Lynne Franks OBE With SEED

Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Daring To, a podcast that finds out how CEOs and entrepreneurs navigate today’s business world, the conventions they’re breaking, the challenges they faced, and the decisions that they’ve made, and lastly, just what makes them different?

Rita Trehan: [00:00:19] Well, welcome to Daring To. I’m absolutely thrilled today to have Lynne Franks OBE on our podcast. It’s a unique honor having read about your background, Lynne, I am humbled to be having the opportunity to talk to you. But more importantly, I think just the opportunity for people around the world just to hear about your life and what you’ve done. And I think, like, the inspiration and aspirations that you can help other, particularly, women, but not just women around the world to understand just what is possible. So, thank you so much for joining us today.

Rita Trehan: [00:00:58] Not only are you an OBE, you are an acclaimed author. We’ll talk about some of the books that you’ve written and some of the titles, I think, sum it up as we go through this podcast. But I want to start with a quote that struck me, that when reading about you it kind of hit the heart of what you are about and about the belief and passion about just what’s possible. So, you quoted, “You don’t have to be a business to be an entrepreneur. It’s part of your spirit, your passion to fulfill your life’s purpose, and manifest your dreams.” I don’t know, but it seems like that that’s the core of what you’ve done over time.

Rita Trehan: [00:01:40] Would you say that that quote that you have quoted about, it’s part of your spirit? I guess at a very early age, did you know that this was going to be your role in society, to be this massive influence or change maker around gender equality, around the role that women have, and just like the massive impact that society and communities can play in creating a fairer society base across the world? I mean, at 16 when you left school, did you go like, “I just know what my life ambition is. I just know where it’s going to take me.”

Lynne Franks: [00:02:19] At this point in my life, when I am in my early 70s, I still have no idea what my life ambition is. So, I certainly didn’t know at 16. But like you, Rita, I’m from a family of immigrants and my grandparents were immigrants. And I always had this enthusiasm and passion for new ideas. I also kind of always knew what was going to happen next. I still do, although I have to say COVID got me a bit by surprise. But generally I’m very intuitive about trends and how people, particularly women, want to live their lives, how they want to work.

Lynne Franks: [00:02:55] So, when I first started working with women entrepreneurs, when I wrote The Seed Handbook in 2000, I knew that more and more women would want to leave their corporate jobs and really start their own sustainable businesses. SEED is an acronym for Sustainable Enterprise and Empowerment Dynamics. And that’s then become a program which I’ve delivered all over the world, really, teaching how to start small sustainable businesses. So, no, I didn’t know what I was going to do then, but I always knew that I was going to be enthusiastic about whatever it was.

Rita Trehan: [00:03:29] So, you know, I think there are lots of young women today, older women today, women of every generation, who, if they were looking back and saying, “There you were at 16, you left school. You studied to be a shorthand typist.” But if those of you that are listening that don’t even know what that is, trust me, it was before you could text and all the rest of it. And it required actually the ability to really know how to think about letters and numbers. So, I remember it. You may not. But if you don’t, go back and look at it because, actually, it’s the start of communication. But you did that.

Rita Trehan: [00:04:10] But then, at 21, you did something, I would say, at that time must have been seen as trailblazing. Did you know at 21, there you are, you get encouraged by somebody to start a public relations company, and you do it. At 21, you start your own company. In your 20s, right? How does that happen? I mean, at that time, I can remember myself growing up, my parents told me, like, “Hey, you got to get a good education, get a good job. Go find you a nice man, Indian man, you’ll get married, you’ll have babies. That’ll be your life.” I remember that I’m like, “Really? That’s my life?” You were 21, tell me about it.

Lynne Franks: [00:04:52] Yes. I was actually studying to be a journalist, which is why I did shorthand typing. At that time, we didn’t have computers. We had typewriters, and shorthand was essential to make notes. And so, I got a job as a young journalist working for a big mail order company, actually. And I did a lot of training through that of knowing how to write an article, how to interview people, how to write. And from there, actually, I can never remember which way around it was. I worked on Petticoat Magazine, which was the first teenage girls magazine in the country, and I went in as a secretary. And I worked with people like Janet Street-Porter and Eve Pollard and others.

