ï»żUrsula Capell
Hello, and welcome to the Big Life Pivot.
You might notice that in this episode.
You don't see me on screen.
If you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, obviously, that won't make any difference to you at all. But if you're watching on YouTube, you might just be wondering where I've gone.
Well, this episode is a small example of imperfect action in action.
I didn't get the technical setup correct, so actually you're going to see all of my guest and none of me. But the conversation was too interesting and too valuable to hold back, just because I wasn't in the video.
So I hope you enjoy the episode, and if you do, please like, subscribe, and share the big life pivot with someone who might be navigating their own life change, be that big or small.
Ursula Capell
I'm really excited to welcome today Ben Scoggins, who is going to introduce himself in a moment. But I just want to say a big thank you, Ben, for coming and being on one of my early episodes of this podcast. Ben and I have had the pleasure of working together in the past. Well, it was definitely a pleasure for me anyway. And I just want to say thank you very much to everybody who's chosen to spend their time watching and listening to this podcast. And I hope you get some inspiration from it today. So Ben, I would love you just to introduce yourself in your own way and just tell us where you're at and who you are right now.
Ben Scoggins
Well, lovely to be here, especially episode number two. I mean, lucky me. So I am the outgoing CEO of a digital marketing agency called Organic, and we're based in Exeter, so in Devon and we work across a range of different digital marketing services, ultimately selling into clients like Sainsbury's and Argos and various other clients. It's been seven years in the role and like I said, on my way, exiting into something new and doing something else, a second pivot, if you like, which we can talk about a little bit later on. Maybe that's another podcast interview! It is at that stage where maybe it's something where I come in a few months and we can talk about it again.
[00:02:18.500] - Ursula Capell
Yeah, absolutely. So tell us then, you're going to talk about that pivot you mentioned for arriving and going to Organic seven years ago. So tell us what life was like before things changed? Let's go back in time and tell us what life was like then.
Ben Scoggins
Yeah. So if we go quite far back then, I was very clear about the career that I wanted. And coming out of university, that meant moving to London, because what I wanted to do was to work for large advertising agencies. Advertising was the thing I wanted to do, London was the place I had to do that. I did the classic âmilk-round thingâ and got a job on a grad scheme in a large agency, which was great and a fantastic grounding. Obviously then went to London and lived there for a long period of time and I don't regret the move at all. But what happened over time is I got to a place where I felt actually there emerged two different types of people who were in London over a period of time, and that is people who decided it was home and others who decided it was a transition and you were on the way somewhere. I got married and my wife felt as well that we were on the way somewhere. And this probably wasn't where we were going to end up. So there's definitely a geographical thing going on.
And career-wise, I felt a similar thing, too, which is I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing now is what I want to be doing for the rest of my days. So it felt like there were all the ingredients of needing to move or change or do something slightly different. So that's what life was like before. That's not to say that I got to a point where I hated every day and every day beat myself up about it. But at the same time, there was that niggle in the back of my head for quite a long period of time. And the niggle got gradually larger and larger to the point where it's like, actually, I need to do something now.
Ursula Capell
Tell me more about that niggle. Tell me more about that niggle? What did it feel like? When did you first notice it and how did it come over time?
Ben Scoggins
If I'm honest, there was a growing sense of anxiety for me that came with it. I'm that person that likes to have a plan, and like I said, I knew when I was at university what I wanted to go and do, and I got very focused on it and got the job I wanted, moved to the place I needed to do the job. So I'm that person that likes to have a plan and the anxiety when it came to the time where it's like I need to make a change, was all around, well, I don't have a plan. I don't have that concrete thing. So I had a vague sense that we wanted to move, not just outside of the M25, we wanted to move further afield. So we had that vague sense. But other than that, I didn't have a plan. And I remember time after time having the conversation with my wife about it, which is, I can't do anything, I feel stuck and it is making me feel anxious. Just that whole thing of feeling like, I'm just not sure how this plays out now, I can't see a path.
