Speaker 1: Welcome to the Seies the YA Podcast. Busy and happy
Speaker 1: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
Speaker 1: makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
Speaker 1: rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
Speaker 1: one way. So this is a platform to hear and
Speaker 1: explore the stories of those who found lives they adore,
Speaker 1: the good, bad and ugly. The best and worst day
Speaker 1: will bear all the facets of seizing your yea. I'm
Speaker 1: Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned
Speaker 1: unentrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found
Speaker 1: matcha Maiden and matcha Milk bar cz The Ya is
Speaker 1: a series of conversations on finding a life you love
Speaker 1: and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along
Speaker 1: the way. Lovely yighborhood. This episode has been a long
Speaker 1: time coming with a guest I've admired for many years now.
Speaker 1: We have one of those relationships that's so unique to
Speaker 1: our modern digital lives where we haven't actually met in
Speaker 1: person yet somehow, but have followed each other's work and
Speaker 1: lives for some time, have many mutual friends, and had
Speaker 1: just so much to talk about this first time we
Speaker 1: sat down for a proper conversation. As you'll hear, that
Speaker 1: means I strayed all over the place from my usual
Speaker 1: structured thinking. I just had so many questions on so
Speaker 1: many topics. And once you learn a bit more about
Speaker 1: Teung Trauler, you'll understand why he's an expert on so
Speaker 1: many different things. Teung is not only a fellow former lawyer,
Speaker 1: but is also wait for this list, an author, a
Speaker 1: keynote speaker, an anti violence campaigner, a gender equality and
Speaker 1: mental health advocate, former independent political candidate, and even a
Speaker 1: commissioner at the Victorian Multicultural Commission. And that is only
Speaker 1: reading half his bio. So it really was impossible to
Speaker 1: feel like I did anything more than scratch the surface.
Speaker 1: And I suspect that this won't be our only chat
Speaker 1: on the show. Just a little content warning. We also
Speaker 1: cover one of the catalysts for Teung's incredible work and activism,
Speaker 1: being the tragic murder of his younger sister, Nikki at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty three by her then husband, as
Speaker 1: well as the impact of this on his own mental health,
Speaker 1: and we briefly touch on suicide. So please do take
Speaker 1: care while listening and I've included in the show notes
Speaker 1: a list of resources and helplines should anyone listening need
Speaker 1: to reach out at any time, Please don't hesitate. How
Speaker 1: Tarang has come through this absolutely unimaginable tragedy and dedicated
Speaker 1: himself to Nicki's legacy with his anti violence campaigning and
Speaker 1: activism is nothing short of inspiring and actually opens up
Speaker 1: a much more layered and complex conversation about joy in
Speaker 1: life and the concept of yay than is usually the
Speaker 1: case on this show, which was definitely something a bit different,
Speaker 1: and I do hope it lands in the ears of
Speaker 1: anyone out there who might need to hear it. I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful for his time, his vulnerability, and his energy,
Speaker 1: and I hope you guys find this as moving as
Speaker 1: I did. Tarang, Welcome to CZA.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Sarah. I know we've talked about
Speaker 2: this for a while, so it's really good to be
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's been a long time coming, all
Speaker 1: my fault, and you have been so patient and so gracious.
Speaker 1: But the day is finally here.
Speaker 2: I know, let's chat, let's talk, let's chat.
Speaker 1: So I do this thing all the time where I
Speaker 1: get way too far into the research about your life,
Speaker 1: and then I have too many dot points and I
Speaker 1: already know I'm not going to get to all of them,
Speaker 1: But oh my god, where do I begin? So there
Speaker 1: are so many multi hyphenets out there like us, you know,
Speaker 1: in this day and age, but not many of them
Speaker 1: have as many slashes in their title as you do.
Speaker 1: You are a commissioner, an author, a speaker, a lawyer,
Speaker 1: an activist, a political candidate even, but also sartorial genius.
Speaker 2: That's very kind, very kind.
Speaker 1: I mean, I follow your activism, but I also follow
Speaker 1: your oscars content, So I mean, what can't you do?
Speaker 2: I look at you the same way I look at
Speaker 2: so many who guessed the same way. I think that
Speaker 2: maybe it's a generational thing. We're all just trying to
Speaker 2: find what fits like. We don't have that that like
Speaker 2: our parents' generation hadn't we. You go get a job,
Speaker 2: you work somewhere for twenty five years or thirty five years, whatever,
Speaker 2: and they give you when you retire, they give you
Speaker 2: the Rolex watch with like thank you for your service
Speaker 2: on the back right, and then there you are, like.
Speaker 1: Which I think is it's the beauty I think of
Speaker 1: living in this day and age is you never have
Speaker 1: to settle for the one path where you can kind
Speaker 1: of be satisfying all of the sides of your personality
Speaker 1: at once. But it also is kind of like whenever
Speaker 1: anyone mentions long service leave, I'm like, yeah, what, yeah,
Speaker 1: what is that? What do you mean?
Speaker 2: I'm like, you were at one place for ten years?
Speaker 2: Like I can't commit to outfit choices for you know,
Speaker 2: ten months years. I can't commit to anything for that
Speaker 2: amount of time, right, other than maybe people, right, people
Speaker 2: are the only thing that are like a constant where
Speaker 2: I'm like pretty loyal rather.
Speaker 1: Than It's like it's the Rolex watch. You know, they
Speaker 1: dangle that at the end and you think, oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: Off, this is probably so off topic for some of
Speaker 2: your listeners, But I'm like a bit of a watch
Speaker 2: feme and like my friends and I having conversations about
Speaker 2: that very thing. It's weird that I brought that up
Speaker 2: because it must be my subconscious because.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually in my notes because of your watch
Speaker 1: content from the oscars.
Speaker 2: Oh really, well, it's very hard to get one these days,
Speaker 2: Like there's a whole waiting list situation.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's like the Birkenham.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, it is like the masculine
Speaker 2: equivalent of ermez Kelly or whatever of Berket, like it is,
Speaker 2: that's the one. Right.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you've done so well.
Speaker 2: My handbacknowledge is is chop. No.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you knew what A Kelly was.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. I was reading art before. But I
Speaker 2: think I think it's the same thing right where it's like,
Speaker 2: buy fifty things you don't want, and then we'll put
Speaker 2: you on a list to get you the one thing
Speaker 2: you can do well.
Speaker 1: I think we've kind of already answered the first question
Speaker 1: about which you may know is what the most down
Speaker 1: toward thing is about you? And I think it would
Speaker 1: be really easy to put you on a pedestal, and
Speaker 1: I do it myself because you are such an eloquent
Speaker 1: and articulate speaker on topics that are big and heavy
Speaker 1: and serious. And you know you're so well read and
Speaker 1: such an intellect that you know she's got range. She's
Speaker 1: got range.
Speaker 2: That's very kind. That's a miss. I'm not as well
Speaker 2: read as people think. Really, I'm really not. People think
Speaker 2: I've read a lot, and I think it's because I
Speaker 2: developed I got glasses when I was.
Speaker 1: Like twelve, Is that the key to the perception.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got glasses when I was twelve, and I
Speaker 2: also developed facial hair quite early. And I think the
Speaker 2: combination of having a beard at thirteen and wearing philosopher
Speaker 2: like glasses and sitting there in class going like.
Speaker 1: This, it's a beard stroke for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not because you're well read, but because you have
Speaker 2: undiagnosed ADHD and are actually just bored.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're just giving the air of intellect.
Speaker 2: It's amazing people think you're smart. And you know what,
Speaker 2: there's an old proverb where it's like better to keep
Speaker 2: your mouth shut and be thought a full than to
Speaker 2: open your mouth and remove all doubt, right, And I'm
Speaker 2: like testing that theory. I'm going to open my mouth
Speaker 2: as many times as possible and see when I eventually
Speaker 2: say something ridiculous. And so far people have been very
Speaker 2: gracious to me in that actually listen to what I
Speaker 2: have to say, So I'm very lucky.
Speaker 1: Well, that in itself is pretty much a testament to
Speaker 1: the quality of what you have to say, because you
Speaker 1: don't grow the audience and the platform that you have
Speaker 1: now without saying really meaningful things about you know, meaningful
Speaker 1: topics which you do so well, and that's kind of
Speaker 1: already brought up the first question of the show, which
Speaker 1: is really the idea that you have such an important
Speaker 1: voice in the Australian landscape on so many important issues
Speaker 1: like domestic violence, street harassment, men's mental health, women's mental health,
Speaker 1: the experience of racism, and you know, it's easy to
Speaker 1: assume that you knew you wanted to end up here,
Speaker 1: or the pathway to get here was smooth, and the
Speaker 1: places that you get a lot of airtime on these
Speaker 1: issues and not necessarily on your pathway or what it
Speaker 1: took to kind of shape that journey for you, which
Speaker 1: is what I love to talk about on this show,
Speaker 1: Like when you google you, for example, There's so much
Speaker 1: from the last couple of years from your activism. There
Speaker 1: are articles that have been written, there are campaigns that
Speaker 1: you've been working on. There's so much about the now,
Speaker 1: and for someone who's earlier on in their journey, who
Speaker 1: are going through experiences that you went through earlier in
Speaker 1: your life, it's often quite reassuring to hear more about
Speaker 1: how you actually got there, what were all the pivotal
Speaker 1: moments and what you went through to actually shape the
Speaker 1: life that you have today. So can you take us
Speaker 1: back to the very beginnings and trace to all those
Speaker 1: chapters that helped form the turuque we know today?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Wow, I mean where do I It's strange like
Speaker 2: when I think about that, you know, with all of
Speaker 2: these conversations happening around, like the Indigenous Voice to Parliament,
Speaker 2: and I've been seeing a whole bunch of people from
Speaker 2: First Nations communities talking about it. When they get on
Speaker 2: stages and stuff, they don't start by talking about themselves.
Speaker 2: They start talking about like their mob and where they
Speaker 2: come from. And their story always starts somewhere, and so
Speaker 2: for me, it doesn't really start with me. It starts
Speaker 2: with like my grandparents who were in what is modern.
