Latest / Spacious Success / 030 | Credits in the Health Bank with Amanda Stevens

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030 | Credits in the Health Bank with Amanda Stevens · 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.
• 0:16
  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.
• 0:27
  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
  Okay.
• 0:43
  There are people who come into your life at exactly the right moment.
• 0:46
  And I have to say that Amanda Stevens is one of those people for me.
• 0:50
  We met online at the height of the pandemic when Amanda generously opened up Zoom rooms for speakers.
• 0:56
  And I know you did this for other industries, but predominantly for speakers whose calendars were wiped out basically overnight.
• 1:03
  There was a lot of fear in those rooms.
• 1:05
  I used to turn up often with my camera off because I was attempting to homeschool three sons and resurrect a speaking career from the kitchen table.
• 1:13
  There was a lot of uncertainty and Amanda showed up.
• 1:16
  I remember the conviction, you may not have felt this at the time, the power and the reassurance that you genuinely offered.
• 1:23
  And I think that generosity tells you everything you need to know about who Amanda really is.
• 1:29
  Amanda has since become a mentor to me, a colleague, and a genuine friend.
• 1:34
  She's also the woman who pays attention and she acts on it.
• 1:38
  She really does embody her work about being radically obsessed with your customers.
• 1:44
  I once mentioned on Instagram that I had burnt my pants with a hotel iron after I had lost my steamer and three days later, a new steamer arrived on my doorstep.
• 1:55
  She is a true champion of other women.
• 1:57
  And you feel it.
• 1:58
  You know it.
• 1:59
  She is a woman who understands that you can be utterly serious about your work and you can still take your shoes and fashion very seriously.
• 2:07
  We have a mutual appreciation for heels and fashion.
• 2:11
  And I don't pretend that that's incidental.
• 2:14
  Now to her credentials, because she's more than just shoes and fashion.
• 2:18
  Her credentials are formidable.
• 2:20
  Manda has delivered 1,700, now let's do 1,700 keynotes in 17 countries in 17 years.
• 2:27
  My goodness, that rolls off the tongue so much better.
• 2:29
  She's the bestselling author of five books.
• 2:32
  She holds a double degree in consumer psychology and marketing, and she has consulted to Microsoft, Lendlease, and Procter & Gamble.
• 2:40
  She is a certified speaking professional, and she shared the stage with Sir Richard Branson and Condoleezza Rice.
• 2:47
  Her domain is customer experience, and her latest book,
• 2:53
  Radical customer obsession makes a compelling case that the businesses who will succeed over the next decade won't just serve their customers, they'll obsess over them.
• 3:04
  Her framework draws on the Japanese philosophy, help me say this correctly, Omotenashi,
• 3:10
  Perfect.
• 3:11
  I got it.
• 3:12
  To look wholeheartedly after your guests and without expecting anything in return.
• 3:18
  And I have to say, as a friend and as having Amanda in my orbit, this is something that she doesn't just talk about.
• 3:24
  She walks the talk too.
• 3:26
  In a world of high expectations and low patience, this is no longer a soft idea.
• 3:31
  It is a commercial imperative.
• 3:32
  Welcome to Spacious Success, Amanda.
• 3:35
  Well, thank you, Dr. Christie.
• 3:37
  I have to say, if I'm ever having a bad day, I will just listen to your intro.
• 3:41
  Thank you.
• 3:42
  Your very kind words.
• 3:43
  No, thank you.
• 3:44
  It really was.
• 3:45
  I'm going to go back to the pandemic and I apologise.
• 3:47
  I know this can give people a lot of PTSD.
• 3:51
  That's when I really began to know you because I think it says something about who you are.
• 3:57
  In 2020, the whole speaking industry basically collapsed overnight.
• 4:00
  I don't know if you remember Friday the 13th of March.
• 4:04
  That was the genesis for me because there was email after email of cancelled or postponed bookings.
• 4:10
  Do you remember?
• 4:11
  I remember Friday the 13th very well.
• 4:14
  I was actually on a plane to Singapore and middle of the flight, we love Wi-Fi at 38,000 feet.
• 4:20
  I had a message pop up on my phone because on the 13th or that week, things escalated pretty quickly, obviously.
• 4:27
  But during that week and as it evolved, we were still, I think, hopeful.
• 4:32
  I think we were...
• 4:33
  thinking it felt a bit bird flu-y, it felt a bit SARS-ish.
• 4:38
  We weren't really to know how quickly it was going to unfold.
• 4:41
  And so I was on my way to Singapore to deliver somewhat ironically, the closing keynote at a travel conference.
• 4:49
  And a message popped up on my phone from a friend of mine who's very high up in the government, in DFAT, and the message simply said, are you still going to Singapore?
• 4:58
  And I remember looking at the message thinking,
• 5:01
  I won't say the word, but I remember just my heart.
• 5:03
  I did.
• 5:04
  Because I knew what it meant.
• 5:05
  And I said, I'm on my way.
• 5:07
  She said, well, you better come back straight back home because I'm in a cabinet meeting and they're talking about closing borders.
• 5:13
  And I just remember having that feeling of like, oh my goodness, this is serious, this is happening.
• 5:20
  And so I arrived back home on the 15th of March
• 5:24
  early in the morning.
• 5:25
  And at that point, I had just one speaker of the year.
• 5:28
  So I was due to have a record year of speaking.
• 5:30
  I actually had 48 presentations already locked in the diary for the calendar year.
• 5:35
  And between the 15th of March and the 18th of March, I had 48 cancellations.
• 5:40
  I literally watched my livelihood evaporate before my very eyes, which, you know, it was devastating for everyone in speaking and lots of other industries, obviously.
• 5:50
  I remember being at that travel conference and people were just hugging and I actually didn't know what to say on stage because as if they wanted to hear about customer experience, their businesses were about to be wiped out as well.
• 6:01
  So yeah, it was pretty, yeah, it's pretty devastating.
• 6:04
  And God, I look back on it.
• 6:06
  And I, you know, I think I think back to that day when I arrived back in Australia and all those cancellations.
• 6:12
  And I remember thinking back then, this is probably going to be a long three, four month thing.
• 6:18
  and i remember back then thinking that was you know that was going to be really hard to get through and i think if we'd known then how long it was going to go on maybe maybe we wouldn't have been uh you know had the coping strategies that we have i don't know but it certainly um yeah certainly was a pretty tough time and but obviously lots of positive things have come out of it as well yeah and
• 6:42
  like even hearing that story, and I knew bits of that, I don't think I'd heard that full story, you still, this is the bit that surprises and delights me, you still decided to turn up with generosity.
• 6:53
  When you were going through challenging, cumbersome times, you still decided to open up Zoom rooms, not just for speakers, because I know you did it for other industries too.
• 7:01
  Why did you choose generosity over panic?
• 7:03
  And maybe you did choose panic as well.
• 7:05
  Okay.
• 7:06
  Lots of panic.
• 7:07
  I mean, I think I spent the first week in the fetal position, convinced myself it was a form of yoga.
• 7:14
  I don't mind admitting I did dabble in a bit of day drinking, which didn't last too long, thank goodness.
• 7:20
  But I think I just...
• 7:22
  I got to the point where I realised so much of my identity was tied up in speaking and I probably went through a bit of self-analysis that that probably wasn't a good thing.
• 7:33
  So that was certainly one of the gifts that came out of the pandemic.
• 7:37
  But I think I got to the point where, well, if I can't be on stage, how else can I serve?
• 7:41
  And you say it was generous maybe, but it was also very self-serving because I just didn't know what else to do.
• 7:47
  And so I set up these industry round tables.
• 7:51
  So I did one, I thought about the five industries that I'm best suited to serve.
• 7:55
  And I did one every day of the week for every through Monday through Friday.
• 8:00
  And I did that for eight weeks.
