Speaker 1: Hello there.
Speaker 2: Today's episode of Separate Bathrooms contains discussions of suicide and
Speaker 2: mental ill health. If this raises any issues for you,
Speaker 2: support is available through the following services. Call Lifeline on
Speaker 2: thirteen eleven fourteen or visit lifeline dot org dot AU.
Speaker 3: Call beyond Blue on thirteen hundred two two four six
Speaker 3: three six, or visit beyond blue dot org dot au
Speaker 3: forward slash forums.
Speaker 4: We experienced the death of another family friend just a
Speaker 4: couple of months.
Speaker 3: Ago, and it's just like, why is this still happening.
Speaker 4: We lose more young people to suicide than by any
Speaker 4: other cause in our country.
Speaker 3: It's not okay, Hello, and welcome to Separate Bathrooms. We
Speaker 3: would like to acknowledge the Gadigel people of the Urination,
Speaker 3: the traditional custodiums of this land, and pay our respects
Speaker 3: to the elders past and present. My name's Ali Daddo.
Speaker 1: I'm cam Dado.
Speaker 3: How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm really well good actually, thank you for asking.
Speaker 3: Sure. Gosh, well, we have an amazing couple. I know,
Speaker 3: we always have amazing couple.
Speaker 5: We do.
Speaker 3: We have a really special couple coming in today and
Speaker 3: they're going to be talking about a subject that is
Speaker 3: very very close to my heart. I became an ambassador
Speaker 3: to a charity called Rais, which serves an industry leading
Speaker 3: youth mentoring charity dedicated to providing support for teenagers in
Speaker 3: high schools right across Australia.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're all.
Speaker 2: Over the place bus shelters video for Rais dot org
Speaker 2: dot au. I'm getting messages from people all around the
Speaker 2: country talking about your involvement with I.
Speaker 3: Did a letter to my mentor because Raise supports kids
Speaker 3: by supplying them with a mentor for six months, and
Speaker 3: they asked me, can you talk about your mentor? And
Speaker 3: I got to speak about my grandfather and write a
Speaker 3: letter as if I was writing a letter to him,
Speaker 3: and that was or. I could barely get through that letter.
Speaker 3: I did actually.
Speaker 1: Cry during it as you're reading it out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because of how meaningful he is to me. As
Speaker 3: mentors are, you know, you can remember that one person
Speaker 3: from as far back as memory goes, people can go,
Speaker 3: I remember when she did this, that teacher, that footy coach,
Speaker 3: the librarian, the neighbor next door. There's always pretty much
Speaker 3: always a moment in a child's life that I can remember,
Speaker 3: that moment of kindness or that moment of support or.
Speaker 2: Wisdom founders Vicky and Leon Condon are our guests today. Yes,
Speaker 2: Vicky has a background in counseling and knowledge of growing research.
Speaker 2: In the power of mentoring, she made a plan to
Speaker 2: support young people by providing them with a caring, trusted,
Speaker 2: independent mentor not a parent, not a family member, someone
Speaker 2: who shows up on a regular basis, just for them.
Speaker 3: That's right. And Leon, Vicki's husband, is look he's an
Speaker 3: experienced executive with a solid track record of business achievement
Speaker 3: in blue chip corporate and successful startups. And Leon also
Speaker 3: actually holds a degree in engineering. But he is also
Speaker 3: and very proudly the chairman of Rays. He brings such
Speaker 3: a wealth of expertise to raise and he's a key
Speaker 3: partner in the success of the organization since its inception.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, we're going to find out more about Rais.
Speaker 2: Vicky and Leon are doing incredible work and it all
Speaker 2: started in their home office raising money through movie nights
Speaker 2: if you can believe, and they've been able to support
Speaker 2: more than thirteen five hundred people through their programs. Vicky
Speaker 2: was awarded an Order of Australia, thoroughly deserved. Indeed, they
Speaker 2: are also married and happily. Let's discuss that they were
Speaker 2: so married and happily married. Let's discover more about Rais
Speaker 2: dot Org dot Au and Vicki and Leon. Vicky and
Speaker 2: Leon Condon. Welcome to separate bathrooms. We will talk about
Speaker 2: rays ours obviously involved intimately with you.
Speaker 1: Guys.
Speaker 2: We are a relationship podcast, so you have to tell
Speaker 2: us your love story.
Speaker 3: Can we remember? Do you remember how you met?
Speaker 1: How long ago? Was it not that long ago? Kids?
Speaker 1: Come on, it was a.
Speaker 3: Long time ago. I was nineteen.
Speaker 5: There's two answers to this camp. I met Vick at
Speaker 5: least a year earlier and fell in love.
Speaker 3: And you don't remember that. Vicky, there's a story. We've
Speaker 3: met at a floor.
Speaker 4: We both worked for the same organization. So we worked
Speaker 4: at Honeywell and I came over from Adlaida grew up
Speaker 4: in Adelaide, and I come over for a big fancy
Speaker 4: ball here in Sydney, and On was there.
Speaker 3: And the only way I know that.
Speaker 4: He did see me is because he can tell you
Speaker 4: the dress I was wearing, which is true.
Speaker 3: But he didn't come and talk to me, so.
Speaker 1: He just stared at you.
Speaker 3: We didn't actually speak.
Speaker 5: She was wearing this purple sort of taff her with
Speaker 5: Kyli and I really tightly permed heir.
Speaker 1: Gave that away.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So then we met when I actually moved over from
Speaker 4: Adelaide and started working for Honeywell here and so we
Speaker 4: worked for the same company, and that's where we met.
Speaker 5: Seriously, that was my version.
Speaker 1: He was stalking systems control systems.
Speaker 3: Wait, so so you're at the same party and you
Speaker 3: think that you were with her the whole night, and
Speaker 3: I think he was stalking behind behind curtains. And did
Speaker 3: you remember her for a whole year? Was she on
Speaker 3: your mind a whole year?
Speaker 5: Patient? Not normally one of my qualities.
Speaker 3: And did you know that she was going to move to.
Speaker 5: Orchestrated?
Speaker 4: You orchestrated it.
Speaker 1: You got a control system out. And then.
Speaker 4: I was a secretary and Leon was working for the
Speaker 4: same guy, and so we ended up working for the
Speaker 4: same department. Yeah, he'll tell you that we met in
Speaker 4: the copy photocopy room the second.
Speaker 1: Time, or were you photocoph sitting on the coffee machine?
Speaker 3: Don't go there.
Speaker 1: That's the sort of thing we did in the eighties.
Speaker 2: We didn't have exactly and we didn't have you know,
Speaker 2: screens and things, so if we had to sit on
Speaker 2: the screen in order to send a love message?
Speaker 3: Did we did we have to do it?
