Victoria Brown (00:02.098)
Ellie, thank you so much for agreeing to come on Story a Slurp podcast. The visualisation is a huge passion of mine, even though I’m not the best of artists myself. And so I’m really pleased that you’re on the podcast talking about how people can really visualise their stories in business. For people that don’t know who you are or what you do, can you just give a brief description about you, your role and Lim?

Ellie Chapman (00:30.56)
Yes, hello. It’s great to be here.

So my name is Ellie Chapman and I founded Limb at the age of 30, two years ago. And I’ve been doing this work, gosh, for, I think since I was 22, for a long time, started quite young and had to really work quickly to gain the respect from senior leaders working in global businesses. At Limb, you know, what we say is that we are a global studio of visualisers. So we support.

global teams to work really well visually. So whether that’s creating a graphic recording during an event or whether that’s creating a big rough and ready visual on the wall of a meeting room. If a senior leadership team needs to start making some really big decisions or whether that senior leadership team want to share their strategy with, um, with their teams, we’d create a visual on the page. So really it’s a way of.

visual app, know, supporting teams to work really well using visuals.

Victoria Brown (01:35.13)
Yeah, so that’s amazing. I’m really intrigued by you as a 22 year old, probably straight out of uni, I’m guessing, going in to these senior executives who are probably quite fixed in what they believe and persuading them that visualisation was the way forward. How, I know that can’t have been easy, so how did you go about doing that?

Ellie Chapman (01:43.676)
Mm-hmm.

Ellie Chapman (01:56.829)
Yeah, so it goes back to, I suppose, my younger years, and where my learning of facilitation and group process started. So my mum is a facilitator, Helen Chapman, she is amazing. And I grew up in a house where she was freelance, where freelance working mums working from home was a rare thing. Now it’s very, very common. And we’d come in from school and the arm would come out and she’d be like…

because she’d be on the call to these really senior leaders. But I grew up hearing how she spoke to people. I’d be seeing her getting her pens ready for work. I’d see her creating templates, creating agenda designs. And so this world of help, she’s a facilitator, so the world of helping people talk to each other really well in a meeting is where I grew up. Then going to uni, before uni, I did a ski season.

and had to learn how to serve people really well. So was like cooking and cleaning, having time to ski and also party. But to be able to serve people really well has really equipped me to be able to gain the respect and to ask what I need really from the people that we work with. So fast forward to the age of 22, you know, I’ve had that upbringing with mum, I’ve had the experience of waitressing and shallow hosting and then

I’m in the room and my first ever piece of work was in Santorini and it did happen to be with my mom actually for a global FMCG leadership team. And she was like, going Santorini. was like, okay, right. We get there and it’s like stunning. And she’s looking at me thinking, and she said, Ellie, not every job is like this, you know. And actually I have to say on that rare occasion, she was wrong because every single piece of work has been absolutely brilliant.

But I really did have to gain respect and trust and credibility quickly with the people that I was working with. Because I suppose As a 22 year old girl going into these meetings with my big piece of paper and pens, people were skeptical, people were thinking, well, what’s she going to do? How can she help us? But actually the proof was in the pudding because the visuals that we created, the work that people did.

Ellie Chapman (04:20.445)
speak for themselves and I suppose to highlight here is yes the visual will be great but it’s the conversations that have been had there’s the process that the people have gone on and the decisions that have been made that make therefore the visual great.

Victoria Brown (04:35.598)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It has to be rich content for you to be able to illustrate something great. The bones of it have to be great. So I just think that’s amazing because you can see all your rich upbringing and how that’s come through and served you to create this career that probably was quite unusual for someone when you were your age.

Ellie Chapman (04:41.009)
Mm-hmm.

Ellie Chapman (04:44.87)
Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (05:02.357)
It was, and I remember I’d come back from a ski season, went to Santorini and quite quickly in those first few years I was in America, I went to South East Asia, I was across Europe and my friends and the thing is I used to just go by myself and I didn’t think anything of just packing my bag, you know, getting a brief from the client, understanding what I needed to do and I think about it now and I’m like gosh Ellie, at the age of 22, 23, 24 you were

going where you needed to do to visualize a meeting. And my friends had come back and my friends didn’t quite understand because they were very, very junior in the businesses that they were working in. And so didn’t really understand why this way of working was a thing. then now they’re older and they’re kind of in roles where they are working with people like me and they understand it. But it was a, I was doing something very, different to a lot of my friends for a long time.

Victoria Brown (05:59.354)
And how important was, you talked about the encouragement of your mom and that she took you with her on your first job. How important was that encouragement from your mom and your family?

Ellie Chapman (06:11.997)
very important. My mum is now my business partner. So fast forward to two years ago, no, four years, four years ago, I became the director of the facilitation partnership, which is the company that mum was one of the founders of 11 years ago. So yes, she’s now my business partner. We work very, very closely together, both on the business and on client pieces of work.

We have another business partner who is an amazing facilitator called Ben Robinson. And the three of us work very supportive of each other. And we are honest with each other. We’re true with each other. You we’ll push thinking because we know we really need to develop and keep growing, not just to kind of do the same old thing again and again. So to have that support and open and honest.

relationship with the people that I work with and just so happens that one of my business partners is my mum is really important.

