Blog Post: “Bringing My Whole Self to the Room: Lessons from Liverpool with Time to Shine”

In this blog post, Liz Wylie, Rank’s 2025 Time to Shine Leader and Place Based Programme Officer, reflects on her recent mid-year Time to Shine conference in Liverpool. Liz shares the lessons, personal growth and connections that are shaping her leadership journey.

In June, I spent a few valuable days in Liverpool with my Time to Shine cohort as part of our programme review conference. A welcome chance to pause, reconnect, and reflect on the journey so far.

One of the true highlights was reconnecting with the group. Being in a space where honest conversations were encouraged reminded me how essential it is to reflect, stay open to learning, and keep pushing forward in my personal and professional development. Now I have reached the mid-way point of the programme I was able to acknowledge how I have grown and developed in my role as Place Based Programme Officer, and thinking ahead for how to continue my leadership journey.

Over the three-day conference, the session leaders and guest speakers brought tremendous energy and insight, each offering practical tools and perspectives I’ll carry with me. I want to give a special mention to Claudette from Speakers Trust, who facilitated a powerful and uplifting session on public speaking, without feeling too overwhelming. It’s an area I find particularly challenging, but Claudette’s supportive approach combined with simple, effective framework of content, tone and delivery helped break down in a way that made sense.

One piece of advice from Claudette has really stayed with me: the importance of bringing your whole self to the room, nerves and all. It reinforced the idea that leading with passion can carry you further than confidence alone.

Our practical workshop from CTVC on cross platform content creation at first felt daunting, especially as my group had little experience of editing short form content for TikTok or Instagram. However, as we began working together, sharing ideas and taking on different roles we began to have fun and feel a sense of pride for our ‘Time to Shine teaser trailer’ (Love you Team Shine!). In the end how we worked together became more of a reflection of our experience on the journey’s, how we uplifted one another, took on feedback and remained positive throughout.

On the last day, Sam Anderson got us thinking about our wellbeing and how personal and professional factors contribute to keeping us sustained. Working with our managers we wrote how factors from different categories contribute to our wellbeing, across the whole group it was interesting to hear how individual wellbeing is. From my reflections I was able to appreciate how much the spending time outdoors or in nature improves my mental (and physical) wellbeing, as well as how support from colleagues, fellow leaders, mentors and my loved ones who bring out the best in me.

A heartfelt thank you as well to Hayley Smallman, who shared her inspiring journey with us. Her story, positivity, and resilience were a powerful reminder that leadership takes many forms and shows up in every part of life.

I’m deeply grateful to everyone who contributed to making this such a fun, supportive, and transformative experience. I’m already looking forward to seeing all my Time to Shine leaders at the Annual Conference in October!