Ep. 11 - A Risk-Taker’s View on Why Having a Career Path May Be Holding You Back
“I can’t think of anything more terrifying than knowing what I’ll be doing in ten years’ time.”
In this episode, Clare Salmon, a career senior leader, takes Drew Tweedy and COMPOSURE co-author Lee Epting down a path through her life, exploring how her tolerance for risk has created extraordinary opportunity.
But even amidst her success, Clare tells a familiar story: A brilliant businesswoman, often the smartest person in the room, yet always feeling like a fraud. Like many of us, our early childhood experiences shape our future experiences, and Clare tells us how her early childhood experiences led her to take risks because she truly believes she had nothing to lose.
Join us for this entertaining, inspiring, and surprising conversation, where Clare teaches us the value of risk tolerance, mixed with incredible diligence, some helpful allies, and lots and lots of animals by her side (trust us, you’ll want to stick around for that last part!).
Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for clarity.
Drew Tweedy
Hey everyone, I'm Drew Tweedy welcoming you back to the Composure Podcast. I'm joined today by Composer co-author, Lee Epting, who will be subbing in for Kate. We've got another wonderful guest for you all today, the adventurous and always entertaining Clare Salmon. Clare is joining us from East Sussex, England, while Lee joins us from Puglia, Italy. So we've got a little bit of a global recording going on today. Clare has had an incredibly wide ranging career making several major shifts as she's navigated her path through work. She's made a name for herself in brand-led business transformation, leading overhauls in industries all the way from big oil to big TV. She's been a leader at the UK's largest motoring organization, the UK's largest commercial TV broadcaster, and even served as CEO of the British Equestrian Federation where she was responsible for the British Equestrian teams at the Rio Olympics. Clare is a person of many talents and even more interests and perhaps even more interesting stories to tell. On top of that, I'm sure she's going to share a lot today. On that note, I think we should get right into our conversation. Clare Salmon, welcome to the show.
Clare Salmon
Greetings. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Drew Tweedy
So I am really excited for this conversation for a lot of reasons. But I want to start off our conversation with a little challenge for you. If you could pretend that you are your own best friend, speaking about Clare in only a few sentences, describe Clare's career so far.
Clare Salmon
I think what they'd probably say—it would feature something like, working class girl made good. I'm a marketeer, as you can tell, so I speak only in straplines. So they'd probably say fearless, frightening, and funny, something like that. Or possibly something to do with roller coasters. I did talk to some of my friends and they said roller coasters came up quite a lot. I think if I were describing it, I am a great fan of Mae West. And my favorite quote would be, and this I think probably applies to my career best, "She climbed the ladder of success rung by rung." That probably just about sums it up.
Drew Tweedy
I love that. You are a marketer.
Clare Salmon
And I did ask, I need to get input — because I am a marketeer. My natural reaction to things is to ask the audience. So I asked the audience in terms of I asked four of my sort of oldest colleagues and mates. What would you say about working with me over the last 20 years? And I did this with some trepidation because I thought what I got back might be quite frightening. I thought I might share one of the quotes that I got from that conversation. And so this is someone who's worked with me for over 20 years, and has become a great friend. This is what he said. He said, "Clare collects an army of interesting, bright people and capabilities. Being enlisted is both terrifying and/or inspiring. Being on the journey is like sitting in the passenger seat of a Porsche with a trained racing driver, who has a glass of champagne in one hand and a scalpel in the other. She's got the brakes removed from the car, so there's no temptation to slow down or stop. It's more thrilling than the biggest roller coaster, tummy churning and scenic. And when you step out of the car, you discover that Clare has arranged a firework display that finishes with your name in lights in a place you could never have possibly imagined. You're very, very glad it's over. And you can't wait to have another go."
Lee Epting
I love that, and this must be a marketeer friend of yours.
Clare Salmon
Absolutely. I read that several times to myself and thought, I'm not sure whether I ought to be pleased about that or not.
Lee Epting
Thank you for sharing that, and thank you for reaching out as well into your network. Because I think, like you said, there's an element of that. But it's like a little frightening to ask. Maybe I've read this situation wrong, but it sounds like you're in good hands with the folks you reached out to because that is an incredibly wonderful way to describe the journey that he had with you. You and I obviously have had a short journey together when we were together at Vodafone and we can chat just ever so briefly about that later on in the podcast. But it's really interesting when you talked about how your friend would describe you and you said you started with working class girl. And I want to zoom in on that for a moment and just sort of, tell me a little bit more about working class girl and how you led with sort of that description.
