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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome back to the uncensored CMO. Now, you're probably listening to this just before 2026 is about to begin. And this conversation we're about to have is a really, really important one. My next guest, Emma Harris, has had an incredibly successful career. She's managed some huge brands, she's worked in sales and marketing. But something happened in her life that changed her forever. And she has a message that I want everyone to listen to about how you manage your life and how you manage your career. This is a really important conversation. I'm not gonna steal much thunder. Cause I want you to listen to this. Here we go. Emma Harris, welcome to the show.
- [00:38]
B
Thank you.
- [00:39]
A
Great to have you and been really looking forward to this conversation because you've done some amazing senior marketing roles and got an incredible career, both kind of brand side and agency side. And I'd love to tap up your experience and find out what you've learned along the way.
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B
But.
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A
But maybe start at the beginning. Why marketing? And, you know, how did you get into it in the first place?
- [00:56]
B
Well, I started in sales, actually. I mean, well, back, back. Back in the day. My first job was with a B2B marketing role. And it was sort of across sales and marketing. I learned a lot. It was a very small business. So it was kind of the CEO, me and a small team of people. And when I came out of there, I didn't really know what I wanted to do and ended up at this assessment center for what was called Bass then, that's now Molson calls, and got into a sales role in an fmcg. And there is no brand. Well, there's no industry, I think, more than beer, where you really learn about brands because basically it's the same shit in different tins. So really learning about people's choices based on that color or that brand, that advertising, you know, it was Fosters vs. Carling at the time. And we were trying to get Carling on the bar in North London where no one wanted to drink it. And then we sponsored the Premiership. We bought the sponsorship for Reading and Leeds Festival. So we got music, we got sport, we bought distribution in places like Hanover grand and Ministry of Sound. And that was it. It transformed. And Carlin became number one during my time there. And you come out with any FMCG role, you've been in it, right? The training and the development you get. We had our own P and L as well. So we were finance manager, brand manager. We were loaning people, we were investing in bars in London. There's still some bars that I drive past now, this is about 30 years ago that I think, wow, I invested in that and then came out and then went to Eurostar, went into sales in Eurostar. So a lot of people don't know this. My journey at Eurostar was basically every nine months, me going, sorted that next and I went into the business team and very soon realized that the way the brand was positioned was very much a leisure brand, that they didn't really understand the opportunity in the business market. And I was in the right place, the right time. It was 2001, the business had grown for eight years and it was all really, really, you know, everyone was saying it's really easy, you get bonuses every year because we just grow. And then 9, 11 happened. Oh no. And then the ass fell out of the business market and no one knew what to do because really they hadn't really been selling, they'd just been sort of order taking. And there I was from this sort of GR to two decimal place, very margin driven background. And I was just right place, right time. And so very soon I took over business sales, then I took over all of UK sales and I took off global sales and I my one of my big legacies at Eurostar, although there are a few, was making the business take the business market seriously, recognize the opportunity with the margins, create an end to end customer experience. We didn't even have a property loyalty program then, so creating proper loyalty. There were people flying BA during the week for business and then taking their wife on Eurostar at the weekend and we're like, then we're not on their radar. So really transfer. We went to the board and said, look, this is the opportunity. We need proper lounges, we need a proper end to end experience, we need marketing. I was buying pages in the Economist with my trade marketing budget and yeah, we really transformed that. And so, and then I was working with Mr. Nugent who you know. Yeah, he was my work husband. He was running marketing, I was running sales. We were a real duo. And I talk a lot now with the clients we work with about the importance of sales and marketing working together. We worked so well together. We had one team and Greg would come up with a maverick idea that he knew the board would say no to. He'd come to me, say this is a great idea. I go to the bosses, convince them, they go to Greg, as if it was their idea and it was a beautiful thing. So when Greg left, giving me the marketing team was just a no brainer for them and that's really unusual. I work with a lot of clients where that divide between commercial and marketing is a constant tension. So yeah, that was my journey. I was at Eurostar then I led marketing there for about five years and then jumped out and set up glow.
- [04:59]
A
Wow, you're absolutely right about. It's very unusual to kind of have so much sales experience and going to marketing. I mean, I've done some sales roles, I've run sales van, sales teams even, you know, and I find it incredibly helpful. But very few marketers seem to have sales experience. I just wonder from your perspective, what advantage does it have as a marketer to have done sales roles before? And what can kind of sales teach marketers?
