Speaker 1: I get a team at Craig Anthony, half of the
Speaker 1: You project, Kerry Volun, Tiffany and Cook asks you the
Speaker 1: whole fucking thing. T let's start up in the top
Speaker 1: left hand corner. Tiffany and Cook, Hi, top of the
Speaker 1: morning Harps.
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 1: Oh? Look, I'm so good. I'm bursting out of my flannel.
Speaker 1: In fact, I've burst out of it. I'm in a
Speaker 1: black Everlass T shirt. The flannel's been discarded. That's our
Speaker 1: fucking pump.
Speaker 2: Really dressed up?
Speaker 1: You really dressed up? Yeah. Karen Vaughan's amazing. You've got
Speaker 1: to get her on. She's funny, she's just all the time.
Speaker 2: We like peas in a pot.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're just going to be like she's
Speaker 1: the best? Am I? All right? Hi? Karen?
Speaker 2: Hi, Craig, how are you?
Speaker 1: Oh my dear, I'm so good, Thank you? How are you? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I'm fantastic. It's buddy windy up here. I'm in Sale
Speaker 2: in gibbs Land and the buddy trees are blowing a gale.
Speaker 2: What's it like down in Melbourne?
Speaker 1: It's about twenty five there's no wind at so shit.
Speaker 1: I just came in for the hammock bullshit. I've been
Speaker 1: lined by the pool. I just wiped the zinc off
Speaker 1: my nose. It's going to be now. It's fucking freezing,
Speaker 1: and it's windy and it's cold. And when I went
Speaker 1: to the cafe this morning at stupid o'clock, it was
Speaker 1: I was going to say my wiz and Nelly fell off,
Speaker 1: but I can't say that because that's inappropriate. But let's
Speaker 1: just say it was cold. It was very cold. It
Speaker 1: was very cold. Yeah, saleh. I used to live up
Speaker 1: in that direction. I lived up in the tro Valley.
Speaker 1: We used to play footy against Sale. That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've only lived here for about eight years. But
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a Warrigal girl. But Warrigal and trough.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the valley, that's it's a place.
Speaker 1: Gide up, gide up, all right. So what do you
Speaker 1: do up there? What do you? What do you? What
Speaker 1: is the amazing fabulous Kerry Karn sorry Vaughan do in Sale?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I reckon, I've been rated a little bit, thanks
Speaker 2: very much, Tiff. Give me So. I'm a leadership code,
Speaker 2: leadership facilitator and coach. I do team building, so I
Speaker 2: work for myself and I go into organizations and you know,
Speaker 2: try and get people a bit excited about working together,
Speaker 2: building relationships and that kind of stuff. So I've I've
Speaker 2: got two books plus a gratitude journal. I run Girls
Speaker 2: with Hammers, which is not woodwork. It's a women's empowerment initiative.
Speaker 2: And oh there's something else I'm missing anyway, that kind
Speaker 2: of thing you do?
Speaker 1: You do a podcast?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's it. That's the other thing, Yeah, which.
Speaker 1: Is also called what's it called something with?
Speaker 2: Get off the Bench?
Speaker 1: Get off the Bench, the bloody come on, you need
Speaker 1: to learn to do your pr better than that.
Speaker 2: I'm not very good. I'm not very good at that
Speaker 2: stuff at all. I'm a bit organic. So yeah, Get
Speaker 2: Off the Bench. The podcast. It's like, because I wrote
Speaker 2: the book Get Off the Bench, which helps people to
Speaker 2: kick stuff projects and ideas, I decided to do a
Speaker 2: podcast that would showcase people who are already doing that
Speaker 2: so hopefully inspire people to believe in themselves. That's not
Speaker 2: an easy gig, getting people to believe in themselves.
Speaker 1: What do you reckon? That's about Why do you reckon?
Speaker 1: There's so much doubt, self doubt, self loathing, and even
Speaker 1: kind of self sabotage in a way.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm probably going to take that all the way
Speaker 2: back to childhood and school because I think that we're
Speaker 2: born bloody, wonderfully, magnificently and everyone praises us, you know,
Speaker 2: every minute we speak, we're like dad, mama, and they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, little Johnny or whatever. And then we start
Speaker 2: walking and then we start touching the TV and its smack,
Speaker 2: your bloody hands, don't touch this, don't touch that, sit down,
Speaker 2: shut up, you know. And then we get to school
Speaker 2: and it's kind of like, oh, even kinder and the
Speaker 2: kids are going, my mom says, your mum's fat. I
Speaker 2: don't want to play with you today. We don't like
Speaker 2: your hair, all that bullshit. And then we get into
Speaker 2: school and it's just compete, compete, compete, you know, and
Speaker 2: if you're not you can't shine. Like nobody can turn
Speaker 2: up as themselves and I don't know, be appreciated and
Speaker 2: celebrated for who they truly are. And I reckon that
Speaker 2: really bloody sucks. So we get it beaten out of us.
Speaker 2: This is just my theory, might not be right, but
Speaker 2: we get a beaten out of us, you know, And
Speaker 2: unless we can form and unless we fit in with
Speaker 2: a gang, we don't want to be ejected from the tribe.
