The Superpower They Never Asked For

0:08車車 Sebab哦

0:32I'm Danny White-Skorn and this is Behind the Title. Today marks a particularly special episode as we have the pleasure of hosting two guests for the first time ever. Natalie Dawson, Director of Commercial Web at Ladbible, and Kitty Day, Global People Director at Million Ads. They join us to discuss their experiences of being primary and secondary carers to family members with a disability. They will share how these lived experiences have shaped their daily lives in current professional roles. I have an amazing sister called Laura. She has learning difficulties. Essentially with Lull, she was born six weeks premature, unfortunately had quite a dramatic entrance into the world, which resulted in brain damage.

1:09A lot of what goes on behind the scenes is relatively private, but it's also very magical. There's lots of components of what I have with my family and my sister that I'm immensely proud of. Got a little boy who's got Williams syndrome. His name's Lachlan. Being the mom of an additional needs kid is my superpower. I know I can roll my sleeves off and get the shit done. Like no matter what it is, if it's at work, if it's at home, I will get stuck in and get the job done.

1:37Kitty, Natalie, welcome on to Behind the Title. It's wonderful to have two such fabulous human beings with me today. But in particular, I've worked with both of you and we always have a lovely warm chat, a good giggle. Obviously, we've worked together, Kitty, in a previous organisation. Natalie, you've repped me for some time. If you could just give a brief introduction to you, your role and why it was important for you to come on here today. Whoever wants to go first. I will lead the way. So Kitty, I am Global People Director at Million Ads. What that means is, well, I suppose it's the cool way of saying HR.

2:16HR, I feel like may have a little bit of a a rep of being, I don't know what it is, but I work in people. And I have spent a large proportion of my career working in a space which I think is about ambassading, driving change, acceptance, diversity and inclusion, whatever you want to say it is. But there's probably a clear connection to why I do that, to what I have in my personal life. And I guess what I've learned from a really young age has definitely kind of bled into what I do. But a little bit more about my personal life, I have an amazing sister called Laura, call her Lola as her nickname.

2:53She has learning difficulties, which I actually asked my mum this recently because I was like, I'd never really, there was never really a title with Lola. It was always just like Lola had additional needs and we never really kind of labeled it much beyond it. But essentially with Lola, she was born six weeks premature unfortunately had quite a dramatic entrance into the world which resulted in brain damage and for Lola that shows up in things like processing so processing information verbal processing hand-eye coordination and also a degree of like emotional development has been stunted but yeah I always feel like when I have to introduce Laura I feel like I have to tell everyone a little bit about her disabilities but actually she is an absolute wizard with all things to do with the royal family she loves elton john just a big big fan a massive fan and she just brings me brings us all a lot of joy and not just her but her world and so i'm really excited to talk about it a bit more um i'm natalie i um i'm a director of commercial web um at lad bible I've been there for five months now so pretty pretty new still and yeah I mean I've worked in sales for 26 will be 20 years crazy wow yeah I know it's a big it's a big moment a big moment so yeah I've been doing it for for quite a long time digital for probably about 15 of those 20 and you know love what I do but I wanted to kind of bring my own life into work a wee bit more and you know talk to you guys about it today and I've got a little boy who's got William syndrome his name's Lachlan, Lockie or Locke depending on you know what like if he's been naughty it's definitely Lachlan if he's good he's been a good boy it might be Lock or Lockie or Cheeky um but yeah he's uh he's amazing he's got learning difficulties as well and actually when you described some of those quite similar um i'd say um definitely emotional regulation is quite tricky we're going through i mean he's only five so i feel like all five-year-olds have a bit of a difficult time with emotional regulation anyway so um he's got so as i say he's got williams syndrome so he's got some um learning difficulties but he's also got some body issues as well um he's got a heart defect um he's got some problems with his kidneys he's got global stenosis of the veins which basically means all of his veins are really narrow so he's got very high turbulence as like the body tries to pump blood which means he gets high blood pressure and things like that so various things going on um but yeah regardless of all of that he's still like an amazing funny really funny little guy and he his specialist subject is trains oh really it's so interesting I think a lot and I don't want to do sweeping statements because we always never want to do those but there is something absolutely incredible by particularly Laura's knowledge and I'm sure the same but we're all family and trains we're all set guys that's all we need to know it's like trains and weirdly his new obsession is chickens that's a random one but there you go chickens and eggs wow but what came first I don't know there's a debate he loves that debate how many how many chicken across the road jokes do you have do you know what I need to get on those don't I I'll let my husband come up with his dad jokes that'll be fine um what I was really interested in bringing to this podcast today was I guess shining a light on the sheer volume of carers um that might work within any industry right but within our industry um and specifically let's call them unpaid carers you know you talk about primary or the primary care and the secondary care um and it's and again i hope these these numbers are correct but i think there's 5.8 million unpaid carers um in the uk looking after a family member um that might have a physical or learning disability and that's quite that's quite a large number of people um it's actually i think there's something like eight percent of the population um have a learning or a physical disability so if you think about the industry think about the workplace it's likely that someone sitting on your bank of desks yeah for sure will be experiencing this somehow um but if i go back a bit maybe um start with like someone with you know secondary care maybe how was it growing up as a sibling um with a sister that possibly you were maybe your parents tried to kind of manage it and minimize it and in turn how did you then process that and manage that you know what was it a quite a defensive kind of world you were living in and how's that kind of evolved you know over the last few years as you've you've kind of been in in adult life where you're not a carer for a primary yeah it's so I think this will be something that you'll talk about but whereas I came in it's all I knew essentially.

