James R. Elliott explores the intricate interplay of confidence, resilience, and authenticity, unveiling how embracing failure, adaptability, and personal balance empowers individuals and leaders to cultivate truly inclusive and thriving cultures.
Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuaryfor bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion,belonging, and societal transformation. Everwondered what it truly takes to create a world where everyone notonly belongs but thrives? You're notalone. Join me as we uncover the unseen,challenge the status quo, and share stories that resonatedeep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you'resipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let'sconnect, reflect, and inspire actiontogether. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversationtoo. Reach out tojo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk toshare 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 Inclusion Bites.Today is episode 158 withthe title confidence, balance, and success.And I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome James RElliott. Hello. James is a transformational coach,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
an international speaker with over twenty four years ofhelping business leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals build thrivingbusinesses whilst maintaining freedom andtheir personal fulfillment. When I asked James to describe his superpower,he said it is empowering people to unlock theirpotential and take action towards a confident,balanced, and successful life. So, James, welcometo the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Joanne. Appreciate it. That's apleasure. We'll chat just now. And, you're, I believe, infrom Toronto in Canada? Yes. I am. Yep. Born and raised here.
James R Elliotguest
Traveled to the world, but born and raised right here at home. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
You're across the border behind the Northern Wall. Yeah. Of,
James R Elliotguest
Exactly. The Northern Trump Wall. The United States Of Trump at the moment. Yeah.We we are. We're behind you that Northern Trump the invisible perhaps Trump wall,but it's there. So, James, it's great to have you
Joanne Lockwoodhost
on. I'm I'm pleased you've given up your time today. Your workrevolves around, confidence is a balance and helping others,because you wanna help them create their life they love. So what inspired you?What got you into this? What's your experience? My life, a life of
James R Elliotguest
a lot of lessons and learning. You may not wish for my life, but butit I love it. And it's been great ups and downs, failures. AndI no longer believe in failure. It's just only growth and learnings and feedback. Youwin or you learn really is, is, is my thoughts. So depending how far backyou want me to go. Long story. Well, I'll start with the start with thecorporate world. And then we come back to the childhood too, but the, the corporateworld learned, learned a lot there working for companies like IBM,Novell, which is the Microsoft, the 1980s and, and Lenovo, thecomputer company. Working for years and years there as well. A variety of roles, alldealing with people, all touching people, all helping people. In fact a lot of mycareer it was my role to support and empower ourresellers our business partners to do well. In variety ofways and when they did well they sold more of our products Thus, we didwell in myself. You know, I was compensated on how well they did. Soit was in my best interest to make sure that a lot of our businesspartners, some very, very small mom and pop shops, multi, multi,multimillion dollar. Like I said, some of the $50.60, dollars 60, dollars 70 millionquarters, some quarters, depending where I was working with. And I, I always had acombination of mom and pop shops who were very proud to when he hit hisfirst million, this one gentleman very, and I was proud of him too. Very proud.I've had, like I said, companies with $30.35, dollars 40,000,000quotas that we're working on. Coming from there, learning alot, learning a great deal, but also learning, you know, how I don't wannarun my business. Learning great leaders, not so great leaders,great cultures, not so great cultures. It it was a fantastic lesson that waywhen I started my own business eleven years ago, helping people.A business is small and large. It's been an incredible journey again, upand down and all around like much of life is and helps us learn highhighs and low lows, just like life, just like leadership, just like entrepreneurship, right?Life has a lot of great stuff. And, and we focus on that. We feelpretty great. Life has a lot of not so great stuff and we focus onthe not so great stuff. We're going to feel not so great. So I've learnedrelated to, to become highly resilient and perseverant. Oneof the things I speak on, one of the things I love to teach isperseverance and, and really how to get through immensechallenges, tough times, adversity, during great times of challenge and changeand how leaders can help themselves and their teams do that too. Because that wasme. It's a very authentic thing that was me persevering throughall the things that, and I'm happy to happy to chat about those. We canget at them too. But that's really how I got into what I, what I,what I do. I I've always been a, I love teaching, always love helping people.I love supporting people. I'm making an impact and really helpingpeople who want to help people. I always love to do that. And so itbecame a fairly natural thing for me, first of the coach and then very, veryquickly transitioned to being speaker teacher. Cause I, I just love giving love teaching love
James R Elliotguest
big audiences. That that's in a nutshell, how, atleast recently, how I got in things, oh, oh, laid off in the height ofmy corporate career, not once, but twice. So, and I, I didn'tlisten to the universe or whoever, whatever the first time. And it was, it wasinteresting, like winning. Not to toot my own horn, but says, add as example,that's going to happen to anyone IBM employee of the year. And then a coupleof years later, laid off corporate downsizing or moving jobs or moving them backhere or doing this. We're shutting in your division, took a year off thesummer of James traveled the world, lived the summer of the cottage, and then, wentback to the corporate world. And almost four years later, you know, calling me,congratulations, James, you've won the awards club. You've won president's club.Amazing work. You blew your numbers away. You did this and that. This is yourgreat work. And I said, great. Well, when is it? Well, they said, well, we'reactually, we're going to give you money instead of letting you come to the awardsevents. I said, why? Why would, why I wanna godown, like, have some fun. See my colleagues. He's like, well, because actually todayis your last day here with us. So I was like, what? Saycongratulations and goodbye. It was it was almost comical. I'm like,are you being serious? He's like, yeah. I am. I'm like, okay. I mean, great.And it was like I won the lottery almost, Joanne, because I I wasn't happy.I wanted out of there. I made great money, but I was I was depressed.I was anxious. I wasn't happy with my life. Fortunately, I think that's a lotof people these days. Yeah. So how's work? Oh, it sucks, but it pays thebills or works work or it's there and works okay. Or I live for theweekends or some permutation of that, which breaks my heart. Sothat's, that's, you know, I thought after the second layoff, I started to pay attentionto the nudges from the universe. I'm like, okay. Okay. It's it's a sign.So then started my own business. I always knew I love to help people. Starteddoing a few things and now found my way here to what I really lovedoing to to empowering people, teaching, speaking, and leading. That is that's
Joanne Lockwoodhost
a fascinating story. I so much of that resonates with me,in that find that epiphany moment where you, yourealize what this core machine is all about. It's never about you, is it? That'sthat's the problem. You think you're the the keypillar. You think you're the driving strategy. You're right in there.And then in a blink, you're irrelevant. And it's like, hang on a minute. Thatwas first of the year. It's exact. And it's a shame that I
James R Elliotguest
suppose that's one thing I love to help organizations with because when people feel likenumbers, they're gonna be disengaged. They're gonna be on this thing all day or, orsocial media or, or actively dis distracted when they feel like numbers, they feel likenot they're valuable. They're just there to push buttons. They can be replaced at anytime. They may they may just will be. When people feel that way, it harmscorporate culture. It harms everything. When people feel like nothing,disposable, worthless, just a number, they can get can go in a blink of aneye, you know, and it's it's ironic. Our parents always say, you'll find a stablejob, get a good, reliable job. There is, I don't that exists thesedays, unless you have your own business. I don't think that exists in, in, inlife anymore. As I learned and you learned in the blink of an eye andthat's why I I do love, you know, with taught teaching leaders just howto have people feel like people because they'll doso much better. They'll go so much further. They'll go way above and beyond whenyou're an awesome leader and you treat people like people and, and really take careof them. Yes. It takes a little extra time air quotes. However,it actually, the long run saves you immense time because people aren't leaving, you don'thave to retrain people. People get greater, greater results, greatersatisfaction, absenteeism, greater performance on the job, greaterproductivity. So actually saves money, saves time in the long, in the longrun by spending a little more time, making sure people, your people are great andgive them what they need. Yeah. I do a lot of work with
Joanne Lockwoodhost
the, middle managers, senior managers. I wouldn't sayboard level, but those people are aspiring. And too often I'm on thesecalls listening to what they're saying. And I feel that they they they drunk thecorporate call aid or whatever the phrase is where they believeif they keep trying, keep their head down, keep pushing, keep pushing, they'll be recognizedas they're spotted. And then there's a change of management. And thensuddenly they find that they've gotta start again. They gotta re rebrown those whatever words you wanna use. They gotta Yeah. Exactly. Or someone brings in
James R Elliotguest
their best friend. Exactly. You're you're right. It happened. I've seen it happen many times.And I've been I cut you off, but you're right. You know, someone's next inline. They're just about there. You don't get promoted, but then they they get sickor someone dies, someone leaves, someone gets hired out or retires or whatever andor downsides. And then you're right. Then the new, the new, new, the new execbrings all his own people, her own people in their own people in.And there where you were at literally almost they walk at the tip of themountain. Well, you gotta climb all the way back up that mountain to to like,is it brown nose your way up or lead your way up or prove yourway up? Yeah. Yeah. But that's the learned behavior, isn't it? It it's
