Dr Khutso Madubanya: 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.
Joanne Lockwood: Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge
Joanne Lockwood: the status quo and share storeys that resonate
Joanne Lockwood: deep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you're
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Joanne Lockwood: connect, reflect and inspire action together.
Joanne Lockwood: Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out
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 200 with the
Joanne Lockwood: title what's With Difference? And I have the absolute honour
Joanne Lockwood: and privilege to welcome Dr. Khutso Madubanya.
Joanne Lockwood: Khutso is a South African born change catalyst and inspirational
Joanne Lockwood: speaker who helps people and organisations embrace
Joanne Lockwood: difference and transformation with courage and authenticity.
Joanne Lockwood: When I asked Khutso to describe her superpower, she said that it is helping and
Joanne Lockwood: empowering people through change and cultural understanding.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Khutso. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having
Dr Khutso Madubanya: me, Jo. I'm so honoured to be Guest number 200.
Joanne Lockwood: Number 200. I know, I can't believe it. Yeah, talk about
Dr Khutso Madubanya: synchronicity. I feel honoured, truly honoured.
Joanne Lockwood: Who'd have thought when I started this five and a half years ago that I'd
Joanne Lockwood: still be going today and maybe in another five and a half to and a
Joanne Lockwood: half years I might be up to episode 250 or even 500. So, yeah, it's
Joanne Lockwood: a real honour, real honour. Thank you. It's a real going.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'm really grateful that you're doing this. I've said to you a minute ago.
Joanne Lockwood: So I said in the intro that you're South African born. You dropped me a
Joanne Lockwood: hint earlier that you said good morning and I'm in the afternoon so I can
Joanne Lockwood: tell the time difference that you're not in South Africa. So whereabouts in the world
Joanne Lockwood: are you right now? Oh, I live in Michigan in the United
Dr Khutso Madubanya: States, Michelle. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: South African. Anywhere near the lake? Is it near the lake or. Oh,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: yes. Oh yeah, we've got. We've got quite a few lakes here, I think. 10,000
Dr Khutso Madubanya: lakes. We called. We do have 10,000 lakes.
Joanne Lockwood: So lake Michigan is the big one, isn't it? Yes. Lake Michigan is the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Big one. Beautiful. Beautiful part of world.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Absolutely. Also very, very cold. Very cold,
Joanne Lockwood: very deep. Yes. We have the lake effect,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: which means, you know, snow dumps on us ever so often
Dr Khutso Madubanya: in unprecedented ways that people who don't live
Dr Khutso Madubanya: around water don't get to experience so much. So this is our
Dr Khutso Madubanya: fourth year here, my kids and I. In fact, we just had our
Dr Khutso Madubanya: 4th year anniversary last week. We arrived here on the 6th
Dr Khutso Madubanya: of November, 2021.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Synchronicity. Synchronicity.
Joanne Lockwood: We were chatting away in the green room just before we went live here, and
Joanne Lockwood: we're talking about your name, Khutso Madubanya. And you were saying,
Joanne Lockwood: well, call me Khutso because that's your name.
Joanne Lockwood: Whereas the other part of your name, the Madubanya, is your
Joanne Lockwood: family name. And you almost said
Joanne Lockwood: you'd be offended if people called you anything else than Khutso . Do you want
Joanne Lockwood: to explain a bit about your family heritage and what
Joanne Lockwood: your name means to you? Yeah, absolutely. You know, we
Dr Khutso Madubanya: all have a. Well, in most cultures, you know, I've lived in eight countries. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: know that not all cultures go by first and last name the way we
Dr Khutso Madubanya: do, but in South Africa we do have first and last name.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Madubanya is my family name. Really, really proud of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: my lineage. And Khutso is my first name, obviously.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And Khutso means peace. And all my life
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I have felt that I was the peace bearer, for
Dr Khutso Madubanya: better or worse. I've always been that personality that everybody
Dr Khutso Madubanya: congregates around to help them understand differences,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: because I've always had this, like, objective way of looking at things and
Dr Khutso Madubanya: just being able to bring people together. So,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: yeah, my first name means a lot to me. So that's my
Dr Khutso Madubanya: family name. But if anyone call me anything other than
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Kutso, I'd be really offended because
Dr Khutso Madubanya: actually in my native language it's not
Dr Khutso Madubanya: quite pronounced Khutso, pronounced Ku Jo.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: But then that has all sorts of implications in terms of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: spelling. So I've decided Khutso
Dr Khutso Madubanya: is who I want the world to call me. And that's exactly how
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'd like to be. A name is really important. And
Joanne Lockwood: it is, yeah, I'm obviously proud of my name. I like my name, I chose
Joanne Lockwood: my own name. But yeah, it is really important because it's part of your identity,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? And certainly if it's got a meaning behind that name.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Yes, yes. And I've always thought it so
Dr Khutso Madubanya: interesting. You know, I deliberately, of course, have my own name, but I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: deliberately called my children specifically names and I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: notice their personalities just kind of morph around those
Dr Khutso Madubanya: names, you know, what you call yourself every day,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I think does something to your psyche in terms of the choices you do,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the choices you make. I'd argue it's very
Dr Khutso Madubanya: interesting. Very, very interesting and important. So you've lived
Joanne Lockwood: in eight countries, you're a woman of African
Joanne Lockwood: descent, you're a single mother.
Joanne Lockwood: What does that also mean to you about your identity, who you are, what's your
Joanne Lockwood: place in the world? You know, Jo name. When I was a little girl
Dr Khutso Madubanya: growing up during apartheid in South Africa, I grew
Dr Khutso Madubanya: up in the 80s in South Africa. Well, I was born in the 70s, but
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I grew up in the 80s during apartheid in South Africa.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Women, and still today, women.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: The fact that women get to take a man's last name
Dr Khutso Madubanya: really bothered me. From the time I was a little girl,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I was the only daughter. I'd have two brothers.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I just always felt like my place in the family
Dr Khutso Madubanya: was threatened by the fact that I was a girl. I am a
Dr Khutso Madubanya: girl. The fact that, you know, growing up, you are
Dr Khutso Madubanya: conscientious from a very young age, that one day you are going to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: leave your family and go join somebody else's through marriage.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: We have. The dowry system called lobola has,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'm sure, traditionally had its significance, and I'm sure it does some wonders
Dr Khutso Madubanya: in some circles. But as a young girl, I truly just
Dr Khutso Madubanya: interpreted that as I'm gonna get sold off one day and I'm gonna stop
Dr Khutso Madubanya: being myself. I'm gonna lose, you know,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'm no longer gonna be a Madhubanya. And I'm the only one that's disposable around
Dr Khutso Madubanya: here. I really grew up feeling disposable
Dr Khutso Madubanya: because, you know, when little boys play, you play too. But
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you're also reminded you also need to remember, you need to learn how to. How
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to cook. You need to remember, you need to learn how to clean the house
Dr Khutso Madubanya: because you're going to get married off someday to somebody
Dr Khutso Madubanya: else's family, and you're going to change your entire identity,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: everybody, everything that you are, your sense of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: belonging in the world. That pushed
Dr Khutso Madubanya: me to become extremely, One, rebellious and
Dr Khutso Madubanya: two, independent. I became fiercely
Dr Khutso Madubanya: independent. So by the, you know, around
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the age of 17, I left South Africa. Hence, I've lived in eight countries.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I left South Africa, luckily, armed with a scholarship, I was raised by
Dr Khutso Madubanya: a really strong woman who made sure, you know, I did.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: She did prepare me to be somebody's wife one day. But she also made sure,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: as you did, you know,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: in that era, you don't want your child to depend on A man
Dr Khutso Madubanya: for the rest of their lives. And so through her
Dr Khutso Madubanya: guidance and all excelled academically, got
Dr Khutso Madubanya: myself a scholarship. 17, 18. I left the country
Dr Khutso Madubanya: because I rebelled against that whole culture of,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you know, essentially disrespecting women. Women are just there to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: serve. Girl. If you're a girl child, yes, you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: can get all this education, you can do whatever, you can be amazing, but at
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the end of the day, you're disposable. You need to earn your
