Lead with Courage
Together with your hosts Cherie and Andy Canning, you'll dive into the minds of the trailblazers, the risk takers and those who embrace life with a growth mindset .
Get ready for real and raw conversations where authentic truths are revealed, uncovering the struggles and resilience required to bounce back.
We invite you to see this podcast as your compass to embracing your own courage to live your biggest, best life!
Lead with Courage
Yas Grigaliunas | Less Showreel & More Real Reel | Lead with Courage
Have we got a story for you! Let us introduce you to the amazing Yas Grigaliunas. This incredible human is about to blow your mind.
Yas stops by the #leadwithcourage podcast to chat about her journey as a mum, a cancer pre-vivor, and a social impact entrepreneur at Circonomy (formerly known as the world's biggest garage sale).
We dive deep into the idea of the circular economy, uncover some mind-blowing stats about female founders, and explore innovative ways of securing funding.
Yaz really hammers home the importance of tapping into your own courage, vulnerability, and authenticity to live a truly fulfilling life. And let me tell you, her personal anecdotes shed light on just how powerful resilience can be when overcoming adversity.
Whether you're looking for personal growth or professional success, the wisdom we gain from this chat underscores just how vital it is to lead with courage, authenticity, and, of course, kindness.
Ready to dive in and get inspired? Tune in to this week's episode of Lead with Courage.
#leadwithcouragepodcast #podcast #entrepreneur
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Thanks for joining us on the Lead with Courage podcast, bought to you by Luminate Leadership. We trust this episode has given you some insights and joy to empower you live your biggest, best life.
If you enjoyed it, we'd be grateful if you like, share and subscribe to hear our future conversations.
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Luminate's Website and LinkedIn and on
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Until the next episode, we hope you live and Lead with Courage!
Cherie and Andy x
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Luminate Leadership is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14.
Yeah, it's perfect, yep, yes, yeah, the boat's sexy. I'm looking hot as.
Speaker 3:You just want to talk for a second?
Speaker 1:Yeah sure, testing how you're going to squeeze through, you're going to do like the limbo. I love it. I hope you press record. Yeah, good, the behind the scenes. We definitely want the behind the scenes footage of us squeezing through. To get close, are you still happy with the?
Speaker 2:table. Oh yeah, so then you just film that. You're shocked. Yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, and how? Do you want my eyes to Talking to you? Yeah, perfect. So then does that work? Are you comfortable with how?
Speaker 2:that all looks you bring yourself in.
Speaker 1:We don't Get close.
Speaker 2:How's that?
Speaker 3:I was thinking a bit, but it's not a bad thing. Do you want to? No, let me come close up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh shit, hold on, I'm going to move the mic for a sec.
Speaker 3:I can amend the zoom. It's fine, it's more. Just when I positioned it initially I thought I might, oh, I'll sit there, but then oh, I like this Very intimate.
Speaker 1:I know we had. Oh, I like this yeah.
Speaker 3:Do you ever go to a contiki tour in Europe?
Speaker 1:No, I never did. You know, I did not.
Speaker 2:It's got a big space with or just tilt the actual camera. Yeah, the camera might need to move.
Speaker 1:No, I never did a contiki tour. There's actually a hilarious story with that. Maybe I should have, but my friend did. Yeah, right, and I cancelled going because I met oh man I thought I was going to marry, and then I married him. Oh, did you, can you?
Speaker 2:Can you just?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, maybe I think before I had the branding in it.
Speaker 1:it's just you probably won't be doing branding it. I'm super fussy about your brand. Yeah you do, yeah you do. I think that's We'll cut our legs off a bit, maybe, so that you've got the brand.
Speaker 2:Do you want me to do it, babe, Because that angle was great before. Yeah, let's go oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So maybe zoom in a bit more now, Like you could still just get the top of. You don't have the whole brand, but just the, just the word, the word, the letters, but the shape, if you could zoom it in a bit more so you don't need the shape.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's it, that's it, perfect. And then, if you're already here, yeah, yeah, does that feel good?
Speaker 1:I love it. It's great, and I'll just make sure I've got my little.
Speaker 2:You got a nice one.
Speaker 1:I do. I do have Andes on. Today there are Andes, I think. Yes, andes, I'm wearing pantyhose. Actually, I haven't shaved my legs for a couple of weeks without them.
Speaker 3:Put that on the primary coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a hack.
Speaker 1:How do you get yourself poised together quickly in the mornings and you don't have time to shave your legs?
Speaker 2:You just try to have some pantyhose. Yeah, I agree, it's a good hack. Andes is going to be like are you wearing pantyhose again today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, I am. Yes, that means my legs are hairy and scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's okay, it's okay, it's totally okay. Some coaches, that's really sexy.
Speaker 1:Totally. I'm going to embrace the sexy, I'm not sure where, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Awesome, all right, well, awesome Beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Just give it a sec, so then that way I can edit it nicely afterwards. But YazG, not even going to try and say your surname, so we're just going to call you Yaz because you are Yaz, just like Madonna is Madonna.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 3:Yaz, welcome to the Lead with Courage. Podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. We're so excited you're here.
Speaker 2:It's so great, so great we. I was just trying to track back to when we first met and when I first seen you. I think one of the first times I actually saw you speak was at the TEDx last year. Yes, yes, just over a year ago now.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was about a year ago, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then maybe a few here and there since, or at least around on socials. And then you spoke at our Lead with Courage Ignite conference, which was wild. I got to sit next to you all day, so I feel like we had a very intimate day that day.
Speaker 1:It was intimate. There was a lot of intimacy that day and I have to admit, even just sitting in your room right now, I feel like we're in the corner of silence, but we're not going to be very silent.
Speaker 2:And I love this.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's like a really safe space, and I feel like that's actually what you do. You create that for people to actually go to places and spaces where they might imagine that they go, and you play that role in your head.
Speaker 1:Oh, one day I might do this, and then you created that space for me on that day, and I still talk about that now when I'm framing up my origin story and helping others own the voice that goes on inside their head Wow, thank you, yeah, no, thank you. Actually, thank you, although I don't know that all of the audience members would say thank you. I still am unsure about how the reaction might have been to what we did, which, of course, we can unpack a little today to what I did, but I totally own it. I watched the video.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I was like whoa, you were really comfortable that day. Yas, and all of the speakers and you and your team really created that.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you, we will unpack that, but for those who are going, what is she actually referring to? Maybe we can mention. When Yas did her keynote, we did record the video and you did something for the first time which we'll get into, maybe the story and the backdrop, but yeah, you were very brave. I was yes.
Speaker 1:And I asked people to be brave.
Speaker 1:I say brave with my little acrostic poem being raw, authentic, vulnerable every day, because brave is a powerful word. And Brené, who I saw on your bookshelf, she really had the courage to talk about brave and to open the space for women in particular to be vulnerable, and I really loved it when I first started to hear Brené and I also felt like, oh, it's a no brainer. Of course, don't we all think and feel that way. And so the brave acrostic poem, which is like when you did it at school, yasmin, what does Y, a, s, m, I, n stand for? And I was always struggling with the Y and I would always write yummy, but it was like, yeah, there's not yummy, yasmin is not yummy. Anyway, it was hard.
Speaker 1:I always struggled with the Y, but when I heard Brené and brave really, I suppose, flowed through my veins and I felt like it was a person that thought like me and gave me permission to think the way, I think I needed to break brave down further and I love patterns and rhymes and maybe it's called play, maybe I just love play and I there's this. I won't say immaturity, it's not the right word, but it's almost like this fun way of creating something at more depth, in a memorable way that has more meaning than just a single word which is why I broke, brave down and I put it up on my slides all the time and I feel like I was like you've got to do this.
Speaker 1:You can't preach it and not be it, and not to say I'm not because I am. But that was to the extreme, to another level.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, just because of the room, it's so hard to explain the energy. And I would be saying as an action point to anybody listening, and it's not a plug for you, but you absolutely have to be in that room.
Speaker 2:It's transformational.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:We'll definitely have a seat next to you. Yeah, that means a lot, because I know that you are exposed to a lot of different events and a lot of amazing opportunities, so thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:I feel like Yaz has already answered the question. I know we have the first question, really.
Speaker 2:Which is what does lead with courage mean to you? But I feel like you've already just organically answered that, but is there anything extra that you would add into? What does lead with courage mean to you?
