Graham Allcott 0:04
Hello, my name is Graham Allcott. Welcome to another episode of Beyond Busy. The show where we talk productivity, work life balance, defining happiness and success and much much more. On this episode, I'm talking to Dave McQueen, coach, contrarian, all around interesting guy and I think you're gonna really love this episode. We talk about Black Lives Matter, we talk leadership, we talk successes and failures in business, we talk telling hard truths to organisations and loads more. Just so much to take away from this episode. So I think you're gonna really enjoy it. Quick before we get into it, so I have just started up this mailing list in the last few weeks. I'm on week 10. And if you go to GrahamAllcott.com you can sign up there. We're now over 500 people it's it's been a really interesting journey of the last few weeks, just having the deadline every week to write something useful and positive. So it is called Rev up for the Week. And the idea is it's like one positive thought to take into the week ahead goes out every Sunday. If you want to sign up GrahamAllcott.com and you'll find the little form to fill in right on that page. And if you haven't yet subscribed to Beyond Busy, I'd love you to subscribe and also just to let you know that you can get shownotes previous episodes lots more at getbeyondbusy.com so just go to getbeyondbusy.com and let me know what you think if you want to drop me a line as well Graham (at) thinkproductive.co.uk. All right, let's get into this episode recorded in lockdown. I've got this list of there's probably about 15 people on the list who pretty much since I started Beyond Busy I've really wanted to have on and just for some reason haven't got around to tapping them up for episodes. They're generally people in my network, that I sort of know. Dave was on that list and we connected. So reconnected recently really over the video that Dave did, centering Black Lives, which we're going to talk about in this episode, which I just really loved and shared on my mailing list and elsewhere. So let's get straight into the episode recording lockdown. Here's myself and David McQueen.
I just realised as long as I press record that I didn't check that all our microphone tests have been done but it looks like we have Yeah, works with working fine with my ears sounding loud and clear. with David Queen How you doing?
Dave McQueen 2:43
I'm very good. Thank you, Graham. Good to be here. Finally.
Graham Allcott 2:46
Finally. Yeah, you know, I thought there's about 10 or 15 people who've been sort of on my nasai list for like for a long long time. And and you're one of them so it's nice to make it happen. Tell everyone just where are you in the world? Just paint a picture of where you are right now.
Dave McQueen 3:04
So I'm in a village. Are to talking about location or mentally, which one?
Graham Allcott 3:09
Oh, well, let's start with location then we'll do mentally after that.
Dave McQueen 3:12
Okay, so in terms of location, I live in a little village not too far from Watford in Hertfordshire. And I live there with my lovely wife and two children.
Graham Allcott 3:25
And you want to jump into the mentally one now.
Dave McQueen 3:29
So your thing on Instagram this morning, it said, Today was emotional and sounds like you had a big day yesterday. It was a big day. So essentially the obviously because I'm sure we'll jump into this because a lot of organisations are acutely aware that the their approach around that one taboo area of diversity being race and ethnicity, because a lot of people have avoided it. Now they have to actually deal with it because it's in the spotlight has meant that A lot of work around my leadership culture or inclusive coaches, has meant that I'm doing a lot of work around race and inclusion. And yesterday I was working with a client, I had a focus group and I had a town hall that I was facilitating, and essentially what had happened with some of the conversations that had triggered some uncomfortable feelings. And it just reminded me that for a lot of individuals who didn't understand what the experience is, for a lot of black professionals, the kind of language or expectations that they have is triggered quite a lot of stuff in the group. And so there was an outpouring of me trying to be this independent facilitator, but my I think my empathy kind of natural empathy thing has really kicked in. Yeah. And what was essentially going to be a one hour session ended up being two hours and I left there just absolutely exhausted well, and I sat in it, you know, it was a bit discomforting. And especially when you are in a position as a coach or facilitator, one of the things You try to do is distance yourself so that you, you spend, you want to be present but you want to make sure that you are slightly emotionally detached from you know the class in front of you, but yesterday in and I was just like, Okay, I'm not gonna run away from this, let me just sit in it. And I did and had a bit think about it last night went for a walk this morning for a couple kilometres smoke out of my system, and yet we bounced, we move on to the next one. Yeah. And what can you say a bit more about what what were people expressing what were some of the things that you think is shifting right now. So there are there were instances where it's happened with a number of clients where individuals have been very forthcoming about language that has been used to them around race, and race and gender and the expectations of individuals who have not come from the same background. So literally, I think we are hyper aware In the UK, I would say in metropolitan areas about the language and the acceptance of language we can use. Whereas when individuals have come outside of the UK, whether that's from mainland Europe or other areas where people are not as the conversation around race and ethnicity, and even the words that you can use are they're not as familiar. Yeah. And so when they do use words that are outside of the scope of not realising the impact that you can have on people it can be certainly can be quite triggering, if you don't feel in that organisation, that there's somebody who was somebody you can go to to go look, this was totally inappropriate. This person said this, and we need to be able to deal with it.I was talking to earlier in the week with a potential client who was saying, you know, they have quite a lot of amazing young professionals who, again, in this instance, were from mainland Europe who would use phrases because they felt it was acceptable because I had it in a hip hop song and didn't know it was wrong to you. Use it in discourse when you're talking to colleagues or in front of a client. And whilst my instinct or default instinct is really you don't know that, I think part of it is taken as a teaching moment to ensure that people are aware of what policies do you have in your organisation, or what approaches or narratives that you have as a leader, to make sure that people understand this is not acceptable, while we're working with this, whether it's in the UK or globally, this is not acceptable. And if this does raise, we will challenge you on it. And if you continue with that behaviour, you know, we will probably have to develop policies around zero tolerance, you know, from the get go, that that kind of damaging, and demeaning language, you know, telling a black woman with locks or longer hair that you know, that it's unprofessional, and that you know, that your, your hair shouldn't be down and all that kind of stuff and somebody's having to bite their tongue so they don't respond. That stuff for me is it's important for an organisation to take ownership of that. Yeah, say look Working and serving a global stakeholder base is important that we understand the language and the behaviour and the values to reflect that stakeholder base and be very conscious of what we say, as an organisation.
Graham Allcott 8:12
Yeah, there's been a lot of talk in the last few weeks that we're diving straight into black lives matter, and just that whole conversation that's currently happening around race. And I want to talk more about your current stuff. So I'll just I'll ask this one question. And then we'll, we'll maybe come back to it. And so there's been a lot of talk in the last few weeks around education, right. And people have been sharing lists of books and sharing talks online and it's almost become in some ways, in some ways, I find it sometimes a little bit uncomfortable how on social media, it's become this like very fashionable thing to say I'm listening, I'm reading or whatever and to me, there's an element of that which Just like, you know, sort of like don't forget me, like I'm, I'm in this to sort of thing you know, there's always there's a slight, you know, wish to, to not just be participating but to be seen to be participating in it. But like, what do you what do you think about, like the best route to education because like a lot of people have been sharing books. And I wrote something in my newsletter a couple of weeks ago that basically said, You know, I was saying, realistically, a lot of people if you've got kids at home in lockdown right now, like you ain't going to be sitting there reading books, like far better to, to, like watch an hour long thing on YouTube or, you know, really take some time to do something rather than buy books that telling yourself that you don't do so I'm just wondering like if you think there are other sounds like you had you really helps your client there with creating space for education yesterday, but like other other ways that education can happen that that you think are being underlooked or undervalued right now.
