Are you coming from a working class background like me, trying to level up, break through, create financial security? Well, today I have Keith Jeffrey with me, who is helping working class professionals break through, level up, in life, and on the social hierarchy. (upbeat music) Hello Keith, welcome to the show. How did you get into coaching working class professionals? - It's really the culmination of quite a long career. I have held in my career a number of managing director rules, chief exec
s, CEO rules, they were all reporting directly to boards. My last sort of paid employment was setting up a subsidiary of a university. Those tend to be middle class worlds. They are dominated by people with middle class backgrounds. In the creative success, 60% of workers in the field have that privileged background. Very hard for working class people to get involved in all of these fields. 60% of senior leaders in the finance sector, for example, again, come from a professional background. And
I've been there, I've led these organizations and found it very hard, found it very difficult to progress. I hit a certain level, couldn't really go much further, could not understand why that was. In the midst of all of that, I was not really enjoying my career journey. I'd always been in these sort of senior leadership roles, but didn't really understand it, didn't really enjoy it. And towards getting on a bit now, I need to do something which is more fulfilling. And as I was thinking that thr
ough, I came across voting and that suddenly helped crystallize everything. And my purpose, as I've realized now, is that I'm here to help people realize their potential in whatever form. And as I look back on my career, that's where I got the most joy from. So I re-trained as a coach, and then the advice that you're given is you need a niche, you need to have a very clear market profile where you can help people solve their problems. My story of a working class professional making it to a certa
in degree and countering all sorts of problems, not enjoying the journey, I can help them with that. Because I've been there, walked that path, I've been through the pain, made all the mistakes. Throughout my journey, I never had anybody there to really help me, to give me the insights that I needed. - So what are these challenges working class individuals are facing when they're trying to advance in their careers? - I don't know if this is a specifically British problem, but class is a real thi
ng in our country. And you are very often judged by things like your accent. And I come from the Northeast of England, I'm judged and I've had this experience of people judging me by the way I speak. And I'm put in a certain pigeonhole as a result of that. And then there's regularly come across complete lack of confidence in working class professionals. They are trying to navigate a world which runs by different rules and a model I often give, it's a foreign land. You're a working class person i
n the middle class world. You don't really know the rules, people don't tell you what the rules are. They're not even aware that there are rules because it's just the way things are done, it's the way that it's an invisible barrier that's put up around you. So struggling to understand that world is something that working class professionals have problems with. And that leads to an underlying sense of lack of confidence, imposter syndrome, frustration, not understanding why that person is getting
the promotion and they're not. There's a complete sense of mystery about how to get through this world. So that's what I can help with. - I didn't have experience with this myself because I came from a working class background as well. Now, from my experience and from what you say, it sounds like being judged is the trigger for all the other issues that you just described. And those are just symptoms of a bigger problem. How can people of a working class origin stop being judged or what can the
y do when they feel they are being judged by their peers? - I think the important thing is that classism that is gonna be a permanent feature of the workplace. And so what I do is to try and deal with the reality of that fact. Then the second thing is not to play by those rules. I talk about passion and purpose. You need to have a job that you feel passionate about and with a particular specialism, you need to develop a special limit in your own niche. And in that way, you can really develop a c
areer which has meaning and purpose for you, regardless of what external perceptions are. And I think if you can have that authentic personality, a professional persona that enables you to succeed in any work environment, if you can go to work every day and join this thing that you do on that day, realizing your own purpose, the meaning which comes out of that is incredible. And you start to live a professional life that is full of passion and purpose. - Yeah, actually, you're right. And this re
minds me of a story of a friend of mine in London and his dad was a window framer. And he started working in a picture framing shop at the age of 16. And now he owns a picture gallery. - All right, yeah. - And he just like literally became so passionate about art when he was working in this picture framing shop that actually then became his life. And now he runs a gallery where he mingles with all the high society, as you can imagine. And it comes from very humble beginning. - It did be. - And y
ou're right, it's exactly what you say. - And then if you are passionate about it and knowledgeable about it, you become comfortable in your own skin. And then you are able to deal with the challenges much more effectively. It's hard work finding that because the external expectations are placed on you. It's always about the next promotion and the next promotion and bigger paycheck and all of that. Whereas ultimately, if you are not enjoying the work that you are doing right now, it's ultimately
pointless. - I can totally see that at the same time, let's say you mentioned the career in finance, right? Which is a very interesting field and it can be super exciting and maybe somebody is really cut out for that. But when you're in that environment and you constantly look down on, it can be really demotivating. So as much as you might be passionate about it, it can take the gem out of your donut. - Absolutely, because then you end up stuck and lost in this sort of sea of confusion and inde
cision. And this imposter crisis often happens and that can manifest itself in a number of really unhealthy ways. I was, for example, I was with a client just the other week and she, again, very work class background working in law and she was being successful. But because of this sort of lack of confidence, not lack of this imposter syndrome that emerged, she dealt with that by thinking, I'm not supposed to be here. I don't deserve to be here. I need to work really hard to justify being here. A
nd that led to burnout and she had to resign, big mental health problems, lots of physical problems as well. That's no way to live your life because life's more than your job. You need to be enjoying balanced, rich life. Work is a very important part of that, but it's only part of it. - Managers recognize that in some cases and they exploit it. - Yeah, and it makes you work harder. I mean, it's a serious problem because you miss out on talent and you miss on diversity of thinking and approaches.
