Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Joanne Lockwood: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
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Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation.
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Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 135 with
Joanne Lockwood: the title, resilience, diversity, and
Joanne Lockwood: well-being. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to
Joanne Lockwood: welcome Sam Rathling. Sam is a LinkedIn
Joanne Lockwood: and social selling expert, a cancer survivor,
Joanne Lockwood: and a thriver. When I asked Sam to describe her
Joanne Lockwood: superpower, she said, I'm also known as resilient
Joanne Lockwood: rathoming. I've been through so much adversity,
Joanne Lockwood: and resilience is definitely a superpower.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Sam. Welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. Thanks so much for
Sam Rathling: having me. It's great to be here. Absolute pleasure. I'm really
Joanne Lockwood: excited to, have this conversation. We met
Joanne Lockwood: probably 4, 5, 6 years ago, first time at a Professional
Joanne Lockwood: Speaking Association conference, I think. We did indeed, yes. I remember it
Sam Rathling: before. So Sam, tell me a bit more
Joanne Lockwood: about your resilience, the diversity and
Joanne Lockwood: the well-being. Gosh. Where do I start? I think we have a lot to cover
Sam Rathling: on our conversation today. But, I think a little bit about me
Sam Rathling: in terms of my background, I've been through quite a lot of different challenges,
Sam Rathling: both business and personally, in the last number of years. So I'm a
Sam Rathling: single mom to 3 children. I have an 11 year old, a
Sam Rathling: 15 year old, and a 17 year old. All of them have some
Sam Rathling: form of neurodivergence, so I'm quite a champion of
Sam Rathling: that side of things. My son, Oscar, has ADHD, Asperger's,
Sam Rathling: and ODD. My middle child, Maya, has dyslexia, and my
Sam Rathling: youngest child, Liliana, has just been diagnosed with ADHD. So I have
Sam Rathling: quite a lot of experience working with neurodivergence, particularly
Sam Rathling: within children. I'm literally 1 year on
Sam Rathling: from finding out actually this week was the was the week that I
Sam Rathling: went to the GP having found a lump in my left breast.
Sam Rathling: And this week that we're recording this episode is the
Sam Rathling: year anniversary of me going to the doctors and then
Sam Rathling: obviously getting diagnosed with breast cancer. So I am now through my
Sam Rathling: chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery. I'm I'm on the other side
Sam Rathling: of now my next 5 years of treatment, so obviously that's been a challenge
Sam Rathling: over the last 12 months to deal with. And, yeah,
Sam Rathling: quite a lot of different things in business, you know, few financial issues
Sam Rathling: around businesses, hostile takeovers, you know, just
Sam Rathling: various different things that I've gone through over the years. So I definitely call myself
Sam Rathling: resilient raffling for quite a few reasons.
Joanne Lockwood: But just for anyone listening, we're we're recording this mid October
Joanne Lockwood: 2024. Yeah. So I think I remember seeing on Facebook that you
Joanne Lockwood: were ringing the bell after your last chemo session a few weeks ago.
Joanne Lockwood: Is that right? No. It was, end of June 30th
Sam Rathling: June I rang the bell because the very next day I did the race for
Sam Rathling: life. I didn't actually run. I walked very slowly. It was like the last one
Sam Rathling: round in about 1500, but I still did it. So yeah.
Sam Rathling: So that was a moment, though, ringing the bell after all that
Sam Rathling: brutality and what my body had been through. And, I think a
Sam Rathling: lot of people think, though, that the bell ringing is kind of the
Sam Rathling: end, but it's really not the end at all for most people. It's it's
Sam Rathling: a milestone definitely, but there's a lot of
Sam Rathling: emotional and psychological trauma that comes with a cancer
Sam Rathling: diagnosis and a cancer journey. So I've still got another 5 years of
Sam Rathling: medication and treatment and I'm on some quite brutal medication at the moment,
Sam Rathling: which does still mean I'm immunosuppressed and I have to treat it like I'm still
Sam Rathling: in chemo. But the drugs are amazing now and I'm still here and I'm very
Sam Rathling: grateful that I am still here to share my story and raise
Sam Rathling: awareness and particularly given that it's October and it's breast cancer awareness
Sam Rathling: month, So that's another poignant thing. So, yeah, been a
Sam Rathling: lot. Been through quite a lot over especially over the last 5 years, I'd say.
Sam Rathling: They've probably been my hardest 5 years if I look back on my life.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Yeah. When you go through something like this,
Joanne Lockwood: there's a a propensity, if you like, to
Joanne Lockwood: say wow, you're brave, you've all this. And I've
Joanne Lockwood: been through phases in my life where people have said use the brave word to
Joanne Lockwood: me. And it's a well meaning because it's coming from a point a position
Joanne Lockwood: of wanting to say the right thing, wanting to show some empathy, wanting to show
Joanne Lockwood: some compassion. But when people use it to you, it's
Joanne Lockwood: kind of like, I'm not brave. I'm just doing what I had to do.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Bravery is looking back over your shoulder going, wow. That was a journey. You're
Joanne Lockwood: not brave at the time, are you? No. I think I think you are strong
Sam Rathling: because you have no option to be strong because you
Sam Rathling: literally are just going through the motions. So you have to
Sam Rathling: trust the process and, like, for the whole time that from diagnosis
Sam Rathling: to, you know, going through everything when you're literally your whole life
Sam Rathling: is determined by hospital appointments and waiting rooms and everything
Sam Rathling: gets put on hold. You're just literally it's almost like being on a roller
Sam Rathling: coaster that you didn't ask to get on and you cannot
Sam Rathling: get off from. And you come off of it
Sam Rathling: again and then you're just literally thrown into the ether because there is literally
Sam Rathling: no support beyond, like, the physical treatment. Like, the
Sam Rathling: the the job of the doctors and the nurses and the chemo ward is to
Sam Rathling: get you through that. But once you're through it, it's like you're you're kind of
Sam Rathling: the appointments stop and the you feel like you're in a safe zone the whole
Sam Rathling: time that you're going through treatment and you've got lots of appointments because that's what's
Sam Rathling: controlling your life, and then suddenly all of that stops. And it's
Sam Rathling: like, okay. What's next? Because now I'm in this I'm still
Sam Rathling: being treated, but you're not in that you're not on the roller coaster anymore. You're
Sam Rathling: you're kinda off the roller coaster, but it's like, okay. What do I do next?
Sam Rathling: And speaking to lots of people that are going
Sam Rathling: through the same journey as me through online groups and physical groups
Sam Rathling: that I go to for support, I find that there's a lot of challenges around
Sam Rathling: people returning to the workforce, like, who have been through a cancer
Sam Rathling: diagnosis. And I run my own business, so I've worked all the way through.
Sam Rathling: But a lot of the people I speak to who have been through that journey
Sam Rathling: and then are either returning part time or full time to the
Sam Rathling: workplace are finding navigating that
Sam Rathling: particularly challenging, not because of them, but because of the people around them. And their
Sam Rathling: colleagues just don't know how to handle the conversation,
Sam Rathling: and they don't know how to integrate with that person and speak to that person
Sam Rathling: because of what they've been through. And I I think that's a big area that
Sam Rathling: companies need to face up to given that there are so many people being
Sam Rathling: affected by cancer right now. I think it's a big
Sam Rathling: area that needs to be addressed because if,
Sam Rathling: you know, if I was working for a large organization, I had to
Sam Rathling: transition back in. I mean, my my own friends don't even know what to say
Sam Rathling: to me. Some of them have disappeared off the face of the planet. That's just
Sam Rathling: what happens. But then coming back into the workplace or coming back in to
Sam Rathling: deal with relationships that you've had before you were diagnosed, I think that's
Sam Rathling: a big area for organisations to be aware of. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I probably get that, that awkwardness people must feel around
Joanne Lockwood: you. I guess I'm privileged because I'm the podcast host here. I feel
Joanne Lockwood: I have a right to just ask questions. And ask questions. Many people
Joanne Lockwood: many people in in in your personal life are walking on
Joanne Lockwood: eggshells. Do I sit a vine thing? Do I sit, what have I what have
Joanne Lockwood: I? I don't know how to talk about it. Do I do I draw attention
Joanne Lockwood: to the cancer? Do I talk, the brave comment? Or what do I
Joanne Lockwood: people walk away because it it's scared of getting it wrong, aren't they? Yeah. They
Sam Rathling: they, a lot of the time, just don't know what to say, so they prefer
Sam Rathling: not to say anything at all. Whereas I'd rather someone just say to me, like,
Sam Rathling: I literally don't know what to say to you and just start the conversation that
Sam Rathling: way. I get quite a lot of messages. Obviously, I'm on LinkedIn a lot, so
Sam Rathling: I get a lot of messages. People just going, look, I'm following your story, but
Sam Rathling: I just don't know what to say to you. And I'm like, that's okay. Not
Sam Rathling: many people do know what to say. But at least you've said something
Sam Rathling: versus, you know, completely dismissing you or ignoring you
Sam Rathling: or, you know, only checking in because, you know, I have that
Sam Rathling: versus, you know, you never check-in on me before. So it's it's interesting
Sam Rathling: the different dynamics that happen around you in terms of you know, I have
Sam Rathling: best friends that have literally vanished. You know? They don't know
Sam Rathling: how to handle it. And I think part of it is people not
Sam Rathling: wanting to face up to their own mortality, and they just don't know how to
Sam Rathling: handle it. So instead of being there and stepping up, they
Sam Rathling: step away, and then they disappear. It's like, where did you go?