Speaker 1: Day Pakistan, Kistan, right, I've read that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they migrated south during the British occupation
Speaker 2: of the region. And I think about my life here
Speaker 2: in Melbourne, where we got to notice from the Council
Speaker 2: that next week there's like eight hours of like a
Speaker 2: planned power interruption and there won't be internet and stuff.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, man, like can I swear yeah?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I was like, oh fuck, Like, man, what am
Speaker 2: I going to do? Like, how am I going to
Speaker 2: live for eight hours internet? And here's like, here are
Speaker 2: my grandparents who literally during like wartime are fleeing as
Speaker 2: displaced people's right again to refugees. And I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: a day without internet, that's going to be rough. And
Speaker 2: I'm forward planning that I'm not going to be home
Speaker 2: all day. And I'm like, I just go to Chadston.
Speaker 2: Might just go the day of shopping.
Speaker 1: There's air con there, there's control, yeah, high speed WiFi,
Speaker 1: like you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I aspired to be one of the pensioners groups
Speaker 2: who go on a Wednesday and have coffee at like
Speaker 2: a muff and break and then and then go you know,
Speaker 2: you see them at like Chadstone and like all the
Speaker 2: westfields around around out. But so it sort of starts there.
Speaker 2: My story sort of starts there. And then I was
Speaker 2: born just outside of Delhi, New Delhi in India. And
Speaker 2: I mean my parents right like they met through an
Speaker 2: arranged marriage. They had like this whole thing, my mum.
Speaker 2: A lot of people misunderstand arranged marriages.
Speaker 1: But we actually have a few friends who had arranged marriages.
Speaker 1: And the more you learn about them, the more. Actually
Speaker 1: often they last, they last longer. They're based on I think,
Speaker 1: different foundations to what people assume.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's normally not like it's it's not forced marriage, right,
Speaker 2: People think of it as forced marriage sometimes and it
Speaker 2: still occurs across different parts of the world. But essentially
Speaker 2: it was like a facilitated introduction for my parents. But
Speaker 2: the way that it happened is like my dad put
Speaker 2: an ad in the Times of India newspaper, the broadsheet,
Speaker 2: and he went into Connaught place in the center of
Speaker 2: Delhi and he put an ad in and it was
Speaker 2: just like you know, five foot nine engineer from x
Speaker 2: y Z fans family seeks you know, life partner whatever,
Speaker 2: I don't know, whatever he put And then my mom's dad,
Speaker 2: my late grandfather, he saw it and it said that
Speaker 2: my dad's family were from the same part of like
Speaker 2: old Pakistan, that my mom's family was no way, and
Speaker 2: they were like, well, we should go meet them, yeah,
Speaker 2: And so they did. Like they met and my mom
Speaker 2: had met like a few men, and you know, none
Speaker 2: of them really took her fancy. And I even think
Speaker 2: with my dad, she was just like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I'm a twenty She was like twenty four or something
Speaker 2: twenty three, and she was like, I'm a young woman,
Speaker 2: and I think this is a misconception people have about
Speaker 2: women in other countries. It's like in Australia we often
Speaker 2: look at other countries and go, oh, this are backwards
Speaker 2: and stuff. And there's aspects of that, of course, right,
Speaker 2: and really woeful statistics around some of the women's safety stuff.
Speaker 2: But there's also like a lot of progressive people, right, like,
Speaker 2: and modern day India is an example of that, right
Speaker 2: where you've got a population of one point four billion,
Speaker 2: right and hundreds and hundreds of millions on the cusp
Speaker 2: of being like just that generation of New India. And
Speaker 2: they're educated, and they're cosmopolitan, and they travel the world
Speaker 2: and they're progressively minded. And it's like my mom was
Speaker 2: sort of like, you know, part of that a generation ago.
Speaker 2: And so she kind of met my dad, and my
Speaker 2: dad was like he was a career oriented and a
Speaker 2: very quiet man, and I think he asked my mom
Speaker 2: what she knew about marine engineering, which is what my
Speaker 2: dad was. He used to work on ships of the
Speaker 2: Merchant Navy. And my mom was like, I don't know
Speaker 2: anything about it, and I don't really care.
Speaker 1: And my dad was like okay, like great shut down.
Speaker 2: And then my mom asked him, how are women treated
Speaker 2: in your family? Which I think is an amazing question
Speaker 2: that like a lot of people should ask if their contemplaatedding,
Speaker 2: marriage and long term relationships. It's like, how are the
Speaker 2: other women treated around you? Right, because it's like and
Speaker 2: my dad's answer was normal, I guess, like he'd never
Speaker 2: really thought about it, and so when she probed him
Speaker 2: on what normal meant, he gave her an answer that
Speaker 2: she liked, right, And they went on some dates and
Speaker 2: stuff and then met in like September of one year,
Speaker 2: and then they got married in November of that year,
Speaker 2: and they had like a three day long Indian wedding.
Speaker 1: I love Indian weddings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and North Indian weddings in particular, they go for
Speaker 2: days at a time. So my mom still has her
Speaker 2: like lnger. It's called her wedding langer. And this beautiful
Speaker 2: silk number that weighs I think like seven or eight
Speaker 2: was maybe.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's.
Speaker 2: All like made by hand, and I mean you could
Speaker 2: put a price on it, but in my family it's
Speaker 2: this priceless, right, So yeah, she's still got it and
Speaker 2: it's just stunning. And yeah, they met and then I
Speaker 2: was I mean I was born and then we grew up.
Speaker 2: I was born in India and then at eighteen months
Speaker 2: we migrated to Australia.
Speaker 1: I had to Port Lincoln, which is like raging. What
Speaker 1: a raging spot to move to a one year old.
Speaker 2: I really honored that you've gone and read this or research.
Speaker 2: It's kind of it feels surreal because I admire and
Speaker 2: respect you so much that someone else knows it's about me.
Speaker 2: It's like, but yeah, Port Lincoln raging. I mean I
Speaker 2: was a child, so I know, like like a baby
Speaker 2: and infant, so I have no memory of it. I
Speaker 2: don't remember anything about it. But I think my mom
Speaker 2: going from like the hustle and bustle of Delhi, and
Speaker 2: my mom in particular, she grew up in South Delhi,
Speaker 2: which is very posh and think like Southiera turned up
Speaker 2: a lot. That's where she kind of grew up. So
Speaker 2: she kind of she went from that to Port Lincoln
Speaker 2: and was just like, what have I done? Like I
Speaker 2: have an infant with I've got a husband who is
Speaker 2: a man I barely know, and have a child to
Speaker 2: really because they hadn't you know, they hadn't been together
Speaker 2: ten years. Then they get a house and they get engaged,
Speaker 2: and it's not that story, right, It's like, literally two
Speaker 2: years ago I met this man and now we are
Speaker 2: on the other side of the world. Pre Internet, pre everything.
Speaker 2: The only way to contact India was five dollars fifty
Speaker 2: a minute phone calls.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we've come such a long.
Speaker 2: Life from the landline connected with all by cable.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: All letters write like handwritten letters, which took like two
Speaker 2: weeks right to get there because it was an express
Speaker 2: post or anything. So it was like, I really think
Speaker 2: about my mom and my dad and both of them,
Speaker 2: and I think about myself, and I think about all
Speaker 2: the people I know in relationships, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: that's some resilience, right, that's like some real ride or
Speaker 2: die shit, Like you are committing to each other. So
Speaker 2: they were committed to each other and they raised me
Speaker 2: and that. But we didn't stay in Port Lincoln for long.
Speaker 2: I think we stayed there weeks, if not months at most,
Speaker 2: and then we settled in Melbourne after a while. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne. We moved
Speaker 2: around a little bit from like you know, one bedroom
Speaker 2: flat to another until my parents bought a home and
Speaker 2: then shortly after my little sister, Nikki was born, And
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have known if not for the benefit of
Speaker 2: hindsight and as you experienced well growing up, that we
Speaker 2: didn't have a lot of money, that we lived in
Speaker 2: absolutely like out outer suburbs. Like I had no concept
Speaker 2: because as a kid, you don't really know any of
Speaker 2: this stuff, right. Your world is just your immediate kind
Speaker 2: of zone around you. I remember seeing people with substance
Speaker 2: misuse issues. I remember seeing like the effects of alcohol
Speaker 2: and other drugs around the community, of violence and other things,
Speaker 2: but not really knowing that as being anything abnormal. The
Speaker 2: experience of like overt discrimination and violent discrimination, like you know,
Speaker 2: getting beaten up, getting black eyes, going to the school
Speaker 2: nurse's office and they're being sent home because I was
Speaker 2: injured physically, that was like common, right, that happened often
Speaker 2: enough that I still remember it. But it wasn't all bad, right,
Speaker 2: It wasn't all negative. And I think some people don't
Speaker 2: get that about like issues like racism or any kind
Speaker 2: of discrimination, that it's not like a constant thing that's
Speaker 2: happening all the time. There's like peaks and flows of it. Right,
Speaker 2: So there's like an incident and then you that becomes
Speaker 2: part of your psyche and the trauma stays with you
Speaker 2: in different ways. And so it was like a childhood
Speaker 2: that was marred by all of these incidents where like
Speaker 2: I stopped playing footy because of getting beaten up on
Speaker 2: the football field, right, and after the third time it happened,
Speaker 2: I remember going to the tribunal because the other kid
Speaker 2: got like charged with like punching me because the umpire
Speaker 2: saw it. And then he, you know, he got led
Speaker 2: off like and he didn't get in trouble for it.
Speaker 2: And I remember my coach driving me home and I
Speaker 2: have this vivid recollection of that day where he drove
Speaker 2: me home from the tribunal and the other kid didn't
Speaker 2: get any like didn't get in for it. And when
Speaker 2: we got home, I Mum pulled me out of footy,
Speaker 2: and all I remember is not the injustice of that day,
Speaker 2: because I was too young to understand all that stuff.
Speaker 2: But I just remember being fascinated by this guy. He
Speaker 2: drove this Holden commodore, and I just remember being fascinated
Speaker 2: by his sports steering wheel.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's your memory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that I was a kid, that was my
Speaker 2: memory of it. I was like, man, And even now
Speaker 2: even now, I'm like, man, I want that. I drive
Speaker 2: Volkswagen golf and I'm like, I want that steering wheel.