Rita Trehan: [00:05:39] And by the way, [inaudible]. So, I just want to push you now because people need to understand that impact that you had at 21 to be working with people that were icons in that time, that’s pretty special of what you brought to the table.

Lynne Franks: [00:05:53] Well, actually, I was younger than 21 when I worked for them – or with them rather. I was actually about 19. And in those days, which was the late ’60’s, age wasn’t really so much of an issue. I didn’t go to university. I didn’t even stay and do A-levels. And I did met a lot of people. And if you look at people like Richard Branson and quite a few other successful entrepreneurs, a lot of them, like me, left school at 16 in those days, which is just the way it was, because it was like we couldn’t wait to get on with things.

Lynne Franks: [00:06:24] So, I worked as a young journalist. I worked with these women who are great friends of mine still. And I got a job in PR by default. I wasn’t interested in being in PR. I couldn’t get the right journalist job I wanted. I got a freelance PR job. I found out what it was and thought I can do this really easily because it’s about people, it’s about connecting, communicating, writing all the things that I love doing. So, I met Katharine Hamlet, of course, who is a wonderful fashion designer, at a trade show and she suggested that I become her PR agent. And we were both 21, and she was going to pay me £20 a week, which she didn’t even have. And off I went.

Lynne Franks: [00:07:09] So, very rapidly, I got four young fashion clients and built the business up working from my kitchen table, which is how a lot of women start. So, I knew when I started talking about SEED and talking to other women about starting up from the kitchen table exactly what that meant. I mean, I’m sitting at my kitchen table talking to you now, and I’ve continually started new businesses from my kitchen table wherever I’ve lived, whether it’s been LA or London or Spain, or all the places I’ve traveled around in and had bases in.

Lynne Franks: [00:07:37] So, anyway, I started the PR business. And because I did things differently and because I was so enthusiastic and passionate about what I did, it built up very rapidly – it seems at the time it was rapid. And over 20 years, we became the leading fashion PR agency in the world, really. And in that time, I created London Fashion Week, the British Fashion Awards. I was also very involved in causes. I started what became the biggest AIDS awareness campaign, Fashion Cares, which MAC Cosmetics took over and still runs.

Lynne Franks: [00:08:14] And I worked for Human Rights Watch doing a huge music campaign with artists like Bruce Springsteen and Peter Gabriel, traveling the world, that was in the early ’70s. I launched Green Consumer Week. And was involved in all sorts of really interesting causes, and NGOs, and things on environment, things on human rights right back then in the early ’70s.

Lynne Franks: [00:08:40] And I always said to my team, which grew quite rapidly to about 50 young people, that as much as we work for commercial companies, we were always going to be in give back frame where we could work for causes that we really believed in for free. And so, that’s what we did. It was always a balance. And I had a fantastic team of what appeared then, to me, to be very young. They were very young. They were from working class backgrounds, many of them, they were mixed race, all races, all genders, and they were 17, 18, 19 kids that I met that I just felt had a real spark. And we’re all in touch now. And the majority of them have gone on to huge successes.

Lynne Franks: [00:09:21] And, of course, now are in their 50s and early 60s, and we’re all still great friends. And they all tell me that it was because I showed them they could do anything they wanted. We had young single mums also, people that really didn’t have a lot of opportunity in those days, and I gave them that opportunity. So, now, they say that it was my belief in them being able to do anything that they gave them their belief in themselves, boys and girls, actually men and women.

Lynne Franks: [00:09:49] And so, I suppose that’s what I still do. I suppose that’s one of my gifts is, not only knowing what’s going to happen next, but actually giving people, giving individuals, that confidence and belief in themselves. I still am doing it. I’m still coaching one-to-one top businesswomen. I coach entrepreneurs, start ups, community leaders, all women at this point. And I’m still doing the same thing. You know, it’s very easy for women, particularly, to lose their confidence and their sense of self. However, they may look successful on the outside. So, that’s what I do and that’s what I still do.

