The Art of Delegation is Your Shortcut to Growth

As a business owner, learning to lean on and delegate to those supporting you can seem like a scary transition. However, it is a vital step in taking your business to the next level.

Today we’re meeting an entrepreneur who has created a leading education business in the financial sector. Through seizing opportunity and building strong connections she has created a multi-stream business from book writing, speaking, MC-ing, education and working with young people. We hear how important those first hires are to expanding the business and why ‘thinking breakfasts’ can be helpful in creating business solutions.

Our expert guest is Chartered Financial Analyst and ‘The Positive Economist’, Susan Hayes Culleton.

Susan holds a Chartered Financial Analyst charter, MSc Executive Leadership, BSc Financial Maths and Economics and a Diploma in Taxation.
https://www.hayesculleton.com/about-our-team/

Susan’s books on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/stores/%28Financial-trainer%29-Susan-Hayes/author/B00EV3RTLU

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription.

Susan Hayes Culleton  00:00

Listening to the entrepreneurs come in and talk, I used to just feel like I could be one. I could work that hard. I was willing to take risks. I was willing to change. I loved the idea of pursuing new opportunities and there being no ceiling. I loved all that. So I resonated with that.

VO  00:15

No unicorns, no brands, just hard working people who built their business from the brand up sharing their experience so others can learn. Presented by Larissa Feeney from Kinore. This is Real Business Conversations.

Larissa Feeney  00:33

Hello. My name is Larissa Feeney. I am CEO and founder at Kinore Finance and Business Services. Today we’re meeting an entrepreneur who has created a leading education business in the financial sector. She shares her extensive financial knowledge with audiences worldwide and trains international professionals, as well as launching a number of books and a financial education programme for teens. It’s a pleasure to welcome chartered financial analyst and The Positive Economist. Susan Hayes Culleton. Hello, Susan,

Susan Hayes Culleton  01:05

Hello, Larissa, it’s such a pleasure to be here today. I’m really excited about our conversation.

Larissa Feeney  01:12

I am so excited to have you, and I am I can’t wait to hear about your journey. Susan, I would love if you could start please, from the beginning, tell us about where you come from and your family.

Susan Hayes Culleton  01:24

So I grew up in dripsy County. Cork went to school in coachford, and I am the eldest of two, so mom stayed at home with us, and dad, first of all, works for telecom. Aaron, I always say my dad brought the Internet to Ireland because he pulled cable, the first fiber optic in the country, and then after that, he went on to work as a delivery driver after telecom air. And then changed the nature that they had in Ireland. And all throughout my schooling time Louisa, I would say that I was very much a studious student, but I was always very ambitious, and I, no matter what I wanted to do, I kind of wanted to be great at it if I could. But I really didn’t have business on my radar when I was a student in secondary school, because I thought back then you needed to have a delivery van and a building and canteen and all sorts of things. Because being a child of the 80s and 90s, like there weren’t such things as cloud services, and there wasn’t such things as co working spaces, and we didn’t have software as the service and all that type of thing. But if I go back earlier, when I was three and four and five, I remember having businesses where my teddies were my clients, and all of this was acted out through my imagination. So then I by the time I left school in Cork, I wanted to become an actuary. I had studied Irish, English maths, Applied Maths, Physics, Chemistry, accounting in French, as much as I could with the number. So I wanted to do something hard with maths, and that I thought was going to lead me in an interesting direction. So I did financial maths and economics in Galway. But the key thing that changed then was that I joined the business society in college. So I was in Galway in 2004 until 2008 at that point. Like we were in the heart of the Celtic Tiger at the time as well. Like the the course that I was doing was growing in the number of points, because was that area was growing in the area of prestige as well. Actually, as it is now, it was very much an in demand career, and thus an in demand college course. And also we, little did we know it. But as I moved through the particularly third year and fourth year in college, of course, then the financial crash was happening. So I graduated in May 2008 and the difference at the time was this, all throughout college, we were told how employable we were, and we were going to be able to command all sorts of wages and everything else like that. And by the time we came out, the term pay freeze was becoming more in everybody’s lexicon than anything else. Of the 30 of us that went through the course, I was the only one that went on, set up my own business. Five of the 30 went back to do teaching, and are continuing to be maths teachers today. Arrange them. Did go on to become actuaries. Some went on to emigrate to the land of opportunity, etc. And it was at that stage then I decided to start working in an entrepreneurial sense, and then set up the company in 2010

Larissa Feeney  04:13

Wow. And what led you to set up the company and then, like, why not go down the teaching route? Why not emigrate. What was it that? Was it the business society? Was that what triggered the interest in business?

Susan Hayes Culleton  04:25

I think three things. I think, first of all, I always think, if you really want to know what somebody wants to do, watch what they’re doing when they’re playing with their toys, and they’re not thinking about CEO points, or they’re not thinking about permanent and pensionable or they’re not thinking about the job opportunities or the salary, like when you’re when you’re a child, a young child, you’re just doing what you’re interested in. And there’s great insight, I think, to be gotten there. So first of all, I would say, because of the interest that I had then and all along, it was just naturally in me. And no, I also don’t think every entrepreneur needs to be like born an entrepreneur. I certainly don’t think that. But I had a really a big interest in business from from a young age. The second thing was definitely a bit suck, yeah, coming in and listening to the entrepreneurs come in and talk every Monday night for at half six in college, I used to just feel like I could be one. I really, I said, you know, I could work that hard. I was willing to take risk. I was willing to change. I loved the idea of pursuing new opportunities and there being no ceiling. I loved all that, so I resonated with that, interestingly as well. Larissa, I was actually the first female speaker, if you could believe it, for bizok. Later on, I was one of the founding members back in 2004 and it wasn’t until I was in third year in college that I actually was a guest speaker for myself. And when I think back as well, I had this book called successful Irish business women that I used to read when I was in school. And Gillian bowler was in it. Frida Hayes was in it, Maya Daugherty was in it. Like their individual names, they weren’t now, like it is where there’s there’s lots and lots of people. But then the third thing that definitely had a big influence as well is that when I was in second year in in college, a company called what’s now called Gillon markets came in to speak to us, and they came in to talk about how we could get started in the stock market. And they were a business themselves, so they came in as a speaker. And I don’t know where I got this from, but I always used to go up to the speaker at the end of the of when they were speaking, and I used to ask them for their business card. And I because I tonight, because I thought, you know, you never know where I could meet these people again. And I used to thank them for their time. And I used to, you know, give feedback on what I thought of what they said. But this particular time, anyway, this company was there, Gill market. They were selling a training course about getting started the stock market. But my feedback this time was, I said, I think you’re mad. I said, I we don’t have the money to put beans a toast. Never mind pay to learn how to invest the money we don’t have. And I said, but if you let me go on your course for free, I’ll do market research for you for free. And I said that to three to the three people working in the business at the time. One was Rory Gillen, who is the man behind Gillen markets, and I would always say he was the man that taught me how to invest. The second person was Kieran Murphy. He was the co founder of the business at the time, and he offered me a job afterwards. And the third one was Artie Collin, who I went down to marry. So, so an influential day, indeed, Larissa. And of course, Arad colicton Is the Cullen of his Cullen, so he’s my co founder as well. So because I started working with Gil and Marcus, it was a very small business at the time, and it was about, like it was about training people in finance, and that really was very influential on my early career, I would say for sure. So, because I think it was always there, there was a latent interest that just needed a trigger, and because I had the role models of and then the actual, tangible opportunity that presented itself and that I brazenly ran towards back then. I think that really was catalyst.

