When Learning is Trauma: Vic Williams, Lois Letchford, & Lisa McCarty

I'm Lois Letchford. I'm author of the book Reversed: A Memoir and a Literacy Problem Solver. Lisa, introduce yourself.

I'm Lisa McCarty and I work in the recovery field as an RN.

And today we welcome Vic Williams, a displaced South African. Can I say that?

Well, yes, a relocated South African or a Probably South African, yeah.

So take a listen to the accent, who is now living in the UK. Would you like to introduce yourself rather than a formal introduction?

Yeah, thanks, Lois. Yeah, my name is, as you've already said, Vic Williams. I own the Audacious Training Company, if you can see the name properly. Relocated from South Africa to the UK what, about 9 and a half years ago. And yeah, I couldn't get a job here because I was underemployed, I was underqualified, overqualified, not qualified enough, all the usual excuses. So I started my own business and yeah, created my own level of employment. And I'm really into neuroscience, helping people with dyslexia, I'm a trainer, I'm a consultant. Yeah, anything you want to throw at me, I'll take it on.

That sounds fantastic. Training in what particular way? What are you training people in?

So specifically, the Audacious Training Company, we focus on leadership, management, sales, LinkedIn, and presentation skills. I'm one of the top-ranked LinkedIn trainers in the world, recognized by a lot of people for that. But the company, because of what we do in the areas of leadership and management, I've got to travel to the most amazing countries in the world to go and talk with people about those things. We also do a lot of training in the area of change leadership and change management. So yeah, I've done those sort of things in Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Dubai, Qatar, India, Sri Lanka. It's just been, it's been, it's been an audacious ride. It's been fantastic. And now our business is taking quite a shift. Thursday night, we're launching a new part of our business called the Audacious Tribe. And that's all focused on motivation and and encouraging people to become the very best they can possibly become. So yeah, there we go. That's what we do.

There must be a journey behind that.

Yes, there's a very, very, very long journey. It probably started— my earliest recollections of kind of the whole motivation space Probably goes back to when I was about 7 years old. And my grandfather, who— so I grew up on a mine in South Africa, and my grandparents and parents, we all lived in one house together. Grandparents worked on the mine, grandmother worked on the farm. You know, it was kind of, we were all together. And my dad was a very negative kind of guy. And in those days, I mean, I'm going back to the early, mid-'60s, there was no such thing as dyslexia.

Yeah.

I was just stupid. And if I couldn't figure something out, my father would grab the implement. So, you know, maybe loosening a tire nut to take the tire off. I couldn't get it done. I couldn't work it out. And he'd rip the spanner out of my hand and, you know, do it himself and tell me I was stupid in the process. My grandfather, by contrast, would always say to me, it's okay, my boy, you can do it. You'll work it out. Just take your time, calm down, relax. And I recall, I mean, like I say, I was probably 7 at the time, but I could have been a little bit older. And I remember him one day saying to me, you will never become what you want to become until you believe in who you are now. and what you can accomplish with your life. And I remember thinking to myself, well, I don't really know what that means. But as the years progressed, he kind of unpacked these things for me. And being dyslexic, you know, things were a challenge. I mean, you guys understand that. And so every time somebody said to me, you're stupid, I just went back to that thing. So who do I see myself as? Who do I— Who do think you think you are? of myself as and kind of leveraged off that. And I think that's where the whole motivational empowerment encouragement thing comes from. And so that's probably where the journey started.

As a 7-year-old.

And then it progressed through from there, you know. So yeah, there's a long story there. Yeah. So Yeah, I don't know, do you want me to carry on a bit more of that story or how do you want to—

I have a question right off the bat. So you had your grandfather, it sounds like, who was encouraging you. Now, was your grandfather, in your estimation, was he dyslexic thinking back? Was he a similar thinker as you?

I don't think so, Lisa. I He was a very intelligent man, very articulate, read very, very well, very skilled with his hands, but he was a very deep and rich thinker. And I think, I don't think he understood the concept of dyslexia. I think he just got the idea, well, my grandson's just just a little bit different to everybody else. And so I don't think he was dyslexic, but I would probably say, because that was my mother's father, I do though think my father was probably dyslexic.

Yeah.

Because he left school long before he should have. He left school when he was 14.

Yeah.

Never read very well.

Yeah.

Never, was never very articulate.

Yeah.

And would get really angry and frustrated with his lack of ability to articulate ideas. Yet he was the most incredible fitter and turner. So he was a fitter and turner by trade, highly mechanical. He could make anything out of literally nothing. You know, give him a welding welding gear and he would make the most perfect stitch welding, you know, and nobody ever taught him. He just, it was just something he picked up on the fly. So I wouldn't say my grandfather was dyslexic. I think my father was, but he didn't know it, didn't understand it. He just thought he was stupid and therefore everybody else is stupid.

And that was my second question is, was your father dyslexic? And one of the things I often wonder about is Since this seems to run in families, part of the trauma that we seem to see is that intergenerational problems with the self-esteem or, like you mentioned, your father had trouble in school.

Mm-hmm.

So I don't know if some of his frustration, of course, would have been from himself, but maybe also fear that he saw you struggling with things too. I don't know. I'm guessing that the education system in South Africa is a little bit different than ours.

It is, yeah.

