Sally Acton — Entrepreneur, Empowerment, And A better Human

What's involved that is, and another guest, somebody I've been fascinated to talk to, and I must be honest about this, she does a couple of things, but the latest project that is coming up, that's almost ready, I believe, is learn to be a better human. And who's going to talk to us about being a better human? It is Sally Acton. Hello, Sally. How are you doing? Hi, David. I'm good. Thanks. How are you today? Well, as I like to do with all of my guests before we dig in and find out a little bit more about you, give me some of your background. You know, school grew up, did what, what did you do, did you study, et cetera, et cetera, and how did we end up where we are today? Okay. So, I have what I think is, as Lucy described, is a bit of a kind of a junkyard dog kind of background, where I went to school in Joburg, and after that I actually went into hotel management, and from there I moved to Mozambique, and I used to run scuba diving lodges there, and after that I moved to Botswana, where I used to run safari camps, and I lived in Botswana for a long time, and then I moved back to Joburg in the early 2000s, and I started working in software, and from there I opened my first company called Talk, which focuses on employee engagement, and we did some customer experience work as well in the marketing/autobation space, and yeah, from there I worked and started up another little company called GoFetch, which is a data aggregation company, which we ended up partnering with the Londolaise Group, who have subsequently taken that over, and yeah, then I started Be a Better Human this year in 2020, with the fun, exciting year that it's been, and yeah, we go to market next month, well, next month, this month, this October, so this month, and I'm very excited about that.

In terms of other things, I'm a competitive weightlifter, and I'm a mom of three, so I have fairly full days, and yeah, I love being an entrepreneur, and it keeps the energy high. Let's put it that way. Well, I'm going to ask you a question now, because you mentioned, you know, safaris, you mentioned Botswana, and then you mentioned Londolaise, how do you go from being what sounds like a bush baby to being in the corporate space? And I ask this with a bit of a wry smile, because I've done a very similar thing. I also used to work in the guarding industry. I was a field guard. We used to train field guards, and I don't know if during your Londolaise period or anything like that, if you ever came across somebody by the name of Lex Hess? So I've actually never worked there. They actually ended up partnering with us in the data space. So in that area, but yeah, you know, I think it's the most, it's the most incredible life, and I miss it. I miss it so often, and I'm a mad birdie, so I miss being surrounded by all the birds, you know, but it's a very, as I'm sure you know, it's a strange life in the sense that you're, you know, you're far away from your family. The opportunity to have a family is not always available, and I always knew that I wanted to be a mum.

So you know, I did it, and I had phenomenal opportunity, and I traveled a lot. And yeah, but then eventually I wanted to move back. I also wanted to start my own little thing, and yeah, and become a mum, and give city life a try. And I love it as well, but I must be honest, I crave the bush. I have to go back fairly often that the smell, it's just something that I have to do. As autumn starts coming into Joburg, I immediately start booking all my holidays to go to the bush. Winter in the bush is the, it's just, it's the best thing in the world. I agree with you 100%. I miss it every single day, and I've still got a lot of friends that are in the lodge industry or in the gardening industry, and when I see them posting on Facebook, it really does it for me. There's a mate of mine, he runs a company called EcoTraining, and they're in the Pride Lens Conservancy. I think it's up near Hoods Gateway. And they regularly post, you know, "I walked into an elephant today. The lions were through the camp last night," and I'm thinking, "I want to be there." It does, though, instill in you a sense of customer service, because when you're working in the safari industry in general, customer service is what it's all about, and I suppose that then translates into what you do.

100%, and finally you should say that, you know, it's actually, if somebody has, whenever I'm employing, and somebody has that they've worked extensively in a hospitality space, I'm immediately intrigued, and there's something about coming out of that industry that teaches you not only exceptional customer service, but it's great communication, it's attention to detail, and it's a phenomenal work ethic that I think, for me, I find very attractive in an employee. So, yeah, I think that there's a great deal to be said about coming out of that kind of a background. Indeed, yes, especially when you've gone 28 days without any time off, and you get your next group of tourists in, for example, and they're expecting a great time, you're sort of expecting, "When am I going to get some sleep again?" but you've got to get that level of service right, which then, in a roundabout way, brings me to talking about how to be a better human. Why do we need to be better humans? So I think where it came from, for me, is looking at, over the COVID period, looking at a lot of the things that were happening, gender-based violence, Black Lives Matter, looking at how people were celebrating the changes on the natural world once humans were driving around less, and there was a lot going on on social media.

