Ali and I ‘met’ via a Facebook group for Chooks SA. When I reached out to ask for people to share their stories Ali stepped up right away!
This example of Ali stepping out of her comfort zone was when she began doing Facebook Live video streams. She did it because “I was told I had to, to grow my business! And… more importantly, because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.’’
Ali was surprised to find that doing the livestreams helped with her anxiety! ‘’It’s still a work in progress and I’m getting better at them all the time. I’m honestly still quite nervous when I do them but every time, it gets a little less scary. It also helps with my anxiety believe it or not. Each time I do it, it’s like another step forward in the recovery process.’’
I asked Ali how this all made her feel ‘’I always get so nervous beforehand that I feel I need to be overprepared. I practice, pre-record myself, make copious notes just in case I forget what I want to say. I primp, preen and make sure I look my best.
‘’During the live, there are so many things going on in my mind that sometimes it’s hard to think. I feel like I stumble, I look stupid, I’m thinking “is anything I’m even saying making sense?” I get ‘afraid’ that someone will actually log in and watch it live while I’m on! How ironic is that?! It’s a Facebook LIVE!
“Afterwards, I’m always so relieved it’s over and I watch the replay immediately to see how it went. It’s amazing that each and EVERY time, I always do a much better job than expected. It gives me confidence and fills me with excitement to try again next time.’’
As always, I asked Ali for any advice and last words:
‘’Look it’s scary at first simply because you don’t know what to expect. We build up so many expectations in our own minds of what COULD happen, but in fact, we don’t know until we are brave enough to give it a go.
‘’I have learnt that stepping out of your comfort zone means making mistakes, but more importantly – it is a learning experience. It helps you grow stronger, more confident in yourself ready for when the next time comes around.
‘’Once you take that plunge – you are filled with a sense of pride that is indescribable. My advice, in the words of NIKE…….Just Do It!
‘’I know this sounds cliché, but if there is something you know you need to do but it involves stepping out of your comfort zone – the absolute best thing you can do is just go for it. Sure, you may fumble a bit but we’ve all been there and everyone has to start somewhere. Nobody is perfect and it will feel absolutely amazing when you do.”
Thank you Ali!
A bit about Ali
I am an Empowerment & Success Coach AKA The Motivation Mumma. I help fellow abuse survivors to rediscover their empowered voice, become unapologetically confident, powerhouse women & mothers- because that is who we are!
I have had 3 separate abusive relationships myself and am proud that I no longer say, “Poor me.” I now say, “I AM PROUD TO BE ME!” I made it through. And I want this for my fellow survivors too. It is my absolute passion to help these ladies feel as amazing as I do.
I have had mixed results with stylists. For many years I have envied those with a definitive style – be it retro or Goth or anything at all really! My style has tended to be comfortable clothes that ‘flatter’ me. Mainly jeans!
My first styling session was with a woman who was able to help me find flattering clothes. I purchased 5 tops with her in a 1 hour session in Myer. Sadly I was so excited by the fact that the tops looked good on me that I forgot to decide if I actually liked them! I returned 4 of the tops the next day.
Many years later I met a lovely stylist at a 2 day course about presence, influence and finding your voice. She said wonderful things about me and how to dress to better flatter my shape. I set up a session with her about 6 months later. We did a full wardrobe review and then a shopping session to fill specific gaps in my collection. I had a wonderful time and added a lot to my wardrobe. But diets were mentioned more than once. And the shops we went into I was wearing the biggest size they had. I had great clothes, but I didn’t feel wonderful. I also had a new set of ‘rules’ to follow when I dressed. No white shirts (too much white across my body to be flattering), for example.
Fast forward to 2019, and at the SheEO summit I met Blaise from Hear us Roar. HuR is an online clothing store featuring plus size designers. My heart sang, and then sank. I am terrible at online clothes shopping. Most plus size models are tall, and I am at the shorter end of average height. Things rarely looked the same on me! Then Blaise gave me a ray of hope… they were looking at doing a pop up styling shop in Melbourne!!
I think I only asked once (maybe twice?) if they were still planning the pop up store… and I was reassured it was still a possibility.
My excitement when I saw the dates on Instagram was enormous! I immediately asked to be signed up.
Finally the day arrived, I was filled with anticipation, mixed with dread… what if I didn’t like anything? What if it didn’t look good on me? What if the stylist and I had different taste?
And, just imagine, what if I loved what they showed me.
I set two budgets – sensible and stretch.
The hour of trying on clothes with Karina was joyous. Not only were there clothes I liked, and liked on me, there were so many that I was able to be picky! Not once were the words flattering or minimising used. I was not dressing to look smaller; I was dressing the look (and feel) fabulous.
The end of an hour saw me sorting my haul into 3 categories: definitely, maybe and sadly no. Karina priced the definitely pile while I wandered, ate cheese, drank wine and looked again at the maybe pile. Feeling like a million dollars. Which was definitely not my budget!
The good news came back – I was within my stretch budget (just!). The bad news was I had decided there were two items on the maybe pile I could not live without… I may have stretched my stretch budget a tiny bit… but what price can you put on feeling stylish, and not small in any way?
I have a list. It’s called the ‘I’m freaking out story’, and it is a culmination of phrases I used during a single therapy session. The point of the list is to take note every time my mind goes to a thought that is similar to these phrases, and to recognise it. So, what is on the list you ask? As you would expect, they are negative thoughts towards myself. The eye opening one for me was ‘Losing control is failure’.
