Welcome to this week's edition of The Freedom Fridays podcast. And in celebration of International Women's Day on 8 March 2024, I've got a very seasoned and experienced leader with me today. Please welcome to the podcast, Sarah Gratton.
Hi, good to see you Pete.
How are you?
Very well, thank you.
Good. Now, before I give a little bit of timeline, Sarah, you've had an extensive career in leadership, before you tell us what you've done, I'm interested in your take on the question. The big question that I'm keen to explore is, we have international women's do we have all these curriculum programmes about women in leadership, and without necessarily the gender thing, why is that an important topic for discussion?
I really think as a female leader, what is important is that you can, you can't be what you can't see. I mean, I can't even remember who has said that. But being a role model for other women and women, your own age, as well as younger women coming through that they need to be able to see different types of leadership, and actually see that they themselves could be a leader one day.
Okay. Has that, so before you heard that, Because I'm sensing that, I've heard that before and that's relatively recent, in my lexicon language around you can't be what you can't see. What did you do before? How did you do it before knowing that?
So I just think it was sheer bloody mindedness Pete. Like, it was like, What do you mean, I can't do that. So I think it goes back to being a kid and having your Mum say, you can do whatever you want to do. So she was told, when she finished school, she wanted to be a journalist. That's the only thing she wanted to be. And she'd lost her Mum, here Mum had died when she was 17. So she didn't have a Mum around. And so she, she was told, well, you can be a teacher or a nurse. But no, you can't be a journalist. And so she became a teacher and a very fine teacher at that, that her passion was really, she wanted to be a journalist. And so when I came along, it's sort of everything that she'd wanted, she wanted to move those barriers for me, so that I would believe that I could do whatever I put my mind to. And so I never had any thought of a barrier about something that I couldn't do or wouldn't do, I was going to do whatever I felt like, and whatever I chose. And so, I think she wound it back by the time my sister was born, because she thought she'd created a bit of a monster. Yeah, so I'd go into, so I was at girls schools at high school. And again, you can take on those roles. And there's, you don't see other people vying for those leadership roles. There were the only other girls there that we work together, I get to university, that was a little bit of a shock. But you know, Oh, boys are real people, too. That's great. So you know, work together great mates. And then in the work context, all of a sudden, there seemed to be barriers that were in place. And
Men and for women or men aswel?
Well, it felt it felt gendered probably for the first time that I'd experienced. And, you know, I was very, very academic, and I'd won the University Medal. You know, I'd always been top of the class, you know, whatever I wanted to do, I could do. And in this first career experience, it was there were certain things that you get to do to progress. And you had to be able to build a financial model, for example, but I was very good at getting information out of people on the phones. And so I didn't get those experiences. And I'd be like, when can I do some modelling? You know, I'm good at this. Yeah. And so it was sort of like, I felt like, Oh, why can I have a go at this? And it felt it whether it was gendered or not, I'm not sure. There was also a rule that women weren't allowed to wear pants in the office. This is in the 90s. And so I changed that rule. I told them that that was bloody ridiculous, I wasn't going to have a bar of it. So you can see I'm I, you know, made some friends early there.
So I mean, I'm interested because I can sense you know, the upbringing, the circumstances your Mum went through, kind of influenced what she said and did with you and that sort of this be influenced. I'm always struck by, not the parenting thing. But often when parents try and provide and give their kids counsel for the things they didn't have, it can go one of two ways. It can produce the Sarah of now bloody mindedness, they go, why can I do that? It can also produce the opposite was like, yeah, of course, well, I don't deserve that. I know this is philosophical in nature. But any, any thoughts on how you turned out like that? As in how you picked up the bloody mindedness versus the yeah, you're right, women can only be teachers and nurses?
