---
title: "Beyond Labels"
episode: 101
date: 2024-03-07
guest: "Vanessa Raath"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/101-beyond-labels
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-101/audio.mp3
---

# Beyond Labels

Joanne Lockwood is joined by talent sourcing trainer Vanessa Raath to unpack how quickly we label other people, and the consequences those snap judgements can have in workplaces and beyond. Starting with recruitment and “culture fit,” they explore how assumptions can narrow opportunity and reinforce sameness, and why doing the work to look beyond first impressions matters. The conversation expands into how labels show up in everyday life—diet, drinking, humour, and ageing—and how these can become subtle signals of who is seen as “in” or “out.” Vanessa also shares her experience of being diagnosed with ADHD, the stigma that can follow, and what it has meant to openly embrace it while running her own business. Alongside this, she reflects on growing up in apartheid South Africa and how that history shaped her perspective on race, segregation, and the long-term impact of structural labelling. Across the episode, both Joanne and Vanessa return to the idea of noticing judgement in real time, creating space to challenge assumptions, and choosing more empathetic ways to connect—so people can be seen and valued beyond the labels placed on them.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome
- 02:00 — Look beyond labels, give everyone equal opportunity.
- 05:25 — South African businesses mandated to hire diversely.
- 08:17 — Evolution of human instinctual protection and biases.
- 12:39 — Keynote speech on apartheid and racial issues.
- 15:47 — South Africa banned alcohol sales during lockdown.
- 19:12 — Travelled, worked, hid ADHD, now speaks openly.
- 22:58 — Labels don't define individuals with ADHD.
- 25:54 — Labels change as we grow, partying perception.
- 28:28 — Study reveals loss of decision-making in elderly.
- 30:31 — UK's longer lifespan; South Africa's parental loss.
- 33:59 — Thinking about health and fitness as we age.
- 38:24 — Unplanned vegetarian journey leads to four years.
- 42:19 — Belittling veganism perpetuates harmful stereotypes.
- 46:20 — Respect diverse opinions in broad political spectrum.
- 47:28 — Brexit fueled divide and disenfranchisement.
- 50:59 — Thank you for listening and subscribing. Enjoy!

## Key takeaways

- The impact of stereotypes and jokes on personal identities, especially regarding lifestyle choices such as veganism.
- The challenges involved in altering perceptions once labels are firmly established.
- Critiques of comedy and media that perpetuate discriminatory stereotypes and how they mainstream judgement.
- Strategies for reconciling divergent political views in times of societal division.
- The importance of recognizing and embracing the complexity of human nature and opinions.
- The role of a DEI professional in remaining open to changing viewpoints and avoiding snap judgements.
- Insights into personal health and well-being, including the effects of alcohol consumption and embracing fitness routines.

## FAQs

### What is the focus of the "Beyond Labels" episode on The Inclusion Bites Podcast?

In this episode, the focus is on the importance of not belittling people's identities through jokes and stereotypes, recognising the impact of labelling individuals, and embracing diversity and inclusion.

### Why is it important to avoid belittling people's identities through jokes and stereotypes?

Belittling people's identities through jokes and stereotypes can perpetuate harmful biases and hinder the creation of an inclusive and respectful environment.

### What societal issues are discussed in the episode?

The conversation delves into criticisms of discriminatory tropes and stereotypes used by comedians, navigating differing political opinions, and the impact of labelling through media and entertainment.

### How does this episode explore personal experiences?

Both the host, Joanne Lockwood, and the guest, Vanessa Raath, share personal experiences related to alcohol consumption, dietary choices, health and fitness, upbringing under apartheid, and personal growth.

### What are the key takeaways from the episode?

Listeners can gain insight into the challenges of navigating personal labels and societal perspectives, recognising the impact of labelling on individuals in the workplace, and the importance of looking beyond initial impressions.

Remember to tune in to The Inclusion Bites Podcast for thought-provoking discussions on diversity, equity, and inclusion, hosted by Joanne Lockwood.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I've interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. So to join me in the future then, please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk, that's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot Uk. You can catch up on all the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode 101 with the title beyond labels and I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Vanessa Wrath. Vanessa is a talent sourcing trainer, and when I asked Vanessa to describe her superpower, she said her ADHD. Hello, Vanessa, welcome to the show. Hey, Jo, good to be on your show. Thanks so

Vanessa Raath: much for inviting me to be here. 101 guest I feel like I should be thinking about Dalmatians, because as soon as you said 101, I just thought Dalmatians and dogs, why not?

Joanne Lockwood: Obviously, we steer away from you being Cruella, stick to the Dalmatians themselves. No, it's an absolute honour. I can't

Vanessa Raath: believe you've done 101 episodes. That's amazing. Well done, you. I

Joanne Lockwood: know, and I've enjoyed every one of them. And it's fascinating to meet guests such as yourself and have a great chat and get to know people. And we've been looking to catch up for some while, so this is an ideal opportunity. So thank you. Excellent. Vanessa. Beyond labels. Beyond labels. What does that mean to you? So, for me, I think that it goes

Vanessa Raath: beyond just saying beyond labels. I've always had a thing about people judging others, and I think when you judge someone, you give them a label. And that, for me, is just so frustrating, is that we do it. I think it's human nature. You see someone walking down the street and you give them a label straight away. Maybe it's a gentleman with a lot of tattoos and you immediately think, rough, maybe from the wrong side of the street. Meanwhile, these days he's probably like a top CEO or MD. It's about those snap decisions that we make when we look at people and we give them a label, and it's completely unfounded. It's just based on our point of reference, where are we coming from? And probably from something that inherently has been built into us through the course of our lives. So for me, from my perspective of being a talent sourcing trainer, beyond labels is giving everyone an equal opportunity. Don't look at a CV and just label someone. Don't look at someone on LinkedIn only and give them a label. Are they a perfect candidate? If you haven't cross referenced them across the Internet, you might find something else that's even really good, that you can sell them to be a culture, fit into the organisation. Or you might find something that makes you think, well, this isn't actually going to work in this role, so it's about doing your homework before just willy nilly applying labels to individuals. Obviously, I

