Ep. 171 - Rethinking Money, Work & Self-Worth as a Creative with David Thomas - Just Get A Real Job

Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Just Get a
Real Job with your host, me, Jamie McKinley.
Thank you, as always for tuning into the show and I'm really,
really proud of this week's episode.
As many of you listeners will know, being a creative and
working full time in the creative industries or if you're
a creative freelancer, it's often very uncertain.

(00:27):
And I feel when it comes to money, particularly creative
people often don't feel very confident around it or don't
like talking about it and just they see it as something they're
bad at. And just being a freelancer in
general is really tricky and youhave to network, you have to be
organised loads of different aspects to it.
So it was an absolute joy this week to welcome on the podcast

(00:50):
David Thomas, who for the last 20 years has trained lots and
lots of people working in the creative industries, all about
how to feel more confident with money, how to reframe their
relationship around money and networking.
Whether that be, you know, how to get better at taxes, how to
view your relationship with youridentity to work or working out

(01:13):
your sort of budget and cash flow for the month.
So many different aspects of these things.
David worked in radio for many, many years as well before he was
made. Redundant by the BBC.
And from then in 2005, he started his own training company
and he works with lots of charities and unions and, you

(01:33):
know, different organizations within the creative industries.
I had the pleasure of doing David's training course a couple
of weeks ago when he came into my work, and it was a course
called Finance for Freelancers. It was so useful for me and it
really helps me sort of look at my relationship with money and
how I spend money and how I budget and those sort of things.
And I went up to the end of the course and I asked him.

(01:55):
I was like, please come on this podcast.
I think there's so many people Iknow that listen to this show
that would really benefit from this episode.
And he did come on and I'm really proud of this episode
we'd recorded. It's actually hard to articulate
some of the subjects we discussed because it's quite a
lot of different things. And but this.
Yeah, there's so much useful information and insights in this

(02:17):
episode, so I really hope you guys take something away from it
as well. It was a joy to record this one.
I'd like to also very quickly apologise because on the day of
recording this episode I startedto feel quite ill and I had a
cold, but I didn't want to cancel and I'm a little bit
sniffly at times. I've tried to cut out as much of
my sniffliness as possible, but I appreciate David's patience.

(02:38):
We also had a few technical issues with Internet, so
occasionally I sound a little bit robotic.
But for the most. Part it's very good quality and
as I say, it's packed full of insights, so.
I. Really hope you enjoy this
week's episode. And there's links to all David's
stuff in the show notes. Great resources there.
But yeah, and that's enough for me.
Let's get into it. David, thank you very much for

(03:17):
coming on. Just get a real job tonight.
It's a pleasure to have you here.
Your your work sort of full time.
You do a lot of training for people in the grave industries
around money and networking. And a lot of it's about
reframing people's relationshipsto it.
And I did your training course acouple of months ago and I
absolutely loved it. So I'm thrilled to have you on
the show. But just to kick things off, do

(03:38):
you want to sort of introduce yourself how you would describe
yourself as a trainer and as someone that teaches these
things? Yeah.
I, I, it's funny. I, I mean, I, I suppose over the
years I've described myself in lots of different ways.
I, I'm, I've been going 20 yearsas a trainer, but before that I
was 20 years as a journalist andproducer and broadcaster.

(04:01):
And I, I think, I mean, my, the way I describe myself now is
someone who runs a training business and I train freelancers
in the creative industries. And I quite deliberately say
creative industries because I think as you know, money doesn't
come naturally to creative people very often, but in a

(04:23):
freelance world where everybody's kind of almost
casualised. And that's something that's
happened during my working life.I've noticed that the people
need the finance skills. You know, you need to have some
way of dealing with money. You can't ignore it like when I
did, you know, when I was in my first jobs, for decades, I could
ignore money. You know, it was dealt with by

(04:45):
somebody else. As long as you had some coming
in, that was fine. But things are different now.
And so yeah, that's why I focus on being a trainer for creative
freelancers. Yeah, I think as well at the
moment where there's so much uncertainty in a lot of the
creative industries and I think people are really anxious around

(05:06):
money or avoiding it's usually one of the other.
Like I personally am very anxious around money.
So I probably am overly cautioussometimes and and I maybe get
feel guilty spending money and something you did in your course
and we'll talk about this in more details.
We've gone, but you talk sort ofabout how we can reframe our
relationship to money and it's almost reversing it.
So you're thinking about how much do you actually need to

(05:27):
spend a month so you can then work out how much you need to
work to earn it as opposed to like how much money have you
actually got, etcetera. It was really interesting
reading from. Yeah, well, I think that's
because I, I pivoted my life at a very crucial point because I,
I was, as I say, a couple of decades as an employee.
So I was at the BBC for many years and before that I, I did

(05:47):
radio as a hobby. You know, I, I've always been a
radio geek, a bit bit nerdy and I loved broadcasting and radio
and the idea of working in it. But for the 1st 22 years or so
of my life I was an employee. And of course you get into an
employee frame of mind and particularly in those days you
had the assumption that you werekind of going to be looked after

(06:10):
a bit by your employer. You know, I mean, I think
people, certainly I know people.And I guess I thought this way
myself, that I was likely to be an employee for the whole of my
life and I might even be an employee at the BBC for a very,
very long time, longer than I was, even though I was for a
long time an employee. And I, I then got made

(06:32):
redundant, you know, like you do.
And it happened twice to me actually.
And I, I decided to grab that bythe horns and just say, OK,
look, if I'm being made redundant, I was in my 40s.
And I thought, if I'm being maderedundant in my 40s, I've got
enough. I've got as much working life
ahead of me as I had behind me. You know, I had 22 years under

(06:56):
my belt as an employee thinking of myself in one way.
And now I had to think of myselfdifferently.
And I think one of the reasons that I, I made a mental shift at
that point was partly because I became a father roughly the same
time. So I wanted to be more in
control of my time. I wanted to organise my life so
I could be more with my childrenand my wife.

(07:18):
There's all sorts of stuff goingon in my head and I didn't
realise it at the time, but whenI look back I can see that was
really pivotal. And so I started to rethink my
relationship with my work almostsubliminally, and then came to
realise that there were ways of thinking about this which were
quite useful. And, and the other people hadn't

(07:40):
thought of thinking about themselves in that way.
And the actually this was quite helpful to me.
But if I could, if I could find ways of explaining that, maybe
that would be helpful to other people as well.
And so I've ended up doing quitea lot of work with people who
have been employed and are then going self-employed for the
first time. I don't meet many people now who

(08:03):
are employed for like 30 or 40 years.
That used to happen quite a lot,but there aren't that many
people who've been employed for that long anymore, particularly
in one job. But I do meet people who've been
employed for about, you know, six or eight years and, and now
they're being self-employed And very often they think it's just
a different way of earning money, you know, and it isn't

(08:25):
just that it's actually a different way of running your
life. And I, I, I've been trying to
kind of explain that to people in different ways.
And part of that was even the course you were on.
It's just saying, you know, there are different ways of
thinking about yourself and yourrelationship to the way money
comes in. And even the starting point as
to, you know, how you start thinking about your relationship

(08:46):
with money, people often start at the wrong place.
So it's just, it's just a way oftrying to find, you know, a way
through that. What's the best way of doing
this? And I, I find with my training,
I'm, I'm being quite provocative.
Sometimes I'm, I'm just saying, look, think about it this way.
And, and people go really. And I say, well, why not try it?

(09:06):
You know, it might work. And I'm, I'm trying to goad
people into sort of breaking that framework, which they've
kind of adopted almost by osmosis and try to get people
to, to take control of that framework of, of how they think
of themselves. I'm not saying it always works

(09:27):
perfectly, but it's I think it'sa great starting point.
Definitely. And I think what you're in, what
I want to pick up on there, there's, there's loads to pick
up and there's so much to ask you about.
But what's interesting is even outside of the creative
industries, I do think we're moving to a world now where no
one is going to have a job that they do their whole life.
It's just not this common. And it is in some industries,

(09:48):
you know, maybe more the way things work.
But I just think especially things like AI and the way that
things are changing so quickly that people are just going to
have to either be self-employed more often or switch jobs or,
and work in a different way. So I think even if you don't
work in the creative industry, some of these skills and ways of
thinking about money and how youmarket yourself are actually
really useful. I think it's essential now.