• 8:03
  And to be really honest, I kept doing that as hard as it was to show up some days because it was helping me.
• 8:10
  It was, you know, I was still I was feeling connected again.
• 8:13
  I was doing what I'm good at, you know, and I was helping people.
• 8:18
  And I think that helped me certainly helped me get through the pandemic.
• 8:23
  Yeah, I love what you described there.
• 8:24
  I think for many high-performing people, but particularly high-performing women, we have a doer identity.
• 8:30
  And there was some really interesting research that came out recently that tells us that that doer identity is born in childhood.
• 8:36
  We often get praised and rewarded and we become conditioned to being the doer.
• 8:41
  And so when your doing is instantaneously terminated as it was with the pandemic, it really forces you to confront some very harsh situations
• 8:51
  some sobering facts about yourself.
• 8:53
  And I love that that was, as you say now, a silver lining of the pandemic for you.
• 8:57
  Yeah, and also what I realised and, you know, still realising, I actually spoke at an event yesterday and someone in the audience was attending one of those and, you know, came up to me afterwards and told me.
• 9:11
  So it had this unbeknownst to me at the time and it certainly wasn't my intention, but it did have this reciprocal effect and I don't know the number, I haven't done the data on it, but I know that I got speaking engagements from that in the years following and...
• 9:27
  because people remembered that I was there showing up to help those industries like travel that were just decimated.
• 9:33
  So I got lots of bookings in the travel industry in the years when things opened back up, you know, as a direct result of that.
• 9:40
  So I think this law of reciprocity in life obviously continues to show up and surprise us.
• 9:46
  Yeah.
• 9:46
  And you are really the embodiment of that.
• 9:48
  And it's going to lead into my next question, because this is basically your book, Radical Customer Obsession.
• 9:55
  And that long tail return on investment, I think, often comes when we genuinely, not just superficially, you know, in a tokenistic way, care for our customers.
• 10:05
  When you genuinely care for the people that you serve, there are long tail winds that come from that.
• 10:11
  So as I said, your book, you know, the businesses that obsess, and I love that word, and I love this term,
• 10:20
  If we obsess over our customers, we will stop the inshittification, that is the deterioration of a product or a service.
• 10:29
  Because when you obsess over your customers, you don't just earn their business, but you earn their trust and their advocacy.
• 10:36
  And what really stood out for me in this book is that it starts inside your business.
• 10:40
  And I think for many businesses, correct me if I'm wrong.
• 10:43
  We often think that customer facing people are the ones responsible for customer service and client happiness.
• 10:50
  But you make a really strong point, and this is what challenged my thinking, that it's the legal team who design understandable contracts that are just as important.
• 10:59
  It's the tech team who build a really intuitive interface.
• 11:03
  It's the finance team who make invoicing and payment really simple.
• 11:07
  for the high-performing people that are listening, whether they're leading teams inside a corporate organisation or they're building their own business, let's make it personal because I think a lot of us are wired, particularly women, are wired for relationships and servitude and customer service that's baked into our biology because of our oestrogen being that hormone of servitude and accommodation.
• 11:28
  But women often notice the gaps.
• 11:30
  We experience the friction and we know when something happens
• 11:34
  feels off, that intuitive sense.
• 11:36
  But sometimes we don't have the language or the authority to fix it.
• 11:40
  So my two questions are going to be, what does it actually mean to move from customer focus to radical customer obsession?
• 11:47
  That's number one.
• 11:49
  And then for people who are not in leadership roles per se, but they're operating in a system that they didn't design, what can they do to advocate for the customer experience that we should be seeing?
• 12:01
  Yeah, they're great questions.
• 12:02
  I'm actually noticing something since I bought them.
• 12:06
  So the book came out in August last year and in shitification, which you mentioned is a word.
• 12:11
  It was actually the Macquarie Dictionary word of the year in 2024, which is kind of really interesting, I think, as a signal of where customer service is at in general.
• 12:22
  So I think that what I've noticed, particularly this year, is I'm doing a lot more whole of company events because I think there's this realization that, as you said, it's not just the customer facing people in an organization.
• 12:35
  The customer experience literally starts, it starts from the top down, but it also starts from the inside out.
• 12:40
  And I love doing a whole of company event.
• 12:42
  I love empowering people who are locked away in a back office, just how much they contribute to the customer experience.
• 12:49
  And I think when you can get an organization
• 12:52
  everyone in that organization focused on a common goal.
• 12:55
  It not only puts the customer at the heart of everything that they do, it's actually very unifying from a team culture point of view.
• 13:02
  And to your point also, a lot of brands and organizations talk about customer centricity
• 13:10
  But it's very tokenistic.
• 13:12
  They talk about, you know, their customer is the most important part in their business.
• 13:15
  But then when you look at what they do day to day, it just isn't reflected in their management decisions.
• 13:22
  It's not treated in, it's not, it doesn't show up in how they treat their employees.
• 13:26
  So employee experience is so intrinsically tied to customer experience.
• 13:31
  And, you know, our good friend, Graham Cowan, who just wrote the book, Great Leaders Care,
• 13:35
  He makes a strong argument for this as well.
• 13:37
  If you look at brands like Bundings, for example, which is Australia's most trusted brand and has been for many years, you know, their CEO is very, you know, very much very employee focused.
• 13:48
  And so I make the argument in my book that customer experiences essentially are really just employee experiences played out one by one.
• 13:57
  And so I think the brands that realise that the employee experience is so intrinsically tied, but also really live and breathe the customer centricity piece and get everyone focused on that as their core value, they're the ones that shine.
• 14:14
  That is brilliant.
• 14:15
  And I think too often we, as you said, focus on the outward tangible customer touch points, like the really tangible touch points.
• 14:24
  But I love Deloitte often talk about why we have to invest in our human capital and the people in the engine rooms, you know, the people back of house are just as critical.
• 14:34
  And I think that's a totally different way for organizations to look at customer experience.
• 14:39
  Absolutely.
• 14:40
  And I think you can also, and in the book, I looked at a number of studies.
• 14:45
  I love data and I love research and I love linking to what would seem, two unseemingly unrelated data sets together to make the argument.
• 14:53
  And if you look at organizations, and I write about a lot of them in the book, look at organizations like Virgin that over-index on tenure for their teams, for their staff, and their customer experience scores,
• 15:07
  they're intrinsically tired.
• 15:08
  So if you've got people who are inspired to stay at an organization, then your customer experience is, you know, your scores are gonna be higher.
• 15:17
  It's just, it sounds simple, but it's not simplistic obviously.
• 15:21
  But, you know, look after your people and they will look after your customers.
• 15:24
  Yeah, I often say the basics work if you work the basics.
• 15:28
  And I think so many of us look for convoluted strategies and really complicated targets.
• 15:34
  Just be good humans, like be good humans.
• 15:37
  And as I said, invest in your human capital.
• 15:40
  So you mentioned there Sir Richard Branson and you've had the privilege of meeting Sir Richard Branson at Necker Island.
• 15:46
  Is that right?
• 15:47
  Yes.
• 15:48
  Yes.
• 15:49
  And I read somewhere that this really shaped your thinking about business and customer experience.
• 15:56
  He talked about curiosity and frustration as the engine of great brands.
• 16:01
  I'm going to say that again because I think it's powerful.
• 16:03
  That curiosity combined with frustration is the engine room of great brands.
• 16:08
  Now, one of our common friends, Amelia Phillips, introduced me to the term a temporal landmark.
• 16:13
  And she describes this as a really significant moment in time where your life is radically different.
• 16:19
  Would you say that meeting and having this conversation with Sir Richard Branson was a catalyst conversation for you?
• 16:27
  And how do you apply that lens to the work that you do with organizations?
• 16:32
  Yeah, look, it really was.
• 16:34
  It was completely life changing.
