Lundberg:

But obviously I’m a little bit biassed when I sometimes go, ah, what’s happening? I think it’s important to bring awareness to the different nuances of how you can run your business and of course have your own. Again, definition of success, because if you’re just racing towards another version of success, that kind of, oh, I’ve got to have staff, I’ve got to scale, I’ve got to work towards maybe selling the business in ten years time, whatever it is, then you’re just. Even if you are successful in that path, it’s not going to be meaningful success that brings you any kind of joy and peace of mind or anything. So it’s so, so important to keep checking in. And that little cheque that you have, I think is an important one to say, hang on, am I, you know, how do I feel about doing whatever it is I’m doing? Can I be fully present? I think, in the moment is really important. I think, for me, I begin to think that’s my definition of success. Am I exactly where I want to be right now? I’m having a really interesting conversation with Nick right now. If my kids were screaming outside, or if there was no offence, but gloriously sunny and I could be down, you know, it’s just there are things that if you have that fomo, then there’s something going on.

Anna Lundberg:

But if you’re really. If you can really be in the conversation, the project, the talk, the activity that you’re in and be happy that you’re there, I think that’s the most important thing. Cheque of being in the right place. Does that make sense?

Nick Jemetta:

No, it does. And that’s a cheque that everyone should do. Because I think. I’m glad to see we’re normalising and encouraging more people to do like. Like we are. But I do sometimes worry that there’s so much of a push towards that, that we’re almost painting the corporate world to be somewhere that people shouldn’t want to spend time, that it’s a world where you can’t grow, that you will only experience toxicity and bad leadership. And I don’t think that that’s true. Yes, I may have had a bad experience, but had lots of really good experiences.

Nick Jemetta:

And I count myself very fortunate that I have lots of options available to me. I’m doing the solopreneur thing now. I don’t intend to stop, but if something changed either, in my mindset, my heart set in my family, my circumstances, I’m grateful that I could take steps to the side. I could go back to contracting if I wanted to. I could do more hands on work, I could take a fractional role, I could go back full time. So I think, to your point, applying that cheque irrespective of the mode in which you’re working, is the most important point. What I don’t think folks should focus on is x, y and z look like they’re doing something great over here. I’m just going to go and do the same thing.

Nick Jemetta:

What you really should do is build that awareness of self, awareness of values, and then figure out how you construct your career around that 100%.

Anna Lundberg:

Could not agree more. And I think that’s an important, certainly it was an important journey for me because I think I demonised the corporate world a little bit. And I didn’t even have a bad time there, you know, I left. It wasn’t terrible at all. It was really good. So it’s funny version, when you talk about quitting the nine to five, I never wanted to go down the whole, oh, screw the cubicle, screw the nine to five message in, because that’s not the point. And as someone told me once, you know, 90, I don’t know, I’m making up the number, but 95% of people are not suited to, don’t want to, will never work for themselves. And so exactly, as you’re saying, turning our attention to how to make that corporate world work for people, make work better, as you said, I.

Anna Lundberg:

I don’t want to judge a more useful way of spending your time, but it’s a really important way to spend that time, to really look at that and again, not just say, oh, that’s just how it is. Yeah, you worked long hours. That success requires sacrificing health and relationships, and you’re going to end up fat and divorced with a heart attack. That’s just the way it is, guys. I think that’s an important stereotype to rip to shreds in terms of how you’re getting your name out there, I suppose. How are you putting yourself in front of the right people? What are the channels? How are you building your personal brand?

Nick Jemetta:

So one of the things I wish I’d done sooner, and I say this because I hope anyone listening can learn from, my mistake, was that I wish I’d been building my network and my personal brand for longer, with more intention and more consistently, because I only started to even understand the notion of a personal brand when I decided to share some of my mind health struggles on LinkedIn. And it was quite a shock to me when people actually started to engage and when I started to attract followers and connections, and all of a sudden, this avenue to building a personal brand, being a content creator, opened up for me. But I’ve been posting since 2018, and it isn’t just about LinkedIn, of course, it’s not just about social media, but I’ve been active in that world. But it’s taken me six years and I’m at 10,000 followers now. So I have a fairly decent critical mass. But of course, it’s also not about the number of followers, it’s about what your objective is. Who are those people? What kind of action do you want them to take? So LinkedIn is one of the ways that I build that personal brand. I love coming on podcasts, I love contributing to written form, I love to contribute to the media where I can.

Nick Jemetta:

Now and again, I’m in the media’s black book and I get a calls from the media. I do have to sanity cheque them. I recently got an invitation to go onto Piers Morgan show and I very quickly said no to that one. I didnt think that that would be a fit for my personal brand. So building a personal brand means saying no as much as it means saying yes. And the final thing I wanted to say, which a lot of people will probably be quite surprising, is that youre probably going to ask me where people can find me. And most folks are going to say, oh, here’s my website. I actually don’t have one right now.

