Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold
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Joanne Lockwood: in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites. And today
Joanne Lockwood: is episode 221 with the title Inclusion Starts
Joanne Lockwood: Within. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Monica
Joanne Lockwood: Guzek. Monica is the founder of Joy Flow Lab, an intercultural
Joanne Lockwood: trainer, researcher and leadership and business
Joanne Lockwood: coach. She helps people lead, collaborate and thrive across cultural and generational
Joanne Lockwood: differences with greater resilience and self
Joanne Lockwood: awareness. When I asked Monica to describe her superpower, she said that it
Joanne Lockwood: is her curiosity paired with joy, discovering different perspectives and
Joanne Lockwood: learning how others see the world. Hello, Monica, welcome to the
Joanne Lockwood: show.
Monika Guzek: Hey, Jo, thank you so much for having me here.
Joanne Lockwood: Fantastic. I mean, I think the last time I heard that introduction was probably the Eurovision Song
Joanne Lockwood: Contest. Which part of the world are you from?
Monika Guzek: So I'm coming from Western Poland. I was born in Zielona
Monika Guzek: Góra. I know a lot of weird sounds, but I'm living in
Monika Guzek: Poznan. However, I would say that my heart and mindset is very global because
Monika Guzek: for the last 15 years I lived quite a lot of
Monika Guzek: places.
Joanne Lockwood: So for people who are listening to this, who aren't necessarily familiar with Poland,
Joanne Lockwood: it's grown rapidly or advanced rapidly as a culture since
Joanne Lockwood: what, the late 80s, since the Solidarity movement, the forming of the Berlin
Joanne Lockwood: Wall. It's really accelerated, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: is?
Monika Guzek: So if last time you visited Poland, for example, in 90s, you would not recognise where you
Monika Guzek: are now. So now we are, as you mentioned, one of the fastest and rapidly growing
Monika Guzek: markets, very international touch, with a lot of international companies,
Monika Guzek: great, you know, motorways and places to visit
Monika Guzek: and see. So very safe. So I would say that, yeah, Poland, so a
Monika Guzek: little bit changed the image, you know, in the eyes of foreigners, because a lot of people still
Monika Guzek: remember, you know, our past and we are in completely different
Monika Guzek: place.
Joanne Lockwood: Now I would say a lot of people in the UK who are maybe
Joanne Lockwood: culturally diverse still see people from Poland as being the
Joanne Lockwood: cheap painters, the cheap decorators or the Polish produce shop on the
Joanne Lockwood: corner. Because we have a large emerging Polish community in lots of parts of the
Joanne Lockwood: uk. But people always associate Poland as being maybe that country stuck in the
Joanne Lockwood: 80s, stuck in that post Solidarity glasnost type
Joanne Lockwood: era. But it's not like that anymore at all, is it? And the people are as rich and diverse as anywhere
Joanne Lockwood: else in the world.
Monika Guzek: Definitely. We need to remember that a lot of Polish people came to UK when you know, we
Monika Guzek: joined European Union and then the borders
Monika Guzek: open. So of course we were not self
Monika Guzek: confident. We couldn't speak, you know, the proper language. So of course people
Monika Guzek: were doing physical works and I would say this lower paid
Monika Guzek: one. However, now when confident and knowing what they
Monika Guzek: want, they are also now implying for higher
Monika Guzek: positions. So we can see that even in Ikea, for example, one of the global
Monika Guzek: positions, therefore European Union, for example, European market, it's holding by Polish
Monika Guzek: person. So I would say that our images will
Monika Guzek: change. Different people now start being visible in the market, in
Monika Guzek: companies. Yeah. So I'm happy, I'm really happy about it because this is not only in
Monika Guzek: UK everywhere. In the beginning of 2000,
Monika Guzek: the one who were moving abroad, they were one who were wanting, you know, to have some incomes
Monika Guzek: because in Poland that time we couldn't have the same
Monika Guzek: salaries.
Joanne Lockwood: Also is reflective of the fact that the Polish education system, the business, the commerces are
Joanne Lockwood: developing people more so that the Polish people themselves are far more ready for a global market
Joanne Lockwood: than they ever used to be.
Monika Guzek: Definitely. I would say that we are even over educated a lot of
Monika Guzek: time. It's a lot of time when I'm running workshops and people check my
Monika Guzek: LinkedIn they ask me like Monica, when have you done
Monika Guzek: this? And I was like, you know, this is when you are figuring out your wounds
Monika Guzek: being post communist country and then wanting to be visible in the world and
Monika Guzek: achieve something. So people just, you know, we are
Monika Guzek: tough. So we always said like okay, we need to do
Monika Guzek: it. So we were studying, you know, even me to be visible in the market, I had to
Monika Guzek: finish the same two masters at the same time and have some extra jobs to have
Monika Guzek: some experience and so on. And then when I moved to Germany, I had to, you
Monika Guzek: know, kind of hide part of my education because it was too
Monika Guzek: much. So I would say that we are educated, we speak several
Monika Guzek: languages. However we have still, you know, our, I would say kind of shame
Monika Guzek: that we don't have this British or American accent and that it's, you know,
Monika Guzek: Slavic one. But, yeah, our position, I would say, changed and how we see even
Monika Guzek: ourselves.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm a great fan of the Slavic accent and the way you speak and it shows your
Joanne Lockwood: culture. Um, I think if we all speak the same, we have the same accent, it
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't. You can't surface your identity. Your accent opens a
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. It gives me knowledge that you have different experiences to me, and I welcome
Joanne Lockwood: that. That difference of accent.
Monika Guzek: Yeah. I also love it. And I would say that I don't know how this came to me, but when I was a child, and of
Monika Guzek: course then we didn't have Internet, I was always the one saying at school that why I need to speak
Monika Guzek: with certain accent. This is my accent, this is my
Monika Guzek: identity. I am not able to pronounce certain words, you know, natives,
Monika Guzek: you. But this part of me, and I would say that this is beautiful, you know, asking,
Monika Guzek: like, even, what is your background? Right. What. What is there? And sometimes even I'm laughing that some
Monika Guzek: words are very challenging for me, but this is part of diversity, which we can
Monika Guzek: embrace and just be enriched by
Monika Guzek: this.
Joanne Lockwood: But, yeah, you say that about maybe English, and I say that about Hebrew,
Joanne Lockwood: I say that about Polish, I say that about Russian.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I look at these words and I don't know what
Joanne Lockwood: they. I've got no idea what they say, let alone how to pronounce them. And I've met people where
Joanne Lockwood: I'm trying to get their name right and it can really take me sort of three or four
Joanne Lockwood: minutes to practise the pronunciation, to be able to get those kind of the
Joanne Lockwood: rolling R's or the real depth of that
Joanne Lockwood: word. I think what you're saying here is that when we've grown up and learned to speak in
Joanne Lockwood: our younger years, we learn it with all those language rules and it's really hard to
Joanne Lockwood: unlearn and to handle pronunciation of different
Joanne Lockwood: letters and characters in other languages. It's hard to learn that,
Joanne Lockwood: definitely.