Joanne Lockwoodhost
if you get knocked back down six levels, you you go back to your learnedbehavior, which is how to climb back. I often say to these people, what doyou think is gonna be different this time? Fair. Fair. And they go I said,well, isn't it time to just admit that you need a new strategy? Youneed to attack this from a different way. You need to change jobs, change companies,go on your own, or be more strategic internally because and then I'veI've mentored these people over years and they come back and it happened again. Isaid, okay. So what have we learned this time? What exactly did we learn? Lasttime. And the alert behavior is get back on the same runs and do thesame again and keep trying. I guess you better work harder, work later, show more,
James R Elliotguest
brown knows the same versus you're right changing your strategy there changing.There was a saying I don't know who came up with it might have beenme but if you wanna raise, you know, get one to raise a promotion goget a new go go for it for a new company, versus you know beggingfor a little small little raise at a current company. Go work for new companies,say I'm amazing. This is my experience. If you want me, this is, this iswhat are the, my, my prices to, to have me versus begging andclamoring at a current company. And been there, done that for, fora small raise when you're doing so much. You know? It's getting I mean,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
we've seen examples of of very famous people who'vestarted out as the janitor and ended up as the CEO or whatever. We seethat, but there are there are only a handful of these people in the world,and they've got and they write the books and they tell the story. Well, exactly.The answer is for most people, it's not yeah. As you say,you're better off thinking a different tactic because Ialways find that you get anchored to your starting point. You're alwaysseen as an apprentice, always seen as an intern, always seen as ajunior. And the people around you keep growing around you, andthey always see you five levels below. So you've gotta come in at a higherlevel and people perceive you differently. And that's a that's a real challenge for peopleto escape their mindset. I think, Ray, especially when when peers, and I've seen it,
James R Elliotguest
two peers, one gets promoted and they're now the leader, the manager, the supervisor, andand their body or or just their peers are like, well, I'm not listening toyou. You're you're just one of me. I'm not listening to any causes a lotof issues and then often that leader fails unless they find a way to makeit work or unless they're moved to a totally different team or again, if theygo to a totally different company as a leader that can work better. But you'reright. If they just promoted to a leader of their peers, it's like, oh, it'sjust it's just John. It's just it's just Jane, whatever. They don't really seethem as as absolute authority. So it's it's super, super interesting to seethat as well unless they are moved to a dramatically new team or company.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. I I got out of the corporate life in the nineties. I used towork for a private bank in the city of London. Oh, cool.Global global private bank. And, I remember I had this a fantastic job. I wasin IT, computer at the time. I used to be head ofglobal systems. So I used to deploy PCs and servers, Nobelnetwork, actually, as it happened. There we go. Yeah. Around theworld. They did a big reorg, and then they gave me this new job, whichwas responsible for year 2,000 compliancein, the DECVAC systems, the VACVMSsystems, the Navell, well, the PC. So I was now and I got a letterfrom the IT director saying, basically, if you mess up,your bonus is on the line. And I read this, I thought,one, I don't want the job. Didn't want I was quite I loved my oldjob. The the job I applied for was the one I had. I loved thatjob. I really loved it, and I wanted to keep doing it. Andsecondly, I don't wanna be spoken that way. I don't wanna beso you and I went I I remember handing my notice in the the theHR director took me in. And I sort of sat there. You could see hewas fuming and angry because it to work for a bank, there's a lot ofdue diligence. It probably took them six months worth of due diligence to hire me.And that I'd only been there, like, eighteen months or something. So it was fastthere because I just thought I had their life. And I just went, I'm sorry.I'm out. I'm gonna start my own business. I don't need this anymore. AndI never looked back. Yeah. At the time, I had a good salary and Ithought, wow, what am I doing here? And so when I say to people, sometimesyou gotta make that choice and it I know it's a privilege. Yeah. It's aprivilege to be able to have that choice. Not everybody has that, butyou can always you can always hide behind it and say, I can't. I can't.
James R Elliotguest
And sometimes you just my family, my money, my this, my that. It's I don'tknow how I agreed. Agreed. I, you know, it it's it's it's reallyinteresting to see. And I've seen with people too, they're that they're at a they'rea great, let's say, great sales rep, great leader, but a horrible company. And I'mlike, Leaf, go to a new company. But but I guess, unfortunately,they they pay them quite well because they know they treat them poorly. They paythem quite well at these companies I've seen just enough to keep them there becausethey're like, well, if I go anywhere else, I wouldn't make as much, which Ithink is is a limiting belief. It's a bit true because, yeah, they do paythem well so they can abuse them so they don't leave. But also, like, shesaid, well, this is what I do. I sell this right. I lead this typeof company. Well, could you not sell that or lead that type of company? Andthey, their thoughts are, well, no, this is all I know how to sell. Thisis all no leadership skills, sales skills are peopleskills, relationships, skills, they're cross. It could work for you could sell bread orspaceships. It's people skills. It's asking questions of talking to people, leading it,understanding people, making people people feel human and engaging people. Thosebeliefs are excuses. Like you said, I can't because blankis is Yeah. Been there. I can't get married. I can't start a family. I
Joanne Lockwoodhost
can't buy a house. I can't. I can't. I can't. Because, because, because.Yeah. And the other thing this bank did was that they their bonusculture, they paid a really good bank as bonus as most banks do in othercompanies, is that you got the bonus, but it you gotawarded it, but you didn't get it for another three or four months afterwards. Sotherefore, you're always earning the next bonus before you got thelast bonus. So you're always in arrears. So you always had three or four monthsthat you left. If you leave, you lose, basically. That's really interesting.You've already started investing in the next year. You you you youput I'm not sure whether you lost the entire bonus for what you had, butthere was this kind of like, well, I've already invested another four months before Ihad it. So I think it's like again, it sucks you in. Deliberate. Verydeliberate. But I remember those days. You you mentioned that, you know, you started backin the ML network, Microsoft. And I I go backto, I suppose, my first IT job was 1984. IBMPCs, HP Vectras at the time, floppy disk, firstApple Mac, a little tiny portable Apple Mac thing.And I remember those days it was very you know, we talk aboutiOS versus Android today. This the battle of the platforms. In those days,we had IBM, the big, the big monoliths, in Microsoft, the upupstart coming in, then we had different versions of DOS. Then we had Windows, wehad OS two, We had Novell network. And at least people became veryyou could see how people becoming really invested in their tech in their tech andtheir specialists. And and it I look back on that and think, when we talkabout culture and inclusion and and diversity, or this sort of thing, people werevery prisoners to their tech side, didn't they? And wherever GoFound come to ourNobel network died like everything else. Microsoftphone died. IBM changed its modelcompletely. True. Completely. Exactly. Lots of services now, you know,
James R Elliotguest
and, in software, less hardware, lots of service. It's interesting to I think whenthings change, I because change is the only constant. And that's that's why I thinkwe need to learn that that that perseverance, that resilienceduring, again, times of challenge change, adversity, because that's the only thing that wecan really rely on these days is that there will be change. Is that thingsare gonna get shaken up? Is it tomorrow, with Trump tariffs? Is it twoyears from now with another war? Is it whatever it is economy up anddown all around? But to your point, I think we need to also change people'sthinking and get rid of the I can't or we that's gonna cost too muchor that it'd be too hard or too long or too whatever or not enoughwhatever. Because then nothing changes and then inevitablylike Kodak. Kodak invent they invented the digital camera but theyburied it at a vault because they're like, well, no. This is gonna cannibalize allour film sales. This is a bad idea. So let's not do it. We'll hideit. And then now Kodak said a business. Blockbuster is the same. Now let's notdo this online thing because then people are not gonna come out of our storesand buy our things. That's gonna wreck it. But inevitably now blockbusters out ofbed and there's just millions of examples like that. The people that didn't adapt tochange or nope we're not changing and they stand firm and because change isthe only thing that's going to happen that you know is going to happen. AndI think that there was zillions and again, perseverance. Okay. Well, thatdidn't work. Let's try that. This didn't work. Let's try that. And, and okay, thisis happening. Let's try this. Yeah. That'swhy perseverance and inclusion can be such great and hot topics these days.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. Because I when I was my own IT business, we're just at cusp fromon premise servers to cloud, and we were a breakfix sort of service provider where we we wanted things to break. We wantedhardware to go wrong. And then the world was moving very quickly into a cloudbased five nines, reliable, doesn't godown. So trying to pivot the skill set and the business model tobeing a managed service all in. And inevitably,that's that's a kind of a cliff edge because you've got to invest for noreturn and hope to grow that element. And and your customers aren't always ready forit either, are they? Yep. Fair. Fair. And and take that risk like you said.
