Finding Purpose After Injury with Jools Aspinall

"It's that 'Am I burning it to the ground to start again? Or is this a natural transition?' I don't know. But we'll go with it and see.” - Jools Aspinall

[00:00:05.400] - Lucy Critchley

Life is a series of chapters. Some we write and others are written for us. But what happens when we reach a turning point? Welcome to Untold Chapters with me, Lucy Critchley. In this podcast, we'll explore the real-life stories behind those pivotal moments, the heartbreaks, triumphs, and decisions that changed everything. These are the moments that are sent to challenge us, inspire us, and remind us that we're never alone.

[00:00:31.790] - Lucy Critchley

On this episode of Untold Chapters, I'm joined by Jools Aspinall, a neurodiversity trainer. Jools' life took an unexpected turn following an injury, and this moment of change sparked her journey into self-employment, where she now helps others navigate challenges and embrace transformation. Today, Jools very kindly shares her story, the lessons she's learned, and how she turned a setback into an opportunity to make a difference.

[00:01:08.710] - Lucy Critchley

The premise of the podcast is that we're going to be sharing our untold chapters, those stories and those moments that if one thing hadn't happened, then your life might have ended up in quite a different direction. I would love for you to share what that moment was for you.

[00:01:27.150] - Jools Aspinall

If I start rambling, do tell me because I'll get into a lot of detail, but it was about 21 years ago now, which is shocking to say. I had finished uni and I'd moved home to work to pay off some of my uni debt, a good old uni debt. I was working as a search agent for a... When you buy a house, you do searches. You have to find out about whether it's got planning permission, what's happening in the local area, and all of that will help you decide whether you want to buy the house.

[00:01:56.200] - Jools Aspinall

My job at the time was to type those searches up. I did a law degree, and in my head, I'd managed to convince myself that because these were legal documents, I was using my law degree, which, hilarious. My boyfriend at the time had moved to London with quite a few of my friends from university, and I was up in Yorkshire. I was spending a lot of my weekends going to and from Yorkshire down to London. I finally decided I was going to make the move and go to London.

[00:02:18.790] - Jools Aspinall

Finding a job was quite daunting. I checked with my employers at the time and they said, 'Well, instead of typing the searches, why don't we send you down to London as a search agent where you can actually go out to the different councils and you can get the information and then send it back to us and we'll get the other people to type it up'. I was like, 'Oh, amazing. Sounds great'.

[00:02:36.110] - Jools Aspinall

Off I went down to London, moved into a house with three men that I'd never met before. Honestly, I would say three boys, but they were men. We were all in our 20s, so it was three men I didn't know, in an area I didn't know. It was a whole new life in London, which was really exciting but also quite scary. I started this job, and actually, I really enjoyed the job. Reflecting on it now, I realised why I loved it. It was quite flexible within the time. I wasn't sat behind a desk all day. I was going to different councils all around London and getting the information I needed. Then at the end of the day, I'd just send that back to the office.

[00:03:08.680] - Jools Aspinall

But it meant you had to be very active and you had to be around London. As most people know, London isn't the most accessible city. The tube's amazing, but it's very, not configured, but it's set up for people that are able-bodied and don't struggle. I was doing fine. One Saturday, my housemate at the time was like, 'Do you fancy going out for some drinks?' I was like, 'Yeah, sure. Okay'. I don't know you, but let's do it.

[00:03:32.890] - Jools Aspinall

So we went out around South London, and back in those days, I used to wear really big heels, high heels. And we got out and we were almost doing a little bus tour of the pubs. Obviously, as the day wore on, we were a bit worse for wear, and I was on the bus and we were coming to get off the bus. And as we did that, the bus stopped quite abruptly. And I didn't properly fall down the stairs, but I did fall down the stairs in the sense of I skidded and then landed. I was like, 'Excellent. Okay, I've caught myself'. Then as I took my next step, I fell off my giant heel. I was like, 'Great'. I'd had a few drinks at this point, so I wasn't really taking that seriously.