Speaker 1:Look, I think if you go back and hindsight is always wonderful. You know, I've been 30 years in the workforce now, since my very first job, and I feel like courage was always inside of me and there were hints along the way that I didn't have the maybe the cognitive capability or the maturity and I wasn't ready, or I didn't have the right people around me to give me permission. And I feel like courage is actually inside of us and we don't need permission and I often talk about and we'll talk about it shortly and I'll give you the little bookmark. You know, angelina Jolie was someone that gave me permission, but I didn't need her permission to do what I did. I had already decided that years ago.
Speaker 1:So really, my answer to lead with courage is you know the answer. It is inside of you. There's nobody else that hears, sees and feels that vibrations that go on in your mind and your body and your soul and what I call the hut, which is the gut and the heart. Our heads stop us from doing so much because we talk ourselves out of things. For me, leading with courage is muting the head that's trying to talk you out of something and actually living more deeply in the hut where you know what to do, and then taking action. So that, for me, is what real courage is is not just thinking it, feeling it and sensing it, but doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know if there's, unfortunately for the other 35 guests we've had on this podcast. I don't know if there's a better explanation there.
Speaker 2:Hey comparison is a thief of joy.
Speaker 1:I love that quote so much.
Speaker 3:No, I think it's a really personal question and it means different things to different people, and so I find that when people we ask it fairly regularly and when people answer it, you can tell they there's a depth there that they go to to find the answer and they answer it for them and that was a really authentic version of that.
Speaker 3:And I could. I could tell that it wasn't something that you kind of you know sort of looked at and thought, oh you know what, like? I'll just give this cognitive answer that was all hot, all hot, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you gave me goosebumps, even just talking like my body.
Speaker 1:I literally do my body reacts to people and I seem to have this real connection to the energy of who I am, and I often say it's not arrogance, it's assurance or even self actualization. Like I suck at a lot of things, I fail every day, but I don't punish myself for the mistakes I make every single day. Don't live in that space. I'm like you know I fucked up. I'm going to do something better tomorrow or tonight, or or I'll journal reflect, look at it. But no one's punishing me and I'm not listening to the opinions of others, because harvesting opinions of others is actually really dangerous, unless the people you trust and they're inside of your brain always says about are they in the arena?
Speaker 2:arena quote, but she has kind of remade a famous, and we often will say that like well, are they in, who's speaking to us, who's giving the unsolicited advice? And are they in the arena? And if you're searching for feedback and if you're searching for people's perspectives, who be?
Speaker 1:careful who you ask. I agree because everyone has an opinion and.
Speaker 1:I say to my kids all the time other people's opinions of you and none of your business, so I just don't make it my business. I did as a child. I would be like, okay, I really want to impress and I want to be good and I want to be awesome. And I felt like I was always having an energy and taught that I needed permission and validation and people to think I was doing a good job. But ultimately, the most important person is do I think I'm doing a good job and I showing up for myself? And that self assurance is hard in this country to own because we have this tall poppy syndrome. You can be awesome, you can also be awful, but you don't have to be torn down because of who you are authentically.
Speaker 1:So the goosebumps are real. It's probably not the first time today I'm going to get them and it's because I'm very moved by people's words and feelings and they really matter to me and they help drive who I become, because I care so much about something greater than just me and myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you absolutely do. I think that really shines through. And yeah, we've only met twice. I feel like we've met a lot of times in my life, so I'm really grateful and excited about this conversation, something you just said before maybe want to ask you you mentioned the things that you're not, that you don't sit there and suffer, basically, do you? Is there a type of suffering that you have that you do some type of bit of it? Weird question, actually, but what is like your? If I say what is your favorite form of suffering, how would you answer that?
Speaker 1:Physical pain. I love it, and I mean that because I'll tell you a little story. In 2014, I rode my bike to Townsville from Brisbane. It's an eight day ride. It was run by the Marta Foundation, smiling for Smitty in a cancer research fundraiser. Now I had just had surgery. A few months before that ride, tell us what surgery I had a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy, which basically means I chopped off my boobs so that I wouldn't get breast cancer, because my percentage chance because my mum, my nan, my nansfore sisters and I didn't get the genetic test, because my stats didn't change whether I had the brachygine or not and 87% chance of a diagnosis in my life which I actually believed I wouldn't get, because I'm like, oh, I'll never get it, but you don't want to mess with 87%.
Speaker 1:So I chopped off my boobs in February 2014. I have a 1% chance of getting breast cancer now and we'll talk more about the boobs in a minute. But a few months after the surgery and before, I had what's called the reconstruction, because these are just like a little implant so my clothes would fit properly I had still got the little bags. They give you a bag under your breast muscle and they're sailing your bag to stretch your skin until you're the size you want to be, and then they pulled the bag out and put the implant in. That's the process over six months. So I was going through that process I hadn't yet had the implant put in, and I rode my bike to Townsville for this charity fundraiser. Now I was an Iron man for a while. I was pretty good at it Not Allie Good I knew you had her on that podcast before.
Speaker 1:And, oh my God, Allie is like my superhero. I've always loved her not just for her athletic prowess, but her brain she's.
Speaker 1:So I've always loved that woman, always loved her. She's got the energy right and she's so smart. And anyway, I was a bit of a hacker triathlete Pretty good, not great, but awesome enough to get on the podium every now and then. So I just thought to myself oh, I've had my boobs chopped off. I'm not really going to be able to do a lot of training, but I have muscle memory because I've done an Iron man or two. Anyway, you don't muscle memory. Your butt cheeks that hadn't been calloused.
Speaker 1:And so my soft little supple butt did not enjoy day one on that ride. And 200 kilometres into first day I had two holes in my bum of skin off and I thought, oh, that's going to hurt. Someone suggested to put some icicle on it. Don't ever put icicle on an open wound. So that night, literally screaming in pain, I thought what the hell am I going to do? I've got seven more days to ride on this bike. Anyway, I said I love pain.
Speaker 1:I literally deal to this day that experience of those seven days with 50 other riders, some who loved me, some who loathed me because I might have complained about my butt a few times and shared the butt selfies with people to say should I still ride today? There was a doctor on the crew, should I be riding? And by day five he'd written me a prescription so I could get some ointment, so I could keep riding to reduce infection. But basically the holes became very big holes and it was like sitting on razor blades every day, constantly or 12 hours a day.
Speaker 1:And so I thought get in the sag wagon. And you had the right to. Plenty of people did. But I knew the minute I got in the sag wagon my brain would then say every day it's okay to get into the sag wagon. An hour today, two hours tomorrow. Everyone will understand, you've got a torn butt, you can volunteer, you can still contribute. And my brain just went over and over and over and I thought no, I'm not giving my brain permission to get in that sag wagon. And so I literally chanted to myself for the first six hours of the day and hopefully someone who actually has medical and or neurological experience can explain how I did it. But but is the fun fun? I didn't mean to do that.
Speaker 2:I'm intended.
Speaker 1:But, however, the two butt cheeks just got worse and worse and worse. So I was lowering my seat, putting on double nicks, triple nicks, so pants with the padding. So by day four or five I had triple nicks on. I was trying to patch them. Not patch them. Use blister band aids not use blister band aids, anything to reduce the pain. The only thing that worked was me trying to what I think is hypnotize myself, and I literally would chant for the first six hours of the day. I love pain, I love pain, I love pain.
Speaker 1:Over and over again, I did not talk to a single human. As the bike, as the, as we rotated through people, just I could not talk to anybody. Then, by midday or lunchtime, I feel like I had numbed it and I just talked for the rest of the day and I was totally okay. Then one night I was sitting down at the dinner and I had we all had skins on with shorts over the top to a good compression and good body management and I looked down and there was blood seeping through my pants it wasn't my monthlies, it was my butt bleeding profusely through my underwear and my nicks and my shorts.
Speaker 1:And I was like, okay, this is really bad. I've got two to three days to go and some of them, my friends from that ride, who I wasn't friends, I met on that ride, are still to this day, almost 10 years later, my friends and check in and we we, you know, we have great banter and I just feel like physical pain stretched my brain to a capacity that I just am so grateful for that I still today, when I do, I do like a hundred puppies a day when I'm not in the moon boot, but I still today play the one song that I chanted and sang to myself on that ride, which is Gabriella Chilmi Woman on a Mission or on a mission, I'm a woman on a mission.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was your, that was your sting, it was my sting, and that is why because for 10 years I've been listening to that song and you can't, I can't not listen to the words and be here, that song. I love pain and the little engine that could I think I can, I think I can, I think I can were the words and feelings that trained my brain to cope with the pain and realize. And Goggins says a lot, a lot. I don't know if he's on your bookshelf and the audio can't, can't hurt me His book.
