Meet the Mancunian - Talking power of stories with Krish Patel

Meet the Mancunian-5.4-Krish Patel – transcript

Intro

Welcome to the fifth season of the Meet the Mancunian podcast, social impact stories from Manchester. I'm Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe, your friendly host. It's a privilege and a pleasure for me to interview some of the most inspiring people working in Manchester's social impact sector and feature them on this podcast.

Our guests are leaders and worker bees associated as employees, trustees, and volunteers with social enterprises, non-profits and community groups, they share their life story and passions with you, dear listener. My aim through this podcast is to inspire you and share a bit of good news. My guest tackle serious concerns in Manchester, but many of these are also universal themes resonating in many parts of the globe. All my guests talk about the power of collaboration and how together we are stronger. They of course, expand on their pride in Manchester and Mancunians as well.

I hope you enjoy listening to the podcast on Apple, Spotify or Google or any of your favourite podcasting platforms. You can also listen to the podcast episodes and read the transcripts on my website, www.meetthemancunian.co.uk.

If you are a new listener, you can log on to www.meetthemancunian.co.uk to listen to the first four seasons of the podcast, and read more about my podcasting story. If you are a returning listener, welcome back. Thank you for your support.

Welcome to the fourth episode of the Meet the Mancunian podcast, season five. Passionate about the power of stories to inspire change, we hear from Krish Patel, Founder, Tales to Inspire in this episode.

Episode 4

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I'm delighted to introduce my guest, Krish Patel, Founder, Tales to Inspire. Thank you so much, Krish, for joining me today.

Krish Patel: You're very welcome, Deepa. I'm glad to be here.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: First Monday of the, well, first working Monday of the new year, isn't it?

Krish Patel: It is, and actually it feels like that it's the first day I've been productive since the new year,

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So you had a break before, that’s nice.

Krish Patel: Well, I tried not to have a break, but it just didn't work. I just couldn't get my engine going.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: No, fair enough. But tell us first about your passion for the power of stories.

Krish Patel: So stories are everything. Now we know that stories are everything. We are told stories from the moment we come into this earth, actually before we come to this earth. Our mother or parents, they talk to us whilst we're not even born yet.

However, sometimes it sounds a little bit like it's in the clouds. It's a bit fluffy. Really what stories brings for me is connection. All I've ever wanted to do my whole life is feel connected, connected to my parents, connected to my family, my environment, my society, and most importantly, connected to myself.

Stories brings connection. And that is why it's such a passion for me. I mean, there's so much I can go into, but hopefully we can delve a little bit into the power of stories today.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I'd love to learn more about that. So then you started Tales to Inspire, obviously connected to your passion for stories and connection to tell us more about it and what does it do?

Krish Patel: So Tales to Inspire was started out of an opportunity to see that I wanted to make a difference. That's it. I wanted to make a difference in this world that we live now. We share people's stories. We share people's stories to show people there's nothing we can't break through. That's what we started in 2019, and I had this ingenious idea that I would share someone's story and let's see what would happen by trying to encourage the world and we shared it.

It was of a person called Danny, who at the time was working for Invisible Manchester, an amazing organization here in Manchester. And he was homeless for over five years. We shared his story. 

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Is this Invisible Cities?

Krish Patel: Yeah. So Invisible Manchester is a branch of Invisible Cities. [Note to listeners - Invisible Cities was featured on Season 4, Episode 6 of the Meet the Mancunian podcast]

Invisible cities in Edinburgh and York and Cardiff, and all over an Invisible Manchester in those years. And Danny was homeless for over five years. He overcame being homeless, and I interviewed him and shared his story. Originally it was supposed to be an hour’s interview. Three and a half hours later, I was still interviewing Danny, and we wrote it down, wrote his story down, and we put it onto this website, Tales to Inspire, and I always put Helplines at the bottom of his story and with no other idea, put it out there.

And within one day, a young lady who was going to take her own life read Danny's story and felt encouraged, and she went and got help by one of those helplines.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Wow.

