Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I've interviewed a number of amazing
Joanne Lockwood: people and simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion,
Joanne Lockwood: belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to
Joanne Lockwood: thrive. So to join me in the future then, please do drop me a line
Joanne Lockwood: to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: that's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot Uk.
Joanne Lockwood: You can catch up on all the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the
Joanne Lockwood: usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf
Joanne Lockwood: and let's get going. Today is episode
Joanne Lockwood: 101 with the title beyond labels
Joanne Lockwood: and I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Vanessa Wrath.
Joanne Lockwood: Vanessa is a talent sourcing trainer, and when I asked Vanessa to describe
Joanne Lockwood: her superpower, she said her ADHD. Hello,
Joanne Lockwood: Vanessa, welcome to the show. Hey, Jo, good to be on your show. Thanks so
Vanessa Raath: much for inviting me to be here. 101 guest I feel like I
Vanessa Raath: should be thinking about Dalmatians, because as soon as you said 101, I just
Vanessa Raath: thought Dalmatians and dogs, why not?
Joanne Lockwood: Obviously, we steer away from you being Cruella, stick to the
Joanne Lockwood: Dalmatians themselves. No, it's an absolute honour. I can't
Vanessa Raath: believe you've done 101 episodes. That's amazing. Well done, you. I
Joanne Lockwood: know, and I've enjoyed every one of them. And it's fascinating to
Joanne Lockwood: meet guests such as yourself and have a great chat and get to know
Joanne Lockwood: people. And we've been looking to catch up for some while, so this is an
Joanne Lockwood: ideal opportunity. So thank you. Excellent. Vanessa. Beyond labels. Beyond
Joanne Lockwood: labels. What does that mean to you? So, for me, I think that it goes
Vanessa Raath: beyond just saying beyond labels. I've always had a thing about
Vanessa Raath: people judging others, and I think when you judge someone, you give them a
Vanessa Raath: label. And that, for me, is just so frustrating, is that we do
Vanessa Raath: it. I think it's human nature. You see someone walking down the street
Vanessa Raath: and you give them a label straight away. Maybe it's a gentleman with a
Vanessa Raath: lot of tattoos and you immediately think, rough, maybe from the wrong side of
Vanessa Raath: the street. Meanwhile, these days he's probably like a top CEO or
Vanessa Raath: MD. It's about those snap decisions
Vanessa Raath: that we make when we look at people and we give them a label, and
Vanessa Raath: it's completely unfounded. It's just based on
Vanessa Raath: our point of reference, where are we coming from? And probably
Vanessa Raath: from something that inherently has been built into us through
Vanessa Raath: the course of our lives. So for me, from my perspective of being a talent
Vanessa Raath: sourcing trainer, beyond labels is giving everyone an equal
Vanessa Raath: opportunity. Don't look at a CV and just label someone.
Vanessa Raath: Don't look at someone on LinkedIn only and give them a label. Are
Vanessa Raath: they a perfect candidate? If you haven't cross referenced them across the
Vanessa Raath: Internet, you might find something else that's even really good, that you can sell
Vanessa Raath: them to be a culture, fit into the organisation. Or you might find something that
Vanessa Raath: makes you think, well, this isn't actually going to work in this role, so it's
Vanessa Raath: about doing your homework before just willy
Vanessa Raath: nilly applying labels to individuals. Obviously, I
Joanne Lockwood: work in the EDI space. You're an experienced person who works in the talent
Joanne Lockwood: sourcing space. So we talk about these kind of things all the time. But the
Joanne Lockwood: average person in corporate South
Joanne Lockwood: Africa, corporate UK, corporate America, wherever you happen to be, doesn't always think
Joanne Lockwood: about this, do they? Their focus is on empty
Joanne Lockwood: seat. I need someone to fill that slot. I want someone to hit the ground
Joanne Lockwood: running. Mike has just left. I want another person just like
Joanne Lockwood: Mike. How do we move people
Joanne Lockwood: into that way of thinking? Absolutely, 100%. And I think
Vanessa Raath: that what happens is, and this is why I'm a
Vanessa Raath: little bit stuck with company referral systems, because what happens is
Vanessa Raath: Mark leaves. Mark is a white male. We must get another white male because Mark
Vanessa Raath: was great and we're all going to really miss Mark around here. Or you then
Vanessa Raath: have someone who looks like Mark, who's left behind and he recommends his
Vanessa Raath: friend who looks and sounds and speaks like Mark
Vanessa Raath: because that's what was there previously. So it's all about our. As
Vanessa Raath: I say, it's our point of references of what we think will work best.
Vanessa Raath: And it is a massive problem. It really and truly is.
Vanessa Raath: You've done 101 episodes on this. We all know that more diverse
Vanessa Raath: organisations and staffing teams perform better, make
Vanessa Raath: more money, are more enjoyable workplaces for people.
Vanessa Raath: And from my perspective of. I have the unique, I
Vanessa Raath: don't want to even say it was a privilege, but the unique view of growing
Vanessa Raath: up in apartheid South Africa, we didn't have
Vanessa Raath: opportunities to mix with people from other races. So in the workplace was
Vanessa Raath: where I got to meet people and actually form friends with people from
Vanessa Raath: other racial groups. And I'm eternally grateful for that because it afforded
Vanessa Raath: me the opportunity. I went to a school where only white children were
Vanessa Raath: allowed to attend up until I was in my final year. So I think
Vanessa Raath: it's something that we definitely need to do in the workplace because we
Vanessa Raath: can. I perceive
Joanne Lockwood: there to be kind of often a disconnect between the
Joanne Lockwood: motivation in a workplace and the motivation in society. So if you work
Joanne Lockwood: for a large organisation or corporate, you've got Dei, you've got HR
Joanne Lockwood: people, you've got people in talent sourcing, all focusing
Joanne Lockwood: on equal opportunity equity, ensuring people
Joanne Lockwood: succeed, whereas you step out onto the pavement. Society doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: always care about you as an individual in the same way. And
Joanne Lockwood: we often think that a company culture is a microcosm of
Joanne Lockwood: the societal culture. But sometimes companies are actually leading the way in
Joanne Lockwood: this. They definitely are, 100%. But then
Vanessa Raath: we have the extreme case in a country like South Africa where I'm based,
Vanessa Raath: where businesses are mandated to go and hire
Vanessa Raath: people from different racial groups because the government puts stipulations in place
Vanessa Raath: on them. So sometimes you find it, it's always happening, but it's
Vanessa Raath: a false kind of view of what they're trying to
Vanessa Raath: achieve, which is good. We need to do this
Vanessa Raath: however it needs to be done for the right reasons. So ed and
Vanessa Raath: I is something that's hugely important, has to be a focus,
Vanessa Raath: but it has to be done with the whole company's buy
Vanessa Raath: in, because society is kind of left to their own devices. There's no
Vanessa Raath: one really trying to be the CEO of a society, but if
Vanessa Raath: it's coming from the CEO of a business, and they are all over there, they're
Vanessa Raath: on the Ed Andr bus. Brilliant.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So you talked about labels, you talked about
Joanne Lockwood: stereotyping people. And as a species, we're quite
Joanne Lockwood: judgmental, aren't we? Oh, it's just awful. We're evaluating people all
Joanne Lockwood: the time, going, oh, yeah, shoes, watch, hair, car,
Joanne Lockwood: nose, glasses, whatever it may be, and putting people into our
Joanne Lockwood: little stereotype box and say, I know who you are now because I've sussed
Joanne Lockwood: you. And we do that hiring as well. Yeah, it happens all the time. And
Vanessa Raath: it's really something that's quite difficult not to do. I mean, no one's perfect. I
Vanessa Raath: mean, I do it, I catch myself doing it. I've just actually had knee surgery.