Victoria Brown (07:14.676)
How did you go about finding your business partners? Obviously you already knew your mom but did you know Ben before?

Ellie Chapman (07:18.597)
Yeah. Ben and Helen go way back years and years and they founded the business along with others that have since moved on 11 years ago. And then when I had the opportunity to step into the role of director of the facilitation partnership, was like, hell yes, bring me, I’m so for this. And so yeah, that was then and then LIM was founded two years later and

and facilitation partnership as our parent company.

Victoria Brown (07:50.81)
It’s like it was always meant to be Ellie.

Ellie Chapman (07:53.181)
Do you know, I think this is the work that I’m meant to be doing with the people that I’m doing it with, yes.

Victoria Brown (07:57.654)
amazing. so, so that’s obviously, so you obviously grew up around this environment of facilitation, and really normalizing that and really getting to see people communicating well with each other. But obviously, the other element to this is the visual element and the kind of the illustration. Was that always in you as well?

Ellie Chapman (08:20.701)
It was, and I think if we go back to, I feel like I’m going back in my history, but if I go back to the school days, you know, I went to a brilliant school where I was surrounded by the lawyers of the future, the engineers of the future architects. And I was, I worked hard, but I was never super academic. So I got, I got good grades. You know, I was sporty. I was on the sports teams when I was never a triathlete like what I do now. But I think.

that creativity was always in me and so when I think about revising for exams mum would often help she taught me mind maps and so she did she got the Tony Busan book out of mind mapping and was like hey Ellie you can do this so that was a normal thing and I remember revising for a history exam and it was on one of the kings and the history of all of that and we we developed a picture

and in the picture there were symbols that represented each thing and I remember sitting in the exam room recalling on what the picture is and therefore what the date was, what the icon was and therefore what it meant and so my brain is wired into working visually and so I think it is very much in me and has been for a long time.

Victoria Brown (09:37.434)
And was there a moment when it clicked than when you kind of thought, my gosh, we could use this kind of visualization technique for business.

Ellie Chapman (09:48.989)
I there was the… I remember when mum said to me, do you want to come work with us? At first I was like, back when I was 22, was like, no. Why, you know, I don’t want to go to meetings for a job. That sounds so boring. But then when I realised actually being able to, as a creative person that can draw and that can listen well, to have the opportunity to use my creativity to help others.

was like it was a no brainer, it like of course that’s what I want to do. So I think as I was growing up I’d always seen that way of working as something that other people did. But only as I have got more experience and even now I’m like it is the way.

Victoria Brown (10:35.748)
So we talked a bit about this before, but why are visuals so important in the world of business? Because traditionally, you wouldn’t really see many. Everything would be words. when I worked in corporate, I almost felt that it was kind of looked down upon. was kind of like, it’s not necessary. We don’t need the images. We don’t need the visuals.

Ellie Chapman (10:56.925)
I think

It’s.

think there’s a few ways to answer this. And when we think about conversations that happen, one of my pet hates is that a conversation happens in a meeting room. Decisions are made. Challenges are come across. Insights are had. Next steps are agreed. mean, the clock gets to the hour.

everybody leaves the meeting room. The words have evaporated unless somebody might have written them down in their notebook. They’ve just gone. it’s like that, you know, people are then leaving the meeting room. People are saying, what was that that we agreed? Who did we say the next, who’s doing what? Did we actually talk about that? my understanding was different. And so by using visuals, we have a

And I’m speaking specifically here to more kind of like small meetings with like senior leadership teams, because there are so many routes that I could go down. But if we think about that meeting, to have a shared resource on the wall where insights are captured, challenges are captured, decisions are written down, next steps are agreed. You’ve got that shared artifact that is a resource that the team can use both during the meeting, because they’re spotting links, they’re seeing patterns.

Ellie Chapman (12:32.797)
Afterwards, they’ve got that shared resource. Take a photo of it. We don’t need to spend time writing at meeting minutes. We’ve got it. We leave the room. Everybody’s aligned. The visual can come back out on the next meeting. We go again. So I think as a way of working for business, now, you know, we’re so technology’d out. Everything’s PowerPoint. Everything’s online. And it doesn’t need to be.

It’s so refreshing to work on a big piece of paper on the wall and so valuable too.

Victoria Brown (13:07.48)
Yeah, absolutely. I love that point you made about helping people think better in the meeting because it’s true. I mean, you can’t if you if you like me and you particularly around dates, I’m terrible. I can’t visualize where things are in the calendar without looking at my calendar. And I’d be the same in a meeting. People were discussing things and dates. I would be able to see. But if you put it on the wall, that would help me understand. Well, that’s not going to work because that clashes with that date or whatever. So I think that’s so so refreshing.

Ellie Chapman (13:31.303)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Victoria Brown (13:36.974)
How do people react when they’re not used to something being visualized or being facilitated in this way? How do people in the meeting react?

Ellie Chapman (13:45.601)
So we.

most often quite in a good way because they understand the benefit but there will be people that are skeptical and be like oh you know why do you need to draw why do you need to do that but actually once they see it happening and it’s like when we’re developing business it’s so it’s easier for me to win work when we’re doing the work because people can see what we’re doing versus just sending an email and saying hey we’d love to work with you this is what we do and it’s people can find it hard to get their head around.