But they're all saying, you know, I bet the words that he gave to you are the words that were told to him, you're stupid.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, he grew up, so his parents, both his mother and father, died when he was fairly young and he was adopted.

Right.

And the history I've been told of his birth parents were both— that they were both completely uneducated in the sense that they never actually even went to school.

Yeah.

Whereas his adoptive parents, they forced everybody to go to school, but because he was the stupid one, quote unquote, He had to get everybody out of bed in the morning, had to feed them, had to get them off to school before he was allowed to go to school because he wasn't clever enough to go to school in their estimation.

Yeah.

You know, so I do think there's an intergenerational thing. I do think that it is a thing that is— I don't really want to use the word genetic, but I think there is a genesis to it.

it.

There's a sort of a genesis story, if you want, through the whole process.

Yes.

But yeah, whether it is or not, I'm actually waiting for some research that was conducted by neuroscientists specifically in the area of dyslexia. I just finished a neuroscience course very recently, and the lady who's taking us through that, the who's taking us through that course, she's getting all this information from me, from the research that's been done about dyslexia and what neuroscience is starting to uncover. So I'm really looking forward to getting that kind of information and seeing how it pans out because, oh man, that's kind of exciting stuff.

That stuff is very exciting stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. And as soon as I do get it, I'll pass it on to you guys if you want, you know.

Of course.

Absolutely, I'd be interested. in who's doing that research.

Yeah, I believe it's been done in the States, and if I remember correctly, it is— oh, I think it's been done in Illinois.

Yeah, possible.

I think, but I do speak under correction.

Yeah, well, we look forward to getting it because, you know, what you're saying is, I think, fairly well documented, particularly with the Jews in the Holocaust.

Yeah.

You know, it doesn't— it's not an incident that happened with a certain group of people and it's gone.

Yep.

So anyway, keep going, keep telling us your story, because I want to hear your— not only hear your story, but then hear about what you learned from the neuroscience. So that's the plan.

Yes. Well, so I kind of figured fairly early on that school wasn't for me. I hated school, every minute of it, except when I was able to play sport. So rugby, what you guys call soccer or football, what we call it football, cricket, all those sort of games, I lived for them because then I didn't have to sit with a book. And I think one of the things that terrified me the most was having to stand up in class during history or geography or biology and read text or create a summary of a book that I'd read and then have to tell this to the class because my reading wasn't very good. It was very slow and still is. You know, I always say to people, give me a book that's an inch thick, I'll take 2 years to read it and By the time I get to the end, I've got to start back at the beginning again because I've forgotten what it says, you know. But, um, so those kind of things I found a challenge. And because I found them a challenge, instead of trying to, um, put myself back in that position constantly, I fought against it.

Yeah.

So, um, I was hugely rebellious in class. And spent a lot of time doing what teachers call daydreaming, looking out the window, and my brain was in a totally different place. What I'm starting now to learn from some of the research I'm reading is that we should be allowing our kids to do that.

Yeah.

You know, let them daydream because that's when they have these hugely creative ideas, and that's where ideas like Tesla comes from, you know, those, hey, we can fly to the moon, that kind of thing comes from those environments where kids are allowed to let their minds escape from the confines of a rigid curriculum, you know. And so I think going through that kind of process, junior school, you know, growing up in South Africa, it was a very rigid society. We were a very insulated Afrikaner culture. You had the Afrikaners and the English people constantly at one another, and so it was a very regimented society. You did things like this, you had to do it like that. That was a real frustration, and I'm not kind of a regimented type of person. You know, I can't do shirts that are tucked in and ties and suits and that just blows my mind. So just leave me alone. Yeah, let me put on my shorts and my flip-flops and I'm good to go. But part of that, you know, you put in these boundaries, you put in this environment, and if you don't fit into that box where they're trying to plug you into, then you are stupid, or you're an outcast, or you're a failure. And so those are the kind of things that I learned very early on. I was never going to fit into the box that people wanted to put me in. I just wasn't. I didn't understand why.

Yeah.

And so I pretty early on in my life figured out that working for— like, I saw my granddad work for 40 years and then get a gold watch from the company he'd worked for, and that was a thanks very much, yeah, Lynn, here's your gold watch, now go off and we've had enough of you kind of thing. And I kind of figured I could never work for a boss for 40 years for a gold watch.

Yeah.

