Media Sensationalism and Constructive Conversations
John Sands shares a deeply personal and transformative journey through a severe COVID-19 experience, underscoring the profound importance of vaccination, allyship, and the delicate balance of empathy and inclusion in navigating a polarised world.
Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary forbold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart ofinclusion, belonging and societaltransformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create aworld? Remember, everyone not only belongs, but thrives.You're not alone. Join me as we uncoverthe unseen, challenge the status quo andshare stories that resonate deep within. Readyto dive in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffee orwinding down after a long day, let's connect,reflect and inspire action together.Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach outtojo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.ukto share your insights or to join me on the show.So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time toignite the spark of inclusion with InclusionBites.Today is episode 139with the title Turning Lead intoGold, and I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcomeJohn Sands. John is a certifiedERG trainer who employs. Sorry, empowers,no less employee resource groups leaders, to unlocktheir full potential. Drawing on his vast experience as a founder,leader and ally, he brings a fresh and impactful perspectiveto creating inclusive workplaces that celebratediversity and drive meaningful change. When Iasked John to describe his superpower, he saidempathy, with the added alchemy of transformingchallenges into golden opportunities for connectionsand growth. Hello, John. Welcome to the show.
John Sandsguest
Hello, Jo. And thank you very much for inviting me. It'sa privilege to come onto your podcast. Yeah, it
Joanne Lockwoodhost
was great. I say we randomly met. I mean, in the world scale of things.It wasn't a planned meeting. I was invited to a function youwere co hosting in London and we got chatting and in fact, wefound we had a lot in common. Similar age, similar militarybackground, similar outlook on life. Yeah. And
John Sandsguest
similar place of living as well. So we're not far. Neighbors.Almost. I'd say almost neighbours. Yeah. We've got the same weather. If we look
Joanne Lockwoodhost
out the window. It's been snowing this morning. Yes. Yeah. And
John Sandsguest
very, very cold. So I'm wrapping up and the heatingis on and it's all. Yeah. Snuggled down to get some warmth in mybones. Yeah. So where are we? We're sort of midway through
Joanne Lockwoodhost
November or later. Later in November, actually, in 2024.So, yeah, it's a bit of an early cold snap. Yes. Yeah,
John Sandsguest
absolutely. John turning lead into
Joanne Lockwoodhost
gold. Tell me what. Yeah, you sent me
John Sandsguest
the questions and you asked my superpower and as is. Icouldn't just say, well, it's to empower ergs et cetera,which obviously it is. But I wanted to put something in there about
John Sandsguest
turning lead into gold, and now you brought me totask with that. So I've now got to think of what I mean.So if I was to use that formy professional role, it would be takingideas and putting them into something that you can useand make a difference. So when I'm working with employeeresource groups, you can call them ergs, call them, you know, businessresource groups, call them affinity groups, whatever you want to call them, andtaking these ideas and joining the dots with thesepeople. And it's not normally me creating that goal. The goalis created by the people that, you know that I'm teaching. SoI'm. Or not teaching, or just could be facilitating, if you like,but getting these people to speak and to take an idea and make itreal and for it to really make a difference in theworkplace. And we were chatting, Jo, before we started recordingthis, about how theERGs can make a difference within an organizationis exactly that. By making thesepeople, not making them, but helping these peopleto make good what they want to be doing with their communitygroups. So I would say that would be. That would be gold,really. And like I say, the gold is created by other people, not me. I'm
Joanne Lockwoodhost
sure we've got people listening who probably not familiar with theraison d'etre of a ERG employee resource group, staffnetwork. How do they manifest themselves? What's theirpurpose in the world? Well, it's. It's giving
John Sandsguest
people a safe place within anorganization. And this could be, you know, small. It could be a hundredpeople, up to thousands of people. And just to give youmy background, I work for a large
John Sandsguest
corporation and I was part of the DE and Ianother lovely. We love an acronym, don't we? Diversity, equity andinclusion. So I was part of that withinthis company. And I helped tocreate an ERG around disabilityand also was an ally for theLGBTQIA erg, the Black allianceerg. And also I was part of the Veteranserg. So these are groups of people who want tocome together. I call it a safe space. And they want to joinforces and make the workplacebetter for them to help forthe issues and challenges that they have and create a groupwhere they can talk about their challenges, they canhopefully make a difference within the company to dothat. With the disability ERG that I was a cofounder of, because of my experience with COVID we lookedat how my company could better support people withdisability. And because A disability erg. And I know wehesitate to use the word disability, but the challenges that people,even if they're neurodiverse, if they're physicallydisabled, if like me, it wasagain hesitate to use it, but I will. A mental issue around myexperience with COVID how they can be supported with things such as,you know, help within the workplace, getting intowork, time off from work when needed. So it gives youthat support around you with people who are likeminded and facing the same challenges. And that worksacross all employee resource groups. We had Latinos andNidos, which are Latin American, a support group, like I said,the LGBTQ +IA group,disability. There was women in technology, therewas, you know, so many groups that we had within there.I was lucky enough to be working at a company that supported them andallowed them to do it. So, so that's what an erg, it's a group offriends, I suppose. A group of friends. A group of like minded people helpingto make the workplace a better place to go to. Yeah. Because they can be
Joanne Lockwoodhost
extremely powerful from an organizational perspective as well.It's from my understanding the perfect relationship is where the symbiosis,where the members of the ERG feel that advocacy andbelongingness and safe space to better bethemselves. Also the organization benefits from havingsounding boards. They can use them strategically or even tacticallyto look at challenges, can't they? Yeah, well, we used to work