- [05:23]
B
I mean, massively, because you're just obsessed with the customer, which most marketers are. But to start with what the customer needs, which is what all sales are trying to do, is to find what's the customer problem, how am I going to solve it? That's what sales is. Sales isn't convincing you to buy something you don't really need. So as a marketeer to always start with a problem, for me it's just been an absolute no brainer. And also not doing stuff that doesn't move the noodle, you know, always making sure whatever we do is getting bums on seats and not just doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff. So I think that combination of things meant that what we did always really landed. And we did, we had, I had 10 years of record sales at Eurostar, 10 years of growth. And that is during, you know, even 2001, 2008. We started the year with a fire in the tunnel that shut services. Then we came out of that into a recession and we did. Everyone was saying, no one's going to travel, it's going to be a disaster. And we did a big piece of research, working with Foyers, actually did a big piece of research, state of the nation research. And people were saying, I think it was the beginning of the sort of journey we're on now where people were doing the jobs of two people and working stupid long hours and you know, rather than saying they're not going to travel, what they were saying is that, that habits of the big three week holiday in the summer, they'd rather take more smaller breaks. That was the, that was the insight. So we went out with a big campaign called Little Break, Big Difference to really encourage the need. You know, we heard people wanted to reconnect with their loved ones, recharge their batteries. And there had been, with the explosion of Low cost airlines, this trend for I want to go to Tallinn, I want to go to all these crazy places that I to explore. But people are too knackered for that. They want to go somewhere where they can get off a train or a plane and just, just relax straight away. So we really leaned into that. And even in 2008, we had a record year. Even in 2009 with our crisis when the trains got stuck in the tunnel, which was another learning curve, we had 10 years of record growth.
- [07:37]
A
Let's drill down into that a little bit because you casually mentioned a fire in the tunnel and a train breaking down the tunnel. How do you respond as the person in charge of sales and marketing to such a catastrophic event like that?
- [07:48]
B
Yeah, I mean, interestingly, the tunnel fire was. We were in control of the comms. Nine months later, social media had launched and we were caught short by that. So we launched. So we'd launched social media with this little big different social media platform. And we were working with, we are social. Robin, not long set of the business. They were tiny. We were like a really big customer for them. And Robin kept saying to me, you've got to integrate this into corporate comms. But we had a new corporate comms director. And I was like, let me prove it works because it was a dark art at the time. So once we've proved it works, then we'll integrate it into corporate comms. And so when the trains got stuck in the tunnel and people were telling us on Twitter what was happening before our ops team, it was a shit show. And we, yeah, we were email, we were messaging them back from Little Break with difference. I mean, you know, from the platform, that was the only social media handle that we had. So it was an absolute complete disaster. And we learned a lot. We had no crisis comms process, we had no gold command. Like I said, they were telling us what was happening before we knew. And we did learn a huge amount. We had a behavioral psychologist, amazing guy by the name of Dr. John Armstrong, who I paid on a retainer and I'd like give him a problem on a Monday and he'd come back with the answer on a Friday. And what one tends to do when you fucked up like that is to keep apologizing. You think that's what we need to do, we need to keep saying, sorry, but we. But what John worked out is that our customers, particularly our law customers, the ones you've got to focus on, particularly when you've got that business market where you've got about 1,000 customers that are delivering about 10% of your turnover because they're literally backs and forth. And he said, you've got to stop talking about it now. You've said sorry, you've just got to get back. They want you to get back to being trusted. So we learned a lot. Yeah, because your instinct is to just keep saying sorry and keep talking about it. But he said, no, just shut the fuck up, stop talking about it, get back to being reliable, which we were beforehand. So we actually reskinned a little weight with difference and got that back out again. And even that year, we had a record growth and we learned a huge amount. And ironically or nightmarishly, the trains got stuck again the following year. And it always happens at Christmas. So us saying to people, only travel if it's urgent. Everyone was going home. There was no such thing as non urgent. Then when it happened the second year, my God, were our comms good? Because that's the thing with people just want to know if your plane's delayed or your train's delayed. You just want information. And that keeps everyone calm. So we did learn a huge amount. I've done a lot of talk about crisis comms. Don't over explain. Don't, you know, don't. Don't lean into it too much. Say, yeah, sorry, we fucked up, we're going to fix it. Say, how are you going to fix it? Fix it, and then get on.
