Fran’s Journey Towards Courage

[00:00:00] Paula: Welcome everyone to “TesseLeads” with your host Tesse Akpeki and co host me Paula Okonneh. “TesseLeads” is a safe, sensitive, and supportive place and space to share, hear, and tell your stories and your experiences. We at “TesseLeads” get super curious about the dilemmas that shape our future and your future, and the journeys that all of us are on together. The theme today is “Towards Courage, Fran’s Journey”, and the name of our guest is Fran Borg Wheeler. So, why don’t I do this? Let me ask Fran to tell us about herself because there’s no one better than Fran to do that. So welcome to the show, Fran.

[00:00:55] Fran: Thank you very much. Lovely to be here in person with Tesse, and [00:01:00] virtually with you, Paula.

[00:01:01] Paula: Yep. So good.

[00:01:03] Fran: So I’m Fran, as you rightly said, and I’m founding director of “Heart Centred Leaders”. And my background was that I ran a small but perfectly formed youth charity for many years and that led me to set up a business to support other charity leaders and their teams.

[00:01:27] Paula: Awesome. And Tesse was the one who invited you here. So Tesse?

[00:01:32] Tesse: Yeah, I am super, super excited. If it’s possible to be more excited. Because Fran and I are together, and we’re meeting for the first time in person. It is amazing. And we met online during COVID.

[00:01:48] Fran: We did.

[00:01:48] Tesse: And we talked a number of times on the phone, on Zoom, etc. But meeting in person is extra special and you don’t disappoint Fran. You know, meeting you, I’ve seen you’re [00:02:00] such a person of heart. And I’m very curious about what your journey has been towards, heart centered leadership, what’s led you down this route?

[00:02:13] Fran: I do think that sometimes we’re not too sure about what has led us down that path. So initially, I think what I was aware of was that I wanted to be a barrister. So I went and did a law degree and found myself being offered opportunities to do volunteering work. And as I did a number of voluntary places, I felt that my heart was being drawn towards the charity sector. So I didn’t pursue a career as a barrister, and instead I went and did a number of delivery roles, mental health, homelessness, missing persons for a little while, probation. And then I got the [00:03:00] opportunity to apply for what was then my dream job, which was running a young people’s charity. So that’s what I did. I had never been a manager before. I’d never raised a pound of funding in a role for a charity, but overnight I was responsible for the starting the services, all the fundraising. And so it was a case of being thrown in deep end and you either swim or you drown, don’t you? So, you know, I was determined, I was very passionate about course and I learned quickly how not to do things. I think you have to learn by making a mistake, don’t you? That’s how I like to learn. And that’s why I was there for quite a long time. I was there for 13 years because I didn’t have a lot of support. We didn’t have a budget for training, coaching or, so you kind of learn as you went along. I looked out for people that maybe inspired me in [00:04:00] other charities and I’d try and get a coffee with them, or I’d try and snatch a conversation when I could. And so it’s quite a slow learning curve that way around. So yeah, I think when I realized that my sell by date was coming up. I’d been there long enough. I needed to let somebody else kind of take over. I then wanted to help other charity leaders and their teams to boost their impact. Because I think whilst you’re spending all that energy trying to find out how you should do everything, It’s almost wasted energy that you could be focusing on the impact. And then the other piece for me, I had a number of mini strokes during my tenure as CEO, and it was only in the last few years of running the charity that I had realized, actually you do not have to drive yourself into the ground for your cause and actually, nor should you, [00:05:00] because if you do that, what message am I giving to the other people following me. Am I telling my team that that’s how they should be working? No. So now in the last four years I’ve been running my business, I spend a lot of time supporting other leaders to learn how to thrive. That’s really important to me. That’s central. And it’s funny because people will come to me with other problems or challenges or ambitious goals, but somewhere along the line, that theme will appear. And then I also want to try and support the teams to have more impact while thriving as well. So it’s combining the two. So as I, at the outset, I said to you, sometimes we don’t know what has instigated our journey. Now that a few years ago, my mom passed away during COVID of cancer. I started [00:06:00] to understand that actually perhaps I had been motivated to get into the sector by my mother’s journey, because she had a very difficult childhood. She’d been what we would now call an unaccompanied child or asylum seeker, and no knowledge of any family members whatsoever. Was adopted in a very violent household, and somehow she managed to survive, get a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, as a pianist. And with no success, managed to raise her family and, you know keep her head held high. She had a lot of Christian faith, actually, which really helped her. But I think her, sort of, resilience and determination and focus and the fact that she had no support actually really I think sparked a sense of injustice in me and a desire to [00:07:00] help people who had not had the best chance in life. You know, I look back now and realize that perhaps actually that was my driving force.

