(Episode 114) How to Handle Professional Failure

Taryn Bell [: 00:00:00

A quick content note: this episode includes discussion of sensitive topics, including depression and suicidal thoughts. While the conversation is not graphic or detailed, these themes are addressed openly. You may wish to skip from around 15 minutes to around 23 minutes if you prefer not to listen to that part of the episode. If the issues raised in this episode concern you, you can access support and resources in the show notes.

Voiceover [: 00:00:32

Welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast, where in every episode we explore what is research culture and what should it be. You'll hear thoughts and opinions from a range of contributors to help you change research culture into what you want it to be.

Taryn Bell [: 00:00:52

Welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast. I'm Taryn Bell, a research and development advisor at the University of Leeds. Back in December 2024, we released an episode focusing on failure in academia. We talked about the narratives around failure, who's allowed to fail, and the need to be more open about our failures. If you haven't listened to that, I'd really encourage you to go back and have a listen after today's episode and we'll include a link in the show notes. Since then, we've heard from many listeners who've said that this message resonated with them and many of them expressed relief that this something that we're talking about openly. So with that in mind, today we're going to continue our journey into the realm of failure to see what we learn from sharing our experiences. I'm really glad to be joined today by my colleague and co host Ged hall, who's here to share his own experiences. Welcome, Ged. Is this your first time on the podcast as a guest, not a host?

Ged Hall [: 00:01:52

Yes, it is, yeah. First time kind of being interviewed on my own. Yeah, going back to that, you know, going back to your intro in saying that that episode was really fundamental in me moving, you know, final stages of me moving on from this story that the listeners are about to hear.

Taryn Bell [: 00:02:14

So hopefully then today will be a little bit cathartic maybe for you, give you a chance to kind of put the final pieces in place, so to speak, on that experience. So just as a little context for any new listeners who are new to the podcast, could you give us a quick insight into your current role at Leeds?

Ged Hall [: 00:02:33

Yeah, so I'm an Academic Development Consultant in Organisational Development and Professional Learning at the university. So my kind of focus for my role is research impact. I'll do a plug for the playlist. I'm sure you'll put that in the show notes for me. And yeah, so I deliver a whole range of development provision, it's not really training, development provision around impact and that also includes individual coaching as well as cohort programs.

Taryn Bell [: 00:03:06

I don't want to embarrass you, but I think from knowing you and working with you, you've had a very successful career in researcher development. And I think from the outside it's often very easy to look at other people's careers and successes and high points without realizing that it's not all been plain sailing. In this episode you're going to share one experience of professional failure which happened a few years ago. Could you tell us a little bit more?

Ged Hall [: 00:03:33

Yes. So in leading to the pandemic, I started a two day a week organizational development project for Professor Nick Plant. So he's now our Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation. But back then he was Dean of Research Quality and Impact and the project was around, around coming up with a university wide strategy to embed research impact within the academic experience, actually within the university and to prevent it being driven, you know, that culture being driven by the Research Excellence Framework which is the research assessment exercise in the UK. So kind of jumping forward a little bit. I've been working for Nick on that two day a week project for about 18 months or so. And then one, it was kind of early evening so I'd kind of just shut down the laptop. You know, we were all at home in that, in that period. So I'd, I was sat on the couch and I got a message on teams from, from Nick saying can we, can we have a, just a short chat? So I thought must be something quite important. So he, he was actually just telling me that he'd, he'd been successful in applying for the PVC role. It was at that time called a Deputy Vice Chancellor role. So he was just telling me that he'd been successful and that there'd be a kind of handover period while he as the boss of his old role would work out what he wanted next from that role. But it was clear criteria given to him by the appointment committee that he would have to hand over that responsibility. Now that was, that was kind of tough for Nick because one of the things that's, that he's really passionate about is research impact, which is why I've really enjoyed working for him all this, all this time. And I've really enjoyed him being DVC and PVC for research innovation because I know he believes in the same things I believe in. So anyway, the role was advertised, you know, he, his old role was advertised and it was, it was actually advertised in a very different way. So it came out as Director of Knowledge Exchange and Impact. So that kind of opens up a couple of things in, in my head. First of all, it's not a dean role, which traditionally feels like a role that only an academic can apply for. So because it's labeled Director, that kind of feels this, this could be something I could go for now. I'm currently a grade eight at Leeds in terms of our grading structures. I'm on the top of that grade. I've been at the top of that grade since I came here because I was actually on a higher grade at my old institution. So I took a kind of step down in grade to come to Leeds and the director is a grade 10 role, so it's quite, quite a big jump. So there was a lot of kind of internal, you know what, that's too big, that's too intimidating, that's too challenging. And you know, Ruth and, and Emma were kind of instrumental in helping me to get through that kind of, you know, just little on me, little working class kid from, from Blackburn who was born in a two up two down with an outside toilet. So I decided to apply for it and yeah, Ruth did a really great job in kind of turning all of the CAR stories, Challenge-Action-Result, that you've done episodes on, into something that was actually kind of. It was able to breathe on the page because the application was a CV and I think a couple of pages of, of a four in terms of a personal statement. So she did a great job with that. I was really pleased with how it looked. I kind of thought, hey, if I get good feedback, that that would be real success. I'm not expecting to get shortlisted, but I was offered an interview and that happened on the 30th of April. It was a Friday, 2021, so again, an online interview with a panel and those are slightly odd. And I guess I knew two things at the end of it. One, I'd done an absolutely brilliant job on the presentation that we'd been asked to put together. And two, there were two questions that I thought, oh my god, I sounded like a complete and utter moron in answering those questions. And I knew that straight away.