That working classism could surprise, because if you've come from an ethnic minority background, say, or you're neurodivergent, you are likely to have come from a working class background because you're not able to deal with it. So if we're able to solve those working class challenges, it becomes easier to solve those other problems because certainly in the UK, there's something like 60, 70% of people come from that working class environment, culture, backgrounds, maybe not necessarily seeing t
hemselves at working class, but from their family or their grandparents, it stays with you generationally, I think. - And it's funny how the working class is being judged because the entire country is built on their backs. Literally, their taxes pay for the schools and the public safety, the healthcare and the very roads people walk on every day. If you look at statistics from the Bureau of Business, 90% of businesses are actually small to medium sized businesses, only 10% are the big fortune 50
0 companies or big established firms. So it's the working class people who are actually running the country. - Although this is a problem that's as old as a hill. It's like society's always stratified itself and people at the top exploit the people below them and it carries on. That's why there is lots of really interesting initiatives in various different professional sectors and they need to carry on because they can only do good things, but that doesn't necessarily help you in your position,
going for that job, being stuck in that particular role, not being happy, not being fulfilled. And you need some very specific bespoke help to help you understand your situation and then navigate a way through it. And that's my job. - So you mentioned that finding your passion and knowing what your calling is can help you get through some of these setbacks. So how can people discover this inner calling? - I've got a book coming out earlier in New Year, which is called Passion and Purpose, which
helps you do that. And that, like all sort of great journeys, first journey starts from within. You need to really explore who you are. And there are a number of ways that I describe in the book about how you can do that. One way is thinking about those moments when you were most alive. When were you in flow? So when you are just like lost in the doing of the thing. Looking back on, that's a really positive indicator of when your core sense of purpose is being touched. And if you can understand
back and then go through those exercises, which help you articulate precisely what your purpose is, you can come up with a very simple statement, which you can apply to any situation to decide, does this meet my purpose or not? If it does, then I can go for it. If it doesn't, then I drop it. So it helps you bring a laser focus to how you build your career, how you live your life. And then it's very simply about, then I know that, what's the vision? Where do I wanna be in five years, 10 years, wh
at does that vision, what does that future look like? And then you work out the journey, but it's really, really straightforward. And that's why I think you stop playing by those class rules, you start playing by your own rules. So if you have a clear vision of your future, you can get there in a number of different ways. It may not require you being the director of your particular department or having a big career in the city. It might mean something else. Because I think what's interesting abo
ut working class professionals is that origin story. Why did they start in this? What made them want to come out of that background? They're clearly on a journey. So understanding that journey and understanding what is motivating that journey, why did they want to step out of this? What was it about wanting something different? Maybe wanting something more, something out of the ordinary for them? What was that ambition that was driving for them? So understanding that can take you where you reall
y want to go and where you really want to go is held within. It is not in a job title somewhere. When people discover their cooling and let's say they discover that they are in the wrong profession and they should be doing something else, it can take some time to turn the course of the ship, right? You have to really prepare financially, mentally, and in many ways for a change of career. So how can they make the most of the career they are in while they're doing that? I think you can find those
elements of your job right now that are fulfilling your purpose. So you can find ways of subtly changing the emphasis of things that you do, the way you interact with people, the types of people that you work with. So you can make that purpose real for you now in whatever circumstance you are. So for example, my career has always been about helping people realize that potential. And when I look back, so for example, I had a record label about 30 years ago, and the thrill I got most out of that w
as the musicians saying to me, thanks for letting us do this. And I was always very keen to help people grow and develop within my teams. And if I'd had this sort of clarity over what I was trying to do, I would have spent more time exploring how I can help people in those different contexts. But looking back, I could see it was a constant sort of golden thread through everything that I did. And so I was able unconsciously to apply that in my sort of daily interactions with people, helping peopl