Krish Patel: Within three days, his story had been read in 15 countries around the world. And I started to think maybe there's something with the power of stories.

Krish Patel: And ever since then it's really grown into something huge in terms of, not huge in terms of the BBC but huge in terms of making an impact. And now we've developed that into a social enterprise or a not-for-profit organisation. Schools reached out. Can you deliver workshops? Yep. And then the corporate space. Can you deliver workshops and programs? Of course we can.

We've now shared the stories of over 120 ambassadors around the world.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Wow.

Krish Patel: And it's been an amazing journey. Our stories have been read in 97 countries around the world and listened to on our podcast in 67 countries around the world.

And it's been an amazing, amazing journey. But once again, it's not about stories specifically. It's about connection and showing people that they all have a potential to do better. Where we're at is great, but we can all do better. And that's kind of one of our philosophies. So it's grown into a team of us now and we're making an impact in our own unique ways, and that's Tales to Inspire.

It all happened because of my own suffering. I was really struggling before that, but that's kind of the journey of Tales to Inspire where we're at and stories and what was happening kind of came in my childhood and growing up.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's really interesting and the reason I asked about Danny and Invisible is because, we had Lauren Rosegreen on the podcast last season, and of course she talked about Invisible Cities and the work that they were doing. So that was an interesting connection, and of course that's how we met each other.

What challenges have you faced? You referred to challenges, you said you were struggling before Tales to Inspire. Are there challenges that you've had to overcome after you've started Tales to Inspire, to grow to where you are? Or anything that, you know, other listeners, might get inspired by and, you know, apply to their own life.

Krish Patel: If I'm going to be truthfully honest, there's been a lot of challenges. Now on the outside, I get to do workshops and go and speak at events all the time where I am an entrepreneur and the person doing this, I'm making an impact in people's lives.

It is tough. There's no word that says it is tough, and a few of the things, so if I go into my own background, my own family, I'm half English and I'm half Indian. I've been racially abused since I was five years old. Because of the color of my skin, I always identified as English, but I looked Indian. I couldn't speak the language that we speak until I was older.

And I've always felt like all I've ever wanted to do is fit in. That's it. And I've always been, I was always told that I couldn't achieve my dreams, you know, and, and self-doubt is one of the things that I have the most people think. And Deepa, this is really important, that people think I'm this bubbly, amazing, energetic, no one can get me down.

Behind closed doors, I have the most self-doubt that anyone could ever, ever imagine, right? I have a practice and I have a routine that I really deal with and do loads behind the scenes to ensure that I am who I want to be. However, there are lots of struggles. So one of them, for example, is independence.

Like I have never felt like I could be independent. I have a social enterprise that my dad thinks is a charity. No, dad, it's a business. Trying to be independent and not get a proper job and not do those side of things has been hard.

At the age of 24, I ran four marathons in four days, and when I built a schoolhouse in Uganda, I was seen as weird, what are you doing? You're 24, care about  having a proper job, money, getting a big house, having a family, you know?

And then at the age of 26, I swam 53 miles to help 36 homeless people in Manchester go from the streets into employment. And once again, I thought it would be this massive impact to help people and people were negative towards it.

Like, you need to actually get a proper job, or you need to do something that actually is not trying to be the saviour of the world and all this kind of stuff. All I knew that helping people made me feel good. That is it. So why not carry on? And that's been a difficult one.

Even with Tales Inspire. We've shared stories of people, refugees, for example, and people have followed us and asked us what we are doing or, or trollers or made us feel really bad for, or tried to make us feel bad for that.

So I think that's one of the things that's been a real challenge. Money. Why is it that if you want to do good, it's expected to be free. If you want to do good, you know what? You should get paid extra. You should get paid more because you're doing good. Why is it that only if we make more money, then you, you get paid more?

