---
title: "Breaking Bias"
episode: 147
date: 2025-02-13
guest: "Lorne Epstein"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/147-breaking-bias
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-147/audio.mp3
---

# Breaking Bias

Joanne Lockwood is joined by social scientist and facilitator Lorne Epstein for a wide-ranging conversation about unconscious bias, how our brains fill in gaps, and what it takes to build environments where people feel safe, accepted, and able to contribute. They explore the relationship between belonging and psychological safety, including how fear of judgement can shut people down and drive defensiveness. Lorne shares practical approaches to interrupting reactive patterns, such as breathing techniques to move from threat response to clearer thinking, and simple team practices to improve high-stakes decisions. Alongside workplace examples from training and leadership contexts, both share personal stories about failure, fear, and confidence, including lessons about learning, resilience, and redefining what “success” means. The episode closes with a focus on authenticity, continuous learning, and the everyday choices that help reduce bias and strengthen connection.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Introduction and Weclome
- 02:00 — Join Inclusion Bites for bold, transformative conversations.
- 06:15 — Busy schedule, travel, turbulence, workshop, hospital visit.
- 15:47 — Studying neuroscience reveals unclear brain functions.
- 19:20 — Our brains fill blanks, creating unconscious biases.
- 26:01 — Judgement hinders connection; appearances can trigger safety.
- 27:43 — Create positive experiences; treat others warmly.
- 36:58 — Different perspectives shape views on transgender issues.
- 38:05 — Language and learning are key to diversity.
- 44:14 — Ensure readiness for effective communication and outcomes.
- 52:32 — Overcoming fear by taking small, gradual steps.
- 55:44 — Nervous about mother-in-law reading my book.
- 01:01:18 — Acknowledging Jill's inclusive efforts on LinkedIn.
- 01:05:45 — Grateful final words, join Inclusion Bites.

## Key takeaways

- The belief in fundamental human goodness and how it contrasts with negative media perceptions.
- An evolving understanding of diversity, including cognitive diversity and diverse learning interactions.
- Strategies for increasing personal awareness to address biases and reshape perspectives.
- Practical techniques like breathing exercises and stand-up meetings to enhance decision-making and stress management.
- The four critical components of effective decision-making: timing, information, outcome analysis, and physical awareness.
- Methods to overcome fear and build confidence gradually by stepping out of one's comfort zone.
- The significance of creating environments where people feel psychologically safe and can express themselves without fear of judgement.

## FAQs

### What is the fundamental premise of human nature according to Lorne Epstein?

Lorne Epstein believes in the fundamental goodness of human nature, positing that most people inherently desire love, peace, and safety. He argues that despite the often negative portrayal of humanity in the news, individuals are generally good and kind.

### How do Lorne Epstein and Joanne Lockwood define diversity in this episode?

Lorne and Joanne discuss an evolving understanding that embraces both visible traits and the ways people learn and interact. They stress the importance of this broadened definition in fostering inclusive environments.

### What techniques does Lorne Epstein suggest for addressing biases?

Lorne highlights the necessity of increasing personal awareness and continual self-reflection. He also advocates for practical techniques such as breathing exercises to manage stress and structured stand-up meetings for clarity in decision-making.

### What are Lorne Epstein’s four critical components for effective decision-making?

Timing: Allocate adequate time for making well-informed decisions.
Information: Use only relevant and verified data pertinent to the issue.
Outcome Analysis: Review past decisions to identify patterns and outcomes.
Physical Awareness: Include awareness of one's physical responses during the decision-making process.

### How can individuals build confidence and overcome fears, according to Lorne Epstein and Joanne Lockwood?

Lorne suggests gradually stepping out of one’s comfort zone through small tasks to build confidence. Joanne recommends visualisation techniques to combat anxiety but notes that it requires a growth mindset.

### What is Joanne Lockwood’s perspective on redefining success?

Joanne emphasises recalibrating the definition of success to avoid the pitfalls of perfectionism. She advocates for measuring success against realistic and achievable benchmarks.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world where everyone not only belongs but thrives? You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo, and share stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive in. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect, and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites. Today is episode 147 with the title, breaking bias. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome Lorne Epstein. Lorne is a social scientist, keynote speaker, facilitator, and has been transforming workplaces for over 2 decades by teaching people how to recognize and reduce unconscious bias. When I asked Lorne to describe his superpower, he said, helping professionals uncover and mitigate their biases. Hello, Lorne. Welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. Thank you so

Lorne Epstein: much for having me. I'm on 147.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I'm so 147. Where's that time gone? We met. When did we meet? It was 2019 on Amsterdam, was it? Yes. It

Lorne Epstein: was 2019 in Amsterdam, so that's 5 years ago.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Long time. Wow. It was unleashed, if I remember rightly, the HR conference. Yeah. Yeah. That was great. That was great. That was a lot of fun.

Lorne Epstein: I really enjoyed kind of seeing the the European HR market, and it was it blew me away. I mean, people were just so great, very friendly. You know, still crazy like the HR people here, but it was it was nice.

Joanne Lockwood: At that conference, you were you were doing live interviews, and I was a guest on your show, if I remember correctly. Yes. Yes. So, like,

Lorne Epstein: in 2015, where I live, they opened up a public radio station, and I got a radio show, and I made it all about jobs. And I was just doing it as a side thing. It was just for fun. There was no money because it was a public station. And and then, like, the last year or so, I started figuring out ways to make money, and one was to get sponsorships and go to shows like Unleash and interview folks. So I did that for about a year or so, and then everything kinda went to to shit because of COVID and, you know, the whole anyway. So, yeah, that's how we met. Yeah. We did. We touched base, if that's not too

Joanne Lockwood: cliched as an expression, a few times early in COVID. You really got into the unconscious bias and you were yeah. Your business took off in that way, didn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It was kinda wild. I had

Lorne Epstein: built I had, a federal client. A federal government agency was a client of mine. I was developing their their national hiring strategy, their diversity hiring strategy. And while I was doing it, their head of HR asked me to build them an unconscious bias workshop. And I've been doing experiential training for decades, so I did. I did it for them. They loved it. And since then, I probably did it, like, 30 or 40 times. Just as 2020 started in January, an old college professor of mine suggested, why don't you submit it to this experiential learning conference in Philadelphia and get some feedback? And I'm like, that sounds great. So I applied and it got accepted, but I also applied to graduate school. I was going to get a master's degree in organizational development, and I got accepted. But there was a conflict on that date. My teacher said, well, you can't you can't go to the conference. You have to come to class. Why don't you just do the workshop for the students and get feedback? I said, that sounds great. So we set it up, and the school had advertised it. It was gonna be on campus. And next thing you know, we have COVID. And in April of 2020, instead of doing it in person, we did it on Zoom. I had a 140 people from around the world in this workshop, and it just took off. People wanted more. So the next month, we had a 100 and since then, over 50,000 people have done these trainings.

Joanne Lockwood: Oh, I think I actually crashed into one of your workshops in the in the early ones. It was the first or the second. I I sat in on one of them, the early ones, I think. Was it fun? It was great. I thought it was great. I mean, we I mean, the experiential side, we're in breakout rooms. I met some people, have great conversations. And, yeah, it was a it was my first probably my first experience of doing that online experiential type training where you're just going into breakout rooms. I think it probably helped me get confidence in doing some of my own workshops online as well. So that's yeah. Cool. Awesome. That's great. I love that.

