29 · Do You Have Purpose & Passion in Your Career? With Caroline Bernard
Podcast show notes
This week, I’m thrilled to be joined by Caroline Bernard, a senior leader in the charity sector.
Caroline is the Director of Influence at Respect UK, an organisation dedicated to ending domestic abuse by targeting perpetrators.
With a wealth of experience and a passion for women’s rights, Caroline shares her journey, the challenges she's faced, and the lessons she's learned along the way.
Join us for an inspiring conversation about finding purpose and passion in your career.
Here are the highlights
(3:49) Career change and mentorship
(7:17) Resilience, drive, and self-reliance in career development
(15:13) Lessons learned and self-belief in leadership
(25:58) Personal growth, resilience, and self-belief
Links
Find out more:
Connect with Caroline on LinkedIn HERE.
Finding Me by Viola Davis HERE.
Connect with Ruth
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Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfil your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity, or your resilience.
Welcome to this week's episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. This week, I am joined by Caroline Bernard, who is a senior leader in the charity sector. She is currently the Director of Influence at Respect UK, which is a charity working to end domestic abuse by stopping perpetrators. She's also a board member of the Enfield Carers Centre, and she's a past trustee of The Fawcett Society. So really interested in women's rights and human rights generally. Caroline has had a really interesting career, she's learned a heck of a lot from it. And she's going to share that with us today. So join me for a really fascinating conversation.
Ruth
Hi Caroline, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Just to kind of get us kind of into things, could you tell us a little bit about where you grew up, and how that’s has kind of impacted who you've become?
Caroline
Well thanks Ruth for the invitation for doing this podcast. It's really exciting to be here. I was born and grew up in North London, I still live in North Florida but I live further north and I did you know, we grew up, I grew up in a place called Islington. But I lived in the northern part of Islington, sort of Holloway, Archway area. It was, and still is, in some areas a working class area. And although it was gentrified quite a bit since I was living there. I think in terms of how it shaped me, I think it really kept me and my siblings really, on the ground, we live in an area that had quite a mixed type of diverse community. So we were living with people from all over the world. So we we would experience different foods and everything from from all over the place, really. So that was a really nice thing about where we grew up. And I think that kind of has shaped me, in terms of who I am. I like living in diverse areas. I like living with people who are from different walks of life and different parts of the world. And so much so that I think it's something I look for whenever I look to move as well where I'm going to be so that there's that diversity in the area that I'm living in. So yeah, I think that's how it shaped me as a person.
Ruth
Who for you has been the most influential person in your life, and how have they impacted you and the path that you've taken?
Caroline
I think the person, I think I will say my mother, she's no longer with us. But I think my mother was a very resourceful woman, she faced domestic abuse herself. And she was the one who pulled us out, she was able to very strongly, you know, take us all out of that house one day and didn't go back, she was able to come and get us out of there. So I think in terms of that resourcefulness and resilience that I would look up to mum as being my inspiration.
I mean, at work, there’s been several people at work, I've had mentors over the years who've seen you know, something that I've seen myself and put up with to apply for jobs that I wouldn't normally wouldn’t have applied for. One of them is no longer with us in the academic world, Alexander, she was someone I worked with in the health world, and she was a mentor for me, you know, she said you'll be really good role model if you go for that job. And so in terms of work, I was she happens to be my biggest inspiration. Like, again, I miss her a lot as well.
Ruth
What was that like to see, suddenly, yourself as a role model? You'd have someone say to you, well, you are now a role model.
Caroline
That was strange because I was in the middle of a career change at the time, I was not in any way shape or form senior, I was in a very junior role. I was temping, first of all. Because I had changed career. I was not young. I was in my mid 30s, then. So I think that I was at a point where leadership was beckoning, but I hadn't seen it in myself. And it feels strange. I didn't see myself at all as a role model, or any kind of leader. I think from now, that inspiration given to me, I began to think that maybe, you know, I could maybe support other people who were also want to change career direction, and all things kind of reestablish themselves in that new career. So if that all felt strange, and I resisted it for a long time, but as time went on, I began to embrace it a bit more.
Ruth
What have been the rewards of embracing it and kind of leaning into that potential?
