Series 9: Recent Episodes
Access to Inspiration
Access to Inspiration podcast shares interviews with people from a diverse range of backgrounds from around the world. Their stories and insights enable you to transcend day to day challenges, think bigger, and see new possibilities which can ultimately improve business, society and people’s lives.
Eveline Van Den Heuvel takes over the host’s role to interview Sue Stockdale. She discovers how Sue inspires people to step into the unknown and explore more of their own potential. Sue, who usually hosts this podcast series, is a motivational speaker and executive coach working with leaders in some of the world’s top companies.
Sue Stockdale is the first UK woman to ski to the magnetic North Pole, and author of EXPLORE: A Life of Adventure which describes how from challenging beginnings, she embarked on a lifetime of adventure, exploring some of the world’s most extreme environments including the North Pole, Antarctica, and Greenland. In the book Sue shares important life lessons gained from these adventures and describes how the mindset, discipline and commitment needed for adventurous activities is also useful in professional life. Find out more about Sue Stockdale on her website | LinkedIn | Twitter and her book EXPLORE
Today’s podcast host is Eveline Van Den Heuvel, an innovative concept developer taking seemingly disparate ideas and pieces of information and weaving them together in a unique, often highly transformative way for her clients.
She is co-founder of Inward Creations, an agency that creates innovative concepts in the space of wellbeing, as well as being a facilitator and writer.
This series is kindly supported by Squadcast –the remote recording platform which empowers podcasters by capturing high-quality audio and video conversations. Also thanks to Maureen Gibbins for her support of this Access to Inspiration podcast episode.
Connect with Access to Inspiration on Twitter : Facebook : Instagram : LinkedIn : Read our Impact Report Key Quotes: “I see life as an experiment.” “If we approach the unknown with curiosity, rather than judgment, that can bring a new sense of perspective.” “If I can show up and be a beacon and an inspiration to those that I'm engaging with on a daily basis in a very small way, that's just like a ripple effect.” “The skill of noticing and the skill of adapting are two things that enable any of us to survive.” “What's the opposite of conscious leadership - unconscious leadership.” “The value of coaching is it gives a chance for the individual that's being coached to take time out to observe themselves.” “Until we're comfortable enough to be an outsider, to be the lone voice, to be the one who's the disruptor or the challenger, we will stay with something that isn't serving us.” “By looking at another person's experience to draw insight - that brings a new observation to you.” Eveline Van Den Heuvel interviews Sue Stockdale transcription Eveline: Hi, good morning, Sue. For the listeners. I am Eveline Van den Heuvel and today I have the honour of interviewing Sue. And I'm very excited about today. It's my first time in this position and I'm excited cause I have a lots of questions for you. Especially when it comes to inspiration, of course, which is what the podcast is all about. So I did a little bit of research, a little bit of homework of course, I've been a listener to many of the actual interviews and series. And I also noticed that at the end of series two, you shared a little mini interview about yourself with Roger Rocka and I'm wondering six series later, what would you say has been the most inspiring part of creating this podcast and doing these interviews?
Sue: Nothing like starting off with a difficult question, Eveline I think there's a constant inspiration I get from the unexpected, because the way that we construct the questions to engage with each guest is a very broad framework for a conversation. But just like having a conversation with somebody, you never know where it's going to go, and what's going to be uncovered and I'm constantly I'm amazed, inspired, and in awe of what the guests share in the conversations. And I just am always mindful of the third party in the conversation, which is the listener, and what am I doing that's helping to create a really interesting experience for the listener to get a sense of that person that's communicating with me. And when I find a question or a line of inquiry and then that comes out, it's really satisfying.
Eveline: Beautiful. What a beautiful answer. It sounds like there is something really interesting there about moving into the unknown. And maybe we can go into that a little bit because of course you are an adventurer in many, many ways. And maybe it would be interesting for our listeners. Just do a bridge on who is Sue. So what's the unknown bits of Sue. So who is Sue outside of the host of this inspiration podcast?
Sue: An explorer and an adventurer is probably what I would say and applying that to every aspect of the life that I have, so that can be working as an executive coach and exploring with those that I coach helping them to explore their potential. And as leaders, what are the unknown areas that they want to tackle that might be within their business, within their organization or within themselves as human beings and as leaders. So also then as an Explorer and adventurer using the stories of my own experiences to inspire other people and then I also write about my experience. So I kind of see that if life is an experiment for me and I can share some of the learnings I've had on that life's experiment along the way, then maybe that will serve as some inspiration for other people to be experimenting with their own journeys.
Eveline: Hm, thank you. I really like this analogy of life as an experiment. And I hear you saying that as an executive coach, but maybe also in this creating inspiration for others, there was something about approaching the unknown from a certain point of view. And I know for myself also from speaking to others that the unknown can also be something frightening and can often stop us that in our tracks. So how would you say that your orientation is towards the unknown? So how do you make that unknown approachable or less of a scary territory to enter?
Sue: Yeah, I approach it with curiosity. First of all, Eveline. And it's a little bit like if you were driving along a road and you, you saw a path going off into the forest and it was a straight path, and very clear and definite, that would be uninteresting to me. If there was a path that was windy and leading into some trees and you didn't quite know where you were heading, I probably want to stop my car and follow that path because it would draw me out. I'd be thinking what are the possibilities what's at the end of this path. It isn't known and therefore looking at it with a positive perspective. So I think if any of us approach the unknown with curiosity, rather than judgment, that can bring one sense of perspective. And then the second thing is not necessarily exploring the unknown alone. And particularly in a coaching relationship, I really try to make the space between myself and the coachee safe enough so that they feel really supported and secure. And from that perspective, then they feel safe enough to go into the unsafe, the unknown.
Eveline: Beautiful. Thank you. Sue. I would love to turn that idea of the seeking of companionship or seeking of help into the unknown towards the listeners a little bit, because one of the things that I'm really curious about hearing from you. What questions would you encourage your listeners to ask to maybe a stranger or a friend or a relative in order to start creating this access to inspiration in their own daily life?
Sue: I think it's back to holding onto curiosity. When we meet a stranger or when we meet somebody who you've known for many, many years is to engage with that person with, what I would call fresh eyes and not having a judgment about them having curiosity and then just expressing that. If it's to somebody you've known for 25 years, we've never spoken about this before, but it's always been curious for me as to how is it that you do such and such a thing so brilliantly. Who doesn't want to answer that question?
Eveline: Hmm, absolutely. Yeah. Beautiful.
Sue: So I think it's, it's the non-judgment, its the curiosity, and it's being brave enough to just ask the question.
Eveline: Yeah. Thank you. So I'm going to take this into the state of the world that we're in right now. So many of us may be looking at the state of the world right now and feeling quite deflated. Grief-stricken maybe, also you feel that it's irrelevant what we do and how we do it. I was wondering if from your point of view, with your curiosity about the world and the unknown and the belief that you also have, in all of us individuals reaching out are to our greatest potentials. If you could speak to that a little bit. So what is your personal experience? Towards the way that you're looking at the world right now and also what, Yeah, How would you encourage all of us? Maybe our listeners to stand in a time like this.
Sue: Yeah, it is indeed very uncertain and changing times. Eveline there's absolutely no doubt about that. For me, there's something about having empathy for anyone in an uncertain or unknown situation. So in the current conflict environment is having empathy for the people caught up in it. Not getting so caught up in one's emotions, just like a coach, if I get so empathetic towards the person I'm coaching, I can't do my best service, which is being objective, being there with them, but not being subsumed by the experience. And I take that principle and apply it into global world situation as well. No matter what we're facing. Good times or bad times in the world is to be understanding it, empathizing with it and not getting subsumed by it, and also necessarily not trying to inadvertently or to quickly jump into rescue.
There's a model we use in coaching, the drama triangle, where there's three parties, there's the victim, there's the rescuer. And there's the persecutor. In a coaching context and you could take this to a world context as well. Somebody is seen as the victim and they want somebody to come in and rescue them. And that's often what they want from a coach. Come and rescue me, tell me what to do. And then there's the third-party that drama triangle is the persecutor as well. And each person can be in each of those three positions at different times. So it's knowing not to become the rescuer too quick. Just like in an emergency situation, emergency services personnel, don't jump in and help immediately arrive at a road traffic accident. They stop, breathe, and really take in the whole situation and then make discerning decisions as to what action they will take or what action they will direct others to take. Even though they might be emotionally impacted by the situation, they still have to take it from a position of neutrality. So that's what I tried to do in the global events. I can't change the world. I can change my attitude towards the world and if I can show up and do my best to be a beacon and be an inspiration to those that I'm engaging with on a daily basis in a very small way, that's just like a ripple effect. Maybe it makes their day better, which in turn then enables them to shine and show up for other people better.
Eveline: Absolutely. And I'm just, I'm curious, can you say a little bit more because there's something really powerful. I find in this ability to, say I'm thinking about what can I do and I'm thinking about how it will be received. As well. So what is it like to be the other person, right? There's this movement between you and the other person consistently? I think that's really interesting and essential. And have you always done that? I'm just curious, is that always, is this something that came naturally or is this something that you do with a certain amount of awareness? How do you, how do you integrate this in your life?
Sue: Yeah, I think I've always done it. Eveline. And you're reminding me of my book Explore: A Life of Adventure, and as part of that, I talk about when I was very young, I was adopted and I find myself, plonked into a life with people who aren't my birth parents. So somewhere, I think at the back of my mind, I innately learned how to adapt, to survive and to be noticing and observing how other people were behaving in order to fit in. The skill of noticing and the skill of adapting are two things that enable any of us to survive. So to do that, we have to be cognizant of the other. Not just of ourselves, because it will be the effect of ourselves on the other that enables us to fit in or not.
Eveline: Yeah. very much, I think it's also interesting that you strike a delicate balance between focusing on the other end, focusing on yourself. Right. I think in some ways, your story is also infused with a care for Sue. And I would love to hear you speak a little bit more about that. So what is it that you do for yourself to, to nourish and strengthen how you feel about yourself?
Sue: Yeah, well, I love eating. That's that's always a care for Sue.. Just making me feel good. I love exercising. So not only to burn off those calories of the things I'm eating, but to feel the sense of movement, connecting with my body all my senses. I take time to just get away from the hubbub, the busy-ness of every day, whether it's a walk in nature, which is what I've tried to do every single day to just enrich myself and remind myself I'm part of a much bigger world. I want to do something for me, it's me in relation to, and in service of a bigger context. One of the things I learned from the Arctic when you're out there you are just so minute and insignificant in this world. In those extreme environments we see sort of starkly is not driven by us as human beings. It's mother nature has got bigger effect on the world and we have as individuals.
And to be reminded of that every day then gives context. It gives us a sense of stepping out of self and into a bigger picture and therefore, to be effective in that bigger system, in that bigger world, I've got to be able to survive and to survive and to look after myself. So, some might argue either way. I look at life is very simplistic. It's just, basic survival instincts to enable us to be effective in this world. And. I think that could be argued. That is correct. It may be simple, but it's not always easy.
Eveline: I was just going to say
Sue: that's the difference.
Eveline: the simple things are often the hardest. I would love to go a little bit into that polar expedition. As I was preparing for our interview today, I was walking around actually an imagining you on a month long eight hours a day, in these extreme Arctic temperatures. And I was wondering like, was there ever a moment that you faced during that month that you thought I can't do it, or maybe I Misjudged my own capacity.
Sue: Yeah, there was several occasions where I felt, it was almost going to be impossible to go on. I had blisters on my heels that were enormous and rubbing my back of my boots minute to minute as I was moving. The intense cold, just saps your energy. It takes away your focus and physical capabilities. So there's many things that can be causing you to want to stop, but there is no choice. Even if you stop you, can't be guaranteed to be collected by any sort of rescue services where you've stopped, they may not be able to be a plane to land. So you don't really have a choice is the way I look at it. The only choice you have is to continue on. And if you can't cope with the next hour or the next half an hour, then can just get through the next five minutes. And I've found that by breaking down a big goal, a big task, a seemingly impossible obstacle into what's just the first step I can take. And I'm just going to try that and see what happens. I'll get through the next minute. Okay, great. I've done that. Oh, well, I'll try the next minute. And the next minute, and before you know where you are, you've traveled 30 minutes and then you think, well, if I've done 30 minutes, I can do 60 minutes. So having a ability to break down a big . Seemingly insurmountable goal into the smallest of steps that you can practically take and then doing it, taking the action despite the uncomfortableness, just keep doing that. Take the next step.
Eveline: Amazing, do you feel that you've taken this philosophy? Cause this is a life philosophy into your work beyond our life, beyond the Arctic.
Sue: Yes, because when I document my life's journey and the career I've had, that is pretty much the approach I've always taken. What is it - they say luck equals preparation times opportunity. So have I prepared myself well enough to seize those opportunities when they come along? Yes. I started at my career with a grand aspirations. I've achieved many things that I wanted to do, and I've not achieved many things I wanted to do. So it hasn't always been great success. I come at life from a perspective of if I'm just being a human being. That's good enough. Perhaps when I was younger, I thought I need to be something or have a certain job title, or have a certain amount of money as a as a means to show how successful I was and getting to the north pole. I realized that I'd never imagined that that was possible, and yet it happened. And maybe there was a bigger reason. And the bigger reason was that if I could just share my own story, my own human story, about how I did that and the steps I took, that that is enough. So it almost went from the big to the very small, and maybe that's a life lesson that's been the most important one that I've had to learn.
Eveline: Beautiful. I feel like that warrants a pause and a deep breath. Thank you, Sue. Ah, wow. Where do we go from here? Ah, I have one, it's a bit of a sidestep, but this one comes from your mantra, which speaks to me and is on your website. And I'm going to read it for our listeners. So you described your mantra as we all can achieve more than we imagined as possible. Like you just said, but often the only person stopping you is. you. For those of us who haven't gone through the month of walking towards the Arctic with no choice and we often do have choices, or we get in our own ways, we stop ourselves dead in our tracks. Right. Can you speak to us about how we might get out of our own way so to speak? Or how do we keep moving?
Sue: Well, maybe one thing I've learned is back to what I said already, Eveline, is to hone that the skill of observation and curiosity. So if there's something we want to change and get out of our own way, notice when that happens, notice is it in certain situations with certain people or when a certain issue is raised and with that, noticing and the observation that will give us data. From that data, we'll get some new insight. Insight, brings us choice. We could choose to just remain with that and say I'm happy to get in my own way. I'm not moving forward or changing this or that insight brings the choice to say, maybe I could do something differently. I could think a different way. Maybe I could have a different belief that would be more helpful, and therefore maybe one choice is well, how do I move forward? And there's lots of resources out there that we can tap into, but now you are a step forward. So we come back to the very small steps, observation and noticing. If I said to you, how many red cars have you seen recently? Are there a lot of red cars in the town that you live in the area that you live. Guaranteed for any of our listeners? The next minute you see a red car or you'll see a red car because you've embedded a thought to notice. And that's the first step for me to get out of our own ways to notice. When we're getting in our own way and then have that choice to do something about it.
Eveline: I love that. And I'm so grateful for your ability to, to zoom out and then to zoom back into this tiny, tiny step, because I feel like all of us can access that. Right. Okay. That's that's beautiful and wonderful. Thank you. So we know each other through the a network of conscious leaders, and I'm really curious to hear you speak to what does conscious leadership mean to you?
Sue: I take the word conscious. And that to me means being awake and alive and what's the opposite of conscious leadership is unconscious leadership. For me, unconscious means habitual behavior, not paying attention, doing things because we've always done them. So when we move into conscious leadership, we're now coming at how we lead with new awareness. Awareness gives you choice. I see leaders in organizations these days, fill up my day with activities often allowing very little time in between each activity. If it's a day of zoom meetings no time to think no time to necessarily be conscious. therefore, what do we do? We fall back on unconscious. We fall back on. Habitual behaviors, so the conscious, but is about slowing down, being present, thinking, creating enough space that gives you time to take action and do something differently.
Eveline: Yeah.
Sue: So it's what I've been alluding to already. You might describe it's conscious. Self-leadership. All we're doing in the business world is applying it as a leader of a large organization.
Eveline: Thank you. So I'm reminded of this. One of my favorite philosophers, John O'Donohue he speaks to this knowing of thyself that we, we have eyes that look outwards, we can never fully see ourselves. Even if we're looking at ourselves in the mirror, we're always just seeing one side of ourselves. And when I think about consciousness, I think about that, like how able. To fully see ourselves. And what is the role of other, friends, partners, our environment to do so, how would you, how would you speak to that?
Sue: Well, and I love your analogy- how do we ask questions of others? Seek feedback, get their perspective on ourselves. That's really the value of coaching for many organizations, is it gives a chance for the individual that's being coached to take time out and to observe themselves. Sometimes from that third position, that neutral position to ask input from somebody else who's, hasn't got any vested interests. Like, how are you seeing me? What am I doing? What are you noticing? So it gives us additional data and then it gives us that way to calibrate a choice for change. I think for any of us, it's difficult to ask for feedback if I said to you now, so what are you noticing about how I'm coming across there now I've got to have that sort of eek moment what makes you see it? It's the unknown. So what would you say to that?