Speaker 1:I listened to him and he's a very hard ass mother. But I think I'm a lot like Goggins, but with a lot more empathy and heart, and I genuinely believe him that your body can do anything you put your mind to. And my hero in this area is to reappear who lived after being burnt alive the way she was and did an Ironman after having her limbs singed, and that woman and her book and her life is the epitome of how your mind can overcome whatever your body is going through.
Speaker 3:I've not read that book, but I've just finished Ned Brockman's book, and so it looks like I'm going to be reading her book next, or listening to it at least.
Speaker 1:Goosebumps for Ned and a friend of mine, Tim Franklin, who actually lives in this area when he's on the road or not on the road.
Speaker 2:He's actually running the world he runs the world.
Speaker 1:He's on day 335 or something. So both Ali and I know Tim well he was a coach for a long time as a triathlete, Hilarious guy, super good friend and just an amazing character very much alike. Ned Tim's doing 400 days around the world, running every day.
Speaker 2:I feel like I've seen it through Beck and Pete Hull from Pit Stop. Yes, he would have yes because he trained there.
Speaker 1:But incredible human again, power of the mind. So for me, when he said he was going to do it, I'm like no brainer dude.
Speaker 3:Like, of course you will.
Speaker 1:He asked me to come and I, if I wasn't in the middle of building my business and my children weren't in need of me at their teenage years, I would have jumped at the chance and been on the road with him for the last 400 days, because that's the type of physical challenge that stretches your mind to live the biggest capacity of your life.
Speaker 2:Andy's signing up for a marathon, his first marathon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am. I'm going to do a marathon next year. I'm not sure it's either NUSA or the Gold Coast. Yes, I'm not ready to do that, yet. It's either or, and it's a bit of a timing thing. If I did the Gold Coast I would have more prep, but NUSA feels like when you do four laps and you have the opportunity to come around and maybe see a couple of people who might cheer you on, I think the morale attached to that would be quite good.
Speaker 3:And so, from that experience standpoint, I think I'd prefer to do that, but anyway, I'm not as but the. Gold.
Speaker 1:Coast is flat.
Speaker 2:The Gold.
Speaker 1:Coast is flat, flat and cold, flat and cold is good yeah where the NUSA is sort of late May so you kind of don't know what you're going to get. I have to admit, andy, I've never done a marathon straight, only ever in an Ironman, and I love that.
Speaker 2:I've only after riding 180Ks and swimming 4Ks.
Speaker 1:So Taipei personalities, many of my friends who might listen to this, and former triathletes and current triathletes might say, yeah, I get hurt. You haven't done a marathon straight yet, so it doesn't really count. Of course I will do one. My first Ironman was Melbourne, which was a point to point run from Frankston to St Kilda, my first ever marathon in the race, and you could, there were no laps. My second Ironman in the same year was Busselton 10K, 4k, 4 times around. I have to tell you my brain detested the four laps.
Speaker 1:It was like oh, you got one lap, one lap struck, one lap's good. Two laps, three laps, you're like hell for 10 kilometers, whereas the point to point for me was like St Kilda you can see it, you can be it, and it was literally for my brain. It gave me more motivation than the repetitive boredom of four 10K laps. Now, that's just my personality, but I'll just leave that out.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that actually, because I've done Well. The most I've gotten up to at the moment is 11Ks and it's a few times literally just around this area, and there is a track that I do for 11Ks and the idea of sort of building up to that, to run that three times, for example, is I can imagine the conversations. It's just one big long conversation really, and what conversation I have with myself the first time around is one and then the second time around.
Speaker 3:And then the third time around, and then you know just whatever version of pain cave that ends up being for the third or fourth time around is like that. And so when you say, noose, now there's a part of me which is like I much prefer the point-to-point version of things as opposed to the. For that reason, I struggle on a treadmill.
Speaker 3:Being on a treadmill is just like a massive exercise in discipline. You're not wanting to look at the stats, not wanting to look at the clock and just focusing on the gym. I go to the second-hand store across the road, which sign waves in the wind as I bounce up and down on the treadmill. I sit there just watching that thing and doing that for an hour or two is oh, I've done that once and I remember it was. I think the physical feet was actually just concentrating the whole time.
Speaker 3:Then it was actually kind of doing it. Physically I felt like I could probably get there, but the mentally just remaining kind of concentrating and just in tune was the hardest part.
Speaker 1:It is and that's actually you want.
Speaker 1:to put your brain through that you want to do the hard things and I remember the same sort of thing like just watching the feet of somebody in front of me and just focusing on that, and then catching one person, not thinking that I had 20 kilometers to go, not thinking am I going to stop to pee, am I not? What am I going to do? Being able to quieten your brain is actually going to be the biggest advantage to your physical game. There you go. That's a nice little quote.
Speaker 2:We'll take that one, yeah, bookmark that, please. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:They're always like rando those things. I'm looking at your watch. I also want to give you a little thing to do. Think about when you're hurting mentally, put your voice record on and speak to your watch and record it. You never have to listen to it again if you don't want to, but capturing your thoughts in the thoughts, hi, hi or low, low. I have to say it was one of the most incredible gifts I ever gave myself as a founder and as a person, when I was going through the most difficult time of my life and I didn't want to harvest opinions from other people.
Speaker 1:I went and harvested my own opinion and watched my own videos and voice messages back and was able to almost be my own therapist at a time where I didn't want other people's opinions to thwart or influence I would unravel my marriage. So that was in relation to a marriage breakdown of in a relationship for 25 years unexpectedly having a divorce. You know we were unhappy but I always I'm like I can do the work, we can do the work, let's do the work. And we'd gone through some troubled times but I was ready to do the work. We were seeing a counselor and I was like all in, let's go forward. That's my personality and so then to have the actually no, that's not the direction I want to go. It's a big shock and I could have harvested opinions and everyone all my friends would have jumped on the gas bandwagon and oh you poor thing, Like everyone has all the enablement.
Speaker 1:You know there's. You know the truth, my truth, his truth, the truth and probably something in between, and so I didn't need people to have an opinion, so I didn't harvest it and I actually then went. It's probably a whole podcast on its own. I created a strategy of how to unravel my marriage because I Googled divorce for the first time ever.
Speaker 1:And I did tested what I read. So a part of my strategy involved creating the strategy, but also involved what I read and what I listened to was my own journals, my own voice recordings, my own reflection videos that I had just happened to take over the last five years because I was a founder trying to capture my story Wow.
Speaker 2:I remember you speaking about that in your TEDx around, yeah, doing your own personal vlogs, journaling, but on video, seeing your own face, hearing your own voice and just speaking without filters. Yes, yeah, powerful.
Speaker 1:When you tell the truth and then watch your truth back, you know what to do. You don't need. I mean, of course I have friends and people that are very close to me who are my trusted people.
Speaker 1:Like they're my, they're my people. Definitely they help to call you out on your bullshit, to help you get on track, to you know, just help you stay sane some days. But when my voice and my feelings, without the emotion escalating or elevating or creating like this energy that would be false could, like I could, go to the data, or did the data say so that it wasn't this exaggerated version of how I might have been feeling? Over the last five years, I actually saw the most in what I didn't say and what I didn't write, and that was my truth.
Speaker 1:Really, really powerful. I would highly recommend you. I know people might be thinking I hate my voice. I don't want to look at my face. I mean, you look very unattractive when you're running 10 kilometers or more and you're sweating and you're dribbling and it's not coming out of your nose and you just definitely you're most unpretty. They are the most beautiful moments of all, when you most importantly need to just pause, just speak some words and just leave it in the ether until one day, at the right time, it comes back to you.
Speaker 3:I'm naturally a quite a reflective person, and I'm saying that only because I didn't know what else to say. Fortunately, you're less reactive, so we make a you know less reflective in the immediate sense.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm reflective, I do reflect a lot, but I'm, I think, being through extrovert like I talk, then think, then talk again. So for me that is a really great strategy, because even talking I think we had.
Speaker 2:We had a disagreement the other night and I was so furious so furious and then Andy left to go to the shop or something and I thought what am I so furious about? And I had to get out and I did. I got onto my watch and I recorded a voice note. I don't even know if you listen to it, but I'm like I've just got to speak about why I've got this issue.