Taryn Bell [: 00:08:30

Why was that? Was it that you weren't prepared or that they were just questions that completely threw you, or was it the nerves of the day?

Ged Hall [: 00:08:39

I think there's often focus on what you're good at, isn't it, in terms of the, in terms of your prep. And to be honest, I can be. When somebody asks me a challenging question, I Can kind of speak out loud until I, you know, until my brain kicks into gear and I can bring myself round to the answer that. That is now starting to form and starting to sound almost coherent in my head. So the thing I'm good at is presenting. So I think in terms of the prep for the interview, I kind of went, I'm a bit scared about that bit, so I'm going to focus on the bit I'm not scared about. And, you know, I knew. I think I must have practiced that maybe well into the 30s, you know, 30 times. Yes. So I knew it absolutely word for word. I knew every. Every vocal intonation, I knew every up and down. I knew which sentence I was going to lead on a high and which I was going to lead on the low. I knew what my voice, what my hand gestures would be and that those hand gestures would fit in the frame on teams. So I practiced all of that. I'd watch those back, I refined them. And I knew, you know, when they just said, can you give us a presentation? It was just like hitting the automatic button and that it would, it would happen. And I remember Nick saying, I'll give you the 30 second warning. And I thought the immediate reaction in my head was, you won't need to, because I knew that was just going to go brilliantly. Yeah. I think when those two questions came up, they were questions that I just kind of went. One of them was, you're in a lift with Boris Johnson, who was Prime Minister at the time in the UK, whose big policy area was around leveling up, they called it. So essentially, there's areas of the country, like where I grew up, which are deprived and areas that aren't. And levelling up was about trying to do something about that. So what would you say to Boris Johnson in those two minutes in the lift that would show that the university has really credible ideas, contributions to make to this agenda. And I just kind of went, blah, blah, blah. And I vaguely remember kind of coming out with some nonsense in terms of, you know, when you're thinking about the pitch, think about the audience and think about what they're most interested in. And all I could come up with was, he's only interested in himself. So I found that. I found that quite difficult to kind of situate an answer when within, what is, what can the university do to show Boris Johnson is a really great guy when I know he's not. And, you know, my politics are in so different to that. So I think all of that kind of went through you know, went not quite through the conscious part of my brain, but went through all of the subconscious and, and fright centers and all of that sort of thing and, and just kind of incoherent nonsense, I think is probably the most polite description of that answer. But the other one that weirdly threw me was around postgraduate research students. And I, you know, I know that community really well and I know their challenges. You know, one of the reasons why I'm working in this job is because I wanted to, I wanted a better experience for every PGR than I had. But so the question was around, how do you help research students? All disciplines really engage with enterprise. And obviously that enterprise word can take all sorts of very different definitions. Are we talking about them being entrepreneurial themselves? And I don't mean setting up businesses, I mean them actually having an entrepreneurial way of working in whatever career they, they go into. But it, you know, and we, you know, I'd done loads of work collaboratively with loads of great people across the university and for some reason every single name of all of those people seeped out of my brain. And I remember one of the other panel coming in because they knew that work and going. It was them, them and them just to try and kind of settle me. I think it was kind of the question after, after the Boris Johnson, then, you know, that one, I kind of went, I had so much more, I could have said then in, in a more concise way that would have been much, much punchier and much more, much more impactful in terms of terms of the, you know, the interviewing panel being able to take that criteria and give that a good score. So, yeah, afterwards I didn't feel that great. I mean, luckily I'd arranged to have the rest of the day as leave, so the dog and I went, you know, he, he was able to listen to me kind of bleating about it and trying to get, trying to get that off my chest.