Clare Salmon
Well, I think it's quite formative and that's probably why I led with it. I grew up in a very grubby corner of South London. My parents both left school at 13. My mother was quite seriously ill for most of my childhood, so we never had any money. And so the defining characteristic of most of my career as a result of that was survival. Because we were always three or four steps away from a cardboard box on a train station as far as I was concerned, that it really felt quite real. So I think that's why I led with with working class girl made good. You know I was very lucky, I got into quite a posh Girls Grammar School, and having passed a terrifying exam called the 11 Plus. It was full of girls from awfully nice places, who had awfully nice accents, and had had tennis lessons since they were four. I think my upbringing was therefore defined somewhat by feeling as if I was always a bit the outsider. It was made very clear to me by my parents, that, the only asset I had if I was going to avoid a permanent life working in Sainsbury's, or indeed, on the train station in the cardboard box was my brain. And so I always came to things with that in mind. Also, I always had nothing to lose. My mother died at the end of my childhood. And I think you spend most of your time trying to prove to them that you've done okay, and if they're actually dead, that's quite difficult to do. You also feel like you've got nothing to lose. That's probably the most defining thing about my career is that, I think if you have no fear of losing anything, then you take risks, and you head into uncertainties that other people might not feel so comfortable with.
Lee Epting
Yeah, and in fact, everything basically looks like it's upside, I think.
Clare Salmon
Right, completely. It always look like upside. You know, my dad is turning 90 in about two weeks time.
Lee Epting
God bless him. That's great.
Clare Salmon
Absolutely. And he, you know, his wildest dream, for me might have been, you know, he worked for an insurance company from the age of 13. He thought maybe I would have had, you know, a job, and maybe I'd have had, you know, I'd have aspired to have a house of my own or whatever. So, I've lived beyond any wildest expectations I might have had, so everything's been surprising.
Lee Epting
Yeah, he must be so proud of you.
Clare Salmon
Yes, I think it's slightly disbelieving, actually. You know, his father was a bank clerk, and the child, the 13th son of a butcher, and very subservient in everything, that very kind of hierarchical view of the world. And the idea that I'm on the board of a bank, I think my father finds that really very alarming.
Lee Epting
He might think that's a bit frightening. I love it. Well, that may be keeping him quite young. Actually, it is, ninety years, right? So you're keeping him young, which is wonderful. I love...thank you for sharing. It's such a vivid way you're describing your upbringing. It's so emotional, and there's so much intensity around it. You mentioned the word "risk", and I think this is really something that today, I hope we can really delve into a bit more, especially for our listeners. Because in the work that we do, and I know Clare, you know this having read Composure and know about our work. Where the topic of risk is concerned, this often relates back to confidence issues. And we know that in the research that we cite in our work, this has a lot to do also with the behaviors between men and women where risk is concerned, and it relates to confidence. In the case of men, it's because they tend to take decisions based on their global feelings of self esteem. So if they see all these other men doing it, they say, "Well, if he's doing it, I can do it", right. Whereas women tend to base their decisions on their past performance. And again, sort of there's a dilemma there, right? Because if you're going for a new job, something you've never done, it's a stretch. How can you have any past performance? Therefore you'll never throw your hat in the ring, right? You obviously have thrown your hat into many rings over the course of your career and you've just stepped into some, you know, really big and challenging roles and I'd just love it if you could share a little bit around, you know, the journey you took in your career, and some of the adventures and misadventures, if you will, and where that led you. So would you share a little bit about that for our listeners?