John Sandsguest
quite heavily with the recruitment sidebecause we're finding more and more now when people go look atjoining a company, they'll go to their webpage, they'll look atwhat diversity or ergs that theyhave within that company and that will help them to make the decision as towhether they should join. But not only that, also once they
John Sandsguest
are there is making sure they don't leave because I don'thave the exact figures to hand. But the cost of, you know, if youbring someone on board, you train them up, you bring them into the company, yougo through all that process which takes a while and then they just leave.The cost to the company is huge. So by giving them aworkplace where you know, they want to stay, then that,that really helps. We can have rose tintedglasses and say, well, companies just want to do it because they want to supporttheir workplace, but they also want numbers. They also want to say, well okay,I'm doing this, but why? How is it helping? Because they're a business andyou understand that. But it's quite easily, I think, quiteeasy, I think to, to, to bring, put figures together and to supportwhy you should have an erg and why you should invest in that.Because, you know, there's, there's so much you gain from it. And if an employeedoesn't see it, and not all do, there are some that are quite, theywill, they will say the right words and they will say, ohyeah, we need EIGs because everyone else is doing it and they're not supported. Andthat's another big pitfall for this kind of thing is they'll say,yeah, we need it, we want it on the website. We want to show we're,you know, we're a diverse corporation. But then they don't,they don't help to make that survive. So it with us on the vine,basically. And that's another important part ofnot just having ergs, but making sure that they flourish and making surethat the people within them feel they're being supported either through money orby the, you know, board levelsponsorship, et cetera, is just as important as saying, yeah, let's do it andlet's not support it. Which happens.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. I was at an event last week, I think it was,and Bruce Daisley, the cultureexpert, ex VP of Twitter Europe, I think hewas there talking. And one of the things, one of his insightfulthrowaways is a real sense of valuing andjudging employee experience and, and the belongingness inorganization is that one good sign is your best friend works atyour organization. Yeah. And ERGs can foster thatbelonging and create you, if you like,friends outside of your day to day colleagues in anorganization. And we know that creates stickinesswithin the culture, doesn't it? I think absolutely. And you're
John Sandsguest
right there. And that's why I feel with ergs,allyship is so important because we're not only, look,we're not only looking to support and educate the people withinthat group, but we're also looking to then support people
John Sandsguest
outside of that group to understand. And educationis very important. And that's why I said allies is, youknow, make, make a huge difference because you can, you can preachto the choir, but you really want toeducate people outside because if you don't dothat and you just, and we mentioned earlier, like I saybefore we came on the podcast about an echo room, you're just talking to peoplewho want to hear that you, you need to for a trueerg to work or is, is to, is to bring onpeople who maybe are a bit skeptical about it. And we're finding alot, and especially in our Current political climate. We are finding alot where, where that skepticismis becoming more and more prevalent, where there's a backlashtowards diversity. They are saying, well, weactually want to get rid of diversity. We don't want that to happen. And there'sthat polarization between this is diversity and this is,you know, what we want to do. That's something we really need tostop, I feel, and is unfortunately becoming moreprevalent at the moment. In my head I'm thinking DEI must
Joanne Lockwoodhost
die. So. Dei. Yeah, it's almost like the,that's the kind of the pushback at the moment that diversityis seen as a negative now. Or the initiatives not, not the, not theout end result with the initiatives have got such a badname. Yeah. Maybe poorly implemented withoutconsideration of return on investment. People from a majorityare feeling excluded from aninclusion exercise. You know, how can you, how can you create an inclusive,inclusive culture by excluding people? And I think, yeah, people are feelingexcluded because they're not black, they're not. They're not gay, they're not a woman, andwe're marginalizing people. And that's. And that's something I
John Sandsguest
have experienced myself being awhite male. I have felt sort of notpart of the gang, if you like. And that could be a perceptionby me. But yeah, I've definitely. I have felt thatreally, you know, being what I am. And I, I grew up ata time where it's lookedback as being, you know, a black time, notblack time, a dark time where I was doing. I'm trying toput together actually apresentation around and I called it Poor Little White Boybecause I grew up in a time where we had.Even now it sort of shuddered to think about it. When you thinkof, you know, shows like the Black and White Minstrelsbuying a jar of marmalade with a
John Sandsguest
cartoon character. I'm not even going to say the name on the side of it,which you had to collect to get a badge. Where people, you know,like Alan Turing being gay was illegaland some of the tv and I grew up with a father who was amisogynist. He's passed now. Misogynist, a racist.And people look back on that time, and rightly so, theysay, you know, that it was a bad and unenlightened timethen and I grew up within thatenvironment. And they say that people can beformed by what they grew up with. And absolutely not for me, ifanything, it made me shun those ideas. It mademe into who I am and not in a bad way. AndI'M not saying that everyone who grew up in that time, you still get, peoplesay, well, you know, I grew up in those times and it was all rightthen, wasn't it? You know, we were, we were okay. But, and,and, and that phrase of, you know, all the good old days,the days of, you know, where I felt comfortable, the days of whereeverything was okay, wasn't it? And those people are there and you see themevery day. And my father was, was one of those. But it certainly doesn'tshape me. And I'm of the, thestrong feeling. You just get bad people.You just get people that are bad no matter what, what, where they comefrom, whether they're, you know, lgbtqia, whether they're black, whether they're white, whetherthey're Christian, whether they're Catholic, whatever, you just get bad people.And, and I hate to be paintedwith that brush to people to think. And this is, I think is one ofthe worst things that you can do in any. We talk aboutdiversity, we talk about racism, and racism ispainting everyone from that, in my view, anyway, painting everyonewithin that particular group of peopleas one thing, as by saying, well, all Muslimsare this, all Christians are this. You know, everyone within theLGBTQIA plus is this. And that's where racism comes on.You just, you just get bad people. No matter what you're doing in life, youjust get bad people. I think. Yeah. But inherently bad