Speaker 2: I want to get that like sports steering wheel in
Speaker 2: my cut.
Speaker 1: That's the like defining memory of that whole experience is
Speaker 1: not the racism or the court, but like, yeah, the
Speaker 1: car obviously.
Speaker 2: I mean the core process was intense because I've never
Speaker 2: seen anything like it right at that age, and it's
Speaker 2: so formal, and I wore a little suit and stuff and.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's really cute. Yeah it was cute
Speaker 1: in a horrible context, but very cute.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wore a little suit and stuff. But then
Speaker 2: after that, my mum pulled me out because she was
Speaker 2: just like, you can't, like you send your kid off
Speaker 2: to do extracurricular activity or go to school or wherever
Speaker 2: and be safe and have fun. And it was all
Speaker 2: about teamwork and a bit of health and fitness and
Speaker 2: like involved, you know. And I really loved footy, and
Speaker 2: for years I just turned off the sport altogether because
Speaker 2: I just had such negative experiences. And now when I
Speaker 2: see players of color, you know, making it into the AFL,
Speaker 2: When I see them like speaking out about elements of racism,
Speaker 2: and then I see positive responses from clubs, I'm like,
Speaker 2: that's all we want, is just positive interaction. This isn't
Speaker 2: about like saying everyone is horrible or bad or making
Speaker 2: a bigger deal than we need to about things that
Speaker 2: have happened in the past, but about how we go
Speaker 2: forward to make things more positive for everyone. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: like my childhood was one of those things where there
Speaker 2: was a lot of a lot of experiences of discrimination,
Speaker 2: but so many positives. We wouldn't have known Nicki and
Speaker 2: I that money was tied even though my parents were
Speaker 2: working multiple jobs and we were in childcare a lot
Speaker 2: and kind of not seeing doubt as much as we
Speaker 2: wanted to at times, we didn't feel that absence because
Speaker 2: the love that we had when they were there was
Speaker 2: really present. And as a sister, Nicki was amazing. She
Speaker 2: is like the most loving person and that some of
Speaker 2: your listeners might know. She was killed when she was
Speaker 2: twenty three, and so I didn't get to have her
Speaker 2: in my life for as long as you know, most
Speaker 2: people get to have their siblings in their life. But
Speaker 2: we got lifetimes of love in her twenty three years
Speaker 2: of life. So feel really fortunate. And I'm just remembering back.
Speaker 2: I listened to your episode with Alyssa Healy, who captain
Speaker 2: a team in Mumbai a few months ago, and you
Speaker 2: asked me about like some of my you know, some
Speaker 2: of my work and that people don't start where they
Speaker 2: where people noticed them, and she talked about how it
Speaker 2: and what resonated me is that she talked about how
Speaker 2: people think it just happened overnight, and she was talking
Speaker 2: about the journey that it took for her breaking down
Speaker 2: every barrier as a woman in sport. And what resonated
Speaker 2: with me is and it says adult saying where it's
Speaker 2: like it takes ten years to become an overnight success.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. And I talk about this with like with
Speaker 2: others that are in similar spaces where people will notice them,
Speaker 2: you know. And I know one of our mutual friends
Speaker 2: in Maria Fatil twenty twenties Miss Universe Australia and just
Speaker 2: all around legend and you know we've talked about that
Speaker 2: her and I and she's also been on this great
Speaker 2: loreal campaign that I've been working on and we've talked
Speaker 2: about that, where she's been, you know, chipping away doing
Speaker 2: such important work, and then all of a sudden people
Speaker 2: are like, oh my god, you came out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, yeah, wow, you propelled onto the sea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's like, not, I've been here. And I
Speaker 2: think that happens a lot with women of color, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: where like all of a sudden it's just like whoa,
Speaker 2: you're here out of nowhere. It's like, no, I've been
Speaker 2: doing amazing things, right and just chipping away.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think about this all the time, and I
Speaker 1: think it's also it's not just women of color as
Speaker 1: well who experience this. It's anyone really who becomes a
Speaker 1: voice or a spokesperson for a topic that traditionally hasn't
Speaker 1: been as commonly spoke about and that you know, it
Speaker 1: hasn't always had the same audience that it has right now.
Speaker 1: And I never explained this, right, but what I mean
Speaker 1: is kind of you know, things aren't trendy until they're trendy,
Speaker 1: and just because you started talking about it ten years ago,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that you had the audience and the
Speaker 1: platform who were willing to listen ten years ago. But
Speaker 1: now it seems like you've just you know, propelled onto
Speaker 1: the scene. But really, you started, as you said, chipping
Speaker 1: away bit by bit a long time ago, and it's
Speaker 1: taken you a long time to get there. It never
Speaker 1: happens overnight. And Maria and I have spoken about this
Speaker 1: too as well, that you know, she's been campaigning for
Speaker 1: a bigger presence and more representation for women of color
Speaker 1: since well before people were actually ready to action that
Speaker 1: and before it was more commonly accepted, and before platforms
Speaker 1: would give her space and airtime to talk about that stuff.
Speaker 1: But to many people it appears like, oh, she'd just
Speaker 1: come out of nowhere, But no, she's actually been working
Speaker 1: on it for such a long time. And I think
Speaker 1: that's why I really like tracing back through all the
Speaker 1: chapters that you had to go through, what you were thinking,
Speaker 1: what your mindset was like at that time, Like you know,
Speaker 1: we have more than a few things in common. You
Speaker 1: went to Melbourne High, I went to mcgrob. You did
Speaker 1: It's law. I did its law. And I think you
Speaker 1: know even that itself is of like that was a
Speaker 1: whole chapter and you had no idea that you were
Speaker 1: going to end out where you are?
Speaker 2: Did you go to mcrob that I didn't know? I
Speaker 2: know you? Yeah, I didn't know that you were at McGrath.
Speaker 2: Yeah I didn't know that I should really yeah, I
Speaker 2: didn't know that. Yeah, amazing, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, that's my brother, Like we've done
Speaker 1: the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Melbourne High boys need to well, my generation of
Speaker 2: Melbourn High boys needed to be kinder to mcrop girls
Speaker 2: like we were not, Like we just said horrible things
Speaker 2: about them just because yeah, and they did nothing to
Speaker 2: warrant it. Like it wasn't friendly banter and teasing. It
Speaker 2: was just like unkind you know, vibes's just been projected
Speaker 2: out for no particular reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I feel like there's a bit of
Speaker 1: healthy rivalry there and Melbourn High guys have not always
Speaker 1: been nice to to mccrop girls, but also mcrop girls.
Speaker 1: I mean, we had our noses in books. We weren't
Speaker 1: always looking at boys. I mean, I obviously I was
Speaker 1: very distructive in school by Melbourn High boys, but not
Speaker 1: everyone was, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean I have fond memories of my time, my
Speaker 2: time then right, Like so I was on the sc
Speaker 2: at Melbourne High School, and that was like my way
Speaker 2: of being involved in things because it was such an
Speaker 2: strongly academic environment and I felt really So I've been
Speaker 2: grappling with this concept of imposter syndrome a lot, right,
Speaker 2: And perhaps the controversial take is that I'm starting to
Speaker 2: think not as many people have imposter syndrome as maybe
Speaker 2: they do, right, But they have like a degree of
Speaker 2: self awareness that like what their strengths and limitations are.
Speaker 2: And so for me, my strengths and limitations were understanding
Speaker 2: that in Melbourne High like I didn't necessarily belong academically,
Speaker 2: like I didn't do as well as a lot of
Speaker 2: the others, right, they were like I was surrounded by
Speaker 2: some just absolute, you know, incredible minds, and I remember
Speaker 2: like looking at people that I like, my peers, right,
Speaker 2: same age and everything, and just being like, fuck, you're
Speaker 2: so smart man, Like how how does your brain do that?
Speaker 2: And I just remember going, my brain doesn't do that.
Speaker 2: So I just gravitated towards the things that I liked,
Speaker 2: which was like Droot Sandstorm, what an era in organizing
Speaker 2: high school social So I just did that. That was like,
Speaker 2: that was my contribution to the school was just get
Speaker 2: on the sise and organized parties and events, and so
Speaker 2: I have like fond memories of that, Like one year,
Speaker 2: did you ever go to a like a social at
Speaker 2: the Memorial Hall?
Speaker 1: Did I go to a social at the Memorial Hall?
Speaker 1: I tore up the Memorial Hall dance floor.
Speaker 2: Amazing, amazing, it's so good.
Speaker 1: When were you there?
Speaker 2: I was there two thousand and one to two thousand
Speaker 2: and four.
Speaker 1: Ah, so maybe some crossover.
Speaker 2: Yeah three, Okay, that's some crossover.
Speaker 1: There's some crossover.
Speaker 2: So you're at the junior socials when I was at
Speaker 2: the senior.
Speaker 1: Socials, or I was like hijacking the senior socials because
Speaker 1: I was like getting older men.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, okay, there you go. There you go.
Speaker 2: One year just before you started. So two thousand and two,
Speaker 2: the power went out at the junior social at Memorial Hall.
Speaker 2: And I was in year ten, and I remember the
Speaker 2: only thing that worked. So basically there was a band playing, right,
Speaker 2: and the power went out because the amp like short
Speaker 2: secuit it or something. And then you've got a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of teenagers in a room in the dark and
Speaker 2: nothing works except for myself for two microphones. And it's
Speaker 2: like chaos. And then me and a friend got up
Speaker 2: on the mic and I beatboxed and he freestyle wrapped,
Speaker 2: and they were like, you can't beatboxed. No, I can't anymore,
Speaker 2: but I used to try as a kid.
Speaker 1: Okay, amazing, And.
Speaker 2: It was literally I would have been like fifteen, but
Speaker 2: it was honestly the best day of my life. And
Speaker 2: I've been chasing that high ever since for just decades.
Speaker 1: Like that is you picked too early? Oh my god, that.
Speaker 2: Was my everest. I picked at fifteen when when I
Speaker 2: grabbed the microphone and beat box of five minutes until
Speaker 2: the power went back on and there was no music
Speaker 2: right for a good thirty seconds, which is an eternity
Speaker 2: when you're a fifteen year old and like all your
Speaker 2: hormones are going on. You've probably been engaging in like
Speaker 2: preese and your parents don't know how much you've actually
Speaker 2: been drinking freeze.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah, I remember those Freeze. I don't
Speaker 1: even remember going out basically. I mean, like, who remembers that.
