On Thursday Joe and I will be holding a webinar to discuss some matters close to our hearts. We have called it ‘Thriving despite obstacles’ although I confess I wanted to call it ‘Don’t be an a**hole’. Joe is clearly a good influence on me!

We connected a few months back via another business networking group, and we chatted as Joe offered to help my members via Yes Group Bristol

A few conversations later and we decided that it would be nice to share our combined ‘expertise’ (based on the 10’000 hour rule) on finding happiness. I have always tried to support others with their wellbeing, despite my own struggles, as evidenced by me publishing Finding Happiness and Freeing Your Spirit in 2016, and by blogging on here. What then happened was the murder of George Floyd and worldwide Black Lives Matter protests..

Joe and I discussed this as we discussed our webinar plans and we realised that we needed to talk more openly about this. Joe helped me to understand what it must be like to live in fear due to colour, and to have that fear for our children. I talked about how other than my mum being bullied for being mixed race in school, I grew up thinking that all was okay, we lived in a multi cultural city and my class mates, boyfriends and teachers were either black or white and we seemed to live as one. It was only as an adult I realised there was hatred and division, and that I wasn’t educated in positive black history. It was, and is, heart-breaking to know that colour is an issue for some people, and that our fellow human beings are up against it due to their colour.

I told Joe that I would like to go to a Gospel Choir, but I did not feel as though I could walk into a church where I didn’t belong, and that I had been turned away from banks and networking due to being white, I told him that we all need to mingle properly, as we did when we were kids.. but I also understood that these were ‘safe spaces’ where nobody felt threatened or vulnerable. and we discussed how when I run networking events for women only, it is not intended to exclude men as such, but just to create a safe space where we all have a similar manner and it is unlikely that you will be approached for anything that isn’t business..

I talked about the fear and how the only way I could relate was as a female, feeling unsafe and needing to protect my daughter from those who think it is okay to abuse a person, I guess this must be a similar kind of fear, to know that you could be attacked in some way, or not appointed because of your sex or colour.. a difficult conversation to have, but essentially one that really reiterates that it is down to basic human decency, hence my desire to entitle the webinar ‘don’t be an a**hole’.

To be a decent human being is not to hurt another human being, and to see that we are all equal, which is greatly different to ‘treating all equal’. We should not live in fear of being raped, beaten, killed, or discriminated against because of our colour, sex, or sexuality. We are all human, of course the human rights act is ahead of this here and equality and diversity has been around for a long time now, but, they are about legislation and compliance. Many of us are healers, we help people who have had similar experiences to ourselves, and we support legislation to back us up in the event of wrong doing, but it needs to be much more. In every grain of education we need to be clear about what it is to be human, and we need to be clear that it is not okay to hurt, rape, kill, or be cruel to people because they are not white, male, working age and heterosexual.

It’s the basics of being a decent human being, and Gov can take responsibility to ensure that via education we are fully equipped for an adult life, so that we do not carry the hatred forward that we may have been born into. We are taught to hate and be cruel, we need to unteach that and know that we have done all we can as a Country, to ensure that everybody feels safe, and knows that they are seen and treated the same as every other person. No man is above the law, and no man should be beneath it either.

You can join the webinar for free on Thursday 18th June at 10:30am. It is very light hearted – Joe and I do mess around, but we can also share lots of advice on how to cope with the rubbish stuff, and how to move forward in a positive way, ensuring that we use our heartache as fuel for good. Instead of being all consumed by anger.

Note if you would be interested in being coached, Joe coaches people using the model he will share in the webinar.

We both agree that ‘entertainment’ – such as ‘Can’t Pay Take it Away’ is cruel and heart-breaking to watch people who are having a really hard time (private household). As human beings we can all do better.

And why is the SMBN important – because we shouldn’t be worried about basic food and shelter, we have bigger fish to fry and we can do that as soon as we ensure that parenting is as doable solo as it is in 2.4.