James R Elliotguest
You know, you live on that edge. And and I think fate favors thefearless. You you go all in intelligently, but you go all in. Andand I think fate can favor you versus we're gonna wait, we're gonnahesitate, or we're gonna take this slow, we're not gonna do that, orburying our our head and things, I think can be a very, very dangerous thing,but for business, for success for growth, honestly, it's like,well, how can we be changing? If things are changing, the world is changing, howcan we constantly be changing and evolving ourselves?Which is what I suppose led me to be where I am now. I'm
James R Elliotguest
constantly learning, constantly growing with courses, mentors, trainings, you nameit. I think that is for me anyways, it's somethingthat's been helped me become the man I am, the leader I am, but alsoas fulfilling it is and creating the success going back to our ourtitle. It's creating that success, is byplanning to change, planning for change and and having a almost a almosta change and growth roadmap for yourself and for your team.Otherwise, because you're literally falling down the mountain versus climbing up themountain because someone's have a, someone's got a rocket pack and they're going to rocketup the mountain ahead of you, or whatever metaphor you want to use. I thinkit's a very important to have that, that authorized vision. And to be able tohandle the bumps in the road too, because there will be some and, and theycan be the greatest learnings and sometimes the brightest spots orhighlight the bumps in the road. I find can highlight your brightest stars in thebusiness, in the company too. Your brightest employees, the brightest spots, the bestpeople because if they stick around and stand strong and say what can I do?How do you need me? And they they take responsibility for things. I think thatcan that can reveal some of your best people you wanna keep around forever. That'sfor sure. Yeah. In those times of stress and challenge, isn't it? That's
Joanne Lockwoodhost
where the, as you say, the the spotlight, the shine, it's people who canhandle that adversity. It's growth mindset. It'ssolution mindset rather than rather than learned behaviors, rather thanrigid structure. You tell me what to do. I need to be managed. I've gotyeah. I give up. Yeah. Exactly. I don't know what to do. Yeah. Yeah.
James R Elliotguest
Right on. But business need a need a blend. I mean, going back to this
Joanne Lockwoodhost
diversity of of personality type, it's if if everybodywas a a go getty idea person, you'd have you'd have to keep the showon the road stuff. We'd have no operations. We'd be changing everything everyfive seconds. And everyone's got a a better idea. Just trying to find thatblend, isn't it? I think you're right. It is. And having supporting everyone's
James R Elliotguest
spark, I think. Because you're right. There's we need we need technical people, we needvisionary people, we need people, people, relationship people, all these kind of things.Yeah. It's it's that making sure that that balance isthere. Cause you want, you want more than one type of person in your, inyour, on your team and people to compliment you as well, but also finding theirspark, finding what lights them up, supporting that, cause then they'll stay, they'll dobetter. They'll be excited. You know, helping me, hey, maybe helping them find that spark
James R Elliotguest
because some people don't want it is or they don't wanna let it out forwhatever reason and being seen or judged or heard or orhated on or whatever. I think people there's thisinternal conflict. People want to be seen and heard for theirtheir authentic, you know, value and and who they are, but also then the thefears of what if what if I speak up and people don't like it orthey they fire me or I they think I'm stupid or or whatever.Whatever it is, right, ruffle some feathers. And my biggest thing is be authentic.And if you're authentic and being real and and and as not permission to bean ass for, but it's it's, you know, being being raw and real and andand yes, sharing your opinions, share your thoughts whether you're not been or whether you'reyou're someone at a at akind person, then that's not that's not the firm for you. Or if you're afraidthat you're gonna get fired or think you get fired for being real and authentic.Well, it's often just a limiting bully for a fear, an unfounded fear.And again, like I said, if you do get laid off or fired, you're probablynot happy there anyways. I can almost bet my reputation on the fact that you'renot happy and fulfilled there anyways. If you can't be you and speak up orspeak out and contribute, or they're not letting you shine your light sounds a littleairy fairy, but they're not letting you, you show your bright spots and andreally what lights you up, what you're passionate about, because that's gonna make you themost productive, you know, a leader, team member, mentor, friend, you nameit. You talked by the beginning around,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
growing, making mistakes, failing quick, learning fast. And some of that goes back to whatyou talked about this fear is is this concept of psychological safety, isn't it? Youknow, making sure we can bring ourself into intointo the workplace. We can learn and grow, and wecan make mistakes because, as you said, how many children doyou know that learned to walk without falling over, without bumping the head, withoutgrazing their knee? Exactly. Exactly. Doesn't happen, does it? You have toif you if you get it right every time, you don't know what the magicsauce was to get it right. Exactly. It's only when you make a misstep thatyou you suddenly learn, course correct, learned.Don't do that again. It hurts if I do that. Well, and that's what you're
James R Elliotguest
right. That's what sometimes people with just pure natural talent, coincidentally,sometimes they're not very good teachers. Because they're like, well, you just do it doit less. Like, do it do it like I do. And you're like, what? Like,what are you talking about? So sometimes it's ironic that sometimes that that the truenatural talent, if it was easy for them, it's not easy for most people. Sothey often don't make a great teacher. Now that's not that doesn't always hold holdfast and to hold through, but they're like, because they didn't know what it waslike to fail and to fall and watch it for this or don't do that.And when you're driving your bike, heaven forbid, don't do that with just getting wheelbecause you're gonna fall versus someone that just jumped on a bike and naturally, well,this is pretty easy. You know, have they allowed really good balance and it waseasy to them. You know, just get on and start riding. That's, that's all youdo when you're falling over. You're like, I don't, I don't understand this. I don'tget it. But, but no, you're coming back to your point. It is really interesting.I like to throw rocks at culture, a corporate culture that that makesit not okay to fail. Not okay to take risks, not okay to try, notokay to, you know, contribute and and say something that that people like,well, we don't we don't agree with that or we'll take that and pause thator no. Yes, no, maybe. I think, you know, that the corporate culture thatpunches failing and rewards the, the monotonyrobot like employee, which is not gonna give you the highestperformance you want. And they're not gonna be happy either as humans are notrobots. I think that that can be a very dangerous culture that thatpunishes or or just says failure is bad. Trying things is bad. Risk isbad. But it's not. It's it's how I mean, if the Wright brothers didn'trisk falling, we would never have fly. They obviously crashed a lot of times. You
Joanne Lockwoodhost
just don't see the footage. Exactly. They sure did. In fact, I
James R Elliotguest
think I think it was Wilbur Wilbur Wright. About a year before theygot the first flying airplane, he said, man, I will not fly for thousandsof years because they were using traditional outdated thinking,science, models, research. And they said, let's throw all that out. And let's,let's do our own like research thinking, but let's, let's look at a fresh viewof, of this flight thing at a f and then again, a year later, theyhad a flying airplane versus years of crashing and falling and not working because theywere using someone else's limitations, limiting beliefs, models, fears, worries.This can happen. This can't happen. This is possible. This is not possible. Allthat stuff. It's amazing. The the how thing I mean, one of the one ofthe founders of IBM once said computers are just not that We may have afew of them in the world, maybe at libraries and universities, but peep no oneneeds a computer in their home. What what what are they gonna do with it?I have, like, literally on my desk, four of them right now. One, two, three,and then four. It's been exactly. Exactly. That's exactly. You have one on your arm.You have a computer. Yeah. It's a thing. My ears. These things have
Joanne Lockwoodhost
got sound processing up in my headphones. Exactly. It's it's it's
James R Elliotguest
just a thing in my phone. The Apollo spaceships probably in my ears.Correct. Exactly. Probably all the computing power in literally ease andbeyond is probably in my phone right now. The eighties, every computer back to, Iguess, what, fifties when Eniac and, the other one was invented probably sits inmy phone, all the computing power in the world, the sixties, seventies, and eighties.So it's just it's just interesting. Yeah. That's some of this thinking,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
