In this episode, Katya talks to Catriona Maybury about her brilliantly diverse professional experience and how she arrived at the place where she needed to do something for her community. She felt so many people in London were living without having any idea what is going on on their doorstep, but also would be so willing anad able to help if they did. This was the seed that another brilliant podcast was born from.
To connect with Catriona -
https://www.linkedin.com/in/catrionacoaches/
If you would like to learn more about the host and their work –
Website - https://www.blushcloud.co.uk/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/blush.cloud/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katyaveleva/
Series 01 started on the 29th of September 2021 with a set of six episodes that will be airing every two weeks.
Enjoy the conversation!
Transcript
Katya 0:00
Hello, My name is Katya Veleva and this is changing the atmosphere, a podcast about changemakers and how they did it.
As always, to look at the illustration that comes with this episode head to the blush cloud website or follow the link in the description.
Today I am excited to speak to Catriona Maybury
Catriona is a dermatologist, ICF trained coach and a podcast host.
Catriona and I met at a training and I immediately noticed her precision, she was not there to waffle - her points were clear and specific. I loved that about her, maybe because I wish I had that superpower.
After discovering Portrait of a Londoner, the podcast she started with her friend Muna, I blinked and I was 8 episodes deep! It’s a gentle and honest look at the face of London - diverse and demanding inclusion.
This was actually the first episode that I recorded, Catriona kindly agreed to be my guinea pig, and I hope it didn’t hurt too much!
Enjoy the conversation!
Catriona. Good morning. It's so great to have you. Oh, thank you for asking me. So you and I met at a wonderful coaching training, but you have a medical background. You're a dermatologist and your GP before that might say that. And now you're creating this brilliant podcast. That's quite an interesting career trajectory. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?
Catriona 0:24
Yes, well, you're right. I'm a dermatologist. And I was working as a doctor for many years. And then in the last two years, largely influenced by the COVID pandemic, but I have diversified and developed more of a portfolio career. And that includes starting a podcast, which we'll come on to talk about, but I've also trained to be a career coach for doctors. And I'm also doing some medical writing for the British Medical Journal.
Katya 1:03
Brilliant, brilliant, well, above the podcast, before we get into it, I like to ask you a little bit of a silly question. I would like to know, is there a trend that you have participated in that you think was absolutely awful, and to make you feel a little bit better? I'm going to share mine. Because I know I look like a complete idiot when I do that. I've already got it. Awesome. That's so good. That was a long period of my life where my eyebrows, which you can see now, consisted of a single line of single hairs very high from my eyes. And it was terrible. It was awful. Yeah. And yeah, my point here is not someone who looked completely ridiculous. I'll now be a complete human being that does decent things in the world. So what was your mind was
Catriona 1:58
When I was about 13, I wore these light pink patent platform shoes now with two white stripes down the side. They were really horrendous. But when you said a bad trend, I just thought of them straight away. Because, you know, I've got quite a lot of photographic evidence of them. And I just think what was I thinking? I hardly ever wear heels now and I certainly wouldn't wear pink. Anyway, Yeah, so I think in my teenage fashion trends and like neon, you know, 90s I'm an I was an early 90s teenager. You know, though the neon phase that was you? I wasn't good.
Katya 2:40
Well, we're all forgiven for that. Remember? So Katrina, you and your partner Muna have a beautiful podcast called portrait of a Londoner, which I tend to binge I think I've, I've gotten more than halfway through and I try to listen to a single episode, but I can't because they just roll and they're so interesting and engaging. But I was wondering, before you started doing this, what did your life look like? Tell us about the normal day before?
Unknown Speaker 3:11
That? Well, I'm a doctor by training. So for most of my 20s and 30s What do my life look like getting up super early. I've got two young children for many years My life was kind of alarm clock at six or child waking me at six, getting them ready getting myself any out the door at seven, I was quite It was a military procedure, you know, and working a fairly long day at the hospital used to leaving around six coming home. No children, house bed, but there was always thoughts swirling in my mind, like, you know, like everyone else. And as I progressed through my 30s, I started to feel like I wanted to do something around social change, but also something that was creative in nature. And I think I arrived at the idea of a podcast through conversations with other people.