Caroline
I think it's always about what I can do for other people? I'm really interested in mentoring, supporting other women in particular, who are, you know, facing challenges in their career or even or even if they're just trying to move ahead in their career, just want to know how they can do that. I don't have all the answers, but I can give them the benefit of my own experience and my own pitfalls and things where things have gone well, and not so well. And I think the time I get that pleasure from seeing them progress not because they did it themselves, but to give them help or give them some tools on which they can move forward with something that I think I'm really happy to be able to do.
Ruth
Yeah, it's really rewarding, isn't it? It is. You mentioned there that your career changed direction at a particular point, what was going on there, what sort of drew you to a different path?
Caroline
I think it was realising that I was in a job and been in a job for 16 years, and a type of what type of work for 16 years that didn't really suit my personality. I kind of fallen into it after going to college. And what I thought was right, for me, ended up not being right for me. So I was doing this type of work, I work in the private sector, in an industrial type of organisation, but working in a sort of sales and marketing type role and sort of a coordination and production type role for many years, but I really felt that it wasn't me, the environment, and certainly the people I work with were not why people really. There’s still plenty I still talk to from there, they went all the way back. I was just saying it was not suiting my personality and to my interest and my passion and drive for wanting to make some kind of communities that people do need to support and provide mechanisms for them to get support when they need in particular health and social care.
Having a mother who worked in social care for the latter part of her life at work. So I think for me, it was something about recognising that I wasn't really fitting in and wasn't cut out for where I was working. So when I got made redundant when M&S who were the supplier, we were working for quite a few suppliers and they were one of them. I was studying part time anyways changed career, so I just thought, okay, here's now it's time to make the change and move forward. So I carried on studying and temping and ended up in the roles that I wasn’t suited for. And I think it something about recognising that I was a square peg in a round hole. And when the chance came along to change that, to grab that change, a lot of sacrifice had to happen of course, but you have to do that in order to make it work.
Ruth
What drove you at that point? Because it's hard to make those sorts of decisions in the moment and especially around redundancy, that can be a time of kind of real fear and worry, and what was it within you that made you grab that opportunity when it came up and see it in that way?
Caroline
It's really hard to say you know, because I went, I went out temping back in those days, this was in 2000. Back in those days, you could just walk into an agency. And you could just do all of your work, and then go out working. So my plan then was to just go out and work because I needed to pay the bills. So I was, had a mortgage at this point and I needed to pay the bills. So I went out temping not thinking it would lead to a career change as such, I thought it would be about just keeping things going. But it was kind of the second or third temping job that I had ended up being the one that was the springboard to the new career.
And I hadn’t expected that. So in terms of what drove me, what drove me was the desire to keep working and I've always done it when I've had setbacks and redundancy, which happens a lot when you're in charity world, is just to keep working and just to be able to move forward, do something in the meantime, keep things going, and then use that as a springboard to the next step. So my drive was to kind of keep working, and then the luck of the draw came to where I landed in the NHS London region, that was where I was able to move forward.
Ruth
Where do you think the lessons you learned from your mum kind of played into that?
Caroline
I think it’s the resilience bit. The not giving up piece as well. And going to be to always see a problem is one that has to be worked out or gotten around rather than just accepting that, you know, everything's lost. There's always something you can do to make things better. And it may not happen immediately, you may have take a step forward or back. Maybe sideways but you can actually get to where you want to be. And I think the other thing about that for my mum was still finding, finding work that fits who you are and fits what you are passionate about is really the key. She did actually, she was working one type of work and then she when she left and when, when we moved out, then she was able to kind of find herself and be in the work that she was passionate about. Which we don't always do.
I think we don’t always know what passions are. If we have that great but not all of us have that. If we were lucky enough to have that, then yeah, great, but not all of us have that it seems. So it can take a while to find out what your passions are, and then go for it.
Ruth
I think that is such a great point, I didn't have a clue I wanted to do when I was 18. And to be honest with you, I went right hrough uni and all sorts of stuff, and still didn't really know. But it was learning what I was capable of, I think partly you testing myself a little bit in different environments, and figuring out eventually kind of what was really of interest. And that changed a little bit over time as well. And that's partly me changing but getting to know myself better, as well.
Caroline
Because I think at school, I don’t know how things are now, I know when I was at school, we had these careers teachers who will try and push you into the the hole they thought you should fit into with quite low expectations and stuff like that. So you had to rely on these, who you looked up to as experts to drive you to where they thought you should be, I would love to have been a careers teacher to actually, I would love to be able to do it now and tell he young people I work with now, actually, you got to work out your strengths. What are you really good at? What do you love? What are you passionate about? And working out from there?
