Leading with Conviction and Empathy with Sam Smith

Carolyn: Welcome to evolve a new era of leadership. I’m Carolyn Swora, your host. And today we are going to be talking to a leader, a trendsetter, a pioneer. In the financial services sector in the UK. Our guest is going to be Sam Smith.

She is the founder and former CEO of financial services group, FinCap, which is now Cavendish financial. She’s got this incredible leadership journey that we’re going to learn a lot [00:01:00] about. How she grew her business, how she scaled and she scaled through empathetic leadership. She wrote this book called the secret sauce, and we’re going to hear all about that book and the insights that she has gleaned over the years.

In her business. She was the first female chief executive of a city stockbroking firm and has worked on over 200 transactions, IPOs, and secondary fundraisings. She is now a champion of entrepreneurship and inclusion in the UK and a non executive director on a number of boards where culture is important.

That’s definitely a theme from her book is that culture and leadership are so key to growth. I’m really excited for this conversation with Sam and let’s see where it takes us.

Carolyn: Welcome, Evolve listeners. Really excited to bring you another great episode today. And our guest [00:02:00] is from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I’m really excited to welcome Sam Smith to the show today.

Sam, welcome. Welcome. Welcome. 

Sam: Thanks so much for having me. Lovely 

Carolyn: to be here. Yeah. Well, Sam, you came across my desk, I will say through some other folks who were sharing the promotion of your book. So you wrote this great book, The Secret Sauce. So we’re going to dig in and talk about that. And the other thing that I was really intrigued to hear about was this amazing journey that you have had In the financial industry.

And so I’d love to start off by asking you a little bit about that journey, you know, from founding FinCap to being the first female chief executive of a city stockbroking firm, what are some of the key moments in this amazing history you’ve had that have really defined your leadership ethos.

Sam: Well, I think firstly was when I started, I actually had no idea I was an entrepreneur, no idea I wanted to build a business or be a CEO. So I started age I’d left as an accountant, I’d [00:03:00] just qualified as a charged accountant at KPMG. And When I left, I was going to do a load of jobs that partway through the process, I thought I, I’m not sure about this.

And very late in that process, something happened to a very good friend of mine who I live with, age 23, and she got breast cancer. Thankfully, she’s still okay today, but wow. There was a bit of an incident about could I go and see her in hospital? What happened? And I think it was quite a defining moment because I thought.

What am I doing? You know, work balance, like something’s not right. So I turned down every job that I was going to do, which were for very big global investment banks, big fund management houses. And I just thought, I don’t think I want to do this big corporate, you can’t control things. You know, you don’t necessarily get treated the way you, you want to be treated and your voice doesn’t matter.

So I said no to all the jobs, I’m going to do something else. And I went for a random interview the next day at a, what was a private client wealth manager running a few [00:04:00] billion under management. And they said, look, we’d like someone to come and join and set up a corporate finance division, sort of mini investment bank.

What do you think? And it just sounded the best thing. This is great. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I mean, 

Carolyn: You’re 23. I 

Sam: was 23. So everyone, not even one person thought I was sensible. I think everyone thought, why are you turning down like a, you know, Goldman’s type bank for a job? And I just thought.

I can’t understand why I would take this job at a big global investment bank that I’m not really gonna enjoy when I could do this amazing thing and set it up from scratch. So I think in hindsight, you know, my, that was my entrepreneurial thing going well, I’d like to do my own thing. I don’t want to have processes of big companies.

I want to define my own culture. Right? And I said at that point, I’m never ever going to let. anyone be treated the way I was. I don’t want a culture like that. And I want to sort of fight for fairness. [00:05:00] And that became my theme really. So as a leader and as a builder of that division. So over 10 years, I’ve built that division within a bigger company and very much head down just marketing, doing our thing, working really hard for clients and try and get underneath the skin of clients.

And so 10 years later, we’d suddenly look back and built this division of about 25 people and hadn’t really thought about it, just kept thinking how I wanted to grow and keep going. And every two years, move forward in my own leadership style, in my own leadership skills, and with the turnover of the business.

So 10 years later, We said, look, we really want to grow. Can we have some equity? And they didn’t want to give us any equity. So I said, well, can I buy it out then? So at that point, you know, it took a long time, but three years later bought it out. And then I became CEO of what was that division bought out as a separate entity.

And I think when that happened, you can really start [00:06:00] reflecting about. What are we trying to do here? Because I had to get all my team to buy into shares and, you know, we had to put a vision together and we realized our USP was not only treating our clients differently and better. So we were working at the small end of the growth company market in the UK.

you know, not a lot of people working at that end. And what happened is you’d have a big bank. That would get the most junior team acting for a small client. Well, we were like these small clients are like the clients of the future. Every Google starts at a startup and we want to be at that growth end.