Speaker 2: Well, we didn't work in business, we didn't act still
Speaker 2: photocopy machine. But I did at school and that was
Speaker 2: the thing that used to happen at school with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, boys school very much girls photo copy there genitals, Jen.
Speaker 1: It was a sitting on it. It was a cheeky
Speaker 1: it was a cheeky fax.
Speaker 3: Machine, definite, and your mates and still get up to it.
Speaker 2: Well, we'd still do it if there were a photo
Speaker 2: coffee machine. I'd still give.
Speaker 1: That's too much fun with me.
Speaker 3: So that the second meeting for you, Leon, almost the
Speaker 3: first of Vicky. How long till you fell in love?
Speaker 3: And there was marriage?
Speaker 4: And oh it didn't take me long once I'd actually
Speaker 4: met him. Leon was really fun and energetic, interesting.
Speaker 3: Back in the day.
Speaker 4: And yeah, we got together pretty quickly and we were
Speaker 4: together for about six years before we decided to get married.
Speaker 4: And the proposal was very exciting and you just couldn't
Speaker 4: say no, what.
Speaker 1: Was the proposal? Leon? How did you orchestrate that?
Speaker 5: Do you guys scuba on?
Speaker 3: No, I'd love to though, that's actually on my bucket.
Speaker 1: Lest One time in band camp.
Speaker 5: I did one thing you can't be proud of is
Speaker 5: doing a tank in eighteen minutes hang on tank of oxygen.
Speaker 3: Okay, how long was the tank normally tank?
Speaker 5: Probably forty five or more.
Speaker 1: So you're excited.
Speaker 5: I was a little bit excited. But some heavy.
Speaker 1: Breathing going on, yes, so that.
Speaker 3: Says a lot.
Speaker 5: So we're at just off burro And Bay. There's this
Speaker 5: beautiful dive called Julian Rocks. We were down about sixty
Speaker 5: feet and before we went over the side, the dive
Speaker 5: master said, have you guys ever swim with gray nurses before?
Speaker 5: VICKI had a few explete ips but about.
Speaker 1: Gray nurse being shark the hospital at.
Speaker 5: About sixty feet and we came through a cave which
Speaker 5: didn't have a back on it, and three gray nurse
Speaker 5: mails and sharks literally two to three feet away from
Speaker 5: our masks. I was sucking a lot of oxygen, knowing
Speaker 5: that I was about to us the dive master for
Speaker 5: his slate or white slate to write will you marry me?
Speaker 5: And then she started riding S and I couldn't work
Speaker 5: out what s. I was ready for a y but
Speaker 5: maybe an n.
Speaker 4: I'm right sure, I didn't give it away right from
Speaker 4: the beginning.
Speaker 3: So yeah, oh I love that least it was an
Speaker 3: s h I t take me too, shure, Yeah exactly,
Speaker 3: So amongst sharks and sixty feet below, that's a pretty
Speaker 3: good proposal.
Speaker 1: I don't think we've ever heard one like that.
Speaker 3: I think that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1: We've been.
Speaker 2: We've been on mountains, we've been on bus sidings, we've been,
Speaker 2: we've been all over the place, but we've never been
Speaker 2: under the ski.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was pretty special.
Speaker 5: Took six years to come up with it, though.
Speaker 3: You didn't have the ring with you to do or
Speaker 3: I think we should talk about the ring.
Speaker 1: You need to talk about the ring.
Speaker 3: Now dropped the ring.
Speaker 4: We didn't really have a ring. No, we didn't have
Speaker 4: a ring, but I had another rings. We just moved
Speaker 4: that one over onto that finger.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I got the best ring when we got Ali, our
Speaker 4: third child. So we then quickly had children, so two.
Speaker 3: Boys and a girl.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and my real engagement ring, I don't know what
Speaker 4: you called it.
Speaker 3: Forever ring, maybe with yeah, when we.
Speaker 4: Had Ali, our daughter, Ali, your third child. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: the ring that I went now I got yeah, great name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one or two one you.
Speaker 1: And your other. One of your sons is Cameron.
Speaker 4: Bove friend is Cameron, which is quite funny. So they
Speaker 4: are Allie and Cam.
Speaker 3: You go look at that destined one are the chances?
Speaker 4: And then we've got Sam who's our middle son, and
Speaker 4: Ben who's our eldest.
Speaker 2: Are they involved in this amazing charity that you guys
Speaker 2: have set up?
Speaker 3: Ben and Ali try to avoid it.
Speaker 5: Really don't think Ben's on strategy.
Speaker 4: Ben is actually my best mentor, so he'll often around
Speaker 4: the dinner table just say you know, okay, mum, how
Speaker 4: is your day? And he actually listens to my asked
Speaker 4: the right questions.
Speaker 1: So yeah, let's.
Speaker 3: Go back though to the beginning of raise. Can you
Speaker 3: talk about what inspired you to start it?
Speaker 4: At Honeywell, where we both worked, I moved from being
Speaker 4: the secretary to working in HR and once we got
Speaker 4: the kids off to school, I remember thinking I really
Speaker 4: don't want to go back to corporate hours and I
Speaker 4: retrained as a counselor. So did that training and started
Speaker 4: teaching at TAFE, which I loved, and volunteered to some
Speaker 4: other organizations and found mentoring programs which really got into
Speaker 4: my blood. Like the tape course was amazing, but there
Speaker 4: were a few things with my corporate background that I
Speaker 4: thought I'd do a little bit differently. So, if I'm
Speaker 4: being really honest with you, raise was my midlife crisis.
Speaker 4: I turned forty. I left the three kids and the
Speaker 4: dog home with Leon and took off to Byron Bay,
Speaker 4: which is obviously a very special place for us, and
Speaker 4: sat on the beach for a week and wrote a
Speaker 4: big business plan and thought I was.
Speaker 3: Going to change the world.
Speaker 4: Came home and I just popped the business plan away
Speaker 4: in my bottom drawer because I just thought I'd never
Speaker 4: run an organization before. I don't know how to run
Speaker 4: a charity. I'll just keep volunteering. A few months later,
Speaker 4: we experienced the death by suicide of a fourteen year
Speaker 4: old family friend, and our kids were coming up for
Speaker 4: a similar age and Leon was there when it happened,
Speaker 4: so he was working with his father and just dropping
Speaker 4: him off after work, and that rattled us. It was awful,
Speaker 4: wasn't itly Yeah, it's.
Speaker 5: A level of grief that you just don't want to
Speaker 5: see anyone that you care about experience to see your
Speaker 5: mother and father there. I've a really loved child, Yeah,
Speaker 5: and I I reacted by going into my cave as
Speaker 5: I do on things like that. And Vicky reacted with
Speaker 5: really positivity, just straight out saying, this is just not okay.