Monika Guzek: And even I had two funny, I would say, stories that some people can't recognise easily my
Monika Guzek: accent. Even when I'm speaking Polish, they're trying to, you know, put me to different
Monika Guzek: countries. But when I was living in China and I tried to learn Chinese, then immediately they
Monika Guzek: turned and said, like, are you from Poland? I was like, how are you going to recognise my
Monika Guzek: Polish accent in China? Chinese language? This was. I was
Monika Guzek: amazed. But the same with Portuguese, for example. So my friends were saying, like, you
Monika Guzek: speak Portuguese, but from Lisbon. And I was like, I don't know, what is Portuguese from
Monika Guzek: Lisbon? And then from Porto, for example. I don't see the
Monika Guzek: difference. But, yeah, they are like some small nuances, which I would say that this is
Monika Guzek: beautiful.
Joanne Lockwood: Right? Yeah. I've had people from America believe that I'm from Australia
Joanne Lockwood: with my accent. So I guess it depends on your cultural
Joanne Lockwood: awareness of different languages and that way you think. But you're right. I remember being in
Joanne Lockwood: Scotland, north of England, if anyone, or north of the uk, if I want to
Joanne Lockwood: listen to this from outside. And I remember going into a restaurant, I think it was
Joanne Lockwood: a Indian cuisine restaurant. I was really surprised that all of the waiters
Joanne Lockwood: spoke with a Scottish accent. And it was like, of course you would. You live in
Joanne Lockwood: Scotland. Why wouldn't you speak with a Scottish accent? But my brain was thinking you would speak
Joanne Lockwood: maybe in a more Asian, Indian accent, but they
Joanne Lockwood: weren't. And it's like, of course you were. Why wouldn't you? And if, even if you were,
Joanne Lockwood: if you were of Polish heritage, living in the UK for all your life, you'd speak with a
Joanne Lockwood: complete English accent. Of course you would. You just make assumptions that people are always going to speak that
Joanne Lockwood: way. But I guess you would still inherit some of the pronunciation for maybe your parents
Joanne Lockwood: who are native speakers, because those are your early influences, aren't
Joanne Lockwood: they?
Monika Guzek: I think that we shouldn't be simply ashamed how we speak. We should, you know, even be
Monika Guzek: curious. This is what. What you even said, what makes me, being tapped, describe
Monika Guzek: myself. So I've been curious, what is the background behind this? And a lot of time I hear like, yeah, we
Monika Guzek: shouldn't ask even, you know, where you're coming from. But this is always what you said, it's our
Monika Guzek: heritage. This is beautiful. Storeys which are, even through our language skills, we
Monika Guzek: can embrace, we can see.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, but that. That question about where, where are you from? It's very
Joanne Lockwood: much dependent on your motivation. Is it? I. I want to know where you're from so I can
Joanne Lockwood: find out more about you, so I can welcome you, so I can be more inclusive about you and understand what makes you
Joanne Lockwood: happy. Or is it because I want to know where you're from so I can treat you less
Joanne Lockwood: fairly? If the intention is positive, then why wouldn't you want to
Joanne Lockwood: share? Because to be fair to the audience, you don't know this if you're listening to this
Joanne Lockwood: podcast. We spent 20 minutes talking before we went live about your culture, your heritage
Joanne Lockwood: and all the things that, you know, some of your upbringing in Poland, which to me is
Joanne Lockwood: fascinating. I love finding out about people and
Monika Guzek: for me it's the same. That's why I've heard two questions, even one, it's like, where are you coming
Monika Guzek: from? And then you tell me as much as you want to tell me. Other question, which a lot of time
Monika Guzek: my friends hear, like where you are truly coming from, you know, and then it's because,
Monika Guzek: for example, the way how you look, your skin colour and so on, this is not associated with the place,
Monika Guzek: which you said. But then I think it's too much. So people should share how much they want the
Monika Guzek: same. For me it's when you ask me, so I'm from West Poland, but if we dig deeper, I would
Monika Guzek: say that part of my family. So it's. It's from the western part, it's from Great
Monika Guzek: Poland and 1/4 it's from Eastern Poland, which makes me even
Monika Guzek: very diverse. So we, as a Polish, we are also
Monika Guzek: diverse. So coming from different places, even if we name the city, it doesn't
Monika Guzek: mean almost nothing. Right. So. But people should have this space to share how much they
Monika Guzek: want.
Joanne Lockwood: And Poland's a big country. We forget that. We just see it as this place in the middle of Europe
Joanne Lockwood: somewhere. But it's a significantly large country, north, south, east and west, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it?
Monika Guzek: Oh, it is. So, you know, from one part to another, I need to take a train and go eight hours or even
Monika Guzek: more. So it is. And some I had last year and tried to discover
Monika Guzek: more places in Poland because, for example, I've never been in east. I was always saying this is too
Monika Guzek: far. For me it was. It's easier even to catch a plane to go to Portugal or Spain
Monika Guzek: than to go to other part of my country. I think Covid also changed
Monika Guzek: this. More and more people decided to discover beauty of our own country,
Monika Guzek: not just other places around the world. I think this is also coming from the hunger from,
Monika Guzek: you know, communist time that the borders were
Monika Guzek: closed. And then we. After that we didn't have that much money to
Monika Guzek: travel. So then when we could, we just expand and start
Monika Guzek: travelling. Yeah. But now I would say that more and more people also discovering Poland
Monika Guzek: itself.
Joanne Lockwood: It's a very old country. I remember visiting castles and it's
Joanne Lockwood: a real history because that part of Europe, it suffered a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: border changes, a lot of skirmishes, a lot of wars. I mean, I know the Ukrainian
Joanne Lockwood: people are Poland nemesis. Aren't they your enemy with the Ukrainians,
Joanne Lockwood: I think, or the other way around and not the
Joanne Lockwood: Germans. You were fighting east not fighting
Joanne Lockwood: West.
Monika Guzek: Oh, west as well. So we have kind of joke which is,
Monika Guzek: you know, more sarcastic and just helping us to
Monika Guzek: survive. It's that, you know, the God has an idea to put Poland between
Monika Guzek: Germany and Russia and then to see what's going to happen, you know. And our country,
Monika Guzek: I would say, suffer a lot through all these years. Poland as a state was established
Monika Guzek: in 962. So I would say we have quite, you
Monika Guzek: know, long history, however, I would say difficult
Monika Guzek: history. A lot of wars on our territory, a lot
Monika Guzek: of. Yeah, things which were happening
Monika Guzek: here. So we still have this in our mind, you know, this
Monika Guzek: being, I would say in the lower position, but very
Joanne Lockwood: influential in the 80s as the trigger for the Berlin Wall coming down, wasn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? That was all the Solidarity movement. It was the uprising at the
Joanne Lockwood: shipyard. That was the beginning, the end, if you like, of the Soviet
Joanne Lockwood: Union.