Speaker 2: So we just buddy, we become something we're not, just
Speaker 2: so so that we don't get rejected. And I reckon,
Speaker 2: I've done it. I'm going to say, I reckon, it
Speaker 2: sucks and it's bullshit. But of course I've been victim
Speaker 2: to that bullshit, you know, And now I don't. But
Speaker 2: I do notice occasionally things that I feel like, God,
Speaker 2: I've got no choice, you know, I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to bloody fit into that. But I think, yeah.
Speaker 1: I call it. I call that the enormity of conformity, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you like that? It's just yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: I agree with you. And but the tough bit is,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to be living on an island.
Speaker 1: You do want connection, you do want to be you know,
Speaker 1: you want to belong, you want to be needed, Valu'd wanted.
Speaker 1: Most of us want to be part of something bigger
Speaker 1: than us, which means being part of a group or
Speaker 1: a tribe or whatever, a family or a social construct. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the challenge is not belonging to a group
Speaker 1: that where you have to think a certain way, be
Speaker 1: a certain way, you know, where the power to disagree
Speaker 1: or think critically or be you know, somewhat atypical, where
Speaker 1: that's not taken away from you. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: if you belong to a group where if you don't
Speaker 1: think like us, talk like us, behave like us, and
Speaker 1: advocate our philosophy, then you're not part of us. You
Speaker 1: can't belong. Well, that's that's a fucking cult.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It does have to be religious to be a cult, right,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of cults that are they're basically
Speaker 1: thought cults, Like this is how you have to think
Speaker 1: to belong. Yeah, And I think that's the I think
Speaker 1: that's the challenge is you know, some like for me,
Speaker 1: I've always been a little bit weird, you know, don't drink,
Speaker 1: don't smoke, han't had a job for nearly forty years,
Speaker 1: like an actual employee job. I've avoided work very fucking
Speaker 1: successfully and not better or worse than anyone, and not
Speaker 1: drastically different, but just thinking how can I be me
Speaker 1: but also still have connection with others? And I reckon
Speaker 1: One of the great questions is how can I have
Speaker 1: friends and people that I love and that love me,
Speaker 1: that are fucking nothing like me maybe, and that's okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think it's about having the guts in the
Speaker 2: first place to stand up and say, well, this is
Speaker 2: who I am, knowing that you're going to lose people,
Speaker 2: you know, knowing that there's a risk of being ejected.
Speaker 2: But I think that if you can stand this strong
Speaker 2: enough for long enough, the right people are attracted to that.
Speaker 2: You know. It's kind of like being a glow worm,
Speaker 2: you know, and you just, I don't know, it's buty scary.
Speaker 2: I think that people won't take that first step and
Speaker 2: actually slam their stake into the ground and say this
Speaker 2: is who I am, like me or not because they
Speaker 2: don't want to be alone. And I get, I completely
Speaker 2: understand and agree with you that we all need connection,
Speaker 2: we all need belonging, you know, we've got to be
Speaker 2: part of something. But do we have the guts to
Speaker 2: say what I currently belong to is toxic and cult like,
Speaker 2: you know, because it's forcing me to wear a Maskt's
Speaker 2: forcing me to be who I don't want to be.
Speaker 2: And how do I find that group where I actually
Speaker 2: can have a voice and be authentic and be me?
Speaker 2: And I think you can't find that until you actually
Speaker 2: take the step and be authentic and then hope that
Speaker 2: the right people are attracted to you. You know, like
Speaker 2: I look at I look at Tiff, and I like
Speaker 2: we're attracted to each other. You know, I think you're gorgeous. No,
Speaker 2: not like that, you know, well I did, now, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: If I'm getting in there, if you two want me
Speaker 1: to leave and just switch off the light as I go,
Speaker 1: just fucking let me know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have big spunked ive.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: But because because I always say that TIFF's one of
Speaker 2: the most courageous, vulnerable people I know. Do you know
Speaker 2: that she's really really put a heart on the table
Speaker 2: out there to be stabbed and kind of said, well,
Speaker 2: this is who I am and I'm not perfect. I suck,
Speaker 2: but I'm trying my hardest, you know, and I really
Speaker 2: admire that. So I'm attracted to that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: You know, TIFF's obviously attracted to the same thing, and
Speaker 2: you're like that, HAPs you know, it's kind of like,
Speaker 2: this is who I am, and if you don't like it,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I Actually I have this mantra I want
Speaker 2: you to like me, but I don't need you to
Speaker 2: like me, do you you know? It's kind and I
Speaker 2: think we've got to have the guts to actually stand
Speaker 2: in that space first. And I reckon, that's really bloody
Speaker 2: hard because we've been told all our lives. Don't you
Speaker 2: dare step out of line? You know you won't have
Speaker 2: a job, no one will marry you, no one will
Speaker 2: love you. Do you know you won't have friends? All
Speaker 2: of that kind of bullshit that people that have got
Speaker 2: filled with fear tell us, you know, to protect them,
Speaker 2: or that they think they're protecting us. I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: but I think it's tough. I feel sorry for people
Speaker 2: who can't be themselves.
Speaker 1: I had a lecturer at university my first time at UNI,
Speaker 1: my first degree, and he doctor Paul Callery, who played
Speaker 1: football also and kilderr and Melbourne. He used to say
Speaker 1: to me, mister Harper, I don't know way on me that,
Speaker 1: mister Harper. He goes, if you don't want to offend anyone,
Speaker 1: then say nothing, do nothing, be nothing, and stand for nothing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that's what I'm like. That's pretty fucking accurate.