Nick Jemetta:

So I’m two and a half years into the journey and I haven’t got one. And the reason I haven’t got one is because I prioritise driving my network, building relationships, getting to know people, getting to know their contacts, delivering the work and earning, building this financial resilience. And it’s only now that I am now building a website, I’m working with a copywriter. I’m clearer on my propositions, and that really is going to be a bit of a game changer for me, because right now I’m renting space from LinkedIn and that’s a real risk. So I’m looking forward to building my personal brand and actually having a corner of the Internet that’s mine. And the day I launched that site is going to be a real day of celebration for me because it’s been something I’ve been sitting on and procrastinating on for probably far too long.

Anna Lundberg:

Yes, but I mean, to unpack that, that’s a bit of a mic drop moment in itself, because the fact that you can have a thriving practise business without that is so powerful. And you, like me, come from kind of a digital background, right? So I used to help clients and of course, that’s often the temptation. I come from a marketing background. I need a logo, I need the business cards, which thankfully, I’ve stopped ordering since many years because I have polls and, you know, you need the website, you need the fancy stuff. And actually, if you can drill it back to the essentials. It’s about conversations, you know, even that, as you said, social media and so on, it can be very dangerous sometimes I think, to talk about how powerful that is because then people think, oh, I’ve got to be more active on social media. And that becomes like a ball and chain that I have to post. And then we’re missing the point again, so we have to keep back to, okay, but what is your message? You want to make work better, that’s your mission.

Anna Lundberg:

And getting that message out there and helping people think about that and supporting managers in that whole space is what matters. And then the channel and the location and whatever, doesn’t matter so much. And whether you post five times a week at 07:03 in the morning, whatever the best practise say you should do, or whether it’s. Once, you know, it’s just, it’s about that. Again, consistency and learning and growing and so on. But again, it makes it hard to give kind of a blueprint for people to follow, I think. But I hope everyone heard, and it came late in the interview, the important moment that you don’t necessarily need all the stuff that you think you need. But then, as you said, now at this moment, you’re going to be able to put something together really effectively because you know, you know more about, you have the self awareness of what you want to do, you have the bigger mission, you have those different income streams, the different forms of helping people, you know, so fall into place so nicely once you do put the website up and we’ll celebrate.

Nick Jemetta:

Watch this space.

Anna Lundberg:

Watch this space. Absolutely. Well, yeah, well, let us know. We’ll add it to the show notes. And finally, and I’m conscious of time because as ever, we go down all these interesting pathways and I’d love to dig more into so many of the topics we’ve talked about. But part of what we talked about, you mentioned boundaries, we’ve talked about the kids and the freedom and the flexibility and so on. Do you have a typical day, a typical week? Do you work Monday to Friday? What are your boundaries? How do you make work better for you?

Nick Jemetta:

When I first started this, I was quite intentional, not working on Friday afternoons because I was trying to practise that progressive experimentation. So I only worked four and a half days a week. And then I. I sort of change my perspective on that. So I will work as much as I need to and want to work, and I will recognise that on some weeks things will happen in my personal life where I might need to dial back on work. But in other weeks I’ve got client commitments or I’ve got something I’m particularly energised about and I might stay up till 11:00 at night or I might have to work on a Sunday afternoon. But the difference for me is that I’m aware I’m setting intention and I’m flexing based on what I’m trying to achieve and what’s happening in my life at that point. And one thing I should probably make clear also is that I’m very present in my children’s lives and sense that I do the school run.

Nick Jemetta:

So every Monday I pick my children up from school at 03:00 so that is one boundary I set, is that unless there’s an exception, I do not work past 03:00 on a Monday. And if that means I work till 09:00 on a Friday night, I’m getting older, unfortunately. So my experience of going out partying is way, way back in my twenties. Now, a Friday night working till 09:00 is a big night out for me.

Anna Lundberg:

Yes, I know the feeling. I used to when I started coaching, I did call late in the evening and I just. I can’t do that now anymore, you know, it’s just I’m too tired. I just, I’m lying on the sofa ready for bed at that point. But I think again, the essence is you have to do it with intention and base it around the seasonality of your life right now, whether you’ve got yours and whether you’re super, super ambitious. I have some colleagues and it’s totally on me. It’s no judgement of them, but they exhaust me sometimes and they have the energy that I probably had when I started ten years ago. I’m sounding like an old lady, but when you have these phases of oh my gosh, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that and I’m so excited.

Anna Lundberg:

And then I’m going to this event and this conference and I saw this and I’m doing all these things quite like I’m just plodding along with my stuff. I know what I’m doing and, you know, sometimes there’s a bit more of acceleration and of course sometimes I work a bit longer. But like you as well, I have a hard stop on certain days. We’re recording this ahead of time so that I can take much of the summer off, obviously with, with school holidays and so on. So, you know, that’s the kind of things that I’m thinking about these days. And sometimes I’m like, oh, I could be doing more, I could be doing it faster. But again, it’s having that long term picture in mind, I think, and seeing how the things are adding up, you know, things that seem impossible to do tomorrow, if you extend that deadline a year, three years, 510, suddenly it becomes completely feasible. And that’s.