Katya 4:14
How long do you think that was brewing?
Catriona 4:17
Hopefully it is, is Yeah. I mean, you know, one significant turning point which I've spoken about in the podcast, which I'll just revisit now, that's how I was when I had my first son, and he's about to turn eight. I was in touch at the time with a local charity called Action Refugees in motion. We were in the process of moving house, so I gave them some furniture. And I also gave them a few baby things I didn't need any more. And then one day, the woman who was running the charity at the time contacted me and told me about refugees, they're just arrived from the Congo. And stripe immersion with a baby with nothing, literally nothing, she's been placed in a flat, and the flat was empty, they had blankets on the floor. And, you know, that was just I don't, you know, you hear stories like this all the time, if you're awake and alive to them, they impact you. But I think because of the way the media is, sometimes you don't let these stories hit you or you're not, you know, but that, for some reason, had a big impact on me. And I thought, gosh, there's somebody who's in a similar life stage to me, she's had her first baby, but she hasn't got all the resources and support and everything else that I have. And I find it difficult. And anyway, To cut a long story short, they needed a lot of things for this woman, they needed a car. And, and I couldn't, I couldn't personally give everything but of course, for me, so I put this advert on our mom's Facebook group. And it was an outpouring of donations to my house that I was able to then be the facilitator for. And I realised in those days that people are living in London without knowing what's going on on their doorstep. And it's very easy to do that in a big city, maybe easier in a big city than it is in a smaller town or village where you might not be as distracted or as able to look the other way. And also that there were people engaged, people did care. But sometimes they just didn't have the facility to show that care. Or so anyway, that is that I kind of had a feeling like I wanted to do something in my local community. And then I also had a feeling that I wanted to do something creative. And then through conversations with lots of other people, including Mina, we loved the idea of starting. Yeah.
Katya 6:59
So what was the tipping point? You remember a moment of decision? Okay, we're starting this, we're really gonna do this.
Catriona 7:08
I do. I can't remember if I had a copy of Mina. And, you know, I was kind of standing this idea I had out with her and she was just she said, Yes, absolutely. Let's do it. I can think your first guest will be Karen off. And let me text her and see if she can do it. In January. We met in December for coffee. And I was like, That's amazing. As a parent working with someone else, like the ball starts rolling. So yeah, that was the tipping point. And then she contacted Karen. Karen said yes. And then we just hoped we were going to get our kids together.
Katya 7:45
Would you say that? It was key for that turning point to have this partner who kind of
Catriona 7:51
Yes, it goes to me. Personally, I think a lot when you think about change, or doing something new. This fair and fair is a big thing and finding the confidence to move in a new direction, finding that inner confidence. And if you've got some kind of partner to walk that journey with you, then you're more than halfway. Hmm.
Katya 8:23
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. So looking back between that coffee and the first airing of the first episode of a portrait of a Londoner. Do you see stages of your journey? How are you imagining it? In your mind? How are you remembering it? Why?
Catriona 8:42
Well, yeah, I think I had lots of vague thoughts and hopes and Nina crystallised them into action. And, you know, there's always that line between how much do you plan and how much do you do? And we're still walking, we're still talking all the time, because we went from a place of probably me having lots of vague thoughts for years and doing nothing, suddenly a lot of action. And maybe not enough planning, and COVID was thrown into the mix. And now we're pausing again, and we're trying to think actually, now it's been a year or 212 months, and we're having a little conscious break at the moment, think about what we do to take all these stages along the planning stage, and then a quick action stage for us. I don't know if that was optimum, but that's the way it panned out.