Yeah, it just wasn't my space. And so I started my first business when I was 13. I'd got a job as a— yeah, I'd got a job as an usher in a movie house. If you kind of My generation, you'll understand that. Movie houses, we had ushers with torches, and you'd stand at the door of the movie house and people would go and buy their ticket, and they would get 2 tickets or 3 tickets depending on what price they paid. One ticket would get them entry into the place and would have a seat number in the movie house. The second ticket would give them their popcorn or sweets or whatever they wanted, and then the third one would give them their soft drink, whether it was Coca-Cola or Fanta or whatever the case may be. And so typically what would happen is an usher, you'd take their tickets, you'd have a look at the seat that they were sitting in, and then you'd walk them into the movie house, you take them to the seats and let them sit down. I pretty quickly figured out that what was happening is the men and the ladies would sit down, then the man would get up and he'd take the 2 tickets and he would go down back into the auditorium or the kind of rest area or the cafeteria, whatever you call it, and he would then go and get the Coke or the— I suppose I'm not supposed to say Coke, but whatever— the soft drink and the popcorn or the crisps or whatever they wanted. And then he would struggle his way back into, you know, the stuff spinning all over the place and it's popcorn flying, and he'd kind of get there and, you know, almost have claw fingers as he was trying to give it to her and she'd spill it on it. It was always a mess. The floors were a disaster. And I kind of figured, you know what, if I as an usher could say to them, give me your tickets, tell me what you wanted, I'd go down, I'd get it for them, I'd bring it back to them, they'd probably give me a tip because I was saving them time, you know, they weren't messing up their clothes, and I knew the guys behind the counter, so I'd get served quicker, all this kind of stuff. So I started doing that, and then some of the ushers saw what I was doing and they went, What are you doing? Hey, we want a piece of this. And I thought, well, here's a business opportunity. And so I employed them, and they had to give me— because I gave them my secrets of how to do it— they had to give me 15% of their commission, of their tips. And then that worked great for a while, but then we hit a snag, and that was Betamax and VHS. VHS was starting to come into South Africa, and so people weren't going to the movie houses anymore because they could watch the same movie at home on a VHS or a Betamax, and it was kind of cool, you know. So business started to taper off, and, and there was a guy that was bothering me. He wanted, he wanted the business, you know, and so I sold it to him.

How old were you?

15? I was 13, and the business after I told it to him. And so that was my first business venture. And then I kind of— life carried on for a couple more years. And the earliest you were allowed to legally leave school at the time was 16. And literally, I mean, my birthday's in August, but literally the day I turned 16, I said to my parents, end of this year, I'm out of here. So school year in South Africa runs from January to December.

Yeah.

And so I was, I was out of there in December. I went and I got a job. I spent most of my time sitting on the beach, let my hair grow, and the job was kind of cool. You know, it was kind of only 3 hours a day, something like that. And then I applied to go to the military, because again, at that time we had conscription.

Yeah.

So all males had to go to the military for 2 years, the national service. And I'd applied to go to what was called permanent force. So you got a 5-year contract and you were in the permanent force. And I got accepted and I went in, I went into the Air Force with the objective of becoming a pilot. But because I didn't leave school with the correct qualifications, I was going to have to work my way up to that by getting the qualifications through the process. Pretty quickly realized that that wasn't going to happen because it required a lot of book learning.

Yeah.

And reading technical manuals and doing math just wasn't going to fly for me. I mean, And still today, you give me 1 1 and I'll come up with any number you want. You know, and that's using a calculator. So it's kind of, you know, give me a calculator, give me 2 sets of numbers and hey, tell me what answer you want and I'll work it out. I'll get there, you know. And so becoming a pilot wasn't kind of going to work out for me. So I spent 5 and a half years, almost 6 years in the military. But had an aircraft accident while I was there, broke my back, broke my neck. And despite the fact that I wanted to have a further contract, they wouldn't take me because I was physically unfit. And I hadn't kind of progressed in terms of knowledge, book learning, or that kind of knowledge that people recognize in terms of a piece of paper that says you've got XYZ qualification. I hadn't really progressed at that stage much from when I'd left school.

Yeah.

You know, I qualified as a motor mechanic. All those sort of technical things which didn't require a lot of book learning, that was easy. When I left the Air Force, I was kind of high and dry. I didn't know what I was going to do. And a job came up as a restaurant manager. And So, 3 months after leaving the Air Force, I went and got a job as a restaurant manager, which I loved, but the hours were horrendous. First, I was sent into the kitchen to spend 6 months in there learning to be a chef. And again, it was easy to do. I was able to adapt to it very quickly until they brought out, okay, so this is how you need to cook this particular dish as your recipe, and then it becomes all blurry.

Yes.

And so I became quite creative in the kitchen listening to what the other chefs were talking about. And so I think one of the skills that I picked up in that environment was rather than be able to read the thing, and this is probably a downfall of mine, is I don't like reading it. it takes too long. I'd rather listen to what other people are saying and retain that knowledge. And so, I think I've built up that skill of memory retention in terms of holding on to those ideas and attaching a specific scenario to something that was communicated.

Yeah.

And so, that's how the memories kind of, for me, have formulated. But the hours killed me. I mean, I was there for 3 years working 6 days a week, starting at 7 in the morning, finishing at midnight. And it was killer.

Killer.

And then I decided to start another business, and that was go back into the automotive trade. And so subsequent to that, I've started 8 different businesses. Sorry, 9 different businesses, of which some have been spectacular successes.

Yeah.

Some have been mediocre successes, and one failed abysmally. Spectacular failure. But I think throughout all of those, there's a learning curve, you know.

Yeah.

And you learn what you're good at and what you're not good at. And I think one of the major things that I've learned is trust people. You trust them, they normally will give you back what you, what you've trusted them for. So like I've said, numbers aren't a great skill in spite of the fact that I now have an MBA with a major in economics.

Well done.

You go figure. Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how they got me through that one. But anyway, economics doesn't really require you to add more than 1 1 anyway, so that's okay. As long as you understand the concept, economics works. But accounting was never a strong suit, so I had to, and still do, I'll find an accountant. You know, sometimes there's that instant trust that you have.

Yeah.

Okay, pal, if this is what you tell me I must do, that's what I'll do because I trust you.