Monika Guzek: Yeah, yes. And we have the strong
Monika Guzek: personalities. We fight for our freedom. So I would say freedom, it's something which
Monika Guzek: you can really see in Polish
Monika Guzek: nature. If we don't like something, we mostly say
Monika Guzek: this so we are not quiet something
Monika Guzek: what. I'm amazed even how strong we are that we need to remember that
Monika Guzek: Poland was not existing on the maps for over 100
Monika Guzek: years. Anyway. Our language is not influenced by other
Monika Guzek: languages, culture, music, literature and so
Monika Guzek: on. So I would say that this fight which is inside us, this strong
Monika Guzek: toughness, I would say it's part of us, it's there sometimes it's bringing challenges when we
Monika Guzek: work in, you know, globally, because then we. Our feedback is very direct and
Monika Guzek: not each culture is able to deal with it. And we have
Monika Guzek: our. We say it Polish smile. So, you know, quite poker face
Monika Guzek: also. So people don't know what we are really
Monika Guzek: thinking. And our language, for many international people, sounds like we are
Monika Guzek: fighting that we are always angry, which is not true, but you know, it is how it
Monika Guzek: is. This is the most questions which I'm asking, like, are
Monika Guzek: you. Like, are you angry or you are not typical Polish? Like. Yeah, because I'm also a lot
Monika Guzek: living and working with Latin cultures. I'm a little
Monika Guzek: bit different. I'm not typical one. But yeah, something which, if you come to Poland and you see
Monika Guzek: our faces sometimes we might look angry, but we are
Monika Guzek: not.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. When I. When we first started chatting, I asked you which part of the world you're from and
Joanne Lockwood: you imply that your heart is now Portuguese, not
Joanne Lockwood: Polish.
Monika Guzek: Of course, in some part it's Polish. My friends, they are saying that I have Brazilian soul
Monika Guzek: in Polish bodies. There is part of me which is very
Monika Guzek: like. It's very Latino. When you are living in different cultures
Monika Guzek: and speaking different languages, then you also embrace certain aspects of those
Monika Guzek: cultures. Or maybe in other way. You're kind of
Monika Guzek: hard. It's looking for something in different cultures. That's why we are attracted to certain
Monika Guzek: places around the world. Some people go into Asian culture to Asia,
Monika Guzek: right? Some going to UK, some to Germany, some to Portugal,
Monika Guzek: etc. So in my heart I would say that Brazil and Portugal
Monika Guzek: has like huge space. Then of course Poland because I'm
Monika Guzek: Polish. But there's also part of me which I would say embracing a lot of German
Monika Guzek: qualities. And this is related to history of my
Monika Guzek: family.
Joanne Lockwood: There's a danger when you are a child of the world, you've travelled and you've lived and you've been in
Joanne Lockwood: lots of different places that you become diluted. Are there certain elements of who
Joanne Lockwood: you are that are fundamental core values,
Joanne Lockwood: if you like, and some bits that are kind of adaptive. What would you say were your core
Joanne Lockwood: elements? What is your core Portuguese? What is your core
Joanne Lockwood: Brazilian? Your core Polish? What are those things that
Joanne Lockwood: you. Then you're non negotiables. If you like
Joanne Lockwood: freedom. Freedom. Freedom.
Monika Guzek: Well, I would say it's part of me. It's not
Monika Guzek: negotiable. I am not able to live, you know, in the places where I don't feel that
Monika Guzek: I'm. I'm free that free of choices, free of being able to speak, of course
Monika Guzek: respecting boundaries and. And other
Monika Guzek: people. But I would say that the freedom and this is part also of Polish
Monika Guzek: culture. I would say the same Brazilian one that there is this common
Monika Guzek: sense.
Joanne Lockwood: When I introduced you, I talked about your curiosity paired with joy and how you
Joanne Lockwood: welcome. Understand different perspectives. That's not always easy for many people, is
Joanne Lockwood: it? The open themselves up to thinking about different
Joanne Lockwood: perspectives. How do you tackle it as a person first and how do you encourage
Joanne Lockwood: others?
Monika Guzek: To be honest, I think that this is part of me which naturally
Monika Guzek: happened. Even yesterday I was running a workshop and then I had one on one sessions
Monika Guzek: with participants. Once this start opening themselves really easily
Monika Guzek: and. And meanwhile they were saying like, but you know,
Monika Guzek: I'm. I'm not able to share a lot of things about myself I
Monika Guzek: like. But now you just. In few minutes you tell me your story and then a lot of you say
Monika Guzek: like yeah, this is intuition. I can trust you. So I think that this is also something
Monika Guzek: which naturally I have. I'm able to build trust and that I'm truly curious not just to
Monika Guzek: use this Knowledge to, to do something. So sometimes we have this, this intuitive
Monika Guzek: part which is saying I can trust this person or not. And this is mostly how I'm building
Monika Guzek: business, how I'm working with people that I like to have this closeness and ability
Monika Guzek: to see other person. Not just even when I working with big corporates, international
Monika Guzek: one, then there's a human being in the end. So I would say that this is what makes me
Monika Guzek: first just to see what is there. How can I help you? How can I serve the best for
Monika Guzek: you? How we can together find this joy? And people are finding this just coming and
Monika Guzek: saying, yeah, you are the person who can do it. I was like, perfect, thank
Monika Guzek: you.
Joanne Lockwood: You said human being in there, or paraphrase what you just said, and
Joanne Lockwood: that is so important is to humanise is to feel,
Joanne Lockwood: touch, embrace who somebody is. That's the real key, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it?
Monika Guzek: And you know, with fast pace of life, a lot of time, we're forgetting about this,
Monika Guzek: right? It doesn't matter what is our background and who we are
Monika Guzek: at work, which role we have, which masks which we are
Monika Guzek: wearing. Right? So we are human being, we have all feelings, we have some difficulties,
Monika Guzek: challenges, we want to be seen, heard. So I think that this is something, what
Monika Guzek: is the most important and even in diversity area where I'm of course
Monika Guzek: also working, this is what I'm trying to show that this is not
Monika Guzek: people. A lot of people are stressed that they use, you know, wrong sentence
Monika Guzek: or wrong way of naming people. I said like just ask, it's okay to make
Monika Guzek: mistake, but if you're coming from position, like what is the best for you, how we can
Monika Guzek: find this connection. Right?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I think you're right there. You touched on something. I think you use the word stress
Joanne Lockwood: and our brains behave differently when we're in certain frames of
Joanne Lockwood: mind and stress. And we know that leaders, we know that managers, people in high pressure
Joanne Lockwood: environments don't always react or
Joanne Lockwood: communicate in the most effective way when they're stressed, aren't they? And so how do you encourage people
Joanne Lockwood: to step out of that stress zone?
Monika Guzek: I'm working also with polyvagal theory. So we are working on our nerve systems, you
Monika Guzek: know, trying to slow down a little bit. When I'm working with people, I'm also bringing
Monika Guzek: a lot of, I would say, experiences that they can find themselves in a new situation,
Monika Guzek: but in a joyful way. So we're playing with
Monika Guzek: Lego. So this is something, what we know from childhood or some, some people are still using this and
Monika Guzek: it's great. But then we are building. We are able to describe even ourselves showing a little
Monika Guzek: bit this the softness. So even naming things. This is what you now said that stress
Monika Guzek: it's making us being back to I would say very basic
Monika Guzek: skills. So we are just running or surviving and Right. So we are not very
Monika Guzek: present in emotional level. And then when I name this even with people and we start
Monika Guzek: working on calming down their nerve system the way how they are thinking, what are the
Monika Guzek: projections there biases we have then we are finding out that this is not really about the person
Monika Guzek: itself, you know with who they need to work. It's a lot of things which they heard from media which they
Monika Guzek: saw somewhere. So they are like okay, let's break
Monika Guzek: it. Let's be curious.
