 Good evening everybody Ross here at Teacher Toolkit. Thank you for watching, thank you for joining live, one or two of you at the moment and a few hundred maybe later on, lots of people watching this later on. I'm lucky enough to be joined by two colleagues who are going to talk about leadership and lots of different aspects of life, I suppose. I'm gonna introduce you both to them shortly. So we're gonna have an informal chat about school leadership and other aspects of leadership in different contexts. Particularly we'll probably talk about the military in some shape or form in a moment. I'm just gonna just explain this platform that we're watching off. So if StreamYard's new to you, let me just explain how it works. We're currently streaming to LinkedIn to my YouTube channel and to Twitter. So if you're logged in, you can leave a comment. I'll then pop your comment on to the screen like this. So we'll just get the admin bit out of the way. So here we go. And then I can publish your comment live to our guests for them to explain and respond to. So that's the process and why we're here. We're gonna talk about this fabulous book. So let me just do the technology also of leading with love by Dr. Vikar, a primary head teacher in the Northwest of England. I'm gonna let Vik explain the book to you and a little bit more detail. So that's enough for me to begin with. I'm gonna bring in Vik and Mel. Here they are. Let me just move the screen over. Good evening, Vik. Good evening, Mel. Good evening. Let's start off with Mel. Can Mel, can I get yourself to introduce yourself to everybody watching, please? Yeah. I'm Commodore Mel Robinson. So at the moment I'm the commander of the Maritime Reserves. I've been in the Navy 30 years. I'm married to a naval man and I've got two adult children. My son, Max, joined Dartmouth last Monday. So I'm really proud of him. I've got daughter Maisie and I think people probably recognise my appetite to bring up a family, understand how I can put them first and have a fulfilling career. So I have taken a lot of inspiration from Vik's book and I'm delighted to come here this evening to have a chat about bits of that. I think are as applicable in the military as they are in schools. Thank you. Well, thanks for joining us, Mel. I'm really looking forward to hearing some of your insights. You sound like a very busy lady. So it'd be interesting to learn how you balance leadership, life and being a mum and also life in the ministry. Vik, over to you. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself. Well, I, as you said, a primary school head teacher in the Northwest of England. I run a brilliant school called Woodlands Primary School and I've been there, this is my fifth year. That's my second head ship. I absolutely love it. Equally, I love my reserve career. I'm an Army reservist. I'm an officer in the Army reserve and I think that what Mel said is really interesting because I definitely see the resonance between what we do in schools and the military. I think leadership is leadership no matter your context and hopefully that's what we'll chat about this evening. Now, there's a small matter just for people listening. We can't talk about it but Vik's just gone through off-stead, literally in the finish now but we're going to quickly move on from that topic. Okay. Small matter. You've published the book, Vik, haven't you? Now, that's not a small achievement. It's a massive achievement. Tell us when it was published and how the book came to be. Okay, so this isn't really a tricky topic although looking back at perhaps might sound a bit bizarre. So I do lots of bits in the margins of my day job as I'm sure most of us do. And one of those things is I'm often asked to talk to student teachers or emerging leaders, perhaps on master's programs and what have you. So I was asked during lockdown to talk to a bunch of students from Hope University in Liverpool which I did online and I was asked to talk about my leadership journey and I thought actually that's pretty boring because everyone was learning online. Nobody really wants to know about all the schools you've worked in in terms of a linear progression. So I just thought rather than prepare anything I'd talk off the cuff and I would talk about some of the key learning that I'd taken away and I distilled it probably into about 12 tweets. On the back of those sort of tweets post the talk loads of people interacted with it and someone suggested I write a blog and from there it became why don't you extend that blog into writing a book. At which point I did what I always do I'm trying to talk myself out of doing it because I thought who writes a book that's impossible that's beyond me. And I then was asked to fill in a kind of some you'll know you'd be familiar with this proposal and I thought about it for a number of weeks and thought oh my life I don't know how to do this. And then breaking down the kind of tweets into chapter headings really I just kind of created a blog around each idea. And so it evolved from a small idea into a kind of bigger one. And then I found actually that when I was thinking about each topic and I think I might say this in the book when I was thinking about each topic as if I was writing a blog I almost thought about all the different things that contributed to that aspect of my development aspect of my life or my leadership or my family or have you and just expanded on it. So it's not really I think I say it's not an academic book I am a doctor I've got a doctorate, an academic one. So it's not like that at all. So people are thinking oh that's gonna be a boring book because she's a boring doctor. I think it's less about that and more about just a few bits. I haven't got a copy. There's lots of lovely stories in so we're gonna unpick some of the stories from each chapter later. But before I do Mel, you mentioned earlier that you love this book and it resonated with you a lot. So give us a kind of overview of as to why why it made touch you so much. Okay, so something that enjoys learning by doing. And so a good book in my life is often reflected by how many pages I've turned over. Which bits I've scribbled on, which bits I've highlighted were the most bits of this book are. And I think what I most enjoyed about it, Vic, was the opportunity to reflect at the end of each chapter and go back and immerse yourself in bits of your experience that you've recorded whether it be a podcast or a book, I've read this, go and read that. So you just continue to get further and further immersed in the learning from each of the chapters. So learning by doing is what I'd say, Ross, it's very engaging. And yeah, kept on going back to it. It was brilliant. So I'm pleased to hear that you are a kind of underliner. Some people don't like to do Facebook but I'm very much a writer and writer in it too. Vic, were you written in your copy? If I'm really honest with you, and again, you are the expert. Once you've written it and you've edited it and you've reread it and you've proofread it, you kind of a bit put off picking it up again. But I do agree that is what I do. And I think I do say in there that if you're the kind of person who it's got red wine stains or it's got coffee stains because you put your red wine on it and then you give up. I don't like to do Facebooks, but I like to live them. I mean, the more audible books are listens. You can't pick them up and you lose them and you don't get that kind of authenticity over time. So get writing on them, I say. I'm going to come to some more questions just for people watching live. We're live streaming to LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. Pose a question in the comment box. I'll press a button on my side. So here we go. And I'll display your question for us to respond to. So let's just get warmed up. So there's a few people watching live. Maybe just log in and tell us where you're watching from on your sofa. Hopefully a glass of wine or something like that. Relaxing depends on when you're watching this and where you are. We know people can watch from anywhere. Vic's got a glass of champagne, quite rightly. This is a book launch and she has just survived off-stead but I'm not going to mention that. I'll try not to say it a lot of times. You're smiling, so both things can take from that way. There you go. Well, people in the game will read between the lines. Now I'm going to put this Vic up just to give you a prompt. So we've got your kind of what, why, how methodology. Now you've also explained how the book came to be. So let's just go to the why. Okay, so I guess like a lot of people, particularly if you've got a much bigger social media presence than me, you're often asked about what's the secret? How do you survive leadership? What's the secret to being a good leader? And lots of people evidently assume that I was one. So I thought, am I actually? So I thought I'd kind of try and debunk some of the myths surrounding leadership and make sure that everybody realized it was a really accessible thing and that it was possible for anybody who aspires to it. It was possible because I think