---
title: "Being a woman in a man’s world"
episode: 42
date: 2021-08-26
guest: "Mandy Hickson"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/42-being-a-woman-in-a-mans-world
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-042/audio.mp3
---

# Being a woman in a man’s world

Mandy Hickson, a former Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 pilot, joins Joanne Lockwood to talk about being one of the first women allowed to fly fast jets on the front line and what it meant to build a career in a strongly male-coded culture. They explore the difference between fitting in and belonging, including the pressure to become “one of the boys,” the realities of life on deployment, and the impact of subtle bullying and exclusion. Mandy reflects on learning to hold onto her identity and authenticity while still succeeding in an intense performance environment. The conversation also widens into culture change: how rules and policies can shift faster than mindsets, how unconscious bias shapes expectations from childhood to the workplace, and why meaningful progress often requires those with privilege and power to actively support change. Joanne shares parts of her own transition experience, including the relief of living without secrecy, the importance of visibility and storytelling, and the challenges of accessing adequate gender-related healthcare support. The episode closes with Mandy’s reflections on confidence, changing priorities across life stages, and how her book and speaking work aim to inspire others to follow their own path.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Second woman to fly Tornado GR4 frontline.
- 05:21 — RAF was pioneer in full gender inclusivity.
- 10:30 — Isolation and harassment despite adapting to conditions.
- 17:17 — Writing can be cathartic; conversations are evolving.
- 23:15 — Height and authenticity help command confident presence.
- 30:07 — Breaking gender stereotypes remains challenging and necessary.
- 36:24 — Book explores cognitive diversity and societal change.
- 41:42 — Inspiring Women for Work: Acceptance and confidence rebuilding.
- 44:41 — Unexpected conversation led to unlikely speaking career.
- 53:50 — Open conversation changes culture and fosters understanding.
- 57:35 — An Officer, Not a Gentleman book's female perspective.

## Key takeaways

- The realisation that trying too hard to fit in with male colleagues can lead to losing one's identity, and the importance of maintaining authenticity.
- The nuanced differences in communication styles between men and women, and how this can impact workplace dynamics.
- The evolving norms around masculinity, including the increasing acceptance of men expressing emotions and prioritising mental health.
- The transition from a military career to becoming a motivational speaker and the value of storytelling in inspiring others.
- The mental health challenges of living a double life and the liberating impact of coming out as one’s true self.
- Addressing ingrained gender biases in career choices and how early exposure to diverse role models can challenge stereotypes.
- The importance of choosing one's "flight path" in life, embracing personal growth and adjusting priorities as life stages change.

## FAQs

### Who was the guest on this episode of the Inclusion Bites Podcast?

The guest on this episode was Mandy Hickson, a former Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 pilot and now a motivational speaker.

### What pivotal moment did Mandy Hickson discuss about her time in the RAF?

Mandy discussed a pivotal moment during an exercise in America where she realised she had been trying too hard to fit in with her male colleagues by swearing more and drinking heavily. This led to her decision to maintain her identity as a woman in a male-dominated environment.

### How did Joanne Lockwood relate to Mandy Hickson's experience?

Joanne shared her experience of transitioning and initially feeling awkward in all-female groups, similar to Mandy's struggle to fit in. She recounted the moment she felt truly accepted as part of "we women."

### What were some communication differences observed between men and women discussed in the episode?

Both Mandy and Joanne observed that women's conversations often engage more deeply and cover a broader range of topics. Mandy noted that her husband enjoys these deep and diverse conversations.

### What societal changes regarding masculinity were discussed?

The discussion touched on changing norms around masculinity, including increased acceptance of men expressing emotions and a greater awareness of mental health.

### What were some challenges Mandy faced as a woman in a male-dominated field?

Mandy recounted dealing with male-dominated environments in the Gulf, shared living quarters, and encountering vindictive actions like receiving rooms filled with excessive pornography. She also felt lonely due to the lack of female conversations during her first tour.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have 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. If you'd like 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 with all of 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 42 with a title being a Woman in a Man's World. I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Mandy Hickson. Mandy is a former Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 pilot. Now a keynote speaker and author. The best selling book. An officer, not a gentleman. And when I asked Mandy to describe her superpower, she said Authenticity. Hello, Mandy, welcome to the show. Hi, Joanne. What an

Mandy Hickson: absolute pleasure it is to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me in. Yes,

Joanne Lockwood: we've talked about it for a couple of months now, and finally, the Ducks are in a row. We all wanted to have it last week, and then

Mandy Hickson: my son suddenly got a cancellation for his driving test, didn't he? Which I would like to say he passed, so we can relax in our house. Now, that's an achievement, because I hear that driving

Joanne Lockwood: test waiting lists are around almost a year in some cases. It's hideous.

Mandy Hickson: Yeah, I mean, he had failed a couple of times before because it's just been such a stagnated and awful sort of like training for them for the whole year. And we had one booked in in September, and then he literally got a cancellation because I was like it was like a quick draw on this app where cancellations come up and it's like the fastest finger first. Well, I tell you what, I would be all over who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I got it nailed within seconds.

Joanne Lockwood: And he passed. That's the best thing. So you've spent a whole career being a woman in a man's world. What was that like? It's

Mandy Hickson: fascinating. So I joined the Royal Air Force when I was 21, back in 1994, which, gosh, it makes me feel like it was aeons ago, especially when I speak to some of the younger generation and they go, I wasn't born then. I'm thinking, oh, really? And yet I was the second woman to fly the Tornado Gr Four on the front line. So I sort of came through in that very first tranche of women that were allowed to fly fast jets and, yeah, it was interesting. I never really massively struggled with that sort of being a woman in a man's world, particularly in training, because I think the guys that I was going through were a band of brothers, they were my best friends. And I didn't feel that I sort of stuck out, even though, realistically, looking back, I did stick out because I'm six foot tall and I've got a really loud laugh. So regardless of gender, I stuck out anyway. But when I got to the squadron, I did start to notice it more. Probably because they'd never had a woman flying as a pilot on that squadron. And so of course there's going to be big differences there. Well,

Joanne Lockwood: I joined the Royal Air Force, actually in 1981. Oh, really? And I trained as a communications engineer. I worked on radar radio, and I probably actually trained on PTR 1751, which is probably the radio you had in your Tornado.