Yeah.

And one of the things I've realized is that if you extend trust, normally you're going to get trust back.

Yeah.

And so if you trust people to do that thing, normally they'll respond and give you what you trusted them to do. It's a very rare occasion that you're going to get ripped off, but all we often hear is the rip-off stories.

Yeah.

So, I think there's so many lessons that I've learned along the way of how to deal with my dyslexia and the dyslexia of other people, because it's often a case that, and this is again something that I've discovered, that the majority of people who are dyslexic Particularly the older men, don't want people to know.

Yes.

Because there's a fear of rejection.

Yeah.

There's a fear of, I won't be perceived as being a man.

Yeah.

People will look down at me, they'll think less of me, all those things that are constructed in our minds.

And reality.

Sorry?

And reality.

And reality, yeah, absolutely. There is that reality as well, and it's built up from back in school.

Yes.

You know, um, you're stupid, you've got dyslexia, what's that? That's rubbish, you're just stupid, go and sit in the corner. I mean, I can't remember how many times I was told to go and sit in the corner because That's my only value, sitting in the corner staring into that space, because there's other kids that need to grow and develop and I'm not one of them. So go sit in that corner, look into the corner, and that's your value. And if I— I think if I didn't have those words from my grandfather going back to those days, Yeah. I probably would have ended up living in that space. And again, that's something that I'm finding so sad. So many people with such incredible talent, such incredible skills, such incredible ideas and abilities don't allow those things to come out because for so long they've been put in that corner and just, you sit there and do nothing because that's your value. And, and my passion, my real excitement in life is to see those people and draw that out of them. So come on, man. Yeah, come on this journey. You know, let's go smell the roses together.

That's—

oh man, that just fires me up like there's no tomorrow. So yeah, pretty much that's kind of a bit of a story. There's a heck of a lot more to it. I'll put it in a book one day maybe. But yeah, so I've written a couple of books already, but they're more on the business side. But I'll do that.

Those I won't read, but the other one I would. The business But how did you come to trust? Was that from your grandfather? Because some kids sitting in these classrooms, they're not going to trust anybody, and that follows them into adulthood. They're still not going to trust anybody. That's what I tend to see in the work that I do. So where did you get that trust?

I think it was— there was 2 environments that that developed from. Firstly, my grandfather and grandmother. I love them. They're just the most amazing people going. My grandmother had never worked a day in her life. She couldn't drive. She didn't know how to open or close a bank account, write a check, draw money out of an ATM, none of that sort of stuff, because my grandfather did all that and she was quite happy with it.

Yes.

But she was just such a loving, caring, giving person. And she had the skill of of wanting to teach you the things that she was passionate about. So she loved baking, for example. So I learned from her how to bake bread in a stone oven.

Yes.

Because that was her passion and she loved teaching you. So I think the trust came from both my grandfather and my grandmother in the sense that they would say, okay, I want you to do this. This is how you need to do it. Go and do it. And they exuded that trust.

Yeah.

And I think that's the first thing that allowed me to learn that skill of trust. And the second thing is, when I was at school, the one person whose class I really enjoyed attending was my history teacher. And I think that's grown my love of history. He was a really passionate man about history, and he was also our math teacher. And so he would use history to teach math.

Yeah.

Now, it didn't work for me because I still don't understand numbers, but it made me go, hey, you know what, I can— this stuff this guy's telling me, I can believe. He made history alive, and just because of his passion and the way he taught it, it kind of raised that trust level. On the other side of the coin, there was my father and some of the other people, some of the other teachers in school who kind of almost put a damp cloth on that. But I think the interaction with those people was strong enough that allowed that trust to rise. Now, I see the same as you're saying, Lisa. I see it so many times that people with dyslexia, especially males, but a lot of females, women, have got the same problem where they don't trust anyone because they've been given that, that put you down, you're not good enough, kind of message the whole time. And so I think our jobs as people who recognize that is to slowly pull that out of them. I think inherent in every one of us is the desire to trust other people. I think it's an inherent thing. And I think if we teach people that skill by slowly drawing it out of them, we can help them to get Yeah, I don't know. That's just, like I say, that's my opinion. And I've seen it so many times before.

And you've built businesses on it.

I've built businesses on it. Yeah. I mean, my spectacular failure came from trusting somebody I shouldn't have. I trusted a guy within a company who was the purchasing manager. And at the time there was no computers, but he was running 2 invoice books. And so he was ripping the company off and he was ripping me off. That caused a spectacular failure. But you know what? Because I think I keep looking back at my grandfather and I go, yeah, I trusted him. He trusted me. I'm going to carry on trusting people.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've been burnt a few times, but I think more than I think probably out of all the people that I've invested a huge amount of trust in, probably 2% have let me down, have burnt me. So, you know, it's kind of, you can get to that place. I think human nature is just naturally that way inclined. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but hey, you know what, I believe people.

Phil, I love your enthusiasm. I love your passion for You know, of taking people— because you're right, there's so much damage done in school, which is how this, this, you know, the title came about, When Learning Is Trauma. How do we overcome? How do we live with it? And that's what you're saying, you know, and it's absolutely wonderful to have grandparents around who are so inclusive and encouraging and accepting.

