BenP (00:01.678)
Hey everyone and welcome to the Tech World Human Skills Podcast. Today, we're talking about how to thrive in the cut and thrust of the corporate world. Now there's some common challenges that many people face as they navigate life at a big company and that's what we're talking about today. So, to share his five top tips and help us with the conversation, we have a guest.
who's worked with some of the most successful corporates. He's currently a cloud engineering leader at Oracle. Please welcome to the show, Dan Wesley.
Dan Westley (00:40.802)
Hi everyone, Dan. So as Ben has just said, I've worked in the big corporate some more. As we go through the conversation, you'll learn who they are. I currently work at looking after around 18 esteemed professionals in the cloud space. So we cover all aspects of what Oracle do in the cloud. So great to be here, Ben, today and look forward to this conversation of how to share my wisdom, I guess, of the things I've learned.
along my coming up to 20 years working in the largest corporations.
BenP (01:12.194)
Well, it is lovely to have you with us. Now, we've got quite an international audience to this podcast. So the first thing I'm gonna address, I hope you don't mind, is some people might be trying to place your accent. And so to place your accent in modern cinematic and televisual times, your Peaky Blinders is basically where you're from, isn't it?
Dan Westley (01:25.333)
Hahaha.
Dan Westley (01:34.121)
you've got it in one. So a lot of people say I'm from Birmingham, which is not the one near Alabama. It's the one in central England, but actually I'm from where the Peaky Blinders is called the black country, right? So yeah, around the Dudley kind of area. So if you've seen Peaky Blinders, I'm the authentic accent version of that. Not the kind of modeled version that I hear. Correct, yeah.
BenP (01:56.27)
The Hollywood version.
Brilliant. And we've known each other a long time, haven't we, Dan? We've worked together. And so what we're to talk about is, I think both of us have experienced from ourselves, from seeing others, the cut and thrust of corporate life, the reality of people that survive in corporate life, the reality of people that thrive in corporate life, and the reality of people that...
Dan Westley (02:03.796)
We have, yeah.
BenP (02:28.644)
that struggle in corporate life and we've got some battle scars and wounds and that's what we're gonna be talking about today.
Dan Westley (02:38.642)
Absolutely and the point I'd make before we kick off right is corporate life as you said isn't for everybody and if I'm honest I probably could have got taken a different career set up a business in support and probably earned you know probably a lot more money than what I have today however to be brutally honest with you I've had some amazing experiences amazing memories amazing friends which Ben is one of them you know that I look back and I'll have the memories from those times forever and
BenP (02:53.839)
Ha ha.
BenP (02:59.097)
Yeah.
Dan Westley (03:06.751)
Unless you've been fortunate to set up a unicorn organisation that has the pockets and the budgets these corporations have, I would have never had the experiences I've had. So I look back very fondly at my time in corporate life.
BenP (03:17.774)
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, I I do you know I think about the projects I worked on, know Unless you're in these really big corporates or very lucky you don't get to work with some of the brands You know some of the projects at some of the big so some of the projects I worked on some of the places I traveled to some of the people I met some of the great fun things that I did, you know, I I had a great time
And I've stepped out into it now into a small business, which is very different and you're still thriving in that kind of world. But I guess what people are, what we're gonna talk about today is how to thrive because like I say, and I've used this term a couple of times, there's a bit of cut and thrust. There is a little bit of survival. There are things that you can do to make your corporate life more successful.
And to make the best, make the best of the situation we're in. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Now, we were talking about this and you've kind of boiled down some of your wisdom into five top tips that we're gonna go through in this podcast. Should we reveal the first one? Should we start with the first one and we'll go through them in order. So what's your first top tip for surviving in, thriving, sorry, thriving in the corporate world?
Dan Westley (04:29.78)
Yeah.
Dan Westley (04:35.293)
Let's do it.
Dan Westley (04:40.924)
So number one is you have to explore it, right? I always look at the corporation, it's like a small village. know, as an example, these organizations can have a hundred thousand people working at them. That's like a small village. So when I first look at a corporation, think of it as a place to explore, right? So that's my first tip and I'll happily elaborate, if you want me to, of what that means. So.
BenP (05:07.488)
Yeah.
