The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius

Founder Story: Empowering Women in Leadership through the Power of Theatre & their '3 C's' Model, with Topbird Founders, Communication Skills Experts & Coaches, Christie Jennings & Katherine Grice

• Chris Grimes - Facilitator. Coach. Motivational Comedian

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Christie Jennings and Katherine Grice, the dynamic founders of Topbird Coaching, join us for an inspiring conversation filled with insights and laughter. 

From their serendipitous meeting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to creating a thriving Coaching business, these two powerhouse women share their journey of empowering women in leadership. Discover how their acting backgrounds bring a unique flair to their coaching, focusing on 'The 3 C's' of Clarity, Confidence, and Courage, and how they make personal and professional growth accessible and fun. Listen in for actionable insights and a peek into the lives of women who've turned passion into purpose.

We take you on a personal journey to some magical happy places, from the rugged Suffolk coast to the sun-drenched hills of Tuscany, revealing the significance of finding solace and inspiration in these retreats. Reflective and heartfelt, we explore how theatre training has shaped our understanding of communication and behavior, drawing connections to the influential mentors who have guided us along the way. Dive into the bohemian lifestyle of a creative upbringing and the lasting impact of artistic influences like David Bowie and Leonard Bernstein, while celebrating the joys and challenges of blending performance art with professional development.

With a promise of exciting ventures ahead, Christie and Katherine share their ambitious plans for Topbird Coaching, including interactive Zoom taster sessions and expansion into international markets. From nurturing future female leaders to introducing innovative programs like the Women at Work toolkit, they offer a vision that is both inspiring and empowering. Whether you're looking for transformative leadership insights, a touch of artistic inspiration, or simply the joy of a great story, this episode is your ticket to a world of creativity and empowerment. Don't miss out on the chance to hear from two remarkable women who are changing the face of Leadership Coaching.

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)

Thanks for listening!

Chris Grimes:

Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the Clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told, and where all my guests have two things in common they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare and a cake. So it's all to play for. So, yes, welcome to the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me. Chris Grimes, are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. Boom.

Chris Grimes:

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to a very glorious episode of the Good Listening To Show Stories of Distinction and Genius. I'm delighted to welcome Christy and Catherine, that's Christie Jennings and Katherine Grice. Hello, top Bird, here we are. Hi, everyone Lovely, and the name is awesome because you are a couple of Top Birds and I don't know whether that's exactly why you decided to call it that. So what's the story behind the story? First of all, of Top Bird Coaching.

Christie Jennings:

Limited Shall we start at the very beginning, because it's a very good place to start. Do you want to do the musical version of that? I'm not singing, no, she's not singing. Katherine and I met at drama school at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where, in fact, of course, your great self was there before us, because you know you're much older than us. Obviously, chris, thank you and we've known each other for 30 years and both had careers as actors and then started to get really interested in coaching and learning and development, worked for different organisations.

Katherine Grice:

Then, in the pandemic, we started talking about working together, and this is where top bird all started and began so, yes, although christy and I live very close to each other and have always sort of lived in um, north and east london close to each other, we'd never worked together until. But we talked about working, talked about our work, talked about coaching, training, um over the kitchen table for years and years and years and years, and uh, and then we thought would it be nice to actually work together and have have our own gig so to speak and the the whole thing.

Christie Jennings:

I guess it sort of started from and I'm sure you've had this yourself is you work for lots of other consultancies and you do lovely work for them and it's all marvelous and the feedback's fantastic. And you realize someone else is taking quite a big cut of of what you're doing. So we thought hang on a minute, you know we're the ones delivering the work. And I think a big question came out very early, which is you know, in an ideal world, what would we be doing where? Who would we be working with? And I guess we started thinking we would. Really, we both have a real passion, interest in women's leadership. So it started from there and it has been ordered out. I would say, but.

Katherine Grice:

But that's kind of how it all started really yeah, and it's nice to be the kind of master of your fate. Really, I think that that's what's so great about it. And so the last couple of years, we have run online courses and in-house courses, both for specifically for the women of women at work toolkit, which is for women, and then also in-house courses which are open to everyone, and, um, I it's. I just think it's very interesting. We have a very simpatico, if you like, connection and we spent a lot of time talking about what it was, what our focus was, what was the core of what we do, and we came up with our three Cs, which are clear, confidence and courage. So that is the thing that most of us struggle with when we're under pressure.

Chris Grimes:

And just to go back a step, just to make sure we amplify that you say on your brand new, swanky and shiny new website. We are offered training and coaching. We help consultants to be exactly that to communicate with greater clarity, confidence and courage. Yeah, your three c's yeah, we help everyone.

Katherine Grice:

Yeah, um, at whatever stage of your career. So we've worked with early stage um people at their early stage career, right up until people do have senior partners in law firms or, uh, running running their own businesses.

Christie Jennings:

Um, and I think, uh, you can be an incredibly successful entrepreneur or senior leader in a business and still find that you benefit from having a good look under the bonnet, if you like, around your communication skills say that whatever the situation, um, whatever the challenge you're facing whether that's presenting, whether that's running a difficult team, whether it's having to have difficult conversations the focus is often on what I need to say rather than how I say it and how I get myself into a good place to to be in that situation. So all the work we do as I'm sure it's true for you too, chris is it's having this real sort of practical application, that you come away from the work that you do and you've actually got something to take away that you can do differently straight away.

Chris Grimes:

So it's not theoretical, it's practical, it's about doing, and it's the delicious transferable skills of being communication skills consultants, but steeped in the background of the transferable skills of acting as well yeah, absolutely, and we've kicked up loads along the way.

Katherine Grice:

You know, we've worked with some incredibly inspirational people and people who have a lot of skills, um, or in different areas, so maybe came through the world of psychology or coaching or business, um. But uh, I fundamentally I think what people really value is that having a chance to practice and getting feedback on the delivery and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, and as someone who struggled with that in the past, I know that it's possible to learn those skills.

Christie Jennings:

Indeed, and I think, interestingly, when you work in business, one of the kind of big misnomers about acting is people kind of think of it as you're putting on a mask and you're pretending to be somebody. You're not. This whole notion of fake it till you make it see, I just don't buy it. I think it's absolutely the opposite. It's actually about peeling off layers of yourself so you're truthful and honest and authentic, but doing it with confidence and finding a way of doing that. So we're always looking to kind of get to the kind of kernel of what's underneath somebody and get getting feeling really grounded and centered.

Katherine Grice:

Yes, it feels comfortable wherever, whatever the situation as a bringer um girther quote everything is hard until it is easy, and I think that is the thing. Often people get very good at that, wherever they are in their careers, through having a set of skills, and sometimes people avoid the more challenging conversations or they avoid presenting or pitching or any of those things, or just speaking up. They just think, well, my work should speak for itself. And actually, if you practice, and if you practice the small practical things in a safe environment, you're much more likely then to stretch out of your comfort zone in the real situation and do it know in the real situation and do it um. So our aim is to make it, uh, supportive, but also with a level of challenge, so that you do you know, those things that you find really hard become more easy with time it's a breath of fresh air.

Chris Grimes:

I was going to say that you are also two women working within women and leadership, but also the whatsapp group we rather comically formed together was called top birds and Top Bloke. I did point out before that this isn't just women-centric, but it is really refreshing that you are two women in this world, absolutely, because a lot of white men as trainers, mansplaining stuff, which is the last thing you need, I think there are quite a lot of women of a certain age doing it as get their voice in the room.