e grow, develop, giving them opportunities, that sort of thing. I think it's there. You don't have to wait for this future to come. You can make it real now. - Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned the record label and music. Just as we talk about it, I also realized that arts and sports are typically those golden ticket for working class people to get out of their situation and to do something different. Maybe even performing arts like television or theater. But it's a lottery. It really is. - And it
's getting harder and harder now. In sports, for example, we're in the UK. And so football, obviously, is our big national sport. Majority of footballers are working class because it's an easy thing to get into. The structures exist. Football clubs have got academies and scouts everywhere. If you are half decent, you will be picked up very quickly. And in that way, that sort of primarily work as talent. But when you look at rugby, when you look at cricket, even to a golf, to an extent, even athl
etics, those root ways don't exist. Cricket, for example, but most of the England testing were educated at private schools. That's because in state schools, cricket has all but died out in this country. And so we've lost. So those natural ways that working class people could build careers has disappeared. Music's the same thing as well. There are any number of bush boys and girls making loads of money out of music that was invented by usually black working class people. So there's those traditio
nal sanctuaries of working class opportunity or being eroded and there's very few of them left now. - Absolutely. Rock music, even the Beatles, whatever you think about it, it's so much rooted in the working class. Even the stories you hear in music often the lyrics are very much rooted in the working class. And people relate to these stories. They like the story of an underdog and it makes you feel motivated. It makes you connected a lot of the times. But if people can't take that route, let's
say they don't want to take that gamble because from a million kids that are going to become professional football players, if they don't want to take that route, they don't want to take that gamble, they feel like maybe their calling is, let's say in a corporate environment or in a professional setting, maybe something different. What's the best way for them to embark on their journey? - Well, first thing is start on the journey. Get really good at what you do. Really develop mastery in a parti
cular area of your skillset so that you start to develop a profile for being an expert in a particular area. And it could be a very narrow area, but you can build that expertise and you have to work at it, you have to work really hard at developing that side of things. Then a second thing is about networking. Having the confidence to be who you are, comfortable in your own skin and go out and meet and sell yourself. That's always a challenging thing for women class people to do is to go out and
just say, with confidence, I can do this. I know how to do this. To be honest, I'm better than you with this. That, not arrogance, very comfortable confidence in their own ability to be excellent. And as you start to build that profile and you align that to your purpose and passion, opportunities start to emerge and the right career path starts to build for you. It's hard work, but professional careers are hard work. The challenge is to shape it so that it meets you where you want to be rather t
han where other people, where other people to place you. That's the challenge. So profile, mastery, hard work, there's no getting around that. - I love that. That's a very honest approach and full of integrity, which again resonates with me directly, very closely as well. Now you mentioned confidence. So how can people build up that confidence to act with a certain demeanor in that middle class settings when they feel inadequate? - One of the things that I often ask my clients to do is to write
their own story because quite often they've forgotten their achievements. All they can see is what is happening right now where they feel maybe beaten down, defeated and that imposter syndrome is there where they're not sure that they even belong there. - Let's start from the beginning, write down your origin story. Tell us what got you into this in the first place. What was the buzz, the excitement, the revelation, which made you realize that this is the world that you want to be in. And then j
ust write your story down. And in the writing of this story, you start to realize all these obstacles you've overcome, the challenges that you faced and met and defeated, how you were so resourceful to get to where you are now. Just a simple act of just writing that down is a really powerful tool just to remind you. And you know what? I am good. I've achieved a lot. I've come a long way. I started behind the rest of the field. I'm now caught up to them. That's a powerful thing. And it becomes a
permanent resource that which you can keep revisiting where you can remember, do you remember that piece of work that I did and how I felt after that it was difficult, but I made it happen. And it was me who made it happen to that. And it just stays with you. And gradually, the more you reflect on it, the greater that sense of inner confidence starts to grow. And that becomes a rock-solid sense of unconditional positive self-worth. And once you've got that, that enables you to do the challenging