Speaker 1: It's like and even then someone's still going to find
Speaker 1: a reason. I did a workshop on so we're recording
Speaker 1: this Tuesday. I did a workshop on Sunday, Karen, and
Speaker 1: it was just a private, twenty people, small group. Five
Speaker 1: hours though, and this lady came up to me. I
Speaker 1: remember her name, but I won't say her name. And
Speaker 1: she's like, because I was talking about it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what you do, even if you've got the best intentions,
Speaker 1: you're the best person. You're coming from a platform of
Speaker 1: love and kindness and care. One, you're going to fuck
Speaker 1: things up. Of course I fuck things up every hour.
Speaker 1: But two, there will also be people who don't like you,
Speaker 1: don't resonate with you, and potentially fucking hate you, right
Speaker 1: despite the fact that you are trying to be compassionate,
Speaker 1: aware and all of those things. And anyway, this lady
Speaker 1: comes up to me and she goes, oh, it's funny
Speaker 1: you say that. She goes, my first husband hates you.
Speaker 1: And this was in the break and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: well that's a pretty big club, so welcome, and I said,
Speaker 1: has he ever met me? She goes, no, she hates
Speaker 1: you because I came home from a workshop, and she said,
Speaker 1: and not the same day, but pretty much the result
Speaker 1: of me coming home from what your workshop was realizing
Speaker 1: a whole lot of things, making decisions and leaving him
Speaker 1: so like he doesn't blame himself, he blames me, like
Speaker 1: he's got no part, he didn't do anything wrong, Like
Speaker 1: I'm the I caused the demise of his I'm like
Speaker 1: fucking talk about lack of awareness, ownership, you know, courage,
Speaker 1: all that, but it's that's the thing, you know. And
Speaker 1: I mean, we have thousands of people listen to this
Speaker 1: every day in a bunch of countries. And and if
Speaker 1: I thought about if I went, all, gee, how do
Speaker 1: I have this conversation with Karen, how do I ask
Speaker 1: this question? How do I respond if I did all
Speaker 1: of that from the premise of not wanting to or
Speaker 1: not being okay at least with the possibility that I'm
Speaker 1: going to offend someone, even that I'll put a asterisk
Speaker 1: next too, because me offending one seems that like I
Speaker 1: am responsible for other people's feelings. We can talk about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'd never do a fucking episode. I'd never have
Speaker 1: a conversation. I'd never write a book. I'd never do
Speaker 1: a workshop, because that's just part of it, you know.
Speaker 1: And So if you want a platform anyone listening, if
Speaker 1: you want to run workshops, you want a podcast, you
Speaker 1: want to do workshops, seminars, you want to be a
Speaker 1: front facing person with a public audience, and you don't
Speaker 1: want to get hurt, offended, disler, Well pick another job.
Speaker 1: I can go and become a gardener and work for yourself,
Speaker 1: and don't because it's it doesn't matter who you are,
Speaker 1: how you are, someone's going to fucking hate you. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the club, right one.
Speaker 2: And I think an extension of that also is you
Speaker 2: have to actually be willing to be vulnerable and say
Speaker 2: I don't know. Because if you're going to have any
Speaker 2: kind of platform, somebody's going to approach you or come
Speaker 2: back at you with a question or a statement that
Speaker 2: you actually don't know the answer to all, or you
Speaker 2: don't have a response to the You have to actually
Speaker 2: be able to say, I freaking don't know. I actually
Speaker 2: I don't even know what to say with that, you know,
Speaker 2: because we try to be a big pompous know it all,
Speaker 2: none of us do. None of us know everything. So
Speaker 2: there's both sides. Yes, don't get a if you're going
Speaker 2: to you're going to offend people. People are going to
Speaker 2: hate you, and you're not always going to know the answers,
Speaker 2: and if you pretend to people call you out, people
Speaker 2: can see it.
Speaker 1: And I think part of that, Karen and tiff et
Speaker 1: l is that we get our sense of self worth
Speaker 1: and value from knowing. And I agree with you. I
Speaker 1: wrote something recently like we are Basically I wrote that
Speaker 1: we are addicted to being right yep, because I don't
Speaker 1: want because especially think about this, Karen, when when you've
Speaker 1: believed something for a long time, then that belief is
Speaker 1: intertwined with you. It's your identity, your sense of self.
Speaker 1: Because I know I'm right now, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: interesting things in that. One is I know that I'm right,
Speaker 1: wink wink, nudgs nudge. I know that I'm right. Therefore
Speaker 1: everyone in the world who doesn't agree with me is
Speaker 1: fucking wrong? Or how BIG's your ego? Harps right? So
Speaker 1: there's that, and then just the idea, like the awareness
Speaker 1: that oh, maybe me saying, look, I don't actually know
Speaker 1: by the way, I fucked up one hundred things. I
Speaker 1: still get trapped in ego. I'm still an overthinker, I
Speaker 1: still have self doubt and I want you to love
Speaker 1: me other than that, I'm a fucking warrior. I'm an alpha,
Speaker 1: you know. But the funny thing is that that hopefully,
Speaker 1: like I get more positive feedback, the more raw, real
Speaker 1: and vulnerable I am, even when I'm talking about my
Speaker 1: monumental fuck ups and flaws, like it actually creates more
Speaker 1: connection than disconnection. But chest beating and brag an arrogance
Speaker 1: creates the opposite of what people want.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, I do. I did a keynote on last Thursday,
Speaker 2: and they actually wanted me. Like, the reason they wanted
Speaker 2: me was because I admit my fuck ups. Do you know?
