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Salesforce Career Conversations #10: Helle Justesen
Episode 10: Helle Justensen talks to Lee and Theresa about Salesforce Change Management and Digital Transformation. Plus provides her tips for remaining positive during a pandemic.
[This interview with Helle has been transcribed for your benefit. Please ignore any rogue typos. Thank You.]
Lee Durrant: Hi, and welcome to RODcast with me Lee Durrant, joined today with Theresa as well. We’re both going to be interviewing Helle Justesen today, who is in the Salesforce ecosystem, but this one’s more about her experience as a transformational change specialist and a business and life coach and how she sees the future after COVID-19 and all of the lockdown issues we’ve been all going through. Well, this has been recorded in the middle of lockdown, but I think hopefully you’ll all see some positive messages there from Helle about how life might change, but also how the Salesforce ecosystem will potentially thrive in the future, so I hope you enjoy it.
Lee: Hi, Helle. Welcome to the podcast. How are you?
Helle Justesen: I’m fine. Thank you. How are you?
Lee: I’m okay. Theresa is with us as well as you know.
Theresa: Hello.
Helle: Hi. Theresa, how are you?
Theresa: I’m good. Thank you very much. I’m looking forward to this day when – I don’t want to use the word normal – but looking forward to the day when we can actually be a lot more social with people and not feel like you got to keep your closest people at arm’s distance. Looking forward to those times. [chuckles]
Lee: Before we dive into it, are you okay just to give us a little introduction of yourself in terms of… Just introduce yourself if that’s okay.
Helle: Yes, [laughs] of course. My name is Helle, Helle Justesen, and I am 43 years old. I want to put that in there because I’m proud of my age. I’m still alive, so that’s good.
[laughter]
Helle: I have a feeling that we don’t celebrate the fact that we get to get older enough. That’s one of the things that…
Theresa: Yes, I love that, and it’s the wisdom that comes with it. Why not shout about it? Absolutely.
Helle: Yes, exactly, and the fact that you get another year to do the crazy things that you want to do. I’m a transformation change specialist with a background in a bit of management consultancy, and I’ve worked in a multitude of different industries and things like that. The thing is there’s always these similarities between each industry and everybody thinks that they’re unique, but to be fair, we’re really not. [laughs] We’re all creatures of habits. That’s one of the things that you can always take with you when you’re on your life journey and things like that.
I’m very much a holistic person as well. I see us as living a life not necessarily having a career. I think sometimes that when people face a crisis and a crisis can be losing a job, which a lot of people are in that situation right now, or going through a divorce, which also a lot of people are facing right now.
[laughter]
Helle: Because of being at home with the family and things are coming out right now as well.
Lee: Theresa’s laughing quite heartily at that one. It’s a bit worrying.
Theresa: [laughs] You’re so worried.
Helle: The thing is, with that, it’s instead of seeing it as a tearful goodbye to something, then seeing it as an opportunity to actually go out and do the things that you’ve always dreamed about doing. Sometimes a crisis needs to happen for us to actually wake up and change what we’re doing. It’s the same thing with illness as well. It’s like if you’ve gone down a road where you’ve been living an unhealthy lifestyle, then something needs to wake you up for you to actually alter that lifestyle or else we go through life mindless.
It’s not really a conscious road that we’re taking. We’re not conscious of the present moment. We either dwell on the past and it’s never a good thing about the past. It’s never the good things about the past that we dwell on, it’s always the hard things, and/or we focus on a better future. We never just appreciate where we are. I think one of those things is what we need to start working on a little bit more.
Theresa: You’re right. I know we come from similar coaching backgrounds and I think that there are people that you know when you need to make a massive change because there will be some form of an intervention. You can either choose to do that intervention yourself, so you either make a decision to change the things about your life that you’re not happy with, or it’s forced upon you that you. I prefer to be in the control.
As I said, I know it’s being in control of those changes, but they’re often very good things. It’s only when you look back through hindsight, that you suddenly go actually that if that thing hadn’t have happened, I would have still been going down that same path and that wouldn’t have been healthy. It wouldn’t have been good. Yes, totally agree where you’re coming from on that one.
Lee: Actually for people listening, I should point out that both Helle and Theresa are coaches to various different degrees. Is that right Helle? I know Theresa’s a coach. You are as well, aren’t you? As well as everything else you do.
