Latest / Spacious Success / 020 | Going First: Confidence, Courage and the Visibility Tax, with Yasmin London

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020 | Going First: Confidence, Courage and the Visibility Tax, with Yasmin London · Spacious Success

• 0:05
  Hi, I'm Dr. Christy Goodwin, a neuro performance scientist, speaker and executive coach who learned the hard way that chasing success can come at a cost. After burnout landed me in hospital, I made it my mission to help ambitious women who are done trading their health and happiness for high performance.
• 0:26
  On Spacious Success, I share science-backed strategies and real stories to help you flourish as a female at work and beyond so you can stop paying the success tax.
• 0:41
  Yasmin and I crossed paths during the height of the pandemic. I don't know if you remember, Yas. I do. We were introduced by another brilliant woman, a woman, no surprises, Tori Archbold, who will also be a guest on this show. And we quickly realized that we were actually working, Yas and I, in overlapping spaces in the digital well-being space in education at the time.
• 1:02
  Now, many people might be reluctant to meet what they would consider their competition. But I can honestly say I have never once felt any bit of tension or any bit of resistance from Yaz. And it was the prime example of how we can partner.
• 1:18
  and elevate each other as women. That belief that rising tides will lift all boats. It really is an abundance mindset. Yasmin was leading the digital safety world and I was focused on digital wellbeing. And we were both working in schools and in the corporate space. Is that correct? I got the time correct, yes? That's right. Yep, you got it. Nailed it.
• 1:38
  Yeah, and then Yas moved to a nearby suburb and we've since become part of an informal mastermind of other ambitious, brilliant women. We enjoy regular catch-ups where our calendars align. There's usually six cancellations before we get to the coffee catch-up. What I love about Yasmin is that she doesn't just talk about backing women.
• 1:58
  She actually genuinely lives it. She's the first person to send you a text before a big event. She's there to cheer you on. She's there to ask, how can I help? When my husband was sick, Yaz was one of the frequent people who kept checking in, even when I was slow or not replying. She's also the person that will ask, how are you? And she'll pause and she'll say, really, like, really, how are you?
• 2:21
  She's the first to introduce you to someone and she will loudly say your name in a room when you're not there. She's walked an extraordinary path. As you're going to hear today, she started off in policing to national leadership and while carving out space for women to lead safely, for women to lead boldly and also for us to lead bravely.
• 2:42
  I will say Yaz is one of the most confident and articulate speakers that I've heard and hands down the most engaging female MC in Australia. And I know she cringes. I can see her cringing when I say this. I don't say that lightly, having been to many events and watched many MCs. So can you please welcome Yasmin London to the microphone?
• 3:03
  Thank you for having me, Christy. I think that is possibly my favourite ever introduction. I've been very generous, but yeah, it's really nice to hear those things about yourself sometimes because I try hard to be a cheerleader for women. I think that's so important and thank you for that. That's really beautiful to hear. Thank you.
• 3:21
  So I'd like to begin at the top. Like, let's rewind. You started your career in policing and you now work with passion in a range of different fields. I think for a lot of women, we often assume that some, you know, serendipitous event led us to where we are or you got lucky or you were an overnight success. I'd like you to take us back and tell us basically how you got to where you are today and the journey. I'm assuming it was a meandering journey that got you to this space.
• 3:48
  Yeah, totally. I think in the end, my career journey has been anything but linear. And that's a really great lesson. I'm a planner by nature. I love to be really organized and know where I'm going. But if I reflect back, my career has been really a series of...
• 4:04
  understanding my own intuition and saying yes and just being prepared to give something new a go, even if I had to be the first to give it a try. And we'll come back to that a little bit later. But as you mentioned, I guess my first proper career was within the New South Wales Police Force. And I spent 13 years there.
• 4:22
  doing so many different jobs. It's kind of why I joined in the beginning, because I could do lots of different things under the same organizational umbrella. Being a kid, you know, I was always that kid that was a little bit bored, constantly asking why, you know, wanting to do different things all the time. And so that restless, curious, inquisitive nature, I guess, was fitted for a
• 4:47
  I did my general duties, my three years learning. I worked undercover, which was not great because my short blonde hair was quite recognizable, so that didn't work particularly well for me. But the majority of my service in the police I spent as a youth liaison officer. Actually, I've always been really passionate about young people and trying to give them the skills and knowledge and ability to become.