Katherine Grice:

I think you know it. We've been doing it for a long time. So, um, and I think there's less resistance, I think, to the um, the world, embracing the corporate world, embracing the world of theater, or um, or also improvisation, um, as as having kind of useful, applicable skills. Yeah, I think post-covid people have become very challenged by being back in the office face to face, all of those things that seemed quite normal before.

Christie Jennings:

Yeah, because so much of what we're doing is online now yeah, and there's a whole generation of course who who did their degree online and you know we sometimes work with grads and trainees and things like that and you know they're just being in an office environment and learning how to communicate and learning the kind of politics with a small p. All that kind of thing is very, very new to a whole generation of people out in the workforce. So that, I think, is interesting. And the other thing I'd really notice the trend is that back in the day, when I first started doing all this, it was mainly presentation skills and back to that and me too, actually I could be a say and that sort of went out of fashion the notion of a presentation skills course.

Christie Jennings:

Now we really notice it coming back because, of course, people are being asked to stand up in front of an audience again after kind of three years out being online the entire time and it terrifies the life out of people. So one of the things we do a lot is look at okay, so what is that then? What's that thing? That thing that gets in the way. If I had a pound for the number of times people say to me I'm terrified of public speaking, yes, and what can I do to stop that?

Katherine Grice:

and you know so of course you have to reverse that thinking and talk about well, let's, of course it's challenging and it's frightening, so let's look at how you manage yourself to feel yourself, to feel better up there, and see it as an opportunity rather than a threat, and also, if you do anything that you do that's out of your comfort zone has sort of benefits everywhere in your life, right, so it makes you feel more courageous, makes you feel more confident, yeah, when you are talking to your boss about a project or any situation.

Katherine Grice:

So I think there is something about putting people you know in that kind of fight or flight, yes, space, and uh, whether it is kind of well, you're going to have a difficult conversation now and immediately everyone goes, oh, my god, um, but I think if you can do it and uh, I really like making it wrong, like getting people to do it wrong first, like step, you know, step hard to make it the worst thing that you could possibly do, so that then it kind of is there's humor in it and it may takes the edge off a a bit for people.

Christie Jennings:

Yes, the only way is up as the song goes, another song, another.

Chris Grimes:

You can do the musical version of that I will. Obviously that'll be later, I'll have to start at the very beginning. So it is my great pleasure to be able to curate you about all things Top Bird through the story scape of the Good Listening To show. Just to go back a step, if you've not seen this show before, I know you both know exactly what you're coming into. It's the show in which I invite movers, makers, shakers, mavericks, influencers and also personal heroes into a clearing or serious happy place of their choosing to all share with us their stories of distinction and genius.

Chris Grimes:

And Catherine and Christy are here to do a special Brand Strand founder story episode where we're going to get into the who, the what, the how, the why they do what they do as Top Bird. And then, crucially, rather excitingly, not least through your own events page that you've curated on your new swanky, shiny topbirdcouk website, we're going to talk about your events page as well, where people get a good taste of what you do as well in a way that's really accessible, which I congratulate you for, and it's also good value for money as well, and you can tell us about that later on. Thank you, so go where you like, how you like, when you like, into the following construct. So, do you have any questions before we start? Ladies, no.

Christie Jennings:

Let's do this, then Where's Redis will ever be? Yes, so where is where you are safe?

Chris Grimes:

hands, yeah, yes, more than my in my. Leave you in my incapable hands, as they say yeah. So where is what is first of all a clearing, which is energetically where the whole show is set? Your clearing is your serious happy place. So where do you as individuals, but also as top bird, go? Where would you say, your clearing or serious happy place is to get cut, a free, inspirational and able to think so I I mean I have a long and hard thought about this and, uh, I'm.

Katherine Grice:

I really like being at home, I like being in front of the fire watching the traitors. Currently, that would would be my total happy place. I suppose my other happy place is maybe in Ireland, in Donegal, which I've been to quite a lot. I love the kind of wild coast of the Atlantic, so that's great, that would be mine.

Christie Jennings:

And I've got a summer happy place and a winter happy place Seasonal, I like that Seasonal. So the winter happy place I'd say would be the Suffolk coast, southwold, walswick. I grew up in Suffolk and I love it in the winter probably more than the summer. I love the wildness of it and we tend to go there as a family big extended family over Christmas. So that's definitely a happy place and quite often we just go up there for the day and if I need to think, it would be a place to go for sure and summer is pretty much anywhere in Tuscany in Italy. I've got friends there, we've spent some time in a place called Monte Argentario, so I highly recommend that as a secretly beautiful place to be and when I think of a place, a happy place, it would be there for sure I love both of those interpretations and also the lovely swankiness of I summer in Tuscany, I winter in Sussex, not Sussex, oh sorry, same differencesex, oh sorry, same different, different, obviously.

Chris Grimes:

Oh yes, I commend you for the traitors as well, because the world in which we work it's all about behavior and the psychology of the traitors.

Christie Jennings:

It's incredible can we, can I tell you a secret, please? Do you know lisa, the vicar on the traitors? Yes, yes, recently. Yes, recently revealed, recently revealed. She's my brother and sister-in-law's best friend and I spent quite a long time with her in the summer. She didn't say a word. Wouldn't have ever known.

Chris Grimes:

She's very impressive. Cheeky blinking Vika. I didn't mention a word. Cheeky blinking Lisa. Yeah, also, I've noticed that she does a lie and gets away with it and calls it a white lie anyway we don't know traitors I mean we love, we love the traitors and in terms of the psychology of behavior, which is what our whole communication skill training is fascinating.

Christie Jennings:

Oh yeah, and that whole relationship between. It's very shakespearean. That whole thing of we, the audience, know what they don't know, it's that's a really clever construct, I think.

Chris Grimes:

So you're, you're, you're watching to see if people pick up on signals all that stuff's great and it is very exciting, as I I want to say alumni numny, numny, dumdy dum. Again. It's lovely both we're all alumni from the bristol old vic theatre school.

Katherine Grice:

Yes, yeah, absolutely, which it was one of my um I mean, that is how christy and I met and uh what? And hung out there. And I think what was interesting about being at Bristol versus the London Drama School for me is you were away from well, I was away from my kind of network of family and friends in London that I'd already established. So I think it does, because I don't think people realise that drama school is such an intense experience. There were basically about 90 people in the whole school altogether and that's very different from most people's sort of university experience or anything like that, and because I went to university and then I did the postgrad, the two-year postgrad, and it's such an intensive thing. So you do end up being incredibly kind of cheap by gel with people and some of you realize some of them are, uh are going to be, lifelong friends and some of them, uh, not so much.

Chris Grimes:

But you still have this sort of really visceral feeling about yes, yes, yeah, nature of ensemble is what we really learn our craft in and of course, it really helps organisations and individuals to be a bit more ensemble centric, really yeah.

Christie Jennings:

Yeah, yeah, and I'd also say the thing that I and we'll talk about this some more but I think one of the things about Bristol is about you really learn discipline and rigour in what you do, and so I think that is another sort of strand of the work we do at Top Bird, I think is that it's not just oh, here's the 10 top tips. There is a sort of rigor and a closing and a okay, when you walk back into the office tomorrow, what are you going to do? Which, for me, is a kind of of that comes from that training of okay, what does it mean then?

Chris Grimes:

yes, absolutely yeah. So it has a deeper resonance than just a sort of, as you say, a fatuous one to ten yeah, another sort of tick box events which is, let's be honest, see quite a lot of yeah, let's not talk appraisals.

