We Are Power Podcast
The We Are Power podcast is the podcast for your career and your life. A weekly podcast with listeners in over 60 countries worldwide where you'll hear personal life stories, top-notch industry advice, and key leadership insight from amazing role models. The podcast not only aids your personal and professional development but also delves deep into conversations around Gender Equality and Social Mobility. Each week the We Are Power Podcast will bring you a new interview from a leader within the 100,000-strong We Are Power community, hosted by Simone Roche MBE.
We Are Power Podcast
Claire O'Connor's Journey of Resilience and Dance Innovation
Join us as we sit down with Claire O'Connor, founder of Baby Ballet, who has revolutionised how children experience dance.
Growing up around ballet, Claire often felt she didn’t measure up to the high standards around her. But her journey is all about overcoming challenges, and defying expectations.
With Baby Ballet now reaching over 22,000 children each week, Claire's story is a powerful reminder of the impact one person's vision can have.
Listen to learn:
How community and support networks can make all the difference
Why inclusivity matters in dance and the arts
How believing in your vision helps you overcome challenges
The power of education and representation in breaking ballet stereotypes
Claire's journey is a testament to resilience, innovation, and the power of staying true to one's mission.
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Hello, hello, welcome to the we Are Power studio for our we Are Power podcast. We're delighted to be live on our comfy couches here where each week, I'm having wonderful conversations with inspirational trailblazers and role models from all over the place, quite frankly. And this week I am delighted to be joined by the wonderful Claire O'Connor. Claire is the founder, franchisor and CEO of Baby Ballet. Have to read all this because there's so much to you, claire. She is a multi-award winning preschool ballet franchise. That it's all about. I love this fun, inclusivity and education. Claire, welcome to the pod. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's long overdue. I've been delighted to have been dying to have this natter.
Speaker 1:The last time I think we caught up was at the Female Advisory Board launch in Harrogate probably last year, something like that? Yeah, it was. And how quick has that gone? That the Female Advisory Board launched in Harrogate? Probably last year, something like that? Yeah, it was. And how quick has that gone? I don't know. I think the time is super turbo charged. But let's take this all the way back to the beginning. And how was your sort of reflecting on your childhood and looking at your experience growing up with ballet? How did that shape your view of sort of traditional ballet training?
Speaker 2:So I was born into a world of ballet because my mum's had her own ballet school and she had several schools and she was very involved in the RAD, which is the Royal Academy of Dance. She was their youngest I think at the time their youngest examiner globally for children's exams, which was which was a really big achievement. So I was born into a world of ballet that's probably the best way to describe it and my mum's was a very friendly school. But for me the challenges started to come. The early years were quite. I don't remember having any kind of negative memories or anything.
Speaker 2:I didn't go to my mum's school because she said I was unteachable but I do think that you just can't teach your own kids and um, so she, I went to one of her um well, friends schools and it was a very strict school and I just always remember not feeling good enough, not feeling thin enough, not feeling sensible enough, and that feeling thin enough, not feeling sensible enough, and that's probably the best way to explain my relationship with ballet, probably in those sort of formative and then growing years. And then I left my own ballet journey ended at that point at 14, because it just didn't really suit my personality. Probably that's's the best thing. But now, looking back, I really regret leaving, because ballet can bring so many benefits and it's beautiful, but I think I had a bit of a love-hate relationship to start with it. I love the fact that you were referred to as unteachable.
Speaker 1:I know it's quite harsh and this obviously inspired you to, to, to move on and create baby ballet with your mum as well. Your mum's been involved, hasn't she?
Speaker 2:She has. Yeah, because I didn't follow ballet as a professional career, I went down different routes and again with school I've recently actually quite important in the story this now I've recently been diagnosed with ADHD at 50. So it kind of really helps me now explain what happened, what was happening. You know the way that I was. I was never a naughty person or a naughty child, but I just couldn't concentrate and focus. So ballet, at that point it required a lot of concentration and focus.
Speaker 2:So I didn't take ballet as a professional career and scraped through my education and then I ended up coming out of university with my mum's favourite saying was that I went to university to get a child, to get a degree, and I came out with a child.
Speaker 2:So it was the best degree I could have ever asked for and I sadly at that point struggled with personal depression and anxiety. So I got a job with my mom at her school. So I went back into the ballet world and then could see for me that there was still such an emphasis on being the best, being thin, and it made me really feel sad, me really feel sad. So I think at that point it was I just wanted to make a change and I wanted to create and provide something for children that was about fun and inclusivity, and my mum has been such an incredible help along the way because of her, obviously, her high standards and high you know um accolades that she's really helped to make sure that the ballet base and all the fundamentals of the teaching standards and what we're delivering throughout the program and syllabus have been adhered to. So, yeah, it's been very interesting.
