Episode 6

full
Published on:

16th Feb 2023

Job Satisfaction and Happiness with Jess Peace

This week on the podcast, Sarah chats with Jess about the importance of being happy at work and having job satisfaction (and how to achieve it!)

About Jess:

Jess Peace is an experienced copywriter, journalist and marketer who specialises in content strategy and production. After graduating with a degree and masters in Journalism, she fell into the world of marketing, beginning as an in-house social media editor in Barcelona. Since then, she has worked at a number of reputable agencies across roles in SEO, Content and Digital PR. She currently works with the talented folks over at NeoMam, leading a team of copywriters and content producers to produce hero content campaigns which drive long-term search visibility and land dreamy AF links. Jess has spoken at several events both in-person and online, including Sheffield DM, Drink Digital and BrightonSEO.

Where to find Jess:

Jess's Website

@jessdpeace on Instagram

@Peaceyyy on Twitter

About 'The SEO Mindset' Podcast

Build your inner confidence and thrive.

The SEO Mindset is a weekly podcast that will give you actionable tips, guidance and advice to help you not only build your inner confidence but to also thrive in your career.

Each week we will cover topics specific to careers in the SEO industry but also broader topics too including professional and personal development.

Your hosts are Life Coach Tazmin Suleman and SEO Manager Sarah McDowell, who between them have over 20 years of experience working in the industry.

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Transcript
Sarah:

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of The SEO Mindset. This week, we are chatting about a very important topic. I know I say that every week, but we talk about lots of important topics. But yes, we are talking about happiness at work and job satisfaction with my guest and dear friend, Jess Peace. So we'll be covering why these two things are important and how you can achieve it. Now, who is Jess Peace? Apart from being an amazing human being? She is an experienced copywriter, journalist and marketer who specialises in content, strategy and production. She currently works with the talented folks over at NeoMam, leading a team of copywriters and content producers. Now, before I welcome Jess into this episode, just a little reminder that if you do enjoy our podcast, you can donate a one off payment of five pound. I don't know why I built up tension. Then you can donate a one off payment of five pound via Buy Me a Coffee. So there is links to that page in our show notes, so you can buy us one coffee, a couple of coffees, however many coffees you would like, each one being a fiverr. And you can also follow us on Twitter. Again, linking the show notes. But here you can reach out to us, say hi, give us some feedback, suggest a topic. You get the gist right? Podcast admin dunn. Let's welcome Jess to the episode. Hello, Jess.

Jess:

Hello. Thank you for having me. I must kick this off by saying that one of my cats is currently eating his biscuits, and he's quite noisy, so I apologise in advance for a cat interruptions, but they're terribly cute, so it should be allowed.

Sarah:

I mean, this is a pet friendly podcast, so do not fret. I have a dog, Benjamin the dog, next to me. He's currently sleeping, but I'm sure something will startle him and he'll bath. It's a really inconvenient time because that's what dogs and pets do. But yes, anyway, feels weird. You or not weird, because obviously we're friends outside of the podcast in the SEO community. Right. But I was saying how I found it weird doing the professional podcast talk with you.

Jess:

It is weird because we're friends. We met through a podcast, and we met during SEO and then became lovely friends and we did a podcast together. So it feels like it's kind of right. It just feels right. You know what I mean?

Sarah:

So many songs going on in my head right now.

Jess:

That would be very not the time. Awfully.

Sarah:

Well, now that everyone knows how we know each other, right, and knows that side of us, let's get into this week's episode. Oh, no. Before we do, you're new to owning cats.

Jess:

I am new to owning cats, so I am two weeks, three weeks in, and it's going so well. Like, they're a pair of bonded cats, so they're brother and sister, and I'd met them a few times before adopting them. So their names were already chosen and they're called Dinah and Mao. Dinah from I think, Alice in Wonderland is the cat's name. And mao because cats go mao and they're so cute. They're so nice to have around the house. It makes me feel less awkward when I'm talking to myself. And they give the best cuddles. They're just like weird little creatures as well. They just do whatever they want. Like, I kind of respect it. And everything is entirely on their terms. So it's fun. It keeps me on my toes.