I think that back in the day, when I was at school in the sort of 70s and 80s, there wasn't the knowledge, I think, in the careers teachers world, well what I saw in terms of the range of careers you could do, and the range of careers, it was very much in boxes and very traditional, I think because the world moved on now and technologies moved on and I hope that now the advice the young people are getting is a lot more than I got when I was at school.
Ruth
I recognise that actually, from my own experience that there were there were particular career paths that were encouraged depending on kind of, you know, where you came from, and your background as well, I think, you mentioned their expectations and other people's expectations. How have other people's expectations impacted you?
Caroline
Quite a lot I think, going back to school now, I never really think it ends, there is something about people making assumptions about what you are capable of or what you have done. And it's that constant, I mean, this type of site with your podcast, or that's where you get frustrated and exhausted, because you have to constantly assert your experience and skills and knowledge and understanding of things in a way that maybe others wouldn't have to do. So yeah the challenge that you have to battle that. But it's certainly impacted me throughout my whole life, because you've had to be the push and find that balance. How can I assert myself in a way that's positive, and doesn't come over as aggressive or angry?
Because sometimes if I do that it may be taken in the wrong way, by certain individuals, I think it's something about having to constantly manage that throughout my whole career and life as well. But it's something that I think many women would say, wherever they're coming from, I would say happens to them.
Ruth
Yeah, I definitely recognise those words of that aggressive and angry rather than assertive is a common one to come up isn’t it. And it's a really fine tightrope almost to walk, which is not easy. And yeah, it does explain why we get frustrated and exhausted all the time. Yeah. Where does that desire to keep pushing come from in you?
Caroline
I think, again, I'm going back to resilience again. But I think is that that not giving up. And I don't think I would ever frame it as not giving up until I'm asked about it like I have been just now, I think it's something that you don't think about, you just do it, but other people will tell you that you behave in that way. But you just see yourself as just pushing and driving and because, you know, someone once said to me many years ago who I work with, she said, you know, ultimately we only have ourselves to rely on you can't rely on anybody else, we have to rely on our own thoughts, it doesn't matter who you have around you. So I think it's something for me about recognising that I only have myself to rely on really, and I don’t do it and get things done and change things, and nobody else is gonna do it for me.
Ruth
That's a real sense of personal responsibility, actually, for your choices. And for the path that you choose to walk, isn't it?
Caroline
Absolutely. If you take a different path or path that's not right for you then that that was the choice I made at the time, based on what information I had around me at that time. But as you get more information, as you go through life, you can say, okay, I’ve got more choices. Now I can do different things. Yeah. I will accept that sacrifice until I have mastered I much as I can. But I think there's something about recognising as you've gone through life, you're gathering more information and more knowledge and more understanding. And that takes you forward into those into those new directions. If you want to go into new directions.
Ruth
I'm noticing sitting behind you that there's there's a little phrase on a board that says ‘Remember there are no mistakes, only lessons’ which is wonderful. What's been your biggest lesson in life and leadership? What's been your biggest lesson?
Caroline
Yeah, that motto was really important. I put it up there so that people can see what I'm all about, really, I think, often we do get caught up in things going wrong and this went wrong and that went wrong. And I think sometimes there's something about recognising what you can draw from when things didn't quite as good as you thought they would go. Yeah. I think in terms of lessons and how I learned lessons over the years, I've tried, and I'm guilty as an the next person of dwelling on things.
But what you got to do is then think it through and try and turn it around a little bit and say actually, that pathway that I ended up with, or that thing that happened was for a reason. I think everything, good, bad or indifferent happens for a reason. There's something we have to learn. And that's why I had that motto. And that's why I believe that we absolutely strive and take every experience that we have through life, whatever it may be, I think about why that happened. What was the what was the learning I had to gain from that thing happening to me?
Or somebody close to me, you know, what's the learning, and try and draw on that because that's what will keep us afloat and stop us from going down a spiral of self hatred and blame and self flagellation as we often do, especially as women. Yeah.
Ruth
Yeah, there's a lot of guilt and shame, I think that is carried by women, and sometimes put on to us by others, rather than it being something that we've done. There’s clearly been a lot of challenges. You've talked about redundancy, you've talked about kind of the fluid nature of the charity sector at times and in terms of careers and things. And you talked about how you choose to navigate some of that, what do you think is your biggest strength that you bring that's enabling you to get through all of this and stay positive?