Katya 9:53
Yeah, yeah, a long planning stage then a bit of a capitalist, some action and Now a little bit of a reflection is going on. Is that right? Yes, yeah. Brilliant. So what was step one after that coffee?
Catriona 10:14
Well, we actually did map out on a piece of paper issues we would like to cover. So we did write down topics. And then, under those topics, we wrote down people we knew, because we thought at the beginning, in con, just ask anybody. So we thought we knew under those kinds of headings. But actually, we've been quite reactive. We've changed as we haven't, that was how we started. But then, you know, with them, the murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, we, we felt like we needed to respond to that. And we interviewed three or four people around that time. But we haven't, you know, we hadn't planned to, we did think we would address racism at some point. But we hadn't planned to do it right there. And then that was very soon after we started. But that's just that. We felt like that was the right thing to do at the time. So, you know, again, COVID plans have changed, too. So it's been a mixture of forward planning and also reacting when we felt it was appropriate to do so to world events.
Katya 11:32
So you started off with a certain idea of issues you want to cover? Again, Black Lives Matter capitalised several interviews focused on that. And then I know you did a series on joy around last Christmas, I think it was, yeah, it's really lovely to listen to. And so how much do you think of the initial issues? have you managed to cover now? About a year? And is it a year and a half?
Catriona 11:57
Yeah, how many? Well, we, we wanted to Yeah, it was probably about 50%. And to give you a figure, we really want to do something about homelessness and refugees. And we have actually interviewed one or two people. But it's not been released yet. So we have made some inroads there. But that they're kind of we want to do something we still want decently probably about the environment. But that's just such a, you know, huge topic that we're thinking about how we can address that. So there's some big ones that we've not covered yet that we want to cover going forward. And also, we want to do a bit more about music, the music scene in London, that's been difficult to do. The COVID COVID COVID had a big impact.
Katya 12:52
Hasn't hasn't, it's to everything. But you seem to have really flexed around it in a very effective way. So if we go back to that, you made a list that will eventually evolve. What was the next step?
Catriona 13:09
So we made a list. And then we started contacting people. And we also got a little bit of a team together. You know, Samir has done photography. He's a friend of my husband's. And you know, he's been integral in the beginning. So yeah, we kind of got together. We did, like you're doing now you know, a bit of practice, trial and error. We interviewed Nina's husband. He works in a crisis, and we did an interview with him that we haven't put out. So a bit of training. But not a huge amount. So because we started in, in and we were locked down, like within a very short period of time. So yeah, we happen to be flexible and just keep moving forward without maybe that's been a good thing. We had to move to online recording quite quickly.
Katya 14:21
Yeah. So what was the hardest part from the process to get the first episode? editing, editing? Did you like yourself?
Catriona 14:33
We have done some of it ourselves. And because of that, we've had some training as well. We haven't done it all ourselves. No. I'm just finding, you know, a bit of trial and error in terms of we knew that if we did really long episodes, people didn't tend to listen to them all the way through. So about the 30 minute mark was the best place for people listening to our podcast.
Katya 15:04
And was there something that you couldn't deal with and just decided to leave? As is? Now you managed to tackle it all?
Catriona 15:16
Well, we've not really made any money. But if you have you have upsells out, so they do have episodes. But that, you know, making money wasn't our goal when we started either. So we haven't really failed in that respect. But now, you know, that's one thing that we've started having conversations about going forward, you know, do we want this to be profitable for us, because we do have to give it a lot of time. And energy, you do
Katya 15:43
have sponsors here and there, and episodes done two or three.
Catriona 15:47
But we've used sponsorship to get some training. So we've kind of put it back in. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're very lucky that Brixton brewery, and there's some sponsorship.
Katya 16:03
Is there a mistake that you did along the way that you would go and do again? The same way?
Catriona 16:12
steak to be repeated. If we wouldn't call it a mistake? Would we
Katya 16:17
felt like a mistake at the time? And now you're like, they definitely have to go through this? Oh, question.