Lorne Epstein: I love hearing how the work that we do makes a difference for people. It's not something that, like, naturally happens. And it's funny you should say that because I I know that I make a difference to people. It's like I love people and I want to just support them in in having better lives. About 4 weeks ago, I was training almost a 1000 people at a hospital in Ohio. And midway through my sponsor, who is the CHRO, we were walking across campus and she said, oh, you remember this woman where we had a little bit of, you know, we had some challenges with and she came to my office after the workshop, and she gave me a thumbs up. And she said, that's the kind of training that we need. And I just my heart just melted. I just stopped. And I'm like, I got all warm and fuzzy, and I'm like, oh my god. This is great. This is like, you know, my my, wonderful life moment of it actually something is actually happening. But, you know, like, you know and I was telling you this story earlier. There's, like, all this other stuff that has to occur for that one little moment. Like, 3 weeks ago, I was speaking at the HR HR Visions in London, and I gotten there on a Monday. I got 4 hours of sleep because the time changed to the workshop on Tuesday, got 4 hours of sleep to do the workshop on Wednesday, came home By the end of towards the end of the flight, the plane got just crazy turbulent. I got so sick that they took me off by ambulance, went to the hospital for about 3 or 4 hours, got fixed up. Next morning, I get up. I do another workshop for a client on Zoom, go to class, pick up my assignment, go to the airport, fly to Michigan because the next day, I'm training a 100 doctors. And, like, all that was great because of that fun little, like, I know somewhere someone's gonna go like, oh, that was that was really good. That made a difference in my life. Have you had that experience? Yeah. I I've had an in

Joanne Lockwood: flight issue, and I'll tell you about that. When I find my in personal or even my online workshops, are you doing your discovery call with the client, or you're just about to go into the room and do the training? Quite often, they they take me to one side and go, Jo, just just so you know, there's a couple of people who are really anti. They're kind of really negative. They're they're real troublemakers. They they don't wanna get involved with this inclusivity's rubbish or mumbo jumbo that's on it. I said, that's brilliant. That's what I want. I don't want everyone to go in there and agree with me. I want people in there who are gonna be feisty and testy because it has two purposes. 1, is it gives an example of the problem we have to the people who are who are positive so they actually hear this. But, also, the I found the people who go with those really deep struggling ideas, they come out with the most change. Often, they come up to me after I shake my hand or give me a hug or something and say, say, that was so powerful. Wow. You've really opened my eyes to this. So that's where you really find you've made the difference. But nudging people who are already there is the echo chamber. It's it's not with the satisfaction. It's the moving people from a to b where you can clearly see change has occurred. That's where the empowerment comes in. Yeah. I love that. Like, there's

Lorne Epstein: a a lot more people like, I love people. I just met I met a bunch of coaches. So I did a training from a company called Lifespring back at 92, which was my big kind of transformational moment of seeing my own power and letting go of the wounds. And coaching wasn't a thing then. And now so many people do that. And I know that it's, like, the benefit they get. The why is they just wanna connect and help people. I think a lot of people listening to the show are like, you know, like like, that's what they wanna do. They just want to make a difference. Yeah. They do. I mean, I've gotta

Joanne Lockwood: give you my wellness story now on on a plane. So I was I used to work for a bank in the UK, and this bank was a private bank. They had branch offices all over the world in very nice places, Beverly Hills, San Diego. And this particular occasion, I was I was doing IT. So I was an IT tech, effectively, rolling out systems. And this this particular gig was, NASA, Bahamas. So I flew from London, and in those days, be it pretty sure I was used to fly via Miami, and then you change it Miami, and then you go Miami, NASA. The mid flight, the plane had an emergency landing. I think it was someone had a heart attack. So we we had to land in Gander, in Newfoundland. We I don't know if you've ever if you've had an emergency stopover in Newfoundland, but basically, the plane does a really rapid descent and suddenly you're it land on this airfield in the middle of Newfoundland, middle of nowhere. You look out the window. You can't see anything. It could be absolutely wild landscape, and they they get the person off. And, of course, when they're on the on the tarmac, they have to turn all the air conditioning off or the or the flight, They're in flight entertainment. You're basically sat there, and you're sat there for, like, 3 or 4 hours because they can't get a flight path to take off again. So you're stuck there until they can get another air traffic control slot. And they walk walk around handing out these these packs of sandwiches. And I had a prawn sandwich, a shrimp sandwich. And about just before we landed in Miami, I'm starting to think, oh, I really don't feel good. I'm really not feeling this anymore. And, you you know, you when you have that sort of kind of throughput, you can tell what did it to you. You can't you really so that your brain knows what it was and I think either that's a prawn. That's definitely prawn that's given it to me. So I get to Miami and I'm literally my sweat is pouring off me. I'm sweating. I'm sweating. I get through passport, managed to find the toilet. So I'm at, unfortunately, both ends. And, you know, I hit and I was sweating and I was sweating. And then because we had this issue with the the the the landing in, Newfoundland and my flight to the Bahamas was then we had I had missed my connection. We had to get another connection or something. When I got to the Bahamas in this state, I was missing my luggage. So there I am in Nassau, Bahamas in the temperature I can't remember what time of year it was, but it was hot. The Bahamas is generally hot anytime we go there, but this was hot. And I turn up with no luggage. I get to the, I I was sharing a, like, an Airbnb equivalent in the nineties, whatever it was. Yeah. It was a a flat with a load of people also working for the bank. And someone ended up lending me this T shirt, and I I looked like, I don't know, this T shirt, like, 3 sizes too small, but I had to have something called this Christmas I had no luggage. I remember going to sleep that night in a in a room, and all I could hear was mosquitoes. It was like they were dive bombing me. I was like, All night, all all I could feel is mosquitoes everywhere. I had no luggage. I felt awful. I felt sweaty. So I feel I feel your pain, that turbulence, and then having to go to work that that day, covered in mosquitoes with food poisoning and their luggage in the barns. Wow. It's a glamorous life, isn't it? So I

Lorne Epstein: thankfully, that's scary. That's scary because you were, like, far away from things. But thankfully, my wife was there. It was just a few hours and I felt fine. Like that whole experience, what it sounds tumultuous, I say it's like it was a great week and it's I love my job. Like, I love that week because I love my job. But, yeah, I get it, man. That's, I get that. That's, it's scary being 6 anyway. Yeah. I don't know. In a foreign

Joanne Lockwood: country and you've got all this stuff to do, you've got to get onto another plane. I mean, Miami is a big airport if you've got to go from domestic to internal, international to domestic. It's a long walk and I was feeling I had no luggage and I was sweating and I was I yeah, it was just the whole stress. When did you feel better? Did you get better, like

Lorne Epstein: quickly or was it like I think by the by the next morning I was

Joanne Lockwood: I was I was okay again, and they they they managed to find my luggage. It was on the next flight. I went back to the airport, and there it was on the carousel, picked it up, and had a shower and a change and put some clothes on. I was fine again. But, yeah, it was a, probably about 12 to 24 hours of of stress I didn't need. Wow. Yeah. It sounds

Lorne Epstein: like it. So what got you into doing later. We

Joanne Lockwood: would we would jet skiing later. So sorry. I wanted to ask, what got you