• 16:36
  So this was 2018 and I was invited to a leadership retreat at Necker Island, which is where Richard Branson lives and operates his businesses.
• 16:45
  And I remember at the time I had a new baby, I was a single mum.
• 16:49
  It was the first time I'd ever been away from Oli, let alone for this amount of time.
• 16:53
  And so it was a really big decision to go.
• 16:55
  It was a big decision.
• 16:57
  logistically it was a big decision emotionally it was a big decision financially and NECA Island is not easy to get to it's five flights in 33 hours so I felt like as the trip unfolded I felt like the the pain of being further and further away from you know my baby so and I remember by the time I got to NECA I was jet-lagged I was tired I was emotional and I remember pulling in and it's
• 17:27
  you know, there's nothing like it in the world.
• 17:28
  It's this very kind of unique combination of a big private island, Richard Branson's home, and, you know, it's Necker Island, and you're pulling up to Necker Island, which very few people get the chance to, you know, have this experience.
• 17:42
  And I just remember thinking, what am I doing?
• 17:46
  who like imposter syndrome fully collapsed me from every angle.
• 17:50
  I'm just like, who am I to be here?
• 17:53
  Like, who am I?
• 17:54
  I should just ask this boat driver to turn around and just take me back to the mainland so I can go home.
• 18:00
  And I remember just having to have this very strong internal conversation with, who are you not to be here?
• 18:05
  And so,
• 18:08
  That was kind of the start of the trip and you know the next six days were just, were literally life changing in terms of who I met.
• 18:16
  Not just Sir Richard but we had some incredible people on that trip with us.
• 18:19
  We had Mark Manson, the Subtle Art of Not Giving Up.
• 18:22
  Alyssa Milano who started the Me Too movement.
• 18:25
  We had Katie Coleman who was the first
• 18:28
  female NASA astronaut to lead a mission to the International Space Station.
• 18:32
  Like it was just everywhere you turn there was just an incredible human being as well as the people, the other people who were invited.
• 18:39
  And you know the the the lessons and the impact of that trip probably continue to unfold today.
• 18:49
  It was that powerful and it was so there were so many lessons.
• 18:52
  Obviously the power of proximity
• 18:54
  the power of putting yourself in an environment which, you know, is uncomfortable, that stretches you in every single way.
• 19:00
  But one conversation that I had with Sir Richard Branson on that trip, and it's, you know, it's such a weird experience because you've got this privilege, if you like, of getting to observe Richard Branson in his natural environment for a whole week.
• 19:12
  In his boardies?
• 19:13
  He was in his boardies most of the time.
• 19:15
  You know, you're having a conversation in a jacuzzi with Richard Branson and you like have these moments where you're like, how did I get here exactly?
• 19:23
  And so this was 2018.
• 19:25
  And so he said, you know, curiosity and frustration make the best businesses.
• 19:29
  And he said this in the context of Virgin Voyager because this was 2018.
• 19:34
  They were in the final stages of developing this cruise line brand that has gone on to disrupt an entire category of travel.
• 19:41
  And it started with curiosity and frustration because Richard himself had been invited on no less than 100 cruises and he'd always said no.
• 19:49
  And he got curious about why, like what was it about cruising that didn't appeal to him?
• 19:55
  Now, for all the people listening to this podcast, I can tell you because I've done this straw poll many times in audiences.
• 20:01
  I mean, how many of us have never been on a cruise?
• 20:03
  It's usually 80 or 90 percent of people if you put people in a room.
• 20:06
  Yeah.
• 20:07
  And then I ask people, why?
• 20:08
  Why have you never been on a cruise?
• 20:10
  We've all had the opportunity.
• 20:11
  And they say things like, I feel stuck.
• 20:12
  It's overcrowded.
• 20:13
  There's kids.
• 20:14
  There's old people, like human beings everywhere.
• 20:18
  Lots of things that are not appealing about cruising, including the buffet.
• 20:24
  I think, I don't know if you've ever observed other human beings at a buffet and thought to yourself, if this was the time in history that aliens chose to come down out of space and observe human behavior, they'd just leave again thinking there's no intelligent life on the planet.
• 20:39
  I sometimes look at other human beings at a buffet and think to myself,
• 20:42
  Have you never had access to free food before?
• 20:45
  So all of those reasons, you know, and there's 100 reasons why people don't go on cruises and it makes them not appealing.
• 20:52
  And that's where they started.
• 20:53
  They started with that list.
• 20:55
  And they literally flipped the switch on every single one of them and built this cruise line brand, Virgin Voyager ships,
• 21:01
  The numbers are limited.
• 21:02
  It's adults only.
• 21:03
  There's a focus on wellness.
• 21:04
  There's a focus on luxury.
• 21:05
  You get on and off every day.
• 21:07
  It's a fun experience.
• 21:08
  Most importantly, not a single buffet on any single ship, just 12 Michelin star restaurants.
• 21:14
  So they have literally flipped the switch on all of the things that frustrate or have an ick factor about cruising.
• 21:21
  And interestingly,
• 21:24
  Um, and unfortunately they, uh, launched a cruise line brand, possibly the worst day in history, which was the 14th of February, 2020.
• 21:32
  Oh, and then of course, a month later, as we know what happened.
• 21:37
  Um, so they were, you know, put on hold for a couple of years, but had since relaunched and last year, over 70% of Virgin Voyager passengers had never been on a cruise before.
• 21:49
  Wow.
• 21:50
  And this is at the heart of Richard Branson's business philosophy is that he just gets curious about why and what frustrates people and how can we make something innovative and better and different.
• 22:02
  So they, by focusing and obsessing over curiosity and frustration, they've created an entire category of travel that didn't exist before, an entire category of demand.
• 22:13
  that just wasn't there.
• 22:14
  And I think that's, you know, the perfect story and the perfect example of radical customer obsession.
• 22:20
  That's brilliant.
• 22:21
  And what a great place for you to land now, having gone through.
• 22:25
  And I love that you acknowledge, because I see this with a lot of accomplished women that I work with, that imposter syndrome that sometimes simmers in the background or sometimes in very pronounced moments rears its very ugly head.
• 22:35
  And wouldn't your life look different if you had
• 22:38
  hadn't pushed past and had that harsh talk with yourself on your way there to bypass that imposter syndrome that's prevalent.
• 22:47
  The other thing, and I don't know if this applies to you, but I hear with a lot of accomplished women is that they experience a lot of mother's guilt.
• 22:54
  And so what I think is happening is that women are having to make trade-offs.
• 22:59
  Let's be really honest.
• 23:00
  Our time, our energy and our attention are finite.
• 23:03
  And I don't think we're having open, transparent conversations about what the trade-offs are.
• 23:07
  Um, you've delivered 1700 keynotes in 17 countries.
• 23:12
  You've authored five books and you run multiple businesses.
• 23:16
  Um, you've done a significant amount of this as a single mother.
• 23:19
  And I think that needs to be acknowledged and applauded.
• 23:22
  Um, and not necessarily with a huge family safety net.
• 23:26
  You've sometimes traveled with a baby in tow in an industry that let's be honest, is still often dominated by men.
• 23:33
  at the top of the bill.
• 23:34
  And here's what I noticed.
• 23:35
  We're very good often at sharing the shiny versions of our career.
• 23:40
  You know, the highlight reel, the stage shots, the sold out events, the book launches.
• 23:45
  What we don't often share publicly, but we experience are those shabby moments.
• 23:49
  The 3am wake ups when we've got to deliver a keynote at 11.
• 23:52
  The school events that we miss because we're interstate or internationally.
• 23:57
  The decisions that you made that you're still not sure whether they're the right ones, because the trade-offs that nobody talks about do not make often good content.
• 24:06
  They might make, you would argue otherwise, because I know you say everything is content.
• 24:11
  Because I think ambitious women are really starving for the real story.