So we really cared about our clients. We had a vision that was very much about ambition and growth and how entrepreneurship can drive economies and recruits people and creates employment and disruption and great new ideas. But together with that, and this is now 20 years ago now, my view was very much about this fairness thing that we also not only want to treat our clients differently, but we want to treat our team differently.

[00:07:00] And we didn’t really talk about that in 2007 when we launched as a new business that had been a division for 10 years, but was now on its own. Yep. Because culture wasn’t something that people talked about then. But as the years grew by, and now, you know, with my book, and what I’m doing, culture is very much a word.

And being at the forefront of it, particularly in financial services, where culture was just not great. And I’m trying to champion a culture, and what that meant, and how you bring a culture to life within a business, and how you use it. The culture and your team to really help you super scale, because I was trying to bring it to life, but also change the culture within financial services and make it better, right, that became our real USP and it was only 10 years after the buyout so 20 years after I’d set up a division.

That we really sat back and we were market leader in our market. By this point, we acted for the most companies on the UK stock market. And, you know, we were really leading in technology and life sciences and a lot [00:08:00] of areas. And we were getting quite well known by this point. It was only then that we stepped back and said what’s our real USP?

Is it that we’re great at advising growth companies? Is it great to raise money for them? Is it. We’re great at treating them differently. And all of that was true, but the overriding thing, because our market was also shrinking. So most of our competitors. shrinking, we had taken this top slot, number one position by just taking market share.

And everyone was like, what, why are you doing that? And on that reflection was the only difference between us and everybody else was that not only we had a female CEO, but that was different, but it was that we were the only firm talking about culture and that was our USP. And I think that’s really why I wrote the book in the end, because, I was championing when no one knew what I was talking about.

And then As culture has become such a lever I’ve seen how it works in practice and my leadership style has been about inclusion, about openness, about fairness, [00:09:00] about listening, about really understanding and getting people to be their best selves and trying to champion that you can make as much money as everybody else, which we did.

But you can also do that in a way that you bring your team alongside you. And I think that’s so important in the way that leadership has developed over the time that I’ve been in the business for 25 years, empathetic leadership, I think is. The way that the future is going and the old style of leadership, I’m hoping will be no more because, you know, but people are your main asset in a world of AI that things are moving to automation.

People still need to be there and people need to be valued. And I think that is my style. It came, in lots of ways, but I think that pivotal moment, age 23, when I Left a big business to start my own thing, not knowing I would start my own thing was that little nugget that was in my head thinking this people can have fun at work.

People can be [00:10:00] treated well. You can care about, and therefore they give their best selves. They bring their best selves every day. And that is the way leadership should work. And that’s how we build great businesses. 

Carolyn: it’s such a great example of, following your intuition, and knowing who you are.

That’s what I’m hearing also, Sam, is that you had a pretty strong grounding and belief in yourself to move forward and do those things and then surround yourself with just as brilliant people who are committed to growth. I don’t know if you can take yourself back to that 23 year old self, but like, how did you find such clarity amidst so much uncertainty?

Sam: I think there are a number of ways and I a number of different points in that growth journey where you need different sorts of clarity. So I’d say at the beginning, you know, to be honest, in the first 10 years, I didn’t really know I was a leader. I didn’t really think about being a leader. It was instinct.

It was all, you know, going from just me on my own to my first employee. [00:11:00] To my fifth employee, to my 20th employee, you know, it was very much head down. You’re just instinctively doing what you think’s right. And I was lucky to work in a firm that just gave me sort of free reign to do my thing, you know, as long as I was making money for them.

it was great. So I was like an intrapreneur, you know what I mean? So, you know, now I look back and think, God, that wasn’t that great opportunity, but I did them a great job. Clients loved us. They were making money. My division was, you know, doing better than most others. So they were like, great.

So that was very much instinct. So I never thought about clarity. I just did, I just executed, but I did have a very clear sense of self. And that was, you know, probably the best example is in year one. So bear in mind, I’m 23, I’m a newly qualified accountant. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. It was corporate financing day 101.

It’s like, what, how do I float a company? Well, let’s just get rid of it. It was really learning from basics. And my first deal within the first year was quite a [00:12:00] big fundraising with a big investment bank. And I was the only person on my side. raising the money, doing the documents, running around, not really knowing what I was doing, but you know, doing a decent job.

And then everyone else had bankers, you know, 50, 60 year old guys all white guys in the room. So you’d have 20 people, lawyers, bankers, and then you’d have me. So I generally was the only woman in the room and I was the youngest in the room and everyone had this big team. And even then when I’d sit there, And they would discuss a transaction or, and I just sit there thinking, this is a head of the bank.