Speaker 2: We're both in Melbourne, so we were locked down for
Speaker 2: a good two years, so I think it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fair we've got some catching out.
Speaker 2: Well, we don't remember that, but yeah, that was like
Speaker 2: my time at Melbourne High. It was this strange thing
Speaker 2: of like trying to find ways to fit in and
Speaker 2: trying to find ways to understand where my sense of
Speaker 2: what being a man meant, my own sense of masculinity,
Speaker 2: my own earlier experiences of racism, which didn't continue, thankfully,
Speaker 2: in the same way at Melbourne High because there was
Speaker 2: such cultural diversity. I don't know if you found that
Speaker 2: at MCROB. Because of such cultural diversity that like all
Speaker 2: of a sudden when your ethnic group becomes part of
Speaker 2: the majority, visibly the script flips a little bit, but
Speaker 2: it's it's really interesting, Like a lot of the environment
Speaker 2: that I grew up in around those spaces is what
Speaker 2: like and the conversations that we have now. I'm very
Speaker 2: conscious of any conversations about discrimination, particularly from people in
Speaker 2: our sort of broad age bracket, have been grounded in
Speaker 2: a context of we probably said and did this stuff
Speaker 2: ten fifteen years ago. Well we know better now because
Speaker 2: this idea that all my friends, like people my age
Speaker 2: calling them friends right have the like we've never said
Speaker 2: or done anything bad is so dishonest, right, Like I
Speaker 2: grew up listening to doctor Dre like I've had a
Speaker 2: misogynistic thought in my life.
Speaker 1: Like misogynistic thought singular.
Speaker 2: You get what I mean, right, Yeah, where it's like,
Speaker 2: of course you have like And the sign of growth
Speaker 2: and progress isn't being like I've never had it, it's
Speaker 2: being like, I've learned X, Y Z, and therefore I'm
Speaker 2: going to do something about it. And then I'm going
Speaker 2: to do something so that other people understand it as well.
Speaker 2: Not because I'm better or anyone's better, but because we're
Speaker 2: all collectively better as a result. You know, we're all safer,
Speaker 2: more inclusive, more, you know, understanding whatever the case is.
Speaker 1: That kind of touches back on what I was articulate
Speaker 1: well trying to say and not articulating very well before.
Speaker 1: And oh my god, I also realized I have not
Speaker 1: been following a structure whatsoever in this episode because I'm
Speaker 1: just there's so much to talk about it, and I'm
Speaker 1: so fascinated by it all. But you know, coming back
Speaker 1: to that idea that you have really been speaking about
Speaker 1: these topics for so long and in such a way
Speaker 1: that you've learned and progressed and got it wrong and stumbled,
Speaker 1: and then you do help other people to be able
Speaker 1: to feel comfortable to enter this space and start speaking,
Speaker 1: even if they might make a mistake or say the
Speaker 1: wrong thing. And I think sometimes people are so scared
Speaker 1: to say the wrong thing and get canceled that often
Speaker 1: they just refrain from discourse at all. And I think
Speaker 1: you do really well at encouraging people that it's better
Speaker 1: to try and maybe get it wrong and and learn
Speaker 1: then to not speak about these things at all. But
Speaker 1: you also had to start somewhere, and I think again
Speaker 1: people underestimate you don't just get handed a laureal ambassadorship
Speaker 1: for an anti harassment campaign the day you decide to
Speaker 1: be an activist. You've been chipping away, as you say,
Speaker 1: And you know, I think it's coming back to that
Speaker 1: whole pathway thing and all the steps that it took
Speaker 1: to get here. You've been speaking about these important issues,
Speaker 1: are particularly domestic violence, since twenty fifteen, and so I
Speaker 1: know we I don't want to labor this chapter of
Speaker 1: your life too much. But as much as you were
Speaker 1: comfortable speaking about, you know, can you take us through
Speaker 1: how it all happened, how things changed for you, and
Speaker 1: how you did start speaking about things like domestic violence.
Speaker 1: You turned a huge and unimaginable trauma in your life
Speaker 1: into something so positive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, and the trauma, right is like
Speaker 2: my sister's murder in twenty fifteen. It changed a lot, right,
Speaker 2: And it's so hard to articulate in a way that
Speaker 2: I wanted to make sense to everyone, But sometimes it
Speaker 2: doesn't even make sense to me. So how can I
Speaker 2: make sense of it? And the reason I say that
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense to me is like, we're biological siblings,
Speaker 2: so we buy default share fifty percent of the same DNA, right,
Speaker 2: So at like I genuinely felt, and this sounds hippie
Speaker 2: and whatever, but I felt like a part of me
Speaker 2: died right with my sister. But as I learned over
Speaker 2: time through different forms of advocacy, it's that talking about
Speaker 2: my sister giving life to her in death as well
Speaker 2: as countless others, was my own way of healing, and
Speaker 2: it's my own way of recovery. And I've very recently
Speaker 2: actually just been speaking at and hosting this conference for
Speaker 2: the National Trauma and Recovery Conference related to Domestic family
Speaker 2: and Sexual Violence, and it sort of dawned on me
Speaker 2: literally while I was on stage that that's what a
Speaker 2: lot of this is that this is actually my own
Speaker 2: form of healing and recovery and trauma, and it was
Speaker 2: like giving meaning to what my family's experience. It's what
Speaker 2: Nicki went through. But initially it didn't start there in
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen. It actually was born out of a sense
Speaker 2: of injustice and a sense of anger, and particularly the
Speaker 2: way that Niki's death was reported, on the way that
Speaker 2: it was handled in the courts, particularly initially, And the
Speaker 2: vindication that we got as a family was that the
Speaker 2: judge who was responsible for sentencing the man who killed
Speaker 2: my sister said in his comments that nothing Nikki de
Speaker 2: Joula did in any way whatsoever contributed to what you
Speaker 2: chose to do to her. And I felt vindicated by
Speaker 2: that because we live in a society that often blames victims,
Speaker 2: particularly women, but all victims for what happens to them. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like what were they wearing, or why were they
Speaker 2: out late at night or all of these things, right,
Speaker 2: even if it's just like behaviors like cat calling, right,
Speaker 2: which is obviously very very different to like taking a
Speaker 2: weapon and physically harming someone, right, but still has an
Speaker 2: impact on the person who is subjected to it. So
Speaker 2: it was born out of this sense of injustice, just
Speaker 2: and anger. Initially that I was like, hang on a minute,
Speaker 2: I want to course correct the record. And I think
Speaker 2: it's because of the stuff we talked about earlier that
Speaker 2: might come from this, you know, ancestry of my grandparents
Speaker 2: being who they are and you know, migrating across borders
Speaker 2: as refugees and my parents coming and starting again and
Speaker 2: raising Nicky and I with not much but finding a
Speaker 2: way to get through and making sure that we had
Speaker 2: love around us at all times. That I was just like, well,
Speaker 2: I don't really know how the Australian media works. I
Speaker 2: don't really know how powerful these institutions are, but I'm
Speaker 2: just going to start saying what I think. And sometimes
Speaker 2: when people come to me now and they're like, how
Speaker 2: can I become an advocate? I sometimes have to give
Speaker 2: them the well, I'll always give them honest advice, but
Speaker 2: sometimes I have to give them the difficult reality of
Speaker 2: the honest advice, which is not everyone's going to like
Speaker 2: what you have to say. You know, particularly if they
Speaker 2: belong to certain institutions. They're not going to enjoy being
Speaker 2: told that their inherent problems with the institutions because they
Speaker 2: take it as a personal upfront, and so I try
Speaker 2: to separate the institutions from the people behind them, as
Speaker 2: well as the behaviors from the person. And I've made
Speaker 2: mistakes at different times, so I think, you know, in
Speaker 2: certain instances, I've gone very hard on certain people where
Speaker 2: I reflect and go, oh, I don't know if I
Speaker 2: helped there as much. But I find myself now at
Speaker 2: a place where it's like I'll always try to, as
Speaker 2: you said, invite a conversation to get towards progress. Like
Speaker 2: we're living in a time where there are so many
Speaker 2: broad social issues that are touching on all of us
Speaker 2: in this country that it's like we don't have time
Speaker 2: or space to be more divided. We need to sort
Speaker 2: of find the common ground and the common human experiences
Speaker 2: and build from that, particularly after COVID, where so many
Speaker 2: of us were separated from the people that we love,
Speaker 2: just a lot of in our homes or going through
Speaker 2: whatever struggles we were going through. And so I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's just been this whole journey where since twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: I've just tried to speak out about what matters. And
Speaker 2: initially it was borne out of a sense of anger
Speaker 2: and injustice, and then over time as I did the
Speaker 2: work to come to terms psychologically with the fact that yes,
Speaker 2: Nikki was murdered. No, it was not my fault. The
Speaker 2: blame lies squarely with the perpetrator. No, it was not
Speaker 2: my family's fault. In spite of all the criticisms that
Speaker 2: we've received online and some of the trolling that we've
Speaker 2: been sent as a family, particularly at the kind of
Speaker 2: that's been directed at my parents in particular, has been
Speaker 2: really hurtful to me as their child, because it's just like,
Speaker 2: I know who they are and they're not responsible for
Speaker 2: what was done to Nikki, and yet this kind of
Speaker 2: public perception that occurred, and as well, as you know,
Speaker 2: coming from a fairly tight knit South Asian Indian community,
Speaker 2: this look of like pity that my parents got initially
Speaker 2: really bugged me because it was like, why do you
Speaker 2: feel like sympathized with them but don't feel pity for them,
Speaker 2: Like they're not They're not a basket case now. And
Speaker 2: it's been really kind of strangely along the way, and
Speaker 2: it's a lie in many ways, Sarah. It will be
Speaker 2: a lifelong journey, right because that grief of losing someone
Speaker 2: before their time. I grieve now, not for myself. I
Speaker 2: grieve for the missed opportunities for Nikki. You know that
Speaker 2: she recently would have had her thirtieth birthday, and I
Speaker 2: just think, Wow, I remember back to my thirtieth birthday
Speaker 2: and being on the cust were thinking, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm thirty. I haven't done anything with my life. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, I'm also thirty. I've still got ages. All.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I've got time, You've got time.