Speaker 5: There's not just one young person like this. This is
Speaker 5: systemic in our community, our country today. It's not okay
Speaker 5: with the theme. And she I went to the funeral,
Speaker 5: she refused, and she went to ASSE and registered the charity.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: And you know, it's been an incredible journey with just
Speaker 5: amazing people like you guys, just leaning in and saying, hey,
Speaker 5: how can we help?
Speaker 4: And now it's remember thinking if we could just help
Speaker 4: one young person like him at the time, that it
Speaker 4: would be worth it. And you know it's fifteen years
Speaker 4: later now.
Speaker 5: So yeah, in the first year we had a graduation
Speaker 5: actually over there Drunker and remember so clearly standing at
Speaker 5: the back of the hall. We had something like fifty
Speaker 5: six kids or whatever in the program that year and
Speaker 5: standing at the end of the hall and these kids,
Speaker 5: you know, they're coming to the program and they're you know,
Speaker 5: their heads down, dragging their feet, they were so flat.
Speaker 5: Anxiety levels or depressions really high, maybe bullying, all sorts
Speaker 5: of things happening in their world. And at the end
Speaker 5: of the year. They've got a graduation where they grabbed
Speaker 5: the microphone like this and they're in front of you know,
Speaker 5: I couldn't have done this a year ago. I'm in
Speaker 5: front of one hundred people and I'm just talking about, Oh,
Speaker 5: I've got a job at macas and I've got to
Speaker 5: be you know, and you subject and they're just so
Speaker 5: full of life. Enjoy one girl, let's call a Jess.
Speaker 5: She walked to the front, she grabbed the microphone. She
Speaker 5: just said, bick and I at the back of the room.
Speaker 5: She said, I just want to say one thing. I
Speaker 5: just want to say thank you, thank you to the
Speaker 5: Foundation to raise because if it wasn't for you, I
Speaker 5: wouldn't be here. Yeah, and we just did a little
Speaker 5: high five, and I thought, that's the one. That's all
Speaker 5: we needed.
Speaker 4: There's one.
Speaker 1: Can you give us the elevator pitch of raise for
Speaker 1: our listener?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 4: So. We run early intervention and prevention mentoring programs in
Speaker 4: high schools right across the country. We work with the
Speaker 4: well being teams to identify which young people would benefit
Speaker 4: most from having a trained and trusted mentor to talk
Speaker 4: to every single week for six months. And you know,
Speaker 4: I guess the differentiators from our mentoring program is you
Speaker 4: know that training. But the program's run by qualified counselors
Speaker 4: who supervise the match and look after everybody and keep
Speaker 4: them safe, and we do comprehensive evaluation so that we
Speaker 4: can prove and improve the program year on year. This year,
Speaker 4: we're in one hundred and eighty schools right across the country.
Speaker 4: We're in every state and territory apart from the Northern
Speaker 4: Territory so far, and we'll have twenty four hundred young
Speaker 4: people being matched with a raised mentor this year alone,
Speaker 4: So it's.
Speaker 3: Come a long way.
Speaker 4: And as Leon said, it's you know, it's all about
Speaker 4: lots of individual people right around the country who also
Speaker 4: just want to do one thing for one kid. That's
Speaker 4: the difference that you can make just you know, given
Speaker 4: hour a week to talk and listen, ask the right
Speaker 4: questions helped them get through.
Speaker 3: And I know that there was an event the last
Speaker 3: event I went to there was it was really beautiful
Speaker 3: because I've heard from the students who've been through the program,
Speaker 3: but hearing from the mother of a child talking that
Speaker 3: was really special because I think as parents we often
Speaker 3: feel that we have to be everything to our child.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure you know I've even felt that, like,
Speaker 3: oh I want to be my child's mentor. But you
Speaker 3: know your friends who lost their child, this was from
Speaker 3: a loving family, you know. So what's the difference between
Speaker 3: that mentor to a parent, Like, what's that defining difference?
Speaker 5: Firstly, we have the mantra that takes a village to
Speaker 5: raise a child, and I think that's so true. And
Speaker 5: you remember you back yourself as a fourteen year old,
Speaker 5: the relationship with you have with your parents or teachers.
Speaker 5: So this to have a random, you know, a person
Speaker 5: that's not a positive role model into their lives, that's
Speaker 5: not a parent, not a teacher, not a person of authority.
Speaker 5: When the young people with the men tea talk to
Speaker 5: us Selli about what they get out of it, they
Speaker 5: just talk about having someone to listen to me and
Speaker 5: not tell me stuff. Yeah, maybe ask a question that
Speaker 5: helps steer. And you imagine what a gift, even yourselves
Speaker 5: as adults, to have an hour week where someone is
Speaker 5: just giving it all about you, and when you've got
Speaker 5: so much going on in your world as our kids
Speaker 5: have today, as you know, fourteen year olds wish to
Speaker 5: see it this year nine, but it's typically year eight.
Speaker 5: Now it's a big transition.
Speaker 4: Period, fe and you can be the best parents in
Speaker 4: the world, right, like we know you can be the
Speaker 4: great greatest parents. But there is a period in adolescent
Speaker 4: development where young people just move away from mom and dad,
Speaker 4: like you're suddenly not cool anymore. And you know, it's
Speaker 4: very uncool if you like your parents. So it's the
Speaker 4: perfect time to bring in, you know, an independent, trusted
Speaker 4: person who might be a footy coach or a teacher,
Speaker 4: or you know, someone that is separate, like Leone says,
Speaker 4: it's you know, not a counselor yeah, you know, not
Speaker 4: your parent, just someone different. I remember telling our kids,
Speaker 4: giving them advice, telling them things, you know, what I
Speaker 4: thought about what they could or should do as the mum.
Speaker 4: But you know, often they won't listen to you. But then,
Speaker 4: you know, a couple of weeks later, the footy coach
Speaker 4: might say exactly the same thing to them and suddenly
Speaker 4: they've taken it on board.
Speaker 3: You know, they're like, well, you know, mister.
Speaker 4: Harrod said that I should Rara Ryan. I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: I told you that two weeks ago, but sure, you know,
Speaker 4: and that's great and that's what you need is.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of research done about adolescence, isn't
Speaker 2: there that they do need to in way divorce the parents,
Speaker 2: you know, and that's part of the growth, natural growth
Speaker 2: that we haven't it's really hard for parents to let
Speaker 2: go and allow the child to find their own way.
Speaker 2: In our experience, now as our kids have gotten older,
Speaker 2: they do come back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I love that saying.
Speaker 5: You know, I can't believe how much of when I
Speaker 5: was fourteen years d was, but how much by the
Speaker 5: time I turned twenty five, how much you'd learned?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's a good bloke now.