And so when people see it happening, by the end of it, the people that might have been skeptical are most often like your biggest fans by the end of it because they’re like the ones you’ve won over, not by doing anything differently, just by doing what you’re doing. And then they’ll go and shout it from the rooftops and be the ones that like, guys, this is the way of work we need to do. But I just want to go back to something that you said before you asked that question around your calendar and being able to see things.

And actually, if you think about yourself and what you need and how visualizing would help you to see stuff, just imagine everybody’s different brain. Everybody is different. And so the different requirements of everybody by working visually can really, you can just support people in a much broader way. So have you ever been in a meeting where the same voice speaks? You hear the same people.

and the quieter people can’t get a word in. But it’s not because their input isn’t any less valuable, they just needed a bit longer to think. And so by putting things up on the wall visually, you can start to play with your process. You can start to build in different ways of working to really help the different brains in the room to really engage with the content that you’re discussing.

Victoria Brown (15:44.782)
Yeah, that’s amazing. Really a much more inclusive way of working, I think. And therefore you’ll get much more broader viewpoint and better quality outputs out, surely.

Ellie Chapman (15:48.988)
Yes.

Ellie Chapman (15:52.925)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. There’s a model by Sam Kainer and it’s from the book, The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision Making. Have you heard of it? Catch your title, catch your title. And there’s a model in it and it’s a circle and then it opens up and then it goes zigzaggy, zigzaggy and then it starts to come down to a point. And what he says is that this is

Victoria Brown (16:05.911)
I but I want to go and look it up now.

Ellie Chapman (16:25.373)
the shape of a conversation that he thinks best rather than you open up a conversation, have a conversation, then quickly make a decision. So by opening a conversation and having it wide, hearing those different viewpoints, like you said, hearing different people’s perspectives, giving people time to think and playing with, so basically you’re playing with process, you get that much wider.

let the much deeper levels of thinking and therefore decisions are likely to actually stick and people do stuff because the biggest risk is that people don’t say what’s on their mind, they leave the meeting like well I don’t agree with that decision, what were they on? I’m not doing that and then stuff doesn’t happen.

Victoria Brown (17:11.354)
Yeah, and also I think the more people have time to think about these things, the more likely they are going to be reflecting the whole views of the organisation, rather than just a few people in a room who quickly wanted to make a decision because it was lunchtime coming up or whatever. Yeah. So that’s, have you got any examples of where people have come to you and said that they did something radically differently because of the way the meeting was run?

Ellie Chapman (17:19.173)
Yes. Yes.

Ellie Chapman (17:25.551)
Exactly, exactly. And they were hungry. Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (17:39.761)
all the time? I think more often than not in organisations people are, it’s meetings are the thing that happen in business all the time but yet it’s so rare that we’re trained on how to have a good meeting and it’s the unit currency they happen every single day all over the world online, in the room, hybrid and I’ve lost my train of thought

happen all over the world.

Ellie Chapman (18:14.029)
I literally I’ve lost my tone of thought. Yeah. So they have, they happen all the time. And what happens is that they think that the best way to have a meeting is to have a really long agenda. And because we need to get everything in and then just do PowerPoint presentation, Q and a PowerPoint presentation, Q and a, and just keep going. Then they run out of time on the agenda for those last topics.

Victoria Brown (18:14.458)
You

Ellie Chapman (18:42.685)
and going back to that shape of a conversation, people wonder why decisions don’t stick. And so the biggest thing that happens is that people, so we’ve got two brands, we’ve got Lim and we’ve got TFP. TFP is where Helen and Ben hang out in facilitation. But what we find is that by flexing the process that you’re working with people, you know, have paired conversations, give time to think.

You you can use silence to do the heavy lifting. That’s an amazing tool. And you can use lots of different processes to help to engage the brains in the room. But just by using PowerPoint, PowerPoint, PowerPoint isn’t going to cut it. So what the biggest, what’s the word, the biggest kudos to us is when somebody says, Hey, I tried, I put in 60 seconds of reflection time in my meeting.

and we did a go around and heard from everybody and the insights that we got were so valuable. It’s like those little things that people try is like gold. And I think people think quite often that they need to loads of different things, but actually just start with something small and you will start to flex your facilitator muscle. And we often say it’s like playing jazz. You don’t just want to sit and hit middle C, middle C, middle C, because that would be boring.

Victoria Brown (20:08.122)
You

Ellie Chapman (20:10.183)
Whereas if you can go up and down the keyboard doing lots of different things with your process, you know, you get a lot more from the brains in the room.

Victoria Brown (20:17.964)
Yeah, I love that. I read about Nancy, I started reading Nancy Klein when I was doing my coaching training, you must know all about Nancy Klein, and that whole having time to think and how it’s not our IQs are important, it’s having valuable thinking time. And that really sounds like it’s playing into all of your processes as well, which is, I can imagine how powerful that is.

Ellie Chapman (20:25.756)
Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (20:38.109)
Yeah, and I don’t know a lot about Nancy Klein’s work. know the name. But when I think about as facilitators, are so many, you know, people have been talking to people for years and years and years. We’re human. We have to communicate. So as facilitators, we pull on a lot of different experiences and a lot of different readings. We see somebody do something like, that’s cool. Going to give that a go.

and just the idea of playing and pulling on inspiration because essentially nothing is new in the world. You know, when you see a lot of the stuff, it’s recycled or inspired by somebody else and I think it’s really exciting.

