The Power of Pause: Zoë Healey on Finding Voice, Clarity, and Connection

Hi, Zoe.

Hi Sabine

It is such a treat to see you. It's so funny when we start these these podcasts, the way the system is set up, it's like rolling out a red carpet. And I'm so happy to roll out the red carpet to you today and to be having this conversation with you. We've known each other for so many years and it's just a delight. First of all, that you were and you agreed to be in the book and share some incredible stories there and that you also agreed to share some of your experiences and insights also.

on the podcast. So thank you very much for doing that.

Thank you so much for the opportunity. It's always amazing to talk to you and I'm really, really happy to share my story in case it's of help to anyone else.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I obviously know you really well, and I'm sure other people listening will will know you also. But for those people that don't know who Zoe Healy is, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Right, well I was born in Australia and I've always, since I was very small, I guess been a mixture of a scientist and a storyteller. So I've been eternally curious in how life works.

How the ecosystem fits together in a very playful way. I studied science and did a biotechnology degree in Australia but I moved to the UK for adventure and for greater opportunities I thought at the time and so far that's worked out really well for me. So I'll try to be good at being this guy.

Hehe.

It's been a big adventure.

Just into being a consultant. I did my PhD in London, which was awesome, but being a scientist means being the world's best expert in something so narrow that no one else cares about it. I'm much a big picture person. I like to connect the dots.

I'm basically a connector of ideas and people. So for many, many years now I've been working consulting in the healthcare industry, helping connect people from different backgrounds, scientists and non-scientists, so that they can have breakthrough ideas and solve big gnarly problems in the world.

Yeah, yeah, and that's what you do. And we've known each other for many years now. We've had the opportunity. I don't think we've ever really worked together in our day jobs, but we've worked together a lot in volunteering for the HBA. So we've spent many hours together on that. And that's how we've had the, we had the opportunity to get to know each other, which yeah, has been quite a ride in itself.

Absolutely. I

think it's a whole different experience working with a team of volunteers than it is working with a team of people who are employed to work together. And having that experience has really taught me whole new ways to connect with people.

Yeah, so true.

Yeah, and that's where I first discovered also you are so accurate about your storytelling abilities because they're fabulous. So we're going to hear a few of your stories today. So for those that know this series, you know that I'm asking three questions,

to the wonderful women that are on the podcast. And Zoe, the first one is around making big decisions. We make them very often and often think, what if I move in this direction? What if I take this job? What if I don't take this job? And I like to look at what happens if we don't make a decision because I think that that gives an interesting perspective on

on our decision making process. So can you share with us a moment when you ask yourself, what if I don't do this? And what kind of potentially momentum or moment did you create in your life by asking yourself that?

So I guess I've been a very lucky person and I'm also quite observant that my eyes open so the world I feel has always put the right opportunity in front of me. Much of my early career something came up and I went, ⁓ that looks like it would work for me and I've done it. And when you know I was in my mid-career and I was looking back I realised this wasn't accidental or just serendipity actually I've ended up

doing the kind of work that totally suits who I've always been, both a scientist and a storyteller, and in a way that suits me. I basically ended up in my perfect job. This is fantastic. And then I started having a niggly, just in one of those jobs, I started having a niggly feeling. There were some things that were happening that were out of my control, that really weren't right. Now I'm not a complainer. I like everything to be nice.

I like everything to, I don't like conflict. I am in some ways really not proactive. I'm much more reactive. I will wait until an opportunity comes and then I'll take it. I won't challenge. This is what I was like when I was in my mid career and then things really started getting difficult. I'd never...

Mmm.

really resigned from a job or made a decision to leave a job, ever. What had always happened to me was that someone would come to me, something would come to me and I would take it. So being able, making a decision that I need to step away, that this isn't right for me, wasn't something I was comfortable doing.

⁓ but then, in this situation, I looked at myself and I thought, and I looked at the people around me and how they were being affected by my situation, and I thought, what would happen if I just put up with this not being right? If I just passively waited until it fixed itself or something else came along? ⁓ and I could just see things spiralling and spiralling if I didn't

make the decision. They made me make the decision to step away,

which for me was frightening and I would never have done it if I hadn't have played forward in my mind not doing it and sick just see the horrors that were slowly unfolding for me and everyone around me if I didn't make the hard decision.

Okay.

Yeah. And Zoe, when you made that decision, did you have a perfect plan moving forward?

No, not at all. I had no idea what I was going to do. But luckily, there was someone alongside me who was in the same position and who had more years experience that had been through difficult situations before. And so they were able to kind of give me some moral support and some guidance for steps to take in order to get to a point where I would have a plan. And so knowing that I wasn't in it alone and that I had...

basically a mentor and guide to support me who was also going through the same experience at the same time made it better not having a plan.

Yeah.

And was that different than times when you had a plan? Did it take longer for a new opportunity to come into play? Was it a completely different path if you think about, okay, I had a plan, I had another job to go to, or you just kind of stepped into this new world of not having an opportunity?

