Author: Helen Sieroda

Reaching for the Stars

One of the blessings of teaching at Schumacher College over the years was that I got to work with Brian Goodwin. Brian was a pioneer in the field of theoretical mathematical biology, and he took on a “post-retirement” role at Schumacher teaching complexity theory. He wrote many things in his life, including his elegant and piercing later-life reflection on our human crisis on this earth, Nature’s Due.

Every now and then I’d do a double act with him, applying complexity thinking to organisational activity. I was astonishingly fortunate to have the chance to learn from him at close hand. He once said a sentence to me that I’ve never forgotten: “always remember that human systems in crisis tend towards control”.

How right he was.

As the world converges on Glasgow I don’t know whether to be hopeful or terrified, and so I find myself to be both.

I am hopeful because I genuinely do feel that something has shifted. I first worked in energy conservation in 1983, back when it was government policy to encourage energy use. The privatisations of both gas and electricity were based on supporting a growing energy demand.

Almost three decades on in 2010, when I introduced some of my Schumacher inspired teachings into the business school where I worked, the CEO declared that both Schumacher and I were “away with the fairies”. How far off the mark was that! There were fantasies around all right, and they were principally the fantasies of infinite growth and endless cheap energy.

That tide seems to have turned. I am delighted to hear now, in 2021, a UK Prime Minister speak up on behalf of the living earth, and of our generational obligation to act for the well-being of earth systems and for the sake of tomorrow’s generations.

But at the same time, I am terrified.

These same governments are in many ways showing exactly the tendency towards tight central control that Brian Goodwin warned about. We are seeing systemic crises piling up, from financial meltdowns to climate turmoil, from COVID to global trade. People are afraid and in response we are seeing the rise of polarisation, binary thinking and “tough man” heroic leadership.

I hope we won’t see a COP meeting filled with posturing heroes, making grand claims whilst acting for smaller interests. I also hope we don’t witness a COP of diktat and control.

Ultimately our climate crisis isn’t a “thing in itself”, it’s a symptom. A sign of a world out of balance, a forgetting that we too are the living world. Small politics, nationalistic battles, pitting “us” against “them”, all are part of the same problem.

What we need from COP is both action AND inclusion, commitment, AND engagement.

It will take more than the will of governments to recreate a sane understanding of humanity’s place on this earth. We need bigger solutions, and these will always need collaboration, a will to find ways to work together, however hard that is.

I am inspired in this by the work of past students, from both Schumacher and the marvellous (but now lost) Bath and Ashridge MSc degrees in sustainable and responsible business. People like Jon Alexander working to invite people to move from being consumers to be becoming active citizens; Daniella Vega who is Senior VP Health and Sustainability at global food producer Ahold Delhiaze, working to promote earth intelligent action at all levels of the company’s activities; Mashudu Romano, an energy and water entrepreneur looking to create universal provision in southern Africa; and Andres Roberts and his colleagues in the Bio-Leadership Project, working to create new ways of leading that see beyond the myth of human activity as separate from life.

What gives me hope is not that these are the exceptions, but that they are examples among many.  There is little time, but we now have many talented people pouring their skill and energy into creating a change where once there were so few. There is more action now, and action by many is where hope lies.

Schumacher ecologist Stephan Harding tells this story.  When Brian Goodwin was dying in his hospital bed, a nurse saw him stretching up his arms. She asked him what he was doing. “I am reaching for the stars” he said.

That’s where I see myself as I write this. I am an older man now, in my sixties. I have worked to promote sustainability and earth intelligent business for decades, and mostly during my lifetime the news has not been good. Yet I look at the people converging on COP 26 and I am hopeful. If we can reach beyond our inclination to split and blame others, beyond our smaller views, there is a deeper energy for a real change. I feel it in the voices, and I see it in the actions of people now much younger than me.

I see all this, and like Brian I reach for the stars.

Reaching for the stars

By Chris Nichols, co-founder of GameShift

One of the blessings of teaching at Schumacher College over the years was that I got to work with Brian Goodwin. Brian was a pioneer in the field of theoretical mathematical biology, and he took on a “post-retirement” role at Schumacher teaching complexity theory. He wrote many things in his life, including his elegant and piercing later-life reflection on our human crisis on this earth, Nature’s Due.