But what I kept coming across was the fact that people were really struggling to find access to factual information. It tended to be people were getting information from other people's Facebook postings, but there wasn't actually a central place where people could go and they could get factual information where they would be able to make more educated and informed decisions. And I coupled that with the fact that I was seeing so many of the NGOs struggling to get cash and struggling to get funding to keep coming through. We can't do golf days, we can't do an evening at the barnyard theater, we can't do drop-offs of food for animals. How are these organizations supposed to keep on running? And then also, how many people were losing their jobs and how many graduates were not looking to be able to get jobs? And I think I looked at all of these things and I was like, you know, there is a solution. And for me, that's where Be a Better Human came about was the fact that I could create an online learning platform where people could go on and they could do short courses. So the idea is really like in the time that it takes you to drink a cup of coffee, you'll be able to do a short course on a cause, a planetary issue, health topics, and a piece of information that you've always wanted to know.

You can do a short course, you can understand how it works. And then 20% of that course fee goes to the linked charity. So every single course has a charity that is connected to it. And they are the beneficiary recipient of that fee. And they actually go and they vet the course for us. So we get the courses created and they go and they have a look and check, yes, this is correct. It's actually accurate. It's on a subject matter that they are experts in, and then they get 20% of the fee and the actual course creators. So we're looking at graduate students, we're looking at people that are struggling to pay off their student loans. People that are subject matter experts are able to come in and create these courses for us and also earn a percentage of that to help pay off their student loans. So for me, it was kind of a way that we could, we could address a lot of needs all in the same way and that people would be able to learn something interesting, there's that offer of exchange, you know, come on, learn more about pangolins, you're hearing all about them, you're hearing that, you know, there's a link to COVID, you're hearing all this stuff, but what actually is a pangolin, where are they from?

How often are they trafficked? What do they eat? And, you know, pangolin Africa benefits from that, the course creative benefits. So for me, it was really a win-win. Sounds absolutely fantastic what you're doing. I want to dive deeper into that in just a little bit. My special guest is Sally Acton. And the new venture that's going to be kicking off this month is learn to be a better human. And we'll be finding out more about that when we come back. It is what's involved. Great to have you along with us. And we're back with Sally Acton, learn to be a better human. You mentioned something, Shelley, just before the break that I found very, very interesting is, you know, the stuff going on around social media. And this is what I wanted to touch on with learning to be a better human is yes, we understand and we've talked it to death about the impact of COVID. I don't think we've even seen all of the fallout yet, but people have become nasty. And online people have become particularly nasty. And I don't know if that's fear based or what it is, but is that something that you're hoping to address as well in terms of what you guys are going to be offering? Well, I think that I think, first of all, I agree.

I do think that sometimes we see the darker side of people on social media, but you know, we also see the good side and we also see people that are doing amazing things and the ability to celebrate that. But I think what I'm hoping that we're going to be able to do is we're going to be able to provide people for a place where they can go and learn something before they respond and before they get involved. You know, we're not looking to pass judgment on certain things, but we're looking to say, do you really understand the subject matter that you're talking about? So before you respond to something on a long rant on social media, go and have a look and actually do a course and understand what it is that you're speaking about so that you can make a more informed and hopefully balanced response. Because yeah, I do think we've seen people just responding. I do think there is a lot of fear. I think that people also make quite inflammatory comments with the hope of baiting or enticing other people to get into an argument with them. It's very interesting, just sort of on a side note. We're actually going to be working with Project Braveheart, who will be doing lots of courses on bullying from a corporate perspective and will be doing short courses for parents on obviously how to address bullying with their children and for the children themselves that they can have a resource that they can go to online.