Speaker 2:And this is why I've just had this huge emotional hijack and it's this and it's this. And this is why, when you said this, I feel like this and the story I'm telling myself is, and then I hit send to you because I'm like I just needed to say it in a composed way. But then also just get it out. And as soon as I got it out, I was great, I was fine.
Speaker 1:But when I?
Speaker 2:didn't. I was seething and I think for me I'm not someone that can keep I mean. I say I'm not someone. I don't think any of us actually can keep it in, but I know in myself it's not helpful for me, it's harmful for me to keep thoughts and feelings tucked away.
Speaker 1:It really, whether it's my journal, whether it's on my own voice or to share it, and people are really reactionary to that. Like I'm listening to you say that, thinking to myself yes, why would you not unpack? And I've got two teenage girls and I give them these tips as well, and they sometimes listen and sometimes don't. I've seen one of my daughters journal and I've seen the impact it's had on her, and it's really positive.
Speaker 1:Now she doesn't do it every day. She then gets disappointed that she's not consistent, which is all a very normal reaction. But what I saw in my head just now as you were saying what you just said, is imagine like we all go on trips, holidays or overnights, when you pack your bag with all the things you need, you pack, you come home and you generally unpack. Imagine packing and going away and leaving that suitcase in your room unpacked, then having to pack again, not knowing where all the things are.
Speaker 2:Where did?
Speaker 1:you put it, it's still in the bag. Oh, can I pack that now? So packing more, going away, coming back, having another bag idle, and all of a sudden like for me, us not unpacking our feelings and thoughts is like travelling with a suitcase, coming home and leaving it in the bedroom and then repacking every single time. And the weight and look and feel of all of those suitcases is the mental load that we are and I'm it's generalist, but we are as humans. We can carry that around and it's baggage that Plum is intended. We can carry that baggage around, sometimes for life.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And then sadly, when we go to weddings or funerals or births, we then reflect and we probably internally unpack some things.
Speaker 1:I had a friend who lives in this area May she rest in peace, claire who passed away at 41. Just recently Just recently, and it's tragic that woman lived life and still to this day inspires me to live my life and her celebration of life. We were told no black and wear something that reflects Claire. And Claire was in the circular economy and had the glad rag markets which are local to here, and I bought from her this full sequence dress that I plan to wear to Lord to the Lord mess business awards. It was circular economy. I own the same dressing pink, so I jumped at the chance to buy it from Claire and I wore this gold full sequence dress to her celebration of life, with sparkle shoes. I bought from her a red jacket I bought from her. It was totally a mashup of an outfit, but it was reflective of I was, I was at her service and her celebration and my automatic feeling in the past is always well, am I living my best life?
Speaker 1:Claire lived best life and it's it's not. It's not awesome that she's not here anymore, but when we go to respect and say goodbye to people we love and care about, we do get very reflective. But it shouldn't take someone's passing for us to think am I living my best life? Really, the important thing to do is to not wait until tomorrow, to live today, and I really struggle with being able to articulate how to help people to live their full life every day, and I think that's why I'm so open, honest, transparent, vulnerable, prepared to talk about anything.
Speaker 1:Nothing is off the table, because we all have shit going on. We all have scars, literally we all have bruises and we've all been broken and we all have the shit sandwiches every day. But the show reel is destroying the real real and you know I talk about that a lot the Instagram telling you this you're not good enough. Constant. Do this by this. Be that. It's too much and it's not OK. We need to show more of the whole human so that we can all live more of a whole life.
Speaker 2:The real real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get down and dirty with that, because the reality is, you know, I want to be on your deathbed. I watched my mother die and I don't, and she was very like, create space for us to be real. And it was very sad to watch her pass. But she had some wishes. She didn't want to be on a ventilator, she didn't want to be prolonged, and I remember saying to the family you know, I said to the doctor how long like it sounds awful, how long is this going to take? It was not quite like that, but I did struggle. I was literally on the floor.
Speaker 1:At the time I was still married. Lee was in New Zealand because his dad was about to die, so he was just about to lose his dad. I was about to lose my mom, you know, and I'm like my brain did go into a bit of how's this all going to play out Now, not to say that I went into a process orientation. You know how to get my mom to pass away quickly. But we were all in the room her husband, so my stepdad, my siblings, my niece and me and I'm the eldest and mom always said you be the strong one. And I thought, okay, I'm going to be the strong one mom, because she had oxygen in her nose. But she had been non responsive for a day and she always said to us I don't want to be, don't leave me in a hospital bed to just die slowly. And when I asked the nurse how long, they said, oh, it could take a few days. And I said is the oxygen keeping it prolonged? Oh, yes, of course that helps her be more comfortable. And I was looking around and I was like, okay, I felt like my mom was saying do it, do it, yas. And I said can you take the oxygen off my mom? And unless anyone else doesn't want that to happen, we want you to do that. I'd speak for the family. And they took the oxygen off and 30 minutes later she was passed and you know it's what she would have wanted.
Speaker 1:And that's the moment where you go well, I'm going to live my life to not impress people. What's the saying? We buy things we don't need with money. We don't have to impress people we don't like. Sorry, not sorry. That's not how I live my life and I've had all this stuff go on. And if you read the story or watched the Netflix series of my life over the last six years you'd be thinking, fuck, if she's not in a mental institution, I don't know what's like. There's a lot that's gone on and a lot that's gone down, and you know it's been a really colorful life, but my life is no more colorful than anybody else's.
Speaker 2:I'm just prepared to color outside of the lines and be okay with it and I think you're prepared to share it so there's so much that people may be experiencing that could be similar, but then keep it inside, so we just don't know so then, we can't support each other.
Speaker 1:We can unpack it, draw strength from other people's experiences as well yes, and that's to me maybe the selfish reason why I do it, because I want to know what the shit's going on in your life.
Speaker 2:Please make me feel normal, no, no, no, we're like it, we are without problem definitely, definitely didn't have that argument.
Speaker 3:The other night.
Speaker 1:Andy says what do you mean? I have to admit I have not listened to that recording thank you for another time, when you're next fighting, and then you don't have to bring it up now.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna never sweat yes, but yes, with the extraordinary life that you have leaders specifically, I guess, over the last six years. What do you do now to take care of yourself? How do you take care of yourself?
Speaker 1:it's a really good question. I get asked and I think because of my intensity and energy is so just out there and always has been. It's not a new thing. I've learnt to accept that who I am, I think I still remember too much too loud to tone it down. Those are the sorts of things that were said about me when I was little and I'm clearly again. I'm not diagnosing myself because I'm not a medical professional, but absolutely there's ADHD going on somewhere in my body and I've never learnt those terms, but I've just learnt to hack myself like you can hack your body and your mind and you know to a certain point. And so intensity, energy, exercise, all those sorts of things just came naturally to help me regulate and moderate who I am and what I want to be in life and I suppose, the things I do to counterbalance it is. You know, I journal, I exercise, except for when I have broken toe. I so my meditation is movement. I must move and it regulates me and I must talk.
Speaker 1:It regulates me and I need to resolve that. Yasmin talks too much in class is actually not the story. Yas is a great communicator. Is the story.
Speaker 1:I'm really comfortable telling stories of truth and I am a truth teller. And that is sometimes and has over the years lost me friendships and relationships and maybe even lost myself along the way a little bit, when you tell your truck yourself a big truth bomb. But for me, I grew up in a household that said those things like the truth will hurt less than a lie. You know, those were things that were ingrained in my childhood, that I believed, and then I really do live and breathe those now. And so for me to relax it's not necessarily someone else's relax I must journal, I must get up pre-dawn. Those things just give me the time with myself to speak my truth and to know what direction I really want to go in and to also know what's important. And I have two teenage girls. I screw up a lot. I say the wrong things. I trigger them, they trigger me. I get the shit side. Smash a dish. I smashed a dish recently.
Speaker 1:I did it because I was like I thought I was playing this little competition. I go from doing all the dishes and being a supportive mom to actually I'm not doing any dishes and let's see how long this lasts. For and it there was not one dish left in the house. So then I'm thinking, okay, well, I'm just gonna have one bowl, one plate, one fork, one knife, one spit, and I mean that's just not the way I want to live my life. Anyway, I got really mad, and the reason I did it is I could be here myself in my head going show, show yourself to your daughters as a human, not as a mother. And so when I lost my shit, I thought I'm regretting this.
Speaker 2:I cleaned up my mess and I said you know what?