Vanessa Raath: So I've spent a lot of time while all the guests have been here
Vanessa Raath: over Christmas, sitting on a bench at the beach, while others have been playing
Vanessa Raath: on the beach or walking or swimming. And you sit there and you look at
Vanessa Raath: people and I find myself judging people as they're walking past me. And I'm
Vanessa Raath: like, who am I? Why am I doing this? I don't have to be doing
Vanessa Raath: this. And then often I'd be left with all the old grannies who also have
Vanessa Raath: the bad knees and couldn't walk on the beach. And then you find out that
Vanessa Raath: even though this person's old. I mean, they're in their 80s. They're amazing. I
Vanessa Raath: had the most wonderful conversations with old ladies who
Vanessa Raath: were pretty much. Their knees were about as good as mine and they
Vanessa Raath: were just the most interesting, lovely people. But when they sat down next to me,
Vanessa Raath: I was like, no, but you shouldn't feel like that.
Vanessa Raath: They were wonderful. I can't believe how it
Joanne Lockwood: happened. But apparently I checked my diary and I'm 60 next year,
Joanne Lockwood: but in my head I'm still 25. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: still a young adult with young adult
Joanne Lockwood: thoughts. Just with knees that don't work. That's the only thing that's different, isn't it?
Vanessa Raath: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we're talking about
Vanessa Raath: labels. We also sometimes label ourselves incorrectly.
Vanessa Raath: And our perception of what we're putting out there and what people are
Vanessa Raath: seeing is often two completely different things. And I just think
Vanessa Raath: that there's a bit of a disconnect there of what we think we are putting
Vanessa Raath: out into the universe and how they're reading that.
Vanessa Raath: Are they getting a different label to what we're trying to give ourselves?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I could see how it evolved. You think about
Joanne Lockwood: prehistoric human back in the times
Joanne Lockwood: where we were living in small communities, small tribes,
Joanne Lockwood: and anybody who came from over the hill or across the
Joanne Lockwood: water was inherently bad because
Joanne Lockwood: why were they coming? Probably to rape, pillage, attack, steal
Joanne Lockwood: or whatever. They weren't coming to knock on the door and say, do you want
Joanne Lockwood: to buy something or anything like that? Or be nice.
Joanne Lockwood: So we've evolved this sense of protectionism where the
Joanne Lockwood: judgement is evaluating the threat level, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: Adrenaline glands, our vagus nerve, our fight, flight or
Joanne Lockwood: freeze mechanism are kicking in all the time, linked all to our biases, which
Joanne Lockwood: is why people who are different to ourselves and not in our in
Joanne Lockwood: group are seen as maybe as threats or
Joanne Lockwood: less effective than we are. Yeah, absolutely.
Vanessa Raath: It's the whole thing of who are you going to. So you walk into
Vanessa Raath: a conference venue and there's a whole lot of people attending a conference, who
Vanessa Raath: are you going to naturally gravitate towards? And again,
Vanessa Raath: that's people who look and sound like you. And I consciously try
Vanessa Raath: not to do that and go to groups of people that don't look and sound
Vanessa Raath: like me. Because again, I think this is a throwback from growing up in
Vanessa Raath: apartheid South Africa. I want to know more about different people. I
Vanessa Raath: know what people like me do for fun on the weekends, but
Vanessa Raath: I want to make friends from other racial groups because I'm really interested
Vanessa Raath: in their lives and how they grew up and those kind of
Vanessa Raath: things. So, yeah, you're right.
Vanessa Raath: Do we hang out with the labels that we like, or do we go and
Vanessa Raath: look for people with other labels? That's the question.
Joanne Lockwood: Did you talk about how you grew up? So you probably grew up
Joanne Lockwood: in the FW, de Klerk era, the pre
Joanne Lockwood: Mandela, the apartheid, the
Joanne Lockwood: sanctions era, where South Africa weren't allowed to compete in
Joanne Lockwood: sport, et cetera, et cetera. So how did that effectively
Joanne Lockwood: influence you as a person, but also influence those around
Joanne Lockwood: you? It was very ingrained. Apartheid was very ingrained in the culture,
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't it, in the white culture? Sorry, it is. And look, I do believe that
Vanessa Raath: it's getting better. I mean, if I look at my son, who's 18, and
Vanessa Raath: godchildren and things like that, they all mix interracial groups and they have
Vanessa Raath: friends from different racial groups at school, which I think is completely
Vanessa Raath: amazing. But Nelson Mandela actually got voted into power in
Vanessa Raath: my final year at school. That was in 1994. And up until
Vanessa Raath: then, we were only white children in my school, so I
Vanessa Raath: never got to mix with people from different racial groups, which was
Vanessa Raath: very sad. So, I mean, the knock on impact of that was that
Vanessa Raath: we were kept very segregated and it was just
Vanessa Raath: awful. But when you're growing up in that kind of setup, you don't know that
Vanessa Raath: it's any different. I mean, I remember an instance when
Vanessa Raath: was in the town where we lived, and I was out with my nanny,
Vanessa Raath: who was a black lady, Maria. She basically raised us.
Vanessa Raath: And there was a toilet. And so I'll give away my
Vanessa Raath: age here. I'm 47 now, so this must have been in 1986. I must have
Vanessa Raath: been about ten. And there were two toilets, public toilets,
Vanessa Raath: in the middle of the town. And there was one for white people and there
Vanessa Raath: was one for non white people. And I remember
Vanessa Raath: my maid helper, Maria, saying to a white lady who was going into
Vanessa Raath: the toilet, saying, can I send this child into the toilet with you? Because we
Vanessa Raath: both need to go to the toilet, but we have to go to separate ones.
Vanessa Raath: And they were almost like a block apart. And that was a major thing
Vanessa Raath: that stuck with me. And I just thought it was now, in hindsight, as
Vanessa Raath: an adult, talking all around the world about DNA,
Vanessa Raath: that's how strange that was. But back then, I didn't even question it because that
Vanessa Raath: was the way it. Yeah, I mean, from
Joanne Lockwood: a uk perspective, I probably more aware of the US
Joanne Lockwood: culture around racism, the hidden figures film
Joanne Lockwood: around the segregation of toilets, the Rosa park
Joanne Lockwood: story, the southern american narrative.
Joanne Lockwood: I didn't get to hear much about the south african perspective, because
Joanne Lockwood: there was this apartheid. Apartheid's bad. So we didn't really dive
Joanne Lockwood: any deeper into the culture of what was going on. So my
Joanne Lockwood: experience of racial discrimination is probably us american
Joanne Lockwood: focus with a bit of UK focused, which is really interesting. Because I
Vanessa Raath: remember back in, just before I started my own business in
Vanessa Raath: 2018, I went and did a keynote for Sourcecon
Vanessa Raath: in Seattle, and I spoke about my journey growing up in apartheid South
Vanessa Raath: Africa. The talk was very much around a DENR
Vanessa Raath: focus and how many us citizens came up to me and
Vanessa Raath: said, thank you, thank you for standing up on stage and calling a spade a
Vanessa Raath: spade, pretty much, and talking about racial issues, because it's
Vanessa Raath: something that is not spoken about in the US and that's
Vanessa Raath: actually out of anything besides doing
Vanessa Raath: a keynote at such a big forum. What stayed with me from that up
Vanessa Raath: until this day was the reaction. I mean, I was talking and the whole time
Vanessa Raath: I was talking, I thought, here I am, I'm like bombing this talk because people
Vanessa Raath: were crying, they were reaching for the tissues, and I thought,
Vanessa Raath: I've just got to keep going with this. And the reaction was due to what
Vanessa Raath: I was talking about and explaining what it was like and how they need to
Vanessa Raath: get their ed and I in place before the right
Vanessa Raath: reasons. And don't let it become as bad as it got in South
Vanessa Raath: Africa. With.