Mandy Hickson: Wow. I used to repair those. And then lastly I worked for Plessy

Joanne Lockwood: Avionics who manufactured those, and I used to service the test equipment in some of the third line hangers that used to support hotels. So yeah, I never got much closer than watched them taking off, lift off from the runway, which is an impressive sight when they put the afterburners on, just punch their way out. It's like absolutely incredible. There's nothing quite like that feeling, actually. And

Mandy Hickson: people often sort of said, oh, what was it like that first trip? And that first trip is literally seared into the memory bank of just lighting the burners, because you've done lots of practising in the simulator, and then when you do it for real, you're thinking, oh, yeah, I'm used to the environment because I've been in the simulator, so I know a while. The switches are and then you put these throttles forward and you click them into burner, and it's that thrust. I think it's about two G force of lateral acceleration. I think the closest I'd ever describe it as is there's a roller coaster at Thorpe Park and I can't even remember what it's called now, stealth. And it literally just as a wingover. That's it. The ride lasts for I think it's 7 seconds and people queue up for 2 hours. And you're thinking why? Well, the reason is because it's as close as you'll ever get to taking off in a fast jet. Really? Wow. I remember back

Joanne Lockwood: in I was talking about the early eighty S, and there was still the male Air Force and the women's Royal Air Force, the WAFs, and it was still separated. Women weren't allowed to go on the front line, they weren't allowed to fight, they weren't allowed to go on ships in the Navy. It was a very different world back in those eighty s, and probably you just came in just after that site change. I don't know when it actually changed, to be honest, Joanne,

Mandy Hickson: I'm not sure what the date was when actually it went from being the WRF to the RAF as a whole, actually. But I'm really proud in some ways of all the services. But the RAF was the first of all the three services to have full inclusivity for genders on every single role. So every role was opened up to women. And I just feel it's such a different place to work from. Probably what you experienced certainly in the 1980s and actually what I experienced as well. I did see that changing throughout my time. One of my really close friends is gay and when he joined the Air Force at the same time as me, it was illegal. He actually had to say in his interview, they said, Are you gay? And he would absolutely categorically no I'm not. Because he was desperate to be a fast jet pilot. And as he was saying it, he's thinking, I absolutely categorically am and I'm going to have to basically have this awful world where I'm living closeted. I can't be true to my own identity, and the stress that brings to the workplace is enormous. Well, in fact to your whole life is enormous, isn't it? Completely. So I was the early eighty s,

Joanne Lockwood: and I certainly wouldn't be able to have been trans in those days. I certainly wouldn't be able to be an open about that. And it wasn't a kind of passive if you're gay, you're in trouble. It was kind of an active rooting out of people who were gay, wasn't it? It was very proactive and the Special Investigation Bureau would come down and they'd grill you. It wasn't like being a bit ostracised. You would literally were you could be arrested.

Mandy Hickson: I don't think actually they would definitely kick you out and you potentially could lose your pension rights and things like that. But it even had that if you went to the doctor with an issue that they had the rights to out know, they've taken this oath to not share any of the things that they hear, and of course they could do it as mean. It was horrific when you think about that. I know that there's a lady, Caroline, who I don't know if you've come across her, and she was one of the first women that transitioned in the Air Force. Caroline Lawson. Yes. Must have gone through an incredibly challenging time and I think it's fantastic. So have you interviewed her at all? I haven't, no. She's

Joanne Lockwood: in America at the moment, I believe. I'm not sure what she's doing, but I see some of her posts on Facebook and I'm in touch with a few people in the Marines, few people in the army, people who are ex EMT drivers and things like that. So yeah, I'm in touch with a few people who are in the services now and who probably went through that early stage of their career being closeted as a trans person, which yeah, is a real struggle. And I can imagine that that freedom of civic life again allows you to burst out. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I

Mandy Hickson: know that when I used to speak to my friend, and he would say his biggest fear was being outed. Some people's fear is spiders being outed, because it was that feeling of loss, of control, that you're doing something that you're passionate about, that you know you're good at, you're at the top of your game, and yet somebody could take that all away by choosing to out you. And even when the rules change, he didn't actively come out for about a year just because he just didn't feel happy to do that yet. And then culture started to change enormously, and thank goodness he did and could be his true self. But the stress that creates is enormous. Yeah, as you say, the

Joanne Lockwood: culture change does take a while to permeate. You can't just change the law, change the rules, change regulations, and if it snaps into place no, you've got that old school thinking, haven't you? But that's the same in any organisation,

Mandy Hickson: isn't it? I mean, if you look at, say, blame culture, let's look at aviation as a whole. They have transitioned from a blame culture in the 1990s, whereby we never learned anything, to a really open learning culture now. But that does not happen overnight. You can't just write a policy, as you say, change the Queen's regulations and say, okay, everyone's going to be abide by these rules, because ultimately, people have got preconceived ideas. That's the way it always was. And it's only as you start to see new blood coming through, I think, and also that you start to see evidence of, for example, a woman in a man's world, she can do the job just as well as the men. Yes. It doesn't make any gender is irrelevant, and it really is. And it was only when you start to see that going through, that people started to sort of change their mindset as well. So did you find that

Joanne Lockwood: as an early woman in that environment, that you were still coming across a very male only environment in terms of bunks barracks, messes and things? Yeah, completely,

Mandy Hickson: utterly. I mean, when I used to go out to the Gulf, because I served on Operation well, three different operations out in Iraq, basically, we were all in this port cabin, basically, together with this awful air conditioning system. I won't even go through that. But, I mean, we were all in there together. Again, that didn't massively bother me. There was one toilet at the end of each corridor. No male, no female. You've got 39 men and me, so you're not going to have a toilet to yourself. Again, didn't bother me. When you're queuing for the showers, you're all standing in your towels waiting for the two showers, and I've just got a towel wrapped around the top half and they've just got run around the bottom half. And again, I'd just be standing, having conversations with them and it didn't see to bother me. The one thing that I did not like was purposeful, slightly vindictive actions, and that is the thing I cannot tolerate. So every time I went out to the Gulf, I was always given the room by the we have a pre deployment group that go out there and it's a bit of a joke. I mean, the men had a lot of pornography on the walls, fair enough, everyone's choice is their own, but they would always give the room with the most pornography on the walls, to me, literally plastered. It was like wallpaper and the ceiling. And I'd walk in and go, oh, really? Again? And they did it three years running. And I would strip all the porn off the walls, put it all in a pile outside the door and yell porns up. The first time I just thought, oh, gosh, that was unlucky that I got that room. Well, it wasn't unlucky that I got it the second and the third year, and the guy in the room next door who's sitting there in a room with no pornography on the walls and things like that annoyed me. And there was a few occasions with very sort of slight underhand comments, a little bit of bullying started. And I'll be really honest, on my first tour out there, it really got to me because I'd worked so hard to achieve this goal. Five years of the most intensive flying training pretty much anywhere in the world, you get to fly on operations, you're out there, you're thinking, I've made it. And then it's the most lonely world you can ever imagine because male and female conversation is really different. And there was only so much football and politics I wanted to talk about, and I'd be sort of craving female conversation. And at the time, it was before mobile phones, and we had this 120 minutes phone call that you could use, you could split it up, but it was like on a card. And I would ring my boyfriend, who I'm now married to my husband, and I go, you have got three minutes, I need to speak to women for the rest of the time. And I go, I'm fine. Everything okay with you. Goodbye. And then I'd be straight on to just talk to me about some normal stuff, like just normal conversation. And I found that probably hit me harder, bizarrely than most things actually out there.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I can remember my time in the field service sort of side. It was a very blokey, beery, rugby clubby type mentality all the time. Lots of male humour and male banter going on. And how did you feel? Did

