Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 1: used by the world's most successful people to get so
Speaker 1: much out of their day.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imba.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work date.
Speaker 1: I am on a little break from How I Work
Speaker 1: for a few weeks, and so I'm using this time
Speaker 1: to share some of my favorite interviews that I've conducted
Speaker 1: over the last two and a half years of doing
Speaker 1: this podcast.
Speaker 2: So I'm very excited to share with.
Speaker 1: You my chat with cyantaid Si is a good friend
Speaker 1: of mine and is also one of Australia's most successful entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: having co founded Invato in two thousand and six and
Speaker 1: growing it to being valued at over one billion dollars.
Speaker 1: More recently, she tried her hand at chocolate because why not,
Speaker 1: and hey, Tiger is now one of Australia's fastest growing
Speaker 1: purpose driven brands, and you know, spare time. She recently
Speaker 1: launched Milkshake, which allows users to make a free website
Speaker 1: for their Instagram profile or on their phone instantly. So
Speaker 1: this interview was actually conducted in front of a live
Speaker 1: audience in Melbourne, and SI just shares so generously about
Speaker 1: how she works and some of the really big challenges
Speaker 1: that she's overcome in her life as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: And before I head to SI, I.
Speaker 1: Would also just want to say thank you to everyone
Speaker 1: that has left a review for how I work.
Speaker 3: It is super generous of you.
Speaker 1: If you are enjoying how I work and have a
Speaker 1: left review, I would be so grateful if you did so.
Speaker 2: It's just really truly.
Speaker 1: Wonderful getting feedback from listeners that really brings a huge
Speaker 1: smile to my face. So thank you if you've done that,
Speaker 1: and thank you if you plan to do that today.
Speaker 1: So let's head on over to SI to hear about
Speaker 1: how she works.
Speaker 2: SOI welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Amantha.
Speaker 2: Where I do want to start is not where i'd
Speaker 2: plan to start.
Speaker 1: But before we were about to kick on and get started,
Speaker 1: you told me that you'd like recently dramatically cut down
Speaker 1: the amount of time that you're spending on your phone.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me like what you were spending and
Speaker 1: what you're now spending.
Speaker 3: So I was.
Speaker 4: Probably spending about four hours a day and it was
Speaker 4: getting to the point where it was a little bit manic.
Speaker 4: I do have a tendency towards intensity, surprisingly enough, and
Speaker 4: I found that I was just constantly, you know, checking email, Shopify, Instagram,
Speaker 4: what else, like a whole range of different sort of
Speaker 4: different apps and pieces of data which I wasn't actually
Speaker 4: getting a huge amount out of.
Speaker 3: And it was becoming quite a destructive habit.
Speaker 4: And one of the things that you should know is
Speaker 4: that Amantha and I are actually part of a peer
Speaker 4: mentoring group together, and so I've known each other for
Speaker 4: quite some time.
Speaker 3: And one day Amantha's mother came in and she.
Speaker 4: Is a clinical psychologist, is that correct, And one of
Speaker 4: her areas of speciality is hypnotism. I'd never been hypnotized before.
Speaker 4: I am a control freak, so out of everyone in
Speaker 4: the room, I was exceptionally uncomfortable with this and actually said.
Speaker 3: I'm very uncomfortable, but I'm going to try anyway, because
Speaker 3: she was so lovely.
Speaker 4: And I trust and trust her, and she was Amantha's mum,
Speaker 4: and it was the it was really intense. I found
Speaker 4: that just after being hypnotized for five minutes, I went
Speaker 4: away and I went all the way to work afterwards,
Speaker 4: I didn't pick up my phone once, and I was
Speaker 4: in really in the present moment, and I realized I
Speaker 4: think I'd been veering a little bit too much towards
Speaker 4: kind of.
Speaker 2: Fight or flight.
Speaker 3: Adrenaline filled.
Speaker 4: That way of being, and I thought, Okay, it'll be
Speaker 4: interesting experiment. I tend to like to experiment on myself
Speaker 4: a little bit in harmless ways, but you know.
Speaker 3: To see what to see what effect things will have.
Speaker 4: And I thought, well, if I minimize my phone used
Speaker 4: for a little while, what effect is that going to
Speaker 4: have on me? And I've probably gone down to an
Speaker 4: average of about fifteen minutes a day.
Speaker 1: Fifteen minutes that that is nothing like out of interest?
Speaker 2: What is consuming that fifteen minutes phone calls?
Speaker 3: Honestly?
Speaker 2: Wow, So just overnight you just do you know, I
Speaker 2: scaled down.
Speaker 4: I mean, that experience with your mum was so intense
Speaker 4: that I you know, and I have to say, you know, prior,
Speaker 4: as you know, I was quite not critical of hypnotism,
Speaker 4: but I didn't understand it. And I haven't been hypnotized since.
Speaker 3: So this was this one experience that I'm drawing on.
Speaker 2: But I was just like, wow, this was really intense.
Speaker 4: But the difference in me made me realize that I
Speaker 4: clearly was not present enough prior to this. So really
Speaker 4: it's kind of more about being, you know, trying to
Speaker 4: be in the present moment, I think, which is important
Speaker 4: for me. I tend to look ahead all the time.
Speaker 1: And did you change anything on your phone to make
Speaker 1: it less addictive?
Speaker 4: I tend to take apps off my phone, so I've
Speaker 4: you know, I'll wait until I'm on Wi Fi before
Speaker 4: I kind of, you know, load something back on again.
Speaker 3: But I will take.
Speaker 4: Off quite a few of the different apps that I
Speaker 4: have and then load them back on when I actually
Speaker 4: need them, as opposed to having them all the time,
Speaker 4: because if they're there, I will check them compulsively.
Speaker 2: That that's a great trick.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've heard people do a slightly less extreme
Speaker 1: where they log themselves out of say social media apps,
Speaker 1: for example, but you'll actually delete them.
Speaker 2: I delete it, but I don't.
Speaker 4: I really need to do it to the most extreme
Speaker 4: because if I'm just not logged in Holy.
Speaker 2: Life, ah just think it's easy.
Speaker 4: I need to kind of train myself out of it.
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, it's all about habit as you.
Speaker 1: Know, fantastic and so what are you now doing with
Speaker 1: the three hours and forty five minutes that you're no
Speaker 1: longer consumed on your phone.
Speaker 4: So for a long time, I've been aware that when
Speaker 4: I'm constantly surrounded by input, when I'm constantly consuming.
Speaker 3: Output, becomes a lot more difficult for me.
Speaker 4: I'm aware that I need to have plenty of time
Speaker 4: for output in order to do good work. So when
Speaker 4: I'm doing good, useful work, it's actually quite creative, and
Speaker 4: that means I need time and I need space. So honestly,
Speaker 4: I think, just you know, it's things like on the
Speaker 4: way in, not staring at my email and my phone
Speaker 4: the whole time, but instead looking around me.
Speaker 3: It's really really simple things.
Speaker 4: The interesting thing is is that I find that I'm
Speaker 4: more effective because I'm giving my brain time to figure
Speaker 4: things out.
Speaker 3: Whereas if I'm constantly looking at.
