Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Joanne Lockwood: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
Joanne Lockwood: your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation.
Joanne Lockwood: Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world where
Joanne Lockwood: everyone not only belongs but thrives? You're
Joanne Lockwood: not alone. Join me as we uncover the
Joanne Lockwood: unseen, challenge the status quo, and share
Joanne Lockwood: stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive
Joanne Lockwood: in. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down
Joanne Lockwood: after a long day, let's connect, reflect, and
Joanne Lockwood: inspire action together. Don't forget, you
Joanne Lockwood: can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: to share your insights or to join me on the show.
Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites. Today
Joanne Lockwood: is episode 147 with the
Joanne Lockwood: title, breaking bias. And I
Joanne Lockwood: have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome Lorne Epstein.
Joanne Lockwood: Lorne is a social scientist, keynote speaker,
Joanne Lockwood: facilitator, and has been transforming workplaces for over
Joanne Lockwood: 2 decades by teaching people how to recognize
Joanne Lockwood: and reduce unconscious bias. When I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Lorne to describe his superpower, he said, helping professionals
Joanne Lockwood: uncover and mitigate their biases.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Lorne. Welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. Thank you so
Lorne Epstein: much for having me. I'm on 147.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I'm so 147. Where's that time gone? We met. When
Joanne Lockwood: did we meet? It was 2019 on Amsterdam, was it? Yes. It
Lorne Epstein: was 2019 in Amsterdam, so that's 5 years ago.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Long time. Wow. It was unleashed, if I remember rightly, the HR
Joanne Lockwood: conference. Yeah. Yeah. That was great. That was great. That was a lot of fun.
Lorne Epstein: I really enjoyed kind of seeing the the European
Lorne Epstein: HR market, and it was it blew me away. I mean, people were
Lorne Epstein: just so great, very friendly. You know, still
Lorne Epstein: crazy like the HR people here, but it was it was nice.
Joanne Lockwood: At that conference, you were you were doing live interviews, and I was a guest
Joanne Lockwood: on your show, if I remember correctly. Yes. Yes. So, like,
Lorne Epstein: in 2015, where I live, they opened up a public radio station,
Lorne Epstein: and I got a radio show, and I made it all about jobs. And I
Lorne Epstein: was just doing it as a side thing. It was just for fun. There was
Lorne Epstein: no money because it was a public station. And and
Lorne Epstein: then, like, the last year or so, I started figuring out ways to make money,
Lorne Epstein: and one was to get sponsorships and go to shows like
Lorne Epstein: Unleash and interview folks. So I did that for about a
Lorne Epstein: year or so, and then everything kinda went to to shit because of COVID
Lorne Epstein: and, you know, the whole anyway. So, yeah, that's how we
Lorne Epstein: met. Yeah. We did. We touched base, if that's not too
Joanne Lockwood: cliched as an expression, a few times early in COVID. You
Joanne Lockwood: really got into the unconscious bias and you were yeah. Your business took
Joanne Lockwood: off in that way, didn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It was kinda wild. I had
Lorne Epstein: built I had, a federal client. A federal government
Lorne Epstein: agency was a client of mine. I was developing their their national
Lorne Epstein: hiring strategy, their diversity hiring strategy. And while I was doing it,
Lorne Epstein: their head of HR asked me to build them an unconscious bias workshop. And
Lorne Epstein: I've been doing experiential training for decades, so I did. I did it
Lorne Epstein: for them. They loved it. And since then, I probably did it, like,
Lorne Epstein: 30 or 40 times. Just as 2020 started
Lorne Epstein: in January, an old college professor of mine suggested,
Lorne Epstein: why don't you submit it to this experiential learning conference in Philadelphia
Lorne Epstein: and get some feedback? And I'm like, that sounds great. So I applied and it
Lorne Epstein: got accepted, but I also applied to graduate school. I was going to
Lorne Epstein: get a master's degree in organizational development, and I got accepted. But
Lorne Epstein: there was a conflict on that date. My teacher said, well, you can't you can't
Lorne Epstein: go to the conference. You have to come to class. Why don't you just do
Lorne Epstein: the workshop for the students and get feedback? I said, that sounds
Lorne Epstein: great. So we set it up, and the school had advertised it. It was gonna
Lorne Epstein: be on campus. And next thing you know, we have COVID. And in
Lorne Epstein: April of 2020, instead of doing it in person, we did it on Zoom. I
Lorne Epstein: had a 140 people from around the world in this workshop, and
Lorne Epstein: it just took off. People wanted more. So the next month, we had a 100
Lorne Epstein: and since then, over 50,000 people have done these trainings.
Joanne Lockwood: Oh, I think I actually crashed into one of your workshops in
Joanne Lockwood: the in the early ones. It was the first or the second. I I sat
Joanne Lockwood: in on one of them, the early ones, I think. Was it fun? It
Joanne Lockwood: was great. I thought it was great. I mean, we I mean, the experiential
Joanne Lockwood: side, we're in breakout rooms. I met some people, have great conversations.
Joanne Lockwood: And, yeah, it was a it was my first probably my first experience of
Joanne Lockwood: doing that online experiential type training where you're just going into breakout rooms.
Joanne Lockwood: I think it probably helped me get confidence in doing some of my own workshops
Joanne Lockwood: online as well. So that's yeah. Cool. Awesome. That's great. I love that.
Lorne Epstein: I love hearing how the work that we do makes a
Lorne Epstein: difference for people. It's not something that, like, naturally happens. And it's
Lorne Epstein: funny you should say that because I I know that I make a difference to
Lorne Epstein: people. It's like I love people and I want to just support them in
Lorne Epstein: in having better lives. About 4 weeks ago, I was
Lorne Epstein: training almost a 1000 people at a hospital in Ohio.
Lorne Epstein: And midway through my sponsor,
Lorne Epstein: who is the CHRO, we were walking across campus and she said,
Lorne Epstein: oh, you remember this woman where we had a little bit of,
Lorne Epstein: you know, we had some challenges with and she came to my office
Lorne Epstein: after the workshop, and she gave me a thumbs up. And she said,
Lorne Epstein: that's the kind of training that we need. And I just my heart just
Lorne Epstein: melted. I just stopped. And I'm like, I got all warm and
Lorne Epstein: fuzzy, and I'm like, oh my god. This is great. This is like,
Lorne Epstein: you know, my my, wonderful life moment of
Lorne Epstein: it actually something is actually happening. But, you know, like,
Lorne Epstein: you know and I was telling you this story earlier. There's, like, all this other
Lorne Epstein: stuff that has to occur for that one little moment. Like,
Lorne Epstein: 3 weeks ago, I was speaking at the HR HR Visions in
Lorne Epstein: London, and I gotten there on a Monday. I got
Lorne Epstein: 4 hours of sleep because the time changed to the workshop on Tuesday,
Lorne Epstein: got 4 hours of sleep to do the workshop on Wednesday, came home
Lorne Epstein: By the end of towards the end of the flight, the plane got just crazy
Lorne Epstein: turbulent. I got so sick that they took me off by
Lorne Epstein: ambulance, went to the hospital for about 3 or 4 hours,
Lorne Epstein: got fixed up. Next morning, I get up. I do another workshop
Lorne Epstein: for a client on Zoom, go to class, pick up my
Lorne Epstein: assignment, go to the airport, fly to Michigan because the next day, I'm training
Lorne Epstein: a 100 doctors. And, like, all that was
Lorne Epstein: great because of that fun little, like, I know somewhere someone's gonna go
Lorne Epstein: like, oh, that was that was really good. That made a difference in my life.
Lorne Epstein: Have you had that experience? Yeah. I I've had an in
Joanne Lockwood: flight issue, and I'll tell you about that. When I find my in personal or
Joanne Lockwood: even my online workshops, are you doing your discovery call with the client, or you're
Joanne Lockwood: just about to go into the room and do the training? Quite often, they they
Joanne Lockwood: take me to one side and go, Jo, just just so you know, there's a
Joanne Lockwood: couple of people who are really anti. They're kind of really negative. They're they're real
Joanne Lockwood: troublemakers. They they don't wanna get involved with this inclusivity's
Joanne Lockwood: rubbish or mumbo jumbo that's on it. I said, that's brilliant.
Joanne Lockwood: That's what I want. I don't want everyone to go in there and agree with
Joanne Lockwood: me. I want people in there who are gonna be feisty and testy because
Joanne Lockwood: it has two purposes. 1, is it gives an example of the problem
Joanne Lockwood: we have to the people who are who are positive so they actually hear this.
Joanne Lockwood: But, also, the I found the people who go with those really
Joanne Lockwood: deep struggling ideas, they come out with the most change. Often, they
Joanne Lockwood: come up to me after I shake my hand or give me a hug or
Joanne Lockwood: something and say, say, that was so powerful. Wow. You've really opened my eyes to
Joanne Lockwood: this. So that's where you really find you've made the difference. But nudging people who
Joanne Lockwood: are already there is the echo chamber. It's it's not with the satisfaction. It's
Joanne Lockwood: the moving people from a to b where you can clearly see change has
Joanne Lockwood: occurred. That's where the empowerment comes in. Yeah. I love that. Like, there's
Lorne Epstein: a a lot more people like, I love people. I just met I met a
Lorne Epstein: bunch of coaches. So I did a training from a company called Lifespring
Lorne Epstein: back at 92, which was my big kind of transformational moment of
Lorne Epstein: seeing my own power and letting go of the wounds. And
Lorne Epstein: coaching wasn't a thing then. And now so many people do that. And I
Lorne Epstein: know that it's, like, the benefit they get. The why is they just
Lorne Epstein: wanna connect and help people. I think a lot of people listening to the show
Lorne Epstein: are like, you know, like like, that's what they wanna do. They just want to
Lorne Epstein: make a difference. Yeah. They do. I mean, I've gotta
Joanne Lockwood: give you my wellness story now on on a plane. So I was I used
Joanne Lockwood: to work for a bank in the UK, and this bank was a private bank.