our massive hole in the concept of the meritocracy, this belief in the BSof meritocracy. Mhmm. I I can't remember what so I saw something on LinkedIn.It was an article. I I don't remember what which what what it was, butthe concept was basically a grade studentsdon't make the best leaders and entrepreneurs because the cgrade students know what it's like to work hard and fail, work hard andfail. They know the crap, but a grade students tend tohave an aptitude to get things right, and they focus on getting things right. Oh,and they get really frustrated when they get it wrong, but but they believe they'reright. And the meritocracy is often geared up for the a graders, notthe school of hard knocks and the triers. Yeah. I don'twanna quote the name, but Trump, he's messed up a lot in his life.He's made a lot of mistakes. I dare say Musk has as well. And thesebig people that you Agree. Credit. Let's talk about the meritocracy. Themeritocracy comes from a life of hard knocks andthe attrition, not just being snapsnapshot, that veneer of being great. True. True. And
James R Elliotguest
there's the Dunning Kruger effect, which people that they think they're dash, if they thinkthey're people that have some skill think they're actually better than they are. And Ithink to your point, that happens a lot with those, the, the A graders, ifyou will. In fact, we had to, had to let someone go. We onboarded someonerecently, let her go in a few days, 131 IQ. Very niceperson, but just, it didn't work without putting her down. It just it130 cute, very smart person. But some, some of the basic stuffit's like, what it's and there's been many times,many of those people too. I've, I've been hired many bright people and it didn'twork out because it just many reasons either. You're right. Dunning Kruger effect. I thinkthey're better than what they are or just a no school hard knocks.No. Well, what do I do if this happens? What do you do if thisbreaks versus okay? Like, I can't do anything to last. James will. What would you
James R Elliotguest
do? What what might you do? What could you do right now instead of waitingtill I'm gonna be able to ask me, okay, this broken, what do I do?So it is really interesting, Joanne, to to to to see those, like Isaid, and I hate how the current school system, and I have several problems withit. I think it creates robots and it makes peep designs people to beautomatons in a, in a, in a, you know, industrial world, corporate world, I suppose.But not even, not even successful corporate people because the corporate world still use greatthinkers, great innovators, people who go above and beyond and think outside thebox versus just do what you're told. Now there's obviously some people in the, inthe corporate world that do that, but there's a lot of people, you know, sitdown, raise their hand, ask permission. If you want a water or one of thebathroom. Seriously, like, and just, and, and you're having little boys sit downand behave, shut up when I don't think little three, four, five year old boysshould be made to sit down and shut up. That's not how they're designed. Imean, it's, it's, it's anyways, I've several problems with the school systems thesedays, but again, one of them is, is just that it doesn't really teachpeople to be, you know, outside the box thinkers that and go above andbeyond and and just be super creative versus k. Two plus two isfour. Great. On a test, let's write two. But versus versus how can you becreative? How can you solve problems and and look at things and think abstractly?I I, unfortunately, I have a I loathe some of the some of the currentschool systems and and how they teach because, just because of that and and whatyou just said. Yeah. We gotta meet people where they're at
Joanne Lockwoodhost
sometimes. In in today's world, we recognize people have different learning,different thinking styles, neurotypical neurodivergent thinkingstyles. And we go back to the school years when I was19, where you were put in theclass for, for people who were useless, for want of a better phrase of puttingit. You were you were written off and you got nothing. You were allowed to,I don't know, play games and and draw with crayons. That was about that wasabout you a lot at school. And now we're recognizing that byby meeting people where they're at and their style,people can thrive and fly. Huge. Huge. Huge. I'm
James R Elliotguest
neurodiverse too on OCD and ADHD. And if I'm thank goodness I wasn't well,in a way, thank goodness I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my last yearof university. Cause like, who knows what box I would have put in or what,what sped group I would have been put in or God knows what, how Iwould have been looked at. And because again, Pete, these notions would teach us, oh,he's this, he's that she's this, she's that, or not this, not that It madeit hella hard for me to go through school and to get certain certain subjects.I got great marks in because the ADHD can help you hyperfocus and bejust hyper super interested and excel in certain things that youlove and your interest. And then, of course, you may get extremely hard. Math isone of mine to excel in something that you're you're you're no interest. You're boringand and and you become not good at it. Luckily, in our in our inmost of our careers or our entrepreneur worlds, we can outsource and hire out andwe do we don't do we don't love. We do what we love as entrepreneurs.So luckily, it's an amazing superpower. If there's any young people outthere or even people in the corporate world that have whatever neurodivergent youare a OCD ADHD or whatever, whatever you are.You know, go find, go find somewhere where you want, where you love working andmaybe go start your own business and doing things you love. If there's any kidslistening, avoid worrying. You'll, you'll find yoursuperpower and and go out and do that and avoid letting you know. And I'lltell you, you can't because blank. You can't becausethis. You can't because of that. I met a a gentleman, I guess,homeless ish person. And, and I said, well, you know, what are you doing? Whatdo you how did you how did you become a homeless? He said, well, Iwas in the military, and he's like, so and but I hurt my leg. Andhe's like, so I can't work. And I'm like, there's like hoursor half days. I don't get off my ass in a given day that Idon't get off my butt. And and this, this, it was sointeresting to me and bizarre, but interesting that his belief, I can't workbecause there's a million things he could do with, with having a badleg. But again, just, just not, it just in his realm of, and his,of thinking outside the box and what he's been taught. It was, it was fascinating,fascinating to me. And my broke my heart too. Anyone who's at school
Joanne Lockwoodhost
today or in that sort of teenage college lookingto think about their career, they could've start thinkingten years ahead because I think the the phrase is skate where the puck's going,not where the not where the puck is going. Winguretsky. Good Canadian.You wind the clock back, I don't know, let's say four four four or fiveyears. AI. AI. When anyone said, hangon a minute. We wanna be investing in AI big time. Everybody needs to investin AI big time. Don't know what you're talking about. AI reason is exactly It'sscience fiction. Don't need it. Like, try a good talk about the Terminator movie, you
James R Elliotguest
know? Exactly. You know, when I was at at leaving school, nobody wanted to
Joanne Lockwoodhost
be a social media expert in the nineteen eighties. Nobody wanted to be a LinkedIntrainer, social selling person,deliverer, food delivery person, or a just eat person.These technologies didn't exist. You don't have to aspire to whatis the incumbent vogue, if you like. What's happening now?It's looking where that puck's going and thinking to yourself, I see here.Maybe I need to build a trajectory and get some skills, but you'vegotta be agile. You've gotta keep looking at their eyes. Agreed. And and and well,
James R Elliotguest
let me wing Gretzky skate where the puck's going because you're right. What what whatis a trend? What are emerging trends? What could I get into versus,you know, what is a what is a a business that may not be there?What is a job type in the future that may not be there in thefuture because of AI or automation or robots or or whatever? You know, Ithink, look at, okay, what what could I do? What would I love to do?What would light me up? Pretending that anything was possible becauseit is, but let you know, for people that maybe that's not quite the realmyet, pretending that ending is possible. What would you do? What could you do? Whatwould you love to do? And either maybe find someone like that, find a bunchof people like that. I mean, that's what the creators of Google did. They like,let's, hey, let's build this thing together or go create it yourself, orfind maybe find a company that that is doing that or or maybe getting intothat, and you can help them develop it too. And and then my goodness, thatwould light me up as well. So I think would light people up too.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Alright. Let's let's take a a year ago, would anybodyhave said that Google could be displaced as a search engine? Hit it on.How's that possible? You know? OpenAI come out and say, right, you can now useAI to to search. You don't need rankings and keywords. Itit won't even return your website perplexity. It'll do all this research foryou. Suddenly, search engines are becoming irrelevantbecause they're it's all proportionate to the effort you put into the search.Now you could just say, tell me how to make a cake. What sort ofcake do you want? I want this sort of cake. Oh, this is how youdo it. This is a recipe. Agree. Yeah. Exactly. And if you need new oven,buy this one. It's and it's yeah. It's I just think we're I knowpeople are scared of this, but people are scared of the motor car. People arescared of steam engines. People were and it's how we tame it withoutwithout creating Skynet, I guess, is the key thing. Well, and and that's the other
