Breaking barriers: on leadership, resilience, and diversity

Peter Jackson (00:03): Have you ever woken up in the early hours and thought, “What am I going to do about this? How am I going to solve this problem?” Well, you’ve had a 3:00 AM conversation. I’m Peter Jackson and as the former CEO of international law firm Hill Dickinson, I’ve been there too. Now this is the podcast that examines those moments in the cold light of day. And I think that’s useful because once you realise that we all go through this from time to time, it can really help you put things back into perspective. In this podcast, you will hear from high achievers who’ll talk through their own 3:00 AM conversations and how they got through them. In this episode, you’re going to hear from Stacey Copeland. Stacey made history as the first ever British female boxer to win a Commonwealth title and before that she was a keen footballer representing England under-18 level. She’s had to battle against gender stereotyping throughout her career, and which is why she set up the Pave the Way charity, which is all about breaking down barriers for people in all areas of life.

(01:10): Stacey’s also a broadcaster and public speaker, so she’s had to reinvent herself a number of times throughout her career. And perhaps it’s not surprising then that despite her success, she’s definitely had a few 3:00 AM conversations herself.

Stacey Copeland (01:24): I’d wake up in the night and think, “Did that happen?” And it would, and I’d go through it all again. It was mad like how it impacted me.

Peter Jackson (01:32): More from Stacey coming up. But first, let’s hear from my co-host for this episode, Debra Cooper. Debra is a partner in Hill Dickinson’s banking team based in Manchester. Debra, good to see you.

Debra Cooper (01:45): Good to see you, Peter. Always.

Peter Jackson (01:48): So what does your day-to-day work look like? What does it entail?

Debra Cooper (01:53): So my day-to-day entails getting stuff done. That is my job. To make clients’ life easier, colleagues’ life easier, solve problems, which everybody always hears from lawyers, but ultimately getting stuff done is my job.

Peter Jackson (02:08): So what attracted you to the business of getting stuff done then?

Debra Cooper (02:12): Well, I actually started off wanting to be a sports psychologist and I started a PhD in sports psychology and in my interviews to go from sports psychologist to trainee lawyer had to explain that pivot. And it’s actually not that difficult a pivot because I spend my life solving problems and working with a wide variety of people and that was what attracted me to sports psychology. But ultimately I wanted a bit more control over my career and the performance of athletes didn’t give me that same level of control. And in terms of getting stuff done, clients come to me and say, “This is where we are. This is where we want to get to. How are we going to do it?” And that’s my job to get them from A to B in a way that they’re happy and that is what I love about the job.

Peter Jackson (03:01): That’s really interesting. So with that sports psychology background, do you recognise that you’ve had 3:00 AM conversations?

Debra Cooper (03:09): Oh, I have many 3:00 AM conversations. Most of my 3:00 AM conversations take place out running, so I’m an ultra runner and I will use a long run to sit and churn through a problem, work out how I’m going to solve it. What the various different solutions are? And then usually by the end of an eight-mile run, I’ve sorted it out and then I can come back and sort it out, but with a clear mind because I’m not doing anything else other than running.

Peter Jackson (03:37): Lovely. So before we hear from Stacey, what are you most looking forward to learning about from her conversation?

Debra Cooper (03:45): I think with Stacey, each of her separate achievements are really impressive, but for me the most impressive is her ability to change, to flex, to pivot, and to take responsibility for the changes that have come along in her life. And instead of playing the victim or blaming any external forces, she’s gone and thought, “Right, nothing changes if nothing changes.” And she’s got on with it and made it happen.

Peter Jackson (04:12): Great stuff. Thanks, Debra and let’s now hear from Stacey. Today’s guest has been breaking down barriers, well, pretty much her entire life. Whether it was getting her hair cut short aged eight, so she could play footy with boys in the playground or whether it was being the first English woman to win a Commonwealth title and find out that there were no belts for women. She hasn’t really taken no for an answer. Since she retired as a boxer, she’s become a presenter, a broadcaster, a public speaker, and has set up her own charity, Pave the Way, which sets to break down gender stereotypes. Stacey, welcome to 3:00 AM Conversations.

Stacey Copeland (04:54): Thank you for having me.

Peter Jackson (04:55): As we were planning what to say today and talk about, it occurred to us that there’s two or three trends or themes that have run through your life really. So one obviously has been equality, but also a great feeling of community spirit and family comes out. And if you can go right back to the beginning on family, you had great inspiration from your dad, your granddad, and your mum, who was an athlete as well, wasn’t she? So talk about that for us, please.

Stacey Copeland (05:21): Yeah, I did. I didn’t have any obvious football influences but boxing absolutely, because my granddad ran our gym and my dad had been a professional boxer. He’d also boxed for England. He’d been a national champion. So I grew up on a solid diet really of Rocky at the weekends when I used to stay with my dad at the weekends, we just pretty much watched Rocky, Bruce Lee and Karate Kid religiously on the weekend.

Peter Jackson (05:42): It wasn’t real by the way. It wasn’t real.

