You Can Always Start Again: Career Change, Redefining Success & When to Move On — Jo McGowan

I just, I first,

when you started and you were like, well, I was like, oh my God, I'm so ready for story time here.

Like settle in.

Oh, it is.

We are.

We're going all over the place.

I have so many questions.

The first one.

As a 21-year-old, you studied theatre at university, right? Yeah, I did

drama and some business studies modules.

Okay,

so there was some business there.

It wasn't like you were just suddenly running a business.

How did you go about building the dance school? You said you doubled the students.

How did you even know where to start? I think

I'd obviously grown up around dance schools, so I'd seen what worked with them, seen what perhaps didn't work.

And I think it was looking at what were the sort of the natural faces.

It was also as well taking on other teachers, realising what my strengths were.

So I always felt I was I really enjoyed and I think I was quite good at teaching adults.

And I think I was quite good with quite young children and that side of things.

I wasn't the best at teaching teenage classes and stuff.

I loved the teenage age group because they are hilarious and, you know, because there is no filter and you know exactly what they're thinking.

But in terms of things like choreography and stuff, I was like, I'm not the best person for this.

So it was getting other teachers in to do the bits so that we could expand and grow.

So that on a Saturday morning, there wasn't a Saturday morning part to the school when I took it over.

I just, I first,

when you started and you were like, well, I was like, oh my God, I'm so ready for story time here.

Like settle in.

Oh, it is.

We are.

We're going all over the place.

I have so many questions.

The first one.

As a 21-year-old, you studied theatre at university, right? Yeah, I did

drama and some business studies modules.

Okay,

so there was some business there.

It wasn't like you were just suddenly running a business.

How did you go about building the dance school? You said you doubled the students.

How did you even know where to start? I think

I'd obviously grown up around dance schools, so I'd seen what worked with them, seen what perhaps didn't work.

And I think it was looking at what were the sort of the natural faces.

It was also as well taking on other teachers, realising what my strengths were.

So I always felt I was I really enjoyed and I think I was quite good at teaching adults.

And I think I was quite good with quite young children and that side of things.

I wasn't the best at teaching teenage classes and stuff.

I loved the teenage age group because they are hilarious and, you know, because there is no filter and you know exactly what they're thinking.

But in terms of things like choreography and stuff, I was like, I'm not the best person for this.

So it was getting other teachers in to do the bits so that we could expand and grow.

So that on a Saturday morning, there wasn't a Saturday morning part to the school when I took it over.