- [10:35]
A
I had a similar ish experience actually on I had to relaunch Leukozade and Ribena after sugar tax in 2017. So we were taking a lot of sugar out, changing the formulation. And because these are like heritage brands with so much love, I mean, 80, 85 years old. And whenever you change a tiny thing on those brands that, I mean, we had, I think we changed the Ribena formulation a few years prior, and it's called Ribena Gate because the amount of complaints that came in and Tesco, you know, it was a really big deal. Um, and I remember, like, we took two different approaches on Lucozade. We leaned into it, we told everybody, we talked about it, we, you know, apologized, you know, on Twitter for people that complaining. And it just created this massive noise. And I did some research, which was really interesting. After the event, we lost a huge amount. Right. And afterwards I looked at why have you stopped drinking Leukozate? And the number one answer by far was I heard people talking about how bad it was. It wasn't. They tried it and didn't like the new formula. It was the noise that the that we had created as much as anyone else.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So I took that, took a lesson. Then when we did the same thing on Ribena about nine months later. Instead what I did is I doubled down on telling everyone it tastes great with a campaign they'd seen before and mentioned nothing about the fact the formula had changed. Not a peep. Sales went up and I was like, wow, you know, how interesting that you think because the corporate comms are saying to you you must be on the right side of history, you must do the right thing. You must tell everybody everything you're doing. The danger with that is you tell them too much and they don't want to hear it. They want to hear the positive, not negative.
- [12:10]
B
If consumers love a brand, they want to be able to love it. So don't keep reminding them that you know that it's changed.
- [12:16]
A
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Now you had an amazing 10 year tenure and you talked about kind of consistent growth over a long period of time. It's unusual to be in a role for that long. I know the role changed in that time as well. What do you know about marketing from having been in a role for that period of time versus the. It feels like anyway, today we are so short term chasing the number the next week, next month, next quarter. What do you know about marketing having kind of overseen a brand for that length of time?
- [12:41]
B
Well, I think just the fact that it changed so much and within that time I also led the change management when we opened St. Pancras. So I did lots of different things within that time. We did a massive entire rebrand. What I know about marketing is that it's all about the people. And that was the big thing. I'm a very people led marketeer. When I first met the legend that is Sherrilyn Shackles, she interviewed me when she was a headhunter for a job. We can't even remember now what the job was. We just became best friends within about 20 minutes. But she said to me, you're very people y for a marketeer. All you've really talked about is your team and what you achieved and all their development and how proud you are of them. And. And I was like, yeah. And I was very blessed at Eurostar as I was in my time at FMCG A that I was given a lot of bandwidth around me and also that they invested a lot in my development. So I did NLP twice actually. I did the NLP practitioner program. I was taught how to be a coach. I engaged in. We had a business called Planet K2, who I'm still very involved with. I was an Ned for from them, I think about from about 2008. And they're all about human performance and they're about understanding that performance in sport. So the guys at Planet K2 have spent 30 years in Elite SPL and apply all that knowledge and understanding to business. So I came out of Eurostar, of course, with an understanding that marketing is about understanding customer need, you know, and solving those problems. Also that you're only as good as your people.
- [14:15]
A
What advice would you give, you know, leaders today about how to get the best out of people and best out of teams?
- [14:21]
B
Well, I mean, I think this starts with the brand. So that was the big thing that I recognized when I started doing this consulting work. I would focus on the brand. Look, people say my reputation at Eurostar was to transform the brand. And then I'd be like, right, where's the cpo? Where's the hrd? Let's get this. But, you know, embedded into the business. Let's make sure we're rewarding people on the right behavior so everyone knows how to show up to deliver on the brand. And there'd be tumbleweed. People didn't realize that's the job. So that's why I set up glow. And the big advice for me is, you know, people don't map people experience with the same energy as customer experience. You know, any brands like, right, our customer experience has to be loaded with the brand. What about your people experience from your employer brand? That's external, right the way through to that, Even that process of recruitment. And a bit that we call from yes to desk, which is when someone, you know, accepts a job. And then there's that gap, which is usually tumbleweed till they start their first day. And packing that with that brand experience, making sure that they know that from day one. This is what we expect of you. This is how you need to show up and deliver the brand. And if you. And at every moment they're there, every touch point is loaded with those brand messages, those brand promises. Everything moves in the same direction, decisions are made quicker. It's just. It's that classic sort of getting everyone on the bus. And that's the bit people miss. So the people experience the one thing. And second is ensuring people feel valued, feel seen, feel looked after. You, you know, people are being thrashed at the moment. How can you do your best work? I know John Ameche talked to you about this, but how can people do their best work when they're exhausted and they're running, you know, I mean, this is why slow the fuck down is so big at the moment. Because everywhere you look, people and I use this phrase a lot, are drinking from a fire hose and that's overwhelming. So for me it's put your people first. For me, the one question to ask your team is how'd you feel on a Sunday night? And if you dread Monday, then do something about it. But I look forward to Mondays. You know, we've got a team day on the 7th of January, so we. Which was like our second day back after Christmas. I can't wait. You know, I'm going to enjoy Christmas with the kids. But I'm so excited about getting back in. So that's, I think make sure you just fill it with joy because life's short.