Dr Khutso Madubanya: keep, essentially.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: So I left the country and I just
Dr Khutso Madubanya: never quite went back until when I started having kids 20
Dr Khutso Madubanya: years later. I had a difficult time, you know, I had a really
Dr Khutso Madubanya: difficult relationship and I needed to go back to,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to, to reconnect with family and get some support there
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and lived there for about 10 years and then decided to come back.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I mean, yeah, that's a long and short.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I've been driven to rebel against
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the notion that women have to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: earn their worth in society.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And I've seen how that's in me translated
Dr Khutso Madubanya: into this, what is called now I know
Dr Khutso Madubanya: hyper independence. You make choices from the place of fear.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: You make choices from the place of needing to prove your
Dr Khutso Madubanya: worth. And now I realise it's not just me because I was raised
Dr Khutso Madubanya: in black South Africa and all of that. It's a common trait around the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: world. I just released my first book, Normal Free Passes that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: unpacks this whole storey. It's a part memoir, part
Dr Khutso Madubanya: manifesto. I've had quite a few people come back to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: me already and say, oh my gosh, this is not just a South African thing,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: it's not just a you thing, and it's not even just a woman thing.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: There are so many people out there, especially so called high
Dr Khutso Madubanya: achievers, right, Overachievers. We are strong, we can do it
Dr Khutso Madubanya: all. We don't need anybody, we don't ask for help.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And we think all of that is a strength. But it's a trauma
Dr Khutso Madubanya: response, It's a real trauma response. At some
Dr Khutso Madubanya: point I learned the hard way
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that actually all of this, not only is it not sustainable,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: but there's nothing virtuous about just
Dr Khutso Madubanya: leads to burnout. And none of us need that in this
Dr Khutso Madubanya: day. Okay, now I went off a tangent. I don't know. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: answered your question. It started with the name no.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm very moved actually by your words. I've never had heard
Joanne Lockwood: somebody say what you've just said. With so much
Joanne Lockwood: lived experience, so much conviction, so much passion in a way
Joanne Lockwood: that's really rattled my cage, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like. I've never really Thought about
Joanne Lockwood: your storey. The way you've told it, you know, being raised as a young girl
Joanne Lockwood: with the expectation of being chattel and sold like cattle
Joanne Lockwood: with a. With a dowry and less valuable
Joanne Lockwood: as a. As a. As a wife. Your. A baby giver.
Joanne Lockwood: You're there to serve a husband, a man.
Joanne Lockwood: I'd never. I'd never. Whilst I was aware,
Joanne Lockwood: I'd never really thought about it in the way you've just described it. And that.
Joanne Lockwood: That's. That's so powerful. It's quite moving. Thank you, Joanne. You
Dr Khutso Madubanya: just reminded me of something else I omitted to share. Speaking of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: identity and names, remember we started with Cuzzo
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Marbana. Now,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: rebelling against exactly what you just summed up.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: The fear that one day I was gonna get kicked out of my home.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And the fact that you know, every time you leave the house and you're in
Dr Khutso Madubanya: public circles, you get branded. When you fill
Dr Khutso Madubanya: out forms, you have to pick. You're a Ms. M I s s. You're
Dr Khutso Madubanya: a Mrs. You're married or you're not married. As if.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Sorry, you can tell I'm still very mad. As if your marital
Dr Khutso Madubanya: status matters. Do men have to do that? And here
Dr Khutso Madubanya: we're just talking strictly binary. Heterosexual. I know there's a whole spectrum, but
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'm just talking the two extremes here, because that's the world I grew up in.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Do men ever. Did men. Do men ever have to declare
Dr Khutso Madubanya: their marital status on a form? No.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And you know what? Why? I excelled academically and truly. You don't want
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to know how many degrees I have. It's embarrassing how many degrees I have.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I decided I'm gonna become Dr.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Marutanya. I'm gonna be that. I'm gonna get my doctorate, even
Dr Khutso Madubanya: if it kills me, because I refuse to have
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to declare to the world every single time I fill out a form
Dr Khutso Madubanya: whether I'm married or not. What has love Got to do with it?
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Does it. That's a good song. That's what it is. That's right.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: As a Tina Tanner.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Got to do. Got to do with it. Yeah, I know, but what. Why
Dr Khutso Madubanya: does it matter? Why does it matter, really, if
Dr Khutso Madubanya: men can get away with it, why can't women? Yeah. You've also, by
Joanne Lockwood: using doctor, you're not only not declaring you're married or not
Joanne Lockwood: married, you're also declaring anonymity in terms of your gender or
Joanne Lockwood: who you are. Really judge me on what I produce.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Yes, that's also very true. And I felt it especially
Dr Khutso Madubanya: more recently, you know, with my last relocation.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I said we moved to Michigan about four years ago. Now there's a whole
Dr Khutso Madubanya: storey around that I had just broken
Dr Khutso Madubanya: up from the love of my life. It was quite unexpected.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: That was my children's stepfather. And
Dr Khutso Madubanya: so they, you know, as I was working
Dr Khutso Madubanya: through the heartbreak and in my very staunchly, extremely
Dr Khutso Madubanya: fiercely independent way, you know, I can do it all. I'm gonna pick up my
Dr Khutso Madubanya: children and go live exactly where I want to live. Found myself at
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that point. I didn't have my doctorate yet. Found myself thinking,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you know what? I would feel a lot more prepared
Dr Khutso Madubanya: or a lot more
Dr Khutso Madubanya: protected if I had my doctorate, because wherever
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I go. I moved to Michigan, I didn't know anybody here. It just looked pretty.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I mean, I Googled it and I wanted nice places to live and I thought,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: it sounds like a nice place to raise my kids. And so I knew I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: would not have a support structure here. And I knew. I thought the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: one weapon I wish I had four years ago was my doctorate,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: because I would get there. The minute you get there, you fill out forms.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: No one's going to have to, you know, have to think, oh, it's a woman,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: she's not married, she has kids, she's a single mom, she's black, she's
Dr Khutso Madubanya: this, she's that. You're a doctor, period. And that alone
Dr Khutso Madubanya: opens a whole lot of, you know,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: opportunities, conversations that you otherwise won't have.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: When people are preoccupying themselves with boxing you into
Dr Khutso Madubanya: anything other than your innate worth that you're born with,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: which is what my book is about. We're all just born with innate worth. You
Dr Khutso Madubanya: know, this whole notion that you need to get a doctorate before somebody respects you,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: it's ridiculous, really. And I know a whole chunk of it is in
Dr Khutso Madubanya: my mind, you know, not everybody feels that way,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: but it really troubled me that. And
Dr Khutso Madubanya: still does, well, maybe to a less extent with the. With the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: titles these days, because there is an Ms. And, you know, depending on where you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: live, you can be a lot more accommodating and less accommodating of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: people's marital status, sexual orientation, whatnot.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: But it still really bothers me that things of that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: nature matter in society. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, I use Ms.
Joanne Lockwood: Because I am married to my wife. She's been married for best part of
Joanne Lockwood: 38 years. It didn't make sense to me to be Mrs. Also,
Joanne Lockwood: my surname, my family name is not the family name I was born with, so
Joanne Lockwood: I changed it at the same time I changed my first name for various reasons.
Joanne Lockwood: So there is. There is no Mr. Lockwood or even
Joanne Lockwood: another Mrs. Lockwood. And sometimes I get, I get post or emails
Joanne Lockwood: addressed to Mr. And Mrs. Lockwood or that, or sometimes I'll be called Mr.
Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood because of my voice and things like that. So, yeah, it is interesting the
Joanne Lockwood: assumptions people make based on that title that Ms.