Joanne Lockwood: work in the EDI space. You're an experienced person who works in the talent sourcing space. So we talk about these kind of things all the time. But the average person in corporate South Africa, corporate UK, corporate America, wherever you happen to be, doesn't always think about this, do they? Their focus is on empty seat. I need someone to fill that slot. I want someone to hit the ground running. Mike has just left. I want another person just like Mike. How do we move people into that way of thinking? Absolutely, 100%. And I think

Vanessa Raath: that what happens is, and this is why I'm a little bit stuck with company referral systems, because what happens is Mark leaves. Mark is a white male. We must get another white male because Mark was great and we're all going to really miss Mark around here. Or you then have someone who looks like Mark, who's left behind and he recommends his friend who looks and sounds and speaks like Mark because that's what was there previously. So it's all about our. As I say, it's our point of references of what we think will work best. And it is a massive problem. It really and truly is. You've done 101 episodes on this. We all know that more diverse organisations and staffing teams perform better, make more money, are more enjoyable workplaces for people. And from my perspective of. I have the unique, I don't want to even say it was a privilege, but the unique view of growing up in apartheid South Africa, we didn't have opportunities to mix with people from other races. So in the workplace was where I got to meet people and actually form friends with people from other racial groups. And I'm eternally grateful for that because it afforded me the opportunity. I went to a school where only white children were allowed to attend up until I was in my final year. So I think it's something that we definitely need to do in the workplace because we can. I perceive

Joanne Lockwood: there to be kind of often a disconnect between the motivation in a workplace and the motivation in society. So if you work for a large organisation or corporate, you've got Dei, you've got HR people, you've got people in talent sourcing, all focusing on equal opportunity equity, ensuring people succeed, whereas you step out onto the pavement. Society doesn't always care about you as an individual in the same way. And we often think that a company culture is a microcosm of the societal culture. But sometimes companies are actually leading the way in this. They definitely are, 100%. But then

Vanessa Raath: we have the extreme case in a country like South Africa where I'm based, where businesses are mandated to go and hire people from different racial groups because the government puts stipulations in place on them. So sometimes you find it, it's always happening, but it's a false kind of view of what they're trying to achieve, which is good. We need to do this however it needs to be done for the right reasons. So ed and I is something that's hugely important, has to be a focus, but it has to be done with the whole company's buy in, because society is kind of left to their own devices. There's no one really trying to be the CEO of a society, but if it's coming from the CEO of a business, and they are all over there, they're on the Ed Andr bus. Brilliant.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So you talked about labels, you talked about stereotyping people. And as a species, we're quite judgmental, aren't we? Oh, it's just awful. We're evaluating people all the time, going, oh, yeah, shoes, watch, hair, car, nose, glasses, whatever it may be, and putting people into our little stereotype box and say, I know who you are now because I've sussed you. And we do that hiring as well. Yeah, it happens all the time. And

Vanessa Raath: it's really something that's quite difficult not to do. I mean, no one's perfect. I mean, I do it, I catch myself doing it. I've just actually had knee surgery. So I've spent a lot of time while all the guests have been here over Christmas, sitting on a bench at the beach, while others have been playing on the beach or walking or swimming. And you sit there and you look at people and I find myself judging people as they're walking past me. And I'm like, who am I? Why am I doing this? I don't have to be doing this. And then often I'd be left with all the old grannies who also have the bad knees and couldn't walk on the beach. And then you find out that even though this person's old. I mean, they're in their 80s. They're amazing. I had the most wonderful conversations with old ladies who were pretty much. Their knees were about as good as mine and they were just the most interesting, lovely people. But when they sat down next to me, I was like, no, but you shouldn't feel like that. They were wonderful. I can't believe how it

Joanne Lockwood: happened. But apparently I checked my diary and I'm 60 next year, but in my head I'm still 25. I'm still a young adult with young adult thoughts. Just with knees that don't work. That's the only thing that's different, isn't it?

Vanessa Raath: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we're talking about labels. We also sometimes label ourselves incorrectly. And our perception of what we're putting out there and what people are seeing is often two completely different things. And I just think that there's a bit of a disconnect there of what we think we are putting out into the universe and how they're reading that. Are they getting a different label to what we're trying to give ourselves?

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I could see how it evolved. You think about prehistoric human back in the times where we were living in small communities, small tribes, and anybody who came from over the hill or across the water was inherently bad because why were they coming? Probably to rape, pillage, attack, steal or whatever. They weren't coming to knock on the door and say, do you want to buy something or anything like that? Or be nice. So we've evolved this sense of protectionism where the judgement is evaluating the threat level, isn't it? Adrenaline glands, our vagus nerve, our fight, flight or freeze mechanism are kicking in all the time, linked all to our biases, which is why people who are different to ourselves and not in our in group are seen as maybe as threats or less effective than we are. Yeah, absolutely.

Vanessa Raath: It's the whole thing of who are you going to. So you walk into a conference venue and there's a whole lot of people attending a conference, who are you going to naturally gravitate towards? And again, that's people who look and sound like you. And I consciously try not to do that and go to groups of people that don't look and sound like me. Because again, I think this is a throwback from growing up in apartheid South Africa. I want to know more about different people. I know what people like me do for fun on the weekends, but I want to make friends from other racial groups because I'm really interested in their lives and how they grew up and those kind of things. So, yeah, you're right. Do we hang out with the labels that we like, or do we go and look for people with other labels? That's the question.