But they've said how much bullying has increased over this COVID period, not only in schools and cyber bullying, but corporate bullying, where the balance of power has shifted so much and people are going through so many stresses at home that they are bullying other people at work or being bullied themselves. And I think that social media is often a space where those stresses that if you're feeling financial pressure, if you're feeling problems being, I don't know, cooped up with your spouse or your partner, that sometimes it's a bit of an outlet. So I do think that we will be able to work with people on that and we will be able to offer them some resources and some time for them to sit with some of the material. I do also think that when we look at subject matters that are quite inflammatory or difficult for people to talk about, things like bias, things like privilege, things like diversity and inclusion, we are working with subject matter experts to be running short courses on those as well. And I think that those are subject matters that people need to spend time with. It's not something that you can necessarily just do a short course and immediately understand and change your viewpoint.

It's something that you need to spend some time with. So we're hoping that by offering these short courses, people will be able to spend some time. They'll be able to do some work and actually examine their own outlooks and then go back to the resources and do them again so that they do start to form different opinions or at least an understanding and empathy for what other people perhaps are experiencing. Yeah, I mean, that's one thing that became very clear over this last little while is the armchair experts because there were so many of them and there's so many things that have been kicked around. The sort of one that amused me and was quite sad was the whole 5G debate. People were becoming rabid about the fact that 5G was going to suck your brains out and that this is all part of the conspiracy, et cetera, et cetera. Sally, you've mentioned a couple of things, but how broad is learn to be a better human going to be? Well, I think we can go down a lot of different roads, but I think at the moment, we're really focusing on a couple of key pillars. So we're focusing on planetary issues, we're focusing on people, like people that you should know about, kind of the unsung heroes, I guess, or people that are of interest, we're looking at animals, we're looking at causes and movements.

So that would be your gender-based violence, period, poverty, that type of thing, Black Lives Matter, and then things that are related to health and education. So that's really on early detection of things like different types of cancers. Yeah, quite a lot in that space. And then obviously we're looking at kind of the more, I don't know, I guess the more lighthearted or fun, interesting courses are going to be around some elements of sports, history of sport, how different sports work. There are a lot of people that don't understand. You can do, for example, a short course on rugby and you can understand how the scoring works. If you're like me and potentially you don't necessarily know where the 22 is as well, you can go on and you can learn. And the benefits of that go to developing sports in rural communities. I have a great passion for sport and I believe that it has the ability to uplift lots of different communities. So we've had some really great sports stars that have helped to contribute towards making these courses for us and people will be able to do those. So those are kind of more fun and information, do you know the history of boxing in South Africa? Do you know the history of rugby?

How do you score them? So yeah, I think there's also going to be some interesting stuff. We've got some junior range of stuff for the kids. We're working with the Two Oceans Aquarium on also doing some interesting topics there for children. So there will be some more lighthearted stuff and then the rest is really aimed at more of a sort of late teen, late teen upwards audience. All right, now you mentioned that there's going to be all of these courses, etc, etc. You spoke about some of the proceeds going to the various charities. What are we looking at? Is it a flat membership fee or is it a per course fee and what sort of range are we looking at price wise? So for our paid courses, they're all 100 rand ex-vats, so that would be 115 rand per course. There is only one fee. We don't charge differently for it. We're trying to make it very accessible for everybody. We are also working with a couple of amazing corporate sponsors that are going to be sponsoring courses which will actually be for free and they will also be made data free. So those courses will be aimed at helping people get jobs, helping people learn to grow food in a small amount of space, rainwater harvesting, creating micro economies, some fiscal wellness and those courses are actually being sponsored by different corporates from around the country and those will be free for everybody to do and if you don't have data, you'll be able to do those courses data free as well on a first come, first serve basis with the idea that we can create that educational material and we can get to the people that need it.

