Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash Words by me (Fiona) based on an interview with Niall
Niall is a frequent leaver of his comfort zone, but writing a book was something very new for him so we chatted about that.
Why a book? “It’s a big commitment to myself, and the community where I was noticing a lot of people were having quite opinionated conversations about things they said were important to them. And I was engaging in that and getting involved. At some point it became clear that it’d be useful, given my experience, to take a bit of a bigger step in and get that opinion documented as opposed to sitting and sort of throwing ‘throw away’ comments.
“[Also] with some recent work activities it became evident that I’d gone through quite a unique experience. If it could be distilled and articulated for others to understand and appreciate, and learn from, that would be of good value to serve those around me.”
I wondered if Niall knew just how far out of his comfort zone he would get before he started writing? “If I had known at the time the effort, energy and commitment it would take I might have paused a touch, but I think that’s the whole point. Often you leap in intuitively to do things. They feel right for you, so you leap into the unknown. I think that’s sort of part of the excitement. And then you work it out as you go.”
Niall shared with me some of the tough times – he feels he has just come through one of the turbulent periods where “I think with any large complex undertaking this there’s this moment where you really do feel completely lost. And you’re right in the middle of that highly ambiguous, I used to call them ‘the upside down without the paddle in the creek after canoeing’, phase, where you don’t know which way is up and you’re in the turbulence of trying to settle down. You don’t quite know what the next step is. Or you take a step and realize it’s in the wrong direction and you have to undo that step or pivot left or right, which can be frustrating. I’m confident that I’m past that now, the previous six weeks have been that period.”
The thing that got Niall through that phase was the approach he had taken from the start – test and learn often and early. “Risk the voice of cynicism, the voice of judgment, on what I’m putting out there”.
Of course, I asked for Niall’s advice to anyone considering a step out of their comfort zone – small or large: “You need people who can give you your temperature check because you’re the frog in the bath and the temperature is slowly rising. So, you need someone to say it’s getting pretty hot around you and you’re going to cook yourself. Someone who’s close to you can call you on it.
“I think you need to really deeply assess the reasons that you’re doing the things you’re doing. Have a conversation with yourself – ask who is this serving? It’s okay if it’s serving you. But helping and serving others is something that is not only very rewarding, it gets people quite interested in, and involved in, any idea you have. Simply pursuing it for selfish reasons is something I’d check in with. Having people around you checking while you’re doing it. And do not go into a room for a month and sit around thinking you’ve got a great idea. Talk to someone five minutes after you think you’ve got that idea and test it. And then keep doing that as often as make sense because if your throwing your heart and soul and energy into something I think getting feedback early and often is a great way to just make sure you don’t waste your time and energy and effort.”
And Niall’s last words: “I think if we can keep our world expanding, even in a very, very small way, it is what we’re here to be as humans. I don’t think we’re here to be shrinking smaller people. No matter how small, it might be scary for you, but take the steps to stretch and get out of your comfort zone. Understanding it takes energy and commitment and support network but really, I do think we’re here to reach our potential and to do that you need to get near the edge or sometimes over the line that defines where you’re comfortable. So keep doing it.”
A bit about Niall: I work as an agent of change, promoting agility through education, coaching and modelling of new behaviours.
I disrupt inefficient as-is practices using a gentle but influential consulting approach that embeds new values and principles of work. My goal being the development of a high-performing sustainable lean-agile delivery culture.
I am always about results and have been a coach my whole working life, firstly in professional sports, then leadership and for the last 10 years, agile transformation. Coaching is the core capability which supports the advisor/consultant roles I perform.
My work centres around guiding clients towards the establishment of new enterprise lean-agile delivery models; it is tough but rewarding work; I love it and the challenges it presents.
Jacqui’s story left me literally speechless. Not a great look on an interviewer, but I think she understood.
Jacqui stepped a long way out of her comfort zone, described to me how it felt in vivid word pictures, and it was to aid a fantastic cause!
Catherine Hoke has created a program where she utilises the entrepreneurial talents most criminals innately have to create a ‘legal hustle’ to enable the prisoners to better themselves and also for the greater good. And this program in some of the prisons has been so exceptional that they have a 98% non recidivism rate.
Jacqui attended a retreat where she heard Catherine speak passionately about her program, and it made her realise that she was not following her own passion and purpose. As part of Jacqui’s journey (and she may have to come back to talk about quitting her job!) she put her hand up to be a part of Catherine’s program. ‘And so part of my journey was to actually say to her, and this was already getting outside of my comfort zone to put my hand up and say ‘I want to come to prison as a volunteer and do the prison program’. So that was the first step. And then second step was to actually follow through with that and book the trip (it was in California), and say ‘I’m going to prison to do this volunteer prison program.’ So I did.’
