#083: Self-Validation: Shifting the Dial with Natalie Balmain

Natalie Balmain
Now in my mission, I think I'm at the more centred stage of my mission. I've always described myself, or likened myself to a bit of a Malcolm X in my mission before, and I think I'm graduating into Dr King, in that I had you know, I'm 36 now so, of course, my teenage years - my twenties, I was I was angry. I was angry at things that had happened and now I've taken that anger. But I've done my research now. It's my mastermind subject. I sit with it very comfortably. So it's not anger any more. Now it's knowledge.

Sue Revell
Hi there and welcome back to the Women on a Mission show. I hope that you've had a great week. I want to start with a quick thank you to listeners who've already responded to this season's ask for help, leaving and sharing reviews to help visibility of the podcast and, in turn, help me reach more women in my mission.

I am hugely grateful for your support and looking forward to finding out who will win the first coaching giveaway. Tune into the first show in March to see if you are the first winner. There'll be four opportunities to win throughout the season, so if you want to be in with a chance to win, hit the follow button now wherever you're listening, so that each episode arrives automagically in your listening list.

Now let me briefly introduce you to our next woman on a mission. As always, her full bio will be in the show notes at womenonamission.club. Natalie Balmain is a campaigner, designer and broadcaster and the winner of the new Channel 4 programme, Make Me Prime Minister, which aired in the UK last autumn. She describes herself as the kid who never gave up on the idea of a fair, perfect world, and she's on a mission to challenge societal constructs in her fight for freedom and democracy. Let's hear what Natalie had to say about her mission.

Sue Revell
Today's guest came to my attention through a late night series on Channel 4 last autumn. Make Me Prime Minister introduced us to a diverse group of candidates being carefully tested by Alistair Campbell and Baroness Sayida Warzi as they undertook a series of political tasks in competing to be Channel Four's alternative Prime Minister. It was an interesting watch as they worked to convince politicians, communities and the media that they could make a powerful impact as a political leader, and I'm delighted that the winner joins me today. Congratulations again, Natalie Balmain, and welcome to the Women on a Mission show.

Natalie Balmain
Hi Sue. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, it's really nice to talk to you today.

Sue Revell
I remember that late night exchange on Twitter saying, do you want to come and joing me on the show. And you go, I'm definitely a woman on a mission.

Natalie Balmain
Absolutely. When I saw the title for your show, I absolutely bumped you to the top of my list, too, because I thought, this is a conversation that needs to be had and for so many reasons. So I'm delighted that we're doing this today, and hopefully it's an inspiring listen for your listeners.

Sue Revell
I'm sure it will be. Let's talk a little bit about the show before we go into the questions that the listeners will be expecting, because I'm really curious about what your experience was like, so I'll start there. For me, it was a fascinating show to watch, with a really diverse mix of participants  - all clearly had their own agenda, their own path, their own approach. How was it for you?

Natalie Balmain
It was such a wild experience for me, first and foremost, because I always said I would never do reality television. It was just not something that was on my radar. I'm not naturally the type of person that wants to draw attention to myself, but I am a campaigner and there are things that I believe are more important than me and my feelings. And it was actually my brother that sent me the casting thing for the show, and he just sent me a screenshot with three words that said, Go. Go. Go.

Sue Revell
Nice.

Natalie Balmain
And I sat on it for a bit, and then I started to fill out the application.  I thought was no harm in finding out. And they called me very quickly, the producers, and they asked me why I wanted to do the show. And I must have been the only person who turned around to them and said, I'm not sure that I do want to do the show. You're going to have to sell it to me. And really, it was just about whether or not it was serious. I only wanted to do it if it was serious. Politics is not something for me that can be taken lightly. I didn't want to make a fool out of the topic or myself in that regard. So luckily for me, as soon as I got there, it was very obvious that it was because when you saw all of the other candidates, you just saw these were not people who were here for their five minutes. These were people with passion, with ideas, who really cared and really, really wanted to make a difference. And you can see that because so many of them are active in politics in some way or another, in campaigning. So it was great. It was great to meet everyone and all I wanted was to just not be the first person to get kicked off.

Sue Revell
That must be such...  I can't imagine how that would feel. Your heart goes out to people in any series you watch, I think, doesn't it?

Natalie Balmain
Yeah, it just happened so quickly and I think because it was the first series as well, none of us knew what to expect, what the challenges were going to be, and so much was done. The thing is, I think what people may not realise when they watch the show is that, especially with the first series, the producers don't know what's going to work and what isn't. So we filmed a huge amount more than actually made the edit, because, of course, you've only got an hour to tell a story and it's very difficult for the people in the edit. But there were whole challenges that we filmed that never made it at all as part of each week. So it was really intense work and I just want to make that point because sometimes I think people can go, oh, well, look, they just were given a very basic, simple task and was it really in depth and everybody really came with great, serious, thoughtful ideas every single week. So that's the first thing. It's really hard when you've done all that work, to kind of see the show come out and they didn't get to...

Sue Revell
See all they showed.

Natalie Balmain
Yeah, you don't get to see everything, but that's just the way it is. They've got an hour to tell a story and it's got to make sense. So, definitely, it was intense, it was challenging. We were away from home for six weeks, living with this group of people that we'd never met before. And ultimately, you're all in competition with each other as well.

Sue Revell
Yeah, you can definitely see that at different times.

Natalie Balmain
Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.