(10:10):
I mean, when I, when I became, when I went through redundancy,
for example, people didn't use the word.
It was a really, really forbidden word.
People were really embarrassed. And if you said you were going
through redundancy, people wouldoften, I mean, I know that this
can still be the case by the way, but people would often kind

(10:30):
of look at their feet or look atthe ceiling and they wouldn't
know how to behave in front of you because they thought, how do
I respond to this? It's almost like a bereavement
or something. People don't know how to say
things. And I realised that people often
felt that if you were employed, that was the norm.
And if you were employed and youhad money coming in all the

(10:52):
time, that was fine. But as soon as you went through
redundancy, that meant you weren't like that.
And if you weren't like that, that wasn't fine.
And I, I was happy. I, I didn't feel like that.
I felt, you know what, I'm taking control of my life.
This is going to be a creative endeavour on its own, me setting
up on my own. And it, I do find it a very
creative process. But I found that I was able to

(11:14):
try and push back a little bit with people and say, no, no, I'm
actually OK with this. But it, it meant changing the
way you think. And, and of course, people often
said that they were, even when they were freelance in those
days 20 years ago or so, people would say I'm looking for a
permanent job. You know, I'm just freelance for

(11:35):
a bit because I'm looking for a permanent job.
And that's actually changed. There's now an assumption that
even the permanent jobs are not permanent.
You know, being employed is not a guarantee that you will have
income all the time as it was inthe old days.
And, and also that the employer is not going to look out for
you. You know that to someone of your

(11:56):
generation, I would imagine Jamie, sounds a bit weird that
people used to think that. But, you know, in the 80s when I
got my first jobs, it was quite common that people would go into
an organization, especially a big one, and they would be
looked after. They would be people who would
look out for them and promote them.
And they would be personnel officers who would, who would be

(12:17):
on your side as well. And everything changed after the
80s and 90s and, and now it's, it's much more commodity driven
for businesses that they bring you in when they need you.
And you know, it's sort of casualisation if you like.
And I was part of the a wave that where that happened, but

(12:38):
it's now become more normal. So therefore you can't,
obviously you can't assume anybody else is going to look
after you. Therefore you've got to look
after yourself. OK, what are the skills you need
to do that? That's what brought me back to,
well, everybody needs to know about money.
I had to learn how to do it. And I, I first of all started

(12:59):
talking more about, you know, how to do tax, which I actually
found quite easy. And, and, and as you know, on my
training, I, I, I tend to talk about, it's not as complicated
as people pretend. You know, there is an easy way
of doing it, but you do have to get a bit organised.
But you know, that was the starting point, just helping
people learn that. And I've realised that there's

(13:19):
more to that. It's not just the tax, it's
actually about the whole relationship we have with money.
And, and of course it's this hasmirrored the rise of people like
Martin Lewis. Martin Lewis, the money saving
expert. The reason he's there is because
he provides a service for people's personal finance.

(13:39):
And, and that has come at the same time, it's because suddenly
we're all in a position where wehave to make decisions and none
of us have been trained in it atschool.
And often our, you know, our parents didn't have to think
like that. So they haven't been able to
tell us anything. So I'm not a Martin Lewis, I, I
don't do personal finance or anything like that.

(14:00):
But obviously getting organised around money is, is in there.
So there's there's that side of it which I very much focus on to
do with freelancing. No, it's, it's already
interesting and I suppose it is kind of a mad to think about
like what most used to be like when you were so looked after.
I think a good thing to ask you because this, and this is

(14:20):
actually, I'm going to be very open and honest with the
listeners as well. Like something I struggle with
in the industry is it's there's no permanent jobs.
And I really struggle with that mindset around.
I always, I always feel OK when I sign a contract and I've got a
year, but then as that contract runs down, I start to always
have that dread and panic. And your course was really
useful. And I think I've tried, since
doing it, I've been more organised and tried to, you

(14:42):
know, think about how I, you know, my relationship with
money. I think in general, I'm usually
quite an organised person, if that helps.
But I suppose just asking almostin a personal way.
And there'll probably be people listening that relate to this.
But if someone like me who at the moment, I mean, we all know
what's happening with shows likeRiversetting things as well,
they're ending and there's a lotof uncertainty in our industry.
But someone in a position like me where there is that

(15:03):
uncertainty about the future andstuff like what is the simple
thing I can do to reframe my relationship with work?
Yeah, and I, I've thought a lot about this and I think if you
can't rely on the work always being there, you know, if it's
going to be stop start or it's going to be, you know, you don't
have an employer looking after you anymore.
And this is obviously the, the way my my changes sort of struck

(15:27):
me over the years. If that's not going to happen,
you have to bring your decision making closer to home.
And I came to realise that part of it was that people always
focused on what other people were doing as a way of fitting
themselves into the work picture.

(15:48):
So in other words, you had an employer and you were like a
satellite going around the employer and you constantly had
that view of what the employer was talking about.
And they, especially if it was abig employer like the BBC, that
that employer that, you know, itwas like a massive gravitational

(16:08):
pull that that employer had and you were constantly relating
back to it. So they then made you redundant
or stopped your contract. You were like floating in space,
like you've been cast off to theedges of the solar system.
Sorry about the Star Trek references almost, you know, but
it's just that the way I think alot of people are constantly

(16:32):
looking at the big employers, looking for that relationship
they might have with them. And I realised that perhaps it
was better to think first and foremost about what, what an you
as an individual need from life.This is getting a bit
philosophical straight away, right?
So you think, OK, what do, what do I want from life?
What is it that I need? And of course you need money, of

(16:52):
course you do. But actually what a lot of
people don't do is they don't work out how much money they
need. So, so you, you people are
brought up generally to think about the income first.
So what, what often a lot of people do is they say, well, if
I know what my income is, then I'll be able to work out how
much to spend. But that's wrong because you're,

(17:15):
you're actually giving the control to the people giving you
the income. Because if they decide to give
you more or less, they're controlling your life and go,
well, now that can't be right. I want to control my life.
So I always suggest that the best thing to do for people is
to sit down and work out how much.
If you're going to talk about money, start with the really

(17:36):
close to home. How much do you need to have the
lifestyle you want? I mean, right down to working it
out in pennies, You know, what does your lifestyle cost you?
Where do you spend your money? And everybody's different in
this. So you work out.
Some people don't mind not spending much on accommodation.

(17:56):
Some people do. Some people don't have very
expensive hobbies, but I've met people who do horse riding as a
hobby and that's really important to them.
So how you define yourself becomes about who you are as a
person. You're not defining yourself
through your job title. And for people who've been a

(18:17):
long time in a job, when you saywho are you, what are you, they
will very often describe themselves through their job
title in some way. And I think that's a problem
because if that job doesn't happen anymore, because maybe
you're moving from one job to another or you're changing what
you do, you can feel completely at sea because you don't know

(18:38):
how to define yourself. And this is big with people who
go through redundancy, particularly from the BBC.
And I know you, you've been in this position where often if
you're working at the BBC and people say to you at a party,
what do you do? People will say, oh, work at the
BBC and that makes you feel goodbecause people smile and they
they tend to be oppressed. And I've been saying that for 22

(19:01):
years when I was at the BBC. It really does say it.
Really. Does you get a reaction, don't
you? Oh, BBC right on.
That's cool. But of course they don't know
what you do. You say, I work at the BBC.
It doesn't tell them anything, does it?
Because it could be anything butbut it it, it's something people
feel good about. So if you've been an employee
for 22 years like I was, you know, you've said it for 22

(19:25):
years. People say, what do you do?
My parents say, how's it going? I say, Oh yeah, great.
And, and then they go to their friends and they say, what's
David doing then? And they say he's still at the
BBC. And they go, oh really?
Oh, that's impressive. You know, so it makes, it makes
your family feel good when they talk about you and then you're

(19:47):
not and suddenly you're not at the BBC.
And, and I remember distinctly having a conversation with my
mother 2020 years ago or so. And I said, you know, I'm
leaving the BBC. And she said, yes, obviously she
didn't understand why not and why was I not there anymore?
What, what was going on? Why?
Why would that be OK, you know? And I said, well, you know,
first of all, I'm, I'm OK with it, you know, but if anybody

(20:11):
asks you do you know what to saynow?
And, and she said, it's really funny you should say that I was
having, I was having tea with Auntie Kath, she said.
And Auntie Kath said, how's David these days?
And I didn't know what to say because she didn't know whether
I was happy that I was leaving because I was going through

(20:32):
redundancy and she didn't know what to say.
That sounded kind of optimistic and positive.
And I said, well, look, if you, if anybody ever asks you what
I'm doing, why don't you just say I'm, I'm setting up my own
training business, just just saythat.
And she said, oh, that sounds quite impressive.
And I said, yes, I know that that's and it's also true.

(20:55):
So just go with it. Now, at that point when I said
that to her, I had no idea what I was doing.
I mean, I, I was making it up asI went along.
I, I was all at sea. But I kind of figured that I was
sort of setting up a business and I figured that if I said
that to enough people, I'd kind of get it in my own head and I'd
feel better about myself. But what I realised I was doing,

(21:16):
and I only realised this later, was that I was reframing who I
was and I was actually taking control of that description of
myself and getting it back from my employer.
And I realised that the key to this, and I was very lucky when
I went through this. And I, this is something I'd
advise to everybody. If you've not thought about
this, work out what your skills are, not just in terms of

(21:39):
production or anything to do with the job doing now, but work
out what your skills are as a person, whether that's cooking,
whether it's horse riding, whether it's production skills,
because that never changes. It, it, it, it.
Even if your production skills are not being used at a
particular point because you've not got a job at that point, you

(22:02):
still have the skills. Your skills don't go away
because your job changes. So the massive change that I
realised was useful was just reminding myself that all those
skills I had when I was working in production, I still had, and
a lot of them I had lost sight of.
And one of the things I did, which is so powerful is get

(22:25):
somebody to help you to reconnect with all your skills.
Because every job you do, you'reonly using some of your skills.
And if you're doing a job and you're doing it for a number of
years and that job has a job title, you start to frame
yourself in the job title. And that's really dangerous
because it stops you realising that you're bigger than a job

(22:45):
title. And that was the key change for
me. So I'm listening to it, I'm
like, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking like I've, I've done some of
that and it's, it's at home. Interesting to think about that.
I didn't get quite made redundant, but I used to work it

(23:06):
before I was at BBCI, used to work at STV and it was like my
dream job at the time. I did it for two years.
I loved it. And I, it was the exact thing
you're talking about where I go to parties and you'd say our
guest TV, I'm a script that I don't, you know, and it was so
cool. And everyone reacts really like
well to it. And I found out that my contract
wasn't going to get extended andit was like grief for three
months. I was like, honestly, it was

(23:26):
like the same as you'll probablyknow for yourself, I'm going
through something similar. It's like I felt like world had
ended nearly a year to kind of recover from that And and
remember that, you know, it's not all about work and I still
do it to an extent now working at the BBC, but I think I'm a
bit better with it. But it is hard to, you know, you
do kind of give all your agency and I don't know, control to

(23:49):
your employer. So and the way you think about
things in common, that's. That's exactly it.
It's, it's the agency that you do or do not have.
And I think you need to grab, grab back that control.
And I, I think I was lucky I wasold enough to realise I could, I
think when you're younger it's really hard because you're not
quite sure who you are yet. And I think that is difficult.

