Latest / WHAT I'VE LEARNT / What I've Learnt - Summer Series Gems (Febuary-March 2024)

Transcript

What I've Learnt - Summer Series Gems (Febuary-March 2024) · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well, just 15 minutes a day or a couple of hours a week spent doing something creative significantly improves your mental health.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: It might be art, crafts, singing, dancing, gardening, cooking, playing the ukulele, but all of it reduces anxiety.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: Knitting regulates our stress levels just like jogging does, and singing calms our trauma response.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: Creative practices soothe our nervous system, reduce burnout, and help us feel present and connected.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm really excited to have Caitlin and Lizzie, who are at the forefront of the creative prescribing movement in Australia.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: Their remit is to jam the joy into mental health, restoration, recovery, and collective resilience.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: They firmly believe that you don't need to be good at art for art to be good for you.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: So they've developed this extraordinary creative prescriptive book and also platform.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: They can guide your listeners through practical hands-on activities that can take as little as a few minutes to demonstrate the powerful impact of creativity and practice and have fun with it.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, for the first time, they've distilled their decades of knowledge and practice into a new book, Creative First Aid, the science and joy of creativity for mental health, published this March.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: So, Lizzie, Caitlin, welcome to the What I've Learned Podcast.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so thrilled to have you join us.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think my listeners will be very excited about what you're doing.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks, Deborah.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: Pleasure to have you both.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: Creativity, of which I'm a big fan, obviously.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: I come from a creative environment.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: I have a lot of creatives come on the podcast.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me how this concept developed, where you got the idea.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well, Lizzie and I have been working together for actually just over a decade, and we met when I moved to this area in Wollongong and didn't know anyone and ended up somehow in a kind of backyard singing group.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_05: I got invited along to um yeah, come and sing with a bunch of people.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_05: We were all just, you know, liked singing and liked playing music.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_05: That's funny.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_05: So I love that idea.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_05: And it was, you know, very much for me about I wanted to make connections.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_05: I'd gone through some big stuff in my life.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_05: I've just lost my mum.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_05: I was pregnant with my first child and singing.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_05: I was not even a particularly good singer, but I just thought I'll do anything right now to kind of find a way to meet some people and um get some creative expression happening in my life.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, we met and both kind of worked in the space of I'm a social worker, I was working in community development at Lizzie and sustainability education and community development.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_05: And we just kept talking about how great it would be if there was a platform for people to connect around shared interests and things they enjoyed, rather than what often happens in our line of work is that people connect or are put together because they share a problem.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_06: We sometimes use the example of like if you're gonna, you know, form a loneliness club, you're not necessarily gonna attract that many people.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_06: Whereas if you are, you know, creating a creative workshop, then you're probably gonna attract those people and they'll experience connection and an easing of social isolation through the activity and the process of creativity.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, and it seems somewhat obvious, it doesn't it?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: It seems like something that you know it's amazing that nobody's really done this to this degree, like what you what you have created with makeshift.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: So tell me a little bit about the logistics of how that came to be.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: So then you obviously joined the singing group, and then Lizzie, how did you get involved?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so I was obviously in the singing group too.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_06: We became friends.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_06: Um, we had small children at the time, and we created this concept of a business together, um, which started out as a grassroots community-based Skillshare organization where we ran classes for adults in various places, gardens, backyards, community gardens, co-ops, libraries, community halls, etc., um, where we were cultivating and building, you know, a resourceful, sustainable DIY community through the exchange of skills.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_06: So people would put their hand up to teach DIY bike maintenance or sourdough bread baking.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_06: We would make it happen.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_06: It was really successful.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_06: And then really what started happening was that GPs and psychologists started getting in touch with us and saying, hey, I want you to know I'm sending my clients to your classes because they're experiencing a decrease of anxiety or they're feeling more connected or their depression is easing a little through learning how to bake bread or learning how to make a garden and connecting with other people.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_06: And so we knew this was happening and we were actively cultivating this, and then having this kind of informal creative prescribing from GPs and doctors just shone a big light on it, and we went went towards it and turned into makeshifter we are today, prescribing creativity as a vital form of medicine for our well-being and mental health.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: It is just such a great idea.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I think too, we had lots of people telling us, you know, this coming to these classes has has really helped me.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_05: And so we were also hearing directly from people themselves that their mental health was being improved because not just they'd come to one class, but then they'd kind of fall into a new interest or a new hobby or a new practice that would then connect them to more people and they discover other people that were interested in that too.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_05: So it's really that social fabric that, you know, when we talk about mental health and accessing support, all those formal supports are really important, but they don't take up.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_05: There are lots of other days of the week.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_05: There's lots of other hours.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's a good point.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of people who are quite isolated, particularly the way that, you know, the digital world makes ironically, it can connect people, but can also make people feel isolated.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I love the hands-on nature of your workshops, that you know, it's actually people in a room or in a garden or in a library.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: How can creativity help people with experiences like depression, anxiety, grief, or trauma?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: Specifically, you talk about, and even you work with first responders, I saw, and you work with people who are also on the other side of dealing with trauma because they themselves are traumatized by that role.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, that was a pilot where we worked with 44, mostly first responders, who were their PTSD was so significant they weren't able to work.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_05: And a lot of them weren't even leaving the house.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_05: So we were running that program online on Zoom.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_05: We'd post everyone a big box of stuff, including a ukulele and paints and other weird things, which was, you know, a really big deal for them.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um and yeah, I mean, the outcomes of that were pretty incredible.