Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host for the Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a number of amazing
Joanne Lockwood: people. And simply having a conversation about the subject of inclusion,
Joanne Lockwood: belonging, and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive.
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Joanne Lockwood: line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
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Joanne Lockwood: Itunes, Spotify and the usual places. So plug
Joanne Lockwood: in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going.
Joanne Lockwood: Today is episode 28 with the title
Joanne Lockwood: Finding the Magic and I have the absolute honor and
Joanne Lockwood: privilege to be joined by Mark Lee. Mark described himself
Joanne Lockwood: as a reformed accountant and magician. When I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Mark to describe his superpower, he said that it is
Joanne Lockwood: his ability to create acronyms on the fly.
Joanne Lockwood: Or is that TCAOTF, I wonder?
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Mark. Hi. Jo. Hi, Jo, thanks for having
Mark Lee: me. Absolute pleasure. Jo, Mark, tell me,
Joanne Lockwood: finding the magic, what does that mean to you? It
Mark Lee: it probably relates back to, as a teenager,
Mark Lee: my first foray into business was as a children's party entertainer.
Mark Lee: And I then continued as a as a magician at parties and
Mark Lee: functions, And it's always been my hobby, if you like.
Mark Lee: Other other teenagers, 20 somethings were going to football or rugby
Mark Lee: or sports events, and I was going to kids' parties and
Mark Lee: entertaining them using magic. And, it's always been a part
Mark Lee: of my life. I've been a member of the Magic Circle for
Mark Lee: over 20 years, and I'm now treasurer of the Magic
Mark Lee: Circle. So I get to combine my my professional
Mark Lee: experience as a chartered accountant with being
Mark Lee: a passionate magician as well. And
Mark Lee: I I look back and I realized that I hid my
Mark Lee: passion in magic from my clients over the years, although my
Mark Lee: colleagues knew about it. And I was always doing tricks in the pub or in
Mark Lee: the office, in between client work, obviously.
Mark Lee: But I kept it secret from clients because I was always concerned it might adversely
Mark Lee: impact my professional credibility. And since I
Mark Lee: left practice, after I qualified as chartered accountant, I was a tax adviser
Mark Lee: for many years. And then about 15 years
Mark Lee: ago, I decided, having been made redundant for the second
Mark Lee: time, I'd focused instead the rest of my career on doing those
Mark Lee: things. I really enjoyed speaking, writing, and mentoring.
Mark Lee: And I learned that one of the key
Mark Lee: things you need to do as an independent person, and indeed it's probably
Mark Lee: true for all of us, is to share a bit about yourself. People
Mark Lee: don't just buy you because of your technical experience. And
Mark Lee: I'm much less shy about revealing my interest in magic
Mark Lee: now. Indeed, there's invariably a trick or 2 in in my talks while I'm on
Mark Lee: stage even though my audiences are accountants. And I
Mark Lee: frequently point out that if they want to be better remembered, referred, and recommended,
Mark Lee: they need to reveal something of themselves. That doesn't mean they have to
Mark Lee: become magicians, though, but everybody should find the magic,
Mark Lee: in their own career, background, experience, passions,
Mark Lee: life, loves, family, or whatever.
Joanne Lockwood: Yep. Brilliant. I mean, we talk, you know, in D&I circles
Joanne Lockwood: about bringing your whole self to work. So you you are actively hiding
Joanne Lockwood: an element of who you are or were, for
Joanne Lockwood: fear of embarrassment, shame or stigma or something that you felt it would damage
Joanne Lockwood: your professional credibility. That's really kind of interesting, and
Joanne Lockwood: it's magic. Yeah.
Mark Lee: I think I had it's also a function of a couple of bad experiences
Mark Lee: that I had. One was I turned up at an turned up at an
Mark Lee: interview in the days before the Internet. So there was no profile of me
Mark Lee: online. There was no photo of me on the CV, and I sat
Mark Lee: down, in front of the senior partner of a large firm of accountants, and
Mark Lee: he did that thing he'd been trained to do to try and put the
Mark Lee: candidate there is. So he scanned down the CV, and he
Mark Lee: looked at the interests bit. And now under interests, I put
Mark Lee: magic, member of the magic circle. And I to this
Mark Lee: day, I remember him looking up and looking at me
Mark Lee: going, I see you're a magician. I think that says a lot
Mark Lee: about you. I don't recall where the
Mark Lee: conversation went from that, but I do know I didn't get the job. And I
Mark Lee: always wondered if that was because he perceived that maybe I was good at deceiving
Mark Lee: people and that maybe that was why he shouldn't recruit me.
Mark Lee: And I think that may have had an impact as to
Mark Lee: me, keeping it, hidden for a
Mark Lee: while. And then the other experience that many, many
Mark Lee: years later, I've been headhunted, it was before I was
Mark Lee: headhunted, by BDO, Large for accountants.
Mark Lee: I worked at another sizable firm. And
Mark Lee: because I shared the magic with colleagues and friends and with journalists and I was
Mark Lee: making a bit of a name for myself in in the accounting world as a
Mark Lee: commentator. And in those days, there was a a publication,
Mark Lee: which is now only available online, accountancy age, which we used
Mark Lee: to joke was a bit like the sum of the accountancy world. No
Mark Lee: offense to the serious publication that it is these
Mark Lee: days. But the back cover always had a a
Mark Lee: taking stock page, which is a bit like sort of accountancy
Mark Lee: rate version of private eye, poking fun at,
Mark Lee: you know, stuffy old accountants. But they always had a feature on
Mark Lee: accountants who were a little bit unusual, who had an interesting
Mark Lee: hobbies. And I had featured on the back cover 2 or
Mark Lee: 3 times. And I remember one occasion,
Mark Lee: I walked into my largest client's office, the finance
Mark Lee: director, with a couple of, colleagues. And as I walked
Mark Lee: in, I could see that on the notice board behind him
Mark Lee: was pinned the latest back cover from accountancy
Mark Lee: age with a picture of me doing a magic trick circled
Mark Lee: in big red ink and an arrow pointing at
Mark Lee: it going, should we take tax advice from this guy?
Mark Lee: I went, oh my god. And I they they
Mark Lee: knew me well enough. It was a wind up. But
Mark Lee: for that split second, I had thought that I
Mark Lee: damaged not only my credibility, but risked the client,
Mark Lee: to the firm. And I think that also made
Mark Lee: me a little reluctant to share the magic too
Mark Lee: much with, with clients for for far too long
Mark Lee: looking back. Because the other thing I've learned as I've got older and
Mark Lee: wiser is most people love magic. Most people
Mark Lee: like the entertainment side of it. It's always about being entertaining. It's never about
Mark Lee: being clever or I can do stuff you can't do. It's about entertaining with
Mark Lee: magic. And most people like it, love it, and it might well have helped
Mark Lee: cement more client relationships than I would have lost. So I I think it's
Mark Lee: a huge mistake when I look back. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm I'm almost sat here speechless listening to that story because
Joanne Lockwood: for it to carry that kind of stigma, but then I think the word the
Joanne Lockwood: way you described it was magic could be
Joanne Lockwood: your practice of being deceitful, misleading people. So
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose it is a bit of this paradox between a trusted
Joanne Lockwood: accountant and a magician. I mean obviously we often want our tax
Joanne Lockwood: advisers to magic our tax away, but we want to do it
Joanne Lockwood: in plain view. So had this one before today.
Mark Lee: No? No. No. No. Sorry. Tongue very firmly in cheek. Ah,
Joanne Lockwood: okay. Let's magic away my tags.
Joanne Lockwood: I see you have your wand. I mean for those this is a podcast but
Joanne Lockwood: Mark has actually sat there with a bookshelf behind him and on the bookshelf is
Joanne Lockwood: a magic wand sort of strategic who plays just ready to
Joanne Lockwood: magic people's accounts. Well well, I I I haven't been in practice for many,
Mark Lee: many years, but there is
Mark Lee: often a a magic wand behind me just because it it prompts conversation.