Speaker 1:I lost my temper. I've never hurt my girls, I'm not an aggressive person, but I just needed to smash a plate and then for my daughter's birthday, I took her to a smash room and we all have a lot of fun smashing things. The reality is, you've got this energy inside of you and so my, my learnings, and I suppose in some ways sharing that here. Some advice, maybe, and take it or leave it is feel your energy and work out what regulates you. Now, some people, that's meditation, yoga, pilates, exercise, reading, writing. There is no right or wrong answer, and I think the world continues to tell us that running is not meditation. You know, you must do these things. Be this, be that, but actually it's for me how I stay in flow.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say balanced, because it's in flow. How I stay in flow is I give myself permission to not have a system. That must be the regulated system I follow, and instead I follow the energy flow of what's going on, and sometimes I make decisions. Where I smash a plate, it's.
Speaker 2:I've only done that once, just for the record and I learned this recording anyway at the time of this recording.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I learn from that, and I don't. Also, this is probably the biggest thing about me that keeps me in flow is I don't. I don't harbor resent or regret. So people always, often, often, ask me, as a founder, like, what's the biggest thing you regret over the last six years? Honestly, nothing, because it got me to where I am today. And if I regret it and carry the baggage and give myself all this pain over the things I should have, could have, would have done, that's not. None of that is useful time. Yes, I reflect and think how I might have done it differently, but I don't regret the decision I made. That I thought at the time was the most important decision to make. And as a founder, you have to make some really ugly and unfun decisions. And if you harbor, resent and regret, there's only one person that that thieves time from, and that's you. So I just don't leave my own time away. Do you know how many hours we have in a week? Have you ever let that? 168, 168, boom baby, I love it 168.
Speaker 1:I got told that number when I was very surprised that I knew it no no, I'm actually not surprised at all, and it's in one of our workshops. That's why I remember and, and it should be taught because you said Oprah, I think, or like let's talk about the single name Madonna, oprah, beyonce, elon, all these people in this world, greta, others, name, all the famous people. Dolly, dolly, dolly. Tell me how many hours they have in a week 168 and you 168 168 no one can hack the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no one can get more or less. Only you can choose how you spend your time, and so, for me, I really value time. It's my love language, quality time and I would invest time and value it more than I value anything and, most importantly, the time that I spend with myself beautiful it's really important.
Speaker 1:Like by the time you eat, pee poo, sleep, work, everyone's hours of like the Delta of time that they have will be different for everybody, so I can't calculate that for everyone. That's why I get up pre-torn. It's why I spend that time with myself in the morning. Yeah, 4 am crazy sometimes fun a bit typically late, then I'd like to okay, I'm one of those people.
Speaker 1:And Margaret Thatcher eat your heart out like she slept five hours a night, and I know that all the science not all a lot of the science says eight hours, seven hours. Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. Now, that's true, but I have a B cup. You have a different cup. Your boobs are bigger than mine. My boobs are bigger than yours. I'm a certain weight, you're a certain way our bodies function differently.
Speaker 1:Your hormones are different to mine. My hormones are different yours. Who says my sleep has to be eight hours? I know the brain and da-da-da, but actually until we truly understand the human body to the extra like, we don't know about parts of the brain, what do we use? 10%? Of it something like that someone will correct that, but I'm generalizing now. But the reality is, I don't disagree, sleep is very important. Generally, I sleep five to six hours a night, not by choice, but just how.
Speaker 1:That's how my body vibrates mm-hmm it's how I function and I am in most flow when I let my body sleep that much hour, that many hours it is. I've tried the seven and eight hours and it's like I'm hungover or drunk or like I am not. Okay, I've tried. I tried as a trifle, training for an iron man 20 hours a week. My coach would say sleep seven to eight hours, seven, and I did, and the more I slept, the worse I got. So when I went back to just a normal sleep pattern of listening to my body and letting it fall asleep with good habits, my phone not on a blue screen, drinking a lot of water, doing all the other hacks, it just landed there and so I just let it be there for now now doesn't mean that in a year I won't sleep six or seven or in another year I might won't sleep seven or eight, but right now, for right now in my life, that seems to
Speaker 2:be what my body wants to sleep yeah, and I think the words you said before about like regulating for who you are and whether that's active or whether that's slowing things down. The sleep wherever that sits for me. If I don't have eight hours like I really struggle. Yeah, have the right energy, but again, it's not judging anyone else at way, it's knowing what works for you yes finding your hack and experiencing it, and for this season in life too, right yeah maybe a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2:In years to come, it may be different, it will probably be different it will but just always go. What's the right regulation for me? Am I operating at my capacity? Yeah, my best. What do I need?
Speaker 1:absolutely, and last night I actually went to bed. I'll tell you the truth because I'm a truth teller I went to bed at 2 am. I know shame on me, but there's this project at work that I really needed to do and I've been prioritizing my girls and time with them and running them around and doing all these things and I have, like urgent and important tasks that need to be done with work and a part of my brain thought just go to bed and do it in the morning, but I could feel the stress. I wouldn't have slept as well, I would have worried, I would have got up being tired, cranky then because he's stressing all night and can't sleep.
Speaker 1:Then my daughter didn't go to school and then I was fine with that because that was expected, and then all these different things, and then I had a call from a doctor, so I 40 minutes, and then I was late here by five minutes and I was on a call and all these other things happened. My day was underway. I slept like a baby from 2 am until 5 am. This morning I think I date in bed until about 5 30 and I read and I journaled and I just gave myself permission to start a little slower today and I decided to not to do my exercise this morning and I want to do it tonight because I've got so much on today. I want to get that energy out later. But again, I gave myself permission to adapt. I didn't say I'm up until 2 am, I don't sleep.
Speaker 1:I don't say those words to myself because that's just gonna make it harder and I'm loading my bags up and carrying too much weight yes, I just went so energized in this morning when I had four emails on the back of that 2 am email I sent because I had to get all this project work out to five people that were relying on me.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh, it's so light and on top of things and that's my heaven yeah just listening to myself and allowing myself to not follow the rules bestowed upon me by the internet or people who want to be judgey. Mm-hmm, get in the arena, just just in your own arena yes on your own race, at your own pace. Another rhyme oh, I love it your own space yeah, yeah, drop the mic and he's on her off.
Speaker 2:I love it. There's a good collab happening. Yeah, yeah amazing.
Speaker 2:I wonder if we could take a slight turn just to go down a little path here around your role, your founder, the business, the a couple of things. I mean one, give us a brief you know of you and history, but also the part that I'm really would love to share and hear from you now, because I think a lot of people who know you probably know a lot of the story, so what the piece I'd also like to go is around being a female founder and the experiences around funding and feedback from people not in the arena potentially, and how you maintain the little engine that could in that time, because I think there's some, some big experiences there.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, you go there for yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it all started out in 2013 when I was in the triscord, training with people like Tim and Ali and we were raising money for cancer research, for smiling, for smitty, raised money and I'm not. I've always been the working parent, so I'm not really the baker or the cooker. I wasn't at the time and so I thought, okay, I'm in a big cupcakes and I'm gonna sell them at training every morning and that's how I'm gonna raise some money.
Speaker 1:And it was great for a few days I felt like a super mom baking, selling my brownies for five bucks a brownie, and then I could see the triathletes getting a little bit sick of my cupcakes and brownies. And maybe it was calories, maybe it was just the board and maybe, you know, and it felt like a lot of effort at night that I was baking for not a lot of return. The way my brain works is time a lot of effort, not enough return. I want more, and so the question I asked myself is how do you raise money without asking people for money? And I thought I'll have a garage sale. I'll call it the world's biggest garage sale and I'll sell all the stuff that I call dormant goods in my own home, because my kids were seven and eight, they weren't in their babies clothes anymore. Babies, toys had all this stuff that I wasn't using and I could raise a few thousand dollars. So I created a Facebook page called the world's biggest garage sale that a date and then told my friends all the triathletes, friends and so people were turning up to my house with bikes, parts, head helmets, cleats, seats, everything, clothing, everything, what what I now call surprise chain right stuff, idol assets, dormant goods from their homes.