Dave McQueen 10:07
So I think the one of the one of the things about the books again, like you said, it can be quite performative. It would seem like you know, I, I've read this book, so I understand it. But you know, I think two of the most popular books that have been recommended and native by colour and why not speaking to white people about race by running at a lodge and two of the biggest challenges around those books is that they are they Visser eight, the British Empire. And they actually, they, you know, they don't leave any stones unturned. And if you are for the sake of argument, part of the majority white population who have not necessarily had an understanding of that or exposure to the black experience, that can be quite disorientating, you know, the, we see with a kind of like kickback that's happened with Churchill in the statues and individuals alike. You know, this person was a hero, you know, we shouldn't we shouldn't be changing our history and we're like, Okay, I think it's important to recognise that the same hero can be quite problematic. And it's alright to see me doing something good, but it's quite problematic. And what I guess is missing in this space is the point of dialogue. And I think, you know, like anything, you can go away and read, but you can still have your blinkers and biases on Yeah, if you problematic. You know, one of the things I did is I really wanted to, to create some spaces where I would just take some questions from individuals and point them in the direction of what some things might be problematic around, around discussing around race and what kind of could be the way going forward. So I think it is a combination of reading. I think it's podcasts. I think it's being able to go and look at videos online where you're pointed to I think if you're in an organisation where your work will at some point, you know, touch or affect people from black, African and Caribbean background. is to be able to create those spaces to talk honestly. And without going too deep into my work, there's a legal framework that I use, and I share it quite openly. And I say that if we're really going to move the conversation forward, therefore approaches to it, because a lot of people come to it from fear. So I've protocol fell for approach, I'd say, let's approach it in love. So essentially, we want to have a conversation, drop, you know, all this, you know, we don't want to start a conversation with no offence or, you know, all these kind of things that can actually cause offence to begin with, then let's come from a place that I don't want you to be afraid to talk about this. I'm going to allow you to speak and you will allow me to speak and we will both listen. But with the intent that we're doing it from a place of love, we don't know we want to know better. Yeah, the second one then is being able to be okay about the language that we use. So, you know, all these terms are bandied about, like, you know, white supremacy, white privilege, vain, Black Lives, all this kind of stuff. What does it actually mean and what do we mean? You know, when you innocently say I don't see colour? What does that mean to a person who's had that for so many times? And it's a demeaning character this to say that you don't mean me? What does that mean when we start to have those discussions? And then the third one was about listening How well are we actually listening? are we listening because we just want to push our own opinion, or we listen, because we will actually want to hear what the other person is saying. And you know, for me personally, there are a number of I think I may have said this online, but there are a number of friends within my circle who are quite close, but had never really heard or understood the term of white privilege. And especially as they came from a background where there was working constantly work their way up. Which piece was OK, this is what it means to me. Let's have a discussion about it to see exactly where you're coming from. And then the last Elle's about leverage, how do we take the lessons from loving from listening and from language and how do we leverage that and go Okay, now, what are we going to do with it? How do you as an individual, who, who may be really wet or wet We have been accused of being racist, which is I've got no point in unless somebody is really blatantly triggering people. I've got no truck and or no desire to call somebody racist. However, I think there is a point about understanding what anti racism means. What does that look like for you to represent when I'm not there? In the same way that I know that when I'm talking to individuals about the language that they use around LGBT plus, and no LGBT processes in the room? What are those things that I need to do in order to be able to represent my eldership? Or if there's a woman who's not in the room, and guys are being really misogynistic? What's the language or the framing that I use to make sure that they are considerate of women as well? And so it's that kind of approach for me, I think, whether it's the in the organisational learning or the individual learning that we have, it's being able to tap into all those different modalities. But most importantly, I think it's about having a conversation where possible having a conversation to understand people's experiences.
Graham Allcott 14:53
Yeah. I felt like we're on this topic and I want to continue on. I know I never come back to talk about it. Your various many things that you're doing. So the the thing that really struck me about that was the whole thing about approaching the conversation from a point of love. Yeah. And I think there's a there's an awful lot of fear around how a lot of people approach this, right. So you have like, people who are scared to say the wrong thing. You have people who somehow fear change and kind of, you know, that whole all lives matter. rhetoric is really based on fears and it's like a fear of things changing or one group having more of a spotlight on them than then than their group or another group or whatever. You know what I mean? So I think there's something really powerful about starting a conversation where both of you agree to, to head in that head into that conversation from a point of view. Love. I think that's a really powerful thing. And how has it how's the last few weeks that been for you? Because obviously, you've been doing work around leadership. You've been doing work around diversity for a long time. Yeah. But it feels like as, as a subject matter, it's probably it feels like it's more of the spotlight now than it has been in certainly in my lifetime. Yes. in our lifetimes. And do you have a sense of like, you know, thank goodness, everyone's talking about this, like, do you have a sense of, no, no, but a lot of people are missing a trick here. Like, are you? Are you energised by it? Are you tired by it? Like how is it just for you personally, in terms of seeing this subject matter, come to the fore so strongly as it has,
Dave McQueen 16:46
it's, it's a weight, it was a wave of emotions. There are times I you know, that I'm quite vocal on a platform like LinkedIn, I've that will be my that will be my space where I really encourage dialogue. And one of the things I realised is that there are individuals who come into those spaces who haven't seen or understand my my mode of communication will not read the room.
So I'm like, it's on my profile, go and read it. I say I'm outspoken. I say I encourage debate. And, and one of the things that has been, I guess, tiring on a platform like LinkedIn, for example. It's been individuals who you'll place information in front of them, but they they've projected their own meaning onto it. I'll give you one example. One of the things I said, you know, there was there was a lot of emotional baggage that comes with this, there are individuals who all their working lives have suppressed and toned down or quieten down their voices, their their whole character, you know, this whole bring your whole self to work that people are like, no, how will that ever happen in terms of what is not psychologically safe, and so I raised You know, I raised the point around this and saying, you know, I, I don't believe in this whole concept of bringing your whole self to work. And I gave a number of reasons I was saying, Look, how can you do that if it's not psychologically safe? If I come into work and somebody immediately questions my hair, or my laughter or my tone, or doesn't want to be able to take the time out to pronounce my name? How is that me than being able to bring my whole self as my whole self will be? Look, if you come and disrespect that part of my identity? I'm going to pull you up. And I'm going to say no, this is how my name is pronounced. What do you mean by my hair was unprofessional? What does what do all these things mean? And they're so for me, bringing that whole self on the concept of the whole self is very idealistic, and it's really baked in privilege as well. And and I'm saying to individuals, look, I'm, I'm working in this space, I've been working on this leadership space for the best part of 15 years. You know, originally it was a lot of it was in the education space, and then I moved more into the corporate and the third sector. But you know, as I say, we're all kids Just this time around where kids with mortgages, same issues that we're actually facing. But you'll see individuals come in and they'll argue their point. And I remember I said one thing too. I said something to somebody who was having a discussion with me, I said, Look, I'm always willing to learn, but I think it's important to understand where I'm coming from. So I mentioned that, you know, the London Business School has done 50 years of evidence informed research around how we bring ourselves to work on different modalities using the organisational psychologists who will tap into clinical educational psychology, anthropology and all these things, you know, this, this big mix is not just an opinion, it is the fact is based on data, and you know, saying and that's the approach I take, you know, when I'm saying to individuals to bring their work self, which can be a part of who they want to represent at work, there's going to be some parts that they don't want people from work to see. This contributed really dismissed all the data and then brought in the opinion and at that point, it made me tired because I just was You know, are you actually listening? It's this kind of shutting down of a conversation. that's problematic to begin with. Yeah. And I'm, you know, as I say, I also i'm not out here trying to say that I'm right. But I'm thinking if you're going to have a robust conversation, let's have that. But then on the flip side, I also put out a post where I was saying that I think it's really detrimental and teach your child or children's that you that they need to go into work, and work twice as hard as someone else. I said, because that starts from that starts from a deficit narrative. Yes, that's privileged. Yes, there's racism. Yes, there's claws. But if you go into a situation of work, already feeling that you've got to work twice as hard as the other person with no data or no means of measuring that you already on the backfoot.