Joanne Lockwoodhost
people don't think they're bad. No, of course not. So we all, weall actually believe we're good people. Every single person believes they're agood person. Yeah. And within your echo chamber, within your circleof friends, within your tight knit community, within your, whatever youwant to call it, we all believe because we're being reinforced.We're product of our upbringing, product of our environment. If everyonesays, yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, I agree with you. Confirmation bias. Yeah, you'rekicking. Whistling affinity bias. All this stuff kicks inand then you believe that you're, you're us andeverybody else is them. And that's, that's the problem sometimes is we get solocked up into our own belief of us and everyone thinks, likeme. Yeah. We look at Brexit, we look at thepolitical elections that go on, we look at what's going on, going on in America.I can't believe that anybody would vote not like me,given the choices, but clearly over half thepopulation believe something different and they're not daft. There mustbe a reason, but I can't fathom it. Because I live in a differentreality and I don't understand why they're, why they're polarized in adifferent way. Yeah. With the amount of conversations. My mum, I
John Sandsguest
love so much and has been such a big part of my life, nothaving a father figure in my life. My mumhas been there for me and my comfort blanket is mymum through my childhood and even today. But she voted Brexitand the conversationswe've had around that. And you think, wow,
John Sandsguest
yeah. And this is my, obviously my opinion around the whole Brexit thing. I thinkit was a terrible thing that happened, but my mum did that. Someone who issuch a large part of my life. So, yeah, I'm
Joanne Lockwoodhost
sure my mom voted for Brexit as well. She's an avid DailyMail reader. She's a GP news watcher and very blue.And she often speaks highly of some of the people that Iwould question their opinions on. I got my mum off the
John Sandsguest
Daily Mail. I got her moved from the Daily Mail to the, to the DailyExpress. So I'm hoping it's a little bit, little bit better than that. Yeah. Yeah.And it's like you, you very, like you said there,Jo, around, they believethat what they're saying is correct and within their, withintheir world. And this is exacerbated, I think,with. Because the echo chamber nowadays has got huge, isn'tit? When we look at Twitter and we look at Facebook and we lookat all the channels that are available to us,that echo chamber is hundreds of thousands of people. Andthen you're going to think, well, okay, if they say it, then it must betrue. And everyone's a hater. And that's where the polarization has come in, Ithink. And that certainly was there for Brexit. And also whenI speak to my American friends around the elections recentlywith the presidential elections is it's been such apolarization. Whereas before, andI look back to both with the political arena withinthe UK and also within the us, you couldbe. You could support a party, but youcould still have friends who supported the other party. But you'refinding now, especially in the USand with Brexit here, it actually will tear those apart.It will break those friendship bonds or family bonds. Even parts of thesame family no longer speak to each other because of the waythat they're voting. So it's got. That polarizationis incredible. Really is. Yeah. One of the golden rules that I was
Joanne Lockwoodhost
always taught when we were growing up was you don't talk about religion. Politicsor money kind of thing. And those aren't polite conversations for the dinnertable or the workplace. But we have to createspaces where our beliefs aren'tsubmerged. Because when you talk about psychological safety, you think about bringing your wholeself to work. All these buzz phrases that we use today, if you're having tosuppress your views and beliefs, it's notgood for you as a person if you're working in an environment where you can'tbe who you are. So how do we square thiscircle of paradox where the intolerance of intolerance, youknow, it's kind of. We got to be careful here. We can't all speak ourmind. No, it's funny, isn't it? Because we were talking
John Sandsguest
about the, you know, at theconference we had in London where I got to meet you,we were talking about a governance aroundresource groups. A governance around. Because you can't, youcan't say, right, anyone can create a resource groupbecause of what that brings on.So yes, we can say we'reinclusive for everyone. It's like when they started saying, well, you know, white livesmatter too, all that side of things.You have to be careful, really, around thatside. And if there's right wing organization and theywant to create an employee, a resource group as well, how do you do that?It's a difficult one because inclusivity should meaninclusivity. Freedom of speech should mean freedom of speech.But my thoughts around that are, if anythingthat you're doing, if anything that you want to say, right, wewant to get a gang together. If that harmsother people, if that isdirectly aimed with angerto other people, then that's where we draw the line, I feel. Yeah,I mean, that for me is really where we say, well, okay, we do havethe right, but you have no right to personally enforce yourviews upon other people and second of all, createdirect harm within other people. And I think me personally,that's where I would say, you know, we should draw the line. We look at
Joanne Lockwoodhost
some major political figures in our history, we knowwe look. Well, I say art history, world history. NelsonMandela, freedom fighter, terrorist,world leader. Lech Vowensa, freedomfighter, terrorist, world leader.And you look at Sinn Fein and some of the leaders, Jerry Adams, people likethat, they went from being terrorist, freedom fighter to politicalleaders in their country. And we now see Sinn taking apolitical stance even within the north of Ireland. Soit depends on who's writing the history, doesn't it? Well, absolutely it does.