Speaker 2: They wanted someone to stand on that stage and say,
Speaker 2: I have fucked up over and over and over, but
Speaker 2: I've still come through. Do you know? You know I've
Speaker 2: still managed to overcome the screw ups. But that's that's
Speaker 2: what they were looking for. They said, we want someone
Speaker 2: who's real and honest, and who is who has stuffed up?
Speaker 2: Do we want? People want to show people that if
Speaker 2: you have courage and you admit you're wrong, you know
Speaker 2: you can actually achieve stuff.
Speaker 1: So yeah, tell us about tell us about one or
Speaker 1: two of those fuck ups and tell us what you
Speaker 1: learned and how you grew well.
Speaker 2: I reckon the best one was I started one Planet
Speaker 2: classrooms and it was so I wrote Magnificent Kids. A
Speaker 2: guy in Africa saw my book and I he wanted
Speaker 2: to start this program. He said, can I start? I
Speaker 2: want to start Magnificent classes And I said fantastic. And
Speaker 2: then he said, will you skype with my class? This
Speaker 2: is back in Scotts yep. Then I said, well, why
Speaker 2: don't I get one of the kids in the book
Speaker 2: to skype with your class? He said yeah, And then
Speaker 2: I went one further, so why don't I get a
Speaker 2: class in Australia to skype with your class in Africa. Anyway,
Speaker 2: it kind of just went out of control and I
Speaker 2: had thirty laptops donated to me and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to have to start a business. I don't
Speaker 2: know what to do with all these laptops. Then I
Speaker 2: had forty five schools in Africa signed up to do
Speaker 2: this skyping project. This is in a couple of weeks. Like.
Speaker 2: It just went off like that, and I had this
Speaker 2: great idea, Wow, how fantastic this business? You know, they
Speaker 2: get pen pals online and everything else. It took me
Speaker 2: eighteen months. I finally sent these twenty eight laptops to
Speaker 2: Uganda a long story, but anyway, basically, I sent laptops
Speaker 2: to a country where the kids were sleep when our
Speaker 2: kids were in school, so I hadn't even thought about
Speaker 2: time zones. Spent eighteen months on this, but didn't think
Speaker 2: about time zones once. And not only that, I sent
Speaker 2: laptops to a country ninety five percent of them don't
Speaker 2: even have power, so it was kind of like and
Speaker 2: so they had to take it down to a market,
Speaker 2: trickle feed it for twenty four hours, you know, and
Speaker 2: it was just a fucking nightmare. But what I learned
Speaker 2: was and so I said, well, what about if I
Speaker 2: put in some solar systems into some schools? And that
Speaker 2: was great, but I still couldn't skype, but at least
Speaker 2: they could use the computers. And then what I learned
Speaker 2: from that was that the girls were sleeping over So
Speaker 2: they go to primary school, goes to P seven and
Speaker 2: then they go to high school. But if the girls
Speaker 2: don't pass, they get married off, so and they can't
Speaker 2: pass because they're going and getting all the water, you know,
Speaker 2: and that kind of stuff. So by having the solar system,
Speaker 2: the girls were sleeping at the schools for two weeks
Speaker 2: studying to make sure because they've now got power to
Speaker 2: make sure that they pass for to go to secondary
Speaker 2: so essentially saving all these girls, well really saving their
Speaker 2: lives because their marriages are often result in death, murder
Speaker 2: and then But what I also learned from this was
Speaker 2: that I'm like, well, why the girls getting water? Like
Speaker 2: what's happening here? And there's not a shortage of water
Speaker 2: in Uganda, but this is a lot of African countries,
Speaker 2: but a shortage of infrastructure to capture the water. So
Speaker 2: I started putting in water tanks into the schools so
Speaker 2: the kids they could catch the water instead of the
Speaker 2: girls getting them. I put you know, connected water down
Speaker 2: to villagers, put water wells and all that kind of
Speaker 2: stuff in. So what that did is it kept the
Speaker 2: girls in school, and we were doing sanitary pads and
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, so little girls would go off
Speaker 2: collecting water at lunchtime and missay out on all that school.
Speaker 2: They're getting sexually assaulted and raped all the way. They're
Speaker 2: girls as young as three, do you know this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. Teenage girls are swapping sex for sanitary items
Speaker 2: so they could stay in school so they won't get
Speaker 2: married off. You know, HIV just bloody rampant. So yeah,
Speaker 2: so that monumental fuck up of sending laptops to a
Speaker 2: country where it was never going to work my initial
Speaker 2: great project. So it turned into saving many, many, many lives,
Speaker 2: and not just the ones directly saved, but the families
Speaker 2: of these people, you know, because the girls could now
Speaker 2: get jobs. And yeah, so I like telling that story
Speaker 2: because I actually liked it. I fucked up, you know
Speaker 2: it great. They could have been skype buddies or zoom
Speaker 2: buddies now and all that. But you know, and I
Speaker 2: didn't know all that, you know, I just thought, I,
Speaker 2: actually it's got there's a think all white man's white
Speaker 2: man's burden or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Here I was thinking that, you know, it's that typical
Speaker 2: white person sing or I want to help those poor
Speaker 2: people in Africa, do you know that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and without much knowledge, with that out much information, probably thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, even a degree of prejudice, really and not
Speaker 2: not not racism, but prejudice. I'm better. You know, I've
Speaker 2: got more. You know that I can help because I
Speaker 2: know more. But what a load of shit, because you
Speaker 2: know it's what you know. But the point is, though
Speaker 2: I will say this, so you keep making these assumptions
Speaker 2: about things and unless you actually have the courage to
Speaker 2: put your foot in it, you know, and to put
Speaker 2: take a step forward and go, well, I don't fucking know,
Speaker 2: so let me find out. And then you're probably going
Speaker 2: to get punched in the chest and in the face
Speaker 2: because you were wrong. You know. That takes a lot
Speaker 2: of guts, and without sounding like a wank, ride mine
Speaker 2: myself for having the guts to step up, do you know,
Speaker 2: even though I knew nothing about what I was doing.