Graham Allcott 20:45
And the phrase often right is twice as hard for half as much. Yeah.
Dave McQueen 20:49
How how negative is that as a as a as a as a mindset to start working out? How do you really enjoy the work that you're going to do if the framing for that kind of comment? Inflation is that, again, as you said, you have to work twice as hard for half as much. Yeah, that that's indentured servitude. Raise, you know,
Graham Allcott 21:11
I challenge that.
Dave McQueen 21:12
And then, you know, somebody came back to me and they said, you know, you'll see you as a, they came in with a race angle. And they just said, Look, you know, this is it's, you're coming from a point of privilege. And so you know, you're doing this and saying that, what about people who come from poor backgrounds, and I'm saying, look, I make no apologies about the fact that I've come from privilege. But one of the things I've learned being in a privileged position is you learn how to navigate work, you cause you work smart, you build a network, you stay in your lane, and you learn how workplace politics actually happens, because this is what I do all day long. And then and that was this MySpace on an opinion rather than the data from myself and other practitioners. And again, I'm not necessarily saying what I'm saying is the gospel is obviously it's my truth. But when you're having this debates, you realise a lot of this stuff, pull it really like a place like LinkedIn. It really is. spotlight some of the issues or the challenges you have in the world of work, because people will put down wall serious issues, because in their opinion, they don't necessarily agree with it. But on the flip side, I will say it has been incredibly energising because there's been a lot of people who have said thank you for I've had a lot of individuals, on on in terms of race in terms of gender, and from very different backgrounds who just said, Thank you very much, because what you've done is you've allowed me to understand where this comes from, you know, I've had what I will call very intelligent people that I would assume are very intelligent people on my timeline and in the wider network, saying thank you for explaining all lies mad because I just didn't understand that the Black Lives Matter thing. I just didn't get it. And I've had to be able to go the park my initial response would be like, really replace it with Okay, you know, I'm grateful if it took you this long, at least you've got it now. I'm incredibly energising and seeing people. Find the words and find the way to be able to communicate how they want to help, or, or how they want to be part of the solution. For me, that has been incredibly,
Graham Allcott 23:06
incredibly rewarding. Nice. And I think what's also interesting is if you are helping a sort of, you know, Penny drop around something like all as matter on LinkedIn, it's, it's probably worth just reflecting for a second on the fact that LinkedIn probably isn't really, it probably isn't a platform that really encourages that deep listening, come back to your for, you know, for ways to approach the conversation thing and that idea of, you know, really, truly listening. Yeah, most people while they're on LinkedIn are scrolling through. They're probably looking at emails or things are popping up on the screen on their phone and they're thinking about something else. Do you know what I mean? Like it's not it's not a place where someone is ordinarily going to sit and only focus on your words in that moment. Yeah. So So I guess if you're having those Kind of interactions and making changes there, then that's probably a real kind of testament to the way you're using words because can just doesn't feel to me like, the most obvious place where that can happen. Does that make sense?
Dave McQueen 24:12
Yes, no, definitely. And it's, but it's, I always I always look at it that that this conversation is bigger than me. And so there are, you know, you know, me personally. And so one of the things I've had to practice really hard is impulse control. Because literally, you stupid problem, can you read this leg? But then I realised there are, there are bits of it where, you know, there has to be an element of restraint. Even that I'll say great, even that is a lot of emotional baggage. Yeah. You know, you You're, you're cognizant that if you do go for somebody and just say, you know, that's really stupid, you haven't really thought about it and, and that will be the default mode. You're really conscious that what you don't want to be seen as as aggressive, or this tall black guy who's angry and so It's as I think it's a WWE, we'll call it double consciousness. Not only am I going out there into the world as a man, but I'm also having to be consciously aware of how I communicate as a black man. Yeah. And, and on the one hand there is this civil or respectable kind of way of approaching debate that is it seen as you know, this, this, this, this good way of communicating. And on the other hand, there's this bit where I just want to just be raw and just say, as long as it isn't balancing that, that can be incredibly tiresome. But again, you know, as I say, the bigger picture is, is if there are individuals, you can look at that and I get the private messages all the time, where somebody will go, I I thank you for your dignity in the way that you responded because if it was me, I wouldn't have responded the same way. So what it also means is that when I am offline and when I am with my family, or when I'm taking away time from anything work related or social related, it's very important to switch off so important to switch off so I don't get drawn into that.
Graham Allcott 25:58
That being my deep For thinking about the world, if that makes sense. So there's what you would want to say. And then there's you almost prejudicing the prejudice by having to just think about that prejudice of like, all the archetype of the angry black guy, right. And so you're saying, You're saying, I'm not going to express my level of genuine anger? Because it would conform to that kind of a prejudice, right? So that's like a, on the one hand, that's like an identity, where you're having to pull yourself back for the fear of scaring someone. Yeah. So you did this video centering Black Lives, we'll put a link to that in the show notes here. And I shared this on LinkedIn at the time, but like, seriously, people need to go and watch your video on this. But one of the things you said in there that really struck me was you were saying that sometimes as a speaker when you're travelling to places Yeah, you sort of check out the, you know, the low like, you know, sort of foreign countries or cities, whatever, like you're checking out The news and coverage around, you know, racist violence. So like, it's not like, isn't that mad that like, on the one hand, you've got part of your identity where it's like, I need to stop other people being scared of me. And then there's other things where you're having to make different choices, or at least at that lens and because you're scared yourself, yes. And, like, that's just really struck me is like that is that's a lot of weight to carry, right? It's not even just on one end of that spectrum or fear. It's like both ends of the spectrum of it. Right. And yeah, that's, that's a lot to carry. It is.
Dave McQueen 27:38
I'll give you two, two recent examples. So I went to two Eastern European countries, almost Hungary moments Romania, and in Hungary, myself and my wife, we were part of the conference and you know, amazing conference, really good feedback. Really good camaraderie in there. People were very open and And direct this was in Budapest. And but then we decided that we're going to go and walk because we've always heard about Budapest being some amazing city and beautiful architecture, winter markets. And off the off the side of the conference, we literally walked down the road and from our apartment all the way while we were walking down, people were literally staring at us all the way. Just literally stare. And like, you know, in the UK, somebody says they'll give you a little drunk and then they'll kind of like bounce off. Exactly. So like we you know, we're looking at you, wow, I'm part of my adjustment to that is that I have read about experiences, I said, Look, when you go to hungry, just be very aware that individuals will stare at you, you know, don't take offence. This is just the way that some people or what have you, so I kind of like I popped it, you know, because if, if I was going to take that on board, I would be triggered every time somebody stood off. And likewise, I remember going to Romania and I was in Bucharest, and that's You know, fantastic conference have really good rapport with the individuals who were there. But I remember leaving my hotel one evening and walking out and being fast I'm orcs, I'm fascinated by architecture and countries and walking around and seeing all the relative the relative them. You know what Romania was like before when the you know, the tri casters were in power and all the rest of it and whatnot. And I remember walking down and I got to this part thing is called Old Bucharest and it just was space. And it just, I actually just move it through my body froze because I walked, you know, two blocks, and I walked and people were just staring and voices went down. And I just spent Okay, it's getting a bit darker, for a reason want to be stuck in this little town where I go back, and I double back and you know, I walk back into the new town and all of a sudden I feel this weight lifted off me because I feel a lot more comfortable and walk back to my hotel. But that stuff as a traveller was always going to be at the back of my mind, especially when I don't know the culture. Now, not to be funny. Again, it's something where wherever I go, you know, there is something that if I, if I go to New York or Atlanta or what have you, I'm still want to know what are the good parts or the safe parts that I need to be in. But generally speaking, when I'm working in going in a country where I know that black people are a minority or or, or almost, you know, not there, unless they're going to do some commercial work, I will always go and check that because it is about safety is about making sure that I go into these spaces and have a sense of what it is and just know which places to avoid.