Joanne Lockwood: Trying to give you space to recover, but not sure how to
Joanne Lockwood: get themselves back in again, I guess. Yeah. And I and I have reached out.
Sam Rathling: I've extended an olive branch to a couple of them who I know, you know,
Sam Rathling: like, they have life going on as well. I get all of that. But you
Sam Rathling: think it doesn't really take much just to drop a text to go, how you
Sam Rathling: doing? But I'd rather that than
Sam Rathling: radio silence, you know. It's interesting. A friend of mine, had,
Joanne Lockwood: he passed he passed away, unfortunately, a couple of years ago. He had
Joanne Lockwood: intestinal cancer, 2 tumours. And I went to visit him in the
Joanne Lockwood: hospital in probably the last
Joanne Lockwood: 3 or 4 months of his life. And I tried to be as upbeat as
Joanne Lockwood: possible, but I also realised that you want to try and find a
Joanne Lockwood: balance in line between being laughing and joking. Not too sombre,
Joanne Lockwood: not too sad, but also respect the fact he was very
Joanne Lockwood: exhausted. He didn't have the strength to engage in a huge
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. And it was, I wouldn't say I felt awkward, but I felt it was
Joanne Lockwood: a really strange situation to be in. And my mother-in-law has been through
Joanne Lockwood: palliative care, eventually passing away. My father's in
Joanne Lockwood: nursing home at the moment, going through sort of some tricky times.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's somehow really difficult to try and find those relatable conversational
Joanne Lockwood: experiences to talk about though. Yeah, you're worried about your life, and
Joanne Lockwood: I'm worried about it's it's the fact it's raining outside. It's a
Joanne Lockwood: different different sort of priorities, isn't it? It is. I think I think the best
Sam Rathling: way to handle those is just to ask the person. Everyone's different. And just to
Sam Rathling: say, look, you know, how do you want me to show up today? Because I
Sam Rathling: can be happy. I can be I can tell you jokes. I can make you
Sam Rathling: laugh. I can just be here and not say anything. Like, how do you want
Sam Rathling: me to show up for you today? And I think just asking the person
Sam Rathling: because they will be they will have good days, bad days, ugly days. They'll
Sam Rathling: have days when they just wanna sit and they just want some company. They'll have
Sam Rathling: days when they wanna ignore the whole world. So I think it's just about asking
Sam Rathling: that question and just being really open and having that chat with them to see
Sam Rathling: how they want that's how I would handle it. Not having been on the other
Sam Rathling: side of it. I would want someone to say, you know, how are you really
Sam Rathling: today and how do you want me to show up for you today? And then
Sam Rathling: you it's less less uncomfortable. Yeah. No,
Joanne Lockwood: I get that completely. Yeah. When you were going through some of
Joanne Lockwood: this, you must have had obviously, your own
Joanne Lockwood: mortality came into the front of your mind, you suddenly realised that I'm not forever,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm a bit broken, and I may not be getting fixed.
Joanne Lockwood: What were the biggest fears going through your head at that stage? Are presumably your
Joanne Lockwood: 3 children, your business, your family? Yeah. It was
Sam Rathling: hard. I actually wrote myself a letter. I'm gonna get a bit emotional. I wrote
Sam Rathling: myself a letter after I'd been to the doctors, and I'd been to
Sam Rathling: I'd found the lump, and I I didn't know what it was at that stage.
Sam Rathling: So I didn't know what stage it was, how aggressive it was. Was I riddled
Sam Rathling: with it? Like all these things, like when you're in this limbo period, when you
Sam Rathling: are in the unknown, your brain just goes into this overthinking
Sam Rathling: the world's gonna end literally, your life is gonna end and you might only have
Sam Rathling: weeks left. But I didn't know that at that point. So of course, as a
Sam Rathling: single mom, like, that for me my biggest concern
Sam Rathling: immediately around my mortality was, like, what what are the
Sam Rathling: what's gonna happen to the kids, you know? So I wrote myself a letter
Sam Rathling: and it I read it back the other day actually, And it's about 5 pages
Sam Rathling: long, and it's all about that. It's all about the fear of the unknown, and
Sam Rathling: I don't know what's gonna happen and all those kinds of things. And I
Sam Rathling: I guess we all know at some stage we are going we're not gonna be
Sam Rathling: here forever. Right? But it really does bring it to the forefront. I mean, my
Sam Rathling: family are all over the world, so dealing with this with my mum and dad
Sam Rathling: in Portugal and my sisters in Australia and New Zealand, like, I literally have
Sam Rathling: no family around me, physically around me. They have been in a couple
Sam Rathling: of times over the last year, but I've generally kind of pretty
Sam Rathling: much done it mostly on my own with 1 or 2 really awesome
Sam Rathling: friends and my kids. But the biggest thing for me was
Sam Rathling: really the children and just having everything in place
Sam Rathling: for them and it really did kick me into gear in terms of making sure
Sam Rathling: that I had had and have everything in place for them because,
Sam Rathling: yeah, you literally are staring your own mortality right in
Sam Rathling: the face. That period of time when you don't know what you're dealing with,
Sam Rathling: all those times when you're in that limbo period, they're the hardest because you you
Sam Rathling: just don't have a plan. You don't know what's gonna happen next. As soon as
Sam Rathling: I found out what was happening and I had my plan and I'd met with
Sam Rathling: my oncologist and I was like, right. Okay. It's gonna be this and this and
Sam Rathling: this and I'm gonna be okay, hopefully. It was
Sam Rathling: easier. But there was a couple of weeks in that early literally
Sam Rathling: a year ago, right in this week, actually, a year ago today,
Sam Rathling: was that. That was all going through my head. So it's very hard. Did you
Joanne Lockwood: give your, tumour a name? Yeah. Larry the lump.
Joanne Lockwood: Larry the lump. Oh, I love it. Is that is that part of the process
Joanne Lockwood: where you're encouraged to name it, to to see you're devil or you're a beast,
Joanne Lockwood: is it? I don't think you were encouraged necessarily. There's very little, like, they
Sam Rathling: just give you leaflets. They're like, you have breast cancer. Like, here's some
Sam Rathling: leaflets. Go and read them. It's literally like there's no
Sam Rathling: mental, psychological support unless you go looking for
Sam Rathling: it. There are charities out there that provide it, obviously. I mean, there's some
Sam Rathling: amazing ones out there. But I needed to humanize it and make it
Sam Rathling: because I I told my older kids first when I was being tested because
Sam Rathling: I when I didn't know what it was, I said, look. This is happening for
Sam Rathling: me. I need you to kind of be a bit, you know, flexible with me.
Sam Rathling: I mean, I might not be myself right now, but I didn't tell my little
Sam Rathling: my little girl. She's 11, but she's got ADHD, and she's quite
Sam Rathling: challenged. She like, I'm her world. She doesn't have any contact with her dad
Sam Rathling: whatsoever. So I didn't want to speak to her about it until I knew for
Sam Rathling: sure what I was dealing with. And I called it Larry the lump when I
Sam Rathling: had that conversation with her because I literally was like, Larry's
Sam Rathling: gonna leave the building. And her her defense mechanism is
Sam Rathling: humour. So which has been amazing because she's kept me laughing all the way through.