Sarah:

I love animals of all shapes and sizes, but I do like how cats are very much like affection, but on my terms. Yeah, I will like you, but on my terms. Whereas a dog, it's just like, let me be a friend.

Jess:

Well, that's what's interesting. I am such a dog person, and I haven't owned cats solely myself as an adult before, but I grew up with cats and dogs, and I've met a good few cats. And where I live is quite, like it's cute, but it's quite small. And it doesn't feel right to have a dog who require a lot more attention than cats. And these two kind of just they do what they want. They sleep so much, they eat so much. They have a lot of cuddles, but they're not going to hurt anything. It's cute. We're a nice little family.

Sarah:

Sounds delightful. Now, I'd love to have a pet podcast, but unfortunately, this isn't a pet podcast. It is well, I say unfortunately, it is an Eco Mindset podcast, right? So at the beginning, I said that me and you are going to be talking about happiness at work and job satisfaction. So going to start off with a bit of a loaded first question for you. Are you ready?

Jess:

Okay.

Sarah:

Why is happiness at work important?

Jess:

I saw this statistic that said the average person over their lifetime spends 90,000 hours at work, which is crazy to think about. And if you look at most people's, like the standard Monday to Friday, nine to five, that is a hell of a lot of time to be away from things you love doing for fun, away from your family, your friends, your partner, your cat, your dog, just from chilling out, doing whatever you want. It's a hell of a lot of time to spend also being unhappy or in a place where you feel uncomfortable or maybe intimidated or stifled or just not 100%, you know, digging it. It's just not it's a lot of time to spend where you don't want to be. So I think obviously the obvious answer is everybody wants to be happy, generally as a life goal. And work is a big part of your life. When do we retire? What's the age for that? It keeps going up, but it's so much of our lifetime. Whether you see your job as a career or somewhere to go to earn money that pays the bills and then lets you afford the fun stuff that you want to do. I think the main reason it's important is because it would be very lonely and if you didn't enjoy what you did for a living, I feel like you want to be in a culture where you enjoy the people, you enjoy, projects you're working on, you feel like you're progressing, you're getting some value out with something. You're being rewarded in a way that's not just okay, someone paid all right, especially with the cost of living and stuff. There's so much more than being paid well, although that is so important, there's so much more. And I just feel like having been in jobs that I've absolutely loved and in jobs where I've absolutely hated to a point where my confidence was low, I was irritable, I was taking it out on people. I like to think I'm a nice person, but everybody can get that way. If you're riled up by something that you feel like you can't change and it can make you feel really helpless. So I feel like ideally, we all want to work less, get paid more, work with really nice people, have the best friends at work, do stuff that we love, and sometimes we don't get every single one of those things. But getting as near to every single one of those things is what we should be aiming for, I think.

Sarah:

Yes, definitely. I mean, yeah, there's so many things that I want to pick out what you said, but I think the main thing is that happiness underpins a lot of stuff. And would you say happiness is a key driver of job satisfaction?

Jess:

Yeah, I think so. I think I'm going to pull out a really weird quote that is so irrelevant to what we're talking about, but I think it was Kim Patrol who says, I don't want to spend an hour doing anything I don't want to do. I don't want to spend an hour in a place I'm not comfortable or doing something I don't want to do. And actually, it's a really nice sort of thing to have. I mean, we all get pulled into things that we maybe aren't that guest about. When you go to family functions or there's something somewhere that you have to do because someone says you have to do it, or it's like morally or expected or something like that. With work, I think it's the one thing that you can be truly selfish about, and especially when we're in a time as well. And I want to be sensitive because I know across marketing and advertising there's been a lot of layoffs. I want to be sensitive to this. I understand not everybody is in a position to just leave a job if they're unhappy. Like, I know there's so many nuances to it, but I feel like there isn't much anymore that stands for loyalty to a job. Less and less people care how long you've been in a job, unless it's something like you're a doctor or you're saving lives every day or you're fixing something super important. Every job is important in its own way. But I feel like if you're in a job and you're like, oh, I can't leave because I've not been here a year yet, and you're crying all the time and everything you say is negative or you're bitching to your coworkers or you just feel like you're not getting through, you've tried speaking to someone about things. Then it's time to just leave. I think whether you're motivated by pay or progression or learning. So for me, I love learning and being stimulated through my brain having to work. So I've done a lot of jobs where it's been quite automated because I used to do a lot of content strategy, a lot of content audits. And it's almost like if you've ever driven from a place to another place and you can't remember how you got there, a lot of jobs kind of feel like that, like, you know what you're doing and you're aware of it, but it's not like challenge you in a way. You're not like, growing. And for me, that is my stimulant. It's to keep progressing in a way where I feel like, oh, I've learned something or I've helped someone or I've contributed something. And I get that. Some people just want to be paid well so they can do the stuff that they love at the weekend. Some people want to progress through certain different job roles. The title might matter. The culture might be like, for a lot of people, I know it's, I want to go to work and feel like I'm with my friends, like, whatever. Your reason is valid. But I think each of them has a role to play in how satisfying your job can be. And each of them can really detrimentally affect that happiness if it's not being catered to, I guess.

