#25 Boosting wellness: how a side hustle can enhance your life

Text transcript

Well welcome everyone. I think we shall get going so for those of you that haven’t met us before, I’m Amy, I’m Angus, and we have Nick beavering away in the background and Liz in Harrogate, and it’s lovely to see you all, and of course we have our fantastic guest, Rupa Mooker, who I will introduce more formally, shortly.

 So, yes. For those of you that don’t know us, we are Headtorch. Experts in workplace mental health.

We work with all shapes and sizes of organizations. We work with senior teams, line managers and frontline people. And the aim is to meet the organization wherever they’re at on that journey towards creating a mentally healthy culture. And we’re offering some free health checks at the moment.

We’ve also got a free Kindness Counts campaign. Angus will tell you a bit more about that later on as well. So the format of today’s Wellbeing Hour is that I will shortly introduce Rupa. She’ll then introduce herself with her mystery object. She and I will then move into conversation and then she’s going to pose us a question and we’re going to open the floor.

So you’re going to have opportunity to answer that question and give your thoughts to that question, and indeed ask Rupa any other questions that might have come to mind as we have been talking. We’ll also at some point, share thoughts from that poll question that you hopefully have come across when you came into the session here.

So if you haven’t, then you’ll find the poll probably at the bottom of your screen. You just pick that up, it’s a quick yes no answer, and it’s all anonymized. After we’ve had our chat excuse me as an open group if you like, then Rupa and I’ll go back into conversation. She’ll share some top tips, and then I’ll ask her a few quickfire rapid questions before handing over to Angus, who will formally thank Rupa and tell you what’s coming up next on the Headtorch calendar.

So it is my great pleasure to introduce to you today Rupa Mooker who is the Director of People and Development at MacRoberts, LLP which is a solicitor’s firm, which, is based in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, and has a, a very, long, history heritage of a, of at least 150 years. Rupa is a solicitor and specialized in employment law for 14 years at MacRoberts before becoming their Director of People and Development in 2017.

She’s currently a member of the Law Society of Scotland’s Equality and Diversity Committee with a particular interest in increasing the representation of individuals from ethnically diverse backgrounds, as well as social mobility issues, and of course in workplace mental health too. On top of that, Rupa is a co-opted member of Scotland’s National Advisory Committee for Action for Children. she is a volunteer and mentors as a youth coordinator at her local Gurdwara or Sikh temple. She is a regular contributor on BBC Scotland. She has her own music show on Scotland’s only National Asian Radio station, Awaz fm.

And ladies and gentlemen, we have here the 2022 winner of the Gold Award for best female presenter at the UK’s Community Radio Awards. Rupa Mooker, do introduce yourself with your mystery object. 

Rupa: Well, hello Amy, thank you very much for having me along. And hi to everybody here. My mystery object is probably not that much of a mystery after that introduction, but it is my headphones. and I suppose this kind of symbolizes lots of things for me. It’s obviously very important in my radio career. I rely on the headphones to get me through my show, and just generally on a day-to-day basis, I would be absolutely nowhere without my headphones because it’s actually one of the things that really helps my own mental wellbeing is getting out, getting for a walk and either listening to podcasts or just some really great music.

So my headphones are the one thing that I don’t tend to leave my house without. 

Amy: Excellent vital item. yes. You’d save it from the waves if it was desert island disks, right? 

Rupa: Maybe, yeah. I mean children, headphones maybe. Yeah, I’d try and grab both. 

Amy: Excellent. Good. Pleased the kids are being saved there as well.

 So delighted that you’re with us, today, Rupa. Your first day as a solicitor almost never happened, is that not right? Going to tell us a little bit more about that. 

Rupa: Yeah, so, I kind of did the whole thing. I did the law degree. I did, you know, I did, I did all the good stuff, but when it came to the end of it, I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to be a solicitor, to be quite honest.

I had all these big dreams of being a TV presenter and, you know, going off and, and doing all these fabulous things, and I thought the law maybe wasn’t really for me. So, the summer where everybody else was applying for their traineeships and, and doing whatever, I was just kind of on a wee galivant of, well, I’ll see what else is out there,

and, you know, didn’t really bother to apply for any traineeships, which is probably not the best idea I’d ever had, but anyway, you know, I was young. But I entered a competition. It was a nationwide competition. It was called Is She MTV? And if there’s anyone that’s on, the webcast today that kind of knows about MTV it’s a music, station.

It was huge sort of in the, the late nineties early noughties and they were looking for a new TV presenter. there was a very popular TV presenter at the time called Richard Blackwood who had, a really cool show and they were looking for a, a female presenter to, to go alongside him. So I entered this competition and the main reason I remember entering it was, I used to help out my mom and dad’s post office on a Saturday morning, and the auditions were on a Saturday morning.

So I really did it just to try and get out of working for my mom and dad. But anyway, you went along and, entered and I remember turning up and it was at the RSAMD so the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, in Glasgow City Centre. And there was this huge queue of all these girls, like really lovely dressed and just, you know, really knew what they were doing,

and I was like, oh, I’ve not thought this through, because I’d sort of pitched up just in jeans and a hoodie cause I was meant to be working in the post office. So anyway, very last minute, to cut a very long story short, I ended up being selected as one of the two Scottish finalists, which I was not expecting at all.

And I got to go to London, did a whole weekend on MTV, and it was, it was one of the best experiences of my life. I didn’t win, which was, a shame, but I did get down to the last eight in the country, which was wonderful. So I didn’t win and then I thought I’d better get a traineeship, so then I applied for a traineeship at MacRoberts and turned up on day one.

