Speaker 1: Apoche Production.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of Brave Always the CEO Series.
Speaker 2: This series, we launch into the new world of brave leadership.
Speaker 3: Happy people create happy businesses.
Speaker 2: True emotionally intelligent leadership. I've picked up vomit once on
Speaker 2: our about our fourth flight, and everybody thought, well, if
Speaker 2: it's good enough for him, I can do it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: We will be joined by culture and leadership.
Speaker 2: Experts and some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us
Speaker 2: the truth behind their brave leadership journeys. Today, I'm thrilled
Speaker 2: to be joined in the studio by the very charismatic
Speaker 2: Anthony Ryan. Anthony is currently the CEO of the Brisbane
Speaker 2: Economic Development Agency, responsible for driving the economic growth of
Speaker 2: Brisbane City. Prior to this, Anthony was the CEO of
Speaker 2: Young Care for five years, a national not for profit
Speaker 2: organization revolutionizing the way young people with high kid disabilities live.
Speaker 2: In fact, you will find much of Anthony's resume in
Speaker 2: the space of the nonprofit sector and charities including the
Speaker 2: MEMIKI and Edmund Rice FANDAI.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I was fortunate to meet you at two charity events
Speaker 2: I'm for the Broncos and recently at the CEO sleep
Speaker 2: at for Vinnie h. I got to witness firsthand your
Speaker 2: mastery at getting people to fundraise. Anthony impressively raised over
Speaker 2: twenty thousand by yourself for the event. But Anthony, I
Speaker 2: thoroughly enjoyed doing a little bit of research on you.
Speaker 1: I really did.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, oh every five seconds, starting with
Speaker 2: the fact that you actually represented Australia at the World
Speaker 2: Junior Athletics Championships and nineteen eighty eight in Canada.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: Well, we so obviously you have a passion for sport.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a bit about your junior as
Speaker 2: an athlete.
Speaker 3: I was playing rugby at school and the school just
Speaker 3: up the road here at school called Terrace, and I
Speaker 3: wasn't a great rugby player, but I got quite a
Speaker 3: bad injury, and so instead of playing rugby, i'd really
Speaker 3: focus on track and field. I was just going to
Speaker 3: be a hobby. And then I realized I was better
Speaker 3: at it than I thought I would be, and sort
Speaker 3: of quickly started improving. And then came to GPS, and
Speaker 3: I think I surprised myself and won jeeps and then
Speaker 3: went on one States and then went into the Australian
Speaker 3: Australian Championships and then got selected in the Australian junior
Speaker 3: team and sort of out of the blur. Really, my
Speaker 3: coach was always there for rugby, called John Lucas's bloody legend.
Speaker 3: But we surprised ourselves or who went there, and we
Speaker 3: got a silver medal at the World Jeniors. We either
Speaker 3: broke the world junior record in the semis. We had
Speaker 3: an amazing team that all went onto fantastic things except
Speaker 3: for myself in sport. And then in the final we
Speaker 3: ended up getting second to the United States and they
Speaker 3: broke the world junior record and the guy that was
Speaker 3: the runner there in that who ran against me ended
Speaker 3: up going on later on a couple of months later
Speaker 3: to win the Olympics a year old wow forty three eight.
Speaker 3: So I knew I was never going to be that good.
Speaker 3: So I pretty much sort of was always a relay
Speaker 3: runner in some ways, I planted the seeds in what
Speaker 3: I did later on in life.
Speaker 2: I was going to say so, also, I'm a beautiful
Speaker 2: fit now that you're working with Beta and obviously going
Speaker 2: to be part of the Olympics coming to Brisbane. That's
Speaker 2: obviously it feels probably very close and special for you.
Speaker 3: Absolutely well, Bristbane Economic Development Agency where there is a
Speaker 3: support mechanism. Our work isn't really to do with the
Speaker 3: Olympics per se, but we will be supporting Okog and
Speaker 3: anyone that we can, particularly with utilizing Olympics as that
Speaker 3: hook to drive the brand of our city investment and
Speaker 3: to assist with getting those stadiums and things like that
Speaker 3: up and running when someone makes the choice and the
Speaker 3: decision to do something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exciting stuff. Now.
Speaker 2: At the CEO sleepout that we went to a month
Speaker 2: or so ago, I was really moved by a story
Speaker 2: that you shared on stage about your relationship with a
Speaker 2: homeless man in Brisbane. You know, without having done any
Speaker 2: research on you, I just automatically since there's deep passion
Speaker 2: in you around homelessness. And then I read that there's
Speaker 2: a bit of a backstory here. So how did that
Speaker 2: all begin for you?
Speaker 3: I was a teacher many years ago as I was
Speaker 3: teaching economics. It was an inner city school and I
Speaker 3: was totally buying away as we would come to school
Speaker 3: as a wealthy It was terrorist. I went back to
Speaker 3: teacher Terras and I said to the economics class, you
Speaker 3: walk past homelessness every day. Why do you think the
Speaker 3: street people are here? You know, some were sleeping in
Speaker 3: the same street as Terrace and in the parks and
Speaker 3: Victoria Park, et cetera. And there was a young fella
Speaker 3: in grade elevenies and now I've become one of my mates,
Speaker 3: actually because I was a young teacher. And he said,
Speaker 3: because they're lazy, and if they got up off their ass,
Speaker 3: they could get a job, sir. And I was a
Speaker 3: standard by his answer, and so I said, who else,
Speaker 3: who else feels the same way? And every person in
Speaker 3: the class put the hand up and said, you know,
Speaker 3: they're lazy. And so instead of getting angry and or
Speaker 3: saying that they were wrong, I wanted to challenge that
Speaker 3: because that's what teaching is. Teaching isn't about. It's allowing
Speaker 3: people to arrive at an answer themselves, particularly in those
Speaker 3: sort of profound moments of light bulb moments in life.