Joanne Lockwood: They had branch offices all over the world in very nice
Joanne Lockwood: places, Beverly Hills, San Diego. And this particular occasion, I
Joanne Lockwood: was I was doing IT. So I was an IT tech, effectively, rolling out
Joanne Lockwood: systems. And this this particular gig was, NASA, Bahamas.
Joanne Lockwood: So I flew from London, and in those days, be it pretty sure I was
Joanne Lockwood: used to fly via Miami, and then you change it Miami, and then you go
Joanne Lockwood: Miami, NASA. The mid flight, the plane had
Joanne Lockwood: an emergency landing. I think it was someone had a heart attack. So we
Joanne Lockwood: we had to land in Gander, in Newfoundland. We I don't know if you've ever
Joanne Lockwood: if you've had an emergency stopover in Newfoundland, but basically, the
Joanne Lockwood: plane does a really rapid descent and suddenly you're it land
Joanne Lockwood: on this airfield in the middle of Newfoundland, middle of nowhere. You look out the
Joanne Lockwood: window. You can't see anything. It could be absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: wild landscape, and they they get the person off. And, of course, when they're on
Joanne Lockwood: the on the tarmac, they have to turn all the air conditioning off or the
Joanne Lockwood: or the flight, They're in flight entertainment. You're basically sat there, and you're
Joanne Lockwood: sat there for, like, 3 or 4 hours because they can't get a flight path
Joanne Lockwood: to take off again. So you're stuck there until they can get another air traffic
Joanne Lockwood: control slot. And they walk walk around handing out these these packs of
Joanne Lockwood: sandwiches. And I had a prawn sandwich, a
Joanne Lockwood: shrimp sandwich. And about just before we landed in
Joanne Lockwood: Miami, I'm starting to think, oh, I really don't feel good. I'm really not
Joanne Lockwood: feeling this anymore. And, you you know, you when you have that sort of kind
Joanne Lockwood: of throughput, you can tell what did it to you. You can't you really so
Joanne Lockwood: that your brain knows what it was and I think either that's a
Joanne Lockwood: prawn. That's definitely prawn that's given it to me. So I get to Miami and
Joanne Lockwood: I'm literally my sweat is pouring off me. I'm sweating. I'm sweating. I get
Joanne Lockwood: through passport, managed to find the toilet. So I'm at, unfortunately,
Joanne Lockwood: both ends. And, you know, I hit and I was sweating and I was
Joanne Lockwood: sweating. And then because we had this issue with the the
Joanne Lockwood: the the landing in, Newfoundland and my
Joanne Lockwood: flight to the Bahamas was then we had I had missed my connection. We had
Joanne Lockwood: to get another connection or something. When I got to the Bahamas in this state,
Joanne Lockwood: I was missing my luggage. So there I
Joanne Lockwood: am in Nassau, Bahamas in the temperature
Joanne Lockwood: I can't remember what time of year it was, but it was hot. The Bahamas
Joanne Lockwood: is generally hot anytime we go there, but this was hot. And I turn up
Joanne Lockwood: with no luggage. I get to the, I I was sharing
Joanne Lockwood: a, like, an Airbnb equivalent in the nineties, whatever
Joanne Lockwood: it was. Yeah. It was a a flat with a load of people also working
Joanne Lockwood: for the bank. And someone ended up lending me this T shirt, and I I
Joanne Lockwood: looked like, I don't know, this T shirt, like, 3 sizes too small, but
Joanne Lockwood: I had to have something called this Christmas I had no luggage. I remember
Joanne Lockwood: going to sleep that night in a in a room, and all I could hear
Joanne Lockwood: was mosquitoes. It was like they were dive bombing me. I was
Joanne Lockwood: like, All night, all all I could feel is mosquitoes everywhere. I had no luggage.
Joanne Lockwood: I felt awful. I felt sweaty. So I feel I feel your
Joanne Lockwood: pain, that turbulence, and then having to go to work that that day, covered in
Joanne Lockwood: mosquitoes with food poisoning and their luggage in the barns.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow. It's a glamorous life, isn't it? So I
Lorne Epstein: thankfully, that's scary. That's scary because you were, like, far away from
Lorne Epstein: things. But thankfully, my wife was there. It was just a few hours and
Lorne Epstein: I felt fine. Like that whole experience, what it sounds
Lorne Epstein: tumultuous, I say it's like it was a great week and it's
Lorne Epstein: I love my job. Like, I love that week because I love
Lorne Epstein: my job. But, yeah, I get it, man.
Lorne Epstein: That's, I get that. That's, it's scary being 6
Lorne Epstein: anyway. Yeah. I don't know. In a foreign
Joanne Lockwood: country and you've got all this stuff to do, you've got to get onto another
Joanne Lockwood: plane. I mean, Miami is a big airport if you've got to go from domestic
Joanne Lockwood: to internal, international to domestic. It's a long walk and I was feeling
Joanne Lockwood: I had no luggage and I was sweating and I was I yeah, it was
Joanne Lockwood: just the whole stress. When did you feel better? Did you get better, like
Lorne Epstein: quickly or was it like I think by the by the next morning I was
Joanne Lockwood: I was I was okay again, and they they they managed to find my luggage.
Joanne Lockwood: It was on the next flight. I went back to the airport, and there it
Joanne Lockwood: was on the carousel, picked it up, and had a
Joanne Lockwood: shower and a change and put some clothes on. I was fine again. But, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it was a, probably about 12 to 24 hours
Joanne Lockwood: of of stress I didn't need. Wow. Yeah. It sounds
Lorne Epstein: like it. So what got you into doing later. We
Joanne Lockwood: would we would jet skiing later. So sorry. I wanted to ask, what got you
Lorne Epstein: into doing this show? What it
Joanne Lockwood: was, but I I was having conversations, you know, because I I started the
Joanne Lockwood: business in 2017. I I found
Joanne Lockwood: myself having lots of cups of coffee. You know, you go to London, you go
Joanne Lockwood: to you're networking. I I'd stack the coffees up all day, so I'd go meet
Joanne Lockwood: people at this cafe, meet people in this cafe, meet people. I was having these
Joanne Lockwood: great conversations with people trying to build my network up. And then I started doing
Joanne Lockwood: a few online meets and Zoom calls in the the early days. And
Joanne Lockwood: I we'd finished the Zoom call, and we'd have this really great conversation. I'd say,
Joanne Lockwood: I wish we'd recorded that. I wish we recorded that. And that's how it
Joanne Lockwood: it it came, really. I I decided that all these
Joanne Lockwood: conversations we're having should be captured, and we can actually turn them into something. So
Joanne Lockwood: I I decided pre cov this is pre covid. I wanted to
Joanne Lockwood: have have conversations. I and I use the podcast as a way of networking, having
Joanne Lockwood: conversation with people, and capturing these stories for for posterity,
Joanne Lockwood: for for historical reference, or just to to share with other people.
Joanne Lockwood: So that that's what started it, really, just that desire to share
Joanne Lockwood: conversations. Awesome. To make a difference.
Joanne Lockwood: Make a difference. Absolutely. To make a difference. And Yeah. And to and
Joanne Lockwood: to and to feel that there's a purpose beyond just a chat,
Joanne Lockwood: which which goes into the ether, and it gets forgotten. Because I have one of
Joanne Lockwood: these brains that is, I find it very difficult to
Joanne Lockwood: remember certain things. Like, if I go to the cinema, the
Joanne Lockwood: next day, I really I've forgotten half the film. I don't remember what it was.
Joanne Lockwood: I if I meet people, I forget their name really, really
Joanne Lockwood: quickly. And because, again, you're doing so many Zoom calls, so many meetings. I meet
Joanne Lockwood: I meet hundreds of people a month, and you can't remember everybody.
Joanne Lockwood: And I found that I was having this conversation with people. Oh, yeah. It's good
Joanne Lockwood: to see you again. I go, okay. Go on and remind me. Where did we
Joanne Lockwood: meet before? And yeah. And this is just a great way of having conversations,
Joanne Lockwood: and I still do it. I still I I thought I've got on LinkedIn sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: to invite people onto the podcast. They say, we did that last year. Did we?
Joanne Lockwood: Sorry. You're quite correct. Yes. We did. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I've got I I have got one of these memories that is is very good
Joanne Lockwood: at certain things, but very bad at other things. I I think my brain just
Joanne Lockwood: optimizes out and says the separation between need to remember
Joanne Lockwood: and and doesn't matter. And if you fit into the doesn't matter pile, I
Joanne Lockwood: will never remember that conversation again. But you we also had lasting impression
Joanne Lockwood: because meeting you in Amsterdam all those years ago and,
Joanne Lockwood: keeping in in loose contact, not active contact with each other. I get your
Joanne Lockwood: newsletter. I see you doing stuff on on LinkedIn and stuff. So I guess you've
Joanne Lockwood: you've penetrated into the must remember path. That's
Lorne Epstein: funny you should say that because, a year and a half ago, I started another
Lorne Epstein: master's in cognitive neuroscience. And this past semester, in fact, just last
Lorne Epstein: week, I had my final in neuroscience of memory and learning.
Lorne Epstein: And so I learned very diminutia
Lorne Epstein: about how the brain works around memory and learning. Yeah. And we're not our brains
Lorne Epstein: are not all the same. Right? Particularly around memory and learning. And
Lorne Epstein: the the the parts of our brain that do a memory, it's
Lorne Epstein: it's it's really unclear. Like, there are some things that are clear, but some
Lorne Epstein: things are just like in every class I've taken, usually sometime during the class, the
Lorne Epstein: teachers, like, shrugs their shoulders and says, and we don't know. Yeah. There's loads
Joanne Lockwood: of stuff, you know. I I will be able to pull something out of my
Joanne Lockwood: my my memory somehow, and I'll pluck
Joanne Lockwood: something out. It'll be a random fact or an anecdote or
Joanne Lockwood: something, and I'll just drop it into the conversation. And my wife will look at
Joanne Lockwood: me and go, you heard that yesterday, didn't you, on that show? And I
Joanne Lockwood: went, yeah. She said, you're making it sound like you know what you're talking about.