Larissa Feeney  07:45

The data changed your life. Susan, oh, so you left college and then you set up the business. So in the middle of the financial crash, in the middle of the recession, the same time as I set up the business as well, actually very different world to where we are today. Where did you start? What were your services at that time? How did you find your customers?

Susan Hayes Culleton  08:10

Yes, very, very different. Larissa, very, very different in many ways. So back then we, we was primarily me for a start, and it was I, by then, I was after working with Gillen markets. I had spent five years working in that business where we were training people around the stock market. I was also at this point, after starting off becoming and studying my CFA exam, my charge financial analyst exams, I had a really keen interest in the stock market and a keen interest in the in the markets in general, and I had my financial maths and economics degree. So if I package all of that together, what I was selling at the time was financial training, where I was either training audiences who could have been working in financial institutions to upskill, or at the time as well, might have been retail investors who were trying to navigate I could also do a whole back then around what the financial markets were looking like at the time, but people who were starting to maybe buy and sell online, or look at exchange traded funds or different things like that. So it really was me. It was me selling financial training at the time, but from a very from day dot, I wanted to bring the Business International, because that was also part of the dream, I suppose, in one sense. But there was a very harsh economic reality, which is Ireland was what it was. So then I started looking at how we could start bringing the business abroad. And by January, 2011 I had my first flight booked for the business out of Malta.

Larissa Feeney  09:34

And that was just what was going to be my next question. Because you did, you expanded very quickly into into different markets. What took you to Malta? Because Malta was amazing for you, Susan, and what took you there? How did you get access to that market, originally?

Susan Hayes Culleton  09:53

So here’s where enterprise Europe networks plays a very starring role in the direction of the business. So. Yes, by now I’m doing quite, quite a lot in Ireland. So what I didn’t appreciate at the time Larissa, and I think it’s important that I point out they say that luck is opportunity met with preparation. And the financial crisis enabled an opportunity that I didn’t realize was as sharp as it was, I suppose, and that is that everyone was talking about the bond market. Everyone was wondering, how do we protect wondering, how do we protect ourselves from big risks in the future? Everybody was talking about how, how safe are such and such investments? Everyone was talking about the value of the euro and so on. There was a massive expansion of the the need for expertise in financial services in Ireland and and that hasn’t been there since, like that, I would say from around about roundabout just after breaks it onwards, like then, if we only had a financial training business in Ireland today, we wouldn’t, I don’t think we’d be in business today. And I think a lot of businesses would say the same if, like, we’re 14 years old, if we were still doing what we were doing 10 years ago, we wouldn’t. The world moves on. So as I say, from day dot, I wanted to to expand abroad anyway, and I made a promise to myself that I would take every opportunity, no matter how big, small or scary. And that didn’t take long. When you have that mindset, you turn on the you switch on the antennae, then to find what’s what’s out there. So a trade delegation from Malta was coming to Dublin. It was through enterprise Europe network, and it was being organized through Dublin chamber. So Dublin chamber is a subset of enterprise Europe network, as is all the local enterprise offices now. So anybody who’s listening to this today has access to enterprise Europe network today. So I was on the mailing list and a trade delegation was coming to Malta the week Larissa the week the IMF was and there was snow on the ground right. There was the IMF was at the top of Marion Street in doing what they were doing. And at the bottom of Marion Street is Clare Street. And in Dublin chamber, a trade delegation from Malta had come. So I went anyway. And, you know, I went and at that stage I was like Susan and her financial training open to whatever. And there was two people that I met. One guy was a guy that was very appropriately looking into Dublin for opportunities for people who wanted to build their manage their own funds. And then the other one was the equivalent of the local enterprise office in Malta called Malta Malta enterprise. So I had a great job with them and all that sort of thing. But after I came away that day, I said to ardal, my then boyfriend, now husband, you know, I wonder what would happen if I went over there, like, what if I just went over to Malta? Because I know two people over there now, but imagine if I just went over and followed up on those meetings. And, you know, I just, I looked into what was possible over there, and Larry said was 30 Euro return to go to Malta in january 2011 like, this is the thing at the time, is that the opportunity cost of doing this is practically negligible. But here’s where the magic happened, and here’s where I’m very going to directly answer your question about getting access. I went back to enterprise Europe network and said, I’m following up on your trade mission. I’m going to go back. These are my dates. And they said, Who do you want to meet? And I said, maybe people in financial services, people in economics, anybody who might be Irish, the media and anybody in education related to financial services. And I also said the Irish embassy as well, if I could. And I kid you not, they came back with itinerary with 15 meetings that turned into 25 meetings by the time I had finished. That’s the difference, is that they actually put together that itinerary for me, that is what enterprise Europe network does. And it’s phenomenal. And free of charge,

Larissa Feeney  13:25

that is amazing. So enterprise Europe network, I’ve written this down so they are what York wide organization. And you said, the Chamber comes under it, the Leos come under it,

Susan Hayes Culleton  13:35

yep. So it’s now worldwide. It was only European at the time. So basically all of the contact points in enterprise Europe network is your local enterprise contact point. So the local enterprise office in Donegal or the local enterprise office in Cork or Dublin, they’re all part of it. Now, in Malta finance, Malta was part of it. So it’s basically, it’s like all of the Leos in Ireland talk to each other, but through enterprise Europe network, all the equivalent of the Leos in Europe and quite a significant part of the US Middle East ever right around the world, that that is the way in which they can talk to each other. So it’d be like this, Larissa, if you rang me one day and you said two things, there any chance you’d meet Mary down the road, who run such and such a business like I would absolutely take their call, because it would be you who would be telling me about it. Now, if Mary down the road was to send me a cold email, there might be a different a different reaction. And that’s what en is built on, is so instead of, instead of me trying to reach out to somebody in in Hungary or in Malta or in the UK or anywhere else, it would be like me going to my Leo, the Leo, counting the respective Leo there, and that respective Leo who has got trusted relationships with these people, then saying, Will you meet Susan from Ireland. She’s over, and that’s the way it is. So it’s just about really short, shortening the the feedback loop, so that relationships can accelerate an awful lot faster.

