WEBVTT 00:00:00.330 --> 00:00:03.966 Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the 00:00:03.988 --> 00:00:07.614 Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have 00:00:07.652 --> 00:00:11.402 interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had the conversation 00:00:11.466 --> 00:00:15.022 around the subject of inclusion, belonging, and 00:00:15.076 --> 00:00:18.270 generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. 00:00:18.770 --> 00:00:21.998 If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a 00:00:22.004 --> 00:00:25.414 line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk, 00:00:25.452 --> 00:00:29.106 that's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot UK. 00:00:29.106 --> 00:00:32.886 You can catch up with all of the previous shows 00:00:32.908 --> 00:00:35.654 on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places. 00:00:37.058 --> 00:00:40.826 So plug in the headphones, grab a decaf and 00:00:40.848 --> 00:00:44.394 let's get going. Today 00:00:44.592 --> 00:00:47.770 is episode 96 with the title 00:00:48.110 --> 00:00:51.806 ""Authenticity Unveiled"and I have 00:00:51.828 --> 00:00:55.310 the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Lee Gilbert. 00:00:56.370 --> 00:01:00.094 Lee is a marketing leader and a volunteer, mentor and 00:01:00.132 --> 00:01:03.230 counsellor for adults with gender dysphoria. 00:01:03.670 --> 00:01:07.140 When I asked Lee to describe her superpower, she said, 00:01:07.510 --> 00:01:10.594 being an authentic leader who is comfortable with being 00:01:10.632 --> 00:01:14.340 vulnerable and using the happiness that comes from it. 00:01:14.870 --> 00:01:18.674 Hello, Lee. Welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. It's a real pleasure 00:01:18.722 --> 00:01:22.518 to be here. Likewise. And where are 00:01:22.524 --> 00:01:26.358 we now? We're in Twixmas, aren't we? The bit between Christmas and New Year 2023. 00:01:26.364 --> 00:01:30.090 And we were just chatting just now about our family 00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:32.970 occasions and all the things we've done. So, Lee, 00:01:33.710 --> 00:01:37.178 authenticity unveiled, what's all that? 00:01:37.344 --> 00:01:41.114 I guess there's two parts to that. Authenticity is something 00:01:41.152 --> 00:01:44.926 that's become more important to me in the last few years, and 00:01:44.948 --> 00:01:48.526 the unveiling is the part that took 40 years, I 00:01:48.548 --> 00:01:50.560 guess is a way of looking at it. 00:01:51.890 --> 00:01:55.506 So, winding back the clock just to set the 00:01:55.528 --> 00:01:58.866 context here. I am 00:01:58.968 --> 00:02:02.340 transgender. I am someone that 00:02:02.790 --> 00:02:06.294 has been through and experienced a lot in my 00:02:06.332 --> 00:02:09.650 life, but I didn't become authentically 00:02:09.810 --> 00:02:12.840 myself until 2020. 00:02:13.610 --> 00:02:15.880 Prior to that, I was 00:02:16.650 --> 00:02:20.374 operating what I would call the role of a lifetime, as Ronald 00:02:20.422 --> 00:02:24.218 Reagan once described it, as an acting role. I was 00:02:24.304 --> 00:02:28.090 one of the world's best actors. I was acting 00:02:28.510 --> 00:02:32.174 a life that wasn't authentic, but a life 00:02:32.212 --> 00:02:35.178 that was very successful, 00:02:35.274 --> 00:02:38.478 productive, and from the outside to other people, 00:02:38.564 --> 00:02:42.000 looked amazing. But inside, to me, 00:02:42.470 --> 00:02:45.860 was very uncomfortable and 00:02:46.230 --> 00:02:50.018 challenging. Winding back the clock. I knew I was trans in 00:02:50.024 --> 00:02:53.618 1985, which was when I was about seven, 00:02:53.784 --> 00:02:56.582 coming on eight that year. In 00:02:56.716 --> 00:02:59.640 1995, 00:03:00.810 --> 00:03:04.200 