John Sandsguest
Yeah. There was the, the, the issuein Bristol with the statue of the.And again, apologies, I forget the name of the person, but I veryvividly can remember them pushing the statue into.Into the river of Bristol. You know, person who.Who put a lot of money into schools, put a lot of moneyinto the local community, built buildings. Bu.Slave trader. So that, you know, where. Where does that sit? What do you dowith that? I mean, I put. I personally think if the context is there andpeople understand that and people are educated aroundthat and it's not hidden from, then that is part of history. It'sthe same with. With Nelson Mandela. I mean, again, I'm.I apologize for not being. To know as. As much as I should do aboutthings like that. But we. We put content. It happened.Yeah. These people went through a process. Some would call it terrorism, some wouldcall it fighting the fight. It depends where you siton that, doesn't it? And I don't feel either youor me can sit there and comprehensively say, you know,that's wrong, because, you know, I'm not sureyou can do that. Yeah. And I mean, bringing it back to the workplace and
Joanne Lockwoodhost
we've got bit onto world policy. We have, yeah. Very deep.You end up with this inherent conflict between the rights of eachother. You know, in. I've seen in the civil service,they've set up a staffnetwork that champions the supremacy of sex overgender to almost like oppose the LGBTQ plusnetwork, to give people who have those beliefsa place where they feel belonging. So you have toallow people to have these thoughts and beliefs and what we call a projectivebelief. But somehow the organization has to wrestle with thisto stop it becoming toxic or weaponized. And I, And
John Sandsguest
I truly feel that there is a place forboth there. But that should be encouraging conversationthat should be saying, well, okay, you know, I disagree withthis. I feel it should be this. But to. Becausethere's been a lot of, you know, militant actions around these thingswhere people. It's almost. It is almost like a battle. I'mright. This is wrong. You know, you can't do that. You can't do thisconversation. We are. We should be talking about it.And even if we can't say, oh, okay, yeah, I agree now.Which doesn't always happen torespect people and to understand, if not to fullyagree, but to understand and to realize thatwe are all human beings, we have a right to do that and to feelthat way, that's fine. I don't agree. That's fine. We canstill live together with that. We don't have to be butting up against each otherthe whole time. We don't have to be, you know, agreement all the time.Maybe I'm being a little simplistic. I don't know, Maybe. Maybe I am.But my feeling is we can live together evenif we don't agree all the time. Yeah. I was
Joanne Lockwoodhost
watching a debate on Facebook the other day.It was about, I think there was some. I think it happened at horse raceand some horses died at the weekend. I'm not sure exactly thestory. And someone put a post about horse racing shouldbe banned and someone chipped in and go, well, hang on a minute. It employs
Joanne Lockwoodhost
loads of people, the animals. And there was this polarized viewaround any animal that isenslaved by a human being is bad. Any animalyou're putting to work for you, riding a horse is bad. Riding an elephant isbad. It's like there's someone trying to come up with another opinion. Andeventually the weight of view on this post washeavily animal rights focused. And so all the people that were trying to chip inwith a balance effectively put their hands in there and said, okay, Igive up. I shouldn't have joined this conversation. I'm out. Andthen people didn't want to let them out the room. They kind of say, nowhang on a minute, I haven't finished beating you up yet. I want to keep,I want to keep going. You don't get my point. I want to keep tellingyou, okay, that's okay, we disagree. I'll beat you up enough until
John Sandsguest
you eventually come round to what I think is the right way of doing stuff.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So people, people aren't happy with that retreat and acceptance. Okay,okay. We have a fundamental difference here. Some people want to keep goingand that. And that's. They won't get, they won't be happy unless they've had theirsatisfaction of agreement. I think we all go to for
John Sandsguest
headlines because headlines make people listen or they make people watch. It's likemy mum will ring me up and say, oh, you know, the country isswamped with immigration. You know,we need to sort that out and say, well, you're reading a headline. Theysell newspapers. They're not going to say, oh, things are actuallya bit okay at the moment, aren't they? We don't really need to worry. Let'ssay that's fine. That's not what is going to sell a newspaper. The headline isgoing to sell the newspaper. And I do feel that we then have adoptedthat. And especially when we can sit behind their Keyboard and be on aFacebook chat thing or on Twitter or something.We shout stuff because it gets a reaction.It gets people to shout back. Andwe all want to get that reaction. We all want people to go,well, because that's what we feed onis people. No one wants to sit there and have a nice conversation. Yeah, it'sall a bit okay, actually, I agree with you with that. That's allbrilliant. We want headlines. Whether that's ina newspaper, on a message page or on
John Sandsguest
anywhere, we want headlines, we want reactions. Andwe are able to do that with the media that we work with.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, I think something in the media the other day it was allabout working from home, working in the office. The headline was somethinglike the ONS has discovered. The ONS trustedbody would chuck them in there. These trusted statistics.The people who work from home rest20 minutes a day more than those who work in the office and do 15minutes more exercise. And then they then quoted Jacob Rees Moggsaying, see, these lazy people working from home are sleepingduring the day. Yeah, well, hang on a minute. No, at no point did itsay sleeping during the day. It just. They had 20 minutes a day more rest,but did 15 days more exercise. And suddenly we extrapolated that tobeing anybody's working for a reason. More lazy, therefore. Yeah,
John Sandsguest
not doing anything. Yeah. There's no statistic
Joanne Lockwoodhost
on productivity in there. So they cherry picked out theresting and the exercise. So people are going on their treadmill, having asleep and doing less work. QED statistic. Ons.
John Sandsguest
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's incredible. And this has been, Ithink, again, going back to the whole of the Internet. You know, I've had an,an incredible life. Actually. When I look at when I startedmy career, there was no Internet. There was, youknow, I went to school, I didn't have. I didn't have Internet. AndI've gone through this, this gradual iteration of moreand more and more and more of access, which isa wonderful thing in some ways, but a terrible thing in others. It's,it's, it's a beast of, you know, of two sides really,because we've got the amazing technology that allows us tocommunicate and to share information. We've got.The flip side of it is, like you were saying there, Jo, aroundus being able to. We're not just now creating a newspaperarticle, we're taking that newspaper article and we're putting it outto everyone that can then grab that.It's been an incredible journey to where we are. And we justneed to understand that, we just need to realize that what's, you know,I try to educate my mum and say, well, you know, around the headlines, aroundall the information. She doesn't have a computer actually, so slightly different forher. But yeah, it's.It's using a brain. Ihave an amateur interest in, into neuroscienceand using this amazing brain that wehave and filtering it through two things. I hate,I hate now reminding this and I hate hypocrisy. And those two
John Sandsguest
things, hand, hand in hand with theincredible wealth of information that we have out there are dangerousthings. Dangerous things. And we got now, we've nowgot people in power that, from my perspective anyway, haveboth of those things. I've got a friend I follow on Facebook.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Every so often he'll pop up with a very sort of predictable remark.Yeah, and today I'm going to be an expert on nuclearmissiles. Last week is. Today I'm anexpert on US politics and today I'm going to be an expert on this. It'sso like. It's what happens every. Every day,whatever's in the news, people become armchair experts. It's likethe. It's like when the World Cup's on, everyone is homeEngland manager, everyone knows which team they should have played and they're doing thecritique. And we're becoming Facebook experts on everything, aren't we?