Speaker 1: Mark Train everything.
Speaker 2: Mark Twain said something like that, what an idiot my
Speaker 2: father was, and then how smart he was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he got over it eventually.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: And when we grew up, there was that environment. There
Speaker 5: was you know, we're outdoors. There was a lot more
Speaker 5: a lot more sport, a lot more engagement, and so
Speaker 5: opportunities to be with your uncle or your dad's mate
Speaker 5: or whoever. Whereas now they're in the bedroom gaming, that's right,
Speaker 5: or they're on the social media, yeah, doing the latest tiktokle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what do you say about that.
Speaker 5: The thing that's probably we won't know still for decades probably,
Speaker 5: but the impact of this judgment and comparison, you know,
Speaker 5: you just see the show real. The highlights are the
Speaker 5: positive of all these people's world, in your world in
Speaker 5: comparison to theirs. For all of us now, even as adults,
Speaker 5: but as a fourteen year old, so impressionable that everyone
Speaker 5: else's world is happy and positive and they're just doing
Speaker 5: great fun things. Look how attractive they are with.
Speaker 3: Their the photoshopped how many likes they got and I
Speaker 3: didn't get hardly any likes on this post, and that, Oh.
Speaker 4: The world is suddenly very closed in and you know,
Speaker 4: we would never have witnessed, you know, things like nine
Speaker 4: to eleven when we were teenagers. But this current generation
Speaker 4: of young people, that's what they've grown up with. That's
Speaker 4: what's normal for them. Even von Dio Westfield, you know,
Speaker 4: they're seeing that on their feed before they're hearing about it.
Speaker 3: That's news.
Speaker 4: And you know, of course anxiety is so heightened when
Speaker 4: anything like that could happen just around the corner. They're
Speaker 4: just they conscious of things like that.
Speaker 5: They've just exposed so much more so we've just completed
Speaker 5: a study the first time we've ever had a control
Speaker 5: group study and with the University of Melbourne where we've
Speaker 5: had a group of like minded young people with a
Speaker 5: raised mental and a like minded young group without a
Speaker 5: race mental and the results have just been absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 1: Can you speak a little about those results.
Speaker 5: Well, all the key here is that we're really be
Speaker 5: working on resilience, hope, help seeking and school engagement because
Speaker 5: what we're seeing is the levels of anxiety and depression
Speaker 5: mental illness for this generation is at a significant level,
Speaker 5: and it's having a direct connection to the attendance record,
Speaker 5: and that school engagement level is directly leading to school
Speaker 5: completion and eventually through to employment and your role in
Speaker 5: a massive contributor to community. So we can see that
Speaker 5: line of sight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all of.
Speaker 4: Our key result areas are increased compared to the control group,
Speaker 4: which is really encouraging for the program. We also did
Speaker 4: an economic study of the program, so for every one
Speaker 4: dollar invested in our program, there's four dollars thirty seven
Speaker 4: in return of avoided costs from the health system. Lately,
Speaker 4: on talked about in school.
Speaker 2: Right when you first drew up your business plan, was
Speaker 2: this part of it we're considering this type of no.
Speaker 4: It blows me away that we've been able to do
Speaker 4: what we have done, but also, you know why we
Speaker 4: still needed We experienced the death of another family friend
Speaker 4: this year, just a couple of months ago, and it's
Speaker 4: just like, why is this still happening. We lose more
Speaker 4: young people to suicide than by any other cause in
Speaker 4: our country. You know, it's not okay, and so we
Speaker 4: need to keep on top of it. We need to
Speaker 4: keep making sure and I think there's been a lot
Speaker 4: of work on awareness, and there's a lot of work
Speaker 4: at the crisis end of mental illness, particularly for young people,
Speaker 4: but early intervention and prevention is where we need to
Speaker 4: be investing more because if we can teach these young
Speaker 4: people right early on where to go for help, how
Speaker 4: to build resilience, how to push through these challenges that
Speaker 4: are inevitably going to come up, you know, how to
Speaker 4: have a growth mindset, this isn't going to be like
Speaker 4: this forever, and help them get through school and find
Speaker 4: work and make sure that they have happy, healthy adulthood
Speaker 4: like we've had thirteen and a half thousand young people
Speaker 4: graduate from the program. And your question came about you know,
Speaker 4: did we ever think it was going to get to
Speaker 4: hear like? I didn't think so, And I think I
Speaker 4: think our board at the beginning, at Lea's the chairman,
Speaker 4: we're just thinking at the time of it, he's got
Speaker 4: a nice pet project. You know, this will be fun
Speaker 4: for her fifteen years later. It's really important work that
Speaker 4: we're all doing together that's making a huge impact.
Speaker 5: What's interesting, it's not only the mentees the young people.
Speaker 5: What's interesting with the program is the mentors and the
Speaker 5: benefit that they get out of it. Because corporate Australia
Speaker 5: or in our business life, what used to be focused
Speaker 5: like schooling is focused on academics and nap planning results.
Speaker 5: Increasingly people are recognizing what used to be called soft
Speaker 5: skills are the power skills. You know, listening and you
Speaker 5: know you guys talk about empathy, you know, just to
Speaker 5: build those skills, those those EQ skills is what a fulfilled,
Speaker 5: happy life's all about. And we're seeing that with the mentors.
Speaker 5: They're reporting back to as well, we got more out
Speaker 5: of it than we Yes, we.
Speaker 3: Talk about that as a ripple effect.
Speaker 4: You know that we're able to create across the country
Speaker 4: because yes, on one hand, we're helping young people to
Speaker 4: survive adolescence. But on the other hand, we're upskilling all
Speaker 4: of these adults on how to ask the right question
Speaker 4: and listen really effectively. And so those skills they can
Speaker 4: use with other young people in their lives or you know,
Speaker 4: if they're volunteering in the community or their own kids,
Speaker 4: or in their workplaces.
Speaker 3: Like Leone was talking about.
Speaker 4: So lots of our mentors are university students who are
Speaker 4: studying psychology or teaching and they come to us to
Speaker 4: do placement hours so they can learn what it's like
Speaker 4: to work one on one with a young person. So
Speaker 4: there's lots of benefits for the mentors as well as
Speaker 4: the mentees.
Speaker 3: And it's been I mean, I know this has helped
Speaker 3: my mental health and many people talk about this. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're struggling, sometimes it actually really helps to help
Speaker 3: other people and that, you know, and I think that
Speaker 3: this being a mentor would be as you say, that
Speaker 3: ripple effective. Like you see that the access and the
Speaker 3: assistance that you're giving to this team, and I mean
Speaker 3: that can only feel good for yourself. And you offer training.
Speaker 3: This is something that anyone can just go and do.