I have never considered myself a ‘control freak’. I was a happy, hardworking, glass is half full kind of person. I woke up with purpose, I lived by my morals, I slept soundly at night. I had never considered a need to go to therapy. I had been through ups and downs sure, but generally I considered my life to be on an upwards trajectory. And then I had a nervous breakdown.
The details of what triggered this are unimportant. What you need to know is that stress is cumulative. It stacks up. Every one of us is carrying a pile of stress. Stress from things that might be years old. And your pile keeps growing. It grows when you don’t acknowledge and release it.
See most of us come across something stressful, and we either run from it, or we try and tackle it by breaking it down. Neither works. And this is where my control issue comes in.
Somewhere along the way my stress started building rather than releasing. And as my pile of stress grew larger, I tried to tackle it head on. My weapon of choice – control. If I can control my environment I can manage my stress. If I can have all the information, I can control it and manage it. If I can analyse the hell out of it, and think of every single worst-case possible scenario, I can plan for all outcomes, and then I can control it.
As I got older, my stresses became heavier. Career choices, I became a parent, my partner went through cancer, financial stresses, family, friends – the stress list was long, and heavy. And the more there were, the more I tried to control them. I was walking around with never ending lists in my head, constantly seeking out information and planning, planning, planning.
Soon, my need to control things started creeping in to controlling those around me. I wanted to keep them safe and happy. I wanted to prepare for all scenarios. So, I needed information all the time. I over observed to sense any changes in their behaviour or language. I over communicated. It was exhausting, both for them and me.
I became completely unable to deal with ambiguity. And the really scary thing is that I did not consciously recognise any of this. I didn’t realise what I was doing. I knew that I had stress and anxiety at times. I knew that I was an avid communicator. I knew I was tired a lot. I put it all down to being a full time working mum that had been through some stuff and really needed a break.
The fact is that stress is cumulative. It can manifest itself in lots of different damaging ways, both mentally and physically. And while it is very easy to say I have lived through some really tough situations and it isn’t my fault I got to the point of breaking, the simple fact is that the only thing any of us can ever control is ourselves.
It is not easy to turn back the tide on being a ‘control freak’. I spent years slowly building those habits up. They created a framework within me of what I thought was protection. And now I need to tear them down. I need to face ambiguity and embrace it. I need to focus on first understanding what self-care looks like for me, and then taking proactive steps to do it. And I need to acknowledge to myself that I can only control me, and I need to let go of owning other people’s choices and actions.
When all of this seems really hard, and like I am fighting against my own sense of self, I remember a very simple thing my therapist told me. Pain is inevitable, suffering isn’t. All of the lists and planning and information gathering were fuelling my own anxiety and creating suffering that did not even need to exist. All I need to know is that if and when something happens, I have the tools within myself, and the strength to face it. Until then, I do not need to make myself suffer. It does not serve me, and I am in complete control of that.
A few learnings to finish:
Brigette Norton
Today’s video blog includes 3 new teams, a launch, 3 badges and a visit from my cat Missy!
Vicki Saunders founded SheEO, a movement I am very proud to be a part of.
In case you are not aware, SheEO is a radically redesigned ecosystem that supports, finances, and celebrates female innovators.
I am going to share today’s interview in a different format – a Q&A style without my additional commentary.
Fiona: Tell me about a time when you stepped out of your comfort zone?
Vicki: I am almost always on my learning edge, stretching myself. I have a lot of ambition and energy for changing systems and creating a better world and each time I reach a milestone I push myself to what’s next. This SheEO journey is one of the most challenging things I have ever done.
As a leader I am holding the space for a 14year old Activator in our community to have the same power as a CFO of a global bank. I’m asking people to go on a journey that looks very different in almost every way to how the world is currently organized. We trust Ventures to build their businesses on their own terms. We use a totally democratic process for selecting Ventures – we trust the intuition of hundreds of Activators to select Ventures vs using an expert panel. We believe that people will find each other so we don’t assign’ advisors to the Ventures. They ask for help through a regular process and those who think they can help reach out. Everything is based on relationships, not transactions. When we launch a new country it’s because women in that region have reached out over and over asking to replicate the model and they self-organize to make it happen. It’s based on trust instead of control, on radical generosity over fear. I have to constantly be shifting my mindset because we can’t get to a new world by building it with the same principles as the one we’ve got. So, Every. Single. Day. I’m pretty much outside my comfort zone.
F: Why did you do it?
V: I do it because I know we can do better. The systems and structures we have in place were designed for a different time and they no longer serve us. I want to live in a world that works for everyone, not just the “winners”. We are wildly out of balance right now on the planet. We have an economic model that is bad for the economy and society. It’s extractive, persistently unfair (by design) and has led to a world where 5 people have the same wealth as half the planet. 51% of the global population receive less than 4% of the financial capital to grow their businesses and leadership. And we are burning through our resources like the party will never end. We need a giant reset, rethink and redesign of almost every part of our society. And most importantly I think that choosing what we value is the biggest hurdle we have at the moment. At SheEO we are valuing being radically generous with each other because we believe it will help us reach our potential and create a happier, healthier, wealthier society.
F: What was the outcome?
V: We aren’t at the destination yet but to date we are witnessing exceptional results. Ventures are growing at triple digit revenues, exporting and getting what they need from the community. They are emboldened and supported to run their businesses and lead on their own terms. And most importantly we are realizing that you can create a strong ecosystem when you trust people to do things on their own terms.