Chris Grimes:

Okay, now here we go. So, uh, I'm now going to arrive at a tree, a bit waiting for goddard within your clearing it's a bit ramuel beckett because of our acting background and I'm now going to shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. And your second bit of preparation now is your interpretation to a lovely storytelling construct called bipolar three, two, one. It's on the trunk of the tree, if you're watching this as well, it's five minutes. To have thought about four things that have shaped you, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention, and borrow from the film up, that's a bit oh, squirrels. Now what never? Who grab your attention? Did you see a squirrel then? Yeah. And then one is a quirky or unusual fact about you, top birds, that we couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us it's not a memory test. So over to you to interpret the shaking of the canopy of your tree as you see fit. So four things that have shaped you.

Christie Jennings:

First of all just to say we've done this bit individually so it might take a bit longer.

Chris Grimes:

So we'll try and be succinct and clear yes, we're trying to do 52 minutes, but if we ring, out?

Katherine Grice:

no, no, I don't know, I don't. I don't think you need to worry, chris. I don't think we'll bang. Well, I won't anyway bang on, no, no off you go.

Chris Grimes:

Thank you for your preparation.

Katherine Grice:

Okay, so I'll start with my four things that have shaped me. That was it right, yeah, and, as most people, really cool things from sort of your early life. So I grew up in Stanford in Lincolnshire and they have. I basically had two parents who were very keen on amateur theatre and I grew up in the Stanford Shakespeare Company, basically doing Shakespeare every summer, come wind, rain, whatever, and I think that is so core to my kind of understanding of theatre. But you know, it's just, it was hilarious. But also I didn't fear Shakespeare in any way, I just thought it were great stories and I loved the poetry.

Katherine Grice:

Then we I also put Bristol, the old Vic as just because I so was so desperate to go to drama school and I loved it so much and also found it annoying and frustrating because a lot of the tutors were incredibly ancient and um and that was in a good way and a bad way that's exactly the duality of having this incredible history going back to, um, you know, all of these incredible people back to the sort of 40s and 50s, to, uh, some of them who were really very dodgy and like nat brenner rudy shelly yeah you mean?

Katherine Grice:

so I absolutely adored nat brenner. Yeah, um, he was sort of dying of emphysema when he was there, when we were. Mean, I just thought he was the most incredible person.

Chris Grimes:

He was Peter O'Toole's mentor. I know you know that, but I'm saying that for the audience.

Katherine Grice:

Yeah, exactly that history of sort of knowing Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole Incredible. And then you've got someone you know. Anyway, they're all bonkers, but also all the people who went there. And if you ask anyone who went to Bristol over maybe a 30 or 40-year period, you can say sort of two or three things and they'll come up. If you say Rudy Shelley, they will come up with the same four sayings Squeeze your lemon, which I't say to people. Yeah, um, about supporting levels, yeah, and all those things are so funny and I know the other one is acting, is reacting.

Chris Grimes:

Why are you looking at the floor.

Katherine Grice:

The only thing you'll find there is your performance and they're.

Christie Jennings:

They're really funny, but they're really useful when you're teaching someone to present. Why are you looking down?

Chris Grimes:

You're applying the three C's and, of course that's the two B's, which is bonkers and brilliant because they rewatch it.

Christie Jennings:

But you know, another one of his was. You know he's talking about Chekhov and he'd say and Masha says I want to go to Moscow, and what does Natasha say? And you say, well, she says nothing, Exactly the point being that it's what happens in the silence. That's really interesting. Not what's being said, but what's not being said is really interesting. So when you apply that in a conversation, that's really interesting. You're having a difficult conversation with somebody. What's the non-verbal stuff?

Chris Grimes:

you're picking up.

Christie Jennings:

So there's all these amazing kind of parallels and at the time thinking what's he on about?

Katherine Grice:

oh my god acting is reacting, and that's such a brilliant thing to think about as well, and remember he would use the forces you to do is listen to the other person, yeah and uh, and you know which is such a brilliant thing when we're having a difficult conversation or doing anything, it's like what really phone in on what?

Chris Grimes:

listening to the other person and you remember just one other thing about him he would use the proposal by Chekhov as the microcosm text for all future text study. I nearly sort of shook myself because I was playing Lomoff during the time I was there and then Rudy Shelley, the great Rudy Shelley, came to see me perform as Lomoff and it was very. He was the hypochondriac within Chekhov, Saying, Saying Ducky, you did it, which is, which is a triumph, Totally neat.

Katherine Grice:

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, there's so many stories about him, so many Um and uh, but every you know it was just such an incredible, intense environment. Um, uh. The other person and one of my other things was I went to, I did art and art history at school A-level. We had a lot of doddery old teachers at my school as well, but this, they had this incredible woman called Christine Broxton, who was really young and funky for Stanford and she totally opened our eyes to art, and Renaissance art in particular, because that's what we were studying.

Katherine Grice:

You kind of think, well, I think of all the things, the love of art and you know, wherever you see it, you know, whether it's in Venice or in the National Gallery was totally inspired by her teaching and she used to say things like oh, you know, philip II of Spain, he was a pornographer really, he just wanted women. On that, you know, when you're sort of 16, it's kind of like what Brilliant? See, she was fantastic. And yeah, the other thing I've put down is is just having two uh boys and, um, everything that you know they're well, they're young men now, but everything that they teach you, fine young men, fine young men, hilarious to. Uh, how old are the boys now? 21 and 23. Wow, so they're both at uni. But um it, you know they're just. They're teaching you so much in patient being a parent, bit patience in mother's footsteps.

Chris Grimes:

Are they going into either art or theater?

Katherine Grice:

uh, one's doing the circus and the other one is doing film production, so kind of, yeah, I think, yeah, um, but they, you know, the other thing they teach you is just to be really kind of present and not to get kind of stuck I wish it was a daughter called nelly and she was large.

Chris Grimes:

You called nelly the other day playing. It's fine, great, lovely, lovely juicy answers. Thank you so much. I know you're not over yet. Uh, katherine christy, do you want to take?

Christie Jennings:

yes, so mine are, um. I thought about this long and hard and I'm going to start with my parents. I grew up in the in the suffolk countryside, and my father was a writer, um, and interestingly he was very successful um in the 50s and 60s, the sort of person you would have seen on on on panel shows and stuff like that and then he sort of went out on fashion in the mid 70s and um. So I and I was I'm the youngest of six kids, so I was on the tail end of the success, so I saw the highs and lows and he absolutely they knew everybody. My parents, you know michael benteen, all sorts of people used to come and stay. There was always someone kind of coming in. It was incredibly famous, but of course we didn't know that stay. There was always someone kind of coming in. It was incredibly famous, but of course we didn't know that. We didn't treat them as kind of normal people, which of course they loved.

Christie Jennings:

So I grew up in this very chaotic house where there was lots going on, there was lots of music, there was lots of art, there was lots of things like that and my parents not really paying a huge amount of attention to us really just having a lovely time, but they were great. They were great fun and very happy together. So it really it did really shape me. It was difficult though, too, because my father died when I was 24 and my mother died when I was 32. So it was wonderful, and then it was really hard when they when they went. So that definitely shaped me. So I was 32. I had to really think, right, okay, yes, nothing underneath me. I'm gonna have to figure this out. It's really when I started doing all this work actually.

Chris Grimes:

So it's strangely, it was through that real grief that something interesting and what rather wonderful was born, weirdly so that's my first one, just to ask, with six of you, with how big was the gap with you being number six?

