What have you learned about wellness?
I’ve learned the importance of health and fitness. How invincible you feel when you’re 30 or 40 is amazing. Ofcourse we don’t even speak about our 20’s because there you feel like you’re going to live forever. I must be honest, I have taken a lot onboard. I don’t eat any processed food.
People tell me I’ve got good skin and I look great for my age, and that’s because I work at it. I try, as much as I can, to follow a lifestyle that gives me a certain amount of carbohydrates, and fruit and vegetables. Not boringly though! Trust me, I can tuck into a piece of carrot cake or an almond croissant and a coffee! But I am aware of what I should and shouldn’t have. And if I do have it, my body punishes me for it.
What advice did your dad give you when you were younger, that you wish you’d taken onboard?
I wish I’d listened to my dad, when he very boringly said ‘if you save 10% of your income from the day you start earning, you’ll never be in trouble’. I have not been, in my life, very good with money. I’ve been very generous – maybe to a fault. That’s part of my people pleasing nature, which I work on, on a daily basis. I wish I’d taken that to heart.
And advice from your mom?
My mum used to be very conscious of being in the present, and I just thought she was boring. In those days it was incredibly New Age to preach being in the present, whereas now we’re all talking about it. Mindfulness is also enormous and fantastically so. Ruby Wax is a friend of mine and she’s a mindfulness guru, and the woman is wonderful, so I don’t dismiss it at all.
My mom was an early adapter and I never took that onboard. I was always looking – the first award I got, I looked for the second and the first gold album I got, I looked for the second. So I wish I hadn’t been such a comet going through my life.
What have you learned about activism?
I’m still very vehement and vocal about the things that I believe in. I think I must’ve gotten this from my grandmother, who was one of the founding members of the African Children’s Feeding Scheme. She taught me about injustice when I was young. What has happened and what will still happen in my life is that when I see injustice, I won’t keep quiet.
However, I have realised the power of operating within your sphere of influence. At the moment I am doing a lot of business coaching in adversity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace – diversity is when you get asked to the party, however inclusion is when you get asked to dance. Because that, again, is within my sphere of influence. And that realisation comes with age.