Graham Allcott 30:31
I still like to think of sometimes you'll rock a conference or something because your name's David McQueen. Yeah. People aren't necessarily expecting a black guy to turn up. Yeah. But so my, my ex, her, her brother is called James Campbell. And yeah, he when he was interviewing for university, PhDs and stuff, he was telling me that like, there were times where people were looking around for the white guy, and it's like, No, I'm James. Can So that's just another one of those things where you're having to, I guess, think about not only your identity, but how your identity is seen and perceived by other people.
Dave McQueen 31:14
Yes. And, you know, I think a long time ago, I got used to the fact that there are going to be individuals who will not because I started speaking quite early, especially as a young as a young man and doing lots of youth conferences and what have you before I got into the corporate space? You know, there was there was the, you know, if I had a pound for every time somebody either introduced me or came up to me and said, Hello, Steve McQueen, and thought it was fun. You know, everyone's everybody's joke of the day. Okay, let me just see, let me just, you know, I'll be very rigid by the pound every time somebody. But I find one of the things about that it creates a point of levity because On the flip side, I've seen individuals who don't have an anglicised name, and people have not made the effort to pronounce it right. anglicised The name itself. You know, you Okay, your name is bald, but I'm gonna call you, john. No, my name is Paula, what's the difference? You know, you can say Tchaikovsky all this stuff, and you've got no problem with, you know, four consonants in a row when you're actually pronouncing it, I'm sure you can do something which you know, which you are not familiar with. But I, I guess part of it is you, you, you get the phrases you create an armour, you create a bit of an armour, where you realise that for some people, they will be just ignorant and they'll just be you know, that they will build in their own assumptions because that's their normal. And for others, they just, they're just curious. So I, I tend to go with the default that human beings are okay people, and they are the, the, the the result of the environment that they come from. And so I use a lot of those moments to be teaching moments as well. So for people say to me, you know, where did you get your name McQueen from? And I will say to them, you know, my dad that usually throws I'm off because that's not the kind of thing and you know, and I'm okay with that because for me humour creates a lot of levity. But humour also is a way of humans being able to bond. Like to put myself in that space. And even when I go into stage where I'm and I'm speaking, there are some times where I will use self deprecating humour around being British being blind from what have you, because I know there are a lot of individuals who will sack me sat in front of me who they're not sure. And I'll go, Okay, let me just set the tone here and goes, Okay, we're gonna have these conversations, you know, I'm not gonna let you get away with stupidity. But let's do this. And, yeah, you learn to navigate it. And, you know, I make no bones about it, McQueen opens a hell of a lot of doors. And so I, I will make the most of that on the one hand, but then just be conscious that there are not a lot of people who would have processed that Dave McKean could be a black guy and I'm okay. I'll take as an opportunity to teach them exactly who he is and what he's about.
Graham Allcott 33:57
Because that's the leverage thing right? Like, get in the door. And then and then do something while while you're in there. Yep. Yeah. So I suppose I probably know you best as a speaker? And is that how you describe yourself? Because you're you're many other things right? You're a podcaster you're a coach, you're writing a book. Yeah. is speaking, the sort of biggest part of your professional identity?
Dave McQueen 34:20
You know, I made a conscious effort growing about, honestly about three years ago to flip the script on because yes, I know a lot of people knew me as a speaker, but the thing I enjoy doing most is coming to my work from the perspective of a coach. And ironically, it has been for a while so when I was when I worked in youth work when I tried to be a counsellor when I you know, all the stuff I did, it was primarily what I did in those situations, I listened more than I spoke. So even when I'm doing a podcast, even when I'm doing a presentation, even when I'm facilitating the approach I take to it is around coaching. How can I get the person In front of me, how can I listen to them well enough to make sure that I will impart information but make sure that they walk away from him feeling that they were the ones who had, who came up with the ideas themselves, or who came up with that way of thinking. And so quite recently, I've positioned myself more as a leadership coach. And the leadership coach informs my speaking influence, my facilitation informs my writing. Even when, again, even when I'm writing, and I know I, you know, I chat intentionally I turn turn out about two or three pieces of content, small content on LinkedIn in any given day, whether it's mine or others. But every single time I do that, it's very, very intentional. It's coming from a place of, Okay, let's have a discussion. I think if people knew that when I posted my stuff on there, from the position of a coach, I want I'm going to be provocative, but I need to take you out your comfort zone and ask you a question. If people really were aware of that, they will have different responses to me. And individuals will follow me for a while and I've seen that they get The Penny has dropped. They're like, okay, David's on this coaching thing that is where he's going. But yeah, that's, that's it for me, I'm not gonna make an assumption. I'm going to come from a place of being able to empower people through conversation. But that for me if I was going to go with any title, or function that people would know me first and foremost, I'd like it to be from the position of being a coach, and entrepreneur. Would that be fair to say as well? Yeah. Although, although I think is such an overhyped thing. I think it's it's one of those things a bit like the phrase thought leader. Yeah, you know, is one of those labels are undecided. You know, I'm just gonna stick with coach for now. Because all these other things that come out, it just they just tend to be so fluffy. Yes. You know, I run a couple businesses I, I sit on a number of boards. I'm a mentor and all this kind of stuff around business. But yeah, I'll go to the entrepreneur if it gets me into a couple of doors, but otherwise, it's
Graham Allcott 36:56
so weird. You mentioned that yesterday I was I was writing this proposal and I was literally asked by the person I'm writing the proposal for, to describe myself to change my bio can add in the phrase thought leader. And I have this very sort of strong belief that a thought leader should be what you call other people, not what what you call yourself. Same way. For me. Yeah, yeah. And entrepreneur maybe has that same energy too, as well. And maybe partly the reason I was them, trying the entrepreneur hat on you a little bit is so you, you started a thing called legacy 71, which, like you've sort of since closed and stuff, and I kind of wondered whether, because entrepreneur is all fine. And well, if things are going well, but then if you've had to close something, does it sort of change your relationship with that piece of identity should not have been? Yeah, just to tell a story because I think it's a really, it feels like it's an idea that's maybe going to have its time again.