when I finished education 00:03:04.970 --> 00:03:07.400 in March of that year, I 00:03:08.190 --> 00:03:11.914 attempted my own life, because that was a point in my life 00:03:11.952 --> 00:03:15.738 that was possibly the lowest. I've never thought about it 00:03:15.744 --> 00:03:18.540 or had ideation about that since. But 00:03:19.630 --> 00:03:23.214 it was a moment that was the deepest and 00:03:23.252 --> 00:03:27.006 darkest time as I began adulthood at that point. And it was 00:03:27.028 --> 00:03:30.654 a time when 00:03:30.692 --> 00:03:34.446 it happened, but it thankfully failed. 00:03:34.478 --> 00:03:38.100 I guess I decided to 00:03:39.830 --> 00:03:43.586 do what society expected me to do for 00:03:43.608 --> 00:03:46.420 the next 30 years almost. 00:03:47.190 --> 00:03:50.360 And I'll. And I'll tell you the difference between the 30 and the 35, 00:03:50.730 --> 00:03:54.280 the difference in the time there in a moment. But 00:03:54.890 --> 00:03:57.670 the intervening period, 00:03:58.570 --> 00:04:02.278 I was reasonably successful. I decided, for my own mental 00:04:02.294 --> 00:04:05.466 health reasons, not to go to university. I could have gone, but I chose not 00:04:05.488 --> 00:04:08.762 to because I thought the isolation of university, considering what had just 00:04:08.816 --> 00:04:12.586 happened, might have been one of the worst things I could do for 00:04:12.608 --> 00:04:15.466 myself. So I decided to go and get a job and go for the picket 00:04:15.498 --> 00:04:18.926 fence and the 2.4 kids and everything else that the world 00:04:19.108 --> 00:04:22.350 kind of dictates that you're supposed to do. 00:04:22.420 --> 00:04:25.954 Dictators, a bit of a strange word to use, but I guess that's how it 00:04:25.992 --> 00:04:29.250 feels. And that lack of belonging 00:04:30.230 --> 00:04:32.690 created that inauthentic 00:04:33.750 --> 00:04:37.160 feeling. But at the same time, 00:04:37.930 --> 00:04:40.790 I'm quite a driven, passionate, 00:04:41.370 --> 00:04:44.866 entrepreneurial individual. So I kind of wandered 00:04:44.898 --> 00:04:47.962 through five years of life in my first 00:04:48.016 --> 00:04:51.722 roles and then set up my own business 00:04:51.856 --> 00:04:55.034 in the turn of the millennium, and then 00:04:55.152 --> 00:04:58.730 basically made myself unemployable for 20 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:02.414 years, during which time I founded a couple of startups and 00:05:02.452 --> 00:05:05.600 founded a marketing agency and 00:05:06.050 --> 00:05:09.486 did some speaking. Became very successful to the outside 00:05:09.588 --> 00:05:13.426 world with supercars and houses and 00:05:13.448 --> 00:05:17.010 multiple holidays and family and everything 00:05:17.080 --> 00:05:20.862 else. It looked like I was being authentic, 00:05:20.926 --> 00:05:24.690 but actually it was the biggest fraud in human 00:05:24.760 --> 00:05:27.400 history, certainly in my history. 00:05:29.050 --> 00:05:32.806 But in 2016, I kind of 00:05:32.828 --> 00:05:35.480 set myself free a bit. That 00:05:36.170 --> 00:05:39.906 freedom exercised itself fully in 2020. I can explain 00:05:39.948 --> 00:05:42.700 the gap between 2016 and 2020 a bit more later. 00:05:43.790 --> 00:05:47.258 And then since 2020, I've been living 00:05:47.424 --> 00:05:51.200 authentically, and now I've kind of found 00:05:51.570 --> 00:05:55.230 a sense of belonging, which means I found happiness. 