my 101 of leadership is reflect on yourself, what you bring to the party, be honest with yourself, have some emotional intelligence and if you don't have it then learn to develop it. And there's loads of ways you can do that. And also just to say to you call to arms, everybody who may not even see that they are a leader. So anybody who has got influenced or who is influential in any way, be that social workers or people working in youth clubs or whatever, if you're working with other people and you have influence over their lives then you are a natural leader. And that means that you have got the opportunity to really, truly change lives and I don't suppose many people think that they can or that they would and some of those realizations have kind of come to me over time. So I thought, why not given the fact that I've been asked to do this book, given the fact that I'm doing it and I'm immersed in it, why not sort of give some people an idea of why they might want to do that? So just as an extension really of what I talk about in my TED Talk. And for people watching, if you're not familiar with Vic's TED Talk, go to our Twitter profile. We'll put that link in the feed shortly. You can watch Vic's TED Talk later. Delighted that Nina's joined us and been brave enough to leave a comment so everyone else tuning in do so also. An ESOL teacher in Argentina, fantastic. So thank you for watching there. Feel free to post some questions, you Nina as we go through the session. Now, let's go back to the beginning. We all need a good story to get our new or unactivated. So I'm going to put these two provocative pictures on and Mel and I are just going to disappear behind the scenes and leave you solo for a little story. So over to you. Tell us about the beginning. Okay, so what's hilarious I think, and I don't know if anybody can see this, but the photo of me, I'm in the stripy T-shirt and my face has not changed in 40 years there. So I'm with my brother and I'm with my sister who's one down from me. I actually have two sisters, but this is a photograph. One of the few photos that survives our childhood. So in the beginning, the earth did definitely cool, but for us it was a bit of a challenging time and our smiles there are kind of our armor really. We were always smiling and, you know, thick as the eaves and up to mischief, the four of us together, but there aren't many photos that survive our childhood because my dad who had schizophrenia and was quite a violent chap, he decided that he would try to kill himself on a number of occasions and one of those occasions was when he got all of our family photos out, he was obviously feeling very melancholy and he got all the photos out and he slashed his wrists and destroyed most of our family photos. So there are very few photos that exist of our childhood, particularly of my baby sister. And I think to be honest with you, my siblings would probably try and throttle me if they knew that this photo was out in the public domain because yeah, that was definitely 70s fashion, but that was the beginning for us, but it shows that it exemplifies for me the love I have for my family and the love I have for my siblings and just yeah, they're just great, they're great kids and we've all grown up caring for one another and in a very close family relationship which is the underpinning of everything that I do and that then led me to become the kind of superwoman idea that most people think I've got now and that outfit, that superwoman get-up, that came to me. So one of the things I brought to this current school was supervision. I think modern leadership now we deal with a lot of challenging social stories. Now my story was a challenging social story but back in the day, in the 70s, we didn't have the support networks that we have now in schools to support children like we were and one of those groups of people that we have now, fantastic kind of caring for children in social care and that kind of local area support, that's the lady who brought me that superwoman costume. She's a great old girl and great young girl actually and she brought me that costume. She said, I think about you all the time and this is how I view you. I don't know her that well. She came to our school and said, honestly, this is how I view you and I was just so thrilled. So I wore that the whole day. The kids thought it was great. The staff thought I'd lost the plot. They actually know I've probably lost the plot but I just thought it was funny. So that's very, I guess this is very much your why here, isn't it? I'm gonna pop over to Mel. Mel, I guess in the same context, I know we don't have a slide to show but can you think back to a time in your beginning, your early life, your first career where that why journey started for you to a point where you are today? Yeah. Middle of my career, Ross, actually, I had an interesting sort of moment when I felt pregnant in the military and in those days, we didn't have policies in place for us to have careers and have children. And so I left. And in leaving, I lost my uniform and rightly or wrongly, I had credited my value system to my uniform. I had come through Dartmouth at that stage and in kind of leaving the Navy to have the kids, I kind of had this sort of emotional moment where I just lost my sense of self and I had to rebuild that. And I rebuilt it through a very personal journey of commitment to self and personal development which has made me the leader that I am today. I think I'm quite different in my second career as a reservist than I perhaps was in my first career. I think I am, maybe people will tell me I'm the same, I don't know. And I guess there was lots of highs and lows along the way and kind of critical moments, turn left or turn right type stuff. Yeah, I mean, listening to her talking to her, photographs, you said, the smile was the armour. Of course, we have a uniform that's normally, does a lot of the sort of leadership and direction for us. And so compassion and empathy is something that you've really got to work at hard out to shine beyond that sort of, that austere sort of way in which we present ourselves, I think. So I guess, out of my expertise a little bit, and I know it wasn't far from perfect yet, but I'm hoping policies are a little bit better for females in the military today than there were 10, 20, 30 years ago. Absolutely. We are in a completely different place. So in the 20 years that I've had the kids, I've seen women have a completely different experience in the Navy, yeah. And across the military, so very, very different place to what it was 20 years ago. Moved on leaps and bounds, definitely. Good, well, that's good to hear and thank you for sharing your why. So just to remind people watching live, we are in a book launch, but we're gonna be sharing lots of stories. Let me just put this back up on the screen for you. We're talking about Vic's new book, Leading with Love, you know, Compassionate Leadership. I suppose today it's very relevant, Vic, Jacinda Arden. You're maybe education's version here in England of Jacinda Arden, I would like to say. Wow, they're big bits to fill, Ross. Let's just get that out there. Well, some of the things that she said, you know, we think about lots of people like yourself that do lead our schools with compassion and love. It is possible and it is possible to get good off-stead outcomes through that leadership as you can probably attest, but we'll move on from off-stead. I'll put on slide two. So chapter two is about courage. So give us a synopsis, Vic, of this slide and a reminder to everybody. We've got a comment from Nina so far. Log in, leave us a question or a comment. We'll put them on display and we'll respond to you as we go through. So we're talking here about leadership and compassion. So Vic, slide two, what have we got here? Okay, so building on from my why and building on from the little snapshot I told you about the first chapter about the beginning. So we didn't have a great start, but the people who guided me in the very beginning were in schools pretty much my teachers and the teaching assistants. And actually, I think I said in my TED talk when I went back to my primary school, almost 40 years later, there was one person who was still there from when I was a small child and she was amazed to hear about the stories of myself and my siblings and even my mom really and what we'd gone on to do with our lives. And I think my career was always destined to be with children, although I wanted to fly helicopters, which was my big passion as a teenager. I just didn't have the courage to do it. I think I do talk about that in the book. I just didn't have the courage and I didn't have someone who was advocating for me and telling me to go out and get everything I wanted and reach for the stars and don't care if you fall before that. And now I'm a mom and I think my children and they're here. There's my gorgeous boy Tom and my best girl is and look how great they are. They're just adorable. My son a little bit like Melz is in the Army now and he's trained to be a role engineer and my daughters just doing array