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_05: And so it's why we really stand by that creativity can play a role for people who are well in kind of maintaining our well-being, but also as part of recovery for people who are really significantly going through lots of challenges.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, one of the biggest gaps in mental health, I mean, this would have to be one of the major gaps, I'm sure, because really, in a sense, the doctors work to heal and treat.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I love the way you refer to it as prescription, because it is, it is really, it shows the sort of, I suppose, the serious nature of what it offers.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: What do you see?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the the gaps in mental health education and this creative first aid fit that I think you've created is quite clever.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_06: Well, uh, we call it a prescription because the nature of engaging with creativity, which is innate, it's in all of us, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_06: As being human, we're just creative, even though so many of us think we're not.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_06: We are.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and I guess the kind of medicinal aspect or the first eight aspect of that is that by um, you know, practicing creativity, it engages with our nervous system and it um impacts the brain chemistry.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_06: So it can help to calm us and lower our cortisol levels and boost our serotonin and our happy hormones, and it has an interplay with our nervous system.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_06: So right there and then it can be a form of, I guess, a treatment or a medicine, which is why a lot of doctors, more and more in Australia, and particularly over in places like the UK, are starting to send their patients to join a choir or go into the forest and have a walk through the forest.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, the forest walks are huge, aren't they?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's become a whole thing.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, one of the biggest um gaps in literacy around what it means to look after your mental health, we hear that all the time.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_05: We're meant to look after our mental health.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_05: But how do you actually do that and what does that actually look like is still pretty vague.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_05: And in fact, learning to notice and understand your nervous system and the messages that your nervous system is sending are little cues about what we need.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_05: And so if we can empower people to know what that nervous system is telling them, I need rest, I need to play, I need to take a break and do something that's enjoyable because that's resetting our nervous system into a space of being functioning, like being able to learn and feel empathy and problem solve when we're kind of outside our window of regulation.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_05: It's really hard to do those things.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_05: So that is at the heart of the work we do and what's in our book is trying to build the literacy around that because we're not we're not taught it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_05: We don't get taught that in school.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: We don't.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: I thought extraordinary, you know, it's really interesting what you say because you talk about schooling and education, and you know, there's a big drive on the academic achievement, as we all know, and the pressure and the atar and the get through and become this and become that.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: It is just so logical.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I was a creative always in school.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I remember, you know, the that and I went into journalism, which proved to be great and an amazing journey for me.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: But it wasn't at the time, you know, the notion of having a creative pursuit has become a little more acceptable if not fostered now.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: But it's always been very sidelined in the education sort of world, hasn't it?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh, that's lovely.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: You want to be a painter, you want to be a weaver, you want to be a writer, lovely, but it's not.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: It hasn't been given the values.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think it is more now, because actually the creatives are driving the world, in case somebody hasn't noticed.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they are a lot of them, you know, whether it's social media or design or art or music, a lot of these platforms are critical to the way our community and our and in particular our children are raised.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: So immersing what you do into being part of our education system, is that something you've explored?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Is it something you're doing so that young, you don't have to be a kinder and be in doing Play-Doh.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: You can actually be in year 11 and you know, being creative.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: Is that something you've explored?
• 11:27
  unknown: Yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_05: We get we've been asked that a lot.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_06: We um, you know, we firmly believe it should be part of the curriculum, um, particularly for, you know, kind of year nine and up high school kids when they start entering the kind of ladder, ladder years in the HSC, and a lot of um, you know, mental health kind of rises up around that time.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_06: And there's huge support that can be given to those kids if they understand their nervous system and they understand that a quite a practical, fun, playful application to support them can be through creative practice.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_06: So we have been asked a lot, um, and we're looking to, you know, to move into that space.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_06: But we've we've just we haven't had time.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, it's so busy, I know, because your book, it's a it's a brilliant concept.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the book will help get that out more and more into the world and into other arenas.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting too, because you know, people always, you know, there's those people that go, Oh, look, I'm not creative.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not a creative, you know, as in they have a perception.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I I think that is an interesting notion too, that it tended to be, oh, you're a right brain, you know, you're not a left brain.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's also about changing our lens on that.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: Can you talk to me a little bit about that?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we've met hundreds of those people.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_05: And in fact, when we ran all those hundreds of workshops in our local community, often it was the first thing people would say.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_05: They'd walk through the door to come to a, you know, watercolor painting class and they'd say, Oh, I don't know what I'm doing here.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not creative.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_05: Mine's going to be terrible.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_05: So it's almost like that's that's what we expect people to say.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_05: Like they have to kind of just make this disclaimer before they've even begun.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_05: And that has come from our culture that says there are rules about who's allowed to do this stuff.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_05: It's crazy.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_05: And so I think a lot of people, when they are young, when they're at school, they get this very strong message.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_05: And if you think about that time, we're just figuring out who we are.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_05: We don't even know what we love yet.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_05: We're still exploring.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_05: But if you get told you've got no musical ability at all, or you're never going to be an artist, then people tend to shut that door forever, you know?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_05: And our point is that those things are good for us to do, whether we're good at them or not.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_05: Just like physical exercise is pretty good for everyone to do.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of us don't enjoy it or aren't necessarily good at it, but that's not really the point.