Stacey Copeland (05:43): I thought it was though when I was a kid. We’ve talked about this with the boxer of the week saying in a way it is because for a lot of boxers that is their story, isn’t it? So they took me in the gym from being really little. I loved everything about the sport, so I’m quite lucky in that way that I had good influences.

Peter Jackson (06:00): Well, football was the first sport you really took up. And there again, as I said, you were immediately trying to break down barriers and challenge the status quo. Because of course, they wouldn’t let you play at school, would they with the boys? So how did that go down with you?

Stacey Copeland (06:15): Well, I think when you’re a kid, you’re not aware of the bigger picture, are you? The context of it though, which obviously I later came to understand, was that women’s football had been banned in this country for 50 years and although the ban had been lifted by the time I started playing football and by the time I came along, the FA didn’t officially recognise girls in women’s football until 1993. So when I was at primary school, you weren’t allowed to play with the boys. So really the only reason I went to primary school was to play football, play time, lunchtime, I lived for it and it was just me and all the boys playing football. And when I went to my first after school session, I got picked for the team and during the game, a parent and a coach on the other team recognised I was a girl and shouted across the pitch that I’d have to leave. And obviously I didn’t have the words to articulate that then, but I know I felt humiliated and weird for doing something that I loved.

(07:08): For me, it drove me to go home and say, “Mum, you’re going to have to cut my hair short.” And I was given a boy’s name, had my hair cut so that I could pretend to be a boy and play football and that was it. And that was all right, other than other kids saying, “Why do you want to be a boy?” I didn’t want to be a boy. I just wanted to play football but with it came name-calling like shim and she-male and boy and stuff like that. So that was the downside of it, but I got to do what I loved. And sadly, lots of boys and girls and men and women for that matter, because if you have an experience like that as an adult, that isn’t a good feeling if you’re made to feel like you don’t belong or there’s something wrong, it can stop them pursuing the thing that they love and I think that’s the saddest part and that’s why it’s important to talk about stereotypes. They’re there for a reason because generally speaking for the majority of people will fit a stereotype but not everybody does.

(07:56): And if they don’t then I don’t think we should ridicule them and treat them like a freak. We should encourage them like we would with anybody else and that’s something that I feel compelled to do now to hopefully make things better for the next generation.

Peter Jackson (08:07): You went on to become an international of football, played in an FA Cup Final.

Stacey Copeland (08:13): I loved football and boxing equally. They were like my whole world. And when we got to the age of about 11, me and my little group of mates, we really wanted to be able to box competitively so we went to my grandad and said, “We’re ready to box.” And he said, “Okay, we’ll get you medical done. We’ll get your card.” And then he looked at me and he said, “You can’t box, kid.” And I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “It’s illegal for females in this country.” So that was really the catalyst for me committing myself fully to football but luckily I’d done the sport that I really, really loved. My first Premier League team was Tranmere Rovers and then went to Doncaster Belles. Had a spell at City and so on. And then came the England youth call up and FA Cup Final was the first ever women’s FA Cup Final televised on the BBC and that was a massive experience for us.

(09:03): It really was because we just weren’t used to cameras or anything like that. Even a bigger capacity crowd was about 8,000, which for us was daunting enough but those key moments are important on that journey.

Debra Cooper (09:16): Just on the football before we move on to the boxing, because obviously for your first England call up and when you had to ask for time off work and that didn’t go so well, did it?

Stacey Copeland (09:25): No. So now they get an email and what have you. You used to get a letter back then. Getting that letter with the three lines on and the proper crest was just unbelievable. And I worked in a factory in Stockport at the time and I took my letter to my boss to ask for the time off because there weren’t any holidays sort of left on the rotor or whatever. I sort of said, “Oh, I need a week off.” And he said, “What for?” And I gave him this letter and I sort of stood there, probably floated actually I was so excited and just didn’t speak for ages and I thought, “This isn’t really going how I thought it would.” And then eventually he said, “You want me to give you a week off to play for a women’s football team?” I said, “Well, it’s the England team.” He made all these jokes and comments and some innuendos and I said, “Look, it means a lot to me. Can I just take it unpaid?”

(10:09): To which he agreed and I left the office feeling stupid and it affected me actually during the anthem where I was thinking, “It’s not quite the same that I thought it would be.” Now the important thing about that though is that it maybe can’t change every person like him. Maybe he thinks differently by now, but we can’t change everyone. But what we can do is try and ensure that every person, particularly young people who come out of an interaction like that, can still feel proud of who they are and what they do. I couldn’t purely because I didn’t have much life experience at that point. I was only 16. Plus, I didn’t have any of the narrative. All I’d ever been told was, “You shouldn’t be there. You don’t belong. You’re all rubbish. It’s just a joke.” So I internalised all of that and I didn’t have a little toolkit with which to challenge it, which I then gained over the years.

(10:56): So I think that’s really important to educate young people about the history of whether it’s to do with race or disability or gender, class, whatever it is that impacts them, so that they’re armed with that narrative with which to challenge those narrow or prejudiced views. So like you say they can still feel proud of who they are, not leave an interaction like that feeling ashamed of who they are and feeling small.

