WEBVTT 00:00:00.330 --> 00:00:04.046 Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the 00:00:04.068 --> 00:00:07.790 Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I've interviewed a number of amazing 00:00:07.860 --> 00:00:11.002 people and simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion, 00:00:11.066 --> 00:00:14.718 belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to 00:00:14.724 --> 00:00:17.854 thrive. So to join me in the future then, please do drop me a line 00:00:17.892 --> 00:00:21.262 to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk, 00:00:21.316 --> 00:00:24.330 that's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot Uk. 00:00:25.098 --> 00:00:28.806 You can catch up on all the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the 00:00:28.828 --> 00:00:32.658 usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf 00:00:32.754 --> 00:00:35.890 and let's get going. Today is episode 00:00:35.970 --> 00:00:39.590 101 with the title beyond labels 00:00:40.090 --> 00:00:43.614 and I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Vanessa Wrath. 00:00:43.682 --> 00:00:47.366 Vanessa is a talent sourcing trainer, and when I asked Vanessa to describe 00:00:47.398 --> 00:00:51.194 her superpower, she said her ADHD. Hello, 00:00:51.232 --> 00:00:54.906 Vanessa, welcome to the show. Hey, Jo, good to be on your show. Thanks so 00:00:54.928 --> 00:00:58.766 much for inviting me to be here. 101 guest I feel like I 00:00:58.788 --> 00:01:02.606 should be thinking about Dalmatians, because as soon as you said 101, I just 00:01:02.628 --> 00:01:06.110 thought Dalmatians and dogs, why not? 00:01:06.260 --> 00:01:09.634 Obviously, we steer away from you being Cruella, stick to the 00:01:09.672 --> 00:01:13.458 Dalmatians themselves. No, it's an absolute honour. I can't 00:01:13.464 --> 00:01:17.026 believe you've done 101 episodes. That's amazing. Well done, you. I 00:01:17.048 --> 00:01:20.886 know, and I've enjoyed every one of them. And it's fascinating to 00:01:20.908 --> 00:01:24.534 meet guests such as yourself and have a great chat and get to know 00:01:24.572 --> 00:01:28.118 people. And we've been looking to catch up for some while, so this is an 00:01:28.124 --> 00:01:31.734 ideal opportunity. So thank you. Excellent. Vanessa. Beyond labels. Beyond 00:01:31.782 --> 00:01:35.562 labels. What does that mean to you? So, for me, I think that it goes 00:01:35.616 --> 00:01:39.258 beyond just saying beyond labels. I've always had a thing about 00:01:39.344 --> 00:01:43.146 people judging others, and I think when you judge someone, you give them a 00:01:43.168 --> 00:01:46.926 label. And that, for me, is just so frustrating, is that we do 00:01:46.948 --> 00:01:50.586 it. I think it's human nature. You see someone walking down the street 00:01:50.698 --> 00:01:54.478 and you give them a label straight away. Maybe it's a gentleman with a 00:01:54.484 --> 00:01:58.226 lot of tattoos and you immediately think, rough, maybe from the wrong side of 00:01:58.248 --> 00:02:01.634 the street. Meanwhile, these days he's probably like a top CEO or 00:02:01.672 --> 00:02:05.406 MD. It's about those snap decisions 00:02:05.438 --> 00:02:08.534 that we make when we look at people and we give them a label, and 00:02:08.572 --> 00:02:11.958 it's completely unfounded. It's just based on 00:02:12.124 --> 00:02:15.750 our point of reference, where are we coming from? And probably 00:02:15.820 --> 00:02:19.606 from something that inherently has been built into us through 00:02:19.628 --> 00:02:23.126 the course of our lives. So for me, from my perspective of being a talent 00:02:23.158 --> 00:02:26.806 sourcing trainer, beyond labels is giving everyone an equal 00:02:26.838 --> 00:02:30.410 opportunity. Don't look at a CV and just label someone. 00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:34.186 Don't look at someone on LinkedIn only and give them a label. Are 00:02:34.208 --> 00:02:37.678 they a perfect candidate? If you haven't cross referenced them across the 00:02:37.684 --> 00:02:41.534 Internet, you might find something else that's even really good, that you can sell 00:02:41.572 --> 00:02:45.362 them to be a culture, fit into the organisation. Or you might find something that 00:02:45.416 --> 00:02:48.238 makes you think, well, this isn't actually going to work in this role, so it's 00:02:48.254 --> 00:02:51.886 about doing your homework before just willy 00:02:51.918 --> 00:02:55.746 nilly applying labels to individuals. Obviously, I 00:02:55.768 --> 