Mandy Hickson: you feel you fitted into that? At the time, I was

Joanne Lockwood: 1617, 1819, sort of years old. I had confusion in my head, but at that time in my life, I guess it didn't really bother me. I was already socialised into that environment and you just get on with it. I think one of the things of basic training is it strips away your independent thinking. Some of it, isn't it? You get up, the tannoy goes off, you jump out of bed, you get in the shower, you do everything, you make your bed up, you get on the playground or you get on and do whatever you've got to do. So there is not a time to think. You're always being driven. Yeah, I think that is very fair thing to say, actually, is

Mandy Hickson: that I did realise that at one point we were in America and we were on a big exercise and I was wearing a dress and we were going out for dinner as a squadron, and I'd made quite an effort. I mean, you and I earlier were just talking about makeup. I'd actually put some makeup on, which was like, oh, my goodness, I wasn't wearing the flying suit, the grow bag. And one of the guys, sort of, who was a French guy, said, oh, Mandy, you're looking beautiful. And the guy next to me went, Slapped. And went, you can't say that to Mandy, she's one of the boys. And he turned back with this sort of Gaelic shrug and went, You Brits, you have so much to learn about women. And it was a really lovely moment, though, because it became, in my own mind, probably quite a pivotal moment. I think up to that point, I hadn't realised just how much I had tried to be one of the boys. And you mentioned a really poignant word right at the start. Fitting in, belonging. There's two very different things on there and I know that when we talk about things like diversity, inclusion, diversity is what we have and inclusion is what we do with it, isn't it? And I think up to that point, I had been trying desperately to fit in. I was being more blokey than I probably should have done. I was swearing so much more, I was drinking a lot more than I would have probably done normally in a different career. And I was just sort of in that whole alpha male blokey environment. And when this guy said, she's one of the boys, I suddenly thought, oh, my goodness, I actually am trying too hard to be one of the boys. And I think it was in that point I realised that I had to actively make a decision not to be one of the boys, but to maintain who I was. I still wanted to be a woman, but just in a man's world. And I could do that, but it was going to take a little bit more strength of character to find that belonging rather than just fitting in. That's

Joanne Lockwood: really interesting you say that because when I went through the early stages of my own transition, I found mixing in all female groups. I found it really awkward to start with because the conversations wasn't just the conversation. It's the way women talk to each other is so completely different and alien to the way men talk to each other. And it took me a long while to resocialize myself into an environment where I could be one of the girls, because I felt an outsider to start with. And I remember probably about a year or two in using the word we as we women. And I felt really self conscious about looking around, is anyone going to call me out on this? And I felt so kind of relaxed afterwards, because I'd suddenly accepted that I was part of we, not part of other. And that was a real build. So I can only equate to what you were saying is you always felt the outsider in the we, if you like. Yeah. And I think when you're going through it, you

Mandy Hickson: don't really realise it so much. It's only when you start to leave that environment. And yours is a lot more recent than mine. So, I mean, mine was sort of 20 odd years ago now, and I think doing what I do now as a speaker. And actually, when I wrote my book, it was very cathartic in many ways, and a lot of people say that, don't they, when they write books, that it becomes quite a cathartic experience, because you're going through all of those memories and you're reliving that time. And I can only imagine, actually, because you're so right. Women's conversation is so different and it's fascinating. I see it when, bizarrely, my husband, he really enjoys female conversation probably more than male conversation. And if I'm going on a girl's night out, he always goes, Can't I come? Because he really much prefers it, because he just said, women speak about so many more interesting things. And I think that is changing a bit more now as men are realising they don't have to be this alpha male character, they don't have to be this grower, testosterone filled individual. They can be themselves and therefore they can say, I hope, more and more. And that's why I love it that mental health is so high on the agenda these days, because people are saying, Actually, I'm feeling really low, and it opens up their dialogue rather than everything, you know, and it's much more sort of frivolous, not very deep conversation. Yeah. It's

Joanne Lockwood: very superficial, isn't it? I'm all right. You're all right? We haven't a beer type stuff, isn't, isn't it? Exactly. Seen the football recently and it's know,

Mandy Hickson: whereas Craig always goes, oh, I love it. Women get straight in there and they get sort of know, really into deep conversations much more. Yeah. And even men talking about their children is much more

Joanne Lockwood: functional, sort of I took them to the rugby, I took them to here, and it was almost like the things you did with them, rather than how they're succeeding or how they're thriving, how they're growing and developing. I love the fact that you're

Mandy Hickson: using all those positive words, whereas often when I've described I'm living with teens. So, yeah, I'm like, what a nightmare. Have they managed to not be excluded from school? He actually finishes tomorrow and all I'm just thinking of is no more seeing the school's phone number coming up on my phone, thinking, what's he done this time? My heart foot drops every time. My daughter

Joanne Lockwood: is 30 in January. She gets married in six weeks.

Mandy Hickson: Did she get a booking okay? Yes, she had to cancel last

Joanne Lockwood: year. They had to postpone it a year. And she's got a hold for a date next year. Right. Fingers crossed. This is Plan A and everything's going to happen in five weeks time, so it's looking good. A white wedding or white wedding? Yes, white wedding. She's got it all planned. She's got 70 guests in a converted barn with all the drapes and the chair backs and beautiful. So I'm going to be giving her away in a kind of a nontraditional way, which is fantastic.