Peter Jackson (11:22): There’s that wonderful iconic quote that Gabby Logan did at the end of the 2022 Women’s Euro Championships where she said, and she does her piece to camera and says, “They think it’s all over. It’s only just begun.” You’ve sort of been there for all of that journey. How far have we gone in women’s football, for example, or women’s sport generally?

Stacey Copeland (11:41): I think it’s amazing and I think part of the problem sometimes is that people will only compare women’s sport to men’s, which I understand why, but it’s also quite pointless. If you imagine a 100-metre track, it’s like women are at the start line. Men are already at 60, 70 metres because they’ve had the investment. They don’t face that social stigma. They’ve had the science behind it. So there’s a lot of ground to make up, but I think if you look at women’s sport in the ’60s, let’s say, then it’s unbelievable where we’ve got to. And that was such a massively emotional moment because I was covering it for radio and they’d interviewed the fans and stuff during the game. Every now and then I’d look around and I’d think, “Wow.” I saw men and women of all ages and background, not just supporting them and not saying, “Oh, the women’s team.” They’re saying, “Us, we. All that we’re playing well.” And those are big changes and really it gave people an opportunity that you get with social change.

(12:41): It could take a long time, but it generally tends to go in three stages that the first part of the stage is met with ridicule. That was my era. That was just, “You’re a joke. What are you doing? You’re a freak, duh, duh, duh.” Anyone who tries to change the status quo, that’s what you’re met with. The second stage is discussion where they might say, “I don’t like women’s football, but she’s good and that team’s good.” And it starts that discussion all the way through to acceptance. There were 1,000s of people that literally went from ridicule to discussion to acceptance within the space of a month of that tournament. And by the time it got to the final and then the equaliser, we’re hanging on, then obviously we get the winner. Right at the end, honestly, I was an absolute mess. I was in a right state because it was the euphoria of the moment.

(13:23): But also looking around and thinking, “Wow, from where it came from the likes of me to see that.” And to have my niece there, my eldest niece, for her to see that as well was just incredible. Yeah, it was a very, very special moment that.

Debra Cooper (13:39): So we move on to boxing. Obviously, you were pretty exceptional, it’s fair to say. And then through to winning the Commonwealth medal, how did that feel?

Stacey Copeland (13:49): I mean, there was a massive gap in between, of course, because I went off and played football and it was 1998 when women’s boxing was made legal in this country. That was through Jane Couch and then the QCs, Dinah Rose and Sarah Leslie who fought it not on the basis of sex actually, but on the basis of the right to earn a living, which Jane Couch wasn’t being allowed to do in this country because she couldn’t ply her trade here and there’s no reason why not. Although when it came to the court case, it was very much about on the basis of sex because the boxing board was saying it wasn’t appropriate for us to box. The argument was around we wouldn’t be mentally balanced enough during the menstrual cycle, for example. And they were really smart, the QCs the way they went about that because then they said, “Do you think for women then maybe they shouldn’t box because they might not be mentally sane enough or balanced enough to do so? But what do you think about leaving them in charge solely of a brand new baby?”

(14:53): And that’s exactly what they caught, silence. Total silence. “Well, look.” So they broke it down. So yeah, what happened was I’d done everything I wanted to do in football at that point. I’d never stopped training for boxing. And there was now by that time a national championship, the Europeans and Worlds, and they were even talking about it coming into the Olympics so I just felt it was my time. Started as an amateur and then got my first national title and then went boxing for England and that was another massive pivotal moment I would say. Getting the silver medal at the European Championships. Standing on that podium with a medal around my neck watching the England flag be raised. It was like, “Wow.” As a kid I wasn’t even allowed to do this sport and here I am winning a medal for England.

Peter Jackson (15:45): Let’s move on to the 3:00 AM conversations, eh. And the first one takes us back to football and you talk about a penalty in the Sweet 16 National Game in California, and then a transition from football to boxing so talk about the penalty and where that fit in.

Stacey Copeland (16:02): Well, I already had in the back of my mind that maybe one day I would box because I’d never lost that hunger and desire of that early on, really my first love of boxing and I knew there was lots of changes happening. Whilst I was home in the summer between the football seasons in America, I’d been to watch the Women’s Regional Championships and then the National Championships, and I thought, “I think I can compete here.” I’d been going to a gym in Austin in Texas where I was playing football, a boxing gym. And so that was kind of in the back of my mind, but way back, really, really far back in my mind. And then my final season in America, it’s a big thing is what they call senior year, your final season, because it’s your last chance to win a national championship if you’re with a team that’s capable of doing that. And we were, and we just had the most fantastic preseason. I was one of the captains. We had an amazing team chemistry. We started the season blinding.

(17:00): I had scored in every game because I was playing up front by then. And then in the fourth game, I’d scored a couple of goals in that game. It was going great and I was on my own goal line just about to clear the ball and a tackle from behind. That was it, broken leg. “So that was it.” I thought, right? My final season’s over and it was an extremely difficult time. Especially being injured, you lose your identity, your purpose. Had no family over there. You’re on your own. And so I threw myself into even more into the community work and thought, “I’ll use this time to do as much as I can for others.” And that was a great thing. Did some amazing projects at the homeless shelter in Austin and with the kids over there, so that was good. But eventually after being in the boot and doing all hours and hours and hours and hours of lonely, painful rehab, which I knew how to do. I had 12 broken bones and nine surgeries as an athlete so sport is terrible for your body.