Larissa Feeney  14:50

So if I’m a Leo client, and if I’ve identified an opportunity in Malta or Germany or France or wherever. I can go to my Leo and say, Can you introduce me or set me up with a meeting with the equivalent in those in that country? Yep, you

Susan Hayes Culleton  15:09

can. And there’s also a huge database of people who’ve got profiles there as well. Where I where I might see, okay, here’s canor. I see that they provide company formation services, and I’d really like to talk to them. So then I would, I would click on your profile, and I’d say, request an intro. But instead of you getting that, like, let’s say we might do on LinkedIn, your the Leo would get that, and my respective Leo would get that. And therefore they then, they would say, Dear Leo, person there, this particular business in Ireland, would like to talk to, would like to talk to Larissa. Could you? Could you set up a meeting with them? And that’s it. Now they also have, and we see how many stories we we can fit into the time that we have Larissa. But they also have, then a really big events database as well, and they subsidize a lot of them. So I went on a trade mission in 2015 It was just after the referendum, not Brexit itself. Sorry, not in 2015 2016 It was just after the referendum, and it was, there was a trade delegation being led by London Chamber out to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. It cost 150 Sterling, and I went on that and that that opened up so many more, more things as well. Um, so I go on a trade mission every year, typically through there. And the database of events are all there. So it’s phenomenal. It was transformation for us.

Larissa Feeney  16:20

That’s a really great takeaway for anybody listening that that database that you talk about. So, you know, do a bit of a Google to enterprise Europe, for enterprise Europe network and on their database of events. That is amazing. Susan, what happened next? Then, after, so, you worked in Malta for a few years, didn’t you? You were over and back. All for

Susan Hayes Culleton  16:38

years, can continue to be Yeah. So then we were did, started giving training, then for the bank of Valletta in Malta. We were working with the Maltese Institute of accountants. I was doing, doing loads and loads and loads over there. And I was continuing to be over like over and back several times a year right up until COVID. I was due to be there in March 2020 we rescheduled it until June 2020 and we, obviously, we know what’s there? There’s a new opportunity developing there now that I’m that I’m actively working on. So what happened then, though Larissa was that was January 2011 and after doing that trip, first of all, I was terrified going out there. I thought the world was looking at me. And I didn’t know what we how to be relevant. I didn’t know how what is it that an Irish, one woman band at the time could bring to the table, I didn’t know. And the answer is, go out and ask, you know, I went out. One thing that I’ve developed in business that I think is a really important skill is simply listening to the market. You’re exceptionally good at that as well. You’re really, really good at that. And we’ve had lots of chats about it over the years, whether it is, you know, now, whether it might be listening back to client calls, or whether it is looking up rather than looking down, whether it is being curious when you’re talking to customers about what their challenges are and seeing how you position it. So that’s really what I did, is I went out there. I went on to all the all the meetings. What I was offering was financial training at the time, but I was open to writing in the paper. I was open to speaking at events. I was open to to building relationships back in Ireland, I was open to whatever came, but I did have a specific call to action, which was that we were selling training at the time. So anyway, came home, and then the world of export was open to me, because then I said, Okay, well, you know, this is possible. This is this is really possible. So what started to happen, then from there was I went the next place. So we started doing business in was the states. We have a client there, and we’ve had a client ever since, in Since 2011 called vector West. We met them at the traders Expo in New York. That was, again, a very natural fit for us to go. And Larissa, I’ll tell you. I walked that Expo. I walked it. I had like, I had my bio, and again, I was ready to go, and I was saying, I like the state’s very different to Malta, as you can imagine. And like, this was the traders Expo in New York, and I walked every and I said I’d write and I’ll do podcasts and I do this. And I was just looking to see how we could start building relationships. But I went on this training course with this company called vectorvest, and they by the end of the day, I had because I was on a training course. I was simply hungry to learn at this point, and I wasn’t looking for anything from them, but I was asking enough questions, and I was highlighting solutions, I suppose, sufficiently that highlighted that I knew what I was talking about, to the point of where, two days later, they actually rang me and said, we’re actually looking for a company who could help us to build and expand and grow in Europe. Would you be interested? And then that was, that was how, that was how that happened again, opportunity preparation, which is called look there. And I we’ve been so we’ve a team now where we we’ve a team in Belgium that they’re all subcontractor there, work for us there. We’re looking to expand into the French market. There with them now, and we’ve been on a really big journey with them over the years, and then if I was to get on to the next, the next thing I suppose, that was happening at the time was I was really busy, like I was working very hard. And that hasn’t changed, I suppose, to a degree, but the work that I’m doing has changed. But the first time that I started working with not employed by us now, but the first time I started working with somebody was then. So I was doing a little bit at the time for the professional development services for teachers all around the economy. And I was very much there speaking at the time as well. Of course, Larissa, I started to develop the brand, the positive economist. That was another accident of sorts, because I was being interviewed every week on four FM by Gareth O’Callaghan. And you know, every week they’ll introduce you something else. Like, you know, if, if I was describing you, I might say, you know, our wonderful entrepreneur from Donegal, and then somebody else, some another time I might say, well, this is one of the top people who is working in accounting across the island of Ireland. So, you know, every every week they were introduced me as slightly something else. One week they called me a recessionista at the time, this is back in 2009 and then then the next week, he called me the positive economist. He said, no matter what, no matter what state the economy is in, Susan Hayes will find a way to be positive about the opportunity that’s there. And I said it to Arda later on that day. I said, Oh, that’s interesting. And he said, Why don’t you secure the domain name? He said, it fits you perfectly, and you could start writing a blog around it. So back then, and this is why I’m saying, I’m referring back to when I was referring back to the changes that have happened, like everybody was starting to write a blog and put it in their signature, and that’s how I got the title. So I was simply putting it as a link under my name. And then people started calling me, oh, here we have Susan Hayes, the positive economists. That’s how that happened. I didn’t, but

Larissa Feeney  21:22

that wasn’t something that, yeah, you didn’t decide that’s just what I was going to say, but it was the message that you were sending. It was very it was very authentic to you. To use a word that we would use now about how we show up online, being authentic. That was your authentic self. You were actually positive about the economy, and nobody else was Susan, at that time, you stood out because nobody else was positive. Everybody was talking about Doom, Doom, Doom, and you were able to stand out from the crowd. And so it worked for you and worked and you didn’t give it to yourself. It was given to you.