Dan Westley (05:11.077)
So essentially I started my corporate life in Microsoft as an intern actually. So, you know, I did the hard yards as a fresh face boy, did my placement year at university. And, you know, when I joined Microsoft, I felt a very small fish in a huge pond. It really was. And I guess what I learned very quickly is, you know, don't spend your life, especially as an intern, when you start cocooned in the organisation where you are right now.
that is your chance to go and explore. And the first thing I would say is, you have the opportunity to shadow as many different parts of that organisation as possible. The corporations absolutely love the people going out and reaching out to people and saying, what do you do again? How does it make Microsoft different? How does it make Oracle different? How does it make a difference to your customer base, right? So getting out there and really exploring, treating it like a
like a village, look at the global address lists, the company directories, look at the hierarchy of where people sit, because I'm telling you, will find there's a lot of wealth to be gained from really branching out and really treating it like an ecosystem, because it really is that, and there's so many different parts of the organisation that you might even not know exist. And I think for me, what it really boils down to is,
what would be your next step and maybe there's things you probably don't even know that realize as part of that org. So it's a real big thing of looking at it like an ecosystem and treating it that way.
BenP (06:51.416)
Yeah, and there's that age old phrase, isn't there? You don't know what you don't know. And there is so much, mean, and you just think, you know, the corporates, you you've been at Microsoft, Oracle, I spent a long time at Microsoft, you know, and you just think, you know, there's people that are making products, there's people that are testing products, there's people that are selling products, that are managing accounts, that are doing support, there's marketing.
There is events management, there's keynote speaking, there is HR, there is finance. There are literally all of these things. And that's just in a business. And if you're then in a corporate, suddenly like you think about Microsoft with its game studios, and suddenly there's this whole other world to explore. If you're in a diversified corporate, there are so many interesting little nooks and crannies of jobs that you might love. So exploring.
Dan Westley (07:43.735)
I always used to get pretty envious of the people that used to work in the Xbox division, right? It was always one of those really super cool organisations, wasn't it Ben, where all the trendy kind of stuff was happening on the consumer front of the organisation. I worked very much on the enterprise side, but I remember people, and you'll know these people as well, that were working in technical support one day and then worked in, get Xbox the next.
BenP (07:54.168)
Yeah?
BenP (07:58.703)
Yeah.
BenP (08:11.492)
Yeah, yeah.
Dan Westley (08:11.919)
What a cool transition as a career, unless you go and find out what it's all about. Oracle has got even more tentacles, as I call it, where we run my cross terminals in hotels. So we have a whole hospitality division, which I didn't even realize existed when I joined Oracle. And I thought, God, know when I see those my cross terminals everywhere, I'm like, it's an Oracle thing. not many people realize that they have them.
BenP (08:37.498)
No? Yeah.
Dan Westley (08:41.093)
That's the old point about, my first point is explore it, know, think yourself as a cook or a Christopher Columbus, you know, treat it like that and go exploring. It's really important.
BenP (08:49.966)
Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. So take advantage of your corporate, explore it and find out what you don't know. What's the second tip,
Dan Westley (09:00.836)
So number two is, and this is one, and as I'll elaborate on, that I didn't listen to myself, I'm just gonna put this disclaimer in, in my first, I know I said this, my second tip is this, don't stay in your role for too long in the corporation world. And what I mean by this is, the most successful people I've seen in corporations that, who started with myself as an intern, you know, I know one guy who's the chief of staff of Microsoft UK as an example.
BenP (09:07.619)
You
Dan Westley (09:29.219)
He spent a lot of time doing a role for two, three years and then moving on and then doing something else and then doing something else. And the reason why you do that is for few things. So first of all, it's all about building your transferable skills, right? So every role that you take will have a slightly different skill set that you build as part of your kind of armory and it makes you a much more rounded person. I think when I look at myself,
because I was fortunate to be coming back at Microsoft as a graduate, right? So I got a role as a technical account manager, so I came from support into the more business side of kind of technical account management. speaking from experience, I stayed in that role for nearly 10 years, my entire Microsoft tenure, and I was very successful in that role, I really was. I had three promotions in that time, as Ben has attested to, it's quite difficult in these organizations to justify the promotion.
Lots of competition as well in these organisations because they get the finest talent. Let's not make any mistake, the big corporations get the finest talent on the market. But I guess what happened to me is this. I unfortunately had a child, came along around five years into that tenure and as you all know, if you've been a parent, you realise the time you no longer have when your first child comes along. And it really kind of made me be a bit...