Speaker 3: And so from that that became a trigger for me,
Speaker 3: and I thought, Okay, well, how do I get these
Speaker 3: kids to actually challenge their stereotypes? And so I started
Speaker 3: this program about two months later called the Street Retreat Program,
Speaker 3: where we would have an overnight experience living on the
Speaker 3: streets of South Pars overnight and instead of of serving
Speaker 3: the homeless, you're actually going to journey for twenty four
Speaker 3: hours with them, and that would challengeh stereotypes. And we
Speaker 3: started this van. On one of the first nights, I
Speaker 3: brought that student out. His name was Gandhi, and we
Speaker 3: took Gandhi out and five of his mates, and Gandhi
Speaker 3: was sitting in the garter talking to this guy and
Speaker 3: it was the first time these terrorist guys had already
Speaker 3: ever seen anyone a homeless or not seen them, but
Speaker 3: confronted them and was conversive with them. And the guy
Speaker 3: shared with him that he used to go to a
Speaker 3: school up the road, and Gandy was going, Oh, what
Speaker 3: do you mean what we're talking about? He goes, oh,
Speaker 3: you might not know it. It's a school called Terrace.
Speaker 3: And Gandhi at that stage when wow, are you serious?
Speaker 3: And what had happened for a series of things that
Speaker 3: had happened in this guy's life, addiction took over ended
Speaker 3: up being a semi permanent resident down in potanical gardens.
Speaker 3: And that was the moment where I started realizing the
Speaker 3: power of education. So Gandhi went from that night and
Speaker 3: we'd always finish at the end and night just sitting
Speaker 3: around and just chatting. What do you learn, what you see,
Speaker 3: what made you feel uncomfortable, et cetera. And he shared
Speaker 3: his story and the next day at that school, we
Speaker 3: had a lineup of around about no exact eruation, about
Speaker 3: one hundred kids outside my door asking whether they could
Speaker 3: be involved in the program. And that started. It changed
Speaker 3: the culture of a school. And then and it was
Speaker 3: during that time I met a guy called Terry.
Speaker 2: Met Terry, Yeah, wow, I love that.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: I mean, you don't seem to have any of the
Speaker 2: judgment or avoidance that people usually have when it comes
Speaker 2: to homelessness. I mean, I think at the core of it,
Speaker 2: there's something about homelessess that makes people feel afraid.
Speaker 1: Or not want to think about it. Why is it
Speaker 1: different for you?
Speaker 2: I mean you've said that education is a part of it,
Speaker 2: but is this anthing more?
Speaker 3: Yeah? For sure. When I started working the homeless, like anyone,
Speaker 3: you feel nervous, You're not sure what to say. Are
Speaker 3: you going to offend? Are you thinking that they're going
Speaker 3: to judge you? Why are you here with me? Used
Speaker 3: ticking a box make yourself feel better? But the more
Speaker 3: I got to know people, particularly those who were doing
Speaker 3: it tough. And later on, when I started working in
Speaker 3: Africa and the slums over there, I also realized that
Speaker 3: these guys, and this sounds like a religious thing, but
Speaker 3: it's not. Mother Teresa used to say that the worst
Speaker 3: form of poverty was loneliness. And when I started talking
Speaker 3: to these people, first of all, i'd look at you
Speaker 3: a little bit intrigued that you were talking to them
Speaker 3: rather than serving them a soup or serving them coffee.
Speaker 3: What we wanted to do was break that stereotype as
Speaker 3: well of service and say, no one's really serving here.
Speaker 3: We sit down and we chat, and this is going
Speaker 3: to be a place of being present to each other
Speaker 3: own conversation. And you would see that they would relax,
Speaker 3: their shoulders would relax, that'd feel more comfortable. They'd give
Speaker 3: you eye contact. Normally they wouldn't be able to if
Speaker 3: they felt it was the dynamic, The paradigm had shifted.
Speaker 3: When they felt that, you started getting incredible stories. I
Speaker 3: used to get really angry because I knew I had
Speaker 3: that experience, and I thought, you've got to understand people's context.
Speaker 3: But I started noticing more and more when i'd sit
Speaker 3: down with people on the streets and talk to them.
Speaker 3: How people would rush past them as quickly as they could.
Speaker 3: You'd have people walking on the other side of the
Speaker 3: street to avoid them. Now, I'm not saying every homeless
Speaker 3: person or a street person is a saint. They certainly not.
Speaker 3: But they've all got varying reasons why they're there, and
Speaker 3: the majority of them have just fallen on tough times.
Speaker 3: And it's really going to be presents and love that
Speaker 3: will be able to interrupt what they are currently going
Speaker 3: through to move them onto something else.
Speaker 2: I remember you telling the story about Terry. I remember
Speaker 2: that you said that you know he was quite defensive.
Speaker 2: How do you work around that to see the person
Speaker 2: inside when you get that wall up from people persistence?