• 5:10
  I guess, really happy, content, but citizens of the world that can actually contribute. So I spent about eight years as a youth liaison officer in a place called Rose Bay Police Area Command, which is in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
• 5:25
  And it's really interesting because a lot of people, when they think about Rose Bay, it's a very affluent, high net worth area, if you're not familiar. People had this sort of opinion that rich people didn't have major problems. You know, they all drove Porsche McCann's and lived in mansions. And, yeah, they might have to work hard.
• 5:43
  you know, money equated to a good life. And as a police officer there, what I found was the complete opposite. There was a huge amount of mental health in particular. And there was an area in Rose Bay, a really infamous suicide hotspot called The Gap, which is a 96-metre high clifftop, where as a cop there, I wasn't expecting this, but I was probably at The Gap sometimes several times a week, if not several times a shift. Wow.
• 6:13
  dealing with people literally on this clifftop thinking about hurting themselves. And, you know, I guess I became quite used to having those really high-pressured conversations. I learnt to communicate well, but I did have an incident in about 2012 where I guess it was a life-changing event, to be honest. I had a conversation with a 14-year-old girl.
• 6:37
  over a cyber bullying incident. And, you know, at that time, I think Instagram had been around for two years. I knew a bit about Facebook, but this whole world of social media was really new to me. And I remember just feeling really kind of incompetent because I had nothing to sort of lean into at the time to convince her that her life was worth living. And it was, it took me a bit to really realize, you know, that this was a digital world having a real world.
• 7:06
  consequence. It took us that day, I'm not kidding, four hours of negotiating to get her over the correct side of the fence. And I guess that was the start of the trajectory of cyber safety after that. Being a cop, lots of schools were asking me to come and speak about it.
• 7:24
  you know, this issue. And, of course, the police, being the police, would tell me to turn up with the Telecommunications Criminal Code Act on a slide deck and tell the kids they're going to get arrested if they're mean to each other. So that went down like a lead balloon. You can imagine.
• 7:40
  And I just thought there's a better way. And I guess that old part of me, that curious by nature, this can be better. I'm going to give something new a try type of kid came out and I started my own business, trying to do it in a more engaging way. I ended up meeting up with a couple of other like-minded female entrepreneurs in WA and we founded Ysafe, which is still in existence today. And that's sort of how I got into the world of online safety.
• 8:10
  Brilliant. And I think the through line there that I hear is that curiosity is innate to you. Like it's part of your DNA and it's obviously a super strength of yours. I'm imagining it comes with some shortcomings at times. Oh, for sure. I am the worst. Like you asked my wife, I get bored so easily. I have to sort of tell myself myself.
• 8:28
  Calm down, be patient is a virtue. I think I've been told that about 1 billion times in my life. But yeah, I think it's sometimes it's nature, sometimes it's nurture. For me, I remember my auntie who was kind of into the pseudoscience as a kid called me an indigo child, which is that way of describing a difficult and challenging kids. I show these pictures in my keynote. My mum used to march me around Westfield shopping centres in a T-shirt that said,
• 8:57
  I'm meant for someone who welcomes a challenge.
• 9:02
  She knew you well. She knew me very well. She knew me very well. But it is funny, though, like when you think back, that was probably a super challenging kid. It's those skills that when we reframe as adults have actually given me the success that I've had in my life and I know we're going to give me great adventures in the future as well. So it's all about the way we think about it. I like that reframe. So you're now speaking about being a first mover. What does that mean to you? Can you unpack that for us?
• 9:31
  Yeah, being a first mover, essentially a few months ago I was thinking about how can we find new ways for women to step into the arena. I was talking to lots of different women who sort of had this sense of hesitation. There were confidence issues. There were, of course, structures in workplaces that didn't support them. And one of the things that I've looked at in my own life and I know has sort of helped me become successful is I've never been afraid to be the person who goes first.
• 10:01
  And when I think of what the world needs, how we're going to meet our full potential, how we're going to hit the goals that we all have, first movers in the world are the people who know this. They know that in order for the world to meet its full potential, someone somewhere has to go first.
• 10:20
  And there is actually a blueprint. There are ways to teach yourself the confidence, the skills, the knowledge to be the first one to move or try something new. And so this philosophy of first movers has sort of grown for me to teach people, I guess, the skills that I've learnt and also, I guess, the science-backed skills that you'd know as well, Christy, that exist. We just need to understand them and build the confidence to be that first mover.