And he’s got that wrong. I would actually, I would never argue. I was always very calm. I’d say, I don’t think that’s right And can you imagine in, you know, in those days, 25 years ago, that went down, but I never, ever gave in. And what is so odd is at school, I was the shyest, shyest person at school.

If you read all my reports I would honestly want to retch if a teacher, you know, you think the teacher’s going to ask me [00:13:00] a question. Don’t look at me, don’t look at me. I had no confidence, but I did have an utter belief in what was right. So the confidence piece wasn’t there, but the self belief was. So in this first transaction in the first year I would have, you know, very firm discussions and say, I don’t think you’re right.

And it would keep going. And, you know, you could feel the awkwardness in the room thinking these lawyers are going to go. But I ended up being right. And that happened about two or three times in that transaction. And that really did teach me. And I think it was actually back to one event that happened with a physics teacher back at school.

Well, she sort of taught me that the minority were quite often, right. So don’t just go with the majority. that moment at school. And then this moment at work, it’s like, do you know what? Just because you’re young, just because you’re a woman, just because you’re, you look a certain way or from a certain background, you know, and I didn’t go to public school, so I went to very [00:14:00] normal school.

So I did feel a bit, you know, out of it in terms of background, but you’d think none of those things matter if you’re right. And you know, you’re right. then you should fight for your belief. So I’ve always had a belief system where I think treating people like that is wrong. There’s no, argument about it.

People should just get the job based on opportunity. It isn’t right that you’re not promoted because you’re a woman. It isn’t right that your ethnic background determines your, how you do. It isn’t right that you’re, you know, where you come from and your background. doesn’t lead to you using your talents to the best of your ability and being valued.

So I have those beliefs and I will fight for those beliefs. And as a result, now, you know, 25 years later, my main role is around being the voice of the underrepresented founder. And I want that to be around the globe. So I’m doing much more globally now. So it’s not just UK, because I think it’s really important to fight for the underrepresented groups [00:15:00] because they’re not, you know, part of the system necessarily, the system doesn’t work for them.

And I’ve worked through a system where I have been from a different background, a woman, the first in a lot of places, and I’ve done it because I’ve had this real self belief, but I know a lot of people don’t. So, There’s interesting things to go back and look at. Self belief is so important.

And that, that’s probably come from my family. really believing that you should say what you think. The confidence thing I’ve had to learn over 25 years to be fake it till you make it. But inner belief is something that I think we need to give our kids. Everyone deserves inner belief to fight for what they believe in and be that leader. 

Carolyn: you know, you use the word confidence and hearing your story a different word comes to mind for me because I do hear if somebody is feeling really grounded and clear on their beliefs to me, that is confidence and maybe I’m seeing sort of the opposite in myself.

So I never had a problem being the loudest voice in the room. I [00:16:00] shouldn’t say never rarely. I never minded sharing my opinion, you know, I’d be the first to talk. However, I did not have the same strength or confidence or believe in myself, even though it looked like it. I would be very aware of what I was saying and I didn’t want to upset anyone.

So I just wanted to share that back with you because I hear a ton of confidence. the word I would choose to describe what you just said about Maybe not feeling that I think of the word vulnerability. It’s just that discomfort. But I heard a ton of confidence in there, Sam, and it’s really inspiring to hear at such a young age and the impact that you had and that really just being really connected to who you are and knowing what is right.

Sam: For you. I still don’t quite know how that was me. And, but that has been the driving force behind me. And even now I still see a coach that I have had the same coach 10 years, who’s absolutely phenomenal. And every two weeks we have a chat and this week’s chat was, you have to fight for your [00:17:00] belief system, and it’s still going back to that if you’re fighting for your belief system.

That doesn’t put you on the line. It’s not, you know, you might be right if you’re fighting for what you believe in. And that’s something that I think is really important to reframe. It’s not about you and you being wrong. You can only fight for what you believe in. And what you believe in is what you believe in.

And if someone disagrees, that’s fine. But that I think helps build confidence. If you know what you believe in. Right. Have you seen the movie Inside Out 2? Just with my daughter, yeah. My daughter’s 10 so she absolutely loved it and it was brilliant about the feelings. 

Carolyn: Wasn’t that, so warning, warning, if you have not seen this movie, I’m going to say something that might, it won’t ruin it, but you know that, little I’ll call it a statue, but you know, that piece that would have those like blue and orange lines, and it would be the limiting beliefs or the, like the core beliefs, I thought that was really powerful and how it was built up in such a fragile way.

[00:18:00] When one of the emotions was driving that versus when joy was sort of at the home and how solid those beliefs were. 

Sam: And what’s amazing is, you know, one of my favorite phrases is no one makes you feel inferior without your permission. And I, you know, my early career, I would use that every day, multiple times a day, because you’re in a man’s world.