And when I turned up in the office, all the other trainees were like, were you the girl that was just on M T V all summer? And I’m like, yes, that was me but I’m here now. So it was, it was a great, great summer. The summer of, of 2000. I will always remember. 

Amy: Absolutely, absolutely. It, it’s interesting, isn’t it

what life deals, what life deals us and how we’re sent on different paths. How did, how did you feel when you, when you didn’t get the MTV job? 

Rupa: Auch. you know, I was obviously gutted because I thought it would’ve been great fun. I would’ve been on the telly. You know, it was music, I loved it, and obviously when you’re young, you’ve got all these dreams of, you know, I wanted all this stuff, but I’ve also been quite positive. So I was just like, oh, well I didn’t win. I’ll go and do my traineeship. And at the time, I suppose I was still doing things like radio and a little bit of TV work here and there anyway, so I just sort of continued to do that.

I just did the traineeship and became a solicitor and did the day job, and just sort of continued doing all the other stuff at the same time. So I didn’t ever think it was a bad thing, if anything, I was like, well, this is quite cool. I can be a lawyer and I can do all this really cool, fun stuff. I suppose it was a wee bit odd for people to come across a lawyer who was maybe doing those kind of things in their spare time, but the way I look at it is, you know, maybe your hobby is golfing or maybe you like to go and climb mountains. mine just happens to be that I like to go into a radio studio. I’d been volunteering in community radio since I was 16, so it was just something I’d always done. I’d done it the whole way through university and the opportunities that it brought me as I was going through and meeting people from radio or tv, it was just great, and I suppose in the back of my head I was like, they could be future clients. So, you know, you I had my business mind on as well. 

Amy: Looking for all the opportunities.

Rupa: All the opportunities, yeah. I sort of approach life in, you know, it is an opportunity. So of course I was upset that I didn’t win, but I was just like, well, I got through to the last eight. I had a great time. I got to go and hang out in MTV Studios. I went away to London for the first time, you know, and stayed in a really fancy hotel.

It was, it was great fun. It was brilliant. so, yeah. Yeah.

Amy: So it sounds like also, you know, the fact that you had all that experience already, kind of underneath your belt, it sounds like that almost was helping you to be confident to get through that kind of disappointment, but also realizing that there’s lots of other options out there for you and you’re not having to give up being on the radio or, or presenting.

it can still be part of you, you don’t need to wave at goodbye just because of that one, one situation. I think that ability to pick ourselves up is so crucial today. Right? 

Rupa: Absolutely, and I think that, I’ve always sort of approached life like that, and I am very much of the view, and, and I know, and it’s quite common nowadays, I think, you know, that people don’t really tend to just have their one main career.

They, they have lots of things that they’re working on. I suppose, and, my Dad kind of always says this to me goes, I think you were just maybe a wee bit ahead of your time, that you were sort of doing that 20 years ago. Whereas now, I don’t think that I I’m unique in any way. I think there’s lots of people doing what I’m doing now. You know, they’ve maybe got their main career and then they’ve got their hobbies or their passions that they’ve then managed to develop into something else on the side, and they work equally as hard at both. So I just think that maybe at that time it wasn’t probably as common. and it never, I suppose, occurred to me that it would be anything other than that.

Like it genuinely never occurred to me that I would become a solicitor and I would have to stop doing any of that stuff, and I think a lot of that was maybe due to the way that I was interviewed and the people that interviewed me. And I, I’ve been with MacRoberts my whole career. I’ve been there since, 2001 I started.

And the reason I’ve been there is because it was really progressive thinking at that stage, and I remember in my interview at that time, I didn’t actually think that I’d got the job because they didn’t ask me any questions about my law degree. They didn’t ask me any really law questions.

They were really interested in all this sort of other stuff that I was doing, whether it was radio, whether it was volunteering, whether it was, you know, any of that stuff. And that was the bit that they were interested in, and it really ultimately led them to hire me. And, and I always remember asking the managing partner afterwards, I was like, you didn’t even, I was like, I went away thinking I did not have that job.

And I said, you didn’t ask, you didn’t even look at my cv. And he said, well, we’d already seen CVS before they came in, so I was comfortable with the, you know, you’ve got a degree, you must be pretty that bit I was satisfied at. And he said it was the extra bits that we were looking for.

It was the, what else can you bring to our firm? Am I going to put you in front of clients? Are you going to get on well with your colleagues? Are you going to be able to business develop for us? Are you going to be able to interact with clients? And he said, that’s the extra bit that we are really interviewing for.

 

Amy: So it’s the, it’s the person. Yeah, it’s, it’s you as an in individual that they’re interested in. Fantastic. So just focusing on that time, when you were a solicitor, you, you were very, very interested, weren’t you in, in justice for the individual. Tell us a bit about that.

Rupa: So when you’re a trainee, you’d sort of do four different seats in a law firm, certainly in MacRoberts you do, and most law firms are the same. And I did a, a seat in real estate. I did one in corporate finance. and then they were looking for someone to come a bit earlier to the employment team at that time.

And, I stuck my hand up again. I was like, it’s an opportunity because I had never actually studied employment law, so I was like, oh, this is a good opportunity to go and find out what that’s all about, didn’t actually do that at university. But also I wasn’t particularly enjoying the corporate finance work. It wasn’t for me. I didn’t really get it, and I was like, if I can get out of here a bit earlier and go do something else, that would be ideal. So I ended up in the employment team and it was the best decision I’d ever made. Again, it was just one of those things where I, thought’s an opportunity, I don’t really know much about it, but I’m willing to learn.