• 24:16
  You know, not how did I get to the top, the A-roll glossy version.
• 24:20
  Not because we want to be discouraged, but because I think we crave the highlight reel and we assume that everybody else has it figured out.
• 24:28
  And that assumption is just damn well exhausting and inaccurate.
• 24:32
  I would love to know what have been the real life tradeoffs that you've had to make to build a successful speaking business and was building this career in a male dominated industry as a single mum.
• 24:43
  What has it potentially cost you?
• 24:45
  Yeah.
• 24:46
  How long have we got?
• 24:47
  Keep going.
• 24:49
  Look, you know, what's really interesting and I, the turning another, talk about another catalyst moment was when I was pregnant after seven years of IVF and suddenly found myself separated from my husband.
• 25:05
  at 10 weeks pregnant, which was a surprise and not a great situation to be in.
• 25:10
  And my parents have passed away, have no family back up.
• 25:12
  And I remember sort of thinking, what am I going to do?
• 25:16
  I mean, I'm about to become a first time mum.
• 25:19
  What is this going to mean?
• 25:21
  Very fortunately for me, I call her the godmother of speaking, Lisa McGuinness-Smith sat me down and she said, what you're going to do is you're going to grow your business, your speaking business, and you're going to take your baby everywhere with you.
• 25:33
  You have the best job in the world to be a mum, albeit a single mum, so you're just going to take your baby everywhere with you.
• 25:41
  And I kind of was, it felt counterintuitive for me.
• 25:45
  And, but once I opened, once my eyes were opened to the possibility
• 25:50
  of how that could work, I got super excited.
• 25:53
  So I had Ollie in May of 2017.
• 25:58
  He was very premmy, so we had eight weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit.
• 26:02
  Once we busted out of there, I pretty much took him on the road with me.
• 26:04
  So it was great.
• 26:07
  Look, I'm not gonna say it was always easy.
• 26:08
  It wasn't because I was traveling alone with a little, very little baby, having to take a cot and a pram and a car seat as well as all my stuff.
• 26:20
  um and all of his stuff uh so it wasn't always easy but we figured out a system and we did it and i had a nanny in every state uh and yeah we went on the road together i did his 100th flight when he was 20 months old and um yeah it was great and i had my first million dollar year in 2018 so
• 26:40
  Yeah, it was pretty cool.
• 26:42
  And as I said, I'm not going to say it was always easy because it wasn't and there are lots of sleepless nights.
• 26:47
  But what was really interesting and what I wasn't prepared for is the judgment.
• 26:52
  And the number of people who said to me and women, which was so disappointing to me, and I felt so naive, the number of people who said, what do you mean?
• 27:02
  What about his routine?
• 27:04
  And I'm like, he has a routine.
• 27:07
  But what about what happens when you're working?
• 27:11
  You know, well, he's got a nanny for, I'm essentially a full-time mom and earning a million dollars a year.
• 27:17
  Like find me someone else who's doing that and I'm doing what I think is best for my son.
• 27:23
  But yeah, I did get a lot of judgment.
• 27:25
  I remember being trolled on Instagram once when I posted a photo of us in the Qantas lounge, you know, being trolled going, you know, fancy having a baby.
• 27:34
  taking all this time to have a baby and then dragging him from pillar to post.
• 27:37
  I just thought, you know, it was, yeah, it was a real eye opener to me.
• 27:44
  of how women, and I know a lot of women listening to this podcast have had exactly the same experience being a working mum.
• 27:52
  You feel like you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.
• 27:55
  If you go back to work too early, you're shoving your kid in childcare and not being a good mum.
• 28:00
  If you take two years maternity leave, you're letting the sisterhood down.
• 28:03
  I mean, we just can't win.
• 28:05
  So I just, you know, and I think this is the big inconvenient truth about why we don't have more women in leadership, particularly in politics.
• 28:13
  Why would you?
• 28:14
  Why would you do it to yourself?
• 28:16
  Because you are judged at 10 times the rate and velocity that any man is.
• 28:21
  I mean, the number of people who came up to me at a speaking engagement, because I would talk about Ollie on stage, you know, I did spend $100,000 on IVF.
• 28:30
  I had to turn him into content at some point to get some return on investment.
• 28:35
  A viable tax deduction.
• 28:36
  I would talk about him on stage.
• 28:39
  The number of people that would come up to me and say, what do you do with Ollie when you're on stage?
• 28:45
  Like almost like, is he okay?
• 28:48
  Like who is he with?
• 28:49
  And I remember doing, um,
• 28:51
  uh, doing a gig with a male speaker once who had a baby.
• 28:55
  Um, he, you know, he and his wife had had a baby around about the same time and he heard someone, a woman come up to me and ask that.
• 29:01
  And he just turned to me and he said, do you know how many times I've been asked that question?
• 29:05
  Zero.
• 29:06
  And I'm like, exactly.
• 29:08
  Um, so yeah, we've, we've still got a lot of work to do.
• 29:11
  We do.
• 29:12
  And a few things you said there that really stood out that I'd love to double click on.
• 29:15
  How lucky were you that you met Lisa and you had Lisa?
• 29:19
  Maggie Dent often talks about we need wise women, you know, those wise women who provide us guidance that give us the shake up, you know, the shake by the shoulders that we need to hear at just the right time.
• 29:31
  I think we need wise women.
• 29:32
  women mentors, we need friends championing us, challenging us, and also cheering us on.
• 29:38
  And it sounds like she was that certainly for you.
• 29:40
  And how lucky...
• 29:42
  Yeah, she absolutely was.
• 29:44
  And in many respects, you know, she has inspired me through her generosity of spirit to pay it forward a little bit wherever I can.
• 29:51
  So I've actually put together the lists and the kit and the kind of blueprint for travelling with a baby.
• 29:58
  And I've shared that with other speakers who become musicians as well.
• 30:03
  Yeah, I will say I did that with two of our three sons.
• 30:07
  I was, I will acknowledge, very lucky to have my mum come with me.
• 30:10
  She used to tell people she was the flying nanny.
• 30:13
  And she, we nailed it because we ended up testing just about every port-a-cot.
• 30:19
  And I will say I'm not endorsed, but the BabyBjorn port-a-cot is hands down.
• 30:23
  the winning one.
• 30:24
  So I've got a friend who's a speaker who you know who's about to have a baby.
• 30:28
  And I met with her the other day and I'm like, don't buy anything except this particular port-a-cot.
• 30:33
  Yeah.
• 30:34
  Game changer.
• 30:35
  If you've got the right support and the right equipment, anything is possible.
• 30:39
  Absolutely.
• 30:40
  And I...
• 30:40
  Yeah, well, I was going to say it wasn't always easy.
• 30:43
  No.
• 30:43
  I remember one of the funniest moments was actually when Ollie was about, I think he was about four or five months, maybe six months old, and I had just done my first road show since having a baby, and I was so smug and it had all worked out.
• 30:57
  It was pretty nerve-wracking.
• 30:58
  I was obviously very tired and I was on the last leg of the road show, had travelled with a baby, and I remember getting to the business lounge
• 31:06
  in Melbourne, which was, it was a Thursday afternoon.
• 31:08
  It was wall-to-wall men in suits.
• 31:11
  And I sort of found a quiet corner in the business lounge to give Ollie, to breastfeed him.
• 31:15
  And I finished breastfeeding him.
• 31:18
  And I remember thinking, I've just got, you know, a couple of minutes to go to the bathroom before the flight boards.
• 31:23
  And so I popped him back in the carrier and went to walk to the bathroom.
• 31:28
  And I'm walking through the Qantas lounge and it was basically all men.
• 31:31
  And they're all staring at me.
• 31:33
  And I remember I was so smug because I had just, you know, been reflecting on the week and thinking we did it.
• 31:39
  We did it.