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_05: So we can have musicians that we buy tickets to go and see because they're amazing musicians, but we can also just be people that play music because it feels good for us, and it doesn't really matter if if we're that good at it.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I actually agree with you.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I think this notion of.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I escaped and survived.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: I was very sure he was going to kill me andor kill my children.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: I woke up screaming, jumping at slight sounds, going through periods of isolating myself and pretending that I was okay.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: But I would not allow my perpetrator to take any more from me and vowed to always keep an open heart.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: Tammy Castleson was just 15 years old when she first saw him from across the room.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: They smiled at one another and that was it.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: She was smitten.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: He was 17, charming, funny, very good looking, and looked at me like I was special, she says.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: Their relationship began with laughter, love, and lightness.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: He was always so proud of me and showered me with adoration.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: I loved being loved.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: I loved how funny he was.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: I thought we were building a very strong foundation of trust.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: As she writes in her book, The Grimms of Fairy Tales, things took a turn for the worse, and all the love bombing and the love-struck moments in time became quite terrifying, disturbing, and ultimately led to the suicide and tragic death of her ex-husband.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: Tammy's here to tell us at what I've learned about her journey, her strength, and how she found her way out of the darkness.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_04: We've never been taught about red flags in those days.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_04: Now there's lots of education starting to happen, which is why I'm doing this, is to do the education and awareness around red flags.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_04: What are healthy relationships?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_04: What are the green flags in a healthy relationship?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_04: You know, he only wanted me to be with him.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_04: He didn't want me to be with anyone else.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: If I went out with anyone else, he would tantrum and he would um behave in a really unpleasant way until you maybe didn't go out with anyone else.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um he would, he would really not be in a way that you wanted him to be.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um, he would there would be times when there would be a little bit of punishment that you wouldn't notice and that you would even question yourself to what gaslighting is.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you you weren't even sure if it happened.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_04: There would be rewards and punishment.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so when you look back at it, any time that I stepped out of the rules of how he wanted me to behave, even in the days that we were dating, there was definitely consequences of those behaviors.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that does we see that, you know, just but I do think, as you mentioned, and I do agree with this, that the next gen, or certainly the next generation that I observe, are very educated, almost overly, overly so.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: They're hyper-vigilant about this stuff.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: But that's not to say that we weren't educated or informed, but I think there's a lot more discussion around this, which equips people going into and women going into these relationships.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: Although, as we know, there's still incredible vulnerability, and women are, you know, and woman, at least two women a week are killed by their partner.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: So in this situation, he tragically suicided, and he was, I suppose, one would say he ended up in the worst position of anyone.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: But it sounds like you were also at risk through this whole process.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Take us through how it got worse because I'm assuming once you had the children, you're even more challenged because you're even more trapped, even if you are seeing red flags, it's harder.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_04: So there's a lot of escalation in that uh, you know, story.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_04: So what happens is he was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder or cluster B personality uh traits.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: And really what that means is these people have problems with impulse control, chronic feelings of emptiness, uh, chronic feelings of abandonment, intense episodes of anger, reckless behavior.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the things that people often don't think that narcissists do is have suicidal behavior.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I never believed, you know, he threatened in our marriage that something bad will happen to me or the children, or that he'll do something to himself.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I I believed him that something could happen to myself or the children, but I never believed he would do something to himself.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and when when he did attempt suicide in 2016, I really didn't believe that it was real until I saw how bad it was.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_04: And that was when I realized it was my opportunity to escape.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_04: That's when I separated from him.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: How long had you been married at that time?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_04: So I'd been married nearly 20 years, but I had been with him for nearly 27 years.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_04: Very brave and hard decision.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_04: And how many children?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_04: I had two children then.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_04: But things had just been escalating and escalating, and I didn't actually know the extent of what was going on at that time, which sounds crazy, but I didn't know what was going on until everything unfolded when when um he actually attempted attempted the suicide.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_04: And the problem is that with narcissists, what happens is that the more they lose, and in an abusive relationship, what happens is the more they lose their control, the more they escalate.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_04: So the most dangerous time within within an abuse relationship is when you leave.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_04: And we we don't discuss this enough.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_04: And so in fact, when we left, that was when the abuse just got worse.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: And in that post-separation time, that was when I was most afraid.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: That was the most vulnerable because you actually you describe.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: So if you could just give a little bit of background leading up to that first uh suicide attempt, um, which I have read about, but for our listeners, could you give a little insight into what you uncovered prior to that and how things got worse?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_04: So I knew that he was being nasty, he was being really mean, and the meanness was getting worse.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_04: So we had had a really bad incident a few years before, and our relationship had fallen apart.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and it was basically just living with him at that stage.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_04: In the last few months leading up to the suicide attempt, there was there was some question about what was going on with money.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I was starting to realize that I didn't have access to money.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_04: It was still, I mean, it would have been years.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_04: I'd been, you know, I was just saying it's nearly 27 years that we had been together.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_04: And it was starting to dawn on me, I didn't have access to any banking.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't have, other than a credit card that he gave me, and he would put money on it, only a little bit of money each day.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't have any access.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_04: I worked, but I didn't have access to money.