Victoria Brown (21:22.522)
Yeah and I love that and it always makes me a little bit sad that these kind of things aren’t taught in schools because you going into these organizations has this huge impact because purely because you are teaching people how to communicate effectively by listening properly and giving them space. Now that is a fundamental part of us being human. Yeah I’m 43, I learned about this when I was 41 even though I was a communications professional I didn’t learn about some of this stuff until I was 41.

Ellie Chapman (21:34.65)
Mm-hmm.

Ellie Chapman (21:49.373)
Thank you.

Victoria Brown (21:51.566)
How does that allow to happen? How are the people going around that do not understand this stuff? And wouldn’t the world be a better place if people could listen to each other properly and communicate properly?

Ellie Chapman (21:57.149)
100 % and with that thinking I am so passionate about supporting the next generation of talent that I am a mentor and I support creatives through the arena which is an amazing

Victoria Brown (22:03.706)
you

Ellie Chapman (22:20.839)
Company, charity, not charity. Organization. Can we cut that bit out?

Victoria Brown (22:24.067)
organization.

Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (22:29.447)
So I do a lot of work with the arena and we mentor creatives that are coming into the creative industry. I’m also on their board of advisors. I’m also a governor at the school locally to me because I just believe that the next generation coming out of education, it is the future. And I think that to be able to guide and influence this next generation of leaders and people that are going to be

changing the world, let’s help them to communicate, let’s help them to have know how to have good meetings right from when they leave education because it’s critical skill.

Victoria Brown (23:11.258)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I completely agree with everything you’re saying. So, when we’re talking about things that matter in the world, let’s talk about values. What are your values in Lim as a company? Is it something you’ve sat and thought about?

Ellie Chapman (23:28.143)
Yes. So the values for Lim, I came up with got when we started two years ago. And for me values, they’re called the five C’s. And before I go into them, they are true to who I am, but also who my team are. So when I think about how, how we show up with ourselves,

how we show up with our clients and how we show up as a team. So they are, they’re true to the core. So the first of the five Cs is collaborative. You know, it won’t surprise you, we’re collaborative with our clients, we’re collaborative with each other. We’ve got to collaborate, do great work. The next one is creative. So of course we’re creative. It’s what we do. It’s totally within us.

The third C is that we’re courageous. So we will, we take a brief, we think about what’s possible. We ask for what we need. We’re brave. know, when you think about sometimes we get put in a, on a stage to draw an event in front of 500 people. takes courage to stand up on the stage and draw something with cameras on you and everything. The next of the five C’s is that we are caring. Caring is really

important. We’ve got to care about our work. We’ve got to care about the client. We want to make sure that we deliver something that they can use. And the fact that we are caring, I think, is one the things that sets us apart. And then the final of the five Cs is that we’re confident. We’re confident in our work. We’re confident in our ability. And we’re confident with each other.

Victoria Brown (25:22.362)
Amazing. So it’s obviously something you’ve… hello! It’s obviously something you’ve thought a lot about, Ellie.

Ellie Chapman (25:31.997)
Sorry, the postman. Rolo, come here. Will you ask that question again?

Victoria Brown (25:36.76)
Yeah.

So it’s obviously something you’ve thought a lot about LA.

Ellie Chapman (25:43.931)
Yes, it is. And when it comes to our values, our purpose, our vision as a business, you know, in the work that we do, I couldn’t have a business that didn’t have these things. You know, it’s, it would be, we’ve got to practice what we preach and we work a lot on this stuff with our clients and to have our values core to what we do is really important.

Victoria Brown (26:09.018)
Yeah and you talked a lot about confidence there and how you you might have to stand up in front of people and be very confident with what you do, particularly people who might not be fully aligned with what you do until they’ve seen it. So let’s talk about your inner stories, so when you were starting out particularly but even now what have been the inner stories that have held you back because we all have them?

Ellie Chapman (26:12.509)
Okay.

Ellie Chapman (26:31.061)
We do and I was thinking about this question and a good example I think that summarises who I am as a person which then translates into the business is three years ago was it now? I signed up for a half iron man. I was like I’m gonna do this do you know what an iron man is?

Victoria Brown (26:49.046)
So I went, when I went on holiday to Nice, I saw the people taking part in Iron Man along the front while I was eating my pizza.

Ellie Chapman (26:51.995)
Did you? Niff? Was it the World Championships?

Victoria Brown (26:59.362)
I don’t know, was a big one, it was 30 degree heat and they were running up and down while I was sitting eating my pizza in the cafe and I was just like…

Ellie Chapman (27:02.277)
Yeah. Yes.

Ellie Chapman (27:07.237)
Yeah, it’s amazing. So I haven’t done a full, I would like to do a full. but I signed up for a half having only done the great North run once. And I set myself this ambitious goal. I could ride my bike. I could run. My swimming was like acceptable kind of holiday swimming, breaststroke. but I need, I needed to do a lot of work on all three of the, of the elements, but also needs to do work on the strength work as well in the transitions.