Christie Jennings:

So Susanna's the oldest. She was 13 when I was born. Yeah, and there were three girls, three boys. Your parents were older then than yeah so my dad was 47 when I was born, which is not unusual these days, but in those days it was, you know. I mean all their friends used to say are they ever going to stop having children? It was very sort of mad and bohemian Catholic you know, you name it.

Chris Grimes:

It was all going on, all popping off.

Christie Jennings:

And my father was a really hilarious character, very, very funny man, real original thinker and a bit of a nightmare as well.

Chris Grimes:

You know, all of those things combined. If that makes sense, it does. Yes, yeah, yeah, god bless him.

Christie Jennings:

Sorry, dad, but that's true. What was his, uh? Media? Was he a tv personality? He was a columnist. He had a column on the observer called the called, oddly enough, um, and he was really the kind of first of that genre that came afterwards, which was I'm just going to tell you what happened today um, but he was a real master of language and great lover of poetry and music and, you know, interviewed all sorts of extraordinary people. He had a really extraordinary life. You know. He went everywhere, met everybody. You know he was there.

Christie Jennings:

And then my mom was a very, very talented artist and when she met him they met at the royal opera house, uh, at a production of marriage of big row, and went bing. You know, one of those sort of relations were those sort of relationships, um, and then she just decided she was going to marry him and gave up painting. She just she said I'll either have to paint every day of my life or not at all. She was that sort of person. And then she became passionate about art, history later on, wrote books about john constable and people like that. So they were really interesting, amazing people and it was chaos so the human hokey-cokiness have put your whole self in.

Chris Grimes:

She was going to either do it completely, absolutely, yeah, lovely lovely, yeah, and a real pragmatist.

Christie Jennings:

She was the one who kept everything together, with my father sort of spinning around, you know lovely song.

Chris Grimes:

You've introduced it. I'm spinning around.

Christie Jennings:

Now is the next yeah, that's the next song, and so that's the first thought before I had. And then bristol was mine as well, and and so I won't go over the same stuff. But I guess for me what I think is that's a legacy of being at drama school. Then I did the three-year course and it you know it's really tragic because they're now not going to do the three-year course anymore, but I think there was something about that, about having a having three years, that really it went right into my bones and it's, and pretty much everything that we do comes from our training, and I'd say the bad parts of it, you, you go right. Well, you know the bad teaching. Well, that's not how I want to work with people.

Christie Jennings:

But the good teachers the Francis Thomas who was the voice teacher, I thought was one of the most remarkable. He was an amazing teacher Because what I loved about him was that he was interested in wherever you were on the scale. So he loved the talent. He didn't just love the talent, he loved the people. He was interested in getting you up, further up, whatever you were doing.

Chris Grimes:

And I thought he always reminds me to this day of being a bit like bilbo baggins. He was just, yeah, bloody short, hairy creature, not with hairy feet necessarily, but he was just a real wonderful presence and he was but he was a really emotionally intelligent I you know.

Christie Jennings:

Yes, yeah, he saw all of it. You know he didn't miss a trick. I thought, and I think we, I learned well he was an absolute world-class voice.

Katherine Grice:

Teacher, wonderful teacher I mean there's no doubt about it, yeah and rigor comes from him actually.

Christie Jennings:

That's you know that idea of that doing the same thing every day and really getting your breathing under control, really making you know that idea of that doing the same thing every day and really getting your breathing under control, really making you know all of that stuff stay absolutely stable.

Katherine Grice:

He was also really funny, he really, he really. Yeah, he was just lovely he was. He had a real kind of funny energy.

Chris Grimes:

He has a lot, lots of you know he's still out there, I have to say, which is lovely is he's still that's good to know, yeah so that's crystal and you know again, comes through everything that we do.

Christie Jennings:

So it's a really big part of what. What top bed's all about? Um. And then another big influence for me was um. A big shape for me was my, my, she wasn't officially my godmother, but she, she was, because she, she was a. She was a woman called jill caddell and she was simon caddell's mother and she, she started as an act. She was my mother's best friend and, uh, she started out as an actress and she became a director and she, she started, she, she assisted john gilgud as a director and then later on became the principal of Guildhall and she was absolutely extraordinary.

Christie Jennings:

I've never heard anybody put their attention and listen like she did. So you would go and stay with her. She had an amazing house. You'd go and stay with her and she'd say she'd pour you a glass of wine and she'd say, so, tell me. And that's all she'd say. And then you'd go. This happened, he happened, he's, you know, he's ruined my life. Oh, you know what a little crisis I was going through. And you'd let you. She'd get you to really talk, talk, talk, talk, talk go to the coaching question.

Chris Grimes:

Actually, isn't it? So tell me it doesn't, but it's. It's just the best way to wonderful.

Christie Jennings:

So she and then you go to bed, go to the morning. She'd say I've been thinking about what you said last night and this is what I think you should do. And she was always kind of. She always saw, she was always two steps ahead of me in my life about what I should be doing. Right up to there, she died about three or four years ago that's not long ago, no. And right up to the very end she was bang on the money about what should happen next. So she was like a sort of godmother, guardian angel, wise, wise person. I learned so much from her. She's amazing.

Chris Grimes:

And I've really been struck by. So Tell Me what a great. I just want to reincorporate that it's fantastic.

Christie Jennings:

It's great, because nothing else.

Chris Grimes:

And so you sit there and you go, and then, of course, I'll find rabbit on Anyone watching who's coaching is going to ask that question next.

Katherine Grice:

I think yeah. So tell me the other thing you always say that makes me laugh. That she said was everyone's shy Get over it.

Christie Jennings:

She used more excretions than that, actually, but she absolutely get over yourself. Everybody's shy. It's really boring. It's a boring thing to say.

Chris Grimes:

It's quite interesting. This is lovely stuff. Yeah, christy and katherine so one more.

Christie Jennings:

I've got one more my my last in my last big shape thing is I adopted my son at the age of 45.

Chris Grimes:

He's quite old to adopt someone.

Christie Jennings:

I'm very old look how old I am. He's now 14, he's 45's 45. He's 45.

Chris Grimes:

My joke misfired. That's what I was trying to say. I got it, catherine got it, but I'm sorry, yeah well.

Christie Jennings:

I adopted him when he was 14 months old. He's now 14 years old and it's been the absolute joy and challenge of my life. It's been an extraordinary ride so far, but really wonderful. So if anyone out there is thinking about adopting, do it. You know, go through it, go through it. Whatever it is, it's wonderful.

Chris Grimes:

Yes.

Christie Jennings:

You know the children's book. We're Going on a Bear Hunt.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, Michael Rosen and whoever.

Christie Jennings:

Do you understand what it means? I think so, but go there. It never occurred to me before, until the teenage years came upon me where he says you can't go over it, you can't go under it, you have to go through it. I'd never really thought that is a brilliant metaphor. You just have to go through it, it's like a profound.

Chris Grimes:

each obstacle is a life metaphor.

Christie Jennings:

Yeah, you can't go under it or over it, you have to go through it.

Chris Grimes:

And sometimes you have to go through it to get through it.

Christie Jennings:

You do exactly, and certainly if you've got a teenage child, you have to go through it, don't you? Yeah, I feel slightly she's really smart because she's through it.

Katherine Grice:

Well, I mean, you know, never say never.

Christie Jennings:

But um, yeah, the teenage years I wouldn't want to um go through again but I have to say I you know of course there are challenges, but but it is, it has been absolutely. If I think of anything that shaped me, it's that beautiful and now we're on to three things that inspire you.