8:21Lola was a year before me. I came along and the first five years of life was relatively what we would say is like atypical normal. There was components of challenges with Lola. So Lola was non-verbal. She's really struggled with epilepsies, but I lived a relatively shielded first kind of five odd years. Where it became obvious of difference was when you came into comparison. So when you were at school, we were relatively structured with routine for Lowell. So how she woke up in the morning, what time. We always, Laura has to take medication in the morning and the evening. So you began at a relatively young age, not too soon to realize that difference was taking place.

9:08But there was never real negative difference. I think where the difference or the challenges came was when I became in my teens. And there's no surprise that you're a mix of emotions anyway. You've got so much going on in your own life. And then you've got so much going on in Lola's life. And then also the navigation of my poor mom and dad, who've got like two 13 year old girls who are causing chaos. But you find yourself just doing, You just do because that's what you have to do. It's the norm. The norm. And the norm is fine. The norm was challenging. The norm was okay. But you do just do. Where I think it became harder and where I find myself only literally this weekend, Monday, so it's great timing that we're talking about this, is the navigation of roles that you play as a sibling.

10:00Because you do have quite a few different positions that you have to take. Some scenarios, your sister. so you're telling your sister like she's being a whatever I can't I don't know if I'm not as where she's being a dick like she's being annoying and then next minute you're swapped into a position where you're doing carer mode so she's just being a dick to me but I've still got to go and make sure she's taking her medication if I don't say go and get into bed she'll stay up until whatever time like you you then move into carer mode and then you're also in daughter mode which is a navigation that I think only really in the last I don't know 10 odd years have been able to vocalize because you're also there to support your parents like they're navigating it for the first time they're going through so much change and obviously you care and you see them and they're going through a lot and so you're also in a position when you're trying to support them and so the dance between roles has is I mean like I said this Monday was challenging which role do I need to play which one should I be but that also that dance and lots of other lessons has evolved who I am now and the way I approach my job the way I support my friends and the transferring of the bad has taught me some of the good and then I've just brought it into the day-to-day but I definitely find that role dynamics hard and I know when we spoke you spoke about the change from being like career identity into now mum with I can imagine that shift would have been also so challenging.

