WEBVTT 00:00:01.719 --> 00:00:05.460 Hello everyone, my name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for 00:00:05.460 --> 00:00:09.160 the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:12.980 interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation about the 00:00:12.980 --> 00:00:16.800 subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:20.500 a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:23.040 future then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood.co.uk@seechangehappen.co.uk 00:00:26.460 --> 00:00:30.133 That's S-E-E Change Happen 00:00:30.134 --> 00:00:33.760 dot co dot uk You can catch up with all of the previous shows 00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:37.540 on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places. So plug 00:00:37.540 --> 00:00:41.260 in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.320 get going. Today is episode 81 with 00:00:46.780 --> 00:00:50.600 the title Running on Linux. I have the absolute honor 00:00:50.600 --> 00:00:54.360 and privilege to welcome Sophie Power. Sophie describes herself 00:00:54.360 --> 00:00:57.940 as a talent lead and podcast host for Zinc, which is 00:00:57.980 --> 00:01:01.720 the automated background checking software for Teams. When I asked 00:01:01.720 --> 00:01:05.140 Sophie to describe her superpower, she said that she is a 00:01:05.379 --> 00:01:09.100 people person and great at connecting with near enough anyone. 00:01:09.340 --> 00:01:13.080 Hello, Sophie. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much for having 00:01:13.080 --> 00:01:16.460 me. And hello. Hello, 00:01:16.460 --> 00:01:20.260 indeed. Sophie, we were chatting just now and 00:01:20.320 --> 00:01:24.140 we decided to call this episode Running on Linux. Tell me 00:01:24.140 --> 00:01:27.320 about that. Yes, we did indeed. 00:01:27.979 --> 00:01:31.780 So, Running on Linux, sorry, when I can get my words 00:01:31.780 --> 00:01:32.580 out, is a 00:01:38.940 --> 00:01:42.760 lighthearted way of describing my experience 00:01:43.479 --> 00:01:47.220 over the past year of having been diagnosed at the age 00:01:47.220 --> 00:01:50.960 of 32 with autism. It's 00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:55.380 still, it was at the time and still is 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:59.479 a new experience for me. It's spent the past year kind 00:01:59.479 --> 00:02:03.260 of reframing the way that I've approached things. It's 00:02:03.260 --> 00:02:07.040 obviously very interesting to be reasonably late in life, diagnosed, 00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:10.940 and looking back on the 00:02:12.740 --> 00:02:16.239 past 33 years now at the time of recording, you 00:02:16.780 --> 00:02:20.580 know, the past 33 years of living, I've always had 00:02:20.580 --> 00:02:24.400 the sense growing up, and I've often made the joke, oh I'm not 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:28.140 wired right. It's been a running joke with some of my long term 00:02:28.140 --> 00:02:31.900 friends, if any of them happen to be listening. They'll know that 1 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:34.860 well. It was interesting to actually get 00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:39.300 that confirmation, which while it wasn't a shock, 00:02:39.640 --> 00:02:43.440 it certainly was, it kind of was and wasn't 00:02:43.440 --> 00:02:45.560 a shock, I think is probably the best way of putting it. 00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:50.860 It's very strange to 00:02:50.860 --> 00:02:54.560 have the sense that there's got to be a disconnect 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:58.340 here somewhere. I've always had that feeling like, there are things 00:02:58.340 --> 00:03:02.060 about life I'm not getting. It's not that I'm 00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:06.080 unintelligent. It's not that I'm bad with people. It's not that I'm unempathetic. 