Lorne Epstein: into doing this show? What it

Joanne Lockwood: was, but I I was having conversations, you know, because I I started the business in 2017. I I found myself having lots of cups of coffee. You know, you go to London, you go to you're networking. I I'd stack the coffees up all day, so I'd go meet people at this cafe, meet people in this cafe, meet people. I was having these great conversations with people trying to build my network up. And then I started doing a few online meets and Zoom calls in the the early days. And I we'd finished the Zoom call, and we'd have this really great conversation. I'd say, I wish we'd recorded that. I wish we recorded that. And that's how it it it came, really. I I decided that all these conversations we're having should be captured, and we can actually turn them into something. So I I decided pre cov this is pre covid. I wanted to have have conversations. I and I use the podcast as a way of networking, having conversation with people, and capturing these stories for for posterity, for for historical reference, or just to to share with other people. So that that's what started it, really, just that desire to share conversations. Awesome. To make a difference. Make a difference. Absolutely. To make a difference. And Yeah. And to and to and to feel that there's a purpose beyond just a chat, which which goes into the ether, and it gets forgotten. Because I have one of these brains that is, I find it very difficult to remember certain things. Like, if I go to the cinema, the next day, I really I've forgotten half the film. I don't remember what it was. I if I meet people, I forget their name really, really quickly. And because, again, you're doing so many Zoom calls, so many meetings. I meet I meet hundreds of people a month, and you can't remember everybody. And I found that I was having this conversation with people. Oh, yeah. It's good to see you again. I go, okay. Go on and remind me. Where did we meet before? And yeah. And this is just a great way of having conversations, and I still do it. I still I I thought I've got on LinkedIn sometimes to invite people onto the podcast. They say, we did that last year. Did we? Sorry. You're quite correct. Yes. We did. Yeah. I've got I I have got one of these memories that is is very good at certain things, but very bad at other things. I I think my brain just optimizes out and says the separation between need to remember and and doesn't matter. And if you fit into the doesn't matter pile, I will never remember that conversation again. But you we also had lasting impression because meeting you in Amsterdam all those years ago and, keeping in in loose contact, not active contact with each other. I get your newsletter. I see you doing stuff on on LinkedIn and stuff. So I guess you've you've penetrated into the must remember path. That's

Lorne Epstein: funny you should say that because, a year and a half ago, I started another master's in cognitive neuroscience. And this past semester, in fact, just last week, I had my final in neuroscience of memory and learning. And so I learned very diminutia about how the brain works around memory and learning. Yeah. And we're not our brains are not all the same. Right? Particularly around memory and learning. And the the the parts of our brain that do a memory, it's it's it's really unclear. Like, there are some things that are clear, but some things are just like in every class I've taken, usually sometime during the class, the teachers, like, shrugs their shoulders and says, and we don't know. Yeah. There's loads

Joanne Lockwood: of stuff, you know. I I will be able to pull something out of my my my memory somehow, and I'll pluck something out. It'll be a random fact or an anecdote or something, and I'll just drop it into the conversation. And my wife will look at me and go, you heard that yesterday, didn't you, on that show? And I went, yeah. She said, you're making it sound like you know what you're talking about. I said, well, I just I just hoover up knowledge, and then I I I know when to spit it back out again. But I I couldn't tell you how I remember or why I remember. It just becomes a nugget that gets delivered onto into my tongue and out of my mouth at the right moment at the right time. But you asked me about it now, I wouldn't really remember what what's that at. Really? But you're probably really

Lorne Epstein: good at making matches because when we have a memory, it gets broken up and stored in different places. So the visual component of the memory would be stored in one part of the brain, and another part of the memory would be stored in another part of the brain, like a database. Right? And then there's, like, something that links it all together, and then that occurs, and then it can bring back it brings back the memory or it could bring back parts of the memory.

Joanne Lockwood: Okay. So it's a bit yeah. Random retrieval. Yeah. So indexed. Yeah. It's indexed. Yeah. Right. And another thing I

Lorne Epstein: learned was that we can we can well, we our brain extinguishes memory. Right? So we don't remember everything that happens. Imagine if you remembered everything that happens. Right, you could be very hard to function. And so there's a whole system in our brain that allows us to extinguish memories, which is really important for people with PTSD and depression and other mental illnesses that you can actually. Cause your brain to not remember something. You can weaken those connections. Yeah. I've noticed that our daughter's,

Joanne Lockwood: what, 32 years old now. And when we get together, you know, you do the reminiscing, don't you? Humans like telling stories of the past and reminiscing and and bringing things. The way our daughter tells a story about our holidays or an event we did, and she has a different memory than I do. And sometimes I'll go, no. I just don't remember that at all. And I'll say, oh, what about this? And she said, I don't remember that. So we've we've all latched on. This is part of the bias and, the way our brains work, isn't it, where we we store emotion with these memories. We store feelings, and different things resonate with us. And and if they're if they're not memorable, we just, as you say, purge them. Don't store them at all. Yeah.

Lorne Epstein: Yeah. Some things are just too, like, not interesting to store.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. But to other people, they're they're they're meaningful. 100 to

Lorne Epstein: say. But you you get the same in

Joanne Lockwood: crime. You know, police asking for photo fits and all recalling what did the perpetrator or the bad guy look like. And everyone everyone has a different view. Everyone remembers, yeah, the color of his jacket was blue, and everyone said, no. No. It's green. And no one said, no. He didn't have a jacket on at all. And everybody makes this stuff up about they they rewrite their own memories, aren't they? Yeah.

Lorne Epstein: There's a reason for that because, you know, we one of the things that's great about our brains, and this is getting to the conversation around bias, and why we have biases, is that we fill in the blanks. Right? If I tell you three pieces of information, you'll connect them and make up a story. Right? Like when you watch a movie, they don't usually show you every moment of like the protagonist day. But, you know, you think like, oh, they went from here to here and you in your in your mind, you go, can that make sense or how they did it? And that's how we have these biases. And because they're unconscious, we're not aware of them. They're always occurring. You know, if you drive by somebody's house and you look at the house and you see there's a car and there's a middle aged guy washing the car and a little child helping. Who's the who's the guy? It's dad. Right? That's the father. Probably. And yeah. Right. And that the little person's the son. And if there's a woman who's about the same age, that's probably the mom. And, like, if there's an older older woman, probably the grandmother. Right? So we make all these things up so we can make sense of the world. You know, the brain that we have is, you know, version 10 of hominids. You know, we we're about 300000 years old, homo sapiens, but we're not the first version of hominids. And and the brain that we have was created not just the brain, but the brain and all the nervous system. Parasympathetic nervous system, the somatic, all the nerves in our body were created when the world was really dangerous. Right. It was, you know, dangerous 300000 years ago. So when you think about, well, if it's dangerous, what do we do? We have a brain that is super responsive to danger. And and even though we don't have those kind of deathly fears now, we have psychological fears. Right? But the primary reason for your show is that people feel like they belong because not what happens when somebody doesn't feel like they belong.

