What happens when a seven-year-old sees injustice and decides to change the world? In this powerful episode, Mark McBride-Wright speaks with Ayo Sokale — civil engineer, children’s TV presenter, tech founder, and author — about what it means to live life on purpose. From witnessing flooding in Nigeria to protecting thousands of homes through engineering, Ayo shares how personal experience shaped her career and calling. She also opens up about building Get Coached, an AI-powered app making coaching accessible to everyone, not just the C-suite.
The conversation dives deep into purpose, equity, and innovation, exploring how we thrive in systems not built for us, and how storytelling and data can work together to drive real change. Whether you’re in STEM, leadership, or simply searching for direction, this episode will leave you inspired to act, reflect, and redefine your impact.
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:00
Hello. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride Wright, and I am delighted today to be joined by Ayo shokole, who is founder and CEO of get coached. Io is a chartered civil engineer, qualified project manager and RSA fellow, who has quickly risen to prominence in her field. She is the major project and program delivery business manager at the Environment Agency and an active member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. She’s also a BBC broadcaster, best known as CO presenter of CBD get set galactic and for creating STEM content across major networks. She is a former councilor and Deputy Mayor of reading, founder of plastic free Caversham and an executive coach helping professionals align with their values and strengths, author of the upcoming book othered, how to thrive and disrupt in spaces not created for you. She is also the founder and CEO of a tech startup transforming personal development, recognized among the top 50 women in engineering. She’s a trustee of the autistic girls network and a patron of the ME TOO club charity. Welcome
Ayo Sokale 1:23
thanks for that introduction. That was
Mark McBride-Wright 1:25
nice. No, I hadn’t appreciated how expansive. Oh, your your, you know the areas are that you’ve been in. So what we like to do at Start Safe leader is get to understand the engineer that’s in front of us. You know, find out a bit about their origin story, like what interested them in engineering. How did you come to be that the person that you are today, personally and professionally, but if we start with the professionally part, like, what, what sparked your interest in engineering. So
Ayo Sokale 2:02
I had quite strong experiences in my formative years that sparked my passion for civil engineering. So I grew up for nine years in Nigeria. That’s my family’s from, and I saw how engineering changed the community that so it was mostly on my route to school. You know, COVID a little shabby, you know, their kids, and I don’t know what we call them, not, not your traditional occupation habitats, you know, like swollen stomachs, not looking very healthy, okay, not trying to present a gross image of Nigeria at the time, but that was what I saw, yeah, not the best infrastructure and children Being sick, maybe because it’s poor access to water, and being a more sensitive child, you know, I found it upsetting. I didn’t really like to think about inequality in the world and look at me and my car being taken to school, and, you know, my parents and our lovely house, and this exists, and it was one of one of those routes to school. The car broke down because beautiful infrastructure, yeah, to be fair, they’re more potholes here than they used to be in the UK. But anyway, that’s a different conversation. Abby was on one of those times that the car broke down, and I met an engineer who’s working on a project, and I learned about what engineering is and civil engineering was, and I realized that he was this person who was changing the community. And I watched the community change over time. I watched Wow, improve. I watched different buildings being built. I watched things improve. And that’s why I was like, first of all, he’s like a rock star, kind of, God, yeah, feels like some sort of major power. And, you know, being a kid, I wanted a bit of that. I wanted a bit of that. I wanted to be that kind of person. I wanted to assert that, you know, that horrible feeling of feeling sad and disappointed about how things were and becoming the kind of person who just transformed the world around them. And at that point, I knew civil engineering was a way to do that. So I was like, Yeah, I’m a civil engineer. So, um, civil engineering came to my life much earlier than most people. I think I was about seven. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 3:58
it’s very early. Yeah, it’s very young in
Ayo Sokale 4:01
my life, because I moved back to the UK when I’m nine. So this is really quite early in my life, and I work in water. So I’m a civil engineer who works in water, and my link to water has always been there. First of all, I’m obsessed with watching water. Yeah, I was younger. I’m experienced quite extreme flooding in those times in Nigeria that, you know, separated my mom for a day. You know my you know my family. Wow, reading flood water. So, you know, when you’re a child, these are really that must
Mark McBride-Wright 4:29
have been so traumatic. So as a young kid, being separated from your Yeah, oh, my God, no idea.
Ayo Sokale 4:36
I think the key thing I remember, you know, like, when I finally my mom’s like, you know, she’s pulling her wrap her around, getting me and my little sister, taking us home, getting us cleaned up into my green little mermaid pajamas, drinking hot chocolate and feeling safe again. Yeah, never forget that feeling and obviously seeing people’s cars washed off. And, you know, knowing that people. Of their lives, I think they say quite a lot of drama, actually. Yeah, totally an engineer because of trauma, but yeah, I wanted to be the kind of person who could do something and shame, change the world, you know, change my world and change the world for other people. That’s
Mark McBride-Wright 5:15
brilliant. I I love when we’re able to find that about people like what’s driven them to do what they do? It’s, it’s like a a burning passion inside, isn’t it? It’s like, it’s like a fire that will probably never be doused. And sometimes it shrinks and sometimes it flares up, you know, depending on the injustice that you might see or the inequality, and for you to have come to that realization the branch of engineering, not just being an engineer, but actually the branch of engineering, from such an early age, it was there ever a point in your in that move into the UK, And then sort of, did you ever think maybe I should look at something else before I settle on this? Or it sounds like you’ve been resolute, like it’s always, it was always going to be civil engineering, and that’s just been your guiding star.
Ayo Sokale 6:12
Yeah. I mean, I’ve always known what I wanted to do, but I guess I’m an engineer even by nature, because I’ve always been quite process driven and, like, how do I take something complicated and make sense of it? So I was like, well, you need to collect data. So I think I was in primary school. I lived in the I was born in the UK, moved back, started primary school here, and, you know, telling people I’m gonna be an engineer. I, you know, so confident I’m gonna be a great engineer. I actually said these things, yeah. I was, yeah. I was savagely bullied. I was like, but I just knew I was going to do something great, and really followed this passion. But at the time, you know, you know, looking for additional work. I think my math teacher in primary school gave me so much extra work, I had, like, just sheer obsession. And every Friday after school, I’d sit there and just do my parents would be like watching TV on the sofa, and I’d sit at their feet, because I like, I like laying on the floor and just do math for hours on a Friday night. Master my skill set. The first thing I can tell is I need to be a good mathematician. Then what’s the next thing that data brought around when I got to secondary schools, like I need work experience. So I started doing design technology club. I spoke to my DT teacher. She put me up for some courses. I did all kinds of engineering. So I spent a whole summer at Imperial London, London College, oh yeah, studying aeronautical engineering materials. I actually like materials. It was really cool. Have no skills in electrical engineering that’s fine, kind of the whole wheelhouse that makes that kind of engineering stem space for a whole summer, because I told my teachers what I want to do. So she looked for some free courses, she looked for some things that could be sponsored and like things I could do, things that I might ask my parents to help me do. And I went and did pretty much every summer, I studied courses, and then I started seeking out work experience. Was quite annoying actually. You know, I think something about being quite precocious that makes you quite annoying. When you look back at it, it’s just cringe like I’m 11. Now I’m in year seven, and I’m going up to saying I’m gonna be a great engineer. I’m reaching out to these companies. I’m knocking literally making my mom drive me around East hometown to go speak about how I need work experience in their company, because it’s so important. My journey is an engineer, because I know that’s the next thing I need. I’ve mastered my map. I’m doing the courses on the summer. I’m already doing the things, but I need work experience now, and I eventually got some work experience thing in year eight. Wow, that was in structural and they were so nice to me. And it’s just such nice reassuring people. I still remember them, yeah, more recently over the years. And I was just like, do I want to do this? Because they worked on a project in a school that would then be my future school. Wow, one of the people, I take all the links and synergies, and I’m like, oh, there’s nothing here,
Mark McBride-Wright 9:00
yeah, it’s a message, yeah,
Ayo Sokale 9:04
such a child. But I quite liked it when you think about the person that makes you who you are, yeah, it’s like, this is really cool, but do I want to do this? So I kind of started thinking, Oh, maybe I’ll be interested in this. But when I went to university, I did civil for the first year, right? And then by the second year, when you have to really decide if you’re on a civil coastal and kind of water? Yeah, I’m a water baby. I’m a water baby. I’ll always be a water baby. And I did have an amazing lecturer in the coastal space. He inspired me, yeah? And, you know, sometimes that’s really important. I just, I’m just obsessed. I want to learn everything, know everything, and be the best I could be. So yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 9:44
and you’re now working at the Environment Agency, aren’t you?
Ayo Sokale 9:47
Yeah, it’s actually coincidental. I work at the EA because I was about to go back full circle. I’d applied to my PhD at Imperial. I was having conversations at the time to go do my PhD, and kind of double that being this. I thought that was. Way. And then I realized that if you do that, you still have to go and be a graduate engineer and get started. I was like, oh, so engineering is about to actually not doctors cool then on, literally, as I learned that information that same day or this day after, because I was present at the Engineering Society University, as you worded, you’re obsessed, they were running a career spat. And, you know, I think it’s our engagement, the person who was leading in that, in the committee, yeah, reach out to companies. And one of the companies that came when it was the EA, and one of the people I spoke to who ended up being in my team six years later. But what, that’s just synergies and COVID, yeah, he told me about the EA he’s like, we protect people from flooding, we reduce the risk of flooding, we make things better for people and wildlife. I was like, shut me up. I am ready. The thing that even sold me on that, even more than that, was something that I’ve had to work on over the years, but at this time was a really positive thing. Yeah, you could quantify your impact. Yes, number of homes protected, numbers of businesses protected. So I could see that, even for my first projects, when I started at the EA, I could see the benefit. I was like, Oh, my God, this project protects 200 homes and flooding 1000 homes of plumbing. And because this is like, this is like, the core thing I don’t I didn’t choose this. This pose me, and sometimes it possesses me. This is not a choice I’m making. Sometimes me the need to to be the thing that my seven year old self said, Yeah. Never
Mark McBride-Wright 11:36
floods again. Yeah. I
Ayo Sokale 11:38
love more infrastructure. I love
Mark McBride-Wright 11:41
quantify my impact. I know I love that. I love, I love, I love that in that foresight or that perspective you’re getting now about how the thing that you’re putting your energy into now delivers a quantitative reference, you know, a quantitative impact. It’s makes me reflect a little bit on my journey in safety engineering, where there’s a mix there of sort of quantitative stuff and qualitative stuff. But then moving into diversity, equity and inclusion is there’s some stuff you can quantify in terms of retention of people and organization and, you know, representation that you have in the workforce relative to national population and local population and but actually, for the most of it, it is quite unquantifiable in some areas, and feels a little bit fluffy. And, yeah, I wonder, I wonder if that is, it’s just a really interesting point that you say there about finding something that you can really say substantiated. And actually, you know that when we did our masculinity and engineering research and then discovered these, this the suicide rates in the construction, manufacturing process industries, you know some data from the Office of National Statistics on the breakdown rates by occupation, that got me excited. I was like, Oh my God, there’s something quantifiable here. You know, there’s, there’s numbers like this is going to speak to the engineers that we’re trying to influence, to change hearts and minds of and but then someone said something to me recently that really stuck with me, and it’s that there’s, there’s two ways in which people are sort of influenced to change one, and this probably applies to the majority of engineers. It’s the hard numbers, it’s the data. And if they’re the numbers are big enough and large enough and affect enough people, then it warrants doing something about it. But some people, that doesn’t really work, you know. And actually, they need to feel it. They need to experience it. They need to under they need the storytelling. They need the the lived experience. They need to hear from the people that are affected by if they’re not affected by it personally. And I guess there’s almost maybe a blend there isn’t it, because if you have the privilege of not living any flood plain where there is a increased risk of your house or business being flooded, then whenever you see it come up on the news, you’re maybe a little bit dissonant of it, you know, a little bit well. You know, it’s not going to happen to me. It’s
Ayo Sokale 14:17
not far away anymore in the news, it’s in Europe. It’s locally. It’s becoming more restoring. Maybe it’ll make people pay attention to what incredible stuff we engineers do in this space.