00:03:06.300 --> 00:03:09.640 Quite the opposite. But there's something sort of not quite right there. So it was 00:03:09.640 --> 00:03:13.240 really interesting to realize actually, I'm trying 00:03:14.060 --> 00:03:17.640 to, yeah, trying to, you know, 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:23.080 sort of interact with a world that runs on Windows, if we're going 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:26.600 to use that analogy. And actually, I'm on a completely different 00:03:26.600 --> 00:03:29.660 operating system and I've been reading the wrong instruction booklet, 00:03:30.020 --> 00:03:30.520 which 00:03:33.820 --> 00:03:37.460 was where the analogy came from. I came up with it in the office, 00:03:37.780 --> 00:03:41.540 sort of as a little bit of a joke, but 00:03:41.820 --> 00:03:45.360 realized actually it kind of hit the nail on the head of my experience 00:03:45.420 --> 00:03:49.120 anyway, very, very well. So that's a 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:52.520 little bit of what running on Linux is about 00:03:52.780 --> 00:03:56.520 when I say that. So what was it 00:03:56.520 --> 00:04:00.360 that you realised was different about you that 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:03.940 led you to realise that the operating system was different? 00:04:05.320 --> 00:04:09.060 Yeah, when I was very 00:04:09.060 --> 00:04:12.440 young, like a lot of 00:04:12.440 --> 00:04:16.120 toddlers, but probably more, perhaps more boys 00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:19.760 than girls, but I think that's more a socialization point. That's probably 00:04:19.760 --> 00:04:23.600 another talk for another time. I was obsessed with 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:24.100 dinosaurs. 00:04:28.700 --> 00:04:32.280 Anyone who's ever met a toddler probably won't be that surprised to hear 00:04:32.280 --> 00:04:36.060 that actually, as my friends have now got toddlers 00:04:36.060 --> 00:04:39.600 of their own. But it went 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:43.200 beyond just liking playing with the toys. Jurassic Park came 00:04:43.200 --> 00:04:46.960 out when I was a kid, So my 00:04:46.960 --> 00:04:49.860 first cinema trip was to see the Jurassic Park film. 00:04:51.440 --> 00:04:55.020 I was obsessed. I knew every name of 00:04:55.020 --> 00:04:58.780 every dinosaur. You could put up flashcards of 00:04:58.780 --> 00:05:02.520 the most obscure dinosaur and I could tell you what their name was, 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:06.160 what period they came from. I could tell you a fun fact about 00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:09.880 them, what other kinds of dinosaurs existed around at the time. It 00:05:09.880 --> 00:05:12.780 was precocious. It was uncanny. 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:16.700 My parents loved it. They thought it was brilliant. 00:05:18.620 --> 00:05:22.180 I I realize now, reflecting back 00:05:22.200 --> 00:05:25.740 with the knowledge I do now, that was probably my first special interest and 00:05:27.160 --> 00:05:30.560 certainly the first example. I am 00:05:31.320 --> 00:05:35.140 terrible at maths. I have actually known for since 00:05:35.140 --> 00:05:38.600 university that I've dyscalculia. And it 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:43.340 is what it is. I've worked with that for a long time. But 00:05:43.340 --> 00:05:46.960 I was always extremely good at reading. I could 00:05:46.960 --> 00:05:50.100 read and write long before I started school. Often, 00:05:52.540 --> 00:05:56.100 I remember as a kid, I was 00:05:56.100 --> 00:05:59.940 actually told off for reading the wrong sticker 00:06:00.060 --> 00:06:03.740 books. I don't know if they still do this because I don't 00:06:03.740 --> 00:06:06.980 have kids, so I'm not sure what happens in schools now. But 00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:11.820 certainly back in the 90s, you'd have coloured stickers on 00:06:11.820 --> 00:06:15.520 all of the books in the school library and a reading level would be assigned. 00:06:15.520 --> 00:06:19.200 And I'd, right from the get-go, be reading the highest 00:06:19.200 --> 00:06:22.160 sticker, which was purple and blue, if you're wondering, when 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:26.240 I should have been on red. I 00:06:28.940 --> 00:06:32.060 used to get told off for reading too far above my 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.760 level, which I remember thinking very strange and then being like, well, no, I'm not 00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:40.300 gonna read the Red Book. I read that 2 years ago, I'm not interested. And 00:06:42.900 --> 00:06:45.700 sort of that, again, that kind of precociousness, but 00:06:46.760 --> 00:06:50.600 it didn't translate to later school life as school got more complicated, 00:06:50.600 --> 00:06:54.260 social structures got more complicated, things got more nuanced. 