Joanne Lockwood: Whether at their comfort zone that buzzwords like psychological safety, they they feel part of something, they feel strangers, they feel their fight, flight, freeze mechanism is is there, or they're hyper alert, all these kind of, as you say, the the parasympathetic nervous system's kicking in, the vagus nerves triggers, adrenaline's flowing, everything. You just feel uncomfortable. You don't feel you can relax, all those kind of feelings, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing

Lorne Epstein: that we felt when a lion was coming after us. But now it's I don't feel like I belong in this group or I think these people don't like me. Yeah. You're not

Joanne Lockwood: gonna give your best self, are you? What what you're gonna do is you you either wanna run away or hide or or just keep looking for the exit. Yeah. Or attack somebody. Yeah. Or attack somebody. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You you you you on that defensive mode all the time, aren't you? I always I always think about it as, that old sitcom, Cheers. Remember the Canadian Canadian sitcom with Cheers? Where Yeah. A bar where everyone knows your name. That that always conjures up that sense of belonging. You walk in there. You got your stall. You got your friends. They know your name. They know your drink. You just fit back into it like you were only just left, and it could be 3 years later. You just pick up where you left off. And that's that's how I feel about belonging, that coffee shop that you know it's your coffee shop. And if you go to the other coffee shop, the other end of town, it's just not your coffee shop, is it? The chair is not as comfortable. The beans aren't as aren't as nice, that they're not roasting at the same. You just know that where you feel that sense of sense of rel where you can relax and let yourself go. So you're in

Lorne Epstein: England, you have that with pubs. Right? Yeah. People

Joanne Lockwood: have their their their preferred their local, their preferred place after work, whatever. Yeah. I I used to I used to have a place like that in Zurich,

Lorne Epstein: actually. I was working out at the the same bank I was working out. We

Joanne Lockwood: ended up in Bahamas. I worked in Zurich for about 8 or 9 months, and I was going out flying in and out every every weekend. And on the Thursday night before we flew back on the Friday, we always used to go and have a night in the old town in Zurich. And there's a bar, hotel called the Adler, which is Eagle in translation from German. And we and it was a piano bar. So we used to go there. We we get there about, I don't know, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock at night after being doing the old town and doing the bars. And we walk in there, and there was this big, gregacious barber that it was always there. He had massive, big, wide, red braces on, a big stripy shirt. And we walk in, he'd look at us, and he'd point his finger and go, it's there. You walk out to the bar. There's your double focus and tonics on the bar waiting for you. The piano kicks in. We all sat there at the piano. We're singing along, and that was our place. We were there every Thursday night every Thursday night for every year. Wow. And we we we'd end up flying with a hangover the next day because it was that good. We're getting to 4 in the morning or something. But, yeah, that was our that's our belonging. So, yeah, pubs, yeah, bars, pianos, sing songs. Yeah.

Lorne Epstein: Yeah. And so how do we I think probably the question you think about a lot is how do we how do we make where we are a place of belonging, right, that people can not just like, when you would go to the bar in a way, the bar key created this place. Right. You are open, but the bar key created the place. So, like, how do we how do we own ourselves, own our power, own our the way we can create context and create that where we are no matter what. Right? I I think sometimes the what I find I have to

Joanne Lockwood: do is is nudge people to have that visual memory of what belonging feels like, which is why I always use the coffee shop or that story about the bar in Zurich about, cheers and those sort of things. Trying to get people to think about what belonging means to them. And that's once you get into that zone, you go, actually, I know what belonging feels to me. And then you go, right. Okay. Now we understand what that feels to you. How do we create that feeling for others? So I think that's that's what we're gonna try and do, create these relatable experiences. Otherwise, we're just trying to manufacture our version of belonging. Everyone has their own sense, don't they?

Lorne Epstein: Yeah. That's true. I think, like, when I'm on when I every time I've spoken to you, Jo, over the last few years, I always feel like this is a sense of belonging. And I think in part, I feel accepted by you. Like, I don't think for me, it's like, I think I could say anything. I don't think you're gonna judge me or judge me harshly. And, I mean, I think I I experienced you as just having an open heart. Right? I think those are the ways of being that as humans, we we are when we wanna embrace folks. And I know before I've met people, I know I've had my backup. Either I've had a judgment about them and like no matter what they say, I'm probably going to judge them. But when I don't, that gives the opportunity, the space for for connection and intimacy, like not physical intimacy, like, you know, just that emotional intimacy. And sometimes I think what happens is that someone would meet, you know, someone meets me. And without me saying anything, I make the way I look or the way it triggers in them something to either be safe or not be safe. And that's where this gets really interesting, right? Like, so what is it about the person that you're about to see that triggers your sense of safety without them saying anything? Whether it's founded or unfounded. Because sometimes it could be founded. Like, I grew up in Brooklyn, and I know some streets. Like, if I was walking down the street, I would like I know it's scary. It's probably dangerous. But we still have that. Right. And we don't take a moment to pause and just kind of consider, like, what do I really know? What do I know about this person? Like, what can I say? Will they harm me? Can they harm me?

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I don't know about you, Bai. I I mean, we're we're we're effectively solopreneurs. We're we're we're we're we're we're delivering. We're selling. We're relationship building. We're we're we're keeping our business going. And we know that people buy from people, so we've gotta be a people people first per person in order to create relationships, in order to build trust, in order to or is it so I I'm very conscious about and I I use the expression as part of my my my sales pitch, if you like, about creating positive people experiences. So what I'm trying to do is always create a positive experience with people I meet, and that's that's kind of how I try and encourage people to treat others. If you go in with the end in mind and the end in mind is a positive experience, then the journey is likely to be with that as a destination. You're more likely to achieve it. If you go in with a grumpy, frowny face, bit dismissive, not interested, no eye contact, don't care about the other person's experience, then it's not gonna go positively, generally. So I say I always try and go into conversations with a warm, open heart, a smiley, open expression, gauging to try and treat everybody like an old best friend even if I've met them for the first time. And it just creates that try and focus on creating that warmth from the off, really. Yeah. They Break down the barriers. Jo, I think that is that

Lorne Epstein: that's one of the keys is, like, you have a primary value. Right? The like, your values and your principles are what everything sits on. We all have values and principles. The things that don't change, the immutable. And you have a value of that. Right? So if that is your value, then of course you're going to come to the conversation in a particular way. Like I have a story I share in my workshop, right? Where where I walked into a store and a guy came up on my left, turns down the aisle. It was a drugstore. He reaches up, grabs something, and as he grabs it, everything comes tumbling down. And I see this, and I judged him harshly, really harshly. Right? And I keep walking. I realize he's behind me. I'm getting to the cashier. And in my mind, I'm thinking, and now I have to punish him. So what I'll do is I'll go slow. And this whole dialog in my head took about a second and a half. And as soon as I realized I wanted to harm him, I stopped. I stopped. And the only reason I stopped was because I have a bigger commitment to not harm people, like ever. Right. No matter what, I will not harm somebody consciously. Right. So I can be aware. So that kind of brought me out of my kind of my mind. And I was able to then ask myself questions like, 1, do I know he picked it up? No, I don't. Maybe he did. Maybe he was in a rush. Maybe he has a sick kid. Maybe I could have been helpful and let him get in front of me. And then I came to, does it even matter? And I'm like, no. It doesn't matter. You know, like, when I'm driving and people do crazy things, I just let it be because it doesn't matter. I don't beep. I don't react because it doesn't matter. Like, it's, you know, and so that's like and everyone has to kind of come to their own values and principles about how they want to be in the world and how they want to experience people and how they want to have people experience themselves. But I think generally speaking, we're social beings, right? We're here to be together. We're here to live and die together. We succeed together. Right. And that that kind of I think that's an immutable truth about human beings is when we tap into that, that we all want to do good. We all want to be cared for and loved and connected. Then whatever is true for us about that and however that principle evolves itself, manifests itself, then we have a world where people do feel like they belong. But you have to realize, I mean,