Joanne Lockwood: Did you talk about how you grew up? So you probably grew up in the FW, de Klerk era, the pre Mandela, the apartheid, the sanctions era, where South Africa weren't allowed to compete in sport, et cetera, et cetera. So how did that effectively influence you as a person, but also influence those around you? It was very ingrained. Apartheid was very ingrained in the culture, wasn't it, in the white culture? Sorry, it is. And look, I do believe that

Vanessa Raath: it's getting better. I mean, if I look at my son, who's 18, and godchildren and things like that, they all mix interracial groups and they have friends from different racial groups at school, which I think is completely amazing. But Nelson Mandela actually got voted into power in my final year at school. That was in 1994. And up until then, we were only white children in my school, so I never got to mix with people from different racial groups, which was very sad. So, I mean, the knock on impact of that was that we were kept very segregated and it was just awful. But when you're growing up in that kind of setup, you don't know that it's any different. I mean, I remember an instance when was in the town where we lived, and I was out with my nanny, who was a black lady, Maria. She basically raised us. And there was a toilet. And so I'll give away my age here. I'm 47 now, so this must have been in 1986. I must have been about ten. And there were two toilets, public toilets, in the middle of the town. And there was one for white people and there was one for non white people. And I remember my maid helper, Maria, saying to a white lady who was going into the toilet, saying, can I send this child into the toilet with you? Because we both need to go to the toilet, but we have to go to separate ones. And they were almost like a block apart. And that was a major thing that stuck with me. And I just thought it was now, in hindsight, as an adult, talking all around the world about DNA, that's how strange that was. But back then, I didn't even question it because that was the way it. Yeah, I mean, from

Joanne Lockwood: a uk perspective, I probably more aware of the US culture around racism, the hidden figures film around the segregation of toilets, the Rosa park story, the southern american narrative. I didn't get to hear much about the south african perspective, because there was this apartheid. Apartheid's bad. So we didn't really dive any deeper into the culture of what was going on. So my experience of racial discrimination is probably us american focus with a bit of UK focused, which is really interesting. Because I

Vanessa Raath: remember back in, just before I started my own business in 2018, I went and did a keynote for Sourcecon in Seattle, and I spoke about my journey growing up in apartheid South Africa. The talk was very much around a DENR focus and how many us citizens came up to me and said, thank you, thank you for standing up on stage and calling a spade a spade, pretty much, and talking about racial issues, because it's something that is not spoken about in the US and that's actually out of anything besides doing a keynote at such a big forum. What stayed with me from that up until this day was the reaction. I mean, I was talking and the whole time I was talking, I thought, here I am, I'm like bombing this talk because people were crying, they were reaching for the tissues, and I thought, I've just got to keep going with this. And the reaction was due to what I was talking about and explaining what it was like and how they need to get their ed and I in place before the right reasons. And don't let it become as bad as it got in South Africa. With.

Joanne Lockwood: As an outsider, one of the things I perceive is a difference is South Africa is being minority, ruled by white people in a black country, whereas America is kind of ruled. There's no clear majority. If you look at hispanic population, spanish speaking black population and the white population, it's white dominated, but it's not a black society. Where South Africa was originally a black society that was colonised and taken over by the Dutch, the British and all the northern european colonisers, if you like. Absolutely. And it wasn't even a gender thing. I mean, there

Vanessa Raath: were no females sitting, making these decisions in the minority. It was all literally white males that know the presidents, his cabinet, very few, very little female representation in that. So, like, for example, South Africa was one of the first countries to legalise gay marriage, because that was never a thing for us. We still try to get over the whole racial, the fallout, the hangover from apartheid. So that was your big elephant in the

Joanne Lockwood: room, was resolving racial tensions and differences, as you say, the other edi, gender, sexuality, et cetera, et cetera. They were kind of a lower priority, probably nonexistent, because everyone was so focused on race.

Vanessa Raath: 100%. Absolutely. Now those factors are coming more into play. I mean, there's a massive drive around gender based violence, GBV and things like that, and to really highlight them and to just, should I say, try and do away with how some of the women are treated in the more rural areas of South Africa? And is that

Joanne Lockwood: across racial demographic? So it's not a white problem or black problem, it's a problem.

Vanessa Raath: It's a male anger problem. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: I'm not looking to excuse. Is it born out of frustration? Is it just socialisation? Sure. I think it's got a whole

Vanessa Raath: lot of factors. So let's look back and see what South Africa did during COVID So we were one of the few countries that actually banned alcohol sales. So while everyone was sitting in lockdown, the rest of the world was in lockdown. There was a ban here, even on smoking. So you couldn't buy cigarettes in South Africa during lockdown, which wasn't a problem for us. But they banned alcohol sales. And the reason why they did that was there's a big drinking culture in South Africa which often resulted in a lot of poor behaviour on Friday and Saturday nights. And the casualty rooms would be full after domestic violence. And then that took away from us trying to deal with a massive pandemic of COVID So they banned alcohol sales, trying to keep the population under control. So you can see that that would be one of the effects of the gender based violence in this country. It would be the alcohol consumption I. Remember seeing on the streets, because Australia was pretty locked down as

Joanne Lockwood: well. But you were pretty locked down. You had armed guards on street corners and you effectively locked in your homes for a lot of time, weren't you? And I remember seeing the stories on it. Has society flipped back? Has it just carried on where it left off? Or is a reduction in the culture of alcohol?

Vanessa Raath: Sure, that's a good question. I wouldn't like to speak on behalf of the whole country, to be honest with you, Jo, but us personally, we actually drink a lot less since COVID because I think we realised that we didn't really need to be drinking as much as what we were. And it was never like we had a problem, but maybe it wasn't as bad as what people made out. I mean, we had very entrepreneurial, innovative South Africans making pineapple beer in their bathtubs. Just trying things out. Fantastic. You can distil and you can brew anything, I guess,

Joanne Lockwood: if you've got the right. Exactly. Banned alcohol, but not yeast. Yes. So yeast sales went through the roof in

Vanessa Raath: supermarkets. Well,

Joanne Lockwood: that's the human evolution. Human culture, as you say, the entrepreneurial spirit coming out. Exactly, yeah, exactly. I guess people were making their own tobacco as well. Importing

Vanessa Raath: cigarettes illegally from Mozambique, I believe.