Speaker 4: And kind of external noise, I'm not nearly as effective
Speaker 4: in that way.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of something that that the previous guests
Speaker 1: said to me, who were actually just talking about before.
Speaker 1: Professor Adam Alter, who studied digital addiction, and he did
Speaker 1: this experiment where he gets a lot of ideas for
Speaker 1: research studies for example, that he wants to conduct and
Speaker 1: books that he wants to write, and in his notebook
Speaker 1: he writes his ideas, and any idea that comes when
Speaker 1: he's in a state of boredom, let's say, so, not.
Speaker 2: Consuming stimulus, he asterixes them. And what he found when.
Speaker 1: You look back at it is all the ideas that
Speaker 1: came to him in a state of not consuming stimulus he.
Speaker 2: Thought were far better, which is really interesting.
Speaker 3: So it's really.
Speaker 1: About just being present and not sort of constantly in
Speaker 1: putting stimulus into your brain.
Speaker 4: I think so, And I think that my tendency, you know,
Speaker 4: I tend to be very focused on results, and I
Speaker 4: think that sometimes I get into the habit of thinking
Speaker 4: that I need to be like a machine.
Speaker 3: So in tech.
Speaker 4: There's quite a bit of you know stuff about you know, biohacking,
Speaker 4: and I am going to document every single moment of
Speaker 4: the day and what I spend it on to see
Speaker 4: if I'm spending it on the optimum amount, you know,
Speaker 4: the optimum things.
Speaker 3: And it's really intense, and.
Speaker 4: It's not very nurturing, to be totally honest, it's not
Speaker 4: nurturing at all.
Speaker 3: And I think for a long time.
Speaker 4: I really veered that way, I'm going to become as
Speaker 4: efficient as possible and as effective as possible. And again,
Speaker 4: I do want to be efficient and effective, but I
Speaker 4: don't think it's also about the process.
Speaker 3: It's also about enjoying and.
Speaker 4: Being present in the process of what you do, and
Speaker 4: so reading things like you know, there's a book I'm
Speaker 4: reading at the moment which is called Daily Rituals, and
Speaker 4: it's basically the rituals of incredible writers, composers, artists, and
Speaker 4: they're talking about how they spend their day. So basically
Speaker 4: their day is documented out and a consistency amongst them
Speaker 4: is that there's a lot of time. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of time where maybe you know, they're not you know,
Speaker 4: it's not output, it's just being still and letting themselves process.
Speaker 4: And I think that you know anything that you're doing
Speaker 4: which is really hard, and startups are really hard, very entire,
Speaker 4: very tiring, very mentally taxing. And that's not just true
Speaker 4: of me, that's true of anyone that works in a startup.
Speaker 4: It's exhausting and you need time, time to process and
Speaker 4: time to time to let the good things come out
Speaker 4: because it is about being creative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting book that one, and I want
Speaker 1: to know in your life, what rituals do you have
Speaker 1: that you found serve you well, whether they be daily, weekly, fortnightly,
Speaker 1: what does that look like for you?
Speaker 4: I think the so in terms of yearly ritual, my
Speaker 4: family and I we play a game. My husband and
Speaker 4: I started doing it when we first got marri years ago,
Speaker 4: and it was this is the year that on New
Speaker 4: Year's Day. So I personally hate New Year's Eve. I
Speaker 4: think there's too much pressure. I'd write, go a bit
Speaker 4: early and then wake up early, you know, the following
Speaker 4: day on Year's Day, and go, Okay, what's this new
Speaker 4: year going to be? So we set up this tradition,
Speaker 4: which is this is the year that where we just
Speaker 4: pingpong back and forth and talk about all the things
Speaker 4: that happened in the past year, and then we switch
Speaker 4: to all the things that we want for the new year,
Speaker 4: and then we write them down. And it's not, well,
Speaker 4: I should, that doesn't work for me. I should has
Speaker 4: never worked for me. I want is really effective for me.
Speaker 4: And so that time for kind of it's a great
Speaker 4: time in terms of blue sky.
Speaker 3: Thinking to go all right, you know, if everything's on.
Speaker 4: The table, what is it that I actually want for
Speaker 4: this coming year, what is interesting to me so that
Speaker 4: I always really enjoy.
Speaker 3: And then probably every quarter I try.
Speaker 4: And reflect on those things and you know, are they relevant,
Speaker 4: are they still relevant?
Speaker 3: Are they still exciting? How far can I come? But
Speaker 3: again not.
Speaker 4: About have I succeeded or failed, because in the past.
Speaker 3: My self talk has been quite very critical.
Speaker 4: I think most people who are high achieving start out
Speaker 4: with their self.
Speaker 3: Talk being very critical.
Speaker 4: But you know, what is it that's kind of you know,
Speaker 4: what's exciting, what's interesting?
Speaker 3: If I want to live a big life, what is
Speaker 3: it that I'm going to be doing again?
Speaker 4: I you know, probably every morning I read either you know,
Speaker 4: something like Daily Rituals just one or you know, Tribe
Speaker 4: of Mentors just one chapter, and I just try and like,
Speaker 4: let let my day be a reflection of anything that
Speaker 4: resonated with me during during that during that reading session,
Speaker 4: and generally it's like five minutes. It's really not a
Speaker 4: long time. And I think the only other thing is
Speaker 4: ensuring again that I have time to be still and
Speaker 4: to really think and not just be running from one
Speaker 4: thing to the next, and that requires constant readjustment. I'm
Speaker 4: constantly going, oh, I've pushed.
Speaker 3: It too far.
Speaker 4: I don't have any time because it is very easy
Speaker 4: for me to completely.
Speaker 3: Fill my time up and take it back to Okay, well,
Speaker 3: where am.
Speaker 4: I personally providing value? What value do I provide in
Speaker 4: this equation to my team, to this business and other
Speaker 4: than that, I'm going to get my nose out of
Speaker 4: it and let the very competent people that I work
Speaker 4: with do what they're doing. And the book Essentialism was
Speaker 4: very helpful with that.
Speaker 2: Such a good book. How do you catch yourself?
Speaker 1: Like when when you have kind of gone too far
Speaker 1: and in one direction? If you like, like, do you
Speaker 1: have something that you do regularly to kind of go
Speaker 1: where am I at?
Speaker 2: Or is it just a feeling that you get?
Speaker 4: I tend it really is about a feeling that I get.
Speaker 4: So I know that if if I'm going into meetings
Speaker 4: and I'm not mentally prepared, I haven't thought through what
Speaker 4: is that you know I need to be getting out
Speaker 4: of them? If I feel rushed, then those are generally,
Speaker 4: you know, good signals to me that I need to
Speaker 4: pull back and have a look and consider. And I
Speaker 4: think also, you know, being aware, I've become a lot
Speaker 4: more aware like things like this. You know, I'm actually
Speaker 4: I'm an introvert who presents as an extrovert. It's it's
Speaker 4: gonna be one of those things that I'm going, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna need to, you know, pull back and be.
Speaker 3: A little bit quieter for the rest of the day
Speaker 3: after this, that's okay, like getting to know myself better.