[00:04:11.880] - Jools Aspinall

The next day, I woke up and I had a huge purple ankle. I took myself off to hospital and the usual wait in A&E. I had sprained my ankle quite badly and I was going to be on crutches for 4-6 weeks. I wasn't in a cast, but I was definitely going to be on crutches. Straight away, I was like, 'Right, work'. I contacted my employer and at the time, I can't quite remember the exact rules, but I think we got the statutory sick, which I think at the time was two weeks or they decided it was two weeks. They said, 'We'll pay you for two weeks, but after that, you'll have to go off on sick, or you'd be off on sick, but we'll pay you for two weeks, and after that, it's unpaid'. I was like, 'Well, I'm living in London'. I've not got the lowest cost life, just by virtue of being in London, not because I was living it large. I realised, right, okay, I'm not going to be able to survive. I just couldn't travel doing what I was doing on crutches. It forced me to start to look for a new job.

[00:05:08.860] - Jools Aspinall

I was going in and out of agencies, looking for something admin-related because that just felt like the right a bit at the time. They were telling me, 'Oh, you're from the north. You're going to really struggle with your accent'. I know. Brilliant. I was like, so many times I got told. I don't particularly have a strong accent, I don't think. I was told multiple times that that would be a hindrance for me. My northern-ness.

[00:05:30.710] - Lucy Critchley

Excuse me.

[00:05:31.770] - Jools Aspinall

I know. It's brilliant.

[00:05:32.680] - Lucy Critchley

How rude is that? Oh, my God. I lived in London before I moved to Leeds, and I've definitely slowed down my accent. I've definitely changed how I speak, but I did have a very strong accent. Knowing you now, I can't really imagine you having a really strong accent.

[00:05:55.910] - Jools Aspinall

And I didn't. I think I had the accent I've got now. You I might have changed it, but I was very fortunate, and the people I ended up working with in the end found my northernness quite endearing. I remember just going back and forth and I desperately trying to get a job. I basically said, I've got two weeks to do this because I can't not get paid. I eventually interviewed for a job. Obviously, at all my interviews as well, I had to be like, I'm on crutches, so I'm going to have to come in trainer. It's like, I'm not unprofessional, but I can only put one shoe on.

[00:06:28.280] - Lucy Critchley

Trying to do with a heel on.

[00:06:31.930] - Jools Aspinall

Even though, yeah. So the trainers and northern, I was like, 'I'm never going to get a job'. But I ended up interviewing with a small oil and gas exploration company as their admin and office assistant and got the job. It wouldn't be an industry I would have ever thought to go into. It wouldn't have been a role that... Admin, yes, but that office management role, no. I was fortunate enough to get the job. That was a real life-changing moment for me because I think until that point, I'd really just been floating around. I was enjoying my job, but I had no direction. I didn't know what I'd do. I'd just come out of uni. I'd spent a lot of money doing a degree that I had realised that I probably wouldn't ever use. But yeah, it was just a real pivotal moment because that effectively led to the career I have then had in the sexy world of utilities, and oil and gas, which in turn has to where I am today, which I couldn't be happier with my work now.

[00:07:33.540] - Lucy Critchley

You got into this oil and gas business, and then obviously as a result of... What did you fracture your ankle? What was the-

[00:07:42.060] - Jools Aspinall

Yeah, I'd done a really bad sprain.

[00:07:44.020] - Jools Aspinall

It was- Absolutely, it was purple, huge. And I'm very, very squeamish when it comes to bones. Even though they had told me it wasn't broken, I, psychologically, was probably the biggest wimp in the entire world. I couldn't put weight on it for ages. I was so... I'm so squeamish about it that I probably made it a lot worse than it actually was. But the thought of having to travel around... Well, I couldn't have travelled around London from an accessibility point of view anyway, but the thought of having to do it on what I thought could still be a broken ankle, I was like, I don't know.

[00:08:15.050] - Lucy Critchley

Well, yeah. When you look at the tube map, they make it clear which ones are accessible for wheelchair users and have lifts and stuff like that, don't it? But it's not all of them. So if you're having to go out of the city, zone one kind of thing to wherever, to these houses and things, and then it's like what happens when you get off the tube, or you get off the bus, or crutching all the way down to wherever that is? That must have been really difficult.