Speaker 3: And what does that training look like for someone who
Speaker 3: wanted to be a mental Yeah, the training's fantastic and
Speaker 3: we've developed it over the years, so there's now eight
Speaker 3: modules that you can do online and they're just self paced,
Speaker 3: so you do them at your own time, your own leisure.
Speaker 3: The training is, you know, industry leading. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1: At a cost? Do you pay for the training?
Speaker 4: We gift it to those who volunteer with us. We
Speaker 4: don't charge our volunteers. Having said that, we are setting
Speaker 4: up a social enterprise because those skills are so valuable,
Speaker 4: and you know, corporate partners are buying those training courses
Speaker 4: from us as a social enterprise initiative so that we
Speaker 4: can start generating our own fundraising because fundraising is tough.
Speaker 5: As an The money side of thing has just been
Speaker 5: crazy for us. After a corporate life that Vicki mentioned before,
Speaker 5: I've been working with small enterprises, stuff ups and medium
Speaker 5: sized businesses and there you spend all day trying you've
Speaker 5: got a product or a service, and you spend all
Speaker 5: money all day trying to drum up demand. Here it
Speaker 5: rays is there's just unprecedented demand where Yeah, we're really
Speaker 5: thrilled to have twenty four hundred kids in the program
Speaker 5: this year. But it's you know, it's less than ten
Speaker 5: percent of what we want to be doing because we
Speaker 5: have that many schools coming to us and saying, hey,
Speaker 5: can we have your program? All individual students coming to
Speaker 5: us every week, multiple times a week around the kidsen table.
Speaker 5: It's like, we've got another school that needs, you know,
Speaker 5: needs a program with thirty or forty thousand dollars that
Speaker 5: we don't have. How are we going to get that?
Speaker 3: And you need more mentors as well, don't you we
Speaker 3: need right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, our challenge is always, you know, enough mentors
Speaker 4: and enough money, money, enough, and it'll always.
Speaker 3: Be kids, that's always.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's so great and that's how al you said
Speaker 2: so beautifully about when you are feeling low, to actually
Speaker 2: step away from your life, go help someone, use your
Speaker 2: skills to assist someone else does raise your confidence. And
Speaker 2: in this day where we're reading about job redundancies and
Speaker 2: jobs changing and shifting and evolving, and we're change is
Speaker 2: hard to deal with and we all have to deal
Speaker 2: with change. That's just the common denominator of the human cycle.
Speaker 2: Things change, and it seems at the moment that we
Speaker 2: are in a state of great change, but subtle change
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: That sneaks up on you.
Speaker 3: You're talking about your hair color.
Speaker 2: Oh no, that wasn't so subtle that it happened to
Speaker 2: the GFC. Do you remember that, honey, I love the
Speaker 2: way you segued into my silver hair color.
Speaker 1: Said to me the other day, she said, there was if.
Speaker 2: Someone put up a comparison photograph of me at twenty
Speaker 2: six and another one of me at fifty two or whatever,
Speaker 2: and now goes you look better. Now, I'm like, why
Speaker 2: she goes, because your hair's uniform. It's all gray, it's
Speaker 2: not half gray.
Speaker 4: Well, you've got the hearth breaking going now.
Speaker 2: You've been so yeah, we've got more, way more pepper
Speaker 2: than you do. So whereas I'm pretty salty, but as
Speaker 2: I was in mind, it's okay nothing.
Speaker 1: I've done it to you a lot. It's so valuable.
Speaker 2: And I want to ask you about your checks and
Speaker 2: balances with mentors because this exposure in the news and
Speaker 2: we're hearing it all the time now through church and
Speaker 2: through this and trust family staff of just mentors abusing
Speaker 2: their privilege right or their power perceived power, especially over
Speaker 2: over vulnerable kids. Can you just talk a bit about
Speaker 2: how you vet the mentors, and I think it's important.
Speaker 4: It's a really rigid process that we've developed over the
Speaker 4: time that we've been running. We have a very comprehensive
Speaker 4: youth safety framework that our volunteers have to go through
Speaker 4: the training. As much as it's great and that you're
Speaker 4: developing skills, it's also us checking you out. What we
Speaker 4: have to do as an organization, which all of us
Speaker 4: do when we're working with young people and particularly vulnerable
Speaker 4: young people, is make sure that there are no doors
Speaker 4: of access for pedophiles of people coming into groom. So
Speaker 4: you want them to be able to look at our
Speaker 4: website and our program and know that it's going to
Speaker 4: be very difficult for them to prey on any of
Speaker 4: our young people, So we make it really hard for
Speaker 4: them at every turn. Our program is supervised by degree
Speaker 4: qualified counselor or social worker or psychologists, so they're there
Speaker 4: the whole time while the mentee and the mentor are
Speaker 4: talking and yeah, so it's fully supervised the whole time.
Speaker 4: It's something that we are very vigilant about. It's really important.
Speaker 5: It's paramount. Safety is at the top of our our
Speaker 5: pillar on everything we discuss, and you know as well
Speaker 5: as the supervision of course or contact details aren't shared.
Speaker 5: There's a defined into the program, and there's separation. Often
Speaker 5: you find where in organizations where it has occurred, they've
Speaker 5: groomed through a period and then it's been after that
Speaker 5: there's been this association. So separation is key. There's lots
Speaker 5: of elements to it. Can it's it's complex, and it's
Speaker 5: a good major concern.
Speaker 3: How has creating rays well? What has it done for
Speaker 3: your relationship? For your marriage?
Speaker 5: You can believe.
Speaker 3: It's interesting.
Speaker 4: I mean I always talk about raises our fourth child.
Speaker 4: You know, we had the kids, and then bringing up
Speaker 4: kids and raising children for me, wasn't that easy? You know,
Speaker 4: you're stuck at home. I would often be quite resentful
Speaker 4: watching Lee walk out the door off to work for
Speaker 4: twelve hours, and you know, I'm their home with kids.
Speaker 4: And now that's probably reversed a little bit, like Leon's
Speaker 4: work has different. His chairs of organizations now rather than CEOs,
Speaker 4: and I walk out now that the kids are grown up,
Speaker 4: I walk out in the morning and go off to
Speaker 4: work for ten and twelve hours. And you know, sometimes
Speaker 4: you watch me going, oh, that looks like more fun
Speaker 4: than what I'm doing, you know, so I think for
Speaker 4: us it's brought us together. It's a project that we've
Speaker 4: built on together. It is like our fourth child. Leone
Speaker 4: brings the commercial nous and the brain to our organization.
Speaker 4: I've learned so much from him as our chairman over
Speaker 4: the fifteen years that we've been running. You know, he'll
Speaker 4: say I bring the heart. I wrote the program, but
Speaker 4: I would never have been able to expand it and
Speaker 4: scale it the way that we have without the commerciality
Speaker 4: of Lee and you know, his brain and his challenging
Speaker 4: questions that sometimes I want him to get back in
Speaker 4: his box and not tell me how to run my business.
Speaker 4: But you know, often a few weeks later I kind
Speaker 4: of think, oh shit. And he was actually right.
Speaker 3: Into last the first time I.
Speaker 5: Read that.
Speaker 1: Public No one's listening.
Speaker 2: We're in a bathroom, mate, why do you call it?
Speaker 3: It's recorded forever. You'll be able to bring that out.
Speaker 3: So I think you've been complimentary.
Speaker 5: No, it's definitely enrichard. It's funny. A lot of people
Speaker 5: say you never go into business with your family and friends,
Speaker 5: but if I look back over thirty five years of business,
Speaker 5: some of my closest friends have come from working together,
Speaker 5: so we launched into it together and the skills are complimentary.
Speaker 5: I don't think they're as generous as you've said on
Speaker 5: my side, but it's really worked and certainly, you know
Speaker 5: at times, definitely I have to be reminded that you're
Speaker 5: being the chairman now, you're not to be the husband
Speaker 5: stuck with that tacky humor or pretty bit dad Jack's
Speaker 5: are always welcome though.
Speaker 4: In the boardroom though that's not okay, that sounds like
Speaker 4: the title of a song.
Speaker 3: Well at least it was you, VICKI. It wasn't like
Speaker 3: someone that's series.
Speaker 5: Usually we do introduce ourselves Elia's husband and wife. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but I remember being in a minister's office in Canberra
Speaker 5: once and we forgot to and it was about halfway
Speaker 5: through and we were doing I don't know, there was
Speaker 5: something going on the weekend.
Speaker 1: That kept surfacing through the chat.
Speaker 5: Then they said, oh, when they worked out of you
Speaker 5: guys related and we said, oh, that makes a lot
Speaker 5: of sense of all that carrying on.
Speaker 3: Were worried about our governance for a while.
Speaker 2: This was a church minister, not a political minister, was
Speaker 2: a political and he was worried about that.
Speaker 3: Now I think it's worked pretty well. Yeah really, I mean,
Speaker 3: you know it's not all rosy.
Speaker 1: Okay, you guys have been married for how many years?
Speaker 5: Thirty two weeks ago?
Speaker 2: Congrasin, So how do you get through your bumps and
Speaker 2: bruises in the relationship because things changed, as I was
Speaker 2: sort of alluding to, aside from my hair color, which
Speaker 2: my wife has pointed out, how do you how.
Speaker 1: Do you get through through the bus? Do you have
Speaker 1: any techniques, any tips for our us.
Speaker 5: I think we're learning from you. I think it's all
Speaker 5: the things that you talk to and our parents talk to.
Speaker 5: It's it's really that communication. And before that, it's just
Speaker 5: time together. When you've got busy charity and a couple
Speaker 5: of businesses as well that pay the mortgage and three kids,
Speaker 5: the life's pretty full and to look around and say, hey,
Speaker 5: we haven't connected for a week. So it is firstly
Speaker 5: about time and communication. It was really interesting recently we
Speaker 5: were on a just learning and not through a book,
Speaker 5: just around marriage and Richmond and just simply to recognize
Speaker 5: that communication can be on those three levels. You can
Speaker 5: have transactional rather informational. You know, when do we need
Speaker 5: to pick up the kids? And you know, what's happening
Speaker 5: on the weekend or can be Secondly, it can be
Speaker 5: around opinions. Do you have enough time to get together
Speaker 5: that you're actually sharing each other's opinions? And thirdly level three,
Speaker 5: you know, are you actually sharing your feelings?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Certainly, sat back from that when holy smokes, we're having
Speaker 5: very little time together and then when we're together, we're
Speaker 5: never getting to the feelings level.
Speaker 2: Did you, guys, did you bring that up? Did you
Speaker 2: actually talk? Do you say, hey, VI this I've just
Speaker 2: heard these three things and yeah.
Speaker 5: It was a shock to me.
Speaker 4: And now to joke around the dinner table, isn't it
Speaker 4: that we need to stop hanging out at level one?
Speaker 4: Let's get to level three? Let's get there quickly?
Speaker 1: You mean third base? Well not, we're talking about sometimes.
Speaker 2: You just need a little rub on the tummy and
Speaker 2: a good feed and then you're fi.
Speaker 1: You can walk away for a couple of weeks and
Speaker 1: you guys go.
Speaker 3: And we like, we like the intimate talking about how I.
Speaker 1: Get Do you not? Do you have enough of that?
Speaker 1: You don't? Okay?
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, well there you go.
Speaker 4: And this comes back to the mentoring, which is what
Speaker 4: it's all about, right, is talking and listening. So you've
Speaker 4: actually got to be brave enough to and say what
Speaker 4: you think and put it out there, like takes courage
Speaker 4: to do that. But also you've got to listen, well right,
Speaker 4: listen to what's going on and play it back and
Speaker 4: understand it and talk about the feelings as well. So yeah,
Speaker 4: you've got to be brave enough to say what you think,
Speaker 4: but also to listen to what we said.
Speaker 2: I remember this from years ago, so when we were
Speaker 2: living in LA and the movie culture, like you go
Speaker 2: to the big movie theaters and it was a big thing,
Speaker 2: and I said, we'll go to the movie.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go to the movies. I don't
Speaker 1: want to sit.
Speaker 2: In the dark and watch your screen. I'd rather go
Speaker 2: out for dinner or go for a walk and have
Speaker 2: a chat to you. Yeah, And I never even considered
Speaker 2: that before. I thought, Yeah, movie date, that's.
Speaker 3: That's you know what's romantic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll talk in the car and the way there
Speaker 2: about the movie that we're about to see, and then
Speaker 2: we'll talk about the movie on the way home that
Speaker 2: we just saw.
Speaker 3: Transactional so level waight.
Speaker 1: Number one, first base Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, And on reflection, I think. You know, I've
Speaker 5: probably had twenty years of working too many hours in
Speaker 5: a day and coming home and vic all the kids
Speaker 5: to saying, so how was your day, Dad, and May
Speaker 5: and Sue would be because I was totally spent. Good. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and that was it. No chance of even getting through
Speaker 5: level one and two, little A three, you know it was.
Speaker 5: It's really on reflection. I don't know how we got
Speaker 5: through those bumps and ups and downs that you talk
Speaker 5: to What are we.
Speaker 3: How many years are week thirty thirty two or is
Speaker 3: it thirty three?