Speaker 4: Whereas if it's a series of internal meetings, I can
Speaker 4: do that all day, no problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, how how do you function?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: As I can completely relate to that, by the way,
Speaker 1: like an introvert kind of trying to do extroverted things
Speaker 1: during the.
Speaker 2: Day, How how does that work for you?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: How how I guess, like, particularly, do you structure a
Speaker 1: day even if you know that there is going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, something like this, which is very public and
Speaker 1: can be quite tiring for an introvert.
Speaker 2: How have you thought about today? For example?
Speaker 4: I think that for me, what makes sense is taking
Speaker 4: the pressure off and going, Okay, I'm going to go
Speaker 4: in here and I'm just going to try and be useful.
Speaker 3: So my only.
Speaker 4: Job is to try and say something in this hour
Speaker 4: or whoever long we've got that You go, oh, that
Speaker 4: was helpful, great, that was nice to hear. Oh, that
Speaker 4: helped me do my thing, whatever it might be. Otherwise,
Speaker 4: if I try and set myself up in my mind
Speaker 4: as trying to achieve these ten different purposes and trying
Speaker 4: to spook whatever it is that I'm doing at the moment,
Speaker 4: it's too stressful for me and it doesn't feel honest anyway.
Speaker 4: So I think there's that taking the pressure off myself.
Speaker 4: But also I think just knowing, all right, if I
Speaker 4: need to, I can head home after this, that's okay.
Speaker 3: I can head home and work from home, and that's okay.
Speaker 4: It's one of the reasons why you know, I implement
Speaker 4: flex work wherever I can in my businesses because I
Speaker 4: know that sometimes I need to go home and you know,
Speaker 4: hibernate a little bit, and that's you know, that's okay.
Speaker 3: We're human.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: I like what you're doing in the morning in terms
Speaker 1: of just getting that five minutes to read. Can you
Speaker 1: think of like an example of something that like you
Speaker 1: have taken from your morning reading and how that played
Speaker 1: out during the day, or how you kind of reflected
Speaker 1: on that during the day.
Speaker 4: Recently, in Tribe of Mentors, I cannot remember his name, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: but he is an incredible chef, and he was talking
Speaker 4: about trying to divide up his day into all his
Speaker 4: time into a third for his work, a third for himself,
Speaker 4: and a third for his family.
Speaker 3: I don't manage to do that at all.
Speaker 4: So that was fascinating to me to look at somebody
Speaker 4: who's one of the most successful chefs in the world
Speaker 4: and say he has managed to achieve that, and he
Speaker 4: spends a third of his time for himself.
Speaker 3: What does that actually look like?
Speaker 4: And consider you know, I've had people multiple times say
Speaker 4: to me, so, what do you your hobbies?
Speaker 3: And I said, I don't really have a hobby.
Speaker 4: I I you know, I work, and I love my work,
Speaker 4: and I love the people that I work with. And
Speaker 4: then I, you know, spend time with my kids and
Speaker 4: my husband, and those are the things that I do.
Speaker 4: And I'm actually deeply boring. So even to consider I.
Speaker 3: Am I like, totally honestly, to even consider what would
Speaker 3: it look like if.
Speaker 4: I spent a third of my time for me what
Speaker 4: would I do? Is an interesting mental exercise. So I
Speaker 4: feel like I'm constantly kind of I think one of
Speaker 4: the things about being an entrepreneur and having a startup
Speaker 4: is that you you kind of you develop very very quickly,
Speaker 4: and it you know, self development is very very important
Speaker 4: because it's very challenging.
Speaker 2: So what do you what else do you.
Speaker 1: Do to to I guess constantly be learning and developing yourself.
Speaker 4: I think that I just I try and surround myself
Speaker 4: with people that I can learn from. Quite honestly, I
Speaker 4: find that you know, if you if you say to me,
Speaker 4: okase I read a book about how to run effective meetings,
Speaker 4: I'll go, oh my goodness. I just I can't internalize it.
Speaker 4: Whereas if I'm inspired by.
Speaker 3: Somebody who runs really effective meetings, oh go great. I
Speaker 3: just want to model you.
Speaker 4: I'm very good at modeling, not very good at kind
Speaker 4: of pulling things from written material. So you know, I generally, like,
Speaker 4: you know, one of those things that I'll surround myself,
Speaker 4: including the people that work with me, with people that
Speaker 4: I feel like I can learn from you.
Speaker 3: I just want to be around you. I want to
Speaker 3: watch you.
Speaker 4: It's the same with my personal trainer, it's the same
Speaker 4: with like, I'm constantly intuitively.
Speaker 3: Looking for people that I can learn from. And that's
Speaker 3: what that's what works for me.
Speaker 1: Is that something that you're looking foreign in recruitment because
Speaker 1: Vado's got like three four hundred people six hundred now,
Speaker 1: six hundred now, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you're obviously growing to other businesses, and I
Speaker 1: imagine you must have interviewed like hundreds thousands of people.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'd say probably more to the hundreds. To the hundreds,
Speaker 4: I'm guessing, but yeah, you know, solid hundreds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because I imagine like part of that is,
Speaker 1: you know, can you learn from this person? But I'm curious,
Speaker 1: do you like that in that time that is a
Speaker 1: huge amount of experience. Do you have go to questions
Speaker 1: things that you're looking for to identify if someone is
Speaker 1: going to be like someone that you can learn from
Speaker 1: or someone that's going to be great in the business.
Speaker 4: Look, generally speaking, you know, I actually try and source people,
Speaker 4: find people who aren't looking for a job, people who
Speaker 4: I see who are doing an incredible job at what
Speaker 4: they're doing, and often probably a bit you know, like
Speaker 4: just and the thing I know about them is that
Speaker 4: they're going to do something incredible and that there there's
Speaker 4: just they're just waiting for the space to do that.
Speaker 4: And then I slowly convince them I slowly convince them
Speaker 4: that they should leave what they're doing and they should
Speaker 4: come and work with me instead. And I'm honestly like
Speaker 4: I do it. Sometimes I do it really quickly. So
Speaker 4: sometimes I'll just sit down and have lunch with you
Speaker 4: and go, you know what, you should leave what you're
Speaker 4: doing and you.
Speaker 3: Should just come and work with me.
Speaker 4: And then if they say, and then if they're considering it,
Speaker 4: we have a serious conversation.
Speaker 3: And if they're not, I'll go, yep, it'd be really good.
Speaker 3: And then I just start like gently.
Speaker 4: Like introducing it like as a joke, but not as
Speaker 4: a joke until it infects their minds.
Speaker 3: And then I've been I've got a pretty good success
Speaker 3: right with it.
Speaker 4: And I think my goal is to get people who,
Speaker 4: you know, all they need is the space.
Speaker 3: And the permission to do amazing work.
Speaker 2: How do you find those people? Like, how do you know?
Speaker 2: Because this is where I struggle with the idea of
Speaker 2: you know, essentially what we're talking about is poaching. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what it is so like because I've tried this for
Speaker 2: inventium and it's and.