Mandy Hickson: Yeah. No, that is great, isn't it? Yeah, I'm very

Joanne Lockwood: proud. I'm really proud of her. She's an amazing independent. She's a self made as anyone is self made. She's built her own career, she's a manager of an early years, not really a playgroup early years education establishment that takes children from two years upwards as a manager. So she trains people on boards people, fires people, mentors and looks after people and deals with parents. So, yeah, she's got her own career. That you learn and you realise very quickly it's all about the people

Mandy Hickson: managing the people, isn't it? Rather than just the business. It is.

Joanne Lockwood: My son is 25, so I'm well beyond he's an It consultant, so he works for a big company. Working almost exclusively, remotely at the moment is a remote only good stuff. Yeah, I'm well beyond hiding the homework. I've got all those memories of getting these phone calls. We think we put your child back on the rails and have this big conversation, this big expectation setting, and you think, Right, we've cracked it this time, and you just assume everything's smooth again. It's not, is it? No, never. My husband,

Mandy Hickson: I the whole time going, what have we done so wrong? But all I'm thinking upon thinking is, they were both really nice before the teens and I'm sure they'll both come back. And in fact, my older son, we're seeing in fact, we're seeing signs of them both coming back. No, I do. Jest. But there have been challenging times, especially in lockdown. I think everything was just put under a magnifying glass, wasn't it? Of course, suddenly you've got teenage boys that are designed to not want to be with their parents and here you are. Anyone fancy a game of Risk? It's like, Why would we want to do that?

Joanne Lockwood: I spent, what, four years away after school, joined the RAF and then came out and then came back to living with my parents. And that was the worst thing I ever did, because we're not designed to fly and come back again. No, I know, and I think that was the worst.

Mandy Hickson: So many are struggling at the moment, isn't it? When they're boot, they call them the boomerang generation, isn't it? Because it's just a nightmare with university fees to pay back and trying to save any money for a deposit and everything is really tough, really tough for them. So, going back to your time in the

Joanne Lockwood: RAF, you obviously held officer rank, so you automatically had authority over a number of people, and that respect comes with the rank, et cetera. But did you ever find that you were being maybe seated differently as a female officer? Did people not take you as seriously? Did the ranks still recognise you as an officer at that time? I'll be honest,

Mandy Hickson: no, I didn't, actually. I think I was really quite lucky on that respect, to be honest. Joanne I think for myself, I know it's going to sound a bit funny. Height helps. I'm quite a larger than life character. And so I think when you're six foot tall, you come across as being very confident as well that you almost command a level that's not sort of if you're five foot tall and perhaps you're a lot quieter, that's quite hard if you're then taking on an entire or talking to an entire group of men. So I never really had a problem with that. And I think when I got to the of, we talked about authenticity being really important. I've always been who I am. What you see is what you get with me. And it's been really nice, actually, recently, because when I left the Air Force, I started doing keynote speaking, and one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was this from this guy, Alan Chambers, and he was an Arctic explorer, ex Royal Marine, oh, great, great character. And I was talking to him and I said, how do I get into becoming a speaker? And he just said to me two words. And I was, you know, thinking of, like, the names of agents. He went be yourself. And I went, oh, God, is there not more to it than that? He goes, no, honestly, all people want is authenticity. And it's been one of the things that I've just kept in the back of my mind at all times is, when you're on the stage, don't pretend to be somebody you're not. Don't suddenly change your voice. Don't suddenly not be Mandy from Manchester, just be who you are. And guess what? People love who you are because they can spot when people are faking it immediately. And the one thing I always get is, oh, my goodness, you're identical to how you are on a podcast, or, oh, you're identical to how you are when I met you at this event, and I think, just be who you are the whole way through. And A, it takes the stress away, doesn't it? I mean, that must have been for yourself when you transitioned to suddenly be able to say, I can now be authentically, who I am. That must have been a huge relief. It was. But it

Joanne Lockwood: also came with its own set of anxieties because I knew I could stand on stage. I knew I used to do a lot of afternoon speaking because you were. The Roundtable, weren't you? I was the National President of the Roundtable, so I was used to wearing a black tie, going to Blokey Stag events in the afternoon. Yeah, so I was used to all that. So I knew I could speak. People told me I was entertaining and funny and witty and also engaging, so I kind of knew I could do it, but could I do it on stage in a dress? Yeah. Did I feel authentic or was I pretending to be somebody else? And then it took me a long while to realise that this really was me and I became comfortable. And I think I remember having a conversation with yourself probably four years ago. No,

Mandy Hickson: I remember it at a time. Just before I started speaking. And you probably told

Joanne Lockwood: me to be authentic, be yourself. And I think a mutual friend, Rachel Morders, who you saw, I saw her speak one day and someone in the audience asked her how she got into public speaking and she flippantly replied, put it in your LinkedIn profile and go for it. And that's the advice I kind of took as well. I thought, well, put professional speaker on your LinkedIn profile, just be it. I was in two minds at the time. A, could I get on stage and address and speak? Will I be taken seriously? And also my voice, I was really self conscious about my voice being quite deep, quite resonant, feeling my chest. And I thought about voice coaching and I thought, if I take my voice away, I'm doing it for somebody else because this is my voice. I don't mind it, okay? It gets annoying when I get misgendered on the phone a few times, but now I use it to my advantage because I can create that shock and awe value when I'm on stage. I let the audience hang for 3 seconds before I speak and they go, Whoa, where did that come from? I was expecting this female voice to come out of the microphone and it was a boom.