• 31:39
  We did five cities, you know, sold out of books, you know, did it all with a baby.
• 31:45
  All the presentations were perfect.
• 31:47
  I got, I think, a standing ovation or two.
• 31:50
  And I remember I was so smug, I was like prancing through the business lounge.
• 31:53
  I was looking at all these men staring at me.
• 31:55
  I'm thinking, yeah, you have a good look at me.
• 31:57
  You have a good look at me.
• 31:59
  You've just had to worry about your Bulgari briefcase for the week.
• 32:02
  I've traveled with a baby, with a cot, with a pram,
• 32:05
  with a car seat to five cities.
• 32:07
  And I've probably made more money than all of you.
• 32:09
  So you get a good look at me.
• 32:11
  And I got to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and realized that my left boob was just, yeah, had not put it away.
• 32:18
  And that's actually what they were staring at.
• 32:19
  They were not admiring my goddess-like ability.
• 32:22
  They were actually just staring at my left boob, which I'd left out after breastfeeding.
• 32:26
  Oh, dear.
• 32:27
  Oh, dear.
• 32:28
  I love that you were saluting yourself along the way and that you didn't even notice that it was protruding from your toe.
• 32:34
  You were in that moment.
• 32:35
  You were soaking it up.
• 32:36
  Pardon the pump.
• 32:37
  That's how tired it.
• 32:38
  Yeah, that's how tired it is.
• 32:40
  My worst speaking moment as a breastfeeding mum was for whatever reason, and I've never, ever owned anything yellow or lemon, but during my post-maternal brain I decided to invest in a yellow dress and I was delivering a keynote, had fed people,
• 32:54
  Billy before I went to deliver this presentation, had nailed the hand over to my mum, got up to deliver the presentation.
• 33:00
  And again, it was that fault line in my thinking.
• 33:03
  I have nailed this.
• 33:04
  Look at me go.
• 33:05
  Here I am rocking it.
• 33:07
  Except one of the delegates in the audience brought their baby and their baby started crying.
• 33:12
  And so I had a huge, yes, I had breast pads in, but a huge letdown in my lemon dress.
• 33:18
  And it was as clear as anything what it was.
• 33:21
  Wow.
• 33:22
  Possibly one of the most mortifying moments of my speaking career.
• 33:25
  But again, other women understood.
• 33:28
  And that's where I love.
• 33:29
  I think you highlighted that Lisa was obviously an expander for you.
• 33:34
  And I have no hesitation in saying you are most certainly that for me.
• 33:38
  And I love that we have women supporting women.
• 33:40
  But as you also sadly acknowledged, we still, for many women, have other women tearing us down.
• 33:45
  I think we can now be our biggest advocates and supporters, but we can be our biggest critics and sceptics too.
• 33:51
  And I think we need to move beyond that.
• 33:54
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:55
  I mean, I will say reflecting back on those years that I travelled with Ollie as a baby, there certainly was a lot of judgement, but there was also a lot of gracious support from strangers.
• 34:06
  You know, when I'm walking through or getting on a plane with a baby, with this and that, I was very uplifted by the number, particularly women, who offered to help.
• 34:17
  So, yeah, we've got to focus on all the positive support that is out there as well.
• 34:23
  The glimmers and the shimmers, not the shamers.
• 34:27
  Now, I want to shift gears now, and I want to ask you something that you've written about publicly, and I know you have perhaps talked about this openly because it connects something that I talk about constantly, and that is that your body keeps cool.
• 34:39
  Your health needs.
• 34:40
  and your wellbeing are not rewards for when the work is done.
• 34:43
  It's actually the foundation upon which everything else hinges upon.
• 34:47
  In November 2021, you were admitted to hospital with what you thought was severe gastro.
• 34:52
  It turned out it was potentially a life-ending illness.
• 34:57
  Can you share a little bit more about the experience and why your baseline of health actually saved you?
• 35:03
  Yeah, so it was November 2021 and I had had what I thought was a really bad bout of gastro, as you said.
• 35:12
  So I had Ollie and my best friend's mum lives around the corner and I rang her and I said, look,
• 35:22
  been vomiting all day could you come and watch Ollie for half an hour so I can have a nap because I'm just feeling exhausted from vomiting and she came straight over she took one look at me and she said I'm taking you to hospital because you're super dehydrated which I was so went to emergency I had a bag of IV fluids one of those magic anti-nausea injections you know there's ones like you're feeling so sick and as soon as this needle goes into you like oh my god I feel fine I don't know who invented those things but they should get some sort of prize
• 35:51
  And people who invented epidurals.
• 35:54
  So I napped in emergency for about 20 minutes.
• 36:01
  I woke up and they sent me home.
• 36:03
  But unbeknownst to me, the ER doctor, Brooke,
• 36:06
  had taken a blood test while I was asleep and I got the results back about half an hour after I left this was a Friday night and she looked at my blood profile on the results and thought to herself main inflammatory marker looks really high for gastro so unbeknownst to me but thank goodness for her she sent my blood away for an extra culture test which takes about two takes about 56 hours to get the results back
• 36:33
  So I woke up on Saturday, on the Saturday morning, felt 100, went for an 8K run, went to an awards night that night.
• 36:41
  The only indicator I had that something wasn't quite right was at the awards night.
• 36:46
  I had like half a glass of wine and I remember feeling quite drunk and just not myself.
• 36:50
  And I actually couldn't finish the wine, the glass of wine.
• 36:53
  And if you knew me, you'd know that a loan was cause for alarm.
• 36:58
  So I went home feeling a little bit ordinary and I just put it down to the fact that I had a full day of vomiting and, you know, your ribs are sore and you're just not feeling yourself.
• 37:06
  So I woke up on a Sunday, didn't feel great.
• 37:08
  So I just sort of didn't do much that day.
• 37:10
  And then by Sunday afternoon, I...
• 37:14
  just was feeling really unwell.
• 37:16
  Ollie had gone to his biological dad for the night and I just remember thinking, I'm just gonna go to bed.
• 37:21
  And so I went to bed at about five o'clock in the afternoon.
• 37:23
  I woke up at about four in the morning and I thought I was actually in a swimming pool because I was drenched in that much sweat.
• 37:32
  And my temperature was so high, I was hallucinating.
• 37:34
  I had, I didn't know where I was.
• 37:36
  There were clowns on jet skis whirling around the bed.
• 37:40
  I've never, haven't had that analyzed.
• 37:42
  And I remember thinking, I'm so, I don't even know where I am.
• 37:48
  And I was so disorientated.
• 37:49
  And then all of a sudden I went from being super hot to freezing cold.
• 37:53
  Like if you'd said I was in an igloo with no clothes on, I would have believed you.
• 37:56
  So I remember crawling, literally crawling, because for some reason I couldn't really stand up.
• 38:01
  into a hot shower and I sat in the hot shower, like boiling hot, scalded all my skin, couldn't get warm.
• 38:09
  And I remember looking at my arms and they were just like burnt, they were scalded.
• 38:13
  And I thought, well, I probably should go to hospital.
• 38:16
  So I turned the shower off, I crawled back to bed to find my phone and I passed out on the carpet before I could get to the phone.
• 38:24
  So I woke up and we still to this day don't know how this happened because my phone is always on silent.
• 38:32
  I've never had a phone that rings ever.
• 38:35
  And I woke up to my phone ringing and it was about five, just after five in the morning and it was the hospital.
• 38:43
  It was that ER doctor.
• 38:45
  And she said, Amanda, where are you?
• 38:47
  You're really sick.
• 38:48
  And I remember thinking, wow, she must be psychic.
• 38:50
  How does she know I'm really sick?
• 38:53
  So they sent an ambulance for me and I got to hospital and all they said was you have a blood infection, which I didn't really know what that meant.
• 39:03
  They didn't use the word septicemia or sepsis, but when I got to hospital, I had a team of doctors pounce on me.