That's a good question, Pete. Why did I end up? I guess I was driven. I'm that sort of A type personality, but maybe it's an insecure A type personality. So people say, Oh, you haven't quite got there, and you're not quite good enough. Fire me up and say, I'll, I'll show you I can do anything that I want sort of thing, which isn't always healthy, you know, maybe leads to overwork and a bit of stress. But yeah, why? Yeah, I think there's got to be an innate belief in yourself and confidence in a deep down, you know, that, yeah, I'm going to be able to do this. I'm good enough. But not, but not everybody has has that I see that? Yeah. And I've seen other people whose parents have sort of said, Oh, don't worry, if you miss out, you know, it's not the end of the world, you know, there's going to be lots of people applying for this. Don't be too disappointed if it's not you. And that just reduces ambition, right? It just really, it's almost an excuse. So I think it's about I guess it's like leading a company as well, you got to set that aspiration, what are you trying to achieve? Where are you going? And whilst my career has been opportunistic, rather than planned, I've always had an aspiration. Once I've said, Yeah, I want to do this thing, how am I going to make this the best it's going to be and then just go for that. And just enjoy the ride.
I'm going to ask you about your current role in a second, but I'm interested just to dive a little bit deeper into the bloody mindedness. When you were your first collision of that at work, right? Post School, post uni, everythings fine, everythings... equal fair, I'm as good as anyone else. Bump into work. What do you mean, I can't? Did that? Allow your bloody mindedness to get more?
No, I think it really knocked my confidence for a while there. So you know, I could. Yeah, there was all this the self doubts, that's what do you mean? Why? Why am I not getting this opportunity? And again, being what you can't see, there were no female senior leaders in the organisation at the time, it was it was all very, very male environment. We had I had a couple of it was very stratified in these professional services firms, you know, there were first years, second years, third years etc. And so there are a couple of second or third years, but they often left. And so it was really, you know, in the big, bad 90s. Right. And so, and we had fabulous work and really interesting work. But, you know, the people that were leading these teams, were just leading there, because they'd gone through the hurdles, and they were good at doing the thing. And they didn't actually have any training about how to manage people or coach people for success or, and it was more about telling them all the things they've done wrong. Whereas I, I've come to learn that what's important is a strength based approach with people, you're going to get a lot more out of people if you focus on their strengths. So yeah, so in fact, sort of, I met, I met my husband whilst I was working for this firm, and one of his best friends I befriended were good mates. And once I'd left that particular place, and I'd gone to work somewhere else, she said, Have you had a personality transplant? She said to me. And she said, You were just so you know, you're sort of sad and small. And, and, and now I'm seeing this confident, vibrant person, and it seems like you're really different. And the only thing that's different is you've changed roles. And I thought, wow, like, I was trying to win in that environment. That which wasn't working for, you know, and could well have been me and my skills weren't up to whatever it was that they needed me to be. But it didn't. It didn't feel like that because I was just taking a different approach to things and I'd get the results and the clients love me and what have you. So I think it was Yeah, I think it's something about the environment that you're in can bring out the best in people rather than, so the bloody mindless was hurting me in that respect because I'm thinking I need to stay and I need to win and I want to do this thing. But in the end, they they orchestrated for me to go out on secondment for a different organisation. And all of a sudden, I was a superstar, and I got my confidence back. So yeah, it was interesting.
It just strikes me, you know, using the bloody mindedness as an example. And this is a personal opinion here, if we get too tied to I am bloody minded. When that approach doesn't work, it can be realised a little bit, as opposed to, I can be bloody minded. Which gives us a little bit of detachment from our identity, more of a behaviour, which means you can be ramping up or ramping down.
Yes, I think so. And I think it comes back to this, you know, how you define yourself. And so, if, and I've sort of reflected on this, over the years, I've had this need to achieve, and I think it goes back to childhood. So you can blame your parents for everything, can't you but, you know, rewarded for achievement. And I've got, you know, I've got three daughters. And so I'm learning this myself with them. But, you know, and I have achieved, you know, the HSC, the University Medal that, you know, get the big jobs, do whatever. But if you're defining yourself by that achievement, rather than what is satisfying yourself inside, yeah, then you just can breed discontent. So yeah, it's about learning to live with that. And, you know, and it's hard when you're hard, hardwired some one way. Yeah, to understand this more, yeah, the growth mindset of, of how do we live and learn and I can be and can do other things, rather than just just do this one thing.