Susan Hayes Culleton  21:53

That’s the thing I I remember Vincent brown interviewing me a little bit later on, and he said to me, like, oh, who called you that yourself, is it? And I said, I didn’t come up with this. So at this point, then a woman called truly Murray. She and I were working together on a resource for for schools. And then she says to me, I would love to to write an economics textbook for leaving such as, would you be on board for that? She was a teacher. I was an economist at the time now as well. I was like, I was saying I was starting to study my chart of financial analyst exams. And I was also, I had five years under my belt at this stage as well, in Gil and Marcus. And then I was about two years, about 2011 as well. I was about two years into, or on the journey towards that, towards having delivered financial training over that period of time. So I said, Yeah, sure. And as I sit in front of you today, the seventh book is soon going to going to print one day as well. The I got a phone call from the newsroom. They something had happened in the UK Lloyds Bank. There were the government was thinking about reprivatizing Lloyds Bank by giving options to householders if they were going to be able to buy shares of the company back. And so the newsroom rang me and said, Would you come in and explain what does this mean to the nation on the one o’clock news and tell me, do you think it could be something that I like would do as well? And that in that 30 seconds, Larissa was we played again at six o’clock and we played again at nine. Penguin Ireland. Random House. Now saw me that day. They were looking for somebody to write a book around women and and personally finance. And then they said to me, would you be interested writing a book? And as Richard Branson says, say yes first, and figure it out later, because I hadn’t like in both cases. I had never written a book before, but I was very passionate about trying. And that’s how positive economics and the savvy Woman’s Guide to financial

Larissa Feeney  23:38

freedom came to be. And if I was to put my hand away back here, I have the Saudi Woman’s Guide in the cupboard right here with savvy. So we’ve got the financial training the books. This is all ongoing, like at the same time, but that wasn’t all that’s happening, because we also have you also do a lot of speaking, so talk to us about

Susan Hayes Culleton  23:59

that back now, that was where the positive economist came into her own. I’ll say is, because at this point now, you’re and it’s very well, both observant and kind of you to say that there was few enough voices, let’s say who were, who were positive at the time now that people did not as like that. There is a because I used often get a lot, I won’t say Flack. I won’t, I won’t go that far. But I remember being introduced one day on the radio where somebody said, who will remain nameless, and here we have the positive economist who completely dismisses all the bad news that we’ve been hearing about in the news this morning and says, Don’t mind any of that at all, everything and everything is rosy. And sure. So now we’re just gonna bring her on the line. And I just remember hearing that about myself, and that’s what some people thought the positive economist was, was Pollyanna, or was somebody who just put on, you know, put on rose tinted glasses and said, Never mind all the bad stuff that’s happening. And that, had I been that person, that would have been very, very insensitive to be like that. I wasn’t like that at all. What the positive economist was, and still is. Is, is this is the situation we’re in now. What opportunities are there as time was going on, then people wanted to hear from somebody that was able to point out opportunities that were, that were available in, in the workplace, in in whatever sectors, and then combining, combining the attitude, I think, that I had and have, but combining the attitude of looking for the opportunities, but coupling them then with fact. And I remember, it was a November 2013 I spoke at an event in London. It was for the Irish International Business Network. And I’ll never forget the reaction after it, because I started off by talking about the top three things I used to always talk about at the time was our foreign direct investment, our exports, and the number of businesses that were starting at the time. And Larissa, like yours was one of them. Do you know what I mean, yours was one of the businesses. I was not your specific company, but I’m saying you were one of the people who were starting companies at the time. And I was talking about those, those three things, and I said, no one is giving attention to the fact that these three figures are really, really impressive. Then I said, right now we’ve got three big problems. One of them was housing. One of them was the government deficit. And then the other issue was, the other issue was unemployment. And I then I got into the nuance of that, and I showed where things were bad and things were things were changing. And then I used to talk about other things that were improving, like the assets under management in Ireland at the time, absolutely, flying in under the radar, flying in under the radar. Also, I was talking about the big development that was happening in education, particularly around lifelong education. And then there was always one other thing that I would pick up on that was happening. So this was the Irish diaspora in London at the time, and I just, I’ll never forget the reaction to it, because people were came up to me for hours afterwards, because it was one of these conferences that went on then for drinks and all that. And they just said, like, the narrative out of Ireland has been so bad, like, we didn’t know that there is anything good, apart from what I’m hearing at home are on the phone. But they said, Actually, give that overall macro perspective, that it’s actually not all bad, and that things are actually improving. Was, it was really, really, really different. And that was where I suppose the speaking kind of came from, was that I was then I after that. Then I said, Right, I need to be able to nuance down what I what I speak about. So, so then I said, Look, I’m somebody that can speak about entrepreneurship, the financial markets and economics. But I said, there’s three things about me as a positive economist. One is that I’ll always focus on the opportunity. Two, as I practice what I preach, and I’ll tell you, if I’m recommending you go to enterprise Europe network. It’s because I’ll have gone there and I’m selling you. This isn’t a website where, like, go and check out these things. This has been my story. And I said the other thing is that when I speak at something, I wanted to be practical and implementable, like, I want to be here with you today. Larissa, so that’s how the speaking came about. And then after that, then I started developing my own, my own way that I am, see I am, see things quite, quite differently. I’ve developed my own, my own way of emceeing, of a few, few things that I do that other people don’t, that again, have just come, come together over time. I absolutely love to speak at events, and I love to interview people, and I love the I love that, the pressure I suppose, that comes with the whole idea of so many people coming together, people giving up time after our day, interviewing people and really asking the questions that other people might shy away from or not think about, and truly connecting with an audience so that you can be a bridge between the solutions to their problems and understanding what their problems are all through the lens of a conference or an event Nothing like