(24:11):
I'm not going to, I'm not going to underplay how difficult that
is. But, but part of that is then
just realising that you're a bigger person than your job
title and that you have a range of skills.
But the reason that's so valuable is that of course you
can use your skills in loads of different ways.
If you if you just job, if you just have a job title, you can

(24:33):
only do that job in that job title.
So if you're a producer and you call yourself a producer, you're
only going to think of yourself as a producer and that's it.
But if you realise all the skills you need to be a
producer, people management, being organised, being able to
clan, well those are all skills along with a whole load of

(24:53):
others which you need to be a producer.
So if if you take all those skills and just list them, you
realise you've got all those skills forever, you know those
skills don't go away just because you lose your job.
You've got them to use, you've got huge resources you can use.
We're then into a situation of how do you use them?
And that's not easy either. But it does mean that you can
end up doing jobs which you haven't expected to.

(25:16):
And that was certainly true of me.
My training business was not going to be this one when I
started it, but I, it was, it became really evident to me that
I needed to be able to think of my skills as being applicable to
lots of different types of work as it as people needed it.
And that's going to be the skilleverybody needs.
I've been trying to teach that I've got daughters who are now

(25:38):
2425 years old, and it's trying to give them that realization
that they've got those skills asa person and they can use those
skills in whichever way works for them.
Do you think there's a failure of the school system and the way
that we are educated and the waythat even the way I mean, well,
this is a slightly different from even the way that the world

(26:01):
treats employees. And like when you go, I don't
know, for example, I'm in the process of moving flat and
sometimes moving flat when you work on a short term contract or
you're a freelancer, they look at you like, oh, this isn't the
norm. Like you know that you're
trusted less. Do you think that the way the
world sometimes views those things can be, it needs to maybe
adapt for the times as well? Yeah, we have a.
We have a real problem I think in this country in particular

(26:23):
that that having that spirit of taking control and doing what
you want with your skills is notthe way people normally feel.
And there's also an in built problem we have with both
finance and networking. So finance and networking are
the two skills everybody needs. And as you said, there's no such
thing as a permanent job. So what, what we'll find is that
that more and more people will need those skills because

(26:46):
they're not going to have a permanent job.
You know, it's not going to be the norm forever by any means.
But we haven't really caught up with that.
And I, you know, I think a lot of the discussion we need to
have and the reframing is aroundthe fact that the things that we
think of as being a little bit dirty, you know, the idea of

(27:07):
being paid for what you do. Oh, we'd have to talk about
money. Oh, that's not very British, is
it? You know, And then networking.
Oh, no, not, Oh no, that's not, that's not at all British.
Except it is. And we're back to reframing
again. And now this is different in
different cultures. So if you go around the world,
as I have, I used to work for the BBC World Service, I've

(27:29):
worked in, lived in other countries, you realise that
cultures are different and people deal with this in
different places in different ways.
So it's not that everybody has this problem, but we tend to
have this problem in this country.
So a lot of what I'm trying to do is to open up that
conversation and say, look, don't be frightened of this, you
know, we can deal with this and let's talk about it.

(27:50):
And so a lot of my training people come in hoping to talk
about tax, but we end up talkingabout our thoughts on money, you
know? And that's great.
I love that. I think it's brilliant as well
because when you sign up for a finance, the freelance course,
like for example, the one I did,you often think, I hope this
isn't boring. I hope we just don't just talk
about numbers and tacks. And it wasn't like that at all

(28:11):
because you know, it is completely it's not.
I mean, we did speak about moneyand there's questions I have
more specific that I will ask you in our chat because I think
people find them useful. But it is actually a lot about
that. Reframe that relationship to how
you view things and how you view, as you say, using your
skills and stuff. And it's really freeing to have
that. But I do, as you say, it's a

(28:32):
weird culture where if you tell someone some of these things or
you speak about things like that, they're a bit like, oh,
you know what I mean? It's still kind of an alien
concept. And you know, and as you ran in
many times on that day, like thetax system in this country as
well, it's just mental. So yeah, it doesn't.
Help. But it's not as hard as it could
be. The problem we have here is that

(28:53):
we're not. We're not told there's a,
there's a universe of freelancing, you know, when we
when we are growing up, you know, what do you want to be
when you grow up, David? It's kind of, you know, I'm not
sure people do they still, I don't think people say I want to
be freelance. I'm just not sure that's

(29:13):
something that people say when they're eight years old, you
know, they might say fireman, you know, or, or it's usually
fireman Princess. You know, it's, you can have a
list of things that people say they want to be when they're
children, but I think unless you're brought up in a family
where freelancing is the norm, Ithink it's quite difficult to,

(29:34):
to realise how it works and, andto pick up on it.
And one of the things again, andI think it's partly my
experience of having been employed for so long where I had
no idea that there was this parallel universe of, of being a
small one man business. You know, that idea of being a
sole trader, the idea of being freelance in any form, you know,

(29:56):
that was something which never crossed my mind to understand it
because I hadn't ever had to understand it.
And then I had to suddenly. And it was an eye opener as to
how it worked. And I, I had been at the BBC,
very bureaucratic organization. I was stunned how simple the

(30:16):
paperwork was to be self-employed compared with
being someone who ran the department of the BBC.
And that, that says a lot about big organization.
I mean, maybe it says a lot about the BBCII suspect it does.
But big organisations are very rules based.
Everything is black and white, you know, straight this, that
everything is, you know, there's, there's a way of doing

(30:37):
things almost like a handbook aswell as a culture.
And so you can kind of follow that.
Whereas outside, as you know, running yourself in that way,
setting up on your own, all thatstuff, actually there's a huge
amount of freedom, the sort of freedom that doesn't exist in
other countries. That's something else I've also

(30:57):
come to understand, especially in other countries in Europe
where it is quite bureaucratic to set up on your own.
Whereas in this country it's notat all compared compared to how
it could be. People think it is.
But actually the basics to set up on your own, pretty simple.
So, yeah, so, so I, I think there's, there's almost an

(31:18):
education that we need to have. I mean, to be honest with you,
when everything started to get more freelancey all those years
ago and I thought I'll do some training to help people set up
on their own. I thought I'd do it just for a
couple of years and then there'dbe loads of other advice and
it'd be easy for people to get advice and everybody was sort of
fit into it and it would be the norm.
And here we are 20 years later now, and actually not many

(31:42):
people do what I do. I'm really, really surprised
that that many, not many people do the kind of training I do,
which just helps people get their head around it all.
And the government is so opaque.I mean, they do try butgov.uk
and their their YouTube channelsall about money and things.
Not then they're not. They do their best for helping

(32:03):
everybody, but of course doesn'thelp specifically people like
freelancers. So that's great because it keeps
me in business. I do.
Also think specifically in the creative industries, there's
hardly anyone in this space really doing a lot of of work
around this stuff either, which is, and I think it's very

(32:24):
needed, like we're basically almost known and it's and it
will completely in the next 10-15 years, there'll be even
less and less staff jobs as we talked about, but completely
freelance industry where you really need this mindset and
these skills to sort of do that.So yeah, it's really needed.
There is a massive gap there. Yes, and of course the.

(32:44):
Other thing we've lived through in the last few years is that
for many people freelancing in different ways.
We've had steady work where things have gone along, then
we've had no work because of COVID, then we've had a rush as
the dam burst and everybody cameback.
And now it's gone right down because of all the streaming

(33:05):
services. And broadcasters are rethinking
their models because of the change to the success of things
like YouTube and streaming generally.
But also there was a point wherethe streamers were throwing
money at everything and now they're not and they're
retrenching a bit and trying to work out what they actually do.
I mean, the big change I thoughtwas really telling was when
people like Disney made programmes and then didn't

(33:26):
broadcast them because they thought, you know what, that's
not where we're going. I mean, that's extraordinary to
think that, but that's, that's what they did.
And that's when I realised, oh, this is, this is all going to
change now, you know, so we're in a transition period.
And of course, when things change, people get very, very
anxious because that naturally as human beings, we don't really

(33:50):
like change very much. And, and, and the other thing
that happens is of course that we pick up on the mood of our
colleagues. So I think this is human nature.
I think we're a social animal. So if we have amongst our
friends, we have people who are going through difficult times,
we empathize, we sympathize, we can see the world also partly
through their eyes. And we have a lot of people

(34:12):
going through difficult times just at the moment.
So it's difficult to sort of, it's quite difficult in that
environment to sit up and say it's not all terrible because
for some people it's really difficult and you don't want to
diss their attitudes completely.So I, I find, you know, that's
normal and understandable. I'm, I'm a natural optimist, you

(34:37):
know, but I'm, I'm doing more training with people just to
help them feel on top of the finances because they have no
money coming in from their freelancing.
Whereas over the last decade or so, it's been much more about
dealing with the money that you have been earning.
So the skills are similar, by the way.
It's just that the the backdrop,the context has changed.