[00:07:10] Tesse: That’s beautiful. So what we hear is that the heart centeredness, the nurtured child of a mum who, even though she was facing a lot of adversity, she actually embraced life. Oh, wow. That’s really, wow. Paula, what do you, what comes across as you hear Fran tell her story?

[00:07:34] Paula: Listening to you, Fran, I can see that you’re a woman of great depth. And the thing is, out of all those experiences that you had, I guess starting with your mom, that has channeled you into the person that you are today. Because one thing that you said that stood out for me is that you landed your dream job as a CEO of young people’s charity. “Youth Concern”. [00:08:00] So, and you also mentioned how many other non profit and other organizations that you support. So I’m wondering how does heart centered leadership support you as a leader? Because I hear from you all the things that you are doing and things that an organization that you’re supporting, but how are you supported in what you do?

[00:08:23] Fran: Yeah, thanks. That’s a great question. I think firstly, you know, when I had the realization that, you know, thriving as a charity leader is both a right and a responsibility. You know, if I’m going to call my business heart centered leaders, then I have to lead by example myself. And it does not mean say, I think it’s job done because it’s far from, you know. I talk openly about myself having mental health problems and you know, they’re in the background all the time. But sometimes two years ago, I had [00:09:00] quite acute bout of depression and anxiety again. And so, you know, these days, a focus on thriving is one of my core priorities alongside serving and supporting others. There’s no way that was the case eight years ago. You know, it was in the sector, I think it’s often a service mentality. You know, and a sort of afterthought of what do I need? Because you realize that the need of the beneficiaries or the organization of this cause is so much more acute and it’s so easy to neglect over a period of time. You know, Tesse, you and I were talking about this beforehand, stress, overwhelm, burnout, take often years of accumulated stress and neglecting ourselves. So that’s the first thing I think, you know, I try to walk my talk. [00:10:00] And as I said, I don’t do it all the time and that’s okay. One of the key tools I’ve learned, I think the most powerful single tool that I’ve added is self compassion. And I remember being in a, I got a place on a global women’s leadership conference to attend and it was a two day conference. It was the first time I’d been away from home and childcare, and my daughter was seven. I haven’t been away for like two days in those years. And there was a session on self compassion, and I thought, I don’t need to listen to this rubbish. I should go off and make my calls, my really important calls I’ve got to make for work. And because I was about to do a pairs  exercise (ie working in a pair). My listening partner said, well, could you wait, please? I need to do this exercise with you. So I stayed and it was really eye opening to me. And at the end of that conference, I left making a commitment, two [00:11:00] commitments. We were supposed to make one, but typical for me at that time, I made two. One was that I needed to raise a million pounds to set up a youth supported accommodation project. The second one was to learn how to take really good care of myself. And so that’s the first thing, and I could tell you lots of different things I do. I don’t do them all the time because consistency is not my thing. And again, I’ve learned that actually that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be that I employ the same tools every week, every month, if that doesn’t suit my character. You know, if I ask myself the question, What do I need today? That might be to do nothing to do with self care, just to focus and get on with the work I’ve got to do. That might be okay, but the following day if I ask, what do I need today? It might be actually cancel some appointments, go and have a rest, have a walk, go to my meditation section. I’m in a gospel choir. It’s, you know, how to bring a bit more joy into [00:12:00] your life. So you can find out what works for you. I think it’s less having to stick to rules and really learning to listen to your heart, your body, and your mind. Some people would say your soul as well, you know. And really get back in tune with what you need. So that’s the first thing. What else do I do? I think the other thing I learned was that, you know, to draw people around me that can support me. You know, I’m not an island. I’m pretty independent. I’m useless at tech, for example, one of the things that are not my strengths. So, you know, I can either try and battle with those problems by myself and get really stressed, or I can call on my good friend Dawn and ask her the question and hopefully I can find a way I can support her too. Drawing in the people around us, and you know, I’m inspired by both your partnership, [00:13:00] your friendship, and how that kind of infuses everything you do. And the quality then of what you do is so much better because you’re drawing upon each other’s strengths and you’re supporting each other. So in the last year, I’ve started a number of collaborations in my work. I’m a people person, you know, I don’t want to be sat in my little office by myself on my computer all day. I want to be interacting with people. So I think it’s identifying what brings you fulfillment? What brings you joy? What brings you support? And trying to draw all those elements closer to you, you know. Does that answer your question?