Sam Rathling: But she's like, mum, are you gonna have a bald egghead? I'm like, yes,
Sam Rathling: I probably will. I'm gonna lose all my hair. And she's like, really? She's like,
Sam Rathling: can I lose mine as well? I'm like, would you do that? She's like, of
Sam Rathling: course, I'd do that, mum. So my 2 girls actually shaved their hair
Sam Rathling: off. We did a fundraising event for Cancer Research UK, and
Sam Rathling: they both shaved their hair off. And they were 11 and 14 at the time,
Sam Rathling: and I thought that was amazing. Like, my kids just doing that with
Sam Rathling: me. You know? And they're at secondary school. They're not in a school where, you
Sam Rathling: know, that they're that age where image is everything. And for them to do that
Sam Rathling: was amazing. But, yeah, I think calling my lump, Larry,
Sam Rathling: just made it a bit more, like, easy for me to have the conversation because
Sam Rathling: that it was about removing Larry, and Larry went on holiday to America get
Sam Rathling: to get tested and packed a suitcase. And we had all those little conversations
Sam Rathling: because they test the tumor to see to see if
Sam Rathling: you will benefit or not from chemotherapy. So my tumor went all the way to
Sam Rathling: the States to get tested, to get a score out of a 100 as to
Sam Rathling: whether or not I would need to have chemo or not. So again, that was
Sam Rathling: an 8 week wait. And things like that just, you know, you've had the
Sam Rathling: surgery. It's out of your body. Now you're waiting to find out if you're gonna
Sam Rathling: go into 6 months of chemotherapy or not, but you have to wait 8 weeks
Sam Rathling: to find that out. So it's it's those those periods are the hardest
Sam Rathling: when you don't know what the next thing is. What was the hardest thing for
Joanne Lockwood: you coming to terms with? Was it having losing
Joanne Lockwood: your hair? Was it the surgery? Was it
Joanne Lockwood: because steroids make you bulk up, change the shape of your face and things.
Joanne Lockwood: What what happened when you looked in the mirror? What were you seeing? I hate
Sam Rathling: I hate the mirror. I still do. I think the hardest thing for me was
Sam Rathling: the chemotherapy. The surgery I found, I actually
Sam Rathling: like the surgery because that for me was like the physical removal of the
Sam Rathling: cancer. So I was like, okay. It's out of me now. So that
Sam Rathling: was good. So I didn't mind the surgery. I had a lumpectomy, not
Sam Rathling: a mastectomy. So I did I went into the
Sam Rathling: consultant saying, take them both off. Like, get rid of it. Like, you know, just
Sam Rathling: take them both off. I don't care. Like and she she said to me, Sam,
Sam Rathling: let's just take the emotion out of this and talk medical facts and I can
Sam Rathling: save your breasts and give you surgery and radiotherapy, and it will have
Sam Rathling: no difference in the outcome. So we decided on a lumpectomy, so I
Sam Rathling: didn't have, like, major it was a major surgery, but it wasn't, like, as
Sam Rathling: big as, you know, taking both of them off. And
Sam Rathling: when it came to the most brutal part of
Sam Rathling: it was definitely the chemotherapy. I was not I was
Sam Rathling: physically prepared for it. I knew it was gonna be hard. I knew I was
Sam Rathling: gonna lose my hair. I knew all of that was gonna happen, but I had
Sam Rathling: no comprehension of just how difficult and what a
Sam Rathling: toll it was gonna take on my body, but and my brain in
Sam Rathling: terms of my mental resilience that had to go through that. Just
Sam Rathling: the the the fact that you're literally voluntarily
Sam Rathling: walking into somewhere where you know they're gonna inject this awful
Sam Rathling: stuff into you that's gonna make you feel so sick and
Sam Rathling: really ill. I put on 15 kilos with the steroids in 9
Sam Rathling: weeks. It's a lot. My face is all puffy. I lost my
Sam Rathling: hair, like all of that stuff. I'm just so tired all the
Sam Rathling: time. And I've just made a video the other day, actually. It's up on my
Sam Rathling: Instagram, my TikTok, of my year end pictures. It's about a 3 minute
Sam Rathling: video. And you can see the difference in, for me, from when I first went
Sam Rathling: into surgery to all of the chemo. But I think that I did
Sam Rathling: definitely hit a wall. There was about it was about the 4th
Sam Rathling: round out of 6 and I hit a wall and I looked in the mirror
Sam Rathling: and I took a picture of myself and I never thought I'd share it, but
Sam Rathling: I have. And that picture for me is, like, the epitome of,
Sam Rathling: like, the worst time in my life ever. Like, I've just
Sam Rathling: I just felt so awful. But I'm through it now. You know? I'm through the
Sam Rathling: other side of it, and I hope I never have to go through it again.
Sam Rathling: But now it's about risk of recurrence and keeping it away. So I'm on
Sam Rathling: lots of different drugs and tablets and and medications
Sam Rathling: to prevent it from coming back. So I'm now on
Sam Rathling: hormone treatments and targeted therapy. So I'm on, like, an oral chemotherapy,
Sam Rathling: but I also have to have 5 years for hormone treatments, which means I'm medically
Sam Rathling: induced into menopause now, which of course brings all of the things that
Sam Rathling: come with that as well on top of the side effects of the drugs and
Sam Rathling: everything the other drugs. So it's a lot, but
Sam Rathling: it has meant that I've had to really just
Sam Rathling: handle everything that's thrown at me. And life carries on. I still have
Sam Rathling: to get my daughter to the athletics track 4 times a week and still have
Sam Rathling: to get the kids to school and I still have you know, do life.
Sam Rathling: You can't just put your whole life on hold. So I think the biggest thing
Sam Rathling: for me was managing all of that whilst you're feeling the
Sam Rathling: worst you've ever felt in your life and battling through the
Sam Rathling: whole thing. Presumably your your kids
Joanne Lockwood: must have matured immensely in the last 12 months.
Joanne Lockwood: And I I would like to think surprised you with their their
Joanne Lockwood: level of maturity that's come out. Yeah. 100%. What's something to be noticed? I'm so
Sam Rathling: proud of them. I mean, myself and my eldest son were having some challenges a
Sam Rathling: couple of years ago. I ended up off the back of him
Sam Rathling: kind of going off the rails a little bit thinking I need to get a
Sam Rathling: handle on him and decided to go sober. Like, we have that in
Sam Rathling: common, sobriety. So I'm nearly 700 days sober now, which
Sam Rathling: was about 10 months before I got diagnosed actually. But I have noticed a massive
Sam Rathling: shift in his maturity. You know, he looks after me, he makes
Sam Rathling: big cups of tea without being arsed and he hugs me lots. You
Sam Rathling: know, he wasn't hugging me a lot because he's a he was a 16, 17
Sam Rathling: year old boy and he was doing his own thing and whereas he's now a
Sam Rathling: lot more caring, he's got an amazing girlfriend and I see him being like that
Sam Rathling: with her now and it's amazing to see him doing that. So I think he's
Sam Rathling: definitely matured a lot And his perception of the world as
Sam Rathling: a teenage old, you know, 70 year old boy is everyone's invincible. And
Sam Rathling: clearly, I think he realizes now that, you know, not everyone is invincible.
Sam Rathling: But I think his level of maturity has been so impressive, especially with
Sam Rathling: all the challenges he's had in his life with him being
Sam Rathling: mixed race, bullied in school, neurodivergent. He's got a
Sam Rathling: lot going on, that boy. And the fact that he's handled
Sam Rathling: this so well and amazingly has been great. My middle daughter Maya,
Sam Rathling: she's been an absolute trooper. I mean I was my mum had breast cancer
Sam Rathling: when I was a teenager, so I do relate to how I felt. I mean,
Sam Rathling: I I literally went turned into party girl. Like that was my way of
Sam Rathling: handling it. I was not there and I feel bad now because I know what
Sam Rathling: my mum was going through now. And I'm like, wow. I really should have probably
Sam Rathling: been there more for my mum at the time. But, obviously, she had my dad
Sam Rathling: and she had a, you know, an amazing, loving husband to support her through it,
Sam Rathling: but I kinda went off the rails a little bit, and it really derailed me.