Mandy Hickson: I think it is. I love that power of the surprise. I mean, often when I'm speaking at big events, I'll say to the company, how much are you going to advertise this? And they say, oh, we'll advertise. I said, how about you say we have got a fast jet pilot coming in to speak to us, but you don't give the name. They go, oh. And then I will be queuing up, literally getting a coffee. Everyone will be like, mulling around and I was standing and I'll be standing in a queue and there'll be these two women perhaps talking like there was on one occasion, and I heard them go, oh, God, fast jet pilot coming. Oh, my God. They're always really fit. Really fit. Gorgeous blokes eight. Not always in my valued opinion, but there you go. And I just thought, this is fascinating. And I love the fact that if you don't say what gender you are when you walk on the stage, they say, welcome to stage flight lifter Mandy Hickson. Everyone goes and you almost I love can make it. My first question. Guys, girls, stand up. Who was expecting a man? And I said, Please be honest. The whole audience just stand up. And I love that because you just think, I don't mean to do it. I do it all the time. We were working on this big event and it was with an engineering company and we'd been doing this like a Myers Briggs. It's called the strength development index. And I was looking at all these profiles and they were all almost within a five pence piece. Everyone they had recruited were exactly the same profile, apart from one person that was so far right on extreme leadership and dominance. And I went, oh, I wonder what he's like. And then it's a she. And I thought, Mandy, you're the know, I can't believe you've done that. But we do it and it's this unconscious bias isn't so it's a great way to be able to and it's not that you're catching people out, of course it's not, but it just reminds people that we are doing that, that we do do it all the time. Back in the day when we used to

Joanne Lockwood: be able to fly commercially, it seems like a lifetime ago. I know, but back in the day when we could fly, I remember sitting next to a female sort of colleague in my network and she's also a DNI professional. And we're sitting on the plane, just strapped ourselves in and the pilot came over and it was a female voice. And a few seconds passed and this female colleague turned to me and said, I know I'm a DNI professional, but I now feel more nervous because we've got a female pilot. I still feel that it's still out there and women aren't any less biassed against women than men are. No. Well, I'll tell you what I mean. I was on a

Mandy Hickson: flight and it was an all female flight deck, and they said, and this is your captain. It was a female. And they said, My first officer is a female. I was like, yes. And then I was like, Why are you, like, cheering so much? It's because actually, Easyjet Carolyn McCall, when she was the CEO of Easyjet, made it her mission to try to go from 7% female on the flight deck to 12%. And she didn't succeed. So there's a reason that we still assume it's going to be a man is because in 90% of the time, it will be. It's just that you're conditioned to do that. And I think we're conditioned from such an early stage of our lives, aren't we? And I'll never forget I love this video. It was made by Inspiring The Future, which is a charity I do a lot of work with, about trying to change, create role models for young children. And they went into a primary school, a fast jet pilot, surgeon and a firefighter, and they asked all the children to draw a picture of these people and name them, and all of them named them a man's name. Then the three women went out, got dressed in all their kit, came in and they went, Why are you dressed up like that? And they went, no, we are it. We are them. I am a surgeon, I am a firefighter, I am a fast jet pilot. And then they had a whole chat about it and it was really positive. And then my friend, that was the fighter pilot left, one little girl said to her, when you go back, are you going to have to give your husband his uniform back? It was like, oh, my gosh, have we completely missed the whole point of this? That's how ingrained it is, isn't it? It doesn't matter that you've got someone that's showing people, people are still contacting me. I mean, the book has been wonderful for that, to be honest, Joanne, is because it's opened up a dialogue know, I'm getting youngsters, contacting me all the time on Instagram, which is, quite frankly, an unknown thing to me. So I'm having to work out how to use Instagram because I'm rubbish at that one. I can do Twitter and Facebook, but I was like, Instagram? This is a new thing, newfangled medium, and they contact me on it all the time. And it's been really interesting because some people sort of saying, I'm going to careers advisors and they're going, oh, I would have never thought that of that as a woman's job. These are careers guidance. People still saying those sorts of comments find it shocking. Is that why it's so difficult

Joanne Lockwood: for the CEO of Easyjet to go from nine to twelve? Do we still have this problem where young women, young girls are being socialised around gendered expectations for them? Yeah, I think so. And I just

Mandy Hickson: mean, I know that must have been about six years ago, I was asked, would I be the subject of a book? And I was like, oh, yeah, I'd love to be. How exciting. And they did a primary school series and it was called Tara Bins Explores. I mean, I'm not sure, it's quite a strange name. And it was basically imagine Mr Ben of our era as a little girl, she goes into a dressing up box and she puts on a pilot's uniform, and she comes out and she goes on a mission. And it was basically but all of them were Stem related or like real typical male jobs, and they just said, we want to just start actually putting that gender stereotype to bed and actually having this little girl as the explorer that goes off, and she does all these very male jobs. And I think that's the age that we need to start getting them at. I agree. I talked

Joanne Lockwood: to a lot of people about having pre parenting classes, not about the big ball and the Lamar's classes, all this kind of like but it's about how to bring up your children with equal opportunities, equal expectations, and not force gender onto your children. We almost need to train, preparents on how they can create these equal opportunities, because so many parents bring that bias into their lives. I remember talking to other parents where they're automatically steering their boys or their girls into different directions.

Mandy Hickson: But I do find that fascinating, and I think that opens a whole I know that I can't remember who it was. I think it was the lovely twins, and I can't remember what their names are. The two doctors on television. Yes. You know who I mean? Xander and the other. And they had these babies, and they basically put these babies and then they put slightly older children, like four and five year olds in to play with the babies. And two of the babies were dressed in pink and two were blue. And these little children instantly started giving the girls, the pink ones, the dolls to play with. Well, actually, they'd swapped the genders round, and it was fascinating that it was one of the boys that was dressed in pink, actually. He was very happy with the doll, but the other one kept on going straight back and crawling across to get to the cars. And it was just about this. Even at the age of three and four, we're trying to get them to play with you're not letting your children almost even as four year olds and five year olds that were playing with them when they weren't letting them play with what they wanted to. They were trying to instil their stereotype onto a baby because of what it's dressed. A blue T shirt with a

Joanne Lockwood: soldier on it or a pink T shirt with a fair I know, a princess on it. Exactly. There you go. We do it all the

Mandy Hickson: time. Yeah. But I've certainly noticed in the last four years,

Joanne Lockwood: I hang around more in female only groups, or most of my day, say, context, tend to be female. And I'm so much more enlightened as to the breadth of women out there doing all these different roles. Whereas maybe in my previous life, I was so blinkered to think it was only a man's world. And now the way I look at it now is it's actually a very female world out there. But the struggle is finding that acceptance or finding that door that could be opened. They say living in the shoes, don't they? And say, until you've lived in

Mandy Hickson: the shoes, you've never experienced it. Have you read the book? I should get a commission from this man, Matthew Sayeed's book, Rebel Ideas. It's a really I've not read it. No,

Joanne Lockwood: but he's also got black box thinking as well, hasn't he? Yeah, he wrote the