Speaker 1: So that's amazing. That's like, now I love you as well.
Speaker 1: Now thanks, No, that's that's incredible. I mean, I've never
Speaker 1: done anything that's fucking important in my whole life, so
Speaker 1: so you're a hero. How I've got so many questions
Speaker 1: out of that. Firstly, why are the girls going and
Speaker 1: getting the water? What the fuck are the boys doing?
Speaker 1: What was that about?
Speaker 2: That's the way they live. The girls are. The girls
Speaker 2: do everything. The boys do nothing. So the girls girls
Speaker 2: go dig for sweet potatoes, they gather the sticks for
Speaker 2: the stove, they do the cooking, they do they go
Speaker 2: to the market. The boys do nothing, and they grow up.
Speaker 2: This is the problem with the men. The men turn
Speaker 2: into just alcoholics and sit around and beat the women up.
Speaker 2: They live in one room huts. This is going to
Speaker 2: sound awful and sorry if this, you know, triggers anyone.
Speaker 2: But they live in one room mud huts and the
Speaker 2: men are coming home beating and raping the wives in
Speaker 2: front of in front of the kids. So the boys think,
Speaker 2: they all think, is this is how it is? You know,
Speaker 2: the girls aren't going Oh no, I think there should
Speaker 2: be a better way to do this, you know, because
Speaker 2: there's the boys grew up thinking. With our school sponsorship program,
Speaker 2: which I've just wrapped up this year, but it went
Speaker 2: for eight years, we put through almost an equal number
Speaker 2: of boys as girls, and I got a lot of
Speaker 2: criticism for that. You know, the girls need to get
Speaker 2: through school and they need to you know, passy, why
Speaker 2: are we supporting boys? And my answer was because if
Speaker 2: the boys go through school with the girls under this program,
Speaker 2: they might respect them. You know, we might actually get
Speaker 2: some respectful men coming out the other side.
Speaker 1: So that must be a challenge. That must be a
Speaker 1: challenge because you've got this cultural kind of norm you know,
Speaker 1: this as horrible and terrible and destructive as it is,
Speaker 1: I mean, for them growing up that was their version
Speaker 1: of normal. Yep, Like they wouldn't have known. It's like,
Speaker 1: like you said, the girls are not sitting around thinking, hey,
Speaker 1: I reckon, we can do better. I reckon we should push,
Speaker 1: but like they just are born into that. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so I mean what you did is I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: still a way to go, but it's you know, helping
Speaker 1: turn that ship around, that cultural, that thinking, that behavioral
Speaker 1: kind of ship in the opposite direction. I mean that
Speaker 1: must How does that make you feel when you unpack
Speaker 1: that many people's lives where you know that for a
Speaker 1: very long time, that's just how it was.
Speaker 2: It makes me feel good, but I also going to
Speaker 2: it makes me feel great. But I'm also going to
Speaker 2: say that for a long time, I didn't feel like
Speaker 2: it was enough. I had this mentality and I still
Speaker 2: wish I could, but you know, I wanted to save
Speaker 2: the world, you know, I wanted to save everyone. Was
Speaker 2: kind of like, I'm not saving enough people, I'm not
Speaker 2: impacting enough people. But I've really come to you know,
Speaker 2: I now have a keynote about what your puzzle piece do?
Speaker 2: You know? And it's kind of like I've really come
Speaker 2: to the conclusion and understood now that we've all got
Speaker 2: a piece of the puzzle to put in, you know,
Speaker 2: and we all have to do the best we can
Speaker 2: on that piece of the puzzle, and we simply can't
Speaker 2: do everything. And that was a hard lesson for me
Speaker 2: to learn because I was like, well, you know, I've
Speaker 2: never been to Africa, and yet I was making all
Speaker 2: these changes, and I was like seeing, wow, this is
Speaker 2: actually not as hard as people think, you know, to
Speaker 2: really have a big impact. And so therefore you get
Speaker 2: a little bit full of yourself and I don't mean egotistically,
Speaker 2: but kind of like you're not putting a lid on
Speaker 2: your potential, and you go, fucking hell, I can change.
Speaker 2: I can do bigger and bigger and bigger. But the
Speaker 2: truth is you actually end up burnt out with compassion, fatigued,
Speaker 2: you know, because you start to realize that it's too
Speaker 2: big for me, and then you start to feel like
Speaker 2: a failure because now I can't do all the things
Speaker 2: I wish I could. But and then then you've got
Speaker 2: to have a really good hard look that go, well,
Speaker 2: what have you done and how much has that change?