• 39:09
  They put three cannulas in and it was all felt all very hectic and panicked.
• 39:14
  And the first two questions they asked me was, who is your next of kin and do you have your affairs in order?
• 39:19
  And I remember thinking, oh, that sounds pretty serious.
• 39:23
  I don't think they're questions that you want to be asked when you're in a hospital with this team of doctors who all seem very panicked.
• 39:31
  So it began, I guess, the fight of my life.
• 39:33
  So I had E. coli septicemia.
• 39:36
  And...
• 39:37
  So they were just hooking me up to every antibiotic they had.
• 39:40
  So I was in ICU for eight days in total.
• 39:45
  The third night, so my partner at the time, Chris, was stuck in a lockdown in Melbourne.
• 39:53
  And they rang him on the third night and said, we're really sorry, we've run out of options.
• 39:59
  We've got one last antibiotic to try, and if that doesn't work, we're about four hours away from complete organ failure.
• 40:06
  Yeah, it wasn't great.
• 40:07
  Spoiler alert, the last antibiotic worked.
• 40:11
  So, yeah, it was pretty serious and I came very, very close to dying.
• 40:17
  Well, they don't know how I survived it.
• 40:20
  Well, they do.
• 40:20
  Their theory is, and back to your original question, so about a month after it was all over and I went back for my follow-up information.
• 40:28
  tests, that Dr. Brooke, who I'm forever grateful for, obviously, she sat us down and said, I want to show you something because this is really extraordinary.
• 40:36
  This is your blood profile from today.
• 40:38
  It's all normal.
• 40:39
  It's all everything's in range and you're perfectly healthy.
• 40:42
  I want to show you the blood profile of when you were admitted to hospital the second time.
• 40:48
  And she said, this one number I want to show you, which is your main inflammatory marker.
• 40:53
  So your main inflammatory marker usually sits between two and three in a healthy person.
• 40:57
  If it goes over five, it means you're unwell.
• 41:00
  She said, you got your main inflammatory marker to 187.
• 41:05
  And she said, that's actually a real, you should feel really proud of that.
• 41:10
  I'm thinking about adding it to my LinkedIn profile under a few minutes.
• 41:14
  She said, because most people would be dead at 160 or at least have all four limbs amputated.
• 41:20
  She said, the only explanation we have for how you survived this is your baseline fitness.
• 41:26
  because if you weren't fit, then you just wouldn't have survived it.
• 41:30
  So I had discovered strength training through COVID and was training for a half marathon when this happened.
• 41:37
  So it was a really great lesson that when we are fit and when we invest in our health and our fitness, it's not just for how we feel today, but it's often...
• 41:46
  it's often a future insurance policy because when you find yourself in a very sudden situation where you have to make a pretty serious and major withdrawal from the health bank the credits you have in that bank are everything
• 42:00
  What a good analogy.
• 42:01
  And I've heard bits of that story before, but never in its entirety.
• 42:06
  And isn't it, I think we often do take our health for granted, and it's not until there's a crisis that we really recognise how foundational it is, because without your health, and we hear this all the time, what's that saying?
• 42:20
  You have every problem in the world until you don't have your health, and then you've got one problem, and that's it.
• 42:25
  Yeah.
• 42:26
  Yeah, everything is solvable.
• 42:27
  Everything is solvable unless it's a health problem.
• 42:30
  Yeah.
• 42:31
  And, you know, there's many people listening to this podcast who've been through something similar and I'm amazed.
• 42:36
  I didn't even know what sepsis was until this happened to me.
• 42:39
  But the number of people who when I share this story and it's, you know, it's not an easy story to share, obviously, but I share it because of that lesson of just how important putting credits into the health bank are.
• 42:50
  The number of people who come up to me saying, you know, my dad died of sepsis or my mum had a right arm amputated.
• 42:56
  And, you know, it's just such a sudden, serious help.
• 42:59
  Literally, I was, you know, I was perfectly healthy.
• 43:03
  And then within days I was in ICU fighting for life.
• 43:07
  And I've got to say also the other gift that came out of that is that when you find yourself in that situation and it's happened so suddenly and you're literally on death's door, I mean, I could feel that I was dying.
• 43:17
  I know that's a weird thing to say, but I could feel the life force leaving me.
• 43:27
  Things get very simple.
• 43:30
  You realize that there is a handful of things that are important, so.
• 43:36
  Yeah, sorry, I'm going to compose myself.
• 43:38
  Oh, you got me.
• 43:38
  I just started crying when you started crying.
• 43:41
  I'm such a sympathy crier.
• 43:43
  My friends call me Robyn, Sobbing Robyn, because I just, I mean, I cry during a Kleenex commercial.
• 43:49
  Marketer's dream you are.
• 43:53
  I really am.
• 43:54
  But, yeah, things get very, very simple.
• 43:56
  Don't they?
• 43:57
  You know, people, a lot of people have asked me, you know, how has that changed you?
• 44:01
  Are you, you know, super focused on your health and you, you know, super, what's the word?
• 44:08
  You know, super obsessive about your health.
• 44:10
  And I'm actually not.
• 44:12
  It's changed me in ways that I hadn't really considered.
• 44:16
  It's...
• 44:17
  Yes, certainly.
• 44:17
  I'm very focused on my health and, but I'm also, it's also, it was also a reminder for me of just how fragile life is and how enough, tomorrow's not guaranteed.
• 44:27
  And so drink the wine, buy the shoes.
• 44:31
  Send the flowers.
• 44:32
  Send the flowers, book the holiday, you know, all of that.
• 44:36
  Cause it's, yeah, I think I'm living life probably a little bit more fully since then.
• 44:41
  yeah and which i'm also grateful for and i'm also very i think i'm living more consciously as well i think i notice my feel like i notice the sky more and the color of the leaves more and all of that just you know it's a very uh there was there were lots of gifts that that came out of that experience yeah
• 44:59
  I'm so sorry you went through it, but also like what beautiful blessings that have come from that.
• 45:04
  And I often find that the challenges and the setbacks and those really hard, crunchy moments in our life, they're usually those recalibration moments because it sounds like for you.
• 45:14
  And I know when I was in a Code Red ward, it's an instantaneous and forced recalibration of your values and priorities.
• 45:22
  Like you strip away all the superfluous things that we
• 45:26
  obsess over and convince ourselves are important.
• 45:29
  And as you said, you hone in and get such granular clarity on what really matters.
• 45:35
  And I think for many of us, it's until we have that shaky moment, we don't realize how absolutely foundational our health and wellbeing is.
• 45:43
  And I often remind people that good health is a privilege.
• 45:47
  It's not a promise.
• 45:48
  And, you know, we have to do what we can do to look after our health and wellbeing.
• 45:53
  But also along the way, as you said, and I love that you've reestablished what really matters to you, drinking the wine, having the laugh with your friends, going on the holidays, because I think so many of us delay our gratification and waiting for the calm to, sorry, the calm to arrive or the storm to disappear.
• 46:13
  Life is for living now.
• 46:14
  Like it really is.
• 46:16
  Yeah, and it's very fragile and it's very short.
• 46:18
  Isn't it?
• 46:19
  Yeah.
• 46:19
  Yeah.
• 46:20
  Okay.
• 46:21
  So I've got two more questions.
• 46:24
  Is that okay?
• 46:24
  Are we right for time?
• 46:25
  Yeah, of course.
• 46:26
  Yeah.
• 46:26
  I have to compose myself now because I'm going to get emotional with this one.
• 46:30
  I probably shouldn't have ended with this.
• 46:33
  I want to name something publicly because I think it matters and I don't think we say it enough.
• 46:38
  You are really one of the most generous people and generous women that I have not only encountered in the industry, but in general.
• 46:46
  And I want to be specific because I think generosity loses its meaning when we say it in really abstract and vague ways.