Catriona 16:26
Nothing is springing to mind. Sorry, can I? No, no, that's exactly exactly the kind of questions you can just put on the cutting room floor?
Katya 16:40
And obviously the obvious one, then what would you do differently?
Catriona 16:48
Well, plan our time better, too. We didn't acknowledge at the beginning, how long the editing and then the social media side of things would take. So we've had periods of very intense activity that have been kind of overwhelming, and then we've had breaks. And I think probably going forward, we might be more structured around. Now we're recording now we're putting it out, and just managing the time and energy of each stage. Better, rather than trying to do everything all at once.
Katya 17:27
More kind of organised planning. Do you think that if you knew how long it would have taken you the Edit thing and the social media around it, do you think that would have affected you starting the podcast?
Catriona 17:42
Like everything? Learn while stealing, stealing? No, and also knowing how much to plan for interviews or not. And we found that having some kind of plan for an interview generally pays off, when we've gone into interviews with no plan at all. We've had to work harder on the editing side. When it's too planned, it can sound a bit pre prepared. And it's finding the kind of sweet middle of having some unprepared conversation but the conversation restructures.
Katya 18:18
Maybe that's, I find for me, that's one of the things that could put me off of things when I start imagining how much there is in the details. And sometimes just diving into doing things without thinking too much. The amount of editing and social media and promotion that's required to get something out that could really push you to do the thing, then have the thing as opposed to just just having ideas or something like that. So was there something that was way easier than you expected?
Catriona 18:49
I thought it would be easier, but we definitely enjoyed it when we expected. We've met some really great people. We've personally benefited from the conversations we've had. We found them really enriching and mind opening, all conversation has that ability to completely change the way you perceive a situation. And we both feel that some conversations we've had have just really opened our minds to new concepts or looking at, you know, looking at things in a different way. And so we've kind of enjoyed the intellectual challenge. We've really enjoyed meeting people that we wouldn't meet. And that was one of our primary hope names that we have definitely met like we've interviewed people on this podcast that we wouldn't come across in our day to day because they are a bit different gender or older than us or younger than us, maybe even two people in their early 20s. Well, I haven't interacted in that same way with people in my early 20s for a while now or people in their 60s, you know, so That was a hope that's been met. But it exceeded our expectations and how interesting and enjoyable we found it. And that's what's made all the hard work worthwhile.
Katya 20:12
That's really wonderful. And you know it, it has made it worthwhile for you personally. But it really is so worth our while for other people listening to it, and really connecting to that message and that image of London. Yeah, we know is there, we keep telling ourselves, but sometimes it's just so wonderful to, to hear the details of it and really be able to identify with it, who was the most help
Catriona 20:40
gave us the most help. There's not one individual person. Help, it's been so unexpected, and so great to receive it from so many different people. I mean, that's the great thing about starting something new. Once you start telling people, it's amazing. Well, actually, now I can say who's the most help, the most help has been submitted because of Oct, because he has not received money from us. And he has just consistently been so easy to work with and willing to be involved and willing to try new things and just been a joy to work with. So he's been the most helpful that actually accomplished open tasks. Number one, but then otherwise, there's been so many people along the way, have been willing to share their knowledge and experience. And there's been a bit of a stick about it, you know, every single guest it's been willing to talk to is Jason, who runs the South London salon and works at migration museums, just like champions, podcast, and current authors, and guests and champions. So speaking to everyone that's kind of helped us. And
Katya 21:57
So before you started the podcast, did you have any thoughts about that? How people would react.
Catriona 22:04
I think what's strange is, I think maybe I assumed there might be people closest to me, or that know me, the best would be the biggest support. And in some cases, there have been but the unexpected, delightful surprise has been people you've never met before, people that don't know your champion, because they just like it. I mean, that has been all I think it's important that's been there, like a revelation that's just enjoyable.