Joanne Lockwood: you obviously appreciate this, the person you were having that I've got to police this person and and and tell them what I think. They have their own perspective of that incident, as you say. They may have been rushing. They may have a a sick person. They may not even notice. They didn't realize they were doing it to you. They were in their own world. And so your perspective of what occurred is different to theirs. They seemed to their reality was different to yours. And as you said, most people are kind by default. And it's a difference in perspective or where where what's going on in the world that that differentiates how you perceive something. And I think that's that's I always hold that to heart. Yeah. I don't have to be right because I'm not always right. I'm not I don't I just have my perspective, and it's up to you. Me telling you what I feel is, yeah, it's important sometimes, but I don't have to win. I don't have to be right. Yeah. Those two things you said, I

Lorne Epstein: don't have to be right, I don't have to win, are key. Like, they are the steps. You have to embrace that. If you want to create belonging, you have to embrace that. And I think that comes either with, you know, maturity or wisdom, or you were lucky enough to be born in a culture where people didn't want to be right more than they wanted to be loved. But I know where I live. A lot of people just want to be right. I mean, I live in a world where people want to be right versus being loved. Right? You look at war, you look at poverty, you look at inequitable situations in our world. It's about people being right versus people being loving and kind.

Joanne Lockwood: The example I often give to people is I've I've been married for over 37 years, and you don't stay married but I wanted to be right. Either of either of us either of us, you know. You don't say happily

Lorne Epstein: married. Oh, we are happy. Yeah. So happily married. If people could be unhappily married for 50 years, they'd just be tolerating each other.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Yeah. So you've got to if you're holding holding that prisoner of of righteousness, and you wanna say but you don't, yeah, maybe. But yeah. No. It's having children, having you know, having maintaining relationships all your life. You know, you you learn what's important and what's not important, and some some conversations just aren't necessary. You don't have to have that. You don't have to tell somebody what you believe, because it it won't change what they believe. And, again, what you talk about what the world we're living in right now, there's a lot of perceptions following the, presidential election in the US and what's going on in other parts of the world right now. What are you talking about? Yeah. That that that that little incident that occurred in November. Yeah.

Lorne Epstein: Well, that's Oh. Yeah. I I know what you're talking about.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. The the earthquake. Yeah.

Lorne Epstein: Yeah. So there are a lot of perspectives. You know? I I I

Joanne Lockwood: as a as a Brit, most Brits I know can't understand why anyone would vote in the way they did. Yet, what, 75,000,000, 76,000,000 people did. So you have to understand that there is a perspective out there that says this person is the best person, and the other person wasn't. So I can't just dismiss that and say 74,000,000 Americans are are stupid because that's not the case. They're intelligent human beings. The case. Yeah.

Lorne Epstein: Yeah. Yeah. I mean so I think talking about that is, you know, a lot of things. So it I'm 5089, and so I was born in 65. And in my experience of America in that limited time, the the country economically had a huge boon after World War 2, where you had a lot of people in the country in what was called the middle class. And people could have good lives. I mean, just good lives where one person worked or, you know, like in the eighties, then it started getting worse when then 2 people had to work. And the people in the in the middle of the country or certain certain economic groups were not properly supported, not properly fed. We had an exodus of jobs. A lot of jobs left this country. And so all these things had an impact on people. Like, their lives are not better. Right? Even though some people's lives might be better because they were economically better off. But a lot of people's people in this country, it's like they're they're not better off. So, yeah, I mean, there's that reality. You can't deny that reality. You can't say that that's wrong because it's not right. And, I I have faith in people and in in America that we I think the worst thing we ever experienced was the civil war. I don't know the real civil war, right, where we had bifurcation of the country and we got through that. And I think we'll get through this and we'll be better off for it and the world will be better off for it. I I believe in people. Like, I believe because you you you can have ideas. I get that. But people bottom line, we wanna be loved. We want peace. People want to be cared for and safe. And that I think is going to pull us through. I know it's completely like people will be listening to this and saying that I'm an optimist, but I think I'm a realist because I think that's what human beings fundamentally are. And where I sit, I can look at the news, which is a really horrible filter to see the world through, because the news is filled with skews what's actually going on to benefit the news. Right? But when you when you get to meet as many people as you and I have, and Jo, you said you meet hundreds of people a month. Would you say most of the people you meet are good people?

Joanne Lockwood: Sure. For sure. Yeah. Right. And I imagine most of the people listening would be

Lorne Epstein: like, I'm a good person. I want to be a good person. So, like, that is my that is the pillar I stand on when I when I can say, you know, with a certain amount of confidence that we're gonna be great. It's gonna be great. Well, I I I go on

Joanne Lockwood: LinkedIn, as we do, and I see people who have less than positive views about transgender people, people like myself. And they're not bad people. They they have a view. They have a a reason for them for their belief that is based in their own lived experience, their own reference points, their own needs. So it's it's just a they're not trying to cause harm. They're just trying to create a world that works in their image, if you like. I I I I'm trying to just create a world that works in my image. So we just gotta reference the fact that I I spent time looking at other their their posts about other things they talk about, and you can see they're trying to do good in the world. Yeah. So what you're gonna try and do is is is is is see the good in people. We have a diff a different perspective on one one one topic, but the goal is the same. Yeah.

Lorne Epstein: Spot on. Spot on. I mean, it for me, it was like 10 years ago, if you would have said, well, what is diversity? I would have been like, well, it's, you know, what I can see. You know, the skin color, your gender, your age. But like, oh my god. Now it's like a completely my mind has opened up. I have new distinctions. I know more that, you know, the things that I can see are more important. How we learn, how we deal with conflict, all of our styles are way more important as as far as like having a solid team or what we call diversity or a diverse workplace or an inclusive workplace. So language, I think, is really key. Like, if if if you're I think if anyone is suffering in the world, look at your language, look at your thinking, and kind of examine and see, like, what am I what do I know about what it is that I'm doing? And I think one of the one of my greatest one of my superpowers, I didn't write that down, is that I am truly a lifelong learner. Like, I'm getting a master's degree in cognitive neuroscience. And I got to tell you, sometimes I wonder why, because it's so freaking hard. Because it's because it's hard to make those new neural connections. It's hard to learn. It's hard to learn. Right? It's easier to not learn than it is to learn. But it's the only thing that will progress us, right, if we keep learning. And that takes work. So we we talk about these biases, and

Joanne Lockwood: and we also talked about perceptions and perspectives, and inherently we're all kind. And how and we also talked about belonging. How can we nudge people to become awake, to be conscious about this? Yeah. That's a great