Sue Revell
People weren't afraid to compete, were they?

Natalie Balmain
We're all human, right? We're all human. And, you know, if you get put into a competitive environment and you're put against somebody, at some point you've got to kind of fight your corner, haven't you? You've got to do what you need to do to get through to the next stage. And it definitely got hard. But I can say, with all honesty, I came out of it with... I love every single one of the other candidates there. I'm still in touch with them. They're all brilliant people and I think that's my favourite thing about the show, just getting to make some amazing friends. Not least my deputy, Adam, from the final, who was just great. But, yeah, it was definitely not something I expected to do, but I did it because I'm that person. I'm that person that the family goes, oh, you should get into politics, you should stand up and say something... all of my friends at university and things. And I guess I wanted to prove to myself, as much as to anybody else, that someone normal like me from Manchester who didn't go to Eton and doesn't... I worked for the NHS my whole life. I guess I'm a working class girl. So there is a place for people like us in politics. Absolutely. We need it. And I wanted to prove that we could do it. 

Sue Revell
It's never been more needed than today.

Natalie Balmain
Well, I like to say, Sue, that we've got people in government right now who have probably never even cleaned their own bedrooms ever in their lives. And that's a very dangerous mindset to have in people who run a country. Because if you've never in your life had to clean up your own room, that means that you believe that there are people on this earth who are here just to clean up. And that is not a healthy way to think. How can you run a country? How can you understand the lives of people whose lives you change when you don't know what their life is at all? It's really tough. So that's the reason I did the show and gosh, I am glad I did.

Sue Revell
So let's just dig into that a little bit. I think I'm right in saying you took the first opportunity to be Prime Minister?

Natalie Balmain
I did.

Sue Revell
So I was wondering, I suppose, as I was thinking about questions, having taken the first opportunity on that first task, what changed for you between that episode and your final campaign?

Natalie Balmain
Gosh, I think when I first came in, nobody wants to put themselves up to be Prime Minister in the first episode because you just don't know what you're going to get. But when I heard that the challenge was education, that was the really personal one for me. That was the one that had affected my life. Because I left school with reasonable qualifications but absolutely no confidence. I had no idea what value I could add to society, what I was good at, where I could shine. I didn't have a clue. And I didn't really start to learn those things about myself until my late twenties. And I thought, my gosh, how much further could I have been in my career if I'd known this at 18? How much more could I have contributed to community if I'd known what I was capable of ten years earlier? That was my angle with the education policy. I wanted to come in and shake it up. I wanted kids to leave school with more confidence. So that's why I put myself forward and I think it was a risk. But I think that my personal passion for that topic was what helped me win that week. And it's a great feeling, but it doesn't last long, because straight away you're into the next episode. And of course, I think when you come in very strong, unfortunately the only way is down.

Sue Revell
You've really got a long way to fall, haven't you?

Natalie Balmain
Yeah. And I realised very quickly as I went through the other weeks, when you're the team leader, great, you're the team leader, you can have a final day. And this, that and the other. How do you, and this applies to politicians in parties today, how do you move forward as a team when you don't agree with your leader? And that was what was really tricky in the weeks that followed. And it did start to affect my confidence. I actually think my worst episode was the semifinal. The fact that I made it into the final absolutely blew my mind, because I was really aware that I'd lost myself.  I'd had the critique every single week from Alastair and Sayeeda. And their critique was, as a leader, you are a powerhouse. Are you a team player? That was their critique of me. And that really hurt me because I felt like I'd gone into this to be a voice for people, to be that team player. So when they asked me, was I a team player, when I was struggling with my leaders in the other weeks, I took that very, very much to heart. And in the semifinal, I kind of sat back and I didn't speak up and say what I thought, because I just went, no respect my leader, be the team player. And of course, that was the week where they went, you should have said more. Why did you just melt into the background? I do remember that there was a huge learning curve. I feel like I came out of that show a completely different person. Not in terms of my morals, my morals were the same, but in terms of my appreciation for the sphere and some of the difficulties of being in politics that I hadn't considered before going on.

Sue Revell
So there were some new insights there.

Natalie Balmain
New insights, and I definitely went on a journey of growth. I took the criticism to heart and I wanted to be better. And Alastair said that. He said to me at the end, everybody else, we gave them advice and we kind of had to say it two or three times because they didn't listen. He said, you listened too much, you took it to heart too much. I think we went too far with you. So that was a learning experience in and of itself, was like, how do you listen and accept critique without letting it completely destroy you and make you freeze in your tracks and stop you from achieving your goal?

That's true for all of us, isn't it? And I think that's a really underlying thread in my whole reason for going on the show. It was the confidence.

Sue Revell
But to have the wisdom and insight, to accept that feedback, to play with, you could argue that playing with something different in something as important as the semifinal, to demonstrate, no matter how hard it was, that you'd heard and were prepared to change not who you are, but what you did. I suspect the thing that did propel you into the final, because, yes, they were going to challenge where you were, but I think being able to demonstrate that even when it really matters, you're still prepared to take that on board.

Natalie Balmain
Oh, yeah, that was a risk.

Sue Revell
That's a really risky strategy.

Natalie Balmain
I can't remember how much of this they showed. You might have to remind me, but I think what you saw in the other team's room was that they were all fighting to be Prime Minister in that semifinal, because, if you remember, the winning Prime Minister was going to go straight through to the final.