• 10:47
  I wonder if you could share what you think are some of the traits of trailblazers, given that you work with a lot of women, you've dived into the science and the research. Are there a couple of traits that you could share with us that you think are common denominators in those people that are happy to boldly go first?
• 11:02
  Yeah, absolutely. This took a lot of thinking because, I mean, there's such diversity in the world, but I've actually formulated into a framework, to be honest, and it's an acronym for the word first. So a lot of first movers that I've observed when it comes to that F, they fuel their own growth. They always focus on being a work in progress on purpose. They don't think that they're just going to suddenly get better. They don't think that they're going to suddenly become comfortable with the uncomfortable. They understand there's a proactive element there.
• 11:32
  in our own self-development. The I in first is they ignite courage. And the story I just shared about the girl at the gap, that was my lesson when I understood that courage comes first, confidence, which we focus so much on, it's not a prerequisite. It's a result of taking action. A byproduct.
• 11:51
  Exactly. And when we reframe it that way, we don't expect ourselves to feel comfortable, right? But we do know that we will get comfortable when we start, when we start to learn and we participate. R is about reframing relationships a lot of the time for ourselves or with other people and to refuse to repeat patterns of behavior that don't serve us anymore as well.
• 12:14
  S is about shaping the status quo. You know, I think in the end, we've got to always look for the tweaks, the changes, the things that can improve on the status quo that we've already got here. And the last one is the T, which is tell your story. And I'm always reminded of that really infamous quote by Sally Ride, the astronaut, who said, you can't be what you can't see.
• 12:36
  We know the power of storytelling. We know the culture shifts that can happen when we see people role modeling the life that we might aspire to. And so I really do truly believe that when we think of visibility, especially as women, we've got to get past this concept that visibility is vanity and we've got to reframe it as value because it's not just about us.
• 12:59
  It's about the legacy that we're leaving for other people to follow our path. So those are the sort of, I guess, key areas that I like to focus on when it comes to being a first mover. I like that. Especially like that last one. I think for me, having expanders in my life, like who are those women that we want to not imitate but emulate? What are those people that encourage us?
• 13:22
  to have a big, bold vision. So I really like that. I also loved what you said about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think we live in a hedonistic society and we very rarely, even today, experience physical stress. We intentionally avoid physical stress. We're often ill-equipped to deal with psychological stress. And I think that's why so many of us are crumbling and cracking under pressure. There's some really interesting research that was done just recently about how we're doing.
• 13:49
  And what they found was that we can train part of our brain. It's called the let me just geek out for a moment. It's called your anterior mid-singulate cortex. And it's the willpower center of your brain. So it's the part of your brain that kicks into gear when you have to do hard things. Now, when we become accustomed to avoiding discomfort, to sitting in our comfort zone, we actually don't grow that part of the brain. And they did a brain scan. And what they found was that the anterior mid-singulate cortex is larger in athletes.
• 14:19
  Yeah, wow. In obese people, meaning that we can physiologically change that part of our brain, meaning that we can start to embrace challenge if we take away the stigma that it's bad for us or we need to avoid it. So I think that's so important that we start talking about embrace, like choosing challenge over comfort.
• 14:37
  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's where growth comes from. I mean, when we, and I mean, there's that, that age old saying there's a million quotes, but no great things come from comfort zones. We have to continue to stretch ourselves. And I think the thing is, it is scary. It is really hard, but actually if you look past, look, look back at your own life, you've managed to get through so many challenging situations that at the time you wouldn't have thought you could.
• 15:02
  And so it's also about taking stock sometimes to reflect back on what you've been able to get through and having that faith in yourself that what's the worst that can happen here? And I've overcome that. I can overcome this. So I'm still going to move first. I'm still going to have a go.
• 15:18
  And nine times out of 10, you surprise yourself. Yeah, that's a good reminder. I'd love for you to share some of your preliminary data that you've gathered. So Yasmin has recently conducted a first move as women's confidence study. Did I get that title right? Yeah, absolutely. What are some of the preliminary insights that you can share with us? And then we might pull on a couple of those threads. Yeah.
• 15:38
  Yeah, I'm really excited to share this. And I do need to stress it is preliminary. We've had about 250 women complete this survey out of our 500 woman goal. So please, if you're watching this, make sure that you do complete that survey. But the point of this was, I guess, you know, we're constantly told women need to be more confident. And, you know, I actually don't think that
• 16:01
  their confidence is the issue. I actually think that the systems and structures around them are the issue and we're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. So this survey was really about understanding the nuance behind it. So a couple of top level things I think would be really interesting, particularly the first one around burnout. So
• 16:21
  64% of the respondents of this survey have rated their burnout as a four or five out of five, five out of five being really, really bad burnout over the past 12 months. So 64% of women at least have experienced it. Only 12% rated it as low, like a one or two out of five.