Katya 22:33
Sometimes when things are in your own head, you forget, and you don't have the ability to tell if they're good or not. And then the people around you kind of expect them to support you because they're the people around you. But then you get these people that don't know you, and they like it. So it means it's good. And there's a level of validation in there as well, that kind of grounds you a little bit and what you're doing. So that's really wonderful to hear that that's what's happening. So, have you have you been recording your experience about making the podcast
Catriona 23:11
that's probably something again, advice to you going forward. Mike, it was all learning while stealing and was so focused on technical aspects for a long time, the beginning, the recording quality, the editing, that we didn't think about showing no sharing the process. And in the social media world that we live in. Some people contacted us now to say I really enjoy learning about that side of things. So that's something that I probably would recommend that you might want to do, we haven't done what we need to do going forward. Because also, you know, there's so many decisions and so much So any questions you have to ask yourself about how much you're going to share about yourself when you do something like this, and you know, we have both decided that we didn't want to show our home lives, our family lives, we've got young children and we didn't we didn't want this to be about them and so many was gonna say when people on social media show a lot of their home life and a lot of their family and children and and maybe we went too much the other way we've not revealed a lot about ourselves. And we wanted it to be about the issues and the guests, not about us. But that's a that's a kind of line that you have to tread and that's but that's part of the reason why we haven't shared the process in the background because most of the focus was made in my house, in a recording in my house and my kitchen table and we didn't We'll put that out as videos.
Katya 25:07
But people still kind of reached out and wanted to hear more, because you do have an episode where you interview each other. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there's that curiosity that's going to come up. But building a healthy, healthy boundary that works for you. Seems to be important. Exactly right. Mm hmm. That's one piece of advice. What else would you say to anyone who wants to enact change in the world around them? in the direction of including more people?
Catriona 25:39
Well, I think one thing is good to come back to this. What can I do? There are lots of things you can't do. And not to be overwhelmed by those things. You can't. You can't overthrow the political system, you can't get rid of Boris Johnson, he can't, you know, but what can always happen in an organisation can do small things, I think it's the small things actually. Because Also, we're starting with something small and having a small success. Then you think, Okay, do another small step, and another one, another one. And so, not getting too overwhelmed by the big picture, the bigger the bigger context of the situation in which you find yourself
Katya 26:36
being able to zoom in and out, right, because the bigger picture is kind of what drives you in a way to want to make the change, and then be able to zoom back into your own scale, and see what's the little step that you can make?
Catriona 26:51
Definitely, so I'm a white woman. So if I, I mean, I've not I've not done work in diversity and inclusion there, this podcast is around the area. But I, I think that I have had times when actually, particularly as being a mother, so being a working mother, I felt that the work that you know, previously, my workplace wasn't. There wasn't equality for women with children in many different ways. And at times, I did kind of fall into that trap of feeling like a victim, and it's all overwhelming, and there's nothing you can do to change it. But as time went by, I started, you know, I did start saying, What can I do? And what assumptions or challenging conversations can I have? And also, I think we can get too fixed on a visual outcome or, or a measurable outcome, and sometimes a measurable outcome might be hard to achieve. But even by having challenging people in conversation, you can hope that well, maybe next time they have, you know, there's a woman in mind. She's talking to that senior man and leadership. And because of the conversation that I've had today, maybe it'll be a bit easier for her, you know, maybe I'll never know that. But so. So small steps in measurable and maybe in measurable ways. And
Katya 28:20
Something you mentioned there as well made an impression on me. It was overwhelming at first, and you did have a moment to kind of stop and deal with it, and allow yourself the space to be overwhelmed. And to figure out that this isn't great for me, too, then start thinking about that step.
Catriona 28:41
Yeah, and I think some of it is about accepting that by challenging this status quo. I will lose favour with some people. And I'm worried about that. So I'm thinking about one particular scenario that I was in that I knew was just really, because I was a more junior female and a more senior male, and I knew that by challenging and there would be some negative consequences for me. And I think it's fine to reflect on that before you move forward and still take action. But also, I wanted to take on some of these small challenges that I've made in the workplace, talking about not currently but maybe even five plus years ago.