(35:00):
Yeah. It's very true.
I do think being in that environment, especially working
somewhere where like you'd had bad news where it shows, you
know, cat getting cancelled, forexample, is an extreme example.
But you do feed off that mid around you.
And because I do this podcast, there's a lot of work on the TV
crisis. What's the transition facing our
industry? And it is hard some days to feel

(35:21):
like, you know, I can, you know,that things will pick up and
we'll be alright. Yeah, it's really hard.
But as you say, yeah. Stay from that.
Yeah. So I think the two.
Things are you can focus on the industry and you can say it's
difficult to be positive about how things will pick up, even
though you feel they might pick up at some point.

(35:42):
But the point about that is you can't control that.
And freelancers often do feel out of control.
But one of the reasons they feelout of control is that they're
focusing on the bits they can't control and focusing on the
industry and hoping it gets right.
That's not really the place to start.
The industry will sort itself out and you keep an eye on it.

(36:04):
But in the meantime, the thing that you do control is yourself,
your mental attitude, your physical and mental health.
Part of that then is how do I engage with that, given that the
money is difficult. But for me, the starting point
is always, who are you as a person and how can I keep hold
of that? Because if you can keep hold of
who you are as a person, you'll be ready and strong to fit back

(36:25):
into the industry when it startsto pick up again.
But in the meantime, you might have to do something else.
And I've, I've noticed this through the Facebook groups that
I, I'm part of and things where people have started to realise
that they can move out of the industry and then be prepared to
come back in. And there are a few trainees

(36:46):
I've met a number of times over the last 15 years where I've
been watching that process of realisation and they've moved to
another area which uses the sameskills.
But. They've moved out of the
industry and they can see, oh, actually this is quite fun
because I'm using the same skills because I have those

(37:07):
skills. And, and that's I think part of
the process that we need to dealwith.
It's not putting all the controlin someone else's hands.
It's about saying how can I takecontrol of my own future, even
if it means I have to ditch someof the shibboleths and all that
stuff. Hello, it's.
Jamie here. I hope you're enjoying this

(37:28):
week's episode. It's just a quick one for me to
say that if you're listening to the podcast on Apple, Spotify,
or whatever platform you engage with our show on, be sure to
give us a follow or a subscribe as it goes a long way into
helping us grow and find new listeners, as well as helping
you keep up with all the latest episodes and everything that's
happening. I just get a real job.
You can also support us by subscribing to our patron page

(37:50):
for the price of a cup of coffeeper month.
All the money we make goes back into the upkeep of the podcast.
Thank you for you continued support and we hope you enjoy
the rest of today's episode. I want to.
Also, I mean, I think what you're saying about the
reframing around that is really interesting.
So I have some, I want to talk to you about your early career

(38:10):
as well. But before that I kind of want
to ask you about some more specific questions that people
might find useful. And one of them is sort of about
like, is there like any other sort of money reframes that come
to mind that you find come up quite a lot in your training
that are quite common at the moment, especially for people
working in the creative industries as freelancers and
stuff? Yeah.

(38:32):
One of them is to, I mean, I've talked a moment ago about the
importance of thinking about your own needs as a person, what
your financial needs are. It's, it's about cost.
I, I talk about it as costing, costing your life.
But to bring that down so that you do big investigation into

(38:52):
what you need to survive, but also to be happy.
The idea of thriving, not just surviving is very important.
And I always try to get people to do budgeting where they, they
set what would be a typical monthly budget and say, you
know, some for accommodation, some for food, I mean, buying
food to cook it, some for eatingout, some.

(39:14):
And for many people, that's the first time they've ever done
that. And I, I think it comes as a
shock that you can start in thatplace for some people, a lot of
people think about the income first, as they say, and they
work out what they can spend. But no, the other, the other way
around is much, much healthier where you work out what does
your life need from you and thenyou'd work out how hard to work.

(39:38):
So for freelancing, when there is work, by the way, people are
often really surprised they don't have to earn on as many
days as they feared. So one of the reframings is the
importance of seeing how important it is to keep spending
money on the nice stuff. So there are, there are two, you
know, sort of framings which I think are problematic. 1 is I'm

(40:00):
a freelancer, therefore I can never take a break.
And the other one is I'm a freelancer so I can't buy any
nice stuff. Both of those are rubbish.
If you're living a life where you don't take a break and you
don't buy yourself any nice stuff at any point, you know,
OK, we need to define break and we need to define nice stuff,
but you've got to work them intoyour calculation because that's
your life. And those two things alone will

(40:22):
help you with mental and physical health.
So, so it's, it's a, it's a way of starting with that.
And I, I, I try to take people step by step by step through it
to show that it's not that hard as long as you start in the
right place. The other aspect is then to use
the knowledge of what you're spending to plan the next 12

(40:44):
months of finances. Now this comes as a shock to
people because because very often people say, well, I
haven't got a clue what's going to happen financially in the
next 12 months, to which I say that's correct because the
future hasn't happened yet. But you can have a guess.
You can actually try guessing and you can see what might
happen. So again, I've got tools which I

(41:05):
give people. Part of my training is all about
giving people downloadable toolsthat they can fiddle around with
where they can, you know, literally just plan what might
they spend for the next year based on the cost of their life.
So you have to do the costing first.
But once you've done that, you can then plan that and plug it
in and see which parts of the next year might be challenging

(41:28):
financially. And, and it's it's demonstrating
where you can take control that's the big one again,
because freelancers often feel out of control.
Yeah. And I just.
Want to flag as well for people listening, like there's links to
all David's trading stuff on hiswebsite below this sure, if
you're watching on YouTube or not, but or underneath the show

(41:49):
notes on Spotify or Apple. So if you want to actually go
and look at some of this stuff in more detail as well, there's
some great resources there, which I've also used myself and
have been really useful in reframing that relationship.
So thank you, David. I also sort of want to ask you
as well, what's the sort? What do you think is the biggest
misconception? People that come to your
training course have their own money.
Is there any like mistakes or things you've been saying quite

(42:11):
a lot that you think? Yeah, that they can't do it.
People are often brought up to think that maths is not for
them, so therefore money is not for them.
And they get very anxious because they know that they have
to think about money. And yet they've been told at
school, you know, maths is boring.
I, I, I don't think that's universally true.
I think you can find maths teachers who are very good at

(42:34):
helping people to understand money in the real world.
I, I think it would be great if schools were focusing more on,
you know, giving the examples ofwhat people are going to need to
engage with as an adult with money and use maths in that
context. I think it would feel a little

(42:55):
bit more real for people. But you know, most people I work
with are creative freelancers. They are not the people who are
top of the maths class. They tend to be the people who
were waiting for maths to finishso that they could get out into
the drama class after school, you know, or do do that
rehearsal literally. So I understand that and I get

(43:21):
that that's not, that's not to denigrate the maths teachers,
but I think that what we're really saying is that we can
only really engage with things when they mean something to us.
And So what I'm trying to do with my training is always to
start from a very personal pointof view, like what do you spend
your money on as a hobby? What does your life cost you

(43:41):
every month? And I'm not, I'm not trying to
find out and be rude about it. I'm just trying to get people to
think a little bit about that because that's how you get into
finance. It's about thinking about your
personal circumstances and then also planning from that point.
But you can't do money unless you've worked out you're what
you need to spend first, so costing your life is always my

(44:04):
starting point. Yeah.
And I think. I think, I think it's a really
helpful way of doing it because sometimes there's often a lot of
common things. You'll see them on Instagram or
tech talk, whatever. It's like if you stop buying
like a coffee, you know, this many times a week, then you'll
save all this money, which is true.
And sometimes, you know, I thinkI did this in your course, but I
worked at, Oh Christ, that's so I want to spend £900 on coffee

(44:26):
every year. Like, but if, if I, and I'd
actually, I think it's a balancebecause I actually love coffee.
It's something that brings me a lot of happiness now.
And I think it's also, it's finefor me to want to spend money on
it, but it's actually been a weight of it because a lot of
the time people don't realize that they actually are doing
that. So if you're someone that's
doing that and you don't really care about it, then you might be
like £900's a lot of money. I can save that.
But if you're someone like me who likes it and you can justify

(44:47):
it, you know, you can look at that relationship and if you can
afford it, then it's fine. And I think that's really
powerful. Perfect.
Example of taking control. So it's up to you what you spend
your money on. Personally, I'm with you.
I would be very happy to spend £900 a year on coffee because I
like coffee and as well. But very often what's happening
is people aren't realizing what they're spending on, they're

(45:09):
spending money accidentally. This is particularly
particularly true of employees by the way.
If anyone's in employment and they get a salary every month,
they get the same amount of money.
So they get into habits of just behaving in the same way without
questioning it, but they don't realise where the money's going.
And I, I think that's where, youknow, things like doing a
spending diary just for a month where you write down everything

(45:29):
you spend just for a month to remind yourself where it's all
going. Most people who do that are
really quite shocked that some money is going somewhere where
they, they really can very easily not spend that.
But you know, for a typical employee, I mean, as you know
from when we met before, for a typical employee, maybe 240 days

(45:50):
a year is turning up and working.
If you knock off the weekends and the holidays, you get that
kind of figure of number of working days.
Even if it were 200 is easy to do the maths, you know, spend £5
every working day. Even if it were too as little as
200 days a year, there's 1000 lbs on coffee.
You know that often employees just spend because there's a

(46:11):
coffee shop next to the buildingwhere they work and they just
don't think about it. And as you say, it's not about
not spending money on coffee, it's about knowing where you are
spending and making a decision that that's important to you.
Yeah, completely. So even things like
subscriptions, a lot of people are financed, a lot of people
pay things on finance and subscription without thinking

(46:32):
about it. And and and that's again, if you
love like I, you know, I pay forNetflix or, you know, Apple TV
or whatever it is, and I love TVI work in it.
But that's so I think, you know,I know I'm spending that, but
often people don't realise that,you know, they're not even using
these accounts. And and it's more it's not about
the one month, you know, Fiver feels fine, but it's when you
add it all up, isn't it? You're like, Oh, you know, you
could do so much for that money that you of things you loved.