Mark Lee: And, also, for those people who like to study bookshelves, almost
Mark Lee: all of the books on on the shelf are business related,
Mark Lee: lead generation, marketing, the sort of things that I talk to
Mark Lee: firms of accountants about from a strategic perspective or coaching and
Mark Lee: mentoring, which I do with individual accountants,
Mark Lee: particularly those running around practices. But if you look carefully, you will
Mark Lee: also see the Paul Daniels adult magic book. And,
Mark Lee: also, I've I can't remember why I put it there, but I've got the, I'm
Mark Lee: sorry I haven't a clue, anthology there as well,
Mark Lee: just to show that I'm not all about the serious and the heavyweight.
Joanne Lockwood: It's it's really interesting. This has sparked a memory that I've forgotten all about.
Joanne Lockwood: I did my first magic
Joanne Lockwood: gig when I was about 8 or 9 years old.
Joanne Lockwood: And my parents were very keen at the time for me not to be paid
Joanne Lockwood: because they didn't want to make me a professional magician at ages of 8
Joanne Lockwood: or 9. Oh my goodness. It was my it was my I think it was
Joanne Lockwood: 8 or 9, maybe 10. I was very young. I remember it was our
Joanne Lockwood: next door neighbor. They had younger children and
Joanne Lockwood: they they knew that I was I did some magic tricks. Jo I had my,
Joanne Lockwood: was it hanky panky magic? Box?
Joanne Lockwood: I forgot all about it until he mentioned I forgot all about it Jo that
Joanne Lockwood: they knew I did sort of this magic, I used to get magic, these magic
Joanne Lockwood: boxes, it was a hanky panky magic accessory, I used to have a blue one
Joanne Lockwood: and a green one, there's a like a bigger one you Joanne get, all the
Joanne Lockwood: little things, Jo I was quite into at the time. And they asked me
Joanne Lockwood: if I'd be a magician at their their children's party next door, there's
Joanne Lockwood: about 8 or 10 kids, I remember doing it practicing all these little tricks and
Joanne Lockwood: yeah obviously fluff them up a little bit but yeah I my audience were
Joanne Lockwood: probably 5 or 6 so it was probably easy audience. And,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah Jo I did my my first magic gig probably the age of 8 or
Joanne Lockwood: 9. Well, Jo idea why I didn't pursue it it just it
Joanne Lockwood: was one of those things I did and it dropped away, went up maybe in
Joanne Lockwood: my teenage years. Well, I I did my first gig for my
Mark Lee: sister when I was about 13, and then
Mark Lee: I got a booking for a cousin's daughter, when she was gonna
Mark Lee: be 6. And the cousin asked how much I wanted to charge,
Mark Lee: and I I absolutely no idea. And so I
Mark Lee: said, remember, this was a long time ago. I
Mark Lee: said, how does 25 p an hour
Mark Lee: sound? Which I can see the smile on your
Mark Lee: face. It might not sound like much, but it's 25 p more than I'm being
Mark Lee: paid today.
Mark Lee: And then I realized, hang on. The children's party is only 2 or 3 hours.
Mark Lee: And we we agreed to round it up to a pound. So my
Mark Lee: my first professional fee was 1 pound. Still remember
Mark Lee: it. And I still have that pound here to do no. I don't.
Joanne Lockwood: But I but, well, not to show your age. Back in those days, it was
Joanne Lockwood: a paper pound, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It probably was. It was one of these
Joanne Lockwood: big, big paper pounds. Yeah. Yeah. No. It was the 5 it was 5 or
Mark Lee: something that big, and I don't remember those. Yeah. I'm only a few years old,
Mark Lee: aren't you? But you know,
Joanne Lockwood: I used to work with somebody well, I worked for Coots Bank
Joanne Lockwood: back in the mid to late 90s and I used to work with
Joanne Lockwood: a fellow there who was, he was in a magic circle, a magician,
Joanne Lockwood: and he would always do magic
Joanne Lockwood: randomly as during the day. I was in IT
Joanne Lockwood: or in computing so there's a lot of time sitting around watching stuff load or
Joanne Lockwood: or maybe installing things Jo there's always a lot of time to kill. And I
Joanne Lockwood: met one weekend we're doing this major upgrade and he taught me how to
Joanne Lockwood: juggle 3, 3 balls.
Joanne Lockwood: I I can't do probably more than 6 or 7 cycles of 3
Joanne Lockwood: balls, but he taught me to juggle in the in the luncheon so I know
Joanne Lockwood: I know the theory now I've just got to practice it to make it work.
Joanne Lockwood: But yeah. It's like all these things isn't it? Practice practice makes
Mark Lee: I was gonna say practice makes perfect. Practice makes permanent. If you don't
Mark Lee: get good training or good teaching, good encouragement,
Mark Lee: then you practicing stuff just makes your
Mark Lee: habits permanent. Doesn't necessarily make make you a good
Mark Lee: performer of any kind. Yeah. I've
Joanne Lockwood: always been a little bit envious of people who who can juggle because it's such
Joanne Lockwood: a great little party trick. You can just sort of go oh, there's a fruit
Joanne Lockwood: bowl there they're just a couple of apples, couple of oranges and before you know
Joanne Lockwood: they've got 5 or 6 things going or anything. That's quite good. I mean that
Joanne Lockwood: and playing the saxophone Joanne my 2 want to be able to do skills. I
Mark Lee: Joanne can understand that? I I always feel a little bit alienated when people start
Mark Lee: talking about juggling as a link directly from magic because they're 2 very
Mark Lee: different skills, and I can't I can't juggle.
Mark Lee: Can't juggle. I mean play the saxophone. I mean, yeah. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: this this person was a magician, a member of magic circle, and he taught me
Joanne Lockwood: to juggle Jo there are different things, you're right. I think it should be some
Joanne Lockwood: coin tricks and sort of how to roll the coin on the back of your
Joanne Lockwood: knuckles and stuff, which isn't really magic. It's just Good manipulation. Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: practice. And dexterity. Manipulation. I I I look back and realize
Mark Lee: that I pretty much stopped
Mark Lee: doing as much magic when I
Mark Lee: left practice and went out by myself.
Mark Lee: Again, yeah, when I initially started going to business
Mark Lee: networking events, again, I was cons I didn't wanna distract
Mark Lee: people talking about the magic side of my activities
Mark Lee: as distinct from my business activities. And,
Mark Lee: and as the years passed and I stopped going to generic business
Mark Lee: networking events and focused only on events with accountants,
Mark Lee: it was prop it became less important to to be doing
Mark Lee: less important to me to be doing magic, to be remembered.
Mark Lee: So the these days, it figures in my talks,
Mark Lee: often as examples of how to be better remembered, referred, and recommended, how
Mark Lee: to stand out from the crowd, from your competitors, and from the
Mark Lee: pack. And I will then often, produce a pack of
Mark Lee: cards and use use that as an analogy,
Mark Lee: for how we remember what stands out.
Mark Lee: So a different colored back card to all the others, for example.
Mark Lee: And then I will always it's a bit of a cheat.
Mark Lee: This was in the days when we could do live events. I just
Mark Lee: wouldn't I remember those days. It would it wouldn't work on,
Mark Lee: on a Zoom or online, I I don't think. I I would
Mark Lee: always say, look. It's a rule of the magics. You've heard as part of the
Mark Lee: introduction, I'm treasurer of the magic circle. And it's a rule of the magic
Mark Lee: circle, that if you're on stage, you have to perform a magic trick. Would it
Mark Lee: be okay for me to perform a trick for you? I always ask the
Mark Lee: audience's permission, and they will say yes.
Mark Lee: And that's why there will always be, you know, 1 or
Mark Lee: 2 tricks during the during the talk, not so that they will remember
Mark Lee: me as a magician, but hopefully, they remember well,
Mark Lee: they do remember it was entertaining and the the magic, they enjoyed.
Mark Lee: It it often includes a
Mark Lee: a trick at the end where I use a deck of cards
Mark Lee: to summarize many of the key points I've made.
Mark Lee: And that's also makes it a useful reminder at the
Mark Lee: end of a talk.