Speaker 1: I find it really hard because often I'm looking at
Speaker 1: someone on paper or I'm you know, maybe like reading
Speaker 1: about them in I don't know, different sources, and it's
Speaker 1: just like that can often be quite different from who
Speaker 1: the person is, So how are you identifying them in
Speaker 1: the first place? Who you're going to invest time in,
Speaker 1: you know, wining and dining.
Speaker 3: I think people who are really just really passionate and
Speaker 3: obsessive about what they do. And oftentimes I think.
Speaker 4: Where I can add value is because I've never been
Speaker 4: hugely confident. I've always been on shore of my capacity.
Speaker 4: Oftentimes I think that where I can add value is
Speaker 4: just giving them permission to proceed. So it's hard for
Speaker 4: me to explain because I think, honestly, it's one of
Speaker 4: those things.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things.
Speaker 4: I'm not strong at, but I'm really good at reading
Speaker 4: people and I you know, and I'm good at figuring
Speaker 4: out if a person is genuinely passionate, really cares ambitious,
Speaker 4: and there's a there's a sort of you know, there's
Speaker 4: a craftsmanship or a crafts personship. I've never known how
Speaker 4: to gender neutralize that term, but there's a craftsmanship that
Speaker 4: comes through my dad always said to me, you know,
Speaker 4: you can be the best in the biers of cleaning toilets,
Speaker 4: it's about the it's about the process, and it's about
Speaker 4: the passion. It's about being proud of doing a job
Speaker 4: well done. And there've been people that I've spied at,
Speaker 4: you know, the cafe that I went to every day,
Speaker 4: and when you know what, and I'm pointing out him,
Speaker 4: this dude's a gun and he's gonna work for me
Speaker 4: one day and I don't know how, but it is.
Speaker 3: And then they do.
Speaker 4: Says with Eric, so you know, it's it's it's one
Speaker 4: of those things that I it's a it's a horrible answer,
Speaker 4: and I'm sorry, but you know, sometimes you just you
Speaker 4: just know, you just know it about people.
Speaker 3: You just see the way they are and you go.
Speaker 4: I know you're gonna you're gonna give whatever it is
Speaker 4: your best and I and I want to work with
Speaker 4: you for that reason.
Speaker 1: I love that you're finding people in cafes well jer
Speaker 1: wand lately, but still like I feel like there's something
Speaker 1: really interesting in that because I think that the average
Speaker 1: I think about the average recruiter and they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got this job to fill, so I'm going to
Speaker 1: look at people that are doing the exact same job
Speaker 1: because they're the only person that are going to be
Speaker 1: good at the job because they've done the job before.
Speaker 2: And I love how laterally.
Speaker 1: You're you're looking for people that I think would be great.
Speaker 4: Passion will outweigh experience any day, and I think, you
Speaker 4: know people who are incredibly passionate and they're smart. I
Speaker 4: think because that's how I went into Invato, literally no
Speaker 4: idea what I was doing, but I decided, oh, we're
Speaker 4: just going to figure it out. Me and my co
Speaker 4: founders were like, we will literally just figure this out.
Speaker 4: And a lot of time we reinvented the wheel and
Speaker 4: maybe it wasn't the most efficient thing, but on the
Speaker 4: other hand, that meant we did a lot of things
Speaker 4: that were different and innovative. So in some ways, getting
Speaker 4: people who aren't coming in and going oh, well, I've
Speaker 4: done this a hundred times before. The big boys are here,
Speaker 4: Now let's you know, we'll do it this way that
Speaker 4: I've done it in the past, and instead going let's
Speaker 4: critically look at what the problem is and figure out
Speaker 4: how we can solve it intelligently is really powerful.
Speaker 1: You've mentioned the confidence is something that you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like being the thing for you and I
Speaker 1: know you've spoken about imposter syndrome and being a people pleaser,
Speaker 1: and you've developed really cool strategies for overcoming that.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I think that I spent a long time
Speaker 4: feeling like I was trying to cover up, like I
Speaker 4: wasn't actually as intelligent, as capable, as good as everyone
Speaker 4: maybe thought I was. You know, I was running you know,
Speaker 4: a fifty person team at twenty seven, you know, and
Speaker 4: you know, deeply inexperienced in doing that, and had to
Speaker 4: learn on the job a lot. And my coping mechanism
Speaker 4: was to go, I've well, no, it's okay, I've got
Speaker 4: it all figured out, when in fact, I, you know,
Speaker 4: I didn't. And then we went through a period where
Speaker 4: we had a lot of very experienced people coming into
Speaker 4: the business and I kind of thought, oh, well, I'll
Speaker 4: step aside again. The big kids are here now, and
Speaker 4: they said, don't worry, we got this, we know how
Speaker 4: to do this, and then realizing that actually, oftentimes, unfortunately
Speaker 4: they didn't, and that there was something different about the
Speaker 4: way I was doing it, which was helpful and useful and.
Speaker 3: You know better in some cases.
Speaker 4: So I kind of had to figure out what it
Speaker 4: was that was going on with me. I think, especially
Speaker 4: you know the tech VC world in the US, they
Speaker 4: talk big game.
Speaker 3: I never did. What did that mean about me? You know?
Speaker 4: It was it was one of those things where I
Speaker 4: felt like I really needed to address it, and there
Speaker 4: was a few things I did, a few steps that
Speaker 4: I went through. The first thing was is that I
Speaker 4: went and looked around me to people who people that
Speaker 4: I just felt like had a really natural confidence around them.
Speaker 4: And honestly, those two people were best friend Natalie Tam
Speaker 4: and my husband, like honestly just naturally confident, you know,
Speaker 4: chilled out, you know, just I wanted to emulate the
Speaker 4: two of them, not to say that they thought they
Speaker 4: could do everything. I just I felt like they I
Speaker 4: felt like they were very effective in that they never
Speaker 4: worried about asking questions that might make them look stupid.
Speaker 4: They never worried about that, and I always worried about that.
Speaker 4: So I needed to shift my thinking from wanting to
Speaker 4: seem like the smartest person in the room to wanting
Speaker 4: to leave the room being the smartest person in the room.
Speaker 3: And it was.
Speaker 4: It meant that I needed to ask questions constantly and
Speaker 4: I needed to.
Speaker 3: Not care whether it made me look like an idiot.
Speaker 4: I think I also needed to start saying yes to
Speaker 4: opportunities even when they really scared me, because for a
Speaker 4: long time I kind of tried to avoid failing really
Speaker 4: and I had to get really used to and comfortable
Speaker 4: failing all the time and figuring out how to cope
Speaker 4: with that. And the more I do it, the less
Speaker 4: it became about me, and the more it became about
Speaker 4: the concept that I was just trying to do really
Speaker 4: hard things and that when you try and do really
Speaker 4: hard things that someone's never done before, oftentimes you fail.
Speaker 4: And honestly, like I can tell you, I'm probably about
Speaker 4: ten startups in all up, and there's a lot you
Speaker 4: haven't heard about it and don't know about.
Speaker 3: Because they didn't succeed. And close them down, I mean,
Speaker 3: all that.