John Sandsguest
It is that what you just said there reminds me, if you've everwatched the Fast show, there was a character that came up thisweek. I am mostly being eaten. Terabysolata.It's. It's. That is that that'sreminded me of that and how we. Yeah, we automatically becomewheelchair experts on information and sometimes that canbe. Can be harmless and a bit of fun on othertimes not. So it's the way thatthat person then can be an armchair expert on hate canspread information easily. And there are a lot of people out there,especially when they. I mean, we talk about social media, pundits and socialmedia, you know, experts and these huge followings ofmillions of people, sometimes they might have been a pop star at some time,they might have been a, you know, the B list. Celebrities that we talkabout can get huge, huge followings and can spread that.That expert perceived expertness by them. Thembecomes a fodder for the huge audience of peoplethat they have following them. And I thinkit can be. It can be a dangerous thing because again, because ofthe spread or the audience, these people can reach out tosometimes and people will just believe it. Some people will Justyou know, go, go down that route and take everything asverbatim that they, that they hear and that, that's where the ed. That's where theeducation comes in. Yeah. So Chris Hoy is suddenly an
Joanne Lockwoodhost
expert on cancer, on everyone's cancer and really.Okay, yeah, about. Well, no, but that's how the media are now. He's now thego to spokesperson so he's adding his brand andcredibility to raise awareness.But he is an expert on himself. He didn't realize. Yes, yes,
John Sandsguest
absolutely. Expert on cycling. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Expert on being in the Olympics, an expert on winning gold medals. Buthe's now participating in the experienceof going through a life changing condition which is obviouslyterminal and very sad. Very sad for that. So he'stelling his story in Raw to the public andyou gotta be careful that he doesn't necessarily give adviceor expert advice, just his personal experience. Yeah,
John Sandsguest
yeah, that you're, you're right on that. And againthat goes back to my comment earlier about people taking it verbatimas Chris Hoy is now the, you know, a professor on cancer. It'sa very sad that he went through and. Yeah, andhim and his family having to go through thatis, I mean, and cancer is. Yeah, that's. I've hadnot, not myself experience of it but friends that have had it and passedaway. It's. Yeah, it's a terrible, terrible thing. You
Joanne Lockwoodhost
mentioned at the beginning of the show and you mentioned, you talk about a bitin the green room. You also mentioned it when we met a few weeks agoaround your expertise in Covid. Yes, I would not
John Sandsguest
say expertise in any way whatsoever.Experience. Experience. Yeah.Of COVID If you call at this time 4 years ago I was ina, in a, in a coma aftercatching COVID back Novembertime, beginning of November. So yeah, I got the usual cough and,and then, then, then got hold of the one one oneand they then sent an ambulance and then I ended up in,in hospital with COVID and I did, I did a diary the wholetime on what I was. I'm so glad I did because I can goback and go through my experience with that and rightfrom you know, turning up and thinking, oh, they'll pump me through full ofantibiotics or some magic drug that will, will, will make it goaway. And there was no, no vaccine, excuse me,no vaccine at the time. So I went straight inand, and gradually was up and down. It was really againfrom my diary, it was, it was a roller coaster because Covid, the littlebastard actually goes to Your brain stem and makesyou feel that you're okay so it can do itswork. So I was going up and down and I was on. Iwas on. I was on a thing called a CPAP where they, they force airinto your. Into your lungs. It's like, it's the way they describe. Way Iwould describe it. It's like when you're going along in a car and you putyour head out the window. Uh, and. Yeah,absolutely. And that forcing of air into. Into your lungs and thegradual decline. They even sent my.My wife in at one point. And that doesn't happen unless it's really, reallybad. And that. So I got to spend sometime with her and. Which was a, you know, two things. It was. It wasbeautiful to see her because I was in a. Basically in anairlock. So I was in a room where you had to.You had to go through. Into an airlock, you know, shut the door, open theother door and come in and see me. Where people, you know, to come in
John Sandsguest
to see me. It was. Had to put in all their, you know, thegloves and the apron and the mask and all that andthen come in, see me go out, take it all off again. And if Ineeded to see them again, they'd have to come in again. Incredibly isolating and veryfrightening. I was the most frightened I've ever been in my life. And Iwrote in my diary, I don't think I'm going to finish this diary because mybreathing was getting so bad. And when I. This is another bag of worms. WhenI, When I hear about people who are anti. Anti vaccine. I would like tobottle how I felt whenabout 75% of my lung capacity was gone. AndI wouldn't want to give them. I'd give them the virus. I would never wantto do that to anyone. But I'd want them just to experience how Ifelt just for. Just for 30 seconds. Just to get the.Where you feel like you're drowning, where you feel like the. You know,you think that's it. And again in my diary I said, ye, this. This isit. I'm. I don't. I'm. I'm going to die. And when it got at itsworst, I wanted to die.I wanted it all to go away. And I, And I even. I couldn't speak.So I just went to the nurse. I just. Yeah, I couldn't. And she. Ithen got put into a. Into a coma and puton a ventilator. And then that's when the fun stuff happened. Then. Because when Imet my God. Coma dreams, Jo, I'm not. I'm not recommending it forany, but I was. I was on anNHS cruise ship going to Abu Dhabi.That's what. That's what my dream was. And. And I wasgoing along quite happily on the cruise ship. I had people in beds next tome. I was. We got to Abu Dhabi, I got off the.Got off the. The boat and went to a party. I was still in mybed, I was still dreaming in my bed and I was still strapped in andI had all. Everything on me, but I was in my bed being wheeled aroundAbu Dhabi and then.And then taken back onto the boat. And then. Then I woke up.Now, this is. I was in a coma for 11 days and I woke upand the first doctor that came to me, I said, doyou really send people on cruise ships in the nhs? BecauseI still believed in my