00:05:55.810 --> 00:05:59.310 And not only am I living 00:05:59.380 --> 00:06:02.958 authentically, it's dramatically improved the 00:06:02.964 --> 00:06:06.320 way I act, who I am, 00:06:06.770 --> 00:06:10.578 and I enjoyed being a leader in an authentic way. 00:06:10.664 --> 00:06:14.306 So I guess that's the unveiling part, Jo, and 00:06:14.328 --> 00:06:17.974 that's the journey to authenticity. Wow. Well, 00:06:18.012 --> 00:06:21.602 first of all, thank you for sharing and trusting 00:06:21.746 --> 00:06:25.526 me with some of that information. It can't be easy to talk about that. I 00:06:25.548 --> 00:06:29.110 appreciate that. So you're of 00:06:29.180 --> 00:06:32.954 seven or 819 85. A little bit 00:06:32.992 --> 00:06:36.474 younger than me, I won't say how. Well, quite a lot younger than me. Ten 00:06:36.512 --> 00:06:40.202 or so years. 1015 years. 1985 00:06:40.256 --> 00:06:43.822 was still the dark ages in human 00:06:43.876 --> 00:06:47.360 evolution. When we talk about Internet, we talk about 00:06:48.050 --> 00:06:51.678 probably right in the middle of section 28, I guess, close to 00:06:51.684 --> 00:06:55.314 section 20. 819 88, wasn't it? I think. Yeah, I was at school when that 00:06:55.352 --> 00:06:59.198 happened. So, yeah, you were growing 00:06:59.214 --> 00:07:01.250 up in a time where being queer 00:07:02.550 --> 00:07:06.226 was AIDS, AIDS was around, 00:07:06.328 --> 00:07:09.910 all that kind of stuff. It was being demonised. We look at 00:07:09.980 --> 00:07:13.654 those, look back at that time in history, it wasn't a great 00:07:13.692 --> 00:07:17.350 time to be a young, questioning person. There's no 00:07:17.420 --> 00:07:21.178 information, no literature, no nothing else around. So when you say 00:07:21.264 --> 00:07:24.060 you were trying to figure itself out in your head, 00:07:26.190 --> 00:07:29.606 what reference point did you have to try and use to analyse 00:07:29.638 --> 00:07:33.386 that? Nothing. And I guess that was 00:07:33.408 --> 00:07:36.494 the problem, Jo, from 00:07:36.612 --> 00:07:40.446 1985 to 1995, when I attempted my 00:07:40.468 --> 00:07:44.094 own life, you're quite right, that was the vacuum of information 00:07:44.212 --> 00:07:47.394 that we lived in and that was the backdrop to it. 00:07:47.512 --> 00:07:51.346 And I had no role models around me, which is 00:07:51.368 --> 00:07:55.026 why today I'm very driven to be open about 00:07:55.048 --> 00:07:58.726 my journey so I can offer myself as a role model to 00:07:58.748 --> 00:08:01.862 others. And as you said in the beginning, I do 00:08:01.916 --> 00:08:05.574 volunteer to mentor young 00:08:05.612 --> 00:08:09.386 adults that are going through that journey myself. 00:08:09.488 --> 00:08:13.238 And I'm very open on LinkedIn about my journey and some of the challenges 00:08:13.334 --> 00:08:17.162 amongst everything else professionally. But 00:08:17.216 --> 00:08:20.442 during that period, there was no 00:08:20.496 --> 00:08:24.334 information, there was no Internet. And I think the only things 00:08:24.372 --> 00:08:28.094 that happened, and this sounds silly, but the only things that would 00:08:28.132 --> 00:08:31.966 happen is occasionally you would get in the news of the world or the 00:08:31.988 --> 00:08:35.410 Sunday people or something, there would be a story 00:08:35.560 --> 00:08:38.420 every now and again, a few times a year, 00:08:39.350 --> 00:08:42.738 you would get sex swap cop 00:08:42.904 --> 00:08:46.614 or some army major 00:08:46.732 --> 00:08:50.374 that has been 00:08:50.412 --> 00:08:53.638 brave enough to change their gender and sold their story to the News of the 00:08:53.644 --> 00:08:57.154 World. You'd get like Julia 00:08:57.202 --> 00:09:00.860 Grant, who did the BBC tv series in the 80s, which was. 00:09:01.550 --> 00:09:05.254 They were little diamonds in the rough. That happened. But the sex swap 00:09:05.302 --> 00:09:08.940 stop. Sex swap cop stories were 00:09:09.890 --> 00:09:13.662 so derogatory. But actually, I was compelled to read 00:09:13.716 --> 00:09:17.502 them because it was a point 00:09:17.556 --> 00:09:21.310 of identity. It was like, actually, I get 00:09:21.380 --> 00:09:25.106 that. But you're looking back at now, the way that the 00:09:25.128 --> 00:09:28.434 newspapers dealt with that and the headlines they put on it were, quite 00:09:28.472 --> 00:09:32.034 frankly, shocking, but that was the only information we had, 00:09:32.072 --> 00:09:35.800 and we didn't have any Internet, and 00:09:36.410 --> 00:09:40.194 there was very little in libraries because of government legislation, 00:09:40.242 --> 00:09:42.950 as you've alluded to, and there was no schooling. 