It’s like, you know, it’s up to me. I don’t feel inferior unless you do. Yeah, I want to feel inferior. So whatever thing to you and attacking you or whatever they’re, you know, trying to say, think, no, it’s my choice to be inferior or not. And that’s a bit similar. It’s like, you know, constantly reminding yourself that I have a belief, but other people can get you to question that.

And I think that’s why it’s so much believing in your gut and what you believe and finding that clarity. And that’s why I spend quite a lot of time now, certainly the strategic end of my career. You are really having to think about how you grow when we got to some serious scale that you find that space for clarity [00:19:00] to really, you know, think no one else is impacting my belief.

Whatever my chairman’s say, my non-execs, you know, some very serious people. You know, the higher you get in your career, the more you sort of think you should listen to other people. And actually that clarity and self-belief, finding it and finding the space for it, I think is so important. And what execs find so difficult.

Carolyn: How do you make time to find that? 

Sam: So I think it’s a number of things. Where I used to find it most was when you didn’t have any Wi Fi on a plane journey. So I’m a great fan of a little notebook. I know it was a Richard Branson thing. He always had his little notebook everywhere and people laugh about total mess because my brain is very much on this neurodiverse spectrum.

So notes are everywhere, but I never not have my notebook and I’d get on a plane and the longer journey, the better. But as soon as there was no Wi Fi, now obviously it’s a nightmare. You can get it. My brain would start going into this ideas place and I think, God, that’s, yeah, I’ll do that actually. I know I need to do that.

I’ve been [00:20:00] mulling that over for weeks. So clarity for me came in, not just sitting there doing nothing, not putting a space in your diary to say, right, I’m going to think about strategy now. It would come in the walking, repetitive walking, and then suddenly thinking. It would come in swimming, you know, lane after lane, and then suddenly thinking.

or being on a plane where you’re thinking about nothing and then suddenly something springs to mind. So I think I’ve worked on over a number of years how I can get space to switch your brain off so that the clarity can come through and too much noise for me, too much doing. doesn’t allow me to achieve that.

And I think as you build the business, you know, once we’ve got to, we’d have three different divisions. We were 50 million turnover. Now we IPO’d on the London stock market. So there are lots of things going on strategically as a CEO role that there weren’t before when I was very much execution. You have to have more and more time, more and more breaks.

I used to think of it [00:21:00] like an, you know, extreme sport, like an athlete that you’d run a hundred meter sprint and that’s your race, but you’ve been training for a year and then you have to have some downtime. So, you know, every time you did something really key or a project or finish something, you give yourself some space.

You take a lot of time out. Yeah. You try to go and do something different. So everyone has their own place. That clarity comes, but I know mine is, it’s sport, it’s being in nature, it’s travel. Anywhere I can go somewhere different and try and shut my brain off, I get the best ideas. To the point where my team would go mental when I go on holiday.

I’d think, yes, I’m going on holiday for a break! And they’d all be going, no! You know, within two days she’s going to be coming up with all these ideas. 

Carolyn: The notebook will be full after the holiday. Yeah, exactly. I love it. it reminds me of question that I’ll ask in some of my workshops when we talk about [00:22:00] I guess, balance.

Well, being that sort of thing is, do you live your life in marathons or do you live your life in sprints? And so often people will say it’s a marathon. And what I just heard you say, and a real key to your success is you live them in sprints. You have time in between. 

Sam: everything’s a sprint all the time.

And if you don’t manage your sprints or in an entrepreneurial life, it is to me, it’s an extreme sport. It’s about sprinting. Sometimes you’ve got to absolutely go for it because the market’s bad, or you need to win clients, or you need to get in this market position or competitors come along or, you know, some other black Swan event.

And then sometimes the market’s great and you’re cruising and You have to manage that energy because you’re giving it your all. And as the CEO, what you say matters, how you present yourself matters, how you act matters. So, you know, you have to be calm, balanced, on good form. I liken it to like the swan.

You know, you have to be the swan on the top of a lake, just looking like nothing’s bothering you, [00:23:00] even though the legs underneath might be going, Oh my! but to everybody else, you’re fine. And if one of those things goes and they watch you panic, that isn’t good. And as a leader I, I try never to do that.

Carolyn: I think we just have a, an option for your next book title is entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is what did you say is an extreme sport. It’s been scored. Yeah. Um, So I don’t 

Sam: know if I’ve got another book in me for a while. 

Carolyn: talking about, you know, this notion of sprinting and, you know, I know you mentioned earlier a little bit about your family.

And so I’m curious in this age that we’re in where the pace to keep up is quite swift and we have lives outside of work how do you nurture this growth mindset while at the same time, ensuring that you and the people you work with. Avoid burnout and maintain a healthy well being. 