Chris Grimes:

If there's any resonance with what you've already been saying, that's completely fine and resonance. So three, three things that inspire you now I was.

Katherine Grice:

It's helen oxenbury. I was just. I really liked the illustration. They're so incredible on them.

Chris Grimes:

Michael rosen has previously guessed it, which is why I knew it was him. I know I knew it was him anyway, so thank you for mentioning helen oxbury. She's the other co-author, the illustrator, of we're going on a bear hunt. We're going to catch a big one, um scared.

Katherine Grice:

So I'm sure lots of people would say this, the same things as mine. I've mentioned art and uh, you know it all sounds sort of a bit highfalutin, but it really does. Every time I go and see something I just think, wow, that is just fantastic. And seeing it in live, you know, in real life, is so fantastic. And any travel, whether it's a kind of quick trip for work you know I have been lucky enough Christy as well to do a lot of travel for work and it's always nice when someone else is paying to kind of go somewhere. A lot of the time you just see the airport and the conference room, but occasionally you do get to go somewhere where you would never kind of have gotten otherwise the privilege of going there and being paid to do it.

Katherine Grice:

But also some extraordinary places. You know that you kind of end up at and you always sort of learn so much from different people in different cultures, lovely um.

Christie Jennings:

So you know that the old adage travel broadens the mind but a few moments where I thought am I going to get out of moscow?

Katherine Grice:

um, and I did a course in moscow in 2016 and we, it was incredible, the whole, the whole experience. I can't actually believe. Yes, um it, I, we did that, but um, yeah, it from there were. We stayed in a really swanky hotel and there were armed guards in every corner because there was some finance or finance ministers there and staying in the same hotel and it was, you know. It was so exhilarating and also terrifying.

Chris Grimes:

And how very typical of you, because we talked at the beginning about I know I want to go to.

Katherine Grice:

Moscow. I want to go to London. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to do that because you know, it's not somewhere that many of us are going to get to go now.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, so you know Me too. I went there in 2019.

Katherine Grice:

Wow, wow, so Crimea had just been annexed when I went, so there was quite a lot of discussion.

Chris Grimes:

That was in 1968, wasn't it?

Christie Jennings:

Yeah, apparently, gosh, that was in 1968, wasn't it? Yeah, apparently I was in Estonia around that time, I think, and just slightly thinking, yeah, perhaps go home now, I think On one of those planes in the snow, you know, with the propellers, where you just think, okay, I don't know, no one's really going to know where I am.

Katherine Grice:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then my last one would be David Bowie, who was my first love. Wow, when I you know, in that hilarious thing where you think he's speaking just to you, he really understands me personally. And then, when he died, you realise that everyone had that experience.

Chris Grimes:

My brother introduced me to that. Yes, sorry. Yes, I'm right there.

Katherine Grice:

Legend, legend, legend absolutely incredible, and it's such an incredible human being as well, just such a lovely humble, yeah clever man who, um, you know, it's sort of miraculously survived the 70s, really.

Christie Jennings:

But uh yeah, just being an art, true artist so mine are, um, uh, leonard bernstein in all his forms, um, but specifically west side story, obviously, yeah, and even more specifically than that, jose carrera singing maria. Oh, so if you have seen the documentary, it it's so worth watching. Watch the documentary first and see how absolutely furious Nelly Bernstein gets with Jose Carreras, and then he gets it right and you can hear when he sings Maria he suddenly just lets go in a way that you just go. That is, it's fantastic. So if you haven't listened to that, have a little listen to that later.

Katherine Grice:

You. That is. It's fantastic. So if you haven't listened to that, have a little. Listen to that later. You'll be very pleased.

Christie Jennings:

It's fantastic that music is so incredible and even though you know, the story yes, you don't mean what he can't is phenomenal every time. You know, and I know it back to front every time I listen to it. I just know that is. That is something else. Um, and the other two things I've got are um, angels in america, which I the film version of Angels in America. I love the theatre version, but I love the film version of it.

Christie Jennings:

And the reason I thought of this is because when I saw it, it was in a not particularly good place in my life. It was quite a long time ago and I can't remember it terribly well. But the angel keeps saying look up, look up. And the metaphor is that we're always looking down and not seeing what's around us. And when I started to look up, things started to change. It sounds kind of slightly, but you know what I mean. It's kind of we we get so tunnel visioned in our life and I found that very, very inspiring, actually actually watching that. So that's another recommendation. And my last one is Michelle Obama. Okay, I don't think I need to say much more, just watch her. I mean, it's the answer. If only she was in charge.

Chris Grimes:

If only she was in charge. Let that drop. Just look at Michelle Obama, and that's what inspires me. That's wonderful yeah.

Christie Jennings:

Watch her talk at any of of the speeches, but how articulate she is, how you know from a technical level, you know in terms of how she's communicating, it is astonishing what a brain she's got.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, nothing and now I believe we're on to, uh, your shiny object syndrome, which are your squirrels. You know what are your monsters of distraction, what never fail to sort of stop you in your tracks and, well, hijack your attention? What are your squirrels, please?

Katherine Grice:

uh well, dogs on the tube, yeah, good, uh, I, yeah find it and and I have missed stops because there's a dog on the tube or an escalator, that's good, someone carrying a dog on the escalator or an unexpected dog in a bag. I just suddenly a little head pops out. Yeah, oh God. So yeah that I am In all my circa 250 odd episodes.

Chris Grimes:

No one's ever said a dog as a well as a dog in a bag.

Katherine Grice:

I am the dog in. Oh, I am the dog in. Up, I am like squirrels. But about dogs totally, and not just anything to do with dogs. I don't have a dog. We've got two cats, so I absolutely adore, and when Christy had cats I used to take Nicky out. She was rude about them, About cats having personality or being embarrassed for any of those things.

Christie Jennings:

And now I'm totally into having a narrative about I'm a cat and dog person. Yeah, me too. Well, she wasn't, she was just a dog person. But she, yeah, and Chris, are your cats adopted.

Chris Grimes:

Yeah, okay, and we've left them, obviously that'd be weird.

Katherine Grice:

They're called Thelma and Louise, which is a totally inspiring film as well and still holds up incredible. Yeah, that's another one that's such an incredible hard hit. It's much more hard hitting. I watched it recently. Much more hard hitting? Yeah, it is, and I remember really, really, um, but anyway, the the cat's called Thelma and Louise and they are incredibly different. One's kind kind of grey Siamese and the other one is big fluff floof, but they're from the same litter. Wow, I don't know if you know, but they have different hats.

Chris Grimes:

Okay, One was a Siamese monkey and the other one was another monkey. That was a bit fluffier. Cats which yeah.

Katherine Grice:

Yes.

Chris Grimes:

That was an adventure out. The cat flap cats, which, yeah, yes, that was an adventure out. The cat flap adventures in cat flaps is the next podcast.

Christie Jennings:

I'll be sure I like that adventures in cat flaps good, yeah, and mine are well, similarly to dogs on the tube, my. My specific thing that never fails to enchant me, I have to say, is is that time in a child's life when they're about to, when they're just finding their way around language for the first time, and when things slightly go in the wrong order? I find that absolutely enchanting and the sort of certainty of it I love. So Kai, my son, used to say I ate my supper all, and I got very disappointed when he learned how to say it properly, because I love that. That's one of my absolute favorite things.