Clare Salmon
I must say, when I read Composure, I sort of recognized, I think I've been the complete imposter. For most of my life, I've always felt like a total fraud. And my answer to things has been, I regard life as a series of journeys onto a stage, because I know I'm an imposter, I'm acting a part at any particular point in time. So I step on stage, and you just have to own the stage. If you feel like you've got nothing to lose, then it doesn't matter if the audience doesn't clap, you just modify the performance for next time. So that's why I really resonated with Composure, I think. And in terms of the journey, you know, it's been, as I say, a constant source of surprise. But because I was always kind of felt like I had no stake, nothing to lose, everything was upside. I got into, I was lucky enough to, I got into Cambridge when I was about 17. I went there, and there were no girls, there were very few girls when I went there. And therefore you always kind of stood out as an outsider. And I'd stood out at school as an outsider, because I had the wrong accent, and I came in the wrong place. So I'd already got used to that idea. The thing that sort of defined the journey for me was that if you're going to stand out, you might as well own the stage. You know, there's no point in being a stagehand and you know, you're in the background scuttling about and people have spotted you. You might as well step into the footlights, and make a complete fool of yourself, because, you know, there's nothing to lose. So everything was an opportunity. I got to Cambridge, and I got involved in lots of drama and lots of rowing, and ended up doing the boat race and those sorts of things. I had no idea, I had no defining instinct about what I was going to be when I grew up. And so I just sort of responded to opportunities as they arose. I got a really boring job right at the beginning in an insurance company, called Legal and General. There were two sort of driving motivations at that point. I needed to earn enough money to have somewhere to live. And I've always been driven very much by that sense of intellectual curiosity. You know, I'm an insatiably curious human being. In order to bring those two things together, I started writing articles about pretty much anything. I got hold of this press Gazette. I would write an article about one week, I wrote a story about boys public schools. I'd never been inside one and I didn't know anything about them. But I asked other people I knew from university, and I read everything I could get hold of, and then I'd sell the article to several different publications. I wrote an article for the Morticians Gazette, which was fascinating. Anyway. I had some really bad nightmares after that one. But the thing was, I was then invited to start this loan fund helping young people starting up in business because entrepreneurship was very fashionable. This is the early 80s and I think a lot of things are cyclical, this was one of them. I started writing articles about the people who'd come forward for loans. And one day, I met a woman in the lift called Julia Middleton, who ran something called the industrial society, and she was on her way to the top floor to talk to the chief executive about getting some sponsorship for a unit she was starting to help young people starting up in business. She'd read one of my articles and in the lift on the way to the ninth floor, she offered me a job. And I said yes. That was kind of the beginning of an interesting career because we set up the industrial societies enterprise unit. By the time I was 23, I was managing about 25 people around the country and we had built to a turnover of about a quarter of a million, which in 1985, was quite a lot of money. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. But it was this fantastic adrenaline rush. And the other thing I learned from that was that we funded this by—we would go to government get some money from government, because it was a terribly fashionable era to build small businesses, and then we'd go to a private company and say, "Would you match the funding?" So that was that. So effectively, you were selling this proposition. Then we we basically started...we ran conferences, so you'd find somebody up and you'd say, and they were on anything and everything. So I once ran a conference all about the defense industry. And I phoned up someone who was then the chairman of a large defense company and said, "Everyone says you're the world expert on this", got past his secretary somehow or other, you know, it's got to be you. Everyone wants to hear from you. You chair this. You know, you come and do the conference. Then you'd invite people in, you know, you spend all day on the phone, and nine out of ten people would say no, but one would say yes. So that was an amazing business education. But after a couple of years of that, I was kind of like, I don't actually know what I'm doing. I have absolutely no idea what I'm, you know, I'm encouraging people to start businesses, but I know nothing about this. So I looked up all the management consultancies I'd ever heard of. There was McKinsey and BCG and Bain and Booz Allen. I ended up at BCG, which was amazing. I didn't think places like that existed, you know, they paid you basically for just being moderately intelligent, and figuring out things from first principles. And I got sent to Spain, and I learned Spanish, and I got sent to Scandinavia, and I didn't learn any Scandinavian.
Lee Epting
Very difficult, very, very challenging.
Clare Salmon
And, you know, it was great fun. It was such a learning experience because one of the things I discovered again, back at being, you know, the complete outsider, there were five women in BCG, when I was in BCG in Europe. We always got—there was a degree of stereotyping that went on, that meant that you always got the part of the assignment where you had to try and find out things. So you got the interviews. I remember working on a case for a Spanish cold storage company in Barcelona. We needed to know everything there was to know about the industry. So I phoned up all the competitors and I said, "I'm working for a competitor in your sector. But everyone says that you are just the expert, and I need to understand the industry properly. And it will be such a privilege to come and see you." None of them said no, it was amazing. You'd be amazed what people will say if you know a little bit of flattery, and just stand back and listen, and they tell you all sorts of incredibly sensitive competitor secrets, you know about how they worked. Therefore, being kind of an inoffensive small female, apparently, was an advantage. So, you know, that was sort of how I ended up learning about lots of different sectors, I guess, and also learning the value of kind of asking more questions, and then just sitting and listening to the answers, and the value of being an outsider. So that was sort of how I got started. After that, I went to Prudential because I decided that having learned about businesses, I thought it would be really much more entertaining to be in one, rather than...Always a bridesmaid never a bride. You know, the entertaining bit from my point of view is when you've got to implement something and make it happen. And we never got to do that.
Lee Epting
So I want to ask you a question about that. Because obviously, you made this transition. Now you're at Prudential and I know that, you know in your background, you primarily have worked in, you know, risk averse industries, right? Financial services, insurances, and even you know, media, which I think you would also say your stint at ITV was still in a risk averse industry in that regard, right? So tell me a little bit about, you know, the juxtaposing of Clare who is out there, just sort of, you know, showing up on you know, 80% is how you show up, right, the whole component around, you know, just be theatrical, be out there, ask questions, you know, be forward leaning. And this sort of risk averse environments you placed yourself in? How did that work for you? How did that work with your colleagues?