Sarah:

Yeah, 100%. And I guess job satisfaction and happiness means different things to different people, right? So there's not a one size fits all. So it's understanding what is important to you. What does happiness at work look like for you? What is job satisfaction? And make sure that you're not going to be able to tick all the boxes. You're going to have your shit days. Let's be honest. It's not going to be rainbows and butterflies all the time, but you just need to make sure that, like, most days, you're loving it, you are get you are happy, and you have whatever happiness or job satisfaction that you've got that yeah, exactly.

Jess:

I think there's so much now that people are hiring all the time. People are hiring all the time. And I think if the job that you're doing doesn't tick most of the boxes, okay, let's be realistic. It's probably not going to tick all the boxes. I'm sure we would all love to work less, be paid more, we'd love to just feel like we're creating the best thing every single day and we don't want any struggle or any strife or anything like that. It's unrealistic, but it is good to aim for at least most of those boxes. Maybe you've got ten things, maybe it ticks off seven, maybe it ticks off eight, something like that. I think to be realistic is important, but also we all love shit days and everybody wants the weekend to be longer and there's just some times where we're like, not today, but if that is more than one day, more than one week, more than a month, then something needs to change.

Sarah:

Yeah, not everyone, as soon as that alarm clock is going off, not everyone's springing out of bed.

Jess:

Not optimal. You see it all the time. You see like, oh, we love Monday, nobody loves Mondays, or a very small percentage of people love Mondays. Nobody likes getting out of bed at seven. And I keep seeing this stuff like, if you want to maximise your life, get out of bed at 03:00 a.m. I'm all right, I'm really all right. I don't want to do it.

Sarah:

The 05:00 a.m club. That's another one.

Jess:

Yeah. What is it now? I've got a five to nine before my nine to five. And great for those people that genuinely love that, absolutely, like, hats off to you, but it's not for me. I love my job so much. Like, it is the happiest I have ever been in a job and I feel like it's so rewarding. But would I want to get up for 4 hours before I have to be at work to do all the other shit I want to do? No. And if you're in a good job and you're in a job that respects you as a person, oh, my gosh, and you shouldn't have to, you should get your weekends, you should get your evenings, that is enough time for me to do all the other shit.

Sarah:

And we will be going to a break shortly. But I thought it was a bit posh when I said that.

Jess:

I don't know, shortly.

Sarah:

What was I going yes, so obviously you might have to work late, for example, or exceed your hours occasionally, but again, as long as you're feeling respected and that time is being valued and your company either give you back your time in lieu or give you the praise, do you know what I mean? Like, there's always going to be bits of a job that isn't going to be amazing all the time, but it's just 99% of the time. How does that job make you feel? And I can tell when you're talking about your work, you got a massive win on your face and you've got this energy coming off here and that's.

Jess:

How we should all be, ideally. Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that with the overtime thing because I've worked in places where it was like, oh, well, we'll all stay late but we'll get like a pizza. Why? Why does that need to be a thing? If I'm staying late, let me take the time back or maybe you get paid for it or you start later the next day or something. I think there is a difference between and I am learning this at my Rye page of 29. I'm learning this finally. There is a difference between being nice and there is a difference between being a pushover and you do not have to be the second one. You can still be nice and have.