Joanne Lockwood: As an outsider, one of the things I perceive is a difference
Joanne Lockwood: is South Africa is being minority, ruled
Joanne Lockwood: by white people in a black country, whereas
Joanne Lockwood: America is kind of ruled. There's no clear
Joanne Lockwood: majority. If you look at hispanic population, spanish speaking
Joanne Lockwood: black population and the white population,
Joanne Lockwood: it's white dominated, but it's not a black society. Where South
Joanne Lockwood: Africa was originally a black society that was
Joanne Lockwood: colonised and taken over by the
Joanne Lockwood: Dutch, the British and all the northern european
Joanne Lockwood: colonisers, if you like. Absolutely. And it wasn't even a gender thing. I mean, there
Vanessa Raath: were no females sitting, making these decisions in the minority. It was all
Vanessa Raath: literally white males that know the presidents, his
Vanessa Raath: cabinet, very few, very little female representation
Vanessa Raath: in that. So, like, for example, South Africa was one of the first countries to
Vanessa Raath: legalise gay marriage, because that was never a thing for us. We still try
Vanessa Raath: to get over the whole racial, the fallout,
Vanessa Raath: the hangover from apartheid. So that was your big elephant in the
Joanne Lockwood: room, was resolving racial tensions
Joanne Lockwood: and differences, as you say, the other edi,
Joanne Lockwood: gender, sexuality, et cetera, et cetera. They were kind of a lower
Joanne Lockwood: priority, probably nonexistent, because everyone was so focused on race.
Vanessa Raath: 100%. Absolutely. Now those factors are coming more
Vanessa Raath: into play. I mean, there's a massive drive around
Vanessa Raath: gender based violence, GBV and things like that,
Vanessa Raath: and to really highlight them and to just,
Vanessa Raath: should I say, try and do away with how some of the women are treated
Vanessa Raath: in the more rural areas of South Africa? And is that
Joanne Lockwood: across racial demographic? So it's not a white problem or black
Joanne Lockwood: problem, it's a problem.
Vanessa Raath: It's a male anger problem. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not looking to excuse. Is it born out of frustration?
Joanne Lockwood: Is it just socialisation? Sure. I think it's got a whole
Vanessa Raath: lot of factors. So let's look back and see what South Africa
Vanessa Raath: did during COVID So we were one of the few countries that actually banned
Vanessa Raath: alcohol sales. So while everyone was sitting in lockdown,
Vanessa Raath: the rest of the world was in lockdown. There was a ban here, even on
Vanessa Raath: smoking. So you couldn't buy cigarettes in South Africa during lockdown, which
Vanessa Raath: wasn't a problem for us. But they banned alcohol sales. And
Vanessa Raath: the reason why they did that was there's a big drinking culture in South
Vanessa Raath: Africa which often resulted in a lot of poor behaviour on Friday and
Vanessa Raath: Saturday nights. And the casualty rooms would be full after
Vanessa Raath: domestic violence. And then that took away from us trying to deal
Vanessa Raath: with a massive pandemic of COVID So they
Vanessa Raath: banned alcohol sales, trying to keep the population under control.
Vanessa Raath: So you can see that that would be one of the effects of the
Vanessa Raath: gender based violence in this country. It would be the alcohol consumption
Vanessa Raath: I. Remember seeing on the streets, because Australia was pretty locked down as
Joanne Lockwood: well. But you were pretty locked down. You had armed guards on street corners
Joanne Lockwood: and you effectively locked in your homes for a
Joanne Lockwood: lot of time, weren't you? And I remember seeing the stories on it. Has
Joanne Lockwood: society flipped back? Has it just carried on where it left off?
Joanne Lockwood: Or is a reduction in the culture of alcohol?
Vanessa Raath: Sure, that's a good question. I wouldn't like to speak on behalf of the whole
Vanessa Raath: country, to be honest with you, Jo, but us
Vanessa Raath: personally, we actually drink a lot less since COVID because I think we realised
Vanessa Raath: that we didn't really need to be drinking as much as what we were. And
Vanessa Raath: it was never like we had a problem, but maybe it wasn't as bad as
Vanessa Raath: what people made out. I mean, we had very entrepreneurial, innovative South
Vanessa Raath: Africans making pineapple beer in their bathtubs. Just trying things
Vanessa Raath: out.
Vanessa Raath: Fantastic. You can distil and you can brew anything, I guess,
Joanne Lockwood: if you've got the right. Exactly. Banned alcohol, but not yeast.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. So yeast sales went through the roof in
Vanessa Raath: supermarkets. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: that's the human evolution. Human culture, as you say, the entrepreneurial spirit coming
Joanne Lockwood: out. Exactly, yeah, exactly. I guess people were making their own
Joanne Lockwood: tobacco as well. Importing
Vanessa Raath: cigarettes illegally from Mozambique, I believe.
Joanne Lockwood: To quote Jurassic park, nature finds a know humans will find a way
Joanne Lockwood: as. Yeah, there's a vacuum, you fill
Joanne Lockwood: it. So true.
Joanne Lockwood: So you say your superpower is your ADHD.
Joanne Lockwood: Is that something that you've realised you've had with you all
Joanne Lockwood: your life, or is it something you've grown to embrace and
Joanne Lockwood: value, or has it held you back at all in your life that you're
Joanne Lockwood: now realising it? So I was pretty much first diagnosed in high
Vanessa Raath: school and didn't talk about it openly, just
Vanessa Raath: a bit of a stigma around it. And then I actually went to study teaching.
Vanessa Raath: That's my formal qualification, I'm a middle school teacher
Vanessa Raath: and loved that and found with that kind of profession, I didn't need
Vanessa Raath: to be medicated for it. But I'll never forget, I was sitting. I taught in
Vanessa Raath: London for seven years and sitting in the staff room in Southfields and the special
Vanessa Raath: needs teacher came to me and said, you do realise how bad your
Vanessa Raath: ADHD is? And I said, what? And I hadn't even told her that I
Vanessa Raath: had it. So she had picked it up just by watching my behaviours and all
Vanessa Raath: of those things and she. So she pointed it out. Then it kind
Vanessa Raath: of came back onto my radar as an adult. I didn't do anything about it
Vanessa Raath: because then I went off travelling the world for two years and when you're working
Vanessa Raath: as a scuba diving instructor, you don't need to be medicated for ADHD.
Vanessa Raath: Then I came back to South Africa and ended up in an office environment working
Vanessa Raath: in a recruitment agency and I realised then that actually I needed to go
Vanessa Raath: back onto medication. So I did and I started talking a little bit more about
Vanessa Raath: it. But it's only literally in the last. Since I started my own business, which
Vanessa Raath: is five years ago, that I have my previous employer, where I was for ten
Vanessa Raath: years, knew about it because it actually counted towards a
Vanessa Raath: be stat here that I could get some kind of
Vanessa Raath: a point for the company towards whatever levels they
Vanessa Raath: were getting for the government. So they knew about it, but I didn't talk about
Vanessa Raath: it. And then when I started my own business, I thought, actually I'm doing well,
Vanessa Raath: standing on stages all over the world. Maybe it's time to talk about it
Vanessa Raath: because there shouldn't be a stigma around having this. And
Vanessa Raath: I did and promptly discovered that at least two
Vanessa Raath: thirds of the international sourcing community suffer from ADHD
Vanessa Raath: too. Everyone seems to have that. And I think that
Vanessa Raath: the reason why I refer to it as my superpower is because I think people
Vanessa Raath: who have ADHD don't have as many, should I say, inhibitions as other people. And
Vanessa Raath: we're quite confident and we quite happy to go and talk to people.