And it was, you know, there were times that I was like, can’t do this. I don’t want to go sit on my bike and everybody’s going to look at me. I haven’t got all the right stuff. I mean, I went on my first triathlon, one of the practice ones. didn’t, they have this belt that they put the numbers on. So you can see what number I didn’t have a belt. So I used NICA elastic, tied it around me and just put my, my, um, safety pins on them. And I suppose that resourcefulness of, I haven’t really got everything, but it’s all right.

And throughout that process, I think it was a seven month process of like signing up for the race and then being able to do the race. There was a lot of like self talk of, can’t do this. I’m not fit enough. Is that why am I even doing this? It’s expensive. It’s a lot of time investment, but to listen to that self talk and then to acknowledge, okay, but I’m also in control of what I’m doing here. So I can choose to listen to that.

but also I’ve pictured myself on the finish line. I’ve literally imagined that hundreds of times getting through that finish line and having completed the race. And that’s what I focused on. So all of those bits of self-talk that happen, I acknowledge, but I know I’ve got a goal and that’s what I’m going to achieve. So it’s the same with the business, know, yes, starting a business is hard. You you’re wearing so many different hats. I’ve got a…

a goal, I know what I want to achieve and all those bits of self-talk that happen is like, okay, that’s interesting. If somebody’s really niggling me, I might go listen to a podcast or I might think, right, okay, what do I need to do to reframe that thinking in my head? Who do I need to speak to? But to use it as a driver, if you like, to get me to where I want to go.

Victoria Brown (29:29.946)
I love that fact that you said that you when you hear those voices you say that’s interesting almost like you’re observing it from outside you’re not letting it get to you and not you’re not saying it’s the truth you’re saying that’s interesting that that’s happening you’re distancing yourself from it straight away and then you’re able to like okay let’s see if there’s something behind us or what’s behind this and be curious about it

Ellie Chapman (29:38.183)
Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (29:43.141)
Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (29:51.717)
Yeah, because I think otherwise, you know, I’m such a perfectionist, I would just go into like holes, just like I just keep spiraling and spiraling and it just wouldn’t be helpful for me. And I’d spend lots of energy worrying about things that actually might not, might not happen. If they do happen, they’re probably not going to be as bad as you think they’re going to be. And actually you can learn from the stuff. just take it as a, yeah, observe it, notice it.

like you do with meditation when you’re meditating and you just think, oh, and then you just let it go. It’s a thing.

Victoria Brown (30:22.724)
Yeah.

Victoria Brown (30:27.982)
Yeah amazing and I love the knicker elastic idea as well because it just shows that no matter what you haven’t got you know you think you haven’t got the perfect thing there’s always a way.

Ellie Chapman (30:31.645)
It worked really well.

Ellie Chapman (30:39.355)
Yes. And you know the best thing about that was that I finished first female in that race with my Nicaelastic. And because I was so nervous when I was picking up my race thing, I was like to the lady, I haven’t got my race belt. So I’m using like Nicaelastic. And she was like, okay. And then I finished the race first and like, she handed me the, my, whatever I needed to be handed. And I was like, okay, first. it was like this crying full circle moment of me being so nervous and then actually.

First female and I got my first trophy and was on the podium on number one.

Victoria Brown (31:12.92)
That’s amazing. So good because it’s so hard and something that I would never in a million years. I’ve done a few half marathons, but I would never, never do. And that was a while back, but I’d never be able to do it. And I am, and I don’t think that’s just of a level.

Ellie Chapman (31:21.551)
Nice.

Ellie Chapman (31:27.879)
Well, the one that I came first in was just a standard distance. It wasn’t as long. But it’s still a thing.

Victoria Brown (31:34.714)
still. It’s hardcore isn’t it? That is hardcore. Yeah amazing. It just shows that mental resilience that you must have. Yeah yeah and you must like setting yourself a challenge.

Ellie Chapman (31:47.727)
Love a challenge. Love a challenge. My team will ask me, Ellie, what have you got in the diary next? What’s your next sport thing? So I think you learn a lot about yourself when you do and you put yourself in hard situations. I think as humans and as adults, know, when we’re younger, we often get put in situations like starting a new school or going to a new club or, yeah, when you move to then senior school and it’s all these different things. But as adults, we are often very comfortable.

Victoria Brown (31:52.312)
Hahaha

Ellie Chapman (32:17.243)
we’ll live a life in a comfortable bubble in the way that we like it. And actually, I noticed that a lot of people don’t put themselves outside of their comfort zone to go to a new club, to learn a new language, to run a half marathon. And so I think by doing these things, we learn a lot about ourselves and what we’re capable of, because we’re capable of a lot more than we think we are.

Victoria Brown (32:41.816)
Yeah, absolutely. It’s the only way we grow, isn’t it? Although it’s really easy to get stuck in that chair. I know that I’ve heard Jake Humphrey talk about it and he said one of these one of his bosses told him, don’t ever sit in the comfy chair. And he’s got it up in his office. Don’t sit in the comfy chair because it’s just so easy to do. And I think we all need a bit of comfy chair now and then because otherwise we would just be like, mega stressed. But it’s just about learning. OK, now it’s time to take the next challenge.

Ellie Chapman (32:53.895)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (32:59.527)
Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (33:03.772)
Yeah.

Yes, definitely, definitely.