- [16:51]
A
Poking people first also means choosing the right people to be on the journey as well, doesn't it? So what's the one or two things that you look for when you hire somebody?
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B
I mean, the first thing is making sure that they're right for that role because a lot of us like to recruit in the similar vein of us. Oh, they're like me.
- [17:07]
A
Surely not.
- [17:07]
B
Yes, we do. We have those egos. And I'm an extreme red yellow. I am like the top of that circle. So I'm very big picture. I'm very fast paced. I know I need people around me and we've got a small and perfectly formed team where I've got a lot of green and a lot of blue because without that, that I'm just going to run a million miles an hour. I have very little complete or finisher energy in me. I can do detail but I don't love it. So for me it's about recognizing what actually is, is the thing that you need. And it might be, you know, sometimes you need to create that tension. You need people that are going to, you know, for me, I need people that are going to slow me down and help me create that rigor around me so that I'm not just running a million miles an hour.
- [17:51]
A
I couldn't agree more. I know, I was joking about, you know, we love to hire our image, don't we? Because it's the chemistry and the bonding over ideas. But you're absolutely right. I mean, the best relationships I've had in my career have been people that are completely opposite to me. And actually we just improve each other, you know, and, you know, good at coming up with ideas, but good at execution. They're often very different skill sets. Yeah, it's good to have both of them together. Now, you mentioned GLOW a couple of times and this, of course, is the agency that you set up. What was it like going from kind of a big brand role in a recognized brand to setting your own thing up? That's quite a big jump to make, isn't it?
- [18:23]
B
Yeah, I think it was an immediate thing. I sort of left Eurostar. I was. I had a baby. I wasn't sure whether I was going to be an earth mother or throw a nanny at her. So I did the consulting for a while and then I had a stint at a job working somewhere which didn't go well. I had six really difficult months. I'm not going to say what the brand is. And I got bullied and I got fired. And it was an organization that didn't really get brand. And I'd lost a baby while I was there. My mum had died. It was a really shit year. And when I came out of that, I said, right, I'm not working for anyone else again. And I manifested, which I'm a big manifesto that I wanted to have a certain role. And actually I ended up working at Virgin Management in Paddington. I really wanted to get close to that brand for a long time. I've always thought it was an incredible brand with a brilliant heritage. And I ended up running a thing called Virgin Sport for Freddie, who is Holly's husband. And that's when I said, right, okay, this is something. I was working with akqa. It was a great project. I was like, right, this is. This feels right. Coming in to deliver transformation and then going out again. I'm that. That top of the circle, red, yellow means I love getting in driving change, but the actual execution bit, I lose my energy for. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to do this properly. I'm going to set up glow.
- [19:44]
A
Just before we get into that, you casually mentioned all the challenges you had. I mean, that's a lot, isn't it?
- [19:49]
B
It was a shame.
- [19:50]
A
Yeah. How did you bounce back from that? And how do you think, looking back, that actually helped shape what came next?
- [19:57]
B
I have an amazing coach and I recommend everyone to have an amazing coach. I remember that really tough time that day. I got fired and I stood on a platform, a train station, and called her and was crying and she said, what do you want? And I described literally the role I ended up doing at Virgin and having a car parking space. I had a one year old at the time who I wasn't seeing because we were in the office five days a week. And I was like, I want to be flexible working. When I go to work, I want a car parking space. I described the whole thing and that was July. And by October it happened. So that for me and having a really clear vision about what it is I wanted and what was important to me. And I continue to do that because it evolves.
- [20:44]
A
And then. So this takes you to your journey of creating glow. Presumably that's what happened there. So what is GLOW here to do and what's it been like setting up your own agency?
- [20:54]
B
I mean, again, it's evolved. So it's a small but beautifully formed organization. So. So it started off sort of me and some freelancers and it sort of grown. The idea behind it is that inside out branding, it's that you cannot have say one thing and do another. And the infinite loop between brand and culture that has to exist. Whereas most agencies will sort of stop at the coloring in and do all the external stuff. We make sure that we've always got engagement from HR and that we're delivering that engagement piece, taking everyone with us and driving it across the business. And that's the idea about glow. We really do sort of get under the skin of a business and we partner with the leaders and drive that transformation. And it has evolved because now obviously Glo, one of the sort of the backbones of GLOW is about helping people slow the fuck down.
- [21:41]
A
Any advice for being your own boss?