BenP (10:51.417)
you
Dan Westley (10:55.795)
hesitant to changing things in my career at the point my personal life was changing and I guess what what really happened in that was I'd say around the seventh year now I started to feel a bit stale and this was very early on in my career so you know I was late 20s at this point and I started to a bit stale I started to I was I almost felt the job I wouldn't say was was easy but it wasn't challenging me anymore and I think what what happens is if you do that
is it starts to kind of drain your self -esteem a little bit about what you're capable of doing. And I often looked at new roles when I was in that mindset as, I can't do that. I don't have that skill. Whereas if I guess if I'd have been a bit more disciplined about moving things around, then I would have built this, the, you know, and I'll say this as well. When you go for an interview for a role and you do well in the interview and things like that, it's a massive self -esteem boost.
having regularly practising that skill, and staying within the corporation, I think is a really important thing, especially early on in your career, to really keep that self -esteem tank being filled up all the time. I think it's super important. As I said before, there was one person I know who went from support to Xbox. My old manager that hired me into Microsoft, she went from...
service delivery into HR, which is a completely different skill set, right, in terms of, yeah, you're working with people, but you're working with a lot of policy and people and recruitment and things like that. So, you know, and that is a super important aspect of trying to just keep you as a more rounded individual and moving on to the next step. And I think if I had to give a couple of ideas of really how to go about that,
is first of all, your career development as you're on, and this is a conversation I have with all my people as a leader now, it's I don't own your career development as your leader, it's for you to own. A few mistakes I made going through when I was a early on in my career about career development was, I used to have, they always used to mandate a career development plan inside Microsoft, a CDP.
Dan Westley (13:20.005)
they love a three letter acronym in these big corporations and a CDP, career development plan. I used to go into war and peace, I was changing the world, I was doing six certifications, was shadowing three people and you know, if I'm honest, I probably didn't even do one of those things, you know, because as the time goes on and you're working with customers, you realize those career things always fall down the packing order. And when you've got so many of them, it's just this.
know, vast sea of actions that you generally don't ever get done. And I guess what I've said to my people is this, right? If you just do one thing, whether it be, I'm gonna get this certification in the next three months, I'm gonna go and shadow somebody one day a week for a month in the next three months, you're much more keen to achieving that one thing than you would do having 10, you know, because it just isn't achievable. And what you'll do,
When you do that one thing for your career, you will almost start to then look at what your next stepping role is. And what I've been really fortunate to have in Oracle is when I joined Oracle as a customer success manager, our role kind of morphed into being more cloud architect. So I almost had a changing role purely from that transition. And then I made an intentional decision as a cloud architect to be a leader of cloud architect because
I've always wanted to manage and work with people and bring the best out in people. And that gave me a kind of really tight career development plan by shadowing, I asked my manager, can I manage the team when you're out of office as an example? Can I go on the leadership calls where you have to then manage the P &L for the team and the business unit you're in? And all these things built up these skill sets that then meant I became a leader. So I guess in my seven years at Oracle I've probably done.
three different roles. So I learned from that 10 year tenure in that role and I really enjoyed it. And as I said, Ben's a friend from my time at Microsoft and I've got many others and I look back very fondly. I just guess with a bit of hindsight, I think I would have probably been a bit more rigid about changing that role at about the sixth or seventh year in hindsight.
BenP (15:37.324)
a quicker. Yeah, yeah and and it's interesting I think one of the reasons certainly from my experience that people stay in role and maybe probably to a certain extent as well is it's a little loyalty you feel like you're being loyal to the team you're being loyal to the people you're being loyal to the manager and you know what I've learned and I've seen particularly in the last you know couple of years
lot of redundancies from a lot of big corporates and you know the reality is that the corporate and rightly so in order to keep functioning as a profitable company which allows itself to survive and employ other people has to make cuts has to make redundancies has to do things like that
And if you're the wrong side of a spreadsheet, let's be honest, you're in the wrong department, got the wrong whatever, then that can lead to and so, you know, I think that just helps give a little bit of clarity on loyalty in the professional space. You can still act with integrity. You can still act with compassion and plan a career and move around. Being loyal doesn't mean till death do us part. So don't get too sucked into that loyalty position.
Dan Westley (16:53.661)
and we'll come onto that because it blends into a point we'll make on point four actually Ben because you're absolutely spot on. No, no that's fine, I mean that's absolutely fine.