Sam: So I think the first thing is that the growth mindset [00:24:00] is embedded in the culture.

for me it’s very different to say, right, we’re going for growth all the time and, we’re going to be stressed and everyone’s going to be busy. that is quite stressful. If you can embed it in the culture that we are a growing company, you know, that, that’s just part of the ethos.

And we are in growth mode all the time that just enables people to constantly think about how to move forward. it automatically becomes slightly less stressful. You know, you’ve got to go somewhere, but it’s got this right, go, go, go. It’s just instilled in. In how you work. So growth can come from many places.

Growth doesn’t have to be right. We’ve got to buy something. We’ve got to enter that market. We’ve got to chase our competition. Growth can be many incremental changes. It can be making processes better. It can be, all your team looking out for where the white space is in the markets. And so it doesn’t have to be a stressful go [00:25:00] go pressure process.

I think if it’s inbuilt in the culture, it’s something that. People know that’s happening. It means that you’re you accept that we are growing. It means you’re constantly giving people the space to think about growth. And that’s really important because that’s it. Growth has to take time you and it doesn’t just come from, like I said, having right I’ve got an hour scheduled today to think about growth.

it’s allocating that job. To have a KPI around how are you thinking about growth? It’s about allocating time to value that space where you’re thinking about growth. It’s about monitoring where ideas are coming from and creating the open culture to allow people to come up with, Oh, I’ve actually thought about that.

And if you look at the good companies and the not so good companies, Where people will say, actually, I had an idea and someone wants to listen to I had an idea and I don’t know where it was going to go, or actually, there’s no point having an idea [00:26:00] because no one’s going to listen anyway. You know that those are extremes of cultures, but if the growth mindset is within the culture, and you give it space and you value it.

Automatically things just happen. So that was how we embedded it. It was just a growth culture. We were always growing. I talked about growth all the time. It was just a thing. Maybe that meant you attracted people who don’t get stressed by that. It was just something that, you know, you can take your foot off the gas if you’re growing because the market’s great.

That’s great. Yeah, but ideas can come anytime, anywhere. If you’re under pressure to grow, that’s really hard to sit in a room and go, right, we’re slowing down to grow. That’s probably the horses bolted by that time, if you see what I mean. right. Well, you know, when that idea comes to you, give you a bit more space, you know, make sure people aren’t getting burnt out and having a break, really watch for that.

And that becomes your culture and have a platform [00:27:00] where people. can come up with ideas and there’s a process whereby you feedback those ideas, you listen to people, you’re heard, and that is very open. They just come all the time from anywhere. And we just found that’s what happened. It wasn’t a stressful way of doing it.

It was a culture of, if you see something that doesn’t work, tell someone. If you see something where you think it could be done better, tell someone. And that’s just part of the job. And if you get credit for that, we would give exceptional bonuses, you know, great ideas. Suddenly someone will get a random check with a letter written by me coming to room and go, look, you’ve done that gone way up above and beyond.

Sometimes a few hundred pounds would mean more than some big bonus because that’s great. So it’s lots of things. It’s tying it in and it’s making sure people have the time, the space, and they’re rewarded in the right way measured on the way they are contributing to growth. Thanks. 

Carolyn: And you, I [00:28:00] get, I’m going to guess that this came from very instinctual.

It was an instinctual approach. Yeah. You know, the piece that I, I really want to highlight in what you said there is, you know, two words, growth and space. that is a missing piece is this space for a lot of people and recognizing it doesn’t have to be chaotic growth does not equate to chaos and pedal to the metal the entire time.

Sam: that is stressful. And that’s usually a management team under pressure, right? Because they haven’t planned out the growth and then puts everyone else under pressure and pressure is not what creates growth pressure creates chaos. bad decision making, stress, mental burnout not good team spirit, if it’s embedded.

Yeah, sometimes ideas will not come. And I explained to a lot of businesses, I’m really doing a lot of them about super scaling. How do you really think big and super scale and getting that mindset? Every business blocks at some level of turnover, and it generally is almost the same in a growth journey.

Might be 1 [00:29:00] million, 2 million, 20 million, 50 million. People block, and you just can’t move out of a level. And our business blocked at 17 million turnover, and we got stuck there for a few years. And you had to work out how to get out of it. So growth isn’t linear. It’s a mindset. It’s a something you can bet in your culture, but sometimes you just can’t grow and nothing’s happening in the markets.

Not with you. You haven’t got any ideas. And that’s okay because, you know, you’re just bumbling on and then something will come and then you carry on again. So it’s a journey. It’s a journey that takes a long time, takes a long time to build a business. that is a marathon that is definitely a marathon.