Sarah:

Found you amen right.

Jess:

I'm so proud of you.

Sarah:

I'm proud. I'm proud too, Jess. We've covered quite a lot in that. So let's take a short break and when we're back, we're going to talk about your experience at NeoMam. So how they foster a happy work environment and also some other bits of actionable stuff that we can do to make sure we're striving for that happiness at work and job satisfaction. Welcome back for part two. I was trying to think if I knew any of the languages I thought.

Jess:

You were going to do in French. I thought you were going to say part there. Yeah, dos, dos.

Sarah:

Oh, dear. I will be bilingual one day. Right? So obviously in the first part we talked about why happiness at work and job satisfaction is important. Now, how do you actually get there? So obviously we were talking about certain things earlier and we kind of eluded. That's a good word. That's my word of the week, eluded. So to kick part two off, tell us about NeoMam. How does Neoman, sorry, NeoMam foster a positive work experience and help with job satisfaction for employees.

Jess:

So there's a few things to this and I'd like to, first off, just like, say that although I am a team lead, so I lead our content team, we've got an excellent team of in house writers and producers and we work with freelancers too. And I love the entire Neiman team, but my role as a lead for the service is different to like, a people manager. So Gisele Navarro is our CEO. And she's wonderful. Actual angel deals with things like progression paths and one to ones and things like that. So I just wanted to make that clear first of all before I start talking about things. So this is from my point of view and what I think we do and what I find helps me and go from there. There was smiling at me, but I just wanted to put that out there. So I think there's quite a few things that Neem does as a company to try and foster this environment. And we have like a bit of a it's not like, what do you call it when an agency has like, those key things where it PDP. No, not that it's like where it's like be creative, you have to not be a decade. That kind of thing. Yeah, like mantras. I think the closest thing that we have to that is something that we actually all go by, which is to be open and honest. And that starts from when you first have like an intro call chat about a job, because we don't actively recruit either. So it's very much kind of a lot of people are friends or family or ex colleagues or people that have reached out to say, we like your stuff, we're interested in joining. There starts with a conversation about what is expected, what kind of things somebody is looking for. And then as you sort of go through the process, one of the things that is relevant from then to my day to day now is that everybody has one thing that they love doing a specialism. So mine, when I first started as a content producer nearly two years ago, was I love writing copy. That's the one thing that I wanted to do and one thing that I wanted to own in on. And I think what that does is it plays into not just your strengths and your weaknesses. So the whole thing is what do you love doing, what do you hate doing, what do you like doing, what are you good at? But maybe you don't like all those kinds of questions. Helps shape what your job role would be. And this is kind of fluid, like, throughout your mom. They have this sort of culture when I say there because it happened before me and still happens now, that you can sort of shape the role into what you want it to be. So if there's something that's not working, you talk about it, it changes. If you can it's not just like this is like cookie cooker, cookie cutter. I couldn't say that. Cookie cutter job. It's very much tailored to the person. So my one thing was I love writing copy. And I think it makes it so much easier to enjoy work because you have one thing, just one thing that you're responsible for, as in, like a part of the service. So it's not just I just write copy. There are other things to it, but there's one thing that I focus my attention on. It's something that I've already said I love and like doing. Maybe it's something that you want to get better at. Maybe it's something that you've never done, but you'd love to try the one thing that really makes you take something that you could spend your ten to five doing. And I think that's one of the main things is making sure that the job that you're in is right for you. It's the right role, it's something you love doing, it's something you want to do. It fits with the team around you as well. So the way that we sort of work is we're a very small team. I think I'm going to sound bad for saying this now, but I think that's just less than 30, or there might be 30, although it's a very small team, so for people to join job roles shift a little bit. And I think alongside of making sure that people enjoy doing what they're doing, the mantra of open, honest stays the whole way through. So if something isn't working, you talk about it. If you love doing something, tell us and we can make sure that it's factored into your job all in some way. If there's something that you struggle with, we can find some training for it. If there's something that you keep asking for from somebody else and you're not getting it, let's talk about it, let's solve it as a team. It's very much involves all of us, we fix it together kind of environment, if that makes sense.