Joanne Lockwood: We titled this episode Inclusion starts within. We have to understand self before we can understand
Joanne Lockwood: others, don't we?
Monika Guzek: Oh, of course. So before I would say that everybody should
Monika Guzek: have. Even in primary school we should have some classes or I don't know
Monika Guzek: courses which allowed us to communicate better to understand what we need
Monika Guzek: to express our needs to deal with our emotions, with our
Monika Guzek: angers. And I was. I'm happy to see that younger generations are more open
Monika Guzek: to this that they are teaching even a lot of time leaders or parents right that
Monika Guzek: hey I'm human, I have feelings, I want this. And others they are
Monika Guzek: stepping, stopping themselves and saying like okay, now it's time for
Monika Guzek: me. So it's in the reverse way now we are doing this than we should in my
Monika Guzek: opinion.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I never realised that self awareness was a learned skill
Joanne Lockwood: because I think you go through much of your life being self
Joanne Lockwood: centred. You don't necessarily think about the needs of others. Even as leaders you
Joanne Lockwood: often think about what I've got to worry about what the pressures are on
Joanne Lockwood: me. You're just there to. And it's not until you really truly understand
Joanne Lockwood: self. That's the first step for me is
Monika Guzek: that understanding self lucidity depends something what I'm really
Monika Guzek: seeing. It's that in some cultures some people are very self
Monika Guzek: centric. So of course me and what I want and this is more in hierarchical
Monika Guzek: societies. But then as well it's other part which people start focusing a lot on
Monika Guzek: others. So they put themselves in the last
Monika Guzek: position. So then as leaders they are overwhelmed because they are taking care of
Monika Guzek: people. And a lot of time I'm hearing I feel like a parent for my
Monika Guzek: employees. And then depending what kind of parent you are,
Monika Guzek: right. If you're allowing them to make mistakes or you're controlling things. So I would say that this
Monika Guzek: depends nowadays what I'm recognising as a pattern, it's also our
Monika Guzek: education. So what we took from our school system, from our parents and so
Monika Guzek: on. In Polish society we were always taught do something for
Monika Guzek: others. You should be the last one. I was for example raised
Monika Guzek: opposite. I'm the only child, so it's also different. And yeah, so then I have these
Monika Guzek: two perspectives. So we need to find where to meet each other. I would say preferably in the middle but of
Monika Guzek: course it's a lot of time challenging to find this middle
Monika Guzek: spot.
Joanne Lockwood: That's interesting. My wife is an only child and she often says
Joanne Lockwood: she uses only child syndrome as a kind of a mantra for sort of
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes the way she thinks. Do you find that being an only child you have
Joanne Lockwood: a different perspective than people who are part of larger families?
Monika Guzek: I would say yes, because I'm not patient. I never had to wait for something,
Monika Guzek: I was the only one. So attention was always on
Monika Guzek: me. And when I'm running workshops, sometimes leaders are laughing that ah, you are one
Monika Guzek: of three kids. So you are used to wait or you are used to share
Monika Guzek: things. I am not. I had to learn this, of course my parents did they, I would say
Monika Guzek: homework and I had to always share things with my cousins and you know, not knowing
Monika Guzek: that everything is mine. But we can see this, that for example Gen
Monika Guzek: Z, right, they are mostly from only childs. And then it's very individual
Monika Guzek: perspective, like I want this, I don't want to wait, find time for me because this is what we are
Monika Guzek: used to at school, at home and so on. So of course we can't say that everything is
Monika Guzek: related to this only child syndrome. But we can see that the way we
Monika Guzek: were raised then of course it influenced who we are, how we are working after
Monika Guzek: that.
Joanne Lockwood: So fundamentally. So curiosity is obviously a big, a big
Joanne Lockwood: factor. You've got to want to know about other people, you've got to want to know
Joanne Lockwood: about other people's cultures. If you don't have that curiosity, you're not,
Joanne Lockwood: you're never going to advance, develop or be
Joanne Lockwood: open. But another thing you talk about is using
Joanne Lockwood: joy. Joy is kind of, that's the foundation of your, of your
Joanne Lockwood: business. Was it JoyFlow Lab? How does joy fit into this model of curiosity,
Joanne Lockwood: Cultural awareness, self awareness,
Joanne Lockwood: curiosity.
Monika Guzek: We can see what is joyful for us and
Monika Guzek: whatnot. And I'm always saying that even if things which we are doing and we don't like them,
Monika Guzek: this is a sign for us like, like we don't need to go and do it and repeat this
Monika Guzek: thing. So if you don't like running, for example, don't run. Find something which brings you
Monika Guzek: this joy to do so. I would say that if I have a lot of access to my
Monika Guzek: curiosity, openness to things, and then I can easily see what is bringing me this
Monika Guzek: happiness. And even now, living in very fast paced times that where is a lot of
Monika Guzek: changes, a lot of uncertainty. Well, a lot of words in the world which influence us
Monika Guzek: daily. We need consciously bring joy to our life because we are
Monika Guzek: stressed, we are stressed, we are sad, we are angry, joy. A lot of time we don't even
Monika Guzek: recognise, we don't recognise the small moments. We don't recognise what even bringing
Monika Guzek: us dissatisfaction. Even yesterday I had, you know, conversation with one person who was
Monika Guzek: going through a lot of challenges in the last year. I A little
Monika Guzek: bit. It's a private, you know, connection. So I little push, like you need to go for
Monika Guzek: massage, you need to do something for yourself. And this person didn't want, but in the end
Monika Guzek: agrees like, okay, I would just do, you know that you let me
Monika Guzek: live. And in the end they called me and said like, thank you so much that you did
Monika Guzek: it. Now I see the difference in my life that I start
Monika Guzek: doing. I start going to see people and so on. It's sometimes to have this,
Monika Guzek: I would say, external factor which is bringing us joy. So for example, even with me,
Monika Guzek: when I lived in Portugal, it was Covid time, so there was not
Monika Guzek: a lot of uncertainty. I also finished my
Monika Guzek: relationship. So. So, you know, in one moment it was something what I had to stop and say,
Monika Guzek: like, okay, what you want in your life? There was a lot of sadness. But then I met my Brazilian friends
Monika Guzek: and I was dancing a lot, you know. And then when I moved to Poland and after
Monika Guzek: two years I was facing burnout and depression, I was thinking like, what
Monika Guzek: made me be different in there when I was living and even that I was going through
Monika Guzek: difficult period in my life, I was kind of happy, you know, I had this happiness in
Monika Guzek: me. And now which I have almost everything. I have company, I'm doing projects, which
Monika Guzek: I love. I have other aspects. And then I found out, like I was not bringing myself joy, I was
Monika Guzek: just working hardly, you know, discussing solving
Monika Guzek: problems. So that's why I started dancing
Monika Guzek: again. I start painting, doing different things, which I would say, if you ask me
Monika Guzek: 10 years ago, if you start doing this, I would say never. It's not for
Monika Guzek: me.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I think, I think you're right there. I can get very
Joanne Lockwood: engrossed in something. I don't know if it's my thinking style where my brain works, but I
Joanne Lockwood: can really can get absorbed and to the point where it becomes all
Joanne Lockwood: encompassing. And sometimes I need someone to almost grab me and pull me out, say,
Joanne Lockwood: right, we're gonna go for a walk, we're gonna do something else, we're gonna spend some time in the
Joanne Lockwood: sun. Just to sort of flip your brain into a different mode
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes. And that changes the brain chemicals and gives you that, as you say,
Joanne Lockwood: that uplift, that joy, that clarity. And then you can go back into your zone
Joanne Lockwood: and do some more work if you like.