I might double click on that, if I may, I don't know come to your current because I think it's an interesting connection there. So many people that I work with, have put myself in this bucket to, are maybe not soldered on, but certainly hard wired to their identity linked to what they do. Which is, which is kind of what you said, if you get too attached to that. And you mentioned that you were able to in some way, shape or form, not hold on too tightly to that. I'm interested. Were there any triggers? What did you do? Any top pocket tips for anyone who recognises they are locked into their identity as what they do not who they are? Any unlocks that you've experienced that you applied?
I think it's about the variety of experience. So once once I, I'd stopped work and had had children and I actually took a career break. While I did that I wanted to be around when they were little. And then of course I got bored. So what do you do to keep yourself intellectually stimulated. And I picked up a role lecturing for a business course. And so it was meeting all of these students and then when I started my own consulting business, which was a flexible thing I could do around the kids when they were young. And all of a sudden you're seeing a lot of different organisations, a lot of different sorts of environments. And then when I got involved in leadership in the local school PNC you know, I mean, talk about politics, oh, my goodness is the the local PNC political out of nowhere. And meeting all of the different people and seeing all the different types of leadership that there are around you, and that broaden the perspective about what good looks like and what and that there was these variety of experiences to give you fulfilment in your life. And then that's when I went into Council, I'd run this little tiny campaign against the state government who we're going to close this little road for a bus stop. And this road was how my community exited the Northern Beaches and could could escape. And they were going to close Heaton avenue for a friggin bus stop. And I didn't have I didn't have a client. I was doing my consulting where I didn't have a client at the moment and I thought we had these wonderful team of sort of sceptre Gerrans and octogenarians in the local community and they were had their pencils and paper out ready for running some, you know, petitions and things. I'm like, oh, no, we need to do this digitally. You know, there's this thing called Facebook and, and we set up a local community campaign and I became this micro hero, you know, in the community. Oh, because we saved this road. And so they didn't close it, I beat the state government on that one. But working very collaboratively again, leadership, I've had this experience of working with all sorts of different people. And I don't man campaigns where I go out all guns blazing, because things like government put their hands over their ears and just going by law that they don't listen, so you want to work with them. I got their consultant's report about why this thing needed to close. And I found all of the holes in the analysis and kindly pointed that out to them. Anyway, I gave the sheets we managed to win the argument there was based on nonsense, and we managed to keep this road open. And Hurray, I was this hero. Fantastic. And it's so having those sorts of things. And then and that's what ended up getting me into council because the Northern Beaches council had just been formed of amalgamation of three different Council groups. And so there was scratching around well, who can run for council and so everyone was asking me because all of a sudden I was this, like mini hero, or this little pocket of our little neck of the woods. And that was enough to give me enough sort of, of a profile actually, to get elected. So, yeah, so but then this community leadership role, again, is different again. And, and sort of, again, I always take a very kind and compassionate approach and just play facts back to people straight. Like I'm not a politician as such, I'm just a community leader. You know, maybe I sound like a politician.
I'll show you the facts. I'm not a politician.
Well, no, because the politicians, which of which there are some amongst us will just pay the populace line and just tell people what they want to hear. And I tried to tell it as it is. And then are were a bit of flack. But I think I get respected for that, because, but yeah, you can abide by poor talking points and things like that, if you're, if you're going to take that sort of approach, a real approach with people, but I don't know where I'm going with this conversation, Pete, but that's where we've ended up.
I've got two or three strands I could pull on in a second. But I'm going to pause and I'm going to catapult into the now. I'd love you to in a second, tell us you know, what's your current role? We're Are you now if you're willing to share that, but I'm also interested in tying it to your question about how you define yourself. Is there a connection between your current role and how you now define yourself for the moment?