11:36Really challenging but also I think like why I find it really interesting hearing your perspective is because I've got a typical child as well and so imagining what his life because he's a wee, not a lot younger but a little bit younger than Locke so that kind of what is what does it look like for him and also as a parent and I'm sure your parents probably feel the same way is a little bit of guilt you know like oh one day I'm gonna die and I'm leaving it then to my other child to be a carer you know so there's a bit of it's a bit guilt in there as well um but yeah from um kind of the two different hats that you wear or multiple hats is probably more simple actually for me in terms of it is one hat to him parent um parent and carer but at the moment whilst he's still so young every parent is hands-on with a five-year-old you know you can't really let a five-year-old just get on with it um but I think yeah it's it's definitely that kind of when you walk into work and you've already had you know like three hours of absolute carnage you're just thinking if I didn't if Lachlan was typical would that would that morning have been like that you know so you kind of have a bit more of a a bit hard done by it's really like I don't know if that's a very negative weight and I don't know if anybody else listening to this who has additional needs kids would be miffed at me saying that but you know sometimes I do feel like that like why me I want to I want to unpack as a parent then um how you how you navigated this now you know answer within the bounds of where you feel comfortable but how does how do you feel as a parent at that point I mean my birth story was pretty horrific um in the sense of just really traumatic he was um I went in the reduced reduced movement and at 40 weeks I was full-term uh was quite it was quite quickly discovered there was no movement so I had to had c-section sort of emergency um and then he was resuscitated but he was um yeah well not breathing or anything when he was delivered so he was resuscitated at birth so that was like straight away you know the red light if anyone's ever been in that situation by by the way, it's the most horrible experience.