Monika Guzek: Yeah, because we need to have also space to just do
Monika Guzek: nothing. Or like you said, go outside, enjoy some
Monika Guzek: sun. Right. Nature. A lot of time when I'm working with leaders, CEOs on one on ones
Monika Guzek: they're telling me I have everything, I have money, I have my family,
Monika Guzek: it's. Well, I have apartments and so on, I feel that something is
Monika Guzek: missing. And then we're trying to figure out, okay, what is bringing you really joy or a lot of time
Monika Guzek: people saying like I have great career, but I feel that something is missing
Monika Guzek: here. And I don't know, should I change, change the company, what should I do? And then we start, you know, digging deeper and then
Monika Guzek: it's like they have dream even from childhood to have food truck or something
Monika Guzek: else. And I was like, yeah, so you don't need to quit your job. You can just start doing something
Monika Guzek: aside and then to see maybe this business will grow. And then you decide to change your
Monika Guzek: career path or at least you try and it was fun for
Monika Guzek: you. Right. So this is also about joy. So one is a small mom, but then others it's
Monika Guzek: to finding the way to really start feeling that our heart, you know,
Monika Guzek: it's warming up and. And we are just start shining I would say like brightening up on our
Monika Guzek: faces because we easily can see if people are really enjoying what we are doing or we are just
Monika Guzek: surviving.
Joanne Lockwood: Just surviving. Yeah, that's where we never want to be really. Just surviving. It's thrive, not
Joanne Lockwood: survive or not just survive. Yeah. Six years ago. I mean, it sounds crazy that Covid started six
Joanne Lockwood: years ago. It seems like in some respects it seems like yesterday and in other respects it seems
Joanne Lockwood: like a lifetime ago. But we, we all had to find a different way of being
Joanne Lockwood: a different sort of joy in those days, didn't we? We were confined in fact, wherever you
Joanne Lockwood: were in the world, apart from, I think was it Denmark or wherever Sweden, where everyone had to be Locked down,
Joanne Lockwood: everyone was stuck. We had to find a new way of existing, a new
Joanne Lockwood: way of discovering joy.
Monika Guzek: That time I would say that I was not really discovering joy because even
Monika Guzek: before COVID I was going through very challenging personal
Monika Guzek: period. And this is what I also shared with you
Monika Guzek: before. So I agree with myself that I stopped
Monika Guzek: travelling. I will slow down, I will see what's gonna happen. And then even in Covid
Monika Guzek: time anyway, everything was closed, we couldn't travel, we couldn't do
Monika Guzek: anything. So I was finding joy in the small moments. I started seeing that in the garden there
Monika Guzek: are new flowers, which, you know, for years I've never seen them before, or the tree is
Monika Guzek: blooming beautifully. So I start seeing this joy in small
Monika Guzek: moments. I was laughing that this was also the moment where I start really investing even
Monika Guzek: more in myself, educating, reading books, doing trainings at home and so
Monika Guzek: on. So I tried to took as much from this period as I
Monika Guzek: could. But of course not everybody had conditions to this when, you
Monika Guzek: know, we had some personal household challenges when people were going through losing job
Monika Guzek: or not being able to earn money and so on. Although at the time I quit my current
Monika Guzek: career in the corporate. So everybody's saying like, you are really
Monika Guzek: crazy. I said, like, no, I'm feeling this, I'm doing the right
Monika Guzek: thing. I was prepared for this. So. And then when the borders were open, just the, you know, announced
Monika Guzek: opening borders a few days after, I was flying to Portugal to really
Monika Guzek: embrace this joy. But something which you also mentioned that
Monika Guzek: it's. It seems that it's different in a lifetime,
Monika Guzek: right? It's the COVID time. It's already six years now we have new
Monika Guzek: challenges and we didn't have the time even to stop and to start
Monika Guzek: living, finding out where we are. After Covid it, then the war in Ukraine, I would
Monika Guzek: say arise because it started even before. So now it's another global
Monika Guzek: conflict, inflation and so on. So people, they don't have time to really slow
Monika Guzek: down.
Joanne Lockwood: And we've also got. Yeah, just to put a timestamp on this, this episode,
Joanne Lockwood: we've now got the escalating conflict around the Middle East, the Iran,
Joanne Lockwood: the Strait of Hormuz, the oil prices, the world is uncertain as to if the
Joanne Lockwood: escalation is going to occur, what that looks
Joanne Lockwood: like. So people's stress hormones, the uncertainty hormones, the cost
Joanne Lockwood: of living, the price rises. It's a real tricky time to be a human right now
Joanne Lockwood: on this planet. It's different to COVID, but similar sort of feelings of
Joanne Lockwood: uncertainty.
Monika Guzek: I agree. And that's why? You know, it's even when we're talking about joy,
Monika Guzek: right? It's like how you can be joyful when all these things are happening
Monika Guzek: around you. So I would say to find it because joy doesn't need to bring with big
Monika Guzek: things. And even for me, I see this even for my clients that of course this
Monika Guzek: influence my partners, me as well. However, then what we can do about, right,
Monika Guzek: what is our influence and how we feel in this
Monika Guzek: situation. Do we need help? I would say that something what it's different than
Monika Guzek: in COVID times nowadays for all this difficulties which we are facing, people
Monika Guzek: start seeing how important it's other person next to
Monika Guzek: them. They are saying like, I'm happy, my family is safe or I just want to have
Monika Guzek: maybe new friends. I can't talk with people who I was, you know, friend till now
Monika Guzek: because it was based on business or, you know, just
Monika Guzek: toughness. So something what people start seeing, it's yeah, this humanity,
Monika Guzek: this is what we were saying. But close to us, not in the world
Monika Guzek: itself. So the small tribes, you know, which
Joanne Lockwood: we have around you mentioned toughness and
Joanne Lockwood: resilience or as we used to say back in the 90s, bounce back ability, I think we used to call it that
Joanne Lockwood: that's quite a valuable skill. But it's not always easy when you're in the middle of something that is
Joanne Lockwood: stressful, problematic. How could
Joanne Lockwood: you. How do you recommend people step back? Because sometimes you need to be a step away before
Joanne Lockwood: you can see the bigger picture.