• 16:42
  It is consistent across all industries. So we've got people in large corporate, small to medium-sized businesses, entrepreneurs. So this is cross-industry and also cross-seniority levels. So lots of senior leaders involved in this too. Interestingly, I wanted to nail down the reasons. And, you know, unsurprisingly, balancing home life and unmanageable work hours are really high levels.
• 17:06
  Yeah. Interestingly, though, a lack of support from leaders and a constant connection to technology. So I know I probably don't need to tell you this, Christy, the overwhelm of WhatsApp groups. I'm currently sitting on, I think, about 13 different WhatsApp groups with about 70 different messages there waiting for me to read. Yeah.
• 17:28
  So I think, you know, these sorts of things we need to really bring into the fore and to understand that burnout is not a personal flaw of women. It is not a seasonal phase. It's actually a chronic condition that's driven by the culture of our society at the moment and not an individual person's capacity. Another really interesting one is the intersection of burnout and confidence. So, yeah.
• 17:52
  70% of the respondents that we've had so far have said that they didn't apply for a new role because of a perception of self-doubt or not feeling ready enough. Yet most of them rated themselves a four or five out of five for their confidence in their current role. So they feel really good at their job, but they're not applying for different jobs because...
• 18:15
  they're not quite ready. And so what this tells me is that they're confident in their ability, but they're just too damn depleted or unsupported or totally stretched to try and take that next step. And, again, that's where we really need to start to fix things in our workplaces.
• 18:31
  We know that psychological safety and belonging as well is fragile. So a lot of women have said they're not comfortable speaking up, that they're navigating cultures of silence and undervaluation as well. So one of the biggest takeaways from this survey for me is something that is so easy for every single one of us to do in our workplaces, and that is to validate and acknowledge the effort that is put in by women. They just want to be acknowledged for the hard work,
• 19:01
  commitment, the effort that they've put into different projects. Isn't that crazy? It's just... Do you know what? I wish I'd, and maybe I did look surprised. Sadly, your data corroborates what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing, and what other studies. I mean, the Women's Agenda study suggested that 72% of women have experienced burnout in the last 12 months.
• 19:21
  We have a, and I say this, this is probably one of the chief reasons for the genesis of this podcast is that we have a very pronounced, I'm going to say alarming gender wellbeing gap. Put in simple terms, women are not okay. Yeah. And it makes me terribly sad to see really amazing, ambitious, accomplished women who are, you know, on the surface looking, you know, there's, I call it the female facade. Everything's fine. We put on the brave face, but behind the scenes.
• 19:51
  We are, and the research tells us, we are quietly cracking now. And this is a huge issue for workplaces. It is, as you said, it's systemic. And this is an issue that we really do need to remedy because women, you know, Ali Wong once quit. Women were told to lean in. Then we were told to lean out. And all we wanted to bloody well do is just lay down.
• 20:12
  Exactly. The exhaustion is real and it's having a really detrimental impact on people. I also note what you said. And thankfully, we've now got empirical studies that confirm what you described, the bloody WhatsApp groups.
• 20:29
  They're recalling it the double digital burden and research is saying that women in workplaces and in personal domestic lives are absorbing more of the digital load. And that is having a huge impact again on their well-being. So we seem to be perpetuating, not remedying.
• 20:47
  this gap. And so I guess this is my call to action that we need workplaces stepping up. This is not a female issue. This is an issue and we need to invite and encourage men, you know, our male counterparts, our colleagues, our partners, our spouses into this conversation because they need to be part of the solution. And they also need to hear firsthand the problem. If you've got no lived experience, if your world almost benefits...
• 21:11
  and I say this not to be critical, of women's depletion, we need to challenge that. Or we are going to have and we will see an exodus of incredible women in leadership roles. Yeah. And we will continue to see this gap widen. So that's a passionate call to say we need to address this. Yeah.