Mark McBride-Wright 14:27
Absolutely, absolutely. So I’m really interested in your hearing more about your new Well, maybe not so new, but get coached. You know, tell us, tell us about how you’re using AI to, you know, break through the the coaching, making coaching more accessible and and helping people so
Ayo Sokale 14:49
passionate about life lived on purpose, and engineering was the first purpose, because you could see the tangible output. But over the course of my own career, using coaching for myself. And then others. As I became a qualified coach, I saw how coaching was literally transforming people’s lives. It literally made people feel able to do things they couldn’t do before they identify what their goals were. They could see, well, maybe the things they needed to change, and they were now motivated to do it. And I you see it with my teams. I mean, I saw it when I was leading a team and using coaching with them, and they were literally becoming their best selves. They were realizing their potential. And I was like, more people need this? Yeah, am I going to speak? And I speak as well. Speaking in the NHS, they said, you know, imagine that we had, like, someone asking us the questions you’re asking these coaching questions all the time. And I think it stuck in my head. I was like, everyone needs this coaching. Doesn’t need to be this thing that only C suite people get, or Yeah, directors get. Everyone deserves to, you know, have that understanding of what they want to achieve and understand how to get there, and then that feeling of like, yes, clarity. And I wanted to give that everyone in a way that everyone can have access to. So that’s kind of how the idea if I get Coach Kim about I was actually driving, and I was like, Oh, I’m gonna do this. Yeah, register. The company started looking for teams of software developers to come alongside with me. I designed all the back end using hiring edge coaching models. And you know, what would people need to know to if they needed to have really good coaching conversations? And it wasn’t a person in the room, and it was, AI, what did you need to teach the AI how to make their data safe? How do you create psychological safety? How do you flag when things are escalating and need mental health sign posting? So I designed all of that and launched the app in May last year. Okay, pretty cool. Exciting. It’s early days still, and getting that big user base using it, it’s finding it so useful. And now just, I just want to make sure that everyone has it so going around, sharing about it. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 16:47
so what’s the if you bring it down to basics of the foundation life, if, what’s the user experience offer? If, so, if I’m a user and I want some coaching, what and I and I Google, get coached in the website, and then go to it, what what happens? And then I download something, or I interact with something, and what happens?
Ayo Sokale 17:09
So you go Google, get coached right now. You get our website. Get coached online. You can download the app. It takes you to the App Store. If your Android app, yeah, you initially, everyone gets free access to use the app for X amount of conversations, yeah, so you get it straight into it, create your profile. You know in that you get to get asked you questions, just to get you to think about how you are feeling and experiencing your life, ask you questions using a wheel of life model across all different parts of your life, like your health, your career, your well being, your relationships, your everything, the whole narrative of your life. Ask you questions. Ask you to rate it from one to 10 in this really nice user experience, it’s really nice formatting. It’s pretty it’s also designed to be calming, yeah, you know, vetted by neuro virgin specialists who do kind of design say like design. So it was calming, helping everyone just look at it. So you assess how you’re feeling across this spectrum, you’re going to probably find one area is rated low, because I think we all have that area that we would take energy into what we want to so maybe one of it’s like, oh, you really want to go to the gym more. So maybe you then go into the next part of the app, it’ll push you through, and you’ll chat to your AI coach, and you’re like, What do you want to work on today? And you’ll be like, Well, I’m gonna work on this. You know, I’ve done the 12 things on the wheel of life. I know what I like to work on. I want to work on my health, on my fitness. So then you start having a coaching conversation. They’ll ask, you know, what are your goals around this? Okay, what’s the reality now? So are you doing any of the things that you’d like to be doing you might be like? And then it will ask you, why? Try and explore it with you. Understand what the barriers might be, what your resistance might be. Is it thought process? Is it, you know, practicalities like childcare? Yeah, what’s going on? And then help you distill to your options. And it’s coaching. So I’ll stress that in all this conversation, it’s never telling you what to do. Yes, questions, yeah. And you’re having a conversation where someone’s just curious and like, what about this? Did it do? Like, you know, what’s what have you considered? You know, what are the things? And once you come up with some options yourself, you’re like, you know, I think I could go to the gym before I drop the kids off at school, or maybe I can work out in the living room, or the, you know, on YouTube, and then I can do the school run, then make sure and ask you, like, okay, so how excited, how compelling is this actual new plan you’re going to do it, and then, you know, it keeps prompting you till now, you know you worked that clarity, and you now have a plan that you’re going to implement. And
Mark McBride-Wright 19:39
does it go? Does it go as far as, like, using chat, GBT would do, but it could, like, then you could give a prompt like, okay, generate the schedule for me. Now, taking into account all these answers. So a coach
Ayo Sokale 19:51
never tells you what to do. They’re not necessarily like a fitness coach, or they’re a person who helps you figure out what the blockers are in your head. Right potential. So let’s say you want to work out more, or you want to get a promotion, it’ll help you have the conversations you need to have, to create a plan for yourself and come consider the options. And maybe the plan is that you go get a personal trainer,
Mark McBride-Wright 20:13
but it’ll help fine, and it’ll take you Yes, yeah, it’s
Ayo Sokale 20:17
really compliant with the very ethos of coaching, because coaching is never meant to tell you what to do. Yes, having a proper coach, I can, I say proper as in a human coach, and you have a human session, yeah, tell you what to do. They never create a fitness plan for you.
Mark McBride-Wright 20:32
Yes, got here, got here. So it takes you, takes you to the boundary of like, trying to get you to make a decision by present, reflecting the options back to you, and then asking more coaching questions and then taking you to that. I love it. I love it. How should you figure things
Ayo Sokale 20:50
out? And then at the end of the process, you know, you now have clarity. And maybe you, you leave the app, and then you come back in a couple of weeks time because there’s something else you want to work on. Yeah, maybe you find that actually, you started working out, but then you there’s actually a barrier. You go to the gym, you feel nervous, and then you can chat about that with your coach. And because it’s in your pocket,
Mark McBride-Wright 21:08
it’s absolutely You took the words out of my mouth, my mind, like in the pocket, like this, in the pocket community or friend or advisor, like that. It’s so I love this. I love where tech is taking us now with our human relationships, and also, you know, the way in which we can get support like what you’re creating through get coached. It’s a really good way to make it more accessible, to democratize. It almost
Ayo Sokale 21:43
affordable for key thing, yes, one the blocker to be that, you know, maybe you pay for a coach. And I looked at it, you know, the most companies do have coaching for their senior staff. Oh,
Mark McBride-Wright 21:53
it’s so expensive, three grand, yeah, yeah.
Ayo Sokale 21:59
And I was like, Well, you know, if Joe blogs on, you know, in the street would really benefit from coaching, they’re not gonna pay three grand. Yeah. So it starts at 599 you pay each month, and you just get to chat to your coach and figure it out. You talk as much as you need, as little as you need. You just get the support in the present. And also, it’s that fact that you know you’re going to get response. Because, yeah, for a moment we might rely on our friends, sometimes too much annoying them in the in that group chat, but, um, they can’t respond all the time. Well, it’s at 1am and you just like, should I apply for this job? Or, you know, that kind of thing, just Yeah. Sometimes the biggest challenges in life are the points in time where you can’t actually call someone up, yeah, or even schedule a coaching conversations, because you might even if you had a paid coach and it was a person and you went to their office, or you went to meet them in a coffee shop, or maybe had a virtual teams chat, you’d have to organize that well in advance. Yeah, right now you want to make a decision right now in a bullet session. That’s where get coaches are great. Oh, I love it. It it doesn’t kind of take the need for people who want to have a person that they chat to, because human interactions, it’s
Mark McBride-Wright 23:05
complimentary, yeah, it’s not that everyone can have
Ayo Sokale 23:09
access to. So like, maybe businesses get it for all their staff. Yeah, they might still want to take the senior leadership on an away day to spend time with your relationships, but it means everyone gets coaching and can work some of those kind of everyday challenges.
Mark McBride-Wright 23:25
What’s your uptake on it been so far then? And what’s your growth plan, growth model for it? So
Ayo Sokale 23:30
so far, we’ve had, you know, about 50 users on it. The whole plan now is to grow the users, and my focus is on B to D, because you solo run it at the moment. Okay, solo fund it. Because, you know, when you have a passion sometimes,
Mark McBride-Wright 23:45
yeah, yeah. All in all, it
Ayo Sokale 23:48
totally This is like the point where I’m like, let’s get it to businesses, because I think, you know, that’s where I get the seeing the value. Really enjoyed my people. It’s just like I was an engineer, seeing the homes protected. I want to see that people get the app and be on it and be like, I figured out this, this relationship thing, this fitness thing, this career. I figured out this parenting thing. You know, I had this challenge in my child. I talked it through with my coach, and I have clarity. I want people to have that. So I’m at that place where I’m like, How do I get everyone to have it? So I’m having some fantastic conversations. With various businesses. If you, if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, your company could benefit from this and also reach out, yeah, just support people to thrive. Is like that. I think the next thing in that living life on purpose, more people can thrive. More people can have a really great life when, yeah, yeah, definitely, and they have the will to execute it.