Joanne Lockwood: Because, Matthew, it's all about the setup, isn't it? You you do
Joanne Lockwood: something very early on. Well, I would say it's all about I would say it's
Mark Lee: all about. But no. And then and then but I know. Right. But at the
Joanne Lockwood: end, you then bring this thing that you've already introduced right at the beginning. So
Joanne Lockwood: you misdirect people by the beginning and then and then produce it the end. Oh,
Joanne Lockwood: that's that's how I Yeah. It's it's like a good good a well structured
Mark Lee: talk, a well structured routine, well structured talk with a lot of
Mark Lee: similarities. And a lot of the skills I bring
Mark Lee: to speaking on stage, or even on camera
Mark Lee: have evolved from the fact that I was speaking that most difficult of
Mark Lee: audiences, from a very early relatively early age as a
Mark Lee: teenager. And, you know, if you can stand up and entertain and
Mark Lee: talk to 20, 30, 40, 50 kids or 100 on couple of
Mark Lee: occasions, then standing in front of a group of accountants
Mark Lee: is really not a challenge. Particularly, I found as, like, a
Mark Lee: older and more confident in
Mark Lee: myself as a person.
Joanne Lockwood: In my in my in my naivety, I I would say the
Joanne Lockwood: stereotype magician tends to be a white
Joanne Lockwood: man. You know, we look at Daniels, we look
Joanne Lockwood: at some of the big superstars, they tend to be men, and
Joanne Lockwood: the women, dare I say, wear accessories. Oh, history.
Mark Lee: Historically. They were looking good, yeah, catching a bullet in their mouth, having the knife
Joanne Lockwood: thrown at their head. I mean, that's that's beyond magicians, but it's all kind of
Joanne Lockwood: that entertainment thing. Thank thank goodness chain things
Mark Lee: changed enormously. I think it's 2020, 25 years ago,
Mark Lee: the Magic Circle allowed women to join in their own right.
Mark Lee: And we have the Young Magicians Club as well.
Mark Lee: And, some wonderful female
Mark Lee: members of both the Young Magicians Club and the Magic Circle. Indeed,
Mark Lee: one of the graduates from the Young Magicians Club into the Magic Circle
Mark Lee: became our 1st female secretary of Magic Circle in her mid
Mark Lee: twenties, and she's now the first female vice president of the
Mark Lee: Magic Circle. And she's a wonderful I'm gonna say young
Mark Lee: lady. She's a, you know, a wonderful lady, wonderful performer,
Mark Lee: great person, and a great role model
Mark Lee: for other women who aspire to be in
Mark Lee: magic. And Britain's Got Talent's also been very good at it. We've had a huge
Mark Lee: number of women take part, on Britain's Got Talent.
Mark Lee: And also just in terms of diversity, just this
Mark Lee: year, one of the finalists, was a guy called Richard Essien. He's
Mark Lee: a member of the Magic Circle, also known
Mark Lee: as Magical Bones. And he told a fabulous
Mark Lee: story about how he'd been inspired by the first black magician,
Mark Lee: to, to to come across, I think, from America to the
Mark Lee: UK. And seeing
Mark Lee: seeing a great magician who also happens to be a
Mark Lee: person of color was a is a great thrill.
Mark Lee: Yeah. I'm I as you said before, I recognize that I
Mark Lee: could be seen as just another old white bloke. For for
Mark Lee: some years, not just in the the magic
Mark Lee: circle, but I'm I'm on the members of commercial board of the Institute
Mark Lee: Chartered Accountants, England and Wales, you know, me through
Mark Lee: my involvement at the Professional Speaking Association.
Mark Lee: For some years, I've recognized the importance of
Mark Lee: diversity and inclusion and have helped
Mark Lee: organizers, of events
Mark Lee: recognize that the default choice of an old white bloke is not
Mark Lee: is not is not necessarily the right route to go. And
Mark Lee: we before we started recording, we were talking about unconscious bias.
Mark Lee: And one of the reasons why that happens in my experience
Mark Lee: is because most old white blokes who are organizing things only
Mark Lee: know old white blokes and spreading their
Mark Lee: spreading their wings. So I'm delighted to have introduced women, people of
Mark Lee: color to be speakers. It means I don't get as many gigs as I might
Mark Lee: have done. But, frankly, I might just as well be losing
Mark Lee: them to a more diverse range of
Mark Lee: speakers or presenters as to younger
Mark Lee: white people. Yeah. Yeah. The thing is to
Mark Lee: make everybody more aware of the breadth of experience and
Mark Lee: ability out there, and that doesn't mean limiting
Mark Lee: ourselves to the historic approach that has always been adopted in the
Mark Lee: past. And, also, sometimes it's nice to
Joanne Lockwood: have someone else entertain you and enlighten you for a change and not always be
Joanne Lockwood: the one that's doing the performing. It's nice sometimes take a backseat and,
Joanne Lockwood: see younger people come through. Absolutely. I, I, I can't
Mark Lee: abide any unfairness or abuse of power.
Mark Lee: And I I know that I
Mark Lee: so I sense that I feel more strongly about that
Mark Lee: than many other people of my generation, in terms
Mark Lee: of rec racisms, sexism, diversity generally.
Mark Lee: And I think that is a function of something that I very rarely talk
Mark Lee: about, which is the fact that I'm white on the outside,
Mark Lee: but I'm still potentially subject to racism because I'm Jewish.
Mark Lee: And it I don't wear it on my sleeve. I don't,
Mark Lee: it rarely comes up in conversation.
Mark Lee: And I'm fortunate. I've suffered very little
Mark Lee: overt racism racism,
Mark Lee: but I still think it makes me aware of
Mark Lee: the tendency towards it and how awful it is when it
Mark Lee: happens. I sadly, I know plenty of people who have suffered direct
Mark Lee: directly, and and I'm aware that I'm fortunate
Mark Lee: to I I believe the expression expression I only heard in recent
Mark Lee: years, passing white. Yeah.
Mark Lee: Jo I I people don't assume that I would be a subject of
Mark Lee: racism unless they know my, my
Mark Lee: religion, which is an accident of birth. Birth parents of
Mark Lee: community that I might feel a part of didn't change
Mark Lee: who I am, didn't change what I do. And
Mark Lee: the the level of my involvement,
Mark Lee: commitment, and practice, which has changed enormously both
Mark Lee: up and down over the years, has no bearing on who I am,
Mark Lee: what I do, or how anybody engages with me.
Mark Lee: And and I don't see why
Mark Lee: somebody's color, race, gender, or whatever
Mark Lee: else should impact, the way that people engage with them
Mark Lee: in in the same way. It's very true.
Joanne Lockwood: And I meet a lot of people who
Joanne Lockwood: have a, call it a minority characteristic or
Joanne Lockwood: something about them that is not typical or the majority in the
Joanne Lockwood: world. And they are always more sensitive and more aware
Joanne Lockwood: of the impact, as you say, of racism, sexism and the need to be inclusive.
Joanne Lockwood: It's often the case where people have never had that experience.
Joanne Lockwood: They don't see the need to be to be thoughtful of it. Absolutely. They're not
Joanne Lockwood: aware. Yeah. It's their just they just are. It's not their fault.
Joanne Lockwood: It's just they've never never had to think wake up and think about it. And
Mark Lee: I'm sure that's absolutely right. I I love the statistic that,
Mark Lee: on average, the average the average
Mark Lee: human has less than 2 eyes.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. And that's because nobody's got more than 2, but there are some people with
Mark Lee: only 1 or or a blind and have have none.
Mark Lee: And I'm not sure why I thought that was
Mark Lee: relevant. But I think also the other
Joanne Lockwood: statistic is that, on average humans
Joanne Lockwood: have less than one testicle. Yes.
Joanne Lockwood: Which I also thought was quite an which I also thought was quite an interesting
Mark Lee: concept. Lots of people relevant, yes. And people look
Joanne Lockwood: at you and go and then they work it out and think oh yeah I
Joanne Lockwood: get it now, yes it's kind of because every
Joanne Lockwood: bat has 2 and half the population don't have any. So, yeah, it's,
Joanne Lockwood: ding. Your dinner's ready. I have no idea
Mark Lee: what or where that was. I think it was a l I think it was
Mark Lee: a l e x a, but I'm not gonna say the name. With a bit
Joanne Lockwood: of a ping. Yeah. We could talk to alexa later. Yeah. Let's try
Mark Lee: not to.