Every now and then I got to do a double act with him, applying complexity thinking to organisational activity. I was astonishingly fortunate to have the chance to learn from him at close hand. He once said a sentence to me that I’ve never forgotten: “always remember that human systems in crisis tend towards control”.

How right he was.

As the world converges on Glasgow I don’t know whether to be hopeful or terrified, and so I find myself to be both.

I am hopeful because I genuinely do feel that something has shifted. I first worked in energy conservation in 1983, back when it was government policy to encourage energy use. The privatisations of both gas and electricity were based on supporting a growing energy demand.

Almost three decades on in 2010, when I introduced some of my Schumacher inspired teachings into the business school I then worked in, the CEO of the school declared that both Schumacher and I were “away with the fairies”. How far off the mark was that! There were fantasies around all right, and they were principally the fantasies of infinite growth and endless cheap energy.

That tide seems to have turned. I am delighted to hear now, in 2021, a UK Prime Minister speak up on behalf of the living earth, and of our generational obligation to act for the well-being of earth systems and for the sake of tomorrow’s generations.

But at the same time, I am terrified.

These same governments are in many ways also showing exactly the tendencies towards tight central control that Brian Goodwin warned about. We are seeing systemic crises piling up, from financial meltdowns to climate turmoil, from COVID to global trade. People are afraid and in response we are seeing the rise of polarisation, binary thinking and “tough man” heroic leadership.

I hope we won’t see a COP meeting filled with posturing heroes, making grand claims whilst acting for smaller interests. I also hope we don’t witness a COP of diktat and control.

Ultimately our climate crisis isn’t a “thing in itself”, it’s a symptom. A sign of a world out of balance, forgetting that we too are the living world. Small politics, nationalistic battles, pitting “us” against “them”, is all part of the same problem.

What we need from COP is both action AND inclusion, commitment, AND engagement. It will take more than the will of governments to recreate a sane understanding of humanity’s place on this earth. I hope we will find leaders who understand that pitting one part of humanity against another is an easy popularity to achieve but too small a scale of victory. We need bigger solutions, and these will always need collaboration, a will to find ways to work together, however hard that is.

I am inspired in this by the work towards this agenda by of some our past students, from both Schumacher and from the marvellous (but now lost) Bath and Ashridge MSc degrees in sustainable and responsible business. People like Jon Alexander working to invite people to move from being consumers to be becoming active citizens; Daniella Vega who is Senior VP Health and Sustainability at global food producer Ahold Delhiaze, working to promote earth intelligent action at all levels of the company’s activities; Mashudu Romano, an energy and water entrepreneur looking to create universal provision in southern Africa; and Andres Roberts and his colleagues in the Bio-Leadership Project, working to create new ways of leading that see beyond the myth of human activity as separate from life.

What gives me hope is not that these are the exceptions, but that they are now examples among many.  There is little time, but we now have many talented people pouring their skill and energy into creating a change where once there were so few. There is a lot more action, and action by many is where the hope lies.

Schumacher ecologist Stephan Harding tells this story.  When Brian Goodwin was dying in his hospital bed, a nurse saw him stretching up his arms. She asked him what he was doing. “I am reaching for the stars” he said.

That’s where I see myself as I write this. I am an older man now, in my sixties. I have worked to promote sustainability and earth intelligent business for decades, and mostly during my lifetime the news has not been good. Yet I look at the people converging on COP 26 and I am hopeful. If we can reach beyond our inclination to split and blame others, beyond our smaller views, there is a deeper energy for a real change. I feel it in the voices, and I see it in the actions of people now much younger than me.

I see all this, and like Brian I reach for the stars.

What does it mean to ‘Act Now’?

In the place where I expect to find the Extinction Rebellion stall a man and his son are selling African masks. He points over my shoulder to the table I’m looking for, flanked by banners saying ‘No Future in Fossil Fuels,’ and ‘Climate Emergency,’ and ‘Act now.’