[00:08:46.210] - Jools Aspinall

Yeah, it was. And it was an eye opener for me as well, because it was... Obviously, I'd been in such a privileged position for so long to just be able to travel around without thinking about it. Obviously, I had quite a huge impact on my life because it meant it had to change my job.

[00:08:59.330] - Lucy Critchley

Yeah.

[00:08:59.780] - Jools Aspinall

It always makes me laugh that the thing that kicked my arse into gear of doing something different was being drunk and falling down the stairs on the bus.

[00:09:07.530] - Lucy Critchley

Well, I suppose my story is quite similar when I think about it, but I broke a bone and that changed my life. So I wasn't drinking, but I was on a night out when it happened to me. I'm going to tell my story properly in another episode, but I can really relate to that because it did completely change everything. I always say this, but I wouldn't be sitting here now if I didn't break my leg. And that was a massive thing. Going back to you start working in this utilities business, were you an office manager? Is that the role that you were doing?

[00:09:44.570] - Jools Aspinall

Yeah. So I was actually at that company for eight years, and it was a really small company. I was the only female in the company for about two and a half years during that time, not immediately. But yes, I started off as an admin assistant, an office manager, and then I became the PA to the chief exec, and then I became the exec assistant to the chief exec and the board and still the office manager. But it was a really great company to work for because it was so small. It allowed me to really vary my role. They were very much like, whatever you want to get involved in, you can.

[00:10:19.390] - Jools Aspinall

Obviously, not the drilling side of things because I had no idea what was going on there. But when it came to the running of the business and the admin, I had, over those eight years, the exposure I got to all areas of business was incredible. They also floated during that time, so I got to be part of the process of getting them onto the stock exchange.

[00:10:42.540] - Jools Aspinall

I was in charge of the website, doing the annual report. I did the AGM, I ran all the events. I did health and safety. It's exciting. I did all the usual assistant stuff, like travel and diary management. I had such a varied role. I also got to be great friends with the guy that did the IT side of things. That's where my love of tech started because I used to chat to him loads and he'd always be really open about what he was doing. I would always be trying to find solutions, this was always my thing.

[00:11:16.760] - Jools Aspinall

Even then, I was trying to find more efficient ways to do something. I remember even back then being in that office because, again, because it was small, there could be some really long days where you didn't have a lot to do. The guys were quite often away travelling for business as well to where we were drilling, so it could be quite lonely. So I was constantly looking for ways that I could get away from being sat at a desk but still do my job. Obviously, certain elements to the job, you couldn't do that, like the office management side. But when it came to the assistance side, there was so much stuff that I knew that I could just do away from an office that was often quite empty.

[00:11:57.650] - Lucy Critchley

Did that lead you to work from home or work different locations and stuff?

[00:12:02.480] - Jools Aspinall

Yeah. Back then, really, it wasn't an option. Again, one of the reasons, because the company was so small, it sounds like that doesn't make sense, but they needed someone in the office in case things happened. There'd be days where it'd just be me in the office. It felt like you're working from home. It was my own time, but I was in the office. But yeah, it started the seed of wanting my own business.

[00:12:28.770] - Jools Aspinall

In 2012 when I was working for those guys, I was like, It feels like I could do this myself. At the time, VAs were just... I think VAs were quite big in America, Virtual Assistant was quite big in America, but we were starting to see a bit of to hear about them over here, but not a huge amount. I started to do a bit of research and I was like, I think that's what I'd like to do because I can manage my own time. That's where the seed was planted for what is now my business today.

[00:12:57.940] - Lucy Critchley

Amazing. Were you still in London at that point?

[00:13:01.370] - Jools Aspinall

Yes. I was still in London. I was working for them for eight years, possibly a bit longer. My circumstances changed where we chose to move up to the north west. And I started working for another utilities company as the exec assistant to the CEO again.

[00:13:19.110] - Lucy Critchley

And that's when you were in the back of your mind, you were like, I want to go and do my own thing.