Carolyn: That one is a marathon. So you talked about business growth and I’m curious if what your own personal growth is. As a leader, as a contributor you know, cause you also said earlier, I didn’t think I was a leader. So that’s why I use the word contributor there. How did your own personal leadership [00:30:00] growth or contributor growth grow alongside the business growth?

did they grow in parallel or, or, 

Sam: yes, I think so. And partly because I do have a tendency to get bored. So, you know, maybe that’s something that goes along with the entrepreneurial gene. We’ve all got a bit of quite extreme ADHD in us, but every two or three years I’d have a plan. We do the plan.

And then I’d always think, well, I don’t want to sit still. I’m never a sit still person. So you’re thinking about the next three years and then the next three years. So partly, things just happened because you want to keep moving forward. So that growth was something that was a trajectory. I was just going to keep going on.

So every time I reached a new point, it was a new challenge. And what I do is, almost learn again, the leadership skills around that challenge. So the first stage is how you recruit your first employee, which, you know, you go back, it’s a long time ago for me, but you know, [00:31:00] startup businesses know that the biggest decision you ever make in the whole journey is when you recruit that second person.

And it feels horrendous at the time. And it’s a massive decision because suddenly you’re managing another person. You’ve got to support them. And the responsibility is huge. So thinking about how I’m going to work with that person, that’s one thing and how I would do it. Every stage was almost the same. I think about the challenge.

I’d read a huge amount. I churned through business books like nobody’s business. if I could get one nugget, out of every book, I think that was an amazing result. So I only ever expect one nugget. I’d read so many books, you know, listen to podcasts and all those sorts of things and think, okay, I’ve learned that I’ve got that.

Then I’d also speak to a lot of other CEOs. And that’s where My learning became really good and I absolutely love spending time with entrepreneurs now I learn something every single time and I will learn more than one thing out of every chat with an entrepreneur whereas a book I might learn [00:32:00] one.

Books, other entrepreneurs at the stage above you in the journey and at the same stage. That’s really important. And then the third thing I think was having the right coach at the right stage. So I think, you know, the qualities around what makes a good CEO and a good leader, I think are the fundamental ones around self awareness and wanting to push yourself out that comfort zone because if you don’t want to do that, if you don’t want to read, learn, listen to someone, you know, you learn as much from someone doing it wrong, but doing it right, because you think, God, I don’t want to do it like that.

But that’s a learning. If you’re constantly thinking, okay, I’m not so good at that. So I’ll learn that. I’ll see how someone else does it. I’ll bring in help. My different coaches at different stages help me, do different things. Some of them make you learn a lot about yourself. And you go quite deep into some of your belief systems into why you can’t.

Well, you’re struggling with a certain thing. So you have to develop the person. Some of it [00:33:00] is about the physical, you know, how do I acquire a business? How do I look at your diligence? How do I learn from referencing or mistakes or how did other people do it? How do I integrate an acquisition and create that culture with a new business?

Now that’s all things you can just learn by practice, experience, talking to other people. But the coaches. I have been my probably fundamental theme throughout, because they’ve developed my own personal style because you know there is no book to teach you how to be a CEO and a leader. There isn’t a book, there isn’t a manual.

It’s a on the job, on the go. thing. It’s, you can learn only by experience. And so I think everything else is a tool, but what the tools are doing is helping you find your own style. And I think for me, when I became a, what I thought was a good leader and I probably always was a fairly good leader in terms of how it sounds like it, you know, that was my thing.

But when I actually felt like, you know, I really think I’m doing this [00:34:00] well now was when. I really became my authentic self. And that was probably around age 35. So. You know, I think I was doing a good job, but where I really started to excel, I think, and when our business really started to super scale was where I felt most authentic.

And then, you know, you build trust you talk in a way where you believe the vision so hard, you know, you’re being absolutely, you people can relate to that. Now you’re that authenticity, I think is so, so important. And for me, that was a journey because And what I was saying is at the beginning, I didn’t have a lot of confidence.

So I had the self belief, but I had to work on the confidence. I was the only woman, you know, to set up an investment bank at a stockbroker in the city of London. You know, there were no other women in my sector. So you’re sort of thinking, should I do it like the guys? Should I actually do it my own way?

So that was quite hard, you know, having to power [00:35:00] on thinking up, well, I don’t want to do it like that. So do it like this. Is it right? So authenticity takes time, but I think that’s where coaches can really help you understand who you are and whoever you are is what makes you the leader that will be the best leader for that business.

And that’s why I try and say to particularly women now, it’s, we need empathetic leadership, but we just need leaders to be authentic. Right. And if they are authentic, It will work because if you’re not a nice person, people won’t work for you. And if you are a great person, people just want to be around people who, do what they say what they think, you know, it’s fairly basic, isn’t it?

At the end of the 

Carolyn: day. It is. Yeah. I mean, I think we’ve touched on so many, like just really important elements of leadership but you’ve distilled it so nicely in this last, sort of this last bit, which is getting to know yourself and you can’t. You can’t do that fully on your own, right? We’re [00:36:00] relational.