Sam Rathling: And I think looking at my kids, like, that could have happened to them. It
Sam Rathling: didn't. And Lily's just been, you know, my youngest. She's just been
Sam Rathling: she just keeps me laughing all the time. She makes jokes out of everything, and
Sam Rathling: she she really, like, she really does
Sam Rathling: bring humour into the whole thing and she just makes me look at. She'll look
Sam Rathling: at me and she'll literally she I showed her my picture of my worst day
Sam Rathling: and she just she laughed so hard. And I was like, it's
Sam Rathling: not funny. And she's like, but it is, mom. Look at you. So,
Sam Rathling: yeah, it's it's one of those. They all all handed it slightly differently, but I'm
Sam Rathling: super proud of all of them. I really could not have got through it without
Sam Rathling: them. Like, they've just been amazing. Even your worst day,
Joanne Lockwood: it's best than not having that day at all, isn't it? So Actually, a
Sam Rathling: 100%. I mean, I'm it's it's so hard because, like, you talk about it and
Sam Rathling: you think, well, I'm so grateful because, you know, my sister lost
Sam Rathling: her best friend to cancer whilst I was being treated. And I had to
Sam Rathling: tell her, knowing that her her best friend was dying in New
Sam Rathling: Zealand. And I'm like, it's just, you know, a couple of
Sam Rathling: my other friends or people I know through athletics, they've lost friends. So I know
Sam Rathling: 4 or 5 people that have died from breast cancer who I don't know necessarily
Sam Rathling: personally, but they're connected to my network. And I think, well, I'm still here.
Sam Rathling: And, you know, it's one of those. It's like,
Sam Rathling: I mean, I'm glad I I mean, I found my lump. I was 47 when
Sam Rathling: I got diagnosed. If I had waited for a mammogram, they don't
Sam Rathling: start screening until 50. I had done a mammogram 2
Sam Rathling: years prior and it had shown nothing at all. So my tumour had grown very
Sam Rathling: quickly. And I was checking myself
Sam Rathling: regularly because my mum had breast cancer and she actually had breast cancer twice and
Sam Rathling: she also had ovarian cancer. She's still here. But everyone I
Sam Rathling: know personally that's had it is still alive. It's the people that of people
Sam Rathling: that have lost people. But but for me, I was just like, I need
Sam Rathling: to check myself. And if I hadn't been checking myself, I wouldn't have found the
Sam Rathling: lump and I wouldn't be I don't think I'd I don't believe I would still
Sam Rathling: be here. Like if I'd have waited for my screening and not actually
Sam Rathling: been checking myself every month. So I have it in my calendar and anyone listening
Sam Rathling: to this, please, please, please check yourselves. There was breast tissue in the
Sam Rathling: breast, in the collarbone and under the armpit. It's not just the
Sam Rathling: so go watch a YouTube video and go learn how to check yourself because it
Sam Rathling: can happen to anyone. Everyone thinks, oh, it's never going to happen to me. But
Sam Rathling: it can literally it's not discriminative at all. It can happen to anyone. We've seen
Sam Rathling: that with very high profile people, obviously, being diagnosed with
Sam Rathling: cancer over the last year. So, yeah, it's one of those
Sam Rathling: that's just I feel, you know, so
Sam Rathling: grateful. And I you know, you go into the chemo ward and you're in there.
Sam Rathling: It's like a meat factory. There's like 60 chairs in there and you're literally
Sam Rathling: you're just like in. And as soon as some one person leaves the chair, there's
Sam Rathling: another person in there and it's just it's like another pandemic that's
Sam Rathling: not being seen. It's there's so many people going through
Sam Rathling: treatment or going through cancer. And I mean, just the one
Sam Rathling: little chemo ward that I go to, they see 2,800 patients
Sam Rathling: a month and they have the stats up on the board and it's like, wow,
Sam Rathling: like 2,000 and that's just a tiny little I live in Derby. It's not a
Sam Rathling: big town. It's not like it's a town. It's officially a city, but it's not
Sam Rathling: that big. But 2,800 patients going through chemo every
Sam Rathling: single month in that ward Like and you sit there and you're in this you're
Sam Rathling: not in a you know, you're literally in a big bay and there's 6 chairs
Sam Rathling: over there and 6 chairs over here and you're literally opposite each other and you
Sam Rathling: some people wanna chat, some people wanna sleep, some people wanna just, you know, not
Sam Rathling: be there at all. It's just it's quite a fascinating
Sam Rathling: experience to go through it and just really see behind the
Sam Rathling: scenes of what is really happening, you know, in this.
Sam Rathling: It's it's so many people, though. Yeah. And
Joanne Lockwood: I a couple of years ago, I got the, the poo test
Joanne Lockwood: kit through the post to do, and I put it on the side and thought,
Joanne Lockwood: oh, I'll do this. So it looks a bit complicated. I had to get myself
Joanne Lockwood: in the right frame of mind for it. Eventually, my wife nagged me,
Joanne Lockwood: Marie nagged me. She said, no, no, no, no, dagged me, that's the wrong word,
Joanne Lockwood: just nudged me and said, come on, do it. And I thought, oh, I have
Joanne Lockwood: to post it off. And then Marie got hers a couple of years later,
Joanne Lockwood: and she, again, I had to push hers because it's kind of this
Joanne Lockwood: reluctance to sort of get yucky with it and dip it into the poo
Joanne Lockwood: and send it off. And she did it. And then about a month later,
Joanne Lockwood: one of our friends posted on Facebook that she'd done the
Joanne Lockwood: poo test, and it came back positive. And
Joanne Lockwood: you suddenly think, wow, I was laughing and joking, that invincibility,
Joanne Lockwood: it would just be whatever. And suddenly someone you know
Joanne Lockwood: does it, and it's an adverse result, and you think, wow, if I
Joanne Lockwood: did, if that had happened in reverse, but we found out about her first, I
Joanne Lockwood: would have just done it straight away. Yeah. So we've got to think, it's not
Joanne Lockwood: it's not only breast cancer, there's No. All sorts of
Sam Rathling: cancer. All sorts of cancer. Yeah. You know, the main thing is, if anything
Sam Rathling: is unusual to you or not normal, like, the
Sam Rathling: best thing to do is just to go get checked because 9 times out of
Sam Rathling: 10 is not gonna be cancer. It's gonna be something else. But if anything
Sam Rathling: is abnormal in your body, like, just get to know what your normal is because
Joanne Lockwood: it would be any part of your body, obviously. You know? But things
Sam Rathling: like, you know, when I told my friend group that I had breast
Sam Rathling: cancer, they were like, oh, yeah. I should get mum you know, I've been getting
Sam Rathling: those letters through about getting a mammogram or, oh, yeah. I keep getting asked for
Sam Rathling: the you know, to go for a smear test or whatever it is. Like, all
Sam Rathling: these things that you just put off because life is busy. And then it took
Sam Rathling: me getting cancer for my friends to go, oh, yeah. I'll book that mammogram
Sam Rathling: now or I'll get you know, I'll start checking myself or you know? And I
Sam Rathling: thought, wow. If that's just my friend group, how many other people out there are
Sam Rathling: just not are ignoring letters? And the amount of women I saw
Sam Rathling: in there with cervical cancer that were ignoring their letters, it was,
Sam Rathling: you know, amazing. And one mother and daughter came into the chemo ward, actually, and
Sam Rathling: they were in there for the first time. And you can always tell when it's
Sam Rathling: a first timer because they only let you bring a guest on the first time
Sam Rathling: you go. The other times, they're too busy. You can't actually take someone with you,
Sam Rathling: so I knew it was her first time. And she said, oh, yeah. I kept
Sam Rathling: telling my mum to go and, you know, go for her smear test, and she
Sam Rathling: she ignored it for 4 years and they found a tumour the size of an
Sam Rathling: orange in her cervix and it's like she just because she didn't go and
Sam Rathling: get checked. So if you are listening to this, obviously, like, you know, I'm a
Sam Rathling: big champion of raising awareness, but the earlier they find anything,
Sam Rathling: the the more they can do to help you. If you leave it or ignore
Sam Rathling: it or deny it, then it could be too late. So anything that's
Sam Rathling: abnormal for you on any part of your body, just go get it checked, please.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And if if you're a man listening to this, you know, copper fill, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, it's a particular prostate cancer because I'm
Sam Rathling: talking to both. Yeah. Both. Men can get breast cancer too. Men can get all
Sam Rathling: sorts of cancer, as can women. So, again, it's just copper fill of all your
Sam Rathling: bits. Whatever bits you've got, check them out. I
Joanne Lockwood: think you're right in saying, even if you've got like a cyst, and it's
Joanne Lockwood: only a cyst, get it checked out, go for the mammogram, whatever it may be,
Joanne Lockwood: and then understand what your what your normal is. Normal is. Yeah.