Sarah:

Just one thing. A word that I've kind of written down here is it sounds like everyone's supported in lots of different ways.

Jess:

Absolutely. So some things that we helped do to foster that sorry, just because you said that and I realised that was kind of was that we have regular one to one, so they're done monthly every week. We have a feedback, it's like an anonymous feedback form that nobody else can see, other than just all, I presume. And you sort of rate the week out of five. You say, what was really good about the week, what you enjoyed, strength of the week, and then also weaknesses, and it gets measured. So when we have our team retreat, which is like every year, we have a week where everybody from, we have people in, like, Argentina and in Europe and over in the Philippines, everybody comes together and we have like, a problem solving session where it is literally all cards on the table. Here's what's working, here's what's not. How can we fix it? Has anyone got any ideas? What can we improve? What's not working? And I've genuinely so I've been in this industry now since I was unofficially since I was like, 19, but officially since I was 21, 22. And I've never known a working environment like that. And I am not saying that because that is where I work, I just genuinely have never experienced it, because I feel like in other agencies, I can recall another agency that was similar in terms of being very supportive and open and honest, and I have a really great relationship with them. Lovely team. And that had nothing to do with White left, by the way, just to say that. And I've also been in environments where if you bring up a problem, you're negative and you're not providing solutions and you're causing a stir and it's, well, you must not be in love with the job because of this. And it's very like, hang on, a minute. If I'm telling you something that I think we could change to make things better for maybe just me, maybe my team, maybe everybody, as a company that respects the team and wants people to be happy, why would you not at least listen to that? And I think that's why it's so nice to have this place every week, to just be like, you know what? This week was shit. It was busy. Things were delivered on time. Not as in projects, but like, say, maybe some data was a bit more in depth than we expected. Or maybe my brain wasn't working that day and I needed an extra day to write the copy deadlines at Neomama very much. We can fix it. It's cool. If we need more time, we can get more time. There's never a problem that is too big to fix. And one thing that I like to quote always is so Ed Duffel, who is our design lead and a very good friend of mine, he's a wonderful man, always says to me, Nobody's going to die. And it's so true. Nobody's going to die. If that copy takes a bit longer, okay, flag it to someone. We get extra time for it. We've got a really great superstar in our team called Rodrigo, and he sorts all, like, the client delivery stuff or the deadlines. He's like my Ryan, man. He's such a great guy. I say, look, we need more time for this thing. There's always time. We always make it work. Nobody's going to die. And for a very, like, a person who has anxiety and somebody that's always struggled with pleasing people, that is the best thing to hear, that it's okay if we need to fuck up to learn from it.

Sarah:

Exactly. Because that's how you learn, right? People are scared of the failure word, but each failure, it's not a negative. I mean, it sounds negative, but you learn so much from it. And also, I wrote down another word like keywords here, but it sounds like Neo ma'am giselle. I mean, I love Gisele. She is a wonderful human being, but it sounds like she is. And the company is really keen on feedback, reflection. It sounds quite alien that you all get together to do a problem solving exercise of like, okay, what's working well? What's not working so well? But it makes sense. And all companies need to do this, right? You need to understand from your employees, your colleagues, everyone inside your business, like, what's going on? Because yeah, that is then going to lead to each and everyone's happiness. And I'm linking it back to the beginning in job satisfaction, right?

Jess:

Yeah, it's so true. Like, the first time I experienced it, it was the weirdest thing because I was like, people do this like mature adults, and it's respectful, and I can say there's a problem and no one's going to get mad. It's weird. And I don't need to tell Neiman's story because Gizelle and Danny do a wonderful job of doing that. And they're very open about they had the agency before, some stuff worked, some stuff didn't, and they grew it from they've failed to learn. And they've now fostered this environment where I'd safely say, everybody that works in here and I'm is happy with what they do and have felt comfortable enough to say when they're not. And maybe they have different roles now, but I don't know. It's weird to experience it and not feel like especially in the one to ones, it's like it's like therapy. You can go in there and be like, there was this thing and then we solve it as a team and it's never awkward and it's just refreshing.