Speaker 2: And what the bit that you have done has had
Speaker 2: a big impact. You know, and it's and it's it's
Speaker 2: done because you did it, and if you didn't do
Speaker 2: it, it wouldn't be done. So that'll make sense.
Speaker 1: You just gotta so what are the things that what
Speaker 1: are the either whether or not it's educational or experiential
Speaker 1: or you know, sociological meetings, encounters with other people? What
Speaker 1: are the things that informed or influenced like your thinking
Speaker 1: and your philosophy and your ideology, Like where did that
Speaker 1: come from? So this this thinking, this perspective, this worldview
Speaker 1: that you have, how much of that is you DNA
Speaker 1: and how much of that is situation, circumstance, environment, experience, encounter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a mixture. I was my father is a
Speaker 2: really big community contributor, His mother was a really big
Speaker 2: contributor and his father, so I kind of was already
Speaker 2: seeing that, you know, but I went down the path
Speaker 2: of being a rock star, you know, living that kind
Speaker 2: of life, thinking I was in a bit. But because
Speaker 2: that was the personality of me, is I need people
Speaker 2: to like me, you know, and that was kind of
Speaker 2: where and I was a bit of an odd kid,
Speaker 2: you know, very ass bey, you know, gay, that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, which I didn't know when I was a
Speaker 2: little kid, but I wanted to have friends come around
Speaker 2: and play bands, you know, with tennis records, and they
Speaker 2: just wanted to play with my sisters and play dolls,
Speaker 2: and so I had all these My animals were my
Speaker 2: best friends, and so I kind of wanted someone to
Speaker 2: approve of me and like me. And you know, so
Speaker 2: being a being a muso on stage that was fantastic anyway.
Speaker 2: And then my second younger sister got cancer, and you know,
Speaker 2: I ended up working doing the Real Life for Life
Speaker 2: for the cancer cancel and doing warrigals first event, and
Speaker 2: it was really successful. And then people were sort of
Speaker 2: praising me, and this shifted from ego to altruism. I
Speaker 2: started to realize far out, I've actually got the power
Speaker 2: to have a really big impact on society and be
Speaker 2: approved of or noticed for, you know, for doing good stuff,
Speaker 2: like doing really good stuff for other people. And that
Speaker 2: kind of got me. It really woke me up to
Speaker 2: how much power I had that didn't have to be
Speaker 2: about me. Do you know it actually felt good helping
Speaker 2: other people without even getting the approval. Does that make
Speaker 2: I was getting self.
Speaker 1: Approval, Like it's like you have a purpose bigger than you, right,
Speaker 1: maybe like when it's all about you, your purpose is
Speaker 1: you, your happiness, your ego being to your instant gratification, all
Speaker 1: that shit, right, and then and while that feels temporarily good,
Speaker 1: it still leaves a vacuum. And it's I always say
Speaker 1: to people, I tried selfishness for a lot. I was
Speaker 1: really good at it, Like I'm excellent at selfishness because
Speaker 1: I'm an only child. But it doesn't work, like there's
Speaker 1: no it doesn't feel that spiritual, emotional kind of well,
Speaker 1: like you still feel bankrupt because the things that you
Speaker 1: were doing for yourself is so short lived that then
Speaker 1: you've got to do another thing, you know, and you've
Speaker 1: got to find something else. I need another fix, I
Speaker 1: need more instant gratification. I need, you know, tell me
Speaker 1: about navigating all of this being on the spectrum like
Speaker 1: being aspy as you How is that a superpower? Is that?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you don't know any other way,
Speaker 1: but it's like it's like when people say to me,
Speaker 1: what's it like not having brothers and sisters, I go,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've never fucking had them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I'm not diagnosed, by the way, but but
Speaker 2: I I think it's great. I think when I was
Speaker 2: a kid, I always felt different, you know, And I
Speaker 2: didn't even realize this until I was in my fifties.
Speaker 2: I honestly didn't even realize. But when I look back
Speaker 2: and I think, wow, you know I did things my way.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm a watch it. I call it a
Speaker 2: multi potential light, you know, jack of all trades. But
Speaker 2: I'm bloody good at nearly everything. You know. I don't
Speaker 2: mean that as a wanky thing, but you know, I
Speaker 2: can just figure out, figure out anything. And I kind
Speaker 2: of I used to punish myself for being like that,
Speaker 2: you know, jack of all trades, master of none. You're
Speaker 2: a bloody dickhead. You know, you haven't got a degree,
Speaker 2: you haven't got this, You've got no expertise in this.
Speaker 2: But an actual fact, when I look back, it's it's
Speaker 2: been wonderful. That aspy thing too. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't even notice where people criticizing me. When I
Speaker 2: think about it, do you know I've had so many
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I got my uncle worked
Speaker 2: at Monash in the in the some research lab or whatever,
Speaker 2: and he brought me a stethoscope and home from the lab,
Speaker 2: and I put it round my you know, my neck,
Speaker 2: and I wore it up and down the street proudly,
Speaker 2: do you know. And because I was a tomboy, my
Speaker 2: neighbor called me doctor Tom. And it was a criticism,
Speaker 2: do you know it was It was a kind of
Speaker 2: a you know, take the piss out of me. But
Speaker 2: I thought I was God's gift. I thought I was
Speaker 2: just so bloody special because people think I'm a real doctor,
Speaker 2: you know. And I was walking up down the street
Speaker 2: with this money's there, this go haha.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I may I invented, I invented everything. Invented a guitar
Speaker 2: string stretcher. But when you take the dirty old strings
Speaker 2: off your guitar, you know, two bulldog clips at each end,
Speaker 2: And I actually think it's done me more good than harm.
