Jane explains how she ended up taking to the stage in Brighton in 2024 to go public about the discrimination she experienced in 2009.

Exclusion always hurts. When it happens, right from the school playground up to Board meetings, if we say it doesn’t hurt, we are lying – including to ourselves.

I know how privileged I am. I had a caring, consistent upbringing, went to good state schools and had the opportunity to learn music there and discover a lifelong love of it. I have almost always had work so could afford to live. I know how many people do not have these things. And I try to use my privileges positively.

I also know the searing pain of exclusion, particularly as a deaf person. When, in 2009, my then-employer singled me out for their new ‘reasonable adjustments’ policy as a thinly veiled way to get rid of me because my requirements as a deaf person were too costly, it had an extraordinary series of impacts on me. These were physical, mental, psychological and –combined as they were over several years – crushing. It took me a long time to even realise that this had been trauma, and quite what the extent of that trauma was.

When this happened, although my colleagues were supportive, they were also bewildered. It was a difficult experience to empathise thiw. I was the one among 14,500 staff to whome this had happened. So I mainly internalised it. And wrote about it. Friends encouraged me to ‘get a book out’ while the tribunals I brought against the employer were news. But I was already experiencing disassociate disorder (feeling there were two versions of me – one looking on critically). To try to objectify what had happened sufficiently in a book could, I think, have pushed me over the edge.

Only the person going through such vulnerability can know when the moment is right to speak about it more widely. As Brené Brown says, you have to make yourself appropriately vulnerable. I shared some of the stories face-to-face with a trusted friend. Her shocked reaction made me realise how extreme the experience had been. It also motivated me to find ways to communicate this so that those who may be experiencing something similar would not feel alone.

An opportunity presented itself when the brilliant CEO of the Arts Marketing Association (AMA), Cath Hume, and I started planning a keynote for their annual conference. The conference theme was ‘Be Bold, be Brave’ but our topic was to look at why vulnerability is at the heart of this. As we started to plan our content and shape the talk, I had a vivid vision of myself in a spotlight telling my discrimination story and explaining how I turned raw vulnerability into something positive. I made the unusual suggestion that we could integrate some material about the topic with my personal story. Typically open and creative, Cath agreed.

The script wrote itself. It was interesting that when I was given a structure on which to hang the story, the words flowed. I knew it had to be very short, simple and honest.

I have got much better at seeking support over the past decade. So I contacted Garth Bardsley – a friend since college days – to ask for his help in preparing what would be a stage performance – the first of this type I had given. His help, in our kitchen early one summer morning, helped me bring alive the words with specific eye contact and gesture. I felt terrified about learning my lines and getting it right. I took my usual approach – practise, practise and practise some more.

When in Brighton for the conference, I spent part of the first evening pacing by the sea speaking my lines. I am sure locals took me for a friendly ecentric but I didn’t care. On the day, stepping into the spotlight, my heart was pumping – not at that point because I was worried about my lines – but because I was finally telling people what happened.

It all went past so quickly, afterwards I felt dazed and very unsure of how it had gone. I knew I had needed to do it but then questioned what difference it had made. With thanks to the AMA, you can view the talk which they filmed and judge for yourself.

The final section of the performance describes how it feels to have turned one of the most terrifying experiences of vulnerability into something positive and life-enhancing. My work at Result CIC as a leader, coach and facilitator, working daily with people going through their own tough experiences can feel miraculous at times and healing. But the vulnerability continues and is an important ingredient in our work. I regularly have to delve into my own vulnerability – plumbing the depths in order to understand, and be able to support, others as well as possible. It is a precious resource which, used well, can transform and deepen connections with others. Think about how you use yours.

We are what we do and we love what we do.