Caroline
I mean I have those negative moments. Not gonna lie, I do. But I do try and stay positive. I think, wow, I think it's probably something to do with having a little bit of self belief. I never used to have that. I didn't have that, always. But I think there's something about having that deep sense of belief that things can get better. And just really owning, owning the feelings I’ve got, or owning the situation I found myself in. But I think there's something about it, okay, you know, that was that. Move on and move forwards.
So it's something about having a bit of self belief that things are going to improve and that things are gonna get better. And I think again, it's about that, taking the learning from that situation and taking into the next situation and taking it from there. And then and then seeing where you come, I think it’s often that there's a bit about the journey, the journey and if you look back at your journey and see how far we travelled and think actually, I didn't do too badly even though I faced these bumps on the road, I came out the other side. So then you can see where your inner strength.
Ruth
It’s lovely because I think it's something we don't often do actually is pause and it is easy to get into the self flagellation or you know, focus on the difficulties. But actually appreciating how far you've come, appreciating yourself for yeah, getting there, like getting through everything as well.
Caroline
You know, when you hear people that you admire in the public eye talking about these journeys that have been on or where they've come from, I always say Viola Davis is one of my big heroes. Her story, whoever wrote a book called, is just amazing. I mean, obviously, I'm not her, but the way that you know, what she has done in terms of finding her talent and be able to pursue talent with everything that happened in my childhood, is so inspirational.
I think one thing I always do is look at people like her that I’m inspired by, and yeah you think, well, you know, I look up to them as beacons of success and know them, just keep them in mind.
Ruth
You mentioned they're sort of inspiration and success. What does success mean to you?
Caroline
I think it is fulfilling yourself and achieving ambitions that you want to achieve, no matter what they are, because they don't have to be all about money and big jobs. And it's not about that, it's about you, fulfilling yourself. So that you're doing meaningful work, mothering, volunteering, whatever it is, whatever it is, in your life that you're doing, that fulfils you, that you achieve that that success, and it's not really about work, it’s about what fulfils you. That's what, to me, success is all about. Fulfilling your, your goals, whatever they may be.
Ruth
For you personally, what makes you successful?
Caroline
Gosh, I don't know if I am yet. I have some level of success. I think if I was gonna focus on one successful thing about the career change and doing that, for me, it's something about having had the tenacity to go through what I have to go through to change career, I only have five years of part time work simply because I was working a full time job. That's probably my biggest success, in my opinion, because it's really been a complete turnaround in terms of work from that. And that's led to all sorts of interesting things and, and a lifestyle. I think it’s something about, success for me is something about having done that, that piece of quite focused work to change my career direction.
Ruth
Focused work that is focused work that I guess took courage as well to make the choice to do that, and to be looking to be actively looking for the opportunities.
Caroline
Yeah, I found that I had to, I came to a brick wall, really. And I realised I had to do in order to move forward, it wasn't going to happen unless I made that sacrifice, and did that work. But because I was a mature student, because I wanted it, because we, you know, we knew what we wanted. And we were willing to sacrifice to get that thing and juggle all of our life priorities and things to to get that so I think there's something about, you know, you really wanted, nothing against younger students, they obviously want it as well. But I think when you are older and having to study and work and everything else, and manage family and everything, it shows a different level of desire that you don't always have when you’re younger.
So I think there's something, there's something that's quite key about that. So anybody thinking about going back to college, even or even doing a PhD later in life, I'd say just go for it because that means you are passionate about that particular subject and you want to spend time, a lot of time working on that. So if you can then I think you should do it.
Ruth
Yeah, yeah, it's investing in yourself and like you said earlier, your own passions and, and kind of fulfilling those in your life. We've talked a lot about positivity, and kind of really growing as a person and learning from your experiences and things. But you kind of said earlier, you know, we all have those moments of self doubt, and worry and looking at down days and you know, we do all get them. What do you do when you're in that place? To get out of it?
Caroline
I try and engage in a bit of escapism sometimes like, oh my goodness, I might listen to a book or go to the gym and listen to music and exercise, or a whole, you know, read a book that sort of about all of those self help books that some people like to read as well, there’s the usual tools and tips in there. So a range of things but I think sometimes about diverting your mind to what's going on with something else. But if you're going to face the thing directly which probably needs to at some point after you’ve done those distracting things is probably, what I would do is probably think through what actions I'm going to take to try to reduce that situation.