Joanne Lockwood: I said, well, I just I just hoover up knowledge, and then I I I
Joanne Lockwood: know when to spit it back out again. But I I couldn't tell you how
Joanne Lockwood: I remember or why I remember. It just becomes a nugget
Joanne Lockwood: that gets delivered onto into my tongue and out of my mouth at the right
Joanne Lockwood: moment at the right time. But you asked me about it now, I wouldn't really
Joanne Lockwood: remember what what's that at. Really? But you're probably really
Lorne Epstein: good at making matches because when we have a memory, it gets
Lorne Epstein: broken up and stored in different places. So the visual component of the
Lorne Epstein: memory would be stored in one part of the brain, and another part of the
Lorne Epstein: memory would be stored in another part of the brain, like a database. Right? And
Lorne Epstein: then there's, like, something that links it all together, and then
Lorne Epstein: that occurs, and then it can bring back it brings back the memory or it
Lorne Epstein: could bring back parts of the memory.
Joanne Lockwood: Okay. So it's a bit yeah. Random retrieval. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So indexed. Yeah. It's indexed. Yeah. Right. And another thing I
Lorne Epstein: learned was that we can we can well, we our brain
Lorne Epstein: extinguishes memory. Right? So we don't remember everything that happens.
Lorne Epstein: Imagine if you remembered everything that happens. Right, you could be very
Lorne Epstein: hard to function. And so there's a whole system in our brain that allows us
Lorne Epstein: to extinguish memories, which is really important for people with PTSD and
Lorne Epstein: depression and other mental illnesses that you can actually.
Lorne Epstein: Cause your brain to not remember something. You can weaken those
Lorne Epstein: connections. Yeah. I've noticed that our daughter's,
Joanne Lockwood: what, 32 years old now. And when we get together, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, you do the reminiscing, don't you? Humans like telling stories
Joanne Lockwood: of the past and reminiscing and and bringing things. The way our daughter tells a
Joanne Lockwood: story about our holidays or an event we did, and she
Joanne Lockwood: has a different memory than I do. And sometimes I'll go, no. I just don't
Joanne Lockwood: remember that at all. And I'll say, oh, what about this? And she said, I
Joanne Lockwood: don't remember that. So we've we've all latched on. This is part of the bias
Joanne Lockwood: and, the way our brains work, isn't it, where we we store emotion with these
Joanne Lockwood: memories. We store feelings, and different things resonate with us. And and if
Joanne Lockwood: they're if they're not memorable, we just, as you say, purge them. Don't
Joanne Lockwood: store them at all. Yeah.
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. Some things are just too, like, not interesting to store.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. But to other people, they're they're they're meaningful. 100 to
Lorne Epstein: say. But you you get the same in
Joanne Lockwood: crime. You know, police asking for photo fits and
Joanne Lockwood: all recalling what did the perpetrator or the bad guy look like. And
Joanne Lockwood: everyone everyone has a different view. Everyone remembers, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: the color of his jacket was blue, and everyone said, no. No. It's green. And
Joanne Lockwood: no one said, no. He didn't have a jacket on at all. And everybody makes
Joanne Lockwood: this stuff up about they they rewrite their own memories, aren't they? Yeah.
Lorne Epstein: There's a reason for that because, you know, we one of the things that's great
Lorne Epstein: about our brains, and this is getting to the conversation around bias,
Lorne Epstein: and why we have biases, is that we fill in
Lorne Epstein: the blanks. Right? If I tell you three
Lorne Epstein: pieces of information, you'll connect them and make up a story.
Lorne Epstein: Right? Like when you watch a movie, they don't
Lorne Epstein: usually show you every moment of like the protagonist
Lorne Epstein: day. But, you know, you think like, oh, they went from here to here and
Lorne Epstein: you in your in your mind, you go, can that make sense or how they
Lorne Epstein: did it? And that's how we have
Lorne Epstein: these biases. And because they're unconscious, we're not aware of
Lorne Epstein: them. They're always occurring. You know, if you drive by
Lorne Epstein: somebody's house and you look at the house and you
Lorne Epstein: see there's a car and there's a middle aged guy washing
Lorne Epstein: the car and a little child helping. Who's
Lorne Epstein: the who's the guy? It's
Lorne Epstein: dad. Right? That's the father. Probably. And yeah. Right. And that the little
Lorne Epstein: person's the son. And if there's a woman who's about the same age, that's probably
Lorne Epstein: the mom. And, like, if there's an older older woman, probably the
Lorne Epstein: grandmother. Right? So we make all these things up so we can make sense of
Lorne Epstein: the world. You know, the brain that we have is, you know, version
Lorne Epstein: 10 of hominids. You know, we we're about 300000 years old,
Lorne Epstein: homo sapiens, but we're not the first version of hominids.
Lorne Epstein: And and the brain that we have was created not just the brain, but the
Lorne Epstein: brain and all the nervous system.
Lorne Epstein: Parasympathetic nervous system, the somatic, all the nerves in our body
Lorne Epstein: were created when the world was really dangerous. Right. It was, you know,
Lorne Epstein: dangerous 300000 years ago. So when you think about, well, if it's dangerous, what
Lorne Epstein: do we do? We have a brain that is super responsive to
Lorne Epstein: danger. And and even though we don't have those kind
Lorne Epstein: of deathly fears now, we have psychological fears. Right?
Lorne Epstein: But the primary reason for your show is that people feel like they
Lorne Epstein: belong because not what happens when somebody doesn't feel like they belong.
Joanne Lockwood: Whether at their comfort zone that buzzwords like psychological safety, they
Joanne Lockwood: they feel part of something, they feel strangers, they feel their
Joanne Lockwood: fight, flight, freeze mechanism is is there, or they're hyper alert, all these kind
Joanne Lockwood: of, as you say, the the parasympathetic nervous system's kicking in, the vagus
Joanne Lockwood: nerves triggers, adrenaline's flowing, everything. You just feel uncomfortable. You don't feel you
Joanne Lockwood: can relax, all those kind of feelings, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing
Lorne Epstein: that we felt when a lion was coming after us.
Lorne Epstein: But now it's I don't feel like I belong in this group or I think
Lorne Epstein: these people don't like me. Yeah. You're not
Joanne Lockwood: gonna give your best self, are you? What what you're gonna do is you you
Joanne Lockwood: either wanna run away or hide or or just
Joanne Lockwood: keep looking for the exit. Yeah. Or attack somebody.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Or attack somebody. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You you you you on that defensive mode
Joanne Lockwood: all the time, aren't you? I always I always think about it as, that
Joanne Lockwood: old sitcom, Cheers. Remember the Canadian Canadian
Joanne Lockwood: sitcom with Cheers? Where Yeah. A bar where everyone knows your name.
Joanne Lockwood: That that always conjures up that sense of belonging. You walk in
Joanne Lockwood: there. You got your stall. You got your friends. They know your name. They
Joanne Lockwood: know your drink. You just fit back into it like you were
Joanne Lockwood: only just left, and it could be 3 years later. You just pick up
Joanne Lockwood: where you left off. And that's that's how I feel about
Joanne Lockwood: belonging, that coffee shop that you know it's your coffee shop.
Joanne Lockwood: And if you go to the other coffee shop, the other end of town, it's
Joanne Lockwood: just not your coffee shop, is it? The chair is not as comfortable. The beans
Joanne Lockwood: aren't as aren't as nice, that they're not roasting at the same. You just
Joanne Lockwood: know that where you feel that sense of sense of
Joanne Lockwood: rel where you can relax and let yourself go. So you're in
Lorne Epstein: England, you have that with pubs. Right? Yeah. People
Joanne Lockwood: have their their their preferred their local, their preferred place after work, whatever.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I used to I used to have a place like that in Zurich,
Lorne Epstein: actually. I was working out at the the same bank I was working out. We
Joanne Lockwood: ended up in Bahamas. I worked in Zurich for about 8 or 9 months, and
Joanne Lockwood: I was going out flying in and out every every weekend. And on the
Joanne Lockwood: Thursday night before we flew back on the Friday, we always used to go and
Joanne Lockwood: have a night in the old town in Zurich. And there's a bar,
Joanne Lockwood: hotel called the Adler, which is Eagle in translation from German.
Joanne Lockwood: And we and it was a piano bar. So we used to go there. We
Joanne Lockwood: we get there about, I don't know, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock at night after being
Joanne Lockwood: doing the old town and doing the bars. And we walk in there, and there
Joanne Lockwood: was this big, gregacious barber that it was always there. He had
Joanne Lockwood: massive, big, wide, red braces on, a big stripy shirt.
Joanne Lockwood: And we walk in, he'd look at us, and he'd point his finger and go,
Joanne Lockwood: it's there. You walk out to the bar. There's your double focus and tonics on
Joanne Lockwood: the bar waiting for you. The piano kicks in. We all sat there at the
Joanne Lockwood: piano. We're singing along, and that was our place. We were there
Joanne Lockwood: every Thursday night every Thursday night for every
Joanne Lockwood: year. Wow. And we we we'd end up flying with a hangover
Joanne Lockwood: the next day because it was that good. We're getting to 4 in the morning
Joanne Lockwood: or something. But, yeah, that was our that's our belonging. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: pubs, yeah, bars, pianos, sing songs. Yeah.