Yeah, I think that's such an important thing that even now, you know, I mean, I was talking to a guy the other day. He's around my age. He's, I think he's 55, 56, somewhere around there. And he was saying to me, he was brought up in the foster system, in the childcare system. And there was nobody really that he could hang his hat on, you know, where he felt comfortable comfortable, where he felt at home, that he felt like a parent. And even today, he feels that kind of trauma. And we had this conversation, and kind of the conversation revolved around how does he deal with it?

Yeah.

What does he do to kind of overcome that even at his age? And his words to me was, Vic, you know what, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And my favorite response to that is, buddy, that's an insult to an old dog. an old dog, because you can teach anybody. I mean, our brains are evolved.

Dynamic.

Whatever term you want to use, they are dynamic. They are— they can grow all the time. They can develop, they can change. And we can change our perception of ourselves just by changing what we believe about ourselves. You know, the stuff we read, You read a lot of, in a lot of newspapers about how rubbish men are. Stop believing that garbage. Stop reading that garbage. Get away from that stuff. You know what? 99.999% of men and women are great. They are fantastic people. It's just that tiny little percentage that gives everybody a bad name. So stop believing the rubbish. Stop believing the negative. Believe the reality. Change your mind. This is the conversation we had, and I said to him, well, if you think about the group of people that you hang out with, what do they believe about you? Oh, he said, well, you know, if I, if I talk to them, they think they're failures and I'm a failure and we'll never get anywhere. I said, I tell you what, here's the thing you need to do: change your friends. But don't just walk away from them, flipping run away from them. Just run away. move to another city, go and stay somewhere else, because those people will keep on dragging you down and keeping you where you are.

Yes.

You want to get around a group of people, younger or older than you, who see you for who you are. Whether that's, you've got mental health issues, you've got dyslexia, you are depressed, whatever it is, get around a group of people who That see you for who you are and want to help you day by day get 1% better. Just 1% every day. You grow 1% every day. Can you imagine what your life's going to be just 1 year from today? Wow, that's incredible. So right now, over the next few weeks, what I want you to do is give me a call once a week. Just phone me and tell me who the new friends are that you've gone and looked for. That you've gone out and found those people who are going to help you change your life. I got a phone call from him yesterday, and he was going— it's Sunday, I was out walking on the moors, just got a phone call. He said, Vic, I want to tell you about my new friend. And I was so— man, I tell you what, I was just exploding all over the place because here's a guy who's taken one He's taken that, um, I'm not gonna let other people determine who I'm gonna become. I'm gonna determine who I am and who I want to become. He's taken hold of that thing. He's made it his own. He's living in that place. Now he's going to find out— find those people. They're going to encourage him and help him to get there. Man, that just fires me up like you cannot believe. I just— oh yeah, let's get some more of those people. Because that's what, you know, that's what life is about. Life isn't about saying, oh, you're rubbish, you're stupid, you've got dyslexia. That's not what life's about. It's about telling people that they are great. They are. They have got potential. They've got value. Yeah, I've got a quote laying here on my desk. Oscar Wilde said this: a cynic knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Yeah.

And, and that's what we see so often from the news media, from all those people. They don't— they see the price of people, but they don't see the value in them. And I, I take it it's my responsibility to see people's value and go, right, let's enhance that value. Yeah, we've got a— I mean, you standing in front of me, Lois, I see a, I don't know, a Ming Dynasty vase that's got immense value that nobody Yeah. You know, it's like they're going, oh, well, this is just a thing that was made the other day. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Come on. We must see that value in people. When we see that value, we can pull that out and, man, we get on down the road and, ah, just the change in people is awesome.

I've got a question for you from one of our listeners.

Oh, cool.

And it's, I don't have dyslexia. She has ADHD, which is why she has performance anxiety. So she says, I guess—

Sorry, say that again. I'm struggling to hear you.

Okay. She— the person is Xena, and she says she has performance anxiety. So, yeah, trust is hard. So I guess this relates to neurodiversity. Then she asks, so how do you tell people or suggest ways for people to start trusting others in a way that feels comfortable?

Oh, good question. Good question. You know, for me, I think it's— I think trust has to start with you. You as an individual have to trust yourself. If you trust yourself, it's that much easier to trust other people. You can't— years ago, a friend of mine, a lady by the name of Ingrid Roberts, absolutely amazing Amazing lady lives in South Africa. Ingrid said to me, "Vic, you need to recognize this. There's two things you can do something about; two things you can do nothing about. The two things you can do something about is your actions and your attitudes.

Yeah.

The things you can do nothing about is other people's actions and other people's attitudes. You can try to encourage them. You can." Try to help them gain an understanding, but you can't do anything about it. It's their decision—the way they want to feel, the way they want to perceive things, the way they want to see you—that's their decision. You can you can try to educate them, but you can't change them. What you can do is change yourself. And so if you have you said it's Zina, okay? So Zina is. Struggling with performance anxiety, keeping up with people. Okay, stop it. Keep up with yourself. And one of the things that I found in sales is they, they put up this board on the wall and they go, right, every salesman, this is your target, or saleswoman, this is your target. Bang. And we've got this chart, and if you're not at the top of the chart, you're rubbish, get out. Okay, and everybody's trying to push the chart. They're trying to get to the top, and they start to compete with each other.

Yeah.