[00:13:23.090] - Jools Aspinall

Yeah.

[00:13:24.250] - Lucy Critchley

Maybe this is me putting words in your mouth, but for me, when we moved up from London to Leeds, I went freelance, and I was really like... I thought I was freelance, but I was doing a lot of short term fixed contracts in places, so I was almost an employee, really.

[00:13:43.050] - Lucy Critchley

Whereas now when I do this, I feel it's a very different experience because I've got lots of different clients, I do lots of different things. I felt like moving to Leeds encouraged me to explore that entrepreneurial side of me a bit more because well, one didn't cost a fortune to live there. I had that little bit of extra flexibility, I suppose. What was it about when you got back to the north west? Was it like, I've got this job, but then I'm going to try and figure out my own thing or how did that work?

[00:14:19.020] - Jools Aspinall

It was a couple of things, really. I'd initially set the business up in 2012, and it was the classic case of you've got your business card, you've got your website, and you've got absolutely no idea what you're doing. You've got no confidence, no contacts. So I was sat at home. I remember being like, 'Right, I've got my business'. And it's like, I hadn't considered the client side. I got so wrapped up in, 'I'm going to start my business. It's going to be so exciting'. I had all the gear and no idea, basically.

[00:14:43.290] - Jools Aspinall

After a while, I was like, 'Right, I need to put this on the back burner'. I think because I've been in a business with a company for so long, in one sense, I'd lost my confidence because I was so comfortable. Then when I came to the north west, I started working for this company, and during that time, my boss changed. For me, when you're working that closely with someone, even if you're not close to that person, you have to be able to work with them in a certain way, and you have to be able to anticipate their needs. I think you just have to have...

[00:15:13.210] - Jools Aspinall

There's certain things that have to be really similar and when my boss changed, my new boss, I just didn't have that connection with... I really struggled. He'd not been in a position where he'd had an exec assistant before, so he wasn't really sure what he was doing. During that time, I still had it in the back of my mind, and I was like, 'Right, I can do this'. I slowly started to set it up, but went a different way about it this time. Instead of getting my website and everything sorted, I was like, 'Right, okay, clients', that would be a good starting point.

[00:15:40.310] - Jools Aspinall

I hadn't handed my notice in, but I started to think about it and I started to chat with people that I thought might need support. What I wasn't doing at that time, and again, I think it just comes with your learning of setting up businesses. That first time, I didn't quite get it quite right. This time, I probably didn't get it quite right either, was I wasn't considering what I actually wanted it to be and what I wanted to do. It was a, 'right, I know I need to make X amount of money to be able to leave my job. What work can I get as an assistant to support that?'

[00:16:08.690] - Jools Aspinall

And I was really fortunate in that after about six months, I got into contact with enough people that I was like, 'right, this is it, I can take the leap'. But quite similar to you, I had one very big client to start with that I was working for three days a week, and they liked me to be in their office. So it felt like I'd gone from one job to another. It was quite a slow transition. But I was also, which I think a lot of people are when they do this, in a position where I had to make a certain amount to pay the bills. So you don't really get that choice. So, yeah, it wasn't... I didn't start probably doing what I wanted to do in my business until it was maybe three or four years old.

[00:16:47.310] - Lucy Critchley

I can massively relate to that. I'm four years into this business now, and I think only in the past couple of months has it felt a bit more like, this is what I do, this is who I do it for, and a bit more confident in what I offer and for whom it's for. I think it takes a while, though, doesn't it? To bed into it and it can change and that's alright. I think sometimes it's being okay that it will change as well and it's not going to be this thing all the time.

[00:17:17.250] - Jools Aspinall

Well, if we were employed, chances are in the four years that you've been working, and I've been doing this for eight years now, we would have changed jobs. We would have changed, potentially not a massive amount in the role, but the role would have changed. We'd have got new clients. As self-employed people to think we're going to end up doing the exact same thing the whole time just, I think it puts us too much pressure on us. We're in such a privileged position as well, being a small business that we can change and pivot when we want to and quite quickly and easily to a point. It took, I would say, a good three or four years before I was like, 'Actually, what is this?' Because I didn't build this business to be employed. I did it because I wanted my freedom. That was always my reasoning. It was financial and physical freedom. It took a while for me to be like, 'Right, okay. Probably going into client's offices isn't really aligned with why I started this'. I mean, it's never the clients or the work. It didn't align with why I wanted to do it.