Monika Guzek: I think the first thing, it's time we are not able to really see that something
Monika Guzek: changed or it changed only in declarative
Monika Guzek: level. So it's time. So if we are facing this kind of things, we need to give
Monika Guzek: ourselves time and as well space a little bit. I don't want to say to dissociate
Monika Guzek: from the problems, but if we are feeding ourselves with all the news and we will
Monika Guzek: all the time complain about prices and things, things so then we are not able to
Monika Guzek: bounce back and do things. So we can. We need to really see what we have
Monika Guzek: influence on and how we can manage this, right? So even yesterday I wrote a news
Monika Guzek: that airlines, they don't know what's going to happen with the prices,
Monika Guzek: right? If there would be enough fuel and so on. So yeah, we might have
Monika Guzek: difficulties in this freedom which even I mentioned that it's important for
Monika Guzek: me. So then I'm starting redefining so what it is and what I can
Monika Guzek: do. And I would say that it's. If we see that we are not able to bounce back by
Monika Guzek: ourselves. We need to have support and we shouldn't be afraid to ask for
Monika Guzek: help.
Joanne Lockwood: I really like what you said there. Used the phrase
Joanne Lockwood: redefining. You have to recalibrate your expectations or recalibrate your
Joanne Lockwood: view. If you try and hold on to what you previously wanted, previously expected
Joanne Lockwood: or previously believed, then you're always going to be in a state of
Joanne Lockwood: stress. But if you can redefine what is acceptable for you, what works for you,
Joanne Lockwood: and find joy in that as well, that I am now joyful in this
Joanne Lockwood: situation. Again, using COVID's analogy, I wouldn't say I ever became joyful of
Joanne Lockwood: being trapped in a house with no garden at the
Joanne Lockwood: time. But I found different acceptance. This is the way it
Joanne Lockwood: is. I get up in the morning, I do this. And my wife and I used to say the first thing we
Joanne Lockwood: do when we woke up was shout out the day of the
Joanne Lockwood: week.
Monika Guzek: Week.
Joanne Lockwood: Because we had lost track of all time, whether it was a Friday or Saturday, Sunday, Monday or
Joanne Lockwood: whatever. So we used to go yeah, it's Wednesday. And just to give us
Joanne Lockwood: that. And that brought us a different sense of perspective that we could track time passing
Joanne Lockwood: and we'd look forward to what was going to be on television or what Netflix we were going to
Joanne Lockwood: watch. And we were finding different ways to anchor ourselves temporally, if you like,
Joanne Lockwood: than just letting ourselves wander in this big space where we had
Joanne Lockwood: no. No anchor on it on reality definitely
Joanne Lockwood: is.
Monika Guzek: And something would differ us even this aspect how we are going
Monika Guzek: through this. I would say redefining process but in the sense that we are losing
Monika Guzek: something. Right. So it's how. How much we need to
Monika Guzek: control. And we can see this, that for people who were easier
Monika Guzek: for who it's easier to just let go things and saying like okay, I will adapt to
Monika Guzek: the situation which we are now. So what I can do about it
Monika Guzek: might be easier than if we try to, you know, be really holding laces
Monika Guzek: and saying like no, I have influence on everything what is
Monika Guzek: happening. Because then we. We do really not have
Monika Guzek: it. And this is what you said that then you need to find
Monika Guzek: this. The structure in something different than we were used to
Monika Guzek: external world. It's not anymore a place where we
Monika Guzek: can. How to say this even that we can look at
Monika Guzek: this that it gives us this stability that it's predictable that we
Monika Guzek: can. We know what's going to happen in one year. No, we
Monika Guzek: don't. So we need to have the structure in ourselves. So if you have, you know, your root
Monika Guzek: morning even routines Right. So then, you know, that doesn't matter if it's Wednesday, Thursday or
Monika Guzek: any other day, then you know how to manage this. But, you know, a lot of time we
Monika Guzek: are just dealing in this rhythm that are going to work, coming back, doing other
Monika Guzek: things. And then if you can't go, for example, to work, everything is, you know,
Monika Guzek: changing.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think the world's getting. It's a leading question,
Joanne Lockwood: really. Is the world getting friendlier or is it getting.
Joanne Lockwood: Getting. Are we getting further apart?
Monika Guzek: I have really. I have this, I would say a little bit, you know, pink glasses on
Monika Guzek: my eyes. And I would say as a human beings, even though we are stressed and a lot of things
Monika Guzek: is happening, we start kind of awakening this personal
Monika Guzek: level. I can see this in the
Monika Guzek: corporates. They are saying like, yeah, we need to see that they are working humans and robots,
Monika Guzek: that we are just humans, we not always will do everything
Monika Guzek: perfectly. So I would say in this level, which people are around us, I would say
Monika Guzek: that it's getting friendlier, that we start valuing who is next to us, that we might need to
Monika Guzek: have, you know, talk to them, ask them how they are, ask for
Monika Guzek: help. But, you know, on this higher level, which we are not influenced, we
Monika Guzek: are. We have no influence on. I'm a little bit sceptical,
Monika Guzek: even. Not a little bit, a lot.
Joanne Lockwood: The political climate or the political discourse across the world is ebbs from
Joanne Lockwood: right to left and centre. And I just feel the pendulum
Joanne Lockwood: is ticking towards the right side, which means that people are
Joanne Lockwood: becoming more isolationist, more afraid of
Joanne Lockwood: outside. A lot of immigration concerns, a lot of people
Joanne Lockwood: worried about this, that and the other, and a lot of that is politically driven and it's to
Joanne Lockwood: influence the way people think. Whether that's true or not, I don't
Joanne Lockwood: know. But it's. We are getting into a world where people seem to be more
Joanne Lockwood: divisive, more isolationist.
Monika Guzek: Now, that's true. But the movement also, which I see that people
Monika Guzek: start questioning a lot of things, especially when you ask me about Polish society,
Monika Guzek: we question a lot. I would say that a lot of time we are even too sceptical, but we
Monika Guzek: question. We have this critical thinking approach and this is something we know at these times
Monika Guzek: we need to really have it, to see what is true, what is not true and what we have influence
Monika Guzek: on. Because like you said, on some aspects, and they are politically driven,
Monika Guzek: we, you know, we can go, we can protest. But then even in Polish situation,
Monika Guzek: women rights, I would say not changing or even
Monika Guzek: changing for worse, women were striking. Nothing changed or even changed for
Monika Guzek: worse. This is what I said. So what we can do, you know, in our smaller group, groups of
Monika Guzek: people who are really around us. So this is something what we should focus
Monika Guzek: on.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, you live spend a lot of your time in Portugal. So what's going on in
Joanne Lockwood: Portugal? I understand that there's a more right leaning political shift
Joanne Lockwood: at the moment. Is it an anti EU shift? Is it an immigration
Joanne Lockwood: shift?
Monika Guzek: I would say it is, depending on the time, you know, when it was election, of course it
Monika Guzek: was Portugal. It's as well, you know, the most pushed to the western
Monika Guzek: part. So it's a little bit isolated society
Monika Guzek: anyway. It's way more traditional how they think, what they
Monika Guzek: do. I would say that something is also what needs to be mentioned is that living as an
Monika Guzek: expat is different, that you are part of society, because if you are part of
Monika Guzek: society, you know what's going on. You know, the most you, you are into politics
Monika Guzek: even if you don't want to be. If you are expat ex pat a foreigner living there, you
Monika Guzek: partially see things. But you are not voting,
Monika Guzek: right? You are not part of society, truly
Monika Guzek: society. So that's why I would say that the perspective is
Monika Guzek: different. That's why I think that a lot of people start, you know, travelling,
Monika Guzek: moving and being digital nomads. Because this is one of the things that you can
Monika Guzek: escape from. All these things which are happening and we don't know what to do with
Monika Guzek: it. It just bring in this heaviness that's a.