befuddled state that it had happened.And she said, I can assure you, Mr. Sands, you haven't left Portsmouth.So I was. I was on this. On this. I'm sure I was on thiscruise ship. I was brought round and was. Itwas an amazing, amazing thing to go through.I went to. While on the cruise ship, I went to a bird show, Iwent and saw dolphins while I was on there, and there was arestaurant there. I. It was just. And that was11 days of being asleep in a coma. Andluckily, because at that time, if you were put on a ventilator, youonly had a 10% chance of survival, which I didn'trealize till much, much later that that was the case. AndI come round and I got out and, you know, I'mthankful for the fact that it. That I did survive and I. AndI, you know, I did. I did come out of that, butI never ever, never, everlost that feeling. The feeling I had when I thought I waslying on the bed and I was thinking, what it going to be like todie? What's it going to be like to close my eyes? And I truly thought,I'm going to close my eyes now and I'm going to. I'm going to bedead. What's that going to be like? And that's why I was part of thefounder of the disability rge, becauseof the mental scars. I'm. Now, my lungs are fine.I have no physical scars from that and none whatsoever.But the mental side of that and that feeling, because you never lose that.You never. I'm not sure you should either, really, because the experiencemakes you. What you are, but it is something that stayswith you forever. You know, reliving thatsometimes. I don't mind reliving it now, like we're talking now, I'm quite. Quite happyto do that. And I do it a lot. I like to talk, as youprobably can tell, but there is a scarthere that I've got. So Covid for me wasincredible. I've taken all the vaccines I can find. Bring me a vaccine. I'll haveit. Yeah, absolutely. Kidding me. Vaccinetrial. And did that as well. Because. Because I believe this isgoing to sound like a cliche. We've all been hitting the saucepans outside our houseduring COVID But what they did for me, the wonderful, amazingnurses that came in and gave me from being in thatisolation chamber that I was in, that came in withsmiles, and I said to one of the nurses, you know, what'sit like out there? And he said, it's terrible. He goes, you know, people arepassing. And she. She stroked my arm and said, but not you. You're not goingto go. And. And I thought, wow.Yeah, it was. It was mythanks go out certainly to. To all those. Those people, my consultant,
John Sandsguest
my nurses, whoever that did that was. That was amazing. Guess it's good you were
Joanne Lockwoodhost
going to Abu Dhabi, not on the Titanic. To New York, ifotherwise. Yes, yes. No, the ship didn't sink. The ship actually
John Sandsguest
docked in Southampton and let me off in an ambulance and. And brought me backto Portsmouth. The qa. Did you feel. I mean,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I'm guessing. Please enlighten me. Did you feel time passingor was it random images? Or did you feel like you were in an AgathaChristie movie or something? No, time passed. So, you
John Sandsguest
know, I went to the bird show, I got wheeled out to the bird show.I went to the. I think it was dolphins, some weirdanimal swimming in a tank. Yeah. So time, it wasn't purelylinear, I don't think, because there were times, actually I had part of that wasnot Abu Dhabi. It was going out and meeting up with my family in acinema somewhere. So that happened as well. So. But. But in mymind, I've kind of logically placed it together. Maybe it was.Maybe during the dream it was all over the place, I don't know. But thebrain, as I said, is a. Is a marvelous organ.And. And I think it probably helped to put it into some. To make senseof it, to shuffle the cards that were dealt me during the coma and putit into a logical place. I'm sure that may have happened. But my recollectionnow I did a video of it. I put it on, on YouTube.So I. Whereas I, because I did some videos while I was actually in hospitalwith the mask on and with that. And I put that together in,into a video that I put onto, onto YouTube. So I think, Ithink I almost certainly would. To make. Because your brain does that to make sense.If it doesn't quite fit, it will, it will say, oh, okay, well this couldbe there, that should be there, this should be there and does that. So it'snot like I woke up from my coma at the beginningand then went into it at the end. It give it some kindof linear side to it. Does it feel at the time or
Joanne Lockwoodhost
your memory of that feel? Did it help your state of mind? Imean, were you scared in this, in this home, A dream? Wereyou having a time of your life? Were you worried about things in thisdream? I had some sad moments in there. I mean, one of the people that
John Sandsguest
I was with on board the shipdied while I was there. I had some, I had somegreat. I had some frustrating times when I want to go and see the birdshow, but they wouldn't let me in. I had some times whereI was on board ship and I askedone of the nurses to go and take some pictures of Abu Dhabi because I'dnever been to Abu Dhabi before. And she got chucked off the shipbecause she shouldn't have been taking pictures. So I was worried that, oh my God,how's she going to get home? Well, I'm all going to have to pay forthat. I'm going to have. I want her to get home. So I had, Ihad all of those feelings as well while Iwas in there. So it was a complete mixture of emotions. The cruise shipside is actually explained because I spoke to one of the nurses afterwards. She said,well, the reason this happens a lot is because you're on a bed that ismoving because they want to stop you getting fresher sores. So the bed is moving.Yeah. So being on a cruise ship or being on a boat isquite normal. I was in the Navy as well, so there's probably a part ofthat that came in. I thought there were children underneath my bed. At onepoint I was lying in my bed and there were children bashing underneath my bed.And that's because they put these compression, blow up compressiontubes on your legs to stop you from getting DVT and that was thebashing. So yeah, so there's a wholemix of emotions in there. Not. Not one. The whole time.I don't remember being frightened at any point. Iremember being worried that I wasn't going to get back on the ship on timebecause they'd taken me away and done whatever. But no, I don't. I was neverfrightened. The frightening time was when I was awake. That was frightening.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
As you're talking now, I'm thinking. I'm thinking back to the Matrix film, the first.