[00:13:42] Paula: Yes, you did. You saw me looking down because I was taking notes of some of the things that you said that you have done.

[00:13:50] Tesse: Yeah, absolutely. And you need to work.

[00:13:53] Fran: I do coaching, Paula, you know.

[00:13:54] Tesse: I’m looking at Fran and I’m saying, wow, Fran, what [00:14:00] brings you joy?

[00:14:01] Fran: Connection, deep connection. Actually, I like to be around people where I feel understood and I don’t have to explain myself. Yes, good question. What brings me joy? You know, if you’d asked me that a year ago, I wouldn’t have known too much because I wasn’t in a very good place. And often times I’ve struggled to actually work out what brings me joy. But also I think supporting other people does bring me joy, unless these days in a rescue mode but more collaborative. I like being part of something with people. I like to see if I want to be part of those people. I like to feel like I can contribute. I like there to be some impact. But on a simple level, you know, what brings me joy, flowers. I love color. So I’ll stop at the flower stall in the station, King’s [00:15:00] Cross, and really look at those blooms. Like walking my dog. Clearly, I love to be around my daughter and other people I love. And then, more these days as well, I have more peace of mind, touch wood, most of the time. So I do actually like having a bit of downtime where I can do a bit of journaling or I can just, even if it’s 10, 15 minutes to go, okay, it’s absolutely nothing I have to be doing now. Oh what do I feel like doing now? That certain connection brings me joy.

[00:15:35] Tesse: You know, I’m looking at you because I have the privilege of being the side of the same room and I look at you and I can see the joy emerging. You know, I’m super curious, what would your present Fran say to your younger Fran?

[00:15:48] Fran: Hmm, it’s going to be a bloody surprise. I have to put my seatbelt on! Yeah, no, what would I say? [00:16:00] Yeah, I think I would say that, but maybe I would try and learn how to let go of guilt quicker and do that as a, you know, the let going process. I’ve been to a lot of meditation workshops recently, and you know, the Buddhist. So I’m not a Buddhist and I don’t presume to be an expert in their philosophy. But you know, there’s a lot of teaching about not holding on to that negativity that we feed ourselves, that inner critic. And, yeah, I think that inner voice has been pretty strong in my life at certain points. And I’m learning how to let go of that. But I think if I could have learned that sooner, phew, that would have really helped and learned about self compassion sooner. I think that would be a key learning actually. And maybe to act when I’m not happy quicker, [00:17:00] or when you’re starting to feel like you’re struggling, again, picking up when the problem is small. I’m good at doing that with other people, but I’m only in my 50s now learning to do that for myself. Because I think with being quite determined, don’t like to give up on things. Sometimes that can be a detriment to yourself. So maybe just knowing when to quit or when to come back a bit, you know, and, rather than feeling like you have to continue, I think would be a lesson.

[00:17:35] Tesse: That’s lovely, because it’s very practical, isn’t it? You know, we were talking about the books that say “Get Better In A Hundred Days, Find Peace During A Hundred Days”. We were talking about how unhealthy it is.

[00:17:48] Fran: Exactly.

[00:17:50] Tesse: This didn’t happen in 100 days, did it?

[00:17:52] Fran: No, no, no.

[00:17:57] Paula: I love that question [00:18:00] about what did your present self say to your younger self? And what you’ve discovered along the way, you know, that not holding on to things. There’s one, self compassion, you brought that up twice. And when not happy, acting more quickly, and recognizing that I’m doing something about that. Which leads me, because Tesse says she’s seen such joy in your whole persona as she’s in the same room as you. I’m jealous. Oh, I’m even more jealous to see you again.