Joanne Lockwood: To quote Jurassic park, nature finds a know humans will find a way as. Yeah, there's a vacuum, you fill it. So true. So you say your superpower is your ADHD. Is that something that you've realised you've had with you all your life, or is it something you've grown to embrace and value, or has it held you back at all in your life that you're now realising it? So I was pretty much first diagnosed in high

Vanessa Raath: school and didn't talk about it openly, just a bit of a stigma around it. And then I actually went to study teaching. That's my formal qualification, I'm a middle school teacher and loved that and found with that kind of profession, I didn't need to be medicated for it. But I'll never forget, I was sitting. I taught in London for seven years and sitting in the staff room in Southfields and the special needs teacher came to me and said, you do realise how bad your ADHD is? And I said, what? And I hadn't even told her that I had it. So she had picked it up just by watching my behaviours and all of those things and she. So she pointed it out. Then it kind of came back onto my radar as an adult. I didn't do anything about it because then I went off travelling the world for two years and when you're working as a scuba diving instructor, you don't need to be medicated for ADHD. Then I came back to South Africa and ended up in an office environment working in a recruitment agency and I realised then that actually I needed to go back onto medication. So I did and I started talking a little bit more about it. But it's only literally in the last. Since I started my own business, which is five years ago, that I have my previous employer, where I was for ten years, knew about it because it actually counted towards a be stat here that I could get some kind of a point for the company towards whatever levels they were getting for the government. So they knew about it, but I didn't talk about it. And then when I started my own business, I thought, actually I'm doing well, standing on stages all over the world. Maybe it's time to talk about it because there shouldn't be a stigma around having this. And I did and promptly discovered that at least two thirds of the international sourcing community suffer from ADHD too. Everyone seems to have that. And I think that the reason why I refer to it as my superpower is because I think people who have ADHD don't have as many, should I say, inhibitions as other people. And we're quite confident and we quite happy to go and talk to people. And that definitely has helped me to be stronger in the recruiting space. So it's something that I'm now comfortable to talk about and take medication for it every day. And I've just had three weeks holiday here in South Africa because it's our lovely summer. And I must admit, yesterday when I started work, I was quite ready to get back onto my ritual because I only take it when I work and get some focus and sort out my very busy brain. But it was good to give it a break. So you mentioned that one of the things that

Joanne Lockwood: you see as an asset in your entrepreneurial, your business is the ability to just go and talk to people, to be out there. What would you say would be the harder parts of running? Obviously, you're running a business. What's the hardest bit around your ADHD? If you weren't on meds, or even if you are on meds, because I appreciate meds also. They kind of numb you a bit, don't they? They take the tops and the bottoms off. No, my medication doesn't do

Vanessa Raath: that, to be honest. My medication actually just allows me to concentrate and focus so I don't feel like it doesn't have anything to do with my emotions or moods. Thankfully, I'm very stable. I like to think maybe just ask my husband around my moods and I'm not a moody person. It just helps me to concentrate. So the most difficult thing, Jo, to be honest with you, is getting the admin done. It's when I've got people who finish my academy and now they need a certificate. But that's admin. It's boring. It's not thinking out of the box, it's not being creative. That kind of stuff is difficult. Being a solopreneur, I choose to be a solopreneur. I don't want to have a team around me, but I've still got to get the admin done right. Someone's got to sit down and pay the bills and do all of those things. And that's what I find really difficult. So it's the routine, the mundane, the thing

Joanne Lockwood: that doesn't trigger you with excitement? No. And then I

Vanessa Raath: leave it to last and then it's often too late.

Joanne Lockwood: A lot of that. So that's the difficulty I often wonder, who is this mysterious neurotypical person? Because I wouldn't say I have ADHD, but I would say that I think in my way, and I resonate with what you've just said. I resonate with what other people say. I do wonder what is neurotypical. And I also wonder, going back to prehistoric human, what were the attributes that were most valuable in prehistoric human? And I think a lot of the attributes of people with ADHD would have been really valuable in a world where you had to kind of be alert and deal with stuff. So let's go back to

Vanessa Raath: what we started talking about was labels. So, I mean, if I say to someone, I've got ADHD, they immediately think I'm going to be bouncing off the walls and I'm not going to be able to sit at my desk and all of those things, which to a certain degree would be true, but people, that's what they immediately think. But actually, ADHD manifests itself completely differently in males versus females. So you can't just look at someone and put a label on them and say, oh, God, no, I can't have that person in an open plan office because they've got ADHD. They're never going to get any work done. It doesn't work like that. And if you medicated for it, does the person still need the label? Yeah, very true. It's an interesting space. And I think now that I feel safe that I'm running my own business, I'm not letting a company down when I speak about it very openly because it needs to be spoken about. I think sometimes that people jump too quickly to a diagnosis of ADHD. Like, I chat to my friends and they often contact me and say, van, my son's just been diagnosed with ADHD and put them on medication. Can you talk to my son? I'm like, well, no, not really, because it's completely different and it manifests in different ways. And I don't know that medication that he's on and I don't know what he's going through, it's so different in each individual, very subjective. And I think the way we started this podcast where you see it as

Joanne Lockwood: your superpower and you're able to embrace it, there's no shame, there's no stigma, it's part of you, it makes you who you are. And you, as a mature adult, sounds really crass. Mature adult? No, I'm nearly 60. I'm older than you. You told me when you were born. I think when you get to that level of maturity or you age, you start to own who you are and not see these things as threats or challenges. You work with the tools you got. I wonder if this resonates with any of