Joanne Lockwood: That Mr. The Ms.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: No, it's crazy. It really is. It really bothered. It bothered me
Dr Khutso Madubanya: from the time I was very, very young. I said so
Dr Khutso Madubanya: then after I got to Michigan, you know, I had started this
Dr Khutso Madubanya: doctorate a long time ago. I told you I even lived in Nottingham. That was
Dr Khutso Madubanya: one of the times I attempted to do a doctorate. This doctorate
Dr Khutso Madubanya: had been in the works by the time I finished it two years ago. It
Dr Khutso Madubanya: had been in the works for over 25 years with like stops
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and goes and marriages and breakups and children and,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and all of that. Truly at that, you know, when
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I got here and I realised I wish as a single mom
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I had that extra layer of, you know, what I felt
Dr Khutso Madubanya: would be protection to not. Among
Dr Khutso Madubanya: other things, I just said, this is it, all right, I'm doing this, I'm
Dr Khutso Madubanya: finishing it. So it was a really tumultuous time,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: but I finished it. So who benefits most
Joanne Lockwood: from the doctor title? Is it you
Joanne Lockwood: and your imposter syndrome? Does it give you more confidence? Does it give you
Joanne Lockwood: a boost? Does it enhance your own sense of self worth? Or does it actually
Joanne Lockwood: change the perception that other people have of you as well? Or is it a
Joanne Lockwood: combination of those things? The truth is probably a combination of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: both. But it means a lot to me for myself,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you know, dealing with that imposter Joe. And I'm going to tell
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you the largest storey of what happened in the last four years. But people are
Dr Khutso Madubanya: very surprised when I tell them because they look at me and they're like, well,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you're such a, you know, you're such an overachiever. You've got all these degrees, you've
Dr Khutso Madubanya: had all these fabulous careers, you've lived around the world, you, you name it.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: But that whole feeling worth, like you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: said, imposter syndrome is something I work on every
Dr Khutso Madubanya: day. I have posters around, actually, you can see
Dr Khutso Madubanya: them. But I have little post it notes all over my house.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I am enough. I am worthy.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I have them in the car, I have them in the bathroom, I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: have them in the kitchen because I need to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: remind myself and my children every day
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that you don't need to earn your worth. You are born
Dr Khutso Madubanya: worthy. And yes, I think there's this title doctor.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: It helps. If nothing else, it's what do they call it? Bucket list
Dr Khutso Madubanya: item checked off, right? Yeah. But yeah,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I feel that it psychologically also
Dr Khutso Madubanya: helps me to be more bold. And I should give you permission to speak, does
Joanne Lockwood: it? Permission to speak, Permission to be heard.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Yes. And I shouldn't have to do that. That's what I realised through my
Dr Khutso Madubanya: journey, writing my first book that I just released. Normal
Dr Khutso Madubanya: free passes. You don't need to go through all this trouble
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to feel some, some. You don't need permission. You do not need
Dr Khutso Madubanya: permission to be, to exist. You're not disposable.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Your worth is not in question, you're born with it.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Just because you exist, you're a worthwhile human being. Like
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I said, it's something I work on every day. And I,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: as I was journeying through the book writing process,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I reflected back on a whole bunch of things,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: including why I came to feel that way, which I already shared
Dr Khutso Madubanya: with you. And also their realisation that this is pretty
Dr Khutso Madubanya: universal just happening to me. I've had so many people, as I said, really
Dr Khutso Madubanya: resonate with this as an issue because you end up with traits like
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you don't ask for help, you, nothing, Joe petrifies
Dr Khutso Madubanya: me more than asking for help. I know it
Dr Khutso Madubanya: sounds silly, right? But for some of us, if
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you all your life have thought that, you know, asking for help
Dr Khutso Madubanya: makes you look weak, it means you don't have it
Dr Khutso Madubanya: together since you are superwoman or super person or whatever,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: man, it's petrifying. So I've been
Dr Khutso Madubanya: working a lot on building, reminding
Dr Khutso Madubanya: myself, because it's not as though we don't know these things. Just
Dr Khutso Madubanya: reminding myself
Dr Khutso Madubanya: of my worth, innate worth, as I said, through those
Dr Khutso Madubanya: little signs I have around my house, but also articulating
Dr Khutso Madubanya: how it is that I am helping myself
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and others make that connection between their well being,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: their innate worth and the choices they make. And always stems
Joanne Lockwood: back to your childhood where you were
Joanne Lockwood: rebelling against being property, being sold
Joanne Lockwood: something only a person only existed for the benefit of a man.
Joanne Lockwood: That's where your lifelong
Joanne Lockwood: insecurity, for want of a better way of saying it, is developed. And
Joanne Lockwood: the imposter syndrome and your lack of self worth.
Joanne Lockwood: And you've had to reclaim that. It's taken you most of your life to reclaim
Joanne Lockwood: that. Right? Right. Which I did,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: as I said, outwardly, through degrees, through careers, through that, through that.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: But at the end of the day, I'm going to share a storey with you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that now tells you how I started to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: realise that this is an internal machine. It's an internal
Dr Khutso Madubanya: issue. Not Something word is not something you earn
Dr Khutso Madubanya: outwardly. It's something that, you know, you. You really
Dr Khutso Madubanya: have need in you. All right, so, Becca, four years ago,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I already mentioned, we moved here. The catalyst was a big
Dr Khutso Madubanya: breakup, right from the love of my life with my children's
Dr Khutso Madubanya: stepfather. And we moved to Michigan
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and a whole series of things happened. Within a couple of weeks of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: arriving here, I lost my job. Dun, dun,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: dun. And now I'm in Michigan. It's
Dr Khutso Madubanya: November, snowing, it's cold. We're in
Dr Khutso Madubanya: our excitedly unfurnished
Dr Khutso Madubanya: pardon me. And I know nobody. As
Dr Khutso Madubanya: if that were not enough fast forward we
Dr Khutso Madubanya: get through those difficult months. You know, I went in the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: us, I think they have this in the UK as well. You know, it's called
Dr Khutso Madubanya: unemployment. You get benefits from retirement.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. You get on the dough if you like. Never been on the dough in
Dr Khutso Madubanya: my life. It was a humbling experience. When you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: apply, you know, people, that's. Again, are you a miss or
Dr Khutso Madubanya: misses You're a single mom, you're a statistic, you know, especially you're a
Dr Khutso Madubanya: black single mom. You live in the hood. It's like, do you know?
Dr Khutso Madubanya: You know. But anyway, went through that humbling experience of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: getting the help I needed from the government. And as part of that,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I ended up opening a whole can of worms that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I didn't see coming. There was a whole legal case that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: arose from that, which lasted a whole two years.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: So now I'm unemployed. There's this legal case hovering over
Dr Khutso Madubanya: me. I'm trying to adjust to living in a new country. I'm
Dr Khutso Madubanya: helping three children. Did I say two out of the three are twins?