levels. But I think having them means that I not just have found courage to kind of share my story, but also to support my children and to make sure that they have got the courage from me. And that has involved me working on myself because I did not want my children to have the same insecurities that I had or ever feel that they weren't good enough or feel afraid or what have you. So they give me the courage. And I talk in that chapter about lots of reasons why I've developed courage which I won't bore anybody with now if you want to. Well, actually I'm gonna interject because I'm flicking through the things that I've highlighted and we've got your daughter, like all children, my boy had a meltdown during lockdown, no surprise. So I suppose all our children have that at some point as they grow up. We talk about marriage and children surviving in all sorts of contexts. You've got a really good question. Well, a good statement here. Don't hide from painful situations. Tell us what you mean by that. So basically for a little while, I thought that I needed to protect my children from any pain because I had felt pain as a child and I didn't want them to feel any pain. So I thought that was the best parenting strategy to protect them from that really. But what that did was kind of sanitize life. And in fact, I realized very quickly going through my divorce that perhaps that wasn't the best strategy really because they need to know and understand feelings and emotions are normal, they're part of life. And it's how we then deal with some of those tricky. I hadn't had that parenting experience when I was parented, when I was a child, I didn't have that. So I didn't really have that roadmap. So I have given that to my children. But that came from them. My son and my daughter kind of said to me, we need to see that you're upset, mommy, because this is really sad. And I said, well, I am upset. I try and deal all away from you to protect you. And they said, we don't need that. We need you to show us because then we know that you feel like we do. And so then I would explain to them. And I think that taught me that actually, it's okay to feel these feelings that normal human feelings, grief is normal, pain is normal and explaining how that might look and how we might recover from that and the tools that we might use to recover from that will help my children find that language and those tools themselves, which it has done. And as you describe in parts of the book, there's some kind of deep, there's lots of deep sharing here. And, you know, lots of honesty. So if people have not got their hands on this great book, lead them with love, you wear your heart and your sleeve, Vick. It must be commended. Before I come to Mellon, I should say the same question about courage, your own children and lessons in leadership. Just want to say thank you to Kimba in Uganda for watching us live also. And just a shout out to Nina in Argentina. You're Nina. So thank you both for joining us. Anyone else who's brave enough to log in and leave a comment, let us know where you're watching and get brave enough to ask us some questions in a moment when we talk about leadership and compassion. Mell, over to you. Question, I guess, you know, my son's 11. I've already had one or two quite significant moments, one when he was born. And I guess one during lockdown, if I think about courage, parenting, leadership, you know, being a dad. But what about for you in terms of it shaping your own destiny and how you're bringing your children up? Any kind of key things that stand out? So I love that we're on chapter two, aren't we, Courage? I love this chapter because it talks to resilience. And there's a point later in the book where you talk about success not being a linear pathway. And for me, definitely. I had plateaus in my career and I had these big surges where I made sort of progress through the hierarchy very, very quickly. And that caused some resentment in the organisation. And so I've personally suffered from that. And I kind of got to a stage where I thought, you know, you can either be a victim to that behaviour or you can learn from it. So your points at the end of this chapter changed the narrative from why this is happening to me to what is this teaching me? I was always very clear with my kids they could see me suffering. I wasn't quite as brave in terms of hiding my tears but I was very clear with them about taking the lessons and understanding how I could be sort of more resilient. I think one of the points I'd make is, of course, for strong women. Okay, so the challenge with being strong in the household is that there's always a risk you're going to over mother your kids. And so I've had to work quite hard with the kids to introduce resilience to them and encourage them to take their own journey. So you kind of have to soften down the sort of strength and the superwoman at home, don't you? To allow them to develop themselves. But yeah, resilience, this chapter for me was all about, you know, it's not a linear pathway. You're going to come across some real hurdles in your life and your career and you either become a victim or you become somebody that does something about that. So I took a lot from this chapter, thank you, Vic. My question about resilience, you know, we often have to draw upon resources around us and either we have those resources or we learn through adversity and hardship and we don't have them and they're either signposted to us or there's a bit of grit inside us, whether we call that DNA or something else. I don't know what the question is, but I'll pose it to you Vic first because you've written the book. What advice would you give to people out there that might be struggling who may not have an immediate resource network? So for example, I've moved up to, I've left London after 30 as a miniature apart from my family. I don't know anyone. So you have to obviously draw upon all the skills you have and you relate it over time, but maybe for someone starting out in the career like you two were, I won't say however number of years because I'll get in trouble, but you know, when you were started, what advice would you give to yourself? I guess that's the best question. For someone that doesn't have the resources, what should they have, what would you told yourself to have done? Well, it's really tricky, isn't it? Because when I kicked off my career 25 years ago, we didn't have the kind of tools that we have now. So all of my new teachers now, I encourage to use social media. I know that there are risks with social media I do. However, there are also great benefits. And honestly, I only set up my Twitter account when I joined my new school. So I've been there for a bit years and there are lots and lots of people that I've networked with since who have just provided me an experienced leader with a huge wealth of support and ideas and friendship and collaboration opportunities. And I retweet ECT questions. I will, my DMs are open. Again, this is dangerous. I won't say as a woman, I just think as a human being because they're all kinds of people with peculiarities. They think it's okay to say inappropriate things, but there are methodologies that you can use to challenge that and block and report and all of those things happen. What I would say is reaching out on social media, so many people now. And as I said earlier, it goes back to my belief system, which is somebody like me who now finds themselves with a few followers on Twitter, I will amplify the questions of people to support them. So who can I turn to? I'll amplify that even if it's somebody obscure or somebody unknown to me because I think that's our social and moral obligation to kind of support people who are new and young and vulnerable and perhaps a bit worried. And I'm also open to people asking me questions or asking me for advice. I spend a lot of time responding to people or at least signposting them towards what I think. I guess that's the power of social media. None of us had that 15 years ago. We didn't have that. Yeah, no, we didn't have it. It was local authority training or that was it and that's all you were told when you got on. Mel, how about yourself? What advice would you give to yourself starting out if you didn't have a resource network around you? Yeah, I was a younger self. So I was, as you do, reading sort of that intelligent quotient earlier this week. So it's the dog coming in now. Bring the dog in. Let's have a look. Dequeuing. I mean, isn't that a thing? How do you use social media to influence? How to assess and understand people that you're connecting with through that environment that you don't see in them visually? So I think it's a lot more difficult for Victor to understand who you're going to reach out to. Advice to my younger self, ask for help. So when you are leading a purpose-driven life and when you want to contribute and help people, it's really, really hard to ask for that help yourself. Andrew, does that agree? Quite late, and actually once I've learned to do it, I think now I'm more inclined to go with my instincts. And when I need to reach out, I just