Eveline: So then how you're coming across is you're taking your time. And I interpret that as, as taking a lot of reverence for the questions that are being asked. And really feeling into what it stirs in you and answering from that place. So I noticed there's a certain slowness, a certain not jumping in right away, but just taking it in and then answering and. I noticed also like a, a lightness and a spark in your face. There's a lot of smiles. There's a joy of being here maybe, and then having a conversation like this. . Thank you for inviting me into the feedback round right away. Just like just putting it into practice right away. I had a question about that I was curious if there anything that you've become more conscious or aware about within yourself? Right. You're talking about self-leadership so this is applicable basically to everybody. So what have you learned about or something that you noticed and had a great impact on you.
Sue: Well, a couple of things spring to mind. One is my choice to write my memoir forced me, forced me. I chose to reflect on my life had experiences in a different way than perhaps I had done previously. So I did stop and slow down and really say, how did I really feel about it and reflecting on, so what did that mean for me? And how did that show up in how I then behaved afterwards or at that time? So what that reflection. informed me about I, and I was also feeling within my body. I could really sense it, that I just needed space. I wasn't giving myself space to do that reflection and thinking, which is where the magic occurs very often. So I consciously then made some different choices with how I spend my time and who I'm working with in that time to create more space for myself. Now that has a consequence. If there's more space and maybe sometimes there's less revenue. I trust at that moment to say the right things will be coming into my world. If I create that space. And I absolutely know from previous experience in my life, every single time I do that every single time, I think, oh no. Something even better than I imagined shows up. So it kind of keeps coming back to a life lesson. That one needs to learn is listening to my body, creating the space, trusting that the things will come into my world that need to come into my world. And then using that curiosity and excitement when it shows up and grabbing the opportunities when they come along.
Eveline: oh, so beautiful. That really feels very inspiring to me. And I think it's very radical actually. Like it's a radical thing to say, I'm going to slow down, but for all the reasons that you also mentioned, I mean, sometimes it's not just revenue, but it's this idea of letting go of something that's habitual. And we're so comforted in that in ways that we don't even maybe acknowledge often like, okay. But when I'm doing and doing and doing my thing, then I'm comfortable there. I've done this for a long time and waiting or creating an opening for something I don't know, can feel really uncomfortable. Yes. So I like that. Thank you.
Sue: If I could just add to what you're seeing there, Eveline I think there's an acceptance of the consequence of somewhere in that activity is to be the outsider because sometimes we're doing things or we're engaging in a certain behavior in order to fit in. And until we're comfortable enough to be an outsider, to be the lone voice, to be the one who's the disruptor or the challenger, we will stay with something that isn't serving us. And I just think it's important to accept and recognize that that's a consequence of growth, perhaps.
Eveline: Hm, it's really beautiful. And it takes me in so many directions because when I look at your journey, I see that you have taken radical steps of solitude, right? How do you find solitude? How do you find that you are able to move to the outsider view? What's the practice around that for Okay. you?
Sue: What I'm holding it in my head. If, even if I'm sitting in a chair, if I'm coaching somebody, I'm visualizing the different spaces, the space of the other, the coachee the space of myself, and then there's a third space. The other, the outsider the observer. And I'm consciously imagining myself moving between those three.
What's it like from where I am? What's it like for the other person who might be receiving what I'm saying? The question I'm asking, what might be going on between the two of us and that constant observation and mental movement around that model helps me to get perspective when I'm coaching somebody. A friend of mine many years ago was doing NLP neuro-linguistic programming, qualification, and she wanted to model somebody who had a particular skill in something. So she interviewed me to model the skill of decision. And when she asked me a whole bunch of questions and at the end of it, what we uncovered was that the best quality decisions I made were always when I was involved in doing some sort of movement. If you ask me to sit in a seat and make a decision, it would be okay, ask me to get up and have a walk and think about it and move. It would be a much better quality decision. So I've come to learn that something about the physical nature of movement helps to stimulate my brain in a particular way. Enriches the decisions I make or what I'm doing. So back to my noticing and noticing that's a pattern, something that's helpful, I'm going to do more of it.
Eveline: That's so fascinating. I love that. Thank you so much, but I'm always also fascinated by this mental model. I was like, wow. Yeah, amazing that you do that. And I want to take it. back to our listeners because I think this is really cool. And if I'm listening and I have not really consciously embarked on this journey of self observation or noticing. What would you encourage me to do? Like what first step could I take to start? Maybe noticing myself a little bit more,
Sue: I'm wondering whether one route could be, is noticing in others first. And that's part of access to inspiration is maybe the listener is not to say in somebody a practice or energy in their voice, listening to somebody else's experience. I'll pretty much bet that many of the listeners are equating that experience that they're listening to, to their own situation and saying, oh, I wonder how they could do that or wonder why they think like that. So they're not looking at themselves directly. First. They're looking at the other person's experience to draw insight that maybe then just brings a new observation to themselves. A new question to think about I think that's a great place to start because what we're now doing is we're applying curiosity and not judgment to another person. And that's what I would just introduce the listener to think about as I'm listening to these podcasts or engaging with people in the future. Can I bring a little bit more curiosity to how I engage and interact with that experience
Eveline: at that makes me excited too, because I feel like that's a different way as well, listening and engaging with the podcast, it's like this active listening, it's this way of saying like, okay, well what's striking my curiosity as opposed to, I'm just listening to this beautiful conversation between two people really noticing myself, basically in that triangle that you create between yourself and the other person. and the observer. Well what am I noticing is really striking my curiosity. I hope that that listeners will go back and listen to a new episode or an episode they've already listened to. And then they're really try this try, like, what are the questions that I would ask this person in the interviewer seat today? I love that. Thank you. That's really cool. I imagine that a lot of the coaching work that you do, or the inspirational speaker work that you do It's more a one person team, you're more of a solo preneur than, and in this situation you're co-creating, and I wonder if there's a difference in that experience and what extra value maybe you're gaining from that, that process of co-creating with somebody else and what it's been teaching you.
Sue: Well, that's a great question, Eveline. my co-founder Clive is a great person to be a catalyst for thinking and ideas. So when we're thinking about guests, we would like to interview. And then once we've got a guest identified, then to help the guests to feel safe enough to come into the conversation, having an idea what's going to happen. We create a draft list of questions ahead of time that we then send to the person to say, here's a general outline of some of the topic areas and themes. Rarely do we ever follow that list? But it gives a degree of safety and confidence and certainty to guests of which over half our guests are first-time podcasters. So they're not familiar with this environment when we're creating that list of questions. That's where Clive and I sit down and have this conversation and say, okay, what would we love to know from that person? What do we think would be the things that will be really interesting to learn about what might our listeners want to discover, and then we're using that co-creation activity to really broaden our perspectives and in a way, I see that joint journey between the two of us in the creation of the podcast. A little bit similar, like how I work with a coachee is co-creating the experience. In fact, I was speaking. a coachee this morning and saying, it's like a joint journey we're on. Sometimes I'm in the driver's seat with a steering wheel and they're in the passenger's seat. And sometimes I'm in the passenger seat and they've got the steering wheel, but together we're going on a journey and we have some sort of map. We know what kind of endpoint we're leaving for, but it's a journey that we're going to explore and learn things together. And that is the principle. I think the Clive and I take with this podcast. For example, the impact report that we produced last year, the idea for that only came out because we thought how are they were going to measure the impact. Let's be curious and find the way of getting the answer to that question. So things have evolved because we've both been in a position to throw in our ideas together, listen to one another and be curious about what might come as a result of it. And I hope that as a result of doing that, then we'd get a better experience for everybody.
Eveline: beautiful. Well having read the impact report and being a listener, I feel like you are having a great end result for your listener. I have one more question on the back of that, around your coaching process. Cause I think that's quite a unique process. So for those interested in coaching, what's the value of, of co-creating a journey together, as opposed to, maybe the more traditional view on coaching. I sit in a room and I share and somebody else sort of guides me.
Sue: I like to really try and set that straight at the beginning to say, we are both here to learn something. I don't have the answer already. I have a lot of insight about human behavior and pattern recognition and understanding about how people can move forwards. And we're going to have a joint exploration. So there's a subtlety about, yes, I bring myself, but it's how I bring myself. And it's not about, here's why I think you should do, because I've done it and it will work for you as well. I'm connected enough with all of myself, when I show up in that conversation, I think. Look at it as a system. Me and the coachee are in a system together, like back to my little diagram, you, me and the third person take that, hold that image in one's mind. And then think about how are we going to make that system be most effective. So that the coachee that's paying that money to get the coaching gets real value from that interaction together. So I do have a whole range of experience from a bunch of different sectors. Some might say, well, what's the north pole got to do with coaching a business leader, an awful lot to do with it because it's about the unknown. Exactly what I said back at the start. If we have got the curiosity, the ability to observe as human beings, we will be able to adapt and survive in this world. And that is the wonderful. Amazing experience that that individual gets in a coaching interaction.
Eveline: So beautiful. The inner expeditions with Sue Stockdale well, Thank you, Sue.
Sue: Thank you, Eveline. It's been lovely to speak to you today.
Eveline: Oh, it's been a delight. This was really, really fun. Thank you. Thank you for having me on and, and stepping into this unknown, cause I didn't send you any questions or anything like that. So I really put you through the work today. It's been an incredible learning experience for me as well. So thank you for this opportunity.
Sue: Thank you, Eveline and it's been great to be on the receiving end of your insightful and thoughtful questions and hope it gives an enriching experience for the listener as well.
Eveline: I'm sure it will.
Sound Editor: Matias de Ezcurra (he/him)
Producer: Sue Stockdale (she/her)
Sue Stockdale talks to Sophie Dow, a former freelance correspondent, writer, and founder of the Salvesen Mindroom Centre about what happened when she went on a search to discover a diagnosis for her daughter Annie, who had learning difficulties, and how it led to her to starting up a charity.
Sophie’s search took her to a conference in Gothenburg in 1998 – one of the very first in the world on learning difficulties. Sophie spent two days listening to desperate statistics about exclusion, bullying, loneliness, divorce, and suicide which she found totally unacceptable and decided to do something about it. Her bold vision for the Salvesen Mindroom Centre was created. It is a leading Scottish charity helping and supporting children and young people and their families who are neuro divergent, previously referred to as having learning difficulties. The charity has 22 employees and have helped thousands of children and families since its’ inception.
Sophie’s book When life doesn’t follow the script, about life with her daughter Annie, the setting up of Salveson Mindroom centre and neurodiversity was published in her native Sweden in 2018 and has received five-star reviews.
Find out about Sophie Dow and Salveson Mindroom and It Takes All Kinds of Minds 2023 conference
This series is supported by Squadcast –the remote recording platform which empowers podcasters by capturing high-quality audio and video conversations. Find out more at squadcast.fm
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Read our Impact Report https://bit.ly/3hElalv Key Quotes ‘We didn't have any guidance or directions or anything. So thanks to being a journalist, I just set about doing research.’
‘There were 2,700 delegates, professors and teachers and head teachers and speech therapists at the conference. Anyone needed to support and help a child that's struggling.’
‘I realised this is a public health issue that hasn't been addressed. It's still a public health issue today in 2022.’ ‘Every single person that's born has the right to a dignified life.’ ‘ I don't have some £70,000, but I have a vision.’ ‘We are all only human beings.’ ’25 genes out of the 22,000 or so that we all need in order to have a good chance at life were missing. And those 25 genes are the cause of Annie's mental handicap.’ ‘The big challenge of the 21st century is to try and understand more about how the brain and the mind works.’ Sophie Dow Transcription Sue: Welcome to the podcast Sophie
Sophie: thank you very much, Sue.
Sue: It really intrigues me that this statement when life didn't turn out, as you imagined, so maybe there's a good place to start is how did you imagine it when you were young?
Sophie: Yes. So I think you're referring to the title of my book, which is when life doesn't follow the script, which it doesn't for anyone really. So I'm Swedish. You might be able to hear that on my accent, which I have managed to maintain despite 40 years in the UK. I was working very happily at Swedish TV. I was as an assistant director on the daily news program, and this was in the early eighties, I had decided I was going to eventually progress to become a director and then eventually take over the sports department at Swedish TV. They don't know that. And I think that. they can thank their lucky star that life didn't turn out like that. So I had my career path planned out and I was very happy. I was single 28. I think I was. And then I got an invitation to a wedding in New York which I would have loved to go to, but my salary from Swedish TV wouldn't allow a return trip Stockholm New York in 1981. So I had to say no, and I was pretty miffed to have to do that.
However, three weeks before the wedding, I get a letter from a lawyer saying I had inherited a woman that I had never heard of in my life and my sister and I, and our two. plus 12 people we had never met in our lives, all inherited £700 each from this woman who turned out to be my paternal grandmother's sister. So I took the £700, ran through a travel agent in Stockholm, which is still there and bought a ticket to New York. At that wedding, I met my Scottish husband. And that in a nutshell is how the sports department at Swedish TV can thank their lucky stars because I moved to London in 1982 to live with Robin.
Sue: Well, it wasn't that serendipitous to get that inheritance. And then what happened next?
Sophie: So then. Arrived in London, nobody knew who I was, nobody cared. I had, fantastic letters of recommendation from the bosses of Swedish TV, but that didn't matter to anyone in London. I managed to somehow make my way into the Head of Granada television. I can't remember how I did that. Brought to my two letters of recommendation to him and thought it would be a matter of minutes before , he would have offered me a job. And this man was extremely irritated at having to meet me and he paced up and down and shouted angrily. Why on earth would I employ you? And I was so taken aback by that, that all I could think of saying was, I'm a nice person. And he said, well, I can tell you they are a hundred other people. I would much rather employ rather than you. That was a very humiliating moment. And I remember taking the Northern line home with tears of humiliation running down my face but it also showed me that I had to really think outside the box and find another way to make my way in this new country that I lived in. So I am a journalist, so I just started to build up a network became a freelance foreign correspondent for Swedish press and media and radio.
Sue: And as your career developed and you made the decision to have a family and then how did that shape to the next stage of your life?
Sophie: Yes. So I had twelve years as a foreign correspondent and loved them. I had a fantastic time. My was culture. So film theater. Human interest stories. And I interviewed all the big film stars, which was wonderful and fun. In between Robin and I had two children. So we had James who today is 34, 6 foot five tall, Swede Scottish person. And Annie came along Annie is 31 and Annie is mentally handicapped. So that completely changed our world. And eventually when the children were seven and four left London and moved up to Edinburgh in order to give the children a sort of more freer childhood up here. And that's also when we started to look into what it was we were facing with our daughter.
Sue: And when you did try to get answers to the questions that no doubt you had in your mind, what did you discover?
Sophie: Well, first of all, try to get answered. Is not easy, it's still not as easy. It we clocked into the sick kids here to try and get some answers. And it was a two year endlessness of appointments with professionals that we didn't know, had never met, trying to understand what It was we were facing why Annie wasn't behaving and functioning, like most other children.
In the end after two years the conclusion then this was in 1997, I think. So Anna was seven at the time was that the diagnosis was brain damage that occurred during pregnancy. Today when Annie's 31. We know that wasn't right, but that's was as little as they knew then. And I remember after having been to see the consultant getting the, the definitive diagnosis, we thought it was then the sick kids said, well, thank you very much. We've done our bit. And I remember standing outside the sick kids completely bewildered because they didn't give us any further information. I remember standing on the pavement, thinking, what do we do now? And that my inner compass had no north, south, east or west. It just went round and round around like in the north pole I've read your book. Sue it's an excellent, well, my, my inner compass was like the compass that you described when you go to the magnetic north pole. It didn't stop anywhere. I had no answers. We didn't have any guidance or directions or anything. So thanks to being a journalist. I just set about doing research. So what do I do? I talked to everyone, everyone I could think of. Eventually I was given a book so happened to be in Swedish by a fantastic professor of psychiatry called Christopher Gillberg who is still one of the world's leading experts on any form of learning difficulties as it was called them neurodiversity as we call it now. The title of that book was one child in every class. I read that book and realize that that was the realm that where we belong, which was learning difficulties. So ADHD, autism, Tourette syndrome, OCD, and so on. I'm sure you've heard of all of them. He described all of that and I thought, well, this is the area where I need to focus my research.
And then I thought, you know, the title was one child in every class. And I thought, oh, is it that common? Because up to them, we had thought we were the only family in the world with a child like Annie. Then Christopher Gillberg it so happened That he was organizing a big conference in Gothenburg in 1998. So I flew there thinking still, we were the only ones in the world with a child like Annie I step into the auditorium and there are 2,700 delegates. In 1998. If we Mindroom, we are organizing a big conference next year here in Edinburgh, our sixth conference. But if we get 2,700 in 2023, I'll be really happy.