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: And so I was asking him, I want to know how much money there is, where's their money?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_04: What's going on?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_04: And he would not give me access.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_04: And so we were not talking to each other in that lead up to the attempted suicide.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_04: And on that day, there was no contact with him.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_04: And he would check in on me all the time.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_04: Like even when we when I wasn't talking to him, there was constant checkups on where was I, what was I doing, where were the children.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_04: He was checking up on them.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_04: And so it was very weird that I hadn't heard from him all day.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_04: And then I found out from my son that he hadn't checked in on him, and they spoke regularly.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_04: By the by about six o'clock, it was really Really concerning that nobody had heard from him.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_04: And his one of his business partners in Perth contacted me to say he hadn't heard from him.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_04: And I went through to his office.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_04: I said to my son, I'm gonna go and check on him.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_04: And my son said, He'll go.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, No, it was just down the road.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: I just had a feeling, and I went down the road and I had to unlock the door to go in.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I found him slumped over the desk.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_04: And at first I I th there was there were all these bottles of mineral waters around, and there was all these empty tablet containers.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_04: And at first I was sure that it couldn't be.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_04: Like I just I knew he would never hurt himself.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_04: I knew for certain.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_04: And I looked in the dustbins and I looked in the toilet, and then I realized he was really lying there.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I I tried to shake him and he was just making funny noises.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_04: He was completely out of it.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_04: And then he started slurring and walking around the office and like a drunk person, like a mad person.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_04: And then he collapsed on the ground.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I was I was like just in shock.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_04: And so I was trying to wake him up and phone triple zero at the same time.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_04: And not triple zero.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, triple zero.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry, triple zero.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_04: It's very third again.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's very traumatic.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: And it makes sense that you know, I mean, your description is very detailed, but also I suppose the surreality of what you're experiencing, it was very hard.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't believe it.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was like a cardio process, something like that.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I think the description that you you've outlined also prior to that, from my understanding, is that he got into some serious financial issues that you were unaware of.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, after we'd gotten home from the hospital, after I'd gotten home from the hospital, because they actually didn't know if he'd even survived, if he had done too much damage.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_04: And when I got home from the hospital that night, I checked.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_04: It was the first time ever I never ever thought to check in any of his.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: I never looked at his phone.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_04: He used to check my phone all the time.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_04: I'm the most ridiculously naive, trusting person.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_04: But like I trusted him and he trusted me.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's what I thought.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I looked next to his bed to try and work out what was going on.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_04: And next to his bed was just all these envelopes, opened and unopened, and there was a bag of cards, credit cards, like this huge bag.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_04: I've actually still got it.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_04: I need to get rid of it.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_04: But it's this huge bag of cards, and it's all cards that had his name on and my name on, from banks that I've never heard of.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's just extraordinary and terrifying, too, because you're like your names on all these cards you don't even know.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_04: That's just, yeah, I'm sure it's not as uncommon as you think, but and envelopes from you know, well, an envelope to say that a letter to say that we were being evicted from our house, an envelope to say we hadn't paid the water, the electricity, the our our telephones, our mobile phones, our it we had to get new mobile phones, our cars were being taken away.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_04: Everything collapsed in one go.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_04: It was like just I talk about ground zero day.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_04: It was just everything just collapsed in one go.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: And he had basically, so you know you were saying you worked.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: Did that work money that you earned, did that go into your joint account?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: Is that what happened?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because you trust it and you go, that'll go into the joint account.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: And this is really interesting.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, I'm sorry that you went through such a trauma, but I saw listening to you, I understand, as I'm sure many people listening to you do, it is you operate with a basis of trust, and you think, well, at the end of the day, how it's just so what are you going to do?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: Keep checking everything all the time.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: But there is something to be said for, as we often now know, that we need to all be across the finances together and to have a sense of ownership and control.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: But it is very, very common, often, that the man will control the money.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's just of it's not uncommon.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: So your experience is is really you're not alone in that.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: Unfortunately, this sounds like an extreme example.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: So at this point, you had separate, you were still in the house.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you were still in the house because you're about to be evicted from the house.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: So clearly Yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_04: So I just I just want to pick up on two things there.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_04: The first thing is that I can't explain how stupid I felt.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_04: And the shame and the stupidity of feeling that when obviously I still feel stupid.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I I've got a background in in commerce, a degree in commerce, you know, like how ridiculous.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_04: But the reason I'm telling the story is not so that I can keep telling how stupid I feel, but rather that I can try and bring awareness to it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_04: Because even today, I still know people where one partner, sometimes it's not mostly it's the woman, but sometimes it's the man where one partner's in control.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: And so I really want to bring awareness and bring education around this idea that it's not just trust that's important, but transparency.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_04: And so both sides need to have that information.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm um I'm I work with um the Center for Women for Economic Safety.