F. How did you feel before, during and after?
V: Before I embark on anything that’s outside my comfort zone I feel the pressure rise. Whenever I’m afraid of something I know I’m going to have to do it. It’s a muscle I’ve been building for a long time. A friend once said to me, “how much do you really want it?”. If you really want something, you’ll walk through the fire to get there. I knew that I wanted to have a big impact in my life and when I was younger I was afraid of speaking. All through school I wouldn’t raise my hand because I was afraid to speak in public. So, my way of forcing myself to do things is asking everyone I know to help me. I told everyone I know that I wanted speaking engagements and the first one that came in was for 1000 people. I was a mess. I stood behind the podium and shook the whole time and I wasn’t very good. But, with a LOT of practice I got better. I’m still nowhere near where I’d like to be but I get up there every time and speak about things I’m passionate about so that I can create the impact I want.
F: Would you step out of your comfort zone again? And why?
V: Yes. There is no other option for me than to keep growing. I’m curious about what we don’t know. I’m open to learning. I’m appalled with the state of the world. If you are comfortable all the time you aren’t learning. I’ve gotten very used to being comfortable not knowing and trusting that it will all work out.
F: What advice would you give people about what happens when you leave the comfort zone?
V: Breathe. It’s the answer to literally everything. Take three deep breaths in a row and you disrupt your stress response.
F: Any last words?
V: Get yourself connected to a community of people who lift you up, who get you and who have your back. This human thing is seriously challenging and it’s impossible to do alone.
BIOGRAPHY
Vicki Saunders is an entrepreneur, award-winning mentor, advisor to the next generation of change makers and leading advocate for entrepreneurship as a way of creating positive transformation in the world.
Vicki is Founder of SheEO and #radical generosity a global initiative to radically transform how we support finance and celebrate female entrepreneurs.
Vicki has co-founded and run ventures in Europe, Toronto and Silicon Valley and taken a company public on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Vicki was recently named as 1 of 30 “World-Changing Women in Conscious Business” by Conscious Company Magazine and one of the 100 most influential leaders of 2015 from “EBW – Empowering A Billion Women”, In 2001, Vicki was selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.
When I spoke to Kim, she talked about the fact that being out of her comfort zone had almost become her comfort zone!
“I grew up moving a lot. We moved from I was born in the UK, to the West Indies and then to Canada, back and forth. I think that when you’re always the new kid in town, you are essentially always the ‘other’ and, as such, you don’t really get a comfort zone that is sustainable. So, I think, in many ways, being out of my comfort zone is my comfort zone.”
At Kim 20 she was working a spring ski season at Big White (a ski hill in British Columbia). “As the season was ending there were a lot of us who were looking for our next ‘adventures’. On one particularly enthusiastic night out – with perhaps a few too many Jägermeister shots, if I’m honest – a couple of the guys said they were going to northern Saskatchewan to go tree planting. To this day I can’t tell you why I decided to say, “That sounds interesting… I’ll do that too!:
The patronising look they gave me said it all… and then they said it out loud: ‘girls can’t do that!’ Well, this girl was going to show them. “Oh, yes, we can!”
I knew then that Kim and I had a lot in common!
Kim actually ticked a lot of ‘no’ boxes on doing this work “I hated camping. I’d never held a shovel in my life. I don’t do cold. And it was all those things… and more.
“But I did. I sucked it up and I did it and, in many ways, it was the making of me. Actually, after tree planting I went even further north and ended up emergency forest firefighting in the Yukon Territories!”
“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever see myself doing that, but it was pivotal to me as a human being, and to finding the fierce female component that has, from that point on, been integral to who I am.
“Once I’d done that, when I’d really taken myself completely, not only out of my comfort zone, but almost out of my own understanding of myself, it made me. Because I knew that if I could do that, I could do anything.
“It was, in so many ways, one of the most intensely uncomfortable – in fact, I call it my ‘In Tents Summer’ – and incredibly joyous times in my life.”
Choosing from many further examples of stepping out of her comfort zone, Kim chose her ‘latest incarnation’.
“A few years later I found myself founding and running a theatre company in London and from there moving to Amsterdam, where I was an editor and writer for national and international magazines and newspapers. I got to interview people like Madeleine Albright, Tom Wolfe and John Irving, who were all, in one way or another, huge influences on me and people I’d looked up to for many years. It was a great life!
“And then I met an amazing Australian man and, with no hesitation I can tell you that I fell in love with him at first sight. When we decided to get married, we made the decision to move to Sydney, where he grew up. It was an exciting time but also daunting.
“I had an amazing career and a phenomenal cohort of female friends. We empowered each other; we commiserated and celebrated together and when you find a group of fabulous women who all support one another it is extremely difficult to give up. That group of friends will always be priceless to me.”
Kim spoke to me about how hard it was to start again in a foreign country. With no children in tow, there were no playground or school gate meetings where she could make new friends. Also career wise Kim knew that, already in her forties, it was unlikely she’d be able to walk into a commensurate media career – she needed to rethink and retool.
“I had to figure out what to do.
“My husband and I co-founded a high-tech startup company together- which was wonderful – but, at that point, it was not an industry, I was completely au fait with.
“Once again, I was out of my comfort zone so, I had to figure out a way to find my place and my position in a way that was true to myself but also was useful to the company. So, I began to learn; I learned about the industry’s past and present, but more importantly I explored the future of the industry – and I began to write about it.
I started a blog and reached out to people that I felt were very influential in their industries. “Given my previous career, interviewing people and writing about them was definitely in my comfort zone. However, I was talking with and listening to people who were experts in areas that, at the time, I knew nothing about. In doing so I learned a huge amount and became a vastly better CEO.”