Speaker 1:And how did you go to where you are now, sort of in multiple countries over 22 000, isn't it, if I remember, of the stat I remember encompassing baby, but you launched baby valley with absolutely zero investment or funding yeah, I didn't have anything.
Speaker 2:So at the beginning, um, ironically, my mum didn't believe in it. So I created this vision and I just wanted to bring this vision which is pretty much what's alive and out there now of you know, really fun, inclusive and happy, safe space for children to learn to do ballet and dance. And so I set off very much without any support, any investment, with nothing other than armed with this absolutely strong vision that I wanted to change the world, and so I didn't let it. I just didn't let it stand in my way. So remortgaged, sold the car, got various different loans, and I just didn't let any anything stand in my way. Really, I just wanted to make sure that, well, I was just driven. So I was like, you know, I'd find a brick wall and you get around it. I just had to make it happen.
Speaker 1:And we talked about that. You serve over 22,000 children a week right now. How have you ensured that you, your brand, retains those, those values, and that the whole ethos about the fun, whilst also remaining accessible to all?
Speaker 2:So number one has always been standards and welcoming every single child through the door or whether they're watching at home on the YouTube channel. It's about inclusion and the standards of the brand, because I had no business knowledge so I just had to learn everything along the way. I just never defaulted from that standard and that, you know, like I wanted it to be the very best. I've always kind of thought Disney and above, and then I should be hitting somewhere near. I've just got to have everything's got to be exceptional standards and my role, I suppose, as the business has grown, has been very much about educating and passing on that importance of the brand and the values and the ethos and the culture through all the people that have helped me to grow. The dream really and you know the dream was a dream. It was nothing without the people that have believed in it along the way. So, yeah, maintaining those standards is my number one focus, wow.
Speaker 1:And what would you say to any aspiring entrepreneur out there who's thinking I want to change the world, I've got an idea, but I don't have the dollars and I don't have the business knowledge? What would you say to them?
Speaker 2:I suppose it's looking back now. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I would have done things differently, but the one thing that you've just got to keep in your heart that keeps driving you is that belief in what you're doing. If you don't have the belief, then I don't think it's it's, it's a, it's a kind of it's worth exploring or taking any further. But if you're passionate about your idea, you believe in it. Of course, the financials are essential you've got to make sure it works financially but I think it's more around the determination and desire for whatever you're doing and you know what you've got to find out what you don't know.
Speaker 2:And I didn't enjoy school for various reasons. Well, I'd enjoyed school but I didn't enjoy the education part. I loved the social part but not the education part, whereas now I am just an absolute sponge for learning. I've got books, I've got podcasts, I've got everything to to help me along the way of learning how to navigate this business journey, which has been, you know, from day one to now, insane, like the amount of things that I've had to learn.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I'd just say just have that belief and never stop learning, and one of your passions has been really about sort of challenging the stereotypes about body image and the traditions of ballet, and that's something baby ballet and you have done like passionately, isn't?
Speaker 2:it is really challenging those stereotypes yeah, I suppose challenge is the probably the wrong word, because I'm very accepting of how other people do things, because that's how they feel it is right. But what I wanted to achieve through baby ballet was to offer a really inclusive, safe, happy environment. And I'm not saying that we're the only place that does that, of course not. But for me, really putting that emphasis on fun and inclusivity rather than on the more competitive side or the more you know, really having to be a certain shape or a certain ability or a certain gender or a certain ethnicity, it really was just about opening those barriers and just saying everybody is welcome, and you starred in Channel 4's Big Ballet, which I think was a three or four piece episodes series, which is all around challenging those stereotypes, and you were, I think, one of 18 dancers.
Speaker 1:is that what I remember?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, and ironically in that I was the smallest dancer, whereas all my life I'd thought that I was the biggest. And why should it matter?