Larissa Feeney  28:20

and you do so well, and you play whatever role is necessary and needed for the day, the occasion, the audience and the message, you know you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re very unique in the in the way you do it and well, you know that we love how you do it. Susan, now I want to talk about savvy teens, because that’s another strand, and I think it’s really important, because you’re such you’re an example of how you have multiple streams of revenue and income in different areas. And I think you’ve managed to spread yourself across different areas so well and become an expert in several different areas. And you’re very unique in that way. I can think of very few others that managed to have done what you do. How did savvy teens come about that

Susan Hayes Culleton  29:09

so savvy teens happened whereby I was speaking at an event in Washford, and a woman came up to me afterwards. Her name is Monica Murphy, and she said to me, I’d love to set up what she said at kind of a finishing school for teenagers, where they get to learn things that they just that nobody has responsibility for teaching them at school. And I said, Why don’t you? And she says, I don’t I think I’d need an investor. Then I said, I don’t think you’d need a money investor. I said, I think you’d need a time investor. And later on that night, I got an email saying, Well, do you have time? And Monica set up a business. She had set up a little bit after I had same year as you, she had set up money here, and it was as a brilliant business that focuses on soft skills development and focusing on interview skills and and all of the things that businesses need, but that people need to work in them. If I. Actively, and then I had the financial side, and both of us faced a similar challenge, which is that we were both facing quiet summers, so I was only delighted to think about an opportunity that would do something around that. So what we developed was a summer camp focusing on careers, communication and confidence. But it was really tough. It was a really, really tough business because our we didn’t have direct competitors, but we we had a lot of competition, and the competition was for so the what we were, what we had at the time was 15 to 18 year olds coming on a week long program during the summer. Our competition was computer games, sleep, part time job. I don’t want to be going to some school, like, thing, holidays, the lot, right? And so we were trying to navigate all of that. And then we were also charging parents to send their teenagers on it. So anyway, we and we did it for a few years, and we, we always did a great job when we got the teenagers into us, but the challenge was actually getting to that point. Anyway, 2018 Monica and I decided to go our amicably, go our separate ways. We decided that we were going to go, go two different directions. So then I bought Monica out. But what happened at that stage was we were starting at that stage to do savvy teams for companies, say, like yourselves, where we were going to be running a program for the clients of of the company. So therefore we, number one, the company was going to be paying for it, so the parents didn’t have to. And number two, this was a thank you. So we were doing this, and I was going well, but here was the pivotal point. I got a phone call from the one company we were dealing with around this at the time, who said, Susan, love what you’re doing with Saba teens, right? Love the content of it. But is there any chance at all you could do something like this for transition year, rather than during the summer? Trailers to the problem that I was facing all along the solution was staring me in the face. I was afraid that we couldn’t get teenagers because they were off. She was told claps was the case just the time they were in school was was the time they were looking hungry for doing something like this. So then, and as it is today, so savvy teens runs transition year work experience programs now, company specific ones and sector specific ones. And we run up to three a week, every week, between at the middle of September to the middle of May. And that that is so so savvy teens was a totally different ball game that totally changed everything then. So now, if I was to describe to you what it’s like today, I for example, we won the we run the Society of Actuaries transition year work experience program. So we have teenagers from all over the island of Ireland who apply for that one. We run a four day program where we give an insight into what it’s like to be an actuary. And it’s really, really hands on. It’s really interactive. It’s hard work for them like and unintentionally so because that’s what the world of work is like. But we now, yeah, we work. We run stem ones, we run financial services ones, we run ones for specifically sustainability focus, whether it might be for people from disadvantaged communities or where we need to take care of a wider, diverse selection of people that might be traditionally in an industry. Yeah. So now we work with 10s, 10s of 1000s of teenagers every year.

Larissa Feeney  32:58

I’m like, wow. Like, how all those different streams that you have, right and those areas that you work in. Susan, how do you manage to find your time? Like, how do you do that? Are you very strategic and looking ahead and saying, Okay, I’m going to work this week on that, and that week on this.

Susan Hayes Culleton  33:13

I’m smiling here. If anybody can’t hear it in my voice, I’m telling you. I’m smiling here at this because I’ll tell you how Larisa is, because, to borrow your own phrase, I have spent 14 years taking off hats, and that is something that you talk about, is where, back when I was like Susan the financial trainer, there was just me, and I sent out the invoices I brought in the business, I delivered on the business, I was upskilling myself. I was doing all that like, to a large degree. What has happened over the years, like I’ve told you about the new products and services, but of course, internally, as you well know and have done such a super job of is then you have to build like now we have to really build a company that’s not just a business. Now we have to build a structure where so now we’ve client count. We have a client account manager who takes care of savvy teens clients, for example. Clients, for example, where I’m not, I’m not taking care of, you know, sending across the detail on what needs to be sent out to their out to the parents, or the search, this completion search. I’m not the person who designs that. I’m not the person who gets the content ready anymore. I have, we have people now who do that also, we now have three facilitators. So it’s not just me that the teenagers, there’s need anymore. And like I mentioned, we have the team in Belgium now as well. So and then the other thing is that, again, I know that you’re a big believer in this is we have been very strategic, yes, but curious and hungry to see how we could leave our technology to do the things that people don’t need to do, and that both of those things have been really, really important. Both of those things have and so by by looking at, how do we bring in people to do the things that that are needed now at a company level, as opposed to, oh. Susan just does that. That bit has been really important. And then looking at, how do we automate? How do we create a new system? How do we how do we leave our technology not to just replace what a person can do, but actually augment it. And as a result of that, I no longer am the only client account manager. I took off that hat. I’m no longer the only facilitator. I took off that hat. I’m no longer the only person that works in business development. So for all those reasons now, I am typically the person that, by the way, when it comes to speaking events, there is only me. There is only one positive economist. There is only me, but for everything else, for what we do with vector rest, for the financial training, for savvy teens, for even building out the technologies now that we have group people now for all of those. And so therefore, in in short, Larissa, I took your advice, and I I’ve been taking off hats as I’ve been going along, and just seeing how we can really build the foundation that goes well beyond me to enable us to do that.