Well, I'll tell you about my current role, while I just ponder the other question in the back of my mind, so I'm currently the Chief Executive of Lifeline, Northern Beaches. So Lifeline, everybody knows the lifeline brand. And the very important 13 11 14 number when people are in crisis. The way it actually works is there's a number of members of lifeline and their geographic areas. And so the area that I look after is from reaches sort of from North Sydney/Kirrabilly all the way up to Palm Beach. And then there's a tiny little corner over in Vaucluse and Watsons Bay, because these geographies are based on the old telephone exchanges. And that's where they use the old exchanges to be. So we have this we have this area. And again, everybody knows about the phones with Lifeline. But that's only a small component of what we do. And it's very important component. So we've got a T&C call centre, but what we are doing is working with the community and strengthening our purpose is about building the resilience and wellbeing of our community, for people in crisis. And so we have a team of counsellors that provide one on one counselling. We have support groups that help support people that have been bereaved, you know, with loss or various issues. We've got financial counsellors, which is a free service for people, because what we see is a lot of people in crisis, it's often a financial situation. And there's things as simple as filling in forms and getting debts waived and talking to the bank. And these are really, really difficult for people. So we have that we have that service. And we work really closely in collaboration with the women's shelters, for example, and some homelessness, building operators and in public housing operators and things. So to help provide those sorts of services. We also do a whole lot of training. So because we run a volunteer organisation, and the numbers change around a bit, but we're around 700/750 volunteers at this point, across all different areas of Lifeline. But we, we've got this training capacity. So part of what we then do is all about building the capability in the community by training, accidental counsellor, or wellbeing and managing wellbeing and challenging conversations in the workplace, again, about trying to strengthen that baseload resilience of the community. And then the other work we do is about trying to raise the money to pay for all of these things, because we're funded by donations, right. So we've got our retail stores and our our book fairs that we run to try to and the fundraising campaigns and events just to try to help fund all of that important work that we're doing.
Yeah. Thank you. Such great, unnecessary and quite sad work that's required, unfortunately. So back to the question. How does that define you?
Yeah, I'm not sure how it's defining me, but I'm enjoying the leadership component. And, and, and for me, this is my first CEO role. It's quite nice, not having a boss every day, I've got the board there. But, you know, making the calls and seeing what's right, not having to get everybody you know, you've you bring your team around with you. But I really enjoy getting to make those calls. So I guess that does define me in a way. But I have been a community leader for a while through my council role. So there's not just one thing that's defining me, I guess.
So that's interesting, because I'm guessing as a community leader, what can I check an assumption? As a community leader, sometimes and sometimes not, you might have the title. But not necessarily the title depends, right? Is that right? Whereas CEO of lifeline, you've obviously got the title. And you're working with the community? Am I making that is that the right assumption sometimes in leading the community, like your micro hero example, you didn't really have the title. But you had the bloody mindedness and the intellect and the smarts and the kind of stuff to get the job done?
Yeah, I think I just always have just taken that, I've been that person that steps up to take that leadership position, right. Whether I've got the title or not, I tend to take that, that role. You know, I had a great role at UNICEF, Australia, prior to the going to Lifeline. And again, I was seeing not just my own team as a leader, but I would step up to have some of the harder conversations on other groups behalf or cross functional teams or other people could come to me. And so yeah, I think I've just always been seen as that person that will that will do that. And I think my philosophy, I've always sort of, you know, I stand behind people and let them shine, because, and as soon as something goes wrong, I'm the line in front, keeping everybody safe. And so they know that and can trust, trust that of me that they are safe to be able to do their thing. And then that engenders enormous amount of goodwill and support. People really respect that. Yeah,
I sense that. So do you mind if we touch on a topic, we talked about offline, which was the listening aspect. For the listeners, you know, we're recording this on in Sydney, in Australia, and a place in Sydney called the Northern Beaches. So it's a very, you know, microcosm of Australia. But I do believe there are things like Lifeline across the world. And as part of your new role as CEO, which seems like a good idea, you're learning the role of a Lifeline counsellor, which is on the phones speaking to people in crisis. So you're going through that training right now, which is commendable. And I think necessary to understand the product or the service you're trying to get funding for, for example. Would you just share that not necessarily in any detail, but the what it's been like for you as a seasoned leader? You know, you've been around for a long time, and done lots of different things with many, many different corporate and community services. So therefore, listening is not dysfunctional for you. It's not a skill you do not have. And yet, you've gone into lifeline and what you said to me was, oh, wow, I never listened before. Can you just kind of give us a little bit story around because I'm, that's a fascinating example of our context can often determine how good or bad we think we are.