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And at the time there were 12 and seven in a foreign country
Dr Khutso Madubanya: on my own, all those factors together, and
Dr Khutso Madubanya: then luckily I get another job. Right now we're over
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the hump with the unemployment, but because I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: was so desperate at the time, I took the job. The first job that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: looked like would pay the bills. And I didn't think about or I didn't even
Dr Khutso Madubanya: realise it was a career pivot. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: didn't realise I knew nothing about it. I thought I knew, but I didn't. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: was just in such desperation at the time. I need a job. I need a
Dr Khutso Madubanya: job in a foreign country. It's freezing. We need food, the children, you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: know, we just got here and I know nobody. I accept this job
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and this job turned out to be a nightmare for a little bit. It was
Dr Khutso Madubanya: a nightmare. I mean, I knew absolutely nothing about this.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: This is now beginning of 2022 legal cases
Dr Khutso Madubanya: full Steam ahead. I just started this new career
Dr Khutso Madubanya: path that I knew nothing about. I mean, I found myself
Dr Khutso Madubanya: reporting to supervisors that are young enough to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: be my children, among other things.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'm learning everything. Entry level, you know, moving from having run my
Dr Khutso Madubanya: own agency and I was a senior economist in South
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Africa, I was running multilateral discussions
Dr Khutso Madubanya: on behalf of my country. Now I'm coming back to report to some
Dr Khutso Madubanya: 25 year old who's teaching me how to fill out an invoice.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: But I need the job because they'll pay me well for it and they'll let
Dr Khutso Madubanya: me work at home because I have no help, I have no support.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Now back up. I'm going through this new job
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that's really testing me in really difficult ways.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'm helping the children acclimatise to a new country, there's new
Dr Khutso Madubanya: schools, everything is different for them. Same for me. There's
Dr Khutso Madubanya: this legal case that just came up.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Amidst all of that I decided, shoot, it's time to finish that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: PhD. That was the push I needed. But in all of this. So now
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'm doing all of that on top with a PhD and I'm
Dr Khutso Madubanya: juggling like crazy between the legal case. Every paycheck is now going to pay
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the attorney, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm
Dr Khutso Madubanya: juggling everything fast and curious. And I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: remember it was exactly 3am
Dr Khutso Madubanya: sometime it was, I think it was spring or summer,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: 2022. In the middle of the night, I look at the clock,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: 3am and my mind just won't stop racing. You know
Dr Khutso Madubanya: when you're going through hormonal changes, something happens at 3am you wake up
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and you can go back to sleep, among other things. Now I'm awake because I'm
Dr Khutso Madubanya: also stressed. There's the court case, there's this, there's that you're worried
Dr Khutso Madubanya: about, you know, is this child making good friends? Are the new friends
Dr Khutso Madubanya: nice to them? You know, what activities can I put the kids in? All of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that, all of that. And so my brain is racing like crazy at that time
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and I thought to myself, Kurzel, there's
Dr Khutso Madubanya: absolutely no glory whatsoever
Dr Khutso Madubanya: in doing it all. Whatever gave
Dr Khutso Madubanya: me the impression that it was even
Dr Khutso Madubanya: anything desirable to want to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: do it all, do it all alone
Dr Khutso Madubanya: this whole fast. You know, it really hit
Dr Khutso Madubanya: me like a tonne of bricks. And then I started to question myself
Dr Khutso Madubanya: because I was realising, oh, I'm burnt out, I'm really burnt out and I have
Dr Khutso Madubanya: nobody burned out and have nobody other
Dr Khutso Madubanya: than my kids. But then my kids are looking up to me for strength they
Dr Khutso Madubanya: don't even know that, you know, I'm having difficulties with work and they know a
Dr Khutso Madubanya: little bit about the legal case, but they don't really understand what's going on and
Dr Khutso Madubanya: all of that. And I started, that's when I started
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to dig deep inside for two things. One,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: needed to, I, I started questioning
Dr Khutso Madubanya: why I ever thought that doing it all
Dr Khutso Madubanya: was a good aspiration. And then second, I needed serious
Dr Khutso Madubanya: coping mechanism. I was going through the, the megastore,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: right? So I needed to find a way to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: get through the storm. And I realised with no support structure, the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: only support I had, the only weapon I had
Dr Khutso Madubanya: was my mind. And that's how I ended up inadvertently
Dr Khutso Madubanya: creating a framework that I now teach. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: call it pivot. It's an acronym P I V O T.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: It's a mindset tool that helps people
Dr Khutso Madubanya: navigate change with less fear and more agility.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And I've, and I now looking back, realise I've used this
Dr Khutso Madubanya: framework myself all my life, but especially in the last
Dr Khutso Madubanya: four years and even helping me make
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that paradigm switch in my head from
Dr Khutso Madubanya: needing to prove to realising innate
Dr Khutso Madubanya: self worth. So has that made you have
Joanne Lockwood: fixed yourself? You don't, you're no longer chasing more
Joanne Lockwood: validation or you still, you're still on that conveyor belt? Of course I'm
Dr Khutso Madubanya: still on the conveyor belt. I'll always be on the conveyor belt. You
Dr Khutso Madubanya: know, this tool that I say I've developed, Pivot,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I apply it for myself every day as I do the posts,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the post it notes I have around my house. It's a work in progress
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and I like to share it because I realise so many people
Dr Khutso Madubanya: find it helpful while they're going through transitions. And also this
Dr Khutso Madubanya: whole self worth thing, the deep worth is
Dr Khutso Madubanya: something that I found has been helpful to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: people. It helps some people and doesn't help others. But I'm very
Dr Khutso Madubanya: transparent about the fact that I'm a work in progress
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and I like to share my journey, hoping that I'm one step ahead
Dr Khutso Madubanya: of somebody, only one step and they can learn from the one step
Dr Khutso Madubanya: ahead that I am from them. Along with learning from other
Dr Khutso Madubanya: people, of course. So what is the kind of root
Joanne Lockwood: cause of a lack of self worth? Is it, is it a childhood trauma or
Joanne Lockwood: childhood socialisation or is it, does it manifest itself in
Joanne Lockwood: different ways or in different people? Couldn't tell you universally. You know, if we're talking
Dr Khutso Madubanya: self, you know, I can tell you about this trait called hyper
Dr Khutso Madubanya: independence where people become extremely self reliant for them.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: That is, that's One I've researched quite deeply. The root cause for
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that usually is a combination. It can be
Dr Khutso Madubanya: childhood rejection. And I do have, I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: do remember the day I decided I was never going to ask for help again.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I remember it distinctly. And it can also just be historical.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: For some people, it's just being transmuted generation after
Dr Khutso Madubanya: generation. Nobody even questions it anymore. It's just the way you do
Dr Khutso Madubanya: things. But it's usually based around some kind of hurt.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: It's not something that is a value. It's a virtue, as I like
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to say. So you mentioned the fear of
Joanne Lockwood: change. How do you encourage or how do you help people through that,
Joanne Lockwood: overcoming that fear? Because often it's the, this belief that the step
Joanne Lockwood: you're about to take is off of a cliff edge, but in reality is
Joanne Lockwood: often only an inch, a centimetre, whatever it is. So your fear of that
Joanne Lockwood: unknown is built into huge
Joanne Lockwood: magnitudes in your head. But reality is, it's not. Absolutely.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: You're right, Jo. And it's in the, it's in the mind. Right?
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Hands. My framework, pivot is a, it's a,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: it's, it's a mindset tool. So let me unpack it for
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you. So when you're faced with change, the way I like to,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to share it with my audiences through keynotes and
Dr Khutso Madubanya: talks and workshops, when you're faced with change, the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: only weapon really you have readily, that's not external to you is your mind.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And you can tell yourself empowering messages
Dr Khutso Madubanya: or you can tell yourself messages that are going to amplify the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: fear and make you feel weak. So through my
Dr Khutso Madubanya: experience, I've learned five mind
Dr Khutso Madubanya: conversations. That's what I call mindset tools that temper
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the fear. So the first one is
Dr Khutso Madubanya: pause. P stands for pause. Remember, pivot is an
Dr Khutso Madubanya: acronym. When faced with change, you're thrown with something
Dr Khutso Madubanya: unexpected. Most of us, our
Dr Khutso Madubanya: reaction is to want to fight back,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: right? We want to react, we want to lash out. But I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: have learned there is a lot of value in exactly doing
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the opposite. Do nothing. And I don't mean do, think about it. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: mean do nothing. That circuitry. Don't think,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: don't do anything, do nothing. Quite literally. The purpose here is
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to feel. Because as a hyper independent
Dr Khutso Madubanya: person, we don't feel. We act. We're actors, you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: know, we avoid feeling. But feeling. When you give
Dr Khutso Madubanya: yourself that break, you give your, your mind the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: opportunity to rest and start to think clearly.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Because blood rushes to your extremities
Dr Khutso Madubanya: in times of shock, right? It doesn't go to your brain.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: So by pausing, intentionally pausing, doing nothing,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you allow yourself to reset. Then the second
Dr Khutso Madubanya: part, the second trick. If I just jump in on the
Joanne Lockwood: pause, you're saying, doing nothing. As you were speaking, I was thinking, actually,
Joanne Lockwood: you're not actually doing nothing. Because if you
Joanne Lockwood: pause, the world still carries on moving. So what you're doing
Joanne Lockwood: is you may be doing nothing. But the world, the
Joanne Lockwood: scenario, the thing you're pausing from,
Joanne Lockwood: still plays. If you take your foot off, if you accelerator in a car,
Joanne Lockwood: the car still does something, it still moves forward. So by
Joanne Lockwood: pausing, what can happen? As you're talking, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: thinking the world itself can bring clarity because
Joanne Lockwood: you open the next page or the next chapter unfurls,
Joanne Lockwood: or more frames in the video come by, I now have more information.