Dave McQueen 37:54
Yes. So the concept was, is that for many years is part of one of the arms of my coach. was around pitch coaching, helping people to do some presentation funding Hmm. And took me all over the UK and do quite a lot of work in, in in Germany and then on Europe as well around this. And and what I found is that whenever I was doing these things, I would go into room and I'm teaching individuals to raise money, but none of them looked like me. They were very, very few people from African or Caribbean, black, African and Caribbean heritage backgrounds. And I thought to myself, well, why is this and then I started asking questions, and people were saying, oh, they're not. businesses aren't robust enough, and they don't get the markets and all this, all the other kinds of responses that were filtered through various cognitive biases. So I thought, well, you know, I can sit down and have this discussion about, you know, one to 2% of black people getting founded or I can just do something about it. And so I went with the intention of setting up a, an incubator, and again, I, I came from the point of it being through leadership, how can I be able to create a space where we individuals were not just so dependent on funding, but they could build robust companies. And I went down the route of trying to do an incubator. And, and, you know, I hold my hands up because I'm very, very open about being able to do things and also be able to own my failures and hadn't done enough work around what really was required to do an incubator. And, and as such, you know, you have to have very deep pockets to be a successful incubator, either attached to a university, or attached to some kind of venture capital or private equity fund. And then when you realise at that point, it becomes a bit of a Ponzi scheme. Realistically, there's all these these mountains of money going in and you're telling people look, you know, you can come in and you can learn how to pitch but there's basically a gatekeeper IBM going, right. Let me see which ones are the best so I can pick the ones from here that will work for our organisation or our fund. Yeah. And, and having come to that, I sat back and thought, Okay, how do we do this? Through education? What have you learned along my journey? Couple of things happened. Two or three venture capitalists, and another two Angel companies within the UK black community emerged. And there were a number of other spaces who were educators, and they started to raise their profile. So I was like, well, I'll get right back. Now I don't need to reinvent the wheel. Because I know, what can I do within my own skill set and within the individuals around me to amplify the voices of those individuals? What can I do? So I would go to those events or I would speak to the individuals who would have approached some of those big companies to say, okay, right about now, you need to just build a company, first build your company, and then we can start talking about raising capital afterwards. And I was able to go into those spaces and, and still do to be able to go, Okay, I want to come from it from the approach of a leader, you've got a really good idea about how you're going to leave this going forward. And you and I have these conversations before you can start a company but leading is a totally different conversation altogether. Yeah. For for now, what I've done I've doubled down on the the, the leadership part of my narrative and what it is that I do. And, and I've said that again, as you said, you know, it's it's not, it's not a done deal, it's not finished, and it will reemerge in some other form. But I do believe when I do come back, it will be a lot more capitalised, there'll be a lot more money that I would have raised to make sure that this is done effectively and efficiently. And again, as I said, I want to be able to dovetail with what's already out there rather than trying to replace it. And part of the work that's going on in the background is having conversations with organisations and research bodies around how do we shift this narrative around, making sure that underrepresented not just black but all underrepresented sectors of the community are able to tap into the wealth, the wider wealth of, of what supports these kinds of growing companies. So I'm happy kind of sitting behind the scenes for now as and when the time is right for me to come back out and do it. But again, you know, the underlying The underlying motivation that you know, it's one thing to talk about this nonsense. That is a meritocracy. I don't believe in I just don't I just I get sick from everybody. I just don't believe in meritocracy. I just don't believe it. I just think it's BS. I think there's so much stuff that happens. You know, my, my daughter's went to both of my daughters went to a private school. And, you know, and paying for them to go in was a conscious decision my wife and I made because we wanted them to start with an economic advantage with the families and friends and networks that they've tapped into being those students and being an alumni of that school is incredible. Yeah. And no, as much as I understand that people will have a real issue with private schools like Eton and Harrow and all the rest of them. I'm like, okay, that's fine. I do understand that. But until the system changes, I'm going to leverage it to the benefit of my children. Right. You know, my my oldest daughter through networking superautomatic Sort of her, knowing me, me introducing her to people. You know, she's on the production set for killing in. That's no accident. Okay, that's how the system works. You know, my youngest daughter, she came to me and said, Dad, you know, two years ago, I need to do some work experience in London, can you offer your network? I go into LinkedIn and go, look, my daughter needs to have some, you know, work experience and in for a few weeks is anybody in my network able to help me? And she only wanted like four businesses to help. I think I got about 15 responses in my inbox within a day. Yeah,
I say this is how it works. It's not just about hard work. You have to build a network. This is how it has been from time immemorial. Yes, it's not if you're not in that space. It's not fair. And let's be really honest about that. But I'd rather just instead of just sitting in that space and saying it's not fair, I say to individuals go into those spaces where it actually works. I'm happy to teach you how it works. But I'm not being a fist but for me flipping that whole thing about meritocracy He's saying, guys, I know where the VCs all I know where the private equity companies are. I'm going to leverage my network for people who work in finance and people who work in technology. And I'm going to be able to bring that stuff together. Because if you're sitting down there think it's just about hard work and meritocracy, you're always going to be in that space and it's not going to move forward. You have to do something, my kind of approach towards it.
Graham Allcott 44:22
And also shout out to organisations that aren't emergency. We've had JC long on here before and then just helping to I think there's something really powerful about opening up or sort of creating the old boys network for the people who weren't able to have access to the old boys network yet. Right. And that happens in many different ways. Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk about the value of contrarian thinking and provocative thinking. One thing I noted the day you you put a post up saying, Hey, I can help with conversations around diversity and your organisations, here's my number, whatever. And I shared it on my LinkedIn. And one of the first responses I got was from somebody who works at Uber. Jamie, who, who I know was also saying, hey, de came in and did a thing with Uber, he wasn't afraid to ask provocative questions, but also to do it in a really safe and loving way. And that struck me is just as a comment. That is, it's very easy to say that, but it's actually really difficult to do. Yeah. So I just wanted to have you always known that you're a contrarian type of thinker or a provocative thinker. Is that something you've always got energy from? Or is that like a more recent kind of thing as you went through your career, you can figure that out. Like we either contrarian kids like 12, or whatever it is.
Dave McQueen 45:55
Here's an interesting story. When I was on Twitter, I've left that cesspit now. To find the kind of environments to my head, my head of year reconnected. And it was really funny. He kind of like sent a message. So you remind me of a student at school that I was at, who was always quite outspoken and willing to challenge them. And I was like, What did you punch in? He was like heroin. I looked at his name, okay. Oh my god. That's what accepted. Yeah. We have this fantastic lunch. And he just started sharing some examples from me of being in being kicked out of geography, because the geography hated the fact that I said that, you know, around colonialism and exploitation of resources in Africa. He, you know, he told me that I got the I remembered that I was in a detention that I refused to attend in school because I said that there was a holocaust in Congo before there was one in Germany and the last the absolutely And he said there were always things he said but you always did it quite politely and I said, I think that's what upset the teachers because you were never angry. Angry friends I never got angry with teachers I befriends I'll lose myself but with teachers, I'm not going to you know, it was always a For me it was always wiser not to do that with with adults. I grew up with this sense of, of inquiry, this sense of just because you've told me that it's there doesn't necessarily mean that's right. You know, I grew up quite religious as a Christian family as well where, for me, you know, there are lots of things that I was told was the right way. And you know, I again, as I said, I although I am defined as agnostic rather than religious now, I respect people who come from a background because I understand the kind of safety and comfort religion brings, but I will question everything. Yeah, whether you're Muslim Christian Buddhism, I'm questioning why do you believe what you believe in that one god instead of the other 3999 I'm not available. Why do you want your behaviour shapes around something that says Thou shalt not as opposed to thou shalt, you know, for years in my church, you know, there were individuals who just didn't want me anywhere near young people, because I would be like, okay, so yeah, you might go that you disagree with homosexuality, but you're talking about a person here, somebody who's sitting in front of you, somebody's son or daughter, who is bisexual, gay, whatever, and you have an issue with them. Because in one book of the Bible, because somebody repeats it every day, you're gonna treat that person as less than human. I said, that doesn't make sense to all the other principles you have around love. So you can imagine the joy that I think people found when to no longer people with with my contrarian views, but then again, it's in business. And again, you know, when I went to Dubai, I basically sat down with a group of people and I just said, Look, I'm here to have an open conversation. I said, the guy who founded your company is trash, everybody knows that. You're a very toxic environment, with the with the boys and you know, all that kind of stuff, it was very tough it was, you know, it made for a quick way of being able to make a buck. But it wasn't very respectful to women, to people of colour to the drivers who were usually going to be from poorer backgrounds. And I said it was trash I said, let's just be honest. And I said, and that the culture has permeated me and even though you've got a new CEO in there it is about how you take ownership. And I'm not gonna make any bones about that. You know, if your boss is trash, your boss is trash. You know, people were like, oh, okay, I said you don't have to say I said, but I'm, I'm on record, I can say because I'm not emotionally invested in this but I'm going to challenge.