Rita Trehan: [00:10:27] [Inaudible] come from. I mean, like, there are so many women and men that your achievement is forget gender, forget the rest of it. I mean, your achievements have come from something inside of you that said – I assume. I don’t know. Where did it come from? And this ability to convince people and actually help them to see just what is possible, where do you think that came from? What was driving that for you, do you think?

Lynne Franks: [00:10:58] I don’t know. I really don’t know. We’ve been having a lot of Zooms lately – myself and the various people that work for me over that 20 years of the PR company – and when they tell me how I changed their life, I’m really very moved. I am very moved because I wasn’t aware. I just saw this potential in them and I’d say, “Come on, let’s do it.” I still do it. I still have a young team here today in Somerset, where I run this hub of a cafe and store. All my SEED work that I’ve done for years has come together in two 500 year old buildings in a little town here. And now I’m online, of course, as everybody is.

Lynne Franks: [00:11:34] And I still see the potential in people because I push myself and I just think that everybody can do anything if we allow ourselves and give ourselves permission. So, you know, if I can do it, and I left school at 16, and I’ve written books, and I do write them myself and I am a writer, I write all the time, then why can’t anybody do it? That’s how I look at it.

Rita Trehan: [00:11:55] So, let’s talk a little bit about it’s a bit of a bandwagon thing, right? I would say at the moment, a lot of companies say ten years go on and particularly in a few recent years have kind of jumped on the bandwagon of we’re diverse. And not just companies, societies, communities, governments, societal institutions. Two things, I think. One, at the heightened awareness of actual issues that are really important, gender issues, equality issues, societal role, if you like in building these communities and giving people that opportunity. I mean, you seem to have been able to sort of, like, weave that through the organizations that you’ve developed, the work that you do, whether that’s with individuals or with communities or through the books and publications.

Rita Trehan: [00:12:46] I mean, you were doing that with real results, I would say, versus it being a lip service, shall we say, that you often see being played to issues of importance. So, as you look back now at what you’ve done, where do you think we stand today on this stuff? Do you think that there’s been a significant shift? Like, we’re right in the middle of these discussions that are happening right now, which are happening right now, the COPT26 link? What do you think? I mean, are we really making progress? Like, have we maybe not progressed?

Lynne Franks: [00:13:23] I don’t think we’re making anything like the progress we should be. If you look at most corporations, banks, et cetera, it’s still a majority of white middle class men on the boards. If you look at governments, it’s still the same. If you look at the people that have been speaking at COP on the official UN boards, whether it’s the UK prime minister or the American president, whatever, it’s still white middle class men.

Lynne Franks: [00:13:46] The most interesting speakers that I’ve seen on the news – because I’m not in Glasgow because I knew it was going to be a bit of a nightmare – are the indigenous young women that have come over, particularly from the Amazon, who are very articulate and are telling their truth of what’s going on over there.

Lynne Franks: [00:14:03] I think, generally, what I’ve seen of COP26, which as Greta Thunberg says – and I can’t believe people like Boris Johnson try and take it over the blah, blah, blah – it’s just a talk fest of people with personal interests, financial interests in wanting it to be a certain way. I mean, if you look at the private planes that have come in to Glasgow, I think 47 limos that were following Biden –

Rita Trehan: [00:14:33] We’re all interested in the economy, right? We’re all interested in the environment and the mission. They forgot that thing, didn’t they?

Lynne Franks: [00:14:39] And it’s quite shameful, really. Biden had 47 cars in his cavalcade. It’s just unbelievable. And then, you see these beautiful young women who have somehow managed to get the budget together to come over from the Amazon, like Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and so on, who then say beautifully and eloquently what’s really going on in their countries. And how their president, the President of Ecuador, may stand on the platform saying how he’s doing so much for the environment. But the reality is, at the same time, he’s selling off to the oil companies all the time.

Lynne Franks: [00:15:11] I’ve been out to Ecuador. I’ve seen it for myself. I’ve been with this particular young woman’s people out there, the actual people right in the middle of the jungle. I saw what was going on. That was 12, 15 years ago.