I asked Jacqui what this actually involved, and after explaining to me that ‘it was an experience of a lifetime. It’s nothing I’ve ever, ever experienced before, both physically and emotionally, and mentally, and just so many lessons, it was amazing’ she described what the prison visit involved:
‘The prisoners have spent 20 or 30 weeks studying this entrepreneurship, and then what they have to do is present their business and their hustle to you, and you need to mentor them. So as a business owner, or as someone who’s from the outside world who has experience, you go in there and they basically pitch, you listen to them, and you help mentor them and guide them through their program, you go through their progress.
‘Along the way, you also hear about their story. And you get to connect with them on an emotional level, to really hear and understand what their upbringing was like, and what their background was like. And that, I think, was the biggest eye opener that I’ve ever experienced.
‘We did an exercise called ‘step to the line’, on one side of the line, were all the volunteers. And on the other side, there’re all the prisoners. And you literally had to step to the line if there was a sentence that was true for you. And if it wasn’t true for you step back. And just very simple comments, or questions such as ‘were you tucked in at night by two loving parents as a child’. And of course, you know, 99% of the volunteers stayed at the line. And I would say maybe two or three of the prisoners were left standing at the line. And to look at that, it just hit home that from day one, most of those men, (and I’m not saying every single prisoner falls into this category) but the majority are born into their situations. And if they don’t have the right leadership, if they don’t have the right mentors, if they don’t personally have the right skill set to be able to get themselves out of that, then it turns to an illegal opportunity. And they take that on board. They get driven by the money, they get driven by the success. And that was really the number one eye opener for me from the get go.’
Two things drove Jacqui to volunteer for this experience; the passion Catherine demonstrated and also to look more into forgiveness. ‘Because I’ve never given an incarcerated person a second chance, I’ve pretty much shut the door on them and said, ‘Well, you’ve done wrong, why should you be let out?’ Which I think a lot of people do. And I guess that in its own right is a judgment without knowing the facts.’
Jacqui shared with me many parts of her experience, including sitting on a bus full of entrepreneurs, but I will skip ahead to entering the prison itself. ‘For me the number one part of the experience that will never ever leave me was walking into the prison. And going through the security check. And literally the only thing you are allowed on you is your ID. That was it. No phones, absolutely nothing other than your ID. So you walk in. And it’s like watching a movie.
‘You hear the big steel gates, and the big steel doors, solid steel doors closed behind you. You are in this little box, the security guard is behind his glass wall. And he’s looking at you, checking your ID. It was a group of about 10 people in this box. And all I could hear were like 50 or 60 men on the other side of this door screaming and shouting. And my heart was in my throat and I was thinking I’m about to feed myself to the sharks. That’s how I felt. And there was no way back at that point.
‘I was comforted by the fact that I was with other people. And it wasn’t just females that I was with. But the very first thing when you’re in that security section that you are told is ‘this is a maximum security prison, the highest security you can go. And that threat is real. If you hear gunshots, they are real gunshots. There’s no drill. If you hear a gunshot, then you will also hear guards yelling ‘go to ground, go to ground, go to ground.’ But as volunteers we ask you not to go to ground. So if you hear ‘go to ground’ and you hear a gunshot don’t go to ground, find a wall and stand against the wall.’ And that is so they can differentiate you obviously from the prisoners.
‘Then these doors open, the steel door opens. And we’re at the top of this concrete and metal staircase. And you look down and there are literally about 50 grown men in prison uniform, screaming and shouting in excitement to welcome us and the music was going and they’re all dancing. And they’re forming a tunnel. And we’re walking down the stairs and having to then walk through this tunnel of incarcerated men who were in there for everything.
‘I honestly I felt like I was walking down those steps thinking ‘Oh my gosh, what the hell am I doing?’’
After this amazing experience (times two as she visited two different prisons over two days) Jacqui achieved her goals of changing her view of people in prisons. She now tries to always keep an open mind until you know exactly what someone has been through.
Jacqui felt that stepping out of her comfort zone really enabled her to grow, and encourages others to step out of their own comfort zones – but adds they need to do it for themselves not for anyone else!
About Jacqui:
After experiencing the suffering of cancer from the deaths of her brother-in-law and beautiful mother, along with having 2 young children, managing a business and encountering a life-threatening infection, Jacqui has learnt that even the most capable people still need help during a challenging time.
These experiences caused her to stop, reflect and question the true meaning of life.
Evaluating the next stage of her entrepreneurial journey Jacqui made the decision to combine her love for people and business to launch her next venture: The Helping Hub.