Mandy Hickson: other book. He does, which I really enjoyed. But then he's written rebel ideas. It's all about cognitive diversity, and it's how much we focused on cultural and gender and all the different diversities, but actually having cognitive diversity about people that think differently. And he just gave lots and lots of different examples where people haven't lived in the shoes of somebody else, you can never imagine what it's like. So even if, for example, if you're in a wheelchair because you are injured, and you finally start to try to make a tube journey, and you realise only then that actually there's only a certain amount of distance you can get on the tube because some stations you just can't access. And yet you would never have known that had you not lived as that person. And I think you saying that when you're a man, you're living in a certain world. And my husband spends the whole time saying, Why is it all about women? What about male? And I'm like, Because actually, it's been all about men for so many years. And actually, if you look at just how far women have change the dialogue over the last 2030 years, momentum is on our side, but the males have not changed theirs. So it's all about the rate of change is what we're seeing, as opposed to where we're at. I think, yeah, I was going to. Cast my mind back to when

Joanne Lockwood: women got the vote. Okay, I wasn't there, obviously, I can't cast my own mind that far. But the narrative around it, and if you read the narrative, at the time, it was men allowed women to vote. And that sounds really insulting, but at the time, men were the only people who could vote. Men were the only people in Parliament, men were the only people in the upper class who had any say. Therefore, it had to be the people with privilege that opened the door and allow women to vote. And I often say this to people that when we're trying to get gender equality, it's not women talking about gender equality, it's when men talk about gender equality. We need the people who hold the power, who hold the privilege, whether that's straight people, whether that's white people, whether that's men, whoever that privilege is, to open the door. Otherwise, we become the marauding mob with pitchforks outside, trying to storm the castle and be let in. Of course, all they do then is pour oil in your head and put the drawbridge up. So we have to approach the castle in a more open dialogue and engage with the people of privilege to allow us into the castle. And that's the challenge we have at the moment. It's creating situation where men, white men, don't feel threatened by diversity, by inclusion, because they don't feel it's for them. And that's the real challenge I'm seeing at the moment, is men are getting scared because they're being minoritized effectively. That's how they feel. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, because

Mandy Hickson: one of the questions I always get asked when I do my speeches is, can a woman have it all? And I say, well, what is all? And the answer is probably not, by the way, you can't. I don't think there will be. I love who was it? Oh, cheryl Sandberg. Lean in and she talks about life not being this ladder, but it being a jungle gym. And I think it's so she said, grow some strong nails and hands to cling onto the cargo net at certain times. But it's a lovely analogy that we're not just going up. But my big point is that, like you say, we're not going to see true change until the men want it too, so you're not going to get equal. Well, this was pre COVID times. You say we want flexible working until the men want the flexible working, until the men want those same parental rights as maternity, as maternity leave, until we see that, then you don't get change because they were still in that position of a majority who are therefore making the decisions. And I love the fact we are seeing, I mean, some incredibly powerful women. And over the last year, when you look at how many more female leaders there are on the world stage, I just love it. It's been happening quietly and subtly in lockdown and we've emerged and it's like, oh, yes, there's been a quiet revolt taking on the world and I'm not even a huge women's liberal or anything like that. I wouldn't particularly consider myself a feminist until I feel that there is a misalignment, until I feel that actually something is not right. And then I do feel quite indignant about no. Yeah, I completely agree. And I love the way you said it's about this

Joanne Lockwood: jungle gym, because if we're not careful, it's like the Mary Porter's book, work like a Woman rather than working like a man. Can women have it all? Well, they can have all that they want. Yeah, exactly. I don't necessarily want the same things. Success for me now is nothing like success for me 20 years ago. What I want today, and some of that comes through maturity, age, the fact that my children have moved on. You want different things as you grow older anyway. And some of it's also come from my real life and my gender. I have a different view of what is important and necessary. It's more sufficient based rather than acquisition based. Have I got enough for me for now, for us? Can we survive? Are we happy? Happiness is more important than stuff. Okay, it's age, but also I think women can have all they want.

Mandy Hickson: Yeah, it's also don't you think though, John, it's about accepting as to where you are. So you mentioned Rachel Mornter earlier. So Rachel is a really good friend of mine and when I left the Air Force I was speaking at an event with her and we got so excited because we'd therefore decided to set up a company and it's called Inspiring Women for Work. It was all about. It wasn't meant to be just particularly just about women getting back to work, but we were just really aware that when you've been out of work for some time, be it through maternity or illness or a carer or whatever it is, when you're going back, you've lost that level of confidence. And confidence is like a muscle, and we need just to exercise it. And so we set about launching this business and one of the things we got all these life coaches to come along, all these women came up to the course and then we also did sort of like potential careers, things that might work. One of the big takeaways for me is about accepting that where you want to be at your time of life is not always where you did want to be in the past. So it could be working in Tesco's is where you want to be and that is fine, it's getting your head around that just because at one point you wanted to be CEO of a blue chip company, it doesn't mean that that's what you want now. And I think for myself when I was in the Air Force it was all about the flying, it was about being the best version I could be and then once I had children I was then mum and I had to be a mum as know I didn't have grandparents living locally I very much had to make that situation work. My husband was in the know, he was away all the time and I couldn't just be going back to the front line and flying in Afghanistan going, well, my career is everything oh, by the way, who's looking after your two boys? Well, quite frankly, somebody know it's that whole levels of responsibility and I had to change really my own. And I talk about choosing your flight path because we constantly change our flight path as we're going through life. So true.

Joanne Lockwood: I'm not saying every man, but many men have the luxury of being to say someone will look after the children, I don't have to. There's almost like the default position. If a man isn't going to look after children, that's okay. But the buck stops often with a mother. And again, there are plenty of relationships where that's not the case. And I'm not saying every case, but there are so many opportunities where men have the opportunity to say, I can walk out, and I can go and do my career. And the buck stops with my wife, my partner, whoever it may be. And that does, as you say, alters people's flight paths, alters people's ambitions in life as well. Because actually, I would probably guess that seeing your children develop and grow was actually more important to you than elements of your career. Flying a fast jet is one thing, but seeing children learn to read, write, and grow is a completely different experience, isn't it? Yeah, it is.