James R Elliotguest
thing too. Exactly. But but without, you know, with the creating Skynet, but also withoutit's funny you say that. Without also thinking, I'm trying to remember remember a quote.I can't remember who it was, but they're like, these these these car things, thisis just a fad. The the horse has always been there. The horse will thehorse and carriage will always be there. It's the way we do it. These thesecars are gonna be just a fad, and they're dangerous, and they're smelly, and they'resmoggy. And, I mean, that's probably true. But but but but andthen, you know, we we we our cars are dominant, transportationnow. It's so interesting that the thinking that happens and thelimited thinking, but but to your point exactly, I think you're absolutely right. And the
Joanne Lockwoodhost
first cars were were electric, weren't they? They weren't petrol or or steamoperated. There was a a lot of electric ones. So, yeah, it it's we're comingaround again. Someone had a vested interest in fossil fuels to obviously sellthem to to make petrol. Sure. A lot of exactly. A lot of vested
James R Elliotguest
interest. Yes. So we we talk about the entrepreneurial spirit and the mindset. You
Joanne Lockwoodhost
know, we've introduced escape where the putts going, looking atopportunities, looking around in your business, not stagnating or become theblockbuster or no avail net way or something. As an entrepreneur,you have to, a, run your business, b, think of the future,lifelong learning, but you've gotta reserve some time for you, haven't you? How how doyou stop yourself burning out? There's we've talked about balance and freedom here. Yeah. Howto be balanced? It's it's hue and it's it's so important. I I burned up
James R Elliotguest
many times in my corporate career. I've seen people burn out, employees and leaders.I burnt out my entrepreneur business too. Because the and there's there's gotta bebalance. And when there's not, people don't perform well. Burnt out people are not highperformers. No wonder there's all so much absenteeism these days or depression orsick leave or or stress leave or whatever people leave for.I think here right people don't have boundaries with themselves and othersto make sure. And I used to do this to my oh, no. Yeah. Ican talk to you during my lunch hours. I'll just move this appointment book. Isaid, I'll just delete my lunch. That doesn't happen anymore. No. My my lunchis this time. My my my my free time flow time is no. No. You'renot. Nope. Nope. Nope. I I mean, if something's an emergency or or high I'msure I'll I'll shift that. But if it's a day that there's no other timeto to take a break, you're not getting in my lunch hour. You're not gettingin my nap time, you know? And and I think that's important as as asalmost our our culture, which I also throw rocks at the culture in North America.Hopefully, definitely less in Europe and and South America. Maybe I'm not sure about TheUK but our culture is the the whole work, work, work, work, work, work, work,and whoever works the most or the hardest wins which I think canactually lead to failure. It's whoever works the most effectively, the mostefficiently, most creatively. And while they while they, you know, andinspire others, empower others, lead others to success, those that's who wins, not justwork, work, work, work, work harder. That person in the earliest, the office andout the latest and not had little people bragging about how little sleep theyhave. How about we brag about success or how much you got doneand how little time versus, and I did this too. I was there. Oh, Ionly slept, you know, five hours last night. Cause I w I worked like, youknow, eighteen hours last night and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All thatnonsense. No wonder there's so much burnout and depression andsuicide too. And again, been there, been there, done that suicidal thoughts, depression,anxiety, all this stuff, which came from yes, intense, intense bullying,and being picked on physically and mentally for years, but also just killing myself, burningmyself out, wanting to look good for others, wanting so hard for people to likeme being so inauthentic. It just fries us. So just tying into thetheme here of, of self care and, and burnout. Some of that is, is yes,you're meditating reflection. What's working in your life. What's not working.Because that'll make you reflect and, that'll make you excuse to help you grow whenyou reflect and there's action and reflection. There's progress. Noreflection. No progress. You're just on that treadmill going, going, going, goingwithout realizing why are the trees not moving? Oh, I'm in a freakingtreadmill. Just running, running, running my hardest, but not going anywhere. That's why thetrees aren't moving by. I think people need to really take, take stock about, youknow, taking breaks and being okay, taking breaks, being okay, taking vacation. Not one ofthese people that, oh, I don't take any vacation or I don't take breaks. SoI haven't taken vacation years. That's not helping you be a highperformer. That is not helping you think creatively. Immediate Einstein, Henry Ford,Edison, all the greats have said, you know, evenOprah Winfrey even, Huffington, Martha Stewart even. I know she's a
James R Elliotguest
bit out of favor now, but they've all said that all, all the greats ofthe, of the years have all said that mygreatest ahas and creativity and awareness moments and moments ofgenerating ideas and solutions came when I was resting or doingsomething else or doing self care and doing something else, not when I was inthe middle of the thing. So and I, I experienced that dailytoo, because I make darn sure this time for me to play, to meditate,how whatever your meditation is, going for a walk, it could be thinking, it couldbe not thinking whatever your practice is. Listen to music, justchilling, whatever it is, whatever it is, enjoying, I don't know, sitting,enjoying my thing often before I, I developed an allergy tochocolate with just sitting and just, you know, letting bites of chocolate dissolvein my mouth and just taking a few moments and just just like thoseBueno commercials or Aero commercials or whatever it is. I think we need thattime. Wait. I know we need that time. And I've seen myself and people thatdon't take some whatever the time is, maybe it's to go for a run. It'sdifferent for each. It's different for all of us. Don't have to go for arun. Maybe it's just going for a walk or sitting and doing nothing ordreaming or thinking or playing. Time to havefun to never. And that's a whole nother thing. But at least time that timeto for for self care. Maybe it's a massage. Maybe it'swhatever it is. As an entrepreneur, I don't have health benefits becauseI'm an entrepreneur, but I you're darn right. I pay for weekly massages. That's mythat's one of my biggest self cares. And sometimes it's twice a week because that'smy boy. Why does that ever charge me? Wow. Does it ever charge me?I think we need to have that whatever that is, whatever you do, and that'sfine. If it's sitting and closing your eyes for half an hour or an houror twenty minutes, I used to take nap. I go to a small, and atfar edge of the floor, a breakout room and put my chair against the wall,and I just wouldn't nap. For fifteen, twenty, I come back. I know totallynew man, totally new person. But, I think so many people are soworried about getting so much, getting enough done that no lunches,no breaks, and they actually don't realize that that causes them to work laterand and to be less effective as they work later because there's after thirtyfive hours, there was a decline in performance after I think it's 45 or 46or 50. I might be getting the studies wrong. It just, it itjust nosedives, productivity. And then after I think it's fifty hours, you're getting less done.Actually, less done than you did if you worked less than fifty hours.So, anyways, end of rant. Self care people, please. It's mandatory, notoptional. I I read another story somewhere. Again, I
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I'm gonna give my version in of interpretation of it is, you know, if youwant if you want to create a process or change or get someoneto investigate something, give it to a lazy person. Because a lazyperson is more likely to find an optimal solutionrather than someone who is trying to overthink and overcommit andcreate all these permutations. The lazy person will find the optimal least effortsolution, which is sometimes what you want. Very true. Yeah. I I I've heard I've