Helle: Well, for me, it’s both life coaching and things like that, but my background in coaching is an Agile coach as well, where it’s in the corporate space of things but I’m also a neuro coach which is based on neuroscience and things like that. I look at fear elements and motivation elements and things. That’s just a protocol that you can use in any type of coaching. You don’t need to be something particular to actually be able to use that.
Lee: Just a tiny scene, a little bit with obviously the history of this podcast, you are in the Salesforce space so that people can find you on LinkedIn and everything like that.
Helle: [laughs] Yes.
Lee: What I like about you as well amongst other things is that you’re not all about is the Salesforce. Part of your digital transformation and change management, Salesforce is a part of that. It’s not the only–
Helle: Yes, it is.
Lee: Do you mind telling us a bit about that? I know there’ll be some people listening as well that perhaps wonder, what is change management? What is transformational change management?
Helle: Well, the scary part is that a lot of people go out and buy new CRM systems as Salesforce is and implement that in an organisation and they think, “We’re just changing a tool,” but, in fact, you’re changing the way that you’re working. If you have an old legacy system, then Salesforce is this golden new goose that you’re getting in, but you can’t approach Salesforce with an old mindset. You have to change your mindset as well in terms of how to utilize that CRM to the best abilities of it. You’re not just changing an IT system, you’re changing the way you work.
For a Salesforce project to reap the best rewards and utilize the benefits that you’re trying to achieve with the business plan you’ve set up originally, you really need to change more than just a system. That’s where the mindset of the likes of me come in. I will come into a project, not as a change manager, but as a program manager. I take on the more strategic elements of it, but because of my background in coaching and change and everything like that, that means I can reach further than just delivering a program. In short, that’s what I do.
Lee: Yes, brilliant. I think we had a message back and forth about how that can be different, or how in the Salesforce world there are some companies that perhaps just want to deliver a piece of Salesforce kit and then off they go. How does that differ for you then in terms of what you do around that, that makes sure that the users are happy with it and the business?
Helle: Usually, the thing is that you need to be prepared for getting a new system. That means that you have to look with some critical eyes on how you’re doing your business now, and also what it is that you’re wanting to achieve in the future. All businesses have a strategy that they’re trying to achieve in a yearly business plan, and a Salesforce implementation fit right into that. Part of the reason why people are getting Salesforce is to achieve that business plan.
It may be that they want to have more customers or they want to reduce their cost of sales or whatever it may be. That’s the reason why they’re thinking, “I need a new CRM system”, or it may just be a risk factor that the old system is not compliant with GDPR or something like that. There is a reason that you’re making this investment. It needs to fit into that plan.
A lot of people just see it as an IT project and it isn’t an IT project, it’s a business project. You can look at a CRM system and say, so the technical part of it is an IT domain but the data that goes into the system is a business domain. Also, the business processes that you are mimicking in the system is owned by the business, not by IT. That’s why these two needs to, you need to work hand-in-hand on this. You’re not operating in a vacuum.
Sometimes, businesses are set up in the old way where it’s silo-based and wherein the old days you can just have the database was run by IT and that’s it and nobody actually knew what was going on there. You would have this a little bit of animosity between business and IT because IT would go, well, business will ask for something and IT would go like, “Oh my God but I can’t– That’s a major configuration we need to do to the system to comply with what you’re asking.” When they say that to the business, they don’t understand that. You have two people, two sides of the business that are speaking different languages.
This is again, where we come in and try to make this conversation go better and making sure that the business gets what they need so they can measure the inputs and outputs of the wonderful things that they’re doing to grow their business and everything like that. Also, making sure that they’re not asking ridiculous demands of IT to live up to that because that’s the other side of that as well where IT is pulling your hair up. Sometimes they’ve divested in IT. They haven’t invested enough in the education and everything like that in IT because hey, these guys are sitting there in a basement somewhere sometimes.
That’s the other side of it and what we’re trying to do is go in and be that voice where we get people to look at this from a new perspective. That’s where it starts, really and after that, when going through the implementation and everything like that, there’s a huge communication piece and getting everybody motivated to chime in and give feedback and things like that. In itself, Salesforce is a wonderful system, but it still needs to be adapted to the business that it’s in. The better it’s adapted to the business, the more wonderful things you get out of it so that you can do what you really need to do to achieve the benefits. That’s it.
Theresa: It’s quite interesting. Many years back, and I’m of a similar age to you. Back when I was about 20, I think, I remember working in a property management company and they decided they wanted to get this new CRM system. The one that we had was very antiquated. You could barely do anything and if you press the wrong button, you suddenly deleted so much data.