Clare Salmon
Well, I think you have to learn the camouflage of the organization you're working in. I think the thing that I had already learned from BCG was that actually, whilst I am kind of, I have a very high risk, personal risk threshold and I'm prepared to do things other people would do. You just need to not get in the way for the wrong reasons, if you see what I mean. So I'm quite prepared to don the camouflage of the particular industry that I'm working in. So for example, you're quite right that most of the industries are very risk averse. I think it's really perceptive to spot that ITV is as risk averse in many ways as some of the others. But just as an example of what happens when you put the camouflage on. When I was at Centrica, so British Gas's largest, you know, utilities company in the UK, and an engineering led organization. So, but what I sort of figured out was that if you wanted to do something there, if you could argue it, reason it, create a spreadsheet, a set of numbers that led to a believable story, you'd be allowed to do it. It actually wasn't very risk averse once you mastered that. When I went to ITV, I've got used to that world of logic and structure and numbers. I can remember going to see the guy who was in charge of the drama budget, it was a 300 million pound budget, which was quite a lot of money then, it was the biggest TV budget in the UK. And I asked him, "Well, how do you make decisions about which scripts you're going to invest in?" He came out with a whole series of things. He said, "We never invest in things with caravans in them, or canal boats. And we never invest in things that have women over the age of 65 in them." And he came out with a whole series of things from which first of all, it was evident that that was a set of train tracks that was just as risk averse as anything you've ever seen in a financial services company. But the second question I asked him was more, "Once you've found a script that you like, how do you decide how much to invest in it? How do you figure out how to get the right ROI?" And he said, "What's ROI?"
Lee Epting
Oh my goodness. Your BCG background probably just caused you to sweat, right?
Clare Salmon
Yeah, exactly. I said, "It'ss return on investment." And he said, "And what pray is that?" The thing I learned from that experience was that the only way to win an argument at ITV then, I've no idea if it's still like this now, was not spreadsheets, logic numbers. But you had to emote. Preferably, you know, if you could cry toward her, that would be wonderful. If you could have a tantrum, that would be great. But for goodness sake, don't measure anything, don't mention anything to do with the return on investment, or the pound notes, or anything quantitative. So once you've figured out that, you know, if you could sell them a big idea and get them all to feel warm about it, then that would work. So the version of Clare, that works is the version of Clare that is kind of able to identify the meters in the culture, and it doesn't always work. But that's what you have to try and do. Because it's not about you actually, you know you will succeed ultimately, if everyone else thinks it was their idea.
Drew Tweedy
I want to hold on this idea of you going from big oil to big media. That is not exactly a path I would envision for most people. And I think it's really reflective of your career and the way that you live your life and this sort of risk tolerance that you have. I don't know how many times I have been told through books or podcasts or professionals that I need a 30 day plan, I need a three month plan, I need a 12 month plan, and a five year plan, right? I need to have my whole life and career figured out today or better, five years ago. And that's the way that I'm supposed to find success in my life. You are like the antihero to that. You have found success doing what sounds like pretty much the opposite of that approach. So I'm curious, like, if for people listening, if they are at any point in their career, whether they're 25, or 55, or 75, and they're thinking about what to do next, and maybe they have two options on the table. One is in a straight line from what they've been doing and it makes total sense and it's the next rung up the ladder. Another option is something totally different. That maybe sounds interesting, but they don't really know how it's gonna further their career, or help them find more success. What advice would you give them? Because I know what the self-help and the career books would tell them to do. My sense is that you might have kind of a different answer and a different approach to this question.