go for it. And I'm a better person for it. Good tips. Reminder people watching. If you've got questions about leadership, female leadership, leading with compassion and love, then pose the questions in the chat box. So we've got quite a few people that are joining us. So I'm going to give them all a little shout out again. So Yannina joined us from Argentina. I hope you're still watching. Kimbe from Uganda. So we've got a true international audience, Aliyah Pakistan and Sariqa from the UK. Where about Sariqa? I'm great to hear from a science teacher. Now there's 15 chapters in this brilliant book, Vic. And I'm referring to our slides that we've prepared. So we're skipping to chapter four and I'm going to put this, in fact, before we go there, let's just give a quick shout out to chapter three. Do what is right, not what is easy. Give us a 30 second synopsis of what's in that chapter. What can people expect? I think it talks about moral courage and about taking a deep breath and stepping forward and doing the right thing. And sometimes it is not easy to do the right thing. There are lots of easy options, softer options, not taking the difficult conversation when you need to not tackling that issue. And actually I've learned over time that it's better to do that, better to tackle the difficult problem, better to have the difficult conversation than to let it rank along, even if it's a bit difficult, yeah. And it is, and we make mistakes along the way and we have those awkward conversations. I guess what we don't want to do is have casualties along the way. No, that's quite right. And what I've learned and how I work with my leadership team, again, it's commented on this evening in our feedback as a strength is to coach them. And you can't have innovation and drive and energy without mistakes. And I think your response as a leader when mistakes are made is absolutely crucial because you can't encourage that innovative environment if you then come down like a tonne of bricks on people who are being innovative. And that is going to involve mistakes. And we teach it to children. And I guess I see it in the military, when I went through Sandhurst 18 months ago, if we've made mistakes in certain ways, we were then shown a different way and we were coached. And that is the absolute model now that the British Army and I suspect the Navy when I was doing my research that their ideas and the way of the methodology of disseminating the information is now much more about a coaching methodology and an expectation that people will make mistakes. Now, Mel, I can see we've been joined by a special guest on your lap. I think he's up here. Still on the show. So, Mel, have you got one kind of point in your career where you had that difficult moment when you did what was right, not what was easy? Anything stand out? Yeah, so your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room, yeah? So I think this chapter for me talks about consistency and you talk about leaving a legacy Vic in terms of what you say. Once those words are said, you can't ever take them back. And being consistent is really, really tough. And I think what comes across in all of these chapters is good leadership is hard work. It's hard work developing yourself. But, and I think it comes through in the next chapter. My breakthrough moment, Ross, was understanding that I wasn't always going to get the help from my own sector. So I've turned to the education sector in particular to connect with senior leaders who can teach me a lot about how to be a better leader in the industry. That's interesting. And I think I suspect in any industry, we've got thousands of people out there that don't get the help they need from their own industry. And I hope that there's a bit of a better network in the military, at least with the leadership to support people today. Right, let's move on to chapter four. So people watching or just tuning in, we're looking at book launch here, Leading the Love by Dr. Vic Carr. Who are these two gentlemen, Vic? So these two chaps are two of the greatest loves of my life alongside my children. On the left-hand side in the red braces is Johnny and on the right-hand side is Richard. And all I can say is that I am a product of the people who have invested in me over my life. And Johnny runs a pub, still does, in Ambleside called The Golden Rule. I cut my teeth in there as a student and I think that out myself in the book when I say that I was really socially inept and I was terrified of life. And in working in Johnny's pub, I had this pseudo-social life when I was at university and everyone talks about this wonderful experience of how at uni and how they're out socializing and everything, that was not my story because I just wasn't equipped with the right social skills and the right confidence to do that. And often what surprises me is that people are shocked that that would be the case because I can come across as being quite buoyant and bubbly and what have you, but as a teenager, that was not the case. I've become myself in my 40s. And so Johnny used to say to me, let's go for an adventure. And in the book, I talk about some of our adventures, one of which was us crashing in Greysdale Forest in a balloon accident, which was just hilarious, if not slightly defying. And Richard was just this amazing guy. So he was my lecturer at Charlotte Mason College as was University of Cumbria as is. And he taught me about experiential learning, about nature, about connecting with nature. And he would often quietly hand me books about self-help. He could see that I was struggling and he knew that reading was my passion. So he would just give me books to read. So Robert Frost, The Road Less Traveled and things like this. And I would read these books and through sheer determination, which I do have in spades as it happens, I read these things and just, I found myself and I thought it's okay, you're okay, you'll be okay. And I found mantras to kind of help myself through. So those two guys weren't just instrumental in me getting through college. They were instrumental and still are. I love them both. I see them both regularly now. Johnny's just back from a trip in Mexico and Richard actually is halfway through writing his book. I talked to him at the weekend. So I think they're very much in. The next slide, we've got a picture of you probably at this point in your life, but we won't come to that just yet, but we'll give everyone a little teaser of what's to come. And I've got a really interesting comment from Sirika who's watching us from the West of Ireland. So Mel, I'd like maybe you'd like you to respond to this one. So it's very pertinent in terms of the things that we're discussing. So I'm based in the wet midlands, just had a baby. Not, don't wanna let it stop me moving up. And how do you know if you're ready to take on more responsibility? So a really, really good question. And we know still in our society and it's gonna take a bit of work still, but you know, you're female, you take your maternity leave, your career can take a bit of a U-turn sometimes. So what advice Mel, could you give to Sirika? So Sirika, I had the benefit of working in an organization that appraises its people well. We invest a lot of time in performance management. And there have been occasions in my career where I lacked confidence and my senior's and my reporting cycle would tell in the system that I was ready to step up the ladder. And not once have I promoted and found that I've stepped up the ladder and people have got it wrong. So and I think after I'd had the kids and as I was coming back into the working environment, I probably relied on performance appraisal more than I ever did. So I would encourage you to work with your line managers and challenge them to take responsibility for you, take responsibility for yourself and have that sort of shared conversation because there comes a time where the organization has to work with you as a young woman to bring you on. But a good appraisal system is what I'd say there. Fantastic, and having gone through investors and people as a school leader, it's a brilliant system for all school leaders watching to kind of test the robustness of your processes, your HR processes, your staff development, looking at all aspects across anonymously. It's a very good process and appraises often a good litmus test. You can have the best systems on paper, but it's the people that bring it all to life that matters. So, Sariqa, thank you for sharing such an important and personal question. Vic, let's go to chapter eight. So here we've got a beautiful picture of you a couple of years ago. What year was this? Let's unpick the truth. What year? I think that was three years ago. I'd had my makeup done. I have to say that because I'm really rubbish at makeup. Like my daughter's trying to teach me how, but I'm positive failure at makeup side. Anyway, so- So this is for your doctorate, yes? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. So that was three years ago. And do you know what? I absolutely loved doing my doctorate. It was a labor of love, obviously. And I would say anyone keen to do it. So, okay, if you've done a degree, that's like doing a 10K. If you want to do a masters, it's like doing a half marathon. And I would like in a doctorate to doing a marathon. I don't know what you feel, Ross. I know you've done a doctorate. I feel like this is awesome. I'm struggling with mine. I found my MA super easy, actually. The doctorate is another level. What? That's another level. Yeah, so it's quite the challenge. And I feel like it's just about that staying power because when I've run to London marathon, so I kind of do have the analogy in my head and it feels right for me. But there were times when I did the second one not long after I'd had to double mastect me. And I thought, oh my God, I have got nothing, nothing in me I'm going to pack in. I can't do this. And nobody will think badly of me. So I had this kind of one voice on one shoulder saying, just pack in, no one will think badly. But then, like I said earlier, I'm super determined. So on this side, I was thinking to myself, you are not giving up car. You are going to run to the next purple balloons. You will run to that next lamppost. And that's what got me through those final two to three miles. And I feel like it was the same feeling when I did my doctorate. And everyone thinks that you must be super clever or super amazing and I'm really not what I am. I have a key chapter here and I'm going to post some questions to Mel about her own learning journey. But there's a key chapter in this section overcoming barriers to studying part time. So you're a mom, you're a head teacher, you're a busy, busy lady with children. It's super tough for ladies out there. More so than men. So what tips are you going to offer to other female watchers? Just generally doing things part time on top of the day job and on top of being a mom. What key advice? Is that for Mel or for me? That's for you first of it. And then I'm going to come to Mel about what you've been learning, Mel. So I'll post some questions. OK, so I think I talk a little bit about this. So obviously I do not have a time turner. I am not Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. So what I do is compartmentalise my time and I prioritise really well. So I know as I embark on something that it is going to take time. And I know that something will give. And sometimes I think I say it's my social life sometimes or my TV or whatever. And I just accept that I'm going to have to compartmentalise for a short space of time is time limited and that the benefits of doing so will far outreach the limitations of doing that. And I think I talk about balance as well in the book. I can't remember. I'm a bit tired tonight, but definitely there has to be balance. But at times the balance is skewed. And you know, you start doing a doctorate. You know, I was in the books on a nighttime. The children were in bed. I would be working until midnight and there had been school. The TV wasn't on for about four months, which I accepted. And that's what I say compartmentalise, be ruthless with your time management and prioritise what is important to you. I mean, I know for my doctorate, I just haven't prioritised enough time for it and found that regular slot. And I suppose COVID was a bit of a distraction. Mel, how about you? What have you learnt recently? Any kind of critical learning points in your career? I think we're a bit tough. What were you doing at the time? So I did my master's degree with the Open University. And I think when I look back at what inspired me on those sort of Christmas Eve's three years consecutive to keep working was certainly a good example to my kids. Right. To instill in them a love of learning. And my master's degree graduation is right up there in terms of what things I have achieved. And I've achieved a lot, but that one actually is the one, this is a photograph downstairs, I kind of think I love that day. I really love that day. Every day is a learning experience for me. Absolutely embrace feedback loops. I sit down with my deputy after not every serial, but most serials and saying, how did that go? What do we do well? What can we do differently next time? And I think once I'll make here, Vic, is that there's points in the book where I'm reading your stories and I'm kind of thinking you're superwoman. Absolutely amazing. Your resilience and determination really, really comes across. But what comes across more than anything is your humility. And I think that as I... The descent and ardent of the education world, I'm telling you now. And as I think I'm more senior, what am I learning now? Actually, every day is a learning experience. And that humility and senior leaders is what people want to see. They don't want to see the superperson. They want to see the human side of just working hard. And this brings us on to the next important chapter. But before I do here, we've got a great comment from Kimber in Uganda. So inspired by Vic for resilience to make it the career dream. So there you go, Vic, inspiring people. Now, the next chapter we've got here is an important one for us all, because in education, I suspect mel in military, the conversation about mental health was never had 10 plus years ago and you'd struggled to find any reference academically to kind of research on good mental health, improves academic outcomes for our children. But it is now in abundance. So, Mel, tell us about this slide. Sorry, Vic, tell us about this slide first and I'll come back to Mel. Okay, so I'm a big advocate for supporting my staff. Again, good news tonight with the opposite feedback was that that came through in leaps and bounds. And usually, so on the staff questionnaire, nearly a hundred staff, every single one said they felt supported and so on, which is actually probably my biggest success in the last few years. So this is me at the gate to my school and I'm carrying a medicine ball. It's a medicine ball. It's chained to me. I'm wearing a handcuff to my hand. It's a med ball challenge. It started off by a chap in the army, Andy Unwin. And it's meant to signify how difficult it is to carry around a mental health issue. So I did that. Again, this is me bridging the military education piece of the thing because everyone asked me about that. The children asked me about it at my school. And how long would you carry it around for? A week, seven days, all my life, my wrist. Oh, I mean, it was only three kilos, but the handcuff, the chain, you know, just managing everything, even making a cup of tea was a challenge. So, and exactly the point that is how people feel if they struggle with mental health. And my whole adult life, I've tried really hard to manage that and how it impacts on me because of my childhood. So obviously, I told you before, my dad had some schizophrenic, his mental health issue contributed significantly to the difficulties that we all experienced. So I'm quite, I was quite keen to kind of almost protect my home life and my bubble at home, but actually we can't sanitize our lives and the impact of the modern world on people is that their mental health is affected by so much, whether that's at the moment, post-COVID world, it's the cost of living, it's all of those challenges that we all face as human beings, it's the breakdown in societal structures, you know, marital breakdown, you know, social services, imploding, that kind of thing. So the structures that we would have had perhaps once over to support us are probably, by and large, pretty much gone. So mental health is a massive issue. So the other photo there is simply me, saying to my, one of my... On the other line. Yeah, I said to my admin team, listen, go and get a brew. And the funny thing about that, big shout out to the Royal Scots, that was my Royal Scots mug that arrived in the post and I was just papped by one of my other admin teams saying, oh my God, the boss is doing something. They were actually checking, I do do a lot. But it was a funny thing, but nevertheless, it exemplifies some small ways that we can, as leaders, just step in and help out and give people time. Yeah, so for context, you know, this picture, you know, I've lived this picture that Vick's got here on the right, probably 6.30 in the morning for a good three or four years. Man in the cover line where you got staff calling in sick and then having to deploy which teacher covers which class, which teaching assistant goes there and so on and so forth. And it's quite a stressful period of time, isn't it, Vick, to be fair, you know, early in the morning before your own day starts. Can I just say I'm rubbish at absolutely everything to do with doing that job. That exemplifies everything I'm rubbish at because this what happened to me only yesterday. So a parent rang up with mid-off-stead and it was also census day today. So of course the admin team is slightly distracted preparing for census, not off-stead, actual normal day to day running of the school. So I step in and answer the phone, hello, it's Woodlands Primary School, how can I help you? And a parent said, I need to sort out something for my child's lunch. I have no idea how this works. So