• 46:53
  You've sat with me and given me feedback about my keynotes and the architecture of my work.
• 46:58
  not vague encouragement, actual real considered feedback from someone who knows not just what good but what great looks like on stage.
• 47:06
  You've made introductions to speaking clients.
• 47:08
  You've introduced me to suppliers and contractors.
• 47:11
  There's no gatekeeping of good hair and makeup artists in our world.
• 47:15
  You've sent me a steamer.
• 47:16
  You've sent me flowers.
• 47:17
  But more than that, when my husband was diagnosed with cancer, you were one of the people who kept...
• 47:24
  showing up relentlessly.
• 47:26
  You did it quietly, you did it consistently, and you did it in a way that showed that you genuinely cared.
• 47:33
  And then when life got even more complicated last year, when my operations manager, Karen, passed away, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do to navigate work after this, and I actually contemplated giving up my work,
• 47:46
  You were the person who constantly reached out and you facilitated the introduction to Emma, who now helps me with my speaking work and manages me.
• 47:55
  That introduction changed the trajectory of my life.
• 47:58
  And none of these things on their own are small.
• 48:01
  All of them required you to notice.
• 48:03
  And that's that radical customer obsession that you embody.
• 48:06
  But then you've got to act because it's one thing.
• 48:08
  And I think how many of us think about what we should do?
• 48:10
  We should send the DM or write the message or send the flowers.
• 48:13
  But life gets busy.
• 48:14
  Yeah.
• 48:15
  Where do you think that's come from?
• 48:17
  Where was that modelled to you?
• 48:19
  Has it been embodied in your life in some way?
• 48:22
  What is it that makes you think genuinely and generously for other women?
• 48:27
  Yeah.
• 48:28
  Hmm.
• 48:28
  It's a great, I've never been asked that question before.
• 48:31
  It's a great question.
• 48:31
  What's the genesis?
• 48:33
  Yeah, I think probably my mum.
• 48:34
  I grew up with a mum who, you know, was, had a lot of struggles and a lot of demons.
• 48:40
  She struggled with alcohol and I very much had to be the parent in that relationship.
• 48:46
  But...
• 48:47
  Even though we didn't have very much money at all, she was very generous of spirit and she had a saying that if you can help, you should.
• 48:58
  Very simple statement, but she was very generous and she would donate to charities when she couldn't afford to.
• 49:07
  So I think that probably was instilled in me early.
• 49:09
  Yeah.
• 49:10
  But one of the things, the big life lessons, I think, around paying it forward and the power of deciding to turn, you know, shitty, as I say, turning shit into fertilizer, taking things that shitty things that happen to you and looking for ways to turn them into fertilizer.
• 49:26
  That in itself is often helping.
• 49:41
  unbeknownst to me at the time was donated by a woman who I've since become very close to Sophie Smith who runs a charity in Sydney called running for premature babies so Sophie lost triplets to prematurity but I mean not not even all at once they were born at 26 weeks Henry died that day Evan died 18 days later and Jasper died 56 days later
• 50:03
  Like she thought she was bringing one baby home and it wasn't to be.
• 50:07
  And you know, this is a really, life doesn't get much harder than this.
• 50:11
  And instead of wallowing in her grief, she's turned it into this incredible fertilizer, turned her shitty situation.
• 50:21
  into this wonderful fertilizer running for premature babies, which to date has raised $10 million for neonatal intensive care unit, including a piece of equipment that saved all his life when he was seven days old.
• 50:33
  So I met Sophie about a year later looking for ways to help this charity.
• 50:38
  Obviously, you know, I felt very indebted to this charity.
• 50:42
  So Sophie and I
• 50:45
  have been working together and just prior to about six months before I had my sepsis experience, Sophie made me the Queensland ambassador for the charity, which was a role I took very seriously, which is why I was training for a half marathon.
• 51:00
  So Sophie's decision to turn her very shitty situation into the most wonderful fertilizer in a beautiful full circle moment,
• 51:09
  saved Ollie's life when he was seven days old.
• 51:11
  So she's the reason I'm a mum.
• 51:14
  And then was the reason that, you know, my baseline fitness is what saved me when I had sepsis.
• 51:19
  So I think generosity of spirit can play out in lots of different ways, including just taking your own
• 51:27
  situation and looking for ways to turn it into fertilizer but I think for me helping someone even if it's just letting them know that you're there and that you're thinking of them that seems like such a small gift but it can mean it can mean so much so I think often just the little things I agree
• 51:47
  I think we often think it needs to be big grand gestures and it's the micro moments of connection, like stopping and talking to your barista, you know, having that incidental conversation with the mum at the school gate, if you choose to be a school mum gate person, it's those little things.
• 52:02
  And yes, big grand gestures still count, but I don't think we can underestimate.
• 52:07
  And that is just an incredibly powerful story about that full law of reciprocity, like continuing, like there, it,
• 52:17
  Yeah, that is such a powerful story.
• 52:19
  And I think we need more of it.
• 52:21
  Yes.
• 52:21
  I, whenever I encounter in a retail sense, for example, like the barista or, you know, someone who's really grumpy, you know, you'll often have people go, well, I mean, that person shouldn't be in customer service if they're that grumpy.
• 52:36
  And my view is always, you don't know what's going on in that person's world.
• 52:40
  And people might say, well, it's not our job to change the state of the customer service person.
• 52:44
  I actually think it is because if you.
• 52:47
  you know, cheer someone up or make their day or pay them a compliment.
• 52:50
  You never know where that's the ripple effect that's going to create.
• 52:53
  You've changed their state.
• 52:54
  You've changed the way they're going to show up for the next person and the next person, maybe change the way they're going to show up for their family that afternoon.
• 53:00
  So I think.
• 53:00
  Yeah, you never know, do you?
• 53:02
  I met a when my first son was born, I used to have a lot of time at the park and there was an elderly gentleman there who over the years I befriended and we would just chat.
• 53:13
  And then he disappeared and I assumed that he had passed away because he was quite frail the last time I saw him.
• 53:19
  And then a couple of months after the last encounter with him, a man who was probably in his 60s came up to me and he said, this is a very random question.
• 53:28
  Are you Christy?
• 53:30
  And I looked around and I didn't have a public profile at all then.
• 53:34
  And I said, well, yes, I am.
• 53:35
  And he explained to me that my just incidental ad hoc conversations with this elderly man over the months beforehand had been this man's dad.
• 53:45
  And that that man used to talk to his son just about, and my son Taj has quite a distinctive name, about Christy and Taj and what we were doing and the anecdotes and stories and,
• 53:55
  And he told me what a profound impact that had.
• 53:57
  So I think, as we say, you never know what the long tail impact of your generosity can be and it doesn't have to be grand mammoth things.
• 54:07
  Oh, that's beautiful.
• 54:08
  Wow, what a legacy.
• 54:09
  I just think everyday kindness.
• 54:12
  I mean, imagine.
• 54:13
  Sprinkle.
• 54:14
  Imagine a world where everyone just practised everyday kindness.
• 54:17
  Yeah.
• 54:17
  Maggie Dent says sprinkle kindness everywhere.
• 54:20
  Like sprinkle it like it's confetti.
• 54:23
  So true.
• 54:23
  All right.
• 54:24
  All right.
• 54:25
  My last question for you, and I'm going to caveat this because I had a text message from you yesterday, and I know Amanda is at the tail end of a very big week.
• 54:33
  There's been a lot of travel.
• 54:35
  I'm going to say the biggest flex was that she travelled interstate with carry-on luggage only.
• 54:40
  That in and of itself as a speaker and as someone who loves fashion and shoes I think needs to be acknowledged because I'm not going to underestimate that would have had a significant psychological strain on you.
• 54:51
  But Amanda has turned up here.