00:02:59.566 work in the EDI space. You're an experienced person who works in the talent 00:02:59.598 --> 00:03:03.414 sourcing space. So we talk about these kind of things all the time. But the 00:03:03.452 --> 00:03:07.106 average person in corporate South 00:03:07.138 --> 00:03:10.986 Africa, corporate UK, corporate America, wherever you happen to be, doesn't always think 00:03:11.008 --> 00:03:14.806 about this, do they? Their focus is on empty 00:03:14.838 --> 00:03:18.294 seat. I need someone to fill that slot. I want someone to hit the ground 00:03:18.342 --> 00:03:21.694 running. Mike has just left. I want another person just like 00:03:21.732 --> 00:03:25.406 Mike. How do we move people 00:03:25.508 --> 00:03:28.926 into that way of thinking? Absolutely, 100%. And I think 00:03:28.948 --> 00:03:32.718 that what happens is, and this is why I'm a 00:03:32.724 --> 00:03:36.560 little bit stuck with company referral systems, because what happens is 00:03:37.010 --> 00:03:40.834 Mark leaves. Mark is a white male. We must get another white male because Mark 00:03:40.872 --> 00:03:44.402 was great and we're all going to really miss Mark around here. Or you then 00:03:44.456 --> 00:03:48.226 have someone who looks like Mark, who's left behind and he recommends his 00:03:48.248 --> 00:03:51.590 friend who looks and sounds and speaks like Mark 00:03:51.660 --> 00:03:55.494 because that's what was there previously. So it's all about our. As 00:03:55.532 --> 00:03:59.042 I say, it's our point of references of what we think will work best. 00:03:59.196 --> 00:04:02.140 And it is a massive problem. It really and truly is. 00:04:03.710 --> 00:04:07.446 You've done 101 episodes on this. We all know that more diverse 00:04:07.478 --> 00:04:11.194 organisations and staffing teams perform better, make 00:04:11.232 --> 00:04:14.320 more money, are more enjoyable workplaces for people. 00:04:14.770 --> 00:04:18.558 And from my perspective of. I have the unique, I 00:04:18.564 --> 00:04:21.386 don't want to even say it was a privilege, but the unique view of growing 00:04:21.418 --> 00:04:24.654 up in apartheid South Africa, we didn't have 00:04:24.692 --> 00:04:28.466 opportunities to mix with people from other races. So in the workplace was 00:04:28.488 --> 00:04:32.306 where I got to meet people and actually form friends with people from 00:04:32.328 --> 00:04:36.126 other racial groups. And I'm eternally grateful for that because it afforded 00:04:36.158 --> 00:04:39.814 me the opportunity. I went to a school where only white children were 00:04:39.852 --> 00:04:43.526 allowed to attend up until I was in my final year. So I think 00:04:43.628 --> 00:04:47.094 it's something that we definitely need to do in the workplace because we 00:04:47.132 --> 00:04:50.966 can. I perceive 00:04:50.998 --> 00:04:54.586 there to be kind of often a disconnect between the 00:04:54.608 --> 00:04:58.426 motivation in a workplace and the motivation in society. So if you work 00:04:58.448 --> 00:05:02.154 for a large organisation or corporate, you've got Dei, you've got HR 00:05:02.202 --> 00:05:05.706 people, you've got people in talent sourcing, all focusing 00:05:05.738 --> 00:05:09.262 on equal opportunity equity, ensuring people 00:05:09.316 --> 00:05:12.874 succeed, whereas you step out onto the pavement. Society doesn't 00:05:12.922 --> 00:05:16.706 always care about you as an individual in the same way. And 00:05:16.808 --> 00:05:20.610 we often think that a company culture is a microcosm of 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:24.306 the societal culture. But sometimes companies are actually leading the way in 00:05:24.328 --> 00:05:28.158 this. They definitely are, 100%. But then 00:05:28.184 --> 00:05:31.750 we have the extreme case in a country like South Africa where I'm based, 00:05:31.820 --> 00:05:35.298 where businesses are mandated to go and hire 00:05:35.394 --> 00:05:39.174 people from different racial groups because the government puts stipulations in place 00:05:39.212 --> 00:05:42.710 on them. So sometimes you find it, it's always happening, but it's 00:05:42.790 --> 00:05:46.394 a false kind of view of what they're trying to 00:05:46.432 --> 00:05:49.660 achieve, which is good. We need to do this 00:05:50.270 --> 00:05:53.886 however it needs to be done for the right reasons. So ed and 00:05:53.908 --> 00:05:57.518 I is something that's hugely important, has to be a focus, 00:05:57.684 --> 00:06:01.342 but it has to be done with the whole company's buy 00:06:01.396 --> 00:06:05.246 in, because society is kind of left to their own devices. There's no 00:06:05.268 --> 00:06:09.026 one really trying to be the CEO of a society, but if 00:06:09.048 --> 00:06:12.606 it's coming from the CEO of a business, and they are all over there, they're 00:06:12.638 --> 00:06:15.090 on the Ed Andr bus. Brilliant. 