Graham Allcott 49:37
Although the next conversation is, here's my invoice.
Dave McQueen 49:42
But it's the same. You know, I earlier in the year, I went to Facebook, and I said to the people who are in Facebook, I said, Look, you know, as far as I'm concerned, the senior leadership of Facebook is trash. When Dr. Berg and when I think about the woman who wrote lean in her name is come to me now. And I said just trash. I said that nice. In stuff was not anybody who wasn't a middle class white woman come from a privileged background that meant nothing about Lehman. Are you mad? When people are being too aggressive or this? Is it non professional? Come on now? Are you smoking? And he said, you know, Mark has built a business which basically was snippy with women. That's what you've built your company from. Own that history doesn't necessarily determine the future or not history. No, you're working for an organisation that has that as his base and then you decide what are you going to do in terms of your work? So I made an appointment he asked me to come here you tell me to speak. You know, and likewise there were I got a lot of stick around because I'm, I'm I'm quite outspoken about like the Queen's awards. So I you know, I've been shortlisted twice to be to be performed for an MD once from well, twice my youth work and I said, No, I said, I don't vote by before royalty. I just don't believe in it. I don't I'm a Republican, I don't believe in the monarchy, and people are like, oh, but this is not for you. It's for the young people. I'm saying you're talking trash. Do you think a young person who is just worried about free school meals, and making sure that he can get to the end of the week and worrying about the trauma that his mom is gonna make a difference when I walk in there and go, Hi, my name is David McQueen MBE. Like, do you play ball?
Graham Allcott 51:21
I'm a member of the British Empire. So to that, you should you should feel good about that.
Dave McQueen 51:26
Come on. So I again, I will do it from a place of love. I'm very, I'm very outspoken. I'm very opinionated. But it doesn't mean that your opinion doesn't matter. My I would happily I say this while I'm biting my cheeks, I would happily sit in a room with somebody like Nigel Faraj and learn mad social impulse control, not to jump over them and smack them in the mouth because I still think that with freedom of speech, and I mean, his tends to lean towards and other people tend to lean towards hate speech. But I will sit in that room, and I will still listen and I will still have my proposition because sometimes yeah to recognise that how you represent is bigger than yourself. And so again, you know, I'll be provocative and I will give really strong arguments. And you know, I grew up reading loads of books about debating. So I know how to debate I will debate on breath. But I will also create that space that when we're in that room that you don't feel disrespected by me get upset with the idea, and not the individual.
Graham Allcott 52:25
And like listening doesn't have to end an agreement. Right. I think there's something really powerful about listening. There was a number of podcast episodes a couple of years ago, which was there's a podcast with a political party. Yeah. This guy and Matt Ford, who's a he's a, you know, labour supporter, but he interviewed Nigel Faraj. Yes. And what I loved about it was he really proved Nigel Faraj on why do you think these things I don't agree with them, but I want to understand what in your life led you to this point and it was just so refreshing because I feel like A lot of business conversations and a lot of you know, media conversations, news, interrogations, all that sort of stuff, everything set up in this very oppositional way. Which is like, either I'm right or you're right, and then we throw out all of the valuable bits of the other person's opinion. Because we've decided this person's right or that person's right to sell. I mean, like, it's very, three kind of binary and often the truth is in, you know, somewhere in the grey areas, or at least taking, you know, tiny elements of what Nigel Faraj has bases opinions on and kind of developing the argument in a different way, or like developing an idea in a different way with sort of taking him in a, in a different perspective. I think it's like, yeah, I feel like you know, maybe there's something really interesting there about how you're going in and having these very sort of confrontational. You know, opinions being aired at places like Facebook, but like, surely the value is there. Where that takes you in sort of finding a middle ground or something or somewhere else more interesting.
Dave McQueen 54:06
Yeah. And I, you know, and I will, I will, again, as I said, I will give, I will give room to anybody to have a discussion just as long as they are willing to, I'm willing to see where you're coming from. But I think it's important to understand that there has to be an element of civility in it as well. We can come from very, very different points of view. Look, I I understand why if you're living in a town in Blackpool, like Blackpool and in the north of England and and you are effectively in a town that has the most systemic poverty in the country, and you know, the opportunities coming towards you. And then all of a sudden, you know, the news cycle is about the matching of black lives because the guy got his neck kneeled on in in the US event, I'm just paraphrasing how this would be seen. Okay. Well, mind you're thinking Hold on a minute, but what we talk about About this black life stuff for when I'm up here white working class boy, we ain't got no money. There's drugs in here the police all over something, why does that matter to me. And if you're living in a bubble like London and you're experiencing that the possibility of you being pulled over nine times more as a black than somebody who's white, or, you know, being being sent into sections under the Mental Health Act, or if you're a black woman and you're growing into have a child and you know that they're five times the chance that you're more likely to either die in childbirth or to be treated differently because a lot of medical students think that your skin is thicker, and that your, your tolerance to pain is higher. There are very, very two different points of view. So in London, yes, you're going to see that Black Lives Matter thing because that's part of your experience. Whereas in Blackpool that might be totally alien to you, because you're that's not part of your wider narrative and experience. And for me, part of the discussion is being able to understand where you're coming from. And I think it's important to put your point of view and likewise I think it's important for you to be able to understand where I'm coming from. I would say one of the most powerful things that I'm constantly pushing forward, especially off the back of this black lives matter stuff is, you know, on the one hand, I said, I've been very forthright and said, Look, there are lots of individuals who teach anti racism and talk about this generally. But I believe at this point in time in terms of leading the charge, if you really want to understand anti blackness, I think it's important to have a practitioner whose life experience can verbalise or clearly show you what that's actually actually looks like. It doesn't mean that it makes your work redundant. But for now, considering how so many times people have spoken up on behalf of black people. Maybe this is the one opportunity where we are at this turning point, a tipping point where you take a back seat and allow somebody with that voice to do it on behalf of black people. Yeah, that's me. I want to put it out. This is conversely, I also think there's an incredible space for white people to be able to sit in a room and have a conversation about This how this honestly affects them. Because on the one hand, you're going to have individuals who are liberal, and who are a bit, you will think, or will have the experience of working with and in and around black people and will understand it. But there will be other people who will be on the other side of the political spectrum and don't get it. And that conversation being led by a black person or that, you know, having a black person in the middle of the room, that can be quite detrimental, because some people won't speak up because they may be afraid of offending. And I think, important, you know, whether whether the community is black or white or Southeast Asian or Arabic or travel or whatever the kind of, you know, ethnic breakdowns we have, I think it's really important that yes, there are going to be some spaces that will be led by practitioners like myself, but there's also a need for practitioners within those actual ethnic communities to go, Okay, let's have an honest conversation about the things that we've learned without having to feel that we've got to self censor because of personal colours in the room. Yeah. And, and that for me is about again, it's coming back to your point. about being able to go right? Yes, you may say on all this, I'm right wing left wing stuff. It just means nothing to me. I'm apolitical. I just go I just want I want to know what aligns with my values. And you know if there's a political party that aligns with that, and I don't trust any if I'm really honest about the Green Party, I kind of have a little bit of softness for that. But there's no it's about having that conversation and this desire and and I see it in the in a new generation now, where the generation before would have been, they would just shut it down. And your generation wants to cancel you. Have you cancel a conversation.