James R Elliotguest
I've heard that. I've heard the other saying it's if you want something done quick,give it to a busy person because I'll just they'll be on it, get itdone. And to your point, if you want something changed or a new way ofgoing, yes, give it to a lazy person because well, horses weren't fast enough.What would be faster than horses? Oh, cars. Cars are faster. And then what wouldbe faster than cars? Maybe we'll be, we'll be rocketing through tubes orsomething. You know, in the next five, ten, twenty, forty,eighty years, what is rocket so tubes back and forth? But, but yeah, exactly.Being lazy. How do we get there faster? How do you do this fast? Howdo we do this easier? Well, let's have a fridge that opens itself and like,I don't know, hands you up, soda or something or brings it to you inthe, in the living room. I kinda heard when I was in my IT days,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I kinda had this kind of mental subroutine that used to say tome, am I gonna do this more than once? Am I gonna do this manytimes? In which case, it's a subroutine. It's something that I need to create aboilerplate. I need to create a template. I need to be able to pick apackage up and modify it, not do it not do it time and time andtime again. And as coders, as programmers, you have snippets and codeblocks you you you just paste in. Yeah. Yeah. I think people who haven't hada maybe that sort of upbringing don't understand that, yeah, theduplicate and and copy and and edit. Okay. Now now in today'stechnology, right click duplicate, right click copy is is de facto, but itwasn't in the old days. We have free free technology. It's
James R Elliotguest
totally true. And and I think too, especially for for entrepreneurs or or even peoplein in a corporate environment that that make a suggestion. Hey. I'm doing this multipletimes a day. How do we automate this? How do we outsource this? How dowe turn this into a process or a computer subroutine or AI ad or whatever?Because we're just doing the doing. And I think people does a limiting belief thatit just takes you a few minutes. It's not a big deal, but you doa few minutes a thousand times. You get several thousand hours,which is several weeks worth of of lost productivity. I think I'm if I'm
James R Elliotguest
if I'm calculating a person, you know, it's so until whether it'sentrepreneurs or leaders, look what your team is doing or look what you are doingover and over again. Even if it's doesn't take that long, anything you touchtwice or do twice or thrice or, or a thousand times, yes, it'lltake a little more time to, to automate or outsource or whateverchange or whatever, get a system for that. But maybe it takes five, ten, 20times the amount of time then to just do it yourself. But after that, thenext million repetitions are gonna save you hundreds or maybe thousands ofhours. So I like you said, Joanne, it's it's exactly the case. It's exactly. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Push the button. Push the button and watch it happen. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
James R Elliotguest
Exactly. That's why there's AI watching that there's no even but it just happens. There'sno even button put it. It happens eventually. You're right. And we're we're we're there
Joanne Lockwoodhost
now. Extension. A Chrome extension will do that for you. Yeah. Exactly. Out there. Yep.
James R Elliotguest
It's cheap or free and easy. And I think to give people more interesting,more creative tasks as well as a, as a way to, to grow people, givethem more time to play. I mean, some of the best companies in the worldgive their employees an hour an hour a day or a few hours a weekto, to play and, and make things and break things versus now you gotta bepushing buttons all day long. And I think that that's a mistake. That's a bigmistake, I think, to do. I think I think the other side of that is
Joanne Lockwoodhost
is there's also a personal fulfillment increativity. Yeah. That kind of thing you're talking about there is theequivalent of a a blank sheet of paper and a crayon for a five yearold. Draw me a picture. Just scribbles, whatever it maybe. Your brain needs to go into scribble mode, doesn't it? And just play withstuff. And that I think that's what we need to recognize for ourselves asentrepreneurs. We need to scribble. My my problem is,yeah, probably a bit like your brain, is I I've constantly got these shinythings coming towards me. I wanna play with that. I wanna play with that. Iwanna do some e learning. I wanna develop my book. I wanna write this andI wanna do that. I bought myself a I've got myself a drone for mysixtieth birthday last last month. I've got this drone in the box. I think Ineed to go out and fly that. Oh, I don't wanna do that. I don'twanna do that. So I've got all these shiny objects around me, and it's tryingto find the the one that I can get to today. Fair.Fair. Yeah. I'm always always learning, always trying to develop these skills. Look at myYouTube, I I'll spend fifty hours on YouTube on a topic,and I'll suck it to death. I'll absorb it all. It's a bit like,is it what's that what's that spoof sci fi film where the thethe the brain monster sucks your brains out, doesn't it? The, was itspace thing? I know it's strange. Cowboys, was it,or something like that? Space cowboys. You're right. Brain monster that But it is brainmonster. Brain monster. Brain. But, like, I'm I'm doing that. I'm sucking all this knowledgeout of YouTube. And then another shiny thing would go on. I'm gonna spend anotherfifty hours sucking the information out of there. It's I mean, maybe it's more likethe matrix where you're plugging the Apache helicopter module into your neck anddownloading the pilot mode. Pilot. Your helicopter pilot. And it's
James R Elliotguest
interesting too because all this goes back to to to, I guess, our themeof of of perseverance, of resilience, of of growth,of success as well. Because I think when we're learning and everyoneis gonna say, I don't have time, no time to read a book, don't havetime to learn. And I think gently I would invite people to callthemselves on that and call themselves out because if you're on this thing all dayor if you're scrolling at night for desk scrolling or if you're watching, Idon't watch TV, but if you're if you're watching any amount of TV a aday, not to not to say don't play. Definitely have time, have play of fun,whatever your thing is, but at least, you know, maybe take half an hour, fortyminutes a day, less TV or less doom scrolling or whatever andinvest whether it's YouTube, whether it's books, whether it's whatever invest. Now, YouTube, you cango down rabbit holes. That's why some of these books are great and books willhelp you sleep more than doom scrolling on YouTube at 1AM. But fine,
James R Elliotguest
even it even twenty, ten minutes a day to read twenty minutes, whatever you want,forty, whatever you want, an hour, five minutes, even turn a few pages because ina year you're going to have one or three books done versus none. So Ithink that that that all this we're talking about ties back in a theme ofperseverance and resilience, and growth andsuccess. Because I think when if people are growing ahead ofyou or when not if, but when people are growing ahead of you and toyour point that that getting and getting that job, getting that C suite, getting promoted,or if it's an entrepreneur, you know, getting the new customers or being seen asdifferent and unique, and why people buy people should buy youversus people buying someone else. That education,that research, nevermind just telling you people, Hey, you know, I read, you know, Iread 10 books a week type thing. It sounds pretty great. Or one book whoI read one book a week or whatever it is. It, it, you know, I'malways learning whatever you, however you, you explain it to people. That,that sounds great too. They I want to learn from someone who is always learning.I don't want to learn from someone who never learns and never picks up abook or research as a topic or a new topic or never plays, that's nota that's someone I wanna learn from. I think that contributes to our success toobased on by going back to our theme. Yeah. I one of the things
Joanne Lockwoodhost
that you I think you you said it's part of your what you do andthe word freedom was in there. Yes. And I often reflect on thatword. What does freedom mean to me? It means freedom ofchoice, freedom of this, freedom of that. It means I'm not dependent onsome someone else, something else. Sustainable business, sustainable income,sustainable food source, heating, lighting, housing. So wetake freedom for granted because when we get illor sick or poorly, we start to lose our agency, don't we? Because thenwe're now what we thought was freedom was just short lived. And one thing Irealized five years ago probably, that I was approachingmy sixtieth and I thought, hang on a minute. I wanna be able to keepgoing until I'm 75 Heck yeah. Really. I can't waituntil I'm 70 to make that choice. So I realized I wasinvesting in my business, marketing, branding, consulting,computing, all this kind of stuff. But I wasn't investing in me and I wasthe core cog in my business. So for me, whenI said about freedom, I need to make sure that my health and well-beingand fitness is part of that freedom model and not just money. It'salso the ability to enjoy that money. It's what and exactly. And I mean,