Ben Scoggins
And that was the thing, and over quite a long period of time, you get to a point where it's like, I know I need to make a change. I just don't know what to do. That slightly helpless feeling and like I said, there's an anxiety that comes with that. So I experienced that over a couple of years. The annoying thing about that is that the anxiety then just starts to have various impacts on your life, which is, I'm not as good at my job as I want to be, I'm not as present as I need to be in my personal life, family life. So the weight starts to be quite a heavy, real thing, and you do need to do something about it. So that's where I got to.
Ursula Capell
Really interesting. So what was the moment, or series of moments, or the thing that made something shift that meant that, whether you had a plan or not, that you actually needed to do something?
Ben Scoggins
I think what eventually happened is that, that realisation that you're not going to get to a perfect plan, and the things as you get a bit older, I don't know, they just become a little less clear.
It's very clear-cut. You're at university, You know you want a certain job, you go through the steps of what you need to do to get that job. You want to move to a certain place. You go through the steps to do that. When you start to... We had a baby and a mortgage and various other things. You start to get all those trappings of life and you get stuck into the grind, the day to day momentum of life. It's more difficult to go, well, stop a minute. Okay, let's work out what this plan is and okay, now I can see it really clearly. So that was the issue, really. There was just, you get caught up in just going through the motions. And that was it for me. I was into the daily grind. And like I said, there's the anxiety that came with, I'm not sure, of the way out of this.
It's tricky. And in terms of moments, I'm not sure there was a moment. I'm not sure there was a specific thing where it's like âit's this particular point in timeâ. There was this conversation or whatever. There were a number of things that were going along. One of them was that my in-laws retired and moved to, first they moved to Cornwall, and we used to go down and see them and we were thinking, oh, hang on a minute. Well, this is good. If we could make this work. So there's a seed being planted there, and eventually they actually moved to Devon, and now are very close to where we live. So that was something. I remember going to see them and having walks on the beach with my wife and going, âHow do we make this work?â So you start to get into that and trying to...
[00:08:18.260] - Ursula Capell
So it's envisioning what life could be like, you know. This feels good and I want to visualise more of that. How do I create a plan to get from here to there?
Ben Scoggins
Exactly that. Exactly that. Painting a bit of a picture. Then the practicalities of that, which is, okay, so what are the steps we now need to take? So the main one for me was about a job. I decided that I wasn't just moving down to get any old job. I had/have a career that I really love and I wanted to build on that career and accelerate that career. I didn't want to just find a job and move down and work it out. So the job thing became a really important part of it. That was, for me, the key thing that unlocked everything else. So there was that. There's also, just working out because we knew we were going to do a fairly major move if we moved down here, it was thinking about, well, what are the things that we want if we move down here? So we were moving out of being in central London, we probably don't want to move right into the centre of Exeter or another city. So where do we want to move? So thinking about that and what do we want to do? What are the other things that you take advantage of? If you're making a change, then make sure you try and get the building blocks in place for the other stuff all around that as well. So lots of little things happened. They just started to unlock moments in my head, really. Talking it out helped a lot, I think.
Ursula Capell
Talking it out with your wife, or did you have a network of people that could support you?
Ben Scoggins
A network, really. So I definitely had conversations with my parents about it, with friends about it, friends in London, friends who'd moved out of London. So it was just trying to throw the ideas around and every conversation you have, you tend to get something out of it. So it was actually I'll speak to a lot of people. And then actually I started having a series of conversations with - once we decided that we wanted to try and make something work in Devon - I then started having conversations with people who worked at Devon agencies and owners of Devon agencies, which is where I would need to get jobs, not necessarily just with a view to getting a job, but also with a view to getting a bit of a point of view on it. How do they feel about it? What's their path? What's their journey? You'd be amazed once you do that, the amount of people who say, oh, yeah, I did it like this, or I've got a friend who did exactly what you're trying to do. So there was a lot of that - So lots of conversations, talking it through and trying to engage people in conversation about it.