[laughter]
Theresa: Of course, the IT department that basically set up this new system and that sounded fantastic but there was such a gap between how people wanted to use the system and what IT or the people that were suggesting should be implemented within the business. There was so much pushback. We’re probably talking about six months of people just refusing to use a new IT system because they didn’t understand how it worked or what benefit it would have to them.
Back then I knew nothing about computer systems and CRM systems and when I started in that job, I barely knew how to turn a PC on. We are talking a long time ago. I got curious and I think that’s just my nature. I want to understand how things work and I put myself forward really to just go and sit with the IT department and say, pick my brains, understand what I want to be able to do on the system. It did help because eventually they got me doing configuration and things like that.
Often there is the people that using it understanding what the business needs and then the IT department, they’re so separate in their way of thinking. I can totally understand where you’re coming from. It’s important to come in and just actually look at that whole thing holistically so you can pull it together and I think once people then start to see actually how’s it going to impact them and make their lives easier, they all were on board with it. Therefore that fear of, oh, we’ve got a new system, we’ve got change happening, takes care of itself. It’s interesting, isn’t it?
Lee: I know you’ve worked- like I said earlier- in so many different industries. I imagine it’s everywhere. Every company is different. Some have great relationships within the IT department, the sales department. Let’s say and some have none. Do you have any tips because I suppose at the moment, so many companies, ours included have been forced into making so many changes because of the virus? Maybe tips in terms of the mentality of it and being forced past it to do these transformational changes. Any tips or any guidelines for people that are going through this at the moment?
Helle: Well, I think, to be honest, a lot of from what I can see as well is that a lot of organizations are actually making great progress just in themselves because they basically have to. What I would say is not to look at this as after this is over, we’re just going back to where we were. I think this is a golden opportunity to look at how can we create workplaces that accommodate people’s lifestyles. That the flexibility that is given by being able to work from home and everything like that actually continues because a lot of people have children, a lot of people have pets and things like that.
Most of us spend two to three hours a day in commute to go to any type of office anywhere and those hours can be spent on other things like getting into shape, which will benefit your work as well. I think a lot of people have this thing that they have this work and their life as separate but it isn’t because what is reflected in one area of your life is reflected in another area. If you don’t have time to exercise and eat right, then that will also affect your productivity and your stress levels and other things like that.
What I’m hoping is that people will embrace this and say, well, some people enjoy commutes and it’s great if you can have a seat and you can read while you’re doing it or something like that but most of us experienced cramp trains and things like that. If we can be a little bit more flexible, then I think everybody will come out of this, a tad more happy and I think that’s needed, to be honest.
Theresa: Absolutely. We’ve, obviously, always had an office and we’ve all been working from home where we can since March and there are a couple of ladies that we talked to and they’ve used that commuting time to actually go out and do their run because they know there’s going to be somebody in the house taking care of the children that give them quality time for themselves to make them feel better about themselves.
We’ve already noticed that lifestyle and even we have probably, we’re less stressed as business owners than we’ve ever been and it’s a stressful situation but actually our ability to handle this what we commonly know now is unprecedented times– I’m a little bit sick of that title now. In what is quite a stressful time, we’ve noticed that we’re less stressed because of the better work-life balance that we have. Even though you could argue, well, sometimes you can’t separate work from home, you’re right. Actually, all of those areas of your life complement one another, anyway. Why would you want to separate them?
Helle: No. I think it’s a little bit naive to think that if you’re going through something, let’s say it’s a divorce or something like that, that it wouldn’t affect your work because, of course, it would. It’s an emotional distress that you’re going through and everything like that. Everything does. It’s the same thing with your health. If you’re having kidney problems or something like that, that you’re going to bring that to work. The kidneys don’t stay home. I think sometimes it’s really looking into that flexibility because, again, people so maybe more productive at other hours of the day, than from 8:00 to 5:00 or something like that that’s set up.
I think that the thing about work is that if you think about it, we’re linked to the manufacturing hours of from a hundred years ago or something like that because, hey, that’s when the machines were running. You have to be by the machines. With the way that life is and with technology today and stuff like that, it doesn’t necessarily need to be that way. I get that if you’re a manager, it becomes hard to micromanage. If you have people working different hours or splitting their hours throughout the day or whatever that might look like, but then again, you shouldn’t have to micromanage because then you’re not being a proper manager.