00:06:54.260 --> 00:06:57.800 I started to really struggle. I got bullied a lot at school 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:00.120 and I wouldn't really understand why. I 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:05.520 had some really deep, passionate special interests that 00:07:06.660 --> 00:07:10.320 I'd get laughed at for. I was very passionate about drama 00:07:10.580 --> 00:07:14.340 and theatre and drama group. 00:07:14.340 --> 00:07:18.060 Passionate about politics, like a lot of 00:07:18.060 --> 00:07:21.820 teenagers to be fair. That's not unusual, but I joined the student council, 00:07:21.820 --> 00:07:25.120 the local town council, and I'd very earnestly run 00:07:25.680 --> 00:07:29.440 campaigns to get people in sixth form child bus fares. I 00:07:29.440 --> 00:07:33.140 was successful, I'd just like to say, because I was very persistent, very 00:07:34.020 --> 00:07:35.200 polite pest. It 00:07:37.740 --> 00:07:41.280 would often be viewed as, I'd realize 00:07:41.280 --> 00:07:45.040 people weren't laughing with me, but I wouldn't quite know 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:48.460 why they were laughing at me, which is extremely disorientating 00:07:48.740 --> 00:07:52.440 and confusing when you're already going 00:07:52.440 --> 00:07:56.180 through the joys of being a young person. I wouldn't be a teenager 00:07:56.180 --> 00:07:59.920 again for all the size 6 00:07:59.920 --> 00:08:01.580 genes in the world. Then 00:08:06.580 --> 00:08:10.240 as I became an adult, I started to, in 00:08:10.240 --> 00:08:13.560 my mid to late twenties, reflect back on a pattern of 00:08:14.200 --> 00:08:18.040 relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, and realizing I 00:08:18.220 --> 00:08:21.780 often got taken advantage of 00:08:21.780 --> 00:08:25.620 and not quite realized the steps that were happening as they were happening, and 00:08:26.820 --> 00:08:30.180 sort of not see these patterns of behavior. So I'd go 00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:34.080 take myself to the therapist's office. And then eventually 00:08:34.280 --> 00:08:36.260 I had a therapist say, I 00:08:38.200 --> 00:08:41.640 don't know how to help you. And I was like, oh, it would have been 00:08:41.640 --> 00:08:44.620 nice if you told me that before we'd spent 6 months, me 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:50.060 paying 6 months of invoices, but okay. And so 00:08:50.060 --> 00:08:53.300 that led me to kind of question what and why. And I think that sort 00:08:53.300 --> 00:08:56.820 of coincided with a growing movement 00:08:56.840 --> 00:09:00.220 of more adult women realizing that their 00:09:00.940 --> 00:09:04.740 neurodivergence exhibited itself 00:09:04.900 --> 00:09:08.680 very differently to the stereotypes of ADHD and autism as being something 00:09:08.680 --> 00:09:12.180 that happens to middle class white boys. 00:09:12.180 --> 00:09:14.740 It's very 00:09:17.340 --> 00:09:20.100 real and very valid for 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:25.760 them as well. And they still don't get the support they need, I 00:09:25.760 --> 00:09:29.280 think. When I reflect back on the boys at school I went to school with 00:09:29.280 --> 00:09:32.660 who had ADHD and the stigmatism 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:35.360 that they faced. And I remember that. You 00:09:37.420 --> 00:09:40.960 know, it's something that flew under the radar for me. And rather than, 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:44.800 you know, Sophie, Sophie is autistic. It was just, Sophie's weird. 