Vanessa Raath: And that definitely has helped me to be stronger in the
Vanessa Raath: recruiting space. So it's something that I'm now comfortable to talk
Vanessa Raath: about and take medication for it every day. And I've
Vanessa Raath: just had three weeks holiday here in South Africa because it's our lovely summer. And
Vanessa Raath: I must admit, yesterday when I started work, I was quite ready to get back
Vanessa Raath: onto my ritual because I only take it when I work and get some focus
Vanessa Raath: and sort out my very busy brain. But it was good to give it a
Vanessa Raath: break. So you mentioned that one of the things that
Joanne Lockwood: you see as an asset in
Joanne Lockwood: your entrepreneurial, your business is the ability to just go and talk to
Joanne Lockwood: people, to be out there. What would
Joanne Lockwood: you say would be the harder parts of running? Obviously, you're running a
Joanne Lockwood: business. What's the hardest bit around your ADHD? If you
Joanne Lockwood: weren't on meds, or even if you are on meds, because I appreciate meds also.
Joanne Lockwood: They kind of numb you a bit, don't they? They take the tops and the
Joanne Lockwood: bottoms off. No, my medication doesn't do
Vanessa Raath: that, to be honest. My medication actually just allows me to concentrate and focus
Vanessa Raath: so I don't feel like it doesn't have anything to do with my emotions or
Vanessa Raath: moods. Thankfully, I'm very stable. I like to think maybe just ask my husband
Vanessa Raath: around my moods and I'm not a moody person.
Vanessa Raath: It just helps me to concentrate. So the most difficult thing, Jo, to be honest
Vanessa Raath: with you, is getting the admin done. It's when I've got people
Vanessa Raath: who finish my academy and now they need a certificate. But that's admin. It's boring.
Vanessa Raath: It's not thinking out of the box, it's not being creative. That kind of stuff
Vanessa Raath: is difficult. Being a solopreneur, I choose to be a
Vanessa Raath: solopreneur. I don't want to have a team around me, but I've still
Vanessa Raath: got to get the admin done right. Someone's got to sit down and pay the
Vanessa Raath: bills and do all of those things. And that's what I find really
Vanessa Raath: difficult. So it's the routine, the mundane, the thing
Joanne Lockwood: that doesn't trigger you with excitement? No. And then I
Vanessa Raath: leave it to last and then it's often too late.
Joanne Lockwood: A lot of that. So that's the difficulty
Joanne Lockwood: I often wonder, who is this mysterious
Joanne Lockwood: neurotypical person? Because I wouldn't say I have
Joanne Lockwood: ADHD, but I would say that I think in my way,
Joanne Lockwood: and I resonate with what you've just said. I resonate with what other people say.
Joanne Lockwood: I do wonder what is neurotypical. And I also
Joanne Lockwood: wonder, going back to prehistoric human,
Joanne Lockwood: what were the attributes that were most valuable in prehistoric human?
Joanne Lockwood: And I think a lot of the attributes of people with ADHD would have been
Joanne Lockwood: really valuable in a world where you had to kind of be alert
Joanne Lockwood: and deal with stuff. So let's go back to
Vanessa Raath: what we started talking about was labels. So, I mean, if I say to someone,
Vanessa Raath: I've got ADHD, they immediately think I'm going to be bouncing off the
Vanessa Raath: walls and I'm not going to be able to sit at my desk and all
Vanessa Raath: of those things, which to a certain degree would be true,
Vanessa Raath: but people, that's what they immediately think. But actually, ADHD
Vanessa Raath: manifests itself completely differently in males versus females.
Vanessa Raath: So you can't just look at someone and put a label on them and say,
Vanessa Raath: oh, God, no, I can't have that person in an open plan office because they've
Vanessa Raath: got ADHD. They're never going to get any work done. It doesn't work like
Vanessa Raath: that. And if you medicated for it, does the
Vanessa Raath: person still need the label? Yeah, very true.
Vanessa Raath: It's an interesting space. And I think now that I feel safe that I'm running
Vanessa Raath: my own business, I'm not letting a company down when I speak about it very
Vanessa Raath: openly because it needs to be spoken about. I think sometimes
Vanessa Raath: that people jump too quickly to a diagnosis of ADHD. Like, I
Vanessa Raath: chat to my friends and they often contact me and say, van,
Vanessa Raath: my son's just been diagnosed with ADHD and put them on medication. Can you talk
Vanessa Raath: to my son? I'm like, well, no, not really, because it's
Vanessa Raath: completely different and it manifests in different ways.
Vanessa Raath: And I don't know that medication that he's on and I don't know what he's
Vanessa Raath: going through, it's so different in each individual, very
Vanessa Raath: subjective. And I think the way we started this podcast where you see it as
Joanne Lockwood: your superpower and you're able to embrace it, there's no
Joanne Lockwood: shame, there's no stigma, it's part of you, it makes you
Joanne Lockwood: who you are. And you, as a mature
Joanne Lockwood: adult, sounds really crass. Mature adult?
Joanne Lockwood: No, I'm nearly 60. I'm older than you. You told me when you were born.
Joanne Lockwood: I think when you get to that level of maturity or you age,
Joanne Lockwood: you start to own who you are and not see these
Joanne Lockwood: things as threats or challenges.
Joanne Lockwood: You work with the tools you got. I wonder if this resonates with any of
Vanessa Raath: the other ladies out there. You kind of hit 40 and you do a little
Vanessa Raath: bit of cleansing and you get rid of the friends that you maybe no longer
Vanessa Raath: need in your life. You get rid of the energy vampires and you get really
Vanessa Raath: comfortable in your own skin and you a lot more selective of who you spend
Vanessa Raath: your time with, whose comments you let bother you. And I think it's a great
Vanessa Raath: place to be. It really is. Yeah. And that's a certain sense of
Joanne Lockwood: knowing who you are. Because once you know who you are, that
Joanne Lockwood: contextualises a lot around you, doesn't it? You say
Joanne Lockwood: you can drift away from people who are like energy vampires. I love
Joanne Lockwood: that. I've
Joanne Lockwood: heard the expression hang around with radiators, not drains, so you look at people
Joanne Lockwood: to amplify it. But I suppose before you
Joanne Lockwood: reach that level of self awareness, you don't realise
Joanne Lockwood: what's going on in your life. You're not aware of the impact of that. You're
Joanne Lockwood: reacting, you're diving in, you're still
Joanne Lockwood: vulnerable in your identity. Maybe.
Vanessa Raath: Yeah, maybe. And then you talk about labels, if I think about it.
Vanessa Raath: So we hear now, and we've just finished the festive season and my son's 18
Vanessa Raath: and he's out every night and he's partying and
Vanessa Raath: really enjoying it and he's literally going out when I'm going to bed, where
Vanessa Raath: 20 years ago your label wanted to be, look at you and your
Vanessa Raath: party animal and you're out there having so much fun. Now, I've got no issues
Vanessa Raath: telling people that I like to be in bed by hoppers eight, because I do.
Vanessa Raath: But I'm up at five. I was in the swimming pool before 06:00 this
Vanessa Raath: morning. So it's, your labels
Vanessa Raath: will change and also your labels of other
Vanessa Raath: people will change. Because that's just laugh, isn't it? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: You say, is it 40? I mean, obviously I'm nearly 60, as I've
Joanne Lockwood: mentioned, I hang around with a cohort of people who are similar age
Joanne Lockwood: and we all agreed that 50 was fantastic. Really? That's good to
Vanessa Raath: know. And I'm also hanging out with people now who are going, 60 is where
Joanne Lockwood: it's at every decade.