That’s the other thing around it. It’s like you can look at what is it that a person has agreed with to deliver and are they delivering it? That should be your measure of productivity, to be honest. Not whether or not they’re stuck with a computer. Some people might work faster than others. Some may need to take some time and things like that. It’s also because our work is so linked to our minds. We have to deliver creativity in terms of what it is that we do, but you can’t force creativity by sitting in front of a computer eight hours straight. Our mind is just not built for that. You need to have breaks.
For instance, when you daydream, that’s when you’re the brain goes into problem-solving mode because you’re no longer focused. Your brain is now taking a break. Well, it’s your frontal lobe that’s taking a break. That’s where you make decisions and that’s where you focus, but then the rest of the brain takes over and you go into sort of a daydreaming like state, and this is where creative problem-solving happens. As you hear a lot of people saying, “Oh, I got this idea while I was in the shower.” Right?
[laughter]
Helle: That ability is really when you’re in a situation of, I am now in my creative problem-solving mode because I’m daydreaming now. It’s not that you leave things away because you’re daydream, you’re not cheating. Actually right now, this is where some of the most creativity and the best way of solving an issue actually emerges. You have to let yourself do that.
Lee: We’re finding that with obviously, being forced to work from home, which we’re not really liking, going for walks every day, it’s been the highlight for a lot of people. I imagine in this, the lockdown period, going for a nice walk, don’t necessarily talk to each other because we live together and we work together. You are having that daydream state, aren’t you? While you’re going around the block or whatever you’re doing and it seems how you come back from those walks with some fresh ideas or certainly, renewed energy to get some work done.
That’s something we’re enjoying. I’m never used to do that in the office. You would sit at your desk and apart from making, let’s say you’re going to the toilet, that would be, you wouldn’t move. I’m hoping a lot of other companies are going to feel about that as well.
Helle: Absolutely.
Lee: Do you know [inaudible 00:23:02] it’s the search for talent and the fact that if companies aren’t so focused on having everybody in an office every single minute of the working day, they’re actually opening themselves up to a wider talent pool, in [inaudible 00:23:24] as we’re thinking about, because rather than just searching for the nearest person, you can search for the best person for the job. How do you feel about that way of looking at things?
Helle: No, I think that’s again creative thinking right there. It might not be revolutionary or anything like that, but it’s part of this thing where it’s like, yes, you go for the best person for the job as opposed to the nearest person or that they fit into a certain box of things. As you were saying that, I was just thinking about most of us. If you’ve ever gone to high school or college and university and things like that, a lot of times when we’re working on papers, we will sometimes be working in the evening. We’ll, be working at different times of the day so we wouldn’t be working in that eight to five type of structure anyway, and the end result is that whatever research that’s coming out of that.
Sometimes it’s about looking at things from that perspective and saying, what is it, how do you get the best results? How do you get the best productivity as opposed to does it have to be in a time box setting like that?
Theresa: Yes.
Lee: That’s the tip. A very good tip then for business owners that are probably having this work from home thrust upon them and not being used to it. Maybe, don’t rush back to having everyone in the office all the time. Like you say, tips for those bosses that are used to seeing bodies sitting at desks, and they’re not seeing that anymore. It’s more about delivery, not presenteeism. Would you agree with that?
Helle: Yes, absolutely. One of the things, in the company I worked for, that we’re seeing as well, is that because it’s quite international, some people have gone home to stay with their parents during this pandemic are then working out of a home that’s not in the UK, but somewhere else in Europe or in the US or whatever it is, and that’s given them an opportunity to kind of go home and spend some time with loved ones as well.
That doesn’t mean that they have to take the time off for it. That you have that flexibility as well, that it doesn’t really matter, do I have to sit in Chislehurst, or can I go back to staying a week with my parents in Denmark, for instance. I would be doing the same amount of work and everything like that, but at the same time, I would also enjoy the company of my family.
Again, and it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t even have to be across borders it could just be that you have old parents up in Manchester or something like that and they need a little bit of help during this time, but that doesn’t mean you have to take the time off to do that.