Kim’s advice for people considering stepping out of their comfort zone is: “I think people don’t realise how powerful and how plentiful generosity is around them. Too often we have been told that asking is a sign of weakness. It’s not. Know this: regardless of what comfort zone you’re stepping out of, be it personal or professional, there are more people willing to help than you know. They’re there to help you to take steps forward, to support you along the way and to celebrate with you when you’ve reached your goal.
“This is a journey. There’s no end point where you think: okay, I’m done. The adventure of life isn’t like that; every day is an opportunity to stretch and learn a little bit more. Who knows you may even plant a few trees along the way.”
Bio of Kim Chandler McDonald:
Kim is the Co-Founder and CEO of FlatWorld Integration, an Australian high-tech software firm, which is transforming the world of data. She is a globally respected thought leader on disruptive approaches – particularly those involving innovation and the global Digital/Data Economies. Kim is the award-winning author of Innovation: How Innovators Think, Act and Change Our World (2013) and Flat World Navigation: Collaboration and Networking in the Global Digital Economy (2015) as well as co-author of, ‘Entrepreneurial Renaissance: Cities Striving Towards an Era of Renaissance and Revival’ (2017). She is currently in the midst of a new book project, all profits of which will be donated to Lou’s Place – the only daytime drop-in refuge for female victims of domestic violence in Sydney. Currently Kim sits on a number of boards both locally and internationally and is a proud member of the inaugural cohort of SheEO (Australia), a global community of radically generous women transforming the way we finance, support and celebrate female entrepreneurs who are creating a better world. Formerly, while living in the Netherlands, Kim was a writer/editor for national and international English-language newspapers and magazines and host/producer of an award winning radio program.
So thank you Moira for joining me this afternoon and being interviewed for climbing lava – my blog. So, first of all, tell me a bit about yourself and chooks as well.
Thanks, Fiona appreciate the invitation and big shout out to Valli who brought us together. She’s a matchmaker.
So, I live in and it’s NAIDOC week this week. So I really want to acknowledge that I’m coming to you from Kuarna land. And I live in a little village called Willunga in South Australia on the Fleurieu peninsula, 50 kilometers south of the city, and Willunga means place of trees in the local language. So it’s a nice little village. People who are fanatics about cycling will know it’s one of the tour down under sites that you get to see on the big screens in January, they go up Willunga Hill and really just about expire.
I grew up mostly in South Australia. I’ve lived here all my life with a few little stints out of the out of South Australia, but as a child, not as an adult, so when I was little I lived in New Guinea for a couple of years and in the UK for a couple of years. By the time I was ready to start High School, we were back here in South Australia. So I’m kind of very much a local establishment and anyone who knows Adelaide knows that two degrees of separation is usually about half too many. And so we’re all connected one way or another. Which is, you know, I find that really fabulous. It’s not always great for everybody else. I raised a family here my kids are all well and truly grown up and left home long ago. And one lives here now, but the other ones in Mexico, ones in Melbourne and ones in Brisbane
and my oldest daughter is about to go live in Broome. So truly scattered like so many families having their next generation around, and I have one grandchild and he turned four last week. So that’s, that’s one of the joys of getting older, be the next generation explore and find out what the future holds. So I’ve spent most of my life doing change making I professionally as a social worker. And social work is all about systems change, either changing the system to help the person fit in or changing the person to help the system fit around one way or another and but I’ve mainly worked at that systems level in Policy and Planning. Essentially, I always say I have worked from the kitchen table to the cabinet table. So I’ve been a chief of staff for minister of government, I’ve been CEO for a number of small, medium sized, not for profits, including volunteering in South Australia and Northern Territory. Currently sit on a board, a director of an international project management and educational organization called Scott global it’s based here in Adelaide and we’ve got people all over the world.
And few years ago, I was getting concerned about the gap between investment for women, I’ve always had a very strong gender approach to life in applying a gender lens and all sorts of ways.
And, you know, doing some analysis around what the patriarchy is, or, you know, keeping people back and that sort of analysis and my husband was unwell at the time and was dying and I was sitting on the couch quite a lot to have a look at what some of those things again that I hadn’t looked at for a long time and became astonished, horrified and then activated to see what we could do to shift the gender investment gap.
So for example, venture capital, which is often a way for startups to get funding, less than 4% of that goes to female founders. 200 years if we’re waiting for the gender pay gap to close, so I don’t even want to do the calculations on the gender investment gap. And there’s quite a difference in the way. Funding happens and investment in capital working capitals raised for startups and for social enterprises. So a lot of social enterprises grow out of the not for profit sector, which has been very heavily dependent on government grants and philanthropic and startups seems to be you know, from more high risk takers in venture capital.
And in fact, there’s a lot of similarities and how those organizations how those investments get made, if you like, and, and women get treated quite differently in both systems. And so I said, Oh, well, that looks like that’s something that will in interest maybe like 10 other people who might be interested in it. I started a little Facebook group, a closed group because I thought nobody else would be interested. And there’s now two and a half thousand people involved in that. And we grow 10 to 20 people a week, I just can’t keep up. And that’s called Chooks SA. And predominantly, it’s women about 4% are men, and it’s really nice.
So I heard about chooks SA from Valli and we were actually having a SheEO catch up when she mentioned Chooks and it sounded fantastic. So I straight away, joined your newsletter and Facebook group. And as it’s happened to me this year, I found an amazing community of people who are doing fantastic things and supporting each other. So yeah, so what do you… What’s the main goal of Chooks?
Chooks is really a Facebook community, and it’s really just a place where people can get support, get information. So I really try and give a lot of information from all around the world as well as just helping raise consciousness about what the issues are. But as it’s grown you know people are connecting with each other collaborating with one another finding new customers finding ways to join together it’s quite phenomenal every day Oh, my goodness, you know, I don’t look at it for two hours and it’s taken off.