Mark McBride-Wright 24:45
So I’d like to go to another part of your life and find out a bit about this CBeebies and children’s TV presenting, and how you got into that, and what you know I’ve got to. Kids myself. So, yeah, really, I can feel the energy coming from you. I so my kids, we’re in New York now. We were in the UK up until last year, and it’s, it’s been a while since I had them on CBS. Actually, they’ve sort of moved on from that. But, yeah, no tell.
Ayo Sokale 25:24
But honestly, like, get coach is a dream. I wanted to do kids TV since I was a kid myself, right? I think I actually won those lucky or maybe unlucky, because you know all about perception, I’ve always known the things I wanted to do. When I see something that resonates with me. I take action on it. So I actually wrote to see BBs when I was a kid. Oh, right, cool. I wrote them and I asked them specifically, how do you become a Blue Peter presenter?
Mark McBride-Wright 25:54
Awesome. They wrote back to me,
Ayo Sokale 25:56
so I used that. It was like a coaching conversation. I used that as a kind of, okay, this is the goal. Now, where am I? Okay, I’m I’m still a kid. I’m
Mark McBride-Wright 26:07
seeing a theme to your approach in every part of your life.
Ayo Sokale 26:12
What do I need to do to get there? Okay, I’m becoming an engineer. I might need to work on my other skills, like communication, yeah, building a profile, you know, being like, altruistic, the kind of things that I think, you know, the heart of the presenter for who work on CBS, okay, great, great, great. I know that. I know what the goal is. I know what my reality is, what are my options. And I started making it a plan, and I started doing it. And, you know, I made my had my own stories with IR, like a YouTube reading kids stories before I was on CBS. I started off doing PBC reels, using my expertise in science to actually subject matter expert, building my skills on camera. So it was all quite a long journey to getting here. But, yeah, journey was a bit like, anything like, you know, I was building the skills, the knowledge, the experience, the competence to do the thing I always had in mind just Hi, can I be a CPP to prevent
Mark McBride-Wright 27:02
her amazing and now I have
Ayo Sokale 27:04
this impact on young people and inspire them, which is, like, more positive impact and more purpose, yeah, like everything that I’m about.
Mark McBride-Wright 27:12
So tell us so you you so get set galactic. Was this a show that you presented, a show that you hosted. Tell us a bit about
Ayo Sokale 27:22
that. If you’re not seeing get set galactic, I will let you off, because you’re in the US VPN and all that challenges. I’m letting you off. But anyone else, let’s go watch get that galactic. So it’s on BBC iPad as well, so you’d have to be in the UK watching it, but, um, it’s a fantastic show. It’s a science game show. So each episode, the kids are learning about science all through play. And you know, in the way of learning is just so solid. And of the show, because it’s got that learning through play, but it’s also got that really amazing theme that’s our tagline, which is, try and test it so the kids, but they don’t have to know and get it right the first time. It’s kind of like a growth mindset being taught the age. So each episode we have, like, you know, team I’m red team captain, Sam’s green, blue, as you know, James, and he kind of presents the start of the show. And then our kids come in. We have two kids in each team. They join our team. We play three games, all science based, like, maybe about pollination or weight and mass. Oh, cool, solar system. And all through the games, we learn so much. And obviously our live audience have fun with us, and kids at home have fun with us. And then the kids go home with some prizes. And you know, each episode is just either learn things, because, you know, learning through play things, yeah, theoretically, before you’re like, oh, sorry, it’s house. Fantastic. I genuinely love the show. It’s just so
Mark McBride-Wright 28:45
I need to watch it. When, when, when when did it air? From like, when, when was it on?
Ayo Sokale 28:50
Season two is now what it’s on. Like you can watch all the season so we’re now on season two. I think Season Three comes out in summer.
Mark McBride-Wright 28:58
But when was When did season one ear. I’m just trying to fix it in my year before last, right? Yeah, okay, so my my kids had moved on from CBD that because I sounds fine. Well, we yeah, my daughter’s five and my son’s seven.
Ayo Sokale 29:20
Mark, you walked yourself right into that one.
Mark McBride-Wright 29:22
I did. I did. I did. I know, I realized that. I realized that, what time did it air? I mean, I remember so I my kids used to be early risers. So C, BBs was our go to, and so we would have, oh, you’re plucking on old memory strings here, like the OC the Octonauts and hey, Dougie, you know, it was the same programs that were always on one after the other. So you sort of knew where you were in the day based on what was on see BBs. And then in the evening you would have, you know, the in the night garden and then the CBS bedtime store. 40 that would have a celebrity reading it. But maybe if it was on during the day that was fine. Of our socks, we never really had it on. It
Ayo Sokale 30:09
was Saturday and Sunday. Ah, right, every weekend, and it’s about 10. Ish, 1010, yeah, now it’s about 11. Ish,
Mark McBride-Wright 30:17
got you? I was probably in a coffee shop at that time every day at 315 so that’s right. So it’s probably definitely been on in the background in our household. I will definitely watch an episode, and I’m probably going to watch it and go, Oh yes, I remember this. The engineering one that I used to remember was the den engineers for the where they would, oh, come on, right now, the shoes on the other foot, like you’ve presented on a TV channel where there was another engineering program as well.
Ayo Sokale 30:53
Yes, I was abroad in Nigeria. I didn’t have that show, so I won’t know
Mark McBride-Wright 30:58
it was, it was, it was within the last five to 10 years. You know what’s wrong? Is it awful? Oh, anyway, that’s a really good show. I guess the point here is that it’s so great that there’s now people like yourself that are professionals in it as well putting themselves forward to create content that’s fun, engaging and actually hooks in the young people to get you know generation alpha, as they’re called, the group that are going through school now you know those that are going to enter our workforce in 2035 onwards. They’re the ones that, you know, we focus so much on Gen Z just now. But actually, to solve all these climate problems and all the other things that engineers need to help with, we we need to be thinking on a much longer time scale, much longer feed forward loop, you know, and that’s where I always I’m a chemical engineer by background, so I think in terms of processes and feed forward and feedback and delayed reactions. And so, you know, the effort that you’re putting in now to that age group, my kids age group, you know, that is the long game for them, coming off the conveyor belt of education in 2035 onwards. You know, the earliest point when a Gen Alpha baby, I think would reasonably pursue, like an apprenticeship, for example, so the young so and I think a lot of parents, educators, teachers, lecturers, academics, industrialists, often lose sight of that, that we sort of we’re so caught up in the next five years, or what we’ve done most recently and what we’re about to do? Yeah, we’re not, we’re not, we’re not we. We say we’re working to the long term, but we’re not really. We’re just sort of kicking a can down the road. And so I, I’d love to see more interconnectedness between you know, you’re producing all this amazing content. How is that, then being picked up in nursery schools with learning plans that teachers or nursery teachers are doing? I mean, how, how often, when I used to say about engineering or stem to the, you know, the nursery teachers that my kids have had, and you would get the traditional, oh science, oh maths, oh no, no, that’s not for me. Oh, you’ve got to be brainy to do that, you know. And you’re like, right? So you’re basically not putting yourself forward to then teach it. And therefore you the kids pick up on your hesitancy or lack of confidence, and then you can see how it just sort of snowballs, then through the decades and through the years, and then we don’t we’re surprised that we haven’t made much more progress. So I think it’s important, then, with toolkits and all that, to be made available, and almost like showing the influencers that influence young people like how to do some of these things? Yeah,
Ayo Sokale 34:04
I think stem ambassadors are a great way. Because, I mean, yes, I did it when I was a graduate. I’ve always been, I’ve been a STEM AMBASSADOR since I was at university. They have also great resources. And what’s like, someone’s created great resources get shared all around, like, copy paste and, you know, something’s working great in this part of the country. Try it somewhere else. Yeah, these shows are quite popular. Yeah, I eat quite a lot from, you know, teachers. And they like, oh, I use this at school, you know. And I’m, like, really in like, primary school, they’re using it in primary school. So that means, I don’t think we’ve pushed for that. That means, and they’re seeking it out themselves. So that’s really incredible. And I think, you know, as we continue to produce way more science content, yeah, you know, inspiring them to be excited about learning about science, technology, engineering and math, but, and I’ll actually have that interfaces there too, because it’s creativity, but, um, but also it inspires them to learn through failure and learn through practice. And I think. For the innovation we need in the future. What I love about get set is to mindset instills. Yeah, because you need people who can do what hasn’t been done before, because what we’ve done before has got us here, and we need something different. So you need people who are also not scared of getting it wrong. So try it and test it. Let’s try it. Let’s experiment like you know, let’s try this. Does it work? Is it is this heavy or lighter? Is this which one’s higher pitch? You know, like that pipe or that pipe, they learn and they get to, like, try. And I think that trial and error is what we need to see more in engineering in a safe way. Yeah, renovation is not going to be some of the approved design. It’s not based on the standards that we have. It’s going to be taking a bit more risk to do something really differently in a safe way, and I think we’re installing that in the young kids watching the show. So when they start working in 10 to 20 years, I’m just like, yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 35:48
yeah, I can measure that exactly. You can measure that and and you can also measure book sales and book reach. So tell us a bit about the book that you’re that you’ve been working on other it’s not
Ayo Sokale 36:07
out yet, but I’ve been working on this book for a couple of years now. Okay? And how to thrive in spaces that weren’t created for you. It’s actually kind of relies on some of the stuff you do. I’ve seen your LinkedIn posts. It’s about kind of in creating that inclusion, but it’s for the book I need to read when I was younger. I think so I basically wrote the book I needed to read when I was younger. But I think it would benefit lots of people working in spaces, in STEM spaces, maybe they’re person of color, maybe they’re a woman, or maybe there are lots of any other protected characteristics, or maybe they just feel othered, because that’s what the book’s about. You know, we talk about, first of all, my past experience of it in the first couple of chapters. Then we look into systems and how they work, you know, because we do live in systems, and none of the things that we experience happen by accident. They’re a product of what the system was created to achieve. Yeah, let’s say we have in the West more more men in STEM. That’s not by accident, because when you get other countries I smash well on Muslim countries, you have a lot more women in STEM. Yeah, yeah, interesting. So I think sometimes just understanding your system we exist in. So I talk about systems from that kind of level. You know how to thrive in systems. Some challenging ideas in there. But I also share like paradigms, and I call them paradigms. We’re really there as an engineer spectrum of an idea. So that’s one of the paradigms. I’ll share a bit of a chapter in the book with you, please.
Mark McBride-Wright 37:29
Thank you. Thank you. It’s called exclusive here.