Theresa: Exactly. There’s also another aspect to that as well is that in those situations, if you’ve got elderly parents and you can’t be with them because you’re in a different location, your mind is taken up with feeling guilty because you’re not having the opportunity to be with the people that you care the most about. That’s probably going to push your productivity down anyway, because your mind is constantly elsewhere concerned, worried, feeling guilty about that. Now, you’re totally right there. I think it doesn’t matter where you are if you can deliver the work, does it matter if it’s a different time zone? As long as the delivery piece or when you need to be online, you can be online. You’re going to be happier and productive because you’re right where you need to be at that moment in time.
Helle: Of course, you would have that, if it’s a UK company, that the UK timeline it’s the one. So if someone invites you to a meeting at 10:00 AM, of course, you can be there. It’s not that. It’s not about just letting everything go. It’s about being an adult and using the flexibility and things like that with responsibility and this is what you would expect from people. That’s when you hire a person, you expect them to be able to do their job. You don’t have to be chained to a desk to do that but you have the responsibility to deliver. It’s really within those realms.
We have a saying in Denmark, it’s called freedom under responsibility, which means you can, basically do– It’s not that you don’t have to chime into the office or anything like that. The boss won’t be standing over your head going like, “Oh, so have you done that yet?” Things like that. It’s not like that.
Theresa: No, I like that. It’s a good quote.
Lee: I know a word that you didn’t like or a phrase, so it was “new normal”. I’m going to mention it because I want to get your response to that because somebody could have been saying, “What’s the new normal going to be?” I’ll ask you that question, even though I appreciate you’re not a fan of the terminology. What do you think on that?
Helle: Well, I would argue that there’s never really been a normal, I don’t think that we have a normal. I think we just have norms and things always change. One thing that’s certain of things of life, is that we’re always in flux. It’s just that the changes are so small at times, so we don’t notice them. It’s the same thing with getting older. It’s like, “I’m not staying 24 forever. Right?”
Theresa: But really, can’t we do that?
[laughter]
Helle: It’s such a shame. When people talk about normal, they’re implying a static way of living, and nothing’s static. The reason I use age as an example is that everybody would look at me a bit silly if I was like, “No, I’m going to stay at 24 forever.” It’s like, “Yes, but that’s not life.” You don’t have that static thing around everything else that we do, work and all of that.
You may be in a company for five years, but after five years that changed, or you find there is another opportunity that comes your way or whatever that might happen in your life, that means that things have to change. I don’t necessarily think that we have norms, and the norms used to be that everybody would go on a crowded train to an office and be a little bit cranky because someone had eaten garlic the day before and you’re standing right in the smell of that. Then you come in and everybody else is a little bit cranky. It’s like, “Good morning to you, guys.” Then they’re supposed to start a day. If that’s the norm, I think I would want to pass on that one. [laughs]
Lee: Yes. I know what you mean.
Theresa: It’s just little mini habits as well, aren’t they? Often what we consider to be normal are just the habits that we’d rather have set for us or we’ve set them ourselves based on what we perceive to be the norm. Life’s forever changing. You just have to ebb and flow with it really. Otherwise, you’re just going to feel frustrated all the time.
Helle: If you see yourself as a couple as well, what you do Theresa and you think is the norm in your habits is not what Lee does.
Theresa: Exactly.
Helle: If he had to conform 100% to your habits, he wouldn’t like that, right? [chuckles]
Theresa: They call that compromise in marriage, I think.
Helle: Yes, exactly.
[laughter]
Lee: [unintelligible 00:31:21]. That’s a very good point. On a personal level, how are you finding it? Because I know you like your challenges, don’t you? In terms of walks and all that. When you’re planning to– Was it Kilimanjaro you’re going to do this year?
Helle: Yes. The trip for Kilimanjaro is still set to go in September. I had a trip planned for May that was postponed where I was going to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco to climb Mount Toubkal. Now, that’s in October. My trips are now like pearls on spring as they come back. If everything goes to plan, then September, I’ll be hopefully summiting Kilimanjaro on my 44th birthday. That should be very good.
Theresa: Amazing.
Helle: Then the month after that, I’m going to the Atlas Mountains. I just booked that over Christmas. I’m actually going to spend that in Jordan. We’re looking at whether or not Israel is going to open up as well because we were thinking about meeting a friend of mine to spend Christmas in Bethlehem and then do a trek of Jordan after that over the Christmas holidays. Those are the three adventures I have planned if COVID doesn’t get in the way of that. [laughs]
Theresa: Well, let’s hope that it doesn’t. It sounds like they’ll be amazing experiences.
Lee: Are these just for fun or are you raising money for anything?