BenP (16:59.437)
Okay, I'm jumping ahead. Right. Right, well no, let's move us on. Let's move us on to the third one. What's the third tip?
Dan Westley (17:11.476)
So point number three is this, and this was a hard one for me to swallow when I was first told about this, is you really have to manage your sponsors and your stakeholders, right? And what I mean by that is you have to kind of manage your manager and manage the people that you care about to make you more successful in your role. So what do I mean by this?
There's a personal brand thing and I know Ben's already covered about personal brand and what that means in, you know.
BenP (17:42.424)
We've had a couple episodes. I think we had one with Ashley McGlone and we have one with Scott Hounsaman also sort of talking about this. So yeah, it's a couple things entirely focused on personal brand worth We're talking, thinking about.
Dan Westley (17:53.802)
Absolutely. And all those things I completely agree with, you you have to have values, which you radiate in the world, et cetera. but I'm just going to boil it down to this, right? I remember, a while ago where, I was doing really well, actually I more my, all my KPIs and things like that. My school doing really awesomely well. And I live as, as Ben said, I live in the Midlands, which was about, it was about 120 miles. So.
I don't know what that is in kilometres for our friends in Europe, it's probably about 170 kilometres away from the headquarters where the office where all my leadership went in the office every day. And obviously because of the distance and because I was on site at customers a lot of the time, I was doing what I thought was the right thing for the corporation by making customers happy, know, growing the business in the corporation and doing all the things that.
ticked all the boxes of my KPIs and I had some really successful stories on all of those, right? So that's one thing. What I never did, and it was pointed out to me, was I didn't let my leaders know about all that stuff. And I was a little bit like, well, shouldn't man? They should know from my stats. And what I quickly realized, it doesn't work like that. We're all people. And in fairness to those...
those people above me, they've got 200 people in that organisation. And a lot of the time, and I guess I have appreciation for this being a leader myself, Nerees, it's hard to drill into the detail in everybody. You kind of have to skim on the surface of everything that you need to know. And so what I learned really the hard way, and I felt it probably delayed some of the promotions that I felt I was due, purely and simply by not.
going to these leaders saying, I have a coffee, can I have 20 minutes, can I have half an hour with you, you know, and even 15 minutes, right? So if you're asking for somebody who's maybe a couple of tiers above you for their time, 15 minutes, you know, if you're asking for an hour, it'd be a lot harder to get an hour with those people than maybe just 15 minutes over a coffee or over lunch, et cetera. And a lot of the time, they will dedicate that time to you. And if you do that, what you need to then do is be prepared of all of your
Dan Westley (20:18.895)
you know, kind of start situation, task, action result, what you did, how it made a difference and how they measure that because that's the key thing. And I think if you, if I'd have done that, right, very early on, I'd have probably been a lot more successful because it's all objective stuff that you're putting into that person's mind. So then when we talk around promotions and things like that, which, know, when they happen really on a more collective basis because
BenP (20:32.644)
Hmm.
Mm
Dan Westley (20:48.985)
you know, they only have so many promotions they can give every year based on the budget they have. And it is a bit like promoting your person over somebody else's person. So your story has to be the best. And I think if you've already put that story in that leader's mind, when that decision's been made, you've kind of done almost the hard yards in advance of that kind of outcome being made at that meeting, if that makes sense, Ben.
BenP (21:17.346)
Yeah, no, no it does and I concur with that exactly and it's funny because you see it from two sides. So when I was, let's say more of an individual contributor and if I think with our British culture we tend to be quite modest about things you know and you know like, you know I'm not a trumpet blower right, I don't blow my own trumpet right, I don't feel I need to to blow my own trumpet.
Dan Westley (21:39.321)
Yeah.
BenP (21:43.074)
and look at them over there. If they spent as much time actually doing some work as blowing their own trumpet, they'd be twice, know, twice. But anyway, so as an IC, you sort of, as an individual contributor, have that kind of mindset. Then interestingly, when you go into then leadership roles, and I was fortunate enough to be leader and then a leader of managers, so leader of leaders sort of thing, the higher you go, the more disconnected you get from the day to day of seeing what's happening on customer sites with customers.