Lorne Epstein: question. I get that a lot. I mean, often, like, it my sponsor who's, like, the head of HR will bring me in and they'll be like, hey. My my executive team, they're so biased. Fix them. Okay. First off, people can't be fixed because one, they're not broken. And 2, like, when the best thing to do for any of this stuff is what I and I'll make it super, like like as simplistic as possible. Raise your own level awareness in every way possible. You can't raise someone else's level of where I I do this professionally. I am a facilitator. I can do this because I have done this for a long time, and I don't tell people anything. I just create a context. Right? So it's a very nuanced approach. Changing someone's mind is probably the hardest thing to do, but it's the hardest thing to do. And the best thing for you to do, if you're interested, if this is at all of interest to you, is to work on your own thinking. Is to be like, okay, in a week, I'm going to be thinking differently about something that I think about now. And now that is the way to have a world that works. And, you know, often that's what inspires other people. I know that to me is what inspires me. Like my mentor, when I read my mentor's book, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is this inspires me. I love this. Howard Ross is my mentor. He's been doing this kind of work for 30 years. And then, like, specific things are like, you know, like real basic things is to breathe. Right? You can just inhale, count to 4, hold your breath, count to 4, let it go, count to 4. You just do that whenever you feel like you're like. And it will what it does is it it shifts the energy from your amygdala, which is like your fear response center, to your prefrontal cortex. Right? So your prefrontal your your your amygdala gets triggered. It goes back to your hippocampus, brings that memory forward. You're in this state that you talked about before. That breathing will redirect your energy to your prefrontal cortex, which is where all the good decision making comes from. So those are like 2 things. Another thing I tell people do is stand up meetings. So there was this a group of surgical teams in Chicago, and and what they started doing was, you know, they come into the surgery, and and they go around the room and they'd say their name, and they'd say what they're doing. So it'd be like, my name's Lorne. I'm the anesthesiologist, and we're going to cut this guy's leg off. And you go around the room. Right? Like that real quick. And the reason they did that was because sometimes they would cut the guy's arm off. Right? And so in in a surgical room, that's really bad. But doing that, when teams have small teams have to make a decision, an important decision is to come together and have a quick, like, okay. What are we doing here? Like, particularly for interviewing, like, get together or, like, we're gonna hire somebody or we're gonna fire somebody or we're gonna promote somebody. Decisions where it's actually important. It's important to kind of come together really quickly and understand. And then the 3 things I think to remember for all, like, decision making that really has, I'm gonna add 4. These 4 things. 1 is timing. Right? So how much time you allot to make a choice is super important. And this isn't like I'm going to McDonald's or Burger King. This is, you know, investment choices, important choices, particularly repeatable ones, is to look at the outcome of a decision. And if it worked, look at how much time you gave yourself to make it or your team to make it and see if there's a trend. Right? So if there's a certain amount of time that works great, because we've all made decisions too quickly or taken too long. So timing is really important. And the second thing is information. So when we when we make decisions, we we make them based on what we know, tacit knowledge. Right? Except a lot of the times we make it decisions, big decisions based on information outside of us. The information that's coming to us, data that's coming to us. And that information has to have 2 components. 1, it has to only address the question that we're asking and no more because our human brain isn't really good with data and numbers. Right? Second thing is that it has to have ethic it has to have provenance. Like, is it true? Do we know it's true, whatever is coming to us? Is it true information, and does it address the question? Those are the 3 things. And then the 4th is our body. So our physical body is what how we function, how our brain works. Right? We like, for instance, if your if your tryptophan is low and your serotonin then goes down, you're not gonna make the best decisions. So are you hydrated? Are you rested? Are you like, is your physical body in the right state to make this really important decision? Because if it's not, then your brain will not operate optimally. So those four things are are really important around, like, kind of truths around decision making.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. One of the things I've always, excuse me, tried to do is, check-in where people are at because we can make assumptions about someone's readiness to receive information or to communicate when, as you say, we've gotta make sure that they're in the right headspace, if they're feeling safe, they wanna they're ready to engage, their amygdala is all fired up, ready to fight. Yeah, just checking on people sometimes, and having that, how are you doing? What's going on in your life? Where are you with this? Because if we don't do that, we're trying to meet logic with emotion sometimes, or our readiness on 2 different planes, and we can end up falling out because we're not ready to communicate. And so it's establishing those communication channels first and then looking for this positive outcome and being committed to the positive outcome. Even if it even if it's a negative topic, it can still be delivered with a positive outcome. Even make us so redundant or firing somebody, they still respect you for the way you handled it. Yeah. A 100%. I

Lorne Epstein: think that's true, a 100%. And that takes a lot of work. Like, you you have to have, you know, the conversation before you have the conversation to make sure that you can have that conversation. Like, hey. When things aren't good, like, I always think, like, hey. It's not the the like, when things are great, everything's great. But I always ask, like, when I when I was working in corporate America, it's like, okay. What do we do when things don't work out? How How do we handle problems? Because that's when things go sideways, and that's when people feel bad. Or you could say something or do something that would make somebody feel bad. And, you know, that's like that's like good for work. That's not good for life. It

Joanne Lockwood: it's not. And I talk about having challenging conversations, and we have thousands of conversations all the time. But we only remember or get anxious about the ones that are challenging because they're out of our comfort zone. We're we're having to either deliver bad news or correct something. And what what are we worried about? We're worried about how the other person's gonna react. We don't we can't predict. Or if we can predict, often we're scared to have those conversations. And, you know, I often talk often talk about the the fear of getting it wrong is this biggest barrier to inclusion, biggest barrier to to world peace. We're so invested in our own sense of rights, aren't we? Can I tell you that's so there could be

Lorne Epstein: more spot on? And and I think I know where it came from. I think it comes from high school. Like, I don't know what high school was like in England, but here in high school, and it doesn't happen before high school, but in high school, if I raise my hand to ask a question or had an answer and I got it right, what do you think my mates say? Party pants or

Joanne Lockwood: Exactly. Teachers pant. Yeah. If I raise my hand and I got it wrong,

Lorne Epstein: what did my mate say? Yeah. Idiot. Dunce. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: So you're right. The last my primary institution of

Lorne Epstein: learning, the palace of learning, and I can't ask a question. I can't raise my hand because I'm always afraid. Fear of judgment,

Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? Yeah. Sorry. Fear of judgment. Fear of we're going to be judged negatively. Yeah. And the fear of not belonging. Not being alone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's where it all comes from.

Lorne Epstein: It's all comes from all that other that history stuff, that way back stuff. And if not high school, maybe before high school.

Joanne Lockwood: We talked about earlier about things we remember, things we don't remember. We generally don't remember things we get right. It's things we get wrong or things where we have to learn or change or adapt. Those are the met those are the learning outcomes. Getting things right, we could go on for half our life getting the same thing right every time without realizing we're doing it until the one day we get it wrong, and we go, ah, now I get it. Yeah.