Joanne Lockwood: Had I not waited, I would not have had that new information.
Joanne Lockwood: And so, sorry, I was just thinking, when you said that pausing
Joanne Lockwood: is actually not doing nothing, it's not a neutral act, it's a positive act
Joanne Lockwood: to allow other things to occur, isn't it? Yes. You put
Dr Khutso Madubanya: it so well, Joe. In fact, I had not ever thought about that way. The
Dr Khutso Madubanya: fact that the world moves and then you're able to catch the new wisdom that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: reveals itself. I've always thought about it from the perspective
Dr Khutso Madubanya: of immediately detaching from the trigger.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, Stopping your chimp brain, your
Joanne Lockwood: amygdala, that crazy bit, bring it back into the prefrontal cortex, slow
Joanne Lockwood: your thinking down. But also that pause allows you to
Joanne Lockwood: observe, to listen. Yes. Yes, you're so right. Both things
Dr Khutso Madubanya: happen, actually. Thank you. I'm going to use it in my next workshop. Go for
Joanne Lockwood: it. Go for it. Because both things actually occur, right? Not
Dr Khutso Madubanya: only do you allow your mind to calm, but the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: world does reveal your solution. And you're able to see it a lot
Dr Khutso Madubanya: better that way. Yeah. Thank you. Have you ever heard of a
Joanne Lockwood: technique called rubber ducking? No, I'm not.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, apparently it's quite big in tech circles, so people are doing
Joanne Lockwood: coding and programming. I can't remember who invented it, but if you Google it or
Joanne Lockwood: it's on Wikipedia, you can cheque it out what it is.
Joanne Lockwood: The act of speaking out loud actually
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes helps you to process things. So if you try and think of
Joanne Lockwood: it in your head, it stays manifested inside. But once you speak something out
Joanne Lockwood: loud, it allows you to verbalise. And then a different part of your
Joanne Lockwood: brain hears yourself back and then you're structuring it. So
Joanne Lockwood: rubber ducking is you take yourself a rubber duck. So in this case, I've got
Joanne Lockwood: a little squidgy shark and you put it on the shelf and you talk
Joanne Lockwood: to the shark, talk to the rubber duck and you tell it, tell it the
Joanne Lockwood: problem. It doesn't answer back. So it's a bit like mentoring and coaching.
Joanne Lockwood: You don't actually need the person you're telling to answer back. You just need someone
Joanne Lockwood: to listen and hear you. The rubber ducking is this technique where you put the
Joanne Lockwood: rubber duck on the shelf and you go and talk to it. And this company
Joanne Lockwood: had this rule that you weren't allowed to ask for help until you'd spoken to
Joanne Lockwood: the duck first. Because nine times out of 10, you solve your own problem
Joanne Lockwood: by verbalising it. Sorry, I was just picking up on again, the pause.
Joanne Lockwood: It's that reflect, it's that verbalization to somehow
Joanne Lockwood: lift yourself into a different mind place by
Joanne Lockwood: verbalising it. Sorry, I interrupted your pivot there.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: No, no, no, this is fantastic because each of the acronyms is
Dr Khutso Madubanya: full. It's a full discussion. We can obviously do a whole podcast
Dr Khutso Madubanya: on pausing alone. And I'm so loving how I'm learning just
Dr Khutso Madubanya: as much from you as I'm sharing my storeys.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I be sure to share that technique. But you know, another thing I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: emphasise with pausing, as I already alluded to, to it,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: is the feeling. Man, you have no idea how
Dr Khutso Madubanya: much I have hated feeling all my life. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: always, I've always said, well, I'm cerebral, you know, I'm
Dr Khutso Madubanya: intellectual. These feeling things. No, no, But
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I've learned the value of feeling the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: feelings, sitting with the feeling. Are you angry? Are you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: disappointed? Where does it hurt?
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Allow yourself to feel it. And in allowing yourself to do that, I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: find it actually goes away if you sit with it long enough.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: It works itself through your system. So, yes, that's another thing about
Dr Khutso Madubanya: pausing. Right, yeah. Well, they say time's a great healer, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: You know, you're having big arguments in your family, big arguments with somebody
Joanne Lockwood: else, big disagreements. Sometimes just let
Joanne Lockwood: it, let it settle. Pause, as you say, pause.
Joanne Lockwood: Time moves, situations change, new information comes to light.
Joanne Lockwood: You calm down, they calm down. Suddenly you can have a conversation that you
Joanne Lockwood: couldn't have had at the time. Exactly, exactly,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: exactly. All because you know what I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: advocate is at all cost, try
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to avoid reacting that knee jerk reaction,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you know, reacting as a major response to shock, power,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: change. Right, yeah, I agree. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I completely agree. It's the wrong part of your brain gets engaged. It's the
Joanne Lockwood: bit at the back, the amygdala kicks in and then you've got no control over
Joanne Lockwood: your adrenaline and your vagus nerve kicks in and your fight flight
Joanne Lockwood: freeze mechanism kicks in and suddenly everything gets tense.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Right, right, right. Okay. And then
Dr Khutso Madubanya: can I move on to I? Yes. I don't know how we're doing on
Dr Khutso Madubanya: time. Keep going. I don't know how we're doing on time.
