Heather Egginton: Foreign.
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? Remember, everyone
Joanne Lockwood: not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone.
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Joanne Lockwood: to 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 Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 168 with the title
Joanne Lockwood: Corrupting the Norm With Love. And I have the absolute
Joanne Lockwood: honour and privilege to welcome Heather Egginton. Heather is a
Joanne Lockwood: disruptor of the Norm and a truth, trust and love
Joanne Lockwood: activator, passionate about creating deeper human connections
Joanne Lockwood: in an often disconnected world. When I asked Heather
Joanne Lockwood: to describe her superpower, she said it is the ability to bring
Joanne Lockwood: strangers together and leaving them feel truly
Joanne Lockwood: connected. Wow. Hello, Heather, welcome to the show. Hello,
Heather Egginton: Joanne. Thank you so much for having me.
Joanne Lockwood: Absolute pleasure. This is a return visit. I. Marie, actually my wife
Joanne Lockwood: Marie and I came on your show back in January, I think it was.
Heather Egginton: Yes, you came on. It was such an amazing conversation.
Heather Egginton: It was the wealth of you two and you were the
Heather Egginton: one first couple that I went live with. It was
Heather Egginton: amazing. We talked about my gender
Joanne Lockwood: transition, we talked about how Marie coped with that. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: that's online and I'll signpost that in the show notes if you want to listen
Joanne Lockwood: to that as well, that'd be fantastic. So, Heather,
Joanne Lockwood: you describe yourself as the Truth, Trust and love activator.
Joanne Lockwood: Can you describe what that means to you and how it shapes the way you
Joanne Lockwood: connect with people? Firstly, Joanne, thank you. I know I'm
Heather Egginton: giggling a lot. We've had such fun before we
Heather Egginton: even got on to actually recording, so I'm just trying to rein in my.
Heather Egginton: My giggles and so my. I guess what
Heather Egginton: being a truth, Trust and love activator is all about is
Heather Egginton: really, in my company, that is
Heather Egginton: automatically what happens. There are people around
Heather Egginton: me that cannot lie. They seem to find themselves
Heather Egginton: trusting themselves more to be honest. Right self
Heather Egginton: honest and be honest with what's going on with them
Heather Egginton: and. And through that they just love themselves more. Because they
Heather Egginton: can see how much beauty there is inside them. Is
Heather Egginton: just one of my superpowers. We all have
Heather Egginton: them. It's just not always easy to really recognise,
Heather Egginton: without us doing anything, what our actual powerful presence really
Heather Egginton: creates for other people just by being ourselves. It's
Joanne Lockwood: interesting what you say there about the truth. The truth, and it starts
Joanne Lockwood: as you. I think you're right. It starts with ourselves. Because if we're not careful,
Joanne Lockwood: what we find ourselves doing is creating our own
Joanne Lockwood: lie, which then becomes our. Which then becomes a version of
Joanne Lockwood: our truth, doesn't it? If we're not careful, it's that inauthenticity, it's
Joanne Lockwood: that pretence with the world that get either scared to come out
Joanne Lockwood: or you're not prepared to face up to something. So you create this new normal
Joanne Lockwood: for yourself and that becomes your story if you're not careful. Yeah.
Heather Egginton: It's like an illusion really, Joanne, Sometimes. And
Heather Egginton: look, it's not even something maybe we consciously do. It might be
Heather Egginton: unconsciously something that we kind of lead and live our life
Heather Egginton: with and through and view the world through that's actually not
Heather Egginton: even ours. Not most of the time. The lies we tell ourselves or
Heather Egginton: inherited from past generations,
Heather Egginton: significant adults in our life that have also gone through the same experience
Heather Egginton: kind of had to try and make themselves be something they're not just in order
Heather Egginton: to fit in or belong or all of those things. So it's
Heather Egginton: actually something that we've inherited and it's not even ours.
Heather Egginton: However, it does mean that taking
Heather Egginton: radical responsibility, I guess, for what we're not willing to
Heather Egginton: continue lying to ourselves about or lying to other people about. Right.
Heather Egginton: You know, a good example of this, and this is some of the
Heather Egginton: work I do, is the wealth of Women programme that I run. A good
Heather Egginton: example of this is we've been led to believe that you're not a woman
Heather Egginton: unless you or you're not don't feel. Shouldn't feel complete as a
Heather Egginton: woman unless you've had children. Right. And that's a lie. However,
Heather Egginton: consciously or unconsciously we tell ourselves, I have no children,
Heather Egginton: hands up, have fur babies, have two rescue doggies.
Heather Egginton: And. And I was led to believe that I was incomplete. And also
Heather Egginton: women said to me, I'm really sorry to hear that you can't have children.
Heather Egginton: And it's just like, nobody said I couldn't have children. They just weren't in my
Heather Egginton: path. Right. So just a good example of
Heather Egginton: where really we maybe are
Heather Egginton: delusioned into thinking that there's something wrong with us if we haven't
Heather Egginton: gone the same way as other people have and it's not true.
Heather Egginton: It's just not true. So it's just a good example. Yeah. I don't think
Joanne Lockwood: having children has to define you. Okay, yes, it's a
Joanne Lockwood: significant life event that occupies your
Joanne Lockwood: primary brain for at least 20 odd years and then it's still in the back
Joanne Lockwood: of your brain even now. So our children are in their 30s,
Joanne Lockwood: so we've been through that ultimate responsibility phase
Joanne Lockwood: and that hanger on phase and all those kind of phases. But now
Joanne Lockwood: we're not post children, we're post worrying about children.
Joanne Lockwood: And so having children no longer defines who we are.
Joanne Lockwood: They're a fantastic part of our lives and people we
Joanne Lockwood: love and treasure, but they're not what they were 20 years
Joanne Lockwood: ago. So it's a transient phase. And when you talk about having children
Joanne Lockwood: defines you, it's a transient phase. You become
Joanne Lockwood: an active parent to being a kind of a long lost parent or they don't
Joanne Lockwood: need you anymore. So yeah, I think it's. But I also see what,
Joanne Lockwood: how I'm now able to support my own mum who's in her
Joanne Lockwood: late 80s now and she's. Our father passed away. My
Joanne Lockwood: father passed away a couple of months ago and so helping her through this
Joanne Lockwood: transition from being married, although my father was in the nursing home,
Joanne Lockwood: to being a now a widower,
Joanne Lockwood: single again and trying to reclaim our own independence and own
Joanne Lockwood: identity around that is a really interesting journey and
Joanne Lockwood: I hope I teach our children about
Joanne Lockwood: how I've had to help my mum adjust to this
Joanne Lockwood: so that they'll be there for either me or Marie at that point when
Joanne Lockwood: we become a widow. So I think, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's important to learn that transition, I think. But
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, as you say, it doesn't define me. I just know that I've got
Joanne Lockwood: hopefully two children who will look after me later.
Joanne Lockwood: I've banked up that old age pension support
Joanne Lockwood: credit. I love it. Sparky's just
Heather Egginton: woken up. I'm not sure that tin dogs would be able to support me
Heather Egginton: when I get into my elderly years. However, they
Heather Egginton: fully support me now Right. In bringing out the best of
Heather Egginton: me now. And I would say, you know, speaking to that
Heather Egginton: Joanne, firstly, sorry to hear about you losing your father a few months
Heather Egginton: ago and please send my love to your mother.