What's the quality of this piece of work? And so the only ways that you really find that out are by KPIs like you talk about But also people talking to you and people telling you, know, you know what's going on? So suddenly my perspective switched a little bit and going, you know, it's not about trumpet blowing. It's about people Reporting, know, know reporting the good things that they've done reporting the value of what they've done
which helps me understand them a little bit better. And as you then said, if I'm then going up against my management peers, right, we've got four promotions in our department, right, we've got five managers and so who are these people gonna be? If your other peer managers and your leaders, they know that person and they've got an opinion on that person, they're more likely to side with you and help that happen. Whereas if they've got no visibility about that person at all.
So it's just interesting how sometimes you think, they're trumpet blowing, that's all they do, but actually there's a really positive side to it as well. Yeah.
Dan Westley (23:14.107)
marketing right it's it's it's a crude term but it's kind of marketing you as a person and what you
you've achieved and things like that. You cannot just lead people to assume that they know you. And just kind of my last point on this is what I've really valued from, probably in the last seven years, are career mentors. What I've really benefited from is having a career mentor that doesn't always sit, they do the same role as you, but they don't sit in the same business unit as you. So my career mentor at the moment is the leader of the
Middle Eastern Africa organisation that does the same role as I do. he gives me a really kind of interesting perspective on some of the things and challenges I've had and then how to frame them to my kind of seniors back in my org. So I'm not then communicating things which I guess might trip me up or might make me look a bit stupid to the people that I care about, but it's a safe space for me outside. And again, going back to the
explore the corporation, it being like a small village, you know, we have the benefit of a lot of the time we do have global presence so you can find people outside and it's a really important thing I give to my people actually like I gave one of my guys the somebody in Germany somebody elsewhere because you get them actually it benefits the team because you get a much more rounded perspective but I think as you as a person it allows you to have to have these conversations
about how you manage your sponsors and stakeholders without necessarily them knowing about that conversation if that makes sense.
BenP (24:58.286)
Yeah. Time is moving on, Dan. Let's get so we've done. Tip one was explore the corporate. Tip two was don't stay in role too long. Tip three, manage your sponsors and your stakeholders. Tip four.
Dan Westley (25:01.135)
Yep.
Dan Westley (25:13.447)
Tip four, and we did brush on it slightly, and this is a bit of a controversial one that does raise a few eyebrows when I say this to my people. It's a simple, business is not your friend, right? And it's not a very nice term if you look at it as it is, but actually I want to drill down to his really key points of what I mean by this. As Ben said, the business has to thrive, right? It has to change, it has to evolve, it has to sometimes cut business units out.
to move on to the next step. And I think.
In that in mind, you sometimes do have to be a bit selfish because these organizations are generally not built on loyalty. They're just not because you are ultimately a way of them being a more successful business. And if unfortunately your business unit is not doing that, then ultimately the challenge you have is you could come under scrutiny or your organization could. Now I will give you this really key piece of advice that a manager gave me a long
time ago he said to me realize what the core mission of the company you work for is right and at that point it was Microsoft he said two things you either write the software and you sell the software you could look at every other role as being expendable and you know it's a very simple statement but it did make me think actually well support could be outsourced marketing could be outsourced
Can you outsource your selling function? Not really. Could you outsource the development function? You could probably acquire organisations. But it really, really helped me actually understand that, if I really do want to stick around and evolve and really kind of grow my career in an organisation, stick to its core mission, because those are the roles that will be there and will survive any change. And as a leader, when I put this back to my people, I always say to them,
Dan Westley (27:11.606)
My job as a leader is to make you happy and build a career development plan for you in this organization and that might be outside of my team as is today and that's okay, But if you are not happy and you won't have an opportunity come into, sorry my cat, come on, if you have an opportunity come about that's outside of the organization.
don't feel there's a loyalty, you sometimes have to take that opportunity. And that's what I did when I joined Oracle, right? It was an opportunity that came around, it was quite hard to resist, and I took the opportunity.
And it was one of the, it has to be honest, it to be one of the best decisions I ever made. But I could have started loyal, you know, thinking I'm doing a loyal thing by sticking around for another 10 years at Microsoft and then suffering from a second point about staying in the same role for too long. you know, focus on you because that's all that really matters, right?
BenP (27:59.726)
Yeah. Yeah.
BenP (28:06.265)
Yeah.