I lock my bike up to the railings alongside the harbour, take out my home-made sign, ‘Tell me how you feel about climate change,’ and drape it over my back. Then with clipboard and pen in hand, and a selection of postcards, I step out across the old railway lines of the harbour side and begin. We’re inviting people to write a short message to someone in power- Boris Johnson, for example, or Marvin Rees, Bristol’s mayor- and we’ll make sure it gets to them.

Some post cards have pictures of floods in different parts of the world, and people being evacuated from their homes. Others are spring green, with a line drawing of a heart or a clenched fist, and a caption saying ‘Take heart’ or ‘Show courage.’

The area is busy, with lots of people strolling or hurrying about, and others eating and drinking outside in the cafes of what is known variously as Wapping Warf or Gaol Ferry Steps. A few years ago this land between the New Cut and the Harbour (created when Brunel altered the course of the Avon and built the lock gates of Cumberland Basin) was derelict and empty. Now it’s a thriving centre of activity, which has presumably netted the developers a great deal of money.

Behind me, the cranes at the harbour’s edge remind me of the area’s industrial past. This is where ships set off as part of the triangular trade in trinkets, slaves, tobacco and sugar between England, Africa and the West Indies. This also is where John Cabot set out on his voyage on the Matthew in 1495 that led him to Newfoundland. A replica of his boat is moored nearby, and from time to time I can hear tourists clanging the ship’s bell.

The trade that’s sprung up now is different, but still part of our insatiable need to travel and explore the world. The climate crisis has been a long while in the making, and the underlying energy that created it seems to continue unabated.

Some of the people I accost with my ‘Tell me how you feel about climate change’ hurry wordlessly past, or say, ‘I’ve got no time.’ But quite a few say they are scared; and a surprising number are willing to stop and talk. A family from Glasgow tell me all about recycling in the town. A girl points to the picture of a heart, saying, ‘I like that one,’ when her mum is debating which postcard to write on. A man from Morocco tells me about drought in his country. A forester goes into detail about the correct management of woodland.

When people ignore my approach I notice my half-embarrassed smile at their retreating backs. But I love the unexpected insights that come up in the conversations that occur. I’m hear to listen and respond, not tell people what I think they should do.

As I stand there I reflect on what it means to ‘Act now.’ In XR some people talk about ‘spicy’ actions, eye-catching events that grab the headlines, with simple messages like ‘Insulate Britain.’ I notice my sense that the time for that is past. This too is an action, I tell myself.

Every day now there is something on the news about climate change, some confirmation of the direction in which we are heading, and some statement about becoming ‘carbon neutral’ by 2030 or 40 or 50, whatever that may mean.

There are agreements, as there have been in the past, to halt deforestation in places like Indonesia or Brazil, and to re-forest our countryside here. Meanwhile we continue to cut down more trees to make way for palm oil plantations or cattle farms; and I, presumably, continue to buy products with palm oil in them when I don’t scrutinise the ingredients.

So what can we do? What does it mean to ‘Act now,’ individually and collectively? My answer is to keep listening, keep tuning in to what people feel, keep trying to uncover the energy that drives our behaviour, and reflecting on how that might change.

I’ve been surprised and heartened by the many creative ideas young people have. I’ve seen the concern that lies there, under our busy-ness, waiting for an opportunity to make itself felt; and the frustration with words that promise more than they deliver.

This listening, for me, is the antidote to the power of big corporations to dictate what we do. I’m reminded of the central image of the Tao, of how water, over time, wears away stone, and the enigmatic sentence in John Heider’s The Tao of leadership: ‘Do nothing, and everything that is needful will be done.’

What is the difference that will make the difference?

Sally is a student on the Wise Goose advanced coaching course. She’s been committed to societal and organisational change for many years, particularly at the inter-section of people and sustainability.

Sally focuses on shifting ‘systems’ in large and complex organisations and on building more responsible organisations working at all levels – individual, group, organisation and societal – to enable transformational learning and change.

Currently a Director at EY (Ernst & Young – one of the ‘Big 4’ audit and consulting firms) specialising in Talent and Sustainable Finance, she also teaches Sustainable Finance at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). In addition to her work (and coaching), Sally is often found on the allotment with a reluctant nine-year old.