(17:55): But anyway, I came back because we managed to get into the playoffs, which stretched the season out a bit, and I had a few minutes here and there towards the end of the games and I was working really hard to get my fitness back. And in the game that got us through to the Sweet 16, we went to penalties with a real rival of ours, and I scored my penalty. Everyone else did. We went through. That was one of the best weeks of my life building up to that Sweet 16 because it was like all your dreams happening and we knew we could win. We go out to California, the game was really tight. It hit the post with literally about 20 seconds left on the clock, and then we went to penalties and I was third. Our player before me who went second, missed her penalty. They scored there. I obviously needed to score mine. I just remember walking up and thinking, “I’ve got to score. I’ve got to score.” And I forgot to go through the process of block all that out.

(18:53): Get rid of the context, what it means, what it doesn’t mean. Just think about put the ball down, how you convert it, where you’re going to put it. I didn’t. I got caught up in the moment, which is so easy to do, and it felt like it went in a flash. Put the ball down. Hit it. She saved it. And I also put it in the same place that I’d done the week before, which is probably something else I shouldn’t have done because they will have watched those penalties. And so in hindsight, shouldn’t have done that either. But on that just felt like my whole world completely fell in. It really did. It’s a horrible feeling because you want to go, “Wait, wait, that wasn’t meant to happen. Just everybody stop. No, no, no. This isn’t the script.”

(19:30): God, and that walk back to my teammates who were all stood on the line expecting you as a captain to not let them down was like, you can’t even put it into words. They scored there as they go through and there’s nothing like sport for that. It doesn’t happen anywhere else in life. It’s brutal and I just fell out of love with football forever in that very moment. I felt like it betrayed me. I felt like it let me down. I hated it, absolutely hated it. I still went to Sweden and played because I’d already committed to that, but I never could have the same mentality about football. And I knew that once I got back from Sweden, I wouldn’t be able to play again. It broke my heart really and I just couldn’t understand why. How can you give so much for all your life to something, go through everything you’ve been through and it do that to you? Which obviously doesn’t make sense.

(20:22): It’s not a thing that’s doing something to me, but that’s the way sometimes the brain works and that’s how it was for me. And I just thought, “I can never love you the same again.” And I didn’t.

Peter Jackson (20:31): Do you think in that sliding door moment, if you’d scored the penalty and you’d gone on to win the Sweet 16, the final presumably?

Stacey Copeland (20:41): Well, yeah, we would’ve gone through to the-

Peter Jackson (20:42): To the National?

Stacey Copeland (20:42): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter Jackson (20:43): To the Nationals. Do you think if you’d scored the penalty, boxing would never have happened?

Stacey Copeland (20:49): It’s really difficult to say. I think it probably would have done in the sense that I would have simply left football with the sense of, “I’ve done everything I wanted to do.” And I think I still probably would have, but there’s absolutely no way of knowing because the fire in my belly for boxing after that was like a little bit because I felt like it was the only thing that could save me.

Peter Jackson (21:10): Unfinished business in a way?

Stacey Copeland (21:12): Yeah, and I think because it affected every part of it. It was like every single cell in my being was broken. It was awful. Every single day that I woke up for months and months after that, I felt down. I’m a person who wakes up happy every day. I’m happy a lot of the time. I don’t know why, maybe I’m probably just thick. It’s a bit simple. I don’t know, but I’m lucky that I’m a happy, positive person. But my God, I just wasn’t. I’d wake up in the night and think, “Did that happen?” And it would and I’d go through it all again. It was real. It was mad like how it impacted me. So perhaps I wouldn’t have had quite the hunger and the drive for it had that not happened but I still would have liked to have scored that penalty.

Peter Jackson (21:57): I was going to say, yeah. Okay. Well, let’s move on to your second conversation then because that is about boxing. You talk about mistakes in surgery along the way and then transition from amateur boxing to pro boxing and then transition out ultimately the end of the process. So talk a bit about that and why it sort of plays so heavily on your mind even today.

Stacey Copeland (22:16): So I’d done everything I could as an amateur really so I’d won the national title. Obviously, I got to the final at the Europeans. I’ve been to the World Championships. Beyond that is the Olympics, the European Games, the Commonwealth Games, which none of them were available to me because of the weight categories. And so I’d had a great 2015, really, really good. I’d won best boxer of the tournament at the multi-nations. I’d won every tournament I’ve been to. It was really going well. So the start of 2016, I’m starting my training. Ready for that. I was just sparring and I’ve got loads of problems with my knees from years in football, and I just felt it go straight away. I couldn’t. I mean, it was bad and I couldn’t walk properly. I couldn’t stand up or anything, so I knew it was bad. Got the MRI, et cetera. It was a meniscus tear. So to me, that was fairly like I’d had a few already. So I was like, “Right, get it done. Get it taken out.” We’re looking at six to eight weeks.