Speaker 3: Gay? Terry when I first met him, had a really
Speaker 3: bad starter. He was aggressive towards everybody. He didn't want
Speaker 3: anyone to be around him. And the day that I
Speaker 3: first met him, he hadn't had a shower, reportedly for years,
Speaker 3: even had a safety pin to hold the backside of
Speaker 3: his pants. He never took his pants off, didn't take
Speaker 3: his clothes off for the years, and he used to
Speaker 3: go to the tour through the same take the safety
Speaker 3: pin off and so that added to his aroma. And
Speaker 3: it wasn't until I got to meet Terry and persistently
Speaker 3: talked to him about just life, and he would always
Speaker 3: tell me the f off, And over a couple of weeks,
Speaker 3: I just decided to sit down and talk to him.
Speaker 3: When I started talking to Terry, this was a broken,
Speaker 3: broken human being. You could just tell even when you
Speaker 3: were talking to him. His body language was defeated and
Speaker 3: he was, you know, his smell was really overpowering. But
Speaker 3: I thought that what a phony I was. That I
Speaker 3: was present to everybody else, but the most difficult person
Speaker 3: that I'd met on the streets, I wanted to push
Speaker 3: off to the side. So that was sort of a
Speaker 3: little challenge to myself. And then that first night that
Speaker 3: I met him, I'll never forget this night. I really
Speaker 3: sat down and said, how are you going to Terry? Time?
Speaker 3: And f off again? And I got myself a coffee
Speaker 3: and said, I'm just sitting here. And for about the
Speaker 3: first fifteen minutes, he just sat in silence with me,
Speaker 3: and I was uncomfortable. I think he probably wasn't uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: he was probably angry that I was there. And then
Speaker 3: he just started talking and for the next hour and
Speaker 3: a half. I think I got in less than twenty words,
Speaker 3: and he just talked, talked and talked, and I realized
Speaker 3: he was incredibly intelligent. He was manic in the way
Speaker 3: he was talking. He had this incredible memory for cars
Speaker 3: and car registrations, et cetera. The car went past and
Speaker 3: he said, he used to talk whether that car that
Speaker 3: XGA two five seven it went past here three nights ago. Wow,
Speaker 3: this guy's got a photographic memory. Hey, I cut along
Speaker 3: story short. What I want your listeners to understand is
Speaker 3: as we built that relationship up, he finally trusted me
Speaker 3: to tell his story. And his image of his clothes
Speaker 3: it hadn't been washed. His smell was a defense mechanism.
Speaker 3: He was punishing himself for life. And he told me
Speaker 3: the story that in Melbourne he was driving a car.
Speaker 3: And I've told this many times before. I was shocked
Speaker 3: when he said he had a car, because I had
Speaker 3: always seen him as Terry the bum Terry, the homeless
Speaker 3: guy that was telling everyone to get lost. He had
Speaker 3: a car. And then he started talking about that he
Speaker 3: was driving on an off ramp in Melbourne and realized
Speaker 3: the last minute that he was in the wrong lane
Speaker 3: and a car came into him at full force, steering
Speaker 3: whell jack knives into his body. And as he just
Speaker 3: started describing it, Terry was back in that moment. He
Speaker 3: was no longer talking to me as someone that was
Speaker 3: with him on the streets. He was back in that
Speaker 3: car and he was having a psychotic episode, and I
Speaker 3: was just a bystander in his memory. And he started
Speaker 3: screaming in pain. We were in kid George Square once again.
Speaker 3: People walking past us seeing this must have been a
Speaker 3: bizarre scene. And he started talking about how his both
Speaker 3: arms were completely broken, and he was staring at his
Speaker 3: hands that was sticking down and his bones were sticking
Speaker 3: out in front of it at right angles, and he
Speaker 3: was going to pain, and he was explaining the pain
Speaker 3: in his own way. And then what he did for
Speaker 3: me next, and he goes my son, my son, And
Speaker 3: I said what he mean, Terry. He said that he
Speaker 3: had his daughter in the car, and he realized the
Speaker 3: daughter was already passed away, and so he could see
Speaker 3: her as he looked off to the side, and then
Speaker 3: he realized his son was still alive, and he went
Speaker 3: to go reach to his son and realized he was
Speaker 3: pinned by the steering wheel. So as he was explaining
Speaker 3: in his memory he was trying to rip his arms off,
Speaker 3: he was stuck, and he was talking about the pain
Speaker 3: that he couldn't face the pain. So then he had
Speaker 3: to look back up into the real vision mirror with
Speaker 3: the realization that his son was bleeding out. He had
Speaker 3: to talk to his son before his son passed away.
Speaker 3: For me, that explained his pain, and as we got
Speaker 3: to know him a little bit more, he just turned
Speaker 3: to me at that stage, got out of his memory
Speaker 3: and basically said, I couldn't handle the pain I founded
Speaker 3: my son, and so Terry was going to be after
Speaker 3: the funeral, he was going to take his life. And
Speaker 3: then he realized, you miserable failure of life. That's too easy.
Speaker 3: You're going to do whatever you can to be hated.
Speaker 3: And that made so he used to wear plastic bags
Speaker 3: all up and down his arm that was filled with rubbish.
Speaker 3: Stage it just made sense. I realized that the plastic
Speaker 3: bags were there to hide his scars, and like his
Speaker 3: physical scars, and that he just didn't want to look
Speaker 3: down every morning as he woke up and said, you
Speaker 3: know that's right, I killed my kids accidentally, So that
Speaker 3: blew me away, right, that just blew me away, And
Speaker 3: I thought, how many of those people, not just homeless,
Speaker 3: any take your blinkers off? In life, you never really
Speaker 3: understand what journey anyone's been through, and so I always
Speaker 3: think about that in any engagement that I do.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the second time I heard that story,
Speaker 2: and it's I can imagine how life changing that was
Speaker 2: for you. You could never look at things the same way.