Ayo Sokale 37:36
All of it before anyone else gets it. How awesome. But I talk about masking versus authenticity, because you’re going to live in this point in society where we’re really praising authenticity, you know, the work of Brene Brown and etc, but we also have masking. And I kind of talk about defining masking through like an autistic lens, as I’m autistic and I highly masked autistic person. And what’s up? What’s the benefit of any of these ideas? So if we live in a system, and the system’s created with this value, so this value system, and you’re other than it, and you can’t, kind of find a way of thriving, here’s six paradigms. Let’s explore one of them, marks versus authenticity. Now I’m not going to tell you there’s a coaching type book. I have coaching of every chapter. I’m going to tell you if you should mask or be authentic. I’m going to ask you questions that helps you decide at this point in your career, this point in your life, which one is good for you? So we might ask, what does authenticity cost? Is it safe to be authentic? Well, explore all those ideas, because, you know, I’m using research and case studies from people I’ve worked with, and also, you know, some fantastic other coaches methodologies as well. So let’s say authenticity requires you not to really worry about the consequence, because you have to be almost resilient enough to take the consequence. Then we’ll ask you questions. How we, you know, discover is that right? Is that true? Asking is, you know, hiding what you are, not being genuine, not really building a life that aligns with who you are? What’s the research on that? So maybe we know in the body, keep score when you’re not aligned with your real truth. You know, you increase your chances of autoimmune disorders and sickness. So what does that look like? How does that manifest itself? What’s, what’s the limit of how much you can do that in authenticity, before burnout, before sickness, before all of those things? That’s explorers. You can make a really intentional decision, because I think the book is to empower people. Yeah, about fixing the world. We do talk about that part three, what you can do. But I don’t put the burden of changing the world on the other individuals. I think it’s just already so much in that survival space. I want people to thrive, yeah, how can we thrive? And maybe other people can read the book and they can pick up part three and do the work on it themselves, be allies in that space. But you know, how can you thrive? How can you understand what your goals are? How can you achieve them in the system you exist in to create safety? Because safety seems to be all the things that, and everyone I’ve ever worked with is that kind of key thing that’s and you know this? Because this is what this podcast is trying to driving people, yeah, and so how do we build safety in your life in all these ways? So we explore that in six different lens. Is with different research, different stories, and, yeah, it’s really exciting. I I’ve loved actually writing it, because it’s it’s pretty cool.
Mark McBride-Wright 40:07
It sounds exciting. What? What’s the target public Oh, get my words out. What’s the target publication date? You got a release date this year? But, um,
Ayo Sokale 40:16
I’m not quite sure anymore, because I need to finish writing it. And the key thing that I’m really passionate about in terms of the immediate ROI is the app I want everyone to get coaching. Okay, right now, if everyone could have a coach in their pocket every day, if they were made and solve some of this stuff quick and stacked, and then my book could come, as I said, a longer, complimentary bit to kind of do that deeper work as you Yes, yes, your values are but I think the app could be like, I think bullet help right now. It’s like, you know, if you’re going to go enemy nines, what’s the first defense you need? Ironically, they go, they go well together. But I’m like, What can I give people that’s going to change? I like, right this very second in the biggest way. And I’m like, everyone needs this app. So that’s my big punch this year. It’s B to B, sales, marketing it, and just growing the subscription of people who can really experience their life being changed by it. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 41:13
the book can also, will also, in time, become a leap magnet, a funnel for, you know, people come into the app. And so people like ourselves that are on the public speaking domain, you know, we usually have a little ecosystem of content and ways in which people can interact and consume with us, you know. And so the one thing I found with a book is that once you’ve published it, you can’t un publish it and it’s static. You can obviously release updates. You know you can do like another version, an update, but you leave it a couple of years until you until you do that. So that might be but whereas the app and the get coach, you know, you can change that as many times as you need, and update it and iterate it in real time, and whatever the outputs are that are coming out of it, the community that you’re building, you can keep in touch with them. So you might that might be another thing to think about, is building a community around the identity that you’re building. That’s something we’re looking at doing now, you know, I’m with the what happened in the US with Tiktok, where, you know, potential? I mean, I know it never happened, but all of a sudden everyone’s audience was just removed from them, you know? And so it’s get get so getting people into your funnel, getting people into your own newsletter or your app, or whatever it is, in ways that you can then communicate with your community. They’re going to be the people that will make you see your services. Book you to speak, bring you in for consultancy, book you for training, recommend you for present and bulk order your book, and then get you to come in and give a keynote on the back of the book as well. And then integrate the app into their coaching programs, you know? So it’s, it’s, it’s just food for thought, like, not, not delaying the book too, too far down the line. Because actually, the two, the two, the two could feed one. Because
Ayo Sokale 43:17
I just, like, I really do measure in purpose and outcome. Yeah, I’m an engineer. I can’t help myself, yeah. And I’m always like, how do we have that more the biggest impact right now? Is it engineering? Is it the kids show? Is it the app? But I’m always optimizing to have the most impact I want. Yes, one life, the average life spans 80 years. You know, you only have so much time to make a bigger impact change the world in the way that aligns with the gifts and the purposes that really shouts out of who you are. Yeah, my lifetime, in a very good way, in the most impactful way, and
Mark McBride-Wright 43:51
one of the ways. And so in your bio, you had recognized a top 50 women in engineering, and you’re a trustee of the autistic girls network and up and up, patron of the metoo club charity. So can you tell us a bit about your volunteer work?
Ayo Sokale 44:12
Volunteering is like such a big part of my life, my identity. I started doing it when I was a kid, because my mum is like the biggest volunteer and most altruistic person ever. Bit of a role model for me. Growing up as a kid, I didn’t know that it wasn’t normal to spend that much time giving back to your communities. My mom just did it. So I grew up with that being normal working with her when she was working in the lighthouse charity. When I was a kid, I went to university. In fact, when I went to university, I organized this epic charity around in my hometown, epic flop. But I think I was like 14 then, but I think it’s been such a big, you know, golden thread in my life. You know, how can I add value in this other way? And I, you know, university would then be, you know, working for the Jennifer Children’s Cancer service as a fundraising manager to meet the goal of raising 160,000 Children with Cancer, specifically neuroblastoma, cancer, terrific and just violently aggressive, but I think there’s some amazing, you know, medicine coming around the next year or so. I’ve heard the news. I’m very excited around that. So it’s always been a cause all the other and more recently, I’ve been really leaning into the autistic and special needs space, because it really something that I personally have experience in and like, yes, add that other, you know, kind of other depth of experience as a trustee or as a patron. So the autistic girls network is a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic charity. The work they do is incredible. And actually, way before I ever joined them, I was aware of their resource, their white paper, something that I shared with any parent whose kid was going through, you know, that process of getting diagnosed, and, you know, they have all those questions. I thought their resources were incredible for a really long time. And we share the same book agent, so along the path, I was like, I think they reached out to me to write some articles for them. And, you know, I don’t know how it came out, and I’m on their trusty and, and I’m so proud to sit in that brilliant that space and the ME TOO clubs, kind of a more recent work with them, I think started, I think this year, last year, the everything’s blowing to each other, but last year, and, you know, the work they do is basically allowing more young people with special needs to have access to activities. Everyone who knows, I’m obsessed with activities, any new activity, I just love it. But the idea that people can have access to them because they maybe have special needs that I have too, because of the people that they look after, was annoying to me, and the fact that I was a patient with the profile I have and get set galactic and the other things I do can shine a light on their work, yeah, and raise money for them. Just was like, it was a no brainer. So just an evolution of what, I guess, information probably for my mom to do back. But maybe that’s the theme in everything. It’s just, how do you give back live life on purpose and make a positive difference in the one life that you have? Yeah, yeah, in the way that aligns with our strengths, our gifts, the things we love and we’re interested in. That’s how we build a society and a life that’s safe, collectively safe, psychologically safe, structurally safe, infrastructure safe in all the senses. And I guess that’s what I want us all to achieve together, yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 47:14
oh my gosh, I’m I’m inspired by, by by everything you’re doing, it’s absolutely incredible. I want to do the quick fire questions now. So what’s the most rewarding part of your job right now?
Ayo Sokale 47:29
Oh, no, everything. Everything gives me something different.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:36
What’s a book that’s had a profound impact on your life. Oh.
Ayo Sokale 47:41
Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath. Read it when I was in second year university, changed my life, tea
Mark McBride-Wright 47:46
or coffee, coffee? What’s one skill? Decaf, decaf, right? What’s one skill that every leader should have?
Ayo Sokale 47:55
I also actively listen and coaching. You need to you need coaching, to be a great coach and to be a great active
Mark McBride-Wright 48:04
listener. There you go. What that’s one answer, but with two, love it. What’s the one thing you can’t start your day without
Ayo Sokale 48:13
going for my walk. I have to move. I need to move every day, minimum of 5k
Mark McBride-Wright 48:18
if you could have dinner with any historical or present day figure? Who would it be? Oh, this
Ayo Sokale 48:24
is a hard one. My grandmother, my maternal grandmother. She’s a badass, and I love to chat to her and get her advice, because she was the wisest person I’ve ever met.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:34
What’s a piece of advice you’ve received that you hold dear?
Ayo Sokale 48:41
Try less hard. It’s interesting.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:46
That is good advice. What’s your favorite way to unwind after a long day,
Ayo Sokale 48:51
go to the gym or dance or jump on my trampoline,
Mark McBride-Wright 48:55
and what’s the most exciting project you’re currently working on?
Ayo Sokale 48:59
Get courage and taking over the world.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:03
Are you an early morning or a night owl?
Ayo Sokale 49:05
I’m a night owl. I wake up early too. I just don’t sleep. It’s not great.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:10
And finally, what’s the one thing you tell someone just starting their career in engineering or stem,
Ayo Sokale 49:18
go slow, deep roots and go for your girl.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:22
Always love it. Well, I’ve really enjoyed chatting with you this morning, this morning, my time, this this afternoon, your time. And if people want to get in touch with you, how do they how do they do that? They want to find out more about the projects you’re working on, or get in touch with you directly. Where should they go to get that information? Oh, go
Ayo Sokale 49:44
to my website. It’s a hub of everything. It’s our color.com so go find me that, and then you’ll get signed posted to every single thing I’ve got going on,
Mark McBride-Wright 49:52
fabulous. Well, we’ll make sure to put that in the show notes as well. On LinkedIn, of course, of course. Add
Ayo Sokale 49:59
you on LinkedIn. Camera. Oh gosh, everything. I’m everywhere. You’re everywhere.