14:04You know, you've carried this thing that you love, you've never even met it, but you love it so much. And then, you know, you think it's going to get taken away from you at that point, which is really harrowing. So, yeah, he was taken away the room. Obviously, the room kind of fills up with doctors and people like that, trying to work out what's going on. And then he was intubated, so taken away, put into, like taken to NICU, basically intubated and everything, and was still alive, but it was a bit touch and go. so for the next two weeks it was a really touch and go time and it was covid as well so my husband and i weren't able to be in the room together so that was really tough you know on your own you've i don't the hormones going through you after having just had a baby um and yeah so we kind of were like trying to just work just surviving is all i can say that just surviving in hospital for really long hours um and then we got our diagnosis so because he was born with a sort of a very enlarged heart and one one side of his heart was really thick and unusual looking they sent him off for diagnosis genetic testing straight away the like you know blood sample and it came back as williams syndrome and it's quite it's a rare condition you know it's like one in 18 000 people in the uk only one in 30 gps will have ever met someone with williams syndrome so that just makes care really hard because you'll go in to see your gp and they have no idea what the extra bits of william syndrome looks like um and so i remember our diagnosis when the doctor said to us you know she had like a printout like with pictures on it i was like what is this like why have you got pictures of children's faces you know this is what they they look like okay um and so she had this printout and she was reading it clearly haven't hasn't given someone the diagnosis of william syndrome before and she was a consultant you know so a senior lady and she said yeah a couple of the characteristics are anxiety talks a lot but loves music and I remember my husband and I coming out and he said what's a mix of both of us got the anxiety and the talking a lot from you now and the music from me and we kind of laughed like it wasn't a big deal at all until we obviously started giggling ourselves and realized it was a pretty big deal and it was in fact life-changing for him um and certainly for us as well and that's when he was actually in um intensive care between uh homerton and great ormond street for three months so and then we had he had a he had a blood clot so i ended up having a lot of care after that as well um and so for the first six months i would say we were just in a bit of a state of shock like literally just getting through each day getting up getting to the hospital i was still trying to breastfeed although he was um tube fed I was you know pumping so literally just on survival mode um and I think it wasn't until afterwards after that six month period that we actually had him home and it was covered so I didn't have any support or anything like that um the I think the future and like what does Zen look like and all that kind of started to become real and that's when my mental health started to really suffer um was when I kind of I felt like shit what does my life look like you know and that was a real moment of I can remember it really clearly just kind of going into the the black hole that took a while to come out of ups and downs but yeah it took a while to kind of clear the black hole actually I don't know if you ever do fully clear it and do do you think do you think that moment externally to the world natalie looks beaming she has a beautiful sun but inside that was the time when you were crumbling or has there been other times since lucky was born where externally the facade you know the shop window all look beautiful but inside the stock room is a mess yeah how what's going on like yeah have there been different times like that or say there's been two very three including that one that I just sort of said the initial um like holy shit what does my life look like that was bad then and at different points I've had rounds of therapy at different points um throughout this process thank goodness like wouldn't have survived without it so can't recommend therapy enough to people um the second time was when I went back to work I went back at nine months because I felt I was really missing human contact as well again because it was covid so i just wanted to be the old me i felt like the new me this mum me was not the version was not not that's not natalie you know that's not i don't identify with that person because life wasn't on the face of it perfect um so i wanted to go back to the old me which is clearly my mental health was like screaming at that point i can see it now looking back um i went back to work a wee bit early probably and it i didn't have a very good experience returning to work and so I found that really challenging and that's when I kind of went into a second quite bad dip um and you know I'm sure I'm sure that we would do both sides would do things differently if we were to do it again but um my yeah I didn't have didn't have a positive experience at all um and then um the third time was when I actually had a miscarriage um so the first time obviously was when I found out the second time when I went back to work and then the third time was when I had a miscarriage I remember really clearly actually I just mentioned it to you a minute ago I was giving a presentation a big one of the big agencies not a publicist one and I could tell I was having a miscarriage and I remember really clearly giving this presentation and knowing what was happening and just having to keep like kind of blocking it out and just keeping on going you know the professional side of me just stood up and was like right just keep keep going you're not getting you're not um you know gonna stop the presentation you're just gonna get through it got through it left the room and knew like very quickly what was happening um you know went had a scan and things like that and we were at three months so unfortunately it's quite late to not late I know people lose a lot later than three months um which is even even worse but three months you kind of in your head you're pregnant so um that was this is after you've yeah this is after lucky so in my in my mind i'm thinking i can't have a healthy child i'm incapable of having a healthy child so that kind of put me into another depression really i didn't um i didn't tell because of everything that had happened when i went back to work initially i didn't tell work about it so I just was essentially drowning but trying to keep up this facade and not keeping up very well I eventually had to get a bit more therapy we talked about it there's an episode we record around miscarriage and one of the things we talk about is there's a fundamental issue in the UK and that we don't record that there's no accurate data when it comes to miscarriages right you have to kind of go through three miscarriages before they record before they call you in to do tests um things like early pregnancy units have only just started to kind of appear more and more and um even though some organizations will have bereavement leave some might have a miscarriage policy as you've just said there there's this um possibility that people don't want to share because what does that indicate to the organization about that individual about possibly investing in that as a future talent if they're about to go and have a child yeah it's a really hard topic and especially from the position that i'm in i nothing obviously my heart generally hurts at the thought that anyone doesn't feel like they haven't got something to turn to um i feel like businesses we're not perfect by all means but we care about these things and companies should care shouldn't always think that support should be given when it's asked for sometimes support support should just be there that is accessible whenever you need so for example um I don't know I've not experienced it myself but when something's really really hard to talk about it is the biggest step right to say to someone I'm really struggling I need this and this but there are so many resources now where you you don't need to talk to someone that you know you can talk to a stranger you can pick up the phone you there's so much now that is accessible that doesn't necessarily have to be like forced upon and it's just there i agree policies and every businesses can do better to facilitate those conversations but they can also provide things that doesn't always need to be a conversation with someone you know it can be with a stranger and the support you can get in my case i i could have gone to my business so you know it was that was my own coming to terms with i think i just couldn't i didn't want to almost space up to it I think yeah that's a you said something then when you were talking about how um your pregnancy your second pregnancy and you thought did you have a unit by that point through lock like other mothers parents or was it still very early on and I did have william syndrome parents but it was just not just a miscarriage I'm definitely not taking away from how traumatic that is but it felt disconnected you know I didn't really feel I could talk to the william syndrome mums about it because they've got enough on their plates to be honest um and we weren't friends because william syndrome is pretty rare i don't have a community um in my area it's like a whatsapp group so there's people in surrey people in northern ireland people in scotland so you know it's like a community that really is just connects digitally um so i don't feel close enough to talk to them about something so personal um and not about our conversations are very much based around our children versus like ourselves um and then friendship wise yeah I feel like loads of people are having babies and stuff at that point and you know and you've got enough you've literally I bring so much shit to the table every time I see someone like oh yeah this has happened or Lachlan's in for another operation on this I'm like am I just going to keep layering on more more like sad stuff um it kind of gets to a point that even I don't want to talk about it so yeah that was a bit of a weird one so growing up then as a as a sibling um and i know i can picture something in my mind it's probably not accurate but were there moments where you wish you spoke up more on behalf of lola um and and even on behalf of yourself and your family and is this for example maybe because you you know where you are in your position your role maybe just where you are in your life your opportunity to do that to do more of that yeah so I don't think I ever didn't speak up for my sister and actually carry that with immense pride um because my voice was her voice and I felt very that was a real responsibility that I still to this day keep I think the thing that I probably didn't know how to speak up for and which is what I want to do more now is the voice of someone who's a sibling or a parent, I don't know, but who finds that dance of like, I know you've got so much going on here, mum.