00:09:44.650 --> 00:09:47.080 And I think the lack of information 00:09:49.850 --> 00:09:53.066 created the darkness and some of the mental health challenges I had at that 00:09:53.088 --> 00:09:56.474 time and put me in that difficult place in 00:09:56.512 --> 00:10:00.270 95, which music actually got me out of. It was music 00:10:00.340 --> 00:10:02.590 that got me out of the darkness. 00:10:03.650 --> 00:10:06.974 But that vacuum of 00:10:07.012 --> 00:10:10.474 information is so kick. Of course, today you flip that coin 00:10:10.602 --> 00:10:14.386 and there's arguably so much information, and 00:10:14.488 --> 00:10:17.780 so much of that information is still riddled with that media 00:10:18.390 --> 00:10:22.180 kind of poisoned language in places, but some of it 00:10:22.630 --> 00:10:26.054 is genuinely powerful and really 00:10:26.252 --> 00:10:30.034 great information. But you've 00:10:30.082 --> 00:10:33.846 gone from nothing to too much, arguably, and 00:10:33.868 --> 00:10:37.414 there's a lot of confusion. So young people today, the ones that I work with 00:10:37.452 --> 00:10:41.002 at least, have the opposite problem to the one I did, 00:10:41.136 --> 00:10:44.890 which is that they're bombarded with so much 00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:47.946 that they're not quite sure which way to turn. 00:10:48.128 --> 00:10:51.866 Yeah, so many more options these days. In the old 00:10:51.888 --> 00:10:55.190 days, it was transvestite or transsexual 00:10:55.270 --> 00:10:58.862 or transvestite is pre 00:10:58.916 --> 00:11:02.526 cross dressing, because cross dressing is kind of the contemporary terms of. Transvestite was the 00:11:02.548 --> 00:11:06.146 term used in those days. And you were a tv or a ts, that was 00:11:06.168 --> 00:11:09.794 kind of a language. Now we've got a whole load of different 00:11:09.832 --> 00:11:13.038 ways to describe gender in terms of fluidity, demi 00:11:13.214 --> 00:11:17.046 transmasculine, transfeminine, nonbinary fluid. All these kind of 00:11:17.068 --> 00:11:20.502 different terms exist. And the one I think is most important, 00:11:20.556 --> 00:11:24.134 that's now evolved, is questioning. You're allowed to 00:11:24.172 --> 00:11:26.840 question. You're allowed to say, I don't know, 00:11:27.690 --> 00:11:31.538 but society wants you to know. I think sometimes you get 00:11:31.564 --> 00:11:35.386 pushed into making a decision and not allowed to just figure yourself out for 00:11:35.408 --> 00:11:39.194 a bit. I think that's right. I think we kind of grow up 00:11:39.312 --> 00:11:43.134 in a binary world in so many senses. There's left, there's right, there's up, 00:11:43.172 --> 00:11:46.640 there's down, there's male, there's female, there's black, there's white. 00:11:47.970 --> 00:11:50.958 And I think that binary makes people feel 00:11:51.044 --> 00:11:54.210 safe in their own thoughts. 