Sarah:

And it takes off the pressure of this unrealistic because I guess some people are nervous about admitting when things go wrong or you don't do things quite right. Do you know what I mean? And it sounds like in NeoMam that's all supported and things are going to go wrong. We're all humans at the end of the day before our jobs get taken away by AI. Never going to happen. But yeah, it sounds positive.

Jess:

It sounds like obvious to me. It sounds obvious because I think it's not like, yeah, okay. So for me personally, Neo Mam is special. I love working there. I loved the agency for a long time before that. I'm very lucky to have the job I have and work with such wonderful people. But it's not specific to NeoMam. There are lots of agencies that have great cultures, that have wonderful teams. There's lots of places that can do it and there's lots of people that could get better at it. And the difference is respect. You have to be mature enough for somebody to say to you, this thing's not working, or, this is how you play into this thing that's not working, or here's what I need from you, and it not be a personal thing. And it took me to be fair, it took me a long time to realise that feedback is not personal. Just because I care about my work, it doesn't mean that I am at work. And some people are very late to realising that. And I understand, but I think if you're in an environment that feels safe safe would be the word. That's my key word, yes. If you're in an environment that feels safe and respectful, you should be able to say, hey, there's this thing. And instead of it being like, go figure it out on your own, or I'm waiting for you to come up with a solution, which I've heard in other places you're met with. Okay, what can we do about it?

Sarah:

Or finger pointing.

Jess:

We're not at university, we're not at school. We don't need to bitch about people.

Sarah:

It's like, well, you did this, but you did this, but then he said this.

Jess:

She.

Sarah:

Said and then they said, like, yeah, it gets a bit silly, isn't it? We are running. I mean, we've we've ran out of time, Jess, but I know we need to get you back on because I feel like I planned so many questions, but this is a massive topic, isn't it? And there's so many different nuances and ways to go into it. But, yeah, this has been awesome to chat about.

Jess:

Thank you.

Sarah:

Before finishing, there are a few questions that I always ask all our guests. Okay, what is the key thing you want people to take away from today?

Jess:

Okay. I'd really love people to take away from it that if you're in, hopefully everybody listen who's in a job that they love and he's super respected and he's being paid more than fairly and is progressing at a rate that they want to. And I know that that's very unrealistic. So I'd like anybody that's listening to this that might feel like, hang on. I've been mentioning this one thing that is not working for me at work, and my lead isn't listening. Or my manager isn't listening, or it's not changing. Or I've been asking about this promotion, and it feels like I'm not getting there. Or maybe you just know you're underpaid. Maybe you feel like you're not being treated the same as maybe like a male co worker or something like that. I think if you're in a position where you hate Sundays because the Mondays are going to come and you spend the whole week waiting for the weekend and you're not enjoying what you're working on or you feel like, you're not. Maybe you feel like you're not using your creativity or your brain or you're not doing something that really sets your stall on fire at least a couple of the days out of the month, because sometimes it can get monotonous in different roles. I get that. If you're in a place where you're like, god, I wish there was this other job, or I wish there was this other company, or I've seen this person on Twitter and I'd love their job. If you feel like you spend more time disliking what you do or dreading it, then please think about it realistically. How have you asked for something to be changed? How many times have you asked if it's not changing? There is a reason. You wouldn't stay with a partner if you were asking for the same thing and not getting it. So don't do the same with work. You can be completely selfish. It's your job. Nobody else is going to go and do that nine to five for you. So if you're unhappy with it and it's definitely not ticking, more than half the boxes, be true to yourself. Trade it. You're not a tree. You can move, so do if you can. I know some people don't have the means.

Sarah:

That is the key thing. You're not a tree. People you can move. Best career advice you've ever received?