Joanne Lockwood: You grow into it and you look back and think. I think we just learn
Joanne Lockwood: and grow throughout our lives. And probably when we were 30, I
Joanne Lockwood: remember being 30, deciding that I was now getting
Joanne Lockwood: old. I was no longer 20, I was no longer young and I
Joanne Lockwood: think maybe 30 was that barrier between adhood
Joanne Lockwood: and student or. I had to do something in my life. Now
Joanne Lockwood: I couldn't say, I'm getting there. I had to be somewhere.
Vanessa Raath: Yeah, no, exactly. And I agree. I think my
Vanessa Raath: 30th birthday was. I remember being, like, mortified.
Vanessa Raath: Just what is happening. I actually had a midlife crisis at 30 and I moved
Vanessa Raath: to live in Thailand. I lived in Thailand for a year because I didn't want
Vanessa Raath: to face being an adult and being in the real world.
Joanne Lockwood: The thing you don't realise when you're 25, and I'm going to use pick 25
Joanne Lockwood: for a good reason, is you don't realise there is an end date to
Joanne Lockwood: your life. 25, you've got 50. Invincible.
Joanne Lockwood: 50 years is forever. It's twice what you've had already.
Joanne Lockwood: It's miles away. Three times, you're a third of the way
Joanne Lockwood: through. It's nothing. I turn 60 next year and I'm thinking, hang
Joanne Lockwood: on a minute, I've got 15 years of
Joanne Lockwood: productive life. I'm not saying I was going to fall off the shelf or
Joanne Lockwood: drop dead or anything, but when you get past 75, things stop working.
Joanne Lockwood: Your brain doesn't want to do. So if you want to be kind of sat
Joanne Lockwood: on the sofa a bit more or doing your retirement activity. And I'm thinking, I've
Joanne Lockwood: got to start thinking about, I've only got 15 years. And I started
Joanne Lockwood: thinking that being 50 was ten years ago. So in ten years time,
Joanne Lockwood: I'll be 70. Jeez.
Vanessa Raath: I read a very interesting study and I can't even tell you where it was,
Vanessa Raath: but it was while I was on leave. Now about how people over 70
Vanessa Raath: actually lose the ability to be able to make decisions. So,
Vanessa Raath: like, even a small decision, that's where other people around
Vanessa Raath: them, like their children, have to make those decisions for them. And having
Vanessa Raath: two years ago gone through where I had to become an adult with my parents
Vanessa Raath: and move them and sort out their new home and do everything and close off
Vanessa Raath: bites because they just didn't have that ability to make a
Vanessa Raath: decision anymore. It's a really interesting thing and I see it
Vanessa Raath: more and more with the generation, my aunts and uncles going through the
Vanessa Raath: same thing. It's almost like someone flicks a switch. Yeah, that's it. And
Vanessa Raath: for me, I'm very nervous about that. I suppose when you were younger, you're
Joanne Lockwood: making decisions for the rest of your life, which is a long way away. You've
Joanne Lockwood: got a plan, a growth plan. When you get to
Joanne Lockwood: your guess? You're making decisions for next week and for next
Joanne Lockwood: month. Not necessarily. Or even would you like to go out for lunch or not?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. What do you think? Shall we? I don't know. Yeah, I
Vanessa Raath: don't know. What do you feel like doing? What do you feel like eating? Yeah.
Vanessa Raath: Having just had a couple of the older family members staying with us over
Vanessa Raath: Christmas, I definitely noticed that it's hard to make a decision. Yeah. I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, my father's in a nursing home at the moment and he's kind of happy
Joanne Lockwood: enough there. Obviously, he'd rather not be there, he'd rather be at home with
Joanne Lockwood: my mum. But he's happy enough and
Joanne Lockwood: he's got a disconnect now between his perception of
Joanne Lockwood: the world and his capability. He says,
Joanne Lockwood: why don't I just come home? You can put me in your car and we
Joanne Lockwood: can do this. We said, well, you can't get out of bed.
Joanne Lockwood: You have to have three people get you into the wheelchair. How are we going
Joanne Lockwood: to get you out of the wheelchair? Into the car? How are we going to
Joanne Lockwood: get you out of the car? He said, I should be able
Joanne Lockwood: to cope and so that you lose this ability to recognise your
Joanne Lockwood: own sense of self and capability. And I think maybe that's tied
Joanne Lockwood: in with age as well, where this disconnect occurs.
Joanne Lockwood: Hopefully I've disconnected already. No, you definitely
Vanessa Raath: haven't. But that's so interesting. I always am amazed at how many people in
Vanessa Raath: the and of an age, and I'm saying our age, I know
Vanessa Raath: that we have got an age difference, but their parents are still alive and it's
Vanessa Raath: so amazing. A lot of people our age in South Africa actually have
Vanessa Raath: lost parents or are losing parents now. People in the UK seem
Vanessa Raath: to live for a hell of a lot longer than in South Africa.
Vanessa Raath: So an ageing population is a thing in South Africa, but not as much of
Vanessa Raath: a thing in the UK. When you look at labelling and ed, and I
Vanessa Raath: was always amazed when I lived in London at these ladies who must have
Vanessa Raath: been sure, well into their 80s, with their little shopping trolleys,
Vanessa Raath: getting on the bus and going off to Sainsbury's to do their own shopping.
Vanessa Raath: And that's, I think, what keeps a lot of the older generation in the UK
Vanessa Raath: going for a lot longer. We're South Africans, we have a lot of help, a
Vanessa Raath: lot of cheap labour, high employment level, unemployment
Vanessa Raath: levels. So there's someone that you could pay to do something for you, but in
Vanessa Raath: the UK, you keep longer. Yeah, I suppose with my.
Joanne Lockwood: My father's just turned 90. My wife Marie's
Joanne Lockwood: father is 90 something. Marie lost her mum this year
Joanne Lockwood: at the age of 89 and a bit. Mine's what, 86 now?
Joanne Lockwood: So you kind of think once you pass 90, that's a fair
Joanne Lockwood: go. Well done. Nothing to be ashamed of.
Joanne Lockwood: If you're in your 80s, you'd expect people to start
Joanne Lockwood: dying or you're losing people in the 80s, but before your
Joanne Lockwood: 80s, in your. Well, that was a bit young. Or someone's in their 60s,
Joanne Lockwood: late. I lost my mom when she was 75 and I just feel that
Vanessa Raath: was just far too young. I agree with you.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I think if I'd like to get to my
Joanne Lockwood: mid to late. Eighty s the same age as my mum. Look. Look at the
Vanessa Raath: following. You got a good chance. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I just got to lose some weight and stay healthy. That's the trouble. But you're
Vanessa Raath: doing that. Aren't you in the gym a lot? I'm not in the gym enough.
Joanne Lockwood: I go once a week with a personal trainer and I do work out. That
Joanne Lockwood: case came down to a couple of years ago. I woke up and said to
Joanne Lockwood: myself, hang on a minute, I'm going to be 60 in a couple of years.