So it’s, it really was designed from my point of view and the way I curate it is to build community and build connection and to continue to keep a gender lens over whatever it is we’re seeing and doing so that it drives the agenda forward, which is to close the gender investment gap.
Okay, and what about the co op that you’ve got going as well?
So exciting.
Sorry,
So chalks is a is a closed Facebook community with a bit of an online and it’ll always be free and it will always be there for community purposes. So it’s you know, it is your village green if you like. However, every village needs a few shops as well to help the economy go around. And so we’ve established what we’re calling the hen house, the hen house Co Op, and the hen house and people will join the co-op and become members of it. And that way, they can be more active in actually some of the processes and things we want to change. So in the co-op itself, so you pay an annual membership fee, and then you buy a share like, which will be $1.
So we’re still waiting for the very last piece of the puzzle to come in from the partner from Co Op registrations.
As tech company government authorities
taking my money given me the name
And still haven’t given me the certificate. So there any minute now.
And then we can officially say we are the henhouse co-op.
And when when we when we say that people will be able to pay their annual fee, get their $1 subscription, share, and then they’ll participate. Every Co Op, co-ops have to be activity centric. you have to do one thing. So if you’re a farmer, for example, your one thing might be that you’re selling your grain to the co op. Or if you you know, a
lawn mowing franchise that you mow each other’s lawns once a year. So for our co-op, the henhouse. The activity test is that you will do one thing a year to help close the agenda investment gap. And you’ll make that public. And so that thing could be it might be a grandma who decides she’s going to give equal amounts of Christmas holiday money to her grandchildren, boys and girls equally. It might be that you’re the head of Telstra you want to make sure that you bring a gender lens and train everyone from unconscious bias and selection. It might be that you are a regular goer to your local newsagent. And you really don’t like seeing all the business magazines under the men’s magazine section.
For example, they are some examples. So you all publicly say that’s the one thing I’m going to do. And will will bring all of you together once a year, to give you some advice about how to turn the curve on the things that you’ve already nominated. So that will give us an opportunity to do some education, and some practical campaigning around those things. And that program is called ‘give a cluck.’
I love it. I love the names.
The incubator program which is being funded by philanthropy, and that’s a co-op incubator. So we’re bringing women who are, for whatever reason, disadvantaged, so they might be women, survivors of domestic violence, in prison, they might have English not as their first language, there might be women who live in the regions who are coming together in groups of five or more to because five, the minimum number for a co op to
incubate their business and, and create a business out of it. So a lot of the business incubator. So, Muru-D for example, what Julie runs in {}, and in Telstra, you know, has it has a different focus different sorts of women, we’ve got lots of incubators where people pay, you know, $10,000 a month for six months to start their business. So this doesn’t cost the women who participate, anything, we’re raising funds for that so they can participate. So we’re really hoping we’re not only just filling a gap in the incubator market, but we’re actually filling a gap in the
business market as well and obviously changing the lives of those women who are stepping up so we’re in our pilot for that at the moment and we call the groups that are coming (you’ll love this by the way) we call them clutches. And that’s so that’s to a play on words one is that you know that’s what a little group of little chicks is called, but also the idea of changing gear and you know you needing to put your foot on the clutch to get moving. So we’ve got
into week four of our incubator, the incubator is a 100 hour program, 10 hours a week for 10 weeks that people have to contribute to it. It’s not face to face a little some of it is face to face but predominantly, it’s online and you know, we coach over zoom and all that kind of thing. And, and I’ve got, there is three coaches in that program, I’m one of them.
So that’s coming together and mainly being bootstrapped and underwritten by all my other
paid work to make that happen and what we do have some philanthropic funds to kick that off. And we’re beginning to build our digital platform around that as well. So people from Chooks, for example, will start to be able to start volunteering to be mentors in that program as as businesses start to end. So that’ll be a piece of the mentor matching will also begin a an online shop so that those people who have come through the incubator program have an external facing purchasing platform. And
if you’re in the co op itself, if you’re a member of the henhouse will also be a listing your business and so that people can say, you know, this is a female first business in that spot, you want to invest in it. And then the third program under the hen house will be called hatched. And that is for those little, those businesses that have come through the incubator programs that now want a bit more support they have been run their own business, but need a bit more
infrastructure and support around them. Because quite often a lot of the better programs once they’re over you know, then that’s it, everyone waves goodbye and you’re on your own.
And we don’t want that to happen. We want them to be successful. We are considering possibly enabling other businesses to come in at hatched.
They will be co ops like they’re going to be very neutral and act completely agnostic actually, about what businesses people women run. But we are not agnostic about the kind of
business model or business model but the governance structure. So the governance will always be a co op. Okay. So we’re really wanting to foster that economic model. And we believe that it’s very female friendly, we it’s got all the things that we believe are important in it. It’s a distribution of equality and equity in the share.
And also co-ops were the first places
women could vote and participate in so under under British law, as it was in those days, women couldn’t vote, they could vote in CO ops when they first started […] teams set them up originally. So we really they’ve got a really strong history in women’s economic empowerment and have fallen by the wayside for that purpose over the years. There’s still lots and lots of CO ops out there. Yeah. But the the feminine energy and as a actual economic model to support women has kind of fallen away. So in South Australia, the biggest female founded co-op was the hairdressers co-op and it went really well for 100 years and then gradually as the as the business and the industry change that started to change as well. And they set it up originally for as like a buyers Co Op so that they could get the large group purchase and yet
fantastic. I love, I knew, about some of those
things under Chooks, but I didn’t know all of them. So thank you for that Moira. That’s really awesome. The next thing I was going to ask you about was the fact that you’re a member of the Order of Australia
I even put my little badge on. Awesome.