Speaker 4: Didn't work, all right, Better shut that down and keep
Speaker 4: on going. And I think the final step, the final
Speaker 4: piece of the puzzle for me. And again it's making
Speaker 4: it sound like I've got this completely figured out, which
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 3: But the most the most effective thing I did overall.
Speaker 4: Was I got really clear about where I was weak
Speaker 4: and where I was strong. So I think you know
Speaker 4: when you have imposter syndrome. And I'm basing this anecdotally
Speaker 4: on other people that I've spoken to, which I think
Speaker 4: is a fairly human universal issue.
Speaker 3: The more and more time that goes on, I believe.
Speaker 4: That one tends to the whole concept of where you're
Speaker 4: weak is so scary you never look that way. And
Speaker 4: I think I had this idea in my mind that
Speaker 4: I needed to be incredibly strong.
Speaker 3: In all areas.
Speaker 4: Again, I had to be this machine who was as
Speaker 4: right brained as I was left brained, and you know,
Speaker 4: and just had to know everything. And I think I
Speaker 4: realized that that was impossible, and I was setting totally
Speaker 4: unrealistic expectations on myself and again not treating myself with
Speaker 4: a great deal of compassion.
Speaker 3: And I decided that I needed to have.
Speaker 4: A really critical look, learn where I was really strong,
Speaker 4: but also learn where I was really weak. Because I
Speaker 4: can adjust for my weaknesses, I can hire. I hire
Speaker 4: out my weaknesses. Now I find people who balance me
Speaker 4: out and that can kind of adjust.
Speaker 3: I'm very left brained person, so.
Speaker 4: I need the left brains around me because they do
Speaker 4: absolutely incredible work. And I think most people, if their
Speaker 4: left brain, will hire other left brains. I need guns
Speaker 4: of right brains. I need operational guns around me. And
Speaker 4: I think once I realized where I specifically could add
Speaker 4: value and where I just needed to get out of
Speaker 4: the way and find really strong people and trust them,
Speaker 4: that really helped me. It gave me a lot of
Speaker 4: space to be really good at what I did and
Speaker 4: free me up from constantly beating myself and beating myself
Speaker 4: up and being worried about the areas where I was weak.
Speaker 1: You mentioned self talk a couple of times, and like
Speaker 1: even just before we were about to start, you know,
Speaker 1: recording or doing what we're doing, you know, you mentioned
Speaker 1: that you were feeling nervous.
Speaker 2: Okay for me to say, like, what is yourself talk before.
Speaker 1: Things like this and your approach I guess to overcoming
Speaker 1: the nerves that you might be feeling, which I must
Speaker 1: say shocks me because it's.
Speaker 2: Like you got this, like you're awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4: That I genuinely just I wouldn't say that I get
Speaker 4: downright nervous anymore. But I was saying to a couple
Speaker 4: of people that I know before I came in, I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, I find it. I'm finding it difficult
Speaker 4: to hold to conduct a conversation with you right now,
Speaker 4: because my head is so in like mentally preparing myself,
Speaker 4: and I think that it is for me, it's all about,
Speaker 4: all right, well, I genuinely want to be really present
Speaker 4: in this conversation because I recognize that people are giving
Speaker 4: up an hour of their time and have woken up
Speaker 4: early in the morning and everything else to be here.
Speaker 3: And it's it's.
Speaker 4: About me providing, hopefully providing some value in.
Speaker 3: This conversation and of being an interesting conversation.
Speaker 4: So I think I used to get exceptionally nervous, and
Speaker 4: a couple of things really helped. Once I was on
Speaker 4: a panel and the interviewer asked a very very complicated
Speaker 4: question and the woman next to me and I was
Speaker 4: freaking out, like I don't know how to answer this,
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, And the woman next to me said, ahh,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that question.
Speaker 3: Can you come back to me? And I thought, that's
Speaker 3: a great answer. That's a perfectly reasonable position to take.
Speaker 3: And again that's the thing about you don't need.
Speaker 4: To know everything, you don't need to be the authority
Speaker 4: on everything, which to me has been very, very freeing
Speaker 4: and very helpful. And the other thing was yet again,
Speaker 4: you know, I was about to go on stage that
Speaker 4: I was talking to you about this particular event. I
Speaker 4: was telling this story that because we were putting the
Speaker 4: mic on, and I said that I went to an
Speaker 4: AFR event which was just the whole audience was journo's,
Speaker 4: like three hundred of them, and I was wearing this big,
Speaker 4: flowy yellow dress and they said, we've got to put
Speaker 4: We've got to like they do this thing where they
Speaker 4: like hook the mic into your belts, but I didn't
Speaker 4: have a.
Speaker 3: Belt, so they were like, what are you going to
Speaker 3: do with this?
Speaker 4: So I'm like standing at the back in kind of
Speaker 4: the audio visual area, pulling up my dress and trying
Speaker 4: to stuff it into my underpants.
Speaker 2: It was like just just.
Speaker 3: Like not the most empowering way to start an event.
Speaker 4: But anyway, going up, the journalist said to me, she said, Okay,
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about I'd really like to ask
Speaker 4: you this question about what's this new ruling with listed companies.
Speaker 3: It's new ruling with listed companies.
Speaker 2: What does it mean?
Speaker 3: Invite is not a listed company.
Speaker 4: It is not an era of interest for me at all,
Speaker 4: like literally not even slightly and I could feel my
Speaker 4: heart starting to you know, boom boom boom boom, imposter syndrome.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be found out. They're going to realize I
Speaker 3: shouldn't be here. This is going to be super embarrassing.
Speaker 3: And instead I just turned around.
Speaker 4: I said to her, listen, you're very welcome to ask
Speaker 4: me that question, but I honestly have no idea. I
Speaker 4: have no idea what the answer is, so I will
Speaker 4: literally just stay on stage. I'm so sorry we're not listed.
Speaker 4: This isn't an aera of interest for me. You should
Speaker 4: ask someone else. And again, they sound like really little things,
Speaker 4: but really helpful in times, you know, in times like
Speaker 4: that where you're kind of there's pressure and you're on
Speaker 4: stage and you kind.
Speaker 3: Of you want to you want to perform and be useful.
Speaker 1: That is a goal I'm going to use that. I'm
Speaker 1: actually on a panel in a couple of hours on
Speaker 1: the other.
Speaker 2: Side of the city.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that they asked me a real josy of
Speaker 1: a question. So I got no idea.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 1: Now you're you're involved slash running three businesses, obviously less
Speaker 1: involved in Invado. I want to know structurally, what does
Speaker 1: that look like, and also mentally you compartmentalizing. How do
Speaker 1: you have three successful businesses that you're involved in.
Speaker 4: It's one of those things where I was I do
Speaker 4: try and divide up my days. So I try and
Speaker 4: divide up my days into I'm either thinking about milkshake
Speaker 4: or I'm thinking about hay Tiger. The reality is is
Speaker 4: that both of those things are growing very quickly, and
Speaker 4: oftentimes that's not the way it works out. I think
Speaker 4: that it works better when I do, you know, the
Speaker 4: things that I'm really good at, and I get out
Speaker 4: of the way everywhere else, and I just trust the
Speaker 4: people that I'm working with and they're extremely competent, so
Speaker 4: it's really it's not a stretch for me.