things, to step out of your comfort zone. So if you feel uncomfortable about reaching out to leaders in your field, you at least can feel like I've done this sort of challenge before. I can do it again. All I have to do is make this step. It's the next step. I can do this. While people might be looking to change career, build their story, et cetera, and if they are still in that situation in the meantime where they feel belittled or maybe not respected or not recognized for what they deliver, w
hat are your top three tips that they can do and start implementing today to feel better about their environment or to achieve the respect that they deserve? First tip is to try this technique of visioning, revisioning. So at the beginning of the day, envisage the day ahead. Think about the meetings you're attending, the work that you're going to do. How do you want that to go? Who's going to be in that room with you? Imagine the interactions that you have and how powerful you want those interac
tions can be and what are the outcomes. So in that way, you plot out the day and you become much more focused on what success looks like. If you know what success looks like, you've got more chance of doing it, achieving it. Then at the end of the day, you revision the day. We're not perfect. We make mistakes. Things go wrong and we don't foresee things. So if you revision that day and go through the day and if it went well, you reward yourself by saying, well done, I did that. That went as well
as I could have imagined. Or if it didn't, you can say, look, what I should have done or what the outcome I would have liked was this and you envisage what you would have liked to have happened. And if you make that a daily habit, that builds up day by day that an increased sense of inner confidence, but it improves your performance. And it has a significant impact on how other people perceive you because you are changing your behaviors and how you interact with people. So that I think is reall
y helpful thing to do. Another way to improve your impact is to think about, are you a strategic optimist or a defensive pessimist? Because what that means is I'm a defensive pessimist. When I'm ever thinking something's, I'm planning to do something, I immediately think of everything that's gonna go wrong with that. Then once I've worked out what's going wrong, I can then plan for that. So that's been why I've been successful in my careers because I just work right, that's likely to go wrong. S
o I'm gonna plan for that. Then there are these other really annoying people to people like me who are strategic optimists, who just assume everything's going to go well. They do the work, but then once they've done the preparatory work, they just carry on with their life and they just assume everything's gonna go right. And so for me as a defensive pessimist, that was one of the reasons why I had quite a lot of anxiety in my job. It made me unhappy in my job because I was always worried about,
I've done that, but the next thing's likely to go wrong. So I'm gonna, I now need to worry about that. And that goes down to that mindset of defensive pessimism. So that's a real problem for defensive pessimists. Strategic optimists, maybe lackadaisical, they can just assume it's going to go well and don't put the work in to make sure that it goes well. And what you really want to do is get in that sort of sweet spot where you plan properly and thoroughly, but don't bring the baggage of anxiety
with you. It's a response to anxiety, defensive pessimism. So if you can get that balance between not worrying about the future, but effectively planning for the future, again, that's really going to improve your performance and your impact on the people that you work with. And then the final thing I would suggest to people is achieving clarity in your daily interactions. There's a really groundbreaking piece of work by Ann Latham called "The Power of Clarity". When I went to do this program at
MIT on how to build high-velocity organizations, that sounds exciting, and I managed to get some funding for that. And yeah, and what is this? The velocity they're talking about is about the speed of learning and lots of business theories. And the whole work premise was built on how Toyota maintained their competitive advantage over the long term. So it's all about factories and systems like that. And the efficiencies that and the productivity gains that you get from that sort of world are prett
y marginal now. Where the real gap opportunities for effectiveness of productivity and his human interactions, just working with how can we improve how we work with people? So making clear asks about a piece of work. For example, the classic thing will be, you are a line manager, you receive a report from one of your team, and that team member will say, "Can you look at this for me?" So what does that mean? Do you want me to comment on it? Do you want me to review it? Do you want me, what do you
want us to do with this? But the line manager is unlikely to say those sorts of things. So then you are in this holding pattern where I'm not really sure, this is therefore it's a low priority. I've got 101 other things to do. Two weeks later, team members angry that you haven't responded to the need for this because actually it turns out there was a deadline, it had to be me. So be very clear about the ask that you make of people and say something, so it could be, here is an action plan that t