Lorne Epstein: Yeah. Because when we were formed, the way our brains were formed was in a dangerous place where, you know, the outcome of you getting it wrong way back then was you die. Right? The outcome of you getting it right was kind of like, okay, whatever. Yeah. Like the stimulus was just so much stronger if you messed up. Yeah, and you know, what

Joanne Lockwood: child ever learns to walk first time with the first step? They don't, they fall over, they bang their head, they scrape their knee. You ride a bicycle, you fall off, you think I'm not going to do that again. And you learn very quickly by making mistakes. We have to create workplaces and society where people can fail safely. Right. And you can see this in children. Like what I'm

Lorne Epstein: saying about where there's a transformation, where we're like, kids have no problem being wrong. If you ask a bunch of 4 year olds, how many of you can sing? They'll all raise their hand. You ask a bunch of 40 year olds, how many of them can sing? Maybe 1. Right? Everyone can sing, but kids are afraid of failing because no one judged them. They didn't have so you can see it somewhere in that development period where kids go from, like, being this joyful, lit up, exuberant, I'm just gonna be, like, whatever I am, to then, like, all of a sudden, buttoned up, shut down, controlled, scared. I don't want anyone to see me. I'm afraid of being judged. I mean, it's I'm laughing. It's I shouldn't laugh because it really is very sad. But you can see it. We can all see it. Even if you don't have kids, you can see kids. And at some point along their development, it just they become like the rest of us. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: I went through a phase in my life where I was doing a lot of karaoke, and I can't sing well. I can sing, we can also, as you say, we can all sing. I know I can't sing well. I was thrown out of the school choir because I had a a very, bad tonality, if you like. I I and that's how I sit with this bank, actually. It was it was Chinese New Year Chinese New Year, and we were in Hong Kong. And we went to the Hong Kong Bankers Club, and they had a a karaoke night at the Hong Kong Bankers Club. And I remember standing on stage singing something to this room full of bankers, all all pretty drunk, And I just sung my heart. I I and I've I'm a great I I do karaoke quite often. I have no fear of being terrible, but I love the ability to have that freedom to express yourself and pour your heart into something like no one's listening. And I think it's it's taught me to not get caught up in your own fear of failure. Just go and sing karaoke somewhere. No matter how much you hate doing it, go and do it. Shout at the scream at the top of your voice on a straight corner, wherever it may be. Just get it out there and overcome that fear.

Lorne Epstein: Yeah. I mean, the you know, fear is the is the thing to be afraid of. Right? The only thing that fear is fear itself. Right? That is the and and that stops us stops us from growing. It stops us from doing the right thing. Stops us from like things where, oh, I should say this to that person. Oh, no, I'm afraid that they may. Even though you, yeah. Yeah. And I guess one way to do it is to just freaking do it and, you know, balls out and have the experience. To say to

Joanne Lockwood: somebody, you'll be okay, doesn't always fix the problem, does it? It's Yeah. It's so ingrained. I I I talked to our our daughter about this, and she's got some anxieties. And so, look, imagine yourself smiling and being proud of yourself afterwards or every time you're going into something you're you're you have a fear or anxiety about, capture that moment and capture how you feel when you've done it, and then replay the difference that it was unfounded. And it's all very well for me you have to have those coaching techniques, but it's not so much not so easy for people to step up and and and enact it. It still takes a, an open mindset and growth mindset to do that. Yeah. That's true. And I think, like, if you

Lorne Epstein: really wanna give, like, okay, this is what I would do with someone, is start small. Right? Start in, you know, within their comfort zone and build confidence, because confidence can be built. Right? So that you can if if you're going from, I don't wanna be in front of people, start with, you know, being in front of 1 person. And then, you know, more people. Like, I wrote a book, some years ago. And I've been writing, as you know, all my life, and my teachers would read my writing. But when I gave my book to people, I was so embarrassed and ashamed because of the now now people could judge what I wrote. And it was just super scary. Right? I mean, it was just I didn't know how scary it was going to be. So I think, you know, that that happens where you just kind of fall into it or you can take small steps. You know, and figure out like, well, what can I do that is a little scary, but not as super scary? And keep building on that to build confidence. I mean, that's that's just a like you're talking about, like, what could people take away from this conversation? Now, there's no one answer for that, but that it's a way to approach the problem in general of fear, right? That we can overcome our fears.

Joanne Lockwood: And I think some of it is down to calibrating your sense of success as well. Because Yeah. Yes. We can get hung up with perfection. If we calibrate successes, no one's done. If you're if you're if you're a pilot or a brain surgeon, nobody died. That's success, you know, you may not have had the perfect outcome, but the person had a the worst case was something this person was gonna die on the table. The best case is they've got they've got a slight numbness in their face or something, or they've got a numb finger still, but but, actually, on a scale of things, they're alive. So success is relative, isn't it? It's a calibrate of success.

Lorne Epstein: Yeah. I'll share a recent failure that was that was really traumatic to me. So I got my first master's about 2 years ago. 2 years ago. 2 years ago. And I was I did so well, I was inducted into an honor society. I got As and A pluses. I started my master's in neuroscience a year and a half ago. I got As and A pluses. This semester, our midterm. Right? I was flying back from some place, and I came to the test tired and I flunked the midterm. Like, I had never failed. I haven't failed a test since I was in high school. And it was really difficult. I mean, it was like really I had a lot of shame and a lot of embarrassment and a lot of like, wow, like, I must be stupid and feeling judgment from the teacher, whether she had it or not. And so to move past it, I just took it more seriously, and I just studied harder. Like, I did more work. I did more work. And I, you know, I aced the final, which was last week. But it was stressful. And but I knew, like, Okay, just push through and push through. What was the worst thing that happened? Like, Okay, I'm not going to fail the class. But look at where the for me, it was like looking in the when I was in high school or before then, failing classes, not doing well, feeling my parents' judgment and all that. That was still there. Even after getting great grades, it's still there. You mentioned your book, wanting that to

Joanne Lockwood: be perfect and a a testament to your your knowledge. How did you overcome that? So I write my book

Lorne Epstein: about the time that I meet my wife. And my mother-in-law is a published author, and my father-in-law is a seriously published author and my wife is a published author. So when my wife and I met, she said the first thing she said on our first date was like, don't Google me. And I'm like, Okay, like, all right, fine. This is 2,005. So I meet her like 2 minutes later. I come to her house. Her mother's there. And she's like, Oh, mom, Lauren wrote a book. And she pulls my book off the bookshelf and her mother grabs it and she's standing in front of me. And remember, I was already feeling nervous about people reading my book and my my future mother-in-law is now thumbing through my book in front of me. It was I will never forget that. It was so uncomfortable, you know, because after that, I read it again and I saw all the mistakes and the grammar errors and stuff and like, you know, so so it was a real growth. Like, it was an opportunity to kind of be real with, like, okay, no matter how bad it is, it's just gonna be what it is. Right? It's just what it is.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Because I I've been hung up about I've got a couple of books in me, and I've kind of been hung up on the fear of judgment because, as you say, it's published. It's out there. You can't good thing about talking and speaking for a living is is transient. You know? Once it's gone, it's gone. And but one of the books I'm trying to I'm I'm in the middle of writing at the moment is based on the podcast series, so trying to create poetry using AI from the podcast. And my mom is really into poetry. She's in poetry groups. She writes poems. She's been a real kind of consider I I I would consider quite a a knowledgeable person around poetry. So I I I sent her a draft of of this of my book, which is 300 pages, 150 ish poems based with based on the podcast series. And all I wanted her to really say to me was, yeah. It's okay. I wanted to say I I wanted to know if she'd read a few, and she felt like she could read a few more. That's what I was interested in being. I didn't wanna expect her to read the entire book. As she came back and she gave me some poetry books, She said, I what I think you should do is you should read some of these poetry books because they'll give you an idea of how to structure poems and the yeah. Some of the I said, mom, you missed the point. I'm not gonna rewrite these poems. I'm not I'm not after that level of feedback. All I wanna know is, is the book shit or not? That's all I wanna know. Yeah. Is it is it is it good enough? I don't mean it it doesn't wanna be a masterpiece. And she said, well, it'd be better off if you remove the capital letters at the front of some of the sentences. I said, look, it's it's written by AI. I'm not gonna edit the AI. The whole idea is I'm gonna give you raw AI content, and that's the USP of the book. It's written by AI, unashamedly. No. I'm not trying to human touch it too much. Right. So I ended up having to take the books about poetry from my mom because she got a bit offended, but I I wouldn't take her advice. So I've got them on my shelf over there. So I'm gonna have to flick through them because I'm gonna see it at the weekend. She'll say, how do you get one of the poetry books? Oh, yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Of the United