Clare Salmon
Yeah, well, first of all, I don't have an inner totalitarian. So there are no plans detected. I can't think of anything more terrifying than the knowing what I might be doing, you know, in 10 years time. So I think, first of all, you have to understand what motivates you as a human being. And for me, that would be you know, I'd become a psychopath if I had to live to a five year plan. I'd start doing something terribly, terribly disruptive in the background for entertainment. So you can only know your own triggers. But I think the other thing I'd say from my point of view is that the things I regret in my career are the things I didn't do. Not the things I did do. And there are probably, there are two things I draw attention to in that respect. One personal and one business. The personal one, when I was 16, I got talent spotted in a play, and I was asked to go and do an audition for the National Youth Theatre. Bearing in mind, my parents, my dad was working his way, earnestly in the insurance industry. My mother had an inner voice, and was a very creative soul. Anyway, my father's deepest dream would have been, you know, I might have maybe become a lawyer or something, you know, or something like that. And hers would have been, you know, much more of something creative. I learned the part, I learned a big part from Look Back in Anger. You know, don't mistake, you know, my risk attitude for a lack of diligence, you know. I want to try and do something. I try and do it really hard. I learned this part. My mother drove me to the station, and we bought a ticket and I never went. I just couldn't square the circle between my parents. I couldn't cope with the idea of how it would be if I got it, and how I'd have to, and if I didn't get it, how it would be. So I never got out the car. And probably that's one of the only things I regret, because I'm not, I don't for a moment think, you know, I'd be on the stage at the RSC or something like that. But it just would have been better to have known. So I regret the things I didn't do. Not the things I did do. I'd encourage people to face into is this something you really want to do. And if it is something you want to do, then stop listening to the inner voice that says you can't do it, and it might go horribly wrong. So that's one thing. I think the other thing that the business experience, the boys, you know, great mistakes of our time. When I ran the loan fund years and years ago, I saw three entrepreneurs came to pitch to me one morning with their little ideas, and one of them wanted to make false teeth for sheep. The second one wanted to make contact lenses for racing pigeons. And the third one, this little man in an anorak shuffled in and couldn't make any eye contact. I found him really quite uncomfortable. He wanted to make model aircraft that fly at 30,000 feet. Now, I won't ask what you would have done, but I said no to all three. I've lived to be, you know, really quite wrong, because the contact lenses for sheep was a huge success in New Zealand. Because sheep, once their teeth wear out, their economic life is over if you can solve that problem. Good return. Obviously, the model aircraft at 30,000 feet, I guess that would now be called a drone. You know, with the benefit of 35 years hindsight, I've never heard from the one with the contact lenses for racing pigeons. So we don't know.
Drew Tweedy
That's the funniest one for sure. It would win that contest.
Clare Salmon
Yeah. So there are the things, you know, the things I regret are always the things that the passed in the road I didn't take, because I'm always curious about what would have happened. The other thing I'd say to that person, if they're agonizing, is, you know, what could really go wrong, because out of every experience I've had, there's been an upside. I've been fired at least twice in my career. Once by a bunch of venture capitalists, and once when there was a regime change in the organization I was working in. On both occasions, there was definitely an upside. So my transition from big oil to ITV came about because we turned the business round. We traveled its value in four years and the venture capitalists came along, and we pitched it to them, sold it to them, and they fired the board the following morning after they'd closed the deal. That was a huge opportunity because from my point of view, I'd been there for about five years. I'd enjoyed it, but I was ready to do something new. And I thought, you know, I've spent five years of my life working with men in vans, in breakdown trucks, and British gas engineers. Let's exchange the men in vans for men in light crap. Let's get into something really different. So I think you regret what you don't try. Obviously, if you epic fail several times in a row, then that will have consequences. But if it's something you really want to do, and you kind of can feel that that's something that would provide some fulfillment, then try.
Lee Epting
Thank you for that, Clare. That's really, it's such a powerful message for our listeners as well. I want to just follow on as you were talking because I was thinking about your work at RSA. You had told me back in the past, you know that that was one of the best experiences of your commercial career. I wanted you to share a little bit with our listeners around, you know, what made that the best experience for you? If you could just give a little context for RSA as a business and your role, and what really were the defining things for you that made that your best experience from a commercial career perspective?
Clare Salmon
I think we managed to do something that felt quite momentous. So you know, I joined an organization that had I'd been familiar with, in an earlier part of my career, when it was losing close to a billion pounds a year. The person who recruited me to join the organization was the person who had brought it back to being, you know, breakeven, but not much better. He had the foresight to know that what he needed next was a different skill set from the cost cutting turnaround skill set. He invested in me to do that. He gave me a huge amount of room for maneuver to do it. We had 300 brands all around the world. I've always loved roaming about and comparing different cultures, different ways of doing things. So that made it really satisfying. What I found intriguing and entertaining about it as well was that you could see, you know, I love data. I also love the creative side of life, and bringing those two things together at RSA was immensely satisfying, because it was a very traditional conservative organization. But what it was lacking was a sense of purpose and a sense of hope, and vision for the future. It had had a wierd experience, so it was ready to be kind of inoculated with a sense of ambition. We grew the business by, you know, about 25% over four years, and we made it, you know, it was it was the ninth most profitable insurance company in the world by that point. So, you know, that was hugely satisfying. What was also satisfying about it was that, you know, I had a very small team of people who, who all came out of it, and they're all still friends of mine. They did something for all of them, you know, one of them went off to become the chief executive of the business in the Middle East. Another one is the person who wrote that rather bizarre quote at the beginning. Another one is a marketing director of another business. We have all these war stories from that, you know, of being confronted by people saying it doesn't work like that around here. And having to find a way of persuading them that something that worked in Chile could work in Newfoundland, or could work in Scandinavia. It was mesmerizing, from that point of view.