Speaker 2: You know, I actually think that i've I haven't. I've
Speaker 2: had more interest in the thing that interest me than
Speaker 2: I have had in making friends, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Even though before I said I want people to like
Speaker 2: me and approve of me, yeah, your friends, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I got more enjoyment tinkering.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, maybe that's really interesting because I've
Speaker 1: never thought of this, But like with my research that
Speaker 1: I'm doing, we need to factor in people who are
Speaker 1: on the spectrum because people who are autistic or Asperger's
Speaker 1: or people who you know, they don't always read social
Speaker 1: cues so well. Right, But the way that you just
Speaker 1: explained it, it's almost like that can be an advantage
Speaker 1: because and I think some people who are maybe at
Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum that are really super
Speaker 1: hyper sensitive, like they get offended. They read things into
Speaker 1: things all the time, and they get offended forty two
Speaker 1: times a day even though no one's trying to offend them,
Speaker 1: you know. So I think that walking up and down
Speaker 1: the street with your stethoscope thinking you're a doctor and
Speaker 1: people I'm sure some people thought it was cute and
Speaker 1: awesome and the odd person hung shit on you, but
Speaker 1: not knowing it's probably not the worst thing.
Speaker 2: Right, No, no, exactly, tell.
Speaker 1: Us, Sorry, tell us about your book, sorry to interrupt
Speaker 1: off the bench, like, tell us about all the thinking
Speaker 1: behind that philosophy.
Speaker 2: Oh, that was just really simple because I'd done one
Speaker 2: Planet classrooms and i'd started Girls with Hammers, and I
Speaker 2: started talking at conferences and the one guy said to me,
Speaker 2: can you do a workshop? And I said, yeah, what on?
Speaker 2: He said, how to start a project, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: I took the piece out of myself. I didn't even
Speaker 2: I said, why are you asking me? I don't know,
Speaker 2: and he's just said, o'h come on. Anyway, I did
Speaker 2: an hour's workshop, and as I was doing it, I
Speaker 2: was thinking, oh shit, you need to know about funding.
Speaker 2: Ah shit, you need to know about this, and having
Speaker 2: this real realization that an hour was not short long
Speaker 2: enough to talk about how to really kick start a project.
Speaker 2: So I said to people, gives your email and I'll
Speaker 2: send you a pdf. I'll write up all this stuff.
Speaker 2: And I came home and started typing it up, and
Speaker 2: before I knew it, I had one hundred pages, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, this is a book. Somebody you
Speaker 2: might as well might as well have this as a book.
Speaker 2: And I'd already made magnificent kids that book, and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I know how to do a book. I might as
Speaker 2: well just do that. And so you know, if I
Speaker 2: look back now, I think, God, there's things I would
Speaker 2: change in that, but I'm not going to because so
Speaker 2: many people have said to me that was the thing.
Speaker 2: That book was the thing that got me over the
Speaker 2: line to kick start my project. And I could hear
Speaker 2: your voice, You could he hear you saying it to me.
Speaker 2: And there's another example of I'm not really bound by perfectionism.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a lot of people would be
Speaker 2: caught up in oh, I can't really publish letters a book.
Speaker 2: It's not perfect, you know. But my thought was, well,
Speaker 2: why not must well just put it out there and
Speaker 2: you can have it so and that was thinking beyond myself.
Speaker 2: That was just thinking for the people at that conference.
Speaker 2: As long as they've got a book, then that's great.
Speaker 2: But now I.
Speaker 1: Think that's one of the challenges, right, is we all
Speaker 1: go to workshops and conferences and seminars and keynotes, and
Speaker 1: we all listen to podcasts, and we all read books,
Speaker 1: and we all get lots of data and information and
Speaker 1: advice and strategies. But if you're still sitting on the
Speaker 1: metaphoric fucking bench just taking notes and listening, you're not
Speaker 1: getting like, you're not operationalizing anything, you're not you're not
Speaker 1: putting anything the ideas into practice. Well, there's going to
Speaker 1: be no positive change for me. That's one of the
Speaker 1: I say that almost every workshop and every keynote I've
Speaker 1: got another keynote tomorrow, and I'll probably say at the
Speaker 1: end of that, you know, it's like all this stuff is,
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully a little bit informative and inspiring and educational,
Speaker 1: but none of it's worth anything if you don't do
Speaker 1: anything with it. Like knowing what to do is not
Speaker 1: producing results. Now, knowing what to do is not doing
Speaker 1: what you know. So I think there's that. Why do
Speaker 1: you think it is that we have never been more
Speaker 1: informed or educated or well equipped in terms of online resources,
Speaker 1: but so many of us still are basically standing at
Speaker 1: the starting line waiting for some fucking magical sign.
Speaker 2: Well, I reckon, there's five reasons we don't get started,
Speaker 2: and it's one self doubt, two imposter syndrome, three not
Speaker 2: knowing where to start, four overwhelmed by the big picture,
Speaker 2: and five fear so fear of criticism, failure or rejection.