James R Elliotguest
look so many, as you know, so many people are tired, you'll say, our parentshave save your money for retirement, getting a good stable job, save your money forretirement. And in retirement, most people can't do anything depending on how old you retire.Right. Or what you do or how how well or not you do, especially ifyou haven't taken care of yourself. You she can't, you know, hike mountains and travelthe world if you haven't taken care of yourself in your retirement. But yeah, it'syour point. And I've been there. I've I still got the stretch marks right herefrom when I was when I was clinically obese and and, you know, chronicsuffering from chronic fatigue and just exhaustion and burnoutand not being able to lose weight and all these things, brain fog, youknow, just cause it fatigue, cloudy, blinking. And then nowto living how I am now. Yes. I love food. Yes. I have treats aswell. But it's just that being healthy, exercising, living healthy. However, that looksto someone. You don't have to go to the gym if you don't want to,you don't have to do whatever. But I think that it's important to find whetherit's soccer or whether it's jumping a medallion or skipping or martial arts orgym or running or walking. Walking is one of the best forms of exerciseactually burns a higher percentage of fat. It just takes a little longer. So ifyou want to walk and walk for an hour, hour and twenty, not that ahalf hour walk is not great for you, but in terms of walk for anhour or run for twenty five, twenty, twenty five minutes, it's it's it's a choice.But again, whatever people do, I think is is fine. They don't have to do,you know, join a circuit training or a dance class or whateverthe the exercise and just and eat better. I've learned thateating and and diet is is a huge, huge thing, even to the pointof where certain foods still will make me exhausted, will make medepressed, anxious foods and will affect our mentalhealth. Huge. You know, when I eat properly, I eat well. Again, I snackand treat once in a while. Of course, you know, I enjoy life like maybe90% healthy, 10%, you know, snacks. Even this day, I findmy productivity will nose dive my mood, my energy, my, my, my brain clutterwill nose dive when I'm having junk as well. And, people it'sit's, it's not just me. It happens to everyone. It's just sometimes people are sostuck in that. I'll call it a rut of unhealthy eating. They don't realize whatthey could be, how productive they got, how much better their brain can work, howmuch more successful they could be, how much more money they can make with thathealth, Joanne. And and and like you said, being able to enjoy your money laterand let alone dying young. I mean, the statistic has changed a bit duringthe, you know, the the the, you know, '56, '40, '50, '60, '70. Onaverage, people died eight to twelve months after they retired. That'shorrible. Yeah. Horrible. Working your way and then but kinda that'sit. And that's what screwed up the social security in most countries is because that
Joanne Lockwoodhost
was the case. Now people live twenty years after they retire, and the pensions andthe investments were never geared up for that longevity. And, people need toretire later. I'm just not I'm agree. I'm not sure I'm ready to retire yet.I I quite enjoy what I'm doing. If someone said, we I'm on my lastfive years, I think. I've got so much left to give. I've I've started anotherlease of life, another another another another crazy idea I wanna get on this.
James R Elliotguest
Which is beautiful which is beautiful, Joanne. I mean, peep people is people only retirefrom what they don't love and don't like doing anymore. And so if you don'tlike it, do something else versus I mean, no wonder people eitherdie young or, or would they retire or get depressed or anxious orsuicidal? I would do if I just sat and watch TV all day or drankor ate or smoke all day long. If I had nothing else, no other purposeI would do. I would get depressed too. I would probably sit and eat, eat,eat myself to, to death or eat my emotions because, wow, II couldn't sit and watch TV all day. I mean, sure, it sounds fun fora few days. We've been in a few days, do nothing, but sure, why not?But I think that gets very boring, very old after a while. Yeah. Youknow? But like you said I don't know if it's just me. I mean, I
Joanne Lockwoodhost
often you know, you know, in those moments of quiet, we think, oh, what ifI won the lottery and tens of millions suddenly appeared in my bank account? WouldI give up work? I think, well, I may stop what I do in theway I do it, but then suddenly all these business ideas go, oh, I'd loveto set this up and I'd love to create that. And I've always wanted tohave a a YouTube studio that I could hire out to people and I couldreally kit it out and think. So I said, well, there's capital. I could dothis. I could get investment. Now I know I could, but I'm just thinking, whatwould I do with all that money? How I would invest it? I've got soI've got all these crazy ideas, entrepreneurial ideas. I love it. I'd have totry. Yeah. I think if you just say, oh, I'd love to put in amillion pounds so I can do nothing. Well, okay.So what does nothing mean? Yeah. Yeah. You're gonna get verybored sitting by the pool. You you ain't gonna go and buy gym gymequipment. You're gonna hire a personal trainer. You're gonna start working out about whether you'regonna go for holidays or runs. And even then, you gotta run outof stuff to do nothing, aren't you? I agree. You know, if I won the
James R Elliotguest
lottery somehow, you know, someone's like, here's, you know, several million dollars for fun. Like,here, I feel like giving you several million dollars today, James. I mean, you're right.Sometimes the way I would do it would change a bit. I would I wouldhire even more people. I would I would shift how I did it, but Iwould still always help people. Definitely, I would always help people, hiring allkinds of people instantly instantly to do all the grind. And and I have ateam and just hiring a bigger team instantly to do all the grind work. Andall I do is teach and speak all day long. And and that would beamazing, amazing, amazing. And and be at your point. I wouldn't I wouldn't stop.You sure maybe take a few weeks or a month or three to sit ona beach, but, no. After that, I wanna start you guys take themoney, invest in different businesses, ventures, and all these cool things that in helping environment.All these cool things I'd love to do. I would do that. I'd probably startan environmental company if I won a huge significant amount of money. It's some kindof company to help the environment, some kind of company to help people. Wouldn't justsit and do nothing for the rest of my life. Like 44.Yeah. And and and, you know, getting a little older, but I'm I'm sure I'mI've got at least a hundred in me, if not a 20. And I wow.You know, that's like fifty five, sixty five, seventy five years doing doingnothing. It sounds like it sucks. Like I'm gonna just have adventures with people andlearn and teach people and maybe continue what I doing. I was supposedto say I would teach people that's interesting. I say, teach people how to workremotely, how to travel while working and making a difference. Like, oh, wait, that's whatI already, that's what I do. That's the way I teach people how to havemore time, more fun, more fulfillment, more productivity while also workingless and getting more done. So I'm like, wait, that's what I do. So Iwould continue doing that. It's interesting. So you're
Joanne Lockwoodhost
44. For me, that is equivalent of twentyten now. So sixteen years ago, give or take. Facebook wasn't athing. AI wasn't a thing. The iPhone really wasn't muchof a thing. Everything I have to have that I value I careabout literally, everything that's important to me, my business, what Ido, has come out of that thattime between your age and my age. So when I was 44,who where I am today was not even on anyone's radar. So just thinkabout where you know, if you can reflect on this conversation in sixteen years' time,if you just podcast your way way back to 2025, I think.2050, we've got all this shit going on now. Twenty twenty forty.Yeah. I never envisaged that. So that's the potential that each one ofus has in ten or fifteen years worth of of thinking,isn't it? It is. It's and and, like, really, my job didn't really
James R Elliotguest