Joanne Lockwood: So yeah you're not practicing accountants anymore but you obviously through
Joanne Lockwood: your tax advice network you're working with, I
Joanne Lockwood: presume, practicing tax advisers and accountants.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you see that industry changing? Because when I first came across
Joanne Lockwood: the accountancy practice, which was probably in the mid early to mid
Joanne Lockwood: 90s where my my best friend, who ended up being my business partner
Joanne Lockwood: and my accountant, always positioned himself as
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne accountant with attitude, an accountant who's different, wanted to bust
Joanne Lockwood: this myth of this stale old accountant that he wanted to come and shake it
Joanne Lockwood: all up and and give a bit of real passion and personality into the
Joanne Lockwood: into the into the impression. So do you see that's kind of evolving or do
Joanne Lockwood: you still think there's a lot of I think there's there's a lot to be
Mark Lee: done, but it it has evolved enormously. When I
Mark Lee: when I first qualified, the the the small firm accountants I
Mark Lee: worked with, I think the women almost
Mark Lee: exclusively were secretaries or receptionists.
Mark Lee: Then, certainly, there would have been a tiny minority of,
Mark Lee: of women trainees. I've just remembered there there
Mark Lee: was at least one, because we've just
Mark Lee: time with time of recording, we just passed the anniversary, 40th anniversary of
Mark Lee: losing John Lennon. And I remember Roger Scott, the
Mark Lee: Capitol Radio DJ, and we must have had this playing in the background. We were
Mark Lee: doing the audit of a a British Legion club, and
Mark Lee: I was there as a manager with a a a younger
Mark Lee: lady who was a trainee. I remember Roger Scott saying and, of course, we
Mark Lee: always we always remember where we were when we heard the sad news of John
Mark Lee: Lennon's death just like we did just
Mark Lee: like we did when
Mark Lee: sorry. I have no idea where the thing is coming from. I'd stop it if
Mark Lee: I could. That works. Yeah. Just like we did when
Mark Lee: we heard that, Elvis had died or JFK. I don't think I would
Mark Lee: have remembered if if Roger Scott hadn't hadn't announced that. But there
Mark Lee: was a young lady with me, so we must have had trainees there. And I
Mark Lee: was I then worked at a a very large firm accountants, then called
Mark Lee: Touche Ross. It's now Deloitte. And I remember the first female
Mark Lee: partner there was pregnant, and
Mark Lee: I believe she was out of the office at the time of the
Mark Lee: birth for less than a month in terms of both before
Mark Lee: and after. Possibly because at that time, she
Mark Lee: was concerned about the impact on her career if she took
Mark Lee: what we now recognize to be quite reasonable maternity leave.
Mark Lee: And a huge change my son works for KPMG,
Mark Lee: and not only did they give maternity leave, they give paternity leave
Mark Lee: there, amazingly generous, things that just wouldn't have happened 30,
Mark Lee: 40 years ago. And I look at the people I'm
Mark Lee: connected with on LinkedIn, you know, the 211, 12000
Mark Lee: connections I have there, many of them are in
Mark Lee: fact, the majority of them are probably accountants. There's a huge number
Mark Lee: of women and many who who are accountants or
Mark Lee: bookkeepers or tax advisers. Many of them making a point,
Mark Lee: not only of the fact that obviously they are a woman, but also
Mark Lee: that they've got attitude and well, clearly, they are
Mark Lee: different to the the stereotype. The the sad
Mark Lee: thing is that stereotype,
Mark Lee: goes back as far not just of the Monty Python
Mark Lee: classic sketch about the accountant who wanted to be a lion tamer
Mark Lee: but wasn't allowed to be because he was too boring. There was also a classic
Mark Lee: 2 Ronnies sketch, with mister Simpkins from
Mark Lee: accounts whose kids were known as Simpkins and Simpkins, and
Mark Lee: that also really took the mick out of accountants.
Mark Lee: But even back in those days, that stereotype,
Mark Lee: which has persisted in many people's minds, it's not necessarily
Mark Lee: about the accountants all being boring. It's the fact that a lot of
Mark Lee: people consider the accounting and bookkeeping work to be
Mark Lee: boring. Therefore, if somebody likes or chooses to do that
Mark Lee: work, by definition, they must be boring. I don't buy that. I
Mark Lee: don't accept that, and I encourage accountants to stand out from the crowd
Mark Lee: and show that that they're not boring either. Because
Mark Lee: people, you know, people want their accounts and books and and tax work
Mark Lee: done, But, generally, they want it done by
Mark Lee: somebody they can relate to and who relates to them and will help them, support
Mark Lee: them, encourage them, and advise them beyond just doing the
Mark Lee: compliance paperwork. And too many people Yeah. I completely
Joanne Lockwood: agree. I mean, my As a small business person myself, I've
Joanne Lockwood: run small businesses for 25, 30 odd years. So
Joanne Lockwood: an accountant to me is more than just that compliance asset, yeah it's just
Joanne Lockwood: the bookkeeping, the fact terms, company formations, statutory accounts, all that kind of stuff,
Joanne Lockwood: it's just a minority. It's the it's that watching eye, that consultancy
Joanne Lockwood: element that accountancy bring and how they
Joanne Lockwood: understand your business or have an appreciation of other businesses and then can
Joanne Lockwood: use that expertise to come to yours and advise you and
Joanne Lockwood: signpost you or mentor you. And I think that's the power, certainly from a
Joanne Lockwood: small business perspective. Of course, it should be. But many small businesses don't
Mark Lee: appreciate they can get all that from an accountant. If they've had a bad accountant
Mark Lee: in the past, they may move to another accountant who operates
Mark Lee: in much the same way, but it's cheaper. Joanne that they don't know what more
Mark Lee: they could be getting. So going back to the the
Mark Lee: title you chose for this podcast, I'd encourage listeners to look
Mark Lee: at finding the magic in their accountants, and getting
Mark Lee: more from their accountants. But you you have to pay for that. You don't if
Mark Lee: you pay monk what is it? You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, we're we're professional speakers. We're professional trainers and podcasters and
Joanne Lockwood: and, advisers ourselves, so we appreciate our own brand value
Joanne Lockwood: on what we do. So of course we we we yeah, we're the
Joanne Lockwood: converted so we understand about value and what it can
Joanne Lockwood: offer. As you're talking now, I listened about
Joanne Lockwood: is there still a perception amongst clients that a man is a better
Joanne Lockwood: accountant, maybe not, maybe women are becoming more
Joanne Lockwood: successful, they're holding high up more senior positions in accountancy,
Joanne Lockwood: but is there still this incumbent male
Joanne Lockwood: crust, if you like, in the clients that where that women are taking this
Joanne Lockwood: seriously? Have you still got to try and break through that? I've I've no idea,
Mark Lee: but I I would say, a, my accountant is is a
Mark Lee: woman. And the
Mark Lee: I think these days, people recognize
Mark Lee: they need to choose somebody to whom they can relate. And
Mark Lee: I've I've often suggested to some of the
Mark Lee: female accountants and bookkeepers I know because you and
Mark Lee: I recognize the benefits of having a niche or clarity of
Mark Lee: focus as regards to target audience. And, yeah, it
Mark Lee: doesn't make any difference to an accountant what, you know, what gender their their
Mark Lee: client is. But
Mark Lee: many female entrepreneurs, business owners may
Mark Lee: relate better to a female accountant than they
Mark Lee: will to a male accountant. And thank goodness there's a greater
Mark Lee: there's greater choice for them now than there was before.
Mark Lee: And it it shouldn't you know, the gender shouldn't
Mark Lee: gender of the accountant obviously shouldn't matter. It's irrelevant. But, frankly, in
Mark Lee: the same way, you you mentioned my tax advice network,
Mark Lee: which is an online website, lead generation website for accountants
Mark Lee: and and tax advisers. And I always point
Mark Lee: out to the members who join, put a photo up
Mark Lee: there because you and I, speaking to the tax
Mark Lee: advisers, you and I know it shouldn't matter what you look like.