• 21:29
  My next question, we just talked about that gender wellbeing gap. We know stress and exhaustion is attributed in often what we call the mental load, the domestic load that women tend to carry. I know I've spoken to your wife, Anna, and I've heard you both mention the mental load. I was wondering, how does this show up? Because I'm often told this is an issue in heterosexual relationships, but
• 21:54
  How does this show up in same-sex relationships? Are there any nuances? What have you experienced managing the mental load? This is such an interesting question. And, look, I think there's always someone who, in our relationship, I guess, Anna's definitely a little bit more organised. She loves to be the calendar ninja. She told me that too. I was going to say, oh!
• 22:17
  I feel like I'm actually pretty organized, but she just puts me to shame. And I do try, but then I get to things and I see on the school newsletter, oh, this permission slip's already been signed and paid and things like that. So she's just too efficient. That being said, we're both acutely aware of it. We try to manage in terms of the text messages and I guess the WhatsApp groups, having a single person.
• 22:40
  point of contact because it's funny with schools people don't actually know which mum to you know to contact for the play dates and things like that so we have made a I guess a clear decision around that but we're very I think the difference is we're very conscious of sharing the load there isn't a gender gap here so we're two women trying to make sure that one of us isn't
• 23:03
  totally burnt out and the other one sitting on the couch after you know a big tv you know big event watching the tv and the soccer as i constantly see on instagram while women are in the kitchen cleaning that just simply wouldn't happen because we're very focused on a fair distribution of tasks if something needs to be done i can say this hand on my heart nobody needs to be told to unstack the dishwasher
• 23:30
  I'm constantly told my stacking's not optimized and it needs to be restacked, but I do my best. Like we're always contributing. We're always, you know, picking up where someone else leaves off. So I guess it's a different mindset. There's not a defined role. You do this, therefore you do that.
• 23:48
  It's just really working as a team. And we have this sort of joke, we call ourselves Team London, and we're trying to instill that contribution, that family contribution in our girls as well. They don't get paid to do basic tasks around the house. It's about family contribution. So, you know, it's difficult because I haven't been in a, you know, a marriage with a man and having to deal with that. Yeah.
• 24:12
  I can pretty safely say that if he was sitting on the couch while I was slaving away in the kitchen most days, we wouldn't be married for very long. So I guess, yeah, it's hard to describe. I've not unpacked it in a way like this before. It's interesting.
• 24:28
  And I think regardless of your, you know, relationship status, I think many of us could take advice from that, you know, distributing the digital load, you know, you're active in this WhatsApp group. It's a really pragmatic solution. Yeah. Also think having really concrete conversations. Yeah. Haven't read or got the cards for Fair Play. Have you heard of Fair Play? I have. I think Betsy Westcott, one of the other thought leaders, she does that with her husband. And I'm like, this is amazing. Yeah.
• 24:56
  Yeah, it really is great. Domestic and caring responsibilities are often invisible but invasive. So actually taking the time to distribute tasks can go a long way in ensuring there's a more equitable distribution of the digital and the mental load. Yeah.
• 25:14
  And I think, you know, at a really base level, Christy, I think we've got to have that sense of fairness in ourselves. And I just wouldn't be able to sit down and sloth around and feel like I hadn't done my part. And I think perhaps that's the difference sometimes in different relationships, perhaps with women. Perhaps it's by nature and for maybe perhaps some men, it might need to be more of a mindful decision to become then a habit and therefore the new way of living. I agree.
• 25:42
  But it really is about a sense of fairness and, you know, doing your part. And that's a value, I guess, of ours in our family. And it's a value of many people. And sometimes it does come down to deciding what matters to you and perhaps what doesn't.
• 25:58
  Yeah, so continuing on this digital lens, I want to just shift gears a little bit and talk about digital safety, not kids' digital safety, though. I want to talk about digital safety for ambitious women. I don't know if you saw, but on PlatformX, no surprises that it happened on PlatformX, Dr. Juliet Turner, who just received her PhD at age 27, I mean, that's an accomplishment in and of itself, but she went online to celebrate her success.
• 26:26
  And there was an absolute meltdown of people with male profiles who responded. It's been described as an avalanche of vitriol with comments including, you're 30 years old with no husband, but hey, at least you've got your cats.
• 26:43
  Them eggs aren't getting any younger. You could have had four babies in that time. Wow, they're just handing out doctorates to anyone now. Women, however, responded admirably, with many of them sharing themselves with photos in their own academic gowns with degrees in hand, and some of them responded because there was a caption. You can imagine what it was when the women responded. We'd just look at the degree on that chick.