00:06:15.910 --> 00:06:19.382 Yeah. So you talked about labels, you talked about 00:06:19.516 --> 00:06:23.014 stereotyping people. And as a species, we're quite 00:06:23.052 --> 00:06:26.886 judgmental, aren't we? Oh, it's just awful. We're evaluating people all 00:06:26.908 --> 00:06:30.694 the time, going, oh, yeah, shoes, watch, hair, car, 00:06:30.892 --> 00:06:34.506 nose, glasses, whatever it may be, and putting people into our 00:06:34.528 --> 00:06:38.358 little stereotype box and say, I know who you are now because I've sussed 00:06:38.374 --> 00:06:41.850 you. And we do that hiring as well. Yeah, it happens all the time. And 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:45.646 it's really something that's quite difficult not to do. I mean, no one's perfect. I 00:06:45.668 --> 00:06:48.874 mean, I do it, I catch myself doing it. I've just actually had knee surgery. 00:06:48.922 --> 00:06:52.654 So I've spent a lot of time while all the guests have been here 00:06:52.692 --> 00:06:56.426 over Christmas, sitting on a bench at the beach, while others have been playing 00:06:56.458 --> 00:06:59.778 on the beach or walking or swimming. And you sit there and you look at 00:06:59.784 --> 00:07:03.618 people and I find myself judging people as they're walking past me. And I'm 00:07:03.624 --> 00:07:07.154 like, who am I? Why am I doing this? I don't have to be doing 00:07:07.192 --> 00:07:10.806 this. And then often I'd be left with all the old grannies who also have 00:07:10.828 --> 00:07:14.150 the bad knees and couldn't walk on the beach. And then you find out that 00:07:14.220 --> 00:07:18.006 even though this person's old. I mean, they're in their 80s. They're amazing. I 00:07:18.028 --> 00:07:21.574 had the most wonderful conversations with old ladies who 00:07:21.612 --> 00:07:25.386 were pretty much. Their knees were about as good as mine and they 00:07:25.408 --> 00:07:28.666 were just the most interesting, lovely people. But when they sat down next to me, 00:07:28.688 --> 00:07:32.366 I was like, no, but you shouldn't feel like that. 00:07:32.548 --> 00:07:36.286 They were wonderful. I can't believe how it 00:07:36.308 --> 00:07:39.742 happened. But apparently I checked my diary and I'm 60 next year, 00:07:39.876 --> 00:07:43.146 but in my head I'm still 25. I'm 00:07:43.178 --> 00:07:46.862 still a young adult with young adult 00:07:46.926 --> 00:07:50.754 thoughts. Just with knees that don't work. That's the only thing that's different, isn't it? 00:07:50.792 --> 00:07:54.354 Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we're talking about 00:07:54.392 --> 00:07:57.854 labels. We also sometimes label ourselves incorrectly. 00:07:57.982 --> 00:08:01.814 And our perception of what we're putting out there and what people are 00:08:01.852 --> 00:08:05.606 seeing is often two completely different things. And I just think 00:08:05.628 --> 00:08:09.194 that there's a bit of a disconnect there of what we think we are putting 00:08:09.232 --> 00:08:12.970 out into the universe and how they're reading that. 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:16.902 Are they getting a different label to what we're trying to give ourselves? 00:08:17.046 --> 00:08:20.894 Yeah, I could see how it evolved. You think about 00:08:20.932 --> 00:08:24.190 prehistoric human back in the times 00:08:24.260 --> 00:08:27.898 where we were living in small communities, small tribes, 00:08:28.074 --> 00:08:31.614 and anybody who came from over the hill or across the 00:08:31.652 --> 00:08:35.038 water was inherently bad because 00:08:35.204 --> 00:08:38.830 why were they coming? Probably to rape, pillage, attack, steal 00:08:38.990 --> 00:08:42.658 or whatever. They weren't coming to knock on the door and say, do you want 00:08:42.664 --> 00:08:46.166 to buy something or anything like that? Or be nice. 00:08:46.268 --> 00:08:50.054 So we've evolved this sense of protectionism where the 00:08:50.092 --> 00:08:53.318 judgement is evaluating the threat level, isn't it? 00:08:53.484 --> 00:08:57.254 Adrenaline glands, our vagus nerve, our fight, flight or 00:08:57.292 --> 00:09:01.066 freeze mechanism are kicking in all the time, linked all to our biases, which 00:09:01.088 --> 00:09:04.474 is why people who are different to ourselves and not in our in 00:09:04.512 --> 00:09:08.220 group are seen as maybe as threats or 00:09:10.030 --> 00:09:13.600 less effective than we are. Yeah, absolutely. 