Speaker 1:And what part you talked about education earlier, but what part of the arts and a particular dance player role in really sort of promoting gender equality and breaking some of that down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the arts is a wonderful way of expressing and people love to express and they can express in whatever way they want through dance and that's their own, you know, personal interpretation also comes through, but challenging the stereotypes through dance. I think I kind of liken it to the way now that football is much more openly inclusive to women and my dad passed away 13 years ago and I think if he came back and watched the TV then he'd be really surprised at how now you know, women are really featured in commentary in in the matches. And then we've got, you know, tv matches. My family will sit down and watch a female football match, which just wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2:So I hope that you know, dance and ballet become a similar level of acceptance before too long, because that's happened quite relatively well and it's been a lot of work behind the scenes, I'm sure, from a football point of view, but it has been accepted and it's lovely to see that. You know we can see pubs showing female football and I hope that ballet becomes a much more accepting art form through really through representation and and more people showing that it's okay to do ballet whatever you know, size, gender, ethnicity, you are and what was your big takeaway from the TV show Because it was with Wayne Sleep, who I think was was he the shortest ever ballet dancer to perform at the Royal National Ballet?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Wayne was incredible I mean you know what an incredible man and Monica Loughman was the ballet mistress. So it threw me back into that studio and it was hardcore. I mean, doing an audition in front of Wayne Sleep was probably the most scary thing that I've ever done in my life and he was just really surprised and sad that I felt too big for ballet. And you know I was size 12 at the time. I don't think I've ever been more than a size 12, but sadly that's always been too big and it was. It was just amazing being back in that studio and I think that really helped me to overcome some of my negative memories of ballet and really, really love ballet for what it was all about.
Speaker 1:But it was a really it was scary experience but I'm so glad I did it and what part has education got to play, especially in early childhood and early childhood development, to again help sort of change some of those perceptions?
Speaker 2:Well, I think education is key, isn't it? And you know, we've got role models, educators, not just in the schooling system but at home, with our parents, with our carers, with our friends, with our families, and you know, people surrounding those young children. So it's about ensuring that the messages I suppose that those children are receiving and those role models are well. Ultimately, they're passing down their own beliefs. So it's kind of hopefully, as generations go on, then people will challenge societal norms and you know, just like I am with you know, wanting all children to enjoy ballet, hopefully the acceptance and representation and education will all help to just change it and, you know, make everybody feel, feel welcome. But education is, it's, it's everywhere, isn't it? It's huge and you know, I think, seeing just girls doing ballet or only thin people doing ballet, education's got to change through representation and also the people around everybody.
Speaker 2:We've got a really interesting story coming up, actually, that we're going to cover through our socials and on a blog, that my husband works in rugby league and one of the players used to come to baby ballet and he came up to me and he said he said I just wanted to say thank you for baby ballet because it really helped me with my coordination, my balance and I'm not ashamed about it, you know, because I know that some people would be and he's now, you know, playing for Salford Red Devils and he's, you know, strapping rugby player, and that kind of thing will hopefully help.
Speaker 2:Dads in particular seem to have a little bit of an issue with boys attending, and just to help take away those fears and take away those barriers and for men to think, god, of course, it's no problem, my little boy going to baby ballet, so yeah, so it's interesting that then, educating through social media, through, you know, various channels, is also um important sort of introduce and explore children to the diverse experiences and role models around them. And, you know, show, show more of what goes on rather than just what people think goes on. Because, you know, ballet and dance now not just through baby ballets is getting much better representation and a lot more people are enjoying it because of the stigma attached is hopefully starting to go away, and that's something about the education in those early years and educating the parents as well.
Speaker 1:To say this is inclusive and open for all, it's not just for girls, right?
Speaker 2:Do you know what's really sad Even now? So in the beginning, part of the reason for me to start baby ballet was when we were doing the initial preschool classes at Brewster's, at a play gym in in Ernie Top in near Halifax. It really surprised me and again it saddened me that so many people bringing their children in were sharing stories of their own you know their own ballet story. So maybe it was like oh, my mum didn't let me do baby ballet. Let me do ballet when I was younger, because I was a fairy elephant or because I was the wrong shape or because I was, you know, I had two left feet and it just added, I think, to my desire to make a change.
Speaker 2:And even to this day we get people saying the same thing. So they go oh, you know, if I say, you know, bring them to baby ballet, or we can help with, you know, coordination, blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be. And still this belief is in the the parents and carers of you have to be a certain size to do ballet. So we've got a lot of work to do, but I'm quite determined when it comes to this, as you know. So I'll continue the quest to just help people alleviate those fears that come along. Enjoy.
Speaker 1:And that's what it's all about, isn't it? And one of the things that I saw on your showreel around Baby Valley was actually listening to some of the teachers and some of the franchisee, because it's a huge franchisee model. So it's not just you're creating and shifting the stereotypes, you're creating this amazing world for amazing individuals to develop their careers, careers and their franchise experience. So, from Claire the entrepreneur, what you're enabling him is is so powerful yeah, and initially I was.