So we will have the paid for courses benefit the charities and the free courses are really just for whoever needs that information so that we can try and get as many people in – my hope is that we can get as many people to get up skilled to be able to feed and look after their family or to be able to get a job. If there's anything that we can do to help with that, then that is kind of my aim. You certainly have bitten off a huge chunk here when I hear you talking about this, Sally. The fact that you've mentioned that some of these training and courses are going to be zero rated in terms of data I think is absolutely brilliant. I do another show along with the guys at a place called Zebuza.net. We do an education show and that's been one of the biggest things. It's one of the things that I've always asked is why can we not make this kind of education zero rated in terms of data so it can get out to the people that need it. So just the fact that you've done that, I take my hat off to you because that in itself must have taken quite a bit of time. Well, yeah, my husband's not really talking to me at the moment, but yeah, it has been a lot of work, but I think we're so lucky as a nation and as a continent.

I think where being African is such a tactical advantage, if you want, is that there's this real community spirit and there's this real how can I help you. It just comes from such a good place. There's none of this dragon's den kind of you can only move ahead if I'm standing on you to put you down. There's everybody that I've reached out to or everybody that's heard about the initiative is like, how can I help, where can we be involved, who can I connect you with that can assist you. So, I mean, though, yeah, it's been a lot of work. I can tell you that the spirit of Ubuntu is alive and well and I have had literally hundreds of people assist me in lots of different ways. I've got a huge amount of teams that have helped me with content and I've had working with some incredible female entrepreneur partners that we're getting connected through their network. So yeah, I really haven't done this alone and yeah, it's just been amazing, the assistance and the willingness to support from all corners of the continent. Wonderful stuff. My special guest is Sally Acton and they're going to be launching Learn to Be a Better Human. So, some great stuff there. We'll talk more with Sally when we come back.

This is what's involved. And we're back with my guest Sally Acton and be a better human, learn to be a better human. It's an amazing concept and you know, tell you when you talk, I can hear your passion, I can hear your excitement, but let's talk nuts and bolts for a little bit. This idea for this project is a massive big idea and it's Genetech, you've mentioned hundreds of people, but how have you managed to do this while still running talk? With a lot of caffeine, you know, I think anybody that's an entrepreneur is nodding and smiling and you know, every single day with our big buddy, I wake up at two o'clock in the morning and I do a huge amount of work in the morning while it's dark and quiet and before my kids get up and before the day starts. And then yeah, and then we've, and then sort of move on to talk and then carry on with be a better human. So again, you know, my team and talk are phenomenal and they, you know, they've really been very supportive of the new business and of the idea, so I couldn't have done it without them. But yeah, running two businesses is always a challenge and it's, you know, it's kind of like the new baby and the toddler, they both need attention in different ways.

But yeah, again, I work with a coach and she's been really great with helping me, you know, segment my days and have a plan for how I'm going to be able to do this and still, you know, hopefully be a reasonable mom and wife. And as I said, I'm also an athlete, so I do a lot of training. So yeah, it's a bit of a balancing act, but it's very rewarding and I really love what I do. I, I enjoy it, you know, it never feels like a slog. I know a lot of people say that, but for me, really is true. I really enjoy everything that I do, so it never feels onerous. So, and I love the fact that you say that these courses are going to be like what, 20 minutes long and that people get in there, you can get your fix and then make a decision from there. How much content do you have at the moment? Because your launch is around the corner. Do you, do you have enough content or are you looking at this content creation in an ongoing basis? Yeah, absolutely. Look, we will, we will be bringing on new courses every single month. We have a, we have a plan all the way through 2021 at the moment, we'll be launching with 50 to start with and then we'll have, we'll have about 80 by the end of the year that will be ready.

And then, yeah, the plan is to, to onboard anywhere from 10 to 20 a month, depending on, you know, on how we go and the various content providers. So yeah, we want there to be a constant flow of new information coming on. And as we start working with different, different NGOs and different charitable organisations for them to be assisting us with, with content creation and with subject matter that we can get into. I mean, really just what I've, what I've learned already, just, just working with some of them, you know, it has just been phenomenal. I mean, just for example, I'm working with one amazing lady who's doing a course for us on, on urban and street art in Johannesburg, and that that, that was just fascinating. She did her, she did a PhD in the history of graffiti and constitutional Hill on the 50s, 60s and 70s. And just such an amazing person to learn from. So you know, we're, we're really, we're really going to be covering a lot of different subject matters. So yeah, I think, I think that there is, there's room for massive expansion, I'm always going to be looking for new content. So, you know, if there is anybody that's, that's got content or subject matter, subjects that they'd like us to look at, then I'm, I'm definitely open to it.