And the employment law team was absolutely where I found my niche. I went in there and primarily as an organization, we tend to act for employers. So, you know, we’re advising employers on their policies or procedures, whether they’re needing to, obviously, you know, deal with employees, et cetera.

discrimination issues, equality, all the rest of it. But occasionally I did get to, work with individuals who also came to us and perhaps they had been, maybe not treated very well by their employers and those could be issues of perhaps redundancy, discrimination, unfair dismissal. So I did end up doing quite a few individual cases as well, and those always, I guess stuck with me a little bit more because when you’re speaking to an individual, it’s very different from acting for an organization. With an individual, you feel very responsible for those individuals. and you, you are almost in a sense, you have to be very careful because you can end up becoming, you know, their counsellor in a way because it’s such difficult things that they are going through. But yes, in my employment law work, because I did a lot of equality work, a lot of discrimination work, and really just wanting to make the workplace a nicer place to be, I spent the majority of my career doing that. 

Amy: Yeah, fantastic. And so you were a practicing solicitor for 14 years and then, all of a sudden, you’re really taking quite a, a shift, in focus in terms of becoming the Director for People and Development. Tell us a little bit about how, how did that come about?

Rupa: So, again, it won’t surprise you, it was just an opportunity. I, I kind of got to, you know, I’d done 14, 15 years and, as I said, I really enjoy MacRoberts. and I was continuing to enjoy it, but I, I think at that stage, and I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like it, or maybe others who are on this call have felt like it, but I sort of got to this stage where I had a bit of a….

I’ve still got quite a long time to work, you know, I’ve still got quite, quite a lot of years still to work and is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life? You know, is this particular, being an employment lawyer, because I had done very well and I was doing very well in my career, you know, I had, been a trainee and then been promoted to solicitor, senior solicitor, associate, senior associate.

So, you know, I was doing all the right stuff. I was progressing well. I had a great career. I really enjoyed it. I loved the firm, I love my colleagues, but I suppose I was just thinking, is this really what I want to do for the rest of my career? it took me a while to, to sort of get to it cos I was essentially quite happy,

and after about a year or so of sort of umming and aahing I was like, I don’t think this is really what I want to do. Maybe I’ll come back to it. and again, I’m very, optimistic about these things. I’m like, I’ll try something else and then maybe I can come back to it. So I’d sort of made the decision that I was going to move on.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to, which again is not the best idea. With hindsight, that probably was not one of my best ideas. But again, I believe that things have a way of working out, but I was still doing radio, I was still doing a little bit of telly and, you know, I thought maybe I’ll do that.

I also had this wonderful notion that I was going to go hang out with my kids full time, which again makes me laugh now because I love my children deeply but, yeah, I don’t think we need to spend that much time with each other. But it was all great. So I was in my, my notice period actually, it was all very amicable. MacRoberts had kept the door open for me because I wasn’t going to a competitor or anything, you know, they were very just take your time, see what happens, we are here. And then during my notice period, our then HR director, had decided to leave. So there was that opportunity,

that job came up and the, managing partner at the time had come to me and basically said, “You’re looking for a new opportunity. You’re really good with people. You know this firm. I think you would be great at this job” and essentially said, what do you think? And again, it just always came to me again, once you know how progressive the firm is, that, and they knew I didn’t have the necessary experience really for that role because I had been their trainee for all those years and their solicitor.

So I did point out. I felt it was necessary to point out the fact that I probably didn’t have the required experience for the role, but they were so forward thinking with it they were like, but we want you to make this something new. We want you to bring the firm on. You’ve got all these ideas.

Because I’d always been sort of, you know, pitching my ideas and maybe we could do this and I think you should do that, and I think this would make the workplace a better place. And they were like, well, you’ve been talking about it for a long time. Here’s your chance to sort of put it into practice. And at the time there was a little bit of a movement in the management board at the time. So the firm was entering a new phase. and again, I sort of went home and spoke to my husband. He was like, give it a shot. He is like, what’s the worst that happens? The worst that happens is you don’t enjoy it. and you were going to leave anyway. So that’s kind of the attitude I went in with.

And, yeah, I’m still there six years later, so. 

Amy: Fantastic. It, it just sounds like it’s opportunities and options just kind of have happened along the way but it also sounds like the firm has also seen opportunities and, and options and so it’s been a happy marriage, if you like. I know you got very much down to sort of grassroots didn’t you, when you became the Director of, of People and Development. Tell us about what you wanted to shift within the culture, what you wanted to move forward. 

Rupa: So I, as you know, I’ve been there my whole career and I was having a wonderful time and everyone was lovely and I was getting all the opportunities and it was brilliant.

But I would be lying if I was sort of, you know, not looking around going, there’s still not very many people that perhaps look like me. Or, or maybe from a similar background to me. And that just wasn’t within our firm necessarily, it was within the legal profession. The legal profession generally was not very known for being all that diverse, whether it was in terms of, you know, what your background is, what your socio economic background was or maybe, in terms of your race or your ethnicity or, from the L G B T community.

So there was just, I, I was sort of looking around thinking I’m having a great time, but where are all the other people that could potentially be having a great time? So one of the first things that I did when I became Director of People and Development I was thinking to myself, I think this is a great place to work, but I don’t think other people know it’s a great place to work.