I’ve got lots of big badges as well, but that’s a small one.
Tell me a bit about that. How did that come about? And how does it feel?
Congratulations.
Thank you. Yeah. Well, apparently (laughter) apparently I have friends
some of them decided to write a little letter to Government House to the Governor General. So um, so I received it in January. It was in the this years Australia Day Honours. Yeah. And
I was
I got a call in October last year. From
Governor General’s office. I thought it was a joke. And
very serious young man.
And I,
Was like ‘whose voice is that , whose voice is that?
Oh, yeah, right. Uh huh.’
Tell me, tell me your name. What’s your name away from again? And, and he obviously detected that I didn’t think it was real. I was and he said, Would you like me to give you the number and you can ring back and I was like oh God this must be serious.
They wouldn’t say that.
He rang just to tell me I’ve been nominated. If I got through the process, would I be willing to receive the award? Answer? Oh, yes, sure.
I better honor those people to put all the work in
Like that happened, so it was more out of other oh my gosh, I wonder who’s done that, you know, you’re sworn to secrecy. And then, in the beginning of December, I got another call saying that I had been accepted and it would happen and to expect media and you know, lalalala, and all of that. And you know, and don’t tell anybody.
I didn’t tell a soul. I kept it to myself, because I still didn’t quite believe, you know, I thought it was probably true, but you know, nothing like seeing things in writing to know it’s true. And then on the there was going to be a public announcement at 10 o’clock on the eve of Australia Day and about, I don’t know, five seconds past 10 o’clock my phone started beeping.
I was actually reading a book and I thought God is it tonight? Not that I’d forgotten, I was very conscious of it, but it like OMG it’s really here now. And I said, Right, okay. Oh, I haven’t told my mom.
And I haven’t told my brother and I haven’t told my kids. And so what am I going to do? And it’s a bit late. So I texted all the kids and sent them messages. And my brother was at a Phil Collins concert was on in Adelaide.
So I texted him saying, Hope you’re enjoying Phil Have a great night? Lots of love Moira Were AM. And he said to his wife. AM what’s AM. Cassie is very sensible. Worked it out andtexted me back and said, Are you in the Australia Honours?. I go. Yeah, that’s what happened. So then I thought, well, mum could sleep. I’ll ring her early in the morning. So because I didn’t want them to read it in the paper first. Yeah, so I rang her, she hadn’t seen it. Thank goodness.
Well, she told me she
and and so that’s what happened. So what was all very lovely and then I thought who would have done this like this a lot of work. Anyway, I just thought about it and I said, I bet I know who started this. So I contacted her and I said was that you?
And, she said yes that was me.
and she she’s got a lot of time and resources so I knew that because it takes a lot.
The all these people came out of the woodwork. Oh, I did a reference for you too.
And it was actually two years from the time it got put in to the time I got through.
Wow. So that was all before Chooks. So it had nothing to do with the Chook stuff. It all had to do with my community service over you know, forty years in primarily in the in the community sector and volunteering. So you know, being on boards and committees in the church and domestic violence and
and in my international work, I’ve worked with a lot of community organizations there as well. So it was, it was a reflection, I guess of, you know what I have done in voluntary capacity. But also there was recognition of leadership and in that as well. And I, I’ve got a really good friend I said to her, just this, this feels really weird, you know? She said, No, it’s the community giving you a big hug back. And I’d love that was so beautiful. And since then, I felt that all because I wasn’t wearing the medals or anything. And I thought I have got to get practice and so I’m having practice of wearing it.
I think you should. I think it’s awesome. I love that concept. That’s a hug back from the community. That’s beautiful, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
So Moira I’ve got, I’m going to ask actually, I’m going to go off my own script now because, as you said that I remember something else I wanted to ask you about. One of the things that Valli talked to me about when she introduced Chooks and you to me was about your work with where our super gets invested. And I’d love to hear more about that if that’s something you are able to talk about. Sure. So I am a sit on the social impact investment network, South Australia.
And after my husband died, and he left a lot of debt that I didn’t know he had accumulated that really put a very big surprise in my life.
And I thought, I’ve really got to get a lot more control of my own set of circumstances. And at [], we were looking at strategy strategies generally about how we can improve the [] and conversation around social impact investment. And so just totally on my own, I went off and found a you know, a
What are they called like a wealth management person and sat down with them and looked at my own portfolio because I gathered up all the bits like typically women you know that we’ve got super in 500 places to put it all together. And I said that I what I wanted to do was actually just look at what they’ve done and where the investments are and my super and run a gender lens over it. So what I did, that’s what I did. So then they put got all the portfolio back for me and had it all beautifully done. And I literally went through one by one each of the businesses and in the company’s. If they didn’t have any women on the board. I said, No, I don’t want them. I don’t want to invest in them. And if they didn’t have some policies around gender, I wasn’t interested in and I did all that research myself. Just literally I went through at night after night. I just chose one and every I just did like, just doing the knitting three stitches at a time. And then I went back to them and said, Okay, this is what I’ve done. And this is what I think you need to do.