[00:18:32] Fran: Well, we’ll come over and join you in Switzerland.

[00:18:34] Paula: I know, I know, I know. I’m going to ask you, so what are you celebrating right now? Apart from being with Tesse.

[00:18:43] Fran: You like difficult questions, don’t you? You know, I’m, this sounds a bit cheesy, but I’m trying to celebrate, this really does sound bad, like the gift of life. I think when you start, as we were saying earlier [00:19:00] emerging from a dark patch. I think it’s about remembering to be grateful for the tiny things. And, you know, there’s periods of time where I’ll go through actively practicing gratitude. And yet the little things, isn’t it? You know, I, was grateful for the sunshine and 10 minutes sitting on the bridge waiting for this appointment and I just took a moment to think, okay, aren’t I fortunate to have that sunshine on my face? When I was walking the dog yesterday, I tried to notice the colors on the leaves. I remember a few people describing this as glimmers and how to savour the glimmers. So I guess the little things. And the fact, I think freedom is something that I value. You know, especially when there’s, well people around us, you know, I look around and I’m very [00:20:00] acutely drawn towards people in poverty. In London, for example, you know, they don’t have the freedom. I was thinking today to get on the tube, like I can just tap my phone. And then if we think further afield, and you know, Gaza, for example, I mean, for goodness sake, how fortunate are we to be able to have freedom of movement. Freedom to have a roof over our homes and, you know, roof over our heads, sorry. And so I think the little things. And of course I can do that because I’m in a better state of mind right now. Quite difficult if you’re not. So I’m not, this is certainly not preaching to other people, it’s just what I am trying to celebrate. But also I like to celebrate, you know, I’m a leadership coach, I like to celebrate the successes. I don’t always like that word, but, the important things for other people that I’m working with. When there’s so much to be done, when people are working in the charity sector, it’s so easy for them [00:21:00] to focus on the hundred and one things that they have to do. And I like creating space so that people can focus on look what you have achieved. Look at the impact you’ve had for other people, feel good about that, feel proud. So sometimes alongside my gratitude practice, I also do prouds and I’ll write a list of little things that I’m proud of, especially if I’m not feeling too great, I try and make myself find out the little things. And I’ll do that with my coaching clients too. Because when, I think culturally, we’ve not been taught to, especially as women I think, it used to be called blowing our own trumpet, I don’t know whether that’s a phrase you use or not Paula, but you know, we’re taught that’s kind of being arrogant, aren’t we? But actually I think, I’m not sure if self esteem is the right word, but just recognizing the gifts and the unique qualities [00:22:00] that you bring to the party, It is so important, because if everybody was able to recognise that in themselves, imagine the knock on effect and the impact everybody could bring together.. So yeah, celebrating that, the little things.

[00:22:22] Tesse: You know, this is lovely and Paula and I, you know, we’ve been friends for so many years. But one of the things you said, we celebrate our friendships and we don’t end up taking each other for granted.

[00:22:34] Fran: That’s lovely.

[00:22:34] Tesse: And coming back to what you say, I have different ways of celebrating, you know, on the bad day. So, on a good day, I’ll ask people who I’ve met, put something on LinkedIn. Put something on LinkedIn. And what I do on a day when I’m not feeling so great is to go to LinkedIn.

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[00:22:55] Fran: That’s amazing.

[00:22:55] Tesse: And see what they say. And yeah it’s not so much about people seeing, it’s about me [00:23:00] seeing it when it’s not so great. Yeah. You know, Paula, what are your practices of lifting yourself up on a not so good day?

[00:23:08] Paula: This may sound cliche, and it may sound like I’m repeating what Fran said, but it is relishing in simple things of life, like the sun you mentioned. Sunshine on your face. You know having a roof over my head, that’s a big deal because I see so many homeless people. We don’t say homeless anymore, we say people with housing insecurity. And it’s really easy in the Western world to become homeless. You know, not have a roof over your head you know, really, really easy. Gratitude point I look at my children and I’m grateful for them in my life. I think about my siblings and my friends and my family, I’m grateful. Because, you mentioned [00:24:00] earlier that your mom was adopted and she didn’t have any living relatives that she knew of. And for me, family means a lot. I love family. I have so much family around me. And so these are things that give me joy and help me to celebrate life. Because life is tough, but making a choice, my mom used to say, what did she used to say? She used to say, happiness is a choice. You could be in a palace and be so unhappy, you could be outside of the palace and be so joyful. So I’ve always held on to that. So I look for the little things and so, and enjoy them.