Speaker 1:Now, I didn't know at the time that this was a circular economy in front of my eyes. I just thought, oh, this is like a charity store on steroids and I'm gonna raise a lot of money and I'm going to donate what we don't sell in stuff to stores, to charity stores. So I already had a waste solution for where it would go that wouldn't go to landfill, and then I also thought I'm gonna raise a stack of cash. So anyway, long story short, fifteen thousand dollars was raised and I ran it like a project because I'm like a bit a nor, a tentative right try halfway, a type A personality. There was a Jiro board holes. That was a price. Yeah, process. Here's what we do, here's how we do it, here's the dependencies. Anyway, I loved it. It was so much fun and we raised if they're in that day and all.
Speaker 1:I still remember sitting on the toilet at the Wave or bowls club because we couldn't have it in my garage because I had too much stuff, but we moved it to a hall and it was really the beginning of the business concept, because I had ten grown down my pants and all my brain thought was Imagine if I did this properly. Now, that's not to dismiss what had been done and the 50 volunteers and the incredible people, and it just wouldn't have happened without the community. But all I thought was I'm doing this again next year properly. So we donated the money to the smiling vicinity, went on the charity ride the next year and then I thought I'm doing this again. I took a whole month off my job in 2014 to have a world's biggest Garrett sale, raised money and the event raised $60,000 in a day.
Speaker 1:But what it did was the planting of the seed or businesses who were giving me stuff. So DFO, a friend of mine, worked out there. They were giving away scaffold and they didn't have a place and there were seats and all sorts of different things, but these were higher value items we were selling for two grand. That's how we sold so much value. It wasn't just household stuff, it was now quality goods from commercial organisations. Again, I still didn't know the business plan at this point. Other than this makes money. We're using volunteers. Imagine if we could create jobs. Feel like this is really solving a big problem.
Speaker 1:So I went and did a lot of desktop research around circular economy and then held another one the year after. We raised almost a hundred grand and I just knew when 5,000 people turned up on that single day and one person who was a customer said to me can you do this all the time? Could you diversify the charities you give money to and can you create jobs? And I'm like, yeah, yes, we can. And so it took a little bit of time, but in 2017, I quit my job, went all in no plan B, no business plan, no canvas, no nothing, just the hut going. There's a problem here and you can solve it.
Speaker 1:And it was called circular economy. I had done the research, I'd looked at the SDGs. I'm like, oh my God, people are not even doing anything for these sustainable development goals. Why is the world not onto this yet? I mean, some people were, but it was very disparate, and so I thought we're doing a different work to the charity sector, who gets secondhand products in their charity bins and then have a problem of waste because people give them shit, because they call it a bin. People weren't giving us the crap. They were giving us good quality stuff, the stuff they were too busy to sell on platforms themselves and that they were too good for the charity bin. So in Australia it's $46 billion worth of stuff and I thought that was our market opportunity Households $46 billion.
Speaker 1:However, the bigger opportunity was actually in the business challenges and the returns the cracked goods, the imperfect boxes that sat idle in shelves across warehouses in this country, buildings being de-fit commercial opportunities where furniture was at the end of its life or someone was moving out of a building and it was just swept into a skip bin. And because I'd seen 5,000 people shop in a 5,000 square meter warehouse and want these goods, my brain was just so in data mode. Imagine if we got the data reported it back. This is ESG, this is CSR, this is SDGs, this is a business, and so I was just pitching my parents off as well as Biggest Garret Sale. We'd raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, so that was the validation. It didn't matter that we gave it all away. It wasn't a business back then and I wanted to be a social enterprise to ensure that we were still doing good in the community and we weren't just commercializing this opportunity, because doing good was actually more important to me than like what do I say? Metrics that matter are valuable, but moments that matter matter more. So the moments, the life-changing moments we could create for people who could have access to these products that would otherwise go to landfill at a really low price, but also the inputs that we were creating for the good of the planet, maximizing resource utilization effectively. So circular economy.
Speaker 1:It was in 2018 when I had to pitch RiverCity Labs to get into the accelerator, which was $100,000 of equity for 6% of the company, and it was tech eight tech companies, and of course, I mean my tech was Google, sheets, jira, not even a CRM at the time. Spreadsheets, like my tech was spreadsheets. But I had a lot of data and I thought, oh, not really a tech company yet, but I know in the future we will be once. I know what tech we need and if I spend money now on tech, I'm going to burn that cash. So I'm actually going to use that 100 grand to understand the business model more and the opportunity. So, anyway, I remember Steve Baxter saying something like what the hell are you doing here? You're not a tech founder and I was like, no, I know, but one day I would be and I have a technology background hardware technology so I understand tech. I'm not a software engineer, but I understand it enough to know that I needed tech. So we got 100 grand.
Speaker 1:I basically lived at River City Labs for the next couple of years, kept scaling the business, but it was then before going in and signing that paperwork that I created the brand name Soconomy and I thought, oh, I should change it because World's Biggest Garage Sales Sounds Really Dodgy. I'm going to get customers in the future that will look at that going oh, you're a charity, dirty goods. And I wanted to change the perception of who we operated as a company. Hence circular economy, soconomy that I make up words all the time, so I registered Soconomy and didn't know when or where I would launch it and it was, I realized. Coming back to your original question, I've always been excellent at my job and I'm really super comfortable saying that High performer really love my job, love working. It's a passion, and so it was a bit of a surprise to me when I had to convince people how good I was. I'm like, do you not know? Like I'm actually really good and same war?
Speaker 2:is that when you're pitching yes?
Speaker 1:I'm pitching and people like questioning. I'm like do you know, I deliver. I built a multimillion dollar business inside of a company for someone like went from 100 grand to 16 mil. This is what I did. Like do you know me? And it wasn't like that. Like, do you know me? Don't you know who I am? Not quite like that. I was very good at my job and I felt like that meant nothing and that I had to prove so.
Speaker 1:World's Biggest Garance Sale, female founder in her 40s pitching a non-tech company that sounds like a charity. How on earth am I going to cut through? So naming ourselves like calling it psychonomy back then, when people were still saying circular, what Is that? A pride badge? I'm like no, it's SDGs. Do you not know about the 17 goals, the global goals, the world's to-do list? You know these committed to this over 100 countries, including Australia, and we weren't at the time doing a very good job.
Speaker 1:And so I felt like I wasn't just pitching my company and the concept of circular economy and going from linear take, make waste, which is how we all operated, to actually take goods, maybe not from the landfills or from the mines, but actually take goods from around us and repair, renew, repurpose, recommers.
Speaker 1:That's really the business we're in and understanding asset utilisation and getting those assets and placing them where they need to be placed what I call surprise chain into supply chain Really hard because you're moving stuff, but tech can scale it, and so I didn't realise that I had to pitch not just my business but social enterprise and circular economy and convince people that this was investable.
Speaker 1:And what I've learnt about myself is I'm extremely good at seeing things early. You know, my first business that didn't get up off the ground because I didn't immerse myself into the ecosystem was called school hours Back in 2011, where I was a full time employee working fully flexibly for my employer. You know, 10 years later or 20 years later, we're doing it with COVID or whatever it is 10 years later. Anyway, 2011, school hours, flexible employment, family friendly. It wasn't about women, it was about men and women and flexible employment for men and women. Super early. It didn't go anywhere because I didn't immerse myself in the ecosystem, but I learnt a lot as a founder of that enterprise and I then took those learnings and put it into the economy and completely learnt the lessons and did it differently without the tech.
Speaker 1:So I had the tech back then, didn't do anything with it, didn't have tech this time, did a lot with it and then underpinned it with tech later there was a much smarter way to do it because clearly we're still around and now we're really well known, very highly awarded, and I mean, the time has been our friend. But for the first many years it was extremely tiring and I'm grateful for my energy. That's my, that's my grateful for myself, grateful for that. I have the energy, had the energy to do this. But I really did spend an immense amount of time not just trying to pitch myself as a founder, and I am female and that, of course, comes with its own challenges, because 2% of funding goes to female adventures in the world, globally from VCs. Now that's a shitty statistic and I don't do shitty really.
Speaker 2:I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm like tell me the bad stuff and let me find the good. So what I learned in all of that is I kept getting told investors invest in the founder. They invest in the founder. It's all about the founder. The founder will change and adapt the business. And I'm like yes, this makes sense, so invest in me like I'm a good founder.
Speaker 1:Still didn't work when I pitched like that. What I had to prove was the numbers, the metrics, the market, and then I started to talk to the right people and then the money started to be invested in the business because people could see the value. But also, did you know that, while 2% of funding by VC goes to female adventures, currently, women adventures actually returned 36% higher returns than their male lead counterparts 36% higher returns. I'm like I'm here, invest Now. Of course, that doesn't work either, but I do think that the time is changing and that now there's more female venture capitalists and more female investment leaders. We're seeing money flow in a more diverse way, which is excellent, and we're also seeing not as much hoop jumping.