Not having an opportunity, not having a plan actually ended up reducing the mental load. Sometimes when you're planning you plan and you over plan. And so actually understanding that I had the right safety rails around me to be able to take a short pause without a plan meant that putting the plan

finding the next solution was far less burdensome than if I had worked really, really hard to do it in parallel with trying to do what I was currently doing. To be in a space where you can really dedicate yourself to opening up to possibilities without being really, really busy doing something else at the same time allows you to make much better decisions. So it was really revolutionary for me. Now I understand if I need to make a very big decision, I need to pause

Okay

Right.

It's so true.

everything else.

Yep. Yeah. And I think it gives you the clarity of mind to make a decision, not that you're running away from something, but okay, where do I want to go to? Yeah. That is so nice. Yeah. And that can be a scary thing. Yeah. It'd nerve wracking.

And having the support or advice of someone who's been there before makes a really, really big difference. I think it would have been a much more negative experience if I didn't have that maybe, but even so, it was still more positive than the usual kind of, ⁓ I've got to try and work on this in parallel with that. To be fully involved in creating the right moment to design your future.

Right.

Yeah, fantastic. Well, that takes us to question number two of the afternoon here is around who has had a significant impact on your life and shaping in how you lead and how you work today. And if they were in front of you right now, what would you say to them?

Well, it's the same person I was just talking about who was able to support me through that time of transition and you've briefly met him, I Nigel Breakwell. Yeah, so Nigel really, the first time we met, he was interviewing me for a job with him to be potentially the first full employee of the company he opened an office for.

I have met him, yeah.

⁓ So it was kind of high stakes for both of us. And he just let me be me in the, in the, the interview and being both quite excitable dreamers before we knew it, I was drawing on the whiteboard. We were imagining things because he was asking these great questions and he wasn't alarmed by my energy. He wasn't alarmed by the fact that I've gone off piste and wasn't behaving like a normal interview. He encouraged it.

And, you know, working with him over the years, sometimes frustrating, but always at the heart of it was him giving me the space to be me and do what I do well, which actually until you're enabled to practice that regularly, you don't even recognise yourself. So actually by him just letting me be me, I've been able to really better define.

Mm. Yeah.

My value as a business person because I've been able to be practising it authentically. Yeah, thanks Nigel. Honestly, you know, thanks for not just putting up with me, but letting me be me and letting me thrive in that.

yay!

Fantastic. And That leads to a really interesting point that in interviews we often potentially act how we think we should or what's proper to do in an interview and how fantastic that you could be you and what that led to, but that he encouraged it as well. And what can come out of situations when both parties are open to being themselves.

Yeah, exactly.

Nice. Was it the first time you've had an interview like that? That you were drawing on the whiteboard? have you done, is that Zoe?

Wow, it's a little bit annoying.

I remember the first job interview I had after I finished my PhD and I'd never had a proper job before and I so completely didn't know how to behave and the lady who was interviewing me who I, you know, who's been back in my life so many times since then, working with again at the moment. I just remember halfway through the interview that...

She was just kind of staring at me with her mouth slightly open. I was like, is this good or bad? And I suddenly realized I've been quite excitable and enthusiastic and passionate and had kind of been like, you know, really not very English, perhaps, perhaps a bit too Australian, just being me. And that awful moment where you can't quite tell if it's good or bad.

Heh.

So I guess I've been like that before in an interview. It was good, I got the job. Absolutely on the spot. I was fine on the spot. So that was nice.

Okay. Yeah. Both times. Yeah. You should always be you. Yeah. Because you

is you is good Zoe. Well and thinking about you and your own legacy. What is something that you want to be remembered by? And that means today too. We often talk about legacy as something when we're not around anymore but that's not the case.

Yeah.

There are things that we associate with you now and when you're not with us anymore. so what is that?

Yeah, yeah. mean, coming back to this kind of personal brand of being a connector of ideas and being a connector of people. As someone who doesn't have children, for me, my lasting legacy is obviously the colleagues I've had over the years and the clients I've had over the years who I've enabled to go through the same discovery that I've been through and to help them.

be their authentic selves and be successful in being their authentic selves. And so whenever I get feedback from people I've worked with that I helped them get out of the way of themselves or that they realised why this project and they were a good match for one another, that means so much to me because I can see that I'm having a larger impact than just the work that I'm doing. And that's really, really important to me.

Being able to leave teams and never work with them again maybe but leave teams in a position where they know they've been successful and they know how to replicate that success. So that's about making the connections and holding people's hands maybe while they're doing something for the first time but leaving them with such a story in their mind of the process and how they got there and who they are and what the value was that they brought to that situation that they're able to carry on that.

that.

Yeah, that's beautiful. And you can teach others how to be connectors as well. I think that that's such an skill to have to be able to see people and to go, wait, something needs to happen here. And I don't know potentially what yet, but there is something here. That's a wonderful skill.

Yeah,

being able to spot things that are potentially connected as ideas but you can't yet see what to do with them, but just recognising that and acknowledging that. Because they will always be the next, you'll be in the shower the next day and you'll be like, oh, that's how I feel. So yeah, valuing those not yet fully completed strategic thoughts is really important.

That's it.

Yeah,

yeah, Fantastic. Zoe, thank you. As always, a delight to speak to you and I really appreciate your time.

Love you.

Thank you so much.