Stories that Shape Us with Caroline Laurenson

It's not every day that you get the opportunity to share your story and do it on a day as meaningful as International Women's Day. Our life experiences have such a profound way of shaping our future selves and not always in the way that you might expect. There will be amazing people in your life that have gone through things and overcome things that you could never even imagine. I was honoured to share my story and also hear the stories of other brave inspirational women, but in all our stories what came out was how much our own mother's have influenced the women we have become. So this is my story...

Timestamps:

00:01:20             It’s Halloween 1989

00:02:02             The Chaos of Family Life

00:03:32             Leaving Home at 16

00:04:05             My Career as a Chemical Engineer

00:05:01             The Interesting Thing About Fear

00:06:12             Working with Your Other Half

00:07:34             Labels Don’t Define Us

00:09:19             Stories that Shape Us

00:09:53             Finding Kindspace

00:10:27             Honouring My Mum

Links:

TL Tech Website: https://www.tltechsmart.com/

Kindspace Website: https://www.createyourkindspace.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-laurenson/

Transcript:

Back in March I had the most amazing experience doing a keynote speech for International Women’s Day. It honestly was a magical, crazy, incredible thing to do and I wanted to be able to share some of that with you. I thought it would be really nice to record what I wrote and yeah I hope that you enjoy it, I hope it helps and yeah, let me know what you think.

It’s Hallowe’en, 1989. A young girl is aching with excitement to go to the party at the village hall. There’s just one problem, it’s only hours until the party starts, and she doesn’t have anything to wear. Springing into action, her mum whips out the roll of bin bags from under the kitchen sink. The girl can feel her anxiety rising, as she thinks about what all the other kids from school will be wearing and whether they’ll laugh at the improvised last-minute costume. After working some magic cutting and sticking, the girl is transformed into an ominous-looking dark rain cloud with flowing ribbons of clear plastic and a fetching headdress made of paper and cotton wool.

Perhaps you can identify with this scene, especially if you have children and you’ve missed the email about World Book Day. I don’t know about you, but this is not what I envisaged when I had kids! Staying up past midnight, frantically sewing scales onto a How to Train Your Dragon costume, before giving up and resorting to the hot glue and then kicking yourself because you could of just done that in the first place. As mums, we are the masters of improvising and juggling all the things. It’s us that carry that mental load. Lunch money, After school activities, Birthdays, Worming the Dog, Worming the Kids, it’s exhausting.

But for this family, the logistical chaos of keeping up with life was even more demanding. You see, the little girl had a health condition called Spastic Diplegia which is a form of Cerebral Palsy that mainly affects walking. The treatment regime involved regular 5-hour round trips to see specialist consultants and daily physiotherapy treatments. Her mum became her lead therapist, determined that she should have as normal a life as possible.

That little girl was me. And I can tell you that those physio treatments that my mum did every day felt like torture. I don’t know how she did it. How she coped with seeing me in so much pain and distress.

But that wasn’t the only stress in our lives. My dad was an alcoholic. By age 16, things were so bad I had to get out. I finished my last year of school living and working in a holiday park. I got paid £2.50 an hour to wait tables and clean rooms. It’s wild to reflect on this now as my son turns 16 this year, and I can’t imagine him leaving home like I did. That year I worked as much as I could, committed to saving enough money to get to university. I chose to study Chemical Engineering partly because I love Maths and Science, but mostly because I knew a job in this field pays very well. I was determined to never have to struggle again.

I graduated top of my class, and then embarked on my career in the energy industry in Aberdeen. Ticking off achievement after achievement. Gaining Chartered Engineer Status, winning the Oil and Gas UK Young Engineer of the Year, growing the consultancy department that I led to nearly £2million a year in turnover and finally becoming a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers. But I had a growing sense that I wasn’t where I was meant to be. But why? I had worked so hard to get there. This was the career I’d always dreamed of.

The story of my pivot into entrepreneurship is long and complex. Definitely a story for another day. I just knew there was more out there for me to discover. More for me to do. More impact that I could make. But I was afraid. Afraid of making changes. Afraid of trying something different. The interesting thing about fear, and in particular the fear that we feel about these sorts of things, where we’re trying to step into something bigger, is that our brains try to keep us safe and push back. We fear the uncertainty. We tell ourselves we’re not ready. Maybe like me, you worry because other people rely on the stability that you create. We’re weighing up all the downsides, all the things that could go wrong, instead of thinking about what the opportunities are. Ultimately, we’re afraid of what comes next.

So what changed for me? Now I’m not advocating that you do what I did and quit your jobs, but had I not quit my well-paid job with no real plan, I would not be here today. And in fact, had I not left home at 16 to go to uni, I would never have met my husband Thomas. We met at the start of the new millennium, we were neighbours in the student halls and quickly became inseparable. I would never have believed that someday we’d be running our own smart home and voice technology business together. People often say they could never see themselves working with their other half, and ask what’s our secret? Of course, there are days when we are sick of the sight of each other. But I think it comes down to the simple fact that we’ve been through so much together. We’ve grown up together. Thomas has been such a huge support to me through all life’s ups and downs. Including when we lost my mum to bowel cancer 8 years ago.

I owe so much to my mum. She was an incredible woman and it’s definitely where I get my resilience and resourcefulness from. And that Hallowe’en costume was a testament to her ability to literally make the most amazing creations out of whatever she had to hand. Just like my mum, I’m very good at turning seemingly basic raw materials into whole new products, which is the perfect skill set for a Chemical Engineer and as it turns out an entrepreneur.

I remember at age 4, the doctors saying that I would never be able to walk normally and that I might need operations and a wheelchair. But day by day, little by little, over almost three gruelling years the physio worked. My mum was determined that I shouldn’t be labelled or defined by my disability. So much so that it was only a few years ago during a hospital visit for what I thought was an unrelated issue, that I found out what my condition was called. I realise now what a huge gift mum gave me. Not having a label meant I never felt like I was different, so I never put limitations on what I could achieve. All those years of physio showed me the power of perseverance and not giving up even when you might feel like you’re not making progress.

I think from the outside it is all too easy to see someone and be in awe of their achievements and success. We don’t see the clouds. We don’t see the things people have had to overcome to get to where they are. I started my talk by sharing a glimpse into my childhood because I know that you too may have had similar experiences. But what I didn’t tell you is that I wasn’t a black rain cloud sent to dampen the Hallowe’en festivities. Mum had attached a sign to my back with glittering letters that read "every cloud has a silver lining". It's a saying I come back to time and time again when things get tough and it's now that I realise, I was her silver lining. I was her beacon of hope in the darkness.

These are the stories that shape us, that build grit and determination to face whatever life throws at us. I guarantee you that every single one of you can face your fears just like I have. Put that bin bag on, wear it with pride, wear it like a superhero cape if it helps!

I believe that clouds really do have silver linings and that belief helps me to not be afraid of what comes next.

Taking that leap to quit my job, gave me the space to explore and be more creative again. I describe myself as the creator of Kindspace, which is our wellbeing voice app for Amazon Alexa. But I don’t think that that’s true. In a very weird and serendipitous way, I feel like Kindspace found me. I feel like I’m where I was always meant to be. I’ve found purpose in the most unexpected of places and am using what I’ve learnt along the way to help others.

For me, International Women's Day is about honouring my mum and giving thanks for all that she taught me about resilience and being fearless. As I close, I ask each of you to lean into the things that make you feel afraid. Be curious about what comes next. And most of all, embrace the silver linings.

As the podcast series continues, I encourage you to get in touch and share your stories and tips, I’d love to hear from you! Pop me an email at caroline@tltechsmart.com or message on social media @createyourkindspace