Vanessa Raath: the other ladies out there. You kind of hit 40 and you do a little bit of cleansing and you get rid of the friends that you maybe no longer need in your life. You get rid of the energy vampires and you get really comfortable in your own skin and you a lot more selective of who you spend your time with, whose comments you let bother you. And I think it's a great place to be. It really is. Yeah. And that's a certain sense of

Joanne Lockwood: knowing who you are. Because once you know who you are, that contextualises a lot around you, doesn't it? You say you can drift away from people who are like energy vampires. I love that. I've heard the expression hang around with radiators, not drains, so you look at people to amplify it. But I suppose before you reach that level of self awareness, you don't realise what's going on in your life. You're not aware of the impact of that. You're reacting, you're diving in, you're still vulnerable in your identity. Maybe.

Vanessa Raath: Yeah, maybe. And then you talk about labels, if I think about it. So we hear now, and we've just finished the festive season and my son's 18 and he's out every night and he's partying and really enjoying it and he's literally going out when I'm going to bed, where 20 years ago your label wanted to be, look at you and your party animal and you're out there having so much fun. Now, I've got no issues telling people that I like to be in bed by hoppers eight, because I do. But I'm up at five. I was in the swimming pool before 06:00 this morning. So it's, your labels will change and also your labels of other people will change. Because that's just laugh, isn't it? Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: You say, is it 40? I mean, obviously I'm nearly 60, as I've mentioned, I hang around with a cohort of people who are similar age and we all agreed that 50 was fantastic. Really? That's good to

Vanessa Raath: know. And I'm also hanging out with people now who are going, 60 is where

Joanne Lockwood: it's at every decade. You grow into it and you look back and think. I think we just learn and grow throughout our lives. And probably when we were 30, I remember being 30, deciding that I was now getting old. I was no longer 20, I was no longer young and I think maybe 30 was that barrier between adhood and student or. I had to do something in my life. Now I couldn't say, I'm getting there. I had to be somewhere.

Vanessa Raath: Yeah, no, exactly. And I agree. I think my 30th birthday was. I remember being, like, mortified. Just what is happening. I actually had a midlife crisis at 30 and I moved to live in Thailand. I lived in Thailand for a year because I didn't want to face being an adult and being in the real world.

Joanne Lockwood: The thing you don't realise when you're 25, and I'm going to use pick 25 for a good reason, is you don't realise there is an end date to your life. 25, you've got 50. Invincible. 50 years is forever. It's twice what you've had already. It's miles away. Three times, you're a third of the way through. It's nothing. I turn 60 next year and I'm thinking, hang on a minute, I've got 15 years of productive life. I'm not saying I was going to fall off the shelf or drop dead or anything, but when you get past 75, things stop working. Your brain doesn't want to do. So if you want to be kind of sat on the sofa a bit more or doing your retirement activity. And I'm thinking, I've got to start thinking about, I've only got 15 years. And I started thinking that being 50 was ten years ago. So in ten years time, I'll be 70. Jeez.

Vanessa Raath: I read a very interesting study and I can't even tell you where it was, but it was while I was on leave. Now about how people over 70 actually lose the ability to be able to make decisions. So, like, even a small decision, that's where other people around them, like their children, have to make those decisions for them. And having two years ago gone through where I had to become an adult with my parents and move them and sort out their new home and do everything and close off bites because they just didn't have that ability to make a decision anymore. It's a really interesting thing and I see it more and more with the generation, my aunts and uncles going through the same thing. It's almost like someone flicks a switch. Yeah, that's it. And for me, I'm very nervous about that. I suppose when you were younger, you're

Joanne Lockwood: making decisions for the rest of your life, which is a long way away. You've got a plan, a growth plan. When you get to your guess? You're making decisions for next week and for next month. Not necessarily. Or even would you like to go out for lunch or not? Yeah. What do you think? Shall we? I don't know. Yeah, I

Vanessa Raath: don't know. What do you feel like doing? What do you feel like eating? Yeah. Having just had a couple of the older family members staying with us over Christmas, I definitely noticed that it's hard to make a decision. Yeah. I

Joanne Lockwood: mean, my father's in a nursing home at the moment and he's kind of happy enough there. Obviously, he'd rather not be there, he'd rather be at home with my mum. But he's happy enough and he's got a disconnect now between his perception of the world and his capability. He says, why don't I just come home? You can put me in your car and we can do this. We said, well, you can't get out of bed. You have to have three people get you into the wheelchair. How are we going to get you out of the wheelchair? Into the car? How are we going to get you out of the car? He said, I should be able to cope and so that you lose this ability to recognise your own sense of self and capability. And I think maybe that's tied in with age as well, where this disconnect occurs. Hopefully I've disconnected already. No, you definitely

Vanessa Raath: haven't. But that's so interesting. I always am amazed at how many people in the and of an age, and I'm saying our age, I know that we have got an age difference, but their parents are still alive and it's so amazing. A lot of people our age in South Africa actually have lost parents or are losing parents now. People in the UK seem to live for a hell of a lot longer than in South Africa. So an ageing population is a thing in South Africa, but not as much of a thing in the UK. When you look at labelling and ed, and I was always amazed when I lived in London at these ladies who must have been sure, well into their 80s, with their little shopping trolleys, getting on the bus and going off to Sainsbury's to do their own shopping. And that's, I think, what keeps a lot of the older generation in the UK going for a lot longer. We're South Africans, we have a lot of help, a lot of cheap labour, high employment level, unemployment levels. So there's someone that you could pay to do something for you, but in the UK, you keep longer. Yeah, I suppose with my.