(46:53):
So it's that isn't it? It's really what I've what?
I've started to do is treat the streaming services as paying for
a particular show. So, for example, Apple TV Plus,
I, I will only, I will only subscribe to it as long as

(47:13):
they're showing Slow Horses. Yeah.
So now while while they're showing Slow Horses, I also have
access to all the other stuff onApple TV Plus, some of which is
good, some of which I'm never going to watch.
But it means that I'm very focused on having a binge on
Apple TV Plus. Soon as Slow Horses finishes, I

(47:34):
don't pay it anymore. Now I know that not everybody
would be able to do that with every service, especially if you
have to keep on top of everything.
I get that, but that works for me.
So I'm I'm picking and choosing and also if I have to upgrade my
phone, I've I've got a phone that's out of contract.

(47:54):
My work phone is out of contractat the moment I'm about to
upgrade it. I will.
You'll probably be able to get six months for free on a
streaming service as a result ofa deal with the supplier of the
phone. So that kind of makes sense.
So it's a double whammy. If I if I upgrade my phone just
as they start a series of slow horses and I get free Apple TV

(48:16):
Plus for six months, I'm winning.
I'm actually waiting at the moment.
I think I'm likely to get a Disney Plus and Disney Plus.
I don't have children in the house.
They want Disney all the time, but that helps.
But you know, I'll get Disney Plus when, well, Andor is on.
So I'm now waiting for Andor to be a whole series on Disney

(48:39):
Plus. Then I'll upgrade my phone and
possibly get a six months for free with it.
And then I can watch all of Andor for free and anything else
I want to catch up on. Although the number of times
I've watched Star Wars through my life, do I really want to
watch that again? And I certainly don't want to
watch half the Marvel again having watched them once.
But you know, so the point I'm making is, again, we're coming

(49:01):
back to taking control. It's what's important to you
personally. Don't just cede control to
Disney or Apple. Take control of it and say, you
know what? I can do this in a way that
suits me rather than them. And that includes the finances,
of course. And we're also, we're really

(49:21):
lucky at the moment in some waysas well, because we're at a time
when there's actually loads of great apps and I don't have a,
but there's loads of things now you can use that will track your
spending and make a lot easier to do.
Yeah, I, I, I. I agree.
Pots, spaces. You know, pots with Monzo, isn't
it? And Spaces with Starling and and
things like that with a digital banking that came up.

(49:41):
Fair play to them. I mean, this was George
Osborne's big idea. I've been doing this long enough
now that I can see trends over time and it was George Osborne
who decided to kind of turbocharge the banking sector
and stop the High Street banks ripping us off and he said we're
going to make it easy for new banks to set up.
And they all went digital of course, straight away and that's

(50:02):
how they were set up. That has actually been really
useful for freelancers, althoughI'll be honest, it certainly
helps. However, it's not the only
answer and you don't need apps to get on top of your finances.
That's the other thing, it's just a different way of
thinking. The apps can help you keep an
eye on stuff. But I mean, I'm again going back

(50:24):
20 years when I started this training, I was always advising
people to use cash to save moneybecause cash, having it in your
hand and in your purse, you could set yourself.
A budget for the week. Just get it once out of the cash
point and then just use that to get through the week.
And when people use cash, this doesn't work quite so well now
because a lot of places don't take it.

(50:45):
But actually cash is really powerful as a way of stopping
spending money because you see the notes disappear.
You know, you take it out and you literally give it to
somebody else and you think, Oh my God, they're taking my money.
And we've been sort of suckered into using everything with apps
and digital payments and contactless and Apple Pay and

(51:06):
all that stuff. And I think that's taken the
control away from us to a certain extent.
I'm not being a Luddite. I, I'm, I'm, I'm big on
digitisation. I think actually it's it's
generally a good thing, but you need to take control of it and
make sure you you're not, you'renot falling into trap set by
other people that make you want to spend too much.

(51:27):
It is true though, because like I think.
Sometimes you don't see a payment doesn't come off till
like two days after you didn't realize you'd spent it.
And you look at your account andgo, Oh yeah, I've got, you know,
blah, blah. And then also credit cards are
really dangerous because you think I've just put it on the
credit card as a wee treat. And then before you know it,
you've got quite a lot of creditand you're like, I've got to pay
that off. So it's it's, you know, you
think it's free money, but it's not free money.

(51:48):
Not at all. I mean credit.
Cards, you really have to take control of them and credit,
Credit cards, the control you have to take back is about not
they're the most expensive way of borrowing money.
Basically a credit card is a wayof borrowing money and so you
need to pay it off all the time.And, and one of the things I do
is I pay off the card as soon asI use it.

(52:11):
So in other words, if you use a credit card, which by the way
can be really important if you're buying things online for
protection, but you can then paythat off straight away from your
debit card. But you can, you can do it on
the day you've used your credit card.
So I know that we're tempted to use it and then pay it a month
and a half later, but you have to be really quite organized and

(52:34):
self disciplined to remember to pay it off completely.
And you can find the bill is bigger than you expect.
But if you're actually paying off the credit card as you go
along, you're getting the protection from the Gov, but
you're actually finding that you're in a position where
you're not getting caught out and having nasty surprises
because we don't want surprises.We don't really don't want

(52:55):
surprises for sure. No, no, for sure.
No, it's it's. All it is nothing worse than
going, Oh God, I didn't I didn'trealise I spent that.
I know you also sort of do networking as well as money and
stuff. So I want to quit ask you about
this because network, it's a huge like everyone, you know,
even people, great people. Some people are very good at it,
but some people are like, Oh God, and I mean I'm I'm really I

(53:17):
do this podcast. I like talking to people, I like
meeting people, but I don't see myself as a transit.
I don't like feeling transactional, like even coming
up to you at the end of your course and asking if you come on
this. This is not naturally something
I'm good at. So you know, it, it's a it's a
weird thing for a lot of creators.
But tell us what you sort of think about networking and what
are some things people could maybe learn about that.
Again, reframing in that sort ofmindset.

(53:38):
Yeah. So the bigger reframing.
Is to accept that it's transactional.
That's going to come as a shot Isuspect.
You know we would, we would had a little e-mail exchange you and
I so that we could work out whatwe could talk about.
And I was really interested in the framing that you used on one
of the questions. How can we reframe networking so

(53:59):
that it feels less transactional?
And I've written a note in the, in the the print out, it just
says you can't. And I think we should stop
pretending. I think we should stop
pretending. Networking is something which is
not about being best friends with people and it is about
asking for help from people. Maybe.

(54:21):
It's certainly engaging with people and building up a
relationship with them. In a professional context though
I often meet people who say networking is really challenging
because I have to be liked by everybody and you really don't.
You have to be respected by everybody professionally.
I mean, there has to be a professional respect there.

(54:43):
But as I, as I always say to people, I've got about 25
clients a year who buy me in to do training for, for people that
they then bring in, you know, people like unions, people like
that, they'll bring me in. I have hardly ever socialized as
a friend with anybody who is my client, but we have a really
good professional relationship with professional respect.

(55:06):
So the I think the biggest. Reframing.
Is to realize that what we're talking about when we're
networking is about helping people to understand how we can
help them. You don't do that by saying how
brilliant you are, by the way. So there is there is a challenge
there, but but to do that in a way which helps to build up a
professional relationship with other people over time and it

(55:30):
does take time. As human beings we are very
happy to engage with other people.
We can have relationships with them, which can be from close
friendship to quite distanced contact.
But an analogy that I use is with our personal lives where we
network all the time, but we just don't call it that.