Sue Revell
That's right.

Natalie Balmain
Whereas in our room, Rico said, I want to be Prime Minister, and all I had in my head was, they want to see me take a step back and not be the leader. So I said to Rico, you be Prime Minister because I want to be your support. And obviously for me, that meant I could have been out of the game.

Sue Revell
It would be so easy to dig into this, and I don't want to. I feel if I do that, you might lose some of your reference experience for later questions. So I'm just going to ask you one more about the show and then we can come back in and out of this with the questions we'll go on to. I suppose the third question I wanted to ask was, you clearly met some really influential people during filming, whether that was some of the community members, there were members of the media who I know gave you quite a grilling. There were other politicians, some of whom I really respect and admire. I wondered who had the most impact on you and why.

Natalie Balmain
I have to say it was the glorious Tim Shipman.

Natalie Balmain
It really was Tim Shipman. He had such a massive impact on me in the show and I was quite sad that not everyone got to see why. But obviously, as you know, Tim was one of the journalists who attended my media launch in episode one when I was Prime Minister. And my mistake that day was letting them back me into a corner. Never let the press back you into a corner of something, or make you say something that you weren't planning on saying, because they'll take it out of context and make a headline. And, of course, they backed me into this corner saying, well, perhaps you could find some time instead of French or Latin. And the headline the next day was, PM wants to remove languages from school. So they had their fun with me in episode one.

Now, it was actually Tim again who ended up being my journalist in the final when I was doing my big idea. And he came to my media launch, and what you didn't see was that Tim walked straight up to me and said, hello, Prime Minister, I thought I'd see you again, which is basically saying that he knew I was going to stay in the competition and that, for me, it gave me goosebumps. And I did this off the cuff speech at my media launch. It wasn't prepared. I was just talking to the public and he actually wrote a lovely piece in the Sunday Times Magazine about it, and he wasn't allowed to say it was me because the show hadn't finished airing, so of course he couldn't give away what had happened. But he wrote this lovely paragraph that said, one of the candidates walked straight up to me, stuck out of hand, and said, Hi Tim, how nice to see you, with all the polished poise of a professional politician, and then gave an off the cuff speech better than most I will hear at the party conferences this year. To have that feedback from somebody as prolific as Tim Shipman. That's going to be one of the things I think about my deathbed. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life to think that he really believed that I could add value in Westminster.

Sue Revell
And when you think back to that party conference, he was absolutely right!

Natalie Balmain
I'm not going to go there, we won't go there.

Sue Revell
But I just can't not make that point!  Right, that's a really good point, I think, so you've given us some clues, certainly, of things that you are really interested in and passionate about. So if I ask you what your mission is and how you would describe it in two or three sentences, what would you say?

Natalie Balmain
I suppose if I could describe it as plainly as possible... I'm that kid who never gave up on the idea of a fair, perfect world. And I believe that all the constructs and systems in the world that currently enable unfairness, inequality, corruption, they're man made constructs. And as I say, things that are man made can be man changed. And it's a very complicated subject. But ultimately, we've reached a point of capitalism now that I call cynical capitalism, which is that if individuals, corporations become so big and so powerful that even governments can't hold them to account, then we don't have democracy. If people with bigger pockets can influence policy more than the rest of us, that's not democracy. So what I'm fighting for is quite an old fashioned saying. I consider myself a freedom fighter, I consider myself somebody who's fighting for democracy. And it's the constructs in the world that simply need to be changed to enable that. And it seems like a big thing, but I think it's simpler than people think.

Sue Revell
Where did it all begin for you, Natalie?

Natalie Balmain
I think for me, I grew up with a very strong sense of social justice. I lost my mum to cancer when I was five and I struggled, I struggled a lot. I also struggled with bullying. And I am of mixed racial heritage and I was born in the growing up mixed race. It's still difficult today, but it was very difficult then. I had very early experience of misogyny, racism, cultural stereotypes, and I didn't then have my mother to come home to and to talk about it. So I called myself an old child. I was a very old child because I went home and I thought and I thought about the world and why people feared other people, because that's what it's all rooted in, isn't it? Misunderstanding, misogyny, racism. It's rooted in fear. People fear what they don't understand. So I thought about why, when this was such an obvious thing, why don't we understand each other? And I realised more as I got older, that for better or worse and then I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but we have allowed systems and processes have allowed for corruption in our society, whether that's economic corruption, political corruption, things like that, and culture wars, identity wars. They're a tool for these people to be able to deliver their corrupt processes. Of course we were going to reach this stage. Capitalism is something that is still an infant in many ways. It is a system that we are growing and learning and as it grows, people are able to create policies and systems that backhanders and offshore trusts we don't need to dig into, but we know this happens. But what we don't talk about so much is how this behaviour impacts society. And that's the bit that I was very aware of. And it comes back to the identity wars and the politics. And again, if you can keep people on teams and believing this is the way to fix the economy and this isn't, this is going to make your life better, or this isn't. One outcome of that is you might win your campaign and get into office and create whatever policies you want. But the side effect is you create camps in society. You create division, you create mistrust, you create hatred. You create a belief that immigrants are the reason that our economy is in a mess. And it's absolute nonsense. And that's the issue for me. I'm not actually bothered about being ridiculously rich. I'm not trying to redistribute wealth because I want a Bugatti. I actually really don't care. I'm very happy with my life the way that it is and I think that that's why I can come for this subject, because I can come from it from a route... I'm not going to get to a point where I say, oh, well, I can't beat you, I'll join you. No, you're not going to catch me doing that. What you're going to catch me doing is talking about this and talking about this until I'm dead. I'm fully aware that I might never see the outcomes of this work. I might never see the benefits of the things that I'm campaigning for. But I can sure enough die happy if I know that I said it and I set it up for the people that came after me. Because the bottom line is, I don't ever want people to have to go through the things I went through and feel the things I felt.