• 27:08
  So they started to reclaim and rewrite the narrative. But beyond that clever hashtag, the real question I think still remains is why do so many men react with such hostility towards women when they claim their brilliance? And what are women experiencing in terms of online safety? Yeah, I saw that post and I remember sitting watching, reading it over my breakfast and just about spitting out my weight bix.
• 27:37
  I am absolutely there for the comment section, though, of women coming in to safeguard and protect them. I think I saw something recently where a woman said, we can do everything men can do and we can do it bleeding. So, you know, they just come in.
• 27:52
  The fact that this is happening, I think on that particular post, some people said like, are men okay? And this is a hashtag that is starting to spread around because the proactive aggression on a post of a person just celebrating a massive milestone and achievement is just so disproportionate to what you would expect. And it really does speak to this phenomenon that's starting to happen in online environments or has been around for a while called the silencing effect.
• 28:22
  And that is where men typically, but not just men, other women do this as well. It isn't always just the guys, really do pile on, they troll, they intimidate, they defame to try and silence women's voices, just as they have done, I guess, in years past in physical world environments.
• 28:41
  The online world is the future. And so unfortunately now the more higher profile and public facing you are, the more willing that you are to be outspoken on important issues that challenge traditional norms, the more abuse you typically will get.
• 28:59
  For women, what's really interesting, we start to see this even in sports as well. So female athletes in particular have really copped a hard time. And a lot of the time what you find is if we look at sport, yeah, men, male players might get abused. But typically it'll be about their performance on the field. So they missed a pass, they didn't get a try.
• 29:19
  For women, it's always about body shaming or often they're mothering. So who's looking after your kids while you're off training? You know, it's when women are starting to, you know, create new ground to start coming into places that men have traditionally occupied. There is that challenge there. And it's really interesting when we think about the psychology of change. A lot of the time we think about people fearing change.
• 29:47
  But we don't actually fear change, we fear loss. And if we look at these different environments where women are starting to edge into what is traditionally male territory, men perhaps are feeling a loss of power. They're feeling a loss of control.
• 30:04
  These are all our human biological drivers, right? When we're comfortable, we have all of these different elements present. And so the online world in this situation, perhaps this might explain what's going on, that people are ultimately feeling threatened and their reaction is to try and tear someone down. And for women, it's really easy to do. We find the massive rise in deepfakes at the moment, often pornographic in nature, almost all of them depicting women and girls' trauma.
• 30:33
  without their consent. Some create it as a joke. It is still illegal, by the way, to do that, to create an image, a sexualized image of a person without their consent. But, you know, a lot of the time it's with an agenda. It's trying to defame a person, trying to discredit them, trying to embarrass or humiliate them. And the ultimate aim is to drive them out of public life and...
• 30:56
  You know, we really start to see that, as I said, with high profile women, around 25% of women in Australia at the moment are not prepared to take on a leadership role with a public facing element because they fear repercussions of abuse against them, but also their families, their children. We've got issues of women being doxed. So their personal address, their phone numbers, the names of their kids being put out, you know, into the public. It's really scary.
• 31:26
  Melinda Tankard Rice from the Collective Shout, who's been really advocating for the removal of image-based abuse, deepfake violence. And she's got videos of her out at the moment where people are slitting her throat and she's seeing this happen in real time, an image and video of herself. So it's becoming really problematic and problematic.
• 31:50
  We're at this time of the year where we're looking at 16 days of activism against violence against women. The focus this year is around digital harms. And, you know, this is a real world issue with real world problems, preventing real world women from not just being safe, but thriving in their own lives. So it's a really important topic to make sure that we're all aware of.
• 32:14
  Yeah, and it's terrifying to think that we're going to have women obviously have fear of repercussions for their own safety, but also a reluctance to step into any sort of leadership if they're going to face deep fakes, you know, dobs and digital abuse. And I often say that's the unspoken tax of women becoming visible in this digital space. So I think, again, we need organisations addressing this. We need women not hiding the problem, like, out sharing the problem. Absolutely.
• 32:44
  And again, having people facing legal repercussions that they take because there are dire consequences. There really are. And it's really important for any HR leaders, any workplace leaders listening today to know that safe work standards in this country require a positive duty around online experiences like this.
• 33:07
  you know it's not a matter of just going oh we didn't know this was happening we couldn't sort of have predicted it the legislation in this country says you need to be proactive in preventing that risk of assessing those hazards just like any other physical world hazard making sure that you're reviewing your policies that you're addressing education and awareness training with with your staff so
• 33:30
  I'm actually surprised that there's not been any kind of legal cases yet around something like this. Because if you think about it, how many workplaces are at this time of year celebrating, you know, their great wins in the yearly conference, for example, and somebody posting a picture of themselves or being encouraged to post a picture of themselves.