Surely human happiness should be the foundation of everything. And if you are doing that, that's where things go. So when we charge schools or we go to a corporate space and say, Yeah, we're going to charge you money for this. They go,  but you're a social enterprise. Shouldn't it be free? No, shouldn't be free.

Like I'm a human. You know what I mean? So it's, there's been a lot of self-doubt where I would love to do everything for free. And the first year and a half I did. But it's definitely been a difficult journey.

And the other thing is the future. The future is a really hard thing to deal with, especially when you run your own business or you have an organization, because people always ask you.

What are you going to do in the future? What's the next five year plan? Where's your business plan or what do you want to do? I have no idea. I just want to make sure there's a feeling of connection in impacting people's lives. So it's a really difficult one. But really the hardest thing after saying all of that, the hardest thing is the person in the mirror.

And that's the hardest thing to overcome, essentially.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that. And you know, both the bit about self-doubt and that confidence that we need to boost ourselves, and almost be our own believer because there's a lots of naysayers out there, but at the same time, if you can find your tribe, you're very lucky and you need to build on that.

So, yeah, totally understand. And obviously many of the concerns are about how do you make a business, which is actually adding value to the community, adding value to the thing. And I mean, social enterprises are not for profit, but they're not free. So totally understand that.And obviously there's a little bit of an awareness problem, isn't it?

Tell us something about the impact that you made. You talked about some of the countries you've reached out to, but are there other ways that you've been able to dimensionalise an impact? I was very impressed with what you said with that very first story, helping a lady. A young girl think again about taking her life and reach out for help, because that's so important. And we've talked to people who work for suicide prevention helplines or raise funds for them, and it is a very difficult situation. so it's great to know about that. But are there other things you'd like to share?

Krish Patel: Yeah, so the impact side of things is something I'm really not great at in terms of a business leader because one of the things in doing this and obviously capture your data. Capture your data. I'm so excited about things that I never capture anything, you know, and so in terms of impact, we've, we've forwarded people onto over 150 support organisations and charities essentially.

That's amazing. To be able to forward people onto those after the stories we've shared. That's huge. And like I said, thousands of people have listened to our stories or read our books that we have. We have a book as well. We've raised awareness, like just simply raised awareness about organ donation, racism, homelessness, refugees, disability, entrepreneurship.

Like we've raised awareness on topics and shared the voices of people who wouldn't naturally be shared. And we've gave a platform and it's been huge. I don't try and judge, so if someone has a viewpoint, I'm not here to say, you are wrong or you're right. That's their life story. So we've, we've given a platform for people to share their story. So that's one thing.

For the last four years, every Wednesday evening I've been out on the streets of Manchester running a homeless outreach volunteer organisation called Brew Power. And four years, so that's 200 days maybe of going out once every week for the last four years just to connect to people on the streets.

And that's a personal, real big thing for me at the moment is, Am I doing the right thing? I love new things, but sometimes I get stuck in a rock. So that's been a huge thing for me. So I've got so many different things going on. In terms of the schoolhouse that we've built in Uganda that educates 150 children every single term.

So to this day, since 2017, as 150 children every single term, even through the Covid pandemic, it was tough. The children had to go home and learn via the radio. The schoolhouse is still running and the children are being educated again, so that's wonderful as well. In terms of Tales to Inspire and the thousands of people that we've helped, one of the great things, and it's not as such a number, it's the fact that it's accessible to everyone.

So we've delivered workshops to children as young as three, and we've delivered workshops to adults in their eighties. Storytelling is essentially the same. But the issue is we don't figure out how to connect it to the individuals we're trying to impact, and that is something that I'm super proud of.

Now, I've not been the person to deliver all those workshops. We've got amazing ambassadors and amazing team members who've delivered them. However, I guarantee I can do a workshop that connects to people all different ages with the same topic. Give me enough time and let me be creative. And I guarantee we can do that because there's something in the power of connection and that's something huge.