Helle: No, these are for fun. This is not a charity event or anything like that. This is a challenge for me personally.
Lee: Good for you.
Helle: That’s it.
Theresa: I’m looking forward to those days. [chuckles]
Lee: I don’t think we’re quite as crazy as you. We do some UK-related challenges and stuff like that, but Theresa has an injury at the moment so we’re waiting for that to be sorted out, and then we can. I’ve written down some of the things you’re doing. Maybe one day we’ll end up following your footsteps. That sounds great. I hope we get to do those things. Did you have any other comments on either the current climate and how it’s affecting the Salesforce world? I would imagine that Salesfoce would come out at least quite well maybe because of the digital transformation’s going on and Salesforce is such a big part of that.
Helle: To be honest, if we look a little bit at the future, I think what they’ll find is that when things are a little bit more stabilized and people or companies have their clients coming back, and when they look in investments, I think a lot more clients will be looking into upgrading their CRM systems and everything like that because it makes it easier to work from home and to be more flexible.
I actually think that what they’re going to see is there’s just going to be a lot of work to do after coming out of this. People might be hesitating right now and delivering on the projects that they’re currently doing and everything like that, but I think definitely going forward, there’s going to be more of that. It’s completely obvious, isn’t it, that you need to have your data in place and you need to be able to access that data from anywhere in the world. You need new systems for that.
Theresa: Absolutely. I suppose we’re one of the fortunate companies because the space we work in, we were already set up. Pretty much within hours, we could just say right now, “Everybody works from home,” but there are so many businesses out there that have struggled and similar businesses that were in, the block that we’re working in, they’ve had to go into the office throughout this entire period.
You can see that anxiety on their faces when you speak to people because as much as they want to be, they’re doing their job, they equally don’t want to be there because of the fear of taking the virus back home to their families. I think there are going to be, like you say, so many businesses out there that they don’t want to be put in this position again so they’re going to have to make that change.
Lee: That’s a positive message from the people out there who are unfortunately in between home checks or have made redundant in the sales force space is that we think we should get busy again and those skill sets will be needed.
Helle: Absolutely. If it was me, I would look at this opportunity to up-skill on different things that are of interest. Whether it’s Salesforce certifications or it might be change management type of capabilities as well. Look into anything that you may find you’re curious about and actually explore that because there is bound to be a need for those skills.
I think when we get out on the other side of summer as well, I think it’s more about what the scientists come up with and how things look from that perspective because we can’t keep things locked down forever. There has to be some flow of things, or else, you’re looking at a very large recession if we don’t do something. To be honest, if you don’t have to go to an office, you can still work and you can still put in those eight to nine hours a day without any issue. That should not be the hindrance to actually doing this.
Theresa: I’ve got another question. I could probably answer this one myself, but this is about you, this podcast, not about us. For people out there, we are hearing so many people that are in desperate situations where maybe they were in between jobs. They had left one place and they were due to start somewhere else and then that offer got pulled because of Coronavirus. What are your tips for helping people to remain a bit positive during this period where all around them there might be a little bit of chaos because they can’t quite see what the future might look like? What would your tips be for trying to remain positive during this period?
Helle: First of all, trying not to think that you need to figure this out, what the future is, because nobody really knows that. You’ll need a crystal ball for that. Don’t take on that responsibility, first of all, because that’s just going to induce more fear into the way that you are right now. In terms of positivity and everything else, I think one of the things is to actually leave the worries and the doubts that you have about yourself and push them away because the reason you’re not working right now is not because of your capabilities. It’s nothing personal or anything like that.
Always remember that because that puts your mind more in a relaxed state. When you’re more in a relaxed state and you’re not ruminating over the negatives and everything like that and the chaos and everything, then you can become more creative. When you start to be more creative, you start to see solutions and start to focus on the things that you probably haven’t had time to do before.
You will, of course, be looking at trying to get a new job and everything like that, but at the same time also, explore your creative sides more and other curiosities that you might have because what that does is that it opens your mind to be able to look at new solutions. It may also create other opportunities for you that you did not think were possible before. That’s usually how I approach things. [chuckles]
Theresa: That’s very good. I’m sure there are going to be many people out there that will listen to that and probably say, “You’re right. I’ve probably been focusing on my energies on the wrong thing. The things that I can’t control.”