[00:18:15.510] - Lucy Critchley

When you started, what things were you offering? Was it executive assistant type services?

[00:18:21.010] - Jools Aspinall

Yeah, basically. When I started the business, I was a 'virtual assistant'. I don't know why I did this because...

[00:18:26.440] - Lucy Critchley

We don't need the air quotes. We get it.

[00:18:31.800] - Jools Aspinall

I was doing that for those first few years and there was no structure to it. There was no rhyme or reason. I was just like, 'Yeah, I can do that'. That classic, just because you can doesn't mean you should. I was like, 'I can do that, I can do that'. Sure. I was doing stuff that, again, no fault of the client, it's just stuff that I wasn't really enjoying because I was just... I think it's that..., which I hope a lot of people would relate to that are in small business, is that fear of not been able to make the money you need. And so you just like, 'Yeah, okay, sure'. Then you burn yourself out, which is just always the way.

[00:19:09.710] - Lucy Critchley

That's it, isn't it? And I think it probably takes that time to build up your confidence to know people have paid me for the things that I actually enjoy, or you figure out what those things are that make you want to come back and sit at this desk every day. This is my longest job ever when I think about I've worked in this Untold Creative business, although it's been Lucy Critchley VA to give me.., but I've done this for the longest time. This has been my longest ever job.

[00:19:41.700] - Lucy Critchley

I think the variety is a big part of that. So I'd love to know now, you started off in those VA, doing those things that, 'Can you do this? Yes, I'll do this'. What made the transition to what you do now? Because obviously we know each other a little bit outside of recording this I know quite a lot about what you offer, but for people that don't necessarily know, what was that path that led you to where you are now and the things that you're working on now?

[00:20:12.590] - Jools Aspinall

I was doing the VA stuff, and I think I naturally have always had a love of, like I said, from going back to that other job, wanting to do things more efficiently, I love tech. I was finding that I was doing a lot of tech stuff for people that I was working for, whether that was what I'd offer... That's a different story but I'm one of those people, if I can see something that can be done more easily, I'm like, 'Just do this'. I was helping a lot of people with tech.

[00:20:37.760] - Jools Aspinall

Over the last four or five years, I've gone from very much VA-focused to I moved into more tech-focused delivery, so helping companies, individuals to implement tech platforms that were going to help them be more efficient and get them out of doing all the admin crap that everyone hates. Never the reason they start their business is it unless they love admin. I started doing that.

[00:21:01.540] - Jools Aspinall

Then about three years ago, I'd started to dabble with the idea of doing a bit of mentoring because I quite often had people coming up to me that wanted to start businesses and talk like, 'Can you support me? Can you tell me what I need to do?' Then I had a lovely lady in my DMs who I was chatting to and she was like, Would you consider mentoring me? It was one of those moments where I was just like, 'Yeah, let's do it. What's the worst that can happen?'

[00:21:27.370] - Jools Aspinall

Obviously, I then went into full scale meltdown and I was like, 'Oh, my God, what if I can't deliver?' This is going to be terrible. All that lovely inner dialogue that you have. But I was like, 'Let's give it a go because I'll never know'. I absolutely loved it. I think she got lots out of it. From then on, I just started to add more and more mentoring to my client base and slowly phased out the implementation stuff. I think it was earlier last year, the early last year that I just decided... It might have been earlier this year. I just totally phased out the implementation and now just do the mentoring, which I absolutely adore.

[00:22:03.470] - Jools Aspinall

I do some other client work because I feel like in order for me to stay current as a business mentor, I need to be running a business that isn't just mentoring. I do do some other client work, but it's not an advertised service that I do, and I tend to do it with more corporate businesses. That's been the journey over the last three or four years, as is always the case. It's like a roller coaster. We've talked about this before. It's that 'Am I burning it to the ground to start again? Or is this a natural transition?' I don't know. But we'll go with it and see.