Mandy Hickson: And I think it was interesting, really, because then when I left the Air Force, I had done all my training to become an airline pilot, and I'd assumed I would go into that because that's what everyone does who has been a pilot in the Air Force 99% become airline pilots. And I thought, well, that's what I would do. And it was only through a very fortuitous conversation, I'll be honest, rather drunkenly at a dinner party when I was sharing a story about being shot at by a surface to air missile in Iraq, as you do as a live party moment. When the conversation hit a lull, I slipped it in, and there was someone at the table who said, oh, my goodness, have you ever thought about becoming a speaker? And I said, what is a speaker? Because in the Air Force, we didn't exactly have a lot of motivational speakers. And also, this was ten years ago, and I don't think it was seen as quite as such a big thing. Well, I certainly knew nothing about it, and they gave me an opportunity to speak at an event, and I just spoke for 20 minutes, all on cue cards. And it was the crappiest speech I've ever delivered in my life, because I was reading these cue cards about my own life. I mean, really, do you not know it? And actually, from that moment, I've never had a cue card since and never read from a script, ever. My husband always goes, how do you not do that? And I go, oh, just write a bullet. And I have literally four bullets on my hand. And that'll be know, that'll be the speech. But going back to Rachel's point know, do you put it out there? How do you become a speaker? Basically, somebody said to me after that, and what do you do? I said, I'm a keynote speaker. I delivered 120 minutes speech, and I started saying, I am a speaker. And it was in a ski shallow. And they went, oh, my goodness, we're after one. Can you do an event in a week's time or something like that? I was like, yes, I can. And that was it. I was then a speaker. So you know what? Say it. It's amazing what happens. And then a year later, someone starts paying you real money. On this first event. She said, well, obviously we'll pay you. And I said, you get paid to talk about yourself? Oh, my God, this is a revelation. It's like my dream world. Sorry, does that sound a bit fickle? Nothing happier. Most of the speakers that you probably know and I

Joanne Lockwood: probably know, we probably feel the same, to be able to share your passion with people and get rewarded for it's no different to someone who writes a book and earns money from a book, or people who stand in a pulpit and give a sermon. It's no different to politicians standing on the dispatch box. We're just getting paid to share our knowledge, aren't we? You are. And I think

Mandy Hickson: one thing that's really dawned on me as well, which I don't think I'd ever really grasped, was just the power of the storytelling. And I think this is what you and I talked about really early doors, when you said, this is what's happening, I'm transitioning and I'm really worried. And I was like, but you've got all the same stories and that story is incredibly powerful. And I was speaking it was a police event, actually, it was a diversity event for the police force. And there was a wonderful lady, Nell, and she was talking about her transition. And afterwards I shared my story and she just said to me, I feel so inspired by I failed so many different points in my know and I was very lucky to get to do what I did. And we were chatting afterwards and then a year later, she sort of said to me, mandy, you've inspired me to follow my dream. And I said, and what was that? And she said, you said to me a really poignant thing. Your entire life up to now has been about your gender, about living in the wrong body. Now you've transitioned. There's almost a gap there now. It's like you're there now. And I said, So what is your passion? And she said sailing. And I was like, Get qualified, get out there. And she sent me a picture of her as a day skipper and she said, I've done it, Mandy. And I was just like, yes. Do you know what? It was such a poignant moment. It was a wonderful picture of Nell as a day skipper sailing her boat. And it just made me realise that now was the time to start living as who I was now that I could be my true self. Yeah,

Joanne Lockwood: I've got a similar feeling. It was a case of I often say, when people ask me who transition themselves, going through that euphoric, scared, whatever stage it is, I said, but the ultimate aim of transitioning is for life to be ordinary. Yeah, it just becomes life. You get up in the morning and your biggest thing is what's the weather that detects what shoes you're going to wear, the weather, and if you detect what shoes you're going to wear, whether you wear a skirt or a pair of trousers, or whether you're going to wear a coat. So the weather becomes a key factor. And then where am I going today? Am I walking across London? Right? I need to wear shoes. I can walk across London. So life dictates the stuff that you get on with, not this confusion in your head, all the stuff that's going on in your life. For me, it was hearing one voice in my head. It was like being completely all the parts of me were just aligned to one voice. That was when I woke up one day and went, wow, it's so peaceful in here. That's when I knew I'd arrived at the point I needed to be, when it was just I could shut my eyes and there was no noise and I didn't have any things in my head. And that's the ultimate aim for me, was finding that tranquilly, that alignment, and life just became ordinary. I then ended up the same problems that everybody else did earning a living, getting the shopping, driving the car. Yeah,

Mandy Hickson: absolutely. And I completely understand that. I don't know how much help there is, because surely what you're going through for your mental health state at that point is just unbelievable, isn't it? Is there much help on that side as well? I think most people who are going through would say

Joanne Lockwood: it's inadequate. The waiting times for gender clinics are too long, there's a lack of knowledge at primary care, GP, CCG level. We kind of expect the NHS to be experts on people inside and out. The reality is that NHS people are just people. If they've not come across trans people or gender diverse people, then they haven't. So, yes, they're person centric, yes, they deeply care, but if they haven't got experience, they haven't got experience. And I think many trans people, gender diverse, nonbinary people, have a higher expectation of what should be available than actually is. So I'd like to see that change, more gender support. Yeah. And it'll come, but, yeah, I'd say woefully inadequate in people who are trained and available to counsel at a reasonable cost and a reasonable waiting time. Yeah,

Mandy Hickson: no, I can only imagine that, actually, because I just think the stress that you're under and I certainly know that talking to my friend that was living in the closet, in the ref, his brain was just constantly that stress bucket was full before you've even come to work. How can you do your job on top of that? And it is very hard, isn't it? Yeah. You try and have conversations

Joanne Lockwood: about what you did at the weekend, or are you looking forward to getting married, having kids? And you've then got to have this entire backstory. Everything you do has to have another story and you have to weave and what have I told people? It slips out and it becomes so complex. The other thing I realised was I got this point where I woke up one day for the first time in my life. I have no secrets from anybody. I'm an open book. My biggest secret is out. Yeah. It's no secret. I'm not hiding anything anymore. Yeah. And that's quite cathartic liberating. And I can imagine that's been very, very well

Mandy Hickson: received, hasn't it, as a speaker as well, for yourself, Joanne. Yeah,

Joanne Lockwood: I had the advantage that I think that I took part of Channel Four documentary, which broadcast two years ago. So that whole process was like writing a book for me. It was basically turning myself inside out to four or 5 million people who watched it or whatever. So that was very powerful and it got me used to talking about myself. And the other golden rule as a speaker is you talk from the scar, not from the wound. So you've got to be talking about all the anguish you've got. You almost like narrate the history of it. Yes. So I think I healed myself. I found myself, and now I can talk about my life in a narration point of view, rather than being inside the problem, which is quite powerful and it is well received. People want to hear the story. There's a lot of empathy out there, a lot of compassion. And people want to know how to do better, how they support. Some of the most moving times I get is when someone who's listened to a talk will get in the chat afterwards, or come up and see me afterwards and say, my son, my daughter is transitioning, or My wife partner husband's transitioned. So there's always one person or two people in the audience, virtually everywhere I go, who has a trans rated story. And just to have them come up and say thanks. Thank you, Joanne. It's been really great seeing you here, bringing acceptance, bringing visibility. So that's what motivates me sometimes, is to get that just that thank you. If you like. Yeah. And I think, as well,