But in terms of impact on other things, I wouldn't say we're massive. But those are the numbers and side of things where we're at right now.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that, and I'll let my guests define impact in many different ways. Some people talk numbers, some people talk individual impact on one life, and that's amazing as well.

So they all matter and, and it's amazing the work that you've done in Uganda. I have a very soft spot for Africa because I have done three volunteering stints there. My cause is animals.

Krish Patel: Oh, nice.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So I worked with wildlife sanctuaries in Malawi, Kenya and Zimbabwe and those have been some of the happiest times of my life.

Krish Patel: I love it. Oh, what were you doing when you were there with the animals?

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I was working with them on communications and marketing, but also caring for the animals in the sanctuaries. So, kind of using my skills for good, but also just going and reading to the animals, cleaning cages, doing feeds, injections or school runs. We used to do some school awareness as well, which is really interesting.

How can interested people reach out to you and learn more. If you can talk about Tales to Inspire as well as your own social media and LinkedIn and stuff.

Krish Patel: Absolutely. So for, for reaching out to me, the best way is Tales to Inspire. So social media, Tales to Inspire, that's T A L E S. And then to Inspire and website, www.talestoinspire.com. And you'll go on there and you'll see a contact form that comes to me or one of our team members. That's the best way. If you go to social media, everything comes to me on there anyway, so you can reach out there.

Personally on LinkedIn. I'm Krishnan Patel. That's Krish, k r i s h n a n, Patel, p a t e l. And people can reach out. I am flooded with lots of info, but I always get back. That's my own thing. One thing I'll always get to you and always get back to you and connect. So please do feel free to reach out, ask any questions, or if you want to get involved or if you have any thoughts or creative ideas, then let's do it. So yeah, that's the best ways that people can reach out.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that, and I'll put that in these show notes as well. Okay. What advice would you have for people looking to start something similar, another part of the world or another part of the UK? You talked about the power of stories and the power of connection, and that's universal, like you said, from age three to age 80.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Let's say somebody else wants to start a social enterprise around the power of stories. How do they get started? What are your tips for them?

Krish Patel: First and foremost is not to get overwhelmed by trying to have a plan. So if I tried to have a plan to start Tales to Inspire, I would never have started the first day because if I knew how hard this was, I would never have begun.

So have a determination. So much more important than having a plan, have a determination, and let's see where that goes. Failure is when you fall off the plan, so why not just change the plan and make it more flexible? So that's one of the key things is that's really having determination in terms of starting a storytelling business or anything like that, or even your own thing.

That's being unique to you. I think that's huge - not trying to copycat others, but trying to be unique to yourself. If there was another 20 people who want to do the same thing as me, great, go and do it. But in your own unique way, because that's, all we can be is uniquely us. So I think that's a huge thing just to do that and to try and connect to ourselves.

I say this to all of our ambassadors who deliver workshops is we're not trying to inspire people to be like us. We're trying to ignite people's engines so that they can be like the best version of themselves that they may want to be. And I didn't know, what I wanted to be. Now, people could say, oh yeah, Krish, he wants to help people. He does all this stuff. I didn't care about people until I was 21 years old. I cared about girls, cars, money, partying. I was a footballer. That's all I cared about. You know, I didn't care about anything. But then one person saw the potential in me when I was struggling, took me under his wing, and he changed my life forever.

A person called Gabby in America and that changed my life. Because he saw what could have been. So for us, our role is to see the potential in others, but also to see the potential in ourselves. You could be the best scuba diver, Deepa that anyone's ever seen. The issue is you've never tried scuba diving. So to really not try and put ourselves in a box, that's one of the things, the moments of advice that I would say, yeah, I'm a storyteller, I'm a business owner, but I am so much more sometimes.

I can't be defined now. It's hard to realise that. On a little tangent, this year I went to the Himalayas and I got to try and walk up to Everest Base Camp and it was an amazing experience.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Wow. Amazing.