00:09:44.800 --> 00:09:47.680 She wears weird clothes because 00:09:48.540 --> 00:09:52.120 she doesn't see the point of wearing the fashionable clothes just because everyone 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:55.680 else is. You know, a little bit of sort of that oppositional 00:09:55.680 --> 00:09:59.440 kind of tendency. So yeah, it was a lot of things. And then 00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:03.260 yeah, it sort of culminated in end of twenties, spending my... I turned 30 before 00:10:03.260 --> 00:10:07.060 the pandemic, but my early thirties spent 2 years sat alone in my 00:10:07.060 --> 00:10:10.460 flat because I lived alone and was single and self-employed. So 00:10:11.280 --> 00:10:14.640 triple whammy of solitary confinement for lockdown 00:10:14.640 --> 00:10:18.280 and realizing that 1, I'm 00:10:18.340 --> 00:10:20.040 actually okay on my own. Yeah, 00:10:22.420 --> 00:10:25.860 I haven't noticed it's been 2 years. Oh, right, okay. 00:10:25.860 --> 00:10:29.080 And realizing I've dived into another special interest and 00:10:30.800 --> 00:10:33.680 Now I'm surrounded with loads of 00:10:34.540 --> 00:10:38.240 art and things I've created and that's really cool. I'm realizing 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:40.580 actually I do really well in online communities and 00:10:42.900 --> 00:10:46.720 living online. I'm realizing it's because there are 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:50.400 rules and there's rules for internet forums, there's 00:10:50.500 --> 00:10:54.280 their structures, there's ways that you converse and things you do and don't say 00:10:54.280 --> 00:10:57.540 and it's all very kind of fixed and literal. And 00:10:58.780 --> 00:11:02.600 then I think the absolute catalyst for going 00:11:02.600 --> 00:11:06.300 forward and getting a diagnosis was going out for 00:11:06.300 --> 00:11:10.020 a catch-up dinner with an old uni friend who herself had 00:11:10.020 --> 00:11:13.620 been diagnosed with ADHD. And she said 00:11:13.620 --> 00:11:17.100 very sensitively and very empathetically, 00:11:17.380 --> 00:11:21.040 Have you thought about it for yourself? 00:11:21.040 --> 00:11:24.480 Because a lot of the things that we 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:28.020 shared as a struggle, she was a course mate, we sat together 00:11:28.020 --> 00:11:31.640 every day for 3 years. Just sort of, you know, Some of the things we 00:11:31.640 --> 00:11:35.280 struggled with together, and it was just a joke and a, ha, ha, 00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:37.980 ha, love deadline mode, lol. Actually, 00:11:39.560 --> 00:11:42.640 it turns out it was just classic ADHD symptoms. That 00:11:44.060 --> 00:11:47.600 led me to, through Psychiatry UK with the NHS, 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:50.960 looking at ADHD. And then actually, the 00:11:51.400 --> 00:11:55.240 more I spoke to my psychiatrist, she said that it's, I think, 00:11:55.240 --> 00:11:58.940 the underlying issue that's really driving a lot of 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:02.060 sort of the things that you're talking about struggling with is actually autism. And 00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:06.600 then from there ended up getting a diagnosis and it 00:12:06.600 --> 00:12:10.140 was like, you know, sort of mind, quite 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:13.940 mind-blowing in a slightly long 00:12:13.940 --> 00:12:17.380 nutshell. So getting the diagnosis, 00:12:18.940 --> 00:12:22.620 what difference did that make to your life? Just that diagnosis. 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:25.180 So what changed as a result of that? 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:29.560 Um, in some ways, absolutely nothing. 00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:34.080 Um, so in some ways, like, you know, I kind of told some people and 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:37.760 they were like, yeah, I'm not surprised. Like, oh, did you not know? 00:12:39.280 --> 00:12:43.000 Was how some of my friends responded, which was quite, I mean, 00:12:43.100 --> 00:12:46.720 I'm a big fan of just not taking life too seriously and 00:12:46.980 --> 00:12:50.720 having a bit of a giggle, as you probably tell by the suggested title 00:12:50.740 --> 00:12:54.140 of this podcast. So, you know, I found, you know, sort of some of them 00:12:54.140 --> 00:12:57.800 were like, yeah, yeah, we know, babe. It's okay, we 00:12:57.800 --> 00:13:01.420 love you anyway, which is wonderful. And then, 00:13:01.640 --> 00:13:04.700 you know, sort of other folks, it's sort of the classic, 00:13:05.460 --> 00:13:08.900 you don't look autistic comments, which 00:13:09.380 --> 00:13:12.900 I'm not really sure how to unpack. I don't know how I feel about them 00:13:12.900 --> 00:13:16.640 actually. It's only been a year. I don't really know. I don't have enough 00:13:16.640 --> 00:13:19.400 of data to do a retro on that. 00:13:20.860 --> 