Mandy Hickson: talking openly about it as you do is just fantastic, isn't it? Because I think so many other people would. I'm through it now. I just want to get on with my life. I don't want to constantly have to make that my life now, which is in some ways what you are doing, because you're constantly talking about it, doing so how are we ever going to change the dialogue? It is about changing culture, and the only way we do about that is having understanding, having acceptance. And you know what? You can't be what you can't see, you can't feel it, you can't have that emotion. And it's quite hard to be empathetic if you've never met somebody or talk to them. I remember, actually, I must have been about 16, and this is hilarious, because I went. As my friend would say, I'll be the judge of that. But I went with my mum. So my mum was a single mum bringing up her two girls. She was six foot tall. My sister was six foot one and I was six foot. My mum said, I'm never going to meet any men, so she joined the Tall Person's Club. Now, I mean, I can't even imagine what was going through them anyway. For women, you had to be six foot to join, and for men, you had to be about, I don't know, 7ft or something. And we walked in and the first person I met was someone that was transitioning. And I was 16 and I had never met anybody and I ended up sitting next to them at the dinner. And it was really enlightening because we were talking about just sort of falling in love, holding hands, saying goodbye to someone at a train station, you know, and all of those little things. And he said, you know, that's what I want to do. But it was the fact that I had no understanding of the concept of what you had to do to transition, of living as a woman. Is it for two years or something? It was then, anyway, a lot of. The gender identity

Joanne Lockwood: clinic process and name change and to be accepted, there was a lot of gatekeeping. And two years was always seen as this test of test of character. If you couldn't do it for two years, you were kidding, sort of thing. So that was always the mental block and that has improved a bit. But there's still a lot of gatekeeping around this two year mentality. Yeah. And I remember talking to them,

Mandy Hickson: they found it really tough, but it was my first experience and I think, my goodness, it shaped how I would therefore be able to grow up and have an acceptance and an understanding, because I'd spoken to someone, I'd spent time with them and I think that's really important. So I think what you're doing is essential. Yeah. And in the way

Joanne Lockwood: you did your career, you were one, as you say, the second only ever female pilot with Gr Four in the front line. That was a trend setting as well. And I'm sure many pilots since have benefited from that, or other people in the Air Force who are women have also benefited from that role model experience. And we'll do what we do. You hope so.

Mandy Hickson: And at the time, you don't really think that you're being a pioneer, you're just doing what you want to do. But it's only afterwards when you look back and you think, yeah, actually, we were changing the dialogue, we were changing mindsets and behaviours. And that is really important. And especially when I get the emails that I get daily from some of the youngsters who have read my book and said, thank you, thank you for doing what you've done, because it's enabling me to do what I want to do. Now,

Joanne Lockwood: you mentioned your book a couple of times. You want to just make sure that the title do you want to give a quick synopsis of your book for people who don't know it? Very happy to. It

Mandy Hickson: was called it is called an officer, not a gentleman. It was going to be called Bird's Eye View, but I was told that that wasn't allowed, wasn't probably politically correct enough, but actually, it's a female perspective on fast jet training. The highs, the lows, the emotional roller coaster of it. And I think it really sits very closely and hand in hand with my speech, because when I actually do my keynote speeches, it's not about being a woman in a man's world, bizarrely, it's about being a fast jet pilot. Whereas this gives perhaps more of an insight into the impostor syndrome that I felt at times, some of the struggles we went through. I lost friends on squadrons who died in aircraft crashes and really just giving an actual real life account of the intensity of fast jet training as well. It's brutal at times. And I think just having that insight into something and I think I've sold just coming up for 8000 copies, it went to the number one bestseller on Amazon for books in aviation, and it's been on the market almost for a year in June. And I've been blown away, actually, by the comments it's received globally, which has been wonderful. I often see great comments on LinkedIn,

Joanne Lockwood: where you've spoken, you've talked about your book, and I see the warmth and passion that people and the high regard people hold you and turn out. I haven't read it yet, but I will one day, I promise, on audiobook. Just do it on

Mandy Hickson: the way. Can I get it on audible? Can I? I narrated it myself, actually, which was, again, I found that really quite emotional, actually. I was reading it and I was doing it in the studio down in the New Forest to a guy that had never done an audiobook recording before. And we were doing it and I was telling quite a funny story. At one point, he just burst out laughing. He went, I'm so sorry, we're going to have to record that bit again. But again, it was a really I enjoyed I actually enjoyed being able to be the one that told my story for audiobook. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: Okay, well, I'm definitely going to go on to Audible and find that now. I can't wait to listen to it. I keep saying I will. I will do that. Brilliant. Thank you. I can't believe we've been talking for an hour already. Incredible.

Mandy Hickson: We both had a cup of tea in our hand as well. You see. It was a sort of cup of tea in the chat. Yes, it was. It was

Joanne Lockwood: a quick coffee or cup of tea between friends. So how can people get hold of you. If they're looking for a keynote speaker, they want to find out more about you. Where's the best place to find you? To

Mandy Hickson: be honest, I'm everywhere. Someone said, oh, my goodness, Mandy, you like a bad smell at the moment. So I'm all over different social media. So if you just look up Mandy Hickson, I've got my own YouTube channel. I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and I'm on either as Mandy Hickson or Mandy Hickson Speaker. And my website's, Hickson Ltd. So HicksonLimited.com. And that's got all the information that you could possibly want about me. And it has. I checked it out just before we

Joanne Lockwood: started recording and, yes, it's definitely there. So, fantastic. Well, thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in and listening, for making it this far and getting to the end. If you've got any friends or colleagues, please share the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. I've got a number of other exciting guests lined up that I'm sure you'll be inspired by over the next few weeks and months. And, of course, if you'd like to be a guest, if you'd like to inspire the audience, then please do get in contact. And if you've got any suggestions on how we can improve, I'd also love to hear from you. To jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co uk. Finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.