Speaker 2: This year we didn't have six years. We kind of
Speaker 2: went yeah, way too to it. So, you know, everyone
Speaker 2: has their own path.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they're okay, this is good. I love it
Speaker 1: when I learned stuff.
Speaker 3: What's the overwhelming experience that your kids talk about when
Speaker 3: they've completed the program, is there is there one specific
Speaker 3: thing that they.
Speaker 4: So A lot of what they talk about is there
Speaker 4: was this person who doesn't really know me, but was
Speaker 4: prepared to sit and listen and let me talk about
Speaker 4: all of my things and they're not even paid. You know,
Speaker 4: that's always pretty remarkable. They kind of joke around that
Speaker 4: what we see a lot of is the confidence you know,
Speaker 4: you know, if you give a young person a mentor,
Speaker 4: you're actually giving them confidence and you're giving them connection,
Speaker 4: and so that I think is really important, the community connection,
Speaker 4: So for them to understand that there are people all
Speaker 4: around you that you can go and get help from.
Speaker 4: To experience for a whole six months, every single week
Speaker 4: of talking to someone, having them actually listen to you
Speaker 4: means that you're much more likely to go and ask
Speaker 4: for help from someone. So that help seeking is also
Speaker 4: a really important gift because that's how we save lives. Absolutely,
Speaker 4: that's how we know that they're equipped to and get
Speaker 4: the help that they need and accept it.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've talked a lot about this on the
Speaker 3: podcast as well. Just you know, what everyone really wants
Speaker 3: to feel at the core of ourselves is that you matter.
Speaker 3: And I think that's probably the most beautiful gift that
Speaker 3: a mentor gives, in that freness of the time that
Speaker 3: I matter enough to someone to show up every week.
Speaker 3: And I think that is a gift that you can take,
Speaker 3: you know, forever, and six months is a long time
Speaker 3: at that age specifically, you know, so part yeah, it's
Speaker 3: going to be so interesting. You know, you're fifteen years in,
Speaker 3: but like to see where those kids, you know, in
Speaker 3: fifteen years time and another fifteen years, you know what
Speaker 3: that effects. That's exactly right, and it's interesting.
Speaker 4: So our next piece of research will be a longitudinal
Speaker 4: study where we go back and talk to about those
Speaker 4: thirteen thousand kids about what do you remember from your mentor?
Speaker 4: And this time last year, we got a phone call
Speaker 4: from a young person who rang us and just said, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, I know we're not meant to stay in
Speaker 4: touch with our mentor, but I have some news and
Speaker 4: I really want to talk to my mentor.
Speaker 3: You know, is there a way?
Speaker 4: Is there a possibility that I could talk to them?
Speaker 4: And we talked him through it, and we were like,
Speaker 4: you know, and we're not sure that we could do
Speaker 4: that for you. And you know, if you could talk
Speaker 4: to your mentor, what would you like to tell them?
Speaker 4: And he just said, well, you know, in talking to Ian,
Speaker 4: his name was the mentor and talking to Ian all
Speaker 4: those years ago, when I was fourteen, I learned that
Speaker 4: I am actually really good with my hands as much
Speaker 4: as I'm a cranky kid. And I kept getting kicked
Speaker 4: out of school and my attendance was really bad. You know,
Speaker 4: I was i'd have like eighty days absence at school.
Speaker 4: What I learned from Ian was that I could add value.
Speaker 4: And I just I'm ringing now because I actually want
Speaker 4: to tell him that I've just graduated from my carpentry
Speaker 4: apprenticeship and now i'm you know, I'm a qualified carpenter.
Speaker 4: And it's because of him, you know, And it's just amazing.
Speaker 4: You just kind of go, oh, this is cool, Like
Speaker 4: this is what you want to do. You're planting seeds
Speaker 4: when they're really young and they flourish and grow at
Speaker 4: their own pace.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And it's actually a beautiful video about this mentee who's
Speaker 5: now probably mid twenties, tradey and to hear an Aussie
Speaker 5: blow talk like this and just be so vulnerable, it's
Speaker 5: just it's goal. It's changed his life material one person.
Speaker 1: You know, that's so good. Did you pass the message
Speaker 1: on to Ian?
Speaker 3: We couldn't help us.
Speaker 2: I think it's an ideo and that's the part for
Speaker 2: the mentor, you know as well. If I'm talking like
Speaker 2: someone who's been made redundant and he's helped a kid
Speaker 2: in that way and then you bring him up, you know,
Speaker 2: eighteen months later and go, hey, by the way that
Speaker 2: work you did with oh mate, he's just plugged that in.
Speaker 4: And remember you remember a mentor from your childhood, right,
Speaker 4: you think back and you go, you know, I can
Speaker 4: remember my comments teacher, I remember her name, I can
Speaker 4: remember her voice. She had really curly black hair, and
Speaker 4: she was amazing. She changed my life. I wouldn't have
Speaker 4: finished school without her. And the job that we got
Speaker 4: that I got at Honeywell was through her and her sister.
Speaker 4: So you know, they there are people that change your
Speaker 4: life lives, and like a sliding door moment, your trajectory
Speaker 4: goes in a different path because that person cared about
Speaker 4: you and showed up for you.
Speaker 3: What would you say to an adult that was sort
Speaker 3: of thinking about becoming a mentor? What would you What
Speaker 3: would you tell them that might convince them that it's
Speaker 3: a really good idea.
Speaker 4: A lot of our mentors will say that that what
Speaker 4: if they don't like me? And I can tell you
Speaker 4: that our mentees love their mentors so much and it
Speaker 4: doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: What age or stage.
Speaker 1: You are graeously bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So like we have mentors who are twenty one,
Speaker 4: you've got to be twenty one, so you've got a
Speaker 4: bit of life experience all the way through to eighty one.
Speaker 4: I remember I had a ninety year old men one time,
Speaker 4: and he was extraordinary. You know, we have lots of
Speaker 4: kids who don't have grandparents around them that they don't
Speaker 4: get to catch up with. You know, lots of women
Speaker 4: with skills, you know, to share that they might be
Speaker 4: parenting themselves and you know, got extra skills to share.
Speaker 4: University students, corporates who give their time off work to
Speaker 4: go and actually do something in the community. It's another
Speaker 4: thing we learned from COVID is actually we don't want
Speaker 4: to just sit in an office all day and you
Speaker 4: know work. We actually want to go and connect with
Speaker 4: that community. So you will make a difference. Your mentee
Speaker 4: will like you, and please do it because we can't
Speaker 4: do it without them.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd say, Ali, congratulations. You know it's a gift.
Speaker 5: I think probably the number one reason people don't is
Speaker 5: they think they're not good enough. When I did the training,
Speaker 5: I felt I failed because you do it all this
Speaker 5: role playing and you had to do things like listening.