So I really wanted to work on changing that perception of, not only our law firm, but the legal profession generally, because, when I was speaking to people who are, you know, I, I’m Sikh, I’m from a Sikh background and I was speaking to lots of Sikh young people and they were like, oh, I’m not sure I would ever do law it’s a bit posh, it’s a bit white, it’s, too fancy. And I was just like, it’s really not. And I thought there’s this perception of the legal profession. So I worked very hard to sort of break down those barriers. And you mentioned getting back to grassroots. I literally was out, speaking to young people, whether it was in universities, whether it was at schools, whether it was in religious institutions.

I made good connections with the Law Society of Scotland very early on when I moved into this role because I was very keen to work with them, and to the Law Society of Scotland’s credit, they were already starting to work on things, but the last five or six years, it’s completely, different from what it used to be like.

And they were very forward thinking, and so with all of that support and with other organizations within the legal profession, we really managed to reach many, many people that we would never have reached before. Even things like going out to law fairs, I’m the Director of People and Development, I don’t need to necessarily be at the law fairs, but the first couple of years that I was in my new role, if you want to call it that, I made an effort to go along to as many law fairs as I could. And it really struck me. Now I obviously hadn’t been to a law fair for many years, but it really struck me again once I was walking into these law fairs that,

at the very most, it was me that looked a bit like me or maybe another person. And by that I mean there was perhaps someone from a Chinese background, or there was perhaps someone, you know, from a slightly different looking background and that was it. And I thought, well, if this is what students are coming into, no wonder they’re getting a wee bit put off,

so a lot of work going into really speaking to people. I opened my LinkedIn inbox, you know, speak to me, ask me the questions. We held a cup of open evenings at MacRoberts where people could just come along. We literally just opened our doors and said, come along, meet us. And I just, got the lawyers from MacRoberts who are all lovely, normal people, just come along, speak to us, chat to us, and I think slowly, slowly started to break down those barriers.

And, it’s still happening, we’re still working on it, but I’m very pleased to say that, five or six years on we’re, we’re in a much better place. I speak very freely to people and I also found that the legal profession wasn’t very good at talking about things or feelings or hard work or what it was like under pressure.

So I spent a lot of time, really opening up the conversations around mental health in the workplace, which is obviously how we ended up being in touch. and just bringing that really positive attitude to it’s okay to say you’re having a terrible day and actually for lawyers particularly, I know there’s lots of other professions out there who are maybe similar, but I can only speak about the legal profession.

You know, it’s, it’s a difficult job. It’s a really hard job and I don’t think necessarily people understand how much pressures lawyers can be under. There’s lots of misconceptions about that lawyers are paid lots and lots and lots of money. I assure you they’re probably not paid as much as you think and, it’s just, that, that whole feeling of we must just get on with it.

Don’t ever speak to anyone, don’t say anything, don’t tell anyone you’re struggling, that really kind of stiff upper lip. I wanted to slowly break down those barriers. And again, there’s still work to be done on that, but I have to say that I’ve seen such a massive change within the legal profession, and we’ve got lots of organizations now that we can go to.

We’ve got Law Care, which is specifically set up for the legal profession, which has been vital, particularly during covid, I suppose. So I just spent a lot of time doing a lot of that kind of grassroots work just so that it would be embedded properly. 

Amy: Absolutely. It sounds, absolutely amazing the steps that you’ve taken.

you know, it’s just that, that ripple effect, isn’t it, of just going out, having conversations, bringing it home to people, just how important it is that the diversity, but the inclusion bit is so, so important. And in terms of, wellbeing, you know, you were, you were talking there about some of the struggles that people have within a solicitor’s firm, long hours,

 perfection, perfection, perfection. what, What sort of, what do you see as the, as the root cause? What might you see as the root cause of some of the issues that cause stress ill health within the profession? 

Rupa: I think a lot of it, there’s many things, but I think a lot of it is that as lawyers,

you know, the majority of lawyers have come from a background where they’ve just really been very high performers their whole life. You know, they’ve been high performers at school, they’ve then been high performers at university, they’ve then been high performers to get through the interviews to get to being a solicitor.

So you’re constantly on that, I’m a high performer, must perform well, must not let anybody down. And being a lawyer, it’s an absolute privilege, but it’s also quite hard going. It can be quite stressful if you are responsible for people’s livelihoods or people’s business decisions, and you’re really making very, very, you know, you’re advising on very, very difficult things. It’s quite stressful because clients are very demanding also. Um, we are a service industry, we are there to service the clients and the client, you know, in any service industry, the customer’s always right.

You’re doing everything you can to service the clients, so that’s quite hard, and I think ultimately what it comes down to is that law firms are a business. They’re there to make money, they’re there to make profits, and of course you’re feeding into all of that, so lawyers have targets which they have to meet, and these targets can sometimes be quite stretching in terms of what you need to do.

So I think when you take all of that into account and then you add on that added element of perfection, which many solicitors feel that they have to get to, it’s a lot of stress on yourself. It’s busy. you know, everyone’s usually quite busy, so maybe some people feel that they can’t necessarily reach out to someone to say, look, can I have a bit of help I’m kind of struggling?

So I think that’s very much what it used to be like. But what we’re trying to now say is actually, it’s expected, really if you are struggling, you must ask somebody. And we set up lots of things, especially when people are coming into the profession at trainee stage or at the newly qualified stage, making sure that they’re well looked after. We now have training managers that are looking after them,

they do check-ins with our team. They have mentors, they have buddies. And then even at the other end, because our partners are also struggling because they’re responsible for so many things, so it’s right across the board. But I think it’s that sort of combination of potential perfectionism,

Amy: and demands from the clients,

but as you say, I suppose it’s about managing expectations on both sides, right? When somebody comes into the organization and equally managing expectations with clients. So the clients are aware that actually the person who is your solicitor is also a human being, and they too need a bit of, you know, downtime.