Victoria Brown (33:08.216)
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so what, so you’ve done some amazing things in your business. What’s been your biggest pinch me moment? Was it Santorini or was it something else?

Ellie Chapman (33:16.509)
I think, you know, Santorini was really cool and that and it was the first time seeing mum facilitate in the room and I think I literally was like and then I need to do some drawing now and it was like this moment of that’s my mum also we’re at work she’s in this in that case like she was my boss and I needed to quickly draw something on the page and I think my pinch me moment is that I’ve been dreaming of

creating a brand like Lim since I was 22. And it’s something I always wanted to do and I knew it would happen and it just, needed it to be the right time. And so I remember when Lim went live and it was so surreal because I’d created the branding, everything was how I wanted it. It was all my decisions. Okay, I have to, okay, things with Helen and Ben. A lot of the things it was like, okay, I’m the boss. That’s weird.

Okay, cool. Go with it, go with it. And so the pinch me moment, like to this day is that I am leading a brand that I am so proud of doing work with amazing clients and doing work with amazing team. So honestly, it’s like every day I’m like, I’m so lucky.

Victoria Brown (34:33.74)
amazing yeah i love the fact that it’s just completely aligned for you and obviously it didn’t happen by itself you took effort but everything seemed to have stepped on for the next thing yeah

Ellie Chapman (34:40.487)
No.

Ellie Chapman (34:43.899)
Yes, definitely. It’s all been like a natural, natural progression. It’s not been a forced thing. It’s just evolved, I suppose, as I’ve grown into myself and got more experienced.

Victoria Brown (34:57.159)
It all seems looking back to have happened really smoothly. there any moments you felt a bit stuck and you felt like, don’t really know what I’m doing here?

Ellie Chapman (35:04.605)
I think it wasn’t stuck, it was when it was COVID and we were so used to service during COVID, before COVID I was freelancing, freelance graphic recorder, working mostly for the facilitation partnership and we were used to being in the room with people, that’s how we made our money. And then obviously the whole world just locked down and we couldn’t travel anymore, we couldn’t be in meetings.

And the last face-to-face meeting I’d had was in Toulouse with Airbus. We’d come back and then the world just locked down. And we looked at each other and like my colleagues and we’re like, this could be the end. How are we gonna make this work for us? We need to do something. We also know that we’ve been trying to get better online meetings for years.

But we never did because we’re always busy doing in the room stuff. And so we do online meetings sometimes, but never really explored the possibilities. And then when the COVID happened and we had that moment of, my goodness, what’s going to happen? We had to really quickly pivot to being fantastic online meetings. Clients were calling us. We’ve got an online meeting. How do we do it? And we’re like, yeah.

Don’t worry, we’ve got you. And we have had some amazing online meetings across different time zones. I remember there was one, we’ve got a blog on it on the TFP website, which Ben led on, which we call the Baton Pass, which is he had teams in different time zones and he was getting them to do work two hours and then they would pass the baton to the next team. They’d do the work.

then pass the baton to the next human and they do the work top and tailed with like whole team meetings at either end of the week. And this meeting will like go down in history as like a really pivotal one for us as a business because it really shows what’s possible when you’re working remotely and can really use it to your advantage to get a lot of work done. So that was that I suppose that was a moment of challenge for us, but we grew from it.

Victoria Brown (37:19.802)
Mmm.

Ellie Chapman (37:27.707)
we became really strong and yeah, we now love online meetings as much as in the room meetings.

Victoria Brown (37:35.641)
So just like that moment when you were 22 and you had to step up in front of the executives and just like your sporting moment where you had to step up and take part, that COVID sounds like it was something again that’s forced you to elevate your game.

Ellie Chapman (37:50.173)
Yes, 100 percent.

Victoria Brown (37:52.6)
Yeah, and did it change your business as a result?

Ellie Chapman (37:55.525)
Yes, it did. There was some kind of restructuring that happened during the time as people decided they wanted to go in different directions. So the leadership of the business changed. think only natural when there’s that moment of forced reflection and forced of, okay, what is it that we want? So structurally, the business changed. I then stepped into being a director and then we created the two brands.

So it was really a catalyst, if you like, for the new way of doing things and how we wanted to run the business.

Victoria Brown (38:30.682)
It’s amazing how COVID has changed the way it’s forced people to think differently and do things differently.

Ellie Chapman (38:34.725)
Yes, yes. And also as a result, know, like now we’ll find that some of the global clients will sometimes have a travel ban because of like, for example, sustainability or because of budgets. And actually we know that we can do good stuff online, so we don’t always have to be in the room. And so the result of it is that we don’t always have to travel. It’s good for the planet or better for the planet. And then we get when we get together to have meetings.

They’re even more valuable and we can get to this stuff that we really need to get to.

Victoria Brown (39:05.028)
Yeah, and I’m sustainability is going to be a big theme for you and everybody over the next few years. Is that something you think a lot about?

Ellie Chapman (39:10.621)
is it?

Ellie Chapman (39:14.235)
Yeah, yes, we do. We’ve got some charity partners that are great. So we’ve got Solar Aid and they provide clean, sustainable light for communities in rural Africa. So for every piece of work that we do, we donate 15 pounds, which provides a solar light to a family. But also then our clients also have the option to donate as well. So you’re literally making a difference by working with us.