Krish Patel: Amazing experience. But before I went, I was so overwhelmed, I felt so, How do I run a business? How do I support organisations? How do I make an impact on people's lives? How do I earn enough money to live? How do I spend enough time with my girlfriend? How do I spend time with my family? I want to travel the world. How do I do that?

When I went there, it made me realise that my perspective on life had been so small. Life is so huge. It's so vast, it's infinite. That is one of the things to remember that when you are doing what you are doing, is to take the ceiling off the roof to realise how infinite you can be, and that's huge as well. So those are some of the tips that I would say.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Great ones. And especially like that one about taking the ceiling off the roof and just taking a moment to say that, you know what my life story's not written yet. So, you know, the book on our life that's going only be fully written, on our last day. So that's a long, there's a long way to come.So that's, that's really great. Thank you.

An opportunity now for you to talk about anything I haven't asked you about. Anything coming up in the next few months you'd like to share?

Krish Patel: Absolutely. We've just rebranded the whole of Tales to Inspire. So that's our logo, our brand, our website, our everything. So we've rebranded everything. So please go and check it out.

First and foremost, we have our corporate space. So we've launched our Leaders to Inspire program. So lots of people within the corporate space, and actually to be fair, any organization, anyone who wants to learn to be a leader, they reached out and said, is there a community that we can, we can learn more from?

So we decided to launch it. In February, our Leaders to Inspire program where people subscribe for little as zero to, depending on how much they want to pay. I think it's 12 pounds 99 a month, is you can get all these different types of information. So for example, you can get the content to inspire you. If it's Mental Health Awareness Week, we'll have designed bespoke content for you to be inspired during that.

And there'll be all these different contents. So you can always get content and you'll be part of a community so you can communicate together. So our Leaders to Inspire program is something that I would definitely recommend people to reach out to us with schools. Schools reach out. If you're looking for workshops, reach out.

We have incredible workshops on emotional, social, emotional wellbeing, and bringing in people with lived experience. We have that and we're doing that across the North West at the moment. And of course, any of the corporate sites where they want bespoke workshops reach out. We now have over 124 speakers, essentially 124 ambassadors who can all deliver workshops and speak about their lived experience. Textbooks are great. Lived experience is where the diamond is at. So if we can get that and get that into people's lives so they can hear these stories. We can really, once again, take that ceiling off the roof.

So otherwise, we're just looking to grow. This year I've had this one word focus that's I am great at doing, trying to do everything Deepa and it's not easy,

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: …like all of us, right? We have so many goals and visions.

Krish Patel: It's so exhausting, right? So this year I've spoke to a few of the team and Krish, focus, that's your aim for this year.

And agree. Focus is my aim. So despite me trying to do a million things, I'm going to try and focus and schools, we have things for teachers and for adults as well where we can support teachers. And it's just to see how we can support these people and grow

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I now move to my signature questions that I ask all my guests and, as this is Meet the Mancunian. The first one is to describe the Mancunian spirit in a word or a phrase.

Krish Patel: Hearty, I would say. Hearty is the way, you know, it's not too much about the theory, but it's definitely about the heart.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I like that. Can you share a Mancunian who inspires you and why? Can be one from the past or someone who's living.

Krish Patel: A Mancunian who's inspiring me? This is a really good question, by the way, because I have got like a list of about 30. I don't want any of them to say, how did you miss me? So is it better to go with. You know what? I'm going to go with a Mancunian who's really inspiring me. Lauren Rosegreen. You've had her on your podcast. This is a person who not many people would know outside of Manchester.

She's not from Manchester, but is she making an impact in Manchester and in what sector? The third sector all across it. Her name is known throughout. She's making such an impact. It's incredible. So, she's absolutely amazing. Her energy and her, her bubbly character and her ability to connect is phenomenal.

So I could go with obviously your typical Marcus Rashford and these kind of people, but at the heart, the heart of Manchester. How is it working? Lauren Rosegreen.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Lovely and a nice shout out to a very wonderful guest of ours. It's always nice.

What's the most important life lesson you've learned?