Sally and COP26

With my latest project I have been involved in the biggest system ‘shift’ of them all in some ways – I have been assembling and driving EY’s Sustainable Finance contribution to COP26. Our presence at COP26 has taken several forms including the development and mobilisation of the Green Horizon Summit, a collaboration between the City of London and the Green Finance Institute, supported by several strategic sponsors, including EY.

My focus has been developing insights to feed into the debate about the role of private finance in addressing climate change, including bringing together the likes of the CEO of Bank of America to discuss mobilising capital to emerging markets, CEOs from around Asia to discuss decarbonisation from an Asian perspective; and assembling a ‘youth’ panel to hear the concerns and questions from the generation who will carry the burden of climate change.

I have never seen the business community mobilise behind a COP in such a substantial way. The number of large Financial Services firms queuing up to call for change – both within themselves, from governments, regulators, and their customers – is incredible. I think we all have doubts if these aspirations and targets can be achieved. These NetZero targets and talk need to be backed up by clear and swift action.

My sense is – if we can’t use this moment to galvanise the start of significant change – we never will.

What we need is to listen deeply to each other and find our individual ways to take action –for ourselves, our organisations, our communities. Purpose is central to this change. What is our Financial Services industry in service of? How can we reimagine an FS industry in service of humanity and our wider ecosystem? What are we in our respective roles and lives in service of? How can we all play our part?

Thought for the Day

The pathway to a globally just transition is tough and controversial. There are likely to be losses and grief as we must shed old behaviours and patterns of consumption and production. There may be cause for optimism and joy as we discover we can change and innovate. There will be differences of perspective. To reach the target ahead, there is not only a space for differences, there’s a need for them. And more importantly, we need space to listen and reflect on our own and others experience of our past, present and future.

As part of the run up to COP26, the infamous TED Talks invited the CEO of Shell, Ben van Beurden; Chris James, founder of Engine No. 1 – an activist fund; and Lauren MacDonald, a Scottish activist and a member of the Stop Cambo campaign.

This exchange – one with deep pain expressed – reminded me of the Gregory Bateson phrase “The difference that makes the difference”. Bateson was talking about information and how the information we have can affect our perspectives, situations, and actions. The difference is the space between – and if both parties can better understand the space between and our differences, a subtle shift can make a huge difference.

As governments, NGOs and businesses gather in COP26 – what is the difference that will make the difference? Can we each make shifts in our perspective that allow us to grieve our pasts and embrace a new future?

It will require deep listening, pain and hope. It will not be easy and it will not be straightforward, but we can and must achieve this transformation together.

What is the world asking of me?

After breakfast I pick my way along the tide line following a dark dry trail of bladder-wrack.

There is so much plastic.

I’m tempted to turn away, shamed by the mess being made of the world. A mess I help make. A mess I don’t know how to tidy up. Even if I spent the morning litter picking I’m told getting the waste off island is a problem and of course there’ll always be more cast up on the next tide.

I could ignore it, but remember the words of a dear teacher, Joanna Macy who speaks of ‘holding the gaze’ with the world as it is, the better to listen to our fear, grief or anger at the unravelling of life pressing in on us from all sides. By turning towards it, she says, we might learn what our world is asking of us. So, thinking of her courage, vitality and sheer doggedness, I stay as present, and as open to ‘what is’ as I can manage.

At my feet a single feather points skyward. Lying next to it a knot of fishing line and a lime green picnic spoon. Bone white driftwood. Coiled blue rope. A yellow sandal, ‘adidas’ stamped on the side. There are limpet shells and flat skimming stones, glistening jellyfish, folded in on themselves, in death taking the shape of the rocks. Natural objects that ‘belong’ mixed up with opaque leavings. Unnameable shreds alongside familiar everyday containers emptied of use: white plastic table salt and yogurt pots; a lucozade bottle, and equally empty – a crab shell which I lift and turn in my hand, looking into tiny hollow eye holes.

But it’s a blue rubber glove, the left hand, that brings me to a standstill. Fingers curled tenderly around a palmful of gray pebbles and shreds of dried seaweed. There’s a vulnerability in the gesture, both offering and supplication. It breaks through my preoccupation with the stories I tell about myself and about the state of the world. I feel my hollow shell cracking open, a slipping sideways of my sense of ‘me-ness’, as this tide sculpted tangle reveals presences in both the spoiled and unspoiled world.