Joanne Lockwood: My father's just turned 90. My wife Marie's father is 90 something. Marie lost her mum this year at the age of 89 and a bit. Mine's what, 86 now? So you kind of think once you pass 90, that's a fair go. Well done. Nothing to be ashamed of. If you're in your 80s, you'd expect people to start dying or you're losing people in the 80s, but before your 80s, in your. Well, that was a bit young. Or someone's in their 60s, late. I lost my mom when she was 75 and I just feel that

Vanessa Raath: was just far too young. I agree with you.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I think if I'd like to get to my mid to late. Eighty s the same age as my mum. Look. Look at the

Vanessa Raath: following. You got a good chance. Yeah,

Joanne Lockwood: I just got to lose some weight and stay healthy. That's the trouble. But you're

Vanessa Raath: doing that. Aren't you in the gym a lot? I'm not in the gym enough.

Joanne Lockwood: I go once a week with a personal trainer and I do work out. That case came down to a couple of years ago. I woke up and said to myself, hang on a minute, I'm going to be 60 in a couple of years. This was two or three years ago. I'm investing in marketing, I'm investing in this part of my business, investing in that. I'm paying money on subscription for this and the other. I realised the only person I wasn't investing in was me. And I'm kind of the critical part of my business. Without me, there was no business. So that's when I decided to give up alcohol. I haven't had a drink for two years. I think it's two years today since my last drink. Jeez. Well, it's amazing. And what

Vanessa Raath: prompted that? Was that just from a health perspective? Health aspect? No,

Joanne Lockwood: it was all this thinking about becoming 60 and thinking, if I want to get to 75 and I use that date as my work till I'm 75, because I feel I have to. I don't have a massive pension or security, so I work till I'm 75 and then if I want to be able to stand up and work and think and do stuff at 75, I can't wait until I'm 70 to think about that. I had to have to think about that before I'm 60. So if I'm drinking too much, not eating the right stuff, not active enough, then the time to do that is now. Not kick the ball down the road and say, when I'm ten years time, I'll figure that out. Because by then my knees won't work, my hips won't work. I'll pick up diabetes. Something's going to happen to me. It's decided to take personal responsibility, to invest in myself as the core part of my business. If I'm spending money on marketing, so I only spend more money on me than I do on marketing. That's kind of the argument. It's very

Vanessa Raath: valid, actually. I haven't thought of it like that, to be honest. This morning, actually, before we started recording this podcast, because we just moved town, we went to the local gym and signed up for the gym because it's January, we now live by the beach. And I also need to drop a couple of kilogrammes, to be honest, to feel more comfortable in my clothes kind of thing. I mean, I think my days of being on a Runway in Milan are over, but just to feel healthier, and I just think that that becomes important as you get older, where, again, as you're younger and you're 25 and you're bulletproof and invincible, you almost take that health for granted, right?

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. It was that epiphany wake up call. And I'm not an evangelist. I'm not out there. I don't run. I tried running and my knees can't do it anymore. I can do a treadmill, I can walk. I also decided I want to do something I really enjoyed. I don't want going to the gym to be something. I can't be bothered. I don't want to do it. So I have a personal trainer, and she's amazing, and I've changed gyms a couple of times in the last couple of years. So this latest gym I joined and with my new personal trainer, when we had our briefing chat, I said to her, I want to come here and I want to have a laugh and I want to enjoy this. I want to go away happy. Knackered is kind of what I said. I want you to work me until, literally I can't do anymore. And I want to leave with a big grin on my face going, yay, I've achieved something today. That's kind of how we do it. We have a bit of banter, we have a bit of kind of jokey stuff. I give her the eyes, I give her the look when she's asking me to do something seriously. Really? Okay, come on, then. So it's entertaining. And I have an hour with her working out, killing myself as much as I can for me. I don't do it for her. I do it for me every time. But I come out and I give her a high five and go, thank you. I really enjoyed that and that's really what I want to look forward to. Yeah, no, it's different for

Vanessa Raath: me. I'm kind of forced back into a gym because running was my thing. But having had knee surgery in December, I've got a good six months before I can get out running successfully. So for now it's going to be swimming in a pool at the gym. So, yeah, let's see how that goes. That's great.

Joanne Lockwood: I had a problem with my shoulder, I think it was called a rotator cuff injury, on my shoulder. So I couldn't move my arm up and things like that. But I was getting up to two kilometres in the pool. It was a 20 metre pool, so I was doing 100 lengths of a 20 metre pool and I was going several times a week, so I was doing at least a kilometre, a kilometre and a half and I peaked at two kilometres and then my shoulder kicked in and hurt. I stopped going. I haven't been for about 80. And what were the physical benefits of you swimming

Vanessa Raath: more frequently? I did lose weight and

Joanne Lockwood: I know people say you don't do exercise to lose weight. You don't have the scale, but you feel better. Yeah, you feel better, you feel more energy, you're more active, your Persona grows, you got more going on in your head. Sluggish. I think all of those kind of benefits kick in and cumulatively I was losing weight because I was controlling my intake. I cut out alcohol and being more active, those kind of come together. You can't eat like crazy and do the gym and expect to lose weight. You have to do both. You have to cut the intake, increase the output.