Taryn Bell [: 00:14:04

So what happened next?

Ged Hall [: 00:14:06

So while I was still out on the dog walk, because we went out for quite a long time to try and try and kind of unpack, Nick called, a Teams call. And so I was listening. You know, it went the way I was expecting, which was not to be given the job and, you know, the feedback, the feedback, I, you know, it was like, that was definitely the best presentation that we saw and kind of like, well, if it wasn't, I've. I really don't know myself that well at all. But, you know, there were, there was someone else who, you know, who delivered A much better all round piece. So that person was also internal and I knew them. So they took up post as Director of Knowledge Exchange and Impact. That was in April. They took up the post in, in July. I think it was, I think it's about roundabout the 19th of July. And I guess, I guess by that stage that part of the interview was almost like, you know, when you scroll through YouTube and it, and you scroll things and it shows the same part of the, of that clip, you know, again and again you. So that, that was kind of running, that part of the interview was run it almost running as a YouTube video on loop in my head whenever I wasn't completely distracted by something else. And I guess heading into, heading into the new academic year, you know, kind of September time that was getting worse and worse, you know, almost like trying to find a time machine and go back and kind of right, "now I have the answer, so surely you can just give me the job now. I've got a much better answer". Yeah, I couldn't stop, I couldn't stop that playlist, for want of a better word. And that, that affected me mentally, you know, in terms of my mental health that caused all sorts of bad things to, to happen and you know, I started looking at all sorts of other roles just to kind of try and run away from the situation. So you know, I applied for a couple of jobs in London, got interviewed, didn't get those kind of, that didn't help with the kind of your personal view of yourself which at that time, you know, when you hear the, you know, you see that loop in your head and you, you have that nasty image of yourself on your shoulder that's going, you were awful. You were so rubbish, you know. And you know, and, and the internal language was becoming more and more severe as time went by. So it's almost like, yeah, if, if, if you've ever seen the Spider man films, the Green Goblin character talking to them, you know, the, the Green Goblin talking to the person who, when they're not the Green Goblin was actually quite a nice guy, you know, it, it was, it was really like that.

Taryn Bell [: 00:17:30

And had you, had you struggled with anything like this before or was this, was this entirely new?

Ged Hall [: 00:17:37

So I'd had, so I've used, used the counseling service when I was at Nottingham when my marriage fell apart. But in comparison this was probably 10 times, felt 10 times worse than that situation. I think, you know, research impact, the impact universities can have in the world beyond academia is what universities are for. That is my heart-held, absolutely firm conviction. And nobody would ever argue me out of that because it is a values belief, you know, it is at the core of, of everything. And so that job was my perfect, you know, absolutely perfect job, you know, in terms of being able to have the influence to try and make that belief of reality. So I think to kind of miss out on that job felt like, you know, if we're using a sporting analogy, we've just seen Rory McIlroy win the Masters. You know, I think if he'd have missed that part, it was the equivalent of. It would have been the equivalent of that for me.

Taryn Bell [: 00:18:55

It's interesting because when we in academia often when we talk about things like academic identity, we often talk about how academics are very, very tied to their sense of identity as being an academic. But what I think is really interesting here that that's often the same for many of us, whether we're in academia or academic adjacent roles that we do tie a lot of our personal value to what we do for work. We spend so much time there, it's not surprising.

Ged Hall [: 00:19:23

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I mean, one of my previous roles was as ahead of careers and, and you know, the advice I've always given is chase something that's interesting and important to you. Don't chase salaries and position. And, you know, that's what's important to me. I think that's what should be important to most people. And I think that's what brings ultimate satisfaction from a career.

Taryn Bell [: 00:19:52

So from that perspective, then you tried to chase something that you thought would bring that satisfaction, but you hadn't been able to. And so that then put you in this situation where mentally you found that quite difficult to handle.

Ged Hall [: 00:20:06

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, I mentioned the dog and most dog walks, you know, I love walking the dog, but most dog walks became hell on earth because I just had time to see that YouTube loop again in vivid 8K with all the, you know, Green Goblin nastiness going on in my head. And I, you know, part one of the dog walks I do takes. It takes you across a high bridge, above a. Above a bypass. And that's the only time in my life I've thought of the only way to stop this is to stop my brain thinking. And the only way to stop my brain thinking is for it to be shut down.