00:09:14.770 --> 00:09:18.398 It's the whole thing of who are you going to. So you walk into 00:09:18.484 --> 00:09:22.190 a conference venue and there's a whole lot of people attending a conference, who 00:09:22.260 --> 00:09:25.774 are you going to naturally gravitate towards? And again, 00:09:25.892 --> 00:09:29.618 that's people who look and sound like you. And I consciously try 00:09:29.704 --> 00:09:32.802 not to do that and go to groups of people that don't look and sound 00:09:32.856 --> 00:09:36.514 like me. Because again, I think this is a throwback from growing up in 00:09:36.552 --> 00:09:40.086 apartheid South Africa. I want to know more about different people. I 00:09:40.108 --> 00:09:43.782 know what people like me do for fun on the weekends, but 00:09:43.836 --> 00:09:47.398 I want to make friends from other racial groups because I'm really interested 00:09:47.484 --> 00:09:51.158 in their lives and how they grew up and those kind of 00:09:51.164 --> 00:09:53.640 things. So, yeah, you're right. 00:09:55.790 --> 00:09:58.858 Do we hang out with the labels that we like, or do we go and 00:09:58.864 --> 00:10:02.060 look for people with other labels? That's the question. 00:10:02.610 --> 00:10:06.366 Did you talk about how you grew up? So you probably grew up 00:10:06.388 --> 00:10:09.502 in the FW, de Klerk era, the pre 00:10:09.556 --> 00:10:12.574 Mandela, the apartheid, the 00:10:12.612 --> 00:10:16.126 sanctions era, where South Africa weren't allowed to compete in 00:10:16.148 --> 00:10:19.950 sport, et cetera, et cetera. So how did that effectively 00:10:20.030 --> 00:10:23.714 influence you as a person, but also influence those around 00:10:23.752 --> 00:10:27.566 you? It was very ingrained. Apartheid was very ingrained in the culture, 00:10:27.598 --> 00:10:30.486 wasn't it, in the white culture? Sorry, it is. And look, I do believe that 00:10:30.508 --> 00:10:34.006 it's getting better. I mean, if I look at my son, who's 18, and 00:10:34.108 --> 00:10:37.926 godchildren and things like that, they all mix interracial groups and they have 00:10:37.948 --> 00:10:41.210 friends from different racial groups at school, which I think is completely 00:10:41.280 --> 00:10:44.986 amazing. But Nelson Mandela actually got voted into power in 00:10:45.008 --> 00:10:48.730 my final year at school. That was in 1994. And up until 00:10:48.800 --> 00:10:52.314 then, we were only white children in my school, so I 00:10:52.352 --> 00:10:55.854 never got to mix with people from different racial groups, which was 00:10:55.972 --> 00:10:59.790 very sad. So, I mean, the knock on impact of that was that 00:10:59.860 --> 00:11:03.374 we were kept very segregated and it was just 00:11:03.412 --> 00:11:06.706 awful. But when you're growing up in that kind of setup, you don't know that 00:11:06.728 --> 00:11:10.386 it's any different. I mean, I remember an instance when 00:11:10.568 --> 00:11:14.286 was in the town where we lived, and I was out with my nanny, 00:11:14.318 --> 00:11:18.002 who was a black lady, Maria. She basically raised us. 00:11:18.136 --> 00:11:21.846 And there was a toilet. And so I'll give away my 00:11:21.868 --> 00:11:25.398 age here. I'm 47 now, so this must have been in 1986. I must have 00:11:25.404 --> 00:11:29.234 been about ten. And there were two toilets, public toilets, 00:11:29.282 --> 00:11:32.426 in the middle of the town. And there was one for white people and there 00:11:32.448 --> 00:11:35.420 was one for non white people. And I remember 00:11:36.510 --> 00:11:40.266 my maid helper, Maria, saying to a white lady who was going into 00:11:40.288 --> 00:11:43.626 the toilet, saying, can I send this child into the toilet with you? Because we 00:11:43.648 --> 00:11:46.574 both need to go to the toilet, but we have to go to separate ones. 00:11:46.612 --> 00:11:50.334 And they were almost like a block apart. And that was a major thing 00:11:50.372 --> 00:11:54.126 that stuck with me. And I just thought it was now, in hindsight, as 00:11:54.148 --> 00:11:57.350 an adult, talking all around the world about DNA, 00:11:57.450 --> 00:12:01.266 that's how strange that was. But back then, I didn't even question it because that 00:12:01.288 --> 00:12:05.038 was the way it. Yeah, I mean, from 00:12:05.144 --> 00:12:08.966 a uk perspective, I probably more aware of the US 00:12:09.148 --> 00:12:12.914 culture around racism, the hidden figures film 00:12:12.962 --> 00:12:16.354 around the segregation of toilets, the Rosa park 00:12:16.402 --> 00:12:19.830 story, the southern american narrative. 