00:11:55.430 --> 00:11:59.166 And being in that, dare I say the term, 50 shades 00:11:59.198 --> 00:12:02.962 of grey spectrum in the middle makes some people feel 00:12:03.016 --> 00:12:05.960 uncomfortable and they find that 00:12:07.690 --> 00:12:11.334 questions themselves, let alone those 00:12:11.372 --> 00:12:14.520 that are questioning. And that's where some of the 00:12:15.130 --> 00:12:18.898 discomfort and some of the challenges that others have with 00:12:18.924 --> 00:12:22.122 things I think happen. But we do live in a binary world, 00:12:22.176 --> 00:12:25.674 and there are good things that come from 00:12:25.792 --> 00:12:29.626 binary factors. It kind of makes things easy to 00:12:29.648 --> 00:12:32.782 understand. But when things are less 00:12:32.836 --> 00:12:36.090 binary, that's when complexity 00:12:36.170 --> 00:12:39.950 occurs. I 00:12:40.020 --> 00:12:43.070 did my evolution alone. 00:12:45.570 --> 00:12:49.186 I'm not saying it was easier or harder being alone or 00:12:49.208 --> 00:12:52.962 being with people, but I had no pressure from people around 00:12:53.016 --> 00:12:56.774 me to be. To operate at a different 00:12:56.812 --> 00:13:00.210 pace. I sometimes wonder if we have created a society 00:13:00.290 --> 00:13:03.240 where because of the 00:13:03.690 --> 00:13:07.414 queues for the gender identity clinics are now six to eight years. 00:13:07.452 --> 00:13:10.966 I think depending on where you go, if you're a young person trying to get 00:13:10.988 --> 00:13:14.618 on the pathway, I think the time scales are even longer. 00:13:14.704 --> 00:13:17.898 You're more like to become an adult before you get seen at the youth services 00:13:17.984 --> 00:13:21.354 now because they've all been disrupted, there's this kind 00:13:21.392 --> 00:13:25.006 of need to get on the conveyor belt. Whereas when I was 00:13:25.188 --> 00:13:28.910 trying to figure myself out because I was in isolation, yes, I didn't understand. 00:13:28.980 --> 00:13:32.474 I couldn't figure myself out. But I didn't have a whole peer group of 00:13:32.532 --> 00:13:36.242 pressure or comparison drawing me into 00:13:36.296 --> 00:13:39.970 something that I wasn't sure about. People 00:13:40.040 --> 00:13:43.634 were surprised when I transitioned because I went from sort of naught to 00:13:43.672 --> 00:13:46.260 60 in a millisecond. It was like, 00:13:47.350 --> 00:13:51.158 how did that happen? Because I kind of dotted all my I's and crossed my 00:13:51.164 --> 00:13:54.998 t's and then went, right now I know. I think today people are 00:13:55.164 --> 00:13:58.950 using their quite rightly questioning in public, 00:13:59.020 --> 00:14:02.618 and out they come out and question, rather than keep it as a 00:14:02.624 --> 00:14:05.882 secret in question. I think that's quite right, 00:14:05.936 --> 00:14:08.860 and it's positive that that happens. 00:14:11.330 --> 00:14:15.006 I talk about vulnerability being almost a superpower or something that 00:14:15.028 --> 00:14:18.206 I'm. I see as part of an 00:14:18.228 --> 00:14:21.774 authenticity. I. You 00:14:21.812 --> 00:14:24.740 know, from my period up until 00:14:25.590 --> 00:14:28.050 what was November 00:14:29.910 --> 00:14:32.660 2015, 00:14:33.750 --> 00:14:37.474 when I first came out to my wife, we then had a period 00:14:37.522 --> 00:14:40.934 of five years where no one 00:14:40.972 --> 00:14:44.534 else knew. But during that 00:14:44.572 --> 00:14:48.214 five years, myself, most 00:14:48.252 --> 00:14:51.818 particularly, but also my wife, and building those foundations of a strong relationship 00:14:51.904 --> 00:14:55.594 and everything else that goes with kind of having 00:14:55.632 --> 00:14:59.178 that cornerstone there, at least in my experience, 00:14:59.344 --> 00:15:02.140 for me, and it was important, 00:15:03.150 --> 00:15:06.734 it allowed me to do those things somewhat in private for five 00:15:06.772 --> 00:15:10.526 years, but with someone I could talk to. But up until that point, it was 00:15:10.548 --> 00:15:14.162 without it. But prior to that time, doing 00:15:14.216 --> 00:15:17.374 it in isolation created 00:15:17.422 --> 00:15:20.990 shame. And shame is a very, very negative 00:15:21.070 --> 00:15:24.402 emotion, but one I've learned to turn into a 00:15:24.456 --> 00:15:28.086 powerful emotion now because 00:15:28.188 --> 00:15:31.782 shame is the backbone of vulnerability. So, yes, I 00:15:31.836 --> 00:15:35.686 feel shame about some of my past, and I do. 00:15:35.868 --> 00:15:39.642 I've learned to be okay with that and to turn 00:15:39.696 --> 00:15:43.242 that around and to say, actually, by being 00:15:43.296 --> 00:15:46.380 vulnerable, that allows me to 00:15:47.150 --> 00:15:50.380 engage people at a deeper level. 