Mark McBride-Wright 50:02
We’ll Google you and find you fabulous. Well, thank you so much. Really enjoyed the time today, and best of luck with all the projects that you’ve got going. I’m really going to look at them myself and track and watch an episode of Get Set and keep me on updated
Ayo Sokale 50:18
and how you’re building your own community. Because I think one of the best things in life is learning from other people walking their own paths. But you know, we can walk things. We can do our own journeys, but together. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 50:30
absolutely, absolutely, completely agree. Brilliant. Thanks so much. Thanks. You.
E019: This Is Not a Choice, It’s Who I’m Meant to Be
Podcast Description
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:00
Hello. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride Wright, and I am delighted today to be joined by Ayo shokole, who is founder and CEO of get coached. Io is a chartered civil engineer, qualified project manager and RSA fellow, who has quickly risen to prominence in her field. She is the major project and program delivery business manager at the Environment Agency and an active member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. She’s also a BBC broadcaster, best known as CO presenter of CBD get set galactic and for creating STEM content across major networks. She is a former councilor and Deputy Mayor of reading, founder of plastic free Caversham and an executive coach helping professionals align with their values and strengths, author of the upcoming book othered, how to thrive and disrupt in spaces not created for you. She is also the founder and CEO of a tech startup transforming personal development, recognized among the top 50 women in engineering. She’s a trustee of the autistic girls network and a patron of the ME TOO club charity. Welcome
Ayo Sokale 1:23
thanks for that introduction. That was
Mark McBride-Wright 1:25
nice. No, I hadn’t appreciated how expansive. Oh, your your, you know the areas are that you’ve been in. So what we like to do at Start Safe leader is get to understand the engineer that’s in front of us. You know, find out a bit about their origin story, like what interested them in engineering. How did you come to be that the person that you are today, personally and professionally, but if we start with the professionally part, like, what, what sparked your interest in engineering. So
Ayo Sokale 2:02
I had quite strong experiences in my formative years that sparked my passion for civil engineering. So I grew up for nine years in Nigeria. That’s my family’s from, and I saw how engineering changed the community that so it was mostly on my route to school. You know, COVID a little shabby, you know, their kids, and I don’t know what we call them, not, not your traditional occupation habitats, you know, like swollen stomachs, not looking very healthy, okay, not trying to present a gross image of Nigeria at the time, but that was what I saw, yeah, not the best infrastructure and children Being sick, maybe because it’s poor access to water, and being a more sensitive child, you know, I found it upsetting. I didn’t really like to think about inequality in the world and look at me and my car being taken to school, and, you know, my parents and our lovely house, and this exists, and it was one of one of those routes to school. The car broke down because beautiful infrastructure, yeah, to be fair, they’re more potholes here than they used to be in the UK. But anyway, that’s a different conversation. Abby was on one of those times that the car broke down, and I met an engineer who’s working on a project, and I learned about what engineering is and civil engineering was, and I realized that he was this person who was changing the community. And I watched the community change over time. I watched Wow, improve. I watched different buildings being built. I watched things improve. And that’s why I was like, first of all, he’s like a rock star, kind of, God, yeah, feels like some sort of major power. And, you know, being a kid, I wanted a bit of that. I wanted a bit of that. I wanted to be that kind of person. I wanted to assert that, you know, that horrible feeling of feeling sad and disappointed about how things were and becoming the kind of person who just transformed the world around them. And at that point, I knew civil engineering was a way to do that. So I was like, Yeah, I’m a civil engineer. So, um, civil engineering came to my life much earlier than most people. I think I was about seven. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 3:58
it’s very early. Yeah, it’s very young in
Ayo Sokale 4:01
my life, because I moved back to the UK when I’m nine. So this is really quite early in my life, and I work in water. So I’m a civil engineer who works in water, and my link to water has always been there. First of all, I’m obsessed with watching water. Yeah, I was younger. I’m experienced quite extreme flooding in those times in Nigeria that, you know, separated my mom for a day. You know my you know my family. Wow, reading flood water. So, you know, when you’re a child, these are really that must
Mark McBride-Wright 4:29
have been so traumatic. So as a young kid, being separated from your Yeah, oh, my God, no idea.
Ayo Sokale 4:36
I think the key thing I remember, you know, like, when I finally my mom’s like, you know, she’s pulling her wrap her around, getting me and my little sister, taking us home, getting us cleaned up into my green little mermaid pajamas, drinking hot chocolate and feeling safe again. Yeah, never forget that feeling and obviously seeing people’s cars washed off. And, you know, knowing that people. Of their lives, I think they say quite a lot of drama, actually. Yeah, totally an engineer because of trauma, but yeah, I wanted to be the kind of person who could do something and shame, change the world, you know, change my world and change the world for other people. That’s
Mark McBride-Wright 5:15
brilliant. I I love when we’re able to find that about people like what’s driven them to do what they do? It’s, it’s like a a burning passion inside, isn’t it? It’s like, it’s like a fire that will probably never be doused. And sometimes it shrinks and sometimes it flares up, you know, depending on the injustice that you might see or the inequality, and for you to have come to that realization the branch of engineering, not just being an engineer, but actually the branch of engineering, from such an early age, it was there ever a point in your in that move into the UK, And then sort of, did you ever think maybe I should look at something else before I settle on this? Or it sounds like you’ve been resolute, like it’s always, it was always going to be civil engineering, and that’s just been your guiding star.
Ayo Sokale 6:12
Yeah. I mean, I’ve always known what I wanted to do, but I guess I’m an engineer even by nature, because I’ve always been quite process driven and, like, how do I take something complicated and make sense of it? So I was like, well, you need to collect data. So I think I was in primary school. I lived in the I was born in the UK, moved back, started primary school here, and, you know, telling people I’m gonna be an engineer. I, you know, so confident I’m gonna be a great engineer. I actually said these things, yeah. I was, yeah. I was savagely bullied. I was like, but I just knew I was going to do something great, and really followed this passion. But at the time, you know, you know, looking for additional work. I think my math teacher in primary school gave me so much extra work, I had, like, just sheer obsession. And every Friday after school, I’d sit there and just do my parents would be like watching TV on the sofa, and I’d sit at their feet, because I like, I like laying on the floor and just do math for hours on a Friday night. Master my skill set. The first thing I can tell is I need to be a good mathematician. Then what’s the next thing that data brought around when I got to secondary schools, like I need work experience. So I started doing design technology club. I spoke to my DT teacher. She put me up for some courses. I did all kinds of engineering. So I spent a whole summer at Imperial London, London College, oh yeah, studying aeronautical engineering materials. I actually like materials. It was really cool. Have no skills in electrical engineering that’s fine, kind of the whole wheelhouse that makes that kind of engineering stem space for a whole summer, because I told my teachers what I want to do. So she looked for some free courses, she looked for some things that could be sponsored and like things I could do, things that I might ask my parents to help me do. And I went and did pretty much every summer, I studied courses, and then I started seeking out work experience. Was quite annoying actually. You know, I think something about being quite precocious that makes you quite annoying. When you look back at it, it’s just cringe like I’m 11. Now I’m in year seven, and I’m going up to saying I’m gonna be a great engineer. I’m reaching out to these companies. I’m knocking literally making my mom drive me around East hometown to go speak about how I need work experience in their company, because it’s so important. My journey is an engineer, because I know that’s the next thing I need. I’ve mastered my map. I’m doing the courses on the summer. I’m already doing the things, but I need work experience now, and I eventually got some work experience thing in year eight. Wow, that was in structural and they were so nice to me. And it’s just such nice reassuring people. I still remember them, yeah, more recently over the years. And I was just like, do I want to do this? Because they worked on a project in a school that would then be my future school. Wow, one of the people, I take all the links and synergies, and I’m like, oh, there’s nothing here,
Mark McBride-Wright 9:00
yeah, it’s a message, yeah,
Ayo Sokale 9:04
such a child. But I quite liked it when you think about the person that makes you who you are, yeah, it’s like, this is really cool, but do I want to do this? So I kind of started thinking, Oh, maybe I’ll be interested in this. But when I went to university, I did civil for the first year, right? And then by the second year, when you have to really decide if you’re on a civil coastal and kind of water? Yeah, I’m a water baby. I’m a water baby. I’ll always be a water baby. And I did have an amazing lecturer in the coastal space. He inspired me, yeah? And, you know, sometimes that’s really important. I just, I’m just obsessed. I want to learn everything, know everything, and be the best I could be. So yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 9:44
and you’re now working at the Environment Agency, aren’t you?
Ayo Sokale 9:47
Yeah, it’s actually coincidental. I work at the EA because I was about to go back full circle. I’d applied to my PhD at Imperial. I was having conversations at the time to go do my PhD, and kind of double that being this. I thought that was. Way. And then I realized that if you do that, you still have to go and be a graduate engineer and get started. I was like, oh, so engineering is about to actually not doctors cool then on, literally, as I learned that information that same day or this day after, because I was present at the Engineering Society University, as you worded, you’re obsessed, they were running a career spat. And, you know, I think it’s our engagement, the person who was leading in that, in the committee, yeah, reach out to companies. And one of the companies that came when it was the EA, and one of the people I spoke to who ended up being in my team six years later. But what, that’s just synergies and COVID, yeah, he told me about the EA he’s like, we protect people from flooding, we reduce the risk of flooding, we make things better for people and wildlife. I was like, shut me up. I am ready. The thing that even sold me on that, even more than that, was something that I’ve had to work on over the years, but at this time was a really positive thing. Yeah, you could quantify your impact. Yes, number of homes protected, numbers of businesses protected. So I could see that, even for my first projects, when I started at the EA, I could see the benefit. I was like, Oh, my God, this project protects 200 homes and flooding 1000 homes of plumbing. And because this is like, this is like, the core thing I don’t I didn’t choose this. This pose me, and sometimes it possesses me. This is not a choice I’m making. Sometimes me the need to to be the thing that my seven year old self said, Yeah. Never
Mark McBride-Wright 11:36
floods again. Yeah. I
Ayo Sokale 11:38
love more infrastructure. I love
Mark McBride-Wright 11:41
quantify my impact. I know I love that. I love, I love, I love that in that foresight or that perspective you’re getting now about how the thing that you’re putting your energy into now delivers a quantitative reference, you know, a quantitative impact. It’s makes me reflect a little bit on my journey in safety engineering, where there’s a mix there of sort of quantitative stuff and qualitative stuff. But then moving into diversity, equity and inclusion is there’s some stuff you can quantify in terms of retention of people and organization and, you know, representation that you have in the workforce relative to national population and local population and but actually, for the most of it, it is quite unquantifiable in some areas, and feels a little bit fluffy. And, yeah, I wonder, I wonder if that is, it’s just a really interesting point that you say there about finding something that you can really say substantiated. And actually, you know that when we did our masculinity and engineering research and then discovered these, this the suicide rates in the construction, manufacturing process industries, you know some data from the Office of National Statistics on the breakdown rates by occupation, that got me excited. I was like, Oh my God, there’s something quantifiable here. You know, there’s, there’s numbers like this is going to speak to the engineers that we’re trying to influence, to change hearts and minds of and but then someone said something to me recently that really stuck with me, and it’s that there’s, there’s two ways in which people are sort of influenced to change one, and this probably applies to the majority of engineers. It’s the hard numbers, it’s the data. And if they’re the numbers are big enough and large enough and affect enough people, then it warrants doing something about it. But some people, that doesn’t really work, you know. And actually, they need to feel it. They need to experience it. They need to under they need the storytelling. They need the the lived experience. They need to hear from the people that are affected by if they’re not affected by it personally. And I guess there’s almost maybe a blend there isn’t it, because if you have the privilege of not living any flood plain where there is a increased risk of your house or business being flooded, then whenever you see it come up on the news, you’re maybe a little bit dissonant of it, you know, a little bit well. You know, it’s not going to happen to me. It’s
Ayo Sokale 14:17
not far away anymore in the news, it’s in Europe. It’s locally. It’s becoming more restoring. Maybe it’ll make people pay attention to what incredible stuff we engineers do in this space.