Speaker 3: To do it.
Speaker 4: I think that, you know, the best quote I heard
Speaker 4: in relation to this is the Game of Thrones documentary.
Speaker 3: I know I'm a total geek, but it was really really,
Speaker 3: it was really interesting.
Speaker 4: And the director of you know, a bunch of the
Speaker 4: best Game of Thrones episodes, you know, the Red Wedding
Speaker 4: and things like that, quite an eccentric, quiet guy, but clearly.
Speaker 3: An absolute genius. And they asked him how.
Speaker 4: It was working on this gigantic project and he said,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just the conductor of fine musicians. All
Speaker 4: I do is I wave my hands around, And honestly,
Speaker 4: I thought, this is the most apt description of what
Speaker 4: it is that I actually do. I think the really
Speaker 4: hard part for me is focusing in and going all right,
Speaker 4: I've got to find the musicians, these really incredible musicians.
Speaker 4: And when I was trying to find the musicians for
Speaker 4: hay Tiger, I was only focused on hay Tiger because
Speaker 4: you know, I had to find incredible people, and then
Speaker 4: I had to work really closely with them so that
Speaker 4: you know, they kind of they understood what we were doing,
Speaker 4: and they were clear, and they knew where you know,
Speaker 4: they knew where.
Speaker 3: We were heading.
Speaker 4: And then you know, honestly, it's time for me to
Speaker 4: honestly just just be there to cultivate leadership. That's actually
Speaker 4: all that I'm doing now with these people.
Speaker 3: They're very competent.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And so you said that you've kind of got this
Speaker 1: intention that the day will be around a certain business,
Speaker 1: but it's probably not in reality.
Speaker 4: Like I go to different workplaces and then I try
Speaker 4: and work mostly on the place that I'm at, but
Speaker 4: it doesn't always work out that way.
Speaker 1: You're in the tech world and have been in the
Speaker 1: tech world for like most of your adult life, are
Speaker 1: you I want to know, like, what are the the
Speaker 1: technologies like apps, gadgets and so forth that have served
Speaker 1: you best? What are the things that have made the
Speaker 1: biggest impact in your life.
Speaker 3: I've gone through a lot of periods where I've found
Speaker 3: things very, very useful. So, you know, I did.
Speaker 4: I had that app on my phone for a while
Speaker 4: which told me I was going to die five times,
Speaker 4: five times a day, which we were talking about.
Speaker 3: Basically, all it says is five times a day.
Speaker 4: It just comes up and goes just a reminder you're
Speaker 4: going to die soon.
Speaker 3: Which sounds really intense.
Speaker 4: But on the other hand, if you're trying to get
Speaker 4: back to the core of like I want to be
Speaker 4: present in my life and I want to make every
Speaker 4: moment count.
Speaker 3: Of it's really good. Just suddenly, Oh does all of
Speaker 3: this actually matter?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna enjoy it. So that was an interesting one.
Speaker 4: But again, I think, you know, having that come up
Speaker 4: five times also, once my eight year old.
Speaker 3: Could read that was the one. Yeah, you know, I did.
Speaker 3: I took that.
Speaker 4: I took that off, but it was very you know,
Speaker 4: very useful for its time. Funnily enough, the Calm app
Speaker 4: is the one app that I've had, you know, for months, years, years,
Speaker 4: like I think, basically since it launched. And that's an
Speaker 4: app that basically has a series of meditations and sleep
Speaker 4: stories and music to help you focus.
Speaker 3: Or help you do whatever it is you might do.
Speaker 4: And out of all the apps that I've ever had,
Speaker 4: I think that's the one that kind of I come
Speaker 4: back to most consistently.
Speaker 2: Hmm, that's cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I must say I do like Calm, and they
Speaker 1: have been a sponsor of the show's.
Speaker 3: Right because not why I said that, to be clear.
Speaker 1: And I've read that your your kind of go to
Speaker 1: to do list manager is Bear.
Speaker 3: Yes still the case.
Speaker 4: Yes, I still use Bear. I really live off Bear.
Speaker 4: So I am a massive list writer. In fact, my
Speaker 4: parents have often said because my parents are super cool,
Speaker 4: super hippie, intuitive, arty people, and they're always like, we
Speaker 4: don't know how we got this little girl who just
Speaker 4: loved writing lists. I had like glasses and a mono
Speaker 4: brown I organized, and you know, so I do. I
Speaker 4: find lists very very helpful and very soothing, and I
Speaker 4: think they helped me find purpose and systems.
Speaker 3: In what it is that I'm doing and help me,
Speaker 3: you know, remember things.
Speaker 4: And I've lists for everything. I've lists for you know,
Speaker 4: the funny things. My kids have said, I have lists
Speaker 4: for the place so I want to travel to. I
Speaker 4: have lists for every one on one that I have,
Speaker 4: and you know, and you know, they're all categorized and
Speaker 4: sought and it's it's pretty intense when you look at it, but.
Speaker 3: But it's useful.
Speaker 4: And I don't have a diary, and it's but I
Speaker 4: there's a book called The Art of the List, which
Speaker 4: is a French book about a woman who lives in
Speaker 4: Japan and is French and writs lists. And she just
Speaker 4: has a million different lists that you can write. It's
Speaker 4: very soothing. What are the best meals I've ever had?
Speaker 4: One of my favorite restaurants?
Speaker 3: It's great. I'll stop talking about lists now.
Speaker 1: I feel I love lists. I want to know what
Speaker 1: are the categories of list do you have? And also
Speaker 1: you like do you have shared lists as well?
Speaker 3: I don't have shared lists.
Speaker 4: Funnily enough, might be might be a great thing to do,
Speaker 4: especially with Collis. I can imagine with my husband. I
Speaker 4: think that would be really really good. My categories of lists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have work to do. I have work goals, so.
Speaker 4: You know that like the macro and the micro effectively,
Speaker 4: I have kids, I have home life, I have fun,
Speaker 4: I have travel.
Speaker 2: A fun list like what's on the funds a category
Speaker 2: which is fun.
Speaker 4: So if it's like, here are the I love cooking,
Speaker 4: here are the things that I want to bake that's
Speaker 4: in fun. That's categorized by fun and home and kids,
Speaker 4: So I feel like this isn't actually.
Speaker 2: I love getting the insight into the mine show of list.
Speaker 2: I think that's great.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 1: I do want to ask you about something that happened
Speaker 1: in late twenty sixteen where you were kind of struck
Speaker 1: with an eye ulcer and had the risk of going blind.
Speaker 1: And I want to know if you can sort of
Speaker 1: just share what happened during that time and what did
Speaker 1: you change about how you kind of rang your life.
Speaker 2: I guess after that.
Speaker 4: That was a really interesting time. So I just in
Speaker 4: twenty fifteen I won the Telstra Business Woan of the
Speaker 4: Year award, and up till and then I'd been completely
Speaker 4: under the radar, hadn't done.
Speaker 3: Any public speaking, had just been purely.