So those things, let's go back and try to put at least one thing into action. And that’s never easy, because sometimes those things can be very, very challenging and you may find that you have to take some steps back and look at it from a distance before you do that. But I think there's something important about, for me, about trying to address that situation for maybe one key action to start with, and then go from there. And then at least you've thought it through and think it through, then I can find a way. But yeah, the down days I think is often, it's good to have lots of different things to distract, you if you need to take yourself away from something for a while.
Ruth
It's sometimes really helps to find perspective, actually, you know, to change, I mean, physically, even just to change state, to change what you're doing. And like you said, some of the things you do you move or you you kind of look for, for sort of some inspiration from elsewhere to kind of think differently again.
Caroline
Yeah, it's changing my attitude to the issue. That's what I've read that somewhere and you change your attitude to the issue. Yeah, it’s sometimes so much smaller than we think it may be. Yeah. Because I'm, I'm a worrier, I can worry until the cows come home, you know, terrible overthinker. You know, I admit all of that. So that's when the things end up being this big mountain that actually is not really as bad as you think it is so I know I'm guilty of that.
Ruth
Yeah, I think I think many of us are different points with different things is that is that little step back and kind of reassessing and looking at it. And I love that what you said about kind of just finding one thing that you can do, because action, you're creating some momentum around something in some way, can be such a great thing for getting unstuck, and kind of finding something a different way to approach things. Just to kind of round us off. Thinking about all your lessons, everything we've talked about today, the experiences that you have, and that you've learned along the way. What advice do you have for women starting out now?
Caroline
I would say it's something about really play to your strengths. Find out you know, ask yourself what it is you love and are passionate about. Because that's where you need to be, you know, putting your energy into your your work, if you're working in, so that's the thing I’d say to note, start where you are and think about your passions and try and drive and find work that is work you want to do.
Don't let the naysayers get you down because there will be somebody always who will try to say that no you can’t. Believe in yourself and say yes I can. And I will. I did too much listening to naysayers when I was younger, that wasn't me. I now know that that’s not the case. So to do listen to your own voice inside. And don't be afraid to seek advice from others who may be able to give you that advice. They may not be the obvious people, they may not be your teacher in a school or university, or wherever it may be somebody completely outside of all of them who is the person may be able to give you the advice that you're looking for.
Just once you've found that direction, find ways of going for it. And if you haven't gone in that direction yet, it will happen. Don't feel that everything's lost. You can find your direction when you least expect it, sometimes they will be presented to you.
Ruth
Caroline, thank you so much for this conversation. I've really loved it. And there is so much great advice in there for people kind of coming through and so much to learn from. So thank you again for sharing with us.
I took so much out of that conversation with Caroline. I think one of the big things for me was what she said around actually learning what your own passions and strengths are and then then really following them and making sure that you're you're in a role where you can play into those things and really feel that sense of purpose and feeling committed to what you're doing. And you know, that sense of personal responsibility for the choices that you make and and being committed to making the changes that you want. I really found that quite important.
The other thing that came across to me was again, just the sense of learning lessons. Taking timeout to, to think through what's happened, what's going on, it might be good, it might not be good. But actually to take whatever learning you can out of the experiences that you have in life. There's two aspects to that. One is in a sense of resilience so that you're learning those lessons so that you can apply them in future so that you can be more resilient so that you can approach things in a way that's better for you going forward.
But also in terms of understanding yourself and finding perspective on things, and being able to kind of come at things in a different way through that.
Finally, I think this is a really key point, self belief. How do you find that self belief to kind of ignore the naysayers, not let their voices kind of take over and drive your decision making whether that's around your life generally, or arrange your career, actually learning to listen to yourself what you need and what you want, and how you want to live your life. And, you know, I think that relates to kind of what Caroline was also saying about personal responsibility and taking responsibility for the choices that you make and how important that is.
So lots to take away from that, lots to reflect on. And I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. I will drop the reference in the links for the book recommendation from Viola Davis into the show notes. So if you want to look that up then do. Take care and speak to you again next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Hit the follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram at @resonateleadership. And LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood. I’d absolutely love to hear from you.
Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host, Ruth Wood. Take care and speak to you soon.