Mark McBride-Wright 14:27
Absolutely, absolutely. So I’m really interested in your hearing more about your new Well, maybe not so new, but get coached. You know, tell us, tell us about how you’re using AI to, you know, break through the the coaching, making coaching more accessible and and helping people so
Ayo Sokale 14:49
passionate about life lived on purpose, and engineering was the first purpose, because you could see the tangible output. But over the course of my own career, using coaching for myself. And then others. As I became a qualified coach, I saw how coaching was literally transforming people’s lives. It literally made people feel able to do things they couldn’t do before they identify what their goals were. They could see, well, maybe the things they needed to change, and they were now motivated to do it. And I you see it with my teams. I mean, I saw it when I was leading a team and using coaching with them, and they were literally becoming their best selves. They were realizing their potential. And I was like, more people need this? Yeah, am I going to speak? And I speak as well. Speaking in the NHS, they said, you know, imagine that we had, like, someone asking us the questions you’re asking these coaching questions all the time. And I think it stuck in my head. I was like, everyone needs this coaching. Doesn’t need to be this thing that only C suite people get, or Yeah, directors get. Everyone deserves to, you know, have that understanding of what they want to achieve and understand how to get there, and then that feeling of like, yes, clarity. And I wanted to give that everyone in a way that everyone can have access to. So that’s kind of how the idea if I get Coach Kim about I was actually driving, and I was like, Oh, I’m gonna do this. Yeah, register. The company started looking for teams of software developers to come alongside with me. I designed all the back end using hiring edge coaching models. And you know, what would people need to know to if they needed to have really good coaching conversations? And it wasn’t a person in the room, and it was, AI, what did you need to teach the AI how to make their data safe? How do you create psychological safety? How do you flag when things are escalating and need mental health sign posting? So I designed all of that and launched the app in May last year. Okay, pretty cool. Exciting. It’s early days still, and getting that big user base using it, it’s finding it so useful. And now just, I just want to make sure that everyone has it so going around, sharing about it. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 16:47
so what’s the if you bring it down to basics of the foundation life, if, what’s the user experience offer? If, so, if I’m a user and I want some coaching, what and I and I Google, get coached in the website, and then go to it, what what happens? And then I download something, or I interact with something, and what happens?
Ayo Sokale 17:09
So you go Google, get coached right now. You get our website. Get coached online. You can download the app. It takes you to the App Store. If your Android app, yeah, you initially, everyone gets free access to use the app for X amount of conversations, yeah, so you get it straight into it, create your profile. You know in that you get to get asked you questions, just to get you to think about how you are feeling and experiencing your life, ask you questions using a wheel of life model across all different parts of your life, like your health, your career, your well being, your relationships, your everything, the whole narrative of your life. Ask you questions. Ask you to rate it from one to 10 in this really nice user experience, it’s really nice formatting. It’s pretty it’s also designed to be calming, yeah, you know, vetted by neuro virgin specialists who do kind of design say like design. So it was calming, helping everyone just look at it. So you assess how you’re feeling across this spectrum, you’re going to probably find one area is rated low, because I think we all have that area that we would take energy into what we want to so maybe one of it’s like, oh, you really want to go to the gym more. So maybe you then go into the next part of the app, it’ll push you through, and you’ll chat to your AI coach, and you’re like, What do you want to work on today? And you’ll be like, Well, I’m gonna work on this. You know, I’ve done the 12 things on the wheel of life. I know what I like to work on. I want to work on my health, on my fitness. So then you start having a coaching conversation. They’ll ask, you know, what are your goals around this? Okay, what’s the reality now? So are you doing any of the things that you’d like to be doing you might be like? And then it will ask you, why? Try and explore it with you. Understand what the barriers might be, what your resistance might be. Is it thought process? Is it, you know, practicalities like childcare? Yeah, what’s going on? And then help you distill to your options. And it’s coaching. So I’ll stress that in all this conversation, it’s never telling you what to do. Yes, questions, yeah. And you’re having a conversation where someone’s just curious and like, what about this? Did it do? Like, you know, what’s what have you considered? You know, what are the things? And once you come up with some options yourself, you’re like, you know, I think I could go to the gym before I drop the kids off at school, or maybe I can work out in the living room, or the, you know, on YouTube, and then I can do the school run, then make sure and ask you, like, okay, so how excited, how compelling is this actual new plan you’re going to do it, and then, you know, it keeps prompting you till now, you know you worked that clarity, and you now have a plan that you’re going to implement. And
Mark McBride-Wright 19:39
does it go? Does it go as far as, like, using chat, GBT would do, but it could, like, then you could give a prompt like, okay, generate the schedule for me. Now, taking into account all these answers. So a coach
Ayo Sokale 19:51
never tells you what to do. They’re not necessarily like a fitness coach, or they’re a person who helps you figure out what the blockers are in your head. Right potential. So let’s say you want to work out more, or you want to get a promotion, it’ll help you have the conversations you need to have, to create a plan for yourself and come consider the options. And maybe the plan is that you go get a personal trainer,
Mark McBride-Wright 20:13
but it’ll help fine, and it’ll take you Yes, yeah, it’s
Ayo Sokale 20:17
really compliant with the very ethos of coaching, because coaching is never meant to tell you what to do. Yes, having a proper coach, I can, I say proper as in a human coach, and you have a human session, yeah, tell you what to do. They never create a fitness plan for you.
Mark McBride-Wright 20:32
Yes, got here, got here. So it takes you, takes you to the boundary of like, trying to get you to make a decision by present, reflecting the options back to you, and then asking more coaching questions and then taking you to that. I love it. I love it. How should you figure things
Ayo Sokale 20:50
out? And then at the end of the process, you know, you now have clarity. And maybe you, you leave the app, and then you come back in a couple of weeks time because there’s something else you want to work on. Yeah, maybe you find that actually, you started working out, but then you there’s actually a barrier. You go to the gym, you feel nervous, and then you can chat about that with your coach. And because it’s in your pocket,
Mark McBride-Wright 21:08
it’s absolutely You took the words out of my mouth, my mind, like in the pocket, like this, in the pocket community or friend or advisor, like that. It’s so I love this. I love where tech is taking us now with our human relationships, and also, you know, the way in which we can get support like what you’re creating through get coached. It’s a really good way to make it more accessible, to democratize. It almost
Ayo Sokale 21:43
affordable for key thing, yes, one the blocker to be that, you know, maybe you pay for a coach. And I looked at it, you know, the most companies do have coaching for their senior staff. Oh,
Mark McBride-Wright 21:53
it’s so expensive, three grand, yeah, yeah.
Ayo Sokale 21:59
And I was like, Well, you know, if Joe blogs on, you know, in the street would really benefit from coaching, they’re not gonna pay three grand. Yeah. So it starts at 599 you pay each month, and you just get to chat to your coach and figure it out. You talk as much as you need, as little as you need. You just get the support in the present. And also, it’s that fact that you know you’re going to get response. Because, yeah, for a moment we might rely on our friends, sometimes too much annoying them in the in that group chat, but, um, they can’t respond all the time. Well, it’s at 1am and you just like, should I apply for this job? Or, you know, that kind of thing, just Yeah. Sometimes the biggest challenges in life are the points in time where you can’t actually call someone up, yeah, or even schedule a coaching conversations, because you might even if you had a paid coach and it was a person and you went to their office, or you went to meet them in a coffee shop, or maybe had a virtual teams chat, you’d have to organize that well in advance. Yeah, right now you want to make a decision right now in a bullet session. That’s where get coaches are great. Oh, I love it. It it doesn’t kind of take the need for people who want to have a person that they chat to, because human interactions, it’s
Mark McBride-Wright 23:05
complimentary, yeah, it’s not that everyone can have
Ayo Sokale 23:09
access to. So like, maybe businesses get it for all their staff. Yeah, they might still want to take the senior leadership on an away day to spend time with your relationships, but it means everyone gets coaching and can work some of those kind of everyday challenges.
Mark McBride-Wright 23:25
What’s your uptake on it been so far then? And what’s your growth plan, growth model for it? So
Ayo Sokale 23:30
so far, we’ve had, you know, about 50 users on it. The whole plan now is to grow the users, and my focus is on B to D, because you solo run it at the moment. Okay, solo fund it. Because, you know, when you have a passion sometimes,
Mark McBride-Wright 23:45
yeah, yeah. All in all, it
Ayo Sokale 23:48
totally This is like the point where I’m like, let’s get it to businesses, because I think, you know, that’s where I get the seeing the value. Really enjoyed my people. It’s just like I was an engineer, seeing the homes protected. I want to see that people get the app and be on it and be like, I figured out this, this relationship thing, this fitness thing, this career. I figured out this parenting thing. You know, I had this challenge in my child. I talked it through with my coach, and I have clarity. I want people to have that. So I’m at that place where I’m like, How do I get everyone to have it? So I’m having some fantastic conversations. With various businesses. If you, if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, your company could benefit from this and also reach out, yeah, just support people to thrive. Is like that. I think the next thing in that living life on purpose, more people can thrive. More people can have a really great life when, yeah, yeah, definitely, and they have the will to execute it.
Mark McBride-Wright 24:45
So I’d like to go to another part of your life and find out a bit about this CBeebies and children’s TV presenting, and how you got into that, and what you know I’ve got to. Kids myself. So, yeah, really, I can feel the energy coming from you. I so my kids, we’re in New York now. We were in the UK up until last year, and it’s, it’s been a while since I had them on CBS. Actually, they’ve sort of moved on from that. But, yeah, no tell.