I say, not a problem, I'll take a message and it'll all be sorted for you. Honestly, I was only grateful that they did not ask me a more challenging question than that because I don't... If you say I'm the headteacher, I don't actually know. Yeah, I do actually say that, you're asking the boss, but I actually have a team of people around me to protect me from simple questions like this. I'm the only answer. Now, over to you. Mental health, we know it's a complex topic, but have you got anything you can share here with your own journey or things that might be changing in the military of late? So this is a really interesting topic today of all days, isn't it, with Jacinda Arden speaking as passionately as she has. And there's nothing to say that the reasons behind her conversation are related to mental health issues necessarily, but there's a lot of chat around burnout coming out of that. And I think my observation here is that when I have started to become overwhelmed, I haven't seen it in myself. Other people have come down and sat me down and said, either I look tired, I'm stressed, therefore my behaviours are starting to become sort of a bit erratic and inconsistent. And so I absolutely rely on the team around you to be able to make those observations and be open enough and transparent enough as a leader to ask their opinion. Because my experience is that as and when I have developed mental health issues, it's other people that have spotted it before I've spotted it myself. That's a very, very important point to make. I think that's something that we might all be a little bit guilty of, not seeing it in ourselves before others do. So I guess it's equipping ourselves to those tools to be able to recognise the symptoms. Now, maybe this is a neat connection, Vic. Chapter 13, body and soul. Give us a synopsis of what happens here. So sometimes I'm guilty of this and perhaps other people are. I love exercise. I do it for its own sake. I've done it all my life since I was a child. As far back as primary school when we would do races up and down the playground and I always had to be first. I've kind of retained that competitive edge, but it's been more about holistic enjoyment of being in the outdoors. So that is an amazing day of kite flying with good old Mike Dev. And that was a run that I did around the Kelpies one night, a moonlight run to raise money for charity. And those two things just bring me in touch with my mind and my body and my soul all being in the same place at the same time. Physical, usually physical activity, exercise, but definitely being in the outdoors and just that clarity of thinking that being in the outdoors brings to me and doing exercise. And that's not because I am again, superwoman, it's just because I know the benefits of exercise both physically and also mentally. And then being in the outdoors is another layer. You know, I've had a gym at the end of my garden. I sound like I'm really rich. I'm not, it's in an old shed but it's fully equipped and I love it. I love taking pictures and you are in there every day and that's good, so I can't get into it. Most days I'm in there. But yeah, it just brings me that piece of mind. And I know, you know, maybe I'm an endorphin junkie, I don't know, but I certainly think doing exercise, whether that's walking, I've said in the book, walking with headphones on, I've become recently accustomed to listening to audio books so I can kind of satisfy three or four different goals with one activity. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but why are you compartmentalizing your goals? But you have to think smart. If you want to be a successful woman and a mom and, you know, a leader, you have to think smart about your use of time. And if I can, I try and make my time work for me and hit several different, you know, priorities. I'll use my opportunity to use my man brain a bit and my naivety as a young male leader working with lots of female teachers around me. And then when I wasn't a parent, not really understanding the challenges that parents, teachers and then part-time parent teachers and the stresses that they went through. And then maybe it was as I matured into leadership and saw a lot more people around me and got access to kind of human resource information that was confidential and sensitive and things. And I suppose also when I had my own son and realizing the challenges it was for me who was pretty much playing a part-time role of being a father and a school leader and how efficient you have to be with your time, whether it's exercising or actually doing a bit of extra work behind the scenes for whatever reason. It's incredibly difficult. So I guess the message is out there to lots of men, you know, take time to understand someone else's perspective. Mel, you've got a dog, so I assume you do lots of dog walking in your house but what else do you do to keep fit or exercise? So I think being kind to yourself because one of the golden threads that I think goes through the book beautifully and that is what this chapter is all about for me. It's about actually what do you do to make yourself? So absolutely walk in the dog, exercise, I take myself to extremes. I haven't run a marathon, I've walked a marathon. At the moment I'm into my Peloton. So I seem to sort of enjoy sort of getting on and cycling. That's good, I need to get on the bandwagon with Peloton. I think I'm going to save one of the things out loud because someone might hold me to account for it but I really want to get into cold water swimming. And I've got no excuse around Yorkshire because there's plenty of places where it's freezing, plenty of places, plenty of bits of water. And my son has got into it actually, he's only 11, he's doing cold water showers, he's already into the Wim Hof Method. So we probably just need to find a time and go out and start doing it. And right, let's pop over too. So conscious of time, we're about seven minutes away from eight o'clock but we're going to keep going until the end. We've got about three or four more chapters to go. Chapter 15, we've got all these pictures here that give us an overview of what's happening here. Okay, so my success story and how successful I am is not based on me, it's based enormously on a team, again, recognised tonight by Ofsted. So what you can see there at the top that those two gorgeous ladies, they're here in the background, they're desperate to celebrate with me this evening. That's my mum and my auntie. They were instrumental, obviously, in my upbringing. I love them both to bits, they're just incredible human beings and they're so supportive and have been all the way through. And then left and right, I nearly said of arc but I didn't mean to say that. Who's on the left here? Who's on the left, top left? So these guys, they're gorgeous. That's Ben and Sol. They're actually from my military intelligence unit in Manchester and we all commissioned on the same day, which was just incredible. Yeah, for a change I actually had my hair tidy. And on the right-hand side, those two guys, this is hilarious. So we were in a section together in Santa. So I'm the oldest there in the whole entire platoon by about 20 years. So these two boys... Yeah, I love this chapter. These two boys are babies. They're in their 20s and I don't know, six for odd, six for five, six for six, massive. They were in my section. And so you can imagine how intimidated I felt looking at them. Yeah, but you ended up helping them, didn't you, to be fair? Yeah. So good old Timmy on the right-hand side. He's gorgeous. He's my next door neighbor on the line. And he said, his first thought when he saw me was, I would be the liability. I would be the drag along in our section. And what he very quickly realized was that that was not the case. That was so cool. And I love him. He's great. He's eating these words. And on the bottom. And who are the ladies at the bottom? They are my team at work. And oh my God, they were all crying tonight. The lady taking the photo isn't on it. She's called Cots. And you've got Sue and Sharon and Alice. And honestly, I love those women so much. I literally love them as if they were my own siblings. They're just great. And they've been on that journey with me since I joined the school. They wept this evening. It was great. And I am honestly successful because everything I do is part of being a team and knowing my role in that team and then working effectively in my role and to support my team. Those two key factors are what has meant everything about my success. And that is what I would definitely say. You cannot do it on your own and be successful. So on the theme of going together rather than solo, Mel, is there anything in your leadership career in the military where pairing up with somebody else or a team has allowed you, I mean, I suppose in the military or any industry you have to work effectively as a team. But is there any standout moment where you switch from solo to teamwork? So I'm at the top of the organization as is there. And it can be a really lonely place. So I've had to embrace reverse mentoring as a tool to learn and