00:13:24.520 And then in other ways, there 00:13:24.520 --> 00:13:27.840 was a period of reframing my 00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:32.580 whole life's experiences, and that 00:13:32.580 --> 00:13:36.340 has been very tiring. So 00:13:36.340 --> 00:13:40.160 as I've talked a lot about school so far already, but also 00:13:40.160 --> 00:13:43.980 my professional life. There's been so many times 00:13:45.100 --> 00:13:47.920 and references that are in my report as well, 00:13:49.020 --> 00:13:52.800 talking about, you know, incidences at work where I've just 00:13:52.800 --> 00:13:56.500 been blindsided by things and been really shocked 00:13:56.500 --> 00:14:00.320 by, you know, that or I've said something that 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:03.740 I think is completely innocent, and then somebody's reacted like I've 00:14:04.480 --> 00:14:08.320 threatened their firstborn, and it's really blown my mind. I'm like, why 00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:10.740 are you so angry? I've just asked the question. 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:17.100 I'm not understood why People have had 00:14:17.100 --> 00:14:20.780 quite extreme reactions to what I think are quite innocent things. 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:25.160 I'm a nice person. I do nice things. I 00:14:25.160 --> 00:14:27.840 like to help people. I'm always looking for 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:32.340 the best way of doing things, doing the right thing, 00:14:33.420 --> 00:14:36.600 and invoking community is really important to me. 00:14:38.760 --> 00:14:42.300 Having that reaction sometimes has always been quite shocking. 00:14:43.140 --> 00:14:46.640 It's been a period of reframing all of those experiences and going, well, 00:14:46.640 --> 00:14:50.320 actually, me and this 00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:54.020 other person are just reading, seeing off completely different hymn 00:14:54.020 --> 00:14:57.840 sheets to pick a colloquialism. 00:14:58.980 --> 00:15:02.720 We're approaching things with a completely different way of 00:15:02.720 --> 00:15:06.100 seeing and experiencing the world. And that's, 00:15:07.060 --> 00:15:10.620 sometimes yeah, there's been a lot of feelings with that. 00:15:12.180 --> 00:15:15.480 And now I understand that I feel things quite strongly and why. 00:15:16.980 --> 00:15:20.660 Is anybody neurotypical? You know, we talk about being 00:15:20.660 --> 00:15:24.100 normal. Normal is such a very fine line on the bell 00:15:24.100 --> 00:15:27.840 curve of extremes. Who is neurotypical? Because 00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:31.560 everything you're describing, I think, yeah, I get obsessed about that. Yeah, I can do 00:15:31.560 --> 00:15:34.740 that. I was very polarized in my school years. 00:15:36.140 --> 00:15:39.760 Maths and physics, I was completely in tune with. So I 00:15:39.760 --> 00:15:43.440 was A grade maths and physics and chemistry 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:47.120 and biology. But Z grade if there was a Z grade in 00:15:47.120 --> 00:15:50.600 other things like French and German and some of the 00:15:50.600 --> 00:15:54.280 maybe economics, those sort of things. So I'm either in or 00:15:54.280 --> 00:15:56.980 I'm out. If you look at my report card, there was nothing in the middle. 00:15:56.980 --> 00:16:00.540 It was either loved it or hated it, which is 00:16:00.720 --> 00:16:04.440 a classic symptom of assessing and pulling things apart and getting to the 00:16:04.440 --> 00:16:08.160 bottom of it. If it's in your frame, if it's not, it's just 00:16:08.160 --> 00:16:11.980 not relevant to you. So is anyone actually neurotypical 00:16:12.260 --> 00:16:15.460 or is everybody on this, I hate the word spectrum, 00:16:17.780 --> 00:16:21.240 But we are all different. And who said that 100, 000 00:16:21.420 --> 00:16:24.620 years ago, when our species started evolving into communities, 00:16:25.260 --> 00:16:28.460 that we had to be typical? I always think about dyslexia. 