Heather Egginton: This is a really harsh statement to make, so
Heather Egginton: forgive me if this is a bit triggery, but. But ultimately we don't
Heather Egginton: necessarily mourn the person that we've lost. We actually
Heather Egginton: mourn the identity that person gave us. Yeah, I can
Joanne Lockwood: Relate to that. I mean, my relationship with my father wasn't great. And
Joanne Lockwood: it surprised me how much I was emotionally
Joanne Lockwood: connected to his passing, given that I had very little time
Joanne Lockwood: for him when he was alive. And it was, you say, I think as you
Joanne Lockwood: write, it's clinging onto that identity of him being a father
Joanne Lockwood: and me being a child and just that, that break
Joanne Lockwood: of the. That bond, if you like, in the living. And
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I think you summed up really well there. It hit me more than I
Joanne Lockwood: thought. Yeah. And it is. People
Heather Egginton: find it really surprising they could have no real
Heather Egginton: contact with a particular relative or friend and then they find
Heather Egginton: out they've passed and it really hits them. And it is generally
Heather Egginton: on a. I would say, depending on the person. Right. Because
Heather Egginton: I believe currently that we are all the
Heather Egginton: same, yet we're just living on different timelines. Right. So depending
Heather Egginton: on the person, on average, I would say
Heather Egginton: me personally, I probably go through
Heather Egginton: the loss, let's say, of an identity every two or three,
Heather Egginton: three weeks. And what happens with that is the, what I call
Heather Egginton: it, and this is a lot of my work with individuals, private
Heather Egginton: work with individuals, is about getting them to, I guess,
Heather Egginton: navigate and lead themselves through the grief
Heather Egginton: relief, disbelief and belief cycle. So.
Heather Egginton: And that's what we experience when we lose somebody that we love
Heather Egginton: very, very much, whether we're really connected to. To them or not. And even when
Heather Egginton: we don't really love them that much. But it was what they gave us. You
Heather Egginton: know, the identity is, is, you know, we go through the, the
Heather Egginton: kind of the disbelief that someone's actually not here anymore. Right. And then we kind
Heather Egginton: of feel that grief of. And we grieve what was.
Heather Egginton: Right, what was before, that's no longer the same.
Heather Egginton: And then we go through that kind of phase of relief. It's
Heather Egginton: like, oh, now there's this thing that's leaving us these
Heather Egginton: feelings that have probably given us a bit of dark days. And then we come
Heather Egginton: out the other side in belief when we see that this
Heather Egginton: person's not gone, they actually live on through us. And that
Heather Egginton: is really powerful when we kind of get to that place. And
Heather Egginton: it's not always in the space that I've done it. Right. So it can
Heather Egginton: take people a couple of three years if it's someone they've lived with on a
Heather Egginton: daily basis. But it's just once, silly. Once somebody
Heather Egginton: knows that's the kind of thing they're going to go through, that
Heather Egginton: there's almost a little bit of peace that's found there. Really.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I just think about how My mum describes it
Joanne Lockwood: that if my father was in the nursing home for over two years, so she
Joanne Lockwood: was very used to living alone, getting on with life.
Joanne Lockwood: She used to visit him sometimes two or three times a week for an hour
Joanne Lockwood: at a time, and she'd always save up things that she wanted to
Joanne Lockwood: tell him on the next visit, so she always had something to talk about, because
Joanne Lockwood: obviously his life was four walls and a window in the distance
Joanne Lockwood: and he could probably see the same tree, the same building, and that's all he
Joanne Lockwood: could see. So his life had no depth to it. It was
Joanne Lockwood: very transactional. Eat, get changed, cleaned
Joanne Lockwood: up, sleep, get up, not even get up, sit up,
Joanne Lockwood: have dinner and then food, sleep, repeat sort of thing.
Joanne Lockwood: So she used to save all these things up. And she said that the strange
Joanne Lockwood: thing is that she keeps thinking, oh, I must tell dad that, or I must
Joanne Lockwood: tell dad that. And that's the biggest thing she finds, is that
Joanne Lockwood: habit of interaction, I suppose. I was heavily involved last
Joanne Lockwood: year with sorting out some issues around his medication,
Joanne Lockwood: his wellbeing. He had some reactions to medication and
Joanne Lockwood: infection, which meant his personality change really, really
Joanne Lockwood: badly for the worse. And so I was dealing with care home issues,
Joanne Lockwood: being hidden issues type thing with
Joanne Lockwood: old people's mental health, those kind of events. So it's a real.
Joanne Lockwood: I got really, really engaged in this for about two months, really trying to sort
Joanne Lockwood: this out. And we got him onto this really nice level playing field where it
Joanne Lockwood: was really fine. And then, then he started to decline. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: almost like could have done with another six months of him
Joanne Lockwood: being really a really nice person again, having had all that trauma in the
Joanne Lockwood: summer. So, yeah, it is strange. It's strange you
Joanne Lockwood: become very invested in that relationship, even though,
Joanne Lockwood: as I say, even though it's strange for me and my mum still sees it
Joanne Lockwood: as well. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: grief is strange. You were talking earlier about
Joanne Lockwood: these layers of truth and as you were talking, I was thinking about
Joanne Lockwood: Breaking Bad at the series, for example, where
Joanne Lockwood: Walter, his truth got away from him, didn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? He kept laying and laying and laying all these different events
Joanne Lockwood: and then he found he couldn't go backwards. The only way he could dig himself
Joanne Lockwood: out was to dig deeper. And sometimes when you're
Joanne Lockwood: inventing these truths or the language you're telling yourself
Joanne Lockwood: who you are, you can become so engrossed in that. It's hard
Joanne Lockwood: to find your way back to the truth again, isn't it? I've not never watched
Heather Egginton: Breaking Bad. I don't know what you were referring to,
Heather Egginton: but I think what you were referring to is the layers that we place on
Heather Egginton: our. The layers that we have to kind of work through or
Heather Egginton: keep up with and remember. Oh no, but I
Heather Egginton: said I'm that type of person and now I'm with this person and I can't
Heather Egginton: remember what person I am with this person person. And so we add all these
Heather Egginton: extra layers. I think that's what you're describing. Yeah. If you've
Joanne Lockwood: seen EastEnders, I don't know if you're an EastEnders fan, but you had
Joanne Lockwood: a recent character called Rhys and he became a serial
Joanne Lockwood: killer and one problem at a time
Joanne Lockwood: got away from him and he kept rationalising what
Joanne Lockwood: he had to do based on the disaster of a situation he was
Joanne Lockwood: in, rather than going back and going back 10 paces and going,
Joanne Lockwood: if I don't take the left hand fork here and go right, things will
Joanne Lockwood: be okay, even though they're tricky. But that's what we do. We make this poor
Joanne Lockwood: decision and we can't go back, can we? We find it very difficult to
Joanne Lockwood: reverse out of that one way street. Yeah, it can be
Heather Egginton: like that. I think also a lot of. Joanne, you
Heather Egginton: know, as much as I don't watch telly, you know, that's why a lot of
Heather Egginton: people are, let's say AKA and maybe addicted to like theories
Heather Egginton: and soaps and, and characters identities within
Heather Egginton: these dramas, right? Because what they do is they so much see
Heather Egginton: themselves that it could be there, right? That they
Heather Egginton: could get to that place where they do something that's a bit criminal
Heather Egginton: and they're like, how did I even get to this place? And it's just like,
Heather Egginton: well, one lie after another just led to this, right?