So in 1998, that was phenomenal. So I step into the other 2,700 delegates and my first thought was we are not alone. And then I looked at the demography of the delegates and they were parents like myself, they were grandparents who wanted to help, but didn't have the tools to do so. They were professors and teachers and head teachers and speech therapists anyone that is needed in order to support and help a child that's struggling. So then I spent two days listening to desperate statistics about loneliness bullying, exclusion, prison, statistics divorce in families, and even children who were thinking about suicide. And I found that completely unacceptable. I still find it completely unacceptable.
Sue: That must've been quite a relief to realize that you weren't alone and then to get those statistics and information, I'm wondering what that caused or motivated you to do.
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. It was a reassurance, but it was a reassurance that gave me force because I knew I didn't have to plough my own furrow well, I have done in one sense, I realized actually this is a public health issue that hasn't been addressed. It's still a public health issue today in 2022. So you were asking what I did. Well, I found it utterly unacceptable. The thought of going back to home to Edinburgh and to say to Annie, I'm really sorry nothing can be done was not on, so I decided that to do something about this. And I felt I could. So the vision for Mindroom, Salveson Mindroom now called, was born then and there. So I flew back home and I told Robin what I had experienced and what I had understood that this is a public health issue that needs addressing. And I told him that I had a vision and I knew I could deliver it.
Sue: And other people at that point, Sophie might see there's an issue. Hope that there could perhaps have some sort of impact. I'm wondering what gave you that inner belief that you could do something that would effectively change the way that today people with learning difficulties on their families are supported.
Sophie: Yeah. I have had that question quite a lot. It's been 20 years and while since I can't answer it, it just is innate the strength within me and I should thank my mother. My father died very early, but I should thank my mother who was also a very strong person, but what drives me is human rights. Every single person that's born has the right to a dignified life. What I saw and heard at that conference was none of that. I find that unacceptable and it's still my driving force. We live with Annie and she has just as much right to a dignified life as you and I. So it's unacceptable that that's not the case there. However, I think society creates or emphasize says someone's handicap on is completely at ease with being mentally handicapped. We now know she's mentally handicapped and I can talk about that later, but she's completely at ease with that. She has no problem with it, but society has a big problem with anyone who falls out with the norm.
Sue: So with that inner energy, that inner strength that you brought to wanting to make a difference, how did you then set up the charity and how has it developed since you founded it?
Sophie: Yes. So I've never done anything like that. I had been my own boss. For the past 12 years, writing my articles and sending my invoices And nobody could really tell me what to do and here I had to really start from scratch and learn what is needed when you set up an organization judicially, economically and so on. And that's not my strength. I have likened it to, to I dunno if you've seen the film Free Solo you know, El Capitan is a very vertical piece of rock actually. It felt like that at times, and I was very much outside my comfort zone, but I believed so much in the vision that I had created myself that I just kept going. I remember. Robin saying to me, Robin, who has had a career in corporate life. And so on, he said to me, you have to have a, a board when you create an organization. I said, what a board? Does that mean I have to listen to what other people think I should be doing? And he said, yes. And I said, oh, how many?
And he said, at least six. So I set about putting together what I thought was a board. You have to bear in mind. I was in a new city and part of the country, nobody really knew me. And in order to put a board together, it's advantageous if you have a previous network, but I didn't have much of that. So I put together a board which consisted of a very good friend of mine who was super. Very funny and has a son who is also learning disabled, Robin's sister, because she was extremely well organized and a friend of ours who used to be Robin's former business partner, it's all. And then I presented this suggestion of a board to Robin and he said, what do you think this is some sort of play ground and I said, what do you mean? And he said, you can't just have a board with friends. You have to, find the right people even if you don't like them. But if you think that they can contribute to your vision and to the organization. You should ask them. So that was a steep learning curve. I managed to put the fantastic board together and we got going, I would say in 2000 really launched ourselves in 2003 with a big conference at the Edinburgh international conference centre. That was the launch of what was then called Mindroom which is now called the Salveson Mindroom Centre.
Sue: And from not knowing about how to set up a charity or an organization to having a conference at the Edinburgh international conference center, which for the listener whos not been to Scotland its one of the premier conference venues in Britain. How did even that happen?
Sophie: Well by that time I attended many conferences very often and pretty crap venues, where the technology didn't work that sort of stuff. And I have decided that the whole issue of what we now call neurodiversity is a huge issue, and if we're going to do something about it, everything that we do has to be top quality what we say, what we produce, where we have conferences and so on top quality. So the EICC, was an obvious place to go to. So I go there, I suppose it was 2001 or maybe 2002, because it takes time to plan a conference. And I said, hello. I would like to have a conference here. I've never done anything like that. And they said, oh yes, of course. That. It is £70,000. And I said, Well, I don't have some £70,000, but I have a vision and here's my vision. And I said, so could you defer all the invoices please, and somehow they said, yes, that was amazing. And then I proceeded to invite 16 of the best speakers I had listened to through the years. And I said the same thing to them. We need you here in Scotland. We don't have any money, but we have a lot of whiskey and my husband is a member of Muirfield Golf club so if you want to play golf, you can play with him. Please come for free. And all 16 said yes, and they came from jail. They came from Oxford, they came from Sweden, they came from Australia, they came from Berkeley and so on. And then I had never done a conference either. Anyway we opened the doors and a thousand delegates came and that was the launch of Mindroom.
Sue: Wow, what a start. It strikes me that the mindset that you had at that start point about valuing the charity valuing what was going to be said is actually a reflection of what your overall messages about society and how it needs to value everybody.
Sophie: Yes, that's a very good thought. I think that's also how and why we have been successful is you know, I do quite a lot of public speaking, both in Sweden and here. And, we are all only human beings and neurodiversity or learning difficulties as it was called for so long. It exists in every family, whether you're a Royal or, or not as it were I do is I, I always sort of put it on that level. We are all only human beings.
Sue: And what does the Salveson Mindroom Centre do? 21 years later. Here you are. What services does it provide?
Sophie: So the main part of what Salveson Mindroom does is what we call direct help and support. And that is in effect like a clinic. We help anyone that contact us whether they have a diagnosis or not. Actually, it's very important that we say that, because right now It has been for years, there is a more or less a two year waiting list for a child or a family to get into the system and get the diagnosis. And those years, are lost years, you don't have two years to wait. So we have always said we help anyone who contact us, whether you have a diagnosis or not. And we help the child always with the child at the center, we help the family. Whatever it is that they need, whether they to guide them towards a diagnosis or we mediate in schools, or we give advice for transmission, when they leave school or when they go from primary to secondary and so on, those are very crucial times in a child's life. So that's, what's the direct help and support does.
Since we started, we have helped tens of thousands of families, but there are so many more still that needs help. We also do workshops and we collaborate with the general teaching council for Scotland. We advise the Scottish government on these issues and so on, and we have our own. Research center at Edinburgh university we have always said that we need to work with the scientists. We who are further down the line we need to understand what happens in the brain in order to be better prepared and better help further down the line. So we have our own research centre at other universities headed up by professor Sue Fletcher-Watson, who is a professor of developmental psychology. It's called the Salveson Mindroom research center. And together with Salveson mind room, we work out different studies and so on. And ultimately we want to reform the system because it isn't working a two year waiting list, if that isn't acceptable, but that is a very big task. But we're working on it.
Sue: It seems like you like a bold vision, Sophie not something that's a small vision, but something ambitious. I'm wondering if you were asking Annie, what she makes of, what you've done, what would Annie be saying?
Sophie: That's a really nice question. Sue. Annie's very proud. Whenever we're together and if I'm either introduced as the finder, or I say that I am the founder, she will say, excuse me, I am the founder of Salveson Mindroom centre. She's completely onboard with that. And she's very proud of what we do. And at ease with, as I said before, being someone who is mentally handicapped. So shall I tell you how we know not what diagnosis she had? So, we were looking and asking everywhere for the better diagnosis than the one we got in 1997, which was brain damage that occurred during pregnancy. It wasn't specific enough. So I kept looking and asking and eventually I asked Christopher Gilberg who had by then become a friend and had spoken at several of our conferences and I asked Christopher if he would assess Annie and look at her. So he said, of course, and we flew over to Gothenburg, the whole family, and he assessed Annie for two days. Still couldn't pinpoint what was the reason or the diagnosis, but he said, I think you should look at something being chromosomally, not right.
And that wasn't something we had thought of before, by this time Annie was 13, still couldn't read and write and so on. She still can't really read and write has no concept of time or of consequences, she has many, many strengths, but there are also weaknesses. So we flew back. I contacted David Fitzpatrick, who is a professor of genetics here, another row. And I asked him if he could have a look at, Annie for a specific chromosome fault that Christopher had suggested he did took her blood sample in 2003 he said he didn't think it was what Christopher had suggested. And it wasn't. But David said, can I please save Annie's blood sample while I wait for better technology? And we said, of course, so four years later on the 18th of July, you have these dates burned into your memory. 18th of July, 2007, we get a letter second-class post from David saying, dear Sophie and Robin, I now have a stronger loop in my microscope and I have screened down this blood sample and she does indeed have a small, but significant chromosome deletion on chromosome one. the upper arm. 25 genes out of the 22,000 ish that we all need to have in order to have a had a good chance in life were missing. And those 25 genes are the cause of Annie's mental handicap. She is the only one in the world with this particular chromosome profile. She still is. So we asked if asked Annie if we could call it Annie's syndrome in order to push boundaries and also make it a more personal thing. So it's now called Annie's syndrome rather than the Fitzpatrick syndrome which it should have. Because it was David who discovered it.
Sue: Wow. So you're, you're making a mark, you and Annie and the charity in the whole field of neurodiversity.
Sophie: Yes.
Sue: As you look into the future, you talked about the conference coming up next year. What's that going to involve?
Sophie: So we being a journalist a very big, an important part. of Salveson Mindroom has always been for me to create awareness and to get information out in order to tackle the very damaging stigma that still surrounds any form of learning difficulty. I get very cross when I think of that, because the stigma is really based on ignorance. So it's very important to get information out there. So we have had five very big conferences through the years parallel to all the other work that we've done. And next year we are now staging a very big international event back at the EICC 20 years on from when we first, were there it's a big conference called it takes all kinds of minds and it will talk about all kinds of neurodiversity.
Sue: So any of our listeners who are interested to find out more about that conference, how might they do that?
Sophie: Well, there is excellent a website for the conference, it's called, it takes all kinds of minds, and so the website is called ITAKOM.org and if you go there, you'll have all the information you need for the conference. And also if you book now you get very advantageous early bird prices. So for instance, for private person, personally funded as we call it. If you book now early bird is 225 pounds, we have 50 speakers so far, very high profile, and they range from scientists to people who are experts on the benefits of surfing and mental health, for instance, it will span the whole thing. So really to, to summarize it is about science and reality.
Sue: Wow, that sounds like it's going to be quite an event. And if you were. I guess sharing any of the wisdom or learning that you have gained during the years what would be a message you'd want to leave for our listeners ?
Sophie: In one sense that's a multifaceted question. For me, I always talk about, Annie has shown and so many with her has shown us a completely different universe from the universe that we thought we knew before. And Anna's universe is just as valid as yours and mine. I am absolutely fascinated by the brain and the mind. And so we work with neuroscientists. I love hearing what they have to say. Every year I ask them, they find it rather irritating because they think it's a very simplistic question, but I asked, I asked them how much do we know about the brain today?
One of them says at the best one and a half percent. And another one says, Well, maybe a little bit more, but not even 10%, all of them say that is the big challenge of the 21st century is to try and understand more about how the brain and the mind works. And for me personally, I suppose to answer your question. First of all, I find that very exciting. It's like discovering a whole new continent, then I want to see a paradigm shift in how we look at and understand the brain and the competence of everybody. so with the further understanding of the brain I hope we'll come a much more inclusive way of looking at everybody and inclusive way. That includes all kinds of minds and make sure that no mind is left behind.
Sue: that's a powerful message from which to leave us. One thing I didn't ask you about Sophie, it was about your book that you wrote. It's written in Swedish I understand soon to be in English as well. I understand?
Sophie: Yes. So I one of the things of being a founder, I find their responsibility is to know when to hand over to the next person. And I see Salveson Mindroom as my third child, but a child should grow up and leave home. So I've always been very aware that my responsibility is to hand over when I'm no longer as effective as a CEO if you like. You come to a point and I know you talk about entrepreneurship in your book. You know, I think I am a starter up person. And then there comes a point when it's very important to hand over to someone who knows how to take it to the next step. So I did that a few years ago and I'm not quote unquote only on the board which allowed me time to write, which is what I really love doing. So I was asked to write the book by a Swedish publisher that in itself was wonderful. So I wrote this book called when life doesn't follow the script 'När livet inte följer manus', that's in Swedish was published in 2018 and if I made boast a little bit, it had five star reviews. It's not a sad book about having a child that's mentally handicapped it's a book about life with Annie, which is never. It's I talk about neuroscience and I talk about all the struggles that was involved in setting up an organization when you're not a business person and so on. And it has a lot of hope that book. So it's been translated now to English and it will be ready for the conference next year. It's also being translated into French.
Sue: Wonderful. So your mission to generate greater awareness that will happen with those other language versions of your book coming out into your course.
Sophie: I hope so.
Sue: I really enjoyed our conversation so far. I think it's a very important topic for all of us to be more aware of. And I'm sure that our listeners will want to discover more about Salveson MIndroom centre as well. How might they do that on the internet?
Sophie: web address is www.mindroom.org, M I N D R O O M.org. I also have. Websites now which is Sophie-Dow.com
Sue: Wonderful. Well, it's been a real pleasure to speak to you Sophie today, to hear about your journey and the unexpected and wonderful outcomes that have happened when your life didn't follow the script.
Sophie: Nor did yours sue. I recommend everyone to read your book, explore a life in adventure. It's so inspirational. I will never go to Antarctica or Greenland or Kenya or the magnetic north pole. So I was very happy to read about it. And your thoughts and struggles as well. And how life has taken you in the most unexpected directions.
Sue: Well, there's the commonality between both of us, Sophie, and thank you so much for your time.
Sound Editor: Matias de Ezcurra (he/him)
Producer: Sue Stockdale (she/her)
Sue Stockdale talks to Sanzar Kakar about his life as an entrepreneur in Afghanistan, how he measures success, and how the company pivoted to support the recent humanitarian crisis in the country.
Sanzar Kakar is the Chairman of Afghanistan Holding Group, a 13-year-old private firm with 350 Afghan team members that has served over 700 international organizations. Ventures include Moore Afghanistan (accounting and consulting), Afghanet (internet service), Mezan (school), F45 Training (fitness), BusinessDNA (media), Hesab (payments), and BBR (transport).
Sanzar graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Engineering and from Warwick Business School with a Master’s in Business Administration. At the University of Pennsylvania, Sanzar served as the Manager of the Wharton Graduate Association. Following his undergraduate degree, he worked for Merrill Lynch as a Technology Analyst on a trading desk for bonds and equities, creating a link for automatic reporting to the New York Stock Exchange.
Staring in Afghanistan, Sanzar began working an as an Investment Associate for Acap Partners, setting up a $20 million venture capital facility and sourcing over 300 new deals for consideration. He then joined the Attorney General's Office of Afghanistan as an Executive Advisor on a U.S. Department of State program to reorganize the institution and set up a national paper and computer criminal case management system spanning seven-justice institutions. Later, Sanzar served as the Economic Advisor for the Afghanistan Investment Climate Facility, setting up operational and fiduciary requirements for the seven-year £30 million grant facility in Kabul, followed by a promotion to Deputy Interim Team Leader. Mr. Kakar speaks English, Pashtu, and Dari.
Find out more about Afghanistan Holding Group at the website. https://ahg.com.af
This series is supported by Squadcast –the remote recording platform which empowers podcasters by capturing high-quality audio and video conversations. Find out more at squadcast.fm
Connect with us on Twitter : Facebook : Instagram : LinkedIn
Sign up for our newsletter http://eepurl.com/hguX2b
Read our Impact Report https://bit.ly/3hElalv Key Quotes ‘I like to start new ventures and new opportunities.’ ‘I think Afghans in general have an incredible entrepreneurial spirit.' ‘It is the greatest humanitarian crisis probably of our lives and anything we can do to try to address it and help people in their time of greatest need, it's an obligation upon us.’ ‘I’m very much from the technology background, and technology is a lot about scale. You can accomplish a lot of things through technology by making a bigger difference and bigger impact.' ‘I’ll be able to look back and say, I tried my best and I was able to help the most number of people. And that would be a great measure of success for us.’ ‘What I learned more and more about myself is that the value of helping others.’ ‘I’m a very visual person. So making charts and diagrams and try to imagine things differently, imagine things, better’. Sanzar Kakar Transcription Sue: hello, I'm Sue Stockdale and welcome to episode 69 of Access to Inspiration the show where you can get inspiration from people who may be unalike you. . We hope their stories and insights enable you to transcend day-to-day challenges and reflect on what you are capable of achieving. This episode was recorded using Squadcast the remote recording platform, which empowers podcasters by capturing high quality audio and video conversations that listeners love. We are proud that squadcast are sponsors of this podcast, and you will find them at Squadcast.fm. My guest today is Sanzar Kakar, chairman of Afghanistan holding group, a company that's been running for 13 years and has over 350 African team members that have served over 700 international organizations. Amongst the ventures that he runs is Afghan net, which is an internet service Mezan which is a school and Hesab a payments business. Similar to PayPal. I was curious to get another perspective about Afghanistan and find out how Sanzar has pivoted the focus of his business more recently to support the humanitarian crisis. Welcome to the podcast, Sanzar great to speak to you today. Sanzar: Thank you Sue. I'm so honored and happy to be here as well.