• 54:53
  Christy is saying that because she knows just how hard that was for me.
• 54:56
  I remember when I posted that to Instagram stories, my thought, my inner thought was Christy's going to message me and go, I don't believe you.
• 55:04
  And I did.
• 55:05
  And I did.
• 55:07
  So I'm not going to, and I'm going to caveat this because I know I'm going to ask you the question I'm going to ask.
• 55:13
  And I want to know what does spacious success look like for you in this moment in time?
• 55:19
  I think a lot of high performers often wait for the perfect moment, but the reality is there's never really perfect conditions.
• 55:26
  Often life gets busy.
• 55:27
  We're given challenges.
• 55:29
  How do you create spacious success in your life?
• 55:33
  Yes, I came to this interview today with a little bit of imposter syndrome.
• 55:38
  And as I said to you, what a week to be having this interview, because it has been a very full week, unusually full week, which I'm very grateful for as well.
• 55:47
  And so I oscillate between.
• 55:48
  I never, I really pride myself on never complaining about being tired because I think that in itself is a privilege because if you're tired, it means that life is giving you lots of opportunities.
• 55:59
  So I try to never complain about being tired, but it has been a really big week, I'm not gonna lie.
• 56:04
  I think what I'm, and I'm not perfect at it, but I think what I've gotten better at is permission, giving myself permission.
• 56:11
  And I think women, all the women I know struggle with this,
• 56:16
  giving yourself permission to take the day off, to go for the walk, to have the sauna and not feel and place this self-indulgent label on it.
• 56:27
  Society doesn't do that as much as we do it to ourselves.
• 56:29
  Yes.
• 56:30
  So I think it is, and for me, spacious success isn't a consistent thing.
• 56:35
  It doesn't look as consistently in my life as it would for someone else, and that's okay.
• 56:41
  And my version of balance is very different to what other people, I think the notion of a,
• 56:46
  perfectly spaced out wheel of life balance is just absolute bullshit.
• 56:51
  Yeah.
• 56:52
  Because you would look at my version of balance and think it's just, you know, that's unhealthy because I'm very focused on my work.
• 56:59
  I'm, as you know, building a business and scaling a business right now.
• 57:03
  I'm down the AI rabbit hole.
• 57:05
  So, you know, I work longer hours, but I also balance that with taking time out.
• 57:11
  booking a date night, having a holiday.
• 57:14
  I just have some certain rules that certainly make me feel like I'm having more spacious success, and that is having a holiday always booked in the diary, always having something to look forward to, scheduling my workouts, scheduling my saunas,
• 57:30
  One of the biggest flexors, and I highly recommend this to anyone who can afford it, I have hired three months ago, a home organizer, a home manager, a household manager, to outsource things that for me, and it's only since I've done it that I've realized just how much mental real estate they were taking up.
• 57:50
  I have mild ADHD, so for me, getting to things like, I'm good at doing the washing, I'm terrible at doing the folding.
• 57:57
  So piles of washing,
• 58:00
  and anyone who's got ADHD listening to this will know the chair.
• 58:04
  They talk about the chair in the bedroom, which is just usually piled with clothes.
• 58:09
  A girlfriend at lunch said to me one day, why don't you just get someone to look after that?
• 58:13
  Because we were laughing about the chair and how it's always piled with clothes.
• 58:18
  And she said to me, do you realize that every time you walk past that chair, you'll be mean to yourself subconsciously?
• 58:24
  And it's not until she said it to me that I realized.
• 58:25
  Now, this is a really little thing, but I think it's actually a big thing.
• 58:29
  So I've hired this household manager who does the folding of the washing and the putting away.
• 58:33
  She organizes my stuff.
• 58:35
  She takes the stuff, all the little things that were causing me little mental friction and mental load, you know,
• 58:44
  friction, it's just been taken away.
• 58:46
  I can't even tell you how much more productive I am, how much more nicer I am to myself.
• 58:50
  It's just given me permission to create that space.
• 58:56
  The cumulative effect of all of those things and the space they were taking up.
• 59:01
  Oh, my goodness.
• 59:02
  My only regret about this is I didn't do it sooner.
• 59:04
  It just made such a difference.
• 59:07
  And bravo for calling that out because I see so many women who grossly, because they're highly capable, I call it the capability curse, because we're so capable, we grossly underestimate the impact of all of those little micro mental bandwidth things.
• 59:22
  discretionary spends that we have because they do accumulate.
• 59:28
  They're not benign.
• 59:28
  They are there and they're prevalent.
• 59:30
  So well done.
• 59:31
  And I love, I think we need more really accomplished women talking openly about the support that they get because it's absolute BS that you can have it all and do it all.
• 59:40
  Both of those are myths and misnomers.
• 59:42
  Yeah, and nor should we be trying.
• 59:44
  No.
• 59:44
  And glorifying it either.
• 59:45
  Oh, bravo.
• 59:47
  Like, you know, I realised I was being mean to myself, not only about the clothes on the chair, but the fact that Ollie had Lego all over his floor.
• 59:55
  You know, this person has come in and has organised it all and colour-coded it and just the relief for me.
• 1:00:03
  And I can just take that off my list of things that I feel guilty about.
• 1:00:07
  Yeah.
• 1:00:08
  I love that.
• 1:00:08
  So, yeah, just outsource, outsource, outsource.
• 1:00:12
  Yeah.
• 1:00:12
  Because we can't do it all.
• 1:00:14
  No.
• 1:00:14
  People have told us, you know, you and I grew up in this era where we were told we can have it all.
• 1:00:19
  We can't have it all.
• 1:00:20
  We shouldn't be doing it all.
• 1:00:23
  So don't try is my advice.
• 1:00:26
  I agree.
• 1:00:26
  And we need to stop ascribing and pedestalling that superwoman myth because it's not true and it sets women up for disservice.
• 1:00:33
  Yeah.
• 1:00:34
  And exhaustion.
• 1:00:35
  Yes, doesn't it?
• 1:00:36
  Doesn't it?
• 1:00:37
  So two things that you said I loved, permission to pause.
• 1:00:40
  You know, I think so many of us still carry, especially if you're a mother, that mother martyrdom role that we have to exhaust and deplete and, you know,
• 1:00:48
  sacrifice ourselves if we're being a good mother.
• 1:00:51
  I think that's not true.
• 1:00:52
  And the other thing that I love is that you have holidays.
• 1:00:56
  You have something concrete to look forward to.
• 1:00:58
  Our brain releases anticipatory dopamine when there's something locked in the calendar that we like.
• 1:01:03
  So yes, it's,
• 1:01:04
  The massage is lovely, but the days leading up to it, when you see that twinkling in your calendar, also gives us a big hit of dopamine too.
• 1:01:11
  So I love that.
• 1:01:12
  Particularly women.
• 1:01:12
  They say with travel, women take three holidays.
• 1:01:15
  You take the one that you fantasize about in the lead up, you take the actual holiday, and then the one you reminisce about.
• 1:01:21
  So book the holiday.
• 1:01:23
  All your listeners, my closing advice is book the holiday.
• 1:01:26
  Book the holiday.
• 1:01:27
  Book the family island getaway because it's the gift that keeps on giving before, during, and after.
• 1:01:33
  Love that.
• 1:01:34
  Well, Amanda, thank you for your time.
• 1:01:35
  Where can our listeners find out more about you?
• 1:01:37
  If they're interested in booking you to speak to their organisation about radical customer obsession or if they want to stalk you online, where are the best places to go?
• 1:01:46
  Generally hanging out on Instagram or amandastevens.com.au.
• 1:01:50
  Wonderful.
• 1:01:51
  Well, thank you for your time and thank you more than anything for your generosity and support over the years.
• 1:01:56
  It's deeply appreciated.
• 1:01:57
  You're so welcome.
• 1:01:58
  Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:01:59
  Thank you.