Heather Egginton: So ultimately for us to understand
Heather Egginton: within ourselves that, that there are these
Heather Egginton: greater forces just as there are the
Heather Egginton: powers that be, the universe, God, whatever kind of
Heather Egginton: terminology, there's also these other greater forces that
Heather Egginton: come and try and take you out when you are really living
Heather Egginton: and leading in your truth, right? And it's being able to
Heather Egginton: discern between is that my truth or is that something
Heather Egginton: else? And it's really powerful. The questions
Heather Egginton: sometimes that I find myself asking, personal
Heather Egginton: one to one clients, is that like, is this really true for
Heather Egginton: you, right, or is this another reality
Heather Egginton: that you have maybe been witnessing or
Heather Egginton: that you have been led to believe is yours in truth,
Heather Egginton: like is it yours? Right? And it is quite
Heather Egginton: a grounding question for the reason that you've just described with the
Heather Egginton: characters in the TV shows. Because it does force
Heather Egginton: somebody, the energy disruption there, like the norm disruptor,
Heather Egginton: right? From my perspective, it does force Somebody to ask themselves
Heather Egginton: and question themselves a lot deeper than the
Heather Egginton: maybe others have before. Right. I
Heather Egginton: like to play the why game. And I've done it with
Heather Egginton: all amount different level of clients. So they're millionaires,
Heather Egginton: CEOs, entrepreneurs. Right.
Heather Egginton: And it's five whys. Yeah. So someone would come
Heather Egginton: with something that they want to create, let's say, and birth
Heather Egginton: into the world. And then we play the why game with it. We're like, well,
Heather Egginton: why? Is that really important to you? Why? Right. And it. I mean, it is
Heather Egginton: a little bit intrusive, I'm not gonna lie.
Heather Egginton: And it is annoying as well, because I play it with myself. Right. And it
Heather Egginton: gets frustrating. But. But once we get to the root of why someone wants
Heather Egginton: to create something, it's really powerful because they can see what it's
Heather Egginton: rooted in. And if it's rooted in truth, brilliant. If it's rooted in
Heather Egginton: love and trust, brilliant. But if it's not, it's like, well, that
Heather Egginton: is not yours. You know, you're trying to create,
Heather Egginton: let's say, in a false reality that's not actually yours.
Heather Egginton: So it is really. I love that you've gone down this path. Have no idea.
Heather Egginton: Can we say, whoever's tuning in, we did not know where this was
Heather Egginton: going to go. Right. So I appreciate your inquiries so much.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And it happens, you know, it's almost like that we
Joanne Lockwood: were too afraid to tell the truth. That, you know, we're
Joanne Lockwood: talking about that path left and right. Whatever reason it is, there's
Joanne Lockwood: either shame, guilt, fear, whatever it is, causes us
Joanne Lockwood: to want to take the path of easy. The easiest path, the one with less
Joanne Lockwood: stigma attached to it. Less fear, less truth. How will I
Joanne Lockwood: be judged? Whether we're having an affair, whether we've messed up
Joanne Lockwood: at work, pushed the wrong button by mistake. You know, when you connect the
Joanne Lockwood: first time earlier, I cut you off because I pressed the red
Joanne Lockwood: X instead of the green tick. And you said, oh, it didn't work. I could
Joanne Lockwood: have just said to you, oh, that's strange. I don't know why that happened. I
Joanne Lockwood: went. I thought I might have pressed the X button instead of the tick button
Joanne Lockwood: because it's. I've learned over the years that
Joanne Lockwood: it's much easier to just tell the truth at that junction
Joanne Lockwood: because once you stop, once you start on that lie, you then escalate
Joanne Lockwood: it all the way through and it becomes that relationship. It's built on that one
Joanne Lockwood: mistruth or that easy excuse. If I'm
Joanne Lockwood: late for a meeting, I just say to people, I'm Sorry, I was completely
Joanne Lockwood: daydreaming and I had no idea what the time was and I suddenly looked at
Joanne Lockwood: my watch and did omg, and I hope you forgive me. So I'd
Joanne Lockwood: rather say that than, oh, no, my computer was playing up. Oh, no. I had
Joanne Lockwood: to dash to the doctors because I had a headache this morning.
Joanne Lockwood: It's just to tell the truth and be honest because people go, oh,
Joanne Lockwood: I've done that myself. You end up having this big conversation
Joanne Lockwood: about how we're all just human, we all get stuff wrong, don't we?
Heather Egginton: Yeah, I mean, that's the loving and compassionate and
Heather Egginton: empathetic way of seeing truth. Because if
Heather Egginton: we're really honest, the. What I say is the truth,
Heather Egginton: it kind of whisks up your insides and other people's
Heather Egginton: as well. Say, for example, my example of not
Heather Egginton: being complete as a woman without having children. You know, that is going
Heather Egginton: to be polarising for a lot of people,
Heather Egginton: right? And so therefore the truth
Heather Egginton: whisks people up, whereas lies, they twist you
Heather Egginton: up. And when I say twist you up, Joanne, I mean, physically,
Heather Egginton: your body contorts itself, contracts itself.
Heather Egginton: I mean, this is going really out there, right? And
Heather Egginton: my belief is it does cause and create cancer
Heather Egginton: in human beings the more we live
Heather Egginton: a lie, right, My foundation,
Heather Egginton: like now in life is I'd rather have the whole world against
Heather Egginton: me than live a lie, you know, and. And I. And
Heather Egginton: that also is very polarising. But it's just like,
Heather Egginton: why would I ever want to treat myself
Heather Egginton: as something that's not valuable, that valuable enough
Heather Egginton: to. To really honour its true power
Heather Egginton: ultimately? And unfortunately, as I. On
Heather Egginton: my website, it tells people, like, the five kind of
Heather Egginton: stages to working with me from a transformational perspective.
Heather Egginton: And the first one is like, we get rid of
Heather Egginton: the lies we tell ourselves, right? So. And we get to the root of
Heather Egginton: what created that, which is amazing because
Heather Egginton: it's all working in our favour. It's just that
Heather Egginton: normally we kind of lead with lies, or
Heather Egginton: let's say, act a different way when we're a little bit triggered about something,
Heather Egginton: because it just means we're not fully living in our true kind
Heather Egginton: of path, you know, we're not living and leading
Heather Egginton: in our true value as a person, which is all, like,
Heather Egginton: easily kind of put back together. People can come back
Heather Egginton: home to themselves, all easily remembered. But it's just like you say,
Heather Egginton: the layers of lies, once they come back, it's like,
Heather Egginton: oh, of course I understand. Now I see why this was
Heather Egginton: happening to me, or now I see why I have this
Heather Egginton: hip problem. Or now I see why my
Heather Egginton: digestive system's messed up, for example. And it's
Heather Egginton: like, so once you notice and go back to the root of everything
Heather Egginton: and, and see that it's all just because
Heather Egginton: I started a lie here and then it just escalated
Heather Egginton: and it's like, how powerful is that though? That
Heather Egginton: is simply following that energetic trail back to the root
Heather Egginton: causes. It's amazing.
Joanne Lockwood: Because we look at the escalation. The first lie
Joanne Lockwood: is, is, is 10 centimetres. The next
Joanne Lockwood: lie is another 10 centimetres. Another 10. Everything is built on that, on that first
Joanne Lockwood: 10 centimetres. And to climb down from 10
Joanne Lockwood: metres after a year or whatever it may be
Joanne Lockwood: then, then people start unpacking all the lies going, well, hang on a minute, you
Joanne Lockwood: lied to me about that and you lied to me about that and you lied
Joanne Lockwood: to me about that and, or, or I lied to myself about that or I
Joanne Lockwood: lied to myself about that, whatever it may be. And you
Joanne Lockwood: then become so invested in that new version of you,
Joanne Lockwood: you look at bigger mists and other people, criminals, whatever it may be,
Joanne Lockwood: become completely invested in this double identity,
Joanne Lockwood: there's no way of backpedalling because then your truth is so far removed from who
Joanne Lockwood: you are now that you'll never be forgiven. And then you're trying
Joanne Lockwood: to hold onto that and thinking, hang on a minute, I'm protecting the person I'm
Joanne Lockwood: lying to, that becomes your new truth as well.