Ayo Sokale 25:24
But honestly, like, get coach is a dream. I wanted to do kids TV since I was a kid myself, right? I think I actually won those lucky or maybe unlucky, because you know all about perception, I’ve always known the things I wanted to do. When I see something that resonates with me. I take action on it. So I actually wrote to see BBs when I was a kid. Oh, right, cool. I wrote them and I asked them specifically, how do you become a Blue Peter presenter?
Mark McBride-Wright 25:54
Awesome. They wrote back to me,
Ayo Sokale 25:56
so I used that. It was like a coaching conversation. I used that as a kind of, okay, this is the goal. Now, where am I? Okay, I’m I’m still a kid. I’m
Mark McBride-Wright 26:07
seeing a theme to your approach in every part of your life.
Ayo Sokale 26:12
What do I need to do to get there? Okay, I’m becoming an engineer. I might need to work on my other skills, like communication, yeah, building a profile, you know, being like, altruistic, the kind of things that I think, you know, the heart of the presenter for who work on CBS, okay, great, great, great. I know that. I know what the goal is. I know what my reality is, what are my options. And I started making it a plan, and I started doing it. And, you know, I made my had my own stories with IR, like a YouTube reading kids stories before I was on CBS. I started off doing PBC reels, using my expertise in science to actually subject matter expert, building my skills on camera. So it was all quite a long journey to getting here. But, yeah, journey was a bit like, anything like, you know, I was building the skills, the knowledge, the experience, the competence to do the thing I always had in mind just Hi, can I be a CPP to prevent
Mark McBride-Wright 27:02
her amazing and now I have
Ayo Sokale 27:04
this impact on young people and inspire them, which is, like, more positive impact and more purpose, yeah, like everything that I’m about.
Mark McBride-Wright 27:12
So tell us so you you so get set galactic. Was this a show that you presented, a show that you hosted. Tell us a bit about
Ayo Sokale 27:22
that. If you’re not seeing get set galactic, I will let you off, because you’re in the US VPN and all that challenges. I’m letting you off. But anyone else, let’s go watch get that galactic. So it’s on BBC iPad as well, so you’d have to be in the UK watching it, but, um, it’s a fantastic show. It’s a science game show. So each episode, the kids are learning about science all through play. And you know, in the way of learning is just so solid. And of the show, because it’s got that learning through play, but it’s also got that really amazing theme that’s our tagline, which is, try and test it so the kids, but they don’t have to know and get it right the first time. It’s kind of like a growth mindset being taught the age. So each episode we have, like, you know, team I’m red team captain, Sam’s green, blue, as you know, James, and he kind of presents the start of the show. And then our kids come in. We have two kids in each team. They join our team. We play three games, all science based, like, maybe about pollination or weight and mass. Oh, cool, solar system. And all through the games, we learn so much. And obviously our live audience have fun with us, and kids at home have fun with us. And then the kids go home with some prizes. And you know, each episode is just either learn things, because, you know, learning through play things, yeah, theoretically, before you’re like, oh, sorry, it’s house. Fantastic. I genuinely love the show. It’s just so
Mark McBride-Wright 28:45
I need to watch it. When, when, when when did it air? From like, when, when was it on?
Ayo Sokale 28:50
Season two is now what it’s on. Like you can watch all the season so we’re now on season two. I think Season Three comes out in summer.
Mark McBride-Wright 28:58
But when was When did season one ear. I’m just trying to fix it in my year before last, right? Yeah, okay, so my my kids had moved on from CBD that because I sounds fine. Well, we yeah, my daughter’s five and my son’s seven.
Ayo Sokale 29:20
Mark, you walked yourself right into that one.
Mark McBride-Wright 29:22
I did. I did. I did. I know, I realized that. I realized that, what time did it air? I mean, I remember so I my kids used to be early risers. So C, BBs was our go to, and so we would have, oh, you’re plucking on old memory strings here, like the OC the Octonauts and hey, Dougie, you know, it was the same programs that were always on one after the other. So you sort of knew where you were in the day based on what was on see BBs. And then in the evening you would have, you know, the in the night garden and then the CBS bedtime store. 40 that would have a celebrity reading it. But maybe if it was on during the day that was fine. Of our socks, we never really had it on. It
Ayo Sokale 30:09
was Saturday and Sunday. Ah, right, every weekend, and it’s about 10. Ish, 1010, yeah, now it’s about 11. Ish,
Mark McBride-Wright 30:17
got you? I was probably in a coffee shop at that time every day at 315 so that’s right. So it’s probably definitely been on in the background in our household. I will definitely watch an episode, and I’m probably going to watch it and go, Oh yes, I remember this. The engineering one that I used to remember was the den engineers for the where they would, oh, come on, right now, the shoes on the other foot, like you’ve presented on a TV channel where there was another engineering program as well.
Ayo Sokale 30:53
Yes, I was abroad in Nigeria. I didn’t have that show, so I won’t know
Mark McBride-Wright 30:58
it was, it was, it was within the last five to 10 years. You know what’s wrong? Is it awful? Oh, anyway, that’s a really good show. I guess the point here is that it’s so great that there’s now people like yourself that are professionals in it as well putting themselves forward to create content that’s fun, engaging and actually hooks in the young people to get you know generation alpha, as they’re called, the group that are going through school now you know those that are going to enter our workforce in 2035 onwards. They’re the ones that, you know, we focus so much on Gen Z just now. But actually, to solve all these climate problems and all the other things that engineers need to help with, we we need to be thinking on a much longer time scale, much longer feed forward loop, you know, and that’s where I always I’m a chemical engineer by background, so I think in terms of processes and feed forward and feedback and delayed reactions. And so, you know, the effort that you’re putting in now to that age group, my kids age group, you know, that is the long game for them, coming off the conveyor belt of education in 2035 onwards. You know, the earliest point when a Gen Alpha baby, I think would reasonably pursue, like an apprenticeship, for example, so the young so and I think a lot of parents, educators, teachers, lecturers, academics, industrialists, often lose sight of that, that we sort of we’re so caught up in the next five years, or what we’ve done most recently and what we’re about to do? Yeah, we’re not, we’re not, we’re not we. We say we’re working to the long term, but we’re not really. We’re just sort of kicking a can down the road. And so I, I’d love to see more interconnectedness between you know, you’re producing all this amazing content. How is that, then being picked up in nursery schools with learning plans that teachers or nursery teachers are doing? I mean, how, how often, when I used to say about engineering or stem to the, you know, the nursery teachers that my kids have had, and you would get the traditional, oh science, oh maths, oh no, no, that’s not for me. Oh, you’ve got to be brainy to do that, you know. And you’re like, right? So you’re basically not putting yourself forward to then teach it. And therefore you the kids pick up on your hesitancy or lack of confidence, and then you can see how it just sort of snowballs, then through the decades and through the years, and then we don’t we’re surprised that we haven’t made much more progress. So I think it’s important, then, with toolkits and all that, to be made available, and almost like showing the influencers that influence young people like how to do some of these things? Yeah,
Ayo Sokale 34:04
I think stem ambassadors are a great way. Because, I mean, yes, I did it when I was a graduate. I’ve always been, I’ve been a STEM AMBASSADOR since I was at university. They have also great resources. And what’s like, someone’s created great resources get shared all around, like, copy paste and, you know, something’s working great in this part of the country. Try it somewhere else. Yeah, these shows are quite popular. Yeah, I eat quite a lot from, you know, teachers. And they like, oh, I use this at school, you know. And I’m, like, really in like, primary school, they’re using it in primary school. So that means, I don’t think we’ve pushed for that. That means, and they’re seeking it out themselves. So that’s really incredible. And I think, you know, as we continue to produce way more science content, yeah, you know, inspiring them to be excited about learning about science, technology, engineering and math, but, and I’ll actually have that interfaces there too, because it’s creativity, but, um, but also it inspires them to learn through failure and learn through practice. And I think. For the innovation we need in the future. What I love about get set is to mindset instills. Yeah, because you need people who can do what hasn’t been done before, because what we’ve done before has got us here, and we need something different. So you need people who are also not scared of getting it wrong. So try it and test it. Let’s try it. Let’s experiment like you know, let’s try this. Does it work? Is it is this heavy or lighter? Is this which one’s higher pitch? You know, like that pipe or that pipe, they learn and they get to, like, try. And I think that trial and error is what we need to see more in engineering in a safe way. Yeah, renovation is not going to be some of the approved design. It’s not based on the standards that we have. It’s going to be taking a bit more risk to do something really differently in a safe way, and I think we’re installing that in the young kids watching the show. So when they start working in 10 to 20 years, I’m just like, yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 35:48
yeah, I can measure that exactly. You can measure that and and you can also measure book sales and book reach. So tell us a bit about the book that you’re that you’ve been working on other it’s not
Ayo Sokale 36:07
out yet, but I’ve been working on this book for a couple of years now. Okay? And how to thrive in spaces that weren’t created for you. It’s actually kind of relies on some of the stuff you do. I’ve seen your LinkedIn posts. It’s about kind of in creating that inclusion, but it’s for the book I need to read when I was younger. I think so I basically wrote the book I needed to read when I was younger. But I think it would benefit lots of people working in spaces, in STEM spaces, maybe they’re person of color, maybe they’re a woman, or maybe there are lots of any other protected characteristics, or maybe they just feel othered, because that’s what the book’s about. You know, we talk about, first of all, my past experience of it in the first couple of chapters. Then we look into systems and how they work, you know, because we do live in systems, and none of the things that we experience happen by accident. They’re a product of what the system was created to achieve. Yeah, let’s say we have in the West more more men in STEM. That’s not by accident, because when you get other countries I smash well on Muslim countries, you have a lot more women in STEM. Yeah, yeah, interesting. So I think sometimes just understanding your system we exist in. So I talk about systems from that kind of level. You know how to thrive in systems. Some challenging ideas in there. But I also share like paradigms, and I call them paradigms. We’re really there as an engineer spectrum of an idea. So that’s one of the paradigms. I’ll share a bit of a chapter in the book with you, please.
Mark McBride-Wright 37:29
Thank you. Thank you. It’s called exclusive here.