[00:22:38.750] - Lucy Critchley

Often I find those icky growth periods where you think, 'What on Earth am I doing?' Often are the most beneficial to your business because it helps you. I feel like I go in a dip and then I come right back out of it again. When you're down in it, 'you're like, Oh, my God, what am I doing? What's the point?' And I might just go and look for another job or whatever that safety thing is. And then you come out of it and you're like, 'Oh, that's what it's all for'. It's not that way because this good stuff is coming.

[00:23:13.780] - Jools Aspinall

And I think that the thing that I try and remind myself of, because I know I'm guilty of this, is you get used to the privileges of running your own business. They become the day-to-day norm. The fact that I don't have to put a call in my diary before a certain or I can nip downstairs at lunchtime and do my laundry if I want to because I like to do that stuff. I think we can lose sight of actually that's a privilege.

[00:23:41.250] - Jools Aspinall

You're not stuck in an office 9 to 5. You've got that freedom and sometimes when it's in those points where you're like, 'Am I burning it to the ground? Am I going to do something else?' It's just reminding yourself of that. Because I think, again, just when it comes to the world of social media and seeing what people are doing, it's really easy to believe that everyone's living the high life and not putting the hours in that you maybe are and that in order to be successful, you've got to be doing X, Y, and Z.

[00:24:10.710] - Jools Aspinall

But actually, I just think it's so important to remember the little day-to-day successes that can so easily get forgotten because you start to take them for granted. But yeah, they're actually all brought together, probably really quite a big part of why we do what we do.

[00:24:26.270] - Lucy Critchley

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's such a powerful thing to remember. If you were in office, there wouldn't be those opportunities to do things and have that freedom that I know is really important to you as a business owner. So I have maybe two more questions for you.

[00:24:43.840] - Lucy Critchley

Thinking back to the Jools of what year was it when you rolled your ankle?

[00:24:49.200] - Jools Aspinall

I'm thinking early... What year are we in now? 2024, probably around 2003, 2004.

[00:24:57.820] - Lucy Critchley

Right. So the Jools that was in 2003, 2004, when that happened and you thought, 'Oh my God, I've got to find some work', what advice would you give that Jools?

[00:25:09.250] - Jools Aspinall

Probably two pieces of advice. One is that things will always work themselves out. I think I'm much more... Now I'm older, I'm much more like, things work out the way they need to work out. I think sometimes when you're in the thick of it, you're just like, 'please don't say that to me'. I'm dealing with this drama. But also, I have always been a very structured person, and I like to know what's coming next. So I think I would give myself the advice of it's okay to not know what's next. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and you can embrace the change, and it can be something quite magnificent.

[00:25:46.750] - Lucy Critchley

It is magnificent. Look at what you've done. My final question that I think I'm going to ask everyone, should the conversation lead itself that way, is looking back on all of the stuff that we've just talked out in this whole career that you've had, as a result, of ending up on crutches. What is your biggest learning of that whole experience?

[00:26:10.700] - Jools Aspinall

Probably that you can't control everything. I know it sounds really simple, but as I would say, a self-confessed control freak or recovering control freak. Yeah, you can't control everything, and that's okay.

[00:26:27.840] - Lucy Critchley

Yeah, and that is a massive thing. I definitely am learning that all the time, so I can understand.

[00:26:35.980] - Jools Aspinall

I think that stays with you forever, isn't it? Again, it's one of those things, just remind yourself every now and again. It's okay to not be able to control it all.

[00:26:45.800] - Lucy Critchley

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining me.

[00:26:49.420] - Jools Aspinall

Thank you so much for having me. It's been lovely. I really appreciate it.

[00:26:55.320] - Lucy Critchley

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Untold Chapters. I really hope you enjoyed it and found something that resonates with your own story. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to rate, review, and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Your support will help us share even more incredible stories. Untold Chapters is an untold creative production. Until next time.