Jess:

Well, I mentioned the one from Ed because it just seemed so apt. There's a cat coming out with it. And I've mentioned Open and Honest, which Giselle quotes a lot and we quote a lot as a team. So there's one thing that I say a lot, actually, and I know people get really pissed at me for saying it. And it's always that if you're not changing it, you're choosing it. And I think people hate it because it implies that you are somewhat responsible for what is happening. And I don't mean that means if you're having a shit time at work, it's your own fault, because that's more than often not true. But if I feel like sometimes we become too loyal to things or we think about, oh, well, what if? Or maybe we get into this rut of thinking, well, if I'm not getting promoted or if I'm not getting these opportunities, then it means I'm not good enough. You are. You're always good enough. And I think if you're in a place that makes you feel less than that and you spend and will spend 90,000 hours at work, it's not serving you. I think if you're not changing it, there comes a point where you're choosing it. If you've exhausted every option, you're still not getting the thing that is going to make you happy, it's going to make you more satisfied. There comes a point where it's staring you in the face of saying, you need to leave, you need to move, you need to speak to your lead, you need to speak to your manager, something like that. Then you are choosing to be in a situation that is not serving you. And I know it's not. I keep saying this, I know there are nuances, I know some people, it's not that easy. I know sometimes it comes to timing, but generally speaking, I think if you're unhappy with something, whether it's work or anything else, and you have the power to change it, then do so.

Sarah:

Love it, right? And then my final question for you is, where can people find you if they want to carry on the conversation?

Jess:

Well, I'm not going to give out my address. Yeah, come around for brew. I'm on Twitter and my handle is terrible, but I can't get my name, so it's Peace. So piece with three Y's and then anything else so LinkedIn, Instagram, anything like that is Jess D. Peace. I love chatting to people. If anybody needs to moan about work or if somebody wants advice, I'm always here. I've been in the situation of feeling like I'm stuck and I'm no longer in that situation. And the thing was, I decided to do something about it.

Sarah:

So there you go. And I'll make sure all those links are in the show notes, but not your address. Do not worry. Don't want people really to pop around for a copper big. Thank you to Jess for joining me and talking about such a big and important topic. Thank you for being so transparent and sharing your experiences.

Jess:

Thank you for having me on. I know it's a bigger I know it doesn't apply to everybody, but hopefully if it resonates, you've got some empowerment to go and get what you deserve.

Sarah:

Do you know what? This will resonate to everyone and I challenge anyone who said not, because I think we've all had experiences. But yes, right? So thank you. To Jess. Thank you to you, our listeners, for joining us. Want to remind you again that you can support us. So, like I said earlier, buy us a coffee. Link in the show notes. I do not need to say anymore. And Twitter again. Link in the show notes. Go to Twitter, hit us up, say hello, whatever floats your boat. We love chatting as well. Now we end every podcast episode with a pledge. And that pledge is hands on hearts. Jess, if you can too. I am an SEO professional who prioritises mindset and personal growth and not just rankings, improving visibility and algorithms. I hope you all said that pledge with me. Goodbye everyone, and until next time.

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About the Podcast

The SEO Mindset Podcast
Personal growth tips to help you to optimise your SEO career and not just the algorithms!
The SEO Mindset is a weekly podcast that gives you actionable, personal growth and development tips, guidance and advice, to help you to optimise your SEO career and not just the algorithms.

The podcast is dedicated to talking about important topics that aren't often spoken about in the industry such as imposter syndrome, burnout, anxiety, self awareness etc. Sarah and Tazmin, along with their special guests highlight important topics, share own experiences as well as giving actionable solutions. Basically we have open, honest and frank conversations to help others in the industry.

Each week we cover topics specific to careers in the SEO industry but also broader topics. We will help you to not only build your inner confidence but to also thrive in your career.

Your hosts are Mindset Coach Tazmin Suleman and SEO Manager Sarah McDowell, who between them have over 20 years experience working in the industry.
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About your hosts

Sarah McDowell

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I've been in Digital Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for around 10 years, currently working as the SEO Manager at Captivate (part of Global), the world's only growth-orientated podcast host. I am a self-confessed SEO nerd (I find the industry fascinated and love learning how search engines like Google work) and a bit of a podcast addict (with this being the fourth podcast I have hosted). I am also a speaker and trainer. I hope you enjoy this podcast!

Tazmin Suleman

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I am a Life Coach, helping people grow and thrive, however my background has included careers in Development, Data Integrity and SEO. Through coaching, mentoring and teaching I help people build happier more fulfilling professional and personal lives by changing their mindset and habits. I teach courses on these topics and have incorporated a lot of the teachings in this podcast. I hope you find it useful.