Anna Lundberg:

I think we need to hold that in our sights, you know, to know that it’s still there. We’re heading towards. And before you know it, your website’s live, you’re talking, you’re doing your TED talk, you got your best selling book, whatever it is that your goal is. And, you know, it’s just those little moments, those little moments of habits and consistency along the way.

Nick Jemetta:

And like you, I’ll be taking the summer off for that, for that very reason, because there is only so many more summer holidays I’m going to be able to enjoy with my children at that age. So, you know, as you said, my ambitions are multi year rather than multi week, shall we say.

Anna Lundberg:

Yeah, interesting. And how old are your children?

Nick Jemetta:

I’ve got an eight year old and I’ve got a ten year old who’s just about to go to secondary school. So, you know, that’s another big life change that I want to make sure I’m completely present for. And because I know that ahead of time, I’m already navigating a path and creating the conditions that will allow me to have some time around the period that she’s starting and where she might need my support.

Anna Lundberg:

Yeah. And that intentionality, again, being proactive about that, I think is so important. And that is, I think, where, and I see lots of lots is a stretch. But a few CEO’s and directors now talking on LinkedIn about how they do allow that flexibility for their employees because they’re really sort of childlike, having to ask permission to go to the toilet kind of vibe that we get in some organisations that, you know, I have to ask to be able to take vacation. And, you know, your big conference lands, unfortunately, at the time where your oldest is starting senior school. The beauty of running your own thing is that you can choose then to front load the year so that you can take the summer off and to make sure that you’re not saying yes to things. And that’s important to remember because sometimes, as you said earlier, we can kind of recreate just the same stresses that we had before. And then there’s no point.

Anna Lundberg:

I think, in fact, coming back to your point about the corporate not being the demon, I realised some years ago that it’s really me. If I’m struggling to set those boundaries and look after myself, then I’ll take that with me. Whether I’m working for myself in a startup, whether I have this thought leader practise, whether I go to another organisation. So it’s on me to work on, yeah, my definition of success, my boundaries, my resilience, and then I’m sure I will find or can create the environment, circumstances, organisation. As you said, whether I want to go to a big company, a small organisation, have my own thing, it’s not about that. It is more about you as an individual, I think. And that’s a harsh reality because it’s easy to blame the structures and your boss and so on. But I think it’s also very empowering to know that you have that you have that responsibility, accountability and possibility to change things.

Nick Jemetta:

It’s that collective responsibility is how I see it. I think senior leaders and managers need to step up, need to change the way they’re doing things, to change their cultures. But to your point, we have individual responsibility and I think that means doing the inner work, doing the inner work to understand your values, to set your boundaries, to be disciplined, to be focused, but also to give yourself a break, to be kind to yourself, to not beat yourself up. If you want to spend an hour watching Game of Thrones on the tv or an hour playing video games, its about finding what works for you. And as weve kind of said a few times, being aware of those things and being intentional. I think inner work is something that I think were going to hear a lot more about in the workplace in general, I think we have this notion of personal development, but for me it’s much more about the inner work that actually builds your mindset and builds your mindset into one that you can sustain and gives you a level of resilience over, as we’ve kind of been talking about over decades. So I think it’s a pretty interesting time to be in the workplace, and I’m delighted to be playing a very small part in starting those shifts.

Anna Lundberg:

Absolutely. And I won’t give your website as a place to go to.

Nick Jemetta:

No, you better not.

Anna Lundberg:

Later on. In the meantime, it sounds like LinkedIn is a good place.

Nick Jemetta:

Where can LinkedIn is the place? Or if you google my name, you will uncover more of the story I didn’t share about what I did in lockdown. That’s something I posted about a few times on LinkedIn. If I was to rewind probably seven years and you search for my name on Google almost nothing will come up. I look now and Google is just full of articles and blogs and podcasts and images and media sessions and media clips. And even that, to me, is a really visceral illustration of how far I’ve come. So if you want to find me, it won’t be difficult.

Anna Lundberg:

And that’s, you know, but that’s amazing. And you’re lucky with your name, unfortunately, and I won’t bore you with the details, there’s a famous actress who has my name who’s taken over my online presence, so I need to work my media presence back up there. But I think that’s such an important reminder, again, as to somebody could be at the beginning of their journey looking at all your content, going, oh, my gosh, that’s amazing. He’s done all these things. But of course, you started at zero, too, and you did an interview here and an article there and a blog post there and a LinkedIn post there. And then I. And as we said, it kind of, we’ve now fast forwarded and gone, hey, look at all the stuff I’ve created. But of course, yeah, that’s because you’ve put a lot of intentional effort into that over the years, and now you can reap the rewards of that.

Anna Lundberg:

So I think that’s an important reminder as well, to not compare your day one with someone else’s day. Whatever two and a half years makes in days, which I’m not going to try to do. 800 and something.

Nick Jemetta:

Someone will probably correct you.

Anna Lundberg:

Okay, well, thank you so much, Nick. I’d love to talk to you more online and offline, but thank you so much for your generosity and time sharing your insights and looking forward to seeing those next twists and turns in your journey as well.

Nick Jemetta:

Thank you for having me.

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