Sam Rathling: Exactly. Yeah. 100%. I mean, I the only reason
Sam Rathling: I I mean, obviously, I do check myself all the time, but I just happen
Sam Rathling: to be wearing something different to what I normally wear to go to bed. So
Sam Rathling: I could only find like, I just grab, like, a really tight white t shirt,
Sam Rathling: And I'd never normally wear a white tight T shirt to bed. Like, that's not
Sam Rathling: what I'd normally wear in bed. But I put it on, and then I was
Sam Rathling: lying back on my pillows. It was about 30 degrees. And because I wore was
Sam Rathling: wearing a particularly tight top, my breast was splayed
Sam Rathling: in slightly a different way. And I was like, oh, what's that? And I
Sam Rathling: just thought, oh, I didn't feel that before. And it my tumor was the size
Sam Rathling: of a walnut. Like, it was 2 and a half centimeters, and it was right
Sam Rathling: at the very top. But if it had been buried anywhere, if it wasn't right
Sam Rathling: on top of my left breast and it was somewhere underneath, like, I
Sam Rathling: wouldn't have felt it or wouldn't have found it. But, thankfully, like, that white T
Sam Rathling: shirt literally saved my life. But I found it on a Friday night, and, of
Sam Rathling: course, the GP was closed. And I'm freaking out all weekend. I'm like, I need
Sam Rathling: to speak to GP. I need to get to GP. And I literally rang first
Sam Rathling: thing on the Monday morning and booked myself in that day. And
Sam Rathling: it's a very quick process once they do suspect anything. It's it's very
Sam Rathling: quick in this country. So I think we're very great I'm very
Sam Rathling: blessed that we have the NHS and the staff have been amazing.
Sam Rathling: And once you're in the system and you're you're going through it, like, it they
Sam Rathling: dealt they dealt with it so quickly. But, yeah, I just can't thank them
Sam Rathling: enough. I wrote the all the staff in the cancer ward and the
Sam Rathling: chemo ward, a beautiful poem that they've got in their staff room now,
Sam Rathling: and I bought them in a massive hamper full of, like, face masks and chocolates
Sam Rathling: and coffee and, like, all these nice snacks because there's so many people in there.
Sam Rathling: Like, I've probably interacted with over 200 staff in the journey.
Sam Rathling: So I just, yeah, I just felt like I needed to do something for them
Sam Rathling: because they're so amazing. You mentioned in in that that you,
Joanne Lockwood: you stopped drinking 700 and something days ago, you said, I think.
Sam Rathling: Yeah. And, what what was the the trigger? Because I
Joanne Lockwood: also stopped drinking a 10 10 days ago,
Joanne Lockwood: I think I am now, alcohol free. Just curious
Joanne Lockwood: about what was your motivation? Waking up with a
Joanne Lockwood: hangover one day, or? You know, most people do think
Sam Rathling: that it is that, but for me it wasn't. I felt like I had I
Sam Rathling: had quite a major incident happen with one of my kids. We
Sam Rathling: were away in Bali on holiday and all my children were with
Sam Rathling: me. One of them had decided in his wisdom that he would give
Sam Rathling: access to my house to all of his mates and all of
Sam Rathling: their mates. I came back to a crime scene and 27
Sam Rathling: teenage boys had moved into my property and had destroyed it to the
Sam Rathling: point of no return and it was awful and it was just
Sam Rathling: I don't know why he chose to make the decision to say yes, of course
Sam Rathling: you can use my mom's house while we're away. The police raided my house while
Sam Rathling: I was in Bali and yeah, it wasn't
Sam Rathling: fun. I got a phone call from the police on
Sam Rathling: New Year's Eve basically saying there was nothing they could do. They had 4 and
Sam Rathling: a half hours in my house, got all the forensics they needed and basically decided
Sam Rathling: it wasn't worth them spending any energy on it because
Sam Rathling: it was just a bunch of kids. And they they had access to the house
Sam Rathling: because he gave them the key safe. And I just thought, I have totally lost
Sam Rathling: control here. So they they didn't break in as such.
Joanne Lockwood: They had legitimate they were given access? No access. And I got the phone call
Sam Rathling: from the police and I just thought, something's gotta change. And
Sam Rathling: I felt like I lost control of a lot of it wasn't that the
Sam Rathling: only thing, but there were a few other things leading up to it. We had
Sam Rathling: been clashing quite a lot and I just felt like I had no emotional
Sam Rathling: control. I had noticed I had been drinking
Sam Rathling: more and more to handle the challenging relationship with my son
Sam Rathling: leading up to that. I just thought and it was New Year's
Sam Rathling: Eve and that's the one day of the year when you'd think
Sam Rathling: that. I thought this is going to send me one way or the other. I
Sam Rathling: had been noticing I had been drinking more and more on my
Sam Rathling: own in the evenings and I was using alcohol to
Sam Rathling: dull a lot of the challenges I was having with that relationship,
Sam Rathling: which is now amazing. But back then it was really tough.
Sam Rathling: I just was like, something's got to change. I took the call
Sam Rathling: and I knew I was going to hit the bottle or something
Sam Rathling: needed to change. I don't know what it was. I don't know why I decided
Sam Rathling: in that moment. It was about 6:30 on New Year's Eve and I thought, no.
Sam Rathling: I I literally have to get control back of my life and back of my
Sam Rathling: kids, and that's when I made the decision to go
Sam Rathling: sober. Yeah. I think for me, it was, just a realisation that
Joanne Lockwood: I was I I I've been drinking
Joanne Lockwood: since probably the age of 13. Many of us drink from our teens,
Joanne Lockwood: don't we? I spent a few years in the Royal Air Force, which didn't
Joanne Lockwood: help. That was kind of a training ground on how to drink. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think that sort of set the pattern. And I was
Joanne Lockwood: regularly drinking too much from the age of 17
Joanne Lockwood: or 18. And in my 30s,
Joanne Lockwood: I joined a club. And that club
Joanne Lockwood: heavily revolved around drinking. Going out and
Joanne Lockwood: doing stuff, travelling around. And I think it just became a
Joanne Lockwood: habit. And I realised I didn't like the person who I was. It
Joanne Lockwood: was my gender transition, I fixed one
Joanne Lockwood: part of my identity that wasn't working for me. And I realised there was another
Joanne Lockwood: part of my identity, which is this alcohol
Joanne Lockwood: dependent person and I'm not going to debate whether I was an alcoholic
Joanne Lockwood: or alcohol dependent or just propped up by alcohol, however you want to
Joanne Lockwood: describe it, but I was certainly propped up by alcohol. And
Joanne Lockwood: it led me to make decisions I wasn't proud of. It put me in
Joanne Lockwood: situations I wasn't proud of. It made, rather than go
Joanne Lockwood: home when the bar shut, I'd be trying to find somewhere to get another
Joanne Lockwood: drink. I remember being in Estonia on a speaking gig
Joanne Lockwood: and we managed to find a kebab shop in Estonia that
Joanne Lockwood: served alcohol at 4 o'clock in the morning. I was in Melbourne,
Joanne Lockwood: Australia and we found a service station
Joanne Lockwood: at 5 in the morning, we were selling alcohol in the bottle, and we went
Joanne Lockwood: to the service station, bought alcohol, and carried on drinking. It was like, you wake
Joanne Lockwood: up from these things and think, why did I not go to bed? I do
Sam Rathling: that. Yeah. No. I was the same. I definitely resonate with a
Sam Rathling: lot of what you've just said there. I worked for a drinks company. That was
Sam Rathling: my training ground. I worked for Diageo for 4 years and
Sam Rathling: literally sold alcohol. Alcohol was my life and I learned how to
Sam Rathling: really cope with drink very, very well. But I had
Sam Rathling: too many moments of bad decisions,
Sam Rathling: blackouts, like not remembering 3 hours of an evening and I'm like, what
Sam Rathling: am I doing? So I think I definitely was using
Sam Rathling: alcohol to numb the pain of quite a lot of things. I've gone through a
Sam Rathling: really challenging divorce. I have a toxic relationship with my ex.
Sam Rathling: We went from having a really amicable fiftyfifty arrangement with the children to me
Sam Rathling: having them 247 and him literally disappearing off the planet.