Joanne Lockwood: You're doing it for them, not for you. Yeah. I mean the biggest thing I
Heather Egginton: picked up on there was there's almost like one,
Heather Egginton: there's almost like a divide within ourselves.
Heather Egginton: Yeah. And I know that you talk and you make a stand for equity,
Heather Egginton: diversity and inclusion. Right. So there's almost
Heather Egginton: a place where we become a divided person. And
Heather Egginton: work is a really good example of this. As someone who
Heather Egginton: worked in the corporate world for 25 years, previously
Heather Egginton: leaving as a projects director for IT
Heather Egginton: professionals and management consultancies.
Heather Egginton: Who I was at work was, not who I was at home.
Heather Egginton: Yeah. And this like divide within us
Heather Egginton: becomes almost the biggest point that you made
Heather Egginton: about the 10 centimetres is, is so true, Joanne, because it,
Heather Egginton: we separate ourselves from, and specifically our
Heather Egginton: body from. Right. So we can always push through and make it
Heather Egginton: into work. Yet when it comes to the weekend
Heather Egginton: and have fun, we want to curl up on the sofa and
Heather Egginton: just wallow in self pity or, or
Heather Egginton: eat loads of crap food or like and just immerse ourselves in
Heather Egginton: something so that we can forget about everything else.
Heather Egginton: Right. And it's like when you, when I mean that, when you see
Heather Egginton: that if that is Something you're experiencing, like I was
Heather Egginton: experiencing. Then
Heather Egginton: there's almost a. Something that turns up to wake you
Heather Egginton: up. Right. I'll put it that way. Right. Like a big jolt
Heather Egginton: in something that's happened in your life that goes really like. And I'm really
Heather Egginton: living my life this way. Way, because this clearly is not
Heather Egginton: working for me. And for me, that was losing my cat. I
Heather Egginton: had Lester. Yeah. Such. I mean, I'm saying simple, but we
Heather Egginton: all know, you know, living beings, whatever form they come in, right.
Heather Egginton: Are really valuable. And. And I was like, hold on a minute, I haven't got
Heather Egginton: anything to be responsible for. Why am I slogging my heart out of work
Heather Egginton: behind the scenes? I was already building a property portfolio
Heather Egginton: for myself anyway. So it was like, why,
Heather Egginton: why, why am I putting myself through this hell every day
Heather Egginton: when I can just go and do this? You know, it was like,
Heather Egginton: oh, I haven't got to have a fixed abode. You know, I can travel around
Heather Egginton: now. So, you know, I so grateful for my
Heather Egginton: cat harshly passing
Heather Egginton: and where it took me in the end.
Heather Egginton: And that was, what am I now? Seven.
Heather Egginton: Yeah, seven years ago. Seven and a half years ago
Heather Egginton: that I retired from having to work, as I call it.
Heather Egginton: So it does. There is like a thing that comes along because people
Heather Egginton: don't necessarily always just automatically choose, I think, is what I'm going to say,
Heather Egginton: Joanne, don't automatically wake up one day and go, I'm going to live my
Heather Egginton: full truth to today, you know, and then, ta da,
Heather Egginton: Right. Like it is something like turns up
Heather Egginton: that sort of says, it keeps happening, doesn't it? It becomes this
Joanne Lockwood: kind of. Yeah. You could feel something stalking you from behind, going,
Joanne Lockwood: I've been. And then you feel this pressure to keep on the status quo, don't
Joanne Lockwood: you? And I often describe this as when I discovered this myself in my late
Joanne Lockwood: 40s. The analogy I use is you get to Gatwick Airport and you get off
Joanne Lockwood: the. Out the taxi and as you walk into the terminal, there's these really, really
Joanne Lockwood: long travelators. It's almost like a mile of travelators. You get on, then you get
Joanne Lockwood: off, then you get on and you get off and it takes you all the
Joanne Lockwood: way into the departure lounge. And I describe it as, you know, I
Joanne Lockwood: found myself on this travelator of life just getting on there
Joanne Lockwood: and, you know, the ticket says you're going to Malaga,
Joanne Lockwood: and you think, actually, I don't want to go to Malaga, I want to go
Joanne Lockwood: somewhere else. So it's having the courage to hit the stop button. The
Joanne Lockwood: metaphorical stop button of life on that travelator, take all
Joanne Lockwood: your luggage off and just park up and go, so where do I
Joanne Lockwood: really want to go now? Otherwise you just carry on
Joanne Lockwood: on that escalator or travelator of life doing what everybody else has
Joanne Lockwood: told you you wanna do. The expectations you started probably when you were 12 years
Joanne Lockwood: old. I wanna be this, I wanna be that. This is who I am. This
Joanne Lockwood: is my identity that gets shaped as you get older and
Joanne Lockwood: suddenly you go, hang on a minute, I should be over there somewhere. How did
Joanne Lockwood: I end up over here? And it's really difficult. As you say, we built
Joanne Lockwood: that truth of who we are. How do you go backwards to
Joanne Lockwood: find that path again? And it took me to gender transition and sell my
Joanne Lockwood: IT company to do it. Not for everybody. But yeah, it's trying
Joanne Lockwood: to have that bravery. I mean, you said you've got out of your
Joanne Lockwood: corporate life and you now have
Joanne Lockwood: a functioning new career as somebody who invests in
Joanne Lockwood: property and does other things. So yeah, it's a different way of being, isn't it?
Heather Egginton: Yeah. And it isn't. It isn't the norm.
Heather Egginton: Right. So let's just what you, your decisions, you know,
Heather Egginton: to walk your truth. Like, that's not the norm, Joanne.
Heather Egginton: Right. And the same for me, you know,
Heather Egginton: who does that? Who retires at 39 and declares that and
Heather Egginton: says, right, I'm never going back to the nine till five,
Heather Egginton: even though mine was six till nine at night kind of job again. Right. Like,
Heather Egginton: who does that? Who buys their first house at 21
Heather Egginton: when everyone else has gone to university? Like, who goes against the
Heather Egginton: grain? Right, Exactly. It
Heather Egginton: is. They are out there. But,
Heather Egginton: and I will speak this, those outer for greater
Heather Egginton: forces, the ones that push against us living like
Heather Egginton: this, will do everything in their power for us not
Heather Egginton: to stand tall and be loud and proud about the
Heather Egginton: decisions we've made that aren't the norm. Because
Heather Egginton: that's societal conditioning. That's the systems and the
Heather Egginton: processes. We're easily controllable if we're all nodding and going
Heather Egginton: in the same direction. And it's just like, I'm not willing to do
Heather Egginton: that and, and there is like a recourse, you know,
Heather Egginton: when we come home to ourselves, like, and who we have
Heather Egginton: always been truly at heart. There's. There's no fight.