- [21:43]
B
I think for me, one of the things that I've been really clear about is about the clients I choose. We had some clients where you're sort of cap in hand with a client in Manchester. You know, something went wrong and my team would be constantly stressed out and crying on the phone and, and if something go wrong, I'd be on a train to Manchester to try and sort them out. And as I recovered, I thought that, that I will only work with people. It's always got to be peer to peer, at least. And I think often because of also the fact that I'm chair of the Global Marketing Academy and I'm a fellow of the Marketing Society, there's almost. Sometimes it's like I'm not the boss, but they'll look up to me. So the advice I'm giving them is really genuinely considered because there's nothing worse than feeling like a supplier. You know, that sort of cappiness, that's, that's the biggest thing I think for me is choose who you work with.
- [22:36]
A
Now we must get on to an event that happened, right, because your world changes, doesn't it after this point.
- [22:42]
B
Yeah.
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A
Can you tell me what happened?
- [22:44]
B
Well, as many people know, on 30th of May 22nd, I'm in New York, so at the time I was on the exec team for the Social Element, which is Tamara Littleton's amazing business. And we'd had a week of board meetings. The week before, I'd been in Chicago with wpp and it was the Friday, we'd had a long week and I was in a restaurant having brunch, stood up to go to the loo and had a cardiac arrest. And for those people that don't know cardiac arrest is not a heart attack, it is lights out. It's what happened to Christian Eriksen in the Euros. And unless you have a doctor or a defibrillator near you, you die. 91% of people die. And I just happened to have. There were three people in the restaurant, so Tamara and Lynn Frost just screaming, please help us, please help us. And three people came over, two women and a man, and they were all doctors and they gave me CPR and saved my life. And then ambulance came in seven minutes, which is unheard of in New York. My heart stopped again, twice in the ambulance. They didn't think I was going to make it. And I made a full recovery. Absolute miracle. Of the 9% of people survived that, 60 get brain damage. So it's.
- [23:51]
A
I really AM less than 5% of people would be.
- [23:55]
B
Yeah, in your position. And as I recovered, when I woke up in icu, all I could think about was what the have I been doing? Because as I said, I've done NLP and I, you know, studied human performance as part of the planet K2. And, you know, and there I was. And I've been talking for years. I did a lot of speaking, particularly at the Marketing Academy, about how to live a life and how our unconscious minds run on fear and how not to lean into it. And I realized I was a hairdresser with bad hair. I was somebody who was putting myself last. I wasn't looking after my well being. I mean, the only reason they thought this could have happened was stress. And I shared this on LinkedIn, left with my phone, which is a stupid idea. The kids didn't know I was ill. My clients didn't know I was ill. I should have kept it quiet, but I was off my tits on morphine, so I can't blame myself. I shared this post on LinkedIn, a picture of myself, you know, oxygen up my nose, saying, look, I'm a big believer that social media shouldn't just be for the positive. And here I am in icu. I'm lucky to be alive. I've got four kids, I'm on the pta, I'm the trustee of the charity, which is the Marketing Academy Foundation. I'm running two businesses. I'm always putting everyone first and here I am. Don't be me. Everyone who's reading this, everywhere I look people are burning out. Please take a moment to put yourself first. Sit in a park, go and look at the birds. Take a breath in. Massive capital. Slow the fuck down. And it broke LinkedIn. I mean it got 9 million views, which is just unheard of.
- [25:25]
A
That is unheard of.
- [25:26]
B
Yeah. It was shared thousands of times. 90,000 reactions, like nearly 10,000 comments. And that was the birth of slow the fuck down.
- [25:35]
A
I mean, what a moment. And you know, well, thank you for sharing it by the way and putting onto LinkedIn. Because everyone's chasing everything on LinkedIn, aren't they? All the time. And the pressure to show up, to pose, to do this thing, to juggle that and everything else, what would be, you know, that's a obviously a life changing experience you went through and I'm so thankful you sat here today. What would be your advice to everybody then having gone through that?
- [26:00]
B
I mean the big thing is that, look, it's tough right now, right? Let's not pretend there is a lot of stress. You know, we're in a, we're in a. I always say the world's going to hell in a handcart. You know, it's a perfect storm of economics and politics and war and recession and everything that's happening. It's hard enough and what we are doing and what our pre wired state is to think negatively. So 95% of our behavior is unconscious and 85% of our 65,000 thoughts a day are negative. And our unconscious minds don't know the difference between something we're imagining or reality. So we've got this sort of this engine constantly saying this is going to go wrong, this is going to go wrong. And our unconscious minds don't know time. So we're constantly catastrophizing and we're reacting on that because whatever we believe drives our feelings, which drives our behavior, which creates the outcome which is the self fulfilling prophecy. So we're mitigating fear constantly and that's what creates stress and it's about breaking that cycle. Are you making decisions? Are you feeling something? Are you responding something because of an imaginary thought that isn't real and that's the bit that I interrupt. People say to me, oh, that's why you're going to Australia. You're not slowing the fuck down. And I'm like, slow the fuck down is not about doing less. It is about taking a breath before you do things, before you respond to things, to recognize the choices that you're making, to make sure that those are the ones that are right for you. You know, I'm lying in an ICU bed in New York with a five year old at home, I've got four kids and thinking, you know, have I made the right choices to make sure I'm around for him?