Yeah, so it is interesting. So when the training for being a lifeline crisis supporter, very extensive, it's 13 weeks of weekly training with a whole lot of role plays, and then you've got another, I think it's 16 hours being sort of supported on the phones, and then you've got another, you know, sort of 30/40 weeks of, of practising on your own but really closely supported before you're an accredited telephone crisis counsellor. And so what this training is really doing is teaching us to listen. And so what, what I found is my whole career, I'm a problem solver extraordinaire, I am someone people come to for advice. It could be my sister who rang me earlier in the week with an issue, you know, it's friends will come me work, people come, you know, everything comes to me for advice, what should I do, and I can solve the problem, and off we go. So that's the exact opposite of what you do as a crisis supporter. And so what you need to do is really, really, really listened to somebody, and hear hear what's going on for them, and sit in their pain with them. And you, the worst possible thing you could do is give any advice, because what you're really doing is listening to people and helping them to identify, you might help them identify what some of their strengths might be, where they're, you know, what are their support networks going to be, but they themselves need to be able to reach down and determine what is their next steps? Or what what do they need to do or what is exactly is the issue? And so yeah, so, you know, we're going through these role plays, and I'm thinking, gee, I'm not very suited to this not giving advice thing. So it's been really good growth for me and really good learning. And I've been able to, to then take some of that into my, into the workplace. And I have a staff member because being a CEO is mainly about HR, as I've learned, there's a there's some vision, and then there's dealing with all of our wonderful people, and the dramas that come with that. And it's really about listening. And so putting all those little micro skills into practice of reflecting feelings, and, you know, really active listening, and summarising and paraphrasing. And it's really, really important, and you get a much people feel so much better afterwards, because they feel that they've really been heard. And yeah, so my poor family, so they
They've been really listened to, but no advice.
I'm trying not to give me advice. But you know, I can't really help myself with them. so they still get my advice at the end of the day, really, but I'm working on not giving advice.
Yeah. So obviously a Lifeline, you have a person on the other end of the line who's you know, in some sort of crisis. Is there a connection then to the workplace? Because I'm sensing many of the leaders I speak to, you know, some are good, some are not so good. And it's not even about the gender aspect of act on thing, but many of them could probably be better listeners. Do you think there's a connection now.
Yeah, I think you're right? So I think, um, I mean, within our workplace, a lot of our workplaces have done this training. And because we are Lifeline, it's quite a unique group of people that will work in that space, many have had some lived experience, or, or experienced either from themselves or through a family member. Or they're just sort of deeply compassionate and kind, people that, you know, souls of the earth sort of people. And so, there's already there are some quite good listening behaviours, but I've never seen these sorts of listening behaviours in any other organisation I've been at. So I think it is quite different. And I think what is also quite extraordinary is these, you know, we're lost most of our organisation are volunteers. People donating their time, to do this work. And so that sense of community and family family-like, in a way, this journey that they go on together, go through this long involved training, and forming these cohesive groups of people that are, you know, we've had the mentors volunteering as well who are part of the group already and it just sort of grows this community that are there solely just to support a local community and try to keep people safe when they're in crisis. And it's really powerful. And I guess the the other thing that it sort of surprised me in a way when I said you know, I'm going to do this training, I want to really understand what what is this work that our people do on the phones. And it has been an amazing leadership strategy, which I didn't realise that was not the reason why I was doing it. But just simply by saying to my organisation, I'm going to sit and go through this training that you've gone through to understand what exactly it is that we do, has been the most incredibly powerful thing that I could have done in my first three months as CEO. So, so good call accidental call, but you know, good call. So. So yeah, I've got a lot of respect from that. Yeah.
I think that's an excellent example of you know, whether it was a good or a bad call even accidental. It's had the right impact.
Yeah, huge impact. Yeah. Yeah. And so as, as we sort of evolved, when we're going through a stress strategy process at the moment, and previously, the organisation hasn't been taken along for journey on a strategy process. It's been done quite independently by the board. And so the team don't then own it or understand at all, exactly where we're going. So I've tried to turn that upside down. So we're going a bit more bottom up, and they're all involved in coming up with the ideas. We had a strategy day, they some people met each other for the first time, it was quite, quite amazing. And, yeah, so now we've sort of just got this tension. So I'm trying to bring the board together with the organisation. So we're all going in the same direction together and try to provide that vision and without that owned, common direction of what we're trying to do. It's very hard to achieve anything.