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. And so how do we I think probably the question you think about a
Lorne Epstein: lot is how do we how do we make where we are a place of
Lorne Epstein: belonging, right, that people can not just like, when you would go to the
Lorne Epstein: bar in a way, the bar key created this
Lorne Epstein: place. Right. You are open, but the bar key created the
Lorne Epstein: place. So, like, how do we how do we own
Lorne Epstein: ourselves, own our power, own our the way we can create
Lorne Epstein: context and create that where we are no matter
Lorne Epstein: what. Right? I I think sometimes the what I find I have to
Joanne Lockwood: do is is nudge people to have that visual memory of
Joanne Lockwood: what belonging feels like, which is why I always use the coffee shop or that
Joanne Lockwood: story about the bar in Zurich about, cheers and those sort of
Joanne Lockwood: things. Trying to get people to think about what belonging means to
Joanne Lockwood: them. And that's once you get into that zone, you go, actually, I know what
Joanne Lockwood: belonging feels to me. And then you go, right. Okay. Now we
Joanne Lockwood: understand what that feels to you. How do we create
Joanne Lockwood: that feeling for others? So I think that's that's what we're gonna try and do,
Joanne Lockwood: create these relatable experiences. Otherwise, we're just trying to manufacture
Joanne Lockwood: our version of belonging. Everyone has their own sense, don't they?
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. That's true. I think, like, when I'm on when I every time I've spoken
Lorne Epstein: to you, Jo, over the last few years, I always feel like this is a
Lorne Epstein: sense of belonging. And I think in part, I feel accepted by you.
Lorne Epstein: Like, I don't think for me, it's like, I think I could say anything. I
Lorne Epstein: don't think you're gonna judge me or judge me
Lorne Epstein: harshly. And, I mean, I think I I experienced you as just
Lorne Epstein: having an open heart. Right? I think those are the ways of being
Lorne Epstein: that as humans, we we are when we wanna embrace folks.
Lorne Epstein: And I know before I've met people, I know I've had my backup. Either I've
Lorne Epstein: had a judgment about them and like no matter what they say, I'm probably going
Lorne Epstein: to judge them. But when I don't, that gives the opportunity, the space
Lorne Epstein: for for connection and intimacy, like not
Lorne Epstein: physical intimacy, like, you know, just that emotional
Lorne Epstein: intimacy. And sometimes I think what happens is
Lorne Epstein: that someone would meet, you know, someone meets
Lorne Epstein: me. And without me saying anything, I make the
Lorne Epstein: way I look or the way it triggers in them something to either be
Lorne Epstein: safe or not be safe. And that's where this gets really
Lorne Epstein: interesting, right? Like, so what is it about the person that you're about to see
Lorne Epstein: that triggers your sense of safety without them saying anything?
Lorne Epstein: Whether it's founded or unfounded. Because sometimes it could be founded. Like, I grew up
Lorne Epstein: in Brooklyn, and I know some streets. Like, if I was walking down the
Lorne Epstein: street, I would like I know it's scary. It's probably dangerous.
Lorne Epstein: But we still have that. Right. And we don't take a moment
Lorne Epstein: to pause and just kind of consider, like, what do I really know? What do
Lorne Epstein: I know about this person? Like, what can I say? Will they harm
Lorne Epstein: me? Can they harm me?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I don't know about you, Bai. I I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: we're we're we're effectively solopreneurs. We're we're we're we're we're we're
Joanne Lockwood: delivering. We're selling. We're relationship building. We're we're we're keeping our business
Joanne Lockwood: going. And we know that people buy from people,
Joanne Lockwood: so we've gotta be a people people first per person
Joanne Lockwood: in order to create relationships, in order to build trust, in order
Joanne Lockwood: to or is it so I I'm very conscious about and I I use
Joanne Lockwood: the expression as part of my my my sales pitch, if you like, about
Joanne Lockwood: creating positive people experiences. So what I'm trying to do is always
Joanne Lockwood: create a positive experience with people I meet, and that's
Joanne Lockwood: that's kind of how I try and encourage people to treat others.
Joanne Lockwood: If you go in with the end in mind and the end in mind is
Joanne Lockwood: a positive experience, then the journey is likely to
Joanne Lockwood: be with that as a destination. You're more likely to achieve it. If you go
Joanne Lockwood: in with a grumpy, frowny face, bit dismissive, not
Joanne Lockwood: interested, no eye contact, don't care about the other person's experience,
Joanne Lockwood: then it's not gonna go positively, generally.
Joanne Lockwood: So I say I always try and go into conversations with a warm, open
Joanne Lockwood: heart, a smiley, open expression, gauging to
Joanne Lockwood: try and treat everybody like an old best friend
Joanne Lockwood: even if I've met them for the first time. And it just creates that try
Joanne Lockwood: and focus on creating that warmth from the off,
Joanne Lockwood: really. Yeah. They Break down the barriers. Jo, I think that is that
Lorne Epstein: that's one of the keys is, like, you have a
Lorne Epstein: primary value. Right? The like, your values and your
Lorne Epstein: principles are what everything sits on. We all have values and principles. The things that
Lorne Epstein: don't change, the immutable. And you have a value of
Lorne Epstein: that. Right? So if that is your value, then of
Lorne Epstein: course you're going to come to the conversation in a particular
Lorne Epstein: way. Like I have a story I share in my
Lorne Epstein: workshop, right? Where where I walked into a store
Lorne Epstein: and a guy came up on my left, turns down the aisle. It was a
Lorne Epstein: drugstore. He reaches up, grabs something, and as he grabs it,
Lorne Epstein: everything comes tumbling down. And I see this, and
Lorne Epstein: I judged him harshly, really harshly. Right? And I
Lorne Epstein: keep walking. I realize he's behind me. I'm getting to the cashier.
Lorne Epstein: And in my mind, I'm thinking, and now I have to punish him. So what
Lorne Epstein: I'll do is I'll go slow. And this whole dialog in my head took
Lorne Epstein: about a second and a half. And as soon as I realized I wanted to
Lorne Epstein: harm him, I stopped. I stopped. And the only reason I
Lorne Epstein: stopped was because I have a bigger commitment to not
Lorne Epstein: harm people, like ever. Right. No matter what, I will not
Lorne Epstein: harm somebody consciously. Right. So I can be aware. So that kind
Lorne Epstein: of brought me out of my kind of my mind. And I was
Lorne Epstein: able to then ask myself questions like, 1, do
Lorne Epstein: I know he picked it up? No, I don't. Maybe he did. Maybe he was
Lorne Epstein: in a rush. Maybe he has a sick kid. Maybe I could have been helpful
Lorne Epstein: and let him get in front of me. And then I came to, does it
Lorne Epstein: even matter? And I'm like, no. It doesn't matter.
Lorne Epstein: You know, like, when I'm driving and people do crazy things, I just let it
Lorne Epstein: be because it doesn't matter. I don't beep. I
Lorne Epstein: don't react because it doesn't matter. Like, it's, you
Lorne Epstein: know, and so that's like and everyone has to kind of come to their
Lorne Epstein: own values and principles about how they want to be in the world and how
Lorne Epstein: they want to experience people and how they want to have people experience themselves.
Lorne Epstein: But I think generally speaking, we're social beings, right? We're here to
Lorne Epstein: be together. We're here to live and die together. We succeed
Lorne Epstein: together. Right. And that that kind of I
Lorne Epstein: think that's an immutable truth about human beings is when we
Lorne Epstein: tap into that, that we all want to do good. We all want to
Lorne Epstein: be cared for and loved and connected.
Lorne Epstein: Then whatever is true for us about that and however that principle evolves
Lorne Epstein: itself, manifests itself, then we have a world where
Lorne Epstein: people do feel like they belong. But you have to realize, I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: you obviously appreciate this, the person you were having that I've got
Joanne Lockwood: to police this person and and and tell them what I think.
Joanne Lockwood: They have their own perspective of that incident, as you say. They may have been
Joanne Lockwood: rushing. They may have a a sick person. They may not even notice. They didn't
Joanne Lockwood: realize they were doing it to you. They were in their own world. And so
Joanne Lockwood: your perspective of what occurred is different to theirs. They seemed to
Joanne Lockwood: their reality was different to yours. And as you said, most people are
Joanne Lockwood: kind by default. And it's a
Joanne Lockwood: difference in perspective or where where what's going on in the world
Joanne Lockwood: that that differentiates how you perceive something. And I think that's that's I always hold
Joanne Lockwood: that to heart. Yeah. I don't have to be right because I'm not always right.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not I don't I just have my perspective, and it's up to you.
Joanne Lockwood: Me telling you what I feel is, yeah, it's important sometimes, but I don't have
Joanne Lockwood: to win. I don't have to be right. Yeah. Those two things you said, I
Lorne Epstein: don't have to be right, I don't have to win, are key. Like, they
Lorne Epstein: are the steps. You have to embrace that. If you want to create
Lorne Epstein: belonging, you have to embrace that. And I think that comes either
Lorne Epstein: with, you know, maturity or wisdom, or you were lucky enough to be born in
Lorne Epstein: a culture where people didn't want to be right more than they wanted to be
Lorne Epstein: loved. But I know where I live. A lot of people just want to be
Lorne Epstein: right. I mean, I live in a world where people want to be right versus
Lorne Epstein: being loved. Right? You look at war, you look at poverty, you
Lorne Epstein: look at inequitable situations in our world. It's about people being
Lorne Epstein: right versus people being loving and kind.
Joanne Lockwood: The example I often give to people is I've I've been married for over 37
Joanne Lockwood: years, and you don't stay married but I wanted to be right.