Lee Epting
Sounds like such a wonderful and varied experience. And so many people took wonderful things away from it. I think the telling point is that so many of them are still in your life today. Those are the ones you really hold on to in your career. It's interesting that you mentioned that your boss at RSA, this gentleman gave you this opportunity, right? He gave you the budget, he gave you the wings to fly. And what I hear in a theme in terms of your background and your experiences that you've had these moments in your life, like the woman that you met, who was the chief exec at the industrial society, and the man at RSA, and I'm sure there are many others. But what's interesting is that you have both men and women who have been throughout your career sort of there to hand you something that you probably felt you weren't necessarily entitled to at the time. I wonder if you would talk a little bit more about that, because for many of our clients, you know, we talked about the importance of having the sponsorship and in general, that comes primarily from mostly men, because obviously, they tend to be in a lot of the most key and leadership related positions that can sort of do those kinds of moves. I'd like you to share just a little bit about your view on the importance of that and also the sort of pay it forward and how have you how have you managed that in your own career with others that you've grown in their own respective careers?
Clare Salmon
Well, I think yeah, I've had some really powerful mentors, but I don't think they would necessarily have seen themselves as mentors, at the outset. So you know, probably the most influential one in my background. When I joined Prudential I initially joined in a sort of project role, but then after about six months, I got a tap on the shoulder and I was invited to go and work with the Prudential chief executive, who was a big character called Mick Newmarch, and he was very much working class boy made good. He was the first ever chief executive of Prudential, one of the biggest insurance companies in the world. He was an orphan. He wasn't an actuary. He was fueled by frustration, frustration, as in, I can see a better way of doing this. You know, that's not right. This is the way we should do it and he employed me. He was like a lot of great leaders. He did the right things, but he didn't necessarily do them right. So he had 15 direct reports and it was like the court of Machiavelli. So my role in life, I had two roles in life. One was to make sure he saw the right people in the right order at the right time. So you had to figure out, and it was very political. So you know, everyone was trying to get an audience with God every day of the week. I managed his office to make sure you ended up in the right place, write his speeches and all those sorts of things. But then my other role, which was really, really formative for me was, I went to every meeting he ever went to, whether it was a board meeting, or a one to one with one of the direct reports. And my brief was very clear, you sit in the corner, and you don't say anything, you never say anything. I would just sit there like a small China ornament. At the end of the conversation after they'd gone, he'd say, "What do you think? Do you think he's lying? Do you think it's a good idea? Do you think we should do it?" He valued the debate, because I was outside the court of Machiavelli, he needed the objectivity. Then the other thing was, he would use me to sharpen his intellectual weaponry. So some days, he would require me for three weeks to argue that this was a good idea. Then for the next three weeks, I'd have to argue that it was a bad idea. He used to infuriate me because I'm very impetuous. But what I learned from him was about reflection. So sometimes he would take what seemed to me to be forever to make a decision. I can remember the other thing he used to do, when he got kind of frustrated, or really wound up, he'd say, "I know, let's go to Saturday's, or let's go and do this." We once went to an auction at Sotheby's, we used to collect Japanese Netsky. He'd get me to bid for him and I'd have to go in one door, because he was very well known, he'd have to go in the other door. He'd say, "This is how much money you've got, you can bid up to this point." And, you know, I'd do that. This would be completely not what he was supposed to be doing. He's supposed to be in a meeting, he was supposed to be, you know, making a speech or something like this. But it was part of his reflection process, and what I took from that into my own life, is actually that you have to have some soak time, you have to have some time away, whatever you do, whether it's music, or sport, or art, or shopping, or something, there has to be something where you download your brain into a different place. And when you come back from it, you'll know what the answer is. Because, you know, wisdom is just stored up, intuition is just stored up facts that you didn't know you knew. That was the most powerful mentor I had.
Drew Tweedy
Sounds like a fun one.
Clare Salmon
He's terribly argumentative. People used to think I was going to get fired every day of the week, because they'd hear us shouting at one another. And that was what he wanted, he wanted someone to answer back.
Lee Epting
Yeah, I love this image of you sitting in the corner. It's more like, you know, you were a sponge, you know, you were just basically soaking up and listening and absorbing, and then he goes on to ask your opinion. Just a fantastic opportunity, right? To just lean back and listen, and then formulate, you know, your thoughts and share because you've been requested in the opportunities there. It's such a great story.