25:33Like I know life is tough or dad or whoever I know, but I also need something. I need this or I need support in this area. And I cannot speak for everyone. I really can't, but I can speak for myself that there was a navigation of guilt as well, which was like, how do I take time or space for something that I need when in reality the space and time was being given rightly so to Laura at the time so I definitely would say the speaking up was less though for Lola I spoke up for Lola but the speaking up was for me and I feel like that could be discussed more more than I think it currently is for sure it sounds like maybe yeah in you know obviously within the bounds of of confidentiality it sounds like you had a moment as well maybe where not that you it did sounds like you didn't want to speak up you had to come to terms with it but you maybe there was shit that you wish that you'd said yeah on that can I just say though like that's so wonderful to hear as a I think anybody listening to this who who has a disabled child and a typical child also will be so like if they had been your mom and dad they'd be so proud and that's oh god I feel like I could cry because I'm thinking about my other child like and how that their interactions will be as they become teenagers and adults um that's what we want is for your kids to support one another yeah yeah and and I hope mom and dad will listen to this I have such admiration I have any I have a lot of admiration for any parent that has to deal with or navigate that world because it takes a whole lot of courage, resilience, grit, love, determination.

27:18There's so much in it. But yeah, life isn't easy for everyone. You can go through your own ups and downs. But yeah, you've got the partnership and we will talk about this and I hope I can talk about this. But whatever Locke has with his brother is one in a million and it's so magical. It's like no other relationship or friendship you have when you have with a sibling because there's something so much deeper and I I don't know any different but I do know what I do have with lol which is this like immense pride she has taught me so much like incredible magical um and also it's a superpower if you've if you've gone through that and you've learned a lot from it and so he's very lucky both of them are lucky we've got this kids like love you're all about theme tunes i know i know i know today i am about the theme tune oh we've got we've got a lot um but our like weekend little ritual is we get like the kid we've got this breakfast bar at home and the kids have their cereal or whatever at the breakfast bar and my husband liam and i who works in the industry as well we'll be like chatting away and making the making breakfast and things like that and we've always got the sonos on in the background playing whatever the kids want which is usually queen or bliffy uh bliffy cairo which is just mental but um our big theme tune is we are family amazing it's so sweet and the kids like we'll sing along and we and i'm like that's us guys so yeah i think having that connection is so important i think ours was the lighthouse family is there yeah anyway but yeah there's there's lots of magic in it yeah so nice i mean i can only i mean i've got a friend a very old friend who who also has a podcast called uh we're not your typical and um the her and her friend both have uh children i think that are non-verbal uh with send needs and um they post quite a lot of the time and i'll be honest it's hard for me to understand at all because i can only see what they're writing but what you can see is that it's hard hard work so you know to hear you yeah to who you kind of share that you still kind of have those moments is lovely i think you've got to have those moments because it is harder like having a typical and a non-typical child there is a difference 100 like parenting is hard like it is it's hard but parenting an additional needs kid is a lot harder for example it's just everything but and it's kind of all the time and it feels a little bit overwhelming so you drop you know you're like spinning loads plates i'm trying to work five days a week and hold down the career and progress in my career as well you know um and you don't want to drop any plates but it is difficult to spin them all at once one um like the week before last we had to take they were going the school were going to this like park visit and it was a half an hour walk which I'm like there's loads of parks you can go to why do you have to choose one half an hour away anyway they phoned me on I don't think Lachlan can make the half an hour I don't think he can walk that far and I'm like yeah you're probably right he can't and he can't be the only one to take a scooter so can you drive him and I'm like well I can't drive so no so um my husband now has to take the time so we basically had to both of us work from home that day he did the driving but then worked in the car like on you know it was um like mobile connection whatever tether um and then I did the trip bit and then got back in and you know it's just three hours out of both of our days that it's just such a pain that typical like that's that's one story but that things that happen all the time you know what's wild is what was the percentage i think you gave a great percentage of how many people have um to give support i don't 5.8 million that's huge yeah but i just i know because in my world i'm familiar and i've got a good really good network of people who have got siblings and whatnot but never in my professional sense and that's however many years in it's only maybe a handful of times I've been exposed or been privy to the fact that that may be something that they're working with at home and I do really wonder like that story of like you working from the car I can think of about a million times that was the case with mum and I wonder why it's just not spoken about more I really don't know or maybe maybe because of the responsibility and because of the time that is having to be dedicated to these additional needs like you said doing the nine to five five days a week is just not realistic and i don't know we in society i think anything that's different and not the atypical norm it makes us think differently and so i i suspect that a lot of people are just like well i just I keep that to myself yeah I don't want I don't want people to think of my child any differently and I think you said um uh you talked about the pictures and you know because obviously there'll be learning difficulties there'll be visual impairments you know and and again I don't know what lockies are but I think that that's probably one of the challenges why it's so important for both of you to be here today because the way that you both have understood experienced but but also are quite positive about that experience.