Joanne Lockwood: This was two or three years ago. I'm investing in marketing, I'm investing in this
Joanne Lockwood: part of my business, investing in that. I'm paying money on subscription for this and
Joanne Lockwood: the other. I realised the only person I wasn't investing in was me. And I'm
Joanne Lockwood: kind of the critical part of my business. Without me, there was no
Joanne Lockwood: business. So that's when I decided to
Joanne Lockwood: give up alcohol. I haven't had a drink for two years. I think it's two
Joanne Lockwood: years today since my last drink. Jeez. Well, it's amazing. And what
Vanessa Raath: prompted that? Was that just from a health perspective? Health aspect? No,
Joanne Lockwood: it was all this thinking about becoming 60 and
Joanne Lockwood: thinking, if I want to get to 75 and I use that date as my
Joanne Lockwood: work till I'm 75, because I feel I have to. I don't have a
Joanne Lockwood: massive pension or security, so I work till I'm 75
Joanne Lockwood: and then if I want to be able to stand up and work and think
Joanne Lockwood: and do stuff at 75, I can't wait until I'm 70 to think about
Joanne Lockwood: that. I had to have to think about that before I'm 60. So
Joanne Lockwood: if I'm drinking too much, not eating the right stuff, not active enough,
Joanne Lockwood: then the time to do that is now. Not kick the ball down the road
Joanne Lockwood: and say, when I'm ten years time, I'll figure that out. Because by then my
Joanne Lockwood: knees won't work, my hips won't work. I'll pick up diabetes.
Joanne Lockwood: Something's going to happen to me. It's decided to take personal
Joanne Lockwood: responsibility, to invest in myself as the core part of my business.
Joanne Lockwood: If I'm spending money on marketing, so I only spend more money on me than
Joanne Lockwood: I do on marketing. That's kind of the argument. It's very
Vanessa Raath: valid, actually. I haven't thought of it like that, to be honest. This
Vanessa Raath: morning, actually, before we started recording this podcast, because we just moved town, we went
Vanessa Raath: to the local gym and signed up for the gym because it's January, we now
Vanessa Raath: live by the beach. And I also need to drop a couple of kilogrammes, to
Vanessa Raath: be honest, to feel more comfortable in my clothes kind of thing. I mean, I
Vanessa Raath: think my days of being on a Runway in Milan are over, but just
Vanessa Raath: to feel healthier, and I just think that that becomes
Vanessa Raath: important as you get older, where, again, as you're younger and you're 25 and
Vanessa Raath: you're bulletproof and invincible, you almost take that health for granted, right?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. It was that epiphany wake up call. And I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not an evangelist. I'm not out there. I don't run. I tried running
Joanne Lockwood: and my knees can't do it anymore. I can do a treadmill, I can
Joanne Lockwood: walk. I also decided I want to do something I really enjoyed.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't want going to the gym to be
Joanne Lockwood: something. I can't be bothered. I don't want to do it. So
Joanne Lockwood: I have a personal trainer, and she's amazing, and
Joanne Lockwood: I've changed gyms a couple of times in the last couple of years. So this
Joanne Lockwood: latest gym I joined and with my new personal trainer, when we
Joanne Lockwood: had our briefing chat, I said to her, I want to
Joanne Lockwood: come here and I want to have a laugh and I want to enjoy this.
Joanne Lockwood: I want to go away happy. Knackered is kind of what I said.
Joanne Lockwood: I want you to work me until, literally I
Joanne Lockwood: can't do anymore. And I want to leave with a big grin on my face
Joanne Lockwood: going, yay, I've achieved something today. That's kind of how we do it. We
Joanne Lockwood: have a bit of banter, we have a bit of kind of jokey stuff. I
Joanne Lockwood: give her the eyes, I give her the look when she's asking me to do
Joanne Lockwood: something seriously. Really? Okay, come on, then.
Joanne Lockwood: So it's entertaining. And I have an hour with her
Joanne Lockwood: working out, killing myself as much as I can for me. I don't do it
Joanne Lockwood: for her. I do it for me every time. But I come out and I
Joanne Lockwood: give her a high five and go, thank you. I really enjoyed that and that's
Joanne Lockwood: really what I want to look forward to. Yeah, no, it's different for
Vanessa Raath: me. I'm kind of forced back into a gym because running was my thing. But
Vanessa Raath: having had knee surgery in December, I've got a good six months before
Vanessa Raath: I can get out running successfully. So for now it's going to
Vanessa Raath: be swimming in a pool at the gym. So, yeah, let's see how that
Vanessa Raath: goes. That's great.
Joanne Lockwood: I had a problem with my shoulder, I think it was called a rotator cuff
Joanne Lockwood: injury, on my shoulder. So I couldn't move my arm up and things like that.
Joanne Lockwood: But I was getting up to two kilometres in the
Joanne Lockwood: pool. It was a 20 metre pool, so I was doing
Joanne Lockwood: 100 lengths of a 20 metre pool and I was going several times a week,
Joanne Lockwood: so I was doing at least a kilometre, a kilometre and a half and I
Joanne Lockwood: peaked at two kilometres and then my shoulder kicked in and hurt. I stopped going.
Joanne Lockwood: I haven't been for about 80. And what were the physical benefits of you swimming
Vanessa Raath: more frequently? I did lose weight and
Joanne Lockwood: I know people say you don't do exercise to lose
Joanne Lockwood: weight. You don't have the scale, but you feel better.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, you feel better, you feel more energy, you're more
Joanne Lockwood: active, your Persona grows, you got more going
Joanne Lockwood: on in your head. Sluggish. I think all of those kind of benefits
Joanne Lockwood: kick in and cumulatively I was losing
Joanne Lockwood: weight because I was controlling my intake. I
Joanne Lockwood: cut out alcohol and being more active, those
Joanne Lockwood: kind of come together. You can't eat like
Joanne Lockwood: crazy and do the gym and expect to lose weight. You have to do both.
Joanne Lockwood: You have to cut the intake, increase the output.
Vanessa Raath: Apparently stopping alcohol is a massive factor in weight loss.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it's empty calories. You're basically drinking a
Joanne Lockwood: roast dinner. You're drinking.
Joanne Lockwood: And for wine is like, I don't know, it's 1000 calories in a bottle of
Joanne Lockwood: wine. That's half your calorie intake on a day just in one bottle.
Joanne Lockwood: So, yeah, if you're serious about it, you can either
Joanne Lockwood: drink it or you can eat it and you can't do both. So hence the
Vanessa Raath: saying that came up as we were young females as students is eating
Vanessa Raath: is cheating because you'd rather use your calories on the wine as
Vanessa Raath: opposed to having a meal. Yeah. And I see lots of studies
Joanne Lockwood: and people talking about whether calorie counting is a thing
Joanne Lockwood: and lose weight that way. But I think an appreciation
Joanne Lockwood: of the nutritional value of what you're consuming is important,
Joanne Lockwood: and whether that's calories, whether it's fat, whether it's sugars, whatever it may be, just
Joanne Lockwood: kind of getting a more understanding of what's going in your mouth, where it's
Joanne Lockwood: coming from, how processed is it, the value of it.