Sue: Now, as we're speaking, I know you're living and working in Afghanistan, what the weather is like at this time of the year in Afghanistan, in January?
Sanzar: It's snowy actually. And it's quite a cold. So a lot of people, somehow they think Afghanistan is a desert, but there are deserts in the south. And then there's forest in the north. But where I am in Kabul, it's snowy and chilly in the winter, warm in the summer, but not too hot. It's, it's quite nice in the shade. So a moderate climate. The main difference is that it's about a mile high. Kabul is like a bowl on top of a mountain. And so you're surrounded by mountains and you're a mile above sea level. So the altitude is what makes it a quite dry.
Sue: You've given us a wonderful description there to get our head around what geography is like Sanzar. I know your role is chairman of Afghanistan Holding group. And you might describe yourself as an entrepreneur. Would that be correct?
Sanzar: that is correct. I like to start new ventures and new opportunities. And so Afghanistan Holding group is a group of those ventures, that that's exactly what it is. New ideas, new startups, new businesses and almost exclusively all in Afghanistan.
Sue: Now, I don't know if you would agree with me. Sometimes other entrepreneurs I've spoken to over the years where they have a number of ventures is a little bit like having children. And there's sometimes a favorite. I'm wondering if that's the case for you.
Sanzar: it's hard to say. I mean, I've five children, so it's hard to say a favourite even amongst my own children. But amongst my businesses. There's 10 of them And there's some that I do enjoy much more than others. I think that is fair to say. One of them is called F45 training, which is a gym from Australia. Mark Walberg is a co-investor in those gyms and in Afghanistan is just so much fun to do that. And people really enjoyed it to something completely different. And so I would probably say F45 is definitely one of my favourites.
Sue: And what are the others, or just give us a flavour of some of those other business ventures that you're involved in Sanzar?
Sanzar: Sure. So one of them is a school from, from K to 12, it's called Mizan. And we help try to train the future leaders of the country. So it's a small school. But we have an incredible curriculum out of Oak Meadows in Connecticut from the US and we've customized it for Afghanistan, local languages and culture as well as of course, English and a US side to it. We also have Afghan Net which is the internet service provider providing just broadband internet to homes and businesses across Afghanistan.. Actually a few tech ones, you know, my background is computer engineering. So we have a Uber service called Buber which, which means, ' let's go' in Farsi and you can order food like Uber eats, or you can order a taxi or a package to be delivered through Buber. And then the one that we're spending most of our time on now is called Hesab - think of it like Apple Pay, where you can send money, pay in any shop, send money to anyone else and try to make it really easy for payments given the fact that the in a banking sector has collapsed in the last five months.
Sue: Well, it sounds like there's a real variety of ventures that you're involved in. Where do you think you get that entrepreneurial spirit from?
Sanzar: I think Afghans in general have, an incredible entrepreneurial spirit in my entire life. When I've been in Afghanistan, they've come up with any little thing, even if they didn't have a lot of capital to try to, do a business And earn a living. If you'd go to the markets, they would always be someone that would, , rent a wheelbarrow so that he could spend the day wheeling groceries for people around in the busy markets. Or , just come up with some really incredible creative ideas to life. So I definitely think it's in the Afghan spirit. The word trader or trading in Afghanistan is the same word for business. So you have to trade in a buy low and sell high Afghanistan's always been the silk road between the east and west. And so trading is also really key to the Afghan spirit. But aside from that I think my background has also very much been in the private sector. I worked in venture capital and worked for Merrill Lynch in New York. And all of it was very much growing the private sector. And that's what I enjoyed doing. , creating things myself and, watching them grow and bloom in the future.
Sue: And where are you originally from Afghanistan? Sanzar were you born there?
Sanzar: I'm half and half. So my mother is American from Iowa, Kansas, and my father is from Faria in the north of Afghanistan. I was born in Seattle. When they were studying medicine and there my father is a epidemiologist and my mother is a MD and PhD in public health. But when I was about five years old in Seattle, we moved back to Afghanistan.. Actually on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan in Peshawar, and that's when the Soviets were still in Afghanistan and there was a big rush of refugees from Afghanistan out of the country. And so my parents were, were helping with those refugees tending to a lot of the war victims working either in education or in health there and so that's, when we went back. A lot of people were leaving the country and I call it a reverse migration. We moved back to to the area of the country. And so as much as possible to help the people, in their time of need.
Sue: So you were there on the ground as a youngster and with your parents being healthcare and medicine, I'm wondering whether they were not encouraging you to go down that route as opposed to being an entrepreneur.
Sanzar: Oh, yes. Afghans strongly encourage, their kids to be doctors. And they definitely looked at it that way as well for me, so when I was studying computers or statistics, they're like, health statistics is also a great field or management. Like, healthcare management is also a great field you should consider. But my younger sister, she did go into medicine. And so I think they appreciated that, but they also, I think now appreciate the work that I do as well.
Sue: Well, it sounds like you're influencing the economy and in many different ways through all these different businesses that you're running Sanzar. I also know as a student that you participated in and modelled a United Nations conference, is that right?
Sanzar: yes. I really enjoyed that both through high school and in college, I attended, dozens of model UN conferences where I worked on, debating world issues, but in a kind of an academic and that's really what helped broaden my horizon. So if anyone has kids or they themselves are in the age where they can attend MUN, it was really didactic for me. Just to be able to not only meet so many people from so many cultures, but to start thinking about some of the greater issues in the world and what we could do to make a difference for them. So from Beijing to the Hague to Egypt. And we went all over the world, Germany, all across the US, many different states for these conferences and events. And so just, travel has a big impact on that, especially when you're young to broaden your horizons. But I enjoyed speaking and debating and meeting people, over the years through MUN.
Sue: The United Nations then has come back into your life more recently, I understand part of what you've been involved in was distributing emergency aid for the United nations.
Sanzar: Yes. So after August, when the, government changed in Afghanistan we closed a lot of our different operations that, weren't as relevant. But the critical need was very apparent. And that was when the UN announced that, 22.8 million Afghans might be facing starvation this winter, including a million children might die just out of hunger and malnutrition. And so we really changed focus and we have 350 employees in the country. And we just said, the greatest humanitarian crisis probably of our lives and anything we can do to try to address it and help people in their time of greatest need. It's an obligation upon us. And so we focused on Hesab and tried to say here's a way that we can deliver aid immediately transparently around the country. And UN, really, mobilized their resources there's 35 different UN programs from WFP world food program to WHO in the world health organization for doctors and then UNICEF with teachers and on and on and on just to try to step in to avert this incredible calamity. And we're working very closely with the UN to try to help people during this time.
Sue: And when you're able to support and help the local economy, how do you measure your own success Sanzar?
Sanzar: I think the greatest way is to say how many people I helped. I think I'm going to look back in my life to say, all right, did I help as many people as I could that's my measure of success. Financially I've been comfortable my whole life and I've never worried about putting a roof over my head or, what type of car to drive. That's all been very unimportant and not something you can carry with you and after we go to the grave, we're all gonna die. And so I'm, I am very focused on the number of people that we can try to help. And how much of a difference we can make in people's lives.
And so I'm very much from the technology background and technology is a lot about scale. You can accomplish a lot of things through technology by making a bigger difference and bigger impact as opposed to meeting one person at a time. So when my parents were doctors, my mother originally, she went into just a regular kind of clinic. Where you're helping one person at a time. And she said, it's so frustrating. You're telling one person at time please stop smoking. Cause we're gonna get cancer and it's going to, hurt you and it's not good for you. And you're trying to explain to one person at a time, but when you go to public health, you're trying to help an entire country stop smoking and you make a much bigger difference, much impact. So those are the types of things that I heard, growing up as a child. And even now, I'm trying to think, okay. If we help a few families, that's one thing we'll be great. I'm employing, 350. And that's making a difference in their lives in Afghanistan, but instead of, a few hundred or a few thousand, can I make a difference in the lives of millions?
And that's I think where technology has, has been very, very helpful where, there's 27 million phones in Afghanistan, we can have them, self register and distribute aid, through their cell phone to them instantly or that it can go to. a shop to buy food, to survive. So leveraging, financial technology or FinTech in Afghanistan or other countries that that might need that I think is going to be the biggest difference. And that's where I'll be able to look back and say, Hey I tried my best and I was able to help the most number of people. And that would be a great measure of success for myself.
Sue: When you're talking about mobile technology, you reminded me of, the technology EMPESA that really made a huge impact in Africa in terms of bringing payments to people in remote places. It's sounding like it's a similar sort of concept that you're talking about.
Sanzar: Yes, you're exactly right. And that's that's what it is. Mobile money. And there's many of them all over the world from Zelle and PayPal and pay TM in India. Yeah. Empesa, easy pay. There's many ones around the world, but Afghanistan had a few before, but it didn't really take off because there were restricted to the cell phone network of that particular provider. So if you wanted to, send money, everyone else had to have the same SIM card from that cell phone network. And there's five different networks in Afghanistan. Some networks work better in some areas than others. And so that was one of the restrictions. Another one was that it didn't have a very easy graphical interface. So a lot of Afghans believe it or not have smartphones, they use WhatsApp quite a bit, even if they're illiterate, they use the voice messages to send voice messages back and forth. And so. Being able to have a very easy graphical interface, with icons to be able to, send funds as opposed to trying to type out a message in the right correspondence and trying to, what's my balance. Who do I send it to? I want to make bill payments. I want to do all these other functionalities it's very helpful, but still for people without a smartphone or even people without a phone at all, we issue QR code cards, which is a small PVC card like a credit card, but it has a picture of a QR code on it. And so when you go to a shop, the shopkeeper, then they all have smartphones. They would take a picture of that, scan that QR code and they'd be able to, make a payment that way. So very, very similar and the impact on the economy on on people on the unbanked population, financial inclusion is just phenomenal, phenomenal.
It really opens the door for micro finance. For connecting you to the economy or being able to grow businesses, to access more customers in terms of, sources of revenue to be able to access more suppliers, how to pay them. So it's really a transformational technology and and now with the, increasing connectivity, Afghanistan's, double digit increase every year in terms of the number of internet users. And so being able to use that and leverage. To help bring out people from poverty, I think would be tremendous. And that's, really what's Afghanistan is facing right now. 98% of the country is going to be below the poverty line of this year, which is phenomenal, 98% of the population, four out of five people that they have. They've had to resort to emergency kind of, sell offs. If their only source of income was selling milk from a cow, they've had to sell the cow. So now, they, they were able to, to feed themselves for maybe a month, but now they don't have a cow to provide milk, to go on. So those sorts of emergency kind of, last resort, you've probably even heard in the news, people are selling their children, they're selling their kidneys, they're selling, whatever they can, just for a bit of food, to live another day. So these types of, terrible situations just make the need all the more urgent for action.
Sue: If you are enjoying this episode, you might want to listen to episode 48 as well where I spoke to Palwasha Siddiqi who was a refugee from Afghanistan and is a successful corporate executive and coach in the UK. You can find that over at accesstoinspiration.org and you can listen there or read all the transcriptions from all of our episodes. Now, back to the podcast. It strikes me Sanzar as you're speaking that anybody could potentially look at the world a bit more bleakly when Afghanistan is facing such dire situations economically. And you seem to be very upbeat and optimistic. What helps to keep you optimistic despite seeing a lot of challenges around you? Sanzar: I think it's, it's probably a faith. I've been raised with a strong faith in God and and that really makes a big difference. If you don't have faith, I can just imagine the world looks so bleak. Like you said, that you know that there's no meaning there's no purpose. And , just things get worse than worse. And there's a poem that I learned a while ago from Robert Frost. And it's four lines and he says, I turned to speak to God about the world's despair, but to make bad matters worse, I found out God, wasn't there. God turned to speak to me, don't anybody laugh, but God found I wasn't there, at least not over half.
That's what Robert Frost said. And that really has made an impact on me to think about how to think about things. Not blaming others or looking outwards about what's going on. That's, God's world and he'll do with it what he pleases, but for us to think about how we can make a difference. And if we're presented with a challenge, how to respond to that challenge, and if we're presented with, the calamities in this world, did we step up to the plate or not.
Sue: So in those difficult times, and when perhaps we do challenge or question our belief in what's happening out there, we all have to turn to a bit of inspiration, which is the whole point of this podcast Sanzar. So I'm wondering who or what inspires you?
Sanzar: there's a wonderful teacher, professor. His name is Hamza Yusuf and he lives in California and he's started Zaytuna college in California on a UC Berkeley's campus. And he's just one of the most inspiring optimistic people that I've ever met. Every minute speaking to him, learning from him has been, incredibly inspirational and I've probably, listened to every single of his lectures on YouTube or tried to listen to every time he speaks and that is where I've really found a lot of inspiration. And, I look up to him and admire him for his confidence for his courage, for his sincerity and just an incredible ocean of knowledge about, every subject in the world. And, and that has really been helpful, inspirational, motivating for me. And there's no doubt in my mind, when he speaks to you that he speaks directly from the heart he has a book called purification of the heart. And that really also made a big difference to me. And there's an audio file about it as well, where you can listen to it, it's also been translated in other languages in Farsi for Afghanistan as well. And So Purification of the Heart to see, to look down deep, reflect into ourselves, to see, what are what are our own ailments. And if we can continue to work on ourselves that will make a bigger difference in how we respond to other people. So I look to him for inspiration.
Sue: So when you look inside yourself, what are you learning about you as you've gone through life so far, doing all of these entrepreneurial activities making a difference in your economy and community.
Sanzar: Well, I definitely learn that there's positive and negative attributes and it's important to continually, strengthen those positive attributes and try to snuff out the negative attributes. So what I learned more and more about myself is that the value of helping others, the value of family is going to be very, very important. The more I can spend time with my own children, the more I can spend time helping them nurturing them to be leaders that is important. Serving my parents incredibly important. That's what makes a difference to me. That's what truly makes me happy, but it also makes them happy. And so these, these few items. Raising good kids, serving parents, my parents live with me and I'm so happy and honoured to, to be blessed with their presence. And it's great for my kids as well, because they learned from their grandparents and my parents in their old age, they have great entertainment with my kids.
Sue: Well, they do say that that it's one of the best ways for older people to live for longer when they have that inspiration from younger people. Just looking ahead as you then plan your next few years in addition to supporting your family and those around you. What does your entrepreneurial brain look at on the horizon and think, oh, I could get into that business or I could start up something there. Cause I know entrepreneurs always are looking for the next opportunity.
Sanzar: yes. Businesses have a certain kind of lifecycle, certain progression. I might be great at starting a business, but I don't know once it comes to kind of a corporate level it needs a different type of a character where, you have the patience and, you do need certain, bureaucracy in order to have that large kind of corporate mechanisms, to move about. So I get much more excited, for starting new ventures and I always do look around I spend a lot of time in Istanbul, in Turkey as well. And there wasn't a Mexican food restaurant in the entire city of 30 million people and so I'm like, I would love to start just a small taco stand, something like that. Or when I was in different parts of Afghanistan, a lot of the things that I started with things that I wanted myself. I wanted a great gym and I didn't have one. So I started F45 or, I wanted, fast broadband internet. And so I started my own internet company or I want, for example, right now to be able to visit around the country thankfully there's less. war in Afghanistan right now, and it's quite safe.
Many of our employees are going to distant provinces that they never seen before in Afghanistan. And so to have, great tour operator or, a great way to be able to explore the countryside and visit different places from Banja to Badakshan to see, incredible ancient history that's there as well as, ski the slopes or do different options. So you're exactly right. Every day is another opportunity to see, where we can start something new and something exciting. But as of right now, I've really committed all my efforts on this, on this humanitarian air crisis and so I've tried to freeze all my brainstorms or ideas or, gut impulses to try to start something new and try to just, redirect all of our energies to this one problem.
Sue: That must be quite difficult to, to hold in check, your unbound-less enthusiasm for new things. I know one of our earlier guests in the podcast said that he is a relentless idea generator and he just had a huge notebook full of ideas. And that was the way that he captured his, his enthusiasm in one place without feeling the need to act on every idea that came up. I get a sense, perhaps a little bit like that for you.