Katherine Grice:

We had a conservatory yeah and the radioator and that's that brilliant ted talk that ken robinson you know, really famous ted talk that ken robinson does does where he goes. The thing about children is they'll always give it a go like young children until they're basically educated out of it. And those brilliant mistakes, joyous mistakes, that kids make when they're tiny.

Chris Grimes:

And bless you for the word enchantment as well. It is enchanting and it is good.

Christie Jennings:

Yeah, and also, I think particularly on the tube or the train, when everyone's sort of in that kind of place of you know, and then suddenly you just hear a little person pipe up, you know, I want the button, press the button, you know, and everyone suddenly becomes a human being.

Chris Grimes:

It's so nice. It's really nice need.

Christie Jennings:

we need humanity absolutely the other one is just, is a place. Actually it's just the view from on Hampstead Heath across London, which I love. I find it to this day, my old age. When I was a teenager I used to come up to London to see family friends and I used to find it utterly thrilling to see the view across London. I used to find it utterly thrilling to see the view across London. I used to think, well, I know, I'm here.

Chris Grimes:

There's a park bench in that exact spot. There is the one you mean.

Christie Jennings:

Yeah, and you can look right across and I just used to think, well, I'm here, now it's all going to happen.

Chris Grimes:

Have you had, if you've got a photograph of that vista to send, with the park bench at any point. Yeah, that's beautiful. There we are. I've blessed you and I commend your squirrels to the house. That's lovely. Forgive me, it's getting a bit dark here in Bristol and I'm starting to look like Count Dracula.

Katherine Grice:

If I didn't have my glasses on, I think you have the Houses of Parliament behind you.

Christie Jennings:

Then it's just a brick of screen. No, you.

Chris Grimes:

No it's sort of I can try and put more lights on, but I'll go with drag, it's fine. And now we're going to go for a quirky or unusual fact about you, christy Jennings and Catherine Grice. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.

Katherine Grice:

Well, the thing that pops up in my I was once in a football video for um a football, something like a world cup song, not not the england team, but a world cup song video. I've looked for it. I'm not find it. Found it, which I'm very, very relieved about great fact love that.

Christie Jennings:

Um, I suppose my quirky unusual fact is I played princess diana on the west end stage in a shockingly bad wig great, cool fact.

Chris Grimes:

Cool facts, and can we find a film about somewhere on youtube or that?

Katherine Grice:

no, there is a picture of pictures I have. We have. There's photographing evidence of that. There's pictures, there's photographic evidence of that. Of that I'm quite glad there isn't photographic evidence. It was me in a bikini. I can't even begin to.

Chris Grimes:

I needed the money, yes, so if we Google Catherine Grice in a bikini, that won't the World Cup, no, god knows what you'd end up with. Yes, don't go there. Okay, now we've shaken your tree, hurrah. Next we stay in the clearing, which is summering, of course, in Tuscany and wintering in. It wasn't Sussex, it was somewhere else, wasn't it? Suffolk, suffolk. And, of course, where you were too. It's all about memory.

Christie Jennings:

Danny Gould.

Chris Grimes:

When we go on the sofa or on the sofa. Yes, now we're going to talk about alchemy and gold. So, when you are at purpose and in flow, what are you absolutely happiest doing? Either professional person, I don't mind, but it's up to you to go where you like when you like, but alchemy and gold is is Is your at-purpose and in-flow statements.

Katherine Grice:

So there's a work one I would say I really love a big event kind of you know it's a bit of the showbiz that's still, you know, itch that gets scratched. So you've got 80 people or whatever, and you get them to play a whole load of bonkers games and run around and create things. I really, really love doing that and, uh, I, you know it's.

Christie Jennings:

It does give you that absolute adrenaline kind of performance buzz, mine's the same, absolutely that, and I think and I how I would describe is, I love the. The transition from walking into a room full of people going what the hell are we doing here to this is really good fun. You know, and and I wasn't I was expected to absolutely hate you actors. Oh my god, you know, I'm sure you've had this too, chris, you. You know, I love the moment when they unfold their arms and let it go the other. I find that really thrilling, and the more resistant they are, the more joy I have out of that.

Chris Grimes:

When you get, unfold their arms and let it go.

Christie Jennings:

You know what I mean, though. That thing you get where people go. What is this?

Katherine Grice:

Christy, and I've talked about this a lot as well If you and you're playing the other person's difficult person and you know you might be a 55-year-old bloke who's from Scotland or whatever, and you only need and they go, that's just like him and you sort of think what it's insane.

Chris Grimes:

Kattengryfe is available to be 55-year-old Scottish men. I love that.

Katherine Grice:

Well, bonkers, you know, just can't believe that, but if you play the kind of notion of it, the behaviour. The behaviour of it People just kind of go immediately.

Christie Jennings:

Any time when you feel like you've got through the kind of the war whether that's coaching one-to-one or whether that's a group it's a wonderful feeling. So I remember when I first started doing this type of work, all my friends were still acting. They were going what are you doing that for? You're not going to Milton Keynes at 8 o'clock in the morning and sometimes it felt very unglamorous. But actually what I started to notice was I was just getting something very, very, such a fantastic feeling by being. You know, the more experience that it came, that being able to move someone on and really help them come out of that room think I've actually done something.

Christie Jennings:

that means something lovely it is a love, it's a great feeling, it really is, it's really and that.

Katherine Grice:

I think that's what we have when we started the business. So I just think this job is incredible yeah yeah, the other thing that is so incredible about it is the very few jobs that would enable you to kind of parachute into so many different businesses tight sectors range.

Katherine Grice:

You know job roles. It's so extraordinary you kind of you know working, one minute you're working at Coca-Cola and the next minute you're working in a tiny little entrepreneurial kind of go you know working, one minute you're working at Coca-Cola and the next minute you're working in a tiny little entrepreneurial kind of go-faster-stripes business, and that is, I think, a real gift.

Christie Jennings:

I've got loads of work in the senior civil service and absolute eye-opener to me about how this country works. To really see that and understand what they do is again a real privilege. It's amazing.

Chris Grimes:

Bear witness to transformation is a privilege and that's the essence of.

Christie Jennings:

I know that's what tuck bird bringing as well, which is yeah, I think yeah and just I'm just on a much more flippant note I don't think katherine and I are averse to a cocktail in any situation it's a cocktail.

Katherine Grice:

Yes, absolutely well, you know the christ's kitchen table, this one, the previous one, have just all sitting in the garden. Yeah, have proved a very fruitful and very relaxing experience.

Chris Grimes:

After all, where the business started, it is exactly where the business started are you not doing a dry journey, then you're doing tight like a cocktail. Are you not doing a dry journey, then You're doing cocktail. January, no, no, that's hard enough January's a terrible month to not drink.

Christie Jennings:

It's so long.

Katherine Grice:

Isn't it Well so? My husband went 30 days half September, April, June and November. All the rest of 31, apart from January, which is 3,427.

Chris Grimes:

Isn't it incredible. You're absolutely January, which is 3,427.

Katherine Grice:

Isn't it incredible.

Chris Grimes:

You're absolutely right, and now I'm going to award you with a cake. Hurrah, I've got a ticket here. It is Hurrah, it's a cake, and you get to put a cherry on the cake. First of all. Do you like cake, christy and Catherine? Yeah, what flavour would you like? Unfortunately, it's a metaphorical cake until I can see you in person soon and I'll give you a cake. I like carrot.

Katherine Grice:

I like a carrot cake. Thank you, I also quite like baking a cake. Maybe you can bake the cake. A Northern Irish baking heritage.