Joanne Lockwood: Salt. Yeah. So I think it's been sort of aware, my
Vanessa Raath: anniversary coming up, your anniversary today, on the 24th of this month,
Vanessa Raath: is that I would have been vegetarian for four years. And that literally
Vanessa Raath: wasn't a conscious decision. It was literally we had been away
Vanessa Raath: for. I mean, this is our big summer holiday in South Africa. We'd eaten, had
Vanessa Raath: so many bras or barbecues, I was all meted out and just said, my
Vanessa Raath: husband and I, driving back from holiday, just said to each know, let's just try
Vanessa Raath: a week without a piece of chop a borovores steak,
Vanessa Raath: ribs, whatever it might be. And that week has now evolved
Vanessa Raath: into four years and neither of us will go back to eating meat
Vanessa Raath: and we feel a whole lot better about ourselves and
Vanessa Raath: feel better, and as you say, it's about being more conscious of
Vanessa Raath: what you put in your mouth and where that actually comes from.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm certainly not a dedicated meat eater. I eat
Joanne Lockwood: meat, and because it's a habit, it's what's in
Joanne Lockwood: front of me, and it's convenient. If I was at a vegetarian or
Joanne Lockwood: vegan restaurant, I'd be perfectly happy. And often I will order
Joanne Lockwood: vegetarian dishes as a starter or a main in a restaurant because I think,
Joanne Lockwood: oh, that sounds interesting, let's give that a go. So I'm not one of these
Joanne Lockwood: people that says, oh, it's got to have meat in it, so could I give
Joanne Lockwood: up meat? I don't know. I don't know if I could give it up, but
Joanne Lockwood: I could certainly minimise it. I don't have to have a bacon sandwich,
Joanne Lockwood: but I'd have to have an egg. Can you
Vanessa Raath: imagine the look on South Africans'faces when you go to a bra, which
Vanessa Raath: we pretty much when you get invited to someone's house in South Africa, it's going
Vanessa Raath: to be a barbecue or a bra, whatever you call it, and you say, well,
Vanessa Raath: we're vegetarian, so we'll bring our own mushrooms or corn or
Vanessa Raath: whatever we're putting on the bites. It's quite a thing for other people to get
Vanessa Raath: their heads around as opposed to us, because we're just used to it. Yeah. And
Joanne Lockwood: if I turn up with you and say, well, we don't drink, it's like, okay,
Joanne Lockwood: so we got vegetarians and. Non drinkers could be
Vanessa Raath: our last place out together.
Joanne Lockwood: But that winds us right back to the beginning of the conversation
Joanne Lockwood: around judgement and labels. And that bleeds through
Joanne Lockwood: into the think about workplace culture where we're hiring
Joanne Lockwood: people who fit into our culture and suddenly
Joanne Lockwood: Vanessa and her husband aren't part of our culture because
Joanne Lockwood: they want to cook mushrooms on the grill. Exactly.
Vanessa Raath: So I mean, for example, in South Africa, a big thing on a Friday afternoon,
Vanessa Raath: maybe once a week or once a month, is to do a big barbecue. So
Vanessa Raath: traditional sausage over here is called a borovors. And it's got a whole lot of
Vanessa Raath: things inside. You don't really want to know what you're eating. I will admit they
Vanessa Raath: are delicious, but that was what happened on a Friday afternoon. And
Vanessa Raath: then I would go along to that and it would be like, I'll just have
Vanessa Raath: a dry bread roll because I don't have borovores,
Vanessa Raath: I don't eat meat. And they would be like, what? We didn't even cater for
Vanessa Raath: the vegetarians. We're not vegan. So if you're not going to have eggs, you're normally
Vanessa Raath: vegan. We eat eggs still, but it's kind of like no
Vanessa Raath: one accounts for that. If I'm speaking at a conference in South
Vanessa Raath: Africa or whatever, I always state up front where I'm delivering training. You guys,
Vanessa Raath: I know you're probably going to order lunch. I just want to let you know
Vanessa Raath: up front, I'm vegetarian because people just don't think along those lines.
Vanessa Raath: It's a label that being vegetarian is a label that doesn't
Vanessa Raath: go very strongly in the south african white culture. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And being vegan has a stigma about it. It's like, oh, vegan, you're going
Joanne Lockwood: to bore me. You're going to be hard work, you're going to be worse
Joanne Lockwood: people that wants to tell me how you don't eat meat, it's a
Joanne Lockwood: judgement. Yeah, exactly. Imagine someone
Vanessa Raath: who's a vegan, does crossfit and has their MBA. I mean, you'll know
Vanessa Raath: about those in your opening greeting with them.
Joanne Lockwood: How do you know if someone's vegan? Because they'll tell you about it.
Vanessa Raath: We're going there for dinner or they've invited us over because
Vanessa Raath: it can be awkward. I mean, I remember arriving in Sydney, going to dinner at
Vanessa Raath: a school friend's house and hadn't thought to say, up now,
Vanessa Raath: since I've known you, I'm now vegetarian. And they made this most amazing,
Vanessa Raath: like lamb roast. And I was like, sorry,
Joanne Lockwood: but just that joke we just made around someone who's vegan
Joanne Lockwood: and that trope that they'll tell you
Joanne Lockwood: about it. It shows that we belittle
Joanne Lockwood: someone's identity, something that matters to people in
Joanne Lockwood: everyday humour. And veganism
Joanne Lockwood: is no less protected, as far as I'm concerned, as a
Joanne Lockwood: right to exist, than any other protected characteristic. And
Joanne Lockwood: we'd be horrified at people using humour to
Joanne Lockwood: describe racial or a gender or another
Joanne Lockwood: thing. But there are some topics like veganism, like
Joanne Lockwood: vegetarianism, like not drinking, that are seen as kind of
Joanne Lockwood: a. It makes you less than. You're labelled, your stereotypes, you're
Joanne Lockwood: not part of our culture, you don't fit into our society. And
Joanne Lockwood: it's easy done. Easy done. Those judgments just keep rearing
Joanne Lockwood: ahead. Yeah, 100%. Absolutely.
Vanessa Raath: And I just think that we've got to be so careful
Vanessa Raath: forming those opinions, because once you've kind of formed that opinion
Vanessa Raath: and given that person that label, it's actually very difficult for you to change that
Vanessa Raath: label in your head. And I think that that's something
Vanessa Raath: that I don't know how we're going to get better at it. But besides not
Vanessa Raath: labelling people, which, as we've discussed, is human nature, but not being so
Vanessa Raath: forceful with our labels too early on, in a relationship with someone, you have
Vanessa Raath: to give someone a chance. I think what I just did there
Joanne Lockwood: was. I kind of called it out after we did it, so I recognised.
Joanne Lockwood: Actually, that wasn't a great conversation. It wasn't respectful.
Joanne Lockwood: It's playing on a stereotype, playing with judgement, playing on a trope
Joanne Lockwood: and belittling somebody because of who they are. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: recognising. You're doing it. Either catch it before it comes out your mouth, or
Joanne Lockwood: if it does come out your mouth. Yeah, that's the priority, I
Joanne Lockwood: guess. But if it comes out, reflect on it and go, actually,
Joanne Lockwood: that wasn't right. I shouldn't have said that. I need to own that. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think that's the next best thing. Or if someone else catches
Joanne Lockwood: you listening to their perspective and say, oh, all right, I see what you're saying
Joanne Lockwood: there now, and acknowledge it so we can all do that.
Joanne Lockwood: Judgement is so ingrained in us, it's hard not to.
Joanne Lockwood: And if we can all have that kind of pause. Slow down, philtre. Where we
Joanne Lockwood: can start to process this stuff, it allows us to then think differently about
Joanne Lockwood: people and challenge ourselves. But agreed. I completely agree. But it's
Vanessa Raath: quite funny that you say that because, you know, been sitting on the
Vanessa Raath: couch a bit with having my knee operated on. I caught
Vanessa Raath: Netflix's putting, you know, one of his comedies.
Vanessa Raath: Oh, my word. I was sitting there,
Vanessa Raath: actually, every single snippet or skit of what he
Vanessa Raath: was putting out there in that hour was taking fun out of a
Vanessa Raath: minority group. I actually couldn't believe it. Yeah, I saw a film
Joanne Lockwood: probably four or five years ago that Ricky Gervais either he starred
Joanne Lockwood: in. I don't know if he wrote it or not, but it's the only film
Joanne Lockwood: that I've wanted to walk out, literally walk out of the cinema
Joanne Lockwood: in the first 510 minutes. I was
Joanne Lockwood: angry to the point where I can't watch it. I'm going,
Joanne Lockwood: what film was it? I can't remember. He was playing
Joanne Lockwood: guitar and there was a lady in a gipsy dress by a tree. I
Joanne Lockwood: can't remember what it's called now, but he was on tour doing something about.