[00:24:42] Fran: That’s lovely. And that sounds like, another practice, actually setting intentions. You know, thinking about how you want to feel in a day. My mentor is a Polish transformational coach called Asha Goner, and she does great intentional [00:25:00] practice, and on good days when I get up and I’m feeling in the zone, I’ll write some intentional practice and say, in order to feel, let’s say, calm, confident today, what do I need to do? How do I need to be? And that really helps as well to be very intentional. So yeah, it’s what you’re saying, great, Paula, you know, around happiness being a choice, we forget, don’t we? And it’s all well and good to say that and then we’ll have a really terrible day and everything will go out the window and we’ll be annoyed or impatient or stressed. You know, that’s just human nature. We’re not, I think we shouldn’t aim for perfection, should we? We just, it boils in, what’s the word, incremental. So yeah, I mean a little that we can find.

[00:25:49] Tesse: I love, I love the fact that you talk intentional, you know, setting the intension. It’s that brings it together and brought it together for me has been accountability [00:26:00] partnerships. I’m actually setting those up so that we hold each other to account, and it’s not just on the compliance piece. It’s on the piece whereby when we’re having that not so great day, or not so great experience, we talk to our accountability partner who reminds us about what happened last week that we were celebrating, which in those times of struggle can easily be forgotten.  So there is something about setting up the support structures for us in the ups and the downs.

[00:26:29] Fran: Yes, absolutely.

[00:26:31] Tesse: When the sun is shining, we start building the roof.

[00:26:34] Fran: Yeah, I like that.

[00:26:36] Tesse: So Paula, over to you.

[00:26:38] Paula: Yeah, I can’t believe that we are almost at the end of this wonderful session. And so I thought we’d wrap up, Fran, just about four words, what story can you remember? We talked about, you know, Tesse talked about accountability partners reminding us of how last week or two [00:27:00] weeks previously you were celebrating something. I know that your heart goes out to, young people’s charity, the youth concerns, people with mental health, learning difficulties, missing people and so on. But in just four words, and you may say, I’m making life really hard for you. What story or what memory gives you greatest joy when you look back? What’s one memory? So let me give you an example. I’m in Switzerland. I’m saying eating chocolates in the night.

[00:27:34] Fran: I think being in the Drop-in centre with a lot of the young people and seeing them build their confidence and dreams and them feeling supported. Yeah. I do like that.

[00:27:50] Paula: I love that. I love that. I love young people. Now I live with younger people. My sister says, don’t say young people. You’re young, younger people.

[00:27:57] Fran: That’s nice. I have to [00:28:00] adopt that.

[00:28:02] Paula: Yeah. I love younger people. They give me so much, I mean, joy and their perspectives. Sometimes you, you feed into their lives, but they feed into my life big time.

[00:28:12] Fran: Yeah. The energy is great. Isn’t it? Yeah.

[00:28:16] Paula: I love that. I love that. Oh, and so with that, we want to say to all our listeners, if you have just listened to Fran, you can see that precious stories and lives matter. We encourage you to share them with us just like she did. And for our listeners, we also ask that you head over to “Apple Podcasts” “Google podcasts”, “Spotify”, “YouTube”, anywhere that you listen to podcasts and please subscribe to our podcast. And if you have found “TesseLeads” helpful, please let us know through a review. If you have any questions or topics that you’d like us to cover, please send us a note. And again, I’ll stress if [00:29:00] you’d like to be a guest on the show, just like Fran has been, please head over to our website, “Tesse Leads”, and the website address is “www.tesseleads. com”. And apply there. Thank you again, Fran. This has been awesome.

[00:29:17] Fran: Thank you for having me.

[00:29:18] Tesse: Fran, you’re amazing. Thank you so much for being awesome.