BenP (28:10.306)
Yeah, and like I said before, you can still operate with integrity. You can still operate professionally. You can still make great friends. But when there's a great opportunity, you're able to say, OK, this is a good thing to do. I'm happy to. mean, companies can't be loyal to people. Only people can be loyal to people. Right. It's so. So, And as we've seen in the last couple of years, particularly, you know, with redundancies.
Dan Westley (28:30.866)
Exactly.
BenP (28:39.692)
when it's tough, the company will make the right decision for the company, not the right decision for you as an individual. So yeah.
Dan Westley (28:47.794)
It's so true and like I said before, take any opportunities you can outside your current role, whether that be an extracurricular project. We do a lot of things with the WorldBree Project in Oracle as an example and some of my team are working on that. It's quite a mission rather than an outside project, but those things ultimately allow you to build more of rounded career. So that's my point four.
BenP (28:55.353)
Yeah.
BenP (28:59.183)
Yeah.
BenP (29:07.706)
Yeah, and the other thing is that I haven't been a corporate for 20 years, know, and felt it and seen it. The longer you're out of place, the more it can become part of your identity. So that therefore, if something bad is to go, your identity is wrapped up in it. But that's absurd if you think about it, right? You know, that my identity as a person is wrapped up in this organisational thing that would get rid of me as soon as they needed to. Right. That's not a two way thing. yeah, business is not your
Dan Westley (29:18.774)
Yeah.
Dan Westley (29:36.53)
Yeah, so.
BenP (29:37.73)
it is a professional relationship that both people benefit from. Yeah, no, it's a good one.
Dan Westley (29:43.802)
Exactly that yeah, it's a really I know I've seen good people as you probably have been, know, unfortunately for Due to be caught and things like that and they've moved on right and done really well for themselves and embrace the change that comes with it But you have to think about what yourself and where you're going first before you think about well This company's been law to me. So I feel like I've been the Lord to fix it doesn't work that way
BenP (29:55.769)
Yeah.
Yeah.
BenP (30:08.674)
Last tip, tip number five.
Dan Westley (30:09.67)
Last tip, number five, and this is a really important one and we'll come onto it. So your health is what matters most, And what I mean by this is I always think life in corporations is a bit like a roller coaster. You have peaks and troughs. We have some good years and sales, we have some bad years and sales, but actually it's the resilience you have and how you set up your life to deal with those peaks and troughs.
I think is how it really makes a difference in how to survive in this organisation. And if you've ever read Who Moved My Cheese? It's a really good little book actually. It's a really short story. But actually it makes you think about change and how you go about life as a positive thing, right? Because as you go through these corporations, as I said, it can be a bit of an up and down. But it's a funny story.
I always encourage my team to have a work phone device and a personal device. Just so you can set a clear boundary between your work and personal life because I've got a family, you have a family band and they want the best of you when you're not at work. If you have one device, what happens is, and I did this and I learnt the hard way, I'd be reading emails which were maybe, you
BenP (31:23.62)
Mm
Dan Westley (31:33.308)
customer escalations on a Friday night and it would ruin my weekend. I'd sit there thinking about it and I don't think that's a healthy mental state to have and really kind of recent stories, only yesterday one of my guys is in Crete having a lovely holiday, having some real R &R and he was replying to emails and I said to what are you doing? You're in Crete, you've soaked up the sun.
I'd sent him quite a funny email, I'd draw a picture of a circle with his name, I put Holiday and put Oracle. I'm like, the holiday's the boundary between you and Oracle at the minute mate. Enjoy it. I really advocate this because we can't get the best of people unless they switch off. The brain, 50 ,000 thoughts a day I think the brain gets. If you're dedicating a lot of that thought to Oracle, even when you're not in Oracle.
I'm not sure that when you come back, you're be refreshed enough to really take the challenges on of the roller coasters that comes with it.
BenP (32:37.498)
Yeah, it's interesting you say that. I just posted, I do a weekly newsletter and the post that I did just the other week was on the Olympics, because the Olympics have just happened and basically how athletes are professional recoverers. That is their job, right? Like you look at a sprinter, 10 seconds or whatever it is, know, that is the moment, that is the big pitch, that is the big customer meeting, that is whatever.
how much training they've but then how much recovery, the ice baths, the cryo chambers, the sleep, the relax. And they had Chris Hoy, the cyclist on there, and Laura Kenny, the cyclist, they're both gold medal. And it was brilliant. were like, their thing was, let me just remember, it, why stand when you can sit and why sit when you can lie down?