Joanne Lockwood: Let's go for the I. Where's the I? What's the I now? I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: is for introspect. Now, what are we
Dr Khutso Madubanya: introspecting here? Identity. Your identity in
Dr Khutso Madubanya: relation to the new team. Now, this is where the whole doctorate thing came
Dr Khutso Madubanya: along. Joe, can you see me? My computer? Yeah, I can see it. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: you're loud and clear. Okay, keep going. Yeah, all good. Okay.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: So now this is where that whole discussion around the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: doctorate, how I needed that as a shield,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: comes into play all these years, because I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: realised that. Let me give you an example. With
Dr Khutso Madubanya: this new job where I said, you know, it was
Dr Khutso Madubanya: a really humbling experience, I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: realised that the more I held on to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: my old identity as the CEO of my own company,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the senior economist for the South African government, the college professor
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I was, the harder it made it
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to embrace the job and just
Dr Khutso Madubanya: flow with it and be teachable in the job. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: needed the job. I couldn't quit, Jo. It wasn't a choice I had.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: But was I going to give myself a heart attack? No. I decided that's what
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I. I call dancing with change. Oftentimes
Dr Khutso Madubanya: we find ourselves in circumstances we can't control.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Are we going to push back? Or can we find a way to flow
Dr Khutso Madubanya: with whatever is thrown at us? So through
Dr Khutso Madubanya: pivot, actually, all the acronyms I found by implementing all five,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'm still going to unpack the risk. It just eased my
Dr Khutso Madubanya: resistance to change. So going back to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I and the identity behind introspecting, I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: found that by telling myself, as I was going through
Dr Khutso Madubanya: every morning when I logged into work, I tell myself things like,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you know what? It's okay. Nobody knows me here. I don't get
Dr Khutso Madubanya: paid to be brilliant here. I get paid to learn how to do invoices.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And it's great that nobody knows me then. I don't have my, you know,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I don't have to worry about what people are thinking about me. It doesn't matter.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Did that whole identity of myself as the CEO, as the college
Dr Khutso Madubanya: professor, as the economist, as this and that, did that serve me in
Dr Khutso Madubanya: this new role? No, it did not. So the sooner I let it go,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the quicker I release the resistance, my resistance
Dr Khutso Madubanya: towards this new job. So when I give my talks,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: what I do suggest around I. No matter what
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the new team, no matter the transition
Dr Khutso Madubanya: perspective, think about how your new identity
Dr Khutso Madubanya: relates to the new position and way, whether your
Dr Khutso Madubanya: old identity still serves you. Because you'll be so
Dr Khutso Madubanya: surprised at how freeing it is to let
Dr Khutso Madubanya: go of that identity that no
Dr Khutso Madubanya: longer serves you. Just let it go. So what that you were a college
Dr Khutso Madubanya: professor? So what that you know your boss? You could have taught your boss. Doesn't
Dr Khutso Madubanya: matter. You are here now. Is this the only job you're
Dr Khutso Madubanya: ever going to get? No. Is this who you are? Does it define who
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you are? No, it does not define who I am. Does it
Dr Khutso Madubanya: define what I'm capable of? It does not define
Dr Khutso Madubanya: what I'm capable of. Let it go. It's just a job.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: It really doesn't matter. So that's what
Dr Khutso Madubanya: introspect is about. Love it. Love it. Go on, then. I can't wait for the
Joanne Lockwood: V. Go for it, then. V. V
Dr Khutso Madubanya: stands for vector. And by vector, I mean
Dr Khutso Madubanya: rest. Remember, these are all mindset tools. These are conversations you're having with
Dr Khutso Madubanya: yourself. Tell yourself, this is a new
Dr Khutso Madubanya: change. I'm thrilled. This new circumstance, I may not
Dr Khutso Madubanya: know how to handle it, how I'm going to get
Dr Khutso Madubanya: on the other side of it. Got my history. I've got
Dr Khutso Madubanya: skills that I already know that can help
Dr Khutso Madubanya: me learn whatever it is that I need to learn to get through this.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: So, in short, I always say, use the old to learn the new.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And this may sound really silly, but it's very powerful. I have found,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: going back to the example with my job, all right,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: never fill down and, you know, never learned that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: invoicing system that you. That I do at work. Right.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I was feeling like an idiot the whole time. It's like, oh, gosh,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: what am I going to do here? There's so much about this job I didn't
Dr Khutso Madubanya: know. And then I. And I needed to keep the job. I did not want
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to be kicked out. I did not want to lose the job because
Dr Khutso Madubanya: of me not performing. So I decided, all
Dr Khutso Madubanya: right, what can I do and do well here that will make me
Dr Khutso Madubanya: indispensable, that will make me fireproof, if you like,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that will still make me useful in this position.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: So I thought, oh, I know how to organise. Is this the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: core chunk of the work? No, but this place needs systems. I'm a
Dr Khutso Madubanya: mom. I can organise in my head and I know math.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I can add. So I may not understand how this whole
Dr Khutso Madubanya: system works, but I can make sure that the numbers are
Dr Khutso Madubanya: adding up correctly. And it's through these small little Things that I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: started to gain my own confidence to say, look, I have done.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I can do this. And of course, I became
Dr Khutso Madubanya: indispensable because everybody knew, you know, everybody wants to know that the math
Dr Khutso Madubanya: is right. Everybody needs to be organised. But one other powerful thing I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: did through this journey, every single night, I'd sit back
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and think, kutzo, what did you do today
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that you couldn't do yesterday? And I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: celebrated my wins. I just patted myself on the shoulder. Look good.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: So you figured it out because you already
Dr Khutso Madubanya: had the basics. You had. Hey, if you can add, you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: already have basics. If you can speak, you already have basics. Start
Dr Khutso Madubanya: from wherever you are. Just know. Find peace
Dr Khutso Madubanya: in knowing. I got this because I already have a
Dr Khutso Madubanya: launching pad. I already have a foundation that makes
Dr Khutso Madubanya: change a lot less scary. Are you ready for the next one or did you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: want to talk some more about. Yep. No, let's. No, let's get to the end.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm dying to hear what O and T are. So let's do the O. And
Dr Khutso Madubanya: then O stands for overcoming the fear of making
Dr Khutso Madubanya: mistakes. When I give my talks, I always say, overcoming the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: suck. You're gonna suck. Excuse my French joke. Don't know if you allow
Dr Khutso Madubanya: language like that here, but just understand
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that you're gonna make mistakes. And it's okay. Because one thing I also
Dr Khutso Madubanya: realised as I was learning this job, that I spent far
Dr Khutso Madubanya: too much energy beating myself up over
Dr Khutso Madubanya: mistakes, over making a fool of myself. And I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: found that by just not taking it so seriously.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Understand that, sure, I made mistakes. And so what if
Dr Khutso Madubanya: everybody's laughing at me? And most importantly, I think everybody's
Dr Khutso Madubanya: laughing at me. They're probably not. People are too busy. People are too busy with
Dr Khutso Madubanya: their lives. So what if I was humiliated today? So what if I made
Dr Khutso Madubanya: a fool of myself? I mean, it really. Life is not
Dr Khutso Madubanya: so serious at the end of the day. You know, just laugh,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: have some humour about your mistakes and not be so
Dr Khutso Madubanya: afraid to make mistakes to begin with.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: That I also found very freeing as I was going through
Dr Khutso Madubanya: my transitions and being afraid of being judged,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: because that's a big thing with fear and change. You can
Dr Khutso Madubanya: be petrified by just the fear of being judged because you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: think people are going to think of less than you.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Release that and then T. T
Dr Khutso Madubanya: is the power. 1. Just travel forward.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: T stands for travel forward and
Dr Khutso Madubanya: don't look back. The second part is
Dr Khutso Madubanya: extremely important. Commit to.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: This is the life I have. Now. I am stuck in this job that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I hate. I cannot keep wishing I was still the economist
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Or I was still the CEO of my own company. That
Dr Khutso Madubanya: only creates friction in my head. It only
Dr Khutso Madubanya: splits my energy. If I took all my energies
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and focused on just being here,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: travelling forward instead of looking back the whole
Dr Khutso Madubanya: time and beating myself up for having made the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: choices that landed me here. Or wishing I was still
Dr Khutso Madubanya: married to the love of my life or wishing I was still living in
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Thailand because Michigan is so cold. Looking back does
Dr Khutso Madubanya: not serve you. Sometimes when you're going through
Dr Khutso Madubanya: change, it only makes it a lot more
Dr Khutso Madubanya: cumbersome than just letting it go. You just. Okay,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I'm here now. There's a lot less resistance to it
Dr Khutso Madubanya: now. That was pivot five. These are the mindset text.