Taryn Bell [: 00:20:57

So what changed to stop you from fixating? What helped you to move forward so.

Ged Hall [: 00:21:05

That, you know, the starting point was that walk across that bridge on that one dog walk. You know, it was on the way out and I had to go across the bridge on the way back. And so by the time I was coming back to that, I thought, I've. I have to stop that suicidal thought happening again. I have to work out a way around that and that, you know, interestingly, as I said, I used counseling services before. Up to that point, I hadn't for this. It was almost like. Because it was kind of my failure and what I did wrong, it was almost like. I don't know whether it was shame, I don't know whether it was being stupidly male, you know, I don't know. I just couldn't tell people about it. You know, it was almost, you know, when people asked about the, you know, as they do the interview process, you know, or if you saw a colleague from another university you hadn't seen in months on a zoom call, have you been getting on? You know, I tell them about it, but it was always like, you know, their loss. You know, I was almost kind of going, you know, so what. What I did next was actually tell the people, I suppose, close to me in terms of. I'm. I'm not well, actually this is. I'm. I'm not. I'm not great. And that, I think, was a surprise to everybody. I told. And then. So I did then go to the counseling service I saw, went for quite a few appointments to try and work through it, and in the end used a whole range of different talking therapies, went through the counseling service. Then the university provided me with external coaching, so I had that. And that particular coach, we. We used to meet at a. At a country park in between. In between our two homes. We'd usually be able to do it in the open if it wasn't terrible weather. And, you know, that was also great, you just being in the outside and being able to kind of talk it through and work out what next. For me, I also took up mentoring. So I'm really grateful to Luke Windsor, who's our Dean of the Doctoral College here at Leeds, who was who I was given as a mentor. He was great. So had had chats with him around what again, what next? What else might I do? You know, still in that exploration process, but not, not being kind of exploring rather than kind of just jumping and, and hoping that the fire isn't as hot as the frying pan analogy. And then ultimately all of that enabled me to. To talk to Nick about it. So, yeah, we. We'd had the feedback and we'd had a long, you know, he said on that dog walk discussion we need to see each other again. We need to talk about this in more detail. And, and in some ways I kind of gone, you know, I'd kind of go, I'm not ready, you know, psychologically I wasn't ready for all of that. So we did have another conversation about two months later. That was feedback. But actually that was, that was while I was starting to go down rather than coming back up. So after the counseling and the coaching, I arranged to see Nick again. And we saw each other twice. And I'm really grateful because, and people might say why? And you just kind of think he's so busy, he has so many other people's concerns at his door. And we, we had two sessions pretty close together, which is that were over an hour in length. Now anybody who's tried to get a DVC or a PVC for more than an hour, two weeks apart, I was being significantly prioritized by him. And I, you know, I absolutely knew that during those conversations that yeah, all he cared about at that, at that moment in time was me, which I think was one of the things that kind of needed to hear because I felt like I'd let him down as well as me. So to kind of, for him to want to invest, for him to want to, want me to get to a point where whatever I did next was the right thing for me, not just the right thing for the university. Yeah, was very much the, yeah, I knew I was coming, coming way, way back up that curve as a result of those conversations. So that, yeah, a whole range of talking with, with lots of different people and, and actually being honest about the, about the grief, really essentially that, that I was going through.

Taryn Bell [: 00:26:34

And if you don't mind me asking, what was, what was Nick's reaction? Had he realized how much this had affected you?

Ged Hall [: 00:26:41

I think he, he really, you know, interested in those conversations. He didn't try to kind of ask questions about why haven't we, why haven't we had these conversations sooner? You know, it's kind of like, you know, I'm not going to go back and look at, look at what might have been, you know, a non optimal way through this depression and, and remind you of that, you know, So I think he handled that amazingly well. Yeah, he focused on me. He focused on where I was right at that moment and, and he listened and he, you know, interestingly, often counseling is about that surprising question that unlocks a way for you to think about something. I know he's not a trained counsellor, but he really unlocked a number of questions that really made me go, I really need to reflect on that. And the reflection on that will be a positive experience. Not the reflection I'd been doing where I've just been looking at the reflection and going, ah, that's horrible. So, yeah, yeah, I have. I can't thank him enough, to be honest.