Speaker 4: Focused on Invarto and When that happened, it just went
Speaker 4: whoomph and I started doing a huge amount of public speaking,
Speaker 4: and you know, we're on a bit of a hiring kick,
Speaker 4: so it was a really useful thing to do to
Speaker 4: start talking about in Varto publicly within Australia. Because Invarto's
Speaker 4: only four percent Australian market, so there's never been any
Speaker 4: reason to do local.
Speaker 3: PR before it's all US and Europe.
Speaker 4: But from an employee brand point of view, it suddenly
Speaker 4: made sense, so did a huge amount of that stuff
Speaker 4: found it.
Speaker 3: It was a period of intense growth.
Speaker 4: I had to kind of, you know, look at a
Speaker 4: bunch of things and try and get comfortable being uncomfortable
Speaker 4: in a way that I hadn't before. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 4: the last night, so basically you do it for a
Speaker 4: full year, and then the last night before the new
Speaker 4: awards take place, you do a panel where you speak
Speaker 4: to the finalists of the following year and that morning,
Speaker 4: you know, put my contact lenses in as usual, and
Speaker 4: I come during the dad and like, my eye kind
Speaker 4: of hurts, but I'm too busy. I've been running hard,
Speaker 4: like I'd been running really really hard and arguably not
Speaker 4: really resting enough and taking good enough care of myself.
Speaker 4: And by the evening I got off the panel and
Speaker 4: I was like, my eye is killing me. I made
Speaker 4: my apologies. I went home, you know, washed my eye,
Speaker 4: I did all that stuff, and I said to my husband,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go to bed. I just my eye is
Speaker 4: too painful, and he said, all right, you know, and
Speaker 4: I thought we'd be fine in the morning. And I
Speaker 4: woke up in the morning and I thought, whoa, this hurts.
Speaker 4: And I turned around and looked at my husband and
Speaker 4: he said, oh, okay, I'm going to take you to
Speaker 4: hospital now.
Speaker 3: Because your eyes just messed up.
Speaker 4: And I had an aggressive bacterial ulsa on my corneer
Speaker 4: and so effectively it looked like kind of a milky
Speaker 4: halo was just taking over my eye very very quickly.
Speaker 4: And so we went to the hospital and the ie
Speaker 4: specialist said, look, this looks very aggressive.
Speaker 3: You might lose.
Speaker 4: And so it was one of those oh crap, what
Speaker 4: does this mean kind of moments you're thinking, can I
Speaker 4: rock an eye patch?
Speaker 3: Like you know, like really you know? And there's a
Speaker 3: story I always.
Speaker 4: Tell, but it's just I just can't not tell it
Speaker 4: because he's just such a pure human. Collis was like,
Speaker 4: don't worry, I'm sitting at the hospital. He's like, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: go get us coffees. I'll be back in five minutes.
Speaker 4: And he came back five minutes later and he said, honey,
Speaker 4: it's gonna be okay. I just went all the way
Speaker 4: to the cafe ordered and came back with one eye closed,
Speaker 4: and I was fine.
Speaker 3: And it was just one of those moments I think
Speaker 3: I'll remember on my deathbed of just what a pure,
Speaker 3: beautiful human that man is.
Speaker 4: So but I basically the way that they treated it
Speaker 4: was I had to have like antibiotic eye drops in
Speaker 4: my eye every hour, twenty.
Speaker 3: Four hours a day for quite some time, like you know,
Speaker 3: more than a week. So I became woo sleep deprived
Speaker 3: really bizarrely.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're not getting any rem sleep and
Speaker 4: you're only sleeping forty five minutes at a time, that's like,
Speaker 4: you know, it's like kind of what they do torture people.
Speaker 4: As far as I understand it, not that I'm deeply
Speaker 4: experienced in that area, but I I've been told, so,
Speaker 4: you know, severely sleep deprived. And imagine you're going from
Speaker 4: you know, working really long hours pushing yourself really hard,
Speaker 4: running really hard. You have two little kids, so two
Speaker 4: kids under five, and then suddenly you're doing nothing. And
Speaker 4: on top of that, they said, you know this is
Speaker 4: this sort of ulcer bizarly is more painful and doesn't
Speaker 4: heal as quickly if you're in light, So be in
Speaker 4: the dark all the time. So I was just in
Speaker 4: a dark room. First I was in the hospital, then
Speaker 4: I was in a dark room. And looking back, it
Speaker 4: was one of the best things that could have happened,
Speaker 4: because I think I during that period it was a
Speaker 4: really like it was like taking a total hiatus from
Speaker 4: your life and this really intense enforced period of reflection. So,
Speaker 4: you know, what is it that I'm doing in my life?
Speaker 4: Am I enjoying this? Is it the best use of
Speaker 4: my time? Knowing that life is potentially short thanks to
Speaker 4: the eye and the app?
Speaker 3: Is this the best way for me to be using
Speaker 3: my time?
Speaker 4: And I already established, like you know, life's you know,
Speaker 4: in my mind, life's probably about two things. Having really
Speaker 4: big experiences, so experiencing it, really living it, and hopefully
Speaker 4: in your own little way, doing something that's kind of
Speaker 4: useful and helpful to the world. Leaving it in a
Speaker 4: tiny weeny bit of a better place than it was
Speaker 4: when you arrived. I think, when it boils down to it,
Speaker 4: that's like my life philosophy, I guess. And I think
Speaker 4: I realized, Okay, well where in Varto is now international
Speaker 4: tax law, divesity in inclusion programs. You know, whilst I'm
Speaker 4: really grateful that I did those things, wasn't where my
Speaker 4: passion lay anymore in terms of the day to day,
Speaker 4: like what I did with my days. I still love Invada,
Speaker 4: I'm still passionate about it. I'm still proud to be
Speaker 4: a part of it, but in terms of my day
Speaker 4: to day, it just didn't resonate with me. And I
Speaker 4: think I'd always had in my mind I want to
Speaker 4: do a social enterprise next, and i'd met Daniel and
Speaker 4: Justin Flynn who found it Thank You Group, And when
Speaker 4: I met them, I was like, I want to be
Speaker 4: like you when I grow up, and they're like seven
Speaker 4: years younger than me, and I was like, I better
Speaker 4: kind of, you know, get on with this. And I
Speaker 4: came out the other side of that of that period,
Speaker 4: and I thought, all right, I don't even know exactly
Speaker 4: what it is, but I know I want to start
Speaker 4: a new startup.
Speaker 3: I know that I want it to be a social enterprise.
Speaker 4: Because that is, you know, Withinvata, one of the things
Speaker 4: that always resonated with me was how effective it can
Speaker 4: be at being helpful to people, serving its community. And
Speaker 4: I think that business is very focused on oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 4: serving its shareholders only, and I believe that's an outmoded
Speaker 4: kind of attitude and philosophy to business, which leads to
Speaker 4: a lot of you.
Speaker 3: Know, the injustices in the world.
Speaker 4: So a social enterprise seemed like the logical conclusion of
Speaker 4: that way of thinking, and I decided I'm just gonna
Speaker 4: I'm gonna look for an idea and ideally I'd like
Speaker 4: it to be something I can hold in my hands,
Speaker 4: was my other metric.