Lynne Franks: [00:15:21] So, at grassroots, whether it’s indigenous women of all ages or whether it’s women from all over the world of all ages – I mean, Greta Thunberg, let’s look at her, 17 years old. What an extraordinary young woman – at the same time, we’re on the outside of the main hall yelling and trying to get in, I guess, and banging our way – that’s what I’ve heard from my friends who are there. And the so-called power of the patriarchal age of the corporations of the government are inside that hall.

Lynne Franks: [00:15:52] And it’s lovely having Prince Charles feeling – which is to an extent, I suppose – from his perspective fair enough, he’s been talking about this for 40 years, and suddenly everybody else is talking about the same thing. You’ve got David Attenborough inside. I saw a picture of Charles this morning with Stella McCartney, who is a fashion designer, who’s been very anti-leather and making ecological clothes and accessories for a long time, so good for her.

Lynne Franks: [00:16:19] On the whole, though, it’s still men. And women that are there inside, on the whole, are also playing the corporate game. So, they are trying to get the banks to stop financing fossil fuel, that’s a big move in the last two days, that’s great. But it is still men. So, where are the women? At grassroots, they are in communities, they are protesting, they are activists. They are coming together in collaborative ways all across the planet, whether it’s Africa, South America, UK, wherever it is, saying, “What can we do in our community?”

Lynne Franks: [00:16:57] And we have to do that. As far as I’m concerned, it will be women in leadership roles who will create the new future, a new future with a different kind of economy, a different kind of agriculture, a different kind of education. It will be from the women supported by beautiful men who understand it is time. The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying that the future of the world is in the hands of the women from the West.

Lynne Franks: [00:17:18] So, we have to really come together in collaboration and do whatever we can, whether it’s in our own street, our own town, or our own village, our own country, and indeed the world. That’s the way we’re going to make the change. So, there’s some wonderful women constantly talking.

Lynne Franks: [00:17:34] Vandana Shiva, for example, she’s an Indian woman. I’m sure you know of her. She’s a professor. She’s a scientist. And she is so passionate and she doesn’t take any rubbish from anybody. And she is doing seminars, like, everyday I see her on something or other saying how it is, how agriculture has to change, how the seeds for the very food that is being grown to put in children’s mouths has to be done in a different way than being chemicalized by Monsanto and other companies. I mean, she is an incredible powerhouse. I don’t know how old Vandana is, probably early 70s. Amazing.

Lynne Franks: [00:18:14] I mean, I’m in my early 70s too, and it’s about the wise women whatever age you are, 17 or 70, that actually are passionate and knowledgeable and will stand together and say enough is enough. We have to create change and this is the way we do it.

Lynne Franks: [00:18:28] And I want to give you a quote, which is actually from a wonderful man called Buckminster Fuller, who was a visionary architect and designer from America from the ’30s and ’40s, early ’50s. And I quote this all the time, and it’s very interesting to me that a lot of people are making the same quote, not because they’ve heard me say it, but because it’s right for now. And it says, “You never change things by fighting existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Lynne Franks: [00:19:00] So, for me, that’s what women have to do now. We have to, with the men, create a new model that makes the old model the patriarchal greed and corruption that we’re seeing on a daily basis obsolete. And we’re doing something that is about growing food for the children. Everybody that has got any sense is talking about building a future for the generations to come, and that’s what our role is now as wise women. It’s not about just this generation or even my generation. I mean, my generation is now really there to help build the foundations for my grandchildren and my grandchildren’s children, and seven generations to come is what the indigenous women always say. And that’s what we have to do. And it will be the women doing that.

Lynne Franks: [00:19:44] And there is no time left, whether it’s environmental, whether it’s gender equality – of course, we have to have gender equality. It’s ridiculous if we don’t have it in this day and age.

Rita Trehan: [00:19:53] I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to be alive when we actually get pay equality. And I’ve just said, like, I can’t wait that long, like, for the next generation, because I won’t be alive then. Unless they develop this miracle drug that might keep me going. In my early ’50s, it saddens me to think we’re still talking about pay equality and we’re not going to achieve that for years to come.

Lynne Franks: [00:20:22] It isn’t about pay equality. It isn’t about us being in charge of our own finances, earning our own money with our own businesses. I mean, I’m looking now all sorts of ways of creating a new economy. And I’m talking to a lot of women right now of going back to the new economy based on the ancient. So, whether it’s barter, exchange, community currency, the banks are going through a collapse. We’ve got money being printed left, right, and center by all the governments. And to get through this current situation, which is mostly been about corruption anyway. And how can we create a new financial economic model?

Lynne Franks: [00:20:56] I was on a conference at the weekend and we’re talking about gross national product and GDP, and it’s always been based on the profits of businesses. What about what we’re doing to the environment? What about the people that are carers or in the home, the childcare, whether they’re men or women? Where’s that on GDP? So, the whole thing of the capitalist system has got to change and it is changing because it’s collapsing.

Lynne Franks: [00:21:24] So, when you talk to me about we have to have equal pay, no. We don’t have to have equal pay. We have to have our own businesses, our own organizations. We have to have different economy, a different way of working, and a different way of earning based on our true values, and not exploitation by big corporations. I’m feeling very, very angry and political at the moment, as you would have gathered.

Rita Trehan: [00:21:44] Good for you though. That’s what we need to hear, right? Good for you.

Lynne Franks: [00:21:47] All the rubbish that goes on from our own government is just pathetic. They sacked another minister today because of corruption. They tried to save him and his lies, and they couldn’t. I saw yesterday in the United States, the Republicans have come back into power or coming that way because the Democrats haven’t offered anything that has really got to people. And on the British TV news last night, they interviewed a lot of mums, mothers, white middle class mothers in the area of Virginia. They felt that they were going to be protected more by this guy had managed to convince them. It could be right, I don’t know.

Lynne Franks: [00:22:27] We have to protect our own children. We have to take power in our own hands. Not think that these men are going to do it for us because they’re not. So, that’s my feeling about it all. Over to you.

Rita Trehan: [00:22:36] So, assuming we can move over from that, a good friend of mine, a mentor of mine, a man, who’s very passionate about the role that women play. And we were both on the executive team for a company, and he turned around and he looked at the leadership team and he goes, “If you look around, this team is made up of male, frail, stale and pale i.e. white, old -” you said “- men.” And we’ve got the token for – whatever we want to call it – woman. And we need to change that narrative.

Rita Trehan: [00:23:19] And as an example, he would refuse to participate in a conference or a panel if there wasn’t equal representation, whether that be women or diverse groups or diverse ethnic groups. But we’ve been talking about this for a long time, right? So, what advice have you got to give to say like, “Let’s own that future.” The statistics tell us it all. We know women make most of the commercial decisions. They’re actually not only running homes and families on their own. And in the developing markets, we know that the youngest population is going to come from the developing markets.

Rita Trehan: [00:24:00] You know, Africa will have the youngest population of the world, and many of those are women that are doing great things, but their voices aren’t being heard. You know, you’re saying it’s time to do that and you’ve managed to create that momentum. So, what do we do around this ecosystem that we know, I think, actually has been heightened through COVID, a pandemic that hit the whole world that, I think, has brought societal issues to the surface to the extent we can’t ignore it anymore. We can pay lip service to it. But there is enough of a desire and movement. And you’ve been building that ecosystem, building that network through what you’ve been doing.

Rita Trehan: [00:24:39] What advice can you give to women to say like, “Let’s build that ecosystem much, much stronger and much, much faster”? If you could say three things or five things that if we just did individually or collectively, they might be really small things, but the multiplier effect is huge. What could they be?

Lynne Franks: [00:25:04] Okay. So, you said a lot of different points there on one statement. First of all, why does it carry on the way it is with white, stale, pale men? Because they’re the ones that invited people that look like them, sound like them, that’s what makes them comfortable. So, if you are chairman of the board and you are retiring, the board and you will find somebody that is like yourself because that’s what they do, because that’s what makes people feel comfortable. That’s number one.

Lynne Franks: [00:25:29] Number two, how can we change that? Well, women have to stand up and be seen and be heard and stay on track – very, very important – not to lose their confidence. How do we get that confidence? By supporting each other. Women have got to not gossip, not go into competition, not feel that threatened by other women. They’ve got to know that we’re all there for each other. And it’s hard because women can be highly competitive. We’re not perfect by any means. So, we have to kind of let go of that. And we have to realize that the only way forward is to do it together.

Lynne Franks: [00:25:59] And I work with a program which I call The Power of Seven, which is based on seven archetypes which are in all of us, for women, really. And it SEEDsower, which is the idea side of yourself; Alchemist, which is the transformational aspect — dreams to reality; Medicine Woman, which is about the well-being of yourself, and of the people and your project, people you work with, and people in your community; Storyteller, which is what we’re doing now, is telling our stories, whichever way we can, sharing them; Sky Dancer, which is about relationships and partnerships, building up; Spaceweaver, the inner artist and wisdom keeper who holds the space.

Lynne Franks: [00:26:38] Those seven archetypes, for me, which although I should totally relate to the modern world, so I am building up pods – as I call them. Again, I’ve been talking about pods for years. And suddenly this pod things come up – of groups of seven women who can work together taking those roles in that particular pod. And whatever women I meet, they always resonate more with one of those seven than the others, even though we’ve got all of them in.

Lynne Franks: [00:27:04] So, I talk about me, we, us. And you start with me, having alignment from those seven aspects of ourselves, our spiritual self, our wellbeing self, our ideas. We get into harmony and then we then get into a group of seven, a pod, to make changes in our community, work together in a large corporations, supporting each other – which I’ve done in places like McDonald’s. I’ve created that. Or, as I say, doing business in your own community or community initiative. And then, us, is when all these small pods share their stories and experiences and wisdom with each other. And then, we can create societal shift.

Lynne Franks: [00:27:43] So, me, we, us is about start with yourself, because if you’re not in balance, you can’t help anybody and if you’re not really focusing on your own well-being. And then, we is the group of seven; and then us is how we spread that out to create a societal shift that you’re talking about, from community to community, from pod to pod.

Lynne Franks: [00:28:03] Now, it’s a big dream, and I’ve had it for a long time, and I teach workshops on it all the time, and I do coaching on it. And if anybody is listening to this and wants to know more, they can find out. They can look up Lynne Franks very easily and find me. So, that’s how I’m doing it.

Lynne Franks: [00:28:20] Also, I believe in a cooperative society. I’ve written about that many years ago, which is about cooperation between men and women, cooperation between the human race and the environment, cooperation between the young and the old, between science and spirituality, between governments and NGOs, non-governmental organizations through business and civil society. So, really, we do not have a cooperative society. We have a society based on greed and power, still, and corruption.

Lynne Franks: [00:28:48] So, we, as women, have to stand up whatever suits us. If we feel like going on a protest march, go on a protest march. If we feel like just talking about it in a cafe to a couple of our friends, just do it that way. But we need to wake up. We need to become conscious. And we need to raise our vibration. Because our spiritual vibration, whatever our particular belief system is, is very important part of all this. So, it’s about keeping that essence [inaudible], that really alive.

Lynne Franks: [00:28:48] I’m a Buddhist. I chant twice a day. And that, for me, keeps me totally in harmonious balance with everything I’m doing. So, I think it’s an important thing that it doesn’t all go in the head, but it comes from the heart. So, I keep talking about how we have to live from love, not fear, because we live in a society which is fear induced, whether you turn on the TV news like I do or whether you open a newspaper, you’re going to get COVID, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do that. It’s all fear, fear, fear, fear. Now, we’re all wearing masks and no one can even see each other. That’s another good thing about Zoom. So, we have to come out of that fear state and be in a love state. And that’s it, women, men, children, animals.

Rita Trehan: [00:29:54] I think the power of seven is quite interesting, so I’m going to come back to it. Listeners, if you didn’t take that in, those seven elements, go back and listen to them. Because I think what you just described right now, actually, I put it in the commercial context. I put it in the societal. I’m a massive believer that organizations can have social impact and make money and be profitable. And that the two are good. And the two, if you do them right rather than just doing them lip service, you can create.

Rita Trehan: [00:30:27] But those seven that you just described – and really do go back and listen to them, play each one, and stop it. Pause it and listen to it again. To me, you described it –

Lynne Franks: [00:30:37] They can be found on my website as well. You can find them in detail.

Rita Trehan: [00:30:41] Of course. And we’ll definitely show that and give them the details for that at the end. But you really articulated, actually, it feels like what leaders need to have is the capabilities that they bring to the table today, don’t they? Whether they’re government leaders, whether they’re leaders of big corporations, I’m kind of hearing about this is the new leadership competency that somebody needs to have or this is the new leadership skill.

Rita Trehan: [00:31:07] I mean, you just described seven attributes that actually needs to embody, whether you’re a woman leader in the home, whether you’re a male leader of one of these massive corporations, that, by the way, if you are a leader and are listening and you are, you have a much bigger role to play today and people are wanting you to play a bigger role – if you’re listening, CEOs – around having a societal voice. Those seven elements, to me, describe what an organization should embody. Not just the leader, but an organization, whether it’s a community. I mean, it’s a pretty powerful concept that, as you say, not have them all.

Lynne Franks: [00:31:46] True leadership and the future is not about the traditional way we have now of the up, and then it goes down in a linear sense. For me, true leadership is about circular, everybody in a leadership role but doing their role as a leader. So, it’s really about holding it from the bottom. True leadership is holding from the bottom and supporting other people on their way up, particularly young people. That’s true leadership.

Lynne Franks: [00:32:15] And if you look at tribal elders, again, indigenous –

Rita Trehan: [00:32:19] They bring it together. It’s an ecosystem,

Lynne Franks: [00:32:22] … especially the women, they are not there to create some kind of powerful role for themselves. They are there to hold up the tribe. And that’s only natural –

Rita Trehan: [00:32:34] They are the enabler. It’s the enabler system. Lynne, there’s so much that we can cover, and I’m conscious that we’re probably going to have to bring it to a close. But in my head, I’m already going to the podcast that we should be doing on each one of those seven elements and what a woman can do. And not just women, guys, you listen, too, and young people, whatever age across the world, if you just took each one in core, there’s so much to be nurtured from that or have to hone in.

Rita Trehan: [00:33:10] So, I would say I’m conscious, like, as much as I want to continue, we do need to kind of think about wrapping this up. And we haven’t even touched on all the books that you’ve written. I want to know why the titles were the titles that you gave them. So, two questions to end on. One is, the titles of your books, they’re very powerful in the statement that they make. Question one, were you purposeful in thinking about the titles of the books of what women want?

Lynne Franks: [00:33:43] I didn’t write a book –

Rita Trehan: [00:33:46] The conference.

Lynne Franks: [00:33:47] It was the conference.

Rita Trehan: [00:33:48] Anything that you had done and how you have framed it has had a very powerful overarching message. It’s banging your face. And if you don’t see it, I don’t know how you miss it. Has that been conscious, question one? Last question to end on is what I ask everybody that’s been on this podcast, this is all about daring to. Daring to is about daring to be different, daring to challenge, daring to rip up the rule books and, actually, as you put it, I think, really eloquently, it’s not about creating and trying to improve what we had. It’s about creating something new. It’s about creating that new vision. So, what’s your daring to moment, desire, or aspiration? Those are the last two questions.

Lynne Franks: [00:34:38] What’s my daring to? Okay. So, the first question is, do I deliberately brand my books and my conferences on something that is going to have effect? Of course, I do. Of course, I do. So, I am a PR person by trade so I think branding. When I write a book, the title is the first thing I think of and then I write the book around that. Thank you for asking me that. Absolutely Now!, which is my first book; Grow, which is an acronym for Gorgeous Real Original Woman. It’s a modern woman’s handbook; anyway, Bloom – a lot of them are based around the metaphors of planting seeds in gardens, so all my work is around that, really.

Lynne Franks: [00:35:21] And then, what is my – what was the question?

Rita Trehan: [00:35:24] Daring to. Your daring to, whether it’s for you personally or for somebody else. Like, what’s your daring to moment? It could be something you’ve done.

Lynne Franks: [00:35:35] In the future? In the future?

Rita Trehan: [00:35:35] It could be something that you’ve done. It could have been in the past or the future. Whatever hits you [inaudible].

Lynne Franks: [00:35:42] There is one thing, I think of something and I do it. And then, afterwards, I think, “Oh, my God. That was stepping into the abyss.” But I’ve been on an English reality show, that was something I never should have done and that was stupid.

Rita Trehan: [00:36:02] I bet we all gained so much from having you on that. I can just see it. Like, it would have been fun and challenging. And you would have pushed them out of their comfort zone and said –

Lynne Franks: [00:36:15] The thing is you’re not in control on those things because it’s all produced. I mean, I still got lots more to do. Even at my age, I’m looking at how we can create a new feminine led economy, which is really the biggest dream I’ve got right now. It should be digital. How we can do that? So, I’m working with some women on that. You know, I just push myself ahead all the time and do crazy things. And after, I think, “What the hell am I doing?”

Lynne Franks: [00:36:42] But I get these ideas. I want want a women’s radio station. I think there really needs to be one. I used to chair one.

Rita Trehan: [00:36:47] You did. [Inaudible], right?

Lynne Franks: [00:36:49] Yeah. And I’d love to see one now, which is global digital radio station. There isn’t one, and I think there’s a real need. Something that could work in Africa and all over the world, really. So, those are ideas I still want to make and happen. And so, yeah, nothing left. You know, I’ve done a number of trainings where I’ve pushed myself to my limit, you know, jumped off telegraph poles at 60 feet in the air with a supporting harness on. I’ve done a lot, so I’m going to say I’m pretty fearless, I guess, and do crazy things all the time.

Rita Trehan: [00:37:29] And what a great end statement. Women, if you’re listening; men, if you listening, it’s about being fearless, being crazy, and pushing the limits. So, if people want to know more about you, Lynne, how can they get in touch? What’s your website? If you’re on Twitter or LinkedIn, what is the best way to connect and be part of this movement?

Lynne Franks: [00:37:50] Well, my website is lynnefranks.com, which is L-Y-N-N-E. lynnefranks.com, and you can get hold of me there. And there’s details about Power of Seven in there. I am on Twitter. I am on LinkedIn. I am on Facebook. I am on Instagram. I am on Telegram. You name it, you can find me. I am not hard to find. But the best place you can find me really is probably through my website at lynnefranks.com.

Rita Trehan: [00:38:15] Awesome. And, listeners, if you want to find out more about DARE and what we’re doing and some of the work that we have been focusing on, which is all around daring to be different, daring to challenge, daring to create new, you can find us at www.dareworldwide.com. You can get in contact with us on LinkedIn. You can contact me at rita_trehan on Twitter. We’ve got some really exciting research that we’ve just done and that we’re sharing.

Rita Trehan: [00:38:41] And it reminds me of a book that I read to end this podcast on, which was about Dead Aid, about all of the aid that’s given through international organizations around the world. It’s written by a young woman, actually, it isn’t about just giving economic developing markets money, it’s about helping them to grow businesses, helping create the economy. It’s called Dead Aid. And there’s a quote in there, it’s unknown, and it said, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. Maybe now is about the time to plant the new trees. It’s something like that.

Rita Trehan: [00:39:22] But, basically, it was saying, we may have thought of this a long time ago and never really nurtured it, but let’s get on and do it right. Let’s get where we know we want to go and build a society that we want generations to be part of in the future.

Rita Trehan: [00:39:37] Lynne, I am inspired in awe. What can I say? Thank you so much for being –

Lynne Franks: [00:39:43] Thank you very much for having me here. It’s been a pleasure.

Rita Trehan: [00:39:46] Thank you.

Outro: [00:39:48] Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the conversation, make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss out on future episodes of Daring To. Also, check out our website, dareworldwide.com, for some great resources around business in general, leadership, and how to bring about change. See you next time.