Larissa Feeney  35:59

And that’s, I mean, the secret, isn’t it the delegation paid, and it’s it’s handed over responsibility. So it’s delegation away, but it’s also hands over responsibility, taking off the hat completely, and saying, Okay, that’s that’s up to you now to do that, you could only do a certain amount before something goes and by doing what you’ve done, you were focusing on the important stuff, the value add stuff, who was, what was your first hire, and when was that? Do you remember? Well,

Susan Hayes Culleton  36:29

I do. I do. Yeah. So her name was Julie. She was with us for eight years, and Julie was in the audience at a network Galway event. And I know you’re, you’re a big fan of women in business networks and and an ardent supporter of them. So I was speaking at network Galway, and Julie came up to me afterwards that night, and she said, Could I follow up on an email? And I said, Yeah, of course. And I will never forget on that email, Julie said, I’d love to have a call with you. What would be your expectations for that call, and how could I exceed them? And I never forgot that question, because that instantly differentiated Julie for a start. So I met Julie afterwards anyway, and we took her on, and she was somebody that helped me with content and, like, the blog was really important at the time. It was like, you know, search engine optimization and all those sorts of things. Julie and I worked together on the books then too. We also worked together on the savvy women podcast, back when I had it. We worked, or we worked on a range of different things, and digital marketing. And she was great. She was she was really, really super. And I remember, I remember feeling that sense of, I remember the first time that sense of Julie was doing something that really made a difference to my day, to from from a productivity point of view, but it was what she used to question me on. And the question the it wasn’t just what she did, it was the challenge that she posed to me. It was the brains that she also brought to the operation also. It challenged me. It challenged my thinking. She brought a different skill set, etc. Now she’s still with us today. But probably the biggest difference that I came to my own ability to delegate, or even know I’ll go beyond that I get, is something you talk about Larissa, you talk about how when you’re somebody in a business and you have staff that they protect you, that they not everything needs to get you, like not, not every email needs to get you. And the one for sure that does that for me is Caroline, my executive assistant. Caroline, we took on I was really tired. In it was international women’s day 2013 I was really, really tired. The Savior woman had just, had just been published in January. It was third January, 2013 as you can imagine, International Women’s Day and enterprise week was happening, and so therefore I was doing an awful lot. And I remember going to her house in Athlone. And I was going to her house anyway, in Athlone, and I remember sitting there, and her fridge was organized according to, like, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And I remember thinking, If only my inbox looked like that because it was blowing smoke at the time and not alone. That then she basically gave me a little lunch like and a service to give me on the way home, because she says, you’re too tired to crush yourself this evening off, which was very accurate. And Arda and I, since my third week in business, we meet on a Friday night for our board meeting. And that Friday night, I was telling him, and he saw it harder was, and he was the one actually that said to me, I was telling him about Carlin’s bridge, and he says to me, like, what, what would you think about asking her to maybe do some work with us? And I said I was actually thinking the same thing, and I reached out to her, but she turned me down. Larissa, she said, No. She only told me afterwards. She kicked herself after that, because she said, like, I should have gone back. I should have gone back. I’d love to have said, Yes. I didn’t know what you were really asking me to do. So I actually, I did go back and ask her again. Because I said, Look, I really think you’d be very good at this. And then Caroline did join, um, she joined us in april 2013 and we have her since. And that that was, yeah, that was really, really it took, it’s all, it’s what you’re describing. It’s take away the administration. She, she prevents problems from getting to me, and she, she protects me. She really does. And then bringing. Then when we introduced the role of the project manager and the client manager in our business, that was much, much, much later on, because there wasn’t projects to manage. You know, there were, I was doing the kind of the client management, whereas when savvy teens got to the stage of where we’re having a ty program every week, like nobody wants to just start thinking about this, on the Monday morning, teenagers arrived, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of preparation that happens in advance, and I was beginning to not be able to respond. I was being people were happy what I was delivering. They weren’t able to get to me fast enough. And Caroline wasn’t necessarily the person, the right person to be answering questions about that. So we introduced the client manager then, and that has certainly made a huge difference, and so many other things as well. But, you know, you talk about delegation. I used to think the delegation was about delegating tasks, but actually it was 2023. Was the year I really worked on delegating decisions. That’s another one, because if you can delegate, if you can really drive decision making down through the business, that’s when you unlock your own you stop being a single point of failure, and you stop slowing things down. Because, believe me, I’m telling you a lot of the highlights today, but there’s been many times over the years when I felt a failure because I was I wasn’t able to do everything, or people were waiting on me, or I wasn’t being responsible responsive enough, or times that, like two, two business ideas that we had didn’t work out at all. There’s been many times over the years when, when I’ve been the problem, I’ve been the like, I’ve been the asset and the liability at the same time. And so I found that by helping people make better decisions and giving them the autonomy to make them, and having their back if they go wrong, because sometimes you can make a right decision that has a wrong outcome, that that has been, that’s been a more recent development that has really made a difference, too.

Larissa Feeney  41:47

How did you get to that place? Susan, because you’ve what you’ve described is very typical of a business owner, and you’re absolutely right. And what you say, what changed for you? Like, why are you suddenly now? And it’s not a sudden thing. I know that why? What did anything change for you that made you realize or made you understand that delegating the decision and been happy with the outcome, whatever that is, is a good thing for the business. Yes,