Speaker 2: I remember feeling like a bit of shame when you
Speaker 2: were telling that story. That absolutely I probably walked past
Speaker 2: someone like Terry before and never considered and why do
Speaker 2: we do that like we are? I think for a
Speaker 2: lot of people, we're actually just avoiding the uncomfortableness for ourselves.
Speaker 2: So I think this is obviously a very extreme story
Speaker 2: versus I guess some people's day to day issues. But
Speaker 2: I think what I'm hearing from you is having that
Speaker 2: cure curiosity. That's a big part of it, right.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that if I would
Speaker 3: ever be giving anyone a lesson in life or trying
Speaker 3: to impart some sort of advice, is that the greatest
Speaker 3: moments of my life have always taken place when I've
Speaker 3: been present to somebody else where you actually genuinely listen
Speaker 3: and take the time. There the moments of education, there
Speaker 3: are moments of wisdom, light bulb moments, moments of fun,
Speaker 3: went out on the drink. But you present to people
Speaker 3: and it's the same with the ones that you think
Speaker 3: potentially dangerous or potentially different to us. And that's happened
Speaker 3: all over the world.
Speaker 1: For me, amazing.
Speaker 2: How has that part of your life is connection to
Speaker 2: people at homeless people. How's it shaped the way you
Speaker 2: do business? Because now you're in business, right, so it's
Speaker 2: quite different from being in school, and we'll go back
Speaker 2: to that, But how has that shaped things for you?
Speaker 3: Well? I think the days of transactional sort of leadership
Speaker 3: is over. I did a leadership course a while back
Speaker 3: at Oxford. Was it online? Was I at the university physically,
Speaker 3: but it was a great course. Did it over a
Speaker 3: long period of time, and I really started getting interested
Speaker 3: in organic leadership and the type of leader that I
Speaker 3: always wanted to be with, someone that reversed the pyramid,
Speaker 3: that traditional leadership model of the triangle and reversing that
Speaker 3: triangle and saying, if you're a good leader, really you
Speaker 3: should be looking up rather than looking down and understanding
Speaker 3: the best way of leadership is actually through relationships and presence,
Speaker 3: surrounding yourselves by people that are better than you, smarter
Speaker 3: than you. That whole humility is important, that sense of
Speaker 3: authentic leadership. So those moments were Terry and others, or
Speaker 3: being with young mums living in horrendous property in the
Speaker 3: slums of Africa and knowing that when you're with those people,
Speaker 3: you feel that they are better people than you. That
Speaker 3: a title is nothing really. As the CEO of any
Speaker 3: organization that I've been in, I've always knew that the
Speaker 3: moments of God and my business were always going to
Speaker 3: be when I was down at the baseline, sharing information
Speaker 3: and being with the stuff. And it makes it so
Speaker 3: much more enjoyable to work that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, see, to me, to do that takes a huge
Speaker 2: amount of self belief and self worth. Right, You're not
Speaker 2: trying to prove anything to anybody that I'm this big
Speaker 2: guy and I'm in charge.
Speaker 1: Where did that start from? You born like that? Someone
Speaker 1: teach you that my.
Speaker 3: Mom and dad were pretty amazing. My mom I was
Speaker 3: an asthmatic, really bad asthmatic, often in hospitals when I
Speaker 3: was younger, right, and my mom started up this thing
Speaker 3: called the Samaritan Committee. And I haven't talked about this ever,
Speaker 3: I don't think when I look back, it was quite extraordinary.
Speaker 3: It was something that she just did around kidren asp
Speaker 3: Lee Wave all those areas, and it was a Tuesday
Speaker 3: on a Thursday afternoon where all of the people in
Speaker 3: those subjays were lonely would come into this one space
Speaker 3: and they'd be taught my crime, or they play bingo,
Speaker 3: or they do art, et cetera. And I used to
Speaker 3: be as an asthmatic. She'd have to take me there
Speaker 3: and there was a little trundle bit that she put
Speaker 3: me in. I can always remember looking out to seem
Speaker 3: surrounded by these people and I'm thinking, what's she doing?
Speaker 3: But that role modeling, I think, for me, really taught
Speaker 3: me the importance of giving back and community and sharing
Speaker 3: experiences together.
Speaker 1: I loved it, no doubt, that's.
Speaker 3: Right, without a doubt that it came from my mum
Speaker 3: and dad.
Speaker 2: Is it particular things that you do, Like if we
Speaker 2: talked about what your leadership style is like, is there
Speaker 2: things that you actively do to create the kind of
Speaker 2: culture that you're after.
Speaker 3: We're doing it right now. So I'm going back into
Speaker 3: my third year, my next three year strategic plan and
Speaker 3: strategy and a page we call it. So all through it,
Speaker 3: through that, who am I to know? Really? The business
Speaker 3: on my figurehead up the top, you know, sort of
Speaker 3: sprouting out the hard work that my team is doing.
Speaker 3: So we're reversing it once again, and I'm saying to them, okay,
Speaker 3: it's the old teacher me. I want you to tell
Speaker 3: me what we should be and I'll synthesize it and
Speaker 3: with my leadership team, so it'll be what are the
Speaker 3: five characteristics that we want to be known as a business.
Speaker 3: You go out and tell us, let's look at our
Speaker 3: elevator pitch. You tell us what our elevator pitch is,
Speaker 3: and then every department will then come in and will
Speaker 3: synthesize all that. Because no matter what happens in leadership,
Speaker 3: if it's coming from you, they won't own it, or
Speaker 3: would they own it. But if it's coming from them
Speaker 3: from the belly, and they can see their words, their thoughts,
Speaker 3: their wisdom that's been placed into an overarching definition of
Speaker 3: what our business should be, they feel so much more proud.