(23:08): So I was well on course for still getting back to the… It would have been tight, but I felt I could get back to the Europeans and certainly the Worlds later that year. So I went in for the surgery and I woke up with just this horrendous pain at the top of my leg. And my boyfriend at the time was there, and I said, “I’ve got this horrendous pain.” And he said, “Oh, well, it will be sore.” I said, “No, no, it’s at the top of my leg. It’s burning. It’s really hurting.” But I couldn’t sit up because every time I sat up, I was just throwing up. So I said, “Just have a look what it is.” And when he pulled the sheet, it was stuck to my leg and he was like, “What?” And it was like, “What is it? What is it?” Anyway, it was a second degree chemical burn. They’d made a mistake in surgery that they’d lost a little bit of metal in my knee so they’d taken it out but wanted to be sure so they’d put me back in for an x-ray, which is standard.

(23:59): But what they’d done was they’d left the tourniquet on for too long because it’s only meant to be on for a certain amount of time, and it had burnt my skin very, very badly. And what happened over the next week changed the way that I’ve dealt with health and medicine forever, because I’d never had a problem before. I’d always trusted every doctor, every nurse, every physio I dealt with. On this occasion it was really difficult to get my head round why nobody would help me because they just pretended it hadn’t happened. And they were just saying, “It’s a bit of friction.” It got worse. There were massive blisters and then it got infected and I was throwing up. Hot and cold shivers, I got rushed to hospital. Luckily we got there in time and they put a dressing on it. Eventually we went to the Burns Unit within Shaw ourselves. They sorted it. They were fantastic. And so that apart from being on a personal level, a horrendous experience, when the doctor came and he said, “Oh, you won’t have any cosmetic scarring, don’t worry.” Clearly I have.

(24:56): But I said, “No, it’s not that that I’m worried about. I can’t walk. I’m being sick. I’m worried about losing my leg or getting sepsis or something at the moment. My whole career is on the line. That’s what I’m bothered about.” So it was just bizarre. Suffice to say, it took a good 12 months to come back and by then I’d missed the Europeans and Worlds. So I had the choice then don’t wait another two years. I was already in my 30s or do I turn pro? And it was a big risk because I was only the sixth woman in the UK to get a professional licence. We didn’t really know the landscape then. It wasn’t what it is now. But I thought, “Do you know what? It’s a new challenge.” I seem to need that mix of excitement and fear. If something’s just exciting, then it’s different. If there’s that element of fear, that’s the magic recipe for me.

(25:38): So that’s what it gave me. And then I made that transition to turn pro, which gave me many sleepless nights because we had no idea, “Would there be opponents?” We didn’t know. Yeah, that was a big decision but the right one.

Peter Jackson (25:51): Because you only did five professional fights, didn’t you?

Stacey Copeland (25:54): Yeah.

Peter Jackson (25:54): With the number of people to fight?

Stacey Copeland (25:56): Yeah. Well, one was cancelled. One, I was literally just about to walk out and it was all called off because there was a stabbing in the lobby of the arena, and I was just thinking, “Everything’s against us here.” It was just one thing after another, and then obviously went out and won the Commonwealth title, and then we had the World title lined up then in the October, and that’s when I got the injury, which finished my career.

Peter Jackson (26:20): So those two first. Well, all of the transitions really, they’re driven by events out of your control, aren’t they?

Stacey Copeland (26:27): Yeah, I tend to need what I think of as the three Ps, a point, a purpose and a positive. If I can think there’s a point to something happening, then that’s the starting place for me. And I go, “Right, this maybe is the point. Where’s the purpose in it for me?” And then I’ll look for the positive, which is great, but not in that interim period where none of the Ps are present and you’re like, “Why is this happening? This doesn’t make any sense.” It’s really frustrating and it’s not good. But I tend to find that that sports people generally are really good at controlling the controllables and accepting the things that are way out of their control. It happens all the time in sport. You can’t always see it straight away, but eventually, if I can, that lights the fire in me and then there’s no stopping me then. But one thing I should say about the Commonwealth title, which is probably an important thing to mention that’s now affected the way that I do things afterwards, is when I won the title there wasn’t a belt.

(27:19): I found out two days before the fight that there wouldn’t be a belt. Obviously, it wasn’t quite the fairytale you have in mind. And I had a picture of the belt that I took with me because I’d had it with me everywhere in the build-up to the fight. Went up in the gym. I took it to work. I had it in my bedroom. I had it in the car. I had it up in the climate chamber when I was training in there for Zimbabwe, everywhere. I got back to the airport, loads of mine and my coach’s friends and family were there to surprise us. My family are not the quietest people, so they told everybody in the airport that I was coming back with this belt. And not having the belt to share with them, the people who meant the most to me, had been on that journey with me, was probably one of the lowest points in my career. And that was nothing to do with ability or anything like that. It was human dignity really, and being treated equally and fairly.