Joanne Lockwood: That's really woken up a part of my brain because I, I spent a long time
Joanne Lockwood: in my early career working for organisations, you know, being a manager, being an employee of an
Joanne Lockwood: organisation. And then I jumped into freelance consulting and
Joanne Lockwood: exactly what you said. I became unconcerned with the politics of the
Joanne Lockwood: organisation. There were people fighting for their desk or their chair or their
Joanne Lockwood: promotion or their right to this and their right to
Joanne Lockwood: that. As a consultant contractor, I was just coming in, do my job, pay
Joanne Lockwood: me, I'll leave. Thank you. And I always thought that gave me a superpower, more
Joanne Lockwood: productivity because I was less worried about the environment and more worried about
Joanne Lockwood: doing a good job and getting rewarded. And so what you've just said there about being an
Joanne Lockwood: expat, it's exactly the same. You're there to enjoy and absorb
Joanne Lockwood: the world and live, not worry about the infrastructure and how it gets
Joanne Lockwood: there. And yeah, it's a not quite tourist mode because you're a bit more invested in that, but
Joanne Lockwood: you're kind of not there to fix or to worry.
Monika Guzek: Definitely it was the same storey with me in the companies in corporate world that I
Monika Guzek: knew that I couldn't change all the company because it's not my company and I'm not a
Monika Guzek: decisive person. So I decided to step out and. And be external consultant, trying to
Monika Guzek: do as much as I can. Right to a little bit change. I would say the word for, you know,
Monika Guzek: being more inclusive and healthy and human
Monika Guzek: centre. But even last year I had discussion with my friend in Portugal because I
Monika Guzek: decided to be back to Portuguese language. I said like, okay, now it's time that I
Monika Guzek: really start speaking this language. I'm coming here for so many years and I want to be
Monika Guzek: part of society. And then he told me, but you know, if you start speaking language, you
Monika Guzek: start noticing things which before you had no clue what was going on because you were
Monika Guzek: kind of as a tourist, but coming there, going to local places, just smiling because I
Monika Guzek: could say, you know, like, hello, how are you? I would like to have
Monika Guzek: this. But definitely what you said, it's not that touristic, just approaches to
Monika Guzek: see. But if we are not truly, you know, rooted in some societies, we can't see this,
Monika Guzek: these challenges. And even now, last month I was in Portugal and speaking
Monika Guzek: Portuguese, trying at least I started noticing different things than
Monika Guzek: before. And then I spoke with my Portuguese teacher and like, yeah, this is what is
Monika Guzek: happening, this is the process. Now you see also shadows of culture, not only these
Monika Guzek: bright sides, you know, as a Jung mentioned.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I suppose if you don't speak the language then you, you won't notice the newspaper
Joanne Lockwood: headline or listen to the radio or something on the news, on the
Joanne Lockwood: television that is in Portuguese and you never noticed it before. But since you start noticing,
Joanne Lockwood: that's where the discourse happens, isn't it? That's where the real deep stuff
Joanne Lockwood: happens. Whereas if you're, if you're not speaking the language, all you see is a smiley
Joanne Lockwood: face. You don't see what actually they're talking about and you don't get involved with the
Joanne Lockwood: debate. You can't earwig people in a cafe or whatever
Joanne Lockwood: either.
Monika Guzek: Definitely you're even not looking for these newspapers because you simply don't
Monika Guzek: care.
Joanne Lockwood: Right.
Monika Guzek: It's like, I don't understand, so I don't need to check
Monika Guzek: this. I don't know, I'm paying my bills, I'm taller and I'm
Monika Guzek: open. I just want to see. So it's a little bit different. And when, even if you don't want, but you
Monika Guzek: start recognising what Is happening and listening, people talking,
Monika Guzek: talking.
Joanne Lockwood: So yeah, that's a really. That's a good nugget out this
Joanne Lockwood: episode. Just that conversation about this, the. The whole awareness that when you talk about cultural
Joanne Lockwood: intelligence, cultural awareness. If we're not careful, we could be very superficial, can't
Joanne Lockwood: we? I mean, we could be in tourist mode. I know about you as a person, as a
Joanne Lockwood: tourist, but I don't know you as a person, as a citizen and that's a completely different
Joanne Lockwood: aspect. So I guess when you're in Poland you have that citizen mode,
Joanne Lockwood: even though your heart is in Portugal, but you're more citizen activated in Poland because
Joanne Lockwood: you culturally invested in that.
Monika Guzek: Yes, and I had to turn a little bit to this tourist mode to be more curious, you know,
Monika Guzek: because if I was coming with the background, which I understand, I see all these
Monika Guzek: shadows, you know, and people were complaining and also not good things which are
Monika Guzek: happening in my country, I had to a little bit turn to this tourist
Monika Guzek: mode. So my. My work is allowing me, because I'm travelling a lot, you know, through
Monika Guzek: different cities, even in Poland, to work with my clients,
Monika Guzek: science. And I'm amazed. I'm meeting a lot of nice
Monika Guzek: people. I'm, you know, in every city when I'm coming, I have, after some work meetings,
Monika Guzek: workshops and so on. I have new friends so we can go for a concert to see different
Monika Guzek: things. And I believe that this is something which we also should
Monika Guzek: do. So sometimes, you know, put these things which are difficult aside and start
Monika Guzek: enjoying our city a little bit as a tourist. Because even through corporate times,
Monika Guzek: when I was working and my boss asked me to go for a tour
Monika Guzek: to. With our clients from US to Pozna, where I'm living now, at the time I was based in
Monika Guzek: different city and I was like, I have no clue what I can tell
Monika Guzek: them. It's my city, but I never was a tourist here. I don't know the story of all this, you
Monika Guzek: know, buildings, et cetera. So sometimes if we switch to the storys mode, I would say
Monika Guzek: that it's very beneficial because we see this through different
Monika Guzek: lenses. And something else was you mentioned about this superficial
Monika Guzek: approach. I would say that with many things we start having, or we had for years, this
Monika Guzek: superficial approach and we need to start being aware how we behave, how our behaviour
Monika Guzek: influence others and us and the same, you know, which choices are good for us and also
Monika Guzek: for others if we want to include them.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, that influence aspect of our personality is very
Joanne Lockwood: important. And I often said to my family and people around me that there was a
Joanne Lockwood: time in my life where I made some significant changes and I realised that
Joanne Lockwood: in order to be loved, I had to be loved. In order to be liked, I had to be
Joanne Lockwood: likeable. In order to be worthy of respect, I had to do things that earned
Joanne Lockwood: that. And I suddenly realised that those things were in my
Joanne Lockwood: power. I could control if I was likeable, if I was lovable and if I was worthy
Joanne Lockwood: of respect. I couldn't necessarily demand of others until I invested in
Joanne Lockwood: myself. And I think we've got to be really careful here that we don't believe we have a right
Joanne Lockwood: without doing the investment ourselves.