Graham Allcott 58:35
That's not how it works. So coming back to think about if you're in Blackpool, yes. And it's like, if you're in Blackpool, and you see black lives matter on the news every day for for two weeks. It's like, Yeah, but there's not. It's not that we shouldn't be at a place where to take that set of ideas seriously means that we're discounting another set of ideas around poverty and alien alienation in Blackpool, right. So Again, it's like the, like, both of those things can be true. Yeah. And there's a lot of nuance around how those things are connected to right to do with class and poverty and, and lots of other things. And it's like, I think sometimes we're so quick to shine a spotlight on one thing, and automatically because of that, yes, sort of shut everything else down. When, you know, really the, for me a lot of the interesting stuff is kind of in the, the sort of grey area spaces or or thinking of things as like, yes. And rather than either, all right, it's like, yes, this thing and that thing gets like, it doesn't have to be a choice. It has to be this versus that both both had rather than either or.
yeah, for sure. I was about getting paid. Yes. So I feel like this is one of the examples of you being slightly provocative on LinkedIn and elsewhere. So there's an Bit in your I think it's in your bio where it's like, I'm a professional speaker brackets, that means I get paid. And I've seen you do stuff before, which I'm sure I've sort of liked and applauded and commented on the set things along the lines of, if you're going to ask me to speak for exposure, then, you know, understand that exposure doesn't pay my bills or like feed my kids. And so it feels like there's something really important to you in this idea of, you know, pay paying, obviously, paying people properly is just like a generally acceptable and good thing to do, but just in terms of looking at organisations that have big budgets, but then say, Yeah, but we don't have the budget for you for this event for this thing. Yeah. So tell me more about that.
Dave McQueen 1:00:47
So I think it comes from it comes from my introduction into professional speaking and coaching theories. I'll come back to that point about working twice as hard because I'm Anything that is really hard for me it's a constant conversation. Mm hmm. You know, as an executive coach, I charge a premium. Interestingly, some people say to me, oh my god, you know, I'll be quite candid. I'll just say I trust 500 pounds now, I'm just gonna put it out there. And there are individuals who are like, Oh, well, you know, you should be charging 1000 I'm not No, you know, I'm good. I'm gonna go you know, I sometimes I go and I, I get the computer virus and I'll go and look at five grants and tell you what these charges are, how much okay, well, that's his life. It's not mine. But I'm still quite determined that when I have pegged what it is that I do, I should own that value. And you know, I've spoken at conferences where in the past and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I go and I speak every single time I speak that I get paid, there are going to be times where I will go and and i will negotiate with organisers, okay. If you don't have the budget, okay, I want a mailing list. I want to get a hold of the individuals who are the As in your audience, so I can you can either send them direct information for me or I want to be able to get in touch with them because I'm, I'm not giving away that your years of experience for free. I'm just making that. And and what it's been, you know, I've been to a number of conferences, and I say this without blowing my own trumpet. And as Muhammad Ali says, it's not bragging if you can back it up. But I've gone and we've got the feedback from conferences where I'm not the headliner, by any measure. But the overwhelming feedback that has come back from these organisers is that they said that the gentleman went up there and was very honest and vulnerable about leadership and about culture. All those points he made really made it for me. And I'm going, Okay, I'm really grateful for that feedback, but you paint the headline on like four to five. I remember one time I went to a conference and somebody wanted me to go and speak and they were like, Oh, you know what, we don't have much of a budget. And I'm like, well my fees five grand That's how much I'm going to charge to be able to go and speak. And they were like, well, five grand, that's quite a lot. I said, you're not paying for the hour, you're paying for the years. And I like your alternatives to this, but I don't think we have five grand, I said last year, got one headlines, your conference was less than 25 grand. So if you don't have to find a balance, you can have a guy who can come in there and talk about squeezing breasts and getting people into into dresses. Or you can have somebody who will come in there and talk to the issues that you actually have around behaviour change in your culture. And if you then find this bounce, and all these people thrown by that, I'm not gonna mention the name but a very large software company. Okay, I'm just gonna leave it there that you and you'll figure it out. But a very large software company approached me around this time, and wanted me to come in and speak to a group of people about how they navigate this time of race and inclusion. Okay, I'm just going to keep on repeating a very large company. And then have the cheek to tell me that they didn't have the budget. Wow. For the for the value of your listeners, I will not swear because just in case young people are there, but internally, I was just like shut the front door. Really, you're gonna tell me to have the money. And then they wanted me to shift my diary around to see if that I could have gotten I just thought that's just arrogance? I do I do. You're gonna pay me for why I should I said I should fight you went back to the person. I said not only should I increase my fee plus VAT, but I should charge you reparations as well. It's again, but there are a lot of individuals who will go to those organisations and do it because they'll go oh, you know, this will really give me good exposure to him to him. No, I'm, I'm not gonna lie in that in the last 15 years being able to have that roster of blue chip organisations in the corporate and nonprofit sector. I know that social proof for a lot of people who will buy my services, but I'm not gonna go and do that and I'm no no, I If I was, you know, I went to America and a friend of mine said, If you weren't dating, if you were in America, you know, you would not know no one would expect you to charge them less than 15 grand apart.
Graham Allcott 1:05:09
Yeah.
Dave McQueen 1:05:10
Okay. But for me again, as I said, a lot of what I do is specifically around my speaking, it's an introduction to my coaching and my programmes and what have you. And even though I'm, you know, really a man who's looking to build wealth, and further generations, I'm not motivated by money. I will not have that demean the value that I'm going to bring into this. So I make it very clear. You know, some people say to me, oh, you know, wow, 500 pounds an hour, you know, also that that means give us give me three grand for your coaching. I don't think I can afford that. And that's okay. I'd really like to work with you. I couldn't that's fine three grand. You know, I'm not gonna I don't need you to be here for me, you're coming to me for the service. And if this if I'm not the person for you, let me invite you to a couple of people who can help you.
Graham Allcott 1:05:56
So for you, it's like the money thing is really about thing is it's like recognising the value of your time the value of your work. The value of that experience.
Dave McQueen 1:06:06
Yes, that's what it is, you know, I, I have the saying that I use all the time is is don't expect Selfridges quality at prymaat prices.
Graham Allcott 1:06:18
Just say that in negotiation with you
Dave McQueen 1:06:20
I think people have read my stuff and they know seriously, you know, don't go into and for your international audience, you know, if you don't go into a boutique store, expecting to pay with shock prices and get the same level of quality doesn't matter.
Graham Allcott 1:06:35
Yeah. So the final thing I just wanted to talk about, given the subject matter of this podcast is productivity. And we thought I would just come back to about the importance of switching off before Yeah. So do you have particular routines or particular ways that you manage yourself that really promote being able to switch on and switch off and just how you manage yourself just like what's what's your kind of key bits of productivity philosophy.
Dave McQueen 1:07:05
So the first one for me is I don't want them Saturday's. I don't care who you are. It could be the queen. It could be the president of United States. I'm working on that.