Ayo Sokale 37:36
All of it before anyone else gets it. How awesome. But I talk about masking versus authenticity, because you’re going to live in this point in society where we’re really praising authenticity, you know, the work of Brene Brown and etc, but we also have masking. And I kind of talk about defining masking through like an autistic lens, as I’m autistic and I highly masked autistic person. And what’s up? What’s the benefit of any of these ideas? So if we live in a system, and the system’s created with this value, so this value system, and you’re other than it, and you can’t, kind of find a way of thriving, here’s six paradigms. Let’s explore one of them, marks versus authenticity. Now I’m not going to tell you there’s a coaching type book. I have coaching of every chapter. I’m going to tell you if you should mask or be authentic. I’m going to ask you questions that helps you decide at this point in your career, this point in your life, which one is good for you? So we might ask, what does authenticity cost? Is it safe to be authentic? Well, explore all those ideas, because, you know, I’m using research and case studies from people I’ve worked with, and also, you know, some fantastic other coaches methodologies as well. So let’s say authenticity requires you not to really worry about the consequence, because you have to be almost resilient enough to take the consequence. Then we’ll ask you questions. How we, you know, discover is that right? Is that true? Asking is, you know, hiding what you are, not being genuine, not really building a life that aligns with who you are? What’s the research on that? So maybe we know in the body, keep score when you’re not aligned with your real truth. You know, you increase your chances of autoimmune disorders and sickness. So what does that look like? How does that manifest itself? What’s, what’s the limit of how much you can do that in authenticity, before burnout, before sickness, before all of those things? That’s explorers. You can make a really intentional decision, because I think the book is to empower people. Yeah, about fixing the world. We do talk about that part three, what you can do. But I don’t put the burden of changing the world on the other individuals. I think it’s just already so much in that survival space. I want people to thrive, yeah, how can we thrive? And maybe other people can read the book and they can pick up part three and do the work on it themselves, be allies in that space. But you know, how can you thrive? How can you understand what your goals are? How can you achieve them in the system you exist in to create safety? Because safety seems to be all the things that, and everyone I’ve ever worked with is that kind of key thing that’s and you know this? Because this is what this podcast is trying to driving people, yeah, and so how do we build safety in your life in all these ways? So we explore that in six different lens. Is with different research, different stories, and, yeah, it’s really exciting. I I’ve loved actually writing it, because it’s it’s pretty cool.
Mark McBride-Wright 40:07
It sounds exciting. What? What’s the target public Oh, get my words out. What’s the target publication date? You got a release date this year? But, um,
Ayo Sokale 40:16
I’m not quite sure anymore, because I need to finish writing it. And the key thing that I’m really passionate about in terms of the immediate ROI is the app I want everyone to get coaching. Okay, right now, if everyone could have a coach in their pocket every day, if they were made and solve some of this stuff quick and stacked, and then my book could come, as I said, a longer, complimentary bit to kind of do that deeper work as you Yes, yes, your values are but I think the app could be like, I think bullet help right now. It’s like, you know, if you’re going to go enemy nines, what’s the first defense you need? Ironically, they go, they go well together. But I’m like, What can I give people that’s going to change? I like, right this very second in the biggest way. And I’m like, everyone needs this app. So that’s my big punch this year. It’s B to B, sales, marketing it, and just growing the subscription of people who can really experience their life being changed by it. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 41:13
the book can also, will also, in time, become a leap magnet, a funnel for, you know, people come into the app. And so people like ourselves that are on the public speaking domain, you know, we usually have a little ecosystem of content and ways in which people can interact and consume with us, you know. And so the one thing I found with a book is that once you’ve published it, you can’t un publish it and it’s static. You can obviously release updates. You know you can do like another version, an update, but you leave it a couple of years until you until you do that. So that might be but whereas the app and the get coach, you know, you can change that as many times as you need, and update it and iterate it in real time, and whatever the outputs are that are coming out of it, the community that you’re building, you can keep in touch with them. So you might that might be another thing to think about, is building a community around the identity that you’re building. That’s something we’re looking at doing now, you know, I’m with the what happened in the US with Tiktok, where, you know, potential? I mean, I know it never happened, but all of a sudden everyone’s audience was just removed from them, you know? And so it’s get get so getting people into your funnel, getting people into your own newsletter or your app, or whatever it is, in ways that you can then communicate with your community. They’re going to be the people that will make you see your services. Book you to speak, bring you in for consultancy, book you for training, recommend you for present and bulk order your book, and then get you to come in and give a keynote on the back of the book as well. And then integrate the app into their coaching programs, you know? So it’s, it’s, it’s just food for thought, like, not, not delaying the book too, too far down the line. Because actually, the two, the two, the two could feed one. Because
Ayo Sokale 43:17
I just, like, I really do measure in purpose and outcome. Yeah, I’m an engineer. I can’t help myself, yeah. And I’m always like, how do we have that more the biggest impact right now? Is it engineering? Is it the kids show? Is it the app? But I’m always optimizing to have the most impact I want. Yes, one life, the average life spans 80 years. You know, you only have so much time to make a bigger impact change the world in the way that aligns with the gifts and the purposes that really shouts out of who you are. Yeah, my lifetime, in a very good way, in the most impactful way, and
Mark McBride-Wright 43:51
one of the ways. And so in your bio, you had recognized a top 50 women in engineering, and you’re a trustee of the autistic girls network and up and up, patron of the metoo club charity. So can you tell us a bit about your volunteer work?
Ayo Sokale 44:12
Volunteering is like such a big part of my life, my identity. I started doing it when I was a kid, because my mum is like the biggest volunteer and most altruistic person ever. Bit of a role model for me. Growing up as a kid, I didn’t know that it wasn’t normal to spend that much time giving back to your communities. My mom just did it. So I grew up with that being normal working with her when she was working in the lighthouse charity. When I was a kid, I went to university. In fact, when I went to university, I organized this epic charity around in my hometown, epic flop. But I think I was like 14 then, but I think it’s been such a big, you know, golden thread in my life. You know, how can I add value in this other way? And I, you know, university would then be, you know, working for the Jennifer Children’s Cancer service as a fundraising manager to meet the goal of raising 160,000 Children with Cancer, specifically neuroblastoma, cancer, terrific and just violently aggressive, but I think there’s some amazing, you know, medicine coming around the next year or so. I’ve heard the news. I’m very excited around that. So it’s always been a cause all the other and more recently, I’ve been really leaning into the autistic and special needs space, because it really something that I personally have experience in and like, yes, add that other, you know, kind of other depth of experience as a trustee or as a patron. So the autistic girls network is a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic charity. The work they do is incredible. And actually, way before I ever joined them, I was aware of their resource, their white paper, something that I shared with any parent whose kid was going through, you know, that process of getting diagnosed, and, you know, they have all those questions. I thought their resources were incredible for a really long time. And we share the same book agent, so along the path, I was like, I think they reached out to me to write some articles for them. And, you know, I don’t know how it came out, and I’m on their trusty and, and I’m so proud to sit in that brilliant that space and the ME TOO clubs, kind of a more recent work with them, I think started, I think this year, last year, the everything’s blowing to each other, but last year, and, you know, the work they do is basically allowing more young people with special needs to have access to activities. Everyone who knows, I’m obsessed with activities, any new activity, I just love it. But the idea that people can have access to them because they maybe have special needs that I have too, because of the people that they look after, was annoying to me, and the fact that I was a patient with the profile I have and get set galactic and the other things I do can shine a light on their work, yeah, and raise money for them. Just was like, it was a no brainer. So just an evolution of what, I guess, information probably for my mom to do back. But maybe that’s the theme in everything. It’s just, how do you give back live life on purpose and make a positive difference in the one life that you have? Yeah, yeah, in the way that aligns with our strengths, our gifts, the things we love and we’re interested in. That’s how we build a society and a life that’s safe, collectively safe, psychologically safe, structurally safe, infrastructure safe in all the senses. And I guess that’s what I want us all to achieve together, yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 47:14
oh my gosh, I’m I’m inspired by, by by everything you’re doing, it’s absolutely incredible. I want to do the quick fire questions now. So what’s the most rewarding part of your job right now?
Ayo Sokale 47:29
Oh, no, everything. Everything gives me something different.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:36
What’s a book that’s had a profound impact on your life. Oh.
Ayo Sokale 47:41
Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath. Read it when I was in second year university, changed my life, tea
Mark McBride-Wright 47:46
or coffee, coffee? What’s one skill? Decaf, decaf, right? What’s one skill that every leader should have?
Ayo Sokale 47:55
I also actively listen and coaching. You need to you need coaching, to be a great coach and to be a great active
Mark McBride-Wright 48:04
listener. There you go. What that’s one answer, but with two, love it. What’s the one thing you can’t start your day without
Ayo Sokale 48:13
going for my walk. I have to move. I need to move every day, minimum of 5k
Mark McBride-Wright 48:18
if you could have dinner with any historical or present day figure? Who would it be? Oh, this
Ayo Sokale 48:24
is a hard one. My grandmother, my maternal grandmother. She’s a badass, and I love to chat to her and get her advice, because she was the wisest person I’ve ever met.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:34
What’s a piece of advice you’ve received that you hold dear?
Ayo Sokale 48:41
Try less hard. It’s interesting.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:46
That is good advice. What’s your favorite way to unwind after a long day,
Ayo Sokale 48:51
go to the gym or dance or jump on my trampoline,
Mark McBride-Wright 48:55
and what’s the most exciting project you’re currently working on?
Ayo Sokale 48:59
Get courage and taking over the world.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:03
Are you an early morning or a night owl?
Ayo Sokale 49:05
I’m a night owl. I wake up early too. I just don’t sleep. It’s not great.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:10
And finally, what’s the one thing you tell someone just starting their career in engineering or stem,
Ayo Sokale 49:18
go slow, deep roots and go for your girl.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:22
Always love it. Well, I’ve really enjoyed chatting with you this morning, this morning, my time, this this afternoon, your time. And if people want to get in touch with you, how do they how do they do that? They want to find out more about the projects you’re working on, or get in touch with you directly. Where should they go to get that information? Oh, go
Ayo Sokale 49:44
to my website. It’s a hub of everything. It’s our color.com so go find me that, and then you’ll get signed posted to every single thing I’ve got going on,
Mark McBride-Wright 49:52
fabulous. Well, we’ll make sure to put that in the show notes as well. On LinkedIn, of course, of course. Add
Ayo Sokale 49:59
you on LinkedIn. Camera. Oh gosh, everything. I’m everywhere. You’re everywhere.
Mark McBride-Wright 50:02
We’ll Google you and find you fabulous. Well, thank you so much. Really enjoyed the time today, and best of luck with all the projects that you’ve got going. I’m really going to look at them myself and track and watch an episode of Get Set and keep me on updated
Ayo Sokale 50:18
and how you’re building your own community. Because I think one of the best things in life is learning from other people walking their own paths. But you know, we can walk things. We can do our own journeys, but together. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 50:30
absolutely, absolutely, completely agree. Brilliant. Thanks so much. Thanks. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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