Mark Lee: The quality of your advice is what what matters. But I've I've
Mark Lee: had this this network online for 13 years, and there is no
Mark Lee: doubt that the advisers in the network who
Mark Lee: put up a decent profile photo of themselves with a nice welcoming
Mark Lee: smile get more business than those who put no photo up
Mark Lee: or just put a logo there or a very poorly
Mark Lee: thought thought through profile photo. And, of course, exactly the same is
Mark Lee: true on LinkedIn and and social media as well and
Mark Lee: on personal websites. And and, in
Mark Lee: fact, given the the nature of this this podcast,
Mark Lee: I'm reminded also of a conversation I've had when I've been
Mark Lee: mentoring accountants. I had a a black
Mark Lee: guy, accountant who,
Mark Lee: let's say, his his name was was
Mark Lee: Steve. And because he it was his first
Mark Lee: name was Joanne English name. His surname was a a very African
Mark Lee: name. And when I first met him, he didn't have his photo on his
Mark Lee: website. And I said, why is that?
Mark Lee: And he said, because I don't want to put people off
Mark Lee: because he was conscious of the prospect of racism. So he didn't have his
Mark Lee: surname on his website. He didn't have a photo on his website.
Mark Lee: I said, did you ever get racists, you know, coming into your
Mark Lee: office? He said, yeah. I do. I said,
Mark Lee: well, gotta say, Steve,
Mark Lee: why don't you put your full name and your photo
Mark Lee: on your website so that you don't have to waste your time with
Mark Lee: any racists? Because you're not you
Mark Lee: know, sadly, they're not gonna change their mind just because they've met you.
Mark Lee: If they're a racist, they're racist until they get to know better.
Mark Lee: But you're wasting your time with racists by letting them come and see you and
Mark Lee: then be find excuses not to engage with you. And
Mark Lee: even if they do engage with you, if they are if they're still an if
Mark Lee: underlying that, they're still a racist, do you really want them as clients?
Mark Lee: And he took my advice on that and on many other things. He's not looked
Mark Lee: back. He's gone on to win awards for his accountancy firm. He
Mark Lee: credits me with all manner of things, most of
Mark Lee: which are entirely down to him rather than me, but I gave him the confidence
Mark Lee: to reveal who he really was rather than to hide it.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I'm with you on that. I I I'm I'm
Joanne Lockwood: trans, transgender. I made a decision very early on to
Joanne Lockwood: be professionally trans rather than hide it, rather than rather say I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not, I'm and then be found out,
Joanne Lockwood: outed, confuse people at a later date. I
Joanne Lockwood: even put it on my CV when I apply for roles.
Joanne Lockwood: So I don't want you to I don't want you to interview me and then
Joanne Lockwood: go oh actually we're not sure. I'd rather you just walked on by
Joanne Lockwood: and put my CV in the in the waste pile. You don't waste my time,
Joanne Lockwood: I never get to meet you, I just get rejected like everybody else Jo I
Joanne Lockwood: don't I don't need to care about your
Joanne Lockwood: discrimination, prejudices, whatever. So I end up working with people
Joanne Lockwood: who want to work with me and people seek me out to engage with me
Joanne Lockwood: because they like what I do, because of who I am. So it's that bringing
Joanne Lockwood: your whole self to work, isn't it? Because of my lived experience, because of who
Joanne Lockwood: I am, the insight that I bring, you're saying about your Jewishness
Joanne Lockwood: or the insight that people may not know, your magic, your diversity of
Joanne Lockwood: thought that you have around your lived experience, you're bringing all of that expertise
Joanne Lockwood: into the room not just this tiny little piece, you're able to
Joanne Lockwood: share much more and that makes you more relatable
Joanne Lockwood: and and people would actually know you if they can trust you
Joanne Lockwood: because you are open about who you are. I'd like to think so. I remember
Mark Lee: that that conversation with the the friend I'm calling Steve,
Mark Lee: was helped by I was running a a roundtable group of,
Mark Lee: self practitioner accountants, and there was an orthodox Jewish guy there
Mark Lee: who wore a skullcap. And I
Mark Lee: hadn't been thinking of him when I said what I said, but he chipped in
Mark Lee: afterwards and said, that is why there is a video of me wearing my
Mark Lee: skullcap front and center of my website. Because
Mark Lee: if somebody is anti Semitic, I don't want them anywhere near
Mark Lee: my office. You know, there's no point me
Mark Lee: me hiding it, and then they come in and I've gotta deal with that. That's
Mark Lee: not gonna make my day.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. As we're talking about being Jewish, I
Joanne Lockwood: I was fortunate enough to be invited to a
Joanne Lockwood: conference to speak, in Tel Aviv last summer.
Joanne Lockwood: And I I was entertained there was no
Joanne Lockwood: fee apart from my expenses and the promise and the promise of a good
Joanne Lockwood: holiday while I was there. And so I actually
Joanne Lockwood: had a 5 day stay in Tel Aviv. One
Joanne Lockwood: day at that one day was conference and they I was I was royally
Joanne Lockwood: entertained, taken to the Dead Sea, I swam or floated the Dead
Joanne Lockwood: Sea, I went to is it there's a fort
Joanne Lockwood: on top of the hill, is it Mashata, Marsada,
Joanne Lockwood: that's it, which is actually below sea level, isn't it still, even on top of
Mark Lee: a mountain? My knowledge of such things is not not what one might expect.
Joanne Lockwood: And over I think I overlooked the Dead Sea or overlooked Jordan you can
Joanne Lockwood: see Jordan from the top and it was a Roman fort or something that was
Joanne Lockwood: barricaded many many centuries ago Jo we had a
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic time and it really surprised me about
Joanne Lockwood: the culture there to learn about the real people's lives because we were spending time
Joanne Lockwood: with real people not just in a touristy way but in a kind of a
Joanne Lockwood: business y sense and also people going out in the evenings with
Joanne Lockwood: families and some of the culture Jo it's really interesting to get to know people
Joanne Lockwood: and just to know their culture as people because often we
Joanne Lockwood: see all the media bias, we hear all this stuff that goes on, which you
Joanne Lockwood: don't get to know the real people. And
Joanne Lockwood: to listen to the stories about how they were living in fear, how they
Joanne Lockwood: we went around Jerusalem and I was in Jerusalem
Joanne Lockwood: probably 20 or 30 years ago, but this time I went back the
Joanne Lockwood: borders have moved, there was areas Jerusalem couldn't go anymore and if you go to
Joanne Lockwood: the Wailing Wall you go to the under to the the tunnels under under the
Joanne Lockwood: castle in Jerusalem. There were when you come out the other side, you end
Joanne Lockwood: up actually in in the Palestinian part, Jerusalem now,
Joanne Lockwood: whereas before you came out into the into the into the Jewish side. So things
Joanne Lockwood: have really changed there. Where am I going with this? So yes,
Joanne Lockwood: Jo the Wailing Wall when I went there the first time I went to the
Joanne Lockwood: left hand side of the Wailing Wall and it was really interesting this
Joanne Lockwood: time to go back to the right hand side and wearing
Joanne Lockwood: a shawl and covering myself up and seeing
Joanne Lockwood: a different perspective on religion and how the women
Joanne Lockwood: were versus how you're looking at looking over the wall to
Joanne Lockwood: see the see the the bar mitzvahs or the other things going on or the
Joanne Lockwood: the other celebrations going on around the
Joanne Lockwood: the male Orthodox Jews with their hats and their ringlets and everything else and their
Joanne Lockwood: coats so it's really really interesting to understand the culture as a
Joanne Lockwood: woman and how that works in Jewish society, how there's a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of exclusion of women from a lot of the religious ceremonies, there are a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of very men only temples and stuff or where people
Joanne Lockwood: pray. So yes it's very interesting to get perspective on on
Joanne Lockwood: that culture between 2 genders. Well and and it it it
Mark Lee: even goes beyond that because, you
Mark Lee: know, some of them them and and I think this is the true across,
Mark Lee: I'm gonna say, many religions. It's certainly true across
Mark Lee: both, Islam and and Judaism
Mark Lee: that the more observant religious
Mark Lee: fanatical one is about one's religion, the
Mark Lee: more exclusion there is and the more focus there is
Mark Lee: on the male role as as opposed to the the female
Mark Lee: role. And the more and this is the and the
Mark Lee: limited diversity, there is. The
Mark Lee: but even within a religion, and we we see
Mark Lee: this with, the Shiites and Sunni Muslims. We see
Mark Lee: this across the different levels
Mark Lee: of religious observance within the Jewish community, both
Mark Lee: in Israel and around the world,
Mark Lee: that, effectively, there's discrimination against those
Mark Lee: who don't do everything. Yeah. I
Mark Lee: I went to a a Jewish secondary school,
Mark Lee: because my parents had limited ability to teach me very
Mark Lee: much about the religion. And I
Mark Lee: remember I came away feeling I'd been discriminated against because we didn't
Mark Lee: belong to an orthodox synagogue grouping. Now bear in
Mark Lee: mind, in the UK, there are sort of 4
Mark Lee: different levels of belonging to a Jewish, to a
Mark Lee: to a synagogue group, or or you might not belong to 1
Mark Lee: at all. But even those who bill actually,
Mark Lee: there's possibly more than 4 or 5 of won't bother boring you with
Mark Lee: them. But even those that belong to a ostensibly orthodox
Mark Lee: group may not be practicing in an orthodox
Mark Lee: way following all the laws. It's just what they've done traditionally.