Ursula Capell
What did that help you with? Was that about realising you weren't bonkers? Was that about clarity? Was it about contributing to the plan? What did those conversations help with?
Ben Scoggins
I think a bit of contributing to the plan. You start with something where you say, âwouldn't it be nice if this happened?â The painting the picture, the walk on the beach bit where you go, âI'd like to do this. I'd like to be able to spend time here.â And it was about the practicalities then, trying to fill in some of the gaps and go, okay, well, for that to happen, these things would need to be part and parcel of it. So it's practical hints and tips as much as anything else. So, yes, building towards a more robust plan, something that's actually actionable and getting clearer then on, okay, well, if that's the case, so what do I need to do? What do we need to do in terms of where we're going to live? What do we need to do in terms of the job I want to get? What's my wife going to do in terms of work? All of those things. So that the jigsaw puzzle of it all then starts to come together a little bit more.
Ursula Capell
Brilliant. And what fears and doubt... When we're making a big change like that, there's a lot of heart stuff. And am I bonkers? And there's fears and self doubt. What came up during that period? What were you worried about?
Ben Scoggins
I was definitely worried about the career suicide part, which is just that idea of, well, you've gone to London, you've done this thing of looking at where the where the work is. You've gone and you've built a professional network. You've got the right training. You work with the right kinds of people. And you're willing to now just give all of that up to go and do something completely different in a part of the world where it isn't focused on career or isn't focused on specifically my kind of career. That played a large part in it. That was a lot of the doubt in the back of my head. So salary and not only job availability, but job security, the quality of the people I was going to work with. Yeah, lots of nagging that, just the fear of the unknown. I mean, just, We just don't know. So because of that, the demons start to play in the back of your mind quite a lot. So it's battling all of that, I think, particularly up to the point where I got a job. Once I got a job, then a lot of that stuff vanished. It was like, great, we're in the right place. But building up to that, when I was looking for work and trying to work out what's the right place to go and work, where might my skills transfer? That was tricky because the demons were in the back of your head.
Ursula Capell
So you got that sorted out for yourself before you made the jump?
Ben Scoggins
Yeah, I think for me personally, I mean, I know other people who haven't. I know people who've gone and said, right, okay, I'm just going to move. I need to move. I'm going to go and move geographically and I'll work it out after that. And for me, that just felt too much. I mean, at the time we had a very... Our eldest daughter was very, very young And it just felt for me, I was too uncomfortable with that. So I already made the decision and it was part of the plan, really, which was to get the job thing sorted out. And then everything else can fall into place. You can worry about where you're going to live and those things afterwards. So for me, that was a key cornerstone to it. That was a big part of being able to pivot was having some job security there.
[00:14:44.800] - Ursula Capell
So it's like having one tent peg in the ground or the tent frame in the ground and then everything else could be a bit more flexible around it.
Ben Scoggins
Yeah. And I know some people who've got different, have different tent pegs. They might go, actually, the most important thing for me is I need to know where I'm going to live or whatever it is. But for me personally, it was definitely about the job, I need to get the right job and then everything else will work itself out.
Ursula Capell
Great. So you've made the decision, you've got the job, and then you headed off in that direction to go to that job. In and amongst that experience of making that shift, what obstacles or setbacks did you face along the way, if any?
Ben Scoggins
I mean, I think there's still a little bit of the noise, because there's a point in time where you're not really telling everybody about what's going on. And then you get to the point where you go, right, I've got a job, I'm leaving, I hand my notice in. And then you've got the social backlash a little bit, which is you're doing what? Well, you are leaving. So you're leaving your nice London career and you're going to work in the Southwest. Okay, that's an interesting choice. So you've got all of that noise that then comes with it. So there's battling that. I think the other practicalities, though, I mean, that stuff for me, like I say, I was more comfortable with the risk involved in that, with moving without a house and those things. I was more comfortable with that because I had that tent peg in the ground around having a job sorted. But there's still the noise, and it's the noise that gets you in the end.