Stop it. Stop it. The only person you should ever be competing with is yourself. Only compete with yourself. Only judge yourself by your own actions. Judge yourself by your own attitudes. If your actions aren't good, you're not going to get the right results. So change your actions, get the right results. If your attitude isn't good, you're not going to take the right actions. So change your attitude. How do you do that? Go back to the things that you put in here. Our brains are like a computer. A computer will only give you out what you put into it. Okay? So you need to— in this thing between your ears, it's the most incredibly powerful, dynamic thing that has ever been seen. Seen in the universe. Okay, that is a fact and a neurological fact that— I mean, yeah, we don't know probably 99.9% of the stuff that happens in here. We don't even know how it happens. It just happens. Okay, so put good stuff in. Read the books that build you up, that grow you, that develop you, that give you the answers to how good you possibly can be. Great book. I've got sitting up there, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I mean, stuff that goes back to the 1900s.

Yeah.

It's just power to your soul, man. It's power to your brain. It's power to who you are. Read that kind of stuff. Change your view of yourself. So you changed your view of yourself, you are going to be projecting to other people who you are. And Then that will change their attitude towards you. So if you, if you're struggling with how people— excuse me— with how people perceive you, change how you perceive yourself. If you think of yourself as not good enough, that's how other people will see you. If you see yourself as dyslexic and therefore you're not able to, then other people will see you the same way.

So if you're not able to, you're not good enough?

But if you see yourself as dyslexic or neurodiverse or whatever terminology you want to put on that thing, and you say, okay, now I own this, I own it, it's mine, I am going to make myself something from that place. I'm going to develop the skills, I'm going to grow the ideas, I'm going to get the information in that is going to build me up. I will then be able to communicate to the world who I am. And it becomes like a, almost like a blossom opening up to the sunshine. But if you're trying to compete, I've got to stick up with people, I've got to, I've got to chase after this, I've got to be better than them, I've got to be as good as them. If you're thinking that all the time, that's where you're going to stay, and you'll never be as good as anybody else because you can't. Why? Because they're being the best they can be. And there's only one of them, there's not two of them, so you can't be one of them. So be the best you can be. Understand who you are. Own yourself. Own your— so I'm dyslexic. Cool. Let me own it. Let me make it mine. Let me embrace it. How does that make me different? What does that give me that it doesn't give other people? How can I leverage off that? And how can I show the world who I am? Rather than let them determine. So hopefully that kind of answers that question and gives some solutions.

Were you always this optimistic? Or was there a period of time that you had to come through to get to that?

Well, when I was 7 years old, Just after my seventh birthday, in November of the year that I turned seven, which was 1970, I was diagnosed as with depression. At seven? At seven. And so I fought depression my whole life.

I.

I call depression my black dog.

Yeah, yeah.

And thank you. Um, that thing rises every now and again.

Yeah.

And life becomes a challenge.

Yeah.

Um, just recently over December, on— how weird is this? Uh, great Christmas present. Christmas Day, wake up, 6 o'clock, my phone buzzes. And I have a look at it, and it's the NHS in England, the National Health Service, telling me that the COVID test that I went for was positive. There we go, on Christmas Day. How's that for a Christmas present? But what happened was, as I was laying in bed, I started thinking of all the bad that could potentially happen with it, and I very quickly spiraled down into that very dark time. tunnel. But over the years, I've developed mechanisms whereby I recognize where I'm at, and I'm able to say, hang on, wait, that's not who I am. This thing that I perceive myself to be, that the— So, I think it's the same for most people that suffer with depression, but what happens is everything just cones in around you, and it becomes It's just this cone going downhill, and eventually it's so black in your mind that you can't, you can't see emotionally, mentally, physically, psychologically. You can't see anything past that blackness.

Yes.

And I have always found a way of, when I get there, I've been able to recognize it and say, this far, no further. And then wind myself out, and the only way I've been able to wind myself out of that is being optimistic about the future. For many years, I've suffered with the issue of suicide. How many times I've been driving down the road and just think to myself, well, if you crash into the barrier, you know it's over. You don't have to worry about the debt that you have or the you know the issues you had a fight with. Wife this morning, or whatever the case may be. And just that relentless optimism in my mind that tomorrow will be better has allowed me to pull myself back out of that place. And so again, I think it's something that people can— we as humans have that innate quality that we can recognize where we're at. And we can pull ourselves back up.

Yeah.

I spent 8 hours laying in the African bush after breaking my back and my neck, waiting for somebody to come rescue me and thinking about, well, I can't move my arms, I can't move my legs. I've got a pistol on my hip, but I don't know how I'm going to pull that thing out because I can't move my arm to get there. And I remember laying there thinking, is my leg under my left leg under my right leg, or is, is it just, is it just me thinking that? And I started to go down into that kind of dark hole. Well, um, the sun's gonna go down just now. I can't defend myself. There's hyenas around, there's leopards around. Which one's gonna eat me first?

Yeah.

Um, and just in the back of my mind, there was this thing I kept on saying, you were made for more than this.

Yeah.

You were made for more than this. Something's going to happen. You were made for more than this. And I think it's that, I don't know, it's just that, and again, I think it comes from my grandfather.

Yeah.