Sue Revell
So what does that mean on a day to day basis for you? What do you get involved in?

Natalie Balmain
So on a day to day basis, gosh, it means I do a lot of things like this. I still do bits of broadcasting, so I've been asked to go on Question Time, which is really nice, do some things like that.

Sue Revell
I'll be waving that night.

Natalie Balmain
I do a lot of stuff locally in my area, so I live in Manchester, which is a Labour stronghold. I'm quite active locally. I'm not active at a national level because of the nature of the things that I'm campaigning for. And I really feel that for me, it's about getting to people first. I don't want to try and get into Westminster first and try and sit there and argue with other MPs who might have a vested interest in getting me tussled out of Westminster. I'm not going to go and have a fight with you about that.

But I tell you what I am going to do. I'm going to go and speak to people every day, and I harp on and on about this, until the whole of the country knows what I'm saying.  Because then, when you've got that level of people behind you, I don't need to go in and jostle in Westminster. I used this example in the final debate, which is that when people understood and really got behind the climate change agenda, look at this difference we saw in companies. Companies were suddenly falling over themselves to change their systems and processes to meet the green agenda. Why? Because it was good marketing. Because ultimately they still rely on their customers and they knew their customers wanted to be green, so to keep going, they had to be green. Imagine if we could do that with the fiscal agenda. Imagine if we could get enough people behind this so that companies were falling over themselves to be transparent in their accounts.

Sue Revell
Yeah.

Natalie Balmain
And so that's the angle I'm taking. I believe in people more than I believe in MPs, and I think that if I got enough people behind this, and I talk about this in enough places, in a simple enough way that people can get behind it, then, yeah, it's happening.

Sue Revell
And do you think that groundswell is beginning?

Natalie Balmain
I do think it's beginning based on the amount, more TikToks that I'm seeing from young people on this very subject, more young people wanting to do TikToks about economics, which is just fantastic.

Sue Revell
That is really good.

Natalie Balmain
I see this hashtag or this phrase a lot on social media amongst young people, but 'end stage capitalism' is a phrase I keep hearing and they're all talking about the same subject. It was only when I discovered an American guy, his name is Michael Mez and he does some TikToks on economics. And I was really impressed listening to him. He doesn't get quite the kind of views that some of these dance challenge TikToks get. But no, he's making an impact. And that's what we need people to do. We need people to hear it and then talk about it.

Sue Revell

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Sue Revell
What would you say had to happen for your mission to begin?

Natalie Balmain
For me to ramp up my mission to where it is now, because I'd always been doing it on a very grassroots level, I had to really have some self belief; that was the thing that was missing. I believed in everybody else. I believed in the cause. But the bit that I hadn't unpicked, until last year when I did the show, was belief in myself and my ability to do this. And I've got to credit the show with that.

Sue Revell
Wow, what a wonderful outcome.

Natalie Balmain
Like I said, I went into it really just not wanting to be the first to be kicked off! And that was a real thing. Every week I was... I think I was very annoying to the producers because they always wanted to get these cutaways of us saying mean things about the others. So they would ask us, who do you think was the worst this week? And every single week I said, me. I was the worst this week. I was terrible. And this is why. And it got to the point where... I think it was the semifinals. One of the producers behind the camera said to me, so who do you think was the worst this week? Don't say yourself! I didn't for a second think I would win the show, not in a million years. I would just have been honoured to have lost to any of the other two in the final because they were so wonderful. So, I was being very honest in episode one when I talked about my lack of confidence. That was real and that was sometinig that I wanted to change for the people. And I hoped that if I did ok in the show, not only would it give me the confidence, but it might give other people out there, who saw themselves in me, that same confidence. And it did.

Sue Revell
So I'm really curious then, and please reserve the right not to answer this, but certainly from our conversation before we hit record, I would have described you as a confident, quite self validated person. So has there been a shift further since the show? Because if that was about external validation, has something else happened this year that has enabled you to, I guess, move the dial, back more to that real self, that personal sense of who you are?

Natalie Balmain
It's really interesting that you said that. Yes, there was something else that happened this year, and it was as a result, actually, of doing the show, because there was a moment during the final where Baroness Sayeeda Varsi asked me... she looked at me, she said, you're eloquent, you're intelligent, you're well presented. Why does everybody here see potential in you except for you? And I had to address some things that had happened in my childhood that I'd probably just tried to bury. And I had to step up and tell some people who were still in my life today that, actually, they let me down when I was a child.

Sue Revell
That's a big step.

Natalie Balmain
Yeah, that was very hard. That was very hard because I think especially when you've lost a parent, anybody else who might have been in your life, even if they under-delivered, you cling on to them because they were there. And you go, well, you were there for me. But actually, at some point, you have to go, you were still the child in that situation, and they were the adult. And some of those things that you're just going, oh, well, everybody did their best. You probably need to have a conversation about that and say, actually, that hurt me, and that affected me in these ways. And the way that it affected me was just that I didn't particularly care about myself. And I kept going because I cared about everyone else. I cared about the cause, I cared about making things better for other people. But with regards to me, if I lived or died, I wasn't bothered. I had to address that. I had to speak up and say, finally, 30 years later, that wasn't cool.