I would really like to connect with as many people as possible. That was actually going to be my next question is, is, would you still be looking for content? So, you know, if somebody sits in and goes, well, you know, I have an interest in model aircraft, for example, could they make a course for that? Are there, are there guidelines that you'll give people? Because I know online courses are massive at the moment across the board. And I think of places like Udemy, where we, you know, you can also go on and do various courses. Is this going to be a South Africanized version to a large degree? You know, Udemy is, Udemy is really a different, a different kind of, a different kind of thing. It's really about acquiring a skill set over a long period of time that's going to, you know, going to enhance your, your job or your, you know, or your, your career. We're really not aiming to play in that space. Our idea is to really focus on topics of interest that you wouldn't necessarily have access to and really in that, that micro class sense, Udemy, most of them are, you know, at least a four to eight hour, if not week long courses, our aim is really to be super short. We are definitely looking for content, our kind of guidelines are that it's, it must be, it must be a subject that we are able to get verified in fact check.

That's very, very important for me. It is non-political. We are not looking at political information. We're looking at facts. And yeah, I mean, we, we, we basically want to broaden it out to, you know, I'd love to do a whole lot of series on different types of music, the evolution of it, art, you know, what is impressionism, give us a few examples of it. Almost like a, what is it called, the lazy intellectual brain hacks, you know, be able to offer short micro classes and some of those topics would be great. But I mean, if I look at just from a, you know, a guiding wildlife perspective, there are a huge range of subjects that we want to cover there still, we want to cover a lot in the agricultural space and sustainability. We want to look a lot at personal development, coaching micro classes around that. So yeah, there's, there's a huge range of subject matter that we're still looking for and I'm definitely always going to be on the look for, for content. Wonderful. My special guest is Sally Acton from Be a Better Human. We're running out of time, so when we come back, we're going to wrap it up with Sally and find out how you can get hold of her and then just double check on the launch date of Be a Better Human more when we come back.

And we're back, it is what's involved with my guest Sally Acton. What a fantastic project and learn to be a better human, Sally, the pricing structure sounds brilliant, but the infrastructure to run this must also, I mean, this must have been a fairly substantial investment to date. Yeah, that's why I mentioned my husband not speaking to me. Anything you thought you might want to do, the answer is no, no. Yeah, it has been and, you know, I have, I'm lucky that with my, with my business with talk, we, you know, we work a lot with large corporates on learning and development. So I have a fair amount of experience in that, in that area, which allowed me to, to be able to get the setup and a great support team. So yeah, it has been, but I think it's going to be worth it. And yeah, I'm very excited. We're going to do the soft coach, as I said, on the 16th of October and then our full launch by the end of October, just to make sure that all the tech, the heads and stuff, and does what it's supposed to do. And yeah, I'm very excited to take it to market. Fantastic. What is the website, the web address? What's that going to be? So the official learning site will be learn to be a better human dot com.

Currently if people are interested in pre registering for courses or finding out more about either being a content provider or being a beneficiary organization, or if there are any corporates that are open to looking at sponsorship of the courses for some of the free courses that I mentioned, they can go to beabettahuman.co.za and they can register with what they're interested in learning more about and we'll send them the information packs on that and they can also watch our promotional videos and understand a little bit more about how the actual platform will work. And normally at this stage of the interview, I ask my guests what's their next, but I don't know if you could even have a next now because there's just so much that you're doing. What is your vision? Where are we going? Well, I certainly have a lot of courses and a lot of plans, especially around the free courses that I was chatting to you about. So that is my 2021 plan is to really get it successful and get a lot more content on there and a lot more content to the people that need it and cash to the NGOs and cash to the content creators. But I think, I mean, if I have to, if I have to, what's the corporate speak, Blue Skyit, I think, you know, where I'd love to go eventually is to have physical spaces where we can have be a better human officers or and where we can have centers where people can volunteer their time.