Implanting that seed I see it in my head that one day, however long it takes, one day you'll impact enough people's lives that it will change them for the better. And I think laying there, I mean, our aircraft was shot down at 7 o'clock in the morning. through the whole midday. It was the middle of winter in Africa, but in the part of Africa where we were in Angola, winter, a winter's day when the sun's out, is like 28 degrees centigrade or Celsius. What do they call it? Celsius.

Celsius.

So it's quite hot and it's, you know, and And I'm laying there and I'm thinking, there's more to life than this. Something's going to happen. And just that, yeah, I don't know, pulling on those reserves. I don't know what it is. And then getting back to, getting to hospital, getting my back and my neck sorted out, spending 7 months learning to rewalk.

Wow.

Fortunately, my spinal cord wasn't severed. Learning to rewalk. rehabilitation, all those things, just every time it didn't work, it was that optimism that, yeah, tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow I'll conquer this thing. Tomorrow, and still today, I mean, I'm overweight, I know it. I was talking to my wife earlier about it. And I know tomorrow I'll work harder at losing that weight that I need to lose, you know. So yeah, I'd probably say that it There's always been an optimism, but I think that it's the only way I've been able to counteract the depression. So sorry, very long answer to a very short question.

Well, we've got, you know, these are our buddies who listen every week, which are absolutely fantastic. And Xena said, how do you quietly embrace it?

How do you quietly embrace it?

If you don't have the people around who want to hear it. And then she says, I love your energy. We do.

I love it. Well done. Thank you, man. So this is what I say to people. If you can't find the people around you where you live, hey, give me a phone call. I'll encourage you. I'll motivate you. I'll talk to you once a week when you need that pick-me-up. I'll be the person that will stand around you and help you to embrace that thing. And that's kind of the reason why we're starting what we call the Audacious Tribe, is to be that, those arms that wrap around people and be that place where people can get encouraged and empowered. But you know what? There are always people, if you just look hard enough, there are always people around you that are willing to build you up and pick you up and encourage you. You know, it might be the guy down at the corner store who is just, he's just the guy at the corner store. But as you start to talk you talk to him, you discover he's, he's got that kind of energy that wants to lift people up. Hey, go to the corner store every day, you know, even if it's you go buy a box of matches, whatever it is, just go to the corner store. That's the guy that's gonna empower you and encourage you. Um, but Zena, I want, I want to say this to you. Just you grab hold of the people. They are there. Just look hard enough, you'll find them. But if you can't find them, hey, contact me on LinkedIn. We'll have a chat. I'll, I'll I'll chat to you anyway.

Anyway, um, and then we've got from Chris, what advice do you have for students that are unable to get the help they need? Now this goes back to what you said earlier.

Ah, you know, one of the things that, that is fairly disheartening is the lack of support Yes. Within the education system.

Yes.

And it's not a willful lack of support. It's a lack of understanding of what support is really needed.

Yep, yep.

You know, there's a lot of— don't get me wrong, there's a lot of people in the education system that are passionate about education, that really want to see see kids come through the school system and become something that, that changes the world. There are so many teachers, educators like that in the school system, but they are restricted by the curriculums that are set before them, and they've got to stay within those boundaries. Yeah. And I think it's a very sad thing when, when it's not recognized, when it's not discovered, when It's not put in place in a way that can help people. So I would say, Chris, the first thing you need to do is you potentially need to look outside of the school system, out of the education system, and find those people that can plug you into the right place inside the education system, or can plug you into the right place outside of the system that is going to help you get what you need to get because there is support, there is help. It's just a case of finding it. And you know what, just looking at your story, Lois and Lisa, from what you've been saying about your sons and your husband, you guys have been relentless in your pursuit of finding support. And if you can't find it, create it.

Mm-hmm.

And you know what, Chris, if you can't find it, create it and help. And support your buddies. Help other people that need the help because you know what they need.

You just said it, relentless. That's the word. And you cannot give up. You've got no choice. You cannot give up. Yeah.

You know what? Here's what I've found. If you look hard enough, that thing that you're trying to find will slap you in the face when you least expect it. And that's what you want. And that relentlessness of going after this thing, suddenly it's going to smack you in the face and you go, hey, where have you been all my life? It will— it's just the way it works. Okay, so relentlessly pursue the support that you need.

Yeah.

And if you can't find it, then create it. Create it for the people that need it, and you will support yourself in the same process by the same token. You know, that, that, um, it's just about being relentless, going after those things that you passionately want. Yeah, it might take you 20 years, it might take you 30 years, but hey, you know what, it's there if you want it. But you've got to find it, you've got to dig hard enough. Um, it's, it's like, yeah, coming from South Africa, um, the 2 main things that we have there is diamonds and gold. And they're 2 of the most prized commodities in terms of how people perceive value and monetary and all the things in monetary terms. Diamonds and gold. But if you have a look at it, it's the 2 most difficult things to extract.

Yeah.

And so to get those things of value, you've got to work hard, you've got to dig at it, you've got to scratch that thing out. And that's the same as getting the support. I mean, I've— as an individual, I don't think I've ever really had that through the system. I've had to go and find it. I've done the courses that have helped me. I've created the environment in which I can be who I am. And I think that, again, that's part of embracing that neurodiversity is saying, you know what, I'm not going to look for a I'm not going to look to rest on somebody else's shoulders if they are not there. I'm going to be the shoulder that other people can rest on. And that requires just, I suppose you could call it internal intestinal fortitude, a little bit of guts, a little bit of, you know what, I'm going to give this thing my best shot. And I'm going to take other people on the journey with me. So Chris, if I can say this to you, if you can't find that support, you become And again, hey, you know, give us a shout. I'm sure we'll be able to give you some direction and advice and set you on your way.