Joanne Lockwood: Either of either of us either of us, you know. You don't say happily
Lorne Epstein: married. Oh, we are happy. Yeah. So happily married. If people could
Lorne Epstein: be unhappily married for 50 years, they'd just be tolerating each other.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Yeah. So you've got to if you're holding
Joanne Lockwood: holding that prisoner of of righteousness, and you
Joanne Lockwood: wanna say but you don't, yeah, maybe. But yeah. No. It's
Joanne Lockwood: having children, having you know, having maintaining relationships all your life. You know, you
Joanne Lockwood: you learn what's important and what's not important, and some
Joanne Lockwood: some conversations just aren't necessary. You don't have to have
Joanne Lockwood: that. You don't have to tell somebody what you believe, because it it won't
Joanne Lockwood: change what they believe. And, again, what you talk about what the world we're
Joanne Lockwood: living in right now, there's a lot of perceptions following
Joanne Lockwood: the, presidential election in the US and what's going on in other
Joanne Lockwood: parts of the world right now. What are you talking about?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. That that that that little incident that occurred in November. Yeah.
Lorne Epstein: Well, that's Oh. Yeah. I I know what you're talking about.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. The the earthquake. Yeah.
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. So there are a lot of perspectives. You know? I I I
Joanne Lockwood: as a as a Brit, most Brits I know can't understand
Joanne Lockwood: why anyone would vote in the way they did. Yet,
Joanne Lockwood: what, 75,000,000, 76,000,000 people did. So you have
Joanne Lockwood: to understand that there is a perspective out there that says this person
Joanne Lockwood: is the best person, and the other person wasn't. So I can't
Joanne Lockwood: just dismiss that and say 74,000,000 Americans are are stupid
Joanne Lockwood: because that's not the case. They're intelligent human beings. The case. Yeah.
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. Yeah. I mean so
Lorne Epstein: I think talking about that is,
Lorne Epstein: you know, a lot of things. So it I'm
Lorne Epstein: 5089, and so I was born in 65. And in my
Lorne Epstein: experience of America in that limited time, the
Lorne Epstein: the country economically had a huge boon after World War 2,
Lorne Epstein: where you had a lot of people in the country in what was called the
Lorne Epstein: middle class. And people could have good lives. I mean,
Lorne Epstein: just good lives where one person worked or, you know, like in the
Lorne Epstein: eighties, then it started getting worse when then 2 people had to work.
Lorne Epstein: And the people in the in the middle of the country or certain
Lorne Epstein: certain economic groups were not properly supported, not
Lorne Epstein: properly fed. We had an exodus of jobs. A lot of jobs left this
Lorne Epstein: country. And so all these things had an impact on
Lorne Epstein: people. Like, their lives are not better. Right? Even though some
Lorne Epstein: people's lives might be better because they were economically better
Lorne Epstein: off. But a lot of people's people in this country, it's like they're they're not
Lorne Epstein: better off. So, yeah, I mean, there's that reality. You can't deny that
Lorne Epstein: reality. You can't say that that's wrong because it's not
Lorne Epstein: right. And, I I have
Lorne Epstein: faith in people and in in
Lorne Epstein: America that we I think the worst thing we ever experienced was
Lorne Epstein: the civil war. I don't know the real civil war, right, where
Lorne Epstein: we had bifurcation of the country and we got through that. And I think
Lorne Epstein: we'll get through this and we'll be better off for it and the
Lorne Epstein: world will be better off for it. I I believe in people. Like, I believe
Lorne Epstein: because you you you can have ideas. I get that.
Lorne Epstein: But people bottom line, we wanna be loved. We want peace.
Lorne Epstein: People want to be cared for and safe. And that
Lorne Epstein: I think is going to pull us through. I know it's completely like people will
Lorne Epstein: be listening to this and saying that I'm an optimist, but I think
Lorne Epstein: I'm a realist because I think that's what human beings
Lorne Epstein: fundamentally are. And where I sit, I can look at the
Lorne Epstein: news, which is a really horrible filter to see the world through,
Lorne Epstein: because the news is filled with skews what's actually going on to
Lorne Epstein: benefit the news. Right? But when you when you get to meet as many people
Lorne Epstein: as you and I have, and Jo, you said you meet hundreds of people a
Lorne Epstein: month. Would you say most of the people you meet are good people?
Joanne Lockwood: Sure. For sure. Yeah. Right. And I imagine most of the people listening would be
Lorne Epstein: like, I'm a good person. I want to be a good person. So, like, that
Lorne Epstein: is my that is the pillar I stand on when I when I can say,
Lorne Epstein: you know, with a certain amount of confidence that we're gonna be great. It's gonna
Lorne Epstein: be great. Well, I I I go on
Joanne Lockwood: LinkedIn, as we do, and I see people who have
Joanne Lockwood: less than positive views about transgender people, people like
Joanne Lockwood: myself. And they're not bad people. They they have a
Joanne Lockwood: view. They have a a reason for them for their
Joanne Lockwood: belief that is based in their own lived experience, their own reference
Joanne Lockwood: points, their own needs. So it's it's just a they're not
Joanne Lockwood: trying to cause harm. They're just trying to create a world that
Joanne Lockwood: works in their image, if you like. I I I I'm trying to just create
Joanne Lockwood: a world that works in my image. So we just gotta reference the fact that
Joanne Lockwood: I I spent time looking at other their their posts about other things they talk
Joanne Lockwood: about, and you can see they're trying to do good in the world. Yeah. So
Joanne Lockwood: what you're gonna try and do is is is is is see the good in
Joanne Lockwood: people. We have a diff a different perspective on one one one
Joanne Lockwood: topic, but the goal is the same. Yeah.
Lorne Epstein: Spot on. Spot on. I mean, it for me, it was like 10 years ago,
Lorne Epstein: if you would have said, well, what is diversity? I would have been like, well,
Lorne Epstein: it's, you know, what I can see. You know, the skin color, your gender, your
Lorne Epstein: age. But like, oh my god. Now it's like a completely my mind has
Lorne Epstein: opened up. I have new distinctions. I know more that, you know, the things
Lorne Epstein: that I can see are more important. How we learn, how we deal with conflict,
Lorne Epstein: all of our styles are way more important as as far as
Lorne Epstein: like having a solid team or what we call diversity or a diverse
Lorne Epstein: workplace or an inclusive workplace. So language, I think, is really key. Like,
Lorne Epstein: if if if you're I think if anyone is suffering in the world,
Lorne Epstein: look at your language, look at your thinking, and kind of
Lorne Epstein: examine and see, like, what am I what do I know about what it is
Lorne Epstein: that I'm doing? And I think one of the one of my greatest one of
Lorne Epstein: my superpowers, I didn't write that down, is that I am truly a lifelong learner.
Lorne Epstein: Like, I'm getting a master's degree in cognitive neuroscience. And I got to tell you,
Lorne Epstein: sometimes I wonder why, because it's so freaking hard. Because it's
Lorne Epstein: because it's hard to make those new neural connections. It's hard to learn.
Lorne Epstein: It's hard to learn. Right? It's easier to not learn than it is to
Lorne Epstein: learn. But it's the only thing that will
Lorne Epstein: progress us, right, if we keep learning.
Lorne Epstein: And that takes work. So we we talk about these biases, and
Joanne Lockwood: and we also talked about perceptions and perspectives, and inherently we're
Joanne Lockwood: all kind. And how and we also talked about belonging.
Joanne Lockwood: How can we nudge people to become
Joanne Lockwood: awake, to be conscious about this? Yeah. That's a great
Lorne Epstein: question. I get that a lot. I mean, often, like, it my sponsor who's, like,
Lorne Epstein: the head of HR will bring me in and they'll be like, hey. My my
Lorne Epstein: executive team, they're so biased. Fix them. Okay. First off, people
Lorne Epstein: can't be fixed because one, they're not broken. And 2,
Lorne Epstein: like, when the best thing to do for any of this
Lorne Epstein: stuff is what I and I'll make it super, like like as
Lorne Epstein: simplistic as possible. Raise your own level
Lorne Epstein: awareness in every way possible. You can't raise
Lorne Epstein: someone else's level of where I I do this professionally. I am a
Lorne Epstein: facilitator. I can do this because I have done this for a long
Lorne Epstein: time, and I don't tell people anything. I just create a context.
Lorne Epstein: Right? So it's a very nuanced approach. Changing someone's mind
Lorne Epstein: is probably the hardest thing to do, but it's the hardest thing to
Lorne Epstein: do. And the best thing for you to do, if you're interested, if this
Lorne Epstein: is at all of interest to you, is to work on your own thinking.
Lorne Epstein: Is to be like, okay, in a week, I'm going to be thinking differently about
Lorne Epstein: something that I think about now. And now that is the
Lorne Epstein: way to have a world that works. And, you know, often that's
Lorne Epstein: what inspires other people. I know that to me
Lorne Epstein: is what inspires me. Like my mentor, when I read my mentor's book, I'm like,
Lorne Epstein: oh, yeah, this is this inspires me. I love this. Howard Ross is my mentor.
Lorne Epstein: He's been doing this kind of work for 30 years. And
Lorne Epstein: then, like, specific things are like, you know, like real basic things is to
Lorne Epstein: breathe. Right? You can just inhale, count to 4, hold your
Lorne Epstein: breath, count to 4, let it go, count to 4. You just do
Lorne Epstein: that whenever you feel like you're like. And
Lorne Epstein: it will what it does is it it shifts the energy from your
Lorne Epstein: amygdala, which is like your fear response center, to your prefrontal
Lorne Epstein: cortex. Right? So your prefrontal your your your amygdala gets
Lorne Epstein: triggered. It goes back to your hippocampus, brings that memory forward. You're in
Lorne Epstein: this state that you talked about before. That breathing
Lorne Epstein: will redirect your energy to your prefrontal cortex, which is where all the good decision
Lorne Epstein: making comes from. So those are like 2 things. Another thing I tell people do
Lorne Epstein: is stand up meetings. So there was this a group of surgical teams in
Lorne Epstein: Chicago, and and what they started doing was, you know, they
Lorne Epstein: come into the surgery, and and they go around the room and they'd say their
Lorne Epstein: name, and they'd say what they're doing. So it'd be like, my name's Lorne. I'm
Lorne Epstein: the anesthesiologist, and we're going to cut this guy's leg off. And you go around
Lorne Epstein: the room. Right? Like that real quick. And the reason they did that was because
Lorne Epstein: sometimes they would cut the guy's arm off. Right? And so
Lorne Epstein: in in a surgical room, that's really bad. But
Lorne Epstein: doing that, when teams have small teams have to make a decision, an important
Lorne Epstein: decision is to come together and have a quick,
Lorne Epstein: like, okay. What are we doing here? Like, particularly for interviewing, like, get
Lorne Epstein: together or, like, we're gonna hire somebody or we're gonna fire somebody or we're gonna
Lorne Epstein: promote somebody. Decisions where it's actually important. It's important
Lorne Epstein: to kind of come together really quickly and understand. And
Lorne Epstein: then the 3 things I think to remember for all, like, decision
Lorne Epstein: making that really has, I'm gonna add 4.