he team have come up with. We are planning to go live with this a week on Tuesday. If you have any comments about this, please get back to me. That says there's a deadline in there, there's a clarity over the action, that's expected. And in that way, all of a sudden, you start to become much more efficient and much more productive. And those interminable meetings that you start to attend and the pieces of work that just get stuck in the machine start to disappear and it gives you more time to do
the work that you enjoy. - When you try to advance as a working class person in life, there is often call back from your own, so to say, they mock your ambitions, they try to hold you back, they build your goals, et cetera. How can working class people who are looking to advance and make something of themselves, create something bigger in life, deal with those negative emotions coming from their very own community, which often cuts the deepest because it's coming from their own? - Yeah, that's
a really tough thing because it comes from friends, family, cousins, who just don't understand the world that you're operating and that's where it's so difficult because you can't talk to them about it. They don't understand the drive that you're having. Sometimes you often have to travel, move cities, friends and family start to lose contact and you start to drift away. I think there's an inevitability about that because that's not you, it's on them, a lot of that challenge. So you have to deve
lop that inner resilience, which allows you to accept that's where they are, but you're here. And you have to be okay with that. You can be positive about it, go and explain the work that you do and why they particularly were very close family about the work that you do. And I found it, I was quite lucky, my family were very proud of the things that I was doing, but they didn't understand it. I had flashy job titles in public roles so that I used to get a piece of the payback quite a lot. That w
as good. But if you're not having that sort of public recognition, it can be really hard. And I think this is what, again, it comes back to being clear about why you're doing this and having that sense of passion and purpose behind that. And once you've got that really clear in your head, it becomes easier to explain to everybody. They may not understand it, but at least you can explain it. And once you are comfortable in your own skin and you're comfortable that you're on the right path and you
are fulfilling what you were put on this earth for, it ceases to matter as much. You have to know yourself and you have to have that inner resilience in place because you are doing something, I think it's quite a heroic thing to step out of your social class. It isn't going to be easy. Nobody wants it to be easy for you because they're quite happy with the way things are. So if you can accept that, there's gonna be some conflicts and pullback, as you say, some rejection. - You often hear people
tell you, "Know your place." - Exactly. Yes, know your place, but you decide what your place is and you go and find that. I came out of the Pumrock generation in the UK, I believe that in do-it-yourself activity. Do-it-yourself. Pumrock was all about three codes, get a guitar and you've got a band and you can write a song and you make a record and you put your own gigs on. You don't need anybody else to tell you, to allow you to do this sort of way. You can do it yourself. That's very much my a
ttitude. You carve out the career that's right for you. It won't be right for somebody else, for the person that you sit next door to in the office, but as long as it's right for you, you will enjoy the journey. That's the most important thing. You're only on this earth once. Enjoy the journey. Don't worry about the future. Enjoy what it is you're doing now. Celebrate the past. Use that as the roots that are gonna build this really strong tree of a career that's gonna really blossom into somethi
ng magnificent, where you get everything you want. It ain't about money. Money's important. But if you go to work every day looking forward to what it is you are gonna do at nine o'clock a Monday morning, that is an immeasurably valuable gift to give yourself. - Now, I want to talk a little bit about loneliness, because as people go through this transition, it can become a very lonely place while you're in the transition. So often you lose friends. People tell you, "Oh, you changed. "You're not
like you used to be. "You're this way and that way now." And they want you to be the way they got to know you when you were younger, when you were little. And now they're seeing you changing your life circumstances are changing things. You're not compatible anymore, but you're not quite there yet. You haven't exactly made it to fit in with the middle classes, let's say. And then you end up in this very lonely, isolated place. How can people deal with the negative feelings? Because often this is
where they decide, "Oh, I'll just go back to what's comfortable." - Yeah, that's because you are in a sort of a nowhere place where you don't quite, at least you fit in, because you're not middle class and you're not feeling comfortable there, but you've grown out of working class culture and you're left alone. The important thing is find a coach, find a mentor to help you on this journey. That's one of the things that I realised. I never really had somebody to talk to, to say, "Actually, this i
s okay. "This is normal." In my coaching conversations, regularly a couple of people say, am I going mad? Am I being selfish? All of it's perfectly normal. It can be a very lonely world. Particularly, I've had to live in nine different cities now just to pursue my career. You come to a new place, takes you a while to make friends, then you move on and all of that. And you end up living in a world where your friends are from the world of work. And that's difficult to sustain a social life behind