Lorne Epstein: States was written by very educated men, and it has grammar mistakes. It has errors in capitalization, in punctuation, in ambiguous, in all sorts of, like, spelling words differently. Redundancy. I mean, it's not like a well written document from, like, what someone who was an English person would say. But it is the founding document of this country, which is, you know, a great democracy. That's like, you know, then read the Bible. Right? The Bible's got lots of usually has lots of grammar mistakes. Well, and and

Joanne Lockwood: conflicts of, of opinions and things. Yes. It's it's full of contrand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So But it's

Lorne Epstein: Unless everyone's gonna read your book, don't worry about it. Alright? No. And and I'm not gonna but that but that's kind of my what I've kind of come to

Joanne Lockwood: realize is I don't necessarily have a want to publish a book for you to read it. I wanna publish a book so I've got one. Yes. That's the objective. So I I've calibrated my my my success on having a book is having a book. Not that you not that the whole world thinks it's a masterpiece. So I've calibrated doing it as being success. And maybe the set the second book, maybe I'll calibrate that to being, I've done it, and it's I'm proud of it, and etcetera, etcetera. CTO, the now that you've said

Lorne Epstein: that, I am, like, so interested in reading your book. I was I'm doing it. I'm like, actually, because I wanna how off was Jo's perception of her writing versus my experience of her writing? Yeah. Well, actually,

Joanne Lockwood: I'll send you I'll send you a draft copy. And if it actually, if you listen to this podcast, you'll be able to you'll be able to download it off of, Amazon or wherever very soon. But, yeah, I'll send you I'll send you I'll send you a draft. Yeah. Love that. It's unashamedly, it's mostly written by AI, and, you know, I I don't I cannot make it quite clear. But you were the prompt engineer? Oh, yeah. I I was the prompt engineer. I've curated it. I've fed it. I have tweaked it. I've tweaked the prompts. Yeah. Completely. It's it's it's my it's my voice in there. It's it's definitely my voice. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Which is I think that, like, if

Lorne Epstein: we were gonna end the conversation of, like, people get to find their voice and use their voice and be powerful, because every human being is powerful. Every human being has an amazing contribution to this world that we live in. I think that's really the the bottom line of what I want. I think it's probably the bottom line of what you want And how we can make the world better is everyone living of their best self, their their true authentic self. And that feeds back into

Joanne Lockwood: belonging. We have a purpose. We have a valued. We're we're we're credible. People respect us. We have we have something more than just ourselves. I think that's that's the belongingness where we feel part of society, part of our family, part of our workplace. And you say exactly what you're saying there. That's that's that's where we want to feel, isn't it? Belonging. And I want I want to acknowledge you or Jill, because like

Lorne Epstein: you, we don't talk a lot, but I see you on LinkedIn, and I've gotten glimpses of your show. And I appreciate that you are standing in the gap, Like where we are and where we could be around every human being feeling included, experiencing including inclusion. I think that's great because it takes a lot of courage. I mean, it takes a lot of courage, takes a lot of faith, takes a lot of effort, energy, money, time. Right. But really, it takes the core of who you are, which is your your values and your principles to say, Okay, I'm going to do this. And there's nothing else I could do because you could do other things, right, Jo? Like you could do other things. Right? But you don't. Completely. Yeah. But you do this. Right? And I think people who do this kind of work, who stand in the gap between where we are as where they think we are, where we feel we are, to where we could be, I think that is that's, like, the best work. Lorne, we've been chatting away for over an hour now.

Joanne Lockwood: And, we met in the green room. We had a good chat there as well. It's been absolutely fantastic. Yeah. And a privilege, as I said at the beginning, a privilege to have this conversation. I think your time to share your thoughts and perspectives, and I've I've loved reconnecting with you, and it's been amazing. So, how do people get hold of you?

Lorne Epstein: Well, so I guess the the period is I so I've really kind of focused on working with hospitals, in that I provide medical education credits and to doctors, nurses. They can go to my website, which is lorneepstein.com. That's the best way to reach me. You know, I do these workshops. I have a learning platform where people can come and just do the workshops, like, 247, and we're constantly adding to the content. You know, everything we do is academically based and, has efficacy. So I love working with people. I and it's funny because when I went to HR Vision, like, I had this idea. Oh, wow. Like, I do work in Europe. That'd be kinda cool. So I don't know. Do most people who listen to your show, are they European?

Joanne Lockwood: I would say predominantly European, but I I've got I've got guests from the US, from Australia, from across the world. So, yeah, predominantly, I would say European. Yeah. English speaking European. People I mean, I'm sure there'll be a link

Lorne Epstein: here, but I wanted to just kinda tee up that Jo has told me that in a couple of episodes, this show is gonna contain video, which is really exciting. So after a 150 shows is this right, Jo? That's

Joanne Lockwood: right. We're gonna go we're gonna go video from a 151 onwards. Yeah. So you can see the people who she's talking to. And that's cool. That's cool. Bring it bring it to life because, if you're listening to this, we can see each other. We've got we've got cameras on, and we're making gestures to each other. And I think what we're doing is, yes, radio and audio is a great medium for people who are running, jogging, whatever, but, I wanna attract a new audience now who are watching, whether it's shorts, TikToks, reels, whatever it may be, or long form, just creating a a different sort of engagement. And that's that's the that's that's phase 2.

Lorne Epstein: Everything. Yeah. Like, in our conversation like you would with anybody, like, when you're saying things that I agree with, I noticed my head's bobbing up and down, and I'm like, yes. Yes. Yes. Pointing to, like, yes. That's exactly what you should be saying. That's exactly right. And that really does add to the conversation. Mhmm. Plus they can see my beautiful wife. See the that's my beautiful wife. Yes.

Joanne Lockwood: I did wonder who that that was behind you. Yeah. Excellent. My wife

Lorne Epstein: stopped the Pan American Highway from going through Panama. She lived with the indigenous people in the Darien Gap in the jungles for 4 years and helped them stop the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund from funding this road that was going to go through the Darien Gap. And it still doesn't go through the Darien Gap, and that's because of her, my rock star woman. Alicia? That's her claim to fame, that,

Joanne Lockwood: human contribution to the world. I thought Mary made me a

Lorne Epstein: contribution. Yeah. Mary made me a she she basically protected everyone else from me, so I think that was her. Oh, she sounds like

Joanne Lockwood: a real hero, and maybe she'd like to come on the podcast and talk about her work in the, in the, in saving that part of the world then. Oh

Lorne Epstein: my goodness. It's a great story. Yeah. She's lovely. She's she talks on values and culture because she knows all about it. I'm gonna I'll tap

Joanne Lockwood: you up after we hang up here and, and get her details and see if you could persuade her to come and have a chat with me. Maybe maybe she she'll be one of my first video guests. Who knows? Yeah. It'd be fantastic. Thank you, Jolene. Thank you so much. It's been absolutely a blast. Thank you so much. And let me it goes to the outro. Thank you so much. As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community, driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family, and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter. Got thoughts, stories, or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk, and let's make your voice heard. Until next time. This is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire, and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world, one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.