Clare Salmon
And that's what I took into, that's exactly what I—in answer to your second part of your question. I took that into my relationship with my own team.
Lee Epting
Yes about paying it forward. So talk a little bit about that. Yeah.
Clare Salmon
So, and I think sometimes the bit in that quote about it was quite frightening was because I would do that, but I do it in a fairly rapacious way. So I'd say, I like to sharpen my views through argument and debate as a result of that. I'd really, you know, if I had someone in my team, they were there to provide, you know, I'd argue with them and sometimes they'd be quite frightened, but actually what I was doing was trying to sharpen my perspective on what the right answer was, and some people aren't used to... quite a lot of people like being told what to do. Being asked your opinion can actually be quite intimidatin because there's a natural assumption that you want a particular answer. Whereas actually, what I wanted to find out was, what's wrong with the argument I'm creating? Where are the flaws in it? How could I be wrong? And what did you notice that I didn't notice in that conversation? The other thing is, I find it really helpful, and I'm sure you'll recognize this. I used to take some of my male team members to meetings with me. And very often, the natural assumption would be that they were more senior than I was, and I just used to roll with that. Because then you could sit and watch and see how they behaved. Whether you believed what they were saying, and whether you thought they were any good, and so on. That also allowed the other person, the person you've taken with you to play the lead role in that environment. So that's good practice for them. But it also enabled me to see what was really going on rather than, you know, being on stage.
Lee Epting
Yeah, I definitely resonate with that, especially given that my parents gave me this androgynous spelling of my first name. So if I was doing business across, you know, oceans, which I normally was, you know, and I never, and we weren't doing video back then. Right? It was so powerful for me, because I could be in a negotiation. Ultimately, in the final throes of the contract negotiation, when you come together, right? You'd meet in New York with the lawyers or you'd be in Europe, or wherever you'd be in Asia. I would walk in and I was a woman, and they would just—it threw them way off. And then we always get a better deal, right? Because all along they thought I was a male that was negotiating with my team. So it was very powerful. So I totally resonate with that. Thank you for sharing that. It was interesting. You talked about, Clare, the importance of having these other things like going into Sotheby's to bid on items, or to have a sport. And I know that, well, something I know but our listeners don't, is that you are an avid sports woman. I'm going to put things out there like polo player, jockey, you raced bicycles, you wrestled. I mean there's so many things there. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, you know, the importance of that in your life, because it also speaks to this topic of risk. You know, polo playing, as I understand it, I'm not a polo player. I mean, is a very risky and dangerous sport. So talk a little bit about the importance of those sports in your life.
Clare Salmon
Yes, they have been hugely important. I think the common theme is adrenaline, because in my commercial life, and in my business life, there's a lot of adrenaline. But also, I have found, and I don't know if this is just me, but I used to—when I was a racing cyclist, I used to get up really early and cycle into the office. Obviously, that cycle through the London traffic to get to the office, which is a life threatening activity in itself. And at the end of the day, if I'd had a really, really long day, you know, I'd enjoy the mayhem that was the Elephant and Castle roundabout, you know, eight o'clock in the evening or whatever. It just downloads, it just takes me to a different place and if I got really wound up about something, you know, the pain and the fear, it would all just settle somehow rather. Likewise, you're quite right about the polo. The polo is a spectacularly high risk activity and you have to focus on it while you do it. If you make the wrong instinctive decision, it can be moderately life threatening. So that degree of focus, it's like working a different muscle. When you come back to the other one, the other ones had a nice rest, and it's more proficient. So that balance for me was always really important. Because it keeps things in perspective. I've never been more, I think back to the five year plan and the focus on everything being ordered and all the rest of it. I think if you don't, if you don't have something outside of what you're doing, something that enables you to disrupt that picture, you just become a drone, you know, and that isn't the probably the best version of anybody. For me, that degree of variety is essential. Otherwise you just get tunnel vision.
Drew Tweedy
Sounds like when you're playing polo, you have a little bit more to lose than when you're doing business. Like your life. It's a little bit more important.
Lee Epting
I would love to hear Clare, you are surrounded by a menagerie of animals at home. I would love it if you would just share a little bit for our listeners, who's there with you? Tell us the different types of animals that you have at home.