They need time to, to just bringing it back round to that side hustle. they, they need time to do some of that right? So just very briefly in, in, what do you, what do you think having your side hustle, as a dj, as a broadcaster, how does that help your day job? 

Rupa: Yeah. I you know, some people got a side hustle, some people just call it a hobby, whatever it is, whatever you want to call it.

I mean, for me, the benefits it brings to my job are, I suppose it’s mostly the communication skills. I think that’s really, you know, I’ve worked in radio since I was 16, so just building up the communication skills, as a solicitor was very important to me. There’s obviously lots of different types of solicitor, but I, I was a litigator, which means that I needed to be very good at communication with clients and obviously in an employment tribunal in front of a judge.

So the communication skills were really important, but also I think just being able to meet a wide variety of people. I think that’s really, what’s stood me in really, really good stead, and I suppose that comes from, whether it’s been volunteering, you know, I do a lot of volunteering work in the community.

 I worked in my mom and dad’s business, and I think that that taught me so much because they had a post office and it was, in an area of Glasgow, which is, it’s Cardonald, and, just meeting the people there. Every single walk of life and you know, I think all of these extra things that you do, whether it’s your job or particularly I suppose if you’re talking about the radio and the broadcasting, just for me to be able to go into spaces and meet people from all these different walks of life and really learn, learn from them.

And it comes back to, I think it was the communication skills, I’ve done radio broadcasting, I’ve got qualifications in that as well. And just learning what’s important, how to. 

Amy: Yeah, so, you’re stretching yourself if, if you like, in other areas that which then helps you to stretch when you’re actually at work, right?

Because it’s, you’ve got that, you’ve got that sense inside you, you’ve got that experience inside you. And I think it’s so important, isn’t it, that we are aware of how much those, you know, we, we talk a lot in our sessions around five ways of wellbeing, Connect, Learn, Stay active, Notice, as in being in the moment, and Give, and how crucial they are.

They’re not nice to haves, right? They’re not, they’re not, oh, maybe I might do that at some point. they’re actually essential to who we are, and they, they bring so much then into, into the workplace. Thank you, Rupa. Let’s see what people have, how people have responded to our poll. 

 Our question, just to, to remind folks again, is have you ever thought about starting, or do you already have a side hustle? 

Rupa: Yes. So 38% are saying yes and 63% are saying no.

Amy: Right. Interesting. Interesting. Excellent. Okay, well, let’s just now have a look at your question that you’re posing to everybody here. Is there something that you love and enjoy doing that could be your side hustle passion project? That’s Rupa’s question to us all here today. we’ll just like to open.

Open the floor now, as they say. so if anybody would like to ask Rupa a question and, or answer, answer Rupa’s question, sorry. Then, do please, maybe use the reaction, the hands up sign and, we’ll get your thoughts.

Is there something you love and enjoy doing? That could be your side hustle passion project. 

Angus: I could, maybe start off, 

Amy: 

Angus: One of the things that I’ve always been really interested in is, sports psychology. I love sports and I do lots of different sports, and the psychology and the mindset I find,

fascinating. It’s the difference between being able to do something or not being able to do something or doing something really well, or, not being able to do it well. Yeah. So I’d just be interested in your thoughts on mindsets and how that impacts on what you do. 

Rupa: Yeah, I I’m glad you actually asked that cos as I was reading my own question, which I was getting reminded of what I’d ask cause I was like, what did I ask again?

As I was doing that, I think one of the things that I think I should make really clear is I don’t see a side hustle as something that you need to go and make money from, or that you need to be really, really good at. I think you just really need to enjoy it. Just do it because you, you, you love it.

So in terms of mindset, I think that if it’s something that you’re really interested in, you want to find out more about it. It doesn’t need to be called like a side hustle, just go and find out more about it and just enjoy it, I think is probably where I would come from. One of my friends, she does her day job during the day, but what she was really, really interested in is Pakistani fashion.

She loves Pakistani fashion and she just loves dressing up and wearing clothes, and she just started sort of sharing like wee photos of herself on Instagram and now she has got this huge following and she still does her day job. She still does all of that, but she just loves wearing clothes and dressing up and getting nice jewellery and now she’s sort of helping other people,

and then she’s getting all these collaborations with designers and I’m like, this is not what you were setting out to do. And she was like, no, she goes, I am still just doing what I love, which is dressing up and putting on nice clothes and taking photos of them.

 she didn’t really care if anyone else liked what she was wearing. It was just, I like doing this, it makes me happy. And I suppose the same with me. And you know, with radio it’s difficult because you can’t see who’s listening. Well, we can obviously get our listening figures and things in like that, but in a sense, for two hours a week I go into my show and I just chat.

And, you know, the way that you do radio is you chat as if you’re chatting to one person. You are that person’s friend. You are in that person’s house. And I think I’ve said before that for me the medium of radio is, is so intimate and it’s so important and it’s, it’s a very privileged position to be in, to be able to do that.

And I really, really noticed that through Covid, we were an absolute lifeline, and I actually genuinely mean that. Our wee community station became a lifeline for those in our community who couldn’t necessarily get out and they didn’t know much English. And, so I’m completely bilingual. I do my show in in two different languages and,

you know, that became a Lifeline and in some sense, it didn’t really matter in terms of what the output was. It was just, I’m there, I enjoy this and I’m doing it for this reason. So that’s sort of my mindset. Other people may have other mindsets towards their side hustles, but I reckon if you love sports psychology, good.