32:45I think it's really, it's really quite warm and encouraging for others to hear. Are there, are there, I guess, you know, with that in mind and possibly this is linked to that, are there certain triggers now that you experience either in your personal life or in your professional life where it kind of invokes something in you around, you know, when someone might say something, they might use the term, you know, special. in the wrong context, you know, or maybe they're using it in a context that it's a bit jovial, but I don't know. Are there certain triggers for you two that kind of bring up some of these kind of feelings or?

33:24I definitely have one, which I do like touch on because I know, I think you'll have a few more, but one that I, it's very relatable to my professional sense and not so much in the personal sense is language, right? You just used a great example of language being used but I have I didn't realize it was a trigger until probably actually I wonder when you and I were working together I worked within early careers and that was my world and we would have interviews and I'd meet lots and lots of different people and I'd often get feedback which is like they just didn't make eye contact or they didn't build rapport with me quick enough and I realized that was such a trigger for me because immediately I could relate to someone I can name a guy called Fergus I grew up with one of Laura's friends it's really very much additional needs autism making eye contact is like impossible for him and didn't build rapport could easily be because someone who isn't neurotypical the change in routine the commute the what they had to wear there was so much energy building rapport is literally the last thing on their mind so that's definitely a trigger for me which is I always try and get people to see beyond eye contact obviously there's importance to it and rapport building is important to it but actually realistically did they answer the skill-based questions correctly can they do the job do they have the transferable skills so that's a real that's one I've noticed well I can I can I can vouch for the time that we worked together how much you educated me yeah because I think I was of that mindset and it opened my eyes a lot and I still fall into that trap now I still fall very much into that trap but um you were very firm in helping me understand and when I'd come with those challenges Kitty would be like no yeah it's not exactly but I think it it is important to talk about that because you know there is a bias actually some of the smarter people that I've worked with across my entire career even outside of media are the ones that might possibly maybe have some neurodivergency in them you taught me a lot and uh and for that at the time I don't think we always know each other so I to I but you know in a lovely way and you know the very fact that you're sitting here today you know we've maintained a an amazing friendship because of that are there any triggers for you as a parent very actually strangely similar to what you were talking about as in like I also have biases and I try I think because of having a child with additional needs and being aware that he will suffer from that you know people having bias potentially against him although I think as a society we are getting slightly better at dealing with you know additional needs and um people not being normal um but you know there is definitely still like bias against it um I'm trying to when I have that moment in my head and I think something negative about someone who I clearly is um you know has additional needs of some description i'm straight away i you know correct myself but i'm just aware i think being aware of it is step one and just being aware of your bias and and talk you know talk to yourself about it like that's not okay how would you feel if someone felt like that about you you know so for example there was we had a picnic in the summer time so local group of people um and everyone had loads of kids um dogs because, you know, it was just like a fun afternoon.