Taryn Bell [: 00:27:57

And I guess that's a, that's a testament as well to the importance of good leadership. I guess, good support within universities. I mean, I think one of the things that's come out of this is you were able to utilise the support within the university to help you move past that.

Ged Hall [: 00:28:15

Yeah, I mean, everybody, everybody who, you know, I've already mentioned, Luke, Emma and Ruth, heard these, heard this a lot and provided support. Caroline, who's Emma's boss, funding the coaching and the coach themselves, the people at the counseling service I met, you know, I had the same counselor all the way through those sessions. You know, we sometimes criticize universities for not having things, but actually when they do have a whole range of things, you know, when I worked in the corporate sector, counseling would have been a 30-minute conversation by phone with somebody, you know, and that might be the limit of what you were offered as part of the employee benefits package. Well, you know, I don't know how many hours I went through actually in terms of counseling with that person. And the care and the professionalism of all of those people was just.

Taryn Bell [: 00:29:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's a useful reminder as well. And something that's come up quite a lot in discussions with various people since the last episode on Failure is the importance of talking it through with other people. Because I think so often, because we have these notions of identity and excellence and I think universities are an environment where people are very often very tough on themselves. People feel like they can't talk through failure because then that admits somehow that they have failed or that things haven't gone the way they wanted.

Ged Hall [: 00:29:50

Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, it is about talking it through. There aren't any solutions out of that. Certainly from my perspective, you know, the different conversations brought different things. You know, the counseling was about getting to a stage where I could start to formulate actions. The coaching was about the formulation of those actions. The mentoring was about the exploration of some of the things I thought about during those two earlier stages. So, yeah, they were all different stages, but all just talking and actually talking to a range of people to get the input. Just different perspectives on that, on that problem. And having so many people, you know, everybody. One of the places, action learning that we use a lot, action learning comes from some work that was done in the early years of the National Health Service, where there was a recognition that it isn't the consultant that has the answers, it's all of the team around. You know, if there's a complex case, all of the, you know, the nurses, what's happening, what are you seeing because you see them more often, what, what's the physio see and what's the, you know, all of those multidisciplinary experts need to be brought together to kind of try and find the right way forward in that. In that case. So that I think was really important for me, that kind of multidisciplinary, almost expertise, approach and perspectives. Yeah. And obviously talking about it at home as well.

Taryn Bell [: 00:31:42

Looking back on the whole experience, the whole process, what would you say you've learned from this? And perhaps if you were to go back or if something similar were to happen to you in the future, how do you think you'd handle things differently, if at all?

Ged Hall [: 00:31:58

So I think, you know, I think there's a, there's a simple one and I've probably hinted at it in terms of describing. It is not to be, you know, when, when a challenge is coming up that you, you want the, the thing from the challenge, whether that's an interview, whether it's a funding application, whatever it is, is that you can't just focus on the thing you're good at. You know, you do have to put really more of the time into the thing you're not good at. So if you, you know, if it's a funding application and you're rubbish about writing about responsible research and innovation. That's the thing you need to focus on, not leave it to the last minute. And I think, you know, I, I did that. I focused on the thing I was good at and left. You know, I did have a mock interview with somebody from outside the university and I knew the, you know, the mock interview didn't actually go that great, but I had so little time left to try and to try and fix that that I think I always almost did the head in the sand approach. Well, it might be better, it might be better next Friday when, when the real interview happens. So I think it's kind of really planning through what is it that you're. That you need to focus on. And it's the thing that you're likely to be less good at that is the thing you need to focus on to, to really raise the whole thing. You know, the interview or the application, whatever it is.

Taryn Bell [: 00:33:29

And to ask a tough question, say you went through a similar process again and didn't get the job. How would you handle it differently in that case?