A new and unique online marketplace for people to turn good intentions into practical gift-giving solutions with products and support service vouchers to provide the answer to the question “How can I help?”
As Managing Director, Jacqui focuses on the strategic direction of the business, liaises with key stakeholders and manages the day to day operations.
Words by Fiona based on an interview with Laura Image courtesy of Laura
Starting your own business is scary. Quitting your corporate job to do so is scary. Starting an adaptive clothing business when the last time you sewed was for a grade four butterfly project which left you traumatised? Terrifying!
Adaptive clothing is designed to be easily worn by people who have difficulty with traditional clothing – possibly due to a disability or age – and uses items like Velcro or magnets for fastening instead of buttons and zips. It is easy to wear, and does already exist in Australia… but Laura saw a gap in the market when it came to “beautiful clothing that can be worn by everyone”.
Laura has always had an interest in fashion, and really wanted to make a positive difference in the world.
This is really new for Laura – she started at the beginning of August! At this stage she is feeling really excited! She has entered a Venture Cup at her old Uni, and will hopefully get into the finalists.
Laura is an old hand at leaving her comfort zone. “I guess I just want to try new things. Probably my first major stepping out of my comfort zone was when I was 15 years old. I was just reading a magazine and I saw this amazing school called the Green School in Bali. And it’s in built entirely from bamboo, and it’s in a rain forest, next to a river. And I talked to my parents and they said ‘if you organize it all you can go.’ That was the worst mistake ever. Because I actually organized it! I contacted friends of friends, I organized passports, visas, accommodation transport to and from school, vaccinations, like a million different things. And I stayed with a Balinese family there.”
The best part of stepping out of your comfort zone according to Laura is being able to challenge what you think you are capable of. “If you stay in your little bubble you are not going to learn much”.
If you are considering a step out of your comfort zone, Laura suggests “find someone you trust and talk to them about it is. Because there’s a lot of people out there who are happy to mentor and help. And they’ll be able to provide you with feedback or ideas, that sort of thing.”
Laura started this year fighting major depression and anxiety. What a year she is having!
When I summarised back to Laura all she had shared with me, I loved the glow on her face.
Photo by Danka & Peter on Unsplash Words by me (Fiona) based on an interview with Natalie Peters
Imagine taking on a challenge that was completely out of
your comfort zone, a role that was totally new to you and largely unknown by
many people in your company. A role that instantly opened you up to criticism
and conflict in ways you weren’t really anticipating. That was the position Natalie
Peters found herself in when she took on the task to lead the ways of working
transformation at Telstra. In her words ‘I think in every possible way, professionally, and
personally, the last 2 years has pushed me outside of my comfort zone’.
Belief is a
topic that came up several times in my conversation with Nat, including why she
persisted to get the results we can now see in Telstra as it clearly wasn’t
easy. ‘What kept me going was the belief
that it was the right thing to do for Telstra and for our people. Even though at
times people were resisting the change and were afraid of what it meant, my
belief in it overall being the best for our company was always strong’.
Other things that kept
Nat believing in pushing forward: ‘Changing a large complex organisation isn’t easy and is never
a lone mission. I had an amazing team of people to work with and as we
experimented with how we adapt ways of working in the company, the momentum grew
and grew. That gave me hope that more people
believed and I was in fact on the right path. And the other thing was being
able to talk quite openly about what was going well and equally what wasn’t
going so well, being open to talk about the learnings was really important
along the way. I think I learnt so much more from what didn’t work well than
from what did. In a strange way, that builds belief. Personally, I didn’t do
the things you should do. I should have been focused on looking after myself a
little more so didn’t do meditation, I didn’t exercise, I also didn’t sleep
much or take care of myself. I don’t recommend that! I am just saying I
personally didn’t do any of that and I really should have.’
As
you can imagine, Nat learnt a lot while being so far out of her comfort zone ‘I
think with the benefit of hindsight, I got more and more comfortable as my
knowledge grew. On reflection I do think I went too fast at particular times.
So what I’ve learned is, it’s all well and good to have a vision in your
mind as to the end goal but you have to bring people along with you at the same
pace. Everyone working in this new way is in some respect outside of their
comfort zone, its all new! So checking in with people is really important to
make sure they feel prepared to adapt to the changes. That’s the resistance you
get as the answers aren’t always clear so it does make people more anxious than
in perhaps more standard transformations.’