Monika Guzek: And this is first step even to have a happy life, this joyful
Monika Guzek: life. So if we are aware and of course we are this what I said before, we are not
Monika Guzek: perfect. So of course we have worst moments, right, which sometimes we are not likeable and
Monika Guzek: not. Not pleasant to deal with. So but if we are aware, so then we can even
Monika Guzek: apologise or we can build this connection with others and have some thoughts
Monika Guzek: and next time act differently. But yeah, the work starts with us, then we can look on
Monika Guzek: others, others. And I think this is what we also discuss about leaders,
Monika Guzek: right? That if they were egocentric, more like, you know, looking at themselves
Monika Guzek: on other people. So a lot of time, for example, in even not
Monika Guzek: in Poland, but generally when, when I'm working, they're saying like, oh, this person did this to me, they are this,
Monika Guzek: they are that, right? So seeing problems outside. But then this is what you
Monika Guzek: said. If you do your homework, you see why maybe people behaving in certain way or why you
Monika Guzek: see certain aspects in them, then you can have I,
Monika Guzek: in
Joanne Lockwood: the notes you sent me before the episode that you mentioned your own understanding of your own
Joanne Lockwood: neurodiversity and how that sort of shaped the way you think about the world
Joanne Lockwood: and what you do. When did you become kind of aware that
Joanne Lockwood: your thinking style would be on that what you would classify neurodiverse sort of
Joanne Lockwood: wavelength?
Monika Guzek: I would say that I always was a little bit different in the way of
Monika Guzek: thinking. And this is through also aspect that this is what I mentioned
Monika Guzek: the beginning, that some part of my family is coming, coming from West Poland, some from
Monika Guzek: East. So when I was visiting, you know, those who had east
Monika Guzek: heritage, let's say I was perceived as different when and
Monika Guzek: opposite. So I was always not matching, you know, with my behaviour,
Monika Guzek: with my attitude. And then I just knew what I want in my
Monika Guzek: life. So then I knew that I'm going to live globally, that I'm going to
Monika Guzek: Go to different countries. However, when I would say first step to this consciousness
Monika Guzek: came when before moving to China in 2015, I met
Monika Guzek: a person and he told me, language is one thing, you need to observe
Monika Guzek: cultural codes so how people behave, what they are doing, even if you don't
Monika Guzek: understand. And this was my first step through this
Monika Guzek: consciousness. Of course I couldn't speak Chinese. I tried to learn, it was too challenging for
Monika Guzek: me. So I gave up. But then I was really observing and I had the most, most,
Monika Guzek: I would say tough as well, but the most beautiful journey
Monika Guzek: itself. I spent in Asia two years working and living there and this was really
Monika Guzek: changing my mind, you know, from Western. So from being from Western world where we
Monika Guzek: really appreciate, I would say how much we earn,
Monika Guzek: right? Which position you have, which phone you have. And then when I was living in Asia,
Monika Guzek: my colleagues from work, they really didn't pay attention the time to this
Monika Guzek: aspects. And then I learned to be more humble, appreciating the small
Monika Guzek: things. And then it was, you know, really clash. When I returned from, from Asia to Poland and through
Monika Guzek: travelling in Thailand in jungle, my phone broke. So I bought, you know, the cheapest one, just to
Monika Guzek: have one to return to Poland. And then my friend in Poland, she asked me like, will you change your
Monika Guzek: phone because it's quite old, right? And I was like, so we are in different worlds now,
Monika Guzek: so. So, you know, this aspect started
Monika Guzek: clashing. So it was when I was still young, I was, you know, after university
Monika Guzek: and then I would say that more and more, more I start seeing that we think
Monika Guzek: differently sometimes and we see word differently so what we can do about
Monika Guzek: it.
Joanne Lockwood: I worked in Hong Kong and Singapore for about a month across the two countries back
Joanne Lockwood: in the mid-90s. And it was really strange as a European person
Joanne Lockwood: who spent all their time in Europe or in an English speaking type culture,
Joanne Lockwood: to suddenly be into a completely different rooted
Joanne Lockwood: culture. So the Chinese culture, the Hong Kong culture, the Singaporean culture culture were
Joanne Lockwood: completely different paradigms to the European version. The attitudes and the whole way society
Joanne Lockwood: is designed is different. And that was a real wake up call for me to, to
Joanne Lockwood: see a complete difference was going to Spain on holiday, going to Germany on holiday, just
Joanne Lockwood: a bit different fundamentally you could recognise the same sort of
Joanne Lockwood: things. But when you're tipping to those other zones where in China, I'm sorry, in Hong Kong, I
Joanne Lockwood: noticed that I was a lot taller than everybody and it was like, and you suddenly you're standing
Joanne Lockwood: out. And as a white person, I was very much in a
Joanne Lockwood: minority. And so I felt A real
Joanne Lockwood: outsider. Whereas in other countries I may be blended in.
Monika Guzek: You had the same story. I'm also very tall, so I was standing out and if somebody asked me
Monika Guzek: then about, you know, being discriminated, if how can I notice as a white
Monika Guzek: woman? And so I said like, I know I was kicked out from, for example, from the taxi in China
Monika Guzek: because I'm white woman and men really, they directly tell me this and I was like, oh,
Monika Guzek: w. And you know, then I was trying to catch taxi with my friends
Monika Guzek: from. From Cameroon and Congo and they said like, yeah, but we have challenges, like, no
Monika Guzek: problem, I have the same right. So, you know, through all the storys then I start seeing
Monika Guzek: that in different contexts we might be this one who are outstanding in positive
Monika Guzek: sometimes way and sometimes in very negative way. So I believe that my story brought me to
Monika Guzek: the topic of diversity and why I'm also know I have courage, I would say, to speak a lot of
Monika Guzek: difficulties. Even last time my friend asked me, like, you know, I'm running a workshop,
Monika Guzek: so could you suggest maybe some video or what you're talking about, you know, in this, in
Monika Guzek: this area. So like, I'm just sharing my storys because I went through a lot of unpleasant
Monika Guzek: moment as well. And then I would say that we can. We know how to feel in this
Monika Guzek: situation. So we then we find this courage to speak up and see that, show others that the
Monika Guzek: world might look different. Friend.
Joanne Lockwood: Monica, it's been fascinating. We've been chatting away for at least an hour and a half, half an hour before we went
Joanne Lockwood: live and it's been absolutely. I love getting to know you and
Joanne Lockwood: it's. Yeah, how can people get hold of you? What's the best way of people reaching
Joanne Lockwood: you?
Monika Guzek: I would say LinkedIn. So Monica Guzek or my website, monicaguzek.com
Monika Guzek: so this is where you can easily reach me out. And yeah, also for your website now as we
Monika Guzek: have this podcast. So I also would like to thank you for, you know, being here, your guest and having ability
Monika Guzek: to share my
Joanne Lockwood: story and Guzek is G U Z E K G U Z E K. Yeah. So anyone's looking up and I think we
Joanne Lockwood: found each other on LinkedIn already. So, yeah, looking forward to that and
Joanne Lockwood: visit your website and find out more about Joy Labs and Joy
Joanne Lockwood: Flow. Yeah, Monica, thank you.
Monika Guzek: Thank you so much.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest
Joanne Lockwood: gratitude, gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and
Joanne Lockwood: heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a
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Joanne Lockwood: heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a
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Joanne Lockwood: one episode at a time. Catch you on the next
Joanne Lockwood: bite.