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and one of the things that they do is try and help to bring education and awareness to and and change to both banks and the insurance industry and people, so that banks will change the way they the way they work, the insurance industry will change the way they work, and every one of us needs to be more transparent.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the other thing is that you asked.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry, I've forgotten what you said.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: So you were you were saying that that first of all, you don't need to feel stupid because I think it's really common and you acted from a position of trust.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but to your point, this is wonderful that you are talking about this because whether it's man or woman, but often it's the woman who is shut out, it's also really difficult if that person, your husband, even if he loves you, inverted commas, if he doesn't want to share that and he doesn't want to open that account.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: So what you're saying is this new, this um organization that you're working with is working towards making sure that banks, you know, don't block one or other party.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: But they're very strange, aren't they?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: Because I know somebody who that they lost their partner suddenly, very suddenly, but couldn't access all the accounts.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: It was bizarre.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_04: So the way the banks have been set up in the past has just been crazy.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: So especially when it all happened to me, he was able to set up accounts and then also change the mortgage.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_04: Like, for example, the mortgage with my name, the house was in my sorry, the house was in my name, but the mortgage was in both our names.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_04: He was able to add another two mortgages to the house without me uh being involved.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_04: He is able to have money put into one account, borrow money in my in our joint names, then move the money into his account without me having any knowledge.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_04: He had five different postal addresses.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_04: So I never knew anything about anything going on.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_04: So what they're doing with um the women's center for sorry, it's the center for women's economic safety, is they've put out um these amazing papers where they're getting banks to sign up and financial institutions like the general insurers.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_04: Um and already 14 banks have adopt adopted recommendations, and two insurance agencies have have um adopted the recommendations, and they're becoming safer.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_04: So where in the past they they were actually helping the perpetrators, now we're hopefully going to be starting to help the survivors, the victims.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the survivors and the victims.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: So, in that situation, you basically find yourself, as you've described in great detail, which is really terrifying.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: And as you say, you come from a good, hardworking, middle class family, you've acted with good faith and trust, and find yourself about to be evicted.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: I was in a million dollars in debt without knowing it.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_04: I've got goosebumps for you.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_04: Without knowing it, plus he that is that is official debt, plus owing a whole lot of friends and family money, and you had no idea.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_04: I was just in complete shock, and nobody had told me anything.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, nearly a third of Australians, that's over 7 million, now live outside the cities.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: The latest quarterly data shows that more people are moving out to regions than back into cities.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: Capital to regional migration is tracking at 11.7% above the pre-pandemic average.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: And Sydney accounted for a whopping 80% of all people moving from capitals to regions.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: Millennials are the largest group making the move.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: So, what is life actually like outside of the cities?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, journalist Annabelle Hickson is the embodiment of the Australian tree changer.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: Annabelle didn't plan to live in regional Australia, but she fell in love with a handsome farmer from Western New South Wales and thought she'd give it a shot.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: She knew there'd be some sacrifices, her journalism career at the Australian, the beach and takeaway food that is still hot by the time you get home, but she had no idea how many opportunities there would be for her in this new life, too.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: I know there were lots of people that did see changes, many, some of whom are coming back to the city, but many of whom found the piece of rural life very appealing.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny, you know, like even just sort of the way that question's phrased, I want to launch straight into yes, you know, COVID supercharge, everyone moving to the regions, and we all discovered what was so amazing about it.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, I just want to step back a little bit because I think there was all this amazing stuff going on in the regions well before COVID came.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: I actually just think it's because Australia, despite our very strong mythology and love of the bush, we're actually one of the most urbanized countries in the world, you know.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a couple of generations ago, we all, you know, there was much stronger link between the country and the city.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you'd have a family member who was an uncle, you know, with a farm, or you know, as a farm kid, a cousin in the city.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that link has actually got less and less.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I was certainly one of these city people that didn't have a link with the country.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't, I didn't have family out there, I didn't really know much, had sort of been on a few school camps, you know, that was that was about so I think just want to stress that well before COVID, there was there were people living lives of great dignity, of innovation, excitement, interest out in the country.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: And perhaps it was the city that sort of lost touch with what was going on out there.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: I love that lens.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think, I mean, COVID was um a very interesting time because what is a city when you don't have access to all the like lovely, swirling cultural vortex that that wraps around it, where you can't go to restaurants, you can't go to the movies or the theater, you can't hang out with your friends in a beautiful public park.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is a city?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it sort of came back down to is a city where you live in a small apartment with two small children and you're both working full-time, you know, through that lens, all of um, you know, suddenly having space and freedom and you know, all nature.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, suddenly it brought us back to that sort of, I know exactly what you're saying.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: It brought us back to that connection with the simple things which people were craving.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, I think that's a very good point you raise.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: Once you remove those cultural hubs, then you turn towards nature, which is where we started.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like in a way you go back to is, you know, the it's almost like an origin story of sorts, you know.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it was definitely, I think, a reshuffling of priorities for lots of people.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, it's interesting now, you know, now that the it's the world's open back up and you know, tourism, Airbnb, you couldn't get an Airbnb in regional Australia.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was packed out during COVID.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm definitely hearing from friends that uh there are not nearly as many bookings.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I think while we kind of want to believe this fairy tale that oh, we all remembered how amazing the country was.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, now I think those of us who can afford to travel, lots of people are going overseas, you know.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's so true.