it. Obviously, you can build your own personal, getting a relationship, children and all that sort of thing. And a social life emerges out of there if you're lucky, but it isn't guaranteed and you'll have to work at it. So having a trusted person, naturally I'm advocating that you have a coach to help you on the journey because that can help you. But look at your life in the round, to help you look at your life in the round. But I would also really strongly advocate having a mentor and a mentor
is different to a coach, I think one of the guests on this show talked about that. And in this case, I would suggest getting somebody who's had a similar sort of life story to you, but it's further down the line. Might be somebody who you meet up at a networking event or something like that and reach out to them because they take you from a working class background, they will want to help you. Because they were like me, they've been in your shoes. And the benefit of having somebody who works in
your field, you can just go and talk to them about it and say, look, I'm working for this company. What do you think? I've heard this, you need to go talk to that person. And they can even start the build up networks, which are supportive for you and who you are and what it is you want to be. That is, I'm glad you picked that up, Mike, because it is such a challenging process because professionals work long hours as well. So even having a social life is really hard work. And then your working li
fe can come to dominate everything, which again furthers, strangers you from friends and family. And it means it's harder for you to find new friends and family and build a life. That's again, I could come back to this. What's your passion? What's your purpose? Build a 360 degree life that is balanced and is healthy, but gives you what you need out of life. - What would you advise for romantic relationships? What should people in this situation aim for? Because you mentioned it can become a lone
ly world. It's effort to build a social life. It's another effort to build a romantic relationship. Obviously everything takes work. Whatever you're building is work, right? So whatever kind of relationship. Do you have any tips for working class people who are looking to break out of their social class in terms of their romantic relationships? - Yeah, I'd be very lucky. My wife's just very supportive of me. She's been very keen to go on the journey with me. And I think that is the thing. We mov
ed several times now and she's being okay with that and has enjoyed the challenge of that actually. She enjoys the sense of change. So any sort of romantic relationships has to be a partnership, an equal partnership and you need to go on the journey together. So bringing, when you're discovering your passion and purpose, part of that is your close ones, your loved ones. They need to be in on this as well. But they are invested in you because they want you to be happy. And once you can say, I nee
d this, they are likely to give it because quite often people don't know what you want. I certainly didn't know what I wanted for most of my career. If they can't, but as soon as you're able to articulate it, it makes it easier for people to give you what you need. - Last question about the journey itself. Often the middle class have a very different relationship to money and finances than working class people do. And often working class people like the financial literacy to build up to the midd
le class financial level. What would you advise them on this? - I think there's a, you're right about the literacy, but not about the, I think there's a, working class people have a different attitude to money. They see the value of money. Money is a scarce resource. There is not a family trust in the background, which is going to protect them from danger. And what that can do is make you more risk averse. So I think there's an inherent work class. You already know the value of money, but then u
nderstanding how is money managed and manipulated and controlled and start to see it as a resource rather than as a limiting factor or as a reward. - So building a very strong personal plan, you've set up a little spreadsheet. I know how much I'm bringing in. I know what my overheads are and what my costs are. And you can plan accordingly. Once you've got that, the figure's in place in a very simple spreadsheet. You start to become in control of your financial destiny. You can build your own, th
en you can be clear about the goals. I want to say 5,000 pounds this year, put your own little budget together. Budgets are very simple things. Money is actually quite easy. It's like, how much have I got coming in? How much have I got going out? And is that in balance? And then you can control it. Once you know the detail of what it is you're spending. So it can be scary that, but once you have embraced it, it suddenly stops being a problem. When you are in a work environment, though I think it
's really important to understand the basics of financial reporting. So know what a balance sheet is, know what a revenue report is, know what a cashflow statement is, so that you are able to properly understand how money flows through a business as well. These are not complicated things. And in fact, business is a very simple thing. It's about you need to produce something that somebody wants to buy. And hopefully it doesn't cost as much as it takes to supply it. So that's when you earn it and
