Sue Stockdale previews Series Six, where the theme is 21st Century Changemakers. Sue introduces some of the guests that she will be speaking to in the upcoming series including:
- Hong Hoang – The Vietnamese changemaker
- Dr Leanne Armitage – Increasing diversity in the medical profession
- Amy Henderson – Building a better future for working parents
Other guests that will be featured in Series Six are:
- Rob Lawrence – Connecting sound, language and emotion to create change
- Nic Marks – Measuring happiness
- Tanmay Vora – Illustrating leadership
- Josh Wasserman – The role of observation in design
Join us over the next few weeks to listen to these inspiring guests.
Series 6 Preview Transcription
Sue: Hi, it’s Sue Stockdale here. Welcome to the Access to Inspiration podcast. The show where you can be inspired by people who may be unalike you.. We have now reached the sixth series of the podcast and with 40 episodes published to date. We hope each one enables you to transcend your day to day challenges and reflect on what you are capable of achieving. We are delighted also, the podcast is now in the top 10% of most popular podcasts globally, according to Listen Notes. So please help us to continue to spread the word in your country and beyond so that more people can be inspired by all of the guests we’ve had so far. The theme of this series is 21st century change-makers and we will be featuring several people who are trying to improve society in different ways.
Sometimes that might seem like an overwhelming challenge too big, to be achieved by anyone, individual. But I hope what our guests help you to be reminded of is that sometimes it just takes a conversation or a moment in time to be the catalyst for change. In episode 45, I’ll be talking to Hong Hoang founder of a non-government organization in Vietnam, who I met over 25 years ago in Antarctica. It was seeing the enthusiasm of other young people down there that made Hong realise that she wanted to do something to preserve the environment.
Hong Hoang: [00:01:40] It was actually the first time ever. I had seen some really passionate people. The ones who joined our expedition. I don’t know if you remember all of them. I just barely remember all their names, but it was really the first time when I had really thought, wow, these people are so interesting.
They have something they care about. They have some passion that really pull them together. And then put all of us in that weird circumstance and do something that I had never done before. I had never heard of all this ozone hole and global warming, all the knowledge and everything that I learned to do expedition was really mind blowing, but it’s a lot more when I really saw how people were passionate about the environment, which is something I had never thought about.
It was really the first time ever. I thought of the world, something that is really bigger than myself. It’s really something that is larger than life. And I had realized how big the planet is and how little I knew. I knew nothing. I knew nothing about the world and about humanity and about how young people can really come together and do something about the environment
Sue: [00:02:54] Since founding her non-government organization. Hong has now mobilized thousands of young people to [00:03:00] become more active in preserving the environment. Hearing stories as well as first time experiences can have a powerful influence on us. And that’s the reason that the access to inspiration podcast was created in the first place. I asked Matias, our sound designer from Argentina. What episode so far has had the greatest impact on him?
Matias de Ezcurra: [00:03:23] The one I really enjoyed the most was the one from the astronaut, because from each interview I do take something and some more than others, many times I go online later and I researched something. Then maybe those things that you research, they stay in a way, but the astronauts interview, John David Bartoe, his message, I think, was really strong.
When he talks about seeing the earth from outside so small, so fragile, and that he wants to just hug the earth like a newborn. He says that, and he also says that he sees the earth with no boundaries with no colors for the different countries. And it’s a simple message, but I think it’s really strong to hear it from someone that actually went to space. And actually saw that in real life, not in TV, as we all do. That was a strong message.
Sue: [00:04:10] What impacted Matias also reinforces to me why we like to interview real people and share their insights with a global audience. Another guest that will be coming up this series is Dr. Leanne Armitage. whose teenage experiences in inner city London inspired her to become a doctor.
Leanne Armitage: [00:04:32] I was 15. I was coming home one day with my sister and I remember hearing this really loud sound from above. So I looked up and I saw that it was a helicopter and I love helicopters. They still excite me to today. So I got really excited and I asked my sister, we could travel over to where the helicopter was landing and she agreed and together we went.But when we got there, I remember seeing a crowd of people gathered around and. Everybody was just standing there staring and their facial expressions didn’t quite match the excitement that I had inside. So I was a bit confused and I just asked the nearest person to me, why everybody was gathered here.
And she told me that a young man had been stabbed and growing up in Peckham, I grew up in Southeast London. It wasn’t uncommon, unfortunately, to hear about young men being stabbed or being shot at quite a young age, losing their lives. But there was something about this incident that really stuck with me. And I think it’s because I went from that place of being so excited. To then feeling so aggrieved as I realized that this helicopter isn’t here for any good reason at all. And I remember in that moment, feeling so many different types of emotions. I felt angry because I was looking around thinking everybody’s just standing here staring, but who’s actually going to do something to make a difference.
Sue: [00:05:50] And to open our series our first guest will be Amy Henderson. whose movement TendLab aims to build a better future for [00:06:00] working parents in America.
Amy Henderson: [00:06:02] I started a company called TendLab my original co-founder had been the first VP of HR and diversity and inclusion at Twitter. And she’d started a whole bunch of programs to support parents in the workplace at Twitter, earned a great reputation for herself and for Twitter.
And we thought given her experience and background and relationships, and even my experience and background in relationships that people would be banging down our doors to hire us. But for the most part, nobody cared about parents in the workplace. So I double down on the research, I’m trying to say, okay, how can I, articulate this in a way that people will hear it.
And that’s where I got deep into the science of what happens to our brains and how have we evolved as a species. And what do we know about the future of work and the skills that are needed in the future of work? I just nerded out on all the research, which is now in this book. But then also I tested it out in a bunch of different audiences and I’m happy to say that in one presentation that I gave after I’d had a few flops, I gave a presentation to a room of folks at Yelp about 50 or 60 folks at Yelp.
And afterwards, I had a young male manager who didn’t yet have kids come up to me and say, Oh my God, Amy, I feel like I should go out and have kids immediately, so I can be better at my job. And then I thought I have communicated effectively what I’m trying to say. And so I do think it really is for that initial phase for me. And I’m in a quote, my friend, Genesa Greening , who runs the largest nonprofit in Canada called the BC Women’s Health Foundation. She says that she’s found was most effective at influencing people is ‘when you marry story with science. And when you marry morality with economics’.
Sue: [00:07:40] So I hope he will join us over the next few weeks to hear from these change-makers and several more as always, you can keep in touch with access to inspiration on social media. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Just search for access to inspiration. Please also take a moment to leave us a review on Apple podcasts. And if you just tell one other person about the series. Will also help us to spread the word. You’ll also find transcriptions for all of the 40 episodes and a number of specific playlists on the website. So hop on over to access to inspiration.org. I look forward to connecting with you soon.
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