Heather Egginton: You just be that. Like you said about the
Heather Egginton: options. Now, my, the way my business works, the world view
Heather Egginton: is an extension of my being. So why would I say
Heather Egginton: my superpower is deep, truthful connection and
Heather Egginton: be on a podcast with somebody and, and it not Feel like it's. We are
Heather Egginton: deeply, truthfully connected and we've met
Heather Egginton: twice online. That's correct, isn't it,
Heather Egginton: Joanne? Right. Yeah, yeah, at least. At least twice. Yeah. Yeah. And how do you
Heather Egginton: feel in conversation with me? Like you're an old friend, you know, like I've known
Joanne Lockwood: you for five years. See what I mean? So it's like a model
Heather Egginton: completely what actually is possible. And look,
Heather Egginton: it's. That's my value. I'm living and needing in my value
Heather Egginton: and totally embodied in that. That's not going to be the same
Heather Egginton: for everyone, however. It's being in
Heather Egginton: the position where we're willing to really take a good long look at ourselves
Heather Egginton: and see how freaking incredible we actually are without
Heather Egginton: the societal programming, without those greater forces
Heather Egginton: like you've described. Fear, regret, shame, all
Heather Egginton: of those greater forces that suggest we should be this
Heather Egginton: small thing that doesn't really matter. And it's just like we
Heather Egginton: really matter, but we have to decide that,
Heather Egginton: you know, we. We make that decision. We have to make that decision within
Heather Egginton: ourselves. The saying, that's
Heather Egginton: quite trickery for some. I know that I am the
Heather Egginton: chosen one and so are you
Heather Egginton: and so is everyone. But do you choose you as the chosen one?
Heather Egginton: Do you see what I mean? I think. I'm not sure of the exact
Joanne Lockwood: phrase, but it's something like you are a product of your six closest friends or
Joanne Lockwood: something like that. So either either your six closest friends
Joanne Lockwood: influence who you are, or you influence who you pick as your
Joanne Lockwood: six chosen friends, whichever way you want to look at it. And if you hang
Joanne Lockwood: around in corporate life with corporate people, that becomes your
Joanne Lockwood: truth. And if you step out of that, everyone who's there
Joanne Lockwood: going, oh, you're brave to go out into the cold and be shunned and
Joanne Lockwood: go off and do your own thing, and they carry on doing their old. Their
Joanne Lockwood: corporate slavery. But I hang out now. I'm sure you do. You hang out
Joanne Lockwood: with other, probably other property investors. You probably hang out in entrepreneur space.
Joanne Lockwood: You hang out in small business space. And many of the people I meet
Joanne Lockwood: now, professional speakers, trainers, consultants, have exited
Joanne Lockwood: corporate life because the same reason I did it was just like it was
Joanne Lockwood: bs. I wasn't getting anywhere. Most of my network
Joanne Lockwood: now, most of my close friends are sole trader, independent
Joanne Lockwood: entrepreneurs, trainers, speakers, consultants.
Joanne Lockwood: Therefore, you don't feel out of kilter with the right way of doing
Joanne Lockwood: things. You get this sort of solace in knowing that you are doing the right
Joanne Lockwood: thing because it's working for everybody else. So I don't feel alone anymore. Whereas
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe in the early stages of exiting corporate life, I felt,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, like out on a limb, lonely.
Heather Egginton: Oh, I can totally relate to that, Joanne, totally. And let's
Heather Egginton: star. Star this. Look, there are people that thrive
Heather Egginton: in the corporate world and are really good at that, right?
Heather Egginton: So it's not about us saying this is wrong and this is right and this
Heather Egginton: is how right, but it's just recognising where do we fit,
Heather Egginton: right? Why. Why we were put on this earth
Heather Egginton: and. And it might be that somebody was put on this earth to disrupt
Heather Egginton: and change, shift the paradigm within the corporate world, and that's
Heather Egginton: brilliant. And I know that you're working really hard to already do that in
Heather Egginton: your see change happen from a speaking and training
Heather Egginton: perspective, but it's just knowing, right
Heather Egginton: what. Where we lead ourselves. And also,
Heather Egginton: I believe it's not necessarily you become the sum of the people you are
Heather Egginton: around, what you become is the sum of the energy that you sit around,
Heather Egginton: right? So if you're in a room full of people that are
Heather Egginton: disrupting the norm, for example, like me, then it's like
Heather Egginton: there you calibrate to more bravery, being more
Heather Egginton: bold, right. Being more truthful, like, and open in
Heather Egginton: the world, sharing it out loud. Yeah. If you're in
Heather Egginton: the room with people that don't necessarily have that desire
Heather Egginton: or burning drive, I guess, then
Heather Egginton: you won't. So it's recognising, well, what is it that I actually stand
Heather Egginton: for? What is it that I actually value? And am I in the room or
Heather Egginton: what of people? Am I surrounded by people that are actually
Heather Egginton: on the same path or similar path to me? Or am I
Heather Egginton: in the room with people hoping that they will see me
Heather Egginton: for what I value and what I'm trying to create and are
Heather Egginton: driven towards. So it's being able to understand what table
Heather Egginton: do I want to sit at? Because that table is
Heather Egginton: energetically in the right kind of similar field to me, but
Heather Egginton: it's being able to recognise that, Joanne, because speaking from
Heather Egginton: my own experience, I tried my hardest to convince
Heather Egginton: people and prove to people that the best place to be was fully,
Heather Egginton: deeply, truthfully connected. And like, why don't you want
Heather Egginton: this? Because I've got it and it's amazing. And you know what that did?
Heather Egginton: It just knocked me out of being deep, truthfully connected to
Heather Egginton: myself. It was literally a vicious circle definition of
Heather Egginton: insanity, Right. I was trying to convince everyone else this is the way to
Heather Egginton: go, trying to get everyone to value the same as me, and then it's just
Heather Egginton: like, no, Heather, I'd left a community
Heather Egginton: because of it because of the way they kind of changed the
Heather Egginton: community without coordinating or communicating with me.
Heather Egginton: And I saw it right there. Hold on a minute. These people here don't value
Heather Egginton: deep, truthful connection. And I consider in this
Heather Egginton: room for two years, like I had been hoping, willing
Heather Egginton: and with all my life wanting them to value the same as
Heather Egginton: me. And it's just like. But they don't.
Heather Egginton: And that's okay. And then you can leave, you know, and you
Heather Egginton: can find or be, or even start your own freaking
Heather Egginton: table, which is what I did anyway. Right. So
Heather Egginton: I love that you brought that up around the, you know, you are
Heather Egginton: who you are surrounding yourself with. Really powerful.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And I, I love to quote Chris Evans, the
Joanne Lockwood: celebrity broadcaster, Top Gear
Joanne Lockwood: Year 1 Radio 2 presenter and bring your own toothbrush.
Joanne Lockwood: I appreciate you don't watch. I remember TV much. Remember that. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So I, I remember him saying that, you know, you have to be Marmite,
Joanne Lockwood: half the world have to love you and half the world have to hate you.
Joanne Lockwood: And there's another quote that I can't remember who said it was, I don't have
Joanne Lockwood: to like everybody because I don't expect everyone to like me or whichever way
Joanne Lockwood: around that is. So sometimes by polarising people, knowing who you
Joanne Lockwood: are, what you stand for, is a very powerful place to be, rather than trying
Joanne Lockwood: to be a people pleaser, you've tried to please everybody, please the people
Joanne Lockwood: that you want to please, because they won't ever try and please you. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think sometimes we get so invested in our friend relationships where
Joanne Lockwood: we often find there's a disconnect between how you view that relationship and
Joanne Lockwood: how they view that relationship. And we have people who are. They never phone
Joanne Lockwood: us, we always have to phone them. There are people who are pleased to see
Joanne Lockwood: us and people think, do you want to see me or don't you? And you
Joanne Lockwood: end up having this relationship where one of you doesn't care more than the other
Joanne Lockwood: person. So you've got to try and find relationships where you both have an equal
Joanne Lockwood: partnership in the success of that relationship. But we too
Joanne Lockwood: often invest. I want to be your friend. I'll keep phoning you. They never call
Joanne Lockwood: me, they never text, they never write. Well, stop writing to them, stop
Joanne Lockwood: texting them, stop calling them. And if they don't notice, then
Joanne Lockwood: it. Wasn'T meant to be, all values thing, Joanne, you know,
Heather Egginton: you'd think that you would attract friends that value the same as you. And
Heather Egginton: you know why? Most of the time you do. We are all magnetic. It's
Heather Egginton: just what we are we attracting. Do you know what I
Heather Egginton: mean? This is being able to be observant about, oh, I've attracted
Heather Egginton: another friend who expects me to organise and sort everything
Heather Egginton: out. What's that telling me? Right? It's telling me that
Heather Egginton: I'm amazing at organising, but actually that's
Heather Egginton: not what I want to do for my friends. And I love that you've spoken
Heather Egginton: to this, because I'm just about to bring out my Frequency
Heather Egginton: of values challenge on LinkedIn
Heather Egginton: and I do a different, slight, different version. I do my Frequency of Love
Heather Egginton: challenge, right? And I do that on Facebook and it's ultimately
Heather Egginton: helping those that want to be in community
Heather Egginton: with the people that they want to be in community with. Right. That going
Heather Egginton: to have a reciprocal like you've described, you know, they'll phone you
Heather Egginton: and you'll find them and it's not like feeling like you have to, you know,
Heather Egginton: it's just a nice, easy community relationship. And that's
Heather Egginton: what it's about this month. And it's about
Heather Egginton: going from the lonely couch, right? To fully connected.