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: So um I think we it was a very interesting time for Australia where we kind of so I I think it COVID was a very interesting time in sort of allowing us like collectively to like reshuffle our priorities, you know, about what was important and and space, um, freedom and that sort of stuff.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: That became very important.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: But how much of that stays now that we can re-engage with the urban world, who knows?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting because the latest quarterly data shows that more people are moving to the regions than back into the cities.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: Is that still up to date and correct?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is actually.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what's so interesting about those figures are that they were trending upwards, that net flow of people into the regions that happened before COVID even came about.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I and actually to me, it looks like those figures are largely driven by housing affordability.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was about to say that.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, housing.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_03: And also, do you think an older um an aging community also is a reflection of that, surely, that people are getting older and saying, you know, it's the lifestyle of moving to the regions, it's more affordable, it's quieter, it's there's an element of that too, yeah.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, especially if they, you know, don't have to go to the office every day.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're at a stage in their life where they retire, of course.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: But what's also exciting is this sort of subgroup of people who are coming out, younger people, millennials, and they can come out for housing affordability, but also because they have flexibility with how they work, you know.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's interesting to still have like my um it is.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my sister and brother-in-law, they've actually moved here to where I live on a pecan farm, which is really nowhere near anything.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're an hour away from a tiny town.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's you know, so we're quite isolated.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he is a professional, he's a white-collar professional, and he had just works full-time, you know, via Zoom.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just incredible.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think that's interesting because uh you make me think of a few things because um I can relate to that because most of the people that I'm working with and who I know are working at least two or three days from home in some form because they can.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: As you say, if they're professional, they can do that.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: So therefore the flexibility is a factor.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: But then you've got the other collateral notion of sociability, you know, socialization and ensuring that you're in the office and all of those aspects.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: So obviously, there's there's the pros and cons that people weigh up, but clearly a lot of people are making the decision to stay on a rural journey.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm looking here actually, some of these figures, Sydney accounted for a whopping 80% of all people moving from capitals to regions, up from 61% in the previous 12 months.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's enormous.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think that's housing affordability?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's really driven by housing affordability.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think if um houses in the country were more expensive than houses in city, we would not be seeing those sorts of figures, you know.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's interesting.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was looking with someone actually.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's funny you say that because we're doing some research for someone, and um I was looking, you know, they could get 21,000, they could get 21 uh square feet.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry to be talking feet, it's old fashioned, in you know, an hour out of Melbourne, massive land for a quarter of the price of what they can get in the city.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: And they were just shocked at the I mean, the difference in terms, and also there's a big drop, also, I must say, I was doing some research in, for example, Byron and a lot of those places, it's dropped something like 20 to 30 percent, the agents were saying.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_03: And the same on the Mornington Peninsula, for example, just to use sort of rural local examples.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's interesting too, because sorry, you mean drop does in like post-COVID real estate?
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is interesting.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: And and so I it's that's making it more affordable, but also it's interesting.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder if it reflects the transition as some people are moving back into the city.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it'd be interesting.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, absolutely, people are moving back.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, those numbers, they're net numbers.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's certainly some people moving back just that more happen to be staying.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: Quite incredible.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_03: So, Annabelle, you're a very good example of a shall we call you a tree changer or a sea changer.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we'll it sounds like you're quite um inland from what you've described.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm uh well, Byron Bay, like you were just talking about, picture that and we're about four and a half or five hours inland.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's really so you're New South Wales.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_03: So tell me how your story unfolded because it's quite interesting and how you embarked and stayed on the rural journey, which is interesting.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the rural journey was never part of my plans.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not that it was never, you know, I wasn't actively against it.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: It just never featured in, you know, I was I I got a cadet ship as a journalist at a newspaper in the city, my urban, yeah.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and I wanted, you know, that I was very excited about that career path.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, perhaps I thought, oh, maybe I'll go and do some time in a a bureau, you know, somewhere else.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it was a very urban, ambitious career path.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that was similar.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like you and I were so similar.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_03: I just realized that's exactly where I started.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: So it's very interesting to hear how urban you're when I see where you are.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'd actually moved from Sydney to Brisbane to work in the Brisbane Bureau of the Australian, which was just such a wonderful time.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: I got to work with sort of a group of really experienced, generous journos.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was it was so great.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember saying, Oh, look, I've met this guy.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't, I don't know.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if he likes me.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: He's, you know, I just think he's so handsome.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he was coming to pick me up in his light aeroplane to take me down to the northern rivers on a date.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the guys in the office were like, he likes you.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: They all called him Beatles.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, a few months later I quit my job and moved out west.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we're a story.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's it's quite a common story, you know, like falling in love with a farmer or falling in love with someone who runs a business in town.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then that gives you the impetus to total it your life and and move out.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what, I am glad I did because I I never I chose to um, you know, if it was up to me, only because I didn't have connections, I didn't have job reasons, I didn't have any of that.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: But it has, I just feel so lucky to be living what is a very different kind of life now.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, yes, and it's very romantic, isn't it?