Lorne Epstein: These 4 things. 1 is timing. Right? So how much
Lorne Epstein: time you allot to make a choice is super
Lorne Epstein: important. And this isn't like I'm going to McDonald's or Burger King. This is,
Lorne Epstein: you know, investment choices, important choices,
Lorne Epstein: particularly repeatable ones, is to look at the outcome
Lorne Epstein: of a decision. And if it worked, look at how much time
Lorne Epstein: you gave yourself to make it or your team to make it and
Lorne Epstein: see if there's a trend. Right? So if there's a certain amount of time that
Lorne Epstein: works great, because we've all made decisions too quickly
Lorne Epstein: or taken too long. So timing is really important.
Lorne Epstein: And the second thing is information. So when we
Lorne Epstein: when we make decisions, we we make them based on what we know, tacit knowledge.
Lorne Epstein: Right? Except a lot of the times we make it decisions, big
Lorne Epstein: decisions based on information outside of us. The information that's coming to
Lorne Epstein: us, data that's coming to us. And that information has to
Lorne Epstein: have 2 components. 1, it has to only
Lorne Epstein: address the question that we're asking and no more
Lorne Epstein: because our human brain isn't really good with data and numbers.
Lorne Epstein: Right? Second thing is that it has to have ethic it has
Lorne Epstein: to have provenance. Like, is it true? Do we know it's true, whatever is coming
Lorne Epstein: to us? Is it true information, and does it address the
Lorne Epstein: question? Those are the 3 things. And then the 4th is our
Lorne Epstein: body. So our physical body is what how we
Lorne Epstein: function, how our brain works. Right? We like, for instance, if your if
Lorne Epstein: your tryptophan is low and your serotonin then goes down, you're not gonna make the
Lorne Epstein: best decisions. So are you hydrated? Are you rested? Are
Lorne Epstein: you like, is your physical body in the right state to make this really
Lorne Epstein: important decision? Because if it's not, then your brain will not
Lorne Epstein: operate optimally. So those four things are are
Lorne Epstein: really important around, like, kind of truths around decision making.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. One of the things I've always, excuse me,
Joanne Lockwood: tried to do is, check-in where people are at
Joanne Lockwood: because we can make assumptions about someone's
Joanne Lockwood: readiness to receive information or to communicate when,
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, we've gotta make sure that they're in the right headspace, if
Joanne Lockwood: they're feeling safe, they wanna they're ready to engage, their amygdala is
Joanne Lockwood: all fired up, ready to fight. Yeah, just checking on people sometimes,
Joanne Lockwood: and having that, how are you doing? What's going on in your life? Where are
Joanne Lockwood: you with this? Because if we don't do that, we're trying to meet logic with
Joanne Lockwood: emotion sometimes, or our readiness on 2 different planes, and we can end
Joanne Lockwood: up falling out because we're not ready to communicate. And so it's establishing those
Joanne Lockwood: communication channels first and then looking
Joanne Lockwood: for this positive outcome and being committed to the positive outcome. Even
Joanne Lockwood: if it even if it's a negative topic, it can still be delivered
Joanne Lockwood: with a positive outcome. Even make us so redundant or firing somebody,
Joanne Lockwood: they still respect you for the way you handled it. Yeah. A 100%. I
Lorne Epstein: think that's true, a 100%. And that takes a lot of work. Like, you you
Lorne Epstein: have to have, you know, the conversation before you have the conversation to make
Lorne Epstein: sure that you can have that conversation. Like, hey. When things aren't good,
Lorne Epstein: like, I always think, like, hey. It's not the the like, when things are great,
Lorne Epstein: everything's great. But I always ask, like, when I when I was working in corporate
Lorne Epstein: America, it's like, okay. What do we do when things don't work out? How How
Lorne Epstein: do we handle problems? Because that's when things go
Lorne Epstein: sideways, and that's when people feel bad.
Lorne Epstein: Or you could say something or do something that would make somebody feel bad. And,
Lorne Epstein: you know, that's like that's like good for work. That's not good for life. It
Joanne Lockwood: it's not. And I talk about having challenging conversations, and we have
Joanne Lockwood: thousands of conversations all the time. But we only remember or get anxious about the
Joanne Lockwood: ones that are challenging because they're out of our comfort zone. We're we're having to
Joanne Lockwood: either deliver bad news or correct something. And what what are we worried about?
Joanne Lockwood: We're worried about how the other person's gonna react. We don't we can't predict.
Joanne Lockwood: Or if we can predict, often we're scared to have those conversations. And,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, I often talk often talk about the the fear of
Joanne Lockwood: getting it wrong is this biggest barrier to inclusion, biggest
Joanne Lockwood: barrier to to world peace. We're so invested in our
Joanne Lockwood: own sense of rights, aren't we? Can I tell you that's so there could be
Lorne Epstein: more spot on? And and I think I know where it came from. I think
Lorne Epstein: it comes from high school. Like, I don't know what high school was like in
Lorne Epstein: England, but here in high school, and it doesn't happen before high
Lorne Epstein: school, but in high school, if I raise my hand to ask a question or
Lorne Epstein: had an answer and I got it right, what do you think my
Lorne Epstein: mates say? Party pants or
Joanne Lockwood: Exactly. Teachers pant. Yeah. If I raise my hand and I got it wrong,
Lorne Epstein: what did my mate say? Yeah. Idiot. Dunce. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So you're right. The last my primary institution of
Lorne Epstein: learning, the palace of learning, and I can't ask a
Lorne Epstein: question. I can't raise my hand because I'm always afraid. Fear of judgment,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? Yeah. Sorry. Fear of judgment. Fear of we're going to
Joanne Lockwood: be judged negatively. Yeah. And the fear of not belonging.
Joanne Lockwood: Not being alone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's where it all comes from.
Lorne Epstein: It's all comes from all that other that history stuff, that way back
Lorne Epstein: stuff. And if not high school, maybe before high school.
Joanne Lockwood: We talked about earlier about things we remember, things we don't remember.
Joanne Lockwood: We generally don't remember things we get right. It's things
Joanne Lockwood: we get wrong or things where we have to learn or change or
Joanne Lockwood: adapt. Those are the met those are the learning outcomes. Getting things right,
Joanne Lockwood: we could go on for half our life getting the same thing right every time
Joanne Lockwood: without realizing we're doing it until the one day we get it wrong, and we
Joanne Lockwood: go, ah, now I get it. Yeah.
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. Because when we were formed, the way our brains were formed was in a
Lorne Epstein: dangerous place where, you know, the outcome of you getting
Lorne Epstein: it wrong way back then was you die.
Lorne Epstein: Right? The outcome of you getting it right was kind of like, okay, whatever.
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. Like the stimulus was just so much stronger if you messed
Lorne Epstein: up. Yeah, and you know, what
Joanne Lockwood: child ever learns to walk first time with the first
Joanne Lockwood: step? They don't, they fall over, they bang their head, they scrape their knee. You
Joanne Lockwood: ride a bicycle, you fall off, you think I'm not going to do that
Joanne Lockwood: again. And you learn very quickly by making mistakes. We have to
Joanne Lockwood: create workplaces and society where people can
Joanne Lockwood: fail safely. Right. And you can see this in children. Like what I'm
Lorne Epstein: saying about where there's a transformation, where we're like, kids have no problem
Lorne Epstein: being wrong. If you ask a bunch of 4 year olds, how many of you
Lorne Epstein: can sing? They'll all raise their hand. You ask a bunch of 40 year olds,
Lorne Epstein: how many of them can sing? Maybe 1. Right?
Lorne Epstein: Everyone can sing, but kids are afraid of failing because no one judged
Lorne Epstein: them. They didn't have so you can see it somewhere in that development
Lorne Epstein: period where kids go from, like, being this joyful, lit
Lorne Epstein: up, exuberant, I'm just gonna be, like, whatever I am, to
Lorne Epstein: then, like, all of a sudden, buttoned up, shut down, controlled,
Lorne Epstein: scared. I don't want anyone to see me. I'm afraid of being judged.
Lorne Epstein: I mean, it's I'm laughing. It's I shouldn't laugh because it really is very sad.
Lorne Epstein: But you can see it. We can all see it. Even if you don't have
Lorne Epstein: kids, you can see kids. And at some point along their development, it
Lorne Epstein: just they become like the rest of
Lorne Epstein: us. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I went through a phase in my life where I was doing a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: karaoke, and I
Joanne Lockwood: can't sing well. I can sing, we can also, as you say, we can all
Joanne Lockwood: sing. I know I can't sing well. I was thrown out of the school choir
Joanne Lockwood: because I had a a very, bad tonality, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like. I I and that's how I sit with this bank, actually.
Joanne Lockwood: It was it was Chinese New Year Chinese New Year, and we were in Hong
Joanne Lockwood: Kong. And we went to the Hong Kong Bankers Club, and they had a a
Joanne Lockwood: karaoke night at the Hong Kong Bankers Club. And I remember standing on stage
Joanne Lockwood: singing something to this room full of bankers,
Joanne Lockwood: all all pretty drunk, And I just sung my heart.