Sanzar: Yes, definitely. And I like to write them down. I like to draw them out. I'm a very visual person. So making charts and diagrams and, try to imagine things differently, imagine things, better. And there, but there are ways to, to kind of combine many different visions, together more and more, I'm actually interested to farming now and try sustainable growth in that sense.
And so I did buy a farm in, in Kabul. Both my mother's side of the family and my father's side of the company. Farmers and agrarian, my mother in the U S and my father and far up. And so even from a young age, when I visited in agriculture, I really, really enjoyed it. Not livestock as much, but much more in terms of how to grow especially sustainably and how incredible it was that, a single farmer can feed thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people through what they do, which is really inspiring as well. That that much good comes from one person.
Sue: Often other entrepreneurs, I've spoken to talk about the need for collaboration. So having partners that they're working with investors, how do you find going from the idea to getting going. Do you find you have collaborators and other people that you're engaging with around you?
Sanzar: Yes. I've been blessed with incredible team in Afghanistan. Each one of them brilliant and hardworking to be able to turn what my one idea might be and put it into practice. And so over the over the past 13 years especially we've had some of the same individuals that have been with us from start to finish. And those individuals are really what would make the difference. And so spending the most time with them to make sure that they're encouraged and motivated and inspired, it is really important.
I like to think of factories, they might have machines, that move them forward and you have to invest in machines. But everything that I do is services. And so all the investment is in is in people. And so the more I can do and grow and help and educate and support all of our team members that's that's what makes the difference between us and maybe any other organization so we have all kinds of fun team meetings. We used to do bowling together in Afghanistan. We'll take the whole team for a group bowling event or we've been on a team trips to Dubai or to Saudi Arabia together, many times we're planning team events constantly to try to build that camaraderie and learning experience across each other.
Sue: So finally Sanzar you mentioned you had five children as you look ahead. What are your hopes for your children when they are growing up and looking at you as an inspiration? What are your hopes for them in the future?
Sanzar: My gut feeling was that, oh yeah, I'd love for them to run some of our businesses and as they, they grow up. But at the same time as well, I want them to find, what motivates them? What inspires them? What is what's going on? You know help them understand what difference they can make in this world. And I don't want to corner them into one particular area or field that I might've found particularly interesting. Maybe I wasn't interested in healthcare as much growing up, so I wouldn't want them to, to feel the same way. But I would want them definitely to know that the reason that they're here is to make a difference. It's not just, for fun and games and and to go about it.
Sue: That's wonderful. And I think what you've given us a sense of is your strength of character, your strength of your optimism and the strength of your entrepreneurial focus Sanzar in the conversation today. I've really enjoyed talking to you, learning more about the economics of Afghanistan in terms of all of this activities that you're involved in and the way that you're inspiring your family and your children as well. If people want to find out more about you and the businesses that you're involved in, how might they do that?
Sanzar: So the group of our ventures comes under Afghanistan Holding group. So they could go to Afghanistan Holding Group.af, and then that. You know, all the different ventures that are there. Thank you for your time as well, Sue. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to being in touch.
Sue: I hope you enjoyed my conversation, with Sanzar, I certainly got a different perspective on how an entrepreneur can develop businesses in Afghanistan and support the local community. Remember, you can help us to spread awareness about this podcast with other people. So who do you know that needs a little bit of inspiration then go on send them a link to this episode or one of our other ones, or leave us a review on apple podcasts so that others can know the value that you've gained from listening to this. Next time I'll be talking to Sophie Dow I hope you will join me then.
Sound Editor: Matias de Ezcurra (he/him)
Producer: Sue Stockdale (she/her)
Sue Stockdale talks to Caitríona Jennings, an Olympic athlete and current Irish 50km and 100km record holder about the preparation, training and mindset required to perform at the highest level of athletics.
Caitríona initially representing her country as a junior triathlete before competing for Ireland in the Olympics and World Championship events. Caitríona has always balanced her athletic career with a successful professional career. Having studied Law and Accounting in University, Caitríona joined the international accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2001 and was promoted to the position of Tax Director before joining Goshawk Aviation as Head of Tax in 2016. Currently living in Hong Kong, Caitríona took on a new role as VP Risk in CDB Aviation in 2019 when she relocated here with her husband. Caitríona is a member of the board of directors of the Irish Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and leads the Aviation working group. Caitríona is also a founding member of Propel, an industry networking group for aircraft leasing professionals based in Hong Kong.
This series is kindly supported by Squadcast –the remote recording platform which empowers podcasters by capturing high-quality audio and video conversations. Find out more at squadcast.fm
Find out more about Caitriona Jennings via Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
This series is supported by Squadcast –the remote recording platform which empowers podcasters by capturing high-quality audio and video conversations. Find out more at squadcast.fm
Connect with Access to Inspiration on Twitter : Facebook : Instagram : LinkedIn
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Read our Impact Report https://bit.ly/3hElalv Key Quotes “Typically I do try to run early in the morning if I can because I find that once I have my exercise done, I'm more relaxed for the day.” “I’m humbled to think that I currently hold the Irish record in both 50K and 100K distances.” “Running. It's a very easy sport to do.” “I think running has instilled a really strong sense of discipline into me, my timekeeping and how I structure my day.” “The most important learning that I got from running was how to be resilient.” “There's always a positive to everything and I try to just constantly focus on that positive.” “I’m going to be running for as long as I spend a day in work in the office.” “I have those moments of doubt all the time, the little voice in my head, but I just constantly try and reinforce positivity.” “What I've learned in the past, If you try and burn someone off too fast, you're actually only destroying your own race.” “The amount of research that's been done and evidence is overwhelming to show the connection between gut health and mental health.” “I am motivated to reduce the records for both the 50 K and the 100 K.” Caitriona Jennings Transcription Sue: [00:00:00] hello, I'm Sue Stockdale and welcome to episode 68 of access to inspiration the show where you can gain inspiration from people who may be unalike you. We hope their stories and insights enable you to transcend day-to-day challenges and reflect on what you are capable of achieving. This episode was recorded using Squadcast, remote recording platform, which empowers podcasters by capturing high quality audio and video conversations that listeners love. We are proud that Squadcast are sponsors of this podcast. And you will find them at Squadcast.fm. My guest today is Caitriona Jennings an endurance athlete who has represented Ireland in the Olympics in the marathon and holds the Irish national record at 50 kilometers and a hundred kilometers. And one of the ways she gets motivated is a bit of friendly rivalry with her sister who was a world champion rower. So welcome to the podcast Caitriona it's great to speak to you today.
Caitriona: Thanks Sue pleasure to be here.
Sue: Now, I must say to the listener, as I'm speaking here to an Olympic athlete, I find it really amusing that she's sitting, speaking to me from an office in Hong Kong and dressed in a business suit. So clearly you have a day job as well Caitriona is that I right?.
Caitriona: Yeah. I pay the bills but unfortunately not good enough to run, to pay my bills. So I have to work as well so that I can have a decent lifestyle.
Sue: So maybe just, that's a good place to start then. Tell me about your job.
Caitriona: Im a VP Risk in CDB aviation, which is an aircraft leasing company headquarters in Dublin but we also have an office here in Hong Kong. Essentially what the business does is it acquires aircraft and leases them to airlines around the world. And my role is to assess the risk of the airline and the countries in which they operate so that we, I guess can make an informed decision as to whether it's a good business opportunity for the company to lease the aircraft.
Sue: That sounds like a pretty full on job, by the way. You're describing it there. Katrina, how do you manage to balance a job like that and running?
Caitriona: Yes, it, I mean, it is a full-on job that requires a lot of time and I wouldn't really call this a true nine to five job because there's always various deadlines that must be met. And regardless of what you're doing, you have to achieve them and make sure that that's all running smoothly. But I typically do try to run early in the morning or early in the day if I can, because I find that once I have my exercise done, I'm more relaxed for the day. I don't mind working late, or I don't mind having to work through a long shift. I know I've already kind of ticked my box of training because it is more difficult to stay, goes on and you might get pulled into something. And then you find that you ended up working late and getting grumpy because you're sacrificing more than your time. You're also sacrificing your training for the day. So I find that if I get it done early it's best, but I also do try to [00:03:00] prioritize the days in the week where I have a specific speed session to do or something that isn't just a matter of running at whatever time suits me. So that again, I just can have that done before I start focusing on my day.
Sue: And you say you get up early, how early is early?
Caitriona: Oh, it's not that early, maybe six, 6:00 AM. But I know people that could have so much earlier and I have to drag myself out of bed every day. It's exciting. So it could be a lot worse. Yeah.
Sue: You've had a really illustrious running career Caitriona and Im noticing on your achievements, you've held the Irish national record for every distance from 10 K upwards over the years up to ultra running. That seems like you have a massive amount of achievements?
Caitriona: Well, no, I've never held anything below 50 K. I've held 50 K and a 100 K. So yes, I'm humbled to think that I currently hold the Irish record in both distances. I do find quite an achievement for myself and not something that I thought I would actually do. But now I have both now that I have them I want to hold onto them for as long as I can and try and set a bit more challenging records for the next generation going through this, that might find it a bit more difficult to make.
Sue: Tell me, how did you get into running in the first place?
Caitriona: So my family, they're all sports fanatics. My parents were very sporty and encouraged us to get involved in all sorts of sports, regardless of what it was. My mum brought us swimming three mornings a week at 6:00 AM, and my dad brought us out cycling. But in addition to that, with the school that we were in, there were lots of sports available. So we played anything from badminton, basketball, volleyball, kimogi. I mean, you name it, we play it, you know, like myself and both my sisters and we loved it. We find it like so much fun. And I suppose it was just the normal life. I didn't really know anything other than playing some sort of sports and but the older I get, the more grateful I am for that opportunity, because it led us into both myself and my older sister Sinead ultimately ended up in the Olympics, but that, I suppose that base or that grounding home life, where we were always involved in sports gave us opportunities to kind of find the sport that we were both really interested in and two excel at it.
Sue: And what did Sinead then follow as well?
Caitriona: So Sinead rowed she actually was the world champion in this lightweight single skull and then herself and her partner Clare Lambe went to the Rio Olympics in 2016 in the double skull and finished sixth in the finals. So at the time it was the best result of an Irish female crew in the history of rowing so it was an amazing achievement for them. And I like to think that, that kind of was a stepping stone onto the success of the female athletes in Tokyo in 2020, where we had four girls in the quad win a bronze medal, which was the first medal for Ireland in rowing. So pretty great achievement for them.
Sue: So, is it quite a competitive household then between you and your sisters?
Caitriona: Extremely competitive yes. Not just, in sport, at anything. When we were younger, any board game, or game of cards or anything that was supposed to be [00:06:00] fun was never, it was always quite competitive.
Sue: I can imagine your parents had a bit difficulty keeping the peace.
Caitriona: Exactly. Yeah. If they weren't involved.
Sue: So once you were doing these many different sports. Why did you follow running as opposed to anything else that you were doing ?
Caitriona: Initially I got involved in triathlon, which made sense at the time, because as I said, we did go swimming three mornings a week. I was quite a proficient swimmer and represented my club and county at provincial and national level. And then also from the cycling background, and running which I had also been doing it with the local club Letterkenny athletics club and my school. It almost made sense to combine three activities. And so I think I've did my first triathlon at the age of about 12. Now it wasn't the full Olympic distance. It was a short one, but I just absolutely loved it. And I think. There's a really, really amazing community within the triathlon community where they really do encourage everyone to do their opposite best and while it's competitive it's also really good network and support of the people involved.
So I did that up to when I was in college and then represented Ireland at an underage level in triathon. When I graduated from college and got my first job, I joined PWC, the accounting firm, and I was studying to become a chartered accountant, at the same time. So that involved a full-time job. Attending college and studying and preparing for exams. So I guess it doesn't have as much time as I used to have. Anyway, running was the one I couldn't wait to get off the bikes that I could start running and I knew it was my strongest of the three disciplines. Running. It's also a very easy sport to do you throw on your runners, you know yourself, so you throw on your runners and your out the door, and you're already training within minutes of starting. Whereas the others are a little bit more difficult. You have to travel to the pool or you have to get organized for your bike and get all your gear so that you're not going to get a puncture or whatever. So running is just those simple and time efficient and a ended up just sticking with that. It didn't start off break any records. I was kind of middle of the road club runner, and just the more I did it, the better I came at it and kind of progressed from there.
Sue: In a way to be able to run effectively and have a job you were focusing on one thing and it kinda leads me into asking about what do you think that your career and all the training you've done in the world of sport and athletics brings to your day job?
Caitriona: So I think it has instilled a really strong sense of discipline into me and my timekeeping and how I structure my day. How do I ensure that I'm not wasting time or that I essentially get the most out of the time that I have, but I think the most important learning that I got from running was how to be resilient. I know what's the word that's thrown around quite a bit. These days when you're performing at a high level. People read about the glory days, but there are a lot of difficult times, setbacks injuries, disappointments, you know, sicknesses or just things that happened at the wrong time and that they affect your performance and that you don't achieve what you had intended or run, in my case, how you'd liked. [00:09:00] And I think it's just, it's a really great way to know, but you have to always just pick yourself back up and go for the next one all the time and just continually do that. No matter how many times your setback. And applying that in a workplace, it is also very helpful because in normal times you might be going for a promotion or whatever. You don't necessarily get it. And you're disappointed, you know, hard work and setting a clear goals for yourself you'll ultimately get there. but I think even more so at the moment and go over time. The various restrictions and the number of times that we think we're coming to the end of it and more step back again, and having to constantly accept and adapt is something that I've done all my life in sports. So I can transfer it quite easily to work and to life. And there's always a positive to everything and try to just constantly focus on that positive. And on a lighter note, I guess it's, it's a great stress relief. It's a great way to shake off the worries of the world. Like throwing on runners and getting out into the countryside and then enjoying that.
Sue: Well, they do say that movement is medicine, and I think that's quite a true saying, isn't it for sure. Now I'm just looking at your career highlights here, Caitriona and for the listener to know that as you said, current Irish record holder at a hundred kilometers and the time is what I'm particularly amazed by seven hours, 43 minutes. I want to know how did you keep concentrating in a race for seven hours and 43 minutes?
Caitriona: Well, that was challenging. I won't lie. I remember starting off, but it was my first 100K so I started off in the morning and think the race started at 9:00 AM. All I thought was I'm going to be running for as long as I spend a day in work in the office and think of all the things I do during that time. And all I'm going to do today is just run. So I kind of tried to not think about it as much as I could, or I was setting myself like small time goals so that I would only focus on a short chunk of it at the time. So it was breaking it down into hours or 90 minutes segments so that I didn't get overwhelmed by the thought I knew I was probably going to run somewhere between seven hours and eight hours. So just starting with that seems like a huge task, but I was just breaking it down and making it a little bit more, I suppose, less daunting for myself.
Sue: And how do you stop? Self-doubt? That little voice that makes sneak into one's head that's well, it does into my head sometimes I think this is too hard or will I do it? Oh, these other people look good. All those things that sometimes can threaten to throw us off, keeping focused.
Caitriona: I have those moments of doubt all the time, the little voice in my head, but I just constantly try and reinforce positivity and I just keep telling myself what it's easy now it's comfortable now. Don't worry about it. Stay in the moment. Don't worry about what it will feel like if it does the wheels fall off, you can deal with that then. And I knew the pace I was running out. It was a very manageable pace for me. I felt very comfortable. I didn't feel like I was overstretching. Sometimes it's difficult because I was conscious that I really wanted to win the race. And I was very aware of everyone that I was running with. And I was kind of starting to think, oh, I wonder, are [00:12:00] they more comfortable than I am? You have this like, impatience, do you want to burn them off, you know, quickly so that you can get that assurance that you're going to be at the front, but actually what I've learned in the past, If you try and burn someone off too fast, you're actually only destroying your own race. So you just have to be incredibly patient. And I just keep repeating the mantra, patience patience let it just go from there.
Sue: It sounds like it's that competitive spirit within you that's dying to get out in that race at that moment. When you want to get in front of the others early on and how you hold yourself back,
Caitriona: you really have to taper your competitive instincts and in a 100k
Sue: to get to a race it requires obviously an incredible amount of training, not to mention nutrition and recovery. I imagine are really important facets of what enable you to be there and perform on the day? How do you pay attention to those things. What do you do in terms of healthy eating and recovering?