Chris Grimes:

That's kudos to you and your cake baking and Kristy cake.

Christie Jennings:

I would go for Catherine having made a Victoria sponge Just a real box, a Victoria sponge Just a really bog-standard Victoria sponge.

Chris Grimes:

I can see completely why you've befriended Catherine now because she makes cakes. Makes cakes. You get to put a cherry on your Victoria sponge and your carrot cake With Stuff. Now what's a favourite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker and pulled you towards your futures?

Christie Jennings:

I've got a new one which is from Bill Nighy, the actor Bill Nighy. I heard him say on a podcast the other day. He said it's not about the mistake you make, it's how you respond to the mistake that matters, and when you have a teenage boy in the house, that is a really good thing to talk about.

Katherine Grice:

It's a great parenting. Love it though. Great how you respond. Exactly teach your child.

Christie Jennings:

It's all about it again, just to reincorporate it. Um, it's not the mistake you make, it's how you respond to the mistake.

Katherine Grice:

Lovely, I'm paraphrasing he's probably said it okay um uh well, I don't know who said this, probably yeah, um many, many people. But uh, I do sometimes say to myself no emotion, all emotion is temporary and I think that just reminding whatever's happened, whatever state someone's in, you will move past it. And I think that's a really good thing, because we all get, you know, we all have stuff happen to us, and also when you're working with people as well.

Chris Grimes:

so you just have to kind of hold on that they'll get yeah, you lens on and this too shall pass, and it's exactly that. Yeah, just say. I know we've all heard it, but I love just reincorporating.

Katherine Grice:

So just say it again all the emotion is temporary boom and give us the other one too. The other one is uh, hamlet, um, and I'm just trying to remember it, what's he? Saying there is nothing. What is it? There's nothing right or wrong. That thinking makes it so. Nothing is either good or bad.

Christie Jennings:

Either good or bad. That thinking makes it so.

Katherine Grice:

Thinking makes it's actually your own linkedin banner and I thought I should have said that and then I couldn't remember how it started.

Chris Grimes:

Linkedin banner because it's LinkedIn, banner because it's there, it's. Nothing isn't good or bad, but thinking makes it better.

Katherine Grice:

Thinking makes it so, which is so true, right? I mean it's sort of just this incredible kind of thinker, shakespeare of the truth of human beings.

Christie Jennings:

There's so many of them. Oh my God. We could do on Shakespeare quotes, couldn't we? That's been done before.

Chris Grimes:

Let's not do that. Next, what notes, help or advice, with the gift of hindsight, would you proffer to a younger version of yourselves?

Christie Jennings:

I've got nieces who are in their late 20s, early 30s and I just say, honestly, you're fantastic. Put your feet on the floor and look them in the eye and just say, no thanks, love that. Yep, you're fantastic. You know, because I think as a young woman you spend a lot of time comparing and despairing and you know that's the only thing. I look back on my 20s and I just say if I could have just known. You know, the whole thing about youth is wasted on the young, that you just don't realize how fabulous you are until everything starts to drop.

Chris Grimes:

That is wisdom right there, Wisdom wasted on the young as well, which all resonates with all of us. I'm ancient as well. I mean you are.

Katherine Grice:

Yeah, yeah, catherine, well, I just well, I think that's a really, really good one and I just think I wish, I slightly wish I'd just gone for it or backed myself a bit more.

Christie Jennings:

Yeah, that's a good idea, and it's the same thing.

Katherine Grice:

I don't know what I was worried about. I was so concerned about what people thought and not looking stupid, which is such a basic. You know I talk about it all the time in work. You know our fundamental fear of looking stupid stops us and gets in the way so often of good things and just having a go and failing and not worrying about it and coming full, full circle to the top bird imperative of helping your people to be more clear, confident and courageous.

Chris Grimes:

That's you now. Your moment in the sunshine is now. You've prepared your.

Katherine Grice:

Absolutely. You know there's another quote from sun beckett, that was it try, fail, try again, fail better. You know you can't get better unless you have a go and fail. And you know it took me someone not christy quite a lot kicking and screaming to make me me. You know, do change my career, yeah love, I think.

Christie Jennings:

the other really interesting thing and the name top bird. There are lots of reasons why we chose it once post modern ironic joke, but also that we like to think we are top birds and all of that kind of thing. What's really exciting about doing this now is that I feel like we're just starting and it's wonderful to be this age and a lot of people are winding down, we're going right, let's go, and the energy around that is really lovely. Actually, it's really it feels really exciting to be doing this.

Chris Grimes:

We're ramping up to Shakespeare in a moment to talk about it, but just before we get there, this is the pass the golden baton moment, please. So they don't like it. I'm sorry I'm doing that with you, but who would you most like to pass the golden baton along to in your network that you know would really enjoy benefit from or just like being given a damn good listening to in this way?

Katherine Grice:

Oh, uh, well, Tessa might really like it, because Tessa is another inspirational friend of ours who runs a business called Act for Autism, which is basically it's a charity. Actually it's a charity, yeah, act for Autism, act for Autism, for autism, act four yeah, and it's about helping parents communicate with their autistic child. Yes, and she's trained as an actress and works as a trainer and facilitator and coach, and that's her real passion.

Chris Grimes:

For a full million points, no cash attached. What's Tessa's second name, please? Mortonon is the right answer. So do you both concur that tessa morton shall be bestowed upon her with a golden baton?

Christie Jennings:

we'll send the gold baton to her.

Katherine Grice:

Definitely, yeah, yeah, lovely I think it's so great to share, you know, for parents to know that there is support and help out there and it's it, you know, because it can be such an, I think, isolating experience.

Christie Jennings:

Can we send it to another person as well? Yes, joan Farrell, I'll tell you who else has been quite an inspiration to me. So I moved last year. I moved from a Victorian flat full of clutter to a brand new ninth floor apartment which looks over London, which is where we're reporting live from there now, and two mums who live near me have a business called Restore and what they do is they come in when your house is a mess and help you reorganise it. And they helped me move from a Victorian place into a brand new apartment and they were absolutely fantastic at not just finding and helping me source things and making it look beautiful, but also supporting me and facilitating me to do it.

Christie Jennings:

And they're brilliant, those students. They might be a really good cut because it would be very different. It's a really different world and they're really interested in design and helping you. You see a sofa and they go. I can find for you a thousand pounds cheaper. They do that sort of thing. They're brilliant. And who are restore the people what they're patty bass and laura lee milling. They're brilliant, they're really great. So I'd I really recommend them if you're. If a moving house or your house is a mess, yeah, you need help. They are the people to talk to boom restore records.

Chris Grimes:

Lovely, thank you. So you should just accept it is to furnish me with a warm introduction to those. What people, what you have just mentioned? And now shakespeare, and this, by the way, is the actual complete. It's not a first folio, but this is the one I bought for myself when I went to the bristol. I've got the same.

Christie Jennings:

We've all got the same version.

Chris Grimes:

It's actually a delicious prop which helps with the podcast, because it's mine. It's actually authentic, which is lovely. So now we're going to talk about Warren from the Seven Ages of man speech Dayquiz as you like it. When all is said and done, christy Dennings, catherine Grice from Cockbird how would you most like to be remembered?

Christie Jennings:

I know what I'd like. I'd like people to think, even if it's in a little tiny way, will she help you along a little bit? That's what I'd like to be remembered, you know, so that that helped me somehow that and everybody has something. My big mantra is everybody's got something, you know, wherever you are, whatever level, and it's about how you find it.