Krish Patel: The most important life lesson that I've learned is that everyone has the potential, everyone, but what they do with that potential is out of our control, but my role is to speak to that potential.

Inside of me is Adolf Hitler, but also Mother Teresa. I get to choose which one I want to activate. That is one of the biggest life lessons I've learned is that we all have that potential.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's a great one. And the, you know, like you said, it's the choices we make and what we decide to pursue. A really nice one.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: If you could have one superpower, what would that be?

Krish Patel: If I could have one superpower, it would be for people, every person to base all of their decisions on the respect of others, not at the expense of others. Now, I know it's not, it's kind of a forced feeling. But if we said, I said to you Deepa, you know what?

Krish Patel: Deepa, I want you to be happy alongside me, not instead of me. And if we can have that, we can see that kind of relationship based off the respect of life. That's the fundamental thing. We've lost that, or whether we ever had it. It's always been at the expense of someone else, whether it's the colour of their skin, the fact that they look different, the fact they have more money, the fact they're from a different country.

No, we're human, actually, we're so much more than that. Can we base every decision of the fact that we respect? So if I could have this magic wand, A magic power, I would switch this switch. So everything was based off the respect for life.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's a very nice one and I hope, I hope that world comes, sooner than later. I think people will be, people will be their best self more.

Is there a funny story you'd like to tell us to end the podcast? It has to be with Manchester, or your work.

Krish Patel: A funny story question as well…

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: …to the person who's the story king. Only if it comes to mind. Don't force yourself.

Krish Patel: There was a time, so I'll tell you a story actually. And I guess this is kind of a safety story as well for people to make sure they lock their car doors. So I was, this was me growing up back in the day and I think I was 17 or 18 and I was going to a party with my friend's dad and him, they were driving me to this party and it was a part of Manchester that I didn't know.

And I turned up to this petrol station and they pulled up at the petrol station at the pump. I said, don't worry, I'll go out and find out the directions. So I went into the petrol station and I asked for the directions and this lady said, oh, it's just down there. Take a left, take a right about a mile down the road and you'll get there.

I then proceeded to go to the car where the car parked, and I jumped in the front seat and I said, right, go down the road, take a left, take a right. It's a mile down the road and you'll get there. I had completely not realised that the car had moved forwards to give a space to someone else. And this woman was in the car seat next to me and screaming.

And I'd already put my seatbelt in, like told it was crazy embarrassing but funny afterwards. Funny. So, um, yeah, I've not told that story in a while..

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's a good one though. And yes, you're right. I always say trust in God, unlock your car.

Krish Patel: Yes, definitely.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Especially at petrol stations, huh?

Krish Patel: Yeah, definitely.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you so much. It was a real pleasure to talk to you, and that's all we have time for today.

Krish Patel: You're very welcome. Thank you so much for having me, Deepa.

Outro

Krish, thank you for talking to me and my listeners. I really enjoyed learning about the power of stories today.

Dear listener, thank you for listening to the fourth episode of Season five of the Meet the Mancunian podcast, social impact stories from Manchester. I hope you enjoyed it and it motivates you to follow your own dreams and passions.

Please do consider visiting the website, www.meetthemancunian.co.uk to leave me some feedback or suggestions on what causes resonate with you or ones that you would like to see featured here. I really welcome listener feedback and I will do my best to incorporate your suggestions in future episodes.

Next week, the Meet the Mancunian podcast talks to Heather Glover about empowering postsurgical lingerie. Tune in on Tuesday, 16 May 2023 to hear the next episode.

You can follow the podcast on social media as @MeettheMancunian on Instagram or Facebook, or as @MancunianPod on Twitter. It'll be lovely if you can share or leave a comment.

Please do also consider introducing this podcast to a friend or a family member. You can also sign up for my new newsletter on www.meetthemancunian.co.uk. No spam episode roundups, bonus content, and a preview of what's coming next on the podcast.

Thank you so much.