36:56And there was an older man, I don't know how old he was, probably less older, not that much older, but like, say, in his 50s, walking across the flats. And he stopped to speak to some of the kids who had a dog. And straight away, I saw the parents, you know, clock this older man talking to young children and start to swarm to make sure their kids were obviously not being, you know, there was nothing untoward going on. I was there first, and I noticed straight away the guy definitely had additional needs and had a his specialist topic was dogs and so I started talking about all these different types of dogs and this dog likes this and this dog is you know this is this is the some of the traits this type of dog and it was very very clear to me that you know he has additional needs and I don't think some of the parents got it quite as quickly as I got it and they were kind of you know trying to pull away their kids and things like that and I just thought that I can so imagine that being my son as an adult now I'm crying again and how awful it would be for him to be just trying to make conversation in contact with someone, children, adults, I think sometimes people will learn difficulty, they don't necessarily get the age, they don't really care, they just care about the connection with a human and I just thought, it just made me think like, gosh, that was just really hurtful thinking about it and that was a real trigger for me they're thinking about the future yeah so I spoke to the guy for a while about different dogs but I just think I hope and now other people in my life also do the same you know they'll speak to people that are on their own like my mom always tells me I was speaking to someone you know I could tell um and I hope that's one thing that we can learn from being having someone special in our lives um and I say that special in the kindest way um having someone you know gifts our lives I hope that educates us to be just better humans.

38:51100%. And Lola's got a job, right? I think. The background to Lola is that she, well, actually, I'm not going to plug them too much, but my parents, about 15 years ago, created a charity called Halo. And it's based out of Surrey. And the main objective of it is to support nurturing independence is the tagline. And it was built across five parents that my mum and dad knew. So it's Harriet, Amber, Laura, Oliver, William, Halo. And what it's there for is to ensure just additional support to be able to go and do what life is there for. So Lola lives with her three best friends or two best friends, and she has round-the-clock hair, which we call buddies.

39:40She works. She has a partner. She has lots of support. But Halo and it is an incredible organization has facilitated that for her and we're we're very lucky and um i'm immensely proud of the fact that not only lola is rewarded for this but so many others as well incredible it's so lovely um even just to hear like the normality like she has a partner yeah um she has a job she lives with friends because i think that again the the preconception is is that if you have special needs that you are isolated completely put in a home and actually the opportunity to kind of enable people to live oh my god it's so it was so important for my mum and dad more than anyone I could leave I left home left home at like 17 but for mum and dad whilst I think my mum definitely struggled with lol leaving that was just the moment where you go okay we've done good here mom and dad can do what they want to do and they can live their lives and we can have the care that we need for her because that's i think that's quite big it's certainly a big fear for me is what about if you know we don't have any independence for the rest we don't have any independence that sounds very you know um you know selfish but it's i think he'll need independence we'll need some independence as well so that's great well on your mom and dad yeah okay that's amazing was there like a point in time where you've kind of stood yourself in front of the mirror or where you've actually just had to have a bit of a chat with yourself and just say either enough is enough or just it's it's not your fault or you know you're doing an incredible job like just a bit of a pep talk and yeah and just to kind of get yourself you know back into yeah the belief that you are as good as you are your children are incredible and you're doing an amazing job as a parent yeah definitely there's um I think because all of these sort of negative things happened when I was at my last business it kind of it got to a point that I just had to leave essentially I was just like I need I need a fresh start for my own sake.