Dan Westley (33:10.434)
Absolutely.
Dan Westley (33:18.917)
There we go.
BenP (33:29.422)
because they're both cyclists and use their legs all the time. They're like every opportunity they would be resting their legs. They'd be like professional recoverers to that point where they'd be led down at every opportunity that they could get. And I just think that's something that we should do more in the corporate world is to think, right, I need to perform at my peak and to perform at my peak, I need to recover at my peak. That might be a holiday in Crete. That might be getting eight hours of sleep. That might be a spa day, whatever it is, that way to recover and regroup and build your resilience.
Dan Westley (33:29.657)
haha
Dan Westley (33:37.465)
Yeah.
Dan Westley (33:59.661)
Yeah, absolutely. And I guess another point that I guess since COVID, I think being around other humans, right, we've all, and especially in the corporate world, we've all got this kind of inertia of not being out and about. And I actually think that...
being in front of other humans and kind of exercising the social kind of side of being a human is good for your mental health as well, right? And good for you as a person. And I've tried to get my team kind of out there and seeing customers, seeing people even more. So I do think that's important as well. And I always say as well, right, if you're not happy, like what are you going to do about it? Because ultimately it's in your control to make changes to your health going forward.
I guess just to round this off Ben, and I guess it's an important point, Not to be too kind of, I guess, kind of spiritualist. If it does get too much right, the corporations, and Oracle has it, have an absolute wealth of kind of mental health support today, it's there to help you, even if you're getting a bit too much from it. God, my day to day has been way too much, or there's a combination of things, and you know.
Disclosure, I've used it in the past and I have no shame saying that and it got me through times when it was tough, man. But what I realised is when I did get through that time and had another peak, it made it all worthwhile. But you kind of have to think about your health and don't let it degrade to the point where, a point where it's detrimental to your personal and work life because your corporations, you're no good to the corporation if you've got to that point.
BenP (35:13.752)
Yeah? Yeah?
BenP (35:19.108)
Yeah?
BenP (35:23.706)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BenP (35:38.232)
Yeah, no, I agree. And and, God, there was another episode we did on exactly this topic, Burnout and that kind of stuff. So if this is something that's really interesting to you, there's an episode with Nick Gimetta. If you go and look back through, he talks about this in detail as well. Really important topic, really good topic. Dan, we are we're out of time. Can you remind us what are the five top tips? Give us a key takeaway, a summary.
Dan Westley (35:55.255)
Great. So that's my five things, Ben.
Dan Westley (36:03.391)
Yeah, so first of all, explore the corporation. Remember it's like a village. Get out there, especially for young in career, and really kind of find out what role you might not know about. Number two, don't like how I did in the staying role too long. Really try and round off your transferable skills and ultimately build your career development to what might be your next step. Again, don't like how I did again and think that everybody knows the great things I'm doing. Make sure that you're...
manager and your peers above them, absolutely know what you're about because it will set you up in good stead. Number three, there's no loyalty really in these corporations. It's a business and you have to look after yourself in that process. And lastly, without your health, none of the above really matters, right? So really, really think about those. So those are my five things that have maintained my life in nearly 20 years now off Microsoft and Oracle.
as we kicked off this with Ben. I've thoroughly enjoyed every moment. I've got some amazing memories and I don't really want to leave. I'm still happy being here doing this, so that's me.
BenP (37:12.324)
Yeah, yeah, brilliant. Thank you so much, Dan. Really, really, really useful to get your insight and your experience and for you to share the stories. I completely concur with everything you said. It's really useful stuff, so.
Thank you so much for giving us your hard minutes. I know you're a busy, busy man. So thank you so much for giving us your time. Now, if people have loved what you said or want to get in touch with you or talk to you about anything, how can people get hold of you, Dan?
Dan Westley (37:30.342)
Thank you for inviting me, Ben.
Dan Westley (37:44.328)
Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn. It's where my professional kind of career is for everyone to see. So I'm Dan Westley. So that's W -E -S -T -L -E -Y. Connect with me if you want and feel free to ask me any questions because I love giving back. That's kind of why I decided to be a leader. So good to hear from you all.
BenP (38:02.852)
Brilliant, well, I think we're at about time, so thank you so much, Dan. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Dan Westley (38:09.022)
Thanks Ben.