Speaker 3: They feel that is a true representation of the work
Speaker 3: that they're doing, and that they feel strongly aligned to
Speaker 3: the vision, the purpose and that elevator pitch and our
Speaker 3: focus areas. Everything I do is always around that process. Now,
Speaker 3: some people say that's weak leadership. Now, I'm not saying
Speaker 3: there's no time when that bureaucratic or that triangle leadership
Speaker 3: isn't required. If there's a fire in our building, I'm
Speaker 3: going to say them, yes, I'm not going to sit
Speaker 3: back and how do we all hopefully not smoketely that
Speaker 3: type of leadership. But the majority of the times that
Speaker 3: I speak or act within my business will be from
Speaker 3: a position of cohesion and collaboration. And I've led that
Speaker 3: across the city right now, and I'm doing that with
Speaker 3: the highest ends of business with the better bastane alliance,
Speaker 3: which I can talk about later.
Speaker 2: Thinking about I guess being a CEO and non for
Speaker 2: profit organizations, I think it's interesting, right because obviously your
Speaker 2: number one goal is not to make a lot of money,
Speaker 2: right And yet and a lot of CEOs that I
Speaker 2: work with or meet, they've put a very different in
Speaker 2: goal and it can sometimes overtake all the other goals.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's a big part of why you
Speaker 2: lead the way you do them, and you've got your teacher.
Speaker 2: For starters, it's been about the students. And then you've
Speaker 2: been CEOs of non for profits. How does that help
Speaker 2: you in the business world.
Speaker 3: When I started at BEATA, I realized that there wasn't
Speaker 3: too much difference from leading an economic development agency for
Speaker 3: basically the city and having says to all those major
Speaker 3: events and business events that we do, all the investment
Speaker 3: we do as a city to what we're doing is
Speaker 3: are not for profit. The endgame was to grow the pie.
Speaker 3: And the way I used to grow the pie at
Speaker 3: places like Young Care or Emmon Rice, it was all
Speaker 3: about building relationships and collaborating and I truly believe in
Speaker 3: collaboration and the power story. I call it the theology
Speaker 3: of presence. And the theology of presence is when I'm
Speaker 3: sitting down with business leaders, large fortune, five hundred individuals
Speaker 3: and talking with them. They love that one on one
Speaker 3: engagement in their coffees, in their coffee and I've always thought,
Speaker 3: you never go into those things transactionally. You always go
Speaker 3: into it. What is it that we can learn from
Speaker 3: each other that has changed the success for me? In
Speaker 3: what I've been able to do the Better Brisbane Alliance.
Speaker 3: I've talked about that before. When I got into that role,
Speaker 3: I can remember the second day going, you Phony, what
Speaker 3: the hell are you doing here? I met with one guy.
Speaker 3: It's become a bit of a role model for me,
Speaker 3: a gy called Harvey Listen. He had a coffee with
Speaker 3: me on my second day and it was from there
Speaker 3: I realized if I was going to be successful in
Speaker 3: anything in this new role, I had to surround myself
Speaker 3: that were decision makers that were better than me, smarter
Speaker 3: than me. And eventually we got about twenty two of
Speaker 3: us altogether called the Better Brisbane Alliance, and that is
Speaker 3: absolutely catapult of the city. Reason behind that if you
Speaker 3: start looking at Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane. Each capital
Speaker 3: city's got different personalities and Melbourne at the moment somewhat defeated.
Speaker 3: Melbourne is they're not flourished out of favor. Sydney is carnivorous,
Speaker 3: they don't trust each other, They're all clamoring over each other,
Speaker 3: whereas the superpower for our city has to be collaboration.
Speaker 3: And over the next ten years, you know, we've got
Speaker 3: the Olympics, but we've got this extraordinary runway of their
Speaker 3: brand is changing. You know, We've got Queen's Wolf opening
Speaker 3: up in August twenty ninth. We've got these wonderful precincts
Speaker 3: like Howard Smith, Wolf's James Street districts, all of those,
Speaker 3: and the way that Brisbane has been viewed that can
Speaker 3: only happen when we collaborate. I say publicly now, death
Speaker 3: of Eager and Big on purpose, and it's worked, and
Speaker 3: we're doing things that we've never seen. For the last
Speaker 3: twelve months, Brisbane has been named in the top fifty
Speaker 3: places in the world by New York Times Times magazine
Speaker 3: from US, which is an internationally renowned analyzer of cities,
Speaker 3: and the Sydneys and Malbands aren't even getting named in
Speaker 3: that top fifty. And I think it's down to collaboration.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 2: And so you mentioned that they're about feeling like a
Speaker 2: phony at some point, right, So I don't know whether
Speaker 2: that's like which I find fast. I mean, I love
Speaker 2: your honesty with that, right, So is collaboration an antidote
Speaker 2: to feeling like a phony?
Speaker 3: No, collaboration is a deep understanding that there are so
Speaker 3: many more people better than what I am. I'm really
Speaker 3: inquisitive and I love learning, and I love being surrounded
Speaker 3: by people that I think will lift me up.
Speaker 1: Why did you say you always feel like a phony?