John Sandsguest
Oh, yes. And the artificial world that's created for
Joanne Lockwoodhost
people. You realize the AI realized that it couldn't beperfect. It had to have challenge and risk anddrama because a utopian kind ofworld isn't real. The human brain needs somethingmore. So maybe you actually created drama out ofyour thought so your mind has something totackle and challenge it. I think you're right, because that's
John Sandsguest
our life again. Our brain is a very.We use the word plasticity adapts and molds itself toyour experience and your life. And we create these neuralpathways with synaptic pathways which are basedupon our experiences in life. And we build those. Some good,some bad. And those neural pathways are what create yourdreams. Because, I mean, the amount of dreams I have when I'm worried I'm notgoing to get to the airport, or I'm worried that I'm goingto miss something, or I can't get my suitcase, and that'sme. My God, when I go to the airport, I have to be therethree hours before, no matter where I'm going, because I worry about.About not being there on time. I never understand people who say, oh, I getthere 10 minutes before. You know, I never, never worry about that. That would, thatwould drive me mad. I just couldn't do it. So. Soyeah, yeah, your, your, your brain doesn't change when you go to sleep.Yeah. Some of the dreams I have as well that we won't talk aboutnow, you know, are not part of my everyday, everyday life. But, but,yeah, but most of it, the bones and the, the, thepathways are there no matter if you're dreaming or if you're conscious. They said that
Joanne Lockwoodhost
the. You talked to the nurses when, when you woke up again and theykind of explained away the boat and the compression, all this kind of stuff.Have you spoken to any other
Joanne Lockwoodhost
coma survivors about their experience? Or is thisyou just your own. You're your own expert, if you like. No other. No,
John Sandsguest
no, I haven't. No, I haven't. And not long after I came out,I thought, would that be a good idea? I Got a bitfrightened about it, I think, when I thought, oh, yeah, okay, maybeit's a cause. There isn't anything out there. There isn't anything, you know, ofpeople. Well, not that I know of anyway. So I did think about it, butthen I backed up because Iwasn't sure how I could handle that with other people. You know,I'm talking about it quite happily now and I'll talk about it with my wifeand with my close friends and. And put a YouTube video outthere, but I'm not sure how. Well, at that time, certainly Iwasn't sure how I would deal with that. And I did get abit frightened, so I backed off from it. I've gone throughcounseling and I've spoken to a therapist around there,but putting a support group together, I've not done thatagain, as I said, I think I got a bit of cold feet on that.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I've got two experiences in my life that gives me some relatability to whatyou went through. I never went through a coma, I don't believe. So when Iwas about 12, 13, I went on a schoolexcursion to France to Entre tat to see the Tapestry, the Bay ofTapestry. Nice. And on the way back,I'd obviously developed some sort of flu, cold, whatever itwas. And on the boat, my temperature, I had thisextreme high temperature. I had to stand on the deck of the boat to tryand cool myself down. I was in the bar area, wherever it was, sittingarea, and my temperature rose and rose and rose. And eventually, obviously the teachersand people got worried about me and they ended up calling me an ambulanceonto the boat. So I got taken off the. Reallyoff the ferry in an ambulance with the blues and twos on. Took mestraight to Southampton General and put me in an isolation ward. They thought Ihad meningitis at the time, but it turned out to be some sort of bacterialviral infection. When I had this extreme high temperature, mymuscles all locked up, I couldn't move. I was literally rigid. Ithink my temperature was 106 or something like that on that. On that real cuspof being. And you know, when Iwent out to the gear, to the loo at one point I went to thedoor and there's this big red sign saying isolation will do, not enter. It's like,oh, this is quite serious, isn't it? And I look backon. My parents were obviously worried at the time. So, yeah,I had that sort of. And I remember the coach driver, because I sit onthe coach waiting for the ambulance, he said, don't worry, you're not going to die.Yeah, I was 13 years old, I was invincible. I didn't think I was goingto die anyway. And suddenly someone said they put forward.Whoa, okay. Suddenly that comes home. And the next timeit happened was when I was2013. So 10 years ago, give or take, I got doublepneumonia. And it was on Christmas Eve. I was feeling rough for a fewdays, Christmas Eve, I sat in the chair, all the family around.My throat was raw, I couldn't swallow, couldn't drink anything, couldn'tbreathe. I went to bed that night, Christmas Eve,and every time I laid back, I felt like I was drowning. Yeah,my throat was so sore I couldn't cough. Of courseI needed to cough, but I couldn't cough. I needed to cough, but I couldn'tcough. And eventually we called a paramedic at about 4 o'clock in the morning, ChristmasDay. Anyway, you need to go to ae. Quick, get therenow. So I. My wife dropped me down there and I sawthis consultant and he thought I was having an asthma attack,so he gave me this nebulizer to puff on and ofcourse that triggered me even worse and his face went white as asheet. He thought he killed me, basically. I was choking and choking with hisnebulizer. He thought it could. Magic, that'll fix you.And suddenly I'm in a ward, Christmas Day,tubes up my nose, breathing oxygen. And I wasfeeling. I could, I couldn't breathe. I really felt I couldn't breathe. Sofeeling a drowning. Yeah, that not being able to
John Sandsguest
get enough, enough air into your lungsis because, you know, that's, that's your lifefor that. And it's. I even had it during my coma dream I had.I was trying to drink a smoothie through my, my breathing tube for whatever,whatever reason, because they tried to extubateme but it didn't work, so they had to put the tube back downagain. And I'm probably thinking that was why Ihad that feeling of drinking a smoothie through my air tube, whichis weird. So. Yeah. So that feeling there, youknow that feeling you had when you're lying ina hospital bed of all times,Christmas Day is. Yeah. Must have been horrible for me.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. Well, the thing is, when you're that ill, timepasses in a different way, doesn't it? Yes, yes, absolutely. Everybody else is worriedabout, your sole concern is staying alive.And one thing I've observed throughout various. I've had otherinstances not quite as bad over the years is I've come to realizethat when you're really ill or not, well,you don't get bored. You can stare at the ceiling before hours a day andyou're completely cool with it. And you can tell when you're getting better because
Joanne Lockwoodhost
suddenly you get fidgety, bored. Yeah. And you want to start doingstuff. So I can always tell when I'm on the recovery, when my mindgoes, right, okay, I want to read a book, I want to watch telly. Yeah.But before that, sat on my back, okay, I'm out of it. And I talkedto friends who have been through experiences and I said, did you find this pointwhere you started getting bored? They went, yeah, funnythat all of a sudden I was really fidgety and bored. I said, that's thebrain's way of saying, you're on your way back. They put me
John Sandsguest