Speaker 2: And I just think what she could have achieved, particularly
Speaker 2: because in the context of who we were as siblings,
Speaker 2: I was someone who I see a bright light, I
Speaker 2: get distracted, and I go follow that line and tell her,
Speaker 2: you know, the shiny thing, and then just meander around
Speaker 2: and eventually figure it out. And there's no there's no
Speaker 2: rhyme or reason to how we got there, but we
Speaker 2: get there in the end, and if we're not there,
Speaker 2: it's not the end. Yet. Whereas my city had a
Speaker 2: sense of ambition and a quiet conviction, right, she would
Speaker 2: present us very shy, very quiet, and almost meek at times,
Speaker 2: and like she had no self belief, and at times
Speaker 2: she suffered from crippling self doubt. Yet the flip side
Speaker 2: of that was because she was almost like a born
Speaker 2: performer right than performing arts. And she was performing from
Speaker 2: the age of like four.
Speaker 1: Didn't she found a Bollywood group or a Bollywood business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a Bollywood and contemporary funk dance business. Ye. That
Speaker 2: actually choreographed a video clip for and was planned and
Speaker 2: she'd plan to go on tour with this group from
Speaker 2: Brooklyn called Naturally Seven, who for ten years opened for
Speaker 2: Michael Boublay. And she met them because at fourteen she
Speaker 2: went up to them. So the first time they came
Speaker 2: on tour with Michael Bouble to Australia, they're done like
Speaker 2: all around, like different European cities. The first time they
Speaker 2: came to Australia and with Michael Bouble and they formed
Speaker 2: the Melbourne Scholt Rod Laver Arena afterwards because they were
Speaker 2: small then, right, but big enough that Michael Boublay took
Speaker 2: notice of them.
Speaker 1: That's still pretty big, yeah.
Speaker 2: Like small, like not like boubla big, but like big
Speaker 2: enough to open for him or certainly to have his
Speaker 2: vote of confidence. So they were there and then afterwards
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, we're going to be out the front
Speaker 2: and you can come grab our CDs back when people
Speaker 2: still got CDs, and Nicki went up to them, It's
Speaker 2: like precocious young teenager just to like stuck out a
Speaker 2: hand and was like, Hi, I'm Nikki. I'm a choreographer,
Speaker 2: and I reckon that we could work together and really
Speaker 2: like hone in on you know, these steps as part
Speaker 2: of your thing, and I reckon there's a whole market
Speaker 2: out there for you that is. And I was just
Speaker 2: like sitting there in the background and be like, who
Speaker 2: the fuck does this kid think? She was like yeah,
Speaker 2: Like and they're like seven black dudes from Brooklyn, and
Speaker 2: after Nicki's death, they were touring in their own right
Speaker 2: across Australia and they actually came over to my parents'
Speaker 2: house for dinner. And they're like seven black dudes who
Speaker 2: and five of them came for dinner and they occupy
Speaker 2: space right like in a room. They've got their presence
Speaker 2: as well as their physical stature of being like six
Speaker 2: foot three and broad and obviously you know, being performers,
Speaker 2: having commanding voices and stuff. So it was like this
Speaker 2: really fascinating thing of just like them being there in
Speaker 2: our home. But before that all of that, Nicki just
Speaker 2: went up to these guys that she didn't know, introduced
Speaker 2: herself and they were like, yeah, okay, we'll be in touch.
Speaker 2: And then what happened after Nicki's death was hearing from
Speaker 2: the leader of the group, Roger, about how my sister
Speaker 2: was to work with right and if anyone interested in
Speaker 2: their work, Like one of their clips went viral where
Speaker 2: they were on the French subway in Paris singing phil
Speaker 2: Collins in the air tonight all like a power Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's I think that one of the most famous clips.
Speaker 2: But yeah, she like just work with them, And it
Speaker 2: was really credible hearing from him and a couple of
Speaker 2: others in the group about my sister as a performer
Speaker 2: and as a choreographer in her work, because to me,
Speaker 2: she was like my little sister. She's an annoying, little brady,
Speaker 2: lovable kid and she always will be. But the other
Speaker 2: side of her was this kind of like professional, intelligent,
Speaker 2: ambitious woman And so for me it's like, yeah, my
Speaker 2: advocacy was born out of just wanting to give voice
Speaker 2: to that. And with all of the people whose stories
Speaker 2: I've shared, it's never about the circumstances in which they died,
Speaker 2: because often people will say to me, I know your
Speaker 2: sister's story or I know xyz person's story, and I
Speaker 2: just think, and I never correct people because I don't
Speaker 2: think this is what they mean, but what they're really saying,
Speaker 2: and I don't think they mean this, but what they're
Speaker 2: saying is I know how your sister died, not who
Speaker 2: she was. Who she was was twenty three years of
Speaker 2: her life. The act of violence that took her was
Speaker 2: not even her own. It was someone else's choice, right,
Speaker 2: And I think the stories of people are far more
Speaker 2: than the circumstances of their death. And I think this
Speaker 2: about everyone, right. I think about this in terms of,
Speaker 2: like I've just seen lately the ovarian cancer awareness and
Speaker 2: people say, oh, you know, I know your aunt's story
Speaker 2: or I know this, and it's like an aspect of it, yeah,
Speaker 2: like the most traumatizing aspect of it. But the real end,
Speaker 2: the end, Yeah, the reality is the life. And I
Speaker 2: think we do well to share more of the stories
Speaker 2: of the lives of these people, because when you look
Speaker 2: at the collective loss to society, and what I grieve
Speaker 2: in Nikki is not my own loss. It's the loss
Speaker 2: of all of the opportunities for her. And I think
Speaker 2: about that for everyone, whether it's through violent means or
Speaker 2: any inadvertent early death, accidental cancer, violence from another person,
Speaker 2: it's just like, oh shit, like they could have done
Speaker 2: anything they wanted if they had the time. And so
Speaker 2: it's really changed a lot for me. It's changed little stuff, Sarah,
Speaker 2: where I don't My grandfather died recently, had an extended
Speaker 2: family member passed away just yesterday in and like it's
Speaker 2: totally I don't feel sad like I feel. I feel
Speaker 2: a sense of loss, like oh, it's a shame, but
Speaker 2: I feel I don't get sad in the same way
Speaker 2: because it's the fact that Nikki died early and the
Speaker 2: fact that she died under such horrible circumstances, like real
Speaker 2: painful violence circumstances. If someone lives a full life like
Speaker 2: my grandfather did and others who have passed away recently,
Speaker 2: I just feel happy for them. I'm like, you've got
Speaker 2: to do everything that life has to offer. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I missed them, and I'm sad for you know them
Speaker 2: and all of that, but I'm not sad in the
Speaker 2: same way. It's different, you know. I'm like, I feel
Speaker 2: gratitude more than anything. You know, if you get to
Speaker 2: live a full life.
Speaker 1: You've won that is this is something that I mean,
Speaker 1: you are such an amazing advocate and spokesperson for statistics
Speaker 1: and causes, and I really want to get into the
Speaker 1: role with Laurel and the campaign you've done recently. But
Speaker 1: what I think you're also a wonderful advocate for that
Speaker 1: isn't spoken about as much, just because it's obviously not
Speaker 1: the main focus is the fact that on this show
Speaker 1: we talk about joy, right, which is sometimes quite an
Speaker 1: artificial thing to talk about in a world where this
Speaker 1: kind of thing does happened, this level of trauma and
Speaker 1: violence can happen. And I often say to people, when
Speaker 1: you look back, all the dots often connect that led
Speaker 1: you to where you are today. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: really easy to sort of understand life's ups and downs
Speaker 1: when you think everything happens for a reason and you
Speaker 1: win or you learn, and everything shapes who you are.
Speaker 1: But in a situation like yours, it's not really appropriate
Speaker 1: to say everything happens for a reason because that doesn't
Speaker 1: apply when there's some of life's greatest tragedies and horrors.
Speaker 1: But yet you have become a person who can still
Speaker 1: feel gratitude who can still front up to work, who
Speaker 1: has obviously had challenges in grief and mental health, and
Speaker 1: it hasn't been rosy. But the fact that you can
Speaker 1: articulate gratitude after going through something like that and then
Speaker 1: be an ambassador that helps others through their journey is
Speaker 1: quite remarkable. So the big question for you that not
Speaker 1: many other people in the world can answer, is when
Speaker 1: something like that does happen and that is not a yay,
Speaker 1: There is no I'm sure for many years of your life,
Speaker 1: joy was not even a question. To have come through
Speaker 1: that now and be able to embrace speaking of things
Speaker 1: in a joyful way or find happiness in knowing that
Speaker 1: that will never go away. This is a lifelong journey.
Speaker 1: As you said, you still find joy day to day.
Speaker 1: How do you do that? How have you done that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I knew because I mean I listened to your podcast.
Speaker 2: I know that you talk about this with others, and
Speaker 2: so I was really nervous about being asked this because
Speaker 2: I genuinely I struggle with this, not because of my
Speaker 2: I mean in part because of my sister's death and
Speaker 2: the work that I do and the retraumatizing effects of that,
Speaker 2: but also because I'm someone who lives with complex mental
Speaker 2: health conditions around depression, et cetera, and medicated, and at
Speaker 2: one point during the lowest parts of my life, made
Speaker 2: an attempt at a suicide attempt, and thankfully not in
Speaker 2: that space. I'd all want to live a very long time,
Speaker 2: and seemingly in my family have the genes to do it.
Speaker 2: Everyone lives for a very long time. So sorry to
Speaker 2: the haters, but I'm sticking around. But like, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: something that I grapple with daily, and it's and I
Speaker 2: don't know where it comes from, but I grapple with
Speaker 2: it in the sense of like sometimes if I feel
Speaker 2: too happy, I almost feel guilty, right, and it's because
Speaker 2: of all of the I think. It's like an intergenerational
Speaker 2: thing where I look at, like the sacrifices my grandparents
Speaker 2: my parents have made, right, and I'm like, like, there
Speaker 2: were years stretches of years where my dad didn't take
Speaker 2: a holiday, and I swear, I swear that I've inherited
Speaker 2: that where I'm like, I could go on holiday or
Speaker 2: I could keep working because hard work is important. And
Speaker 2: it's weird how they're like, do what you love and
Speaker 2: you'll never work it down your life. You will work right,
Speaker 2: you'll love what you do, but you will.