• 33:50
  And that picture being taken, a deep fake being created of that woman circulated around to defame her. Who's liable? Who's responsible in that situation? And it's a question that every workplace better have an answer for. Yeah, good call to action. So you're a speaker. You're in it.
• 34:08
  MC, what does it mean to you to be visible and well? How do you meet the demands of your work with, let's be honest, the demands of motherhood, with your wellbeing, the demands of being a partner? Have you ever not met these expectations?
• 34:23
  Oh, regularly not meeting these expectations. You know, I had an incident over the weekend that was a glaringly obvious instance with one of my children where I'm not meeting expectations. But I think, you know, being aware of it is one thing. Trying to plan around it is another. There's definitely, as a speaker, busier times of the year. October is absolutely wild. And unfortunately for me, it's when all of the birthdays are happening in my family as well. So yeah.
• 34:53
  You know, it's about trying to be well-planned with it. It's about forgiving yourself. It's about having a bit of perspective. With my kids, one of the things, they're only 11 and 9, but what I'm really trying to do is share my vulnerabilities with them or to prepare them for difficult times, saying, you know, October's coming up, the next four weeks is going to be really hard. I'm not going to be here every morning and every night.
• 35:18
  You know, there might be times where you need to make your own lunch and walk yourself to school. And I look at that and just sort of think, you know, even though I could guilt myself as a mom, and I often do, the way that I always reframe is I think about the skills that I'm teaching them. I think about what I'm role modeling to them.
• 35:37
  I'm hoping that when they grow up, they've seen not one, but two mothers who put themselves and their love and their passion first, that they set a good foundation for our family. Family is always first, but they also chase their dreams and they have courage and they push themselves and they,
• 35:55
  They know what hard work is and what it takes to sometimes achieve those really big, hairy, audacious goals. And so I think being a good mum and being a good wife, we've got to reframe what that actually looks like, but also have the courage to live it.
• 36:11
  And I guess that's what I try to do and what I try to tell myself every day. But yeah, do I fail all the time? And do I get it right? Do not get it right. How refreshing because I think a lot of women, again, it's this fake female facade that we, you know, we often think, and that's why I really deplore the term superwoman. Oh, she must be superwoman or you're superwoman. Yeah.
• 36:34
  To be honest, the women that I have the privilege of working with, I get to see behind the scenes of their lives and none of us hold it together all of the time. So I think sharing that with other women and saying it's okay to drop a ball here and there. And I love that analogy. I've heard someone share it before. I don't know who to credit them, but just be careful of dropping the glass balls. But drop the tennis balls and drop the golf balls. Totally. Yeah.
• 36:58
  I think that comes down to knowing what your priorities are. Like, are you clear on what your values and your priorities are? They're your glass balls. Be really diligent. And the fact that you responded to whatever happened on the weekend tells the
• 37:10
  You know, your relationships are a glass ball. And I think, as you said, showing ourselves grace. I see so many incredible women holding themselves up to absolutely impossible standards that no one, no human can possibly meet. And then they guilt themselves up when they fall short. I think that's important. And, again, crumble around your friends. Ring your friend and tell them you've had a terrible morning. You know, before we started, I told Yaz about the reality of what happened before we sat down to chat.
• 37:40
  And we know females regulate their stress through tending and befriending, chatting, talking, connecting. That is physiologically how we regulate stress. So send your friend, you know, pause this podcast, send your friend the funny meme, send them a text message.
• 37:58
  Ask them as Yaz often does, how are you? Really? Absolutely. You have to do it. And I think a lot of the time I think we get caught up in not wanting to burden other people with our problems and not wanting to be that person. And, you know, there are those people that are the energy vampires, I guess, and we don't want to be those people. But I think...
• 38:19
  think of sharing and think of vulnerability and authenticity as a service to other women where we break down this. I don't know if I can swear on your show, Christy. I won't just in case, but the bullshit of what we've been taught, of what our parents learned. You know, my mom has always been in service to my dad. My dad's a beautiful man, but my God, he's like just been catered to his entire life. So yeah.
• 38:41
  I don't think that's the way forward. And I'm conscious of trying to live that different life. I mean, we've always created our own rules. We live, you know, a rainbow family. We created our own surname. We decided that the life that we were going to live was going to be on our own terms.