seek some sort of science on the bad days. What I loved about that conversation is your ability to love your colleagues. There is a real commitment in saying to colleagues, I love you. And a junior officer said to me recently, because I use love a lot. He said, do we use love a lot? Do we use the word love enough in leadership? And then you go and write a book on it. I don't think we use it enough. Love is about giving your whole self to your people and your team. And the more able you are able to do that, which is a little bit of a trust, isn't it? Then the better the team forms and the better the results. So yeah, love that conversation there. Great. Now, we've got two more to go. Reminder to people watching currently live. You can post your comments and your questions. So we've got Kimba still watching. Thank you. Teamwork makes everything easy, absolutely. So we've got this next slide here. And this is obviously an era that we've all just lived through. So what's happening here, Vic? So here's about collaboration, formalizing it. So I've got my teams, my home team, my army team, you know, my work team. This is about collaborating externally to those teams that I know in real life. And I said earlier, social media has become huge as a tool for us to be able to collaborate with others. And if you haven't got, you know, if you run a small organization or if you're in a small school, you haven't got that peer support. I mean, Mal just mentioned then it can be quite lonely as a leader. Well, it can be. But if you have that external collaboration with your peers, like-minded individuals, you can nevertheless gain that benefit. And this is education roundtables. If you're listening on Twitter- Yeah, Ben, very well. Yeah, Ben, superstar, Matt Jessips in there, Antony McGeaney, the lovely Angela. So they're all people that I work closely with on education roundtables. I've done tons of stuff where I've supported other people for free. And I feel like that is also underpinning my philosophy. You should help where you can help. So Ben brings headteachers together on various topics. And I guess he kind of steers the conversation and people take turns to do a bit of sharing privately. Is that, that's the methodology, isn't it? Yeah, and he's building a growing profile there of resources and of support networks. He's, you know, it's growing exponentially since that day. The worst person on there for doing that is Chris Dyson. You know, some people love him, some people don't. But he's very fond of a screenshot and you're there as I am looking very intently at the screen and he snapped you and posted- He's one of the best screenshots of it. Yeah, thanks very much, Dyson. But yeah, so, but what that does show is that, you know, the collaboration is key, absolutely. Sure. Now, Mel, you know, lockdown, I guess in this context, this image has probably been something we all experienced. Can you think of a situation where you had to collaborate online through lockdown and maybe give us a little kind of story of your role in leadership? Yeah, so heavy sigh here because I have 19 establishments across the UK. I came into command, which necessitates a very personal relationship with 4,000 people in the organisation. Right. To do that on a screen. I don't even know. But, you know, I mean, it was the revolution of COVID, wasn't it? Was the ability to network and to bring people together, much like this, you know, it's fantastic. This just wouldn't have happened to me years ago. So I think it has been a revolution. We've got to take the best bits of online networking, but let's not lose sight of the benefits of being in the room of people as well. So there's a balance we're going to have to strike as we come through. I've got a question here. What do I do in a team when I'm working? People kind of drag me back. That's the feeling new who's got here. And might come up with a better outcome. One who loves to work with a team but has got a problem. What solution? So let's go to you, Mel, first. So think about, you know, that huge job you've just described, you know, 4,000 colleagues, 19 institutions. What was the media give here for someone, you know, played devil's advocate? Sometimes we might think we might have an idea, but it might not be the right one and we might be upset. We might actually believe it to be the right scenario. So give us a couple of solutions. Yeah, you've put the, are you able to put that question up again? That's completely. Do you know what my immediate response to it? Because I'm drawn to sort of dragging me backwards. It's always the case in group think where there is somebody that offers an alternative view. And if it isn't, if it isn't your view, there is that perception that they're dragging you, dragging you back. But actually, if you go into that sort of conversation with the mindset that the challenge is actually they're designed to sort of take you forwards and just be really open minded to every perspective in the room and understand how you can work with it to get a better solution. It's just about opening your mind, isn't it? So every, every perspective in the room, I think. Something I'd recommend Nuhu to have a look at and I've got a blog on my site if you're interested. And there's tons of stuff out there, but just do a little research into different types of cognitive biases and it allows you to understand your own emotions to things that people do or say or when you do something, how other people respond to you and you can start to learn, you know, that little bit of psychology about body language, response, delay, pause, how people talk to you, et cetera. Let me put that question back up there. Any thoughts on this one? I think teamwork, like living in a community involves compromise and involves thought. And I think as you say, sometimes I've had ideas, I've brought them to the team. I thought it was a great idea, but actually the team have embellished those ideas and made them even better. And I try always to think what I could have done better in terms of selling that idea perhaps or whether the team idea is a better idea than mine and buy and lodge their ideas are usually better than mine because it's a collaborative effort. So as you said, I would say kind of take on board the ideas of other people and use them as drivers to improving your own idea really. So taking people's ideas on board. So thank you Nuhu for sharing your question. Now we've got one more slide and we're gonna wrap things up. So people watching our last reminder, log in to your platform that you're watching from, leave a question, I'll pop it on the screen like this for Mel and Vic to respond to. And just before I put this last slide up, let me just remind you why we're here. So can you both grab your books and give us a little way with what you've got on your side? I'll pick mine up off the gin bottle stand. Watch the picture. So Nuhu, but when was it published Vic before Christmas, just before Christmas? My daughter's birthday, my daughter's 18th birthday, November the 12th. Okay, so back in November, so still early, my book experience takes three or four months or so for it to warm up when people really get a chance to get hold of it, talk about it, read it, and then respond. So we're still in the early kind of phase of the book's life. There's 17 chapters, 17 chapters, great value for money I have to say. And it's a nice place to go. I love the cover. I'm not joking. When I get the hard copy, I thought, but the cover is so nice, isn't it? I love it. Yeah, so good job there. So we've got, let me just put just a recap just before we sum things up. We're doing a little virtual book launch for Vic to celebrate her life in leadership leading with compassion and love. And you've got a little bio here of Mel who's joined us to talk about her own military career and leadership life as a mum. And same with Vic in how we both or each have responded to challenges in adversity but still managed to lead lots of other people in our communities was love and compassion. But we've got this last slide to finish, Vic. So slide 17 or chapter 17. So we've got you and your uniform here on the left. And then you're on the right in the school playground with a dog. Yeah, so I think this might, both these things might resonate with Mel actually for different reasons. So on the left-hand side, I did my basic training some years ago now in Exeter and it was completely alien to me. I'd never lifted up a weapon system in my life. Anyway, I found I was okay shot and that's because I was coached by an expert Dan Mills who wrote a book called Sniper One. He coached me for a whole day on those ranges, Bullford ranges and I was really delighted. But what it showed me was that you can learn new skills some quite technical specific challenging skills with the right coaching and the right support. And I love that basic training because it pushed me in so many ways. You'll have to read the book and even then it's only scratches the surface. But so that's, and then I passed out to basic training and I thought, wow, you know, I've done that. Again, I was the oldest by