Speaker 5: And I found, as an autocratic CEO that I've been
Speaker 5: for thirty years, I was not going to cut it
Speaker 5: as a mentor.
Speaker 4: You've done pretty well with your listening skills.
Speaker 5: Though now apparently I've got a way to go.
Speaker 3: To some days. If you learn something today, that's good.
Speaker 5: It really is a gift. They know if they project
Speaker 5: themselves forward six months, twelve months, and they'll be looking
Speaker 5: back and going, wow, that was just amazing. You know.
Speaker 5: It's actually you know, people who give us praise for example,
Speaker 5: and even thank us for the work we do, and
Speaker 5: it's it's really strange because it's it's the other way around.
Speaker 5: It's actually quite selfish. You get so much out of it.
Speaker 3: Just one more thing that I just love about the
Speaker 3: program as well, is that you know, obviously the mentees
Speaker 3: get incredible assistance. The mentors also you know, have fulfillment.
Speaker 3: But it helps families as well because when you've got
Speaker 3: a mentor that is also you know, being that listening
Speaker 3: year and guiding it, it creates like adult people are
Speaker 3: not so bad. Maybe I can tell my mum this, Yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe I can tell my dad how I'm feeling. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And that is that's a powerful that's the experience. Yeah, yeah, all.
Speaker 5: Right, we do it.
Speaker 2: You're ready to get your clothes off and hopping the
Speaker 2: shower with us. That came maybe, Cameron, I'm sorry to
Speaker 2: take it down saving water.
Speaker 1: Let's just talk about the shower. It's a metaphorical shower.
Speaker 2: You can keep your clothes on and it's not taking
Speaker 2: close off sweetheart, all right, just Start's.
Speaker 4: Funny how that changes over over the thirty years of marriage.
Speaker 3: First question, what are you most grateful for in your relationship?
Speaker 3: The fun? Leon's brought a lot of fun to our lives.
Speaker 5: I reckon it's the kids. The one plus one has
Speaker 5: really been way more than three. Yeah, the kids have
Speaker 5: been huge. That the organizations in the houses and everything
Speaker 5: that was building stuff together, but the kids have been.
Speaker 1: What the world needs more of is mentors.
Speaker 3: But yeah, empathy, Yeah, kindness, it's my bea tricky one.
Speaker 3: I know this often.
Speaker 1: Chocolate, dark chocolate, nor cho, Oh the chocolate.
Speaker 3: What is there a moment in your life that you
Speaker 3: would like to revisit? Can I have three?
Speaker 4: I really like my mum was very close to all
Speaker 4: the births of our children. If she wasn't there, she
Speaker 4: was like right outside the door. But my dad passed
Speaker 4: away really early after a failed lung transplant. I would
Speaker 4: love him to come and meet them. Yeah, So it's
Speaker 4: about bringing dad back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the proposal day was pretty good. You
Speaker 5: guys are reminded me of that day again. That was.
Speaker 3: There you go, Yeah, were you near the past? Is
Speaker 3: that where it was?
Speaker 1: Julian rocks you know, I don't know, Julian, you seemed
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 3: Yes, I actually know it for a really awful reason though. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there are people who have yeah, yeah, not shark had
Speaker 3: come back from a.
Speaker 5: Two weeks before of us.
Speaker 1: Really in the water.
Speaker 3: You didn't even know.
Speaker 5: When the husband got in front of the Yeah.
Speaker 4: But when we were there, the sharks, you know, the
Speaker 4: greener sharks came through. Leon pushed me forward. He started
Speaker 4: going back, and we're holding hands.
Speaker 3: You probably drop hands, think through.
Speaker 2: They're like a labrador gray nurses lover on you.
Speaker 3: They are They are safe.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 1: Last question? Describe each other in one word.
Speaker 5: Please, I need to uncommonly kind, nice.
Speaker 3: I've already said mine, fun, fun, bringing back the first
Speaker 3: uncommonly kind. I think that that does sum up actually
Speaker 3: the both of you, you know, to to start a
Speaker 3: charity and to keep this charity going, and knowing what
Speaker 3: it means and how much work it takes to to
Speaker 3: continue this on and you know the kindness that you
Speaker 3: obviously share and like any corporation, it starts from the
Speaker 3: top down, and having the both of you at the
Speaker 3: top just you can feel that with raise. So thank
Speaker 3: you for everything that you're doing for the youth. It
Speaker 3: belongs to a lot of other people. Now we dropped
Speaker 3: a pebbled in Willie and the ripple effect has been
Speaker 3: exciting to watch, but it belongs to a lot of
Speaker 3: other people. Now, yeah, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you made those ripples keep.
Speaker 2: Rippling out, Yeah, into a tsunami of love.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, did you get tiary?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, it just feels you well, it just feels
Speaker 6: the kind of work that they're doing and knowing the
Speaker 6: impact on those kids and when you know, when anyone
Speaker 6: talks about, you know, the death of a loved one,
Speaker 6: I mean, I know we went through that with one
Speaker 6: of my best friend's brothers when he took his life,
Speaker 6: and it always takes me back to that moment when
Speaker 6: we got that news of that devastation and seeing one
Speaker 6: of my best friends that the impact of that and
Speaker 6: you know, just to know.
Speaker 3: That this charity is is really grassroots, Say Lives and
Speaker 3: making such a difference in young people's lives. It's just
Speaker 3: incredibly moving to me.
Speaker 2: I agree with all of that and add and making
Speaker 2: a difference to the mentors'.
Speaker 3: Lives absolutely as well.
Speaker 2: It's really inspiring and the fact that you can get
Speaker 2: trained up and to do something that is so caring.
Speaker 2: And I loved to hear that Vicky and Leon are
Speaker 2: both mentors as well. They're practicing what they preach.
Speaker 3: Was a lot of the people that they work with,
Speaker 3: like in the corporation, are also mentors as well. They've
Speaker 3: done the training and done it because they're so inspired
Speaker 3: by them and inspired by the kind of help that
Speaker 3: they can offer. And also, as you say, it makes.
Speaker 2: Them feel good and that's okay.
Speaker 1: That's part of self love.
Speaker 3: If you're feeling good by helping another person, amazing.
Speaker 2: It can only do a ripple effect of positivity in
Speaker 2: your own life, make you a better person.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic.
Speaker 3: So check out Ray. Check out Rays dot org dot au,
Speaker 3: go to their website. You can read more about them
Speaker 3: and if you feel inspired, definitely sign up as a mentor.
Speaker 3: You won't regret it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, alrighty, that's enough. Separate bathrooms before.
Speaker 2: Today, unless you want to roll in another one.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of episodesse go to
Speaker 2: It so much good stuff, Thanks so much for listening,
Speaker 2: Bye for now.