They said, Oh, that’s really interesting. You’re not the only person who’s doing this. And we’re getting a lot of people, particularly women who are coming to us and saying, you know, we want to invest in renewables. We want to know that they’re having, we’re bringing different lenses to our life. And you will know from the SheEO world Fiona that you know, the largest transfer of wealth in history, we’re on the precipice of because women live longer than men. So we will be in a position where we’ll be inheriting some considerable funds, and we can use that in a really positive way and hopefully, end some of these problems so
I then took that idea to [] and said, this is what I’ve been doing in my spare time, a little idea I’ve got and we then have then been socializing that around town and getting people’s interest up about it. And I’m just encouraging people because most of us don’t even know where our super goes and we get an annual report. We just put it in the big, saying that looks good, it was up 1% or no, that was a bad year. And, but it is something we can have some control over. And I think improving literacy around those things is important. And it’s something that I’ve done often. So when I see your voluntary aside, you know, we didn’t have some money in lack of foundation long term investments. We did some work around that thing, making sure it was going to the right places. And a lot of ethical investment isn’t really that ethical. It’s what was so you’ve really got to do some homework around it. Yep. Years and years ago, I did a piece of work for the women’s information switchboard, which was part of our women’s services in state government here. They were my clients and
they were concerned that a lot of women were turning up on the phone that was a telephone support service, and discovering that as they are about to leave because of domestic violence.
They had nothing like they didn’t even have, they won’t even co- signatures. This is like 30 years ago, on check accounts, that’s how long ago – people had check accounts. And,
you know, that didn’t have access to anything. And so they, we erected a project with them at the time called more than pin money. So I like that because when pins were first coming in, you know, the code, yeah, and, and getting people to just have their own money. And so it was a terrible shock to me to realize that I’d missed some of that myself as well. And, and I’m smart and capable, and, you know, so it can happen to anyone. And the idea of sexually transmitted debt is a real thing, particularly for women who are in DV situations, or for whatever reasons, I’m caring for someone for long periods of time, whether they’re or that, you know, mom out of the workforce, so become dependent on others. And we really need to do better about that. So that’s kind of all
intertwined in the way I see the world that our economic
independence is probably our greatest way of being able to shape the kind of world we want to live in. So we’ve got some control over whatever that is. That’s useful.
Yeah, I actually interviewed someone for my blog
maybe a month or two ago, who is very passionate about women having more control over their finances and exactly what you said then is that where the money goes is what actually gets bigger, you know, so the more we have a say in where the money goes, the more those industries and those areas will grow. So
yeah, really important and not something I’ve been aware of for way too long.
Yeah, we we’re good at things like fair trade and all of that. So we just have to just keep adding our thinking to it. And, and as consumers, even if we don’t have very much money, we can make some pretty big decisions about where we spend. Yeah, and nearly all of us have got super so we can make decisions about that. I think that’s awesome.
So Moira, at this stage, I’m going to ask you about a time when you have stepped out of your comfort zone.
I’m guessing it probably happens very often.
Yeah, I’m, I am. I’m fairly fearless like it. I don’t I’m, that I’m terrified if that makes sense. It
does actually. That old adage, you know, feel the fear and do it anyway.
So I’m certainly, that’s certainly true for me. When I was a chief of staff working in politics. I mean, that was just terrifying and out of my comfort zone every single day. And going to this was actually wasn’t in politics at the time. This was after going to this estate dinner, where there were some duke and duchess going and I had the high heels on there about this high, which was about that much higher than I normally wear, and I was terrified I was really out of my comfort zone. And one of my boys came with me he was my date for the night.
And the two of us were in hysterics because it was like, you know, he was dressed up, like
I’m never this dressed up, this feels so uncomfortable. I don’t like this.
And so here we are that the kind of things you can be surprised about how uncomfortable you know, I can get up and talk in front of 500 people and wouldn’t bat an eyelid that sort of wearing high heels in front of a room full of people at a big fancy dinner. That’s very just uncomfortable for me.
And I think too, when I am you know, in the in a political context when you’re having to deal with a lot of risk because you know, you can bring a government down by making a mistake when you’re in minority government, which was the case when I was a chief of staff and
It’s really, you know, you, you’re on edge all the time and constantly thinking, Oh, is this going to work? Or am I going to cause the fall of the government? They that can be quite scary. And yeah, but I, you know, I think that on the whole you know, what is the comfort zone is really about also, how do you manage yourself in
unusual or confusing or anxious provoking
situation and I tend to
think if I notice I’m really anxious then I’ll just think I’m really anxious to check a few breaths
and, and on you, you know, it’s that old idea of big push yourself forward through the pain barrier, or do you just give yourself a break and don’t do it? And I think as I’ve got older, I’m less likely to push myself through the barriers, I think, well, I don’t have to do that. And I’ll help I’ll push others.
But I’ll also take risks that I can I know that no one else in the room can take. I’ll often put myself in that situation. And certainly having an AM is a really great way of doing that. Because particularly with younger ones, like I can say and do things that I just it would be just too dangerous literally for them to do that. No one’s gonna, you know, get mad at me. And little old lady with gray hair kind of I can use quite deceptively.
hilarious hilarious night the other night. I’ll admit that I felt very uncomfortable. Definitely outside of my comfort zone. It was an intimate dinner for about 20 people. There were three women all the rest were men for women.
And it was for was like, angel investors and funders and all that money and this 100 Million Dollar Man for [] was sitting next to me. And he was the guest speaker. And he wasn’t stopping talking. He just talk, talk, talk, talk. And at that, before that all started, we were all asked to introduce ourselves, according to, you know, say our name, and what was the business that we were disrupting? Because these are all that you know, this cool dude start up group.
And when it got to my turn I said Hello, my name is Moira and I’m disrupting patriarchy. Love it. It was hilarious. Okay.
Next,
None of the three younger women in that room could have got away with that. So I take that I’ve got a responsibility, in fact to do that. So now I’m asking can I make this discomfort, how can I make several males uncomfortable?