Ursula Capell
So did you have plenty of supporters. I mean, it's interesting because you will get a world of naysayers that will go, âyou don't want to be doing that.â and it's because they don't want to be doing it or they're maybe not brave enough to do it. So what support did you have? Did you have some people in there going, âBrilliant, good for you!â Did you have a mix or was it all naysayers?
Ben Scoggins
Yeah, it was absolutely a mix. Absolutely a mix. Because I think some people looked at it and thought, Great, I'd like to do that. I'd like to try and make that work. So yes, it wasn't all naysayers. And it wasn't that crazy a thing to do. So I don't think too many people thought it was probably as difficult a situation as maybe I did in my own head.
Ursula Capell
So that's interesting. Tell us about that then. Tell us about it feeling difficult. Is that a perspective you now have from the other side? Actually, it felt more difficult at the time and when you look back, it feels easier. Tell me about that.
Ben Scoggins
I think it felt really exhilarating at the time, if I'm honest about it. I think it was the building up to the decision that was the hard part. I think once the decision was made, and particularly once we actually left London and moved down here, then it was properly exhilarating. Because part of the decisions we'd made, we said, well, if we're moving to this part of the world, We're going to find ourselves somewhere to live that has a view of the sea, and we're going to try and find a house that we're going to build or rebuild, in the case as it was by the time we got here. But we did all of that, so that was really exciting. It was actually great. Yes, there's a bit of nervousness, but the nerves dissipated and the excitement factor was much higher than the nerves. For me and for my wife, actually, it was great. Let's go and do this, let's have a bit of an adventure.
Ursula Capell
Was there a moment when it switched from being more frightening into being more exhilarating?
Ben Scoggins
I think there were two points. One of them was getting the job and going, great, this is what we're doing. We're moving down here and that âhanding your noticeâ in bit. So there's that part. The other bit was actually just physically being down here and going, actually, this is all different, but it's like we're going on holiday. It's that thing of, actually, this is really exciting. We're just building something new. I think for me, what helped with that is I got a job where I was probably going back to London once a week. So it meant that I got a little bit of the fix of the old world and the new. So I had what felt to me at the time like a nice transition between leaving and properly being embedded here, which really worked for me. My wife, on the other hand, was happy from day one and didn't go back to London for about six months. She was like, actually, I'm here now. I'm building a house, a base, a foundation. And she was more than happy to just get stuck into it. Whereas for me, I was a bit like, oh, I still need to have a little bit of a London fix.
I still need to not feel completely detached from the old world. I need more transition time. So I didn't do that hard transition in the same way. But that was, partly that's because of the physicality. I mean, if we'd gone to Australia, we obviously couldn't have done that. But as we were a train ride away, then it was perfectly doable. And for me, that worked really, really well as a nice transition through.
Ursula Capell
And how long did that transition for you take? Was there a point when you thought, I don't need to go anymore, or did it just stop happening because you didn't need to go anymore, as in work-wise?
Ben Scoggins
Yeah, I mean, quite quickly. And it's funny because I've spoken to quite a few people who've done similar things and moved to this part of the world. And there's something that most people in Devon and Cornwall agree on, which is most people get very excited getting on a train and going into London. But the thing that pretty much all of them agree on is they get as excited, if not more excited, when they leave London on the train because they're going home. And I very quickly got to that point of, I felt like I'm going home and that home feeling wasn't something I had in London. Like I said, it's almost quite a... I've seen it as a transitional place. I do feel that about London. And I know some people don't. My sister, for example, lives in North London, will live in North London for the rest of her life, I expect. She loves London, and to her, that's home. So to me, it always felt like something slightly different. So that feeling of getting on the train and coming home started to happen very quickly after we moved down here, which was great because that, again, just reinforced the fact that we made the right choice here.
The pivot was right.