- [27:42]
A
No.
- [27:42]
B
So it's just that often, you know, we imagine the worst and we act on the worst and it's not real. Why am I working at 11:30 at night? Because some part of me is believing if I don't send that email, then I'll lose that account and then I'll never. My. I'll lose my house and my kids will die on the street. Actually, no, that doesn't exist. I can shut my laptop and I can go to bed. And that's the big advice.
- [28:08]
A
And you know what? It's amazing, isn't it, that when we do slow down, we end up speeding up. There's a real contradiction that people don't realize because the clarity you get, the thoughts that come to your mind, the energy you restore in yourself actually prepares you to kind of accelerate. It's funny, I had Zaria Parvez on the podcast recently. She's the woman behind the successor, Duolingo. She's probably, I don't know, one of the world's best social media managers. You know what I mean? Like, she's invented duo tens of millions of followers. She's in culture. I mean, what she's done is amazing, right? And I asked her for, like, what's the one bit of advice? And she said, get bored. I'm like, oh, really? And because she said, you got to take time to be boring to be bored. Because actually that's where all the processing happens. That's where the ideas come. That's where the reset happens. And she's like, I'm off social media after a certain time, but you're managing one of the biggest brands in the world that presumably on it the whole time and said, no, I can't be. To be good at my job. That's exactly what I can't do.
- [29:09]
B
When do we have our best ideas? In the shower, when we're falling asleep. You know, you cannot be Creative when you're running. And that, that is people don't understand that slowing down. Absolutely. So we run slow the fuck down programs for businesses that we've sort of taken slow the fact down right into the middle of glow. And that is about saying, right, everyone's running. Often they're running in different directions. Let's take a moment, let's work out actually what is it you're trying to achieve. Getting laser clarity on that. Because often when things are running so fast, people forget to actually set the vision and direction. Let's make sure we prioritize the things that are going to actually get the bums on the seats. Let's align our behaviors. Let's take a moment. Now that needs investment in time and energy. And often time feels like the impossible luxury right now. But we can get them to get together and do that. And then they find they're saying no more, they're doing less because they're focusing on the stuff that actually makes a difference. And exactly what you're saying, it's about not speeding up as in getting back to running, but you're creating growth. You are getting people to prioritize their own mental and physical well being. There's so much evidence that says that makes you more productive. And you're aligning everyone so people move faster. So it is, it's, it's absolutely that it's slowing the fuck down to speed the up.
- [30:30]
A
The prioritization is so important, isn't it? Because everything you say yes to that's not right is getting in the way of doing the right thing for your business, isn't it? And it's only when you slow down you go, well, do I really need to do that? Is that really, really the right thing to do? And actually making that decision. Prioritisation is key, isn't it?
- [30:44]
B
Absolutely. Because it's the fear that makes you say yes, so what if we don't do that? And you're not even really listening to the thought. But if I say no to that and we're missing the biggest opportunity, you know, it's like we're not signing the Beatles. You know, you always, it's like business fomo, that if I don't do that and that is not real and that kind of behavior, breaking that cycle, what evidence do we have? We're marketeers, we like evidence. What evidence do I have? I don't have any. Right, don't do it.
- [31:12]
A
You're absolutely right. Tap into the emotion of it. I know Daniel Kahneman talks about, you know, the Experience of a negative emotion is twice as powerful as the pleasure of a positive one. So we do, without realizing, put more stock on those negative emotions like fear and anger and things like that. So we're driven more by those than we are by the positive.
- [31:31]
B
Yeah, and the body keeps the score. You know, you're, you're increasing your blood pressure, you're creating cortisol in your body, and then you end up in ICU and New York. It keeps the score. And we can choose that. 4 o' clock in the morning. I had it this morning. I Woke up at 4 and the mind starts whirring and all the negativity and it's just about saying, stop. I don't know if you've read the Power of Now, but that's what Eckhart Tolle talks about. We live most of our lives in the past. We can't change. We're in a future that hasn't happened yet. And it's back saying, right. It's actually 4 o' clock in the morning. All that's happening is he's snoring. The dog's asleep on my foot. It's all okay.
- [32:07]
A
Yeah.