It is. Yeah, it is. And some of the work I get involved in it's, it's coming back to that as often as possible, because we inevitably drift. Yeah, life gets in the way, you know, stuff happens. So you drift. Sarah, I'm really conscious of something in my head that I think some of the listeners might be thinking about. And it's really practical, and obviously, reveal what you're willing to reveal. And it's around the listening aspect. What are the what are two or three tips, you know, easy things are the biggest thing that a Lifeline counsellor would do that perhaps we wouldn't normally do in the listening space.
Firstly, it's about reflecting people's feelings. And sort of echoing what people are saying.
Even if they're not expressing a feeling as such.
They usually are expressing some sort of feeling, but you try to put words into what some of the things that they're saying, and echoing it back to people. And as you practice it, it feels super clunky. Yeah. Because someone's telling you Look, you know, my partner left me, you know, I'm really upset. I can't believe it's happened. And the response is, yeah, you're upset, I can hear upset, okay, and then leaving space for the other person, and not jumping in, or not trying to fix it. And it feels really awkward. But when I tried it out on my sister last week, when she rang me with something, and I was like, Okay, I'm going to try and really listen. At the end of the call. She said, I feel so much better. And I was like, Yes, I managed to do it. But it's not quite working with my 16 year old yet.
So what I am told Sarah, you know, children and animals don't even attempt it. So going back the feeling state, you know, and I'm guessing, I'm assuming here that even if you get the ceiling wrong, the fact that you're trying to echo back the feeling is a connection point anyway.
Yeah, no, that's right. And it's all about this connection. And having the connection with the person and if you feel they will correct you if you've got it wrong, and it's not even just the feeling words, it's the intensity of those words. Yeah. So, you know, so I think we've got three, you know, three different sort of levels of intensity. So there's sad, and then there's distressed and then there's devastated, you know, so what is what is the level of that so, and people will correct you, they'll say, oh, no, I'm not. I'm not devastated, but I'm quite distressed. And so you're about trying to, you don't want to under pitch, the intensity, because they feel not heard. If you over pitch it, they can bring it back down for you. Yeah, the vocab around feelings as well. So there's, it's, you know, this happy/ sad / angry is what most people would call you know, under your emotion. Some, is these things called feeling wheels. Oh my god, Pete, I don't know, I'm not a counselling person. This is a whole new revelation to me the number of words that you can use to describe your feelings. And how do we get that language? Because we don't often talk about feelings. No, and, and we, the other thing we don't do is talk about the difficult feelings. And so we weren't happy, you know, what do you want to be? I don't care, as long as they're happy, you know, and we devalue, devalue these other more uncomfortable feelings of sadness or anxiety or, and, and then you're not validating them. And so they used to suppress them or bottle them down, you know? And, and then where do they go when they need to come out? They can't be processed if you're just trying to ignore them. So. So I'm learning all these all of these things I'm learning.
One of the authors that you might have beware of, I'm certainly a bit of a boy fan, you know, full confession, a lady called Brene Brown? One of the things she said was anger is an easier expression to demonstrate than shame. Yes, meaning so it shows up as angry. And if you connect with the anger without trying to get beneath the surface to go, what's the source of that? It remains at this level as opposed to the real connection, which is I sense you were/are feeling something around and some of those feelings, hence the vocabulary extension around the feelings wheel, just having a larger number of words that you can use.
Yeah. And I agree, and I love Brene. Brown, the what I love is in this training, we've got these experienced mentors that have been on the phones for a long time, and they come in and support us and work through the the role plays with us. And that's what they're really good at, they they can ask a question, a really open question, dives in into those things that are uncomfortable and try to get to the bottom of it. So I haven't mastered that one yet. So you know, stay tuned for that one. But hopefully, I'll get there because I think it's a really key skill to be able to.
I thinks so, and couple the listening with some sound strategies, experiences, you know, ways forward, you know, the yin and the yang of that, I think it's almost unbeatable. Almost.
Yep. Really, really powerful stuff.