(55:52):
And sometimes people get to realise that they're part of a
kind of community around where they live, where they may not be
best friends with their neighbors, but they have an
engagement with the neighbors. Now, this sometimes happens more
as you get through life and you start to feel you're part of a
neighborhood sort of network. Certainly it happens a lot in

(56:14):
streets like where I live where there are lots of young families
where you can see that there's an engagement that people have
which is about helping each other just to support each other
as families or parents. So people will do the school
runs and share, share the schoolruns.
So they don't, not everybody's doing it every morning, just as
an example or complaining about the bins or complaining about

(56:39):
people parking in the wrong place.
You know, it's these kinds of issues which people talk about
in neighbors networks, but the engagement that we have at that
level is very similar to the engagement we have at work with
people, but we're not honest about it.
Let me give you an example. If you if you move into a new
neighborhood and you knock on the door of the neighbors next

(57:00):
door, you might well do that andyou might say hi, I'm David.
I've just moved in and people go, oh, hi, I'm, I'm Joe and I
live next door. Hey, how long have you been
here? You know, would you like some
sugar or have you got enough coffee or have you got a kettle
that works yet? Are you moving in today?
You know, so you had that kind of level of conversation.
But what you don't do is you don't knock on the door the day

(57:25):
you move in and say hi, I'm David.
I've just moved in. I've got an Amazon package
coming in a week's time. I wonder if you could pick it up
for me. I've got a cat and could you
water the cat while I'm having abreak next week?
And also I've got some plants that need watering.
Now you do have those conversations once you've been
there a while. So you, you don't have that

(57:45):
contact with people where you ask for things and you say,
could you do this for me until you've had a number of times
where you've engaged with people.
So people know this. As human beings, we are
completely natural at doing thiskind of networking.
It comes completely naturally tous.
And when we put into a work context, we often freak out
because it feels transactional. But if it's a work context and

(58:08):
you've got skills and you think you can help somebody with those
skills, it's definitely transactional because you've got
skills they might need. If they don't, that's fine, but
they might need and you owe it to yourself to just help them.
And networking in work context is about helping other people.
That's what it is. You've got skills and you can
solve someone else's problem. So they need to know you exist

(58:29):
and they need to know how you can.
They can get a hold of you if they need you, but you don't
have to be best friends. So I'm all for calling out
networking for what it really is.
It it's not about trying to be or pretending to be best friends
with people. Obviously you don't want to put
people off, but don't try to be best friends.
Just just think about what they might need to know from you,

(58:51):
which would mean that they can remember you if they need you.
And if they don't need you, that's fine too.
When I'm talking to people aboutmy work, I say, oh, I run
workshops for for freelancers tohelp them not be frightened of
money. And that's as far as I.
Go. So I'm I'm.
I'm just describing what I do. I'm not saying to people, you

(59:12):
know, these workshops are the best thing on in the world and
you definitely need to come on my workshop.
That's not for me to say. It's saying this is where I am
if you need me and feel free to get in touch and I'm very easy
to find, just Google me. So I think for freelancers, it's
about being available and visible so that people remember

(59:32):
something about you and you do need to think about that.
I think for networking, that's kind of what you need.
That bit you need to think about, but you don't have to be
best friends. And I'm always saying please
don't try because you know, you've probably seen people
networking where it's a bit cringy.
So don't do that. You know, if it's cringy, it's
not networking, it's something else.

(59:57):
That's really interesting. You'd kind of change.
My, yeah, it's interesting. I chose those words.
I think for me sometimes, and this is probably more that
people are bad at networking that I've just picked up on it
where like you, they're very, I don't know.
You go to, I don't know, drinks things sometimes and people come
up to you and they're just so straight to the point.
In a way that you're like, whoa.You know, I suppose it's just

(01:00:18):
being clever about how you're doing it.
I suppose that's probably more what that is as opposed to
something else. And in truth.
Maybe the? Part of me also wanting to be
liked a bit too much. And that is probably something
you, you learn as you go, Yeah. And as you get older, again as
you. Get older, you get to the
feeling where actually this is who I am, I'm comfortable who I
am. If people don't like me, I'm
really cool with that. You know, some will, some won't.

(01:00:39):
You won't click with everybody. And also don't take it too
personally. If you're freelancing, it just
means that at some points your skills are really going to be
needed by somebody and at other points they're not.
It's not like you're always going to click and be at the
right place at the right time. But I think this, this idea that

(01:01:00):
you're trying to be friends and,and interesting that you say
it's, it's, it's kind of too in your face when people do it
badly. I think that the key skill for
for good networkers is listening.
Often we pretend that networkingis about talking about yourself
and that it's good for extroverts.

(01:01:20):
Therefore, obviously the opposite would be true and that
introverts can't do networking. That's complete bollocks.
It's it's much more that you need to be good at asking
questions of people when they talk to you.
You listen really well and you're looking out for where
there may be overlaps of interest, but you'll only do

(01:01:41):
that by being a good listener. So the key skill is not talking
about yourself. It's about asking questions and
listening carefully. So things like active listening,
all that kind of stuff, you know, these sort of technical
terms, but just be a good listener and think about
questions in advance rather thanthinking about yourself in
advance is not a bad idea because then you'd be listening

(01:02:04):
to people and people don't mind that you ask them questions.
In fact, it's quite flattering. And as long as you listen and
have a think about that, you know, that can you can find
people where there may be an overlap in skills and needs when
that happens, but you won't findthat if you just talk all the
time. And yeah, when people do it

(01:02:26):
badly, it's really noticeable. And I think as well, people.
Find you more interesting if youlisten to them as well because
they think often they're like ohthat I really like that person
but part of it is because they just got to talk to you you
think you know you got or you got to you know if something.
Did you think about the people? We've got for dinner with
sometimes the people that talk less because you you got to feel
like you were really interested.I agree completely with that.

(01:02:50):
I agree completely. With that and.
And I think a lot of it is just trying to make sure that you're,
you're being flattering to them by asking questions and
listening to them and taking an interest.
And I've, as I said, I've travelled all over the world.
And what I find is that althoughcrowds of people like at events

(01:03:10):
and things, crowds of people feel very daunting.
And I don't like loud events. I was at the Media and
Production technology show not long ago in London at Olympia.
I go every year if I can, but generally it's just too loud for
me. And I, I just go to engage with
a couple of people who I know are going to be there and maybe

(01:03:31):
listen to one or two talks and that's it.
But it's too in your face, too loud, too overwhelming.
So I, I, you know, now, so crowds of people terrifying, you
know, and walking into a networking event where you don't
know anybody, of course, that's difficult because it's, it's a
large number of people and it feels terrifying.
But individually, when you talk to an individual and that's what

(01:03:54):
you're trying to do when you're networking.
So if you, if you go to an eventand there's groups of people
together, you're not trying to talk to the group that is not
networking. That's like performing, you
know, you're not going to step into a group of 6 people and
just perform. No, but I find that terrifying.
So what you're trying to do all the time is just to talk to one
person at a time. And as you say, if you talk to

(01:04:17):
one person at a time, everybody's really interesting,
Everybody's got something interesting to talk about.
Now it may well be it doesn't overlap with your interests.
And therefore in a work context,there may be a reason you,
you're not going to be spending much time with them being
transactional because it doesn'twork.
No, completely. And.
Something I've learned from doing this podcast is that you

(01:04:38):
can network in other ways. So I think often people just
associate networking as a you goto an event and everyone stood
around my glass of wine or beer in their hand and you have to go
round and go hello, my name is Jamie and I, I'm a script editor
blah, blah. But you, you can actually
network in lots of ways. In some ways I'm oh, something's
very honest with it. I actually think one of the best
networking tools in the 21st century is having a podcast
where you interview people because you know, two or three

(01:04:59):
times a week. Sometimes I'm interviewing
people, meeting people all the time.
But like you can find ways that work for you because you can, if
you're maybe an introvert or somebody that's a bit nervous
and crowd, you could maybe go, I'll just reach out to somebody
for a coffee. We'll meet one-on-one.
So I suppose it's having that again, it's about taking agency
and control. Like, you know, it might just be
that you need to find network ina way that suits you, which I

(01:05:20):
think people forget something that they just think of it as a
yeah, I think I think some of the best.
Networkers are quite shy of people and the reason for that
is they're quite good individually with people and
they're also good at asking questions and happy to listen.
So if if anybody's listening to this and they think I, I can't
network, first of all, you can because you're a human being and
all human beings can network because we're actually social

(01:05:41):
animals. So that's fine.
But secondly, don't get freaked by the fact that it's in a work
context. Just think about listening to
other people, finding out what they're into in a work context
and don't try to be best friendswith people, but be prepared
occasionally to buy them a coffee that can work.
I did that a lot when I set up my training business, just to
chat with other trainers. And I said, look, I'll buy you a
coffee. Do you mind if I just have a

(01:06:02):
chat and ask you loads of questions?
People are really generous. Actually, people are very happy
to do that if you come at it in the right attitude.
And I would say anybody startingtheir career, please don't be
afraid to ask. You know, I mean, you asked me
if I'd be help. Happy to do this.
I'm very happy to talk about myself, you know, for ages,
Jamie, and I have no problem with that.

(01:06:22):
You shouldn't have been nervous about it.
What was the worst that could happen?
I wasn't going to think any worse of you just because you
said you had a podcast and wouldI like to be a guest?
You know, I mean, I'm very happyI've got all this experience
over 40 years of working in the industry in different ways.
I'm very happy to, you know, share whatever I can, but I find
most people are really happy to share anything, particularly if

(01:06:46):
it helps someone else not make mistakes or find shortcuts.
Yeah, it's crazy actually. Like, you know.
This when this goes out probablybe well over 170 episodes, which
is mad. Nearly five years and it never
gets weirdly for me. Like it's something I've had to
really slowly learn is like mostpeople I reach out to, even if
they say no, I've had bigger guests and people who are quite

(01:07:07):
well known. Sometimes they say no because
they've got big commitments or they, you know, they maybe
think, you know, it's too small a part for whatever that
whatever the reason is, it's you're always fine.
It's always like cool. Half the time you just either
don't hear back at all or peoplesay yes.
I think most of the time people are very willing to help.
So, you know, I think it's just,yeah, I mean, completely, I
think it's not that big a thing,but it's something you have to

(01:07:28):
really. But yeah, by the way.
One of the things that I have a problem with is when you ask
people things and they don't reply, I think that's just rude.
I, I, I honestly, yeah, I I'm a big one for this, you know, and
I think we want to make the world less rude, so I always.