profit. I think I've got a degree of confidence about that and start to use those simple tools to control their spending and monitoring their income. They can become much more confident in planning for the future. - Great advice about the financial padding and just keeping track of your ins and outs. What can happen in my personal experience as well, that once you start seeing money that you never seen before in your life growing up, then it can get to you and you can get a little bit caught up
in that situation where you start spending a bit more recklessly. I would say, especially if it happens to you when you're young, would you have any tips for people who might be going through the situation that they got into a high paying job, they working their way out and they learning way more than what they're used to, how to manage their finances better? - One is enjoy it. Don't beat yourself up about it. Just put a proportion of this aside. Think about a pension. Think about a savings acco
unt. Set your financial goals. One of the things that I've realized is that I've really narrowed down what it is I want out of life. I know exactly what the amount of money I've wasted on, flash cars, I've had a motorbike and all that sort of nonsense. Some of that is part of the journey. Just go along and you're gonna make mistakes and don't beat yourself up about it. Make sure you've always got enough money in the bank in the event of you being fired for some unfair reason immediately. Enjoy t
he journey. But my advice is to really think about how can you most effectively spend your money to get the most out of it, to get the most meaning out of it for you. That's why it's an easy way money on small meaningless things because it's a nice thing to have at the time. What's really gonna make a difference for you and spend your money in a very targeted way like that. And I highly recommend it because all of a sudden quality of your life go through the roof and you stop losing time and mon
ey and resources to things that really don't matter. - Great advice, great advice, right there. And it's funny you mentioned the flashy cars and the flashy clothes. I think it's also important to recognize sometimes these are just to make you fit in. You feel like you start buying these things because you think that's expected of you to fit in. But it's usually not. And if you look at, I lived in Chelsea for a short while, just over a year. And I remember looking at the cars that were parked on
my street. They were like 20 year old Volvo's. But they look brand spanking you. And we're talking up in class and this was before it was Chelsky, right? Before all the Russians moved in. This is like British aristocracy. And they were really just living a very rich life, I would say. Yes, they had nice things, but those were some gifts that they accumulated over years and years. And it wasn't like they were going out shopping at Louis Vuitton and Gucci and Balenciagia every single day. That was
n't a thing. But that was all the new money. - That's why if you bring us back to your purpose and passion, you're not doing this for money. You're doing this for the meaning that you're creating for yourself. The money is a byproduct of this. It's not the most important thing. And if you should enjoy money, if you're making a lot of it, but spend it in a sustainable way so that you are not storing up problems for the future. Cars are a nightmare. Put aside the environmental issues. They're just
a permanent drain of money. If I could, I would get rid of my car, but I can't. Some people do say it as a status symbol, but be intentional about how you spend your money. Don't just, as you say, go along with what other people want. If you want a particular car because you are excited by what that car brings to you and your life, fantastic, go for it. But don't do it just because your competitor, your colleague has got something similar and it feels that you need to have that as well. - Yeah,
that touches a nerve with me a little bit because after my first acquisition, I actually bought a racing car around the time. (laughing) I did and it was one of the biggest expenses in my entire life. Not just buying the car, but the upkeep and the maintenance because I was actually got into racing. I was taking rally driving lessons and I went crazy about it. And like retrospectively, I could have used that money and watchwise. - Yes, you could have. But did you enjoy the journey? - Oh yeah. -
That's fine, it's not wasted. - It was like going to a theme park every day and you sat in that car. - That's what you wanna do with it, that's great. And there's actually getting something out of it. - It puts things in perspective when you say you added up over a year and what else could you have done with that money and would you trade this for that? I thought that was a great idea. I think you mentioned the holidays. If you can take your loved one or even if you can take your parents on a n
ice holiday, instead how much more meaningful that is than leaving a thousand pounds at Starbucks over the year. - Yeah, exactly. Because I mean, if a thousand pounds gets you a very nice weekend away somewhere special. And if the price of that is not having a Starbucks every day, that's a no brainer for me. You can bring a flask in and make nice feel of the coffee at home, bring it in, that sort of thing. - So what can people expect from coaching? You said coaching is different than mentoring.