Graham Allcott 1:07:15
And
Dave McQueen 1:07:16
so generally speaking, you know, if I'm, if I'm doing something for a charity or a nonprofit, I may kind of like, put my head in and do a little bit of some, but I don't consider that work. I will always consider that maybe give back to the community or what have you. Don't do I don't speak at conferences on Saturdays. I don't do coaching on Saturdays. And a lot of that's from my upbringing. So I grew up as a Seventh Day Adventist, and it's a it's a Protestant Christian arm, which in many ways is very similar to certain elements of Judaism. So for us, the Sabbath was from on set on a Friday to a sunset on a Saturday. So it was you know, even when I was and even when I was working on it, and you know, people are gonna come in and say, I don't know, I'm going to church, or I'm going to be off and and even though I no longer support scribed to that religion, I still have a Sabbath. And Sabbath is important for me because it's rebooting. That's my time with my quality time with my family. And sometimes people say to me looking at somebody's gonna pay you a million pounds, I honestly will say, okay, you know, you're gonna drop a million to me, I might, you know, I can bend my rules slightly, Okay, I'm gonna go another million for my family. But generally speaking, I, you know, in the main, I have my Sabbath off, and what that means is being able to just chill, sometimes I'm not going to reveal social media by just sitting myself or I dedicate the majority of that time to my family, to my friends and to me rebooting um, one of the other things, and I'll do this in forces more than me and my wife, but they don't allow us to have laptops in the room. They go, you can go phone, because you can't type as false in your phone with you and stuff. So generally speaking, I have a phone in my room and even every now and then I'll put the phone in another room. So it's not the first thing I pick up. But trying to keep those electronic I think Since out there, I listen to a lot of music. I read a lot, I read a lot. You know, in most weeks, I try to box out at least two books. Some of them will be really short, Kindle books just about nothing. Others may be on economics and philosophy on history, some might just be like a really trashy novel. But I try to knock out at least two books a week. So I'm not then just it's not just digital. It's not online. It's not television. What have you. Yeah, you know, every day for the last few weeks, every morning, I've been getting up like quarter six and just going for a walk for three or four kilometres and I just switch off you know, sometimes while I'm there, I may put a stream of consciousness thoughts about how I'm feeling and record them maybe put it on Instagram later, but generally, I'm just like, I'm just out. And those routines and those habits are quite important for me the especially like the, the, the Saturday being able to switch off on a Saturday and one of the things that always throws my American friends as well as I say, I have six holidays six weeks holiday. Yeah. And then that we're talking about six weeks. And it's insane a lot. They can't because they like two weeks and loads of public holidays, but I'm not, my body needs to stop. And when I'm ready to switch off, I'm gonna switch off, I'm part of that was obviously a being as a parent, you know, half terms, you know, you've got three half terms, and then you've got some holiday. So, historically speaking, we have no choice than to have those six weeks off, and especially when working for ourselves, but I've made a conscious effort, sometimes, you know, it may go back and forth. But between four to six weeks, every year, we've found out what around the holidays, not the other way around. And that's just from the productivity. I want to have really cool as well. And so like I use notion, and Slack, and you know, and all these other different productivity tools to get me through my work as well. Those things are those things are quite, quite systematic. So having really good software as well, for me is really important to get my work done. Yeah,
Graham Allcott 1:10:52
yeah. What are you finding you the biggest benefits of notion because I've sort of flirted with it and never really got into it, but I feel like I need to you know what?
Dave McQueen 1:11:00
It's so I before notion, I was a huge fan of Trello. And I still liked it because I love the 10 band board. And before I was a big fan of Evernote until they started doing the updates, and then the mental tips up, but what I love about notion is that it's a nice place to keep both the professional and the personal. Yeah, allows me to general drop quick notes and then being able to do my task lists. So instead of having to do list instead of having, you know, all these other stuff, I can just literally have it in one place. I can write down my thoughts about my business, I can write down my thoughts about my personal stuff. And it's just a really nice container for this stuff and the tags. Oh my god, the tags in motion, the way that you can link the tags whether it's personal professional, what have you, you can link them in and then being able to correlate them that stuff is incredible. I have seen love it. So I've been I flirted with it earlier this year. And I was like, okay, you know, I'm gonna go back into this and I am hooked. Such that you could tell that they really thought about the UX Yeah. And they thought The user experience as to how you are going to navigate this, whether you're using it personally or professionally. And I absolutely swear by it now,
Graham Allcott 1:12:06
and it's the phone app. Good. Yes. Good. That's the other thing is that I've used to use it too. I sort of think of it as a tool that I would drop, kind of personal planning and notes and that sort of stuff into Yeah. And often those things. They designed it more as like Evernote, you know, it's designed more as a desktop app than it is a phone app. Right. And so, yes, then it feels more fiddly on the phone, but it's good on the phone. And on the phone. Yeah.
Dave McQueen 1:12:31
Because you know, a lot of people obviously they strip stuff, they strip stuff back. When so when you're trying to replicate what you will see on the desktop online, obviously, it's obviously going to be a bit more fiddly with a phone anyway. Yeah, what they want, especially around the UX is absolutely I say go do it for 30 days and then check back to me and tell me how it's gone. Definitely I swear by it. I definitely swear by.
Graham Allcott 1:12:53
You know, I was actually thinking about earlier this week because I really just feel I feel like there's the need to track a lot of this stuff in into place I've kind of stopped using Evernote and just kind of think about it in that sort of way. And yeah, so maybe you've just given me the nudge to to give it another go and get back into that so I'll be coming to you on WhatsApp for a little. Yeah, you do a little tips and tricks Definitely. Definitely happy to do that sounds good. It's been such a pleasure having you on beyond busy. I realised. Yeah, we're at one hour 13 which may be my longest beyond busy for a while, but it just felt like there was so much to talk about and yeah, just full of full of insight and interesting stories. So just a thank you for being on the show. Where can people connect with you? Where can they find out more about your 500 pounds an hour coaching and and be told to shop in stuff
Dave McQueen 1:13:53
mystify me is David mcqueen.co.uk. I will say he actually if you type in David McKnight In Google, it should come up with me in the first three. ignore that. Ignore the murder on the furthest fourth result. You'll find me Yeah, you'll find me at Dave McQueen dot code at UK. And likewise, you'll find me on Insta or LinkedIn as Mr. David McQueen, because I deserve that title. That's where most people find me.
Graham Allcott 1:14:21
Cool. Well, it's been a real pleasure. Enjoy the rest of your day. And thanks again.
Dave McQueen 1:14:26
Thank you, Graham. Real pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
Graham Allcott 1:14:34
So there you go. Dave McQueen really enjoyed that one. And there's some really good ones coming up in the next few weeks as well. So subscribe to be on busy if you haven't already. Also, just worth saying that if you have a team of people on furlough, you may or may not know that those people can still do training development are the stuff around their job. So if that is of interest, then Think Productive have some really good productivity workshops for you think productive are our sponsors for the show, it's my company. So that's how all that works. But yeah, if you if you've been enjoying Beyond Busy, and you're interested in training and development, and generally helping your team to become more productive, then one of the ways you can pay back all the time and effort and money that I put into this podcast would be to use something productive for your team's productivity training. So thinkproductive.com you'll find that there's more there and you can just drop me a line. Graham (at) thinkproductive.co.uk is the email address if you want to just find out a bit more and I can put you in touch with one of our team of productivity ninjas around the UK and around the world as well. So wherever you are listening to this beyond busy episode, so that's it. We'll be back in two weeks time. Thanks also to Mark Steadman, my producer on the show. Thanks to Emilie, my assistant doing all the sharing and general beyond busy evangelism and we'll be back in two weeks. Stay well enjoy the sunshine while you can, and we'll see you next time.
Take care. Bye for now.