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that whole image anyway.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_03: But but actually there is a romanticism about choosing the tree changer lifestyle.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yours is particularly romantic with, you know, with the context in which you move, but it's also quite real and it's quite it can be quite challenging, as we know.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: That I mean, there's lots of farmers who are finding it really difficult, and it can be quite a gritty and somewhat challenging choice.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: So, how what what are you observing in that context as we're reading about not just in Australia but globally, the challenge of rural living?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so interesting.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like to me, it you've got two main stereotypes about a country life.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one is this romanticized, oh, the lovely simple life where you're in touch with nature and you bake scones and you have, you know, and then the other one is the stereotype right at the other end of the spectrum where it there's always drought, there's always floods, there's always fires, you know, doom and gloom.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, unsurprisingly, the reality is really somewhere in the middle.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there is it it infuriates me so much when people refer to, oh yeah, he's just a simple country guy, or oh, there's nothing to do out there, or you know, it is actually a really condescending, patronizing, yeah.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: A really lovely place, you know, and and even if it comes from just wanting to believe in this sort of romantic, slow life, that is not that, you know, we're all human beings, we all have businesses, we all, we're all busy, you know.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's not true.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: But equally, it's also not true that life is always hard and that life out here is about disadvantage, lack of access to things, because really my experience is uh like I said before, I feel really lucky to live this life.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've got three kids.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: If any of them said that they wanted to, you know, spend their life in regional or country Australia, I would be excited for them.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so I think I I guess I felt really passionate about trying to strike a balance between both of those stereotypes or just flesh them out a little bit more.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: That there's no such thing of just people sitting on verandas, eating scones, waiting for someone interesting to show up.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no such thing as it all being ridiculously hard and doom and gloom.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: Saving the family business with pain.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: And strength, Michelle Stanton had to dive deep faced with the financial ruin of Bevel's Jewelers, her family's 80-year-old company.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: She found a way through the mire with heart and soul, and it survived and thrived, selling to Michael Hill, a global multinational.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_03: So, Michelle, your story is one of strength, courage, resilience, and finding an innovative way out of what was a dark place for a while, but you found the light.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us a little bit about your incredible story and how you managed to, in a sense, I suppose there was a reinvention of sorts, a revival, a restoration.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I grew up in Melbourne with a loving family.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: I had a brilliant childhood, a life of abundance and what I call normality.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, went on summer camps.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I never knew what to wear on casual day at school.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: I was bullied every morning at the bus stop and yes, and ended up with a severe eating disorder uh for three years in my uh early 20s.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: But what was probably a bit different about my life was that my parents owned a very successful jewellery retail business called Bevel's Jewers, uh, which started in Melbourne in 1934.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: 1934.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: So it's 80 years, isn't it?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: That business.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was 80 years old then, yes.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's now 88.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and it was an absolute privilege uh, you know, growing up with a family business.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: We ate it for dinner, lunch, uh, it was around every conversation.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: And we all absolutely loved it.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: I I particularly loved it.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: I was the young girl at five who would sneak into my dad's office and type up ads and tell the staff to get working.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it was always in my blood.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: And uh when we I went straight into the business after university, it's the only job I had ever had.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: I really had the privilege of learning and working in every aspect of the business.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a great breeding ground for me.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: But I was working very hard, 70 hours a week.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I didn't mind because I loved it so much, and so did my family.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: And in 2009, when I was about 40, my brother and father elected me to become the CEO and take over my father in the role of running the business.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: And on the outside, that seemed like it was absolutely the right thing.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: I was ready, I knew the business, I loved it.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: But on the inside, it was a completely different story.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: And you had to draw on something very powerful.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: And you also carried, you know, a big responsibility of taking that family business forward, but also protecting your parents and ensuring that there was inverted comma success and that there was continued growth.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: So tell us what happened.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't know if you can relate to this, where on the outside you have this success, it looks like you're, you know, you go everything together.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: Everything together, yep.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: And on the inside, you feel like an absolute fraud.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're uh so petrified of failing, you're waiting to be found out, thinking that there's no way that you know deserve uh this opportunity.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I made some really poor decisions over those few years.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: And quite quickly from between 2009 and 2013, the business went from being a very successful, you know, 80-plus-year-old business into losing millions of dollars.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_03: Just on that note, you talk about you know mistakes made, and let's be honest, everyone's made them, particularly in business, and particularly because you were carrying it was an enormous business.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_03: So can you just highlight, for example, one of those errors that in retrospect you would do differently?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, and and to give your viewers a feeling of the size, we would serve about 300,000 customers a year.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: Enormous.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean that's a huge responsibility.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_03: That's not like, you know, this is, I suppose, something that you had to carry, but also not everybody's equipped to do that.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the biggest ones was I hadn't learned how to make decisions.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I was enrightened of making any.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: And prior to becoming the CEO, my brother and my father and I, we would all make the decisions together.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so I could hide behind this.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: I actually didn't even realize it was such a problem.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I found myself in the CEO role, yeah, I really did need to make some decisions without asking my brother for permission on everything.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that was horrific.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: It was the most difficult thing to do.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: Another thing that I did, I wanted to change to the brand, and I really didn't go with my authentic self on what I felt like the brand went, uh, should be.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: I took the advice of the uh advertising agency, and we came up with a formula for that was black and dark and horrible, and the customers hated it.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a really good point because I think in business, we talk about advisors, whether they be advertising um agencies or they be even financial advisors, and we'll get to that because that story is really interesting.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: But using having faith in your own intuition and backing your own judgment is not always so easy when you're faced with people who say, we're the experts, we know what we're doing, listen to us.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: And and that, you know, that was an example where whether you call it a mistake, you probably deferred to something that you thought they were the experts.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I probably, you know, in part led it to it as well.