Mark Lee: But because I didn't belong to that group, I had
Mark Lee: religious studies teachers who and I still remember, who
Mark Lee: looked down on me because my family had chosen a different level
Mark Lee: of of practice and observance. And I think that that
Mark Lee: turned me off the whole thing for for quite a while. So
Mark Lee: And and I I've equally heard that, that
Mark Lee: there well, if I know, there are plenty of black Jews
Mark Lee: around the world, not just in not just in Israel, but in the
Mark Lee: UK and, and America and elsewhere
Mark Lee: who suffer discrimination not you know, they they
Mark Lee: suffer discrimination, a, because they're black
Mark Lee: racists, also because they're white, anti semites. But, sadly,
Mark Lee: they also suffer racism amongst the
Mark Lee: Jewish community who
Mark Lee: who are
Mark Lee: for the same racist reasons that you can be
Mark Lee: that apply in any any community. And
Mark Lee: like all these things, invariably, it comes down to a lack of education,
Mark Lee: lack of understanding, lack of knowledge.
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne this is where this word we were talking
Joanne Lockwood: about before went live. Intersectionality plays into where someone is
Joanne Lockwood: suffering discrimination, a) because they're black, b) because they're
Joanne Lockwood: Jewish, and c) because they're a different ethnicity of
Joanne Lockwood: Jewishness. And I was I became hyper aware of this
Joanne Lockwood: when I was when I was in Israel about how the Filipino
Joanne Lockwood: Jewish people within Israel tend to be the lower paid,
Joanne Lockwood: domestic role type people and there was a different
Joanne Lockwood: way of talking about the Russian Jews who were there
Joanne Lockwood: and also the people who were born in Israel who had taken
Joanne Lockwood: part in national service versus people who had emigrated
Joanne Lockwood: there and didn't do national services. There's a whole hierarchy of Jewishness
Joanne Lockwood: within their society and bias and discrimination that went on. And I remember
Joanne Lockwood: having this fantastic conversation with a rabbi, he
Joanne Lockwood: had his skullcap on, he had what I would describe as typically a rabbi
Joanne Lockwood: look about him, that my bias sort of this is what I think a
Joanne Lockwood: rabbi should look like type prejudice or perception. And we're
Joanne Lockwood: having this fantastic chat he said 'yeah I know people think because I'm a rabbi
Joanne Lockwood: I want to be really serious and I've got to you know you've got to
Joanne Lockwood: talk to me like I'm some sort of, saint but no I'll I'll have
Joanne Lockwood: a I'll have a beer with you and have a drink with you and we'll
Joanne Lockwood: have a good chat. And it was a really really good I think we've
Joanne Lockwood: probably spoke for an hour, hour and a half just just having a real chat
Joanne Lockwood: about life, the universe and everything that you do and
Joanne Lockwood: completely dismissed any perception I might have about
Joanne Lockwood: a person of his position within the faith and it was
Joanne Lockwood: just a very relatable fun human being.
Joanne Lockwood: I think I've enriched myself quite a lot around the world, meet different people
Joanne Lockwood: and that's the way we change perceptions. Absolutely. Meet different people.
Mark Lee: Yeah. Very, very much so. And, yeah, I I
Mark Lee: look back. Yeah. The the first trans person I met was
Mark Lee: at the Magic Circle, many years ago.
Mark Lee: And they're they're a few years older than me. They were quite
Mark Lee: angry at the way they'd been mistreated and discriminated against
Mark Lee: over their their life, and I had tremendous sympathy
Mark Lee: for them. And it was some years later before I met
Mark Lee: other trans people either in the magic world or in the speaking world.
Mark Lee: And I realized that
Mark Lee: not everybody is angry or not everybody I'm
Mark Lee: sorry. Not everybody is visibly,
Mark Lee: overtly, consistently angry.
Mark Lee: And but equally,
Mark Lee: yeah, so I'd and and the one of the the the
Mark Lee: relate related to that is within the PSA, Professional
Mark Lee: Speaking Association. And I mentioned
Mark Lee: to my my wife that I, I did know more trans
Mark Lee: people than her. She's she's she's met trans people through, her
Mark Lee: work in over the years. But, you
Mark Lee: know, could that be because they are attracted to speaking and they
Mark Lee: are speaking about their experiences and lessons that could be learned or whatever?
Mark Lee: I said, that is one of the reasons. However,
Mark Lee: 2 members of the PSA became members of
Mark Lee: the PSA long and and and are not
Mark Lee: Joanne, but have children who are transitioning or
Mark Lee: who have transitioned. And both had joined
Mark Lee: the PSA long before their children
Mark Lee: expressed a desire to transition. And what that tells
Mark Lee: me is it is far more common than
Mark Lee: we might have been led to believe.
Mark Lee: And that that was even more eye opening, I
Mark Lee: think, than than the number of trans people that I've actually met.
Joanne Lockwood: I think I know I think I know the 2 ladies you're talking about who
Joanne Lockwood: have trans children. I've had a conversation with both of them.
Joanne Lockwood: And often when I'm doing a gig some of the gigs I
Joanne Lockwood: do are around trans awareness, so
Joanne Lockwood: it's kind of obvious you're going to get people in the audience who've come deliberately
Joanne Lockwood: because they want to be educated or they have a trans interest. But often
Joanne Lockwood: I do other gigs and it's surprising, you know, I went to Toastmasters for several
Joanne Lockwood: years, I met people who had a trans relative or a trans story, I've had
Joanne Lockwood: friends in my old life who've got a suddenly when I became open about
Joanne Lockwood: myself suddenly people say what my neighbor, my friend, my this so I find
Joanne Lockwood: that there's you I think we're only 1 or 2
Joanne Lockwood: degrees or one degree away from someone who knows someone who's trans in their family
Joanne Lockwood: or in their life So it is more common, the people who have belief and
Joanne Lockwood: it's not just around the trans people, it's around the people who know that trans
Joanne Lockwood: person Yeah. Around people who support them or their work colleagues, whatever.
Mark Lee: I have a friend friend of a, friend of a friend,
Mark Lee: who was an identical twin,
Mark Lee: and his his identical twin sadly passed at in
Mark Lee: his, I think, mid fifties,
Mark Lee: but had I had identified as trans and was
Mark Lee: planning to transition before he suffered a brain brain
Mark Lee: tumor. And for a
Mark Lee: this was long long before I knew the friend of a friend, but
Mark Lee: apparently for some time, the perception amongst the
Mark Lee: family was the brain tumor must have been affecting
Mark Lee: him, and that's what caused it. It was a big
Mark Lee: concern. The the friend of the friend
Mark Lee: who's the surviving twin couldn't
Mark Lee: grasp and understand this because they were identical twins. How could they
Mark Lee: have different feelings? There's such different feelings in this
Mark Lee: regard when apparently and everything else, their feelings were so similar.