Sue Revell
That's a huge step. I was just going to say, I lost a parent in childhood too. Older than you, but in childhood, and from the bottom of my heart, I know how that feels, to a degree. I can't know how it felt for you, but I really recognise that feeling of everybody trying to do their best, and I'm sure at some level they did, but being able to own the conversation and stand up and deliver the message for you is still, when you've carried it for that long, that's a big ask.

Natalie Balmain
And I'm sure you probably recognise all of those other symptoms that came along with it... being an unhealthy people pleaser, focusing your attention on other people because that's easier than focusing it on yourself. There's a lot of things that I felt... My life could have struggled less if some people had just...  and I think that the difficult thing for me as well was that I'd kind of told myself that these people weren't aware. They just weren't aware. And then you get to be an adult and you go, Actually, they were aware and they turned a blind eye. And that's difficult.

Sue Revell
For me, I'll be honest, it was only a few years ago when somebody said to me, you were actually a young carer then. For me, it was just... that's what I did. It was normal. I had a younger brother, there weren't any options. How can I be 40 years older, more than that, and never have realised that? That wasn't a label that existed.  I don't really do labels. Maybe that's part of my journey. I don't really do labels or like labels, so I probably resist them at all costs most of the time. And there's one that I would never have chosen to own. But as soon as that was pointed out to me, so many things made sense; some of which I chose to adopt, and some for a whole range of reasons I chose not to. But it was still my choice and I'm still in control of those choices. And you're right, that would shift the dial enormously in terms of that sense of self validation and knowing who you are and being prepared to own that and live to it.

Natalie Balmain
Yeah, absolutely.

Sue Revell
I'm really glad I asked the question, because there was just this sense of something else here, that we've heard yet.

Natalie Balmain
It's a shame that people aren't going to see our faces on this, because I think I smiled when you were asking the question. That's incredibly perceptive to have just realised that there was something else, because there were two big things that happened to me last year... there was the show and there was that. And that happened as a result of the confidence that I gained from doing the show. So neither could have existed without the other, but both were very separate in their own way as well. And the fact that you understood it wasn't just the show, though, was it?

Sue Revell
I just had this sense that the dial was in a different place to what I was hearing. And I think that's really important. If I think of the women that I work with, one of the most consistent things that we address is this spectrum between external validation and internal and where it is, and that too is in our control to change. We might be more comfortable in one than the other, but it's still up to us where we choose to live out our life. And yes, it might be different in different contexts, but even so, it's still our choice where we choose to position ourselves. And I just know the power that comes with being able to move the dial closer to self validation than external. I'm not saying it doesn't have its value. I'm not saying that it's not powerful. I'm not saying it doesn't create enormous shift as it did for you in that moment. But my word, the power of what came after it is so much more impactful for you and for those who will meet you, as I've already discovered this morning.

Natalie Balmain
Yeah.

Sue Revell
So let's go back to your mission. Your vision is big. It's deeply personal. What areas of personal resistance would you say that you've experienced and how have you overcome them? It might be straightforward, you might acknowledge it as resistance, you might see it as fear or anxiety, or you might experience it in different ways. So how would you describe it for you?

Natalie Balmain
I think sometimes you do just get that kind of, I've been banging my head against a brick wall for so long now, that you just kind of feel the weight of the job in front of you. And sometimes that can be overwhelming. And I know sometimes I need a day or two to just switch off and decompress and not let myself feel like I'm walking up the endless impossible hill. Then I have other days where I meet somebody and just their response, their reaction, and you know that you've switched a light bulb on and somebody's going to carry that energy forward, then you kind of go, this is why I'm doing it. Because even if I change one little area for somebody, that's going to snowball and hopefully they're going to go out and, I always take it back to this, it's a collective energy. That's what I'm trying to spread. And I think that the biggest challenge for me is I just can't deplete all my own energy... and trying to put that collective energy out. And I kind of go in sixth gear until I kind of burn out for a little bit, and then I have a couple of days, and then I do it all over again. I don't think I'll ever change. I'm fully aware that that's just how I work. And I'll just keep doing it. I would love... this is my dream... if I could get a show like one of these ones that they do in America, the Late Late Show with James Cordon or one of those, but have a show that is really genuinely unbiased, informative, broad, like exciting and entertaining, but actually giving something to people too. Because at the end of the day, I love to see a great interview. It's just I'm not particularly bothered about what colour the Kardashian's hair is. I just don't care.

Sue Revell
I was very surprised when we went to the Late Late Show there!

Natalie Balmain
Well, yeah, but I think that this is the kind of the two ends of the spectrum, and there's a happy medium somewhere, somewhere where you have that kind of show. But let's have Jane Elliott on, let's have my friend off Twitter, the guy who's talking about the....  Because these are the people who have got passion for something. They've got a passion for something. And that's what I want to hear. I want to hear somebody come on and say, this is the data I've collected. This is the research. I followed a guy on Twitter recently who's doing data on just ages of voters in the UK and US. That's what he's interested in. And he put out this graph and his graph was mind blowing because he kind of went... all of the other generations, boomers, X, whatever. As they got older, they got more conservative. This is the data, these are their views. He said, unfortunately, conservatives seem to have a millennials problem, because millennials are just, they're just staying socialists. Like, they're just not becoming conservative as they get older. And, like, let's dig into this. Let's think about all the reasons why that could be.