Speaker 1:Once upon a time, you're a tech bro with a hoodie. You fly around the country. See 100 investors, 10 would like you, maybe five would invest, you'd get all your millions and you'd be on your way and go and build your business and then continue to scale. I never did that because if I flew around the country, I would have lost. My company would have failed without me.
Speaker 2:Whether that's right or wrong, it's the reality.
Speaker 1:The founder does the chief everything officer right.
Speaker 1:That's what it is, and so I knew if I flew around the country, I didn't have the money or the time to do it. So my first ever investment capital raise, I actually decided to innovate and because I know I'm good at my job, I couldn't be the person to say that to people because it sounds a bit arrogant, right? People don't like it when you're a tall poppy. I love tall poppies, by the way. You're tall poppy, right, because we can all live in our little farm of tall poppies together. So, as a tall poppy, I knew that I needed other people to explain to investors or potential investors and partners how valuable this market I'm in is, because I can bang on all day long. You're not going to believe me. I'm a strong, determined, driven, loud, authoritative woman that doesn't always land well when you're pitching to people that you really genuinely want to connect with. So, rather than be fake, I thought, well, I'll just get other people who know this business, know this industry, all these experts, to be a part of this big event I'm going to have. So I rang ANZ, who are my business partner, banking partner, and I said I need your space. It's commercial, it's awesome. I need you, james, because you're like the honcho of ANZ in Queensland and I'm going to bring in. We're going to have an inspiration and innovation event talking about circular economy and social enterprise, and I'll do a pitch at the end for five minutes. But this is not about me. This is about the market opportunity of the people working in the circular economy.
Speaker 1:So we had the likes of Wayne Gerard, qic, national Retail Association. Dominic Lam was CEO at the time. Vicky from Coralus they were called Shia at the time. They both did videos. Peter Ellis was the emcee, really highly respected. Peter Laurie presented. I got a very diverse group of eight people to effectively address the room of 150 people that were invited. James paid for the catering from ANZ because I had no money. My team invested time and I had some volunteers and some early adopters help.
Speaker 1:And we just put on this amazing event and I was able to raise capital from that event because other people were able to tell the story about the market opportunity and by the time I did my five minute pitch at the end of this 90 minute session, people were already convinced that Yaz kind of maybe does know what she's talking about. That was much more efficient than flying around the country and seeing 100 people and getting told no by 90 people, because no doesn't make sense to me. This is a must. Businesses like mine are the businesses of the future, and Climate Salad and Mick Leminskas and people like that who have launched these platforms now to help give a voice to the climate tech industry are now the real legends because they saw it early and now they're accelerating the opportunity for others, and that's what we need more of.
Speaker 1:None of this complain and blame and shame and sit in the corner crying attitude. We just need to go. You know what? That's a shitty way. I don't want to fly around the country. No one, no, I didn't need permission from anybody to run that event. It could have blown up in my face. I would have learned a lot from it and not regretted it.
Speaker 1:But, it didn't blow up. Still, to this day, I have people saying that reverse pitch thing you did incredible and that was in 2019. If I didn't do that then my business would not have had the 300 grand in the bank. Admittedly, an investor did pull out when COVID hit, so I was meant to have a million dollars the $700,000 investment, which was international, pulled out just before COVID crushed the world. But that $300,000 from those few investors that invested in that room today, that day, my business wouldn't be here. It wasn't for them.
Speaker 1:And there's so many moments like that that have mattered along the way. Where the right timing. Again coming back to time, not questioning yourself, not worrying about other people's opinions, not letting it thwart or change the direction, and trusting your heart. I trusted my heart that day. I trusted my heart when I opened up a shoe store in the winter garden with all the shoes and pre-shoes. I trusted my heart when I held the Officeworks retail rescue event two days before COVID shut the world down. And each of those moments generated revenue for my company that kept it alive for longer and allowed me the time to really understand the product and market that we're in. And now, after raising $4 million of capital a year ago, a year and a half ago, which I did in four weeks, and Officeworks invested and they were a customer at the time and they came on board.
Speaker 1:It really demonstrates to me and I'm very, I have a lot of humility around this Like we are today, where I said we would be 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 years ago.
Speaker 1:When I look at videos of myself as a crazy founder sleeping at River City Labs talking about the circular economy, I could play you that audio today and you would believe it, because it's where we are today. That never faltered. The way we do it, how I make money, how I focus the business, all the little working bits are different to how I expected them to be. But as a founder and entrepreneur, or even an entrepreneur, when you're hitting those walls, you don't have to go in the direction that everyone else tells you to go. You can actually find your flow and follow your own direction. And for me, I run this great business. I'm not the CEO anymore. I've appointed a CEO. There's a whole big story behind all of that, but the reality is, I think, at the core of everything if we come back to courage the courage to not follow traditional methodologies to get traditional outcomes and instead I was able to innovate and make up my own way to find my way.
Speaker 3:Yes, you're a trendsetter, you are incredible.
Speaker 1:Maybe a trendsetter. I've got some theories about the future opportunities for any founders that want to get in early on, the future opportunities of where I think people will make money and impact. It's definitely around education and help those two things are really important, will they never go out of? Style? Well, they don't, and we spend 12 years breaking our children in archaic education systems and then spend a lifetime in multiple millions of dollars and billions really trying to fix it after we screw them up for 12 years.
Speaker 2:Now, that's a big generalisation, but anybody that wants to solve the health and education. You can chat with Lael.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know, oh, lael, I mean she is my person, I just that woman. When I heard her speak I'm like oh, the education, like what she's doing is going to save young people from being where those teenagers and adolescents are today struggling. That is the prevent. It's like chopping off your boobs. Very big decision. Chop off your boobs. I say no nips, no worries, as you know, there are no nipples there. Just in case you're wondering, I chose to have everything off, non-nipple, sparing, so that there wouldn't be any risk at all. And who needs a nipple, really, anyway, after you've birthed your children? So, anyway, I think chopping off your boobs and taking that preventative approach to guaranteeing that I won't be diagnosed with cancer is big. But to me that proactive is the word.
Speaker 1:Proactive methodology is the way we need to build new businesses and new systems, because the old systems worked for a while, maybe not for everybody, but more than ever we have so much information, so much proof and so much data and the mental health challenges that we have going on globally right now In particular, if I look at our own country and if I particularly look at my own family and my own circle of friends, there is so much more awareness, so much more education, but we can't put a band-aid on this.
Speaker 1:We actually need to operate and completely come up with new methods to prepare our young people for education, learning and lifelong evolution of themselves. We can't be looking kids up in classrooms like we do. No offence to all the teachers out there. There are some amazing teachers doing it brilliantly. There's just not enough of us. Yet I've just put myself in that market. I'm not in that market, but I'm very passionate about education and health. I think that wellness, I guess you could say it's about the whole human and seeing people for who they are and not expecting everybody to just be.
Speaker 1:Yeah like go through. Here's the path you must follow. This and again we're just diminishing the spirit of our young people. And then we're wondering why they're not okay when they're adults.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no kidding, hey, yes, I feel like we could talk to you for hours.
Speaker 2:We might need to get back to you? Yeah, and we should.
Speaker 1:I'll come back for part two. I love this. This is the cone of silence.
Speaker 3:We've scratched the surface a little bit there and maybe just one last question.
Speaker 2:If that's okay for today.
Speaker 3:What is the kind of thing that someone's done for you?
Speaker 1:You know, just this week had to go to Sydney. I didn't have to go.
Speaker 2:Did you mean an?
Speaker 1:award. I was there because of an award. Yes, I didn't have to go. I wanted to go, and then I had the opportunity, on the back of winning an award, to hang out with Christine Holgate, who's with the legend.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I did message you about that. Oh no, I'm such a fan, how can you not?
Speaker 1:be a fan of that woman. Talk about Hulk, human, resilient, brave, authentic. I mean. Go and read her Wikipedia file. That woman is just the bomb.
Speaker 2:I love her.
Speaker 1:And she presented an award last week that I did, that I did accept on behalf of its economy, and just her emotive connection, the human, I mean, she's a human. I love that about her. Anyway, I guess I'm such a present person so I immediately think of what's the kind of thing someone's done for me is probably my friend Louise, who just said she was meant to come to Sydney with me Because I get a plus one and she's going to come. And then I was like, oh, louise is like the flight time's done. And she's like, don't, yes, just, I won't come, you've got to get your things done. I won't come, let's do something another time. And I was like, okay, cool things.