Helle: I think that’s the problem as well, is that because we tend to think that we can control things that are actually out of our control. We spend a lot of our energy on that, trying to force things through and that’s just not possible. You have to take that energy back and say, “Okay, so what is within my power? What can I do? is there something that I’m already doing that if I put my mind to it or something like that, I can do that instead and then might also be an alternative income?
Theresa: Yes, absolutely. A point that you’ve made before is that a lot of time is spent looking back trying to figure out what went wrong, and again, it’s just a waste of energy because you can’t really change what’s happened to you. All you can do is focus on the hear and now, what can I do today, and what could I potentially do that is within my control for the future. Whatever area of life that is, whether it is about work-related or gaining different skills.
Even just focusing on health, mental health, and wellbeing because often opportunities come out of those different areas of our life that we ordinarily wouldn’t look at, in association with work environments. Yes, it’s kind of like that wheel of life where it’s all tangible and it all interacts with one another so yes, I think it’s a really good point there.
Helle: Another thing as well is that this might be is the best opportunity to actually do something that you’ve always dreamt about doing, which may not have anything to do with your day time career. Putting some energy into that one, it’s going to make you happy and two again, it might just be something where there may be that alternative income stream to it that’s going to pull you through until the next opportunity arise. I think it’s more that and at the same time as well, even if the creativity is within a Salesforce setup, people can always develop stuff that they might actually be of benefit, and that as well may give you the next opportunity.
Theresa: Yes, I totally agree. We have heard some great stories from some candidates that we’ve been speaking to that are in between these jobs now and they’re using that time to volunteer in other areas with charities who are already feeling the pinch because they’re not getting as much support from grants and things like that. There’s been some incredible things coming out.
Part of it might be that people sometimes don’t feel that they have that within them, that they don’t necessarily have anything to offer. I would always say to people, there’s always something that you can offer, there is always some ability or skill that you have and more often than not, it probably comes down to the confidence to do it in challenging times. Now’s a good time to actually go out and do that because people are probably more open to taking that help from people. I think we have some amazing opportunity here for people to dip a toe in different areas and really find their own abilities and market them.
Helle: Or just using the opportunity to discover yourself. I think sometimes this is something we do when we’re younger, right? We’re working hard to find our own identity and everything like that and when we find that we get stuck in it instead of recognizing that what was important to me in my 20s may not be the same things that are important to me in my 30s, my 40s, my 50s. That’s the perfect time to get reacquainted with yourself. I think we sometimes forget that because we’re so focused on, oh, we have to pay this mortgage and things like that, that it gets so focused on these things that we lose ourselves in the process.
Theresa: Absolutely. It’s about embracing that inner child. [laughs] They’re amazing, they’re all amazing.
Helle: It’s like, “Go out and play for God’s sake.” [laughs]
Theresa: Another idea, “Why don’t you have a playtime this afternoon?”
[laughter]
Helle: Exactly, take a ball outside, and have a go at it. It’s almost like we look at kids and for children, that’s– If they’re inside and they’re being a little bit cranky. It’s like, “Yes, take this ball go outside.” Right? We don’t do that ourselves and I think sometimes perhaps we should.
Theresa: Yes, we can. Well, I’m going to go and grab a ball.
[laughter]
Helle: Well any points, it could be skip ropes, it could be whatever it is. Grab the kid’s hula hoop and see if you can actually do it.
Theresa: I think children hate me because I always make their coloring books because I always enjoyed that.
[laughter]
Lee: A very good note to end that actually. It’s quite a positive message I think. Unless you want to say anything else, Helle?
Helle: I think I said- I think we need more and more playfulness back in our lives. I think that’s another [unintelligible 00:45:45].
Theresa: Yes, you’re right. We’re all far too serious. Definitely, fun playtime. Yes, I agree with that.
Lee: We’re going to grab a ball and go outside. Thank you so much. I can’t believe it’s been 50 minutes, it goes so quick. I couldn’t even notice any of that. I could listen to you all day. Maybe we’ll do more of these with you. That was great. Thanks very much, Helle, and no doubt we will speak soon.
Helle: You’re welcome.
Theresa: Yes, that’s amazing. Thank you for your time.
Helle: Thank you so much for listening to me.
Lee: Once again, a big thank you to Helle Justesen for that interview. Hope you all found it helpful and perhaps has given you a little chink of light at the end of this tunnel. Obviously, I’ll put links to Helle’s profile on the recording so that you can find her at least and reach out to her directly. I hope you enjoyed it guys.