Clare Salmon
Well there's probably well over a hundred. There are presently 16 horses. We breed racehorses, and we've got lots of foals at the moment. There are also three different types of rare breed sheep. We have some really satanic ones that have kind of very long horns and look like Halloween. We've got some ones that like to escape, and we've got some big, fat benign ones. We have lots of pigs, and I absolutely love pigs. There's a whole litter of piglets out there. There are wallabies, who are very dim, and like giant bunnies. There are rheas, which are like big white ostriches. Lots of peacocks. There's a parrot, there's a juvenile parrot who is a source of great entertainment. And there's a Python called Lady Mountbatten and three Bengal cats. Yes. Quite a lot of them really.
Lee Epting
Hold on. I know that when we spoke the other week, you were in the process of birthing a few horses as well. So who have you got on the on the property now just a late?
Clare Salmon
We've got Kikimora, who is a little foal who was born last week and was rather poorly for about three days and have to go to horse hospital. But she's incredibly well bred. She's at the sort of Cheltenham Ladies College end of the horse food chain.
Lee Epting
And the significance of her name, Clare, Kikimora?
Clare Salmon
Kikimora is a Slavic house spirit, mischievous Slavic house spirit apparently, that makes a sort of plaintiff sad noise when it's hungry. This was very relevant to the foal because the foal had one or two problems when it was born, and couldn't figure out how to eat. So that seemed like the right thing. We've got another one called Tatinger, who was born the day afterwards, known as "Tatty" for short.
Lee Epting
I love it. And why the Tatty? Why the name, Tatty?
Clare Salmon
Well, my husband and I are working our way through all of the great champagne brands of the world. Our ambition is to drink all of them dry by the time we die.
Lee Epting
So it's like a sport almost, another sport. Although not as risky as polo. Let me ask you a question. What is the biggest learning that you have from your animals that could be applied to our listeners? For example, as advice on something that they should consider when they're looking at taking that next step in their career or in their personal life.
Clare Salmon
Look, the thing about animals is, for me, is that they're just totally themselves, they're completely authentic. So what you see is what you get. So if a parrot is angry, you know it's angry, it will attack you with its beak. If a horse is cross, it will kick you. Pigs are incredibly democratic. If you fall over, they'll eat you. So there is no gap. You know that awkward gap you get with human beings between what they say and actually what they mean? And you spend a lot of time trying to decode what's going on between the gap between what they're saying and what the body language is telling you. My advice would be that learning from animals, is try and turn the sound down on the people and see what you think they're actually saying to you. With animals, you only have the visual symptoms, the signals, you know, so you have to work with that. Whereas with people you can be confused by what they're actually saying, which is very rarely what they mean.
Lee Epting
Yeah, tap into your other senses. Yeah, such great advice and a great learning. Wonderful. I would like to ask you one final question if that's okay. So what brings you the most joy these days? And how does having that joy impact your life Clare?
Clare Salmon
Jumping over an enormous hedge on a giant horse and wondering if I'm still going to be alive on the other side.
Lee Epting
Love it.
Clare Salmon
And then that moment when you land and you think, "Oh my word, here we go." But that adrenaline rush is brilliant.
Lee Epting
Oh, it just gave me chills. Thank you for that image of you, I have this image of you jumping over that hedge. And it's such an appropriate way to end our session today because it is such a risky move too. Something that I think, you know really resonates for today's discussion that we had. I want to thank you so much for sharing your journey with us and with our listeners. Yeah, it's so much to take away. Thank you so much, Clare.
Clare Salmon
No, thank you. Very entertaining. It's always nice to have the chat. You know, I feel as if I've been self indulgent for an hour.
Drew Tweedy
I gotta say, every response you've given has been surprising, which I think is very on brand for you. Marketeer indeed.
Lee Epting
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I love it. Thank you so much, Clare.
Clare Salmon
Thanks. Have a nice day anyway.
Drew Tweedy
And that's the show. If you enjoyed it, there are a few ways you can help us out or shape our future episodes. You can rate the podcast on whichever player you're listening on now, or send this episode to someone you think might enjoy it. Or you can let us know who you think we should have on the show next. We always love hearing from listeners. So please do reach out by emailing us at support@composurethebook.com. The Composure podcast accompanies the new book, Composure: The Art of Executive Presence, written by Kate Purmal, along with co-authors, Lee Epting and Joshua Isaac Smith. Learn more at composurethebook.com. And a special thank you to Gretchen Yanover for creating the beautiful music you hear on the show.
Lee Epting
Hey, it's Lee. People often asked me what the most fulfilling part of my work is. And the answer is actually really simple. It's seeing all of you taking your composure out into the world and using it to make the world a better and more equitable place. And that's the true power of composure. People who find it don't just elevate themselves. They elevate everyone around them too. If you'd like to learn more about how to cultivate your composure, visit composurethebook.com.