(28:01): So when I got back on the Monday, I rang the head of the Commonwealth Boxing Council and said, “It was an amazing experience, but not having the belt wasn’t quite the fairytale I had in mind.” And they said, “Oh, I can explain what’s happened. The manufacturer of the replica belt had ceased production.” So I said, “Oh, what’s that got to do with me?” She said, “Well, we do real belts for men and replica belts for women.” So I said, “My God, what’s that all about?” And he said, “Well, there’s more money in men’s boxing.” I said, “I know, but even if it meant paying for it with my own money, I should have had the option to have had that belt. I’ve been robbed of that moment forever. How quickly can I have a real belt?” To which he said, “Well, we’ve got plenty of headquarters. You can have one within a couple of weeks, but they’re quite expensive, so unless you’ve got a sugar daddy, you won’t be able to have one.”

(28:42): Which I mean, it was that burning sense of injustice again that I was thinking, “I cannot believe I’m still dealing with this stuff that I dealt with as that seven-year-old kid on that football pitch. Still now, after everything I’ve done, after everything we’ve collectively in women’s sport, men and women together, they’ve done for women’s sport. How is this still happening?” So I said, “Look, this can’t happen to a future female champion.” “Well, first,” I said, “you shouldn’t have said that.” And I didn’t mean it in that way. I was like, but anyway, I said, “Something’s got to be done.” So they agreed to make a Women’s Commonwealth title belt. So I think having that experience, if we go back to when I was 16 and I didn’t have that narrative with which to challenge the words of that boss back then, I didn’t have any understanding of the history of women’s sport. I didn’t have any other role models really in women’s sport to being 36 as I was then, I felt able to question what was said and challenge what was said.

(29:38): And last year was an amazing experience for me commentating on the boxing in Nottingham because for the first time I got to see it was Emma Dolan win the Commonwealth title. And you don’t always get to see the change you’re being part of, but to see that belt be given to someone and someone have her moment was very emotional. I had a lump in my throat commentating. I had to sort of take a deep breath for a couple of minutes, but wow, what a moment that was.

Debra Cooper (30:01): So the last point we were going to talk to on the 3:00 AM Conversations was moving on from retirement. How did you figure that out?

Stacey Copeland (30:09): For me, retirement is and I won’t say was because it goes on forever, is like a bereavement. It’s every stage of grief clearly different than it is for a person, but in terms of the way you experience it, for me has been just like grief and still is. But I think those experiences give me that sense that although I can’t do anything as an athlete now, a competitive athlete, I can still use sport for good. Sport hasn’t changed. It’s still, in my opinion, one of the most powerful things on the planet for bringing about positive change, whether that’s an individual’s life, a community, a whole society. I can hopefully find ways to be part of that even though I can’t do it as an athlete. So yeah, without a doubt, the most difficult thing for me in my whole sporting career was retirement. I would definitely change that if I could been able to fight for that World title 100%. But again, you have to accept things and make the best of it and I remember somebody messaging me just after I announced my retirement.

(31:09): I didn’t announce it for ages because it happened during COVID, so I didn’t have to. It wasn’t, “Why are you not in the gym? Where have you been?” Because nobody was, and I didn’t announce it until January, and I remember putting the post on. Switched my phone off and just thought, “Right, it’s real now.” I’d sort of been able to pretend a little bit, but once you’ve told everyone, everything’s real, isn’t it? And I remember waking up at about 1:00 in the morning. It was really cold. It had been snowing, and just feeling really sick and I thought, “I feel really ill.” And I thought, “No, I think this is the emotion of it and the reality hitting.” And I remember going for a walk in the dark, in the snow, sneaking out of the house where I was living with my boyfriend and just going on a big walk and thinking, “I can’t believe this is happening. How am I going to deal with this? How am I actually?”

(31:56): Because my whole life, I’d always had the biggest fear for me, other than the obvious things like things happening to your family, whatever, was retiring from sport. I never knew how I would be okay without sport and that fear was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. It was awful. But I remember an athlete messaging me after and saying, “There’ll always be a void in your life.” And I remember thinking, “I just can’t live the rest of my life as a void. I can’t. It’s too precious.” So I think like with any loss, you’ve got to just make the void as small as possible by packing your life with as much as you can so that that void gets smaller and smaller and that’s what I’ve tried to do. And I think like you say, you’ve got to fill your life with as much as you can and find ways to use sport for good, inspire others. Have a positive human footprint and make a difference in every way that you can.

Peter Jackson (32:46): Did you know were going to go into broadcasting, you were going to be a public speaker, you were going to set up your own charity? You were going to be this icon for gender, stereotypical smashing for want of a better expression or did that come as you realised you had the void and you thought, “God, I’m going to have to do something?”

Stacey Copeland (33:04): To be honest, all of that was already happening to varying degrees. I was working at the school full time, so that took up a massive chunk of my time. But on top of that, I was doing radio two nights a week already so I’d already begun that process. And then whilst they had that injury, the burn, I did this 28 positive days’ thing where I thought, “Right, I’m going to do one positive thing for 28 days in the build-up to my surgery.” Not knowing how the surgery was going to turn out. One of them was applying for the BBC Sports kick-off reporter thing. I filled the thing in just because I hadn’t done anything that day and it was like quarter to midnight and thinking nothing of it. And only when I got picked for it, which I didn’t obviously expect and went to Bristol, did this training thing, and then did the summer with BBC Radio Manchester so it came from there. The public speaking, I’d been doing bits of it, none of it paid. I did it all just for if people asked me and whatever.