Speaker 2: And I think those five just sit at the bom
Speaker 2: of everything. Fear kind of sits underneath all of it.
Speaker 2: But I just think we just don't do it. I
Speaker 2: run a leadership program called Confident leaders Program, and if
Speaker 2: I called it courageous leaders, no one had fucking come,
Speaker 2: you know, because they think I'll be making them do
Speaker 2: courageous things. But ultimately, what I talk about in that
Speaker 2: is confidence is and a lot of people say, oh,
Speaker 2: have I had your confidence? I wish I had confidence
Speaker 2: and confidence this and that, because I always see confidence
Speaker 2: is a big picture. But I always say, if you can,
Speaker 2: if you've got confidence to take the next step whatever,
Speaker 2: just do it, like if you've got the ability to.
Speaker 2: But I have this metaphoring thing, and it's actually a
Speaker 2: baseball cap. It's not metaphoric. I've got a real one,
Speaker 2: but other people can't. Haven't got it, You'll have to
Speaker 2: use a metaphoric one. And it's a baseball cap with
Speaker 2: c ap on the front. And everyone looks at me,
Speaker 2: and I use it as a gimmick because I put
Speaker 2: it on and people are like, you're fucking for real.
Speaker 2: You've got a cap that says cap like. And I
Speaker 2: think you're good because you remember me standing up here
Speaker 2: like a dickhead with this cap cap or And the
Speaker 2: C is courage, the A is action, and the P
Speaker 2: is practiced. And I say, if you want to get
Speaker 2: anything in life, like anything, and you want to become confident,
Speaker 2: you have to take courageous action and you have to practice,
Speaker 2: and you have to practice and practice and practice and
Speaker 2: practice and practice, and you're going to fuck up and
Speaker 2: fuck the fuck up. But at the bottom of it
Speaker 2: is it's courageous act and practicing it over and over,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's I hope people see me in
Speaker 2: that hat and go what a fucking dickhead, and then
Speaker 2: they remember it and it's bent into their brain. And
Speaker 2: I say, just anything you want to try, just pretend
Speaker 2: think of me and micap and put on your metaphoric caps.
Speaker 2: I've got my confidence gap on and take courageous action
Speaker 2: and I'm just going to get started. And none of
Speaker 2: us know all the steps, Like we just don't know
Speaker 2: all this, but do you know the next step? Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you know the next step, take it.
Speaker 1: So yeah. I think also too, like people think that
Speaker 1: courage is analogous to or synonymous with, fearlessness, and it's
Speaker 1: actually not at all. It's like, no, like those T
Speaker 1: shirts and those posters that say no fear, I'm like,
Speaker 1: fuck those posters and T shirts because I don't know
Speaker 1: anyone who's got zero fear. Yeah right, No, it's dumb, Like, actually,
Speaker 1: courage requires fear. You know, you can't be courageous if
Speaker 1: you're not scared, you know. So it's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: know that you're scared. I know it's uncomfortable. I know
Speaker 1: it's hard. Guess what that's okay. You're allowed to be scared.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to be uncomfortable, You're allowed to be uncertain,
Speaker 1: and you're still allowed to do those things that you're
Speaker 1: terrified of because how you turn down the volume on
Speaker 1: that fear is by being courageous and leaning in. You
Speaker 1: know you can't I say this too many times, sorry listeners,
Speaker 1: but you can't master what you avoid. You can't get
Speaker 1: good at what you won't do. You know, you're not
Speaker 1: going to get stronger by fucking hiding under the metaphoric
Speaker 1: couch for ten years and waiting for everything to work
Speaker 1: itself out, because it doesn't. You know. So, Hey, you're inspirational.
Speaker 1: We need to get your back. How do people find you?
Speaker 1: Follow you, connect with you? Where do they buy your book?
Speaker 1: Where can they listen to your potty? Give us the
Speaker 1: quick spiel?
Speaker 2: Basically, the website is Karen Vaughan dot com and Vaughn
Speaker 2: is an a lot of people spell it wrong. Kubla
Speaker 2: y n v A U g h A n dot
Speaker 2: com and I'm also on Instagram, Get off the bench, Facebook, LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: You can buy the books through the website. That'll do.
Speaker 2: That's a Karen Vaughan dot com.
Speaker 1: That'll do. Do you ever get down to the thriving
Speaker 1: metropolis of.
Speaker 2: Melbourne occasionally, very rarely?
Speaker 1: Well, come on, come down coffee with Tiff and I.
Speaker 2: All right, I will. It's three hours for me, but
Speaker 2: if I'm coming down, I absolutely will. Actually I'm coming
Speaker 2: down October, but that's a long time away.
Speaker 1: We'll happen in October. Get down before then October. One
Speaker 1: of us could be dead by then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I will. I'd like that.
Speaker 1: We'll say goodbye affair. But Karen, thanks so much that
Speaker 1: you're amazing. You know what you are. Here's a term
Speaker 1: for You've ever heard the term polymath Holly Matt.
Speaker 2: I have heard that, but I can't remember what it is.
Speaker 1: Holly math is a person who knows quite a lot
Speaker 1: about a lot of things. That's you, Yeah, a bit
Speaker 1: of an expert, like semi expert in a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you. Thanks for being on the new project.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on. Thank you