Vanessa Raath: Apparently stopping alcohol is a massive factor in weight loss.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it's empty calories. You're basically drinking a roast dinner. You're drinking. And for wine is like, I don't know, it's 1000 calories in a bottle of wine. That's half your calorie intake on a day just in one bottle. So, yeah, if you're serious about it, you can either drink it or you can eat it and you can't do both. So hence the

Vanessa Raath: saying that came up as we were young females as students is eating is cheating because you'd rather use your calories on the wine as opposed to having a meal. Yeah. And I see lots of studies

Joanne Lockwood: and people talking about whether calorie counting is a thing and lose weight that way. But I think an appreciation of the nutritional value of what you're consuming is important, and whether that's calories, whether it's fat, whether it's sugars, whatever it may be, just kind of getting a more understanding of what's going in your mouth, where it's coming from, how processed is it, the value of it. Salt. Yeah. So I think it's been sort of aware, my

Vanessa Raath: anniversary coming up, your anniversary today, on the 24th of this month, is that I would have been vegetarian for four years. And that literally wasn't a conscious decision. It was literally we had been away for. I mean, this is our big summer holiday in South Africa. We'd eaten, had so many bras or barbecues, I was all meted out and just said, my husband and I, driving back from holiday, just said to each know, let's just try a week without a piece of chop a borovores steak, ribs, whatever it might be. And that week has now evolved into four years and neither of us will go back to eating meat and we feel a whole lot better about ourselves and feel better, and as you say, it's about being more conscious of what you put in your mouth and where that actually comes from.

Joanne Lockwood: I'm certainly not a dedicated meat eater. I eat meat, and because it's a habit, it's what's in front of me, and it's convenient. If I was at a vegetarian or vegan restaurant, I'd be perfectly happy. And often I will order vegetarian dishes as a starter or a main in a restaurant because I think, oh, that sounds interesting, let's give that a go. So I'm not one of these people that says, oh, it's got to have meat in it, so could I give up meat? I don't know. I don't know if I could give it up, but I could certainly minimise it. I don't have to have a bacon sandwich, but I'd have to have an egg. Can you

Vanessa Raath: imagine the look on South Africans'faces when you go to a bra, which we pretty much when you get invited to someone's house in South Africa, it's going to be a barbecue or a bra, whatever you call it, and you say, well, we're vegetarian, so we'll bring our own mushrooms or corn or whatever we're putting on the bites. It's quite a thing for other people to get their heads around as opposed to us, because we're just used to it. Yeah. And

Joanne Lockwood: if I turn up with you and say, well, we don't drink, it's like, okay, so we got vegetarians and. Non drinkers could be

Vanessa Raath: our last place out together.

Joanne Lockwood: But that winds us right back to the beginning of the conversation around judgement and labels. And that bleeds through into the think about workplace culture where we're hiring people who fit into our culture and suddenly Vanessa and her husband aren't part of our culture because they want to cook mushrooms on the grill. Exactly.

Vanessa Raath: So I mean, for example, in South Africa, a big thing on a Friday afternoon, maybe once a week or once a month, is to do a big barbecue. So traditional sausage over here is called a borovors. And it's got a whole lot of things inside. You don't really want to know what you're eating. I will admit they are delicious, but that was what happened on a Friday afternoon. And then I would go along to that and it would be like, I'll just have a dry bread roll because I don't have borovores, I don't eat meat. And they would be like, what? We didn't even cater for the vegetarians. We're not vegan. So if you're not going to have eggs, you're normally vegan. We eat eggs still, but it's kind of like no one accounts for that. If I'm speaking at a conference in South Africa or whatever, I always state up front where I'm delivering training. You guys, I know you're probably going to order lunch. I just want to let you know up front, I'm vegetarian because people just don't think along those lines. It's a label that being vegetarian is a label that doesn't go very strongly in the south african white culture. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: And being vegan has a stigma about it. It's like, oh, vegan, you're going to bore me. You're going to be hard work, you're going to be worse people that wants to tell me how you don't eat meat, it's a judgement. Yeah, exactly. Imagine someone

Vanessa Raath: who's a vegan, does crossfit and has their MBA. I mean, you'll know about those in your opening greeting with them.

Joanne Lockwood: How do you know if someone's vegan? Because they'll tell you about it.

Vanessa Raath: We're going there for dinner or they've invited us over because it can be awkward. I mean, I remember arriving in Sydney, going to dinner at a school friend's house and hadn't thought to say, up now, since I've known you, I'm now vegetarian. And they made this most amazing, like lamb roast. And I was like, sorry,

Joanne Lockwood: but just that joke we just made around someone who's vegan and that trope that they'll tell you about it. It shows that we belittle someone's identity, something that matters to people in everyday humour. And veganism is no less protected, as far as I'm concerned, as a right to exist, than any other protected characteristic. And we'd be horrified at people using humour to describe racial or a gender or another thing. But there are some topics like veganism, like vegetarianism, like not drinking, that are seen as kind of a. It makes you less than. You're labelled, your stereotypes, you're not part of our culture, you don't fit into our society. And it's easy done. Easy done. Those judgments just keep rearing ahead. Yeah, 100%. Absolutely.

Vanessa Raath: And I just think that we've got to be so careful forming those opinions, because once you've kind of formed that opinion and given that person that label, it's actually very difficult for you to change that label in your head. And I think that that's something that I don't know how we're going to get better at it. But besides not labelling people, which, as we've discussed, is human nature, but not being so forceful with our labels too early on, in a relationship with someone, you have to give someone a chance. I think what I just did there

Joanne Lockwood: was. I kind of called it out after we did it, so I recognised. Actually, that wasn't a great conversation. It wasn't respectful. It's playing on a stereotype, playing with judgement, playing on a trope and belittling somebody because of who they are. So it's recognising. You're doing it. Either catch it before it comes out your mouth, or if it does come out your mouth. Yeah, that's the priority, I guess. But if it comes out, reflect on it and go, actually, that wasn't right. I shouldn't have said that. I need to own that. And I think that's the next best thing. Or if someone else catches you listening to their perspective and say, oh, all right, I see what you're saying there now, and acknowledge it so we can all do that. Judgement is so ingrained in us, it's hard not to. And if we can all have that kind of pause. Slow down, philtre. Where we can start to process this stuff, it allows us to then think differently about people and challenge ourselves. But agreed. I completely agree. But it's