about 27 years. People thought it was funny at the start because why is this old lady doing this? But my challenge, like Mel said, you know, I've got a daughter, I have got colleagues, I have got friends who think that just because you hit the perimenopause or the menopause, your life is over. It's game over. You're no longer useful or valuable to society. And I thought I am actually, and I never let age affect me. I read some stats lately. So, you know, I've been reading up on the menopause, actually, and also I've discovered as a result that actually women in their fifties is the, I believe it's the most growing age group in terms of the workforce, I believe. And maybe that's through to, you know, menopause policies, things like that, flexible working hours. I think it's interesting because I'm a woman, obviously. And, you know, I'm in that perimenopausal phase and I knew nothing about it until recently. I don't watch much telly as we've already established, but my audible, which I've become more accustomed to using, suggested that I listen to Davina McCall's book, Menopauseing, and honestly, it's been a game changer for me. So I'm making sure all my colleagues know about it. I think I should download it and get some copies from my male colleagues so that they're aware of their female mums, their partners, their sisters, how that affects them. And also so that they can signpost support for them because so many women leave their jobs in their fifties because of menopausal constraints, which I just simply wasn't aware of. Now, I'm on HRT, I'm not afraid to say it happened for over a year. And it's been a game changer for me for reasons which I didn't even know. I thought I was ill. I thought I had maybe COVID because I was having these hot, you know, flush moments or my heart was racing and I thought, am I developing an illness? I was quite concerned, actually. When I spoke to my doctor, she was very good and this is not everyone's experience. And I think, again, if we are influential people which leadership individuals are, then we should be promoting these key messages to people. And therefore, whilst I am a female in the perimenopause, I think every leader should be saying, are you aware of this? This is a thing that affects women at this age because so many women have been leaving the profession. You know, in one example I'll give you a woman in the police force. She left after a very successful career because of effects of perimenopause. And that's a real shame, you know, if you don't harness this and embrace it and support women going through this very natural phenomenon, then you're going to lose an awful lot of experience and expertise and, you know, real skill. In time, we're considering that, you know, many industries led by males and we're talking about menopause a bit more. I suppose it's still early days of menopause policies. That's quite some way to go still. And I guess to that point about buying copies for your male colleagues, probably a very good idea, you know, sowing that seed. Mel, what are your thoughts? So I went through early menopause in my mid-40s and like Vic, I had to go look at the retrospective and really sort of understand what on earth was happening to me. And then sort of went on to HRT for seven, eight years before I sort of came through the other side. It's definitely a hot topic. And, you know, you often find that women progress to these sort of senior positions around the same time as they're hitting their menopause. And now at least we're able to sort of talk about it and understand how we can best manage it. And we've got people like me that have experienced that can look back. Now, so well, this is what I would do, you know, the same or differently, but definitely policies catching up with us. I mean, there's a whole session there on menopause alone. Yeah, I agree. Awareness, raising awareness of the symptoms. Some of the symptoms, even as a woman, you're not aware of because everyone's different. Of course they are. But given that we're 61% of the population, I think it's really important to be aware of it, even if it doesn't affect you necessarily personally, physically, being aware of it is going to be beneficial. Mel, I got a question I'd like to ask you is, you know, going through the menopause early, how did it impact your career, I suppose, at an earlier rate than you would have expected personally? So impacted negatively because it started to impact and change my behaviors in the workplace. And just at a time when I was wanting to assert myself as a senior leader, I talk about that consistency in my branding. It was really difficult to be consistent. And so I learned some hard lessons in those years because I think if I knew them what I know now, I would have been more insistent with the organization that they needed to understand the reasons for some of those fluctuations. And I'd have been more able to talk to my colleagues and help them understand what was happening because I didn't necessarily understand it myself. Yeah. And that's a good point to finish on. So thank you for sharing. Now I'm going to put these pictures back up because I think this is a nice way to finish, you know, playground to parade ground. And I guess this is you, you know, without your exercise pictures of it, I guess this best sums up your kind of day-to-day life and what you're doing behind the scenes as a reservist and a bit of a kind of juxtaposition of pictures. Well, there's lots of similarities, I suppose, but we could unpick this as a doctorate degree, these two pictures, there's lots going on here. But if I just pop back to the title slide, so we'll just do one last book plug. So ladies, give us away with your books on your side. So leading with love for leaders and compassionate leadership. Let me just put that back up here. So title slides. I was lucky enough to talk to Vic about her writing this book before it came to publication. We went through all the highs and lows together and it's nice to have it hold in it. And I guess I got a quote from the back of the book in the conclusion I'd like to finish with. And I'll ask you both for just a concluding thought and I'll end with my review. But here's how Vic ends the book. So leading with love matters. It matters that the interpersonal capabilities of school leaders and their interpersonal abilities make positive impact on members of and the ethos within their schools. Love, after all, is what it's all about. So, Mel, let's come to you first. Any concluding thoughts? I was very struck, I've numbered my lessons in this one, Vic. I was very struck at how many of them come back to that theme around being kind to yourself. It's really important that you take time to invest in yourself. And if you're able to do that, then it all comes good. But this is where you introduce imposter syndrome towards the end of the book. And that's what's coming in the next one, Vic, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I've got a question. I know a lot of females will be interested in this book but why do you think a man should pick up a copy of this book and buy one? What would you say, Mel? Oh, I really struggle to deal with sort of gender questions because I don't think male or female. I just kind of think that I could go... Reading with love, full stop. Yeah, absolutely. Do you know what? This isn't a book for a girl. It's a book that everybody should read. Yeah, absolutely. That's why there's more male colleagues about it than women, actually. Before I go, you've got a great response. Thank you. Vic, over to you. Final thoughts? I'm just really grateful to have the opportunity to share some of those things with people and hopefully it's benefited people who've read it. And if you haven't read it, then hopefully something about this evening has encouraged you to read it. It's just a story of how anyone can do it. And if I can do it, anyone can, including you. So we're not going to delay things any further. Thank you to those people still watching live. If you're watching this, record it. Give us a shout. You can follow Vic on Twitter. What's your handle? Happyhead74? Happyhead74 or on LinkedIn, it's Dr. Victoria Carr. And Mel, what's your Twitter name? I haven't got it to hand. I tagged you earlier as CD Mel Robinson. Is that the one? I'm at Commodore Mel Robinson and we abbreviate Commodore to CDRE. CDRE, okay. CDRE Mel Robinson on Twitter. So let's give a little shout out to our ladies taking part here. Pickler Brains, grab a copy of the book in all your good bookstores. And I'm sure if you want to, you know, damage the planet with all their overpackaging and recycling. And I'm sure Vic will be doing some webinars and some training events at some point in the future. But right now she needs a rest. Right now she needs more champagne. And we're going to leave her be. But thank you ladies both for your wisdom and your time. Thank you. And inspiring us men as well as everyone else in our sectors and reform and leadership and being a great role model. So thank you. Thank you. And I'll see you soon. Bye. Bye everyone. Thank you for your time everybody. Bye.