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure where that comes from. It's just when
Speaker 3: you get thrown into leadership. I can remember at young Care,
Speaker 3: and young Care was had that potential to change the
Speaker 3: way the disability set would be seen. Is remember when
Speaker 3: we were growing up, and you were a lot younger
Speaker 3: than me, But when we were growing up, we were
Speaker 3: told the stories that we had about the disability community
Speaker 3: were always pulling on heartstrings. Let's feel sorry for them,
Speaker 3: Let's look at these terrible images that are disempowering. And
Speaker 3: then we said, let's talk about the wonderful power that
Speaker 3: they have, the independence, the choice of the dignity that
Speaker 3: they deserve. And so young Care is about getting them
Speaker 3: out of age care and nursing homes, horrendous environments where
Speaker 3: the majority of them are looking into suicide as quickly
Speaker 3: as they possibly could, because at eighteen years of age,
Speaker 3: they lost all their funding as young people, and they
Speaker 3: went in as adults and there was nowhere else to
Speaker 3: put them but into age care and nursing homes. We
Speaker 3: flipped it and said, no, this is about independence. They
Speaker 3: deserve choice, they deserved dignity, and those things were such
Speaker 3: a profound learning for me at that time. And hearing
Speaker 3: their stories once again, these incredible stories of victory that
Speaker 3: individuals and the hardships that the families were doing just
Speaker 3: once again changed the way I always went. But going
Speaker 3: back to the phony thing, Yeah, here I am part
Speaker 3: of something that I knew had this incredible ability to
Speaker 3: change the way the disability sector was viewed in Australia.
Speaker 3: I was blown away and scared by the responsibility of
Speaker 3: I said, there's so many better people than me that
Speaker 3: can do this, and there would have been, and of
Speaker 3: course there were. But once you get in a position,
Speaker 3: you step up to the plane and you do the
Speaker 3: best you can.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, because I mean you say that,
Speaker 2: I could argue you and go now, I think you're
Speaker 2: probably the perfect man for the job.
Speaker 1: But how do you get over that and keep going?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What do you tell yourself?
Speaker 3: Once again, I have to get energy from the work
Speaker 3: that I do, so I would do on purpose, go
Speaker 3: and meet the people that I was doing a relationship
Speaker 3: or supporting, hearing their stories, talking to the mums, talking
Speaker 3: to the dads, talking to those individuals themselves that just
Speaker 3: wanted to be have a normal life. And so there's
Speaker 3: a young man when he first came into a young
Speaker 3: care home, didn't think that we could look after him.
Speaker 3: That they thought institutionalized care was the only thing is.
Speaker 3: That's all they know was there for their son. And
Speaker 3: we taught them into giving us a trial. They came
Speaker 3: into the house the first time to look where he
Speaker 3: was going to. It's this beautiful house on Wednesday and
Speaker 3: will win one of the best houses in the street.
Speaker 3: And they didn't believe that that was going to be
Speaker 3: where their son was living. The care is and that
Speaker 3: support workers are really important at that moment and saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're going to take me to his room now, but
Speaker 3: you stay out here. He's ours now, we'll look after
Speaker 3: him and we'll come out and have a cup of tea.
Speaker 3: And they say, about fifteen minutes into him being associchallengers
Speaker 3: and they heard him screaming and they raced him. We
Speaker 3: told you couldn't look after looking after he was in
Speaker 3: the shower and they had never heard him laugh.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: And he was in the shower because where he had been.
Speaker 3: He'd been just sponged down on a trestle and that
Speaker 3: was his first shower since his a quiet brain injury.
Speaker 3: I'll get emotional again. He was crying and laughing because
Speaker 3: that simple act for shower, which we take for granted
Speaker 3: every day, meant so much to him, and I thought, Wow,
Speaker 3: why do we always take those things for granted? Brother?
Speaker 3: Looking for those beautiful moments in life that you know
Speaker 3: that happened when I was in Africa and just seeing
Speaker 3: the real struggles of the world's most poor. He sit
Speaker 3: back and go, you wonker, You're entitled when you complain
Speaker 3: about something in a restauructure or whatever.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: You know I asked this question a lot to people,
Speaker 2: but I'm kind of hesitating with you because I don't
Speaker 2: think it's remotely true. You know, we talked about ego,
Speaker 2: being like, you've got to have some ego right to
Speaker 2: get you places, but you don't seem to have a
Speaker 2: huge ego in that way. And I'm feeling like it's
Speaker 2: because of these experiences that you've had, right to my.
Speaker 3: Son, that's I've got a huge ego.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but you know what I mean, there's that
Speaker 2: difference between good ego, and then there's somewhere in all
Speaker 2: finness and the role that you play now particularly, I'm
Speaker 2: sure there are many peop knocking on your door, wanting
Speaker 2: to take you out for lunch, schmoozing you. It could
Speaker 2: all go to your head. How do you keep yourself grounded?
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll share with you, and I haven't shared this
Speaker 3: for a while. The one moment that that has ground me,
Speaker 3: and it's not the terries. That was a profound one
Speaker 3: of the biggest learning in my life. But when I
Speaker 3: was working in the Kabira slum. The Kabira slum's the
Speaker 3: world's largest slum. It's just outside in Arabi, and we
Speaker 3: set up a school there, a disability school, and it
Speaker 3: was supporting it called Mary Rice. It was amazing. And
Speaker 3: if you are poor, you're in Cabira, you're the poorest
Speaker 3: in the world. And if you've got a disability, you're
Speaker 3: the poorest of the poor. Anyway, one morning we got
Speaker 3: a phone call that one of the fathers had thrown
Speaker 3: one of the kids at our school in front of
Speaker 3: a train. It was a kid that just had cerebral palsy.