(33:56): I didn’t really value myself, which is a funny thing, isn’t it? Because if you don’t, other people don’t. It’s weird. But yeah, the first proper one I did was through a referee who worked at this massive company that do stuff I don’t understand, stocks and shares and whatever, and asked me to do this Women in Business event. And I turned up in a little GB tracksuit. I took some of our students, our business GCSE students who were on Pupil Premiums so that they could network and have a bit of a taste of what could be. And I turned up and these women were just the most pristine-looking women I’ve ever seen in my life. And I was like, “What am I doing here in me trackie speaking to these lot? These are super women, what am I doing? What was the thinking saying yes to this?” I went along and did the talk and it changed everything because after that one by one, they were coming over.

(34:41): And I thought, “Of course, the mums, daughters, sisters, people who’ve been at school in the year that I was who didn’t get to do football or this, that and the other who have all these dreams that they weren’t able to follow and they’ve faced the same things in their careers that I have in sport, loads of parallels.” And so it changed everything. And I thought, “No, public speaking is now my deepest passion without a doubt, and it’s a real privilege to do it every time.” So a lot of those things had started and Pave the Way, well, that came about because when I started boxing, you usually have a nickname like The Cobra or The Hitman. My nickname’s SpongeBob SquarePants, which don’t lend itself to being the most intimidating name for a boxer. Although I did have it on my shorts. That’s because whenever I used to put weight on when I was injured, I’d just turn into a square-shaped human. So yeah, SpongeBob SquarePants has always been my name. So when I turned professional, we decided to go with Pave the Way, which is something I stood for and wanted to represent.

(35:32): In that week of my debut we just did a few school sessions, community group sessions, stuff like that but it just really took off. And over time, particularly through doing the public speaking, when I’ve had men and women approach me and say, “My little boys face this, and my little girls face that.” And thought, actually Pave the Way should be about challenging gender stereotypes. So everyone, boys, girls, men and women for everybody so that’s what it is. So those things were already sort of happening, which I think is that important for athletes. And I think you ought to because it’s helpful in the transition maybe, but also it’s good for you as a human being to have other things as well so I’d always advocate for that for any athlete.

Debra Cooper (36:12): But also all the skills that come out of sport translate so readily into other things. And you’re saying about you seeing those women and thinking, “You’re all super.” They’re looking at you in your GB trackie thinking, “She is superwoman and she is amazing.”

Stacey Copeland (36:25): And as I say, I didn’t have that evaluation of me. Why would I when you’re put down all the time and you’re treated as the other? They’re not as good as constantly in the pathway that you’ve chosen and I think it’s so much more blatant in sport because you’re doing it publicly. So therefore the headlines, the comments, the things are so much more public than they would be perhaps in other industries. Nobody’s going to be commentating. You’re also not going to be interviewed on your way out of work. And they say, “Oh, you had a fantastic day today. Well done. You smashed this, that and the other. When are you going to have children?” Or something like that, do you know what I mean? “Who’s your ideal crush?” And you’re like, “Did you just say that? I just scored a hat trick. What are you talking about?” So it’s a bit more visible in a way in sport, isn’t it? So when you’ve sort of had those external cues all the time, why are you going to think any differently? And so absolutely now I appreciate that.

(37:19): And you’re 100% right about how relatable sport is to everything else and not everyone can do that and I don’t think it’s fair to expect every sports person to be able. We expect them all to be remarkable public speakers. Why? We don’t expect mechanics to also be able to do that or doctors or whatever. If you can see the parallels and articulate them, it’s really powerful, especially with business because that’s really cutthroat sometimes, competitive most of the time world so I think there’s loads of parallels. And if nothing else, it’s the most ultimate human experience sport because you have the lowest lows and the highest highs sometimes a week or a day apart, and there’s not much in life that is anywhere near those highs and lows. So I think the spectrum of experiences you have lend themselves to pretty much anything.

Peter Jackson (38:14): You’ve done a hell of a lot and I’m sure there’s loads more to come. Thanks very much for your time.

Stacey Copeland (38:18): Thanks for having me.

Peter Jackson (38:19): You’ve been very generous-

Stacey Copeland (38:20): Thank you.

Peter Jackson (38:20): … with it and for your honesty and good luck in everything that happens to come.

Stacey Copeland (38:23): Thanks very much.

Peter Jackson (38:30): So we’ve just finished with Stacey. Debra, what did you think of that?

Debra Cooper (38:34): Amazingly impressive individual, amazingly humble. It’s shocking to hear the experiences that she had through her sporting career, but then also for her not to realise how exceptional she is. When she spoke there about going to the Women in Business lunch and wondering, “Why on earth have they got me here?” When I would be biting her arm off to be listening to hear her talk. It just says it all really, isn’t it? That she didn’t realise what she has to offer.

Peter Jackson (39:02): Yeah, she hadn’t recognised the skill sets she had because she’d focused on the physical skill sets of playing football and boxing and the mental issues that are particularly related to those two sports. She didn’t see how that value could be translated into the real world outside of sports and in particular into business and education and what have you, and it so clearly can.