(01:07:49):
Say to people if anybody gets in.
Touch with you, one of the best skill you've got is
communications. That's actually quite an
important freelancing skill, communications.
So there are a couple of skills.Teamwork, communications and
reliability are three big freelancing skills that you
always need to try and help people to understand.
So if you are ever asked by somebody to do something or ask

(01:08:09):
for some information, the least you can do is write back and say
sorry, I can't help. But do write back and don't
ghost them because I think particularly for the younger
generation, I've noticed that ghosting is a thing which which
people kind of assume is going to happen.
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, that's just so rude.
So don't be one of those people.Yeah.

(01:08:30):
Even if it's a quick reply that just says sorry, can't help you,
but thanks for asking. Click send.
You know that level even that's better than not replying.
So yeah, but I'm I'm on a one man mission to work make the
world a happier place. That's what I'm really on the
planet for. So don't be rude.
Is is one of the things on my list?

(01:08:53):
Well, you did a very good job ofDavid's, so thank.
You no and it's completely true as well because I do think often
if you don't apply to someday itbecomes a bigger thing in their
head. Often they think they've done
something really wrong when whenin reality usually it's just you
can't do it. You're too awkward to say no.
And I think that's, you know, especially with dating, like,
you know, I remember in the pastthe amount of like getting
ghosts and stuff. You just think that you're

(01:09:13):
something really wrong with you.And I think, you know, it
doesn't take a lot to just say, even if it's just, you know, it
can, you know it's. The same in any.
Context. But it's not hard to just say
you know, no one can't or. Whatever it is.
Yeah, it's never anything wrong with you if someone.
Goes to you. It's definitely something wrong
with them, definitely, I think. If for anyone listening, there's

(01:09:35):
experience that just think I've dodged the bullet really.
David, I know we've been speaking for well of an hour, so
I'll start to sort of wrap things up.
I really want to talk to you about the start.
There's so much more I could askyou.
We'll definitely have to get a background for you.
But I want to quickly ask you about your the start of the
start of your career. But I know you, you were saying
you worked for the BBC World Service, you worked in radio,
your management and stuff, stufflike that.

(01:09:56):
I know you lived in Germany and stuff as well.
Can you give us a quick overview, like tell us about how
you got into radio, like tell usa bit about the start of your
career. I'm interested in in your
personal journey before you became a trainer.
Yeah, It it's, it's a short. Story I, I, I, I had an
opportunity to do hospital radiowhen I was at school.
So I was, I was 14 years old. I was still at school, secondary

(01:10:17):
school, and there was a kind of a shout out.
I think one of my friends had heard that they needed some
people to just, you know, do hospital radio.
And I thought, oh, that sounds fun because I'm a big radio fan.
I used to listen to people like Tony Blackburn, who I still
listen to. He's on the weekends and he's
live on Radio 2. I cannot believe I was listening

(01:10:40):
to him 50 years ago. I was listening to him and
growing up, you know, with him on the morning programme on
Radio 1 and things. But anyway, you know, I used to
love all that stuff anyway. Did some hospital radio, really
loved it. Nobody listened, I'm sure.
I'm sure I was rubbish, but it was an introduction at least.

(01:11:02):
And then I went to university and completely by accident, on
my first night of arriving with my coffee mug and my bolt and my
spoon and my fork, you know, my parents dropped me off at
university and I turned on the radio.
And there was a student radio atthe York University where I was.

(01:11:23):
And it happened to be the oldestindependent radio station in the
UK. It started up in 1967 with some
very entrepreneurial students who set it up.
And I tuned in and the guy on the radio, his name was Gerald
Mayne. I remember it so well.
He said if anybody's listening and you want to pop down,

(01:11:44):
particularly if you're a fresher, just pop down.
You can help me out, you know, but I'd love to hear from you.
And I was out of that bedsit, and I was down to that studio on
the first night. And to cut a Long story short,
that guy became a bit of a mentor for me.
He was in his third year and I was just starting.

(01:12:05):
And by the time I left university a few years later, I
had been running the station fora while.
I had won two national awards for some of my programs that
I've made documentary. And the guy who had met me that
first night that had joined the BBC and he tipped me off that
there were some new stations being set up and I was really

(01:12:25):
lucky with the timing. They were setting up BBC Radio
York the year I was leaving university and I had been
running University Radio York and I applied for BBC Radio York
and that's how I got into the BBC.
And there were twelve of us at that station that started up in
1983 and we were the the group setting it up.

(01:12:47):
And that was the most fun I've ever had, just being part of a
team setting up a news station. So I was really lucky that I was
in that, that time when local radio was on the app and the BBC
was putting a lot of money in, there were no other stations in
the area. There was no independent station
in that area. So student radio came after
hospital radio, but then BBC andthen from that point a couple of

(01:13:10):
local stations, then World Service and over 16 years at the
World Service I, I moved from, you know, presenter and producer
up to editor and head of department.
And the final job was running the educational department,
helping the world to speak English at a time when English
was becoming the international language.
So again, right place, right time.

(01:13:31):
And I was there in 1988 for fromthat .16 years later I left.
But 1988 World Service, great timing because they were
bringing down the Berlin Wall the year later and we could make
programmes about it. And yeah, so fascinating time to
be doing that. So yeah, I still consider myself
a radio person. I'm actually sitting in my

(01:13:52):
office at the moment and I do a lot of training from home online
and I turned it into a radio studio because it makes me feel
at home. So I've got a big radio clock so
I can keep an eye on the time. I've got a red light outside the
office door so that if there's anybody else in the house, like
children or wife or whatever, when I've got my lights on like
I have now, there's a red light outside saying don't swear,

(01:14:16):
don't. Flush the toilet in the next
room. Don't make a noise.
So I'm basically pretending I'm a local radio presenter again.
Sad really, isn't it? No, I love it.
I've never actually done. Radio, I've done some live
podcasts and I do this and it's obviously very similar.
I want to ask you, I say what doyou make of the podcast?
And I know it's basically radio really, it's create your own

(01:14:38):
radio connectively, but what do you make of all this?
Sort of. It is absolutely fantastic.
And I would never have predictedthat it would be so popular.
I think what it's done is it's demonstrated that people love
audio. Now, audio actually is a very
intimate medium. As a radio person, I feel it in
my gut very much. I've always done radio.

(01:15:00):
It's incredibly intimate. You know, people listen to you
and your voice on their own. People don't gather around the
wireless set like you saw in those 50s pictures.
You know, people don't do that and they've never really done
that. And people are often doing
something else while they're listening to you anyway.
So when I was on the radio in say, local radio, I was always
assuming people were doing something else.

(01:15:20):
Nobody just sits there and listens.
Someone is doing the ironing or they're picking up the kids from
school, or you know, there's always something else going on
to then have podcasts. Invented.
And then realize that people really wanted that is fantastic
for me because it just reinforces what I had kind of
guessed, which is people still want the intimacy.

(01:15:41):
And I'm a great podcast fan. I mean, you can feel really
close to people when you're listening to podcasts.
You can feel like they're personal friends and you know,
listening to your podcast with other guests because I've met
you as well in in person when I was in Dumbarton.
It's been really nice to to get to know you through the podcast

(01:16:04):
and hear how you interview people and all that stuff.
It's very personal. I just love the fact that it's
become something and that peoplearen't just looking at pictures
the whole time. One of the problems I have with
social media, actually, by the way, is there's too many reels,
too many of those short videos. I can't do TikTok.
TikTok doesn't work for me. And I know that makes me sound

(01:16:26):
like an old geezer, but it's theaudio that I like.
And the lack of pictures is where you really let your brain
become creative. To put it another way, the
pictures are much better on the radio.
Yeah, let's put it that way. No, it's so interesting because

(01:16:48):
we're we're. At a time and as a podcaster,
I'm having to adapt with the times.
It's become very much about video now and you have to make a
reel from your episode and you and I'm putting these on YouTube
now. So it's only the last six months
I've moved to video a lot harderand a lot more work as well.
But like it is, it is interesting because I will
listen to things on YouTube. I don't watch things on YouTube.
I'll put YouTube on if there's only because some, you know,
channels are only on YouTube andyou can't listen to them as a

(01:17:09):
podcast. But I'm not really watching it.
I have it on and the same. I have a podcast on.
So, you know, I know there'll bepeople watching this right now,
which is fair enough. But for me, it's an intimate
thing as well. I prefer listening to it.
Yeah, I get that and I understand why.
Having a video version is important, I get that too.
But I'm just the the proliferation of podcasts has

(01:17:30):
been something that has been wonderful.
And there are a lot of really good podcasts out there.
You can find just about anythingthat you need.
And I think that's just great. I would not have predicted that,
but it's fantastic. Live radio.
Though that's, that's where it'sat for me, the idea that it's
live and not scripted. I love that.