00:15:51.390 --> 00:15:54.666 And I'm quite glad that I had that time. I'm quite glad that I had 00:15:54.688 --> 00:15:58.302 that adjustment. There was this period of deep shame, then a period of five years 00:15:58.356 --> 00:16:01.914 of kind of figuring stuff out and a little bit of that with my wife 00:16:01.962 --> 00:16:05.646 at the time. But then, literally during lockdown, let's 00:16:05.678 --> 00:16:09.282 not forget, 2020 was during lockdown, when the world 00:16:09.336 --> 00:16:12.814 slowed down a bit and I was allowed some mental 00:16:12.862 --> 00:16:16.630 capacity to think about things. It was like, okay, now is right, 00:16:16.780 --> 00:16:18.680 now is right. 00:16:20.170 --> 00:16:23.766 Lockdown was pants. But actually, one of the 00:16:23.788 --> 00:16:27.526 positive things for lockdown for me was it gave me that 00:16:27.628 --> 00:16:31.210 bandwidth to make 00:16:31.280 --> 00:16:34.682 the decision that I was going to come out to the world 00:16:34.816 --> 00:16:37.260 in summer of 2020. 00:16:38.190 --> 00:16:41.900 Professionally, I didn't do it till the new year, but the family was first, obviously, 00:16:43.570 --> 00:16:46.974 and had we not have had lockdown and that kind of pause of 00:16:47.012 --> 00:16:50.734 life, I'm not sure it would have happened at that moment 00:16:50.772 --> 00:16:54.434 in time. So it's quite an interesting perspective of 00:16:54.472 --> 00:16:58.162 deep shame transition, of kind of getting my 00:16:58.216 --> 00:17:01.666 mind together and dealing with some of that and then having the pause of 00:17:01.688 --> 00:17:05.534 lockdown and that to be the unveiling, 00:17:05.582 --> 00:17:09.346 as you described at the start. And 00:17:09.368 --> 00:17:12.646 it happened at nocta 60 for me too, from that point onwards. I mean, to 00:17:12.668 --> 00:17:16.466 the outside world at least, but actually it was a 40 plus year journey 00:17:16.498 --> 00:17:20.314 prior to that, but to the outside world, everyone was like, what the 00:17:20.352 --> 00:17:23.866 heck? But that's how it happens. I guess 00:17:24.048 --> 00:17:27.578 your story is not too dissimilar to my story. I 00:17:27.744 --> 00:17:30.138 first talked to my wife 2012 00:17:30.144 --> 00:17:33.946 and then didn't really announce 00:17:33.978 --> 00:17:37.790 it to the world until mid 20, 20 16. So it's 00:17:37.860 --> 00:17:41.694 a four year private secret to try and figure that stuff out and try 00:17:41.732 --> 00:17:44.560 and keep our relationship together 00:17:45.890 --> 00:17:49.726 and prepare for telling the family. Although even at that journey, 00:17:49.758 --> 00:17:53.266 I wasn't sure where I was going with it. There was no destination. It was 00:17:53.288 --> 00:17:56.934 just kind of, let's just figure this stuff out. You talked 00:17:56.972 --> 00:18:00.742 about shame. In order to have shame, I think 00:18:00.796 --> 00:18:04.120 you need to be almost, given the situation, 00:18:04.890 --> 00:18:08.666 where do you think your shame came from? You don't self generate it 00:18:08.688 --> 00:18:12.026 out of nothing, do you? No. I 00:18:12.048 --> 00:18:15.350 think shame is quite a complex 00:18:15.430 --> 00:18:19.082 thing. On one level, it 00:18:19.136 --> 00:18:22.522 comes from a societal norm perspective 00:18:22.586 --> 00:18:26.206 that I was doing, or I 00:18:26.228 --> 00:18:30.014 was. I am not what 00:18:30.052 --> 00:18:33.406 society expects. So that creates 00:18:33.438 --> 00:18:36.580 shame on a sort of surface level. 