Sue Revell
Now, that's a whole different podcast!

Natalie Balmain
Right?! Those are the kind of people that I want to talk to. Those are the kind of people I want to hear on a show. Yeah, you can have a couple of music acts, too. I'd love to have somebody... I'm friends with UB 40, I love those guys.

They started out as politically charged. UB40 was the code on the dole form, the benefits form. I really believe that music has the power to change the world. Art has the power to change the world. So why are we having entertainment shows that look at shallow entertainment? We could be looking at music and art and stuff, but it also has a depth to it. It also has a meaning to it. I want to do a show like that. So if anybody out there is watching this and wants to produce that show for me and let me do it, I promise you, like, I can find some amazing people to talk to, so.

Sue Revell
How could you make a start on it? Sorry, I can't resist asking you a coaching question, I just can't.

Natalie Balmain
I'm that cheeky person who asks everyoe! Some of my friends say how do you know all of these people? I know quite a lot of successful, well known people and it's because I'm that cheeky person who goes and says, by the way, this is what I'm trying to do, and do you want to get involved? And I've spoken some amazing, very well known American musicians who are doing their thing. I had a catch up with Judge Judy last year because of what I've been up to, just because I hustled my way in there. I just keep hoping if...

Sue Revell
This is your time to keep knocking on doors isn't it.

Natalie Balmain
If I just talk to enough people, then somebody out there has got to go you know what, actually, let's take a punt on that. Because if someone's prepared to take a punt on Love Island, I don't see why they won't take a punt on this.

Sue Revell
Now, there's something we're not getting into, definitely, because I've never watched a single moment of it.

Natalie Balmain
I haven't either, but I was just a bit annoyed that they got something like five times as many viewers as Make Me Prime Minister me, and I thought, you know what? Anyone who watches Love Island, you have no right to complain about the state of the world today, because you had an opportunity and you didn't take it.

Sue Revell
Not sure I'll have many listeners that are Love Island fans, but if I've misread my audience, do drop me a note and let me know!

Natalie Balmain
There could be very complex characters out there who are both campaigners and Love Island fans, you just don't know.

Sue Revell
There's no judgement here!

Natalie Balmain
No judgement, guys.

Sue Revell
From my awareness of who's out there, I don't have too many friends who do. As you look back, so we've done a lot of thinking about what's happened most recently, as you look back at how far you've come, what would you say is the biggest difference now in how you show up in the world?

Natalie Balmain
Honestly, I think I have learned to temper the passion and that sounds really bad. That sounds like, oh, you're trying to be less passionate about something, and that is absolutely not the case. But what I've become very aware of as I've got older and as I've reached bigger audiences, is that I also have a responsibility. Even though I'm passionate about things, and I want to say this is how we need to do it, I need to remember that every audience has their way of feeling when you speak to them as well. And sometimes people have been intimidated by my passion or people have gone, oh, that's too much. So I think my self awareness definitely has increased and my desire to understand that when you broadcast a message, it's not just broadcast; there's a message and it will sit with everybody. It was just about understanding that everybody has a way of getting to their conclusion. And I had to be respectful of that, I think. The way that I'm trying to approach this is I'm just trying to be respectful of your experiences, and I want to talk about this in a way that,... okay, you might not relate to everything that I'm saying, but you can kind of you can understand it, because I'm not denigrating anybody,  I'm not trying to say, oh, it's because of X. Like, because I know, for example, a really great example of this is that my dad is my white parent and he has some conservative views. And I guess that was where I learned even people that I love can have very different views on these issues than me. And how do I say what I need to say without offending them or making them feel like I'm pointing the finger at them in any way and understanding the reasons why some people had political views that were different to mine. I know my dad's not a racist, so I can't be one of these people that goes all conservatives are fascists. Well, no, my dad's got a mixed... he chose an Indian wife, like he's got mixed race children. So, yeah, there was definitely an understanding of, okay, you stand on what might at the moment be described as a different team, but I'm coming back to this... I'm trying to find common ground with all of you. And to do that, I have to understand where you're coming from as much as where I'm coming from.

Sue Revell
Yeah, I do think if you'd approach some of the big political topics of the last decade with the same approach as you would approach any major complex change management programme, we would never be in this position because your key message would always be start where the people are, in your communications. And if there had been a better understanding, or even a desire to understand actually, let's be honest, had there been a desire to understand and a better understanding of how you create change in a way that takes everyone with you, even if it's slower, you'd never start from that position. And I don't believe we'd have ended up here where everything is continually so polarised.

Natalie Balmain
Absolutely.

Sue Revell
There are big lessons that big organisations, and small organisations, have learned a very painful way, and if only that learning had been applied, maybe we'd be in a slightly different position... or so I like to think!