Speaker 2:I was just I remember studying that play gym in in an only top and thinking I need to get this out everywhere, but I didn't know how to do it. So part of the journey was to learn which model was going to be best to roll it out. So if I got a teacher in Brickhouse, I'd be able to cover that class, but then maybe find a replacement teacher If it was in London or somewhere else in the world. How could I do that? So franchising was a really brilliant model to use to grow the network to, to grow the, to grow the network. And so, meeting the franchisees who then believed in what I was trying to achieve, and then see that that gave them their own business, their own, it's their own business, but, you know, within the standards and vision and ethos of baby ballet, it's just, yeah, it's really rewarding and I am so fortunate to work with the most incredible, credible bunch of franchisees, both here and then on the other side of the world as well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's crazy really how it's, how it's happened, but it's a it's a really good model because it allows me then to keep the standards and the you know, both of the teaching and of the, the brand, and I think that point about that standards are welcome, which you said, that's the teaching, and of the, the brand, and I think that point about that standards of welcome, which you said, that's the, if you like, the non-negotiable, what's the best piece of advice you've had over the years of baby valley?
Speaker 2:surround yourself with people who want to lift you up, not pull you down, and I'm absolutely like I. I love seeing other people succeed. So it gives me the most amount of joy to see other people succeed along the way. And I really feel that if you help each other in an industry, the industry lifts, the attitudes change, things shift and that is powerful stuff and the impact is positive for everybody around you don't have to be too Well, yeah, I've always wanted to help other people.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, kind of like I've always always wanted to help other people. It's kind of what I do. But yeah, really having that really solid network around me, people who really do not just believe in you and the vision but they want to help you through those ups and downs, because there are a lot of downs. People tend to just see the ups and they see the celebrations and they see the celebrations and they see the successes, but you know the 95% that goes on behind the scenes is when you need that. You know real strong network behind you of friends, families and supporters and what are you excited for looking forward?
Speaker 2:oh, I'm so excited I can't begin to tell you. I'm so excited I've come through. Like the last three and a half years I've been on a bit of a personal development journey because the impact of the business raising my four goddess children and just the stress and the you know, not putting myself first, all that I've really hit a brick wall with that. So I've been on a big personal journey to kind of understand myself better, untangle all the spaghetti in my head and do so much personal development with a coach and a therapist and changing my lifestyle.
Speaker 2:To now I feel really ready and excited to put my own professional and personal learnings to play, to now go to that next stage and scale up. So we're going to work on the global development. We're working on the children's characters that we've got. Um, one of my big dreams is to make them into an animation series, work on the youtube channel so that we can have Babybelly can really be accessible to all. And you know, through, not everybody can attend a class, not everybody can get to a class. So to really really grow, the stage shows the everything. So yeah, so I am ready, excited and so so willing for this next stage.
Speaker 1:Oh, claire, thank you so, so much. I cannot wait to meet up again, wherever we may be, maybe Harrogate again, where we can catch up on your amazing successes, because it's fantastic what you've done and the whole ethos of why and what you do, and to have done this from zero to now being able to make this accessible globally is absolutely fantastic. We'll put all of your details in the show notes as well. So if you don't know about baby ballet, then you got it right. But please do keep going, keep going to smash those stereotypes and get ready for maybe, season two of the ballet show. Who knows? Well, you never know. Thank you so much, simone. Thanks for all your support. Oh, thank you, claire. Thank you so much, simone. Thanks for all your support. Oh, thank you, claire. Thank you so much, and thank you for all of you for joining us on the we Are Power podcast from our fabulous studio here. Please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Also, you can watch on YouTube, apple Music, spotify and do leave a review.
Speaker 1:We love to hear what you're thinking and join the conversation. Join the conversation across all of our socials. I know Claire will be happy to join in and have a gab online as well and pass on her tips and knowledge as well. So please follow us on all our socials. We are power underscore net on Insta, tiktok and X. We are power on LinkedIn, facebook, x. And we are power underscore on YouTube. And don't forget, you can also stay connected for all of the things that we're on on our digital hub, wearepowernet, including save the date, 6th of March, the 9th Northern Power Women Awards, the largest event celebrating gender equality in Europe. Thank you so much for joining me today. This is the we Are Power podcast. We look forward to seeing you next week.