Angus: I was going to ask how you prepare yourself mentally for doing something like that? So your radio program or going on BBC or whatever, what’s the mental preparation that you go through?

Rupa: Radio show because I am everything on that. So it’s a community radio station. So I basically choose the music, I produce it, I play it, I answer the phones, I answer the WhatsApps, I do everything. So for that, I’m a bit more in control and it’s much easier for me to mentally prepare myself for that because I’ve literally done all the prep and I’ve done that show for a long time,

I’m very comfortable with my audience and it’s great. My mental preparation for that, usually, if I’m perfectly honest, is it’s my, it’s, you know, it’s kind of two brilliant hours of my week where I get to go and do something that I absolutely love. If I’m going on to BBC Radio Scotland or doing something for another radio station, that then very much depends because with some of those things, they can be very quick turnaround. So it could be something that’s hit the news that morning, and they’re wanting you to comment on it, or they’re wanting you to sort of bring a legal aspect to it. So that can be a little bit more stretching in terms of mentally preparing yourself because there’s actual prep that needs to go into that.

And as a lawyer, you need to make sure that what you’re saying is correct and is legally correct and factually correct. So the mental preparation for that is definitely different from what I would do on the show. But generally my mental preparation is I’m very, positive and very optimistic,

and I always just tell myself it’s going to go great. So it’ll be fine. 

Amy: Great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ruth. you added there, now you realize what the side hustle meant. Sorry. Maybe we should have made that clearer in, in the question your, your answers yes. Would you like to share a little of. What your site hustle is.

Ruth: Well, I’ve got a bit, I’ve, I’ve got two really one’s a passion and, well, I guess the other one’s a passion. work for ScotRail. I’m senior training delivery manager at ScotRail I’ve worked with Amy before as well.

Amy: and we’ve, lovely to see you been Headtorch. so it’s nice to see you too my two side hustles, one is gardening. I knew nothing about gardening when I moved into my house. Had never tended a garden before. so I’ve spent years, literally reading books in the winter and, you know, sort of preparing.

I landscaped my own garden. We had four lawns to start with, I now have none. 

What is it you get from gardening? 

Ruth: I don’t know. I mean, I can go out there at 10 o’clock in the morning and come in at 10 o’clock at night and my husband will come out with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine or tell me it’s dinnertime.

And you know, I think it’s inner peace, to be honest. I, I honestly think it’s inner peace. and, and it’s, it’s almost like seeing the fruits of your labour. Gardening is a patient game. You know, you don’t have instant pleasure if you do it, from scratch, unless you go out and buy a bush, you know, like it’s 10 foot tall.

but for me it’s, it’s about seeing the fruits of your labour. And I’ve started, doing veg as well this year. so lovely. 

Amy: Sorry, Ruth, can I just jump in there again? You said you had two, so you your garden and what’s your second one?

Ruth: So, it was actually Rupa that reminded me I do this. So when you talked about your friend who loves clothes and that type of thing, I’ve been a bit of a collector of clothes. I’ve a wardrobe upstairs. I used to do eBay years ago. but recently I’ve been, emptying things, trying to get rid of things, because I’ve run  out of space.

And I developed a passion for Vinted, oh my God, it’s so addictive. 

We were talking about that earlier. 

 I’ve got my sister into it, I’ve got my friend into it, my friend’s listing all the time. 

Amy: So again, very quickly Ruth, just what is it you get from, from Vinted?

Ruth: Apart from money, the thrill of it .It’s the thrill of seeing it. That’s thrill. Thank you. The recycling part of it as well. So you’re giving your much loved clothes a new life, and you can take what you like from it as well, but you know, when you’re looking for something as well, I would never have thought of looking on Vinted, but now I do because I have had some great things.

Amy: Thank you. Thank you, Ruth. Thanks so much for sharing. Lovely to see you. And Josie there. Josie there is saying, I make jewellery and handmade cards as well as gardening. Wow, fantastic. It’s really good to hear what, what people are doing as they’re, you know, when, when they’re not at work and how much that feeds in right, to what, what we do in the workplace. Thank you very much. Let’s now hear some of Rupa’s top tips. Top tip number one, Rupa. 

Rupa: Yeah, when I was thinking about these and I was like, what’s the things that sort of kind of get me through what I’m doing? And it can be busy, I am busy and, you know, with my day job and all the other stuff I do, and then I’ve got two teenage boys as well that I’m looking after.

So, you know, it, it can be a bit of a juggle. So when you were saying about top tips, I was like, what are the things that are good for my wellbeing? And these were what I came up with. So the focusing on your strengths, and again, I am very optimistic and I think that a lot of the time we tend to focus on what we’re not good at.

You know, someone asks you to do something. I’m not, oh, I can’t do that. I’ve never done it before. I can’t do it. And I really am very much a, I’m not going to think about the bits that I can’t do. I’m just going to say, here’s all the stuff that I’m really good at. I’m going to concentrate on them. And I focus on my strengths and developing those and how that’s going to work towards whatever it is that I need to do.

It definitely makes me feel more confident. I feel less stressed. I feel much more happy, and nine times  out of ten I’m probably more likely to be successful if I sort of flip things around. 