- [32:07]
B
Blood pressure down, heart rate down, cortisol gone.
- [32:10]
A
I mean, the power of your story. I mean, lots of powers, your story. But one of the powerful things about your story is for a lot of people, it could have been too late, that lesson, Right? Because often, often we don't realize what pressure we're putting on our bodies because we're going so fast. We're not stopping to do the exercise, we're not stopping to get our health checked. I mean, I suffer from both high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The amount of pills I take, you'd be shocked. Right? And you just think, well, he looks relatively normal and on top of it and laid back kind of guy. Right. You know, not true. You know what I mean? But you don't discover that when it was almost too late for you, isn't it? And that's, that's why I think this is such an important conversation and that's.
- [32:45]
B
Why I'm passionate about it. And that's why I'll keep talking about it. Because if I can get a message to one person to do something differently, and that is think about what in the week you need, what space you need, what downtime you need. Athletes don't train seven days a week. And I hear more and more about people working weekends, working late into the night. That is not performance, that's not high performance, that's a really good point.
- [33:10]
A
I do a fair bit of cycling and when I read the coaching advice, they say the strength comes in the day off. You do the training and actually you're putting the body under stress, you're slightly damaging the muscles, you get stronger in the recovery. That's actually where the jump happens. Exactly the same idea, isn't it?
- [33:27]
B
Exactly. And there's no clarity of thought in the overwhelm. My 8 year old knows that last night he had a bit of a meltdown and I was saying, right, we need to make a decision. And he went, mum, I can't think straight, I'm overwhelmed. Don't you understand what happens when you're overwhelmed? And I thought, oh, wow. Therein speaks the truth. Oh, I know, it's hilarious. Your kids will always tell you about yourself. Recently I was saying, come on, get ready for school, School, we're going to be late and I'm going to be late and I've got my training. And he went, great manifesting, mom.
- [33:54]
A
Oh, I love it when kids do that, call you out on your own.
- [33:58]
B
Beliefs, they hold a mirror up to you. It's a beautiful thing.
- [34:00]
A
Now we're on the verge as we record this on Verge 2026. Right, so anyone listening, that's thinking, entering a new year. It's a great time, isn't it, new year, to begin to think about what your words kind of what you want to manifest this year. What advice would you give to somebody about how to approach this new year?
- [34:15]
B
Well, going back to the manifestation, you know, start at the end. So when you're at the beginning of the year going, right, I've got to do all these things this year and it's so overwhelming and it feels insurmountable. So an exercise that we do both for personal growth but also for team and leadership growth is you go into a future and you literally just go into that moment. We pick a date in the future and say, right, what does that. Let's describe the conditions of that day and from a personal point of view, I get people to describe that one day from the minute they wake up, how they're starting the day with some yoga or some exercise and, you know, walking past their new sofa and what's happening in their life and get them to cover home, work, relationships, health and finance. Do it in the present tense, put some smart objectives in there and then at the end of it, summarise that day with thought, three words of how it feels and then do a vision board that goes with it. So personal. That's How I do it every January, I go forward to January, the future year. And it works because your unconscious mind that doesn't know time, it's basically like putting a postcode in your sat nav. It's saying, this is where we're going. 95% of that behavior is unconscious programming. From a business point of view, what you're doing by going into the future is you're removing the shackles of today. So where you're in now, and it all feels really hard and we can't do this and we haven't got that. We go into the future. We use a process called the Neurological Levels of Change. It's a theory by a guy called Robert Diltz. It's an NLP theory and you identify all the different levels from the top of what's your purpose? What's your identity? Like, how people talking about you? What are the beliefs that have got you here? What are the behaviors? What are the capabilities? What's happened externally to you? And we paint this beautiful picture where, you know, they're number one and they've won these awards and everything's amazing and create the conditions that have got there. Then we go back to today and you unpick the same process and sort of, this is a bit like therapy. I'm picking all the stuff that's holding us back and then you build the bridge. How are we going to get from there to there? If you start the year with that clip clarity, what you've got is a really clear vision. This is our picture of success, identification of all the things you need to focus on. So that's your priorities and the belief. Because again, belief drives feelings, drives behavior. If you've seen that picture of the future, that belief that 95% of the behaviour will take you there. So that's what we're doing, a thing called the 12 days in January. Follow us on LinkedIn. And it goes through the steps to get you there. And it's a combination of doing the work and making sure that you're taking your team with you, so they're individually doing all that. And it really does set you up for success for the year.
- [37:07]
A
Would you advise sharing it publicly? Because I know sometimes I've kind of gone, right, I'm going to do this this year. And it feels scary when you do that. You're like, what if I don't do it? You know, there's something about. I mean, maybe it's not to say publicly, but at least be accountable to other people to say, this is what I'M going to do. And there's something about that, isn't there, keeping you?