Susan Hayes Culleton  42:14

I can. Can pinpoint the day in the hour, and that is, I in February 2020 I was in New Zealand for with the Department of Foreign Affairs for Saint bridge today. And of course, we all know what February 2020 predated, which was March 2020 so of course, we I don’t. I, wise didn’t, certainly didn’t see what was coming with the enormity that it was. But here, here’s how bad it got. Larissa, is that I was that busy that I flew home from New Zealand after working eight days solid out there, delightfully, and I was writing book number five, and I had four hours in Sydney Airport, and I did not have time to go into Sydney on the way back. I had to work. And what’s more is I remember being on the flight back, and I was, I was really tired after, we’d say, the week over there, I was knew that I was going to go to an 11 hour time change. I knew I was touching down in Dublin on on a Monday morning, and I was going to be back in 17th and Tuesday morning and having a meeting there at 9am and I had to write a chapter the book on the air. Now, what quality do you think I was going to be able to write that, that book chapter on. Never mind. When I was putting my body through, my mind didn’t have any time to rest. And I remember when I was sitting in Sydney and looking, literally like looking, you can it’s 15 minutes on the train, that’s all it is. And looking, I could see the city. And Sydney isn’t a place that you kind of rumble past every day, like, and I just remember thinking, this is crazy stuff, like, I haven’t even the time to be Jack light. And also this was the time that I remember feeling like I was really feeling, I was really, really feeling, because no matter how high, no matter how much I worked, I could never reach the bar of workloads that I had. And I people then, like, Julie was there and Caroline was there, but I just didn’t know how to delegate it well. So anyway, March happened, as you know, a third of the business disappeared in a couple of phone calls. What was really, really scary. And then I felt guilty. Then I felt guilty for feeling like I had felt because then I felt guilty for being a failure, originally, is that’s how it felt. Then I felt guilty for the fact that I had been bemoaning the fact that I was busy, and then it was gone. And then I got scared, and I didn’t know, do you remember? And the business continuity voucher came out during during COVID, it was one of the local enterprise off sports, which was there to help businesses like pivot with massive change. So I applied for it anyway. I got it, and I remember talking to my coach about it, and he asked me through the wheel of the wheel of life, and if anybody isn’t familiar with that. So it’s you draw a circle, you draw eight spokes, it sort of looks like a wheel, and then you pick eight things that are most important to you, and then you give yourself a score between zero and 10. And if this rather balanced, then the wheel could roll. But if I gave myself one for my, say, personal development, and I gave myself 10 for my for money, for example, well we have a bit of a problem here. And I remember I gave myself a six out of 10 for all that was happening in the business at the time. And I’d say I was putting, I was putting 80% of my waking hours into it. And I just remember coming off that call, being in tears, going like, Oh my God, how can I be getting this so wrong? And the thing was, Larissa that like, to a large degree, I was succeeding, because I was busy with doing all that I was doing, and I was fighting to get the business, like, to to get the business back over COVID and so on like that. But I wasn’t building a company to be able to handle it. I what I was doing was I was building a busier business, that’s what. And it was becoming more profitable and growing sales, all that sort of stuff. But it was really establishing, like, I I’d hit the ceiling, and it was uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable because the more I grew, the more and even the fact that I’m using that word i The more I was growing. I wasn’t bringing the company with me. So through the business continuity voucher, my coach worked for me at the time to really help me understand what delegation really meant. And then over time, I’ve worked at my own decision making and delegating decision making, but it was that that was the time, and I, you know, it’s important that I admit these things, because if I don’t, and if we don’t talk about what, what we’re really thinking or feeling at the time, when then we’re not, then we’re just, then we’re not really showing what it’s really like to be in business. That was the only time that I thought, I don’t know if this is for me anymore. And that was a scary, scary, scary place to be really scary. Because when you set up your own business and you run your own show, and people want what you have to buy, I remember that feeling of, Is this for me anymore, I was just burnt out. I was emotionally and mentally and probably heading for a physical burnout, and then COVID happened. So then, yeah, then, of course, the world had to change. But I think if it hadn’t, I don’t know where I’d be, but, um, something, something had to give all right?

Larissa Feeney  46:47

And I love the description of a journey of a business. Whenever we talk about first it’s i, then it’s we, then it’s they. So what you’ve described there is the transition from i to we, and that’s a really difficult transition from i to we, and it’s a difficult transition from we today. Susan, I could talk to you all day, but unfortunately, we don’t have all day. I do have a couple of questions that I just noticed that I made whenever you were talking. A common theme from your story that I picked up from your story from the very beginning, right through to today, is the is the importance of relationships and building relationships. So could you maybe talk to me about that, like the networking element of what you do, or how important it is networking to you? Or is this something that you do intentionally, because we have, I have a conversation internally with my team about the importance of networking, and in a remote team and a post COVID world, we have to be much more intentional about this than we ever would have been in the past. It seems to come very naturally to you how you build relationships, and you’ve almost grown your business out of the relationships that you’ve grown. All relationships

Susan Hayes Culleton  47:58

are critical in our in our business, but I enjoy them like I like spending time with our customers, and I like Louis, I totally enjoyed the time that you and I spend when we are working on various different things together, etc. But I will tell you what I’m very intentional about. It was my New Year’s resolution in 2015 and that is, again, I’m not entirely sure where I got this from, but it’s the keeper, and that is, I work on deepening my relationships rather than broadening them. So what I what my my tagline to myself was, I suppose that year was network within your network, that was it. All I sought to do was to just strengthen the relationships with the people that I had, and then that organically developed into me having broader relationships as well. Because when people know who you are, and they trust what you do, and they know that, and they know who you are, like they know who you are, they know what you stand for, or they know the type of they know what you’re what you really do and or how you can be good at it, then I find that your your network can broaden. So that’s what I would be intentional about. Is rather than going to something, or rather than seeking to like, gain new followers or or whatever metric one might have for their for their network, is that, rather than more, I was looking for more off just to have a better relationship, let’s say, with you, or to have a like, I go over to vectorvest for two weeks every year, to Ohio, and, and I don’t do that to get more business, or I just go over to see what’s going on, to hear what I don’t know I don’t know, to see what doesn’t come up on a team’s call. Like, you’re really good at going around and visiting all of your your the different parts of the business in your own case, and, and you do that for a reason, is to go and see, well, what doesn’t appear on a screen, or just what isn’t on an agenda, or what doesn’t what isn’t discussed if, or what, what could be discussed if you didn’t just have an hour for the meeting. And that’s what I do. So partly, I really enjoy it. Does it come naturally to me? Perhaps it does. But I enjoy. It fundamentally. But the second thing that I do is simply to strengthen what I have rather than grow the number of them. And as a result, I grow the number of them anyway.

Larissa Feeney  50:07

And that comes across really strongly. You know, from you, how much you enjoy it, how much you get from it, how much you learn from those interactions. You always talk about things that you’ve learned from other people, and conversations that you’ve had with other people, and that really comes through very clearly from you. There’s another new year’s resolution that you had that I think about all the time, and that’s your thinking breakfast. I think this is really important for anybody listening now I have to say, I think about it all the time. I don’t do it all the time, although I would love to do it all the time, how does the thinking breakfast help you, Susan, run your business?