Natalie Balmain
It's so interesting that you put it like that, because that's exactly how I think of it. I often compare the country to just an organisation. I worked in the NHS for a long time. We were in a huge period of transformation where PCTs became CCGs and all of that. It was huge. And it's such a diverse organisation, it's such a wide ranging organisation in terms of the background of everybody who's contributing to it, and it is a team effort. Without any one part of that machine, it all falls apart. So, that's how I look at the country. It was fascinating to me, this idea of the clapping for people who work in hospitals and the key workers and stuff like that, because I was Chief Operating Officer of a hospital at that time. And to me, my most important staff that I was trying to look after were my housekeeping staff, because we had a site that had to be COVID free because of the nature of the surgeries that were taking place, transplants and things like that. So, to me, my most important staff were my housekeeping staff. But then, very quickly after the pandemic was done, you got back to people, like.... I have a friend, my best friend is a cleaner. She doesn't want to call herself a cleaner because people have given it this negative tone, like, oh, it's something beneath most people. And she feels ashamed to call herself that. And I'm like, without people like cleaners people would have died. They were the most important, crucial thing to stop people getting COVID. And then we've already gone back to treating them like they're a less important part of the team. And that upsets me no end. Equally as important as the doctor, equally as important as the nurse, equally as important as the operations people, the pharmacists, the receptionists, everyone.

Sue Revell
Yeah, it's a team game. Yeah, it absolutely is. It's a team game. We'd better not go down the NHS route either, or we will be here all day!

Natalie Balmain
We're not going to go down there but at the end of the day, I believe in the ethos of the NHS, I believe in the people on the ground floor of the NHS. We need to just get back to that, the ethos and the people.

Sue Revell
Yeah, that's where I cut my change management teeth as well. I'm 100% with you, there is no doubt in my mind about that.

Natalie Balmain
We really threw ourselves in the deep end doing that, didn't we?

Sue Revell
Yeah, we did throw ourselves in the deep end, but what an incredible place to learn about people and human behaviour and how to make a difference. I think it's an incredibly influential career in which to learn how to work with people and how to be the team player, and the team leader.

Sue Revell
Who are you now in your mission and who are you becoming?

Natalie Balmain
Now in my mission? I think I am at the more centred stage of my mission. I would have always described myself, or likened myself to a bit of a Malcom X in my mission before and I think I'm graduating into Dr. King in that I'm 36 now, so of course, you know, my teenage and my twenties I was angry. I was angry at things that had happened and now I've taken that anger but I've done my research now - it's my mastermind subject. I sit with it very comfortably. So it's not anger anymore. Now it's knowledge. Now it's okay. When people try to antagonise me with things, it doesn't rile me anymore. I can give a very diplomatic, educated, factual answer and leave it at that. And God, I think my family are glad I have reached this point.

Sue Revell
The wise stage of 36.

Natalie Balmain
Yeah. Bit more of the oracle stage.  I think my family worry about me less now that I'm not going to go and get myself knocked out because I would be that idiot that would run into the EDL March, just run into them. No consideration for my own safety.

Sue Revell
It's good to reach a more considered stage, I think, isn't it?

Natalie Balmain
Yeah, yeah. It's nice because it actually comes with less anxiety this stage as well. I think when you're fighting, you are constantly in that fight or flight. And I was at the crest of the anxiety wave for most of my twenties and my early thirties. So sitting now with my knowledge and I did a huge amount of reading over the last few years. And a book I will recommend to anybody if you've not read it, it's called The Courage to be Disliked.

Sue Revell
Who's that by?

Natalie Balmain
I can't remember the name because it's two Japanese authors. It's written by two guys, but it's basically written as a dialogue between a philosopher and a young student and it's philosophy grounded in the psychology of Alfred Adler. And we won't go into all of that, but it's a wonderful book and it certainly helped me to have this more balanced approach to how I dealt with things. Because it fundamentally taught us that although we think many of our emotions are a reaction, they're actually a tool that we use unconsciously rather than a natural reaction. And once I wrapped my head around that, which is a big concept, then I started to sit in this knowledge that, yes, I have to accept, I might not see the benefits of the things I campaign for. Yes, these are things that are anger inducing, but anger is not the way to deal with them. When I started to accept those sorts of things, then I think I reached this stage of my mission and I feel very comfortable in it.

Sue Revell
Yeah. I don't think it means we fight any less. I think we just fight differently.

Natalie Balmain
Absolutely.

Sue Revell
We learn there's a more strategic way in which to be heard and to create an impact.

Natalie Balmain
Absolutely.

Sue Revell
That's really important. And so that may be the answer to this question too, but I'll ask it anyway in case we get something different. We often talk about things that we would do differently, but what one thing would you be differently if you were starting again?

Natalie Balmain
I was going to say that I would be a little bit more assured in my mum's love. And what I meant by that was in knowing that no matter the fact that she wasn't here, that she loved me. And I'm not saying that I didn't know that, I've always known that but I was going to say I wanted to sit in it more and feel it more, but actually I'm not going to say that because although a lot of my life was painful, all of it made me who I am today. So I'm not going to say that I would sit in it more or feel it more. I wouldn't change a thing.

Sue Revell
Yeah, so often women say that. There's a moment of it's this and then.... It's almost a really lovely question to ask when you see somebody settle into the different realisation that you couldn't be who you are today. Some people have a very different, very deliberate distinction that they want to make. But I've noticed for a lot of women it's, you know what? No matter how much I almost want to feel I need to give you an answer, the answer is I wouldn't change it, no matter how hard it's been. And I really understand that.

Sue Revell
Let's look outwards before we finish. Who has inspired you in your mission and why?