41:58Like I feel that my identity's kind of become that rather than me. It'd become, I've got a disabled kid and, you know, I've kind of got a lot of like trauma around me. I just felt like, I don't know if other people felt like that or not, hopefully not, but I felt it myself and I just knew that I needed a fresh start. And also I wanted to kickstart my, you know, kick my career up the bum a bit as well and get moving forward. So I felt like I was stalling a little bit um and I started going out to look for new roles and I found I was at final with a couple of things and um I my favorite was Ladbible you know plug but um I was going to have my final chat and they didn't ask me for a presentation or anything like that they just said like you know just come in for like a final chat I don't know how many interviews I've had quite a few and it was just the kind of like like um you know nice type thing and one of my ex-colleagues and friends she said to me use this as an opportunity now to create a fresh version of yourself like you know show up with be authentic to who you are and what is going on in your life but show up with really what you can deliver next and I did a 360 about me and it was probably the best thing that I've ever done because it was completely authentic as in I gave like stories about what I'm all about like what I'm like as a manager what I'm like as a colleague what I'm about the weekend you know jogging and whatever um and then my big central main like last picture was Lachlan and it was like this is my son and this is a big god I think I'm doing really well actually no tears yet but you know they're on the brim I'm about to go I'm about to go and um it was the last big picture was Lachlan you know and it was like this is a massive part of me and he's got additional needs but he gives me so much more than you know he makes me such a better person and I think I went at that point when I was putting my deck together I realized that it had gone I'd gone from being a victim to actually being the mom of an additional needs kid is my superpower because not only am I more empathetic empathetic than I ever was I'm a hell of a lot stronger in terms of my mindset again probably thanks to a lot of therapy but I'm much stronger mentally and I know I can roll my sleeves off and get the shit done like no matter what it is if it's at work if it's at home I will get stuck in and get the job done and I think I just just it was a moment of real pride you know going like yeah fuck yeah I can do this and um actually they said after my interview um both Tim and Ben who are my bosses um both said to me like no that was really touching and moving and like amazing we just knew that you were you know you were the right person for the job I was like yeah and thanks to my friend for suggesting I do it I think it's difficult in those situations because people want you to show up in both a corporate sense and and but they also want to see your human self but it's it's very hard you know if you're if you're given for instance a task by someone and they ask you to present on that versus it sounds like you had a bit more freedom yeah and you kind of just came with you um that's lovely to hear um so as we kind of draw kind of to a close and and we like to give people um permission permission to think feel say do act differently you both have different perspectives here whether that's on a personal professional level whether that's to the individual to the business what would your permission slip be and maybe start with you all know you let's kitty first kitty's first okay my permission my permission is to seek and try and get your world bigger and in have people in your world with additional needs i i'd say the thing that you'll learn so quickly is perspective you'll see life isn't just there's so much more to things you'll get so much joy.

46:20And this weekend I was at home and I went to see my sister perform in a choir and I cannot tell you, oh my God, I was, I was weeping the whole way through because there was just so much love and so much joy coming from people. And so I would really just like my, my big permission is it, you're not going to say the wrong thing. You'll be fine, but just go and find someone, find whoever, speak to Halo, give me a call because you'll gain so much and you will be such a better person for having such magical people in your world so my permission is crack on go and find them and to cry and to cry cry oh yeah don't need permission for that mine's actually super similar it's be authentic be open i think one that's a big learning for me is to be open i think i spent like probably the last four years of the five in a bit trying to close off and hide it really that you try to assimilate but actually when you when you realize that your strength is indifference and accepting that and sort of using the the things that you've got for you I think that was a massive thing for me what I would love to give other people the permission to do is to ask I think people if you're in the position that you're in from a sister me as a mom you you know that this is going on your life and people because they don't know what to say they don't know how to say it they don't know whether it's pc to ask in a certain way or whatever so they just don't say anything and that's actually much harder i'd much rather you say something say it the wrong way around but say it with you know love and care than not say anything because when people don't talk to you about things you that's when you feel singled out and you feel lonely when people ask and are interested and they they want to get in come into your world that's when that's when the magic actually happens because that's when really you can build a community and you know cultures at work are so much stronger but it's they're not talking about it they're sort of putting it behind closed doors that's when it's a real negative and so my my suggestion would be to people with um children or people in their lives with um additional leads or indeed carers doesn't need to be um you know children it could be you know your mom your gran whoever like find out if there's a forum at work that you can talk about this if you feel comfortable because obviously not everyone feels comfortable talking about it but if you do and you want to share and you kind of get a bit like me a bit negative on why don't people care i want to share this but people don't really care just find out speak to your hr speak to your manager like work out if there's a forum to be able to raise this information up and bring everyone else who's not part of your world, bring them in.

49:05Because I think together we win, really. Amazing. You are two wonderful human beings. And that was such a lovely demonstration of people that not only care, obviously, for their own loved ones, but care deeply about helping people to understand the challenges that are facing people that might have additional needs. This is the first time we've had two people on. I hope that people will enjoy it. I think you two have been amazing together. Very good team. I really, really, that was wonderful. And for people that will be listening to this episode, I hope that it really gives an insight to what your lives are like behind your titles and demonstrate leaders showing up differently with their own honest, raw and brave stories.

49:59So thank you both for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. Loved it. Loved it.

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