Caitriona: It's actually an area that I've tried to focus on a lot more recently because in the past I do have a busy lifestyle, as you know, so I would tend to just try and get the session done and get onto the next thing without really thinking too much about nutrition. And I did realize that it was probably contributing to some of the injuries that I was picking up or, you know, just feeling tired or failing to recover fast enough for my next day. At the start of 2021 actually formed a new partnership with Tailwind nutrition and I find their products really good. It's a very simple formula that they have two products. They have one for fueling when you're running, and one for recovery. So for me, it was quite simple and it wasn't overwhelming when I didn't use in the past. And I liked the ingredients that they use. They're all very natural. They don't tough high sugar quality. So I know that even if I'm in a rush and I need to get something into me after I've done a hard session before. You know, I sit at my desk for the day. I can take a recovery drink and that's been really helpful, but I also do focus on real food as well. So even if it's just something small, like a snack and that 30 minute window I'll always have something with me now, whereas before I may have just, as I said, being too busy to kind of even prepare for it, now I know that the five minutes it takes to prepare your recovery snack is just as important as the run itself. I'll always have a banana or an apple or something that I can eat straight away. And then aside from that, I just try and eat healthy, try and focus on real foods rather than things that come in packets or jars and that like everything that we learned or that people are promoting now, I think it's really interesting. The amount of research that's been done and evidence is overwhelming to show the connection between gut health and mental health. And that was a real eye opener for me as well. And that's probably helped me to make better choices when it comes to the type of food that I eat.
Sue: If you're enjoying this episode too, you might want to listen to other episodes from people involved in, endurance running.. In episode 29, I spoke to Barry Fudge former head of Endurance at British Athletics who worked closely with Mo Farah. And in episode 27, Nontu Mgabhi explained what it took her to run seven [00:15:00] marathons in seven days on seven continents, go on over to access to inspiration.org. And you can listen there or read all the transcriptions. Now back to this episode.
We had previously a guest on our podcast who is formerly the head of Endurance for the British Athletics team. And one of the things that he had talked about was the growth of technology and sport and how that is really influencing things. And I'm wondering how do you utilize technology to help you train or to help you compete effectively?
Caitriona: So I'm still, probably I'm a novice when it comes to technology. And I know a lot of the benefits that it can provide and you can get lots of gadgets that help various different measurements, but I am a novice, but I'm also quite fundamentalist in that I focus on heart. For me, heart rate shows me so much, an elevated heart rate in the morning, tells me I'm stressed or I'm sick. And I need to watch the training I do that day and training within my zones. I know if I train within my zone, that I'm not going to overtrain or under-train. So I know I be hitting exactly what I want to achieve during that session. For me, it's as simple as a watch and a heart rate monitor, and that's kind of the extent of my technology. Now I do get my VO two max and lactate levels tested so that I know that I'm training within the correct zones. I think there's probably a lot of technology that is out there that I'm not necessarily tapping into at the moment. I will maybe let others tell me, which is the most beneficial and go from there.
Sue: I'm also thinking about clothing and shoes. Do they play a role in how you prepare for a race?
Caitriona: Shoes? Amazing. Yeah. I mean, gosh, the amount of advancements in shoes since I started running is just mind boggling and particularly more so in the last couple of years. But now I race in carbon plated shoes, which is definitely beneficial. And I think you'd struggle to find anyone that disagrees with that statement, but I I'm sponsored by Hoka One One, and they have two amazing carbon plated shoes the Rocket X, which is kind of marathon shoe or the Carbon X 2 which would be more the longer distance shoe that I would have run the hundred kilometer race. And. And it's amazing that we have that technology now that we can race in and we're very fortunate as well. I think they're great, obviously for obvious reasons, the carbon fiber is so light, you know, and that does help a lot when you're monitoring all the various grams of the shoes you wear. But I think the carbon fiber plate also helps stabilize the ankle, which puts less stress on the calves. And a lot of the injuries that I had, like maybe five, 10 years ago, were all relating to my calves and my ankles and my feet. So. I think that the fact that I can race now in those, the rocket X or the Carbon X 2 I know that I recover faster from the race and I don't pick up as many niggles from the hard sessions. I would also wear those shoes during my interval sessions as well. And I think that those helped me to, to recover faster.
Sue: So looking at those points that some have described as the marginal gains, the small things that one [00:18:00] pays attention to in order to improve. I'm thinking about your training sessions. Do you have a coach that you work with Caitriona are you developing and designing? your own training program?
Caitriona: I do. I just recently started working with a coach, Nick Vester in South Africa. So he just coached me remotely but it's amazing. It's very beneficial. Because up until recently I was in a phase where I was kind of self-coaching and I find that quite difficult to, because you're not accountable to anyone. So you tend to maybe on days where you don't feel like doing a very tough session decide, or maybe I'll change it that morning and realistically you shouldn't be doing that. And also you have a tendency to overtrain. I know that the two are actually, they kind of conflict with each other, but I would have a tendency to just run too many miles like miles equals speed. But actually they don't always depends on the type of miles here. And I think having a coach is really beneficial for that reason as well, because they'll make sure you're focused on the correct, mileage as opposed to just mileage. And also then hold you back. If you're tempted to push on or attempt to train harder than you should be doing based on how you're performing at the time.
Sue: So having that accountability sounds like it's quite helpful to you,
Caitriona: for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Sue: So in your career to date Katrina, what's been the highlights.
Caitriona: So the highlight for me has to be the race that I run the marathon in Rotterdam where I achieved the Olympic qualifying standards for the marathon. And I was selected then to represent Ireland in the London Olympic games as a result. Yeah, that was probably one of the most, perfectly executed races that I've run. And you can't beat the feeling of actually stepping on the line and executing perfectly and stepping away of having achieved what you'd hoped. But I would say a very close second was running comrades, ultra marathon in 2019 where I finished third. And for me, I had a very disappointing experience in the Olympics, but I think finishing third in Comrades was my day of retribution where I realized that, yeah, I, I'm still a decent runner and I can still perform and podium in a major event. So yeah, that was really good.
Sue: You're eloquently describing tests are those highs and lows of one's running career and it's not always plain sailing.
Caitriona: No and to say that there were seven years between the two races just shows you the number of those that you can have and how long it can go on.
Sue: So what does the future hold for you? Caitriona How do you keep yourself motivated into the future?
Caitriona: More recently started focusing a bit on the ultra distance as we've just discussed around the 100k during summer. And I've run a few 50 Ks and the 90 K race and comrades. I think that's a kind of a new focus for me. It's a new interest. I find it exciting to see where I can go. As I said, I am motivated to reduce the records for both the 50 K and the 100 K. And I think that motivation is just what's keeping me going. And also just knowing that I think the human body is fascinating. And I think if you really set your mind on something and you have a goal and you do everything it takes that's necessary to achieve it. I actually find it really [00:21:00] interesting to see it come to fruition. And I look at the end of the day, I love running. I don't think I could really live without it and I think my husband would agree with that. He's happy as long as I'm running and getting those endorphins and staying mentally. Happy and healthy. So yeah, that's, my motivation is difficult at the moment. I'm based here in Hong Kong. We have very restrictive quarantine routes for traveling. So when you return you to spend three weeks in a hotel, which is definitely challenging and has been throughout the last year, but I eyeing up a couple of races this year, which I'm hoping I can get to. There's a race inside South Africa 50 K in March, that's the Nedbank Runified race. And also then there's the Lakes Sonoma race in California in April. So I'm hoping to make either or both of those. At the moment that's, what's encouraging me to put my runners on and getting out there and running
Sue: and do you get on the phone to your sister and tell her what you're up to so that you can have a bit of competition from her too?
Caitriona: Oh, my sister has a new theory. That's where she too old to train hard she's four years older than me. And shes one of these people that doesn't necessarily have to train, but she can go out and perform amazingly. She's living in Australia at the moment. And she did the sunshine coast half Ironman and finished 10th among all the pros, and I said to her. Gosh, I didn't think you were training that hard. And she said, no, I wasn't. It's wasted on me or that's for young people. We don't need to train hard anymore.
Sue: So you just hope she doesn't take up the ultra running like you do.
Caitriona: We have quite a few running races head to head over the years, which have never been had that. And for me, because I've always felt the pressure of having to win when I'm the runner. ive not had to face that so far. So let's see what she gets interested in from now on
Sue: and if there was a listener that was hearing you speak Caitriona and thinking about starting, running, who maybe who'd never done it before, what would you advice to them?
Caitriona: I'd say amazing. embrace it just make sure not to put too much pressure on yourself, try and enjoy it as much as you can take it at your own pace. And don't feel like you have to sprint. I think a lot of people that are starting running think they have to run fast all the time. Running slow is equally as enjoyable and beneficial is running fast, especially at the start. And I would say if you can find a group of people that are around your pace that you can meet up with and to join in with and just have a few chats over the miles, that it will make it easier. Or if you're in a more isolated area where you can't find a group, even if you had one person that you meet, as I said, being accountable to someone is actually huge, especially when you know, it's cold and dark in the mornings and you don't necessarily want to get up at six, or even earlier, if you're meeting someone, you go get up easier to let yourself down than to that someone else done.
Sue: Well, those are wise words from your Caitriona it's been fantastic speaking to you today. I've loved what you've had to see about running. As a runner myself in the past, and still going out occasionally. I know what joy it brings and the simplicity of doing it. As you said, just get on those training shoes and the clothes and go out there with nothing much else. No more equipment. [00:24:00]
Caitriona: Exactly. Yeah, no, it's been a pleasure Sue and let's hope that we can both continue to run for many years to come.
Sue: Absolutely. Now, if anybody that's listening wants to find out what about you Caitriona and what you've done? How might they do that on the internet?
Caitriona: So you can check me out at my website, Caitriona jennings.com, Caitriona spelled C A I T R I O N A jennings.com and I'm on Instagram Jennings, Caitriona and Twitter. CJennings1X
Sue: brilliant. Well, we'll put links to all of those things on the show notes to accompany this podcast again, thank you for your time today, Caitriona and enjoy your run tomorrow or whenever the next one is that you're going to be doing.
Caitriona: We'll do.
Sue: I hope you enjoyed listening to Caitriona Jennings and maybe, you know, feel inspired to put on your training shoes and go out for a run. Remember, you can help us to spread awareness about this podcast with other people. So have a think, who do you know that needs a bit of inspiration today? Go on, send them the link to this episode or write us a review on apple podcasts so that others can know the value youve gained from. Next week I will be talking to Sanzar Kakar chairman of Afghanistan, Holding Group operating a number of different businesses in Afghanistan. I hope you will join me then.
Sound Editor: Matias de Ezcurra (he/him)
Producer: Sue Stockdale (she/her)
Sue Stockdale talks to Maxim Ivanov a multi-skilled circus artist (handstand balancer, aerialist, juggler) about his career in circus performance. He describes what he enjoys about performing and why he loves trying out new things.
Maxim is originally from Kazan, Russia, and was living in Ukraine until recently. Along with his wife Olga, he performs on different stages in Europe and on cruise ships around the world. Maxim loves to create unusual and surrealistic UpsideDown photos and videos. He can fly higher his head and taught himself to play piano. More recently Maxim taught his five-year-old daughter to climb on his shoulders without using hands and legs, and she appeared as part of their stage performance in a festive show.
Find out more about Maxim Ivanov on Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximi/
YouTube https://youtu.be/-Ez0GhNxmfM
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Read our Impact Report https://bit.ly/3hElalv Key Quotes ‘At circus school the first year is trying everything, and then the second year we choose what we want to do - which skills, which discipline. And then the third and fourth year, we create our act.’ ‘In circus school I chose the hand balancing. I really love it, the position - static. But now I really like flying with my wife doing dual straps.’ ‘We need a lot of audience appreciation.’ ‘Perfect is like when I can play with good lighting, good sound, and good staging. This is my perfect ideal stage.’ ‘It's hard to find the perfect place, but you need to adjust and to be flexible, to be adaptive, to places to people.’ ‘That feeling when you're on stage, it's indescribable.’ Maxim Ivanov Transcription Sue: Welcome to the podcast Maxim Ivanov, is that correct? How I pronounced it?
Maxim: Yeah, that's correct. Thank you very much for having me here with you.
Sue: There's going to be so much we can dig into today because I'm really fascinated to speak to you having watched you perform live in a show and also these amazing videos that you put out on social media of your amazing skills and flexibility. So, in terms of what you do, how would you describe it?
Maxim: Well, my profession I would call multi-circus performer. Cause I do different disciplines, but I don't know in traditional circus, they call it circus artists, but I try to put circus in a real life, like not just in a traditional costume and so yes, performer.
Sue: Now when I think of circus in Britain where I was brought up, I think of a traditional big top in a ring and acrobats on trapezes and doing different sorts of tricks. When you were young and growing up, how did you come to learn about circus skills. Were your family circus performers, or was it something you just learned yourself?
Maxim: Yes. So my dad he did it for a short period. He was a hand balancer for a couple of years and he did the acrobatic on horses, like jockey like traditional, but I think I started not because of him because my cousin, he used to go to the circus school in Moscow before me and for the summer break, he came and he encouraged me with the tricks, you know, jumping stuff like that. And of course I wanted to do so. I think I started to do circus because of my cousin.
Sue: And how old were you then?
Maxim: Oh, 15. So I start actually late to do the stretching, the strengthening and learning acrobatic skills was very late. I didn't go to the gymnastic, but somehow it was flexible. I got prepared for the circus school exam for like, in one, two years, I just stretch my splits by myself, did the handstand next to the wall and some bridges, like basic and they see potentials in me. Maybe. I don't know.
Sue: And what did you learn at the circus school in Moscow. What did the training involve?
Maxim: Yeah. That's a great question. the first year we have different disciplines, like a lot of different, like juggling, tightwire, slackwire hand balancing, acrobatic tumbling, trampoline, gymnastic on the bars, on the rings. So first year is trying everything, and then the second year we choose what we want to do, which skills which discipline. And then the third and fourth year, we create our act. Of course, continue learning new skills and getting stronger.
Sue: And when you were learning those physical skills and the different tricks, how did you manage any fear or anxiety that you might have had?
Maxim: Well for tricks for dangerous tricks, for example, for jumping, we have safety rope, with trainer who hold us but we were young and we didn't see some dangerous stuff like that. We weren't such a like scaring or anxious about that. we just go and jump into the pillows, with the heads down and stuff, we just playing, we didn't see any, any danger. Now if there is somebody told me to do, maybe I will think first.
Sue: it makes me think that when any of us think about something in a playful context, when it's fun, when we're enjoying.
Maxim: yeah.
Sue: That's a whole different mindset than going in and feeling nervous and anxious and scared.
Maxim: Yeah, exactly. Like for example, even now jumping into the water in the swimming pool, you think before to do that. But before we just did it, you know?
Sue: And how did you then come up with your act? You said in the final year, at circus school, you have to create your act. How did you decide that?
Maxim: Second year a teacher taught us like specific tricks, third and fourth year, we choosing the most favourite tricks we want to do. And then they help us to do some kind of sequences. And we put in different music. We like this music, we see the video. We don't like this music. And then also in the Moscow circle school we have choreographers sometimes we can choose them. We can talk to them. Sometimes they choose us. So yeah, in they provide everything Moscow circus school.
Sue: And what's your favorite discipline?
Maxim: yeah, in circus school, I chose the hand balancing. I really love it, the position. Static. But now I really liked flying with my wife doing dual straps. I really enjoy flying. Easy way to explain. For example, you learn some tricks and for example, one trick, you learn two years, which is really hard, but people don't see how hard it is. And you don't get back the applause and year by year, you realize you cut something, you do the tricks, which people more appreciate. But in the air you fly in, people enjoy and everybody enjoy.
Sue: What I'm hearing from you is it's as much about the audience appreciation.
Maxim: yeah, we need a lot of audience appreciation. If you don't get that, I think people stopped to do that. But yeah, so we have that fortunately.
Sue: and is that why you do what you do or is it the scale of, of the tricks and the abilities that you have?
Maxim: I think, more yes than no, because I'm creating also some new skills. I see how people react, but yeah, mostly people feedbacks and people enjoying that it's really encouraging us to do more.
Sue: When you were learning, how much of the learning was actually doing the skill versus any of the theory of balancing and what the body can accomplish, or is it just purely practice, go out there and discover what your body can do?
Maxim: Well, it's both. Yeah, but mostly you need to feel your body. You need to know how it will be,
Sue: and my sense is you really love learning things. I know that you taught yourself to play the piano. You you've taught your daughter to begin with being part of your act. What is it you love about learning?
Maxim: For example, piano I love, specifics song, and it's given me energy. It's given me it goose bumps and like oh, I want to learn this song. Of course I don't choose the super hard songs, but when it's given me a goose bumps, I want to do that. And any stuff like that, like with my daughter and we love it first of all. And then we see people reacting and wowing them, so we enjoy it more. It's more about people giving us feedbacks and they reaction, something like this.
Sue: So you're describing to me that wonderful sense of following your curiosity. I wonder what would happen if I tried to replicate that tune, I want to find out how my daughter can do these tricks. So that curiosity about what's possible is, is perhaps part of what you're describing
Maxim: for me. Yes. I just find my area, my sphere, my place, what I like to do, what I like to do and when I like to do so, just, I think everybody's different.
Sue: And you're a part of a double act. You mentioned you're with your wife, Olga in terms of flying. How did you come to work with her or meet her?