Mark Lee: It's fascinating, but it's it's very close. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: But if you look at a lot of the language, a lot of the way
Joanne Lockwood: people see the world, you know, if you're not disabled,
Joanne Lockwood: if you're straight, you're not gay, if you're not trans, if
Joanne Lockwood: you're all these things, what you're not
Joanne Lockwood: tends to be wrong, bad, evil, needs to be fixed.
Joanne Lockwood: So non trans people want to fix trans people Jo we
Joanne Lockwood: need to put methods in place so that trans people don't be trans. Well why
Joanne Lockwood: don't we make it so that trans people can be trans? There's no big deal.
Joanne Lockwood: Then in this time when we talk about the social model of disability, I also
Joanne Lockwood: talk about the social model of discrimination that is decided that puts the barriers
Joanne Lockwood: in place based on this normality that we've propagated,
Joanne Lockwood: the social cross section of normality.
Joanne Lockwood: You know, you see people doing DNA or sequencing or research and say, well, we
Joanne Lockwood: found what causes Down syndrome, we can stop ever having Down syndrome
Joanne Lockwood: children in the future. Whilst I accept from my normal
Joanne Lockwood: brain kind of perspective is that I can see the advantage of not having Down
Joanne Lockwood: syndrome people, not putting people through that, but that means denying that
Joanne Lockwood: child the opportunity to life, denying that child the opportunity to have great parents,
Joanne Lockwood: parents look after them. And why do we see Down syndrome as being
Joanne Lockwood: wrong? Bad, evil needs fixing. Someone who's
Joanne Lockwood: deaf, do we need to fix someone who's deaf or do we need to make
Joanne Lockwood: sure they can celebrate their life in the way they want to leave it? So
Joanne Lockwood: I'm very very wary sometimes that we end up framing it Jo
Joanne Lockwood: anyone who's not typical needs to be fixed or needs to
Joanne Lockwood: be helped or there's some benevolence out that we need to stop ever happening again.
Joanne Lockwood: I think we went through these conversations when people were
Joanne Lockwood: gay, people who were black, people with disability, people with deaf, we have
Joanne Lockwood: and we're having the same conversation about people who are trans saying we need to
Joanne Lockwood: fix people so they don't become trans rather than saying let's embrace people.
Mark Lee: -Absolutely. -Make it a choice Jo you
Joanne Lockwood: could live your life if that's who you are, go and live your life and
Joanne Lockwood: there's no barriers. Is it was it another
Mark Lee: speaker who we we both know gave a talk a
Mark Lee: couple of years ago at, PSA annual convention
Mark Lee: and talked about was it Indian culture that has
Joanne Lockwood: England, Spain, etcetera etcetera, exported Catholicism,
Joanne Lockwood: Protestant faith, religion, Christianity
Joanne Lockwood: around the world and with that came prejudice, bigotry
Joanne Lockwood: and the white way with a w the white way of doing
Joanne Lockwood: things, our social construct, our hierarchy,
Joanne Lockwood: our government, which I'm not saying some of that didn't benefit the cultures, but
Joanne Lockwood: it also left a legacy of racial racism,
Joanne Lockwood: sexism and straight
Joanne Lockwood: homophobia and transphobia Jo still a lot of the Commonwealth
Joanne Lockwood: still have anti LGBT laws which we exported to them. Which is
Mark Lee: very sad. You mentioned India, the Hijra
Joanne Lockwood: in India were kind of revered sort of third
Joanne Lockwood: gender that were celebrated and now they're kind of marginalized,
Joanne Lockwood: they live in their own little corralled houses, bought out
Joanne Lockwood: to initiate ceremonies, it almost like packs back off, so
Joanne Lockwood: they're still stigmatized, that they're not mainstream, they're still they're still kind of
Joanne Lockwood: seen as outsiders. Whereas several 100 years ago
Joanne Lockwood: before we before the British arrived, they were kind of part of society
Joanne Lockwood: in the same way that other trans or third gender or or
Joanne Lockwood: dual gender or fluid people in other in other
Joanne Lockwood: civilizations are still celebrated. If you look at the Aboriginals and you
Joanne Lockwood: look at the Maoris, you look at some, some of the,
Joanne Lockwood: North American native, First Nation people in North
Joanne Lockwood: America, they have this sort of concept of multiple genders, there's no
Joanne Lockwood: fixed binary, how they talk about gender is is not
Joanne Lockwood: in this binary malefemale sense, there's probably 5 or 6 different ways
Joanne Lockwood: of expressing yourself and none of those are male or female. So
Joanne Lockwood: yeah we, we have this invention that we created.
Mark Lee: And it's always helpful being reminded of
Mark Lee: that because I think we have a tendency
Mark Lee: to assume that what we know is
Mark Lee: right. As you said before, anybody who's different is is
Mark Lee: wrong. And I'm more as I said before, I'm more aware of
Mark Lee: that because there's an element of me that is is different.
Mark Lee: And it's very frustrating when you hear
Mark Lee: nonsense being spoken by those in power who don't
Mark Lee: understand these things and have never experienced,
Mark Lee: any form of bias or discrimination
Mark Lee: and perpetuate the idea that we
Mark Lee: should all be the same and we should all do things the way it's always
Mark Lee: been done. I'm fascinated to have my mind being
Mark Lee: opened to a broader awareness
Mark Lee: of diversity within the world in all ways,
Mark Lee: shapes, and forms and to reducing
Mark Lee: the discrimination. Bottom line is we're
Mark Lee: still gonna choose to spend time with people we can relate to. You
Mark Lee: know, I don't spend much time with people who are into football or cricket or
Mark Lee: rugby, and that make marks me out as
Mark Lee: being that that marks me out as being more different to most
Mark Lee: blokes than anything else about me.
Mark Lee: But, equally, it means I relate better to those other blokes and
Mark Lee: women and who
Mark Lee: and, people of no preferred gender.
Mark Lee: There we are. I'll try I'll try and get the terminology right, but I don't
Mark Lee: always succeed, but at least I've tried. But it but it
Mark Lee: yeah. I'm I'm more likely to find something in common
Mark Lee: with people who are not heavily sports orientated.
Mark Lee: That doesn't make me wrong. Yeah. I
Mark Lee: I I I wanted to talk. I was not into sports.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. But that's one thing that makes it a professional speaking association, for as an
Joanne Lockwood: example, or Toastmasters or other interest clubs, if
Joanne Lockwood: you like, organizations because you do cut through a whole cross section
Joanne Lockwood: of society, you could be a football supporter and a cricket supporter or a rugby
Joanne Lockwood: fan, but our common interest is speaking, educating,
Joanne Lockwood: training, standing up in front of people, using our voice
Joanne Lockwood: and brain to earn a living, not our hands or things, that's kind of what
Joanne Lockwood: binds us together. Yeah. We're quite a diverse bunch. We we
Joanne Lockwood: we have people from lots of different sectors, a fair gender
Joanne Lockwood: balance, maybe we're still a little bit too white, we need to
Joanne Lockwood: work on our ethnicity balance, and make sure that we
Joanne Lockwood: are being open to that and also maybe looking at younger
Joanne Lockwood: generation about how people are earning money through YouTube and online but yeah
Joanne Lockwood: 2020 has given us an example now of how we can earn
Joanne Lockwood: money online, there's maybe professional speakers we're seeing the stage speaking, wasn't it? But
Joanne Lockwood: now we I think we're more open to the concept that speaking is
Joanne Lockwood: a is an activity can happen online or face to face. So
Joanne Lockwood: maybe we'll open up to to more more than modern YouTubers and the
Joanne Lockwood: online marketers. So It's true. It's also true for local business
Mark Lee: networking events as well. It's all it's all too easy to
Mark Lee: yeah. I I like to be a welcoming person whenever I'm at an event where
Mark Lee: I'm whether I'm a host or not, I go and talk to people I don't
Mark Lee: know, people who are there for the first time. There's
Mark Lee: a temptation to go up to people who you feel you're gonna get on
Mark Lee: with, and relate to and have something in common with.