00:12:20.190 --> 00:12:23.980 I didn't get to hear much about the south african perspective, because 00:12:25.070 --> 00:12:28.742 there was this apartheid. Apartheid's bad. So we didn't really dive 00:12:28.806 --> 00:12:32.646 any deeper into the culture of what was going on. So my 00:12:32.688 --> 00:12:36.094 experience of racial discrimination is probably us american 00:12:36.212 --> 00:12:39.806 focus with a bit of UK focused, which is really interesting. Because I 00:12:39.828 --> 00:12:42.926 remember back in, just before I started my own business in 00:12:42.948 --> 00:12:46.734 2018, I went and did a keynote for Sourcecon 00:12:46.782 --> 00:12:50.318 in Seattle, and I spoke about my journey growing up in apartheid South 00:12:50.334 --> 00:12:53.934 Africa. The talk was very much around a DENR 00:12:53.982 --> 00:12:57.522 focus and how many us citizens came up to me and 00:12:57.576 --> 00:13:01.238 said, thank you, thank you for standing up on stage and calling a spade a 00:13:01.244 --> 00:13:04.978 spade, pretty much, and talking about racial issues, because it's 00:13:04.994 --> 00:13:08.674 something that is not spoken about in the US and that's 00:13:08.722 --> 00:13:12.178 actually out of anything besides doing 00:13:12.364 --> 00:13:16.074 a keynote at such a big forum. What stayed with me from that up 00:13:16.112 --> 00:13:19.866 until this day was the reaction. I mean, I was talking and the whole time 00:13:19.888 --> 00:13:23.594 I was talking, I thought, here I am, I'm like bombing this talk because people 00:13:23.632 --> 00:13:27.278 were crying, they were reaching for the tissues, and I thought, 00:13:27.444 --> 00:13:31.086 I've just got to keep going with this. And the reaction was due to what 00:13:31.108 --> 00:13:34.730 I was talking about and explaining what it was like and how they need to 00:13:34.740 --> 00:13:37.922 get their ed and I in place before the right 00:13:37.976 --> 00:13:41.518 reasons. And don't let it become as bad as it got in South 00:13:41.534 --> 00:13:42.500 Africa. With. 00:13:45.850 --> 00:13:48.966 As an outsider, one of the things I perceive is a difference 00:13:49.068 --> 00:13:52.818 is South Africa is being minority, ruled 00:13:52.914 --> 00:13:56.034 by white people in a black country, whereas 00:13:56.082 --> 00:13:59.642 America is kind of ruled. There's no clear 00:13:59.696 --> 00:14:03.242 majority. If you look at hispanic population, spanish speaking 00:14:03.376 --> 00:14:06.410 black population and the white population, 00:14:06.910 --> 00:14:10.346 it's white dominated, but it's not a black society. Where South 00:14:10.378 --> 00:14:13.742 Africa was originally a black society that was 00:14:13.796 --> 00:14:17.486 colonised and taken over by the 00:14:17.508 --> 00:14:20.650 Dutch, the British and all the northern european 00:14:20.730 --> 00:14:24.018 colonisers, if you like. Absolutely. And it wasn't even a gender thing. I mean, there 00:14:24.024 --> 00:14:27.810 were no females sitting, making these decisions in the minority. It was all 00:14:27.880 --> 00:14:31.682 literally white males that know the presidents, his 00:14:31.736 --> 00:14:35.534 cabinet, very few, very little female representation 00:14:35.582 --> 00:14:38.978 in that. So, like, for example, South Africa was one of the first countries to 00:14:38.984 --> 00:14:42.646 legalise gay marriage, because that was never a thing for us. We still try 00:14:42.668 --> 00:14:46.434 to get over the whole racial, the fallout, 00:14:46.482 --> 00:14:50.278 the hangover from apartheid. So that was your big elephant in the 00:14:50.284 --> 00:14:53.894 room, was resolving racial tensions 00:14:53.942 --> 00:14:57.190 and differences, as you say, the other edi, 00:14:57.350 --> 00:15:01.002 gender, sexuality, et cetera, et cetera. They were kind of a lower 00:15:01.056 --> 00:15:04.374 priority, probably nonexistent, because everyone was so focused on race. 00:15:04.502 --> 00:15:08.206 100%. Absolutely. Now those factors are coming more 00:15:08.228 --> 00:15:11.600 into play. I mean, there's a massive drive around 00:15:12.690 --> 00:15:16.370 gender based violence, GBV and things like that, 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:20.114 and to really highlight them and to just, 00:15:20.152 --> 00:15:23.966 should I say, try and do away with how some of the women are treated 00:15:23.998 --> 00:15:27.000 in the more rural areas of South Africa? And is that 00:15:27.370 --> 00:15:31.174 across racial demographic? So it's not a white problem or black 00:15:31.212 --> 00:15:33.080 problem, it's a problem. 