Heather Egginton: That's what it's about because I was the one that was sat on the couch,
Heather Egginton: lonely, never had any friends, didn't know anyone, Always thought there's something
Heather Egginton: wrong with me. Just wished that I could be normal. I was one of those
Heather Egginton: people. And it took a lot, I'm not gonna
Heather Egginton: lie, for me then, to come to a place where I am today to
Heather Egginton: say that that had I not experienced that, I
Heather Egginton: would not be in the position I am today. To say, if
Heather Egginton: you're wanting to create community and connect effortlessly
Heather Egginton: with your people, can never say that word. If you
Heather Egginton: wanted to connect effortlessly, nailed it
Heather Egginton: with your people, then that's the challenge to
Heather Egginton: join, right? Because I managed to do it where I moved here
Heather Egginton: two years ago into Shropshire. Never lived here in my life.
Heather Egginton: Was living in Worcestershire for like 25 years and now moved to
Heather Egginton: Shropshire. And I've literally created a
Heather Egginton: community of women around me that are incredible, that
Heather Egginton: all value the same thing as me and all into the same things as
Heather Egginton: me. One of those cup of quizzes. We won three last month. Have
Heather Egginton: a look. Yay. No, no, it's brilliant.
Heather Egginton: But it's just a good example of, like, what's possible. And.
Heather Egginton: And I. I got to experience that
Heather Egginton: dark and light, like you say, you know, the, the Marmite let safe
Heather Egginton: connection. No coincidence that had Marmite on toast breakfast
Heather Egginton: this morning. It's funny, I. I'm. I'm not really a Marmite on toast. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not. I've got this Thing in my head that says, I don't like Marmite, yet
Joanne Lockwood: at Christmas I will pig out on Twiglets, which are basically Marmite
Joanne Lockwood: sticks, aren't they? So it's a really strange thing. I could do Twiglets, but I
Joanne Lockwood: just don't do Marmite. Raw Marmite, if you like. Maybe it has to be. What
Heather Egginton: you would love is Marmite with cheese spread
Heather Egginton: on toast. Probably because it's.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure I've just got to try it. I've just got this story in my
Joanne Lockwood: mind. You know, we talk about stories we make up and my own truth. My
Joanne Lockwood: own. My own. The truth I've told myself for many, many years is I don't
Joanne Lockwood: like Marmite. Yeah. I like. To Eiglets. It's like. It's crazy, isn't it? It
Heather Egginton: is crazy and amazing at the same time. I can't wait to hear
Heather Egginton: when you first try Marmont House. It's been years. I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, Marie has it all the time. She had some this morning as well. I
Joanne Lockwood: think she loved a bit of Marmite and toast. Maybe I should get her to
Joanne Lockwood: do some. Next time she does something, do something for me and just give it
Joanne Lockwood: to me and I'll go, okay. After I chat with Heather, I need to go
Joanne Lockwood: back and revisit Marmite. It's like, for years, I couldn't eat celery. You know, as
Joanne Lockwood: a child, I didn't like cheese, I didn't like celery. And then
Joanne Lockwood: I went through a phase where I didn't like garlic. And then suddenly
Joanne Lockwood: I broke those myths in my head. There was even a
Joanne Lockwood: phase where I went through where I didn't like gin or I didn't like Southern
Joanne Lockwood: Comfort. I didn't like vodka, probably because of a bad night out that
Joanne Lockwood: my brain was going, oh, that's naughty for you. It took me a while, but
Joanne Lockwood: I managed to break through that dislike of Perno. And, yeah, if you try anything
Joanne Lockwood: enough, you'll start liking it. Sorry. Well, for those of you who are listening, who
Joanne Lockwood: don't know, I stopped drinking three years ago, so I don't drink anything now. It's
Joanne Lockwood: alcohol. Yeah. I link our taste
Heather Egginton: buds to identity because I would not go any. You would
Heather Egginton: not catch me anywhere near
Heather Egginton: feta cheese. Yeah, I thought it was heinous.
Heather Egginton: I mean, I'm not fan of. Can be a bit dry, can't it? It can
Joanne Lockwood: be a bit dry, yeah. Not careful. Yeah. And then what it took is for
Heather Egginton: me actually to travel with someone who was quite energetically,
Heather Egginton: very high frequency for them. To order feta cheese and honey
Heather Egginton: in Greece and I tried it and I was like, yeah,
Heather Egginton: hello. That's really nice. So yeah, I do like. And
Heather Egginton: taste buds to, to identity to like how high
Heather Egginton: you are in vibration as a person depending on what your taste was
Heather Egginton: like. Because the, the, the way I used to make
Heather Egginton: food before wasn't necessarily with tender loving care.
Heather Egginton: My partner will joke with you about this and take the mick out
Heather Egginton: of my. My throwing it all together skills. Right. This throwing it all
Heather Egginton: together skills has got me in a lot of places and a lot of compliments
Heather Egginton: from people because I do make stuff up to go along and then they ask
Heather Egginton: me what the recipe is and I'm like, no idea. However.
Heather Egginton: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. However, over
Heather Egginton: like the last three or four years, what I've really noticed is my
Heather Egginton: attention to detail, my presence while I'm cooking has
Heather Egginton: then now more started to perfect the tastes
Heather Egginton: and what goes together really well. And I've been making
Heather Egginton: the most exquisite tartar tan. Which if someone
Heather Egginton: said you'd be baking a tartar tan, Heather, I'd be like, what?
Heather Egginton: Because I didn't do baking cake stuff. Right. Fancy French
Joanne Lockwood: dish that you see on MasterChef. Yeah, yeah, but. And it's
Heather Egginton: so simple and yet
Heather Egginton: unlike now at the place where. Yeah.
Heather Egginton: And it is just down to like who I'm being in the moment while I'm
Heather Egginton: cooking. Like how pleasant I am to it and just really noticing.