Speaker 1: And you'll be working.
Speaker 2: Right, and then all the joy that comes from that
Speaker 2: will be sucked out of it, and eventually you'll be
Speaker 2: left with only work, nothing that you love. But no,
Speaker 2: I just sometimes I feel a sense of guilt around that.
Speaker 2: And for me, I derive joy from a lot of
Speaker 2: the littler things now, like a lot of the because
Speaker 2: I've found that all of the bigger things, whether it's
Speaker 2: material purchases or other aspects of life, don't really add
Speaker 2: up to the promise, right Like I could go to
Speaker 2: the shops buy something and I'd feel happy for a while,
Speaker 2: but it will fade. Whereas if I have an amazing experience,
Speaker 2: like an incredible dinner with friends, or if I do
Speaker 2: something that I feel genuinely connected to someone, like I'm
Speaker 2: enjoying this conversation with you, right, this will be It's
Speaker 2: also joy for me today is the opportunity that after
Speaker 2: a long time, we get to have a conversation and
Speaker 2: I'm going to message like five or six friends afterwards
Speaker 2: and be like, hey, I got to talk to Sarah Davidson.
Speaker 2: She's absolutely lovely. Like that that I think gives me
Speaker 2: joy right lately and this is so pathetic right I
Speaker 2: downloaded the Tetras app to my and I'm currently in
Speaker 2: the top five Australia wife.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, shut up. I love this so.
Speaker 2: For a day last week when I was in Sydney playing,
Speaker 2: I was number.
Speaker 1: One and oh my god, shut the fuck up.
Speaker 2: Number rank in Sydney, number one.
Speaker 1: Can that be in your bio? Like that needs to
Speaker 1: go before activerset, before Youngest of the Year finalists, like
Speaker 1: all the other things you do. Pale in comparison. I
Speaker 1: agree to number one in.
Speaker 2: Tetris, Absolutely agree. Tetris is life because it's like it's
Speaker 2: how everything fits in, right, everything you gotta find ways
Speaker 2: to get everything to fit in. And I don't know
Speaker 2: why I'm obsessed with it. It's such like an arcade game.
Speaker 2: There's no graphics or anything.
Speaker 1: It's the single mindedness. I think. It's like the noise
Speaker 1: is blocked out.
Speaker 2: And I often do some of my best thinking while
Speaker 2: playing Tetris. It's like a kind of one of those
Speaker 2: things called those balls that people's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like stress balls.
Speaker 2: Stress balls. Yeah, it's something like you know, everything fits
Speaker 2: together and then I go, oh, okay, this is how
Speaker 2: I'm gona solf XZ problem in my life? And so yeah,
Speaker 2: what was the question again?
Speaker 1: So I think one thing that I find that happens
Speaker 1: often is that I don't get to explore the true
Speaker 1: complexity and subtleties around this source of joy or fulfillment
Speaker 1: in life, or the changing definition for people of success
Speaker 1: or what their life purpose is, because unless there has
Speaker 1: been something like what you've experienced with Nikki, the subtleties
Speaker 1: don't apply. For some people. It is purely like, do
Speaker 1: what makes you happy, don't do it doesn't make you happy.
Speaker 1: Like that's a very simple equation, But there's so much
Speaker 1: to explore here, Like the guilt is something people don't
Speaker 1: often talk about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean like, I don't know, like you,
Speaker 2: how do you articulate that? Right? By every like standard
Speaker 2: consumeristic measure like I got horspit loafers and I'll wear
Speaker 2: them tonight.
Speaker 1: You are fashion by the way, I.
Speaker 2: Got horsepit loafers. My suits are made to measure. I'll
Speaker 2: wear a katier tank right to a recording a pod,
Speaker 2: like I don't need anything. I have everything. I have
Speaker 2: a roof over my head. My mum's freezer has enough
Speaker 2: food to feed, like me for several lifetimes, like everything
Speaker 2: I could possibly need in this life. At this point,
Speaker 2: I have most of it, right, Like I have most
Speaker 2: of my health with me. So the sense of like
Speaker 2: joy for me, like I've almost reframed it as like
Speaker 2: I just want to find contentment, I want to find peace, right,
Speaker 2: And it's and that is so much harder, I reckon.
Speaker 2: It's so easy to find ways to get joy because
Speaker 2: you can get immediate dopamine.
Speaker 1: Hits like gratuity, that instant gratuity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm guilty of spending way too much time
Speaker 2: on TikTok right, saving video after video to go back
Speaker 2: later and laugh again, or you know, learn stuff about
Speaker 2: the world whatever it is, or just cute dogs, whereas
Speaker 2: like it's me and my you know, me and my
Speaker 2: bulldog have be be out in the park, you know,
Speaker 2: or taking a walk and I get a flat white
Speaker 2: and a banana bread and we're going for a walk.
Speaker 2: That is like everything is good in the world, Everything
Speaker 2: is peaceful, everything is good, everything is right in the world.
Speaker 2: And I feel very lucky, right, I feel joy in
Speaker 2: things where like in my work when I'm traveling and
Speaker 2: I get to be in cabs with different drivers from
Speaker 2: or an Uber or whatever, different drivers usually from India
Speaker 2: or Pakistan, whatever, and just hearing about their life, and
Speaker 2: I just think I'm so lucky because my parents moved
Speaker 2: here at an age where I got to grow to
Speaker 2: school here, I got to experience all of the benefits
Speaker 2: of an Australian education, which is not without its faults,
Speaker 2: but I got so many opportunities. And a lot of
Speaker 2: these people, particularly men, you know, and some of them
Speaker 2: around my age are a bit younger. I'm in very
Speaker 2: different circumstances, very very different circumstances, and for me, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: my life could have been that. Like there's a brown dude,
Speaker 2: I'm a brown dude. We're not that. We're not that, yeah,
Speaker 2: but we're not that dissimilar. I just feel lucky. I
Speaker 2: feel lucky, Like honestly, I just feel lucky, like I
Speaker 2: feel lucky, and I feel a sense of gratitude that
Speaker 2: I'm still around and that I'm going to keep being around.
Speaker 2: And joy comes in different ways where there are times
Speaker 2: where I feel content and happy and I'd rather chase
Speaker 2: that than just go I need to do the next thing.
Speaker 2: I need to do the next thing, and I feel
Speaker 2: very One thing I do feel happy about is that
Speaker 2: I'm at a point there where if I drop dead tomorrow,
Speaker 2: I don't plan to, but if I drop dead, I
Speaker 2: would know that I've tried to do everything possible to
Speaker 2: you know how they say, right, like when your parents
Speaker 2: are trying to like inculcate values into you, like give
Speaker 2: back more than you take, etc. Like I've tried to
Speaker 2: do that, tried, Like I've actively tried to do that.
Speaker 2: So you know, if I've failed, then at least I've
Speaker 2: given it a really good crack. So I just I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know, and I'm really sorry because it's not
Speaker 2: giving potentially like the best answer.
Speaker 1: No, this is the perfect answer to rant.
Speaker 2: That's the truth for me, right, Like that that pursuit
Speaker 2: of like I've got to be happy, and it's like
Speaker 2: it almost becomes too much, you know, like if you
Speaker 2: can find content, man.
Speaker 1: The pressure of happiness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad is like the most content guy, right
Speaker 2: if I could be half as content as him. He's
Speaker 2: very he doesn't chase material objects, he doesn't care what
Speaker 2: other people think. He's very comfortable in himself. And I think, wow,
Speaker 2: people can tell that, you know, and there's a consequence,
Speaker 2: he's very stylish, right because he likes he's himself, right,
Speaker 2: you know, he's just himself and like, yeah, stuff doesn't
Speaker 2: face him or bother him.
Speaker 1: I love this, Like I think if you kind of
Speaker 1: pull anything out from the idea of CCO, like, yes,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's quite like happiness is a word we use often,
Speaker 1: But if I really wanted to force anything down anyone's throat,
Speaker 1: is that we look at happiness as this like pressure
Speaker 1: of success and metrics and measurement. But really most people
Speaker 1: from all walks of life, different experiences, different industries, different
Speaker 1: levels of trauma, different like whatever it is. It's that
Speaker 1: contentment and satisfaction and fulfillment, like those kind of words
Speaker 1: and emotions. That's the complexity of happiness and success.
Speaker 2: Those are the emotions, yeah, and those are the emotions
Speaker 2: that have like longer and you'd know far better than
Speaker 2: I would, But the studies on happiness confirm that people
Speaker 2: who feel that stuff are happy a long term.
Speaker 1: It transcends everything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Whereas like that pursuit of like short sharp almost
Speaker 2: like highs like a drug, right that Dophoin hit and
Speaker 2: then there's the colmdown and I remember, like there was
Speaker 2: a period where my advocacy did get national recognition and
Speaker 2: I was either one nor shortlisted a few awards and
Speaker 2: they were in like quite quick succession. And I remember
Speaker 2: telling my mom and she turned around to me and
Speaker 2: she said better, which means son, She's like better, are
Speaker 2: you happy? And it caused me to stop and be
Speaker 2: what does that mean? And it changed me because it
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, like why am I doing this? Is
Speaker 2: this external validation or is this personal fulfillment? And it
Speaker 2: was this journey where, like I was talking about earlier,
Speaker 2: that I realized that some of my advocacy is borne
Speaker 2: out of my own healing. And I say no to
Speaker 2: more things now than I say yes to, because I'd
Speaker 2: learned that the opposite was burning myself out, it was
Speaker 2: taking on too much, and it was often doing things
Speaker 2: for other people's fulfillment rather than my own. And so
Speaker 2: I found joy in a sense of creating boundaries, finding balance,
Speaker 2: and figuring out a way that feels authentic to myself
Speaker 2: as best as possible.