When the speaker finished goin on and on, and and telling the whole story about you know how to raise money, lost his money, made his money lost his money. Found the wife got rid of the wife.
The classic story. Yeah, I know what’s going to happen next.
And then he saw the light. He had his Damascus moment and it’s all about purpose now.
And I just
lovely guy.
I just tapped him on the shoulder,in the middle of him having his moment. I’ve seen the light. And I only got one thing to say to you.
Welcome.
We’ve all been doing that forever. And I made this big speech about white privileged men and which one it wasn’t a big speech but it was impactful. Three minutes of talking. And I just thought that’s, they would they had gone to that event in their comfort zone.
It was all familiar they were going to all be with their mates and they’re all going to be supporting each other, they’re all going to be talking about and honoring the hero. And it was all about the quest and who was going to be on the journey with them and blah, blah, blah, you know, we’re dealing with, you know, the Star Wars soundtrack with somewhere in the background, all of that. And I just thought, actually, no, I can disrupt this just as you know, I’m the one that came into the room really uncomfortable, but there was a lot of squirming going on when I was talking. And and some of the guys were fabulous after a sec. I think a lot we feel the same.
But they couldn’t say that, If they’d said that they would have looked like really pathetic in front of their hero. So it freaks everybody out sometimes. And that’s one of the things I’m learning about comfort and discomfort that sometimes I can if I’m uncomfortable chances are everyone else is as well.
Maybe I can turn up the discomfort factor on a few people.
I think that’s an awesome take on being out of your comfort zone. I love that because when How else do you disrupt the patriarchy? If you don’t make the patriarchy uncomfortable?
I agree. Yeah I hope I get invited back. You know, you could have had me as your speaker
I hope they do. It was hilarious. He was really fabulous. Absolutely fantastic. The organizer invited me out for a drink afterwards to debrief I think.
Hot chocolate.
whiskey on the rocks. He
was terrific. Now I really respect him a lot.
Awesome.
That is Yeah, that’s one of the best takes of stepping out of your comfort zone that I’ve had talks on Moira. That’s really good.
Is there anything else that you would like to share with the readers of my blog at this point?
Well, just that, you know, keep up the good work. I think don’t underestimate the little influences that you can have on the tiniest things every day. You know, when you’re noticing things around you and don’t keep that noticing to yourself. Now if you see someone who needs a bit of encouragement, you know, say it and, and open the door for people you know if you have a relationship or a link or something for someone else, and it’s really always appreciated. And we don’t always know how to say thank you when it is appreciated. Yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, thank you very much for spending time with us this evening. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. I can tell by I can tell Sharon has as well.
And I think the people who watch this afterwards will also enjoy it. So much.
Thank you. I’m going to stop recording now.
Cindy was my first international story sharer and I am grateful she gave up time in her evening to talk to me. She was also my first example of starting your own business!
After working for a Canadian bank for 15 years, Cindy took a year’s leave of absence. She initially took a few months to spend time with her children, then when they went back to school “I now had to figure out what my sense of purpose was, without having a job to get up and go to every day. I hadn’t realized how much my sense of identity came from my work.
“Going into my leave, I did have an idea that I might be able to start a business focused on providing financial advice and consulting to business owners and so I planned to spend some time talking to business owners through the fall. But I was still quite nervous about the idea of going out on my own. I set a structure for myself where I’d work for an hour and a half on my business plan, then take a half hour break. Early on, I found that every five minutes I’d check to see how long I’d worked for and if I earned my break yet. I was just so panicked at that time having thoughts like “What am I doing? Can I actually do this? Can I make a go of this?”
Cindy is has decided that she can make a go of this and has recently resigned from her job and incorporated her company, Lightbulb Finance Inc.
If you are like me, you love to know what motivates people to make such big changes. In Cindy’s case:
“I had a few situations at work that had all happened at once and were all challenging to deal with. I thought, ‘I’ve done this for long enough that I know I can get through this. I just don’t know that I actually want to keep pushing like this’. I learned from every challenging situation I dealt with but I was not really sure that I needed to keep going through those sorts of things.”
Cindy has four clients already which is fantastic.
Cindy’s main changes have been about her identity and even just changing the schedules around how the household runs.
But also “there are so many times filled with joy and happiness. I love this. I love having the flexibility. I love being able to walking down the street at 10am on a Tuesday and not be tied to an office schedule.
“So there were there were definitely joyful times mixed in there with the panic and the nervousness or the ‘what comes next’ feeling as I tried to figure everything out”
Working on her own is different to being part of a team, having to deliver on her own. It can also be a bit isolating, but Cindy went gliding mid-week a few months ago to compensate!
Cindy talked to me about the benefits of stepping out of your comfort zone (something she does do regularly!) “It’s a chance to learn more about yourself, learn more about the world out there. I mean, I’m fascinated by this, within the first month of taking my leave of absence, I met this whole new group of people, mostly entrepreneurs. I think learning more about yourself, learning more about the world, and then what kind of possibilities can you fulfil in the world”
As always, Cindy gets the last word of advice about stepping out of your comfort zone:
“I think first of all, knowing yourself and knowing how you deal with change and with new things.
“Then you’re preparing yourself as much as possible. That might be planning and figuring out what structure you need as you go through a change, and then figuring out who’s going to support you, and who’s going to be there when you’re having challenges and celebrate your successes as you succeed.
“I just encourage people to do it in a way that’s that works for them. And that is comfortable for them. And for some people, it might be trying new food, for some people it might be making a big life change but I just encourage people to, to try it and see what else is out there for them.”