Sarah, I'm conscious of time. So I'm going to bring it to a close a little bit conscious that we are recording this in the week of international women's week. International Women's Day tomorrow. March the seventh, no, March the eighth, march 8, for Yeah, thank you.
If there was a message, if there was, you know, you could have you know, the classic, you can hire a billboard at the manly ferry terminal, and everybody who comes off the ferry reads this billboard about International Women's Day or anything about women in leadership, what would you say? What would the billboard say?
I really think women can do anything, anything. But they need the opportunity to be able to do so. So yeah, it's about that equality of opportunity comes through and, you know, I need to check my privilege here, you know, as, as a highly educated, white woman, you know, I got this position of leadership, and things might be easier for me than than others. But, you know, when we still got so many women working in the, you know, we've just had the gender pay gap report come out. And there's still a lot of organisations where there is this big gap. And yes, it's it's what is undervalued, these caring professions, things that we couldn't live without, with the nursing, the teaching the, you know, the carers, the childcare workers. And so how do we value? It comes back to everything comes back to economics, and I'm an economist, so I can say that, but this how we value things isn't. The constructs are such that we don't probably always value the right things. And there's there's intangibles that aren't valued. And which leads us to these sort of positions of inequality and in power balances. And until we sort of can work through how we can do that, right. It's going to be really hard for I mean, all of these systems and structures have been set up over many, many years sort of in a patriarchal world. And the matriarchal world sort of has to move in, in sort of alternate ways. So we can try and win in a man's world, but maybe we just need to change the structures a bit. So it's a more equal world.
That's a worthy cause.
Yeah, naive, perhaps, and maybe impractical. But yeah, hopefully we can get there.
Yeah. Well, certainly, if we can. My personal view is if we can demonstrate and there's visible signs of progress, you can build some momentum around it.
Yeah, no, I think yeah, I think that's right. And it comes even. We heard yesterday from International Women's Day function of being Pittwater, the Zonta Group, which is about empowering women and girls. And they had Dr. Grace Sharkey present to us who is professor of gender studies. And she even she was saying, with her niece and nephew, you know, she sees the niece and oh, you know, oh, you're looking beautiful. And, and for her nephew, you know, you're looking big and strong. And it starts there, you know, where are they as people without these labels and these gender norms? And yeah, and, you know, the DV research shows that some of these structures are what sort of boxing people in then how we end up where we end up with terrible situations for people. So it sort of has to be sort of has to start at the beginning. And we need to look at the way the whole thing works, which is, that's a there's got to be a topic for another conversation.
Okay, I think you're right. I think that's probably a very good time to pause. And it's a big thank you, for me and anyone listening to you for you know, be willing to invest your time. But for me, probably more importantly, your willingness to share some of your background, some of your stories, some of the anecdotes, some of the insights, and some of the even the advice which is great. I might I might finish if you wouldn't mind sort of just some kind of light hearted questions for you to round this out. Given that we're on the northern beaches and forgive anyone who not doesn't know, going on the beaches, it's like 20 odd beaches in this in a small part, small enclave, Australia. What's your favourite northern beach?
I think the 40 baskets beach. In the back of balgowlah. We've got this beautiful sea pool, and harbour pool. And you can sit on that little beach and you look across to the manly and can see the ferries buzzing in and out and the sailboats going past. That's a pretty special place. But in terms of a surf beach, I've got to go with Manly Beach. I'm the Manly Ward Counsellor and it was just loaded best beach in Australia. So I have to go Manly Beach. Yeah,
So are you more towel or chair?
I think that changes as you get older Pete. But I'm loving my Cool Cabana chair that's got a foot rest. Yeah, it's good.
And are you harbour or ocean?
So ocean. Well depends on your mood, you know? Yeah. Love the ocean.
And maybe I'll include a catch all question to finish. What's what's a maxim you try and live by?
Be kind.
Thank you. Sara. It's been a real pleasure chatting to you. It's great. And we'll put all the notes and references in the show notes. Anything you'd like us to put in there. We can add in and we'll encourage people to check out check out Lifeline check out their ability to listen.
Sounds great. Thanks Sarah.
All right. Thanks so much, Pete.