Vanessa Raath: quite funny that you say that because, you know, been sitting on the couch a bit with having my knee operated on. I caught Netflix's putting, you know, one of his comedies. Oh, my word. I was sitting there, actually, every single snippet or skit of what he was putting out there in that hour was taking fun out of a minority group. I actually couldn't believe it. Yeah, I saw a film

Joanne Lockwood: probably four or five years ago that Ricky Gervais either he starred in. I don't know if he wrote it or not, but it's the only film that I've wanted to walk out, literally walk out of the cinema in the first 510 minutes. I was angry to the point where I can't watch it. I'm going, what film was it? I can't remember. He was playing guitar and there was a lady in a gipsy dress by a tree. I can't remember what it's called now, but he was on tour doing something about. Anyway, it was so many discriminatory tropes, stereotypes, probably around gender identity, probably around homophobic type comments. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it just made me so uncomfortable. And when people say, he's edgy, well, I don't want people to be edgy in that way in my presence. I don't need people to be that kind of edgy. It's not clever, it's just insulting people or belittling people. But that kind

Vanessa Raath: of behaviour almost makes that judging and labelling mainstream now, because, look, it's on. Netflix has done a show about it, and famous person is now on stage performing, taking. Giving people labels and turning it into a joke. Yeah, but then

Joanne Lockwood: if you step back and say, well, other people have the right to enjoy that, who becomes the thought police, who becomes the DNI police, who becomes the gatekeeper of civility? And in a broad church with lots of opinions, you're not the only person who's right. There are many rights, many opinions, many perspectives carry on in the political climates around the world. If you are left leaning, you can't believe how people could ever vote for a right leaning politician and what they stand for. Yet a lot of these politicians, they certainly get 40% of the vote, 50% of the vote. So it's not a minority view, it's just not your view. And it's really hard to sometimes rationalise other people's opinions when they're so abhorrent to you. Exactly. So, I mean, I

Vanessa Raath: still amazed that Brexit happened. I never would have thought in 100 years that the vote would have gone that way. That still amazes me. But there were obviously a lot of people, and I know it's a very contentious issue, know, that's the way that. They

Joanne Lockwood: feel they were disenfranchised. The politics at the time were talking to people in the language that riled them about immigration, about taking back control around these EU time wasters and money wasters and bureaucracy. We know how to do it best. We're british, we know best. We've survived as an island for decades and centuries and millennia, and it plays into those. And the trouble is, what it created, this two tier where people who were remainers perceived themselves as intelligent and clever, and anybody who was for leaving was therefore stupid or misinformed or being lied to. And how could you fall for that? So it really kind of created this divide, this real divide there, where there was a demonization and people who were remaining going, well, you're just soft and you don't want this. Both sides really believe they're right, and they still do. And it's important to reconcile, like, any political difference that I think even now it's 49, 51. It may be a swung more back towards the wish we hadn't left, but there's still a large percentage of the population who are so ingrained in the fact we did the right thing. And you kind of have to respect that. It sounds crazy. I mean, we look across the pond to America about what could happen in the election. I

Vanessa Raath: know that Trump could maybe get. Back in, but then you have to recognise, if

Joanne Lockwood: Trump gets back in, it's because 51% of the population exactly believe in him. So my opinion is therefore a minority opinion and the fact that I don't agree with what he stands for or what his politics are, but a lot of the people in that country do, so you have to respect that that's their right to vote. I just have a commentary as an outsider. Yeah. So, yeah. It's about trying to rationalise those differences as well, isn't it? Those perspectives. Exactly.

Vanessa Raath: I don't know. Humans are complex beasts, aren't we?

Joanne Lockwood: It's just so true. That's why I got out of it. It either worked or didn't work. Push the button, reboot it. If it doesn't work, buy a new one, put it in, it'll work. Humans, you can't reboot. Push the button. Sometimes you could. Right, but

Vanessa Raath: we could. Yeah, no, just wave the magic wand. Just do as

Joanne Lockwood: I say. I'm right. Exactly. And I think one of the things I've learned as a DeI professional is knowing that you don't have to be right. You're not right. Starting from that position of challenge and be open to changing perspectives is a core thing. And I think if we all did that, we'd avoid the judgement. Yeah, exactly.

Vanessa Raath: Completely agree, Jo. Well, Vanessa, it's been fantastic. I mean,

Joanne Lockwood: we've been chatting to each other for an hour and a half now. Half an hour in the greenery. And I know you have to rush off. It's been amazing talking to you. How do people get hold of so much? Jo,

Vanessa Raath: first of all, I just want to say thank you for having me as a guest. I was actually just thinking during this conversation, we still are yet to meet in person, which is amazing because we have spoken so much online. It's unbelievable. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Jo. I'm not difficult to find online is what I always say. My website is vanessaraath.com. You can connect with me on LinkedIn anywhere that you're comfortable with. Just reach out to me. I'm always happy to chat.

Joanne Lockwood: R-A-A-T-H. Thank you. for those who don't speak with a south african accent. And Vanessa is v, a

Vanessa Raath: single nessa. Yeah,

Joanne Lockwood: fantastic. I'll put all your contact details in the show notes and people make contact on LinkedIn or track you down somewhere. Awesome. So thank you. Thank you to you, the listener, for getting this far, for tuning in and staying with us. Hope you've enjoyed this conversation. If you have and you're not already subscribed or following this podcast, then please do tick the button. Follow us. And if you've loved to listen to this, please give us a five star review on Apple podcast if you can. We'd love to hear from that. And this is episode 101 and I'm sure I've got at least 99 more to take us to 200 over the next year to 18 months. So please, please tune in. And if you'd like to be a guest yourself, you've seen the conversation, listen to the conversation. You can listen to back episodes, get a feel for the conversation. It's open to anybody, open to anybody who wants to give their perspective on making the world a better place so that people can thrive. Any suggestions? Feedback? Please email me to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.