So yes, so feeling, feeling confident that I could deal with the fallout of losing some approval, and also wanting to be able to maintain a friendly relationship towards someone that you're challenging. I think that's a difficult thing. You know, wanting to maintain a positive working relationship and yet being able to challenge someone and thinking how you'll navigate that.
Katya 30:15
What do you think is the key to do that?
Catriona 30:18
I don't know if I was successful. Let's be honest. But no, I, you know, on the whole, I think I have actually, there's nobody that I don't think there's anybody that I've worked with, what's the key to doing that taking the emotion out of it, probably, for me, that's going to be individual, but trying to address something. And know based on the facts of the situation. without feeling without feeling the emotion, having already worked through the emotion of the situation yourself crazy,
Katya 30:55
your own kind of emotional reaction. That's such an interesting comparison to make. Because, to me, it's exactly the opposite, I put in more emotion. But on the other side, I kind of bring in as much feeling for the other person as I can when I'm approaching that. And this is the beauty of the difference in people because for some people work one way for other people works kind of exactly the opposite way. But maybe just having this genuine intent in you to maintain a positive relationship, despite going ahead and challenging someone is probably the best start.
Catriona 31:36
Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Yeah. And also, and just having the maturity to understand that person is only acting in line with the culture and belief system they grew up in, and they may not even be aware of the way they're acting. And not only to judge somebody for and also they may have operated in the same way, like the majority of their career, 30 years and no one's challenged them. So they may know, how would they know? And also it may be a shock to them, when you come to them and say I don't think that way to do these things is this fair? So giving them the chance to have their emotional response to I suppose a bit of planning, too.
Katya 32:26
Planning seems to be a threat, it comes up. It's good to be prepared. You know what the scouts say? Always be prepared. Yeah. I was a scout. Me too. That was fun. That was fine. You're brilliant. And this is the last question that I'm gonna ask you about what you're doing. And it's carefully structured because I'm not gonna ask you if you have celebrated because I think you must. And if you don't, how did you celebrate your first episode or the success of the podcast so far?
Catriona 33:05
Today we haven't really celebrated. I know. We have thought about it. We have thought about it. It's just been taught and supported by COVID. But we are planning to celebrate. Every time we've wanted to celebrate somebody else's coming up, meaning his new house or you know, whatever, or we've got another lock guard, like we are going so I think you're right, celebrating successes is important.
Katya 33:32
It really really is and, and this podcast is a success. It's a really, really wonderful lesson. So thank you so much for sharing everything that you share today. Katrina, is there anything else you'd like to talk about? Maybe there'll be people where they can find out more about your writing and potential support for doctors that need some coaching?
Catriona 33:55
Yes, well, if there's any doctors that would like career coaching, or or any reason maybe they've got an interview coming up, they need some, you know, help with preparing for an interview or registrar or exalted position or they are just wanting to improve their work life balance. They wanted to become involved in research, then they can contact me now I'm on LinkedIn and my name is spelled ca t ri. Na, My surname is mabrey ma y byy. And all my email for coaching is Katrina coaches@gmail.com. And that starts ca t ri ln a coaches@gmail.com. And if people want to find out more about medical writing, yes, I'm currently in the section editor for BMJ best practice. So that is the best practice. The British Medical Journal, is it British Medical Journal. Brilliant. So, yes, I'm always delighted to find out more about that.
Katya 35:00
Thinking all of the correct spellings will be in the notes of that as well. Thank you so much for changing the atmosphere. Oh,
Catriona 35:09
Thank you so much. It's been great to meet you. And lovely speeches and best of luck. I'm really, really looking forward to your progress meeting.
This podcast is a production of blushcloud. Presented by Katya Veleva, edited by Sophie Monahan Cooms, music by Jeff II.