Katherine Grice:

As an encourager and as a good friend.

Christie Jennings:

But also, I think also, people would say you can never make her a decent cup of tea. She's so fussy about how she likes things. I'm also that that's true, isn't it?

Katherine Grice:

Yeah, I mean, it's so hard, isn't it? You sort of want to? But yeah, I think we are very encouraging of other people to kind of crack on and try things, but also we're both very good at kind of let's sit down and talk about it.

Chris Grimes:

Yes.

Katherine Grice:

I read somewhere that both very good at kind of let's sit down, talk about it and uh yes, I read some of it. You know, someone's in in a crisis or emotional state they need about eight minutes of just a good listening to yeah and uh and then that's.

Christie Jennings:

That's as much as to kind of help, support them or shift them, come back to, so Tell Me how long is it.

Chris Grimes:

No, no, and I love the incorporation of that. Thank you so much. Okay, we're coming up to a section now which is show me your QR codes, please. So where can we find out all about Top Bird on the old interweb? And here is Look at that.

Christie Jennings:

I thought that was something we were supposed to have done. No, I've done it for you.

Katherine Grice:

So we are running a free taster on the 29th of January yes, it's just an hour. It's on Zoom. There's an Eventbrite link. It's at 1pm 1 till 2, yeah, on Zoom where you'll get a taste of what it's like to work with us. Whether you're a woman who wants to come on the Women at Work toolkit, or whether you're someone in HR or in L&D who'd like to know more about us, or anyone actually wants to do some coaching, we'll give you a little bit of a flavor of what it's like, yeah, and I, I think you know you can write all this stuff down and actually experiencing it is a whole other thing.

Christie Jennings:

So come along.

Katherine Grice:

So I think that's the thing you know. During covid, when we all had to pivot to doing online training or coaching versus face-to-face, I think we spent a lot of time trying to make it interactive and practical and have fun and not that slide death by PowerPoint webinar kind of scenario. So it's still practical, it's still fun and energetic and you will be still required to do stuff, but that will just give you a taste of what it's like lovely.

Chris Grimes:

And then here we go.

Christie Jennings:

We've also got your on swanky website, please here's a swanky website and page and we have an events page on there which leads you to, uh, the women at work toolkit which begins I've got the dates here uh, we start on the 21st of february and it's every friday um from 2 30 to 2 pm, 90 minutes. So you basically do three slots of 90 minutes. So this is a much more consolidated look at um in an individual self-development program, but you can do it in a short, sharp, very cost-effective way.

Katherine Grice:

So we've had women who, um want to have a difficult conversation, um, with their boss or or a colleague, and that has been sort of rumbling on for a while. We've've had people who want women who want to apply for, get a promotion or get a pay rise, and really struggled to do that. There's a lot of things that and we've been successful in all of those things because it is a targeted chance to kind of focus on that. But you were also kind of in this really supportive group of other women who are all kind of held to account by their commitments to each other as well as us.

Christie Jennings:

So we've done a few of these and they've had fantastic feedback. And if you haven't got very much time, but you know you want to do some stuff around your impact, this is a perfect way to do it.

Katherine Grice:

So it's also very cost effective. So the reason that we designed it was because a lot of smaller businesses or a lot of organizations you might not have a budget for training or coaching, and so this enables you to get the kind of high quality training and coaching that you might not otherwise have access to.

Christie Jennings:

And on our Swankini new website there is an events page and you can click on that and it will give you a really quite a comprehensive rundown of what we're going to do each week so you can get a really good sense of what it's all about there we are events page.

Katherine Grice:

if anyone, uh um, thinks that their organization could do with um some top third communication skills training, we run, run in-house training. We've run courses for all sorts of different organizations, from energy companies to law firms, so very happy. All of it based on using our experience. Extent of experience.

Chris Grimes:

Wonderful stuff, as this has been your moment in the sunshine, in the Good, listening to show Catherine Grice and Christy Dennings. Is there anything else you'd like to say?

Christie Jennings:

I think one thing I would like to say is well, two things actually. One is that our ambition, this business, is to go into markets where perhaps there is not so much support. So we're really interested. If there's anyone listening in dubai, in the middle east or in asia who thinks actually I could really do with some help, get in touch with us, because we would love to spread our wings a little bit into into those, those particular areas, and yes, so we have.

Katherine Grice:

you know I work we've both worked um in in in the Middle East and in Dubai before, but not with Top Bird, and also I just think what's great about you know, the dynamic of having two people in the room is also really important and quite unusual. You have two experienced trainers and coaches, so it gives you a breadth of individual coaching as well as also two experiences and two voices in a room.

Christie Jennings:

And the other thing I was going to say was that our ambition five years from now is that we've got some younger women coming and working with us. So one of the things we'd really like to do is actually pass the baton on some of the old top birds to get some new top birds on and working with us and our outsiders.

Chris Grimes:

That's a subsidiary called top chicks top chicks for sure yeah, I just got, I just got squirreled by a dog.

Christie Jennings:

So one of the things that you know, we this. You know if you've got young children and you're thinking what should I do with life, this is a fantastic way because you can do a couple of days that we can have decent living and also have some time for the children.

Chris Grimes:

So we'd really like to see if we can nurture that in some way Back in line you can say if you're a good egg, you can apply to be a top chick. No, come on, come on, boom Good. So I'm boom good. So I'm just round off by saying if you'd like a conversation, having watched this, to be in the show too, then have a look at the good listening to showcom website. That's my own private qr code.

Chris Grimes:

There you're very welcome and, as you've just experienced in watching me interview here at katherine and christy as well is, um, you'll also be. It'll be published as a podcast. We do a big show in town in how we broadcast this. But but you'll also feature. In a couple of weeks'. Time you're going to be in my weekly show on UK Health Radio, which will give you an audience reach across 54 countries and 1.4 billion listeners of growing. How exciting. Hence why it's the show to help you grow as you tell your story and amplify your brand. So I've been Chris Grimes, but most importantly, this has been Top birds christy dennings and catherine grice.

Christie Jennings:

Is there anything else else?

Katherine Grice:

you'd like to say no, just thank you very much, chris. Yeah, we've had a lovely time. Uh, yeah, um, you know the the tree. We've been in the clearing, in the tree and we're the top birds who are feathering our nest. Hopefully, you, you can have your own special name and spreading our wings and using uh, branching out, keep going, keep going.

Chris Grimes:

I love this. It's good. Keep giving cheap cheap, cheap.

Katherine Grice:

All I'd say is if, if we've piqued your interest, get in touch with us yeah it'd be lovely to talk to you and you can follow us on LinkedIn or on Instagram. Yeah, or?

Chris Grimes:

Facebook and bear in mind this has been broadcasting across all those channels. So this film as soon as I press a button in a minute. Rather comically, the button is called end stream, which makes me feel that I'm going to stop wheezing now. But here we go, end stream, and yes, I'll do that. Thank you very much indeed for watching and good night.

Chris Grimes:

You've been listening to the Good Listening To Show with me, chris Grimes. If you'd like to be in the show too, or indeed gift an episode to capture the story of someone else with me as your host, then you can find out how care of the series strands at the goodlisteningtoshowcom website, and one of these series strands is called brand strand founder stories for business owners like you to be able to tell your company story, talk about your purpose and amplify your brand. Together we get into the who, the what, the how, the why you do what you do and then, crucially, we find out exactly where we can come and find you to work with you and to book your services. Tune in next week for more stories from the Clearing and don't forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts.