Podcast S8E11 | Being Risk Intelligent with Gemma Boothroyd

TRANSCRIPT

Kimberley Cole 0:01
This is Risky Women Radio, a show that connects, celebrates and champions women in risk regulation and compliance. We’re here to share the insights on the biggest issues in our industry and hear inspiring journeys from our global members. Sign up to our newsletter at riskywomen.org. I’m Kimberley Cole, your Chief Risky Woman.

Kimberley Cole 0:25
So welcome to today’s Risky Woman. We are pleased to have Gemma Boothroyd here with us today, and Gemma is going to talk to us about being risk intelligent. So Gemma Boothroyd is a financial journalist and a content strategist. She’s collaborated with some of the UK’s fastest growing FinTech companies to develop investing platforms, marketing strategies and financial education initiatives. Her personal finance and market commentary has appeared in publications including the BBC, Financial Times, and The Guardian. Currently, Gemma works as a freelance journalist and is authoring a book with the working title The Hidden Risk Economy, which sounds very intriguing. It’s going to be a groundbreaking book that challenges the ever so stubborn myth that women are risk averse. And I love that, because that is something that I have heard time and time again. So I’m really keen to dig into that. And through her research, her interviews and her case studies, she demonstrates that women are instead risk intelligent. Taking deliberate, calculated risks that profoundly shape societies and economies, yet remain largely unrecognized in conventional risk narratives. So welcome, Gemma!

Gemma Boothroyd 1:49
Thank you so much for having me. It’s good news and bad news that statement about risk aversion resonates, but I’m not surprised, unfortunately that it’s something you’ve heard before, too.

Kimberley Cole 2:00
And you’re joining us from Vancouver in Canada, but you also lived in the UK. So tell us about your career journey and some of your travels and your highlights to date.

Gemma Boothroyd 2:11
Yeah, absolutely. So I started my career in FinTech, as you mentioned, working as an investment writer for British investing app called Free Trade. And my role there was to talk about the stock market, to write about the economy, different investments. And really that role grew into something else for me. So we wanted everyone to have equal opportunity to invest, no matter who they were, how they were raised, how much money they had. What I noticed was there was a glaring lack of female investors on our app. And there was this notion, a very popular notion at the time, amongst the media, amongst friends, family, coworkers, that the reason for this was because women were just more risk averse. We were afraid of taking risk, and so investing is a risk, hence we don’t do it as much. And what I saw in leading investing seminars for women was really the opposite. So a lot of women were already investing, and they were investing in a way that was very appropriate, let’s say, so they were investing every month a little bit of their money, usually into the S&P500, a fairly typical investment. But they weren’t investing in crypto or these penny stocks like their boyfriends or husbands were or their male friends that would talk about these really speculative bets, and so women didn’t see themselves as investors. That was one of the things that I noticed. And the other thing was that women who weren’t investing usually actually didn’t have enough money to invest with. They didn’t have the safety blanket that you should have before you invest your money in the stock market. And so I didn’t see women that were terrified of investing, and that just led me down this path of wondering, what were all of the other ways that women are indeed risk intelligent. And mind you, when women invest, they, on average, invest better than men, achieving around a 1% higher annual return, multiple studies have shown this. Women are risk intelligent. They take great risks. And what are the ways, aside from investing, where that shows up? This became my MO I was fascinated by this, and so I’ve since left the world of investing to pursue journalism full time and tell these stories of women and their incredible risk taking every day. And to write a book working title is Hidden Risk Economy, and to really just shed light on the fascinating world of female risk taking that has for way too long been invisible.

Kimberley Cole 4:30
That is fantastic. And I also love the fact that you sort of bringing together your passion with your capability, which is something that I think, you know, a lot of people want to find that sweet spot. So that’s fantastic.

Gemma Boothroyd 5:08
Thank you.

Kimberley Cole 5:09
And what are the biggest risks that you feel that you’ve taken in your career?

Gemma Boothroyd 5:13
Yeah, that one’s pretty obvious. For me, it was definitely leaving a stable job, a job that I really enjoyed, to tell these stories, because it was gnawing at me. I felt like this was really key to actually alleviating a lot of the discrepancies and inequities that women face, is just being able to help women recognize the risks that they take. And so how could I do that without taking a risk myself? It was much too ironic. And so I felt like I had to do it, quit the job, become a journalist, and tell these stories full time.

Kimberley Cole 5:52
And is it paying off so far?

Gemma Boothroyd 5:54
Financially? No, but maybe in due time, that’s not what the risk was for. The risk, as you said, was to follow that sweet spot that I feel really lucky to have found, of what I feel called to do and most passionate about. And I believe in the long run, it will pay off in dividends in some way, shape or form.

Kimberley Cole 6:14
What was that inspiration, or that sort of main trigger that, I guess, made you make that decision to take that career path?

Gemma Boothroyd 6:23
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think it was really looking into the research that already existed on this topic, and as more of a passion project, initially, I spoke to certain scholars. One of them of note is Thekla Morgenroth, and they’ve done amazing research on what happens when we change the definition of risk and when we ask people questions that are more gender normative and risk related. So for example, instead of would you bet a day’s income on a sporting event, a question like, would you bet a day’s income on a dating show like The Bachelor? These are, in essence, two very similar questions. You probably have equal opportunity of getting the right result from your guests and your gamble. But unsurprisingly, a lot more men say yes they’d bet their day’s income on the sporting event, but not on some dating show. Inverse is true for women, and that’s a very small example, but it’s really powerful when we think of the decades and hundreds of studies that have created this foundational belief that women are risk averse, are actually just asking questions that are inherently more masculine. They’re asking questions about risk that are looking at activities that men are just more likely to do. It’s not that women are afraid or terrified of taking certain risks, it’s that often they don’t want to, they don’t align with their interests or their beliefs. And I think just seeing this growing body of research that was really tackling this question of risk aversion and risk intelligence made me feel confident that I wasn’t alone in this thought, and that these are the stories that need to be told to really bring that to light.

Kimberley Cole 8:13
Fascinating. So let’s get into being risk intelligent. And you mentioned, you know the gender investing gap a little bit. Why do you think that gap is so pervasive? And you’ve mentioned some of those risk taking elements. How is that playing out?

Gemma Boothroyd 8:33
So first and foremost, I guess, to set the scene here, the gender investing gap is pretty consistent across most countries.

Kimberley Cole 8:42
You’ve kind of got a global picture of this?

Gemma Boothroyd 8:44
Yes, yeah, exactly. I have some numbers on the UK not to pick on them, but as we’ve said, I used to work there, so I’ve got more data points, more recent data points, rather, on what that gap looks like. So in the UK, the gap is about $600 billion between the money that men have invested and women have invested. So men are almost twice as likely to even have an investing account, and then by the time we all reach retirement age, that means that women end up with about 35% less money than men. So this is not a subtle gap. This is systemic. Clearly, this is.

Kimberley Cole 9:22
The other big gap that you hear about is pension, in Australia, we’d say superannuation, when women have significantly less when they retire.

Gemma Boothroyd 9:32
Yeah, it’s a huge problem. And largely that is not because women are afraid of taking risk. It’s not because women are too scared to invest and so they don’t and then suddenly they’re at retirement age and they don’t have as much money as their male counterparts. It’s because they are paid less on average. They, of course, on average, will go through a period of time where they might be on maternity leave, or they are raising children, or they are more likely to take care of family members who are sick, their parents, they have this care responsibility that often results in earning less money. But the thing is, we know that, as I’ve mentioned, when women invest they actually do it better, and when women are at the helm of companies, they’ve also proven that they are great risk takers. So there’s this really great example from the Harvard Business Review that when companies go from zero to around 30% of women in leadership and C suite roles, their profitability increased by 15%. That is no joke. That is a substantial value add. Another study looked at female CEOs of the S&P500, and when a female became the CEO, replacing a man, the value of these companies, on average, was increasing by 20% within two years of them taking the helm. This is significant stuff.

Kimberley Cole 10:58
Amazing statistics there, just the impacts and the importance of this.

Gemma Boothroyd 11:04
Yeah and it just tells us that women aren’t afraid of risk. They’re actually really great at assessing it.

Kimberley Cole 11:09
Yeah, and I just love that phrase, risk intelligent, so I think that’s a great area for us to focus on. So you, you’ve got this book underway. Whereabouts are you with the book? And yeah, love to get into some more of the study.

Gemma Boothroyd 11:26
Yeah. So the book just keeps getting bigger in that as it should, as it, I would think does for anyone who’s trying to write a book. It starts as something small and then becomes something that takes over every single realm of your life. And I can’t stop thinking about it and talking about it and writing about it. So something recently that I’ve been working on is a chapter about egg donation, which is this incredible risk that women take. In Canada, they actually legally cannot be paid for it, so you can be reimbursed for your expenses as you should be, but you are not paid, so you’re taking a big medical risk, in addition to an emotional risk, a physical risk, to do what the woman who I’ve spoken to just say, just feels like the right thing to do. So that’s one of the chapters that I’ve been working on, and I’ve been meeting with women, from whistleblowers to political activists who represent women in a realm where we actually see that women take greater risk than men. Egg donation, you know, that’s a biological one, but peaceful protest, by and large women. Live organ donors, by and large women. And as I already mentioned, whistleblowers as well, women are, in general, more likely to report unethical behavior in the workplace. And these are all obvious risks that women are not recognized for. And I in writing this book, have just seen this more and more prevalently in my own friends, family and the media, in the way that we talk about men, women, risk taking, risk aversion, and what we should be calling risk intelligence.

Kimberley Cole 13:15
Wow, that’s yeah, that’s just so diverse all those different areas. And yeah, another area that I would love to dig in more is is whistleblowing, and how that plays out, both in terms of who’s doing it, how often, what the responses are, what are the implications? Because that’s the other thing you often hear, that whistleblowers are not particularly well treated. So amazing.

Kimberley Cole 13:38
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Kimberley Cole 13:58
Now, how does risk differ from, say, impulse?

Gemma Boothroyd 14:03
So I think these two often get conflated, but they are very distinct. So to get into the definitions, an impulse is this strong, unreflective urge to just act, and then a risk, in simple terms, is the possibility of something bad happening. So when you take a risk, that doesn’t mean you’re jumping at it. It doesn’t mean you’re just immediately dropping everything and pouncing on this opportunity. It just means you’re making a decision and something bad could happen. Impulse. On the other hand, you just skip the reflection and you dive straight in. And when we think about gender and risk taking, it’s really important to discern these two, because think we often conflate risk taking with what is actually impulse like we think of these really bold, flashy risks of speeding or driving on a motorcycle without a helmet, and these are largely impulsive and. And one theory behind why we have this perception that men take more risk is because they do take more impulse, and that is said to be because of the way that testosterone and cortisol interact. So when men are in a high stress situation, they’re more likely to jump in and be activated by that and it feels good for them, whereas women, again, this is all on average of course, this is not for every man and woman on the planet, but what we see biologically is that women are more likely to take a moment to assess and they are not as excited by these stressful, cortisol inducing situations as men are. So we just have different biological predispositions to the type of decision making that we make.

Kimberley Cole 15:44
Very interesting carry on.

Gemma Boothroyd 15:46
I was just going to connect it to investing in that men are significantly more likely to invest in cryptocurrencies, in very speculative penny stocks, and they make up 90% of day traders. And day trading is this space that is, perhaps ignorantly sometimes seen as a very lucrative opportunity to make tons of money in the stock market by just constantly buying and selling throughout the day. The vast majority of people lose money, and it’s really gambling, and women are just not drawn to it in the same way that men are. And that really comes down to what we see in our hormonal makeup, the way that we are just kind of pre wired. And I think it’s really important to acknowledge that that men are more wired to favor short term decision making. And what we see is that women tend to make decisions that have long term consequences. They are more interested in what is the sustainability of this decision, both from a eco perspective and also just from a longevity in business sustainability perspective.

Kimberley Cole 16:57
Fascinating, because it’s all interesting, I guess consumer behavior as well, in terms of how you should look at things. Really, really interesting. And I guess, what are some of the factors that shapes you’ve you’ve mentioned that some of the things from a agenda perspective, but those risk taking behaviors, so you said biological, I guess some of them are how we’ve been brought up do you think? Or and what about geographically?

Gemma Boothroyd 17:28
Geographically, that’s a really good question. So on the note of geography, something that I find really fascinating is the gender entrepreneurship gap. So in a lot of countries, Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, those same ones that I was mentioning at the start, we see a very pervasive gap in the number of female and male entrepreneurs. And this has often been considered a proxy for risk taking, because, of course, starting your own business is a risk. I really don’t think it’s that black and white. There are a lot of reasons people start businesses. And of course, the funding that women get when they do start a business is much less, much harder to access. Yeah, it’s infinitesimal. So it’s not apples to apples. It’s not like I could decide to start a business tomorrow on that I would have the same likelihood, even if it was the same business as a male counterpart would, right? So it’s complicated, but what’s interesting is that in some sub Saharan African countries, women are the predominant female entrepreneurs. And one of the reasons this is believed to be the case is because it’s out of necessity. Women need to make money for their families, and so they do it. And that’s something that I’ve seen in some of the interviews that I’ve had for Hidden Risk Economy in that woman, when I ask them, do you see yourself as a risk taker? Women who are risk takers. So for instance, a whistleblower who actually, at the time, was responsible for reporting the largest False Claims Act in US history. It was, I think, around $70 million of fraud happening. And when I asked her, do you see yourself as a risk taker? They didn’t really even identify with that word. What they did identify was with doing the right thing and just feeling like, Well, I had to do it. And so that’s kind of what we see with these entrepreneurship discrepancies, is this feeling of, well, I don’t know if I’m a risk taker, but I had to do it. I didn’t have an option. This was what I needed to do. And so in that regard, I’ve spoken with many women who just see it as they didn’t have an option.

Kimberley Cole 19:38
It’s super interesting, because I think there are in Australia, a lot of now women led businesses that are, I guess, small and medium enterprises, etc. As you said, that investment opportunity and them getting the money is just still infinitesimal. I’ve got a friend who’s created a fund that invests in female led funerial businesses, which I think is super exciting.

Gemma Boothroyd 20:02
So important. I’m seeing more of those cropping up, and they’re immensely powerful at just, frankly, changing the world for the better.

Kimberley Cole 20:12
Absolutely. And I guess some of that it also comes down to recognition. So do you think, where you’ve seen significant examples of risk taking, men get more recognition for that risk taking than women. I mean, what’s what do you see playing out there?

Gemma Boothroyd 20:31
I think it’s foundational to kind of how we define and see risk in the first place. A huge risk that many women take in their life is childbirth. In America, you have a higher likelihood of dying during childbirth than you do dying from drunk driving, from NASCAR racing, skydiving, driving without a seatbelt. It is a serious risk, and intersectionality wise, that risk is way higher for black women, too. So this risk is obvious when we put it into these terms, but we don’t often put it into these terms, and I think that that’s one of the reasons why men just get greater recognition for these standard risks that we see as obvious risks. So starting a business, jumping into a new career, getting a massive raise, physical feats that women are maybe just less interested in. BASE jumping is a huge one. You know, jumping out of the sky with this little squirrel suit on you. These are obvious risks, yeah, but there are countless risks that women take, and we just don’t see them as such. And I think by really just changing how we perceive risk can actually have a monumental impact on how we, as you said, recognize it, reward it, and value it.

Kimberley Cole 21:59
And maybe even address it, because childbirth should not be as high risk, and it should just be invested in terms of how to lower that risk as it has been in many, many countries. I think there’s a huge female health gap as well, because all the drugs have been tested and we’re just meant to take them as small men.

Gemma Boothroyd 22:20
Yep, yep. Oh gosh. I could go on about all the risks that we are here facing, just, just from, you know, being a woman in a in a men’s world. I don’t know if you’ve read Invisible Women?

Kimberley Cole 22:33
Yeah, right, statistics in that, isn’t it?

Gemma Boothroyd 22:36
Oh yeah. You’re just sitting there flipping the pages, thinking, man oh man. Literally.

Kimberley Cole 22:43
And you know, we were talking before about career progression. What has been the implications of the women’s approach to risk taking, or career progression on financial outcomes?

Gemma Boothroyd 22:55
Yeah, we spoke about this earlier, before we started recording. But there was long this perception that women don’t take risks in their career, and so that’s why they don’t get promoted. They don’t get promoted because they don’t ask to be promoted. They don’t get a raise because they don’t ask for a raise. That is not true. They ask for raises, they don’t get raises. They ask for promotions, they don’t get promotions. It’s what the research is telling us now. So maybe for a period of time that was true, but not anymore. So what I think is really important to recognize there is that we don’t reward risk. We’re not going to see ourselves as risk takers. If I take a risk and it doesn’t pan out, I’m not going to think I was a risk taker. I’m going to think maybe that I was a failure. I’m not the failure. The system is the failure there, right? And not that every time a woman or a man asks for a raise or a promotion, they deserve it. But generally speaking, if we’re seeing this across the board as a systemic issue, that’s really something to take note of. And I think again, a lot of the risks that women take in their career are quieter, more strategic, more personal. It might be calling out someone who is sexually harassing in the workplace. You know, we talked about whistleblowing. Women are more likely to do that. It might be taking the more ethical decision at a corporate level rather than the more profitable one. But that’s because, again, it’s the right thing to do, and we see women are much more likely to do that, especially in GRC positions. And when women take risks, if they’re getting punished or ignored, it’s no wonder that they don’t see themselves as risk takers. So I think we really need to normalize talking about these risks, celebrating women for the risks that they are taking, even if they don’t pan out and really acknowledging them so that we can see equally the risks that all genders are taking.

Kimberley Cole 24:51
Yeah, yeah, those systemic issues are big challenges.

Gemma Boothroyd 24:56
Yes, no kidding, but we have to start with talking about them.

Kimberley Cole 25:01
Yeah, so I mean, what are the ways that you think we could help women see their own decision making as strategic and powerful and showing the risks that they are taking?

Gemma Boothroyd 25:12
Yeah, I think one of the ways of doing this, which I have engaged in, and I have encouraged others too, is a little exercise where you write down all of the risks that you’ve taken with just the context of this podcast, even in your mind, of things that you might not have seen as a risk that are. So these can be things like horseback riding, gymnastics, things that maybe weren’t dubbed a risk in your childhood, but you did, and they are physical risks. They are significant physical risks, or even things that are maybe slightly more vain, like tanning, that is a risk. These are not all going to be positive risks, but just seeing things that are stereotypically more feminine or even gender neutral activities as risks, and then looking at career wise, what have you done that is a risk, and again, that could just be standing up for what you think is right, that could be taking on a role because it’s what you’re more passionate about, rather than what’s going to pay more. These are little things that I don’t think get enough recognition of risk, and once you start writing them down, you’ll see all these new pathways that you took risk that maybe you didn’t deem risk before. And I think it’s really important that we show ourselves the risk we’re taking, because a lot of women, nearly half of women, say that they don’t feel like they know enough to take a risk, and that’s just not true. They just haven’t been recognized for the risks that they’ve taken in the past. And in general, women are less likely to brag about their accomplishments. And of course, there’s a whole systemic angle to that too, and that they’re more likely to be seen as bragging rather than confident, and they’re more likely to be seen as a bitch if they stand up for what they believe in right, rather than when a man stands up and it’s just assertive or confident so in writing all of this down, you can see that you do know enough to be a risk taker, and then notice the risks you take. And then, if you’re so inclined, be encouraged to take more risks and encourage other women to take them too. It’s so important that we recognize in one another what we are trying to recognize in ourselves, too. And we see that when women have female mentors, they take more risks as well. And I think by and large, that’s having another woman say, Hey, do you recognize this risk that you took? That maybe nobody else in their life is recognizing as a risk, but as a woman, when we sit down and we see one another for the same decisions that we’ve made in our career, it becomes easier to identify them and one another.

Kimberley Cole 27:51
I think, yeah, I always say, you know, you’ve got to develop your own group of cheerleaders. And even if I was thinking about how I would go into a meeting, introduce you, or talk about your achievements and stuff. That’s often a lot easier than saying here is Kimberley Cole and this is what I’ve done, whereas you would have no problem kind of saying Kimberley’s done this, that the other, etc. So you’ve always got to almost put yourself in the third party position. Imagine I’m not talking about me and I’m talking about someone else, and come up with that list.

Gemma Boothroyd 28:30
Absolutely. It’s something that women really can struggle with. And I think something that my friends and I have gotten into the pattern of doing with one another is when we’re down on ourselves or being self critical, we just say, What would you say to me right now? What if you were talking to me and suddenly the language changes so drastically. You can’t believe you were ever talking to yourself in such a way or not recognizing your accomplishments. And it’s, unfortunately, very powerful, and I hope that with time, that will change how we are trained and really just born to speak about ourselves.

Kimberley Cole 29:09
Yeah, I mean, I really think that, I think that’s a great idea in terms of just that, what would your own feedback be to yourself if it was coming from someone else. But also just that ability to represent other people, certainly other women, within your organization, I think is a super powerful one. And I think it was actually something that was in Sheryl Sandberg book as well, about getting people to speak on your behalf, which is kind of driving advocacy, sponsorship, etc, etc. But I think that’s always good to speak to your girlfriends, certainly in a business environment, and say, here’s the key projects that I’m working on, and here’s the achievements, because then to be able to throw that into conversation with other people and say, Oh, I heard that, Gemma, have you heard she’s writing a book and she’s done all this amazing study. And here’s the things that I hear that she’s really making an impact on. And then, you know, people are hearing this in other forums. It’s a really great way for them to then go on someone else when they say, you know, actually, we were looking for someone who could write a book, and they never know that the skills exist.

Gemma Boothroyd 30:22
Talk about good gossiping. I love that. Yeah, you’re sharing the good news. You’re speculating on what accomplishments this person has just achieved, and that’s a fantastic way to pump people up.

Kimberley Cole 30:36
Exactly good gossiping. I think that’s another good catch phrase. So as we have generally, a lot of risk and compliance, governance professionals on our podcast, if we’re rethinking female risk taking, how do you think we can use that for driving greater representation in our GRC leadership roles?

Gemma Boothroyd 30:59
I think first and foremost, women in GRC are obviously taking risks daily. They are assessing the consequences of any given decision. They are protecting their company’s integrity. They are probably speaking up when they have an unpopular opinion in some rooms. So they’re clearly ready to step into leadership roles, and we need to give them the opportunity to do it, and help them see that they’re ready. So I think exactly what you were just talking about in getting more and more comfortable talking about other women’s accomplishments, giving one another that platform, and then feeling confident enough to give that to ourselves is integral. And just recognizing the risks that you’re taking every day, it might even be writing down one risk that you took today every night, reflecting on those and you will slowly find yourself building the confidence to take that bigger risk, or take that career leap, if that’s something that you don’t think that you’re ready for, because you are.

Kimberley Cole 32:00
Excellent. So a couple of questions maybe to start wrapping up. What are the sort of the next innovation or the positive change that you see coming?

Gemma Boothroyd 32:11
Something that I’m very excited about is this idea of a horizontal wealth transfer that’s coming. And I say excited, it’s a bit morbid in reality, but essentially, women tend to live longer than men, and so it’s estimated that American women are going to inherit around $50 trillion in the coming decades, and that’s just because they’re going to be managing the family wealth. And that’s obviously more money than has ever been in the hands of women. And I really believe that this is an opportunity that we need in order to see how incredibly risk intelligent women are when they have the money. You know, it’s going to shift the economic power women are more likely to invest sustainably. They’re more likely to invest in green, socially conscious, ethical companies that reflect their values. So there is long term social benefits there. It’s certainly not just a win for women, but for society. And I think it will really change the narrative that women are risk averse. We’re not going to see money disappear into incredibly low risk investments. We’re going to see money go to places that women feel that money should go, and that is going to be investing with purpose, investing for change. And it’s really about reclaiming this definition of risk for women so that we can see them as risk intelligent and that woman can recognize the life altering power that their decisions have when they’re given the opportunity to do so.

Kimberley Cole 33:50
Love it, the demographics will finally come into our favor.

Gemma Boothroyd 33:53
Yes, exactly, exactly, in an albeit dark way. But you know what? It’s yeah, it’s, it’s a very powerful moment in time.

Kimberley Cole 34:06
So you’ve mentioned a few things, like the book Invisible Women, but we’d love to get hints and tips on things to watch, read or listen to. So any other recommendations that you can give us on books to read, something to watch or something to listen to?

Gemma Boothroyd 34:25
Yes, definitely. Okay, so something to listen to, this podcast called Risky Women is fantastic. There you go. Would recommend another podcast that I’ve been listening to lately is called Canadaland. Actually, let me rethink this answer, because it has absolutely nothing to do with risk and women’s…

Kimberley Cole 34:54
You just love it.

Gemma Boothroyd 34:56
I really do. Now that I’m back, I need to get up to date with all things Canadian politics, because for the first time in a long time, they’re so interesting.

Kimberley Cole 35:04
Yeah!

Gemma Boothroyd 35:05
Our sovereignty is threatened, so it’s very important to be well informed. Yeah, for books, I did mention Invisible Women, I think another really important topic to really just understand how looking at things from another perspective can change everything. Is this book called Factfulness, and what the author does is they look at the world from this new lens of things have never been better, and human beings are really good. And I think it’s very easy to believe the inverse. If you consume any media, if you have a conversation with someone on the street, it’s it’s often negative right now, the state of the world has never been worse, and in just looking at the world from really just a different lens and looking at a different set of data, and it’s not that it’s an inaccurate set of data, it’s just kind of picking and choosing, because that’s what we do as humans. We pick and choose different narratives, and then we build upon them. We see the world in a different way. And I think that when it comes to gender differences and risk, for instance, if we see risk as something that’s less about jumping out of planes and betting on Bitcoin and more about childbirth and sacrifices made for saving someone’s life, or for giving someone the opportunity to see justice as a whistleblower, we see the world differently, and you’ll start to think, I believe more positively about yourself, about other women in the way that after I read this book, I thought, well, the world is great. We are thriving, and it’s just a matter of perspective.

Kimberley Cole 37:04
Excellent, so Factfulness, yeah, right, excellent. So I think that has been fantastic. I have loved learning about how we are risk intelligent. I really look forward to reading the book, because obviously there may be so many different perspectives, and we do, maybe we’ll get you back as an author and get a group of women to join a live session, which would be fantastic.

Gemma Boothroyd 37:30
Love that.

Kimberley Cole 37:31
And I think you’ve given us so many interesting areas to think about, some really good hints and tips from writing down your list of where you think you’re taking risks, and maybe where you think you’ve made an impact so that you’re feeling powerful, and some great tips on there for things to read and listen to. So thank you so much for joining us, Gemma, and it’s been an absolute pleasure.

Gemma Boothroyd 37:56
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been wonderful to chat, and I really enjoyed our conversation.

Kimberley Cole 38:02
Thank you so much.

Kimberley Cole 38:03
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