exist. So I'm sure there was public speakers four years ago too, but a lotof what I do didn't exist or the problems I help people solve, you know,massive perseverance, and helping your teams, you know, persevere and and and behappy and stay engaged and motivate them to be engaged even more.That wasn't a problem years ago. And all thestuff that's causing them disengagement to your point wasn't really a problem when I waswhen I was younger, even fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, all this stuff dowith scrolling and Facebook and pings and dings and distractions. Itwasn't there years ago. So it's fascinating the the solutions we come up withto new and modern problems. If we just think outside the box and instead ofthinking, oh, I can't or I can't do this because, or I'm not able to,or I can't do it now because whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're abusiness leader or someone in in a business looking to grow into a leader,I invite you to be very, very careful with with what you say and andwith what thoughts you allow to run your mind. You can't because I can'tbecause I mean, half our thoughts are not even ours. Half of the thoughts areput there by the parents, culture, media, religion, society,grandparents, teachers, you know, exactly. You name it. Exactly. Exactly. It's all that when wewere when we were young, especially, it just goes in and sticks and this isgood or this is bad or that's not possible or a good boy does thisor a bad girl or a good Jewish boy or a great Christian girl doesthis or doesn't do this or that or this is not possible or you don'tdo that. Or what would people say? You can't do that. Or you can't saythat you can't be that. What would people say? What would people think? You, youmay have faced that as well, you know, yourself as well. What would people think?What would people say? Frickin cares. Do you want to be happyor depressed and suicidal and miserable? I was there. Right. You want to be happyand healthy and wealthy and fulfilled? Or do you want to be right? No,I can't because blank my kids and my family and my age, I'm too oldor too young or too this or not enough this or. And it's amazing. Itbreaks my heart. That's a lot of the work we do, the limiting beliefs andfears looking at that as well. And people, why people don't do anything,even though they, they want it so bad, they can taste it. But looking atwhy people don't do things. And again, there's no judgment. I've been there many times.I've, I've overanalyzed and fenced sad and procrastinated many times.And got out of that, got past that and realized that sometimes when I, whenI jump and leap, you know, sometimes dare I say leap without thinking or leapwith leap following my heart and my gut, not just, okay, going to jump off.Hopefully this water is deep enough. Let me just jump head first. It's nothing likethat, but it's like, okay, you know, my heart, my intuition telling me I needto do something leaping, if you will. And then doingit. I mean, even sir, Richard Branson says, let's jump off the cliff and buildthe build the plane on the way down. And I I love that, you know,take action mentality. Let's do it. Yeah. I've got a saying which is,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
no great adventure ever starts with no. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Let's be
James R Elliotguest
conservative or let's stay home today. My friends used to
Joanne Lockwoodhost
used to complain that whenever they said they gave me two choices, I'd always say,let's do both. What what's up? Let's do both. And they go, make adecision. That's an interesting thing too. I I love to touch on that too, because
James R Elliotguest
you're right. Most people, they say, well, you know, I can do this or Ican do that. I can have I work for a business or or I havemy own company. Why not both? You can do both. I've done both. Iteach people that have done both. I've led people that have done. It's so interesting
James R Elliotguest
that so many people are there. They're thinking, or I can do this orthis. I can be married or have a business, or I can dedicate time togrow my business, or I can have a relationship. Why can't you have both? Itis possible. There's many, many people that do it. You can be a great entrepreneurand have great health, or you can be a mother and father and take careof yourself or, or whatever. Like you, like you're saying, it's it's, we gotta startbeing inclusive if you will, with our, and we can have thisand this. Yes, we can do this and we can do this versus well, wecan do either or I, I, I love the phrase, how can we, how canI, how can we not? I can't, or I can only do this or Ican only do this if, or I can only do one. How can I? Howcan I? There's a will. There's a way. So I I I love this beautifulyou touched upon because people think, well, I can do this or this. Why notboth? I love that you said that, Joanne. Why not both? And we should have
Joanne Lockwoodhost
called the episode. Why not both? Why not both? Exactly. Why not both?James, it's been absolutely fascinating. I I mean, I mean, we chat for about halfhour before we went live, but I could carry on chatting for another few hours.
James R Elliotguest
Quite. This has been fun. Thank you. Yeah. We have to
Joanne Lockwoodhost
draw things to close. So how do people get a hold of you? James R.Elliott, how do we get a hold of you? Great question, my friend. Great question.
James R Elliotguest
Like you said, LinkedIn, Facebook, James r Elliott with one t is a greatway to find me as well. You can also for entrepreneurs,you can visit, limitless-entrepreneur.com. And for themore corporate folks looking at more corporate speaking, corporate solutions, that one isprobably best to look at the unleashyourpower.com website.But honestly, feel free if it's easier LinkedIn orFacebook, feel free to reach out James R Elliot, E L L I OT. You will, you'll be able to reach me as well.You know, come hang out. Let's have a conversation. Love talking, lovebrainstorming, love sharing solutions, and, really helping, you know,businesses, small and large, find ways to persevere and and help theirteams persevere during the the craziness that goes on, whether it'samazing quick growth because that can be just as troubling sometimesas as, you know, you know, downfalls of companies or or or bigchanges, changes to the market, change the economy, the environment,tariffs, whatever it is, you know, massive growth or massive, you know, declinetimes of challenge and change. Love, love, love being able to empowerleaders to empower and empowering the teams to to do that. So, loveto chat, love to hang out, brainstorm. Thanks for having me on today, Joanne.Appreciate it. I had a lot of fun. Well, if you're listening now, track
Joanne Lockwoodhost
James down, drop him a DM, drop him a message saying you heard ithere. And while you're at it, leave us a review. Give us a like, athumbs up, a follow, all the usual things you do on these things. Love tohear more from you. James, thank you. A pleasure.As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to expressmy deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lendingyour ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to InclusionBites and become part of our ever growing community,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family, andcolleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter.Got thoughts, stories, or a vision to share? I'm allears. Reach out tojo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,And let's make your voice heard. Until next time. This isJoanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return withmore enriching narratives that challenge, inspire,and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world, oneepisode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.
In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood welcomes transformational coach and international keynote expert, James R. Elliott, for a dynamic discussion centred around confidence, balance and success. Joanne and James explore how authenticity, resilience, and the willingness to embrace change are fundamental to driving both personal fulfilment and organisational growth. Together, they challenge conventional career narratives, interrogate the myths of corporate stability, and examine the importance of psychological safety, encouraging listeners to break free from self-imposed limitations and explore what’s truly possible when you create space for growth, experimentation, and self-care. James brings over twenty-four years of global experience empowering business leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals to build successful ventures without surrendering their sense of purpose or wellbeing. Working previously with the likes of IBM, Novell, and Lenovo, James has witnessed both stellar leadership and toxic workplace cultures firsthand, which fuels his passion for enabling others to find their spark. His approach is shaped by his own journey—from corporate highs and unexpected redundancy to embracing entrepreneurship—and by his commitment to fostering perseverance, adaptability, and human-centred leadership. His superpower lies in unlocking potential for confident, balanced, and meaningful lives and careers. Throughout their conversation, Joanne and James highlight how businesses benefit when leaders foster inclusive cultures that value authentic expression, support career pivots, and embrace diverse learning styles. They dissect how the cult of “busyness” and fear of failure can act as barriers to innovation, wellbeing, and true belonging. Instead, they advocate for strategic self-reflection, lifelong learning, and balancing ambition with healthy boundaries—illustrating that sustainable success comes not just from hard work, but from working smartly and investing in wellbeing. This episode’s key takeaway: True confidence and success stem from challenging limiting beliefs, nurturing psychological safety, and choosing to thrive, both as individuals and within our organisations. Listeners will leave inspired to reflect, connect, and shift their own practices toward a more inclusive and fulfilling future. Tune in to discover how to cultivate the right conditions for yourself and those around you to grow and truly belong.
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.