Speaker 3: So what I understood that completely, the horror of that moment,
Speaker 3: being thrown in front of the train. It ended up
Speaker 3: coming down to the mummers of Kabira saving that kid's
Speaker 3: life because she was stuck under the train and she
Speaker 3: lost three limbs and was bleeding out, and the men
Speaker 3: were saying, let the child die, let the child die.
Speaker 3: And I wasn't there. I've just been told this story.
Speaker 3: And I come in later and the mum has went out,
Speaker 3: and they said, no, this child deserves to live. It's
Speaker 3: not ours to let her lead out. So they all
Speaker 3: pushed against the train and lift a bit was able
Speaker 3: to lift the train off to the side so that
Speaker 3: they could get access to the girl. And I flew
Speaker 3: in about a month later, and we said we're going
Speaker 3: to look after her and pay for all her medical expenses. Anyway,
Speaker 3: I'm sitting there with the mum, and in these hospitals
Speaker 3: it's like being in hell. You got to do your
Speaker 3: own washing, you got to bring in your own food.
Speaker 3: We're sitting there and the young girl was she was
Speaker 3: speaking broken English and she was saying things to us.
Speaker 3: It was with the group of us, and she was
Speaker 3: saying things, have you seen my leg? If you can
Speaker 3: find my leg, just bring it here. That was a
Speaker 3: really tough thing for us to hear. Tougher for her,
Speaker 3: of course. And years later I left that job. I
Speaker 3: got a phone call and we were told that she
Speaker 3: had dust the school, and that profound moment of imagine
Speaker 3: if they let it bleed out, This kid, you know,
Speaker 3: through that extraordinary, horrendous moment of line, has still been
Speaker 3: able to bounce back, and through love and community, they'd
Speaker 3: been able to go around. And she's she's had this
Speaker 3: and I have no idea where she is now. I
Speaker 3: just know that I was sitting in my office, I
Speaker 3: was actually at Young Care and sitting in office and going, Wow,
Speaker 3: that's what it's.
Speaker 1: All about, Brave.
Speaker 2: What I talk about a lot of enjoy the ease
Speaker 2: for empathy and something that I don't think many people
Speaker 2: understand particularly well sometimes when it comes to I.
Speaker 3: Love that name. By the way, thank you, it's really
Speaker 3: awesome to me.
Speaker 2: That's all where we want to live and right with
Speaker 2: people understand what it means to be bold, resilient, authentic,
Speaker 2: vulnerable and empathetic.
Speaker 1: That's the ultimate leader when I think.
Speaker 2: Of it, empathy in the especially in the space that
Speaker 2: you plan in sympathy and empathy could probably get mixed
Speaker 2: up a bit, like, what's the difference for you with
Speaker 2: those two?
Speaker 3: I think sympathy is where I don't think that really
Speaker 3: gives anything. Sympathy for me is I'm looking at something
Speaker 3: and I'm feeling so worry for them. Empathy is sitting
Speaker 3: with them, and I think that's the difference. I used
Speaker 3: to really get annoyed with people saying I feel so
Speaker 3: sorry for them. Say well, that's not going to do
Speaker 3: them any good. What can you do? And that's in
Speaker 3: anything in life. How do you actually utilize what you've
Speaker 3: got to be able to affect change in any way?
Speaker 3: And everyone has that ability to effect.
Speaker 2: Change, Like I picked this up on you in Futures
Speaker 2: I've met you as well. It's the way you speak
Speaker 2: to people and the questions you ask them. But your
Speaker 2: ability to hold space for people is amazing. I think
Speaker 2: if you can hold space and be comfortable with the
Speaker 2: fact that it could be an uncomfortable conversation, that's what
Speaker 2: we avoid is a human race.
Speaker 1: We don't like being uncomfortable. I just don't like it,
Speaker 1: So humans do well.
Speaker 3: My job is that I've got to do whatever I
Speaker 3: can to build the brand of Brisbane and to grow
Speaker 3: the business opportunities to attract investment, tract aviation, bid for
Speaker 3: the city for major events like an RL Magic Round
Speaker 3: or the British Irish Lines, and you know, those big
Speaker 3: wins are great, absolutely fantastic in the work we're doing.
Speaker 3: So if I'm not out there on failing in my job,
Speaker 3: if you talk about ego, I don't think this is ego.
Speaker 3: But I hate losing. I've never liked losing, and I
Speaker 3: lose all the time, but it drives me. I don't
Speaker 3: win much, but I know that when I lose, it
Speaker 3: makes me more passionate.
Speaker 2: That's why you're an epic fundraiser potentially. Absolutely, Let's talk
Speaker 2: about the v then, because if you're not loving always
Speaker 2: being on stage or speaking gigs, it's not always we
Speaker 2: get your energy from. I mean, obviously you're good at
Speaker 2: it and you do it for a good purpose and
Speaker 2: a good reason. So I totally get and agree with that.
Speaker 2: Was there a moment where you felt really vulnerable, like
Speaker 2: really exposed, like you weren't coping.
Speaker 3: I feel vulnerable. Now your listeners won't see this, but
Speaker 3: I've been crying the whole time. Nice It's I didn't
Speaker 3: come here thinking I was going to be crying. I'm
Speaker 3: sort of comfortable in being vulnerable in some of the
Speaker 3: work that I've done. I know that sounds a bit peculiar,
Speaker 3: but when you put yourself out there, it's not just
Speaker 3: about you and what you learn in those moments, but
Speaker 3: it's also I think you grow during that time. My
Speaker 3: father always said, by the time you leave this world,
Speaker 3: make sure you've made a difference, and I think in
Speaker 3: those vulnerable times that's where you grow.