Heather Egginton: And it's not even an effort thing. It's like the most
Heather Egginton: satisfying thing in the world is to have made something and want to
Heather Egginton: eat it at the end and find it delicious. Whereas I would make some
Heather Egginton: it and just eat it because it was food. Someone taught me how to make
Joanne Lockwood: a roux. I don't know, about 10, 15 years ago,
Joanne Lockwood: how you melt the butter really, really slowly and gradually introduce
Joanne Lockwood: the flour and bake it into this. You gotta get it
Joanne Lockwood: automatically like marzipan, haven't you, before you. And then you make this, then you can
Joanne Lockwood: then use that as a base for any sauce. And it was like once you
Joanne Lockwood: discover that magic about making a roux and suddenly it's parsley sauce
Joanne Lockwood: for your fish and then suddenly it's gravy or whatever you want to do with
Joanne Lockwood: it. And I just thought it was magic. This secret
Joanne Lockwood: sauce. The roux is the basis of everything.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I did a masterclass about four years ago on
Heather Egginton: secrets people's secret sauce. What's your secret sauce? I'm more of
Heather Egginton: a white wine cream and onion garlic based sauce
Heather Egginton: maker. Yes. Yeah. With Muscles. Yeah.
Heather Egginton: Oh, yeah. I love it how we've
Heather Egginton: like immersed ourselves into food. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: it says in your show notes here that you're a food junkie. So it was
Joanne Lockwood: food loving junkie. Is that so? It's not surprising we've got there. I mean, I
Joanne Lockwood: love my food. I love, I love good food. But I'm with you on this.
Joanne Lockwood: Chuck it in, see what happens. I don't. I look at the recipe and go,
Joanne Lockwood: okay, I've got half of those things. I can substitute the other half
Joanne Lockwood: I haven't got with something else or it'll be a kind of
Joanne Lockwood: facsimile of what said it was. And yeah, I love just playing
Joanne Lockwood: around. I made an amazing garlic chicken with kale
Joanne Lockwood: mash once out of a. I think it was a hairy biker's dish
Joanne Lockwood: and it was just. It was like four cloves of garlic. You chuck it inside
Joanne Lockwood: this chicken, you spread it all around and put it in the oven and it's
Joanne Lockwood: like, you come out, you go, it's amazing with the garlic. So the mashed potato,
Joanne Lockwood: kale and mash on the side of it, it was just this absolutely gorgeous dish
Joanne Lockwood: and the whole family loved it. I just never did it again. But yeah, it
Joanne Lockwood: was one of those one offs, one off creations that was. If you love garlic,
Joanne Lockwood: you like chicken, you like mash, you like a bit of kale in it. Google
Joanne Lockwood: it. Hairy bikers, garlic and garlic chicken and
Joanne Lockwood: kale mash. Yeah, it's brilliant. Absolutely fantastic dish. Very easy as
Joanne Lockwood: well. Just need a chicken, a couple of cloves, a couple of bulbs of garlic.
Joanne Lockwood: Not. Not cloves. This is like a full, A full garden of garlic. You just
Joanne Lockwood: chuck it all in there and you end up. The garlic goes really soft and
Joanne Lockwood: mushy and it's like, yeah. Oh, you might get hungry.
Joanne Lockwood: I know I'm gonna have to dig out the recipe because it's. I can't. I
Joanne Lockwood: need it again. Amazing that you've remembered it, though.
Joanne Lockwood: I'll try and remember. Put it in the show notes. So I'll find. I'll dig
Joanne Lockwood: out the recipe and put it the show notes. If anyone's listening and they want
Joanne Lockwood: to. Want to have a go with it. Heather. Heather.
Joanne Lockwood: I would describe you as someone who's extrovert,
Joanne Lockwood: gregarious, outgoing, even though maybe on the inside, maybe
Joanne Lockwood: you're not, but on the outside you are. I meet a lot of people who
Joanne Lockwood: go, oh, I couldn't be outgoing. I couldn't. I couldn't go networking. I couldn't do
Joanne Lockwood: that. I'm too reserved, I'm too shy, Fear of being
Joanne Lockwood: judged again. This is a story we make up, isn't it, that I'm an introvert,
Joanne Lockwood: therefore I can't do anything, whereas I would, by the
Joanne Lockwood: definition of introvert. Introverts get power from self, extroverts
Joanne Lockwood: get power from the room, energy from the room. I describe myself as an introvert,
Joanne Lockwood: but I perform in a very outgoing, gregarious way when I want to,
Joanne Lockwood: but when I don't want to, I turn the light off, lock the cubicle door
Joanne Lockwood: and hide in the toilet for 10 minutes, recharge and then come back out again.
Joanne Lockwood: How do we overcome that lie with dental cells that only extroverts can
Joanne Lockwood: do this? Well, I mean, firstly we look at
Heather Egginton: where that programming has come from, because I don't class myself
Heather Egginton: as introvert or extrovert. I'm just a person who loves to
Heather Egginton: be on my own in my own company, and I also love to
Heather Egginton: be in the company of others. Right. So we have to look at where
Heather Egginton: that condition or that programme came from. And when we go back
Heather Egginton: to, even when we were growing up, what happened when we
Heather Egginton: were extrovert around certain people and when we weren't
Heather Egginton: around others. Yeah. Because when you're really quiet
Heather Egginton: and not saying anything because a kid, people would think there was something wrong with
Heather Egginton: you. Right. So what does that programme in?
Heather Egginton: Well, I shouldn't be quiet because people think there's something wrong with me.
Heather Egginton: Yeah. So we have to go back and back and this is the layers that
Heather Egginton: I'm talking about. Right. And we go back to the truth of that is we
Heather Egginton: are everything. We are both extrovert, introvert
Heather Egginton: and all the things in between. However,
Heather Egginton: it's recognising that if there's a particular way that
Heather Egginton: we sway. If there's somebody, for example,
Heather Egginton: who seeks more solitude than being in a room full of people,
Heather Egginton: then it's been in a position to ask yourself, is this
Heather Egginton: really true of me or am I really afraid of people saying,
Heather Egginton: seeing the truth of who I am? And I think that's a big question.
Heather Egginton: If. If there was smaller steps, I would love for anyone experiencing
Heather Egginton: that to come and join the Frequency of Values challenge. Because
Heather Egginton: I value being on my own, in deep,
Heather Egginton: truthful connection with myself and I also value that with other people.
Heather Egginton: I'll give you an example of a client I was working
Heather Egginton: with a few months ago who were led to believe that they were shy.
Heather Egginton: Yeah. So I asked them to. To. We worked on clearing
Heather Egginton: that point of view because it was something which they were labelled with as a
Heather Egginton: child, but it wasn't actually true. Yeah. And I.
Heather Egginton: So I think some of the introvertness can come from the labels we
Heather Egginton: were given as well. So there's quite a few different angles to go at that
Heather Egginton: question with Joanne. Not sure whether I've answered it
Heather Egginton: fully, but. No, no, we've done good there. We've done good. It's basically, I think
Joanne Lockwood: what I was trying to get at really, is that it's another truth we're telling
Joanne Lockwood: ourselves. It's another label we're owning without
Joanne Lockwood: questioning. We haven't done that five whys on it, have we? Why does it bother
Joanne Lockwood: me? Why am I upset? In fact, why does it affect me? And I guess
Joanne Lockwood: it comes with age. I turned 60 the other month and you spend
Joanne Lockwood: 50 is the new 40. 60 is the new 50, or whatever you want to
Joanne Lockwood: say. And it gets to that point where you think
Joanne Lockwood: you become more reflective about yourself, what you want, what you're looking at from the
Joanne Lockwood: world. I don't care if people see me sitting in the
Joanne Lockwood: corner of the room on my own playing my phone or just staring out the
Joanne Lockwood: window for an hour, say, are you okay? Just checking your right.
Joanne Lockwood: You look like you're lost or you look like you're upset. I just want some
Joanne Lockwood: me time. I don't want to go and sit in the toilet with the door
Joanne Lockwood: shut for 10 minutes. I'd rather sit out here and just watch the world go
Joanne Lockwood: by. I'm cool but relaxed. Just let me daydream. I. Good.