Joanne Lockwood: I I and I've I'm a great I I do
Joanne Lockwood: karaoke quite often. I have no fear of being
Joanne Lockwood: terrible, but I love the ability to have
Joanne Lockwood: that freedom to express yourself and pour your heart into something
Joanne Lockwood: like no one's listening. And I think it's it's taught me to not get caught
Joanne Lockwood: up in your own fear of failure. Just go and sing karaoke
Joanne Lockwood: somewhere. No matter how much you hate doing it, go and do it. Shout at
Joanne Lockwood: the scream at the top of your voice on a straight corner, wherever it may
Joanne Lockwood: be. Just get it out there and overcome that fear.
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. I mean, the you know,
Lorne Epstein: fear is the is the thing to be afraid of. Right?
Lorne Epstein: The only thing that fear is fear itself. Right? That is the and and
Lorne Epstein: that stops us stops us from growing. It stops us from
Lorne Epstein: doing the right thing. Stops us from
Lorne Epstein: like things where, oh, I should say this to that person. Oh, no, I'm afraid
Lorne Epstein: that they may. Even though you, yeah.
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. And I guess one way to do it is to just freaking do it
Lorne Epstein: and, you know, balls out
Lorne Epstein: and have the experience. To say to
Joanne Lockwood: somebody, you'll be okay,
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't always fix the problem, does it? It's Yeah. It's so ingrained. I I I
Joanne Lockwood: talked to our our daughter about this, and she's got some anxieties. And so,
Joanne Lockwood: look, imagine yourself smiling and being proud
Joanne Lockwood: of yourself afterwards or every time you're going into something you're you're you have a
Joanne Lockwood: fear or anxiety about, capture that moment and capture how you
Joanne Lockwood: feel when you've done it, and then replay the difference that it was
Joanne Lockwood: unfounded. And it's all very well for me you have to have those coaching techniques,
Joanne Lockwood: but it's not so much not so easy for people to step up and and
Joanne Lockwood: and enact it. It still takes a, an open mindset and
Joanne Lockwood: growth mindset to do that. Yeah. That's true. And I think, like, if you
Lorne Epstein: really wanna give, like, okay, this is what I would do with someone,
Lorne Epstein: is start small. Right? Start in, you know, within their comfort zone
Lorne Epstein: and build confidence, because confidence can be built. Right? So that you
Lorne Epstein: can if if you're going from, I don't wanna be in front of people,
Lorne Epstein: start with, you know, being in front of 1 person. And
Lorne Epstein: then, you know, more people. Like, I wrote a book,
Lorne Epstein: some years ago. And I've been writing, as you know, all my life, and my
Lorne Epstein: teachers would read my writing. But when I gave my book to people, I was
Lorne Epstein: so embarrassed and ashamed because of the now
Lorne Epstein: now people could judge what I wrote. And it was
Lorne Epstein: just super scary. Right? I mean, it was just I didn't know how scary it
Lorne Epstein: was going to be. So I think, you know, that that happens where you just
Lorne Epstein: kind of fall into it or you can take small steps. You
Lorne Epstein: know, and figure out like, well, what can I do that is a little scary,
Lorne Epstein: but not as super scary? And keep building on that to build confidence. I mean,
Lorne Epstein: that's that's just a like you're talking about, like, what could people take away from
Lorne Epstein: this conversation? Now, there's no one answer for that, but
Lorne Epstein: that it's a way to approach the problem in general of
Lorne Epstein: fear, right? That we can overcome our fears.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think some of it is down to calibrating your sense
Joanne Lockwood: of success as well. Because Yeah. Yes. We can get hung up
Joanne Lockwood: with perfection. If we calibrate successes, no one's done. If you're if you're if
Joanne Lockwood: you're a pilot or a brain surgeon, nobody died. That's success, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, you may not have had the perfect outcome, but the person had a the
Joanne Lockwood: worst case was something this person was gonna die on the table. The best case
Joanne Lockwood: is they've got they've got a slight numbness in their face or something, or they've
Joanne Lockwood: got a numb finger still, but but, actually, on a scale of things, they're
Joanne Lockwood: alive. So success is relative, isn't it? It's a calibrate of success.
Lorne Epstein: Yeah. I'll share a recent failure that was that was really traumatic to
Lorne Epstein: me. So I got my first master's about 2 years ago.
Lorne Epstein: 2 years ago. 2 years ago. And I was I did so
Lorne Epstein: well, I was inducted into an honor society. I got As and A
Lorne Epstein: pluses. I started my master's in neuroscience a year and a half
Lorne Epstein: ago. I got As and A pluses. This semester, our midterm.
Lorne Epstein: Right? I was flying back from some place, and I came to the
Lorne Epstein: test tired and I flunked the midterm.
Lorne Epstein: Like, I had never failed. I haven't failed a test since I was in high
Lorne Epstein: school. And it was really difficult. I
Lorne Epstein: mean, it was like really I had a lot of shame and a lot of
Lorne Epstein: embarrassment and a lot of like, wow, like, I must be stupid
Lorne Epstein: and feeling judgment from the teacher, whether she had it or not.
Lorne Epstein: And so to move past it, I just took it
Lorne Epstein: more seriously, and I just studied harder. Like, I did more work. I did
Lorne Epstein: more work. And I, you know, I aced the final, which was last
Lorne Epstein: week. But it was stressful. And but I knew, like, Okay, just
Lorne Epstein: push through and push through. What was the worst thing that happened? Like, Okay, I'm
Lorne Epstein: not going to fail the class. But look at where the for me, it was
Lorne Epstein: like looking in the when I was in high school or before then, failing
Lorne Epstein: classes, not doing well, feeling my parents' judgment and
Lorne Epstein: all that. That was still there. Even after
Lorne Epstein: getting great grades, it's still there. You mentioned your book, wanting that to
Joanne Lockwood: be perfect and a a testament to your your knowledge. How
Joanne Lockwood: did you overcome that? So I write my book
Lorne Epstein: about the time that I meet my wife. And my mother-in-law
Lorne Epstein: is a published author, and my father-in-law is a seriously published author and my
Lorne Epstein: wife is a published author. So when my wife and I met, she said the
Lorne Epstein: first thing she said on our first date was like, don't Google me. And I'm
Lorne Epstein: like, Okay, like, all right, fine. This is 2,005. So
Lorne Epstein: I meet her like 2 minutes later. I come to her house. Her
Lorne Epstein: mother's there. And she's like, Oh, mom, Lauren wrote a book. And she
Lorne Epstein: pulls my book off the bookshelf and her mother grabs it and she's standing in
Lorne Epstein: front of me. And remember, I was already feeling nervous about people reading my
Lorne Epstein: book and my my future mother-in-law is now thumbing through my book in
Lorne Epstein: front of me. It was I will never forget that. It was so
Lorne Epstein: uncomfortable, you know, because after that, I read it again and I
Lorne Epstein: saw all the mistakes and the grammar errors and stuff and like, you know,
Lorne Epstein: so so it was a real growth. Like, it was an opportunity
Lorne Epstein: to kind of be real with, like, okay, no matter how bad it is, it's
Lorne Epstein: just gonna be what it is. Right? It's just what it is.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Because I I've been hung up about I've got a couple of books in
Joanne Lockwood: me, and I've kind of been hung up on the
Joanne Lockwood: fear of judgment because, as you say, it's published. It's out there. You can't good
Joanne Lockwood: thing about talking and speaking for a living is is transient. You know? Once it's
Joanne Lockwood: gone, it's gone. And but one of the books I'm trying to
Joanne Lockwood: I'm I'm in the middle of writing at the moment is based on the podcast
Joanne Lockwood: series, so trying to create poetry using AI from the podcast. And my
Joanne Lockwood: mom is really into poetry. She's in poetry groups. She writes
Joanne Lockwood: poems. She's been a real kind of consider I I I would
Joanne Lockwood: consider quite a a knowledgeable person around poetry.
Joanne Lockwood: So I I I sent her a draft of of this of my book,
Joanne Lockwood: which is 300 pages, 150 ish poems based with
Joanne Lockwood: based on the podcast series. And all I
Joanne Lockwood: wanted her to really say to me was, yeah. It's okay. I wanted to say
Joanne Lockwood: I I wanted to know if she'd read a few, and she felt like she
Joanne Lockwood: could read a few more. That's what I was interested in being. I didn't wanna
Joanne Lockwood: expect her to read the entire book. As she came back and she gave me
Joanne Lockwood: some poetry books, She said, I what I think you should do is you should
Joanne Lockwood: read some of these poetry books because they'll give you an idea of how to
Joanne Lockwood: structure poems and the yeah. Some of the I said, mom, you missed the point.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not gonna rewrite these poems. I'm not I'm not after that level of feedback.
Joanne Lockwood: All I wanna know is, is the book shit
Joanne Lockwood: or not? That's all I wanna know. Yeah. Is it is it is
Joanne Lockwood: it good enough? I don't mean it it doesn't wanna be a masterpiece. And she
Joanne Lockwood: said, well, it'd be better off if you remove the capital letters at the front
Joanne Lockwood: of some of the sentences. I said, look, it's it's written by AI. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not gonna edit the AI. The whole idea is I'm gonna give you raw AI
Joanne Lockwood: content, and that's the USP of the book. It's written by AI, unashamedly.
Joanne Lockwood: No. I'm not trying to human touch it too much. Right. So I
Joanne Lockwood: ended up having to take the books about poetry from my mom because she got
Joanne Lockwood: a bit offended, but I I wouldn't take her advice. So I've got them on
Joanne Lockwood: my shelf over there. So I'm gonna have to flick through them because I'm gonna
Joanne Lockwood: see it at the weekend. She'll say, how do you get one of the poetry
Joanne Lockwood: books? Oh, yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Of the United
Lorne Epstein: States was written by very educated men,
Lorne Epstein: and it has grammar mistakes. It has
Lorne Epstein: errors in capitalization, in punctuation, in
Lorne Epstein: ambiguous, in all sorts of, like, spelling words differently.