I turn to leave the cove returning to Joanna’s question: What is the world asking of me? The response flows through and out of me as far as the dark line of the horizon. There’s sorrow and shame, hope and hopelessness. The answer that surges to the surface as I see the beauty and the brokenness is ‘love’.

Love, I realise, has no frontiers. It will be essential as together we learn how best to navigate the ecological and climate challenges already impacting lives across the planet. The opening lines of a Mary Oliver poem run through my mind over and over, as I walk away ‘my work is loving the world.’

These talks are crucial, what happens after even more so. Whether I trust our leaders or not, we urgently need global agreement and action. I wonder, what turns action towards ‘right action’? Technology is essential, but without hearts that include the interconnectedness of human and ecological communities I fear technological fixes will be fatally flawed.

We cannot afford to fail. What is the world asking of me?

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird – 
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Mary Oliver

What do I see?

Much of my work is about making connections, bringing awareness to patterns in multi-layered relationships that may not be immediately apparent, or are easy to overlook. When a deeper exploration of ‘truths’ that lie below the surface of the everyday is called for, I find myself, without thinking, reaching for metaphors.  

Why metaphor? Perhaps it’s because they connect, carry ideas from one place to another, making complex ideas that are difficult to explain more tangible and understandable. Friedrich Kekule’s snake biting its own tail for the ring-like structure of the benzene molecule; Darwin’s branching tree making sense of evolution; James’s powerful image of a stream to convey the fluid, continuous nature of consciousness; or Einstein’s thought experiments with trains and mirrors to develop his theory of relativity. These all link what is known with what is unfamiliar or intangible. Beyond this there is something visceral about metaphor, something deeply felt that includes yet moves beyond mere reason and thought.

On a more prosaic note, paying attention to the metaphors we habitually use sheds light on our thinking.  Years ago, I worked with a man who constantly used war metaphors; relationships were a minefield, work was a war zone, he was under fire, besieged, caught in the crossfire, in no man’s land and unsurprisingly longed for a truce. His images revealed an unsustainable personal and professional situation. Once he noticed he began to play with metaphors, using them to meet obstacles in new ways and access previously overlooked resources. For him, metaphor exposed ingrained ways of thinking, helped shift perspectives, and revealed solutions that might not otherwise have been considered.

Can metaphors have wider political implications? I think so. The ways I describe the nature of our roots as a species, what it means to be human, what is happening now and what lies ahead for future generations – both human and other than human – all this has the power to shape my actions. Whether I realise it or not.

Yesterday the conference proper got underway. From the podium I heard talk of burdens, doomsday clocks, ticking bombs, and grave digging. I found the James Bond analogy particularly disheartening. The vision of the lone (male) hero saving the day is the opposite of collaborative, humble work that values, listens and seeks to understand others. These latter qualities were present in some of the speeches and I believe they will be needed if any meaningful agreement is to be reached.

Today, I want to notice the metaphors I use in relation to climate change and the work going on at COP26. What assumptions, what ‘ruts in the road’ will I find? I wonder, how can I play with, and choose interesting, bold, generative pathways?

‘What can I do?’

But even though I know this, as these crucial talks get underway, I’m aware of the weight of how much needs to be done, and feel small and powerless, ‘what can I do anyway?’ it would be so easy to turn away.

The words ‘attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity’ from philosopher Simone Weil, bring me back. Something that was pinning me down loosens, ‘yes’, I think, this is something I know how to do, both as a coach and as a human being.  Paying attention, though often invisible, is important work.  “Attention, taken to its highest degree” says Weil, “is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.”  

Will alone, ‘will without grace’ leads to action that creates more problems than it solves. In contrast, this quality of attending is like a love story, moving beyond self-centeredness, sensitising the heart to the needs of others and the world. If we can pay attention we can become more effective change-makers whatever the context we find ourselves in.

Recognising I make myself powerless when I choose not to know, for today my answer to the question ‘What can I do?’ is to attend with love and faith to the beautiful, perplexing, unfathomable, otherness of the world, and to trust that through attentiveness the wisest path may be found.

Day 1 Where to Start?