Amy: Absolutely. I think it’s proven, isn’t it, that when we focus on our strengths, it makes us feel better rather than going, oh gosh, you know, I’m rather, I’m rubbish at maths I better spend lots of time doing that. Why spend lots of times doing, trying to do something, I’m, I’m always going to be rubbish out when I could get better at something that I’m actually, you know, have more of a leaning towards. yeah. Great point. Don’t compare yourself to others. I love this Rupa 

Rupa: 100%. Don’t compare yourself to others and that is so difficult. And as a mom of teenagers, I am very aware that they’re being brought up in this sort of whole social media world and everyone else is doing this that and the next, and thankfully, so far they’re okay and they seem to be quite grounded, but actually, the mom in me is telling them to do that but then I have to remember to apply that to myself as well, you know, comparing myself to others. And it can sometimes be difficult, if you are on social media or you’re out at events and you’re saying, oh, like, you know, how, how come they’ve got that and this person’s got this, and like, why bother doing that?

It’s just going to make you miserable. So I don’t, I try not compare myself to anybody else. I’m more again, it comes back to the focusing on my strengths and like, what was I doing yesterday? How can I be better than I was yesterday? you know, and comparing myself to myself. So I would rather compare myself to what I was like yesterday or a week ago, or a year ago,

and I think that’s fine. I don’t, I’m not, I shouldn’t be interested really in comparing myself to others, that’s never going to end well. 

Amy: That’s right, and Randal, who’s on the call today as well, I know he talks a lot about that, don’t you, Randal, about, not comparing yourself to others, especially when it comes to exercise, right?

Whether it’s walking or swimming or running. Yes. Randal. 

Randal: Yeah, exactly. There’s always someone faster than you and always someone slower than you. And you just 

Amy: And that’s okay. 

Randal: Yeah. And that’s okay. Yeah. And, I was once advising, my mother-in-law who took up running at a reasonably late age and she went in for the first fun run and she came a long way last of a local fun run and she was quite embarrassed by it.

And I said look, guess what. Look at all these people who are watching the race. You are ahead of all of them. And she went on to run in the London Marathon and do very well. 

Amy: That’s amazing. Thank you Randal. 

What a lovely story. Thank you Randal’s a serial entrepreneur and serious friend of Headtorch. So continuing on with your top tips. Get outside, you say Rupa. 

Rupa: Yeah, absolutely. I mean this is not a very high-tech answer in any way, but just get outside. I try and get outside, and obviously being in the beautiful Scottish weather that we have, there’s no guarantee of sun. It’s nice today, I have to say. but there’s no guarantee of sun. So I think, you know, trying to get out during the working day, especially no matter what the weather is, even if it’s for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, I actually find. Put it this way, my husband can tell if I’ve not been outside when he comes home. He can tell because my mood is somewhat different when he walks through the door. If I’ve been working from home that day, he can very much tell. He is like, did you go for a walk today? I’m like, no. And he is like, I can tell.

So instantly, I feel it just boosts my, it personally for me, it boosts my mood. and it’s just so important to get away and get whether it’s 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever you can do and you know how much you can do. I really feel a negative impact if I don’t get outside. 

Absolutely. Challenge yourself.

Tell us about that quickly. 

Yeah, so I don’t like to be too comfortable, or stay unchallenged in any way. I like to learn new things, I like to meet new people, I like to experience new things. And I feel that by always kind constantly challenging myself, it sort of boosts my confidence in a bit.

Cause I think, all right, well that’s good. I’ve learned something new and now I can maybe do this, or I can help that person, or I can learn a wee bit more about that. So for me, I get a bit bored if I feel like I’m a bit too comfortable. It becomes a little bit boring for me. So I’m always challenging myself. 

Amy: I think we’ve heard that as well through this whole conversation in terms of how you have done that consistently, you know, from, from a young age. So, it’s about seeing it as an opportunity rather than seeing it as something, that you want to shy away from, right? Set some boundaries and then stick to them.

Rupa: Absolutely. I think that’s really important. We’re all busy nowadays, everybody is busy, everyone’s got a lot of challenges that they maybe have got. They’ve got a lot of responsibilities and I think that you absolutely need set boundaries. It’s one thing to set the boundaries and say, I’m always going to have a lunch hour,

I’m always going to log off at half past five. It’s another thing to stick to them. And I think that you need to have, those boundaries and then really, really protect them, well. Whether that is having a cut-off for by the time you’re finishing, whether it’s, no one’s going to contact me about work related things at the weekend, whatever it is.

 I do that and I really try and stick to them. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t happen all the time, and there are times when your own boundaries do slip, but I then feel the effects of that and then I very quickly realize that there’s a reason for the boundaries in the first place. So, for me, that tends to work that this is what I’ll do, when I’ll do it.

and then really trying to stick to them and being very polite, but firm to people who want to maybe try and get you to move away from them. 

Amy: Absolutely. And how important do you think it is to encourage that within your workplace? 

Rupa: Oh, like, so, so important. It’s just we, especially through Covid and especially now because we’re hybrid working, so we’re in the office and at home,

but just really encouraging people to get out for lunches and making sure that they’re not in the office beyond, you know, certain times. Of course there’s times when we all have to work a wee bit later or whatever, but I think just having those boundaries and what you said earlier, Amy, about setting the expectations with clients I think is very, very important as well.

Whether it’s clients, third parties, even your other colleagues, because we have some colleagues who could. Everyone’s got different life circumstances. You know, we’ve got people who are maybe, you know, thrilled to be able to work all the hours in the day because they love that and they can do that, and maybe they’ve got no other responsibilities.

And then we’ve got other people who’ve got many more responsibilities, whether that’s caring or maybe they’re like me and they’ve got something else that they want to go and do, after work or whatever. So I think it’s very important to also set those boundaries with your colleagues.

Amy: And finally, a little bit of this sleep. 