Ursula Capell
And so you were saying that you always felt like London was a transition or a stopping point for going somewhere else. Was that true right from the start? Or was there a period of time really early on when you had found the job in London and got there and felt like, yeah, this is me and this is it. I'm exactly where I want to be. Or did it always feel like there was something more to come?
Ben Scoggins
I think I saw it more similar to how I'd maybe seen time at university, which is that thing of âI loved itâ and it's that intense period of time, but I'd never seen that as being that's home. And that's the issue I got to with, really. And like I said, the same thing for my wife, which is it's just that niggle that's there. And obviously, once you spend a lot of time there. So by the time I left, I'd probably spent, I don't know, 15, 16 years there, something like that. So a long period of time. So to feel like actually this isn't home, that's over time, that's going to start to eat away a little bit because you go, well, actually, if it's not home, then why are you spending so long here and what are you going to do about it?
Ursula Capell
What I'm hearing here when you talk about that is perhaps that feeling of belonging, belonging to a place and belonging to a space in a different way to where in London. Does that speak to you when I say that? Do you feel that you belong where you are now?
Ben Scoggins
Yeah, I do and I can't really explain exactly why that is. But I definitely feel it. I definitely feel it and felt it very quickly. And I think, I feel very lucky to have found that because I think it would have been quite easy to have just continued along feeling how I was feeling without actually doing anything about it. Because you do get caught in the grind and you've got a job that pays the salary and you move your way up the career ladder and everything seems to be okay. But that niggle, dealing with that niggle, that's the thing, really.
Ursula Capell
So being now seven years down the line of having been there and feeling like you belong there and feel excited when you do get on the train from London to come back home because it's your place. How do you feel about... Are you glad that you scratch that niggle or dealt with the niggle?
Ben Scoggins
Yeah, but I think it would have been so easy not to. And there are circumstances - definitely things that kickstarted it for us. Even though my wife and I were aligned about it, it was definitely having a child was definitely something that was a bit of a kickstart there. I'm thinking, actually, okay, so now I'm now starting to project forward to what schools look like and where I want to live and how big a house I need to be in to cater for us all and all of that stuff. So it definitely becomes⊠a sense of urgency. There are things that happen that push you a little bit more to make the decision. I think the thing that I found interesting about it is that I would normally have some doubts, there'd be something where I'd go, it's all great apart from this. And I don't really have that with this, which makes me feel like actually it's right. It's clearly meant to be. I've clearly found the right space for me, which is great. And I feel very lucky, really lucky to have found that.
Ursula Capell
Yeah, to have that sense of alignment in every aspect of your life, with the shifting priorities that came with having a family as well. That probably added to your niggle.
So what about the career suicide? Because a bit earlier on, you said you're a bit concerned about career suicide. So tell us about what that feels like now on the other side of it.
Ben Scoggins
I think the great thing, and again, maybe that is something I've underestimated. I went from working in creative advertising agencies and marketing agencies to working in something which is very much more digital and technical and so I had this amazing learning curve coming in. But what was fantastic is that, although I thought at the start of it, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do this how I'm going to keep up what became obvious really quickly is just the amount of transferable skills, the amount of stuff where you're able to go, I know this stuff. I know where I can help out here. So I quite quickly with Organic, I looked at it and I was like, I can add a lot of value here. I know how to deal with this and this and this, and I can identify the problems. I've seen these things before. Having more autonomy was for me just a game changer. Being in a smaller organisation, but having leadership of that organisation and being able to do the things that I needed to do or felt I needed to do was really empowering. So again, that gave me extra energy. Being in the right place was the great foundation to work So it all came together in a way that I couldn't probably have envisaged it being quite that neat and tidy before.
Ursula Capell
So it was actually a career revival rather than career suicide or career evolution, if you like?