People that are barbers or hairdressers can help people that are perhaps looking for work or down there like to be able to go and have a haircut, have a shower, get a meal, where people can drop off their clothes and, you know, people can go and choose a new coat. You know, that that element of dignity for me is so important. When I look at people that are struggling, you know, they they have to kind of make do with what they get rather than getting those those choices and that, you know, that I don't have that human interaction and that human dignity. So for me to be able to eventually have centers where people can go, that would be that would be amazing. But yeah, I might not tackle that for another another another year or two. Look, I'm blown away by the concept and the more I've spoken to you, the more I thought, you know what? This is one of those ideas that when you hear somebody putting into action, you sort of smack yourself upside that and go, why didn't I think about this? Because it is so needed. It is so necessary. I was chatting to somebody the other day and, you know, despite the nastiness and despite, you know, this bad times and let's face it, our country, as I said, I don't think we've even experienced the full effect of the fallout yet.

But underlying all of this, there is a sense of us becoming more human. And of us being kinder. Do you think this is this is part of what what what drove you to do this website and to present this? Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, I think that when you look at, you know, there's kind of a weariness that people get when they they look at the problems of the world and they look at, you know, a person that's standing on the street corner at the robots and there's a there's a tiredness that seems to over overcome people where it just it feels too big. It feels too big for you to handle to, you know, to change and it's completely overwhelming. But everybody basically has that kindness and then that humanness in them. And when they make eye contact with somebody that's standing next down on their luck and they recognize each other's humanity, there's a moment that happens there that is so special. And, you know, and I think that I think that we we're just looking for ways to help. And for me, this was a way that people could help. They could get involved, they can make they can know that the money that they're spending is going to people in need. They can see where it's going. There's a there's an audit trail, so to speak, of the organizations that the money is going to you and that they can see that that they are making a difference.

You know, it's it's really, really, really overwhelming at the moment. But even if you do a little bit of a couple of courses or you just help one person, the the impact that you're making is huge, you know. So I always just think like don't give up, you know, we don't feel overwhelmed. Just make one little thing. Just do one small change, interact with one person that's, you know, down on their luck. Give them a hand if you can. You know, sometimes it's an apple, sometimes it's a smile. Sometimes it's just recognizing that they are another person. You know, I just I think that this is just a way that we can we can just keep rolling it on and build momentum. And as I said, you know, I get very passionate about the fact that that Africa is such an amazing continent. And we've got this community spread like it's it's what we do and let's just keep doing it. You know, we're we're amazing like that. I would agree with you 100 percent. And that's what excites me about this project to learn to be a better human, because I believe in this country, I believe in the people of this country. And you know, we always look at what's broken in our country. And yet, you know, over this last while, all we have to do is look to the big brother in the sense of the United States and go you guys pointed fingers at us all of this time, but you haven't done so well and you're not doing so well.

And I believe it's exactly what you say. We as the people of South Africa and of Africa have an incredible capacity for forgiveness, for kindness and for love. And the fact that you're going to be doing this and launching it and it's going to be able to give back, I think is absolutely fantastic. We wish you all the best, Sally. Thank you so much for taking the time out, having a chat to us. Once again, if somebody wants to get hold of you, the best place to do it is on the website. Yeah, beabettahuman.co.za at the moment is is definitely in the best way. All of that comes straight to me. So please do reach out and I will get back to you. And I look forward to being better humans with everybody. Fantastic stuff. That was my special guest, Sally Acton. Again, Sally, thank you. Go well. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. Thanks so much, David. Thank you for having me. There we go. You're going to get a chance to be a better human as well, the soft launch happening on the 16th of October. But yeah, check it out. Let me know. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well. If you want to chat to me about anything at any stage, it's quite simply David@whatso involved.co.za.

David@whatsoinvolved, it's W-A-T-T-S-I-N-V-O-L-V-E-D, David@whatsoinvolved.co.za. Until next time, thank you for listening.