• 38:59
  But I think it's really important to share those challenges with the times where you don't have it all together because other people then look at themselves and go, gosh, okay, I thought she had it all together. She doesn't. I'm okay. It's all right to not be perfect. Nobody is perfect. We need to get rid of that word. I agree. And just be that work in progress on purpose. Yeah.
• 39:22
  And I also think when your friends or your colleagues do reach out to you, that it's such a privileged position for you to be in to hold space. I know, you know, I see it. And so it has a contagion effect because, as you said, it encourages other women and other people to reach out.
• 39:37
  So one last question, and it's a bit of a quick one, probably a hard one to end with. But if you were to describe what does spacious success mean to you right now? If you were to think about what it might feel like, what it might look like, what you're aspiring for it to be, you could experience spacious success. What might it be for you?
• 40:00
  It's really interesting, this concept. When you first talked to me about spacious success, I did sit with it for a bit because one of my development areas as a human being is that I stuff my weeks so full. I really try to focus a lot on productivity and I think the ex-athlete in me has always had this mindset of to be successful you need to do what other people aren't willing to do. You need to put in the work. You need to push harder than anyone else.
• 40:28
  And I'm slowly, slowly trying to unlearn that. Even now at 43, I was a swimmer when I was in my late teens. I'm still stuck in that lesson. But my plan for 2026 is to try and create a bit of space for the magic to happen. And I habitually don't do that. I have tried to do it before. I am that work in progress on purpose on this topic. But I think, you know, there's been a couple of things that have happened recently where,
• 40:57
  I've learnt I have to create some space for the unexpected and I have to also create some space for the magic to happen. So that's what spacious success means for me. It's actually planning and allowing time in my days and my weeks, not just the holidays or, you know, the one big week we might have at the end of the year and having that regularly part of my day-to-day so that I can settle things down a little bit.
• 41:24
  So that means when I text you next year for a coffee date, we won't have to cancel five times before. No, no, that's right. That's right. That's all going to stop.
• 41:33
  I love that. With a lot of the women that I have the honour of coaching, when we look at their calendars, it's like, you know, if you were to move one thing, it's like playing a game of Tetris. And I often say to them, we need to leave margins for the mess. Your kid gets sick, you've got to go to school and pick them up. If your calendar is back-to-back full, like that creates mayhem. Leave margins for the mess, but also for the magic. Because as you said, the magic can only happen in those moments of time.
• 42:02
  gaps in your calendar, more or less. Absolutely. We live this crazy life living by our calendars. And, you know, one of the things I'll share in terms of a bit of a wake-up call for how we live and work these days is a friend of mine recently was telling me she's going through a really busy time at her work and a restructure's happening.
• 42:23
  And her boss answered a phone call from hospital with a drain coming out of his neck. He'd had surgery the day before. And when she told me that, I was just like, what's happening in our world where that is deemed acceptable? That someone will take a call, someone will engage in a work-related conversation from a hospital bed with a drain coming out of their neck. Like, no.
• 42:52
  The fact that that has been normalized is quite frankly scary. And I remember years ago, you know, we used to critique those women who would be in the laptop typing the email after they'd given birth. It was that. And I remember being horrified. I think it was like Roxy Jacenko or somebody that, you know, sent that photo out years ago. But this is happening and we need to put a stop to it. Like this level of intensity.
• 43:18
  We need to sort of reframe. We really need to figure out our priorities and we need more people to not take that call. Yeah. So that's my call to action for you two listeners. Can you find pockets of spaciousness in your calendar? Can you create margins like Yaz is going to do and I'm going to hold her accountable too? Good. I need an accountability buddy.
• 43:39
  We have, you've described what they're calling the urgency fallacy. And in the online world, you know, where we're always on, we feel like everything is urgent and not everything is, you know, your emergency, sorry, your urgency is not my emergency. And I think we need to remember that. So that was a really powerful way for us to end. Yes, I am so grateful for your time. I'm looking forward to us.
• 44:02
  making time next year to catch up. Me too, more time. And thank you for being a first mover, for encouraging other women to be a first mover and for tackling these bold conversations that are going to advance the progress, the wellbeing of women so that we can all start to experience more spacious success. So thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Christy. And for this incredible conversation, it's been amazing to be able to contribute in even just a small way. So thank you for what you do. Pleasure, thank you.