Speaker 1: So how do you build like this rest and reflective
Speaker 1: kind of mode into your life since twenty sixteen? Is
Speaker 1: that something that you've deliberately done so you don't end
Speaker 1: up like back in hospital.
Speaker 4: I try to, and I'm not always entirely successful, to
Speaker 4: be told.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not having ended up back in hospital, but.
Speaker 4: I'm not entirely successful at balancing. Balancing is a constant
Speaker 4: struggle to me, So What I find that I tend
Speaker 4: to do is I push really hard. I try and
Speaker 4: do everything, and then I have a period where I go,
Speaker 4: oh no, need to pull back. I need to pull
Speaker 4: back a bit, and then I readjust so it's almost
Speaker 4: like I work in I work in cycles. I have
Speaker 4: these cycles where I'm have this tremendous output and I
Speaker 4: do a huge amount of things and I set things
Speaker 4: up and then and then I need to pull back
Speaker 4: and I need to kind of recharge. And that's the
Speaker 4: thing which makes sense to me. I find it very
Speaker 4: difficult to find balance on a day to day level.
Speaker 4: Although I do try it, I'm just not entirely successful
Speaker 4: with it.
Speaker 1: What does that look like when you pull back? Like
Speaker 1: practically speaking.
Speaker 4: So when I pull back, I try to work less,
Speaker 4: which is you know, hard for me.
Speaker 3: I try and be less involved in my you know,
Speaker 3: in my.
Speaker 4: Email, in my day to day and generally speaking, it
Speaker 4: coincides with a time when you know, I'm like, oh no,
Speaker 4: the team actually has this, and an actual fact, it
Speaker 4: serves them best for me to get out of the
Speaker 4: way as well, because sometimes I can, because I'm trying
Speaker 4: to do so many things, I can be like a
Speaker 4: traffic block, so it oftentimes serves everybody really well. If
Speaker 4: I suddenly go, okay, I'm not coping very well at
Speaker 4: this point, I can see that I've gone too far
Speaker 4: into intense stress not being present mode. I'm going to
Speaker 4: really try and pull lit back and just be still.
Speaker 4: And it's happened enough times now that I realized I
Speaker 4: need to have faith in the process. And I think
Speaker 4: reading things like you know about artists and musicians and
Speaker 4: composers where they have these periods of great creativity and
Speaker 4: great output and you know, incredible fruitfulness and then these
Speaker 4: periods where everything's almost like laying fallow. That's really helpful
Speaker 4: to me to consider it in that way, because I
Speaker 4: do find it quite stressful when I have these periods
Speaker 4: where I need to pull it back.
Speaker 1: Now, I've got two final questions for you. Firstly, the
Speaker 1: Hunger Project, which which I can share that we've raised
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty six dollars, so thank.
Speaker 2: You everyone for your donations.
Speaker 1: And psy can you tell me a bit about what
Speaker 1: the Hunger Project is and why that's your charity of choice?
Speaker 4: T HP, the Hunger Project garner is Hay Tiger's chad partner.
Speaker 3: So Hay Tiger is a social enterprise.
Speaker 4: It exists to support cocoa farming communities in Ghana, and
Speaker 4: beyond that, it kind of it's honestly a bit of
Speaker 4: an experiment in terms of.
Speaker 3: Figuring out how kind of what a.
Speaker 4: Business can be if it exists to serve the communities
Speaker 4: that it interacts with. So this concept that all parties
Speaker 4: rise in the transaction I find to be a really
Speaker 4: interesting concept. You know, people don't like talking about capitalism,
Speaker 4: but the best possible version of capitalism where everyone wins.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying we're there.
Speaker 4: It's going to be like a ten year project, but
Speaker 4: I find that concept a really interesting one. So a
Speaker 4: big problem in the coco industry is that generally farmers
Speaker 4: earns seventy three cents per day, which is well.
Speaker 3: Below the poverty line.
Speaker 4: And cocoa farmers in West Africa and there's two point
Speaker 4: two million children in child labor on cocoa plantations in
Speaker 4: West Africa.
Speaker 3: Those are both things that felt to me like.
Speaker 4: Really really broken components of an industry that you know,
Speaker 4: is responsible for something that I absolutely love and I
Speaker 4: know that I and many people get a great deal
Speaker 4: of pleasure out of so when it came time to
Speaker 4: look for a charitable partner to donate funds from.
Speaker 3: Each bar too.
Speaker 4: I was really looking for an organization that would holistically
Speaker 4: support these communities, these coco farming communities, because all the
Speaker 4: kind of all the research on this issue seems to
Speaker 4: be that it's about it's a greater issue than paying
Speaker 4: more for coco. So we source all our coco ethically,
Speaker 4: but that alone is really not going to shift the
Speaker 4: doll because there are major systemic issues. So what I
Speaker 4: loved about THHP is that it's really holistic. It's focused
Speaker 4: on women, which I think study after study now indicate
Speaker 4: is the best way if you're going to fund charity projects,
Speaker 4: funding women is a really really effective.
Speaker 3: Way to go about doing it.
Speaker 4: They tend to just put more money back into their
Speaker 4: local communities than men.
Speaker 3: Do for whatever reason.
Speaker 4: And I think what's interesting about THHP is that, you know,
Speaker 4: it covers everything from microfinance loans for women farmers, to
Speaker 4: farming practices, to First one thousand Days of Life programs
Speaker 4: to save birth to HIV AIDS education. It's the more
Speaker 4: I dive into it, it's this multi step, holistic program
Speaker 4: based around education. That is that it kind of has
Speaker 4: a virality to it, which I find really really interesting.
Speaker 4: And the whole idea is the community reaches self reliance
Speaker 4: on their own terms within ten years.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: And my final question, if people want to discover more
Speaker 1: about you and what you're.
Speaker 2: Doing or your businesses, where should they go?
Speaker 3: So I guess you could go to Instagram.
Speaker 4: I'm at Science CYA, NC tied taw D.
Speaker 3: I've got a complicated name, so spelling it is.
Speaker 4: Necessary, and or you know, you know, hey, Target dot
Speaker 4: com dot are you has you know a lot of
Speaker 4: information about what we do in the chocolate that we
Speaker 4: make and why we do it.
Speaker 3: And then there's Milkshake, which is the new app we launched,
Speaker 3: which is basically.
Speaker 4: All about being able to set up a website in
Speaker 4: your phone within ten minutes via Instagram, which is very
Speaker 4: pretty and very useful. I think to a lot of
Speaker 4: entrepreneurs who you know, run their businesses from their phone,
Speaker 4: So any of those things.
Speaker 1: Awesome, fantastic, Si, It's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Never enjoying. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Try that is it for today's show. If you enjoyed
Speaker 1: my chat with Sie, why not share it with someone
Speaker 1: else that you think would also enjoy it.
Speaker 3: It is one of the ways that.
Speaker 1: This podcast has grown so insanely over the last two
Speaker 1: and a half years, through lovely people like maybe yourself
Speaker 1: sharing the episodes around, So thank you if you are
Speaker 1: one of those people. So that's it for today's show
Speaker 1: and I will see you next time.