Joanne Lockwood: Anyway, it was so many discriminatory
Joanne Lockwood: tropes, stereotypes, probably around
Joanne Lockwood: gender identity, probably around homophobic type
Joanne Lockwood: comments. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it just made me so
Joanne Lockwood: uncomfortable. And when people say, he's edgy,
Joanne Lockwood: well, I don't want people to be edgy in that way in my presence. I
Joanne Lockwood: don't need people to be that kind of edgy. It's not clever, it's
Joanne Lockwood: just insulting people or belittling people. But that kind
Vanessa Raath: of behaviour almost makes that judging and labelling
Vanessa Raath: mainstream now, because, look, it's on. Netflix has done a show about it, and
Vanessa Raath: famous person is now on stage performing, taking.
Vanessa Raath: Giving people labels and turning it into a joke. Yeah, but then
Joanne Lockwood: if you step back and say, well, other people have the
Joanne Lockwood: right to enjoy that, who
Joanne Lockwood: becomes the thought police, who becomes the DNI police, who becomes the
Joanne Lockwood: gatekeeper of civility? And in a broad church
Joanne Lockwood: with lots of opinions, you're not the only person who's right. There are many
Joanne Lockwood: rights, many opinions, many perspectives
Joanne Lockwood: carry on in the political climates around the world.
Joanne Lockwood: If you are left leaning, you can't believe how people
Joanne Lockwood: could ever vote for a right leaning politician and what they
Joanne Lockwood: stand for. Yet a lot of these politicians,
Joanne Lockwood: they certainly get 40% of the vote, 50% of the
Joanne Lockwood: vote. So it's not a minority view, it's just not your
Joanne Lockwood: view. And it's really hard to sometimes rationalise other people's
Joanne Lockwood: opinions when they're so abhorrent to you. Exactly. So, I mean, I
Vanessa Raath: still amazed that Brexit happened. I never would have thought in
Vanessa Raath: 100 years that the vote would have gone that way. That still
Vanessa Raath: amazes me. But there were obviously a lot of people, and I know it's a
Vanessa Raath: very contentious issue, know, that's the way that. They
Joanne Lockwood: feel they were disenfranchised. The politics at the
Joanne Lockwood: time were talking to people in the language that riled them
Joanne Lockwood: about immigration, about taking back control around these
Joanne Lockwood: EU time wasters and money wasters and bureaucracy. We know how to
Joanne Lockwood: do it best. We're british, we know best. We've survived as an island for decades
Joanne Lockwood: and centuries and millennia, and it plays into those.
Joanne Lockwood: And the trouble is, what it created, this two tier
Joanne Lockwood: where people who were remainers perceived themselves as
Joanne Lockwood: intelligent and clever, and anybody who was for leaving
Joanne Lockwood: was therefore stupid or misinformed or being lied to.
Joanne Lockwood: And how could you fall for that? So it really kind
Joanne Lockwood: of created this divide, this real divide there,
Joanne Lockwood: where there was a demonization and people who were remaining going, well,
Joanne Lockwood: you're just soft and you don't want this. Both sides really
Joanne Lockwood: believe they're right, and they still do. And it's important to
Joanne Lockwood: reconcile, like, any political difference that I
Joanne Lockwood: think even now it's 49, 51. It may be a swung
Joanne Lockwood: more back towards the wish we hadn't left, but
Joanne Lockwood: there's still a large percentage of the population who are
Joanne Lockwood: so ingrained in the fact we did the right thing. And
Joanne Lockwood: you kind of have to respect that. It sounds crazy. I mean, we look across
Joanne Lockwood: the pond to America about what could happen in the election. I
Vanessa Raath: know that Trump could maybe get. Back in, but then you have to recognise, if
Joanne Lockwood: Trump gets back in, it's because 51% of the population exactly
Joanne Lockwood: believe in him. So my opinion is therefore a minority opinion
Joanne Lockwood: and the fact that I don't agree with what he stands for or what his
Joanne Lockwood: politics are, but a lot of the people in that country do, so you have
Joanne Lockwood: to respect that that's their right to vote. I just have a
Joanne Lockwood: commentary as an outsider. Yeah. So, yeah. It's about trying
Joanne Lockwood: to rationalise those differences as well, isn't it? Those perspectives. Exactly.
Vanessa Raath: I don't know. Humans are complex beasts, aren't we?
Joanne Lockwood: It's just so true. That's why I got out
Joanne Lockwood: of it. It either worked or didn't work. Push the button, reboot it. If it
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't work, buy a new one, put it in, it'll work. Humans, you can't reboot.
Joanne Lockwood: Push the button. Sometimes you could. Right, but
Vanessa Raath: we could. Yeah, no, just wave the magic wand. Just do as
Joanne Lockwood: I say. I'm right. Exactly. And I think one of the things I've learned as
Joanne Lockwood: a DeI professional is knowing that you don't have to be right. You're
Joanne Lockwood: not right. Starting from that position of challenge
Joanne Lockwood: and be open to changing perspectives is a core thing. And I think
Joanne Lockwood: if we all did that, we'd avoid the judgement. Yeah, exactly.
Vanessa Raath: Completely agree, Jo. Well, Vanessa, it's been fantastic. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: we've been chatting to each other for an hour and a half now. Half an
Joanne Lockwood: hour in the greenery. And I know you have to rush off.
Joanne Lockwood: It's been amazing talking to you. How do people get hold of so much? Jo,
Vanessa Raath: first of all, I just want to say thank you for having me as a
Vanessa Raath: guest. I was actually just thinking during this conversation, we still are yet to meet
Vanessa Raath: in person, which is amazing because we have spoken so much online. It's
Vanessa Raath: unbelievable. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Jo. I'm
Vanessa Raath: not difficult to find online is what I always say. My website is
Vanessa Raath: vanessaraath.com. You can connect with me on LinkedIn anywhere that you're
Vanessa Raath: comfortable with. Just reach out to me. I'm always happy to chat.
Joanne Lockwood: R-A-A-T-H. Thank you. for those who don't speak
Joanne Lockwood: with a south african accent. And Vanessa is v, a
Vanessa Raath: single nessa. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic. I'll put all your contact details in the show notes and people
Joanne Lockwood: make contact on LinkedIn or track you down somewhere. Awesome. So
Joanne Lockwood: thank you. Thank you to you, the listener, for getting this far, for
Joanne Lockwood: tuning in and staying with us. Hope you've enjoyed this conversation.
Joanne Lockwood: If you have and you're not already subscribed or following this podcast, then please
Joanne Lockwood: do tick the button. Follow us. And if you've loved to listen to this,
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Joanne Lockwood: to hear from that. And this is episode 101 and I'm sure I've
Joanne Lockwood: got at least 99 more to take us to 200 over the next year to
Joanne Lockwood: 18 months. So please, please tune in. And if you'd like to be
Joanne Lockwood: a guest yourself, you've seen the conversation, listen to the conversation. You can listen to
Joanne Lockwood: back episodes, get a feel for the conversation. It's open to anybody,
Joanne Lockwood: open to anybody who wants to give their perspective on making the world a better
Joanne Lockwood: place so that people can thrive. Any suggestions? Feedback? Please
Joanne Lockwood: email me to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And
Joanne Lockwood: finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute
Joanne Lockwood: pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.