00:15:36.010 --> 00:15:38.940 It's a male anger problem. Yeah. 00:15:40.430 --> 00:15:44.090 I'm not looking to excuse. Is it born out of frustration? 00:15:44.830 --> 00:15:48.586 Is it just socialisation? Sure. I think it's got a whole 00:15:48.608 --> 00:15:52.246 lot of factors. So let's look back and see what South Africa 00:15:52.278 --> 00:15:55.706 did during COVID So we were one of the few countries that actually banned 00:15:55.738 --> 00:15:58.670 alcohol sales. So while everyone was sitting in lockdown, 00:15:59.490 --> 00:16:03.294 the rest of the world was in lockdown. There was a ban here, even on 00:16:03.332 --> 00:16:07.122 smoking. So you couldn't buy cigarettes in South Africa during lockdown, which 00:16:07.176 --> 00:16:10.978 wasn't a problem for us. But they banned alcohol sales. And 00:16:10.984 --> 00:16:14.638 the reason why they did that was there's a big drinking culture in South 00:16:14.654 --> 00:16:18.406 Africa which often resulted in a lot of poor behaviour on Friday and 00:16:18.428 --> 00:16:21.830 Saturday nights. And the casualty rooms would be full after 00:16:21.900 --> 00:16:25.414 domestic violence. And then that took away from us trying to deal 00:16:25.452 --> 00:16:29.286 with a massive pandemic of COVID So they 00:16:29.308 --> 00:16:32.922 banned alcohol sales, trying to keep the population under control. 00:16:33.056 --> 00:16:36.826 So you can see that that would be one of the effects of the 00:16:36.848 --> 00:16:40.550 gender based violence in this country. It would be the alcohol consumption 00:16:40.630 --> 00:16:44.478 I. Remember seeing on the streets, because Australia was pretty locked down as 00:16:44.484 --> 00:16:47.950 well. But you were pretty locked down. You had armed guards on street corners 00:16:48.370 --> 00:16:52.062 and you effectively locked in your homes for a 00:16:52.116 --> 00:16:55.794 lot of time, weren't you? And I remember seeing the stories on it. Has 00:16:55.832 --> 00:16:59.394 society flipped back? Has it just carried on where it left off? 00:16:59.432 --> 00:17:03.250 Or is a reduction in the culture of alcohol? 00:17:03.910 --> 00:17:06.706 Sure, that's a good question. I wouldn't like to speak on behalf of the whole 00:17:06.728 --> 00:17:10.262 country, to be honest with you, Jo, but us 00:17:10.316 --> 00:17:14.114 personally, we actually drink a lot less since COVID because I think we realised 00:17:14.162 --> 00:17:18.006 that we didn't really need to be drinking as much as what we were. And 00:17:18.028 --> 00:17:21.834 it was never like we had a problem, but maybe it wasn't as bad as 00:17:21.872 --> 00:17:25.398 what people made out. I mean, we had very entrepreneurial, innovative South 00:17:25.414 --> 00:17:29.082 Africans making pineapple beer in their bathtubs. Just trying things 00:17:29.136 --> 00:17:29.740 out. 00:17:32.530 --> 00:17:36.286 Fantastic. You can distil and you can brew anything, I guess, 00:17:36.308 --> 00:17:39.870 if you've got the right. Exactly. Banned alcohol, but not yeast. 00:17:40.370 --> 00:17:43.954 Yes. So yeast sales went through the roof in 00:17:43.992 --> 00:17:47.698 supermarkets. Well, 00:17:47.784 --> 00:17:51.346 that's the human evolution. Human culture, as you say, the entrepreneurial spirit coming 00:17:51.368 --> 00:17:55.026 out. Exactly, yeah, exactly. I guess people were making their own 00:17:55.048 --> 00:17:58.786 tobacco as well. Importing 00:17:58.818 --> 00:18:01.240 cigarettes illegally from Mozambique, I believe. 00:18:05.770 --> 00:18:09.126 To quote Jurassic park, nature finds a know humans will find a way 00:18:09.148 --> 00:18:12.394 as. Yeah, there's a vacuum, you fill 00:18:12.432 --> 00:18:14.460 it. So true. 00:18:15.710 --> 00:18:19.494 So you say your superpower is your ADHD. 00:18:19.622 --> 00:18:23.454 Is that something that you've realised you've had with you all 00:18:23.492 --> 00:18:27.214 your life, or is it something you've grown to embrace and 00:18:27.252 --> 00:18:31.018 value, or has it held you back at all in your life that you're 00:18:31.034 --> 00:18:34.734 now realising it? So I was pretty much first diagnosed in high 00:18:34.772 --> 00:18:38.498 school and didn't talk about it openly, just 00:18:38.504 --> 00:18:41.806 a bit of a stigma around it. And then I actually went to study teaching. 