What can people expect from coaching? - So my approach is based on if you were to work with me or coaching, I have a number of tests that I will run with you. Some questionnaires, some surveys, like a mini 360, a strengths test. And what that does is it gives us a grounded in fact of who you are. And we could produce some really, powerful insights into your operational style, what your professional persona is constructed of. And then we look at the problem that you are facing and how are we goin
g to help you overcome that problem? So I use the GRO methodology coaching. It's a sort of the basic methodology where we identify a goal, we explore the reality around that goal for you and your situation, explore the options, and then W is the will. So that is what are you willing to do? What are the actions you are going to take to address the situation? So we typically have a six session relationship and during that program, you develop a deeper knowledge of who you are, how you work, how yo
u impact on other people. And then a set of actions which take you towards the future that you desire. And my job is to help you on that journey to challenge you where that's necessary, but always be positive and supportive and a belief in you and your ability to succeed. People have come to me when they are facing a challenge that they don't know how to deal with. My job is to help you understand the nature of the challenge and help you become equipped to meet that challenge to realize the futu
re that you want to create for yourself. What's the greatest transformation you have witnessed in your career as a professional coach? Middle-aged lady working in the art, she was head and she was chief exec of an art organization in the UK. She had reached a plateau. She knew she needed to go further. She wasn't meeting up her potential, but wasn't quite sure what she needed to do. She went through my leadership program and we spent a lot of time helping her understand who she was, what she wan
ted out of life. And we started to help her put a plan together to get her from where she is now to where she wanted to be in five years' time. In the midst of putting that plan together, we were about halfway through the program and she said, "Keith, I just sold me a house." I said, "What?" She said, "In the plan, I realized that I needed to be in a different place so my daughter could have better access to school." And I was planning to do that in two years' time when she was at the right age,
but I thought, "Why wait for two years? I'll do it now." And I was like, "Oh my God, she sold our houses as a result of a conversation that we've had." She did not regret that decision. And we saw this revelatory sort of process as she went through the program where she left that job, she got a job, a better salary. She was in a more high public profile with in a different field. While it's at the same time developing her own artistic practice and she was finding ways to bring all of this in to
gether so that she's now, I think it's, she's three years into a five-year plan. She's moving on from that second job to set up her own arts charity where she's focusing on delivering artistic projects to people who are suffering from cancer and from depression, and she's completely went from being stuck in a job which she enjoyed and had a lot to it, but really restricted the potential for growth into a place now where she's in absolute control of her own destiny. She's fully equipped to take o
n all her challenges. And I love speaking with her because she's making such an impact on the world that she wants to be in. - That sounds like a huge transformation and it sounds like she's really happy now. - Yes, yes, there are challenges all the way. And it was interesting because I spoke with her earlier this week, for example, she had a bit of a setback, but the way she responded to that setback was about, the setback has happened and now I'm scenario planning to navigate through that. She
wasn't knocked into crisis as a result of the setback. She was just said, accepted it and then responded. So she has, she's got this really resilient like approach to life now, which is really, really exciting. - If you're sharing that Keith, if somebody would like to work with you, where can they find you? - You can find me on LinkedIn, Keith Jeffrey. You can find me through my website, which is www.rakethroughcoaching.co.uk which is it's spelt B-R-K-T-H-R-U, coaching.co.uk. Yeah, they're the
best ways. Check me out, I'm very active on LinkedIn. So that's the easiest way to get hold of me. - And have you got anything coming up? I heard you say you're releasing a book. - So I've developed a practice now, a methodology, which helps people work their way through their challenges. So it's called Purpose and Passion, which is I've been dropping that throughout the conversation. Called Purpose and Passion, handbook for helping working class professionals fulfill that potential. And it give
s you in that, all the tools that you need to do this by yourself, if that's what you want to do. There's a handbook that goes with it, where you can come undertake the exercises. You can also work with me on that process, but it really gives a very practical way to fulfill your potential in a professional context. So there's lots of resources in there, there's lots of ideas in there. So that should be coming out in January, 2024. - Looking forward to reading the book, I'll be sure to get a copy
of myself. I'm curious about what you cooked up and what are these methodologies as well. And maybe I'll even show it to my son. - It's one of those things, again, going back to being working class and parenting, you always want your children to do better, to level up. You're always trying to push them as a poder. And I think a lot of the working class parenting comes back to this and the way we treat our kids. It's all about that because we just want them to break out, to level up. And I feel
that your services, great support to these people who are on their journey. So you can even be a gift to your kid if you're watching this as a parent, it can be a gift to your child. That should be key for a problem with kids if you want to encourage your children or support them by getting out or breaking out from the working class. But that said, there's nothing wrong with being working class, outcome for working class. And so this key, we both understand the challenges. Like I said, the entir
e society is built on the back of the working class. So there is nobody else who respects the working class more than us come from this very background. And there is nothing wrong with that. But if you do have ambitions, if you want to achieve something different in life, that's also okay. And you have support because Keith can help you get through the challenges that you're experiencing along the way. - Great, thank you very much for that, Mike. - Thank you too for sharing all your knowledge an
d insight and your journey. You certainly have a lot of experience that you brought to the table, obviously having lived through this, you can really understand the challenges and the solutions as well. So thank you for sharing all of that. And with that, if you enjoyed that, I'm sure, please do subscribe for more content about personal and professional development. Thank you for joining us today, Keith, and thank you too for your time. - Great, thanks very much, Mike. Really enjoyed the convers
ation. (upbeat music)
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