Debra Cooper (39:30): So clearly. And the resilience that she showed between every bit of her career, from even from age seven to going and asking for time off to go and play for England and having to take it as time unpaid to the Commonwealth Belt. And being told she needs a sugar daddy, the amount of resilience that builds, and then also the recognition that she’s exceptional in that not every sport’s person does that.

Peter Jackson (39:53): It’s thought there’s this conveyor belt, isn’t there, from professional sport, elite professional sport into journalism, the media, presentation, whatever it is, management within the sport. And just because you’re good at taking the corners doesn’t mean that you’re any good at talking about them. And it is exceptional, I think, to find someone like Stacey who can move so naturally into other areas. What I thought was also interesting is that for all that there were hard stops with her football career, she missed the penalty and that was it. And the boxing career, she was injured, so she couldn’t fight anymore. In terms of the transition into the business world and the presentation world and the media, it was happening already. I mean, although as you say, she’s so humble that she says, “I didn’t know I could do all of that until I finished.” She was actually doing it anyway, but she just hadn’t realised it. So where Stacey was talking about that Women in Business lunch in particular, what struck me was that we’ve got the old imposter syndrome manifesting itself again here. Have you ever encountered that in your professional life?

Debra Cooper (41:06): Pretty much every single day.

Peter Jackson (41:09): Join the club, yeah.

Debra Cooper (41:09): Still waiting to be found out. Still thinking, “Gosh, someday someone will realise that this is just me waiting to work out when I’ll grow up.” I have got better over the years in realising what my actual, what bits I excel at, which bits I need to lean heavily on colleagues and working out how it all fits together. Because part of teamwork is play to your strengths and bring in other people when you need some support. I don’t think imposter syndrome ever goes away.

Peter Jackson (41:34): I don’t think it does. And in a sense, I don’t think it should because I think it still gives you that edge. It keeps you on your mettle all the time. It stops you from getting complacent. I think if you got to the stage where you are comfortable without the imposter syndrome, it could get dangerous.

Debra Cooper (41:53): Yeah, and I think it’s a strong indication that you still care. Whereas if you’re just like, “Oh, well, I can just wing this all day, every day.” Are you really doing something that’s pushing you?

Peter Jackson (42:03): No, you’re in a comfort zone.

Debra Cooper (42:04): You’re [inaudible 00:42:04] very much in a comfort zone and you don’t grow in a comfort zone. The imposter syndrome has never stopped me from doing anything.

Peter Jackson (42:10): No.

Debra Cooper (42:10): I think that’s the important part. And that’s and very much what Stacey said is that she’s gone with it and realised, and she’s clearly a very resilient person and I think you see that in business, don’t you? You can see the people who really excel are the people who do get knocked down. It isn’t smooth sailing all day every day.

Peter Jackson (42:27): No, it can’t be.

Debra Cooper (42:28): If everything just comes to you easily and everything is success after success, we don’t learn and you don’t learn how to change behaviours either. So Peter, obviously you’ve recently transitioned from CEO of Hill Dickinson. How does what Stacey’s talked about there in terms of her transitions relate to the transitions that you’ve been going through?

Peter Jackson (42:46): I think it’s a very similar process, whether it’s in business, whether it’s in sport or any other sector. My experience differed slightly from Stacey’s, but only slightly. As we’ve said, she had a number of hard stops that forced her down a particular road. My transition out of being a CEO was entirely voluntary, in that I realised the time was right for the business and for me as an individual to move on to something else. Where Stacey talked about roles that she was already doing to a degree within her sporting career, I wasn’t doing any of them. And in January 2022 when my chairman and I agreed that I would step down, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. And it took a good 12 to 18 months of reflection via a very solid coach to get me to realise a number of things actually. First of all, I didn’t want to retire, which was an option. Secondly, that I wanted to carry on being busy. I didn’t want to do a day a week here or a couple of days there, that’s not me.

(43:55): I’m either in or I’m out so I wanted to be busy. I didn’t want to retire, but I didn’t know what that looked like. And when I started, I didn’t have any understanding at all that I had any skills that were transferable because I just did the job. And I remember saying to my coach, Derek Watson, “Well, I’m eminently qualified to be the CEO of Hill Dickinson and pretty much unemployable in anything else.” Because that had been my life. That had been my role. As I was talked through it by Derek, I became to realise and accept, without I don’t think being arrogant, that the imposter syndrome chipped away a bit. And I was prepared to accept that I might be good at one or two things and actually they were good in other roles and other businesses perhaps. And so I got there and seven months in, very comfortable with it now. As Stacey clearly is now when you hear her speak, and she’s got it, doesn’t she?

Debra Cooper (44:51): She has.

Peter Jackson (44:51): Yeah, she’s all over it now.

Debra Cooper (44:53): She very much has, in fairness so with you.

Peter Jackson (44:54): Well, that’s very kind of you to say. So well, I still have a 3:00 AM conversation now and again. Well, enough of my problems and thanks for listening to this episode of 3:00 AM Conversations, and you’ll hear from us again in a month’s time. As ever, please rate, review and follow this podcast, and that way you’ll be able to spread the word. And if you’d like to find out more about how Hill Dickinson might help you, then head to hilldickinson.com.