- [37:23]
B
Yeah, I think so. I think the more you express something, you know, set goals, achieve more, do it externally, you are holding yourself to account. I have a little accountability group, actually. Myself, the amazing Sophie Devonshire, CEO of the Marketing Society, and a wonderful friend, Julie Doleman, who's a complete legend in our world. And the three of us, every week we have an accountability group where on a Friday, we share our challenges and wins for the week, and we give each other feedback and support and we share our thoughts and worries, and it's a beautiful thing. So I would do externally, and I'd also find those groups that you can keep holding yourself accountable for. And because, you know, it does, it creates that momentum.
- [38:05]
A
I love that so much. Corey Marchisoto, one of my favorite CMOs and guests on the podcast, she. She talks about having a personal board of directors, which I love.
- [38:14]
B
Yeah, like.
- [38:15]
A
And she was like, you don't have one, John. What are you doing? How have you got this far without one sort of thing? But a set of people, and they may cover different aspects of your life, but when you're in a time where you have to make a big decision or you're in a crisis or you need a need to be picked up, or you need advice on something you don't know about, then she'll be able to call on any one of them. I like that. I was like, oh, that's good. And that's a bit of accountability in that as well. Somebody to remind you, you know, you said you're going to do this and stretch your thinking.
- [38:41]
B
I love that Sherilyn talks about the village and you need somebody who's a great supporter, a great coach, a great challenger, a great share. I can't remember the different ones. One of my clients, we were in a session and she listened. Sherilyn looked at me and went, you're all four of those. But, yeah, it's really important to what we call it, the tribe, to make sure that you've got that tribe. You know, most people in your life will be taking energy away from you. You know, we have a finite amount. We talk a lot about energy management. If you imagined you're a cup of energy, most people are drilling holes in the bottom. Your kids, your kids are taking a lot out of that and your money. Who's the people that put that energy back in holding to account, but also encouraging you? They know you, they see you and making sure you've got that tribe, it's so important.
- [39:27]
A
That's such good advice. I'm always shocked in the roles I've done, the percentage of people that actually want you to fail and want to drain energy from you, want to criticize you. And so you need that rebalance, you need a team around you that are going to see you for what you are and going to encourage you and pick you up on that kind of thing, keep you. I love that. Emma, thank you. That's just really inspiring. And yeah, I'm going to take a lot of that advice, by the way, because I could really do with this as well.
- [39:54]
B
Get off those tablets 100%, man.
- [39:57]
A
It's a real wake up call. I got given a whoop actually, which is a little shout out to whoop here, but gives you so much data about how you sleep, how much stress you're under, heart rate, blood pressure and it's just knowing that information is a real wake up call. And I've changed my lifestyle just the last two months since having this. It's a really good bit of feedback. So, yeah, sometimes the technology can help with it as well.
- [40:19]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, whatever prompts you need. Yeah, you know, I have lots of rhythms, lots of rhythms and rituals to make sure that I'm choosing all the right things. So on a Sunday, for example, I spend just 15, 20 minutes planning the week when I'm going to exercise. Sometimes it's a sweaty workout, sometimes it's yoga and stretching. What I'm going to wear every day, actually I do.
- [40:43]
A
This is why I wear black T shirts by the way, just in case anyone wants. Because I get up and I don't have to make that decision.
- [40:48]
B
But it just removes that tension. But yeah, just planning your week when you're going to do things for you, when you're going to and what you need to achieve every day to also how you want to feel every day. That sort of using a bit of manifestation in there, all those. What are the rhythms and rituals that are going to keep you sane? Even I write down what nights I'm going to go to bed really early, you know, knowing at the moment it's, you know, silly season, there's a lot of nights out. So where possible put those measures in. If it's tech that you need, great. But it's just prioritizing. You know, one of the headlines I talk about is work out what matters and prioritize. It sounds really obvious, but unless you don't consciously do that, that's where the sort of fear and the unconscious. You know, mitigation will take you, take you down.
- [41:32]
A
It will. Well, look, I think that's almost perfect place to end, actually, because that is top advice and thank you for sharing that. Take notes, everybody, because there's a lot of wisdom in there and don't make, you know, don't be caught out like you were that time. Oh, my God.
- [41:46]
B
That's a.
- [41:46]
A
That's a big story.
- [41:47]
B
Yeah. Look after yourself.
- [41:48]
A
Thanks for sharing it. Thank you.
- [41:50]
B
Thanks a lot.
- [41:50]
A
John, thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on x at Uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.