Maxim: So in 2006, I was working in a dinner show in Germany with my solo hand balancing act. And there was a ballet with I think three girls, three boys. So there was Olga. So of course I always sits in the corner, you find your half and in work, so yeah. We love each other. And after finishing contract, I move to Ukraine and we start to create acts, different acts. We have a lot of acts like cook changing costume, flying, partnering acrobatic, we have full 45 minutes two of us, and we really enjoyed to perform our own show. Like what we like, we directing, not somebody tell us, put this music, which you don't like to put, put this costume which you didn't like. So this is exactly what we like to do. And we really enjoy that.
Sue: And how do you make it work together then between the two of you? Cause there's very much a close connection in terms of you working with somebody else I'm imagining that requires quite a degree of trust then rather than just doing your own hand balancing act, for example,
Maxim: of course we have fighting and laughing. Everyone is adult everybody know what he must to do, what he love to do. If we don't like anything we discussing that sometimes with pain, somebody she take off my favorite tricks sometimes like we agree to do, but it's a life. Yeah. It's normal.
Sue: How do you find venues to perform it in? Is there a directory of circuses or theaters worldwide? How do you go about selling or marketing your act?
Maxim: Yeah, it's very interesting question. So from beginning, we trying to get to some circus festivals. But some of them were fine. Some of them, we didn't like much because they have their own politics as well. Even everybody say it's not, but still so there is a few ways we sending right now we sending material by internet uploading the videos, it's mostly worked with internet right now, before we have like lots of agencies for cruise ships. For example, we have agency because cruise ships working only with agency, they don't work direct to the artists. So some places work, we work with agency, some places we find ourselves. So like last circus in Geneva we found ourselves.
Sue: What's the sort of size of venue or event to give the listener a sense of the types of venues that you perform at. Is it only big spaces that have proper theaters? Or are there other events or spaces that you have performed at?
Maxim: I don't have perfect ideal venue. I don't know, for me. Perfect. Is like when I can play with a good lighting, good sound, a good staging. This is my perfect ideal stage. And like also venues or stages, which encouraged me is of course it's a big stages because they have a lot of possibilities there, you know, if you go to small circuses you don't have much apparatus and flying. And for example, the motor winch, which lift you up is only one slow speed. So you, you cannot play with it or on a cruise ships, like a lot of possibilities, but a lot of restrictions to do something new you have to approve it with three different people from the office. So there is no perfect place, we like to perform in different venues.
Sue: so there is a risk, of course, in terms of what you're doing. And there are for safety has to be given consideration in all of these locations where you're performing to ensure the safety of everybody. I'm also hearing you like that freedom to be in control the staging, the lighting, the sound to make every condition optimal for you to perform at your best.
Maxim: Yeah, it's hard to find the perfect place by you need to adjust it and to be flexible, to be adaptive, to places to people.
Sue: So just turning to your keeping fit, what is it that you're doing on a daily basis to maintain your flexibility and fitness.
Maxim: Well, right now I would describe myself lazy, but normally yes, we workout, three times a week just to be in shape running everything. Pull-ups. I have the loops in my apartment, low ceiling apartment, but still I need not to forget the knots and the rolling up and down and stretching like every other day. We're just working, even if we don't have any performances, we still have to work to be in shape. In 2, 3 months. You need to change career.
If you're enjoying this episode, you might also want to listen to other episodes featuring guests with unique talents. Last time In episode 66, I spoke to Vicki Tough who spent her life climbing buildings and trees. And then episode 22, I spoke to chef Andrew Scott, who talked to me about what it takes to achieve a Michelin star. Go on over to access to inspiration.org And you can listen there or read the transcriptions.
Sue: You also mentioned you're a parent now Maxim. You've got a daughter. How are you encouraging her?
Maxim: right now it's very hard before she was playing. Now she's five, but before two, three, she was playful and she wanted to do so so we change every training into the playing game and like climbing she's climbing on me and she really enjoyed it. Normal people are riding like a horse, pretending parents, his horse and kids are jockey but we do standing on the head, the shoulders upside down. But right now. She's getting tougher. And like, for example, she doesn't want stretch because she understand it's painful. But we use candies.
Sue: Yeah.
Maxim: So sometimes it doesn't work as well, but like last time in Geneva in Switzerland, she really wanted to create act with me we did the partner acrobatic for a couple of minutes. She was scared at some point, but she really enjoyed the process. And unfortunately after that, she, she probably forgot some tricks and she say, no, I don't want to do this anymore. But now after two, three weeks, she said, I want to do another new act. So she had some good moments on stage as well. We don't push her to work hard if she doesn't want to just change the game and change the stuff we do. But I think she'll really like, and she liked to create with me. Yeah, I don't want to push her, but I want to give her that what I love to do, and we'll see what she could do. She could change at 16 to her own stuff I really want to give her that. And I don't want to be telling by her that why you didn't stretch me. Why I didn't put me acrobatic? Like, for example, now I'm kind of jealous to the gymnastic that's really flexible. And why didn't I go to any gym? But it was far for me, so yeah, I'm trying to give her a lot.
Sue: Well, it's, it says it's lovely. I've seen that little video clip of the performance, both of you did in Geneve. And it's very wonderful to watch the two of you working together.
Maxim: Yeah.
Sue: If you were just reflecting on why you do what you do, what is it that you really enjoy about the work that.
Maxim: Right now I probably don't have exact explanation, but that feeling when you're on stage, it's undescribable, When you just do, like before entrance, your fearness and when you are on stage, you forget about everything. And I don't know that that's feeling really hard to describe. And, but at the end, when you get the audience appreciation, This is unbelievable. This is so hard to describe. And of course we love travel. We really love traveling. Well my daughter, she visited more than 100 different ports we just counted. We pencil it in the notebook. So she has visited more than 100 ports on the cruise ships and different places we work. Yeah, so we really enjoy traveling. My daughter visited Antarctica crossing Atlantic ocean twice, so we had travelling.
Sue: What's the place that you have visited that you liked the most.
Maxim: That is now perfect place. There's a few like, like 10 places, but there is no one place like you want to be,
Sue: What would be in your top 10 then?
Maxim: I don't know - France, many ports many different places, Spain or Italy. I really love Italy, like Cinque Terre and its coast. I really want to drive one day on around Italy and I love Norway. Iceland, north America, south America. There is no place. Every place there's no one city you want to be,
Sue: but it seems, it seems like your, your daughter going to have a lot of stamps in her passport
Maxim: oh yeah,
Sue: old to, in terms of places she's visited.
Maxim: It really does. And I'm jealous because when I was a crew with that, we don't get much stamps and she was on a guest manifest and she has every country stamps. And I'm like, why I want this passport. So she a lot of stamps, but unfortunately she doesn't remember more than half of them, cause she was two he and now she remembered. Like maybe 30 places from 100, but still it's fine.
Sue: Well, you're, you're setting her off to a great start giving her a sense of the world and what's in it. And, the sheer joy and pleasure of doing things that you love. That's the sense I get from talking to you today, Maxim, and, I think that is a message for people. In all walks of life is think about it as play, do what you love, and if you can do it and get a smile on other people's faces, then that's even better.
Maxim: I'm really happy to do this chat with you. It's really enjoying and yeah. Thank you for having me.
Sue: I will encourage our listener to get right on over to the internet and find out more about your act. How might they be able to do that? Is there a website or a YouTube or something that you would recommend them have a look at?
Maxim: Mostly we just now using the Instagram
Sue: What's your Instagram name that people can go look up.
Maxim: MaxIvanovHandstand so yeah, I put a lot of short videos in there.
Sue: well, it's been brilliant speaking to you today. Maxim you've made me want to go out and try a handstand.
Maxim: Yeah, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure for me to have a chat with you. It's very interesting. It's first chat. I never had an interview, so I'm like, yeah. Why shouldnt I do that. It's really, it's making me getting out of. Comfort zone and yeah, it's very interesting. First time.
Sue: Well, I think over half the guests we've had on the podcast so far, it's been their first ever time to do a podcast. So you're in good company from some of our previous guests who are also testing themselves out. But I think it does speak to your interest in just trying out new things so I'm really grateful that you've had this conversation with us
Maxim: Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.
Sound Editor: Matias de Ezcurra (he/him)
Producer: Sue Stockdale (she/her)
Host Sue Stockdale talks to Vicki Tough, an arborist, tree climbing Instructor and Rope Access Level 3 Work at Height professional about the highs and lows of her job and finds out about the Big Canopy Campout, and annual tree top event that connects tree climbing and forest enthusiasts around the world. Vicki grew up in the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland which set the scene for a fascination with the natural world. After pursuing a Zoology Degree at the University of Glasgow, Vicki’s first experience of a rainforest in Ecuador became the catalyst for her career as a Work at Height Professional, Arborist and Tree Climbing Instructor. She founded Sylvana Alta to combine these professions and promote scientific exploration in forest canopies worldwide, believing that the greater understanding of its value will better protect it for the future. Vicki has organised, participated in, and led research expeditions for over 18 years assisting and contributing to scientific studies in South America, Indonesia, Europe and Australia.
An IRATA level 3 supervisor Vicki has over 12 years of industrial rope access experience; working on large scale construction projects throughout the UK and Europe and contributing to the less than 1% of females in this role. Working in these contrasting environments has enabled an appreciation and understanding of technical rigging solutions and the importance of teamwork in often challenging conditions. In 2017 Vicki and several other climbing professionals set up Big Canopy Campout C.I.C and the event has grown to encompass participants from 36 different countries raising money to support grassroot organisations in their fight to protect their local forested areas.
This series is kindly supported by Squadcast –the remote recording platform which empowers podcasters by capturing high-quality audio and video conversations. Find out more at squadcast.fmhttps://squadcast.fm
Find out more about Vicki Tough on her website | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn
Big Canopy Campout Website | Facebook | Instagram
This series is supported by Squadcast –the remote recording platform which empowers podcasters by capturing high-quality audio and video conversations. Find out more at squadcast.fm
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Read our Impact Report https://bit.ly/3hElalv Key Quotes ‘The whole scope of the Olympics was so huge. Not only the buildings, but also just the grandeur of the event and it bringing the whole world together.’ ‘Everything takes 10 times longer and you really need to prepare before you set out.’ ‘I would wear overalls that looked like they were designed for my father.’ ‘It was just this drive to explore and to ask questions. I was always such a curious child.’ ‘When I show researchers how to climb they're just so enthusiastic, trying to get up this tree so that they can see the thing that they want to research that they're not bothered by the height.’ ‘Tree climbing and rope access, comes with stereotypes. It comes with a lot of people thinking, you gotta be fast, you've gotta be strong. you’ve gotta have muscles. A lot of people are a little bit surprised when I rock up - eight and a half stone and five foot six.’
Vicki Tough Transcription Sue: Welcome to the podcast, Vicki. It's great to speak to you today.
Vicki: Oh, it’s amazing to be here Sue thanks very much for the invite, it’s great.
Sue: Its lovely to have another Scottish accent to enjoy though I know you're not in Scotland, just now. Where are you based normally?
Vicki: I now live in Germany. I'm in the Southwest of Germany. So I haven't escaped the winter, but I'm over here primarily work-wise and also my partner lives over here, so I get to enjoy things like well baked bread on a daily basis. and good beer can can't forget the good beer.
Sue: Well, that's definitely a treat by the sounds of it, who doesn't like freshly baked bread.
Vicki: exactly.
Sue: And you mentioned your work there, Vicki. I'm fascinated to discover more about your work and your interest in working at height in particular.
Vicki: I do work at height. Yes. You wouldn't think it would be a difficult question when people say, what do you do? My day job varies between an arborist, which is like a tree care specialist. I climb trees for a living and also rope access level three. Which means that I climb buildings for a living. So yeah, I am a professional dangler from ropes, really in every sense of the word.
Sue: I wonder if you could describe to us what the world is like at height up there in the trees or the top of a building, just to give us a sense of what it feels like to you when you're up there.
Vicki: do you know, it gives you a completely different perspective on the world. And it's not just the perspective of looking down. It's the perspective of being in the moment because you are very aware, physiologically, and psychologically that you're probably not meant to be there. or at least you should be aware of the safety issues and the fact that, yes, I don't have a tail or wings. So, you're very in the moment. And what's beautiful about it is that it allows you to really take stock of your environment and where you are. So, although there is an element of isn't it incredible to see the views and to see the world from that level, it really does give you this idea that that kind of the body and mind connection, because you have to be completely aware or completely safe in, in yourself. But then you're also going, this is amazing. I'm up here and I shouldn't necessarily be up here and I'm completely safe, but also, I have a job to do so you're, you're pulled in these different directions and yeah, it's an incredible space to be in. It really is. It's a real privilege.
Sue: And when you got all of that experience that you've had over the number of years, is it 12 years I think of experience or longer than that.
Vicki: I got my first rope access job in 2010 in London. I was working on the Olympic stadium. But I was actually in the trees a few years before that in 2008. So, yeah.
Sue: So with all of those years of experience and climbing different structures, What's been the most memorable one?
Vicki: Oh, for structures. For me, it was definitely the Olympic stadium in London. it was also the first one. And it was so huge and there was such an incredible group of people. We were really a big gang of vagabonds that came from all different ways of life and had all different interests. We were kind of thrown together in this motley crew of about 25 and just the whole scope of the Olympics was so huge. So not only the buildings, but also just the grandeur of the event and it bringing the whole world together. So it was like being part of something really huge. And then our little part you could see where it fit into the bigger picture. That was incredible. That was wonderful. But I must admit that was possibly the coldest I've ever been in my entire life. Cause sometimes dangling off a rope in mid-winter in London when it's quite windy, you're not moving that much. And so yeah that was also the coldest I've been. But that's definitely the most memorable for the people for the London skyline is incredible. Absolutely incredible. And I think it's probably my favorite in the world. I recognize all the buildings.
Sue: And in terms of your work on the Olympic stadium and the activities around it, what did you have to do?
Vicki: So we were actually building the roofs for the temporary stadiums. And we were working on the Olympic pool. So they have the big seating arrangements on either side. I mean, what stunning kind of masterpiece of architecture there. So we were building these temporary roofs so we were really at the top of everything. And yeah, it was great. Cause you could see everything and everyone, and it felt like you were with your own little team, your little gang up there and you were there the whole day. So it was big on teamwork as well.
Sue: So now I'm thinking the practicalities of being at height all day.
Vicki: Yes.
Sue: How do you cope up there?
Vicki: And you get really good at bladder control and yeah you've constantly got a bag of snacks. And because sometimes you can say, okay, I'll go up and do this job, but it might take you 40 minutes to get there. And then it'll take you another half an hour to climb up, and then you realize you've forgotten the tool you need to carry out the job. So you either go down or someone else brings it to you. Everything takes 10 times longer and you really need to prepare before you set out. And yes so clothing, clothing is a big one, but that's also difficult because you quite often have to really exert yourself to get there, whether it's climbing up the rope or getting out on onto the barriers and then you get there and you're sweating and then you take layers off but you're in your minus temperatures within 20 minutes, you're freezing. So, then you've got to have enough layers and enough food. Yeah. It's a lot of planning, a lot of preparation and you also need to communicate really, really well with your team.
Sue: And how are you doing that, given that it may not be working immediately beside you? Or is that always the case that you're altogether?
Vicki: You've you never work alone. That's, that's a big rule as well. You've at least got one person with you at all times, but yeah, quite often you are split at other ends of the roof. And there it's radios, it's phones. It's what usually happens is that you got a plan, you get up there, the plan never works. So, then you have to go to plan B, C, D E, and then yeah. You just kind of make it up as you go along by that point, because nothing ever goes to the actual plan, but that's part of the fun, the problem solving.
Sue: Does a contractor or whoever you're working for provide the equipment, or do you have your own specialist equipment that you can trust and rely on when you go into these situations?
Vicki: Your, your equipment. So you're talking, your harness and all your connectors and your rope we were responsible for that. Some rope access companies will provide you with your own equipment. So it's their responsibility to keep it safe and up to date.
But for most self-employed people, we would buy our own and we would have our own equipment because it's a little bit like having your own, your own toolkit and your own armour. It has to fit you. And especially being a small female it took me a long time to get the specific pieces and to get it to fit me and to work for me as efficiently as it would for somebody bigger than it was designed for. So no, we took many years of trial and error getting the right bits of equipment. And I mean, sometimes if I've been on the ropes for maybe 12 hours or something, And you come down and you take your harness off and you feel a bit naked cause it's just a part of you after that. It's just, it's your armour. It's your, your kind of your cape. It's what you need to be able to do the job. And if you're, if it doesn't fit properly or it doesn't work well, or you don't take care of it, then you can't do the work to the best of your ability.
Sue: Hmm, that makes real good sense to have the proper equipment and clothing that's going to suit you. I know from one of the first polar expeditions, I did Vicki the clothing I had to use was designed for a man because they'd never been a woman doing really expeditions of the nature I was involved in at the time. I'm wondering in your industry, is that a kind of similar case when you started out?