00:18:37.430 --> 00:18:40.660 But on a deeper level, there's the shame of 00:18:42.390 --> 00:18:46.134 having a relationship and a 00:18:46.172 --> 00:18:49.526 marriage at that time. When I told my 00:18:49.548 --> 00:18:53.346 wife coming on for about 1314 years, it's, it's 00:18:53.378 --> 00:18:57.126 now over 20. But it's the 00:18:57.148 --> 00:19:00.714 shame of the sense of, did 00:19:00.752 --> 00:19:03.660 I do the right thing during that time? 00:19:04.830 --> 00:19:08.586 I'm quite a morally ethically driven person, so I 00:19:08.608 --> 00:19:12.366 think some of the shame comes from that. And then the other part 00:19:12.388 --> 00:19:15.200 of shame, I think, comes from 00:19:16.850 --> 00:19:19.200 what I gave up, 00:19:20.370 --> 00:19:23.620 which is a strange thing to say. But 00:19:25.670 --> 00:19:29.394 I got to a situation where I built successful couple 00:19:29.432 --> 00:19:33.278 of successful startups, successful agency, a successful speaking career. 00:19:33.454 --> 00:19:37.234 I had a driveway full of supercars, 00:19:37.362 --> 00:19:40.470 two dressage horses. 00:19:41.370 --> 00:19:45.158 I was, to the outside world, very 00:19:45.324 --> 00:19:49.146 successful. So shame comes a little bit in kind 00:19:49.168 --> 00:19:52.922 of the public exposure at that time, 00:19:52.976 --> 00:19:56.394 and it's quite a journey to do 00:19:56.432 --> 00:20:00.178 that in public. I kind of created 00:20:00.214 --> 00:20:03.914 this Persona, which was my protection. But then the Persona 00:20:03.962 --> 00:20:06.830 became a big driver for change, because 00:20:06.980 --> 00:20:10.640 losing or leaving that, 00:20:11.650 --> 00:20:15.218 which was absolutely the right thing to do, because it was all a 00:20:15.304 --> 00:20:19.154 complete and utter front. But 00:20:19.192 --> 00:20:22.914 I built it up. And then in order 00:20:22.952 --> 00:20:26.726 to be me and to be authentic, I had to close the 00:20:26.748 --> 00:20:30.390 door on all of that and almost start 00:20:30.460 --> 00:20:34.040 again, which is what I did, really. There must have been a huge. 00:20:35.050 --> 00:20:38.346 I'm used the word fear, fear of that 00:20:38.368 --> 00:20:42.202 unknown, how the world was going to react, how people around 00:20:42.256 --> 00:20:45.770 you would react. And that fear, 00:20:46.110 --> 00:20:49.942 I'm just using my own experience, held me back for many 00:20:50.016 --> 00:20:53.726 years. How did you overcome that fear? And 00:20:53.748 --> 00:20:57.470 how big was that fear for you? It was 00:20:57.540 --> 00:21:01.134 huge. There's two parts to it. 00:21:01.252 --> 00:21:05.038 You spoke about coming out to your wife first and then having a 00:21:05.044 --> 00:21:08.818 period where there's the adjustment, and then there was where 00:21:08.824 --> 00:21:11.394 you come out to the remainder of the world. I mean, let's face it, you 00:21:11.432 --> 00:21:15.122 kind of come out every day in some expenses, but that's a 00:21:15.176 --> 00:21:18.978 separate conversation. The fear of. I call it jumping 00:21:18.994 --> 00:21:22.646 off a cliff moment. That's how I've described it in the past. So I had 00:21:22.668 --> 00:21:25.926 a huge jump off a cliff moment. I was at a 00:21:25.948 --> 00:21:29.626 hotel in Belgium on the 00:21:29.648 --> 00:21:33.398 corner of the Formula one racing circuit spa. Frank Orchamp. 