Joanne Lockwood: Love it. So we have pause Introspect
Joanne Lockwood: vector. Overcome your fear and T. Travel.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Travel forward and don't look back. Love it. I love it. Because
Joanne Lockwood: as you're talking I was thinking about, you mentioned about making
Joanne Lockwood: mistakes. Talk about learning, growing and moving on. And
Joanne Lockwood: one of the four tenets of psychological safety is the ability to learn and make
Joanne Lockwood: mistakes and be supported in that environment. So if you're constantly
Joanne Lockwood: worried about messing up, making it and fearful of that, you're
Joanne Lockwood: never going to be able to sort of find your, your higher plane, if
Joanne Lockwood: you like of existence because you're always stuck into that layer of,
Joanne Lockwood: of worrying about messing up and sometimes you've got to overcome that. And
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, travel, just move forward. You're going to make
Joanne Lockwood: mistakes, you're going to get it wrong. If you, if you get stuck in the
Joanne Lockwood: moment, you'll always be that same person. To grow,
Joanne Lockwood: you've got to keep going forward. And I also like the way you talk about
Joanne Lockwood: introspect. I always think about that as one of the tenets of
Joanne Lockwood: emotional intelligence is that self awareness, that introspectiveness better
Joanne Lockwood: challenge who you are because until you understand who you are, how
Joanne Lockwood: can you understand other people? How can you understand where you're going? And I think
Joanne Lockwood: there's a really, really valuable. Simple. Five little words. Simple
Joanne Lockwood: but very effective. Yeah, I resonate with those completely. Thank
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you. No, they've definitely helped me. Now go. Speaking of introspect
Dr Khutso Madubanya: again and that identity thing, I really
Dr Khutso Madubanya: noticed you know, your identity because introspect, you can introspect on
Dr Khutso Madubanya: a whole host of different things. But I advocate you focus on identity
Dr Khutso Madubanya: because who you see yourself as defines how you see the world. That
Dr Khutso Madubanya: was the. And how do you want to be seen as well, you know, you
Joanne Lockwood: have to cheque the alignment between who you are, how you want
Joanne Lockwood: to be and how people Actually perceived you, the Johari window, almost. You have to
Joanne Lockwood: sort of work out where you fit into that, into that sort of model, really.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. But that identity, what's in
Dr Khutso Madubanya: a name, among other things. Right. That's where we started. We've come full
Dr Khutso Madubanya: circle on that topic. Yeah. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: for many, many years I didn't know what my name was because I was
Joanne Lockwood: changing it. I was trying to find my new identity. And you'd be
Joanne Lockwood: surprised how often your name is the first thing you have to. You have to
Joanne Lockwood: put on the form, it's put on your cv. First thing people ask you is,
Joanne Lockwood: what's your name? If you're not sure about that identity, that name, how
Joanne Lockwood: you see yourself, it's really hard to move past that. So
Joanne Lockwood: you've got to be really clear on who you are, haven't you? Yes,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: yes. And really have it align with
Dr Khutso Madubanya: your truth, internal truth, whatever that truth is.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: That alignment is also so important. Yes.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: You have a really interesting storey, Jo. Never thought about that.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. But I think, for sure, I think it's worth investing
Joanne Lockwood: time in yourself to be really sure of your strong foundation of who
Joanne Lockwood: you are, what your values are, what's important to you.
Joanne Lockwood: We talked about letting go of stuff, stuff that doesn't serve you. You know, we
Joanne Lockwood: talked about that and we're not careful. What we do is we hang on to
Joanne Lockwood: all these beliefs, all these things that we believe are
Joanne Lockwood: true, but really they're just as transient. We can let go of them, we can
Joanne Lockwood: move forward. Because when you talk about travelling, you can't carry all that
Joanne Lockwood: baggage on every journey, can you? You've travelled, you've moved eight times, eight different countries.
Joanne Lockwood: You've not got all the baggage you had as a, as a five year old
Joanne Lockwood: girl in South Africa, have you? Right, right, right, right.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Yeah. No, we can carry so much even subconsciously that we don't realise.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I know you just talked about baggage, the physical, bad analogy. But
Dr Khutso Madubanya: it's amazing how much more psychological damage
Dr Khutso Madubanya: baggage, rather we carry through life. Well, the things that say,
Joanne Lockwood: you can't do this, you can't do that little nag on your shoulder, the
Joanne Lockwood: Jiminy Cricket characters telling you all the time, your conscience, the
Joanne Lockwood: conversations you have with yourself in your head, they can't do beating yourself up when
Joanne Lockwood: it. You think, actually, was that good enough? Right.
Joanne Lockwood: Was it? Perfection is the enemy of the good or whatever. Mindfulness. Yes,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: yes, yes. Now, going back to those high achievers, you know, we
Dr Khutso Madubanya: are renowned for maladies like that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: perfectionist syndrome and, and all of that.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: It's, it's quite crazy, Quite crazy how much we
Dr Khutso Madubanya: punish ourselves looking for that validation.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Come on, Abbott. It took me a while to realise
Joanne Lockwood: I thought I was a perfectionist. I thought I had to have things
Joanne Lockwood: perfect because I think that came from my father. The way he taught me, brought
Joanne Lockwood: me up and insisted I had that mindset. When I
Joanne Lockwood: realised I didn't actually, I wasn't capable of
Joanne Lockwood: perfection myself. I didn't, I found it too restrictive.
Joanne Lockwood: I wasn't trying to strive for perfection. What I actually like is
Joanne Lockwood: perfection in others. I seek betterment in others and
Joanne Lockwood: I often find I can be quite critical where people aren't living up to
Joanne Lockwood: my expectations. But I realised that I wasn't actually very good
Joanne Lockwood: at my own perfection. So I've tried to match
Joanne Lockwood: my outward desire for perfection
Joanne Lockwood: versus my internal ability to live it myself. So I,
Joanne Lockwood: I, I no longer chase it. In the same way, I often say that good
Joanne Lockwood: enough is good enough. Does it do, will it work? Yeah. Does it, Is
Joanne Lockwood: it, is it going to get the train out of the station? Yes. Well, let's,
Joanne Lockwood: let's just get the train out the station and as you said, work out
Joanne Lockwood: the vector, Work out your, your, your travel, your time
Joanne Lockwood: and your speed and then just keep tweaking it as you go. You know, if
Joanne Lockwood: you need to turn the wheel, go off in the other direction, do it. But,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, get moving. Momentum is better than stationary.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we could talk
Dr Khutso Madubanya: about just perfectionism. It's a whole other. Yeah,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: no worms. Yeah. But obviously you're
Joanne Lockwood: striving for your doctorate and you're producing your thesis and everything like that.
Joanne Lockwood: That must be a whole bundle of perfectionism you're putting into that. Oh,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I did. I mean, I finished my doctorate two years ago. Yes, it did
Dr Khutso Madubanya: take quite a bit of rigour, even beyond my own standards.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: When you're in a doctoral programme, and that was my fifth doctoral
Dr Khutso Madubanya: programme, really, you find other ultra perfectionists who are
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the gatekeepers My kids and I used to laugh at. I had
Dr Khutso Madubanya: this professor who was one of the gatekeepers, you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: know, rewrite this and you didn't cite enough and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: man, that's another whole humbling experience. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: think about it, and in light of this newfound
Dr Khutso Madubanya: truth of mine around self worth and chasing
Dr Khutso Madubanya: credential, when my kids ask me, mom, do you think I should get a doctorate?
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I think, gosh, now that's just, that's a difficult way to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: prove or to, you know, I don't know, maybe people have
Dr Khutso Madubanya: other reasons to do It. But when I look back at
Dr Khutso Madubanya: those perfectionists who expected that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: crazy level of rigour only so that they can now say,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: now you've joined the league of us, we, we can
Dr Khutso Madubanya: now call you doctor. It just sounds so silly. It seems so
Dr Khutso Madubanya: superfluous. At some point that seemed like the big.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I mean, yes, I needed to get that, you know, and
Dr Khutso Madubanya: one could also argue that because of course now I have the doctorate and now
Dr Khutso Madubanya: maybe I'm looking at the next mile post, who knows? I don't mean to discourage
Dr Khutso Madubanya: people who. Are passionate about it, but you need a professorship. You need
Joanne Lockwood: to get yourself onto some faculty where you
Joanne Lockwood: can now teach other doctors. Yeah. And then be that
Dr Khutso Madubanya: horrible gatekeeper teacher, chastise them into the academy,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: pull their. Thoughts apart and tell them they're not. They have to rethink it.