Ben Scoggins
It was. I think I got to a point as well where I think if you're not happy with your own situation for whatever reason, I think it starts to play out just in terms of your own performance. It might be it's just a perceptual thing, something that you're the only one who sees but I had in the back of my head, I'm just not doing my best work here. I'm not fulfilling my potential here. So to get to the other side, and because I've [now] got a better base and I feel more grounded and I'm in the right place, geographically, I feel in the right place. It just enabled everything else to unlock as well. So it's like, great, I can add the value here, I can do the things that I need to do. I can build the right support network here to make sure that I've got all the support that I need.
[00:28:52.720] - Ursula Capell
So it's fertilising what you learnt in your previous careers and applying it in a slightly different way in order to create new results and different thinking, which is exciting.
Ben Scoggins
It is. It is. Actually, I've had another feeling of this recently which is that I started doing some coaching and some mentoring for someone and again, that feeling of being able to help people with what they're going through, purely based on, well, I've got experience of this. I know how this works. I've seen this before, let me give you my point of view on these things, which has just been a great thing for me personally to, again, it underlines that experience and learning and the importance of the stuff that you've got that you probably just don't recognise on a daily basis, just the value of that experience. So that's been great.
Ursula Capell
Yeah, brilliant. So what are you most proud of about all of this for yourself?
Ben Scoggins
I mean, looking back, I think I'm most proud of the fact that I never got to a point where I freaked out. I think it would have been quite easy to have just got to⊠at various stages and gone, oh, no, I'm not sure this is the right thing to do. And it really didn't happen like that. I did manage to get control of my emotions a little bit. Actually, the worst period had been the period before we'd made the decision to pivot. It was all... and that was all in my head. But that went. I'm actually proud that I didn't... None of that played through. I had control of it once the decision was made. I'm actually really pleased with that. That was something that I look back on and go, great. I managed that well.
Ursula Capell
Yeah, brilliant. And if somebody listening here feels stuck and in that pre-place where they've got that niggle and they're not quite sure what to do about it, what would you want them to know from this place that you're in now on the other side?
Ben Scoggins
There's definitely something for me, which is - I'm a person who likes a perfect plan - and there's that bit where you realise, actually, there isn't a perfect plan. There's never going to be a perfect plan. At some point, you are going to need to jump. Although everything fell together very quickly for me, I feel like actually I was braced for things not to fall into place quite as neatly as they did. And I was okay with that because I'd made that decision that actually there's no such thing as a perfect plan and things will eventually come together, just not in the way that you [expect], not in this theoretical way. So that's something I would say.
I would also say though, my advice would be, you don't need a perfect plan, you do need a plan. So I think there's the other way around and I look at people that make leaps into doing something completely different. And for me, that would be heart stopping moments because I just wouldn't be able to deal with that amount of uncertainty. So I needed to have some framework there - and we talked about that tent peg for me was having a job. I would have found it very difficult to have moved down without having a job. Other people would find it difficult for other reasons.
You need to decide, what are my tent pegs?
What are the things that I absolutely need to have?
And then what's the broad plan for the rest of the pieces?
What do you want to happen? Can you envisage that? And do you have a series of steps?
Do you have that practical theoretical stuff there that will help you get the other bits sorted out?
Ursula Capell
Yeah, I think the key word I'm hearing from there actually is the envisaging thing. So rather than it be a plan in the traditional sense of the word with a Gantt chart, you're talking about the envisaging, the visualising what all the elements could look like and might look like so that you can feel whether or not that feels right. Because actually, sometimes we can visualise stuff and think, oh, no, that isn't what I want after all. And sometimes I can visualise it and start to get tasters of it and realise, yes, this is it. And that obviously compels you to move forward in that because it feels like the right thing to do, even if, as you say, you haven't got the perfect plan element sorted out.
Ben Scoggins
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I think a lot of it, it does come down to the feeling as well. It's emotional stuff a lot of the time. So making sure you've got that emotional stuff, those emotional boxes ticked is really important. I know I'm going to feel like this. Am I happy with that? Starting to just think things through. So, yes, it's not necessarily about a practical checklist or I need to-do list. It's not really about that. It's about having that vision for what it is and having worked through that in your own head. What's that going to feel like? What's that going to make me feel like?