Speaker 1:And then I was trying to juggle my kids and like, what do I do? And she's just like, well, I'm going to come over and sleep at your house in your bed. Don't change your sheets. I am there. Tell your kids they don't need to entertain me. I'm just going to be in your home to make you feel comfortable that there's someone there with your kids, and my kids don't need babysitting.
Speaker 1:But my kids have been going through some challenging times. They're adapting to a new life. They're teenagers, they're girls. There's hormones, there's issues, right, like any parent that has teenagers like, please don't tell me there's no issues, because there always is. And she just like, I just think it's such a small thing to offer to do that for someone and it doesn't sound like a very big deal. I'm sure if I was to go through the archives of my lifetime there'll be bigger kind of things that people have done for me. But actually I think it's the beauty in the simplicity of the small act of kindness that has the biggest impact in our lives. And Louise showing up when I needed it, without me having to ask for it even though I probably would have asked her in the end as an option just meant I could feel like someone had my back and I said that at.
Speaker 1:TEDx. Right, it was one of my little things of find people that have your back rather than stab you in your back, because it's so easy to bitch about someone and lots of people get taught to do that to make themselves feel better. I know that's not how they get taught, but when you're crushing someone else and putting someone else down, there seems to be this chemical in our body that makes us feel better about ourselves, which is really shitty. Right, don't do that. And so what I love is that Louise has my back and I just know that I can rely on her, and she's a new friend. I've only known her for a year.
Speaker 1:I met her at a club that we both attended and we just had to hit this off. She's in her 60s. I'm in my late 40s. Like this, this big age gap. We connect like we are the same. We were in the same age group cohort Like the num. What I've learned from my friendship with Louise and others like her who are close to me now is that it's not your age, it's not what you do, it's not your resume, it's not you know all the prowess and the platform and persona that you project.
Speaker 1:It's actually the energy and the flow and that non-judgmental whole human. What do you need? I'm there for you and there's no ulterior motive. Like I had dinner at her house last night. I just remembered that. You know I've been going through a lot at the moment. I'm a solo mum now. I have two teenagers full time at home, I run a business, I have all these things going on Hormones, all the things and she just shows up and when she was at my house she could have easily judged the abhorrently disgusting mess of the bathroom or the girls rooms or and I'm one of those mums that just shots at all, I don't care if that's their room, their problem, not mine she could have judged. She could have, you know, made all these assumptions about the way, like when someone sleeps in your bed it's not your partner and someone lives in your home when you're not there Very intimate.
Speaker 2:Very.
Speaker 1:And it felt deeply and profoundly kind, and yet it's such a simple thing. So probably my thinking from that is like who's better you going to sleep in to help someone, and would you, without judgment, and could you without frowning upon the way someone else might live? That's very different to how you do and that's, I think, that's the kind of thing that someone can do for you is show up when it's the most simple solution of all and not this developed, arranged, you know, structured act of kindness. That's to the extreme, it's just. I think it takes me back to my roots.
Speaker 1:You know, my mum was a single mum and three girls under three and my dad left and my mum moved in with her with my nanopop, her mum and dad, who had three younger kids of their own closer to my age than my mum's age, and then my mum's three, including me. So six kids, three parents, two parents and my mum, all living in a tiny little two bedroom in a sleep at house, and just the values I learned growing up that love and family. Like blood, is thicker than water, I used to get told. But blood doesn't have to be real blood, louise, is my blood, and that's probably what it comes down to is that you don't get to choose your family, but you do get to choose the people that are your family. Yes, does that make sense?
Speaker 3:It absolutely does, and we should change our last question to who's better you're going to sleep in. I love that, just for fun. I'm not going to ask my husband that, no who's better?
Speaker 2:we sleep in in a non-romantic life have you ever? Slept in someone else's bed before.
Speaker 1:At their home.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you know when I remember it was for me in a different circumstance. It was when I left, my ex-husband and I had somewhere for the first couple of nights, and then I had nowhere to go and. I stayed in the guest room for a while, but then another friend said I'm actually going to Thailand for two weeks over Christmas. Yeah, you can stay in my house, but it's in my bed.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it was Steve Armstrong from Flight Center an old friend yeah. And yeah, like I lived in his house in his bed, it did feel weird at first it did.
Speaker 1:I was going to say how did you feel?
Speaker 2:I think. Well, I wonder at the time how many other people had slept in their bed to be honest Go Steve. But yeah, it honestly felt. I remember it very clearly. I felt like it was quite. It was very intimate and not in a sexual way, but I've been led in to something that is very private, that is very just so intimate and a real privilege actually Like the trust to let someone in like that, yeah, it is, it is.
Speaker 1:I think that it is something worth unpacking in your future questions to your future podcasters, because it really like there's actually a spare bed in my house, yeah, and I said oh, you can sleep in a spare room. She's like don't be stupid, I'm just going to sleep in your bed. And I was like oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I think it really made me pause and appreciate this beauty of real, authentic connection.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes and that's rare. That's rare, so you've slept in one person's bed.
Speaker 1:Have you ever slept in someone's bed, andy, as a non-partner action oriented like intimate Like what.
Speaker 3:Like non-spring to mine, but I reckon I probably have.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But non-spring to mine right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been in plenty of other beds, but yeah, yeah. Different reasons.
Speaker 1:I think that's its own podcast, and if you did, do I get to ask those questions? Oh?
Speaker 2:my dear husband's like oh no, don't go there, Don't go there.
Speaker 1:You're done, You're done no no, no, I love that, I love that.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, thanks so much for coming in today. I've loved hearing your story and I could you know, if the stars align for us to do it again? That'd be awesome, yeah.
Speaker 1:I reckon, because it's a real gift to me.
Speaker 3:And there's a real depth and richness there. Maybe I'll have a marathon under my cycle, you know I was going to say, compete on your level. It's terrible, but you know contribute maybe, and share the experience? Yes, but anyway, that'll be my own journey and I would love to have you back. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I would love that and I'm happy. Please, just don't ask, don't get so. If you want tips and tricks on how to do a marathon and hack your way to not being hurt at the end, I'm your person because, again, it's all about efficiency and, yeah, your nutrition will be your key. So that's a hot tip for you. I can hook you up with some really good people that can help you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I keep bringing it up on the podcast, for the accountability, because I know it's such a goal of yours and it's a scary one at the same time. So I'm like, yeah, let's keep talking about it. Just don't turn this on me and give me any goals publicly. I'm only joking.
Speaker 3:You're on your own journey, I'm not, no.
Speaker 2:I am only joking. Yes, Thank you. So so much. It's such a privilege. I love every moment we get to spend together and thank you for your time and your generosity and your joy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you, and don't like. I just want to leave a message to your podcasters. I don't know. I forgiveness over permissions always better, but those that are listening, like the leadership I encourage that you inspire. And again I go back to that room that day and, just for the record, I flashed my boobs for everybody that has been waiting until the end to know what I did.
Speaker 1:I flashed the boobs. No nips, no worries, I can actually walk around with no top and not get into trouble by the law because there are no nipples. So I flashed my boobs on stage that day to just say here's what it looks like. Here's what it looked like then. Here's what it looks like now. Your energy right, you didn't say yeah, as you have permission like your energy that the two of you exude together and individually really does via and your team vibrate, and it's like you know you throw a pebble into the ocean and it ripples. I've used this analogy in the past, but for you I feel that it's where it belongs. Like you throw a pebble in the river and it leaves a ripple, and you don't often know how far that ripple flows, and enough pebbles create enough ripples for waves that people can then ride to wherever they need to go in life.
Speaker 1:You really are the ripples that allow people. In a business environment where we're often taught how we're supposed to be, you really give people permission to show up as themselves, so that there's no professional persona and personal persona and the juxtaposition or polarizing differences between the two. You really create, without words, that environment where people can show their true selves, flash their boobs and do other things that they might not have, would have believed that they ever might have felt comfortable doing so. It really is a gift that you have, so I want to say thank you for bringing it to the world.
Speaker 2:Thank you. That's really touched me, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here, thank you.
Speaker 1:By the way, best fricking eyebrows I've ever seen in my lifetime. I have to say, where on earth did you get those done? And the eyeshadow is banging today. Seriously, I've been looking at it.