Speaker 2: I could agree more, but I think that that vulnerability
Speaker 2: for a lot of people in very senior roles is
Speaker 2: a real tough one, right, because there's this constant fear
Speaker 2: of being exposed or being judged.
Speaker 1: Why do you not have that? Yeah, why what's the difference?
Speaker 3: I'm not scared of being wrong or scared of sounding stupid,
Speaker 3: because I get annoyed with people when they try and
Speaker 3: pretend there's something that they're not and I feel like
Speaker 3: just saying if you don't know, I don't know what's
Speaker 3: wrong with that? What's wrong with saying that you don't
Speaker 3: know something? But what I want to do is I
Speaker 3: learn and I'll come back and I will give you
Speaker 3: the answer. That's a better answer than trying to make
Speaker 3: up something. Being vulnerable is saying I don't have to
Speaker 3: be perfect, and I'm not perfect just because I've got
Speaker 3: a CEO behind my title. In fact, that means nothing
Speaker 3: unless I can do my job well. And one of
Speaker 3: the most important parts of the job is acknowledging the
Speaker 3: fact that you're never going to be right all the time.
Speaker 2: I describe vulnerability as speaking from the messy middle, right,
Speaker 2: because the messy middle is you don't know, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't know something you haven't sold. You're speaking from
Speaker 2: a space where you haven't figured it all out.
Speaker 1: This is why I do this podcast, though, right because.
Speaker 2: I need people like you on here saying this because
Speaker 2: there are too many people in quite powerful positions and
Speaker 2: affecting the lives and happiness of other people who walk
Speaker 2: around Unfortunately. You say, I don't know why they do it,
Speaker 2: because that's the world that we live, and it creates
Speaker 2: a space that the smartest and you have all the answers,
Speaker 2: and you're the most beautiful, and all these things stops
Speaker 2: us from speaking from the messy middle.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And so to hear.
Speaker 2: That other successful people who are doing good in the
Speaker 2: world are okay with that gives people permission, but not
Speaker 2: enough people have given permission to be vulnerable at the top.
Speaker 2: I agree, what's something you're aware of about yourself now
Speaker 2: that you just weren't at the beginning of your career? Like,
Speaker 2: what do you know now that you're like damn? Like,
Speaker 2: if I could go back and tell young Anthony, hey,
Speaker 2: I feel.
Speaker 3: As if I am a very good storyteller. You are,
Speaker 3: And I think the power of story is not talked
Speaker 3: about enough. I challenge you every time you've gone to
Speaker 3: a lunch where they're talking, when anyone goes from talking
Speaker 3: about something quantitatively or just about a subject and then
Speaker 3: they bring a story into it. Hollywood calls it the
Speaker 3: lean forward moment. I've got a great mane of mine
Speaker 3: who just lives around the corner from or works around
Speaker 3: the corner from here, Aaron Michael. He's actually Margot Robbie's
Speaker 3: manager and another story, Margo was our ambassador.
Speaker 1: At young here and oh wow.
Speaker 3: Anyway, so Aaron talks that those people that are amazing
Speaker 3: in the world globally are those that they create those
Speaker 3: lean forward moments, and you watch it. Next time you'll
Speaker 3: see people at a lunch a good storyteller. They lean
Speaker 3: Ford it's a physical responsible you want to dive into it,
Speaker 3: and I think I'm pretty good at that. I'm bad
Speaker 3: at a lot of things, but I think once you
Speaker 3: tell story and then bring it back to the yes,
Speaker 3: people will then.
Speaker 2: Listen exactly right, because it's the real life experience. Then
Speaker 2: you attach the thing you try and teach people to,
Speaker 2: which is pretty much what I love. If I was
Speaker 2: doing what I love to do, we'd be talking for
Speaker 2: three and a half hours because I'll be telling you stories,
Speaker 2: You're telling me stories. We're going round be amazing wine.
Speaker 1: Oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: I honestly could talk to you for a really long time.
Speaker 2: I want to bottle what you are in lots of
Speaker 2: ways and give it out to some of these leaders
Speaker 2: that I meet. So I've got to wrap it up, though,
Speaker 2: So I'll finish on one question. What's an opportunity you
Speaker 2: said no two in the past that you say yes
Speaker 2: to today.
Speaker 3: I haven't said no to too many things. In fact, i'd
Speaker 3: find it hard if I look at from a sort
Speaker 3: of surface level. I was offered a scholarship to the
Speaker 3: American Universities after the world jenis getting that silver metal
Speaker 3: you get back from those and all the talent scouts
Speaker 3: are there, and I had an offer to go to Harvard,
Speaker 3: Ohio State, Kentucky and Notre Dame, and I probably should
Speaker 3: have taken up one of those because I think it
Speaker 3: would have opened up a different world from me. But
Speaker 3: I don't regret it because then it opened up another
Speaker 3: different world. What I regret is spending more time with
Speaker 3: my mom and dad towards the end parts of their life.
Speaker 3: Like I did as much as I possibly could, But
Speaker 3: when you start seeing them fail and you know that
Speaker 3: they're in their last couple of days, you're always full
Speaker 3: of regrets. Then why don't I walk on the beach
Speaker 3: with them one more time? Or why don't know if
Speaker 3: they're fishing a dad? Or why do I sit down
Speaker 3: with mum and hold a hand and one more time?
Speaker 1: They're the things that truly a thank Charnithan. This has
Speaker 1: been beautiful. Thanks for coming on