00:18:41.838 --> 00:18:45.118 That's my formal qualification, I'm a middle school teacher 00:18:45.214 --> 00:18:49.042 and loved that and found with that kind of profession, I didn't need 00:18:49.096 --> 00:18:52.326 to be medicated for it. But I'll never forget, I was sitting. I taught in 00:18:52.348 --> 00:18:55.974 London for seven years and sitting in the staff room in Southfields and the special 00:18:56.012 --> 00:18:59.766 needs teacher came to me and said, you do realise how bad your 00:18:59.868 --> 00:19:03.558 ADHD is? And I said, what? And I hadn't even told her that I 00:19:03.564 --> 00:19:06.966 had it. So she had picked it up just by watching my behaviours and all 00:19:06.988 --> 00:19:10.638 of those things and she. So she pointed it out. Then it kind 00:19:10.644 --> 00:19:13.646 of came back onto my radar as an adult. I didn't do anything about it 00:19:13.668 --> 00:19:16.574 because then I went off travelling the world for two years and when you're working 00:19:16.612 --> 00:19:20.186 as a scuba diving instructor, you don't need to be medicated for ADHD. 00:19:20.298 --> 00:19:23.774 Then I came back to South Africa and ended up in an office environment working 00:19:23.812 --> 00:19:27.646 in a recruitment agency and I realised then that actually I needed to go 00:19:27.668 --> 00:19:31.314 back onto medication. So I did and I started talking a little bit more about 00:19:31.352 --> 00:19:34.738 it. But it's only literally in the last. Since I started my own business, which 00:19:34.744 --> 00:19:38.406 is five years ago, that I have my previous employer, where I was for ten 00:19:38.428 --> 00:19:42.006 years, knew about it because it actually counted towards a 00:19:42.028 --> 00:19:45.686 be stat here that I could get some kind of 00:19:45.868 --> 00:19:49.638 a point for the company towards whatever levels they 00:19:49.644 --> 00:19:52.586 were getting for the government. So they knew about it, but I didn't talk about 00:19:52.608 --> 00:19:56.090 it. And then when I started my own business, I thought, actually I'm doing well, 00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:59.926 standing on stages all over the world. Maybe it's time to talk about it 00:19:59.968 --> 00:20:03.726 because there shouldn't be a stigma around having this. And 00:20:03.748 --> 00:20:07.294 I did and promptly discovered that at least two 00:20:07.332 --> 00:20:10.874 thirds of the international sourcing community suffer from ADHD 00:20:10.922 --> 00:20:14.734 too. Everyone seems to have that. And I think that 00:20:14.772 --> 00:20:18.274 the reason why I refer to it as my superpower is because I think people 00:20:18.312 --> 00:20:22.114 who have ADHD don't have as many, should I say, inhibitions as other people. And 00:20:22.152 --> 00:20:25.538 we're quite confident and we quite happy to go and talk to people. 00:20:25.704 --> 00:20:29.238 And that definitely has helped me to be stronger in the 00:20:29.244 --> 00:20:33.014 recruiting space. So it's something that I'm now comfortable to talk 00:20:33.052 --> 00:20:36.818 about and take medication for it every day. And I've 00:20:36.834 --> 00:20:40.326 just had three weeks holiday here in South Africa because it's our lovely summer. And 00:20:40.348 --> 00:20:43.274 I must admit, yesterday when I started work, I was quite ready to get back 00:20:43.312 --> 00:20:46.570 onto my ritual because I only take it when I work and get some focus 00:20:46.640 --> 00:20:50.058 and sort out my very busy brain. But it was good to give it a 00:20:50.064 --> 00:20:53.630 break. So you mentioned that one of the things that 00:20:53.780 --> 00:20:56.960 you see as an asset in 00:20:57.330 --> 00:21:01.038 your entrepreneurial, your business is the ability to just go and talk to 00:21:01.044 --> 00:21:04.766 people, to be out there. What would 00:21:04.788 --> 00:21:08.418 you say would be the harder parts of running? Obviously, you're running a 00:21:08.424 --> 00:21:12.098 business. What's the hardest bit around your ADHD? If you 00:21:12.104 --> 00:21:15.602 weren't on meds, or even if you are on meds, because I appreciate meds also. 00:21:15.736 --> 00:21:18.086 They kind of numb you a bit, don't they? They take the tops and the 00:21:18.108 --> 00:21:21.846 bottoms off. No, my medication doesn't do 00:21:21.868 --> 00:21:25.430 that, to be honest. My medication actually just allows me to concentrate and focus 00:21:25.580 --> 00:21:28.774 so I don't feel like it doesn't have anything to do with my emotions or 00:21:28.812 --> 00:21:32.646 moods. Thankfully, I'm very stable. I like to think maybe just ask my husband 00:21:32.678 --> 00:21:36.266 around my moods and I'm not a moody person. 