Speaker 1: I suppose the other thing that you said that seems
Speaker 1: really quite counterintuitive in any conversation about happiness, but I
Speaker 1: think is actually the most important measure. As you were
Speaker 1: mentioning you know, if you drop dead tomorrow, And I
Speaker 1: think I read and refer back to that book, the
Speaker 1: Seven Regrets of the Dying, which was people being interviewed
Speaker 1: on their deathbed, so morbid on its face, very anti ya.
Speaker 1: Actually the most meaningful measure for me of joy is
Speaker 1: am I meeting what those people defined as their biggest regrets?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Am I living in a way that I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: those regrets at any point along the way. And it's
Speaker 1: morbid on its face, it seems like a weird thing
Speaker 1: to think about, but it actually means if you are
Speaker 1: living in a way that you don't trust that you
Speaker 1: will always have time, you won't have any regrets. Like
Speaker 1: to me, that's contentment, you know, like that's a beautiful
Speaker 1: measure of having a good life. But having said that,
Speaker 1: you have turned your passion, and as you mentioned, it
Speaker 1: started from kind of your own journey and your own healing,
Speaker 1: You've gone on to do some incredible work. And I
Speaker 1: was reading one of your articles the other day about
Speaker 1: how you know, women still in this day and age
Speaker 1: often have like I always have my keys in my
Speaker 1: fingers when I'm walking back to my car at night
Speaker 1: alone and seventy eight percent of US women experienced harassment
Speaker 1: on the street even now, So this campaign that you've
Speaker 1: become an ambassador for one of my favorite companies to
Speaker 1: work with, the Larel and their anti street harassment campaign
Speaker 1: in April, and this is one of the things that
Speaker 1: you have said yes to and just been on a
Speaker 1: national tour with. What does that now mean to you?
Speaker 1: How do these campaigns now like this is your work
Speaker 1: Now it's gone from something that happened to you just
Speaker 1: something that you have turned into an amazing, amazing platform.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a great question. So it's really scary
Speaker 2: right that like seventy eight percent of austrained women and
Speaker 2: that was an IPSOS poll still report experiences of street harassment.
Speaker 2: And when this campaign first started, I mean it started globally.
Speaker 2: Laurel was involved in it before last year, but in
Speaker 2: Australia it launched like last year, I think around like
Speaker 2: September twenty twenty two when it first went live. And
Speaker 2: at the time, it was like this whole kind of
Speaker 2: national really social media driven awareness raising campaign around anti
Speaker 2: street harassment training giving people and there's this thing called
Speaker 2: the five D's and it was giving people like a
Speaker 2: way to be effective by standards and safely intervene and
Speaker 2: the key word there is safely right. And so when
Speaker 2: we had conversations after the success of last year, we
Speaker 2: talked about the fact that this happens in person, so
Speaker 2: how do we create something where we go to people
Speaker 2: where they are And we came up with this idea
Speaker 2: of doing this National University Tool, which we've just wrapped up,
Speaker 2: and we went to universities around the country where there
Speaker 2: was this just amazing panel that I had the real
Speaker 2: pleasure and privilege to curate with people like our friend
Speaker 2: Maria and thet Til and Chanel Contos activist and campaigner,
Speaker 2: as well as others April Elaine Horton, Alira Potter, we
Speaker 2: had a really a Saint Clair. We had Hannah Ferguson,
Speaker 2: the survivor and advocate. Saxon Mullins was in Sydney as well,
Speaker 2: and so there was this whole kind of mix of
Speaker 2: women and non binary people with living experiences of street
Speaker 2: harassment as well as expertise educating university students right on
Speaker 2: campuses and in exchange. Laier was very gracious to give
Speaker 2: them free products and you know, they get their picks
Speaker 2: taken and be part of a movement. And it was
Speaker 2: really empowering. You know, a brand that is about women's
Speaker 2: empowerment for them to go into these spaces and actually
Speaker 2: create an inclusive environment where Planned International Australia as their
Speaker 2: charity partner doing this education and giving people avenues to
Speaker 2: safely intervene. For me, it was like taking so many
Speaker 2: of the boxes of like big brands get a bad ramp, right,
Speaker 2: and some of them for very valid reasons when you
Speaker 2: hear about some of their care for practices, right, But
Speaker 2: here was an example of a brand going we see
Speaker 2: that this is a problem. Our mission is women's empowerment.
Speaker 2: If seventy eight percent effectively eight and ten right women
Speaker 2: are experiencing this issue, are we just gonna do something
Speaker 2: tokenistic or are we going to actually put our money
Speaker 2: where our mouth is and do something in their backset
Speaker 2: and they did that ladder right. They actually were like, hey,
Speaker 2: here are things you can do right that will allow
Speaker 2: you to intervene in the moment, but also work towards
Speaker 2: systemically changing the culture where this happens to women and
Speaker 2: none of the onus is on like what is a
Speaker 2: woman wearing or why is she got you know so
Speaker 2: much makeup on or anything like that. It's like the
Speaker 2: woman or the non binary person or the man, whoever
Speaker 2: it is, can do or say or be whoever they are.
Speaker 2: They can be the most authentic self and it is
Speaker 2: everyone else's job to respect their expression of self. And
Speaker 2: to me that was like so important, and so when
Speaker 2: they were like, would you like to be involved, It's like, absolutely,
Speaker 2: let's do it. And it was such a resounding success.
Speaker 2: And I think where hoping to get twenty thousand people
Speaker 2: trained up by the end of the year and expand
Speaker 2: into different settings, whether it's like music festivals or other festivals,
Speaker 2: and really make it something that becomes the kind of
Speaker 2: thing where Lorial can do something that changes the statistics.
Speaker 2: And I think they're really committed to doing that, you know,
Speaker 2: And I really value that because we live in a
Speaker 2: society where and this is why some of my work
Speaker 2: around sporting clubs I really enjoy is because we have
Speaker 2: to go where people are this idea that we're just
Speaker 2: going to get people to change their behavior in an
Speaker 2: echo chamber at a conference or an echo chamber of
Speaker 2: online chatter. That's really important, don't get me wrong, And
Speaker 2: I participate in it actively because that's where I learn things,
Speaker 2: you know, it's where you learn the statistics, that's where
Speaker 2: you learn what's going on. But you can't change hearts
Speaker 2: and minds and behavior and actions or the future just
Speaker 2: in one room at a summer. It has to infiltrate
Speaker 2: into the outside world. And that's where like these settings
Speaker 2: are so important. Sport cosmetics retail everywhere you know that
Speaker 2: people that people across Australia go, And it just made
Speaker 2: sense to do it at a university as well, because
Speaker 2: people are concarding to come of age, they're strying to
Speaker 2: figure out have those early interactions and if we embedded
Speaker 2: at that point, you know, and if the scope to
Speaker 2: do it in high schools in the future, it's just
Speaker 2: such important, crucial work and I think there's a real
Speaker 2: opportunity there and I'm really grateful that Loreal are a
Speaker 2: brand that wanted to back it, because a lot of
Speaker 2: there are a lot of brands that have the ability
Speaker 2: to do something like that, but many of them are
Speaker 2: too scared. And I think it's part of what you
Speaker 2: said before, cancel culture, fear of doing something wrong, right,
Speaker 2: But you know, there's that saying like the worst course
Speaker 2: of action is in action, and that's where we are
Speaker 2: with three harassment, that doing nothing is worse than trying
Speaker 2: to do the right thing to safely intervene. And so
Speaker 2: this is such an easy thing to do. And I'd
Speaker 2: love for all of your listeners, Sarah, to jump online
Speaker 2: at the Loreal stand Up website and if you if
Speaker 2: you can pop the links in the show notes, like
Speaker 2: get people doing that training online, because I know how
Speaker 2: much you care about this issue as well, and we
Speaker 2: want a safer future. Like I just think of all
Speaker 2: the women I know who are you know, our age
Speaker 2: you included, who have had awful experiences either in their
Speaker 2: present or their past, you know, and definitely in their past.
Speaker 2: Who I don't want that to happen to young girls
Speaker 2: and young women now. I don't want them to go
Speaker 2: through the same shit. As well as that, I don't
Speaker 2: want young men in particular to think that's the only
Speaker 2: model available to them, Like I really want young men
Speaker 2: to think, hey, there are other ways to assert my masculinity,
Speaker 2: to show that I am a man in this world
Speaker 2: where it's complicated and tricky and who knows what being
Speaker 2: a real man is anymore? And I want to be
Speaker 2: able to feel a sense of my masculine identity in
Speaker 2: a way that doesn't diminish the experience of other people.
Speaker 2: And I'm very much a work in progress in that,
Speaker 2: so I don't come to anyone from a position of
Speaker 2: being like I know everything. It's more like, hey, let's
Speaker 2: all learn together on the journey. And I think lorel
Speaker 2: supporting this program we Plan International Australia and the stand
Speaker 2: Up against three harassment training is such a crucial part
Speaker 2: of all of that.
Speaker 1: I think they really are one of those brands that
Speaker 1: you know, they're at their core it's a product business
Speaker 1: that does incredible things with the product speaker to themselves,
Speaker 1: but they are consistently doing campaigns like this that are
Speaker 1: well outside the necessary scope before they do. But you know,
Speaker 1: I've had the joy as well and privilege of being
Speaker 1: associated with like the for Women in Science campaign that's
Speaker 1: giving scholarships to female scientists that it's the only scholarship
Speaker 1: in the world that they're allowed to use on childcare,
Speaker 1: which is a huge barrier to like females empowerment in science.
Speaker 1: Like they're covering so many areas that are not just
Speaker 1: you know, it's I think the phrase they're using is
Speaker 1: beauty that moves the world, which is, yeah, there's beauty
Speaker 1: as like this entry level to the company, but they
Speaker 1: use that massive global impact for other causes. That's what
Speaker 1: makes me really excited to be an ambassador when you
Speaker 1: get to do stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I love that there's there's something from that right around
Speaker 2: beauty that moves the world. I love that it's permission
Speaker 2: to like and do and care about certain things, you know,
Speaker 2: these things that are considered frivolous, like beauty and fashion
Speaker 2: and aesthetic, you know values. Sometimes people can look at
Speaker 2: that and go, oh, but they're just x y Z.