Mark Lee: And to step out your comfort zone sometimes and go and talk to somebody
Mark Lee: less likely. And I'm I'm thrilled at some of the
Mark Lee: relationships that I've developed over the years because I've stepped out of
Mark Lee: what historically might have been my comfort zone. I encourage others to do
Mark Lee: the same. That reminds me of I was speaking at a
Joanne Lockwood: conference in London last year, and the organizers have put
Joanne Lockwood: on some graffiti artists making a graffiti wall
Joanne Lockwood: with big you know the big spray paints and spray can and they're inviting the
Joanne Lockwood: delegates to go and spray and fill it in different bits then
Joanne Lockwood: sign the name of the bit they filled in. And I saw these these 2
Joanne Lockwood: guys looking like typical you know your your prejudiced sort of
Joanne Lockwood: stereotype graffiti artists with with beanie hats and and
Joanne Lockwood: sort of boots and shaggy trousers and and all this kind of sort of
Joanne Lockwood: as you'd imagine sort of like your graffiti artist stereotype to be. And I sort
Joanne Lockwood: of started having a chat with him it turns out that one had run
Joanne Lockwood: £1,000,000,000 businesses and he got tired of it and decided to get out of it
Joanne Lockwood: and he started finding he found street art and he said
Joanne Lockwood: they've decided to legitimate to legitimise what they're doing because they found it a bit
Joanne Lockwood: tricky. They kept every near misses of getting arrested for doing it on
Joanne Lockwood: public wall. So now they set up this this business to corporates where they they
Joanne Lockwood: turn up graffiti walls and and create an event graffiti
Joanne Lockwood: and invite delegates and so they were proper business people and I know I've probably
Joanne Lockwood: spent about an hour and a half talking to them and I was I chatted
Joanne Lockwood: some people at the end of the conference because I was talking about diversity and
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion and I just happened to say, has anybody else in the room had a
Joanne Lockwood: chat with a graffiti artist yet? And there was no hands on them, I said
Joanne Lockwood: well you should do, they're fantastic people, why have we chosen to network with
Joanne Lockwood: ourselves and not with them because they're seen as the hired help, they're seen as
Joanne Lockwood: different whatever. So often by talking to
Joanne Lockwood: people that are not the obvious choice in your network
Joanne Lockwood: actually could meet some fantastic people. And I've had some really really
Joanne Lockwood: enlightening conversation with people that I I've just got up and said
Joanne Lockwood: hello to. No. I me me the same, and I
Mark Lee: encourage everybody to do it. Overcome your
Mark Lee: personal prejudices and and bias, and it's like anything.
Mark Lee: Jo before practice makes permanent, practice
Mark Lee: can certainly make an improvement and, change things for the for the
Mark Lee: better if you if you give it a go.
Joanne Lockwood: For sure. I've got to ask you. You you've got a a
Joanne Lockwood: nickname of bookmarkly. Do you wanna do you wanna tell me what was that
Mark Lee: Yeah. When when I thank you for asking. When I first,
Mark Lee: went freelance, and I was thinking about what domain name to
Mark Lee: choose. My my name, Mark Lee, is
Mark Lee: amazingly common. There was an
Mark Lee: actor, Motley, who appeared in the film Gallipoli with Mel Gibson. He's
Mark Lee: now an actor director. There are
Mark Lee: various American sports stars. There's a Philippine,
Mark Lee: Philippine comedian, a Chinese rap
Mark Lee: artist, just to name a few. The first
Mark Lee: astronaut to go into space with his wife, whatever that
Mark Lee: means, was also Mark Lee.
Mark Lee: So I wasn't gonna get a domain name for my for
Mark Lee: myself. The first idea was to go with ask Mark Lee
Mark Lee: dot co dot uk. And then a friend remembered
Mark Lee: that some years previously, I'd been thinking of creating a flyer
Mark Lee: promotional flyer for entertaining at, gigs for
Mark Lee: for for grown ups in the days when I did that sort of thing. And
Mark Lee: that he'd include the designer had included a tear off
Mark Lee: magic wand that could also be used as a bookmark.
Mark Lee: And that idea evolved to become well, how about bookmarkly?
Mark Lee: Because that's what I wanted people to do. So I took the book name I
Mark Lee: took the website bookmarkly.co.uk. For the
Mark Lee: benefit of those listening in color, I'm holding up a colored
Mark Lee: bookmark, which, is my business card in the days when we used to give
Mark Lee: out business cards in the shape of a bookmark,
Mark Lee: and that's been through various evolutions over the years. And
Mark Lee: my name on LinkedIn on
Mark Lee: in terms of my, my my
Mark Lee: personalized URL on LinkedIn is Bookmarkly. Facebook
Mark Lee: business page is bookmarkly. Twitter handle, bookmarkly.
Mark Lee: So it hasn't happened recently, but every now and again, I used to get emails
Mark Lee: addressed, dear book. Dear book. And then
Mark Lee: and then it if there was an assistant, it would come back and apologize 2
Mark Lee: minutes later Jo go, sorry. It's Mark, isn't it? Which, frankly, I
Mark Lee: always prefer that to when somebody addresses me as Lee by mistake because,
Mark Lee: again, the name switches backwards and forwards as as well.
Mark Lee: So that's that's the origin of why some people refer to me as bookmarkedly. It
Mark Lee: makes me more memorable. So I like so I I It does.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's magic, as I say. Absolutely. Find find the magic. Find the
Joanne Lockwood: magic. I'm gonna use that. I haven't used it before, but I'm going
Mark Lee: to. Yeah. Find the magic. Yeah. Well, it's just the point in the in the
Joanne Lockwood: in the episode where nobody say how do people get in contact with you, but
Joanne Lockwood: I think we've established that BookMarkLee.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: is a very good way or search for Bookmark Lee on Google. They'll
Joanne Lockwood: come across you. You're the inspiring founder
Joanne Lockwood: of the Tax Advice Network, author of the The Bachelor
Joanne Lockwood: of Success. Is that a weekly, mail shop? Weekly mail
Mark Lee: shop primarily for accountants, bookkeepers, and tax advisers. The the Tax
Mark Lee: Advice Network, about a year ago
Mark Lee: now, we, I also have the domain
Mark Lee: findataxadviser.online because
Mark Lee: that makes it clearer what it actually is. Jo,
Mark Lee: if you go to find a tax adviser dot online, if you want to find
Mark Lee: 1, then it's a great place to do that. And I'm chairman of the
Mark Lee: chairman of the network. Fantastic. That's
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely amazing. Well, it's been an inspiration talking to you. We've had a bit
Joanne Lockwood: of a laugh and a giggle as well, and you're certainly not a
Joanne Lockwood: boring old accountant as, you're you're far
Joanne Lockwood: more fun as a magician. Social
Joanne Lockwood: media your presence on social media you're quite big on
Joanne Lockwood: Linkedin at the moment, people can find you there. So there's much to take
Joanne Lockwood: inspiration from Jo a huge thank you to the listeners for tuning in
Joanne Lockwood: and listening always to the end. Please do subscribe to
Joanne Lockwood: keep updates on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast, that's
Joanne Lockwood: B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends if you have any tell your colleagues, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: sure they'd love to listen to because I've got a number of exciting guests. Are
Joanne Lockwood: they more excited? No, it can't be more exciting but we've got more guests lined
Joanne Lockwood: up that I'm sure you'll be inspired by over the next few weeks months.
Joanne Lockwood: And remember also if you'd like to be a guest, if you're if you think
Joanne Lockwood: you're exciting, think you're inspirational then please do drop me a line and tell
Joanne Lockwood: me your story. I welcome any feedback and suggestions you may have, how we
Joanne Lockwood: can improve the show to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: And finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood, It has been an absolute pleasure to
Joanne Lockwood: host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.