Sam Rathling: So absent father, step you know, then I'm handling all of that plus growing a
Sam Rathling: business, plus COVID, plus all these other things and I'm like, that was my coping
Sam Rathling: mechanism. Definitely, 100%. So I
Sam Rathling: resonate with all of that and I didn't
Sam Rathling: really have a lot of control over that. I would go out but I'd go
Sam Rathling: out out and I'd really go out. I'd be able to drink a
Sam Rathling: lot. Out out. I really would have to drink a lot in
Sam Rathling: an out out session, but then I found myself drinking on my own in the
Sam Rathling: evenings and having a you know? And I'd open a bottle of wine, but bottle
Sam Rathling: of wine would be gone. It's like you know? So I feel like it
Sam Rathling: was a combination of things, but I feel much
Sam Rathling: better now that I don't. And I think, well, maybe there's a reason why it
Sam Rathling: all happened now because 10 months later, I got diagnosed with
Sam Rathling: breast cancer and my liver was probably in the best condition it could be
Sam Rathling: for handling, having to deal with all of that. So I think in
Sam Rathling: some ways, I'm glad that all of that stuff happened because if I had
Sam Rathling: still been drinking, maybe I wouldn't have found the lump. Maybe I wouldn't have
Sam Rathling: been as aware. Maybe I wouldn't have been able
Sam Rathling: to cope with the treatment and the chemo as well as I did. I mean,
Sam Rathling: I know it was brutal, but, you know, I've come the other side of it
Sam Rathling: and I'm I'm out the other side of it now. But, I mean, if anything
Sam Rathling: was gonna turn me back to drinking, it would have been a cancer journey and
Sam Rathling: a cancer diagnosis and I didn't. I haven't touched a drop since then. So
Sam Rathling: I'm quite proud of myself that I managed to handle all
Sam Rathling: of that, all of the chemo and everything without without alcohol being
Sam Rathling: at my side because I think it would have definitely played a part
Sam Rathling: massively if it had been 1 year earlier. That's quite a thing you're just saying
Joanne Lockwood: there, that you've you've come out through this and you
Joanne Lockwood: haven't needed to use alcohol as a crutch to get you through this. So if
Joanne Lockwood: you'd have if you'd have kind of half stopped or cut down, it
Joanne Lockwood: would still be in your life. But once you make a decision that it's no
Joanne Lockwood: longer in your life, it's not the crutch, it's not the support mechanism
Joanne Lockwood: you turn back to, is it? No, definitely not. And, you
Sam Rathling: know, I have friends that have gone through the same journey as me and that
Sam Rathling: was that that was their coping. They'd go in, get their chemo, take their
Sam Rathling: wristband off, go over to the shop and buy 2 bottles of wine and down
Sam Rathling: it so that they could then go into a deep sleep for 2 days
Sam Rathling: because that's what you have to do when you've had chemo. Like, I would sleep
Sam Rathling: at 18 hours, like, straight after a chemo session and just not come out of
Sam Rathling: it. I'd go into my, what I call it, called it my hibernation. But
Sam Rathling: I have friends that would literally go into their hibernation and do it
Sam Rathling: through drinking copious amounts of wine before they went into hibernation. But I
Sam Rathling: think, if I'd have actually been still drinking when I
Sam Rathling: got diagnosed, I don't think I would have handled
Sam Rathling: it as well. Like emotionally or physically, I think
Sam Rathling: my sobriety made a massive difference to my treatment, I
Sam Rathling: believe. I've kept in touch with you mainly
Joanne Lockwood: from a distance through your social media posts and you mentioned
Joanne Lockwood: your photo montage that you posted recently and I remember seeing that last
Joanne Lockwood: week or week before whenever it was. And I was struck with just the power
Joanne Lockwood: of those photographs, those images, and
Joanne Lockwood: how, I don't want to use the brave word, but how it meant something
Joanne Lockwood: to you to say this is me, this is who I am, this is what
Joanne Lockwood: I've come through, and I'm owning this. And I've had a lot of strength in
Joanne Lockwood: there, a lot of ownership. But you are, by definition, a social
Joanne Lockwood: selling expert. And we know that personal brand, how
Joanne Lockwood: you present yourself on social media, has to be has to have a
Joanne Lockwood: level of humanity in it. It's not all me, me, me. It's got to be
Joanne Lockwood: authentic, isn't it? And that's, that's the key we're talking about here. Yeah, absolutely. I
Sam Rathling: actually did a session with some clients the other day and we talked about,
Sam Rathling: I I gave 13 different words to them to
Sam Rathling: that make up the power of a personal brand. And a lot of them are
Sam Rathling: like, well, my content's not working or I'm not getting much engagement. I'm like,
Sam Rathling: well, score yourself on these things. Like, score yourself on these
Sam Rathling: 13 words. And one of them was vulnerability and authenticity
Sam Rathling: and, you know, it's those kinds of things that draw people towards you. And I
Sam Rathling: thought long and hard about whether or not to share my journey on social media,
Sam Rathling: and I I knew I was gonna do it in some way, shape, or form
Sam Rathling: because that is who part of who I am. Sorry if the dog's barking in
Sam Rathling: the background and there's madness going on outside. Sorry, Joanne.
Sam Rathling: Don't say That's right. About me being on the show. So, yeah, vulnerability,
Sam Rathling: authenticity are key. And the more you can show
Sam Rathling: up as a real human being in through your social media, the more
Sam Rathling: people are going to be drawn to you. I don't talk about everything. I mean,
Sam Rathling: half the stuff I've shared with you on here has never gone near my social
Sam Rathling: media. Right? Some of the stuff we've talked about here, I would never in a
Sam Rathling: 1000000 years post about. But, you know, I think I
Sam Rathling: did talk to my business partners and we and I said, look, I really feel
Sam Rathling: strongly about talking about this because I have a following and I have a voice
Sam Rathling: and I feel like I can do some good through the bad, through fundraising,
Sam Rathling: through raising awareness. And I think, well, if someone out there that chose not to
Sam Rathling: do business with me because I'm going is really important because
Sam Rathling: it will it does draw the right people towards you and it does attract clients
Sam Rathling: and it does show that you are human. And I probably
Sam Rathling: do it to not to the extreme, but probably more than most because
Sam Rathling: I talk about everything that I've been through, all of the things I've the adversity
Sam Rathling: I've been through, my sobriety journey, my cancer journey, my failures in business,
Sam Rathling: all sorts of things. My kids and their neurodivergence, I talk
Sam Rathling: about that a lot. When I did a post about Oscar last week and how
Sam Rathling: he's come through bullying and, you know, through his challenges through
Sam Rathling: neurodivergence and how we've our relationship has come through the other side. And that post
Sam Rathling: has had a 160,000 impressions, which is a lot on LinkedIn at the moment. The
Sam Rathling: algorithm does not do that these days. The amount of amazing things that have
Sam Rathling: happened off the back of that one post about his neurodivergence and his
Sam Rathling: differences and his bullying and all of those things. You know, he's been gifted
Sam Rathling: a car by a lady who didn't know me. He's been invited in for 2
Sam Rathling: days in in Google's headquarters to learn AI with Google, which is amazing.
Sam Rathling: And he's been offered mentoring by some incredible,
Sam Rathling: really, really senior people within the AI and generative AI and data compliance.
Sam Rathling: And, like, it's just amazing what's happened off the back of just one post
Sam Rathling: on LinkedIn that was me being vulnerable about about,
Sam Rathling: diversity and neurodivergence and all these things and racial
Sam Rathling: bullying and things like that. But the amount of amazing, incredible things that have
Sam Rathling: happened to him and to us since we posted about it is
Sam Rathling: amazing. But I could have chosen not to share that, but I felt it was
Sam Rathling: important because his story is very inspiring to a lot of people.
Sam Rathling: The amount of people that were like, I got bullied. I resonate with
Sam Rathling: it. The lady from from Google was like, that's my story and my
Sam Rathling: brother's story. That's how we went through school. And
Sam Rathling: it's incredible when you do share those vulnerabilities
Sam Rathling: and real authentic things about the things that are going on for you
Sam Rathling: and you have gone through, the right people step towards you. And I
Sam Rathling: think it's important that we show up on social, not just
Sam Rathling: as the professional mask, but like actually really who are you?
Sam Rathling: Because that's what really connects us as human beings.
Sam Rathling: A lot of people forget that behind every social media profile is a real human
Sam Rathling: being, and it's that authentic connectivity that you can get through through your
Sam Rathling: posts that will inspire others and inspire them to
Sam Rathling: reach out to you. I often say to people that the difference between
Joanne Lockwood: AI writing something and a human writing
Joanne Lockwood: it is the human has a soul. AI has
Joanne Lockwood: no soul. And without getting spiritual about this, you can
Joanne Lockwood: tell the difference between artificial, because it's just
Joanne Lockwood: heartless, there's nothing in it, there's no feeling in it. And we
Joanne Lockwood: need I always think inclusion was all about feelings, how
Joanne Lockwood: we connect with people, it's all about feelings. And if we're not careful, what we
Joanne Lockwood: do is we sanitise everything down to what people should
Joanne Lockwood: see about us. And pre filter everything. So
Joanne Lockwood: we're almost taking the ability for people to get to know us. And
Joanne Lockwood: people buy from people, don't they? 100%. Yeah. I mean, I teach this all
Sam Rathling: the time. I mean, I work a lot with salespeople in big corporates and business
Sam Rathling: owners when I'm doing my, you know, training and talking about social selling.