Lorne Epstein: Redundancy. I mean, it's not like a well written document from, like,
Lorne Epstein: what someone who was an English person would say. But it is the founding document
Lorne Epstein: of this country, which is, you know, a great democracy.
Lorne Epstein: That's like, you know, then read the Bible. Right? The Bible's got lots of
Lorne Epstein: usually has lots of grammar mistakes. Well, and and
Joanne Lockwood: conflicts of, of opinions and things. Yes. It's it's full
Joanne Lockwood: of contrand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So But it's
Lorne Epstein: Unless everyone's gonna read your book, don't worry about it. Alright? No. And and I'm
Lorne Epstein: not gonna but that but that's kind of my what I've kind of come to
Joanne Lockwood: realize is I don't necessarily have a want to publish a book for you to
Joanne Lockwood: read it. I wanna publish a book so I've got one. Yes. That's the objective.
Joanne Lockwood: So I I've calibrated my my my success on having a book
Joanne Lockwood: is having a book. Not that you not
Joanne Lockwood: that the whole world thinks it's a masterpiece. So I've calibrated
Joanne Lockwood: doing it as being success. And maybe the set
Joanne Lockwood: the second book, maybe I'll calibrate that to being, I've done it, and it's
Joanne Lockwood: I'm proud of it, and etcetera, etcetera. CTO, the now that you've said
Lorne Epstein: that, I am, like, so interested in
Lorne Epstein: reading your book. I was I'm doing it. I'm
Lorne Epstein: like, actually, because I wanna how off was Jo's
Lorne Epstein: perception of her writing versus my experience of her
Lorne Epstein: writing? Yeah. Well, actually,
Joanne Lockwood: I'll send you I'll send you a draft copy. And if it actually, if you
Joanne Lockwood: listen to this podcast, you'll be able to you'll be able to download
Joanne Lockwood: it off of, Amazon or wherever very soon. But,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I'll send you I'll send you I'll send you a draft. Yeah. Love that.
Joanne Lockwood: It's unashamedly, it's mostly written by AI,
Joanne Lockwood: and, you know, I I don't I cannot make it quite
Joanne Lockwood: clear. But you were the prompt engineer? Oh, yeah. I I was the prompt
Joanne Lockwood: engineer. I've curated it. I've fed it. I have tweaked it. I've tweaked the prompts.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Completely. It's it's it's my it's my voice in there. It's
Joanne Lockwood: it's definitely my voice. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Which is I think that, like, if
Lorne Epstein: we were gonna end the conversation of, like, people get to find their
Lorne Epstein: voice and use their voice and be powerful, because every human being is
Lorne Epstein: powerful. Every human being has an amazing
Lorne Epstein: contribution to this world that we live in.
Lorne Epstein: I think that's really the the bottom line of what I want. I think it's
Lorne Epstein: probably the bottom line of what you want And how we can make the
Lorne Epstein: world better is everyone living of their best self, their their true
Lorne Epstein: authentic self. And that feeds back into
Joanne Lockwood: belonging. We have a purpose. We have a valued. We're we're
Joanne Lockwood: we're credible. People respect us. We have we have something
Joanne Lockwood: more than just ourselves. I think that's that's the belongingness where we feel part of
Joanne Lockwood: society, part of our family, part of our workplace. And you
Joanne Lockwood: say exactly what you're saying there. That's that's that's where we want to feel, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? Belonging. And I want I want to acknowledge you or Jill, because like
Lorne Epstein: you, we don't talk a lot, but I see you on LinkedIn, and I've
Lorne Epstein: gotten glimpses of your show. And I appreciate
Lorne Epstein: that you are standing in the gap,
Lorne Epstein: Like where we are and where we could be
Lorne Epstein: around every human being feeling included, experiencing including
Lorne Epstein: inclusion. I think that's great because it takes a lot of courage. I mean,
Lorne Epstein: it takes a lot of courage, takes a lot of faith, takes a lot of
Lorne Epstein: effort, energy, money, time. Right. But
Lorne Epstein: really, it takes the core of who you are, which is your your values and
Lorne Epstein: your principles to say, Okay, I'm going to do this. And there's nothing else I
Lorne Epstein: could do because you could do other things, right, Jo? Like you could do other
Lorne Epstein: things. Right? But you don't. Completely. Yeah. But you
Lorne Epstein: do this. Right? And I think people who do this kind of work, who
Lorne Epstein: stand in the gap between where we are as where they think we are,
Lorne Epstein: where we feel we are, to where we could be, I think that is
Lorne Epstein: that's, like, the best work. Lorne, we've been chatting away for over an hour now.
Joanne Lockwood: And, we met in the green room. We had a good chat there as well.
Joanne Lockwood: It's been absolutely fantastic. Yeah. And a privilege, as I said
Joanne Lockwood: at the beginning, a privilege to have this conversation. I think your time to
Joanne Lockwood: share your thoughts and perspectives, and I've I've loved reconnecting with you, and it's been
Joanne Lockwood: amazing. So, how do people get hold of you?
Lorne Epstein: Well, so I guess the the period is I so I've really kind of focused
Lorne Epstein: on working with hospitals, in that I provide medical
Lorne Epstein: education credits and to doctors, nurses. They can go to my
Lorne Epstein: website, which is lorneepstein.com. That's the best way to
Lorne Epstein: reach me. You know, I do these workshops. I have a learning
Lorne Epstein: platform where people can come and just do the workshops, like, 247, and
Lorne Epstein: we're constantly adding to the content. You know, everything we do is academically
Lorne Epstein: based and, has efficacy. So I love working with people. I
Lorne Epstein: and it's funny because when I went to HR Vision, like, I had this idea.
Lorne Epstein: Oh, wow. Like, I do work in Europe. That'd be kinda cool. So I don't
Lorne Epstein: know. Do most people who listen to your show, are they European?
Joanne Lockwood: I would say predominantly European, but I I've got I've got guests from the
Joanne Lockwood: US, from Australia, from across the world. So, yeah, predominantly, I would say
Joanne Lockwood: European. Yeah. English speaking European. People I mean, I'm sure there'll be a link
Lorne Epstein: here, but I wanted to just kinda tee up that Jo has told me
Lorne Epstein: that in a couple of episodes, this show is
Lorne Epstein: gonna contain video, which is really
Lorne Epstein: exciting. So after a 150 shows is this right, Jo? That's
Joanne Lockwood: right. We're gonna go we're gonna go video from a 151 onwards. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So you can see the people who she's talking to.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's cool. That's cool. Bring it bring it to life because,
Joanne Lockwood: if you're listening to this, we can see each other. We've got we've got cameras
Joanne Lockwood: on, and we're making gestures to each other. And I think what we're doing
Joanne Lockwood: is, yes, radio and audio is a great medium for people who
Joanne Lockwood: are running, jogging, whatever, but, I wanna attract a new audience
Joanne Lockwood: now who are watching, whether it's shorts, TikToks,
Joanne Lockwood: reels, whatever it may be, or long form, just creating a a
Joanne Lockwood: different sort of engagement. And that's that's the that's that's phase 2.
Lorne Epstein: Everything. Yeah. Like, in our conversation like you would with anybody, like, when you're saying
Lorne Epstein: things that I agree with, I noticed my head's bobbing up and down, and I'm
Lorne Epstein: like, yes. Yes. Yes. Pointing to, like, yes. That's exactly what you should be saying.
Lorne Epstein: That's exactly right. And that really does add to the conversation.
Lorne Epstein: Mhmm. Plus they can see my beautiful wife. See the that's my beautiful wife. Yes.
Joanne Lockwood: I did wonder who that that was behind you. Yeah. Excellent. My wife
Lorne Epstein: stopped the Pan American Highway from going through Panama. She lived with the indigenous
Lorne Epstein: people in the Darien Gap in the jungles for 4 years
Lorne Epstein: and helped them stop the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
Lorne Epstein: from funding this road that was going to go through the Darien Gap. And it
Lorne Epstein: still doesn't go through the Darien Gap, and that's because of her, my rock
Lorne Epstein: star woman. Alicia? That's her claim to fame, that,
Joanne Lockwood: human contribution to the world. I thought Mary made me a
Lorne Epstein: contribution. Yeah. Mary made me a she she basically protected everyone else
Lorne Epstein: from me, so I think that was her. Oh, she sounds like
Joanne Lockwood: a real hero, and maybe she'd like to come on the podcast and talk about
Joanne Lockwood: her work in the, in the, in saving that part of the world then. Oh
Lorne Epstein: my goodness. It's a great story. Yeah. She's lovely. She's she talks on values and
Lorne Epstein: culture because she knows all about it. I'm gonna I'll tap
Joanne Lockwood: you up after we hang up here and, and get her details and see if
Joanne Lockwood: you could persuade her to come and have a chat with me. Maybe maybe she
Joanne Lockwood: she'll be one of my first video guests. Who knows? Yeah. It'd be fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: Thank you, Jolene. Thank you so much. It's been absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: a blast. Thank you so much. And let me it goes to the outro. Thank
Joanne Lockwood: you so much. As we bring this
Joanne Lockwood: conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest
Joanne Lockwood: gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your
Joanne Lockwood: ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
Joanne Lockwood: Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing
Joanne Lockwood: community, driving real change. Share this journey with
Joanne Lockwood: friends, family, and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices
Joanne Lockwood: that matter. Got thoughts, stories, or a
Joanne Lockwood: vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: and let's make your voice heard. Until next time. This
Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return
Joanne Lockwood: with more enriching narratives that challenge,
Joanne Lockwood: inspire, and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive
Joanne Lockwood: world, one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.