(01:17:53):
That's why I'm, I'm really, really pleased that people, I
mentioned Tony Blackburn a moment ago.
I mean, he's been going for 60-70 years almost.
He's 80 something now. He's been doing radio since, you
know, the pirate ships in the 60s.
First voice on Radio One, for example, in 1967 was Tony
Blackburn's voice and, and he's still doing it and he still does

(01:18:15):
it live. And I'm sure that's because he
understands radio. I mean, I've met him once many
years ago. He is a natural radio genius and
I know he understands the value of live too.
So although podcasts are brilliant, you can't, you can't
beat a live program where anything can go wrong at any
point and it's unscripted and it's a bit loose.

(01:18:37):
I love that, absolutely love that sort of broadcasting and,
and if we'd been doing that. David, the audience would know
I'd had to go and blow my nose in the middle of this and all
that. You know what I mean?
It would all be, you know that. So you know, completely no, I
love it. I've done some live streams and
I I do enjoy it. It's completely different.
It's so much fun and like, you know, it's a whole different
beast and it's a lot harder. And also a lot of radio people

(01:18:58):
don't know is they have someone in their ear.
I can imagine someone in me right now going need to move on
to the next question and ask David this or whatever.
But Speaking of the next question, I've got two more
questions. For one of them is just What's
the biggest lesson you've learned in your career so far?
Look after yourself, no one elsewill.
Look after you quite as well as you look after yourself, whether

(01:19:19):
that's mental or physical health, thinking about where
your career may go. Don't rush into things.
Give yourself time, give yourself permission to get to
know yourself and then work out what makes you tick.
I think too many people try to live someone else's life,
whereas actually it's about you.I think over my whole career, I

(01:19:40):
think that's the one thing whichunderpins everything else.
No, it's really. Good.
And it ties into a lot of what? We've been saying, I actually
reminded me, I've lied to, I said two more questions, but I
always ask about mental health. I mean, it's important to bring
up quickly because you touched them there.
But like how you're a freelancer.
So I think maybe relating this to freelancers help or how as a
freelancer do you? Keep on top of your mental

(01:20:01):
health because you said when youdid the course even you still
have the odd day where you're like, Oh my God, this is feels
unnaturally quite like, you know, I, you know, I got to keep
paying the bills, I've got kids,etcetera and all this stuff.
Yeah, yeah. And that's still.
True. I, so I, I think the way I deal
with it is to not make my work something which infiltrates

(01:20:24):
other parts of my life completely.
We moved house about 13 years ago.
So I'd already been running as atrainer for about 7 years.
And we deliberately moved to a house which had a little room I
could hide in and work in, rather than having to work in a
space which the rest of the family used.
Because I'd realized that the thing that I value is being able

(01:20:45):
to have a space where I work andthen other spaces where I don't.
So I'm sitting in an office where I'm in a mental in a frame
of mind of working, but when we finished and, and when I'm not
training, I I literally go to another part of the house where
I I never work and I found that to.
Be useful and obviously I. Have the, I have the luxury of

(01:21:08):
of getting to a stage in life where I've got a house which has
got room to do that. But one of the ways that I've
also dealt with that is to have two phones, one phone which is
work related stuff and the otherphone is not.
And when I and I take control ofmy life by deciding when I'm
engaging with work and when I'm not.
So a lot of people find this difficult to understand.

(01:21:29):
A lot of freelancers feel they have to be on call for their
clients the whole time, whereas I've got used and I actually
learnt this really early on. It's much better, you get a much
better work life balance if you decide to work really well and
focus on things with your clients at certain times, but at
other times you don't engage with work at all.

(01:21:49):
And I'm a big one for if you're having a break and a holiday.
So if you're having a week away or something.
I do not take my work phone withme and I never have.
Now my work phone picks up emails to my work address.
So I have an e-mail address for work and I have a separate
e-mail address which is for my personal life.
They are different. So my work phone picks up only

(01:22:12):
the work emails my what is called David's weekend phone.
David's weekend phone does not pick up work emails.
So when I go on holiday as I will be doing in a few weeks
time, I will not be taking my work phone.
It'll have an out of office on it, but I will be taking my
weekend phone because I need that for the plane tickets and

(01:22:33):
things like you do these days, you know?
But that is the way I find that taking back control, this idea
of controlling your life where it's your decision when you're
engaging with your work or not, a lot of people find that really
difficult to understand because they feel as a freelancer that
if you miss a phone call, you may never work again.

(01:22:53):
But do you really believe that? I think as a freelancer you
might occasionally miss some work at sometimes, but do you
really believe you'd never work again just by missing a phone
call or two? Because I don't believe that's
true. And I've learnt early on, right
back when I started, that actually it's better for your
mental health to switch off and concentrate on other things,

(01:23:16):
whether that's in my case, maybefamily stuff or hobbies.
You know, if you're going to go climbing up a mountain or you're
going to be singing in a choir, have don't take your work phone,
don't take your work phone. Switch off from work.
Otherwise your brain is never, ever recharging it's batteries.
And if you're working in the creative industries, you're a

(01:23:37):
much more interesting person. If you disengage with work
occasionally and engage with other people not work related,
you will be bringing something richer to your work.
When you are working in the creative industries.
If you are unplugging from that work and engaging with something
different where you're not having to think about work for a

(01:24:00):
while now you have to choose when you do that and how you do
it so it fits your lifestyle. But that to me has been a game
changer. No, I love that it's it's.
So important and I promise my girlfriend I'm going to hold it
in a few weeks. So I promise that I'm going to,
I'm not going to, I'm going to delete both my emails from my
phone because running a podcast on top of work and because it's
kind of me doing this, I do spend way too much of my, you

(01:24:21):
know, time outside of it, checking emails, checking
Instagram, checking the TikTok, whatever it is.
So I'm going to, you know, I do think it's important and I think
I'd say this, I ask these questions on the podcast a lot
and I say these things a lot, but I need to actually practice
that myself. So, you know, for people
listening, I think we're all guilty of it.
I actually think it's quite scary.
For people to disengage, I thinkparticularly if you've been

(01:24:43):
brought up online. I wasn't brought up online.
I can still remember what it waslike in an analogue age where
you didn't have any social media.
So I find it easier to unplug because it's just like it used
to be. But I think if you have been
brought up online all the time, it's actually quite difficult to
not go online when you're tryingto take a break.
But my argument is you need to decide what you mean by being

(01:25:05):
online and there's a work onlineand there's a personal life
online. Keep the two separate and that
will it'll be easier on your mental health, I think to do
that. No for.
Sure, for sure. You know, because basically
since I was 15 or 16, there's been this thing called social
media and that's a long, you know that that is a long time to

(01:25:27):
have it in part of the new brain.
I just got one more question foryou.
Always get people to close on what their advice would be to
anyone. And I suppose for you, I'm
asking what your advice would beto anyone that wanted to to have
a freelance career. And I know you'd offered lots of
brilliant advice and stuff, right?
But what would your closing advice be to our listener?
So don't try and invent. Everything yourself, try to find
help. Don't be afraid to ask for

(01:25:49):
advice and help. I think people often feel that
if they're asking others for advice, they're showing
weakness. But in my view it's the
opposite, that if you're asking people for help and advice, it
shows that you're self aware andthat is a really strong thing.
So I always say to people, don'tif you're starting out, if you

(01:26:09):
don't know stuff, you know, don't be afraid to say you don't
know. No one's expecting you to know
everything from the start. Obviously if you've got work
experience or you're in your first job and you're constantly
asking people, how do I do this?How do they do that?
Well, you know, maybe back off alittle bit if you're doing that
constantly, but be a good listener and don't be afraid to

(01:26:32):
ask advice. That's part of, I mean,
obviously as a training business, that's the business
I'm in. And a lot of my advice is
completely free. I've started over the last 20
years putting it all on my website.
So there's a lot of free advice for you there, but don't be
afraid to ask other people for advice, particularly if they're
really senior. Sometimes people get really

(01:26:52):
nervous when they're starting that they can't talk to senior
people who are experienced. You absolutely can because those
senior people once had a first job once they started and
they've made mistakes. Don't be afraid to ask them
particularly, you know, you, if you're meeting people, maybe
it's an event and you're talkingto someone and you find they're
quite senior, just ask them. Ah, you know what?

(01:27:15):
What would? Your main advice?
Be or did you make any mistakes when you started so that I can
avoid making the same mistakes? You know, those sorts of
questions are fine, absolutely fine.
You have every legitimate reasonto be there talking to that
person just because you are starting.
No one's expecting you to know everything.

(01:27:38):
Other people who've got more experience, tap tap them for
that experience and just listen well.
Brilliant. David, thank you so much.
For your time today, I've honestly loved this
conversation. You had a big impact on me when
I did the trade in as I wanted you to come on.
And it's been an absolute joy toget you on and to to get you to
sort of talk about some of thosethings and expand.

(01:27:58):
And I generally mean that I've loved every minute of this chat.
And thank you as well for the being patient with the slight
delay we've had and me blowing my nose throughout this entire
interview. I appreciate it a lot.
Well, I'm most concerned that you get better again.
And and get rid of that cold. But can I just say I was really
flattered to be asked. So thank you for asking me after
we met all those weeks ago. And I am really flattered to be

(01:28:19):
asked. And if anybody's listening to
this and they want to be in touch, just follow the links.
I'm happy to have a chat with people.
Engaging with Everway works for you.
Brilliant. Thank you, David.
I hope you enjoy the. Rest of your Monday evening.

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Ep. 171 - Rethinking Money, Work & Self-Worth as a Creative with David Thomas

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 171 - Rethinking Money, Work & Self-Worth as a Creative with David Thomas