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I think when you're you don't back your own confidence and your knowledge and you're feeling overwhelmed by having to make so many decisions, then you're just not actually in alignment with making good ones.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I made many.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the other thing that was quite difficult at the time is because prior to that, I was actually doing the job of about four people.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that I could do successfully.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: But when I took on the CEO or CEO role, I had to bring in a management team to do the things that I was doing.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I were doing four jobs important things.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I understand.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_03: So you really had four roles, which when you're running a family business, sometimes that's what happens.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_03: But what you're saying is that that was part of the collateral damage because you couldn't keep an eye on all of the bulls.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, retrospectively, what would you reflect on what you learned from those two particular instances?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: Ret on those particular two, uh, when I had the opportunity after um, you know, the story unfolded, I was really able to lean into creating a brand that I was absolutely in love with that I knew that my customers would love.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I wasn't trying to be something that we weren't.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that authenticity came out in the brand.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the and the second thing was the two things that I let go of was the buying.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so prior to when prior to that, I was overseeing every single piece of design that came through the business.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I would bless it and love it and make sure it was perfect in its design.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I had let that go when I brought in a senior team and I had let go of connecting with my team.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so those two things became my um, you know, juggernauts of of strength in when I had had a new opportunity to go again, and I never let them go.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_03: And also, I suppose what you're saying is that while you can get expert advice, as you did with the ad agency and that that brand, that rebrand, which was such a disaster from your perspective, it's something that you next time, you know, as as you evolved, you worked out that you had to listen to your own intuition, combined with obviously advisors.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_03: But the story unfolds really interestingly because your evolution is quite fascinating.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_03: And you and I have touched on this earlier.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_03: So, okay, you you then find yourself overwhelmed.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: And there is something also, just for our listeners, there is something to be said for the pressures of taking on that role and how equipped we are when we do take on that role, and how do we equip ourselves better?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_03: So tell us what happened next.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: So, as the business started losing millions of dollars, um, and you know, possibly some of your viewers know bankers are great friends when you're doing well, but they quickly want to take the umbrella away when it starts raining.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: And good description, yeah.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: And they gave me 90 days to come up with five million dollars.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, I'm gonna foreclose the business and put it into voluntary administration.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, that was just, you know, sickening to my stomach that A, I had been the person that had led the business to this state and took responsibility for it.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: But even worse still was that, you know, a lot of people were going to lose millions of dollars and people's jobs were at stake.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: And those two things were actually the things that uh really I felt so bereft by.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: And after working so hard and sacrificing uh, you know, time with my family, my health um during these difficult years, doing everything that I could to try and save the business.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, there was one morning when it was just after I'd received this notice, and I was walking into my dressing room, you know, I was in my pajamas and my UG boots, bereft with this just distraught feeling.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I fell to the ground and um just crying those tears that you know are so overwhelming.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I in that moment just couldn't believe that I'd I'd let myself become this and and led was leading this particular result.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: And my son, who had never who was about seven at the time, had never seen me cry, saw me on the ground and you know, bent down and said, Mummy, you know, what's wrong?
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I told him what was happening.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: And in that moment, Deb, it was like this lioness started to wake up inside of me.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: And she was pulling me up off the ground.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_03: The image is so yeah, like climbing.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_03: You described climbing up the shelving.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the dressing on, yeah.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: Pulling myself up to, you know, to be on my knees.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I looked at my son in the eyes, and I just said to him, Sweetie, you know what?
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: This is not going to be my story, and nor is it the story you're going to be sharing about me for the rest of your life.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: And in that moment, although I had been trying to find a way, and I'd been trying everything, I was just obsessed at trying to find a solution.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was like something else took hold.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_03: And lioness is a very good description, the lioness.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_03: And we've all we can all relate to that.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_03: That, you know, when you know, that's a very powerful image because I think many of our listeners can relate to that feeling of absolute desolation and desperation, and just finding that little bit extra to literally get up off the floor.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so from there, take us through what happened next.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, a miracle did happen.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I suppose the lioness came to help me.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: And a I did find an angel investor who literally, over a um a hug, gave me the money in the 90 days to save the business.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's extraordinary.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he I only knew him for a couple of years before, and he he said that he'd seen me um with my three-week year old baby flying to India, breastfeeding, um, do you know, choosing jewellery.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he thought that this, you know, there was something remarkable about this, and he just wanted to come and help me.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: That is more than serendipity.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that is like serendipity on steroids.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's like, but but it does say something about relationships, connections, and how some of those small connections we make, we never know where they're going to take us.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: And we'll come back to that.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: But it talk we talk about faith and the underpinning of having a manifestation, but we'll come back to that because it's part of the story, isn't it?
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_03: That you faith is everything.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, faith is everything.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: And you and I have talked about this.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_03: So you basically met the 90 days, but that just kept your head above water, didn't it?
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: All that did was pay off the banks, but the business was still losing the millions of dollars and nothing had changed.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I had a small window, it was about nine months, to um try and think about how to actually change in, you know, the the way that the business functioned to um stop the bleeding.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I worked with an amazing advertising agency, and we came up with a new brand uh for the existing company, took its strengths, but really they really got to know me and wanted to um bring that to life within the brand because I I felt like I and the brand were the same thing.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: We we were we were one.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_02: And they did a fantastic job, and we came up with a new look for the stores, we modernized them, we made them more feminine, they were accessible, they were gorgeous, and I had time in that nine months to do two test stores, and um I launched those stores in uh November and December of 2013.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_02: They were a great success.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_02: Our customers were lining up to shop there.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, I had at the time, I think 28 stores that were losing money, and so within a couple of months I had run out of runway and uh needed to make some very hard decisions.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much for listening.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_03: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_03: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_03: Love Deb.