Joanne Lockwood: And they really. Yeah, it's only
Joanne Lockwood: 90,000 words. You should have written 95,000 words. It's like, oh, my
Dr Khutso Madubanya: goodness. Oh my goodness. No, that was crazy.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: That was absolutely crazy. I guess
Dr Khutso Madubanya: we all have our own relationship to the goals that we
Dr Khutso Madubanya: set. I can tell you I'm certainly not the person I was when I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: started this doctor 25 years ago. Definitely not.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And that's why I stopped. And you know, I had so many stops and goals
Dr Khutso Madubanya: because there were so many times in my life where I actually questioned
Dr Khutso Madubanya: whether this was worthwhile. But again,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: my drive truly ended up being
Dr Khutso Madubanya: that whole self worth thing. I did not. I mean, I just,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I wanted to stop having been having to be labelled everywhere I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: went. You're married, you're not married, you have kids. But you know, this
Dr Khutso Madubanya: whole thing of parenting alone, that's another whole thing that I discuss
Dr Khutso Madubanya: in my book, no More Free Passes. There's a whole
Dr Khutso Madubanya: chapter that I talk about single motherhood,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: specifically, not single parenting, but single motherhood.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: You know, South Africa, black South African society can be really rough.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Really, really, really hard. Even today towards mothers,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: especially young mothers, there's this double standard where mothers,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: single mothers especially, are somewhat frowned down upon.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: You're just like, what happened to you? You are less than because
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you're raising these kids on your own. And does anyone say the
Dr Khutso Madubanya: same about the dad, wherever they are?
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Or do they even say the same about single dad? You know,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: single dads are the superheroes and they are ever so
Dr Khutso Madubanya: attractive and sexy. Right? But single moms, they just,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: oh, oh, God, poor woman, what happened to her?
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Doesn't matter. If you have seven doctorates and you're doing all these wonderful things, you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: still just.
Joanne Lockwood: You'Re just a Single mother. You're just a single without. We need to
Joanne Lockwood: erase that and we need to celebrate all of the single
Joanne Lockwood: mothers, all of the, all of the women that have escaped their
Joanne Lockwood: programming from being property of a man and
Joanne Lockwood: saying no, no more. And do you know how,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you know, a good. In the United states, a good
Dr Khutso Madubanya: 25% of households are single mom
Dr Khutso Madubanya: only. There is no. The other partner,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the father. I'm talking strictly heterosexual here. The
Dr Khutso Madubanya: father figure is not there. Nobody is saying anything
Dr Khutso Madubanya: about that. I mean, and then South Africa, the statistics are even
Dr Khutso Madubanya: higher. It's staggering, absolutely staggering.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Yet the double standard there, it's very, it's very painful. It
Dr Khutso Madubanya: really is another reason why I wrote normal three passes.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And there's a reason why I entitled my book Normal Free Passes. It
Dr Khutso Madubanya: was my, what shall I call it, call out
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to myself, to society to
Dr Khutso Madubanya: say there's so much that we are just, you know, that we're just
Dr Khutso Madubanya: overlooking. We're giving so many free passes
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to seek to, to people and situations that we shouldn't.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I for one will tell you I'm a people pleaser. I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: will take on other people's responsibilities because I'd rather do it
Dr Khutso Madubanya: on my own. And I think, or I used to think it was virtuous.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And you have a society that backs that up. You're a
Dr Khutso Madubanya: superwoman. This is wonderful. You're a go getter. So
Dr Khutso Madubanya: normal free pass is from two levels. The individual level, which
Dr Khutso Madubanya: is especially those of us who,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: you know, have thought erroneously because now
Dr Khutso Madubanya: a lot of us are burned out. We just burned out, right? We just don't
Dr Khutso Madubanya: want to do it anymore. But some people won't say it yet, but we just
Dr Khutso Madubanya: burnt out. It's too much. But we found ourselves doing
Dr Khutso Madubanya: it all, quite literally, however, whatever journey
Dr Khutso Madubanya: took us there, but we are doing it all right. And then from
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the criticising or, or, or challenge in society
Dr Khutso Madubanya: to say, if we have, you know, this situation and we're
Dr Khutso Madubanya: glorifying, we're glorifying overwork.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: We're glorifying, we're equating performance with
Dr Khutso Madubanya: virtue. You know, if you don't perform, then you're
Dr Khutso Madubanya: not worthwhile. Your worth is your, is your performance. So I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: challenge both levels and I say no more free passes. I even have a
Dr Khutso Madubanya: manifesto in there. It's a movement, I call it no more
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Free Passes manifesto, where I
Dr Khutso Madubanya: bail out what we shall no longer accept
Dr Khutso Madubanya: and what we shall now seek out. One is help.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: We want and demand support so we
Dr Khutso Madubanya: don't have to carry it all. And we certainly do
Dr Khutso Madubanya: not glorify overwork and self sacrifice
Dr Khutso Madubanya: anymore. We don't need to prove
Dr Khutso Madubanya: anyone's worth. I didn't mention the subtitle of
Dr Khutso Madubanya: my book is. Actually the main title is Normal Free Passes. The
Dr Khutso Madubanya: subtitle is For Strong Women who no
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Longer Want to Prove Themselves. And I made it women because I tell everything
Dr Khutso Madubanya: from a woman's perspective. But I've had many readers who have said to me,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: this applies to everybody. A lot of strange, strong
Dr Khutso Madubanya: personalities have the same traumas and have
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the same issues. So it's really for strong people
Dr Khutso Madubanya: who refuse to prove
Dr Khutso Madubanya: themselves anymore. Nobody has to prove themselves
Dr Khutso Madubanya: anymore. So that. That's my. That's my passion at the moment,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: growing building that movement, the Normal Free Passes
Dr Khutso Madubanya: movement, as part of the Dancing With Change movement,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: which is the large umbrella. So I'm also working on
Dr Khutso Madubanya: my next book, Dancing With Change, which
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I expect will be available in the spring.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: But Normal Free Passes is currently available. I hear
Dr Khutso Madubanya: some really funny noises. Can you hear that?
Joanne Lockwood: That was my puppy shaking itself. Oh, okay. Okay, okay.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Yeah, Now I was just sharing. No More Free Passes is out.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: People are interested. It's available. They can go to my website,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: dancewithchange.com it's available through Bookstore Buy
Dr Khutso Madubanya: already. And it will be available
Dr Khutso Madubanya: globally in about four weeks in bookstores around the world.
Joanne Lockwood: Fabulous. And people can get hold of you on LinkedIn as Khutso
Joanne Lockwood: Madubanya. Madubanya. Sorry, I used to pronounce your name
Joanne Lockwood: Madubanya. Madurba. Yeah,
Dr Khutso Madubanya: yeah, yeah. On LinkedIn and dance with all those.
Joanne Lockwood: Details in the show notes. We're the tags on the episode.
Joanne Lockwood: So, Dr. Khutso, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to
Joanne Lockwood: you about your Pivot Mantra method. Really interesting.
Joanne Lockwood: Really interesting. And I'll look up your dancing dance with
Joanne Lockwood: change.com website and your book Free Passes
Joanne Lockwood: and read more about you. So it's been fascinating to get to know you. And
Joanne Lockwood: I wish you every success and overcome. And to
Joanne Lockwood: quote another song, if you've still not found what you're looking for Is that
Joanne Lockwood: that you too? Is that still not haven't found what I'm looking for One day
Joanne Lockwood: you do find what you're looking for and I. Still haven't found
Dr Khutso Madubanya: what I'm looking for. Is that the one? Yeah, that's the one. Yeah. You and
Dr Khutso Madubanya: I listen to the same music. We do. We had Tina Turner earlier.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. We're not too different in age, so. Yeah, it's probably. Probably about that.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jo, thank you so much for having me and for
Dr Khutso Madubanya: indulging me. You can tell I'm very passionate about these topics.
Joanne Lockwood: You are. And you were exactly the outlet I needed.
Dr Khutso Madubanya: And I so applaud you for what you do. Truly, from
Dr Khutso Madubanya: the bottom of my heart, I'm very excited to learn you
Dr Khutso Madubanya: exist and that you offer this. You're invited.
Joanne Lockwood: Good. So thank you so much. Thank you. We'll stay in touch.
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.
Joanne Lockwood: If today's discussion struck a chord, consider subscribing to
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Joanne Lockwood: driving real challenges change. Share this journey with friends, family and
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Joanne Lockwood: Got thoughts, storeys or a vision to share? I'm all
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Joanne Lockwood: 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 with a promise to return with
Joanne Lockwood: more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and
Joanne Lockwood: unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one
Joanne Lockwood: episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.