00:16:31.020 --> 00:16:34.700 Dyslexia is... Who decided that we were designed to write and read? 00:16:34.700 --> 00:16:38.340 Who decided that? We haven't evolved to read and write. So who says dyslexia 00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:42.380 is abnormal? Dyslexia could be our default position and 00:16:42.380 --> 00:16:46.120 we've just decided the social construct we've created says that dyslexia is 00:16:46.120 --> 00:16:49.960 wrong or not as good. I think, so who says that neurodiversity, you 00:16:49.960 --> 00:16:53.360 know, your traits that you special, your superpower, 00:16:54.160 --> 00:16:57.980 would have given you significant advantage in certain, and they 00:16:57.980 --> 00:17:01.360 probably still do in certain situations, where you can hyperfocus, you can get really stuck 00:17:01.360 --> 00:17:05.140 into something and block everything else out to get a task done or to 00:17:05.140 --> 00:17:08.460 achieve something. And I think we often see people as 00:17:08.560 --> 00:17:12.260 different, when really we're just, we're 00:17:12.260 --> 00:17:16.099 all different. I wonder if you've experienced that kind of feeling as 00:17:16.099 --> 00:17:18.040 well. Yeah, definitely. 00:17:20.940 --> 00:17:24.359 Yeah, there's really a sense of we all 00:17:24.359 --> 00:17:27.720 bring different things to the table and we're all good at different things and we 00:17:27.720 --> 00:17:31.280 all, you know, there are some things I'm absolutely 00:17:31.640 --> 00:17:35.320 atrocious at. The 7 times table, sorry 00:17:35.320 --> 00:17:38.900 mum. Long division, awful. 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:44.480 To be honest, budgeting, again, my dad's an accountant, sorry dad. 00:17:45.600 --> 00:17:49.320 But then there are other things I'm really good at, which is, 00:17:51.760 --> 00:17:55.560 I am 1 of those rare people that is quite comfortable walking 00:17:55.560 --> 00:17:59.200 into a room full of strangers on her own and going and 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:02.780 making friends. And again, I 00:18:02.780 --> 00:18:06.560 reflect back and I've traveled all over the world on my own. And to me, 00:18:06.560 --> 00:18:10.160 it's like, yeah, sure, why not? Her first 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:13.700 solo trip was when a friend pulled out and was like, I'm really sorry. I 00:18:13.700 --> 00:18:17.360 know you really wanted to go. And I was like, oh, I'm still going. She 00:18:17.360 --> 00:18:20.240 was like, what? I was like, yeah, I'll just go on my own, it's fine. 00:18:21.980 --> 00:18:25.640 And I didn't really appreciate at the time, 20 years 00:18:25.640 --> 00:18:29.340 old as I was, that was quite an unusual 00:18:29.340 --> 00:18:33.180 thing to do. But it just never occurred 00:18:33.180 --> 00:18:36.800 to me to be any other way. And then you realize, 00:18:36.860 --> 00:18:39.780 yeah, we've all got different strengths. 00:18:41.140 --> 00:18:44.860 Some of my friends are very analytical, some of 00:18:44.860 --> 00:18:48.700 my friends are very social, and some of my colleagues are very creative. 00:18:48.820 --> 00:18:52.260 Some are very data and numbers driven. 00:18:53.160 --> 00:18:56.340 Some are very pragmatic. Some are very energized 00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:01.500 and their thoughts jump all over the place. I see it happen in meetings. 00:19:01.560 --> 00:19:05.240 You've got people who come out with 00:19:06.040 --> 00:19:09.800 20 different ideas in the space of about 10 minutes, and then you've got other 00:19:09.800 --> 00:19:13.440 people who are more methodical and analytical who 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:17.220 sit there and we go, right, okay, well, let's put these in order and 00:19:17.220 --> 00:19:20.660 let's have a think about how we're gonna, you know, make some of these ideas 00:19:20.660 --> 00:19:23.860 happen. Do they relate back to this? You know, and then you've got somebody who 00:19:23.860 --> 00:19:27.700 goes, right, okay, cool. Well, if we get 0.1 done by 00:19:27.700 --> 00:19:31.360 Friday, I'll get it done. 00:19:32.760 --> 00:19:36.500 You know, And so if you have people, if you have a 00:19:36.500 --> 00:19:39.500 meeting room to relate it back to work, 00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:44.020 if you have a meeting room full of purely analytical people who just sit 00:19:44.020 --> 00:19:47.640 there and drill through numbers and no creative people and no kind of people 00:19:47.640 --> 00:19:50.220 who can just get stuff done, 00:19:54.280 --> 00:19:56.520 nobody's going to tell you what to do with the data. So you're going to 00:19:56.520 --> 00:19:59.080 have loads of really interesting data, but where's the insight? 