Joanne Lockwood: That's. That's strange. It's fine. Also, you're speaking about
Heather Egginton: what that might also suggest coming up for the other person, how it's making
Heather Egginton: them feel as well. So, like I say, there's quite a few different
Heather Egginton: angles to go with that because, yeah,
Heather Egginton: I remember I was at a bite My tongue. I was
Joanne Lockwood: at a. I was speaking at a panel event, I think it was with ebay,
Joanne Lockwood: a couple of years ago, before COVID Anyway, five, six years ago,
Joanne Lockwood: and we were just talking away and we're talking about imposter syndrome and
Joanne Lockwood: being introvert and this whole thing. And I just sort of said, look, when I'm
Joanne Lockwood: feeling stressed out, when I'm feeling like I need a recharge, I just grab
Joanne Lockwood: my phone, go sit in the end cubicle, shut the door and
Joanne Lockwood: play Candy Crush for half an hour and recharge. And then I come back out,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm good again. And the whole audience, you can see people in the audience go,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, me too, me too. That's what I want to do. I want to go
Joanne Lockwood: and recharge. I want to take some time. Okay, just do it. Don't be
Joanne Lockwood: apologetic. If that's what makes you happy, if that's what tops
Joanne Lockwood: your energy back up again and allows you to come back out and go, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm ready. Do it. If you don't need to, don't.
Joanne Lockwood: I used to drink through it, you know, have another glass of wine, have another
Joanne Lockwood: beer, have something else that used to mask that. And you start.
Joanne Lockwood: You take that out of your life and suddenly, actually, I'm exhausted. Now I just
Joanne Lockwood: want to go home. It's half nine. I'm tired. I've had enough. In the past,
Joanne Lockwood: I'd have had another couple of hours. Large wines and I'd be life itself with
Joanne Lockwood: a party for another couple of hours. And then suddenly it's five o' clock in
Joanne Lockwood: the morning, isn't it? And you're absolutely wrecked. All your friends have now passed out
Joanne Lockwood: and gone home and you're going, come on, then, who's up for it? I'm still
Joanne Lockwood: ready to. You're bouncing around like Tigger. Yeah. I mean, what you're
Heather Egginton: speaking to is kind of there's an energetic ceiling
Heather Egginton: within us. The way we've had enough when we have to retreat and kind of
Heather Egginton: recharge. My. My way of seeing that now,
Heather Egginton: before it was my way of recharging was hiding away for a whole weekend
Heather Egginton: and not see one. Right. And being on my own.
Heather Egginton: That was before my way of recharging. Now I just clear
Heather Egginton: anything that's not mine. So if you're in a room full of powerful
Heather Egginton: people, there are a lot of greater forces that are coming to take you out.
Heather Egginton: Right. Without you knowing that. And if you're also in that room,
Heather Egginton: fully embodied, living your living and leading with your true
Heather Egginton: self, that also drains your energy. So you have like two
Heather Egginton: prong approaches now. For example, on this conversation, had I
Heather Egginton: done this about three years ago, what would happen is I would be
Heather Egginton: amazing at the beginning and then become a little bit shrt
Heather Egginton: towards the second half because I was trying to keep up a
Heather Egginton: Persona and identity with that things that we've talked about.
Heather Egginton: Trying to keep up a way of being right that wasn't truly me.
Heather Egginton: So that drains my energy. Take on the fact that there's all these other things
Heather Egginton: going on around me that are also trying to take on some power
Heather Egginton: away from me as well. Right. And consume it from me.
Heather Egginton: That is what we would term energetic
Heather Egginton: warfare. So I get why someone would want to go and hide in the toilet
Heather Egginton: cubicle because they want to be away from that, and they also want to be
Heather Egginton: away from trying to be something that potentially isn't them. And
Heather Egginton: if you speak to when you did it before, Joanne, obviously at that point, you
Heather Egginton: haven't transitioned either. I had transitioned. You already
Heather Egginton: transitioned. Right. Okay. So it's definitely outside forces for
Heather Egginton: you, right? Definitely. It's.
Joanne Lockwood: I just recognise in me now that I. If I've had enough, I've had
Joanne Lockwood: enough. I don't need to keep pushing myself into spaces
Joanne Lockwood: where I don't. I don't feel comfortable. I don't want to be there if I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not in it. I'm just. I. I said I'd rather say to people, look, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not feeling it. I don't want to stay here. You're obviously having a great time.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not feeling it. It's me. I'm off. Bye. And that's fine.
Heather Egginton: Yeah. Whereas when I was younger, I just forced myself to stay in those spaces.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think it's, again, going back to what we started with. Is that telling
Joanne Lockwood: yourself the truth, being honest with yourself, do I want to be
Joanne Lockwood: here? Do I want to go out tonight? Do I want to go and spend
Joanne Lockwood: time with these people? And if it. If it's. It's trying to. It's a
Joanne Lockwood: fine line between can't be asked. Cba, FOMO and
Joanne Lockwood: Jomo. You know, joy of missing out, fear of missing out, or can't be asked
Joanne Lockwood: if it's just being lazy. You know that if you go in, go
Joanne Lockwood: out, go and do it. You'll come back and go, I'm really glad I did
Joanne Lockwood: that. So you can. You can do that destination planning, you can start thinking about
Joanne Lockwood: how you'll feel when you get there. But sometimes you just think, I really don't
Joanne Lockwood: want to. If you don't want to. What I say is, is it a
Heather Egginton: full body? Yes. If it's a full body, yes. Go do it.
Heather Egginton: Do the thing, whatever that is. It's not a full body. Yes.
Heather Egginton: Don't. Because it's not gonna. It's not gonna
Heather Egginton: expand your energy. Right. It's only gonna contract it.
Heather Egginton: So that's my wave. Making
Heather Egginton: decisions about where I spend my time and effort into
Heather Egginton: whatever. Yeah. On that note, Heather, we've. We've been
Joanne Lockwood: yakking away now for best part of an hour and a half,
Joanne Lockwood: an hour before we. We pushed the live button. So, yeah, it. It's been an
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely fascinating conversation. I think we're both fully charged at the
Joanne Lockwood: moment. And Neither of us are hiding in the toilet with our phone playing Candy
Joanne Lockwood: Crush. So it's been absolutely fantastic having a chat with you. How can people
Joanne Lockwood: get hold of you and talk about your website, your podcast
Joanne Lockwood: and other things? So tell us what you do. Sure. Best
Heather Egginton: way to I guess connect with me initially is either
Heather Egginton: LinkedIn, which is Heather Egginton wealth of you or
Heather Egginton: Facebook. I'm also on there quite
Heather Egginton: provocatively sometimes, so you can connect with me there. Or
Heather Egginton: if you want to find out more about the kind of work I do from
Heather Egginton: a mentor or coaching perspective, then you can look at my website which is
Heather Egginton: also Heather Egginton or
Heather Egginton: www.henrygington.com.
Heather Egginton: normally I had too many W's when I do that. So you can read. I
Heather Egginton: know you can read more about the work I do with
Heather Egginton: others there. It's been fascinating. If you
Joanne Lockwood: just remind if anyone is listening that we did a Marie, my wife and I,
Joanne Lockwood: we recorded an episode with you I say back in January. So do, do
Joanne Lockwood: look that up as well and that that was a. You've got a great podcast
Joanne Lockwood: channel with loads of video video podcasts on YouTube with loads of guests
Joanne Lockwood: that are really inspiring as well. So do look those up. Heather, it's been amazing.
Heather Egginton: Thank you Joanne. Likewise. Thank you for having me and
Heather Egginton: for all those listening. Appreciate you.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express
Joanne Lockwood: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Joanne Lockwood: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
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