I asked Nat about the other benefits of stepping out of her
comfort zone ‘whenever anyone asks me what it was like doing this role my answer is always the same – , this has been the best and hardest
period in my career. It’s the best now because I can see how special it was and
how much people have grown from the experience. I know how much I have been
able to grow from this and I have learnt
so much about organisations, supporting people through change, but also about
myself. I have to unlearn a lot of things to do this role and I think I am
better for it. I would never have known these things if I didn’t go and do
something that made me feel unsure of myself. Because in that experience you
see the best and the worst of yourself. And it prepares you for whatever’s
coming next.’ In Nat’s case next is another big step that will take her to
London!
Nat shared with me a specific
learning – this is where she talked again about belief. ‘one of the things I did quite early on
was running the enterprise leadership meeting with circa 200 of our leaders
across the company. And I was trying to teach them some agile tools in a day
basically, and I was doing it a very disruptive way solving real company impediments.
This was the first moment of stepping out of my comfort zone, I’d been in the
job six weeks when I took this task on. I was always determined to be bold. And
I was about to get on stage for the first time and the pressure was massive and
I remember I was nervous about the event being successful and having the right
impact. As I was about to get on stage, I had this moment where I thought ‘How do I be confident?’ And I said to my
co-facilitator on the day Dominic Price from Atlassian, ‘How do
you have so much confidence when you’re speaking like that?’ And he said, ‘I don’t
have confidence it’s belief.’ And it was the first moment where confidence was
something different for me. I’d always thought that being confident was the right
mindset but actually that was perhaps more about pretending…. Belief however
allows you to be vulnerable, more open and connect in a very different way with
what you are doing. I know that sounds corny for some people, but during this
transformation, everything that tested me has actually given me more overall belief.
Because I had belief in what I was doing, I knew what my thresholds were, what
my limits were and what I was able to do. I was able to ask for help more
openly and I would never have asked for help before because I wanted people to
think I was in control and had total confidence. But belief is something deeper
and subsequently that created more belief in others that they could trust me
and follow me.’
Nat had one last piece of advice: ‘the reason I step outside of your comfort zone
is because I am curious. I think life is a massive adventure, made up of a series
of adventures. And unless you say yes to things, you will always be stuck in ‘no’
and wondering why things aren’t changing or moving for you. And when I get stuck
in the ‘no’ I have no one to blame but myself. And it’s not always the best
place to be. And when I am feeling frustrated or disappointed, nine times out
of ten I can look back at decisions I’ve made and see that it’s because of
a decision I made or didn’t make that has kept me there. And it’s really hard
sometimes to say yes, because it’s going to push you. But every time I’ve done
that I have looked back and I’ve surprised myself with what I’ve been able to
do. And it’s given me so much more in life to keep moving forward to the next
adventure. So I guess the other thing I’d say is when you’re when you’re faced
with a decision and you’re thinking about it and ‘no’ is the safe answer…. maybe be curious and see what would happen if you actually
said yes.’
Thanks Nat!
BIO
Natalie has
been in variety of Human Resources roles for the past 21 years across multiple
industries including professional services, financial services and
telecommunications.
Natalie joined
Telstra in 2013 and has led HR teams across multiple parts of the HR organisation including leading National and
International business HR teams.
In January of
2018 Natalie was selected to lead part of Telstra’s transformation to fundamentally
change the ways of working across the company with a goal to create a
simplified organisation that was enabled to deliver higher quality products and
services for customers. The ways of working transformation included leading the
agile at scale transformation at Telstra.
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.
Image from Unsplash (no credit provided) Words by Brigette
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:
Sometimes we need to change – a belief, habit, opinion. These things can build up within us over time and cause negative effects. What is important is being ok with changing.
There is nothing wrong with needing help. I never thought I would go to a therapist – but for a few months I did – and they gave me the tools I needed to right the ship.
Mindfulness seems to be the key to all paths of good. Focus on the present, listen to yourself, breathe.
And for those wondering how you deal with stress if you don’t run from it and you don’t tackle it… You acknowledge it and then let it go. That is the answer. It all comes back to control.
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.
Firstly a huge thank you to all who read and support my blog. To the dozens of people who have shared their stories my most heartfelt gratitude goes to you!
Over the past couple of months I have been finding it harder and harder to find people willing to share their stories. And as you can imagine, this blog only works if people are willing to share!
After much thought about how to solve this issue, I decided to start with a ‘tweak’.
I want to include any story involving change, trying something new and, of course, keep the out of your comfort zone stories coming too!
I hope this helps get the stories flowing again, if not I will try something bigger than a tweak!
Photo by adrian on Unsplash Words by me (Fiona) based on an interview with Kim
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.
An interview full of laughter and gender equity Subtitles available (apologies for the parts were we were laughing too much to hear or subtitle clearly!)
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.