Also, coming back to what our name means and why we went with SolarAid is that LIM means to illuminate and it also means to capture in drawing or paint. It comes from the Latin Illuminari. And so when we thinking about light and then lighting up the world, the idea of that partnership was just perfect. Our other charity partner is Reuse a Box and they are amazing and they…

lots of cardboard boxes get used once and then get recycled. They don’t need to be because they’ve still got loads of uses left in them. So they get all used cardboard boxes and then basically resell them to be used further. And so we did a job recently where we drew on cardboard boxes and stacked them all up and there was all like, it was a really cool art installation. But, you know, thinking about from the like the higher view in terms of the materials that we use.

and using refillable pens is really important to us. And so making sure that even though we’re a small business, we’re doing all that we can to be good for the planet and good for people as well.

Victoria Brown (40:52.788)
Yeah, amazing. I love the fact everything is thought through in your business and your brand story. Just the light, you know, bringing the light to the world, which of course we need to see if we need to visualise things, we need the light to see. yeah, and it just all fits together so amazingly. There’s a lot of thought gone into it, which I think everybody needs to do now these days. And I think everyone’s waking up to the fact that they need to, we can’t just sell a commodity to somebody. We need to create something that means something.

Ellie Chapman (41:05.638)
Yes, exactly.

Ellie Chapman (41:13.661)
Mm-hmm.

Ellie Chapman (41:22.329)
Yes, and I think a lot of, I think there’s the creating something that means something for the people whose business it is, is really important because you’ve got to have that passion and that belief and know that you’re doing the right thing is really important. But then we also know that the global organizations and global events companies are looking down their supply chain at the suppliers like us and say, you know, what are you doing? And so being able to say,

Even things like I’m FITLIM’s female founder, we’ve got charity partners. It’s natural for us to be those things, but to be able to call it out to the clients to say, this is why you should work with us is really important too. So it’s not only good for us, but it’s good for our clients.

Victoria Brown (42:09.016)
Yeah, amazing. So going back to visualisation and being in graphic recording, if someone works in an organisation that’s listening to this podcast and they’d like to give something a go, but they haven’t got the budget to afford to outsource it yet, what simple things they can do to get them started?

Ellie Chapman (42:27.677)
Yes, good question. There are lots of things and I think when it comes down to, so there’s the individual and there’s also the team. then linked with that is the purpose. So it might be that the individual is wanting to, they’re listening to a podcast and they just want to create some notes from the podcast because they want to be able to share the learnings from the podcast with their team.

because they might have listened to Mel Robbins on communication. And so they might do a little sketch note. They might just use a piece of paper. They might use their notebook. And they just draw the key messages in something other than a list. They can photograph and say, hey, team, I’ve just listened to this podcast. It’s been really valuable. I think it’s going to be great for the team to listen to it. Here are my key takeaways.

So that might be something like a side thing that they can do that’s not going to cost them any money and it’s going to benefit for their learning. Equally, they might be helping their kids with their revision, like my mum did with me, to do some mind maps. So practising how you can turn a piece of paper from vertical to horizontal and then it kind of links to how we see things in a, what’s the word, horizontal way. That’s the wrong word.

Not like, but we see the like the whole thing. And so changing the paper can start to change the way we think. But in the meeting, it might be that there’s a flip chart. They might get the flip chart ready before the meeting and make sure that the pens are juicy before the meeting because there’s nothing worse than taking off a pen lid

writing something and it’s dry and you’re scurrying around trying to find a pen that’s juicy and you’ve missed what you needed to write down. So to be prepared beforehand is really important but they might give it a go by writing down ideas from the meeting depending on what their process is so whether that’s the decisions that are made, whether that’s the challenges that are being faced, whether that’s the options that they have, you know they might even do a SWOT.

Ellie Chapman (44:52.411)
really easy cross in the middle of the page easy but starting small and just giving it a go and then from there it can start to grow like what we said at the beginning just doing a little something little seeing how it goes reviewing going again.

Victoria Brown (45:11.31)
Yeah, because every artist has to start somewhere. Even Van Gogh started somewhere. So I really love that idea, actually, of having a podcast or even maybe a book that you’ve read and write and illustrating the key takeaways, because for me, I read loads of books and then five minutes later on another book and I can’t remember what I’ve read and what I’ve learned. So I love that. It’s just such a really simple way of just retaining information and making stuff stick.

Ellie Chapman (45:13.849)
Exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly.

Ellie Chapman (45:33.51)
Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (45:37.789)
Yeah, yeah, and I think by doing that you then build up your, you’ve got your bookshelf or you’ve got your Kindle, but then you’ve actually got what it means to you and what resonated with you and then you can easily go back and reference the notes that you made if you think, there was that book that I read, what was that quote? And rather than going through the book, you can look at the notes that you took.

Victoria Brown (46:05.794)
Yeah, I love that. And you know what, it’s funny because I grew up thinking, believing books were sacrosanct, which I still do, but I would never write in them because the thought of writing in a book, know, the books are like, holy, and I love reading. And then recently I had to start because I was doing my coaching course, I had to start writing on the books and realize I retain stuff so much more than now. I always write in them. And now that means to me that I’m taking more from the book.

Ellie Chapman (46:13.093)
Yeah. No.