That's what I was going to say. They'll have to connect with you.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Let's get it done. I was speaking in one of the rooms on— what's this thing? Other day. And I'm quite new to Clubhouse. So sorry, please excuse me. I don't think I've got an accent, but other people tell me I do. And sometimes I say things and people look at me like, what's going on? Hey, it's Clubhouse. Okay, so on Clubhouse, I was talking the other day. And we were talking about neurodiversity and how you can approach it. And look, there's a load of theories out there. There's a lot of stuff stuff that's been researched by scientists, a lot of clever people, and it's a— there's a lot of good stuff out there. But at the end of the day, you can have all the stuff in front of you. If you don't own your circumstances, if you don't take those things and say, okay, I'll take this little piece, I'll take that little piece, and I'll construct something that works for me, then nothing's going to work for you. That, at the end of the day, is the way it works.

This has been phenomenal. Not only getting to know you, but you know, you've got so much, haven't you, to give and so much for people to take away. And you're right, the only one you can control is you and your attitudes and your actions.

Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully the stuff that I share helps people at the end of the day.

Yes, yes, which is why we do it. We've got to have you back. We're doing another series in September, October.

Okay.

We'll keep talking.

I'm happy. Listen, my wife says she struggles to shut me up, so I'm happy.

We just wish we had more time to go on.

Yeah, well, anytime you want to give me a shout, we can have a conversation. I've got No problem with that.

Well, you're absolutely generous with your time. I mean, absolutely fantastic. And, well, let's start winding up. Where do people find you?

Okay, the best place to find me is LinkedIn.

Right.

I'm all over LinkedIn like a cheap suit. I'm on there every day, so if you want to find me, connect with me, on LinkedIn. That's the best place. The second best place to find me is via my website, which is audaciotribe.com. audaciotribe.com. The reason why it's audacious is, as I said at the top end, audacious stands for bold, innovative, inventive, and unconstrained by previous ideas. That's what audacious means. means to me, and that's why it's called Audacious Tribe. So those are the 2 best places to get hold of me. Yeah, my telephone number is on my LinkedIn profile. So yeah, yeah. What about— drop me a WhatsApp if you need to.

What about Facebook or Twitter?

I'm on Facebook. I don't know very much about it, but my marketing manager is on there for me. So she looks after that. You can get hold of me on Facebook also, Audacious Tribe. Is on there. Twitter, yeah, we're there again. That's my marketing manager. I've got no idea how Twitter works. All I know that it's 100, what, 280 characters or something. How it works, I've got no flipping idea. But yes, we are there. So yeah, you can follow us there. I'm also on Instagram.

Oh, good.

Again, Audacious Tribe on Instagram. I do fiddle around there a little bit, do some video and that sort of stuff. But again, I've got the most fantastic marketing manager. She is absolutely awesome. Love her too, but Kirsten, she does a whole lot of stuff for me. And yeah, so yeah, any of those places, poke me a message. That's great. On WhatsApp, as I said, my mobile number is, or my cell phone number, I think is on my LinkedIn profile. Give me a shout. Hey, happy days. Also, my email address is on there too. So that's probably the best ways to get hold of me.

Perfect. What's important? What's the next— well, next week we've actually got a change of time because we're talking to Dr. Neil Alexander Pass from London at 8, not 9. Yes, he spoke to us last year, or yeah, and so he comes again because he's, um, phenomenal. I've got to sit back, I'm being told what to do. Not allowed to move. And I move too much, then I get in trouble. So thank you for listening. Thank you for joining us today. Lisa, where, where do we find you?

Well, Facebook, and I am on LinkedIn finally. I am on there. I don't really know how to use it, but I will figure it out. And then of course on YouTube with Lois on Monday afternoons.

And when you get bored, you do one on when you're driving.

Oh right, except I don't know if I should do that anymore because I don't want to get fined. So I'll have to pull over in a parking lot and say thoughts while parked instead of thoughts while driving.

Oh brilliant, that's lovely.

I must say thank you to you guys for inviting me along. It's been absolutely fantastic. Absolutely brilliant sharing with you. Absolutely loved it.

Yeah, it was nice meeting you. Very nice talking to you. Yeah, I got so much from that. I really did.

Awesome.

Awesome. Love it.

We've got so much. So, okay, we'll be back in August, September. Where can they reach me? You'll find me at loislatchford.com, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on LinkedIn. It all takes a lot of work, but it's fun. And like, subscribe, and hit the bell. So my son keeps telling me this is what I've got to do.

Hit the notification bell if you want to find out more and get updated.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I've got to write it on here then. Okay, we'll talk to you again soon. Thank you for Chris and for Isaac for all their support. Without them, this would not happen.

Brilliant, well done. Guys, thank you again for the opportunity.

Thank you, and we'll talk to you again soon.

Nice meeting you. Take care.

Thank you. Bye. Cheers. Bye.