While my husband snored gently at my side, I lay awake, feeling caught between two worlds – one reality the cocoon of a warm, dry bed, safe and shielded by solid walls built from the granite bones of the moor – the other? Vast black night, wild and unbiddable, a force that is literally a wake-up call. A force that encompasses small human places like my home but is undeniably more than human – it can be hard to hold the knowledge that human activities impact something as immense and ‘other’ as storm.

Where to begin with addressing climate change?  It’s easy to ignore problems, easier than facing up to reality and doing something. Towards the end of her book Wilful Blindness Margaret Heffernan points out the world isn’t linear, it’s a complex system where small changes can have big impacts. We may not know where to start, but that isn’t the issue – what matters most she argues, is that we start. 

This is something coaches know how to work with, giving me confidence to share a ‘thought for the day’ as COP26 gets underway. It’s borrowed from Heffernan – “Where do you start? You start where you are.” It’s echoed in a quote I often use from Theodore Roosevelt who famously said:

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Here’s the latest post from Wise Goose graduate Helen Tyrrell. Her topic feels timely as a cool April, month long storm in May followed by just enough warmth and rain (though not much sun here on Dartmoor until last week) means this year growth on my allotment has galloped away so it now resembles a jungle – lots of happy nettles, bindweed and giant comfrey. Produce a bit hard to find under all the green.

“You were running before you were one year old!”  That information has long formed part of my personal mythology: according to my mother not only did I run before I had learned to walk, but I would run everywhere on my tiptoes.

So it seems my early entry into movement was headlong, fast and barely in touch with the ground!

Has that approach continued into my adult world? In a way, yes! I have sometimes rushed headlong towards what excites or interests me, while keeping my feet steadily on the ground has not come naturally.

Let’s be kind and call it a hunger for life!   

The busy, ‘always on’ culture around me seems in some ways an extension of that running, rushing, action-oriented, unbalanced way of being. Somewhere hidden in frenetic activity is not just a high-energy, excitable sense of achievement – of impact in the world – but also a sense of virtue: we can’t be lazy if we are busy! In there, too, is feeling of self-importance: even as we rail against how busy we are, there is often a smidgeon of hidden pride – after all our busy-ness signals we are in demand!

A significant learning for me with Wise Goose was a session where all this was turned upside down. Our tutor, Helen, did an amazing thing: she walked us through her allotment, slowly, through the seasons, using photos and simple narrative.

Gardening is something that you can’t rush!

In the changing seasons and viewpoints were dramatic transformations – and not all wrought by the gardener. In fact compared to the action of time, the environment and the varied potential of each plant, the gardener’s interventions were relatively small. Furthermore the different camera angles dramatically changed the scenery.

How is this useful learning for us as coaches and as people?

Well, it helps us to appreciate the important role time plays in personal and professional development, as well as the unpredictable impact of other factors. An awareness of these interrupts any over attachment to results: if we, like the gardener, plant seeds then this may produce intended outcomes, but not necessarily. We need to see our own efforts within the context of the wider environment, the seasons – metaphorical or actual – the time it takes to grow, the unique potential and stage of development of both ‘seed’ and ourselves, the ‘sower’. And we need to be aware that the perspective, the angle we are viewing our ‘garden’ from may alter the way we see it.  

Germination happens invisibly under the ground and seeds take time to grow. By the same token, dramatic displays of beauty and growth may happen with very little intervention if the time is right.

So our results are not just down to us. ‘Not really’, as Helen S would say. Whatever we are trying to accomplish, that is something to remember.

The gardener approach calls for a slowing, for staying in touch with the ground and watching for what else is going on. While there is nothing inherently wrong with impatience and energy for movement, as with the infant, the fast-and-barely-in-touch-with-the-ground approach is unsteady and may lead to a fall, while slow observation, considered movement and steady step by step progress that factors in the importance of time in development can produce surprising results.

So while I may have run early as an infant, it is only now, as a coach, that I am really learning to walk and enjoy each step!

Here is the next instalment about her journey from student of coaching to professional coach from a soon to be Wise Goose graduate Helen Tyrrell (just waiting for her portfolio to be signed off by our external verifier.) We’ve had some great feedback about this series and hope you enjoy reading.