And so having a coach can help having great people to work with can help as well as I can’t believe how fast the time has gone uh, this conversation. Um, Before we, we, before we wrap up and go to the, our evolved questions at the end, I’m curious if there’s anything that we haven’t touched on that we haven’t touched on that.

Is you think really important for leaders to hear now that are going to, it’s going to help them through the very difficult business conditions that people are trying to work through. Any last bits of advice that we haven’t touched upon? 

Sam: I think the only other thing sort of to add to the things I’ve said so far is this, the imposter syndrome and the really trusting your gut.

And I think particularly as you grow a business. Some business practices are still fairly cut through, still fairly difficult. You can be made to feel like you’re going off track. And sometimes, in my career, it’s been the really successful people that say you should do it a certain way or [00:37:00] you listen to and you think, Okay, because they’re so successful, I should.

But you’ve then stopped listening to your gut. And because you have this bit of imposter thing, thinking, okay, well, they’re great. Well, you know, okay, I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s always where I’ve gone wrong. And when I’ve gone back to trusting my gut, listening to other people,  that’s what got them to there, but that’s not what’s going to get you to there.

Going back to that, why do I feel a bit imposter? you’ve got to feel that you should be there and you’ve got to trust your gut. And when I reverted to that, I haven’t made mistakes. or if I’ve made mistakes, I’ve been able to rectify them where I’ve gone off piste. and started to let someone else affect my gut instinct, which has happened a fair bit.

Yep. That has been a mistake. 

Carolyn: You know, I can’t, it’s so, ironic that you bring that up because my newsletter that’s about to go out in 10 minutes, the topic for this week is imposter syndrome and how it’s not [00:38:00] You, the individual that’s the imposter, it’s the environment around you, and really sort of a call to people to say, like, we need to reexamine that statement.

Like when you say that, who’s the real imposter? Because it’s not you, if you really belong and believe in yourself. And I think so many of us are trying hard to fit in, myself included, for so many years, that it’s easy to label imposter. 

Sam: Yeah, because you’re trying to, you know, the whole thing about imposter is you can’t be you.

Right. And if we were happy with being us and we fight for our belief system, that can never be wrong. Exactly. You’re in the wrong job and you’re in the, or you’re in the wrong sector, or you’re, you shouldn’t be a leader, but you know, you can’t go wrong if you fight for your belief and you are authentic, you know, you will then find the right place.

Carolyn: Sam I’m really so grateful that you were able to come on the show where could our listeners find out more about you or connect with you? 

Sam: So I’m on LinkedIn. I write a lot on [00:39:00] LinkedIn about my favorite subjects around entrepreneurship, inclusion, inclusive culture, business for good, all of that sort of thing.

So I’m just Sam Smith entrepreneur on LinkedIn. And then I have my book, The Secret Source, which is on Amazon. So you can read about my journey over 25 years, how, why I think empathetic leadership is so important, how I think you can use that to scale your business. And my email is in that book.

Carolyn: Wonderful. Wonderful. Now, before we let you go, Sam I’ve got three questions. Are you game for the three of all the questions? Of course. All right. All right. Well, the first one has to do with self awareness, and I know we talked a lot about that. I’m curious if there is an anecdote or a little story, something that you could share with the listeners to really demonstrate how your self awareness went from here to here.

Sam: the moment that I remember, And given you know, I always think I’ve had quite good EQ. So I’m always thinking about people and I’ve loved psychology of people and I’ve really used that as a way to motivate and make people feel [00:40:00] good at work and therefore drive growth. But there was a moment and I can’t have been much more than 30.

And I was in my bedroom, and I think I was ready to go to bed, in bed, reading my, one of my business books, as I do, I have a lot of money on the bedside all at one time, and I’ve just finished this one book, and my one nugget from this book, again, my little one nugget was, a real defining moment saying, Oh, even though I think I’m really good at this empathy EQ listening to people, what hadn’t quite clocked was, When I’m talking to someone, I’m still thinking they’re going to react as I would react.

And this book got me to think. Everyone is so different. They’ve got different ways of thinking, you know, different spectrums of neurodiversity and being totally, you know, neurotypical. They’ve got different ways of thinking that, you know, you’ve got the introvert, you’ve got so many different personality traits.

Every, everyone is an individual. So if you [00:41:00] treat someone like an individual. The work to be done is to find out what makes them tick, how they think, how they’re gonna react to a situation, and actually your, how you would react to a situation is utterly irrelevant. It’s doing the work to find out how they are going to react, what motivates them, what makes them tick.

And that was a real defining moment because It really started to make me think, okay, this, I think I’ve been doing a good job, but really doing a good job is spending the time to work out. If I had to do a little mind map of every individual, every single member of the team is different. And therefore I communicate with every single one differently.