Vicki: Yeah. Drove me absolutely nuts. It's better now. I work more in the trees now. It's fitted. Better now there's many more women now in the industry. And so then there is a market, so people are starting to make it better, but no within rope access I would wear overalls that looked like they were designed for my father. I would have to roll them up and it's dangerous to have baggy clothes, on the ropes. You don't want things snagging. And then they started to think they were getting better and all they would do is shrink it and pink it, and I would be furious if anybody would try and put me in anything pink, not that there's anything wrong with it. It's just like, stop it. They know I'm female. You don't need to put a label on me. And actually, my favorite color is green. So, yeah, it was, it was a real problem and it's still not great. It really isn't.
Sue: Well, at least it's perhaps moving slowly in the right direction to accommodate people of different genders. Now I'm also thinking, as you're speaking Vicki, that I don't imagine that as a young girl being brought up in the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland, I understand. Did you have your heart set on doing the job that you're doing when you were young or did you have other career plans when you were a wee girl?
Vicki: No. Do you know when I was six years old and I don't know where I got this from, I was obsessed with whales and the ocean. And I wanted to be a Marine biologist. I don't know where I learned that word. My mom doesn't know where I learned it, but I would just repeat it wherever I went. And then something switched. And I actually went on to study zoology but it was always the natural world for me. It was this wonder and fascination with things that humans didn't control. I think looking back now, I was just utterly fascinated with animals and plants and just the general natural world. I mean, getting to grow up in the Cairngorms, you're exposed to quite a raw piece of nature there and you can see processes working firsthand. So I think that real curiosity and then it was just this drive to explore and to ask questions. I was always such a curious child and I always just wanted to be as close to whatever it was I was looking at. I was picking up frogs and, looking at flower colors and things. It was, just this drive of, of fan of curiosity and wonder.
Sue: And then how did that turn into climbing and ropes?
Vicki: good question. So I went to the university of Glasgow, which I absolutely adored to study zoology and there was an exploration society there and every summer. You could apply to go on these expeditions abroad. And, and I got into one that went to Ecuador in my second year. So I was 19, 20 naive, naive to the world, but I thought, oh, I want to try this.
I want to go there. That looks cool. And , I got to go and I have never felt wonder like it, when I got there, it was just, yeah, even now I go back to that childlike feeling when I think of other rainforest and the sounds and the smells and the sights and the animals, and, and I thought even back then, I was like, whatever happens in my life, I would love this environment to be a part of my life in some way. And I think it was just that that set a foundation for say I don't ever want to lose that, that feeling of wonder I don't ever want to feel like there's not that colour and noise and amazement, in my life. And When I left university, I realized quite heartbreakingly that I didn't fit the academic world.
It was wonderful for the fact that it gives you answers. And I think my respect for research and for scientists goes. just beyond anything and for their ability and their dedication to finding the answers for things. But I didn't have that quality in me. I'm a little bit more like a squirrel, I see something and then I'm like, oh, well, what's that? Oh, something else shined and then I’m off in another direction. So didn't quite have the discipline perhaps in that sense, for that work. But I didn't want to leave that world. And I was still very outdoorsy. And there was a company that did tree climbing for film and media it was called canopy access and they were looking for instructors at the time. And so, I went and did the course and, and applied and that's, that's how it started. But of course, their work was only seasonal. And I knew of rope access growing up in the Northeast because of the large rope access companies there on the oil rigs and such. And I thought, okay, if I can do a rope based job, back in the UK. I can increase my skills to take it to the rainforest where I can use it in an environment that I wanted to do. And that's kind of where I kicked off from. So yeah, I had no plan really was stumbling along.
Sue: I think that squirrel approach sometimes works pretty well.
Vicki: It does.
Sue: Now you mentioned there Vicki around scientists, and we could add perhaps into that researchers, part of your job now I understand is to support scientists and researchers who are going into the forest environment to help them have access to what they need to do to do the research.
Vicki: Yes. So what I've done is I've kind of combined my passions of climbing and being in these environments and my respect of science and research. by creating a company called Sylvana Alta. And this company is specifically designed to give the training and the skills required to safely get into trees as perhaps a non-professional climber for work-related purposes and research to just get up there and so that we can learn more. The forest canopy along with kind of deep sea it's one of the last frontiers that we really don't know a lot about because of its inaccessibility. And, as technology is charging ahead with climbing equipment these days and our ability to stay safe and be efficient. It means that more and more scientists can actually access these areas and conduct their research. And we can start backing up our beliefs and hypothesis with real science. So that in turn, we then protect these areas that are sadly, are disappearing on us and they're so important. We're just scratching the surface of how complex these ecosystems are and how somewhere like the Amazon. In south America affects our water systems over here and yeah, we still don't know how it's all connected. We're just getting these little pieces of the puzzle, but it's so important that we find out as much as possible before it's too late.
Sue: As you're speaking, Vicki I'm just imagining all these scientists and researchers all around in the world who have now got these tree climbing skills that they've gained.
Vicki: Yeah. And do you know what they are wonderful? What I love about them so much is because their research has everything to everything, to them, and they're so dedicated and they, you know, they will study this very important, but quite simply very specific question that they, that they need to answer. And they'll take years and painstaking amounts of effort into creating the best way of answering this question so that they can get the papers and the answers out. So, when I show them how to climb, they're just so enthusiastically trying to get up this tree so that they can see the thing that they want to research that they're not bothered by the height or where the rope is that they don't see the hazards that perhaps I would as a, as a trainer.
And they also have this kind of wonderment to them. It just is the best experiences working with researchers and scientists, because they're so dedicated and enthusiastic about their work. And if I'm just there as a little bit like a mother hen say, okay, no, no, that's too, that's too high. It's maybe come down a little then yeah, it's great. And you see the results it's working, you know, they're getting the research, they're getting the data and we're getting some more information.
Sue: It must be very satisfying for you. I imagine to be able to be supporting that type of work.
Vicki: It really is because they also, tree climbing and rope access. It comes with stereotypes. It comes with a lot of people thinking, okay, so you got to be, you got to be fast. You've got to be strong. You got to have muscles. A lot of people are a little bit surprised when I rock up in my, my eight and a half stone and kind of five foot six. And what I love is that I can kind of, blow apart these stereotypes and what I really like is being able to let them work out how they can climb to the best of their ability. I mean, it's not using my body, they use their body and it's, it's a little bit like dancing, everybody dances differently, everybody climbs differently and it's just these little tweaks and movements. I can fit it to them and their body and their mind and how they learn and suddenly they're flying. And it's a beautiful thing to see them overcome these hurdles that they've got in their head.
Sue: Wow. That's amazing. I'm also curious to hear a little bit about the big canopy camp out that yourself. And some of the climbing professionals set up in 2017. I understand.
Vicki: Yeah. So back in 2017. So, a very good friend of mine, John pike who was also a tree climber, but he went on to become a doctor, a medic. And this is years ago, and he got in touch. So, he had this, this great idea. John's fantastic for these ideas. And he gets everybody pulled in. And we had spent the last kind of 10, 15 years meeting these amazing people all around the world. And they were all just dedicated to their little plot of forests or their even one tree or their research. And they were kind of these unsung heroes. We're just beautiful in every way. And we felt very lucky to have met them.
And as technology with the internet and connecting around the world was getting so much easier. We thought, well, it's never going to be possible to get everybody in a conference room because that takes a lot of money and a lot of privilege. And that would only allow maybe academics there, but we had all these people that worked as park Rangers, as guides, as research assistants. As researchers in areas of the world that wouldn't be able to perhaps leave their country. It would be, it would just be logistically a nightmare, but we all had the one interest. Climbing trees and being in trees and a favourite pastime was to sleep up in the trees.
So you just sling a hammock up, basically you're completely connected still in your rope and harness, but you get a hammock up there and it's mostly in the tropics we did this because of the weather and yeah, we would sleep overnight and it's an incredible experience. And we thought, well, if we could connect everybody and we did this one night or one weekend of the year, and we could share online, then suddenly we can connect this kind of growing community.
Because another issue is that there's a lot of people out there with skills that want to help projects and a lot of people with projects that need people with skills and connecting them has been a big part of the big canopy campout, and it's went from strength to strength. And we now encourage people not only to sleep in the trees, but just below the trees.
It's more about just being in forests for that weekend and appreciation for these areas and for the people working there and we raise money, and we give the money to grassroots and non-profits. that is protecting native forest somewhere around the world. So, it's a bit like a little promotion platform for people and projects.
Sue: Wow. It sounds amazing in terms of the connectivity around the world to like-minded people.
Vicki: Yeah. And there's incredible people that are doing these amazing projects that are just maybe, made of two or three people on there. They're trying to protect the small area because it's got this species of plant or animal and they dedicate their whole lives. Doing just that. And they're up against large scale oil companies, Palm oil, they're up against people wanting to build roads through it, and they're fighting it much on their own. And there's something about that solidarity of that one weekend of the year of where people can go, oh, I can not only share my work and my project, but also take a bit of strength from the fact that there's all these other people around the world in their own little corners that are doing the same. And you can build and each other up a little bit, just kind of go, okay, this year has been tough, but let's, let's do it again for it for another year. It's yeah, it's, it's pretty special.
Sue: Well, I think that sense of community is important for any project to help people feel that they're not alone. And part of the reason, I guess we created this podcast was to have a sense of community with giving different perspectives to our listeners from amazing people all around the world. And speaking of inspiration, Vicki, who or what inspires you.
Vicki: Oh, well, single-handedly Like first and foremost was David Attenborough. He was kind of from a young, young age until now. Just incredible man, just his attitude and demeanour and love for the natural world. Definitely big inspiration. I'm inspired by just anything insect wise because I just think they're amazing. I just think they insects, they are everywhere. They're so diverse. We know so little about them. We're always learning and and I'm just inspired by all the activists out there also that are standing up for their areas of, natural world, in the face of a lot. Yeah, they're, they're up against a lot and I just am constantly inspired by them.
Sue: And just looking ahead Vicki as you think ahead to this year, what are the, some of the highlights you've got to look forward to?
Vicki: Oh, well, in two weeks, two weeks tomorrow, I head off to Ecuador and I'm so super, super excited before COVID, I was very privileged to do a lot of traveling and I visited a lot of incredible places. And the last two years I haven't, and I've really enjoyed that, but I'm off to Ecuador which it was my very first rainforest, my very first big overseas trip. And it’s held a piece of my heart since then. So, I'll be training a group of researchers out in Ecuador, and we'll be looking into the phonology of trees. So over here, for example, we have apple season and all the apple trees, they blossom and then fruit at the same time in the rain forest and the equator, they don't do that. They don't have seasons. So, they want to know, well, do they, are they micro seasons? What makes a tree blossom and change? And why does that one have got fruit, but the one next to it? Doesn't and so, yeah, that's going to be a very interesting project and then I'll be visiting the Sequoya and Molina which is a community of indigenous people in the north of Ecuador, who we raised money for last year through the big canopy campout. And it'll just mean a lot to me to meet these people in person and to see their incredible way of life and learn a bit of about their indigenous science and medicinal plants.
Sue: Wow. Well, I think I can hear in your voice the love in a way that you have for Ecuador, the forest there and the people.
Vicki: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I really do. I feel I'm ever so grateful for that experience at university. Getting, getting to go out and see this place, because that was showing my age now back in 2004. Yeah. It's a long time and it just, it has that enthusiasm has not left me and I hope it never will. I hope it. I hope it will just always keep growing.
Sue: Well, I think you've shared your enthusiasm for being at height, being in forests and connecting the world in a different way, perhaps through our conversation today. Vicki, I've loved speaking to you. If our listener wants to find out more about what you do and to connect with your homemade, you do that.
Vicki: And you can find me on Instagram and Facebook. I'm under the name Sylvana Alta which is S Y L V A N A A L T A and also my website, which is Sylvanaalta.com. That's probably the best way to get me on. You can also look up the big canopy campout, and that's just bigcanopycampout.com on all those platforms.
Sue: Fantastic. Well, as always, we'll put links on our show notes to all of those sites for you, Vicki, I wish you well, next time, you’re up a tree and looking at the world from that perspective.
Vicki: Thank
Sue: and enjoy your, your travels to Ecuador.
Vicki: Thank you, Sue.
Sound Editor: Matias de Ezcurra (he/him)
Producer: Sue Stockdale (she/her)
Sue Stockdale introduces some of the guests she will be speaking to in Series 9 of Access to Inspiration podcast. They include two people whose career requires them to work at height: Vicki Tough, an arborist, tree climbing Instructor and Rope Access Level 3 - Professional Work at Height professional and Maxim Ivanov, a multi-skilled circus artist who is a handstand balancer, aerialist and juggler. Other guests in the series will be Sanzar Kakar, Chairman of Afghanistan Holding Group, Thomas Luther, CEO of Nevel, and Sophie Dow, founder of the charity, Salveson Mindroom Centre.
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Read our Impact Report https://bit.ly/3hElalv Preview Series 9 Transcription Sue: Hi, it's Sue Stockdale, your host of Access to Inspiration the show where you can be inspired by people who may be unalike you. Welcome to the preview of Series Nine. Before I dive in and tell you what we have coming up over the next few weeks. I'd like to thank you for the continued positive feedback that you send us about the episodes that you're listening to.
We were delighted also that our impact report published in January was really well received. James Cridland, Editor of PodNews describes it as 'a good report card for the podcast and could be emulated by others'. If you haven't read it yet, go to our website accesstoinspiration.org and on the About page, you'll find it there.
We'd also excited to announce that Squadcast are one of our sponsors for this year. All of our episodes are recorded on Squadcast, the remote recording platform, which empowers podcasters by capturing high quality audio and video conversations that listeners love. You can find out more about them at squadcast.fm. and listen to our episode from last series when I spoke to the founders, Zach Moreno and Rock Felder in episode 61.
Onto series nine. One of the themes that seems to be appearing across a number of the episodes over the next few weeks is air. Yes. I know you're thinking air. Well, there are two guests who both work in the air in different jobs. The first is Vicki Tough who is a rope access specialist and climbs trees and buildings for a living. I asked her what her favorite job had been.
Vicki: For me, it was definitely the Olympic stadium in London. it was also the first one. And it was so huge and there was such an incredible group of people. We were really a big gang of vagabonds that came from all different ways of life and we were kind of thrown together in this motley crew of about 25 and just the whole scope of the Olympics was so huge. So not only the buildings, but also just the grandeur of the event and it bringing the whole world together. So it was like being part of something really huge. And then our little part you could see where it fit into the bigger picture. That was incredible. That was wonderful. But I must admit that was possibly the coldest I've ever been in my entire life. Cause sometimes dangling off a rope in mid winter in London when it's quite windy, you're not moving that much. And so that was also the coldest I've been. But that's definitely the most memorable, for the people, for the London skyline is incredible. Absolutely incredible. And I think it's probably my favorite in the world.
Sue: And another guest who flies in the air that I'll be speaking to. It's Maxim Ivanov, who is a multi-skilled circus performer. And I asked Maxim what his favorite discipline is.
Maxim: in circus school, I chose the hand balancing. I really love it, but now I really like flying with my wife doing dual straps. I really enjoy flying. Easy way to explain. For example, you learn some tricks and for example, one trick, you learn two years, which is really hard, but people don't see how hard it is. And you don't get back the applause and, and year by year you realize you cut something, you do the, the tricks, which people more appreciate. But in the air you fly in, people enjoy and everybody enjoy.
Sue: What I'm hearing from you is it's as much about the audience appreciation
Maxim: we, we need a lot of audience appreciation. If you don't get that, I think people stopped to do that. But yeah, so we have that fortunately.
Sue: And finally, if that isn't enough to whet your appetite, I'll also be speaking to Sanzar Kakar, who is Chairman of Afghanistan Holding Group and who runs a number of businesses in Afghanistan. And I wanted to find out and get a different perspective about what goes on business wise in the country. Sanzar explained more about a few of his ventures.
Sanzar: one of them is a school from K to 12, it's called Mizan. And we help try to train the future leaders of the country. So it's a small school. But we have an incredible curriculum out of Oak Meadows in Connecticut from the US and we've customized it for Afghanistan, local languages and culture. We also have AfghanNet which is the internet service provider providing, just broadband internet to homes and businesses across Afghanistan.. Actually a few tech ones, my background is computer engineering. So the one that we're spending most of our time on now is called Hesab think of it like Apple Pay, where you can send money, pay in any shop, send money to anyone else and try to make it really easy for payments given the fact that the in a banking sector has collapsed in the last five months.
Sue: all this and lots more to enjoy in the next few weeks. And you can also listen to our extensive back catalog of 65 episodes that we've already recorded and read the transcriptions by going to our website on access to inspiration.org. Remember to take a moment and leave us a review on Apple podcasts or tell your friends about access to inspiration so that they can subscribe to. 30 minutes of inspiration brought to your device every week. I look forward to connecting with you soon.
Sound Editor: Matias de Ezcurra (he/him)
Producer: Sue Stockdale (she/her)