Ged Hall [: 00:33:39

Well, I've had that experience because the role came up again. It actually came up twice. The first time was really in the kind of deep depression stage. So I didn't apply for it at that point and they didn't appoint so it was re advertised again. So I was interviewed again on 28th November 2022. And yeah, I think I, I think I did go. I really have to focus on, you know, the, the presentation that might have a different title but it'll be something similar. Yeah. And it was so it was kind of like right, tweak that. Get it out of the way. I know I can with a. With about two or three practices I'll be back at the rest of the button and it'll just happen. And then the rest of the time was right. I really need to crowdsource potential questions from people who've been in that. And also the, there was a benefit here because the, this third time around they were using a headhunter this time. So again with the. I was able to kind of tap into what the headhunter's view of what the, you know, what might come up. You know, they are trying to get some, you know, them to say yes to somebody they've. They've recommended to be on the, on the short list. So that, that was, that was a much more pleasurable experience and I kind of like, you know, I had all sorts of notes on potential questions that they could ask and I took those in. This was a face to face interview this time. So I was able to have them on the, on the table and it was, you know, it fel. Much more kind of like that process that you, you don't like but you feel more comfortable with. Being interviewed by Teams is a...you kind of, yeah, we train by Teams but we're not being interviewed by Teams. So. So I knew I'd done the prep. I couldn't have done any more for that. And when, you know, when I closed my notes and kind of left the interview, I thought if they don't get give it me this time it's through no fault of, of the, of the interview process. I could not have done any better with any of the questions without lying.

Taryn Bell [: 00:36:06

And what was that experience of going through it all again?

Ged Hall [: 00:36:09

Like, I really enjoyed that, actually. I remember, you know, as a. As I was walking to the door, you know, Nick, Nick, who was chair of the panel, kind of. We got out the door and he said, well done. And he kind of, he didn't say it kind of outright, but I kind of, you know, he sort of winked and I thought, yeah, much better than last time. Yes, I know. And then he went off to get the next candidate and I went to. To the next stage of the interview, which was to meet a few of the other directors that report to him directly, who obviously, I know anyway. But, yeah, you have to go through the process and. Yeah, really enjoyed it. It was, you know, I, I set my stall out and, and the feedback was good. You know, it's just on the day there was somebody better and I, you know, I get on really well with that person, Sarah Hall. No relation. So I get on really well with Sarah. I think she is a really great appointment. You know, I work well with her and the team that she's putting around her. And yeah, I feel, I feel happy. I'm glad I did it again. I think if I'd have just gone that third time around, I'm not going for it now. That's past me. But now, you know, if it came up again, if Sarah left, I might not go for it this time. All of that exploration and all those conversations over that, over that year and a half and the, and the various interviews made me realize that what I do is the thing I love the most.

Taryn Bell [: 00:37:48

What for me becomes clear is that when it comes to failure, there's two different ways that you can prepare for anything. There's a kind of practical preparation, the practicing your presentation again and again, practicing questions. But there's also the kind of emotional preparation as well. And it sounds to me like that last time around you were both practically and emotionally prepared, and that's what really changed things that time.

Ged Hall [: 00:38:15

Yeah. I think, you know, it might sound like a cliche, but having gone through it once and it feeling that, you know, ultimately horrible and going through that horrible almost nine months, I think that kind of made me kind of realize that it doesn't matter what the answer is. I have to look after myself. Doesn't matter what the answer. You know, if it's. If it's yes, great. If it's no, then I'm still doing a job that I love.

Taryn Bell [: 00:38:43

Yeah.

Ged Hall [: 00:38:44

And with colleagues that I really appreciate, have a huge amount of respect for in a university, you know, as I said, as an alumni, you know, I love the place.

Taryn Bell [: 00:38:58

So just to round off quickly, then if someone, someone else was going through a similar experience, what would your main piece of advice be for them?

Ged Hall [: 00:39:06

So I think if, if you've gone through, you know, you've gone through the process and you're starting to notice it affecting you, then I think the, I think the first thing to do is not, not to close in. And, and you know, I did that. It was a, the worst thing I did was kind of sucking it all into the center and kind of go, I can fix this. Yes, you can fix it. But you, you probably will need to fix it with the help of others.

Taryn Bell [: 00:39:38

Yeah.

Ged Hall [: 00:39:40

And I think the prep beforehand is about working out who are those others that you're going to reach out to if the answer is no, and if it then starts affecting you negatively in your mental health, knowing all of those places and acting on them as soon as you feel that trigger, certainly don't leave it to the trigger I've left it to.

Taryn Bell [: 00:40:09

So thank you so much for sharing your experience, Ged. It's been a really interesting and at times emotional discussion, but really interesting to hear your experience and how you manage that over time. If you've listened to this episode and you'd like to share your experience too, please do get in touch. We would love to hear from you. And as I noted at the beginning of the episode, episode, if the issues raised in this episode concern you, you can access support and resources in the show notes. So thank you again so much, Ged. It's been an absolute pleasure and we'll see you again next week for another episode of Research Culture Uncovered.

Ged Hall [: 00:40:53

Thanks Taryn, and I hope the conversation's been useful for people out there.

Voiceover [: 00:41:00

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