And when I’ve done that, then I will have the team that fire on the most cylinders. 

Carolyn: And I’m going to guess, Sam, that partnered with your instinct did you keep like a little notebook about everybody to know, or did you, you did? Well, no. I mean, I [00:42:00] guess 

Sam: you kind of went a little instinctual.

Partly, yes, because you’re, you know, it’s all going in your head, but it’s like, right, okay, that person I need to. Praise a lot, because they, you know, that person will respond to that sort of conversation, that person wants, that person is going to be upset if they don’t understand what’s going on, so have to spend a bit more time.

Everyone is a, I think it’s more the concept of you’re an individual, and you just spend the time getting to know someone, and not when you’re talking to them. Assuming how they might react to a certain situation, which even though I thought I was self aware, I was still working on that’s how I would think.

So, you know, it’s really just understanding different personality types and recognizing you are only one of many thousands. 

. So second question has to do with rituals or routines that you have that help you stay in that calm.

Carolyn: You talked about that [00:43:00] earlier, the importance of being calm. What things do you do to help you be in that state? 

Sam: So it’s a constantness. I think I try and keep myself to a point that my mind is not getting too busy. And for me, that is a lot of, it’s exercise, it’s sport, it’s doing things. You know, I love to cook actually.

For me, it’s things that my brain can just think solely about what I’m doing. So I play tennis. That is great because all I can think about is hitting the ball, you know, in the right place when I’m cooking. I’m thinking about exactly what I’m doing and I don’t think about work. And that’s when I get my clarity.

So I still spend the time. My main personally is finding things where I can be fully absorbed in something else. Cause I, my brain will go to work very easily. I have to force it not to. 

Carolyn: I also heard you earlier say you take lots of breaks in your day. Did I hear that correctly? 

Sam: In the day, but also more importantly, cause I can work, you know, [00:44:00] particularly in corporate finance and investment banking.

There were times when you know, when I did the buyout, I worked for seven days, didn’t sleep. Yeah. But at the end of that, then you take the break. So regular proper breaks of a full on day weekend, whatever to myself, I have a lot of time on my day. So whether it’s going abroad, I schedule a lot of trips.

So every six weeks I’d go and do something. So if I’ve always got something scheduled, I always make sure I’ve got that release. Right. That you’re not. Feeling too overscheduled. 

Carolyn: Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Now last question. A song or genre of music that’s not necessarily your favorite song, but a song that makes you feel connected to something just bigger than yourself and belonging to something bigger than yourself.

Sam: this one was a tricky one because my favorite song is I Want You Back, Jackson 5, which you know, but it’s nothing to do with, I just love it. But if I’m thinking about connection, the one [00:45:00] song that I feel very connected to and it makes me think very deeply is Jamie Mitchell’s Both Sides Now.

And I, I don’t know why, but I listen to that. Sometimes I get on my Peloton and I turn the Peloton lady off. And I just play both sides now and repeat really loudly and sing it because it’s such a clever, you know, she was probably the first artist who really wrote about almost like the early Taylor Swift, you know, feelings and thoughts.

The way she talks about two sides of things and the difference ways you can look at. a situation. It’s still now. I mean, I love the song and I love it, but I think that is, it makes me think very deeply every time I think of that song and I feel very connected to a world that I love, which is entrepreneurship, deep thinking, you know, thinking about how you can make the world better, thinking about how you can drive and [00:46:00] motivate people that I just love that, she drives you to think more and be open minded.

Carolyn: She’s a brilliant songwriter, isn’t she? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. 

Sam: It’s one of the best. 

Carolyn: Shout out to Joni Mitchell. Yes, for sure. 

Sam: Yeah. 

Carolyn: Well, Sam, thank you so much. I hope folks connect with you purchase your book. It’s been a real pleasure having you on the show and hearing about this tremendous journey and I’m going to guess there’s more to come from you.

There’s more to come. I’ve only just got started. I’m calling it. I was 

Sam: 50 a few weeks ago and it’s my midlife restart. So there you go. Thank you, Carolyn.

Carolyn: Wow. That was such a fabulous conversation with Sam. it’s incredible to hear her story and I’m really struck by her conviction and I know she didn’t use the word confidence, that’s a word that really stuck out to me was the confidence in herself and her belief system at such a young age and how she used that to guide her through, the rest of her career up until this point, I think that’s what I’m taking most from this [00:47:00] conversation is really getting clear on what makes you.

And avoiding the urge, if you have it, to let others define that for you. Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode. Please like and subscribe. It would mean a lot to us here on the show. And Feel free to check out my own website, carolynswora.com imposter syndrome is just one of many topics that I explore in my weekly newsletter, where I share really helpful and relevant and practical tips to help you be the best leader we know you can be.

Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you again soon.