Rupa: I love sleeping. It’s one of my favourite, favourite things in the world. Me and my son’s regularly have a conversation. My oldest son especially, we’re quite alike. He’s like, think my favourite thing is sleeping. I’m like, me too. So I love sleeping. I need to get enough sleep.

If I don’t get enough sleep again, it’s a bit like the not getting outside. I become a bit grumpy if I’ve not slept properly. but for me it’s. You know, I think we’re in a world nowadays where everyone’s like, go and exercise, go and eat this, do this, put this on your face. This will make you young.

And I’m just like, see if you just sleep, sleep will fix so many things and it’s so easy and it’s free and it’s great. So sleep as much as you can or as much as you need I think. and that really helps me get the rest and, yeah. Makes me feel better. 

Amy: Yeah, absolutely. The elixir of life is sleep, I believe. We like Professor Matthew Walker’s stuff.

He’s been interviewed by Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. Lots of books, Why We Sleep and so on. So, so important, for us. We have a few quick fire questions for you now. Are you ready, Rupa?

Rupa: I’m ready. 

Amy: What does vulnerability mean to you? 

Rupa: Oh, vulnerability. I think it depends in what context it is. It also depends in terms of vulnerability, I suppose. I, I personally probably don’t tend to show that as much to those who I am not very, very close to. So I wouldn’t go about necessarily being vulnerable to random strangers. but I do think there’s a place for it, within your family situation certainly, within your friends and within your workspace.

So I’m probably more likely to be vulnerable with my immediate team. We all know each other very well, and I think as a leader, I think it’s really important to, to just be very honest about that. And there are days when you know, it’s just a bit rubbish, and you’re maybe not feeling on top of your game.

And I have learned over the years, share that, and because I think then it encourages other people that if they’re feeling like that, just to share that vulnerability with each other. 

Amy: It sounds like it’s about creating, being able to be vulnerable with people you trust.

Yes. yeah. Lovely. What’s going to revolutionize workplace mental health? 

Rupa: Oh gosh. People just need to start talking to each other. Talk to each other. 

Amy: Lovely. Brilliant. And what message would you give your younger self? 

Rupa: Don’t change. 

Amy: Don’t change. Be yourself, you mean, or? Yourself. Lovely. Don’t change.

Fantastic. Rupa thank you so much. Absolutely wonderful to, to chat with you. I’m going to hand over now to Angus and let him have a chat with you. Thanks very much. Thank you so much, 

Angus: Rupa. That was great. I love, I love Don’t change. Don’t change your younger self. 

Rupa: Well, don’t change because you are what you are it’s all for a reason. 

Angus: Absolutely. Experience. Absolutely. You gave us some really great and straightforward messages there. Get out, speak to people and learn. It’s so simple, it’s so straightforward. Be confident in taking new opportunities. That came across really, really strongly.

and stretch and practice as well. You know, the fact that you’ve been running radio programs since you were 16. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s, it is impressive. And I also like the openness, the really open up the conversation about mental health. Just talk about it. Yeah. It’s straightforward.

It’s not complex. It’s not difficult. If we all had that courage just to talk about mental health, the world would be a much different place. Also, focus on your strengths and compare myself to myself. That’s one I’m going to remember. I’m going to take that one forward. Compare myself to myself.

How am I now compared to what I was a week ago or whatever? Yeah. It’s a really great message. 

Rupa: Changes your life, it really does. 

Angus: Aha. Absolutely. And it can be as simple as getting outside, I absolutely agree. Last night I had to go for a walk. It was burning me, I had to do it. 

And my wife will often say to me, you haven’t exercised. You need to go and exercise. That’s my release. And I love the whole thing about I don’t like to be too comfortable. Always challenging myself. You know, you’re telling us a lot about yourself there. Yeah. But it is that continual drive, that continual development and sleep.

Just sleep. Again, it’s so easy. It’s so simple. So thank you very much. It’s been a really interesting conversation and on behalf of us all at Headtorch and everybody who’s here and everybody who does listen, when the podcast goes out. Thank you, Rupa, you know, it was really enjoyable and really interesting, so thank you.

Rupa: Thank you very much for having me. 

Angus: It’s a pleasure. It’s a pleasure. On the Wellbeing Hour next month we have Hannah Storm. So Hannah is actually also a journalist. She is an author, she’s a speaker. She is founder and co-director of Headlines, which help promote mental health in the media.

Hannah worked at the Times, ITV News, Channel Four and BBC and in places like Haiti and disaster zones and things like that. So I think it’s again going to be a a different take from what Rupa did today. but again, really, really interesting, I think insightful and, we might even get her to read some of her book out as well.

And also coming up dates for your diary. Headtorch are currently running the Kindness Counts campaign. This is a free-campaign, we launched it as part of Mental Health Awareness Week. It’s really easy to implement. It’s completely free and it encourages and celebrates kindness in the workplace.

So go onto the website, you’ll see Kindness Counts there, and, register and you can get the free pack to do that. We also have, as I mentioned, the next Wellbeing Hour with Hannah there. And if you like what we do, please stay in touch, follow us on LinkedIn, do all that kind of stuff.

And we are also offering a free Headtorch Health check. So this is a one hour consultation and, if you would like to take advantage of that, get in touch. Or if you want to hear more about our tailored solutions for senior leaders, people managers, and frontline people, please give us a shout. We’d love to hear from you and also what you’re doing on workplace mental health.

So there we are. That’s it. The Wellbeing Hour for this month, and, we’d like to thank you all very, very much for, being involved and, Rupa thank you again, it was wonderful. And thank you everybody. Thank you. Okay. Thank you everyone. Thank you for coming along.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everybody.