Yes, yeah, yeah,

Ellie Chapman (46:33.01)
Yes. Yeah, I can see why. Yeah. I was brought up not to write in a book and then we had to annotate a book in A-level English. think it was Gatsby and going through and I was like, and I did it in pencil. So was like, then at least I can rub it out.

Victoria Brown (46:33.146)
It took me a little bit of like, my God, I’m writing in the book. Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria Brown (46:47.61)
But now I used to see my books as like all over and I’m I’m proud of that now and that next level is to draw instead of write words.

Ellie Chapman (46:51.451)
Yeah, good.

Ellie Chapman (46:55.631)
Yes, but if you think about what drawing is, you don’t have to start drawing a portrait of the Mona Lisa. It might be that you start with shapes, squares, circles, arrows. That might be what you do, speech bubbles. And I call them containers. So by using containers, you can start to divide up your words in a visual way.

Then you can start to bring in icons. So you don’t have to sit and think about the page of like, this needs to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever drawn. Start by putting a title in a box and maybe a quote in a speech bubble and then an arrow because they’ve linked that thing with another point. So you can start to build it through using shapes.

Victoria Brown (47:29.399)
You

Victoria Brown (47:44.61)
Yeah, I love that. That’s a great tip. think that’s a really good tip for anybody starting, it? Just think of the shapes, how they link together, and then you can create some kind of cohesion. And you’ll probably, like you said earlier, when you see on the paper, you probably see links that you didn’t realize were there until you got those shapes down.

Ellie Chapman (47:49.042)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (48:01.487)
Exactly. Because if somebody said something and they might say, right, and I’ve got three points for this and you’ve done three points, that’s the signpost one, two, three. But then they might go back to that point and you think, I’ve already got that there. can then annotate around this bit. So then you’re starting to group the content in a way that tracks their conversation.

Victoria Brown (48:20.218)
It makes sense when you actually go back and read it rather than just being a list of points which nobody’s ever going to read again or just fall asleep reading. So you’ve done so much Ellie and you’re clearly passionate about what you do and you’re also like a challenge so I know that there are going to be more things in your future that you’re eyeing up at the moment. What’s your vision for Lim and for you?

Ellie Chapman (48:23.005)
Yeah.

Ellie Chapman (48:28.025)
Exactly. Yes.

Ellie Chapman (48:43.601)
Yes.

So the vision for Lim is that we continue to support our global clients to work visually. My dream, dream, and Helen and Ben say I can’t do it all in the first two years, which I understand is to have studios in different parts of the world so we can really support our global clients with local talent. So thinking about talent and the idea of me mentoring at schools.

you know, there’ll be great talent in different locations. How do we really maximise who’s there? So that’s my absolute dream. I’ll need to wait a while before we can do that.

Victoria Brown (49:27.618)
you strike me as you’re not very patient about those things that you want to go after. That’s amazing, I love that, that’s a real trait of an entrepreneur I think.

Ellie Chapman (49:30.351)
No, no, I want it all done now.

Yes, yes, but in the short term, on Friday I fly to Chicago to work with McCain and then I’m back in London and then off to Athens. So it’s lots of moving around. So yes, impatient, here, and everywhere, doing great work, working with brilliant people.

Victoria Brown (49:59.31)
sounds really busy, do you always have a suitcase permanently packed ready to go?

Ellie Chapman (50:03.901)
Yes, until we were doing this house renovation at the moment and my partner travels a lot for work as well and he was tidying up and he’s put the suitcases in the loft because they were in the way but we need to lay them back down tomorrow because they need to be packed so it’s that thing of like the suitcases are always the thing that gets tripped over because it needs to be packed again ready for the next trip.

Victoria Brown (50:27.02)
Yeah, yeah, exciting! You must clock up lot of air miles as well.

Ellie Chapman (50:29.433)
Yes. Yes, I do.

Victoria Brown (50:34.49)
Brilliant. what’s, have we talked about what’s next? So let’s erase that question. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking to us, Ellie. I’ve really enjoyed hearing your perspective. Can you tell us where people can find you and find more about Lim if they want to look you up?

Ellie Chapman (50:42.3)
Okay.

Ellie Chapman (50:55.517)
Yes, so there’s a couple of ways to see what we’re up to. We’ve got our website, which is wearelim.com. We’ve got our LinkedIn, where we share news stories, we share case studies. Our LinkedIn is Lim, just L-I-M. The logo is blue, so you just have to scroll down because there’s quite a lot of surnames that are also called Lim. So just scroll a little bit, you’ll find us. And then Instagram, we are at weare-lim.

And just to say that we share a newsletter once a month and the newsletter often shares, it’s not about the work that we do and how great we are, we always want to share resources that are helpful for people. towards the end of last year, we shared a piece on ADHD, which had a huge response, which was just brilliant. But we always want to share things that are helpful for our clients. We often visualise them in sketch notes so you can sign up to our newsletter on our website as well.

Victoria Brown (51:54.842)
Amazing. Well, keep doing what you’re doing and I look forward to watching you progress and take over the world.

Ellie Chapman (51:57.659)
Thank you.

Ellie Chapman (52:01.671)
Thank you, yes, won’t be long, hopefully. Thank you.

Victoria Brown (52:04.523)
Thanks, Ellie.