00:21:33.494 --> 00:21:37.334 I'd been doing a two day track day thing with some cars, 00:21:37.382 --> 00:21:41.086 which I was ridiculously into at that 00:21:41.108 --> 00:21:44.926 time. And 00:21:45.108 --> 00:21:48.378 in the middle night, it was the night of the batter 00:21:48.394 --> 00:21:51.886 clan. Paris Brussels. Terrorist attack, 00:21:51.988 --> 00:21:55.730 actually, to anchor it in history. And at that 00:21:55.800 --> 00:21:59.540 particular time, although I didn't know it until the following morning. But 00:22:00.070 --> 00:22:02.100 about the terrorist attack, that is 00:22:03.110 --> 00:22:06.470 overnight from about 11:00 p.m. Until 04:00 00:22:06.540 --> 00:22:10.374 a.m. I was coming out to my wife from a hotel room 00:22:10.412 --> 00:22:12.680 in Belgium while she was back home. 00:22:14.010 --> 00:22:17.190 So I jumped off a metaphorical cliff, 00:22:17.610 --> 00:22:21.130 remotely, if you like, and then came 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:24.860 back home to my wife and family. 00:22:25.950 --> 00:22:28.778 So that was the first jump off a cliff moment. The next jump off a 00:22:28.784 --> 00:22:31.440 cliff moment is when you come out to your family. 00:22:32.530 --> 00:22:36.266 And then the bigger jump off a cliff moment was, I'm now going to throw 00:22:36.298 --> 00:22:40.080 my professional career away in the following year 00:22:40.930 --> 00:22:44.450 and kind of stand on another grenade and see what 00:22:44.520 --> 00:22:48.306 that brings about. But, yeah, there's the 00:22:48.328 --> 00:22:52.078 three metaphorical cliffs, I guess, wife, 00:22:52.174 --> 00:22:55.554 family, professional, and they're all big 00:22:55.592 --> 00:22:59.298 leaps. Which is the hardest? That's 00:22:59.314 --> 00:23:02.934 a great question, Jo. The hardest was my 00:23:02.972 --> 00:23:06.198 wife, because I knew I had to do that. I'd been trying to do it 00:23:06.204 --> 00:23:09.674 for nine months. Prior to that, the family one 00:23:09.872 --> 00:23:13.722 lockdown really helped me get in a great 00:23:13.776 --> 00:23:17.370 place. To do that was actually the easiest 00:23:18.430 --> 00:23:21.280 at that point. The professional one 00:23:22.050 --> 00:23:25.710 almost felt like a rite of passage. It just felt something 00:23:25.780 --> 00:23:29.614 that, okay, we're now here. We 00:23:29.652 --> 00:23:33.282 now need to do this. And I 00:23:33.336 --> 00:23:36.546 connected at that time with a need to find a 00:23:36.568 --> 00:23:40.290 belonging. I kind of had 20 years of making myself completely 00:23:40.360 --> 00:23:43.460 unemployable and doing lots of things, 00:23:46.410 --> 00:23:50.120 but I realised that actually I wanted a home then. 00:23:50.650 --> 00:23:53.880 And in order to find. It wasn't about 00:23:55.210 --> 00:23:58.890 being a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, an agency owner, a speaker. 00:23:59.310 --> 00:24:02.522 It wasn't about being a startup founder. I didn't want that 00:24:02.576 --> 00:24:05.660 anymore. I was probably too old to a point. 00:24:06.110 --> 00:24:09.482 But what I wanted was a sense of 00:24:09.536 --> 00:24:11.680 belonging. I wanted to feel 00:24:13.810 --> 00:24:16.240 that I belonged in so many ways, 00:24:16.930 --> 00:24:20.538 authentically, from a gender perspective, 00:24:20.634 --> 00:24:23.426 authentically, from a human 00:24:23.528 --> 00:24:26.834 perspective. And part of that 00:24:26.872 --> 00:24:30.194 belonging was the need to find something that 00:24:30.232 --> 00:24:33.940 aligned with my purpose. So I 00:24:34.630 --> 00:24:37.958 came out and then thought, I'll go and get a 00:24:37.964 --> 00:24:41.686 job. So there's a 00:24:41.708 --> 00:24:45.334 huge shift, really. I did the opposite, actually. I 00:24:45.372 --> 00:24:49.190 came out and started my own business, because 00:24:49.340 --> 00:24:52.410 at the time, in 2016, 2017, 00:24:54.110 --> 00:24:57.866 I couldn't find a job that I wanted. Again, you talk about 00:24:57.888 --> 00:25:01.342