[00:34:00] - Ursula Capell
Because it was something you mentioned quite early on in the conversation is that you and your wife are quite aligned, and it is almost as well being aligned with what you're envisioning, because if you're not, I mean, for example, I love the idea of being able to go for a run and do a 10K run every morning before I start work. But actually, when I envision that for myself, that doesn't make me feel good, and it just isn't right for me. So there's no amount of trying it out that's going to mean it works or feel right, even if I did it. I know I would hate it because I've tried it. Actually, it's like really feeling into what feels right and then that helps with the knowing, yes, this is the right step to take or that's the wrong step to take.
Ben Scoggins
Absolutely that. Absolutely that. Yeah.
[00:34:46] - Ursula Capell
Well, just as a final question then as we wrap up, is just one thing, like a book or a belief or a ritual or a habit that you developed, if there was just one thing that you could say helped you on this journey, what would that be?
Ben Scoggins
In terms of sources of inspiration for stuff, I mean, I do tend to read around. I mean, a lot of the stuff that I read is business-related stuff. But one of the things actually that I've looked at is people who are positive, but at the same time have various ways of helping you action that positive thought. There's a guy called David Hyatt who used to be in advertising, actually. So had a similar trajectory, decided he wanted to go and do something outside of London, to, in his case, move to Wales. And he now runs things called the Do Lectures. And he's written various books, a fantastic writer, writer by trade, but has lots of pearls of wisdom. So there are lots of books to read of his, there's courses you can go on. But I think the main thing for me is there's a positivity around âyou can get stuff done. Here's how you do it.â The importance of community in that, the importance of focussing on the craft of doing things in that. And I found all of that stuff really empowering. And yes, so I've tuned into that as a source of inspiration, really, I suppose.
Ursula Capell
Yeah, brilliant Yeah, he's great and as you say, he has lots of brilliant inspiration. So, yeah, thank you very much. What a wonderful story and I look forward to having you on again when you can talk about the next pivot.
Ben Scoggins
Yes, pivot number two. Yeah, pivot number two. It's really exciting.
Ursula Capell
I think there was something you wanted to say about having done the first pivot, the first pivot, what the second one feels like.
Ben Scoggins
Yeah, I think this is important. So having gone through that first life pivot, I think it gives you, once you've done that, it certainly gives me the confidence then to go and do something different again. It's shown me that if you go into it in the right emotional state and you've got the right attitude around it, you do have a plan. You've been able to envisage what you want this thing to look like. It means that you can then shift, shift again and do something different again. So that's something I'm working through at the moment, purely from a professional point of view. But it's certainly given me the confidence in a way that I don't think I'd have had that confidence if I hadn't made the first pivot. So it's been a fantastic aid to just moving, progressing through life, I think.
Ursula Capell
Interesting. And what help do you get when you're making this plan, when you're in the middle bit of this pivot right now, and you're talking about making the plan, which you've described as being really important alongside that envisaging. How do you go about that? What support do you use to bring to that? Or is that all inside you?
Ben Scoggins
I think a lot of it is inside. I think it's about the confidence because you know you've done it before and you know you don't need to have that perfection, everything bolted down. I think it does give you something inside that means that you've got the ability to say, you know what, I can do whatever I want to do. I can set my mind to it. So it's definitely more of an emotional thing than anything else. I mean, obviously, there's a load of stuff around once pivot into something else and that's a successful thing, then you've got an additional support network. I suppose you've seen things from a different angle. So there's that. But I think more than anything, it's about the emotional feeling of, âactually, I can do this and I'm going to be okayâ.
Ursula Capell
Yeah, I'm going to do this and I'm going to be okay. Yeah, that's great. That's great. That's fantastic reflections. Thank you so much, Ben, for joining me today.
Ben Scoggins
Thank you. Been nice to talk.
Ursula Capell
And really good luck with the next pivot.