Susan Hayes Culleton  50:46

So where I got this from? I like trying out new year’s resolutions before I start them. So it was in December 2020, and the restaurants were closed. You can only sit outside. And it was December. It was freezing, and I remember every day of that particular week in December, just going out for breakfast and stopping and thinking about something. Now that’s something could have been a LinkedIn live that I was going to do, could be a sales proposal I was going to have, could be an outline of a session that I was going to present on, etc. And I just remember how enjoyable it was, but also how absolutely productive it was. So what I do is that I go out for breakfast every morning. Now, when I go out, I just go I just don’t have it at home, right? So this morning, I’m in the in the company where I’m working. Today, I came in here early, I sat down and I had breakfast here, and I had had my coffee. And I always write in a napkin. The reason that I do that is two things. One is, there’s a lovely disposable feeling to a napkin. So it’s not like in a notebook, because if you write something into a notebook, you see it often, until you throw away the notebook. Whereas I love the temporary nature of and the disposability of a napkin. And the second thing is, is now my hand is used to the feel of it. So now this is the smell of the Americano, and the touch of the napkin is what triggers my brain into thinking breakfast mode. And I simply give myself the time to stop and think. And most of the time, I’ll have something to think about. For example, today I was thinking about what I would talk about in this conversation, while just for your listeners benefit, I didn’t know what you were asking me today. Larissa, and everything that we said today is entirely, first of all, authentic. But it’s not like I had anything pre thought about. But I just what I actually thought about this morning is I thought about all the things you’ve taught me, and I thought about how you say things, like, I take off the hats and so on like that. And I just said, I really want to make sure that when I am answering the questions in this podcast that I wanted to highlight, not because it’s you, but because it’s really beneficial to hear what you respectively have to say. So I thought about those things that I’ve learned from you over the years, and that was what I spent my thinking breakfast, thinking about today. Sometimes I’m entirely stuck, sometimes I could be overwhelmed, or I could have no idea where to go. And so I use an AI app called Rocky, R, O, C, K, y.ai, and that talks to me. So that’s an AI app that talks, doesn’t actually talk, but it coaches me through, coaches me through that sometimes have too much to think about, and that’s then I have to navigate. I have to choose what I’m going to pick and and then also the thing I have to do is, is when I have I never know why companies or restaurants give out napkins for free, because our magnets for ideas. So then the course, next thing is, as I have to figure out then when I’m actually going to implement what’s there. So I have all sorts of napkins in my bag and and that are magnets, absolute magnets. They’re gifts. So that’s, that’s what I do, and I do it every single business day. Says it the

Larissa Feeney  53:31

idea you put in a napkin, do you then email it to yourself, or put it on a vision board or email it to the team? What do you

Susan Hayes Culleton  53:38

do? Yeah, well, it depends what it is. So if it’s for the team, I might create a loom, which is our tool for recording video, and I’ll send it to them. It could be, I’ll click up as our project management system. It could be there. I don’t, I don’t have a rigid platform for that, but I’ve actually missed I’ve gotten very good at thinking, because I do it every day like I’ve gotten very good I can, I can think, well now, and I can think, you know, the book, Thinking Fast and Slow. I haven’t read it yet, but I know how to do both of them. I know how to come up with answers quickly, and I know how to slow down my thinking and but it’s also really enjoyable. Like, one of the things that I think is is so important about being in business is it is so busy, and it can be so demanding, and it can be so it can be a roller coaster, be all those things, but where sustenance comes from, I think, is enjoyment. And I really enjoy this part of it. And so it’s a like you mentioned there a good while ago. You said it’s really important that I free myself up to do the strategic work. This is it? This is this? Is it? So many answers to things have come from here, or the detail for for vague ideas have come from here. I love the thinking breakfast.

Larissa Feeney  54:41

That’s another keeper that is, oh no, definitely. And I will I commit to implement it in my life in 2025 Susan, I have one final question for you. You’ve given so much value to me, personally, and I know to anybody who’s listening today. So thank you. Thank you so much for your time. My final question is, what is. In your future? What are your plans? What’s the future of the business as you see it right now?

Susan Hayes Culleton  55:06

Well, yet again, you appear in this part the story. Larissa, I’ll tell you where the area that I’m most excited about, where there is real, a real scale, and also where things are really happening, and that is managing industry school collaborations. So I give you a very specific example that that’s happening. So we have, we’re running an initiative supported by interest rate Ireland, called engineering across the border, and this is where we’ve got six schools and six companies. And the six schools are working on activities that we’ve designed. We’ve built our own app, and there’s, there’s various different activities in there. And the six schools and the classes within them are working on activities related to engineering. Here’s where the magic is happening. We’ve matched them up with companies who are giving them feedback on their work. And the reason I’m saying this is where the magic happens is so the schools are doing real life examples of work. And the second thing is, then the companies are giving them feedback on the work, and then the third thing is, the companies are hosting them for a safe visit, and then all of this is culminating up then on a showcase in a couple of months time. So we’ve been doing this in Cork. It’s called the stem toy challenge. Similar example. We had the showcase of that just yesterday. So it started off with 24 teenagers and three schools, and now we’re up to 216, teenagers and 10 schools. And that showcase happened yesterday. Engineering across the borders in its first iteration, we’re now talking to companies about doing this on a financial basis, so where teenagers would be doing, possibly accounting tasks in school, but people like, say, for example, people who work in kenore would be giving them feedback on them, and let’s say, canor would host a site visit, and then there would be a showcase at the end. This, I think, is, first of all, it’s really scalable through technology, through I know what it’s like to work with teenagers, day in day out, with savvy teens. So it’s taking that and weaving it in with the work that we’ve done through writing the textbooks and with the technology that we have and the industry relationships. And a big problem that I’m hearing in industry is the feedback loop between industry to third level back to school is too slow. Is that the graduates that you need or the staff that you need? Are they learning in school what they need in order to get to that point? But I can entirely shorten that by simply doing that is giving the tasks to teenagers to pitch to their own level and giving them industry level feedback. So it’s initiatives like engineering across the border stem too wide challenge. There’s others that we’re working on now. Like I say, that’s where the real scale is, is, is, is helping industry and education meet in the middle, and removing all the friction that prevents that from happening. And I’m really, really excited about that. So that’s, that’s the that’s the present, the present leading into the future. Larissa, as I sit here in front of you today.

Larissa Feeney  57:40

That sounds amazing, and I cannot wait to see what you do with it, and I cannot wait to hear about your seventh book. And I’m really, really grateful for you spending the time with us today, Susan, thank you very much. Susan Hayes Culleton, The Positive Economist.

Susan Hayes Culleton  57:55

Thank you, Larissa,

VO  57:56

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