onto a. Onto a general ward after I was getting better,and that was when I startedbecause I couldn't really get up and about. I had a catheter, I hadoxygen, I had tubes everywhere,and I just wanted to get out and I wanted to get up and aboutand go home. Because when, like you said, when you'rereally ill, When I was really ill, my biggest worry, yeah,I didn't want to die, of course I didn't. But my biggest worry was everyoneelse. And my worry was my wife andmy children and my brother and my mum. They were whoI was worried about because I can't do anything about where I am now. Youput yourself into the hands of other people. I can't do any more thanjust lie here, have them do whatever, and I can't doanything. But the people that are outside of that, because they couldn't come upand see me. That was one of the things with COVID They couldn't come upto the ward, but it was everyone else around. Mywife had lost her partner tosuicide many, many years ago, and my fault was, myGod, she might lose me now afterhaving that. But going back to what you're saying, yeah,I wanted to do stuff. I wanted to get out. I wanted to read, havemy iPad out. I wanted to, you know, just. Just involve the mind.Whereas before, my mind was involved with everything else that was around it. Youalmost just. You're just a passenger. Yeah. To quote the Bee
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Gees, Staying Alive stagger. I got to love the Bee
John Sandsguest
Gees. Got to love the Bee Gees. John,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I really love this conversation. I mean, we spoke briefly, as we said earliera couple of weeks ago. And there's a whole load of other stuff that we'vegot in common. Anyway, we dived into your Navy career and everything else, but.And, and our joint shared passion for the cityof Portsmouth, I guess, as well. Absolutely. Well, there's a time for another
John Sandsguest
podcast sometime, Jo. We could. There's many, many things we could talkabout. Yeah, I'd love to. So, John, you mentioned the
Joanne Lockwoodhost
YouTube video. How do people get a hold of you? You're obviously on LinkedIn. Tellpeople about YouTube video and find out more about it. Just search for
John Sandsguest
John Sands on YouTube and you'll also find a veryfamous Australian, a greeting card manufacturer as well, called JohnSands. So that's not me. If it was then, yeah,I'd have a bit more money than now. But LinkedIn, really, I see my lifeat the moment. I love doing what I. The work I do with ERGs,I work with the ERG Leadership alliance andtrain, you know, part of. Part of what theydo and look out for that. Like I say, go toLinkedIn. If you want to message me, they'll connect then, then please do. I'dbe more than happy. I'm a very social person. I'm not asbusiness focused as I was before. I've kind ofgone. I'm going through life doing what I want to do now, helping when Ican help, using that empathy, which I do see is one of mysuperpowers. Don't ask me to turn lead into gold. I'm notquite there yet. I'll keep trying, but do just reach outand chat and I'm sure they couldcontact yourself, Jo, you've got all my details there aswell. I'm more than happy. Is it okay to give out my email address if.Is that all right? Yeah. Sojohnsands@hotmail.com do reachout to me. I'd be great to do that. Go to LinkedIn, connect withme on LinkedIn. I'd be more than happy tochat about that and anything ERG related.Yeah. And if you've got your own Covid story, Then
Joanne Lockwoodhost
check your LinkedIn message and see how it goes. Yeah, well, yeah,
John Sandsguest
absolutely. It'd be great to hear from other people. I said I got cold feetbefore, but I'm a big lover of organic work as well, where thingsjust happened and like meeting with you, Jo, you know, last,when we had the ELA meeting inLondon, you know, these things, these things happen for a reason, I think. I'm not,I'm not. I don't believe truly in fate, but they do happen and when theydo, you grab that opportunity and start something hopefully whichwill be good. John, it's been an amazing conversation. I
Joanne Lockwoodhost
really enjoyed the chat today. Thank you.As we bring this conversation to a close, I want toexpress my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, forlending your ear and heart to the cause ofinclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord.Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become partof our ever growing community driving real change.Share this journey with friends, family and colleagues. Let's amplifythe voices that matter. Got thoughts,stories or a vision to share? I'm all ears.Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.ukand let's make your voice heard. Until next time,this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to returnwith more enriching narratives that challenge,inspire and unite us all. Here's to fostering a moreinclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.
In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood is joined by John Sands to explore the transformative power of turning challenges into opportunities. John dives into a range of pressing issues, including media sensationalism, the polarisation of opinions in social debates, and the ways in which remote work statistics are often misrepresented. The conversation is not just about identifying problems but also about creating actionable solutions in the workplace, particularly through the use of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). John Sands is a certified ERG trainer committed to fostering inclusive workplaces where every voice is heard. With a background that spans a navy career, personal resilience through severe health crises, and substantial experience working with various ERGs, John's insights are both profound and practical. His metaphor of "turning lead into gold" encapsulates his mission to empower organisations to transform raw ideas into actionable and impactful initiatives. Along with his engaging personal stories, such as his vivid coma experiences and battle with double pneumonia, John offers a rich tapestry of experiences that underline his empathetic approach to leadership and inclusion. Joanne and John delve into the importance of robust discourse, even on divisive topics like animal rights and political stances. John recounts how sensational headlines often drown out meaningful discussions and how social media can create echo chambers, amplifying polarising views. They also touch on historical figures and how differing perspectives shape their legacies, using Nelson Mandela as an example. In the context of ERGs, John highlights their crucial role in fostering a sense of belonging and providing strategic benefits for organisations, from employee retention to inclusive policy-making. Listeners are encouraged to connect with John Sands for more discussions on ERG leadership and the importance of empathy in overcoming adversities. Joanne Lockwood wraps up the episode by underscoring the power of inclusion and community, urging listeners to share their thoughts and stories to foster a more inclusive world through dialogue. A key takeaway from this episode is the emphasis on empathy and constructive dialogue in transforming polarised views into collaborative efforts. Listeners will gain valuable insights into the role of ERGs in creating inclusive environments and the importance of understanding and conversation in mitigating societal divides. This episode offers a compelling blend of personal experience and practical advice, making it a must-listen for anyone committed to driving inclusion and societal change.
The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Inclusion Bites, SEE Change Happen Ltd or Joanne Lockwood. This episode is shared for general interest and discussion; we accept no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any statements made.