00:21:36.448 --> 00:21:39.274 It just helps me to concentrate. So the most difficult thing, Jo, to be honest 00:21:39.312 --> 00:21:42.954 with you, is getting the admin done. It's when I've got people 00:21:42.992 --> 00:21:46.554 who finish my academy and now they need a certificate. But that's admin. It's boring. 00:21:46.602 --> 00:21:50.174 It's not thinking out of the box, it's not being creative. That kind of stuff 00:21:50.212 --> 00:21:53.838 is difficult. Being a solopreneur, I choose to be a 00:21:53.844 --> 00:21:57.666 solopreneur. I don't want to have a team around me, but I've still 00:21:57.688 --> 00:22:00.898 got to get the admin done right. Someone's got to sit down and pay the 00:22:00.904 --> 00:22:04.434 bills and do all of those things. And that's what I find really 00:22:04.472 --> 00:22:08.246 difficult. So it's the routine, the mundane, the thing 00:22:08.268 --> 00:22:12.038 that doesn't trigger you with excitement? No. And then I 00:22:12.044 --> 00:22:14.790 leave it to last and then it's often too late. 00:22:16.890 --> 00:22:20.730 A lot of that. So that's the difficulty 00:22:21.230 --> 00:22:24.582 I often wonder, who is this mysterious 00:22:24.646 --> 00:22:28.394 neurotypical person? Because I wouldn't say I have 00:22:28.432 --> 00:22:32.110 ADHD, but I would say that I think in my way, 00:22:32.260 --> 00:22:36.080 and I resonate with what you've just said. I resonate with what other people say. 00:22:37.010 --> 00:22:40.222 I do wonder what is neurotypical. And I also 00:22:40.276 --> 00:22:43.440 wonder, going back to prehistoric human, 00:22:44.050 --> 00:22:47.794 what were the attributes that were most valuable in prehistoric human? 00:22:47.912 --> 00:22:51.634 And I think a lot of the attributes of people with ADHD would have been 00:22:51.672 --> 00:22:55.486 really valuable in a world where you had to kind of be alert 00:22:55.518 --> 00:22:59.346 and deal with stuff. So let's go back to 00:22:59.368 --> 00:23:02.854 what we started talking about was labels. So, I mean, if I say to someone, 00:23:02.892 --> 00:23:06.678 I've got ADHD, they immediately think I'm going to be bouncing off the 00:23:06.684 --> 00:23:09.386 walls and I'm not going to be able to sit at my desk and all 00:23:09.408 --> 00:23:13.034 of those things, which to a certain degree would be true, 00:23:13.232 --> 00:23:16.582 but people, that's what they immediately think. But actually, ADHD 00:23:16.646 --> 00:23:19.958 manifests itself completely differently in males versus females. 00:23:20.054 --> 00:23:22.986 So you can't just look at someone and put a label on them and say, 00:23:23.008 --> 00:23:26.666 oh, God, no, I can't have that person in an open plan office because they've 00:23:26.698 --> 00:23:30.094 got ADHD. They're never going to get any work done. It doesn't work like 00:23:30.132 --> 00:23:33.838 that. And if you medicated for it, does the 00:23:33.844 --> 00:23:36.660 person still need the label? Yeah, very true. 00:23:39.270 --> 00:23:42.834 It's an interesting space. And I think now that I feel safe that I'm running 00:23:42.872 --> 00:23:46.034 my own business, I'm not letting a company down when I speak about it very 00:23:46.072 --> 00:23:49.638 openly because it needs to be spoken about. I think sometimes 00:23:49.724 --> 00:23:53.478 that people jump too quickly to a diagnosis of ADHD. Like, I 00:23:53.484 --> 00:23:57.106 chat to my friends and they often contact me and say, van, 00:23:57.218 --> 00:24:00.106 my son's just been diagnosed with ADHD and put them on medication. Can you talk 00:24:00.128 --> 00:24:03.846 to my son? I'm like, well, no, not really, because it's 00:24:03.878 --> 00:24:07.514 completely different and it manifests in different ways. 00:24:07.632 --> 00:24:10.758 And I don't know that medication that he's on and I don't know what he's 00:24:10.774 --> 00:24:14.046 going through, it's so different in each individual, very 00:24:14.068 --> 00:24:17.598 subjective. And I think the way we started this podcast where you see it as 00:24:17.604 --> 00:24:21.214 your superpower and you're able to embrace it, there's no 00:24:21.252 --> 00:24:24.946 shame, there's no stigma, it's part of you, it makes you 00:24:24.968 --> 00:24:28.814 who you are. And you, as a mature 00:24:28.862 --> 00:24:31.490 adult, sounds really crass. Mature adult? 00:24:34.230 --> 00:24:38.070