Sam Rathling: And it it really is that people are so scared
Sam Rathling: to show up that way, or they just don't know what to post or how
Sam Rathling: to post. And I'm like, just think about just what you champion. Like, get behind
Sam Rathling: you probably care passionately about 3 things outside of work that you
Sam Rathling: would be happy to talk about so you don't have to share every deepest secret
Sam Rathling: that you've got or every, like, everything that's happened to you, but just think about
Sam Rathling: what you can champion. What do you stand for? What do you wanna get behind?
Sam Rathling: What do you actually care about outside of you being a salesperson or outside
Sam Rathling: of you being a business owner? Because those are the things if you can bring
Sam Rathling: them to the newsfeed. They're the things that will connect you with other people, whether
Sam Rathling: it's, I know, you're training for a marathon or you're going through, you know, some
Sam Rathling: mental health challenges or you've your kids or whatever it is. Like, just
Sam Rathling: talk about things that are real and human outside of you being that professional.
Sam Rathling: And amazing things happen when you do that. Yeah. A friend
Joanne Lockwood: of mine that I've known for many years, she posted on LinkedIn recently,
Joanne Lockwood: after hiatus of about 6 months, that she's got brain tumour.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's apparently, from what I gather,
Joanne Lockwood: untreatable. And so she's now living with a
Joanne Lockwood: an expiry date, for want of a better way of putting it. Although we all
Joanne Lockwood: have expiry date above our head, we just don't know how soon that is.
Joanne Lockwood: She's also been through a challenge with a
Joanne Lockwood: child gender transitioning as well. So there's a huge amount going on in her life.
Joanne Lockwood: And she's always been very authentic with sharing that side of her. But
Joanne Lockwood: she gets a lot of trolling and hate and pushback
Joanne Lockwood: by showing that personal side. Did you get anything pushed back to you?
Joanne Lockwood: You know, the this is not allowed on LinkedIn crowd coming in? I
Sam Rathling: I've never had genuinely never had any trolling,
Sam Rathling: hate, whatever. I've never had it. My business partner gets it quite a lot, but
Sam Rathling: he's very opinionated and very divisive on purpose on his
Sam Rathling: post. But I have never had it. I've always I think because of the
Sam Rathling: way that I obviously, obviously, over the years, I've become quite a good
Sam Rathling: storyteller, and I think the way that I word
Sam Rathling: things and the way that I structure things in a way that it's not just
Sam Rathling: about that, it's also got lessons or whatever it is in there, I've never
Sam Rathling: had hate on anything, on any social. Like, I've never had to delete
Sam Rathling: comments. I've never had any nasty inbox stuff at all. I've never had
Sam Rathling: any accusations about anything. And I don't know why. I don't I think
Sam Rathling: LinkedIn is quite a professional platform anyway, but it's unusual for
Sam Rathling: you to get that kind of thing. I've never had the whole like, oh, why
Sam Rathling: are you showing this on LinkedIn? I mean, obviously, I'm a LinkedIn expert, so I
Sam Rathling: don't generally tend to get that too much, but I've just never had it. And
Sam Rathling: I don't know why. I think because of the way that my personal brand is
Sam Rathling: and I give so much value as well around the topic of LinkedIn and social
Sam Rathling: selling that I think people don't mind me also sharing my other side of things
Sam Rathling: because I also do it in a way that it is inspirational to
Sam Rathling: people rather than it just being a attention seeking thing. Do you know
Sam Rathling: what I mean? It's I think I'd do it in a way that is probably
Sam Rathling: a little bit different to others maybe. I don't know. Thinking about the the
Joanne Lockwood: takeaway from you know, what are you gonna take away from this? What what's the
Joanne Lockwood: what's the impact on you on how you think or feel or something?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah? Yeah. Other than just woe is me. It's Yeah. Exactly. Woe is me,
Joanne Lockwood: and this is how you can Exactly. Take yeah. So I think
Sam Rathling: that's how I always like to angle. I always try and find a lesson or
Sam Rathling: find a something that people can take away from the post that is
Sam Rathling: gonna help them in some way rather than it just being, like, this is happening
Sam Rathling: for me. You know? Yeah. I think that's probably it. I don't know. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I I always remember the, the broadcaster, Chris Evans, said
Joanne Lockwood: you've got to be kind of Marmite. Half the world's gotta love you and half
Joanne Lockwood: the world's gotta hate you. Because once you've
Joanne Lockwood: polarised people, that that sells. You know, people have become raving
Joanne Lockwood: fans of yours. Yeah. Whereas if you try and be spam and bland and and
Joanne Lockwood: something for everybody, it never quite hits the mark, does it? No. It
Sam Rathling: doesn't. And I think a lot of people do show up as the boring version
Sam Rathling: of themselves. Like, you know, you meet someone on Zoom or one to 1, and
Sam Rathling: you say, oh, they're amazing. And then you look at their online social presence, you're
Sam Rathling: like, that's not you at all. Like, that's just boring and dull. Like, why are
Sam Rathling: you not showing up as the, you know, the person that you are? I'm not
Sam Rathling: talking to you directly, obviously. But just when you meet people, you think, wow.
Sam Rathling: Like, why are you why are you not bringing that to the like, that's the
Sam Rathling: person I wanna see on the newsfeed. And ultimately, you gotta remember why people
Sam Rathling: are on social. They're usually on social because they're bored or they're trying to sell
Sam Rathling: something for their own selfish reasons. So if you're not entertaining,
Sam Rathling: inspiring, educating, like, you know, they're just gonna scroll
Sam Rathling: past you and you're just gonna be like in the boringness of most people's posts.
Sam Rathling: And people wonder why they're not getting traction on their posts. It's because they
Sam Rathling: literally are boring. Like, they're showing up as the most boring version of
Sam Rathling: themselves. They are. Yeah. I remember
Joanne Lockwood: I I was doing a pitch for to some speaker bookers once, and and
Joanne Lockwood: one of the feedback they got was they're not sure about me because I I
Joanne Lockwood: didn't come across with any personality. And I thought, blimey.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Normally, I ooze personality. I'm kind of jokey. I'm I'm
Joanne Lockwood: bouncy. I'm all over the place. I thought, you're right. When I when I was
Joanne Lockwood: in this mode, my brain was in be professional, be
Joanne Lockwood: focused, be this, be that. And the only thing I wasn't being was me.