00:20:00.360 --> 00:20:03.900 Where's the action that comes from the insight? Where's the 00:20:03.900 --> 00:20:07.740 progress? So you need people with lots 00:20:07.740 --> 00:20:10.940 of different ways of approaching things, whether that be the way we evolved 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:17.080 thousands of years ago, or the way that we work now. So yeah, I 00:20:17.080 --> 00:20:20.820 agree. Normal is, you're 00:20:20.820 --> 00:20:24.620 right, Jan, such a narrow definition and I don't think it 00:20:24.620 --> 00:20:28.380 serves anyone, let alone somebody working 00:20:28.380 --> 00:20:32.220 on a different operating system. Yeah, and you could 00:20:32.220 --> 00:20:35.640 probably appreciate I was operating on a, I 00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:39.480 think MS-DOS when I was growing 00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:42.900 up, I'm that old. In fact, pre-MS-DOS punch card, I think I was 00:20:42.900 --> 00:20:46.640 operating on. And it took me to my teens and 20s and into 00:20:46.640 --> 00:20:50.400 my 40s to realize that I was running on the wrong hardware. 00:20:51.260 --> 00:20:54.960 And I had to do a shift. And I often think that the 00:20:54.960 --> 00:20:58.440 fact I'm left-handed, the fact that I'm transgender, it's just 00:20:58.620 --> 00:21:02.280 my brain has a different set of wiring and it's no different to being neurodiverse 00:21:02.360 --> 00:21:06.040 or whatever it may be. And some might argue that some of my traits have 00:21:06.040 --> 00:21:09.860 a touch of autistic or ADHD or ADD about them because of 00:21:09.860 --> 00:21:13.500 who I am. But I kind of think like you, they're just who I am, 00:21:13.500 --> 00:21:17.220 they're my superpower. And I remember seeing a 00:21:17.220 --> 00:21:20.920 psychologist or psychiatrist, whichever the definition was, at the gender 00:21:20.920 --> 00:21:24.360 clinic. And I remember coming out with a bit of paper and it said, you 00:21:24.360 --> 00:21:27.940 are trans, DSM 64.2. Yeah. 00:21:27.980 --> 00:21:31.720 Transsexual. And I went, yay, I'm official, I'm real, 00:21:31.720 --> 00:21:35.460 I exist. I'm not making this stuff up. And sometimes 00:21:35.460 --> 00:21:38.860 just that bit of paper or that diagnosis 00:21:39.280 --> 00:21:42.720 gives you permission to be you and then put everything in place. 00:21:42.720 --> 00:21:46.560 And it unlocks a lot of the history of you. I 00:21:46.560 --> 00:21:50.320 relate to that completely. Yeah, definitely that. It was 00:21:50.320 --> 00:21:54.060 a really surreal feeling because the whole assessment was 00:21:54.060 --> 00:21:57.900 over a video call. And I was actually, I wasn't 00:21:57.900 --> 00:22:00.560 working at the time, so I was waiting to start at 00:22:01.560 --> 00:22:05.380 MyNow Companies Inc, having had a pretty 00:22:05.380 --> 00:22:09.060 major operation actually. So it was very surreal 00:22:09.060 --> 00:22:12.840 to just be like, okay, I've had a really major operation on 00:22:12.840 --> 00:22:15.520 my body and my whole body's going to be different now. 00:22:17.520 --> 00:22:21.280 And Also so is my brain. I'm going to move house and start 00:22:21.280 --> 00:22:25.060 a new job. Why 00:22:25.060 --> 00:22:27.540 am I so tired all the time? I don't get it. 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:34.340 In a way it was really energising though, because it gives you 00:22:34.340 --> 00:22:38.040 this, yeah, like that sense of, yeah, you 00:22:38.040 --> 00:22:41.140 put it really nicely, permission to, or sort of a, 00:22:43.620 --> 00:22:46.340 like a, what is the word, permission, 00:22:47.720 --> 00:22:51.560 mandate, a mandate to be yourself. Yeah, mandate, 00:22:51.560 --> 00:22:55.260 I like that, yeah, it's good as well. It's, yeah, 00:22:56.760 --> 00:23:00.560 you've got the authority to be you, haven't you? And it's, and you're authentic, You're 00:23:00.560 --> 00:23:03.840 not playing at this. Yeah. I mean, 00:23:04.540 --> 00:23:08.300 I want to take you back to the dinosaur comic. Because I 00:23:08.300 --> 00:23:12.040 remember when I was in my childhood and I remember there being a 00:23:12.040 --> 00:23:15.560 comic, you know the comics used to come with that really, really low quality newsprint. 00:23:16.840 --> 00:23:20.160 And I remember having 1 and it was a case of over the over like 00:23:20.160 --> 00:23:24.000 6 to 8 weeks, you had to read this comic strip and 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:27.420 identify all the dinosaurs that were in the story. 