Speaker 2: It's just fashion or it's just this, but that's an
Speaker 2: important part of our identities and our sense of belonging
Speaker 2: and often community, right.
Speaker 1: And confidence which is a huge thing.
Speaker 2: And confidence. Yeah, for years I used to like post
Speaker 2: on a men's where like style website right like and
Speaker 2: a developed sense of community.
Speaker 1: I found those pictures.
Speaker 2: Oh well, I didn't post many pictures, so but I
Speaker 2: know I've got like one of my one of my
Speaker 2: best friends in Sydney is actually a guy I met
Speaker 2: through that that community, right, And I think it's so
Speaker 2: like powerful these spaces and we can kind of create
Speaker 2: a sense of belonging and change from things that can
Speaker 2: sometimes feel frivolous. And I will say it's well. One
Speaker 2: of the other reasons for Laurel is that I absolutely
Speaker 2: love Ralph Lauren the man. I'm just perennially obsessed with
Speaker 2: Ralph Lauren and their beauty products are all under the
Speaker 2: Laureal umbrella. And so when they approached me, I was like, yes,
Speaker 2: I love Ralph Lauren. Immediately, Yes, immediately, yes, questions later, immediately, yes, yes, right,
Speaker 2: I agree with what you're saying. I think it's such
Speaker 2: a pertinent and a student observation by you. Right, Like
Speaker 2: beauty that moves the world, there's ways to create change
Speaker 2: that exist within the systems that are around us. Like
Speaker 2: as much as everything we could just you know, start
Speaker 2: all over again, Well we can't. It's too late for that.
Speaker 2: So let's do good with what we have. And I
Speaker 2: think they're doing that, And my hope is that in
Speaker 2: coming months and years we can take it and be
Speaker 2: something that's even bigger and bolder and more ambitious. And
Speaker 2: there's certainly the appetite for it as well as the
Speaker 2: need to do it right. There is a real kind
Speaker 2: of need in Australia for this, when seventy eight percent
Speaker 2: of women experienced tree harassment, and the other part of
Speaker 2: that is seventy a percent of women are experiencing it,
Speaker 2: what percentage of other people are perpetrating it? And how
Speaker 2: do we support them so they.
Speaker 1: Don't Yes, yes, oh my gosh. Absolutely. And I think
Speaker 1: this is one of the wonderful things about your platform
Speaker 1: and the audience that you have now is that you
Speaker 1: do use it to educate people about stats that would
Speaker 1: shock most Australians, I think, to even think we come
Speaker 1: close to that level of statistic. But also you also,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned, circling right back to the beginning you
Speaker 1: got range. You also taught most of us that it's
Speaker 1: Ralph Lauren, not Ralph LAURENZ.
Speaker 2: Did you not know that?
Speaker 1: I knew. I only knew because of working with Loril.
Speaker 1: But when I saw it, I was like, that's going
Speaker 1: to break the internet. It's going to break the internet.
Speaker 2: If you take anything from this, it's that I think
Speaker 2: I'm obligated out of tractually. No, I don't, actually so
Speaker 2: those degrees on the wall are real. I don't think
Speaker 2: I'm contractually obligated to say this. I just say it
Speaker 2: because I feel such a deep connection do the training.
Speaker 2: That's what that's the first week. But I will say
Speaker 2: Ralph Lauren, it is Ralph Lauren. It is not Ralph Lauren,
Speaker 2: and it is because that's not his real name. Ralph
Speaker 2: Lauren's real name is Ralph Liftschitz, and he's stop it.
Speaker 1: I did not know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's his real name. His real name is Ralph
Speaker 2: Liftschitz and he was born in the Bronx in New
Speaker 2: York in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: That's right. I did know that there was like a
Speaker 1: woman's name Lauren.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and his and his brother his parents were Jewish
Speaker 2: migrants to the United States, and his brother said that
Speaker 2: they received so much discrimination for his name that one
Speaker 2: day he said, hey, I want to change my name
Speaker 2: to his two brother he has two brothers, and he's like,
Speaker 2: do you want to also change your name? And Ralph was,
Speaker 2: I think hesitant at first, and then went, nah, I'll
Speaker 2: go with you. We'll all just adopt Ralph Lauren. And
Speaker 2: that's where that's where it started, right, they changed their name.
Speaker 2: And so he's said on record, like when people asked
Speaker 2: how do you pronounce it, he says, like the.
Speaker 1: Girl's first name, yeah, Lauren.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so and they did sound more American. What I love, right,
Speaker 2: is that he because I love that he took the idea, right,
Speaker 2: he's a Jewish migrant, and yet people assume that like
Speaker 2: he's got this like old world country club kind of ancestry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no migrant.
Speaker 2: Nah. He came from a very modest, working class family
Speaker 2: who had this amazing work ethic and this sense of
Speaker 2: like beauty. And there's a documentary about his life called
Speaker 2: Very Ralph, and it's fantastic because it goes to him
Speaker 2: talking about and one of the things he said, and
Speaker 2: this is what I loved, right, is that he goes
Speaker 2: people look at our clothes and they know immediately that
Speaker 2: it's Ralph Lauren. But it's not the same every year.
Speaker 2: So it's finding the way to stay on brand and
Speaker 2: on theme, but do something new every year, right, And
Speaker 2: I was like, that is a challenge, right, because you've
Speaker 2: got to stay within a parameter. And so sort of
Speaker 2: like the the mass respect that he's cultivated with different
Speaker 2: people from different backgrounds, you know, like hip hop artists
Speaker 2: loving his stuff as well as like the well to
Speaker 2: do of English aristocracy, Like he's sort of you know,
Speaker 2: you talk about Range, Ralf Florence.
Speaker 1: He got Range, and Rolf Laurence.
Speaker 2: Got brands as well. Right, I'm getting way off topic.
Speaker 2: Here is me talking about my lover. I love it
Speaker 2: me plugging stuff. So eventually Ralphlallen will send me like
Speaker 2: one thing.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make sure this gets in his ears,
Speaker 1: just for your future career trajectory.
Speaker 2: I just I admire him so much and particularly you know,
Speaker 2: if you think about brands like Ralph Lauren is a
Speaker 2: brand making a statement around the Black Lives Matter movement.
Speaker 2: A lot of brands didn't know what to do, and
Speaker 2: Ralph Lauren was like, hey, this is a basic, fundamental
Speaker 2: human rights issue. We're going all out and we're going
Speaker 2: to back it and give money and donate. And I'm like, wow,
Speaker 2: that's cool, Like and it's amazing how and other organizations
Speaker 2: struggle with knowing whether to do this, and to their credit, Laureal,
Speaker 2: we're like, this is a contenous issue, but this is affecting,
Speaker 2: you know, seventy percent of our market. Right, let's minimum,
Speaker 2: let's talk about it. Let's go out there and actually
Speaker 2: be proactive. And I love that. I love when anyone
Speaker 2: is just like willing to go and put themselves out there,
Speaker 2: and for me, like, that's how my advocacy journey started, right.
Speaker 2: No one knew who I was in that way, but
Speaker 2: my sister was murdered and I was like, damn, we're
Speaker 2: going to say something about it and I'm going to
Speaker 2: make something from it. So I think Loriola doing some
Speaker 2: amazing work and it's great to be partnered with them,
Speaker 2: and it's great that you're involved across the brand, across everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really are such a wonderful brand. It is
Speaker 1: such a privilege, especially to be yeah, alongside people like you.
Speaker 2: If we can, sereh get you on one of our
Speaker 2: panels in the future, I love that it.
Speaker 1: Would be a privilege. Well, Tarung, I've literally covered maybe
Speaker 1: two percent of what I wanted to talk to you
Speaker 1: about today, because there's just so much. There's just so
Speaker 1: much we could talk about. You have such an incredible story.
Speaker 1: You are so eloquent and articulate in the things that
Speaker 1: you advocate for. We are so very lucky to have
Speaker 1: a voice like yours amplifying things that are really really
Speaker 1: important that that don't honestly still probably don't get enough airtime.
Speaker 1: But you are doing a huge amount to change that
Speaker 1: and educate us all in ways that I think we
Speaker 1: all can learn and progress together. So I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: for you for your time, how patient you were in
Speaker 1: making this happen. And we've got to do this again
Speaker 1: because again, like I feel like I covered like chapter
Speaker 1: one of one hundred, we should do like a full series,
Speaker 1: just like Turung chapter one to Urung chapter two.
Speaker 2: I would be honestly, you just let me know when
Speaker 2: i'd be honored and thrilled. It's been a real joy.
Speaker 2: And as I said that, I was like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: actually been a real joy. It's been a treat and
Speaker 2: definitely the highlight of my day today. And for any
Speaker 2: of your listeners that are stuck around this long, thank
Speaker 2: you for letting me go along your walk or whatever
Speaker 2: you're doing, you're tripping the car wherever you listen to
Speaker 2: this podcast, because I'm just really grateful right that people
Speaker 2: actually care enough to listen to things that I have
Speaker 2: to say, because there's enough amazing content out there these
Speaker 2: days that you could easily just avoid mine. So thank
Speaker 2: you so so much, Sarah, and thank you to everyone
Speaker 2: for listening. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you have an amazing weekend, and I'll pop
Speaker 1: the links in the show notes to the campaign and
Speaker 1: all your platforms so people know where to find you.
Speaker 2: Amazing Thanks Sarah.
Speaker 1: So parts two, three, and beyond of this chat are
Speaker 1: sure to come in the future. I really finish this
Speaker 1: one feeling like I barely asked anything on my list
Speaker 1: because there was just so much to cover. Teung is
Speaker 1: so generous in his vulnerability and openness, and if you
Speaker 1: enjoyed listening along, please share the episode and shower him
Speaker 1: with the neighborhood appreciation tagging at Tung Choula to help
Speaker 1: keep spreading his amazing work. I'll include links in the
Speaker 1: show notes as I mentioned, to some mental health and
Speaker 1: other important resources should any of you feel the need
Speaker 1: to reach out at any time. Never hesitate. It is
Speaker 1: a strength, not a weakness. Look after yourselves and each other,
Speaker 1: and we will be back next week with more yeays
Speaker 1: of our lives with ache, and until then, I hope
Speaker 1: you are seizing your ya