Sam Rathling: You. Yeah. And it's learning how to just lean back and
Joanne Lockwood: relax and and be yourself. And I found myself doing that
Joanne Lockwood: more, doing online training recently, where think in the early stages, the
Joanne Lockwood: COVID days, we were trying to be very professional, very kind of
Joanne Lockwood: up. But now I'm very much more lean back, more relaxed, more
Joanne Lockwood: comfortable in my own skin. And I feel the
Joanne Lockwood: difference in me, and I think the audience feel the difference when you can show
Joanne Lockwood: up as well. Yeah. I I think it makes a big difference. Like, how you
Sam Rathling: the more you are you, the the more you show up as your authentic
Sam Rathling: self and not this mask or this professional image that you want
Sam Rathling: everybody. I think that that really has having, you
Sam Rathling: know, done that more and more obviously recently. You know, the
Sam Rathling: messages I get, all the people that step towards you think, well,
Sam Rathling: anyone that doesn't want to work with you is not gonna step forward anyway, and
Sam Rathling: you wouldn't want to work with them. And, you know, if they can't handle you
Sam Rathling: as you are, then why would they want why would you want to do business
Sam Rathling: with them in the 1st place? So I think you attract the right type of
Sam Rathling: people by doing that and you deflect the people that you just wouldn't at all.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I mean, I I often think it's it's my my superpower is the ability
Joanne Lockwood: to polarise people. You know, you either like someone who's trans or you don't. And
Joanne Lockwood: so I very rarely get people who want to talk to me who don't like
Joanne Lockwood: me because they tend to bother. So it cuts down half the sales force
Joanne Lockwood: actually. Sales process, I love that. But people
Joanne Lockwood: want to when people want to engage me, they they know who I am and
Joanne Lockwood: they want to engage me. So I thought, my job is done. So in a
Joanne Lockwood: way, it's it's if you if you knew what your
Joanne Lockwood: personality type was that was able to do that with people, if everyone knew had
Joanne Lockwood: this little sticker on their forehead and go, this is my type of person and
Joanne Lockwood: if you don't like it go away. If you don't like it go away. You'd
Sam Rathling: save yourself a load of time. It does, yeah. I don't get
Joanne Lockwood: tyre kickers. Yeah, people don't just try and, oh, blobby,
Joanne Lockwood: oh, you're trans, I never realised. It's like,
Joanne Lockwood: So yeah, it's, yeah, I say it's a
Joanne Lockwood: superpower, and I think owning it. Yes, big time. You've just got to own
Joanne Lockwood: yourself, haven't you? Own yourself, yeah. Yeah. Definitely,
Sam Rathling: for sure. And I I think that's if I was to get my kids to
Sam Rathling: like, I think I've only really got that in the last few
Sam Rathling: years. I think instilling that in my children early on,
Sam Rathling: I'm like, just be you. Do you. Even my 11 year old, like, she's so
Sam Rathling: amazing. Like, her personality is brilliant. I'm like, don't ever change. Like, just be
Sam Rathling: you. Like, you're so brilliant. And she's she's such a
Sam Rathling: character and I just never want her to lose that or to feel like she's
Sam Rathling: got to show up any different to how she is. She's like, mum, if they
Sam Rathling: don't like me, they don't like me. You know? It's just she's you know? I
Sam Rathling: was worried about her getting bullied because my my son got bullied quite heavily. You
Sam Rathling: know? They're mixed race. She's, you know, she's quite loud. She's ADHD.
Sam Rathling: She's quite disruptive. Do you know? And I think I don't actually want her to
Sam Rathling: be any different. And if people have approached she's like, people got a problem with
Sam Rathling: me, mom. That's fine. It's their problem, not my problem. I'm like, yes. This is
Sam Rathling: good. And she's 11, and I'm like, I wish I'd had that confidence and that,
Sam Rathling: you know, I don't care what people think that young because and I feel
Sam Rathling: like I hope I've instilled that in her in the way that I parent her,
Sam Rathling: obviously. But, I just think it's brilliant, you know, the way that she shows
Sam Rathling: up and the way that she is being you know, going to secondary school is
Sam Rathling: a big deal for an 11 year old, and I don't think she's gonna have
Sam Rathling: any issues. No. It doesn't sound like it. And and
Joanne Lockwood: she's got a fantastic mom who's, right there with her as well and
Joanne Lockwood: and and some siblings. So, yeah, it's, Some of the siblings who've been there and
Sam Rathling: done it. So, yeah, it's all good. And not only got the t shirt, they've
Joanne Lockwood: had the police wrapped. I know, right? Without everything.
Sam Rathling: There's not much we haven't gone through to get us so good.
Sam Rathling: Why can't we go to the hospital? It's a crime scene. Yeah. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: the circle of people we hang out with, you know, having a good story is
Joanne Lockwood: always good things. It elevates to It's always good to have good stories. Always
Joanne Lockwood: have good stories. I mean, we, as I say, we first met, I
Joanne Lockwood: think it was 20 18, 2019, I can't remember which one of the
Joanne Lockwood: conferences it was, but in an hour we've just spent together, I know
Joanne Lockwood: more about you. You're a fantastic human being that
Joanne Lockwood: I've loved spending this time with. It's been, I talked with you in the green
Joanne Lockwood: room at the beginning. I was like, around about 55 minutes in, I'll say something
Joanne Lockwood: like, what about what an inspirational
Joanne Lockwood: conversation is. And when we get there, I'll mean it. And I mean it, I
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely mean it. This has been a really fun
Joanne Lockwood: hour. Obviously some serious topics. But getting to know you better
Joanne Lockwood: has been absolutely fantastic, and I really appreciate your time today. Well, thank you for
Sam Rathling: having me. It's been great. And, I look forward to, yeah, listening back to the
Sam Rathling: episode. But how can people get hold of you?
Joanne Lockwood: Where where where do you hang out? Yeah. Where do I hang out? Well, obviously,
Sam Rathling: I hang out on LinkedIn mostly. So that's gonna be the place there's only 2
Sam Rathling: Sam Rathlings in the world, and only one of them is a girl. So I'm
Sam Rathling: quite easy to find, really. The other one's a IT CEO
Sam Rathling: in America that won't connect with me.
Joanne Lockwood: And your your business is was it Pipeline 44, if I remember? Yeah. So the
Sam Rathling: company is called Pipeline 44, but we have a couple of brands underneath that. So
Sam Rathling: I look after the social selling teams brand. So I do a lot of work
Sam Rathling: in corporate, working with sales teams, and we have the Social Selling Academy,
Sam Rathling: which is for business owners who want to learn to get results from LinkedIn as
Sam Rathling: well. So yeah. And you've got got a couple of books, and I actually own
Joanne Lockwood: both those books physically and on, in Kindle, I think, because you're doing
Joanne Lockwood: deals on Kindles. So I've got them both ways. But, yeah, you've got a couple
Joanne Lockwood: of books. Yeah. So linked inbound and linked outbound, so they go hand in
Sam Rathling: hand. Linked outbound is kind of probably more advanced than for
Sam Rathling: people with Sales Navigator and who are doing a bit more kind of outbound in
Sam Rathling: sales and prospecting. Linked inbound is kind of LinkedIn 101. So if you're
Sam Rathling: brand new to the platform or you just wanna get started or you just wanna
Sam Rathling: kind of really amplify what you're already doing, then LinkedIn Bound would be the place
Sam Rathling: to go. So yeah. And they are bestsellers, aren't they? They are Oh, yes.
Joanne Lockwood: Heralded heralded in the business community as as
Joanne Lockwood: great resources. Yes. They are. And, yeah, I wrote the
Sam Rathling: LinkedIn Bound in 2019, but I have a 2023 updated
Sam Rathling: edition. The platform changes a lot, but the methodology is in there don't.
Sam Rathling: So I wrote them specifically in a way that it whether the algorithm changed or
Sam Rathling: the platform changed or, you know, it's it's more about the methodologies
Sam Rathling: behind how you actually build your brand and get results and actually sell on
Sam Rathling: the platform. So yeah. But what's next for for Sam
Joanne Lockwood: then? Obviously, Carry On Living is is is on high on the list.
Sam Rathling: Number 1, I think I've definitely shifted my priorities in life
Sam Rathling: and my focus, and I've thought long and hard about, you know I'm
Sam Rathling: very much a go getter, goal setting kind of girl. And, you know, this year,
Sam Rathling: I'm just like, just get through to the end of the year. My next big
Sam Rathling: thing is I'm heading off to New Zealand and Australia for 4 weeks,
Sam Rathling: which has been the thing that's kept me going through this year, to be honest.
Sam Rathling: All my family are meeting up. My sister's getting married, so I'm going off traveling,
Sam Rathling: taking the kids to go and spend Christmas in the year in Australia and New
Sam Rathling: Zealand, which would be amazing. And I think for next year, I think it's very
Sam Rathling: much about just recalibrating and getting the
Sam Rathling: balance right on my life and obviously health being
Sam Rathling: a number one priority and not sweating the small stuff as
Sam Rathling: much as I used to. I think it's definitely about living for every day
Sam Rathling: and living for every moment and just not putting too much
Sam Rathling: pressure on myself to achieve all these amazing things that I always
Sam Rathling: have on my goals list. I'm like, it's enough right now for me to just
Sam Rathling: be here, be present and have fun and create memories with the
Sam Rathling: children. That's really my focus right now and obviously get through
Sam Rathling: my next 5 years of treatment, but I'm still here and I'm still kicking and
Sam Rathling: I can't wait to continue to add value and give back and just
Sam Rathling: help as many people as possible with what with my knowledge and expertise. Thank
Joanne Lockwood: you, Sam. Absolutely amazing. Thank you. Thanks.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to
Joanne Lockwood: express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for
Joanne Lockwood: lending your ear and heart to the cause of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion. If today's discussion struck a chord,
Joanne Lockwood: consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites, and become part
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Joanne Lockwood: Reach out to jo.lockwood@seachangehappen.co.uk,
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Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return
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Joanne Lockwood: one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.