00:23:27.900 --> 00:23:31.680 And you then had to work out from the images of them. So 00:23:31.680 --> 00:23:35.280 I spent hours in the local library with my mum. This is way 00:23:35.280 --> 00:23:38.860 before the internet. This is in the mid seventies. So we're in the local library 00:23:38.860 --> 00:23:41.960 with my mum getting books on dinosaurs out and trying to work out which dinosaur 00:23:41.960 --> 00:23:45.400 was which. And so I entered the competition with like a list of 20 00:23:45.400 --> 00:23:48.900 dinosaurs. You know, this picture, this picture, this is what? And I won. 00:23:49.540 --> 00:23:53.240 I got every dinosaur right. It was like, so we're just 00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:56.720 talking about being obsessed with dinosaurs. Um, way 00:23:56.720 --> 00:24:00.060 before Jurassic Park. But 1 thing I was looking at the other day, there's a 00:24:00.060 --> 00:24:03.800 TikTok reel or something on Facebook or something that came up, someone had 00:24:03.800 --> 00:24:07.280 made an 8 foot high, I guess it was a velociraptor, 00:24:07.900 --> 00:24:11.600 just from the Jurassic Park type thing, made out of chocolate, made out of 00:24:11.600 --> 00:24:15.100 chocolate. And this thing was absolutely, I mean, you 00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:19.480 could have made it out of any mouldable material, but he was a chef 00:24:19.480 --> 00:24:22.660 and he made it out of chocolate, it's absolutely incredible. 00:24:23.360 --> 00:24:27.100 In fact the comments in the chat underneath was the dinosaur's teeth 00:24:27.100 --> 00:24:30.320 are too perfect, they didn't have dentists, 00:24:30.740 --> 00:24:34.340 the teeth wouldn't have been that shiny. So I thought it's a fantastic thing but 00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:38.060 when you said you know interesting fact about all these dinosaurs 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:42.040 what's your interesting or funny fact about a pterodactyl then? I really want to know 00:24:42.040 --> 00:24:45.580 what what's interesting and funny about a pterodactyl. Oh gosh 00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:49.460 um do you know what the the really the even funnier thing 00:24:49.780 --> 00:24:53.540 is that I, to my great shame, don't remember a lot of 00:24:53.540 --> 00:24:57.340 it. So I remember the obsession, I remember the fun, 00:24:57.340 --> 00:25:00.720 I remember the excitement. I have actually quite a lot of 00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:04.400 dinosaur themed clothes in my wardrobe. If my colleagues are 00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:07.420 really lucky I might wear my dinosaur dress to work 1 day. 00:25:09.120 --> 00:25:12.540 Last time it had an outing was my friend's 00:25:13.080 --> 00:25:16.640 son's second birthday party, which was dinosaur 00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:19.260 themed. But yeah, 00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:28.880 pterodactyl. There's something in the way the names 00:25:28.940 --> 00:25:32.560 made. So ptero is 00:25:32.560 --> 00:25:35.560 a number and dactyl refers to fingers. 00:25:36.420 --> 00:25:40.020 So, the wings, they've got a certain amount of fingers 00:25:40.120 --> 00:25:43.940 and that's where the name comes from because they obviously they're winged. 00:25:45.520 --> 00:25:49.120 They are lizards with skin between their body and their arms, aren't 00:25:49.120 --> 00:25:52.160 they? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, which is quite cool. 00:25:54.120 --> 00:25:57.900 And, yeah, and then my parents, of course, having a kid 00:25:57.900 --> 00:26:01.260 that was obsessed with dinosaurs, took me to the Natural History Museum in London. And 00:26:03.620 --> 00:26:06.180 they were really excited for me to see the big animatronic 00:26:08.760 --> 00:26:12.320 I was terrified, absolutely terrified. 00:26:13.260 --> 00:26:16.800 It looked, when you're tiny, it looked very real. It is pretty 00:26:16.800 --> 00:26:20.200 scary. And I was 00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:22.860 apparently cried and cried and cried 00:26:25.080 --> 00:26:28.820 and didn't actually want to see it because it looked too real. 00:26:29.920 --> 00:26:33.380