Natalie Balmain
Gosh, I mean, I'm always inspired by the human rights people. As a child growing up, it was Shami Chakrabarti and I said that at the start of Channel Four, when they were asking me who inspired me politically. And I said politically, not many. Human rights activists, plenty. Even the gorgeous Amal Clooney. Look at her, showing people how you can be fabulous and still be a smart cookie, tough cookie at the same time. So definitely people like that. But more recently, and people are going to laugh when I say this, because if you remember on the show, I did shout off the top of a double decker bus, I'm not a Tory. But more recently it was Sayeeda. And I think I did actually say to her, I said, you know what, if all Tories were like you, I might consider it because she is such a kind, warm, lovely, morally decent, giving person. She was absolutely on the right side. I'm not even entirely sure why she is conservative, but I think she probably buys into the older... when conservatives were conservative, not fascists. I think that was what she bought into. But she is just an absolute powerhouse of a woman and so non judgmental and so inspiring and yeah, when the things happened post-show in my personal life that I had to deal with, it was Sayeeda that I phoned. And I poured my heart out to her on the phone and she said to me, I knew. She carries a notebook with her everywhere. She makes notes about absolutely everything. And there was one moment where she had met some of my family and whatever, and she said, I'd just put a question mark in my notebook. I've got such a special place in my heart for Sayeeda. I think she's such a wonderful person.

Sue Revell
What a wonderful relationship to have developed. That's definitely a wonderful consequence of being brave enough to do something different, isn't it?

Sue Revell
I always like to ask my guests to leave us the name for the guest list. So who could you introduce to the show and what one question would you leave for them?

Natalie Balmain
Who would I introduce to the show and what question would I leave for them? That is really interesting because I know so many incredible, inspiring women.

Sue Revell
That's why I ask it.

Natalie Balmain
You know what? This is a really great question and I want to give it to the right person. So there is a woman and I'll have to see if I could introduce her to you, because I actually only know her on social media. Her name is Anj Handa and she is just.....I can't think of a better way of describing it, but...

Sue Revell
She's in Leeds, I think, isn't she? We have a lot of mutual friends.

Natalie Balmain
She is just a woman on a mission. When I think of a woman on a mission, I think of Anj and she is the type of person who is, she's so warm. Her warmth when you first get speaking to her is unbelievable. She's definitely like, she's like queen of the sisterhood. She's so intelligent, she's so well put together. And I think if I could ask Anj one question, I would ask her I would ask her what was the moment for her as a woman of colour, where she developed her confidence to stand up and say what she needed to say. Because I think, especially for all women, we have a moment where we have to find our confidence. But for her, especially as a woman of colour, and just to go out and stand for some of the things that she talks about, I'd be really interested to know if there was a defining moment, because I feel like there was for her. I feel like there was a defining moment.

Sue Revell
That's a great suggestion. We are connected by so many... I have really good friends who are really good friends of Anj, but we have never met.

Natalie Balmain
Do you know what? She's on my social media. I'm going to link you guys and just say

Sue Revell
You might even find we're already linked, but do reinforce that because that would be great.

Natalie Balmain
I definitely will, because I would be really interested to hear you talk to Anj because I think she's fabulous.

Sue Revelli
I will do that later in the year. That's a really, really good suggestion. Fantastic. And a great question, too.

Sue Revell
Final question for you, Natalie. How do people get hold of you?

Natalie Balmain
So you can find me on Twitter at @realmissbalmain. You can find me on instagram as @MissBalmain. My YouTube at the moment, I just have a diabetes YouTube. If people are interested in subscribing to that, it's Type One TV. And if you wanted to drop me an email, honestly, I'm always up for hearing from people if they're interested in getting involved in campaigns or just want to know what they can do to spread the good word...

Sue Revell
Or if they just want to launch a show in America.

Natalie Balmain
Or if they just want to launch a show with me in America. They want to produce a show with me. Absolutely. They can contact me at alternativeprimeminister@gmail.com.

Sue Revell
Fantastic. I'll make sure all of those contact details are on Natalie's guest page in the Show Notes so people can make sure they access you from there. Natalie, thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

Natalie Balmain
Thank you.

Sue Revell
We've gone to areas I never dreamed, probably, that we would cover. You have been incredibly and deeply personal and honest in your responses, quite unlike any potential politician I've ever met! That tells us a lot about you, but I'm really grateful to you that I don't take that lightly. But thank you for sharing such a deep and important part of who you are, because there's absolutely no doubt to me that that very much informs the person that you are becoming in your mission.

Natalie Balmain
Thank you, Sue, and thank you for inviting me on, for asking me such amazing questions and just for being so easy to talk to. That obviously it makes a big difference. And I'm really pleased that I was right in looking forward to this conversation.

Sue Revell
Me, too, it has been wonderful.

Sue Revell
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation. I was quite moved by Natalie's passion and emotion and her willingness to be so deeply personal in sharing her story. I hadn't anticipated we would have those life experiences in common. And there was a lovely personal connection as we spoke, which I hope came across as you listened. We'll be looking at what I noticed as I listened in next week's Insights episode, and I do hope that you'll come back and join me. Before we sign off, a quick reminder of those free coaching sessions that are available for you this season. Do remember to head to the Apple or Goodpods platform and tell us what spoke to you this week. All the details of the giveaway are in this week's Show Notes. As ever, thank you for sharing this incredible podcasting journey with me. I really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week, my friend.